Firedance: Setting yourself up for the BEST year of your life!

In it to check this. Preparing to start live meeting. And it will start it. And what I'll need to do is to mute it so that we don't get the echo effect. No echo. And I'll do a comment here and I'll mute it. There isn't technology wonderful? Sigh. But it is wonderful because without it, I wouldn't be able to connect with you guys. And I certainly.

Wonderful when it works.

It's wonderful when it works. That's right. It's wonderful when it works. And I am greatly appreciative of it because it enables me to connect with you without driving down into Los Angeles to some facility and renting a hall. The travel time plus the inability to reach people who are not available right here in Los Angeles. So it's much more economical of time and energy and resources, and it also makes it more available to you guys. And Tanamireev and I, we are going to continue this through next year and we're developing a sense of how to do it in a way that is in alignment with our goals and what it is that we're doing. And one of the things that I wanted to do is to talk to you about your year in 2023 and setting yourself up for the best possible year in 2024. But in order to do that, we have to follow a certain set of rules. So the first rule is finding out who I am. My name is Steve Barnes. I'm creator of Fire Dance and Life Writing and other things. I'm a writer, martial artist, and a husband and father. And my beautiful, brilliant wife, Tananari due is here on the call with me. And when she is ready, she will present herself. There she is. And I'm going to pin her.

Hello, hello, hello.

Pin me. And sweetheart, why don't you, you know, kind of just say whatever it is you. You guys.

Well, welcome especially. I mean, welcome to everybody, but especially if you have my newsletter@tanatomybliss.com just really excited to have these last few days of relaxation before the. It's going to be a storm, but a good storm in 2024. We have lots of good things lined up starting like literally week one. And next week is my birthday, so I'll be 25 again. And thank you. Thank you very much. Okay.

Okay, everybody, unmute yourself.

Oh, my God. No.

Happy birthday.

No, no, let's save that for next week because that'll be okay.

There's no reason you can't have it twice.

The joy of hearing, the beauty of zoom singing. But anyway, Just wanted to say hi. I really don't have anything. I'm just working, finishing. While Steve's working on his novel, I'm finishing the. The polish, which is the easy part on our pilot script. Making a little bit shorter, trying to make it as perfect as we can. And. Yeah, welcome. Glad to see everybody.

Absolutely. Okay, let me unpin this. But I would like for all of you to unmute yourselves and say hello, because let's get the energy up before you start your day. When you start your day, the first thing you have to do is get centered and get your energy up. Otherwise, you don't want to go out into your day doing things, feeling, oh, God, I got to take care of these lousy bills. You want to have that sense of excitement and enthusiasm. This day could bring something beautiful into your life, and this next week could bring something beautiful in life. So I do little mini video things on Facebook that people can tune into. But here on our weekly thing, I want to be sure that every time you come here, every time you come, we're giving you good energy. You're giving me energy, I'm giving you energy. So unmute yourselves and say, hi, everybody.

Hi, everybody.

Hello.

Hi, everybody.

Looking at everyone while there's a lot.

Of people here today, this is just wonderful. And that is exactly what I want. I know that you guys in the chat are sharing information and sharing email addresses and talking about the things that you do that you're doing. Remember that what we're about here is three different things are primary. There is the magic formula, which is you have a map or model. You're taking daily action. You're controlling your emotions so that you focus on gratitude, which is the antidote for fear and anxiety. You have a clear intention goal, and you have courage. You have character. You have a conviction that you can and should do these things. Each of these five letters can be broken down. But what I want is to. For you to be absolutely certain that you never have a single day where you don't have an idea how to accomplish the things that you want. You're not taking an action. And sometimes action is rest. By the way, you know, rest is a fantastic. You need to rest in order to grow. If you stress yourself, nurture yourself and rest, that's the triumph. Triumph that you need to grow you to manage. You know, you want to feel grateful because if a couple of different things there that success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Okay? And if the Dalai Lama said that the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service in every, in any animal. You know, any biologist will tell you that all animals will move away from pain toward pleasure. You get this view of what humanity can be and what your life should be. Primarily move away from pain. You know, do the things that you need to do to stop hurting in your life, then seek joy. You know, so the adult part of your personality does the chop wood, carry water. You take care of things that are necessary to keep food on the table, roof over your head, your family or the internal family, your emotions, your body safe. Then once you've got safety and you know that it's primary, parents typically push themselves, hurt themselves to be sure that their kids are okay. They sacrifice to make sure their kids have a good Christmas. And if you did not have that, then it can be difficult for you to love yourself enough. Enough to be sure you have the abundance and the safety so that the kid part of your personality feels safe. If the kid part of your personality feels safe, then you'll be creative. Intelligence is creativity, intelligence is problem solving. So if the kid part of you feels safe, you'll have more answers to the problems that you have which then can accelerate you forward. So first safety, then love. And then you will begin to ask yourself how you can have abundance and be of greater service to your community. And it is really interesting when you meet people who do not have open hearts, who cannot love. These are people who didn't feel safe. So in other words, if you take a look at the chakras that go from survival to sexuality to emotion and let's see, let me mute everybody there. Okay, so is this thing, I just want to be sure. I think I may have, I may have. No, I think everything is okay. Now one of the interesting things about the chakra system going up from the bottom, you have survival. This is just a map that's used in yoga, 6,000 year old yogic psychology. First, survival. Survival trumps everything. You could be the most depressed, suicidal person in the world and if I stuck your head in a bucket of water, you would fight for your life. That's the hard wiring. It's always there. So when we are consumed with emotional things, what's happening is we are not feeling grateful for that next breath of air that is ours and free to have it can be very, very difficult. And if you need medication or to consult with a doctor, that's fine, please do that. So we're not talking about that, but if you handle survival, then question is a passion. And what do you want to be in the world as opposed to what you need to be. So Maslow's hierarchy of human needs and the yoga chakras map over quite a bit, going from survival to sex to power, which is power within your life and within your community status, things like that. That's the belly brain. Those first three, you get that handle and you've got survival. After that, you can begin to open your emotions more. You know, reproduction is more important than love in the sense that if you don't reproduce, your species dies out. But love is what makes worthwhile, it makes life worthwhile. So once you've got survival handle, you want to open your heart. People who open their hearts before they have their survival handle will often not be able to recognize predators. They don't have that sense of wanting to protect themselves, of needing to protect themselves. So they end up giving their hearts away to the wrong people. So one of the things that I discovered when we were doing the 90 day love feast is that in order for me to give myself to Tananarive without any withhold, I had to be 100% confident that I could satisfy all my own needs. I had to be confident that no matter what happened, no matter how she responded to me, putting her first, there was no way I was going to get hurt. Just no way I was safe. If I took care of myself, then I could give myself away to her and have taken take care of me was an unconscious competence. No matter what happened here, I was going to be okay. That gave me the confidence to give myself to her. Giving myself to her in that way gave her the freedom to then be more flexible in terms of the way she perceived me and put me first. And when we started putting each other first now the relationship took an entire leap forward. Those are the basic things. The survival center, the, the heart center, which is your emotions and your ability to communicate. Then you have the intellectual which starts going into abundance. Once you have your chop wood, carry water, your jobs thing sufficient to pay your basic bills, you're not worried about whether or not you're going to survive. You can start asking questions about whether or not you can be abundant. And to a huge degree, abundance comes from getting good enough at something that people want that they're willing to exchange resources in their life for resources in yours. So if you want to make more money, for instance, you have to get into a profession where you can prove how good you are. You know, if you can't prove how good you are, that may be a profession where you're giving service, but you're not going to be able to get a lot of money for it. So you want to look at that if that's, if that's the thing. So you could conceivably do one thing for service, like being a schoolteacher, it's going to take care of survival. But if you want to thrive, you might need to write books on how to be a schoolteacher. You know, if you've discovered something really fantastic about how to teach kids. There are plenty of people who've written books on education, teach courses in education. Maybe you could teach teachers who want to be better at what they're doing. So it's, it's looking at what is survival and then what is thriving. This year, 2023, I think a lot of us were coming out of the pandemic, coming out of something that was actually hitting the question of survival. And the first 90 day love feast that we did was about relationships. Then we got more basic than that. The next 30, in the next 90 days, which was about the child within us, which is that representative of the child that you were, your heart, your hopes, your dreams. If you did not have a mother and father who loved you, protected you, disciplined you, healthfully nurtured you, kept you feel both safe and loved, but that there were, there were high expectations for you and your, your negative impulses to eat caramel corn for breakfast, you know, was going to be pushed back at by people who were going to hold that adult place in your life. No, you don't get to do that. You can have the caramel corn for dessert after dinner. You have to do your homework. You have to take care of your body. You have to go to sleep. There are times kids are chaotic, and the creative child part of us is kind of chaotic. So kids need parents and the child part of us, the creative part of us needs a little discipline. And Tanara even looks like she wants to say something. Is that accurate? Unmute, unmute, honey. You're mute. You're muted.

All right, now I have an announcement. I think we may have the largest group we've ever had right now.

Well, that's fantastic.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know for sure.

It's entirely possible. I'm just, you know, thank you.

Congratulations to you and to everyone.

Well, for ntu, sweetheart, the notion is to bring both of our constituencies and both of our groups together. Because there are people that I love in both groups and the people that I care about in both groups. And if there's something we can offer them, there's no greater honor in life than service once you have survival taken care of. So thank you, sweetheart.

Carry on, sir. Carry on.

Indeed I will. So what I wanted to say is that marching up the chakras, we go from survival to love to abundance and service. Wherever it is that you are. If you take a look at it. If you're concerned about survival, focus right there. If you're looking for love in your life, be sure you've got survival handled. And then open your heart. I mean, for guys. The single greatest indicator of the increase in attractiveness in guys is owning your own house. Can you build a nest? Very simple. That on that level, bonded relationships are about mating. Even if you have birth control or you're beyond those years or you just made another choice, the wiring is still like that in our house. And we have that respect for people who can handle themselves. You don't have to raise a child, but we do admire people who have the resources to raise a child if that's what they wanted to do. If you realize that somebody does not have those mental, emotional, or physical resources even if they wanted to, those people have a wound in themselves. They're not even able to care for themselves in some ways that make them attractive. So if you want love, be sure you've got survival handled. Survival is. Survival is a threat. Handle that. Love is an issue with others. First. Start by loving yourself. You got your survival handle. Great. Now you're ready to have a relationship. You got that handled. Now you can start thinking about communicating with your community. Abundance, communicating your value to them. Being able to answer their question of why should my money be in your pocket? You know, you have to have an answer for that question. They might not ask it out loud, but that's what they're always asking deep inside. Why should my money be in your pocket? Because you will have more pleasure if you do that. You're going to be happier. Because I have walked down this road. I have learned these things. I've learned how to do these things. And I can be a benefit to you. And we can make a mutual exchange. Because at another point in the journey, you will probably have some skills that I would like. And the only way I can get them is by exchanging money. Cool. We exchange money. We continue down our path. Bob's your uncle. When you have all of that, the very natural thing to happen is when you're not afraid for your sense of self to begin to expand to include other people in that way. I don't believe in altruism. I believe that selfishness is not a bad thing. The question is, what is your definition of self? Where does your self stop? Does it stop with your skin? Does it stop with your family? Does it stop with your community, your tribe? Racially or politically or nationally? Does it encompass the whole world? Does it move outside your species? Do you have a sense of connection to the entire universe? Those levels, the more centered you are and the more safe you are, the more natural it is to expand. And when you meet people who do not empathize, who do not see their neighbors as themselves, you know you're dealing with someone who's dealing with survival, fear. So in a real way, the natural conclusion of this line of thought is that all any of us ever want is to feel safe and loved. That's all anybody ever wants. And when you see someone who is misbehaving, criminal, violent, whatever you're looking at, this is a person who does not feel. Who did not feel safe and loved on some core level. Now, the sad thing is that you can't always help them. And, you know, the martial arts and other things exist because there are predators in the world and there are people that we cannot help in the time frame and with the energy that we have. And sometimes it is necessary for us to use force to protect ourselves. Remember, the primary responsibility is to protect yourself. After that, open your heart. Don't open your heart when you don't feel safe or you will attract predators, or you won't be able to recognize one. You have to get in touch with the part of you that will bear its teeth to protect you. When you. When you get in touch with that part of yourself, when you can admit that you've got that part of yourself, you are prepared to defend yourself against others. You're prepared to recognize predatory behavior in others. But you will also recognize someone else who is an adult who handles their own stuff and is looking for a place to be gentle and sharing and loving and playful. And you can create a safe space for the two of you to share. Given that, looking at what we've accomplished this year, the conclusion I've come to is that there are, you know, look, there are seven. The human mind could hold seven plus or minus two pieces of information. You can juggle that many things at a time. So if we keep the number of different basic frameworks below 7, I think that the average person can. Can kind of juggle them. So because we've had a lot of different frameworks, I find it useful to write down which are the ones that are most Important today, either in my own life or in my teaching. And what I have found overlaps most with both my own life and my teaching are the magic formula. That notion of model and action and gratitude and emotion, intention and conviction. The notion of improving 1% per week. But 1%? How so? Maybe that's not as important as aiming at being balanced. The three centers, Belly, brain, heart center, head center. That's what keeps you safe. That's what keeps you from hurting yourself. Chasing after money or getting involved in the wrong people or not taking care of your body. Plenty of people chase money and damage their bodies. Plenty of people damage their finances by chasing their bodies. It happens all the time. But the three gates, is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? Is a simple way that does not require supernatural agency of evolving a set of ethics that can guide an individual human action, a family or a culture. Are there limitations to it? Yeah, there are. There are times somebody jumps out of the alley and swings at you. That's not the time to be worried about being kind. Unless you have a master's level of aikido, in which case you can be kind by controlling them without hurting them. But your primary responsibility, remember, is to protect yourself. Your primary responsibility is not to protect them. If you know you can protect yourself, then you might choose to be merciful to them. I mean, seriously. So maybe the magic formula, the three gates and the three sinners are the most primary. And after that, maybe the notion of improving by 1% a week, maybe. And this broadcast that we do on Saturdays is going to be more carefully designed so that all you have to do is come here and we can improve you by 1%. And if you will, you know, but that demands what is the minimum requirement to be on this path? That would be the breathing. Five minute miracle of 60 seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing at the top of every hour, at least five times a day. So looking at that. What am I looking at? There, There's. There is the magic formula. There's the three gates, there's the three centers. There's 1%, there's the ancient child, which actually is connected to some of those other things. You notice these things are going to overlap, which is good. And there's the five minute miracle, the breathing, which is critical to interrupt the physiological chains of stress as well as breaking psychological patterns of. Of getting so deeply into what you're doing right now that you fail to keep balanced and kill to notice what's happening in your environment. Then of course, there's the Morning ritual. Where does that fit in? See if you can see that the morning ritual is how you implement some of these things. Magic formula is making sure that you're in the game. The 1% is to limit your expectations so that you can proceed with with balance. The three gates are to help you become a good citizen and a good human being who only hurts other people deliberately. You follow three gates, and you're never going to hurt people accidentally. You'll hurt them deliberately if you need to, or you'll be less likely to the three centers to be sure that you're in balance. What I kind of invite you to do is every day, first thing you do is empty out all the stuff that you need to do today. That's the first thing you do. Get in the morning, get your journal, write down every major goal you have and everything that you need to do that day to take care of it. Next, you might ask yourself, well, let me take a look at the patterns. I want to make sure that the magic formula is in place. I want to make sure that I'm balanced between my three aspects. I want to make sure that I am being honest and as kind as possible and constantly checking to see whether the things I'm doing are useful. I'm not going to expect myself to make more than 1% progress this week. If I make 1%, I'm fine. I'm going to get in touch with the child part of me. Whatever it is that you are drawing from this, write down the patterns that are most useful to you, that you're using the most every day so that over time you can start getting a sense of. Of how do you need to create your own program to maximize what you need in life? I don't know what it is. I don't know what your goals are, except that I know that the core animal goal is to move away from pain toward pleasure. So I know that you want to decrease the pain in your life and you want to increase the joy in your life. I know that without even knowing you beyond, I don't know what the issues are. I don't know what the problems are. But I do know that a lot of people don't even feel that they have the right to say I want to be happy. They don't even believe that. It's so sad that people don't know that they can actually have a goal of being happy. On one level, it would seem so obvious, but it's not. So I want to be sure that as you close this year, you look at what you did to move away from pain toward pleasure. If you do that, if you take responsibility for your personal safety and you love yourself, then your relationship with that kid part of you should be healthier now than it was at the beginning of the year when we started this process. I would love you to use this weekend to look at the question what do you really want? Working backwards from I want to be happy, I want to be joyful. The money that you want, the love that you want, the health that you want is just a matter of this is the path for moving away from pain toward pleasure. If you were not nurtured, not loved by your family or by society because oppression on a social level is roughly equal to abuse on a family level and both of them create damage that will make you neuro atypical. Allow me to repeat that. I was just thinking about that today. I was looking at the number of people on my Facebook page who are on the spectrum in one way or the other and I realized that, well one, maybe I am. I don't know. I was never diagnosed that way. But it's certainly possible that had I been had my mother gone to the doctor and asked them to check me out, they would have said that. But whether or not that was genetic or environmental, what an interesting question that being raised by a single mother in a home with some food insecurity and in a culture that told me that I was less than, but also told me that unless I could excel, I would be nothing. Those things sent me looking for answers and to my surprise I found out that the answers that I had sought other people valued into an even greater level of surprise I found out or started discovering that there was a lot of overlap between the neurological and pharmacologically modified ADHD and ADD and things like that and the symptoms of having been abused in a household or having been oppressed, having been sexually abused, raped, things like this. The same behaviors, the same issues, the same damage with executive function, the same inability to communicate directly, the ability to believe in yourself, the ability to stay on a given path until you have things handled the self love. The same things that people complain about when they were diagnosed neurotypical one sees in oppressed communities and in abused children. So I don't know what that answer is, but I'm coming to the point of believing that some of that's genetic and some of that's environmental in the family and some of it is social and it doesn't make any difference what the percentages are in your wellness circle get the people that you need to help you to live a life of joy, abundance, to move away from pain. And some people will find the kinds of things that we're talking about here to be very useful. And of that, I am incredibly, profoundly and humbly grateful. Because if it helped me, then I have. There's nothing I could ask for more than to be able to help other people so that if you put half the effort that I put into it, but have the resources that that effort brought me, you should be able to outperform me. That's certainly what I want from my son. He didn't have to put the kind of effort I put into it because I've cleared the way. I've shown him, you know, where the steps are, where the rocks are under the water. So, given that as my opening statement, the best thing we can do right now is take a look at the question of moving away from pain toward pleasure in a balanced way. Your body, your emotions, your career, the three gates magic formula. How has this year been for you? What victory do you have and what clarity have you gained? And what can you commit to for 2024 that if you were to improve by 1% per week at the end of the year, at the end of next year, you would feel it had been a good, good year, a damn good year in which you have diminished the pain, improved, increased the pleasure, and found ways to be of greater and greater service to the world. So given those things, I'm going to unpin myself. And I would love, love, love, love to hear from you guys. So volunteer. Yes. Jaime Rodriguez. How you doing, buddy?

Hi, everybody. Just for your own pleasure, it is minus 17 degrees here in Alaska today.

Wow.

Jesus. Somebody's got to do it. I'm glad it's you.

I've been thinking the favorite time of year, I've been thinking the last couple of days, that last December or January, when we started up this weekly thing, you had given us some specific instructions with goals for 2023 and things to do for ourselves. And I've been scouring for three days trying to find where I put that paperwork so I could review it and actually see what I wrote down in January about what I wanted for 2023. I can tell you that I did succeed in doubling my income. I have not yet submitted any writing to a paid publisher, but I have had many, many things that I wrote published in nonprofit bulletins and newsletters and things. So I've done more writing this year than I've done in the last several. I'VE got things that I'm polishing for publication. And so that that goal is simply going to move from 2023 to 2024.

Allow me to congratulate you for something. First of all, the publication is a valid thing by itself. The money becomes useful as a measurement of things and also, of course, to pay your bills. But if you doubled your income paying your bills, then you can afford to write for a hobby and not care that much about whether or not you get money from it. So you did a good thing there.

Well, and in terms of those goals that I remember from the paperwork I did, I've achieved at least half of them. And the number one, most important one is I have easily halved the stress in my life.

Beautiful. Now I need you to. I need you to answer the question, how did you do it, buddy?

Okay. The number one thing was boundaries. Being able to say no and mean it. Being able to be honest with myself and honest with other people about. No, I. I can't say yes to that because I don't want to let myself down or let you down.

No.

Just no is a complete sentence with a period on the end of it. Oh, my God, I love it.

And that is your adult self. Your adult self has to draw the boundaries because the kid part of you would like to get all the hugs it can get and wants everybody to be happy with him.

But what's really funny is that as. As that stress went away, my kid self got way, way happier because the adult was there to say, yeah, we've got the time and the energy to play.

That's right. And that's. That's what discipline gives you. Jamie, Jaime, if you have the discipline to work when it's work time, you get the freedom of playing when it's playtime.

So that even though I didn't achieve all of the goals, I did well.

On all of them.

And I can look back at 2023 and think, yeah, this was a really. It probably was the best year ever. And it's got me in a direction where there's no reason for 2024 not to be better than this.

That's right. So. So let me say you did accomplish your goal. Your goal was being happier, moving away from pain, be happier. Everything you're saying and look at your facial expression. I mean, everything is saying that you're moving in that direction, but you choose difficult. I have this goal in terms of my body. I have these goals in terms of my career. I have these goals in terms of my relationships and the Fact is that when you. When you act towards those goals, it's like a bat flying through a cave, sending out squeaks. Reality. When in writing a writer's theory of humanity and what human beings are is expressed in the way people act and the things that they do. Your theory of what the universe is is expressed in how you have the universe react to the actions of the human beings. So your actions, taking that realization, that theory into human interaction. You had goals, you took actions. The universe then responded to you, you responded to the response. And what came out of that was enough positive change that you have no doubt that you're happier. So you can now take a look at the things that happen and say, oh, this is what I learned here. This is how I do this. Let me tighten this up. Let me double down on the stuff that worked. Let me forget about what is the 20% of what you did that got you 80% of your results. Do you know? Right?

Oh, yeah. Well, certainly the five minute miracle is much better.

Absolutely breathing.

These Saturday sessions are a lifesaver to help remind me of things that I've been taught or that I already know, but I forget in the crisis of the moment. Yes, yes. And just doing the work. I mean, I know I. I've learned what I need to do and to just do it. Just do it.

Absolutely. That's fantastic, Jaime. You know, you're. See, I'm getting a little feedback here. I don't know why. I see why.

I see why.

Okay, so I will get that. There is some. There's some feedback coming from somebody somewhere, but I'm not going to worry about it too much. You there?

Yeah.

Okay, hold on. I lost the screen. That happens. I've got multiple screens on my.

I know I need to figure that this happens to me when I'm teaching. I'm trying to, like, talk to my students, and I can't find the other screen.

Yes, I've got.

Where did it go?

Where did it go? Where did it go? Anyway, thank you, Jaime.

Please stand by.

All right, so by the way, we're.

Now up to 33 people. I think this is officially the most people who have been here for sure.

So let's be sure that we take really good care of them. You guys take good care of each other and chat. Make sure that they know what this is about. This is about you being more of the person that you want to be, being happier and healthier. Moving away from pain toward pleasure and from joy to service at the rate of 1% per week. And the buy in is breathe. 60 seconds, deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing once every hour. That's where you start. This is not a conceptual process. This is an experiential process. And you have to do it to know whether or not this is going to work for you. So if you'll dedicate about two hours of training over the course of a couple weeks at the rate of five minutes a day, you'll know whether or not this works for you. The rest of it is just theory. I'm interested in science, I'm interested. I can have a hypothesis and I have a theory that's based on experimentation. And that's what I want for you in your lives. If this path is not for you, then bless you and you know, go in peace and come back and report what you found. Maybe you've got a better way of doing something. I'd love to hear it. But if this path is for you, then we will continue to be as honest and direct as we can be. The meetings are always free. If you're a writer, we would strongly suggest that you check out lifewritingpremium.com if you just want to go deeper into this process, we would suggest that you go to www.firedancetaichi.com, which is our flagship program. That's as deep as I can go just dealing with all aspects of who you are. But you can improve by 1% just coming here for free every week and allowing us to coach you. So who else has something? There are people who have not been here before. Danny and Jerry, unmute yourself.

He's been here, but welcome back.

So, yeah. So like over the past few weeks, there's been a couple things, maybe about two or three. So like I say this, I say I. I have been doing the breathing anyway, and what I found was that I think the breathing did help with my creativity. But one thing I didn't realize was that it would help with just like, like general stress and just sort of like helping me just kind of relax and deal with day to day issues.

That I have been going through. Through.

This is a good thing.

Yeah.

How many times a day are you stopping to breathe?

I. I do no less than five minutes and I've been.

Times.

No, I mean when you say five minutes, do you mean five separate breaks or five minutes all at one time?

Well, there were both. Sometimes I'll get up and I'll do it. I'll do five straight minutes in the morning.

Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

I need you to do four more little breaks during the day. They can be short, but it's critically important.

Okay.

If you are doing it all at one time, you need to do it for more than five minutes. If you're doing it all at one time, it needs to be for between 12 and 20 minutes. But if you break it up into five short breaks, you can get away with just five minutes. If you have the discipline to break it up during the day for some very specific physiological reasons we don't need to go into. But that is the most conservative and economical way of turning your life around that I know of. Five minutes is like, you might try every hour on the hour. That'd be like 12 times during the day or every three hours. Like, at 9 o', clock, 12, 3, 6, and 9, you stop for 60 seconds and breathe. If you will do that in just five minutes, you can get the kind of control that people will meditate an hour a day can't get.

Okay.

Okay. All right. Okay. You take care of yourself, buddy.

Okay.

All right. And Maggie.

Hi.

Hi.

I've been absent for, I don't know, some weeks now due to scheduling issues, but I'm happy to be back today to start up the new year. And I think I would kind of respond to. I don't know if you asked this as a question, but, like, as Jaime did, my main goal for this past year was to give myself the time to actually make all of the. Well, as much as I could of the art that's in my head. Give myself a specific amount of time. Ross and I actually talked about it, but I never took him up on his offer. Sorry, Ross. But. But that was my goal. And in the last couple months, a few things have happened that have really shifted shot that forward. I was. I was sent a. A little ad from someone I know about, a course that was starting with an artist that I really respect. And it. It's a. I joined the, like, you would say, the upper level, which is the working artist groups. So. Because I felt like one of the things that I needed, I really believed that something that would really help me was to be able to talk to other artists. So it's like. It's like an alpha reading or a beta reading group for an art for an author. And we, interestingly enough, Mrs. Lyric Canard is the. Is the artist. It's textile artists. So it's what I do that's helpful. And so her. Her critique. Her critique rules are be, Be true, be kind, be useful, essentially, which was just, like, when I read that, I'm like, oh, yeah. So I'M here and, and then I got an. An offer to. To join a shamanic study group. So I have started those two in the last two months and it's really made. I just feel like I'm really where I need to be now. And the three, the three month love feast or whatever you call it, I started that and I. I've never really told Mark what I was doing, but his response to it has been really great and to the point that after six months, I now feel it's safe for me to ask for some of the things that I need that I've been holding back because maybe I didn't want to ask for too much. But his response to. To it, I don't know. I've gotten. I feel like it's. I feel safe now because of his response to me giving all of my love over to him. I feel safe now asking for things that. That might seem silly to other people, but that I have held back from asking for certain time, his help on certain things. Just various things that I'd be.

Because.

Of whatever in my. My life. I. I don't feel it's okay for me to ask for these things.

You know, when what you ended up for that. When you grew up and took care of in a particular way that allowed you to take your attention off yourself without feeling like you were becoming like you were at risk, and then gave that love to him. He then had the option of asking himself unconsciously, perhaps, do I want an adult relationship? That adult relationship means I need to grow up so that I can nurture her child. I will take care of my own stuff. I'll nurture her child. She is giving everything of me, of herself to me, so I can feel safe. You felt safe enough to give so that he felt safe enough to give back. This is how it works. First, take care of yourself. Be sure that you are safe. You know, your primary responsibility is to protect yourself. But after that, open your heart and give yourself away. Beautiful Maggie and I would love for you to form some very specific goals about your art. And the mother, the adult mother part of your personality needs to protect that little girl enough that she can then create all the art that she wants.

Wants.

And if you want to sell it, then that's the adult's job. The child's charter job is making it. The adult's part is marketing and selling it. Separate those two things. Okay? Okay. Good girl. I love it. Love you too, Meg. And Happy New Year. And Angela Dalton.

Hi.

First of all, I literally came here because I wanted to say thank you to both you and for everything that you've done for the writing community, because it's helped me exponentially. And I get on here and all of a sudden you're giving me a sermon that I needed to hear and didn't realize I needed to hear. This last year, I've really been struggling with my relationship with my mother because she's getting older and, you know, there's a lot of history there that I won't go into. But it's a very difficult relationship for me to maneuver. And so just hearing what you said about, like, it's okay for me to put myself first, which is what?

It's necessary.

Necessary.

If you cannot swim, don't get in the water with a drowning swimmer. Get your feet on dry land and throw them a life preserver. If you're going to get down in the water and swim with them, then what you would need to do is to be a professional. In other words, if you're going to interact with your mom, you are now. The dynamics of the relationship have shifted. You're now the adult, she's now the child in the sense of not being able to control her emotions. So you can do that as your giveaway to her, your service to her, but you don't let her have access to your heart if she's saying hurtful things. The little girl inside you wants Mommy so much. And you're also dealing with fears of mortality because you see that this is the path ahead. So both of those things are going to operate. Your little girl is going to be afraid. And that's the same little girl you need for your art. So you keep her safe. And not only will she be able to take care of her art, but she will also then love you even more for taking care of her mommy. You're taking, in a sense, you are her mother. You understand? But in another sense, then. Then the woman who birthed you in this world deserves you. She needs to know that you are strong enough that you can handle her shit on some level. She is dying because she is afraid she's going to push you away. She cannot control her emotions. She needs to know that she made you strong enough to be the adult woman that you are. Who can say, Mom, I get it completely. When my mother screamed at me, cursed me, when she was dying of cancer, it didn't mean anything more to me than if she vomited on my shoes. She was just sick. It had nothing to do with her love. It had nothing to do who she was I knew that deep inside herself she was praying, please don't pay any attention to what I'm saying. I can't help. I said, paul, please, I'm so sorry. And if you're strong enough to do that, then she knows she did her job and she can die at peace.

I hope that's what she takes away from it. Again, there's a lot of backstory there that I just don't want to get into. But. But I do understand that, like, I have a choice in the matter. And I think a lot of times we feel like we don't have a choice in our relationships with an adult, especially an emotionally immature adult.

Yes.

And so I've learned that I do have a choice and setting those boundaries. Somebody in the chat was like, you know, talk about family obligations. And I don't know specifically what they meant about having family obligations and not being able to write, but it goes back to that. It's okay for you to set boundaries, and you need to.

It's critical. You might be dealing with someone who did not know how to set boundaries. And so she was diminished, and so now she's damaged, and she might not even be aware of what she's doing.

And she's having a hard time time because she doesn't know how to set boundaries.

You might want to say. You might want to wonder whether or not there is a soul within her that understands but can't get out, can't express itself, that you then react to her soul, not her ego. That all the negative stuff is coming from her ego, and it could be so deep and it's hurtful and, you know, all those things are true. But I think I can't prove this, but if I deal with someone as if there is a soul within them that is perfect and that all the ego wants is to feel safe and loved so they don't have to feel defensive, that screaming, whatever damage, whatever bad things have happened in the past and are happening now. I like to believe that at the core of us, all we want is to feel safe and loved. And when you see anything other than that, this is a person who feels. Who is desperately afraid. Absolutely, desperately afraid. You get your feet on solid ground. You give to her from your. From your overflow. You fill your own cup first. You take care of that little girl inside you first. That's even what the mother's soul and her wants you to do. No matter what she says, she wants to know that her seed will go on and be strong. No matter what she says, just look at all that is just for vomiting on your shoes. She wanted to love you. She wanted to just have that love, and she didn't know how to do it. But you are standing on her shoulders, and you will go further and you will heal. There is fantastic amount of trauma running in. Well, frankly, our community.

Yes, absolutely.

I found a phenomenal amount of. Amount of trauma. It is every generation's job to heal as much as possible so that our children are not carrying our burden. Yeah. And you are a strong woman.

Thank you.

I got here.

That's right.

But I got here.

That's right. That's right. Tanarive, you're.

I don't want to, like, take up too much time.

No, no, you're not taking up.

I want to make sure. Actually, I want to make sure you got all your thoughts out because you got. Got us excited, but I want to make sure you got all your thoughts out.

Well, again, I came here to say thank you to you both because I've been following you both for a really long time. Especially, like, life writing and just Internet, everything that you've done. Isis Asari is a friend of mine, sister Sci Fi. Like, love you.

Oh, great. That's a great bookstore in Oakland. She is a real.

She's amazing.

She's amazing.

Yeah.

What I wanted to say thank you to you both was that the thing that I really wanted to do in 2023 was write a television pilot script. And because by trade, I'm a picture book author, and so I didn't think. I thought I needed permission to do that because everybody's like, it's Hollywood. It's different. It's not the same as the literary world, you know, like, know your lane. And so I stopped listening. Seriously, I stopped listening to those people. And this year, I took a TV pilot online writing course. And then from there, I finished my first really crappy draft of my.

Oh, my God, that's crazy.

I love those crappy drafts. You got to get through those crappy drafts. I'm digging through that pile of horse manure because I know there's a pony in there somewhere.

That's exactly it. I know it's in there.

That's right. Well, that's fantastic. And, you know, whenever you come here, keep sharing with us what's happening on your journey, and I hope you have the very best 2024 you can possibly have. If we can be of service to you, just let us know.

Oh, keep doing this. This is so wonderful to have this kind of accessibility. A lot of people don't do this. And so that's just even right there. You guys making yourselves accessible. Accessible. That we can come and just say thank you is just so much, you know, you're welcome. So I really appreciate you putting in the time and the energy and. And sharing your. Your journey and your understanding and your spirituality and all. Everything that you're going through with us to learn from.

Amazing. And I love your backdrop. That is. Wow. It's incredible. So good luck to you on everything.

Thanks a lot. Okay. Mo. Yeah. You don't come here often. Sounds like we're about to get a little.

Mo.

Really?

Unmute, mo.

Unmute, mo. Mo, unmute yourself.

Mo.

Hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. All right. So the first thing I want to say is thank you to the whole Fire Dance family who helped me out a couple of myself and our family out a couple of months ago when we had an emergency and everything. Just last week. As I stated before, I'm truly, really trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was in hospital and I almost died before Christmas.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, so pretty rough. But I'm. I'm over that hurdle. We're just trying to stabilize and get out of here. I also wanted to do this because since you're all science fiction fans, just want to go foam home, so. Because I have this little thing.

Easy.

So phone home, buddy. One of the things I wanted to say, you started out talking about people who seem to, like, kind of fight happiness. And it really kind of resonated with me a bit, especially when I saw a video recently, and I usually don't look at those videos where the person said, hear me out. That Florida Evans from Good Times was possibly the worst example of a black mother on tv. And he gave three examples. He gave three examples. He said whenever the family was giving was had an opportunity to get ahead, Florida fought everything. Like when James found $20,000 in the ghetto, she was like, james, you can't keep that money. You got to give it back. Then when she had a TV commercial and she said, james, I can't say these words because I haven't. I haven't actually tried this product. And he tried to convince her, Florida, it's. It's a commercial. Everybody lies. And then the last example I think he used was the black Jesus picture that everything in the family changed, but she couldn't stand black Jesus up there. James got a job. JJ Got a job and everything else. So I'm not saying that Florida Evans was the worst black mom on tv, but it kind of Made me think for a moment about people who kind of fight their blessings thinking or believing that something greater is going to be somewhere, you know, down the road.

So let me ask you a question. This is important because like I said, our community has been damaged badly for generations, for centuries. And as a result, we don't have the traditions and don't have as many traditions that go back solidly for thousands of years as most other cultures have. Examine Florida's actions in the framework of the three gates. Was it honest? Would it be? Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? It may be difficult to act along those lines, but virtually every religion, every spirit, every culture in the world gives lip service to. We should be honest. We should be kind to each other. We should constantly look to what is useful. I suggest to you that you can look at those principles and say that they will lead you to a good life, a righteous life, and a healthier community. That it is actually useful to be honest. It is actually useful to be kind. That it is people who are in survival who feel that honesty is optional or even unimportant. It is people in survival who feel that kindness is weakness. It is people who are so confused that they surround themselves with egos and don't want to know what's actually working and not working. When people say, behave this way, Steve, not that way, and I ask them a polite question, which is, how do you feel that my life would be better were I to behave that way? If they cannot answer that question and they keep being nasty about it, if they push harder, then I might ask them a stricter question than that. What is it about your life that's so great that you think that if I was more like you, I'd be better off? They could never answer that one. But if they can answer the question about how they think my life would be better were I dishonest, how would my life be better were I unkind? How would my life be better if I did not actually look at the results that people get before I make my judgment. So Florida was, in many ways, you know, within limitations of television. You know, Norman Lear Productions, the Soul. Huh?

Eric Monte.

I don't know that person.

He was the one that Norman Lear had to eventually pay the black writer because he. He wrote a lot of the stuff for Good Times for the Jeffersons.

Good. So Florida was saying, this seems like a $20,000 windfall, but it's not our money. This seems like a chance to get ahead with this commercial, but I never use this product. So what people who want to be honest do when they're offered an opportunity to do a commercial is they test the product. They say, send me some of the product. Let me test it. They don't just go out there and lie about it, because that is. That is a road to hell. You start. You know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If you don't believe that you can succeed without cheating people, then you're pretty much doomed because you will actually associate money with evil. You will start getting this, and plenty of people do this. The people with money had to cheat to get it. You can takes money to make money. You know, you have to hurt people to make money. If you believe that, are you ever going to be abundant? Ever? I mean, so I would say that in that sense, the person who thinks that she was the worst black mother on television is telling you their values. They're telling you that they reject the three gates. And you have to ask yourself, are the results that they get in terms of the quality of their relationships, the quality of their life, their health, their relationships, their abundance? Do you want to be like them? Does that produce the kind of human being you want to be, the kind of human being that you would ask your children to be? Or does the hard way, the insistence on being as honest as you can be, being as kind as you can be, and then being as useful as you can be, does that not create the people that you admire the most in life? Who are the people who admire you admire the most? And their path is tough. It's faster to burn a forest down than it is to grow one, no question. But you have to ask yourself what really works. And remember, our community got damaged enough that some of this knowledge is not distributed as evenly through our people as it is in some other communities. It's going to be up to us to make these decisions and ask, do we believe that honesty is a better way? Do we believe that kindness is a better way? Do we believe in looking at somebody's results before we evaluate their theories? Because anybody can talk a good game. Anybody can convince themselves of their arguments. You have to ask, what results do they get? And I would like you to think about that and to realize that that attitude, that she was the worst black mother. So black mothers are supposed to be dishonest and unkind. Really? What fresh hell is that?

Young black, millennial.

Yeah, that's. Unless. Unless you want that result. Don't go down that path if that person is not eating the meal you want, don't care about Their recipes, you know, they're, you know, it's. Be very careful here and please, you know, come back. Mo, you know, you are welcome here. The people here had enough abundance to help you when you were in need. Thank you. There is no reason to believe that being honest and kind, as long as you look at the results of the life cannot produce greater abundance than being dishonest and mean. Maybe they can produce equal things, but do you want the relationships of that person who is dishonest and unkind? What kind of love do they have in their life? What kind of intimacy? Look at these things carefully, my friend. Very carefully. Every week I am on here for an hour and a half, you know.

Yeah.

Do I Talk about LifeWriting, Premium.com and Fire Dance tai chi doc? Of course I do. But I also make it clear that people are welcome here just to be here. I love getting money and I'm going to make my money. But what's more important is to. Is to help heal the community. And you're part of a community I will die to heal. I will put my life on the line to heal you, my brother. You understand me?

Yes. I truly appreciate it. And last thing I wanted to say, you know, sometimes get the fever to get you the medicines, you have strange dreams. And just as a quick laugh, I was dreaming this whole series, the, you know, the Undercover Boss thing. Those. Undercover Boss Jesus edition.

Yes.

And I just thought it was hilarious and it was.

Write down, take. Write down an outline of it and one of these days write a funny story about that. Actually put it out into the world, you know, get, get it out there. Okay. And we will help coach you with that. Okay.

All right.

All right.

And I'm so glad you're. I'm so glad you're feeling better, Mo, and hope you will continue to feel, feel much better in the days to come.

And thank you to every member of this community that helped. Mo. Thank you. This is the kind of community I'm trying to build where people who are trying to be honest and trying, they need to know that somebody out there cares. So let me, let me just. Mo, did you need to know.

That? I need to know.

Did you need to know that people were not bluffing about caring about you?

No. No. Because when I, when I stepped out, I just, I had to step out, you know, but, you know, everything like with my boys, you know, right now, they're stepping up and taking care of each other. And if it wasn't for cj, the high functioning artist, autistic artist, who Told me, dad, I'm not going to lose you like I lost mom, like we lost mom and made me call an ambulance. And my blood pressure was 85 over 57.

You matter, Mo. You matter. Your life matters. Your joy matters. Your heart matters. You come back and let us keep taking care of you, okay?

And I know it must be such.

A great feeling to know your kids are stepping out. That makes everything feel better.

That's wonderful. That's life. Take care, Mo.

Thank you, Tom.

I'll just do two things, two stories really quickly. And both of them are probably a tribute to listening to you, Steve, and internalizing what I've been hearing. A couple of weeks ago, you asked me if I could get by for a couple of months without working. And the answer is, yes, I have. I have enough resources.

Excellent.

Here.

I've been getting occasional calls from recruiters saying, well, you know, we need a. An experienced technical writer, instructional designer who does what you do, understands that, of course, you'll have to come in to our office, to the office of the client, you know, long way away, and that's mandatory. And my response has been, no, no, there is nothing you need that I haven't done for other clients remotely. And I am no longer willing to spend an hour and a half to two hours of my life on the road, costing myself money, damaging the environment anymore. We've got zoom, we've got email, we've got applications to let us collaborate together. My answer is no. That would have terrified me when my wife was still alive because she needed me to keep working and keep the. Keeping the insurance up. But now I'm not in that situation. Now it's just me, and I've got Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and things like that, and I'm no longer willing to be a wage slave. And then I asked them, by the way, why are you offering me slightly less money than I was making in 2006 for more work? And the tap dancing got pretty frantic.

Yeah, I bet it did. You know, I think this is one of the reasons why I'm so. People. A lot of people don't understand that I both believe in the social safety net, you know, in. In universal health care. And we need to experiment with. With. With other things as well, and believe that each of us as individuals has the responsibility of creating abundance so that we can help each other. And when we help each other, we help to create a safe situation where people's fear drops and they can see they don't need to make decisions based on Fear. You made a non fear based decision as a result of that. You protected your time and energy as a result of that. If you decide really clearly, I would like a job where I do what I do and I'm paid this and I can do it from home remotely. If you were to make that decision, then you could spend an hour a week figuring out the strategy to get there to figure who are the people who do this, how do they present themselves, how do they market themselves, how do they find the people do this? If you decided to do that by the end of 2024, you'd have it. But you'd have to say, this is what I want. I would love for you to have a goal like that. If that's what you want.

I need to be more active in pursuit of healthy business.

Yes.

What you were talking about earlier, about realizing how oppression creates neuro atypicality, if that is a word, yes, really hit me strongly because a job that I had when I lived in Long beach that had me going to Irvine every day and working for some monsters.

Did.

Me a lot of damage and trying to get out of it.

So that's where you look at that. You strike me as being hyper intelligent, Tom. You, you have this, you have the, the things that you say and the way you say it, your body language and the way your eyes move and things like that suggest to me some of the really smartest people that I've known. But it also seems to me that you don't have the emotions behind, behind it to be able to utilize it to your best effect. So I know that getting in better touch with that kid inside you would create a greater ground for safety, which would create greater creativity. Because right now you got this issue. If I define the perfect job, which is working with good people that I love, I work with them for free, except they're paying me really well and I can do it from home if I want to. If you define that job, it's the, and you, the adult part of you will not let you take anything that hurts you and makes that promise to the child. The child is then safe to kind of start brainstorming. Well, we could do this, we could do this. We could try this, we could try this. And all those answers, you come up with a thousand answers a day. And if you did that, by the time you had 5,000 answers, one of them would work. You keep coming up with, with. You keep brainstorming, something's going to work. You keep brainstorming, keeping your eyes to where you really want to go feeling totally self protective. So I will, you know, I will not let you get hurt, but I'd love to have some ideas about this. Do that. If you created that goal, I would love to support you in creating it because I think it'd be fascinating to see what happened as you started working towards that goal. And if you did it or when you did it, you would then be able to tell me which of these tools helped you along that path. And that will enable me to double down on that and help other people. So you could really be a pioneer here by taking these things. I would love for the next. For the first, what I'm trying to do. Every. Every three months we want to focus on something different.

But.

But there's part of it that says, well, do I tell what people should focus on or do I let them? And just every three months they're focusing on something different. Every season they're focusing on something different. I think that that might be the better thing. I would love it if you would focus on a job that is expressive of your heart, doing something good with people that you enjoy, making the money that you want in the way that you want. Define it really clearly and then let's get really creative and sneaky and strategic about how to get you there.

There.

Would you. Would you play that game with me?

I will do my best. I'm not sure I've got. Got it all lined up the way you just described it. I'm not sure have it internalized yet.

But work backwards from.

I get the general idea.

Work backwards from being happy. Now, define the perfect job. Define the perfect job. Let's see how close to that perfect job we can get you.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

The second thing I wanted to talk about very. I'll be as brief with this as I can. Made an attempt at what I thought was responding to a longtime friend who seemed to be letting me know she was kind of available for a romance.

Well.

She'S a little bit imprecise with her language.

Often happens.

And I was wrong, but I didn't damage the friendship. And the friendship goes back 40 years. And that was really important to me. And we have. We're working together right now in a musical situation. And that's important to me. And I didn't. I didn't want to be angry about it. I didn't want to wallow in the rejection. I have seen you say, oh, okay, that didn't work. Okay, onward. That's too short and not precise either, but more or Less that line of thinking. Now, yes, I was. I put some effort into the approach, and I was disappointed that it wasn't accepted. And I was disappointed that I was wrong, that I'd misanalyzed, that I'd misunderstood. But I immediately said, okay, let's not let this ruin what we've got.

I can guarantee you something. However much attraction she felt for you, when you handled it like a man, that attraction increased. You know, totally cool with it. You immediately became more attractive.

Possibly. Possibly.

Oh, yeah, she's gay.

And I thought maybe I had misunderstood. Maybe something she said made me think, well, maybe she's actually bi. And I've missed this all these many years.

But what you're doing.

No, the.

The life writing or the. The. The incel cure approach is stochastic dating. It is being the guy who a woman would want. Yeah. And then presenting yourself to women with that power and reserve, you know, the. The incel does the. Oh, you don't like me, there's something wrong with you, or you don't like me, there's something wrong with me. Each of those, they either they diminish their power or they become an asshole.

Okay.

When you. To do neither of those things, you say, you know, I really like you. I wonder whether or not there's a potential for more here. No, that's fine. Well, I hope you're happy doing what you're doing. Let's keep on with what we're up to. When you do that, her immediate response is really going to be, really? Because she hasn't run into a lot of men like that. There aren't a lot of people like that. And people who will handle their own stuff automatically get more attractive. So you did exactly the right thing. Whether it works out with her or not, she may have a friend and say, you know, there's this guy named Tom Barkley. I think he might be your type. You be you. You be you. And you make sure that she knows that you genuinely cared about her. Whether or not you ended up going to bed together, being romantically involved. You saw her humanity. You care about her. That is rare, my friend. That's valuable. That's power.

It's an unusual friendship, I have to admit.

That's right. Congratulations. Good for you. And good for being able to laugh about it. It's like, you know, every salesman knows you got to knock on a lot of doors to sell them, to sell a vacuum cleaner, you know, it's the same thing. That hadn't occurred to me, but. But, yes, it's Nothing personal, buddy. It's like, you know, except that.

It is.

It is, in a way, except that. Also just a numbers game. It's not. It's not like you don't have. You're not big enough or wide enough or have enough stuff. It's more like this key fits this lock, right? Nothing personal. There have been women who are attracted to you. You are not attracted, and you hope they wouldn't take it personally and be insulted. You're attracted to some women, they're not going to be attracted to you. Nothing personal. It's just a numbers game. It's. You be. You have your own beauty and power, and you be confident in that. You're handling your own business. And you will. At some point, walking down the road, you will either meet someone who is perfect for you and will see your power and beauty, or you won't. And you'll be okay either way. And the more okay you are either way, the more attractive you're gonna become. It's just. It's like you can't. You can't negotiate a contract if you can't walk away from the table. If they know you can't walk away from the table, they will ruin you. But if you can walk away from the table, that's when you can win. So in every relationship situation, you need to be able to walk away from the table with a sense of love and grace and genuine appreciation for her humanity. Not playing. It's not a game. You genuinely wish her well. And, you know, it's just like, if. If I'm what you're looking for, we can walk this path together. If not, go with God.

If I had not seen the value of this longtime friend, I would never have responded to what I thought was an invitation.

So you respond and you make sure that you're being honest, but you're also taking care of your own business. Yeah, you've been honest. You be. You be a gentleman, but you be.

A man, and we're okay. And that's excellent. And we continue the musical relationship, and that's.

That's beautiful.

Important in my life.

It is. It is. You know, and this is. This feels like a real breakthrough for you from where you were a year ago.

It felt like that to me.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I would really love anybody. I'm going to unpin you for a second. I'm going to pin both of us, and I'm going to say the following. Anybody who thinks that Tom made a step forward, unmute yourselves and cheer.

Most stuff, but most yeah, that's right.

That was being a man. That was being a man right there and I love it.

You've got some matchmakers and comments too.

I'm not surprised.

Well, you go.

You go there. So let's.

Let me, Let me see. Zinnia.

Welcome to Fire Dance hookup zone. Here we go.

Fire dancing together.

Hi.

Boom. Wow. Yeah.

Yes.

How are you doing, sweetheart?

I am fine. I am great. It's just a pleasure. I don't want to live in the regret that I wasn't here from jump because I'm so grateful for having caught up.

There's no, there's no perfect place to come in. This is just life. It's just like life. So just jump in and you know, how has your year been? And tell. Okay, I guess answer this question. Why do you like it here? Just kind of help me understand.

And it's interesting because I think I have already said it, but I was just too emotional, right, about finding space, whereby, first of all, I consider everyone here sort of my cohort group and that I've spent, it feels like now, years kind of dragging on people to be able to be with me. This space is expansive, right? And I said things that cooperative leadership and I meant that leadership was big enough to hold me. And part of my personal journey over the last X years after not working is getting an opportunity to, to learn me. And it's. Almost every line that you're saying is, is. Is making. It's encapsulating this, this thing that was all over the place and, you know, this seeking, this narrowing, but not being able to find a space where that possible. Like, you know, so it's like, okay, you know, either I talk too much or I think too much or why, why can't I be like everyone else and say, pass me the, the potato and that's enough. I'm just not that person, you know. And then I get reminded that, you know, before I became a family 30 years ago, I would go to St. Mark's bookstore, comic book store, and I have comic books in a box here. And it speaks to the me that's me. Like that's not the child that, you know, the child of maternal neglect or familial neglect. Right. So it feels possible. Yes, to be who I am.

It's not only possible, it's compulsory. All you can be is who you are. You got nothing else but who you are. So anybody who tries to discourage you from being who you are is trying to steal your power.

I'm a late learner. And so that I'm hoping. I hope I answered your question. Why here?

You are so welcome here. And just, you know, in 2024, we'd love to see you here striving and sharing your journey with us, because the way you use these tools will inform what other people. People can do. They will see. Okay, that worked. That didn't work. This worked really well. That didn't work quite so well. You're helping us to develop this technology.

And I'm learning a lot about comic books from the creator side, as I'm learning that medium. And there are a lot of great comics out there. So if any part of you is a comics fan, I think you need to go back to those stores and rediscover that love.

Yeah.

When was the last time you went to a comic book store?

It's been a minute. But what's happening, though, is that I have just put. No, I. I do art so well. Art does me. But I. I was able to put on paper an idea because sometimes the ideas come up better on paper.

Yes.

And I'm thinking, you know, well, if I do this for this concept and continue doing it for other concepts, I may have a compilation of work that might work for people. I mean, it has to be. It has to happen and then be presented.

So what is it you're talking about? Like a book, A collection of comic stories.

A collection of presenting complex thought or ideas in a simple way. And I could show you, but it would mean I have to step away and get it to show you.

No, that's okay. I understand. I've seen comics used that way to. To convey really complex ideas simply. But that requires that you think about them more deeply. It is said that you. If you cannot explain your discipline or an idea to a child, you don't really understand the idea. So if you think about it deeply enough, it'll get simpler and simpler and simpler. You remember, think about the parables in. In the Bible, okay, I will make you fishers of men. He is taking the notion of. Of taking a complex philosophical or religious idea and then informing people with it and then sending them out to teach that idea to. To tell them all of that. These relatively simple people might not understand all that. But if he says fishers of men now, oh, I'm going to gather their souls together. I'm going to, you know, finding the way to convey a complicated concept so that it is complex instead of complicated. Complicated. Lots of pieces. Machines are complicated. Goldfish are complex. So you. If you take the time to boil down your complicated concept so that an 8 year old can understand it because you put it in a picture. Now you have done the work that makes it possible to communicate directly with their child self and you will communicate with it more deeply and it is totally worth the effort.

I'm hoping to be of service.

Absolutely. So that's the meaning of life, to move away from pain, open our hearts to joy and be of service. I love it. I love it, love it, love it. That's certainly the thing. One of the things I love the most about my good lady wife Tananarive is all about being joyful and of service. Her mother and father handled the pain for the family handled the pain. So tononareve and her sisters got the joy and they got the connection, the commitment to being of service. Service. That's, you know, a world. Imagine a world in which. In which all of us have permission to feel good and all of us wish to serve our communities. That is a world I'm willing to fight for. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. And Ross, buddy.

Yes, sir?

Bring it home.

You asked a question a while ago about why are we here? And I'm going to give you my answers to that in two parts because I have two major reasons why I'm here. When we first started talking lo these eight years ago, you presented a set of concepts to me in my wounded self state. And I said, prove it. And rather than kowtow to my demand, you turned around and suggested that I prove it for myself. And what that did was acknowledge a power inside of me that I wasn't seeing. And when that sank home and it started working and I kept trying to prove you wrong and I kept failing, I stuck. Part two is being able to absorb that obnoxious exuberance by osmosis every week that you bring and give away for free. And I'm addicted.

I love it. Well, a couple things here, Ross. First of all, thank you so much for that backhanded compliment. No, I love it. I love it. That was great. I can only teach people who are willing to experiment if they want me to logically prove something to them. They're just saying they want to stay up in their heads and argue. No. If you are willing to try an experiment. So I was trying to figure out what is the smallest amount of time. I can say you can prove it to yourself in a single hour, or let's say two hours simply by breathing five times a day for a couple weeks. And you tell me whether or not things got better if they're willing to perform that experiment, then they're my kind of people. If they perform the experiment and it doesn't work for them, then this is not their path. If they perform the experiment, it does work for them. They will hopefully trust me a little bit more and take the next step. The obnoxious exuberance thing, this is. You have the intellectual knowledge to do things, but you have to put the physical energy behind it. If you take a look at the magic formula, you have to take actions. And in order to take the actions, you have to have positive emotions. I was just realizing, I wrote down, you know, what I have to do today. What I call 50, 50 correct, 50 pages and maybe dictate for 50 minutes. You know, if there. There are things I have to fill in and why am I doing this? Well, one thing, because I signed the contract and it's getting busy. He's getting ready. That's pain. But in front of me is the joy, the satisfaction, thinking I have the potential here. This book could be amazing. I'm starting to see what it was that was driving me the whole time. I really want to publish this book. I want to put it out there. I want people to read it. I want people to be proud of me. I want people to be happy. I want that money. I mean, it's just like, you know, it's. It's. I want to go to Manila, you know, that I can't. That in order for me to do the things I want to do, I have to take care of certain things. So in other words, I have the pain behind me and what I love in front of me. And so I've got all my dogs pulling in the same direction, whether the ones that are dealing with fear or the ones that are dealing with love, whether it's about taking care of my family or about expressing myself, whether it's about serving my community or whether it's fulfilling a contract professionally. Everything inside me will support me in doing this work today. So I don't have any resistance. So what gets to come out inside me is the enthusiasm, the, you know, this is going to be good, tough fun. It's going to be hard. But I've been preparing my whole life for this. So it's every day I would love for you to have that sustained sense of connection to your heart that people who have lost that connection with will consider kind of obnoxious because you're reminding them of what they used to be. And they. They will believe that you're a fraud until they see you doing it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. At what point they have to kind of say, holy crap, you're really like that. How did you do it? That's what I want for you, Russ, because, Ross, buddy, you're climbing your way out of a deep pit. And I am seeing you right now more and more often. I'm seeing your head peeking up out of that pit. I'm seeing it. You're getting much more consistent now. You are absolutely heading in the right direction. I'm absolutely proud of you. That's the truth. All right, so listen, we are coming to the. First of all, I would like for everybody to unmute themselves and to give Ross a round of applause.

Hip hooray.

Yeah, I get better and better. It just gets. Yeah, it just gets better and better. As we learn how to help each other, as we learn how to support each other, you realize that we now have a community where people can come in and I can lecture up here. On the surface, I can ask questions that are a little closer, but then in chat, you can network with each other and talk about specific things. The community is now at a point where we can offer more help to people, where we can do better, we can be larger. It was critical to get things started that we wanted. People of all genders, sexual orientations, races. We want it to represent the world. The world is within me, the world that's within 10 honorary. And I wanted to end this today, thanking you for helping make my dream come true of having a community of loving, caring warriors capable of keeping the little kids inside them safe, who know how to move away from pain, embrace joy, and be of service. And you have done that. You understand that real changes have happened inside this group because of you guys, because of you. I know which of the different things that I've used to help myself or helping other people. By the end of 2024, we can have a mature community where people can come in and get help absolutely for free. A place where there is some integrity, and people are trained to be able to identify integrity when they see it, so they can find that within themselves, so they can move away from pain towards joy and help to change the world. I want nothing more than that, and I want nothing more than for each and every one of you to be surrounded by as much love and light as you can possibly be as we end this year and to embrace the coming year with the greatest amount of excitement and optimism and anticipation. If you are grateful for the last year, you get to have faith in the next year. That's all it takes to have faith is to say all the good things that have happened and then be able to say, you know, if those good things have been happening, I guess the pattern's going to. To continue. Sweetheart, I really, really would love for you to speak to people just a little bit. This is our last chance to talk to them this year.

My last. Well, you see my lights in the hallway. Usually my door is closed, so we still have some lights up because family will be coming on Tuesday. I know. You know, I am primarily responsible for our podcast that we do on Sundays, and Steve is primarily responsible for this, although we both participate in. In both of those things. But I'm really, really happy for you, Steve, that. That you have this community you've been dreaming about for so long. And I really love coming on these zooms and seeing everybody and hearing from people, whether they're readers or writers or seekers or whatever. It is just people who are staring in the same direction trying to have.

Really is for writers and readers, isn't it? You know, people who appreciate writers.

Yeah.

Getting past the noise, getting past the doubts, getting past. I mean, life. Life is tough. Life is really tough. And it's good to have a place to come and be reminded that we're not alone.

That's right. Thank you, sweetheart. I'd like to thank Tananarive. She is the love of my life. She's everything that I was looking for. I'm so glad that I was wise enough to recognize you when I saw you and to know that it was worth it for me to throw everything I thought I knew about myself away and start over again with someone who has made me a better man and demands every day. Back at you, honey conscious. Oh, God, I adore you so much, sweetheart. And to all of you, I love you all. Thank you for being here. I'll see you next week as we start the next year. And to close this ultimately once again with the Sanskrit expression. It says that the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste. Take care.

Bye. Bye.

Namaste.

Namaste.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Thank you.

See you next year.

Let's see you next year.

Bye.

Next year.