EPISODE #1007: How to Simplify Your Intentions and Realize Love – Humble the Poet

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today is going to be a different kind of show because we're going to talk about love. What is real love? How do you see it? How do you think about not just being on the treadmill of earning more, achieving more, gaining more attention? And how do you know the resolutions or promises that you made to yourself that maybe you didn't need to make because it wasn't even you that made them? And how do you get more freedom out of all this? And our guest today is uniquely qualified for this. And a quick shout out to Jay Shetty for recommending our guest. Thank you, Jay. If you're listening, he's a Canadian born rapper, a spoken word artist, a poet, and now an international best selling author who talks about love. And he goes by Humble the poet. Humble. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

So a decade ago you went to coffee shops and you started doing spoken word poetry. And now here you are. What the heck happened?

The organic journey of honoring the artist that lives within. You know, I was an elementary school teacher. I was working with third graders and it was the first time as an adult I had free time after work. And you know what, what the young guys do after, after work, they go with their friends and try to meet girls and you know, so it was a, it was a split between attending yoga classes and going to these like spoken word poetry things. And I, and I grew up in a world of hip hop and rap and putting words together. So I was doing that whole, was doing that quietly for years. And we started attending these, these poetry slams and it was like the greatest icebreakers ever. You go up there, perform one poem and then everyone comes up to you after telling you how much they liked it and the ice has been broken and the conversations can be had and eventually started recording the performances and putting them up on YouTube and it gained traction and people started coming to see me and that started the journey of being an artist. And then eventually I got a little bit deeper into music. And then I met some nefarious characters in the music industry who convinced me that I had a lot of talent and, and promise. So I quit my job as a teacher to pursue that. And obviously that didn't work out because all their promises weren't kept. And the next thing I knew, I was unemployed in a boatload of debt trying to figure out how artists actually made money. And also I was making music, but I didn't know how to make the music by myself. I Had people helping me record the music, shoot the videos, do all of that. So then I got to a point where I didn't have access to these people anymore. I didn't have resources anymore. And after speaking to a friend, they encouraged me to focus on what I can do by myself and not depend on anybody. And at that point, it was just a written word. So I used to write paragraphs upon paragraphs every single day on Facebook and treat it like a blog. And that connected with my audience even more than the music. It was a lot easier for them to soak it in. And they told me that I should write a book. I'm like, I don't know how to write a book. And they sent me links to Amazon, CreateSpace, KDP Independent Publishing. They sent me tutorials on Adobe InDesign. They sent me all the stuff. They sent me links to Kickstarter and indiegogo to find money to make it happen. And I independently published and fundraised my first book on Learn. And that was. The contents of that book was just the idea that we have to let go of ideas more than gain new ideas to feel better about life. And that's what I was going through because I was very green in the world of entertainment and in the world of entrepreneurship and in the world of dream chasing, because I had spent my entire life in school as a student and then as a teacher, and that's a very protected environment. And the first book did very well independently, and eventually it got picked up by one of the biggest bookstores in Canada, Indigo. They licensed it out and it became a bestseller in Canada. And at that point, I started getting a lot of attention from the States and then republished it again in 2019 with HarperCollins and. And did extremely well with that. And I've since released another book, Things no One Else Can Teach Us. And now I have my third book coming out at the end of the year, how to Be Loved.

We're definitely going to talk about how to be loved, but I'm still stuck on this idea that you're a young guy and this is advice for everyone listening, because we got a lot of young people figuring out how to have more energy, more power in the world. And you said it was yoga classes or spoken word poetry was your pickup artist gig, right?

Well, yeah, and it was even less about pickup artists. I think it was a lot more about being in. Just being in the. Being in the room. Like, you know, I think, you know, when you're in school, especially university, like, you know, it's almost 50. 50. And you're around women, you know, and then when you start working your job, your world instantly shrinks. And I think that was something that me and my friends figured out very quickly. And it was like, well, how do we expand our world to meet women? And then one of my friends was like, yo, yoga. Like, everybody's doing this thing called yoga. We should get in on that. And, you know, I have the tightest hamstrings in the world and can't touch my toes since I was a child and going to these yoga classes, you know, we were going for all the wrong reasons. But then when it came to these spoken word poetry slams, some of them were super small in coffee shops, others were on stages. We have to sign up beforehand. And again, it was also, you know, there was the creative. The creative spirit in me that had never been honored before. You know, a lot of children and immigrants are encouraged to focus on what's safe and secure. So this wasn't something I ever thought about seriously. So I. The immediate gratification that came from it was the attention I got from women.

They're both about being vulnerable. Yoga and standing up in front of a crowd and doing something. In the US but maybe not in Canada. The number one fear that people have is actually public speaking. So they'll swim with sharks before they'll stand on stage. And it's one thing to stand on stage, it's another thing to dance or to perform on stage. That's another level of it. And in yoga, you're showing up and you're automatically comparing yourself to everyone else in the room, falling on your face, as I have many times in crow pose in front of attractive women in tight yoga pants. And so either way, you're risking public humiliation. But it also shows courage and vulnerability. Okay, so I get all that. But then you've got a Mr. Rogers vibe, but with a ZZ Top beard going on. Because the third grade teaching thing and the kind and the loveness. Are you like the next generation beat poet, Mr. Rogers? Is there some of that in there? Because some of what you talk about with love has that vibe of kindness in it and, you know, the language of kids.

I think I'm getting there. I think back then, you know, the last thing I would have viewed vulnerability was as I wouldn't have viewed it as a strength. It wasn't until many, many years later that I actually realized that vulnerability was a strength. I was again, just the way I was raised, the neighborhood I was raised in, you know, you viewed all that as a weakness. So, you know, the last thing you wanted to do was go to yoga class and fall on your face, even though you're absolutely correct. Um, there's a lot of value in trying, a lot of value in failing, a lot of value putting yourself out there and a lot of growth that comes from being uncomfortable. Um, back then, these aren't things that I knew. You know, back then it was like, when I'm performing, it's gotta be perfect. When I'm doing yoga, I'm only gonna do the moves that I know how to do. And if people aren't watching, then I'm just gonna stand up straight and fix it. And it wasn't until much, much, much later that I start to realize that this, this art isn't about presenting anything, it's about exploring. And that took me, that took me quite a while. So, and, and, and my experiences, you know, as, as an elementary school teacher, I taught in the same neighborhood that I, that I had once lived in. So I had a lot in common with the kids. The, you know, the, it was the second largest elementary school in Toronto and I taught for about six years and I never had a white student. The entire school was new immigrants from various parts of India, Pakistan, Somalia, Jamaica, you know, the Middle East, Assyrians, Iranians, and then a few people from South America and that, and the only Anglo Christian names, the only Christophers I've ever had were kids from Jamaica. And that, that, that world, I think I added a lot of value kind of symbolically and I think that's kind of how I got the job more than my, my credentials and my experience at that point. But I think it definitely helped me sit in front of a room full of people staring at you intently and performing. And it taught me a lot about taking heavy ideas and making them light. You know, can you, can you explain it to an 8 year old then? You can explain it to anyone or you can speak to everybody's inner, inner child. So there definitely wasn't a Mr. Rogers vibe or, you know, as much or as easy top vibe as much as there was a me kind of bringing in, me kind of bringing in the neighborhood into the classroom and got it and the kids and the neighborhood was, you know, it was a, it was a new immigrant, a neighborhood for new immigrants and a lot of marginalized individuals and you know, the challenges that come with that. So I, you know, originally came in kind of bringing all, all the, the worst qualities of people from that neighborhood. And it was through teaching that I started to understand the importance of my role. There aren't a lot of males in elementary school as teachers. And then I started focus, I started getting trained in programs, being enlightened to the fact that I was will most likely be the only, the only consistent male role model for a lot of these students for that year. So then it turned into things like, okay, so even though you're not scared of spiders, you're going to tell the kids you're scared of spiders. So we need to teach the kids that it's okay for men to be scared. And these were things that I didn't even know. So I'm like, I'm not scared of spiders. I don't want to come off as a wimp. And as I said, like this journey of understanding the strength and vulnerability was slowly revealed to me. And it was not something that came natural, especially in the classroom, but it did help me realize how much of a suck it up culture I grew up in where I heavily self regulated and I only looked to my family for emergency cases only. You know, if I was in a lot of trouble, if I needed money, you know, like if shit hit the fan, go to your family. And they, they were always there for you. But the little things, I needed help with my homework. I had a crush on a girl, wanted advice. This, this is, you figure it out yourself. Don't tell anybody anything. So I think I overly corrected and self regulated which actually isolates you from people because you know, there are interconnectivity is, is so important.

Your, your new book on how to be love with a parentheses on the Ds how to be loved. I mean your subtitle is going easier on yourself. Embracing imperfection. Well, let me ask you this, okay? You're a teacher. You're the only male role model for these guys. How do you go about teaching boys to be men in the modern school system where there's a lot of political correctness and control on what you can do and recognizing that the model of masculinity that, that you and I both learned, which is, you know, unless you're actually having a seizure or bleeding out, you're not going to say anything, right? So how do you go about showing up but still representing masculine qualities because there are such things as masculine qualities. How would you do that as a teacher and what would you do different now than you did back then?

So what you realize very, very quickly is they don't, they don't listen to what you say. They, they look at what you do and again like I, you know, I have a bunch of tattoos. I have neck tattoos. I have tattoos on my hands, and I had all of these as a teacher as well. So I think, you know, the. I think they actually found comfort. I think they found comfort in the fact that I look like them because there was a heavy South Asian population in the school. And I think they also found comfort in the fact that I was very urban, just like them, and, you know, the wording I use and everything like that. They found that. And then what I started to realize was this was not the healthiest because I also wasn't the healthiest representation of. Of what it meant to be a man and masculinity and. And the farthest I ever went as a teacher in terms of, you know, how I projected it was like, yeah, you know, I love kids, and, you know, it's a cute job and it's fun, but, you know, it's. It's a stepping stone to be a principal because, you know, I got to be a boss. I can't be, you know, an elementary school teacher reading children's books to kids and. And. And speaking in a high voice like, good morning, boys and girls. Like, and I never. And I never did that. And that was the big thing. If I ever did that to the kids, even at 8 years old, they knew I was being sarcastic. They knew I was making fun of this typical teacher trope. And the thing, too, is, like, I was really young. I was 21, 22. Some of them had parents, you know, that went to school with me. You know, so some of them. You know, some of the people I went to school with had had children really young, and some of them knew who I was just based off of affiliation, neighborhoods, you know, communities. No communities. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned quickly and. And for a lot of. For a lot of young men, they're. They're informed. Their masculinity is not just informed by the men in their life, but also by the responses they receive from the women in their life. And I think one of the biggest challenges that both young men and women struggle to decipher is the difference between aggression and assertiveness. You know, I think to be an effective male, you have to be assertive. And that often, you know, when we think simplistically, especially when we're younger and we can't. We can only think simplistically, is we view that as aggression. And that was a really big challenge for me to start to decipher with the kids, which was like, you know, being tough isn't what makes you a man. But, you know, taking risks, moving forward, speaking your mind, you know, being social, eye contact, posture, all of these things matter. But that doesn't mean encroaching on somebody's boundaries. That doesn't mean, you know, disrespecting their personal space and all of these things. And I think that was a really, that was a challenge, especially from the neighborhood I grew up in. And I can, and even to this day as an adult, you can see the response that people have to certain levels of aggression. Thinking it's assertive, thinking that it's, it's, it's taking that step and putting yourself first. So I think the challenge was, as I said, a lot of the, the vulnerability in the beginning had to kind of be manufactured to tell the kids, like, yeah, you know, Mr. Singh is scared of spiders and Mr. Singh's scared of heights. And yeah, Mr. Singh cries every now and then. And these weren't things I ever allowed myself to do back then. But I was, I was starting to understand the value of it because when I would talk, I. I was running a boys book club for reading. And I would also. And we would ask them questions like, well, what's a man? Who's a man? And they would name all these like, rappers who, who should definitely not be a role model in any capacity. And back then, the prevalence of, of of hip hop was all gangster rap and it was all, you know, drug selling rappers, which, which isn't the case as much now. But so I think that helped me become a lot more aware that this, this the pseudo alpha male posture that we bring, which can definitely serve us if we, if we grew up in challenging neighborhoods, to not make us a mark or a potential victim of something, doesn't always serve us. It can serve as being intimidating to people in a certain way. And especially with the kids. You know, I wasn't always cognizant of the fact that I could intimidate the kids if I was upset or with the tone of my voice and stuff like that. And it took a while to realize, like, they're just kids. They don't have their brains, haven't formed the way they have. So there's a lot of modeling in that capacity. And I think the other thing that really helped was really focusing on being responsive versus being reactive. So the one reputation I had is I was never getting upset with the kids and getting, and yelling or getting mad. And that was only because I figured out very quickly the things that would set me off and I nipped him in the bud. Set. Set the expectations clearly. Like, hey, if you don't do your homework, this is what's going to happen. So I'm not gonna get upset with you if you don't do it. You already know the exact a B reaction for what was going to happen.

They won't. They don't get a participation trophy. I mean, what, what do you.

Oh, no, that was, that was definitely a big thing as well, which was you don't get rewarded for doing what you're supposed to do.

There you go.

So, you know, standing, standing in line quietly does not deserve a reward. And explaining them to them. The difference even between a B, a B plus, and an A. You know, a B plus means you did everything you were supposed to do, and A means you went above and beyond and explaining to the families as well. Like, sometimes I don't give your students an opportunity to go above and beyond. So they're getting a B plus, which means they're doing everything they're supposed to do. And, you know, I remember that being a really big thing for these kids to figure out, which was like, you know, we deserve, you know, we. We're sitting quietly. I'm like, you're supposed to sit quietly.

That's table stakes.

Yeah, you're supposed to. Yeah. So. And, and it was definitely, you know, and, and, and, and I'm still technically a millennial, so I'm definitely aware of the participation trophy culture and, and the entitlement that comes with that. And I think that I definitely. But in my household, that's not how it was. And it was almost the other way. It. You know, it was like, you have to. Everything has to be amazing all the time. You have to be a high achiever, otherwise you let us down. So I think I, I was finding that, that happy medium.

Most of the people I interview on the show, you know, we, we get people who've, Who've just done great acts of healing on themselves and others. Like Gabby Bernstein was just on. And, and she's, she's a good friend and, you know, not a PhD in something. Right. You're not a PhD. Like, this is lessons from life, but you learned first how to teach and then how to write books, and those are the ways you distill wisdom. That's why I do it, too. I taught for five years. I teach in my Upgrade collective and in the podcast, because that's the only way I know how to learn is to either, like, really carefully structure it in a book and Yours is more poetry, but still you put a structure behind it and you address some of the core philosophical questions which I wanted to have you on the show. Plus, Jay's really smart. So if he's like, Dave, you should interview Humble. He's not going to steer me wrong. So let me just ask you straight up. There's a section in your book, and it's called WTF is love? So what is love? Give me the one sentence definition the way you've learned it.

I mean, probably my favorite one sentence definition is the Naval Ravikant quote, which is, love is what remains when all other emotions, you know, cease to exist. You know, love. Love is the everything and the nothing. So, you know, from an Eastern philosophy standpoint, when we think of the divine, the almighty, algorithm, God, you know, it's the code in the matrix. It's everything. It's the. It's the screen that life is playing itself upon. And as I said, you know, everything I do is in. It's in the vein and spirit of unlearning. So it's more about taking away than adding. So it's more about how to clear pathways for love than acquiring love. Love isn't something you acquire. It's something you realize. It's something that you open your sails to. It's something that's always there. And we're just. Everything that we're doing from a societal, cultural, religious, consumeristic perspective is just closing those pathways and putting roadblocks in the way for us to realize something that's always been there. And that's why it really is how to be love versus how to be loved. You know, we want to be loved. And the secret to that is by being loved and viewing love as the verb more so than this prize that we have to be worthy of. We have to earn or we have to be something. You know, this, this, this inaccurate measurement of enoughness that we think we need to have to to be worthy of love and thinking that our flaws disqualify us from love, knowing that every single person we love on this planet, we could write a book on their flaws and none of those flaws disqualify them from love.

How would you go about teaching someone to look at someone they don't know with love?

So, so, you know, other than the section of, you know, WTF is love, the second section is love for self. And I think, you know, to, to. If we were to measure love in terms of success and successfully realizing love, I think it would be recognizing the endless source of love that exists from within. So for someone to be successful in love would be for them to be able to tap into that. And now on a day to day basis, focus on sharing that overflow. And again and also in the book, saying that I'm not here to romanticize love, as I said, to practice love, to serve. All of these require practice. Whether it's learning attunement, whether it's learning active listening, what's learning how to be there for people, you know, love. Love isn't the glue that keeps people together, it's the fuel that makes us work at it. So I think encouraging someone to, you know, to, to, to love others and creating that authent authenticity. I think the number one word would probably be service on my end, looking at them and, and saying what can I do for you? You know, and whether that's helping them feel seen, whether that's helping them pragmatically do something that they need to accomplish and, and finish from, from a 3D life perspective, whether that's just listening because I think so often, whether we're talking about romantic relationships, friendships, it's always the opposite. It's like, I want you in my world, you know, hey Dave, we get along. I want you to hear my favorite songs. Hey, I want my kids to take my interest. Hey, I want all these things happening. But the truth of the matter is it's really about that loss of self, you know, is how do I lose myself in the service of others? And that doesn't require, you know, a lot of a deep understanding, it just requires a lot of work and patience. And how do you ensure someone knows you're paying attention to them when they're speaking? And then how can you go above and beyond that to let them know that not only are you walking in their shoes, but you're, you're living in their skin and you're feeling what they feel. For me, I never had an adequate grasp of the word empathy until maybe two years ago after a medicine journey where I realized if somebody was sharing pain with me, it was triggering. I didn't realize it was triggering my pain. I just thought it was an annoying feeling and I wanted to fix it. I'm a fixer. And then what I realized was when they're sharing their pain is connecting with my pain and I'm feeling my pain and I'm only trying to fix it because I want to shut them up to stop triggering my pain. But empathy is feeling my pain, sitting with my pain and just giving them a hug and being in pain together. And that took me legitimately up until the pandemic to actually have an authentic feeling for that. And it was through a medicine journey of kicking, breaking down many of the walls that my reaction to life had built up. So I think, you know, there wouldn't be a universal way to just tell a person, all right, here we go. Boom. We're gonna. We're gonna pull off a bunch of shades off your third eye, and you're gonna see all the love in everybody. But I think the simplest word is gonna be service. Because I feel like, especially out here in the Western world, a lot of modern spiritual practices exclude service. They're really about the individual. You know, whether it's focusing on your horoscope or your crystals or your yoga. None of these involve thinking outside of yourself and focusing on other people. It's really about, like, who are you? How can you be better understood? How can. How. How are you? What's your relationship to the world? And I think that's great marketing. I think, you know, that's why I called the book how to be Loved. You know, if, you know, it was. It was. It was inspired by Matthew Hussy telling me, you know, if he wants to make a video called how to Love yourself, he would title it. Why he won't text back, you know, and it's, you got. You got to catch them where they're at. And, you know, I wrote a book about how to be love, not how to be loved, but I know what people want, and I have to meet them where they're at. And I think from that same standpoint is helping people realize that the societies and the economies that we built have always encouraged people to focus just on themselves and isolate themselves from other people. And if whatever school of learning, life philosophy, religion, spirituality you practice doesn't include service beyond yourself, then it's worth re looking at, because that, if anything, would be the simplest approach to living a richer, fuller life, both internally and externally.

Doing acts of service for others puts you in a flow state. It makes you younger. It shifts your brain waves into more of a loving kindness, like some of the more esoteric states that you would get from advanced meditation. I know because my 40 years Zen program, that's what we do there. We're measuring people's brains and showing them how to do it. Yeah, and your book is very intriguing because it's usually self forgiveness that removes all of the filters that keep you from loving yourself, and it's usually around shame and guilt and trauma. So assuming people don't have Electrodes to wire into their heads. Like what's, what's the best way that you know of to maybe peel off a layer so you can be closer to self love.

I think probably the simplest way, and I do want to repeat simple doesn't mean easy. I think the simplest way is to re. And at least from a 3D perspective, is to, is to revisit your relationship with your body. Your body legitimately is your ride or die. Your body has legitimately been with you since day one and has done everything in its power to support you. If you are injured, it makes the adjustments. If you are sick, you know, even though we, we might view a fever as an unpleasant experience, that's your body fighting a, an illness. Your body has had your back and, and I want people to think about. But what comes to your mind when you look at yourself in the mirror or when you look at your body? We often look at it with a critical lens. You know, oh, I need to address these love handles. Oh, I wish my shoulders were bigger. Oh, I wish I had, you know, a nicer chest. Oh, I wish I had a flatter stomach. And that's. And despite all of that, your body will still stay with you and honor you and do as much as it can and you could legitimately chip away pieces of it and it will still try its best to work with you. You know, so many issues we have are a result of our body trying its best to work around our bad habits. You know, like sitting is the new smoking. And our bodies are trying to work with that. You know, making adjustments to all the screen time that we have, all of this. So I feel like the quickest, simplest way is to go look in the mirror, get naked, look in the mirror and list five things on your. But have people even thought about their favorite parts of their body? You know, list five things, not things that people have validated on you. What, what do you like, what do you enjoy? And, and it's tricky because we don't generally honor our body until we get hurt and then forget how, you know, I can turn my neck, but we've all pulled a muscle in our neck and we couldn't turn it for a day or two. And then we start to appreciate it. So I think from, from the, the bare minimum is just this. Honoring what's there is, is a great start. And saying it out loud, you know, saying it out loud, just, we, we have to get out of our heads. Our thoughts are fragmented. And the negative thoughts, when not expressed, are generally heavier than they should be. And the positive thoughts, when not expressed, are generally lighter than they should be. Say these out loud, you know, feel some authentic, nutritious dopamine for a change. And honoring yourself with gratitude, you know, which is what we're chasing instead of happiness and pleasure, which we think we're chasing, I think is a great first step and. And recognizing that you don't have to be anything more than you are for love to be realized. You legitimately don't. This is a product of a society that needs to sell us shit. So they have to tell you that you're missing something so you can buy more, but you don't. There isn't enoughness doesn't exist with a person. It just doesn't. You know, I need enough gas to drive across the country. I don't need to be enough of a person for love. And I was going back earlier talking about a baby. Meet a baby for the first time, especially a baby in your family, you're full with love holding the baby. The baby hasn't done anything. The baby did nothing to, quote, unquote, earn your love. Because love doesn't need to be earned. So it's. It's just a matter of, you know, removing more filters that society has put on us that we're not enough. And those filters are not. Were not put there for survival. They were put there to sell us shit. Because if we did feel like we were enough, if we did feel like we were adequate, we wouldn't be the productivity machines that we were, you know, building these. These economies that we do. You know, meditation isn't good for the economy, you know, so. And that's why it's not encouraged. And, you know, you don't have to pay to learn breath work. You don't have to pay to sit in a tub of ice. All the things that are good for us don't cost money. So. So start there. Start there by honoring yourself authentically. As Jay Shetty says, you know, don't. It should not be performative gratitude, like, say it until you feel it or only say it if you feel it.

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Performative gratitude kind of makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. Like, I'm just going to be grateful so that people will think I'm good. And you're not actually grateful. You're just saying you are. That's just. Just not. That's just not cool.

And that's the importance of prayer, you know, And I have a section in the book about the importance of prayer. It's an irrespective of your religious and spiritual beliefs. Prayer is the only time where you're having an honest conversation where you're asking for what you actually want and, and you're grateful for, for what you're actually grateful for, you know, and I think because no one else is listening, you know, so that that'll reveal to yourself what your true values are. And I think that's a good place to start. The book also includes love stories and none of the love stories are love stories in the capacity that we think. And, and there's one called Lonely Dances about me, you know, having a little bit of an argument with a girl who's not prioritizing me in her life. And we get to, to the point where I say, you know, thinking to my, I'm like, look, don't you ever get lonely? Like you get lonely and you're not and you're pushing me away. And she goes, I do get lonely. I'm like, so what are you going to do when you're lonely? She goes, I dance. She was, I connect with myself and I dance, you know, and, and you know, that was pretty much the end of the conversation because I realized she was operating on a much higher frequency than I was. And you know, we're lonely because not because we don't have companies, because we don't have connection. You can be lonely in a crowded room. We, we don't have closeness and we don't have connection. And the fast food, easy, quick, cheap, non nutritious version of connection is self pity. Nobody knows what I'm going through, just me. So you're creating a connection with yourself, but only quickly. And you'll see that's what you'll see on social media. Every community and group now can be framed as a victim of something. They're really pulling on this self pity to get to you. But it's not. There's no Nutrition, it's McDonald's, it'll fill you up, but there's no nutrition in the long run. That's why you have to keep doing it and you have to triple, quadruple down. And that's literally the foundation of modern western politics is who can frame themselves as the biggest victim. And healthy connectedness with yourself is enjoying your company and dancing is discovering parts of your body and making movements and feeling and becoming in tune with yourself at a whole level of depth that most of us don't think about and especially doing it alone and just what it releases, just movement. Movement is so Much movement is medicine. And I remember when she said that, just thinking to myself, like, wow, she's figured it out and I need to dance more. When I have these moments of loneliness and isolation, it's not calling up the homies and being like, where are we going tonight? What's happening? And then, you know, having a spike of company and faux connectedness for a moment and then losing out, you know, it was playing music and yeah, you got to close the shades and the blinds so you don't have to be self conscious by all means, but then just dance and again back to honoring that body. And it's also another great example of, you know, what we see versus what other people see, you know. You know, different people are going to see different things based off their nature and nurture mixture based off the filters that they have on. And you know, that's something that, that we, we all have to learn. To some people we're gorgeous creatures. To other people we could be hideous. To other people, you know, it's endless from that capacity. And this is why doing these things internally also helps us build more self respect so we're less reliant on self esteem, which comes from the outside. So in terms of needing outside validation to feel good about ourselves, when we do things internally, we'll need a lot less about, less of that. And again, it's simple, not easy. Just keep, keep your promises to yourself, do hard things voluntarily, get out of your comfort zone. And I'm hoping, especially since the pandemic, people understand the importance of voluntarily getting out of their comfort zone because life will do it for you. So yeah, when things are comfortable, practice your swing because a curveball is coming. And I think the pandemic was a wonderful example of things were moving along just fine and then they stopped. And people, some people were prepared, some people were not. Some people had that as an opportunity to unlock a deeper potential in themselves and other people crumbled and stuff like that's going to continue happening. Life doesn't happen after the obstacles. Life is the obstacles. And addressing those ahead of time will also do wonders for the relationship you have with yourself.

We're talking about victims and victim thinking and I'm just re reading or re listening to David Hawkins of his last books called Letting Go. And he talks about all of the upsides of being a victim. It's really interesting because he just kind of lays them out like, oh, it can be worth money and it can make you feel really good. Sort of like what you're saying, it fills you up. But ultimately you have to realize that you're making a choice to be a victim and that you don't have to make that choice. When you stop making that choice, you're in a better place. So what advice would you have for someone who's sitting listening to this and saying, I'm a victim of whatever disease or accident or scarring process, someone who has had damage to their body, for them to have self love and to drop the I'm a victim of I'm suffering from versus I experienced.

I think, understanding that our challenges may not have been our fault, but they're still our responsibility.

Were they anyone's fault?

I think power only lies in responsibility, which often we call blame. So when you point your finger at whose fault you think it is, you've assigned the power.

Exactly.

So for me specifically, and I'll give you an example, years and years and years ago, I was violently robbed in New York. Four guys, a gun, got beat up, got all my stuff taken. Clearly not my fault. But I had to, you know, to do the work, especially to address the PTSD that came with that experience. I had to ask what was my responsibility? Where was my power? You know, in my choice of taking a route in a city that I wasn't familiar with. It was two in the morning, I'm talking on the phone, I'm carrying shopping bags, I'm in an isolated area, I see a group of guys, I see them walk away, I see them stop, I see them turn around, I see them look at me. These are all things that I see happening and I'm blissfully ignorant to it because I'm just like this. There's no way this is happening. And just. And again, it's not about blaming myself more so than trying to recognize where the reason these things continually play in our minds is so we can incorporate them. You know, I, I like, I believe in the word incorporate more than healing, incorporate the learning that comes from these experiences. Trauma is when, you know, us being naive to something meets malevolence or bad. And you know, that creates, that makes us cynical. And I think for me, revisiting it over and over and over again, thinking, where was my power? Where, where, where was this my responsibility? Not all of it, but even if I was 1% my responsibility, that's where I'm going to find my power. And I think in all of these situations that's the case. And I think, especially when we're talking about people, you know, dealing with injuries, dealing with being scarred, dealing with something that totally came out of left field. Sometimes it's all. It may simply be like going back. There was very little I could have done. But moving forward, where is my power? There's very little we can do to speed up healing. There's an infinite amount of things we can do to slow down healing. And sometimes we, we make choices to slow down the healing. And, you know, a friend of mine is just had a big hernia surgery, and he's just. Every morning he goes, I am happy, I am healing. I am getting healthier. Just saying those words would probably be more beneficial than being like, ah, this sucks. When will this be over? You know, he's not specifically saying there's magical powers in the words, but I think he understands that he's nudging himself in a better direction by simply having that attitude. Because your attitude, your attitude and your efforts are always, always, always in your control. So always focus on that.

It's more important than. Than you might think. So many people have been trained by their doctors or pharmaceutical advertising or some say I suffer from psoriasis. You know, I suffer from whatever. Like, you could just have it. Or better yet, your body is experiencing that right now, and that's the reality. But if you tell yourself you suffer or I'm struggling with. How about stop struggling and just have the thing? Because struggling and suffering are choices. And you might be doing them unconsciously and you might not have chosen to do them, but you don't have to do them. And I feel like a lot of this conversation around self love, it revolves around ego, which is what's making you suffer and struggle. And I don't know for sure how to, in one sentence, tell someone, you know, you can stop doing that. I know how to do it relatively quickly if we can show someone what their brain is doing. But you can also feel what your heart's doing if you're just paying attention. But so many people haven't learned to pay attention to their heart. And I'll raise my hands the first. Until I was 30, I didn't think there was any useful signal from below the neck. But it turns out there might be something useful in all that noise. How would you help people who are working on that? Self love, which allows them to better love others? How do they connect to their hearts better?

I mean, my favorite definition of meditation is doing nothing. You know, sit and do absolutely nothing to take out the question of am I doing this right? Because I think that's the, the general question when people meditate, am I doing this right? Take the instructions out of it. So there isn't a doing it right. You can't do nothing right or wrong and allowing yourself to kind of clear out a lot of the blockages that we have. And I mean, and that's going to take some time. I, I love the languaging that you talked about. You know, I'm suffering or I'm, I'm dealing with. The truth is, you're experiencing, I'm experiencing, you know, a toothache, I'm experiencing anxiety, I'm experiencing stress, I'm experiencing cancer. And I'm not here to minimize any of those experiences, but the stories we tell ourselves or the thoughts we have, and that paints the life that we, that we live. And you know, I, you know, I had done a music video where I had. The theme of the music video was gangs. And one of the gangs I had put together, it was based off the warriors. It's a 70s film, the Warriors. And I kind of flipped the script. And so one of the gangs were called the Thrivers and it was all cancer survivors. So it was women showing off their scars, the mastectomy scars or what have you. And one of the women was telling me, she goes, I didn't know how beautiful a puddle was until I got cancer. And I'm like, the story you're telling yourself will definitely impact your level of healing and how you feel on a day to day basis. Because she's not, there's not a victim mentality there. She goes, it took cancer to make me see the beauty in a puddle. Because many of us who may not be experiencing cancer right now are not looking up or looking down and seeing the beauty in the world that we have. And I think that is really important. A lot of the mental health issues we have are not the feelings that we experience, it's the suppression of the feelings.