Shadowing Practice: Self Loathing Man of Inaction - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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It's the state of limbo, where you're in your head, you know what you need to do, but you can't bring yourself to do it.
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You've given up on life, but there's a part of you that wants to keep trying.
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The action that you take creates the life that you live.
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And you get so caught up in wanting, wishing, all this kind of stuff that you don't act.
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You have to have a whole scale transformation of your life,
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which is surprisingly easier than people think it is.
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So today, we're going to talk about the self -loathing man of inaction in your late 20s or early 30s.
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The only things he does are the things he used to do, and he does them less and less.
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He's built an entire worldview around his neuroses.
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I need some time to think.
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Constantly revisits increasingly skewed memories of the past, wondering what he should have done instead.
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Fixated on things no one actually remembers.
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Probably not even to him at this point.
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I can't do anything.
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Defeatist who can never quite give up.
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This is beautiful, right?
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A defeatist who can't quite give up.
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Only boring people get bored.
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That's me.
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Slowly becoming actually the R word.
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So let's call it cognitive decline.
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It was always going to be like this.
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Closest thing to fun
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or new experiences are elaborate fantasies where he reimagines redoing his
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entire life centered around girls he barely knew in like middle school.
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Family are the only thing that's keeping him alive knows what was what a schizoid is doesn't know
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if he is one
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if i could do it i would have by now no one chooses this yeah i was thinking about doing
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that no it knows it's not too late
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but wishes it was it only hurts
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when i laugh goes months at a time without laughing
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or sincerely smiling in constant pain either neat or wage slave both equally hopeless it's not like things can get worse.
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Accidentally once felt a moment of relief, has been upset about it since, and it's not like things can get better.
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Developing health problems but justify a crappy lifestyle.
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Why should I do anything?
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Cannot accept what he's done.
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Nothing does nothing in response.
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He exists in a state of living death, thinking the same thoughts over and over, day in and day out,
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even as he understands that thinking doesn't help and that he needs to just act instead.
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He is completely overwhelmed by inertia while life passes him by.
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He has lost everything but can't let go of anything.
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No reason to live, no reason to die, no reason.
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Okay?
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And then haunted by vague, dusty delusions of megalomania.
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The self -loathing man of inaction.
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so i really like this part defeatists who can never quite
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give up right i think this speaks a lot to the
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self -loathing man of inaction there are a lot of people
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out there who struggle with this who view themselves as people
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of inaction for whatever reason it's always framed as a man on the internet
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and so they they're stuck in their head they can't move on
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but they can't let go right
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so you're kind of always like it's the state of limbo
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where you're in your head you know what you need to do
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but you can't bring yourself to do it you've given up on life
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but there's a part of you that wants to keep trying
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and so it's this weird like balance of like okay i'm hopeless
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and then one day i have hope but you actually become afraid of hope because hope means trying
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and hope means attempting and hope means hoping.
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And then if you try and if you attempt and if you hope, when those things don't work out, that leads to more hurt.
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So you kind of get stuck in this like longing for limbo, right?
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A desire for numbness.
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Because if you're numb, then there's no hope.
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And if there's no hope, there's no disappointment.
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And if there's no disappointment, there's no hurt.
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And at the same time, even when you're numb, you long to feel things
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that occasionally there'll be like a ray of sunshine through the clouds where you have a little bit of hope, you smile a little bit, you feel a little bit of relief,
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but then you're scared because you don't know how to create that consistently.
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And so you view yourself as a person of inaction.
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so we're going to approach this i mean there were two or three ways that i could talk about this
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my first thought was i would go through
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and address each of these like sentences and explain the mechanism behind
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that maybe we can do that but i want to start sort of in a different place
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so the first thing i'm going to say is
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that this is not a man of inaction this is a man of an intense amount of action.
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See, this is the first and largest and most...
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catastrophic mistake we make.
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When you look at your life and you think to yourself, I never do anything.
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This is categorically wrong.
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The reason your life is the way that it is, is because you are doing things all the time.
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May not make sense.
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So let's dive into it and be a little bit more technical.
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So this is one of the biggest things that the theory of karma teaches us, right?
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Actions have consequences.
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This is a scientific truth.
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There is a cause and there is effect.
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This isn't spiritual.
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This is science.
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So the life that you have created around yourself is not a result of inaction.
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It is a result of action.
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So for example, if I wake up today and I log onto the computer and I play video games for eight hours, that's not inaction.
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That's action for eight hours.
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And that will have an effect.
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If I wake up today and I do not apply for a job, I will not have a job tomorrow.
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So that every day when I wake up in my life, what the truth of the matter is, is this life is not a result of inaction.
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And this is why it's so hard to fix.
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Because it's not that you've done nothing.
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Moving from neutral is not hard, right?
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Very easy.
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A small amount of acceleration in the positive direction, if I am at neutral, will result in a positive velocity, right?
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If I start walking forward and I was standing still, I will start covering ground.
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That's not what happens with the man of inaction.
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Positive acceleration results in a negative velocity.
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How is that possible?
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That's because they are moving in the wrong direction.
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So it's not a man of inaction, is it a man of wrong action?
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Working with a coach is about amplifying your time and effort.
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We're great at wanting things and even making some progress, but we usually struggle with follow -through or have some kind of setback.
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Check out the link in the description below to see if coaching is right for you.
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So these people are taking actions, literally, literally, literally, literally.
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They are taking actions every single day.
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You don't just sit in your bed all day.
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You get out of bed, you do particular things.
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Those are actions.
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Maybe you get high.
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That is an action that has a consequence.
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And maybe you say, but Dr. K, I do lay in bed all day.
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That too is an action.
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Laying is a verb, right?
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Like technically, I'm sitting right now.
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This is an action I am taking.
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Your whole life, you have no choice but to take actions.
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And so if you look at your life and it has completely fallen apart, this is not a result of inaction.
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action.
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This is a result of wrong action.
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And you know this.
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Because you look back in your life and you said, I should have done this, I should have done this, I should have done this, I should have done this.
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What did you do instead of the things that you should have done?
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You did something else.
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You didn't ask that girl out.
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You didn't apply.
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You didn't do the extra credit.
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You decided not to go to school.
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You stayed home.
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So this is one thing that y 'all have to understand.
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the biggest thing that you have to understand.
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You are always acting.
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There's no such thing as inaction.
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Arguably there is, but very few people on the planet truly engage in inaction.
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If you guys want to understand that, we can talk about it at the end.
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So here's the thing that I want you to understand.
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The life that you live today is a consequence of your actions.
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So it's not that you need to act more.
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It is actually, here's the big irony, it is that you need to act less.
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What you actually want is inaction.
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And this is why these people are fundamentally stuck.
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Because what they try to do is they try to do more.
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And instead, what they need to be doing is doing less.
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Doing less of the wrong thing will move you in the right direction.
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So most of these people are running in the wrong direction in life.
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The right way to stop, you know, if you're at minus 100 and you want to avoid getting to minus 200,
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the first thing that you need to do is learn to sit still.
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Just stop moving.
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Stop doing the things that you are doing.
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Don't even try to do the right thing.
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Stopping doing the wrong thing is sufficient.
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And this is what's really weird.
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This is what confuses people.
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see if you want to lose weight you don't need to eat anything you need to stop eating
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if you want to recover from any addictive substance the solution to addiction is inaction
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right it's kind of weird so there's one other layer
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that we have to add on which a lot of people don't really think about
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which is that we assume that actions are physical So this is the other big thing you have to understand.
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95 to 99 % of the actions that a human being takes are in their mind.
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I'll give you all a really good example of this.
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So there is something called obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, in which someone has obsessive thoughts.
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So they will think something that feels really overwhelming, like unless I turn on and off the light switch,
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seven times, the plane that my family is on will crash and everyone will die.
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This is what we call an obsession.
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An obsession is a thought that is repetitive and usually intrusive and causes distress.
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That is technically what an obsession is.
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Then what happens is the compulsion is the action that you take in response to the obsession.
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So when I think these thoughts, I will act in some way.
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But when I act in that way, it reduces the emotional energy of the thought.
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The only way I can get the thought to disappear is by taking this action.
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So when I flick the light switch on and off and on and off and on and off, when I do it seven times,
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then the thoughts are calmed.
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So now I am taking a physical action to reduce a mental action.
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And if we kind of think about it, thoughts lead to other thoughts, right?
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So this is why I like this principle of karma, because in the English language, when we use the word action,
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it has an implication of physicality to it.
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But when we say karma, karma is an action.
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But the key thing about karma is it's anything that is a cause that has an effect.
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That is a karma.
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And so if you have a thought, does that have an effect?
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Absolutely.
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So this is what we do in psychotherapy.
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If someone has, for example, a destructive schema, a worldview that is negative,
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we can alter their mind so that one thought does not lead to another thought does not lead to another thought.
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Each thought you have is an action.
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There's a great lecture over on the membership side that we have about mental karmas, which y 'all should definitely check out.
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There's also something I think in the trauma guide about it as well.
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So if y 'all are really interested in understanding
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and mastering this idea that each of your thoughts is of itself an action.
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Because each thought has a consequence.
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In a panic attack, what happens in a panic attack?
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I have one thought that leads to another thought
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that leads to another thought that leads to another thought that leads to another thought.
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And then these thoughts over time become overwhelming.
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They activate my physiology.
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I go crazy for a little bit.
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And then my brain short circuits.
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My heart can even short circuit it for a little while, and then the whole system shuts off.
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And even I want y 'all to really understand this.
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If you think that your life has fallen apart because you're a self -loathing man of inaction, think for a second.
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What are the causes of your current life?
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Self -loathing.
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So when you view yourself, when you literally have this thought, if we can inject these thoughts into any human brain,
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they will have a similar consequence.
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Self -loathing is an action.
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It is a mental action.
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It is a particular kind of thought.
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And those mental actions will lead to physical actions.
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And this kind of makes sense, right?
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If I think about taking a sip of water, that is what results in taking a sip of water.
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So this is where, and if you kind of think about it, right?
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If you're one of these people, what you find is that you're very drained at the end of the day, even though you've done nothing.
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What's draining you if you've done nothing?
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You've done a lot.
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You've done a lot of thinking.
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You've actually done a lot of physical action too.
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And this creates an inertia in the mind.
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It creates all kinds of effects in your mind
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and in your life that make it hard for you to act in the right way.
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So it's not that you have inaction.
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It is that you have an overabundance of wrong action.
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right?
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You've created a really problematic life, and you've created a very problematic thought process.
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A really good example of this is if I have a thought of suffering, if I feel some degree of suffering, what do I do?
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I reach for numbness, right?
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I feel hopeful.
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And if I feel hopeful, this hurts.
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My mind attaches.
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Be careful now.
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Be careful here, okay?
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When you feel hopeful, your mind attaches a fear to hope.
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This is an association.
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When I feel hopeful, I have learned to fear hope.
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And since I now fear hope, I need to shut off hope.
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And so then I reach for a numbing agent.
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Take your pick of whatever suppresses the limbic system.
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Video games, pornography, social media, marijuana, alcohol, whatever.
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Take your pick.
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And then we numb ourselves.
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We numb the fear.
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And along with it goes the hope.
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But then we create a huge problem.
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Because when we begin to numb ourselves, we shut off the part of our brain that motivates physical action.
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One of the most powerful motivators are our emotions.
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But there's too much negativity.
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Right?
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So we have to numb it.
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And therein lies the problem.
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The more that we numb the negativity, the more of the negativity builds up.
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So the first thing that we have to understand is that we are not men of inaction.
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We are men of an intense amount of action.
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And if you really stop and think about it, what does it take to screw up your life as much as you've screwed it up?
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Right?
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And I say this as someone who screwed up my life.
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It took a lot of effort to screw up my life the way that I screwed it up.
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It took struggle day in and day out.
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The amount of avoidance that I had to engage in was astronomical.
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The amount of like, I used to sneak out to my mailbox in the morning to steal my transcript
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so that my parents would not find it.
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Because if they found it, there would be consequences.
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And if there were consequences, then I would change.
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And if you really look at these self -loathing men of inaction,
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they work really, really, really hard to protect themselves of the consequences of their inaction.
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I'm going to avoid these people for the holidays.
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I'm not going to show up.
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I'm just going to ghost.
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You work really, really hard to avoid the consequences of your life.
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When you shut off your emotions and you shut off the consequences of your life, what ends up happening?
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You propagate along the same path, right?
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You're removing the things that stimulate what you would call action.
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Make sense?
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So this is not inaction.
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This is an immense amount of action, a lot of action, very difficult action.
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That's why it's so hard.
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That's why it's draining.
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And the more that you numb yourself, the more that your trash can starts to overflow, and then you have to cover it up with all kinds of things.
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Now I'm going to fill a whole room of my house with trash.
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I'm going to open the door, and I'm going to throw trash in, and I'm going to close it up.
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So if you really stop and think about it, what you will discover is that you are taking all kinds of mental actions.
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You are running away from things all the time.
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All the time.
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You're running, running, running, running, running.
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You're so busy running away from everything that you can't have anything to run towards, right?
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So achieving goals, building a life worth living is about running towards something, not running away from something for the most part.
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And then you end up with this life.
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So what do you do about this?
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The first thing is to do less.
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So in my case, I went to India for three months
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and did a whole lot of truly nothing to receive what the world sends your way, to start to respond to it.
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Don't try to steer the course of your life anymore.
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Let the fruit that you have been cultivating harvest it.
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See, as you start to do less, the consequences will start manifesting, and you have to absorb all of those consequences.
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It feels like it's too much, but it's not too much, right?
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All you have to do is actually nothing.
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Just let it come.
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In my case, you know, my parents would call me and I would avoid answering the phone because I didn't want to talk to them.
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Answer the phone, right?
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See, ignoring a phone call is an action.
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Ignoring a text message is an action.
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You look at the thing and you literally shut it off and then you turn to something else.
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You do something to distract your mind, okay?
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So if you want to know why people get stuck, I want to show you all a paper.
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So this is from a section on recovering from trauma, right?
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So if we look at someone who, let's say, is a self -loathing man of inaction, there are all kinds of events in the past that have scarred them.
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These people are essentially traumatized.
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So let's look at how we go about recovering from trauma.
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So here would be eye -opening, okay?
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Identified three factors that are associated with both natural recovery from trauma and reduction of PTSD severity via exposure therapy.
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The first factor is emotional engagement with the trauma memory.
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In natural recovery, emotional engagement refers to fear activation that occurs when one encounters a trauma reminder in the natural environment.
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Fear activation has been found to be positively associated with treatment outcome.
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We hypothesize that a lack of emotional engagement would be associated with poor natural recovery following a traumatic event.
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Dissociative symptoms, such as feelings of derealization, depersonalization during or following trauma or amnesia for information related to the trauma,
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have been conceptualized as strategies that reduce emotional engagement, right?
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So when we dissociate, we are reducing emotional engagement.
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So reduction of emotional engagement.
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Several studies have found that peritraumatic dissociation is associated with more severe PTSD.
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The more you dissociate, the worse you get.
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Okay, now here's what's really interesting.
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Consistent with this hypothesis,
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individuals whose peak symptom severity occurred within two weeks of the traumatic event were less symptomatic 14 weeks later.
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So the more it hurts and the faster it hurts, the better off you will be.
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Individuals whose symptoms peaked between two and six weeks after the event had more severe symptoms.
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Y 'all understand?
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The more it hurts, the better you get.
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And our self -loathing man of inaction is still delaying the emotions from middle school.
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You all see that?
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Interesting, no?
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So if you want to heal, you must stop.
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Stop.
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Whatever thoughts come, whatever emotions come, let them come.
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They're just thoughts.
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They're just emotions.
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They are not truth.
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This is another big problem that self -loathing men of inaction have.
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They believe that their mind is connected to the real world.
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This will happen, and this will happen, and this will happen.
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This is just a thought.
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it is an emotion.
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It's not reality.
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And you get so caught up in wanting, wishing, all this kind of stuff that you don't act.
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There's something that's messed up in the dopaminergic circuitry where wanting normally stimulates action.
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But in these people, something interesting has happened.
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So there are a couple of big problems that happen with self -loathing men of inaction.
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And one is that their dopaminergic circuitry gets miswired, okay?
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And it has to do with this kind of suppression.
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But let's understand this.
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So normally we have this thing called the nucleus accumbens, which releases dopamine.
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And then dopamine does a couple of things, okay?
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So we got to understand this.
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The first is that it induces cravings.
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Now here's what's really interesting.
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If we look at our dopamine over time, when we have a craving, we actually get the craving itself increases dopamine.
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And there are a couple, there's one really interesting reason for that.
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So I don't know if you all know this, but Parkinson's disease is a disease of movement, right?
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So they have things like cogwheel rigidity.
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They have difficulty walking.
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And the treatment for Parkinson's disease is something called L -DOPA.
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So we give these people dopamine.
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L -DOPA crosses the blood -brain barrier.
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That's why it's L -DOPA and it's converted to dopamine, and then their ability to move increases.
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So dopamine not only triggers cravings, it also triggers movement.
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So then what happens?
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So now I'm triggering movement, and then this will result in action, and then dopamine will start.
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And then once I act, or my action is completed, then I will get a big spike of dopamine.
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So I want something that initiates a behavioral change, and then once I engage in that behavior, I'll get a big spike of dopamine.
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Now for people like this, this is what I've sort of observed as a clinician, there is another thing that starts to happen.
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For some reason, when I get a craving, when I get a wanting of something, right?
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And then I want dopamine.
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There's another kind of neurological thing that sort of happens.
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So something about this wanting through associative learning also triggers an emotional response.
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And this is usually a negative emotion.
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So now our limbic system gets activated.
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So when, so if we go back to our man of learning, right?
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So it hurts when I smile.
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Things can only get worse.
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A little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.
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So as this person strives for something, right, they have a wanting,
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a parallel circuit, some kind of association has been created in the brain where they have a negative emotional response.
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Hopeless.
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Now, your brain looks at the situation and says, we are wanting dopamine and we have hopelessness.
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So the brain, remember, the brain is not working against you.
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It's just trying to do what it knows how to do.
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So it says we want some dopamine and we're feeling hopeless.
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What should we do?
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Then we get driven towards inaction.
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But this is not inaction.
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We're going to do something like play Vidya.
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So Vidya is going to suppress our limbic system and it is going to give us dopamine.
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You understand?
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You get two for one.
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So I want a girlfriend.
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I want a job.
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The absence of these things is going to trigger shame.
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And now our brain is like, okay, we need dopamine and we need to shut off our emotional circuitry.
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So we're going to do this.
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And now I've taken an action.
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Instead of actually resolving these problems, I've taken an action.
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Now what started happening is I recruit the endocannabinoid circuitry, and I'm forming a habit.
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Now my brain has learned.
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So the next time that I want something,
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this becomes a behavioral cue that triggers a neurological response,
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which then triggers an action, which then satisfies the issue.
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And so over time, these habitual men, these men of inaction are habituated, right?
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They have a habit of waking up every day and doing the same thing, right?
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Every day feels the same.
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Late 20s, early 30s, what's the difference.
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Six years, seven years, it's all the same.
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Every day your life is the same because you repeat the same actions over and over and again.
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It's not inaction, it's lots of action.
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And now you have built up an immense amount of karma because you have been engaging in this habitual cue response,
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dopaminergic emotional suppression.
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You've engaged in this stuff day after day after day after day after day after day after day.
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And remember that your brain, when neurons fire frequently, they strengthen their connections.
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This is associative learning.
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And so now your neurons are very well grooved.
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It's like when you have a game trail, right?
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So you have a field of grass, and then a mouse runs across and flattens some grass.
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And then you have a rabbit that looks at the grass and sees, oh, there's some flattened grass here.
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Let me run across it.
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And then the rabbit goes on that slightly flattened grass, flattens it more.
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Then you get like a deer that walks down there.
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And then you get a bison that walks down there.
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And then suddenly you have a game trail.
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And it becomes really, really, really easy to walk down the game trail.
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This is what happens in these people.
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So how do you change?
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So we're going to do a couple of things.
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So there are two modes of changing if you want to fix this.
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One is the more classic way, right?
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You take small actions, go to therapy, work on yourself, start journaling, meditate, whatever.
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But honestly, with the people that I've worked with,
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there is a degenerate way to transform your life and I would call this going unga bunga.
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See, small changes for people like this are hard
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because there's such a weight of like habit and all this kind of stuff.
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Like you got to go unga bunga.
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So you got to go like all in on one strategy.
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I'm not saying this is the best way.
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It's just what I've seen.
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And people are talking about monk mode.
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Like literally that's what I did, right I became I mean I didn't become I tried to become monk
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but I went through monk training you have to have a whole scale transformation of your life
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which is surprisingly easier than people think it is.
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So what I would say is you start to become a little bit more ascetic.
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Not a little bit more.
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We're going to go unga bunga.
456
We're going to put all our points in strength.
457
We're going to wield two great clubs.
458
No cosmetics, no fucking flask, no fucking buff, none of this like optimize your life kind of thing and like none of that stuff.
459
We're going to go hard.
460
And the reason that we need to go hard is because we do not want to trigger those behavioral cues.
461
So what I would consider, right, a couple of things.
462
So the first thing about going Ungabunga
463
is that you need to go see a doctor
464
and you need to make sure that something about your life is not like problematic.
465
So I would start with a medical evaluation.
466
You may need things like mental health treatment if you've got a mood disorder or things like that.
467
Going Ungabunga requires no like significant medical debuffs.
468
So I would go get a full physical and get some kind of mental status exam, get evaluated for whatever illnesses.
469
Now this is where we got to be careful
470
because I want y 'all to pay attention to what your response to that is.
471
So when I say go do this thing, what a lot of people will do is their mind will have a response.
472
I can't do this thing because of this.
473
I can't do this thing.
474
I can't afford a doctor.
475
I can't do this.
476
I can't do this.
477
It's hard for me, blah, whatever.
478
I'm not saying that any of those things are true.
479
This is where we have to like understand something else about the mind.
480
Where do thoughts come from?
481
So when we have a circuit that gets dopamine and suppresses emotions and has habits,
482
and I tell you to do something else, these circuits of the brain will then go and create thoughts.
483
This is what happens in an addict's brain, right?
484
So I want y 'all to understand this.
485
The thoughts in your head are not correct, or they're not incorrect, but the thoughts in your head, like where do the, I don't know if this makes any sense, so I'm going to try, okay?
486
So just like bear with me, this is fucking weird, but like y 'all got to think, okay?
487
Where do the thoughts in your head come from.
488
People will say, oh, the thoughts in my head come from truth.
489
But think about it for a second.
490
I'm talking about the mechanism.
491
Why does your, so there are times in your life where you've had good experiences and you've had bad experiences.
492
Why do you think about the bad experiences?
493
Why is it that that's the thing that floats from the unconscious into your conscious mind at a particular moment?
494
Do you understand that a part of your brain is making that selection?
495
A part of your brain is choosing what to open up on your desktop.
496
The biggest mistake that we make in life is we assume that the things that our brain produces
497
are because they are true.
498
This is factually false.
499
You can look at psychological defense mechanisms.
500
You can look at cognitive biases and depression.
501
You can look at trauma.
502
You can look at associative learning.
503
You can look at all kinds of conditioning.
504
It has nothing to do with truth.
505
It has to do with which part of your brain is running the show
506
because your brain is trying to motivate a behavior.
507
Remember, there's no inaction.
508
There's only action.
509
Everything you do is an action.
510
Even sitting still is an action.
511
So which part of your brain is running the show?
512
That part of your brain will float whatever thoughts are necessary
513
to get you to create the motivation to move you in the direction
514
that that part of the brain wants to go in.
515
And this stupidity of the brain is evolutionary.
516
So a great example of this is falling in love.
517
So when we fall in love, there is a part of our brain that goes to the risk assessment portion.
518
There's a part of our brain that calculates risk.
519
The part of our brain that falls in love goes and shuts that down.
520
So when you start dating someone and you are madly in love and your friends and family are like, I kind of see some red flags here.
521
You're like, I don't see red flags.
522
You're wrong.
523
And then when you look back on it, oh yeah, there were red flags.
524
I don't know why I didn't see them.
525
You didn't see them because that part of your brain was shut off
526
because there was another part of your brain that is running the show.
527
So you have a thought, but don't for a moment think that your thought correlates with truth.
528
And there's a really simple way to understand this.
529
A hopeless man of inaction, the self -loathing man of inaction, looks in the future and sees no hope.
530
I am blown away by this.
531
They're like, yeah, nothing will ever get better in my life.
532
Holy shit.
533
This is amazing.
534
They're like, what?
535
What do you mean?
536
I've never met a human being that can see the future.
537
Wow.
538
You should use your power for good if you can see the future.
539
No one can see the future.
540
It's just thoughts.
541
Now, those thoughts are there for a reason.
542
They will give me justifications.
543
You'll say, well, this happened, this happened, this happened.
544
The past happened this way.
545
Therefore, the future happened this way.
546
If it worked like that, the stock market would be easy.
547
And this is the really crazy thing.
548
So we take a karmic perspective.
549
The past happened that way is not deterministic.
550
I mean, in a sense, it's deterministic.
551
But the past happened that way because of what you did.
552
Your actions created that past.
553
You did not ask that person out.
554
That is why you hold on to the regret from middle school.
555
So the future that lays in front of you is not determined by the past.
556
It is determined by what you do now.
557
If you want a different future, take a different action.
558
And people will say, but I can't.
559
Well, now it doesn't work.
560
Where does that thought come from?
561
Which part of your brain is producing that thought?
562
I can't change.
563
Because here's the thing.
564
You guys want to know, if we're talking about a map hack, not an map hack, an aim hack,
565
The part of your brain that is addicted to video games has one trump card to play.
566
It'll convince you that you cannot change your life.
567
And the moment that your addiction convinces you that you can't change, what does it get to do?
568
100%.
569
I worked for a couple of years in addiction psychiatry.
570
The most common cognitive pattern that I saw was an addict's brain convincing them that they can't change.
571
Because the moment it convinces you that you can't change, do you just sit on your ass and do nothing?
572
No, you get high. Do you see?
573
So this is what y 'all need to understand.
574
Don't look at the content of your mind.
575
Look at the direction of your mind.
576
Look at your mind and ask yourself, if my mind says this, what does this mean?
577
What does this drive me toward?
578
What direction is it pointing?
579
And what you will see if you are a self -loathing man of inaction is
580
that all of your thoughts point in one direction, which you think is inaction but is not inaction.
581
Because you're not actually sitting on your ass, you're sitting on your phone.
582
Or you are sitting on your ass, which is an action.
583
It is all of the justifications that allow you to act in an inert manner.
584
And if you pay attention to yourself, you'll find there are poles for you to move out of there.
585
The other parts of your brain are screaming at you, let's do something else, let's do something else.
586
And the other parts of your brain, they try, they try to be angry with you, they try self love, they try listening to a Buddhist podcast, they try so many things,
587
all of these, there's 99 people in your brain that are screaming at you to do something else.
588
The problem is that only one person has the megaphone.
589
And so you continue to create this life every day that you live it because you act and these have consequences.
590
So what do you do about this?
591
So good news is that even the revelation of this is actually sufficient.
592
If you guys want to know what the real answer is, the awareness, the, how can I say this?
593
The zealous emphasis on awareness is enough to crack this cycle.
594
If you sit and you look at yourself and you look at all these thoughts, the more that you study them, these patterns will disappear.
595
Okay?
596
I know a lot of people don't believe that, but I really believe that to be true.
597
There's one really simple reason for this.
598
Remember that a lot of your actions and thoughts are habitual.
599
So the thing about the endocannabinoid circuitry, the habit circuitry, is the habit circuitry is not active when you are aware.
600
The whole point of habitual action, it is action done without awareness.
601
It is put on autopilot.
602
You can't be autopilot and be aware at the same time.
603
So if there's any autopilot behavior you have, The more you increase awareness, literally a separate part of your brain activates.
604
The endocannabinoid circuitry is your habit circuitry.
605
The awareness circuitry involves your anterior cingulate cortex.
606
And your anterior cingulate cortex is also where willpower comes from.
607
Awareness and willpower come from activation of the same part of the brain.
608
And if you kind of think about it, that makes sense, right?
609
So if I have a habit, it requires no willpower and has no awareness.
610
The moment that I start start exerting willpower, you cannot exert willpower without awareness.
611
Does that make sense too?
612
I want you all to stop and think about that for a second.
613
Anytime you exert willpower, you are aware.
614
It's like, I want to pick this up with my right hand, but instead I need to force myself to pick it up with my left hand.
615
Awareness and willpower not only go hand in hand, they are neuroscientifically the same thing.
616
Staggering.
617
Yogis have known this for thousands of years.
618
You don't need to fix your problems.
619
You just need to be aware of them.
620
There's a great, we have a video all about that too, about how willpower and awareness are one and the same thing.
621
Okay.
622
So awareness is sufficient, but we're going to talk about unga bunga mode.
623
So what I would do is first go to a doctor
624
and then your mind will come up with all kinds of problems.
625
That's fine.
626
It's not that those problems don't exist.
627
Those are just problems to be solved, right?
628
So if you say, oh, I don't have a doctor.
629
Well, then you should Google search something in your area and sign up.
630
Well, I don't have insurance.
631
I can't afford a doctor.
632
Well, then you should Google search, how do I get medical care if I have no insurance or I have no money, right?
633
So each objection that your mind raises is a task to be completed and watch what happens.
634
Okay.
635
I'm going to tell you all what'll happen.
636
Each thing that happens once your mind, once your brain learns that you're doing this, it will start to pull out other tools, right?
637
So it's like you're playing SF6 and you're blocking all the time.
638
So your brain is going to use a throw.
639
So then suddenly you'll notice something very interesting.
640
You feel tired.
641
You'll do it tomorrow.
642
See the first and watch.
643
Okay.
644
Cause your brain in this way is going to be kind of like the liquid thing in Terminator 2
645
that changes shapes, right?
646
It's like the mimic tier, where once you start doing this, your brain will adapt.
647
It'll say, oh my God, this guy isn't, when I tell him it's not going to work, it's not working anymore.
648
So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to create energia.
649
I'm going to reduce his energy level because it's running the show.
650
It's going to places like your reticular activating formation it says, make this guy tired.
651
And the reticular activating formation says, aye, aye, sir, we are now tired.
652
We cannot do this today.
653
And it will tell you this, look at the direction.
654
Look at the direction.
655
You'll feel all kinds of things, all sorts of stuff.
656
And then that won't work.
657
You force yourself to do it.
658
And then what will the mind do?
659
The mind will be like, oh my God, why didn't you do this a long time ago?
660
Now that we're moving in the right direction, you should have done this.
661
If only you'd done this eight years ago, then you wouldn't be here.
662
It twists and it turns.
663
It changes shape, and it always wants you to move in the wrong direction.
664
Watch it.
665
It'll happen.
666
This is why you need to be steer, stable, steady.
667
You will win.
668
This is a war that your brain cannot win.
669
All it can do is get you to surrender.
670
If it fights, it will lose 100 % of the time.
671
All it can do is trick you into surrendering, and it will try time and time and time again.
672
So this is enough, honestly, but we'll give you more.
673
So once you look at all the different things, just notice what happens.
674
And the conception that I would even offer is like, think about it like an external object.
675
Think about it like a demon that is trying to tempt you away from fixing your life.
676
And it will use your brain against you.
677
So what you need to do is just notice these things, notice as much as you can, notice the direction.
678
Now, the reason we say start with a doctor is
679
because there could be certain things that are physiologically not working for you.
680
If you have anemia, if you have obstructive sleep apnea, if you have vitamin D deficiency, if you have a thyroid problem,
681
there are many common things that will lead to low mood and low energy.
682
We have to deal with those things.
683
If you have something like a full -fledged mood disorder, you may need some kind of pharmacologic treatment, psychotherapy, whatever.
684
So engage with that.
685
That's step number one.
686
Step number two, find yourself some duct tape.
687
And duct tape out a square that is maybe anywhere from six feet by six feet to eight by ten or whatever.
688
Create a space that is going to be your temple.
689
Take a sleeping bag, take a pillow, lay down there.
690
That is where you sleep from now on.
691
That is where you exist from now on.
692
Spend as much of your time as you can in this six by six square.
693
Okay, we'll talk about leaving the house.
694
But in your home, look at all of the places you go that result in your quote unquote inaction.
695
We're going to stay away from these places.
696
I really like a patch on the floor.
697
So I'm going to study there.
698
I'm going to sleep there.
699
I'm gonna do calisthenics there.
700
You're going to exist in that space.
701
right?
702
You're going to leave the place.
703
If you need groceries, you need to use the bathroom, you need to shower, you need to go to work, like whatever.
704
If there's a fire in the building, get out.
705
But as much of your time as you can, you are going to exist in that square.
706
And this is where you have to be kind of careful
707
because your mind will want you to get out of the square.
708
Oh, I need to do this.
709
I need to do this.
710
I need to do this.
711
I'm bored here.
712
So be it.
713
The action that we are going to take is developing a resistance to boredom.
714
We're going to tank that boredom damage.
715
So in my case, what I did was I slept there.
716
I exercised there.
717
I did yoga there.
718
I meditated there.
719
So you start to exist.
720
I even read there as much as I could.
721
I also had a small table without a chair.
722
So I moved out of there and I would do my work there.
723
This is also where you got to go hard on the devices.
724
So it's time to do it.
725
Uninstall all of the extraneous things.
726
Watch the direction of your mind as it tries to tell you, oh, we need this for work.
727
So I'd say anything that can be done on a computer should not be done on your phone.
728
If you absolutely need it on your phone, that's one thing.
729
Remove everything else.
730
Change your phone to grayscale.
731
Uninstall all of the extraneous software off of your computer.
732
Install an app that blocks whatever websites you waste your time on.
733
Do all of these things.
734
Right?
735
So these things can be done within 30 minutes.
736
That's all it takes.
737
Fixing your tech is going to be 30 minutes.
738
That's it.
739
Now, notice all the rebellion that will happen in your mind.
740
You're worried about cracking and all that kind of crap.
741
Whatever.
742
Now we're going ungabunga.
743
99 points in strength, nothing else.
744
No cosmetics, no this.
745
Don't worry about that.
746
Next thing that we need to do is fix our diet.
747
Ungabungas don't eat that trash that you eat.
748
They eat ungabunga food.
749
Simple food.
750
Poor people food.
751
Rice, beans, vegetables.
752
Maybe some seasoning if you want it.
753
Food is no longer a source of pleasure.
754
food is sustenance you're eating for survival you are eating you're
755
no longer living to eat you are eating to live
756
so it should be nutritious rice beans veggies fruits ideally nothing processed right
757
so you don't need twinkies you don't need chips you don't need frozen food i mean
758
if you need it that's a different story frozen veggies you know seasoning is like fine
759
if you want to do some of it but you don't usually need seasoning there's some good micronutrients and stuff in seasoning.
760
If you want to use herbs and stuff, whatever.
761
People are asking about meat.
762
Ideally, less so.
763
Some meat is okay.
764
Eggs are okay.
765
Don't really need cheese.
766
Milk, I guess, is okay.
767
This is unga bunga mode.
768
And then it is the tolerance of these things.
769
That's it.
770
If you have to go to work, you go to work.
771
People will say, but what about goals?
772
What about this?
773
What about this?
774
What about this?
775
Well, that stuff will come.
776
You do this for a weekend.
777
Do it for a week. Do it.
778
I mean, if you need to go to work, that's a different story.
779
If you need to go get groceries, go get groceries.
780
But when you go to the grocery store, it's not about pleasure.
781
And what I want you all to do when you enter unga bunga mode is just notice your mind.
782
And your mind will get desperate.
783
It'll use all kinds of techniques to get you to stop.
784
It'll twist and turn.
785
If you develop your good awareness, you will see it panicking.
786
And when it starts to panic, you know you're winning.
787
You've always been winning.
788
You can always win.
789
The only time you lose is when you surrender.
790
And then people will ask, this is another tool the mind will use.
791
They'll say, for how long?
792
Until you're done.
793
Right?
794
So this is another technique that the mind uses to foster inaction.
795
It adds the dimension of time.
796
I should have done it a long time ago.
797
This is never going to work.
798
How long do I have to keep this up?
799
I can't keep this up forever.
800
And all of those things, what is the direction?
801
Abandon your efforts.
802
One direction.
803
You look at the direction.
804
It's one way, right?
805
Now, you want to make sure your diet doesn't have things like nutritional deficiencies and stuff like that.
806
So be safe, be healthy.
807
But this is something that you can do today.
808
Find your six by six square.
809
Learn yoga.
810
Do asana every day.
811
Do pranayam every day.
812
Sit and meditate.
813
Get yourself a set of prayer beads and do om chanting for 108 rounds.
814
Very simple.
815
Chant om 108 times every single day.
816
Now, when you do this kind of stuff, this is really important.
817
The reason that we go in this drastic way is we want to remove all of our cues.
818
So do whatever you can to remove the cues that lead to bad behavior.
819
Uninstall discord.
820
Log out of the extraneous stuff.
821
Go to a different grocery store.
822
Very important.
823
And then your life will be different.
824
You want to transform your life into a temple devoted to you.
825
Now, this word devotion is important.
826
See, devotion is done towards someone else.
827
So all of the actions that you take, the actor is going to receive zero dopamine, zero benefit from it.
828
Someone else will receive the benefit of it.
829
That's what we mean.
830
It's almost like fragmenting yourself into the object of your devotion.
831
And if we really think about it, the self -loathing man of inaction is the other way around.
832
Every action that is taken is for the benefit of the doer.
833
So I'm going to skip school today so that I can stay home and play video games.
834
That benefits the me.
835
Doesn't benefit future me.
836
Devote yourself to your benefit and recognize that you will never see the benefit of this.
837
Right?
838
The person who is the actor gets nothing.
839
This is what gurus were really good at teaching that we've lost.
840
We've become so selfish.
841
see when we have a society
842
that advocates for me first how is your brain supposed to know
843
which part of me first is good and which part is bad
844
if it's all about me me me me me then video
845
games dopamine pornography drugs whatever that's me my benefit now here now we're all short term
846
and we're all about me
847
so what do we expect there's no sense of community there's no sense to the greater good, right?
848
And why do we say this?
849
Well, that person over there doesn't give a shit about the greater good, so why should I?
850
Why should I do something that benefits someone else if it doesn't benefit me, if they're not going to do the same?
851
There's no reciprocity, so I'm not going to do it.
852
Absolutely, that's the nature of the world.
853
You're prioritizing yourself.
854
You're doing the same thing that they're doing.
855
We're all doing the same thing.
856
That's why the world is in the shitty state that it's in.
857
Do something for someone else.
858
There are studies that show that people who are depressed, who offer support, feel better.
859
What do we see in our mental health spaces today?
860
Venting, venting, venting.
861
It's all about my problems, my problems, my problems.
862
I am hurt.
863
I am wounded.
864
I am a victim.
865
I need help.
866
Just fair enough.
867
It's my job as a medical doctor to help people who need help.
868
I get it.
869
I think it's good to help people who need help.
870
And also, just because you need help doesn't mean that you can't give help.
871
I learned this doing Boston Street Team and working with homeless people.
872
The most giving people on the planet are homeless people.
873
Crazy.
874
You give one homeless dude five bucks, instead of buying two things for themselves, they'll buy one thing for themselves and one thing for their buddy.
875
Most charitable people on the planet are homeless people.
876
So going back to unga bunga mode, you do this for a week, and then you'll discover something,
877
that the action that you take creates the life that you live.
878
See, we think that our identity determines our actions.
879
Those people are successful because they are winners, and I am unsuccessful because I am a loser.
880
Our identity narrows the scope of the actions that we're allowed to take.
881
That's the truth of it.
882
So the actions that you take determine who you are, not the other way around.
883
So if you're a self -loathing man of inaction, that can change today through your action.
884
The self -loathing man of inaction became that way because of their actions.
885
The self -loathing man does not determine their actions.
886
It's the other way around.
887
And you propagate it through your actions every single day.
888
And this is why like a lot of people, you know, some people think I'm prideful.
889
Some people think I am humble.
890
I'm neither.
891
I think maybe that's prideful to say, who knows?
892
So I don't know if you'll notice what I just did there.
893
I'm aware, right?
894
So I don't know.
895
This is a statement from ego, not ego.
896
I don't know.
897
Let's just be aware of it.
898
Maybe that's a statement of utter ego.
899
Maybe that's the most egotistical.
900
I am neither humble nor egotistical.
901
I'm transcended. So I notice.
902
Hopefully y 'all can notice with me.
903
And then just to be on the safe side, I make fun of myself a little bit.
904
Let's just be aware.
905
So I'm neither of those things.
906
I'm just me.
907
I'm the same guy who failed out of college, and I'm the same guy who was faculty at Harvard Medical School.
908
Got an award of academic achievement when I finished medical school.
909
Same kid, same guy, same human.
910
The only difference is the actions.
911
That's the only difference.
912
So if you're a self -loathing man of inaction, take different actions, and then you will become something else.
913
Hey y 'all, hope you enjoyed today's video.
914
We talk about a bunch of topics like this on the channel, so be sure to subscribe for more.
915
If you're already subscribed, GG, and we'll see you in chat.
916
um um
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Self Loathing Man of Inaction”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: action, inaction, brain. This video has 915 sentences and 9228 words to shadow. The speech runs for 55:13. The speaker talks at a natural 167 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| inaction noun | /ɪnˈækʃən/ | Lack of action or activity or labor |
| dopamine noun | /ˈdoʊ.pəˌmin/ | A monoamine C₈H₁₁NO₂ that is a decarboxylated form of dopa, present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including adrenalin. |
| loathe verb | /ˈloʊð/ | To detest, hate, or revile (someone or something). |
| consequence noun | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | An effect; something that follows a cause as a result. |
| circuitry noun | /ˈsɝkətɹi/ | A specific system of electrical circuits in a particular device; (uncountable) the design of such a system. |
| willpower noun | /ˈwɪlˌpaʊɚ/ | The unwavering strength of will to carry out one's wishes. |
| numb adjective | /nʌm/ | Physically unable to feel, not having the power of sensation. |
| unga noun | Sarotherodon linnellii, a cichlid endemic to Lake Barombi Mbo in western Cameroon. | |
| karma noun | /kərm(ə)/ | The sum total of a person's actions, which determine the person's next incarnation in samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth. |
| craving noun | /ˈkɹeɪ.vɪŋ/ | A strong desire; yearning. |
| hopeless adjective | /ˈhoʊplɪs/ | Without hope; despairing; not expecting anything positive. |
| flatten verb | /ˈflæ.tən/ | To make something flat or flatter. |
| habitual adjective | /həˈbɪ.t͡ʃʊ.əl/ | Of or relating to a habit; established as a habit; performed over and over again; recurrent, recurring. |
| hopeful adjective | /ˈhoʊpfl̩/ | feeling hope |
| obsession noun | /əbˈsɛʃən/ | The quality of being obsessed; an unshakeable feeling that one topic or activity must be pursued above other interests. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| shut off verb | To stop or turn off by closing something, such as a valve. | |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| run away from verb | To avoid or shirk a problem or consequences; to rush to back away from or disclaim responsibility for something. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| fall apart verb | To disintegrate, to break into pieces. | |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Why should I do anything?
- What are the causes of your current life?
- What's draining you if you've done nothing?
- Why do you think about the bad experiences?
- I think maybe that's prideful to say, who knows?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if i could do it i would have · if I am at neutral, will result · if they found it, there would be |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been cultivating · have been engaging · You've always been winning |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to do · used to sneak |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | You've given · has been · has lost |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 217 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: loathe /ˈloʊð/, psychotherapy /ˌsaɪkoʊˈθɛɹəpi/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: inaction /ɪnˈækʃən/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/, associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, devotion /dɪˈvoʊʃən/, activation /ˌæktəˈveɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: habitual /həˈbɪ.t͡ʃʊ.əl/, associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, autopilot /ˈɔtoʊˌpaɪlət/, dopaminergic /ˌdəʊ.pə.mɪˈnɜː.d͡ʒɪk/, extraneous /ɛkˈstɹeɪ.ni.əs/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like inaction, dopamine, loathe.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.