You Have Nothing to Prove
Linda Villines 0:00

Do you feel like you have to prove why you deserve to heal in therapy by reading the right books, by taking the right courses and the right workshops, by maintaining your daily practice, by getting that certification or going on that five-figure wellness retreat that you have been saving for all year? We are taught that being ourselves as we are isn’t enough. And so we do more to be more. And if you’re on a healing journey, you probably think that doing more is going to mean healing more. But where does that belief come from? What does all of the striving and effort actually do? And does it really amount to what you think it will? Your effort and your exhaustion and struggle don’t make you worthy of healing. They don’t make you worthy of finally being healthy, mind, body, and soul, or finally being at peace with your life and yourself, or finally being your happiest, most radiant, I give no shits most badass self. Deservingness is not a prerequisite for healing. Your body is not going, well, you were a bitch in your twenties, so you need to make up for how shitty you were before you can heal. And your soul is not up in like the ether with some checklist of your bad deeds waiting for you to redeem yourself in order to love you or guide you. You have nothing to prove in order to heal, in order to be happy or healthy or successful. But we’re all so conditioned to believe in effort because we’re taught about cause and effect and karma and all of these concepts with missing facts and a whole lot of distortion. And so we all grow up with this idea that if we do more, we get more success, more money, more friends, more love, more joy, more well-being, more healing. And so we just do, do, do, do, do, thinking that more begets more. But the universe does not work that

The Zero-Energy Universe
Linda Villines 1:50

way, friend. Your mind and your body, they don’t work that way. In physics, there’s something called the zero energy universe that people with letters after their name have been debating for some time. So this is the zero energy universe. Everything that exists carries positive energy, okay? Every star, every planet, every photon of light, every atom in your body. That’s what Einstein’s E equals MC square means. Matter is energy and it’s all positive. So then what’s negative energy? Well, gravity is negative energy. And so because the universe is polar by nature, when you add up all the matter and light next to all the gravity, the total comes to guess what? Zero. Not like approximately zero, but exactly zero. That means the universe of like two trillion galaxies did not need a single unit of energy in order to exist. And that also means that the single most fundamental law of physics still holds, right? That says that energy can’t be created. Well, that’s great. That’s fine because it never had to when the whole of the sum of everything is nothing, right? Split into two equal and opposite halves. Your body operates the same way. The ease and the healing and the well-being and the success that you keep trying to earn through more effort is the state it’s in already inherently designed to get back to, to operate from. And so all of the effort and the doing more is actually what is causing you the issues. Hello, I’m Linda Villines. Welcome to the Simple Source, where we liberate your source self so you can stop striving and start arriving. And by the end of this episode, you’re gonna know why doing less is how your body heals, because you’re gonna understand the science of why doing more isn’t necessary and why doing more is often the very thing that’s preventing you from getting what you want. Now, that belief, I have to do more in order to heal more, I have to do more in order to be more, doesn’t just affect how you approach healing. It finds you every single time you push through, even after you’ve only had like four or five hours of sleep. You know, when you’re just like butt ass tired, but you do your morning routine anyways, your yoga class anyway, because like missing a day feels like a failure. And that belief finds you every time you read books about resting instead of actually resting, or when you like can’t take a nap unless you’re sick, because being sick is the only time that you can rest without guilt. The practices that were supposed to support your healing have become these like obligations that you’re terrified to break because you feel like you have to keep doing more in order to heal more or be more deserving of healing. But every single one of those, I’m doing more, so this means I’m gonna heal faster, or be healthier, or be more deserving of the life or the body or the success that I want, all of those things that you keep doing despite being tired or overwhelmed or sad or numb, all of that is stressful for your nervous system, for your body. A practice that you do out of fear, that you do out of depletion from desperation, is a practice that you do in a stressful state. And that means that you’re spending your body’s precious resources to stay in a condition that your body is like trying to get out of. And so you think the effort is helping, but it’s actually hurting because it’s stressful to your nervous system and to your body. Your nervous system and your body that naturally know how to heal. And they do just that in the right conditions. And stress is like the one condition that your body cannot productively heal in. So you’re applying like more pressure to yourself in the hope of eventually feeling less pressure, but it never works, does it? You know it doesn’t work. That’s why you’ve been at this for years and years, and you just keep trying and you keep trying, doing this, doing that, doing more, and still feeling like your healthiest and happiest and highest self is like a decade

When More Effort Doesn’t Mean More Healing
Linda Villines 5:49

away. I learned this when my late husband was diagnosed with stage four cancer at the age of 37. It doesn’t matter how hard we try on the surface. There is always something going on underneath the surface that is telling the true story. You know, why is it that some people who do everything never heal, while others who do like one simple thing achieve optimal well-being? And the answer is not genetics. But people will always look at the external thing. But the answer is always within and even still in the spaces within. Now you may think that nothing happens if nothing is happening, that when things are still, there’s just like a void or emptiness. But there is no such thing as emptiness because there’s no such thing as a vacuum. Stillness is just like the thing that appears to be the thing on the surface. And empty space isn’t even actually empty, right? Even when you remove every atom, every particle of light, quantum fields remain. And those fields are never truly still. There’s never truly a void. So here’s more fun science. This is what this whole episode is about. Huzzah.

Stillness Is Not Empty Space
Linda Villines 6:53

So in 1948, there was a Dutch physicist named Hendrik Casmir. And he predicted that if you placed two uncharged metal plates extremely close together in a vacuum, then the quantum fluctuations between those plates would differ from the fluctuations outside them. And then that would create a force that would push the plates together. And for decades, people were like, Yeah, okay, sure, nice theory, because they couldn’t measure it. But then in 1997, a physicist actually did it and measured what is now called the Casmir force. So the results were like nearly identical to the first prediction, like within 5%. So two metal surfaces moved because of what was happening in the space that most people would just call empty. That means you don’t need to do so much because so much is already happening in your body, in your field, and what you think is nothing. And that may be radical for some of you, but it’s true. Like when was the last time you had a difficult day and and you did nothing about it? Or the last time that you felt a symptom and you didn’t research it until you were cross-eyed at 2 a.m., or you felt something uncomfortable without making it mean that you failed to do something, heal something, or you had like a magical afternoon and you didn’t just immediately investigate how you quote unquote manifested it by being high vibe or passing some test or whatever spiritual upleveling you were trying to achieve. So your body is designed to heal in exactly the state that you are resisting inhabiting, which is the state where you’re not doing anything to it. You’ve been thinking that nothingness or emptiness is the absence of progress, the absence of activity, of movement. But even a vacuum has movement and behavior. And yet you’ve made the assumption that if you’re not doing something, nothing’s happening. You’ve become so convinced that progress requires your constant participation that you probably doubt what your body is doing without you intervening. I spent years doing everything to heal all sorts of chronic conditions. Every single day was organized for years. Every single day was organized around what I needed to do to heal. But I never healed. I just got more exhausted and my symptoms and conditions were not resolving. Some of them were getting worse. But when my late husband was diagnosed with stage four cancer, two months after we married, I made a promise to myself. And that promise was I will not spend my last days, my last time with him like this, being sick and tired of being sick and tired and unhappy. And then that’s when I changed course. I stopped obsessing over what book to read, what, you know, restrictive diet to try next, you know, what to eat, what exercise to do, what supplement to take. And I just listened to my body, to my heart, to my soul. That’s when I got quiet. And that’s when I finally heard from my body, from my heart, from my soul. And they were like, stop, do less. You have been doing everything, and everything has not worked. The solution is not out there. It is here within you. And within me, it was. Everything I needed to heal was already within me. And so I realized that I could stop trying so hard because of that. And so that’s what I did. I stopped trying to heal and I just focused on joy, on ease, on listening to my body, on listening to my heart and to my soul, on simplifying. And by the time my husband passed, 90% of my symptoms and conditions resolved on their own, without medical intervention, without some crazy diet, without some thousand dollar a month supplement stack, without some crazy protocol, because I gave my body the space to heal and the conditions to do so in a relaxed, non-stressful, non-pressure environment. And then that’s exactly what it did on its own, without me forcing, manipulating, coercing. I literally stopped all of that stressing, all the pressure, all the appointments, and I just focused on loving myself unconditionally in the moment. And you may say, that’s nothing, but it was everything to my brain and to my body and to my nervous system, everything that they needed to return to their natural state of well-being and balance and peace and vitality. So by the time my husband passed, I fulfilled my promise to myself. I was healthy and happy, like for the first time in my life, while he was dying. Because I trusted my body. And in that trust, I could relax more and then do less. There’s that part of you that may be like, well, that’s lovely, Linda, but I don’t trust my body. My body’s been a nuisance my whole life. Feel you felt that. So let me give you a little bit of neuroscience because maybe your brain is like

Your Brain is Active Even at Rest
Linda Villines 11:36

more impressive to you. Because your brain is just like your body, just like space, just like the universe. There’s never nothing not happening. Even when you’re not ruminating, right? Even when you’re not going over that lost conversation that annoyed you or worrying about the unknowns in your future, you’re just lying still, zoned out. Your brain is using an enormous amount of energy. And compared to the amount of energy you think that you use ruminating about shit, it’s not what you think it is. So your brain makes up about 2% of your body weight, but it uses approximately 20% of your body’s energy. Now, for decades, neuroscientists studied that energy by giving people things to do. They would ask someone to think about something, solve a certain problem, read, make a decision, pay attention to something, and then they measured what happened to their brain. And the activity happening when someone was not performing a task was treated as like the control that they would then compare against everything else that was measured. Then in 2001, a neurologist discovered that when people stopped performing a task and simply rested, certain regions of their brains became more active. And what was discovered is the brain wasn’t switching off when people stopped doing something. Like an entire network was becoming more active. So that’s one interesting neuroscience bitty bit. The other bit is that approximately 60 to 80% of your brain’s energy consumption is associated with its ongoing intrinsic activity, meaning the shit that it does on its own when you’re idle, right, on the surface, like quote unquote doing nothing. And so when you perform a conscious task, the energy actually only increases by less than 5% above its baseline. So all that concentrating and deciding and analyzing and ruminating and worrying and going back and forth and fixating only amounts to a small amount of energy compared to the enormous amount of activity that’s already happening without your conscious intention. And yet you’ve placed so much importance on conscious effort, right? The practices you complete, the research you do, the protocols you follow, the appointments you keep, the classes, the courses, the workshops you participate in, all of that stuff you do that you have been measuring your healing by. But meanwhile, your brain and your body are like, yo, we have already been working like 24-7 every day your whole life, doing literally a million different things to heal on our own. So you can take a day for yourself, or a week, or a month, or a year. If you’ve been doing the work but still feel stuck, like no matter how much healing, manifesting, or personal growth you invest in, or spiritual practices you try, something just isn’t clicking. You’re not alone and you’re not failing. The truth is, most teachings and approaches are outdated and only scratch the surface. My book, Unconditional, You Are Perfect as You Are, helps you understand exactly why things haven’t been clicking and how to resolve the root of why you’re struggling. Unconditional self-love isn’t just a nice idea if you truly want to be free. It’s the missing piece and the foundation for everything you desire. And you don’t have to do or figure everything out on your own. You deserve clear, comprehensive, and empowering step-by-step guidance in self-love, self-healing, and spiritual growth. The Source membership gives you daily support and transformative tools to actually start living your healthiest and happiest life today and every day. 100% of members who follow the program improve their mental, emotional, and physical health by over 50% in one year alone. Real mind, body, soul transformation is possible and you can achieve it with joy and ease instead of stress and struggle. So, as a thank you for being a listener, you can get 75% off your first month of membership with the code podcast promo. Your links are in the show notes. Now, let’s get back to the episode.

Trusting Your Body Again
Linda Villines 15:35

And the other thing is you don’t have access to a real relationship with your body when you’re here and there, you’re doing this and that, you’re busy with this protocol, you’re exhausted by all of these practices and this like endless shit of things to do. And so that means that you’re never gonna have like real space to learn what your body wants, to learn what your body needs and what your body knows. And so then, of course, you can’t trust it because you don’t know it. You’re not in relationship with it. So applied kinesiology is the perfect example of just letting your body tell you what’s up when you do nothing. If you’ve never tried it, AP, it’s pretty simple. So you make a statement, true or false, while applying some kind of force to your body, be it direction or pressure. And if there’s resistance, that’s your body essentially saying, Nope, that’s not true. And if there’s no resistance, that’s essentially your body going, yep, that’s true. Truth here. So I spent years reading books trying to get the answers that I could just ask my body. And a simple yes or no is really all it takes. We think complication is intelligent and simplicity is dumb or not valuable, but it’s actually the opposite. Now, obviously, you know, you need to learn how to do applied kinesiology properly so you get unbiased and honest responses. But when you get into that neutral state and you let your body and your subconscious speak, which, you know, are in many ways like one and the same, you are going to be like, whoa, that was so simple, so easy. You know, standing there with your arm out and asking your body a yes or no question is like one of the lowest effort things that you can do. But you want the complicated technique. You want the thing that a Harvard professor studied for 10 years and then wrote two books about. You want the thing that costs, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars that requires your constant attention and effort in order for you to think that it’s going to be healing and worth it. But here’s another example of something super simple and super extraordinary.

A Worm That Regenerates Without Trying
Linda Villines 17:28

More science, fun facts. There’s a flat worm called a planarium, and it’s about like a centimeter long. And when you cut it in half, each half can grow into a new complete planarian, a new worm. And then if you like cut it into 10 pieces, you get 10 new worms, which is like horrifying and also like super badass. And in 1898, a biologist found that like a fragment as small as one 279th of the animal could still regenerate an entire worm. Like, come on. When a worm is only a centimeter long, that’s like really fucking tiny. So this like barely there piece of an animal can rebuild its entire body, including a head, including the tail, like the whole fucking thing, in all the right places. And when the body is complete, the rebuilding stops. So obviously, that’s very impressive. But hold up, there’s more, the best part. Okay, so for a while, the assumption was that the instructions for the worm’s shape were in its genes. And then this guy, Michael Levine at Tufts University, discovered that nope, no, no, no. This is like what we keep discovering. It’s like not really primarily about genes. It’s not a gene thing. What was happening is the cells were also maintaining patterns of electrical signals across the body that formed this sort of like electrical map of the shape of the animal that it was building toward. And so what happened was his team briefly altered those electrical signals without changing the worm’s genes. And then what happened was some of the regenerating fragments grew like two heads instead of one. So, like a mutation, like a two-headed worm was like, no. I mean, cool, I guess, but no. But when they cut those two-headed worms again after the original disruption was gone, the new fragments grew two heads again. And then again in following regenerations. The genes had not changed, but the body was continuing to build according to that different pattern. So an animal can carry instructions for its own form in a field and layer of biological organization that researchers have like barely begun to understand. And that pattern can continue directing the body according to like how it grows and how it evolves long after the original intervention ends. Like the planarian doesn’t need to cognitively understand regeneration for regeneration to happen. It doesn’t Google like which part of me do I need to grow first. Like it doesn’t follow like a strict diet, you know, to make sure the process is happening correctly. Its cells are communicating and organizing toward a natural result without conscious effort from the animal. And meanwhile, you’re over here putting all of this effort into healing and your body is not evolving how you want, no matter how many things you do or how many practices you’ve completed, you know, how many techniques you’ve mastered, how much money you have spent, how diligently you’ve followed the protocol? You’ve measured your healing with evidence of how much you’ve done, but a record of everything that you’ve done isn’t necessarily a measure of how well you are healing. Like is your body truly healthy and happy? Is your nervous system no longer stuck in constant survival mode? Is your subconscious no longer running on outdated, fear-based, shame-based programming? Is your highest self embodied without pretense or performance? You know, you’ve spent so much time, years, being that person who improves themselves, that improving yourself has become part of who you are. I have been there, was there for 15 years. That means you’re the one who keeps going, who goes deep, who tries everything, never gives up. And that, of course, takes courage and dedication and strength. But imagine deciding tomorrow that you don’t need another technique, that you don’t need to read another new book, or there’s no new protocol to perfect, no progress to measure. Would you feel relieved or would you feel uncomfortable? Like even a little frantic because you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without something to work on. That’s why telling someone who’s made self-improvement and healing and identity to simply do less, that’s why it can be received with defensiveness. If you’ve been believing your effort is what makes you worthy of the healing, of the peace and the well-being, the success, then doing less can feel like giving up the thing that makes you deserving of it. But the planarian’s capacity to regenerate does not depend on how much effort it can demonstrate. Homeboy has nothing to prove. And it’d be like, I’m becoming whole again, come rain or shine. One head, two heads, three heads, I don’t care. The worm is just like in it. The organizing processes are already happening within it. And your own body has been carrying out an extraordinary amount of biological activity without requiring your constant management as well. So, you know, knowing your body is doing extraordinary things without your conscious effort is one thing, but actually trusting it enough to stop interfering is of course another. So there’s a difference between letting your body optimize itself and do its thing and ignoring it. And you can also stop doing a dozen healing practices and then still like be completely disconnected from your body and what it’s really experiencing. And you could also spend all day checking your symptoms, monitoring your triggers, and trying to correct every uncomfortable sensation and still not know your body. None of those things create an authentic and loving relationship with your body. You’re avoiding it or you’re managing it. But you can pay attention without making what you discover into another problem to solve, into another thing that you have to put so much effort into. You can notice where you’re holding tension without immediately trying to fix it, eliminate it. And you can recognize when your body feels at ease without turning that moment into some formula that you have to recreate like every single morning. And you can begin listening to your body in the middle of your real life instead of only paying attention when something goes

The Finally Paying Attention App
Linda Villines 23:23

wrong. That’s why I created my app, Finally Paying Attention. It’s a seven-day interactive experience that’s designed to help you discover what your body has been telling you all day, every day, underneath all of that stress that you have probably stopped noticing and normalized. And, you know, it doesn’t ask you to do another meditation, another nervous system routine or healing protocol. There’s nothing to add to your schedule. It just meets you inside the life that you were already living. And then a few times throughout your day, your phone checks in with you and your body for like 15 seconds, super short. And then you’re going to notice what your body is doing right at that moment, right? Where you’re holding tension, where you feel at ease, what you’re feeling emotionally, where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing. And so you select your answer and go back to your day. And so at first, that’s all you’re doing, right? You’re just noticing there’s nothing to fix, there’s nothing to calm down, there’s nothing to get right. And your answers are gonna disappear after each check-in so that you’re not spending the day monitoring your numbers, trying to improve your results. There are no streaks, no goals, no grades, no performance anxiety. You can’t fall behind because there’s nothing that you’re supposed to accomplish, right? Or get a passing score in. And then as the week unfolds, you’re gonna start noticing connections between what your body is doing and what is happening in your life and in you. And then you’re gonna begin to see like tension that you have become so accustomed to in an entirely new way. You’re gonna discover that ease is actually present in moments that you have been overlooking. And instead of immediately putting in more effort to quote unquote fix yourself, you’re gonna begin to respond to what you notice about your attention through loving attention and loving contact and gentle movement and simple moments of connection with your body. And then each evening you get this like little small glimpse of your day. But then on day eight, your full week is revealed. That’s when you see the patterns that your body has been showing you across your real normal life, where stress appears most often, where ease was present, what was happening around you, what which emotions accompanied your attention and what happened when you responded to your body with love instead of trying to manage it. Finally, paying attention is not another book where you spend chapters reading about what you like, what your body should need. This is like information about your body from your body, from your relationships, your circumstances, and the ordinary moments that you have been living without recognizing what was actually happening inside of you. So click the link in my show notes to get the app and start building an authentic relationship with your body as it is, as you are in real life right now. The app is built to be like super low pressure because I know how easy it is to like turn even the most like beautiful healing practice into another obligation. And I don’t want to give you something else to prove that you are good at. I want to give you an experience that’s gonna change how you relate and understand your body and yourself while understanding that you can do less. My app may seem pretty simple, but that’s the design. That’s the only way you’re gonna learn to like know your body as a living partner instead of like this problem that you’re constantly trying to solve. When you remove all of the noise and you just do less and be with your body, your body is far more intelligent, so much more capable and remarkable than you probably give it credit for most

Make Wellbeing Non-Conditional
Linda Villines 26:48

days. And that’s because your body is made of the same stuff as everything else in this universe. A universe that could balance its own energy, a universe where empty space is not empty, where your brain is autonomously performing millions of miracles every moment without your effort or consciousness, where a tiny worm can rebuild its entire body based on electrical fields. And you continue to measure your worthiness and your healing by how much you have done, wondering whether you’ve practiced enough or learned enough or improved yourself enough or struggled enough to finally deserve the life that you want. But who decided that that was the requirement? Really? Who decided? You’ve been treating your healing like some sort of test to pass, like proof that you are good and that you are valuable and lovable and enough to be seen as you are. But that’s not what healing is, and that’s not how you achieve healing. You have nothing to prove by healing harder or longer or with more exhaustion. Now, I’m not saying to stop doing the stuff that makes you feel good or what you love or to stop caring about your well-being. Obviously not. That’s not what I’m saying. But you can stop making your well-being conditional on how hard you are trying. And that’s where all of this eventually leads, of course. Not to become better at healing, but to reach a point where healing is no longer the thing that your life revolves around when you are done, when you are healed, when you wake up thinking about what you want to create and who you want to love and what sounds fun and what you’re curious about and what kind of adventure you want to get into, instead of constantly checking whether you have done enough and proven yourself enough to heal. So if you want to actually go deeper into what your body is telling you about the life that you are living, you should check out why being the reliable one is exhausting you as your next episode, because being able to handle something and having it actually be good for you are two very different things. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you in the field, friend. Thank you so much for being here today. I hope this episode awakened you, inspired you, and reminded you of what’s possible when you love, heal, and free yourself, and reclaim your highest truth and power. If this show has transformed or enlightened your self-love, growth, and healing journey, please like, save, and share this episode and leave a positive review on Apple or Spotify. And subscribe to be reminded of new episodes. Your support is deeply appreciated and truly helps this show so much. And if today’s episode resonated with you, don’t stop here. Go deeper. My book, Unconditional, You Are Perfect As You Are, expands on these teachings and gives you the missing framework about self-love that no one is talking about. So get your copy today to start reading and loving yourself more. And if you’re ready for the ultimate healing journey with daily instruction and guidance from me, I’d love to see you inside the Source membership. The only holistic and comprehensive step by step self healing program that is proven to work. Remember, you were never meant to struggle or wait for what is already yours. It’s time to claim everything you want and more. All the links are in the show notes. I’ll see you next time.