Transforming Peer Pressure

Description

Peer pressure operates unnoticed in most of our lives, commanding a large percentage of our behavior. Here is how to transform this from a power that uses you into a power that you use.

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,peer pressure

Video Transcription

it's an amazing feeling to take something that has power over you and just switch it around you have to destroy it we're switching it around we're transforming it into something that now gives us power today I'm hoping to share a little bit about peer pressure and sometimes we can think peer pressure is just a concern for teenagers right it's it's a thing that gets teenagers drinking or going to many video games or whatever but what I'm going to share today is that it might help us to think a peer pressure is something that's operating in all of our lives no matter what age we are and when we start to think about it this way we're going to be able to see the power that it's wielding in our lives right now and switch over from it having power over us to us wielding that power that may explain human beings are intrinsically social animals and all of us unless we are completely realized bhutto's of some kind are to some extent seeking the approval of others you might deny it but for most of us it's pretty important what people around us think of us and and in today's technological culture that's coming to new levels with Facebook likes and and YouTube subscriptions and everything else that gives us his feelings that were liked or important now there's nothing wrong he's wanting the approval of others but here's what happens usually this is operating on autopilot and in people around us in our culture we live in this culture that breeds insecurity right so most of us are feeling to some level insecure and we feel a lot better about ourselves and the things were insecure about when other people are doing the same thing so smoking is the classic you know the classic thing to talk about what we're talking about peer pressure and if I'm smoking cigarette I know deep down inside that I'm essentially being used right bye-bye a huge company as some CEO who is willing to trade my life my health for his new yachts and that doesn't feel good inside you know I know I'm addicted and but that's kind of too hard to deal with so I try to think that smoking is something that that I really treasure and enjoy it's my right and and and then I need other people to be doing it around me to give me a feeling that it's okay so as I embark down this road and it doesn't matter if it's if it's smoking or it's drinking or its watching television program you know how much entertainment we imbibe if it's you know spending more than we know we have to get that car that the people are going to look at us and think wow person must you know be something to drive a car like that whatever we're doing these things give us a feeling like we're okay and then when other people do it we feel even better about

I think all of you watching this you know understand the powers of our culture and how it does this it's something that hopefully we're all trying to break out of this this paradigm where our culture tells us with every advertisement that you watch that you are lame and you suck and that the only way you're going to be cool and awesome is if you drink this beer you drive this car you use this aftershave whatever right though so here we are caught in this culture that does this to us and we're trying to bring other people in to justify or make ourselves feel that we're part of the group and we're part of a group it's a little bit easier to turn off that that message going on in our hearts and our head saying don't do this this sucks you're being used so to come back to peer pressure peer pressure is looking out the people around us in feeling a pressure or tendency to look or act or be the same as those people around us now living in our culture like we just talked about the breeds of insecurity and tries to fill it with products you can see if this is operating in autopilot this is not good most of us are caught in this place of a been biding of activities or for substances or whatever it's going to be that aren't really what we're passionate about it's just a band-aid to make us feel about it now peer pressure has a very positive side okay because I can also take that pressure imagine you're in a tribal situation here I'm trying to use this with with the force months out of the program right now saying develop a practice every day where you guys are going to hold each other accountable and the you guys are going to all go down let's say in the morning to the stream and you're going to jump in its cold is still frost in the morning you know you don't wake up out of your warm you know bad or sleeping bag and feel like yes let's go down and jump in the river but when your friends are going to go do it with you suddenly it becomes easier and so here I'm encouraging them to take control of the power of peer pressure and use it in a positive way so for me when I'm looking out and I'm realizing that I is a human being I'm not a self-realized Buddha I'm still seeking the approval of others how can i emulate others take inspiration from others and make it be a positive thing I have a litmus test so and it's really really simple I'm looking at the activity of another person whether it's the way they talk to other people or their exercise paradigm whatever it's going to be I look at an aspect of a person and I say is that something that fills me with passion and that i really want to incorporate into my life it's that easy so if I look and I see somebody doing something that doesn't really jive with where I want to be in my life I'm just going to take that and excuse it it's not going to be part of my my peer pressure paradigm right now that I'm going to use for myself I look at somebody else so I use the example of in my martial arts life you know was cool to see conor mcgregor and the who's a MMA fighter and the training sup that he was doing was very much like my reach is animal movement he's training with e to a portal and I don't have to look and say oh conor mcgregor I want to be just like him because I'm sure if I looked into his life there's a lot of stuff there that I might not feel is for me but I can look at a slice of his life at his training paradigm and I can say wow that's inspiring to me I'm going to try to emulate that and then that takes me down this road of maybe watching some videos trying to learn more about eatin Fatah and watching some of conor mcgregor's fights and seeing if I can incorporate some of those elements into my own martial training and so here I've taken an aspect of a person that I see and brought it into myself now there's a little trickier because where's the approval you know Khan is not like writing me and saying can your awesome because you had now doing my my training and I probably won't want that but the pure pressure drive going inside of us it has to kind of aspects the one is that approval seeking the other is is a copy Katniss and when we engage in the copy Katniss if fools our brain a little bit and to feeling like we're approved up and the reason is that we're at least in a group with one other person right so conor mcgregor doesn't know but if i'm training like him then in a way I'm I've made a little imaginary group in my mind of that slice of conor mcgregor and me and now I have a little imaginary tribe in my head okay and so that satisfies that peer pressure drive inside of myself and gives me something now here's the extra bonus because I'm doing something that's positive for my body I used my litmus test this is what he's doing look like it's going to be positive for my life paradigm yes that kind of move that that approach to martial arts that's flowing and I love it so that is going to sculpt to my body it's going to make me into a better martial artists and people are going to see me doing you know the animal movement through the woods and be like wow that's neat and interesting and so as a side effect because I've chosen a positive thing with the peer pressure I'm going to get positive feedback from the people around me it doesn't happen all the time because sometimes and we're doing something really positive in our life other people are going to feel jealousy or anxiety or other feelings about it we're going to get pushed back right but but in general the people around you are probably going to see the positive changes you're making and give you positive feedback for it so here we're tricking our mind or using the power pure pressure in a very positive way if you want to use peer pressure in a positive way for yourself here's here's the recipe again this is pretty easy number one is admit to yourself that you do seek the approval of other people around you as long as we're in denial of that that means that it's going to be operating in autopilot still there we're just denying that it's there it's going to own us so admit it and say okay I have this drive I'm not yet the supreme Buddha and I am now going to utilize this energy in my life in a way that's positive and that evolves me as a human being step two is to start to look at the people around you and either choose people to bring into your life start to form a tribe right people who are aligned with things that you feel positive about so I'm gonna look and say okay that that person is doing that in my life

that really mean that person has evolved they're meditating all the time they're really set whatever it's going to be you know it's a draw to me cannot connect with that person then I can also look out at people around me these can be people on YouTube they can be historical figures they can be people that you see in your life around you and take slices out of their life none of these people are probably perfect beings if you look at them too hard you're going to see oh I'll hopefully do this list nurse and I don't really go for that you don't have to emulate the entire person take slices of the people that you see around you take slices that you respect and then emulate those and as you do so you can be fooling your mind the means that i talked about you fooling your mind in the feeling approved even if that you know historic person or youtube personality or whatever it is is not giving you personal feedback and then feel good about it do the things you're doing and feel good about it because you're doing positive things and you now have taken a force that is operating in ninety nine percent of human lives on a little pilot it's running their lives now you are using this as a power in your life it's an amazing feeling to take something that has power over you just switch it around you have to destroy it we're switching it around we're transforming it into something that now gives us power if you're on a spiritual path you might still continue the ego lessness and trying to become your supreme Buddha set so you don't need the approval of others but right now as long as that's there inside of us use it positively for yourself you know I know that all of you know in your heart what is really good for you what really you are passionate about what really feeds you and those are the things that you can start seeking out in life there's a lot right now that's draining you right and it might be watching two hours of TV a day it might be food that you eat might be people that you associate with these things that drain you this is the moment to say do I want to keep these things in my life or can I start taking that power of peer pressure it's been causing me to do these things that I don't really enjoy that don't really fill me up and can I start having this power for myself transform my life in positive ways when you do that you're going to inspire the people around you this is a positive practice because it is going to enrich your own life make you feel better about yourself and add your just quality of life in your enjoyment of life and it's going to inspire the people around you to start evolving and becoming their best selves as well I'd like to think that in a way everybody who subscribed to this channel and the people that make comments the sort of thousand times my amazing commenters not there all of you that come in here and share their stories and inspire we have a little community going on here and and there's nothing wrong with that either you can gain power and feeling that you're part of of this community right here on this channel and even though they're not people that you might ever meet even if it's just imaginary the way that I look at you know Conor McGregor and then i have this imaginary bond with him that isn't really there just with a slice of his personality or his slice of his life it's going to inspire you if something is adding to your life in that way that's a good thing and so see today if you can look and see where peer pressure and then as I talked about in this video in a broader sense peer pressure in the sense of anything that is making you feel like in action you know that you're performing so that you feel that you belong to this culture do some in group to a small tribe of people look at that and and see how that's operating in your life all of you can make this change starting today and turn this into a very positive force in your lives thank you for watching and please share your comments below talk with you soon