Latest / Truth Talks with Kelly Mason / No One Knew: The Hidden Reality of Addiction, Ego & Self-Abandonment | A Conversation with Joseph Pennell

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No One Knew: The Hidden Reality of Addiction, Ego & Self-Abandonment | A Conversation with Joseph Pennell · Truth Talks with Kelly Mason

0:00
Hello everyone, welcome back to Truth Talks.
0:03
I'm so happy to be here today with Joseph Pennell.
0:06
Joseph has an incredible story. I met him through a mastermind
0:10
group, another mastermind group. I love my mastermind groups.
0:14
I just had to invite Joseph to my podcast.
0:18
So anyway, welcome Joseph. So happy to have you here.
0:22
Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
0:23
You're very welcome. So you've been through quite a
0:27
challenging life so far. What I'm really curious about is
0:32
when did it start? Is this something that started
0:36
for you in childhood or did you have a difficult childhood?
0:40
What was your truth back then and how did that all roll out
0:43
for you? Yeah, so I've been going to
0:46
therapy. I've been learning a lot more
0:47
about what started the struggles mentally for me, because on
0:52
paper, if you start looking at the way I grew up, or at least
0:56
from high school on, everything looked rosy.
1:00
Good student, good athlete, poised for success on paper,
1:05
right? But you start looking further
1:06
and further back. I had a childhood that was my
1:10
father was a drug addict. My mother, she was great.
1:13
She's deaf. So she, she had her own
1:14
struggles and I didn't understand that as a child.
1:17
I thought that a lot of my childhood, which was spent
1:22
outdoors in my own mind, being very imaginative, was just
1:25
normal for me. But I had a a dysfunctional
1:29
family. But I love my family dynamic.
1:31
At that time, I didn't know a lot of what all of those things
1:34
meant for me and how I started to recede into myself for many
1:40
years. And my brother died when I was
1:43
in high school, which took its toll on me as it would anybody.
1:47
But being that I was very introverted and being how I grew
1:51
up, where I did recede into myself, everything that I did, I
1:56
internalized it and I kept it to myself.
2:00
And growing up and not wanting to let any of those emotions
2:04
out, I was very much a jock by all standards, very much.
2:09
I wouldn't say a man's man. I never really had a feeling
2:13
that I had to act in a certain way, but I definitely showed all
2:18
of the symptoms of a typical guy who kept his emotions in.
2:22
I just didn't know how much it was damaging to myself.
2:26
And so being that I had the childhood that I did, and
2:30
there's a lot of steps along the way in which, you know, being a
2:34
lot of mental abuse, mostly of myself.
2:37
But I've had people put their hands on me when I was younger,
2:39
and that's a topic for another show.
2:41
But having those things happen and then progressing along in my
2:45
life and then my brother passing and me not wanting to be another
2:50
detriment to my family, I kept quiet.
2:53
I didn't want to stir up any problems.
2:55
I saw how my mother responded to his death.
2:57
I saw how my father responded to his death.
2:59
And me. I thought I was being a savior
3:02
in some kind of way because I wasn't adding more to the chaos.
3:06
But what I was really doing was damaging myself in the process.
3:10
And everything that came after manifested or the ways I was
3:14
starting to live manifested into me drinking.
3:17
And I would cope with a lot of the anxieties that came up
3:20
because I was dealing with nothing.
3:22
I dealt with absolutely nothing for 20 plus years of my life.
3:26
And so I started to quiet the demons by drinking and that
3:30
spiraled. That spiraled very heavily.
3:33
And so I'm in the position that I am now because that same
3:38
introverted, introspective person that I was as a child and
3:42
as I grew up that needed to figure out life, needed to
3:47
figure out solutions, realized that I couldn't do it by just
3:52
keeping everything in. I couldn't do it.
3:55
I couldn't figure it out on my own.
3:56
And that was the hardest thing for me was not being able to do
3:59
it on my own. And I finally realized that I
4:01
needed help. I'm sure a lot of people can
4:03
relate to that and associate with what you've gone through.
4:07
It's really interesting. When I work with my clients, I
4:10
see that we're all connected energetically.
4:13
So even though your father was a drug addict and your mom was
4:17
deaf and going through her own struggles, you were still
4:21
connected to them energetically as a child.
4:24
That's just another aspect that we're not taught about ourselves
4:28
because you are still feeling things from them even, and
4:32
embodying and being connected and being part of that and then
4:37
trying to convince yourself that, OK, I'm being a good guy,
4:40
a good kid by by not stirring up any trouble, then you're
4:45
suffocating your own needs and your expression, your own
4:48
emotional expression. And it's so great that you were
4:52
finally able to get help. But you went through, I'm sure
4:56
you went through the dark night of the soul to get there too.
5:00
Will you tell us a little bit more about that?
5:02
When I was married for almost 17 years, excuse me, I was with her
5:07
for almost 17 years, married for about 10.
5:10
And I would drink on the weekends.
5:12
It would pick up, it would die down.
5:14
She kept me in check for the most part.
5:17
And I didn't realize how much I needed to be kept in check.
5:20
I didn't know how much I was drowning out some of those
5:23
demons. And it's steadily progressed and
5:26
it caused rifts in the relationship.
5:28
It wasn't the only problem that we had, but she would attempt to
5:34
take care of me at night. And I didn't know this.
5:36
I didn't know that a lot of what I was doing was striking a lot
5:40
of fear in her because she would wonder if I it when I fell
5:45
asleep at night, whether or not I was going to wake up the next
5:48
morning. So I give a lot of credit to
5:50
her. I didn't see it at the time.
5:52
I didn't see her as someone who was necessarily watching out for
5:56
me because I didn't want anything to stop the current
6:00
track that I was on because I didn't want to admit that I had
6:04
a problem and I didn't know how much of it was tied to my mental
6:07
health. So once I got divorced, I had
6:11
nobody to then keep me in check. And so I took the next step in
6:16
my drinking because I needed to silence those demons at all
6:19
times. And prior to getting divorced, I
6:23
was able to keep my mind on maybe the parts of the
6:26
relationship that weren't going well.
6:28
I was able to focus on that and be upset at that and just focus
6:33
on anything other than what was going on with me.
6:36
And so that was something that I had to come to grips with
6:39
because when I got divorced, I had nobody to focus on but me.
6:43
I didn't have any external factors that I could deviate my
6:47
attention towards, so I had nothing else to do but sit with
6:52
my feelings. And at that time, I couldn't do
6:54
that. My drinking got out of control.
6:56
I finally realized, and I spent a lot of nights, a lot of nights
7:01
just drinking myself to sleep. I would attempt to detox myself,
7:05
which you should never do. And I would wake up and attempt
7:10
to go to work and attempt to do the things that I would normally
7:13
do. And little by little, I would
7:15
start to shake. I would hallucinate, I would
7:18
attempt to work and it wouldn't go quite the way I was hoping
7:22
it. I started to lose functionality,
7:24
being that I was in a physical job.
7:26
I was working in a prison, and prior to that I was in the
7:29
military. So I started to lose my ability
7:32
to do normal things. And so I put myself in rehab and
7:38
it was the first time. I'm very much an out of sight,
7:41
out of mind individual, but it was the first time that I
7:45
relinquish control to somebody else because I gave up on myself
7:50
first, but then I gave up on the pressures I was putting on
7:54
myself to handle the problem on my own.
7:57
And once I did that and once I put myself in a safe space, I
8:02
realized that cats out of the bag, anybody who's going to know
8:05
about this is going to know I, my family, my friends, my work,
8:08
they're all going to know that I went to rehab and I did it to
8:11
myself, right? But I needed to, I needed to for
8:15
myself and for me, the natural progression after rehab was to
8:21
become OK with it because I couldn't tolerate the idea that
8:24
I even went to rehab. So I went on a personal growth
8:27
journey, which has led me to where I'm at now.
8:30
But it started with the idea that, look, if I'm going to do
8:33
this, then I have to figure out a way to make it right for
8:36
myself and mentally overcome the idea of the stigma that comes
8:40
along with it. So I struggled for many years
8:43
with the drinking and I struggled for more years with
8:47
the mental health aspect. And I'm finally starting to
8:52
reset myself, first with the drinking and then with the
8:56
growth and emotional regulation, all that.
8:59
Wow, That's so beautiful that you've shared all of that
9:02
because there are so many people in your situation that are
9:06
struggling with trying to take care of things themselves and
9:09
trying to get a handle on it and control that.
9:12
It's like you're walking a tightrope of life, right?
9:15
Like that tightrope of falling in the deep end or falling in
9:18
the other end that you don't really know what the Hell's on
9:21
the other end. Yeah.
9:22
Yeah, So, absolutely, yeah. There's so many people that are
9:26
ashamed of what they're doing or they know that it's wrong and
9:29
maybe they didn't get to the level that I was at.
9:32
Maybe they were worse off than I was. 1 aspect of the other when
9:36
it comes to either the addiction or whether it comes to mental
9:39
health. And we're all navigating our
9:42
emotions towards what we're doing with our emotions towards
9:46
what the other side looks like. And so that became the beacon
9:49
for me where I wasn't just OK with the idea of I'm going to
9:52
get sober and I'm going to figure things out.
9:54
I had to learn how to progress after that because now there's
9:59
nothing standing in my way because if I don't do anything
10:02
about my life now, it's purely my fault.
10:05
I can't blame not an addiction. I can't blame it on a failed
10:08
relationship that I wasn't innocent in either.
10:11
Like I had my hand in things going wrong.
10:14
I couldn't blame it on my childhood.
10:16
Those things are behind me. Once I started dressing all
10:19
these things, the onus is purely on myself to do something about
10:23
it. And I think my perspective and
10:26
the way that I think is, I wouldn't say it's unique, but
10:29
we're all unique in our own right.
10:30
But it is my perspective and I think that there are people that
10:35
could benefit from another unique perspective that doesn't
10:40
just look at the collective sorrow and the collective pain,
10:43
which you see a lot in the sobriety community.
10:46
It's let's all relate on this stage of pain where people can
10:51
get stuck there. Let's also connect on our plans
10:54
for progressive and collective growth.
10:56
I love that. And so now that you have come
10:59
into this new phase, new chapter of your life through so much
11:04
surrender, right? You surrendered to the fact
11:07
that, OK, I'm not going to blame myself for the way I treated
11:10
myself through childhood because you didn't know.
11:13
You just didn't know. Like we aren't at the emotional
11:16
level as children or even teenagers to understand how to
11:19
navigate certain aspects of our lives.
11:22
And then you came to the next phase of, OK, I'm going to
11:25
surrender to my drinking problem.
11:28
And I ain't going to let somebody else have that control.
11:30
And now that you're coming into this next phase of life, what
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are you surrendering to? What is it that's parting the
11:38
seas and opening that gateway to more freedom?
11:42
That's a good question. I would say that I'm
11:44
surrendering now to everything that was left in the wake of the
11:51
addiction. Once you've removed that, you're
11:54
stuck with your your personality, your insecurities,
11:58
and I have to come to grips with all of who I am and the good and
12:02
the bad. There's a lot of good in me,
12:04
just like there's a lot of good in a lot of people and there's
12:07
also a lot of bad in me. There's a lot of things that I
12:10
grew up learning or because of my own decisions and my own
12:13
behavior I transformed into. And the person that I am today
12:19
has a lot of deficiencies that I have to work through, including
12:22
insecurities in including not knowing who I am.
12:27
Without this thing to block out all the pain.
12:31
I have to live with the idea that maybe I missed out on a
12:34
huge chunk of life because I was too busy focusing on the
12:38
internal instead of my external world and trying to pull from it
12:43
all that I could. And so I have to surrender to to
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tie it back to the question, I have to surrender to my
12:50
weaknesses at this point and be honest about them.
12:55
Because a lot of the jobs that I do being that I was in the
12:59
military, I worked in a prison, a cyber intelligence analyst
13:03
now. So I have talked in front of a
13:06
large number of people and I did that in the military.
13:09
You look like you come from a position of strength.
13:12
And some of that is real, some of it is a confidence that I've
13:15
built over time and some of it is a projection of the person
13:19
that I want to be. But if I wanted to be solidified
13:22
as a part of my personality and a part of my demeanor and who I
13:27
am internally, I have to surrender to my weaknesses, be
13:31
honest about them, show them to others who may be feeling the
13:34
same way, and look to strengthen those areas of weakness so that
13:39
I could live out the remainder of my years.
13:43
However many of them I have left.
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I'm not. It's not like I'm old.
13:45
Live out the remainder of my years the best way that I can,
13:48
which is fulfilling the maybe the potential I have or what my
13:53
new potential is with these things that I'm learning and a
13:57
new identity that I'm solidifying that's forever
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growing. OK, beautiful.
14:02
I love that. What we're getting to is really
14:04
a surrendering of ego or identities that we feel that
14:10
maybe we need to grow into. But the truth is, as we continue
14:14
to heal and evolve and open up to the awareness of who we
14:20
really are, there's a time where we start to come into service
14:25
work. And it feels you are starting to
14:29
grasp that opportunity to be of service because you have this
14:33
story to tell. You have a voice that is stable
14:37
now and centered, and you're reaching out in community, which
14:42
is what so many people need from each other's people that are
14:46
still in that place of not surrendering to a higher kind of
14:51
well-being for themselves. It's interesting because when we
14:55
do get sober and we get into a new positioning, a new
14:59
perspective of this world, we can become inundated with what
15:04
everybody else is doing, with the distraction of how we should
15:08
be turning up or showing up. And that's comparison, right?
15:11
We're starting to, we introduce comparison, which is very
15:15
damaging. It's not a helpful thing because
15:18
who's really introducing that comparison or that expectation
15:22
or that level? That's the ego.
15:24
And so the next phase is, OK, where is my ego showing up?
15:30
How can I say to it, you know what?
15:31
I hear you, I see you, I know you have this desire.
15:35
I know that you are putting pressure on us to perform.
15:39
I know that like we need to be doing more with our lives now.
15:42
But listen, I want you to take a seat beside me, beside my soul,
15:46
beside this connection that I have with something greater than
15:50
me. If you're at that place now, if
15:52
you believe in there's something greater than you, it's something
15:55
greater that's creating this world for us.
15:58
And take the time to take that, what we call now this, a
16:02
feminine energy, that receiving perspective, that ability to
16:06
just allow things to come to us, whether those are little
16:10
whispers in our heads, hey, you should explore this.
16:13
And the ego is still sitting beside you as that quiet
16:16
student. That's when you can say, OK,
16:19
listen, watch, learn. This is where we're exploring
16:22
now, and let's see what comes of it.
16:24
So it's actually a very beautiful place.
16:26
And it's a place where like the Buddha took, where he was born
16:29
into everything, but he couldn't connect.
16:32
He couldn't relate. He didn't get it.
16:34
It was spoiling him. So he went beyond those gates,
16:38
right to the nothingness of, OK, I'm going to sit under the tree
16:42
and take that feminine energy and just allow the wisdom to
16:47
come to me. So knowing that, yeah, like how
16:51
now are you able to be in that position of receivership?
16:56
And how do you help yourself get there?
16:58
Do you have practices? Do you?
17:00
How do you help your when you move the ego aside?
17:03
How can you help yourself to continue to explore your inner
17:07
conversation? The inner conversation has
17:12
evolved over time. For me, it's a lot of it is
17:15
slowing down. A lot of it is slowing down and
17:19
being more honest about the dialogue that is in my head.
17:22
And so trying to be in receiving mode for me is attempting to be
17:28
more present in life. You can't receive if you're
17:31
closed off. So if the less present I am,
17:35
which is difficult for me, it's very difficult to always stay
17:39
present when I almost never was. I was almost always in my own
17:44
head and navigating life from a very narrow point of view.
17:50
Living my life through that very narrow point of view has always
17:55
kept me in my own head. And when I controlled the
17:58
conversation in my head, it doesn't go well because I'm not
18:01
receiving any additional information from the world, from
18:05
people. I'm not able to look at my
18:07
actions and say, are these aligned with the person that
18:11
I'm, that I want to be, that I'm hoping to be.
18:14
And so when I have been able to be more present and look at
18:20
people, talk to people, read their energy, feel their energy
18:24
and actually take in the information that they're giving
18:26
me, I can respond to them and in the world in a more honest way.
18:32
And so being able to give back has been an area that I've done
18:37
in the past, I've done it with sports and coaching and people
18:40
have, they tend to come to me for with some of the issues that
18:43
they've had. I had good information, good
18:46
logical information to give them and I cared and I cared because
18:51
I was talking to them one-on-one and I was able to meet them
18:55
where they were at. But now that I'm actually living
18:59
the life that I've preached about in in all of the ways that
19:03
I still fail at that life and being honest about that, I'm I'm
19:09
more in a position now where I want to be of service to people
19:14
because of the way that I view the world.
19:18
And I look at people, no matter if they, whatever religion they
19:23
believe in, whatever way that they were raised in their
19:27
cultures. And I'm, I'm very receptive to
19:30
everybody. And so I understand, especially
19:33
when it comes to the sobriety world, that everybody talks
19:36
about a higher power and they always talk about Jesus.
19:40
And it's, it can turn a lot of people away.
19:43
And I understand that. And I understand that when
19:48
you're looking at a group that you're already hesitant to go
19:50
into for your own reasons, and they're pushing something on you
19:54
that maybe you don't quite believe, we need to get you in
19:57
the door. We need to get you in the door
19:59
to do the best thing for yourself.
20:01
And then you do with that information what you will.
20:04
But you'll never get there if you're still holding on to these
20:08
to the addiction. You'll never get there if you're
20:10
still holding on to the pain that's been ailing you.
20:13
So I understand that. And I try to look at it from a
20:15
logical perspective. And I think that's where I try
20:18
to reach people. So I never come at it from.
20:22
I'm all knowing. And I'm going to give you this
20:25
information that's 100% guaranteed to work.
20:28
I look at it as here are the the gaps in some of the treatment
20:33
that we see out there. And I can look at people from in
20:38
a logical way and say, here's where you might might be
20:42
resistant to this type of treatment, but here's maybe some
20:45
of the science behind it. Here's maybe a different way to
20:48
view it. Let's get you over that hump and
20:51
let's see if I can reach you on a different level.
20:53
And so I think me being of service means me tapping into
20:58
all the different ways in which I can potentially relate to
21:01
somebody at their level to give back.
21:04
I love that. So do you think the truth of
21:07
your suffering, the truth of your life journey so far has
21:11
been on purpose? To be able to be in this
21:14
position now, to help others and to relate.
21:20
I still believe or I still wonder like why certain things
21:26
have happened. But there's a bigger part of me
21:29
that maybe does look at it that way, that my personality was
21:33
such that I needed to have negative things impact me.
21:40
I needed to view the world from both the good and the bad.
21:46
I needed to see the good parts of life.
21:48
And again, how I said that everything looked good on paper.
21:52
I've achieved some good things. I've also been hindered by some
21:57
bad parts of life, and I needed to see both of those, I think
22:01
for me to have a an honest reflection of what the world is.
22:06
But also I'm not so detached from the world that I can't
22:11
understand that there's so many parts of the world that have
22:14
things way worse than I do. And I think being in the
22:17
military and seeing what I've seen from an intelligence
22:23
perspective, but also having the personality that I have, I
22:26
understand that there's kids in Syria that have never had a
22:30
normal life at all. And there's kids in Eastern
22:35
Europe that, and adults in Eastern Europe that don't have a
22:39
life that even compares to anything remotely like mine and
22:44
would be thankful for a life like mine.
22:46
And I, I don't want to come at it from a comparison mindset,
22:50
but it just means that there's other perspectives out there
22:53
that are valuable. And I can't look at my life and
22:58
say it's been so horrible or it's been so great.
23:01
My life is what it is. And so I think with my
23:06
personality, I needed to see a lot of these things in order to
23:10
frame my worldview. And I think I'm in a unique
23:13
perspective based off of my general interest in the way the
23:17
brain works and science and also my personality.
23:20
I come across a little bit rough in my content, but I'm the
23:23
biggest child out there as well. So I can I have the ability to
23:27
laugh at myself and just laugh at things in general.
23:29
And I think people need a lot of a lot of all of that.
23:32
And someone who's compassionate, which most people wouldn't look
23:36
at me and think that I'm, I have a softer side, but I'm a big
23:40
softy, truth be told. So people wouldn't know that.
23:44
It's still a unintentional persona that I put out there
23:47
because I have all of these different personalities melded
23:49
into one, but they come out when it's time.
23:53
So when I've dealt with people one-on-one, as I help them
23:57
through their sobriety, they get a different version of me than
24:01
what you would see maybe in my own content.
24:03
You get the version of me that's very sympathetic, empathetic,
24:07
and we'll give them honesty and break it down for them and maybe
24:11
a way that they haven't heard before, but they're going to get
24:15
a softer version of me, but still a very tough version.
24:17
I think you need all of these things.
24:19
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
24:21
There's there are a couple things there, a couple gems in
24:24
there. Is that what you're really
24:26
saying is that we are playing different roles in our lives.
24:29
We're playing different character roles, whether you're
24:33
the therapist or the son or the husband or whatever that is,
24:40
we're going to show up and we're going to allow for our different
24:43
expression to be made because we are expressions of life and in
24:49
human form. And the other aspect is that
24:52
when you mention that there's so much suffering in the world,
24:56
people that are dying have never seen freedom, especially
24:59
children, only been seeing torn communities and violence.
25:05
It's is there a way, do you feel or do you believe that our
25:10
thought can affect what is happening in the world overall
25:16
as a collective? Do you believe that our thought
25:19
potentially through will or prayer or command or whatever
25:25
you want to call it, if we were all too quietly say at some
25:31
point throughout our day, please help these people to have an
25:35
easier life? Please let these children find
25:38
relief. Please let these children find
25:40
food, whatever that is. And it doesn't even need to be
25:44
said that way. It can be said as a command.
25:46
I'm done with seeing all the suffering in the world.
25:49
I don't want to see that anymore.
25:51
Let's change that. Do you feel that we actually
25:54
that's the truth, that we can begin to make the world a better
25:57
place through that command, prayer or internal free will?
26:02
I think slowly, I think that a default for a lot of people
26:08
unfortunately and is negative and it's sad, but I seen the
26:13
world where we compartmentalize groups, individuals.
26:18
We've always separated people into groups for better, for
26:21
worse, or as innocent as it may seem, we do it from as children.
26:26
And I see it in the sports world, you see it in high school
26:30
where one group bad, one group good, and nobody has a real
26:34
reason why the other group is bad.
26:36
It's just what we believe. And the strength is in the
26:40
numbers. And we don't even have to have
26:42
all the information to to really make a decision.
26:46
It's just I feel a certain way and now I have a group to align
26:51
with that feels another that feels a similar way.
26:55
And so now my strength is within the group and I don't need all
27:00
the information, I just need all the numbers.
27:02
And so we see it on a in a very innocent way as children, that
27:09
it's easy to see how that manifests into adulthood,
27:14
unfortunately, where we still put people in boxes and we still
27:20
harbor this hate for no reason or this intentional.
27:24
I wouldn't even call it ignorance.
27:26
There's too much information out there for it to be ignorance.
27:30
It's intentional because you have the ability to prove
27:34
yourself wrong. You just don't want to be proven
27:36
wrong. So I think the natural
27:39
proclivity of people is to default to what is going to make
27:43
them individually comfortable. And what's going to make them
27:47
comfortable is for them to put everything in their world into a
27:51
box so that they can understand it for better, for worse.
27:55
They want to understand the world.
27:57
And so I think as individuals and with me, it no matter what
28:03
my personality was growing up and the ways that I was good,
28:06
the ways that I was not good, it took for me to fall.
28:10
It took me to fall to to see that there's a better way to
28:14
live life. And I may not have harbored hate
28:17
for other individuals, but I certainly harbored hate for
28:21
myself. And if I have hate for myself,
28:24
it would only take so long before it starts to project
28:28
outward. So as long as people are looking
28:34
at themselves that like they are unworthy of a good life or a
28:41
peaceful life, they will eventually, I believe, project
28:46
those emotions outward. And you see when you're good to
28:50
people, random people, how much it could impact just your
28:53
immediate world around you. And so from an individual
28:57
perspective, we do have the ability to touch other people
29:01
and then that projects outward and outward.
29:03
We also have the ability to do that in a negative way.
29:06
And for those that are kind hearted, it's going to take
29:12
those individuals to actively push out that love and that care
29:19
as much as those that are hateful do.
29:23
Because if we don't, we'll never win that fight of changing the
29:28
world as long as the ones that are more hateful are the
29:32
loudest. Very good.
29:33
Very well said. Just getting back to your
29:36
comment around children, and when we observe children
29:41
especially below the ages of seven, we observe probably below
29:46
the ages of five more. So we observe how they are truly
29:51
innate to kindness, to inclusion, to caring, all of
29:57
those things. That's just who we are as we
30:00
naturally come into this world. But because of family
30:04
circumstance or family example or environment or whatever that
30:09
is, that starts to change as we get older, 678 years old, where
30:15
we begin to recognize the ego, the separation of each other,
30:20
and we begin to compartmentalize.
30:23
So ultimately what's happened is that we've gone from being a
30:27
collective in harmony and kindness and peace and inclusion
30:33
and love to this illusion of we need to now judge.
30:39
We need to compartmentalize because we have, it's a bit of a
30:42
poison that we've placed throughout our humanity or our
30:47
way of being and it's on purpose.
30:49
This is all kind of part of the greater divine or whatever you
30:52
want to believe or not believe. This is part of our journey
30:57
because I've had this experiential evidence to see
31:00
into people's souls, their past lives, etcetera, where they've
31:03
been, what they've been through, what roles they've played.
31:06
But I definitely love the fact that we are here to find
31:12
ourselves back home again to that experience of childhood,
31:17
especially as we're leaving this world.
31:20
We come to a place where if only I had loved more, if only I
31:23
didn't blame or hold this person against you.
31:27
You realize it was a big waste of mental energy and life
31:33
energy. Yeah, it really is.
31:36
It really is, yeah. I'm just so grateful that we've
31:39
had you in this room because your experience is so important
31:44
because like I said, I believe there are a lot of our listeners
31:47
and our viewers there that can relate.
31:49
And I'll invite our viewers and listeners to comment on that and
31:54
to ask any questions that Joseph and I can answer because we're
31:59
all in this together. We're all meant to be in this
32:01
together. And whether we're hurting each
32:03
other or helping each other, it's got to come down to an
32:07
understanding of the truth. And Joseph, do you have any
32:11
final words or comments that you'd like to offer to our
32:14
audience before we wrap it up? Yeah, I'll just end it with
32:17
this. It is my firm belief that
32:20
everybody does deserve to live their life beautifully, whatever
32:24
that looks like. And as much as people hear a lot
32:28
of information and how things have to be perfect and we strive
32:33
for that, there is nothing that will ever be perfect.
32:36
And I try to preach this as much as I can.
32:39
It's that we just have to take steps forward.
32:42
That's it. And one of the reasons why my
32:45
name on Instagram is what it is, It's one, it is one step at a
32:48
time. It is just one day at a time.
32:50
And so we can never hold ourselves or be this perfect
32:55
version that we put in, we have in our minds.
32:57
And it's as long as people understand that this journey
33:01
will never be perfect, they can accept where they stumble.
33:07
And if you can accept where you stumble, that means you can pick
33:10
yourself back up again and take those next steps forward.
33:13
And I think that's what a lot of people need to do or should do,
33:17
is just continue to take steps forward and enjoy this process
33:20
because as long as you're moving in the right direction, you're
33:24
going to be OK. Oh my gosh, Joseph, thank you so
33:27
much for being here today and for sharing your story and your
33:32
wisdom. And let's just continue to live
33:35
our truth, right? Everybody's got their own truth
33:38
talks, and we'll see you on the next one.
33:41
Take care everyone. Thanks for having me.
33:43
You're very welcome. Bye for now.