Firedance4-15-23

Are these two different people named David Edwards? Are these two different people named David Edwards?

I hope not.

Edwards.

I hope not. Logged on twice on my workstation. Let me shut one of them down.

It. Yeah.

Is there better?

Yeah, it's better. I mean, it was okay either way. Okay. You do you. But excellent.

I appreciate you. You've been patient with me for about 10 years, I think. I've been getting your notes and emails.

And.

Your knowledge is spilling it out there and I've been touching it here and there. Here and there.

It's okay.

I'm learning to breathe from my diaphragm. I'm practicing breathing.

Excellent. Well, this is. I'm going to be, you know, sometimes I can take this show for 90 minutes. Today it'll be closer to 60. It's because I'm going to go down to San Diego and see my daughter. And so what I decided to just go ahead and open things up just a little bit early to make up for that time. So anybody who shows up early, you know, I'll be able to have a little bit more time with them, which is happy making to me. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, this is nice. So, you know, kind of before we get started, I'm still kind of setting up here, so tell me if there's anything I can do for you. So this is live time and I really appreciate it when people show up and I want to be of as great level of service as possible. All right.

Well, I have to overcome my procrastination, but I'm busy with a lot of projects. But I got stopped to focus on my, on my health and the exercise.

Okay.

Excellent place to be. I just let things get in the way.

Yeah. Okay. So we can definitely talk about that. But the most important thing is to make a list of what you can do in a very short period of time. In the top three areas. I kind of suggest a morning ritual, the five Tibetans, and something like heartbeat meditation. The morning ritual to get your head around what you need to accomplish in a day. The five Tibetans as a minimum investment of time and energy that can have a maximum impact in a relatively short period of time, starting with just one minute. And heartbeat meditation, the same thing to take you into your emotions and also to create a foundation from which you would be able to build relationships, beautiful relationships. So something record to the cloud. Record on this. I think I'm going to record this one to the cloud. So if you have minimums that only take a couple minutes each because like the first of five Tibetans the spinning exercise, if you start with three repetitions and you go from there building up, adding no more, adding no more than one repetition, one or two repetitions per week until you get up to 21 repetitions. So at the greatest investment of time, it's only three minutes, four minutes. At the smallest investment of time, it's less than one minute. So by creating, let's say if you were a writer, I might say that the most important things were your morning ritual, five Tibetans, and writing a sentence a day. Each of those things takes just a couple of minutes. And if you force yourself to do that first, then you'll never get a zero in a day. No day will ever have a zero. All you have to do is do the minimums and you get at least a one. And now you're on the game board. So it's defining what is the smallest unit that will take you one step towards your destination. Then make sure you do that. And what happens when you choose that tiny little unit is that all of the stuff that stops you starts coming up. You'll start feeling all the negative beliefs, the negative emotions, the way you don't prioritize, you know, the procrastination, the fear. That stuff comes up because there's no rational reason not to do, to take one step if that's all you have to do. So you start getting a chance to see how you have cheated yourself. If you can take one step, you can take two. If you can take two, you can take four. If you take four, you can take eight. So the first step, take one. What is the smallest amount in each of the three major areas? Your body, your emotions, and your mind. And then make sure that no day do that. At least five days a week, six days a week. If you've got a minimum that takes you no more than five minutes to do everything, and you don't do that, then you can no longer say to yourself, I don't have the time. You know that the problem is emotional. And now you can look directly at it. What do I need to do to heal my emotions? And that's the thing too. You want to remove any rational reason not to take care of yourself, not to take care of your family, not to take care of your relationships. Once you remove the rational reasons, you get to see the emotional stuff that stops us. And that's the majority of what stops us is our own emotions. Does that make sense, David? Yes.

I've been trying to turn them off a long time.

Yeah. So you want to process your emotions and primarily, the thing that you're going to want to process is your fear. You've probably stuffed a lot of it. The Hawaiian hunas say that our bodies are like a black bag where we store our unprocessed emotions. So there will be a lot of fear and grief and pain and anger. And you want to set yourself up so that you are processing that stuff so that it does not poison your life. This is so important. And sometimes it's the very best people who get hurt and they don't want to express that negativity toward the world, so they eat it, they swallow it. Very kind people. But I need you to get fierce. I need you to bring out your warrior self to protect the child, the little boy named David who started this journey of life and worked so hard for so long in so many different ways. That little boy deserves an utterly protective father. And that's you. That's you. If you can do that, and if you say to yourself, I want to learn to do that, then over time you will find the resource to do it. I'm. All I can do on this show is give you a set of resources that I have seen work for countless people. I can't swear it will work for you, but if you will do it and you will try, there are certain things I can do here that I can promise you will work. That I would bet you $100 against a dime will work. If you can have enough faith to try those things like the breathing every one to three hours, that right there will change your life. If you can do that, then you can say, oh, this works. Let me try this. Next thing you know, so start with the five minutes a day of every one to three hours. Breathe, 60 seconds. Set your clock for it. Don't try to remember. Set your alarm for it. Set your phone for it. Do that. If you can do just that, that will get you in the game. Now you'll know, even if everything I'm saying doesn't app, that the basic core of what we're talking about here is real. You're about to say something.

Memory for quite a bit. And then it went for three hours to four hours. Then I kind of forgot all.

Yeah, but that's why we're here. You show up and I'll remind you. That's all you know, it's very simple, man.

I'll set a clock.

Set a clock. Set. Set an alarm. You know, if this is a big thing for you, then just go ahead. Don't make it a five minute miracle. Make it a 12 minute miracle. Just do it at the top of every hour. Every hour, the top of every hour. Just breathe for 60 seconds. That's 12 minutes a day. That'll change your life. Totally change your life in 12 minutes a day. You understand me?

Yeah, yeah.

Because you're dealing with the physiological aspect of stress. And if your body is totally relaxed, then stuff is happening in your world, but it's not hurting you. You're under stress, but you can grow from it. Before stress becomes strain. And strain is the thing that hurts you. You'll start having physiological stress responses. Your breathing will get wonky and your blood pressure will change and stuff like that. So if you can stop that stuff from happening, the stress in your life will get integrated. Your body mind will become stronger and you will grow. It is when the stress becomes strained that it breaks you. So you thanks for clarity on that.

That stress and strain clarity. I didn't notice the distinctive difference. You need some stress to actually be motivated.

That's right. Look, when you go to the gym, you're giving your body stress, right?

I thought it was fun, but apparently that's what it is.

Yeah, you give your body stress. In other words, you stress your body. If you just sit on the couch or if you're on a space station out of gravity, your muscles become flabby and your bones lose calcium. So gravity is constantly stressing us and it tells our bodies to adjust. When you go to the gym, you're pushing against gravity, usually weight to change to provide stress to your muscles, your joints, your bones. And then if you give yourself proper nutrition and rest your body, your body gets stronger. And learning how to calculate how much stress to give your body in a workout, what kind of stress and what kind of nutrition you need, and how much rest you need between sessions is part of the art of fitness. Okay? So the same thing is true with our minds and with our hearts that if you have a lot of stress in your life, you have to say, okay, I have to keep this in life. They pay you for how much stress you can take. So it isn't. You can't always reduce the amount of stress. What you can do is keep it from becoming strained. And if you do that, you'll get stronger. And you can do that if you're under a lot of stress. I'm having to consider a 12 minute miracle myself. I'm starting to realize that in order for me to prepare myself to go to Manila next year, to prepare myself to have a television series or movie this year, to Prepare myself to help my son take the last steps into his full adulthood. I have to operate at the next level. And so I can't just look at it. I'm considering that maybe I can't look at just doing that breathing once every three hours. I'm starting to think maybe I need to do this at the top of every hour. Because if I do that, then I can, I can piggyback a bunch of other things, some strength things, some fitness things, when that's some strength things, some flexibility things, some movement things so that I can feel like I'm going to have a wonderful time in Manila doing a week long martial arts workshop so I could have the kind of energy and aliveness that I need in Hollywood and that I can have the kind of clarity that I can use to guide my son on these next steps in his life. So, you know, in what I'm. Since I'm going to talk about this today, I never know exactly what I'm going to talk about. I start with a general outline, then I both see what people have for me and then adapt the program to what it is that they need. And today I can do that with people online and, or I can do it with quotes that I found on the Internet, on social media, people addressing issues. Sometimes they're my students, sometimes they're not. But what you need to understand is that there is a path out of what is going on in your life. And the first step is, is to find the eye of the storm. Give yourself a place from which you're not feeling like you're constantly running downhill. You know, when you're in that situation, you're running down a hill, you can't stop because you will fall. And that's the feeling we get when things get too rough in life. So taking one minute every hour to breathe is in essence calling a timeout. Giving yourself time to kind of say, wait a minute, who am I? Where am I going? What am I doing? How am I feeling? So it's just like this time together. And I have made a commitment to be here every week for you guys. I have other things to do. Of course, you know, today I'm going to be driving back down to San Diego to take my daughter to go see John Wick. You know, so life is there. But I think it's important I have a commitment to each of you who comes here to be here for you. That this period of time right here, we can take a pause together. We can say that we as individuals are important, our relationships are Important. Our bodies are important. Our hearts are important. Our families are important that we create for just an hour a week a little family here where we're going to be kind to each other. We're going to speak the truth to each other. No one has the right in this space to be anything other than loving. No one needs fear any consequences for speaking the truth. That's right, Kathy. It's a power pause. It's a power pause. And we're. Some of you guys are going to go off into side rooms at times and talk. And you're talking on the chat. That's great. That's fantastic. Serve each other, help each other. Tell me how you're using these concepts and we will grow together. I cannot ask for more than that. Ask, you know, bring yourself to this. Do your morning ritual. Do your five minute miracle. I'm doing my 12 minute miracle now. And we'll talk more about that. Come back to us. Talk about. Look at the models I'm offering you. None of them are reality. They're models of reality. They're not menus and they're not the food. The menu is not the meal. The menu is not the meal. So if I talk about the hero's journey, I talk about the chakras, I talk about magic formula, I talk about these things. I am trying desperately to get you to see what happens when you are constantly consuming your ego in the fire of your commitment, that you're walking this path and you will, as you walk the path, you will discover things. Some of those things will cause pain. You will figure out, okay, this is what hurt me. How do I avoid this in the future? What direction do I need to go in? So I'm experiencing more pleasure than pain. You need, you need that brush with reality to wake up and also start understanding what the nature of the territory is. Anyway, so it is. We got. Oh, just a few seconds and we get to start. Okay, we get. Start now. Yay. All right, so we're here. It's 12 o' clock on Saturday, April 15th. Welcome to Fire Dance. I am Steve Barnes, the creator of the system. And right there in the center of my screen is the beautiful and unique and wonderful and extremely sexy Tananarive Due.

Hello. Hi, everybody here. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.

So you know, welcome, welcome. Yeah, so here, listen everybody. Unmute your microphones. Say hi to the. Say hi to the family. Hello, everybody. That is great. So, you know, I like to start this by just making sure energy is in the right place because the truth is that your emotions Your emotional charge is what drives your goals. You have ideas. If your emotions are behind your ideas, then your body can take the physical action to move you in the right direction. But your emotions are your fuel. So what controls your emotions? Your emotions are controlled by three things. Your emotions are controlled by what you focus on, the way you use your body, and the language you use. So when I ask you to spend five to 20 minutes every morning during a morning ritual where you are moving, you are visualizing, you're seeing role models, you're giving thanks for all of your blessings and doing emotional flooding, you know? And while you're doing Tai Chi, you know, I will say once every session, you could walk or you could do Tai Chi, because we'd love for you to do that and join us so I can coach you more deeply. But every week, what I want you to do is actually experience what happens when you shift your focus, change your language, and move your body differently. Because if you will do that, if every day you're thinking to yourself, what is it that I want to accomplish and why do I want to accomplish? The what you want to accomplish is a very clear thing, a very important thing. But why you want to accomplish it is even more important, because it's the why that gives you the emotion. So I want to take this to the next level for some very, very good reasons. But the first thing I want to do is start with that question about energy. So there are a couple different ways to increase energy. One of them is to deal. There are physical things, there are emotional, mental things. There are emotional things, and there are mental things. The physical things are things like exercise and rest and nutrition. The emotional things are the why. Why do you want this energy? If you had the energy, what would you do with it? And so the importance of having clarity on your goals is critical. Every day I wake up, and there's a part of me I don't want to get out of bed. It's like, bed is nice. I have a nice, warm woman right there. I'm in that hypnagogic state. State and where I'm between fantasy and reality, and I can play with my dreams. But I start thinking, eventually, my son needs me. I'll be seeing my daughter today. There are things I need to do to take care of my family. There are projects that I need to do. There's this piece of writing. I'm working on this with my mentor. I need to do that because he's expecting me to do it. But so it's like, what do I need to do. Why do I need to do it? If you can focus on what you need to do and why you need to do it and get that to the point where you are cooking, it's like, yeah, I can feel why I need to do it. I'll be avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. And this. I'll be able to help my family. I'll be able to serve my community. And just remember, anchor all of this in the most basic animal stuff before you get to the human stuff or the spiritual stuff. The most basic animal stuff is all animals will try to move away from pain toward pleasure. Everything you or anyone else has ever done has been a matter of trying to move away from pain toward pleasure. And once you can see that and realize that no matter what pain you've caused yourself in your life, you have always, at every moment of your life, done the best you could. If you could have done better, you would have. When you can forgive yourself for not doing better, you can forgive other people, too. That does not mean you let somebody abuse you. It does not mean that an abuser is doing the best they can. So therefore, you need to let them hurt you. No. When I talk about it, wake up your survival drive first. The part of you that is willing to fight for your dreams, and you will know that that survival drive is alive. When you would fight as hard for yourself and your dreams as you would fight to protect an innocent child. If you can envision an innocent child behind you, your child, your baby sister, your baby cousin, your grandchild, and think about what you would do to protect that child, probably anything, whatever it takes. Who? Raise your hand if you would do whatever it took to protect a helpless child in your care, raise your hand. That's how I want you to feel about yourself. You understand me? If anything less than that level of commitment is a sign of the damage the world did to you.

Hey, I just wanted to add a.

Little jump in that I told you about.

Actually. Yes. We have a leftover remnant of an alarm system in our house so that there's this robotic announcement every time a particular door opens. And yesterday I noticed after meeting with Steve upstairs, and I knew our son was sleeping, I heard this little robotic sound saying, garage door open. Garage door open. And then a third time, I was like, who the hell? And I really, on one level, thought someone was in our garage. And I didn't call upstairs for Steve or try to wake up Jason. I just grabbed this. This baton flashlight I use when I'm out walking and I race toward that garage door, literally, without even thinking about it. And our cat is just lucky not to get bopped in the head. But anyway, it was.

That's fine. I'm on. I'm on wine.

Oh, sorry.

Oh.

So I. So I credit you with that, Steve. Just. I mean, I don't know if it's a smart approach, but just having that. That absolute. Without even having to think about it. What am I going to do to protect this?

You come from a line of warriors. Your mother is an absolute tiger. So I always knew it was there inside you. That was always the case. There's no way I could have fallen in love with you and wanted to marry you unless I saw that inside you. Because I was looking for a woman who could walk at my side and if somebody knocked me down, would guard my back until I could get back up. I mean, simple as that.

I was a guardian angel in college.

That's right. So, you know, finding that spark. Finding that spark inside somebody said, ask a damned fine question. Why the guilty feeling about protecting the inner child? Because you were taught not to care for yourself. You were taught to take care of the people around you. Okay. And men and women have different versions of this. Don't get it there. Well, yeah, women are taught to. Men are taught to sacrifice themselves. Women are taught to sacrifice themselves. They do it in different ways. But get past the male, female dichotomy, the black, white dichotomy, the old, young dichotomy. Ask yourself what it is to be human. Discover that by looking at what is it to be? Animal? And then what is it to exist? Ground yourself. Don't get pulled into the politics of the world. Ground yourself in the question, who am I? Who are you as an individual human spirit as an animal, as a being that exists? Get beyond the dichotomies. You have the right to be here. You have the right to exist. You have the right to be happy. In fact, if it is correct that the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service, then one of the services you can give the world is to be joyful is to show people that it is possible to be happy and also to care about your community, to serve others. I was asking Tananari this question. I said, in your experience, you've known a lot of civic leaders, and your parents knew people were leaders in the civil rights movement. Is it or is it not true that the people who could lead the movement did not need the movement? That the people who could lead the movement if they put all that energy into their Careers, they could have created safety for their families, they could have created wealth, it could have been in a big house, they could have private security. But they decided they, the people who could organize, who understand the way the system works, they decided to come back and help.

Exactly. And my, my late mother, even when she was in college and before she had any children, the work that they were doing was not something they thought that necessarily would benefit them in the now. It was moving toward a better future for her children. This idea that she would not have a future unless there was a Civil Rights act or a Voting Rights Act. So it's not only often coming from a selfless place, unless people are demagogues and trust me, demagogues and scammers are attracted to movement. Absolutely. And it's a shame, but that's always been true. But for genuine activists, for the people who sacrifice their, their well being, their finances, like my parents, definitely sacrifice finances. Those people are not doing it for, for immediate, certainly not financial benefit. They're doing it to dream a better world.

But they are hyper competent. If they're competent enough to lead a movement, they're competent enough to solve those problems for themselves. So if you want to change the community around you, whatever the problems are, the problems are going to have some aspect of the families are falling apart, the body, the physical health is falling apart, they're dying disproportionately, infant mortality, the finances are bad. Solve that problem in your own life and then turn around and say to the people, follow me. Form your movements. After you have found the answers, find the answers. Say, I live with a disability, so thinking how to react manually is not normal for me. Avoidance, avoiding harm is not feasible in this environment. Okay, so if you have physical limitations, there are going to be several different levels here. You're going to have the emotional level, you're going to have the structural, the strategic level, and you're going to have the physical level. If you can walk, then there are certain things you can do. If you're confined to a wheelchair, there's certain things you can do. If you cannot move arms or legs, then your physical stuff, you're not going to be able to defend yourself physically. Okay, in that case, do you have your voice? You would have to specialize in disarming, disrupting the spiral of violent potential violence by the way you speak. Or you're going to have to learn how to avoid it, to learn how to avoid confrontations, to become very, very sensitive to that. If you are doing everything you are physically, emotionally and mentally capable of doing. And you lose. You lose with honor. The only time that you are going to be ashamed that any shame could come in is if you know you could have done more if you're doing the best you can do. And that's one of the things that's interesting about pets. Your pets don't care if you get a raise at work. Your kids don't really care if you get a raise at work. What they want to know is, do you play with me? Do you love me? The little kid inside you wants to know, did you do the best you could? We all have limitations over the course of life. We're born helpless, we die helpless. It isn't a matter of being able to do something in particular outside yourself. It's a matter of did you do the best you could? But I always feel like I'm not doing my best and therefore do better. So this is where work, like the inner child work, is really important to visualize the child you were and realize that that little child is doing the best they can. What do you say to a child who tries to take their first step and falls down? Do you say bad baby or do you say wonderful? You did so great. The people who do their best and. And still think there's not enough, or people who, at some point, people stop telling, stop praising them for doing the best they can at some point. The people who love you and care for you or were supposed to protect you did not do that. So it's going to be critical for you to do that for yourself.

Can I add something here?

Absolutely, please.

You can tell when I'm about to jump in when I add absolutely.

Anytime you want to jump in, sweetheart.

So luckily, most of us will not be the victims of violent crime. Most of us will not have to face a home invader, although Lord knows some of you may have. And it's not that it's an illegitimate fear, but when I hear Steve talking about these things and my preparation, not even thinking before I pick up that baton is not something that I think is necessarily applicable to is there somebody at my house? It's more about, am I standing up for myself at work? Am I courageous enough to face this obstacle in front of me with my art? It's that courage piece, that self defense piece. God willing, maybe we won't ever have to use it in a physical confrontation, but it's something we carry with us all the time. And I like to use that movie the Gray with Liam Neeson as an example. If you've seen it, it's kind of a downer and I'm going to try very hard not to spoil it for people who haven't seen it. But it's about a man who's in a plane crash and his party is being picked off by WOL Wolves 1 by one. And at the end, he's facing down a big wolf at the end of the movie. And the point isn't whether he wins or loses. There's a close up of Liam Neeson's eyes and his eyes are saying, bring it. That's the point of the movie. Bring it. And I think that that's the attitude. When you're willing to protect yourself, when you're willing to protect your inner child, when you're willing to protect your family, that's the energy that you're projecting not just to a home invader, but to people who might not be paying you on time, a landlord who's harassing you, a school teacher who is not doing what they should with your child. Having that attitude of bring it makes people much less likely to mess with you in all contexts.

You know, I've seen you get better at confronting me till at challenging and backing me off. You have more, ever since dying energy. I love that. I adore that. That's what I needed. Both because I, I need a partner who's strong and because I'm not always right. I'm not always right. If I'm not getting a genuine test from reality, I can live in a hallucination that my views are correct. I need, I need so much for people to get in my face and say, what about this, Steve? You know, is that past the three gates, Steve? You know, how are you doing this? Are you, are you extending your own humanity to me? Are you trying to force me to become a little you? Whatever that is, I need that.

And also I needed it in order to be willing to open up to you more as a coach, with my boxing, as a Tai chi instructor. Because if I was always afraid of confrontation, not willing to say if I thought you were trying to imprint yourself on me, you know, in an unhealthy way, if I couldn't look at that, then I, I would just back away from everything, right? I would just keep it sort of unspoken and be like, okay, that's fine, I don't need a coach, that's okay, that's fine. If I'm going to learn Tai chi, I'll learn it from someone else. But that you have so much value and you have so much to share. What a Tragedy that would be if I didn't have the strength to stand up when I think it's enough.

And it's critical right now. God. Let's do just a little bit of energy exercise today before I go off into my headspace about this stuff. So let's stand up if you can. You can stay seated if you cannot. Let's do the most important morning workout. Movement is the joint mobility. You start. You start there, and you can. We can start with our fingers. Make sure that you're breathing smoothly while you do this. And then wrists. And your pain should never go above a three. Back off. Make the circle smaller. If you feel pain, make sure you're breathing. Make sure you're breathing. Elbows, you can do this longer when you're by yourself. We're just doing this rapidly right now because there's a lot I want to cover today. Shoulders. Really feel the arm pulling out of the shoulder socket. Really feel that. But once again, pain, never above a three. Other arm. Breathe. Neck. Don't roll your head. Back. Roll side, forward, side, side, forward, side. Reverse it. Okay, Hands on the hips. Rotate those hips. Now, if you're sitting down, just you work your trunk or keep working your shoulders and your hands and your neck. You go within what you can do. If you notice that you're giving yourself hell emotionally because there's an impingement, there's a problem. Notice that. Notice the voices in your head about what your movement potential is. And unless those voices are either quiet or positive, ask yourself, whose voices are those? Are those your voices? Are they voices of somebody else who you knew in your past? Guilt, blame, and shame is not useful. Power and focus are. Fear is really useful, but it's not necessary. We'll work on our knees. What's necessary is that you pay attention. Fear gets your attention. So once you are afraid of something and you've noticed it logically, let me shake it out. Okay, good. If you're afraid of something, you've paid attention logically, you could release that fear at that point. Most of us do not. So you might ask yourself questions about that. Gain clarity on that. Because what you want is the maximum amount of energy to put into whatever it is that you are going to do every day that's going to take you where you want to go and give you the best experience of life. If you start with that feeling of, I don't feel like I have permission to protect myself or protect my inner child, then you know where to start working. That's all you say, oh, that's a first step because you need to start with love. You need to start with an absolute loving commitment to your own heart. Absolute loving commitment to the divine being. That wonderful little creature that crawled out of your mommy now has been trying to figure this world out and be the best you can. And all of us run into problems and all of us are carrying negative voices. And if you can embrace the totality of your humanity in that way and forgive yourself, you can release all of your breaks. You can release all of anything except the energy that allows you to be alive, joyful and of service. All the rest of it is the stuff that got added to the equation. Your computer came from the store perfect. But some of the software that has been loaded into your computer since then is crap. What's even worse is when you have multiple. You're running multiple software that have conflicting messages. That's when you get crashes in your system. Breathing and movement returns your body mind to the original manufacturer specifications. Because the body knows what the mind lies about. Your body will tell you the truth. Your emotions, if you're driven by love or fear, can be problematic. But it's your brain filled with all sorts of ideas. They can be even worse. Getting back to the core emotions of love and fear, not bad. That's. That's pretty simple. But it's when you get right down to your body needs to breathe. If I hold my breath, everything else goes away. Yeah, I don't care if you're worried about work, you're cared about, worried about taxes, you're worried about your spouse cheating on you, worried about your kids at school. If I took your head and stuck it your head in a bucket of water, you would forget, forget all that stuff and all you'd be thinking about is your next breath. You need to get down to that simplicity and understand that the thing that you would give everything for one more breath of air is yours. Free of charge. What a miracle is that. What a wonder is that the thing that you really need, that you give everything else for is free. It's like anybody who thinks that that's, you know, once you get. Get that, that a billionaire on his deathbed would give it all away for one more day of health, one more day. Remember what's really important. Celebrate what's really important. Let go of the negatives and embrace the energy that you. Because otherwise if you don't do that, it's like you've got a sports car but you won't turn it on. Or you'll turn it on, but you won't put it into gear, or you put it into gear, but you won't release the brakes. Be gentle with yourselves, but also demand focus and energy. This is where I'm going. Life might beat me, but I will not beat myself. As my teacher, my beloved martial arts instructor Steve Muhammad, says, the concept of defeat does not exist in my fighting science. I will find a way or make one. Anyone with that belief, I want on my team. Life may beat you, but do not beat yourself. Can I have an amen? Unmute yourselves and cheer. If you're willing to join with me this week. Hell yeah. Give me a hell, yeah, Saturday. Excellent.

Excellent.

I love you guys. I mean, seriously, this is so much fun for me. I just. I love stepping into this space, waking up in the morning thinking, what. What am I going to do today? What am I going to share with them today? And not knowing exactly, because you guys could challenge me with a question about anything. I don't know what you might say. So when you challenge with those questions, all I can do is go into my heart, the place that has integrated these things, and see if I can come up with an authentic answer from that place, from that experience. Last Sunday, I had lunch. I was up in Seattle. I had lunch with an old friend, Ken Shan, tai chi instructor and martial artist and very, very dear friend. And she asked me how I was, and my answer surprised me. She said, how are you doing? I said, I'm next level. And she said, what do you mean by that? And I said to myself, yeah, what did I mean by that? And I realized that what I meant by that was that in every major area of my life, I have completed an entire cycle of being. You know, the hero's journey is this pattern that I noticed in fiction that I also notice in life. It is the hero is confronted with a challenge. Initially, they reject the challenge, usually due to fear they are forced to, or matter of fact, let me. Let me put something on the screen because I had. I love. I love this. Okay, great. Now I'm gonna. I'm gonna go on this. Gonna share the screen, and can you guys see that? Okay, great.

Yes.

Wrong way. So this is a model of the hero's journey. We talk about this. The hero's journey was the first model that I came up with that was mine. Okay. It was the beginning of all of this life, writing and fire dance and so forth and so on. The hero is initially confronted with a challenge in that first Star wars movie that was. Come with me, Luke. Learn the ways of the force. They Reject the challenge, usually due to fear. In this case, it was. I promised Uncle Owen I'd work on the moisture evaporators. They're forced to or allowed to accept the challenge. Teach me to be a Jedi like my father. You go out on the road of trials. That's Mos Eisley Cantina and the Millennium Falcon and Alderaan and the Death Star and all that good stuff. You meet allies and gain powers. In other words, you fill the gap between where you are and where you need to be. And other people can help you do that. Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, R2D2, etc. Etc. Now, if you continue down the road, because if you could already do the thing, you'd already be doing the thing. So there's something that's a problem. So the actions you take are going to eventually put you face to face with what's stopping you. You'll have the confidential evil in which you are defeated. I would say that this moment is the death of Obi Wan Kenobi. Because Obi Wan was the adult figure who was supposed to take him all the way to his adulthood. Full Jedihood. This loss sends you into the dark night of the soul. This is the moment, I think, where the Death Star is about to destroy the rebel base. The way through the dark night of the soul is the leap of faith. Now, the leap of faith is always faith in one of three things. Faith in yourself, faith in your companions, or faith in a higher power. In this case, it was trust your feelings. Luke and Han Solo could be trusted because he comes in, dives in out of the sun, and blows away Darth Vader, Vader's wingmen. If you've taken these other steps, then in a classic Hero's journey story, you confront evil and you're victorious. Death Star blows up, and that takes you to the end of one whole cycle of your life and the beginning of the next cycle. A student becomes a teacher. The movement to the higher level, the return to the village with the elixir. Now, each of these steps can be reinterpreted. They can be scrambled. You can omit them, you can double them up. You can do all sorts of stuff. And it is the way writers use these steps and the order in which they give you these things that determines the emotional impact you're going to get in a story. There are stories, you know, if the first thing heroes confronted with a challenge, their entire stories about someone who never opens their eyes to the fact that something Needs to change. And that's the whole tragedy of the story. They go through the whole story, and it's usually a short story. If it's a book length thing, that's a very literary novel. Somebody who's just oblivious. And that's tricky. It can be done. There are people who never accept the challenge of growing up and becoming adults. And we see them all around. They're grown men, grown women. Unfortunately, too many of them are having sex, which is an adult behavior. It makes babies. So they're babies making babies. And it's a tragedy. And what I want and what the entire purpose of this is, is to create awake, aware adult human beings who are responsible for their behaviors and actions and capable of being leaders that first they get out of the pain trap and the fear trap to joy, and then they make a commitment to be of service. I will find my way out of the labyrinth, past the minotaur, and then I will show others how to escape the labyrinth. I was talking to Ken Shan and I said, next level. I realized in my career I have mastered the basic things that I was trying to do. And because of my good lady wife as well as my own efforts, we are now back in the Hollywood game. So I have to take a certain set of skills and abilities for granted now and then ask myself, what are the skills and abilities I need to go to the next level in terms of personal relationships, Tananarive and I are doing fine. You know, we still do our blessing dance and our meetings every day. So we check in with each other. How are you doing? How are we doing? But our son Jason has completed an entire cycle called his childhood. And he is now at the first steps of being an adult. He actually has a business and we are teaching him how to run his business, selling information about how to mature and create a life. In other words, the very lessons we want him to learn, he has created a course to teach that to younger versions of himself. And that's all you have to do to be a teacher, is to look honestly at whatever it is that you've done in your life and then teach other people do that. So you're talking to a younger version of yourself. So by helping him and supporting him in making money, and he has a goal. He wants to be a millionaire by 25. I said, okay, then my goal for Jason is I want to get him to making his first 50,000 by my birthday next year, by March 1st. So let's say he's already making money. So if he can make money doing Good for his community, his, his cadre of people who are about his age. And at the same time, what he's doing is he's learning how money works. He's learning how the world works. He's learning how to create for himself. And then in terms of the physical, I want to go to Manila next year and have a week long martial arts workshop. I'm going to want to study, you know, Filipino stick and knife fighting in Asia. I want to study Asian martial arts in Asia. I mean, that's childhood dream. Childhood dream. So my family, next level, my career, next level. My body, my body, mind, next level. And all three of those things, I have completed an entire. I went all the way. It took me 23 years to earn my first black belt because I was dealing with so much fear. But now that stuff, you know, belts and stuff like this are behind me. I went all the way through my system. I got three black belts and one of them, I went all the way through the system. And I don't need any more promotions. What I need is to stay on the path of learning how fun. I've proven everything I needed to prove. I now have the right to simply have fun. I can go to the other side of the world. I got nothing to prove. Not trying to hurt anybody. I don't want to get hit in the face anymore, except, you know, know something in the right context. It can be fun to be in a context where you can get it in the face or they can get hit in the face. Let's see who gets hit in the face. It can be fun as long as. As long as it's okay with my heart. You know, the idea of being able to move forward in my career, move forward with my family, move forward with my physical things, all three at the same time. I finish the hero's journey in each of those three arenas. And the hero's journey is not a circle. It's a spiral. You finish and you either end up at a higher level or a lower level. Nothing ever stays the same. So what I want to do is I want to be more honest. I want to be more moral. I want to reach more people. I want to help you guys. I want to be able to listen to anything that you say about any aspect of your life and show you a way of organizing your energy to do it, such that you will then have the space to find your way and then hopefully bring back your way to us and discuss it. And it becomes a conversation where every week we are going deeper and deeper and Deeper we use these basic models so that we have a common language. We're saying that you need to understand what you want to change. You need to deal with the fear around it. You need to accept the responsibility, ability of taking calculated, massive action. You need to set up a daily schedule such that if you do each day right, and at the end of the day you say, I did that day right, you know that if you had a thousand days like that, you'd accomplish your dream. Just make sure that, that you got that worked out. You accept that you cannot get where you're going by yourself. Any money you get is you're going to get from other people by providing service to them. The only way of overcoming a lack of capacity is the mastermind principle, according to Napoleon Hill, and Think and Grow Rich, one of my very favorite. I've got that book sitting right here someplace. So you will need to define the allies you need, the abilities you need, the things that you can't do by yourself, what kind of teams you need to build, what kind of mentors are you going to need. And you build those teams, get those abilities, find those mentors. You accept the inevitability of failure, not the chance, the inevitability. When you hit the edge of who you are and what you can do, that's when you fail. And that helps you define the territories, which tells you what it is you need to do to grow. You're going to need to deal with your own negative emotions. The part of you that says, it's too late, I can't do it, I failed. All the guilt, blame and shame and needy, wounded, abandoned child stuff in our hands, you need to find in order to get through that, you will need faith in something. Faith in something deeper within you, or faith in the people around you, or faith in a power bigger than you, whatever it is, but. But the experience of your life will empty out your ego. Your ego will be trashed. So if you know right now that you're going to hit a place where your ego will say, no more, I can't do it right now. You figure out how are you going to cope with it when you get there. That's the beauty of the hero's journey. It tells you ahead of time what's what you're going to need. So if you're going to go to the next level, you know you're going to need companions. You know you're going to need to learn how to deal with fear. You know you're going to have to deal with deep Depression or a feeling of, I can't do this. How are you going to do it? Get that resource in place beforehand. Because if you will do all those things, then the hero's journey says you will spiral upwards. If you fail in one of those things, it becomes a different journey and you spiral downwards. You can't step in the same piece of water twice. You can never return to exactly where you were. You're always going to get either a little better or a little worse. For sure, you're going to get a little older. So what are you going to do? You're going to spend your time? Are you going to invest it? Simple as that. If I want to be at the next level, then I have to look at everything I'm doing on a daily basis and say, will this get me where I need to be in a year? I've got less than a year now to help Jason get to that 50k, to get my body mind ready for the Philippines, to support my wife who wants to go out into Hollywood to learn. What are your next level thoughts? I mean, just. You're very, very rough. Very, very rough. What's up next for you?

Well, you know, based on that experience with the writers room and Bryan Fuller, I am definitely more intrigued by having more say in bringing adaptations to the screen. We've been having these meetings the whole course of our marriage for 23 years in one way or another, but sometimes we're way on the outside. We're not a part of the process. Process. We never see a script. And that is not going to happen anymore. Seat at the table, you know, and. And to be a showrunner one day. I had never really thought about being or at least a co showrunner, so I can leave the more unpleasant tasks to the more experienced showrunner while helping to maintain the creative vision with yes and no, which I loved. I loved watching our showrunners say yes and no. That's how I was like, okay, yeah, I like that. That's the job. I want to. It just feels more real and more plausible. And we just had a milestone this week. I won't go into too many details. A, because I believe in the jinx, and B, because paperwork has not been signed. But for the first time in the past three or four years of pitching, we actually had a director who has a bit of heat on her right now saying, yeah, she would like to attach to My Soul to Keep, which is in development at Topic Studios. So, you know, hopefully that will become a thing and the pitching will proceed. But it's just seeing the path ahead a lot more clearly and believing in it more strongly.

So let's take a look at just what Tananarif said right there. You can see the joy, the pain of having been excluded. I want to move away from the pain of having been excluded. I want to take more control. So the concept of control and focus brings joy. I'm going to be in control. But if, if you find the joy, then where's the service? And I can promise you that it's a couple different things. One is the nature of the story she's going to be sharing are things that are deep in her heart. Secondly, she's already thinking about who she's going to hire to be the other writers on the show. She's already got in mind. She's got these brilliant students she had at UCLA in her Afrofuturism class and these other writers who she knows of who are underexposed. You think that is going to be the. The most diverse room imaginable? It's going to be great. I already. I know her. I know what this. What's going to be. She cannot take an action like this without bringing her community with her. She can't do it. She's just constitutionally incapable of not thinking about what the impact of this is going to be on her community, on her friends, on her family, on her people. And she defines people tribe as I do, as all of you do in multiple ways. They're tribes of writers. They're tribes of horror heads. They're tribes of black folks, they're tribes of women. Where these things fit together is very, very complex. And if each of us just loved each other and cared for ourselves until we were out of pain and then expanded to care for our tribes, imagine if everybody took that responsibility. I believe that if we can get these gatherings, these weekly gatherings, up to 1,000 people, we can change the world. That's what I'm thinking. If we can get this up to a thousand people every week coming on here, brainstorming, networking, we can change the world because each person who stands up and says it is possible to be powerful and beautiful and happy and loving gives permission to the people around them to glow up. So, oh, boy. Comments, questions and requests about anything that I have covered here because we have gone far enough. You know, the. The morning ritual, you are moving. At the same time, you are chanting affirmations, visualizing role models and flooding yourself with memories of what you have to feel blessed about, focusing on what you need to do this day to stay on the path. So that if you had a thousand days like this day, you can change anything in your life. Okay. So comments, questions and requests. You can raise your hand to non review notice if people have raising their hands or what's happening. But until I get that, let me read something that somebody wrote. Let's see. A lady wrote. I am so ashamed. I have not written in weeks. I'm so mentally exhausted from work. So now I'm too drained to write and feeling like a failure as a result. My job is sucking the life out of me. I have drank more in the last six months than I have in 20 years. That's the reality you here is. Not everybody here felt like that or something close to that. Just raise your hand if I'm not alone in feeling like. There are times when I felt totally trashed. Why am I doing this? There are times when I have curled up in the corner and just sobbed because it felt like all of my dreams were dead. And I did not blame the world from it. I didn't have permission to do that. That would have been anger. Instead of that, I blamed myself. This lady needs to start by breathing. Five minutes of breathing a day. Five minutes, one minute five times a day or one minute every hour. Stop, breathe. Break the cycle of stress. Feel your heartbeat. Visualize the child you were. Do that every day until you start getting a little pace of peace. When you get that place of peace, your problem solving brain can kick in. How do I get out of this? And there is no problem in your life you couldn't get out of with a thousand days of work. Any job you could find a new job in a thousand days. Any relationship you could figure out a way to escape in a thousand days. Any problem in your body that is affectable by behavior. There are problems with our physicality that cannot be changed by behavior. But if it can be changed by behavior, you can change the emotions, you can change your focus, you can get the resources so that a thousand days of work can get you out of there. But it can start with five minutes. Sonya had her hand up, So do.

I was just in support.

Of the lady because I, I've been there and I do have alcohol, but for some reason I didn't overdo it.

Some of my favorite people in the world like a drink. That's not a problem is when you do it to the point that you're damaging yourself. Yeah.

I think what I, what I was thinking about was since I've been coming to these meetings, there are incremental changes in Things that I do, I think I'm like, I had kind of dropped off on my meditation for a while and easy to do, and now I'm picking it back up.

Stress tends to disguise itself and distract you from doing the very things you would need to conquer the stress. So it's like when stress becomes strained, it's like you drop out the very thing. You're not sleeping, you're not meditating, you're not eating properly, you're not exercising. You're in a constant emergency. You're getting that state where it's. You're doing. You're taking care of what's imperative rather than what's important. You're putting out fires all over the house instead of asking who's lighting the damn fires. You know, it's like, what's going on here? You're exhausted from taking care of the results of some event that happened, some earlier behavior that happened. When you've got some calmness, you can ask, what is creating this? Let me deal with the root of this. But you have to be calm to be able to do that. You have to move beyond anger and fear. You have to be able to be at a place where you are kind of observing the voices in your head and your sensations rather than being caught up in them. From that place, you can talk to a screaming child without having a negative, fearful reaction. You can listen to an upset lover, husband, wife, and realize that their fear is because they love you and they're afraid of losing you. How can I help Tananarib know that I will not leave her under any circumstances. This is my life. She is my lady, period. If I have done something wrong, if I have in any way diminished her sense of being able to feel secure in me, that is my fault. I am a professional communicator. I need to find the right to communicate to her that I love her with my whole heart or I have failed if my son does not understand that anger is fear. If you're calm enough, you can look beyond the veil of the illusions and start asking yourself, what's really happening? What's really happening within you? What's really happening within our society? What's really happening in our relationships? What's really happening with our customers? Making money with customers is nothing more than understanding what it is that hurts them or feels good to them and convincing them that what it is that you've got will relieve their pain or give them more pleasure. As soon as they feel like their money is going to be happier in your pocket than in Theirs. And because you're going to get something for that money that's going to make them happier than the money would make them, you've got a sale at that instant. Understanding that you have been through countless experiences in your life that a younger version of you would have paid to understand the answer to. You know, I take a look at all the different things in my life that I've learned that cost me massive amounts of pain and guilt and fear and my God, if I could have gone back to my 20 year old self, my 30 year old self, my 40 year olds and told them what the answers to the problems were, I would have paid anything for what I know now. So it is legitimate for me to take the things I know now and offer them to you guys. If it looks to you like I'm at a good place in my journey and you think that he started in places not too dissimilar from mine, then maybe you'll think that if you go to www.firedancetaichi.com pick and get into the course, maybe Steve could help and I'm willing to invest, you know, a few bucks to find out and if it doesn't work out, no harm, no foul, I'll bail. That's all I'm doing is exposing to you where it is that we are and what it is that we're doing. And if what we're, if the journey we are on feels familiar to you, then maybe you'll join us on these broadcasts. Maybe you'll tell your friends about it, us, maybe you'll join the program. I mean we make most of our money from Hollywood so we are famous for cutting deals with people. If they say, I'd really love the program but I'm having a financial problem, tell us. We, we can make deals. We're interested in your progress. We're interested in the world. The world has been very kind to me. If I can share that with you. I have earned my air today. That's kind of the way I put it. I'm earning my air. I'm doing this, earning my air. Another question, comment or request about anything they've been covering. There are no bad questions. No one has ever asked a stupid question. Whatever it is you're thinking, this is your time. Bring it. Cliff Winnig.

Hi, Steve.

Hi Cliff.

This has been great today. So thank you for that and thank you welcome for her input. I just want to share a metaphor that I use for mostly for like chores around the house and things around the house. I think of principle and interest and so when you're paying the end, when you're like doing the dishes, doing the laundry, vacuuming, that deals with the interest that just as part of daily accrual of, like, upkeep of a house, but like cleaning the garage, rearranging your bookshelves, doing things like that, that make a permanent change that's affecting principle.

Interesting. And you.

So you can't really do the principle unless you're also taking care of the interest. Otherwise your dishes pile up or your laundry piles up or whatever. So that's just a metaphor I use that I find helpful because like, like, at the end of the day, I could be like, well, I didn't take, I didn't work down any principle today because I've had this, this, and this. But at least I did the interest and I took care of business. And the house is no worse than it was yesterday. I can go to bed tomorrow. Maybe I'll get a chance to work in the prison.

I love it. Focus that on. Make sure that you're doing the minimums in each of the three major areas such that you do that. And even if you don't get to do anything else all day, you still get a. You're still out of the zeros. And then take care of principle and interest. See, what Cliff did was he found a model that had emotional significance to him that helps to give meaning to his behaviors. Some of you will take what he just said and apply it to your behaviors. This is how we grow together, by taking what we're talking about here, applying it to life, coming back with information, or creating new solutions. I wanted a community of people with whom I could talk about this stuff with. How do we get where we're going? How do we heal ourselves? I see Shamika just, like, nodding there. Shemeka, unmute yourself. I'm not sure I've ever talked to you. I'd like to say hello to you.

Hello, Stephen. Hello to Monari. I've come to the fire dance just a couple times, and I do want to know, can you tell me a little bit more about what the Firedance Tai Chi.com is? Because today, like, I had this thought during meditation about how much I need community as a part of my growth and accountability.

All it is is I go over each of the individual pieces of the puzzle that I've been talking about here and teach you how to create a program where you are doing Tai Chi in the morning. So in the morning you do Tai Chi and you, you know, I. The way I do it Is I start the tai chi. And I will start with, with just saying, every day, in every way, I'm working better, getting better and better. Affirmations plus movement. Become what's called an incantation that you are actually exemplifying one of the goals you're chanting. So if the voice in your head comes in and says, this is crap, this isn't going to work. It's already working because you're doing it. And that allows you to see and feel and experience that the voices in your head have been lying to you. And it's like, whoa. So you start with there, and then I will go into more powerful affirmations. And then I will go from there into what I'm grateful for in life. My son, my daughter. And every single day I will say, and my beautiful, brilliant wife tonight, my sister Joyce, who deserves all good things in life. My mentors. Then I start thinking about the people who exemplify excellence in my life. The men and women. You know, Octavia Butler and the martial arts instructor Don Callan and Larry Niven and Steve Muhammad. And every time I visualize one of these people, I am bringing into my life someone who could absolutely kill any obstacle I have. I have a story problem. Octavia, Octavia, what do you think about this? And I can hear her voice in my head. You see what I'm saying? Who has the courage? Who has the aliveness? And you visualize it, and then you flood yourself with positive emotions. I'm so grateful for the blessings in my life. You know, if you can believe that you've already been blessed, then you can believe that there will be blessings tomorrow. But if you can't find things to be grateful for in your past, why should you believe things will ever get better? So if so, it's about creating a 10 to 20 minute daily ritual that is extremely complicated on one level, but very simple on another. Just like life, it becomes your metaphor for life. If you can do that for five to 20 minutes, 10 to 20 minutes, I promise you that within weeks, and I mean just a couple of weeks, you'll start noticing you are getting more done with less stress and having more fun doing it, and you're more centered and you've already taken care of your basic exercise. You know, if you don't get to do anything else all day, you did that joint mobility, balance, breathing, you know, then you add that with the five minute miracle at least once every three hours, you just breathe for 60 seconds. So it is a program that takes the most advanced neuroscience and neuro linguistic programming and shamanic disciplines from all over the world. The martial arts and African movement systems and everything else that I've studied over the course of time. And locks it into one movement system that can affect everything else in your life. It is the most advanced teaching I have, and I made it as affordable as I can be. And like I said, don't let money stand in your way. You reach out to me. Email stephenimondhour.com you leave me a message and you help me understand what your situation is and we will work it out together. Is that clear enough?

That sounds good. And then we come together every Saturday, Is that right?

Every Saturday. And I have made a commitment that I'm going to do this at least till the end of the year. And if this keeps growing and you people are getting something from it and you're interacting with him, then I will just keep doing this. I love this. Who here has not felt like you wanted a community where you could speak your heart? I have felt like a mutant my whole life because I always believed that it was possible. I always believed that there was something inside me if my mother could not give me anything else. She gave me the gift of knowing someone loved me. And she gave me a love of studying comparative philosophies and success philosophies. We were poor. I remember we were so broke that my mom was cutting dandelion leaves off the front lawn so we would have vegetables to eat. She would wake up in the middle of the night screaming that she was being chased by monsters because the bills were coming due. I had to talk my mother out of putting her head in the oven because she wanted to die so much. Life beat my mother, but she gave me the spark. She handed me the fire. And that's all I'm trying to do. I've got my mother's ashes in my office. I kid you not. Here's my mom. I've got her right in my office. And every day I ask myself, I ask her, am I doing okay? Mom, I the person you wanted me to be. Every day I need a place where I can be myself. Where I can show both my strength and my softness. Where I can be with my wife. I can be with my friends. I can talk about my dreams. I can talk about my failures. So I will be here for you. This is important to me. I hope you can feel how important it is.

Mommy's in your heart, too. That's where she lives.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. My mommy's in my heart. I love my mommy so Much. And I miss her so much. And any day that I can live in a place of love and commitment and willing to do anything, anything for my family and my community. And I'm going to drive down to see my daughter Nikki, who is in San Diego and she's. We were able to help her buy her condo. I'm going to take her to go see John Wick and you know, my daughter and I are just going to have fun together. Daddy and dudes just together having a little time, be able to drive down there and to know that my son is. Who's been up gaming all night, is a slave feeling asleep in the other room. And that if my wife could read my mind, all she would see is how much I love her. That there is nothing about the way I'm living my life right now that I need be ashamed of. I've made mistakes in the past, but Tananarive made me a better woman, a better man. I had to step up. Oh, Megan, Megan. My precious friend Megan Lancaster was in chat and she reminded me she was there when Nikki was a little girl and we would play drop the flop. Tend to drop her when she was a baby or tell. Tell her to give daddy a little bite on the forehead when we're on science fiction panels at conventions. You know, I bring my family into my life and I love it when old friends show up here because it helps. I know how many frauds there are in the world. I know how many people there are who will take your money and hurt you or take your time and hurt you. When people who've known me for 10, 20, 30, 40 years show up on here or on my Facebook page, they keep me honest. I can't talk about things that happened in my past that didn't happen. They were there. So what I'm hoping is as the years go past, you guys are going to be here and you will tell other people. Steve really is this weirdo, you know, and he's okay with being a weirdo. And I was just saying this yesterday to Notary how I was talking to somebody. God, where was. Oh, I was picking up a piece of coconut cream pie at Coco's, you know, and after we just came back from seeing Renfield and the woman who was taking my order, I just felt this outpouring of love. I was just like, you know, how is your life and what's going on? I was just so happy. We were both laughing together and I was realizing, oh, my God, I'm that way because I have a different relationship with fear than I've ever had. Somebody said to me just a couple of weeks ago, you know, Steve, you're a much kinder person than I am. And I just said, that's because I have less fear than you have. I'm not afraid. I'm really clear on the fact that I'm going to die. I'm really clear on the fact that life ends. And my mother used to say, only one life that soon has passed. Only what's done for God will last. I don't care if you're an atheist. I don't care if you're a Buddhist. I don't care if you are committed to giving to something bigger than yourself. You're of my tribe. If you're willing to stand up and fight for who you are, you're of my tribe. And I am a warrior of my tribe. And I will stand between you and harm. And on this video, this time, this week, no one will ever come in here and shame you or hurt you. You need to laugh. You need to cry. You need to express anger. This is a safe place and you can be here. You don't have to pay me a dime to be here. Get on the list. Stephen-barnes.com Come every week for free. Fine. Be here. I'll give you everything I can for free if you join the program. Www.firedancetaichi.com that'd be great. But no matter what, all I want is for you to take care of yourselves. Ask me whatever you want. I will do everything in my power to help you if I know that you are doing everything in your power to help yourself. Last comments, questions or requests before I go down and watch lots watch two hours of non stop violence with my daughter. I have been as spiritual as I'm going to be today. I want us to see some people get killed.

Well, John Wick will do it for you, that's for sure.

That's right. Single parents need more than human rights. Give them privileges that make a difference. Please. Well, you know the subject of how we can organize society to be better for single parents. Damn fine question. Damn fine question. My. My mother was a single parent. Ah, well, Karen Wilson. Another old friend. I will check the recording. Sorry to be late. Just seeing you is awesome. Always seeing you. Karen. Karen, can you turn on your camera? Can I say hi? Another old friend.

Let's see what it shows.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Bring, Bring. Bring Karen up to Nana Reef. Can you do that?

When she speaks, she should come up. Oh, okay, okay.

Well, at any rate, just Love you, sweetheart. And it's good to see you. It's all. There you are. Karen and I have known each other for decades.

Very small.

How have you been, sweetheart?

You know, I'm good, actually. I'm doing really well and, and Chris is doing better.

Excellent. Gexo. I was going to ask that next. Well, that's wonderful and thanks for, thanks for coming and we will catch up. I just wanted to say hi. We have a question. Kathy Fall. You have a question for me, Kathy, before I sign up today?

Not a question, it's a thank you. Steve, you've been talking about finding your model. The person that you can hear in your head telling you somebody who is going after things that you want to go after. And I was having trouble imagining that individual. And last week, I didn't get a chance to tell you last week, but you were talking and she popped into my head.

Really?

Do you mind? Would you share?

Yes, I am about to. That would be the wonderful Nikki Giovanni. I don't know why it didn't strike me, but it did. So thank you.

You bet. Now every morning when you're doing your Tai chi, you know, after, after you, you, you lock in, you know, every day in every way, sort of some sort of affirmation there. Give thanks for the people in your, your circle who give you love and then bring that out and start. Include Nikki Giovanni as a role model. So Nick Giovanni is on the path ahead of you. That way. How does she stand? How does she, how does she walk? If you have a problem, what would she say to you? Let her whisper in your ear. Sit her on your left shoulder if you want to so that she is, that she can advise you, you know, and you are taking control of an odd, of a process that for most of us is, is on, is unconscious. We all do this. All those voices in your head, if they are, if they're negative, they disempower you. So all I'm saying is deliberately create voices. Those who are Christians will often have an image of Christ or of the saints or of, of the Virgin Mary. You know, in, in, in Buddhist and Hindu cultures, the gods and the avatars represent these things. Take this thing that is true about what it is to be humans and simply do it deliberately. Simply choose who do you want to be? Where are you going to go? Happy for you, Kathy. Thank you for sharing that. This is the end of our meeting today. I hope it's been useful. We'll have the recording up. Get on my mailing list@stephenbarnslist.com or, you know, check out firedance tai chi.com. i would love to see more of you in the program. But at any rate, you come here and you let us help you and lift you up and protect you and just have a con absolute commitment to the next week of your life you make. That week's so great that if you had a hundred weeks like that, you would absolutely be at the next level of your life. Let's all plan to hit the next level this year. You take care, love each other, and I'll close this as I always do with the Sanskrit expression that means that the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within me. Each and every one of you, Namaste. And you bet, I'm teaching Tai chi at Western. Bye. Bye, folks. Yeah, unmute yourselves and say goodbye.

Hello.

Everybody.

Bye, Karen.

See you next week.