Built for Freedom

Adventures Through Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Addiction, Trauma, Pain, and Our Body’s Innate Ability to Leave Them All Behind

By: Bob Gardner

Narrated by: Bob Gardner

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

What if you’re not broken, and never actually were, even if it’s felt that way? What if stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma, and even chronic pain were never inescapable facts of life or irreversible lifelong diseases? What if you don’t have to talk through it all, or even know where it started to be free of it? And what if there’s a way to retrain your body and mind to produce happiness, peace, and total wellbeing on autopilot?

Well, there is. It took me a lifetime to figure that out. Decades caught in addiction, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Divorced almost twice. Then, a terrifying turnaround. Years spent training, traversing the globe for answers, and testing everything on myself. Now, 100s of workshops, seminars, and classes taught. Thousands of clients given the tools to walk free of their own pain. And, finally, this romping little audiobook adventure, where I weave it all together so that this body-based approach to joy and wellbeing isn’t lost again.

Built for Freedom is a no-holds-barred look at the root of all this suffering and the way I’ve found to leave it behind without having to turn your life into an unpaid career of therapy, recovery, and healing. The stories inside are an invitation to quit the fight and finally enjoy your birthright of freedom. Because you are already built for it.

About Bob: I’m Bob Gardner, a self-confessed expert at lame dad jokes, and also someone who spent decades of life struggling with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and compulsive use of pornography and drugs to help me cope. I started studying this stuff out of desperation to not have to live the rest of my life with the daily mental and emotional struggle to “keep it together.”

As I picked up bits and pieces that worked, I started sharing them with students. That was over a decade ago. That includes everything I've learned from 30 plus years of martial arts and movement training, mindfulness, meditation, functional psychology, healing therapies, and more. It’s a hodgepodge of simple, direct skills that have now helped thousands of people graduate from the endless cycle of pain, drama, and relapse. When I’m not busy helping people find their long-lost freedom from anxiety, past trauma, depression, and addiction, I love spending time with my six awesome kids and my beautiful wife, Jasmine (and yes… that does include an occasional long walk on the beach).

©2022 Bob Gardner (P)2023 Bob Gardner

Bob's ability to narrate is fantastic!

this book holds out hope for a brighter world, when there's so much chaos around us to distract us.

Great content!

This is the first title I have ever had to slow down the reading speed, because the narrator was speaking too quickly.
I could have also done without the fake accents.

Fantastic

This is an amazing book. Captivating, thought-provoking and very inspiring. I highly recommend this book

Thank you!!

Well researched and very entertaining. Thank you for taking us through your life’s journey. One that lead to your incredible simple way of getting people through life’s most complicated, misunderstood, and crippling challenges. I wish you the best.

Entertaining, thought provoking and designed to challenge your assumptions.

The reading performance on this book is best of the best. It's entertaining, with shocking stories quirky similes and little jokes sprinkled throughout that had me chuckling to myself.

It's light and yet he is able to tackle some of the hardest subjects known to human experience. I'm blown away that this is read by the author... best author reading I have ever heard. I have 160 titles in my audible Library plus many other listens on other platforms.

I forgot how heavy some of the material is until I was listening with my 14yr old daughter present.

Those heavily invested in traditional thought will find this book difficult to enjoy. He challenges the teachings of Plato, Assumptions of Science, The deity of Budda... and all 'Gods' just to name a few.

I believe in Christ, and the need for a redeemer. If you approach this book with an open mind you will find the ”virtue that is the mean between the vice of excess and deficiency" a gratitude for great teachers and an embracing of personal responsibility.

I will definitely be following his future work, may even do one of his courses. I haven't suffered anything near the examples he gives but I want to learn how to live a life without fear.

I want to change my impulse responses to stimuli to work for me and those I love. He suggests we all have that power within us, and it is imbedded in self awareness. Something I have been exploring for some time and enjoying many benefits.

as Viktor Frankl said, ”between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom"

What Bob discusses are practices to widen the space between stimulus and response so we can *choose* our response.

Unfortunately he only mentions the practices briefly, and how they impacted his clients. I would have loved some direct instruction to practice myself. This isn't an instruction manual but a collection of stories and principles to invite your mind out of the box.

As Christ says, "Know the truth, and the truth will make you free." that truth is: you are not a victim, you have a choice, reclaim your free will by *experiencing* the space between stimulus and response.

thanks for a great read!

See the happiness right in front of your face

Bob has an amazingly simple yet powerful way of taking the complexities we imprison ourselves with in our own minds and helping us see the door out that’s been open the whole time. I have personally experienced the business end of his deep tissue sticks and a well placed punch between the shoulders that helped release years of struggle, frustration and anger. Who knew that breathing a certain way for 5 minutes in the morning could give me more patience with my kids and allow me to see the wonder and joy all around me in the world. This book is a great collection of the lessons and adventures that helped me see the happiness that was around me the whole time. If anything in this book resonates with you I highly recommend working with Bob both online and in person - I’ve gotten a lot of value out of both.

This book could change an Industry

So glad Bob wrote this book. The information has the potential to change everything we know about trauma, anxiety, depression and addiction. Great and practical truths and tools!

What if your struggle wasn’t permanent? What if it could change in moments not years? It can.

Wow - just wow!

A daring look at mental health that oozes with hope and possibility

In this deeply personal set of “adventures”, poetry, history, and science, the author has collected the most sweeping and practical approach to well-being I’ve ever seen.

Rather than getting stuck in the narrative that stress, anxiety, depression, and addiction are facts of life or incurable diseases, he demonstrates over and over again both where that narrative came from and how misguided it really is.

Based on his own journey through addiction and depression as well as the results from thousands of clients, the author paints a picture of real and accessible hope for anyone—our bodies (he contends) are already built for freedom. They are designed to produce well-being by default. We only need to learn how to use them.

And along the way, he sprinkles in stories with enough detail and direction that the reader can follow right along with the methods he describes.

As a challenge to the push for normalizing mental health struggles, this book takes what could be considered an even bolder stance—daring us to normalize well-being while paving a practical path to make that happen.

Most impressive.

He captured something in words which has nothing to do with words. And that matters most in life.

Reminded me of what my experience has been

I finished listening to Bob's book in about 3 days. He is fun to listen to. I met Bob in 2016, participated in his second retreat, and interacted with him in other settings. I appreciate his approach in the book and his authenticity in sharing from his life and real experience. He does his homework and im glad he shared so much of that in this book. Many of the things he shares I would not have believed had I not experienced so much of it myself.

in this book Bob challenged my thinking, increased my desire to live in joy and freedom, and reminded me of what he had taught me that I had not been practicing as much.

I love Bob's approach to life of respect for the individual and his ability to write with that respect.