Firedance 8-26-23

All right, so welcome to Fire Dance Live. This is Stephen Barnes welcoming you to the show. Every Saturday we do this at 12 noon. I was commenting about a bunch of different things. I forget what I said I'd talk about. Anybody remember what it was I said that I wanted to talk about? Because I'm still oxygen, I'm still oxygen in oxygen debt from that workout. So the brain is not working.

You wanted to, you wanted to talk about how to be an enlightened individual.

Oh, okay. No, it's. Enlightenment is an interesting question. Let me, let me come as close to talking about it as possible. What is really clear is that words don't really cover it, but there is a continuum of thought that goes from ordinary thought, which is dualistic, you know.

It'S this or that, to non dualistic thought, which is this and that, to.

What I would call being an awake, aware adult human. Awake, aware human being.

An adult human being is someone who handles their own mud.

I mean, who is, who handles themselves in the world.

They are responsible for their expenses, they're responsible for their emotions, et cetera, et cetera.

And by the way, the 90 day.

Love feast showed me I was not being an adult as fully as I should be, should have been in the relationship arena. That was just a reality that hit me.

On the other side of non dualistic thought. And being that awake, aware adult human.

Being is this thing that is referred to as enlightenment. That is really just another way of saying being fully awake. And as to what that is, I think I can come this close to discussing it. Everyone has moments in which they are more awakened, more alive, more, more, More in the moment than they were at other times. You know, there's a curve to that. And if you, for instance, are in a near death experience, you almost have a collision, or you're at the birth of your child or the death of a parent.

You walk out of that room and the world looks different for a while.

Your blinders are off. You aren't taking anything for granted. Everything looks new or everything looks different.

And then it heals back up again. So we all visit the territory of.

Enlightenment, of awareness from time to time.

But there is a point where you can only have so many of those.

Moments before those moments begin to take on life of their own. And they begin.

You start having a little thing in.

The back of your head that's constantly looking at everything and reminding you to wake up.

When that thing has had its way with you, you are in the process, or as that thing has its way with you, you are in the process of disassembling your ego cocoon, the identity.

That you have built up over the course of your life.

There is a point in that unravel.

When you can back away. And there's another point where you can't. I've heard a couple of metaphors that work pretty well. One is from Sufism that says that enlightenment is the state of awareness that happens at the moment of death, that the seeker simply wishes to open that door before they get there.

Not bad.

That's.

That's pretty interesting. Another one, which was from a more.

Mundane source, spiritual enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing, by a guy named Jed McKenna, which is a pseudonym. Who it really is, I'm not sure. Nobody knows for sure, although there is a lot of speculation.

Who says that enlightenment, or.

I think this comes from Jed.

He's talking about. Enlightenment is like a vampire.

You don't become a vampire by putting on fangs and wearing white makeup and wearing a cloak and walking around saying, booga booger.

You become a vampire by dying and being reborn.

Another thing that I've heard is that the enlightened state is to the unenlightened.

State as butterflies are to caterpillars. If the following statement were true, Butterfly caterpillars do not become butterflies.

Caterpillars die so that butterflies can be born. The collection of statements there is the closest I've ever seen to describing what.

That state would be like.

Assuming that my own peak moments of awareness are pinholes into that experience. That there was a point in my life.

Where I was doing a tremendous.

Amount of meditation, and I realized that, you know, it's like if you ever skied, you know, you can herringbone with your skis like this up to the top of a hill, and then if you point your skis straight, it take one more step. Gravity takes over. I realized I was approaching something where gravity was going to take over, where I was no longer in control of the process.

And whether it was accurate or a.

Matter of fear, I don't know. Just have to be as honest as possible.

But I said to myself, I don't.

Know who or what would be in my body if I took that next step. Because the person that I see myself as my ego construct, Steve, is a.

Particular person I formed in a particular.

Way, life formed in a particular way. Some combination of events and genetics, you know, spirit, who knows? Who can say? But if I unravel that identity completely, and McKenna in his book suggests that it takes about two years to unravel the ego cocoon if you do the following thing, it's something he calls spiritual autolysis.

And you could write it on the.

Back of a matchbook.

You basically sit down with a piece.

Of paper and you write all the answers you can come up with to who am I? And what is true that his estimation is if you spend an hour every day doing that, you could get through all the answers that your ego would throw at you in about two years. That strikes me as being reasonable. What I will say is this.

In terms of rewards in the material.

World, things like physical health and fitness, money, love, relationships, there is no benefit from taking that step. That step, the furthest that you can go along the consciousness continuum and where the progress you make is having an effect, a positive effect on the life that you're living, is that awake, aware, adult human being. Beyond that point, non dualistic thought, I think maybe non dualistic thought comes after that point.

It's possible because by the time you get to non dualistic thought, you're in trouble, you got problems because most people think dualistically.

And if you think non dualistically, you are not going to be able to fall into a lot of the political traps that politicized people and emotionalized people.

So it has to be us or them. It has to be this party or that party.

It has to be this way or that way.

No, it doesn't. It's just easiest to manipulate you and.

Easiest to create symbols of things, because our brains work mostly for either finding.

Connections between things or noting the difference between things. When you step away from that, from.

Away from definitions and antonyms, you are.

Stepping into a place where language stops.

Having the same meaning or impact. And you will find people looking at you very strangely. It is, you know, no question about that. So the state of enlightenment, I mean.

In one sense, ain't no hurry.

You're going to get there, you know, everybody's going to die eventually. But there are those of us who are seekers who have no choice but to find out what's there. I backed away from it before because I had made a promise to raise my son. And I was not sure that the me who would exist on the other side of that would still be Jason's father, would still care. I mean, the Buddha walked away from his family, you know, to, to, to receive his enlightenment.

And if he hadn't been rich in a prince, they would have suffered for it.

But as it was, you know, it.

Was okay in terms of their survival.

Because he had the resources to do that.

That's now that's some privilege right there.

What I came to realize during my stay in Atlanta and recontextualizing my time in Atlanta has been critical for me so that I can own it and take advantage of it, is I realized.

That I'm not primarily a writer or a martial artist.

And I think that those things had been such a clear part of my life that I'd sort of. Once I realized it, it was a little surprising.

That the closest thing to what I could say I was, was I'm a dad.

I love being a dad. I love being a father. I love guiding my son. I loved my guiding my daughter.

And I was willing on two different occasions to walk completely away from my.

Career and everything except my family in order to be a father. Whatever it is that is true about me, one thing I have confidence in.

Is that I would die and burn.

In hell before I would hurt one of my children. There is simply no chance that I would do anything to hurt one of my children. It is as natural for me as breathing. Realizing that has given me permission to ask what's next? What is beyond non dualistic thought? Because I could go there. I live a lot of my life in that space. But that last step, that dissolution of the ego cocoon, I am undergoing that now as my mentors age. And I'm watching their bodies shift and the way that affects their ability to function in the world and realize that I'm next. I'm on the exact same path. And that in caring for them and loving them, I am. And in doing the 90 day love feast serving 10 honoree. Serving Steve Muhammad. Serving Larry Niven.

These are the challenges that will take.

Me to the next level in my life. To care for these people who love me so much and have given me so much to dedicate myself to. That is being totally true to a path I didn't even see was there, but that I've been following by instinct and now I'm following it deliberately. What's on the other side of that is a nature of a matter of clarity that I have never had and that nothing will be able to take away from me. Any of you who have been at the birth of their child or watched their parents die knows that those experiences change you forever. You will never go back to being what you were. And when it hits me simultaneously in the arena of my body, my heart and my mind, there's no place for my ego to hide. My ego's days are numbered. You know, it's like, bye, bye, Steve.

The person who I considered myself to be who got me to this point. You know, it's like, you know, a camel can go through the eye of the needle easier than a rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven. That's what they're talking about. You can't. The part of you that wants to.

Know can't get there.

What can get there is something different from the I who says I want to know.

It's.

There is an observer who watches your thoughts go by, watches your emotions. And you can be the observer, but you can't see the observer. You can't. You can't identify the observer. The instant you think you're identifying the observer, you stepped back another meta position. You're now observing the observer. So at some point you get that joke. You stop trying to catch a glimpse of your true self and realize that the urge to see who you really are, as opposed to being who you really are, is exactly what stops you from being who you are, who you really are. This is the path that I'm on. All I'm doing is sharing some interesting pieces of that puzzle and also trying to be realistic about what you can expect and also realistic about some of the traps. The fact is that that thing that is called enlightenment is a destructive process. People go insane. If it happens spontaneously or if they're.

Out of balance, they mistakenly listen to.

The words people say about it, trying.

To express the experience.

Or even worse, hallucinating that they understand the experience by listening to the masters or reading books about it or reading.

Fiction about it that was also written by people who'd never had the experience themselves. It's like, oh, you do this, you can levitate, you can do this, you can do that. All these cities, all these things that have nothing to do with enlightenment, they have to do with powers of mind and body that are said to be part of this process.

Some of them I can verify.

There are things that are true that I don't talk about.

Others are hallucinations and a door to madness.

So it's real interesting. And, you know, there are all of.

The routes there are indirect enough that I don't really have any real, real hesitation to talk about them because there's no easy way to do it.

So anybody who set out to spend an hour a day for a couple.

Of years to get there, right, kind.

Of, you know, kind of my kind of person, I can understand that. But at any rate, so, you know, welcome. Unmute yourselves and say hello. We've got a relatively small group today, so say howdy to each Other hello everybody else.

Hello Doug.

Great, great, great. So, you know, let's, let's start this by asking, you know, let's, let's just breathe down. Let's do 60 seconds of diaphragmatic breathing.

Because the, the buy in for this process is breathing is spending one minute every hour, ideally or at least five times a day just breathing.

So if, if all we can do.

Is remind each other to breathe, remind each other of the three gates to balance the three centers and aim at improving 1% per week, that's a good use of an hour on Saturday. It's the theory being that you can improve 1% per week per hour that you expend really asking yourself those questions. Who am I? What is true? So let's spend 60 seconds, shall we? And I'll start the timer now. Sam.

It.

Okay, thank you very much. Come back to the room. Now. How many of you were able to. When you're breathing like that, able to reach a peaceful place where the thread of the breath is there and you're with that thread, with that feeling of energy flowing through your body, but you're not thinking, I am. You're not. There is no I, but the thing itself is there. How many of you are able to glimpse that cool? That's a very, very powerful place. That is the place where you're going to have the most intense sexual experiences. When you're going to be at your most creative in the martial arts, you're going to be the most responsive and dynamic. You're not observing yourself. It takes energy to observe yourself. If you can free up that energy, suddenly it becomes available for your own usage. This is one of the reasons why somebody who's nervous about speaking, public speaking. If you're nervous about public speaking, you're thinking about yourself. If you think about the fact that there's somebody who is listening who needs you, who needs your help, someone who's considering giving up, someone for whom you might be the rope that keeps them hanging off the edge of the cliff. That if you can give them enough love and support and hope, you can literally change their lives. When your attention is on the audience, your nervousness disappears. You don't notice yourself. You just notice that there is something that needs to be done, something that needs to be contributed. You know, if the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service, joy is about yourself. You can think I am happy, but if you're serving others, you have to be thinking about them. So before we, you know, before I go on, because I always Got have things to say.

Who has.

Who improved by 1% in the last week? Who has a 1% win that they'd like to talk about? Especially if you're going to apply any of the principles. There's so many different things that, that I've offered you and hopefully on some level you're starting to grasp that they're all different ways of talking about the same thing. Something that can't quite be put into words. I can dance around it, but I can't put my finger on it. Exactly. Any more than I can describe a sandwich enough to nourish your body. There's some things that simply have to be eaten, consumed, experienced. And language can point in the direction. A finger pointing direction to the moon. But the finger, the words, ain't the moon. So who has something that they'd like to bring into the space of discussion today? And it could be on any subject having to do with the mind, the heart and the body. And you can volunteer or you can be voluntold. I will choose.

So you can leave it up to.

Me.

You silly people. Kathy, was that you? Did you.

That is me. I figured I'd get out in front of being.

Good for you.

My 1% actually has been a consistent 1% over the last couple of weeks. Two, three weeks, a little bit more than one. I went through a program put by Stanford University and Deep Learning AI, a machine learning specialization. It consisted of three courses, one on supervised learning, one on advanced learning algorithms, and one on unsupervised learning. And I just completed it all three courses in a record time, actually. And it frazzled my brain in a good way. And I'm trying to put more tools in the toolkit as I transition to another role to make me more have the skills for a different role than roles I'm currently.

So let me ask you the question. Yes.

You've done something to expand your head.

Yes.

Make sure that your heart and your.

Body are in balance.

It's right there, Steve.

So what are you doing for yourself emotionally?

What I'm doing for myself emotionally is continuing to write not as. Not in the full way of the program, but the last role, the role before last I had. It involved students and it was one of the hardest things leaving that role because I was leaving my students. So I've done some. I have created a space on LinkedIn where my students can find me. So I write things to keep encouraging them, keep the things I would say to them every day when I saw my cohort. I'm trying to do that weekly.

Let me ask you a question and I suspect I already know the answer.

Okay.

For your students, in this way heals your heart, doesn't it?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Always has as a teacher, being able to help others, being able to teach. I was a six year old and the future teachers associate, you know, future teachers of America when I was in elementary school.

Fantastic. So you are honoring your child self. Okay. What are you doing for yourself physically?

I doing the breathing. I always do the breathing. I'm doing the stretching. I'm not doing as. So I'm.

Yeah.

What kind of stretching are you doing?

Well, the. You know, you mentioned this once one of the previous Saturdays that you get up and you kind of go through your body and you're seeing what's there. I have my morning ritual and part of it is kind of elongating my body, moving my body, but also seeing what needs attention and getting to that because I do have a tendency to store stress in my shoulders.

Have you.

What has your experience been with the Tibetans?

I don't. I have never really did the Tibetans. I did Tai chi.

Okay. So are you doing Tai chi?

Yeah, well, I. Unfortunately, I know it's. You're supposed to be able to do them in the space it takes a tiger to lie down, which is about all the space I have. But I'm not that good at close.

Quarter Tai Chi, so it would be.

Useful, although not necessary, if you were.

On a path, you were doing something where. If I were to ask you, you.

Know, how are your Tibetans going?

You'd say, I'm up to doing six of them.

You know, I'm.

Or I can do three of them three times a day or something like that. So I could have some kind of a.

An image of where you are.

It's. That's not a metric.

Yeah.

If you can't measure, it's easy. It'll be easier for me to coach.

You at a distance.

And I. I want very, very much.

To help you because it's very clear that you're committed to helping other people.

I appreciate that.

So the best way to change the.

World is to teach teachers.

Yes. Amen to that. I do get some walking in, so.

Oh, that's great.

Walking is.

I could get more in.

Spend some of that time while you're.

Walking being conscious of your body, of the breathing. You know, if you can do that, then you can turn walking into a yoga. You know, feeling your feet rolling against the ground, the breathing, the muscle tension and release just for a little while. Be in touch with the animal part of you and then move up to the emotional human part of you and then allow yourself to go to the spiritual part of the question of what is it you want to give the world that will outlast your own life? So moving through all three of those levels.

Well, let's say that that's, it's, that's.

Vastly more than most people do. Yeah, it's vastly more. Most people live in one of those centers, two at the most. And all three are available to us.

Well, very good. Kathy, Is there anything I can do for you?

Well, you're already doing it, and you do it every week, and it's very much appreciated. And thank you so much. So, yes, you're welcome.

You know, this is fun for me and it keeps me on my toes.

It, it gives me, you know, every.

Week I have to really think about.

Entering into a space where no matter what anybody asks me, I can answer spontaneously and honestly and effectively to the degree that I can do that. Then I'm living what it is that I'm teaching. And that is, you know, one of the best ways to learn anything is to teach it.

Yeah. When you said it, if I could just add to it, it's one of the reasons that I do it as well. I see so many teachers who read from a script and have to have a script like, they can't, which to me is not teaching.

Right.

So having. Having the courage. You talked about practicing, you know, discipline, practicing what it is, either you fair or can't do or whatever it is, and the ability to just answer question. Have my students ask me a question and have the courage to say, that's a great question. I actually don't know the answer.

Yeah, that's. Let us, let us find the answer together.

Together.

Courage is a discipline. You can practice being courageous.

If you were hurt, abused, neglected, oppressed earlier in your life, your courage bone.

May, May be cracked, your courage muscles, probably because you might have gotten smacked.

Down just for standing up for yourself.

Telling yourself the truth about that.

I need to be more courageous.

The six principles of Brendon Burchard's high performing habits are, you know, courage is the sixth habit.

Things that can be developed that contribute to performance. Courage. Incredibly important. Thank you very much, Kathy. It's always fun to see you.

Who else?

Who's next?

I heard somebody. Who was that? Somebody spoke up. Linda Dickens. How are you today?

Okay, pick on me. See what happens.

Slap me down.

Because you're talking about the whole bit about being present at the birth of your child. My first pregnancy ended in an emergency C section. I spent three days in surgical intensive care. The kid was in an entirely different hospital and just fine.

Oh, I'm glad of that.

It did mean the other two also came by C section. I have the old style cut because. Yeah, the bikini cut takes 15 minutes. I didn't have 15 minutes. The old style cut down. You get the kid out in less than 1.

Right.

Well, how has your last week been?

I am getting more consistent in trying to get my crafts done. One of the things that I have.

Okay, let me, Let me stop just a second. You can get more consistent at getting your crafts done. Getting more consistent at trying to get.

Your crafts done does not get your crafts done.

Trying isn't doing. All right, then I will be more accurate. Distinguished.

Yeah.

And I want you to be careful with your language so that you can get the result that you want with the leverage that you've got. So start over again.

Okay. Okay. I have taken to making sure that I crochet one hat a day. I like to crochet, but I don't need any more stuff in the house. And with my. I now have my mother in law's stash, which means I have 10 miles of yarn. I am crocheting for an organization that wants hats. I have set myself a. A program where I crochet one hat a day. If I want to do more than that, that's fine. But if I could crochet two hats today, I cannot skip tomorrow because I cannot do tomorrow's hat today.

You know, something that should go on a T shirt. You cannot crochet tomorrow's hat today. It's, you know, you fix. What was that line in the Martian?

You do what's in front of you. You take care of this problem, and.

Then after you take care of that problem, the next one will present itself and you take care of that problem.

And after that, you take care of the next problem. I'm juggling multiple projects with time limits on them, and I dare not.

I dare not have a week where.

I'm not making progress.

I don't like to have even a.

Day when I'm not making progress.

But it's difficult to quantify what the.

Best apportionment of my energy and attention is, because there is planning, there is writing rough draft, there is converting script to text, there's polishing, there's researching.

There are all these different things that are calling to me, but I have to identify what's, what is, what are.

The Critical things that I have to do in order to meet my deadlines or in order to fulfill my obligations and have fun.

Because some of this stuff is long term. I'm saying for a year I'm going to be doing X every day. I better be having a good time.

While I'm doing it.

It's also useful to be able to.

See how the work is adding up.

You know, it's like, okay, you know, can I see the progress? Because if I can see the progress.

And it adds to my sense of commitment.

It's like, oh yeah, I'm do this.

I'm going to get this progress.

I'm going to lead me to this goal.

This goal, then help me reach this long term goal. This long term goal satisfies my identity, an aspect of my identity, you know, master science fiction writer or something, you.

Know, if I had that, you know, so it's like, it's fun to have these kind of silly.

Nicknames for the.

Part of yourself that is doing a.

Particular thing tied in with something I'm studying right now. You know, I'm just gonna see whether it fits.

But, but you know, if, if, if I go back to see Tananarive and.

My identity is a guy who's been married for 25 years, that's one thing.

But if I go back as the love God, yes, I am going to deliver the goods to Tananari in every conceivable way. I'm going to light her up. If that's my identity, I'm going to be a little different. If, if my identity as a martial artist is I am absolutely lethal.

I am death unchained.

I am the last person in the world anybody would ever want to get.

In front of and forced to hurt them, you know, I am that.

You know, if that's my identity, you know that.

Yay.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow, I will fear no evil because I'm the baddest son of a in the valley. But that is a different identity. I move differently, I think differently, I feel differently. It's fun to come up with things like that because, you know, life is tough.

It's difficult to maintain it.

Discipline, day after day after day after day. How do you do that?

You do that lots of different ways. And we've talked about some of that while we're here.

So let me ask you a question. In terms of your crocheting, what would be an identity that would be fun when you sit down to crochet, who are you that would not only Do a fantastic job, but really have a lot of fun in the process. How could you define yourself and have fun with it?

What might you say about yourself?

Who are you that actually who. Because what I am getting out of it is. Part of it is rest. Part of it is the fact that it is a thing I can do. Even I do have long Covid. Crochet is something I can do when I can't do much of anything else. It is a. It is a positive. And that. I don't know exactly how you'd word that, but it is a proof that I can still do things.

Okay, so that's kind of a neutral thing. Dancing above the place where you're afraid.

That you might not have capacity. What I'm asking you to do is to take an identity that is joyful and positive.

Something along the flight that I am the wizard of crochet. I am something that is so positive that you're way beyond avoiding pain. You're into bliss, that this is your bliss. You're going to love this and you've mastered it and you're good at it, and you're going to give gifts to people from it. I mean, whatever. How could you define yourself? What. What nickname could you give for the.

Part of yourself that is a master of crocheting?

That's. Overall, that's just hard for me because I tend to not think of myself like that.

Yes.

So that one's going to take some work.

That's fine.

That's fine. I would love it if you would think about it and make it silly. Make it something that silly I can do.

Yeah, yeah.

So make it. Make it silly, you know, and, but, but, but you deserve joy. And in life, one of the things that is true is you have to.

Find ways to be joyful.

There's always going to be reasons to be sad.

Always.

So if the meaning of life is.

To be joyful and of service, I.

Need to work on the joyful side of it.

That's right. That's exactly right. Okay, so it's like we start life.

It's. You do things to avoid pain, and.

You try to get the things that.

Avoid pain and unconscious competence.

So you just chop wood, carry water.

And the fireplace stays full. It's just.

You just do that stuff. But once you've got a warm fireplace, you get to ask yourself, what makes me happy?

I want you to be happy.

So it would be great if by next Saturday you had a silly name for me.

Okay, I'll work on that.

That's right. Queen of crochet. Cosmic crocheter. Crocheter extraordinaire. That's right.

Absolutely.

You can brainstorm in chat with these people who would like to play. And I would invite all of you in, like, in all in the three major areas. And this is like, this is specific work that I'm doing right now. So this is not totally thought out and chewed over.

I'm not giving you a piece of my meat.

I'm talking about something that I'm studying that I think is interesting because I definitely want to give it to Jason.

I'm asking myself, what is the single most important thing that if I could convey that to him, he's ready for the world, because he is definitely testing his chops. He definitely wants to get out into the world and find out who he is. So you have your body, you have your emotions, relationships, and you have your career. Crocheting might be a heart thing for.

You, or it might be a head.

Thing for you or some combination of them.

But whatever disciplines you have in those.

Three arenas, if you had an identity, you know, if I'm a grandmaster in the martial arts and a master of science fiction and a master of love.

You know, those are things that make me smile and remind me who I'm committed to being.

And because it gets hard sometimes, laughter is great. It will save your heart.

Anyway, thank you very much, Linda. Is there anything else I can do for you today?

Not today.

You gave me lots to think about. Thanks.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Who's next? Or do I have to volunteer You? Hello, Orion.

Hello. This week I committed to moving down to California from Seattle to be with my son.

Wonderful.

And I have an entire 8 1/2 by 11 page of things I have to do before I can start to move. And I chose one. I've been sitting on the culls of my library. 11 boxes of them. Right before the COVID I did it and I couldn't do anything with them except keep them. So yesterday I took one of them and I tried to sell the books at half price books. And I came up with a net loss of $17. Because you give them the books and then you go look around the store.

Ah, yes.

It's a truck.

Ambro akbar.

It's a trap. It's a trap.

It's a space station.

But I like what I got and I'm happy and. But that was a big step for me to actually get going on the things that I need to do.

Excellent.

That's what I'm doing.

Wonderful.

Is there anything I Can do for you today?

No, I'm getting all kinds of ideas.

Fantastic. Fantastic. This feels like a question day.

I don't know. Let's see.

Checkasiae and Indigo. Chekajay and Indigo.

Hi, it's Shikasia.

Ekaysia.

Shakesia.

Shakesia. Hi, Shikasia. How are you, sweetheart?

Good.

How are you?

You know, I'm doing great. I miss my wife.

I know you do.

I can see her next week in D.C. i'm so excited.

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, she'll be coming back on Monday, and then she's leaving again, you know, next Friday. So we have to make every minute count. You know, I have to really handle myself, you know, in terms of making.

Sure that when she is home, I.

Am doing everything in my power to.

Take care of her so she knows.

Home is a place she can drop the act. It's not that she acts that much. She's pretty much the same person all the time. She's more professorial.

In person.

She's a goofball. But I have to be sure that.

She knows that she has total freedom to fly. She is an eagle, and I need to be sure that she knows that the nest is just fine. When she's here, she can collapse. It's rest, and she'll be taken care of so she can go right back.

Out and fly again. So how can I serve you today, Chakasia?

Well, first, you can clone yourself, because I need one of you.

I understand.

At least put it in the story. Can you write that in the story so I can have it read something that would be number one?

I absolutely will. Absolutely.

And that is.

That is a huge compliment.

I honor that I receive it. And you are a cutie pie. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Yes, absolutely. You know, that's what I'm trying to do. I mean, to the degree that there's.

A part of me that is in alignment with the human being that my mom and my dad and my mentors and the people who shaped me feel, you know, to the degree they feel that I've achieved what it is that I need to be in the world and that I'm representing that I would like to share that with the world. Just like the world has shared so much with me in that sense. So I don't shy away from that. You know, when I do a book like we do a course like the.

SoulMate process@www.SoulMateProcess.com or Life Writing Premium or. Or Fire Dance Tai Chi or the newest one, whose title I Have a lot of fun not saying, but you can find it at incelcure.com I n c e l cure.com which is specifically.

To help guys understand the mating game.

Because there are a lot of guys who are lost.

They have no idea what it is that triggers frankly, the pair bond instinct in human beings, which is what you need to get to the committed relationship.

But before the committed relationship, you know, there's a lot of comparison shopping. You know, it's like not necessarily Ms. Right, but Ms. Right now, you know, just, you know, having a wonderful weekend. There's nothing wrong with that. And the truth is that if every human being knows about 600 people, that means, I think the 600 times 600 is something like, wasn't that 360,000?

That with that we are more.

You're no more than two orders of magnitude, you know, two, let's say six degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? You're no more than two degrees away.

From hundreds of potential soul mates. If you are a good and decent.

Person, if you are in the world being.

The energetic doppelganger of the person who you would raise relish in a.

Relationship, you know, you've got that emotion. You know, your emotions are the same. Your, your physicality is the same, your goals and intentions are the same. Somebody that you know knows the person.

That you're looking for.

That's the way I look at it. So I tell these guys in, in.

The book, be good to every woman you date, whether she puts you in the friend zone or not.

The friend zone just means that she's not interested in you sexually, but you could still be friends. You've had that relationship with women. There are women who you liked, who you were not interested in being intimate with. What in the world is wrong with you that you take it to so personally? If a woman does that to you, be good to all of them. Because one of the women that went out with you once or that knows you, if you are an absolute sweetheart, if you are powerful and strong and you carry your own stuff, she knows somebody. She's going to think, well, you know, you're not right for me, but I've got somebody for you. And the same thing is going to.

Be true about guys that if you.

Are already the energetic doppelganger of the.

Man that you're looking for and you.

Are happy and healthy and you are just eating up life, you are just, you know, just. You make love to life every day. You've got that thing, somebody who, you know, knows the guy who has been looking for you.

You.

I mean, because we're not that complicated.

As human beings, but it is.

It's critical that you.

You be the person who.

Who is the model of. Who is the. The mirror of your hungers. What you are attracted to will tell you a lot about the kind of person you want to be, because the kind of person you want to be.

Is the person who is the natural match of. Of what you hunger for.

Be that person. Be happy being alone. Because a person who is happy being.

Alone can be in a relationship and be happy. I don't need Tananarive. I love her, I adore her. I want her.

But if I needed her, I would.

Need to possess her. And she has her own destiny. She has her own force. We are two planets orbiting each other. I don't want her orbiting me, and I ain't gonna orbit her. We create something together, but we were complete alone. So to the degree that I can, I want the human beings of the world. Because I don't see myself primarily as being male or female. I see myself primarily as being human who happens to be in this body and happens to express this energetic. If I had been born in a female body or if I woke up.

Tomorrow in a female body, that would.

Be an interesting experience.

It's like, I'm sure I would roll with it. It's like, oh, multiple orgasms. Sounds good to me.

It's like.

What I want is for.

You to be absolutely joyful, radiate it to the world, and to be confident. Be a lioness. If what you want is a lion, then just keep being a lioness.

Simple as that.

And you let the world know who.

You are, and you're not willing to.

Settle for less than your worth. You do that and you're on that path, and I totally honor that.

You noticed. You didn't expect me to take that seriously, did you?

I didn't know. I think part of you had said you used the meta. I guess it's a metaphor or the analogy of you and Tananari being two planets orbiting each other. I think some of it is alignment too.

Yes. We're heading in the same direction, right? We see the same world. I fell in love with her at the moment when I realized how smart she was, how ruthless she was, how clever and creative she was. And I just looked at and I. It was like a lion watching a lioness make a really terrific kill. It's like, whoa, we'd have great cubs together. It's like, you know, it was. I recognized Something magnificent. And what I thought to myself was, I think that there's a very good chance that she.

And I could vibe that. I felt it in my energetic.

I felt my spine was on fire.

When I heard her talking about how she got Stephen King to give her a cover blurb for her second novel.

It was like I could not believe.

How smart she was, how thoroughly integrated she was as a human being. And she, it was her destiny was clear. Clear. And all I knew was I, we need to check this out. We need to have a chance to find out whether or not this could work. And I'm willing to totally humble myself before her and ask her to give me that opportunity. So what you want is a man who would look at you and think that you are the fulfillment of his dreams. That you are everything he's ever wanted. That you are for him, the perfect woman. That it's like he just relishes you. He dreams about your body, he dreams about your heart. He wants to protect you. He wants to take care of you. He wants you to shine. He wants you to go out into the world and live your one life to the maximum. And he wants to share that as much as possible with you. And I want you to have the self respect and the love to know that your life is going to be absolutely wonderful no matter what. And if you meet that guy and he's traveling to the same mountain at the same speed along the same path, close enough for you to hold hands as you climb. Cowamunga.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely. I'm going to need a hair sample.

Okay, well, I will have Tamanarif take one to Washington with you.

With her.

That would, that would be great. That would be great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have a perfect lab to get it too.

You know, people, you grasp the depth.

Of the compliment when someone says something like that. What they're saying, if there's no greater compliment than a woman of, For a man, than a woman of power, a woman of force saying that she considers you potentially a worthy partner is what.

In the world would be a higher compliment than that? I mean, seriously, I had. There's a story that I, I tell.

In, in that, in that book, that.

Incelcure.Com about a woman who was at. She was a secretary at Pepperdine University.

And she was from Jamaica. Really, really pretty.

And I would see her every day.

As I, I was carrying mail, I think, or, or it was either mail or record 8 millimeter, 8 millimeter project, 16 millimeter projectors. That's what it was to the offices.

And I. I would flirt with her.

She would flirt back a little bit.

Just a little bit, but she would.

Be talking about her love life and her kids and this, that and the other.

And I would keep kind of finding out, is there any spark here? Is there any this? Is there any that? And she said something to me one day that I did not know how to interpret.

It took me years, really, to figure it out.

And she said, steve, I wouldn't go.

Out with you, but I'd marry you. At that point in my life, I considered that an insult.

It's like, wow, you know, you wouldn't just have fun with me, but you. You know, you. You'd hitch. You'd hitch this racehorse to a plow, you know, and trust me to, you know, to work all my life for you. When I was older and more mature, I saw that very differently.

And I understood what she was saying.

Or at least what I choose to.

Believe she was saying.

I'm not a trivial guy.

I'm not fly.

I'm not.

I was never hip.

Even when I was a teenager, I wasn't hip.

I was always square.

So I wasn't the kind of guy.

Who would be fun for a weekend or just dating. But she would trust me with her life. She would trust me with her children's life. She would trust me to love her. When she lost her looks and was marching together towards being older, that she saw in me someone who she would not have a casual relationship with because she knew that I would open her heart.

And it was at the point where I realized that I was getting one.

Of two kinds of reactions from women.

Either Steve's a nice guy, or va va voom. There was almost nothing in between. It was strange. It really was. And it took me some time to figure out what's going on here and to contextualize it so that I saw it as really the profound compliment.

It was that Lena Wert Miller did a movie called Swept Away that basically was about a wealthy woman and a guy who worked on her yacht, you know, who she was always contemptuous of, who are shipwrecked together on an island and fall madly in love. That two human beings who are being real can bond. That, that is, kept the human race alive.

The fact that really, on some level.

We can love almost anyone. But what we're looking for is. Is that reality, is that aliveness. Because that calls forth, allows us to drop our masks, to drop our pretenses. And the interesting thing about that movie was when they had the chance to be rescued. She did not want to go because.

She knew that if she went back.

To the world, class would come back into the situation and they would not be able to be in love because their ego shells would bounce off you. They simply weren't at the same station in life. And she begs him not to flag down a passing ship. Don't do it. I'm happy. But of course he does. And of course, she was right.

Whether you're talking about the martial arts.

Or writing or being in love, what we need is the courage and the capacity to be our most authentic selves. For me to look at Tananarive and think to myself, I'm seeing a human being here that I believe I can be more myself than I have ever seen. I think I could just drop my act. I could drop the mass. I was tired of it. I was convinced that I could get laid anytime I wanted to. I mastered that and was bored. This is not what I wanted.

The night before I met her, I.

Literally had had an experience of multiple women just not throwing themselves at me. But I was getting a reaction that I'd never seen before. And I got down on my knees that night in my hotel room, was at a conference, and I said, okay, God, I understand it. I understand the game. I understand exactly what's going on here. And I know I could be the dog of all time, and this is not what I want. What I want is someone I can actually love. I can actually be with for a lifetime. And if I have to wait the rest of my life to find her, then I will. And as you can probably guess, the next morning, I met Tananarif. When you have totally handled your. The universe gives you what's next.

So let's handle our, shall we? Who's next?

And, Chiquija, thank you very much. Profound compliment. And like I said, you're fun.

You're fun.

Thank you. And you're welcome. Thank you for this.

You're.

You're incredibly welcome that. I love that, you know, come on, somebody who's next? Who has something.

I don't have that level of input to put in. And I only have a minute or two left because my laptop is dying.

Okay, go for it.

Thank you. Well, I don't know where to start. I was just going to thank everybody for sharing their information and their energy because I get a lot of. I get a lot of what I need from theirs. Especially like today, we're talking about tai chi.

Yes.

I feel ignorant because I don't Feel like I'm where I need to be with. With the type she practice.

Be with the discomfort, be with the questions, be with the doubt. That's all part of the process. When you accept where you are and know, oh, this is just what it.

Is at the moment the next step will come.

It's when you think you're supposed to be something other than what you are.

At that moment that you are not doing Tai Chi.

When you're doing Tai chi, you are with what is happening right now, including the discomfort.

Okay, you're doing great.

You know this.

To engage with the discomfort is the road of mastery.

There isn't anything other than the road.

There's no place to get to the masters. They don't see anything except their own imperfections. Doesn't matter. The students look at them and say, oh, you're perfect. The master's thinking is, are you kidding? Everything is. Nothing's working today. And the students saying, wow, that's. You gotta get the joke. There's just the road.

There's just other people working on their stuff. Sweetheart, if you have any specific questions.

About Tai chi, send me an email or a personal message or something like this.

I'll be happy to coach you.

Okay? I have rhythm, but I'm slow with it, you know, so. So, like, if I ever tried out for a dance troupe or something like that, it would take me a while to catch on to the steps. So that's good. That's what I feel about where I'm at with Tai chi, that I need to get into the mind space where I'm with the flow. I don't feel in sync.

What you can do is take just the first few moves that you have.

Memorized, just the moves you've memorized, and.

Do that and loop that over and.

Over again to create a flow within those moves.

Don't try to go further to moves.

You have not memorized to stay in.

There and just work on the flow. Sometimes you work on the pieces, sometimes you work on the flow and move back and forth and have fun with it. You know, I would have my students go through different animals, you know, just like, you know, think, do that. Do it like a cat, do it like a monkey. Do it like this, do it like that. Have fun with it. Do it like metal, do it like water, do it like earth, you know, Know. Do it like wood. Every time you shift perspectives, you're having fun.

And we learn fastest when we're playing, by far.

Okay, Sonia?

Yes.

Okay.

There's more, but, yeah, go for It, No, I mean, just like, you know, the writing. I think I brought a story to or shared a story and.

Yes, you did.

That was. I was so nervous, you know, because I think after Covet, I really was shut down. I haven't been out seeing people, my friends, or even strangers. And I think the story, the feedback that I've got had gotten on it before I shared with you guys, kind of left me with some holes or confidence that I needed to. To address within myself. And I'm running out of brain space. But.

Okay, if you'd like to send us another story, you know, I'd be perfectly happy, you know, doing one story a.

Week from different people.

We're doing, you know, all of the.

Different courses that we're doing are connecting here. So if you're a writer or you're a martial artist, you just want to maybe find love or just self improvement. This course, that course, stuff like that, just bring it here. And because it's all the same thing. It's all, who are you really? How do you express that in the arena of love or career or your physicality, you know, and it's all the same thing to me. There's always fear and there's always lack of clarity and there's always discipline and there are always new things to be learned and there's always self forgiveness to forgive yourself for not being more or different than who you are. The moment you're spending wishing you were different from who you are is a moment that you're not appreciating how wonderful you are already. I want you to live in the same sense of understanding that you're wonderful.

And beautiful and powerful.

You only get this one life. I want you to enjoy it thoroughly. Does that make sense?

Yes. That's one of the things I'm looking at lately is spending time with loved ones.

Yes.

Because it's such a precious thing, time.

Oh my God, is it ever? Absolutely.

And if you, if you can, when you see them, your intent is to serve them. If you can do that, you will.

Get more joy for yourself and you will light up their world. They will love you even more.

It's very difficult not to love somebody.

Who loves you without asking anything in return.

It's really hard. It was really one of my tricks in terms of approaching mentors is just give them a lot of honest affection.

And regard and respect.

And I knew that if I kept doing that over a long enough period of time, eventually they would say, I guess Steve's a good guy. That's what happened I became family with these people because I wasn't asking for.

Anything back that I had not earned. It was just like, let me give, let me give, let me give. I mean, I always took care of myself. But the 90 day love feast with.

Tananarif is all about what happens if.

My entire focus is on giving to her. That's different than I've ever been and it's helping to raise me to another level.

If you write with the intent to.

Express something, you've learned something about life. You're going to write a story that enables you to express this thing that you have learned so that a younger version of you will be saved the pain of going through that, or the younger version of you will believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel or whatever it is. If your intent is to serve, it's much easier to motivate yourself to learn the tools that will enable you to do it. Okay. Anything else, sweetie?

If I think of it, which there will be, I'll send you a message.

Sounds great, you know, and come back next week and we'll keep this up. All right.

All right, all right.

So who else? All right, well, let me kind of go into what I was going to.

Talk about today was back into the question of our basics. We have the three centers. Body center, heart center, head center. And we have the three gates. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful?

And one of the things I wrote about today was the fact that when people.

There's only one context I can think about in which it is not obvious that being honest, kind and useful are all interconnected.

And that is the arena of mortal.

Conflict, either war or politics.

When you find people, if you commit.

To the three gates, you can apply.

The question, is it true? Is it kind?

Is it useful to any arena of life?

I think that they are the key.

To becoming an awake, aware, adult human being. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone was committed to being honest, kind and efficient, effective. A much better world. People who are focusing on what they can do to. To improve themselves are not out there hurting other people. They're not incels, they're not racists, they're not bigots, they're not. They're not haters. If they're committed to being honest, kind and useful.

When you meet people who argue about.

Whether or not the three gates are.

Useful and talk about, well, I can't use it here, I can't use that. They are telling you about themselves, they are telling you that they find dishonesty and cruelty to be useful.

You understand that.

Now, on a short term event, I think we've commented before, I mean, you.

Don'T owe a mug or honesty.

If somebody attacks you, you might have to temporarily step out of the question.

Of being kind, although you don't. You don't be more unkind than you need to.

And there are entire martial arts like.

Aikido that are set up to defend you yourself while creating minimum damage to your opponent. Those are extremely advanced arts. It's difficult to do that. But it is possible. It is possible.

But a person who finds themselves in a war zone is different from one.

Who constantly looks for war zones.

The person who finds themselves in conflict.

With the world, you know, so, you.

Know, politics is the art of achieving an effect.

You know, we want to accomplish something. So I need to create a coalition of sufficient voters or whatever to make this happen. And it's.

I think it requires quite a bit of character and intelligence to be a.

Politician, a successful politician. Tell the truth and be kind.

It's totally worth it.

And I believe that we can point.

At some people who clearly have tried to be that way, who clearly tried.

To be good, decent human beings and made it to the top of the political pile. But I think that that requires unusual clarity for us in our lives, in every arena. If we were looking at the hundred at the ninety day love feast again.

Is it true that I love to.

Honor Eve with my whole heart? Yes, it is. Is it true that if I give her all the love and support that I can, it will be good for me and for her? I believe that is true as well.

Is it kind?

Well, that's almost absurd. I mean, of course it's kind to.

Give somebody as much love as you possibly can. Is it useful? I think that we already covered that. Yeah, it is useful both in terms.

Of improving the relationship and in terms.

Of supporting her and learning about myself.

Who do I have to be to do that?

To give her that love without asking.

Or requiring anything in return, I have.

To be somebody who handles all of.

His own emotional stuff. I'm not needy, I'm not dependent. I simply adore her. To find myself in that position, to work my.

To ask myself, at what moments in.

My life have I been that guy? And then ask myself, did I like being that guy? And at the moments when I was giving everything of myself without asking anything in return, how was I performing? And the truth is, I was performing at an extraordinary level. I was doing my best writing, I was doing my best working out. I Was doing my best as a father or as a husband.

And if those three things create the.

Space of who I am.

Then seeking to give everything I can once I've.

Got my own survival handle. Seeking to give myself away in those three arenas is exactly the work I need to do to become a better human being, a better writer, better fighter, a better husband and father. It's everything. I can use the three gates to guide myself there. If I find myself in a lot.

Of situations where I need to be.

Unkind to people, I need to ask myself questions.

Why am I continually finding myself in these situations?

Are other people constantly in condition orange, condition red?

Getting into fights all the time, getting into arguments all the time. You know, I run into lots of people I just can't see. I can't stand these arguments, these trumpers or these libs, these. No, you have become habituated to fighting.

The metaphor that you have chosen for your life, your identity is a fighter, not a warrior. You know the way I would define those things, they're not the same things. Warriors are certainly fighters, but fighters are not necessarily warriors. I am what I am to protect my tribe, to protect my family, to protect my heart, to protect the little boy inside me. Given half a chance, I will respond to the world with nothing but love. That's all I want. That's all I want. If I could spend the rest of my life working out with my buddies, writing good stories, loving my family, that is the best life I can think of. The progressive realization of a worthy goal is the definition of success. Being genuine and believing that if I am less than the best I can be, that's because of fear. That anger is a mask over fear. What am I afraid of in terms of Tananarive? Am I afraid of being alone? Am I afraid that she might leave me?

I can't be afraid of that.

I can't keep my hand open if I'm afraid of her leaving me. When she first came to visit me in Vancouver, Washington, I was living in a side by side duplex with my ex wife. We were still married at the time, but the relationship was ended. And when my daughter Nikki got home.

From school, she'd come over to my.

Half of the house. When her mom got home from work, she'd go over to her mom's side of the house and sometimes I go over there for dinner.

But the first time Tananari came to.

Visit me, a couple things happened.

First, God bless her, the first thing.

Nikki did was run up and hug her. Nikki was like 12, 13 and the.

First thing she did the first time.

She met Tananarip was run up and hug her.

I was like, wow, that gave daddy.

Permission to be happy. You understand that? The second thing that happened is I.

Walked them into the house on Tony's side of the house, my ex wife's.

Side of the house, sat all three of them down at a table, said.

You guys talk about whatever you want to.

And I left for an hour.

Why did I do that?

Because I wanted Tananarive to have all the information she needed to make an informed decision. Because if I wasn't good for her, I didn't want her to be with me. She had a destiny. She was her own person. She had her own force. She was not something to keep in a cage. I have to have my hands open. Fly free, little bird. If there's something out there that looks better for you than me, and it is, I want what's best for you.

Always.

I want what's best for you. Go and do what you need to do to complete yourself in life.

Life.

I'm fine. But as it happens, she thinks that.

I'm the best thing that could possibly happen for her. You know, she's often done that. You know, Steve, if something happens to you, I don't even know if I'd go looking anymore. And that's the right way to think, you know, I figured in about a year she'd start noticing other guys again. It's okay. It's okay.

Or not, I don't know. But what I do know is I can't be afraid of losing her.

I can be afraid of not being.

The best man I can be. I can be afraid of not being honest with her, of not being kind and loving enough with her. But I can't be afraid that she will leave. That would be lethal. That's when people become possessive. That's fear. Pure fear. And I will not come to my love relationship bringing my fear with me. My fear is for me to handle. For these 90 days I'm really having a chance to look at that. Look at what am I afraid of? Fear of being. Bill Academy said fear of being alone, loneliness is everything it's cracked up to be.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's.

How do I stop that?

Loving myself. Making contact with the little kid inside me. Making sure that he doesn't turn into what one of my teachers called a needy, wounded, abandoned child. That it's my job to take care of that little kid inside me. Now, as it just so happens, that little kid loves to be mothered by.

Tananari, you know, just loves it. I mean, it's like she's wonderful at that. But there's a difference between.

Accepting the love of someone and clawing for it and trying to manipulate it. I have to be very careful about that. When I started the 90 day love feast, I almost didn't tell her what I was doing because I knew that if I told her what I was doing, she would want to do it too. And I asked myself the question, am I trying to change her? No, I'm not. I'm trying to change myself. But I figured that I could honestly tell her that it was not my intent and that she would believe me, and it was the truth. And what has happened is that we have embraced this journey together and it's been.

Amazing. She's quite a lady, let's just put it that way.

Well, we will leave it at that.

Who else has got something that they'd.

Like to put on the table today? Today's a good day for talking about career things, emotions.

Yes, Michael?

Yeah.

We, we spoke last week and I'm in a life situation where I need to find a new place to live. And you know, you, you gave me advice and I've been sitting here feeling a little daunted because a lot has happened, but I'm kind of brain dead and exhausted from being sleep deprived. And I'm trying to think, okay, what's, what's the succinct, clear way of, of describing what happened? And I'm in a little bit of a different head space. I'm still facing the same challenges. But when, when you were speaking to me last week, one of the things you did, you. You challenged me to do, you know, the five minute breathing. And I'll. I'm very happy to report that maybe I didn't do it exactly on the hour, but I haven't missed any of those, you know, three hour intervals of breathing, you know, that great and wonderful.

Wonderful.

The hard part is holding my breath for 2 hours and 59 minutes. But the other thing is that you spoke about the hero's journey. And my reaction to what you're saying was really kind of interesting because I, I have been in a situation where I've been very frustrated with people in my life telling me things that I already know. Saying that, that, you know, with, with like 30 seconds exposure to what I'm dealing with. It's like, I don't know, you know, I'm putting, I'm saying, oh, I'm putting in my shoes. And then you know, oh, you're putting my shoes. And then they tell me how to tie my shoes. And it's like, done that, been there, and all that sort of stuff. And so you were telling me things. You know, I, I, I've been hearing you talk about the reading for a long time, and I've read the James Nestor book and Hero's Journey. You know, I took Chris Vogler classes 20 years ago, and I know Chris writing and all that stuff. And I, it's, but, but what was interesting about that is not like, oh, you're telling me things, that you're one of these people. It was my reaction to it. I was thinking, well.

I should be.

This, this has been annoying me everywhere else, and I'm not annoyed right now. And I realized one, it was coming from a different place that you were trying, trying to help me. And there, the next question was, so if you know all this stuff already, why aren't you doing it?

Because you don't know how to implement it.

Yeah. And so I, you know, I went through a process of assessing what was going on, and it brought me to an interesting place of where I've been. You know, the physical challenge of where am I going to be living is still there, and I've made some progress to it. But what I was thinking, you know, as a writer, as a storyteller.

What.

Was the story I was telling about myself?

Yes.

And did you come to. And, well, it's the, that, that I'm, I'm 80% of who I want to be, maybe even 85% that, the thing that I want to be doing with my life and the thing that feeds me right, right now in my life, I, I, I'm, I'm working on a project, you know, I, I wrote a lot of TV animation, you know, earlier in my life, and this is something that's prose and it's a novel, and it reflects who I am. It's, it's my, it's like the writer's version of Bay of Ruth, pointing at the bleachers and saying, I'm gonna head over there.

Yeah.

And a lot of unusual, really exciting things happens, like, you know, you know how your critical voice can get in your way.

Yes.

And that was. I have always been having to press against the critical voice. Yes. And I'm, I'm running in a situation where, like, I was in tackling prose and tackling writing a novel. I'm very insecure about going from, you know, writing tv, animation, where you write in a certain way, because this Script's going to Korea and they're going to translate it because these Korean animators and doing it. So, you know, you, you, you, you're, you kind of simplify what you're writing. And now I'm tackling prose and it's, it's different.

And listen, Michael, I would like to extend to you the exact same offer that I've made to others. And that is, why don't you write us a story?

Story.

Write a five page story and I'll.

Be happy to analyze it for you.

I, I'm, I, I will. Let me tag that because I want to work on this, this novel. But what, what I'm finding is this interesting thing where my, it's almost like my critical voice is, you know, saying, oh, that didn't work right over there. And then it's like, oh, yeah, that, that. It's almost like a collaboration. I don't feel like I'm swimming against the current. It's, it's an exciting thing. And I realized, well, that's who I need to protect. That's the version of who I am. And I'm in a family situation where I'm dependent on people who don't value that, who, you know, are not nurturing that. So I changed the story that I was telling of. That's the guy. That's the process that I'm really enjoying and being delighted with. I need that. This is not like, oh, I'm going to be out on the street and all this sort of stuff. It's like I'm going to be out of this system and being hooked into all this emotional dysfunction and all that stuff. I'm going to be free of that, to be more of who I am.

Yeah.

In other words, in order for you to do that.

Yeah.

Ideally, there needs to be a part of you that gets tough, that bears its teeth. It says, no matter what happens, I'm going to survive. No matter what happens, I'm going to survive. I am a tough, mean son of a.

When it comes right down to it. And I also have a lot of love to give and a lot of life to live.

And no matter what happens, I'm going.

To be all right.

If you can convince yourself of that based upon the fact that you've been all right until now, you've survived everything until now, you can forget some of.

The fear and some of the stress.

And with the fear and the stress gone, you get to look at what's going on around you and say, well, this is a situation.

These are my Resources.

And these are the things I can do in that storyteller brain of yours. Write a goddamn story about somebody in your life situation who ends up in a good living situation situation who goes from the risk to the reward. You've done it a thousand times in fiction. It's the exact same process in life. You need to accept the responsibility. You need to deal with the fear. You need to take daily actions. You need to find the allies that have resources you don't have, bonding them with, with love and friendship and honesty, if nothing else. And you need to believe. You need to have faith. There's going to be dark nights of the soul. You know this. You've done this every single time you've ever written anything. You know it. Apply that skill to your life. Write a story about somebody in your situation. Then ask, what did he do? If he got everything at the end of the story, he got everything he needed, what the hell did he do? What was he doing every day? How did he shift this?

How did he win this game?

Do that.

And you are leveraging your storyteller, problem solver into life.

That's, that's life. Writing is applying the tools of writing.

To life or the tools of life to your writing. It's exactly what that is.

I'm, I'm so glad to hear you say that because the biggest challenge, well, I've had like a handful of challenges and I don't need it, is that I rewrote my resume and almost exactly with the attitude you're describing of like, okay, I, I've been accepting the version of the story, which is other people's versions of here's a sick sad life, nobody wants you. You're worthless. That you're not valued. And then I, I, I said, well, here are the things I'm trying to make myself look attractive.

You find the attractive part of yourself.

Yes.

For that part. And bring it out. You can't become something that you're not. But what you can do is find the part of you that already is and nurture that.

Exactly. That's. And it's already, you know, I'm, I'm in this part of the ark.

Yeah.

And I, the next week is going to be very interesting.

Okay. So what I want you to do.

Yeah.

I want you to do, is to keep the breathing up and at the beginning of every day, dump out everything in your head that you feel like you have to do that day and ask yourself, what are the three things I'm going to do today that's going.

To Help me find a new place. Yeah, you know, it's going to be three things.

Just keep focused on that. And we will, we will workshop this.

With you every week until you're in a new place.

Yes.

Okay.

You know, just all you have to do is raise your hand. Buddy, we will not. We will be here and we will.

Not let you down.

Yes.

Okay. Okay. I've got to go to the next person, but Michael, thank you for sharing.

That was beautiful.

Yes, thanks. Okay.

Lawana. Luana Richmond. You've had your hand up. You've been all polite and everything. Turn on your camera if you can. Hello, Luana.

So.

The car washed by the time you called on me. So almost at the end. So I've been producing Comic Cons in San Diego for the last five years.

Oh, wonderful. I was just down there.

Yeah, I just got a video from you and your wife last year for afrocon and I'm getting ready to do it again. And next month and every year I say, okay, I'm going to start earlier. I'm going to be. Take it more serious and stop treating it like a hobby or a party I'm having at my house. And here we are, it's August events, September. And I have like taken some better. I've taken some great steps and I've been reading you and following you for dear. This is my first time joining. But like the thing I committed to.

You're so welcome.

Wait a minute. All right, I'm out of the car wash now. You can hear me without all the noise. So the thing I committed to is actually following up with everybody that I met at Comic Con and blurredcon. And so what I've done so far is I've had two or three meetings. And you know, just while I was on this call, I got a text message from Titmouse Studios. They're connecting me with the people who did. Was it Quasi something and Disney Studios. Yeah. And so. Huh.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

No, not that one. Not the Quasi.

Let me see.

I have it. I have the text message. Here it is. Kazazimoto.

Don't know it.

Creation Fire in Disney plus.

So what, Loana, what can we help you with today?

Well, I mean, really listening to other people go through their process and own it and take their stuff. For me, I've been in this like weird like transition of like becoming, I guess, really becoming myself. I was in a like 20 year situationship. Yeah, that's a long time. I was actually, we were actually engaged. But I realized that it Was just a situationship and left.

I never heard that term.

I love it.

But, you know, I. You know, within a year of leaving, I lost 60 pounds. I was an inch taller. And, you know, they're starting.

You were an inch taller?

Yes.

Carrying some serious pain there.

Yeah. Like, I went to the. So I was. I was 56 before I got in the relationship. And then at some point, the doctor said, I was 5 5. And I was like, no, I'm 5 6. I've been 56 my whole life. And for 20 years, I was only 5 5. And then I went to the doctor afterwards, and they said, you're 5 6. And I said, no, I'm not 5 6. I'm 5 5. I've been 55 for the last 20 years. And they said, well, you're 56 now.

And you started standing up straight.

Yeah. And so, you know, now, you know, I guess, you know, I got called a public intellectual on Clubhouse and realized that, like, maybe I should own it.

Absolutely.

I do.

Talk.

Public intellectual is a perfectly good pet name for yourself, for the intellectual party. So, you know, who are you when you sit down and write? I'm a public intellectual. I'm a big brain.

I got.

I got the big brains.

Great.

And so I'm in this place where people want me to, like, grow my event. And I. I want to scale it, but I don't want to lose sight of why I'm doing it. I don't do it for. You know, for years, nobody even knew it was me doing it. But I do it because I see it as a way to get people to internalize their local locus of control.

Okay, so let me ask you a question. I got a suggestion for you.

What's your mission statement for. For these events? Create a mission statement.

That is, I launched a nonprofit in March called Grioneers, and the mission statement is really engage. What is it? Engineering the future through storytelling.

Okay, so that. And that's a perfectly good, good one. May I suggest that you use more emotionally charged world words to inspire people to live their best life, to help adults go back into their childhood and remember their dreams so that every day is an adventure. They're creating their own Disneyland. I'm going to create a context in which people can have more fun, feel more aliveness, more passion than ever before. And only I can do this because I am a public intellectual. Just, you know, that intellectual thing is great, but the. The mission statement, in order to inspire you and to inspire other people needs to come from your heart so that you show this to the people who are working with you and say, this is who we are. This is what we're going to do. We're going, we're not going to do a convention.

We are throwing the biggest party on the West Coast.

Okay. I like it.

So you create a mission statement and bring it back to us and read it to us.

I will bring a mission statement back next week.

Sounds great.

Wonderful.

People, we're out of time. You know, I, I love doing this so much. This is one of the high points.

Of my entire week.

I'm so glad that you feel the same way. If you know people who you think would be good for this, get them to, you know, sign up over at.

Steven Barnes list.com Stephen Barnes list.com and.

Just find a way to improve by 1%.

Look at all three areas of your life. Remember the three gates.

They are your road.

They will. They are your safety rails. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong.

Unmute yourselves. Everybody say goodbye.

Bye.

Bye, everybody.

It's been a lot of fun this week.

Namaste.

And I will see you next week. Take care. Love all of you. And from my family to yours, have.

A wonderful weekend, a wonderful week, a wonderful life.

I love you all. Take care.

Love you.

Namaste. Namaste.

Bye.

Bye.