Hey friends, Peggy Hall back with you from the healthy american. org. Lately in the news we’ve been hearing things about the Iron Dome, and I’ve been covering some of that information for you. But have you heard of the Ring of Steel? Well, this is what happened in Australia. I’ve got a dear friend of mine, Richie Bennett, and he is a healthy American. He’s a healthy Australian. He’s a surfer and he’s actually a sports psychologist.

And I’ve got an interview with you that you are just going to love. You’re going to hear exactly what happened in Australia. You’re going to hear from him from a psychologist perspective in terms of why people were living in fear, living in anxiety, why people went along with not exiting the Ring of Steel. So strange to me. You’re going to hear about how Richie stood up and did not give in, give up or give over his freedom and how he actually left the psychology profession because there’s always another way.

And he found out how to help people without being licensed by the government. So you are going to love this interview. It’s rather a long form interview. And I wanted to bring you all of this information so that you could see from someone who is very down to earth balanced. He just exudes a peaceful persona. So I hope that you are going to enjoy this. And before I bring you that interview, I do want to make sure that you are covered when it comes to protecting your identity online.

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So I’ll have a link for you in the description box below and this will help you browse safely, surf smarter and basically ARA comes packed with all of the tools that you need to protect your family and yourself from the online threats that you basically can’t see. So thank you to ARA and let’s dive into my very special long form video with Richie Bennett from Victoria, Australia. Hey friends, it’s Peggy Hall back with you from the healthyamerican.

org. I have a longtime friend and a healthy American who’s actually a healthy Australian. This is Richie Bennett. We’ve been in touch for many years. He wrote a book called The Surfer’s Mind. You may not know that I’m a surfer and that impacted me so much in terms of having a positive outlook even when literally the waves were rough. And we’re going to be talking about some rough waves that we all experienced over the last few years of the hogwash.

Richie, welcome to the show. Thanks, Peggy. It’s great to see you again and hi, everyone. Well I want to give a little bit of background and then we’ll dive in. Friends, Richie actually has been consulting in human performance for 25 years, more than 25 years. He pioneered what I was telling you about this field of surf psychology, which basically can be applied to other areas of your life because it is about not allowing your mind to take control or I should say not allowing your emotions to take control of your mind.

And we’re going to be talking about that in our interview today. We’re going to talk about what happened in Australia, why people are gripped by fear, what happens when you are dealing with anxiety, depression, when your whole life has literally been swept away by this rogue wave that was inflicted upon us by the governments. And then Richie is going to talk about how he stepped away from his professional licensing as a psychologist and what he is doing differently.

I want everyone, I know you all are going to take away something from this interview, but I want to let you know that Richie has fulfilled several senior performance psychology roles in summer and winter Olympic teams. And he was the Australian Paralympic Team Principal Psychologist for the Beijing Games in 2008 and in London 2012. And then in 2022, right, think about that date, June of 2022, right in the midst of all of the oppression and tyranny, he voluntarily terminated his psychologist registration, which we would call licensing here in the United States.

And he decided to free up and refine his services while he continues to enjoy being in service to the classic high performance realms. He now primarily offers mentoring and guest speaking like he’s doing here for us today. And he speaks to everyday moms, dads, elders and youth who wish to achieve their personal best in their role. Maybe they’re nurturing self mastery, a strong family, community, the next generation.

And so Richie, you have such a wealth of knowledge and experience. And mainly what I love about bringing you on the show is you have a calming grounding presence about you. And so many of us were losing our heads in these last few years. So let’s just dive in and talk about what went on in Australia in 2020 and the subsequent years. Well, it’s a funny thing, Peggy, because in general, Australia is usually six or 12 months behind what happens in the US.

But with all the hogwash being so well planned and so well orchestrated, pretty much the same day things were going down in the US, they were going down in Australia as well. So it was very obviously a very well planned, a very well thought out, you know, wipe out as you’re using the surfing theme that, you know, that wave washed across the whole globe at the one time.

And it’s kind of interesting because personally, I’ve moved so far beyond that, that I haven’t, you know, the memory is pretty minor. Plus, I haven’t had a TV for over 20 years. I’m not only in social media, I’m very selective and discerning about how I use the internet. But I do recall in the very beginning, there was that classic message, hey, everyone, major pandemic, they used a different word, major hogwash, major hogwash going on here, massive health emergency, we’re just going to lock down for two weeks just to flatten the curve, was this saying, you know, because they didn’t want the infection of the cooties to spread so much and put such a massive impact on the local health systems and things like that, their narrative, their fiction that they put across the globe and they put across Australia was just two weeks to flatten the curve so that, you know, we could get ahold of this before it took hold of us, so to speak.

And then we just had, like I’m in a state of Victoria’s, Australia has several states as well, and I’m in Victoria, which is down south, the capital city is Melbourne. And the premier at the time, I think it was 120 days, it might have been a few more every single day, did a very orchestrated, very well planned media delivery that intentionally incited fear into the community. And it wasn’t just the content of his dialogue, it was his tone, it was his body language, and it was how he got his other order followers to play along with him, people like chief health officers, chief medical officers, classic academics, these kind of people.

So the story, you know, this fable, this fictional story that was passed on to the Victoria and the Australian public, it was very compelling for a lot of people. And one of the reasons I would say is prior to this, as in for more than 100 years, there has been very intentional, very targeted psychological engineering going on with populations, particularly in the Western world. And, you know, that that includes, you know, nations like Australia, America, Canada, UK, New Zealand, and yeah, lots of Europe.

And a lot of it through these things, our screens. Exactly. Yeah. So so people were glued to their screens. Now, there’s a saying in natural medicine, you know, before that was removed from the general knowledge and the general population of the universities, that there’s really two fundamental reasons that a human experiences dis-ease. And of course, that can be a holistic thing, but from the body. And the two reasons are one is toxicity, and two, deficiency.

And so what we were given was an absolute barrage of toxicity from people who I observe as servants, their public servants, they’re there to serve me, my family, the community. However, they’ve assumed this role of leadership and the psyche of the general psyche of the communities that they’re viewed as leaders and what they say is truth. And as you might assume, it’s something that I did say a few of the interviews of some of these, you know, public servants, as you like to call them.

Yes. You know, basically saying words to the effect, we are your only source of truth on this. And so, you know, I observe people being glued to the screens. And so the input of psychological toxicity, fear messages, lack of any command or empowerment or ability, you know, actually respond to this from within, you know, physically respond to it from within with our beautiful immune systems that our divine creator gifted us with and respond to it from our internal system of the psyche, the love and truth that we know that we are and the innate morality, the innate wisdom and the innate potential that we’re also gifted with by our divine creator.

So it’s also interesting, I think, when we look at, well, how come some people either at some point became aware that this was fiction and hogwash and others didn’t, you know, for me, you know, I’ve always had a very healthy distrust of government. And I think that is a really healthy thing to have. Right. You know, but I at the start of 2020, I was not at all aware of the systems and just the scale of psychological engineering and the scale of slavery and control that’s been imposed on the global population, whether it’s debt, slavery or, you know, on their own.

Now it’s even thought slavery, you know. So there’s there’s I wasn’t really, you know, you see bits and pieces under me when you’re working in some of those events that are the largest events in the world, like the Olympics and the Paralympics. You kind of wonder why all these politicians hanging out hobnobbing with these elite athletes? This is the most important moment for these athletes and these teams.

And a fundamental rule is you don’t change anything in those last six, 12 months. You don’t bring in new people. Politician is how you execute mastery on demand. So you keep things very consistent. So why are all these politicians popping up and hobnobbing and you got these athlete liaison officers and all these weird things that start to happen? And it’s because there’s a whole lot of relationship building, a whole lot of self-branding, you know, leaders or politicians wanting to brand themselves with the with the famous athletes and these kind of things.

So this is where all the psychological engineering has been happening. You know, it’s not just a small amount of people who’ve been traumatized and manipulated. It’s an entire population that have been traumatized and manipulated. Well, if I could, that’s how this took hold. Yeah, if I could jump in, Richie, because there’s a couple of things that I made a note here. It’s so important, as you say, the serpents write these self-appointed leaders that people listen and apparently many of them trust.

They’re spewing all of this on TV. You mentioned that you don’t watch TV. I’m the same. Many of my viewers are the same. And I believe that is definitely a part of how we were not indoctrinated. We weren’t under the spell of what they were saying. But even if we had turned it tuned into the television or to the media and if there was something that was so overwhelming, such a calamity, such a catastrophe, don’t you think that it would be these public servants, these representatives, wouldn’t it behoove them to put our fears at rest? As you say, to empower, to have a calming influence, to say, it’s all right, we’re going to get through this.

It was the exact opposite. They were fomenting the fear. I call it flumongering, like fear mongering. They were exaggerating and adding fuel to the fire. And I already had my discernment meter going off thinking, I can’t believe people are going for this. I mean, even if there is some sort of mystery illness that’s going around, I’m not responsible for someone. I’ll take care of myself and let’s see what unfolds.

But to constantly be focusing on the numbers and the fear cells, of course, on TV, it keeps the ratings high and all of that. But that was another telltale sign. And it’s like, why would they be adding fuel to the fire? Well, you’ll tell us psychologically, it’s a way of controlling us. What happens to our thinking mind when we’re gripped by fear? Yeah, you know, that that fundamental beginning of setting the scene for this to work was and keeping it going was the toxicity and deficiency.

Now, I address the toxicity as in just all those messages and inciting fear and inciting a lack of a sense of no empowerment. The deficiency side, obviously, on a physiological level, that might be the vitamins, minerals, the building blocks, the immune system needs to defend itself and to heal. On a psychological level, the deficiency is about maturity of the mind. Now, a youngster is the easiest to control because they’re not psychologically mature yet.

They can’t predict things. They can’t join dots as well as someone who’s an elder or someone who’s matured their psyche more. And then, of course, there’s a power imbalance in that relationship anyway. So with the complete dumbing down and the complete infiltration of just, well, nasty, abusive and false narratives in our education system and these kind of things, then there’s a. . . Everyone, well, in general, the human psyche in our populations is immature.

So it doesn’t have the ability to deal with the toxicity. So firstly, there’s a toxicity overload of these messages. And then secondly, the psyche is deficient because by design, it’s being kept immature. And then when it comes to control and sustaining control, to answer your question, the two fundamentals are fear and immorality. You challenge the morality of people and you keep them scared. Now, there’s two layers to morality.

One is morality as in our innate truth and knowing of right and wrong. This is where order followers completely fall down because they’re not even attempting to consciously go, hang on, if I shoot that Victorian citizen who’s unarmed at the War Memorial, who’s simply just at a freedom rally with a rubber bullet, that might actually hurt them and it might actually be not the right thing to do.

No, this is where the order followers are so mentally conditioned that they execute orders without any connection to their innate morality. Now the other part of morality is literally morale, feeling a sense of spirit and confidence and optimism about moving through this. So the toxic messages were both removing people from their sense of knowing right and wrong. And this is where we had separation in family and friendships too, where people were not invited to that birthday party or not invited to that wedding or not invited to these family functions or social functions, where people like myself were abused by long time friends because I didn’t wear the face nappy because I didn’t take the cocktail because we had all sorts of technology too.

You had to have a QR code and a green on your mobile phone. I hardly even had my mobile phone on me. I’m going to use it more as a wall phone. Most of the time out and about, it’s not with me. So this is where people moved outside of what nature divine creator gifted us with, which is an innate knowing of right and wrong. It’s our innate morality.

Now you’re probably noticing I’m using the word innate a lot and that’s a fundamental of the psychological operation that’s happened very strongly since World War II when TV first hit and screens first hit, which is we have been conditioned by repetition to outsource everything rather than in source. Now when you outsource, you are dependent. If I have to go to the shop to get my food, I am dependent on that shop to eat.

If I have to go to the government, the media, these other sources of profound lies and fiction to get my truth, I’m eating rubbish. My mind is eating rubbish. So when you move through a process of self-study, of intentional connection to your divine essence and however you choose to do that is up to you, I choose to do it through my surfing quite literally and through my connection with nature because I feel I am of nature.

Nature crafted me and there’s the divine energy and creator that created that too and so it brings me into connection and peace with that. So when I receive information, the immature mind, getting back to that deficiency, will outsource and it’s no different to the child saying, mommy, daddy, what’s this? How did this or my or the siblings are fighting? Mommy, daddy, my brother’s hurting me. Fix it. So they’ve outsourced and ideally a good set of parents will nurture maturity of the mind so that the siblings can resolve their own disharmonies so that the parents become redundant because that’s our divine path.

Lots actually should be, by the time you become an adult, you should be completely self-reliant physically, psychologically, spiritually and that is you and the gift you give to family and community, not a dependent, reliant, immature person. Now I have a lot of compassion for everybody who hasn’t either been aware of this or done some inner work to move into that space of full maturity of their psyche, which is a lifespan experience.

I’m not fully mature. I’m still fighting the teenager within. There’s no question about that. And of course there’s a real love and beauty to maintain the child within in particular moments too. So they’ve attacked our morality and they’ve inside of the fear and they’ve created an external automatic response to deal with discomfort, unpleasantness, for example, fear. So people are, they go to search engines instead of the soul engine.

You know, they go to the government instead of their gut feeling. You know, they go external instead of internal to this amazing system that we have. Now you don’t need to have read a lot of books, have a lot of degrees on your wall and all this kind of stuff to know and feel your intuition, which is a divine messenger that assists things like conscience, that you ain’t knowing of right and wrong.

Like innate wisdom, which on a day to day present moment experience unfolds as very simple, basic common sense. Oh, hang on. This is a respiratory illness. Well, why are we blocking our primary way to like breathe? Yeah, it’s a very simple common sense. But the reason people miss that is because when you’re in a fear state, which on a physical level is a very high level of physiological activation, you know, adrenaline, people get shaky, they have physical symptoms that even feel uncomfortable and that can charge the psyche side of it.

And you know, I’ll discern in a moment fear and anxiety, but you know, people are highly elevated with their activation. And what happens is, and there are a lot of this research has been done in the sports psychology setting where when the moments are very intense, our focus narrows and we go to very specific things. When things are just cruisy and more relaxed, we have a broad focus.

And Niederfeld was the researcher. He had a really wonderful paper in the 50s or 60s about attentional interpersonal styles of elite performers. When things are cruisy, we can have a broad focus. When things are intense, we have a narrow focus. So that means if I’m having a narrow focus, I’m missing the bigger picture. And again, this is an example of psychological maturity. There’s lots of examples of what that means in present moment, day to day life.

And another one is I have the ability or the person who’s psychologically mature has the ability to keep the big picture on while things are intense. And then just with discernment, observe and make their own choices with free will. Again, we’re being gifted with free will about what I will and won’t do. What I sense and know is right and wrong. So that’s the reason that such fear and anxiety has been incited by the public serpents and media and in Australia industry.

They brought in jab mandates here or cocktail mandates here where if you did not take this cocktail, you I mean, even the premier of Victoria here said we are going to create the cocktail economy. If you haven’t had the cocktail, you are excluded from the economy. Now, as you know, there is a whole lot of other fictional narratives going on about inclusion. That’s right. And then here is the premier of our state.

The premier is probably like the governor in a state in the US. They’ve actually got very significant powers. They shouldn’t. They’re very immature people, but they’re even more immature than general population. That’s another topic. But we are going to have a cocktail economy. You are only people who have had the cocktail, who drink in the Kool-Aid will be included. And this is where literally in this little country town and where I live near Bells Beach in Victoria, people that own cafes said who’ve known me said, go away.

You can’t eat here. You can’t drink here. So these are the actual experiences. And it’s amazing, isn’t it? Because this is what an intense, well planned, well executed target on people’s emotional state, particularly fear and state of morality, both connection to innate morality, sense of right and wrong, as well as morale, sense of innate knowing, empowerment, optimism to deal with what’s going on was intentionally attacked. And I have to say very, very well, they actually did an excellent job.

But fortunately, the human spirit is a lot stronger. It’s a little bit like the ocean. Nature is far beyond. And when you have the awareness of that, the humility in that space, you actually find like when you’re being absolutely pounded by a huge wave underwater, you find because there’s air getting compressed and expanded and blasted up and down, you find that it’s just if you go with it for a while, it will move you.

And you can go with that movement. And because we’re innately buoyant or naturally buoyant, we’re going to start to move up. And of course, universal law of nature is impermanence. Whatever will arise will fall away. So that intensity of that wipeout and the turbulence of the water at some point will fall away. And again, when you can stay calm and composed and keep the big picture on, OK, where am I? Where’s the surface? That’s all I need to know.

Then when it subsides, you’ll be able to get to the surface. You’ll take that breath. You’ll see the light literally of the day and you’ll be ready to paddle out and catch the next wave. I got to ask, Richie, your story is so compelling. People that you’ve known basically for a lifetime, your mates at the cafe and so forth, shutting you out, living in fear. Were there others that were of like mind with you or were you pretty much alone in your area? Did you we have this image of Australians as like they don’t they push back, you know, they’re they’re the rough and tumble.

They’re not going to fall into line with what authority tells them. Maybe I have that image wrong. But, you know, Americans look at Australians as, you know, they’re they’re pretty tough. Were there others that felt like you did? Yes, fortunately and very fortunately that included my brother and sister. So immediate family. Yeah, I feel just to share that that it’s it was such a powerful support to have.

Brother, sister and their families just very clear and very aligned with what’s going on, because we really support each other. But I was very fortunate because there was just an amazing lady here in Australia, Rosneil and Kook, a psychologist who’d been working for 10 years with child with children. And in psychology in our profession, when you observe that something is going on that creates the potential for harm to another, particularly a child, you actually have a legal obligation, a duty of care obligation to inform authority of the risk.

And that’s your professional responsibility and it’s a legal responsibility. So Rosneil was like me, was aware, hang on, putting a mask on a child and or even if you don’t mask the child, putting a mask on a parent and they have an infant, how is the infant going to learn how to talk? Because an infant learns how to talk mostly by mimicking. So they see ma ma ma da da da.

They start to make the sounds. But if I have a face nappy on, they can’t see that. And then, of course, the implication for all learning of emotional expression or recognition of emotional expression and therefore the depth and intimacy of connection of mother, child, father, child, those kind of things. They’re all getting damaged and harmed and there’s going to be developmental delay. There’s potentially going to be psychological trauma for the youngest or these kind of things.

So Rose did a clip on the YouTube or on whatever it was, just say, oh, hey, these mandates have a very high potential of harm. I’m just responding as a registered psychologist to my legal and ethical, my human responsibility to alert the public that these mandates that you’re bringing in that are causing separation, that are putting nappies on people’s faces and the fear messages coming from the public serpents and other spaces.

This is actually doing psychological harm to our children and our population. And she was absolutely roasted, dragged over the coals by the authorities because and made an example of the next 18 to 24 months. Her life was absolute hell for her. And I mean, they even demanded she come in for an involuntary psychiatric assessment. Now, she didn’t turn up, but the psychiatrist still did the assessment and made a report and gave her a diagnosis without ever meeting her in his whole life, purely off social media and other posts that she’d done.

Stunning. To very kindly, very calmly, beautifully just inform the community that, hey, this is causing harm. There’s no actual science or other from the psychology literature that supports doing this. And in fact, when you create separation and you do identify people, these are actions in prisoner of war camps to manage prisoners of war. These are military, military interventions. And it was interesting because at one point in Australia, one of the biggest generals of our whole army was brought in to address the public on how and all the language was military.

This was partly how they incited such fear in people is because of the language they were using to describe QT’s. And the visuals, you’ve got a military officer wearing the uniform, appealing to authority. Of course, they know better. And that underlying terror, actually, of like, is this a war? Are we, you know, that that is really stunning. Thank God for people. It was Rose, you said the name of the psychologist.

Yeah, her name is Ross Neil and Cook. And one of the reasons I raised that is because while all this was going on, Ross and a couple of her colleagues in the local area created a bit of a network which I discovered. And it was a network of psychologists and other people, sociologists, just just professionals in that kind of psychology, counselling, assisting people with their inner world kind of professions, because people were coming from spiritual and other kind of ways of being in service with people.

And we came together and we caught up once a week for 18 months and just to have a yarn, just to support each other, just to learn from each other. And, you know, again, along with the family support, I had just immediate family, unfortunately, once it got to cousins, his uncle’s. It’s complete brainwash, basically. But once, you know, from a professional perspective, like lots of colleagues just know they’re, you know, they’re toeing the line with the narrative.

So, yeah, Ros’s real past, just a really beautiful lady. And she not only put herself out there and got some great messages out to the public, she was absolutely hammered by the authorities. But she still created this little community that we all connected with online because there was massive lockdowns. In fact, a local like in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, the premier, he called it the Ring of Steel.

And you are not to go into if you live outside the Ring of Steel around Melbourne, you can’t go in. If you want to if you live in Melbourne and you want to get out, you can’t go out. Now, I actually had like my family, I’m outside the Ring of Steel. It sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? It’s interesting. It’s bizarre. I’m recalling a few things now because, like I said, a lot of it’s faded because I’ve just lived my life in a different space.

But yeah, so yeah, that was profound. I mean, I moved in and out. I basically, a fundamental rule and this might be useful for the audience, a fundamental rule I had. I called it the 180 rule. So whatever the public servants, the media, the chief health officers told the community to do, I did a complete 180. Exactly. I know they’re lying. So if I do the complete opposite, if I just go 180 degrees, they say wear a mask.

I don’t. They say get the cocktail. I don’t. They say get the QR code on your phone so you can check in everywhere to do all the contact tracing and surveillance and everything else that they were doing. I don’t. I don’t even take my phone anywhere. They tell me not to enter the Ring of Steel. I go and visit my parents if I want to go visit my parents.

So I just completely ignore it. And I found also, along with not allowing the toxicity in, because I was very low tide on and discerning about how much I let in anyway. Because like imagine if you’ve got 30 minutes free in your day and you have a choice here, you can spend that on the Internet researching what’s the latest news and what’s going on. I might need to know.

Or you can spend that 30 minutes, take your shoes off, walk around the garden, ground yourself in nature or sit and pat your dog or meditate. Right. Do something that nurtures your inner being. Nurtures it in terms of healing or nurtures it in terms of your awareness and depth of knowing that even deeper wisdom and knowledge. So next time you confront it with something, you’re fine. You respond well.

And that’s the other really important thing about toxicity deficiency when it relates to the psychology scenario. And I would say the physical as well. I am completely unconcerned about what I’m presented with because I’m not deficient. So I don’t have you don’t have fear when you know you are grounded in morality and wisdom in your potential, because whatever you’re presented with, you will have a way to respond.

That’s healthy. That’s kind. That is ideal for that moment and that experience. So that’s where you can actually be at peace. You know, Richie, you were talking about the difference between fear and anxiety, and we were going to talk about anxiety. And it seems to me that some people work themselves up into a state of panic. And then suddenly they had all of these symptoms that they heard about on TV.

So, of course, they went, you know, to the hospital and doctor and all of that, because it’s almost as if they had brought that on upon themselves, the panic, the racing heart, they can’t sleep, the shortness of breath. So you were talking about physical manifestations of fear. And then so how does that all fit in with anxiety, the trauma that we’ve been through? Love to hear more about that.

Yeah, well, I might kind of set a bit of perspective of how I view the human, because that gives a good, I guess, beginning of how I view human experience like fear, anxiety, joy, all sorts of things. So my first inner sense and inner knowing about the human is that we are a divine expression of love. So for me, that means my physical body, this wonderful gift in this mortal life that I have to move around and house everything else.

Well, that’s, you know, I’ve got 10 fingers, 10 toes, that kind of thing. I can play guitar, I can do whatever. That’s that’s an expression of love from the divine creator. Well, my psyche is the same. So that means that everything within me and everything that’s part of my being is there for me and is not there to intentionally or cause me harm. And so when I arrive, just like we arrive physically with a complete package, 10 fingers, 10 toes, that kind of thing, a healthy baby, of course, it’s not mature yet.

And there’s a pathway to develop to full maturity physically. But I have everything I need for this lifespan on a physical level. So for me, it’s quite logical to think, well, I must also arrive with everything I need on a psychological level. And we can look at other species, too, that tiny little seed of a tree that can grow to 100 feet high or bear fruit for 50 years and feed people started.

So every innate wisdom and intelligence is in that tiny seed. When I arrive, you know, sperm, egg, from that moment on, everything I need is now for me and coming through. And so I look at just probably three main things I look at. I look at babies, I look at animals, and then I do look at high performance because that’s a full potential expression of the human form, whether it’s music, sport, that kind of thing.

So when you look at babies, do babies show fear sometimes? Do they show distress? Do they have that innate ability to, you know, give an indication to their caregivers that some is not right here? Well, of course they do because they’re completely helpless. They need a way, an emotional expression is a way to do that. Do they show joy? Yes. Do they show frustration, disturbance? Yes. So there’s there’s a collection of innate emotions that we have.

And it’s because the mind is so malleable and so by design able to be conditioned, then how we express that is how we’re being conditioned. So something that is as beautiful and serving because the origin of fear is love, true fear, real fear. And the reason I say that is because when I walk down the beach and the waves are 20 feet and I could die today and I get a bit of a flutter and a fear, it’s my inner being going, Rich, are you ready? Is this right for you today? It’s I could build that into anxiety and really get myself into a panic, but I don’t.

But if we’re conditioned to, then that’s where anxiety comes in. The fear is here and my mind, body is there to experience and translate it and make a decision about it. Yes, I’m ready. I’m surfing today or wow, I do need to check in. That injury hasn’t recovered or something’s not quite right. So I’ll make a different decision. There’ll be another swell. I’ll surf another day. So fear is there to serve us.

It’s one of the best questions to ask oneself when you’re experiencing fear is what is it that I care about? Because our innate being cares about us. You know, that’s our spirit. That’s our connection to everyone. That’s the reason why humans are so beautiful because we care about everyone else as well. It’s not just self. You know, it’s an innate part of our being that we care for others.

And it starts with self care and self love. So when real fear, true fear arises, my first response is gratitude. My second response is inquiry, which is good. It’s gratitude because, oh, thanks. Thanks for that divine message. Imagine if I didn’t get that. I might have powered out and drowned or broke my board. I had a really unpleasant experience. And then I respond with inquiry. Oh, what do I care about? Well, there’s self care.

I want to live today. I want to come home so I can play with my dog again, hang out with my family, things like that. So am I ready? Like, you know, is it right to go through the fear line today or is it right to actually honor that I’m not? There’s something about today that’s not right. And there’s an awesome documentary of Alex Honard, free climb, the guy that climb Yosamite by himself.

He took over five years to do that. And he went to the bottom to do it several times before the day he actually did the ascent. Something didn’t feel right. So it’s a great example of there’s a real fear here. Of course, there’s a real consequence if he’s not successful or he makes an error, just like big waves and other situations, personal relationships, you know, there can be consequences.

So when we’re attuned to real fear, which is a going inward experience, not a going outward, then we will honor it and it will serve us when it comes to anxiety. And this is just a simple way to discern anxieties in the head, fears in the heart. This is pervasive through the lifespan, all our gifts of the heart, our ability to love and be loved, our compassion, our bliss, our sense of passion.

You have passion for yoga and other activities, yoga, surfing, these kind of things. We have activities for passion. Those innate, they’re feelings. I call them feelings because they’re lifespan experiences. Emotions are very much transient, changeable, spontaneous. By design, that’s fine. Like I can be an athlete who’s losing badly and in a moment I can shift my focus and thinking to create true sense of confidence and power and execute well and be successful.

So emotions are very, and beliefs, they’re really, you know, if I’m again an athlete, if I’m a high jumper, I can believe I’m a bird. Of course I’m not a bird, but I believe I’m a bird, I believe I’m light, I believe I can fly, I might get a PB in the high jump. So this is where the mind can be very useful to serve potential in the moment.

But of course, if I’ve been conditioned to go external for the answer, then I’m going to be anxious because do I control anything around me? Of course not. So, you know, if I want the public serpent or I want the chief medical officer or I want the, I mean, they used a lot of elite athletes, musicians and people in, you know, sport, entertainment and other industries to, you know, push the whole poodies lie and the whole, you know, cocktails lies as well.

So if I go outside to get my sense of control, my sense of wellbeing, my sense of security as a person, I’m at the mercy of whatever’s around me or whatever’s coming in. Now, it’s probably good for me to pick up on that word control. I only use that word because that’s the thinking of people that become anxious and experience anxious emotions. When you shift that word, quite literally, it’s only a subtle thing, but when you shift the word from control to either command or create, it completely changes the situation.

And in fact, it makes it more reality based. I’m not in control. I don’t know what’s going to be presented to me. But when I come from the inside out, I’m in command of my response, or I can be creative or co-creative with another or what’s presented to me for the response. When I want to control it, again, this is classic high performance psychology. If you try to control an outcome, you’re putting a lot of mental energy into something that is not realistic and achievable.

If you are putting your mental energy into remaining in command of your psyche, your body, your skills, the execution of your performance, you’re co-creating your performance in the moment. Well, that’s realistic and that works. So for me, anxiety, just very simple words and description. Anxiety is literally in the head and one of the reasons that people experience anxiety, which is pretty much there might have been an original fear, as in maybe there was an original and real fear about, well, perhaps this kudos is harmful or could kill lots of people.

So it’s OK. This is why you have gratitude for a message that, OK, there’s something I need to attend to here. And then you have your inquiry, but it comes from insight. And of course, you can look at sources of information that are external to you. But for me, science is simply a language that describes what we already innately know, we know we know wisdom. And I love science and I love technology.

But for me, I like them to be part of the banquet of life, not the basis. But of course, to control the population, they’re being brought in as the basis. But I just want to dip into them because they’re very beautiful and helpful when you as well. So if people are in their head. And they’re going external to restore inner peace, they’re done. That’s like asking the white to not wipe me out.

Yeah, exactly. I think I’ve done that before. You know, Richie, I really want to highlight this concept of not fearing fear. I mean, this is really like amazing. You don’t fear the fear. You’re grateful for that. And we’re talking about I would call it like authentic or legitimate in terms of, you know, not an underlying ongoing unnamed dread. But when you’re fearing like, OK, these are big waves and I don’t know if I’m filling up to it, you’re grateful for that.

You’re acknowledging it. You’re not sweeping it away. You’re not denying reality. This is really a game changer. So acknowledge it. Befriend it. Be grateful for it. Listen to what it’s going to teach you. Decide how you want to adapt or what your neck because that’s the only thing you can control your choices. So that is really powerful. Don’t fear the fear. Let it inform you. Ask what’s going on.

And, you know, in our last portion of the interview here, you are a person of solutions as well. I love when I said, let me know how folks can get in touch with you. And you said, well, I’m not really on social media. I do have a website which I will leave a link to. But I want to talk about how you stepped out of you broke free from the controllers or those who intended to swell to your ability to serve your clients.

So let’s talk about how you changed delivering your information, your help, your services and take it away. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was very fortunate in the beginning of my career. There’s two ways to go in Australia to become a registered, a licensed psychologist. They both involve six years full time of study or practice. And the one, the main way that people go is six years of university training.

They do a degree, they do an honours, they do a masters and they’ve had six years of training, indoctrination, whatever you want to call it. And then they’ll achieve their, they’ll achieve their license. Or back when I did it in the 90s, the early 90s, you could do what they called a four plus two, which was your degree, your honours year where you did your first thesis. But then you did two years of supervised practice in the field.

And I’ve always been very practical, very experiential. And I was, did that six year pathway, did the two years training. So I think along with missing a lot of school in my head in the ways instead of the classroom, I missed a whole lot of indoctrination through my whole education. Much to my parents dismay, Spencer, I’m not even there, but anyway, that’s another story. But the point is I became practical straight away in my career.

And I was still, I mean, my very first call out was a failed suicide attempt. That’s the very first call out I ever had as a psychologist or an intern psychologist. Now I had a wingman there, you know, a psychiatric nurse who was working in the community. And of course he took the lead and the way he managed that was amazing. And so that’s what I’m emphasising. I had some really good mentors around me.

And it was very clear from the beginning that there’s two fundamentals in a service, a professional service like psychology. One is create a world’s best practice space. Now that is in terms of its beauty, like all my work is out in nature. So I often, I do walk and talks, I do surf and talks. You know, I do a lot of my work when I was working down in rural areas.

I walk paddocks, I’d be in milking sheds, I’d be in shearing sheds with farmers. I do it out in nature and in people’s world. And the second is your intention. And the primary intention that I’ve had from the beginning of my whole career is to be redundant. My intention is to guide self-study so I’m no longer required. Now when you’ve got that as your foundation and your ethical and your procedural processes with your psychology, when the powers that shouldn’t be are creating legislations that by design pollute that world’s best practice space.

And I can give you a disgusting example we have here in Australia, which is in Victoria, in this state, psychologists are legally obliged to only do affirmation therapy with youngsters who may have a curiosity about whether they’re a boy or a girl. So I mean, if you did that with an eating disorder because gender dysphoria fits into a similar realm, if you believe that other book that has potentially got a lot of fiction in it, the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Yeah, we have something. That’s a whole another story, but if you believe that, well, then gender dysphoria comes under the same space, if you like, as body dysphoria, eating disorders, things like that. So effectively the law, the government is saying, if someone comes in with an eating disorder, you have to affirm it and keep them practicing in that manner. And when it comes to gender, if a girl who’s very athletic, she hasn’t reached puberty, hasn’t gone through that.

The law is, but she’s got some curiosity. And the second part, which is a massive hit, which I would just never ever do because it’s complete, again, 180 to how I’ve always practiced with young people. If a parent or parents, or a mum or dad, because I don’t actually like that word, if a mum or dad says, oh, no, psychologist, we don’t want you to do affirmation therapy, we’re going to go elsewhere to look after our youngster.

I have a legal mandatory reporting obligation because the mum and dad is considered to be abusing the child because they’re limiting the child’s access to healthcare. Now, interestingly, that law came in after I actually had already decided to terminate my license and it was just kind of a confirmation thing. But since about, there was a few things that happened around the Beijing Olympics. You know, we’re near the head of psychology for a whole Australian Olympic team.

You have a lot of involvement and connect contact points with government and, you know, secret service and all these kind of things. You just get a few touch points of what’s going on. And then there’s the professional regulators of our profession as well. It’s all trying to fit together. And a few things didn’t make sense back in 08. So I was kind of like, the way this profession’s being regulated doesn’t resonate for me.

But I’m in my bubble. I can still have my world’s best practice space, give my service, be redundant so the person can perform themselves. Anyway, once the whole cooties thing happened and the whole hogwash happened, and of course I’m seeing these harms and I’m locally helping people that were aware as well and trying to navigate with their kids through the harm, then my major employer, which was the Australian Football League, or I had a major contract with them.

I’m self-employed. I had a major contract with them. The Australian Football League is probably like the NBA or something. It’s the largest sport in Australia by a country mile. And I was the performance psychologist for the umpires, the referees, that actually referee all the matches. I did that for three years in a row, 2019, 2020, 2021. And out the jab mandates came in, the cooties, the cocktail mandates came in here late 2021.

And the season finished in September and I was going to re-sign for 22. And they offered me a contract, more money, more responsibilities, love what I was doing, lots of praise. And then when it came to signing the contract, I’m reading the appendices and it’s like, well, they have their cocktail policy. And I said, look, you know, jab, no job. It’s not ethically sound and it’s also not consistent with my personal health choices, which by the way are not your business.

And they just promptly withdrew the contract. So there goes six figures. There goes more importantly to me, literally overnight, 125 professional relationships with athletes, with these umpires, you know, they’re elite athletes as well. So I actually put that to the head of psychology of the AFL. I said, you know, this is actually professional misconduct, you’re terminating. I haven’t died. You’re terminating professional relationships. There’s no closure services. They’d all been emailing me all summer, all off season saying, when are you coming back? We want to start the preseason with you.

So ironically, they then I said, oh, you can’t come to any venues because you haven’t had the cocktail. But then they funded me for two months to do closure services with these athletes because the head of psychology realized, well, yeah, you can’t just terminate all these relationships when they’re in motion. And there’s actually not a, I mean, the reason is profound discrimination. But I was just, you know, medically and ethically discriminated against.

So I thought, well, you know, the universe gives you your messages. I thought if they accept me to be a psychologist with them without the cocktail, well, that’s meant to be and I’ll be able to have some meaningful input in that space. If they don’t, well, that’s meant to be. And well, how can I have a meaningful input in the spaces where what I have to offer will be well received and these discriminatory elements don’t exist.

And I also had that sense. You know, it’s not just me suffering here. A lot of people are going bankrupt, losing jobs, losing marriages, losing homes, mortgages and things like that being called in. There’s a lot of people that need help from someone who is outside the systems because as we know, it’s the systems that are causing the harm and our purpose built to keep us immature, to keep us under control.

So I thought, well, if I’m deregistered, firstly, the registration is simply an offer. You want to call yourself a psychologist? You got to comply to this contract. So, OK, well, I’ve done that for 25, 30 years. No thank you anymore. So I just voluntarily terminated it. And I woke up the next morning, you know, you send your letter off, and well, I’m still Richie, I’ve still got my 30 years of experience.

I’ve still got my love and intention to be in service with people in terms of their inner work, their self study, moving through challenges, adversities as well as nurturing potential for high performance or whatever it is they want to do. And I very much include moms and dads in high performance because that’s the most important role. Strong family, strong community, strong, decentralized little villages. Love it. Absolutely love it.

So that’s why I mean, I’ve always written while I wrote a couple of books, poetry and things like that. When I was thinking about, well, how do I describe what I’ve done? The words freedom and refinement were so beautiful. And I chose to, I literally did choose to free and refine my offerings. They are now available without the systems and the infiltrations of the systems, polluting that world’s best practice space.

And I mean, any business does well because of return business. And sadly, the sick care system we have in Australia is all about creating return business. Now, that’s completely opposite again to my intention to be redundant because that’s a win-win. The person is their own psychologist or their own master of self. And I’m not working as much so I can surf more like it’s a win-win. So it was actually a pretty easy thing for me to do.

I woke up the next morning. I was like, wow, I do feel really free. And that word refinement, the definition of refinement is remove impurities. So all those, even on this psychological level, all the impurities that we’re trying to get in, the toxins I was talking about in terms of the regulation of the profession. So this is in no way a comment of criticism to other psychologists because there’s many beautiful psychologists in Australia that give wonderful services.

But for me and how I want to practice, it just wasn’t consistent and didn’t resonate. So yeah, now I call myself a mentor. It’s funny on a legal sense. The only thing I can’t do is use the title psychologist. But I can still say I’m a former psychologist. I founded Surf Psychology. The word psychology is not protected. I offer services in Surf Psychology, Performance Psychology, Personal Inner Psyche Work.

So nothing really changed for me other than an openness of freedom and a refinement of what I do. I love that, Ritchie, freedom and refinement. And you felt free after you broke free from the professional restraints. And I had no idea that the profession was requiring the professionals, if we can use that word, to follow those protocols for these youngsters, basically. That is really, really heartbreaking. And we’re seeing it here in California as well and in other states.

And people are fighting out against it. The harms to the young people that, as you say, they have not matured emotionally, psychologically. They are not able to make these choices in their life. And the adults should be protecting them, not promoting that. So that is. . . Yeah, I’ll just touch on that because when I was referring to maturity, I’m actually referring to the adult population and the.

. . I know, exactly. Yes. Which, yes, that puts our youngsters at even a greater disadvantage because, you know, really we ascend beyond maturity in all levels of our elders. But if our elders maturity is already very low, even if we do surpass it, we might not come into full maturity anyway. And full maturity is things like autonomy, responsibility, independence in your whole being, physically, mentally, you know, your whole psyche and that kind of thing.

Yeah, the governments and the regulators of the profession have a view on where it needs to go. And for me, it’s not consistent with human nature. It’s not consistent with morality. And it’s not consistent with how I want to offer ways for people to help themselves. So yeah, I choose not to comply. Well, you are a gift, Ritchie. You are helping people through their challenges. And I’m quite optimistic by nature, optimistic and determined.

And I am seeing a backlash in so many ways where even people that have gone along with all of the hogwash that have come to us for counseling in terms of standing up against the government, standing up for their rights with their employer. And we’ve had people that have gotten not one, but two of these, you know, cocktails. And then they said, hey, what am I doing here? You know, where is the end goal? I was trying to go along.

I believed that they said things would go back to normal. We’ve had so many personal anecdotes of people that were going along with it, stand up and say, I don’t want to do this anymore. So I really have a vision that whatever they’re coming out with, again, there will be more and more people standing up. So many of us have come together. We’ve made connections. We’ve been educated.

We are ready. We weren’t ready, you know, a few years ago, like you say, it all kind of hit us like a wave and a wipe out. And I think a lot of people are questioning. And I am hopeful that going forward with people like you that are still offering these services for people that are going through challenges, this is what we really need. And you know, that’s what the government did in the beginning in this orchestrated manner.

I mean, imagine what was going on in Australia was going on in California and New York and Oregon and Washington. They all came from the same marching orders. They tried to separate us. They tried to isolate us. But look at this. I mean, we like we’re circled back after years of of knowing each other. And I’m seeing that more and more. So thank you so much for being on board.

Thank you for your calm, caring demeanor. I want to share your website. Most of my viewers are from the United States, but I do have a number of people in Australia. And here it is. Richie Bennett dot org. If you would like to learn more about Richie. He’s got very impactful books that you can order. And just the website is very simple and peaceful. As you say, it gives a sense of freedom and refinement.

And I’m grateful to connect, you know, from countries apart and share these messages of inspiration and encouragement. So any last words, Richie, as we sign off here? Yeah, that’s that that’s really part of the beauty of what’s happening. It’s a little bit like when the fear arises, respond with gratitude. So this adversity for humanity has arisen. But firstly, it’s arisen because what is within we we project and manifest around anyway.

So what part of us is trying to be controlling? What part of us has enslaved our potential? How am I actually keeping myself down when as a as a human and then have the global consciousness thing manifested that around? You know. What this situation, you know, what kind of circled around for us was I’ve been to Hawaii many, many times. I love the place. It’s where I’ve had some of my greatest surfing experiences, but I love the people in the culture.

And when the attack on Maui happened, you know, I was searching for some information and discovered you and saw how much of a powerhouse you’ve been, not just on what happened in Maui, but what’s been happening in the world over the whole kooties fiction. And so, you know, what I wanted to emphasize is even though there’s there’s been death, that’s a part of life as in death of some friendships or relationships or professional pathways, there’s been new life.

And for me, all that new life has had a depth and a richness to it that I haven’t experienced before, which is which is a really wonderful thing. And that’s us now moving, us as in, you know, larger community moving towards that element of maturity and that element of starting to do some self study to work out, well, what’s my point of responsibility in co-creating or manifesting this adversity? What can I shift in here, which will manifest and shift? You know, if I respond from fear, I’ll create more fear.

If I respond from love, I’ll create more love. And so, yeah, when we do our inner work, that would probably be a last little message. You know, anytime you’re confronted by anything, you know, rather than the indoctrinated or condition responsive outsourcing, go inward. I like that. Your sole engine rather than your search, the search engines. And you’ll find your answer here. Just trust. And I love your 180 degrees protocol also, whatever they say, just to be opposite.

Yeah, that’s a good place to start. Well, friends, this is Richie Bennett. You can find him at Richie Bennett dot org. You know, Richie, I didn’t ask you previously, but do you ever do anything on Zoom if somebody wanted to just have a caring person to help them through some challenges? Is that something you would arrange? Well, I’ve actually been doing that for well over 20 years. Oh, there you go.

As someone that’s working in sport performance, if I’m on the snow fields, but my surface is competing the next week, well, we did that by back then it was called Skype most often. Yes. So on online, like I say, I love technology as part of the banquet of life, but not the basis. So I like to tap in and use it for these wonderful opportunities. Exactly. But not have any dependence on it.

Yeah, that’s the trick. People welcome to connect. And this is a way that I work with people as well. Well, thank you so much, Richie. I really appreciate it. Friends, you know that I’m here every day at 4 p. m. Pacific Monday through Friday. I’ve also got a sub stack, Peggy Hall dot sub stack dot com. I’ll be summarizing some of Richie’s very impactful insights for you in a written format and you can get that over at the sub stack.

Otherwise, I look forward to seeing everybody in an upcoming broadcast. Thanks, Peggy. Thanks, everyone. Thanks. .

See more of The Healthy American Peggy Hall on their Public Channel and the MPN The Healthy American Peggy Hall channel.