In this short spoken monologue, the host presents the weekly "Yes‑And Challenge" for the week of June 28th. He draws on a 2017 podcast interview with celebrated songwriter Paul Williams, who cites the ancient figure Seneca (mistakenly called a Sufi poet) and his practice of periodically living on the streets to test his own resilience. The host also references Pema Chödrön’s teaching about "running toward the storm"—confronting what scares us. The challenge invites listeners to notice when their thoughts drift into catastrophic "what‑if" scenarios (losing a job, a house, etc.), to sit with those thoughts, and to mentally rehearse how they would adapt and survive. The underlying message is that, aside from death, we can handle worst‑case outcomes, and love and grace will help us emerge, enabling more authentic, freedom‑based choices. Listeners are encouraged to share their experiences.
Chapters
Hello everyone. Here is your Yes And Challenge for the week of June 28th as we roll into July. So, I was listening to a podcast, a 2017 interview with Paul Williams. Paul Williams is one of the most famous, successful songwriters of all time, going back from the '60s all the way up to current day. Went through addiction, came out, has been sober and a recovering addict for the last 30 years. Deeply spiritual, deeply philosophical. I listened to an interview with him yesterday and he's just an amazing guy to listen to. He references Seneca. I believe Seneca was a Sufi poet. I'd heard this story of Seneca before, but he He brought it to light in a different way yesterday. He said that Seneca would go and live on the streets a few times a month. I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be a story about Seneca wanting to go live on the streets because it made him feel grateful for what he had, which I'm sure that was going on, but that wasn't the point of why Seneca would do things like going and living on the streets. The reason he would do it a few times A month or how frequently, was that he wanted to go and experience that and prove to himself that he would be fine. Even if he lived on the streets, he would be fine. He'd be able to survive. He'd be able to make it. He'd be able to adapt. And I love that. I love that idea of going and doing the thing or things that we're afraid of. We kind of go, oh, where's— you know, what if I did that and I ended up having to be homeless and living on the streets? Okay, what if that happened? What if that happened? Would I be okay? You go and you put yourself in these difficult situations and you realize worst-case scenario, outside of death, worst-case scenario, yeah, I could handle this. I can adapt. I will be okay. I love that idea about— Pema Chödrön talks about— One of her books is The Things That Scare Us, how she was taught again to run at and do those things that scare us, kind of like running at the storm. So your yes and challenge for this week is just to notice each day. Notice when your thoughts start to go into that direction of contemplating horrific, what if I lost my job? What if, you know, we lost the house? Or we lost— like, what if, what if, what if? And can you see— I'm not telling you to go do that, but can you sit in that mental space of, yeah, what if that happened? What if that horrific thing happened? How would you adapt? How would you respond? Would you be okay? And I think the answer is always going to be yeah. Yeah, you're going to make it. You and the people that love you are going to help you get through it. You would make it. So we can sit in those spaces of fear a little bit and actually, through love and grace, kind of find ourselves out so that we can go and make those choices that are more authentic and freedom-based for us. So that's your Yes and Challenge for the week. If anything comes up for you, I'd love to hear about it. Have a great day, everybody. Bye.
