Matt's Audio Letter of the Week

Alright, hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s FBL, or Feel Better Letter.

This is Matt.

So the central idea of the Feel Better Letter is to help people shift their state. Because at the end of the day, that’s really all we’re ever looking for. It’s all we ever really want.

As much as the mind convinces you that you want something else, what you really want is a different state.

For instance, the mind may say you need to get rid of the thoughts. But the only reason you want to get rid of the thoughts you're having is because you think that doing so will make you feel better.

If I proposed a trade and said, “Hey, look, I can get rid of all your thoughts, but you’re going to have to feel the way you feel right now for the rest of your life—or even worse,” you wouldn’t take that deal.

Or think about something tangible in your life. Maybe you want a new Mercedes or a Tesla or something like that. The only reason you really want it is because you believe it’s going to elevate your state.

Because if I offered you a Tesla but said you’d have to feel depressed the entire time you had it, you wouldn’t take that deal either.

So one of the big challenges for people who experience these loops—OCD, anxiety, panic, or even getting caught in anger, depression, shame, guilt, and other lower emotional states—is that we don’t know what to do with feelings and energy.

What you have to understand is that when you’re in a certain state, your mind simply reflects that state. It creates thoughts out of that emotion, justifies the presence of the emotion, and then perpetuates that emotion.

That’s why when you talk about things you’re angry about, you just get more angry. And when you talk about things you’re afraid of, you get more afraid.

This is why talk therapy often doesn’t work for these issues—it just keeps people going in cycles.

When you really look at one of the central problems of why people remain stuck, it’s because they use the very mind that is generating thoughts from the emotion to try to solve either the thoughts or the emotion.

When you’re identified with your mind and believe you are your mind—when you assume every thought that pops up is simply “you”—and then you try to use that same mind from that state to solve the problem, you can’t do it.

It’s impossible.

Because the mind can only create more of the state it’s currently in.

This is why trying to think your way out of these loops never works. In fact, it can’t work.

Einstein famously said that you cannot solve a problem from the same plane of consciousness in which it was created. And that’s exactly what he was talking about.

You can’t solve fear from the lens of fear.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people assume that all thoughts are the same. They assume every thought they have is logical and rational, without considering the context in which the thought is appearing.

Logic and rationality exist at a certain level of consciousness. They are a certain field that you can access. But just because you can be logical and rational in some areas of life doesn’t mean every thought you have is logical and rational.

Most people are completely unaware of the state they’re operating in. They simply assume that whatever their mind says must be logical.

That lack of awareness—lack of consciousness—is one of the major traps that keeps people stuck.

So the same fear they’re in becomes the lens through which they try to navigate recovery.

And all fear will ever do is highlight the downfalls, the pitfalls, why something is risky, why it’s scary—and ultimately keep you stuck.

That’s all fear really does.

Fear promises safety, but what it actually provides is a prison.

And you have to ask yourself: is that worth it?

Because when you really study fear and honestly look at your experience with it, you realize it has never really done anything for you. It hasn’t actually kept you safe.

Think about all the time you’ve spent ruminating.

Ask yourself honestly: do you ever look back on a time you spent hours ruminating and feel glad that you did?

Think about a time you ruminated for hours and ask yourself, “Was that time well spent?”

If we assume the average person gets about 78 years on this earth, was that time a good investment of the limited time you have?

The answer is almost always no.

It feels like the right thing to do in the moment because it helps us temporarily escape an emotion. But in reality, it never really produces anything positive.

Every moment we spend in fear is a moment we give to fear—and one we can never get back.

Even though it may seem rational in the moment, it never really is in hindsight.

The same way ruminating three weeks ago about whatever you were thinking about doesn’t make sense now is the same way ruminating today will look three weeks from now.

When we’re in a certain plane of consciousness, all we can do is perpetuate that state.

The trap many people fall into is that they’re over-identified with the mind. They assume every thought is logical and rational without ever considering the context or the state in which the thought is arising.

Then they try to use the fear-driven mind to escape the fear-driven mind.

And all that will ever do is lead them back into the loop.

That’s all it can do.

This is also why information is only useful up to a certain point. Because real recovery is about transcending levels of consciousness.

And that’s the trap many people fall into.

I just wanted to shine some light on that today.

If this resonates with you, the reason TBC exists is to help people transcend those levels. Because when you try to solve this from your own current level of thinking, it indirectly caps you.

And I know that’s not always easy to hear.

But you can’t see what you can’t see, and you don’t know what you don’t know.

That gap right there is exactly what needs to be crossed in order to get to the other side of this.

So I just wanted to share some thoughts on that today.

I hope this is helpful, and I wish you all a great day and a great week.

I look forward to seeing you all soon.