Episode 152 – This Ancient Biblical Technique Will Unlock Your Nervous System

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Note: This blog post serves as an accompaniment to the corresponding podcast episode of A Changed Mind, where we’ll distill down the core ideas of this week’s theme, along with additional distinctions and insights. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, you can go here to do so.  Enjoy.

All of personal growth—every breakthrough, every mindset shift, every moment of transformation—can be traced back to just two laws. Most people miss this. We chase the next technique, the next strategy, the next program, hoping the right tool will finally flip the switch. But nothing truly changes until these two principles are understood and embodied. When you get them, everything begins to work. Your energy returns. Your perception shifts. Your growth accelerates. And it’s not complicated. These aren’t vague spiritual ideas; they’re neurological and energetic realities. Resistance creates contraction. Forgiveness creates energy. Master energy, and you stop managing problems—you start living from personal power.

I’ve done the seminars. I’ve read the books. I’ve sat in breathwork sessions and rewired beliefs. Yes, things improved. My mindset changed. But for years there was still a low, steady hum of suffering—like static behind an otherwise good song. Eventually I realized why: all the tools I was using were branches. The root was simpler and deeper than I imagined. Everything I’d ever learned about transformation distilled into two laws I now live by. When I teach them, people stop spinning their wheels and start creating results consistently.

What follows is my clearest articulation of those two laws and how to live them. Nothing here is theory for theory’s sake. This is the operating system I use daily. If you’ll bring your dreams, desires, and doubts to these pages, and really work what you’re about to read, your life will reorganize around your highest possibilities.

The First Law: Live in Non‑Resistance

Non‑resistance is the way through. I sometimes call it the master equation for personal growth:

Desire + Non‑Resistance = Desired Result.

When you have a desire—a vision, goal, dream, intention—the work isn’t to figure out how to achieve it. The mind will insist that’s the game. It will point to other people’s strategies, their carefully curated plans, and nudge you to replicate the steps that seemed to work for them. But the real work is to identify the resistance you have to what you want—and dissolve it. When you do, the path opens. Consistently. Predictably.

Want your dream home? Heal your body? Grow your business? Find your soulmate? Gain clarity? Change the world? The mind says: figure out the steps. Non‑resistance says: notice where you tighten against the possibility. The moment you release the contraction, you stop leaking energy and start moving forward with power and ease.

Seeing Where Resistance Hides

Where do we become resistant? In beliefs that insist, “Money is hard to make.” In stories like, “The doctor said it’s autoimmune—there’s nothing I can do.” In assumptions such as, “There are no good partners left.” In timelines that shame us—“If clarity hasn’t arrived by now, it won’t.” In global cynicism—“The systems are too entrenched; change isn’t possible.”

These are not harmless thoughts. They are energetic clamps. They deny reality as it actually is: a field of infinite possibilities. When you have a true desire, you’re not making something up; you’re tuning into it. You are remembering your future. If you can honestly want it, it lives somewhere in your timeline. That means it is possible. Resistance distorts your perception of that possibility.

Traditions have been pointing at this for thousands of years. Buddhism names it non‑attachment—releasing fixation on outcomes or expectations. Taoism calls it not‑forcing—moving with the natural way of things. Islam speaks of surrender. Christian mysticism speaks plainly of acceptance: yielding to what is, moment by moment, as a way of participating in what God is doing.

The message is unified: stop fighting life and you stop exhausting yourself. Reality is reorganizing on your behalf, often in ways you can’t predict. When you meet it with openness, you become available to the next step that actually works.

Indicators You’re in Resistance

How do you know when you’ve left non‑resistance? Limiting beliefs are the breadcrumbs. Any thought that narrows your sense of possibility is a bright indicator. So is the felt sense of non‑acceptance—internally insisting that “this shouldn’t be happening,” or “they shouldn’t have said that,” or “life should be different right now.” Whenever you’re entangled in a denial of what is, you’re spending precious energy holding reality at arm’s length.

That expenditure has a cost. Every ounce of energy burned resisting the moment is energy that can’t flow into expansion. But when you release resistance, the energy you were using to fight life becomes the fuel for your dreams.

The Two States of Being

Here’s the simplest and most practical way I know to do this: recognize that you’re always in one of two states of being—powerful or primal.

Powerful states feel good. Joy, curiosity, excitement, calm, peace. Neurologically, these align with the parasympathetic (down‑regulated) expression of the nervous system. In powerful states, you are in non‑resistance.

Primal states don’t feel good. Stress, anxiety, overwhelm, anger, depression, inadequacy, indecision, self‑sabotage, procrastination, financial fear. These reflect the sympathetic (up‑regulated) expression—fight or flight. In primal states, you are resisting.

You are always in one of the two. Never both. That clarity is a gift, because it gives you a clean starting point: How do I feel right now? If it feels good, stay engaged. If it doesn’t, you’ve discovered resistance. That means you have work to do—on your thinking.

The Thought That Hurts Is Untrue

It isn’t the event that puts you in a primal state. It’s the meaning you give the event. Losing the job doesn’t cause panic; the story “I won’t pay the mortgage” does. A quiet dating season doesn’t create despair; the thought “I’ll never meet someone” does. Your state follows your interpretation, not your circumstances.

After more than 10,000 coaching conversations, I’ve observed a consistent pattern: any thought that puts you into a primal state is, 100% of the time, not true. It’s a limiting belief masquerading as fact. It’s a protective reflex from an older version of you.

This is unbelievably good news. Once you see that the painful thought is untrue, you can pivot to its opposite and begin gathering evidence. If “I can’t trust people” puts you in suffering, the opposite—“I can trust people”—opens your system. If “I’ll never have enough” tightens your chest, the opposite—“I am resourced and resourceful”—begins to restore your breath. If “I’ll live with this pain forever” spirals you into fear, the opposite—“I can heal”—returns you to possibility.

I use a simple tool for this that I’ve taught to thousands—my Decision Matrix. Name the limiting belief, flip it, then list real evidence for the opposite being true. As you do, you reactivate dormant memories and neural networks. Your brain literally changes (neuroplasticity in action), and with it your perception of reality.

A Conversation in the Dominican Republic

A while back, on vacation in the Dominican Republic, the man who served our breakfast each morning pulled me aside. “Do you have any positions in your organization?” he asked. Then, with a heaviness that felt final, he said, “It’s impossible to get ahead here.” I told him, gently, that what he’d just stated was a decision, not a universal truth. If it were factually true that there are no opportunities in the Dominican Republic, then no Dominican would ever leave the island, and none would build a meaningful life there. That’s simply not reality.

I shared the story of a woman named Maria Bahi. She grew up in a modest family, pursued art and music, and later became a social entrepreneur after a profound moment working with deaf students. In 2013 she founded the Museik Project to use music and technology to bring the experience of sound to children in the Dominican Republic—and eventually, around the world. She produced documentaries. She partnered with Harvard. Her life was a living contradiction to the belief that possibility didn’t exist where she stood. The difference? A changed mind and a willingness to believe.

That’s what I taught him in that moment: your limitation lives in the decision you’re making about what is and isn’t possible. If you want to practice the first law—non‑resistance—start by becoming exquisitely aware of the resistance masquerading as your “facts.” Name the belief, flip it, and begin gathering real evidence for the empowered opposite. As you do, you’ll feel your body downshift. Clarity returns. Options appear. You move back into non‑resistance and the next action becomes obvious.

The Second Law: Forgiveness

If non‑resistance returns our energy to us, forgiveness keeps it. When I look across thousands of coaching conversations—and my own life—the second great drain on our power is resentment. This is why the great wisdom traditions place forgiveness at the center of their teachings. We see it in the line “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It isn’t poetry for poetry’s sake. It’s a precise instruction for how to stay resourced.

When you live inside resentment—toward yourself or another—you activate a primal state. The sympathetic nervous system fires. Your breath shallows, your attention narrows, and your body prepares to fight ghosts from the past. The story loop starts: what they did, why they were wrong, how you were right, what should have happened instead. And just like limiting beliefs, these resentment‑stories insist that reality should be different than it is. That insistence—“this shouldn’t have happened”—is resistance by another name.

Forgiveness ends the argument with what happened. It doesn’t excuse, condone, or minimize. It simply refuses to carry the burden forward. It’s a decision to lay down the weapon that keeps cutting your own hand. And in that laying down, energy comes roaring back. Your system de‑activates. Your thinking clears. You become creative again.

What Resentment Sounds Like

If you could transcribe your resentments word for word, you’d hear a familiar cadence: the internal rant that flares when an old wound is touched. Mine once sounded like this about my dad: It’s never good enough for him. He doesn’t appreciate me. Why can’t he just acknowledge me? For years I held that knot so tightly I didn’t see how it was tying me to the past. I wanted his approval like oxygen. I wanted him to show up in a very specific way.

I also wanted him to attend a live event I host each year. I invited him early on, and then again later, and again after that. Each time he was busy, hesitant, or noncommittal. And with each no, my resentment rehearsed its lines: See? He’ll never show up for you. You’re not important to him. The more I believed those thoughts, the more I suffered. The more I suffered, the more those thoughts looked like facts.

Then I did with my resentment what I teach people to do with limiting beliefs. I asked, “What if the opposite is true?” What if my dad has always loved me in the ways he knows how? What if his hesitance isn’t rejection, but his own nervous system trying to navigate unfamiliar territory? What if I stop insisting that he be a different man, and instead meet the man he is with clear eyes and an open heart? The moment I dropped the should, I felt my chest loosen. I could see new possibilities for our relationship: new conversations, new boundaries, new appreciation for what’s actually here.

Letting Go of the ‘Shoulds’

Here’s a smaller, everyday example. For a long time I came home and kicked my shoes off wherever I felt like it. My wife would get upset. I’d bristle and argue that she shouldn’t tell me where my shoes need to go. But of course she should—given her values around order, the family she grew up in, and the emotional experience she has when the house is neat. From a clear, honest view, my shoes were not in an organized place. Her response made sense. My resistance—my insistence that she shouldn’t be upset—kept me stuck in a loop.

When I accepted reality as it is—that my wife values tidy spaces and that I was ignoring that—I stopped arguing. I put my shoes where they belong. I told her I appreciated the way she keeps our home. Instantly, a dozen new possibilities appeared: less friction, more connection, and a shared rhythm that felt good to both of us. That’s the power of releasing resentment’s should. When the story dissolves, choice returns.

How to Practice Forgiveness in Real Time

Forgiveness is a decision, but it’s also a practice. Here’s the process I use:

1. Notice the activation. Tight chest, hot face, rehearsing the old speech—these are signals. You’ve left a powerful state and slid into a primal one. 
2. Name the story. Write the internal rant exactly as it sounds. Don’t dress it up. Let it be as petty or as righteous as it wants to be. 
3. Ask for the opposite. If this thought hurts, it isn’t true. What is the life‑giving opposite? They should have done exactly what they did. Or: I was supposed to experience this, because it’s how I learn to set a boundary. 
4. Gather evidence for the opposite. List three to ten real examples. Notice what shifts in your body as you do. Breath deepens. Shoulders drop. Options appear. 
5. Choose aligned action. From a powerful state, do what’s next: set a boundary, make a repair, change a habit, say thank you, let it go. 

This isn’t about becoming a doormat. Forgiveness and boundaries are friends. In fact, the more cleanly you forgive, the more clearly you can draw a line—not from anger, but from self‑respect. You conserve energy and direct it where it matters.

Energy Is the Entire Game

Non‑resistance and forgiveness aren’t abstractions. They’re energy strategies. When you’re caught in resistance, your system spends down its budget fighting what is. When you’re tangled in resentment, your system spends down its budget arguing with what was. Either way, there’s not much left for your dream. But when you release both, the energy that was tied up in struggle is suddenly available for creation. Your nervous system re‑regulates. Your field of view widens. You become resourceful.

This is why the two laws sit at the core of my work: because every result you want is a function of the energy you bring to it. Desire without resistance becomes momentum. Momentum sustained by forgiveness becomes mastery.

Putting It All Together

Here’s the compact way I hold this in my day‑to‑day life:

• If I’m in a powerful state, I keep going. That good feeling is the body’s way of saying, Yes—this is aligned. 
• If I’m in a primal state, I work the thought. I find the untruth, flip it, and look for evidence. As soon as my physiology shifts, I act. 
• If a person or memory triggers resentment, I write the rant, forgive what happened, and move the lesson forward—often with a boundary attached. 

Live these two laws and you distill personal growth into something workable. You stop outsourcing your power to the next strategy and start generating it from within. You stop chasing permission and start giving yourself the green light. And you discover that life—without your resistance to it—is wildly responsive.

An Invitation to Your Future Self

Before you move on, choose one desire that’s living close to the surface. Then ask: Where am I resisting this? Name the belief. Flip it. Write five pieces of evidence for the opposite. Note the shift in your body and take one small action from that powerful state today.

Next, choose one resentment you’re ready to retire. Write the rant exactly as it sounds. Then forgive what happened, gather evidence that the opposite is true, and decide how you’ll carry the lesson forward—with a boundary if one is needed.

Return to these two laws tomorrow. And the day after. Let them be your practice. In time, you’ll watch your world rearrange itself around your deepest intentions. You’ll feel lighter, clearer, more resourced. And you’ll notice that the future you’ve been working toward has been walking toward you the whole time.