Freedom

True Independence: Break Free from Your Mental Prison (Living Lucky® Podcast)

What if true freedom isn't just about fireworks and festivities, but a powerful state of mind accessible every single day? On this Living Lucky® Podcast episode, Jason and Jana Banana reveal the profound realization that hit them in the mountains: liberation isn't external, it's about freeing your mindset!

Many of us walk around with self-imposed 'prison sentences' in our heads – those pervasive limiting beliefs and negative self-talk like "I'm not good enough." We explore how these thoughts activate your Reticular Activating System (RAS), filtering reality to prove your limitations, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Fourth of July offers a powerful metaphor for declaring independence from these mental chains. Learn how to dismantle your inner dialogue and shift your focus from what's missing to what's present. This isn't about ignoring circumstances; it's about understanding that "Everyone has circumstances. Not everyone allows circumstances to have them."

Ready to ignite your personal development and experience authentic independence? Tune in for actionable self-helpinsights and positive thinking strategies. Discover how changing your inner world creates unparalleled freedom, no mountains or fireworks required. Break free from your mental prison and start Living Lucky® today!

• How to overcome limiting beliefs?
• How to change negative self-talk?
• What is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) and how does it work?
• Achieving true freedom through mindset.
• Self-help strategies for mental liberation.
• The power of inner dialogue.
• How to stop self-sabotage?
• Finding freedom in everyday life.
• Viktor Frankl's philosophy on freedom.
• Mindset coaching for independence.
• "What is true freedom?"
• "How do limiting beliefs affect my life?"
• "What is negative self-talk?"
• "How does the Reticular Activating System (RAS) relate to beliefs?"
• "Can I be free in any circumstance?"
• "How to change my inner dialogue?"
• "What is a 'mental prison'?"

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The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Living Lucky
• 1:35 Fourth of July Memories
• 3:02 Finding Freedom in the Mountains
• 4:47 Our Self-Created Mental Prison Sentences
• 7:40 Changing Inner Dialogue for Freedom
• 9:54 Choosing Freedom in Everyday Life
• 12:17 Final Thoughts on Freedom

Transcript

Jana Shelfer: 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning, I'm Jenna, I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky®. You are too. Happy Independence Day. Happy New Year.

Jana Shelfer: 0:24

Fireworks. Bam Boom Pow, that was my sound effect for fireworks.

Jason Shelfer: 0:28

My fireworks are better. Oh, listen to you. Well, yours sounded like little crickets.

Jana Shelfer: 0:33

maybe you can't put down a firework. I know A firework is beautiful. It's like a little sparkler, yours was like a little sparkler. Even those little snake ones that you'd put on the sidewalk.

Jason Shelfer: 0:42

They just kind of grow.

Jana Shelfer: 0:43

And then they just it's like a turd that grows right, You're like why did I pay money for? This and then it leaves a spot on the sidewalk.

Jason Shelfer: 0:52

That's so funny. Yeah, a little yellow, orange spot stain. I must say Little sidewalk skid mark that when I was younger, I loved, loved, loved the 4th of July.

Jana Shelfer: 1:07

It was a chance to go get sparklers and twirl in my yard with my sparklers and seriously, I was getting burnt on my arms but I didn't want anybody to know because they look so cool.

Jason Shelfer: 1:14

Yeah, I can remember all the clothing that came back with little sparkler holes.

Jana Shelfer: 1:20

Really.

Jason Shelfer: 1:21

And trying to explain that, because I was not supposed to use any type of fireworks outside of parental supervision.

Jana Shelfer: 1:28

Oh, you had rules.

Jason Shelfer: 1:30

Oh yeah, I had rules, okay, well, yeah, Well, you're also the one that set the forest on fire.

Jana Shelfer: 1:35

Sorry, nope, pretend you didn't hear that.

Jason Shelfer: 1:39

Let that get out of the bag.

Jana Shelfer: 1:43

That's funny.

Jana Shelfer: 1:44

All right, so back to 4th of July. I loved wearing the red, white and blue, the stars and stripes. It was almost a reason to get a new sundress or a new top.

Jason Shelfer: 1:54

Oh, that's fun. I never got any sundresses growing up.

Jana Shelfer: 1:57

It felt like it was a time for community to come together, eat some hot dogs.

Jason Shelfer: 2:02

Hot dogs. I love hot dogs.

Jana Shelfer: 2:04

I don't know.

Jason Shelfer: 2:10

I watched the preview of the hot dog eating contest this morning the Nathan's Was there, like Chestnut. Is that the guy's name that wins?

Jana Shelfer: 2:13

Joey Chestnut, joey Chestnut, he wins every year he can eat 76 hot dogs with the bun.

Jason Shelfer: 2:18

That makes me ill.

Jana Shelfer: 2:19

In like a really short period of time and he was talking about his methods. Like a really short period of time and he was talking about his methods.

Jason Shelfer: 2:24

I would like to know what he smells like. I just feel like if you're going to eat 76 hot dogs, you've got to smell like old hot dog water.

Jana Shelfer: 2:34

Like it's got to be coming out of your pores. They like dip it in water and then, if you watch them eat it, they're like really stuffing it in their mouth.

Jason Shelfer: 2:41

The first chew is with their fist, like their hand.

Jana Shelfer: 2:44

I will tell you it was one of the best diets for me this morning because when I saw that, I was like I don't think I'll ever eat a hot dog again.

Jason Shelfer: 2:52

I don't even think I'm hungry right now. Oh, that kind of makes my stomach turn.

Jana Shelfer: 2:56

Well, when it all comes down to it, 4th of July is about freedom.

Jason Shelfer: 3:02

Freedom.

Jana Shelfer: 3:03

And we forget that, I think.

Jason Shelfer: 3:05

Yeah, I feel like we've had a couple of experiences that have kind of pushed me towards that feeling of freedom over the last couple of weeks when we went to Tennessee and Georgia, being in the mountains and I don't know what it is about the mountains Made you feel free, made me feel just very peaceful and free, like there were no tethers.

Jana Shelfer: 3:36

Yeah, you kind of let go of the stresses of everyday life. However, when I really think about it, those stressors that we carry, we are actually just creating ourselves.

Jason Shelfer: 3:42

Oh, that's so big that is so big.

Jana Shelfer: 3:44

I mean, we really have freedom all around us. We don't really need to escape to the mountains in order to recognize it. We don't really need to have 4th of July just to remember that we are free.

Jason Shelfer: 3:55

Yeah, that just gave me goosebumps like all the way up and down my legs and up and down my arms, because I recognized that everything that was there outside of the mountains is here and it's not. It wasn't the mountains, it was just the awe and the inspiration and that and the feeling and I could. I could have had that just walking out our back door or walking through the park, walking around the retention, pond or meditating, I can go there in my mind.

Jason Shelfer: 4:21

Yes, Is it Viktor Frankl or Viktor who wrote the book? He was a prisoner of war in World War II.

Jana Shelfer: 4:30

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 4:30

And he wrote Man's Search for Meaning or something like that. We've read the book and I can't remember the title of it, but he was like there's one thing that people can't take from me. It's what's in my mind Like those things, it's what's in my mind like those things, and we give that away so regularly just in our own thoughts and in our own. You know what I think?

Jana Shelfer: 4:50

I think we all have a sentence in our mind, and whether that sentence is I'm not good enough, I'm not skinny enough, I'm not pretty enough, things aren't going to work out for me. I have to prove myself for this these limiting beliefs in our minds and that sentence that we all have our own little sentence, but that sentence almost becomes a prison sentence.

Jana Shelfer: 5:16

Mine used to be I suck. Now why would you say such a thing?

Jason Shelfer: 5:20

Well, I don't know. I can remember saying out loud in my car I suck or you suck, and it was about me. Yeah, I'll be looking in the mirror. And how defeating is that. To look in the mirror and tell yourself you suck Right, horrible, horrible. And that was building basically a jail cell around myself saying, okay, well, you suck, you're not worthy, you're not good enough.

Jana Shelfer: 5:46

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 5:47

You will never be able to get there, yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 5:49

I know that I've talked about this many times, but I went through a time period where I had the limiting belief what's wrong with you? And when you start saying what's wrong with you, what's wrong with you, then what do you create?

Jason Shelfer: 6:02

You start answering that question and figuring those things out.

Jana Shelfer: 6:05

You will do whatever it takes to prove your brain right. And you may be doing it unconsciously and in that you're creating almost this prison cell. There's like this little it's a trap. It is there.

Jason Shelfer: 6:18

It is there's a subconscious and unconscious trap, or maybe it's just unconscious trap that you're creating that you're going to live in.

Jana Shelfer: 6:27

Yes, there's this cartoon where this guy was literally holding up prison cells, and it's just in his hands.

Jason Shelfer: 6:36

It's him holding up the bars.

Jana Shelfer: 6:37

He holds it up over his face like he's looking through this prison. However, he's actually as free as a bird.

Jason Shelfer: 6:45

Yeah, when you zoom out, he's the only one with the bars.

Jana Shelfer: 6:47

Yeah, he's got mountains in the background, just like you had in Georgia.

Jason Shelfer: 6:51

Yeah, and I find that when I changed my inner dialogue and also when I became grateful about things, when I became, when I started working with the things that I had, because what I was, when I said I suck, when I said you suck, and when I was looking in the mirror, one of the things that I was doing was a I had that shitty dialogue and the other thing was is I was hyper-focused on what was going wrong, what I couldn't do, what I didn't have, a lot of the things that on the negative side and I was not aware at all of all the things that were going well and what was going right.

Jana Shelfer: 7:28

And I think that's why we need a little 4th of July reminder. We need a little 4th of July reminder. It's a reminder when you see those fireworks going up in the sky, because nowadays you can literally just pull your car over around 9 o'clock and look around, just look around the neighborhoods. Hey, I'll just watch everybody's fireworks, but anyway, I think when we see those fireworks it's almost like a reminder hey, let's concentrate on what we have. We live in such a wonderful country. We have freedom. Do you know what I'm?

Jason Shelfer: 8:02

saying there's so many different little moments of insight and having these ahas in our soul that say, oh, wow, it's like an awe moment that says's so amazing and we can take that in our everyday life, it feels like it's human nature to get caught up in the what's missing, what's not working it's because our reticular activating system is looking for that. Because of that dialogue that we're having, because we're telling ourselves, I suck and if. Or we're asking myself what's wrong with me.

Jana Shelfer: 8:36

We're putting down our country even.

Jason Shelfer: 8:37

Oh gosh, that gave me goosebumps.

Jana Shelfer: 8:39

Right, I mean, how many times have we watched this?

Jason Shelfer: 8:41

We're putting down our politics.

Jana Shelfer: 8:43

Right. We put down our politicians, we put down the news. We're like, oh, it's easy to criticize, and yet I criticized, and yet I mean all week they've been working on this big beautiful bill and it's easy, whoever you talk to, to either criticize either big beautiful bill or another way. However, it's pretty remarkable that they all got into a room together and came to a decision.

Jason Shelfer: 9:07

Yeah, well, there's. There's this thing that says a lot of times we'll pick the negative and we'll declare our rightness. Yeah, so it's a like what's wrong with me? So in my mind, subconsciously, I'm saying there's something wrong with me and I'm declaring my rightness. So, because I've now declared my rightness, I'm going to prove it. So my reticular activating system now is saying okay, I've got to prove this to my body, yes, and my conscious mind what's true. And so that's all I'm going to see and we miss all the beauty and wonder in the world that's around us, because we filter out all the good, because it's not important.

Jason Shelfer: 9:50

That doesn't need to be proved anymore, because I have declared my rightness in this that doesn't need to be proved anymore, because I have declared my rightness in this.

Jana Shelfer: 9:56

No, even with fireworks. On the 4th of July, we get this email from the Homeowners Association about you need to have your fireworks cleaned up within two hours. Right, you need to make sure that all of the cardboard and things, all the yeah and it almost takes takes the the joy out of it. Right, because now I'm looking, I know that when I go walk the dog tomorrow morning I'm gonna go around who didn't clean up oh my god, they must have been drunk let me find the evidence they did not clean up their driveway.

Jason Shelfer: 10:30

Let me seek for the evidence of the wrongdoing.

Jana Shelfer: 10:32

Yes, yes, but here's the thing is, I never would have even looked for that if I wouldn't have gotten the email to point that out or it would have been a reminder of the celebration instead of a reminder of the violation did you just make that up?

Jason Shelfer: 10:48

well, it just makes sense. Because we've been doing this for so long, it's okay. Well, now, what is the meaning that I'm putting behind sense? Because we've been doing this for so long, it's okay. Well, now, what is the meaning that I'm putting behind this? Because we, like you said earlier, we are building our own prisons.

Jana Shelfer: 10:59

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 11:00

So what story am I telling myself? And am I being influenced by someone out there to the story that I'm telling myself in here? Because if it's just a reminder of the celebration, then I can just help clean up and I get to experience this all in this freedom and this wonderment that just occurred.

Jana Shelfer: 11:20

Okay, so let's just tie this all up in a nice little beautiful bow. Fourth of July is a reminder that we choose, choice.

Jason Shelfer: 11:32

I'm so glad you just said choice really yes, are you?

Jana Shelfer: 11:35

100 because we always have choices freedom is all around us and it's literally just tuning into where your freedom is, because even if you think, oh, my circumstances are different, I don't have the same resources, those are. That's that inner dialogue that I'm talking about. Yes, and I guarantee somewhere in your life you are rich and abundant in everything you're looking for.

Jason Shelfer: 12:01

Yes, everyone has circumstances. Not everyone allows circumstances to have them.

Jana Shelfer: 12:07

Oh my God Boop boop, boop, boop, boop boop, boop, boop, fireworks.

Jana Shelfer: 12:16

Boom, boom, pow, pow, pow, pow pow pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Yeah, now, now we're at the age where we just do them in our minds. That's right and we're like oh, that was beautiful. It's like sex, and then there's no cleanup, so the hoa is happy. Okay, guys, thank you for joining us your freedom. Keep Living Lucky® enjoy your freedom because it is all around us and it's just a choice of thoughts and feelings. It's up to you. Bye-bye.

Jason Shelfer: 12:35

See you next time.

Jana Shelfer: 12:37

If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at www. LivingLucky. com.