Latest / We! / I Feel Hurt and Afraid in a World That Holds On to Fear — The Personal and Spiritual Growth That Helped Me Let Go of Fear, Heal My Heart, and Become Part of Humanity's Healing

Transcript

I Feel Hurt and Afraid in a World That Holds On to Fear — The Personal and Spiritual Growth That Helped Me Let Go of Fear, Heal My Heart, and Become Part of Humanity's Healing · We!

0:01
SPEAKER_00: If you felt lonely, isolated, disconnected, with an empty feeling inside and just yearning for more, knowing something is missing, then this podcast is for you.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: So here's your host, Joe Mittigan.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to We.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever felt like a part of you had to die before a new part of you could truly live?
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Most people think growth is about learning something new.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: But the greatest transformations in life rarely begin with learning.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: They actually begin with letting go.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Before we can step into a higher level of consciousness, we often have to grieve the person we used to be.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: I call this process psychic death.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: It is a painful process of releasing an old identity, old beliefs, old fears, old ways of seeing the world.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: It can feel literally like losing a part of yourself.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, it is.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: That is why so many people resist change.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: They aren't afraid of becoming someone new.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: They're afraid of grieving the person they've always believed themselves to be.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: The world, of course, teaches us to hold on to our pain, to our anger, to our fears, our identities, and even our suffering.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: But every spiritual awakening invites us to do the opposite.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: It invites us to surrender what no longer serves us so that something greater can be born within us.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we'll explore while why feeling hurt and afraid is not a sign that something's wrong with you.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: It may be the very evidence that your heart is expanding, your consciousness is awakening, and your higher power is gently leading you into the next chapter of your life.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Because every meaningful transformation requires a death before rebirth.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: And when we have the courage to let go of the person we once were, we create the space for the person we were always created to become.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: My name is Joe Mittig, and this is We.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to welcome everybody here tonight and thank you for being here and thank you for your kind and loving support throughout the week.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: I am here to say that I made it.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: And for those of you that are brand new, I'm going to explain what I'm talking about here in a second.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to We.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: The We Podcast is literally an emotional growth podcast that helps people understand how to heal, how to grow, that it's okay to feel, that it's okay that we're emotional.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: It teaches men and women how to get their anger and their emotions out in a healthy way.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: I want to be the voice that supports you in your highs and supports you in your lows.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: And for those of you that are new, welcome, welcome from around the world, literally.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: And I keep saying that, you know, I got a lot of really amazingly kind and loving support from people this past week.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: Some of you that are new and you haven't listened to my last episode.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: It's called I Can't Let Go Because I Feel Hurt and I Feel Anxious.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: In that episode, I literally shared from the depths of my pain the loss associated with having to put my dog Zeus, 11-year-old German shepherd, to sleep this past week.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: And I did the episode with focus and purpose because I want people to understand that it is okay to grieve.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: It is okay to feel.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: It is okay.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And it is time for everybody to understand we are an emotional being.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: And the We podcast is here to honor that part, the emotional side of self.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: And as humanity is waking up in a way that it never has, in this the feminine side of humanity is waking up, the female side of self is the spiritual essence of self and also the emotional essence of self.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: And the stats that say 67 to 70 percent of society today, here in the US, consider themselves more spiritual than religious.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: That whole concept, what it's saying is people from the inside out are experiencing something different than what they used to.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: It's a spiritual awakening and it's just happening.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here to kind of share my experience, strength, and hope with people and help people understand that all parts of self are okay.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: And even when you're sad beyond breathing, like I was on that last podcast, that we're okay.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: And you know, typically I say it all the time, I write down five or six things and I just start talking and I've got an agenda for the podcast, but I don't really know what's going to come up or what's going to come out.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: I just kind of let things flow.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, that last podcast was really, I designed it in such a way to where I wanted to be able to breathe, of course, share, and emote so that people can see that it's okay.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: My whole message is if I can tell a million people that I'm in the middle of my pain and I'm hurting and it's painful.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: And thank you, by the way, for loving and supporting me.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: Anyone that listens to that podcast the whole way through, you are an absolute spiritual warrior.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: And I am really excited that you're here.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: But the reason I do that is because if I can tell a million, you can tell one.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of people out there, men and women alike, that when it comes to their emotional sense of self, we were raised in an environment 20, I'm not talking about 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Myself, I was 50 years ago, 60 years ago.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm in my 60s.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: And emotional support as a concept, it didn't exist.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: It just didn't.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't that our parents were trying to hurt us or not hurt us.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: The consciousness of the day, emotional support did not exist.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: So it would be fine.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: It would be no big deal if humanity wasn't waking up at a rate that it's never seen before.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: And I was talking about well, what does that mean, Joe?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Conscious awakening and conscious transformation of humanity.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, let me give you an example, an extreme example, but a real one.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: 200 years ago here in the States, owning a human, perfectly normal, called slavery.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: That's just 200 years ago.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, think about the conscious change over the past 200 years.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: The people 200 years ago that owned a human, they didn't think they were doing anything wrong.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know any better.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: It was just what it was.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: And the consciousness of the day defined right or wrong.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: And the consciousness of that day said that was okay.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: Today we look back and we see it as one of life's atrocities.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, fast forward 200 years, right?
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward to where we are now, and the consciousness of the day is shifting.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: For the past 40 years, the whole new thought movement was kind of the pursuit in the self-help, self-growth, personal development phase.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: That's what it was, New Thought Movement.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: And I can remember, I was born in the 60s.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: I remember in the 670s, early 80s, the whole idea of writing your goals down and dreamless and changing your thoughts and all that, it didn't exist.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, nobody taught me in the eighth grade, hey, write your goals down and change your thoughts.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: It didn't exist.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, the new thought movement was a really powerful thing because prior to that, there was no thought of anything.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: And the conscious awakening that's happening to society is we're literally sitting here every day.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: More and more people are waking up to the understanding that their answers are inside.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And the new thought movement was kind of the first generation, if you will, that you can look inside yourself and see who you are.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: And you can change things and you can do it differently, and you can live differently.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: And you know, the whole idea of the positive affirmation was the concept of whatever you were saying that you didn't like in your head, you could change it and just start repeating something in a favorable way, and then everything was going to be okay.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, I have to tell you, I started off in therapy February the 16th, 1990.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I just found those original notes just not long ago, February the 16th, 1990.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: And I did for the first three and a half years of my discovery world was inner child work through hypnosis.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: So when I share about new thought and positive affirmations and all that, I have no judgment of right or wrong.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: But that's not what the We podcast is.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: The We Podcast is the next generation of healing.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: It's the next generation, it's the next depths of finding a different style, a different journey to serenity, because that's what we're all pursuing.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: We're pursuing an internal sense of okayness that we wake up and we feel full, that we feel happy, that we feel overflow.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: And today's podcast is all about helping people understand the spiritual and personal journey that goes on because of the transformation of consciousness.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: One day you are living as a particular being with particular belief systems, with particular style mannerisms in which you make choices.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: And then over a relatively short period of time, you wake up to something else.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: And now you're becoming the something else.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, I'm going to share some of my own stories on some of the major, the major times in my world.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: I've gone through hundreds of psychic deaths, hundreds of transformations, hundreds.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: And there's some big ones.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, this past week, on August the 5th, when I had to make the decision and I share in the last episode, you know, why I can't let go because I feel hurt and I feel anxious.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: That's what it's called.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: The episode is called.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: I share how I made those decisions.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm a single guy.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't have real adults in my world that support me.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I've got sister family around, but not close.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And so when I have to make difficult decisions, I go to a power greater than myself.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: I rely on the we.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: And the we is in Joe's perspective, human self, higher self, inner self, all contained within each one of us as a being.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: But you have a whole resource, an infinite resource of strength and wisdom and courage if you just learn how to tap into that resource.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: It's called your higher power, it's called divinity.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: Some people are going to call it Jesus.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: And I say all the time on this show, I don't care what you call your higher sense of self.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: That's up to you.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: I call it a higher power.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times I call it God, but it's inside of you.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: It truly is.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: And when I wrote my book, Unequally Yoked, I was doing some research, unequally yoked, and that just comes to me.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Stuff like that just comes to me.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: I didn't think about it.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Things get channeled through me.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: And that unequally yoked really sounds it's a very religious type of term.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: So I went to chat because I'm not a Bible reader, and I just wondered what the last things Jesus said.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: And I say it all the time, I don't care what your religion is, but if you believe today is August the 10th at about 9:20 when I'm doing this recording, the day is the date because of one man.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: His name is Jesus.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And all I said way back when is doesn't it make just sense that we should at least consider what the man has to say?
12:52
SPEAKER_01: So I asked chat, what was the last thing Jesus said before he ascended?
12:56
SPEAKER_01: As his disciples were freaking out, because you know, he's like, dude, where are you going?
13:00
SPEAKER_01: This is a crazy place.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: We need you.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus' comment was I'm paraphrasing, of course, I have to go sit by my father so he can place the spirit that has guided me in all of you.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: In all of you.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, as soon as I read that, that's where the we came from for Joe.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: It was back in September of 2022, one of my big psychic death eras of time, which I'm going to talk about here in a little bit later on.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, we all go through big shifts and big changes.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: In my last podcast, I shared about how I randomly came across this website called Divorce Post.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: And I was just so grateful to find it because, in my opinion, we are growing so fast, so quick, everything is changing so rapidly that people are outgrowing each other, spiritually outgrowing each other.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: And folks, you have to understand, you can literally be with the same human being for the past 10, 20, 30 years.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: You can love them in your core of core, but that doesn't mean that you aren't spiritually outgrowing them.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: And from a spiritual perspective, true spiritual growth, your partnership in life, your primary partnership in life is all about helping you spiritually grow.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And I've said this all the time, you know, love is a great thing, but it is not the primary reason people are in relationships.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: It's to spiritually grow.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you're in a relationship, the action step between you and your partner is the sharing of an overflow called love.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: But love is not the primary reason.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's about spiritual growth.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: So I believe the past decade of divorce is going to be dwarfed by the next decade of divorce because people are growing.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: People are spiritually growing.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: So when I came across that website, divorce post, I thought, how freaking cool is this?
14:56
SPEAKER_01: What I would have done, you know, when I went through my divorce.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: That's another one of my psychic tests.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about here a little bit in the show here.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: But the first thing I want to say now is life after Zeus.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: And Zeus was my friend.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: He was genuinely my friend.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: He was an angel to me.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: And again, I'll share it because I purchased Zeus right after my past wife and I divorced.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: And I purchased Zeus so my oldest son would have a companion.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: I'll get into that in more detail in a little bit later, but why that's so important.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, three days later now, I have to tell you, I feel better.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I said it in the middle of my session, in the middle of the podcast the other day, I won't have residual.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: When I'm done, I'll be done.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you today, tired.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I am, I was, you know, asking for strength to do this podcast tonight because I'm tired.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm physically tired.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you grieve like I was grieving for a couple, two or three days, it's tiring.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: And caring for a hundred-pound German shepherd who was, you know, moving into his last days for over two months, it's just tiring.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: It's fatigue.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: It was.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, I'm emotionally feeling better, but physically, I'm just freaking worn out, I have to tell you.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Now, some other great news is joemitica.com.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Go visit it.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Finally, we're here, joemittigat.com.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: And download my book.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to get people's feedback on filling the void.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: And filling the void is what the name of the book is.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: And the way that book happened was literally 30 years ago.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: In my original days of sobriety, I lived on less than$300 a month.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: I lived in the later years, a couple two and a half years into sobriety after I moved out of Gainesville.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: I lived with my counselor slash sponsor in a broom.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: I had a room and a bathroom.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: No TV, you know, no cell phone, no nothing.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: I was basically just there in isolation, solitude, truly.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: And I heard a voice that says, You're going to write?
17:13
SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm not writing.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: The voice says, You're going to write.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm not writing.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: And I would cuss a lot.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: And voice says, You're going to write, or you're not going to sleep.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I have to tell you, way back then, I just thought I was nuts.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: It's me in the room with me.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: I would look around, like, where is that voice coming from?
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, who is this voice telling me what to do?
17:37
SPEAKER_01: And it was many years later that I realized there was a higher power literally talking to me.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: And over the following 22 months, that's what happened.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: The book, which now is back then, I called it your inner child has rights to a common man's quest to become one with God.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And now we're calling it filling the void, a common man's quest to become one with God.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: And the book is all about Joe's journey of how all I ever wanted to do was stop hurting.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: That was it.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Nothing more, nothing less.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't pursuing God, wasn't pursuing oneness, spirituality, didn't even know how to spell spirituality.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: I said way back when I was an F you God guy.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: And why did I say that?
18:21
SPEAKER_01: It's such a vulgar expression, but the truth is I hurt so bad all the time that I used to say, there's no way there can be a merciful God and me to be in this kind of pain.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: And then one day I realized a voice said, and it said, You know what, Joe?
18:38
SPEAKER_01: God didn't create your pain.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: You did.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Humanity did.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: God didn't create the pain you're in, you did, and humanity did.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: But God will give you the strength and courage to heal your pain, walk out of your pain.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: God will do that.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I started the prayer.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, give me strength and courage.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, give me strength and courage.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, give me strength and courage to feel what I needed to heal.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: In the last episode, I talked about how I told a buddy that is a friend that I'm supporting who's working and trying to walk out of his addiction of alcohol, and he's in withdrawals really bad.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: The voices are unmerciful.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: It feels like devil to him.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: And I said, John, which is not his name, I said, you have to stop praying like a Christian and start praying like a warrior.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: And I say that, you know, kind of tongue in cheek, no disrespect to Christianity, of course.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: But when I think of Christians, every Christian I know are the nicest, kindest, gentlest, sweetest, most loving people on the frickin' planet.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: My business partner, Mr.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: Jim Sharon and his wife have been married for 52 years.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: They've been Christians together for 50 years.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: So when I think of Christianity, I think of just the nicest, kindest people.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, I said to John, I said, John, you have to pray like a warrior because you have to ask for strength and courage from the divinity, from the God that's in you, because that's the only way you're gonna walk the hell out of here, John, is with strength and courage, with a power greater than yourself.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: It's time to ask for strength and courage.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: Pray like a warrior.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: And I shared all that in the last episode.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: I hope you, if you haven't listened to it, listen to it.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: And I totally understand if you have to turn that episode on and off.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: It's just not common, I guess, for humanity to hear a grown man weeping at the core of my essence.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And I did it because I want people to feel and to see the strength.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: If I can tell a million, you can tell one, all of that.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is true.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: And I want everybody to understand when you're listening to my voice, you're hearing a grown man cry.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: A lot of you have never heard a grown man cry, let alone a grown man cry for an hour and 20 minutes, because that's how long the podcast is.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: And around different topics and different things and different things I said.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know when or what I was gonna say.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: I just start talking.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: But I can tell you while you're listening to that episode, any tweak in your belly, any sadness in your belly, any angst you're feeling, those are your pain.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: Your feelings, your pain, not Joe's.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Joe's taking care of Joe's pain.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And I want to mirror back to people the pain that they are in, because a lot of you have done a lot of work, and there still might be some pain deep down in there that's keeping you from living the serenity you deserve.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: Everybody on this podcast deserves, spiritually deserves to live in a place of abundance and serenity so that you can just have a wonderful over.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Overflow, glass full, heartfelt life.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: You deserve that.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: And I can promise you, though, some of us have that pain that's so deep that we can't reach it.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And like I explained, you can't reach it because humanity by design cannot reach the depths of its own pain by itself.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: That's why you have to pray for strength and courage.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: That's where the we comes in.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: The other side of aloneness is oneness.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: The other side of the angst, the depths, the hurt is the oneness.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, what is oneness?
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Oneness is the internal experience that we literally experience, we feel, we sense it, we hear it, we connect with it, with that power greater than ourselves.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: And you, as the humanity, have to start that process.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And people say, Well, Joe, if God's inside of me, why doesn't God just handle it?
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, because of this amazing gift called free will.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: God will do for you what God can do through you, literally.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: And your free will has to ask for the strength and courage.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: And the action step of asking is a state of humility.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: It's an expression of humility.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: And where there's humility, there cannot be fear.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Humility is the opposite of holding on.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Humility is the opposite of ego.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Humility is the opposite of isolation.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: So when we're asking for a power greater than ourselves to give us the strength and the courage, because courage is truly what you need to embrace the depths of your pain.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Why?
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Because pain is scary.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: It's freaking hurts.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Nobody stands in the front of the line voluntary.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm first.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Let me go into pain first.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Nobody does that.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's why you have to ask for courage because you have to feel the pain.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: You do.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Why?
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Because it's in you.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: And the real essence of connection, communion, oneness is on the other side of the pain.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Not avoiding, not pushing down, not changing the voices, as I always say, but in the depths of the pain.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: I remember years ago I lived in this metaphor where I felt like I was swimming in the ocean.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: And I would swim and I would swim.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: And I just like it was never ending.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was on a process.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: It was never ending.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: I kept fighting.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: I kept trying.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: I kept battling.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: I kept swimming.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I kept swimming.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I kept swimming.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And then one day, a part of me said, Joe, the answer isn't across the ocean.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: The answers to your desires are at the bottom.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: They're at the bottom.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: It's time to let go.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: It's time to surrender.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: It's time to let go of the belief that you can't do the impossible.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: And most people, if you're not practiced that embracing the depths of your emotions, it's literally an experience of we feel like it's impossible to embrace the depths of ourself.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, humanity with just itself, it is.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: But when divinity is involved, there is no such thing as impossible.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget that metaphor.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: And so in that particular experience, I just stop swimming, is the metaphor I'm seeing myself, and I just start floating down into the ocean.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: And I'm literally in the experience, and then I freak out, like I'm trying to fight and fight and fight, like to get back to the top.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: And this is just me in a meditative state.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: And then I hear this voice that said, Joe, breathe.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: Just breathe.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And I fought and I fought and I fought.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: And then eventually I did.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And lo and behold, the metaphor was I'm at the bottom of the ocean, breathing, living the impossible.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: And when we ask, when our humanity asks for strength and courage from our divinity to embrace our inner self, all things are possible.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we get on the other side of our fear.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: That's how we get on the other side of our fear.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: The how to, ask for strength and courage.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, for many people, the foundational belief that a God of their understanding is outside of themselves, that makes this little exercise here pretty hard.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: Because, folks, God is inside you.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: You may and may not ever heard that before.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying God isn't outside you too, but God is everywhere.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: God is inside you.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: How do I know?
26:49
SPEAKER_01: God all time was around, said it.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Christ consciousness said it, created in God's image.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: There are hundreds of different types of biblical quotes that repeat it over and over and over and over that the self is divinely guided.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And for millennia, we were taught the opposite.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: For millennia, we were taught that we were ego only, pray and do it right or burning in hell, and you can never do it right.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: So you're all sinners and you're all going to burn in hell.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: That was just by design.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: That was designed 2,000 years ago by the people that never wanted humanity to feel empowered.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: This is August, August the 10th of 2026, and humanity is absolutely waking up.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: What is humanity waking up to?
27:41
SPEAKER_01: That there's a power greater than ourselves inside us right now as we're sitting here.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: The We podcast is literally exploding around the globe.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: The podcast is done in nine months, what other podcasts have never done in five years.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't know podcast world.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: So I am literally just kind of learning as I go.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: I saw today that the Wii podcast was ranked 80th in the globe out of 4 million.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, how could that possibly be?
28:09
SPEAKER_01: It's not the man in the microphone, it's the message.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: And it's I'm practiced enough to where a power greater than me is who you're hearing, and a power greater than you is what's bringing you to your devices around the globe.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: That's why we call it the we.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: And from that position, that's how we heal.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: My goal of having 100 million downloads a month.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Why do I have that as a goal?
28:33
SPEAKER_01: Because I believe if the We podcast can help a hundred million people understand the God of their understanding is inside of them.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: The depths of their pain can be felt if you ask for support from your divinity, pray for strength and courage, and then collectively help somebody else do the same thing.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: God's inside, ask for strength and courage.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Heal the depths of yourself, give a voice to your darkest parts, and then help somebody else.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I say all the time be of service.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, the how-to of how you feel and hear the voices, like Joe, how do I do this God thing?
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do I get grounded in it?
29:16
SPEAKER_01: How do I actually follow it?
29:18
SPEAKER_01: That's where silence comes in.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: It does.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: And I'm asking people now all the time, if you're new here month or so ago, as guided back into silence and basically take my headphones off.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: And I can sit in silence five or six hours, really, with no issue anymore.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Longer.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: That's why I do great big puzzles.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: I did an 18,000-piece puzzle, which I'm going to talk about at the end here in one of my sections here about my divorce.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: I just started a 40,000-piece puzzle.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: And I can sit there for hours.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: And I have the time, I have the space.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Now I will tell you, since Zeus is gone, I'm not only in silence, but there's a stillness that I haven't experienced in a really long time.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: And that's taken some getting used to.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: It really has.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And we live in a world, though, that says, oh no, no, no, no.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, Joe.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: You don't get it, Joe.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Abundance is based on how much money you have in the bank.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: That's where it comes from, Joe.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Bank account is abundance.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, Joe, you don't get it.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: I just need that right girlfriend.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: I just got to be in the right church and I just have to be around the right people because that's when I'm going to feel connection.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: No, you're not.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what, Joe?
30:36
SPEAKER_01: I just have to be stronger, wiser, smarter, and pray a little bit more so I can feel better.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, none of that's true.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Zero.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: Why?
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Because every one of those things are the world's beliefs associated with abundance.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: The world defines abundance by that in which you're looking at.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: Abundance is that in which you're experiencing inside.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: Society defines abundance by that in which you see the amount of money in the bank, the number of countries you've traveled to, how many nice cars you have, how many friends you have.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: Those are all wonderful things.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: I support it a thousand percent.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: And zero of that creates abundance.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Nada, not an iota of an iota.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Where does abundance come from?
31:30
SPEAKER_01: Making sure the emotional side of yourself has a voice and your communion with a power greater than yourself.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to talk about what do we do once we find that communion in the last section, the last story I'm going to talk about.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: So where we are, where the we podcast is, what my hope is, and what I'm constantly doing here is I'm creating a library.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a voice that can keep your company in the darkest times.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: I say that all the time.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: And why do I have such a passion for that?
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Because, folks, for seven years I had nothing.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: I had no one and nothing, nothing.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, that was pre-internet.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I say we are the generation of change.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Literally, we are the generation of change because everything is different now.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Everything is different.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: And humanity's waking up at a rate that it never knew, faster than ever before.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: And here we go.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: And for those of you in deep, dark, really hard, I can't breathe pain, please tell somebody, get some help, please.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: For everybody else, that you just feel kind of like a hole in your belly, and you know, you look around and you got that bank account, and you got a bunch of friends, and you like your church, and you even like your spouse.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about the now what.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: What do we do next?
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do we move forward to where the emptiness fills, but from the inside out, not the outside in.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: And if you get my book, Filling the Void, at my website, joemitiga.com, it really talks a lot about it.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's my story, truly.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: And it's 106,800 words, which we cut it down a little bit.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: I think it's right around 100,000 words, pure channeled.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: And I remember when it first happened, it was like nobody in the world's ever going to believe how this came through me, ever, because I was the last thing from a God guy.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Last thing.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: And well, now I know exactly what happened.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: It happens now.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to talk about that.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about each one of you and the different things that are probably happening to you.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: And I want the Wii podcast, I want you to come back here over and over and listen to different episodes based on where you are in the day.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: If you're feeling stuck, go find one of the episodes on Feeling Stuck.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: If you're feeling, you know, you're wanting to expand, go listen to the episode Gratitude to Grace.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: If you're really having a tough time and you've had a couple tough weeks, listen to the one that's seven-year monk.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: That'll put it in perspective for you.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Seven years.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: And people say, well, Joe, why?
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, because I wanted to stop hurting.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, could I have gotten a job and stuffed it down?
34:18
SPEAKER_01: It probably, but I never did.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: Why?
34:20
SPEAKER_01: I was just guided to heal the depths, and I did.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: And I came out the other side.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: Very, very different.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: One of the first journey I want to talk about because the only way we can truly spiritually expand, we have to go through the psychic death process of that in which we were in today.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: So that in which we're becoming can become available, truly, psychic death.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: I used the example of the snake.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: The snake will shed the old skin so it can grow into a new form of itself, a bigger, more expansive form.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: I used to use the metaphor of an aquarium.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: Like when I first started this process, I was a little one-gallon aquarium with a little guppy in there.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what I felt like.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: And the water was only about two inches tall.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: So the little guppies gasping for air constantly.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what I felt like.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: And it was the original metaphor I used when I realized that my issues were inside of me.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: My sponsor, counselor Nancy, said, you know, Joe, every time you have a finger pointing out, judging everybody else, you've got three fingers pointing back.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Because I was so critical.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: I was.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: I was just critical and angry and hateful.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And I just was.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: And she said, one finger out, three fingers back.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, gosh, I can't be good.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: And at the time I didn't know I had all the voices.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any idea.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: I wrote down my first step.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I've done other podcasts on the first step.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: I suggested, I really do.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: Find one of the podcasts because it's an incredibly freeing event when you start writing down all your shame-based and guilt-based voices, because most of us don't even know we have them.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: And those voices, they're not only shame-based and guilt-based, they're not only critical and of others, but self-hateful for us.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: They're also a big part of your guidance system.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: They're a big part of how you make yes and no decisions.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And if you've got a guilt-based, shame-based voice making your yes or no decisions, it's probably why you have a life that you wished you didn't, truly.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: And all part of the spiritual journey, we can help you transform those voices, get to the reason you have the voice, which is a hurt little kid, heal the child, the voices go away.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: And that's the difference between the positive affirmation.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Positive affirmation says, focus on the voice and just change the voice.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, like I say all the time, I've got a podcast on this.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: You can't heal an emotional question with a mental answer.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Change the mind.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I emotionally feel lost, change the mind.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: Feel mind.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: No, they're two different things.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: Your feelings are in your heart, the voices are in your head.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: And 100% of all your glass empty voices are sourced by a wound, a hurt in your heart.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: So, several episodes.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: Go find them.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: The one about you can't heal your heart with your mind.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: And listen to it.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: Listen to it over and over.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: I've got a bunch of them in there.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: And over time, you know, my intention is to keep building the Wii podcast library so people can use it as a reference.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Keep coming back.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, the spiritual journey position, like the enlightenment position, the awaking up, the becoming a different you.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: How do we truly live it?
38:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, we live it by first having the awakening that says, wow, the old me doesn't work anymore.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: And it's time to move into a new me.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that happens in the beginning with writing down the voices, but sometimes it just happens as an awakening.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: You wake up one day and you say, you know, this job I've been doing 20 years, I gotta go.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: I can't do it anymore.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: The spouse I've been married to for 18 years, I love her, but I just don't feel the connection anymore.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: And or on the other side, you know, you've raised kids and now the kids are off to college, and it's you alone in your house.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Or in my world, you know, my friend Zeus was next to me every day for 11 years.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: And now the past three or four days, no Zeus, he's not here.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a natural, I didn't do it, but it's a natural shift of where everything changes.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to share about what we do in that change.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: One of my biggest original changes is when I had my memories of being sexually abused as a kid, and my addictions were removed early in February 1994.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: And come May of that year, April of that year, I just realized that's when I had my memories that everything had to change.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: So my single largest transformation, psychic death, was in that era of time where I went from drinking and drugging, marijuana was the choice, working out, girlfriends, playing pool, gambling, you know, shooting pool for five bucks a game, that kind of stuff, all day, every day, and working 70 hours a week.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: That was my life.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: That was my 20s.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: And when I realized that my behaviors, my choices of behaviors, the style in which I was living, was abandoning me because my consciousness was always outside of me, pursuing more work for more money outside, pursuing a new girlfriend for better companionship outside, pursuing bodybuilding and weightlifting and all that, getting my physical more physical, all outside.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: And what I realized was, let alone the drinking and the marijuana, what I realized was if my consciousness is constantly outside of me, then the depths of me, the inner me, is all alone, is lost and alone.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: You want to know where loneliness comes from?
40:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, you've got an inner essence that if you're not taking any time with, the internal experience is lonely.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: You feel lonely.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Why?
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Because you've got an inner child that's in there all by itself.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: And aloneness, the feeling of vacancy, void, can't put your finger on it, don't feel connected to anything.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: That has nothing to do with your external world.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: That has everything to do with your internal experience, where you're waking up that there's a power greater than yourself, but you don't have a relationship with that power.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: Now, both of those experiences, you might have lived your entire adult life and never felt lonely or alone.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: Very common.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: I have to tell you, for me, it started when I was 18.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: But for most, 30 now, 50, 60, now, 50, a lot of you, right now.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: You're waking up.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: Why?
41:30
SPEAKER_01: Kids are gone.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: More money than month to the pursuit of gratitude by building a business, already accomplished.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: Partnership with your spouse, okay or not okay?
41:40
SPEAKER_01: Kind of a different topic.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about my divorce.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: And kids gone.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: Family, you know, lived in a neighborhood where all the kids grew up, and now the neighborhood gatherings that you celebrated for 20 years all gone.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: The interaction you had with the high school for 10 years gone, especially if you had multiple kids.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've literally seen parents that have had six kids go through the same high school.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, once that sixth kid is gone, you still see the same parent there five years later wearing the same jacket he did before.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything wrong with that?
42:11
SPEAKER_01: No.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: But his kids are gone, but that's his community.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: Well, sometimes it works, but other times you wake up and say, I don't want to go to the high school football game on a Friday night.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: My kids are gone.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: But now what?
42:24
SPEAKER_01: That's all part of the expansion.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: So when I moved to Gainesville, 50 miles north of Atlanta, I moved there because I had to remove myself from all the old playgrounds and playmates.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: Playmates meaning my friends who drank and drugged, playgrounds meaning the locations, the places I would eat, the bars I would drink at, the places I would shoot pool, the playgrounds.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: And so when I moved to Gainesville, it was a dramatic.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm done with that.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: Now let's go to a brand new place.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Now, am I suggesting that 99.9% of you are going to have to go through something so dramatic?
43:06
SPEAKER_01: No.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: Unless you're an active alcoholic, then yes, you are.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: But for most of you, no, you're not.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: But there are going to be certain things that you have to change.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: And in my world, I changed everything and I had to because there wasn't any component of my Tuesday morning that was healthy.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: None of it.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: No part of it.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: Every part of the interaction with any part I was with, anyone I was with, was unhealthy somehow, somehow.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: It was a constant pursuit of addiction satiation.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: Hear me.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: A constant pursuit of addiction satiation.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: The addiction to more money, and I labeled it abundance.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: The addiction to connection, which I labeled it love, addiction to a physic, you know, bigger muscles, which I labeled it health.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: The truth of the matter was none of it was.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Healthy because it was all way out of whack and way out of balance.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: So when I moved to Gainesville, I literally would wake up on a Tuesday lost.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, my experience was different because it's not only lost, but I also had no money and no connection.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're talking pre-internet.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the internet up there.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even have, I don't think I had a cell phone.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: I had a landline.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: So very different when I did it in the 90s versus people making those changes now.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: But what's that going to look like?
44:36
SPEAKER_01: What's your Gainesville going to look like?
44:38
SPEAKER_01: It's going to look like, you know, this coming football season when every Saturday for the past 20 years, you've gone to the same buddy's house, drank the same amount of beer with the same guys, cheering the same teams that never win, and you're just kind of done with that.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: Does that make the people that are still doing it wrong?
44:59
SPEAKER_01: No.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: No.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: It just means that you're done.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: It's experiences like that.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: Experiences of your yesterday that you just know you have to change today.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: But then the question is, what do you do in the tomorrow?
45:15
SPEAKER_01: If you're not doing the same behavior you've done in this case for 20 years watching the football game with the same guys, if you're not doing that behavior, what do you fill in that space?
45:26
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is you ask for guidance.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about that in length here in a minute.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: So for me, when I moved to Gainesville, now I am brand new, no drugs and alcohol.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm alone for the first time.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: And I fill my space in time with emotion.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: So I would wake up and feel lost as I could be, walk outside.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have water inside, had water outside.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: Walk outside, put the hose on my head, and try to wake up and just try to figure out where the heck I was.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: And eventually I go back in and grab the shovel handle and start beating the bed.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I say all the time, hey guys, I've mentioned it now numerous times.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping that people are listening because it is time for men, especially.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying women don't have plenty of anger, you do.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: But men, I can only talk from the man perspective because I'm a man.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: And one thing you can do in that time where you used to spend drinking with your buddies, get a baseball bat, a wiffle ball bat, get a picture of someone you don't like in 15 minutes a week on Saturday mornings, go into your basement, go into your garage, get a punching bag, and just start beating the punching bag with a plastic bat.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: You can do it with you got a big punching bag hanging from the ceiling, use a real bat.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: See if you can tear the punching bag with the bat and get your anger out.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: Why?
46:54
SPEAKER_01: Because it's time to stop taking your anger out on your wife as if your stuff is her fault.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not saying you got a perfect wife.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: Nobody has a perfect wife, nobody's perfect.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: But zero people, zero, nada, not a niota of what your female partner has done deserves your crap to be projected on them.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: Nothing, nada.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: So how do we stop it?
47:18
SPEAKER_01: We have to change the behavior before we're acting it out.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: How do we do that?
47:24
SPEAKER_01: We add.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: So in that space and time where you're changing stuff, it's time to add some emotional release work.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: And for men, most of us, it's going to be anger first.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: For most of us, not everybody, but most.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: So you have to figure out your space, your style, your method, and get it out.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: I can promise you, you get anger out 15 minutes a day, 15 minutes a week, you'll feel better.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: Let alone you get your anger out 15 minutes two or three times a week, you'll really feel better.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: And you wonder why your wife pulls away.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Saturday evening at 9:30, she doesn't want a damn thing to do with you.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, why do you think that?
48:06
SPEAKER_01: If you're taking your stuff out on her all week, angry and mad and complaining, I wouldn't want to be close to you either.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: You'd be amazed at how rapidly romance and communion and connection happens when people feel safe.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: But if you're one of these men that take your anger out on your female partner, she doesn't feel safe around you.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: She just doesn't.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: And I don't blame her.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: If I was supporting her like I do a lot of women, because I deal with all sorts of couples.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not a therapist, folks.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm not, I don't charge money.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: It's just all part of what I've done for 30 years.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: I tell the women I know get space.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Your alcoholic husband is a rageholic.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: You have to go find space and protect yourself.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: You want to watch a man, a big bad macho, I'm tough as the world.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: You want to watch him quiver and come down on his knees, leave his ass alone for three days, wait till he doesn't have somebody to take all his anger out on.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: You watch how they change.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: I just had that experience happen with my folks in Connecticut.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: So why do I say all that, right?
49:17
SPEAKER_01: Because humanity's changing.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: It is.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: We're waking up to what?
49:23
SPEAKER_01: The feminine side of self.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: All spirit?
49:27
SPEAKER_01: No, emotion and spirit.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: How do we truly become one with a power greater than ourselves?
49:33
SPEAKER_01: We have to be able to discern the emotional component of ourselves.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Why do I say that?
49:38
SPEAKER_01: If you had one word, one word, only one word to describe a power greater than yourself, God or Jesus or Allah or higher power, what would the word be?
49:48
SPEAKER_01: The word would be love, L-O-V-E, not mind, love.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, what is love?
49:54
SPEAKER_01: Love is an emotion.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's right.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to commune with a power greater than yourself in a loving experience through love, you have to also learn how to embrace all of the emotional parts of yourself.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: The mad ones, the glad ones, the sad ones, and the scared ones.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: Mad, glad, sad, scared.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Four.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Remember the first time Nancy said that to me.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: I said, What the hell?
50:17
SPEAKER_01: That can't be too hard.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: Mad, glad, sad, scared.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: She says, No, Joe, you have to learn how to feel all those.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, well, that's a little different.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: I had no idea.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: When I moved to Gainesville, zero concept.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: Nada, none, no idea.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: I had all that rage.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: No idea.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, why would I have no idea?
50:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, because forever I was either drinking, sexing, drugging, playing shoot and pull.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: I was always busy outside.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: And then I became a daily marijuana smoker.
50:47
SPEAKER_01: I didn't feel anything except high and in a good mood.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, you get rid of all of the numbing substances, what's left?
50:54
SPEAKER_01: Emotion.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: Is that a bad thing?
50:56
SPEAKER_01: No.
50:57
SPEAKER_01: Is it hard?
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: You better learn the mantra, pray for strength and courage.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: You better learn it to feel what you need to heal because we are waking up.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: And the emotional side of you is waking up.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: Whether you wanted to or not, it's waking up.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't be an active participant on the We podcast if you're not some type of spiritual being.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: Those are just facts.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: There are four million podcasts, and there's four million other places you could be listening right now, but you're listening to me almost an hour into this podcast, which tells me that you're on a spiritual journey just like me, which I'm going to talk about, one of my most powerful spiritual events that happened to me in September of 22.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: So after my years of darkness, why was I so dark?
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Because I just kept going deeper and deeper and deeper into the depths of Joe.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: Prayed for strength and courage.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Do I encourage anybody to do that?
51:57
SPEAKER_01: No.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: No.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: But if you're guided to buckle up, it's all I can tell you.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: And get help.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: I had help.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: So my seven years of darkness, it wasn't like I was depressed and couldn't function.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, how'd I make my$300 a month?
52:13
SPEAKER_01: I'd work every once in about five bucks an hour, cutting grass.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: And so the darkness was because I just kept going deeper and deeper.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, eventually you reach the depths.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: You do.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: On a podcast a couple two or three weeks ago, I talk about forgiveness and what real forgiveness is.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: And when I learned how one of my perpetrators that, you know, my sexual abuse happened to me when I was seven, eight, six, seven years old.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: And one of the perpetrators of that, these were two teenage boys, 18, 19.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: One of them I found out after the fact, he was literally systematically sexually and physically abused his entire young life.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: He was a heroin addict, his entire adult life, homeless, most of it, died on the side of a mountain.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: And when I learned how he died, I grieved.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: And I grieved because by the time all this happened for me, I'm many years into sobriety.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: I had done the depths of my inner child work.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: And by the time I'm hearing the story about how this man died by his sister, I could see him as a man who was hurting versus a man who hurt me.
53:21
SPEAKER_01: Hear me.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: I could see this man who it took five days on the side of a mountain to die of exposure, which brought tears to me, deep tears.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: When I shared the story in my one of the last episodes, I didn't know that emotion was coming, but it did.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: It still chokes me up.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: Nobody deserves to die like that.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: Nobody does.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: And how I know forgiveness is not an action step is because I know the action steps I took over the years to give a voice to my darkest part.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: And Joe's darkest part was a little boy who was hurt deeply by two 17-year-old boys.
54:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, on the other side of my little kid feeling better because we did what we needed to over the years, I then could see this man as a man who was hurting versus a man who hurt me.
54:13
SPEAKER_01: And from that position, I knew what forgiveness was.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I talk about forgiveness all the time.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, in my darkness, eventually you kind of reach the other place.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: You reach another spot.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what the hell?
54:28
SPEAKER_01: What's wrong?
54:29
SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget it.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: One of the harder times for me is when I wasn't processing all day, I was completely lost.
54:35
SPEAKER_01: Now you have to remember, I didn't have a cell phone to pick up and start doing these real things.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any of that.
54:41
SPEAKER_01: So it was just vacant space when I wasn't processing.
54:44
SPEAKER_01: Hard, to be honest with you.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: But I wasn't complaining because the processing all the time was miserable.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, eventually I come out.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: I get introduced to a church, I meet a beautiful woman, we get married and have a great life.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: We did.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: And we never fought.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: Never.
55:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, we were on this similar journey.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: I was in my early 40s, she's in her early 30s.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: I had my first son at 44, my second son at 49, Joseph and Ryan.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: And as life continues, you know, I was in therapy all that time.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: I've never really not been in therapy.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: That's why I say all the time, my life coach, Dr.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: Karn.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: And why?
55:28
SPEAKER_01: Because it just helps.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: Helps to have.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: I was just on the phone with Dr.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: Karn the other day.
55:32
SPEAKER_01: And you know, she just sits there and listens.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, it just feels good to have somebody listen.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: It does.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't have one, find one.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: Look her up.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: She's fantastic.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of that, of my marriage, my past wife walks in and says, Joe, I divorced you and I don't love you anymore.
55:53
SPEAKER_01: And not going to go into the details of all that, what happened.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: Listen to the last podcast, I talk about it.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: But really, it was in that era of time, my esteem was so high.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: Self-esteem, how I see myself, was high.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: Self-worth, how I feel about myself was high.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: Personal integrity, how I trust myself, high.
56:16
SPEAKER_01: Why?
56:17
SPEAKER_01: Because I'd done a lot of work over the years.
56:19
SPEAKER_01: And I said to myself right then, I said, I can't fight for a marriage with a woman who has the courage to tell me she doesn't love me anymore.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: It hurt.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: It was brutal.
56:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it hurt.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding, it really hurt.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: But I left everything in my front seat.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: I said on the last podcast, what would I have done if I would have had divorce posts back then?
56:41
SPEAKER_01: Go check it out.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: I say it all the time.
56:45
SPEAKER_01: You've either gone through a divorce, you know somebody going through a divorce, or you know somebody getting ready to.
56:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, this divorce post website, it's freaking cool.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: And I haven't learned a whole lot about it yet.
56:57
SPEAKER_01: I will, because I want to share about it here what I would have done.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, when somebody you make a covenant to God with 10 years before looks you straight in the eye without a hesitancy in her voice and says, And I don't love you anymore.
57:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was brutal.
57:17
SPEAKER_01: And again, I was so confused.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: I was out of there in four days.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: If I would have had the support like this divorce post gives, everything would have been different.
57:26
SPEAKER_01: I said the other day, I said 10 years later, right now, today, if I looked around my files, I don't know where half that stuff is still, because I wasn't organized way back when.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: So do I suggest people leave old relationships with just the stuff in the car?
57:42
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: Visit this website, let them help you.
57:46
SPEAKER_01: And that was another major transition.
57:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I went to Gainesville, it was just me.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: So the psychic death component of grieving and the grieving of my yesterday, there was so much rage and so much grief.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: That's all I did for seven years, the spiritual growth and emotional growth process.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: That's all I did.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: I had no life except a life of growth.
58:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, now that's not the case.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: Now I've got a nine and a four-year-old, but I still have to grieve the old life, the life of being a married man, the life of thinking I was going to spend the rest of my life with this particular woman.
58:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, all of the beliefs of a marriage.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: Now I had a lot of respect for her.
58:33
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, again, she made it look easy, which I have to tell you kind of hurt my feelings, how easy it was for her.
58:38
SPEAKER_01: But and about 18 months in.
58:41
SPEAKER_01: So I move 10 miles away and by Zeus.
58:45
SPEAKER_01: Listen on last week's episode about Zeus.
58:48
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm making it.
58:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're living.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: My boys are with me a lot.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: I become more and more full-time dad, you know, when I become built-in babysitter.
59:00
SPEAKER_01: Now, my wife and I at the time, we split the boys 50-50.
59:03
SPEAKER_01: They were kind of with me three and a half, four days because of her work schedule.
59:07
SPEAKER_01: But it was the first time she said to me, because typically they go back to her, because she worked during the week, they go back to her on a Friday.
59:14
SPEAKER_01: And it was the first time she would say to me, Hey Joe, you mind keeping the boys over the weekend?
59:19
SPEAKER_01: And in the beginning, I thought, well, yeah, absolutely.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: You busy?
59:22
SPEAKER_01: Sure, I'm happy to keep them.
59:24
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know she'd started dating yet.
59:27
SPEAKER_01: I find out later.
59:29
SPEAKER_01: And all I can tell you is that was not easy.
59:33
SPEAKER_01: Now it's 18 months.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: We're divorced, completely divorced.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, she's beautiful, functioning, you know, nurse, smart.
59:42
SPEAKER_01: She's gonna find people, of course.
59:44
SPEAKER_01: Anybody who would want to be around a beautiful woman, it'd be her.
59:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, she starts dating a guy.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: And I made a commitment myself, just for Joe, that I was not going to have any pursuit of female relationship because I was gonna give all of my overflow to my kids.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: Now it was my spiritual journey that caused my kids to live in two separate houses.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: And I don't have any guilt about that.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, God has a plan.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: Just because Joe's emotions get in the way doesn't mean God doesn't have a plan.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: And God did.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_01: And I knew I'd rebuild.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: That's why I didn't fight, which I have.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: But when she starts dating, hard, really hard, all the voices, all the hurt, all of that stuff 18 months later starts coming up.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: And then she looks me right in the face later and she says, you know what, Joe, it's none of your business, but we really care about each other.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_01: Which I was happy for her.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you genuinely care about somebody, you want them happy.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as she walked away, that was hard.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: That was not easy.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: And what did I do?
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: What I know to do get music, put headphones on, and grieve, which I did four months, three times a day for four months.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: Why do I say it?
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: Because how did I really, truly, genuinely grieve my past life, which was my wife and a marriage and the kids and family?
1:01:06
SPEAKER_01: I had to grieve.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: Now, in my world, I always tend to do stuff extreme.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I am like that, but I just am.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_01: And I made it.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: That was hard.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: It was.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: And I would come up to my room, put my headphones on, listen to music.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: And now, of course, way back when I did it, you know, in Gainesville, it was cassette tapes.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's normal, you know, got a computer and everything.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_01: So life fast forward, right?
1:01:33
SPEAKER_01: So eventually you finish.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_01: And those visions of my wife and another man in my head weren't causing me a pain that I couldn't breathe.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: It was hard.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: So if you're in that pain, I get it.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: Heart, get help.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have a therapist at this point.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have a person.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: And quite honestly, at this point, I was pretty practiced.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: Therapy helps us identify what our pains are.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, I know exactly what my pain was.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: So I just kind of muscle through it.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't suggest it.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: Get support, get help.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: And then sure enough, how did I know I was on the other side?
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm down in Florida.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_01: My son's a baseball player, elite baseball player.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: We're down in Florida, he travels, and I see a beautiful woman.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_01: Now, the cool thing about this particular experience, it was purely innocent.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_01: And but I have a guilt-free attraction to a woman for the first time in 15, 18 years.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:02:31
SPEAKER_01: Because I was married.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_01: I was married.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: So, and let me just make something clear.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: And ladies, this is directed directly at you.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: The illusion, the ridiculous illusion that your husband is not going to be quote unquote attracted to a beautiful woman, that's nonsense.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: He's going to be.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: That isn't make him bad or wrong.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't give him permission to do anything more, but it would be like saying, look at that rose and don't feel like it's beautiful.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't say it about a rose.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got somebody that your husband, you know, has looked at twice because she's pretty or whatever, you got all those twinges in your belly, take it to therapy because that's on you, not him.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_01: Now, fellas, you can have the attraction, but just make sure there's guilt associated with it.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: Because guilt is a healthy emotion that sets boundary.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: I had attractions to females when I was married, but it was fleeting.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: And I went right back to my wife.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_01: I was loved my wife.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: My wife was the most beautiful person in the world.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_01: And so when I had this guilt-free attraction, in other words, I had an innocent, honest wow, this woman is beautiful, and I'm attracted to her.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: And I just kept waiting for the guilt.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: And there was no guilt.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_01: That's five years after my divorce.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_01: But what did that tell me?
1:04:01
SPEAKER_01: It told me that I was done grieving my yesterday, was done with the grieving process.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_01: I had finished and accomplished the psychic death.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you're grieving a marriage, that's going to take a while, especially if you've been married a long time.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_01: We were married 10 years.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_01: A lot of you have been married 20 years, 30 years, a long time.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_01: That's going to take some time to truly grieve.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_01: That's why I recommend that website, Divorce Post.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's got all sorts of cool things to help people in that process.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to get brutalized while you're going through one of the most emotionally challenging experiences that people go through.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: And I still haven't gotten permission directly, but I'm trying.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_01: And why?
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: Because folks, we are growing.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: We're growing.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_01: Right now, if you're on this podcast and your partner's out drinking somewhere, sorry to be the one to tell you.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: Likelihood of that relationship lasting, it's not going to.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: Not emotion.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: This isn't about emotion.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_01: This isn't about love.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: This is about spiritual growth.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_01: It's your divinity.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: You're on a divine path.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_01: And I am sorry to say that your humanity doesn't get to control your divinity's path.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_01: And emotion, love, is a humanity experience, not a divinity experience.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_01: Your humanity is the part of you who loves.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_01: That's why I say when I talk about my past wife, you know, I have a genuine love for this woman.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_01: Had it back then.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_01: And quite honestly, all through that period that I was grieving so hard, had it then, and I have it now.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: Now, does that mean we could be together?
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: No, she doesn't like me.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of good reason, I'm sure.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_01: But just because you feel love for somebody, it doesn't mean you're supposed to be in a relationship with them.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_01: The same thing with a job.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_01: You can love a job.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean you haven't outgrown the job.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_01: You can love your house.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean you haven't outgrown your house.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_01: Love is emotion, growth is spiritual expansion.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: And every time you go through a psychic death and you come out the other side, you become a grander you.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_01: I made the commitment to Zeus when Zeus told me in his own ways that it was his day.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_01: August the 5th was Zeus's last day.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_01: And how did I know it was his last day?
1:06:31
SPEAKER_01: Because my humanity had done everything humanly possible to care for Zeus.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_01: And then we reached a spot where humanity could do no more for Zeus.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_01: His wounds got so big.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: Listen to the episode.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: I explain it all in detail.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: Listen to it a couple of times because I listen to my stuff afterwards.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: I grieve at my own stuff.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_01: And I say, you know, that's one of those podcasts where if I can do that, I do anything.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_01: And why do I say that?
1:07:04
SPEAKER_01: Because I want people to know I'm not special.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm just practiced.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_01: How did I make it through?
1:07:10
SPEAKER_01: Grieving for 80 minutes to the world?
1:07:12
SPEAKER_01: I ask for strength and courage.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_01: I've got a communion with a power greater than myself.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_01: I do.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_01: And I listen and I ask.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_01: I could never do it alone.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_01: Now, someday, if I have a female partner, yeah, I would include my partner in that.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't exclude asking for strength and courage from my divinity because I've got a female partner willing to hold my hand or sit behind me and hold me around.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_01: It would feel really good.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't have any idea how deeply I would grieve if I actually had somebody that could sit with me.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_01: I've never had it ever.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a future growth for me.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Joe, do you think you're open and whatever?
1:07:51
SPEAKER_01: See if you can grieve in front of another person.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm willing to try.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_01: Time comes.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_01: And like I said, I'd be perfectly fine if a female partner in my future said to me, Joe, your grief is too much.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_01: I have to leave.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_01: I would get it.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_01: I totally would get it.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_01: I said in the podcast, any female around me better be tough as nails because when I grieve, I shake the house.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: I do.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: Big personality, really deep, been doing it a long time.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, in that process of freedom, five years.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_01: Now, was I an angst and whatever the other four and a half years?
1:08:25
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:08:26
SPEAKER_01: Four months?
1:08:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_01: The first 18 months, as I'm recreating a home and we buy the little puppy, and my kids are, you know, getting accustomed to living in two homes and all that.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_01: Was I grieving all the time?
1:08:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: But I wasn't afraid.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:08:43
SPEAKER_01: Because I asked for guidance.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: I do.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_01: And then it was time 18 months in, I was stable enough.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: I was in my new house where I'm at now.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_01: And then it was time to grieve the depths, which I did.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_01: And on the other side, the freedom, when I had that experience with this woman, which I don't know who this person is, no idea.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_01: It didn't matter.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't ever really about her.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like this I was going to walk up to her and say, hey, you're beautiful.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_01: No, that it was a pure spiritual experience for me.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: And I was pursuing, I was waiting for the guilt, like the boundary.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_01: Because if I'd have been married, I'd have made sure there's a guilt boundary.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_01: No marriage, I don't have to be guilty.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_01: Joe can be freely attracted to a woman.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_01: I can be.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: And I was.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_01: And that freedom happened because I went through the psychic death process, the grieving process.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward, right?
1:09:40
SPEAKER_01: I built in a business.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_01: My business is Avion Energy.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_01: I homeschool both boys.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_01: I've got elite kids.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're bizarre.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_01: My oldest is an elite athlete.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_01: My youngest is, I don't even want to tell you call him, modern-day Mozart.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_01: You should see him on the piano.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_01: He's just, it's bizarre.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_01: He starting at nine years old, he couldn't reach the pedals.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_01: He could play.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_01: Now he's almost 15.
1:10:00
SPEAKER_01: And he can literally, like on the fly, take a song like Ferleese and add stuff right in the center.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_01: And then he can go back and do it backwards.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_01: It's just bizarre.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_01: Gifted.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_01: Why do I say that?
1:10:11
SPEAKER_01: Because my environment, I've told my kids their entire life, God's inside.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_01: And your gifts are of God.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to suggest to everybody on this podcast.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_01: Look at your kids and tell them that God's inside.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_01: It's up to you to teach your children that God is inside of them, all created in God's image.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_01: And if that's uncomfortable in the beginning, that's fine.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_01: I understand that can be uncomfortable.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_01: But start.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_01: Also, emotion.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_01: It's time to tell your kids you love them.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_01: It's time to tell people you love them.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not suggesting walking up to an old curmudgeon dad of yours that you don't love and lie to him.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying tell people you love that you really do.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_01: And you don't always have to say it in words.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_01: Text it.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_01: Text the heart every once in a while.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_01: With my boys, I tell them every night I'm proud of them and I love them.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_01: Every night I text them.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_01: I just do, always have.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_01: Their mother has done the same thing.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_01: And you can start that today.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:11:13
SPEAKER_01: Because we're the generation of change.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_01: We're going to give to our kids what our parents couldn't give to us.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_01: I did not hear the word, I love you, Joe, until I was 35 years old.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
1:11:26
SPEAKER_01: I was 35 the first time I heard it.
1:11:29
SPEAKER_01: And my mother's position was, well, you know I love you.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really?
1:11:34
SPEAKER_01: I yeah, she did.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_01: She was always there.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_01: Did that mean I got emotionally supported?
1:11:38
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:11:40
SPEAKER_01: Because emotional support is verbal.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_01: It really is.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: My mother did the best she could.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_01: Sure, she did.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_01: Did I have a great relationship with my mother?
1:11:47
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I did.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_01: Did I grieve deeply when my mother left?
1:11:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I did.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_01: Which all leads me into my last story, September 20th, 2022.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_01: Now my mother had passed, it wasn't that long before all this.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_01: And when we went to the funeral, my mother survived COVID.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_01: So it was late 2021.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_01: She survives COVID at 85.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_01: And she's sitting there on her couch.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_01: My oldest sister is with her.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_01: They're just finished the news, and she gets this massive headache.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_01: Come to find out she has an aneurysm in her neck.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_01: And before the paramedic could even be there, she was basically brain dead.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_01: Thank God my sister was there.
1:12:28
SPEAKER_01: Because if my oldest sister wouldn't have been there caring for her with COVID, my mother would have died an agonizing death because the blood vessel in the neck just keeps pumping until you can imagine where the blood goes eventually.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, my sister did what they needed to.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_01: My mother hung around for a few more days and she passed.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_01: So in the funeral home, my father, who was also 85, he sat in the back.
1:12:55
SPEAKER_01: So I sat with him.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't gonna leave him.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_01: He backed it all by himself.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_01: I sat with him.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_01: He told me to go.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_01: I said, No, dad, I'm I'm okay.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting right here with you.
1:13:04
SPEAKER_01: And my dad basically never left that church.
1:13:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, this was a big, not tall, but a huge personality, traditional Italian, just badass.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's just tough his whole life.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, the love of his life was gone.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_01: And he really never left the church.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_01: Spiritually, I believe he died that day, too.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, he didn't physically die for another four years, but during all that time, now I'm grieving my mother.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_01: And my oldest son and his mother have always had challenges.
1:13:37
SPEAKER_01: So my mother, my son's non, became my son Joseph's mother, literally almost.
1:13:45
SPEAKER_01: They were very close.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_01: And when my mother died, my oldest son was devastated, literally devastated.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_01: He and I would go hit all the time, a place called Wren's Gym.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_01: And I get the notice, I get the email, uh the text and from my sister saying that my mother had passed.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_01: And I wouldn't tell Joseph, not there.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_01: That was his happy place, right?
1:14:14
SPEAKER_01: Hit the baseball.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want him to associate the baseball cage with his grandmother dying.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_01: So that was a hard hour, I'll tell you.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_01: We get home and I tell him, and he grieves.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_01: And for multiple months, my oldest grieved.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_01: He kept saying to me, I've lost my mother twice.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_01: The divorce and his none.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_01: I lost my mother twice.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_01: He grieve and grieve and grieve.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not only grieving the matriarch of our family, my mother, good friend, my youngest, my oldest son.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_01: My youngest is still pretty young, so he's doing fine.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_01: And then September 20th, 2022 happens.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_01: And I come across this female online.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_01: I read these documents and my divinity opens up.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_01: I hear this little podcast, and my heart explodes, and I am confused.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_01: And then I have these two books at the exact same time, unequally yoked, and we flowing out of me, which I haven't had a book come out of me in 25 years, all at the same time.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm grieving the death of my mother.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm grieving the slow death of my father.
1:15:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm supporting my oldest so that I'm his dad.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm the one that supports him because he's grieving hard.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_01: And then to add on top, my heart freaking explodes.
1:15:41
SPEAKER_01: Now, naturally, in the beginning, I thought it was emotional, but I never met this woman.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_01: This is the woman I talk about all the time.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: I've still never met this woman ever.
1:15:49
SPEAKER_01: I haven't met her still.
1:15:51
SPEAKER_01: And I have to tell you, after a while, I never met her.
1:15:55
SPEAKER_01: And over time I couldn't remember her last name.
1:15:58
SPEAKER_01: But to tell you something funny, literally for two years, a complete stranger, I literally'd say, I feel like I have a crush on a woman I've never met that I can't remember her last name.
1:16:10
SPEAKER_01: And that feeling of a crush, right?
1:16:12
SPEAKER_01: That heart sense of love, something, I knew it couldn't be the physical human being woman.
1:16:21
SPEAKER_01: I knew it couldn't be, but I couldn't separate it.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't.
1:16:26
SPEAKER_01: And nothing I could do.
1:16:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's no way I could meet this person.
1:16:30
SPEAKER_01: So, long story short, I start here lately, and I go through a massive psychic deaths throughout those next two or three years.
1:16:42
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:16:43
SPEAKER_01: Because my kids are getting older.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm moving from single dad, homeschooling, business success.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm in that spot, right?
1:16:55
SPEAKER_01: My son's getting ready to launch.
1:16:56
SPEAKER_01: My youngest son is pretty independent.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_01: Our business is doing fantastic.
1:17:00
SPEAKER_01: Joe's moving into his next what?
1:17:03
SPEAKER_01: His next adventure.
1:17:05
SPEAKER_01: And I knew it as it was happening.
1:17:07
SPEAKER_01: How did I know?
1:17:08
SPEAKER_01: Because books start flowing through me again.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know anything about a podcast, nothing about all this.
1:17:15
SPEAKER_01: I go to South Africa, I start a live stream, and it all just starts to flow.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_01: And in that whole process, the expansion.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, how the expansion, how I really moved from gratitude to grace was very simple.
1:17:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm in South Africa, and I learned that over 400 million people don't have running water in the continent of South Africa.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_01: My head exploded.
1:17:45
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't believe it.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't believe it.
1:17:48
SPEAKER_01: And I just didn't know.
1:17:50
SPEAKER_01: Bottom line.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, I come back, I start a nonprofit called Project Smile.
1:17:54
SPEAKER_01: And what I'm getting ready to say here right now, right?
1:17:57
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody's gonna have a global podcast.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody's gonna help 100 million people, not everybody's gonna write 20 books, not everybody's gonna be a millionaire.
1:18:07
SPEAKER_01: You're not, but anybody can do what I just am getting ready to describe right now.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_01: So basically, I came back, I went on this thing called LinkedIn.
1:18:17
SPEAKER_01: All of you know LinkedIn, all of you have a LinkedIn page.
1:18:20
SPEAKER_01: I hope you follow me.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_01: Connect with me on social media, just go out there, Joe Medico, whatever.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm out there, social media.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_01: Connect with me.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_01: And I look for and I find a caregiver in Uganda on LinkedIn.
1:18:36
SPEAKER_01: And simple.
1:18:38
SPEAKER_01: Any human tonight could go on LinkedIn and find a caregiver.
1:18:43
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:18:44
SPEAKER_01: Because I wanted to do something about it.
1:18:46
SPEAKER_01: When I see something broken, I can't sit back.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_01: I can't act like I don't know.
1:18:52
SPEAKER_01: I have to do something.
1:18:53
SPEAKER_01: Now, my style is always massive.
1:18:56
SPEAKER_01: What's my goal?
1:18:57
SPEAKER_01: He'll get every human in the continent of Africa to have water.
1:19:00
SPEAKER_01: That's just Joe's personality.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_01: How'd I start?
1:19:03
SPEAKER_01: With one caregiver.
1:19:04
SPEAKER_01: And that one caregiver, we connect.
1:19:07
SPEAKER_01: He asked me for$50.
1:19:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't have all the voices that most people do.
1:19:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a scam, it's a this, it's a that, you know.
1:19:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
1:19:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know what?
1:19:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
1:19:17
SPEAKER_01: Why don't I care?
1:19:18
SPEAKER_01: Because it felt good for me to send the$50.
1:19:21
SPEAKER_01: That's why.
1:19:22
SPEAKER_01: And that$50 was going to a little girl named Patricia because she had broken her arm.
1:19:27
SPEAKER_01: Picture this.
1:19:29
SPEAKER_01: Picture your seven-year-old or eight-year-old child with a broken arm wrapped in gauze because you have no medicine and you have nothing to do.
1:19:37
SPEAKER_01: How what would you do as a dad?
1:19:40
SPEAKER_01: Your seven-year-old has a broken arm.
1:19:42
SPEAKER_01: You'd sell your Mercedes.
1:19:43
SPEAKER_01: You'd sell whatever.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, this little girl, seven years old, she had a broken arm.
1:19:48
SPEAKER_01: They sent me the x-rays.
1:19:50
SPEAKER_01: I send the 50 bucks, and lo and behold, it took me 15 minutes.
1:19:55
SPEAKER_01: There's apps, worldnet, literally, click, click, click.
1:20:00
SPEAKER_01: My$50 goes from Atlanta to Uganda in two minutes.
1:20:06
SPEAKER_01: Had no idea.
1:20:06
SPEAKER_01: It's all part of the generation of change technology.
1:20:09
SPEAKER_01: So what I did not expect was two hours later, they sent me a video.
1:20:15
SPEAKER_01: They, meaning this caregiver and his 22 kids, they sent me a video saying, thank you, Mr.
1:20:24
SPEAKER_01: Joe, for the support.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_01: And they have Mr.
1:20:28
SPEAKER_01: Joe in a picture of me.
1:20:29
SPEAKER_01: I was blown away.
1:20:33
SPEAKER_01: So you wonder, got nothing to do this weekend?
1:20:37
SPEAKER_01: Go on LinkedIn.
1:20:39
SPEAKER_01: Find a caregiver.
1:20:40
SPEAKER_01: Send them 50 bucks.
1:20:41
SPEAKER_01: Create a relationship.
1:20:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, how do you do it?
1:20:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:20:44
SPEAKER_01: How'd I do it?
1:20:45
SPEAKER_01: I just found somebody.
1:20:47
SPEAKER_01: And again, but this gentleman, because you know, he didn't know I was sending it regardless.
1:20:51
SPEAKER_01: I didn't care if it was a scam or not.
1:20:52
SPEAKER_01: Felt good for me to send it.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_01: So they have licenses, literally.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_01: My second caregiver, I have two caregivers, Project Smile, that I help.
1:21:03
SPEAKER_01: They have nothing.
1:21:04
SPEAKER_01: They have no water.
1:21:06
SPEAKER_01: The one guy has 44 kids, they have no shoes.
1:21:10
SPEAKER_01: Think about your kid with no shoes.
1:21:12
SPEAKER_01: Why do I keep putting it back?
1:21:14
SPEAKER_01: Because everywhere I look here in Atlanta, everybody has water.
1:21:17
SPEAKER_01: Everywhere I look, unless they're at the pool, everybody has shoes.
1:21:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, there they don't.
1:21:22
SPEAKER_01: And why do I say that?
1:21:24
SPEAKER_01: Because we are an abundant world.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_01: And I hope everybody on this phone call makes millions and millions and millions of dollars.
1:21:31
SPEAKER_01: This isn't a guilt call, it's an abundance call.
1:21:36
SPEAKER_01: Because my Project Smile plan is to ask people for 1%.
1:21:41
SPEAKER_01: 1%.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_01: Why?
1:21:43
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to help heal Africa.
1:21:45
SPEAKER_01: I want to help heal places that have such water tragedies.
1:21:49
SPEAKER_01: I really do.
1:21:50
SPEAKER_01: And for me, I cannot describe.
1:21:52
SPEAKER_01: I can think about it now.
1:21:54
SPEAKER_01: And I have that same feeling of grace.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_01: $50.
1:21:57
SPEAKER_01: When my sons and I go to the restaurant, we spend a hundred.
1:22:02
SPEAKER_01: Minimum.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_01: I said, so what would have happened if she wouldn't have got the$50?
1:22:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, we communicate back and forth through WhatsApp.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_01: He says, Well, they would have to eventually cut it off for$50.
1:22:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, you want something to do?
1:22:21
SPEAKER_01: Find a caregiver.
1:22:22
SPEAKER_01: Communicate with them.
1:22:24
SPEAKER_01: And all you have to do, if you're communicating, have them send you their state license.
1:22:28
SPEAKER_01: Those state license, that's a real life thing.
1:22:31
SPEAKER_01: It is.
1:22:32
SPEAKER_01: And if you really want to do something, get on WhatsApp.
1:22:35
SPEAKER_01: So I had a live stream.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to end with this last story about my caregivers and how it built to where it is now.
1:22:43
SPEAKER_01: But at a live stream.
1:22:46
SPEAKER_01: Eventually at 50,000 people on a live stream called Project Smile.
1:22:50
SPEAKER_01: And we did a live stream.
1:22:52
SPEAKER_01: And my guys, brother Ben, put Patricia, this little girl, on the live stream, you know, on my camera here.
1:22:59
SPEAKER_01: So I'm on WhatsApp video with this precious little six-year-old.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_01: She's holding her arms above her head.
1:23:06
SPEAKER_01: She speaks Zuhili.
1:23:07
SPEAKER_01: She didn't understand a word I was saying.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't, and I, of course, I didn't understand her.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_01: All I see is this big smile and these big beautiful eyes.
1:23:16
SPEAKER_01: And I was never the same.
1:23:18
SPEAKER_01: Never.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_01: For$50.
1:23:21
SPEAKER_01: That's where I learned the difference between gratitude and grace.
1:23:25
SPEAKER_01: Right there.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_01: Gratitude, the pursuit and action steps of gratitude.
1:23:31
SPEAKER_01: You put out there in the world, overflow, you receive back in the receiving, it's gratitude.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_01: You put it out there in overflow, you receive back, it's gratitude.
1:23:40
SPEAKER_01: Grace is the experience you experience as the act of giving, not the act of receiving.
1:23:47
SPEAKER_01: It's grace.
1:23:49
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, grace is an ever-living experience.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_01: Gratitude is an ever-fleeting experience.
1:23:56
SPEAKER_01: You do something on a Tuesday, you're grateful for it, but then by Thursday, you have to do something else to be grateful again.
1:24:01
SPEAKER_01: And then next Monday, grateful again.
1:24:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like the hamster wheel.
1:24:04
SPEAKER_01: Anything wrong with that?
1:24:05
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:24:06
SPEAKER_01: That's what most people call life.
1:24:07
SPEAKER_01: And it is a beautiful life.
1:24:09
SPEAKER_01: But eventually, your spirit's asking you to get off the hamster wheel.
1:24:14
SPEAKER_01: You've already got enough money in the bank.
1:24:17
SPEAKER_01: You've already launched your kids.
1:24:19
SPEAKER_01: You've already done great things.
1:24:20
SPEAKER_01: You've already had an established business.
1:24:23
SPEAKER_01: You're already in a set place.
1:24:25
SPEAKER_01: Now it's time to pursue your grace.
1:24:29
SPEAKER_01: How do you do it, Joe?
1:24:30
SPEAKER_01: You ask.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_01: With your pain, with your angst, with your hurt, you ask the inner self, how are you feeling?
1:24:39
SPEAKER_01: You ask, you listen, give a voice to the child.
1:24:42
SPEAKER_01: Then you live.
1:24:43
SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, if it's inner child and inner pain, the living is going to be the emoting of emotion.
1:24:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, when you're pursuing your grace, you ask your divinity, ask.
1:24:56
SPEAKER_01: Guide me.
1:24:56
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, what am I supposed to do?
1:24:58
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, how can I give back?
1:25:00
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, what's the rest of my life look like?
1:25:03
SPEAKER_01: Dear God.
1:25:04
SPEAKER_01: If you get in that practice of silence, literally build up, you'll hear the voice.
1:25:12
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, it's probably not what you're thinking.
1:25:17
SPEAKER_01: Society has it so skewed that it's supposed to always be massive and millions and you know, people liking you.
1:25:26
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm telling you, I experienced God on August the 5th when the woman who I called in deep angst asking for help, because I didn't know how you know to what action steps for Zeus's last days, last moments.
1:25:47
SPEAKER_01: And I reached out for help.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_01: And this woman, the receptionist, she was God.
1:25:53
SPEAKER_01: Her compassion, her love, her gentleness, and my deepest angst gave me comfort.
1:26:05
SPEAKER_01: It did.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_01: So I can tell you, whatever voice you're hearing, it may be grand, it may be change the world, it may be affect millions, and it may be affect your neighbor, it may be volunteer.
1:26:24
SPEAKER_01: I've got a sister who is planning in the next couple of years, her daughter's in college, I mean in high school, and that's a whole nother story, which I'll tell.
1:26:35
SPEAKER_01: And she's planning to get a little dog and take it to hospitals.
1:26:39
SPEAKER_01: That's what she's planning to do with in her retirement.
1:26:42
SPEAKER_01: A couple days a week, take the dog, a comfort dog to hospitals.
1:26:46
SPEAKER_01: Now, would that be Joe's thing?
1:26:47
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:26:48
SPEAKER_01: Just like my 40,000-piece puzzle.
1:26:50
SPEAKER_01: She says to me, I could never do that.
1:26:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're sisters.
1:26:54
SPEAKER_01: We grew up together our whole lives.
1:26:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're different people.
1:26:57
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know what your it is, but you have the way you find it, you have to ask.
1:27:03
SPEAKER_01: How do you literally become part of humanity's healing?
1:27:07
SPEAKER_01: How do you do it?
1:27:09
SPEAKER_01: You have to ask.
1:27:10
SPEAKER_01: And who are you asking?
1:27:12
SPEAKER_01: Your divinity.
1:27:12
SPEAKER_01: Where's that divinity at?
1:27:14
SPEAKER_01: In you.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_01: It's in you.
1:27:17
SPEAKER_01: Created in God's image, your oneness.
1:27:20
SPEAKER_01: Why do people that are giving back feel so connected, feel so whole, feel so full?
1:27:29
SPEAKER_01: Because they're living through the divinity that's in them right now.
1:27:35
SPEAKER_01: Aloneness is your separation between your humanity and your divinity.
1:27:40
SPEAKER_01: Oneness is when you and your humanity and your divinity are living as one.
1:27:47
SPEAKER_01: How do you do it?
1:27:48
SPEAKER_01: You ask.
1:27:49
SPEAKER_01: My next couple episodes, I'm gonna go into detail about that whole process of following a divine path.
1:27:59
SPEAKER_01: And Coming out the other side on a really cool place.
1:28:03
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for being here, everybody.
1:28:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, I really appreciate the support.
1:28:08
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate everybody being here.
1:28:10
SPEAKER_01: I hope you visit my website, joemitica.com, download my book.
1:28:15
SPEAKER_01: I look forward to getting some comments back.
1:28:17
SPEAKER_01: I look forward to hearing the effects.
1:28:19
SPEAKER_01: We're starting a book club to where we're going to have 12-week sessions where people can literally use the book as a healing process.
1:28:29
SPEAKER_01: And my PR person, Adrian Ashley, is creating all that for us.
1:28:34
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's an exciting time.
1:28:36
SPEAKER_01: It really is.
1:28:37
SPEAKER_01: And it's exciting because prior to September the 20th, 2022, I had never met somebody on a conscious path.
1:28:46
SPEAKER_01: Never.
1:28:47
SPEAKER_01: Literally.
1:28:48
SPEAKER_01: That I feel like I have a crush on a woman I've never met.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_01: You know what that was?
1:28:52
SPEAKER_01: I find out just three or four months ago that this woman is more spiritually connected to her heart than I am.
1:29:01
SPEAKER_01: I had never experienced that before.
1:29:03
SPEAKER_01: So I had no context to it.
1:29:05
SPEAKER_01: No context.
1:29:06
SPEAKER_01: All I know is that I crossed the path of somebody in my heart opened.
1:29:10
SPEAKER_01: And it never happened before.
1:29:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, it took me three and a half years to figure it out, but that's what it was.
1:29:16
SPEAKER_01: This woman is more spiritually connected to her heart than me.
1:29:20
SPEAKER_01: And why is that such a beautiful thing for Joe?
1:29:22
SPEAKER_01: Because in that moment, I always knew there were others, but I never knew.
1:29:27
SPEAKER_01: I'd never crossed the path.
1:29:28
SPEAKER_01: I'd never experienced it.
1:29:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, now with the We Podcast, how could the We Podcast literally be ranked 80th in the globe?
1:29:35
SPEAKER_01: Because of all of you.
1:29:36
SPEAKER_01: You're all on the same path as me.
1:29:38
SPEAKER_01: Most of you are more spiritually connected than me.
1:29:41
SPEAKER_01: I can promise you, especially women out there.
1:29:43
SPEAKER_01: Most of you women have had intuitions your entire life.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_01: You're 25 years ahead start.
1:29:48
SPEAKER_01: I just started connecting with my intuition two or three months ago.
1:29:51
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have my first emotional releases until my early 30s.
1:29:56
SPEAKER_01: So women who have been consciously connected to your intuition your whole life, you've had emotional communion most of your life, and now you've got a spiritual wisdom that's catching up so you can actually follow.
1:30:09
SPEAKER_01: Powerful, powerful.
1:30:11
SPEAKER_01: And I look forward to meeting you on the road.
1:30:13
SPEAKER_01: I really do.
1:30:14
SPEAKER_01: The We podcast is doing something so bizarrely different, not because the man, but because the message.
1:30:22
SPEAKER_01: I am very practiced at sharing my connection, my message, no question.
1:30:28
SPEAKER_01: But each of you are doing the same thing.
1:30:31
SPEAKER_01: You're on the receiving side of my message.
1:30:34
SPEAKER_01: And it's time as you leave a podcast like this, hopefully, unlike the last podcast, where you know we were connecting together in a very deeply emotionally intense conversation.
1:30:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, this podcast, I'm hoping it's more of a hope-filled, glass-full spiritual experience.
1:30:57
SPEAKER_01: Get off right now when you're finished and ask your higher power, what am I supposed to do the next 10, 20 years of my life?
1:31:05
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, please guide me.
1:31:07
SPEAKER_01: Just put that as your mantra.
1:31:09
SPEAKER_01: Dear God, please guide me.
1:31:10
SPEAKER_01: And then when you hear it, regardless of what you hear, then ask for strength and courage to follow what you heard.
1:31:17
SPEAKER_01: Because as more of us are willing to give back, as more of us are willing to use the overflow that we gain and give back to humanity, that's how we heal humanity.
1:31:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's what the We podcast is all about is healing humanity.
1:31:31
SPEAKER_01: Because together, we're growing.
1:31:34
SPEAKER_01: Together, we're changing.
1:31:36
SPEAKER_01: Together, we're healing.
1:31:38
SPEAKER_01: And literally, together, we're healing humanity one smile at a time.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_01: And from around the world, I want to welcome you all to We.
1:31:56
SPEAKER_00: So that's it for today's episode of the We Podcast.
1:31:59
SPEAKER_00: Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show.
1:32:04
SPEAKER_00: One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a$25,000 private VIP day with Joe himself.
1:32:18
SPEAKER_00: Be sure to head on over to WePodcast.