Misty Williams 00:01
Hey, sister, this is Misty Williams, founder of healingrosie.com. And I’m so excited to welcome you to Rosie Radio, tune in to find clarity, direction and hope for your healing. New episodes drop every Tuesday, we created this show to empower you to regain control of your life and feel like yourself again. Yes, sister, it is possible.
Misty Williams 00:20
I am super excited that my friend Mark England is with us today, we are going to dive into a topic that has to be on the minds of some of you because I hear these conversations in the healing Rosie Facebook group about the reality that you find yourself in dealing with disease, sickness, caregiving, feeling like you should reduce your stress, but how do you do that?
Misty Williams 00:46
You find yourself in family structures, in relationship, marriage maybe where there’s certain energies present that require certain things from you. You’re in a situation where maybe you feel trapped like you can’t get out. You’ve got responsibilities in your life that feel very, very significant and important.
Misty Williams 01:09
Maybe you’re dealing with a child who has some kind of disease or diagnosis that needs a lot of extra attention. Maybe you’re dealing with aging parents who are sick. And the idea of you being able to reduce your stress in your current life situation doesn’t feel so accessible.
Misty Williams 01:27
And I certainly have been through times in my life where I feel like I’m in a reality where the stress is so significant. And I don’t know how to get out of it.
Misty Williams 01:37
How do I shift things when this is what I know right now? How do I change dynamics that seem to be deeply ingrained in the relationships that I’m in? What do I do?
Misty Williams 01:51
And I know this is the reality that we all encounter in some shape or form of whatever is existing in our world seems stressful. And how do we start changing how we’re relating to things so that we are not under so much stress and duress all the time?
Misty Williams 02:11
I met Mark, five years ago, six years ago, I don’t know, a while ago, when I was working with Paleo Fx in 2017. And he came in and talked about a program that he had built, we were all supposed to go through. And I think I had done two lessons in Procabulary at the time.
Misty Williams 02:32
And he got up and he started talking about why he developed this program and talked about how our words are magic we are creating. And this language, of course, deeply resonated with me as someone who’s been into personal development, my entire life, and certainly consider myself a pretty empowered person.
Misty Williams 02:49
I was listening to what he was saying, and I was resonating. I knew that what he was saying was true, but the way he explained how you can exercise so much power in your life by the way you talk was mesmerizing. I started to have an even more acute awareness of the words that I used and how I related to things that were happening to me, or for me, in my life.
Misty Williams 03:14
And overall, I’ve seen the magic in the way that he teaches all of us to be really powerful in the face of our circumstances and situations. I was talking to Mark before we started this interview today and reflecting on a time in my life when I’ve shared with you guys before I went 144 hours without sleep.
Misty Williams 03:38
And called a friend who has a deep toolkit and always seems to know what to do in crazy circumstances. And what he taught told me to do was to breathe and he gave me a breathing pattern that I did for probably two or three hours in my bedroom. I was undone.
Misty Williams 04:00
I had been bawling that day. I was just like, what is it going to take for my body to sleep again. And after doing this breath work, I was able to sleep. Like I actually felt myself dozing off for the first time which was like oh my god, am I gonna fall asleep now. It was liberating.
Misty Williams 04:14
And I’ve seen Mark in the work that he’s done that I’ve been privileged to actually be a witness to him working with people in a live setting incorporating breathwork. We’ve talked a lot about breath work during this even. We’ve had Josh Trent come and teach us a lot about breath wor. Ari Whitten talked a lot about breath work and his talk about energy and the most effective ways to cultivate energy.
Misty Williams 04:35
So I wanted to bring Mark on for this bonus series that we’re doing and talk to us about this very stressful reality that a lot of us find ourselves in and the very poignant and profound and accessible power we all have in what seems like impossible circumstances sometimes to begin to create a different world for ourselves,. Tt requires an open heart to even have this conversation.
Misty Williams 05:08
I would encourage you, if there’s just a piece of you inside, that’s like, I want to believe that something’s possible for me. You’ve struggled, take a deep breath, and just choose in this moment to open your heart. Because Mark’s going to teach us some profound stuff together today.
Misty Williams 05:23
I’m super excited to be able to share this with you. I think it’s wonderful to know how to go after deep toxic stressors with so many of the health strategies we’ve talked about – dental infections, and toxic mold, and all of these things that are very real things that we have to eradicate, right? But we’ve also talked a lot about the stressful life, we all have stress in our lives.
Misty Williams 05:42
Sometimes the stress we’re dealing with is an experience that happened to us 40 years ago that we’re still playing over and over and over in our reality today. And I want you to be really, really empowered that not only did we talk about a lot of these real issues, and things that are happening, but I want you to feel like wow, I got some tools. I know where to start!
Misty Williams 06:02
That’s my hope for you for this interview that we’re going to finish up and you’re going to be like, Wow, okay, I can see this. I know what to do. So thrilled, thrilled to have you, Mark!
Mark England 06:11
Thanks for having me Misty, thanks. Thanks, everybody, for listening, watching.
Misty Williams 06:15
Well, so I gave a little tease about Procabulary, and some of the work that I’ve been able to see you do. I think it would be really great for you to just give us a frame for where you’d like to take this conversation today. And talk to us a little bit about what Procabulary is and why it’s so powerful.
Mark England 06:33
Today’s talk, everybody, is about the victim mentality. How it influences us, how we play a role with our language. We’re talking a lot about language today. And when I say language, I mean internal dialogue and external dialogue.
Mark England 06:55
What we think, what we say, and what we write. How our language influences us, for better and for worse. How our language influences our breathing, for better and for worse. And how to make some easy, seemingly minor adjustments to our everyday ordinary language and benefit greatly from it. Sounds fun?
Misty Williams 07:22
Sounds so fun.
Mark England 07:24
Shall we start at the beginning? So I thought I was a tough guy in college. I wrestled in high school, I got into jujitsu my freshman year of college, which led into Thai boxing and MMA. I competed in college. I won a couple of state kickboxing titles, and decided to go to Thailand for a year in 2002.
Mark England 07:51
The plan was to stay over there for a year. Come back and go pro. That’s the exact opposite of what happened.
Mark England 07:58
So I go over to Thailand, and I only had my passport for two years. This is a big deal. Right? I move over there. It’s a big deal. Everybody was excited for me. I was excited for me. And six months in. I’m on the operating table having my second knee surgery. Uh-oh.
Mark England 08:18
And I remember it like it was yesterday, Misty. The doctor said very clearly, “Your career as a fighter is over. You could become a very good swimmer.” And at 26 years old, I’m imagining myself next to grandpa in the pool doing laps. Not what I had in mind. Not the top of the list.
Mark England 08:39
I use that fail because I framed it as such moving over there biggest opportunity your life everybody’s watching and you just screw this thing up, dude. I use that experience as the final piece of damning proof. The final piece of damning evidence that I really was not good enough. I was doomed to fail.
Mark England 09:04
There really is something wrong with you. Because that was the secret behind the story that I was telling myself about myself and I was using fighting to prove myself otherwise. Right? So now that I have this final piece of evidence case closed, you’re a loser.
Mark England 09:18
Darkness descended. As in I did not last for an entire year. And very likely I did not smile well for an entire year because I entrenched such a deep victim mentality that enjoying my life was… I couldn’t get there. Not even anywhere close.
Misty Williams 09:41
Let’s define victim mentality for those that may have not heard that phrase…
Mark England 09:45
Happily. So I’m going to take a little bit out of the middle. I’m gonna say this twice, everybody. I’m going to recite the definition of the victim mentality twice. We’ll take a little bit out of middle and this is the verbatim definition of victim mentality.
Mark England 09:57
First time I’m going to say it slow. Second time I’m going to say at regular speed, because I invite you all to write this down. Once people have written down, most people have never heard the definition of the victim mentality, much less written it down. And when you write it down, it helps make some very, in my personal and professional opinion, important things clear.
Mark England 10:15
So, the definition of the victim mentality, the victim mentality is an acquired personality trait where a person tends to regard himself or herself as the victim of the negative actions of others, even in the absence of clear evidence. The victim mentality depends on a habitual thought process and attributions.
Mark England 10:43
Here it is a little faster.
Mark England 10:45
The victim mentality is an acquired personality trait, is a tendency. It’s acquired personality trait where people, they tend to regard himself or herself as the victim of the negative actions of others, even in the absence of clear evidence. The victim mentality depends on a habitual thought process and attributions.
Mark England 11:04
That second sentence is right between the eyes, right where it belongs. The victim mentality depends and it has to have a habitual thought process, habitual accurately implies duration, and addiction.
Mark England 11:19
So after a year, it’s back up. So if the victim mentality has a habitual thought process, also known as repetitive sentences and key words that it has to have in order to be created and sustained, then what are the habitual thought process? What are the sentences? What are the key words? Okay?
Mark England 11:39
After a year of not laughing, I finally got sick of myself. And I accurately identified I was like, “Dude, are you going to be whining and complaining about this? For the next 30 years?” And I looked at myself as 55, 60 years old. “Are you gonna be complaining about this? Are you gonna be talking about the your missed opportunities and the glory days, like when you’re 60? If you do that, Mark, if you do that you really are a loser.”
Mark England 12:04
I said, I’ll take anything but that. And I’m in it. And right around that same time, can we talk about poops by the way?
Misty Williams 12:11
Totally.
Mark England 12:11
Okay, great. Right around that unenlightened poop changed my life. Right around that same time, I was an elementary school PE teacher at an international school in Bangkok. I did that for five years. Great gig.
Mark England 12:23
I lived in Thailand for a decade, which still sounds strange to say, and facts. So our Vice Principal had come back from this cleansing resort, down on the island of Koh Samui, in the Gulf of Thailand. He’s like, dude, they’re doing some really cool stuff down here. And it’s based off of this book. And he hands me a book called The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity by Daniel Reed.
Mark England 12:47
I take that book over to the swimming pool when the second graders, get them through the class and now it’s free swim, and I’m they’re with an assistant. He’s watching them. I’m thumbing through the book, and they’re talking about diet, they’re talking about exercise, they’re talking about breathing, they’re talking about meditation, they’re talking about meridian lines, and acupuncture, and sleep in as far as the traditional Chinese medical system, how they do things.
Mark England 13:15
They show a diagram of someone sitting on a western toilet. And then they show a diagram of someone squatting. And the person on the toilet, they were all compressed and they like had some arrows pointing and talk about things and stuff like that. And then they showed the person who was squatting and how it aligned everything.
Mark England 13:15
And then they get to a section on pooping.
Mark England 13:37
And I was like, well, you know what, guess what, I gotta take poop. So I go in the bathroom and I squat down and I have I take a glorious doo-doo. I get up feel completely empty. I take a breath, like I haven’t been so long, and I go SOLD!
Mark England 13:53
He who feels it knows that she who feels it knows. So next block of time that we have for vacation, I go down there and I do a cleanse. And I like it. It’s something, it’s a way I could participate differently in my life.
Mark England 14:07
And as the old rocket science sentence goes, statement goes, do something different, get something different. And so I kept going back, my third trip down there and we’re still very much on the conversation about the victim mentality. Okay? And the habitual thought processes that it has to have.
Mark England 14:22
My third trip down there. There was a gentleman by the name of Barry Musgrave doing a workshop on emotional detoxification. Mark and all his wisdom, snickered at the name of “detox”. I went though, you know what he talked about? He talked about words, and he talked about stories, and he talked about identities and he talked about breathing.
Mark England 14:40
And then he asked if anyone was struggling with the story. And this woman shot her hand up real quick. It was a legit stinger of a breakup story. Here’s the Cliff Notes. She’d been hanging on to this thing for 40 years. Hadn’t dated anybody pissed still pissed.
Mark England 14:59
She and her friends rented a house down at the beach for beach week, her boyfriend’s friends and they rented the house next door for beach week at an alcohol press play, get to get drunk. One night, her boyfriend hooked up with her best friend in front of everybody, and then dumped her. The next night in front of everybody. Everybody say ouch, on three.
Mark England 15:24
She told this story three times, first time through, he let her just go. She’s angry and cry. Second time through, he starts making some adjustments in the rate of speech in some of the words, also known as creating clarity and space. And then that third time through, he stopped her at the Lord of the Rings sentence, the sentence that was holding the whole thing together, forcing her to take it personally forcing her to make that victim villain mental imagery, keep her in that stress state.
Mark England 15:54
And that sentence was, I invite all of y’all to write this down. Here’s the sentence. He did that to me. He did that to me. You have to say it three times. He did that to me.
Mark England 16:09
So everybody’s staring at the same words, same configuration of words. You know what the definition of a spell is, by the way, Misty?
Misty Williams 16:15
Tell me…
Mark England 16:16
Webster’s definition, not mine. Webster’s definition of a spell a word or a combination of words of great influence. That’s it. So we had everybody looking at the same configuration of words, the same spell. He did that to me.
Mark England 16:30
And he said that last word “me” take that out. So everybody write that sentence down. Take your pen, also known as your magic wand, scratch out the word “me” and put it in “himself”. And it was such a radical departure from this story that was consuming her mental real estate. Okay.
Mark England 16:53
It was such a radical departure. It was clunky how she said it. He did that. And it went up at the end like a question up top. He did that to himself? And then you see it catch.
Mark England 17:05
And she talked herself into a completely different perspective, the whole thing he did. He did do that to himself. And then she starts telling a different story of what happened to him. Yeah, he lost friends. It was like, people shunned him and all this stuff. And then finally she goes, “Yeah, that was never gonna work out anyway, the guy was actually pretty weird”.
Mark England 17:23
And you just see the thing come off of her, you see your shoulders dropping, her face lighten up. And I’m looking at that, and I go, that’s not my story. But that’s my story.
Mark England 17:32
Because that sentence is called a projection. He did that to me. This has nothing to do with intelligence, has nothing to do with disturbance. This is simply an education issue. So Mark, that sentence will do the exact same thing mechanically speaking for Mark England, or Einstein, he did that to me. He’s in the picture, I’m in the picture, I’m on the receiving end of that, I’ve got to wait for him to change, before I can relax and let the thing go.
Mark England 17:58
Good luck. Don’t hold your breath, even though you’re holding your breath because you’re in a stress state because that’s a stressful state sentence, right? Also known as amygdala hijack, or sympathetic nervous system response. We’ll talk more about that later.
Mark England 18:09
I look at that, and I’m like, that’s not my story. But that’s my story. And that was in 2003. And I got up from that workshop. And I went to, at the time, an internet cafe, they had those things then, and I printed off an 80 page manual on how to do this work on myself.
Mark England 18:25
I started going to town on my own stories and making some, like I said, seemingly minor adjustments to my everyday ordinary language. And things started loosening up. Also known as me, I started to loosen up, I started to let go of these stories because I had a story about the guy who shouldn’t kick me that hard and all this stuff.
Mark England 18:41
I was taking zero responsibility for the story, for the things that I had done to put myself in that bad position, which were many. Okay, if I couldn’t get to those because I had the villain. Yeah, right.
Mark England 18:54
in 2007, January 17 2007, so Thailand for 10 years, first five in Bangkok, teaching elementary school, kids sports, super great gig. Second five, January 17 2007, I went down to that same spot and started working there as a counselor. And I’ve been doing that somewhere between full time and overtime the whole time for the past 15 years.
Mark England 19:27
I have a business partner. I’ve had a business partner for the last seven and a half. This is my 200 and 91st podcast or interview that I’ve done on the subject of how our language influences us, for better and for worse. We have a certification company, where we certify coaches on how to and I deliver all the trainings. I’m the head coach Enlifted. It’s called Enlifted. What Procabulary has evolved into, we can talk about that later.
Mark England 19:54
And we certify coaches on how to dismantle their clients including their own because all our search for equal parts personal professional development, how to dismantle people’s victim mentalities using their everyday ordinary language.
Misty Williams 20:06
Yeah, I’m having so many chills, I want to tell a story. That’s just right along the lines of what you’re saying. So I found The Work of Byron Katie, who I’m sure you’re familiar with, Loving What Is. she has a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet.
Misty Williams 20:21
And I had this experience with my father, I’ve been actually, if you would have asked me at 20, 25, 30 years old, I started dissipating around 35. About my relationship with my dad, you would have heard all the stories about how challenging my relationship with him was, how controlling he was. I had the typical, I’m not understood by my father.
Misty Williams 20:45
I remember talking to my best friend who is a therapist, of course, I would have a friend that’s a therapist that helps me process all this stuff. And one day, she actually said to me about this dynamic that I was constantly engaged in with my dad. She’s like, can you just not care? Can you just not care.
Misty Williams 21:02
And I remember, I respect her. And there’s a part of me that knows that what she’s saying is right. But I was not capable of not caring. I couldn’t experience him doing what he does, and being unaffected by it. So that bothered me a little bit, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
Misty Williams 21:21
So I found Byron Katie’s work. I had this, I don’t remember the details of this fight that I had with my father. I just remember how I felt afterwards, I was angry. I was frustrated. I was sick and tired of dealing with this same crap from him over and over and over again.
Misty Williams 21:39
I remember getting home and I was consumed with rage and resentment and pain. And I didn’t want to live in that space. We didn’t live in the same town. So I was away from him. But I was still in the soup of this is what it’s always been like with my father.
Misty Williams 22:04
So I got the judge neighbor worksheet out and started judging my dad, every terrible thing I can say. And Byron Katie, has you do turnarounds on the language. So I went through several steps of the process too much for us to get into now.
Misty Williams 22:21
But we got to this one part where I was working with a sentence. My dad tries to control me. My dad tries to control me. And she always asks, Is it true? So you kind of do a little Is it true, and then you start doing turnarounds?
Misty Williams 22:40
The turnaround that got me was, I tried to control my dad. Is it true? And it was like, in that moment, I could see that I did try to control him. And that’s why we fought because we were both trying to control each other.
Misty Williams 23:01
And neither one of us, we’re both strong people. Neither one of us is going to be controlled, right? But in that moment of like, the thing I was projecting so hard, that mirror turned on me and I saw Holy crap. I’m doing the same thing. Like just everything melted away.
Misty Williams 23:16
And that one session, there was a lot of other stuff on that you’re working out. We’re trying to unravel that spell. My relationship with my dad has been better ever since. I feel none of that with my father.
Misty Williams 23:28
So when you’re describing the power of this work, like it’s my goosebumps, had goosebumps I am so deeply resonating with what you’re saying. Because I have profoundly, that’s not the only story of my life. When you come across something like this, you just use it everywhere you can.
Misty Williams 23:41
But it radically changed one of my primary relationships, which is my relationship with my father. To be able to relate to him, to be able to sit in the space that Kim invited me to sit in where I just didn’t care. Like that space was totally accessible to me after that moment.
Misty Williams 23:54
I was able to not care. Let him do what he’s gonna do. That’s my father. It’s not surprising or shocking, and I just let him do it is going to do and I’m fairly unaffected by it.
Misty Williams 24:04
Every now and then I’ll have a moment but I can bounce back pretty quick. And, man, I’m thinking about the last decade of my life having a good relationship with my dad. I would choose that any day, but I had no idea up to 35 years old that power was even available to me.
Mark England 24:20
Tony Robbins says Byron Katie is at the top of the mountain. He doesn’t say things like that very often. Her book 1000 Names for Joy, I recommend the audiobook, 1000 Names for Joy is her rendition and interpretation of the doubt I’Ching. And it’s the highest articulation of unconditional love that I’ve ever heard.
Mark England 24:43
I spent seven days with her at the Kripalu Institute in 2014. And you can take that sentence right there. There’s there’s actually four turnarounds to it. So my dad’s trying to control me. That’s one. But that’s where you start. I’m trying to control my dad. I’m trying to control me. My dad is trying to control my dad. And so on.
Misty Williams 25:05
And you can add not in there too. My dad is not trying to control me.
Mark England 25:08
Sure.
Misty Williams 25:09
Yeah.
Mark England 25:09
Space and clarity – Hello better breathing mechanics, Hello exit. Super powerful and like I said she’s a teacher. You know like I said this this has nothing to do with intelligence zero, and nothing to do with deservance. And it has everything to do with education.
Mark England 25:26
I was brought up in the public school systems. I have a master’s degree in education and on neither side of that fence did I have any courses, classes or conversations on how to use my language to stay focused on the things that are important, to keep the drama down to build myself up in my imagination, and create the good feels in my body? Right?
Mark England 25:47
No, none of those conversations. It was all traditional regular spelling, grammar and definitions. There’s a little bit more to it than that, folks, please hear the sarcasm in my voice. There’s a whole lot more to it than that. And it’s easy to prove. It’s easy to prove you have a pen.
Misty Williams 26:06
I do
Mark England 26:07
piece of paper.
Misty Williams 26:07
I do. I’m ready for this.
Mark England 26:09
You will play a language game. Everybody play a language game with us. So I am a teacher to the core. Right? And this language game. Okay, I’m gonna share a couple of language games with you.
Mark England 26:12
I absolutely, you want to make Mark England even happier? Turnaround if you like it, if you have an experience. And you would like to share this with someone or a group of people or make a turn around and use this, okay? Because that’s when… even more than magic happens.
Mark England 26:37
So this is called the one word game. Or this is a one word game. Please write down this sentence everybody. How can I ever get over this? How can I ever get over this? So you wrote it? Please make that statement?
Misty Williams 27:00
How can I ever get over this?
Mark England 27:02
So you have them write it? You haven’t read it? And then ask them about the feels. How does it feel? To make that statement?
Misty Williams 27:10
I felt something locked up in the middle of my body.
Mark England 27:14
Step two. That was step one. Rocket science folks. Take your magic wands, your pen. scratch out one word, just one. scratch out the word “ever”. Now read it. Do you get that?
Misty Williams 27:32
How can I get over this?
Mark England 27:34
Any different?
Misty Williams 27:36
Very Wow.
Mark England 27:38
What you got? What’s the difference?
Misty Williams 27:40
I didn’t feel something lock up in my body like I was trapped.
Mark England 27:44
The word ever is okay. So yes, fine, everyone. Yes. That sentence? It’s a question. Okay. It’s not a question. It was not a question. It has a question mark at the end of it. How can I ever get over this when people say that very rarely do they say it in a cool, calm and collected way? Most of the timeIt’s emotionalized. As in HOW CAN I EVER GET OVER THIS?!?
Mark England 28:04
Which is fine. syntactically speaking. It’s a question. That’s a statement. It’s a statement of I’m screwed. It’s a presupposition. If you wanna get technical about it, it presupposes there’s no way out.
Misty Williams 28:14
Right.
Mark England 28:15
And so my reticular activating system, which we can talk about here in a second, it goes okay, there’s no way out. I’m gonna stop looking for solutions. And hello, stress, hello, resignation. We take out one word. In this example, the word “ever” falls under the umbrella of drama language.
Mark England 28:31
You put that in a certain way, in certain sentences and the drama is going to spike, your cortisol is going to spike, your stress is going to go up, you’re going to get tunnel vision. It’s called amygdala hijack.
Mark England 28:40
When people go into a stress response, a stressed state called amygdala hijack, the breathing is trapped in the chest, we get fixated on something. Okay, we lose internal and external access to our peripheral vision. Okay, our ability to listen goes way down. Anyone who’s ever talked to someone who’s in an upper regulated emotional state, we have language to describe this. It’s like talking to a brick what a brick wall.
Mark England 29:07
And so when we take out that one word “ever” now the presupposition that’s also a presupposition. Now we actually have a real question, how can I get over this? The RAS the reticular activating system goes well, okay, cool, it presupposes that there are solutions. So I go looking for the solutions.
Mark England 29:27
And the likelihood that I’m going to see something either now or shortly thereafter goes way up. And it feels a lot better on a variety of different levels.
Mark England 29:37
The reticular activating system in my personal professional opinion is vital for anyone that is in personal professional development, or they want to heal from something. I mean, have you ever heard a doctor recommend prolonged bouts of stress and anxiety to help someone get over an illness? Me either.
Mark England 29:55
I look back in with the story. I’m going to give a presentation to 2018. One year after I met you, and I missed early, so I get out the door early. I’m reviewing the show notes in my head, and I walk over to where my car was parked. Except it’s gone.
Mark England 30:14
Glorious space, nothing but empty. And it took me a hot second to connect the dots. Somebody stole my car. So I get my phone out and I call the police. I said “Help!”, “Hold on buddy. We’re comin’”. And then I call my dad I said, Dad, I’m telling the truth. This is really weird. Somebody stole my SUV. I got stuff to do. I need the farm truck.
Mark England 30:32
So I go out to my dad’s farm, an hour and a half out of Richmond, Virginia and picked up his one of his prized possessions. In 1985. He bought a Ford F-150. Brand new off the showroom floor two tones of brown we call it Brown and browner.
Mark England 30:45
And it’s still in mint condition I drove Brown and Browner into Richmond within 24 hours. Most people have had an experience like this. I start seeing 1985 Ford F-150s all over the place. I saw three in two city blocks. Have you had that experience you buy a car and then what was the model?
Misty Williams 31:00
Mine was I don’t remember the year 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse
Mark England 31:07
You buy that car and then what happened?
Misty Williams 31:09
They’re all over the road
Mark England 31:10
Where all these cars come from? Here’s what happens folks. The Reticular Activating System is completely neutral, it willpoint out the worst stuff you got just as fast as the best stuff you got. It goes, like, it has a search and an edit function once something gets deemed important as in once we focus on and especially if we emotionalize over because my emotions were up so I stole my car.
Mark England 31:29
And interestingly enough, when I really got emotional about it was when I remembered that my kickboxing equipment, which I had broken in… it’s like a baseball mitt glove if you buy it. It’s new, you keep five years, this stuff was just perfect leather and really nice. And just molded it was an extension of me. That’s when I actually got mad. Yeah, not up until then.
Mark England 31:51
So while I’m driving this 1985 truck I’m seeing because it’s going on a search mission, go find more of these things. I’m finding more and more of those. And while I’m doing that, my reticular activating system, unbeknownst to me is also editing out anything that’s not that.
Mark England 32:08
So I didn’t see any blue Oldsmobiles no red bugs because it’s not the thing that is important. This has been studied in depth. One of the most famous social, psychology studies ever done was the Invisible Gorilla. Are you aware of that?
Misty Williams 32:26
Oh, no, start telling it.
Mark England 32:27
You can look this up, you can see the original video. It’s a one minute video on YouTube. In the late 1990s, two social psychologists took seven students dressed three up in white, three up in black and one in a gorilla costume.
Mark England 32:41
They gave the white team two basketballs, the black team two basketballs, and they filmed them for one minute, the white team could only pass the basketball, same as the black team. So 30 seconds in the middle of this. The student in the gorilla costume walks into the middle of the frame, looks at the camera. B says chest and walks out.
Mark England 32:59
That was the one minute video. And then they show that one minute video to 10s of 1000s of people and they direct their attention. The people that write the news know about this magicians know about this. they direct their attention.
Mark England 33:12
They say count how many times the white team passed the basketballs back and forth to each other correct answers 15, spoiler. And then afterwards, they asked him how many times and then they asked them, “Oh, by the way, did you happen to see that gorilla?”
Mark England 33:26
50, Five-Zero, 50% of the population that watched edited out failed to see something so seemingly obvious as a Gorilla.
Mark England 33:38
Because they weren’t looking for it. They were focused on something else. And when someone brings it to your attention, watch, you’re like, oh my god. It’s spooky profound. Now the question is, does our reticular activating system only respond to 1985 Ford F 150s and Mitsubishi eclipses and students in gorrilla costumes? Or does our language influence our reticular activating system?
Mark England 34:00
I got two stories for you a tale of two stories. Because you got to think folks in terms of expansive spells and constrictive spells, okay. Combinations of words that constrict and control trapped the breath, create the dense energy rigidity in the body, create the tunnel vision. Or combinations of words that relate that expand people energetically give space and clarity in their imagination, relax the physical body and unlock the breath.
Mark England 34:27
So a tale of two stories, a tale of a constrictive spell, and a tale of an expansive spell. And then we’ve got a couple other language games to play to really round this thing out nicely and make and give you all some things that you can practice and have an experience with. Because once you feel it, then you know,
Mark England 34:41
This woman comes in, sits down, she was very forthcoming. She said, I’m having problems in my marriage. My husband thinks I’m attractive and I refuse to believe him. And I know when it got started, I know where this is coming from. I just don’t know what to do about it. Keep going. She said she told the story.
Mark England 34:54
She was 10 years old, and their family went to her grandparents house for Christmas and she walked right, as soon as she walked in the kitchen door, her great aunt was sitting right there, standing right there and leans down and goes, “My! you have a big nose just like me.” She walks into the, into the bathroom. What do you think the first thing she looked at was, Misty?
Misty Williams 35:14
Her nose in the mirror
Mark England 35:16
Her nose in the mirror, which is of course, no bigger now physically than it was five seconds ago. But in her imagination, she’s got a honker. Means, she’s ugly. And the reticular activating system, very strong emotional reaction, the reticular activating system goes, “Okay, okay, fine, cool, great, you’re ugly.”
Mark England 35:30
I’m going to go find all the other flaws, and repeatedly point them out to you and anything that is, it’s called confirmation bias. Anything that is contrary to this belief system that you’re ugly. I’m just going to knock it out of the way.
Misty Williams 35:32
Delete. Delete!
Mark England 35:33
Exactly. And you can see how this would work. Her husband was like, “Damn, baby, you look good”. And she’s like, you don’t really mean that. I think that’s gonna cause some problems. It’s going to cause some problems. Can I drop an F bomb by the way?
Misty Williams 35:56
You can.
Mark England 35:57
Okay, cool. Because it’s part of the second story. So a tale of that’s a constrictive spell.
Mark England 36:04
Here’s an expansive spell. 2014, I’m giving a presentation in South Carolina. There’s at a festival with guys setting up a booth right next to me. Here’s the whole thing. He comes up afterwards. And he says, “Man, I was really cool. I loved all of it. You want to hear a story about this exact thing?”
Mark England 36:20
I’m like yeah, sure, of course. And I forget the guy’s name and call him Dave. And he said, grandfather, took me out in the backyard when I was 11 years old. He said little Davey, life’s wild. There’s ups and downs, twists and turns and zigs and zags. And you’re gonna get some things right. And you’re gonna get some things wrong. Just always remember to err on the side of being a badass motherfucker. And he said, my whole life changed in an instant.
Mark England 36:46
He said, I looked up, things are looking up. He said, I saw myself in my imagination as capable and confident. And my energy just got bigger. And he said, You know, I get things wrong. I get things right. I go after what I want, though. And you know what I like being me.
Mark England 37:03
And I thought to myself, That’s it. Right there. There’s another chalk it up to the 1000s of great examples of how our language powerfully influences us, for better and for worse, unbeknownst to us, because the way that most people’s language is working against them Misty. And they don’t even know it.
Mark England 37:21
Most people’s language due to a lack of education, about it, tricks them into being innocent by standards in their life, it tricks them to being spectators in the stands, when in reality, we are absolutely participating in our identity. So Webster’s definition of identity is the fact of being who we’re what a person is. Okay.
Mark England 37:42
I easily dispelled this on stage in our TEDx talk with the question, raise your hand if you see yourself differently now than you did when you were five. It’s such a ridiculous question. Everybody laughs.
Mark England 37:54
Okay, so our identity is not factual. I’m not good enough is not on the periodic table of elements. Okay, nothing ever works out for me, is not a unit of measurement. Those are belief systems, which is a overly important word for an opinion or an idea. And our identity is an ongoing, fluid flexible process that we are participating in on a daily basis.
Mark England 38:16
And with a little bit of education. There’s that word again, we can participate different and better. Friends, I go on rants, I go on tangents I’m famous for.
Misty Williams 38:27
Yeah. So powerful.
Mark England 38:30
I’m passionate about this stuff. Because I know what it did. For me, it got me out of… you know there’s one of my favorite quotes is that every man or every woman is eventually responsible for their own space.
Mark England 38:41
And I was past, I was bitter. I was a bitter person. And bitter shows up on people’s faces. Everyone is better looking when they’re breathing well and smiling more and laughing. Okay, file that also under rocket science.
Mark England 39:01
So I know firsthand what this practice, this path of paying more attention to what we think, say and write will do for people on a personal level and a professional level. Like I said, I’ve been doing this a while, full time.
Misty Williams 39:14
I’m thinking about this idea of creation. And through my journey, and the unfolding, told you a story about my father, but I have lots of stories of, poignant moments that like shifted my reality and helped me to see that things weren’t happening to me, that I wasn’t a victim that I wasn’t at the effect of what other people thought or said or wanted for my life. I’m moving into 40, 46 now.
Misty Williams 39:41
I started actively accepting that I am creating in every moment. In 2016, I’ve shared a little bit during this event about this massive incineration of my business that happened because it was through I was cycling through burnout, burnout, burnout.
Misty Williams 39:57
And I would rise from the ashes and I burned out again. And I realized that the reason why I was experiencing so much burnout in my life was because I didn’t understand this dance between the energetics of accountable energy and supportive energy.
Misty Williams 40:15
I was living my life where all the energy went out. I was accountable for everything. I was supportive of everything and everyone, and I didn’t know how to welcome that energy into my life. And I started attempting to create new relationships that didn’t go well.
Misty Williams 40:30
Or to create different relationships with the people in my life. And that didn’t go well. Lost a lot of relationships in my life during that period, because I realized that, my way of being was crushing my soul. And I decided on the other end of this like, incineration, feeling like I was losing everything.
Misty Williams 40:46
I remember calling a friend and telling her everything is falling apart, everything is just falling apart. And she said, Misty, everything is falling together. And something inside of me like, leaped, like I caught my breath.
Misty Williams 41:03
You know, I wanted that possibility to be true. Like, could that really be true? I need that to be true. And I’ve marched on from the way I was being in the world into a way of being the world that today is much more supportive and life giving.
Misty Williams 41:20
When I met my partner, Roderick four years ago, I asked him, “What do you want to create?” Because at that time, in my life, I’ve lived enough life to know that we’re creating in every moment. Were either playing tapes and running patterns that have created the bondage, the out of control the victim, unhappy, unfulfilled, misunderstood life, or we create something different. We choose and live in the possibility of creation.
Misty Williams 41:51
Roderick and I have been together for years now. And one of the things that he would tell you is one of the most profound gifts I’ve given to him is this idea that we have the power to create together. And we’ve been very intentional about this in our relationship.
Misty Williams 42:02
We talked about it a lot. And I wish there was a way to kind of bottle up this awesome, empowered, open, spacious, full of potential energy that I feel pretty much all the time in my life these days, because I choose to live in creation. There are many opportunities for all of us to adopt a story that renders us powerless, right? But we don’t have to.
Misty Williams 42:26
The things you’re sharing right now Mark are just like my insides are dancing, I have little insects inside of me that are just jumping. Feeling so liberated by what you’re sharing, because I’m just considering where I was, I remember being 19 years old, in college for the first time, not hitting it off with anybody feeling misunderstood.
Misty Williams 42:48
People don’t understand me. They’re confused. And feeling trapped. Like, I’m in this world away from home for the first time, wanting to make friends and have a great social life. And I just was not batting a thousand.
Misty Williams 43:03
I was really, really struggling. I remember sitting down with my best friend and asking her like, what is wrong? Why do people feel this way? Why are they so resistant to me? And I wish I could remember the details. It’s kind of like my dad, what were we fighting about when I felt like he took I don’t remember the details of that.
Misty Williams 43:17
But I do remember hearing things from her and deciding in that moment. Okay. I’m not going to feel sorry for myself, I’m not going to blame everybody else for misunderstanding me. I’m going to do something about this. And finding strategies to do something about it has radically changed everything about my life.
Misty Williams 43:34
I love that you’ve like made this your mission to like bottle this. I hope people feel it. Like I’m feeling it, that, wow, we really can create something different. If only we have the guidance and distinctions.
Misty Williams 43:48
Certainly I couldn’t have made that shif, in that moment around my dad, if I hadn’t been reading Byron Katie’s book, Loving What Is and watching some of her videos on YouTube and just seeing what the work is about. And yeah, you are giving people the spell with the wand. It’s really exciting.
Mark England 44:08
You wrote that and I wrote down bondage or bonding take your pick, make a choice. Do you want to play another language game?
Misty Williams 44:14
I do.
Mark England 44:15
Okay, cool. Write down Misty Williams, and write it in a full sentence. So write down one personal goal for 2022 and one professional goal for 2022. I get asked a lot. Mark, what do we do? Where do we start? And this is what we’re about to do right now. Okay, this language game, and then the challenge that we’re about to do is the advice the exercise I give all the time.
Mark England 44:45
I mean, literally, it’s the one because this right here is the gateway drug into the rest of your language. And it is uber shareable and uber reliable.
Mark England 44:55
So please, everybody listening, turn around and share this on Facebook. Whatever, Facebook groups like just use it, watch what happens. So you have people write down one personal goal and one professional goal in a full sentence.
Mark England 45:11
So that first language game we played, we took one word out and had an experience this language game, we’re gonna see what happens. What’s that? What’s your personal goal?
Misty Williams 45:22
Personal goal sharing this one, especially because I’ve been sharing a lot of during this event about this goal is I will lose the weight from mold toxicity this year.
Mark England 45:31
How’s that feel to say?
Misty Williams 45:34
It feels like it’s true.
Misty Williams 45:36
Perfect. What’s your professional goal?
Misty Williams 45:39
We will double our revenue from 2021.
Mark England 45:41
Excellent. That’s exactly how you do step one, there’s only two steps. Have them write it, have them read it. Ask them how it feels. So step two, that’s step one. Step two, read that first one again,
Misty Williams 45:52
I will lose the weight for mold toxicity.
Mark England 45:54
Put a “kinda” anywhere in that sentence. And then say it.
Misty Williams 46:00
I will kinda lose the weight for mold toxicity.
Mark England 46:03
What happened to the energy?
Misty Williams 46:05
It feels like the balloon deflated.
Mark England 46:09
Wow, I’m so shocked. Read your second one. Okay.
Misty Williams 46:13
We will double our revenue from 2021.
Mark England 46:16
Put a “maybe” anywhere in there.
Misty Williams 46:18
Maybe we will double our revenue.
Mark England 46:20
It’s comical. Hilarious. It’s super lame. So what we just did right there it the title of that language game everybody is called soft goals. Because guess what? Soft talk is the gateway drug to the rest of your language.
Mark England 46:35
There’s a handful of these key words I’m about to rattle them off, which is part two. This is what we’re about to do the soft talk challenge. I promise you these words, these key words are in your language. And I promise you they are creating indecision, anxiety, and doubt, also known as stress.
Misty Williams 46:51
That’s right.
Mark England 46:52
So remember the reticular activating system everybody, a bet you do, we’re going to, everybody, get a pen and a clean sheet of paper. You already got your pen, clean sheet of paper?
Mark England 47:00
I’m going to rattle off the handful of self taught keywords, and I want you to write them out five times larger than you normally write the reticular activating system is gonna go, “Hey! Why are we writing these words out five times larger than we normally write? And then it’s gonna go guess what, doesn’t matter, just pay more attention to them.”
Mark England 47:20
So here’s the first one Guess, Maybe, Kind of, Sort of, Almost like, it’s almost like I’m procrastinating. Possibly, Probably, I’m probably drinking too much coffee. Probably, Could, Think, Hopefully. and Try.
Mark England 47:50
Here’s one of my marking promises for everybody. It’ll take you about three months. So what you want to do is you want to take that sheet of paper, same instructions, if you want to turn around and share this with people do the exactly what we did. Take that sheet of paper and go tape it up on your bathroom mirror, where you’re going to see it at least once a day.
Mark England 48:06
What’s that going to do?. Everything starts with raising the awareness, it’s going to raise your awareness about these keywords. And you’re going to start seeing them, you’re going to start hearing them in your thoughts in your speech, you’re going to see them in your texts and emails, you’re gonna hear him and other people’s language.
Mark England 48:21
And once that happens, and you just take it out, you take out the guess, I guess I could improve my diet. No, no, no. I could improve my diet. Take out the “could” put in “Can”. I can improve my diet.
Mark England 48:32
So the art and science of talking yourself into stuff. And you’re gonna have a feel that you’re gonna have an experience with the feels. And you’re gonna go that Mark England guy was serious. Yes, I’m very serious and very sincere.
Mark England 48:44
And here’s the promise, it’ll take you about three months. If you cut your soft talk usage by 50%, you will double your confidence. That’s a more powerful, that’s more potent as a more fun, consistent, happier version of you. Abracadabra.
Misty Williams 49:11
That’s awesome. I love it. I actually find myself recognizing soft talk and pointing it out in people close to me.
Mark England 49:19
How often do you recognize?
Mark England 49:21
Misty and I, she knows this because she’s done a great job of leading this conversation and giving me pitches and let me swing and hit all that. She knows this game. She knows. How often do you hear soft talking people’s language?
Misty Williams 49:33
Oh, all the time.
Mark England 49:34
Oh, my Lord,
Misty Williams 49:35
The taking especially with women taking the edge off of like not feeling comfortable being speaking with certainty, right. So we added that, I guess the kinda Yeah, yeah, we do a lot. We do a lot.
Mark England 49:47
Yep. The feedback there is that. Well, I don’t want to come across as a b-i-t-c-h. Right? Okay. And the antidote to that is to breathe better while you’re speaking. Here’s the the trick, folks, if you are comfortable, and also notice, if you’re relaxed with what you’re saying, other people are going to be relaxed with what you’re saying, okay.
Mark England 50:10
And as you become more confident and comfortable speaking in a more solid way, some of the time, because, there’s aprogression there, other people will receive it well, as well. And then you add more of a smile to your face, when you’re, you’re speaking and you will like that version of you better. I feel extremely confident saying that.
Misty Williams 50:31
One of the things that I watched you do at Paleo Fx when your people were coming up to your booth, and you are working with them one on one on, what is the desire, what is the goal, you are helping them to basically find their footing to be with that powerfully, and you would add in the breath, we kind of touched on this a little bit at the beginning of the conversation, because it’d be a great place to wrap things up.
Misty Williams 50:51
Because when you would have people make the adjustments to their stated desire, and then breathe, and then say, again, what that desire was, it was like their faces, it was almost like they became a different person. And that was the first time as a witness to a process that I really, got the correlation between breathing and the breath and the actualizing of that, which you really want to create.
Misty Williams 51:22
So I find myself even now in my life, like I’ll feel the tightness in the chest and immediately I’m like, just moving that energy. So I’d love for you to just kind of give us a little insight into why it’s so powerful and how we can really use breath to kind of put a little gasoline on this whole experience.
Mark England 51:44
This ladies and gentlemen, ladies is known as supercharging, your affirmations and it is the missing link for your affirmation practice. So, very few people, we’ll go with the same metric for goals 3%, only 3% of the population has any goals, anything written down about what they would like to do.
Mark England 52:07
Okay, that means 97% of the population doesn’t even have a draft to handle. Let’s take that same metric and move it over to affirmations. Which if you look at it this way, affirmations are goals for your mindset.
Mark England 52:18
These are statements that you want to believe more strongly in, okay. And so people have an affirmation practice, I’ve given more workshops than I can count on just supercharging your affirmations.
Mark England 52:33
So most people, the vast majority people that have an affirmation practice, okay, they write it and they read it, okay, and then they repeat it. I’m getting healthier, I’m getting healthier, I’m getting healthier, things are working out for me, things are working out for me, I can lose the weight, I can heal from this, whatever it is, okay.
Mark England 52:52
What you want to do is to get a breath, a big breath in, full breath in, full breath out. In between each of those affirmations you could take one affirmation and wrap it with breath 10 times because look at where the breath is, when I just went to machine got it.
Mark England 53:10
I can heal from this. I can heal from this. I can heal from this, I can heal from this. This is my breath is up here. It’s just it’s simply a mental exercise. When you add in the breath, I can heal. Let’s do this, let’s do three of these. I can heal from this.
Mark England 53:26
Say with me, I can heal from this.
Misty Williams 53:28
I can heal from this.
Mark England 53:32
Everybody follow along say it out loud, I can heal from this.
Mark England 53:38
Two more. and We’re here.
Misty Williams 53:40
I can heal from this.
Mark England 53:47
I can heal from this.
Mark England 53:53
When you add in a breath in between each statement, you bring the rest of the totality of you into the conversation. And it’s three different ways of describing the same thing.
Mark England 54:04
When you add in the breath, you are socializing the idea you are embodying the concept, you’re taking it to heart. And when you do that, so let’s say you have a list of affirmations. Let’s say you have 10, some of those, you’re going to get to matter of fact, as far as the feels is concerned faster than others.
Mark England 54:28
What you want to do is you want to rep the affirmations with breath until a specific affirmation you just feel good with it. It’s a matter of fact, are matters of fact become facts of matter. And once you do that, you just take it off the list and you keep rapping with breath, the affirmations and watch what happens. Watch what happens.
Misty Williams 54:49
I felt like this surge of my own power. When I was breathing. As we were doing that like this. There was like my being, I am up here lot, man the breath just really…
Mark England 55:05
Yyeah, we’re known as the language people Misty, we might as well be known as the language and the breathing people and gun to head it’s about the breath. Fine, Yes, I teach people about the power of their language and how to use it better. And there’s a lot of great things to happen from it.
Mark England 55:19
I’m most interested in helping people unlock their breathing, because when your breath unlocks and descends down into your abdomen, also known as low and slow breathing, also known as parasympathetic, breathing, also known as rest and digest, also known as feed and breed, all the things that you want, or are going to happen, much more likely, by residing in, in that space.
Mark England 55:44
We are designed physiologically speaking, to be healthy, and to thrive in parasympathetic nervous system response most of the time, and most people’s breathing is trapped in their chest. And a large, very large part of that, of why that is, is because of the hoarding of stories.
Mark England 56:05
As in people do not write things down, in and out. Okay, stories kept in the head about the thing that happened way back then, even if the pen feels like it weighs 1000 pounds, and sometimes it will write out the story, the facts and the details do not write about how you feel about it. Now write out the facts and the details the devil is in the details.
Mark England 56:21
The devil in this case is known as the emotion and the belief system, the idea the opinion that you made back then about you in the world, it’s in the details, write the story out, read it with a breath in between at the end of each punctuation, and you will downregulate yourself in context to that thing.
Mark England 56:40
Okay? And then the way that people use their everyday ordinary language, those two things. So the stories that we hoard, and the way we use our language throughout the day, that is a large majority of why most people’s breath is trapped in the chest and you can totally do something about that.
Misty Williams 56:56
That’s amazing. All right, well, we could go on and on that we should wrap it up. I would love for you mark to tell everyone if they’re interested in learning more about you and your work, where can they find you online?
Mark England 57:04
We have a podcast. We started at 10 weeks ago, and within the first three weeks, we cracked the top 3% of podcasts on the planet. Because people was word of mouth is for coaches. It’s also there’s a lot of people that listen because they want to get better at it.
Mark England 57:20
So it’s all about coaching with the language in the words. And then finally speak to coaches and the conversation was very parallel. Get Enlifted Podcast. Okay.
Mark England 57:31
And then if anyone wants to know about the certification, the list of certifications that we run, go to enlifted.me to gorgeous website, you’ll see people that you recognize on they’re very likely, especially if you’re in Austin, the first person first testimony we’ve gotten from John Wolfe shout out to on it by the way, Misty Williams. We’re coming to Austin, Texas in September. We’re given a presentation on the 18th of September. I’d love to have you there as my guest.
Misty Williams 57:57
I love it. Oh, yes, definitely. I’ll put it on my calendar. Alrighty, thank you so much, Mark. This is amazing. Welcome so much. Thanks for listening, everybody.
Misty Williams 58:04
Yeah,
Misty Williams 58:05
I appreciate it. We’ll see you guys soon.
Misty Williams 58:07
That’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you for listening. I hope you’re feeling more empowered to overcome your flabby foggy and fatigued and to reclaim your life. If you haven’t subscribed yet, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button right now so you don’t miss any of our episodes. We have some awesome shows coming right up. I love reading your reviews and comments too. They inspire me and encourage other Rosie’s to hang out with us and learn all these amazing strategies for healing and living our best lives. Till next time sister. Bye