#117: Mental Fitness, Releasing & Lasting Bliss - Liam McClintock

#117: Mental Fitness, Releasing & Lasting Bliss - Liam McClintock

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety and mental freedom? This conversation between host Josh Mcclintock and FitMind founder Liam McClintock circles around a simple but demanding idea: training the mind can outshine any external high. You’ll hear Liam trace his path from high-pressure finance to ordaining as a Buddhist monk in Asian monasteries, driven by the realisation that wealth and status weren’t touching his underlying anxiety.

He explains his core distinction between *mental health* and *mental fitness*, arguing that our so‑called “normal” mind is actually “by default kind of crazy” with worry, rumination, and emotional baggage. The episode spends plenty of time on predictive processing, the neuroscience view of the brain as a “prediction making machine”, and how this lines up with the Buddhist teaching of dependent origination.

Liam breaks down how raw sensations grow into concepts, thoughts and then full-blown narratives, and how meditation lets you “take a step back from it… less affected by it and also gain some control over what we think and how we perceive reality.” For anyone dealing with addictive habits, there’s a powerful thread: learning to generate “self‑induced non‑pharmacological bliss” through jhana states and loving-kindness (metta) can quietly weaken the pull of alcohol, doom scrolling or other external hits.

Liam and Josh talk through releasing methods (including the Sedona Approach) that helped Liam let go of long-held tension and sleep better, and how metta can soften anger and resentment surprisingly fast. The style is warm, honest and geeky in the best way—neuroscience, ancient practice, and very human stories all in one place.

If you’ve ever wondered whether a deeper, more peaceful baseline is actually possible, this episode might nudge you to ask: what’s the next small mental “rep” you’re willing to try today?