If you sat me on a lie detector, and asked me:
“Do you consider Coca-Cola a health drink?”
I will answer without hesitation and without blinking:
YES!
- anxiolytic
- kills headaches/migraines
- performance enhancer
- settles nausea
- raises T
- helps dissolve shit in your stomach
-
etc.
Now, before some 0 IQ nutrition autist starts hyperventilating:
Am I presenting a balanced scientific assessment of Coca-Cola?
Obviously not. (Even though, all of those are documented effects). But rather, my larger point is:
I CHOOSE THE FRAME.
Because your belief about something can often exert an influence over your experience of that thing SO POWERFUL that it appears to OVERRIDE the underlying material “facts.”
There are experiments on this that may change the way you think about mind and body.
I’ll tell you about one in the 1960s:
Japanese schoolboys hypersensitive to leaves from lacquer/wax trees, plants which produce a dermatitis similar to poison ivy.
Researchers touch one arm with a HARMLESS leaf and they tell the boys:
“This is the poisonous one.”
RASH.
Redness. Itching. Inflammation.
Then they do the opposite.
Actually touch them with the poisonous leaf…
And tell them:
“Don’t worry. This one is harmless.”
Most of them DIDN’T REACT.
Read that again.
The nervous system was given one material reality…
And one BELIEVED reality…
In many cases, the body behaved according to the latter.
What the fuck do you do with that?
People like to IMAGINE that they experience reality directly. But they don’t. Nobody does.
Your nervous system is constantly interpreting.
Predicting.
Assigning meaning.
“This is dangerous.”
“This is good for me.”
“This person hates me.”
“I am getting sick.”
“This medication will save me.”
“I always perform badly under pressure.”
“I’m terrible with women.”
“I have bad genetics.”
And then your body and behaviour begin organising themselves AROUND THE EXPECTATION.
This is why I am so passionate and insistent, having drilled this into your heads for years now.
Your beliefs are everything.
A belief is not some cute sentence floating around inside your head.
Beliefs alter attention.
Attention alters perception.
Perception alters physiology and behaviour.
Behaviour alters outcomes.
Outcomes then come back around and reinforce the ORIGINAL BELIEF.
And eventually you look at the accumulated evidence and say:
“See? I knew it.”
Of course you fucking knew it.
You’ve been manufacturing evidence for it for ten years. What did you expect?
This does NOT mean you can believe cyanide is protein powder and live.
Material reality exists.
But understand…
You NEVER interact with material reality without an INTERPRETATION of material reality riding on top of it.
And that interpretation has the power to entirely DICTATE how we respond to it.
Placebo.
Nocebo.
Expectation.
Suggestion.
Hypnosis.
Self-image.
Different doors that invite the same question:
HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU EXPERIENCE AS “REALITY” IS ACTUALLY YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM OBEYING AN INSTRUCTION?
So yes.
I drink lots of Coke, and it ONLY adds to my health.
And I’m sure the alleged “healthmaxxers” who are obsessed with balls and deathly afraid of touching receipts would disagree.
Then again, a Big Mac would probably kill them. Thats fine.
They can keep their neurotic little story about it.
I like mine better….
Be VERY fucking careful what you decide things mean.
PERCEPTION IS REALITY.
By far the most brutal Occams Razor of wealth is central nervous system stability, this is one of those honest signals that cannot be faked, impossible across time. There is immense power in becoming LIGHTER as you become more capable. Less tension in the face, less desperation in the voice, less attachment to individual outcomes, more fluidity between environments, more calmness when plans change, more charm when circumstances become difficult. Smile easily. Move slowly. Listen deeply. Make people laugh. Let silence breathe. Do not turn every disagreement into war or every ambition into visible strain. The highest competence eventually begins to look like ease because the machinery underneath it has become so sophisticated and battle tested through reps. Heavy men make every room feel like work. The rare spiritual outlier man carries enormous responsibility while somehow making life around him feel more beautiful. This is the king touch or the midas touch with full contextual flow, the fact this account is free is generational. Calm nervous system, light touch, smooth voice, simple smile, flow heavy movement light
https://t.co/PWmAoiv66t
Today, I’m going to give you ten years of therapy in two minutes.
I'm a brain surgeon, and I'm gonna show you how to make rapid progress in healing the wounds you’ve been carrying; the ones from childhood, from broken relationships, from things said that can’t be unsaid, and from things done that can’t be undone. Let's scrub in and get it done.
Here's a Fact: Your Wound Lives in Your Brain, But Your Healing Lives in Your Mind
When something hurts you, your brain stores it. The sights, the sounds, the sting of the words, the shape of the moment. That storage is real and physical.
But here’s where the hope of healing lies: your brain doesn’t get the final vote on what that memory means to you. Your mind does. And your mind is not the same thing as your brain.
Neuroscience nugget: Emotional memories get encoded in circuits involving the amygdala and hippocampus, but each time you recall a memory, it becomes temporarily unstable and gets rewritten via a process called reconsolidation. That means every time you revisit a wound, you have a fresh chance to change how it’s stored.
Self-Brain Surgery Procedure: The next time an old wound surfaces, don’t just relive it. Instead, reframe it while it’s “open.” Ask: What is the truest, most redemptive way to understand this moment now? Speak that new understanding out loud before you let the memory close back up.
Scripture: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3, NIV
This is self-brain surgery. Hard and holy work.
Follow me to connect neuroscience and scripture every day. Save this to help when you need to heal. Share it with a friend who's hurting.
Click the link in my bio to learn more about The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery, my NYT bestselling book.
#selfbrainsurgery #neuroscience #neuroplasticity #grief #healing