20 min read – Link to the audio on Spotify: Your Golden Buddha SPOTIFY

In the past few decades, we’ve begun to truly grasp just how powerful the subconscious mind is—not just in shaping our perception of the world, but in influencing our health, our happiness, even the way we heal. The subconscious can lift us up or drag us down. It can trap us in habitual loops, or—if we become aware of them—it can help us change everything.

Recently, I returned from a long stretch of treatments in Germany. We did everything. My body was cooked, poked, prodded. My immune system was taken down and rebuilt, more than once. And yet, when I came home, my body felt more reactive than ever. A few minutes outside left me bedridden. A short walk had me sleeping for days. I started asking myself: How is it possible that so much has been addressed in my body… and yet my symptoms feel worse than ever?

That question led me to DNRS—a limbic system retraining program. Through a combination of movements, affirmations, and visualization, DNRS works to reprogram the brain’s fight-or-flight center, which governs things like digestion, immune response, and stress reactions. In essence, it helps rewire the brain using the power of the subconscious.

At first, I was skeptical. But after just a few weeks, I’ve noticed two powerful things. First, I’m becoming aware of how many subconscious beliefs I’ve been carrying—beliefs that shape how I see the world without me even realizing it. And second, I’ve begun to experience just how powerful my mind truly is.

One day, early on, I misunderstood a visualization and imagined myself sprinting joyfully—feeling light, free, alive. Within hours, my body flared up. For two days, I couldn’t get out of bed. In the past, I would’ve spiraled: angry at myself, convinced I’d messed everything up. But this time, I saw it differently—proof that my mind is powerful enough to send my body into a full-blown response, just from a visualization.

It’s incredible—and humbling. There’s so much we don’t know about the mind, and even more we’ve yet to learn. But if you take one thing from this post, I hope it’s this:

Your mind is powerful.

It can change your perception of the world around you.

It can help you flow with life instead of fight it.

It can lift you, or limit you.

And you get to choose.

We don’t always get to control our circumstances. But we do get to choose how we respond. Every day, we’re offered the choice between picking fresh fruit off the tree or settling for the rotten apples on the ground. That choice belongs to you. And that’s what this post is about.

THE BELIEF SNAPSHOT

Imagine you’re walking through a college campus when someone asks for a quick favor. They hand you a cup of coffee—either hot or iced—while they tie their shoe. You barely think about it, holding the cup for just a few seconds before handing it back and continuing on your way. A few minutes later, a researcher stops you and asks if you’d be willing to watch a short video for $20. The video itself is neutral—just a person speaking. But when you’re asked to describe the person, something strange happens.

If you had held a hot cup of coffee earlier, you’re more likely to describe the person in the video as warm, kind, and friendly. But if you had held a cold coffee, you’re more likely to describe them as cold, distant, and unkind.

The difference? A simple, unconscious priming effect.

You may think, There’s no way I’d be influenced by something so small. I’m aware of my own thoughts and perceptions. But this isn’t just speculation—it was proven in a 2008 study conducted at Yale University. Researchers Lawrence Williams and John Bargh found that participants who briefly held a hot cup of coffee were significantly more likely to perceive a stranger as warm and generous, while those who held an iced coffee saw the same stranger as colder and less trustworthy.

Without realizing it, their subconscious minds were being primed by the physical sensation in their hands.

If even a cup of coffee can shape our perception, what about the deeper stories we’ve internalized for years? Imagine what years of subconscious programming—of our beliefs about ourselves, about others, about the world—can do to the way we experience life.

Our subconscious is the lens through which we see the world. Every single day, our brains are wired to confirm what we already believe. From the moment we wake up, we begin filtering reality through the programming we’ve absorbed—beliefs passed down by family, culture, school, media, and life experience.

If you believe people are rude or selfish, you’ll notice every driver who cuts you off, every stranger who doesn’t hold the door, and every coworker who forgets to say thank you. But if you believe in kindness and connection, you’ll notice smiles from strangers, thoughtful gestures, and subtle moments of grace.

Social media and the news reinforce these inner narratives constantly. Algorithms aren’t designed to expand your worldview; they’re designed to reflect it. If you believe the world is dangerous, you’ll be shown endless stories that prove your point. If you believe the world is full of possibility, your feed will start to mirror that, too. What we believe, we see. What we see, we believe.

Which is why the first step in changing how we experience life is not about changing life itself—it’s about changing the lens through which we see it.

We often assume that circumstances shape our reality. But the truth is, circumstances are neutral. They just are. It’s our interpretation that makes something feel good or bad, right or wrong, heavy or light. One person might see a challenge and feel excited—invigorated by the chance to grow. Another might encounter the same situation and shut down, overwhelmed by fear or self-doubt.

The situation doesn’t change. Our beliefs about it do.

But here’s the hard part: most of our beliefs aren’t conscious. They live deep in the background, quietly shaping what we notice, how we react, and what we expect—without us even realizing it. They guide our emotional responses, influence our relationships, impact our health, and even determine the kind of people we’re drawn to.

So how do we uncover these hidden beliefs?

There’s a simple tool I created to help me gain awareness of these beliefs. I call it a Belief Snapshot (BS for short). It’s designed to give us a quick glimpse into how we’ve been subconsciously primed by the world. Here’s how it works:

I think of a phrase that needs filling in. These phrases can be broad, focused on a person, or focused on a moment in your life—past, present, or future. Some of the ones below could be prompts that work for you:

  • When I wake up in the morning, I feel ___.
  • My partner is ___.
  • My life is ___.

I then go through them and say the first thing that comes to mind. The trick is to not overthink it. Just answer with the first thing that comes to mind. Your instinctive response is the one to pay attention to.

You might say: When I wake up, I am exhausted and already annoyed at what I have to do today. Or: I feel energized and full of purpose.

You might think: My spouse frustrates me. Or: They make me feel safe and seen.

You might think: My life is boring and unfulfilling. Or: Exciting and filled with adventure.

There’s no right or wrong answer. But the more negative your fill-in-the-blank response, the more likely that area of your life carries some unresolved tension, resistance, or unhappiness.

This exercise isn’t about fixing anything right away. It’s about noticing. And when you start noticing, patterns begin to emerge. You’ll realize which parts of your life feel expansive and empowering—and which parts feel heavy, frustrating, or stuck.

And I can promise you this: wherever your beliefs are more negative, you’ll feel more stress. More strain. More disconnection.

Now, at least, you’ll know where to start. Because awareness is the first step. Change comes next.

WHAT YOU LOOK FOR IN EARNEST, YOU WILL FIND

Once you see what beliefs are quietly shaping your life, the next step isn’t to judge them. It’s simply to ask: What would I rather believe? This isn’t about forcing fake positivity or pretending something feels good when it doesn’t. It’s about giving yourself a new lens to try on.

Because what you look for in earnest, you will find.

If I asked you to look around the room and find everything green, you could probably do it in seconds. But then, if I had you close your eyes and asked, “Okay, what was red?”—you might not remember a single thing.

Our minds notice what we’ve been told to look for.

So once you know what your old story is—once you’ve taken your snapshot—you can start training your mind to look for what you actually want to see: peace, connection, excitement, purpose. It might not feel natural at first, and that’s okay. It’s perfectly normal. But over time, your lens adjusts. Your brain learns what it’s searching for. And feelings, states, and experiences that once felt unreachable begin to reveal themselves in your everyday life.

To me, the path looks like this: Awareness → Acknowledgment → Rewriting → Training

It’s not always easy, but once you’ve seen what’s been running the show, you’ve got the choice to decide how you want to respond.

PUTTING THE BS TO WORK

There’s nothing more frustrating than being able to see what’s not working in your life and still falling into the same old patterns. We all know that feeling. If you’re like me, you’ve probably had moments where you’ve caught yourself mid-action or mid-thought thinking, why am I doing this again?

But you see, this is where the real work begins.

The first step is awareness, and although it’s disheartening at first, awareness is what allows us to change. We can’t change what we can’t see. So although this is tough, this is where we truly begin to change our lives—so long as we stick with it.

Once you’ve built awareness, once you’ve taken your belief snapshot—your BS—and started to see the filters you’re viewing life through, it’s time to train.

This isn’t about perfection. This isn’t about doing it once and being fixed. This is about consistent, compassionate discipline. It’s about deciding every day that you want a better life badly enough to show up for yourself, even when it’s hard. When you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, that’s when this matters most. When you get angry with someone, that’s when this matters. When you’re stuck in traffic and frustrated, that’s when this matters. When your partner pisses you off, that’s when this matters.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that when I don’t feel well—emotionally or physically—that’s when I need to look at what subconscious belief is making me feel that way. We have to learn not to think of this as something we have to push through. Instead, think of it as something we have to train through.

Find the empowering mindset to say, “Okay, this is my dojo. This is my training ground for the day.”

Although you may not start where you want, you’ll notice over time you get better and better at finishing in a better place. Maybe someone pisses you off and you catch yourself earlier on before you snap back at them. Maybe someone cuts you off in traffic, and rather than getting frustrated and honking, you’re more focused on the music you’re listening to or the sunshine coming in through the window.

The most important thing is this: it’s a practice in awareness. And through that awareness, we become our own best friends.

Rather than making ourselves feel worse for a mistake, we encourage ourselves. Rather than being frustrated that we’re repeating an old pattern, we give ourselves credit for catching it earlier.

Ultimately, the thing we’re looking for in life is to enjoy the passage of time, to connect with the people around us, and to experience the richness that life has to offer.

It’s easy to stay in a life that’s frustrating or numbing because we haven’t been part of the decision-making that programs our subconscious mind. But what if the food could taste richer, the sky could look brighter, your relationships felt deeper? Not because anything changed out there—but because the lens you’re looking through got cleaner.

As I write this, I’m practicing all of this in real time. Just this morning, I got some test results back from the doctor that weren’t exactly what I was hoping for. A few months ago, that kind of news might have wrecked my whole day. I would have spiraled into old thoughts like, It’s always going to be this way, or I’m never going to get better.

But this time, I had set myself up differently.

I’d already been working on the lens through which I could receive these results—whether they were good or bad. I’ve been choosing daily to tell myself everything is working out for me, even when I don’t know how. I’ve been practicing the idea that no matter what, I can trust a greater plan as long as I keep showing up with the intention to enjoy my journey through life.

So when the results came in, I still felt it. I let myself feel the disappointment, the sadness, and the anger—rather than push it down.

Again, this is not about toxic positivity. It’s not about ignoring our feelings. It’s about acknowledging them—but not getting stuck. The coolest part was that less than an hour later, I noticed my own mind naturally lifting me out of that hole.

I could feel that inner muscle in my mind had gotten stronger. And I noticed my thinking was different. I started focusing on the hopeful aspects of this. My doctor had said it—the subconscious mind is one of the most powerful pathways to healing. He strongly believed in everything I was doing. Rather than throw pills at me, he said this training should be my number one focus.

I’ve started focusing on the hope that this work could not only heal me—but also make my life better in the process. I know the mental muscle I’m building will be stronger when I get to the other side, because the dojo I’ll be training in is going to test me most days. I know I have to elevate my way of thinking and being.

Although I still notice old patterns of depression, sadness, or defeat, I’ve also noticed my default is shifting.

I’m becoming someone who, when I notice those moments—those feelings—I begin to shift my thinking. I use my belief snapshot to realize there’s a subconscious view shaping how things feel. And instead, I shift that subconscious lens to hope, to aliveness, to trust, to connection, to a warmth in my chest.

I’m becoming someone who practices hope—not as wishful thinking, but as a skill. It’s a choice.

I used to avoid becoming hopeful because it felt like everything was getting stripped away from me. My body has disintegrated multiple times. Doctors who said they could heal me couldn’t. I’ve had multiple times where I lost over 40 pounds—months spent in bed. And I stopped becoming hopeful because I was scared I would have to feel that disappointment and sadness again, and that I couldn’t handle it.

But now, I see hope is a skill.

And maybe something doesn’t go how I thought it would or how I wanted it to. But I’ll have the hope that things are working out for me—even if I can’t see it right now. If something goes awry, it’s just one more chance to practice hope rather than get beat down. I let those moments be tools to my own salvation—the mental weights I need to become a better version of myself, more connected to life.

And don’t get me wrong—this isn’t easy. Changing your subconscious lens doesn’t happen overnight. And it can be frustrating to feel the repeated lows alongside the highs. I wish it was all linear. But unfortunately, it’s not.

But the more we notice our mental patterns, the more we begin to understand what’s really going on underneath. And from that place, we start noticing the things that make us miserable, the things that drain us. And we naturally start shifting away from them.

It’s like noticing your hand is on a hot stove. Your instinct will naturally be to take it off.

Think of the times when you’ve been eating junk food and not sleeping well. You don’t notice how bad you feel until you finally clean up your routine. And when you’re eating healthy and sleeping well, the next time you eat a greasy meal or stay up late, your body feels it right away.

That happens because you’re now more in tune with your body’s feedback. Our minds work the same way.

When we get in the habit of catching our thoughts—when we begin to truly observe the way we speak to ourselves, the way we anticipate pain or project fear—we start getting more sensitive to the things that hurt us. We start becoming more in tune with the things that help us feel more alive and connected to life.

Yes, it’s important to feel negative emotions—but it’s just as important not to get stuck in them. Not to build a house in a place we were only meant to visit.

When we do find ourselves stuck in patterns of anxiety, fear, or doubt, that’s again where it becomes our dojo. Sometimes I see those posts online that say, Imagine you’re 98 years old and you just woke up in your 30-year-old body. What would you do differently? Well, a lot of days I feel the opposite—like I’m 30 waking up in a 90-year-old body with all the aches and pains.

But even then, I choose to believe the next day might be a little better. That I’m growing stronger with each rep. That hope—even on these days—is a good thing.

So maybe right now you’re in a job you don’t like. You’re trying to find a relationship that works for you. Or maybe you’re just wondering what your purpose is. These questions are important and can feel endless. But if you keep returning to them with compassion and curiosity, answers will start to show up.

And more importantly, you’ll feel which ones are right.

Awareness is the first step—but over time, awareness becomes intuition. You start sensing what lifts you and what drags you down. What helps you expand, and what keeps you stuck.

And the truth is: your reality is whatever you continue to practice.

You can walk outside and see the sunshine and the blooming trees, or you can look down at the cracks in the sidewalk and your wet socks from stepping in a puddle. One lens feels like misery. The other feels like a rich life.

The belief snapshot works because once we become aware of what’s draining us—our fear-based thoughts, unconscious stories, and subtle self-sabotage—our nervous system actually wants to do less of those things. Just like touching a hot stove. You don’t do it twice. You learn.

So yes, practice can be frustrating. But it’s also empowering—because even on the days when you wake up and think, I’m tired, anxious, and I just want to crawl back into bed, you have the ability to gently shift that narrative, even if you don’t feel like it.

You can act greater than you feel.

You can think, Maybe today, there’s something exciting ahead. Maybe I’ll meet someone new. Maybe I’ll have a little more energy. Maybe I’ll notice something I love that I didn’t before. It’s just one thought at a time—that’s how everything changes.

Not all days are easy, but the hardest ones offer the most powerful training ground. That’s when the fears and doubts get loud. That’s also when the practice can help you shift the most.

Ultimately, what you look for in earnest, you will find. That’s how our minds work. So look for the good in life. Look for the joy. Look for the love.

Change your thoughts one at a time—and eventually, you change your life.

TENDING TO YOUR GARDEN

Our lives have primed us to view the world in a certain way. And for so much of it, we haven’t been a part of that decision. But now, we do get to choose.

Now we get to decide what our life is like for us. What it means to us. Who is in it. And just like how we choose the food we eat, we can also learn to choose our thoughts—to pick the ripe fruit from the tree rather than the rotten apples on the ground.

So ask yourself: Who do you want to become?

Do you want to feel more confident, more caring, more calm under pressure? Do you want to trust the universe—and your life—more fully? Do you want to believe that things are working out for you, even when you can’t yet see how? Maybe you want to feel more self-assured. Maybe you want to set boundaries with ease. Maybe you just want to feel a little more grounded in who you are.

Whatever it is, it begins with the mind you choose to cultivate.

I saw a quote the other day that said, “Stop chasing butterflies. Instead, work on creating a garden that butterflies will come to. And even if no butterflies come, at least you’ll have a beautiful garden to look at.”

And all I can say is: things will happen in your life, regardless of whether you are able to control them or not. The good and the bad will come. But who you become in that process is up to you. There may be easier paths than others. But any sort of meaningful change in our lives begins within.

Create that inner world that you want to come back to. One you’re proud of. One you feel good about. And not only will you begin to notice all the good around you—but you’ll notice how much good is coming to you.

Stay patient. Stay kind. Stay hopeful.

Because when we do, our world starts to shift. One thought at a time. The more we train, the more we begin to see—The lens wasn’t fixed. It was always ours to adjust.

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