Three Principles -- A Happier 2016 and beyond

Hello. Hi.

Just a moment. My earbuds. Hi, can you hear me?

I sure can.

Hi, Mary Jo Dratzner here in Los Angeles. The fridge is Los Angeles.

I know, I'm here in the Bronx, New York, and I think it's way warmer here. It says it's 50—

what does that say?

57 or something like that.

Yeah, I think you might have us beat. I think we got down to the high 40s yesterday and today overnight.

So yeah, I'm actually coming out to California next week, so I hope it works out.

Oh great, maybe you'll bring some of the sunshine. That'll be great.

Yeah, exactly. Hello. I see, is that Debbie?

Sorry, I'm just eating.

That's all right.

I've just got in the house.

That's all right, I've got coffee here too, so.

I see Lynn Thomas's name there, but I can't hear you, Lynn, or see you. So I'll start officially in a couple minutes, but I wanted to make sure this was all working. I've only used this a couple times, so—

and I have to warn you, I am on my phone and it's possible a call may come in and knock me off. I'll have to pop back in.

All right, no problem, Jill. I see Mitz Mitsui, I can't believe you're up, Mitsui. I can't hear you. I can see you, but I can't hear you.

Hello?

Oh, there you are. What time is it there in Japan?

Laundry in the background.

I actually moved my laundry over a little bit.

I don't even want to bother.

I'm positioned so you can't see mine.

How is everyone this evening?

Good.

Excellent.

What time is it there?

It's afternoon for you, right? Yes.

It's 2:00 AM?

Yeah, 2:00 AM.

That's dedication.

Wow.

It's 9 AM here in Los Angeles.

9 AM? Wednesday, right?

It's Wednesday.

I hope so.

Where are you?

Los Angeles? You're in Los Angeles?

Yes.

I have a cat who wants to join the party here. You want to sit on my lap? That's fine. All right, I'll wait just another minute before I get started. Chicago. I'm not sure who joined us. All I see is a phone number.

That's a Chicago number.

Oh, hi, this is Sandhya. Hello, people.

Oh, hi, Sandhya. How are you?

Good.

Good. And Lynn, I can see you on the call there, but I can't hear you yet. So maybe if you want to attach your microphone, if you want to give a shout out. Otherwise, I'll just assume you're listening. And I am recording this, by the way, so just keep that in mind if you join the conversation about revealing anything, you know, too personal. Kitty, this is not playtime. Anyone else have cats besides me?

Cute.

Yeah, she's a funny one. I may have to just open the curtain so she doesn't keep whapping at me. There you go. So I think we'll go ahead and get started since it's just after noon here in New York. And just thank you all for joining me. I'm really, really happy to see some of you for the first time. Joel and Debbie, I haven't seen you before. So Joel, can you mind telling me how you got connected to me?

Sure. I think I saw one of your— maybe it was a comment to a post on the Inside Out Community Facebook page. It was pointing to one of your audio blogs, so I signed up, and those have just been fabulous. I think I'm up to date, or a day or two of being up to date, and I catch up. I do a lot of long-distance walking around LA, so. Those are great companions as I go around.

That's great, that's great. Debbie just stepped away, but she's been in contact with me a little bit, but it's my first time meeting her. Yeah, why don't you come sit here? There she comes back. So Debbie, how did you— did we connect in one of the Facebook groups? I'm kind of forgetting.

I somehow came onto your daily postings. I really can't remember how or when, when that originated, you know, because I've been sort of linking through so many different things in so many different ways, it's become a bit of a blur. But possibly through a Facebook group, I would imagine.

Okay.

Great, that's wonderful. And Mitsui and Lynn and Sandhya, I've been in contact for a while with, for a while through various channels. So it's lovely to meet a couple of new people. So thank you for being here. So really my hope for this call is that we really have a conversation. It's not just me talking, but I really wanted to share a little bit about what my journey has been like for this past year in particular, because I think it might be helpful as we are going into a new year. And, you know, I don't know about you, but there is— I have a friend who always says to me, well, it is just another day on the calendar. It is not really anything new, you know, and I always tell him, but it feels new. You know, it doesn't matter that it is just another day on the calendar. When that January 1 date pops up, it kind of feels like a clean slate. To me. And so really my hope is that anyone here on this call right now or anybody listening to the recording can have a much happier 2016 if that's what they really want. I've seen for myself how an understanding of these 3 principles without really any effort required has just made a huge positive change in my life. So I thought it might be helpful to just walk through a little bit about what that's looked like for me, if that's all right. So some of you already know this, but I'm going to share it anyway because it helps me to remind myself of where I was versus where I am now. So I am somebody who dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder for about 30 years, from the age of 22 up until about 52. I'm 54 now. And it was due to a very turbulent marriage that I had in my 20s, domestic violence and other things related to that. And it kind of continued The abusive nature of the relationship continued until I was about 40, actually. Even though I was divorced, some things kept occurring that sort of kept bringing him back into my sphere, and I couldn't really avoid it. So I had about 20 years, I would say, of being in an abusive relationship with someone. And all during that time, I was trying to live my life anyway. When I left the marriage, I eventually got remarried and was trying to start some sort of career for myself, but everything was a real struggle for me. I would get so far in something and then just feel stuck, and I was really plagued by all of the PTSD thoughts and anxiety and things like that that were just kind of a part of my daily life. One of these statistics that I quote about myself that is really hard for me to believe is that I— hello there, hi Teodora— is that I actually saw more than 25 therapists over that 30-year period. I stopped counting when I got to number 25 because I was getting a little upset. But, and, you know, they were of all varieties from, you know, psychotherapists to psychiatrists, psychologists, people associated with the court system in Los Angeles, which is where a lot of this took place, and people here in New York of all stripes. And in addition to that, I also did all of the self-help things I could think of. I mean, I literally was trying anything and everything. I was reading every book, trying every new technique. And the very last thing I was going to do was— there's a drug that's been called the memory drug. I don't know if you have heard of it. It's some something like propalynol or propalphenol or something like that. It's not legal to use in this way, but a lot of psychiatrists are prescribing it under the table for trauma victims. And it actually kind of erases literally their recollection of certain traumatic events. And so I was here in New York trying to find a psychiatrist who would prescribe me this drug. Under the table. That's how desperate I had become. And I had— the last therapy I went through was about a year and a half long, just for PTSD and domestic violence and rape survivors. And I came out of that feeling okay, but still not what I felt like I wanted to be. You know, I was kind of functioning at a better level, but I still wasn't happy. Like, I just, I felt like there was a hole somewhere and I didn't really understand how to fill it or what was even missing. So that brought me to the beginning of 2014. And at that point, I came across Michael Neal's book, The Inside Out Revolution. And I was really skeptical, as you might imagine. By that point, I was like, yeah, just what I need, another thing, right? But there was something about it that I just was drawn to read it. So I actually, like you, Joel, I do a lot of walking here in New York and I listened to it on the Audible version. And I didn't really understand what he was talking about. The first time I listened to it, I was like, okay, I think there's something in here, but I'm not really getting it. So I listened to it again, and then I think I listened to it a third time, and at some point, like, a little bit of a light bulb went on, and I started to understand at least on an intellectual level what he was talking about. It still hadn't hit me kind of in the heart, but it had lodged somewhere about these three principles. And so I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to just keep going on this path. I'm going to listen to it again. I'm going to read it in print. I'm going to see what else I can find. Within about, I don't know, it was pretty quick. Within a couple of weeks of first being exposed to it, I realized that I had found the thing that I'd been looking for. I couldn't have explained it to you in words what it was. I just knew that, that, that was the piece that was missing in my understanding of myself. And probably the first major thing that I realized, and it's hard for me to say this without getting emotional, was, um, you know, all those years that I was getting help for PTSD, I've been labeled as being sick, essentially. I had a mental illness, and I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt like I was broken, that those experiences that I had gone through had, you know, destroyed the person that I was, and I was trying to kind of rebuild a new version of myself. And the first thing that became very clear to me in hearing about these principles was that there was nothing wrong with me at all. I wasn't broken. None of those things that had happened to me had had any effect on my own self. The only thing that had happened was my thinking had changed and had been kind of altered as a result of these things that had occurred. And I had come to see that thinking process as part of me and as something that I needed to try to change or fix or do something about. And so That was a very profound realization for me, was recognizing that there wasn't anything wrong with me. And as much as I appreciated all of the help that I had received from all those 25+ therapists, I saw that they were coming at this from the wrong side. And, um, that if, if I had had somebody tell me early on You know, Mary, you're absolutely fine. You went through some things. Yes, things happened. That's life. Things happen. But nothing happened to you. You know, the only thing that's keeping this trauma alive is some thoughts that you're having throughout the day. And as soon as you start to see that your suffering is being caused by your own thinking process, it'll start to dissipate. And I kind of kept track of how I was feeling in that first period of time after I read Michael's book. And it was within about 6 to 8 weeks when I realized that I was having almost no more PTSD-related thinking. It was really fast.

It was—

I honestly felt like somebody had like waved a magic wand over me or something, because I was thinking all this time I spent trying to control myself, you know, and change the way I thought and all that. And as soon as I stopped all of it, it was like my whole system just recalibrated. It just recalibrated and brought me back to center, at least in that area. And since then, so that was almost 2 years ago, I very rarely will have that kind of thought again. And if I do, I just kind of ignore it. I don't really give it any attention because I know it's, it's not meaningful in any way. So I think before I continue, I'll just stop right there and see if anybody has any questions or comments.

So yeah, I think we can— Hello?

Yeah, go ahead, Sonya.

Yeah, so I think with your PTSD— sorry, I'm getting over a cold. I think with your PTSD, a lot of that I think can be— I don't know, I can transpose that, that learning to just the high expectations that we might hold of ourselves or of life. I mean, we can use that as anything. Like, you had a physical person who was abusing you, but, you know, we can abuse ourselves with our thinking, like, oh, I should be doing more, I should be doing I should be doing it a different way. So it's— yeah. So if you'd like to speak to that.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to go back on mute.

OK. Yeah, certainly. The PTSD was the most dramatic example for me personally. I've seen in other areas of my life— and this is part of what I'll talk about in a minute— that just seeing that I'm thinking has had an impact on other things too. But I'm sure that everybody has, you know, something that they see as sort of their main thing that they wish that it would be different. And for me, it was that. So, you know, I didn't— I honestly felt before I found the principles that I was never really going to be happy. I had kind of come to a place of acceptance and thinking, you know, this is how my life is and I'm just going to have to deal with this forever and manage it as best I can and, and just try to find happiness when I see it, basically. And it was such an amazing realization to know that I never lost it to begin with, you know, that the person I was at 1 year old, I was the same as I was at 52, you know, that same wholeness and whole spirit and all of that was still intact. And there's nothing that could ever touch that. You know, sure, stuff happened to my physical person and, you know, to my thinking process, but that doesn't have any effect on, on me, the real me. And so, so since that time, so that was early in 2014. So since that time, I I basically made a decision. It didn't even really feel like a decision, honestly, that I just wanted to tell as many people as I could about this because it was like, if this can help me, I mean, I really felt like I was a pretty sad case, honestly. I thought, man, if this can kind of help me get through all of this and so quickly, I just have to tell people about it. So I've used every opportunity I can to share it with people, and I've, I've been fortunate enough to take, you know, a few classes from some really fine people, Michael Neal and Jamie Smart in particular. And at the beginning of 2015, this year, I was feeling pretty good, relatively speaking, and probably the best I'd felt in I can't even tell you when, but I wanted to see what else I could do. You know, like, okay, I got this understanding, you know, it's starting to make more sense to me. I wonder what might happen now as a result. And so I took Michael's class called Creating the Impossible. And in that class, he basically asks you to set some impossible goal that you'd like to achieve during the 90 days. And so I just got really real with myself and said, what do I really want? You know? And he asked us a question, and this is the one that I would like to pose to you as well to think about, which is, what would you really want if you knew that you wouldn't be disappointed if you didn't get it? So what would you really want if you knew that you wouldn't be disappointed if you didn't get it? And it took me a few days actually to really understand that question because I kept thinking, well, if I want something and I don't get it, well, of course I'm going to feel disappointed. It just seems like a natural thing. But then I realized, well, wait a minute, you know, the principle of mind tells me that I already have everything. So what would I want then since I already have everything? Gee, what would be just really fun to have? And that really switched me into a totally different place where suddenly stuff that looked really scary to me or like, oh man, if I don't get this, you know, I'm going to have problems. All that just kind of fell off the table. And suddenly it all looked like a game. And I thought, well, gosh, what would I really want? And then I started thinking about the whole year of 2015. Forget the 90 days. I was looking at the whole year. I was like, well, I'd really like to leave my job. I'd like to pay off my credit card debt. I'd like to have some more money in the bank. I'd like to have a job that— I'm telling you, I had this whole big list of things. And I'm amazed to tell you, as I said in the last email, that almost every single one of them happened. And the more amazing part is that I didn't even really do anything for them to occur. Where in the past, especially in the past few years, I was really working hard to try to make something happen, you know, that old nose to the grindstone kind of thing. And trying to plan things out and figure out all the steps to get me where I thought I wanted to go. And this year I did something completely different where I just literally said, this is what I want, and what is like one little step I could take that might get me there? That was about as much effort as I put into any of that stuff. And lo and behold, you know, in the physical world of mine, more stuff happened in this year than probably the last 10 years put together in terms of goals like that for me. And I really think it came from that initial question of realizing that I can want to do something and I can want to have something just for the sake of wanting it and then take one little step that looks like fun and see what unfolds from there. It kind of reminds me of the, you know, when you drop a stone in the water, you just drop it, right? And then suddenly all these things start to move as a result of that. That's sort of how it felt to me this year, was I would take one step and then suddenly a whole bunch of things would kind of just move on their own. And, you know, and then I could see, okay, well, there's another thing that looks kind of interesting, maybe I'll go try that. And then another bunch of things things would just sort of move. And I don't really know how to explain it, except that it happened too many times for me to think of it as coincidence. And it seems more like once we take the blinders off and just do things for the sake of wanting to do them and not attaching anything to them, it's like all these resources that we're just swimming in. Become available to us, and we just kind of suddenly see that they're there. So is that making any sense? Yes, Joel's saying yes.

Yes, so many parallels I'm seeing to my own story, to all the things you've been sharing. I don't know if you want me to lurch into my story here, but whatever.

Yeah, if you'd like to, please.

I feel like I'm about a year and a half behind you on the evolutionary scale here towards the principles, but we have a lot of parallels. I come from an editing background as well, like you, and I found out about it through Michael O'Neill and Dicken Bettinger at an event that they had in Los Angeles. I had previously gone to As one in many steps along my, um, self-discovery path, I went and had a, um, I pursued a master's degree in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica, which was an amazing journey. I loved it. And after, um, that ended, I knew that I wanted to work with people and assist them in whatever they were suffering from. So I went on to the USM coaching program, and there I met one of the adjunct faculty, was Steve Chandler, who's a super coach, right? And on subsequent visits, he brought us videos of different coaches just to show us what might be available to us. So one weekend, he showed us a Dickon Bettinger video. Then the following time he came, he showed us Michael's TEDx talk, which I had already seen, but They both made a deep impact on me. And not too long after that, the two of them were hosting an event in Santa Monica. So how can I miss that? And I went and, you know, much like you were saying, when you listened to Inside Out Revolution, I could not get my head around what they were talking about at all. In fact, I'm sure Michael's got me on video asking question, and, and I'm sure that the answer that Michael's trying to give me isn't matching my question. And it's like, it's like one of those, like one of those standoffs, you know. He's not getting my question, I'm not getting his answer, and then, and then he's just leaving it at, well, don't worry, we all kind of went through this ourselves and we learned about it, you'll get it. And all I knew is that what I'm getting is the there's something important going on. So I went through the whole day. I mean, I had some lovely chats with both of them during the breaks and stuff like that, but I couldn't quite grasp it. However, there was some, there was somebody there attending the conference, a very affable fellow from England. I don't know if you know Wynne Morgan. Um, he just introduced himself. We were friendly. He was staying over in Santa Monica an extra day, so we decided to have lunch the following day. And at lunch, all we did was talk about Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne. But I had the inner sense that Wynn was doing some sort of Jedi mind trick on me because I was just feeling good inside. I couldn't explain it. He kept saying he's not doing anything and there's nothing to do and all that, you know, stuff. But I was feeling great. And he suggested that I have a talk with Sarah Murrah, who's—

Oh, yes.

Which I did the very next day. And, but this, this feeling inside was powerful and it was sustaining itself. And after a long talk with Sarah, it was just, it was just amplifying that feeling. And she gave me several video links and stuff to look at. And that was the end of June. And probably not a day has gone by since then that I haven't watched numerous videos or listened to Audios or read books or went to another Michael conference with Ken Manning and their amazing book. Now I'm mentoring with Mark Howard. I had started working as a coach before I found out about the principles, but once I found out about them, that was all I could talk about with my clients. And, and it was like It was beautiful, but it's like shooting my career in the foot because suddenly they were getting better really fast and, and we were done. I couldn't, I couldn't talk to them about re-enrolling or whatever. They didn't seem to have any issues that they wanted to talk about. Their vocal quality had changed and it was like, hmm, okay, well, I maybe I just have to rethink the whole coaching model. Now, now my job is to is to meet people, work with them, put myself out of business as soon as possible and get referrals to help other people find out about these or even take a deeper dive if they're getting it and they want to, want to do that. So since that time, every day I've gone from, you know, low level of anxiety most days to getting out of bed and every day being really happy. Well, I mean, sometimes when I wake up, the old thinking comes back, but I'm, I'm able to, uh, I'm able to catch what's going on in there. And then, and then that feeling comes back and I enjoy each moment of just like looking for opportunities to put this in the world. Um, like, like you, I have a lot of concerns about money. I have a lot of, or previously they were big concerns. Now they're just things that I have to deal with. It's credit card debt, this and that. And effortlessly, as I started putting this into the world, a big benefit happened. I have, I have a friend who, um, she lives on the, she lives on your coast, but she was visiting Los Angeles and we hadn't seen each other in quite some time. And she was struck by the changes in me. And she happens to have a multimillion dollar charitable foundation. And as we were talking, and I just was mentioning about being deeply in credit card debt that I'd taken on to go to the school that she had initially recommended to me, she said, oh, well, can I help you with that? And she said, can I help? And then we didn't talk about it too much, but a few days went by and I got, um, a text from her saying that, um, a check was on its way and she and her husband contribute X tens of thousands of dollars each year in gifts they're able to do. And they want to help me knock down this credit card debt. And they know that maybe I'll want to pay it forward. But not to worry about that, that this is something that they're able to do and they want to do. So out of nowhere, I got a big thing down for this year. They maxed out for what they could give this year, and then the new year changes, and oh my goodness. And I mean, it was effortless. It was just from wanting to put this into the world. And then I recommended the Modelo book to her because she does a lot of A lot of her charity work is working with community projects and trying to— she lives in Baltimore, so they're trying to revitalize the community there. And I also offered— I told her that I'm viewing her assistance now as a prepayment on future work that I could do, like come there and maybe give talks to some groups or webinars for them or however that could show up. So she's considering that. But each day I'm just looking for opportunities to put this in. I walked around my neighborhood. There's a local school I stopped in. It's this amazing alternative school. And I had a cup of coffee with the outreach director there. And now I'm going back tomorrow to meet the head of the school and talking about possible programs for teachers about building resilient schools. And I mean, just on and on things are unfolding, but without a lot of mental effort, just just an easy desire and the fun of putting this in the world. There's more stories, but that's pretty much where I'm at right now.

Yeah, no, that's great. And that's exactly what I was trying to convey was that, you know, whatever it is that we want to put out in the world, you know, whatever talents or whatever value that we think we can give to other people, that's where we can start from. You know, I think I was seeing it backwards before. Or I was thinking more like, what would people pay me to do and how could I do that? And now it's more like, what do I want to give to people? You know, what value do I have that I can give to people? And as I have done that, um, the money part has started to just sort of sort itself out without my really being all that concerned about it. One thing that I wanted to kind of piggyback on from what you said was kind of a clue for me when I'm looking in the wrong direction is when I feel a sense of struggle in something. Yeah, when I feel like, whoa, this is taking a lot of effort, or, you know, oh, I'm feeling not so good, that's kind of a trigger for me to just sort of stop and go, Okay, wait a second. Am I seeing that this is like a thought-created thing, or does it look really real to me? You know, inevitably when I'm struggling, it's because I'm buying into this illusion that my thought has given me, and I'm not seeing where I really am, you know, in the— in that moment. And I, at the beginning, I think, of my understanding, I would get sort of frustrated with myself. About that because it would happen a lot. Like, you know, I was constantly going, oh my gosh, I can't believe how often I'm caught up in my own thinking about stuff. And now it's kind of like, oh yeah, there I go again, you know. And I just sort of laugh at myself because now I find it sort of funny how, how in some areas in particular I can kind of slip into that into my thinking again. And I just have removed the judgment from it most of the time. I had— it's interesting because I had a bit of a rough day yesterday. I had just kind of a low day where I knew what was going on, like, because I have this understanding. I knew what was happening, and I just was like, you know, I'm just gonna have to feel cruddy today because I'm just feeling cruddy. And then I woke up this morning and I was like, oh, okay, I'm cool now. And, you know, I didn't do anything to make that happen. I just saw what was happening and just kind of let it do its thing. And sort of like you, it just kind of got reset when I, when I woke up. I also loved what you were saying, and I know a couple of people on this call for sure have had the same thing happen where for myself, and I won't mention in case she doesn't want to say, but where you've taken a step towards something just because it looks fun and looks like something you want to do, and then an opportunity just kind of shows up for you. And it's not like, you know, some people have asked me, well, is this like the law of attraction or things like that? And I don't, I don't really know what that is exactly, except that I think it has to do with thinking a certain way. And principles are all about not really caring what you're thinking. It's more about tapping into who we actually are, which is, you know, this incredibly bountiful being with every resource imaginable available to us. Yeah. And so, so thank you for, for bringing up those examples. That's really great.

Thank you.

And I think, you know, for, for this new year, I'll just put this out there to you guys. You know, what is something you would really love to have happen in the next year? You know, whether it seems completely ludicrously impossible or not, it doesn't matter. But if you're willing to share it, I'd love to hear it. And I'll go first. If I could have one thing that would just be so cool, it would be that I wouldn't have to have a job anymore, that I could essentially get paid for bringing so much value to people that I could get paid for being myself. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how it looks to me. That would be so awesome. Anybody else have a A fun goal?

Well, when I first came to this Three Principles, I really wanted to meet George Pransky, and that was just something I sort of chucked out there and popped it to the side. And I'm actually going to go and meet him out in La Connor in February. Are you going to that? I got the opportunity, came through to me about 2 or 3 days ago, so I don't— right, yeah, I'm going.

Great, I'll see you there.

Are you going there too?

I'm going there as well, yeah. I've been wanting to meet George for months now.

That's so funny because I was thinking of trying to figure out a way to go also. That would be interesting because I was like, well, I could do the virtual thing, but then I was like, I kind of want to, you know, meet everybody. So I'm like, yes, honey, I'm trying to, I'm trying to sort that out to see if I can make it. I have something. Yeah, I would say.

I'm living in Japan now and most of my friends are speaking in Japanese. I'm from Hawaii, so I'm not very good at speaking in Japanese. I would like, I think it'd be really cool if I could introduce the Three Principles in Japanese to people in Japan and Spread it out. And I'm trying to spread it out through song now. Just because I teach English to kids and I'm trying to reach the moms through songs. I think that's what I'm thinking when I write the songs. That's what I want to do as I write the songs. And I'm working on presenting them now. Hopefully I'll have like a CD out. Maybe this next year.

I don't know. I love your singing and your ukulele playing. It's beautiful.

I'm having a lot of fun with that. It's a learning process, of course, because it's not something that I have been doing for a long time. So, but what the heck.

That's right. What the heck. That's my new motto. Oh, what the heck. I'm just gonna try it.

So that's me.

That's great. Yeah, great. Hi, Lynn, it's nice to see your face.

Hi, nice to see you too. I'm still not where you all are, I don't think. I'm still thinking I have to do something. I've been through many modalities of NLP and hypnosis and just— I can't even think of all the stuff I've done in the last couple years. My husband always says to me, who's the next guru you're gonna study, you know? And so I, I kind of like relax and just get it, but then a lot of times I'm like, I need to do something, you know? It's so weird not to have a process to do.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree with you. It's a little bit disconcerting.

Yeah.

Because, you know, absolutely one of my favorite stories in Michael's Inside Out Revolution is the pilot. And, you know, that he's learning how to fly the plane. And he's, you know, in some kind of a nosedive, and he's calling the controls saying, what do I do? What do I do? You know, and they're like, let go of the controls. And he's like, no, this is life or death.

What do I do?

And they're like, let go of the controls. And it's because the plane is designed to right itself. He just didn't know that. And so I think a lot of us walk around, you know, with our hands on the controls, not realizing that there's nothing even there. You know, there's nothing. We're not even holding on to anything except thought that's just nothing. So, um, Yeah, I can relate to that. It was, you know, I had, I had done the same thing. I had, you know, tried all these different things. I, I was an absolute failure at meditation. I couldn't save my life. Even though, you know, I had these therapists telling me it would be good for me. I tried yoga and was a dismal failure at that too. You know, I tried— one of the last things I tried was NLP. I started studying that and something called tapping, Emotional Freedom Technique. I tried that, didn't really do a whole lot. And, and honestly, whenever I'm even tempted, which isn't much now, but in the beginning, like the first year of this understanding, when I was tempted to try something, I'd sort of catch myself being the student pilot and thinking, okay, I can just let go of these controls even though this feels really weird. I'm just gonna see what happens. And it was almost more like that. It was like, well, let me just see what happens. I like that.

So I came into it through NLP, you know, I did NLP and the hypnotherapy, got trained up in all that kind of stuff, and the EFT, all those kind of things. But they just— you just didn't seem to answer for me. I could see that Yes, if you've got this, you know, dog phobia, then you go through this hypnotherapy process and that is resolved. But it only resolves the dog phobia, and then you have to come in with your next thing, and then, right, you've got a whole shopping list of problems to work your way through in various shapes or forms. And it was about a year ago now that I was introduced to the idea of the 3 principles, and I was angry. I was so, so angry because I couldn't believe that I've been giving myself such a shitty time. I was so angry that I didn't want to even look at the fact that I'd been making it up for myself. And it wasn't until January— oh, I signed up to it because David was setting up to do a Freedom Project, so it would be basically signing up to a year of of Principal's Mentoring. I signed up, I came out of it, I signed up, I came out of it, and then eventually, just before it started up, I signed up for it. I decided, yes, I am going to go for it, because if I don't, I think I'm missing something. And then it's just unfolded in the last, you know, it's just since, I think about January 15th of last year was when I, when the first thing started up. And then I've just absorbed, you know, I'm on the computer all the time, just reading. There's so much stuff, you know, listening to lectures, listening to people talking, and just, and yeah, it's just amazing. I can just see it, you know. I had fun, fun with it all the time though, because I'd get something or hear something and then I just go out and play with it and watch it in people around me. And then I go back and learn something else. And then, you know, and even this last week I've just had this kind of enormous revelation. I think, oh right, okay, yeah, now that's massive. But I don't want to kind of— I don't want to— it's there sort of in a formless kind of form at the moment because I don't want to give it, bring it into a form as yet. Because if I do, then I'm only going to give it the form that that's around me, I think it'd be quite limiting because I'd limit it to what I can do at the moment, whereas if I just let it sit there for a while, it's got enormous potential, and when I'm ready, I'm going to then bring it out and it's going to just explode. But it's quite exciting, and I keep, you know, I keep kind of wanting to pop into it, and no, no, leave it a bit longer, let it just kind of sit and, you know, And this, yeah.

That's lovely. That's lovely. I'm actually really glad that you brought up the anger thing because I forgot about that. I was furious when I first started to see what was happening here. I was angry that I had spent my entire adult life in a state that I didn't need to be in. I was upset, and I, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but I was upset that there weren't people in the, in the therapeutic community that I had been in who knew this. And that's something that I really hope changes, because I thought, gosh, you know, I'm sure I would have benefited greatly if even one of them had talked to me in this way.

But I would say that, you see, because David first did try and start mentioning it to me back in September. This September was when he first kind of— and I didn't want to even know. I didn't even get angry at that point, so I didn't even want to hear it. Mm-hmm. It just went straight over the top of my head, and as if he hadn't even had the conversation with me. And I know he did try on and off, you know, to kind of get through that, and I just wasn't ready. Yeah, I was going to get very, very angry. But I do feel— I mean, I've had the same feeling that you've just, just described about thinking, well, why have I gone through all this other stuff to get here? But I had to go through all that other stuff, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Yeah, I mean, it just— it's just what I— just the process I had to go through. And I could see the benefit of each of those, because even the EFT thing for a while, that really helped me to bring a lot of agitation down. If, you know, there's one particular day— I mean, I did a— there's like an 18-day, every day, 2 or 3 lectures a day, something rather, came through on the internet, which I signed up for and stuck with it. So I had 2 or 3 hours of people lecturing me for this period of time. Then I was out at a— I was out somewhere, a book writing day or something rather, and there was I usually get on with people, but there was this particular woman in the room and we just kind of crossed, you know, I think she was saying something along the lines that I would, you know, you'd get dressed up to go for an interview somewhere, and I was adamant that I wouldn't because I never have. I've just, you know, I turn up as I am, and if you don't want me as I am, then I'm sorry, I don't want to work for you anyway because I can't put up, you know, I can't put on a false, you know, get dressed up in clothes I don't normally wear and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, basically you see 'You get me?' And she was adamant that I would dress up, and it made me so angry. I didn't say anything in the room, but I got outside and my car was round, you know, about a 20-minute walk along a public sort of road in the city to get to the car from where this event was. And I came outside, well, I was yet going down the street going, 'Argh!' All the tapping. As I was getting to the car, by the time I got to the car, I couldn't even remember what it was that she— I was in anger, you know, anger. Hey, this stuff works! So I did it for a while. So that got me through probably a month of time until the next thing came along. So, you know, I think everything has had its place in the journey. It's just, it would have been nicer— I could have got, you know, I could have done with, you know, a few less lessons being taught me, and I could have, you know, wouldn't mind skipping a few days.

Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where I've landed now most of the time. Oh, hi, Mitsue. Let me say one thing real quick, which is that, you know, I think looking at the way my life has happened, it may just be that I needed to have my story as it is, and that's what may help people, you know, however that has been is how it is. So, Mitsue, did you want to say something?

Yeah, I think about EFT. I also did EFT hypnosis. I went through, not as dedicated as many of you seem to be, but I know of them. But the fact that, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.

I think it's Debbie.

Debbie?

Debbie, yeah.

And when you're talking about when you're very angry and you use the tapping to get it out of your system, It's basically the foundation of not thinking about it is what happens in the 3 principles, right? We're kind of thinking that we're doing something in order to get rid of something, but all it is actually doing is kind of distracting our minds from the problem so that we get back to normal.

Yeah, that's how it looks to me now. Yeah, that's how it looks to me now, that particular technique.

Joe, I'm coming to this from a standpoint of— I don't know if standpoint's the right word. I'm coming to this from a place of I have two strong daily rituals in my life that I've been doing for a while before I encountered the principles. I've been practicing Nichiren Buddhism for 35 years, so I chant twice a day. And about a year and a half ago, I learned Transcendental Meditation, and I've also been doing that twice a day. And Transcendental is not the same as mindfulness, it's different, right? But what's shifted for me is is my view of both of those, because those, those were things that I had a busy mind about needing to do every day up until I did the principles. And now I'm doing them as a joyful expression of who I am that's created within me. Um, when I do the TM, it's just, it's just a way It's sort of like my mind taking a nap. It feels really good. It is that, but, but I'm not dependent on that to give me something that I don't already have. Whereas in the past, I think I was looking to the device of it to do something. Now often I'm able to just allow that space to allow me from the inside to sort of put a space between my thinking and what I believe to be reality. It's like, I feel like I'm putting like a big, mental shoe tree in my head and stretching that gap between my thoughts and what I believe. But I'm aware that it's me doing it. It's not the device of the meditation. It's just the space I allow myself to do that. And it just feels really good. And the chanting, it used to be I would chant in order to have the world do something for me or the universe take care of my desires or or what have you, to move in my favor. But now that I'm understanding the principles, what I get from my daily chanting is it's just a, it's just a time that I allow myself to open up to the universal mind and really allow myself to feel that connection to it. I don't need to chant in order to do that. It's just a nice space in which I can do that. And when I do, it's, It's just a nice, you know, it's a nice bookend to my day, doing it in the morning and the evening. But what's interesting is I had done it every single day, morning and evening, for 35 years without fail. But that streak was starting to take on some stress because it was like, what if I miss? I've been doing it so long, what will happen if I blow it? And then this year, for the first For the first time in 35 years, I forgot to do it in the morning because I was going to have a Three Principles conversation with a friend of mine who runs a business, and I completely forgot. It was like, oh, this is mercy from Universal Mind to just let go of that streak. And now I'm just doing it because I enjoy it, not because I'm beholden to something outside of myself. It's been wonderful.

Wow, really nicely expressed. Thank you, Joel. Yeah, I think, you know, and I think for each of us, you know, I certainly had things that I tried to keep doing in order to feel okay. You know, it didn't take the form of, you know, chanting or TM, but for me it was things like, um, uh, this is kind of going to sound weird, but I would have little signals to myself in my head when I would have like a PTSD thing, you know, like a red signal. I would sort of go, oh, you know, I'd feel something and I'd see a red signal that would tell me to stop, like in my head, stop doing that, stop thinking that. And then I would try to flip it to a green signal and think something else. You know, it was— so that's kind of the game I was playing with myself, like all day long, you know, was something along those lines. Lines to try to, you know, keep myself centered, as it sounds like you were trying to do with your practice, you know. Like, if I— and if I didn't do it, I thought I was gonna fall off the wagon or something, you know. So yeah, I can really relate to, to that whole sense of what will happen if I don't do this. And I think, Lynn, that might relate to what you were saying too about you know, what's going to happen if I stop doing this stuff? And I can only speak for myself, and it sounds like several of you have had this too, where the less I've done, the better things have been, just on a daily basis in the way that I feel. I'm not necessarily talking about material things, that's immaterial. I'm talking about inside myself. The less I do, the better I seem to feel. On a day-to-day basis. Actually, it makes—

I think the biggest shift for me was when—

I'll get to you, Lynn, hang on one second.

Sorry, but when I finally decided to take absolutely fully on board that everything, absolutely everything, is from the inside out. And once I finally decided, you know, because I've been testing out, yes, lots of things did work that way, but I was still thinking, but that doesn't, and that doesn't. And I'm thinking, well, how do you know? If some of it does, then surely it all has to, because otherwise how does it decide when it is which? When it is inside. So okay, you've got to decide, you know, if you're going with it, then go with it. I think it's that when I finally decided absolutely there's nothing from the outside. So whatever, you know, I never have anything on the outside of me that's having any effect on me anymore. Because I can just immediately stop in my tracks and think, actually, no, come on, it's inside, deal with it, or don't, leave it alone.

Were you gonna say something, Lynn?

Well, I was just gonna say that there's been so many times that something's worked really well, like say EFT worked really well for a while, or TM worked really well for a while, or whatever else, self-hypnosis or subliminal or whatever I was doing worked great, and then it would stop working. And it was always like, why did it work and now it stopped working? And so when I first came upon the 3 principles, which I found out through you in a forum we were in, I was really intrigued because I thought maybe this is finally the answer, you know, that it's not a technique, it's just a way of living, I guess, or That always works, I hope.

Yeah, I hate to say I'm still figuring it out, but, uh, we all are. And it's kind of one of these things that, you know, I think I heard a recording recently from George Pransky even, who's, you know, he studied with Sid Banks, so he's been around since the beginning. Who said that he got up one day and realized he didn't know any— he felt like he didn't know anything, you know? And I think it's just something that takes time, and it takes everybody their own time. And I don't even use time like a clock. It's just time. And I think that the— how can I say this? I think you're to your point, Debbie, that when we can sort of just relax into it, that's when things really start to shift. When we can, when we can really just go, okay, this is how it is, and I'm just going to chill and just kind of relax into myself and stop trying to fix something that's not broken. You know, your, your comment too about the outside reminds me of that Sid Banks quote that I love so much. It's something like, "There's nothing on the outside that can hurt you, and there's nothing on the outside that can help you because there is no outside." And I think of that quote often, actually, when I'm looking at something that looks like it's on the outside. I think about that and I'm like, "Okay, well, there isn't any, so I don't have to worry about it because it's all, it's all just in here. And so, you know, if you're feeling like you're not quite seeing it yet, you will. I found that it, it just, even if you start with, like, we all have an intellectual understanding of it, eventually it just seeps in. The more you keep looking in that direction, it just kind of happens on its own. I don't feel like I've done any work work to deepen my understanding. It's just been— I've been interested in it, so I've continued to listen to other people and read and discover more and look at myself and see what's going on. And that's always entertaining. I find myself endlessly entertaining these days, my thinking. Honestly, sometimes I will look at my thoughts and go, that is really funny that I believe that that is real. You know, like I had a thing that happened this morning actually where I was in a conversation on an online chat with my boss and it was sort of escalating into a little bit of an argument. Not really, but sort of. It was kind of edging in that direction. And for a split second I had this feeling like, how dare he talk to me that way? And then I just laugh because I was like, that is really funny that I thought he was talking to me in a certain way because I was saying something, or I don't know what my thought process was. It was just hilarious to me that I got so caught up in it for a second that I thought it had anything to do with me or whatever. And that happens frequently. And now it's almost like my own little entertainment system when I catch myself in this stuff.

The other thing that I particularly liked about the principles is that it gives you self-responsibility, but also nobody else is trying to resolve your problem for you, sort of trying to tell you how they, you know, how they see it should be resolved. That's what I love about it, because I think there's, there's too many people who are offering other people advice with the best of hearts, but actually they can't possibly know what's going on for you, and they're only giving you an answer on what they— and how they think they may react if they happen to be in a situation that was similar to you, that could never be the same. That's what I found from a lot of, you know, other things, is actually basically trying to tell you what your problem is and how you need to resolve it. Whereas this is, you just listen in and you pick out what is good for you, how it works for you, in the way it works for you, how it works in that particular moment. And you may hear it, the same thing, a week, 2 weeks, a month, a year later, and you get something completely different from it, depending on where you happen to be at the time. Yeah, it happens a lot. That's what I love about it, is that no one's actually trying to give me their version of my thing, telling me how I should or shouldn't be dealing with it.

Yeah, because the three principles are simply a way of explaining what is, and not what we're supposed to be doing. You know, they're not prescriptive in any way, they're just descriptive. Did you want to add something, Mitsui?

No, that's okay.

Okay.

One thing I have been finding lately is that I've noticed some feeling agitated, let's say, and I stop and I go, what am I thinking? So I'm starting to catch myself, which is, say, can be entertaining.

It can be.

It's like, why am I thinking that? I don't want to think that, you know.

Exactly. And I think that, you know, as time goes on, what I've noticed in myself is that I'm less concerned now about what the actual thoughts are. I don't feel the need to analyze them really, whereas I used to spend a lot of time doing that. And I think that a lot of the reason why I feel so much more peace and joy and relaxation is because my mind is not so active, and I'm not, I'm not really caring so much about what's going on up there because most of the time it's telling me stuff I don't really need to hear anyway.

Well, yes, because the more you're calming your mind down and hearing your inner wisdom, then you can just rest assured that whatever it is you're doing in the moment is probably the, you know, the wisest thing to be doing anyway. So you haven't got to give— waste any energy thinking, extra thoughts which are kind of negative to what you're doing, or like you say, analyzing what you're doing, because it's not necessary.

Because you can—

you're quiet enough to register that actually I'm okay with what I've just done.

And I think too, that's— I'm glad— that's another good point too, is that I spend a lot of time in the past, going back over my past. And, you know, when you have gone through— especially, I don't know if this is true with other kinds of trauma, but with domestic violence, one of the questions that always comes up is, well, why did you marry the guy? You know, why did you stay? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? And, you know, I could never really explain those things. I didn't have a good answer. I felt sort of internally that it was like, well, it was the best thing I knew to to do at the time. You know, I made the best decisions I could, and now I can see that very plainly. Like you just said, Debbie, it's like I don't need to look back on anything with regret because I was acting from my thinking in that moment, and it was the best I had available to me in that moment. And so I spend very little time now reliving anything.

Oh.

I'm sorry.

I'm just still trying to wrap my head around That it's no use to look and analyze your past because you're just doing what you thought was best at the moment. I know there's something there, but I'm still not getting it.

Yeah, it's more like I now see my own behavior and other people's behavior as all resulting from the same place, We're all acting off of our thinking in that moment. And so it doesn't really help me to go back in the past and say, you know, why did I do that? And try to kind of figure it out because, right, because I was doing what seemed logical to me in that moment. If I was presented with that same thing now, I'd probably do something else. But it's not a judgment either way anymore. It's not— I don't even— I mean, this may sound really radical, but it's been a big part of this. I don't even see a lot of that as a mistake even. And it was simply the decision that I made based on my thinking in that moment. And I don't look at myself because, believe me, I did look at my life as a big fat failure for a long time. I really did, because a lot of kind of yucky stuff happened as a result of that initial decision that I made to get into that marriage. But I don't see it that way now. It's, it simply happened, and I don't need to be— I don't need to judge it because there's nothing to be judging anymore.

See, I've got to a point now where I've accepted that there is no such thing as the past. It doesn't exist. It's only now. You can only ever experience this moment in time because the past is already, you know, it doesn't exist anymore. The only way it can possibly exist in any shape or form is by you talking about it, thinking about it, repeating it, or sharing it with somebody. And that share, or that reproducing it is, or has already gone through filters. You're still, you're not, you're not ever bringing it back as it happened in that particular moment.

That's right.

Because you've already filtered it your way, or as in some shape or form, and anybody else who was sharing that moment with would have seen it completely different. And that's right, so it doesn't actually exist. So if it doesn't actually exist, unless you bring it up and it's something that you don't is unpleasant, then why would you bring it up and relive it again? For me, there— when I say there's no past, it doesn't really exist. There's memories of things, and nice things I can repeat and flower them up and enjoy them and whatever I want to. But that's been a big game changer too, is because there's no past and there's no future, because the future is only what I'm making up now. And whatever I make up now, it's not going to happen in the way I'm making it up. So therefore, I'll stick a little bit more now and enjoy this particular moment and not destroy this moment by a made-up, oh, this terrible thing might happen in the future or the past, because then I've lost this moment, which I may as well be enjoying.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was nicely stated.

Can you, can you say again, you mentioned Eckhart Tolle once about how he talks about the now, the present, but there's a difference between that, what Debbie just said, and—

I don't think there's much of a difference. I know that like in one of Sid Banks's books, I can't remember which one, it might be in The Missing Link, you know, he basically says there's just no need to go back into any past memory, because it only— especially if it causes you discomfort, like, what, what's the point of that? And I also have come to see, and Michael talks about this too, that a lot of the stuff— this is gonna seem obvious when I say it, but it wasn't obvious to me a while ago— a lot of stuff that I think happened in the past wasn't real anyway. So I'm like dredging up past memories of stuff that was just thought anyway, you know what I mean? So it's like you're building another thought upon another thought upon another thought. And it's like, what is the point of all that? You know, because it's not— none of it is consequential to me in this present moment. I don't know if that made sense, but it made sense inside my head.

It made a lot of sense. And I think that people who are using the principles and the recovery field are, are kind of tapping the same thing. There's that, that Gulf Breeze place down in Florida, that's— and I spent a lot of time looking at their stuff, not for an addiction problem, but I thought I might be working with somebody who had difficulties. And one of the testimonials on there is of a young guy, maybe his late 20s, early 30s, who had become a heroin addict.

Yes, I've seen that video.

Oh yeah, yeah. And when he, when he realizes that all he had was a thinking problem, not a chemical abuse problem, he let it go and he'd never gone back to the substance. I don't know if he's gone back to it since he made the video. I like to keep my story that it was capped at that point. But But that makes so much sense. And I think it was Krista, who's one of the partners over there, or one of the staff people there, I think I heard her say something like, you know, it's not an irrational decision when you're feeling terrible to intervene with something like drugs. I mean, that's a rational decision. It's not a healthy one. But it would make sense that you would want to do something to do it. But if you go upstream of that and you realize that the thing you're trying to numb yourself from is made up to begin with, and you let it go, or you realize that that's what's going on, you have an opportunity for— these are her words— but you have an opportunity for permanent relief. And I think for all of us, I think we're finding out that just kind of like as Debbie was saying, that it's always 100% of the time that it's inside out, that these are principles. And the reason they're called principles is because they're absolute conditions of the world. Then those victimhood or those those things we've attributed causation to for our suffering, they just don't hold up. They don't make any sense at all. So they start melting. And I think they start melting in our subconscious as well. I've been finding like a lot of energy freed up that's available to me that wasn't there before. And I go, oh, I must've been having a lot of stuff running in my background, uh, hard disk, you know, holding, holding old victim stories in place. And, It's just not there anymore.

It just—

I don't need to go back and revisit and figure out what went on there. It's a— it was made up to begin with, and it doesn't apply.

So I'd love to wrap this up in just a few minutes. So I really appreciate you guys being here. This has been an amazing conversation for me, but I'd love to wrap it up with with just any final thoughts that you have. You know, I know we're, we're living in the present and not really looking towards the future, but if you can look towards the future, you know, is there something— you said you wanted to meet George Pransky, which you're both doing. You know, is there anything else that you'd like to share that is something that you feel comfortable now dreaming about doing or or having or something that maybe in the past would have just seemed like, ah, I could never do that. And you had that sort of feeling of, oh, I can't even try, you know. But with, with this understanding, I found that I'm just free to dream and try anything I feel like, you know. There's no limitations. So if you have any final thoughts on that, I'd love to hear it.

So difficult for difficult one for me in a way because I've never really placed any limitations on myself anyway. I've always sort of been someone who kind of does what I want to do. So good for you, but maybe I'm not dreaming big enough.

Yeah, I kind of feel like the, the limitations that I had placed on myself were mostly around what I started this conversation with and feeling like there was something broken. And because there was something broken and I couldn't fix it, or I didn't even know what I was trying to fix, that I wasn't going to have the same opportunities that other people had who didn't go through the same thing that I did, whatever that meant. And that's how I used to think about it. And, um, you know, now I see that obviously nothing could be further from the truth, and that the more I continue to be aware of my wholeness, the more, um, seems open to me to, to do and try and, and everything without really any fear attached to it. Or if there is some fear, I kind of just shove it aside. I don't really think about it so much anymore. I used to be ruled a lot by fear because of the thinking that I had going on and because of the physical things that had occurred in my life. I had a lot of fear, and to say now that I live my life almost completely without it is sort of miraculous, and I'm looking forward to seeing how how things look to me a year from now. Because I don't know about you guys, but, you know, it seems like these insights come and then they, they get bigger and they, they just sort of appear, and it's just amazing how things shift and can shift quickly.

I want to add one thing. You You mentioned fear. I think for me it's approval. So I would like to live 2016 not looking for approval and doing things, not searching for that, but doing things because, just because. And that'll make things a little more fun.

I really approve of that.

Lynn, how about you? Anything? Or Sandhya? Or Theodora?

I'd really like to live without stress. That would be, that'd be awesome because it has been a major factor in my life recently and has even affected my health. And so that is, I mean, I love the idea of being debt-free and traveling more and other things, and we're looking at maybe moving and what that, what that's gonna be, where it's gonna show up to be. But the stress is the big thing for me right now, to just relax and know everything's okay, whatever it is.

Thank you.

I've thought of something. Yes, what I'd like is to continue what I've just only recently started up, which is kind of just stepping back and let leaving people to be curious as to what's going on for me and come to me to ask, rather than trying to spread my word. Yes, probably as angry as mine were in the first instance. I'm meeting a lot of opposition and I go, "Oh yeah, okay, yes, I can see that. I was opposing." So I've started kind of stepping back and thinking, "Actually, no, you haven't got a problem. You don't need fixing." So And let's wait for them to come to me. So 2016, I'd like to have lots of people approaching me.

Very good.

I guess I'd— similar to you, Mary, I would like to fully support myself and make a robust living helping people with the principles in whatever way that shows up. I think I'd like to have at least 2 to 3 coaching clients a day, 5 days a week. I want to do some work in schools, and I'd like to be financially flexible enough to attend all the conferences I want anywhere in the world, whatever I want to do them, or receive whatever training in this I'd like to do. I probably have it anyways if I don't think about it.

I would love that too.

Let's do it.

Anything from you, Sandhya? Are you still there?

Yeah, I'm still here. Um, well, I've really enjoyed the call. Um, I've got so much coming up this year. My daughter's gonna have a baby. My other daughter has a pretty big career move. Uh, the house needs to be redone. I've got a lot to learn at work. I just want peace. So I'm not sure I want to imagine anymore. I've just got to do as it is.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

Just being more involved and less— I guess one word that came up to me, because I was like, shit, don't even ask me to get another, another goal, you know, screw that. So anyway, I just let it go. And what came to me was intimate, that I enjoy— I feel the flow when I'm intimate with what I'm doing and the people I'm with. I feel energized by that, even if I'm tired and I'm intimate with what's happening. It's revitalizing. And so I guess I don't even want to say more intimacy because then I'm going to put whatever definition my screwy mind or healthy mind at the time puts to it. But I'll just go back to peace, and I know I have a full schedule, and that's fine.

All right, thank you. That was lovely. That was lovely. Teodora, I'm gonna assume that you're just listening unless you want to jump in. Okay, well, thank you guys for being here. I'm so happy to meet you, Debbie and Joel, in person, sort of, and I hope we can do this again in the new year. I may try to schedule another one for sometime in January, and maybe I'll put it at another time that's a little bit better for Mitsui in Japan. So I'll try to sort that out, but thank you for all that you said and shared. I really appreciated it. And Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all. See some of you soon, maybe.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, bye-bye.