Overcoming Adversity & Finding Purpose: Orion Talmay’s Journey to Self-Discovery

Michael: The journey that we're all on, trying to figure out who we are, is what I think is the crux of the journey of life. I think about so many of the Stoics in history, and they always end up in the same place where I say, if you can figure this part out, you will find success in life.

And that's this idea about knowing thyself. If you can know thyself. As I've traveled the world and spoken with hundreds of people, your journey and what you've done walking down the path of self-discovery, Orion, has been one of these things where I go, wow, that's a person who knows themselves. That said, why should anyone listen to today's episode?

Orion: Well, they should listen because I come with a lot of life experience. I come from a place where people told me that I cannot do a lot of things and I will never be able to do a lot of things. Like when I tried to get pregnant, the doctor gave me a 5% chance to conceive, and in my mind, it was 95%. When I was hitting rock bottom and going through an abusive relationship, nobody thought I would be anything.

And I beat the odds. I studied with the greatest people around the world. I rebuilt myself. I never listened to the naysayers, and today I have a pretty good life, and I help a lot of people transform. Also, in my numerology, I have the number three, meaning that people around me transform, which is pretty awesome.

So you might experience this beautiful sense of transformation by the end of today's conversation. Please stay tuned because it's going to be pretty awesome.

Michael: Yeah, and that's my hope. Whenever I record this—870-something episodes, lots and lots of conversations.

Orion: Amazing. Congratulations.

Michael: Thank you. And so many people have walked this path of transformation. One of the things that I see that comes up often, whether it's people who comment or send emails, or maybe I have a coaching call with them, whatever it is, so many people have this sense that it's just not for them.

That their self-worth isn't in alignment with the possibility that they could have the life they want. Whereas you see the 95%, they see the 5%. And what I'm always trying to solve for is that. How do you create an actual transformation in your life? So, in order to understand your journey, we have to first understand where you come from. How would you describe childhood? What was it like growing up for you?

Orion: Well, I grew up in Israel. My childhood was very difficult. There was a lot of violence. My parents got divorced when I was three. We lived in poverty. The house I grew up in was so broken that in the winter, my mom used to put buckets to catch the raindrops. It was that awful.

But I was in a wealthy neighborhood regardless. This was the broken house in a wealthy neighborhood, which is pretty odd. So I always felt weird, like an odd bird. I had that sense about me for a long time, and I thought it was bad. But now I know that it's okay to be a little different and a little weird. That took a lot of years to discover.

Michael: Hmm.

Orion: Then I served in the IDF and moved to Japan for three and a half years. What do you want to know?

Michael: Yeah. This journey—when you're young and you're experiencing violence in the home, chaos, poverty—what was in your head? As a child, were you cognizant of it?

Orion: I knew I was different. I just felt really different. My neighbors had really nice houses. My mom used to clean houses. So I was the poor one, and I really felt it. I always got secondhand clothes. Even in school, kids would go to the little supermarket to buy things. I never had the money to buy anything. I started working when I was pretty young, like 14, making my own money.

Michael: I definitely relate to that, and I think so many people listening do as well. And what's so hard about that is that those are your formative years. That's where we start to shape our identity. We bear witness to the realities around us, the people around us, their actions, their attributes—we model them.

And it's funny because those experiences play a tremendous role in our lives as we try to figure out who we are. When you were young, did you have a vision of wanting something more?

Orion: Oh yeah. I wanted to be a singer. I had a dream of becoming a singer in the U.S. I taught myself English by watching movies and reading the translations. I tried to speak with the actors. That’s how my English got really good in comparison to my peers.

Everybody studied English, but I had that dream. I had that vision. Eventually, I did move to the U.S. and pursued acting, but it didn’t work out. But I got there. I fulfilled some of that dream.

Michael: I want to go deep. How do you give yourself permission to take the risk? Because what I see all the time is people saying, "I have this dream," but there's a blockage. Shame, pain, doubt. That wall is so high that they're scared to take the first step. How do you actually do that? What's happening in your mind when you decide to take the risk?

Orion: For me, it was boredom. After the IDF, I worked, and I was bored at my job. I found this book about Japan, read it, and highlighted all the places I wanted to go. Two weeks later, I was in Japan with almost no money in my pocket.

How did I do it? A combination of being young, naive, and wanting to break free. I remember meeting people who scared me. It felt like the universe was testing me: "Are you resilient enough? Are you strong enough?" There was a fire in me to go, to explore, to see something completely different.

I also had a compelling future in my mind. I imagined myself in Japanese onsens, eating the best sushi, seeing a geisha or sumo wrestler. The future pulled me forward. Tony Robbins says we run away from pain and toward pleasure. I experienced pain, but I focused on pleasure. That vision carried me.

Michael: Yeah, I mean, that’s powerful. And sometimes, it's easier just to do it. People say, "Easier said than done." But sometimes, it’s just really easy to make a hard decision.

Because when you start putting your life in motion, it moves you—either towards something or away from something. And most people who don’t first start with acknowledgment get stuck in the middle. They just settle for a mundane life.

Orion: Yeah, it reminds me of, it reminds me of a story from Wayne Dyer when he was walking down the street and he saw an old guy in a balcony and this guy had, um, kind of like an older dog laying there and just crying, crying, crying. He didn't think about it too much. And then, when he came back a few hours later, they're still sitting there and the dog is still crying and he's asking the old man, why is the dog crying?

He's like, he's sitting on a nail. So why isn't he getting up? Because it doesn't hurt enough. So yeah, that, that lukewarm place is not good for anyone. Sometimes we need to feel our emotion and feel some extreme. We'll have this, this forward movement. And the other day I was thinking about abundance and what makes us abundant.

One makes us, you know expand our horizon and the metaphor that came to mind and actually saw it in my vision I saw a wild horse running and when I looked at that horse, I'm like what's in this horse? That is the representation of abundance First of all, this horse is free does not have the blinders is open for possibilities The second thing is the horse is in flow state, he's running, there is so much fun, he's doing exactly what he wants to do, so that's the feeling, the compelling future, right?

And then what does the horse do? The horse moves, you gotta move, if you're gonna sit and think about changing your life, you're not going to change your life, so you gotta be in movement. Gotta get yourself into a place of imagining where you see the compelling future, where you, you feel the state flow and you got to open the blinders and be open to the possibilities because people that are lucky are those people that open themselves into those beautiful possibilities.

Michael: Yeah. And it's so difficult, especially if you come from darkness, right? Because it's so easy. You look at your life and you look at, you know, childhood. Maybe you grow up in poverty. Maybe you're in an abusive relationship. Maybe, you know, you're crippling debt. Maybe you're sick. I mean, there's so many things that we can leverage as a negative.

That keep us from seeing that vision for abundance. If somebody is living in a negative state right now and life just is not working for them and they are miserable and things suck and they hear this and they're like, okay, I get abundance. People talk about this all the time. I can't seem to touch it. What would you tell them?

Orion: That you are okay, and it's okay to know all your feelings and acknowledge them and it's okay to be aware you are because life is hard and we go through hard things. I went through an abusive relationship where I ended up in hospital and it was one of the darkest times in my life. Because when you're in a hospital, you want your loved one to be there.

And the person that I thought loved me was the one who got me there. And I was heartbroken. I was really broken, actually. And I used to walk down the streets of Manhattan and look behind my back, thinking he's going to chase me. I was messed up. I took on, you know, he insulted everything about me. Every part of my body was insulted.

And when you go through that much brainwash, you start believing it. So I understand what it's like to be in darkness. Been through tough childhood. I mean, lots of things happened. I mean, you live life and things happen, right? We all go through a lot of things. But I do understand darkness. I understand being in that place where you don't want to get out of bed. Um, and you even think about ending your life. I had that thought, but not for too long. But I definitely was in a very, very low, low place. I started with baby steps. First, you, you want to want it. You start with little things like I watched YouTube videos, cat videos, so I can start smiling. I went online and I consumed every possible information I could about self-development.

And I learned about Louise Hay and Mira work. And Louise said, when something good happens, go to the mirror and say, I love you. And when something bad happened, go to the mirror and say, I love you. I love you. No matter what. Easier said than done when you were in such a dark place, ccause I looked in the mirror and I freaking hated myself.

And I tried to say, I love you. And I started crying, falling apart, couldn't say that. But you don't give up. It's about you not giving up on yourself. So I said it again, and again, and again, and a month later I was able to say it in straight face. And I also, talking about movement, I promised myself that nobody ever is going to touch me like that ever again.

So I took martial arts, I took MMA, I took Aikido, I got strong, I lifted weights, and I also did yoga classes, and I remember crying in yoga classes, and, and, and dance classes, um, everything to like move. All this pain away from my body because I, I know, I don't know exactly which one did the research, but they took two groups.

One did Prozac for three months. One did exercise for three months and they got the same results at the end as far as their wellbeing. So movement is super important. So you got to move and what you're focusing on. If you want to focus on I could have been focused on I'm a victim, which I did for a long time.

And sometimes I do fall into, Oh, poor me. But now much less than in the past because I am aware. Um, so you want to, what are you focusing on? You want to focus on the bright vision. Even if it's hard, you want to try it and baby steps. You want to move your body, create, release all those good feel hormones, strengthen your body.

When you strengthen your body, you strengthen your mind. It does, you know, Rome was not built in a day. And your self-esteem will not be built in a day. Well, maybe if you do a hypnosis session with me. Nah, just kidding, maybe not. But it takes time. It takes time to build ourselves. And we are like onions.

And when we think like, Oh my God, I just healed that layer. I'm great. You get triggered by another thing. So I feel like throughout life, we're in the process of healing and peeling the onion layers, but guess what? You get better today. It's going to be hard tomorrow. It's going to be hard next day.

It's going to be a little better, a little brighter baby step. If you just focus every day on where you want to go, you will get there. You played the long game.

Michael: Yeah, you know, it's funny because I was just. I recorded a podcast a few weeks ago. It was called baby steps with giant goals. And, and I think that we get so caught up in like, I have to hit a home run or I don't matter. And it's like at the beginning for me, and this is genuine. I was like, can I brush my teeth today?

Like, can I get out of bed? Can I take a shower today? Can I not? And then it was little, little things that were big things, like, can I not smoke a cigarette for an hour? Like, that sounds insane, right? As somebody who quit smoking and I would never smoke again, the idea of, can I make it an hour when you're smoking two packs a day might as well be a year.

And so every day it was like, okay, these little tiny baby steps. So I am in full agreement with you because nothing is more, and this is in my opinion, Nothing is more catastrophic to your confidence than trying to hit a home run when you've never even stepped up to bat. And missing brutally and then realizing that the thing that you need, generally speaking, are skills to build confidence.

But you don't have the skills because you've never done the thing you're trying to do. And yet you're attaching your identity to the thing you've never done. It's like, wait a second. That's not how this works. What if we deployed patience? What if we deployed grace? What if we deployed empathy and those are and those are these very high vibrating frequency energies, right?

The fact that you could get to love. After coming through despair and hatred, that's a process. You can look at that linearly. You're like, okay, it took me a month, two months, five years, 10 years, 20, my whole lifetime. And yet I still get triggered. And I think people just really, really forget that this journey isn't actually overnight.

There are certain things that when they click, they click forever. Like I know that, you know, this. Because I know this and I think many people do because you've had these experiences and some things you're gonna be like man It's taken me 10 years. I'm still dealing with this shit, and that's just a part of the life so how do you I want to sit deeper in this self love concept for a minute because Societally right now self love is this huge topic of conversation

Orion: Oh.

Michael: I don't know that it's being had the right way And so I'm just curious from your perspective one Can you define self love?

And then two, what are some baby steps to move from I hate myself to I love myself?

Orion: Can I share with you something else that came to mind before we dive into self love? Because you mentioned grace. And nothing I've done would have been possible without that connection to whatever the listener believes in, that, that life force that makes us breathe, um, that, that makes our heartbeat without, without us even thinking, you know, God, the creator, I call it God, but that like, I was also throughout this whole journey and still am.

A lot of time with prayer and connection to that higher power, cause you know, sometimes we think it's all us, but if you take some of that higher power to God, you'll be better. You'll be, you'll feel more connection, you'll feel safer because it's beautiful. Power is. within you and it's guiding you throughout your life. So just wanted to mention that because I didn't want to sound like I did all that by myself and I'm so great. No, no, no. I got a lot of help, a lot of help from my angels guide God, you know, it didn't, I don't think any of it could have, could have happened the way it did without that divine guidance. So just, just adding that now, self love, I don't know what's the definition of self love.

I know what it feels like. It's a sensation. It's a knowingness that my mentor, Dr. Demartini always says, whatever you did or didn't do, you are worthy of love. I guess self love is what baby feels when they know that they can, they deserve everything and that they belong and that it's okay to take that baby step and fall and everybody's gonna cheer them like, yay, you did it.

So if you look at yourself and you, you, you connect to that inner child inside and you hug him or her and you talk to that, to the inner child, that's one of the most amazing stuff that you. Stuff that you can do for self love, you can do self love externally, but you can also do it internally. And you can even put, um, a photo of your, you know, your younger self, age five, six, seven, on, on the mirror.

And every once in a while, just, just talk to him or her and, and, and love on them. Because you deserve love. Self love is listening to your most horrible thoughts and saying, thank you for sharing. I'm going to change it. I'm gonna think something better. Self-love is knowing that you're capable and you're not a victim, and reminding yourself that you are capable and you are not a victim. Self-love is owning everything that happened in your life because if you own it, you can change it. Self-love is getting out in nature and, and, and, and, and touching the trees and feeling the divine presence, that is outside and within you and you are part with it. Self love is knowing that you are a part of this creation.

Michael: It's powerful. Yeah, and I think a lot of what I hear in that too is doing what you know you should be doing for yourself. That's one of the hardest things, like, to just show up for yourself. Because if you think about it, right, so much of our childhood is tied into the idea where You know, depending on how you grow up, but especially for people listening to this show, it's, you're not important, you don't matter, you're not good enough, you hear terrible things, I don't know why I brought you into this world, you know, the list goes on and on, I don't need to go down that path, but the inner criticism shows up, and that thing about not being enough shows up, and this idea about self-love can feel conflated, you know.

It can feel so far away from people, but for me, I found that it is unbelievable when you change the language that you have for yourself and you remove criticism for yourself, what happens to your life. Because you're being criticized by the world, regardless, because of the way you look, the way you talk, the way you think, the way you smell, which might be necessary, but like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of criticism externally, and then, for people, and this goes both sides, I don't think it's talked about enough, who are in abusive relationships, whether you're a man or a woman, I had this moment of realization, when I was like 24 that I was effectively dating my mother like it was a real Holy shit moment for me because I am with this woman, she's not physically abusive, by the way.

Orion: Yeah, I get it.

Michael: Mentally and emotionally the things we said were damn near as evil as you could get but it was credit. We criticized each other constantly, right? It was always in that world and when I came to realize now, you know almost 15, 16 years removed from that. Her childhood was so similar to mine that we were operating in behavioral patterns that we thought were normal, to criticize, to be mean, to belittle, to put down. Now, obviously, when it's internal, that's one conversation. When it's external, it's a whole other conversation. And you mentioned, you know, you were able to get through that abusive relationship and all the criticism you did with, and the pain and the hurt and the suffering and still walk the path to create the change and move towards self love.

Can you talk about how you talk to yourself? Because I'm so curious about the dialogue that you have for who you are, and for who you are in the world. 

Orion: when the bad things happen, the conversation was really bad in the beginning.  I was not loving myself, so the conversation was not loving, the conversation was putting me down.

The conversation was taking on the identity of the abusive partner and, and, and saying to myself everything that I heard from him, right? But when I was 16, my mom gave me, a Louise Hay book, “You Can Heal Your Life.” And she talks about How we speak to ourselves and I had that knowledge and I knew that I need to, I need to change the conversation.

So I started in, I started telling myself, you know, if you tell yourself a lie enough time, you'll believe it. So when we tell ourselves that we are worthless and we suck and we're the worst human being on the planet. If we tell that to ourselves enough times, we will totally believe that. So, why don't you tell yourself a really great lie, like, I'm capable, I'm awesome, I can do it.

I develop an identity. I saw myself as the phoenix rising. I knew that there was a light inside of me that I can hold on to. And I held on to this, it was a tiny light, but I held on to it. And I said to myself, I can rise like the phoenix. I knew, I've done it in the past. I survived a lot, I am a survivor, I can do this.

But then I moved the conversation went from I'm a survivor to I'm even like the identity of the survivor did not serve me anymore and I'm now I'm a leader now I'm keeping I'm a leader I'm creating transformation around me I'm freaking awesome I'm kind have a good heart I love myself I forgive myself.

This is the conversation that I told myself, and if you tell yourself those words enough times, you'll start believing in them, even though in the beginning it, you will feel like you're lying. What do you think? You're, the bad words are not lies? Is it true that you're not capable? Is it true that you cannot reach anything? That's the biggest lie you can tell yourself. Start shifting that. 

Michael: Yeah, it is. And it is a lie, right? Because where's the evidence, you know, I'm always thinking about that. Where's the evidence that proves that you're not capable because there there's so many things in your life that you're unbelievably capable of achieving and getting.

And so many shifts that you're capable of having and so many opportunities that you're capable of taking advantage of. And sometimes it's like you've got to figure out what game you're actually playing because I don't think people have clarity on what they're actually doing in their life. And it's really hard because if you think about it, we're, we're really effective at controlling certain parameters of our life.

We will control what we can measure and what we can see, right? But we don't control the, the intangible. The mindset conversation, the, the connection to other human beings, the material we're putting into our eyes and our ears and our mouth for that matter. Right. And it's so interesting how so much of what we choose to control plays a role in this.

And if you can give yourself permission to be like, actually, I'm going to build and create these parameters of making myself who I want to be. 

Orion: It's only a 

Michael: matter of time before you become that person. 

Orion: Yes, exactly. Amazing. You know, your brain is like a puppy. It's like, it's like a loyal dog. If you tell yourself, just, you know, I used to be a personal trainer a long time ago.

And my client used to say, I'm not good at lunges, I'm not good at lunges, I'm not good at lunges. So, the lizard brain, that part of the brain that is the ancient brain, that is like a loyal puppy, that will make sure that you are right. If you told that lizard brain, I cannot do lunges, and you told, you told it enough times, the next time you'll do a great lunge, it will not believe it, and you go back to doing those bad lunges, because That's the identity. My identity is I'm not doing good lunges. So I had to force my clients. I didn't have to, but I enjoyed it to say, I am great at lunges. I am great at lunges. I'm kind of funny sometimes, and they did that and they just like, as they were saying that they were improving because they were commanding their body, they were commanding their subconscious mind.

There were, you know, training. So kind of like in a trance state and talking to themselves and, and they did great. I also used to, when I stretched them at the end of the session and they were kind of super loosey goosey, I would talk to them and, and do some embedded commands and tell them great affirmations about how amazing they are and how wonderful they are.

So, I feel like it's great. It's great to listen to beautiful meditations and beautiful affirmations and especially when you're in that trans state, in that moment before you go to sleep and all the defenses of your conscious mind are low and you put good input into your mind. Most people go on Instagram and TikTok and then go to sleep.

So they fill their mind with BS and stress and then they go to sleep. If you just change that habit and you just listen, there are like a million and one meditations. There is the app, Brain Tap. It's amazing. They have lots of guided meditations. I mean, it's everywhere. It's so easy. You can get it for free.

You can pay a little sum of money and get the most amazing meditations on the planet. So you want to feed your mind. And if you cannot say it to yourself, have somebody else whisper in your ear. That you're amazing and you're good enough and you're lovely and you're loved and you're sexy and you're wonderful. And then you will take on those words as if they were your own.

Michael: Absolutely. Because in the same way, and I teach my clients this all the time, in the way that you were brainwashed as a child, you get to choose to brainwash yourself as an adult. And that process of doing it as an adult, at least I've come to find is what you're putting in your ears, your eyes, and your mouth.

And so much of it is, I am not a huge proponent of positive affirmations. I think on a long enough timeline; they can dissipate in their effectiveness and their efficacy. But in the beginning, what I love, I love, love that you said this. Tell yourself a great lie. That's what I did, same thing, same mirror work.

I used to go stand in front of the mirror and be like, I love you. And it was crippling uncomfortable. It was disgusting and I hated it because I, again, I hated myself. 

Orion: And so you know, when you're looking your eyes in the mirror a long, a long time and your face changes and your eyes change and you're like, who is it?

I don't even understand. It's hard to look inside. It's hard to look in the mirror. Some people are having a hard time just not even saying, just looking in the mirror, looking in their own eyes. But do it. It's great. If you're not going to love yourself, who else will? Like, you teach people how to love you by the way you love yourself.

You're like, Oh, they don't love me. They don't treat me well. How well do you treat yourself? How much do you love yourself? What you give to yourself teaches others how they should treat you. I mean, of course, there are extremes like, like the, like, you know, abusive people, blah, blah, blah. But in general, if you, if you want to get love, love yourself more, give more love.

Michael: And it's going to suck at the beginning. Like it really does. If you're full of criticism and self hatred and self loathing and suicidal ideations, which I've, you know, I've had all of those that the first time my life actually changed was when I stared in the mirror and I made myself look at myself, I'd never looked at myself before.

There was so much shame and so much guilt. It's not, Hey, how's my hair? How's my beard? How's my clothes? It's like, I looked into the depth of who I was and it sucked. And so when I wrote think unbroken and we released that book now almost six years ago, which is so crazy. One of the chapters is talking about doing this mirror work.

Because it's so profoundly important and I don't think it's talked about enough because it creates this thing where your life gets to change because now you can start in commanding yourself to love yourself. You are giving yourself orders and stepping into that brainwashing capacity that I think is unbelievably necessary.

Well, I want to just stay in that for a moment. What was the biggest aha for you in the mirror work? What, what, what shift happened for you that the discomfort dissipated? 

Orion: Oh, it's day to day that I was able to look at myself and say, I love you and not cry. That was amazing. That was amazing. I felt that it was a breakthrough.

And you're spending time with myself and, and, and sending. Sending that good vibes to that girl in the mirror and loving her no matter what, no matter how broken, devastated, unwanted, trash like she feels, still loving her. Like I was proud of myself in that moment. 

Orion: We spoke about conversations, you know, sometimes our subconscious mind, that lizard brain I was talking about, that part, that wants to be right and do whatever you tell it.

Sometimes when we say, even joking, like, I'm so stupid, or, yeah, you know, when we joking, how do you call it self depravate? What's the word? 

Michael: Deprecating. 

Orion: Yes. That word humor, that type of humor where you put yourself down, catch those moments and eliminate those moments. Amazingly smart. You can joke like that. Why not joke and say really good things about yourself? Because the brain doesn't, and the subconscious does not understand that you're joking. Ticks it in. So always talk your, talk, talk to yourself about yourself and very highly. When you talk about yourself to other people, say good things about yourself.

And when you talk to yourself in private, also please say really nice things about yourself. You only have one life to live. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So love yourself today. Don't wait until somebody else is going to love me and then I'm going to feel really loved. It doesn't work that way.

When you are whole, the love that you want will be, will come to you. We have a partner and that's beautiful supportive partner, it increases the love, but you got to do the work for yourself. And I'll wait for the day that something's going to happen and then you're going to love yourself and then you're going to feel happy.

I'm going to get that beautiful big house and then I'm going to feel happy. No, you got to experience those emotions now, go into the gratitude and appreciation of what you have and train your brain to be in gratitude and appreciation of what you have because our brain is pretty primitive. We're still looking for the saber toothed tiger and what's bad.

We are trained from, in our DNA, to look for danger and to look for what's bad. So if you do practice like mirror work, if you do practice like gratitude, you change it and you start looking for what's good. It's a process, but it's amazing what gratitude can do. Even just one list of gratitude, and you're like, oh, my life sucks, I have nothing to be grateful for.

You're breathing, right? Somebody just died now, in the second. You can walk? Great. A lot of people cannot walk. You can talk? Great. You can write? You can think? Thank God you can think. There are so many things we can be grateful for. 

Michael: Yeah, I mean it's so true because negativity, and I don't know what it is about the human experience, I mean it's honestly probably just tied into our survival mechanism.

Damn, we are so good at leveraging the negative. It is just like, it's almost like every human has this superpower, where we can just walk down the path and be trapped in the negative. 

Orion: Yeah, it's my son was just entering. Sorry. It's all right. Yeah. Okay. And so, 

Michael: you know, you, you look at this journey and we're so tied to the idea of the negativity where it can just consume everything around us.

And then suddenly you're a negative person. And then you're a complainer, and then you're a criticizer, and then, now it's not only you, but the people around you don't want to be around you, and then you're the, you're the glass half empty person, and your relationship starts to go to shit, and your health goes to shit, and your money goes to shit, and it's like, I'm not saying you gotta wake up every day and like, I'm grateful for coffee, but there's gotta be something in your day to day life where you can find gratitude, because if you, you, And people talk about this all the time, but Viktor Frankl's man search for meaning, you know, he found something in Auschwitz.

Like fucking Auschwitz. If you can be grateful in Auschwitz, why can't you be grateful in your home, with your family, with your partner, with your children, with the career you have, with the health you have. And yet somehow we're tied to the negativity. So I agree with you entirely. Find the gratitude, find the space to have thanks for your life, for this experience, for what's in front of you, because it's really interesting and this is my own personal experience, when I shifted my inner dialogue and my voice.

From deep, deep negativity into positivity, optimism, and gratitude, I watched my life change. Like, I can almost measure it, because it was so clear and evident and abundant. And so, even though it's difficult, it is, I don't want to call it the cure to the problem, but it's a really, really good recipe to start the process.

So if somebody, I'm curious your thoughts here, if somebody is really, really struggling in this space, trying to command their mind, maybe they've been doing some of the gratitude, they're being patient, they've tried other things, and they're like, You mentioned hypnosis a minute ago. Will that actually work? Does that do anything? 

Orion: Yes. 

Michael: Tell us about this. 

Orion: Yes. So, if you are, you know, our conscious mind it's like a reoccurring thought that we have. It's the, it's a small percentage of our inner world. Most of our inner world, our belief system is in our subconscious mind. Sometimes there is the belief of I don't belong, I don't deserve, um, I cannot relate, whatever the belief, I'm not good at ABC.

And that can be a belief that you formed as a child. He saw your parent fight and you thought it was because of you and then a belief was formed. So when you go into hypnosis, um, a therapeutic hypnosis, not a stage, hypnosis, when you bark like a dog, um, you get into a trans state. What is a trans state?

Trans state is a natural state we go into many times a day. When you drive from point A to point B and you can't even remember how you got home, that's because you were in a trans state and your subconscious mind, took the wheel and got you home, right? When you watch a movie and somebody's like, Hey, hey, hello.

And you can't, and you can't hear them. That's because you were in a trans state. So it's a very natural state. So what a hypnotherapist does is they put you in a state of relaxation. And when you relax and you're in a trans state and the subconscious is open. Then, me, like I can work on those beliefs.

What I do is I do a regression and we get into different points in the, in the childhood where a belief was formed, formed, and then you understand why it was formed, how it was formed, and then we insert new beliefs. Now it's, you know, affirmations are in the. And this level of the thinking mind.

So that's why sometimes they don't work. And that's why it's really good to do them before you go to sleep when you're very loose and in trance state. And Tony Robbins talks about incantation when you do the affirmation with a really high state and, and, and infuse emotion into them, which affects the outcome.

Now in hypnosis, you are already in a trance state. And then, you process things, you heal things, you can usually work, not usually, you can work on one thing at a time. You cannot work on, I'm afraid to fly and I want to quit smoking at the same time. Um, so we always heal one thing at a time and it's, it's, talk therapy is good many times.

And hypnosis, you can solve something that people struggle with years. You can solve it in like one to three sessions. Because you're not dealing with talk. Talk is the conscious mind. You're going deep. into the subconscious and then you heal. 

Michael: I am personally just a huge proponent of hypnosis. I have gone through, gosh, I've probably done it 30 times professionally with different people, different problems, different issues, different things that come up because I agree with you, like talk, talk therapy, even coaching, like.

Powerful, practical, has a place, but there's something about touching the depth of that subconscious where there's been moments where I've been in deep hypnosis where I disappear and a two-hour session feels like two minutes. And it's so incredible. I'm highly hypnotizable, um, by the way. So it's something that's the word I'm looking for. And it's something that has played a huge role in my life. You are 

Orion: Awesome. You are amazing. Yeah, exactly.  

Michael: You know, but that was a part of it too, right? Because I was like, there has to be a willingness from an individual level to try whatever it takes to find the solution to the problem. Yeah.

And I think that people will kind of balk at the idea of hypnosis or alternative modalities because it's not a medicine, it's not a prescription, it's not a, I'm going to give you something, you take this physical object, you put it in you and you can expect a change. It's this is deep into the depths of your psyche to the very limbic system that keeps you alive and focused and Existing and beyond because we don't even really understand it fully and it's entirely and in fact There's research now that points to we might actually understand less than 10 percent of the human brain We thought it was 10 percent for a long time and now we're coming to find like maybe it's like more than closer to 1 percent 

Michael: so you take that into consideration. 

Orion: It's like smart 

Michael: Yeah, it's like there's so much opportunity for the depth of growth to continue to happen and my hope Orion is that some people listen this to today and the future and they'll say, hey, maybe there's a space for me to go and learn from you before I ask you my last question. No, where can everyone find you?

Totally. We'll have to have you back. We're so this is such a great conversation. But for the sake of time, where can everyone find you and learn more about you? 

Orion: Okay. Well, you can find me at ryansmethod. com. And I have a great podcast and I had a great guest. thank you for our interview, by the way.

It was amazing. And I felt really a good connection to you, so it's still alivepodcast.com, orionsmethod.com and on social media media, I am Orion Talmay.

Michael: Amazing. And guys, keep in mind, if you go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com, you will find that and everything you need in the show notes for this episode. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Orion: To be in connection with a divine and to trust, to be unbroken is to trust.

Michael: Beautifully said. And I hope everyone can tap into that and find that for themselves and their journey. Thank you for being here.

Unbroken Nation. Thank you for listening. Please remember to like, subscribe, tell a friend this brought you any value because it might change their life.

Take care of yourself and each other.

And Until Next Time.

Be Unbroken, I'll See Ya.