Breaking Habit Loops: The Fastest Way to Change Your Life

Opening on effort and the universe 0:00

Literally, this is what the universe responds to. The universe, there's, I'm not the first person to say this, but I have to confirm this. Universe will meet you halfway. So if you're just like, i don't know what to do. Like if, you just going to be like prayer just help me. Could that work? It could, But here's the better way to go. When the Universe sees you making the effort and you got the commitment, then they'll be He's trying That's when some miracles can come because you know if you're just like the universe are gonna invest in you if You're not gonna rest in yourself Welcome to the To Curious, MB podcast.

I'm Dr. Ali Ahmed. And I am Dr Surya Ravan. With the wisdom from holistic, alternative and these conventional medicines, we are here to challenge the status quo. We're curious about the connectivity and complexity between diverse fields of knowledge as it relates to consciousness, chronic illness,

Podcast introduction and guest welcome 1:01

mental health, resilience and beyond. learning more about the art and science of healing, or listening to stories of extraordinary healing. You're in the right place. Let's dive in. So welcome to the Two Curious M.D.' 's podcast. My name is Surya Raman. I'm here today with Jonathan Mosenter. And hi, Jonathan. Hey, great to be here, Shaya. Yeah, wonderful to have you. Jonathan has a soul mentoring is the website that you kind of present with. But once you delve into it, I've heard you describe it.

It's truly a transformative story. So I feel like the bio is this story, and I would really like to introduce you in that way to invite you into letting us know who you are. Because I feel like that question is answered differently depending on which perspective we take. So I just want to introduce people to the idea that this is about 6D chess, maybe. And then we can sit back, take it slow, you know, and kind of, this a conversation to have in a different way. I really want bring that in. Tell us a little bit about who you are, Jonathan.

Wow, where to start? What an introduction. So, I'm excited about human flourishing, so I think I'll start from the top about passions. I am a dreamer and I believe that everyone's gonna win at once and i'm gonna see it in my lifetime and, i am gonna play a role, a positive role in co-creation and synthesis. I think it's a global collaboration and everyone's got a role if they want to. I'm a volunteer, so I don't believe in force. So I've been in this inquiry about like, what's it going to take for everyone to win at once?

And what would be my role? And then once I figure that out, then I'll just play that role.

Jonathanu2019s background and path to synthesis 3:00

And I trust what I call the collective metacognition will gather everyone else together. Now, what do I mean by that is I have a story I want from somebody who was like, Jewish kid who was not really in that into it. So I went from like a reformed Jew and and a very agnostic kind of household became like super agnostics. And then I got to discover Ken Wilber and something called metaphysics. and idealism and I went from being very agnostic to I would call myself non-dual spirituality which is more like I actually believe we're all God and we are just talking to each other to know what it means to be alive.

That's where I came down to it. It's like everyone's God. But you know God has a lot of parts and i think there's a part of God that's not in a body which I call the collective medic cognition. So it's like a part of is like, listen to everybody and doing its best to try and make it happen. But it is only as good as we are. That's one of the things I've learned is, like you know, it it not all magical. It needs us to grow and evolve with it. And so what I determined through this inquiry was that the best thing I could do was to first figure out how to activate my soul so I can express fully.

get my gifts. And it turns out once I figured it out for me, I've figured out like how to do it for other people. So I have been doing it clients. But my real gift is synthesis. Synthesis has a really open mind and I explore and tinker and measure. And what I, what, I'm really passionate about now is to tell my story that I exist and partner with other people like yourself, who also are in this human flourishing ideology, but not just as a, we can do it. You're doing stuff like you've got your own practice, you're, doing your, own sort of mix a lot kind of synthesis.

And I love that we have some things of the same and some, things that are different. I actually think. that us open-minded healers mixing things or just being open minded in general people open mind it like let's look and see how long a little bit of scientists in us but also still a lot of imagination because some people call themselves a scientist i think forget that there's no such thing as settled scientists and they they get so into the science that they've been geeking on and i forget like hey you know you don't want to make it solid you there is like one discovery somewhere else in another part of science it could change everything you ever thought was true I don't know if we forget that, we're in trouble.

People get very attached to what they figured out or what is safety. Anyways, I think that starts at a high level of who I am. I'll let you kind of riff from there. Yeah, absolutely. Is that a good starting point? I love that. I mean you're bringing in so many different threads and I loved that first of all the question that arose was how old were you when you decided to do this or when this crystallized for you because it feels like it was a decision you made at some point and i really like to hear from people on their path to this because this has been a synthesis of your own yes so we don't want to jump to the next thing before we kind of lay a little bit more of yeah of like what was it that was synthesizing Great question.

All right. I'll go from here. So the very short, this is what this, is so people can have context about what kind of synthesize when, all right, there's Jonathan Moser, our little boy, parents are social workers, grows up in an environment where psychology is a top meta is the top like thing that we're talking about. That's the thing. The biggest world, you're a mental model of the family. My parents, we both have MSWs. That's really important because I got a lot of psychology and I'm a very analytical child, really good with math, and really competitive like sports business.

So why is that important? Because guess what? I ended up getting into like business and psychology. Like so I even thought about being like a sports agent. I started out being a clinical psychologist, actually worked in the therapy field for a few years. Long story short, I end up being an organizational psychologist. So I kind of brought my business, my competitive sports, but then I like to look deep at the different aspects. So, I became like a coach, a facilitator, or a consultant. I was working on human flourishing.

And I have an MBA from Boston University. When I get really into organizational development, and I create a whole organization. I started doing professional consulting, private jobs, but most of the time I was a contractor for the federal government. So most my consulting work was done with the Volpe center. They do consulting and research for DOT. I helping the trucking industry drop the number of fatalities. And I talking of federal railroad administration, less injuries, and less fatality. That's usually what these modes, each mode, airlines, cars, boats, yada, ya, highway.

They're all trying to reduce accidents and deaths. So it's about reducing trend lines. Great. so now we're my big epiphany. I'm 39. i'm having my midlife review. Not a crisis. This is like a report card like some metacognitions like all right use 39 knows halfway there, supposedly, you better check in with yourself. It's like a cultural thing. And just people do that at that age. 50. I'll be 55. April 12. So I'm almost 50 almost 54, 54 almost 55 So basically, this is a while ago. So during this kind of thing, I'm thinking, trying to be honest, like some things are good.

Some things aren't good, strong story short, my career, i want to an entrepreneur, but I am stuck on a job. So I don't know, that's B, maybe, we need some work. I was like, I really want to be married and have kids. And for some reason I ended up dating and having a lot of short-term relationships. I'm not really sure what's going on, but I can't seem to lock it down. Getting lots of dates, Mrs. Rosetta is not finding her way to me.

Midlife reset and commitment to change 9:00

And I'm not sure why. So I was like, whatever I Was doing with therapy and stuff, it wasn't working. I just said to the universe, I don't know what's going on with me, or whatever. different organizations, development tools wasn't working. I just, but I literally like, I was a Texas Holden player. It was like okay, universe. So I don't really believe in God or anything, But I, just like energetically is like I dunno, i'm just doing it. And I said to myself I'll figure it out. But that was the moment.

and I mentioned that for other people who want to do transformation because look I can tell you this from working with a lot of clients. A lot of testimonies is if the person's not all in on making the big change, good luck. You know, like I usually went on with the client. I'm like, how bad do you want to change? You, if they're not like a 10 out of 10, then, you know it's like maybe you should work with someone else. So you know what I mean? Like, is the people who are like four or five, I had a client, he wasn't really following through with his integration assignments.

So I was like, how badly do you want to change, man? like are you paying good money for me? You're not falling through. And he's like I don't know, like a five. I'm like oh, okay. Should ask that question to begin with. So really, if you want it, so this is it. I know my first big one is, it's called the enough of this moment when you get to that place where you're like, I've had it I can't do it anymore. Whatever hunger will do whatever it takes to get beyond this one. Then you ready. That's when it really begins.

You gotta be you gotta have the will to fall through. I love that. I loved that image of the Texas Hold'em chips. He was like, universe, I've tried everything. This is me at the end of my rope. Yes. Because I thought I did what I was supposed to do and yet something is... So what happened in that moment? Yes. I can definitely answer that question of yes, I've had that moment for sure. And I think that is that kind of like the carpet getting pulled out from under you. And I think just to kind of hold that today it's, you know, February 20th, 2026 that we're having this conversation.

It feels like we are speaking to the larger moment that our country and the global politics of power and influence is going through, which is like, we have pulled out from under us. Yes. Yeah. A lot of, lots of being revealed. So walk us through what happens next. Okay. Literally this is what the universe responds to. The universe, this, I'm not the first person to say this but I have to confirm this. Universe would meet you halfway. If you're just like, don't know what to do. Like if you just going to be like prayer just held me could that work it could but here's the better way to go when the universe sees you making the effort and he got the commitment then they'll be like he's trying you know that's when some miracles can come Because, you know, if you're just like, the universe is going to invest in you.

If you don't invest yourself. As soon as I said, yes, I remember exactly where I was. It was like right after Thanksgiving. I came back from my parents and I. You know what? I'm going eat different. So I stopped junk food. No, just I went to like a paleo diet. And I started eating really healthy proteins and veggies and just cut out the process stuff. And I just anything that I had in my kitchen was processed. Either I made a commitment just to eat it within a week or chuck it and it was gone. I was like, I'm never buying it again.

And just stuck with it. Then I started like exercising more often. This teacher, Daniel Brown, he does something called the pointing out style. That's the tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism. And that's what they use. But I love this pointing-out style because for me, it's really good for it. It's nonviolent. This is how I apply as a teacher. I'm like, look. This whole practice is not religion. There's nothing religious about it's about investigating and it''s about freedom It's all it is only a freedom path So all I do is I'd be like I point to something that my teacher pointed to me And when you look at it from a new way you can decide if that would try it out for yourself Like I'm not telling you you have to do anything Just give it a try and I'll explain to you why When you look at things a little bit differently, more things become possible.

So the teacher did this. He's talking about this thing called identity. It's like, who do you think you are? And so, you know, we, everyone's got these stories, blah, I was born in this male body, yada, my parents are this So he's got this traditional way of describing

Identity, consciousness, and the first shift 14:00

sense of self. He said, okay, that's fine. Is that a solid thing? Can you find that somewhere in your body? I'm like, I don't know. So you constructed it, right? He's like yeah, made it up. Everyone does it. No big deal. Someone else who knew you maybe construct the story a little bit different. But it turns out that it's a reference point. If you think you're something, your mind's always looping back to it and it also looped back unconscious things. Anyways, here's the shift, he said. It's like, what if we just looked at what's actually really happening?

So, you know, we've got this thing called consciousness. What if you looked it is just like a place where information comes in from your five senses and your imagination, and it creates like picture and sound and movement and touch. And I'm like yeah. He's, like well, the thing call consciousness, this holding thing. what If you decide that you're that first? You're this dumping space that collects information. And before you put any of your other stories on it, what if you just get it in as information in your field and that way you're not dumping your what you thought it was meant in the past and you were just seeing it as new information?

and that's very important because most people what they do is immediately go oh in the past I used to think about it like this and what if you actually just says no no I'm in this free space then then can come up with new definitions like that allows you to have new perceptions on things but really what you're doing is breaking up the habit of you using what You thought of in past and you are giving your brain some instruction and some techniques to bring some free energy to it. So it's like literally, it is very psychological.

It's just breaking down the perception process into like very minute subtle distinctions that can quickly change everything. And so to me, that's actually very practical and logical. But yet it makes all the difference. Let me pause there. I said a lot. Does that resonate? You know what? It even connects back to the moment. You're talking about this ability that we have to see new. To see the other possibility. And I think it has to be preceded by the movement. Because that ability, that, we, have, to perceive more, I feel like, happens in what we call this place of non-disjuncture, disjuncture in education theory, which is perceiving a gap between how it is and how you would like it to Or, you know, perceiving something about, well, I don't know what this is, let me investigate, opens up a window of neuroplasticity.

Yes. Right? Is the turn of like, oh, something new needs to be investigated, Let me put out more energy towards this. So literally you are actually redirecting energy in a very subtle way, as you're saying. and a new possibility just opened up. And when a possibility opens up, more juice is given to that. So you can build into what you're talking about, which is remain aware of the incremental ways in which your intention and your vision, and therefore be very kind of to what put into that new field that you are building.

So how did that fall for you so you said you were coming from a background that was you know didn't really have or give you an already ready frame. And so now you had this kind of ability to build a new frame and so where did the questing or how to that quest in kind. begin and proceed. There's an eight day retreat that I had with these Tibetan guys, Daniel P Brown. And he was at the time his protege, his name was John Churchill and he discussed each second teacher there. John ended up being my coach and Dan ended being like my retreat leader.

They're both brilliant teachers. Anyways, but what most important thing is I have to practice that technique. Like every morning I just committed to it. And then about six months into it, I got my first, a guest of conscious, notious moment. By that I mean I was on Facebook just like this. I'm sitting there and, uh, somebody posted a movie and like in my feed and I've got a voice game and just said, Jonathan, Jon and stop, stop. said that I'm looking around and nobody's in my two better apartments to me alone.

And I want to call man I wonder somebody was like, Oh, this is this knowing without thinking that my teacher had said might happen to you if you do this technique and I like maybe this was my first one of those. So it's like what what do you want me to do is like that movie that's the second person who posted that It's not a minutes whatever I can do not amiss for invisible man. We'll we'll give him a chance. So I watched this movie and Basically, it was kind of saying like hey have you I don't know the movie was about pointing about narratives that were not mainstream yet saying Like hey Harry, have ever really studied how the Banking Institute in central banking works, you know, I've ever thought of like So it like Kalei book government shenanigans or shadow or conspiracy.

But sometimes they're like, you know, not everything that the mainstream believes not everyone believes it. So this guy had like some things about energy and UFO. Anyway, it's a lot of alternative things. And I was like I don't know anything about this stuff. uh not really pro or against conspiracies it's not a rabbit hole i've jumped down but this guy is like we used to go to yale he seemed like he'd done some research i'm like i might want to look into this a little bit so after i watched that movie i basically looked into some of the things and i kind of eventually i wanted to find some other smart friends who wanted it to work out with a discerning eye and we anyways i found some others people i trusted And, you know, it turned out that from my point of view, some of it looked probably true.

Some was like, definitely true, so I'm like that's ridiculous. I don't know why. How could people come up with that? And then there was, like some stuff was. Like, I. Don't. Know. You know what I mean? So it's just like. But the couple of the things that I was pretty confident on, on like it was kind of important.

Discernment, community, and measuring growth 20:00

Oh, and so, so it was like this intelligence came out. It was a good first impression. I was, like, uh, And eventually it started to come on more first, very like once in a while, once a year, but, you know, eventually came on and I started trust it more and more. And it made me smarter. That was one of the key things that I have. Uh, Mission now is like it's like I don't want to tell people what to do is not into that. I'm a process consultants process Consultants work with people to give away You know what I have because so like, I want work for the same person and doing the thing I like variety.

So it was like It's not my jam. That's a different kind of teaching. Like so my goal is to teach other people that I think we need it more than ever. There's so much information out there. It's really easy to get lost. Fortunately, there's like some. And if you know the right models plus processing, it doesn't take as long, especially when we got like chat GPT and stuff like that to help us and other AI's. I think, uh, with the world's, I don't know if we're going to be able to do that. I think some people think the world's in big trouble.

I don't, I actually think we're like this far away from peace. You know, we are not too far from everyone getting along. It's a training thing. People think it's about good and bad, right and wrong. Its not, it is really simpler than that. 10 different skills or something. And if we actually focused it on a species, you know, our intelligence, collective intelligence will go way up. That's my opinion. But, I don't know. I try and break it down into practical things that we can actually do and measure.

It sounds like we could measure this. We don' have to just guess because I have a whole background in measurement. Go ahead. I think that's a really important point because I there is now an ecosystem of measurement that is possible that never was before. I mean, just the fact that I'm wearing an aura ring, you know, I never into this and it has changed my behavior, it changed awareness. It's just, the availability of information. Changes behavior, right? Yes, it's right. It's just just it there.

I have to see it Oh, I start to compare. Oh what was that? What was this? Okay, maybe there's some inaccuracies or whatever right but things like a sleep score You know kind of knowing where you're at it is one thing and then I really want to switch into and you kind Of you know brought up this really great description of how a person who is going through this process of an opening and transformation and searching develops discernment and discernments is developed in community. I love how you brought that in, like you found friends, you didn't do this on your own, because it is really easy to get lost.

And down a rabbit hole and need, you know, and we all do it. I mean, I've been on Facebook since 2007. We've been duped, and we're easily douped. And I think the faster we understand that, the fast we can dig ourselves out of this hole that we are in. Because we all just like, oh yeah, we think we know what's happening. It's like no, there's an entire vast array of things. Our computer is way more sophisticated than the operation system that's working on it. What you're talking about is kind of like upgrading operation systems.

Right? Yeah. Good analogy. Yeah, that's a great analogy, so boom. So I'm getting, let's go slow. Let's bring in like components. Boom. Number one, you need bandwidth, right? You need energy. At different energy levels, You can process more things. Computers have something called like the core processor, which is like The number of speeds. I think it's like a I seven, I nine, that kind of stuff like that. And it has got Ram. Ram is about like, how many things can you hold in your mind at the same time at once?

So 32, like 64 will hold more than 32 at one. So there are different kinds of intelligences. So it's really important to understand, to break things into different pieces and understand that all the pieces actually can be grown. piece by piece. So the first thing I want to teach with people is just to have an awareness of that is to understand that each of us operates at a different energy level and what our natural thoughts are. You want start to map out like, okay, when I'm an energy low neutral, I think these kinds of thoughts when i'm in high neutral.

I Energy rich. I have these kinds of thoughts. Cause a lot of people's identities are fixated on like a lower black. You know, I used to, we usually hide our just really nasty stuff about ourselves, but most people, everyone till they've resolved it has like core wound and a nasty thing. And they made up about myself. Like I use to have a story from childhood. Hate myself, i'm a loser. But that was really just because of some things that happened to me as a childhood, I don't need to get into that right now.

But you know, you can change those stories. It's not actually how I believe about myself. I made up a story that not only did I believed that, but then I couldn't handle it and I had to suppress it. So I have to discover that whole thing. Otherwise, it's looping. There's all these programs and a store. That's true. Covered up by a safety program that I know. And even it almost like a virus program.

Energy, core wounds, and radical empowerment 26:00

Right in my own mind. So the thing is, if I had a lesson for everyone. All the patches. Yeah. That I.T. stuck in there. Everyone's got these patterns. There's nothing to be ashamed of. So what if we all just accepted? We all got some virus programs. You know, in virus, programs is a little bit harsh because they actually save you. you create them. It's not like they were put in by someone else. I mean, you created them usually for yourself or you copied them from your parents, but you were the one who copied him.

You don't want to blame anyone but yourself because then you're really. That's like the worst thing you do is call a victim mindset. You want a pick empowerment, radical empowerment. I go to like I'm the part of me that decided I wanted to know what existence was and. Just, you know, just take each swallow the whole thing is the more now that me alone, because that would be obviously crazy. But if my story is that we're all originating from that same moment that some part of us was like, I wonder what this existence shit is.

Let's check it out. I was, like. Well, i'm alive. So I guess I'm part. You know that inquiry. Otherwise, you're starting from victim. I didn't pick it, man. Somehow I'm here. Well, that's downstream is like your victim of life. You want to be a victim wife or do you want be empowered? So this is a little bit esoteric. But the point is the more the value on a blues thing really showed me how to get back to zero. because the tibetans went deeper than western psychology and i could get into this really deep or what that actually looks like but they are brilliant they're like this is what god was when he for the first second he was born like they figured it out just by staring at their own mind and I'm pretty sure they'll write because you want to start off with like Like, oh my God, somehow I'm alive.

Like it's a miracle. And like, have this like confidence and also comfortable with mystery. Cause like you know, you gotta be like that curious to be. We talked about two curious MDs. That's among the most important qualities. You want to bring curiosity. Because you didn't know what you were doing when you made that. I guess I'll go check out this existence thing. I didn't know you're out of alignment. You may thought you could control the whole thing. Well, that's not a really good assumption.

If you were jumping in and not, you know, I don't, no, now you kind of got to own it. I dunno. There's something about owning it there is there. Yeah. Right. That it comes with a taking stock. It comes with a moment where you kind of take yourself to task a little bit, but also you uncover your gifts. You know, I see that that's what I'm hearing here is that you really uncovered a sense of being in your own power and realizing your gift as strengths. And so it just kind have eased the anxieties that eases all of those blocks, because once you get out of your way, you're kind limitless.

And, you know, and I get that. You know I, get it, right? Like that's the energy that you're at. And I totally get because you've kind of investigated all the way down the line. you have looked at how everything kind matches up both in the material and the mystical and tried things out in your body. So I want to just hear from you, like what are some techniques that call to you or, You've been drawn to and explored. Yeah. Yeah yeah so here's the thing everybody there's some universal ones and then there are some ones that are more personal so let's go through some of them once these are this is where the rubber meets the road okay like the first one is this for everybody.

Like this is like the king daddy like we ready are you ready? We're going into it. I already kind of mentioned it We'll do it as I do. It. Let's just just I'm gonna show you the difference between ordinary man and what I would call Buddha face or God faces to me is non-dual. This is meet me as ordinary Jonathan like hey, I am a human being I mean this Jonathan was on her body. Am checking out I might a Riverside podcast All right. Let's go to the Buddha's thing. I'm imagine I was just going to round it for people.

We're all going do this together at the same time. So imagine we're looking at our phone, our screen, right? But imagine that that's showing up through your eyesight. Right? So your eyes are picking up what's on whatever device you're. Looking at it and it's creating a picture in your consciousness, Right. And then you look at your phone and you think, Oh, I want to do that. can you're hearing my voice? So those words are coming in through your microphones or headphones or whatever into your ears.

It's all going into consciousness to create a picture. So what if we decided our self, our full self the part of us that really never changes is this lucid clear holding space that holds the picture and the

Non-dual awareness practice and closing reflections 31:00

sounds and then noises in the feeling before. Can you can you feel what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, like close your eyes now. Like the visual field just went home and he's like me. He's got some black with some light, but it's the same invisible field that's holding like imagine you just wanted to the dreamland. You stay dreaming. And now, I don't know, he is pushed to like spiral psychedelic spirals, got psychedelics, spiral spinning around and boom, his favorite cartoon character just came in there i like snoopy boom snoopies there for me you pick this piggy or whatever you want about okay this is for the audience more fat i don't care just pick your own your owns Roadrunner is having a birthday party.

You know, I don't really care You could have multiple things, but you know whatever I just got Dino came in and he was new pier are like sharing some tea, you Know and you, know donkey kong was wants to know if he wants we know we don' Okay, anyways enough for that but my point is everything happens in this blue Lear said field called consciousness So what if we chose that? is our core identity. I am this field of awareness, consciousness, ether space. Open your eyes. Why is that important? Because that sense of self is a priori to anything else, including things in your unconscious.

So you're actually kind of starting to connect to the deepest part of you and put it in control. Because if you just pick like your regular story, then you're basically saying that's my goal. I want to see everything inside that after that. But the space is like a priori to not only me, but it's also to whoever else is in the field. So it is a more primordial kind of deep energy. Does that make sense? It totally does. It's totally maps. And as you're talking about, we're even, you know, that was the experience of it.

I absolutely felt that. You know you mentioned Snoopy today is the third reference of Snoop. Let's talk about that, Snoopey on my arm right there. He's my favorite tattoo. I have a great little picture of him, you know, with his typewriter saying, I'm an admirer of my own rights. Thanks for joining us on the Two Curious MD podcast. We hope today's episode inspired you to ask new questions and explore fresh perspectives. And we challenge you ask us those unasked questions that you're curious about in your medical practice, condition, health and wellness.

If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe, share it with somebody just as curious, and leave us a review. It helps us keep the curiosity alive. Post a comment with a question or curious inquiry that you have and seek to explore or learn with us. Stay curious and we'll see you next time.