00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:05.857
Kevin Lowe: Have you ever had a point in your life where you felt like you couldn't turn off the noise?
00:00:05.957 --> 00:00:09.357
Kevin Lowe: It's the middle of the night, and yet you're lying in bed awake.
00:00:09.717 --> 00:00:15.997
Kevin Lowe: There's so many thoughts, voices, ideas, fears, anxieties going on in your head
00:00:15.997 --> 00:00:21.297
Kevin Lowe: that it's impossible for you to quiet the noise, for you to be able to sleep.
00:00:21.937 --> 00:00:28.297
Kevin Lowe: My friend, if that is you, or if that has been you, today is for you.
00:00:28.297 --> 00:00:33.297
Kevin Lowe: Because today, our whole job is to help you quiet the noise.
00:00:33.617 --> 00:00:39.557
Kevin Lowe: I'm in the studio today with Tommy Stoffel, a guy who knows exactly how you
00:00:39.557 --> 00:00:44.137
Kevin Lowe: feel or how you have felt, where the noise inside your head is so loud,
00:00:44.277 --> 00:00:47.017
Kevin Lowe: it's so chaotic that it ruins everything.
00:00:47.237 --> 00:00:52.777
Kevin Lowe: And at one point in Tommy's story, it all comes to a head when everything falls
00:00:52.777 --> 00:00:57.117
Kevin Lowe: apart. But at the same point, when everything is falling apart,
00:00:57.577 --> 00:00:59.197
Kevin Lowe: everything's finally coming into view.
00:00:59.657 --> 00:01:05.957
Kevin Lowe: And ironically for him, it came in the vision of a stoplight from the green
00:01:05.957 --> 00:01:08.737
Kevin Lowe: zone to the yellow zone to the red zone.
00:01:09.057 --> 00:01:13.077
Kevin Lowe: That stoplight, that vision, it would change everything for Tommy.
00:01:13.437 --> 00:01:20.617
Kevin Lowe: He would combine that with, ironically, off-roading. Yes, out in the woods with
00:01:20.617 --> 00:01:24.157
Kevin Lowe: Jeeps, getting dirty, having fun.
00:01:24.537 --> 00:01:28.617
Kevin Lowe: He learned by combining the two, well, he could quiet the noise.
00:01:28.897 --> 00:01:33.717
Kevin Lowe: And if he could quiet the noise for himself, well, then he could quiet the noise for others as well.
00:01:33.977 --> 00:01:38.437
Kevin Lowe: My hope with today's conversation is that it does more than entertain you.
00:01:38.597 --> 00:01:42.197
Kevin Lowe: It does more than just give you another podcast to listen to.
00:01:42.197 --> 00:01:47.897
Kevin Lowe: But I truly hope that it can help you to empower you and to give you hope that
00:01:47.897 --> 00:01:53.017
Kevin Lowe: if the noise inside your head is too loud, then my friend, there is a way to quiet it.
00:01:53.377 --> 00:01:58.217
Kevin Lowe: Now, if you want a little something extra to go along with today's interview,
00:01:58.577 --> 00:02:02.097
Kevin Lowe: be sure to check out the link at the very top of today's show notes,
00:02:02.237 --> 00:02:09.277
Kevin Lowe: where I created a custom song to go along with today's episode called Quiet the Noise.
00:02:09.797 --> 00:02:14.057
Kevin Lowe: Again, click that link right at the top of today's show notes if you would love
00:02:14.057 --> 00:02:18.317
Kevin Lowe: to explore this idea even further by way of a song.
00:02:18.717 --> 00:02:23.297
Kevin Lowe: So listen to today's episode. Enjoy it. Get what you can from it.
00:02:23.617 --> 00:02:26.577
Kevin Lowe: If you think it's somebody who could benefit from hearing it,
00:02:27.057 --> 00:02:28.437
Kevin Lowe: share today's episode with them.
00:02:28.757 --> 00:02:31.637
Kevin Lowe: And then, hey, click the link at the top of the show notes.
00:02:32.117 --> 00:02:36.797
Kevin Lowe: Jump over to the soundtrack for our guest today. And at the end of the day,
00:02:36.957 --> 00:02:42.797
Kevin Lowe: I just hope that one of these, the podcast, the song, something can help you.
00:02:43.017 --> 00:02:44.877
Kevin Lowe: That's the whole point in this podcast.
00:02:45.337 --> 00:02:50.637
Kevin Lowe: I'm your host, Kevin Lowe. And this, my friend, is episode 408 of Grit,
00:02:50.777 --> 00:02:52.037
Kevin Lowe: Grace, & Inspiration.
00:02:52.237 --> 00:02:57.837
Podcast Intro: Yeah, I got grit, grace, and inspiration on my mind.
00:02:59.976 --> 00:03:04.036
Kevin Lowe: What's going on? And welcome back to Grit, Grace, & Inspiration.
00:03:04.396 --> 00:03:09.436
Kevin Lowe: I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, in the studio today with another awesome guest,
00:03:09.616 --> 00:03:13.936
Kevin Lowe: the guy who I have been so excited to finally get to sit down and talk to.
00:03:14.196 --> 00:03:19.376
Kevin Lowe: And that, of course, is Tommy Stoffel. Tommy, my man, welcome to the show.
00:03:19.816 --> 00:03:22.596
Tommy Stoffel: Kevin, thank you so much. Very excited to be here with you today.
00:03:23.016 --> 00:03:26.816
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, man. Well, I'm excited for us to dive into your story.
00:03:27.116 --> 00:03:31.276
Kevin Lowe: So many different assets of your story. And honestly, Tommy,
00:03:31.476 --> 00:03:36.816
Kevin Lowe: where I would love for us to begin is kind of back in that point in your life,
00:03:37.016 --> 00:03:41.676
Kevin Lowe: which I'm going to say is kind of probably the beginning of our conversation today,
00:03:42.056 --> 00:03:49.336
Kevin Lowe: is when things I would say from what I know on the outside looked great,
00:03:49.556 --> 00:03:54.896
Kevin Lowe: job, family, but maybe on the inside, things were kind of tearing apart.
00:03:54.896 --> 00:03:59.856
Kevin Lowe: Would you take me back to kind of that part of your life, that chapter?
00:04:00.496 --> 00:04:06.356
Tommy Stoffel: I will. Thanks for asking. So timing wise, it was about 20 years ago or so.
00:04:06.956 --> 00:04:12.796
Tommy Stoffel: And I was living life like all my friends. I had a good job,
00:04:12.936 --> 00:04:16.036
Tommy Stoffel: had a good partner in life. I had a house.
00:04:16.176 --> 00:04:21.316
Tommy Stoffel: I had, I was living, I was actually living on a lavender farm. So I was doing okay.
00:04:21.676 --> 00:04:25.656
Tommy Stoffel: Money was there. The home was there. the relationship was there.
00:04:26.096 --> 00:04:30.836
Tommy Stoffel: But what was happening was I was, well, first drinking myself to sleep every
00:04:30.836 --> 00:04:35.616
Tommy Stoffel: night because I didn't know why at the time. It was just that that's what happened.
00:04:35.796 --> 00:04:39.356
Tommy Stoffel: I was, you know, whatever gin, gin and tonics turned into gin.
00:04:39.616 --> 00:04:42.756
Tommy Stoffel: And then by 11 o'clock every night, that would, I would finally,
00:04:42.876 --> 00:04:44.736
Tommy Stoffel: the brain would shut off and I would pass out.
00:04:45.016 --> 00:04:49.056
Tommy Stoffel: And then like clockwork at three o'clock every morning, the alarm clock would
00:04:49.056 --> 00:04:56.076
Tommy Stoffel: taunt me and I would look over and see it. I would wake up and my head would go, oh shit, not again.
00:04:56.296 --> 00:05:00.936
Tommy Stoffel: And, and, and bam, my brain just clicked on and it just started. I was a worrier.
00:05:01.196 --> 00:05:03.956
Tommy Stoffel: I was a great worrier. I would worry about everything.
00:05:04.236 --> 00:05:08.956
Tommy Stoffel: And so from 3am to 6am when the alarm went off, my head was just running around
00:05:08.956 --> 00:05:12.216
Tommy Stoffel: with all these worries, these worry loops, this worry, this,
00:05:12.316 --> 00:05:15.476
Tommy Stoffel: this worry, this worry, that's that worry, just the worries were endless.
00:05:16.376 --> 00:05:19.996
Tommy Stoffel: And, and that's the way I lived. And it was building pressure.
00:05:19.996 --> 00:05:23.476
Tommy Stoffel: And after about however many years of that, I hit a breaking point.
00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:29.060
Tommy Stoffel: Where my brain stopped thinking well. I wasn't making decisions anymore,
00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:30.440
Tommy Stoffel: clear-headed decisions.
00:05:30.900 --> 00:05:34.620
Tommy Stoffel: And I actually pulled a crazy stunt. I walked out of a party in the middle of
00:05:34.620 --> 00:05:35.800
Tommy Stoffel: a party on a Friday night.
00:05:36.100 --> 00:05:40.380
Tommy Stoffel: I just needed to escape. I didn't know where I was going. I walked in freezing
00:05:40.380 --> 00:05:42.920
Tommy Stoffel: cold temperatures without proper clothing.
00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:48.160
Tommy Stoffel: I was dressed, but I was dressed for a party in the house, not cold temperatures.
00:05:48.380 --> 00:05:52.780
Tommy Stoffel: And I walked 15 miles in the middle of the night with a full moon to the nearest
00:05:52.780 --> 00:05:59.440
Tommy Stoffel: town city where I lived by, almost fell asleep in some guy's man cave because I was so exhausted.
00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:04.160
Tommy Stoffel: I found some, I went in some guy's garage actually, and I'd laid down or I sat
00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:06.720
Tommy Stoffel: in his chair and I almost fell asleep and I might've not have woken up from
00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.620
Tommy Stoffel: that, but I got myself up and went to town.
00:06:10.100 --> 00:06:14.440
Tommy Stoffel: Anyhow, that next day, Saturday came and, and my head was, I was hearing things.
00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:17.440
Tommy Stoffel: I was hearing voices, all this weird stuff was happening.
00:06:17.940 --> 00:06:21.480
Tommy Stoffel: And I finally made it, I made it back to the house that I, you know,
00:06:21.580 --> 00:06:25.780
Tommy Stoffel: escaped from the night before. And I just walked into the house around one o'clock in the afternoon.
00:06:26.260 --> 00:06:29.360
Tommy Stoffel: And I just laid on the floor and I, I asked my wife, I said,
00:06:29.420 --> 00:06:30.480
Tommy Stoffel: at the time I said, call 911.
00:06:31.100 --> 00:06:33.440
Tommy Stoffel: And she goes, what's wrong? And I go, my brain's not working.
00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:34.660
Tommy Stoffel: I just don't know what's going on.
00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:41.960
Tommy Stoffel: So, so the ambulance came, took me to the hospital where they admitted me.
00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:48.140
Tommy Stoffel: And I stayed for two weeks in the psych ward because I was coming in, I was highly manic.
00:06:48.340 --> 00:06:52.280
Tommy Stoffel: I was out of, you know, my brain wasn't, like I said, wasn't making clear-headed decisions.
00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:57.460
Tommy Stoffel: And that was the beginning of it. The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.
00:06:57.980 --> 00:06:58.340
Kevin Lowe: Yeah.
00:06:58.760 --> 00:07:02.820
Tommy Stoffel: What really happened was the next morning, I woke up in this hospital room.
00:07:03.060 --> 00:07:03.460
Kevin Lowe: Wow.
00:07:05.080 --> 00:07:09.440
Tommy Stoffel: And it's clear in my head. It was a baby blue walls, you know, walls.
00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:13.920
Tommy Stoffel: And the night before, when I was put in there, I was somewhat coherent because
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:18.720
Tommy Stoffel: they gave me a shot in the ass and it calmed my head down. And so I knew when
00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:23.260
Tommy Stoffel: I went to sleep the night before that there was a bed in the room with me, but the bed was empty.
00:07:23.380 --> 00:07:26.900
Tommy Stoffel: Well, when I woke up in the morning, there was somebody in the bed and,
00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:30.640
Tommy Stoffel: and I looked over and it was a young kid, maybe in his mid thirties.
00:07:31.280 --> 00:07:35.040
Tommy Stoffel: And he was strapped to his bed with the, with the leather straps that you see
00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:37.620
Tommy Stoffel: in movies. I'm like, Oh my God, what's going on here?
00:07:37.960 --> 00:07:42.060
Tommy Stoffel: And I looked under his wrist straps and there were fresh bandages there.
00:07:42.060 --> 00:07:46.580
Tommy Stoffel: So sometime in the last eight hours since I closed my eyes in this in the psych
00:07:46.580 --> 00:07:47.600
Tommy Stoffel: ward of our local hospital
00:07:48.526 --> 00:07:51.546
Tommy Stoffel: Kid had tried to kill himself and he
00:07:51.546 --> 00:07:54.746
Tommy Stoffel: didn't succeed thankfully and he was sleeping there in
00:07:54.746 --> 00:07:58.386
Tommy Stoffel: this bed next to me and at that point uh and
00:07:58.386 --> 00:08:01.746
Tommy Stoffel: excuse the expletive but this is the way it came out of my head i go and i said
00:08:01.746 --> 00:08:04.526
Tommy Stoffel: this out loud and i didn't say this out loud i said this in my head i go what
00:08:04.526 --> 00:08:09.346
Tommy Stoffel: the fuck am i doing here and yeah and i got an answer like i don't know it came
00:08:09.346 --> 00:08:12.666
Tommy Stoffel: from within okay it was like powerful and it was true and it said you were here
00:08:12.666 --> 00:08:15.026
Tommy Stoffel: to learn this is your education.
00:08:15.466 --> 00:08:18.966
Tommy Stoffel: This is your opportunity to find out what goes on inside the minds of people
00:08:18.966 --> 00:08:22.966
Tommy Stoffel: that get them agitated, worried, stressed, overwhelmed, and,
00:08:22.966 --> 00:08:26.806
Tommy Stoffel: and to the point where they snap and lose it. Cause that's what had happened to me.
00:08:27.526 --> 00:08:32.586
Tommy Stoffel: I'm like, and I'm like, okay, I'll take that challenge. I was already working
00:08:32.586 --> 00:08:35.146
Tommy Stoffel: on my spiritual path that already opened up a few years before.
00:08:35.626 --> 00:08:40.286
Tommy Stoffel: I was kind of gaining some insights on into the human behaviors and psyche.
00:08:40.846 --> 00:08:44.306
Tommy Stoffel: And I'm like, okay, if this is something, if this is the way I'm going to school,
00:08:44.486 --> 00:08:47.026
Tommy Stoffel: then I'll spend two weeks here in school and I'll see what's going on.
00:08:47.486 --> 00:08:51.586
Tommy Stoffel: And then I asked a second question and this one really sealed the deal.
00:08:52.126 --> 00:08:57.386
Tommy Stoffel: I asked the universe, I said, what's the difference between me laying in this
00:08:57.386 --> 00:09:00.766
Tommy Stoffel: hospital bed and somebody that's free to walk on the street right now,
00:09:00.886 --> 00:09:02.566
Tommy Stoffel: somebody else that's walking on the sidewalk.
00:09:02.826 --> 00:09:05.726
Tommy Stoffel: And that's when this image kind of came up in my head.
00:09:05.846 --> 00:09:08.606
Tommy Stoffel: And I say it came up on the wall of the hospital but it came up in my head
00:09:08.606 --> 00:09:11.446
Tommy Stoffel: and there's a green box at the
00:09:11.446 --> 00:09:14.226
Tommy Stoffel: bottom of this image and there's a yellow box stacked on top
00:09:14.226 --> 00:09:17.206
Tommy Stoffel: of that and there's a red box stacked on top of that and that
00:09:17.206 --> 00:09:20.066
Tommy Stoffel: I call the chatter chart or the stoplight chart now
00:09:20.066 --> 00:09:25.686
Tommy Stoffel: but what that represents is the amount of noise in our head like we have a baseline
00:09:25.686 --> 00:09:31.966
Tommy Stoffel: noise level in our head and I was waking up at three in the morning and my chatter
00:09:31.966 --> 00:09:37.226
Tommy Stoffel: level was like high up in the yellow zone I was in near the overwhelm location.
00:09:37.466 --> 00:09:41.046
Tommy Stoffel: And it didn't take much during a day to trip me into that red zone.
00:09:41.186 --> 00:09:45.246
Tommy Stoffel: And that red zone, I don't know if you've experienced it, but most times when
00:09:45.246 --> 00:09:47.006
Tommy Stoffel: I talk to people about this, they're like, oh yeah.
00:09:49.766 --> 00:09:52.786
Tommy Stoffel: You just kind of intuitively know what that feels like.
00:09:53.246 --> 00:09:59.646
Tommy Stoffel: And so that was a blessing for me, just that insight to see this in a visual
00:09:59.646 --> 00:10:03.306
Tommy Stoffel: representation, and very simple visual representation of what was,
00:10:03.446 --> 00:10:07.546
Tommy Stoffel: I would say, wrong with me, what was going on inside of me, what was going on inside my head.
00:10:07.746 --> 00:10:10.626
Tommy Stoffel: I had too much chatter in there. I had too much noise in my head.
00:10:11.066 --> 00:10:16.446
Tommy Stoffel: And so I had already, yeah, so that's it.
00:10:16.546 --> 00:10:19.106
Tommy Stoffel: So now I walk around with this, you know, this chatter chart,
00:10:19.266 --> 00:10:23.206
Tommy Stoffel: this stoplight chart, and that's the basis of everything I'm doing.
00:10:23.366 --> 00:10:28.126
Tommy Stoffel: You know, for myself, I got myself, I learned some techniques that reduce the
00:10:28.126 --> 00:10:29.806
Tommy Stoffel: chatter in my head pretty clearly.
00:10:30.106 --> 00:10:34.626
Tommy Stoffel: I live in this green zone right now and I have been for the last 10 years or
00:10:34.626 --> 00:10:36.326
Tommy Stoffel: so, pretty steady state.
00:10:37.106 --> 00:10:41.026
Tommy Stoffel: And my purpose now is to help other people get out of that chatter head,
00:10:41.186 --> 00:10:43.946
Tommy Stoffel: to get out of that monkey mind, whatever we call it.
00:10:44.547 --> 00:10:48.947
Tommy Stoffel: And to get out of the red zone and whittle down your yellow zone and make the
00:10:48.947 --> 00:10:53.167
Tommy Stoffel: green zone your home place, because that's where we're level-headed,
00:10:53.387 --> 00:10:55.687
Tommy Stoffel: right? That's where we can think straight. That's where we have clarity.
00:10:55.847 --> 00:10:59.467
Tommy Stoffel: That's where we can pay attention to what's going on in the moment without a
00:10:59.467 --> 00:11:02.187
Tommy Stoffel: bunch of head noise corrupting us.
00:11:02.967 --> 00:11:09.287
Tommy Stoffel: And so that's probably a good starting point to give you the intro.
00:11:10.147 --> 00:11:17.927
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah. Now, out of curiosity, before this all started happening, before the 3 a.m.
00:11:18.367 --> 00:11:23.687
Kevin Lowe: Being up, you know, anxiety, worrying and stuff, had you ever had anything like
00:11:23.687 --> 00:11:25.387
Kevin Lowe: this happen before in your life?
00:11:26.207 --> 00:11:32.267
Tommy Stoffel: No, no. And looking back on it, you know, it built up over life and I kind of
00:11:32.267 --> 00:11:33.647
Tommy Stoffel: hit this breaking point.
00:11:34.067 --> 00:11:34.587
Kevin Lowe: Okay.
00:11:35.327 --> 00:11:39.907
Tommy Stoffel: But I didn't have any, you know, I didn't have any other mentions like this prior to that.
00:11:40.707 --> 00:11:49.227
Kevin Lowe: Yes, yes. Okay. Now, my second question is, how long did it go on for you,
00:11:49.787 --> 00:11:52.767
Kevin Lowe: this, the 3 a.m., the 6 a.m.
00:11:52.787 --> 00:11:58.687
Kevin Lowe: Worrying, the building kind of this boiling pot until that moment when you said
00:11:58.687 --> 00:12:02.367
Kevin Lowe: that you left the party in the middle of the night? How long had that been about?
00:12:02.687 --> 00:12:06.507
Tommy Stoffel: That was probably going on for about four years at that point. Yeah.
00:12:07.247 --> 00:12:12.567
Kevin Lowe: Wow. Wow. So we're talking about a guy who,
00:12:13.705 --> 00:12:19.005
Kevin Lowe: It's been, I mean, four years is a long time to be living like that.
00:12:19.565 --> 00:12:26.025
Kevin Lowe: So to say this pot of boiling water with all of this or this building up in
00:12:26.025 --> 00:12:29.205
Kevin Lowe: your head, yeah, you were at the breaking point.
00:12:29.465 --> 00:12:34.025
Tommy Stoffel: I was. Yeah. And, you know, I wasn't living at that breaking point, right?
00:12:34.145 --> 00:12:37.325
Tommy Stoffel: Like in those four years. And even before that, in the stoplight chart,
00:12:37.465 --> 00:12:39.865
Tommy Stoffel: there's a scale going up from green to yellow to red.
00:12:39.985 --> 00:12:42.625
Tommy Stoffel: And there's, and at the bottom of the yellow zone, you're getting to the yellow
00:12:42.625 --> 00:12:44.585
Tommy Stoffel: zone, you get like agitated, right?
00:12:44.725 --> 00:12:48.685
Tommy Stoffel: And then they get worried and then you get stressed and then you get short tempered
00:12:48.685 --> 00:12:49.525
Tommy Stoffel: and then you get overwhelmed.
00:12:50.025 --> 00:12:53.505
Tommy Stoffel: So it's kind of a buildup. So, so that buildup was happening over those four
00:12:53.505 --> 00:12:55.625
Tommy Stoffel: years and, and the time previous to that, right?
00:12:55.665 --> 00:12:59.925
Tommy Stoffel: My whole life, you know, my whole life, I can, I can look back on it now and
00:12:59.925 --> 00:13:03.985
Tommy Stoffel: I can see the initial, the initial trigger point when I was 12 years old,
00:13:04.125 --> 00:13:07.545
Tommy Stoffel: that kind of set this, this whole ball in motion.
00:13:08.925 --> 00:13:12.125
Tommy Stoffel: And yeah, and I'll, and I'll mention that too, because I think that's important.
00:13:12.185 --> 00:13:16.205
Tommy Stoffel: I think, You know, we all, not we all, but a lot of us have traumas,
00:13:16.585 --> 00:13:18.705
Tommy Stoffel: different things that happen in our lives. And some of them are,
00:13:18.745 --> 00:13:19.745
Tommy Stoffel: you know, harsher than others.
00:13:20.745 --> 00:13:26.205
Tommy Stoffel: And as a 12-year-old boy, I was running around, playing, having a good time.
00:13:26.405 --> 00:13:30.625
Tommy Stoffel: And one of my best friends was my dog, a Dalmatian named Shotzi,
00:13:30.805 --> 00:13:32.805
Tommy Stoffel: which means my love in German.
00:13:33.365 --> 00:13:38.045
Tommy Stoffel: And I came home from school one day and my dad told me that Shotzi had been
00:13:38.045 --> 00:13:43.005
Tommy Stoffel: killed by a bus earlier, and he had already buried Shotzi over there in the rock garden.
00:13:43.425 --> 00:13:48.265
Tommy Stoffel: And at that point, this 12-year-old being shut down didn't want to feel anymore,
00:13:48.485 --> 00:13:55.165
Tommy Stoffel: shut down his heart, and got really angry at God and my dad and love in general.
00:13:56.016 --> 00:13:59.496
Tommy Stoffel: And from that point, now I can look back on that. From that point forward,
00:13:59.496 --> 00:14:06.196
Tommy Stoffel: though, when I shut down my heart, I shut down my sensing, my energy sensing, my intuition.
00:14:06.656 --> 00:14:09.896
Tommy Stoffel: Think about that as a child, you know, you can kind of understand things.
00:14:10.016 --> 00:14:13.836
Tommy Stoffel: You're sensitive to energy and all that got shut off in an instant.
00:14:14.216 --> 00:14:18.216
Tommy Stoffel: And what happened then is I had to start thinking about things all the time
00:14:18.216 --> 00:14:22.236
Tommy Stoffel: because I couldn't sense if a place was safe, right? I couldn't sense if somebody
00:14:22.236 --> 00:14:23.316
Tommy Stoffel: was telling me the truth anymore.
00:14:23.756 --> 00:14:28.376
Tommy Stoffel: And now I had to start thinking all those things. and that's when my brain started getting overworked.
00:14:28.636 --> 00:14:33.236
Tommy Stoffel: So I became, at 12, I went from a laughing, fun, joyful boy to a kind of serious
00:14:33.236 --> 00:14:38.396
Tommy Stoffel: kid who, you know, always had something to think about and my brain started
00:14:38.396 --> 00:14:41.176
Tommy Stoffel: getting busier and busier and that lasted, what,
00:14:41.536 --> 00:14:43.896
Tommy Stoffel: 30 years until I hit the breaking point.
00:14:44.356 --> 00:14:55.116
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, wow, wow. So going back to this amazing kind of revelation that you want
00:14:55.116 --> 00:14:57.476
Kevin Lowe: to call it in the psych ward,
00:14:57.816 --> 00:15:05.856
Kevin Lowe: this traffic light type image that you have, in that you talk about the chatter in our brain.
00:15:06.096 --> 00:15:08.696
Kevin Lowe: And correct me if I'm wrong, but you've actually identified,
00:15:09.036 --> 00:15:14.076
Kevin Lowe: is it like you call it seven different flavors of chatter? Is that how you refer to it?
00:15:14.916 --> 00:15:18.096
Tommy Stoffel: Yep, yep. During that four-year period where it was ramping up,
00:15:18.356 --> 00:15:24.216
Tommy Stoffel: I came across a teacher from India who was actually teaching about chakras.
00:15:24.496 --> 00:15:27.636
Tommy Stoffel: Or seven chakras, and how they get blocked.
00:15:28.216 --> 00:15:33.136
Tommy Stoffel: And they get blocked by different thought patterns, actually.
00:15:34.316 --> 00:15:38.376
Tommy Stoffel: So for me, I took that class, I took that class a couple times,
00:15:38.576 --> 00:15:41.456
Tommy Stoffel: it was starting to help, and then I still had this, you know,
00:15:41.536 --> 00:15:44.856
Tommy Stoffel: this breakdown, and maybe it was sparked because this class was opening up stuff
00:15:44.856 --> 00:15:46.676
Tommy Stoffel: in me, or different alternate options.
00:15:47.707 --> 00:15:52.447
Tommy Stoffel: As I took that class in about the chakras, I understood it to be that this,
00:15:52.447 --> 00:15:55.987
Tommy Stoffel: this chatter in our brain is what locks up those chakras.
00:15:56.167 --> 00:16:00.447
Tommy Stoffel: So one of the examples, and I already mentioned it, one of the seven flavors.
00:16:00.847 --> 00:16:04.567
Tommy Stoffel: So this is, this is awesome news, by the way. So I'm going to back up just a
00:16:04.567 --> 00:16:07.387
Tommy Stoffel: step, right? We have these heads on our shoulders.
00:16:08.007 --> 00:16:11.807
Tommy Stoffel: They get, they get full of chatter. Everybody has chatter. Everybody has some,
00:16:11.967 --> 00:16:15.307
Tommy Stoffel: but it's, it's not all the noise in our head. It's not our thoughts.
00:16:15.567 --> 00:16:20.447
Tommy Stoffel: It's the negative stuff. It's the worrying, it's the self-defeating talk,
00:16:20.447 --> 00:16:24.887
Tommy Stoffel: it's the comparison with others, it's the kind of neediness or clinginess that
00:16:24.887 --> 00:16:27.227
Tommy Stoffel: we get to or we get stuck in relationships with.
00:16:27.387 --> 00:16:30.447
Tommy Stoffel: There are seven flavors of that, and I'll go through each of those real quick.
00:16:30.667 --> 00:16:34.287
Tommy Stoffel: But I'll start with the one that I was suffering the greatest from, and that was worry.
00:16:34.787 --> 00:16:36.847
Tommy Stoffel: Worry is one of the seven flavors of chatter.
00:16:37.467 --> 00:16:42.387
Tommy Stoffel: And I was learning, and I learned how to reduce my worries.
00:16:42.387 --> 00:16:45.307
Tommy Stoffel: And just by looking at some logical stuff
00:16:45.307 --> 00:16:48.287
Tommy Stoffel: like like the teacher said hey do you
00:16:48.287 --> 00:16:52.107
Tommy Stoffel: know 99% of the stuff you worry about never happens
00:16:52.107 --> 00:17:01.207
Tommy Stoffel: and I was like oh okay so you know an engineer with a calculator I'm like okay
00:17:01.207 --> 00:17:08.847
Tommy Stoffel: I can do the math on that one and logically you start thinking okay hey,
00:17:09.167 --> 00:17:11.407
Tommy Stoffel: if I have a 1% chance of something happening,
00:17:11.867 --> 00:17:14.007
Tommy Stoffel: do I want to spend all my brain power
00:17:14.707 --> 00:17:19.327
Tommy Stoffel: And all of my energy worrying about stuff that's never gonna happen?
00:17:20.242 --> 00:17:25.442
Tommy Stoffel: Or would I rather just stop worrying, which is one thing easy to say and a little
00:17:25.442 --> 00:17:28.582
Tommy Stoffel: more difficult to do, but, or just stop worrying.
00:17:28.802 --> 00:17:34.302
Tommy Stoffel: And then I have more brain space to handle that 1% issue when it happens, when it crops up. Right.
00:17:35.322 --> 00:17:38.562
Tommy Stoffel: So very logical ways of looking at worry.
00:17:38.982 --> 00:17:42.362
Tommy Stoffel: Kevin, you haven't ever gotten a worry loop or know what I'm talking about.
00:17:42.502 --> 00:17:47.182
Tommy Stoffel: If I say the word worry loop, where, you know, the brain gets in the same side.
00:17:47.342 --> 00:17:48.182
Kevin Lowe: Of course. Yes.
00:17:48.382 --> 00:17:54.162
Tommy Stoffel: Right. Worrying about the same thing. over and over and it may go on for hours at a time, right?
00:17:54.502 --> 00:17:58.162
Tommy Stoffel: Where the brain's looking for some ultimate solution or it's one that,
00:17:58.222 --> 00:18:00.782
Tommy Stoffel: you know, that the 10% that it doesn't figure it out yet.
00:18:01.082 --> 00:18:04.002
Tommy Stoffel: Well, you're not going to figure it out yet. Cause you're not meant to figure it out yet.
00:18:04.242 --> 00:18:07.862
Tommy Stoffel: But, but just that worry loop thing, once you realize you have,
00:18:07.962 --> 00:18:12.102
Tommy Stoffel: everybody has them, I started paying attention to when they came up and I'm
00:18:12.102 --> 00:18:14.622
Tommy Stoffel: like, okay, well get off of it, get off the worry.
00:18:14.702 --> 00:18:19.402
Tommy Stoffel: It's like a worry go round, go just get off the worry go round and think about something else.
00:18:19.882 --> 00:18:23.762
Tommy Stoffel: And so we were just bringing awareness and consciousness to these unconscious
00:18:24.422 --> 00:18:28.382
Tommy Stoffel: Loops that we get in the habit of, you know, we get trapped in.
00:18:28.582 --> 00:18:34.422
Tommy Stoffel: And so I, with that and a couple other examples and, and the book that we'll
00:18:34.422 --> 00:18:36.882
Tommy Stoffel: talk about that I wrote has all this information in it.
00:18:37.162 --> 00:18:41.642
Tommy Stoffel: It also has exercises that a person can do to actually, you know,
00:18:41.822 --> 00:18:47.782
Tommy Stoffel: reduce their worries. and I went to work on myself and I reduced my worries.
00:18:48.142 --> 00:18:52.322
Tommy Stoffel: And now I wasn't near that red zone anymore, right? You took some pressure out.
00:18:52.662 --> 00:18:59.142
Tommy Stoffel: So now your baseline chatter level, the one I was waking up with every morning was less, was lower.
00:18:59.262 --> 00:19:01.662
Tommy Stoffel: Now I'm in the yellow zone. I'm not up at that red zone anymore.
00:19:01.942 --> 00:19:06.902
Tommy Stoffel: So think of these as a pyramid and at the base of the pyramid is fear.
00:19:07.302 --> 00:19:12.782
Tommy Stoffel: So fear Fear is like a big category, but fear is basically all these,
00:19:12.922 --> 00:19:16.882
Tommy Stoffel: all seven of these chatter sources are fears of different sorts, but fear itself is...
00:19:17.325 --> 00:19:21.085
Tommy Stoffel: Is at the base. And so that's, that's a big noisemaker in our heads, right?
00:19:21.205 --> 00:19:26.325
Tommy Stoffel: Fear of the unknown, fear of embarrassing ourselves, fear of whatever, right?
00:19:26.465 --> 00:19:29.765
Tommy Stoffel: Fear of spiders, all that is chatter. It's all noise in our head.
00:19:30.185 --> 00:19:35.745
Tommy Stoffel: And to distinguish fear from, you know, I'm not walking around carelessly running
00:19:35.745 --> 00:19:37.305
Tommy Stoffel: out in front of vehicles there.
00:19:38.065 --> 00:19:43.085
Tommy Stoffel: That's, that's dangerous. There's fear, Fear is false evidence appearing real.
00:19:43.305 --> 00:19:48.505
Tommy Stoffel: Fear is head noise. Fear is our synapses firing in my brain.
00:19:48.705 --> 00:19:50.985
Tommy Stoffel: It's not real. It's not danger.
00:19:51.465 --> 00:19:54.925
Tommy Stoffel: It's not headlights. You know, I'm not driving down the road and all of a sudden
00:19:54.925 --> 00:19:57.045
Tommy Stoffel: the headlights swerve into my lane. That's danger.
00:19:57.185 --> 00:19:59.925
Tommy Stoffel: And you want to have a clear head to be able to deal with that situation.
00:20:00.725 --> 00:20:05.125
Tommy Stoffel: But when these fears are running willy-nilly in our minds, and so many of us
00:20:05.125 --> 00:20:08.265
Tommy Stoffel: have them because they get planted there through so many ways, right?
00:20:08.265 --> 00:20:13.345
Tommy Stoffel: Media, TV, earthquakes, tornadoes, you know, things that, things that you're
00:20:13.345 --> 00:20:15.825
Tommy Stoffel: not in any danger of right now, but the people,
00:20:16.025 --> 00:20:21.045
Tommy Stoffel: we, we get these fears built into our system and to know that they're just thoughts
00:20:21.045 --> 00:20:25.845
Tommy Stoffel: and they're just electricity firing in our brain is again, great news because
00:20:25.845 --> 00:20:27.885
Tommy Stoffel: you can then reduce those.
00:20:28.025 --> 00:20:32.645
Tommy Stoffel: And again, the book has examples on how to do that and exercises.
00:20:32.645 --> 00:20:35.525
Tommy Stoffel: Sizes so that's the number one
00:20:35.525 --> 00:20:38.545
Tommy Stoffel: down at the at the root chakra level and that blocks our root chakra
00:20:38.545 --> 00:20:41.445
Tommy Stoffel: and our root chakra is where we kind of are supposed to like feel
00:20:41.445 --> 00:20:44.485
Tommy Stoffel: safe here on planet earth like
00:20:44.485 --> 00:20:47.645
Tommy Stoffel: we're rooted to the earth we're grounded and we're
00:20:47.645 --> 00:20:50.765
Tommy Stoffel: safe so that and an
00:20:50.765 --> 00:20:54.005
Tommy Stoffel: open open root chakra is one that feels grounded
00:20:54.005 --> 00:21:00.425
Tommy Stoffel: and safe and secure and these head noise the fears is what kind of blocks that
00:21:00.425 --> 00:21:08.085
Tommy Stoffel: root chakra from staying safe so the second one has to do with our energy of
00:21:08.085 --> 00:21:12.265
Tommy Stoffel: feeling content like we're like we're okay we're content in the world
00:21:13.022 --> 00:21:17.662
Tommy Stoffel: And that doesn't mean that we don't want new things or we don't want something
00:21:17.662 --> 00:21:21.762
Tommy Stoffel: else or we don't want to go for an education. Content does not mean lazy.
00:21:22.382 --> 00:21:25.042
Tommy Stoffel: Content means if you feel the real power of the word content,
00:21:25.362 --> 00:21:31.662
Tommy Stoffel: it's like right now, in this moment, I'm okay. I have what I need.
00:21:32.282 --> 00:21:36.022
Tommy Stoffel: And what messes that up are desires.
00:21:36.642 --> 00:21:39.762
Tommy Stoffel: And just that word desire, some people will go to sex right away,
00:21:39.862 --> 00:21:42.562
Tommy Stoffel: but that's not sexual desires. There's a, it is, that's part of it,
00:21:42.622 --> 00:21:46.962
Tommy Stoffel: but it's also, you know, the desire to have a perfect friend or,
00:21:47.182 --> 00:21:49.462
Tommy Stoffel: or a great mom or a good partner.
00:21:50.242 --> 00:21:53.542
Tommy Stoffel: And I'll start with relationships because that's an easy one to think about,
00:21:53.642 --> 00:21:57.502
Tommy Stoffel: but it's also stuff, right? Oh, I need more of this. I need more money. I need more of that.
00:21:58.462 --> 00:22:03.622
Tommy Stoffel: And society again is just a master at flooding our brains with things that we
00:22:03.622 --> 00:22:05.602
Tommy Stoffel: can desire and things that we want.
00:22:06.102 --> 00:22:09.522
Tommy Stoffel: Right. And they, they'll, they'll even tell you that you have some,
00:22:09.662 --> 00:22:12.782
Tommy Stoffel: that you might have some crazy disease and then they'll, you know,
00:22:12.902 --> 00:22:16.702
Tommy Stoffel: make a, make a desire or a need or a want for you to get some crazy medicine
00:22:16.702 --> 00:22:19.962
Tommy Stoffel: to have some, to fix some disease that you might have.
00:22:21.442 --> 00:22:26.782
Tommy Stoffel: So, so this is, this is everywhere, right? Our society is just laced with fears
00:22:26.782 --> 00:22:28.502
Tommy Stoffel: and desires and worries.
00:22:29.062 --> 00:22:33.962
Tommy Stoffel: And so the desire stuff, think about this, think about like a relationship that
00:22:33.962 --> 00:22:35.882
Tommy Stoffel: you want to improve in your life.
00:22:36.982 --> 00:22:41.462
Tommy Stoffel: And let's say it's a, let's say it's a parental relationship.
00:22:41.602 --> 00:22:43.282
Tommy Stoffel: Like I want to have a better relationship with my mother.
00:22:44.082 --> 00:22:48.062
Tommy Stoffel: So what our head does is it goes out and it makes a list of criteria, right?
00:22:48.582 --> 00:22:52.122
Tommy Stoffel: Well, I want us to have this kind of talk and I want us to be this kind of friends
00:22:52.122 --> 00:22:54.822
Tommy Stoffel: and I want her to behave this way. And I want her to treat me like that.
00:22:54.942 --> 00:22:58.802
Tommy Stoffel: And I want to be able to, right? And we have this list, we have lists,
00:22:59.022 --> 00:23:01.082
Tommy Stoffel: lists of desires in our heads.
00:23:01.682 --> 00:23:04.442
Tommy Stoffel: Well, again, And then those lists become chatter.
00:23:05.470 --> 00:23:12.230
Tommy Stoffel: And where this wreaks havoc is that, A, those lists are always changing, right?
00:23:12.310 --> 00:23:15.690
Tommy Stoffel: You see some TV show and there's a really nice mother, you know,
00:23:15.810 --> 00:23:21.030
Tommy Stoffel: son or daughter relationship. You're like, oh, oh, I wish my mom and I had that.
00:23:21.590 --> 00:23:26.390
Tommy Stoffel: So you add that to your list of desires, right? So the desires are always changing.
00:23:26.990 --> 00:23:32.070
Tommy Stoffel: And now when you're in relationship with that person, you're judging and comparing.
00:23:32.470 --> 00:23:35.690
Tommy Stoffel: You're like, oh, is she meeting these criteria? and I check,
00:23:35.810 --> 00:23:39.630
Tommy Stoffel: check, X, X, X, check, check, X, X, X, right?
00:23:40.530 --> 00:23:46.330
Tommy Stoffel: So that just creates even more noise and chatter in our heads and maybe insecurities
00:23:46.330 --> 00:23:48.310
Tommy Stoffel: and maybe, you know, relational problems.
00:23:49.070 --> 00:23:54.510
Tommy Stoffel: So one of the big exercises that you'll see in the book is making lists,
00:23:54.690 --> 00:23:57.710
Tommy Stoffel: getting these random lists out of our heads and onto paper.
00:23:58.110 --> 00:24:01.770
Tommy Stoffel: And then I encourage people, usually without lighting fire to anything else,
00:24:01.890 --> 00:24:04.170
Tommy Stoffel: to burn the lists just to get it out.
00:24:04.510 --> 00:24:09.090
Tommy Stoffel: And gone. Right. And that, that, that then reduces your chatter.
00:24:09.390 --> 00:24:12.970
Tommy Stoffel: Now you're in the middle of the yellow zone, right? You're so each,
00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:15.610
Tommy Stoffel: each of these steps, you're getting closer and closer to green.
00:24:16.250 --> 00:24:20.370
Tommy Stoffel: Third one is worry that blocks our chi center, our energy center,
00:24:20.510 --> 00:24:22.590
Tommy Stoffel: our power center, our courage.
00:24:23.210 --> 00:24:28.190
Tommy Stoffel: And if you feel that, right. Or our self-confidence, you can feel like when
00:24:28.190 --> 00:24:32.370
Tommy Stoffel: I was worried all the time, I was worried about everything so much that I didn't
00:24:32.370 --> 00:24:35.630
Tommy Stoffel: really didn't have a lot of self-confidence. I didn't have a lot of inner strength, right?
00:24:35.730 --> 00:24:40.670
Tommy Stoffel: I was all getting, that was all getting weakened or buried underneath all these worries.
00:24:41.590 --> 00:24:46.710
Tommy Stoffel: So that's the third one. Fourth flavor is love and love and be loved.
00:24:46.810 --> 00:24:50.110
Tommy Stoffel: Now this is the unconditional love of just being in, you know,
00:24:50.710 --> 00:24:53.610
Tommy Stoffel: just the love you feel for a dog, the love you feel for a tree.
00:24:53.870 --> 00:24:58.950
Tommy Stoffel: And, and, and honestly, it'd be nice if our relationships had that element of love in it.
00:24:59.888 --> 00:25:04.588
Tommy Stoffel: But all too often, we get into feeling like we need somebody to love us.
00:25:04.968 --> 00:25:08.768
Tommy Stoffel: We need to feel approval. We need to feel it to get somebody's attention.
00:25:09.308 --> 00:25:12.808
Tommy Stoffel: And that need for attention and that need for approval, again,
00:25:12.968 --> 00:25:14.388
Tommy Stoffel: becomes a source of chatter.
00:25:14.928 --> 00:25:21.048
Tommy Stoffel: Like, oh, am I worthy of this? Oh, I don't have this. Oh, I'll never find true love.
00:25:21.528 --> 00:25:25.788
Tommy Stoffel: All that is head noise, right? And we all have that in different flavors,
00:25:25.808 --> 00:25:26.948
Tommy Stoffel: too. So that's the fourth.
00:25:27.528 --> 00:25:29.308
Tommy Stoffel: That's the fourth chakra blocker.
00:25:30.728 --> 00:25:36.028
Tommy Stoffel: Of that kind of that neediness and that can turn into clinginess and really
00:25:36.028 --> 00:25:38.648
Tommy Stoffel: not clean energy dynamics between two people.
00:25:39.008 --> 00:25:44.048
Tommy Stoffel: So that's the fourth flavor and that messes up that real energy of the love,
00:25:44.248 --> 00:25:50.808
Tommy Stoffel: that universal love that kind of can flow through us when we get our head noise under control.
00:25:51.108 --> 00:25:57.508
Kevin Lowe: Yeah. So I was going to ask, so before you continue, so let me be sure that my mind is right.
00:25:57.508 --> 00:26:02.048
Kevin Lowe: So when we're talking about these different flavors,
00:26:02.408 --> 00:26:10.288
Kevin Lowe: these chakras, so am I gathering that these are things that we ultimately are
00:26:10.288 --> 00:26:13.428
Kevin Lowe: realizing we want to try to clear from our mind?
00:26:13.628 --> 00:26:17.388
Tommy Stoffel: The idea is that this chatter is not helpful.
00:26:18.248 --> 00:26:21.608
Tommy Stoffel: And thanks for saying this too. If you think about the whole stoplight chart,
00:26:21.748 --> 00:26:27.708
Tommy Stoffel: the green, yellow, red, as it goes up in chatter, our life also goes up in stress. right?
00:26:28.888 --> 00:26:29.188
Kevin Lowe: Yes.
00:26:29.688 --> 00:26:33.088
Tommy Stoffel: So this is the physical condition of stress.
00:26:33.848 --> 00:26:38.348
Tommy Stoffel: Now the stress in our mind creates stress in our bodies, tension, muscle tension.
00:26:38.588 --> 00:26:43.508
Tommy Stoffel: It creates, and we know that it reduces our immune system. Stress does.
00:26:43.888 --> 00:26:49.428
Tommy Stoffel: We know that it's, you know, can make us sick, you know, through stress.
00:26:49.668 --> 00:26:54.808
Tommy Stoffel: So thank you for bringing that in. And that is one of the key motivators for
00:26:54.808 --> 00:26:56.088
Tommy Stoffel: reducing the chatter in our head.
00:26:56.628 --> 00:27:01.968
Tommy Stoffel: One, to have clarity, and two, to have less stress. Yeah.
00:27:02.922 --> 00:27:06.882
Kevin Lowe: Yes. Okay. Okay. Perfect. All right. Cool. You, you may continue.
00:27:07.142 --> 00:27:10.022
Kevin Lowe: I just had to be sure I'm like, wait, I got to be sure I'm on the right path here.
00:27:10.182 --> 00:27:13.502
Tommy Stoffel: Thank you for calling it out. That's like a, we call it the chatter chart.
00:27:13.622 --> 00:27:14.722
Tommy Stoffel: We call it the stress chart.
00:27:15.382 --> 00:27:20.622
Tommy Stoffel: So, so it, they go hand in hand, the amount of noise in our head equals the
00:27:20.622 --> 00:27:21.902
Tommy Stoffel: amount of stress we have in our life.
00:27:22.362 --> 00:27:24.742
Tommy Stoffel: And we know a lot of us are walking around pretty uptight.
00:27:26.022 --> 00:27:28.242
Tommy Stoffel: So as, as I was right.
00:27:28.982 --> 00:27:29.282
Kevin Lowe: Yes.
00:27:31.362 --> 00:27:38.982
Tommy Stoffel: The fifth one is very interesting so the fifth one is our unique self when we're in our power it's our
00:27:39.482 --> 00:27:42.262
Tommy Stoffel: authentic self it's the gift that we
00:27:42.262 --> 00:27:46.242
Tommy Stoffel: have that we brought here or that we come to planet earth with or that we're
00:27:46.242 --> 00:27:50.262
Tommy Stoffel: in this life with and that gets locked up this one's very interesting that one
00:27:50.262 --> 00:27:54.802
Tommy Stoffel: gets blocked up by all this comparison that we do so you think back in life
00:27:54.802 --> 00:27:58.862
Tommy Stoffel: right you know i'm smarter than i'm getting grades that are worse than or better
00:27:58.862 --> 00:28:01.742
Tommy Stoffel: than somebody else i'm smarter than somebody, dumber than somebody.
00:28:01.902 --> 00:28:05.922
Tommy Stoffel: I'm taller than, shorter than, prettier than, uglier than this, right?
00:28:06.182 --> 00:28:11.682
Tommy Stoffel: And we all do this. This is, again, part of our society here on earth loves
00:28:11.682 --> 00:28:16.582
Tommy Stoffel: to compare ourselves to, you know, other things in other ways.
00:28:16.622 --> 00:28:20.642
Tommy Stoffel: And if you just feel that comparison under the surface of that,
00:28:20.802 --> 00:28:25.642
Tommy Stoffel: if we're comparing ourselves to somebody else, we're liking ourselves less in
00:28:25.642 --> 00:28:26.542
Tommy Stoffel: each of those situations.
00:28:26.942 --> 00:28:30.822
Tommy Stoffel: Or maybe we like ourselves more. Maybe like, I'm, you know, king of the mountain.
00:28:31.042 --> 00:28:34.622
Tommy Stoffel: I've got, you know, all the money in the world. I'm the best of this and the best of that.
00:28:34.702 --> 00:28:37.742
Tommy Stoffel: And well, well, that's a runaway ego, which we'll talk about at number six,
00:28:37.882 --> 00:28:44.522
Tommy Stoffel: but, but, but most of us, and we get, and that's our self-critic,
00:28:44.882 --> 00:28:46.862
Tommy Stoffel: right? And that's our self, not loving ourself.
00:28:47.342 --> 00:28:51.862
Tommy Stoffel: There's a part of ourselves that we don't like that we think could be better or should be different.
00:28:52.302 --> 00:28:57.602
Tommy Stoffel: And so that's, this one is, is, is pretty gnarly. And, and so,
00:28:58.259 --> 00:29:02.399
Tommy Stoffel: Again, there's, there's exercises and the readings in the book,
00:29:02.499 --> 00:29:08.219
Tommy Stoffel: um, there's lessons in the book that can help you help a person untangle those
00:29:08.219 --> 00:29:10.059
Tommy Stoffel: comparisons that we get stuck in.
00:29:10.139 --> 00:29:14.859
Tommy Stoffel: Those comparisons lead to also lead to other things like envy or trying to keep
00:29:14.859 --> 00:29:18.199
Tommy Stoffel: up with the Joneses or which mixes in with desires.
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:22.679
Tommy Stoffel: And so these seven flavors, all you can just, if you look under the surface
00:29:22.679 --> 00:29:27.039
Tommy Stoffel: a little bit, they just wreak havoc on our lives. in addition to causing stress,
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:30.699
Tommy Stoffel: you know, they're just mindsets that aren't, they're not healthy for us,
00:29:30.919 --> 00:29:32.619
Tommy Stoffel: not healthy for our self-love.
00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:35.859
Tommy Stoffel: And then, and then if we're not healthy in our own self-love,
00:29:36.019 --> 00:29:39.439
Tommy Stoffel: then we're really hard to be healthy in our relationships with others too.
00:29:40.059 --> 00:29:41.999
Tommy Stoffel: So that fifth one's pretty powerful.
00:29:42.519 --> 00:29:43.679
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:44.199 --> 00:29:48.179
Tommy Stoffel: Yeah. The sixth one I just alluded to, that's kind of our, this thinking mind
00:29:48.179 --> 00:29:52.119
Tommy Stoffel: that, you know, that thinks it's separate, that hasn't realized yet that it's
00:29:52.119 --> 00:29:56.639
Tommy Stoffel: part of the universal energy of this loving energy, this one love energy.
00:29:57.599 --> 00:30:01.939
Tommy Stoffel: And, and it's all this chatter built up together. And it's like our identity,
00:30:02.159 --> 00:30:07.339
Tommy Stoffel: like, like I'm a worrier and I've got a job and I own a lavender farm and I,
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:12.159
Tommy Stoffel: you know, I'm driving myself crazy and, and, and I drink myself to sleep every night.
00:30:12.259 --> 00:30:15.739
Tommy Stoffel: That's, that's, you know, my, that was my ego. That was my ego mind.
00:30:16.239 --> 00:30:20.539
Tommy Stoffel: That's what blocks our intuition center or some people call it the third eye
00:30:20.539 --> 00:30:25.839
Tommy Stoffel: is our ability to see the energy of things or sense the energy of the world
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:30.659
Tommy Stoffel: and deal with the world in an energetic perspective as opposed to a,
00:30:30.819 --> 00:30:35.679
Tommy Stoffel: I am an individual over here who has all these fears and all this stuff,
00:30:35.879 --> 00:30:38.839
Tommy Stoffel: all these desires and all these things I have to protect and I have to worry
00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:43.139
Tommy Stoffel: about it and I'm in some weird relationships and I'm always comparing myself
00:30:43.139 --> 00:30:48.439
Tommy Stoffel: to everybody else and I need to build a wall to keep you on your side of the fence, right?
00:30:48.539 --> 00:30:52.399
Tommy Stoffel: I need to build a wall between Mexico and the United States to keep you out.
00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:58.839
Tommy Stoffel: I need to, right? That's where this number six lockup comes to it.
00:30:59.889 --> 00:31:03.289
Tommy Stoffel: All that built up together. And now you feel like you have to protect yourself.
00:31:03.509 --> 00:31:07.329
Tommy Stoffel: Like you're scared of people can get the whole world. Right.
00:31:07.949 --> 00:31:12.629
Tommy Stoffel: And their ego mind is, has to like make a job for itself and save you from all
00:31:12.629 --> 00:31:13.969
Tommy Stoffel: these worries and all these fears.
00:31:14.149 --> 00:31:18.429
Tommy Stoffel: And, and it's actually, it's job is not really needed.
00:31:18.689 --> 00:31:25.189
Tommy Stoffel: So this idea actually has come to me since you and I talked the first time.
00:31:25.369 --> 00:31:25.789
Kevin Lowe: Okay.
00:31:26.109 --> 00:31:28.949
Tommy Stoffel: Because what I just said there about this number
00:31:28.949 --> 00:31:31.689
Tommy Stoffel: six energy our ego it's like
00:31:31.689 --> 00:31:34.529
Tommy Stoffel: then people can get like oh the the chatter is my
00:31:34.529 --> 00:31:39.709
Tommy Stoffel: ego and i've got to read you know kill my ego or you know and people the old
00:31:39.709 --> 00:31:44.289
Tommy Stoffel: old spiritual stuff would be like you gotta you know eliminate your ego and
00:31:44.289 --> 00:31:49.529
Tommy Stoffel: what i what i'm doing instead is i'm talking to my ego from my inner sage perspective
00:31:49.529 --> 00:31:54.049
Tommy Stoffel: because that's my intuition now from my kind of my my third eye perspective,
00:31:54.469 --> 00:32:00.149
Tommy Stoffel: the part of myself that knows that I'm a spiritual being, that I'm an energy being in this body.
00:32:00.429 --> 00:32:03.009
Tommy Stoffel: That's my inner sage. That's my intuition.
00:32:03.909 --> 00:32:10.389
Tommy Stoffel: Now I can kind of talk to my ego because the inner sage is in control of this being now.
00:32:10.809 --> 00:32:14.689
Tommy Stoffel: The title of the book is Take the Wheel. And the intention there is for your
00:32:14.689 --> 00:32:19.449
Tommy Stoffel: inner sage, your higher self, to actually take the driver's seat and take back
00:32:19.449 --> 00:32:21.369
Tommy Stoffel: the steering wheel of life.
00:32:22.209 --> 00:32:27.589
Tommy Stoffel: And now I can look at my ego and say, okay, ego, I'm not eliminating you. You're not a threat.
00:32:27.789 --> 00:32:31.729
Tommy Stoffel: You're not, you're not, your job isn't at risk, but look, you don't have to
00:32:31.729 --> 00:32:35.269
Tommy Stoffel: be so fearful. We don't need to go into the fear world anymore.
00:32:35.509 --> 00:32:38.109
Tommy Stoffel: So that part of your job, you can let go of it's heavy anyhow,
00:32:38.109 --> 00:32:40.469
Tommy Stoffel: and it's not good for either of us.
00:32:40.689 --> 00:32:43.609
Tommy Stoffel: So just let's, let's work on reducing fears.
00:32:44.109 --> 00:32:49.049
Tommy Stoffel: And we do that for all seven of them. You know what ego, you don't have to worry so much anymore.
00:32:49.649 --> 00:32:53.309
Tommy Stoffel: Life's okay. We're not in any future. We're doing all right.
00:32:53.609 --> 00:32:57.189
Tommy Stoffel: Let's, you know, let's lay off the worry a little bit and we'll do some exercises
00:32:57.189 --> 00:32:58.469
Tommy Stoffel: and we'll, we'll get that down.
00:32:58.569 --> 00:33:01.609
Tommy Stoffel: So, so it's almost like I'm retraining my brain.
00:33:01.729 --> 00:33:07.449
Tommy Stoffel: I've retrained my mind, my, my thinking mind, my ego mind to just to not have
00:33:07.449 --> 00:33:12.669
Tommy Stoffel: the fears and the desires and the worries and, uh, and the need and,
00:33:12.809 --> 00:33:14.349
Tommy Stoffel: uh, and the constant comparison.
00:33:14.729 --> 00:33:21.389
Tommy Stoffel: And so that then my, that ego mind, then that blocks my third eye,
00:33:21.549 --> 00:33:27.589
Tommy Stoffel: my intuition, my higher self, my inner sage, it has plenty of stuff to do.
00:33:28.903 --> 00:33:31.983
Tommy Stoffel: Like my ego mind is talking to you right now. It's, you know,
00:33:32.203 --> 00:33:35.963
Tommy Stoffel: it's, but it's not talking through fear and worry and anxiety anymore.
00:33:37.303 --> 00:33:43.523
Tommy Stoffel: So it still has a job. I used to talk about like, if you think of your being as a, as an aircraft,
00:33:43.843 --> 00:33:47.423
Tommy Stoffel: there's two seats in the front and where they fly the plane from in the cockpit,
00:33:47.623 --> 00:33:51.343
Tommy Stoffel: there's a pilot seat and there's a co-pilot seat somewhere along the way in
00:33:51.343 --> 00:33:53.823
Tommy Stoffel: human history, the co-pilot, which is our ego mind,
00:33:54.363 --> 00:33:58.123
Tommy Stoffel: bonked the pilot over the head, which is our inner sage, gagged it,
00:33:58.123 --> 00:34:01.903
Tommy Stoffel: bound it and threw it in the back of the plane and it's doing everything all by itself
00:34:06.263 --> 00:34:09.043
Tommy Stoffel: seven days a week 24 7 doesn't need
00:34:09.043 --> 00:34:14.103
Tommy Stoffel: any sleep or coffee let me keep going going going going and that's a high stress
00:34:14.103 --> 00:34:19.923
Tommy Stoffel: uptight full of worries fears anxieties all this stuff that's that's the way
00:34:19.923 --> 00:34:25.603
Tommy Stoffel: the ego mind somehow forms in our beings and runs and tries to you know fly
00:34:25.603 --> 00:34:27.783
Tommy Stoffel: this or drive this whatever this, you know,
00:34:28.003 --> 00:34:31.003
Tommy Stoffel: craft is that we're, this body and mind that we're living in.
00:34:31.803 --> 00:34:33.923
Tommy Stoffel: So that metaphor helps me kind of.
00:34:34.043 --> 00:34:35.883
Kevin Lowe: Yes. Wow. I love that.
00:34:36.023 --> 00:34:40.003
Tommy Stoffel: Helps the pilot get back in the pilot seat, right? And the co-pilot still has
00:34:40.003 --> 00:34:42.603
Tommy Stoffel: a job, but it's not doing everything.
00:34:43.183 --> 00:34:46.343
Kevin Lowe: Yes. Yes. Yes. I love the metaphor.
00:34:46.923 --> 00:34:50.583
Tommy Stoffel: And, and the seventh one is that they call it the crown chakra and that's our
00:34:50.583 --> 00:34:52.023
Tommy Stoffel: connection to the universe.
00:34:52.183 --> 00:34:55.403
Tommy Stoffel: That's our connection to source. That's our connection to divine energy,
00:34:55.703 --> 00:34:59.523
Tommy Stoffel: whatever the one love, whatever that feeling that we get into sometimes when
00:34:59.523 --> 00:35:02.603
Tommy Stoffel: we're peaceful, we're quiet, we're meditating, we're walking through trees,
00:35:02.883 --> 00:35:04.143
Tommy Stoffel: we're walking in a forest, right?
00:35:04.223 --> 00:35:08.323
Tommy Stoffel: Or we're just sitting by ourselves and with nothing else going on and we can
00:35:08.323 --> 00:35:11.603
Tommy Stoffel: drop into that peaceful green zone. This is a green zone experience.
00:35:12.143 --> 00:35:14.883
Tommy Stoffel: That's that energy. That's the energy that we live in.
00:35:15.303 --> 00:35:20.323
Tommy Stoffel: But all the chatter from these six other chatter makers block us from kind of
00:35:20.323 --> 00:35:21.183
Tommy Stoffel: being in that sometimes.
00:35:22.163 --> 00:35:26.463
Tommy Stoffel: So, right. So now we'll go back to this stoplight chart. Being in this green
00:35:26.463 --> 00:35:30.263
Tommy Stoffel: zone is a nice way to live. You don't have a head full of noise.
00:35:31.463 --> 00:35:35.343
Tommy Stoffel: Your body mind complex is working in a nice way.
00:35:35.603 --> 00:35:40.703
Tommy Stoffel: You're kind of energetically not on guard all the time. There's no hypervigilance.
00:35:40.803 --> 00:35:42.043
Tommy Stoffel: There's no amygdala firing.
00:35:42.767 --> 00:35:47.327
Tommy Stoffel: You're just walking and living life in this body the way I think it was meant
00:35:47.327 --> 00:35:48.867
Tommy Stoffel: to be walked in and lived in.
00:35:49.107 --> 00:35:55.467
Tommy Stoffel: That final seventh, like connection to source is if everything else is yellow or red,
00:35:55.607 --> 00:36:02.567
Tommy Stoffel: if your fears and desires and worries and needs and comparisons and this ego
00:36:02.567 --> 00:36:09.287
Tommy Stoffel: is all like in full control and yellow or red zone in this uptight high stress mode,
00:36:09.467 --> 00:36:14.607
Tommy Stoffel: then overall, we kind of have a sense of lack or a sense of it's always rains
00:36:14.607 --> 00:36:16.947
Tommy Stoffel: on my parade or nothing ever goes my way.
00:36:17.847 --> 00:36:20.167
Tommy Stoffel: Or, and then we, you know, we're always complaining or blaming,
00:36:20.467 --> 00:36:21.827
Tommy Stoffel: you know, pointing fingers at something else.
00:36:21.907 --> 00:36:26.787
Tommy Stoffel: So that's, so those, those thought patterns that, that block our connection
00:36:26.787 --> 00:36:31.547
Tommy Stoffel: to the infinite source of love and energy that we're actually plugged into.
00:36:32.147 --> 00:36:35.687
Tommy Stoffel: So yeah, pretty lengthy seven flavor description.
00:36:36.247 --> 00:36:41.267
Kevin Lowe: Yeah. But I mean, I, I appreciate you taking the time to walk us through it and explain it all.
00:36:41.567 --> 00:36:46.567
Kevin Lowe: Because, I mean, that's where it all starts to make so much sense and gives
00:36:46.567 --> 00:36:49.487
Kevin Lowe: context to exactly what you're talking about.
00:36:49.747 --> 00:36:54.367
Kevin Lowe: But the question, Tommy, that I keep kind of thinking in my head is,
00:36:54.747 --> 00:36:58.167
Kevin Lowe: I mean, the wisdom that you have to share today,
00:36:58.427 --> 00:37:03.587
Kevin Lowe: I mean, it's like you have this wisdom inside of you, but I can't help but think,
00:37:03.587 --> 00:37:10.087
Kevin Lowe: Why did you have to go to that lowest point of leaving a party in the middle
00:37:10.087 --> 00:37:11.807
Kevin Lowe: of the night, walking through the cold,
00:37:12.227 --> 00:37:18.607
Kevin Lowe: end up having to be committed to reach this pinnacle of finally realizing and
00:37:18.607 --> 00:37:23.607
Kevin Lowe: seeing the stoplight signal and all of this starting to click together?
00:37:24.067 --> 00:37:26.467
Kevin Lowe: Do you feel like you have a reason for it?
00:37:26.907 --> 00:37:31.027
Tommy Stoffel: Yeah, that's a beautiful question. The word that comes up is relatability.
00:37:32.347 --> 00:37:35.527
Tommy Stoffel: And i don't feel especially in
00:37:35.527 --> 00:37:38.627
Tommy Stoffel: in topics such as this which deals so much interpersonal right
00:37:38.627 --> 00:37:43.127
Tommy Stoffel: this is this is inside this is your insides this is your life the way you think
00:37:43.127 --> 00:37:49.107
Tommy Stoffel: about life and feel about life and i'll say a teacher can walk around with this
00:37:49.107 --> 00:37:53.047
Tommy Stoffel: new information and say hey everybody i haven't experienced any of this pain
00:37:53.047 --> 00:37:57.667
Tommy Stoffel: and suffering side of this stuff but look you can be in a beautiful,
00:37:57.787 --> 00:38:01.527
Tommy Stoffel: loving relationship if you just let go of your need for attachment.
00:38:02.987 --> 00:38:07.467
Tommy Stoffel: So I think it's relatability. And Eckhart Tolle said it to us once.
00:38:07.667 --> 00:38:12.507
Tommy Stoffel: I was sitting with him, a bunch of other people, and somebody asked him how
00:38:12.507 --> 00:38:16.927
Tommy Stoffel: his expression of the power of now came out and became so popular.
00:38:17.507 --> 00:38:23.527
Tommy Stoffel: And he said, the reach of this, the experience of this, and the reach of this in a healing mode
00:38:24.259 --> 00:38:30.179
Tommy Stoffel: was only as big as the depth and the darkness that I went through to find it.
00:38:31.939 --> 00:38:36.939
Tommy Stoffel: So, and that resonates too, right? There's somebody suffering out there in the red zone.
00:38:37.219 --> 00:38:41.319
Tommy Stoffel: You can't just be living a whole green zone life and tell them,
00:38:41.419 --> 00:38:45.099
Tommy Stoffel: you know, what to do. You have to say, okay, yeah, I've been there.
00:38:45.459 --> 00:38:50.219
Tommy Stoffel: I know what that feels like, you know, and here's what I did about it.
00:38:50.539 --> 00:38:54.219
Tommy Stoffel: Another metaphor that, you know, there's this pit of despair that we get into
00:38:54.219 --> 00:38:57.219
Tommy Stoffel: the red zone where, you know, that's where depression sits.
00:38:57.399 --> 00:39:01.599
Tommy Stoffel: That's where suicidal tendencies sit in that red zone. This is where,
00:39:01.619 --> 00:39:04.079
Tommy Stoffel: you know, severe PTSD is.
00:39:04.579 --> 00:39:08.339
Tommy Stoffel: And you can't just tell somebody to snap out of it, obviously.
00:39:09.059 --> 00:39:14.939
Tommy Stoffel: But I, I found for myself, so let's say, let's, let's go to a visual that somebody's
00:39:14.939 --> 00:39:18.919
Tommy Stoffel: down in the bottom of a pit and, you know, the pits 20, 30 feet deep in the
00:39:18.919 --> 00:39:22.599
Tommy Stoffel: middle of road and they're down there and they're stuck and they can't, they can't climb out.
00:39:22.979 --> 00:39:26.119
Tommy Stoffel: Well, I've been in that pit and here's what I did.
00:39:26.319 --> 00:39:30.579
Tommy Stoffel: And also I'll throw down some wood and I'll throw down a saw and I'll throw
00:39:30.579 --> 00:39:34.399
Tommy Stoffel: down some rope and I'll give them instructions on how to build their own ladder.
00:39:34.779 --> 00:39:39.799
Tommy Stoffel: Right. But the rope and the, and the wood and the saw is what I use.
00:39:39.919 --> 00:39:41.459
Tommy Stoffel: Those are the tools I use to get out.
00:39:41.699 --> 00:39:45.819
Tommy Stoffel: And, and if they help somebody else, then, then, you know, the tools with the
00:39:45.819 --> 00:39:48.839
Tommy Stoffel: instructions on how to do it yourself, that's what this is about.
00:39:49.448 --> 00:39:54.868
Tommy Stoffel: So, again, relatability and experience in that darkness, in that red zone,
00:39:54.988 --> 00:40:00.248
Tommy Stoffel: and coming out of it, that's, I feel, why we have to suffer the depths of suffering
00:40:00.248 --> 00:40:03.848
Tommy Stoffel: in order to help other people out of similar depths of suffering.
00:40:04.248 --> 00:40:08.408
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah. No, I agree completely. Yeah.
00:40:09.768 --> 00:40:16.308
Kevin Lowe: So, Tommy, my next question is, in my opinion, people are going to be like, say what?
00:40:16.488 --> 00:40:18.448
Kevin Lowe: Like, what interview did we
00:40:18.448 --> 00:40:22.708
Kevin Lowe: just skip to? because I don't understand how it's even going to connect.
00:40:22.988 --> 00:40:27.468
Kevin Lowe: But all of a sudden, there's a part of your story that includes us off-roading.
00:40:28.488 --> 00:40:31.668
Kevin Lowe: Would you like to connect the dots?
00:40:32.408 --> 00:40:37.688
Tommy Stoffel: I will. I will absolutely connect the dots. So off-roading, jeeping,
00:40:38.168 --> 00:40:43.848
Tommy Stoffel: driving over big rocks and up and down steep hills in cool vehicles at three
00:40:43.848 --> 00:40:46.268
Tommy Stoffel: or four miles per hour. What does that do for you?
00:40:48.208 --> 00:40:49.168
Kevin Lowe: Yes, exactly.
00:40:49.428 --> 00:40:53.248
Tommy Stoffel: Let's go back to yellow zone, red zone, yellow zone, red zone mentality.
00:40:53.688 --> 00:40:57.288
Tommy Stoffel: And something that a lot of people talk about PTSD, right? We all have,
00:40:57.288 --> 00:40:58.928
Tommy Stoffel: we all have some degrees of PTSD.
00:40:59.568 --> 00:41:02.768
Tommy Stoffel: Some of us have it much worse than others. First responders,
00:41:03.228 --> 00:41:08.588
Tommy Stoffel: war veterans, you know, all that, that red zone behavior that we're,
00:41:08.588 --> 00:41:11.328
Tommy Stoffel: we're using a part of our brain, the reptilian mind, right?
00:41:11.488 --> 00:41:14.548
Tommy Stoffel: People talked about the reptilian mind or the amygdala.
00:41:15.068 --> 00:41:19.428
Tommy Stoffel: When we get into a heightened state of vigilance because something happened
00:41:19.428 --> 00:41:22.748
Tommy Stoffel: to us where we're always looking over our backs, we're always on guard,
00:41:22.888 --> 00:41:26.768
Tommy Stoffel: we're always tense, we're always nervous, we're always worried about something happening to us,
00:41:27.008 --> 00:41:31.248
Tommy Stoffel: that is using our amygdala mind, and that's where it's firing on.
00:41:31.866 --> 00:41:36.566
Tommy Stoffel: And so that is not a healthy place to be operating our brain from.
00:41:37.026 --> 00:41:43.646
Tommy Stoffel: And what the jeeping does is it takes us away from our life where we have these
00:41:43.646 --> 00:41:47.626
Tommy Stoffel: stresses, where we have this, you know, this, this pension to be worried about
00:41:47.626 --> 00:41:51.206
Tommy Stoffel: the future or, or, or reliving some past event, right?
00:41:51.306 --> 00:41:53.946
Tommy Stoffel: So now we're out of time. We're in the future or the past.
00:41:54.386 --> 00:41:58.046
Tommy Stoffel: When we're jeeping, when we're driving this vehicle, when our hands are on the
00:41:58.046 --> 00:42:01.286
Tommy Stoffel: wheel and our feet are on the floor and our ass is in the seat, we're really present.
00:42:01.866 --> 00:42:09.326
Tommy Stoffel: Being mindful and almost meditating and driving over rocks, now we're using the prefrontal cortex.
00:42:09.426 --> 00:42:14.046
Tommy Stoffel: Now we're using the front part of our brain that is supposed to be paying attention
00:42:14.046 --> 00:42:17.166
Tommy Stoffel: to the world, paying attention to the moment. This is the power of now.
00:42:17.426 --> 00:42:23.126
Tommy Stoffel: This is where we are. And so the jeeping gives you a visceral green zone experience.
00:42:23.146 --> 00:42:29.086
Tommy Stoffel: It gives you several hours at a time of being out of the hypertension,
00:42:29.406 --> 00:42:34.066
Tommy Stoffel: a hypervigilant monkey mind and being just present, focusing on the rocks,
00:42:34.206 --> 00:42:36.446
Tommy Stoffel: focusing on the dirt, focusing on the nature you're driving through,
00:42:36.806 --> 00:42:39.966
Tommy Stoffel: the sounds the vehicle's making, the feelings of it bouncing around.
00:42:40.126 --> 00:42:45.646
Tommy Stoffel: It just absorbs all of your senses in this moment right now.
00:42:46.326 --> 00:42:49.126
Tommy Stoffel: And it doesn't have to be jeeping. It doesn't have to be off-roading.
00:42:49.306 --> 00:42:51.186
Tommy Stoffel: People have their own ways, right?
00:42:51.946 --> 00:42:55.766
Tommy Stoffel: Everybody has something they kind of really enjoy doing that brings them into
00:42:55.766 --> 00:42:58.866
Tommy Stoffel: the moment to help them focus their attention and stay in that green zone.
00:42:59.701 --> 00:43:02.801
Tommy Stoffel: This is just one way of kind of doing it.
00:43:03.421 --> 00:43:04.921
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, well, I think that's amazing.
00:43:05.081 --> 00:43:10.781
Kevin Lowe: Now, would you mind just to give more context to this whole aspect?
00:43:11.061 --> 00:43:14.441
Kevin Lowe: Do you have any stories that you could share? Because, I mean,
00:43:14.521 --> 00:43:17.181
Kevin Lowe: correct me if I'm wrong, but, I mean, you literally, I mean,
00:43:17.281 --> 00:43:21.701
Kevin Lowe: you take groups out to do this experience to help them.
00:43:21.701 --> 00:43:27.001
Kevin Lowe: Maybe, I don't know, maybe first responders or anybody helping them to move
00:43:27.001 --> 00:43:29.721
Kevin Lowe: from the one zone to the next.
00:43:30.001 --> 00:43:33.521
Kevin Lowe: Do you have any kind of experiences that you could share with us?
00:43:33.681 --> 00:43:38.461
Tommy Stoffel: I do. Thanks. Some years back, I started buying more Jeeps than the one I had
00:43:38.461 --> 00:43:43.641
Tommy Stoffel: because I wanted to, at the time, I was thinking, oh, I'll take this to corporate events.
00:43:43.801 --> 00:43:47.041
Tommy Stoffel: You know, we'll get C-level people out of their high stress,
00:43:47.201 --> 00:43:51.401
Tommy Stoffel: high tension mode for a day and have them lower their chatter score,
00:43:51.421 --> 00:43:54.901
Tommy Stoffel: you know, in a day where if they're up near the top of the yellow zone,
00:43:55.021 --> 00:43:57.721
Tommy Stoffel: they'll come out of that day, you know, lower in the yellow zone and they'll
00:43:57.721 --> 00:43:59.341
Tommy Stoffel: know it and we'll experience it.
00:43:59.441 --> 00:44:03.161
Tommy Stoffel: And then we'll be motivated to do more and get more stuff out of their head.
00:44:03.421 --> 00:44:07.021
Tommy Stoffel: So we did a pilot project back in 2020 with the LAPD.
00:44:07.381 --> 00:44:11.501
Tommy Stoffel: One of my Jeepers, Zen Jeepers, we call it, he'd been coming for a while and
00:44:11.501 --> 00:44:13.281
Tommy Stoffel: he was really getting the benefits from it.
00:44:13.661 --> 00:44:19.281
Tommy Stoffel: He brought five of his uptight, hypervigilant LAPD officers.
00:44:19.721 --> 00:44:24.521
Tommy Stoffel: We had five Jeeps for them and we put them in the Jeeps for six hours.
00:44:24.841 --> 00:44:27.541
Tommy Stoffel: In the morning when we took pictures of these kids, you know,
00:44:27.621 --> 00:44:28.921
Tommy Stoffel: he said, hey, smile next to your Jeep.
00:44:29.201 --> 00:44:32.161
Tommy Stoffel: You know how somebody really tries to force a smile? It's like,
00:44:32.281 --> 00:44:36.801
Tommy Stoffel: ah, like you can tell that they're so uptight and so tense because they live
00:44:36.801 --> 00:44:41.841
Tommy Stoffel: in a, because they're living in hypervigilance. they're living in total alertness.
00:44:41.881 --> 00:44:45.681
Tommy Stoffel: Like they're on guard, on guard all the time. You can imagine a cop, right?
00:44:45.961 --> 00:44:50.981
Tommy Stoffel: And now you can imagine a cop in LA. And this is, now we got five of them ready to Jeep for a day.
00:44:51.897 --> 00:44:57.677
Tommy Stoffel: And I tell you what, eight hours later, we're in a restaurant together after
00:44:57.677 --> 00:45:01.437
Tommy Stoffel: a day of jeeping and they were kids again. They were relaxed.
00:45:03.377 --> 00:45:07.677
Tommy Stoffel: They were slapping each other on the back. They were smiling for real because
00:45:07.677 --> 00:45:12.197
Tommy Stoffel: they had gotten out of that hypervigilant mode and they had experienced life
00:45:12.197 --> 00:45:16.637
Tommy Stoffel: being aware, aware of your surroundings, aware in the moment.
00:45:16.637 --> 00:45:21.677
Tommy Stoffel: And somehow something switched in them that day to switch out of alert,
00:45:21.997 --> 00:45:25.857
Tommy Stoffel: hypervigilant, tense mode into relaxed awareness.
00:45:27.237 --> 00:45:31.617
Tommy Stoffel: And my buddy, the lieutenant, said they haven't really gone back to that level
00:45:31.617 --> 00:45:34.877
Tommy Stoffel: of tension since. And this is five years ago now.
00:45:35.597 --> 00:45:40.297
Tommy Stoffel: So just a day of this can really... Wow. Yeah. And I don't want people to think
00:45:40.297 --> 00:45:41.257
Tommy Stoffel: that they have to come jeeping.
00:45:41.597 --> 00:45:42.017
Kevin Lowe: Yeah.
00:45:42.337 --> 00:45:45.617
Tommy Stoffel: They have to find their own green zone experience and immerse themselves in
00:45:45.617 --> 00:45:50.917
Tommy Stoffel: it. I also saw a guy cure himself of ADHD, adult ADHD, because his mind was distracted.
00:45:51.237 --> 00:45:53.037
Tommy Stoffel: You know, that monkey mind was distracted by so many things.
00:45:53.277 --> 00:45:55.317
Tommy Stoffel: And he jeeped. We jeeped together.
00:45:55.577 --> 00:45:59.097
Tommy Stoffel: He did it for two years. And one day I looked at him, I go, man,
00:45:59.117 --> 00:46:00.197
Tommy Stoffel: you're different. He goes, yeah.
00:46:00.657 --> 00:46:05.877
Tommy Stoffel: He goes, the rocks are my therapy. He goes, when my mind's on the rocks, it's nowhere else.
00:46:06.317 --> 00:46:13.837
Tommy Stoffel: So having and creating or finding, seeing your own green zone experience is the key to success here.
00:46:13.837 --> 00:46:18.417
Tommy Stoffel: In addition to going through the book and doing these exercises to get some
00:46:18.417 --> 00:46:21.497
Tommy Stoffel: of that chatter out of the way so you don't creep back up into the yellow zone
00:46:21.497 --> 00:46:23.397
Tommy Stoffel: or red zone. That's like the one-two punch.
00:46:24.057 --> 00:46:28.277
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, we're going to get to the book in one moment,
00:46:28.417 --> 00:46:35.317
Kevin Lowe: but before I ask you about the book specifically, do you have any other examples
00:46:35.317 --> 00:46:38.517
Kevin Lowe: of green zone activities that,
00:46:39.023 --> 00:46:42.663
Kevin Lowe: For somebody who's maybe thinking, well, what could I do?
00:46:43.463 --> 00:46:49.523
Tommy Stoffel: Yeah, a lot of people go to like more physical things like rock climbing or mountain biking.
00:46:49.963 --> 00:46:55.543
Tommy Stoffel: But honestly, my grandma used to crochet quilts for us.
00:46:55.783 --> 00:47:00.103
Tommy Stoffel: And there was stories about some of the big football players crocheting some years ago, right?
00:47:00.543 --> 00:47:02.803
Tommy Stoffel: It's any activity that just takes your attention.
00:47:03.543 --> 00:47:08.303
Tommy Stoffel: It just, all your attention is focused on that activity enough so that you're
00:47:08.303 --> 00:47:11.963
Tommy Stoffel: not thinking about, you know, the chatter, the chatters, there's no space for the chatter.
00:47:12.083 --> 00:47:14.483
Tommy Stoffel: So you're just giving yourself a breather from the chatter.
00:47:14.803 --> 00:47:19.503
Tommy Stoffel: I was at an event last weekend, two weekends ago, and there was an artist there,
00:47:19.743 --> 00:47:25.043
Tommy Stoffel: a gentleman by the name of Christian and Christian offered us a little art class.
00:47:25.183 --> 00:47:28.043
Tommy Stoffel: And so he sat with us and he had to start to
00:47:28.043 --> 00:47:30.983
Tommy Stoffel: doodle on our page and he started helping us
00:47:30.983 --> 00:47:34.003
Tommy Stoffel: doodle and then turn this doodle into patterns and then connecting and
00:47:34.003 --> 00:47:37.023
Tommy Stoffel: then coloring in some of the squares and stuff like that and blocks isn't
00:47:37.023 --> 00:47:40.323
Tommy Stoffel: just that was a very mindful calming present
00:47:40.323 --> 00:47:46.623
Tommy Stoffel: green zone experience so we just need to find them and just once you put this
00:47:46.623 --> 00:47:51.003
Tommy Stoffel: out to the universe like ask the universe to help you find your green zone experience
00:47:51.003 --> 00:47:55.763
Tommy Stoffel: and and ask like that to the universe we'll get you answers people will show
00:47:55.763 --> 00:47:58.883
Tommy Stoffel: up in your life and give you examples you'll pick up a couple.
00:47:59.583 --> 00:48:03.323
Tommy Stoffel: Do you have any, do you have something that you, that you do that calms your
00:48:03.323 --> 00:48:06.783
Tommy Stoffel: head, that gets you into this kind of green zone space, that breath work,
00:48:07.023 --> 00:48:10.523
Tommy Stoffel: meditation, grounding exercises? Is there something that you do?
00:48:10.783 --> 00:48:16.803
Kevin Lowe: I don't have anything in particular that I can think of other than moments of,
00:48:16.803 --> 00:48:22.323
Kevin Lowe: of just prayer in the morning, first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee.
00:48:22.483 --> 00:48:27.683
Kevin Lowe: When I say the, the rest of the world is still asleep and you can just kind
00:48:27.683 --> 00:48:29.603
Kevin Lowe: of sit there in the quiet.
00:48:29.863 --> 00:48:34.723
Kevin Lowe: I always say the morning with the first cup of coffee is my favorite part of
00:48:34.723 --> 00:48:37.603
Kevin Lowe: the day because the rest of the world is still asleep.
00:48:38.430 --> 00:48:43.210
Kevin Lowe: And if you don't immediately turn on the phone, listening to something,
00:48:43.410 --> 00:48:50.070
Kevin Lowe: but actually just sitting in the quiet and the still, and that is where it is for me.
00:48:50.230 --> 00:48:53.710
Kevin Lowe: And then the second thing, honestly, and I know it sounds cheesy,
00:48:53.710 --> 00:49:00.990
Kevin Lowe: but it's getting fully in depth into the interviews that I do here on the podcast.
00:49:00.990 --> 00:49:07.590
Kevin Lowe: You know, I mean, I'm sitting in a little recording studio where it used to
00:49:07.590 --> 00:49:10.930
Kevin Lowe: be a walk-in closet, converted that to a studio.
00:49:11.270 --> 00:49:18.310
Kevin Lowe: I'm in here with headphones on, the door is shut, just totally teamed in on my guest.
00:49:18.670 --> 00:49:26.530
Kevin Lowe: And again, eliminating all the chatter and just being focused in on this conversation.
00:49:26.830 --> 00:49:30.950
Tommy Stoffel: There you go. Right. Like prayer in the quiet time is a green zone activity.
00:49:31.550 --> 00:49:34.630
Tommy Stoffel: Being present, fully present and quiet in your head during interviews.
00:49:34.750 --> 00:49:38.650
Tommy Stoffel: So you're listening. Listening, you know, listening is what you're doing a lot of.
00:49:39.130 --> 00:49:41.390
Tommy Stoffel: That's a very present moment activity where your head's not,
00:49:41.410 --> 00:49:43.490
Tommy Stoffel: I think, ahead of what to ask next, right?
00:49:43.730 --> 00:49:46.170
Tommy Stoffel: But you're just in this moment, listening, paying attention.
00:49:46.510 --> 00:49:47.930
Tommy Stoffel: It's paying attention to the moment.
00:49:48.430 --> 00:49:51.030
Tommy Stoffel: That's what I do when I take people out. And Saturday, we're taking a bunch
00:49:51.030 --> 00:49:55.870
Tommy Stoffel: of people out. I teach them how to pay attention, really, and pay attention to the moment.
00:49:55.870 --> 00:50:03.690
Kevin Lowe: But what I want to say, though, is let's just be honest, totally lame compared to jeeping.
00:50:04.030 --> 00:50:08.870
Kevin Lowe: I mean, I would much rather get to just come out to California and get to ride
00:50:08.870 --> 00:50:12.150
Kevin Lowe: in a Jeep because, I mean, maybe that is my kind of stuff.
00:50:12.270 --> 00:50:16.090
Kevin Lowe: I mean, you're talking to a guy who, before I went blind, grew up on the back
00:50:16.090 --> 00:50:18.230
Kevin Lowe: of a dirt bike in four wheelers.
00:50:18.430 --> 00:50:20.730
Kevin Lowe: So, yes, you know.
00:50:20.810 --> 00:50:25.350
Tommy Stoffel: You have the invitation and I'm looking forward to meeting you in the Jeep.
00:50:25.350 --> 00:50:27.270
Tommy Stoffel: And we'll do that sometime together for sure.
00:50:27.810 --> 00:50:33.630
Kevin Lowe: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, well, Tommy, so talk to me about the book
00:50:33.630 --> 00:50:35.610
Kevin Lowe: that you that we've been referencing.
00:50:36.210 --> 00:50:39.170
Kevin Lowe: I'm curious to know how the book even came about.
00:50:39.410 --> 00:50:44.270
Kevin Lowe: And then, of course, what the book can do for somebody who wants to take our
00:50:44.270 --> 00:50:45.790
Kevin Lowe: conversation to the next level.
00:50:46.350 --> 00:50:50.430
Tommy Stoffel: Right. So really, you go back to the stoplight chart, green zone,
00:50:50.590 --> 00:50:54.190
Tommy Stoffel: yellow zone, red zone. The book is all about that.
00:50:54.630 --> 00:50:57.730
Tommy Stoffel: There. Each of us, you know, has that kind of a baseline chatter level.
00:50:58.130 --> 00:51:02.410
Tommy Stoffel: So on our website, offroadmonks.com,
00:51:02.610 --> 00:51:06.570
Tommy Stoffel: because the book is written by two of us and we're both off-roaders and we got
00:51:06.570 --> 00:51:10.970
Tommy Stoffel: nicknamed off-road monks when somebody made a documentary about us that,
00:51:11.130 --> 00:51:15.630
Tommy Stoffel: that if you look at offroadmonks.com, there's a stress survey out there and
00:51:15.630 --> 00:51:19.430
Tommy Stoffel: you can take a 10 question quiz and it'll tell you where you are on that chatter chart.
00:51:20.263 --> 00:51:25.743
Tommy Stoffel: First off. So, and then the book does that. It's like, okay, where are you?
00:51:26.123 --> 00:51:28.963
Tommy Stoffel: Are you in the yellow zone? Are you in the green zone? Are you in the red zone?
00:51:29.083 --> 00:51:31.883
Tommy Stoffel: Do you want to like improve or reduce your chatter?
00:51:32.503 --> 00:51:36.303
Tommy Stoffel: The first half of the book then talks about being in the moment and how important
00:51:36.303 --> 00:51:40.303
Tommy Stoffel: that is, you know, paying attention and how we get pulled out of paying attention
00:51:40.303 --> 00:51:45.423
Tommy Stoffel: by distractions, by the chatter in our head, by, you know, worrying about the
00:51:45.423 --> 00:51:47.223
Tommy Stoffel: future or worrying about the past.
00:51:47.723 --> 00:51:50.863
Tommy Stoffel: So it really is like a bit of a look
00:51:50.863 --> 00:51:53.583
Tommy Stoffel: into the power of now and that's the first half of
00:51:53.583 --> 00:51:56.603
Tommy Stoffel: the book and so if if you're already like a pretty good
00:51:56.603 --> 00:52:01.003
Tommy Stoffel: you know practitioner of meditation or you have some practice present moment
00:52:01.003 --> 00:52:05.143
Tommy Stoffel: practices like we just talked about first half of the book will just be some
00:52:05.143 --> 00:52:09.443
Tommy Stoffel: different way of looking at that the second half of the book is the seven flavors
00:52:09.443 --> 00:52:14.023
Tommy Stoffel: and how to reduce the chatter in each one of those and the benefit you get for
00:52:14.023 --> 00:52:16.543
Tommy Stoffel: each of those seven areas when you reduce the chatter.
00:52:16.803 --> 00:52:22.523
Tommy Stoffel: So that's what's in the book. My writing partner, Brian is gifted in his writing skills.
00:52:22.783 --> 00:52:26.843
Tommy Stoffel: He's like talking to your soul. He's like, it's like a soulmate talking to your soul.
00:52:27.383 --> 00:52:30.323
Tommy Stoffel: We call it soul talking. And that's the way the book is written.
00:52:30.523 --> 00:52:34.403
Tommy Stoffel: So it's talking to your inner sage, talking to your wisdom, talking to your
00:52:34.403 --> 00:52:38.683
Tommy Stoffel: higher self and saying, Hey, you want to, you know, get back in control of this
00:52:38.683 --> 00:52:40.303
Tommy Stoffel: being, you want to get back in the pilot seat.
00:52:40.983 --> 00:52:45.503
Tommy Stoffel: Here's what you do to, you know, to kind of retrain or help your ego mind,
00:52:45.723 --> 00:52:49.803
Tommy Stoffel: lessen its load, lessen its burden, not have to do all this heavy lifting on
00:52:49.803 --> 00:52:51.363
Tommy Stoffel: worries and fears and stuff like that.
00:52:51.703 --> 00:52:56.563
Tommy Stoffel: And so that's the second half of the book. And together, it's a kind of a do-it-yourself,
00:52:56.763 --> 00:53:00.903
Tommy Stoffel: self-help book for getting out of the yellow and red zone and being in more
00:53:00.903 --> 00:53:05.963
Tommy Stoffel: of a present moment, peaceful, in the quiet zone of life.
00:53:06.423 --> 00:53:11.763
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, I love it. Now, remind me the the name of your book and the best place to find it?
00:53:11.843 --> 00:53:15.763
Tommy Stoffel: So the book is called Take the Wheel. So that's, you know, what we're doing
00:53:15.763 --> 00:53:19.163
Tommy Stoffel: when we're jeeping out there is it's your inner stage taking the wheel,
00:53:19.283 --> 00:53:22.063
Tommy Stoffel: taking back control of your life.
00:53:22.223 --> 00:53:25.103
Tommy Stoffel: Get back in the driver's seat of life is part of the subtitle.
00:53:25.683 --> 00:53:30.363
Tommy Stoffel: Yeah, and you can find it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble where we have an audio
00:53:30.363 --> 00:53:32.623
Tommy Stoffel: version coming out probably in another week or two.
00:53:32.763 --> 00:53:36.703
Tommy Stoffel: We recorded an audio version, so that'll be hitting the stand soon.
00:53:37.755 --> 00:53:40.215
Tommy Stoffel: Yeah, it's out there where books are found.
00:53:40.695 --> 00:53:46.235
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, well, fantastic. Well, I will be positive that all the links are in the
00:53:46.235 --> 00:53:50.655
Kevin Lowe: show notes for anybody interested in learning more about getting in touch.
00:53:50.815 --> 00:53:54.815
Kevin Lowe: Now, is it through the website, theoffroadmonks.com?
00:53:54.935 --> 00:53:59.655
Kevin Lowe: Is that where if somebody is in the California area or interested in the off-roading,
00:53:59.815 --> 00:54:02.235
Kevin Lowe: is that where they can learn more about that as well?
00:54:02.415 --> 00:54:07.615
Tommy Stoffel: That is in there too. Zen off-roading, soul coaching or pages on the site.
00:54:07.615 --> 00:54:09.455
Tommy Stoffel: Yep, you can find all that.
00:54:09.595 --> 00:54:12.715
Tommy Stoffel: You'll see some cool pictures of some of us jeeping and some of the things we do.
00:54:13.335 --> 00:54:17.655
Tommy Stoffel: The book and ways of buying it's in there. That stress survey is in there.
00:54:17.795 --> 00:54:21.555
Tommy Stoffel: So you can see where you are on the chatter chart, along with our kind of mission
00:54:21.555 --> 00:54:24.555
Tommy Stoffel: statement of helping people have these green zone experiences.
00:54:25.255 --> 00:54:30.495
Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah. Well, Tommy, man, it's been such a pleasure to get to talk with you today.
00:54:30.495 --> 00:54:37.035
Kevin Lowe: I really appreciate you being willing to share your personal story and just
00:54:37.035 --> 00:54:42.995
Kevin Lowe: these unimaginable just insights that you have gained and that you've been able
00:54:42.995 --> 00:54:45.695
Kevin Lowe: to share and to help so many people.
00:54:46.115 --> 00:54:52.895
Kevin Lowe: It's a really powerful story and it's a real honor to get to have you on the podcast.
00:54:53.155 --> 00:54:55.815
Kevin Lowe: So truly, thank you so much for being here.
00:54:56.095 --> 00:54:59.555
Tommy Stoffel: Well, Kevin, I thank you, too. I mean, the title of your podcast,
00:54:59.775 --> 00:55:01.655
Tommy Stoffel: everything about it, ever since I first heard of you, I'm like,
00:55:01.735 --> 00:55:03.835
Tommy Stoffel: oh, this is a man doing the work,
00:55:04.015 --> 00:55:07.195
Tommy Stoffel: you know, helping people doing what I'm doing, helping people get out of that,
00:55:07.235 --> 00:55:11.815
Tommy Stoffel: you know, that stressful part of life, you know, and all the stories that you
00:55:11.815 --> 00:55:15.935
Tommy Stoffel: bring and some of the podcasts I've listened to of yours are all like in the
00:55:15.935 --> 00:55:17.995
Tommy Stoffel: same vein of helping us help ourselves,
00:55:18.195 --> 00:55:22.115
Tommy Stoffel: of helping us heal from these traumas that we have or these,
00:55:22.255 --> 00:55:24.255
Tommy Stoffel: the suffering that we have in our head.
00:55:24.255 --> 00:55:29.915
Tommy Stoffel: And so thank you too for being a fellow warrior of sorts of helping people
00:55:29.915 --> 00:55:32.735
Kevin Lowe: Yeah yeah well thank you so much
00:55:32.735 --> 00:55:35.895
Kevin Lowe: man that means a lot to me for you listening
00:55:35.895 --> 00:55:40.735
Kevin Lowe: today if you're still with us well first and foremost that means that you are
00:55:40.735 --> 00:55:45.395
Kevin Lowe: interested enough that you have no choice but to go down and check out today's
00:55:45.395 --> 00:55:50.275
Kevin Lowe: show notes where you can grab the links access the book get all the resources
00:55:50.275 --> 00:55:54.415
Kevin Lowe: that have been mentioned please be sure to not let this end here.
00:55:54.735 --> 00:55:59.175
Kevin Lowe: And of course, my friend, whether it's you or maybe there's somebody in your
00:55:59.175 --> 00:56:01.415
Kevin Lowe: life, a family member, a close friend,
00:56:01.915 --> 00:56:05.995
Kevin Lowe: somebody who you think that they can really benefit from hearing today's conversation,
00:56:06.395 --> 00:56:10.975
Kevin Lowe: well, please be sure to share today's episode with them because I know it would
00:56:10.975 --> 00:56:13.375
Kevin Lowe: mean the world to them, it would mean the world to me.
00:56:13.775 --> 00:56:18.655
Kevin Lowe: And you know what? If we can all just focus on helping out just one person,
00:56:18.835 --> 00:56:22.695
Kevin Lowe: then I believe we stand a chance at making this world a better place.
00:56:23.015 --> 00:56:26.995
Kevin Lowe: Until next time, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe. And of course, this was another
00:56:26.995 --> 00:56:29.635
Kevin Lowe: episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.
00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:50.284
Podcast Outro: I got Grit, Grace, & Inspiration on my mind...