What's keeping you tethered?

Have you ever caught yourself going through the motions, feeling disconnected from the vibrant life you once envisioned? Is there a magical dream life you know is possible for you, but it feels impossible to attain?

In this episode, I share the number one thing keeping you tethered to a life you don't love: not feeling.

On Tuesday, Matt Zemon joined the podcast to talk about the power of psychedelics and why people are suddenly talking so much about their healing powers, and why he believes they should be more accessible.

In the conversation with Matt, the main message he revealed is that the purpose of making these these substances available to people is to help them in safely peeling back the layers of numbness that keep us from connecting to our true selves. 

Coming back to your body, and reconnecting the mind and body, is essential to properly orchestrating the life you desire. It's your job to take your most empowered approach and become the conductor of your life – however you get there.

I'll also take you through a personal revelation sparked by an emotional exchange with my mom, showcasing the importance of feeling our emotions, even if they're painful, to cultivate a more compassionate existence.

This journey isn't just for the psychedelic-curious—it's for anyone seeking to live a life filled with mindfulness and authentic creation. Practices like meditation and breathwork will help you untether in the same way magic mushrooms will. 

At the end of this episode, I guide you through a gentle breathing exercise to deepen your connection with your body and the inherent magic of your being. So plug in, take a deep breath, and prepare to transform the way you engage with the world around you.

Chapters

• 0:05 Breaking Free From Numbed Out Living
• 9:45 The Power of Mindfulness and Creation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hi and welcome to Untethered with GenList, the podcast that's here to help you break free, be you and unleash your inner brilliance. I'm your host, jen, and in this episode we're going to talk about the number one thing that's keeping you tethered to a life you don't love. Let's dive in. Hey there, friends, it's Jen. Welcome back to the podcast. So good to have you back.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Today's episode is a Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread, thursday thread jam. Thursday thread jam sesh.

Speaker 1: 0:48

We're talking about the episode with Matt Zeman on Tuesday. You don't have to have listened to it, but if you're psychedelic, curious at all, or if you're curious, if you've ever had an experience, if you've had a breathwork session, if you have had Reiki, if you've had some kind of embodiment experience period, if you've tried ecstatic dance, if you've even been curious about any of these things or you know what, if you have danced and then felt better afterward, that's probably everybody if you have felt that his episode is so good. Because what we're talking about in the episode with Matt is magic mushrooms, we're talking about psychedelics, we're talking about drugs, but what we're really talking about and please listen to the very end or fast forward to the very end and hear the very last thing that he said, because it matters so much. What we're really talking about is the fact that life is so fucking magical and this existence, the fact that we are here and the fact that every day we get to choose, and we are choosing this life path that we are on, and there is just so much beauty, so much freaking beauty. That's the conversation. He's like yes, psychedelics, that's actually what helps people get to that realization, and that's the same for me with breathwork. It's like that connection back to what we truly are, who we truly are. That is it. Now, why did I talk about this being an episode about the number one thing that's keeping you tethered? Well, buckle in, buckle in my friend, I just had to adjust myself in my seat for this conversation because the number one thing, the top thing, that is keeping most people tethered to a life that they don't love, that is keeping people stuck in dissatisfaction. That is keeping people stuck wherever it is that you are. It's keeping you stuck in the clutter of the chaos of your mind is exactly what Matt said, which is not feeling numbing out, numbing ourselves out.

Speaker 1: 3:07

I'm going to tell a story about a couple months ago. I'm talking to my mom on the phone and I'm out for a walk and I'm having this conversation with my mom talking through headphones, and I'm telling her something really hard. And we're having this conversation and I'm crying and I told her it was really hard for me to tell you this, and it can be really hard sometimes to and I said something to the tune of you know, it just really hurts sometimes when people say or think certain things. And she said yeah, you know, when I was younger, I used to let that stuff bother me too, but I just stopped and that gave me pause, because this likely isn't what my mom means by that.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Maybe it is because in this world and how I internalized things like that is that it's not okay for me to feel bad, it's not okay for me to feel this negative emotion, it's not okay for me to care what other people think. I have to just not care what anybody thinks. I have to just not, I have to just not, just not, just not. And throughout our lives, all of those just nots. Like I can't cry right now, I need to stuff this down, I can't feel that right now.

Speaker 1: 4:32

As we do that, over time we start to feel like the just not is the actual state that we need to be living in, the feeling bad about what somebody else thinks. Well, maybe what somebody else thinks is actually kind of cruel and maybe their judgment is genuinely really harsh and it doesn't feel good. And so, instead of letting myself recognize shit that feels really bad, I just said you know what, I'm just not going to worry about that, I'm not going to care about that, I'm going to, you know, not give a shit about what they think. But in essence, when I do that, I'm numbing myself out, I'm covering it up, I'm not letting myself feel the thing. And when I don't notice, I don't let myself feel the thing. Then I actually start to think that it's okay for somebody else to judge somebody else in the way that was actually hurtful to me because I didn't feel it, and let myself feel like, shh, that hurts, that's not okay. And so then I'm out there actually reinforcing some of the behaviors that had felt bad when it happened to me. I'm out there doing it to other people. I'm out there judging other people and expecting things of them and doing all the things that were done to me that actually hurt because I didn't let myself feel it, because if you really truly let yourself feel the hurt of something that somebody is inflicting on you, you wouldn't ever do that to somebody else and you wouldn't ever let it happen to yourself because you know how bad it feels. So then you're going to go out in the world and act differently and be differently and be different to other people. So the number one thing that is keeping us tethered to a shitty world, like we're creating a world that none of us, we look around.

Speaker 1: 6:27

I saw somebody this is slightly tangential but also important somebody on LinkedIn. Today. I saw this post he put in AI. He put a prompt to say create a picture from every decade for the last 100 years. So there's AI created a picture of people in a group from the last 100 years, so 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1950, 1960.

Speaker 1: 6:56

And so you see the clothes are changing and the things that people are doing are changing, and then, when they get to the 2000s, everybody's looking at their phones. You're seeing all these costume changes. I think the 90s looked super red. The 2000s looked like everybody's looking at their phone. 2010s, everybody's looking at their phones. In 2020, everybody's wearing masks. And then 2030, it looks like a dystopian dark gray, just like it looks like we're living in the Terminator times. And you look at movies from the history, like every time we're looking to the future. In so many of those movies it's like dark.

Speaker 1: 7:33

It's like if we continue down the path that we are thinking, like AI is just regenerating the things that we're all thinking and doing, then of course that's what we're going to be creating. But if we stopped and we thought about, like, what is the future that would feel so good for us to create, if we let ourselves feel the pain and the bullshit that we are creating, we wouldn't create that future and AI would be churning out a completely different image. But we have to feel it. We have to feel it. If we just keep living in this numbed out, well, you know, it is what it is. That's one of the phrases that I grew up with a lot. It is what it is, which is true, except that what it actually is, what you actually are, what we actually are, is fucking magic.

Speaker 1: 8:36

What Matt was saying at the very end of our conversation like we are so beautiful, we are so beautiful, but we have numbed out and so we don't even recognize that beauty anymore. What we're seeing is all of this judgment in the tethers and just this dystopian funk. That's not what we really are. We are part of nature. Do you look like? Really stand and look. I'm on a hike the other day and I paused to look at this pine tree, just this one branch of this pine tree, the intricate nature of every little piece, of just a tiny sprig off of a pine tree. It's magic and you are a piece of that magic. You're a masterpiece. You are a piece of the master, something that my mentor says that she heard from her rabbi, rabbi David Aaron. It's like we are all a piece of that. Look at the most beautiful thing that you can see in existence, that nature has created, that this world has created, and just really stop and look at it. Stop and look at it and notice the sensations in your body as you look at that beautiful thing.

Speaker 1: 9:45

You don't have to be in psychedelics to do this. You can be on psychedelics to do this. Like I said in my conversation with Matt, I haven't done psychedelics since I was in my 20s. I did it one time and I'll probably try it sometime relatively soon, I assume. I'll probably go to something and give it a whirl, because it's becoming something that is fairly accessible to people, which is what his book is about Psychedelics for Everyone, making it more accessible for people.

Speaker 1: 10:11

But you don't have to be on psychedelics to really pause and to look and to feel the sensations in your body as you recognize that beauty If more and more of us pause. This is what mindfulness does, this is what meditation does, it's what breathwork does, it's what psychedelics do. It invites us into the pause so that we can look and we can see and we can remember that which we are and that which we are creating. But we can't remember, we can't create. From this place of numbed out consciousness, you cannot create something magical. The best artists are tapped into that. The best creators, the people who are creating the things that you know and love. They have tapped into this and anybody can tap into it. It's actually free. You don't have to pay to breathe with me. You don't have to pay for drug. You don't have to pay for it. However, those things can be incredibly enjoyable and we also forget. Our brain forgets and it can help to have something that works really well for you for tapping back in. All of us can do this, and all of us need to be doing this.

Speaker 1: 11:25

If you're listening to this podcast and you're not doing some kind of mindfulness practice, some kind of something that is helping you to come back to the source and the reality and the beauty and the magic of what you truly are, what are you even doing with this life? Because that's the thing that's going to lead you to the most untethered, most magical, most beautiful life, so that, when you are 90 years old, you look back and you say holy bologna, holy banana bread, holy banana bread with pecans. You're not a nut bread person. Take the pecans out, but, dang, isn't it good? Isn't banana bread good with pecans in it? That actually sounds really delightful right now. I made some brownies last night and I crushed up some nuts and added it into the mix. I'd never done that before, but I'm getting a little bit more creative with some of my food offerings. But that magic, it's really just.

Speaker 1: 12:22

We can create from any place, and right now we are creating from a place of numb, and it's creating this dystopian thing that we're all looking toward. You have the power to shift this energy that we are creating with. We are conscious creators, but most of us are not feeling enough of the actual magic in the world in order to be consciously creating something beautiful. You're creating something all the time. We're reinforcing things every single day. We're reinforcing the same paths that we've been on, or we could reinforce a new path. We could do something new, we could try something new. We can reinforce that. It's okay to change. We can leave the job that we hate that's killing us, and show the rest of the world that that's possible for them, too. You are a reflector. You are a mirror of possibility to others. So start living what is possible for you. And that's what I mean when I say let's fuck around and get paid. Let's all create the thing that we want to be living.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Do you want to be creating retreats? Go to retreats. Start going to retreats. Show other people in the world that it's possible for them, too, to go to retreats. Do you want to start speaking, or do you want to believe that it's possible to create a career speaking? Start speaking. Start speaking. Start showing other people that it's possible for them to speak too, and when they see that you're speaking, then there will be more opportunities for you to start getting paid to speak, because more people know that you're a speaker and that's how it grows.

Speaker 1: 14:01

You have to start doing the thing. You have to start doing the magical thing. But when we aren't feeling the thing that we really are, the thing that we really want, the thing that we really really need, we'll never get to that point because it will always feel too scary and not possible. Because that's that other part of your brain that is talking, that's that turned off, just robot fear brain that is running the show most of the time. We have to come into the feelings. That's how you untether. You can untether from all of that bullshit when you really come home to what you truly are. Sometimes there's some discomfort there and sometimes that can be a process and that's okay. It was a big process for me. Start with one little moment, one little breath, and in fact we're going to breathe together here. If you have a couple of minutes to just pause and breathe with me and connect to your magic, I'm going to invite you to do that alongside of me.

Speaker 1: 15:03

Today for our conscious breath, we are going to tap in and ask our body how it feels. How does my body feel today? Inviting that question now might feel like a weird question. It might feel like a relief to be asking that question. How does my body feel Taking a big inhale into the nose, feeling the expansion of your body, your belly, expanding the chest andnelism exhaling out through the mouth? How is my body feeling Now, beginning to rotate your breath into the nose, out through the mouth and a nice, gentle pace, in and out, nothing forced, letting it be easy, letting the breath easily flow.

Speaker 1: 16:13

Doing a body scan from head to toe, beginning at the very top of your head, moving down to the forehead. We're not asking the body to change or to shift, but we're simply noticing and recognizing what's here. Is the brow furrowed or is it smooth? Checking in beside the eyes, behind the eyes, around the mouth, the jaw, the neck, continuing to breathe into the nose and out through the mouth Nice, gentle breath, nice, gentle breaths. Checking in with the shoulders, chest, moving down the arms to the forearms, hands, noticing if the hands are tightened or if they're open. Moving down to the belly, the hips, thighs, knees, cavs and feet. Just scanning your awareness from your toes all the way up to your head and all the way back down, with complete judgment-free, noticing what is here, what is present, and when you're ready, we're going to invite a second question into our awareness what does my body need? Letting that answer arise. What does my body need? Maybe you hear a word or a phrase, maybe you feel a sensation or an urge Just listening, allowing your body to answer. Beautiful, when you're ready, fluttering your eyes open, maybe placing a hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, thanking yourself for taking this moment to check in with where your body's at, checking in with its needs, promising yourself to offer your body, your heart, your body, your body. Promising yourself to offer your body, your heart and your mind exactly what it needs today.

Speaker 1: 19:20

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Truly, it means the world to me that you would listen to this podcast, that you would think and consider these things for yourself, how it is that you can live your most brilliant and magical life and create more of that brilliance for other people in the world as well. If there's something in this podcast episode that you enjoyed, or that podcast episode with Matt on Tuesday that you enjoyed, I encourage you to share it with a friend. Share this podcast. You can share it with all of your friends by taking a screenshot. Tag me and tetherjen on Instagram. I would always reshare your posts if you tag me. Thank you again for listening. You just keep shining your brilliant, magical unicorn light out there for all to see. I'll see you next time, bye.