Body-First Healing Podcast

How to Manifest Through Embodiment & Release Limiting Beliefs with Matt Cooke

• Britt Piper • Episode 39

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Britt sits down with manifestation coach and author of Beyond Wanting, Matt Cooke, for a conversation that bridges manifestation, embodiment, and nervous system work. Matt shares the unexpected spiritual awakening that changed the course of his life, how it led him out of the corporate world, and why real manifestation is about much more than positive thinking. Together, Britt and Matt explore the biggest misconceptions around manifestation, the role of the subconscious mind, why trauma and limiting beliefs can block what we desire, and how slowing down, feeling safe in the body, and taking smaller, more regulated steps can create real change. This conversation is for anyone who feels stuck between where they are and where they want to be, and wants a more grounded, body-aware way to move forward. 

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Body First Healing Podcast. I'm Britt Piper, Survivor Turn Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Aut. If you feel stuck in old patterns, overwhelmed by your emotions, or disconnected from yourself, you're in the right place. Each week I'll share practical somatic tools, personal stories, and conversations to support you in building a more regulated and embodied life. Because you can't talk your way through healing. You have to feel your way through. Together, we'll explore what it means to come back to yourself and create a life that feels safe enough to fully live in. I am so glad that you're here.

SPEAKER_01

What you want already exists. Your conscious mind is limited. It doesn't understand how Earth's staying in orbit. It doesn't understand how your heart's beating. It's the same intelligence that knows exactly how to get you to what you want. You got to get out of the way. And that's where I came up with the quote: the universe meets you at the depth of your surrender, not at the height of your struggle. And I think if people learn to surrender their conscious mind, it's trying to predict and control and figure out. And they just trust more in the unknown. It's always blown me away.

Welcome

The Other Worldly Encounter That Changed Matt's Life

SPEAKER_00

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Body First Healing podcast. I am so excited for today's episode. Honestly, it's a really important one, especially if you've ever felt stuck between understanding something mentally, like desiring something for your life or knowing something, but not actually experiencing the change in your life. So I am joined today by Matt Cook. He is the author of Beyond Wanting. And I actually found his work during a season where I was navigating some really big life transitions of my own. And I remember listening to his book on audio two times through, by the way, that gives you any insight into what today's conversation is going to look like. And the reason why I was so impacted by it is because it was one of the first times that I had heard manifestation explained in a way that didn't feel like surface level or woo-woo or, you know, kind of disconnected from the body. And what stood out to me is that he doesn't just teach manifestation as mindset or positive thinking, but as something rooted in science, in the subconscious, in identity, and in the patterns that live beneath our conscious awareness. So if you've been here with me for a while, you know this is exactly where somatic work lives too. So in this conversation, we're getting into what manifestation actually is beneath the surface, why so many people feel like they're doing everything right, in air quotes, but nothing is shifting. And how often the missing piece isn't more effort. It's learning how to work with your nervous system, how to align with your beliefs, and building your capacity to actually hold the life that you say that you want. So I hope you guys love this episode. Let's get into it. All right, Matt. So we were just chatting before, and I was telling you that from a professional lens, I absolutely love the work that you're doing. Yeah, I live live and breathe and work in the somatic space. So I focus a lot on the body. And it's kind of a shame. I don't know if you notice this. I feel like sometimes it's like you're either really into mindset work or you're into like the body work. And they kind of they kind of work against each other. But I loved your book because I feel like it really breaks down some of the at least common misconceptions that people have about manifesting and how it's all just mindset. And I loved the science that you brought into it, the embodiment practices. So I listen to your book on audiobook when I'm working out in my gym and I'm on like round two of you. Plus, I'm in some, yeah, I'm I'm in some really big transition seasons in my life that have been difficult. Like I'm at the edge of things where I can see this future, but I'm like, there's no way that's my future. And so yeah, your book has been an anchor point. And so, anyways, you share about kind of this turning point for you, you know, and a little bit of your origin story with your mom. And for those who maybe haven't read your book yet, I'm sure they're going to want to after they listen to this podcast. Would you be open to just sharing a little bit about just what that experience was like for you and how it manifested into this manifesting world that you've come into, but also maybe a little bit of what happened after all that kind of came to be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Thank you for that intro there. And it's a great question to start with for sure. I think I used to share straight away the spiritual experience I had with my late mother, which I'm going to share in a moment. But going deeper with this, I realized something fundamental happened first, which led to this. So I'll share this. So in September 2018, I was in real estate. I was 26. I was the youngest manager in my firm. And, you know, as anyone can relate with, I was under a lot of corporate stress and pressure and didn't really know how to express my emotions back then. And like I just felt in my body this tightness around my chest. And I was just casually chatting to my wife, and we were really close with her family and still are and her grandparents specifically. And her grandmother just sort of casually said, you know, Matt, you should have some reflexology. And I didn't know really how that would help. I didn't even really know what reflexology was.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you're like, what is this?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's like called massage. I was like, okay. And you know, she sort of agreed to pay for it and bring the therapist to her house. And I was like, you know what? Like, what is there to lose? Let me just go go along with it. So I rocked up one evening after work. This therapist was at the house. I didn't know him, he didn't know me. We're lying on the chair, socks come off. I just think I'm here for a massage. Somehow it's going to help with my chest. And uh he asks me a question, and I talk about this in the book, and he says, So, Matt, tell me who you are. And I immediately said, I'm 26 years old, I'm the youngest manager in this firm of real estate agents, and started to list my what I did for a living. And he said, No, Matt, I didn't ask what you do, I asked who you are. And Britney, I didn't know how to answer that question. Like, who am I? I remember thinking, like, who am I? Like, I I don't know. Like, I thought I was this shell. And in that moment, I realized that whoever I was wasn't happy with what I was doing, you know, in real estate. I realized in that moment I was probably only doing it because I tried in some respect to make family proud and maybe make myself proud, but for what reason I don't know. And I knew I wasn't happy. So that immediately like shifted something in me, but I was more curious about who I was. So that led me down a path of initial discovery, and I didn't know what that was apart from I need to get out of real estate. So for about five months, I was actively using YouTube back then to just help motivate me at night. So that was that was motivation, though. It wasn't spirituality, it was definitely like Tony Robbins, Jim Roan, that type of like content, right? And with that type of content, as we know, like you get ads popping up, don't you? And all of a sudden, like I remember back then, this guy popped up and he was similar age to me. And he was talking about how he'd quit his job in corporate sales and he was now traveling the world. It was called the laptop lifestyle. Then back then, like not a huge amount of people were making money on the internet, really, then, you know, talking not nearly 10 years ago. And I just was immediately hooked with the idea of somehow I could, with my laptop, work all around the world and not be in corporate. So I initially tried to get out of that and something started to shift inside of me for sure. Still didn't know who I was, I was still not spiritual, but I I had a dream at least. And I didn't, for anyone on who's following on, I didn't at this point even know what manifestation was. I'd never heard of the law of attraction. That was a completely new concept which I'm coming to. That led up to a very significant awakening in February 2019. So we're talking about five months later, and that's where I was lying in bed with my wife one evening. It's a Tuesday evening, it's about 10 p.m. We're watching a show on Netflix. And as I rolled over to go to sleep, you know that state where you're still fully aware of the world around you? I was there. My body was deeply like rested, but I was still aware of the world. And out of nowhere, literally, this very strange sensation started to spread across my body, starting at the base of my feet, very quickly encompassed my whole body, and it was bizarre. It was so strange. It for I remember like if I go back there now, I remember thinking like I could stop this if I wanted to, but I was so curious as to what this was because it wasn't painful, I allowed it to continue. It's so hard to even describe, but it was so strange. It felt like I could have just hovered off my bed. And then I heard out of nowhere a very, very high ring in both ears, and then complete silence. And I and then I heard a muffled voice, which sounded like it was at the opposite end of like a sports hall, and it got closer and closer to a point where I could then hear the voice, and the voice said, Matt, it's mum. Can you hear me? And it blew me away because my this was my mother who'd passed away in July 2017, so 18 months before. And we exchanged a few words, and my wife nudged me and she asked me who I was speaking to, and I turned to tell her, and when I turned back, my mum had gone. And and I was just like mind-blown. I was just like, wow. So there is an afterlife, all these thoughts followed by all these sort of like, yeah, but did that really happen? You know, all these sort of doubts because you know, you're never taught things like this. And I was just so curious, and you know, we can go into it, but that was my realization right there that wow, there is clearly more to life than meets the eye. I knew I didn't want to be a medium. I was curious about how I could connect with my mum again. What was that? But I was more curious as to what was behind this veil, and that veil led me to manifestation.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, wow. Thank you for sharing that. What a powerful moment.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

In the book, you talk about how that was kind of like that turning point or that awakening for you. And I'm curious just what you found or who you found yourself to be in that awakening. How did that change the trajectory of your life moving forward?

SPEAKER_01

I think, you know, for me personally, it's probably why I love the science so much. Is it's never enough for me to just experience something once, you know. There's a lot of people who've had similar experiences and perhaps carry on with their life and share a cool story, you know. For me, it was like I've always struggled, like even as a kid, I share, I share this in the book. Like, I've always struggled to like play. Like for me, it was always breaking things apart, you know, and being like, I suppose a little bit like having an engineer's mind of like, how does that get put together? So it just I was curious at that point, really curious. And initially I remember like wanting, and there's the wanting, and this is where it started wanting to literally try and connect with her again to ask more questions about where she was. You know, is there a heaven? Like, what is that like? And where are you? And how have you done this? For a few weeks, my wife and I tried to recreate the same environment, and and my mum never came through again. And that's when I sort of first realized that I didn't try the first time, I didn't I didn't want it happened, and now I'm wanting it. And is wanting then like giving off the wrong energy? And that's when I started to look back and realize that the reflexology part was really vital because it it shifted my own energy in those five months, so it it it helped my mother clearly connect with me because I'd changed, you know. I was open, I suppose. And yeah, and just being in that world and you know, starting to explore more of well, what is reality then, you know, led me to you start hearing energy and vibration and Joe Dispenser and Esther and Jerry Hicks and the secret. And that was then like this path, you see, into manifestation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I remember the the first time I would hear stuff like that, you know, because I have a very science-oriented brain. I do a lot of forensic neurobiology trainings, and so I'm very much in that space, and then you start to hear stuff like that, and you're like, Yeah, that's just that's just quackery or you know, what do they call it? Woo-woo, energy work, right? Yeah, but man, there's something to it. And so one of the things you just mentioned is, and I'm like you, I need a lot of evidence to really believe in something. I need the experiential evidence to back up the the science. And so, yeah, I know I'm kind of jumping ahead here. Okay, so we go from real estate to now reflexology. We have this turning point in your life, yeah, and what what comes next? What happens after that?

SPEAKER_01

So initially, as I'm discovering more of reality, I'm balancing three things. I'm balancing my corporate job in real estate and being unfulfilled, followed now by a dream to try and get out, which is initially digital marketing, affiliate marketing, and then at the same time learning now about manifestation, you know, and and initially, you know, I remember watching The Secret, that was the first thing, and I remember thinking, this just sounds too good to be true. Like, what I can think a certain way and things magically appear. And I just I just remember thinking that you know, no, but then again, your own experience is your most compelling evidence, right? Like you just said, and for me, because I had that experience with my mum, what they were talking about on the secret, like this infinite unifying field of intelligence that unifies all things physical and blah blah blah. I was like, that is true, like what they're saying is true because of this experience with my mum, so okay, but I've got to have my own evidence though, right? So I just knew there was more to just thinking positively. So I used manifestation initially from probably like early 2019 to quitting my corporate job in August 2019. So it was six months. I was a rookie, you know, in manifestation. I had no idea really what I was doing, but I believed in in the unknown. And those six months were initially never ever to think I was gonna be like a manifestation researcher and author. Like, no, I was just using it to create this dream of getting my wife and I out of the corporate world, and that's what 2019 looked like, you know, initially that's where I got to. And then as you read, I got to a point, a big, big turning point. August 2019, I'm in Corfu with my wife Corusand, and two things happened. Firstly, I was lying on a sunbed looking out at the most amazing view, and realizing that I was saying to myself, all I want is freedom, all I want is freedom from debt, freedom from just chasing the the next rung on the ladder. And I'm here at the top now. Do I really want to own the estate agency? No, I want this affiliate marketing thing. And what I found so unbelievable is in that moment, here I am in freedom, in in beauty. Yet it's not enough. Yeah. You know, it's just on the horizon. And I realized that wanting was like a caged animal, desperate for freedom. But wanting in itself is just the absence of what we desire, and wanting is the problem. I remember saying wanting is the problem. And and that evening, you know, my wife sat next to me, she's got her headphones in, listening to music, whatever. And I remember this is a conversation going on in my head. And that evening we are sat on a terrace, the sun's going down, it's in Corfe, we're sipping on cocktails, and I just turned to Korusan and just said, you know, if we want freedom, we've got to be free. And she was like, I know, but how do we do that? And I said, We just have to quit. And she was like, But how? And I was like, I don't know. But I'm gonna get a loan, another loan. And if the loan gets accepted, then it was a sign, and I'll just figure it out. And by that point, I wasn't making any money as an affiliate marketer, I was just learning, you know. I was learning the laptop lifestyle. So my wife worked for the same company and we both quit. And we took out a small-ish loan, and we we started, and I put all my faith and trust in the unknown. And like I said, like it amazingly worked out, you know. But I didn't know anywhere near as much as obviously I know now. But yeah, that was the rest of 2019.

SPEAKER_00

Oof. That's that's wild. Yeah, and I know, I know we'll get to the rest. It sounds like, as you say, you know, putting faith in the unknown, and we're gonna get into the misconceptions around manifestation because I think people have a surface level idea of what it is, and it is not that at all. People focus a lot on the outcome, right? Like, what can I know about the future? What outcome can I chase? And I'm wondering if it was more so like, I have a belief in the unknown, but I also believe in myself. And what I have taken from your book is rather than attaching to outcomes and external things, it's aligning to the version of you that can hold that. And so it's more of like an internal process rather than this external process. So, with that, for anyone who's listening, you know, because people who listen into this podcast, we talk about body work, somatics, nervous system. Manifestation is having a moment. I don't know if you feel that way. It's definitely having a moment. And maybe it's just because I'm really into manifestation right now. It's all I'm seeing on my social media feed, it's all I save and all I share. So maybe it's just my algorithm. But for those who know nothing about manifestation, yeah, could you give them just a quick crash course on the science behind it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, sure. So manifestation firstly, you'll either hear the law of attraction or manifestation, it's the same thing. It's the deliberate act of bringing something you want into your physical world. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. Now, I want everyone to think about something they want. Whatever it is, just go there now. And hold that thing in your mind that you want. Now, of course, you'll agree that the thing you want isn't in your life, hence where you want it. Wanting equals lack, wanting equals haven't got. And that's where most people stay at all times. They stay in the void and the gap and the separation between who they are and what they want. They're they're waiting for that outcome to arrive to feel however you think you'll feel when that thing comes. So whether it's peace, love, happiness, joy, freedom, that they tend to be some of the emotions. So people live in the opposite emotions until that thing comes. So what I teach is we actually have to get clear on what we want, but more importantly, get clear on the version of ourself that exists in our imagination when we have the thing that we desire. So that is moving beyond wanting and embodying from an identity point of view fully that future. Now, the science. Because it does sound very woo-woo, and there's a mix because people that do speak about manifestation in a very woo-woo way, and then there's people that are so scientific that it confuses a lot of people. And I like to break down complex, understand the woo-woo, and just regurgitate it in a way that I think resonates with a lot of people. Because manifestation is real, scientifically, it's not reserved for the elite, although the elite definitely know how to use it, and it's not a magic pill, it's not a genie in a bottle granting wishes. Every single person in this very moment is in a state of manifestation right now. However, most people are unconsciously manifesting, not consciously manifesting. And that's because as people will read in the first chapter, when we break down the physical world, and I did this after connecting with my mother, I quickly discovered what I'd clearly either forgotten or not listened to in at school, which is that everything is just energy. That's not just a nice way to say it, everything is energy, quite literally broken down to its purest form. So if you take the human body and you break it down and you keep breaking it down and you You zoom in, you zoom in, you zoom in, you get to the atomic level. Tiny, tiny particles. Okay. And these atoms are very predictable. They make you and I and the microphone and everything physical you can see. And what I mean by predictable is you can watch atoms moving around. If a scientist was to observe an atom, they would see it literally move. There's nothing interesting about it other than that. It just moves around very predictably, like you and I. If I was to watch you, Brittany move around, I would you wouldn't disappear, I'd just see you moving around. And the further the space, the longer the time it takes for that atom to move. Now, the atom, which is so, so tiny, is also made of something. And if you were to break open that atom, you get to the subatomic level. And those tiny, tiny particles, we can pick one called an electron, for example. Now, these tiny, tiny subatomic particles make the atom, and the atom then makes the molecule and makes everything else here, right? However, those tiny particles, the subatomic particles don't behave in the same way. They they don't move predictably around. When scientists are observing or measuring or looking at these electrons, they appear in one state as like a like something, like a tiny particle, like a piece of physical reality. But the moment the measurement is removed, or the moment the scientist moves their observation, that particle disappears. It simply disappears back to where it's from. And when it's not being looked at, where it goes back to is where we're all from, which is an infinite unifying field of information and energy, known as the unified field, the field, the quantum field, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, it's infinite, there's infinite possibility there, and it's energy. And we call energy the wave. Okay. Now, so when scientists are looking, it's no longer behaving like energy, it's behaving like the particle. Now, if a scientist was to move their observation from one point to somewhere else, what happens is it doesn't move through space, it simply disappears and instantaneously reappears. And then if observation moves again, it disappears and instantaneously reappears. And what happens there is wherever observation is, is the wave of energy collapses. It's called collapse of the wave function from being energy to the particle. And that's the big, big debate in in science, what collapses that wave. And whichever way you look at it, we know the argument is that it's it's a form of conscious observation, whether whether it's a scientist reviewing the data, looking at the measurement, like it's consciousness is fundamental. So that's manifestation because I I always say to everyone, right now, where is your observation? Now, firstly, what does that even mean? But what it means is how are you identifying with yourself? Like, how are you thinking about yourself every day? What thoughts are you thinking? Somatically, what emotions are you holding? How do you feel? How are you showing up in the world? That is observation, and that's why we see people manifest or repeat similar cycles. The moment someone we can do practice together in a moment, the moment someone recognizes that they're not their thoughts, they're not their emotions, and they have power, they have power to decide, they have power to to to dream in possibility, to visualize, to meditate. What happens is they they stop observing their life from lack and they start rehearsing their life from possibilities if it's already done. The moment someone does that, then people start seeing the magic, the synchronicities appearing in their life, literally, you know. So that is manifestation. Manifestation is based on your own observation of reality, it's a mirror. The world around you is a reflection of who you're being.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. And you didn't say who you want to be, but who you are being.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, you don't attract into your life what you want, you attract into your life who you're being.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, who you are. I love that. The way that I love to summarize that is I always say your energy grows where your attention goes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so where your attention is at is where your your body, your mind, what you're manifesting is going to be called to. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

How To Embody Manifestation

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you for that science lesson. That was fantastic. For someone who is maybe just getting into manifesting. And they're like, I can visualize these things, but I don't feel this in my body. Like, I don't and nothing is happening. What do you think is the missing piece for then? That wanting versus embodying piece for someone who can visualize these things, but nothing is happening.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, great question. So I think we can all spend a bit of time getting clear on a vision, right? We can use that, the newest layer of our brain, uh neocortex. We can map it out, we can come up with what we want it to look like, what we want to create, you know, we can we can map that out. But that's coming from about 5% of who we truly are by the age of 35. Like by the age of 35, on average, about 95% of who we are is programmed subconsciously. And that's the deeper part of ourselves, you know. So you can hold this conscious desire for your manifestation, but where most people struggle is they struggle to align that deeper programming with what it is, you know. So we have to recondition the subconscious to be in alignment with what we desire. So if someone has been conditioned their whole life that, you know, money's hard, money doesn't grow on trees, you know, money doesn't happen to people like us, you know, for example, like I was told, then you know, it you start trying to visualize money, and what you're up against is the disbelief. You know, you're up against, yeah, but other people make money and you don't, and you're always going to struggle. And, you know. So the great thing is neuroplasticity at any age, we can recondition our subconscious through repetition, just like it was done in the early years. You know, for the first seven years of our life, we're only in the the subconscious on average. So we're being conditioned by our parents and our environment. So normally around the age of seven, we are hardwired subconsciously, and then it's down to us to consciously change. The deeper the trauma, the deeper the beliefs, the longer it's gonna take. But the good news is anyone can recondition. So, what we have to do is recognize that the main culprit is two things. And it I think here's I'm gonna share it and then I'm gonna share an analogy that I think people will get. So, firstly, hold your intention, right? Whatever that is, create a vision for how it looks, as if it's really done. And then the goal is to feel it, right? The goal is to feel it until you make it, not fake it till you make it. Like I couldn't fake having money when I was in debt. However, I knew that if I could slow down my brain and get out of the conscious analytical part of my brain, get down into the subconscious, which is alpha and theta brainwaves, and you can do that in a meditation. I can visualize money success there, and my body and brain subconsciously will believe it's real because it cannot discern the difference between the two. It can't. We've all experienced the nightmare. We all experience what happens in a nightmare. We wake from a nightmare with a racing heart and we're sweating. The body is reacting emotionally to a vision because you're in theta. If you and I never understood how meditation and manifestation linked, but it's all to do with slowing down, getting into the subconscious, bringing up that vision, and then reconditioning your subconscious to believe that you are already that future version, and then you're gonna align that deeper programming. So the analogy is this I want everyone to imagine right now that they have their phone and they're gonna send a text message to to someone, and whoever that somebody is, they're they're gonna open their WhatsApp or their text message and they're ideally just gonna type a really clear message. Now, I want you to imagine I've got a toddler who's 17 months old, and of course, I try my hardest to not be on my phone in front of him, but occasionally you can't help it, right? Yeah, and every time the phone comes out, he's obsessed, like he wants to take it out of my hands because he wants my attention and you know. But if someone can imagine, if you're trying to send a clear message, but someone's permanently trying to snatch that phone out of your hand, you're either not going to send the message or the message you send is not the message you intended to send. Like there might be a typer or or or something's gone wrong with that message, right? And what's happening there is the analytical interference. So if people can't slow down in meditation, they're holding this vision, they're trying to send a text message to the universe about what it is that they desire, but this interference is that voice in their head telling them every reason why it won't happen. It's the same as the toddler trying to get the phone out of your hand. Now, when we can master that, what happens is we slow down our brain, the interference goes away, the voice quietens down, and now we can send the very clear message. Now, the second part of the analogy is imagine living somewhere or being somewhere where there's no service, no signal. So you've got your phone, you've got no interference, you can type the perfect message, but for whatever reason, there is no cell service, that message will never send. And what's happening there is someone can slow down their brain, hold the clearest message, but if their subconscious programming is in disbelief or or the opposite, it's repelling and blocking this the signal from being sent. They're up against the incoherence there. So it the message again never gets sent.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So there's there's two things that are happening. There's the clarity of the intention and the vision combined with creating a coherent environment where that signal can be sent subconsciously. You know, and the more we do this work, the more we can recondition that deeper programming to not repel what it is that we're trying to send.

Practices To Work Through Limiting Beliefs

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Oh, thank you. And working in the nervous system world and the somatic world, we work with those lower regions of the brain too, you know, the subconscious, subcortical. And in the nervous system space, we always say that you have to show, not tell the nervous system. Yeah. Not talk the nervous system into regulation. And so I love the fact that you brought up, you know, if there's trauma, it's going to interfere with those subconscious beliefs that you have. And so for people who are listening, a lot of my listeners or people who've experienced adversity, hardship, they probably have some of those limiting beliefs or, you know, subconscious beliefs holding them back. And so I think for them, the meditating piece, can you walk us through what a meditation would look like? So one of the things that I do, like I'm curious if you could give them a practice, but I like to do like a future visualization. So I voice recorded a memo of myself from like 2027. It's just like five minutes long and I'm walking through like this is what your life looks like. And I listen to it every morning and then and I usually do it in the dark when my kids are hopefully asleep and not waking up too early. But I really try to not just think about it, but really embody it. I go through the visualization, I describe where I'm at, I name off a lot of sensory stuff to just get into the body. But outside of like a future visualization or something like that, would you have just any like, you know, practices, applications? Do you have anything that you would recommend for someone who maybe just has a hard time tapping into or who does have a lot of those loud subconscious limiting beliefs?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So you've nailed it there. You know, there's different ways to do it. The ideal way is to slow down your brain so your body's almost asleep, and then consciously be awake in your mind, so to speak, and visualize and observe what it is that you seek as if it's already done. Yes, that's exactly what you should do. I think people absolutely struggle, though, authentically in the world we live in, with slowing down the brain. A lot of like traditional meditation practices were developed 50 years ago before the internet, before emails, when life was a little bit simpler, you know, when you didn't wake up in the morning with 25 million emails, you know, or working up until late at night. It was very simple back then, in a way, you know. So I think it was easier then for the brain to just probably slow down more. So you've got to discover your own way. And everyone's different, right? Some people can just sit, follow my voice, follow like a lot of my guided meditations are designed in a way to slow someone down. Like there's like hypnotherapy techniques to do a body scan, or imagine going down a staircase.

SPEAKER_00

Now, can I argue there, Matt? You said you have guided meditations. Where can people find those guided meditations? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They're on my website, mattcook.me. They're all on that. I have many, and they're all guided by me, and that they're all designed to meet people at different stages. So 10 minutes all the way to half an hour, and they're all designed to slow down the brain to start, firstly. There's different techniques which will work. But outside of that, the real goal, the absolute fundamental goal first with this is you have to slow down. Try and slow down your brain. And the techniques, there's many, but let me just list a few. Either meditation like that, you can listen to a benial beat. So, burral beats, how they work is they're going to play two frequencies into your left and right ear, and there's going to be a missing, without going into the science of it, there's going to be a missing beat. You just want to look for theta benal beats. And what happens is the missing beat, and it might be four hertz, for example, which is the same frequency as theta, which is that suggestible state, your brain will actually create its own tone, its own beat. And without you doing anything by listening to that beat, your brain will naturally slow down. So you could plug in your headphones for 20 minutes, half an hour, and just give your brain time to slow. And you'll just know when you're slow because the voice in your head will shut up, you know, is the best way to talk about. Like you'll just be in like a bit of a trance. You'll be aware that you're aware, but you won't be thinking about your day, you won't be thinking about what you've got to do later, you won't be thinking about a problem, you'll just be conscious. And then there you can then hold that vision. Perfect. Grounding is another way. Like if people struggle, take your shoes and socks off, connect with the with the earth, minimum 30 minutes, then the natural frequency of the earth is moving at the same frequency as theta. Running for me, like moving the body at the same time. If you've got a very busy active mind, naturally, sort of like it meets the mind at that level, and that's another great way of doing it. So, and then you've got things like transcendental meditation where you're listening to a mantra. There's different techniques, but also journaling for me as well. Like I journal, and it's just a great way of getting out all the gunk. And then almost with some soft music in the background, you almost feel like you're in a bit of a trance then. And then you can write as if you're your future self as well, you know.

SPEAKER_00

What does your routine look like these days?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so it's changed a bit since having our son. We built this in the middle of our garden, this studio. So I come out first, normally around 6 a.m. And I'll come here and I'll sit in this corner here in this chair and I'll meditate first. And you know, that will vary. It used to be an hour, but now that's a luxury. So so sometimes it is, but normally it's more like 15 minutes to half an hour max. And by that point, just so people know, I haven't touched my phone at all. I haven't even turned off an alarm because my toddler's already woken us up, Humphrey. So I've done nothing. I've just got my phone and I've got it just to press plan a meditation. So I've not interacted with the outside world at all, and that's like a prerequisite. Listen to a meditation. As soon as I come out of that meditation, I then journal and I do one page in my journal, and that's more of like a stream of consciousness, just getting out what's on my mind today, just clearing out. And then I move to my gratitude. There's a very specific way as you'll know in Beyond Wanting, that I'm writing my gratitude out. It's a mix of what's already in my life and a mix of what's not in my life as if it is. It's my secret weapon when it comes to manifestation because you're observing something as if it's already done. Then I do some affirmation work written, and I do another exercise as well that I do where I'm just listing out some intentions, and that whole process takes me around an hour. And then I leave here and I switch with my wife and my wife Corusan comes in here and she's in here for an hour as well. And that there is our routine. But that isn't the work. The work is the rest of the day. And like, who am I gonna be today? Am I gonna fall unconscious today? How am I gonna defend my energy today? Who have I got to be today? You know, there's no point doing an hour in the morning if then you're gonna get triggered all through the day, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I I love the way you just put that. Am I gonna fall unconscious today?

unknown

Yeah.

How To Go From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So then I think that's one thing that I struggle with, and I'm going through big, big transitions in my life. And I know other people too in my community, they're coming out of big transitions and big moments. So we can commit to the morning routine, but what does that look like during the day when we do fall out of consciousness or where it's like we see this future vision where we're we're doing all of the things and even maybe trying to control versus surrendering? But what do you do in those moments where you're like, gosh, this is I I just fell out of consciousness. How do you bring yourself back?

SPEAKER_01

Firstly, own it, you know, and just say, Yeah, fell unconscious there. I'm a human being. Shit happens. Life's hard sometimes, you know. We live in a probabilistic universe, meaning that we can't control everything. You know, we can be driving along and a stone can flick up and crack your windscreen. Like, you know, things can happen, right? Like it did not long ago for me. And you get better at getting back to what I call the baseline quicker. So if you fall unconscious, it I see it like playing tennis. You know, you're on the baseline, balls are gonna fly left, right, left, right. A lot of those balls are gonna come out of like left field and you don't know what they're gonna be. And you know, you could get an email you weren't anticipating, anything can happen, right? And uh it's how quickly you can you can bring yourself back to that baseline. That that is it, you know. Some people, when they first start, something can trigger them for months, right? But for me now, I found that it you know, things can trigger me perhaps for a few hours.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then oh man, I mean, I feel like our worlds intersect a lot, the nervous system world and the manifesting world, because what we commonly talk about is, you know, people will say, Oh, I got really triggered or dysregulated or activated, and it's like, yeah, that's gonna happen. It's actually supposed to. It's how you're wired. But what we measure as growth in the system is the ability to rebound and the flexibility that your nervous system has, the fluency to recover and kind of come back to baseline. So yeah, I absolutely love that. So when someone is in the in-between, like they have a foot in the past life, and I've heard these terms before, like quantum leaping timelines, things like that. When someone has one foot in the past life and one foot in, or maybe their current life and one foot in the future, how does someone navigate that?

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, the biggest block that I find that most people get stuck in is that the gap themselves they've created is too big, you know. So I think it's a natural trait to dream big because that's what we're told to do. But I actually think sometimes it works against us. So, you know, you hear in the personal development world you've got to dream really big. But the the further away your desire, the bigger the gap, the more separation. And and come on, let's be honest. Like, obviously, it's gonna take that little bit longer. Like I said to you, this isn't like a genie in a bottle granting like wishes, this is like a very real unfolding. And therefore, I find that if I reverse engineer down my desire, you can manifest faster by dreaming a little bit smaller, and that's the great thing. Like, by dreaming smaller, you're actually gonna get to the bigger thing faster because you're gonna feel closer. You're still leaving the unfolding of the manifestation to divine intelligence, but if something naturally feels closer, you are going to feel like there's an element of movement. Manifesting love is probably one of the biggest design, and it's fine. But the majority of people, let's say who are single, will be visualizing perhaps being engaged and having children, and that's great, and I love that. But can we just park that on a shelf? No, know it's there, and actually just focus on what we think might be the next immediate step or the next few steps, such as why don't we manifest meeting someone? You know, why don't we manifest clearing that block? First, you know, that's sort of blocking our heart. And it's the movement on the steps on the ladder that help people get out of one foot in the in their past or their present and one foot in the future. Like that they're actually like crossing that canyon. And that's absolutely how I manifest all the time by breaking it down.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we would call that titration. And that's what we do in the nervous system world too. Because same equals safe to the brain, to the nervous system. It likes familiar, predictable patterns. Yeah. And so we always say we want to stretch your nervous system with the changes that you make in your life, but we don't want to stress it even further. Because then then your yeah, your your brain and your body's just going to work against you. So we work in a thematic world, we say slower is faster, which is exactly what you just said.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Ties in ties in very well. That's exactly it, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I love that. Small baby steps, titrated baby steps rather than these big, big leaps. And that's, you know, again, quantum leaping and stuff like that. People think like, oh, I'm I'm gonna redo my entire life.

unknown

Yeah.

Embracing The Energy Behind Giving

SPEAKER_00

That can feel really overwhelming. So yeah, I I love that you can break it down. So I'm curious the idea of a larger consciousness system and that in and that intention might actually influence probability. Yeah. Um yeah, I'm just curious like what your edges are now, you know, like what it is that you're focused on, or because for me, I'm a forever student. I'm just always, you know, soak soaking stuff in as much as I can.

SPEAKER_01

Deep, deep, very deep. So I now I'm more interested at the moment in understanding what's actually happening on the universe side. So if we're putting out these intentions and these signals, like what is it, what is being picked up, who is picking it up, what is that intelligence? And the reason I called it a larger consciousness system is because in my discovery of figuring that out, I came across a man called Tom Campbell, who's a physicist, consciousness explorer, he's 81, he's a lovely man, and he founded the Monroe Institute with Bob Monroe, and he spent he spent 50 years exploring the out-of-body state, or you know, another stream of consciousness, and he's he's understood what happens on that side. So it's a whole other podcast, but essentially, what we're all part of is a larger consciousness system, and that consciousness system is us, we're all part of it, we're all one. That's the whole sort of terminology of we're all one. We are individuated units of consciousness in physical bodies that is that have forgotten what we are, that we're not detached, we just have an amnesia and we forget. And the way I like to understand what's happening now is from that side, it exists because everything exists there, but there's a way it unfolds, though. But primarily, I think people are focused on what they want to get, what they want egoically, and really that consciousness is interested in what you're prepared to give.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

You can still have what you want in a way where you still give. Because if you're giving, that energy then is multiplying, and you're actually fundamentally helping that consciousness continue to. It's actually called lower its entropy, which means evolve and stay more structured. But if it's very egoic, then in a way, like you still can have it, of course, but you're not really contributing to the flow of energy because it's a very needy energy. It's like I want this for me. Right. And perhaps you're saying that because you feel broken or you feel unsafe, and you feel if you focus on fixing that through, let's say, your work, then perhaps the better intention is what am I prepared to give in order to have this manifestation? You know, and then what happens is I see that anything that comes to me, for me to then put it into the world is a gift to the universe, you know. So I'll often say to the universe, I'm open and ready to receive more knowledge, because your infinite knowledge. And in return for this knowledge, my gift to you is that I'll channel it back out into the world to help more people. And in return for that, that will then only help me continue to grow my platform and reach more people. And then you also look at it and go, Well, that's great, because that's a that's a beautiful exchange. I love that. Just, oh, I want to be like the next massive sort of you know, figure in consciousness for what reason, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's like the energy behind giving because when you're giving, you're giving into this universal reality that also feeds you back. And it's reminding me of just the the law of reciprocity. Yeah, you know, giving back and forth. That's beautiful. And of course, there's gosh, there's so much spiritual literature behind that too. I love that. Cool. Well, I'll I'll keep an eye out for your next book. Thanks for sharing that. So I end every podcast with a kind of a personal question if you're open to answering. And so it's this when you think back to a version of yourself that was really struggling, what feels most important to share with them now?

SPEAKER_01

I was thinking of what version of me I'd go back and I'd say, it's not your job to consciously figure it out. I would say to him, what you want already exists. Your conscious mind, Matt, as you know, is limited. It doesn't understand how Earth's staying in orbit, it doesn't understand how your heart's beating. It's the same intelligence that knows exactly how to get you to what you want, you got to get out of the way. And that's where I came up with the quote: the universe meets you at the depth of your surrender, not at the height of your struggle. And I think if people learn to surrender their conscious mind, it's trying to predict and control and figure out, and they just trust more in the unknown, it's always blown me away. I genuinely mean that. Like there were points where I I genuinely said to myself, I consciously have no idea, no idea how I'm gonna get through this. And I always did, and and that's just that reminder that you know, put your trust in something far greater and far more intelligent.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that is beautiful. That was one of the best. Thank you for that. That was that was wonderful. Well, Matt, how can people stay connected with you? Where can they get your book?

SPEAKER_01

So, yeah, thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening too. I would say just search Matt Cook Coach on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and you'll you'll find me. My book, Beyond Wanting, can be found pretty much anywhere the books are sold. It's been sold all over the world. You can get the Audible, it's me that's narrated it, as you said, which is which is great. I prefer it when I'm listening to an author's voice who's written the book. So it's my voice. And I mean, straight away, in addition, you know, every week I write a newsletter um on a Saturday. And I've I've been writing them now. This is my fifth year. So this is like I think this weekend is edition like 170 or something like that. You know, so I'm into like my fourth or fifth year to do the maths on it. And every week I do a deep dive into a specific insight and then really share some practical tips for doing it as well. And on my website, you can read all my previous newsletters as well. And so, so yeah, it amazes me how much you can continue learning. So that would be just something I'd recommend every Saturday, just making sure you get that. Because apparently over 40,000 people read it each Saturday. So that'll be where everyone can find me.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, beautiful. Well, Matt, thank you again so much for yeah, just taking the time out of your busy, busy life to be with us. This was incredible.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for having me on. I'm like dead.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much for tuning into the Body First Healing podcast. If this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you subscribed, left a review, or shared it with someone that you love. I'll see you back here next week. And until then, be gentle with yourself. You're doing the best you can with what you have, and that is more than enough. Just a quick note this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always consult a qualified provider for personal support.