I'm Dr Orion taraban and this is sync hacks Better Living Through psychology and the topic of today's short talk is how to be indestructible to understand how to become indestructible you must first understand why you are destructible to begin with leaving aside basic biological vulnerabilities the way that people are emotionally or psychologically destructible is this they inappropriately identify with external reality now before I explain what that means please remember to like this video And subscribe to this channel takes less than a second costs you nothing and it's a great way to get a little finger exercise so do the thing all right people are destructible because they identify inappropriately with external reality and to understand that we first have to understand what identity is my working definition of identity is that identity is what is left over after everything that can be taken from you is taken from you and this is because everything that can be taken from you will be taken from you in time if something can be taken from you and you continue to exist after the taking then clearly what was taken wasn't you it wasn't who you are it was something that you have now most things in life fall under that category they are things that you have not things that you are these are very obvious things like your job your relationships your family your bank account but they can also be things that are more intangible like for example your physical attractiveness that will be taken from you in time or your intelligence ditto no one stays mentally acute forever the list sort of goes on and on so what's the problem the problem shows up when people identify with these things that is when they confuse something that they have for something that they are now this is almost always unconscious however that's what kind of makes it even more powerful folks have all kinds of core identity statements in their hearts and Minds I am my status I am my reputation I am my relationship I am my money I am my intelligence I am my beauty and none of these statements is true they are all false statements and it's living in falsity that makes you destructible falsity is like a in your armor this is because if anybody attacks or threatens those things you will perceive them psychologically to be attacks or threats on yourself and you will react in ineffective ways commensurate with that interpretation so how do you become indestructible the path to indestructibility is basically the process of systematically de-identifying from that which you falsely and unconsciously identified with sometime in your past or to put the same thing another way it is the process of systematically identifying who you really are you can observe your reactions to know if you are making progress if I came home one day to find that my mailbox was all busted up in the past I might have gotten Furious I might have perceived that to be some kind of personal attack a personal insult you know I'm kind of disrespect because on some level I was identified with that mailbox even though it was just an object I could have said that with my words I must have felt that on some level it was me otherwise my reaction wouldn't really have made sense nowadays if that happened I'm not sure if I would bat an eyelash oh a mailbox is busted I wonder how that happened you fixed do I need a new one at the end of the day it's just a mailbox so not that big of a deal now if you can react like that with a mailbox it's a sign of progress a good first step but if you can react like that with your beauty your wealth your intelligence your reputation your relationships if you can treat those things like a mailbox then you're making real progress you will understand that while you can have those things in your life there remains a wide Gulf between what you have and what you are and no matter what happens to what you have who you are remains intact now this doesn't mean that you should neglect or disrespect the things that you have I mean I took care of my mailbox I didn't venerate it I didn't obsess over it I couldn't worry about it I wasn't devastated when it inevitably fell apart from the time that I had it I took care of it just like I try my best to take care of my body and my relationships and my reputation well I have them even though I will lose them all in time de-identification does not mean neglect or disrespect but it does mean holding things lightly enjoy and appreciate them while you have them and surrender them with love and gratitude when it's time to let them go if you can do that if you can identify yourself with yourself no more and no less then who can have power over you other people Society reality itself will have no leverage over you leverage can only exert influence over what you have and what you have is only yours to a point because you will have to give it back whether you want to or not if you succeed in de-identifying who you are from what you have then you will become indestructible impervious to any form of coercion manipulation or domination either overt or carvert no man or woman will be your master because you will be your own hopefully that makes sense what do you think let me know in the comments below thank you for listening