Firedance 10-14: Nurturing the Inner Child

Another.

Another kick at the gut.

If you go online, you should be able to find pictures of it.

Okay, that's true, but it's more fun taking them yourself.

Listen, everybody. Welcome to Fire dance on Saturday, October 14th. Tananarive is not here today because she is traveling back from New York where she was at New York Comic Con. So being, being a star. So she'll be back in a couple hours, thank goodness. But she only took off on Thursday morning for a one day thing. So it's not. I don't have to miss her for too long. But simultaneously we have Nala, my daughter's dog, here, which makes me very happy because I definitely have puppy hunger and I miss having a doggie in my life. Anyway, so welcome. And what we're doing here on Fire Dance is we're exploring kind of a three dimensional dynamic sphere of action. And it's only visible in parts. You can't look at it directly, but you can look at aspects of it by examining different philosophical points of view on the world and performing the experiments to test whether or not they work. So everything that we talk about here is designed to be scientifically investigated, is designed for you to actually give it a shot in your life. And so the minimum investment is, you know, five minutes a day. If you can experiment for five minutes a day for about six weeks, you'll know whether or not I'm telling the truth, you know, so if you're willing to invest, you know, what's that, 30, you know, about a half hour a week for six weeks, about three hours total, you'll know whether or not I'm blowing smoke and I can't. I don't know how to make it any fairer than that. I honestly don't. I don't ask for faith, except I ask you to have faith in yourself that you can determine what is or is not true for yourself. And so the first thing I like to do always is have you unmute yourself and to greet everybody. Just say hi to everybody. Hey there.

Hi everyone.

Hello. Cool, cool, cool. So. So what I like to do first is to find out if there's anything that anybody would like to talk about. Because the. We're based on several different things. The most important thing is that minimum investment of five minutes a day. The five minute miracle, where once every hour for 60 seconds, you stop and you breathe deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing for 60 seconds. And you do this at least five times a day. Ideally, you do it from the time you wake up until you go to bed. At night. Because what you're really aiming to do is to change the way you breathe. And the more often you practice that, the faster that will happen. But at that deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing, stress makes us breathe up in our chest. If you can hand in life, they pay you for how much stress you can take without breaking. So the more stress you can take without breaking, the faster you grow. And so you don't ask for life not to give you stress. You ask for the strength and the balance to handle that stress healthfully. That's my position. If you're willing to spend at least five minutes doing that, you are in a position to evaluate what it is that I'm saying. Otherwise, not so much. The next step is the morning ritual and the magic formula. The morning ritual is movement that you do from 10 to 20 minutes a day. Could be walking, could be gardening, could be dancing. I like to use tai chi. And while you're doing that, you are chanting affirmations and visualizing mentors and flooding yourself with gratitude and clarifying your intentions and moving with confidence and courage that you can and should do this. So the morning ritual then incorporates the magic formula, the third step. The first step is, of course, five minute miracle. Second step is the morning ritual using the magic formula. And the third step is the commitment to 1% change a week. Just 1% change per week. And the theory is, and this is one of those theories that I invite you to test that for every hour that you spend on pure study of how to get more out of yourself, how to get more physical energy, how to get more emotional energy, how to manage your time better, you will increase by 1%. That's the theory. And it's a little bit rubbery because the 1% is going to be. Is going to have some elements of subjectivity. I understand that. I don't ask you to use the specific standards that I use. I suggest that you use your own standards, and those will tell you whether or not this path is for you. So given those three things, morning ritual and five minute miracle and the 1% per week, if anyone has a project that they have been working on where they have had a success, where they've increased themselves by 1% in the last week, or you have an issue that you would like to workshop a little bit, this is probably the right time to do that. So raise your hands if there's anything that you would like to talk about, you'd like to share with us. And as I've often said, you can volunteer or you can be voluntold. But somebody is going to talk to me today.

Doug, have an idea?

Yeah.

I just learned about something called behavioral activation. Are you familiar with that term?

What is. Repeat it again, please.

Behavioral activation.

No, I haven't. What is it?

Basically, it's setting yourself a goal. And typically in the morning, which messes with. Type my Tai chi schedule and messes with other things, you set yourself a goal that you're going to accomplish, say in the next two hours after you get up. And even if you don't want to do it, try it. You know, just make a commitment to yourself to get that. Try it.

And then you.

More often than not, you'll find that by. That's the behavioral activation part. Then doing it is the follow through. And when you do, you find it ain't so bad. Even though you didn't think you wanted to do it when you got out of bed and were groggy and. But kind of.

Why does that conflict with your Tai Chi?

No, I said it actually assists.

Good, good. If I said it.

Yeah. If I said conflicts, I misspoke.

No, perhaps I miss. I misheard you. It's entirely possible that I misheard you. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, first of all, I don't get out of bed until my body starts moving on its own. I will stay in the morning as long as my body wants to rest. I make sure that I get all the rest that I need. When my body starts to move on its own, pretty much then I will start thinking questions about what is it that I need to do today? So taking today as an example, I need to do fire dance. Just remember that I need to do a show today. What am I going to do it about? I'm not sure. But let me kind of connect within myself and I connect with my child self. I kind of visualize the little kid inside me. I visualize the old man. I'm going to be on my deathbed and understand that as an adult, I'm just on a journey between those two poles. So I just kind of say, is there anything that needs to be done there? And it felt pretty decent there. I pushed myself a little bit hard yesterday. I tried doing some planking on the same day that I do my yoga. I could get away with that. It's probably not the best idea. I constantly have to fight myself for wanting to push too hard. I have to focus on recovery. Then I get up and I do my Tai chi. I do some joint mobility when I do my Tai chi, that's when I do the magic formula. So that would fit in the question of what is it I want to accomplish. Now, I rarely will talk about the things I want to accomplish specifically during the Tai chi, but I will visualize my mentors, who are the kinds of people who get it done. So by visualizing them, they're kind of talking to me. They're kind of saying, you know, follow my path, Steve. This is the path that you want, that you've chosen. So if I found that I was not doing the things I needed to do all day, then I would do, I would be more specific about that. But I don't generally get to the specific specifics of the day until after I finished the Tai chi and I open my journal. When I open my journal, that's when I take a look at, you know, what are the things I have to accomplish a day, and I look at, you know, the emotions I need to raise up and the timing on the things I need to do. That's when I do that. But as long as you have a way that's working for you, fantastic. Because all these things are flexible. You have to find the way it works for you.

Well, I don't want to talk too much, but one final thought. Another thing that I do is I actually think when I'm laying in bed before I go to sleep, if there's something that I really want to do. Maybe it's Tai Chi, maybe it's calling an insurance company because I got an argument. Whatever it is, I plant that in my head before I go to bed. And more often than not, when I wake up in the morning, bang, it's there without even looking for it.

Well, no, see, now you're talking about something that's actually very important. Doug, you're using the hypnagogic state, which is a translate state, as you are in wake waking and you're sliding towards sleep, or in the morning when you're sleeping and you're sliding towards being awake. Both of those are hyper imprintable states. If you like, I will use those states. If I have a problem in my writing and I have no idea what I'm going to do before I go to bed at night, I will say, you know, I'll ask my unconscious mind. I'd like an answer to this problem when I wake up and then my dreaming mind works on it. And I always get an answer. It's, you know, it, it, it's very powerful. So I highly recommend you're, you're doing good Stuff there. And, you know. Yeah, absolutely. I would suggest that you keep a journal and you write down the things you're doing so you can start tracking what's working better than other things, you know, and then everything I'm saying, when you come here, you look and see, you know, does this match your experience? Is this reasonable? If it. If it is, then adapt it, you know, perhaps. And if it's not, you throw it away. You know, take what is useful and discard the rest. But those two things that you just said are excellent. Now, the one thing I will ask you. Are you practicing the breathing?

Yes. And in fact, for reasons I won't get into, I have trouble, a great deal of trouble, falling asleep at night. And I modified the breathing just a little bit. What I do is I inhale, making sure that it takes four seconds. I inhale for four seconds, then I hold it for four seconds, then I exhale for four seconds. And I do that. I've done that over and over again and it's been amazing. To help me fall asleep.

Absolutely.

Add a fourth side to the triangle, make it a box, and you're perfect.

You know, you're exactly the kind of person I love to talk to because you are actually engaged. And so now it's not a matter of trying to get you to do something. It's a matter of refining what you're already doing, you know, and looking into it, so forth. So that's what you said. Thank you so much for the share, Doug. That's perfect, man. Thank you.

Seriously, thank you.

Yeah, I love it. So who else. Who else would like to. I believe that Ross spoke up.

I did. I got some improvement there. A little bit better than 1%. I actually did some learning this last week and applied it, updated my Facebook profile with a pin post and a new cover pic offering a little more clarity on exactly what it is I'm proposing to do with my plus one good formula.

Okay, and let me ask you, what was the inspiration for this?

I had started in a time investment only program, five day quote challenge, end quote, involving a different kind of lead acquisition. And I was curious. I said, okay, well, let me add this to my backpack. Reaching the floor of useless information and see if maybe I can get a nugget or two out of it. And I did.

Good journal, keep track of what's working and what is not working. Things that work, double down things that don't, you know, discard them. But constantly be experimenting. If every. If every day you're kind of testing. Okay, every week you're testing every month. You're testing if you are aware of where it is you're trying to get to. And always work backwards from being healthy and happy. Okay? You know, that's the primary thing that you want, is to be healthy and happy. Healthy, happy and loved, Safe and loved in that. And then you have the things that you want in order to accomplish that. You know, you want to increase your income, you want to increase your physicality, you want a partner, you know, whatever it is that you want. Those are means to that end. Then you test the techniques. You know, that's the what. The why is fairly obvious with all three of those things. The how then becomes these various techniques that you're playing with. And you never know what's going to work. And what works changes from day to day and week to week. It really is like a safe. And the combination is constantly changing on you. So you really have to be constantly testing and seeing. And anything that happens to you in your life changes the combination a little bit for the better, you know, for the better, for the worse. You will notice that some things seem to work more reliably, more frequently, and 80% of the time doing it this way seems to work. So you'll settle on those things, but other things will be a lot more fluid. You seem to be a data guy. You like to have to break it down into pieces and, you know, gears and numbers and so forth. So use that to your advantage. The other way of looking at it, and one way of looking at it is to describe every tree in the forest. And the other is to notice the space that the trees create, you know, the shape of the space between the trees, kind of sort of. It's like. It's just a way of looking at those two parts. So if you focus on the data, your unconscious mind gets to focus on the space between the trees. And that works just great. Going from data to the sort of space thing, you know, the yang and the yin of it is probably my preferred way of operating. You do it even more. But it could work as long as you breathe, as long as you center yourself. The part of your mind that needs the numbers and the stuff like this is totally your friend and totally an ally. But there is the other part that is just the infinite. The flow, the water between the rocks, the pauses between the words, the space between the notes. One way or the other, you need both of those things. So the individual pieces are valuable in order to help you get to the totality. And embracing the totality should have A positive effect on the individual pieces. So you can go from either end and it'll work. And good for you, Ross.

Thanks, sir.

You betcha. Anybody else? Before we kind of go into what I wanted to talk about today. Anybody have anything that you wanted to discuss? Any comments, questions or requests about anything that we've been covering foreign.

I'll quickly give a quick plug to your book. I'm. I'm about. I mentioned to you that I'm about halfway through it.

Oh, the book get blanked. You know, the incelcure.com very, very interesting.

And actually to be honest, about half of what I've read could apply to a subject not related to that not getting blanked. I think it has a lot to say about basically what kind of person you are and how you approach the world. Also, I found that I had mentioned to you before that I had some ideas on that subject. And I have a feeling that maybe I was an online pickup artist, you know, that maybe my ideas aren't so hot after all. But I just wanted to let you.

Know, it's like this. Pickup artists. So he's talking about the book get f *ck. It's my book for incels. And the whole point is that we're. If you love yourself, you will be attracted to some of the people who are attracted to you. Simple as that. If you're not attracted to people attracted to you, you need to go deeper in terms of self love. If you're interested in people who are not at your level, who are above your level, in terms of your personal integration, then you need to up your game. You need to either lower your standards or up your game. All of it is going to be about how to be a good, basic, decent, healthy human being. Because healthy human beings and healthy animals don't particularly have a hard time attracting partners. It's when you're not healthy or you don't love yourself that you can't attract what it is that you are attracted to. So once you make that connection, then you can literally use. If you literally will write out a list of what you're attracted to by understanding what that woman once in her life, assuming that you've made good choices, what you've just done is define who you really wanted to be. Because who you really wanted to be is a kind of man who could attract a woman like that. And so a lot of the book is about trying to get a realistic point of view throughout the animal kingdom and throughout human history of what the mating game is and the other is utilizing tools like we have here to turn yourself into the kind of man or woman who is the natural partner of whatever it is your heart yearns for. And so it's sneakiness, using your hungers to motivate you to action. But yeah, there's nothing special about it. What's special is that I think there's been a tremendous amount of lying and politicizing about what basic human mating patterns are. And I think that you want to step outside those political definitions and ask, what does nature say? Because nature tells us how we got here. But I think that understanding how we got here also points the way towards how can we have a much better, fairer, more equitable world. What's the next stage in our growth as human beings? All the things that we're saying that we want in terms of gender equality, so forth are all right there for us. But the first thing we have to do is forgive ourselves for how we got to where we are. That creates the space to move forward or to forgive yourself for what you haven't accomplished or haven't done in your life so that you can have the self love and discipline necessary to become a better version of you. So in one sense, it's very, very, very simple. In another sense, in my opinion, there are just a lot of people who are very confused about this stuff. Anyway, thanks, Doug. Jaime.

Hey, good morning everybody. I had one of those weeks where on a daily basis, everyday life threw something at me that felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me. And because of the discipline of using the tools we use here, with fire dance and life writing and all of that, I walked through every one of those events this week with a kind of grace and dignity where I did not make a bad situation worse.

Tell me exactly what you used to do. This. But before you do that, tell me how you used to react. Now tell me what you think made the difference.

Well, that leads to the major insight I had this morning. Just before our session today, while I was doing my morning ritual, it dawned on me that I can get kind of hyper focused on whatever project or task I'm doing in the moment. And then when something comes along and interrupts it as a distraction, I would have full on mental and emotional meltdown, breakdowns, train wrecks, and. And it would be a feeling of frustration at the distraction or the interruption. And this has been problematic my whole life. But as a consequence of breathing the five minute miracle of the morning ritual and all of that business of connecting breath and body and mind and movement when those things happened this week, I mean, here's the sort of things that went on. My 34 year old son bailed himself out of jail a week ago and then reoffended on Thursday and got rearrested. A friend of mine died on Monday and the funeral was on Thursday. I realized I had made a mistake that was going to affect some 50 people that I'm involved with and I had to publicly own that mistake. And then on the simple, silly level, my husband called me up at 3 o' clock yesterday afternoon to invite me to ride an hour toward another city to go on a five mile bike ride with him. And instead of disappointing him by saying no, I was able to explain to him why I could not do that. And we ended up having a lovely conversation, he had a lovely bike ride and I finished my to do list. But when I woke up this morning, I realized that that pattern of frustration at distraction or interruption was learned and that I, it's actually possible to be distracted and have that separation or distance from it where I notice it as just another moment that life is putting at me and that I can choose to be curious and in wonder and in awe that oh, look what's happening now.

Yes.

Rather than feeling put out that my focus has been distracted.

Okay, so, so let me just for a second here. Yeah, look what's happening now. Okay. As opposed to feeling resentment about something in the past that is that created a problem or fear for the future. If you stay in the moment and you know, you morning and night. One of the things I tell Jason every morning, empty your brain of everything you have to accomplish that day, Write it down during the day, take action at night. You look at your journal, you take a look at what you said you were going to accomplish and you note whether or not you did it. If you didn't do it, why didn't you do it? If it's something needs to be done, move it to the next day. Tomorrow is another chance. But the power of life is in this moment. It's not, you know, if, if you're afraid, it's about the future. You're fear afraid something is going to happen. If you're guilty, it's about the past or angry, it's usually about the past. You know, it's, that's a combination because anger here, so you're afraid that something that happened in the past to you or someone you care about, you have a sense of, okay, this is an event and it's going to be the same way it was last time. Which is something negative, as opposed to, this is an event. It's going to be the same thing that happened last time, only it's really positive. I mean, it's like there's a difference between a bully heading your direction, which triggers a series of memories, and your lover giving you that come hither look, and opening the bedroom door. Both of them involve memories, but both of them involve expectations. But if you're in that moment and it's the bully, you can be thinking, this is how I'm going to take him apart. If he messes with me, or if it's your lover, it's, this is how I'm going to absolutely turn him inside out tonight. You know, he has no idea what mood I'm in. He's going to be so happy he opened that door. You see what I'm saying? That in the moment, there is energy. What you do with that energy is a reflection of what you've carried with you from the past. But what you do with that energy is also how you shape your future. So staying in the moment authentically, no matter what you're doing, that's your flow state, man. That's where all the good stuff happens.

It seems like it's such a simple little tool that I was really not consciously using. For example, I have many Zoom meetings during the week, and they're all important to me. And inevitably, somebody out in the rest of my life tries to call me on my iPhone while I'm trying to zoom on the iPhone, and the phone interrupts the flow of whatever meeting I'm in, and I would have that extreme emotional reaction to it instead of just let it go to message, and that I can actually click the let it go to message and let. Just observe the emotional reaction and let it go without indulging it.

So let me ask you a question. How long had this been going on? That your iPhone was interrupting your meetings? How long had this been.

Oh, God. It happens at least every other day. All the. Every week.

So for how. No, but for how long? A year?

A year and a half.

A year and a half?

Yeah.

So ask yourself a very important question. What stopped you from turning your iPhone off? You're much too smart for that.

That's the device I use to do Zoom.

You use the phone to do zoom. So what you didn't realize was that you had a way to make it go directly to voicemail.

Oh, is that possible?

No. Isn't that what you just said?

Well, no. What happens is if I'm in a Zoom meeting, like this, and somebody tries to call me, I get a message that says, do I want to put the zoom call on hold and answer, or do I want. It's like, the whole thing, and it won't let me hear the meeting or continue with the meeting unless I choose something.

Let me ask you a question. If this has been causing you a lot of frustration, and frustration is not fun, is. There's something else you could have done. What? Solutions. If you. Did you ever say, I want a solution to this? What is it that would enable me to solve this? Why do I want to solve it? Because it frustrates me. So what can I do to have a zoom meeting without these interruptions? Did you ever sit down and brainstorm that particular problem?

Not yet, but.

Okay, so what's going on? Once again, you're much too smart for that. So it's clear that the frustration that your frustrations and fears and emotional reactions are are stopping you from accessing your problem solving. So this. This. Start looking into this, because any change you want to make in your life is going to be a matter of finding problems and solving them. So you want access to that genius part of you. Okay, honey. Okay.

There's an option on your iPhone where you can set your phone to do not disturb, and it will send all calls to voicemail. Then you. If you don't want all of them, if you want your husband to be able to interrupt, you can put him in a. As a favorite, and he'll be able to call in and interrupt you. But all other calls, messages, whatever, it won't beep you. It won't buzz you, and I keep my phone on do not disturb because I have so many spam callers.

Who is it that's speaking?

Mary Lord Holt.

Mary. Okay, cool. Mary. Thank you. But here's Jaime. This is what I want you to think about. Take the. This. The elevated position. Don't think about this as a specific problem. Think about it as an indication that you want to have a formal process of problem solving, that when something is frustrating, you define it clearly, write it down, then preferably get together with some other people and brainstorm it. But if you don't do that, learn how to brainstorm it yourself. This is. This is something so that next time, instead of it taking a year and a half, it takes a day and a half.

Right. Well, and I think the reason I wanted to share it was that the pattern of being interrupted and experiencing frustration is something that the process of fire dance is already helping with in terms of. I'M understanding my consciousness does not have to experience frustration in those moments.

That's exactly right. What I want you to do is to look at the fact, look at the process, to start taking. To start looking at these tools and saying, the next time I am frustrated, I'm going to go through this process, these steps and, and creating your own process. One week we could have, I could create a six step, five step framework for you to run any problem through or whatever. But I also really like it when you guys come up with your own stuff and then come back here. And in the mastermind, in the chat, you say, I have a problem. My problem is blank. What can I do? Anybody know an answer to this? To actually use that? But congratulations, Jaime and I'm delighted that this is being of use to you. Fantastic. That's what it's for. If there's anybody else with a thing, let's wait until after I've given kind of the talk for today what I wanted. We're in this 90 day love fest, the love feast where it was the original intention of it was to improve the quality of our relationships by putting your partner first for 90 days, doing everything you can to make them happy, to hold the relationship as sacred, to live for them, to put their needs above your own for 90 days. The idea being first of all, this is a third level relationship. That's what you're creating. Where first level relationship is, I'm out for what I can get. Second level relationship, first level relationship is mercenary. I'm out for what I get. Second level relationship is transactional. I'll do you if you do me. The third level relationship is evolutionary. It is, I give for the sake of giving. I'm not looking for anything in return from when I. When I do this. Now, needless to say, if you do that with a person who is first or second level, you can have some problems. First level person, they might very want to eat you alive. But. But you might be able to get somebody to raise by one level by doing this. You might take a mercenary person and get them to being a transactional person. But that's still not good enough for me personally. So I would use this as I'm going to do this for 90 days. And if this person does not reciprocate, then I know that this relationship is not working. Ideally, what's happening is that they will reciprocate, that they will see the potential and that they will give back. That they will feel safe and loved enough to expand their sense of self. Tananarive and I did this for 90 days, and it worked great. We decided to recommit. But I also thought that I wanted to share it with you, and that opened another door. Another question. What if you're not in a relationship? Or what if you're in a relationship with someone and you're kind of trapped there and you really, really, really don't want to do this with them? First of all, that's an incredibly toxic relationship. And I beg you to start looking for a way out. I mean, seriously, there are very few life situations you can't find your way out of, given a year of planning. Very, very few, but nothing but empathy for that. But if you're not in a relationship, then that question of and you might not even want a relationship, that sense of who am I and what can I do and how can I use this period until the end of the year, I would suggest that you make love to yourself, that you love that little child inside you. Because as I was saying earlier, everything that you want is on the other side of various problems and situations that you have. As I said to Doug, that to that degree, then the quality of your life is going to be partially the quality of your capacity to solve problems. Your problem solving is your creativity, and that's the child part of you. So if you will protect your child, you know, it's like, first feel safe, then feel loved, and then expand. If you're not feeling loved, in all likelihood, you don't feel safe either. If you're not feeling loving towards others, in all likelihood you don't feel safe either. So creating a safe space for that child self inside you, and it's a visualization. One of the ways that you can tell whether or not you have a healthy relationship with your child self is can you envision your child self? Can you see that little scamp when you look at her, does she smile at you? When you look at him and say, hi there, I love you, does he giggle and say, I love you too, daddy, I love you too, mommy? If you can visualize that child self and that child looks happy and you say, I love you, and the kid says, I love you too, you probably have a healthy relationship with that kid. So you don't. All you have to do then is to continue down that path, you're doing fine. But if you have a hard time visualizing that child or a hard time saying I love you, or the child that you envisioned can't say it in return, then there's a good chance that somebody poisoned you against yourself. There was some lack of support in your home. There was some lack of support in your culture. Something happened there, and it would be very, very useful for you to focus on that, I think. So the way to focus on that, let's take the tools that we already have. But first of all, before I go any further than that, if you're understanding what it is that I'm saying, if this makes sense to you, raise your hands or clap or whatever it's like, who feels like this makes sense?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Great, Great. Fantastic. Because all I want to do is to do what's useful to you. The only reason I'm here every week is to hear stories like Doug told, hear stories like Jaime told, hear stories like Ross told. That's why I'm here, because I love hearing those stories. So, taking a look at the basic tools. So what are the basic tools? The five minute miracle says that five times a day you stop and you do 60 seconds of deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing. Now, if you do that, what would happen if during that 60 seconds of deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing, you found a picture of yourself as a child smiling? If you can find a picture of yourself as a child smiling, that's. That's great. Happy is. And you visualize that picture. Visualize that Image for those 60 seconds, you remember a happy time with that child for just 60 seconds. That would be one way you could do it. Another way is you could step into the child self and breathe like a baby and then have that baby look at where you are in life further down the timeline and feel love and gratitude. Think about all you have gone through to keep your heart alive. Think about all you do every day, how hard you've worked, how long it's been the younger you, and you're still working to preserve that child's self. That is sacred. That's wonderful. You're a warrior for your own heart. And the child you were would love the adult you are for never losing touch with that. So for your 60 second breathing breaks, you can be an adult looking at the child. You could step into the child. Look at yourself as an adult. It works both ways. You can move back and forth between them. My adult and child selves have very healthy relationship. I can go back and forth. And if I mess up, there are times when I mess up and that kid is not happy with me. And that kid will tell me, daddy, don't do that. Daddy, don't you love me enough to do better with this? I mean, it's it would be pathological if it were. If I cared about that. You're deliberately creating multiple personalities. But then reintegrating the multiple personality thing can come out of emotional trauma, but it could also be a way of examining different aspects of your personality. The Ericksonian model of the parts party. There's an entire writing system called Dramatica that basically says that stories are a conversation inside a story mind. Each character in the story is a different aspect of the story mind or the writer's mind. Transactional analysis breaks us into parent, child, adult selves. Looking. Shifting positions like that can be a way of. Of applying logic to emotion by creating archetypes that represent these different things. So that's one of the things that you can do, is that five times a day, visualize the child. Visualize the child visualizing. You start working on that relationship. 60 seconds is actually a long time. You can really get some work done if you do that five times a day. That's your minimum mind. The. Before we go on, any comments, questions, or requests about that before we move to the next major piece, okay, raise your hands if you've got something. Otherwise, I'm gonna move on to the next major piece. The other thing that we do in finance is the morning ritual. And the morning ritual is composed of five different aspects. You've got the map or model that you are following. You're taking action, right? Taking action. You are experiencing gratitude. You're clarifying your intentions, and you're amplifying your courage or your conviction that you can and should take these actions.

So.

The beautiful thing about model here, just going with an M. Because let's talk about if you wanted to include this in the morning ritual. The model could either be the younger version of yourself, or it could be an adult that you know who has an unusually healthy connection to their child. It could work either way. Now, there's an interesting thing about connecting to the child self, and that is that one of my teachers, I was talking about having an intention to live to a very ripe old age. And I was envisioning myself as a very healthy elder. And he said, no, don't do that. What you want to do is you want to envision yourself as the child that you were, that the child is the one that has all that energy and aliveness. So if you visualize your child self and you let your child teach you, then you will find that there are a lot of things you forgot about how wise you were as a child, how alive you were as a child, allowing and encouraging that Child part of you to teach. You can be a fantastic role model. So that's a possibility. Either someone who has a really, really healthy child, Mr. Rogers, I don't care. Robin Williams, I don't care. You know, just. Or your younger self. During your morning ritual, you're actually visualizing that, that person being ahead of you on the path of life, encouraging you along. If you're visualizing your child self, then that little scamp should be behind you on the path. But he's playing Pied Piper on the path ahead of you, saying, come on dad, come on mom. Did you forget to dance? Do you forget the smile? Remember you used to like watching cartoons? You know, just whatever it is, get back in touch, make a commitment. That 1% per week. You want to have a deeper connection with that child self through the end of the year that, that you know, on by January the first, you want to have really, really done this. And starting with the model is a great thing to do. The next step, of course is action. What actions can you take today to get in touch with that child self to what can you do that will either increase their safety, that's your work. Or increase how much, how much love they feel. And love for a child is going to be a lot similar to love for a pet in the sense that dogs and cats, they don't care how much money you earn, they care how much you love them and hug them and feed them and play with them. What are you going to do today to get into deeper contact with the child that you were? Whatever that is, put it on your schedule. Make sure that you do it. Make sure that you're doing something every day to get in touch with that child that you were. Remember that you're aiming at. That child has your aliveness, that child has your energy, that child has your creativity, your optimism, your open heartedness, your capacity to make friends, to bond swiftly. Remember when you were a kid and you'd go to the playground and you'd make a best friend in five minutes? What happened to our ability to open our hearts and let people in? Well, part of it is we found out that the world was a dangerous place and it's not always safe to just open yourself to people. Which is why it's critical to divide yourself between your child self and your adult self. The adult self. It's the adult's job to be protective, to analyze, to see what's going on, to create a safe space. It's the child's job to play so you don't let Anybody into your child play place that is not past your adult standards, and you make sure that adult is protective and loving every day. If you take an action to either become safer or happier, safer or more loved, what can you do? And quite frankly, I would do both. I would do something every day that's working towards creating greater safety in my life, which generally is money, security, and also for having fun. Now I've got big fun planned for me. I'm planning to go to Manila at the end of February, and I've been working very hard on that. And Jason asked me yesterday, I said, dad, you know, how ready for Manila do you feel? I'm ready. I could go tomorrow. But the question is going to be, can I hold that energy for four months? So once you're there, some of the motivation, motivation can drop away. So, you know, you have to be very careful about that. So my idea now is I want to be better than that. So I'm going to work on. I've got the physical stuff together. What I need now is to increase my skill level, skill and speed, balance and stuff like that. But all of that is play. Because I get to go to Manila and satisfy a childhood dream. When I was 7, 8 years old and I watched Mr. Moto movies and I would draw images of a little stick figure wearing a YMCA cap who could beat up three bullies. This was a dream of mine to feel safe in the world because my father wasn't there. So it wasn't just a matter of wanting to feel like a man. It was a matter of wanting to feel like I could speak my truth, I could dance my dance. I could live in the world without being hurt by bullies, by being hurt by society. So safety was intimately connected with joy. So every day I'm going to take some actions there. The third thing is gratitude. What can you feel grateful for today that has to do with loving your child or increasing your child's safety? What can you feel grateful for? I could feel grateful for the fact that I never gave up my dreams. There's no dreams that I had as a child that I ever really gave up. Whether that's writing or martial arts or having a family to love. The little boy inside me is very grateful to the man that I am that I never stopped trying. I didn't have to succeed, but I had to keep trying. And because I kept trying, I eventually succeeded. But the little kid inside me was happy just to know that every single day I was doing my best to bring his dreams to life. And Harlan Ellison made the comment that success is to bring into existence, in adult terms, your childhood dreams. That's what I've been doing. What did my kid want? He wanted a healthy family. He wanted to feel strong and safe. He wanted to be able to share his dreams with the world. Find some way to do that. Your actions and to the degree that you've been able to do that, feel grateful. You have any idea how few people spend an hour a week just trying to look at who they are and what they're doing? It's. I can't even begin to tell you how proud of yourselves you should be. How grateful the little child inside you would be to know that mommy or daddy has never given up on them. You think about that. How do you feel about someone who never gave up on you, who was there for you every day, who actually kept their word? You need to be grateful to yourself. You need to give yourself credit for that. You need to thank yourself. You need to love yourself. You need to watch yourself in a sense that you never gave up. You always kept trying. Always, always, always. That is precious. I'm so proud of you. I see Tananarib Dhu is here. She's probably in the car coming back from the airport. I wonder if she's going to be able to join us. If she can hear me, she is welcome to jump in at any time. She is one of the things that I'm grateful for and my child self is grateful to me for finding a playmate like Tananarive and someone who can mother me. Because if you're going to be a peak performer, you have to break yourself. The only way you know how far you can go is by going too far. That means that some of the time you're going to strike out. You're going to fall on your face. And if I give everything I have and fall on my face, Tananarive is there to hold me, to love me, to let me know that she. Oh. So Tananarive just said my plane just landed but just wanted to pop into chat and say hello. Well, hello to you, sweetheart. Oh, so it's so great. I'm just, I'm so glad that she's going to be home. We're going to, we're going to go. We're going to go to the comedy club tonight and see Wanda Sykes. So that's right. So that's the gratitude thing. So, so far, do you understand the map and action and gratitude, how that fits in with the idea of getting 1% more connected to our child every week. Raise your hand if you can understand these first three points. Great, fantastic, fantastic. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I cannot overestimate how important this is, or else I would not be spending the next two and a half months on this single thing. The child inside you feeling sexual, safe and loved. Because you do that and you get your problem solving, your energy and problem solving and energy will move all your dreams forward. So the next one is intention. Now, intention is your goal, is the clarity of what it is you want to accomplish. So if you write down, I want to increase my connection to my own child self by 1% a week, now, you could say 1% a day. All it would take to make it 1% a day is spending an hour a day on this. But if you'll spend an hour a week on this, you can get 1% a week. That's fine. And if you will just, you can cheat on that. It doesn't even take an hour a week. If you will do the breathing five times a day minimum, hopefully, preferably every hour on the hour. But at least five times a day, you breathe diaphragmatically and slowly and visualize the child that you were. Visualize holding that little muffin, loving them, but also, you know, discipline. You know, she's a scamp. She will get away with murder if she can. She's not going to do her homework. She wants to watch cartoons. She wants to eat ice cream for breakfast, you know, so remember that your child does not need you to be a buddy. Your child needs you to be an adult. Needs you to be a parent. The child. Children in homes where the adults don't step up are terrified because they know they cannot actually survive in the world if their parents can't control them. How are their parents going to keep them safe? It's as simple as that. So control is a form of love, but it has to be balanced. I would say that at least, you know, I try to give Jason five times as much love as I ever do. Discipline or criticism. At least five times, you know, and on days when I'm being a really good dad, seven times, eight times, ten times, just tell him all the time. Children and the child within you need love like roses need rain. You understand me? You can never give yourself or your child too much love. You cannot. But do remember that one aspect of love is discipline. That's going to be true for yourself as well for somebody else. Because what is it? A child needs safety and love. Safety is going to come from exerting discipline in the Adult world so you can produce products and services that you can exchange for money. Money. Nothing works like money. In the arenas in which money works, it just, you know, people can't come over and cut your lawn if you did something nice, but they can give you money and then you can use that money to hire somebody to cut your lawn. Your intentions need to be clear. And there should be a goal in terms of your physical health and energy, a goal in terms of your emotional health and balance, your connection to fear and love and mentally. Your hunting and gathering, your education, your business. Those are the components that make an awake, aware adult human being. Physical health. You take responsibility for your physical health, your emotional health, your hunting and gathering. That when you move from fear belly brain to love heart center, you begin to expand head center so that your definition of self begins to include the whole world. Now you're starting to look around and see, where can I contribute? What can I do? Because it's not how shall we treat others. The spiritual perspective is there are no others, there's just us. And the way we treat other people is how we treat ourselves. On a deep level. When you see people who are mean and nasty to other people, I guarantee you they are not loving and gentle with themselves. If you're loving and gentle with yourself, but. But have the discipline to create safety. Safety first. Then open your heart. You automatically begin to expand to want to do stuff like this on Saturdays. I'm safe. I love myself. I've got my love in my life. What I want now is to share it with as many people as possible. You know, and you know, once per episode. I will mention that the Fire Dance Tai chi program at www.firedancetaichi.com is our gold standard program. And I love to enroll people in it. We worked on it. I'm only a couple of weeks away from finishing the entire 108 steps of the Tai Chi program. I've only got two more weeks to do that. It's 108 steps plus learning how to integrate these things. So it is a modern version of qi and chi and Prada and numa and orende and all these other terms that have to do with our life force and how to manifest them and use them in life. But what my partners hate me saying, and I mean, that's not true. My partners understand who I am, so that would be a lie that would not pass the three gates. My partners understand me very, very well. Just show up here on Saturday. I am delighted to give you everything I possibly can. You don't have to buy a damn thing, period. And when we taught that last writing workshop, we came up with a way so that we could make all the money that we needed, but also open the doors to anybody who didn't have money. It's like that's, you know, Tananarive and I were high fiving each other on that one. Every, every day. It's like, this is great. We're making all the money we need. But if people don't have money money they can sign up. We had people come to that workshop for $5. We didn't care. You had to pay something, but a dollar would have been enough. You just have to have some skin in the game, okay? We trusted that people who could afford full price would pay full price people. And we had people offering scholarships, they'd pay double, triple. And that allowed us to let people in to still make the money that we needed. And that's the way I like to live. I want to give everything I can to every one of you because the world has been kind to me. The world gave a little kid named Stevie Barnes who grew up in south Central la, who looked out at the world and wondered, was there anything out there for me? Was there anyone who would love me? Was there a tribe? I had no tribe to protect me. That's why I spent all those years in the martial arts. I had to become my own tribe of warriors so that I could be just a soft, gushy nut, you know, And I can be this guy and I can cry and I can laugh and I can be silly and I'm not worried about it anymore because everybody inheritance. Every woman who's on here knows that there are men who will use intimidation, but they'll be polite about it. But they sound like, well, I could kick your ass, but I'm going to be polite, so do what I say. And most guys have run across that crap too. Women manipulate differently. Better. They're just different. You have to have an intention to thrive, to be safe and loving and to grow and to thrive. There were three things that I wanted. I wanted to be safe physically and would be a martial arts master. I wanted to be a professional novelist and I wanted a family to love viewed from another point of view. I wanted to be respected by the men. I respected and desired by the women. I desired that. I figured that if I did that right, I would become the man that I needed to be. You will come up with your own standards, but be sure that when you come up with those standards, if you got it if the universe gave you that, you'd actually be happy. So make sure that you're covering your physical health, your emotions and money. Let's just be honest. You want to be healthy, happy, and successful enough that money becomes a tool rather than a barrier. Because then, like this Christmas coming up, for the last five years, Tananariv and I have given away thousands of dollars every Christmas. Just all someone has to do is send us an email or a personal message on Facebook saying that they're having a problem and we send them money. And other people have enrolled themselves in this so that we're not even supplying most of the money, you know, because people say, here, here's a donation, Here's a donation. Here's the donation. Every year we do this, and we could not do this if we did not have plenty in our lives. And so when we think about becoming wealthy, we think about bringing our entire community with us. We don't want to do it alone. Tananari is constantly looking for people she can support. Constantly looking. She can't learn anything without trying to figure out who can she teach. She can't get any kind of advantage in our career before she starts saying, who can I bring along with us? And I'll say, honey, can we at least get stuck stable with this before you bring somebody? No, she. That's how her mom taught her. That's how her dad taught it. That is her family culture. You be of benefit to the community. She's teaching me more about this. I had some of it, but she's further down that road. And this is one of the reasons why being a parent is so important, why I would die and burn in hell before I would walk away from my children. Because what she got from her parents in terms of safety in the home and love in the home prepared her to be a better integrated human being than I was. It's just as simple as that. She's amazing. She's wonderful. And she reminds me of who it is that I really am. Because she's a lioness, that means I have to be a lion. It's as simple as that. It's as simple as that. My intention there, in one sense, is to be respected by my teachers, Steve Muhammad and Larry Niven and Harlan Ellison and Octavia Butler, and to be desired by a woman who respects herself and is powerful and has agency and creativity and passion and humor. In other words, to be a worthy partner for 10 honorif that that is actually a goal. It's like if I do the 90 day love feast. And every day I'm saying she's. I want her to be happy. I want her to be fulfilled. Who do I have to be to walk, walk at her side to protect her, to hold down the house while she's off being a star? How much do I have to deal with my own insecurities so that her magnificence does not intimidate me? So instead of thinking, poor little me, how come the world doesn't, you know, relate to me that way? How come I don't get that kind of attention? And I. Instead of that, I think, what a woman. She's a queen. But I get to sleep with the queen. You know, it's as simple as that. It's as simple as that. I am her knight. I am her prince. I am her king. I am her partner. It is my intention to be able to have Larry Niven be proud of my writing, Steve Muhammad, proud of me as a martial artist, and my wife, Tananarive Du proud of me. As a fact, matter of man, if I could have all three of those things now, I can sit in front of you and honestly, simply, I don't know what you might ask me. You can ask me anything. And if I. And I can respond to it from this framework, because I'm living in this framework. If I can't do that, I don't deserve to be here. So intentions are clear. Who have I covered that? Anybody have any questions about intention? So, Tom Barkley.

For some reason, I always get to forget to get the pointer on the mute button before I raise my hand, because they're not in the same place. I have made the same mistake twice. Once really egregiously and once not so egregiously, and that's that the woman I allied with was not a healthy person.

Got it?

And the first time, it was someone who was in my profession and was one of my teachers, in fact, but about the same age and wanted to be loved. But once she had that love and could be and felt she could count on me, I was no longer very important.

Interesting. Yeah, interesting. So as long as she was trying to get the bond, she was being very sexy and open with you.

That's. That's one way to describe it.

Okay. And I. I understand right now I'm.

Thinking of her as a hungry ghost in the Chinese tradition.

Interesting.

She could not get enough approval.

Right.

So to an extent, my wife was also starved of approval and affection and attention and support in her family for very different reasons. But the manifestation was kind of similar and it's odd that I would be.

Drawn.

To two women in that way. Maybe the end. Maybe it was just that that was. That was who was approving of me.

Okay, so let me ask you a question. Is it just those two?

Yeah.

Okay. Because once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action. So we can't say it's a pattern until we get the third time. But if I were you, I would ask the question, could this be a pattern? If it's a pattern, what is the dysfunctional part of me that is looking for women like that? What would I have to healing myself to find a woman who has all of those values plus is healed?

Well, that's been. And I've been getting a lot of that here.

Right.

That's what led me to realize and see the similarities.

Strange things. You don't wait for the third time.

No.

You know, just because you don't want to go through that pain again. If you know, in fact, you know, I would. If you do it once. There's nothing wrong with saying, huh, I wonder if there's something in me that was specifically looking for that. How would I have to be healthier so that that tainted meat doesn't taste good to me anymore? Because what I can promise you is that there are plenty of good, healthy, sexy women out there who are looking for good, healthy, sexy men. It's as simple as that. Ladies, am I lying? Raise your hands if you know that there are good, healthy, healthy, sexy women out there looking for good, healthy, sexy guys. Raise your hand. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So this is, this is natural. So we all have wounds and you can actually have a transactional relationship. Most relationships are transactional. You do for me, I do for you. You know, you cover my wounds, I'll cover your wounds. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not a sin. That's just. That's standard. What we want is the level above that. And you get the level above that by healing yourself so that you can attract and hold the love of a good woman. And it doesn't mean that you can't have a lot of fun while you're looking for that good woman, while you're healing yourself. There's nothing wrong with a test drive, you know, before you buy that Lifetime vehicle you know, we're having. I've had. I had a lot of fun in my daily life. I always tried to care. I always tried to be sure that I cared enough about the woman that if she called me at 2 o', clock in the morning and needed me to talk to her, I would be willing to do it because I genuinely cared about her. But of course, what we're all looking for is that lifetime partner, that person who can walk at our side as we walk our particular path in life. And we want that path to be as healthy and as happy as it can be. There are always going to be problems, you know, they're always going to be illnesses and fights and disappointments and tears. So you want someone who will have as many good times with you as possible, as much positive with you as possible. Understanding, of course, that the joke is that we're all imperfect. You're imperfect, they're imperfect. So it's imperfect people who are striving to move away from fear and toward love. Those who make it get to go beyond love into sharing. But at the very least, you want someone who is your equal. And if you love yourself, then someone with matching wounds will still be attracted to you. You'll say, you know, those are your scars. Wow. I've been through some similar territory. My scars and your scars kind of match, and it's okay.

That was the case with my wife, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. So the person who is so beat up, so wounded that they can't even relate to you, honestly, you run into their mask, and their mask is very attractive and sexy and, you know, like sparkly and like this. But once you get beyond the mask, you start running into to the insecurity. So what you want is someone who your mask, your social mask, their social mask are not terribly different from who they really are. And as you begin to strip away the mask to get to the person that you are, you're not. It's. You're not throwing them curve balls. You're just letting them in deeper. Tananarive let me in pretty deep. We let each other in pretty deep, pretty quick because we realize what the potential was in this relationship. So we wanted to have the maximum amount of time to deal with any problems. So she kind of said, you know, these are my issues. And I said, these are my issues. Look, let's look at this stuff. Okay, fine. That's cool. Let's go a little deeper. Let's go a little deeper. So that as we got after we got married, there were no major issues. It was just the way the issues we had already shared with each other were working their way out in life.

Life.

You heal yourself, Tom. Have fun. But remember that the little boy inside you needs not only a playmate, but a mommy. He's Hurt, you know, little Stevie inside me. I still from time to time, dream that I'm walking home and I see my mom's car in the driveway. And I go into the house and she's not there. And that little boy says, where's Mom? Where's Mom? We need someone to hold us sometime and say, it's going to be okay as long as you remember that sometimes she needs you to hold her and tell her it's okay. So we have children. My child and her child can play. My child and her adult can have a relationship, and her child and my adult. My adult's attitude about her is, I will do anything in the world to keep her safe. She is my queen. She is my princess. It is my honor to protect her, just as it is my honor to play with her. And she plays delightfully. She is absolutely delightful. Those of you who see her in public and think she's all sparkly and she's so much fun. That's just the way she is. She ain't faking it. That's who she is. Healthy people, you know, we attract people on our level and below. We are attracted to people at our level and above. Be sure you love yourself enough that some of those people attracted to you. As science fiction writer Steve Perry said, he lost his wife recently. He said, we're all just walking each other home. That's really beautiful. This is real. Life is real. You don't get to go back to yesterday. You look at the mirror and you wonder where that mature human being came from, because you still feel like a child inside. That's real. I'm very proud of you, Tom, because you've shared with us a lot of the pains that you're really dealing with. But you haven't quit. And that's. That's all there is to keep your eyes on the goal, keep gathering resources, and keep moving forward one step at a time. So, you know, we went in a bunch of places. Did I address what it was that you originally said? Because I forget.

Well, I wasn't really asking you to address it. I was pointing out. I was validating what you were saying.

Fantastic. Well, thank you very much. So we've gone over model, model or map. Actions, gratitude, intention, and the last step is courage. Courage to love. It takes courage to pick yourself back up every day and keep going. It takes conviction, another C, that the actions you're taking can and should be taken for their own benefit. It isn't just that they're good. It isn't just, you know, the End justifies the means. The means themselves have to be in alignment with your values. The means themselves have to be valid. They should pass the three gates. In other words, is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? So every day that I'm writing, I think about the book coming out and the reviews and the money and stuff like this. But the day's writing itself has to be its own reward. I do nice things for Tananarive, partially because I want a relationship where both of us are doing good stuff for us, for each other, but partially just because that's who I am. I love seeing her smile. Now, of course, that's connected with a sense of if she's smiling, then she's a happy wife, happy life. Of course that factors in, but it needs to come from the place where I'm just trying to do all I can to make this wonderful woman make sure this wonderful woman knows every day that I adore her because she deserves that and she puts herself way out there life and she needs to have a home that is safe and nurturing. I'm that home. The courage and commitment to believe that I'm going to take this step and it's taking me a step closer to the mountain. But it is also, for its own sake, a good and valid thing to do. Every breath for its own sake, not just to preserve your life. Every step for its own sake, not just to reach a goal every day for its own sake, not just to achieve something. Every smile, every touch, every word, both to reach some goal or accomplish something or express something, and because it is right action, it is right to do, period, for its own sake. So if you're doing your morning ritual and you're visualizing your child or you're visualizing someone with a healthy child, you're making sure that every day you're taking actions that are in alignment with your goal of increasing 1% per week in connection with your inner child, making that child either safer or happier. You're feeling gratitude just like, wow, another day of life. Another day that I get to explore and learn and share. Be grateful for that for its own sake. Because if you found out you were dying tomorrow, you would give everything you had for one more day of life. You would give all your possessions for one more day of life, one more hour of life. In all likelihood, that gift then is worth everything you have and more. Feel gratitude for it in terms of your intentions. Have a clear view of where you want to go and who you are so as to be constantly getting into deeper touch with yourself on the deepest, purest level possible. Encourage and conviction to believe you. When you're doing your morning ritual, you move and breathe and speak and hold your face and your posture as if you had the courage to believe that this is what you can and should do, what you must do. Not just what you should do, but what you must do. And you will not stop. In the same way that if your child was in trouble, you would run into a burning house to save that child. If your life was on fire, you're running into that burning house of your life to save your heart. When you have the same kind of commitment for your heart that you would have for your child, that is when you are in alignment with yourself. Anything less than that is the world taught you you were not worthy. Screw the world. Love yourself. Love that little girl. Love that little boy in your heart. Until when you say, I love you, they look at you, smile and giggle and say, I love you too, silly. That's when you know you got it. We have 11 minutes. Comments, questions, requests about anything that we've either handled here or that we've covered in the past. Deborah.

You know what? That must be some sort of psychic link that we had going on just then, because as I was clicking on the video, I said, watch Stephen call my name. I love you, too. You know, it's.

It.

I have gotten so much out of everyone's sharing, everyone's talking today, and. And it's just incredible.

Aren't they incredible? Aren't you all. Aren't you guys all incredible?

It's just amazing to me. And I'm just. And. And. And for me, it's kind of overwhelming. I get moved quite often when I'm on here because it's like all of these total strangers to me who have all of a sudden become not total strangers, and that I see how much our souls are intertwined and how they merge and how they speak to one another even when we're not talking. It's just amazing.

Are you seeing. Are you starting to sense that everybody is coming from the same place?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, take that out into the world and you will start noticing, oh, my God. Everybody's being driven by. By fear and love. Everybody. I'm here, the most venal politician and evil person you can think of. They don't feel safe and they don't feel loved. And that's why they are destructive, nasty people.

I want to share this one little thing with you.

Please do.

Yesterday I was in the grocery store. I get steps in sometimes when it rains here by going to the grocery store. And I stopped and had a chat with this little kid, a little four year old little boy with his mom and dad. And I chatted with him for quite a while. And then when I was. We were finished, I thanked him. I said, well, thank you very much for talking to me because I don't have anyone that I talk to regularly at home and I really have enjoyed talking with you. He looked me dead in my face and said, just doing my job. I said, steven, where are you?

Steve? Yeah. What would it feel like in life if we all felt it was our job to make connection, loving connection with the people around us? What would happen to the world if in one year, if we all considered that to be our job? This is my dharma. This is my role in life. This is why I was brought here. It's my job to do what it is that I'm doing with you guys. I love this. Who else? Jacqueline. Jacqueline, you want to talk to us? If you don't want to, it's okay. All right. Linda Dickens.

All right. First I have to get myself unmuted.

You're unmuted. I hear you.

Alrighty. This is actually a break for me today. I am in the process of getting a vest finished. They had the stuff for the quilt show has to be in today. So when I'm done here, my daughter and I will be. Dennis, don't cut up in the middle of this. I. I can't think that directions at once. We're both in the same room, which makes it a little awkward sometimes. But yeah, I'm. I'm gonna have it done. So I'll have two things in the quilt show, the quilt I showed last week, and then the best good.

Is there anything, anything we can help you with?

Coming and listening helps. I have things. Parts of that that are I. That I have problems with. But I also know part of that is I was mostly told growing up that, why can't you be like. And it was like, why can't I be like somebody that was diametrically opposed to me? So it's hard for me to think that I can do. Do things because the things that were valued that I was told were valued weren't the things I could do. And after. And there comes a point where, at least for me, I simply stopped trying.

Well, let me ask you a question. If that had not happened to you, what would be different about your life today?

I would. I would probably have stuck to the egg that I was. Actually a couple of things could have happened. One of them was, if they had let me know that I actually was intelligent, I may have actually gone out and done scientific research because I like science. I also like animals, which is how come I was looking into doing ag as a career. Part of what happened to that was Dennis. But also another part of it was the fact that I was beginning to understand that while I might like doing cattle ranching, the far as the guys were concerned was the women's job was to fix the food and be in there in case they needed you, rather than actually doing the work, which is what I would have wanted to do.

Okay, so I'm seeing science and animals and different kinds of work. Is that pretty much? Yeah, the three things. Okay, so you are. What. What age were you when you were told that you could not.

I can't remember when I wasn't being told. Why can't you be like, okay.

So what you have described there is a path that would give the child inside you a great deal of satisfaction to engage with science, to engage with animals, to do some particular type of work that you were discouraged from doing or the analog for that work at this stage in your life. That every day I would learn something new about some new scientific fact about biology, about animals, I would find someplace where I could learn or contribute that gave me a chance to touch animals in a way that made my heart happy. That I would like very much for you to feed that little girl inside you, the one that was told that she could not. If you will do that, she will give you joy and energy and creativity. If you make it your job to protect that little girl and if you will make a deal with Dennis. Dennis, are you listening? Nod your head if you're listening. You guys make a deal with each other that every day you will ask, what have you done today for your little girl? What have you done today for your little boy? You, Dennis, you are that. You are a little girl's daddy, Linda, you are his little boy's mommy.

Okay?

Take care of each other, love each other and encourage each other to play. This is your time in life. Whoever it was that told you, you could not. Their time is done. Their time is done. You. You own the rest of your life. True. You own it. So you create the safety within which your child can feel joy. Only you know exactly what that will be. But that's the assignment that I'm offering you. Will you take that assignment?

Yes, I will.

1% greater joy and connection to that little girl every week. See?

Okay.

See what have you looking at? Yes, that's right. That's right, Dennis, do that and report you're here every week. You're always here supporting other people. Let us support you. Okay.

All right.

That's.

That's kind of a different side for me, but, yeah, yeah, I enjoy being here.

That's.

I enjoy learning things. I enjoy hearing people saying stuff. I'm not a writer, but I enjoy creativity, and I love.

You enjoy learning. So I would suggest to you that you examine a particular belief. You only know something if you're doing it. Otherwise, it's just information. It's not knowledge. Knowledge is doing the thing because the ability to motivate yourself to do it is as important as the technique. If I have perfect martial arts technique, but I'm afraid to throw a punch, I'm. I have not learned the art. The art isn't just moving my body. The art is also managing my fear. You understand?

Yes.

Writing is not just having the technical understanding. It's being able to overcome writer's block by dealing with the fear that if you include the ability to do the thing in the definition of the thing, then the part of you that takes pride in knowing is then motivated to feel, oh, to know this thing. Let me get the supporting information as well. What's important is that you start by loving yourself, though. Because if you don't love yourself, you might say, well, I don't know anything, so I'm no good. And I've never learned anything. Because there are all these things that you thought you knew that I didn't really know. And really, then that means I'm a slug and I just. Let me just pour some salt on myself.

How about that, then?

Well, by envisioning the little girl that you were, you're very unlikely to go there. You need to be the mommy that she wished that she'd had, someone who would encourage her to do everything and think she was the most beautiful and precious child in all the world. If you will start with a commitment to bring that into your life, your life will change by the end of this year.

I'll work on it then.

Linda, will you support Dennis? Dennis, you support Linda.

Yes.

I now pronounce you mommy and daddy of two beautiful children.

Now all we need is the bear.

The what?

The bear. We had a bear at our wedding.

Oh, fantastic. Okay.

We got married in Sequoyah National Park.

Okay, so you had the bear. Necessities.

Somebody who resembles women wandered past while we were setting up. Yes, we have pictures, but nobody was stupid enough to try to get close to the bear. But, yes, we had a bear at our wedding.

Folks, we are out of time. I will see you next week. What I want you to focus on is that 1% improvement in the connection between adult and child, safety and joy. Do that. Bring whatever you have. Invite your friends to come here totally free. We're here for you. Unmute yourselves. Everybody say goodbye.

Bye, everybody.

That's right. Love you guys. Take care. Love you all. And you know, the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste. Take care, folks. Bye.

Bye.