Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - The Untouchable Flow: Why Control Is Killing Your Peace - E-190

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

You will spend more energy this week trying to control things you have zero power over than on anything you can actually change. Zero. And it's exhausting you. There's a river that never fights the boulder in its path — it just flows around it. Today I'm showing you how to become that river. This is the Untouchable Flow — the mindset shift that took me from fearing my own diagnosis to finding more peace than I've ever had. If you've ever felt like life's chaos gets to decide your mood, your focus, your peace — that ends today. Let's go.   Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy:► Makes Sense Substack - https://drjcdoornick.substack.com ► Instagram: / drjcdoornick ► Substack: / drjcdoornick ►Facebook:  / makessensepodcast ►YouTube:  / drjcdoornick     MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. This podcast explores topics that expand human consciousness and enhance performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is subjective and an acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast.   SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW Podcast: You will find a "Follow" button in the top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where I get all these topics, which I've been covering for almost 15 years. I have learned to read nearly four times faster and retain information 10 times better with Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon OUR SPONSORS: Operly - Take Back Control of Your Work Day and Get Rid of All Your AI Apps - Welcome to the new world of Time Freedom and Unlimited Scaling and Success with Operly -  https://go.getoperly.ai/video?ref=jean-claude-claude-d-2a95 Blue Blinds Bakery - Handcrafted with all-natural ingredients - www.blueblindsbakery.com     0:00 - Intro 4:14 - Great Morning World 5:09 - On a Healthy Body 7:39 - Never before have we had so much yet so little 8:56 - The Untouchable Flow 16:44 - Getting in a fist fight with the wind. 18:12 - Stop Teaching it and Start Living It 21:01 - We all have a choice 13:25 - Becoming a better Gatekeeper   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleep walking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step up. back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things, that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up,

let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense. Having one of these moments this morning, it's not a moment of contemplation, but I've been doing this for so long. I mean, in one way or another, I've been doing this. I've been doing these lives, and they've had different names for over 15 years. And I start to have this, I start to contemplate like, what am I doing? What's the purpose of them? And what's cool about that is that it gives me this opportunity to not just robotically go through it without knowing why I'm doing this podcast and these lives and everything like that. It actually put me in a state of gratitude. I've had this rock for probably 15 years now and I always carry it with me.

And gratitude is something that reminds you of something that is happening in the now. But it reminded me that the whole reason I started doing these lives, and maybe there's a little bit of a lesson in this for some of you, the whole reason I started doing these lives was not to start a podcast and it was not to build an audience or anything like that. The reason why I started this is because I was struggling at the time with terrible anxiety and I just chose this path after doing some research to voluntarily. expose myself to the thing that gave me anxiety and that was public speaking. So I realized that I'm still doing that even today, even after we've built the podcast and everything has become like this

big thing. Here I am now battling cancer and I've joined the fuck cancer tribe. So I've got my shirt on today. I just got back from an event and so many people are so supportive and everything like that. But I just want to get raw and just tell you the truth that it's very difficult to go through all of the ebbs and flows of the fear of it and the unknowing, the uncertainty, the waiting, the diagnosis. And then also knowing that there's like this whole army of people out there that are worried about me and people in here. So I just want everybody to understand. It's not easy. You know, like a lot of people say, how do you do it? How do you keep your mind focused and stuff like that? Well, it's a lot of work. But straight to the point, this is another thing that I do.

You know, me coming here and speaking to you guys this morning is something that I value very, very greatly. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you to all of you. I've got a great, I've got a great topic for you this morning. But this is like therapy for me. And I don't know what it's like for you. You can share for those of you that come on a regular basis. If you're listening to this live right now, go ahead and become part of the conversation and maybe let me know what it is that you get out of this.

But what I get out of this is it's an opportunity for me to talk things through that I've been thinking about and writing about. And that's how I write my books. You know, my second book is almost done now. And it's just so wonderful to be able to talk to people. So anyway, I don't know what it is that prompts you to listen to my podcast, watch, watch this show or anything like that. But for me, it's a self-healing thing. It's an opportunity for me to take these ideas. Some of them come from fear. Some of them come from curiosity. Some of them

just pop into my head and I write about them and they translate into podcast episodes. But for me, it's very, very healing. Very, very healing. So anyway, great morning humans. Great Morning World. This is Dr. J.C. Dornick, otherwise known as in Going By the Dragon. And I want to welcome you to another episode of The Makes Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. And that's where confusion dies and progress thrives. So I want to welcome you all to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses and say whether you're watching us live here on Substack or YouTube, those are the two platforms that we stream to. Or whether you're listening to an edited, cleaned up version later on Spotify or Apple or any of the audio platforms or maybe watching a recording on YouTube from somewhere around the world. I just want

say thank you to everybody. I truly believe that we are all living in one of the noisiest periods in human history, and we're so much better together. Together we can achieve so much more. So I just want to say thank you to everybody for that. Something that I don't talk about enough here is health. You know, for those of you that don't know, I've been a health coach now for about 20 years, you know, coaching people through health transformation, weight loss, nutrition, healthy habits, and all of that stuff. And 20 years ago, I lost 80 pounds and I reclaimed my health. You know, I used to have a lot of bad habits. And right now, even though I'm battling through all of this stuff, I'm still on my way to becoming the best me ever, you know, as far as health goes.

But what I want to say, and this is kind of a pitch for somebody that thinks, that they have time. I hear a lot of people, I have a different perspective now, so I hear a lot of people say that I'm not motivated right now. Now's not the right time. Oh, there's too much going on right now. Maybe I'll speak to you about going on your program in a month or in January, right? Or after this, then that, or they're just saying that they're not motivated. I've told you this before, but when you receive a diagnosis, and I don't want you to have to do this. When you receive a diagnosis, the illusion of the guarantee of tomorrow goes away. So that's a blessing because it makes you realize that everything that you want to accomplish

must happen now. So there's that as far as your health goes. But then also, I want to let you know that what I've accomplished with my health for 20 years, I didn't know why I was doing it, but now I do. I was training and preparing for this. This was coming. This was part of my destiny. I never thought this was going to happen.

But I did for some reason take my health very seriously. Didn't smoke, didn't drink, went to the gym, even on the days that I didn't want to. So the reason why I'm sharing that with you is I have a whole other business where I help people get healthy. So if anybody's listening to this show or watching this show and starting to wake up and realize that we don't have the guarantee of tomorrow and today is the day, and this message comes to you at the right time where you're open and curious to it, I just want you to know that I have moved into a completely new company with a completely new program that is extraordinary and anybody can succeed, not just at weight loss, but at completely resetting their metabolic health and everything like that. So if somebody needed that message

and you want to start preparing and training for whatever is coming, just reach out to me. Like I said before, never before has there been so much noise. Never before have we had so much information at our disposal, yet so little peace. Never before have we had so many opinions, yet at the same time, so little clarity. And never before have we been more connected than spiritual, yet somehow more overwhelmed than ever before. And it's kind of like an interesting paradox, right? I don't believe all this stuff that is happening is first of all happening to us. I think it's happening for us. I always like to look at life like that. that is like, what are you trying to tell me? Where are you guiding me? So I don't believe this is an accident.

I think it's because most people have unknowingly, and you guys are going to be different, most people have unknowingly surrendered control of the only thing that has ever truly belonged to them. And what is that? That is your attention and your focus. You surrendered it over. and this happens to all of us, including me. And even being somebody that actively takes awareness to this, and I'm open and curious and I run my interface response system, sometimes it happens and I don't figure it out until later. So it happens to all of us.

So today's conversation isn't really about letting go of things because the conversation's called the untouchable flow, why control is killing your peace. So it's not about letting go today. It's about becoming untouchable. So think about what that means. Think about what untouchable means to you. If you are untouchable, it means everybody can try to touch,

but it means that you're unaffected by it. That's what we want to do today. Not emotionally numb and not disconnected from the world and, you know, not somebody that just completely stops caring. Quite the opposite. What we're going to talk about today is learning to care so intense. that the things outside of your control no longer get permission to rob you of your peace. Now, what are we going to learn how to care so intensely about, the things that matter most,

and the things that you can actually impact? And this is happening to me in real time, guys. I'll share with you transparently that when I go away and I went away to this big convention and there were thousands of people there and it was tough for me to get around because I was in a lot of discomfort, a lot of prayers and everybody coming up to me and stuff like that. But it was a different environment. And when I came home, even though I was so excited to see my daughter and my wife, because that's who is in the house currently, I had to get adjusted to hearing about things

and all of this stuff, you know. And without even knowing it, I kind of like catastrophes something. And I didn't even realize it until this morning. So I'll probably speak a little bit more about that today. So the quality of our life is determined less by what enters our world than by what you're willing to protect and let's stay in your world. This is interesting. It's less about that and it's more about what you're willing to protect like your core values, the things that matter most, right? So let that sink in because I think we're all on our way to trying to figure things out to pull in new rather than to expose what already is.

And that's another reason why I hold this rock. You know, when somebody's all jacked up like I was last night, you know, I always just let them hold this rock. And they go, what is this? And then they look at the rock and it says gratitude. And they go, oh, and they always make some smile. And then I said, where is that taking place? Where does gratitude take place? It's a great way to pause.

It's just like saying, hmm, it separates you from everything. You look at the now. The only thing that's actually happening. And that gives you an alternative perspective where you can start asking different questions. Right? So every single day, thoughts, there's 40 to 70,000 thoughts, they knock on the front door of our mind. Every single day. Today, no different. Fear, regret. Breaking news, right? Someone else's opinion maybe, or maybe somebody's comment that they left on social media, they all knock on our front door every day. This includes your past and your future. They knock as well. And every one of them is asking the same

question. You say yes, and it says, can I come in? That's what it's saying. Now, most people, this is a great thing to catch in your life. Most people never answer that question consciously. The question's always being asked. Can I come in? So we never answer that question consciously. What we do is we just simply leave the front door wide open. Now, it reminds me when I was a kid, things were different. We never used to lock our door. Anybody that wanted to walk into our house could of. It's a different time. You know, nobody does that now. Why are we doing that with our minds? Just leaving the front door open without questioning. Who is it? Can I come in? What is it that you want? What are you here for? We don't ask those questions. So by the way, for those of you that have

my book, this is the interface response system, just a different look at it. This is the sorting filter and asking questions. But I also remember, I didn't do this well last night. But I caught it this morning, and now I know what to do. We all forget that we leave the door open and then we're all shocked when anxiety moves into our guest bedroom. All of a sudden we're experiencing anxiety like I did. Fear, well, fear just shows up and starts eating breakfast at your kitchen table. An overwhelm?

How about that one? Overwhelm goes upstairs and takes over your master bedroom and then goes and uses all your toilet paper. Overwhelm does that. Isn't that funny? And maybe, just maybe, peace isn't about finding a better house. Maybe it's about becoming a better gatekeeper. That's what we're talking about today.

Maybe peace is about becoming a better gatekeeper or a better bouncer. And that's what we talk about in the book, part of the interface response system. Make sense? So I want you to start thinking today about becoming a better gatekeeper for what already is. as you're starting to interface with everything that's trying to get in. Some things deserve to come in, but you've got to have a guest list. That's the concept of the bouncer, right? Are you on the list?

And if you're not on the list, you have to be able to look at it and say, is this going to make what I'm protecting better or worse? Is it going to be in support or out? So here's the question. How many of you, and I'm going to raise my hand because I'm one of them, How many of you woke up today already carrying something that doesn't belong to you? Think about that. And what I mean doesn't belong to you, there's nothing you can do about it.

How many of you woke up today carrying something that doesn't belong to you? Because I did. However, I'm aware that I did. And that's why I'm asking you this question. Are you aware that you're carrying something that doesn't belong to you? I woke up and I was aware of that. Are you? So I want you to think about it.

not metaphorically, but literally, how many of you woke up thinking about something this morning that you have absolutely no power to change today? Me. And it was a huge win for me to recognize that. Because before I recognized it, I thought that I could change it and I thought it was something in my control and it was completely out of my control. And I couldn't figure out how to let something go until I make that distinction that it's not in my control. Easy to let something go when you realize that you have no control. And this could be someone else's opinion out of your control, right? The economy, the politics, something your spouse or kids said three days ago or a year ago

and you're getting triggered. Something your business partner might say tomorrow, this is going to happen all the time. Something the doctor might tell you or tell me next week, when you get your checkup. All of those things, if you can make that distinction that they're out of your control, guess what happens? You move into control. So in the morning, when this happened with me, I hadn't even brushed my teeth yet, and I already found myself carrying a backpack full of bricks. So here's what I've learned. Most people aren't exhausted in life because life is difficult. That's not why we're exhausted.

We're exhausted because we're trying to carry things that were never meant to be carried by us. Trying to control things that were never designed to be controlled by you. Maybe somebody else can control those things, but not you. You weren't designed to control it. And that is exhausting. And when you're exhausted from that, you don't get anywhere. It's like getting into a fist fight with the wind.

Go get into a fist fight with the wind. You can work really, really hard. You can even work up a sweat, having a fist fight with the win. You can even convince yourself that you're making progress. That's an illusion. But at the end of the day, you're still swinging at air. You're swinging at air. And the only thing that ends up changing when you swing at air is that you get tired.

So there was a moment that it all hit me. I can tell you that I've been teaching mindset stuff for decades. And when I say teaching, I'm not a qualified teacher. I'm just a consumer. I've consumed a lot of interesting stuff and I've done a lot of work that most people wouldn't do. And I just pay it forward and I share stuff. As you guys know, I'm not wearing my hat right now, but what that stands for is haven't made up my mind. I don't need to be right about things. I just like to share and point things out. Hey, look at this. Hey, look at that. So I've been teaching mindset stuff for decades and I've built businesses around helping people change the way that they look at

things, the way that they perceive the world so that the world can be perceived and look different. That's what I've been doing for years and years and years. I've built and taught something called the Interface Response System, which is what it's all about. And I've spoken about perception with you guys on stages, choice, responsibility, awareness for years upon years. But something recently happened that kind of forced me to stop teaching it. and start living it.

And maybe there's another way to teach it to other people, just to live it. This is interesting about teaching and helping other people. We very often find ourselves creating this illusion that we're doing it ourselves because we're teaching and talking about it. That's not what's happening. It's like a whole different level. The idea of being the change that you keep trying to infer on other people, that's the best way to teach, right, is to show.

So most of you know that I was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer, has the fuck cancer shirt and all of that stuff. By the way, for those that are interested, I start my treatment, my full treatment tomorrow. So I'm very excited to get involved in that because I've kind of been in this holding pattern. But I've got this diagnosis. And I don't want this episode to be about cancer because honestly, this episode is not for people with cancer. It's actually for people that are alive, people that are living, people that are currently alive, regardless of your situation. Because every one of us, every single one of us, live with me now on Mondays at 8, you're watching this as a recording or listening to this as a recording, every one of us has a big boulder that is

sitting in the middle of our river, our river of life. Maybe yours is not a diagnosis or this intense pain that I have 24-7 in my left low back. You know, all day long, that bolder, that bolder, that bold is just like trying to get my attention. Remember we talked about attention. Maybe it's somebody's going through a divorce. Maybe it's debt. These are very difficult things. I always say I don't think this is the hardest thing that I've ever been through. You know, I've been through some hard times. Maybe it's anxiety. God, that was, I thought I was going to die when I had anxiety. Maybe it's even just uncertainty. That's a very uncomfortable thing. Maybe it's a child that you're worried about. Isn't that a tough one when we worry about our children. Or maybe it's grief over a lost love. I was talking to this

woman and she was saying such nice things and she was saying she's praying for me and all of these things. And I just said, this is not the hardest thing that I've ever been through. And I was talking to her and reminding her when she lost her husband. It was devastating. Still is. So it doesn't have to be about cancer. It could even be just simple loneliness. It could represent your bolder. So when I first received my diagnosis and including every second that my left flank, you know, as soon as I knew that I had kidney cancer, it started hurting, my left flank sends me sharp pains all the time. So every second that I do, I realize something almost immediately. And that is that I had a choice. And we all do. So I want to talk about that bolder and recognize that even though it's there and it's immovable and it's not going

away, you still have a choice. And here's the choice that I had. I could spend every waking hour trying to mentally wrestle something that I couldn't change. This is a big boulder. I'm talking about a big boulder. I can't move it. Or I could become absolutely obsessed with everything that I still can change. That realization, for me, changed everything. No matter what your situation is. You know, they say that everything is survivable. This is why. But if you try to move the boulder or have the fist fight with the air or shovel fog or nail jello to the ceiling, impossible tasks, if you keep trying to do that, then there's a good

chance you could lose your battle, I think. Because I realize that every time I allowed my back pain, and it's still happened, it's happening right now, every time I allow my back pain or my diagnosis to take hold of me, that was me standing in the river in a full-on argument with the boulder, or me having a full-on argument with air or fog. And guess what I learned about the boulder? It doesn't care. The boulder is not even listening. When you're having an argument with these things that you can't control, they're not even listening. In fact, if anything, if it's a person, you're trying to control a situation that is uncontrollable. If anything, you're empowering them. You're not winning.

the boulder's not listening and it's not moving. The only thing my resistance to the boulder, to the pain, the things that I can't control, the only thing my resistance could change was me and my chances of reclaiming control of the things that I can change. The only thing that my resistance was changing when I was fighting and arguing

and resisting things that I had no power over The only thing that was changing was me and my chances of recognizing and reclaiming the things that I do control. Does anybody relate to that? How you can go through a whole day trying to control uncontrollables and not get anything done because it takes you away from the things that you can. So people ask me all the time, Dragon, what's the most important is four steps to the interface response system? That's a tough question. Because most people, I think, probably assume that it's the fourth one called response because we're trying to create a response versus a reaction, right? Rather than letting our knee-jerk program reaction happen, we're trying to have a response.

It isn't. That's not the most important because there's other things that prompt it. Some people think it's step one, which is very important, and that is perception itself, just being open and curious and awakening to things. The reason why I say it's not the most important in my book is sometimes, you miss that. Sometimes you miss that. But if I had to choose one part of the entire system, it would be the pause. Anybody can pause. Anybody can say, hmm, even if you don't know what it means or what it infers, anybody can make a sound. So just imagine if you trained yourself when somebody says something to you, whether it's nice or mean, or when you hear news.

or when something happens. What if you trained yourself to just say, huh? Now, what if you took it to the next level and recognized that that means, I hear it, I'm not sure what I think about it yet? Do you understand what you're doing? That's the practice of cognitive distancing.

You're giving yourself a chance to think. So this is what I forgot to do yesterday. It's the easiest, most important part, but the best of us forget about it. It's the pause, the ability to just say, and for how long? Three seconds. Even just three seconds. Three seconds that separate you or me from your programming, your conditioned response, and it allows you to look at things from where you're actually standing. Think about it. If you don't pause and think and you look at something through the lens of something that happened in your past,

it's not real it's an illusion so i'll give you an example last night without saying so many things something triggered me and and i got a little bit upset about something and the thing that triggered me was something that brought me back to something that happened a long time ago it's not happening now it happened a long time ago and i got riled up from it and the reason why is because i didn't say I didn't ask the right questions in my mind. Like, can I control this? Is this mind to carry? Is this actually happening now or no?

So it's just three seconds. Separates you from your programming and it allows you to look at things from where you're actually standing and that is in the present moment. Because here's what normally happens. If you're not conscious of this, the best thing you can do today is just try to be more aware and conscious.

And that comes from curiosity. Just look around and go, who, oh, interesting. I normally look over here, but I'm going to look over here today. Yeah, I can, I'm talking to this person, but I can see there's people standing behind them, right? Just get curious. Just get curious. What normally happens is life throws something at us, and before awareness even has a chance to wake up, our conditioning already answered.

Remember we talked before about the door is always left open. The door needs to be an interface where you have a second to decide if you want to let the person in or the thing in or the event in. Someone criticizes you. Boom, defensiveness. You're in traffic. Boom. Fustrated. You get some bad news. Boom. Catastrophe. Or you get triggered. I get this twinge in my back and this deep ache in my back and boom. I feel scared and weak and I need to go lay down like an old man. What we do is we write a story. We don't respond to life. We respond to our programming. Try to grasp that. You're not responding to what's actually happening in life.

You're responding to your programming because you don't take a second to take note of that. Now, for me, I didn't take note of it until this morning. And it's not too late because now I know what I need to do. I need to go give a couple of apologies. And now I know how to explain myself. and I also know how to take ownership of what I did wrong. And guess what that means for me and my family? Good day.

Great day. So the pause interrupts the pattern. That is step two in the interface response system. That's in the book makes sense how to rewire your mind and transform your life. It interrupts a pattern and it's where awareness walks into the room and says, hold on everybody, hold on. Before anybody reacts, let's see what's actually happening here. because awareness asks different questions than emotion does.

Emotion will ask this. How do I feel? That's what emotion asks. How do I feel? Awareness asks this question. What's actually mine? What's actually happening? And that question right there is what changes everything.

Changes the whole course of your day. Why am I sharing this today? Because like I said, I only realized today that I forgot to pause last night. You see, I went to bed last night thinking one thing. And I was pretty convinced of it, but it wasn't until this morning. Sometimes it takes time that I realized that I forgot to pause. That's all that happened. And what happened was, because I forgot to pause, is it caused me to go to sleep

and wake up with something that I couldn't control that was not mine to carry, like I said before. Something that was not mine to carry. By making that distinction, I'm now able to see the situation with absolute clarity. Remember, we always say in our make sense ecosystem, we have our Make Sense Academy, that's our school academy. And in our book, we always talk about the fact that we believe that everybody is highly capable, just unclear.

So that's why our motto is clarity before action. So now, as a result of that, here I sit, I'm excited about this day. I can see the situation with absolute clarity, and now I know what to do. Make sense? And I'll end with one quick thing. Because I'm in this state of awareness right now, I'm also better prepared for whatever else is coming today to say, hmm. So I'm realizing that I've just gone through a transition from one location to another because I did some travel. I've got all this noise in my head about my treatment and all of that stuff.

and that's what threw me off. So you give yourself some grace. But I'm very, very conscious and aware right now that my structure in my day has to have some more hum. Not some more cowbell. Some more hum. We need some more in this. That's it for today.

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