The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Tony Robbins on How to Resolve Internal Conflict (#186)

Please enjoy this transcript of episode #186: “Tony Robbins on How to Resolve Internal Conflict.” Here Tony gives a guided meditation designed to help you overcome stress. Transcripts may contain a few typos—with some episodes lasting 2+ hours, it’s difficult to catch some minor errors. Enjoy!

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Tim Ferriss: Hey guys. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. I’ll keep this very short, as this is actually a sub section, a snippet, from the last Tony Robins episode.

Many, many, many of you asked for a stand-alone podcast episode just for this particular exercise that he walk you through in real time. So, Tony Robbins, of course. You can say hello to him @tonyrobbins on all of the socials and you should definitely check out I am Not Your Guru, which is a documentary about Tony Robbins now available on Netflix and much, much more. Say hi to him, but I am going to keep this short. Please enjoy. Hopefully you will listen to this exercise many times, which so many people have found extremely helpful.

Tony Robbins: There are scientific studies that show that when your mind and your heart – your heart actually has hormones that affect the way your brain functions. It is not just your brain affecting your heart. They interact. When they are in alignment, human beings are able to resolve internal conflicts. Often the conflicts that we have are between our conscious and our unconscious mind. Between our mind and our heart often, as an example.

If I were to put electrodes on your brain and on your heart – as you all know, an EEG and an EKG – we could see that they are both, in your normal state, pretty jagged up and down and they do not look anything like each other. But, if all you do is put your hands on your heart physically – and anyone listening, let us go ahead and do this right now in a second. But, I’ll first tell you what we are going to do. You put your both of your hands on your heart physically and feel your heart, you put all your focus in you heat, you breathe into your heart. You feel gratitude for two minutes where you think of three events in your life you feel grateful for and you step in and feel it.

At the end of two minutes, you are in what I call a beautiful state because I can look at your EEG and EKG and it is dramatic. First, they are not jagged, they are rounded. But, what is mind boggling and I am sure that you probably know this Tim, they literally sync up. They become identical. They look like they are tracing each other.

When that happens, it is not just your mind – I always tell people, get in your head, you are dead. Your mind is great for strategy, but it will never make you enjoy your life. It will never let you enjoy the taste of an apple because it will go, is this organic? Where did it come from? You know what I mean? Versus, your heart which can bring the juice of anything back to you.

So, what really I am trying to do with everyone in this situation is I am trying to show them how to line these up and it is really easy. So, if you want to do it right now and you want to test that it works, let us do this. Tim, you can do this with me if you would like too.

Tim Ferriss: Sure.

Tony Robbins: Think of a situation – you might not have any in your life, Tim. You are so crazy in this area and so on top of it. But, most of us have situations where there are – for all the people listening, a place where you have some unfinished business.

Tim Ferriss: That is the story of my life, Tony.

Tony Robbins: Okay, well the story of all of our lives, right? That I just being human, right? But, it is a place where there is something that you should have handled and you have not handled with a person or situation. It stresses you out and so what we tend to do is focus on other stuff because we do not want to have to deal with that because it is stressful. It is painful.

So, think of something that on a 0 to 10 scale, where 10 is totally stressed out and 0 is not at all, pick something that is unfinished business in your business or personal life, something or someone, and it is at least a seven, eight, nine, or a ten just so you can see that this really works. Now, by the way, there are 100’s of ways to do this. I am just going to show you this one because we can do it in two minutes. So, I’m hoping – Tim, do you have one by chance?

Tim Ferriss: I do.

Tony Robbins: Okay, perfect. You do not need to tell us the content. No one else tell us the content. Alright, everyone if you would just for a moment – and I do not have any music in the background, which I do to enhance this normally, but let us just do it. Put both of your hands on your heart and physically breathe deep into your heart. As you are breathing deep in your heart, feel the strength of your heart, feel the power of you heart, feel the beauty of your heart. What are you proud or grateful that your heart has guided you to do, or to give, or to feel, or to enjoy?

Feel the strength of your heart. Breathe into it. Feel the blood flow, the oxygen. Feel grateful for your heart first and think about it. You did not have to earn this heart. It was given to you. You did not have to prove your value or your worth. You did not have to accomplish anything. Something loved you enough to give you the gift of life. As long as this heart is beating, you have that gift and your life. It beats 100,000 a day. It pumps blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels. You put them end-to-end and they go around the earth twice at the equator. That is what is inside every one of us. You do not have to think about it. What a gift.

So, as you breathe in your heart, feeling your powerful heart, I want you just for a moment – we are going to think of three, but just think first of one event in your life, one experience, one moment that you could feel so grateful for if you wanted to.

A magic moment. A sacred moment. A sexy moment. A beautiful moment. A loving moment. Any moment that really you could feel grateful for if you wanted to right now. Then, step into that memory for a minute, like step in your body as if you were there. See what you would have seen then, as if you are there or hear what you would hear back then, or breathe the way you were breathing back then.

If you filled up with that sense of gratitude of that moment, how do you smile when you feel so grateful or so thankful? What is the look in your eyes? How do you breathe? What is the look in your face when you feel really, really grateful? Just feel it out. Fill up with gratitude. The reason we use gratitude by the way, is the two emotions that mess us up most is anger and fear. You cannot be grateful and angry simultaneously. It is the antidote.

You cannot be fearful and angry simultaneously. So, fill up with gratitude. Now, think of a second moment you can feel truly grateful for and again, breathe deep in your heart. Feel that power. Just think of any other moment. It could be from your childhood or adulthood. It could be last week. It could be today. It could be ten years ago. Any moment that you could just truly feel like that was the greatest. That was magical. That was beautiful. That is magnificent. Something that give s you the feeling of tremendous gratitude if you really focused on it.

Breathe it, feel it, enjoy it, fill up with gratitude. Then, finally think of a third moment you can feel truly grateful for. Step in it, see it, feel it, be there. Feel the gratitude. What were you so great grateful for? What are you grateful for? Then maybe throw one extra in.

Think of coincidence. We all love when life happens for us, not to us. We love coincidences because we did not do anything. Something happened for us. You were going to do one thing and you met somebody that you developed a partnership with, or became a friend, or a lover, or the love of your life, or maybe a business opportunity came from a coincidence. Or an insight came from a coincidence that has been so valuable in your life. Something you are grateful for. What is a coincidence that led to something that you are so grateful for? Feel the gratitude for that.

Was it a coincidence or were you guided? Now, as you breathe in your heart – you have been doing this for about two minutes. Keep breathing. Keep feeling it, feeling grateful. Let us use the state to solve the problem state. So, the easy way to do that is keep breathing in your heart, stay out of your head. In your heart and think about a situation that is unfinished business that stressed you out in the past. But, keep breathing this beautiful state and ask yourself this question, all I need to focus on in that suction, all I need to remember is what?

Your heart knows. All I need to focus on, all I need to remember, all I need to do in that situation is what? Your heart knows the answer. All we need to focus on, all we need to remember, all we need to do is – and then your heart probably knows the answer. I have done this a million times. Not every one of you, but in a normal room I would say raise your hand if you got that answer and 98 or 99 percent of the people usually do, even with this simple technique. And you know what to do next.

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