Advertise on podcast: Stream of Subconsciousness

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com “True honesty requires courage, character, and integrity. (It is) a very expensive gift; don’t expect it from cheap people.” — Frank Caprio, municipal court judge I’m starting to think the most important aspect of change is courage. Of my Big Three elements for successful counseling—courage, commitment, and honesty—courage must come first, not necessarily in importance but in time. It’s courage that you need to get started, and when you need to decide but don’t know what to do. It’s courage that you need to make a change when you’re not sure what will result. • Dragons • Soldiers • Responsibility is Not Heroic • Courage Sticks, Cowardice Slips • My Evidence, Your Evidence • Emotional Dysregulation • Is There a Middle Ground? • Paths to Courage

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. It Starts with the Mind I’m writing three related posts: “Learn to Be Smart,” “The Psychology of Culture,” and “A.I. Defeats Consultants.” They all have to do with how we take or lose control. What comes first: controlling or having something to control? Regaining control after you’ve lost it, or losing control when you previously had it? Historically, losing control comes first. As Joni Mitchell sang, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” So too, realizing you have something must happen before you can apply it or recover it. We start by reacting, then learn by experience, and finally gain insight. Realizing our potential is like turning swords into plowshares; shifting from being defensive to productive. We should consider our abilities and find ways to apply them. Our basic human ability is being “smart.” We often regret our decisions, feeling like we misjudged the situation or missed an opportunity. “Bringing a knife to a gunfight” may be an unnecessarily aggressive metaphor but I have resolved to be more assertive. The expression refers to situations you’re either underestimating or not taking seriously. Perhaps “showing up drunk for your drivers test” might be a better metaphor for how we approach self-awareness. I’m tired of people who are indifferent to acting intelligently, which I call being stupid, and I’ve become more inclined to point it out. I want to call out bad thinking before it leads to bad conclusions. People normally disguise poor thinking with some plausible rationale, so if you get the whiff of bad thinking, you’re probably seeing through the disguise. I made a pitch to speak with a podcaster interested in ecological conservation. I suggested we talk about why people are not more engaged with the environment. He responded, “My podcast is quite tightly focused on ecology, conservation, and human-wildlife interactions, and I don’t think your angle would be a strong fit for my audience.” I told him he was being small minded and missing the real issue, which is not conservation. The real issue is the failure of people to be aware of their responsibility and to be stewards of the environment. I’m sure he’ll be offended, but offending people has become my litmus test: if I’m not offending anyone, then I’m not trying hard enough. Another example is family partnerships that break up because one person is frustrated, doesn’t know how to change, and doesn’t know how to engage. From my experience as a counselor, the inability to problem solve lies at the root of most relationship struggles. It is more due to a lack of self-awareness and commitment than to the difficulty of the problem. I consider this being intentionally stupid. It’s also been called functional stupidity. “Functional stupidity is the absence of reflection on the purpose or the wider context of a job. You do the job correctly, focusing on the technical details but stop searching for questions about the work. Three aspects characterize functional stupidity: • Lack of reflexivity: You don’t think about your assumptions.• Lack of justification: You don’t ask why you’re doing something.• Lack of substantive reasoning: You don’t consider the consequences or wider meaning of your actions. Wishful thinking, following leaders without scrutiny, unreasoning zeal for fads and fashions, senseless imitation of others and the use of clichés in place of careful analysis are examples of functional stupidity.” — David Wagner (2024), from The Stupidity Paradox Smartness is Part of One’s Personality Smartness is not an aptitude, it’s a choice. Each person certainly has aptitudes, but a lack of aptitude does not excuse a person’s bad decisions. You continue to be responsible for your decisions regardless of your ability. You’re obliged to know what you’re capable of. I used to think that any person could be smart, and that they could develop themselves in any way. I used to think that the ranking of students was exploitative, and anyone could achieve what they set their mind to accomplishing. I felt that you should not tell people what or how to learn and instead you should support each person’s unique abilities on their path of growth. I still believe that to some extent, but I’ve also come to believe that most people, while capable on an everyday level, lack the personal responsibility and priorities to be smart; not just act smart but think smart. Their primary obstacles are a lack of courage, commitment, and honesty. This is not the usual definition of smart, which focuses on what you can do. Instead, it’s a redefinition of “smart” in terms of what a person intends to do. It has more to do with integrity than ability. When I was young I used to listen to myself talk to myself. I felt like my self-talk was being recorded on a slightly delayed tape loop. Now that I know more about self-awareness, hypnosis, and trance states I believe we are hypnotized by our own voice. A hypnotherapist can use their outside voice to put ideas into your head, but our self-talk does the same thing. We believe what we say, and the more we say it, the more we believe it. This is intentional because it strengthens our emotional connection with our intellectual ideas, but it is not intelligent. Our voice echoes in our heads to inculcate us by repetition, similar to writing something on the blackboard one hundred times. Few people take seriously their obligation to be creative problem solvers. They lack the humility to explore their ignorance, and the self-confidence to fail while retaining their sense of purpose. I partly blame poor role models and a poor learning environment. That means indifferent parents, teachers, managers, friends, and politicians. The people from whom you’ll learn the most are those who share your struggles, risks, and rewards. They will gain when you gain, and lose when you fail to understand. Most people could achieve success if they took their responsibility to grow, support, and contribute seriously, but they don’t understand their lack of ability. They don’t see or own the skills they lack, and have become insensitive to problems of their own creation. For more ideas on how to regain intelligence, mostly yours but maybe others, book a free call on my calendar at: Taking Responsibility “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”— Mark Twain Here are three experiences that taught me to take responsibility for my situation. First, I took classical guitar lessons for ten years, from the ages of 10 to 20. What I learned was that I don’t have the interest to devote myself to the level that’s necessary to be a musician, so I stopped. I didn’t stop because I lacked the ability, I stopped because I lacked the drive. I might have the drive to produce some kind of music, but not that kind. The second was high-risk outdoor activities. Mountaineering was a perfect situation for learning: if you didn’t take the situation and your role in it seriously, then someone could easily die. I climbed with quite a few irresponsible people. This taught me that both I had to be responsible and I had to demand responsibility from others. Skill is separate from responsibility; they are separate forces. A person must be clear and responsible in both regards. The third experience is childhood. As a therapist, I experience other people’s childhoods as a showcase of failures. The lesson of childhood is that it is not until you take responsibility for yourself that you start to gain insight into other people’s thoughts and how things get done. Until you can see the importance of understanding things before you act, you cannot see how poorly other people understand and how badly they behave. The lessons I’m referring to are partly emotional and associative, where associative refers to thinking broadly and creatively. There is a skill to this kind of thinking just as much as there’s a skill to thinking intellectually. Thinking of any kind starts with taking the situation seriously, and this applies to both problems and opportunities. People feel they don’t understand poetry, art, music, science, or history because they feel unskilled in these areas. Consequently, they don’t value, explore, or learn from them. These areas are made exclusive because their similarities are overlooked. They are less appreciated, have less effect on culture, and “normal” awareness shrinks to either exclude them, or include them in trivial forms. The Blindness of Being Clever Sidney Colman was a Harvard physics professor who was great at explaining things but didn’t like mentoring students. He was likened to a combination of Einstein and Woody Allen because of his depth and wit. He was more conventional than Einstein, less of a comedian than Allen, and better at explaining things than either of them. He was illuminating and funny in his own way. I wasn’t Coleman’s student, though I watched his lectures on videotape. I was able to spend an hour speaking with him before I entered a graduate program. A measure of one’s expertise is their ability to explain things to someone who knows none of the details and, at the time, I knew none of the details. I asked Coleman why he was interested in physics and what I might gain from it. I remember he expressed great remorse regarding having so much expertise in the conventional understanding of so many fields and that he was not more imaginative. He said that if he had applied what he knew to black holes then he would have discovered that they could evaporate. Instead Stephen Hawking first had the idea and Sidney was left to explain it. Sidney needed to do what I often tell my clients to do:

Julian Bermudez sits down with Lincoln Stoller—a quantum physicist, neuropsychologist, hypnotherapist, clinical counselor, psychonaut, mountaineer, author, and educator—to talk about personal growth and spiritual bypassing. Julian Bermudez is a therapist and counselor specializing in the use of psychedelics for healing, transformation, and personal growth. Here psychedelic refers not only to substances, but to the process of awakening—moments when illusions soften, unconscious patterns come into awareness, and real accountability and responsibility become possible. The result is healing. There are many paths to get there. Learn more at https://www.psychedelic-integration.net/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

JD Tremblay is the director of high performance and mental resilience at Hungry Warrior Academy at hungrywarrioracademy.com JD describes himself as: “As an integrated engineer, military veteran, naturopathic practitioner, and ultra-endurance athlete, I’ve tested human limits in some of the toughest environments on the planet, including the EpicDeca, where I became one of only three people ever to complete 10 Ironman-distance triathlons in 10 consecutive days across six Hawaiian Islands.” His Hungry Warrior Academy: “integrates cutting-edge human performance science with faith-centered principles to help Christian men operate at the highest level in every area of life. Whether it’s chronic stress, burnout, declining energy, loss of physical edge, or misalignment between success and purpose, we equip you with the systems to perform, lead, and live with clarity.” with the goals of * Maintaining clarity, discipline, and control. * Operating at your true physical capacity. * Living fully aligned with your spiritual values. JD is, as I am, both a coach and a therapist. We both aim to move people and culture to a more enlightened and effective level. We both have a strong psycho-physical approach, though his approach is more fitness and physical achievement oriented. We both look at the whole person. On the other hand, JD’s program incorporates religion and encourages structure, while I avoid religion and engage chaos. Other than that, we’re on the same path. In this interview I focus on JD’s program and how he assembles spirit, religion, physiology, psychotherapy, and leadership. His program has a predefined structure and demands adherence to his program. At the same time, he customizes his program to the needs and abilities of each client. If you just want to listen to the audio, you can stream or download it here: Learn more on the Hungry Warrior website at: https://hungrywarrioracademy.com / This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Michael has hosted 162 episodes of his Brain Shaman podcast at https://www.brainshaman.com, which he describes as a philosophical and scientific journey towards better brain health. "A podcast that teaches you how to reconnect with your primordial nature, reprogram your brain, regain your freedom, and redirect your life."  This sounded much like what I'm doing, so he hosted me for another of his podcast episodes and here I have hosted him on mine. The difference is that the host is supposed to do less talking and the guest more. I asked him about his background (Mormon), his interests (philosophy), and his profession (teaching English in Japan). These seemed disconnected to me, so I worked to pry more out of him. Despite our different backgrounds we have similar interests and aims. It is curious to compare these two pictures of ourselves and to notice how similar they are: same eyes, same organic background and asymmetrical smiles. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com • Moving Forward Most of us stop learning when we reach the plateau that our environment requires. Personal needs and social forces are satisfied when we resolve a situation. It’s natural to take a break and relax, but in doing so we risk becoming complacent and compliant. The rewards of satisfaction are limited. It’s not enough to be a learner, you must be a skeptic. You must focus on what might be possible, not what others say is there or can’t be done. Learning to be smart takes a sense of direction and a measure of disbelief... • Flying • People Make Their Environment • Love of Things • Love is Not a Noun • Attachment is a Verb

In this episode, we sit down with Lincoln Stoller — physicist, hypnotherapist, psychedelic explorer, and founder of Mind Strength Balance (https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com)— to discuss the transformative power of psychedelics. Lincoln’s work spans the intersection of neuroscience, altered states of consciousness, and deep personal growth, making this a conversation unlike any other. Topics we cover: * The science and spirituality of psychedelic experiences. * How psychedelics can break old mental patterns and open new pathways to healing. * The difference between recreational use and intentional, therapeutic use. ​Whether you’re curious about microdosing, preparing for a journey, or just exploring the edges of the mind, this episode will challenge what you think you know about self-awareness and human potential. on Spotify On the Challenge By Challenge website: https://www.changebychallenge.com/podcast This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” — Robert Anthony Lacking a Sense of Virtue Insecurity, guilt, and shame are powerful personal and political weapons. Once an opponent is accused of these, they are on the defensive. Once a point of view has been tainted as guilty or shameful, it is difficult to defend. The reason these emotional manipulations are powerful is that emotion always overpowers reason. Emotion so overpowers reason that it’s an emotion connection that gives a person persuasive power, not reason or intellect. The general term for being emotionally overpowered is seduction, a combination of satisfying your emotional wants and neutralizing your reasonable powers. A psychological ploy used in political or personal discourse applies these “tools” to defeat an opponent. This involves accusing another person of insecurity, guilt, and shame which, when done skillfully, undermines their certitude and virtue. For those people who are guided by emotion, which is most of us, appeals to emotion overwhelm reason. This is what Trumpian politics has normalized with negative labeling, such as “sleepy Joe,” “half Whitmer,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Marjorie Traitor Green,” and many others. By attaching simple epithets of flaw and failure Trump implants these ideas in the minds of simple listeners. This is not charisma, it is emotional seduction. It leads insecure people back to the emotions of their adolescence to accept simple truths. The Pied Piper is the appropriate fable of manipulation and collective failure. According to this fable, the Piper’s retribution of stealing away the children is the result of the town’s reneging on their agreement to pay him for removing the rats. The children are never recovered. The Devil The ultimate explanation for failure is that the Devil is responsible. If you cannot convince people that your opponent is stupid, then call them evil. There is the odd use of The Devil as an excuse for yourself. By admitting your failure and renouncing your allegiance you can be absolved. Modern absolution provides a full pardon, and only requires a donation and a pledge of subservience. The Devil provides an ever-ready reason to indict an opponent and exonerate yourself. Having these handy rationales is why people are drawn to judgmental religions in the first place. Sanctifying the virtuous while overriding your opponent’s explanations... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Lincoln Stoller works to coach entrepreneurs to be more effective, and counsel those struggling with life to better navigate issues of anger, shame, and low self-esteem. In fact, he tries to do all of these things with all his clients. With experience in psychotherapy, physics, high-risk sports, and mind-body healing, he provides insights into how these emotions manifest in business and personal life. He emphasizes seeing the role you play in defining your reality, and how changing your understanding can give you new options. By recognize the importance of emotional triggers, managing emotions, connecting with your subconscious mind, and building self-confidence you can develop commitment, improve decision-making, and take on a leadership role for those around you. The full video version of our interview can be streamed at these websites: YouTube: Spotify: Apple: Audible: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0F1N4XHQT?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp Amazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/39af5ee4-75f1-4a85-8ce0-60a4a3199985/episodes/94d2653a-ce75-47a4-b7df-03fd25098267/heal-podcast---lily-patrascu-heal-anger-shame-and-low-self-esteem---lincoln-stoller-and-lily-patrascu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7307508165233807363 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

I did a livestream with Terraine Lebeau, a Rasta from Toronto who complements his day job as a bank manager with life coaching and podcasting. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of The Healing Side, Donald Dunn sits down with Lincoln Stoller—physicist turned psychotherapist—whose personal journey bridges science, spirit, and psychology into a unified approach to understanding the mind. Lincoln shares how quantum mechanics, mountaineering, cultural immersion, and therapy converge in his work through the hidden language of dreams, the nature of trauma, and why altered states of awareness reveal truths ordinary thinking cannot reach. We talk about PTSD and anger, symbolism and self-actualization, and why “empty space”—not constant productivity—is where true growth begins. This episode is about overcoming adversity at the inner level. The difference between chosen risk and imposed trauma; why anger works in war but fails in civilian life; and how fear and projection become tools for healing. If you’ve ever wondered how science and spirituality truly meet—or how healing actually begins—this conversation invites you to expand how you understand yourself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com “Perspective: use it or lose it.” — Richard Bach The expression “use it or lose it” applies to health and skill, but not to other things to which it could be applied, such as emotion, initiative, motivation, empathy, self-respect, and responsibility, just to name a few. Does it also apply to democracy? • Is Doing the Right Thing a Privilege or a Responsibility? • Intellectual Ability and Exercise • Physical Ability and Exercise • Emotional Ability and Exercise • Can We Lose Our Ability to Symbolize? • Use or Lose Democracy?

Dreaming Yourself Into Being and Dream Fragments are my final volumes in a quadrilogy of books on sleep, awareness, and dreams. The first book is The Path to Sleep, the second is Becoming Lucid. Both deal with sleep, dreams, and altered states, while these books specifically focuses on understanding, participating in, and benefiting from their dreams. * Why We Dream* What Dreams Are* What Dreams Do* How Dreams Work* How Our Minds Work* How to Remember Dreams* Becoming Involved in Your Dreams* Dark Dreams* Building Light into Dreams* Using Daydreams* Starting the Process of Transformation Dreaming Yourself Into Being includes 6 hypnosis inductions leading into the fundamental symbols of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and body. Dreams remind you that you’re still exploring the conflicts and opportunities in life. In waking life you’re too busy dealing with situations to go off on tangents, but you can in your dreams, to try on new feelings and attitudes. Dreams are workshops that confront confusion, engage emotions, and build different views of reality. In your dreams you can afford to feel as weak, indulge your fears, and assemble a stronger self. They don’t give you instructions, they unearth your feelings. Mental health is not a rational process but it does involve your rational mind. You must feel before you think, and imagine before you see. Dreams are your most powerful tool for growth and understanding. In this Kickstarter campaign I’m offering the book Dreaming Yourself Into Being, and a shorter book of excerpts, Dream Fragments—both at cost and in various forms: digital, print, and audio. To sponsor the campaign, preorder the book, or register for group or private sessions in dreamwork training, go to: As part of the campaign I’m offering my online course on therapeutic dreamwork. Sign up on the Kickstarter page. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com “Let us consider that we are all partly insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things...” — Mark Twain. — Divergence is Not Dysfunctional This post is about social and collective thought. I previously made the point that people are uncomfortable talking about insanity, and this underlies the stigma it carries. There is a trend to whitewash insanity and cast it as divergent thinking, but this is a thin euphemism. Insanity is not divergent, it’s dysfunctional ... — Superior People Prejudice always disguises its reasons. Minorities were cast as inferior, women as unintelligent, and the poor as naturally unable. Whether the object of disdain was a race, religion, gender, or class, there was always someone putting forward a logical reason. A psychologist with a psychological assessment often provided the evidence... — Duality Versus Distinction There is a spiritual cred of “nondualists” who endorse the unity of all. Despite what these nonthinkers say, duality is the foundation of reasoned behavior. Whether you act rationally, emotionally, or symbolically you must contrast ideas, feelings, and options... — When Madness Develops... — Reaching the Civic Limit... — You Would Not Be So Foolish...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com “I’m a curious person. That, I think, is a quality that’s necessary for education: if you’re not curious then you’re not interested, and if you’re not interested then you’re not going to learn.” — Lynn Hill, extreme athlete and professional rock climber Curiosity or Discomfort?It seems that the more creative I become, the more isolated I become. I don’t … Intellectual or Evasive?Reason employs deductive and inductive logic. These usually lead to what’s true, but they do not guarantee it... Emotions Use Fuzzy LogicInductive reasoning is always fuzzy, as is any reasoning that relies on uncertain truths, vague understanding, and preconceived conclusions... The Conclusion You Must Come ToYour thinking sucks. You must embrace that conclusion if you’re to question the way you think... SymbolsMuch of our world is built on symbols that we accept with little question, except in our dreams...