Latest / The Karen Kenney Show / WHAT ARE YOU GONNA' DO ABOUT IT?
Transcript
- 0:01Karen Kenney: Hey you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney
- 0:03show. I'm really happy to be here with you today, and I think
- 0:08all I'm going to say to start this sucker is, buckle up for
- 0:11safety. It's so appropriate, you know, I'm looking at, if you're
- 0:15not watching this, if you're listening, I'm wearing my one of
- 0:18my Batsy head Betsy heads, one of my favorite artists, and I'm
- 0:21wearing one of my Betsy head sweatshirts, and this is my one
- 0:24that says I will cause problems. That's just a warning for this
- 0:31episode. I will cause problems. Here's the thing I've been
- 0:35thinking about so much. I mean, how can you not How can you be
- 0:39alive right now on the planet, and not be thinking each day
- 0:43beyond our own very small, limited experience, right? So I
- 0:47spend a lot of time thinking about what's going on in the
- 0:49world, what's happening, obviously in my own life, but
- 0:53and then you think your friends and your family and your friends
- 0:56of friends, and just all the suffering, all the incredible
- 1:00things, all the horrible things, the grief, the drama, the
- 1:03deaths, the beauty, the births, right? There's like so much
- 1:06happening. And then you think about like your neighbors, and
- 1:08you think about like your community, your town, your city,
- 1:11and then it just goes out, out, out, out, out. You know, you're
- 1:14thinking about people on the other side of the planet that
- 1:16you've never met and probably never will meet. But still, I'm
- 1:21conscious, constantly and consciously thinking about
- 1:25beyond my own little sphere of influence. But today's episode
- 1:29is also going to be very much about our own sphere of
- 1:33influence, and we're going to get to that. So let me stop by
- 1:36this, saying this, I know just by the kind of work that I do in
- 1:41the world, and the way that I work together with other humans,
- 1:45and across the different things I do, whether it's as a yoga
- 1:48teacher, doing Thai Yoga, massage, Thai Yoga, body work,
- 1:52having a podcast, coaching people, mentoring people,
- 1:56working one to one, having a group like the nest, I talk to a
- 2:00lot of people, right? That's like part of my gig. I have
- 2:03exposure to a lot of different people, and the one of the
- 2:06themes that I know that is going on for so many people right now
- 2:11is we just feel like the world's on fire. It's a shit show, and
- 2:15people feel completely overwhelmed, people feel
- 2:19exhausted, people feel helpless. A lot of people feel hopeless. A
- 2:24lot of people are like, I don't know what to do. And I wanted to
- 2:31just say this, you feeling hopeless, helpless in despair,
- 2:38overwhelmed is part of the fucking plan, right? And I am
- 2:45not. Let me say two things. Number one, I'm not a conspiracy
- 2:48theorist ever. I'm also not the wonderful Heather Cox Richardson
- 2:53who is a historian and a professor and is a super duper
- 2:56smarty pants about politics and history and like putting it all
- 3:00together in a digestible way. I'm just me. I'm just a kid from
- 3:04Lawrence mass, doing her best, doing her best, right to doing
- 3:10her best to like, help help herself, help other people, help
- 3:14animals, right to love people like that's the gig. I'm doing
- 3:17my best, but I'm going to be very direct and very honest in
- 3:21this episode, the fucking plan, right? The plan of the people in
- 3:26charge right now, the plan of the current administration, from
- 3:29Trump all the way to Stephen Miller, all the way to whatever,
- 3:32all those powers that be. The plan right now is they want you
- 3:37to be overwhelmed. They want you to be distracted. They want you
- 3:40to feel in despair. They want you to feel weak and helpless
- 3:43and all that stuff. Because as long as everybody's too tired
- 3:47and busy pointing at everybody else they get to do, they get to
- 3:51run the racket that they are running. Okay, another thing I'm
- 3:55going to say, and honestly, I'm aware, you know, I think
- 3:59sometimes my sweetie worries about me and the things that I
- 4:02say online and on my show. But look, there are just times like,
- 4:07hello, my sweatshirt, I will cause problems. Here's the
- 4:09thing, we have a convicted sexual predator as our
- 4:13president. And as long as you have a sexual predator in charge
- 4:19of anything, when you think now, hello, you're talking to a kid
- 4:24who has been inappropriately touched. You are talking to a
- 4:26woman who has had to put up with levels of sexual harassment that
- 4:30would boggle your fucking mind. Ask this happens also to boys
- 4:35and to men? I'm not saying it doesn't, but I'm just saying,
- 4:37Ask any woman in your life, it is so rare. It is so rare. I
- 4:42think I have maybe one friend off the top of my head I can
- 4:45think of that hasn't been inappropriately touched,
- 4:48sexually assaulted, raped or molested. Okay, but let me tell
- 4:52you this the kind of mind, the kind of thinking, the kind of
- 4:56behaviors that run rampant through a sexual predator.
- 5:00Here's the thing, here's the things that they try to do. And
- 5:02if you've never been inappropriately touched or in
- 5:04these situations, I'm truly, genuinely happy for you. But
- 5:09here are some of the things that we you might have experienced if
- 5:12you have them. They try to scare you, right? They try to threaten
- 5:17you. They try to threaten the people that you love and they
- 5:22want you to comply. And if they try to use their size, their
- 5:27power, their physical strength, over you, right? They tend to
- 5:32try to pick on people that are smaller than them, weaker than
- 5:34them, that don't have good community support or family
- 5:38support, right? They try to get a hold of the smaller, quote or
- 5:43weaker, like whatever ones. And then they when, when they think
- 5:48you might say something about it, you might push back, right?
- 5:52They threaten you. They say, Don't tell anybody. Or if you
- 5:55do, tell somebody, I'm going to do something to your mother,
- 5:57your father, your sister, your parent, your dog, like whatever.
- 6:00So we have all these tactics. They try to scare you, they try
- 6:03to threaten you, they try to threaten harm against those you
- 6:06love, and they want you to comply. Now, when we're children
- 6:11and when we're victimized, right, we don't have much say.
- 6:13We have no power. We are at the mercy of those people who are
- 6:17bigger than us. But now, as grown adults, and yes, of
- 6:21course, obviously, I want everybody to put on their
- 6:24critical thinking and their nuance caps, right? Not
- 6:27everything I say is going to first of all, a lot of you won't
- 6:31agree with me. That's okay, but I also can't apply every single
- 6:36experience right to what I'm saying today. Just just trust
- 6:40that I'm doing my best to make a point knowing that other people
- 6:43have different experiences. Okay, so my whole point is this,
- 6:49as adults, we have a lot more say and control about right who
- 6:57and how we are going to be. We're going to get into this in
- 6:59a little bit. We didn't always get to control what happened. We
- 7:02do get control now as adults, because when you're children,
- 7:06you truly are victims, right? You have no power, no say, no
- 7:10voice, no, no. You don't have your own money. You don't get to
- 7:13choose where you're going to live. You are at the mercy of
- 7:15the world as adults. Now we get we have some choices to make. We
- 7:20get to have our own agency, autonomy, authorship, and, you
- 7:25know, ability to to decide, right, like, who and how we're
- 7:29going to be and what we're going to do about things. But my whole
- 7:33point coming back to this whole sexual predator, and the vibe,
- 7:37right, the vibe that this administration is kind of like,
- 7:41like the ICE agents, like, we could just go on and on and on,
- 7:44all the abuses of power, all the lying, all the bullshit, all
- 7:48that stuff. Okay? And here's the thing, my attitude about all
- 7:52that, on some deep level, is, fuck that. Like, fuck that,
- 7:57right? Like, you want me to be scared. You want me not to speak
- 8:00up. You want me to forget about the Epstein files. You want me
- 8:03to, like, comply. You want me to comply with this insanity where,
- 8:06like, where you're murdering people in the streets, like, no
- 8:08fuck that. And I also want to say I do understand that it does
- 8:14feel completely overwhelming. It does feel like too big, and I'm
- 8:17just one person, and what can I do? And all of that. I know it's
- 8:20scary, but this episode is all about what we actually can do,
- 8:26not what we can't do. All the ways they try to get you to
- 8:29think about what you can't do, they just want you to comply.
- 8:33They just want you to lay there and take it. They just want you
- 8:35to shut up. Right? Zip it. Shut up. Go back in the kitchen. You
- 8:40know what I'm saying? No, fuck that. We will cause problems.
- 8:43Okay, so I'm gonna start. I'm gonna kind of bounce all over
- 8:47the place if I've already lost you. Hey, have a great, fabulous
- 8:50rest of your day. If you're still with me, listen on. Okay,
- 8:54so Mr. Rogers, he's famous for having this saying, and I even
- 8:58did a whole, I think I did a whole episode about this, where
- 9:01he talks about looking for the help is. And I'm going to read
- 9:04you the whole quote that he says. He was being interviewed
- 9:07one time on TV, and he said, you know, my mother used to say,
- 9:11this is his direct quote. You know, my mother used to say, a
- 9:14long time ago, whenever there was any catastrophe that was in
- 9:19the movies or on the air, she would say, always look for the
- 9:24helpers. There will always be helpers, you know, even just on
- 9:30the sidelines. And that's why I think that if news programs
- 9:34could make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams, of showing
- 9:38the medical people, anybody really, who is coming into a
- 9:43place where there's a tragedy to be sure that they include that,
- 9:48because if you look for the helpers, you'll know that
- 9:52there's hope, right?
- 9:55So I've done podcast episodes about becoming the help and
- 9:59looking for the help. Help is, and why helpers matter, and it's
- 10:02okay to ask for help, right? Like, I talk about this a lot,
- 10:05and people know that I'm a huge fan of Mr. Rogers. I have like,
- 10:08all his all these books, and people always send me memes and
- 10:12quotes and things about Mr. Rogers, because they know he's,
- 10:15like, on my spiritual team. He's one of my obviously, he's a
- 10:18mentor, but not a real life mentor, right? He's just been a
- 10:20mentor over the years, growing up and learning from him and
- 10:23being inspired by him, and hoping to have the kind of, you
- 10:28know, presence and composure and, you know, the ability to
- 10:32help. So he inspires me. Okay? So we know all about Mr. Rogers,
- 10:38but right now, there's another thing that's going on, okay, in
- 10:40all of this chaos and all of this insanity. And so there's
- 10:44these memes that have been going around. And the memes, you know,
- 10:48will start with showing like, Mr. Rogers saying, like, look
- 10:51for the help is and then underneath it, it will say
- 10:53something or somewhere. On it, it will say, but now they're
- 10:56killing the help is okay. And even that, right? Oh, now
- 11:01they're killing the helpers. And then people want to throw up
- 11:03their hands and say, oh my god, now they're killing the helpers.
- 11:06What are we going to do? Right? And I'm not being callous about
- 11:12this. I told you at the beginning of this, I'm going to
- 11:14be very direct. The reality is, is that they've been killing the
- 11:18helpers for hundreds of years. The people that spoke out
- 11:23against inequality, the people that spoke out about hatred, the
- 11:27people that spoke out against violence, the ones who challenge
- 11:31the existed the existing power structures, the ones who
- 11:35challenge the unfair systems that have been designed to keep
- 11:38people poor, to keep people disadvantaged to be keep people
- 11:41held down, to keep people from having agency and autonomy and
- 11:45authority and all of that stuff. Right? The leaders who have
- 11:49spoken out and advocated we I'll list a couple of them for you,
- 11:52right, who have advocated for civil rights, the people who
- 11:56boycotted and rode the busses, the ones who have matched for
- 11:59peace, right, the ones who showed up on Kent State, right,
- 12:03all of that when you think about President Lincoln, Mahatma,
- 12:07Gandhi, Medgar, Evers, Martin, Luther King, Jr, JFK, heavy
- 12:12milk, Malcolm X, Bobby Kenney, right, they Have always
- 12:18murdered, assassinated, executed. The help is the powers
- 12:23that be do not like it when people start to go against the
- 12:26grain, when people start to stand up, when people don't just
- 12:31let them scare you and threaten you and threaten those you love,
- 12:34and scare your neighbors and deport your neighbors and grab
- 12:37your neighbors and grab little five year old boys off the
- 12:39street right when they want you, like, when you think about what
- 12:42the ICE agents are saying right now, it points right back to my
- 12:45whole point of sexual predators, right, having power is that,
- 12:49what do they say? If you just comply, then nobody will get
- 12:53hurt if you just do what? This thing, this unlawful, this
- 12:58behavior that we want you to do, which is just sit down, shut the
- 13:01fuck up, and take it right, zip it. If you just lie down and
- 13:06take it, then there won't be any problems, and we won't hurt you,
- 13:09and we won't hurt the people around you and the people you
- 13:11care about. And again, like no, so now they're executing people
- 13:16in the streets. And we see everybody is like, it's
- 13:18horrible, and it's horrifying when you see what happened to
- 13:22Renee, good, when you see what happened to Alex Pretti, right?
- 13:24Helpers. Alex Pretti was an ICU. He was a nurse. He helped
- 13:28veterans, right? It's like, oh my God, they are literally
- 13:32right, like, killing the helpers. I'm like, they've been
- 13:34killing people, right? As I just said, they've been killing the
- 13:38helpers for a wicked long time. Oh yeah, keiki, but now they're
- 13:40killing them in the streets. Well, they've been killing
- 13:42people in the streets, in black neighborhoods, way longer than
- 13:45white people would want to admit. All of this has it's like
- 13:49it's just coming back up again. Because what, whatever is going
- 13:54on. And we can talk about the collective consciousness, we can
- 13:57talk about like the power structures that be but here's
- 14:00the thing, right? This kind of bullshit has been going on for a
- 14:04really long time now. It's just really getting to a point where
- 14:09people who have been like, a lot of wicked positions, the white
- 14:14people, have been very comfortable for a long time, and
- 14:16now getting to see what it's like when it feels like it's
- 14:19starting to like, slip away, right? This, this idea of
- 14:23safety. Okay, so I'm telling you all this because a friend just
- 14:27wrote to me, and I'm gonna get you, like, again, stay with me.
- 14:30It might sound like I'm being really negative right now, but
- 14:32I'm building up to the pot about, like, what are you going
- 14:35to do about it, right? This is, this is where we're going. What
- 14:39are we going to do about it? Okay. So a friend wrote to me
- 14:42about the again, I told you, people know that I love Mr.
- 14:45Rogers, and a friend wrote to me, and he mentioned, he said,
- 14:47you know, he was talking about the Mr. Rogers memes where
- 14:50they're saying, well, now they're killing the helpers. And
- 14:53he said that it tears at his heart, because I'm seeing these
- 14:56memes, and it's just tears at my heart. And. I wrote back this. I
- 15:01said, as long as there are those of us who are willing to not
- 15:05look away, those of us who will speak up, who will protect our
- 15:09neighbors, who are willing to stand our ground, then there
- 15:12will always be helpers, and we outnumber those motherfuckers.
- 15:17And that is the truth. And I shared in my newsletter, and I
- 15:21have shared this quote so many times. There's a reason why I
- 15:25share it so many times. First and foremost, it's for my own
- 15:29ears to remember. Okay, it's also because maybe you haven't
- 15:34heard this before. I don't assume that everybody reads
- 15:36everything I send or listens to everything that I write. It's a
- 15:40quote from Mahatma Gandhi, right one, one of the non violent
- 15:45leaders that they assassinated and murdered. And he said this.
- 15:49He said, When I despair, I remember that all through
- 15:53history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have
- 15:59been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible,
- 16:06but in the end, they always fall. Think of it always they
- 16:17always fall. And for a time they seem invincible. And that's
- 16:21where we are right now. We're in that time where it seems
- 16:24inevitable and all of this stuff seems like they're invincible,
- 16:28all of this hatred and violence and fear, all of this
- 16:33separation, right? All of this just feeling like I can't trust
- 16:39that's again. This is what and you get. This is what they want.
- 16:47So here's the thing, if you're somebody who is feeling
- 16:51overwhelmed, if you are feeling helpless, if you are feeling
- 16:53hopeless, and you're like, I don't know what I can do. I'm
- 16:55just one person. Look, I get it. I know that feeling in your body
- 17:00when you're just exhausted and you're like, I can't it just my
- 17:04sweetie described it as like, you know, you're already
- 17:07exhausted, and you're already carrying a load, right, like, of
- 17:10your own life or your own things, and then somebody puts a
- 17:12friggin big concrete block on you, and your legs start to
- 17:16shake, and then they put another it's like, every day you feel
- 17:19like another thing And another thing and another thing, right?
- 17:22And if we don't have our minds right, if we don't have our
- 17:27heart right, if we don't have support, a Sanctum Sanctorum
- 17:32ekna talks about it, this place within us that is like that. It
- 17:37is so stable. It is so stable, and it's not hard, right? We
- 17:44keep our hats open, but we're there's strength there, and
- 17:47there's safety there, and there's this presence of silence
- 17:50there, where we've it's an unshakable place that Sanctum
- 17:55Sanctorum. And we need that. We need that right now. And so, you
- 18:00know, when we're asking ourselves right now, like, what
- 18:03can I do? And I kind of broke it down like this, there's a couple
- 18:07of things to look at. What's my role? Number one, what's my role
- 18:12and what's my capacity? When we're asking the question, What
- 18:16am I going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?
- 18:20Right, the question we have to ask ourselves is, what is our
- 18:23role? What is our capacity? There's a bunch of other things
- 18:26we can look at, but I don't want to overwhelm, right? We're
- 18:29already feeling overwhelmed. So when I'm overwhelmed, right? The
- 18:33things that I do is I look first and foremost, for tools to
- 18:38resource myself, things that help me feel more grounded,
- 18:42things that help me feel more safe or safe enough, right?
- 18:46Things that help me feel more present, things that make me
- 18:49feel like I have not gone right the fuck out of my mind, right?
- 18:54Because if I'm out of my mind and I am hooked by anger, by
- 18:59rage, and I'm not saying those are bad emotions. What I like to
- 19:03do is give my anger a job, right? I like to give my anger a
- 19:07job, right, but I have certain things that I do to bring myself
- 19:14back into my own right mind, to bring myself back into my body,
- 19:19right? I'm tapping my chest right now, right? Like to get
- 19:22back in here. Sometimes being disassociated is exactly where
- 19:26you should be. That's where the safe place could be, right? But
- 19:29when I'm trying to be effective in this world, when I'm trying
- 19:32to be a helper, when I'm trying to make a difference or do
- 19:35something right,
- 19:38and I ask myself, well, what are you going to do about it? Here's
- 19:41what I know. I can't do shit if I'm completely dysregulated and
- 19:45out of my mind and in that total triggered fear space if I am in
- 19:49fight and flight, and my sympathetic nervous system is
- 19:52just like pumping out right? Like there are times when having
- 19:55cortisol and adrenaline and all those things in your bloodstream
- 19:59is helpful. All like when the Tigers chasing you or somebody's
- 20:02trying to hurt you in a dark alley or whatever, I want that
- 20:04surge, but to stay in that place constantly, right? To just have
- 20:10all that, all those stress hormones like pumping through
- 20:12your body. This is how we get exhausted. This is how we get
- 20:16fatigue. This is how we get IBS and headaches and TMJ and immune
- 20:22you know, just all of it, right? The immune system, stuff, all
- 20:26those things. So it's like, I look for the tools that resource
- 20:30me. I've done a bunch of different episodes that talk
- 20:33about different tools. I just did one a few weeks ago about
- 20:36breathing exercises, because breathing exercises are one of
- 20:40the most fast and powerful ways to shift your physical, mental
- 20:43and emotional states. So I highly encourage you, it was
- 20:46like three episodes ago, I think, to go give that sucker a
- 20:49listen, right? Another thing that we can do rest is
- 20:53resistance, right? There's that whole book that beautiful. I
- 20:55think it's Tricia hair say she wrote, rest is resistance.
- 20:59That's a really powerful book for me, reading is resistance as
- 21:02well, right? Educating myself, listening to smarty pants like
- 21:07Heather Cox Richardson's and others, right? Like reading and
- 21:10learning and hearing like, okay, as a country, we've been here
- 21:13before. Oh, okay, we've been through something similar, like
- 21:16this. This is what happened in the past. You know, Ryan Holiday
- 21:19is always talking about, like, if you want to understand what's
- 21:22happening right now, read books about our history. Read the
- 21:25truth about the things that went down. It puts things in
- 21:28perspective. So we don't feel like, oh my god, this is the
- 21:31most unprecedented time ever. It's like, no, it's just like
- 21:34old shit coming back to revisit. Because a lot of white people
- 21:37don't like, right? I'm not, hey, I'm a white person. Sorry to
- 21:40pick on us guys, I guess, right, no, because here's the reality,
- 21:44when you see the Christian nationalism, when you see all
- 21:47the white supremacy, and it's not even white supremacy they
- 21:49want. They think they're superior because they're white,
- 21:52wake up call. You know what I found so fascinating little
- 21:55segue here, you know, in a in over however many years. Let's
- 22:02call it. I'll just for safety. I'll say, like, 567, years,
- 22:05right? There's been a lot of calling for people on whatever
- 22:09land you live on to acknowledge, right? The original people were
- 22:13on this land, so you might get on a zoom call, and they would,
- 22:16somebody would say, like, I'll just use myself, right? Be like,
- 22:19Oh, I'm Karen Kenney. I live in, you know, New Hampshire on
- 22:22Abenaki land, right? And you would name the tribe or
- 22:24whatever, that would have been, right, been here first. PS, and
- 22:28when you think about all of this bullshit, all of this insanity
- 22:33about immigration and ice and deporting people and whatever,
- 22:37when we are the original immigrants, white people hate to
- 22:41break it to you, we're all immigrants. Pull your head out
- 22:45of your ass. We came over to this land and took this land
- 22:49like we showed up. It was us. We were the original ones. All
- 22:57right, and I'm back. Okay. So resting can be really good.
- 23:02Breathing exercises can help regulate your nervous system
- 23:05right when you're feeling too low. Certain breaths can bring
- 23:09you up when you're feeling too high. They can bring you down a
- 23:12little bit when you need a little more balance. There's a
- 23:14breath for just about everything. Okay? There's also
- 23:17emotional freedom. Technique, EFT tapping. EFT tapping, right?
- 23:22If you look it up, it can be like a really long version, and
- 23:26then there's also a really short version, and I can just teach it
- 23:29to you right now, a wicked short one. I learned this from my
- 23:32teacher, Melissa tears. It's a little like, it's just a spin
- 23:36off of the longer one. And I'm going to keep it so friggin
- 23:39simple, if you are not watching this right, if you're just
- 23:42listening, you take three fingers. I tend to use my
- 23:45pointer finger, my middle finger and my ring finger, and I tap
- 23:49right. I have strong hands, and I like to tap firmly. You might
- 23:53be a lighter taper, tap it, whatever pressure makes you
- 23:56happy. I want you to think of the crown of your head, not your
- 23:59forehead, not the back of your head, right in the middle of
- 24:02your head, and you just tap on your forehead. I'm going to keep
- 24:04this so simple. So whatever it is that you're feeling
- 24:07exhausted, overwhelmed, scared, anxious, stressed, whatever it
- 24:12is, right? Angry, whatever look sometimes being a little angry
- 24:15is good. You can give it a job. But I'm just saying, if there's
- 24:18something you're feeling inside, not to gaslight yourself, not to
- 24:22bypass it, not to label your emotion is bad, but you're like
- 24:27right now, this is not helpful for me. It's making me feel
- 24:31crazy and dysregulated, and I need to get back to my center,
- 24:35right? I need to come back to a place where I feel aligned and
- 24:39regulated and resourced and capable, then this is a way that
- 24:42you can love and help yourself. Okay, so those three fingers
- 24:46point up, middle finger, ring finger, tapping the crown of
- 24:48your head, right? And I like to tap. They'll say, you tap three
- 24:52times, five times, seven times. I tap as long as I need to in
- 24:55that spot. And if it's feeling good, I just stay there. And I
- 24:58just say, I really. Release this and let it go. The thing I'm
- 25:03letting go, right? I pause my tapping to talk the thing I'm
- 25:06letting go. Like I said, it can be whatever that emotion, that
- 25:09feeling, that thought, That thing was that wasn't very
- 25:11helpful, that was keeping you stuck in the spiral of
- 25:15helplessness and hopelessness and despair, right? And you
- 25:18might tap and you say, I release this thought, I release this
- 25:21feeling. I release this belief, whatever it is, right and let it
- 25:25go. I release this anxiety and let it go. You move from the top
- 25:28of your head to right between, like your eyebrows the edges so
- 25:31that your two fingers, your middle your pointer finger and
- 25:34your ring finger will hit the edges of your inner eyebrows.
- 25:39And you just tap right there, and again, you say, I release
- 25:43this and let it go. If you're having a hard time, right? Like
- 25:48some part of you, you can feel wants to hold on to it, then
- 25:51simply say, I'm willing to release this and let it go.
- 25:55Okay? Because your subconscious knows when you're full of shit.
- 25:57You just say, I'm willing to release this and let it go. And
- 26:00then you move out to the outer eye, the bone, the bony part,
- 26:04not on the soft part of your temple, on the outer edge of the
- 26:06eye, right the edge of your end of your eyebrow. And you tap
- 26:10here. You say, I release this and let it go. And you come
- 26:15right underneath your eye, and you tap on that bone, right the
- 26:20bone, if you feel your cheekbone, the top of your
- 26:22cheekbone, and you tap right here, and you might say, I
- 26:25release this shit and let it go. This is a super fast this is
- 26:31wicked fast E at EFT. So you go from the crown of your head to
- 26:35right between the eyebrows, outer eye, to under the eye, and
- 26:38then you go right to your chest with the collarbones right into
- 26:41the collarbones, and you'll see I have an open palm now, and I'm
- 26:44just pounding my chest, right? I'm tapping it with a flat palm.
- 26:48Say, I release that and let it go. I release that, whatever it
- 26:55was, that feeling, that thought, that belief, and let it go.
- 27:00Do that a few rounds, right? You gage where you're at when you
- 27:03stop, man, I'm like, at a 10, I am out of my mind, right? And
- 27:06you do that a few rounds, and you check back in, and you're
- 27:08like, Oh, I'm like, at a six. Oh, now I'm at like, a four. Now
- 27:12I'm like, at a two. It's incredibly, incredibly helpful.
- 27:15There's other things, like havening techniques, where
- 27:17you're like, sweeping down your arms or you're holding your
- 27:20face. There's like, so many different techniques you guys
- 27:23right, to get yourself regulated, because you can't
- 27:25figure out what your role is, right? If you can't first get
- 27:29your capacity, you got to know your capacity. And our capacity
- 27:33can be a bunch of things our energy level, like, literally,
- 27:37what's my capacity today? I have no energy. I have no blah, blah,
- 27:40I'm feeling this way, right? Your capacity could be like, how
- 27:43much time do I have? Can I volunteer? Right? Like, what's
- 27:48my what's my ability? Like, am I working three jobs versus
- 27:51somebody who maybe has more free time, right? What's my capacity?
- 27:54My resources? You might have more time to give. You might
- 27:58have more money to give. You might have more physical
- 28:02resources, financial resources, energy resources, right? You got
- 28:06to figure out your capacity. What am I able to do? Right?
- 28:10What am I going to do about it? Well, that starts with, what am
- 28:14I able to do? Okay, so we got to start there, like, what's my
- 28:17role? What's my capacity? Because we want to be able to
- 28:21make this is what I always say. I do these things because I want
- 28:25to be able to make good, smart, creative, helpful and in my
- 28:29right mind choices. You know, you ever have somebody who's
- 28:33trying to be helpful, but they show up and they're making the
- 28:35situation worse because they're so out of their mind, and
- 28:38they're not regulated, and they're not thinking clearly,
- 28:41and they're not in their bodies, and they're reacting from a
- 28:45place of fear instead of being really grounded in responding
- 28:48from a place of love and reason, right? You know what I'm saying?
- 28:52They're not coming from that Sanctum Sanctorum. They're
- 28:54coming from, oh shit, I'm triggered, I'm out of my mind,
- 28:57and they fucking lose it. That's not helpful, right? We don't
- 29:00want that. So I like to use different resources and tools.
- 29:05And like I said, whether it's using somatic tools, whether
- 29:09it's using breathing practices, whether it's my spiritual
- 29:13practice, for some people, prayer, using a mantra,
- 29:17chanting, praying, right, all of these things for some people can
- 29:21be incredibly helpful. So I often think about it like the
- 29:24four table legs, right? I try to do something physically. It
- 29:27might be drinking enough water, staying hydrated, getting some
- 29:30rest, moving my body, going for a walk while I repeat the
- 29:34mantra, right? So I try to do something for myself.
- 29:37Physically, I try to do something for myself. Mentally,
- 29:40I try to do something for my emotions. I might add my sweetie
- 29:42for a hug. I might Vox my best friend. I might say, hey, I need
- 29:46a different perspective on this, right? You send up a flare. And
- 29:50of course, in miracles, we kind of talk about like whoever is
- 29:52saner at the moment, whoever is sane at the moment, right? Is
- 29:57the one. So if I'm not feeling quite. Pain, I call in help, and
- 30:02that help might come from, right? God's source, my
- 30:05spiritual team, going out in nature, petting my animals,
- 30:09holding Toby pajamas, snuggling with bunchy our animals can be
- 30:13an incredible co regulation resource as well. Right? For
- 30:17some people, it's going to the gym and working out, right? I
- 30:19know some people who say the gym keeps their mental health, you
- 30:23know, really balanced and strong and helpful. Therapy, whatever
- 30:27it is, you guys, this is what I'm saying. There's 1000 ways to
- 30:30help ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally and
- 30:33spiritually. We don't want to forget the spiritual one, and
- 30:36we're going to come back to that. One of the other things
- 30:39that I do when I start to feel a little overwhelmed is I remember
- 30:42A Course in Miracles. As funny as this might sound, A Course in
- 30:46Miracles has a lot to me. To me, not saying anybody has to agree
- 30:50with me, of an underbelly of connection with stoicism. It's
- 30:53just like to me, I just see it like there's a lot of
- 30:55connections there. So I might turn to spiritual books. I might
- 31:02turn to books like Victor Frankel's Man's Search for
- 31:05Meaning. I might turn towards the stoic right, the stoics in
- 31:09the stoic books. And one of the things that I was thinking about
- 31:13the other day is I was like, you know, if I start to feel
- 31:17overwhelmed, it's because I've ignored one of the first tenets
- 31:22of stoic philosophy, which is understanding what is and isn't
- 31:27in my control. This is a big thing, right? So here's the deal
- 31:33stoic stoics have taught us, this we can't control what
- 31:36happened. And this is the thing right now, part of what feels a
- 31:40little overwhelming, is the powers that be keep trying to
- 31:44tell us that what happened didn't happen. They try to twist
- 31:49it. They try to lie about it. They try to gaslight you into
- 31:51thinking you didn't just see with your own eyes that they
- 31:54murdered a woman in her car while she was trying to pull
- 31:56away, that they just murdered a guy who was using his body in
- 32:01the street, he was just filming, and then a woman got pushed
- 32:04down, and he put his body between them, you know, the ICE
- 32:08agents and the woman that was pushed on the ground, and he had
- 32:10a camera, right? And yes, he had a gun, but he was permitted to
- 32:14carry that gun unconcealed, and he didn't reach for the gun, he
- 32:17didn't take out the gun, et cetera, et cetera. And when you
- 32:19look and you break down the videos. This is why the the
- 32:22people who are willing to not look away, the people who will
- 32:27look at what, look at it and see it and say, no, no, no, no, no,
- 32:31you're not going to gaslight me. You're not going to tell me that
- 32:33isn't true. I know what I saw with my own eyes, right? So we
- 32:38can't control what happened. And it did happen. This is the
- 32:42thing. It did happen. Okay? We can't control what happened. We
- 32:47can control, though, these things. What we control is our
- 32:51energy, our time, our creativity and our resourcefulness, right?
- 32:55That's where our energy needs to go, not into, right? Not into
- 33:01what we can't do. We don't want to focus on what we can't
- 33:03control. We need to focus on right, what we're going to do
- 33:07about what happened. That's the thing. It happened. It's in the
- 33:12past. Can't stop it from happening. It happened and it
- 33:15did happen. The question now, the work now for us is, what are
- 33:19we going to do about it. What are we going to do about what
- 33:22happened? So here's this principle in stoicism that I
- 33:26find helpful. And I know today I'm just, I'm just like, sharing
- 33:30some things that might be, might be helpful for you too. Okay, so
- 33:33the stoics would say something like this, that peace of mind is
- 33:36achieved by learning to focus and act upon what is in our own
- 33:41control. What's within our control? This is the thing I ask
- 33:44myself, what right now is in my control? There is so much that I
- 33:48can't control. I can't control the fact that we just got like,
- 33:5118 inches of snow. I can't control the fact that it's eight
- 33:53degrees outside. I can't control the fact that, you know, we have
- 33:56an insane friggin sexual predator in the White House. I
- 34:00can't control like so many things. What can I do? Okay? I
- 34:03can control my own beliefs. I can control my own judgments. I
- 34:07can control my own thoughts, words and my actions, while I
- 34:12can accept and let go of the things that aren't in my
- 34:15control, whether or not people like me, other people's
- 34:18opinions, other people's actions, I can't control any of
- 34:21that other stuff, right? We know so much suffering happens when
- 34:24we refuse to accept that what happened happened, right? And
- 34:29when we refuse to accept that we cannot control other people's
- 34:32thoughts, words and actions. What? What is in my purview,
- 34:35what is in my power? I can only control me. So the key to
- 34:40happiness and the key to inner peace, partially, right? Is
- 34:44pretty simple. No matter what happens in your life, we always
- 34:49have to focus on what's within your control. Ryan Holiday has
- 34:55this great quote, and he said, If you don't know Ryan Holiday,
- 34:58he's an author, he's a speech. Guy. He owns a book shop in
- 35:01Texas. He's written a ton of books. You can see back there,
- 35:04like I have a bunch of those back there in that little table.
- 35:06I'm pointing at her, a bunch of his books. And he said this, we
- 35:10don't control when things get hard, but we always control how
- 35:14we respond. This is very course in Miracle z2 this is what I'm
- 35:17saying, right? Of course, in Miracle says, you know, we can't
- 35:20control the world. We can change our thinking. We control how we
- 35:23think about the world. I can't change the world, but I can
- 35:25change the way I think about the world. What can I control my own
- 35:29thinking, my own thoughts, my own words, my own actions. He
- 35:32says this, we don't control when things get hard, but we always
- 35:35control how we respond. We can show patience, courage,
- 35:39humility, resourcefulness, reason, justice and creativity,
- 35:44the things that test us make us who we are. And if you want to
- 35:51get even more practical about it, you know, because I was
- 35:53thinking about this, because it's really easy, right? It's
- 35:56really easy to look around and say things like, well, they
- 35:59should be doing this. Why aren't they doing that? Why isn't this
- 36:02person doing this? Why isn't that person doing that? I'm
- 36:04like, Look, I can't control what those people do. I can only
- 36:07control what I do. So our next piece is the invitation right to
- 36:13get really clear with yourself about what your role is, what
- 36:17your capacity is, what you are able to do. And this means we
- 36:21have to have some self awareness, we have to have some
- 36:24self reflection. We have to get really honest with ourselves
- 36:28about some things. Now, if we're to look on a larger scale, if
- 36:32we're looking at a more kind of like collective or organized, or
- 36:38we look at the systems of like, everything from being an ally to
- 36:42being an active activist. You know what I'm saying?
- 36:47There's a couple of resources, and I found these because I do,
- 36:50I do research, right? It sounds like sometimes that maybe I'm
- 36:53just babbling away on here, but I do think deeply about what I'm
- 36:57saying, and I do think about like, sharing things that might
- 37:01be helpful. So there's this one piece that I loved, and this is
- 37:06from a woman named Marilla on a Rio, and she's a Human Resources
- 37:12exec, she's a dei agent of change, and she's a social
- 37:15responsibility advocate, and she talks about this on a two level,
- 37:19a two pronged approach and a two level approach. One is our own
- 37:22awareness journey, right, who we are as basically citizens, our
- 37:27own awareness as people, and then how our awareness will show
- 37:32up in our actions. So I'm just going to take, I'll just hold it
- 37:35up real quick. You can see it. It's a it's a little sheet of
- 37:37paper, and it goes from left to right, and this is what it says
- 37:42First, on our awareness journey, we're unaware, right? We don't
- 37:45notice or understand some social changes being demanded by other
- 37:48people. We're disengaged from the conversation. We're not
- 37:51interested, right? We're just unaware. We're asleep at the
- 37:53wheel. I think this has been a lot of people for a really long
- 37:56time, and when we're unaware like that, what that makes us is
- 38:00a bystander that makes us people who just stand around and we
- 38:03don't act because we don't know how to or why. So when we're
- 38:08unaware, we end up being a bystander. Okay, we move over.
- 38:12We grow a little bit, we get a little more awareness now. Now,
- 38:15when we're aware, she says, we realize that there's something
- 38:19going on that we've been blind in some ways, and you begin to
- 38:22understand other people's perspectives and demands, and
- 38:25then you start connecting your story to their story. That's
- 38:29where you are on your awareness journey. You're now aware and
- 38:32our actions to reflect that could could make you an ally?
- 38:35What does an ally Do you assist in support, in an ongoing
- 38:39effort, activity or struggle. So now you've moved from unaware
- 38:43and a bystander to now being aware and possibly being an
- 38:46ally. Well, the next phase of that is that you become active.
- 38:51Okay, in your awareness journey, you've moved from just being
- 38:54aware of shit to now, maybe I'm gonna do something about it.
- 38:57Right? This is when you become active. You're proactively
- 39:01working for change, and you're supporting those who need, who
- 39:05have needs or are underrepresented or
- 39:07marginalized, and you stop pushing outside your own comfort
- 39:10zone, and you're about to find your voice as your actions
- 39:14become visible and your actions become a priority for you. So
- 39:17when you become more active, how it shows up in your actions is
- 39:21you could either be an ally or you become an advocate. And as
- 39:25an advocate, you aim to influence with formal support,
- 39:29so you acknowledge and utilize your privilege to engage in
- 39:32controversial situations on behalf of marginalized people
- 39:36and groups who can't afford to do so in order to make social
- 39:39and political change. So we're moving up the scale, and maybe
- 39:44some people stop at being active. They're an ally, they're
- 39:46an advocate. And then there are people who go on in their
- 39:49awareness journey where they start to advocate, and when you
- 39:53advocate, your voice now is capable of transforming society
- 39:58and bias systems and other social. Social and political
- 40:01issues. Okay? So this is when you basically, it says you take
- 40:06calculated, personal or professional risk to shift
- 40:09behaviors. This is when you're really going for it, and when
- 40:12you're at that level of where you are an advocate, right? Or
- 40:17when you advocate, this makes you either an advocate or an
- 40:20activist, a true activist, and as an activist, you act on
- 40:24behalf of solving social and political issues, and you're at
- 40:27the forefront of a movement, and sometimes you're compromising
- 40:31your own energy, and I would also say safety, and we've seen
- 40:36that again and again again at these protests, where people are
- 40:39going out there on behalf of their neighbors, on behalf of
- 40:41their community, on behalf of quote, unquote, others, and they
- 40:45are putting their own privilege to work, and they are putting
- 40:47their own bodies even at harm, right? And that's a big one, and
- 40:53then another one, just to show you, since we're talking about
- 40:56it, I'm holding up this piece of paper too, and this is from the
- 41:01four rules of social activism. And you can find it on Commons,
- 41:05library.org, and instead of talking about it like as being a
- 41:10bystander, an ally, an ally, an advocate or an activist, right,
- 41:14this talks about it by being either a citizen, a reformer, a
- 41:19rebel or a change agent, and it talks about being, how we can be
- 41:23ineffective and effective in each of these roles. And this
- 41:26goes back to what I was saying. What is your role? What are you
- 41:29going to do about stuff? And look, most people, if you're
- 41:33listening to this show, you have some sort of device that you're
- 41:35listening to me on, which means you can google some shit, and
- 41:38you can find out about some of these things for yourself. I
- 41:41just want to put you in point, you, like, maybe in the right
- 41:44direction, and send you some like, resources and stuff like
- 41:47that. Excuse me, I have to keep taking drinks of water because
- 41:51my throat is dry. Okay? So here's the thing. Now it's time
- 41:54to reflect on right? Like, what can I do? And when I think about
- 41:58this, I think about a couple of different things, right? So I am
- 42:03a person who believes in the power of, you know, spiritual
- 42:07practices, obviously, or I wouldn't be a spiritual mentor,
- 42:10I wouldn't be a coach, right? I believe in, like, looking
- 42:14internally and asking for support from whether you call it
- 42:20again, your higher power, your inner teacher, your intuition,
- 42:25your gut instinct. Spirit, Holy Spirit, divine intelligence. I
- 42:29don't care the voice for God. I never care what we call these
- 42:32things, right? But I think of Martin Luther King, Jr, who is
- 42:35another one of my mentors, and another one of my, you know,
- 42:40main guys on my spiritual team who's inspired me endlessly over
- 42:44the years, when I've been afraid, when I've had to speak
- 42:47up, when I know I'm about to say something that might make me
- 42:50unpopular, whatever, I always dig deep into his energy, and I
- 42:53lean on him, and I ask him and all the angels that be to
- 42:57support me and guide me. And you hear me say this, and you know,
- 43:02in A Course in Miracles prayer, that I say all the time, and if
- 43:04you know me, you've probably heard me out of this prayer 1000
- 43:07times, which is simply, you know, have me go where you would
- 43:09have me go. Have me do what you would have me do. Have me say,
- 43:13what you would have me say, and to whom. Please use me. Please
- 43:17use me. Please use me.
- 43:20And Martin Luther King is, you know, proposed to have said, Use
- 43:25me God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what
- 43:31I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself. I'm
- 43:37going to repeat that. Use me, God. Again. If you don't like
- 43:40the word God, insert your own happy word, universe, higher
- 43:44power, highest self, right? Use me. God. Show me how to take who
- 43:49I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a
- 43:56purpose greater than myself. I think of this a lot, and I ask
- 44:01myself, what can I actually do? And this is my invitation to you
- 44:06to sit down, spend some time with yourself and ask yourself,
- 44:10right, what makes me uniquely me? What are the talents, the
- 44:18time, the resources, the capability, the creativity, the
- 44:23wisdom, the knowledge, the experience, like, what do I have
- 44:27that I can do to help? Because again, remember, the plan is to
- 44:33keep you feeling helpless and hopeless and overwhelmed and
- 44:37without power and in despair. And we don't want that doesn't
- 44:40help anybody except the racket that they're running. So if
- 44:45we're gonna, quote, unquote, call it fighting back, pushing
- 44:49back, resisting, taking a stand, right whatever you know, as
- 44:54Swami karpali used to say, don't fight the darkness. Turn on the
- 44:57light. So what's your version of turning on? The light, how are
- 45:01you going to be a helper? If we're looking for the help is,
- 45:04how are you going to be a helper? And this is when we have
- 45:07to look at ourselves and say, What do I have? I look at my
- 45:11sweetie, right? My sweetie is a musician. He has a lot of
- 45:14talent, and he has written songs and albums, right, putting out a
- 45:18particular message in certain songs or whatever, but also his
- 45:22role is, and it might be just be like, Oh, he plays music. So
- 45:25what? No, I can't tell you how many people have come up to my
- 45:28sweetie after a gig and said, Man, I was having the worst day,
- 45:32and you just turned my whole day around. Oh, my wife and I were
- 45:36out. This is our anniversary. You just made our night so
- 45:38special, on and on and on and on and on. You know, waiters and
- 45:43wait staff bartenders saying, you know, you're the nicest guy
- 45:45that plays here. We always love that you're here, my sweetie and
- 45:49just his his way, that he is, his energy, his presence, his
- 45:53kindness, his compassion, his talent. He makes a difference
- 45:58out in the world, right? You might be somebody who has the
- 46:01money and the time to donate, right? Maybe you can't show up
- 46:05at a protest, right? And again, we have to look at our own
- 46:08capacity. Somebody who is able bodied might be having a
- 46:12different skill set than somebody who can't go out into
- 46:15the world unassisted or whatever, right? You might be
- 46:18somebody who's really good at organization or find or doing
- 46:23research or finding resources for other people. You might be
- 46:27somebody who's a matchmaker, somebody who can put people in
- 46:30touch with one another. I don't know there are 1000 ways to
- 46:34help. This is up to you to figure out, like, what you can
- 46:37do. When I look at myself, I ask myself, like, Oh, am I even
- 46:41making a difference in the world? Right? And these are real
- 46:43conversations. I sometimes ask like, what can I be doing? What
- 46:46should I be doing? What could I do better? What could I do less
- 46:49of more of whatever? And I think to myself, every class that I
- 46:54teach, everything that I do, whether I'm working with
- 46:56somebody one on one, whether I'm talking to people in the nest,
- 47:00my group program, whether I'm putting my hands on somebody
- 47:03doing Thai Yoga massage, you know, Thai Yoga body work, Thai
- 47:07Yoga massage, Thai Yoga, whatever you there's different
- 47:10names we can call it, right? But Thai Yoga massage, to me, is the
- 47:14physical application and practice of loving kindness. It
- 47:18is a way that I can put my hands on another person and help them,
- 47:22right? It's co regulation. It's helping them to feel more in
- 47:26their body. It's helping them to feel more calm and peaceful and
- 47:30in a state of meta loving kindness, right? That's the
- 47:34whole heartbeat, right? Teaching a yoga class, helping people
- 47:38right, to come back to themselves in their breath in
- 47:40their body, teaching people about the Foundations of Yoga,
- 47:45the Yamas, which are totally all about. You know this,
- 47:49ultimately, yoga is about liberation and freedom, knowing
- 47:52who you are to whom you belong, and that connection. And part of
- 47:56that is that liberation and that understanding that we're all
- 47:59connected, and that until everybody is free, I'm not free.
- 48:04That's why other people's suffering means something to me.
- 48:07Yeah, you could look at it as, like I always say to people, you
- 48:10can just approach it from a totally selfish point of view,
- 48:12like, I want you to be free so that I'm free. But none of us
- 48:15are getting out of here without helping the others. That's the
- 48:19deal, that is the spiritual contract, right? Yoga is all
- 48:23about liberation for all. It's a collective consciousness of
- 48:27understanding that I don't want you to suffer. I want peace and
- 48:31happiness and freedom from suffering for all the animals
- 48:36the planet, the people. That's the gig. Okay? Okay. So when I
- 48:41think about my own work, whether I'm doing a podcast or I'm guest
- 48:45teaching or guest speaking or I'm like, you know, leading,
- 48:49whatever I'm doing, I try to think about like, okay, how can
- 48:53this actually be helpful? And, you know, I often wish, man, I
- 48:59wish I had more money. I wish I could donate more. I wish I
- 49:02could set up things. I wish I could start animal sanctuaries.
- 49:04I wish I could do this. And I'm like, Well, you can't do that.
- 49:07You're not there yet. What can you do with what you got? What's
- 49:11my role? And not everybody is meant to be a speaker. Not
- 49:16everybody is meant to get on stages. Not everybody is meant
- 49:19to be at the front of the room, there are 1000 ways to serve
- 49:23love. There are 1000 ways to serve love. Which brings me to
- 49:29my next point. If you're too busy judging other people's
- 49:35roles, then your focus is in the wrong place. There was this
- 49:40culture for a while where people were really getting off on
- 49:43calling out other people, and I'm like, Look, I can't control
- 49:47what other people do. I can only control myself, coming back to
- 49:50the Stoics, I can only control my own thoughts, words and
- 49:53actions. I can't make people with way huge or bigger
- 49:56platforms in mind not have sociopaths on. Program helping
- 50:01people to get elected, right? Like, I can't control that. I
- 50:04can control who I have on my show and what I do. I can't
- 50:09control that. There's a lot of violence and hatred in the
- 50:11world. What I can do is work on my own right, and any amount of
- 50:16violence, any amount of hatred I have in my own self, that's what
- 50:20I can work on I can't control a shit ton of things. I look to
- 50:26myself and I say, what is in my power? I get to be the loving
- 50:32alternative. I get to be the alternative to the things that I
- 50:37don't like. I don't have time to waste calling people out and
- 50:40pointing fingers and saying, Why aren't you using your platform?
- 50:43Why aren't you using your voice? If I'm doing that, I am wasting
- 50:47my God given talent time and energy, right? What? What God
- 50:51given what God given talent do I have? That's a question for
- 50:54another day, but my resources need to be spent on what I can
- 50:59do, not worrying about what everybody else is or isn't
- 51:02doing. So if you're too busy calling out other people, your
- 51:05focus is in the wrong place. That's all that I'm saying. We
- 51:09all have our own ways of showing up. We all have our own ways of
- 51:14showing up. And if we just spend our time again worrying about
- 51:19what other people are doing, spend our time judging other
- 51:22people wondering, like, if they're performing up to, I
- 51:25stand it, or whatever. You just totally, you're just, you're
- 51:29missing. You're missing the whole damn point. Your focus is
- 51:33in the wrong place. Okay, so we want to take time now to reflect
- 51:38and focus on what you can't do or can do. I mean, whether
- 51:42that's calling your senators, calling your representatives,
- 51:45some of you might be actively outside protesting, you know,
- 51:48the ice facilities that are supposedly, you know, coming to
- 51:51New Hampshire, although Kelly Ayotte says, Oh, it can't be
- 51:54happening, because I don't know anything about it, whatever,
- 51:57right? I'm just saying, right? Like, what can you do? You can
- 52:00use your voice, you can use your time, your talent, your energy,
- 52:03your creativity, your support, be kind to your neighbors. Make
- 52:07somebody who's sick some soup, right, show up and, you know,
- 52:11just be a helper. How can you help? You might be housebound.
- 52:17Maybe you can't do anything, but maybe you can, like, you know,
- 52:20babysit somebody's kid. I don't know. There's 1001 ways. It's
- 52:24not for me to say what you should be doing. This is a you,
- 52:27with you and you and Mother Nature. Are you in the universe?
- 52:31You and God time? This is when you get to sit with yourself and
- 52:36figure that out. And I'm going to share some final reflections
- 52:39here that is very that, I think, is in line with this, with this
- 52:43whole episode about, you know, what are you going to do? What
- 52:47happened? Happened now? What are we going to do about it? What
- 52:50are you going to do about it? Something to keep in mind is the
- 52:53Serenity Prayer that has been known across the world for
- 52:56forever, for 12 step programs, right? And and recovery
- 53:00programs. God grant me the serenity to accept the things
- 53:04that I cannot change, the courage to change the things I
- 53:07can and the wisdom to know the difference. We can change what's
- 53:14asked to change, but we can't build a better past what
- 53:17happened has happened. It's like, what are we going to do
- 53:20now about what's happened.
- 53:22Ryan Holiday also sends it says this, so I shared his book. It's
- 53:26the daily stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the
- 53:31art of living. These two quotes come from that he says, control
- 53:35your perceptions, direct your actions, properly, willingly
- 53:42accept what's outside your control and then focus on what
- 53:47you can control. Okay, and this is the last thing I'll share.
- 53:51And if you're still with me, thank you for hanging in there.
- 53:54I know this episode was a little all over the place. He says some
- 53:58things are in our control, while others are not. We control our
- 54:01opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and in a word,
- 54:06everything of our own doing. We don't control our body,
- 54:11property, reputation, position, and in a word, everything, not
- 54:16of our own doing. So the question is, what is of your own
- 54:21doing? What can you control and what are you going to do about
- 54:24it? And I'm just going to end right there. Thank you for being
- 54:30here with me. Thank you. If you're a loyal listener, I
- 54:33appreciate you more than you know. Thank you. If you're a new
- 54:36listener, I'm so happy to have you here. And I just want to
- 54:40say, look, a lot of times my I'm usually laughing way more in my
- 54:46episodes, but there's some serious shit going on, and this
- 54:48is serious times. And it's, it's time for us to grow up and,
- 54:52look, I'm just going to say this as well. I really believe in
- 54:55this. You know, people poo poo, spirituality. And I. Get it. I'm
- 55:00also in the crowd. That's like your thoughts and prayers are
- 55:03not enough, however, however. And of course, in miracles, it
- 55:07says prayers are the medium of miracles. And I do think that
- 55:13directing our minds in a powerful way, and I don't mean
- 55:17manifesting in that way, or what I'm talking about literally
- 55:20using our minds for the purpose of love. You know, we need to,
- 55:25and I'm not doing light and love. I'm not talking about
- 55:28that, and I'm not sometimes I make fun of it, but what I'm
- 55:32saying is there is spiritual aspects when, when Abraham
- 55:36Lincoln talked about the angels of our better nature, Dr Martin
- 55:40Luther King, when you think about a lot of the movements
- 55:44that came out to abolish right slavery, to talk about civil
- 55:49rights, they often came from spiritual backgrounds. There is
- 55:52a power. There is a power in starting to slow down and
- 55:57connect to the inner power to the Divine that lives within
- 56:01you, that spark of divinity that lives within you, and calling
- 56:04upon that right spiritual power. Right, love is fierce. We often
- 56:10think about love is just being like, just kind of like, weak
- 56:14and sweet. And it's like, love can be fierce, and that's the
- 56:18only thing that's going to turn this boat around. That's the
- 56:20only thing that is going to turn this ship around. And around and
- 56:23keep us from just annihilating each other, is that we have got
- 56:26to be a force for love. And when I say that prayer, have me go
- 56:30where you would have me go. Have me do what you would have me do.
- 56:33Have me say what you would have me say, and to whom. Please use
- 56:36me. Please use me. Please use me. I always say, May I be in
- 56:39service to love. May we all be in service to love. Bye.