Especially music without words. Two hours per day, listening while you eat, attending to family including pets. 20 minutes before bed and no scrolling during music time.
Sorry, can’t give you source, but there is a video where they did a functional MRI on someone after drinking a cup of coffee. It’s a neural stimulant so you feel “up”, but the reasoning part of your brain gets pretty shut down! Great beverage for the slave class.
Yes, Jason Christoff says there’s a reason there’s a Starbucks on every corner. He has links to a fMRI that shows a 30% reduction in blood to the brain. He also notes that coffee destroys the hippocampus, and that it’s always been used for the productivity of the slaves.
It sure is nowadays! I never understood how people afforded buying coffee at Starbucks and other places. After seeing the fMRI demonstration and whatever was the latest price hike on coffee a few years ago I quit my one daily cup.
I remember my psychology tutor’s response to every ‘problem’: ‘Just Be’ he’d say. Frustrating at the time but makes so much sense. We instinctively know what’s good for us but are moulded and shaped too much by others and then by our guilt and feelings of inadequacy. A powerful reminder Dr F, thank you.
Thank you for your post. To suggest that the Witness is your True Self/Who You Really Are is a good start. Yet, this is fundamentally not the deepest truth.
The Witness is STILL a facet of the mind. There’s a third component, the part that is Witnessing the Witness; or Aware of your Awareness - THIS is where Truth begins.
You have been an immense positive influence on my 2025 and I have absolutely loved your columns. Thank you. I have two book recommendations for you I think you willl enjoy. One is "Against the Machine" by Paul Kingsnorth and the other is "The Master and His Emissary" by Iain McGilchrist. You may have already read McGilchrest. Happy New Year. Keep writing.
I've noticed that many people have extreme difficulty in silencing the inner voice. I tried chanting God's name for several years, with practice it can be done continuously in the mind. After several weeks and trying, I experienced spiritual emotion (bhav), a state of pure joy x 1,000. My inner voice now only returns when I command it to do so, which is rarely. I think chanting employs the deflection technique, thoughts and inner voice just can't sneak in.
What an encouraging article, especially this time of year. You remind us that we do have agency and we can resist the programming. My husband and I moved from the city to a rural area three years ago. We keep livestock now, turkeys, chickens, and geese. We have cattle on our land that belong to a rancher whose property is next to ours and he rotates his herd through our land. Nothing changed our perspective about what we’ve always believed to be true, what we were unknowingly programmed to believe about life, as living so close to nature, having to go with the flow of the seasons as the needs of the livestock change and having to adjust ourselves to the seasonal changes in the animals. Even the people who have lived their lives farming and ranching think differently than people who live in cities. Of course not everyone can pick up and move to a little place in the country to raise animals and live closer to the land, and not everyone would want to. But the popes and bishops of the 19th century who resisted the mass movement of people from rural areas to cities during the Industrial Revolution, predicting the harm done to individuals and families as people were packed into cities away from the land, were certainly correct in their predictions and I think that one reason we are so susceptible to exterior programming now is that most of us are removed from nature. We live in artificial urban environments where conformity, even if the conformity / programming is unconscious, is a way to survive, whether in school or work or in one’s own urban community.
Music is the soap that cleans the grime.
Especially music without words. Two hours per day, listening while you eat, attending to family including pets. 20 minutes before bed and no scrolling during music time.
Be well.
Leave coffee out of this, it’s never done anything to anyone
Im not giving it up… but the programming has been very
successful
Coffee programmed me by being delicious and keeping the lights on
Not every popular thing is popular by conspiracy!
Sorry, can’t give you source, but there is a video where they did a functional MRI on someone after drinking a cup of coffee. It’s a neural stimulant so you feel “up”, but the reasoning part of your brain gets pretty shut down! Great beverage for the slave class.
Yes, Jason Christoff says there’s a reason there’s a Starbucks on every corner. He has links to a fMRI that shows a 30% reduction in blood to the brain. He also notes that coffee destroys the hippocampus, and that it’s always been used for the productivity of the slaves.
Thanks, forgot exactly where I saw it!
Coffee is a rich people drink.
It sure is nowadays! I never understood how people afforded buying coffee at Starbucks and other places. After seeing the fMRI demonstration and whatever was the latest price hike on coffee a few years ago I quit my one daily cup.
Coffee is harmful, that's why it is pushed so heavily. Watch any modern movie carefully and watch how many times coffee is shown, 300 times in fightclub: https://www.jchristoff.com/blog/what-is-coffee-brain-and-how-do-you-know-if-you-have-it
Thanks for the link. Also another way to make sure you get your fluoridated water quota?
Thank you for this article.
📢✌🏼
What a timely piece of good advice as we step into a new year.
I remember my psychology tutor’s response to every ‘problem’: ‘Just Be’ he’d say. Frustrating at the time but makes so much sense. We instinctively know what’s good for us but are moulded and shaped too much by others and then by our guilt and feelings of inadequacy. A powerful reminder Dr F, thank you.
Thank you for your post. To suggest that the Witness is your True Self/Who You Really Are is a good start. Yet, this is fundamentally not the deepest truth.
The Witness is STILL a facet of the mind. There’s a third component, the part that is Witnessing the Witness; or Aware of your Awareness - THIS is where Truth begins.
Great title. Good advice. Thank you for the reminders.
Very timely. Thank you. The programming adds a "Yes, but..." to my thank you. I laugh at it, but it's a gentle laugh these days.
What? Are you trying to put the headshrinkers out of business?
Saw a Weight Watchers commercial yesterday. It's that time of year.
"Surrender to win."
"I cannot think my way into right acting, I act my way into right thinking. Right thinking comes while performing a right action."
Or “you can act your way into a new way of thinking quicker than you can think your way into a new way of acting”
Loved this article. Needed this reminder today.
Thank you, Dr. McFillin, for this wonderful, meaningful, helpful article. I'll definitely be reading it again.
You have been an immense positive influence on my 2025 and I have absolutely loved your columns. Thank you. I have two book recommendations for you I think you willl enjoy. One is "Against the Machine" by Paul Kingsnorth and the other is "The Master and His Emissary" by Iain McGilchrist. You may have already read McGilchrest. Happy New Year. Keep writing.
I read Kingsnorth
I've noticed that many people have extreme difficulty in silencing the inner voice. I tried chanting God's name for several years, with practice it can be done continuously in the mind. After several weeks and trying, I experienced spiritual emotion (bhav), a state of pure joy x 1,000. My inner voice now only returns when I command it to do so, which is rarely. I think chanting employs the deflection technique, thoughts and inner voice just can't sneak in.
What an encouraging article, especially this time of year. You remind us that we do have agency and we can resist the programming. My husband and I moved from the city to a rural area three years ago. We keep livestock now, turkeys, chickens, and geese. We have cattle on our land that belong to a rancher whose property is next to ours and he rotates his herd through our land. Nothing changed our perspective about what we’ve always believed to be true, what we were unknowingly programmed to believe about life, as living so close to nature, having to go with the flow of the seasons as the needs of the livestock change and having to adjust ourselves to the seasonal changes in the animals. Even the people who have lived their lives farming and ranching think differently than people who live in cities. Of course not everyone can pick up and move to a little place in the country to raise animals and live closer to the land, and not everyone would want to. But the popes and bishops of the 19th century who resisted the mass movement of people from rural areas to cities during the Industrial Revolution, predicting the harm done to individuals and families as people were packed into cities away from the land, were certainly correct in their predictions and I think that one reason we are so susceptible to exterior programming now is that most of us are removed from nature. We live in artificial urban environments where conformity, even if the conformity / programming is unconscious, is a way to survive, whether in school or work or in one’s own urban community.