Change Your Past by Changing Your Present

The environment we grew up in early in life has a tremendous impact in shaping us into adult life. In this episode, we discuss family and culture and how we learned how to be human from the people and environment around us.

• How family culture creates our persona
• How your family dealt with emotions shapes your emotional life
• Spiritual influences that create limitations or possibilities in adulthood
• How nutrition and Social Econonic Status can impact your brain
• Learning from your parents in conflict resolution creates relationship styles

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Transcript

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Change Your Past by Changing Your Present 

SPEAKERS

Debra Maldonado, Robert Maldonado

Debra Maldonado  00:07

Hello, welcome, everyone, to another episode of Soul Sessions with CreativeMind. Today's topic is nurture or nature, how your early life environment shapes your life as an adult.

Robert Maldonado  00:24

Our continuing series on nature versus nurture.

Debra Maldonado  00:32

In the last episode, we talked about genetics and DNA, and how that actually can have a big impact on your personality, your body, your eye color. I didn't realize it had so much to do with our personality and how we react to things. But what we did talk about last time is what percentage of that is genetic and what is environment.

Robert Maldonado  00:59

It comes from an incredible researcher named James R. Flynn. He's from New Zealand. He’s one of the experts in intelligence and IQ, and the environment. I have a quote from him to get us started. He says “The mind is more muscle than we once believed. It is something that we must continuously exercise to attain and maintain peak fitness.” Use it or lose it. He came up with this incredible idea, he said “If you put everything we know about genetics, IQ testing together, about 40% of our intelligence, our personality, our success, everything essentially about us, comes from genetics, 40% comes from the environment, which is what we're going to be talking about today. And 20% is chance.

Debra Maldonado  02:16

We have a success gene, a wealth gene, can I activate my wealth gene? A lot of people would ask that.

Robert Maldonado  02:23

People that talk that way or sell that kind of stuff, from our perspective, and this is based on the science that exists, the research, that's not the way it works. It's an interaction of genes. You can identify certain genes that are dormant or asleep or missing or something, mutated. But it's the interaction of genes actually, the way they're expressed from the environmental pressures or demands, that results in the expression of that gene. It's always a gene-environment interaction.

Debra Maldonado  03:10

If someone looks at your genetics and puts you in a category of your personality makeup, just looking at the DNA is not a way to do that. Because it's a combination, it's a very complex system that we're working with, an interaction with the environment. There was a debate, is it nature or nurture? One of the ways they really can see the difference between nature and nurture, is in twin studies. Because the genetics are exact, it's two people with the exact same gene makeup in two different environments, we see the impact on the environment. And also the impact on the genetics regardless of the environment.

Robert Maldonado  03:56

Especially identical twins who have been separated at birth and raised in different environments, you can tease out then what impact that environmental differences have on their genetic expression.

Debra Maldonado  04:16

How would you describe environment, so that we know what framework is. Genetics is the DNA, our body, our inheritance. We have epigenetics, like we talked about last time, which turns on and off certain genes. There's a complex system of genetics in us, but then the environment is how much we're loved, if we're in a wealthy house, poor house, if we have friends, if we don't have friends.

Robert Maldonado  04:48

All those things, but there's an easier way to think about it. Think about culture. In America, we’re used to thinking we don't have culture, culture exists in other places. That's not true. Everyone has a culture.

Debra Maldonado  05:07

I am from New Jersey, there's a certain culture in New Jersey. I would never think I would have anything in common with someone from Texas cowboys. Although it's not all that, but you know, the stereotypes, but even then in the US, there's different states. Whatever country you're in, I'm sure there's different regions that have their own culture, their own accents.

Robert Maldonado  05:29

Then there's subcultures within those cultures. Culture gives us a framework, because if you think about culture, it gives us the paradigm, the worldview in which we exist, where the genes express themselves, and also the pressure on the individual as to what language they're going to learn, what kind of foods they're going to eat, what is considered normal behavior.

Debra Maldonado  06:00

That's an interesting one. Even when you were doing assessments on children, you said the different cultures see what child rearing should be and what it shouldn't be, every culture has their own way of disciplining children or letting children have more freedom than others. 

Robert Maldonado  06:19

In some cultures eye contact is encouraged, in other cultures it’s considered rude to directly look at a person in the eye.

Debra Maldonado  06:31

Also affection is cultural, for some people it's not okay, other families are very affectionate.

Robert Maldonado  06:38

The way emotions are demonstrated, all part of culture. The thing about culture is you don't see it until you step outside of it. You think, it's just the way things are and that's the way things should be. Because you're in the bubble of your culture, but when you travel and go to another country, in another culture, you notice things are done differently here, the food is different, the way people behave is different, the way their body language is expressed, all those things are different.

Debra Maldonado  07:16

How does the family culture, in Jungian coaching we talk about the persona that we create, we are born into this body, we're in this environment, and our genetics, but also our environment interacting with those genes create, and then we have this, our psyche develops this persona, basically the mask we wear. How does culture create that persona? We think it's our natural personality, if we're introvert/extrovert, genetically, but there's also the environment, it forms what we think is acceptable.

Robert Maldonado  07:52

You have that 40% of inheritance from your genetic makeup, your genotype, then the environment, the culture, and of course, the family is housed in that culture. The family is using the norms, what's considered normal behavior and appropriate training and parenting, to raise you, to relate to us as a child. You're getting the family's interpretation of their cultural environment fed to you in that way. You’re experiencing directly, as you starting to grow up, your family in that cultural context.

Debra Maldonado  08:47

I think about the different levels of your life, one of the things that is prominent for me is the culture of money in our family, how we see money, how we see success, how we look at education. You hear your family worried about money all the time, that's part of the culture, to look at your bills. To imagine stepping outside of that and not worrying about the bills and having lots of money would be weird. You want to stay in your culture. Not only does it shape you but it also limits you because you want to stay with your family. One of my clients a long time ago — and I see this very common with a lot of people — everyone in her family was overweight, but she was trying to lose weight. She said every time she lost weight she felt like she wasn't a part of the family anymore because the whole family was about overeating, overindulging, drinking and just okay with being chubby, there was no problem with it. She felt different. We see that challenge too. Not only does it limit our own sense of what's possible, but if we try to escape it, it's like a weight that pulls us back to that culture and keeps us in that limitation.

Robert Maldonado  10:11

The tendency we are born with, and this is genetically, we want to fit in, we want to be accepted by the group, especially the family and the parents. The conflict that develops as individuals, that's where you get the rebellious element that some people feel the need to rebel against this and find their own way.

Debra Maldonado  10:40

A great example of this is an Oscar-winning movie Coda, about a woman, her family was deaf, and she was the only one who is hearing. It's like that bubble of their culture, she wanted to go and do her own thing, that conflict of “I don't want to leave my family, this is my comfort.” She had the genetics of having hearing, but the culture, the environment was non-hearing. That's the bubble.

Robert Maldonado  11:10

It's a very powerful conflict that individuals experience. Some people will negate their own individuation in order to fit in with the family, stay there and carry on the culture, others will rebel, go their own way.

Debra Maldonado  11:30

Don't you think a lot of people don't even know they're rebelling or don't even know they're stuck? They don't know why they're not taking those actions toward their goals. They don't know why they keep going into the same patterns, the same type of relationship, they can't lose weight, they can't quit a habit. They’re trying to find the root of it, we should examine, what environment did I grew up in? Take  weight loss for example, a lot of people say “It’s your genetics, we have bigger hips in our family. That's just the way it is.” But there is that other element, there's 20% chance, there's also the environment. You put yourself in another environment, then there's that chance that you can break free. That's always a choice. You don't have to change, you don't have to lose weight, or make a lot of money, or have better relations, you could stay happy being alone. It's not good or bad. But there's people that feel this stuckness, but they don't know why. This would account for that.

Robert Maldonado  12:38

We go back to Freud and Jung, those early experiences of the family have a powerful influence on the way you see yourself and the world for the rest of your life. Unless you do inner work, you actually do that individuation process where you're free from conditioning. Then you can make your own choices. But most people would do not undergo individuation. They simply follow the patterns or rebel against it. But in rebelling against it, you're still tied to it. You're simply saying “I don't want that lifestyle, I want to be different.” You're always keeping it in mind as well, even though you're rebelling against it.

Debra Maldonado  13:29

If you're grew up poor and then you're trying to be rich to get away from that poverty, you keep creating those same realities. Another movie is The Greatest Showman. PT Barnum grew up very poor. His ego was so attached to being over the top and successful so he can fit in with the culture, unconsciously something always happened that he loses the money again. That's because his early life conditioning was “You don't have money, that's your identity.” Even though consciously we want to change our identity, we want to improve our life, don’t you think there's part of our ego that doesn't identify with our vision and our aspirations, it identifies with what it knows?

Robert Maldonado  14:16

In research and academia, money is a dirty word. They don't use that, they talk about SES, socio-economic status. But it's a big factor. If you're born into poverty, your chances of making it are highly reduced because from the get go you have less access to books, to games, to educational information.

Debra Maldonado  14:48

Even working, if you're really poor, you don't get the education, you don't have time because you're working. In some countries, kids are working at 13-12 years old to help the family on a farm. Years ago, kids would not finish school. I think it was 100 years ago, most people didn't even have an education past ninth grade, most of our population. It's in our recent history.

Robert Maldonado  15:21

The IQ in general has been rising for the past century because of access to education.

Debra Maldonado  15:29

When we think about other aspects, emotions, I think, is a big part of the culture. Do you share emotions? Do you talk about your feelings? Or you just keep it light? I've had clients who have had parents that say “Stop crying, don't be so emotional, I'll give you something to cry about, emotions aren't really honored here.” Then in other families, it's “Let's talk about how we feel.” The parents expressing their feelings with each other and with the children. Like “I love you, I care about you, this is how I'm feeling”, being transparent. I think the child learns it's okay to share your feelings.

Robert Maldonado  16:16

There's been some really good long term, they're called longitudinal, studies where the researcher follows people from the time they're born till they grow up. They look at the numbers and what happens to people, whether their parents are divorced, the difference in socio-economic status, difference in education, differences in diets, nutrition. All those really give us a very clear picture of the importance of early environment, early education or early experiences, the better the child is treated early on, the more opportunities to hear stories, read books, express themselves through play, through games, the better they do in the long run in general. Now, there's always exceptions because of that 20% chance. You're not stuck, that's definitely the good news. But it's a lot harder for people that start off in those lower socio-economic rings to make it, but not impossible, definitely. We always hear those stories of people that beat the odds, against all odds they make it.

Debra Maldonado  17:41

There's people that have all the gifts and the financial support and the education, and they don't really do anything with their lives either. You can have all those things, the great environment, but you could sabotage it. I've worked with people who have come from very wealthy families, they actually wanted to fail to resent the parents for being so pushy, “you got to be the best”. They had everything provided for them, this silver spoon, but they were like “I just want to hightail out of here, I want to be a bohemian and travel in a van across the country and do something opposite of what my parents did.” Also, there's a lot of people that do the same thing with creativity, they just break free, I'm not going to be stuck. They're not gonna take away my shot. Hamilton was all about his environment. He lost his parents. He had nothing, but he kept this vision. He would be a good example of that 20%, genetically and maybe environmentally, he didn't have it going for him. Actually genetics, he was very smart. He had that going for him. The genetic piece and the chance piece put him in the right environment to cultivate it. Another question is something I've heard and just wanted to bring this up. You've probably heard about this study where there was a class with smart kids, and there was a class with kids that were kind of slow. But they told the teachers the opposite. They told the teachers “You're going to teach the smart kids” which was really the slow kids, and “You're going to teach the slower kids” but they were really the smart kids, and how the smart kids’ grades went down and how the slower kids’ grades went up because of the teacher's perspective. When we think about environment, it's also what the parent is projecting on the child and demonstrating or believing what's possible for the child. That's not from the parent, but that's how they were raised, it's passed down in a way.

Robert Maldonado  20:08

We read our parents’ and our teachers’ expectations of us. Even if they never say it explicitly, they never tell us “This is what I expect from you’, it's communicated through their voice, through their body language, through the attitude that they have towards us. If we get the message “I don't expect much from you, just do your best, don't worry about excelling or doing incredible work”, that's what you do. Because your job as a kid is to follow the lead of the parent, the teacher, your peers, etc. Expectation has a lot to do with it. If you have young kids, definitely expect great things from them, not in an obsessive way to where they feel like you're trying to live through them.

Debra Maldonado  21:08

Not like King Richard, “You're gonna be the best tennis player in the world.”

Robert Maldonado  21:12

I don't know, is that bad? Again, it depends on the way it's communicate. If you say “I'm gonna withdraw my love from you, if you don't do what I expect”, that's not a good message for a child.

Debra Maldonado  21:31

Do you think sometimes parents project their own misgivings and then they try to project the things they didn't accomplish in their life? Or they have their shortfalls on the child, not unconsciously. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Robert Maldonado  21:45

Jung mentions that, he says “One of the saddest things is the parent projecting their unlived potential onto the child and expecting the child to fulfill that need they have.” That's totally unfair, because now you're placing your stuff on the kid and expecting them to fulfill your needs.

Debra Maldonado  22:11

What about critical parents and that kind of environment where you’re always criticized or whatever you do isn't good enough? How does that impact the child and their ability? I was afraid to make a mistake because I would be criticized or judged for it. Now I would do it to myself because that's the inner dialogue. I'd love to hear about that too. How that inner voice is really our parents.

Robert Maldonado  22:41

As children, we internalize our parents’ voice and their attitude towards us. They don't have to be there. They don't have to be present anymore. They're in our head. We hear their voice telling us “Don't do that” or “You should have done better, why can't you be like your brother or sister?” That's internalized. It doesn't mean it's pathological. That's what we're meant to do. But you want to be conscious of it. Otherwise, that voice will continuously run your life. The whole idea of becoming an adult is to be free from that conditioning, to make your own choices.

Debra Maldonado  23:26

What about a child whose environment keeps changing? You have a divorce, or you have to go to a new school, and you're really young. That really impacts the child as well because they’re in different environments, and it's not consistent.

Robert Maldonado  23:40

It would depend on what kind of support there is. Often what it boils down to is, is the child included in the conversation of moving, of changing schools instead of just being told “We're doing it, get used to it.” Often parents think “He's just a kid. He's only six or seven, he doesn't know what's going on.” That's not what's happening. Children have the potential for suffering, for experiencing all the emotions we have as adults. Their mind, their cognitive skills aren't at the higher level but their emotions are very well developed.

Debra Maldonado  24:31

The parent learns that style based on — we’re gonna talk about parenting styles next time, but they learn that stuff from their parents. If you weren't taught how to communicate, you would be less likely to know how to do that to your children. Let's talk about spirituality. I've heard both sides, people that are both atheist and looking for some spiritually, they seek spiritual enrichment, and then others brought up in a very strict religion, they're afraid to leave that religion because of the family. That entanglement, that environment too, because a lot of organized religion is community-based. It's very tight knit, you can't escape it in a way, where you feel guilty going beyond that.

Robert Maldonado  25:26

Most people these days identify as spiritual but not religious. Often they are triggered by people that talk about God. But it's part of the culture, where the culture is at. We're definitely influenced not only by the family, but by the culture in general, because mass media. Television, the Internet, it's all feeding us ideas, attitudes that are absorbed unconsciously, we're not even aware of what was going in there because there's so much content. We're watching 2 to 6 hours of television per day, 5000 commercials a week for kids. All these incredible programming that's going on, we’re absorbing that into our mind.

Debra Maldonado  26:32

Can I ask you a question about that? When we watch a movie, or a television show, and our psyche is actually experiencing it as if it's happening to us in some way or we're actually there, we get so involved that we feel like we're living the characters, how does that affect our psyche? Especially if you're watching zombie movies and horror films, or tragedies all the time, or true crime.

Robert Maldonado  27:03

Most of us are able, of course, to distinguish what is reality and what is a movie, but you always hear about people that don't have that filter. They have difficulty screening out what is fantasy and what is a movie and what is reality.

Debra Maldonado  27:22

But doesn't it still affect you? If you're watching things like aggression, I’m talking about Game of Thrones, a lot of people like it, it's so violent? What does that do to our psyche to watch a violent show like this? I guess if you can discern that you're doing it?

Robert Maldonado  27:44

I think it goes back to what you consider human nature. There is a certain satisfaction we feel, or else people wouldn't watch violent scenes over and over, hundreds of them. But we go see horror movies, we go see violent movies, we get some kind of enjoyment out of them.

Debra Maldonado  28:11

I find it fascinating that for a lot of people true crime is really very popular, but also reality TV, that drama, craziness where people are fighting and acting out of control. Some people are really fascinated by that. There’s some kind of pleasure that we get because we are not allowed as a persona to express that craziness, that wildness, but there's part of us that is living it in some way.

Robert Maldonado  28:45

It is kind of vicarious living through the characters and through the action that's going on.

Debra Maldonado  28:52

That's why we feel satisfaction, like killing the enemy, sword through the evil person, some satisfaction.

Robert Maldonado  29:01

The sense of justice. But also we are storytellers as human beings. What did the we do when we didn't have any technologies? We sat around the fire and told stories, we used our imagination. We told each other stories about hunting, about things that happened to us, love stories, the technology simply amplifies that. It's the same story, it is simply told now through mass media.

Debra Maldonado  29:41

When we talk about what our parents teach us as kids in the environment, one of the things that I think is really important as an adult is how we resolve conflicts with other people. We talk about the heroes with a sword and the fight, but in real life, regular life, we don't have swords or battles. What can we learn from our parents about when we do have a conflict with someone, or altercation, or fight, or someone's unhappy with us, or boss that's jabbing us, how do we deal with those conflicts in marriages? That's also part of the environment.

Robert Maldonado  30:26

And part of the culture.

Debra Maldonado  30:30

It's okay to scream at each other, it's normal. There's some families, you just shout it out, but they'll make up later. It's like a normal way of being. If you're in that environment, you think, okay. Or physical fighting, we know it gets passed down from generation.

Robert Maldonado  30:49

It can go either way. Remember, it's 40/40, 40% genetics, 40% environment, and 20% chance. It is not an absolute, which saves us because it means we won't necessarily play out the same pattern as our parents did. But often, if we're not really conscious of it and don't do the self inquiry, self examination, we run away from that pattern. If our parents were used to screaming it out, shouting at each other and throwing things, we say “I don't want anything to do with it, I’m afraid of that. I don't want to recreate that.” But again, we're caught into it because now we're afraid of it. We're running away from it.

Debra Maldonado  31:43

We create a persona that's the opposite, a pleasing persona, a person who doesn't want to make waves, someone who plays in the background versus going forward, because the people that were loudest and got the most attention in the family were fighting, it was aggressive. But we're not free to make that, we’re like “I don't want to be like them”, but you're still making the decision to be not like them. It's still not freedom.

Robert Maldonado  32:08

Or we play out the same pattern. Or in moments of stress, anxiety, it comes out.

Debra Maldonado  32:13

Like the Oscars. Someone is expressing anger in uncontrolled way, that’s the shadow. It's the environment, if you don't face it, understand and recognize it within yourself, it’ll act out unconsciously.

Robert Maldonado  32:33

I think this is a failure of my own profession. Psychology hasn't done its job in educating the public on how the mind works. This is really good information for everyone to have — parents, kids, people, couples, individuals, just to have this basic information about how the mind works. My profession has not done a good job of disseminating that information. People depend on pop psychology.

Debra Maldonado  33:08

When you say “your profession”, you mean psychology? The medical model?

Robert Maldonado  33:13

Yes. People depend now on information from movies, and that's not a good way to do your self understanding or self inquiry.

Debra Maldonado  33:36

If someone knows they were brought up in a certain environment, they're trying to escape that environment, maybe escape their mother shadow, maybe everyone in the family is middle class or even struggling to pay their bills all the time, and they want to succeed, or maybe everyone in their family is divorced or always has drama in their relationship, they want to have a loving relationship, maybe everyone in their family is unhealthy, and they want to be healthy. How would someone make that shift from that biological, environmental culture to them becoming who they really want to be and do it not in a way to push away the past but to really make a conscious decision outside of it?

Robert Maldonado  34:25

It goes back to this quote that we started with. The mind is more muscle than we once believed. It is something that must be continuously exercised to attain and maintain peak fitness, peak performance. As adults, and even as young teenagers, you start to get the sense that I can pursue my own interests. But often people believe that because I've inherited my genes from my family, it means I'm stuck, I'm going to play out the same pattern that they did. Unconsciously, we don't even think about it, we just assume that because my parents were that way or my culture has taught me that way, that’s the life I'm going to live. But keep in mind what Flynn's research shows. 40% of our behavior, of our expression comes from the genes. That's not the whole picture. That's only 40%. The other 40% is the environment, meaning we have a 40% chance of changing our environment.

Debra Maldonado  35:43

We're not locked into our early life environment because we can create a new environment today. And we have the extra 20%. Like a bonus.

Robert Maldonado  35:53

That means I can pursue education consciously as an adult, as a young adult, or even in middle age and older, you can still pursue education, you can retrain your mind. That will change your genetic expression. Because it is gene-environment interaction, you're actually changing the potential of your genes, of your intelligence. It's never too late, you can join different groups that have different mindsets, instead of hanging out with the same people.

Debra Maldonado  36:33

When I went back to my high school reunion, after I became an entrepreneur, I had a different mindset around money, around what's possible. I went to my high school reunion, and it was like I didn't have anything in common with them, the conversations were just about their children, the gossip about who got divorced. I was like “No one's talking about anything really rich.” A lot of them stayed in the same town. Those of you who go back home for the holidays, you see your friend from growing up, they're still there, still in that same bubble. For me, even moving out of New Jersey, living in Colorado, and meeting a whole bunch of different friends, most of them were entrepreneurs. That's what drove me to be an entrepreneur, because I never thought of that before as something I'd want. Having a different environment stimulates even stuff deep within you that your soul has probably planned and wanted to express in this life. Look at those opportunities that these new environments are showing you. Change your environment, I would say it is the number one. Do the inner work.

Robert Maldonado  37:51

It’s 40%, that's a big chunk of your possibility. You can take the reins of your life, your intelligence, your personality, your abilities. That's a big opportunity life is giving us to direct our own evolution, our own growth, our own personal development. Then if you consider there's a 20% chance, it's up for grabs as well. Now you got 60% available to you to play with, to design for yourself, you're not stuck in your genetic code, you’re not stuck in your culture, you're only training, you can now say “This is what I want to do with my life."

Debra Maldonado  38:40

Haven't they done studies on animals and people, putting them in different environments and how it changes them even physiologically?

Robert Maldonado  38:50

Absolutely. It changes your neurochemistry, your physical body biochemistry because as human beings, our whole mind-body is an interaction with the environment. As you step outside your comfort zone and experience new things, it changes who you are, the expression from within.

Debra Maldonado  39:13

Joyful experiences could be one of them. What about nature? I know a lot of people, when they think about shifting themselves, there's something about nature that's very healing. Is it because we're so close, it's more of the pure divine part of ourselves?

Robert Maldonado  39:32

There's a theory called biophilia, meaning, we love nature. Instinctually, because we evolved. It's like our mother. We grew up in this green world of plants, animals, sky, mud, and thunder, and it's our inheritance. But we've isolated ourselves. This is part of Jung's work as well. He talks a lot about how modern humans have disconnected themselves to our own detriment from nature. We’re so focused on proving that we're not beholden to nature by creating our technologies in our concrete buildings.

Debra Maldonado  40:21

Even working in offices and sitting in our car, we don't really put our feet in the grass anymore. When we were kids, we did that a lot, wet grass after the rain in the summer, wrestling, climbing on the ground and laying in the blankets in the sun, just playing around with sticks, seeing the animals, it's just such a different experience. One of the things I decided to do when I was in my 20s was I started buying flowers for myself, every week on Monday, I would find a beautiful, fresh set of flowers. It was just this little thing that put me in an environment, in a space of love. People would always say “Debra, is it your birthday?" I’d say “No, someone who loves me very much got them for me." “Did you meet someone new?” I'm like “No, I bought them for myself.” They were like “Okay." But it was just this idea of self love. What can you do today to put yourself in the environment of abundance, of love, of nurturing? Are you watching too much news? Are you not meditating? Are you not being good to your body by nourishing it, eating foods or drinking too much, and your body feels like you're poisoning it instead of nurturing it? Just all those things initially can make such a big impact on a person, you feel good about yourself, when you take care of your body.

Robert Maldonado  41:54

There's always things we can do to change our mind, our brain, our body. That's the great news because it means we can literally take the reins of our life, our mind body will respond to that change.

Debra Maldonado  42:17

But mind is important too, don't just put yourself in a position, thinking the environment is going to do it all, that's in mind-environment exchange. There is the saying that the five people you surround yourself with really resemble your life, financially, relationships, health. Look at your friends, then look at what you want. You will probably all make around the same amount of money, you probably all have similar eating and social activities, also the way you have relationships. If you're with just a bunch of single friends all the time, there's no concept of healthy relationships, you're always complaining that no one's out there. Your mind is in that environment, there's no hope there. There's no one there to say “That's possible.” It's really important. That would be something to think about. Write down the five people you spend the most time with. What do you think their mindset is? What do you think their financial situation is? Does that match where you want to be? Not to say get rid of those friends, maybe it's your mother or your father or your brother. But just remember that when you're in that cocoon around them, your brain resonates in a way around that, calibrates to their job or their way of thinking.

Robert Maldonado  43:43

Think about how much money you make, how much exercise you do, what kind of activities, what kind of success you have in life in general. A lot of it is your conditioning, your past experiences, but you can redirect your mind to change all that. The mind is able to do that. It's an incredible opportunity, this life that we have.

Debra Maldonado  44:14

Cultivating that desire in the mind to have some different experience than you had. Don't blame your parents. Don't blame your genes. You can take responsibility of your life today. You can't change the past, you can't change the environment you were in. But the mind has a muscle, it can change. Just like anyone can get puffed up and build up their body, we can do the same thing with our mind, we can change our life. Great conversation. This is very interesting.

Robert Maldonado  44:49

Next time we're going to go deeper into parenting styles.

Debra Maldonado  44:54

Which style leads to a self-actualized adults. Those of you who are parents may want to pay attention to this, so you can have a highly enlightened adult child one day. Then also the debate on nature-nurture again and what these styles do. Very interesting conversation. Understand the style that you grew up in as well. We'll continue the debate. Did your parents screw up your life? Case for and against. We'll see you next week. Have a great week, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.