Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / Your inner child LONGS to be SEEN.

Transcript

Your inner child LONGS to be SEEN. · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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you actually love attention.
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You actually love attention.
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Anything on Earth has its shadow sides and its light sides
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and we have been made to reject the idea
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of being attended to in a nourishing way.
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And what I invite you to think about
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is that there is an inner child within you
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who longs to be witnessed.
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There is something deeply expansive
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about the right kind of attention,
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about attention that is loving and nurturing,
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compassionate, kind, present.
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And because so many of us did not experience
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this kind of attention,
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we've been taught to equate
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some of our more negative or traumatic experiences
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with attention such as bullying or criticism
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or judgment with the whole idea of attention itself.
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And it is time to reclaim the nourishing, beautiful,
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soul-expanding aspects of attention.
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Just like anything in nature like a knife
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or something sharp can be used to carve and make art,
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make something beautiful
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or it can be used to cause harm.
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A relationship as we know can be a classroom
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for love and healing and consciousness
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or it can be a horrifying space,
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a cage, a prison for manipulation,
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for narcissism, for abuse.
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So the container is neutral.
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It's what's then contained within it
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that becomes what we then associate with that category.
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So when attention comes into the field,
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we can associate all our experiences
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that have been negative with attention
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with the whole notion of attention itself.
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But there is something so life-giving about attention.
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Why does the peacock look like that?
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Why is the sun said so gorgeous?
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There is a technology of witnessing baked into nature.
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It's like when someone has honed their craft,
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eventually they get to the point where they want to share it,
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they want to be witnessed, they want to be seen.
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Because there is a deep wisdom, ancient wisdom
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in each of us to not hoard our gifts, but to share them.
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And so if there's something within you seeking
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to be brought out, to be expressed,
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part of what it is asking for you to do
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is to reclaim that attention gets to feel juicy
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and safe and delicious and that it is your divine birthright
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to be witnessed.
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Just like the trees, just like the full moon or the stars,
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just like anything deeply beautiful in the cosmos,
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your spirit, your gifts, your magic,
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desire to be shared and seen
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and held with that kind of loving attention
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that truly can heal the world.
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I would say there is attention that is so expanding
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and there is attention that is so crushing.
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We all know the feeling when you're scrolling on Instagram
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and you just feel so much worse about yourself
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because of this toxic society that we live in,
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toxic beauty standards, consumerism, capitalism
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and then also of course all the trauma
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that we are witnessing in the world,
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that's a completely different story
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and I send so much love to the world.
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But let's stay on this topic of attention.
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So soul crushing attention leaves you feeling worse about yourself.
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But I posit, I propose,
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that the kind of attention that you embody to the world
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is very soul expanding.
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When people listen to your music,
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when people tune into your voice and vibration,
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when people feel into your heart and your energy
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in your videos, in your essays,
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when people read your sub-stack or read your book,
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they are fortified, they are expanded by attending to you.
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So it's not fair to only associate attention
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with being attention seeking
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and seeing that as a negative thing.
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We are taught in childhood that it's not safe
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to take up too much space
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or we can be it depending on where you grew up.
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So there's so many things that even a younger version of ourselves
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may have been magnificent at taking up space.
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She or they or he loved attention,
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loved the spotlight, sang, danced,
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made up little skits and accents
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and then over time this exuberance got squeezed
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and repressed and sort of like,
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I'm getting an image of needing bread
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and the beauty of needing bread
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as you're transforming it into a form
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that can then be baked in the oven,
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but of course you're transforming it
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so you are ending one form to make space for another.
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And so society does this where it takes us
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as these magical expansive flower,
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you know, these magical expansive possibilities
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and sort of shapes and carves us into
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what is most suitable for that society,
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which is a version of us who is dulled down, dampened down,
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a version of us who's not taking up space
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in a way that is subversive
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or that could garner attention in a way
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that could go against the social order and status quo.
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So we were conditioned out of that natural exuberance
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and what I think the invitation is to reclaim
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that we don't only fear being seen.
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We also love being seen.
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There's a part of you that loves being seen.
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They love it, they love attention,
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they love when they make a joke at the dinner table
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and everyone looks at them and everyone listens and laughs.
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They love when they sing and people actually look at them
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instead of continuing on their phone.
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They love when they speak and someone is present.
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So we love witnessing.
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We love when someone notices something we said,
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remembers it.
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We love when someone deeply listens.
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So it's time to reclaim that we love attention.
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We love nourishing, so expanding, delicious, sacred,
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attention and the universe has given us
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the technology of attention for a reason
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because we didn't come here only to attend.
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That's why you feel so out of whack
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when you are only consuming item, not creating it
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because you also came here to be a creator of your life
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and therefore to be attended to in that capacity
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that doesn't have to be by being a content creator
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on social media, it could be,
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but it could also be in a room at a poetry-spoken word event.
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As we home our craft in private,
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there's just something that calls for us
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to share it in public more and more.
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So how can you reclaim your love of attention?
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How can it become a safe desire
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for you to truly fully claim?
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Because I often think society makes it difficult
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to talk about certain desires,
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so we talk about the attendant fear instead.
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So it's much easier to say,
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you know what I really fear being seen?
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Then say, you know what I really wish my art
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was getting more attention.
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I really actually like when people validate my work in public
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and so it really sucks when there's crickets.
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It's more challenging to claim,
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especially in a patriarchal, anti-black,
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white supremacist, homophobic world,
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all of the things, ableist, also demonizing the feminine
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in anyone, demonizing certain ways and modes
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of being or expression, toxic beauty standards.
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It's really challenging to claim
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and reclaim our desire to attend,
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our desire to be attended to.
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So how can you make it so safe and juicy to say,
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I love being seen?
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I invite you to say that off to me.
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I love being seen when it's nourishing.
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I love being seen when it's safe.
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I love being seen when it feels like someone is holding me
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in the eyes of love.
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I want to give an example.
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You know, you like me, probably love food, right?
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We love food, don't we love food?
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But of course there's forms of food, we don't love.
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There's forms of food that don't feel good to us
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or that we may even be allergic to.
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There's forms of food that make us sick.
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Does that mean we should now hate food
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or say like it's not safe to say that I love food?
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No, it's a broad category.
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And we get to say we get to claim that we love food
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without like without associating that
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with the negative aspects of food.
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We get to prioritize and focus on the aspects of things
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that we love.
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So how can you say, oh my gosh,
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attention is this force in the universe
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that I've been rejecting.
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I've been saying, oh no, that's not safe.
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If I'm attended to, then I'll be canceled
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or criticized or judged.
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Wait, attention is trying to give so much to me.
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I came with a technology of attention.
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I came with a voice.
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I came with movement.
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I can like get your attention.
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That's for a reason.
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Babies cry loudly so that they can get the attention
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of their caretakers.
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This is a deep soothing, delicious technology
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that is of course in this world
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in this paradigm being misused.
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And you know that attention is most important
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because look at how the media system works.
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Look at how the media system works.
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I'm just gonna leave it at that.
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So how can you reclaim that you love attention
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and attention loves you?
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Can you create moments in your life
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where attention felt really good?
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Are there performances you did when you achiled
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that you loved?
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Do you get these glimmers of moments
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when you listen to music?
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And it's a music video on your the center of attention
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and it feels so good.
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It feels so good.
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Okay, when you sing, do you imagine a crowd listening to you?
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When you speak, are you like speaking to an invisible room?
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That's what I used to do.
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Like not imagining sort of a stage
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but just imagining that there were people listening to me
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since I was a child.
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I would just walk and speak to myself
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as though I was like performing for the world, you know,
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as I was sharing.
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And there's something beautiful about that.
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I believe you've come here to be attended to otherwise
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all the magic that you are would be collapsed within to you
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because attention is the mechanism
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through which we get to experience you.
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So you could have all these gifts, all this magic,
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all this healing energy.
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But if you don't make yourself findable,
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no one else gets to experience it.
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So it's really beautiful that you get to experience it
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in your journal, in your life, talking to yourself,
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talking to people.
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But unless you speak a word of love in a room with your friends
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and then they're like, oh my gosh, that really stuck with me,
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oh my word, that really moved me.
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That technology of attention is here to help us spread magic.
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But of course, just like the knife,
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it can also be used to spread toxicity.
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So why I believe you need to be attended to
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is because you are part of the soul expanding form of attention.
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And I believe if all of our attention is directed towards
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things that expand our souls, we will live in heaven on earth.
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That's what I believe.
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If all the music is so expanding and all the books
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and all the movies, now soul expanding doesn't mean
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it doesn't talk about the deep traumas of life.
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That is also truthful, you know, we can hold both,
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but it's that it's nourishing the spirit.
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We just know it.
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I don't even have to explain it to you.
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You know when you watch a movie and you're like,
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oh my word, that nourished me, like sinners.
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And you know when you watch something
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and you're like, oh my god, that depleted me.
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There's something spiritually that was off
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about that experience.
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And look at what they get us hooked on.
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A lot of media that does that, you know what I mean?
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So I know it can feel like we're in a time of hopelessness
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and despair.
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We must witness and bear witness.
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And of course, as I said, it's a privileged to bear witness.
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I don't have the perfect words.
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But what I will say with so much love in my heart
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is that the possibility of building a healed
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and loving world is possible if each of us listens
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to the loving artist within and lets him, lets him lead.
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Because heaven on earth, utopia, paradise, Nirvana,
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a world with mutual abundance and thriving,
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a world of mutual beauty where everyone gets to participate
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in how beautiful life can be.
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That world is possible, but it can only happen
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through the creation of the happening,
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through making the music that that would entail,
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through creating the dances or the healing modalities,
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through creating the ideas, through sharing the opinions,
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through writing the books, sci-fi, you know, fiction,
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essays, whatever it is, through creating things
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that nourish the spirit such that that's our standard.
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Now, we don't, it's like once you've tasted,
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it's almost like when people stop drinking.
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And then they thought they'd only do like a dry January.
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And now they're like, oh my god, I'm sleeping better.
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I like who I am more.
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I get a higher quality of like presence and memory.
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Why would I ever go back?
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So if you show people better alternatives,
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they will take them.
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So we can't, this is also why I sort of believe like,
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part of my role is not to focus on what's wrong with the world.
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Part of my role is to speak into the possibility
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of what could be so right.
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And I believe you are that possibility.
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I believe your poetry, your music, your sub stacks,
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your everything, helps pave.
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Like, pave puts a brick on the surface of the planet,
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walking us closer to utopia and paradise.
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I believe your consciousness is here for a reason
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and came at this specific time for a reason.
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And whether you talk about the grief and despair of the world,
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or if you talk about the beauty and light,
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your frequency, your purpose, like whatever calling is in your heart,
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at whatever scale, around two people, around two million,
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it is intentionally designed as a technology towards healing.
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We need you.
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We need your magic.
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We need your gifts.
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And please do not let the voice of perfectionism
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doubt, not good enough ism.
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Fear, stop you from doing your work in this lifetime.
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You know what's so funny?
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People at the end of their life,
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we know that the regrets in that book,
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the five regrets of the dying.
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I haven't read the book,
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but we, a lot of us are familiar with the idea
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that most people at the end of their life,
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regret not having lived a life true to themselves.
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What regrets sort of hides is the discomfort
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you would have had to face in order to avoid
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the discomfort of regret.
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So it's kind of easier to say,
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oh, I really regret not sticking with my sub-stack.
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Then it is to say,
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I wish I had chosen the discomfort again and again
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and again of writing my sub-stack.
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Do you hear how it's a different frequency?
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So when you face discomfort on that brick building
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towards that place that you take us to,
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trust that that discomfort,
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that fear, it is part of your purpose,
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it is part of your path,
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and it is part of how you do such a solid to your future self
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because any discomfort you take today
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is a regret avoided tomorrow.
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Anything that makes you uncomfortable,
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that you avoid today, you are caching out to your future self.
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Oh, I don't wanna deal with this, you deal with it.
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I don't wanna deal with the pain or the shame of this.
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So when I'm 80, 90, 100 years old,
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that's when I'll have to deal with it.
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That's when I'll sit and be like, oh, my word.
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If only I just reached out.
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In fact, I read this other book,
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I did read this book on regrets called The Power of Regret.
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He did this global, the author, Daniel Pink,
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did this global study of regret.
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He said the number one regret is actually lost connections.
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It's not actually authenticity.
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And I like this idea of the biggest regret being
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actually quite a social regret losing touch.
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So maybe the invitation from this video
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that I didn't even know was gonna be the invitation
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is who can you reach out to who you've lost touch with?
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I know there are people,
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it's like do you ever avoid the avoidance
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where you like so ashamed that you've taken long to respond?
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So then you avoid the shame of not responding
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and then you therefore perpetuate the pain
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of not responding to someone.
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Totally there, totally in it.
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And hold yourself with love and grace.
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Grace is like the ground that all relationship walks on.
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And the more grace you give to yourself and to others,
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the more you can frolic, you cannot feel constrained.
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You cannot feel like you're walking on stilts,
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always precarious, always about to fall.
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So giving yourself grace, giving others grace
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when someone reaches out and apologizes profusely,
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giving them grace, it's okay, I understand.
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I've been there too.
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In fact, whenever someone takes months to respond to me,
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I almost feel relieved because I'm like,
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I'm not the only one.
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It makes me feel better about myself
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because I'm like, so we're all struggling to keep up.
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So if I owe you a text, just know it's coming your way.
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Oh, okay, anyways, how could you reach out to lost connection?
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We don't want that regret.
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Discomfort now, delight later.
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Always think of me when you think about discomfort now,
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delight later, discomfort uncomfortable to be seen now,
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delighted of what I built over many years later.
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Uncomfortable to take this first step now, delight later.
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Uncomfortable to apologize now,
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delightful later to be like,
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oh, my word, I repaired that relationship.
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Delightful, delightful.
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This uncomfortable to admit something in your life
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is seeking to be changed, let go of or released,
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integrated, you know,
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owned up to held accountable, whatever it may be,
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delightful on the other side to say I'm so proud of myself
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because that lesson could have taken me 10 years to learn.
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If you are seeking a creative community
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to face discomfort alongside you,
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I want to invite you to join Soulcraft.
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Soulcraft is a soul-led creative community,
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giving you the accountability and support
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to turn your dreams into reality.
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This is specifically for creative dreams,
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starting a podcast, writing a book,
16:55
growing your YouTube channel,
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finally honoring the desire in your heart
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to go back to singing or acting or playing the piano,
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being surrounded by other artists
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and people who are even walking the path
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to reclaiming that identity for themselves.
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People who are soulful and heart-led,
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who have big dreams for what they want to create in their life,
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the creative birthing process, it is so vulnerable.
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It is so vulnerable for this video, I was like,
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oh, my word, I'm not gonna have the words to say.
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I'm not gonna have the words to say.
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And it's vulnerable, but you know what we do?
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We do it anyway with accountability and support.
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Many people have the exact same dream that you have.
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Many people wanna write a book,
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many people wanna have a podcast in a gorgeous studio
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where they travel across the world
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interviewing the most incredible magical wise guests.
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I'm not speaking about myself, no, I'm not.
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But the difference, I believe,
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can be the accountability that makes that dream inevitable.
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The support structure, the dream team
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that holds your soul's dream, okay?
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Every soul dream requires a soul team.
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If you are seeking one, it may be seeking you
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through the form of soul craft,
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you can learn more in the link below.
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I'm sending so much love to you.
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Please reclaim the attention that is your birthright
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and that we seek to experience through you.
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And I hope that you have the most magical rest of your day.
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I love you so much.
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And I'll see you on the next soul session.
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I love you, bye.
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My darling, my love, my soul sibling.
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Thank you for stepping into the soul salon.
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If you are still hearing or watching this,
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we are soul siblings.
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We are resonating on the same frequency.
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And so something you may struggle with
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that I struggle with is the fear of being seen.
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You know that visibility is involved
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in you living your creative purpose
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and being in your power,
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serving the collective through your gifts,
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through your magic, through your medicine.
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In order to do that, you know you need to be more seen
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than you are allowing yourself to be right now.
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I have a gift just for you,
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heart made for us on this frequency.
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And it is a free ebook called
18:59
The Soulful Visibility Guide.
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That is soulful visibility.
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Like we don't just want to be seen.
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We want to be felt.
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We want to be heard.
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We want to move and be moved.
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So I do have a free gift for you.
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And all you need to do is go to my website,
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Ianderstud.com.
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And there you will be able to input your email address
19:19
and receive this directly to your inbox.
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This is such a juicy and delicious guide.
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And I change the free offering every few months.
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So you know, get it while you can.
19:29
All the links are in the show notes.
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So thank you so much.
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I love you.
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And I will see you on the next sole session.
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OK, I love you.
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Bye.