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Ever wonder what it would be like if you were less on the defensive, and focused more on what you want to create? Imagine your life, and the energy you would have, with less or no ego?

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• Speaker #0

  Hey, welcome to the first episode of Beyond Defense, A New Way to Live. I'm Marc-André Rizk. I'm the founder of Rizk Coaching, a business I started to help people heal from the rejection wound, a wound we all have to a certain degree. And the way to heal that wound is by creating what we want in our lives, in every area of our lives. And so what I'd like to do today in this first episode is... The main objective is for you to get by the end of this episode that what you really want, what we really want us as human beings is to live without a defense system. And you've probably heard the expression before that says success leaves a trail, so does healing. And there's been a few people that have influenced me over the years, as I'm sure. you have had also people in your life inspiring you, influencing you. And there's three people I want to talk about as I start this episode. And the first one is an author, the author of a book that I read last year and favorite book of 2024 for me. And I recommended a bunch to a bunch of people. It's a book called Wanting What You Want. And the author is Dan Sullivan. And the book basically is about becoming a powerful wanter. And why do I say this book is so important? It's because at some point you've got to realize if you want to go and live beyond defense and create what you want in your life, you are going to have to get out of the defensive mode. And to do that, you have to get that the key is healing. The reason why we have a defense system in place that we call ego is because we're hurt. So let me ask you a question. You've probably been sick before. Maybe you've had an injury, like a broken leg, broken arm, broken clavicle, concussion. And what's your first reflex? Or when we're sick, when we're injured, what do we want to do? We want to heal. you never go to the doctors and not hoping that he's going to heal you right so why is that important um for our discussion today it's because if that's the way we are physically well psychologically emotionally mentally that's what it means we also want to live healed right we want to be healed we want to live healthy and what's preventing us from living healthy psychologically as well is that defense system and so that's why the first thing in order to create something that we want and to heal from that rejection wound is we got to get that there's a defense system in place and we want to get out of that defense system we want to transform that defense system and In order to live beyond defense, we've got to heal. And that leads me to the second person I wanted to either talk to you about or introduce you to as I start this episode. And it's Lise Bobot, another author and the founder of the school Listen to Your Body. If you've never heard of her work before or of that school, I strongly recommend that you check it out. And one of her main books is on the five wounds of the soul. and that the core of those five wounds is the rejection wound and again how do we heal from that wound by creating what we want and that means by taking our place in the world and how do we do that creating creating creating and so we've got to get back to our nature creators and that brings me to the third person and probably The author I recommend the most, and I've been recommended to in my personal life, but also to my clients, whenever I do workshops and I do talks, there's not a lot of instances when I don't talk about her and her work. She's known, but I think she's greatly underrated in the personal and spiritual industries these days. But she's got a lot of work that's out there, a lot of books that are out there. And I'm talking about Julia Cameron and especially her work. with the Artist's Way series. And what she talks about in her books, and not only talks about, but gives a lot of practical, not only advice, but exercises. She's got tremendous wisdom in all of her work. And what she talks about, what it comes down to all the time, is to get back to creating, creating, creating. And why this is important? Because you want to live beyond defense. you want to get that you want to live beyond defense and no way to live beyond defense we have a defense system in place because we are hurt so the way to live beyond defense is to heal our wounds and the way to healing is by creating so that's why i went from dan sullivan to lise bobo to julia cameron okay so right there you've got three tools three way more than three books that you can consult. to get you going in that direction. Now, what I want to do in this episode is, like I said, get you to feel that what you want is to live beyond defense in order for the rest of this podcast to make sense. And so what we'll look at is understanding the role of energy, understanding also the costs and benefits of living with a defense system right now and what to do about it. All right, so the first thing I want to do is... to help you understand the role of energy right now in your life. And in order to do that, I've got a question for you. What do you think is the big game that we're playing here on Earth? Take a moment to think about that. And what's the big game you're playing? What's the big game we're all playing? I don't know if you've ever realized that the name of the game is energy. The game we're playing is energy. And if you don't believe me, look at the headlines in newspapers, in the news every day. Look at what the heads of countries are paying attention to or most concerned with pretty much all the time. Or it's the number one thing on their agenda. Energy. Having energy. What's one of our biggest, if not the biggest problem, environmentally speaking, right now on the planet? Finding clean energy. On an individual level, if you don't believe me that the game is energy, you've never had some of your worst thoughts and doubts at night and right before you go to bed. Why? Low energy. That's why one of the best advice... we can give you, right, or we can give someone when they're tired and they have these thoughts is to go to bed, right? It doesn't necessarily resolve all of the issue, but we're not in a space to have or to find the appropriate solutions to our problems. So low energy right there. If you're a student or been a student before and you've stalled, right in the middle of traffic with no money in your bank account so no money to put gas in your car you know very well the importance of financial energy and actual energy for your car right you're not going anywhere and you don't even have money to put gas in your car if you're listening to this and you're a parent isn't it when you're at your most tired that you regret your decision to have kids Why low energy? And on the other hand, you've probably noticed that when you have a lot of energy, no matter what the bad news in your day, you just keep going through them. You just keep plugging at it. You just keep working at it. And it doesn't matter one bad news after another. You've got so much energy. You're able to handle them one after the other. And then you end your day and you're just like, man, I've gone through this, this, this and that. and it just it went well you know there was a lot of problems in the day but it actually went well why energy you had energy a lot of people focus on being happy we need to focus on having energy getting back to being dynamic and energetic happy will come after that now to create what we want heal from the rejection wound to create what we want It takes energy. Everything's possible, but it takes energy. I mean, you've maybe watched before the documentary, great documentary, My Octopus Teacher, in which we can see at some point that the octopus in the documentary loses in a shark attack one of its tentacles. So she's got it bitten off of her, of it. And what does she do? What do we see in the documentary? She'll take a few weeks and slow down most of her other processes. She won't even eat anymore. She'll hide under a rock and she'll just be there for weeks, resting, healing and growing another tentacle. I mean, if that's possible for an octopus, imagine what's possible. for human beings. Now what's one of the big differences between human beings and animals, or some people say other animals? One of the main differences, and you can you can see that and you have to remember that energy right everything takes energy, energy is the game we're playing, so the one of the big difference between let's say human beings and octopuses is we live with a defense system. We have an ego. And I don't know if you've ever heard the saying or something that goes along the lines of the external world is a reflection of what's within. So if you don't believe me about how much energy we expend on a defense system, just look at the external world. right now you can even do a quick search with chat gpt and it'll tell you i think the year is 2022 where it was the highest global spending of all countries ever on military spending on defense to defend The external is a reflection of the internal. So could it be that it's the same individually for all of us? We've reached a point in human history where we've got a lot, maybe the most ever, of our energy stuck in our ego, in defending ourselves against rejection. Abandonment, injustice, humiliation, betrayal, name it. We've got a strong defense system in place called ego to defend ourselves against all the evil in the world. So I'm not here to convince you that you need to live without a defense system. I'm here to help you see in this episode that what you want is to live beyond defense. That what you want is to get out of the grips of your ego. Because what you want is to create. And in order to create, you've got to stop playing so much defense. But like I said, I don't want to convince you. So the second thing I want to do with you this episode is look at the costs and benefits of living with the defense system, and then you can make your own decision. But the decision will come of itself when you realize, when you really feel deep down that what you want. is to live without a defense system so let's start with the costs of living with the defense system and the number one cost of having an ego has got to be that we have less energy to create what we want that alone should tell you or make you want to find another way to live so a quick exercise i'll go through different areas of life And just pay attention to how much energy you expand daily in these different areas of life. And what I mean by that is pay attention to, and you can even think back to your day yesterday or your day today or in the last week. And just pay attention to when you were triggered emotionally. so first one of the easiest ways to see we live with a defense system that is really preventing us from being happy but being happy having energy that will lead us to happy right so that area is diet the way you eat the type of things you eat or the type of things you want to try maybe in regards to food right so just pay attention to your day yesterday, your day today, or in the last week, if you defended yourself around food, and it could be with someone else, or it could even be with yourself, right? Oh, I'm allowed this second, I don't know, chocolate bar, the second plate, the second dessert, the second beer, third, fourth, you know, because I had a big day, I had a big week or whatever, right? Energy expended. to defend yourself next pay attention to sleeping time did you find yourself in the last day or two or last week explaining to your family your choice to go to bed early maybe or defending why you went to bed so late same with your wake-up time did you find yourself defending why you got up so late this morning late for a meeting late for work like for your kids practice, like for a family breakfast. Next, the exercise, physical activity that you did or didn't do, or that you'd like to do, or the type of training you'd like to do at work. Your way of doing things. Think about your clients or colleagues, employees you work with, your boss. Any defending mechanisms taking place yesterday, in the last week? How about the good old politics? Think about when you watch the news, or read about them, and then think about dinner, or after dinner. Any conversations where you defended yourself in the last week on politics? What about God? religion. Think just about when you heard me say God. Did your defenses come up? What about money in the last day or two? Did you find yourself defending why you were spending on a certain thing or why you were saving or why you weren't saving or why you were late on your payments? And next, you know I've got to talk about it, sex. Any defenses come up in the last week? In the bedroom? Perhaps on how often you have it? Perhaps because you're not having sex right now, because you don't want to have sex right now. The position, how many people you are. Have you found yourself on the defensive side of things around sex in the last day, in the last week? All right, a few more. In your travels, maybe where you want to go on a trip next, maybe for a long weekend, maybe for your vacation. What you want to see, who you want to go with. Did you find yourself defending your... Maybe destination choice? How about the car you're driving these days? Or your way of transportation these days? Okay, and I'll name one more. Your relationship to your mom. Not only how is that going, but... Have you found yourself defending why you did or didn't call her? Or why you're still mad at her for certain things? Or why this or that? And how about your relationship to your dad? Have you found yourself maybe in an argument with him over the last week? Or thinking back? maybe he's passed away now but thinking back on a conversation you had with him an old disagreement and maybe you're still defending your position even if he's moved on to the next plane so i just wanted to cover a few areas of our daily lives for you to notice if you can sense how much energy you're using to defend yourself in all kinds of areas where you want things in your daily life and i'm pretty sure that just with these 10 12 areas of our lives you can you can start feeling that yeah man there is some energy stuck in that defense system Now, since everything can't be all that bad, let's take a look at the benefits of having a system, a defense system in place. And the way to do that is you can just take the previous list, the previous areas of life that I mentioned. You can even add some if you want. And just notice what you've gained with defending yourself or having a defense system in these situations. For example, I mentioned earlier your sleeping time. So perhaps by explaining why you were going to bed at a certain time, you gained the approval of the other person, of your family, or your friends. They understand or understood you, and therefore you were able to move forward with your sleeping time with more ease. You had their support. So you can go down the list. and think about the same thing what have you gained by defending yourself over maybe your politics your religion or your relationship to god about sex about money about your diet about your physical exercise and about your relationship with mom with dad and the main benefit that I have found. that i've heard also from a lot of people it's to protect an identity that has carried us to today to protect our reputation to protect us from rejection to protect us from suffering now My belief, my hope, my aim by doing this with you in the last few minutes is for you to get a sense that you're at the very least not comfortable with the defense system. That you feel you're not being who you are, you're not being natural with that defense system in place. that you're expending. Some to a lot of energy to defend. A face, a personality that's not even yours. And the real cost is that that gives you less energy to create what you want. So what do we do with that? Where do we go from here? Well, the first thing is to really get... that there's a difference between awareness and consciousness. I don't know if you make a difference in your language, but being aware is, it's like knowing something. Like we're talking about a defense system right now, and perhaps you've known this for a while. Perhaps you didn't know you had an ego. You probably did know. Maybe you're... finding out some things in this episode. And so you're learning something. So you're becoming aware, let's say, of how much your defense system is using a part of your energy. Same if you hear of, I don't know, that refined sugars are not good for the body. If you find that out, you become aware that refined sugars are not good for your body. But awareness alone won't change very much in your life. I don't want to say it won't change a thing, but it won't change very much. What does is consciousness. So the difference is consciousness happens in the experience. Right now you're listening to this podcast. You may be listening to a lot of podcasts every week or reading books. There's a lot of available information today that is a lot more readily available, a lot more easy to get access to information than it used to be. So we can increase our awareness a lot more easily. However, for you to become conscious, you have to become present in your own experience. I'll give you an example of this. A few weeks ago, I had decided in my business that I was going to take the month of June to... to really focus on the strategy moving forward for the business. And the time of this recording, we're in July now. And so that for me was last month. And in taking the time really to strategize and see where I wanted to go with the business, it took a while, right? And there were periods where I just sat down and I kind of jotted down a bunch of ideas. and plans for the future, for the future of the year, for the rest of the year, but also in a year from now in two or three years, just to have an idea and get some clarity on where I'm going, right? The direction and what direction I want to take with the business. And if you've done this before, either for your business, for your personal life or a personal project of yours, um, sometimes it's uncomfortable and it's uncomfortable because it's, uh, the first part of any new project or when you're working on wanting to create something, the first part is usually what we call the brainstorm. And the brainstorm, in its definition, it's a bunch of ideas that you throw at the board or on your piece of paper or in the boardroom or with a team of people, right? And it's just... you throw ideas out and you see what's going on right now and what you want and it's not yet all organized and and the reason why i'm talking about this is because in uh in the last month there were a lot of moments when i felt i started feeling really stressed out um and when we're talking about the difference between awareness and consciousness the the key is consciousness and when i really became conscious of what was going on is when i got the relief from my stress. And what took place was one morning, I think it was a Saturday morning, I had just finished another brainstorming session. And I went to the store. And when I parked the car is when I became conscious of what was going on and why I was so stressed. And the reason why it was happening and I was so stressed is because I had forgotten that I was in the stage of brainstorming. And that it was normal that I wasn't going to see clearly right away. Now, my problem was, and this all happened as soon as I parked the car, it all came to me. I became conscious in that one instance. Some people will call that a breakthrough. And so what I saw clearly was that why I was so stressed is because I wasn't, it was taking time, right, for the brainstorms and for the... to get clarity on the strategy to move forward. And I thought that, or the main thought was that if I didn't finish a day by having a clear direction, then it was failure. So that's why I said I had forgotten that I was in brainstorm phase where it's supposed to be messy. It's supposed to be unclear. And I was creating a lot of stress within me because somehow I had in another part of my... brain something that said you're wasting your time right now you're not getting clarity and it would you know I would and it would repeat every day and and even if I had set the month of June I had set myself this timeline like give myself enough time to get to see clearly where I'm going and what I want and what the strategy will be moving forward right so even if I had set that in place at the beginning of the month is it's kind of I got into the brainstorm and I forgot about it kind of. And this thought kept coming back, right? That I was losing my time, losing my time, losing my time. And so when I parked the car and I saw that clearly, you cannot imagine how relieved I was because I really got that. It was just, yeah, normal, right? I decided to take that time in June. So there were going to be days and weeks also that were going to be messy, obviously to get to clear strategy I'm gonna have to get or go into the thick of things And so that's why I say there's a big difference between awareness and consciousness and consciousness happens in the moment. And in some of the next episodes, I'll go over the five steps to what you do once you become conscious that your ego, your defense system has taken over in any situation. We'll see how to deconstruct that, what I call the ego, the inner army, right? But for this episode, just from the last exercise, when you saw, when I said there's not only bad to ego and defense system, there's also benefits. What to do with that, once you realize what you want is to live beyond the defense system, because what you want is to heal and what you want is to create. So what you want to look at is, is there a way for you to get the benefits that your ego has brought you in another way? Let's say ego, I said one of the main benefits has got to be with ego, that it's protecting us from suffering, let's say from rejection, right? Well, wouldn't there be another way for you to learn to deal with rejection than by building up your walls? So that's one thing that you can do. And I understand that that's very vague and it can depend on many different situations. But right now, it's just to get the overall concept that you want to live beyond defense. And what to do about it is to find solutions to deal with when rejection comes at you. And one of the best ways to go beyond rejection, beyond the defense system, is to learn to focus on what you want. You got to move constantly towards what it is that you want. With clients, often I have the question, well, what do you do when it involves someone else, whether it's in a relationship or whether it is because there's a new law in place that prevents you, I don't know, from putting a fence on your property because now it's too close to the road, too close to your neighbor or whatever, right? So you have no control over that, over that new law. And so people ask me, well, I want to focus on what I want and I want to create what I want. I'm going to act. according to what I want. I want to put my fence on my property, right? And I really can't. I mean, it's illegal now. And so what to do is to focus on what you want. And when these things happen, where you see that it involves someone else and that right now, let's say this person is not agreeing with what you want and doing what you want, or just like this law, right? There's usually steps that we can take. but we don't see them because we're in reaction. So focusing on what you want is the key. But when you see that you can't do that, then you have to do your inner work. And what I mean by that is you got to feel, let's say we take this example of the fence and the new law, and you can't put that fence on your property anymore. You got to feel things, right? And I'll go back to that in future episodes because it's so important, but you got to feel. take a moment to see how you're feeling with that situation that will lead to acceptance acceptance is key to transforming and creating what you want so just let me repeat that you got to feel what it you know what this situation is awakening in you and that helps you to go towards acceptance and accepting doesn't mean you agree with it right it doesn't mean that it's pleasing to you It's just you're looking within, you're seeing how it feels, and you're just asking yourself, can I accept feeling this way in this situation? And the next word is going to be, or next thing to do, and it's going to be easy for you to remember because it starts with the same letter as feeling is fears. You've got to see what your fears are. Because when you're saying, I can't focus on what I want because this person or that thing is preventing me from what I want. You're usually in reaction because you're afraid of something. So you've got to own up to that. And in order to own up to that, you've got to become conscious, consciousness once again, of what you're afraid of in that situation. So take the time to see what fears you have in this situation. That's going to help you accept what's going on right now. You also have to take a look at who you're accusing. Who's responsible for what you're going through right now, right? And for your feelings being hurt. for your defense system and your ego being awakened right so who are you blaming and usually it's an external source or we put the blame on someone else or on life or on god or the universe so you want to be able to see who you're accusing and then once you've done that and you know what you want in this situation but you've done your work to see how you're feeling your fears the accusation in place One of the most powerful things that you can do is to let go and put it in the hands of God, of someone bigger than you, the universe, the source, life, through prayer, meditation, or just seeing yourself, the actual image, the vision of you, putting that situation back in the hands of a power greater than you. And one more thing for this episode that you can do is just to remind yourself to get out of rejection, to heal and to go beyond a defense system to really create the life that you want. Is when you go through rejection still sometimes, which is the opposite of love, by the way. To realize that we go through rejection until the day we heal. That inner wound. That inner wound that says we are not worthy to receive what we want. That when something happens that's the opposite of what we want, or that stands in the way of what we want, that it's because we are not worthy of that thing. That very thing that we want. That's what rejection does. And so you'll go through rejection and it's going to be... there's going to be a lot of suffering around that until the day you get that it has nothing to do with your worth when things don't go your way. And this may seem obvious or not for you, but for the people that are listening, if you're listening to this and you're saying, you're thinking, yeah, that's obvious or it's not that, remember awareness versus consciousness. And when it starts changing is when you become conscious of that in a situation. And for any and all situations in life, whenever we're triggered emotionally, you can be sure that the rejection wound is awakened. And what I just said about the rejection wound is that what it says to us, right? When we haven't learned to heal that wound and deal with it, I haven't seen an exception to this. And I've taught thousands of people today and helped them with that wound. That wound says this is happening because deep down I still believe somehow that I'm not worthy to receive what I want. And this is the feeling or the thing that we need to get conscious of if we want to free ourselves from living with a defense system. And so the best thing you can do, because it's not easy, right? When rejection is awakened in you and you feel rejected, It's just to remember that you're going through this right now because somehow you're rejecting yourself on the inside. Meaning you're even if you can't see how or what it's just meaning that somehow somewhere in you you're still believing that things are happening because really you're unworthy to receive what you want. Which is a lie right? We all know it's a lie but it's still kind of alive within you. And when you come to peace with having created that belief, somehow, somewhere in your youth, when you were suffering from not being accepted for who you really were, when you come to peace with having created that, then you'll be moving at your own speed. towards healing and towards creating the life you want. And that brings me back to the beginning of this episode and why I created Risk Coaching, is to help you, help people heal from the rejection wound, the wound that's at the core of all other human or psychological suffering inside of us. So I just want to finish with one final point. Stop defending yourself. It's time to move on the attack. Go for the goal, play to create, create what you want. I remind you, what you want is to live beyond defense. And in order to do that, you've got to heal. And in order to heal, you've got to create. Create what you want. And when you don't get it, just remember that it's because there is something better on the way. Take the lesson and get going again, because there's probably other things that you can do. And get inspired because the aim of this podcast is to help you see that you want to live beyond defense. And that not only is it what you want, but it's possible to live beyond defense. I said earlier that the external world is a reflection of our inner world. Get inspired by Costa Rica, the country. Follow in their footsteps. It's a peace-oriented country, a country with no army. And you know what the slogan, the tagline for that country is? La pura vida. And pardon my Spanish. But it means the pure life. And pure life for human beings is living with no ego. Beyond defense. Simply with a mind that helps us live on this plane. On that note. Hope you've enjoyed this first episode. First time I ever recorded a podcast. I hope you get a lot out of it. And I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening.