Firedance 9-30-23

Sam.

So, people, anything anybody would like to talk about before we start recording, always want to give people the option to do that in case there's something personal that you would like to talk to me about, but you don't necessarily want recorded forever.

I'll jump in real quick. I've been slamming along for several weeks. Progress, progress, progress, progress. Yesterday, face first into the wall. Woke up this morning in that I know what I need to be doing or ought to be doing, and resistance is right there.

So, I mean, that's, first of all, just to be able to admit it means that you're fine. Yeah, that's perfect. In essence, you deliberately set your goals so that they are bigger than your current ego state. Then you anticipate that you're going to run into resistance. And what you do is sit back and observe it. What. What resistance you're going to come into. It's going to be fear, okay? Different masks that your fear wears. And journal this stuff. Journal it. It's important to journal it because it won't take more than a few weeks before you start noticing repetition in the patterns of what your ego uses to protect itself. And as soon as you start seeing the patterns, then you can laugh about it. Say, oh, there it is again. There it is again. And you've got that sort of Buddhist thing of, the emotions are there, but you're not attached to them. The pain is there, but you're not attached to it. It's the attachment to the pain that causes suffering.

So I'm certainly hoping that an hour and a half here with y' all today makes it possible for me to do some of the things that are on the plate for this afternoon.

Fine.

So you get over the resistance because I really. The most important progress I've been making, and I don't want to indulge this resistance.

What is the most important thing for you to do today, if you don't mind? I would love you think about that for a second. I would love you to raise your hand during the broadcast. Let's work. Let's workshop this on the air, if you don't mind.

Okay, Great.

Fantastic. Ah, it's so wonderful to see everybody. I love you guys so much. And I went downstairs and gave tonight or even a hug and a kiss and said, guess what? We get to be of service to our community for an hour and a half today. That is. That brings me so much joy, at least partially because the masters who I admire, they're all of a single sort of. They're all constantly learning Constantly teaching and constantly doing that. That's the path there. So in other words, for me to emulate them, I have to be constantly teaching what I know. And so that's what this is about. This is why I'm on Facebook every day. You know, it's not. It's not complicated. You know, there's. I don't have any hidden agenda about it. My agenda is right out in plain sight. I want to be the very best I can be, and I can't do that without giving yesterday away. I have to. I have to give away everything I have as much as I can, as rapidly as I can and as honestly as I can. That's the only thing that makes room for me to. To not be looking at myself and be just focusing on where I am and where I'm going. So on Saturdays or when we're doing podcasts, I will talk a lot about the different experiences that I've had up until that point and the different things that I'm doing up until that point. Part of is to teach you, and part of it is to think back myself. What. What am I doing? You know, how is it working? Where. Where am I falling apart? Where am I. You know, where am I handling things? Right? There's always. There's always problems. You know, I. I picked out. I. I figured out an arena in which I violated the three gates, and I realized that I've got to stop. Look at that. Ask myself why. Ask myself what I can do to prevent it happening again. It had to do with an argument with somebody else, but I have to let go of anything I was concerned about with them. If I myself am not in integrity, you know, that's the only thing I can control, is whether or not I am in integrity. So, anyway, so that's all good. This is a really important week in. In a lot of ways. And Shannon Reeve and I will talk about. We'll talk about that, and we'll get started in about 120 seconds. Got my vitamin slushy. There it is. Looking for the record button. I'm going to switch to gallery view so we can see all of each other's beautiful faces. Think about that. Another week of life. Another week to celebrate, Another week to find things to feel grateful for, another opportunity to get it right, to help the people that we care about. And I care about you guys. I try very hard to remember what the issues are. I can't do that perfectly. So what I hope for is that when I ask for hands raised, you'll let me Know what's going on and how I can serve you. And so let's kind of get started here. Hi, my name is Steven Barnes. Welcome to Fire Dance, which is a very specific outgrowth of the life writing technique which was created for writers but also works for readers. So if you're a writer or a reader, this is going to work for you. And my co host is the beautiful and talented love of my life, the amazing Tananarive due. Hey, hey, hey.

Hello everybody. Oh, I feel naked without lipstick. That's my mother talking. So, okay, I will be putting some on, but I just wanted to say hi. I'll be back.

Oh, please do. Please do. So what we do here, everything that we do here is based on, on the notion of improving by 1% a week. If you are a writer, then this is perfect for you because it's just, you just figure out a project what would take you 1% closer to the completion of the project or a project where you are confident in being able to fulfill it but will move you 1% further in your career. So either one of those things works, I want you also looking at. So 1% needs to exist in all three basic areas of your life. So that's going to be 1% better emotional control. 1% better relationship with the people that you love. 1% better capability of dealing with fear or disappointment or anger. 1%. Let's see. Okay, I can see. I'm getting some notifications. Let me turn off these notifications and I apologize for that. So that 1%, what we do is we assume that all living things want the same thing. In essence, they want to move away from pain toward pleasure. Human beings and conscious things can go beyond that. Once you've escaped pain and once you have joy in the world, our hearts tend to open. And what we want is to provide service to our communities. So first, escape pain, then increase pleasure, joy, then look for ways to serve. But until you're out of pain and joy, just make sure to take care of those things first. Because you deserve to feel safe in the world. You deserve to be able to express yourself, to be able to, you know, feel comfortable in your skin. So the buy in, what we ask people to do in order to prepare themselves for this are they're basically two things. One, one is simply breathing, especially if you're under stress. Minimum of five times a day, but let's say optimally every hour on the hour, breathe consciously for 60 seconds. You could just breathe like doing a qigong exercise, but it's deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. I could use tools of various kinds if I wanted to. You know, this, this ripstick, this odd, this odd little implement is really funny, let's say. Yeah, there it is. It's really fun because it uses some odd physical principles to get its workout effect. I could do some martial arts stuff, I could do some yoga, I could dance, I could do anything. But for 60 seconds an hour, that's, you know, over a course of a workday, that's eight minutes, nine minutes out of every day. You deserve that and a lot more. So if you can commit to just 60 seconds of you time every hour, you can join this process. The step above that is what's called the morning ritual, which is where you take one of those sessions and you expand it outwards between 10 and 20 minutes where you are walking or dancing. I use Tai chi and we're doing affirmations, incantations, visualizations and emotional flooding all at the same time. So it's 10 to 20 minutes where you are going to behave as close to perfectly as you can. You're going to move perfectly. You're going to move as if you had enthusiasm and hope and love and courage. Okay? This is how you program yourself. You given, this is how you break the negative patterns. So if you're willing to breathe with us, if you're willing to move with us, I believe that we can help you no matter where you are in your life right now. But that movement, that breathing is essential, absolutely essential. So before we go any further, let's just breathe together for 60 seconds. So put your hands on your tummy. On every inhalation, you feel your tummy expanding. On the exhalations, your tummy shrinks. That's the prop. That's proper diaphragmatic breathing. So I'm going to set my timer and we're going to go for 60 seconds starting now. And that's it. If you breathe deeply, slowly, diaphragmatically, who feels calmer now than they did a minute ago? Calmer and more centered. Just this single thing is such a gift to yourself. You can create the eye of the storm. You know, everything can be going wrong around you and you can, you'll learn how to take just a single breath or a couple of breaths and suddenly you're calm. And from that position you can make better judgments. To make a creative breakthrough. Serve your family, survive an emergency, somebody, a mugger pulling a knife out at you. The first thing you want to do is drop down into your breathing. Make sure you're breathing Calmly do that, and suddenly your perception softens. You get to see everything around you. Maybe there's a trash can lid right there that you could pick up and now you've got a shield. And you wouldn't have seen that if you'd been focused on that knife and focused on your fear. Maybe you're working on a story and you reach a point in the story that you can't see an answer. You panic. There's no answer to this. Step back. Breathe. Ask yourself what's going on in this world, what resources your character would need to solve this situation. Remember, you can go back and change something that happened earlier to give them the resource that they need. How about somebody's yelling at you, your boss, or a child? Remember, take a deep breath. Center yourself and your feelings. And suddenly you can remember that anger is fear. Ask yourself, what are they afraid of? What are they afraid of? Maybe you can disarm the fear. Maybe all they need is a hug or for you to breathe with them. You know, I saw recently somebody saying, what's the easiest way to calm down an angry woman? Or just actually be the same question? What's the easiest way to calm down an angry person? The fastest way to do that? Breathe with them. You don't even have to tell them what you're doing. Breathing with them puts you in sync with them. Now there's two of you, and part of their fear will diminish from that position. There, you can open your heart to empathy for them. You don't have to be defensive with them. Anger and fear are not necessary to protect you. Attention is necessary to protect you. Fear gets your attention. Anger is how you mobilize fear. But the fact is that you can stay in the center of your circle and, and act as a warrior without fear, without anger, but still with devastating efficiency. So the voice in your head that says, I need my negative emotions to survive is only partially correct. As you become more alert and aware and conscious, you won't need the negative emotions as much. But during the period where you're worried about your survival, those negative emotions are quite efficient in effect. So what I would like to do, because we always say, we always ask people to aim at improving 1% per week. So I like to start. I've always got something that I want to talk about, but the first thing I want to do is to find out if anyone has a very specific story of a success or a challenge to offer us so that we can either cheer you on or workshop it. So raise your hands if you have something that you want to say, Jaime? Oh, oh, Tananarive. No, no, we'll do Tananarive and then Heidi.

Okay.

I never say anything, but I'm going to volunteer that. As you know, Steve, I'm working on in a little 24 page independent comic with a comic writer and editor named Pornsack Pichetcho. Some of you may know his work from the Good Asian. But anyway, writing this comic was very tough compared to the Keeper. Since we wrote the Keeper as a script, the artist just basically storyboarded it himself based on our script. Now I'm having to create both the dialogue and the frames, and people can't move. They have to be set in their positions. And it was really taking me a long time just to write a single page. But yesterday I wrote three pages very fast. I feel like I'm figuring it out and it's more intuitive now. And I'm like, yay. I'm learning how to write a new thing. That was it.

That's fantastic. I mean, our creative approaches are different. I would just write it as a script and then I figure out the, you know, the. The frames afterwards have a detailed outline.

That's pretty much a script except for the dialogue, which I'm used to adding last anyway. So, yeah, it's a very detailed outline.

Look, all that matters is that you got there.

Yeah.

You know, you're doing it your way, I do it my way, and, you know, I. Your way works. Fabulous.

Well, fingers crossed. Anyway, there's my thing.

Okay, great. So, Jaime.

Yeah. Thanks, Stephen. So good to see everybody. I've been eagerly anticipating this all morning because what I get out of these sessions is so huge. So for the last three weeks, I have felt a little smug because I have been showing up, doing everything, everything and making progress and really, really in the flow, enjoying it. And then yesterday I woke up and was. And hit the wall and just ran into resistance. And just before we started, I mentioned that before we started, and you asked me to both journal it and think about what am I afraid of? And a couple of light bulbs hit. Wow. Last winter, I got stuck indoors for six weeks without doing anything. And I put on 70 pounds during that six weeks easy. And I have been. I have been fighting that ever since. And winter is approaching here very rapidly. And so as I prepare my property and my home for winter, and I'm still showing up, I'm doing my breathing, I'm doing my morning ritual. I've got plans for keeping my physical activity up this winter. But that fear that not only am I not going to continue to lose weight, but that I'm going to pack it back on is right there eating my lunch and putting up this wall of resistance.

Okay, so first of all, let's take a look at the, you know, obesity question. In America, I would say that our bio, our biology didn't change. Our DNA didn't change. People didn't suddenly become lazy, they didn't suddenly become bad in some way. No, our world changed. We no longer have to move as much to earn the calories that we eat. Calories are cheap. And animal fats and sugar and animal proteins are cheap. I mean, you know, in comparison to what it used to be. Honey, you know, if you wanted something really sweet, you weren't around sugar cane. You had to risk, you know, getting stung half to death to get honey, you know, back, you know, hundreds of years ago. Now it's easy. So the first thing you have to do is remember that almost anyone will tell you they put on weight during COVID They put on weight during winter. So if you can remove all guilt, remove all guilt from the situation. It is just human. We are programmed, you know, by survival to eat as much as possible and move as little as possible. Seriously, you know, that we had, we used to have to. Once you get the joke of that, then you can say, how do I take responsibility as an adult for this? Because I am. I am the most. I am the alpha predator on this planet. And we earned our way to a place where we can eat anything we want. Cheat.

We.

So now the biggest threat is our own success. Once you, if you think like that, you notice there's no guilt attached to anything. It's just observing. Okay, what do I want to do? So there are two different things you can do. You can either do a lot of something that you enjoy or a little of something that's super efficient and effective. So it's up to you. I mean, you can always do a mixture of it, too. So what is true is that it doesn't take a lot of time to affect, to have a positive balance in terms of energy in, energy out, you know, the calories that you eat, the calories that you expend. But what you do have to do is make sure your metabolism is healthy. You know, one hour of walking or running burns about 700 calories, between 500 and 700 calories. But a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, which means that it takes seven hours of walking or five hours of running to burn off one double cheeseburger if you're not careful, okay. If you're not careful eating, one double cheeseburger and fries and a shake. Okay? One, one. One meal like that, and it takes seven hours to burn off. So the trick is, you're not trying to burn off the calories. You're trying to reset your metabolism. Because if that, you burn more calories all day long. So whatever it is you're doing, be sure that you spike your energy during it. If you're walking on a treadmill from time to time, you know, look into Tabatas, where you're doing 20 seconds of hard, 10 seconds of easy or 40 seconds of hard, 20 seconds of easy. And it doesn't have to be. You want to stay. You know, the aerobic zone is the zone where you can talk but you cannot sing.

Okay?

The aerobic zone is a zone where you can talk, but you cannot sing. So you want to flirt with that level, you know, that. That you want to go from, I can talk, I can talk, I can talk. And now I'm at the edge, and I can just barely talk. Then you go back to it easier again. It is the changing from, you know, 60% of maximum to 80% of maximum going back forth there. That's what resets your metabolism. And once you do that, you're burning calories all day long. So you can find something fun, like dancing or martial arts or something like this or something that is not as much fun, but is really efficient. Kettlebells, calisthenics, the five Tibetans, lots of things. But. But consider this an intellectual experiment. You're an intellectual guy. You're looking at the data. So what's the data? Here, let me weigh myself. Let me try this. Let me try this. Look at the results. Separate yourself. The old Jaime used guilt and fear to control you and keep you who you were. You want to keep in mind who you want to become. Who are you? I mean, I have up on my wall a triangle, and it represents my three basic roles in life. I am a writer. I'm a martial artist. I'm a husband and father. So the husband and father part of me is at the top of the triangle. It says super dad. You know, it's like, if I have to figure out whether I'm going to do something with my family, who am I? I'm super dad, you know? So it's like, it just allows me to take an identity that gives pleasure, to work. Okay? They're. In terms of martial arts, I'm a grandmaster. That's. That's. What my teacher says that I am. Okay, well, I can't deny that any more than I could give myself a black belt. I guess that's what I am. So how do I. How does the grandmaster act? Grandmaster works out every day. It was simple as that. And in terms of my writing, well, you know, Larry Niven's a grandmaster, science fiction. So I guess I'm a master. You know, I'm right under him, so I guess I can handle that. So what is the identity, Hymie, of the version of you that can get through winter and come out stronger on the other side? You're going to use winter to control your life in a particular way, to experiment a particular way. You come up with an identity of who would come out of winter being leaner, stronger, healthier. Whoever that guy is, start talking to that guy. There's a version of you four months from now, five months, whatever it is, right? When you can see that person being stronger, faster, you know, whatever it is, ask yourself what that person does, how that person feels, who that person is. Okay.

Interesting. Yes. I really like that because just in the last three years of starting with life writing and with tai chi and fire dance, the changes that have happened, I can see how doing this as the target and focus for this winter propels me forward in all those three main areas.

You don't want to. You don't want to operate just on fear, right?

Well, it's moving towards something rather than moving away from.

And the masters do both, right? And an enlightened master needs. Needs neither. So mastery is a matter of using both your pain and your love. So that and keep coming here. We'll get you that. We'll get you your 1%, no problem. Easy peasyl.

Hi, can everybody hear me?

I can hear you.

Okay. I've been on a journey of health transformation for a couple of years now. And I think I've pretty much got my nutrition where I want it to be, and I have recommitted to a physical workout. Now. I usually do a lot of swimming, but that's. It's good cardio workout, but I need to build muscle. So I've gone back to the gym and I'm starting to do weightlifting and treadmill about three times a week. My problem is this. I'm not getting the feedback from my body that tells me I've gone too far. I'll be working out, I'm working out, I feel fine, I'm paying attention, you know, everything feels fine, you know, and I go home and the next Day.

Ow.

And I don't mean just the normal ow. I mean I've damaged something.

Okay, so. So a couple of different things. Never take a physical workout beyond the point of pain. The pain should never be above a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Mm.

Reduce the amount of working out that you're doing right now and see how you feel the next day. Like, cut it in half, literally. How do you feel the next day? You feel. Still feel okay. Increase by 10%. Still feel okay. Increase by 10% the next time. Find the zone where. You know you're gonna have to experiment, you're gonna have to be a scientist and to find the zone. Let's see. Where are you? Oh, there you are, Susan. Let me pin you. Yeah, you're going to have to find the zone where you are safe to work. Another general principle is don't push yourself harder than you can push while breathing smoothly. If you can breathe smoothly, usually your body is not in crisis. Before your body gets into crisis, you'll find yourself holding your breath, gasping. You're not breathing rhythmically anymore. You can breathe intensely while you're rhythmic, but make sure that you're not staying.

I've been paying attention to pain. You know, if it hurts, I stop.

Okay.

So then the other question, focusing on the breath, that's. That's something I can glom onto.

It's huge. For a bunch of different reasons. The other thing is warming up is joint mobility. Cooling down is yoga and stretching. So it's make sure that you're warming up properly. Joint mobility and cooling down properly.

I do tend to neglect that.

You're right.

Oh, most people do. And it is critical once you're past 40. This is critical. This is critical. You know, kids can just jump out of bed and go play sandlot baseball and then, you know, go dancing all night and then drink beer and get in bed and do it and wake up and do it again tomorrow. I used to.

Oh, I just wanted to jump in and say something. Sarah. A lot of people get to this phase where they're trying to figure out how to work out how to establish a gym practice, and then they get negative feedback from their bodies and absolutely do not want to go back because they're afraid of hurting themselves, obviously, and done improperly. There's a very real concern for hurting ourselves. Like Steve said, Over 40. So kudos.

Yeah. I have hurt myself at the gym before.

Yes.

Yeah. Kudos to you that you are looking for solutions rather than giving up on. On. On this new lifestyle. You're trying to create. That's all I wanted to say.

Well, that's beautiful, sweetheart. Listen, your emphasis should be on creating the body mind link, not working your body because that can turn into whipping it like it's a dog rented mule. People do that. They get angry with themselves. They go to the gym, they push the push the push. Then they hurt the next day and they say, oh, I guess I can't do it. Instead of that, you are celebrating your physicality. You very carefully staying with your breathing, your posture. You're looking at these things. You know, how do I need to breathe and focus in order to do one rep and then one more rep and then one more rep. I'm right here, right now. How does my body feel? How do my joints feel? How's my breathing? How's my mind? How are my emotions? You look at every rep as an opportunity to celebrate this wonderful body that you only have for a little while on this planet. We only have them a little while. I know anytime I get unhappy that I can't do something I used to be able to do when I was 20 or 30. I remember I've put my body through a lot. It's been wonderful to me and it's my responsibility to take care of it.

And when you get one, one celebration out of this, this is weird. After my latest workout, I woke up the next day, oh, you know, it's hurting to move. And I was like, oh my God, am I finally getting the arthritis that crippled my father? Or have I pulled something or anyone? And I couldn't figure out what it was. And then finally my memory kicked in and I said, oh, you worked out yesterday.

That's right. So you need to work out. You need to have a yoga routine that doesn't have to be more than 10 to 15 minutes that you do every day. And then maybe once a week, once a month, rather you have a yoga. You go to a yoga class where you get to then get to learn some more about those poses. But every day, take care of yourself. What do you need to do? There are a limited number of things a human body can do. It can move forward and back, it can lean left and right, it can twist left and right. That's about it. And you can lean forward and back, move forward, back, lean forward and back, you know, shift. There are about six different things the body can do. Be sure that your preparation, movement, where you're warming your body up, warming your joints up, getting the synovial fluid going, and the recovery is moving you through all Six ranges of movement and make a study of this, become an. I just thought, look at all those.

I just thought it was great that at my age I was finding myself in exactly the same place I found myself 40 odd years ago when I started working out. And it made me feel younger. You know, this is not an old age thing. This isn't arthritis. This is just. You worked out you're sore the next day.

Good.

Very few people, very few people get that wisdom. They are looking at the signs of your body. That used to mean one thing when you were 16. Now you think it means, oh, this is the beginning of the end. Yeah, I know. Why should I even bother trying? I tend to think that there's something called death drive in human beings. That we have a life drive and a death drive. And I think that the death drive starts kicking in once you're past 40, because at that point your genetics are finished with you. It's up to the next generation. Your body starts trying to kill you if you're not careful, you know? So it's up to you. It's up to you to get a little smarter. Every. If you could learn one new thing every week about how to take care of your body. That's a good way to think. Now what, what is that? You spend half an hour looking at a video on YouTube. You keep looking, you keep searching. You go look at all those books behind you. You have an active mind. Put this, Put that mind to use for this. I'm going. Every week I'm going to learn one new thing about how to take care of my body. Become an expert. You know, figure that you're going to end up going and lecturing on this subject. You're going to teach other people how to take care of themselves. Become an expert at anything that is important to your own life. Okay.

Thank you.

You betcha. Who else has got anything? Or is it time for me to go into lecture mode? I'm gonna go gallery and see who's here. Okay.

I can go.

Oh, great, great, great. I was thinking about calling on you anyway.

Oh, you like?

You seemed all friendly. I could almost see. I could almost see that. Put me in, coach. Put me in, coach.

Is this your first time here?

Yes, my first time.

Welcome, welcome. Absolutely. Give her a big fire dance. Welcome. Welcome to the community. We're so happy to see you. How can we serve you? Tell us a little about yourself.

Okay, well, my name is Daijona Robinson. I am originally from Oakland, California. I went to school at Humboldt State University, which is six Hours from Oakland. It was in Humboldt county, and I studied journalism there and then I graduated.

Great.

Now I'm pursuing my master's at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and I'm getting a master's in creative writing.

So what would you like to get 1% better at in the next week?

I'm sorry, one more time.

What would you like to get 1% better at in the next week?

I'm thinking, like, perhaps patience comes to mind, but also efficiency.

Okay, Those are both wonderful tools and we can help you with that. But if you had more patience and greater efficiency, what would be the photographable result in your life?

I would say, like, content.

Okay, so in other words, you would finish a short story, you would finish a book, you would finish a class. What is it?

Yeah, it would be finishing a script. It would be successfully directing my team in one of my production classes.

Okay, so choose two. Choose one goal.

Okay?

If we can support you in one goal, you'll learn, you know, learn one thing. Learn 10,000 things. So let's say you wanted to finish a script.

Okay.

Okay, so let's say it's a short script. Okay? So, you know, 10 minute script, 15 minute script.

About 10 minutes.

10 minutes. Great. Fantastic. So how. When do you want to finish this script? What. What we are. When do you want to have it done.

By? Wednesday.

Really? So that would be like two pages a day between now and Wednesday.

You're motoring.

I want to do. I want it done. It's a short script. So. Yeah, yeah.

So two pages a day between now and Wednesday. And so is there anything, can you, can you commit the time necessary to do that? Do you look, when you look at your calendar is, have you got a couple of hours a day free every day? Have you got an hour a day free for each of those days?

I do.

Okay, so here's what you do. Do you know what your script is about?

I'm still working on it.

But mostly you mostly know what it's about. Do you know how it ends?

Mostly.

Okay, so because if you know how it ends, that's like saying, I want to get to Disneyland, you know, because you know where Disneyland is. Just a matter of figuring out the path. So figure out how your script ends. So we could workshop that if you wanted to, but I think you could do that. You don't have to share that with us. But then once you know how it ends and if you can figure out what's the best entry for how do I get started with this approximately kind of what things, then Give yourself permission to write a rotten script. Give yourself permission to write a script that sucks. Just have fun with it. The first draft is where you have fun. Don't worry about it. Nobody's ever going to see it. All you have to do is write two pages. Now, what kind of software do you use?

I use Final Draft.

Final Draft is great. So you just simply commit to writing two pages of script every day between now and Wednesday.

And you pretty sure, by the way, that Final Draft will help you keep that quota up. I use Writer Duet, but there's a page Quota Goals section where you can check and see your progress every day toward your daily goal. And I'm sure Final Draft has something similar.

So do you have any doubts that you can do this? Have you done this kind of thing in the past?

Yeah, I struggled, but I've done it.

So your goal then is to do a 10 page script by Wednesday and have fun in the process? Make sure. Say that back to me. What's your goal?

My goal is to write a 10 page script and have fun in the process.

That's right. Now I would love it if you would come back next Saturday and share with us your victory. Does that put positive pressure on you?

Now that you said it, I've fully thought about it. Yet it did just hit me. It's doable.

It's absolutely doable. Because when I say write a bad script, I mean be silly. Because the, the work is in the rewriting. It's infinitely easier to rewrite than it is to do that first draft. That first draft is like hauling marble up from the quarry. That's work. The rest of it is just chipping away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. So if you will do that, if you will have to write two pages of fun every day between now and Wednesday, you will end up Thursday morning waking up and having a completed script which you can then put aside for a couple of days and then get back in and rewrite it. Okay, can you do that? So your ability to do that will be based on your state. In other words, when you sit down, the minimum writing for us is a sentence a day. So if you absolutely swear now, you might not be able to do two pages. Maybe tomorrow you'll do four pages. That's okay. But if you absolutely promise to do at least one sentence a day, you will have to focus. You know, you're 80% of the way to writing two pages because you have to sit down, you have to know what you're going to do. You have to get the software up, you know, you have to get yourself in the right mood, whatever it is. Will you promise me that between now and third and Wednesday, you will write at least one sentence a day? Promise. No matter what? No matter what.

Yes. Okay, I can promise that. I can write. I'm gonna write it down, hold myself.

Accountable, at least one sentence. That's all. So, you know, you could write one sentence before you have breakfast. I don't get to eat breakfast unless I've written my one sentence. That's a way to go. But what you're gonna find out is either this is gonna work and you'll have that victory, or you're going to observe what you did to break your word to yourself, which is also a victory because you've probably rarely set up an experiment where he said, I'm either going to win or I'm going to lose. I'm going to learn something. And that takes all the pressure off. Now there is nothing here but victory for you. There's no way to lose if you're honest to yourself because you're learning how you work. It took me decades to get my schedule together so that every day I can write and it feels relatively. It feels like work, but I don't resist. Took decades to get the point where I can exercise every day. Decades. I get to the point where I'm meditating every day. But what I can tell you is whatever it is that you need to be to get where it is that you want to go is worth it. It's so worth it. I would love to celebrate your victory. And welcome to Fire Dance. I'm so glad to have you here.

Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Happy writing.

Happy writing. You know, write with passion. Let's go. All right, so let's see. Remove that pen, get back to the gallery view. Is there anybody else? No. There is anybody else. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to talk about. Today is the last day of the 90 day love feast. This is a program that Tananarive and I started at the beginning of July. And it wasn't even about her. I realized that I needed to make a deeper commitment to her. I needed to make a deeper commitment to my marriage. I needed to look at myself. So it wasn't about trying to get her to change her behavior. It was saying, how do I celebrate this marriage more? What I learned by going into it in the process is to be putting your partner first. What I learned was that when I couldn't do that, when I went into anger. What do I know from that? One of the life writing principles is anger is a mask over fear. So anytime I was angry, and you could ask this of other people too, what was I afraid of? And I looked and I was afraid ultimately that I could not take care of myself. I was afraid that if she did X or Y, I might be in a disadvantageous position. But the truth is, it's not her responsibility to take care of my emotions. It's my responsibility to take care of my emotions. So, in essence, my anger in my relationship was my first fear that I could not take care of myself. I was missing. I dropped the ball. I was being a child and sexual, intimate. Adult relationships are for adults. And the definition of an adult is someone who is responsible for their own emotions, their own actions, their own results. At the beginning of life, we are not responsible for these things. Other people have to take care of us. At the end of life, we are also not responsible for these things, and people have to take care of us. In between there, we have to take care of the people who used to take care of us and train the next generation to be the ones to replace us. So the period of adulthood in our lives where we are functioning in that way is limited. And that is just the way nature is. And we have to move beyond our fear and be able to say if the children are to be safe, if I am to care for my elders, I must be an adult. I was not being that the love feast forced me to look at me. And by looking at myself, I then said, what can I do? It has been. Well, I don't want to say what I think it's been. Tananarive, would you give your impression of what happened over the 90 days? Oops.

There we go.

Okay.

Hello, everyone.

Here's a story. Okay, so, yeah, it's. It's a little still awkward for me to talk about my personal life in a public setting, but I. I do think it's important because the results have been extraordinary. I think we've already had a really fantastic relationship. Is the relationship in my lifetime.

And.

But for a few incidents here and there, look at all we've accomplished together. Co raised his daughter, my stepdaughter Nikki. We raised our son Jason. We've been able to scrape our way into Hollywood and get some credits at an age when most people would tell you forget it. So there was a lot already to celebrate. But as we saw so many opportunities unfolding, not just that we want to live out our lives to the fullest possible potential, whether or not we had children. But then we also want to help our son and my stepdaughter reach their fullest potential, just personally. And then we want to be extraordinary collaborators. I mean, we've learned a lot about collaborating. We were already collaborating better than we had ever, you know, by the time we got to the writers room. And that almost felt like a reward for all of our work, learning how to collaborate. But we want, we wanted yet more still. We're that greedy. And Steve found a program that sent him into a lot of introspection. And it has been incredibly valuable. Not that, you know, you don't have ups and downs in any relationship, but I think it's given both of us tools and to turn our reflection inward rather than outward. Like Steve was saying, if there's a conflict, rather than focusing on what your partner has done or has said, you're more reflecting on your own reactions, your, your reactivity. How did it look through your partner's eyes? More self interrogation. And it has been fantastic. I've grown tremendously. I've become less defensive. Steve, I think, has grown tremendously, spending far less time sort of trying to diagnose and analyze my issues and focus on his reactivity to my issues, which then gives me a feedback loop where there's more safety to interrogate myself about whether I do have this issue.

You know what I mean?

If that makes sense. Does that make sense?

I'll tell you what, I'll tell you. It makes total sense to me because, you know, I. I know that. I know I can't be easy to live with. I know that. And I, I want to be funny.

Who is.

I want to be easy for you to live with. I want it to be. I want it to be just, you know, wake up in the morning, chop wood, carry water. Life is hard. We're going to work all day. But I, I don't think we shouldn't be work for each other. To the degree that it's possible for us to just relish this, this time that we have together. I want, I want that. Speaking of that, I forgot to do something. I want everybody to unmute yourselves and say hi to each other. So just kind of hi to each other. Hello, everybody. Hello, everybody.

Great.

Because it's good to see you. Because think about this. The next 90 days we're going to. Tomorrow we're going to drive up to Arrowhead and we're going to renew our vows. We're going to renew our 90 day vows.

90 day love feast.

Vows another 90 day love feast. Through the end of the year. Our thought is, let's do this once a quarter. Let's just continually remind ourselves of how grateful we are to have found each other and how committed we are to making things go at a higher and higher level.

I mean, there's no downside to that. What are we going to say to our ourselves? It's like, well, you know, we're too busy to give a damn about moving to the next level.

I'm too busy to be happy, you know, kind of thing, you know, so. But we understand that if we say, if we say, and we're going to say, we want to bring you guys with us. Some of you are in healthy relationships where you could just say, yeah, I'm totally into the idea of giving everything to my partner for 90 days. And so let's, but let's move through the scale. What if you're in an unhealthy relationship? I would say still do it. Because in 90 days, either you will have rehabilitated that relationship altogether or you will know for sure that relationship is dead and you can start making your escape plans. So either, either way, in 90 days it's either going to be the best, it's going to be a better relationship, or you're going to know in your hearts, I can give everything for 90 days and they're just negative. I'm out of here. Okay, what if you're not in a relationship? That's a really interesting one. In that case. The reason I wanted to have Tenanarif speak is that you get to do a 90 day love feast with yourself. That you separate out different aspects of your personality. And I would suggest that you separate out the adult child selves. The child self within you is so precious. It is the source of life, love, energy and creativity. And when that little girl inside you can dance in the sun, that means that the adult part of you has created safety. When your child self does not feel like she's capable of spontaneously speaking her truth. And in dancing and enjoying and telling stories, something is not safe. So in just the same way that I realized that my inability to completely interact with tononari from position of spontaneous joy and love was a matter of I was not dealing with what Swift Deer, one of my teachers, referred to as my needy, wounded, abandoned child. My needy, wounded, abandoned child. I needed to be there for that part of me. I needed to make a 100% commitment. No one will ever hurt you again. Daddy is here. I am here. So I would suggest that if you want that sense of love, if you want that sense of joy, what we've been talking about here, we've talking about taking care of yourself physically. That's going to require discipline and joy. You're going to have to do things when you don't feel like doing it. And so if your kid had to do homework, you'd say you don't have to watch television until you do your homework. That homework might be spending 20 minutes on a bicycle. That might be the homework or cleaning up or something like this. Maybe it's doing one sentence or two pages, that's your homework. You have to do your homework before you get to play. If the kid inside you anger is being disciplined, remember that children are afraid. Children are afraid because they want to be adults and they want adult pleasures. But they know they can't handle adult responsibilities. So they will play the game of how much fun can I get? How many of the goodies can I get while not giving back a damn thing? You know, I just want to do what I do. I want to play games all day, I want to stay outside, outside all day. I want to watch television all day. Don't bother me. We need to clean my room. What about this? What about that? That's their job. Their job is to find out how little they can do and get all the goodies. It's your job to establish the line. This is what you have to do to get this. Because if you don't do that, when they get out in the real world and they start running into employers and spouses and things like this, it's like having a martial arts class. That would be like having a martial arts class where you teach people techniques that don't work. The first time they phase a mugger or get into a bar fight, they're going to find out. That was no kindness. It was no kindness. The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed on the street, the more discipline you have. When it is healthy, generative discipline, the safer your child is. At some point, the child will resist, resist, resist, and then will kind of say, you really are strong enough to protect me. Okay, let me trust you. It's one of the greatest gifts in my life that my son, my 19 year old, six and a half foot warrior son, believes I'm strong enough to protect him. And because I'm strong enough to protect him, he wants to know how I did it. How did you create yourself? Dad, what are you doing? I will teach him who it is that I am and what it is I think works and he will go out in the world and test it for himself. He'll make up his own mind. But first I had to earn his respect by being there. So in terms of that child inside you, have you meditated and connected with that child? You could. There's so many ways that you could. You could do Google searches for connecting with the child self. It's. It's a psychological construct. I understand that. But one thing you could do, if you're right hand dominant, you could write a letter to yourself from your inner child using your left hand. You will be shocked at what comes out, because what you want to do is to be able to get quiet enough to listen to what the child part of you who started this journey of life has to say. What does your child want you to do? When was the last time you honored her? Honored him, Played with her, played with him, told him or her that you love them? You love them. If you did not hear I love you from your parents and they did not show you that they loved you every day, then guaranteed you are thirsty for it, you are hungry for it. And if you cannot look in the mirror and say, I love you, I like you without a hint of irony, then there's work to be done. Life simply damaged you. Life gave you pain. It taught you not to. Not to treasure yourself, not to treasure your own heart. If you don't do that, you will end up doing things for other people so that they will love you and hoping that their love will be enough to fill you up. So maybe one day you'll feel good about yourself. No. Feel yourself first. And in that healthy relationship, you can give the other person because you feel this person fills me up. In an unhealthy relationship. You want to start this is. I'm either going to create a healthy relationship for myself or I'm going to give myself all the justification I need to leave that no matter what happens, you're taking care of yourself. I need you for the next 90 days to take care of yourself. The next 90 days, take special care of yourself. If you're going to do the love feast for somebody else, first fill up your own cup. Be a hose, not a bucket, a well, not a pond. You want to feel that you're pulling your love up from the center of the earth, from the center of the universe, to meditate until you can feel that you are a child of the universe. You have the right to be here, desiderata. That you can feel that you're made of the same stuff as the stars, that no one who has ever walked the planet is more worthy than you. And the only thing you need to feel that is to not need to be better than anyone else. If you don't feel you're better than anyone else, you don't have to feel anyone is better than you. And anyone who feels like other people are better than them, I guarantee you they're thinking that there are people behind them. Step out of that. That's a Mugs game. It's a losing game. It's a child's game. The awake, aware adult human being is halfway between the child and the elder on their deathbed. That elder, that person, that part of you that is the oldest and wisest part of you, has completed all the games in life. No more ego games necessary. It doesn't matter. Not trying to learn. Good, you're having your last thousand breaths. What does that person have to tell you about life? And in fact, if you will visualize the youngest part of you and the oldest part of you having a conversation with each other, you can just step out and listen to them. And you will hear wisdom like you don't believe. For 90 days, I ask you to take care of yourself extra special. And if there's someone in your life who's a significant other, make sure that you're taking care of yourself and that you see the way that serving them for 90 days is actually serving yourself. You got to get the joke on that. You have to get the fact that taking care of them is actually taking care of yourself. You don't have that. Then just take care of yourself. If you cannot feel that I've taken care of myself and taking care of the others is taking care of me, then start with taking care of yourself. For 90 days, I want you to take care of yourselves. Love yourself, love your dreams, love your hopes. Eat well, watch the movies that you enjoy. Work hard, play well, rest deeply, get hugs. Come here and visit with us. If you need to feel like somebody cares about you, you need some positive energy. I've sworn to people that until the end of this year, I will be here every week. And I love the fact this is a nice, healthy group. I'm certain that at the end of the year, I'm going to say, okay, I'll do this for another year if this is serving you, if you like this. And that was the only thing I was concerned about. And I can see from your feedback this works. And you all know what it is that I'm committed to, that I have committed to Being the best human being I know how to be. And one of the ways I do that is by reminding myself the principles that got me here. And one of the ways I do that is by teaching you guys and other people. Every day. I have a commitment to teach for at least an hour. That's why I'm on Facebook doing that stuff. That's my commitment. It's my dharma. That's who I am. I'm a mundane bodhisattva. I will explore things and then come back and teach them. And I will continue to do that. I'm leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for everything I've accomplished in life. You want to learn how to be a writer? I can tell you exactly how to do it. You want to learn how to be a martial artist to keep your energy up over 50, I can tell you exactly how to do that. You want to know how to have a healthy relationship? Ask my wife. If she says we've got a healthy relationship, then listen to what she says about what it is that's going on and how we do it. Because my relationship, my physical energy and health and my career, my writing are the three most important things in my life. My family. It's belly, brain, heart center, head center. Every morning I wake up, what am I doing today for my body? What am I doing today for my heart? What am I doing today for my career? Running past the three gates. Everything I do, everything I say, I want to strive to be honest and kind and efficient, effective, useful. And then once I've gone through those two things, asking myself, and I look back over the last 24 hours, and I realized this morning when I woke up, I had not been as honest as I needed to be about something that meant I need to work on this. What is it that I intend to do? Why do I want to do it? How am I going to do it? What? Why?

How?

In that order. Three centers, three gates, three questions, 1% improvement every week now, I've laid out the foundation of what it is that I want. I would love to get hard, tough, nasty questions from you guys about how to apply anything that I've been talking about here. So let's let the rubber meet the road. What can I do for you?

Hey, this is Debbie. Steve. Before I even think, let everybody else burn his rub on you, I wanted to say that something that you said to me a number of years ago that you said to the group, to a group that you were teaching when you talked about little Stevie sitting on the beach, you Sitting there on the beach, waiting for little Stevie to trust you enough. I get. I'm filled up just thinking about it. To trust you enough to come up there.

I had betrayed. Just to give a little bit of context, I had betrayed myself. I tried to sell a story to some people who I should have walked away from. And when I walked out of that room, I heard the little boy inside me crying in pain. Daddy, why did you have me talking to those terrible men? Don't you love me? And he shut me down. And I stopped having connection to that little boy inside me. And it was killing me anyway, so please go ahead.

Yeah. And as a result of that, that very moment, I was just really just overwhelmed by that. And it allowed me to talk to. I keep this little girl's picture.

You can't see it.

Yes. No, I can see her. I can see her now.

That's fourth grade me.

Yes.

There you go.

Fourth grade me. That was when I was writing about my dog named Rum and all kinds of other things. And I've had to rebuild my relationship with her because along the way I lost my.

Are you a writer now?

Oh, yeah. I've been writing all my life.

That's.

So.

Yeah.

When was the last time you wrote about a dog named Rome?

I. The. I wrote that story about a dog named Rum and lost it.

No, no, no. Write it.

And I haven't written about it since.

Write a new story, because that was where your mind, your memory went to spontaneously. That means there's energy there for you.

Okay.

So. So. Because it was at the top of your head. So.

Yes.

A story about a dog named Rom. You are honoring that little girl. And I promise you she will jump up in your lap and give you a hug. Yes, I promise you. So if you.

Thank you.

If you do a very short script, let's say, which can be written in a very short period of time, you could write a five page script, a cartoon. You know, just. It's. It's. Let's see. Deborah, Little Debbie. Do a Debbie cartoon about Debbie and her puppy.

Yep.

And just make it fun and happy. Take some little incident or something you love and just record it in a little video, a little, little script that honors your journey, honors where you came from. Think about all that you have done. All the hopes and the dreams, all the tears, all the disappointment. You got back up the next day. And this happened. This happened. Something else bad happened. You picked yourself back up. You're a survivor, sweetheart. You're a survivor. Nobody can take that away from you. Honor Your journey. Honor the struggle. It is a struggle. It is courage to keep your heart alive in a world of people who try to kill your heart or try to tell you that you must be a zombie. Why do you think zombies are so damn popular right now? Because that's what we see around us.

Wow.

That. That, that. That. Within six months after you left high school, you ran into people at the mall who you knew in high school who were the top of the top. They were the most popular girls and boys who are taking meaningless jobs at the mall, walking down the street like zombies. Didn't you. Didn't you see them? They were already starting to realize that their life was not going to be what they thought it was. They were already starting to settle instead of dream. Am I lying? You're not one of them. You're alive. And your aliveness will wake up others for the world. For that little girl who you were. For the glorious woman you are right now. For the strength of your family, your community, your tribe, however you define it. What is needed is alive people. Warriors of the heart, you don't have to have no fear. You have to have a healthy relationship with your fear. Fear is there to keep you alive. Fear is there to remind you. Momentum Mori. We don't have forever to play this game. Love the people that you're going to love. Tell them that every day. And for the next 90 days, I want you to tell that little girl in your heart that you love her every day. Find some way to do it. I don't care if it's buying your favorite, what used to be your favorite Popsicle and having them in your refrigerator and eating one popsicle every day. I don't care what it is, but love yourself as if this was the last 90 days you had to do it. And I guarantee you that if you do that, by January 1st, you'll look at life differently.

Thank you, Stephen. Thank you.

Thank you. Just. I love that. I'm so glad. I'm sure, that you understand. It is an honor to serve. It is the greatest honor of my life to have real things to offer people. And I will come to you every week with as much honesty as I possibly can. And no one has to buy a thing to be here. You know, we sell stuff. There's the fire dance. Core Fire dance, yes, absolutely. I love making money, you know, so it's like, join the fire dance tai chi program. Join LifeWritingPremium.com but more importantly, take care of yourselves and come here. Even when we do a program like the Screenwriting course. Once we've made our money on it, we just open the gates and say, we don't care. However much you can contribute, just come. You know, and some people, they didn't have any money at all. Just come. We wanted a live group. That's what I want here, a live group. You're alive. I like you. You come back, please. Okay. All right, so let's take a look at the gallery view. Comments, questions, requests from any of you about anything that we've been covering. We've got 28 minutes.

Yes, Sarah, Something that you said earlier really, really works for me. You said that fear triggers attention.

Fear is how you. Yes. Fear gets. Is what gets your attention.

And this is useful to me because the story I'm writing right now involves very famous character Wild Bill Hickok, who lived.

Interesting character.

Yeah.

He lived in great fear for the last several years of his life because people were out to get him. And in fact, somebody did.

Right.

So I was trying to find a way to focus a particular scene, focus a particular moment in this story. And then you remind me his life was all about fear. See, if in that moment, when it stopped being about, fear is the one I wanted to capture the moment at.

Which it stopped being about. That's great. So. Or it stopped being about. Yeah. Stop being about fear. The fear is there, but he's not letting his life be about the fear.

Right.

It's what you want. It's. It's that or you want your own. That's the way I would do it. You want to have. I do not ask that you guys adapt my belief systems. I ask for you to have belief systems that are as concrete for you as mine are for me. That you could. We could sit down and have a conversation. We could have a debate. So I will give you my belief systems speaking as positively as possible. But I do not expect you to say, oh, just. You do not. You do not swallow them without chewing. For God's sake. This is for adults. I don't teach this stuff to children. I teach children differently. You guys expect to chew over everything I'm saying. So whatever you think, you look back at your life and say, I used to be afraid about X. And there was a point at which that fear no longer controlled me. Whatever it is that you use there, put that in your story. That's honoring that younger you. What do you think fear is? Do that. Okay. Thank you, Ross. It's been a while, buddy. Hello.

One moment, lowering my hand. Here we go.

Yeah.

It's interesting. That what we're doing here is heterodyning so tightly on what my therapist and I did this last week. We actually identified. You re mentioned where the energy comes up and the incident from when I was in third grade. Ace the mats had additional testing and then was refused. The opportunity to skip grades was at the root of all of my non achievement. Oh, I just, I just went into passive aggressive rebellion mode. And over the years between third grade and now, that has accreted into a very large lead ball that sits firmly on the brake pedal and has determined that my hopes will not get dashed again.

Yes, yes, you're protecting your child self by not raising your expectations.

Part has been saving me, huh? Unfortunately, it's also been saving me from the kind of success that would be hoped for.

There you go.

And so the conversation, I, I'm reaching for a conversation that will be non judgmental, that will be grateful for the salvation it did provide, and yet maybe find out if there's a way that it could move off the brake and if not toward the accelerator, at least off the brake.

May I suggest that you start with the belief that you did the best you could with the resources you had and now you've got. Oh yeah, now you've got new resources. Simple. You're getting new resources. You've got this therapist, you've got this group, you've got the work that you've done. You did the best you could at the time and now you have new resources. There is no reason at all to go into any guilt, blame or shame. None. If you feel guilt, blame or shame, understand that's, that's something trying to hold you back. That's your old stuff. What, what we learn in childhood stays with us for the rest of our lives one way or the other to sort back over our experiences and decide how we're going to interpret them. Them. You can reinterpret those old experiences. You can look at that and say, you know, when that girl said this to me, that didn't mean I was a terrible person. That meant that I'd startled her. You know, that, that you get to reinterpret those things. You get to release some of that energy.

I startled a whole many group of young ladies for whom I feel remorse because I did startle them. They were being kind to me and I was desperate for romantic connection. And so I deliberate, almost deliberately misinterpreted their attention as being something that wasn't. And it made things very awkward.

Yes, it does. And this is. There is no way around It. There's no way to avoid making mistakes. The only way you know how far you can go is by going too far. It's one of the reasons why in the incel. My incel book, one of the things I suggest is social dancing. You know, that I can't possibly teach you all the body language that you need and the tiny things you need to know how to interact with a woman. So join, you know, Regency dancing, salsa, something like this. Where that swirl of activity, you'll have a thousand opportunities to blow it, to misinterpret, to miss your mark, to miss this, miss that. You need to fit. You need. It needs. There needs to be a room for you to fail. You need to have room to fall on your face. If you don't have a safe way to fall on your face, you'll never take any risks. And you'll never. You'll wait. You'll miss your whole life. So looking at these things, the way you have been with your therapist is superb. This is superb. This is exactly what you need to do. I'm glad you have somebody that is doing this right. You know, Ross, you're a good man. I would. I would trust you with my infant daughter. Okay. I have no higher compliment. None. I would trust you to watch infant Nikki for 24 hours. And I know she would be totally safe with you. I have no higher compliment. That's what I see in you. You understand me?

Thank you, sir.

I want is for you to have a life of joy and meaning and contribution. And it looks to me as if you've been doing fabulous work. You don't seem like you beat yourself up as much as you used to. You'll still beat yourself up, but the cycles will go longer and longer between the times that you hit that spot. And that's all you can do. We all hit those dark, dark patches. We all hit the dark night of the soul. But you don't have to live there. And every time. And you can, when you hit it, you can remember the last time you were there. And you can say, how did I get myself out of it? And do that. So you can actually. You're engaging with this stuff now, Ross. You're engaging with the meat of what you are. In that sense, as long as you know you will absolutely fail, you also know that you will absolutely win. All you have to do is properly defined, victory. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. It is being joyful. It is moving away from pain toward pleasure. This is what you're already doing. I Don't always think. You see that that makes you a success. But you're already doing it. You're already on that path. It's just that the territory isn't as pretty as it's going to be in a couple years. That's it. Keep moving, buddy. Is there anything I can do for you today? Yeah. You're muted.

You've done it.

Fantastic. I'm always delighted to see you here. And you need to know that's the truth. All right, so let's see. Let's see. Who else? Who else? View gallery. We do the gallery again, so. And I'm going to unpin Bruss. So who else has anything you'd like to talk about? You'll be volun told. Michael Dobkins.

Hello.

Hello.

Yeah, I was a little. I had the feeling that you'd be calling on me.

What?

To share? Well, forgive me, because I'm dealing with the aftermath of a bad head cold, so I'm feeling a little thick.

Okay.

Okay. It's okay.

So there is a question. Let me focus on something that I've been meaning to ask you for a long time because.

Please, anything.

You've done a lot of research into the physiology and, you know, breathing and.

Yes.

And physical stuff. A lifetime problem of mine is that I suffer from sleep apnea, and it has had an impact on my life now. And I also have allergies, which also makes the wearing the cpap. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, because my sinuses are very sensitive to that whole pressurized air and all that sort of stuff. In my mind, I believe there's a possibility that you can train yourself physically so that your subconscious starts becoming programmed. So instead of the breath being obstructed, you subconsciously move into a position where it's not obstructed.

Okay.

But I thought someone knows better.

Yes. Yogic breathing of various kinds will change the way you breathe unconsciously. It absolutely will. So I would suggest a couple of different things. First of all, I assume that you have a doctor that you consult with on these things. When you have a medical condition, be sure you have a medical expert in your wellness circle. You have this?

Not currently, no. But I have. I've been tested.

And I'm a little nervous about making suggestions that impact your life on this level. I need you to promise me that you will talk to a doctor as soon as possible so you can run what I'm about to say past them.

All right.

You promise me that promise. Okay, fine. Now I feel free to talk. So there are two things. First of all, I would suggest that you do nasal irrigation once or twice a day. You know the, you know the like a neti pot where you pour the water in to one nostril and let it come out the other inside just to kind of clear the obstructions in there and to re. Moisturize the tissues in there. So that's one thing. The other thing is do. Are you doing the breathing the three hour every once every three hours. You're doing that?

Yes.

Okay. Increase that to every hour. Okay. What you want is every hour during all your awake and start doing some research into different forms of breathing. Become an expert at anything that you need in life. Become an expert at it. Decide to become so good at it, you could teach it. Okay, so you need to become an expert on breathing. So you know, all it takes to become an expert on breathing is probably 10 hours of watching YouTube video videos. So you know, every week you watch, you, you look for videos on breathing and you experiment with it. You're gonna, you're gonna breathe, you know, your one minute, you know, breathing thing. Try this breathe, try alternate nostril breathing. Try, you know, this pattern. Ross knows several patterns of breathing. Try this other pattern here. Look specifically up to breathing patterns for sleep apnea.

Okay.

Google that term specifically and see what you find. Okay. And experiment with different things. With a sense of humor, you know, because that sense of humor, yes, that will save you because right now, you know, it's that fear that this will kill you. That, that, that this means that there's something broken inside. You need to be. To have a sense of humor about it so that your body, mind will heal to the degree that it can. All it can do is the best it can do. And beyond that you have to have a sense of humor about it. So if you will do those things and be sure that you. Even if it's a virtual consultation, there are virtual, you know, there are doctors you can talk to over zoom and so forth and so on. And they ask you to get like this because, so you can talk about it. Say that I was talking with this martial arts expert, physical trainer and he said that I might be able to have an effect on my sleeping apnea with different. By practicing different breathing patterns. Do you think there's any chance this could hurt me? Because if there's no chance it can hurt you, it'll help you. Because any change that you make is either going to hurt or help. Nothing is ever going to be right in the middle. So the truth is, there are several things here. Yes, Practicing breathing will eventually change the way you breathe, even when you're not thinking about it. Deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. If stress is one of the reasons that the sleep apnea exists, you're, you know, you're going to learn how to deal with the stress better. If it's literally an ineffective breathing pattern, like breathing up high in your chest, breathing in your shoulders, instead of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing, you're going to learn to get better at that. So, and then if, if dryness is an issue, nasal irrigation will help you with that. You want to research the nasal irrigation. You're going to want to use purified water with a little saline in it, like saline solution that the, they sell for eye drops. Works great for nasal irrigation. That stuff works great. But you, if you will commit to becoming an expert at this, which is not. Does not take that much time, you're going down the right path. Meditation, pranayama, qigong, breathing, training for sleep apnea. Get so good at it that you can write an article that'll help save people. If you make that kind of commitment, you'll do it and you come up with an answer. There is an answer. Maybe you'll be the person to find it. Maybe somebody's already found it, and all you have to do is look around a little bit. Okay. Is that help?

Yes, it does.

Yes. Superb. Keep us posted. Okay.

Will do.

Anything else?

You know what? I do want to share something because I feel like kind of dovetails. I had another Zoom conference earlier in the week that was through the Writers Guild foundation, and it had a title of your age is your greatest asset. And I had, I had a couple interesting realizations, and that dovetail with some of the things that you've said. One of the things that I found interesting is I was coming in from the perspective I'm at a certain age. You can see the white in the beard. You know, I'm. I'm not a spring chicken. And I just assumed that that's where it was coming from. And a lot of the people, you know, the, the fellow who's running it does what you do, he does, you know, ask for volunteers and then picks people and ask them questions and giving their narrative about their. Who they are and what they are as writers and things like that. And a lot of us were older and a lot of us had those fears about being old and, you know, not going to have the opportunities, and we were being judged. And then the thing that surprised me is that there were some young people in the group that were also.

Who.

Who saw that the name of that title and said, oh, age. I'm 23. I have no life experience. Why would anyone want to listen to me?

Yeah.

And there's something specific that you've said. I've heard it a couple times, where you talk about presenting your public Persona, that it's not a lie, but it's your. Your public self, the story that you choose to tell about yourself and present to other people. And, you know, I. I don't think I have a grand conclusion to bring that to.

Okay, let's. Let me, Let me. Let me look at this a little bit.

Yes.

You got at least two different issues here. One is who you are, and the other is how you want the world to see you.

Yes.

What you're talking about is what Nichelle Nichols told the. The world doesn't want to know who you really are. The world wants a simplified version of who you are, with less troubles and less aches and pains. You know, that reinforces what it is that they need to feel about you. The same thing is going to be true if you're trying to get a job in Hollywood or anywhere else. What is it that they need to see in you to give you the job? What they need to see in you is somebody who gives them confidence that if they hire you, you're going to make them look good. And there'll be various things. If you're older, if you're young, it's like, I've got the tons of energy. I can do this. I, you know, I have. I have had exciting life. I can speak to my generation. I can do this. I can do this. I can do. If you're older, you can say, I've been through all those different periods of life. I have wisdom. You know, that I'm the guy. I'm. You know, that you hand the job to me. I promise you I'm going to make you look good. I'm going to make you look so good. One of the things that I had to do in Hollywood, or at least I felt I had to do, to do. I noticed that all the executives were white. And if the subject of race came up in that conversation, I didn't get the job. So what I had to do was to keep their attention on what we could do together, the good of what we could do together. In other words, it's the aikido situation. You know, where I turn them. We're both looking at the mountain look at that beautiful mountain. We climbed that mountain again, their attention isn't on me. Their attention is on what we could do together. And therefore, the new car they're going to be able to buy with their new raise. So with you, you have to take a look. You've got the disadvantages. Those things are true. Whether you're young or in the middle, you're going to have disadvantages. The voice in your head that says, I cannot do it is going to find an excuse to do it. You're going to be too young, too old, too gay, too straight to male to female, whatever, to do it. That's what that voice does. And it never shuts up completely. So you have to be aware of that. You have to keep your commitment on being, doing the best you can and being the best you can be right now with what you have to work with and constantly getting better resources, how you present yourself. In order to not feel like a fraud, you have to be sure that within you, you feel this is the honest truth. So this is. You want to. You want to look. What is it that you have to offer the world? You know, you study the show before you go pitch it. What is it you can offer to this show? What is it you study? The executive, their past, what have they done in the past? What are they interested in? What can you offer this person? When you go for a job, you don't say, hire me because I need the work. You say, I'm here and I am the answer to your problems. I see this, this, this I can do. I, you know, you've never met anybody who work harder, who have better ideas, is easier to work with. It's one of the things that I tell people. I will actually say this sometime. I love collaborating. And you will find that you will never find anyone that is easier to work with than me. I listen, you know, I have my own ideas. We might, you know, have a little of this from time to time, but my commitment is to the best show possible. I am the answer to your problems. I'm going to take some of the weight off your shoulders. That's who I am when I walk in that room and I want them to think, damn, I've never met anybody like Steve. I want to work with Steve. If I work with Steve, we're going to have a great time. And I have to be sure that it is my commitment to come through on that, that my job is to make them happy. My job is they have less stress after they've talked to me than they had before that they get off the phone with me and they think, damn, Steve is great. That is deliberate on my part. So you find the best part of who you are, the best part of what you have learned. Every victory, every hard won triumph in your life and you stack those things up because the failures and the problems are always going to be there. You have to stand in the space of, of what it is you're going to offer these people. And there's so much money involved that you have to have confidence that you have to do whatever it is you need to do to build up real confidence. You can look them in the eye and see. If you write me a five figure check, a six figure check, you're going to think it's the biggest bargain you ever got. You have no idea how happy I'm going to make you. And you have to believe it. If you believe it, maybe they will. But you got to believe it first. So you've got work to do. But man, oh man, is that work worthwhile. That, that's the work of, you know, that's the wake up in the morning. What am I going to do today to increase my physical energy and wellness? What am I going to do today to increase my faith in myself and the degree in which I love myself and love the world? What am I going to do today to make myself a better writer? Do that, do that every single day. My thing is, can I find 1% a day for you? What I want is at least 1% a week. Can you find one new thing to improve your physical energy? Maybe doing some joint mobility, learning how to breathe a little bit differently, learning how to walk a little bit differently. Learn how to improve your rest or improve your diet or improve this just 1%. 1%. In terms of your emotions, how can you make yourself a little happier for the next 90 days? How about you go out of your way every day to find a way to love that boy inside you, that boy who you were, who started the journey of life, who used to love dancing in the sun and playing, was the last time you did things just to make that part of you happy. Do that and in terms of your career, your writing, talk to people who are ahead of you on the path of writing. You know, there are always people who are better than you, always people who went deeper than you. Isn't that wonderful? Everybody paid a different price to be who they are in the world. When I meet people who are better than me at something, I can always see the price they paid. And quite often it's a matter of I wouldn't have paid that price that way or I wasn't in a pace where I could do that. It's not never a God that makes me feel bad about myself. It's always a matter of that inspires me to do better. There's something for me to learn here. If your commitment is to improving 1% per week in all three of those arenas, you're going to have a wonderful time.

Thank you.

It's wonderful to see you, buddy.

Good to see you too. Good to see everyone.

Yeah, I did though. So, Anna, Anna o'. Connell. Yes, I see you.

I see you too and hear you.

How are you today, Steve?

Other than just you seem to be.

Over the end of the writers strike triggered a lot of stress because I knew and I know that as soon as the writer strike is ending, there's going to be an avalanche of work. But think about something for a second. I'm in a situation that most writers would kill for. You know, that I am in the situation. I have fought like crazy for decades to get in this situation where there are television shows and movies and books and stories and this and that. I'm doing all this stuff at the same time. It's stress, but you know, it's a super chicken world. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, so. Oh God, it's that eustress where you know you're going to rise to the.

Occasion and that's right.

So this is one of significant fraction of all the things my brother in law, the brother of my first, my first wife, my daughter's mother has his expression when there is stress in life, he says thank you God for giving me another opportunity to find out who I am. I love that. So the stress is going to hit, you know, and I know that some of these projects are going to come through at exactly the wrong time. You know, it's going to be I'm already busy and now somebody's going to offer me six figures if I will become busier still. And that's going to move me into, you know, from stress. Well, that I got to make sure I got to do it without stress becoming strained or. Or I have to accept strain for a limited amount of time to build up a war chest to buy a new house or something like that. We all do stuff like that temporarily. But I have to be very sure that I'm conscious. The long answer to your short question is I'm being forced to be more conscious. I am at that next level in terms of my relationship, terms of martial arts and my physical practices and in terms of my career, I'm at the next level there. I will not be able to bring all of the old Steve with me, but I'll be able to bring everything that is real. And so it's. It's cool. Does that answer your question?

It does. Thank you.

You're very welcome. How are things going with you?

When you. When you called on me or.

No, just. Just, you know, have you. Can you find something that you've improved by 1% in the last week? Definitely.

On the getting physical exercise and like, The breathing is becoming much more routine, habitual, etc.

Fantastic. Because once you've got that, you can build on top of it and every one of your breathing breaks. You could also now start visualizing a mentor, start thinking about gratitude. So it's like you can start. You know, the foundation is the physiological. Once you've got the physiological, move to the emotional because that controls your state. State is controlled by focus, by what you focused on, the words you use and the way you use your body. Okay. So when you've got your belly, brain and your heart both working together, it's relatively easy to get your mind working in that direction. Now you've got a foundation for excellence and surpassing previous performances. Okay. You're always here and you're always smiling, and I just kind of wanted to see where you were today. Listen, folks, our time is almost up. It went so fast. Today. We will be talking through the end of the year about loving yourself, about loving your younger self, about every single day, finding a way to honor yourself, love yourself, heal yourself. If you'll come with me on this journey, I promise you that by the 1st of January, you'll be in a better place in your life. Everybody, unmute yourselves and say goodbye.

Bye, people.

It was great to see and hear you. Bye. Take care. And from the bottom of my heart, from my family to yours, the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste.