Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Unwrap the Present - The Gift of Now - Episode 131

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 sleepwalking 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 start thinking, Step 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

Starting point is 00:00:39 to change. So let's wake up. Let's rise up. And let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense. Great morning world. Great morning humans. Today's topic is called blessings.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Unwrapping the present. And I think it's incredibly relevant. Well, at least I should say as far as I can see. I'm somebody that hasn't made up my mind about anything, and that leaves me open and curious to recognize that even what I'm about to share with you is just my observation, and it doesn't necessarily mean that it is fact. That's always up for debate, fact and truth. Let's get started today. We're at the end of the year of 2025, and I'm doing a lot of thinking and a lot of observation without feeling the need to, to know and without feeling the need to share my opinion, but I'm just fascinated with what I see. I want to share kind of the interesting observation that today's Rise Up and today's podcast

Starting point is 00:01:45 episode came from. So I call this Blessings Unrapping the Present. The interesting observation that I had is that I find myself at this time, which means it's always open for change, but I found myself at this time becoming less and less interesting. as well as less satisfied with social media. And there's so many different reasons that we could jump on. But what I observe is that across all the categories of content, I find that due to the advancements of technology,

Starting point is 00:02:18 but specifically artificial intelligence, although I see its value, and I play with it as well, I see that content in itself, all of the categories of content, are making me less, or I'm becoming less and less, interested in all of it. It's an interesting place that we're in as human beings. And it could be part of this interface that we have right now. I feel like we're no longer sure what is real and what is not. And there's a little bit of entertainment value in that. Like I like how people are very, very adamant on saying, oh, that's AI. You know, like my kids always say, oh, that's AI. Sometimes I think

Starting point is 00:02:57 I'm seeing something like, oh, my God, look at that. And then they say, no, that's AI. It's pretty certain that we're no longer certain what is real. And that is across the board from writing assistant by chat GPT, for instance. You know, I'm streaming live to substack right now, which is a platform for writers. And we're no longer sure what's real and what's not in there. I did a substack on that. We're also not sure what's appropriate and what's not. You know, I foresee the potential that there's going to be a time where AI assisted writing is accepted because, whether it moves you or not, that's all that matters. So we're going through an interesting change. My book is in its final production phase and it's getting printed. It's going to be launching in the

Starting point is 00:03:43 end of February. I'm very excited about that, eight years in the running. I hope that you like it. But how will you really know if I wrote it? It'd be pretty sad if I didn't write it. Magic Mika says, I saw an article addressing how people are copying others' thoughts. If you think about it, that's an interesting insight that you have, Mika. before this whole AI rush, we were still reading books and gaining insight from other people's thoughts, searching on Google. And even before that, we were searching on like micro-feesh, even back when we used to write with our hands. It's just becoming easier to gain the insight from others and create thought. And then also there's this interesting paradox going on,

Starting point is 00:04:26 like, is anything new actually out there, or is it just all repackaged stuff? You know, You'll see that my book was very much inspired by other books and other people and things like that. There's just so many things out there that I'm becoming less and less interested in, you know, fake videos reporting fake news, which you have to figure out now. So that kind of puts us in this position where we wonder if anything's real when it comes to news. There's news done by Republicans and news done by Democrats and then liberals and stuff like that. And then there's also the meaningless content that is, gaining huge, huge following.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Have you noticed this? And it's also causing the children of the future and teenagers to make millions of dollars from content that is offering little to no value outside. This is a new supply and demand equation where people are providing content that has little to no value. But what it's doing is it's providing distraction to viewers from reality. and what is it distracting us from? It's distracting us from the reality of our worries and our concerns and our perception

Starting point is 00:05:39 of reality. So there's a whole aspect of social media that is there to just say, hey, forget about reality, forget about your worries and concerns, forget about how you perceive the world. Come fantasize with me here for a little bit. I was just having a talk with my wife, the chicken this morning. That's what I call my wife, the chicken. I'm seeing this new generation coming up. By the way, I don't have an opinion about it.

Starting point is 00:06:06 I'm just telling you what I see. And I think you see it too. This new generation that's caring less and less and less and less about reality, meaning and context. What I mean by that is if you step in and you go, I don't get it. What does it mean? And they'll look at you and go, exactly. Isn't it funny?

Starting point is 00:06:27 I'm 54 years old. And I feel like I'm kind of this old man saying like, we used to walk up. pill to school and back and all that stuff. When something makes me go, hmm, I'm allowing myself, and this is the context of what I teach and the Makes Sense Academy and you'll get a lot of this out of my book. When I go, hmm, it means that I take note of things, I observe things, but I allow myself to not have to make my mind up about it. What I'm sharing with you right now is just an observation. And it's my observation at this time, which means it could change. It almost seems like the truth is becoming some sort of an outdated value. Now, the truth might be important to you,

Starting point is 00:07:06 but what I'm observing is that it's not important to the masses. Entertainment and distraction is a very, very valuable commodity these days. You might even want to ask yourself, as we're together right now, what would you be doing if we weren't together? What I love about my content and my intention behind it is that we live in a world that's thinking, for us. So I'm challenging you to get in your prefrontal cortex right now and think about things. When I say something that makes you think you're in your prefrontal cortex, that's the area of your brain you actually have a say in before the decisions have been made. That's what we're doing here today is we're handing back the keys of control to you to do some thinking. What I see is that

Starting point is 00:07:51 most people spend their lives, I would say striving and waiting for their blessings to arrive, for the good stuff to arrive. And where are you at right now, where you're striving and also waiting for the goods to arrive, the blessings? Here we are at the end of the year, and I'm always counting my blessings, and I'm trying to live in the present moment and acknowledging what actually is.

Starting point is 00:08:15 What I see is that people imagine that the good stuff, the blessings, are kind of like sitting somewhere in the distance in what I call the not now, and they're attached to some sort of future version of your reality. That would be a version that has maybe figured things out. Developed enough. Earned enough money. There's a big one.

Starting point is 00:08:35 In proving yourself self-sufficient, that's where the goods will come in. And catch yourself right now. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, right? Catch yourself. Are you in a mode right now where the great majority of this day is focused on doing something to get, to acquire, to arrive? We've been quietly trained, and this is the work that I do with the interface response system, is just helping arm people with the weapon of awareness.

Starting point is 00:09:04 We've been quietly trained to believe that life is on some sort of delayed delivery system. And we're kind of taught that if we just keep moving forward, the good stuff will eventually show up. While at the same time, we're dragging this ball and chain of our past trauma behind us, and we're also assuming that it too will go away when we arrive at our destination. Some people are trying to resolve their past trauma, but some people are carrying it behind them almost as part of their identity and hoping that it goes away when they arrive somewhere. This is a fascinating aspect of human behavior.

Starting point is 00:09:45 So this belief has become so common running on autopilot that it rarely gets disputed. unless you're engaged in a conversation like this. It's become the background noise of what I call the accepted landscape of our adulthood. Make an assessment of what you would label and deem the accepted landscape of your adulthood. And that would be the stuff that you just have accepted is real. Let's be real.

Starting point is 00:10:13 Things like pay your dues, right? You got to take your bumps. Work harder now and enjoy life later. I've spent the majority of my life thinking like that. Do things today that most people won't do so that you can have the things tomorrow that most people won't have. Take an assessment that all of that stuff is happening elsewhere. Endure this season. Did anybody have a tough year?

Starting point is 00:10:36 Is anybody going through a tough season? I think pretty much everybody would say that, unless somebody's figured out to bend reality. Endure this season. And the next one will finally be yours. How about this one? This is going to be my year. once again happening in the forefront of reality. So we're taught that if we embrace the suck, which is David Goggins' whole concept,

Starting point is 00:11:01 embrace the suck and suffer long enough, something meaningful will be waiting for you at the end. A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Here's my question. What if we entertain the idea that the entire arrangement that I'm talking about is completely backwards? That's the first thing that we'd need to do. we'd have to say, hmm, interesting, what if? We'd have to entertain an alternative perspective. What if I told you that the extraordinary thing that you're now maybe awakening to that

Starting point is 00:11:32 you're seeking is already happening? And the actual challenge that you have is for whatever reason, you're just missing it. What if? Now, you'd have to be open and curious enough to ask yourself a question like, well, what else might be true? Remember, I said, very rarely do we dispute the acceptance? landscape. We actually take it in as part of our identity. So that's what this show is about. If you like this idea of reclaiming control as the dominant force and shock caller of your reality, that's what my

Starting point is 00:12:01 book is for. And my book will teach you the whole system. So what if the reason that so many people are feeling restless dissatisfied or perpetually behind in life is not that they lack something or lack blessings. They've been looking for them in the wrong place. Isn't that an interesting thing to just say, well, maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but that makes you go, hmm, where's the right place? Can you see that human beings in general don't acknowledge the present moment, which we're always struggling to find, but we haven't been taught and conditioned to look at it and consider it a destination? What if the destination that we're all on our way to is actually here and now? Here's why. So,

Starting point is 00:12:49 In ancient Hinduism and Buddhism, which I'm very fascinated with, there's a Sanskrit word for this misunderstanding that people have, and they call it Maya, M-A-Y-A, which kind of translates to magic or illusion. And you've got to ask yourself, well, why? Why is there magic an illusion? It's there to point out to us and help us understand the deceptive nature of reality. If you start to consider this thing called Maya, that reality is very deceptive. isn't it? It helps us acknowledge that although what we see may be what we get, it is not necessarily what is. Does that make sense? So the illusion does not say that life is not real, because we get to decide that too, but that we've been misled about where life actually lives. That's what we've

Starting point is 00:13:40 been misled to think. We think that life lives not here. And Maya is just this awakening that tricks us into believing that fulfillment is always elsewhere, not here and not now. It's typically pointing us towards a later time. And we're also dragging that ball and chain behind us, better, improved, or when things are maybe perfected. But then we say, oh, well, it's not about perfection. It's about progress. But that's still eluding towards moving towards something. I just want to say, as a disclaimer, I'm in no way, shape, or form. Remember, I haven't made up my mind about anything. I don't think there's a problem with having goals, but will you ever be able to appreciate the victory of achieving your goals if you don't understand how to appreciate the victory of

Starting point is 00:14:27 now, this amazing blessing that's already taking place? All of this stuff keeps our attention projected forwards and backwards into the future and the past, rarely allowing us to rest where we are. Tell me if you agree with this. Under this illusion that things will get better, if this than that. Life kind of gets a little bit flat. It begins to taste a little bit flat. Even when life is full, sometimes people have to remind you, God, you've accomplished so much. You're so blessed. Say, ah, can't complain. You're grateful for the things that I have. But even when life is full, we still reach for our goals and dreams, and it occupies a lot of our time. It doesn't actually satisfy us. And I'm seeing this increase as well. We're becoming less and less to satisfy

Starting point is 00:15:15 with our achievements. And you'll know this because as soon as you achieve one, you don't sit and celebrate long, you move on to the next. Achievements don't last long, and they're lasting less and less. And even joy, the very nature of experiencing joy, feels good, but it's not enough, is it? There's a lot of dissatisfaction, and I think we're being preyed on because of this.

Starting point is 00:15:39 It's almost as if the moments that pass fail to nourish us. That's the perception. And so we develop this insatiable hunger for new. Everywhere I go, I'm being told that that is the strategy, is don't ever settle. And where does settling take place in the present moment? You should be wanting and hungry and going after new. Because like an old piece of chewing gum, you know what happens to a piece of chewing gum after you've chewed it for a while?

Starting point is 00:16:08 Our achievements seem to lose their flavor. Make sense? So we keep reaching for more while never fully. experiencing the quiet, yet what I like to say, generous moment where we fail to see that it's not only good and great, but it's more than enough. What is actually happening right now in this present moment is more than enough. Can you see it? So our challenge becomes complex yet straightforward, and I'll just refer to it as simply difficult. We must unwrap the present. So for some of us, unwrapping doesn't happen gently, and that's why we avoid it. It requires intervention. So I recently

Starting point is 00:16:51 did this series, like I shared with you on my ayahuasca experience in Peru. And in it, I was sharing that grandmother, who's kind of the spiritual entity when you work with plant medicine that guides you through this fantastic voyage that I shared, which was by far the most popular episodes that I've ever posted, it doesn't arrive to add insight. A lot of things that we do in personal growth and self-development is not really about adding insight, wisdom, or something new to our lives. What I notice about true growth is that it comes, and this is what happens when you work with plant medicine, it comes to take things away that we've been holding onto unnecessarily. So in that experience, grandmother strips away and prunes things from me, which is very,

Starting point is 00:17:41 very tough because those are my identities, coping strategies, right? A lot of my reality right now that's kind of has me moving and projecting forward. Identities, coping strategies, and illusions that once kept me safe, that's an interesting observation that a lot of the things that we need to get rid of, we say, I've got to get out of my own way. A lot of those things once served us, they kept us safe, but eventually became things that stood in between you and this thing called truth. So not a a means of punishment, the stripping away, although it sometimes seems like punishment. If you ever feel like a victim of circumstance, you feel like you're being punished. You say, why me? This is not fair. It's not really about punishment, but it can seem like it. It's there to clear your

Starting point is 00:18:30 line of sight. So if you're going through tough times, isn't that an interesting way to look at it? is this is not happening to me, it's happening for me. And what it means is maybe these tough times are happening because I'm so deeply entrenched into my identity and what I claim to think is right and true that I need to have parts of those things stripped away from me, which can be very, very challenging. So I want to do a visualization with you right now.

Starting point is 00:18:59 You don't have to close your eyes or anything. Imagine a gift sitting under your Christmas tree. Now, regardless of what holiday you celebrate, everybody kind of has that visual of a Christmas tree and gifts under it. It could be a Hanukkah gift. It could be anything. A birthday gift, whatever. But imagine a gift, a beautifully wrapped gift with a perfect bow on it.

Starting point is 00:19:21 And it's labeled with your name on it. And it's sitting perfectly under the Christmas tree. Yet, year after year, you just continuously walk past that gift. Now, it's not because it's not meant for you. You know it's meant for you. for you, but you walk past it because you're convinced that the real gift is still on its way. And that's what makes you skip that gift. I don't want to open that gift.

Starting point is 00:19:47 The real gift is on its way. Think about that. So you continue to overlook the gift. You say things like maybe next year, perhaps after you get through this chapter in your life, maybe once things finally settle down, is anybody writing that story? Is that a narrative right now? right now things are crazy. I'm overwhelmed right now. Once things settle down, I hear that every day as a coach. I'm a health transformation coach and a lot of people come to me to transform their health, especially

Starting point is 00:20:17 during this time. I've helped hundreds of thousands of people lose weight, get healthy. But that portal of entry, I hear that a lot. Once things settle down, possibly next year, which is a common thing we'll see in December leading into January, possibly next year is going to be my year. Or will even say next year is going to be my year. But then you wake up next year. It's no different. The now is always happening when it's happening. So my friends, please allow me right now to arm you with the weapon of awareness. The gift that we're talking about is yours. And you'll see that it never moves. Remember the gift under the tree. It's actually always sitting in the same place. That's what's interesting about this gift, this blessing. It sits in the same place. It never moves.

Starting point is 00:21:04 continue to wait for you. What's inside? Everything that you ever wanted or needed to experience life to its fullest. Everything and more that you've ever wanted and needed is in this gift. The present moment is just like that. It's not some sort of a unit of time, but the place where the gift has always been. The present moment doesn't change. It evolves.

Starting point is 00:21:31 It's changing as we're speaking right now. but it's always in the same place. We just avoid it because we're focused on something else that's going to come. So what most people call hardship, hardship, disruption, or loss, or any of those things, they're often misunderstood. So we frame difficult seasons, and this is what we've been conditioned to think. We frame difficult seasons as detours, setbacks, or necessary dues that we must pay, when in reality, here's what's interesting about hardships.

Starting point is 00:22:04 and challenges and setbacks and letdowns. In reality, they're actually, and this is just an observation, there are interruptions to a performance that no longer can be maintained. I love looking at challenges and obstacles and hardships as things that show up to let me know that the performance that I am exhibiting, that I'm interacting with, that I'm moving forward with, can no longer be maintained. Sorry, the gig is up.

Starting point is 00:22:35 So take note, when something in your life starts to fall apart, it's often because you've been holding on to something that isn't real, out of your control, something that's not real, or no longer aligned with your greatest desires and the things that matter most with you. That's a blessing. If you have a hardship come into your life that forces you to acknowledge something, even though it's painful, it's a blessing because it's very often, showing you that something is not of use anymore. It no longer matters. It no longer applies,

Starting point is 00:23:08 but it's hard to get rid of it. So I challenge you to see that the year that you claim in your story broke you, I challenge you to see that it wasn't trying to hurt you. It was trying to push the real version of you out. It's very hard to look at. I've had many years that I've claimed have broken me. And I could easily explain all of the hardship that I've been through. But I can also look at what it did for me. So the disappointments, the setbacks, the letdowns, the moments where things didn't go according to plan weren't designed to push you off track. That's what we're entertaining right now. Maybe. They were designed to strip away what wasn't true anymore. And that would be the masks and the comfortable society a proven role that we've been playing. So do you see if we're

Starting point is 00:23:57 completely mesmerized and hypnotized by the algorithm of life, without even knowing, it, we're playing a society-approved role. And we didn't even come up with it. So please, give yourself grace, by the way. Sometimes when you awaken to this stuff, you either run from it or you go, oh, man, give yourself grace and know that it's not your fault. It's just part of the human design. This carefully crafted version of yourself that we have to let go of has learned to survive, impress others, belong, and stay safe, right? It's part of natural selection. So it's not your fault. forgive yourself. And it's also part of the process. If you're having some sort of an awakening right now, congratulations. If you're resisting it, congratulations as well. Either way, you're getting closer and

Starting point is 00:24:43 closer. So when we go through hardship, what's being removed is not the actual gift, the present. It's the wrapping. And what's interesting about looking at the gift analogy is the wrapping paper doesn't go away itself. It's not made to melt away. It's something that you have. It's something that you have to tear away and unwrap. So these are the outer, these are the parts of your character and your, and your identity that have to be unwrapped in order for you to see what's inside. So the wrapping paper always resists, and sometimes some of you wrap boxes like really tough. Isn't that funny? I think it's a funny observation when you give somebody a gift, how you wrap it and make them go through the process of unwrapping it to get the gift. Why don't we just give people the gift? We make

Starting point is 00:25:31 each other work for it. And sometimes we make it even harder. It's like we put a box in a box in a box. It's like this big joke that's going on. Can you see how it happens just like that in life? That's what's fun. So to most, growth means adding something. More confidence, more clarity, more certainty. But actual growth, if you think about it, often requires subtraction. This is a huge insight. Less pretending, less effort, less caring about shit that doesn't matter. matter and less space between who you truly are and how you're currently living. So as the illusion thins and the mask begins to melt away, something subtle yet extremely generous, and this is part of the gift, becomes available to you, things like your breath, your body, your awareness

Starting point is 00:26:20 of what's actually here instead of what's missing. So to this, my friends, this is where gratitude exists. Not as a forced practice. Sometimes we try to practice gratitude. Gratitude is something that always is. It's just something about acknowledging where it exists. It's not forced, but it's an organic manifestation of just seeing clearly. It's a side effect and symptom of seeing things clearly once the mask is removed. So think about it. Gratitude doesn't live in the past, where things turn into regret or longing. It doesn't live in the future. It doesn't live in the future. disguised as hope and worry, gratitude, like actual life, only exists when you're fully here in the moment. What are you grateful for and ask yourself, are you grateful for the future or the past,

Starting point is 00:27:10 or are you grateful for what you have? And if you think about what you have, it's happening now. It's what you actually have in that moment where you don't need anything. Most people say that if things improve, I'll be grateful, not realizing that gratitude itself is what changes how things are experienced. What we're realizing now, because we're awake, is that gratitude itself, the practice of gratitude or acknowledgement of it is what changes how things are experienced. Wayne Dyer used to always say, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. One of the X factors in changing the way you look at things is being in the present moment and acknowledging what you have. And I call it the generous present moment.

Starting point is 00:27:53 So the blessing was never waiting on the other side of becoming something or someone else. It's been waiting for us to stop running past it. So now that you're awake, and don't worry, by the way, time has not been wasted. You know, things have been happening for you the whole while, not to you. Those experiences that we struggle with, those were blessings as well. But they were all invitations to come back to what is real. So the present moment has always been yours. That's what's fun about the present moment.

Starting point is 00:28:26 It's not coming from some sort of outside force. We call it a gift just because we have to unwrap it, but it's always there and it's always yours. And it never needed to be earned, only unwrapped. Make sense? So I want to close with a question. Most people are looking at New Year's resolutions as things that they're going to change and add to their lives.

Starting point is 00:28:48 So my question is, what blessings can you now see? because we've unwrapped the present or we're beginning to, that are right here in the present moment that you couldn't see before when you were focused on the illusions of what was and what could be. That's it for today. To support the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share, as well as follow the Make Sense substack for free daily quotes, live streams, and blogs.

Starting point is 00:29:19 And remember, learning without action is just another form. of distraction. If something hit home and you learn something today, give it away. That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time. Makes sense.

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Unwrap the Present - The Gift of Now - Episode 131

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