Episode 322 – Unstoppable Life Transformationalist and Founder of Self Intelligence with Chris Knight

Self Intelligence? What is that. Well, listen to my conversation this time with Chris Knight to see and discover for yourself. Chris is from Australia where he has lived his whole life. As he was growing up he began encountering some medical issues such as what his doctors diagnosed as chronic pain. He was told he would have to learn to “manage the pain”.   After most of his school education he discovered that he was good at working with and helping people. He worked for an agency helping people to overcome life trauma for example. Eventually, he realized he needed to look further at how he wanted to live his life with pain and he decided he wanted to explore how better to help those around him.   As you will hear, not only did Chris study and find ways to help others, but he also learned how to help himself. He has been totally pain free for many years. He now has his own business working as what some might call a spiritual life coach.   He and I talk about what he calls your lower self and how it tries to take control over your life. He helps us understand how we can connect with our inner self to bring out and live through our higher self. We talk about fear and suffering and how we all can learn not to let those things control who we are.   Chris offers a great deal of good life advice that we all can use. As he tells us at the end of our time together, he works with people throughout the world and he is available to consult with you should you wish it.       About the Guest:   For the past 15 years, Chris Knight, founder of Self Intelligence, has dedicated his career to helping individuals transform their lives from the inside out. His approach focuses on addressing the underlying emotional and psychological patterns that shape people's behaviors, beliefs, and identities. Through a combination of powerful awareness practices and healing processes, Chris helps clients and students confront and heal the root causes of limiting beliefs, childhood conditioning, and emotional wounds. His approach is rooted in the idea that by understanding and releasing the deep-seated trauma and conditioning that often hold us back, people can step into a more authentic and empowered way of living.   Chris's work goes beyond traditional coaching or therapy. He specializes in guiding people through self-discovery and emotional healing by helping them access parts of themselves that are often hidden beneath layers of defense mechanisms and unconscious programming. His clients include people from all walks of life—whether they're struggling with anxiety, self-doubt, or relationship challenges, or addiction Chris techniques help them uncover the core issues that create these difficulties. His methods emphasize self-awareness, emotional resilience, and the ability to break free from the patterns of thought and behavior that no longer serve them. This holistic approach has earned him a reputation as a transformative leader in the field of personal development.   As the founder of Self Intelligence, Chris has not only worked one-on-one with countless students and clients but also developed programs and workshops that allow individuals to take control of their healing journeys. His work empowers people to reclaim their personal power by reconnecting with their true selves, free from the constraints of societal expectations and past conditioning. Over the past decade and a half, Chris has helped people from around the world make profound shifts in their lives, guiding them toward greater emotional freedom, self-acceptance, and the ability to live in alignment with their highest potential.   Ways to connect with Chris:   Website https://chrisknight.com.au/ https://selfintelligence.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chrisknight_selfintelligence/ Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCynX0a9cJdcX9KTnggSxs8A Facebook https://www.facebook.com/chrisknightselfintelligence   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, I really want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I'm glad Ashley set this up, and we'll have some fun. And as you know, this is all about having a conversation, and that's what makes it really fun. So looking forward to conversing   Chris Knight ** 01:38 Absolutely. Yeah, I'm more than happy to unpack an unstoppable, unstoppable mindset is certainly resonates with the work that I'm offering, and it feels like a really good alignment. So yeah, I'm looking forward to this. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 01:55 why don't we start? I love to start this way, because it's kind of fun and it always lays the groundwork. Tell us something about the early Chris, growing up and all that sort of stuff.   Chris Knight ** 02:06 Well, I mean, that's where all this begins. Well, it does. It absolutely does. My the work that I am offering to the world is something that I personally was supported by from my early 20s. I'm in my very early 40s now. So 20 years ago, I was in a pretty terrible space. I think a lot of people refer to it as like a dark night of the soul. I had a relationship breakdown, I had toxic debt, career dissatisfaction, chronic pain, there was a whole whirlpool of issues that were going on at that time, and I had no idea how to get out of it. I was seeking many different practitioners at that time in the conventional kind of Western approach, but also in the eastern as well to support with the symptoms I was experiencing, as well as mental health with depression, and I wasn't getting any long term results from from a lot of the things that I was I was doing at that time, I was told I was going to have chronic pain for the rest of my life, and I would have to manage that pain because I'd had it for about six years, and they couldn't quite work it out. I think they'd probably call it something like fibromyalgia now, or some other thing, but it was basically this diagnosis of managing a really poor way of living, and I just felt like that wasn't going to be how I was going to live for the rest of my life. Something deep inside me was it was saying, No, this is not for me. So that's when I started looking at myself in a way that I didn't even know was possible, and it certainly wasn't conditioned at school to do this, to go inside and become aware of what's happening behind the eyes. Often we're very aware of what's happening in front of the eyes and everything that's happening, or we become aware of everything outside through our senses, but what's going on in terms of our thoughts, our emotional states, the things that we become identified inside of ourselves, that is a large part of creating our lives, was something I was starting to look at so that, that kicked off this journey. Michael, and I'm imagining a lot of people were listening into this, this podcast with you, an unstoppable mindset would be also in some way, doing this, something like that. And. Of course, there are many different approaches to that, to that investigation and that discovery, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 05:07 sure, absolutely no question about that. Did you go to college?   Chris Knight ** 05:15 Yes, I, well, I, I got almost kicked out of what we call college, I think you would call High School. Still, we're in Australia, it's a bit different. We go to year 10, and then we go to college, which is year 11 and 12, and that prepares you for university. University. Yeah, I didn't go to uni till six, or could have been eight years after college where I did my degree in musculoskeletal therapy, and that's where I that was a major shifting point for me. I quit my very well paying job in the public service, which had a very promising pathway for me, what were you doing? I was a government housing manager. Okay, so I was working with very challenged people in society to look after their tendencies. And it was, it was the first time I realized I had a gift at working with people and helping them deal with their stuff. These people had major challenges, mental health, domestic violence, you know, drug abuse, everything you can really imagine at that a very severe level. And I had a very unique gift with working with these people. So that's where I just I decided I was going to take it further and combine my also experience with chronic physical back pain to go into muscular musculoskeletal therapy. So I moved from Canberra to Brisbane to do that, and that set me on a completely different path. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 06:58 So tell me more about that, what the degree was and how that kind of influenced where you went.   Chris Knight ** 07:05 Well, it I wasn't interested in the paths that felt to me were really isolating and mechanical in their approach to healing. So I went to a holistic School of Natural Medicine, and it was saying that their approach was holistic, essentially, right, which is what appealed to me, because that's how I healed what was going on for me. But I discovered that even though that's what it was stating to be, and certainly in terms of approaching body and body pain, it was holistic in that it would look at the whole body, but it didn't look at the stresses, for example, the internal issues that everybody faces that contributes to our symptoms. Right? So the body mind connection was not a subject, even in this arena, which was holistic medicine. And so that led me to study psychosomatic therapy. I'm not sure if you're aware of those terms. So yes, that oftentimes when people go to doctors, and the doctor will say, you know, this is a psychosomatic issue. This is not a real issue, that what they're saying is that it's all in your mind. So yeah, that's not what this is referring to. Psychosomatic therapy was recognizing the irrefutable body mind connection that has been well documented and just experienced by human beings, that the body and mind are connected is a very obvious thing, for example, if someone's about to go on a podcast, and they might feel a little bit nervous about it, so their body mind connection will report that as far as it might be the heart rate's increasing a little bit, there might be a bit sweaty palms. Who knows these kinds of things will be happening, the body's experiencing what the mind is thinking and believing and all of that is happening. We experience this every single day. And so you can look at that to the degree of how symptoms come about, right? So how do we experience pain and tension or posture and all sorts of things? So that's I had this wealth of knowledge of the body, and then I got the wealth of knowledge of the body mind connection. That was what led there. And then I was a body worker and emotional release facilitator and many different things in that therapeutic journey. For many years, I actually ran my own courses in emotional anatomy, which was very powerful. And then from there, I discovered that there was a missing piece of vital, missing piece in the practical day to day how to work with these things, so not relying on. Therapist to do the inner work. That's where That's where it essentially started to go. Everyone was getting major shifts and changes and discoveries, but not necessarily integrating that in their daily life as a lifestyle. And that's what I became interested in. How does this become a lifestyle, no different to exercise, no different to good eating habits or sleeping habits, many different habits that we know shape and form our lives. I feel as though inner work, which is what I call self intelligence, is what that is. It's a lifestyle choice that is a cornerstone of what generates health, happiness, fulfillment, joy, everything that we basically want in life. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 10:50 did you get the body mind knowledge from the university? Or how did you acquire that?   Chris Knight ** 10:58 It was through Herman Mueller, he ran an institute privately, but it was, it was certified. It was government certified. Actually, it wasn't a university. Universities don't do that kind of thing yet, but he was trying to get it into universities. That's, he's actually passed away. He was around 80 years old at that time, but he was approaching that because, yeah, that's, that's kind of the trajectory that was going at that time. But no, it wasn't at uni. It was, it was a course outside that was government certified, which to me, actually doesn't mean a whole lot. But yeah, yeah, the psychosomatic   Michael Hingson ** 11:42 part of it came from university, but then you expanded on it, obviously,   Chris Knight ** 11:48 yeah, no, this the musculoskeletal therapy was uni, and the psychosomatic was from Herman. Oh, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 11:56 okay, yeah. And well, and what's interesting is that you still found, even after Herman, as I understand, that there was some things lacking in terms of really dealing with the total emotional and mental aspect of it. And obviously it, it was an evolutionary process for you to get to the point of recognizing all of that. But you did, yeah, and what? What I find interesting, and I hear this often. We've had a number of people on the podcast who talked about their own challenges and talked about their the challenges they face with other people. And I'm fascinated and actually quite pleased to hear how many of those people will say that Western medicine really doesn't deal with it, and that Eastern medicine has to become involved. And you obviously took it even to a little bit higher level, but that Eastern medicine is a significant part of it, which really does deal more with the mental and spiritual aspect of a person's psyche and makeup.   Chris Knight ** 13:02 Yeah, well, see, I went to acupuncturist, I went to Ayurvedic medicine practitioners, I went to kinesiologists, I went to energy healers, like I went to I went, I've been around the block. Do you know what I mean? I went to her all around and in every one of those cases, I didn't get the work that I'm speaking to, which is directly dealing with my at the level of identity, where things really take place. And we're going to get into that. And I really delved into that more with my Buddhist practices in meditation. And meditation is widely known to be supportive to all sorts of issues, as many studies on this now it was the closest thing to a lifestyle practice that dealt with these things. What I find is, and I, and I experienced this for myself as well, is a lot of the time when we experience health issues or problems in our lives, often we don't want to take that level of responsibility for it. It's it's preferable to somehow be fixed by someone you know, like, have some kind of therapy intervention, whether it's Eastern or Western, whether it sounds esoteric or whether it sounds like a drug, whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. It's I just want that thing to fix me, and I don't really I'm so confused about what's going on inside me, I don't really understand it, or maybe I'm afraid to look at it because it's often referred to as Shadow Work, which is confronting. That's there's a there's a hesitancy to go into those places. And I but I find that that's where the core of the the issues are, in the dark places. There. Uh, that require, yeah, putting the light on. So I think you're   Michael Hingson ** 15:04 absolutely right. We, we in general, seem to be creatures that love, especially today, a quick fix to fix, and it's got to fix everything, and we don't take the time to analyze and look at ourselves very much. We don't get taught that. No one teaches us that, and fortunately, some people are learning it, but not nearly as much, or as often as it as it should be. I believe in doing a lot of self analysis, self analytical thinking, and I take time at the end of each day to look at what went on today. Why did it go on the way it did? What? What am I afraid of, or what was, what was I afraid of? And I, and I do, find that the more of it I do, and the more I think about all of it over time, the less fearful I become. And it isn't to say I'm not afraid, or it isn't it isn't to say I don't fear, but rather, I learn how to deal with it. We wrote a book about it that actually got published in August of 2024 called Live like a guide dog. And it's all about learning to control fear, and it's lessons I've learned from dogs, from my eight guy dogs and my wife's service dog. You know, for example, one of the my favorite examples, is that dogs don't do what ifs and we What if everything to death, which is what's so unfortunate, rather than worrying about just the things over which we really can have an influence in control. We worry about everything, and it just drives us crazy.   Chris Knight ** 16:47 Yeah, yeah, I completely agree, and I'd like to, because I I've noticed there's a there's a resistance to the word analysis for a lot of people, or anything that's mental when it comes to healing. I you know, because we're questioning our mind, we're questioning our thoughts, we're questioning our insides. We're looking at our insides. And it's important to view this as awareness work, not not mental work. Mental work is below the awareness in which we are looking at it. And from that perspective, it's a totally different vibration, right? And and so what it does do, exactly what you said, is it brings up awareness around things like, how many, what if thoughts have, I let dictate my decisions today, or dictate my emotional state today that I believed and became embodied with, right? And the question is, okay, I have these, what if thoughts? How then do I dis identify from those thoughts so they're not driving my behavior, my choices, which essentially is creating the reality that I'm experiencing. That is a really important question, and it takes disidentification, which is not mental work. Mental cannot disidentify. Mental can only create more mental so I just wanted to make sure that that was something understood in the approach. Because for the you know, for example, with with emotional anatomy and Psychosomatics, the notion was that the emotions are held in the body. You know, the emotions are stored in the body, because we have the fight flight process. And that that when you have fear like what you spoke about, you engage the fight flight process, the survival mechanism, yeah, and then that puts a charge in the body to be expressed in terms of, you know, fighting something running away from something freezing, pleasing. There's a whole range of different things that happen, and so that gets stored in the body, because often we suppress these expressions, and then it's like, okay, in order to heal from that, we have to release it from the body. Okay? So that's the current consensus for a lot of people. So when they hear about analysis, it's like, how does that release emotion from the body? You see that becomes a contentious point for some people.   Michael Hingson ** 19:28 Change it to introspection, then, yeah. I mean,   Chris Knight ** 19:32 I just noticed this. Like, yeah, introspection is a really good term. I also love using that term. But the point is, is that the body will not hold energy when the mind's not perceiving, particularly in the unconscious, that there's a threat as soon as the as soon as there's not a threat in the in the unconscious, there's no threat in the body, the body will not hold anything the. Body is neutral, actually. And I noticed that in my work, trying to, I was doing a lot of emotional release body work, which was hugely powerful, and still is powerful, particularly when it shifts the unconscious. But it would, there would be this reliance, again, on someone doing this thing to me that releases the emotions out of my body, and it's like, Look, you are way more powerful than this. You have the power for yourself to release or detach from the very thoughts and patterns that generate this in your body, but you would then have to do that work yourself, in a sense, right, which often involves support by a practitioner, a coach. I do this every day of the week, or in connection with the community that does this kind of thing, right? Yeah, but it's a different level of responsibility in the attitude of approaching it that way. And I'm, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, that's, that's, I'm finished with that.   Michael Hingson ** 21:08 But one of the things that I've learned, especially over the last year, I used to to always say, when I listen to my speeches, I like to record speeches and listen to them. And I always used to say, I do that because I'm my own worst critic. And I've you know, if, if I'm being critical, that's the really most important thing. And I've learned over the last year that's not the right thing to say I heard, and one I don't even remember now exactly where, but that nobody can teach you anything. You are the one who has to teach yourself. Other people can present you with information, they can give you the information that you need to learn, but you're the one that has to teach you. And I thought about that, and I realized that is so true, I'm not my own worst critic, I'm my own best teacher. And then that makes a complete positive shift to everything, because now I I approach things in a much more positive way. I don't approach things as well. This is potentially negative, and I've got to pick on me to fix it. No, I hear this, or I see this, and I can now look at it and go, Why am I reacting to it? And an animal. Well, instead of analyzing out and think about you, use the   Chris Knight ** 22:25 word you want to use, either one works   Michael Hingson ** 22:29 or think about it. But I I study it, and I go, all right, what? What can I learn from this? And that's what's really important. And I think that is, is so important that people need to do another thing that I learned from working with a lot of Guide Dogs and so on, is that while dogs love unconditionally, they don't trust unconditionally, but what they do is they're unless something has just totally damaged their psyche. They're open to trust, and they want to trust, and they want to be connecting with us, and they want us to be the team leader. They want to know what the rules are that we expect in a positive way, but they want to develop that relationship. And working with guide dogs, it's all about trust and teamwork right from the beginning. And the fact is that when you establish a trusting relationship, and you learn to trust the dog, and the dog learns to trust you, and you each recognize you have a job to do. Namely, the dog's job is to make sure that I walk safely, but my job is to know where to go and how to get there, and I have to communicate that to the dog with directions. And if I do that in a firm way, then we work together as a team. And the whole concept of being open to trust is so important. Yeah, there are going to be people within the agendas. They're going to be people whose trust you're not going to earn, and that's that is understandable, but be open to trust, and don't let a negative trusting experience destroy you or or cause you to not want to trust. Recognize that's only one individual. Most people are really good, and they do want to establish trusting relationships. I think, well,   Chris Knight ** 24:24 I mean, trust is one of the most important things, and one of the areas I'm working with all the time, particularly with relationships. Relationships is a is a major subject. I have people come to me because they have challenges, triggers going on in their relationships that continue to create a bit of a toxic cycle, or distance or withdrawing and so on. And it all comes back to trust at the end of the day. That's where it ends up, and it's the important question that is rarely asked. And or understood is, how is trust lost at the subtle levels we understand how trust is lost in more gross experiences, meaning, like denser expressions, like you know, whether it's physical violence or emotional abuse, or whether it's like cheating or just not doing what you say, there's all sorts of things there that will create mistrust. But actually mistrust is is is created on much more subtle levels than that. And if we don't understand our minds and the projections of our minds, like, for example, what we think we're entitled to and deserve, and what, yeah, what we feel is within our space of control and ownership, all of those projections go on To the other person and become a form of mistrust, yeah, but that is so unconscious. This is the thing it's I didn't know. For example, I didn't know that my unconscious insecurities, right, that were creating a certain type of expectation in the relationship was actually creating a mistrust between us that was then creating a barrier and a withdrawing for example, because whenever those things are happening, it's repulsive, like it has a repulsive, energetic about it, and then we all of a sudden see that there's something wrong, there's a distance happening. But how do I how do I navigate to this? Because I cannot see that my actions are really warranted in creating this issue. Okay, so this is, this is what's happening for a lot of people, and this is where this work becomes absolutely critical, because it's those little things, it's those subtler background issues right that all stem in insecurity, that come from the lower self, that really erode relationships and erode trust. And then it amounts to over time, big issues essentially just to represent what's going on inside, and it becomes like this, you know, destructive manifestation in people's lives. And then you know that there's all sorts of wounding and shame and guilt and everything that comes with with that, but we can catch these things way early on. But like you said, we're not taught at school, like we're not taught at school, we're not taught at school or at home. That by nature of being a human being, you have insecurities you're unaware of that are going to manifest in your life, particularly in relationships, but also in your work and various other areas, that unless you deal with them, they're going to cause you all sorts of problems. They're going to cause you, cause you suffering, right? And it and by achieving things like success or status and various other external things, these don't deal with those underlying insecurities. They don't, they don't actually solve the issue. And we are believing that they do based on our conditioning. We're told that if we are normal and if we meet the criteria that that feels like this is a life that's, you know, I could be proud of, then I will feel secure. And it's not true. It's just fundamentally not true, and yet, because we don't know any different, we just keep trying the same thing, expecting a different result, and that's really frustrating. I think for a lot of people, it is   Michael Hingson ** 28:59 we don't learn to connect with ourselves, and we also don't learn to, oftentimes, be open enough to say to someone else, you know, there's a distance between us. And I'm, I don't really like that. Tell me what you think. Tell me why that is, is what? What do I need to do? What can we do together to fix this, and that's it is an issue that we just don't learn to connect, which is too bad, because, again, I think that it's all about communications. Well, tell me more about this whole concept of self intelligence, where did that come from? And what is it? And so on.   Chris Knight ** 29:37 Well, that's what that exactly what we're speaking about is what it is so. So, for example, when I have a couple in front of me, and they've got these things going on, and they've got that distance happening, and maybe they did acknowledge it, right? And then they did have a conversation about it, like you suggested. They said, like, what are we going to what are we going to do? And they both find out very quickly that they they don't know. What the issue is, it's like I just can't understand why I'm feeling these really strong feelings over things that certainly don't match up. I'm I think I'll just try to be a better person, and maybe that will work. And this is what people try to do. They try to be a better person. They try to be a good person, and then it doesn't make a difference, because that's not that's not how these things work. Being a good person won't deal with things like insecurity, and then they find themselves in the same pattern, in the same cycle, and we still, we're going through the same thing again. So I'm going to ask someone else now how to deal with this now, unfortunately, for a lot of people, they still don't get this type of information with counselors and psychologists, although some do. Thankfully, some are really great, but most don't have this knowledge either, and that's what I saw. I saw this huge gap where, okay, let's boil down what's really happening here. We work it blow by blow in terms of unpacking the what I call the lower self. So we don't, for example, self intelligence is really the journey from the lower self to the higher self. Okay, that's how you could consider it. So what is the lower self. The lower self is often referred to as your shadow self, or your ego. Sometimes you can refer to it as your unconscious mind. This is the kind of place that we operate from that often holds the energetic of survival mode. So often, if you think of lower self, you'd almost think of the lower brain stem, which holds the survival aspects of our impulses, right, right? And when we're living from the lower self, which we all are, like everybody's living from this lower self. Firstly, everything's external, everything that's happening is out there, and it's happening to me, and that could be good or that could be bad, and there's a range of protection mechanisms for the lower self, like judgment and fear that cause it whole bunch of issues. Okay? It also has needs. The lower self has needs that are called ego needs that also cause it a whole bunch of drama, right, like the need to win, the need to know, the need to be right, the need to be supported, the need. There's all these needs, okay, and those needs create us a fundamental sense of lack in the person inside who is living this life. So this is all unaware of that's going on. Yeah, yeah. And so self intelligence is the intelligence of understanding, putting the light on that dark space that's in us that is running everything. Okay? People know this is happening when they they could make a decision. When we make decisions, we often go, God, why did I make that decision? Like, say it was a job or something like that. I was like, I knew in myself that wasn't the job for me. I don't know why I said yes, but it ended up turning out to be really misaligned with me. That's the lower self. That's the lower self kicking in and taking over. And this happens with people experiencing addiction. It happens when people don't feel like they're living their purpose. It happens for a whole range of reasons. It's like, so what's what's then making my choices like, if I know better, somewhere deep inside of me, what? What is taking over? And this is the lower self. This is what self intelligence is about. Is one becoming aware of the lower self, becoming just very clear about it. And I have a, I have a step by step, blow by blow, process that illuminates the lower self in clear view. It can it has no wriggle room to hide, because the lower self is the best hider that you can imagine. It loves hiding and running the show. It just it goes into any subject matter. It doesn't matter what it is, it will find a place to hide and then run the whole show. That's what it does. It's like, I'm going to hide over here and then call all the shots. Forget.   Michael Hingson ** 34:31 It gets back. It gets back to connecting and really connecting with yourself, which is what we don't generally tend to learn to do.   Chris Knight ** 34:39 Yeah, and connecting with yourself to the degree that you become aware, yes, of the drivers. For example, when you said, what if? What if is a is one of the lower self's favorite words, right? So when you become, oh, I just got that, what if, thought I'm aware of it now, right? Now? I have a choice. Whereas before, when I wasn't aware of that, what if thought I didn't really have a choice other than to react to that thought, whereas now that I'm aware of that thought, well, I can either take another look and see if this is a real danger that I'm dealing with and respond appropriately, or I can realize that that's a, you know, an illusory thought that I can dis identify with. So this is just one example sure that of how that works. So self intelligence is that, but it's also the process of discovering your higher self and your higher self is also known as your natural state. So this is your state, that is who you are, before you became conditioned with a whole range of beliefs, and before you became identified with a whole bunch of things in your life. There is no fundamental issue with conditioning or identity. You gotta be the one to discern whether those things cause you suffering like whether they're serving you or not. That's the That's the important thing, but, but, but beyond all of those things, you existed prior to, for example, your name. Like everybody was given a name at birth, you existed prior to your name, true or not, so you were in the boom, true you you were there before a name came, and then a name came after. Now what happens is we identify with that name, and then we associate that name with who we are, right? Yes, the identification process is the lower self, the part of you that realizes that you're not your name, but the name is connected to this body, mind, which is very important to practical reality, right? That's your higher self. It's the witnessing presence, the observer behind everything that's taking place. And self intelligence is the is the art of empowering yourself to live through your higher self. That that that that that consciousness that you are. So why would you want to live from that place? Because it is freedom, like if we take a a very honest look at our lives, the most the suffering that we're experiencing is coming from inside of us, like someone right now could be sitting here listening to this podcast with a whole bunch of problems in their life, like relationship, finances, all sorts of things, but in this present moment, the problem don't exist in the way that the mind is threatened by all of these things that are going on. These are real issues. The these are real they're not. It's not saying that those are real issues, but suffering them is what happens with the mind. And so if you want, if anyone wants to free themselves from the inside, they have to understand what's happening inside themselves in order to do that, yeah, and so that that's, that's literally what self intelligence is. And there's many forms of this on the planet, in different variations with different names. This is just one term to describe that, that pathway, yeah, well,   Michael Hingson ** 38:39 you know, it's it's interesting. Again, we worry about so many things. We're afraid of so many things, or we fear so many things, and well over 90% of them will never happen. And they're also things over which we really don't have any control, but, but we worry about them because rather than paying attention to the things over which we really do have some influence and control, we worry about everything else. It's so much easier to do, at least we think it is. But in reality, I think that focusing on the things that we really can have an effect on, I think is extremely important to do. I remember when I was running from tower two in the World Trade Center at one point, I thought, God, I can't believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And then immediately I heard, as clearly as you hear me now, a voice that said, don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running, in this case, with my guide dog, Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And I've had that as kind of a mantra ever since that day. Don't worry about the things that you can't control. Focus on the things that you can, because the rest of it isn't going to really be anything that you have any control over. Anyway, it was so easy, and I know people who did, who were just afraid. As we went down the stairs in the World Trade Center, the building was going to collapse. It's going to fall off. We're going to die. And in fact, some people said that. From my perspective, I will tell you that I was listening for any creaking groan in the building in case something happened. But I didn't let that worry me, because I knew that what I needed to do was to keep myself and my guide dog focused, especially keeping my guide dog focused, because Roselle would have and dogs do tend to have higher senses on a lot of levels than we do, and so if suddenly Roselle started to behave in a way that I didn't expect, then I could look at that and deal with it and figure out what was happening, which was my job, but if I worried about everything else, I couldn't focus on her and tell her she's doing a good job. Keep going. What a good dog and all that. And that's what I needed to do, and that's what I learned to do. Because what I did was to learn all I could about the World Trade Center, which created a mindset. And I didn't even realize it, but it created a mindset that said, if there's an emergency in the World Trade Center, you know what to do to deal with it. And that's exactly what happened to me. And so I was able to to deal with it and not worry about all the stuff that I had no control over, and I'll tell you, I have a very vivid imagination. I'm a science fiction lover. I've read lots of horror books and all that. So I imagine things that were probably a whole lot worse even than happened. But by the same token, I didn't let that overwhelm me, because I had something more important to do, and that is to keep me and a puppy dog focused.   Chris Knight ** 41:46 Yeah, that's you know, that I often find that disasters bring out the best in a lot of people, not everyone, but I do tend to find that all of a sudden there's this ability to prioritize things and really be the kind of people that we want to be in with each other. And like I said, That's not all the time, but there is a pattern in humanity that when we're in crisis, all of a sudden this this part of us comes out that seems to be like what we'd love to see in each other's lives all the time. What I tend to find is the discernment of what we're in control of and what we're not in control of is less there when we're not in crisis, when we're in an ordinary life, and when we're getting irritations by, you know, the people that we're working with or our partners, and the expectations that we hold for them, and the judgments that we have about them and ourselves, and our fears about what other people think, and all of that kind of thing is, is just the discernments not there. And so what happens is the reaction patterns that come from that start to play out, and then you get a certain, a certain kind of low level to high level anxiety depression, which is really just experiences a certain kind of I'm not feeling right in myself, like I don't feel comfortable in my own skin somehow, like something doesn't ever feel like I feel content. There's just this slight irritation in the system kind of going on.   Michael Hingson ** 43:31 Survival Mode kicks in, and it creates this whole negative environment where I've got to just do what I'm used to doing to survive, and we don't allow ourselves to stretch and grow,   Chris Knight ** 43:45 yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everybody has a calling inside of them, I feel that everybody has this knowing that they're here to learn and grow and to express a part of themselves that's very unique, but there's a fear that it won't be acceptable, it won't be received, it will be rejected, and maybe it has been in the past, by parents, by siblings, by, you know, people in the schoolyard, whatever the case. And it's a real shame, because that light inside of us becomes dim through through conditioning and through accepting that, and through the survival mode that you're talking about. And the work that I'm offering is for those people who know that that's there inside of them and want to know how to get out of their own way so that can come through, so that their their natural gifts and talents, their capacity to love, their capacity for connection, as you've been saying. Saying can actually be experienced in this life, right? Because there's a feeling like my my experience is so limited by this person inside of me who is controlling everything or needs control in the way that you're talking about, and I'm in my own way. And how do I get out of it? How do I get out of my own way? To have these experiences, to have this growth, right to to take this absolutely miracle of experience, like the scientists that they just cannot believe, like for someone to be bought, for you to be born is an absolute miracle. The odds of you being born, the way that it happens through billions of sperm, and you know, this whole process that takes place with with birth is like you're you're an absolute miracle, right? And we all know this intuitively, and there's a lot of shame in the system when we don't feel like we're giving this life our fullest because we're in our own way. You know, there's, there's a lot of shame that builds up with that. And yeah, and I feel like I'm I felt that way myself, that I'm speaking to my my lower self. That's I, that's what I experienced, was that, and fortunately, I was guided towards the ways in which to unlock that inner potential. Yeah. And   Michael Hingson ** 46:33 your chronic pain went away along the way.   Chris Knight ** 46:35 Yeah, yeah. It went away very quickly. Actually, it was one of the things that really shifted very fast, I just lowered back pain. Yeah, that was one of the, one of the many things that came into alignment amongst many other things, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 46:54 So in a sense, you were, you were, if you will, causing your own pain. Oh, absolutely,   Chris Knight ** 46:59 yeah, absolutely, yeah. Because sometimes it's not like that. Sometimes it's a, it's an ergonomic thing. It's a, you know, it's an injury kind of thing, like this and that that is the case. It's not always like psychosomatic, if you want to call it, that body mind. But this was because of the chronic nature of it. I tell people, when it comes to this work, you're looking for patterns. You're looking for things that keep showing up and they're not shifting, they're not healing. So what that's saying is, there's something that's not been addressed inside that has to be looked at, you know, and so that that's I've worked with a lot of people with weight issues. I over overweight, and they're doing all the right things, they're eating the right food, they're exercising, and they're like, the weights not shifting. It's like, look, there's something else going on internally that that says that due to your perceptions, your beliefs, your experiences, that you have to continue to protect yourself in a certain way that's holding that weight. And until you address that, your weight is going to be very hard to shift. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 48:03 I know I used to be a lot more overweight than I am now, and I made the conscious decision to deal with it. And one of the things that I did was changed eating habits a little bit, but yeah, mostly it was again, a mindset, and since I began losing weight, I have lost about 85 pounds in the last five years. And so I'm very happy with that, and I'm not going to let it come back. And that's the way it ought to be. But, but I also know that it was a lot of me connecting with myself and recognizing that I had to make some changes, both in mindset and in food, but yes, also Yeah, but especially in mindset,   Chris Knight ** 48:56 yeah, yeah. I I felt the same way, like all the therapies that were trying to support my symptoms started to become way more effective when I was dealing with my internal so they all have their place. Everything has its place. Diet has its place. Therapies have their place. Drugs have their place. Everything has its place. It's up to us to understand how to discern when and where and how much of those things are necessary in our lives. You know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, that's the thing. And that decide I use this word discernment quite a bit, because discernment is the is the major aspect of self intelligence that as society and as human beings, that I feel as though we require development of. You know, we know this with children like they children have an adult in their life, because the adult can discern what's dangerous, what's not dangerous. The adult can discern if there's a boogie man under the bed or not. You know, where a child's mind will go off into all sorts of. Places, you know, and the adult can kind of ground them back to something that's safe and understandable. But we have to be that adult to ourselves. We have to be that adult to our own inner child so that we can discern what's happening, and the child inside, it does what the child does when it feels uncomfortable and so on. It just goes to the parent to get some kind of whatever it is, to get the boob, to get the dummy, to get the comfort, the relief of some kind they're not responsible for what's happening it's the adult who's responsible. And many people are living their lives internally as a child and the feeling completely overwhelmed by life, because the child like mind is not supposed to be taking on those kinds of responsibilities, and yet it's trying to, and it's suffering, and in order to cope with the overwhelm, it will employ things like distractions, addictions, to to to basically deal with the the uncomfortable sensation of that overwhelming stress and the amount of man, the amount of distractions that we can employ these days, and it will be experienced as procrastination, you know, it'll be experienced as perfectionism. It'll be experienced as sabotaging behaviors. It'll be experienced as energetically prostituting ourselves in situations that don't necessarily serve us. It shows up in all these different facets, and what that's saying is that that discernment and that that that adults like quality hasn't been yet developed to the point where you can trust yourself, and it's still then looking outside for the answers, where the the answers inside. And this is, this is a major shift. I feel it's taking place on the planet right now, because the more that technology develops as well. Our discernment is more and more necessary. What can we trust? What can't we trust? What information can we rely on or not? Becomes harder and harder as technology increases, so discernment is even more and more important. And I found it interesting that as artificial intelligence birth itself, so did self intelligence in like unison with that, which is actually a really beautiful compliment when they come together in the right way. But without that, they it could be, you know, it's likely to be another kind of tool that weaponizes against itself. So what   Michael Hingson ** 52:38 kind of practices can we employ to learn to live better through our higher selves?   Chris Knight ** 52:45 There are three primary practices that I'm most interested in that I feel get the best results, and I see get the best results, and they're tried and tested to get the best results in this particular area that we're speaking to. The first is self inquiry. And self inquiry is the is the questioning which it's an awareness practice. I just want to repeat that it's not a mental practice. It's it's a line of questioning that allows you to become aware of the unconscious programming and belief systems and traumas and wounding that are driving your actions and behavior and choices, that are creating your reality. So this, this is extremely important to become aware of those things and not to assume that you're aware of them. If you're seeing symptoms in your life, like I had to come to terms with this myself, right? Because everyone thinks they know themselves. Everyone believes they know themselves. I know who I am, right? Everyone has this strong conviction. I know who I am. It takes life to cause a fair bit of pain to go you know what? Maybe I don't know myself as well as I thought I did, right? And maybe there's some room for growth, and maybe there's some room to learn some things about myself. So you have to have that degree of attitude, which unfortunately, usually takes people a lot of pain, even like a dark night, to even get to that point. But that's the first step. Is to have a very clear, simple line of inquiry to illuminate that stuff, and to also have the line of inquiry, which is all in the one package of self inquiry to dis identify with limiting beliefs and negative emotional states that aren't serving you, right? So that's the first step. So self inquiry does that. The second step is to be in the vibration of your higher self on a daily basis. No different to exercising on a daily basis or other habits that serve there are many habits brushing your teeth on a daily basis, whatever it is to actually just be in the full experience of your. Higher Self, which is a guided meditation kind of process, and to do that daily. And what that does is that creates the space internally to be able to see those thoughts. Because if you don't have that space, you just are the thoughts. There's no there's no distinction there. And if the viewers listening to this tried meditation didn't work for me, that type of thing. Do not think about it like strict versions of meditation that that that was like I was trying to stop my mind, or this type of thing. It's not like that. I call these self recognition practices. So this the second step is self recognition. Recognize, recognize that you are the witnessing consciousness of everything that includes everything externally and everything internally. And just sit with that, sit with that recognition. And what happens is your vibration goes up naturally. You start to feel calm, peace, joy, creative, all of these natural things, inspired, enthusiastic. There's all this natural energy there, and you don't do and you're not making it up. You're not creating it. You're not trying to will yourself into those states. It's just what happens when you do this. So that's the second step. The third step I call self regulation, which is the physical body's way of coming out of the survival mode. So I teach that through body tremor, through body release and through breath work. So when the nervous system is kicked off, this could be anything. It could be like some stressful thing at work, or some jealousy issue in your relationship, or some because it's bring up some trauma. It's like, look, I'm going to take a few moments. I'm going to get myself regulated before I have a conversation, for example, or before I go on with this task, or whatever I'm going to do. It could be that I'm procrastinating. Procrastination is a survival mechanism. So it's like, I can do some breath work, and then all of a sudden I'm freed up. It's like, all of a sudden I'm good to go like that procrastination, that barrier, That invisible barrier of taking action, is no longer there anymore, and so it's another it's the physical version of coming out of that lower state of the lower self. And that's it. Those three practices are plenty enough to implement. Now the second practice, self recognition, that's a daily practice, self inquiry, often is something people use when they get triggered by things you know, like something happens, someone says something, a situation occurs, and you're not accepting reality. You're you're you're not okay with what's happening, and therefore certain perceptions, beliefs and thoughts have triggered off there to inquire, to come out of that state, because at the end of the day, it's a fear based vibration that you're in, and nothing you do in the fear vibration is going to serve anything per like useful so similar to if you were going into a rip in the ocean, panicking is never going to be the best thing to do. So it's just recognizing that nothing I do on the from the state of fear and judgment and ego based needs are going to like create as a result that I actually want, but we think that it will right? So we react to things all the time, we project things all the time, and think it's going to get us what we want, and it doesn't do that. It gets us actually the opposite of what we want. And so that's something we have to come to terms with. So that happens a lot of the time. Yeah, when we get triggered, if you're feeling really insecure about something, if you're noticing certain negative judgments, there's, there's all the different triggers for self inquiry. But it's more on a case by case basis that that's happening, and that could be like a 10 minute process, 510 minute process. And same with the that's the same with the self regulation, that that's also a five to 10 minute process to come out of that state. And it's it, what? What is it all saying? It's saying I'm prepared to look after my vibration. I know that in a higher vibration, things work out. Things go into flow, things seem to synchronize. Things seem to look after me in a way that's more serving and natural when I'm in the lower state. It's like the world's against me. It's like everything's like pushing shit uphill. It's just difficult, it's hard work. It's like the world's against me somehow. And it's like, I don't want to live from that state. I don't want to be make. Decisions from that state. I don't want to be relating in my relationships and my kids and everything else from that state, because it just creates more and more problems. So yeah, those are the those are the three processes, self recognition, self inquiry and self regulation. Yeah. So   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:17 basically, are you a life coach? Yeah?   Chris Knight ** 1:00:21 Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'd be sort of known as a spiritual life coach, because, only because I deal at the level of identity, which is where people usually use the word spiritual. I don't use the word spiritual because it has too many it's too much of a loaded word,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:38 even though that's what it is, yeah,   Chris Knight ** 1:00:39 that is what it is, because we're just dealing with disidentification semantics, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, there's no limit to the kind of issues that I work with in people's lives. I tend to find that I work with certain themes more than others, like the people in my community at the moment, and the clients that I have is very it's a very diverse thing, like it could be jealousy and relationship for one person, another person's coming out overcoming an eating disorder or body dysmorphia. Someone else is dealing with a sexual abuse trauma. Someone else has got dad wounds from childhood that have caused them to be narcissist in their work life, and it's causing them all sorts of problems. So they're dealing with narcissistic issues. So it's so to the core of what's going on for us that it's very holistic in that way.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:37 Yeah. So what is your business called?   Chris Knight ** 1:01:41 My name, it's, it's self intelligence is the method, is the the teaching. And my name is Chris Knight, and I'm the founder of that. So that's, that's essentially what that is. So people say, go see Chris if they recognize a certain problem. And he's like, I think he'll be able to help you out with that particular thing. There   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:01 you go. Have you written any books yet?   Chris Knight ** 1:02:05 I've, I haven't published a book. I've written a textbook in emotional anatomy, and I've got a podcast, a self intelligence podcast, where I do live sessions with people, which is pretty amazing for people to do that, to do live sessions, and I definitely intend to write various books, but yeah, at the moment, I'm just continuing to refine the self intelligence program. The it has gone through many updates to keep it as simple and as user friendly to people as possible, given that it's a lifestyle approach. And yeah, that's that's where it's at at the moment. So   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:54 if people want to reach out to you, how do they do that? Yeah,   Chris Knight ** 1:02:58 so they look up Chris knight.com.au, and you'll find everything there. The two offerings I have is one, I do one on one coaching with people on everything that we just spoke about today, and I often have a discovery call with people, just to make sure that they feel like I'm the right fit for them, for what they're dealing with. And two, I have a community, because everything that I'm doing is lifestyle based. So the meditation, the self inquiry and the self regulation, these are intended to become habits in our life, like exercise and other things. So it's like going to the gym. Actually, you can go to the gym and get an instructor, right? That's like the one on one coach. You can get an instructor and they support you through it. Or you can just be a member at the gym and then go whenever you like. Yeah, so we just come off the back of a 30 day self inquiry commitment, which involved four different practices, like four different inquiry processes, and we do challenges like that all throughout the year. We meet on a weekly basis to do integration, because integration is often what's lacking for a lot of people in the self development space, where they have a big explosive like heart opening experience for, you know, in a conference or a workshop or something like that. But then they go back to their old habits when they get back into their daily life, and it's like, how do you integrate that vibration that I know, I now know, is possible in my daily life? That's what integration these integration sessions are for, and they're weekly. So that's what that that community is all about. So, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:42 So again, it's Chris Knight, C, H, R, I S, K, N, I, G, H, t.com/a, u.com.com, dot A, U, sorry, yeah,   Chris Knight ** 1:04:51 yeah. I think if you just, if, I think if you just Google Chris Knight on its own, I think I'm the top are you on LinkedIn as well? Well, ah, no, no, no, no, I'm not okay, no, no, but I think on top of the search, but it might depend on where you're at in the world.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:10 Now I know how to find you. Chris, Chris Knight, now that's that's no problem,   Chris Knight ** 1:05:14 or search, or search, self intelligence.com, self   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:18 intelligence.com, which makes sense as well. Yeah, so   Chris Knight ** 1:05:21 you'll get there. You'll get there to me as well. And you know this is for people who want, who know in their hearts, they know that looking after your internal world is important, as to looking after your body in and to just have a small amount of time per day to do that as a lifestyle, but also when you feel like you're in the trenches, or you feel like you really require someone to hold your hand, in a sense, to get through some stuff, that's where the one on one sessions are there. And I work with people in America. I work with people all over the world, because we can do this right? And this is fortunately for what I offer. This works perfectly. It is not a barrier or an issue at all. In person is not necessary. It works great. So,   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:12 yeah, well, I want to thank you for taking the time to be here and talk about all this. It has been fun. And every time i i hear the kinds of things that you're talking about, that also tend to validate a lot of my thoughts. I like that as well, but I learn a lot, and as I as I love to tell people, if I'm not learning at least as much as anybody else on this podcast, I'm not doing my job very well. So I really appreciate you being here, and I have learned a lot today. So I want to thank you for that, and I want to thank you all for listening. So wherever you're listening, please, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, Michael Hinkson is m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n.com/podcast, we'd love to hear from you, and please, wherever you're listening, give us a five star review. We value your reviews. We value your thoughts, and we especially do love those, those great reviews, so please keep them coming. We are very joyous to get those and we feel very blessed. If you know anyone who you think ought to be a guest on our podcast, Chris, that includes you. If you know anyone you think we ought to be chatting with, please let us know we're always looking to meet new people and make new friends. And as I've told Chris and I tell everyone who comes on the podcast, the only rule about being on the podcast is you gotta have fun. Otherwise, where is this engine doing it right? Exactly, exactly. So once, once more, I want to thank you, Chris for being here. This has been absolutely fun. So thank you very much. Thank   Chris Knight ** 1:07:50 you so much as well. I appreciate all your your effort and just your life story and the fact that you were just a living inspiration to anyone who feels that they have victimized by life, you have shown that you can thrive in this world beyond that whole narrative, and that's what this is all about.   Michael Hingson ** 1:08:14   You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.