Radiating LuminEssence & A Conscious Approach to Love With Carl Studna

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Conscious Pivot podcast. And I'm so. I feel blessed. I just feel so grateful to be here right now with you all and to be alive, actually, in this moment. I don't know why, but I don't want to say I don't know why. I so know why. I think it's every day I am not surprised or shocked anyway, that I wake up. But I really have for many, many years now cultivated this practice of being grateful just for waking, just for the fact that my eyes open and that I can see and I can hear and I can smell and taste and touch. I mean, these are things that are so profound, so important, and that I've taken for granted from time to time. Maybe you're the same as me. We take the simple things for granted often. And they are so. They're so important. They're such a blessing. And what would our lives be without them? And we all know people and we all know situations where folks have not been so fortunate. So in this moment, I am grateful. I'm grateful to be here with you. I'm grateful to be able to spend this time doing something I absolutely love and that hopefully whatever you're doing right now, you're loving this moment. Hopefully it is something in your daily experience that you're cultivating a practice and doing something that you love each and every day. And I am giving gratitude ahead of time for the fact that you're listening and watching this and that this is part of that routine or that ritual of doing something for yourself and doing something that you truly love. I am blessed this morning, especially blessed to have a dear friend who is on our show and a guest. I call him a guest, but he's more than a guest. And for me anyhow. And you guys are going to absolutely love this guy. What a cool man. He's got a really amazing background, done some incredible things in his life. We're going to get into that, we're going to dig into some of those things today and have a great talk and this will keep you company. With whatever it is you happen to be doing. Maybe you're in the gym, maybe you're on the treadmill, maybe you're outside walking in nature. I hope you're outside walking in nature, walking along the ocean, along the shoreline. Maybe you're at work. That's fine too. You could be on the subway, you could be doing almost anything. But what a joy it is to be able to keep you company as you're doing whatever it is you're doing. And I get to introduce you to my dear friend, Carl Stutna. And Carl, I will say a couple of things about Carl. I've got a bio here that I'll just share some things and then Carl, we'll fill in the blanks. As you guys know, we always start in sort of the same way, which is to say that we're not such great fans of a big introduction where we can introduce ourselves in so many ways. But Carl is a multifaceted photographer, inspirational speaker, teacher and author. Carl's intimate portraits of influential people ranging from Sir Poetry, Carl McCartney to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama are published and known worldwide. Carl's innovative work, the Luminescence Method, teaches a new paradigm for radiating the light that resides within, revealing each person's authentic gifts. Carl is the author of the award winning book Choosing Love One Frame at a Time. And his new release, the Evolution of Loving, which I'm going to show you. Evolution of Loving in Just a Moment is absolutely amazing. Carl's life work is dedicated to inspiring us to rest in the pure awareness of our illumined path, both in front of the camera and behind it, but most importantly, in our individual lives. Carl is a member of the esteemed Transformational Leadership Council and travels the world documenting beauty through diversity. Well, that is a concise and a beautiful bio. But Carl, I'm going to ask you this. Is there something there that you'd like to supplement or add to or maybe just tell us what it is that you're excited about in this moment? That's cool too. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Adam. So great to be here in this moment. What I'm excited about is being with you. This is a great way to start this morning and filling in the blanks. Wow. I just love being around people that light me up as I see myself lighting them up. And I feel that way with you, with Randy, with your family. My wife is a deep, huge spark in my life, which I don't think was mentioned in the bio. And as Abayo said, you know, my life as I've continued to grow and mature. It just becomes more and more dedicated to how I can fully rest in the fullness of love and light and be that and emanate that and see that in others and have others really bring that out in themselves in a higher way.

Yes. You know, Carl, thanks so much for filling in that blank. And it's really important, I think, that we, at every opportunity, that we can look at ourselves in the moment and say, you know, what can I. How can I be more love in this moment or be more a presence? The presence, a part, you know, something, some spark of the mother flame, which we can call lots of things, source or God, love, what have you. And you mentioned your wife, who I happen I know and is a just dear, dear woman and a good friend of ours as well. Would you share a little bit about your lovely wife? I want to bring you into that heart space as well. Sure.

I don't know where to begin. Well, Cynthia James, she's so multifaceted and, well, I can share a little bit about what she does. What she does is she's a motivational speaker, an author, a deep, rich coach.

I'm more interested in who she is to you.

Okay.

And my bad, because I didn't give you, like, the parameters for the question. Speak about your wife.

Yeah. Okay. Where do you want us to begin?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So she's just a huge flame of light and love and compassion, and anyone that's with her, you're gonna see reflected back your truth. And that's just what she. Who she is and what she's dedicated to.

Yeah. Beautiful. And she's been that for you for a number of years. Right. You guys met some time ago in the. You meet in the 90s. Is that about the right decade for you guys?

Yeah, mid-90s. 95. And so this march will be. We'll have been together 23 years.

Wow. Beautiful. And she's also part of this incredible book that I now get to hold up, because the tools and the practices at the end of this beautiful book, Evolution of Loving, they're actually tools and practices that Cynthia inserted. Is that right?

Yes. Cynthia, what we decided to do at the end of this book was synthesize, pull out some of the gems of some of the practices. There's eight couples in the book, and so some of the couples speak of these practices that they would do that help to expand their love and have them grow in their love together and keep it awake and conscious and fresh. So Cynthia extracted some of those, and then she added Some of hers that she's developed and ones that we continue to implement through our relationship.

Beautiful. You know what? I want us to dive into your. Well, even in the pre interview, before we. Before we hit the record button, I said, you know, the pivot, right? Like, there's no one pivot is. We're pivoting throughout our lives. It's just that we're not always conscious of it, I think, and becoming consciously aware of the decisions we make and why we make certain decisions. And heck, we make some of the same mistakes again and again. Not because I think we choose to do that, but we are somewhat unconscious. So, yeah, when we talk about your pivot and. Or the pivots that we might mention today, they're the conscious ones. They're the ones that. That we consciously chose to make certain changes in things. But before we do that, I'd love to if you could share a bit about Evolution of Loving, because this has been a work in progress, a love, a passion of yours, this project for. Is it 20 years?

Is it about that long it's been this year? Now it's 25 years. And so it's great to give a context for this book because then it will give a greater context for this pivot. So, yeah, 25 years ago this year, I was sitting with Kenny Loggins in his hot tub and he had this idea of this, basically. Of what? This book, the birth of this book, or the seed of this book.

So we're talking about the musician Kenny Loggins.

Yeah, the singer songwriter, Kenny Loggins.

Beautiful.

And so his idea was, wouldn't it be great to be able to photograph couples who are very deeply in love and look in when they're looking in their eyes, in the depth of expressing their love for each other? So in his case, he was meaning in the act of lovemaking. And some of the couples in. In this book, they are actually in the act of making love while I'm photographing them with the emphasis being on their eyes, their faces. Some of them are not. Some of them are just in acts of deep caring and caressing and love for each other. But the whole point was to be able to document and reveal all the dimensions, or many of the dimensions of what love is. And then the project grew from there. And I was focused on getting as much diversity as possible, ranging from young blossoming love to a whole lifetime together, different ethnicities, different sexual preferences. So I really wanted to show cross sections. And then what grew in the project was getting more and more in depth interviews from the couples and the interviews started getting deeper. And some of the couples, I would go back several years later and get interviews, and you see how their love and their lives were evolving. Some gave birth to children. There's one couple in here where I document them through the birthing process. Some of the couples who are older, their spouses passed away, and they're talking about how love evolved and how they were doing with the changes after being with their spouse for almost their entire life. One couple split apart, but they talk about how they. How they learned to. To grow apart physically, but still hold on to the love and keep the love alive. So conscious uncoupling. So it really has lots of ripples in it. And so should I just go into the. Into the. In the pivot, or.

Why not? Okay, follow. Follow your guidance, brother.

Okay, following a thread here. All right, so. So the. The project in the 90s, it was mostly done in the 90s, and by the end of the 90s, and it saw every major publisher that could be a fit. And I got the greatest rejection letters. I mean, they were really wonderful rejection letters. They really got it. But no, thank you. It was, like, too much of a risk. It was too unusual. So it sat, and I kept resurfacing it at times, and I just couldn't find a publisher. And this was before self publishing was a real viable option. So about three years ago, right around this time at the beginning of the year, I woke up one morning, and in my meditation, I heard, if you're on your deathbed and this project is not published, and out there, it's going to be one of the greatest regrets of your life. And I really took that to heart. Okay, I'm listening. And then within the next day, might have been the next morning, that day, I asked the question, so, what's the next step in order to get this moving, in order to have it be different than it's been? What's the next step? And I listened, and I believe that's where the pivot was, because I hadn't asked that step before. I wasn't. I don't think I was ready to ask that step. And I got a clear answer, like, right away. The answer was, find the right editor. Okay. I know a lot of people in the publishing world. I called my dear friend Arielle Ford, who, you know, and she referred me to someone who had worked on her sister Deb's books as an editor, Daniel Dorman. And we hit it off. And I knew that. I knew that the editor had to be somebody that was really experienced, like, really good, but also really got from the heart. Really got the project, like, was right in there with me and Danielle, was it first person. So then. Then that was the. That was the pivot. That was what the thing, the element that was needed in order to get things moving in order, because she brought all of this new energy to it. She brought ideas and things to expand it. We worked together in a beautiful way, and it created this project that was far beyond what it had started off to be.

Wow. So this, the pivot, in essence, for you, was the asking of a question, a certain type of question.

That's right. That's right.

Now, go ahead, say more about that, Noam, because I think it's really incredible right here. This.

Yeah, yeah, this. And, you know, to preface, I probably wouldn't even have seen it as a pivot unless you had asked me this question a couple weeks ago. But I was. I was looking and thinking, okay, what would be one of the most significant pivots for me? And I. And I thought, oh, this really was a pivot, because it wasn't moving for many years. I mean, it was just staying in the same place. It was sort of this loop. It's like what you were talking about at the beginning of the show, you know, where we can go in this loop where things are staying the same and there's not breakthroughs, you know. And it took me first off hearing the message, you're gonna regret this if you're on your deathbed. So I heard it and I took it to heart. So that was the first thing.

And let's break this down just a bit. So you're hearing that message. Did you hear that in. In stillness, in meditation? Were you walking? Did it hit you in the head like a frying pan?

Yeah, no, I heard it in meditation. I was meditating. And a lot of times I get insights and ahas during meditation. I'm not one of these people that feels like I have to keep my mind clear all. I mean, without thought all the time. Sometimes they're the most amazing thoughts that come in. Or insights. So I heard it in meditation, but I. But I took it to heart. I mean, I knew this was true, so I took it enough to heart to then. To then ask the question, what's the next step?

Yes. And what's the next step? That question itself. Why. Why did you ask that question? Do you have.

Yeah, that's a good question. I asked that question because I knew that there had to be a next step, that I had to be Able to see in order to open the door again to a new possibility. So I had to recognize there's got to be a step here that I haven't taken before, you know, that I haven't seen. Or maybe to some degree I had seen, but I wasn't willing to say yes to. Okay, so. Because I was so earnest in asking the question and I was earnest in receiving the answer and knowing that I was going to be true to it because I got the message, it's like, I've got, okay, this is serious. This is serious. I don't want to be on my deathbed and have this huge regret. I saw it. I mean, I, I could take myself to that moment, like transport myself, go. That's really true. I would feel extremely regretful and, and my soul would be very, very, very sad, you know, so, so did it.

Scare you, Carl, to get message that this is.

Yeah, it scared me. It was serious, you know, it's like, this is, this is really serious. You don't want it. You don't want to be in that place. Yeah, so it's like a wake up call, you know, like some people get it through serious illness, you know, whatever. I didn't have to, you know, get to that place of being on my deathbed or have a serious illness or whatever, to recognize one of the most important things to me to complete in my life.

Right. No near death experience was necessary for you to get a little smelling salts and go. Yeah, this is something of a legacy project.

It is just.

And what's really interesting, I think, is that that you, you were analyzing it, you were in some way objective about the fact that you were stuck. I think it's difficult when we're stuck or when we're in a loop to see that for ourselves. Sometimes it's somebody else that points it out to us or, you know, some shit goes wrong in our lives. And then we keep questioning, questioning, questioning. Finally, oh, you know, you get this big moment awakening, go, yeah, yeah. I keep doing the same thing over and over again. And why, why in the world would I expect things to be different when I keep showing up the same way?

That's right. That's right. You know, and I'm sure there was a part of me who over these years that was feeling like a victim to, you know, you know, feeling like, oh, you know, I've, I've tried this route, I've tried to get publishers, blah, blah, blah. You know, I've tried so many times, people aren't getting it, you know, it's like that's such an old story. It's like it's an old story, you know, not being gotten. I think it's with being an artist, I think artists often sort of have that karma or that potential plight to. Or breakthroughs to work through is not feeling gotten all that stuff. So I had to, I just had to let. Let a lot of that go and just go break through all that. Beyond all that, what's true here? The truth is this project is, Is a jewel. Every, almost every single person I shared the mock up with when I was working on it in the 90s had a deeply heartfelt experience and would open up. So I knew without a shadow of a doubt for years the power of this book and the heart that it opens up for people. And that's why I knew that it was so essential that it get out there.

Yeah. Another great question. What is true here? Again, those of you that are watching, awesome, listening, awesome. Take some notes if you can. I mean, again, unless you're operating heavy machinery, the rule is do not be taking notes while you're operating something.

Okay.

Or maybe you're in the operating room. Who knows? People consume this stuff at all, the most wild, amazing and even bizarre places. Somebody could conceivably, conceivably. I know this is really weird now, but somebody could be, could be consuming this content while they're, while they're in.

The throes of it. Right?

I mean, who knows? It's possible. I read some somewhere that, that people are picking up their cell phones in the throes of lovemaking. That they're picking up their cell phones like right. You know, afterward, within, within a minute of, of of being finished, they are picking up their cell phones. I don't know what to make of that. I mean, obviously it's easy to be critical of it. It's easy to judge it and say it's some. Something's just kind of gone sideways, whatever, but who knows why? I mean, I'm going to leave that to the sociologists. 20, 50, 150 years from now. But, but I think what's really incredible are these questions. Because when you ask better questions, you get better answers. So regardless of whether you're. You're using your cell phones for. Or your devices for, For. For new and creative things, one thing that I think will never change. This, this is one of these areas that I believe is. Will be unchangeable and that is that we will use questions as a means to find and navigate our future path. And that question that you asked. So what is the next step? Is a question in the book Pivot. This is one of the basic things, is, am I willing to take the next step? Anybody can pivot as long as you're willing to take the next step. Which begs the question, what is the next step? And often we think or convince ourselves that the next steps got to be something really big or it's got to be. Or because it's outside of our field of awareness, that it must be beyond us or something. But sometimes those next steps are just baby steps. In fact, the next step might even be just asking a better question, like the question that you asked, which is, who's the right editor for this? Who's going to get this? Because if they get it, they really get the project, then everything can change in an instant, right?

That's right. And that's a good point, too, Adam. Is that in my asking, what's the next step? It was a safe question to ask because I gave myself, I was really clear in asking that question that it could be a very simple, small next step. It doesn't have to feel daunting, you know, so that's. That's a really good point, is just asking the question and not having. Not having the expectation that it's going to be this grandiose next step. You know, it can just be the next step up the ladder, and then there's. And then that opens the door to whatever is possible from that point, from that purview.

Right. I think it was. And I don't have the exact quote, but Martin Luther King Jr. Said that all we need to. It's like a staircase, and we just need to be able to take that next step up the staircase. Even when the rest of the staircase is dark, we can't. We can't see where it all leads to. But looking back down it, when we've gotten to a different perspective, it all makes sense. All the steps were lined up. Everything was sequenced just perfectly. But you can't see that from the vantage point that we're at. So just that courage and the ability and sometimes tenacity, really, to just continue to ask a question like, what's the next step? Take the next step. Be willing to take the next step is really a game changer. And this is a clear example of that, because a project that was. Was there and was in your field of awareness for 25 years, a passion project that started in a hot tub, you know, with a pretty prolific singer, songwriter, a guy with some great ideas, who you know, you were collaborating on this early in the process and then for it to incubate for 20 years, let's say, or 25 years, and then be reborn from, from the seed of a great. Of a new question, which, as you said, isn't some grandiose thing. It's just. Yeah. What's. What's the next. And you asked another great question, I believe, which is what is true here and now That's a much. I think that's another one of these high level questions and not so obvious.

Right.

You know, what is the next step, I think is something everybody can apply. I love things that we can all apply pretty simply. What is true here requires some level of discernment. Would you agree?

Absolutely.

As we could. We could come up with an answer to that. What is true here is that I'm a freaking loser.

Right.

All right, I'm being funny, but nobody wants this book. That's what's true here. Hello.

Right.

Nobody's buying. Nobody's buying this book. It must be. The book is not the right thing or whatever. You ask that question and then you sat in stillness for an answer. I want to just micro, you know, create a little bit of a micro instruction manual for what it is you did here. Because this is profound and I think it's profound in its application to many, many things outside of a book project.

Yes, yes. Yeah. So also in asking what is true here? What was clear to me, I never had any doubt about this, was that this project has great value. It has the potential to really open the hearts of people and heal. Heal wounds that people perhaps have been holding onto related to love, related to feeling worthy, related to receiving love, related to trusting that love is really possible in a relationship. And there's so many dimensions about how this book is created and designed, from the photographs to the text, to the tools that all blend, all of that. And I believe, I believe the truth is that this book will serve as a huge healing agent for people. And I believe that we are living in a time now where more than anything, the greatest. Looking for. I'm looking for the word. The greatest opportunity, the greatest thing that's being asked for in this world is to open to greater dimensions of knowing love.

Yes.

You know, we're living in a world that is so filled, especially in this moment in our country and all over, with separation and division. And I believe that the opposite of that is love and union, oneness and trust. So the fundamental qualities that are woven into this and that sort of just emerge from the pages I think your heart cannot help but feel those. So I knew that that was true. And I knew that this calling was not from the ego, that it was really from this greater knowing that. You mentioned the word legacy before. I. I do believe that this will be one of the largest legacies that I will have left after I'm gone. And. Yeah, and it tears me, you know, to go there because, you know, I think, I believe that when we tap into something like that, we know that that's real. You know, we know. We know that that's pure and that's real.

Carl, that's beautiful. And it's taken time. I mean, we're not necessarily a patient society.

I tell people. There's two things I think I shared with you. Two things in the last couple years that were on my bucket list for many, many years. One was completing this book and the other was completing the studio on our property. But I tell people related to our studio, because it was just finished a couple years ago, that I had envisioned it in college, at the end of leaving college. And if someone had told me at that time, when I was 22, 23, yeah, you're going to have that, you'll have that, but you won't be. You'll be close to 60 when you have it. And I would have thought, you know, what. What's the point, you know, like, at that time? What is the freaking point of having it at that age? But I do believe through age and maturity and wisdom, everybody, first off, I think everyone has their own time frame on when things evolve, when things open and when we materialize things, when we open to being ready for things. And both these things, both this studio and this project, they offer so much more now because of who I've grown into. And I don't think I could have been the container for them in the same kind of way years ago. But I wanted to add one more thing about the evolution and the theme we're on. About a year and a half ago, I thought I was done with this book. Pretty much done. The editing was pretty much done. I'm sitting with Cynthia at a restaurant celebrating our anniversary, and I get this tug on my shoulder to my sleeve and it says, you're not done.

Come on.

Okay. What? And I'm told it's time, it really is time to include a male couple, same sex couple, at a female couple, and which I hadn't included. And I had thought about it from the very beginning, but in the mid-90s, I couldn't find a publisher with heterosexual Couples. And I just dismissed it. I thought, this is too difficult as it is, you know, just with heterosexual couples. So I opened up, I listened to, I agreed, said, yeah, the evolution of love in our world, in our country. Now's the time. So I put the word out to the community again, found the perfect male couple, beautiful couple, male couple, Ron and George, and female couple, Sunny and Sunshine. And then the book felt complete, which I wouldn't have known that that was missing had. Had it gotten published in the 90s or, you know, several years ago.

Yeah, everything in its time. I don't. I'm searching for a way to cap that. There's no capping. And obviously the words just speak for themselves. Your story, the way you described it, just speaks volumes of how important it is that we. Not. That we not rush things. I mean, we want to. I get it. I'm an impatient person at times, except with my kids. You know, that's one thing about kids. They teach you patience. But, yeah, rushing. Rushing is not always rushing to what, I suppose. Right. It's so interesting. Carl, I so enjoy your company, and I'm sure everybody that's been listening, I know a lot of people watch on YouTube as well, have really enjoyed this conversation. I want to ask you one final question relative to the practices that you've got. I call them rituals. We refer to them as rituals and their master habits. The things we do on a. On a. On a conscious. On a basis that's On a regular basis, but that is conscious. Not something we just do sort of habitually. You mentioned meditations. Maybe that's the ritual you'll speak about. But what is one ritual that you have that's helped you to be able to continue to evolve as you have? I mean, it's beautiful. The book title, Evolution of Loving, it really says it all, that it is something that happens over time. You cannot. I mean, I guess I'll ask the question, can you rush evolution? But I think we know the answer to that, right? You can try, right?

Yeah. Yeah. No, that never seems to work. To try and rush it. Honoring, I think honoring the pace. Honoring the divine pace. Staying open. Staying fully open and listening. So to answer your question, if I was to choose one thing, it would be meditation. I've been meditating since I was 17. I took transcendental meditation. I got initiated when I was 17, influenced by the Beatles. And there were periods when I. When I didn't. But then. But I've. It's definitely been a very. A very dedicated morning practice for at least the last 25 years or so. And incorporated, I'd say for the last at least 10 years, 10, 15 years into my meditation. In the beginning of my meditation is spending time with who I call little Carl in my meditation. So allowing, whether it's my higher self or the divine, to cradle and to be with my young self and to reassure him that of all the things that are true about him, that he is fully loved, that he is love, that he's gifted, that there's nothing that he ever needs to do other than fully be himself, that he can just relax and rest and know that everything is perfect exactly as it is. And I incorporate that in the beginnings of my meditations. And I believe that that really helps me in connecting with my inner child and allowing him to feel open and trusting and really loved, fully loved throughout the day.

Yeah. And the inner child is. It's. It's that part of ourselves that is not self conscious. So the creativity that flows from it, from a child, the play, and just not. Not being all caught up in self criticism or judgment or any of that stuff.

Right, that's right. The absolute authentic self allowing. Allowing our absolute authentic self to shine.

So that's something. This is a beautiful distinction. Not something we hear all the time. Getting caught up with our, with the. Or spending time with our little. The little us, the mini me. So the little Adam, the little Carl, whoever it is. That's so cool. So how your meditation length? Is it 30 minutes? Is it an hour? Is it 10 minutes? What, what is it typically for you?

It probably used to be about 30. Now it's. Now it's probably more realistically about 20. And then I do journaling and. And incorporate. Incorporate journaling and following that. So. So the whole practice ends up being probably about 5, 45 minutes or so in the morning.

Every morning. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful. And you mentioned the Beatles, right? So John, Paul, George, Ringo. George was somebody, you know.

Right.

I mean, you brought up meditation. So it popped into my head. Well, you brought up the Beatles, actually.

That's what popped. Yeah, I. In the 90s now. Yeah, in the 90s, I felt, for whatever reason, I was in that zone where I felt very inspired to photograph and connect with many of the musicians that I grew up with. That really inspired me. So I had the opportunity to do that. My field was open, passion was there, inspiration was there. No blocks. You know, it just went there. And so for a good 10 years, 15 years, I was in that zone.

And.

Covered about two weeks of a three week tour that George Harrison did in Japan and had the opportunity to spend tea with he and his wife Olivia for an hour in their hotel room in Osaka and talk about meditation and spirituality. And that's basically what we discussed for an hour. So opportunities like that have been very, very gifted and very blessed.

Yeah. The opportunity to have tea with George Harrison and discuss meditation, that's one of those beautiful moments in life.

I cherish it. I hugely cherish it.

I mean, I've never met. Had never met George, but love, as so many, his music and just have a sense of him as a person, a sweet man. Is that an accurate statement? If I said he was a sweet man?

He was a very sweet man and very humble, I think. I believe from what I read and from what I could tell from being with him, that he always sort of had a hard time with such a strong identification that the world had of him as a Beatle when he. When he just really wanted to be himself and really wanted to give his gifts from a very pure and authentic place and be true to himself and true to spirit's guidance for his life.

Yeah, again, I'm losing track of where I get all these references these days, but at some point in the last week, somebody said that George might have said to Ringo or something, you know, I can't even believe we're here. Like, I don't belong here. I don't deserve this. You know, somehow, like, to be a part of the band even, that he had this, you know, talk about humility and this humbleness that. That he might for even a second consider himself unworthy of being a beetle. How many of us. How many of us on a daily basis or what have you have those. Those moments where we don't consider ourselves worthy of something. I don't think we deserve something when clearly we are all just so divine in so many more ways than we ever give ourselves credit for, and maybe even in so many more ways than we ever realize become aware of. Carl, you are, I would say, very, very much a simpatico with George Harrison in the sense that you are a sweet man, kind man, really, really good man, and I feel blessed that you are our friend. So thanks for being on the show today.

Both Cynthia and I feel so blessed to have developed such a sweet and growing and expansive loving connection and relationship with you and Randy. So grateful.

Beautiful. Beautiful. So, everybody out there, I hope you're enjoying and have enjoyed this conversation with Carl Stuttna. Carl, we're gonna have all of your information in the show notes, including how to get a copy of evolution, of loving this utterly just beautiful book. And it's beautifully written and the photographs are magnificent and we haven't made nearly enough, you know, mention of the fact that you are just award winning and forget the awards, forget that you're just this incredibly impeccable photographer. The way that you capture the essence of people in your photographs and your photography is incredible. So this book is filled with those photographs, some of those pictures that tell that are the proverbial thousand word story. I want to end our session as we do are accustomed to doing, which is to end where we began, which is in gratitude. So wherever you all are in this moment, I'd love it if you take a deep breath and breathe into the space of appreciation, of appreciation for yourself, of gratitude for yourself, of love, even love for self, for you. It is so important that we learn to love ourselves unconditionally. It is definitely something I don't think we've been taught near enough and not programmed to really receive from the time that we're very, very young. And it is so important. And so I would love to share the ritual that we use each day, that Randy and I use each day and that we've taught to a lot of people, shared with a lot of people. And it really is a game changer, I believe, and that is that you wake up. So part one tomorrow is that you wake up. I wish that for all of us with a magic wand. I wave that magic wand and we all get to wake up, wake up our souls, wake up our spirits, wake up our mind, wake up our bodies, wake up our consciousness just a little more tomorrow than we are even awake today. What a blessing that will be. And in that moment when we're taking that deep breath, breath, that first conscious breath, we can realize and have it be true in that moment that there are people who are taking their very last breath at that moment. There are also beings that are being born that are taking their very first breath of life in that moment. So it is a pretty sacred, sacred moment. And I wish for you that you are in gratitude for that, for that holy moment. And that if you're inclined to say these words out loud, they're just words and they've changed my life. That doesn't mean they have to change anybody else's, but they've worked for me. And those words are, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. And as much as I love my life, I love it even more in this moment than I've gotten to share with you. Carl. And with this community and so great. Blessings to everybody. Carl, thank you so much.

Well, I love my life. I love you, Adam. It's wonderful to be here.

Way cool, way cool, everybody. If you're binge listening or binge watching, keep at it.

Alright?

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