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Brothers, I am back with another edition of the “of life” series and today, I’ll be walking you through the restaurant of life and how that can help you better understand the inner workings of your mind. So, if you think of your mind as a restaurant, there is one meal that you keep ordering that you don’t even consult the menu for. That is your beta condition operating in familiarity and within the models that have been taught to you by your family, religion, the government, and the rest of society. It’s where you feel safe.
But brothers, we cannot be transformed in safety. We have been blessed with the gift of choice and we must use this blessing to be brave. The menu provides a template for the options available to you. But unlike a standard menu, the menu options of the mind are unlimited. Your gateway to life-changing transformation is opened by you being willing to experience something new, a meal other than the one you’ve been conditioned into eating all your life.
So, the mind is the menu and it can access an infinite amount of potential meals, and you can choose any of them to taste an infinite potential of thoughts, ideas, and identities, and you can make any of them real. Because that’s what the function of the mind is, to make your thoughts real. The trick, dear brother, is making sure that the menu is always in your hands and understanding that this infinite number of choices is always available to you.
Brothers, we’ve come full circle as I proclaim that everything is one. You know this, we’ve covered this. Therefore, you are the restaurant itself and everything in it. The people around you, the staff, and even your table placement are all illusions made real by your mind. Changing tables could be like moving to a new city, a new seat could be a new job, but it is all still you and it is all a projection of what your mind has made real.
It’s time to awaken from your dream state, brother. Because that’s what life is, a dream made real by the mind. And when you realize this, you’ll be freeing yourself from the illusions of the ego and the matrix. So, continue to elevate our alpha. I say “our” because, brother, we are one.
What You’ll Learn from This Episode:
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Today’s episode is about understanding the mind through the ‘restaurant of life’ analogy.
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The meal you didn’t even know you had chosen, which keeps you safe within the models.
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How life-changing transformation is made possible through the gift of choice.
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Why you always have more than just two options. In fact, your options are unlimited.
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Learning to keep the menu (the infinite number of choices) in your hands.
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You are the entire restaurant and everything in it.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Remember to check out the new How to Live Your Purpose course.
- Enroll for the Elevated Alpha Society Spartan Academy here.
- Sign up for Unleash Your Alpha, your guide to shifting to the Alpha mindset.
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:09.8] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast, the only podcast that teaches men the cognitive mastery and alpha mindset that it takes to become an influential and irresistible man of confidence. Here’s your host, certified life coach, and international man of mystery, Kevin Aillaud.
[DISCUSSION]
[0:00:32.5] KA: What’s up, my brothers? Welcome back to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud, and I’m going to back off just a little bit this week, just a little bit, and return to some of the part on information. I’m actually going to introduce a little bit of part two information at the end.
But if you remember from last week, I told you there are two parts to this journey, the understanding of the mind and then the surrender of the mind and I’ve done a few episodes of the result and mental surrender and you know, I want to take it back a bit and focus on understanding the mind for today’s episode.
So I’ll get right into it, let’s just jump right into it because today, I’m offering another episode of the “Of life series.” You know, if I had a soundboard, I’d do a bunch of applause here because there’s been so many of life podcasts and today, I’ll introduce the restaurant of life. Yay, applause, yay, clapping.
You know, you guys know how these “Of life” episodes are, right? They are an analogy episode, and then my aim is to teach you about the mind and how we are relating to this tool, to the mind, it’s a tool, you know, it’s a tool that basically, its only job is to make our thoughts real but it’s how we relate to it as humans.
[0:01:44.5] And there’s been the game of life, the puzzle of life, the movie of life, the dream of life and that’s just to name a few. So imagine a restaurant. Now, this restaurant represents life and we’re all in this restaurant. All of us, every one of us. It’s a pretty big restaurant, right? I mean, again, it contains all of life.
So, you’re in this restaurant and you’re living through the beta condition, that’s how the story opens up, this is how this analogy opens up. You’re in this restaurant and you’re living through your beta condition. You’re sitting at a table and you’re eating what you’ve eaten your whole life. Your whole life, every meal you’ve ever eaten for your entire life is the same meal.
It was the meal chosen by you to keep you safe, right? You guys remember this, you know how this goes, right? If you’ve been listening to this podcast, you remember this because this is how the brain works and how the ego is formed, how the beta condition is born. The brain’s job is to keep the body alive, the mind’s job is to make your thoughts real.
They work together, you know? I mean, you can figure this out like, the brain’s job is to keep your body alive and the mind’s job is to make your thoughts real. So together, they create thoughts, beliefs, identities about the world, these belief systems, these thought loops that basically just keep you safe.
[0:03:10.1] They might come as an idea given to you by your parents or teachers or governments or school systems or religions or whatever. But in the end, you chose it and created an identity around it for familiarity purposes, to keep you safe, and this is the meal you’ve been eating since that time. In fact, you don’t even know you chose it.
That’s how long you’ve been eating this meal, you didn’t even know that when you were a little kid, you chose this meal. You’ve been eating it for so long, you have no recollection that you actually chose it. You’ve been sitting at the same table, eating the same meal and the same seat with the same view your entire life and then one day, you get tired of this meal.
You start to think to yourself, “Why am I eating this? I don’t even like this. I don’t like the way these tastes but I’m used to it. I wonder if there’s another option for me?” And these kinds of thoughts will bring you to places of guidance in the world, places like the academy. And now we begin at part one, understanding the mind.
Because when you enroll in the academy, when you and your beta condition, and you start to ask yourself this question and you enroll in the academy, the first thing you will realize is that there is a menu in this restaurant. Yes, there is a menu. You don’t have to eat the same thing every day, blood.
[0:04:33.6] You actually get to choose what you want to eat. You get to decide if you’d like the way this meal tastes. The results are this thought, right? You see the analogy here and you know what? If you don’t like it, you could order something else. If you don’t like the results of disbelief, you just change the thought.
If you don’t like the way this meal tastes, you just order something else. You know, you could even change seats and tables in the restaurants, you change the view if you want. You don’t have to sit in the same chair or at the same table your whole life. You get to decide, you have a choice.
This alone is transformative, this alone is life-changing. This is why many men decide to complete their journey once graduating from the academy. You don’t have to enroll in the path, you don’t have to move into oneness because once you are fully aware that you have access to a menu and you order a meal and then decide, again, on another day to order something different, then you are back to a position of empowerment.
Sometimes men will revert back to their old selves, right? Their old meals. They will become aware of the menu and then order the same meal they’ve been eating all of their life from that menu. It’s like, “Yeah, I have a menu here but I‘m just going to order this meal because I’m used to it,” you know?
[0:05:45.8] They look at the menu, and since there’s an infinite amount of options, an infinite amount of thoughts, they’ll just revert back to what’s familiar. “Oh yeah, there’s so much to choose from. You know what? I’ll just go with what I know. Give me that plate of garbage I’ve been eating all my life.”
It’s that thought, you know? It’s the familiar meal, it’s the familiar thought. The one you know, that you just keep going back to and it’s okay. It’s okay, brother. There’s no judgment here. Judgment doesn’t create change. Judgment only creates shame. It’s not my job to judge you, brother. I am you, just as you are me. I won’t judge you, I will only love you, just as I won’t judge myself. I will only love myself.
So, you have this menu in your hands and you decide to order something new and try it out. This is another option, right? So the first option is, you realize you have the menu but you just keep ordering the same meal anyway. Another option is you have the menu in your hands and you decide to order something new, you try it out and maybe you don’t like it, maybe you try a new meal and you say, “Ugh, yeah, I don’t like that.”
“I don’t like that, it doesn’t taste good” and sometimes that will also drive men back to their old thought patterns. They’ll try a meal and they don’t like it compared to the other meal, the one they’ve been eating their whole life, and decide that they only had these two options.
[0:07:11.6] And in the illusion of duality, they choose “the lesser of two evils.” Maybe you’ve heard of this before, I’m going to choose the lesser of two evils, as if you only ever had two options. It’s like the illusion of the American political system that you only have two options, you don’t.
There’s a lot of candidates out there, you don’t just have to choose between two options. They’re really the same thing anyway, right? Republicans and Democrats are the same thing. So you don’t have to choose the lesser of two evils but this is an erroneous split mind illusion. You never have only two options, ever.
If you believe you have two options, then you’re locked in an illusion, okay? So that’s what some men do as well, they choose the lesser of two evils. They just go back to their old thought because the new thought doesn’t serve them. They don’t like it and they only think the only two.
Now, once again, you have the menu in your hands and maybe this time you choose a new meal and you try it and you do like it, maybe this is what you do like. This is the third option. If you like it, you like this meal, this new meal more than the meal that you’ve been eating your entire life.
[0:08:12.0] And so you decide, “Hey, this is better than that other meal. You know what? I think I’ll just keep ordering this one.” And sometimes men will compare the new meal that they like more with the meal they’ve been eating their whole life and then, because of that illusion, because of the illusion of this or that, the duality of this or that, solution of only two, they’ll stick to the new meal and continue to eat that for the rest of their life.
And so it becomes another flight to safety, another place of familiarity. “It’s slightly better than the old meal. So I’m just going to hang on to this one.” The old meal is replaced and the new meal becomes the one and then the memory of the menu is lost again.
The new meal becomes the new conditioning, the menu is forgotten, the freedom of choice is lost again for the familiar or “better.” And again, this is not a judgment. It’s only an observation of how the brain works and how many humans operate. The real transformation occurs when the menu is understood for what it really means and what it really is, and this is the completion of the first part of the journey.
This is the completion of the academy to see the mind for what it is, to see the mind as a tool. Its only job is to make your thoughts real. Its only job, in this analogy, is to continue to have the option to choose new meals and taste them all.
[0:09:35.6] When you shut down the mind and hand over authority to the ego, right? You hand it over to the beta condition, it’s like handing the menu back to the restaurant and you just keep ordering the same meal over and over and over again, caught in the thought loop.
So the real transformation, the real life-changing happens when you keep the menu in your hands. When you always ask for the menu when you are ready to eat. Always ask for the menu. What do you feel like now? Listen to that.
Now, what do you feel like now? What do you want to think now? Not last week, not next week, what do you want to eat, “think?” Now, maybe last week you wanted Thai food and Thai food is delicious. I love Thai food, it’s one of my personal favorites.
But just because I ate it last week I ate it last week, it doesn’t mean I want it this week. Just because I had it last night doesn’t mean I want it tonight. Now I said, it’s one of my personal favorites, think about that, brothers.
[0:10:40.7] Remember this, favorite is just another word for familiar. When I say, “It’s my favorite” that’s translated to, “It’s a safe choice for me” you understand? When I say, “Thai food is one of my favorites” what I’m really saying is that I’ve tried Thai food, I know what it taste like and I’m safe in making that choice again.
That’s what it means when I say it’s one of my favorites. I’ve tried it, I know what it tastes like and I’m safe in eating it again. It’s the same with thoughts. When you say you like something, all you’re saying is you’ve done it before, you know what it’s like and you’re safe when you do it, that’s it.
Like, dislike, this is the duality, this is an illusion. There’s no like and dislike, that’s a subjectivity. You’re just saying I’m safe doing this, it’s just the brain saying, “Yeah, that’s not going to kill me. I’ve done it before, I know what it’s like, it’s not going to kill me.”
You understand? It’s wild but of course, this is all an analogy. It is an analogy for thoughts and beliefs, right? We keep thought loops happening over and over, which create patterns in our behavior and results because they are safe and familiar.
[0:11:49.1] Not necessarily because they feel good or because they’re best for us, but because they are familiar and safe. You know brothers, we could be eating a pile of garbage our entire life and would turn away a delicious meal simply because it’s unfamiliar.
I’ve actually seen that. That’s actually happened many, many times in the work that I do. You know, staying with this analogy, stay with me on this analogy because this analogy is about thoughts, right? You could be having a self-destructive, self-criticizing thought and turn away from a self-empowering, self-praising thought just because it’s unfamiliar.
And like I said, I’ve seen this happen so many times in the work I do and you know what I hear in the response, you know what the beta condition says in order to maintain its authority? Here’s what I’ve heard men say to me. Our brothers, think about this, our very brothers have said this, “Well, that’s just delusional, that’s just delusional thinking. It’s not true.”
I mean, seriously brother. I mean, I love you blood. Like, I love you deeply and this is what I hear from our brothers. You know, they come to me, they come to the academy, wanting to change.
[0:13:00.7] Wanting to have a new thought, wanting to eat a new meal, they come to this restaurant, this academy, to this place of change, and they come with a self-destructive thought. They come in choosing garbage to eat and I offer them a self-empowering thought, a delicious, nutritious meal and they tell me that it’s delusional to think that thought.
They’re basically saying, “I‘m sorry, I can’t eat that because I don’t know what it is. I’d rather stick to my plate of garbage, thank you.” And I know it’s totally absurd and it’s totally insane. Many times, they won’t even try it out to see if they like the way it tastes. They just deny it outright, they call it delusional. Delusional.
And again, I’m not judging our brothers. I want you to hear this, I’m not judging anyone of our brothers. I’m only saying how strong the conditioning is. I want you guys to understand, you may be in this position, this may be something you’ve thought from time to time listening to this podcast. “Oh my gosh, how can he think that, that’s delusional?” How can I think these things?
It’s just crazy, it’s insane, it’s not true, I have no evidence for that, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. That’s how strong the conditioning is, that’s how strong the beta condition can be, how powerful the ego is. This happens often and I guide our brothers through releasing the authority that they have given to this powerful entity, this ego.
[0:14:24.6] Okay, so the first powerful transformation comes through learning to keep the menu in your hands. It comes through knowing that the mind is the menu and it can access an infinite amount of potential meals, and you can choose any of them to taste an infinite potential of thoughts, ideas, and identities, and you can make any of them real. Any of them.
That’s the point, that’s the point of the mind and you can do it in the now. You can be a completely different person today than you were yesterday and you could be a completely different person tomorrow that you are today, because you like to eat the same thing every day. You don’t have to think the same thing every day and it may sound like insanity.
It may sound like a crazy person rambling on and there is no consistency there. Exactly, exactly. Because identities are illusions. If you’re thinking that being consistent in an illusion means sanity then I got to tell you, brother, it’s time to get out of the asylum. It’s time to break out, it’s time to get out of there because they have convinced you that it’s sane to be living in an asylum, and that is part one. That’s what we do in the academy.
Part two goes deeper, the path goes deeper, and sometimes, like I said, and I am going to breach this, I am going to hit you with part two because like I said, men choose to complete their journey here part way and it’s okay. The soul is still there, it’s always there. It’s always witnessing, it’s always loving. That’s what the soul is, the soul is love.
[0:15:55.3] The soul has no needs, it has no wants, it’s complete and it’s eternal, so it just watches and loves. Part two is the return to oneness. Part one keeps you in duality because you are choosing meals and choosing seats and choosing tables and choosing views. Part one keeps you in the experience of good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse.
All depending on the meal, all depending on the table, all depending on the seat, the view, and so on. Part two removes all of that and brings you back to the truth you have always known and returns you to the place you never left. And like I said, I am going to attempt this again. I did it last week and I’m going to do it this week.
I am going to attempt to explain this concept through the use of words. I am attempting the impossible, I am attempting to help you experience oneness through understanding oneness, and you can’t understand it and experience it at the same time because understanding requires the mind, which will split it and distort it and fraction it into its own version of illusion.
However, I love a challenge, it’s always worth a shot. So when you get to the point where you are always looking at the menu and choosing at the moment not based on the past moment because you had something you liked or based on the next moment because you didn’t like what you ate before, but when you were choosing based on what you want to eat right now in this divine instant, then you are ready to move into the next part of your journey.
[0:17:27.1] The next part of your journey is magic, pure magic. The next part of your journey is to see the truth that has always been there. It is to see the whole restaurant, here we go, the whole restaurant, the table, the chairs, the menu, the people, the kitchen, the walls, the floor, the food, everything as yourself.
It’s all you. That’s right, you heard me. I didn’t stutter and you didn’t misunderstand me. I did say that. Yes, yourself, it’s all you. Everything is you because everything is one. This is difficult for the mind to see, it’s a quantum leap from simply holding onto to the menu as you can probably tell. You will tear down all the illusion of separation that you think exists within the restaurant, which is life.
There is no table, only you. There is no chair, only you. There is no menu, only you, and it is all love. Everything is just a reflection of love. How could this be? How could this be true? How could this be the truth that has always been? How could this be real and the images you see all around you being illusion?
Brother, you had been in this restaurant your whole life. You have been eating the same food your whole life. You’ve been seeing people come in and out of the restaurant your whole life. Some of them more frequently than others, some you call friends, others you call coworkers or business partners, others you call family, others you don’t call at all. You just pass by them in the street in and out.
[0:19:08.4] Others you call neighbors, that guy on the subway, that girl at the café. They come in and out of the restaurant or in and out of your life, right? Now again, the restaurant is life, right? It’s huge, it contains all the people. So they don’t go in and out of the restaurant but they move in and out of your vision or perception, right?
Maybe you change, maybe you change tables and so you’re around a different group of people, right? You’ve seen all the food, you’ve seen all the meals, maybe you have moved around the restaurant a bit. You’ve visit other countries or you’ve changed cities, right? So that’s like changing tables.
You’ve moved houses, you’ve moved apartments, you’ve moved into other locations in the world and that’s obviously going to introduce you to different people that are in that area of whatever that new table is, and maybe you’ve changed seats, right? You’ve changed jobs or occupations. You have been in this restaurant your whole life.
Stay with me brother, because here comes the truth. I’m about to tell you the reason you’re on a journey that leads you to exactly where you are, and you’ll travel a great distance without ever moving because you are asleep. The restaurant is a dream you’re having, a dream of duality, illusion, and separation as you sleep in your bed of oneness and enlightenment.
[0:20:23.9] You’ve gone nowhere at all, you haven’t been in once place your whole life or you have been in one place your whole life. You’ve been in that bed, it’s the only place you’ve ever been. So one place, which is everywhere. The restaurant, you know that giant restaurant that has all the people it’s the size of the earth.
All the people, all the tables, all the seats, all the views, that restaurant the one you’ve traveled all over and visited each quarter and met each person, tried each meal, that’s the dream you’re having as you lie in your bed. You’ve never moved, you’ve never gone anywhere, you’ve never done anything, you’re just lying there asleep.
It is all an illusion that you’re dreaming and because you’re dreaming it, it’s all you coming from your projection of light. You are a part of the divine oneness, one light being projected in an infinite number of directions all landing here in the dream of illusion and separation. You are creating the restaurant along with all the other people because that is what you are and that’s what everyone is.
Everything, one, love, you are dreaming it all into what feels like for you and everyone else reality, and I use that word so loosely because it’s not reality. None of this is real. It isn’t any more real than the dreams when you have when you sleep at night but they feel real, don’t they? Your dreams feel real to you.
[0:22:05.7] Your body gets the physical reaction from these dreams, doesn’t it? When you’re flying in your dreams, don’t you feel lighter than air? Don’t you feel like you’re flying? It’s so wild, I have two dreams that constantly, I dream that I am flying and I dream that I am breathing underwater is my dreams, right?
When I dream that I am flying, I feel like I am a bird. I feel like I am going up and down. I literally feel like I am in the air. I run really fast and then I jump and I take off and I fly through the air and I literally feel like when I wake up from this dream, I feel as though in the dream I was flying. It was like my body was actually flying.
I get a physical reaction. Now, in my bed, I am not actually levitating. I’m not levitating off the bed but when I am in my dream, I feel like I’m flying and when I’m breathing under the water, it’s the same. I feel like I am underwater, I’m actually in the water breathing, filling my lungs with air, with water while I’m in the water but I’m lying in my bed.
I’m not in the water but I get that physical reaction. When you have sexual dreams, maybe you’ve had sexual dreams at night, don’t you get a physical reaction from those dreams and brothers, when you have nightmares, don’t you feel the fear? Don’t you feel the physical reaction from your nightmares?
[0:23:31.8] Do you feel the fear or the guilt or the shame or whatever is the content of your dream, the paranoia? Doesn’t it wake you up when it gets too intense? Well, my brother, that is what’s happening now. The dream of your human life is getting so intense that your soul is ready for you to wake up and live in the truth of oneness.
Love, light, and joy, you are ready to wake up from this illusion of ego and live in the truth, live the truth of the world that was created by love for love, created by God for God, created by oneness for oneness, created by your soul for your soul and these are all the same thing. Love, God, oneness, soul, they’re all the same.
And that is part two, the remembering of the truth that has always been, the journey back to the place you never left. It is the return to I am consciousness, the alpha state, your soul. And when this happens, your whole life will change. You will be unrecognizable and you will only recognize the truth. You will experience oneness, which is love.
You will only experience what is real, which is love, wholeness, perfection, and oneness. As long as you experience any duality, there’s not a movement into oneness but this is all that’s required, a complete acceptance of what is true and eternal, your soul, love, wholeness. Brothers, this is available to you now, do you understand?
[0:25:16.1] Not only is it available to you now, it’s what you’ve always been. It’s your nature, it’s your calling, it’s your purpose. How you get there and how long it takes you to get there, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you enroll in the academy or not and I don’t care if you spend this lifetime in the ego.
You can spend the rest of your lifetime in your ego and it won’t matter. Your soul is eternal, it never dies. It never ends. Oneness never ends, love is eternal, you are eternal. Humans spend their entire life fearing and fighting death that never happens. Death is an illusion, we create stories of identity so that we can fear and fight this illusion.
Brother, let me ask you something, when you die in your dream, are you dead? Have you ever died in your dream before? Have you ever been killed in your dream? What happens? You just wake up, you wake up in your bed. You just become aware of the truth that it was all a dream and brother, you don’t have to die to wake up.
That’s what I’m telling you, you don’t have to die to experience the truth, all you have to do is remember. All you have to do is let go of the illusion that you have clung to and believed to be real for so long. The restaurant is really fun, right? Don’t get me wrong, the restaurant of life, the illusion of life, the illusion of what we experience, it’s a lot of fun.
[0:26:41.8] There’s a lot happening here and it’s all you. It’s all you, everything is you. Give everything to everyone because everything you give, you give to yourself. And let’s begin at the beginning, which is also the end, the alpha and the omega, because it’s all one and in the beginning, I offer you the menu, my brother.
Here, have a menu, and welcome to your journey. Until next week my brothers, we are one.
[END OF DISCUSSION]
[0:27:26.5] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you enjoyed what you’ve heard and want even more, sign up for Unleash your Alpha: Your Guide to Shifting to the Alpha Mindset, at the alphamalecoach.com/unleash.
[END]
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