Embracing Self-Awareness and Mental Health: A Journey of Personal Growth

In this enlightening episode, MethodMuse (Chloe) and I discuss the areas of self-awareness, mental health, and personal growth. Join us as we explore the balance between managing our energy and achieving our goals. 

We discuss the importance of being intentional with where we allocate our mental, physical and emotional energy, emphasizing that we have a finite amount each day.

Discover the concept of viewing your daily energy as an allowance from the universe, and how choosing where to invest it—whether in relationships, work, hobbies, or spiritual practices—can profoundly impact your well-being and progress. We touch on the significance of setting boundaries and recognizing when to let others handle their responsibilities, avoiding the trap of overextending ourselves.

Our conversation also highlights the critical role of mindfulness in reclaiming our power and avoiding autopilot mode. Through meditation and introspection, we can reconnect with ourselves, make intentional decisions, and protect ourselves from manipulation.

Facing fear is another key theme, as we discuss the importance of moving forward despite feeling afraid, creating an identity of resilience and courage. We also delve into the necessity of incremental change and the integration of spirituality and mental health for a balanced, joyful life.

Furthermore, we reflect on the power of synchronicities and how our thoughts and ideas might be connected to a larger, universal consciousness. The episode concludes with a discussion on the benefits of different spiritual tools, such as prayer and breathwork, and the importance of finding what works best for you.

Join us on this journey as we share valuable insights and practical advice on how to navigate life with intention, awareness, and compassion. Whether you're seeking personal growth, better mental health, or a deeper understanding of spirituality, this episode offers something for everyone.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Managing and allocating daily energy
• The significance of boundaries and self-care
• Mindfulness and avoiding autopilot mode
• Facing fear and building resilience
• Incremental change and integrating spirituality with mental health
• Synchronicities and universal consciousness
• Practical spiritual tools for well-being

Guest Co-Host: MethodMuse (Chloe) is an expert in mental health and spirituality, shares their experiences and insights on how to live a fulfilling, balanced life.

Links and Resources:

Check out MethodMuse at: https://methodmuse.beehiiv.com/

Transcript

0:56

Welcome, everybody. This is our Friday live show. Runs every Friday at seven central. I'm your host, Sean Lawyer. my background is as a soldier who spent years in combat zones in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan. Now, I'm a spiritual, seeker. Also sometimes a guide and a coach. And I'm trying to just open up the world, have discussions with people from all walks of life, different types of spiritual philosophies, different types of religions, and, and see if we can all talk to each other and have a better conversation. That's great questions and and kind of come together and make the world a better place. Each week we're going to feature a different guest or co-host. We'll be discussing a variety of, spiritual topics. This week we have Chloe, also known as Method Muse. Hello. She's a yeah, all, she's an emerging voice in, wellness and spiritual practice, holistic, approaches. And she's, a professional content creator. So, Chloe, I'm going to turn it over to you and and see if you, can let the guests know what you're all about. Okay. Yes. My name is Chloe East. I have a really strangely spelled last name because it's French. So the RV is silent, so if you see it and you're like, that's not what is. Yes, yes it is. It's a really strange last name. And I come from Louisiana, so I come from the place. Because I grew up with generational trauma and I mean, like, it goes far back on both sides of my family. So I started in the therapist system from a very young age. And this is the early psychiatric system because I'm 44 now. So you can imagine what it's like back when I was a kid. Advancements now have come so much further, and there are so many new ways for people to make their lives better by controlling their minds, the trolling, their habits, and recognizing their emotions. So today we're going to be talking about the the connection between spirituality and mental health and how, you know, spiritual practices or different elements of spirituality can affect your mental health. So, John, how do you feel about spirituality and mental health? I have strong opinions on it. I guess, like, I mean, I'm pretty open about talking about it, but I mean, having come from I mean, you have complex PTSD. So do I, right? So we we both come from pretty similar backgrounds. We're we're almost the same age. I'm 43 or 44, so I feel like we're kind of approaching this differently. But we have some perspective. I, I think that our mental health has an absolute impact on our spirituality because. That mind and ego that we have were very we're humans. And it's not just we're not always going to be, floating in the ether kind of, all completely. We're we have to kind of balance that with how we, we kind of move through the real world, you know. I think that, I think my internet cut out there. Okay. All right. That. Yeah. We're back. Quebec. Are you saying you have very strong feelings about the intersection between mental health and spirituality and how how daily spirituality affects you know, people's mental health? It does. Yeah. As I was saying. Yeah, it's, we can't always be in like, the woo in the metaphysical side of spirituality. I think it's important. I think it's relevant. but I'm really interested in that place where the intersection of our spiritual path and our daily walk through this weird world that we share with everybody else where that happens. And so, it sounds like you kind of have a similar approach. So I'm definitely I do. And, you know, it's funny because growing up, my family was hyper religious. I mean, extreme and in almost bizarre, like cultish, like, you know, and they would change all the time. You changed all the time. Change face all the time, you know, just over and over. Each time it was a new one, I was like, no, you have to follow this. And it's like, what? You know, you just said last week that it was something else. Oh no, you listen to what I say now. Now I've changed my mind. So, you know, it was very confusing for me. So I'm like, okay, so I'm in this thing called life and I'm, you know, with these people who seem to have no idea what's going on and I have no idea what's going on. It's really scary, you know, it's it's terrifying as a kid especially. But I think for anyone, for even a grown up, I mean, to, to just have this question of what's going on, you know, and to have the comfort of some kind of answer that you feel good about, I think is really important. But, you know, when I was young, I just didn't have that. So I kind of just went searching around. So I'd say I've really been researching, you know, different faiths probably since I was a teenager, like from a really young age, like trying to understand philosophy and psychology and religions. And then even in college, I studied religion for a while and, just tried to understand, you know, why do people believe what they believe and what's true? What what is truth? What does that mean? You know, and it's a lot more complex than it seems, I think, because it's so simple. You can't put it into words. It's like, where are the words to describe something so simplistic? Yeah, I love that that you say it's so simple because I, I like sometimes, you know, when you, when you think about what is spirituality to, to each of us. Right. And you think about how do I get to that point where I'm like seeing my inner self for the divine or the universe or whatever we call it, right? And then when you kind of explore religion of spirituality for a while, you study it, you get kind of introspective with yourself. You can say, oh, you know, the distance between here and there is a short distance. That doesn't mean that it's not extremely complicated, right? It can be a really short distance, and it can even be like a theoretically simple path. yeah. But it's actually pretty complicated to kind of, navigate yourself through it. Yes. But then also with a history of trauma, you have that self-doubt and you're like, you get confused and you're like, did I really think that just now? Or did I change my mind, you know, and then somebody will tell you something else and you're like, no, that seems more true. But then somebody else say contradictory, you know, something completely different. You're like, that's sounds kind of true too, but I'm not sure, you know. So it gets to a place where you're like, okay, so I'm just basically open at the door of this expanse of potential possibilities, none of which I can understand. And people hate it when I say I understand why they hate it. I really do like it's it's a frightening sort of feeling to admit. You just don't know. You know, you don't absolutely know 100%, but you have a perception in and of yourself that there's something, something is there. So maybe you have a way of describing it that you feel fits your view of the world. But, you know, there's a funny thing that happened, this morning. I've had such a bizarre day. I was telling you that before the show, but it's been just the craziest day. And this is my first live stream in years, by the way. So if I seem a little off, that's why I. Like to do. It. Like you're here. It's. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. but, yeah, this morning, I, I went to chick fil A for breakfast. Right? This is actually a special thing for me to go to chick fil A for breakfast very often. And I really love their little chick burger. their their burritos. Right. So I go in there and I've been walking for a long time in the heat because I've been running around all morning, and I get in there and usually the employees there and most of them were all very nice. They're like so sweet. And here in Las Vegas, where I live, it's a little different with the customer service. If you go to like one of the other places like McDonald's or something, they'll pretty much ignore you. You just walk, you can talk to you. You're like, here's your food. They don't say thanks, you know? And I just kind of got used to that because that's just the way it is here in the city. So when I go to chick fil A, it's like special, you know, like, yeah, we got to get customer service. Like, yeah. You know, so I go in there and I get this kid who's like, he's he's probably only slightly older than my son who is just about to turn 18. Right. So I get this kid who is just like, oh, and just like, so rude, just incredibly rude to me. And the whole time I'm just, like, refused to give a rude back. And I like being nice to him. Like, yeah. Thank you. Display polite behavior. Right. And, he was just like, I don't know, like he hated being there. I was like, did your parents make you get this job and you're trying to get fired because you're not going to last day doing it. But, you know, at first I was like, angry is like, oh my gosh, it's so disrespectful. And I came over this and I was like, wait a minute, why do I feel this way? Why am I so upset? I mean, this is a kid, you know, basically, I mean, to me, he's a kid, right? You know, why would I get upset about that for. So I just started thinking, you know, maybe maybe just seeing it really adjust something in both of us. Because later on, right before I left, I walked back over to get, like, some sauces or something, and he came up to the register again, like he thought I was a new customer. Right? And he was just like, totally different, like, really nice. I, I don't even know what to think about that. I'm like, what is happening here? So that's just one of the many bizarre things. But if you think about it, you know, if I'm looking at it from his side of things, I'm this kid with no life experience. He doesn't have my life experience. He has no idea. I've raised children. This is a kid who knows nothing about the world. This is probably his first job. First day, because he wasn't training, right? So he's being trained by this other guy. So, you know, I'm sitting there thinking about it, like, why would I expect him to see things from my perspective? Why would I think that he would have a lifetime of my history and my memories? And, you know, there's this thing and I say it all the time. I love talking about this word, but there's a book called, The Dictionary of Scarce. I was online. Have you ever heard of that? I haven't. I'm always looking at. It's like made up words that have these really emotional backgrounds. You know. So one of them is Sonder. So NBER and it's basically the recognition that everyone is walking around with worlds inside of them. They're they're these big mysteries that you can't see anything but the surface. And you talk about the iceberg thing, but it's really, really true. You only see what's coming out. This could have been going through like crazy stuff, right? I have no idea what this kid's life was. I mean, maybe he didn't want to be there. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he's feeling terrible and he didn't feel like he could leave. You know, there could have been a million things this kid was thinking. So if he's moving around with his world going around, why would I think that they have any real effect on my worlds if they're not, you know, directly impacting me? Yeah, they know I'm going to have a kneejerk emotional reaction because I'm expecting something I didn't get. You know, it's going to be disappointment. But at the same time, you know, I can just sit with that emotion, just feel it and be like, Yeah, I don't have to do anything. And I think that's what happens sometimes in spirituality. I don't think that religion is bad per se. I think it's like any system, what happens is the system is supposed to serve the interests of the people, and instead the people start serving the interests of the system. And that goes completely backwards. Right? And then, you know, you end up with situations where people are looking at it like, okay, well, if I'm this, let's say I'm a Christian or a Catholic or whatever it is you know, whatever group that you affiliate with and you say, okay, this other person is also a Christian or Catholic or whatever. So they must be good, great loves, shortcuts. I mean, our brain loves to save energy. So if it says, okay, well, I can group everybody in this category as good, safe, trustworthy people. It's good to be like, yeah, yes, they be energy. I don't have to sit there and analyze what they're doing and their behaviors and whether or not they're really, you know, practicing what they preach. And it's just, you know, this blanket aspect of, you know, feeling like everyone's on your side and it's a double edged sword because it can be a really good thing to to have that connection. You know, I've heard it even said that like music concerts. I'm really into metal, by the way. Like, I love metal music. I'm crazy about it. And people are like, no way. You're only going to psychology your book nerd. And I'm like, no, I love metal, I'm crazy. You have no idea that. Yeah. you know, when you think about, like, metal concerts or any kind of music concert is similar to a church because you have everybody there for a common interest that they're very emotional about and they identify with. And that's a big thing, is that identity and that sense of belonging and that sense of purpose, you know, community, having people be there for you. And I definitely saw that in my community. So, you know, what do you think about that? No, I there's a couple of things there. I, I really appreciate that you said and that last thing you talked about community. Community is really important. I think people will often think when they're on the spiritual path or an, an introspective path, even, that it has to be lonely or it's going to be lonely, but that that's like a choice, right? It doesn't have to be, I think, and we're very communal tribal beings, so we're better off usually if we find people that speak our language and know, I know, have a similar, perception or open mindedness that we have, that we have similar thoughts and beliefs. We don't have to be in an echo chamber, but it's a place where we have some similar interests, is usually right. Yeah. And you talk a lot about perspective there. And when you were talking about that and a couple of different times, you talked about how perspective is so different in someone else. And we never know. We know what we're going through kind of hopefully we know what we're going through. Sometimes we don't know. Yeah, sometimes we do, sometimes not. But we don't. We don't know what someone else is going through. And I think a lot of times, and yes, this is a good topic too, because we think that we know what someone's going through. Often I oh, we know them like we know what their story is and but we really don't we really don't know what their story is like. We might have a concept of it. We might have an idea of it, but we really don't understand how their life is being lived. And we don't understand what what place they're coming from. From from, what the what trouble they're going through, and, and, and that they see things completely different than we do. I think it's so important to know that we're moving through this amazing world that's completely messed up, but awesome. And we don't understand how differently people are seeing this experience. They're not seen. It was. That's so true. It's just like, I can't even imagine. It's like trying to imagine, you know, what does a dog see? You know, what is the world look like to someone else? And the only thing is, and I've asked this question, like, especially the people close to me, they probably get tired of hearing it. Like, what are you thinking about? What's in there? Who are you in there? Yeah. What's happening inside you? Because even the people closest to us, we know from what is consistent about them. You know what? What they do on a regular basis, what is trustworthy. And that's really the only way that we can tell what might be happening inside them. There are people who have had 30 actually have literally seen a 50 year relationship in which they did not know each other well enough to realize that one of them was going to leave after 50 years. Like, these were people I knew personally. I was very surprised because nobody nobody was expecting it. And it was just very sudden. You talked about how the brain and then the ego and the brain together, they they tend to oversimplify things on purpose because they think that that is the easiest way to keep us alive. Right? So you talked about how they oversimplify things and that if we don't really analyze that ourselves and look at it more intentionally in a more aware way, then we're looking at things way more simply, than we could, because sometimes it's nice to be able to look at things in a simple way, to make decisions and to kind of, you know, figure life out. But at some point there are there is a certain degree of complexity to life. And if we don't recognize that our brain is like taking everything down to the lowest common denominator, we're really not in control of how we're perceiving and seeing the world around us. Right? That's true. And then, you know, have you heard of the reticular activating system part of your brain? Okay. It's part of your brain and nervous system. Basically it regulates it's a very large system. It's not just like one thing. It's not one area of your brain. It's multiple systems working together to regulate your behaviors, basically your habits and behaviors. So we're kind of similar to computers in a way. If you repeat something enough, eventually you will program yourself with that thing that includes your thought habits, not just physical habits. So whatever you're thinking and feeling on a regular basis now, here's a funny thing too, is that your synapses in your brain, your neurons, that that they fire, right? And they create activity in your brain. Well, if they fire together, if you do two things together, two activities at the same time, they will start firing together. If you keep doing it over and over again, they'll fire at the same time. So you do one. You're going to want to go do the other one, right? So they call it habit stacking. Basically you'll take something yeah. You know, that you're already doing and then add something to it. And you know tie those together. But I think that also works in a sense with spirituality. You know, I do think that it becomes a sort of mental and emotional habit and that if you if you're trying to even consider breaking away from it. Now, this is to two fold, because I think faith is a good thing. I think believing that you're protected and safe, that you know you have something with a higher power or something looking out for you, I think is a really, really good thing to feel secure and less anxiety and stress. But you also need to be careful to set boundaries and not assume that you don't have to monitor yourself within that faith structure and monitor especially other people who you might interact with during their faith structure. Yeah, I really like that. and boundaries are incredibly important. And going back to what you said in the very beginning to like, it's I think it is really important for people to understand my brain is a biomechanical machine and I am programing it. And I think we we know we have habits, we know we have routines out in our life, but we don't realize that we have these internal habits or routines that are baked into our the way that we programed our thought processes. And and like you said, that bleeds into spirituality because we know that there is either some form of alignment or non-alignment, depending on our day and who it is our alignment of our mind, body and soul. And so that that programing of our mind impacts our body. It impacts our spirit and soul and our whole life. Now, it's funny that you mentioned alignment because and they may think of something. Is that also when people come together with these same ideas, you know, they they have this thing called thought forms, right? It's basically like a contagious idea. So, you know, it's it's actually really, really effective with certain ideas, especially if it also involves the emotional system, because the emotions actually come from the body. We feel emotions in our body. If we refuse to feel them, we rejects and, you know, won't listen to them. They get stuck in our body and that starts to build up, starts to build illness, whatever else you know. So, you know, I really think that things like meditation, so I would say meditation for no matter what state you are, you could have meditative prayer, you could have walking, meditation, yoga that I think is one of the most essential forms of connecting with yourself in that way, to check in with yourself and be like, okay, where am I in this? How do I feel about it? And let it be an evolving thing? It doesn't have to be static, you know. It can grow as you grow and change. As you grow, you change and you don't even necessarily have to change like your faith or anything. But you're allowing yourself to develop. You're not keeping yourself stuck in one place. Well, I think this actually sits on top of us talking about the programing of our brain habits and routines because one of the things that meditation, meditation is really a ritual for yourself. And it it's a, it's a prayer in all ritual is for any guests that out there that think it's just a spiritual or religious like or a dogmatic thing. All, all ritual is, is a bridge from our concrete self here in this world to our spiritual side, to our other side. And, and so I think meditation, it's one of those things you it's almost like it's helping like cleanse your you're like brain that hard drive. It's like helping like reformat it in a healthy sort of way. I think I might have lost you for a second. Welcome, Rose. Hello, EMC. Welcome to the stream. And Chloe. We just lost her internet for just a second. She'll be back here in just a second. Guys, she had a little interruption. about ten minutes ago. hey, so sorry about that. That's okay. Yeah. Sorry. My hand had actually been fine up until now, but it is that time of day for me. It's like 5 p.m.. So everybody gets home on the weekend and wants to. It's Friday afternoon. Exactly. Yeah. So everything gets, crazy. So. Yeah. meditation and journaling together. You know, you you let the brain discover itself, and then you let it out, and then you're not all, you know, crammed up with all these feelings. Yeah, not not crammed up with all these feelings and that that's also what you were talking about. It's like these feelings get stuck inside of us. And, I mean, we know that, but it's so important to talk about it out loud. And meditation is a part of making yourself more aware, okay, this emotion is stuck here. This thought or emotion or feeling is stuck here. And so I can meditate on it. I can write about it in journaling. And as you're journaling, whether you're journaling on paper or you can journal on your phone or your computer, you're channeling out that thought, that feeling, that emotion that is stuck and you're channeling it out of you. Yes, you're literally writing it away outside of you. For me, I used to call it, pulling thorns because it would actually be just a sort of agonizing feeling. And then all of a sudden this huge relief, you know? So I'm just like, sitting with it. I'm like, okay, okay, okay, okay. Everything's fine now, you know? So it really took me a while to get in touch with my emotions because, you know what? I grew where I grew up, people really didn't talk about their feelings. It was kind of seen as weak, pretty much. like, you discuss mental health issues or to be, you know, under mental health care, you know, it was seen as sort of like this general weakness or poor character or something like that, like something was not right with you. And maybe most a question, your character or something. But unbelievably, there are so many health issues, you know, that they did they did pull together in a community. And that's one thing I love about where I came from is that I learned community from them, because it's very core where I came from. They don't have a lot, so they have to share about themselves. They need each other to survive. So there's a certain sort of, community and connection in, in needing each other. But I also think we need ourselves in that same way. I think we need our interconnection to ourselves and seeing ourselves as a viable person worthy of our own time. Yeah, I think that comes up on our show almost every week, which is that. Our. Our society in a good way and in the best way, like not an exact we've kind of talked about it in different ways. You're coming at it from a different angle, but it's that idea that we're taught to take care of others. We're taught to always be outward focused. Yes. And we're very. Nice. Yeah. To love whatever it. Yeah. The hero complex, we're taught. Yes, we're taught to love these heroes and have this idea of, yeah, sacrifice. And yes. No one. Ever us like, oh, you were injured. You got hurt because you were doing what you were told to do. Oh, good girl, you know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's like, pretty much what it felt like. Yeah. So you'd never get that from our society that. Oh, you need to turn inward and love yourself and take care of yourself first. See yourself, you know, witnessed yourself. And that's that's often how we ended up. So busted. Yes, I agree. We're out there not taking care of ourselves. I think what's happening and I understand it because I used to do the exact same thing, especially growing up. I mean, I probably did it all the way up until probably a couple of years ago. Yeah, at least that I would always try to change my external experience. I gotta, I gotta fix this or and I have to do it right now. Like it had to be done right now. It wasn't good enough for it to be six months from now. So, you know, I try all these things and I try and fail or I do them for a while, maybe a couple of years, and then somehow just kind of fall apart, you know, and I think I had to get to the point where I understood that I had to change what was inside of me, that you got to go inside to change what's outside, because everything's here. Everything the world says yes to everything. So even our egos, like our ego, is all about. No. We think it's like, no, you can't do that. Yeah, no, we don't want to do that, you know? But it's actually saying yes to staying in the same place because it feels safe. So it's really saying yes to not doing anything. So if you if you say, you know, if you're if you're saying no, that no, I'm not going to get up and I'm not going to go jog in the morning or something. No saying yes, I'm going to suffer whatever consequences. And that's what I choose you. So making a choice, there's a choice. That's freedom and choice. It's like they say on the matrix. The problem is choice. It's always a problem. Yeah, all the way down to choices. All the way down. Yes. And that's powerful. When when you sees that, you're like, oh, suddenly I have this power of choice, I can decide what, what's going to happen to me. And, and and you're when you it sounds complicated to, like, maybe turn inward. but it actually makes life so much easier because it's sort of. You mentioned it just now, at the start of that, when you were just talking about trying to change everything around you and you're trying to that you're trying to create this environment for yourself from the outside instead of the inside out. Exactly. You're trying to fix something inside and make it feel better by changing what's outside. It doesn't work that way. If you're fighting, you can't change. You're fighting anyway. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you're and you're going to be all this resistance. trying to change it, change the outside. It's like trying to change your environment because you're, you're trying to change some other reality, not your own. And whether whether that's an organization, whether that's nature, whether that's a person we know famous, you know, most of us know from either reading or from watching television shows, that trying to change other people is. And doesn't. Work out. But we do it anyway. We we you watch our TV show, we. Sometimes don't even do it in earnest. I promise I'll change this, I promise, you know? And they get it in the moment. But the thing is, it's hard to change yourself. So somebody else to change something they didn't even want to change in the first place, you know, and to be, you know, reasonable about it. Maybe they can, you know, maybe. But at the same time, you gotta you gotta be accepting of people the way that they are in certain cases. Like maybe we can compromise. There's a difference between compromising, you know. Yeah. Then, you know, trying to change from someone fundamentally is or what they want to be. Their values, their beliefs, their temperament, their behaviors, things like that, you know? Yeah. No different than compromise and saying, okay, well, if you don't do this and I won't do this or something like that, you know. Absolutely. But it's also would you be that bothered by whatever it was because usually it's some small thing that's not very important, but you'd be that bothered if you were more secure inside of your core with solid, you know, the things happening outside of you. They're not occurring inside of you. They're on the other side, you know what I'm saying? So yeah. And that way they're not infiltrating. That's what a boundary is, I think is the best way I can describe it in the most basic sense is they're there and I'm here, they're there and I'm here. So yeah, you know, I think people get mistaken about boundaries, too, because they think, okay, boundary means I go tell somebody that they have to do what I say. Like, that doesn't happen that way. You know, boundary says, I will do this if I am made uncomfortable by the situation or if it's if for some reason I can't meet my needs in this situation, I will take this action to protect myself. That is a boundary, right? And also not getting enmeshed with either people or systems, whatever it is, becoming enmeshed means when the system changes, you change. Instead of, you know, you have a solid inner core and having your confidence be real inside your self-esteem, your self advocacy. Yeah, self-advocacy, having advocates advocating for yourself. So important. And yes, I think we we create that boundary though sometimes I think we create a boundary and we think it's just for that person or that thing or that object or that, but really that boundary is not just for them. It's also for us. Right? Yes. It's boundaries really are for us. It's for us to protect ourselves, meet our needs, retain our own autonomy and identity, you know, retain our core fundamentals, our physical being even. And, you know, in, in these families where they have gender, everybody gets mixed up with everybody else. So one person reacts, everybody reacts right. Or you know, they have no they don't have the tools, the mental tools to to process their feelings. And they don't have the resilience because there is none ever built. They had no idea. They had nothing to start with. Right? Yeah. No, I like that. And I think when you talk about, you talked about, you know, meditation and the fact that you can use meditation, you can use journaling and that you're communicating with your higher self, you know, that gets into that, those stresses and anxieties that we have. And you've talked about, at the end of that, I think you mentioned and, you know, when you and I were talking before the show, like there's so and some of the notes we were exchanging about self-acceptance and non-judgment. Yes, yes. And I think when you go inside, then I think if you have high anxiety, you probably shouldn't be doing deep mindfulness practices because you're going to be heavily focusing on your anxiety. Right? But if you're just, you know, doing some breathwork and I would say the simplest meditation to start with, because I know meditation can feel confusing, it's like, yeah, I have to sit for an hour, but why do I have to sit for an hour? Yeah, that you can meditate anytime, wherever you are. I don't recommend doing it while driving or operating heavy machinery, you know, just in case. But you know, you can just stop for a minute and say, here's me. I'm here now, right here in this moment. What am I feeling? What's around me, what's going on? And, you know, just check in. Even that check in, you start building that relationship and it becomes a sort of snowball effect. You start, you know, literally building an internal relationship with yourself, and you start seeing all these parts of you you didn't even know were there are all these dreams or aspirations, sometimes even skills and talents, things that you repressed because you felt like maybe they wouldn't be accepted by other people? Yeah. You know, I remember this girl like for years and years and years ago. She's beautiful voice, right? I'm a singer too, and I think I have an okay voice. She had a gorgeous voice. Like, I just loved her voice so much. But she was like, yeah, I don't want to go sing in the church choir because it's going to make my sister feel bad because she'll be sad and she'll feel jealous. And I'm like, you know, it's just, you know, it's worrying me that nobody else was going to hear that because she was worried that somebody, somebody would feel bad about how well her talent was. And we can't think like that. People are going to feel the way that they feel. You can't change that. You can't go out there trying to be everything for everyone. You basically destroy yourself for anyone. If you try to be it, you know what everyone else wants. You won't be anyone and you won't make anyone happy. Well, that's a lot to track, right? When you start tracking with this person like this. And this person doesn't like that. But. So I need to do somewhere in the middle, or I gotta, you know, change for this person. Be different over here. you know what I mean? You know, it starts to get it. That's a lot of weight to carry around it. Is it really extra baggage? And if you do it over time, you think you've been doing it for years. That gets really heavy and it keeps just getting. Does. yeah. It's. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Rose. That's that's enabling the sister. We don't need to enable people for sure. We need to. Right. And you know, what she is, is probably trying to give her some confidence tools and maybe find something you're really good at that you can, you know, showcase or something. Yeah. Because we're all good at different things. Exactly. And just because you know somebody else is good at something doesn't mean you have to be that, too. You know, maybe you can just enjoy it. You could just, you know, be pleased that it's in the world. Be grateful. But you definitely want to seek out your own strengths. I would say as far as, you know, self-awareness and, you know, growing even spiritually. Just look, look for where your strong points are very compassionate. You know, are you very in touch with yourself? What what what is your strong point that that you can build more into and maybe even help other people find a way to. Yeah. And and and that goes back to community and like it. If you're walking a spiritual path, you're like, okay, I want to be more spiritual. You know, first of all, you have to figure out what that means to you, spirituality and all that. But like as you're walking the path, it's natural to come come along the path and you see people, you meet people, and it's good to have conversations and broaden your horizons. And. And I actually love the conversations, like when people are open and they're comfortable. And, you know, I'm very non-judgmental when it comes to people's beliefs. Like, you can tell me you believe in purple unicorns and, you know, fairies dancing in your backyard. And I'm like, you know, maybe they really see fairy. Maybe there really are fairies out there and I just can't see them. I don't know, you know, I have no idea what somebody else's reality is or what is, you know, and that's when people are like like, well, I genuinely don't know. And when I say that, I say it from a deep sense of knowing my limitations as a physical being. I mean, I have eyes that can only see in 2D, right? We actually don't see in 3D if we see 3D because of light and dark. Great. So I can't even see in the back of my head, you know, they're animals. Like see all the way. So how much do I really know about anything? But that's the great thing, because it will never stop being interesting. There will always be more to know, always be more to learn. So when I talk to people, I'm always trying to kind of visit their world and see what's what. Do they know what? What do they know that I might want to take back to my worlds? Yeah. Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah, sure. But being careful, too, that you don't take things back that you don't want, so, you know, goes back to. Discernment, temperance. Like. Yeah. Being able to say like this part, I can use. This permanently. But I don't need to use this other part of that. Right. Yeah. And so I think, you know, you've got you've got to pick and choose because if you try to take anyone, faith is 100%. You can't. It can't be done. It's just not it's not feasible to 100% anything. But I think it's basically like guidelines, you know, it's an outline, a structure that you can start with and develop yourself. And I do think there's there's a lot of benefits to having a sense of purpose and meaning. You know, although I think you can have, you know, have that without it too. You know. Yeah. So it purpose comes from a lot of different places, right? Yeah. You can find purpose elsewhere too. It doesn't have to be a spirituality because I, you know, I know atheists that they feel a very strong sense purposely for helping and you know, and I at one time I was even like right there with I'm like, there's probably nothing. And then eventually I would move on to be like, there's got to be something. So go hunting again. I mean, even. Even if there was nothing. Right? And like, you find your purpose and you're like, you're living your best life, that is almost spiritual. Even if they don't, you know. It's, you know, there are miracles in the mundane. There really are. Yeah. So I mean, that's that's almost spiritual. It's almost Zen. Yeah. You know, I, you know, I have a I have a, I have a deep appreciation for atheist. I don't like to argue with them because it's. My brother is an atheist, actually, and he would love to debate with you. Satan loves to debate. And he was in the debate team, so, yeah, he he definitely has a lot to say on the subject. Yeah. yeah. But we've had a lot of those kind of conversations too, because we've developed in a kind of similar way, sort of questing, I guess, looking, trying to figure out where do we fit in and into this as far as that aspect of things. I like that like the spiritual community Sha that sponsors our channel here, or YouTube channel and our our everything that we do is, is basically built on the journey like it's all about the journey. It's about, that richness of the journey because like, our society is so busy, trying to get somewhere, a goal place or whatever. Like, very rarely do we, we think to stop and just enjoy the every day. the monks, you know, if we can, if we can learn to accept all these things in our daily lives, if we can learn to accept where we're at, and the trip along the way, then there's some pretty cool stuff out there that we're missing. It is. Because we're so focused on the next thing that we have to. Do. Destiny by the dust, that we have to get to go, promotion or whatever we know, whatever it is. Yeah, totally. And, you know, it is. You know, I the more that I practice gratitude, you know, it's been a couple of years since I started heavily practicing gratitude and, you know, daily affirmations of, you know, I'm just so grateful to be alive and breathing. I can walk around and I'm not in pain. And, you know, I can drink water that's clean. I have clean water that I can just get out of a faucet and a lot of the things start to look miraculous in the mundane. And you start to think, isn't it cool that I need it here at all? You know, how did I even get here? But all of a sudden I'm having this really cool, interesting experience where anything can happen. And, you know, I can kind of level up like, it's a good I definitely think of life as a video game. Like I've heard that across the YouTube channels recently, but I heard it like years and years ago. So, you. Know, I mean, I think life is a video game, right? Like it's gotta be this is if you. If you understand that, like what you put out in the universe comes back to you and we know that it does because we can we we can go test that ourselves. Day and smile or say something nice and see it come back to us. We can see it happen well, so we know it happens. So if you go live your life for a week thinking this is a video game and that what you put out into the video game and what you do that, that you're going to get back, then suddenly you can go prove that you, you literally control your reality. You literally control, what's happening to you around you, obviously deep from within. Yes. Because you're you're putting this energy out, that you get back and we we know energy exists. We know that we're we, we're made up of energy and that we feed off the energy of other people, and we feed off the energy of the the place that we're at, the home that we're at, the car that we drive, the places that we visit, the friends that we keep, and we decide how we surround ourselves and with what energy we we surround ourselves with. That's true. And, you know, you know, on points. Just thinking about, you know, our interactions with other people and how we view them from a video game perspective. Like I've heard this on a lot of different YouTube channels. I can't remember the first one that I heard it on, but, thinking of other people who are not in your main inner circle, who are not your your dedicated core, are people thinking a little bit more like NPC characters? You know, they come over here, you know, they come over to you, they offer you a quest. You got to decide whether or not you want to take that quest. Is it in your best interest? Is it to your goal? You know, will it? Will it serve your general purposes of your values and beliefs or where you're going? But that goes back to what you said you were talking about in the very beginning of the stream here, which is that guy at chick fil A is just an NPC. So why let that NPC upset you? And you guys are like, oh, I let this guy change my reality because then our realities get intertwined and complicated things happen. Yes, exactly. I was really proud of myself here because not even that. I also identify the NPCs probably having NPC problems like on that movie free Guy. You know, it's. A great movie ever since you gave it to me. Yeah. It's, Yeah. If you haven't seen free Guy, definitely love it. Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Reynolds. Yeah, I really love this movie. It's a very spiritual movie, actually. It is. It really is. But, yeah, you know, the way they're all, like, having their own experiences that the other characters, the, you know, the real human player characters have no idea of and don't even think about this. The thing is, you can't intersect with everybody. You know, you need to have you need to. We only have so much energy. It sounds mental, physical and emotional energy. So you can't overextend everything and still expect to be able to take care of yourself or get through your own goals. Yeah, I think that's really important. being intentional, being aware about where we're spending our energy because you only have so much. So think of it like you have an allowance of energy each day that the universe gives you. Yeah. And each day you, you choose where to put that energy, whether it's, relationships or work or at hobbies or whatever, where you, you know, your, your spiritual reflection time and meditation or whatever you're doing on that. And, and that's, that's, that's basically the amount of energy that you're basically going to have every day. Sometimes you get surges of energy. there's all types of, of stuff behind that. I think depending on what modality that you practice or what spiritual construct you believe in or philosophy or religious, you know, you might receive energy from other places, but in general, we have a we have a finite amount of energy that we get to spend every day. Right? And there's always somebody who needs something. But sometimes it is better to let them handle their stuff. You know, themselves, sometimes we're not doing things in the best interest of someone to give all of our energy when they're not putting in effort, and especially if it's not reciprocated. You know, that's not good for not even just them. I say it's not good for society because I see a lot of this, especially over here. You know, in the cities there's a lot of this entitlement where people just kind of go around doing whatever they want and they think, oh, you know, nobody's going to say anything to me. Like, you know, I think about, you know, we're talking about the workers here and, fast food workers. And I think they probably just deal with the worst people just constantly complaining or, you know, no wonder they're just completely numb. And they probably are turning into zombies just so they don't have to deal with this horrible backlash of people, you know? So, yeah, I think it's that lack of self-awareness, that lack of understanding, you know, not just how other people see you, but how to see you, how to look at you in an objective, non-judgmental, mental, but also correcting way, you know, does that make sense? No. It's growth. Right. That's like yeah, that that's being intentional where about yourself and saying what am I doing. What are you know and then and then you say this is good, this is not great. This is fine. It's kind of neutral. And you figure out, how to do more of the good and do less of the bad. And, and in theory, you can replace the bad with good habits and good routines and, have a, have a higher chance of success. But it's about having that intention, an awareness to be able to do that and not just think, I'm going to live my life and hope everything works out okay. Right? Yeah. I mean, like I said, the secular, the activating system, right, that runs you and everything. If you just go on autopilot, you do have an autopilot, like, you ever see that movie click? I love movies, by the way, so I keep thinking movies references. But, where he goes, okay, so for for those of you listening, click just a quick rundown. He's got this magical remote that basically sets his life for him, but it automates. So and this is kind of how our brain works. So when you set up these habits and they automate, you start running on autopilot and you basically just not be there unless you start noticing again. Which is another reason why for meditation, you know, introspection, some way of reconnecting with yourself, you'll just keep running on autopilot, like you'll basically be talking and saying the things that you normally do, or repeating the things that you've heard from others. And it also leaves you open to manipulation by others. And you see very open to, you know, anybody can talk you into whatever. If you don't know yourself, you know, somebody really, really slow talker, you know what they're doing and they don't have any compassion or empathy. You know, that's where those boundaries come in. And you've got to really you've got to really love yourself to the point that you are willing to put forth the effort to protect yourself, to grow and to be there for yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And, and it doesn't have to I think people think it has to happen all at once. Like, sometimes we we we all have. We've all had that moment where, like, okay, tomorrow I'm gonna change my life. I'm gonna eat better. I'm an exercise. I'm gonna I'm going to stop hanging out with this person because I'm not good for me. And you try to do all that stuff at one time, and and disaster happens because you can't do all that stuff at one time. So the thing is, it doesn't have to all happen at one time. You don't have to, like, look at this and say, I've got to do all of this at one time. You can incrementally. And I think this is important for our subject to hand, which is spirituality, mental health. Like you can integrate spirituality, see that intersection of mental health, and realize that you can take steps to, living a healthier life of like personal growth. And that leads to more joy, less darkness, more light. And and you'll feel lighter, you'll feel better and it but it doesn't have to happen all at once. Right. But it's a lot. It's very freeing to let go of all those concerns. And I think that's a big part of it too, is learning that that deep acceptance of not only yourself, but of the world, of people as they are situations as they are, and trying to look at them from the perspective of how can this work for me? What am I supposed to learn from this? You know, and not thinking that it's a commentary on who you are or whether or not you're good or bad, you know that it's not a commentary on whether or not your life is good or bad. Your life is always good, by the way, just in case you know that I mean, doesn't matter. What's happening is always good that you're really happy. Your life just the best. So, you know, it is it's, it's something, you know, I think about, things like the intersection of science and, and mental health because, like, psychiatry isn't really a science per se, because we're looking into people's heads. Well, you can only go by what they're saying and do it right. It's not like you can just go in there and say, okay, I'm going to go see if this well dried up, you know, you can't go check it. You have to see if it's if it's correcting whatever behaviors are causing them to be in distress or causing them to not be able to function in their lives. Right. Whatever it is that the problem is. We know and we know that humans are massive, unreliable witnesses, even for themselves. When you go to a car accident, the police show up ten minutes later and they're interviewing people. And if you interview ten people, ten people will have ten different versions of what happened at that. Yes. And part of that is trauma, too, because when you're having a traumatic event, your brain's memory shuts down. Exactly. And, and and really like we we think and that happens. And that's important because that's our perception of what happened to someone else that we saw or even what happened. But it happens. We we misremember our own actions. Like we start to lie to ourself and we are we start to believe, like you were talking about, we believe the narrative. We're being fed by somebody else. We're we're reading from a script that's not our own, which is typically pretty average for people that they're not. They're moving to the beat of someone else's drum. Most of this. Yes. Yeah. So pretty much. Yeah. It's about taking yourself out of that. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's really it's about mindfulness too. And noticing when you're doing that, when you're kind of giving your power to someone else, giving authority to someone else. I think being sovereign in yourself or being sovereign to your higher power, whatever you call it, I mean, you might say higher, higher minds. in psychiatry they say super ego. It's yeah, they're pretty much talking about that consciousness. Yeah. Consciousness. God, whatever you call, it's whatever it is to you connecting with that, you know, helps you reinforce your values, your beliefs, and then it's not easy for someone else to come in and just take from you. You know, it's kind of like having, having a emotes where, you know, the drawbridge or something, right? You know, they let certain people in to your drawbridge. You don't let you know questionable people into your castle because, you know, they might trash it. They might take it, they might throw you out, you know. Right. Well, fear. Right. Fear is a big, Yeah. You know, we our mind gives us, feeds us a lot of information, but our base reptilian ego is always playing off of when it's. Yes, either. Yeah. Try to get away from the possibilities of the end demise, basically. and that's it isn't. Most of our functions are based around that. But addressing that fear, it it requires embracing it, I think I think you really have to just fully embrace. It's okay to be afraid, but also it's okay to act. It's okay to move forward. Despite that feeling of fear. What that does, it creates a witness inside of you that says, this is who I am. I am someone who moves forward despite being afraid. So even when I'm scared, I continue. And then you become that becomes part of your identity. Do you see how powerful that can be? For in the long term, especially as the years go on? Yeah, it's a major thing. Yeah. And I think it is. It's about deciding to go out and live and and say, I know the fear is there. like, I like you have PTSD. I have PTSD. Like, I don't know what it is like for you, but I know that I really prefer to be at home, and I really don't want to be at, a restaurant or mall or a movie theater. But I make myself leave my house and I go out, and that's facing that fear. That's, that's knowing that the fear is not real. Yes. And I haven't beat that feeling necessarily, you know, probably come back next time, at some point. But I know that I was talking about for that. But it goes back to reprograming your brain and, and, and I also hear because we're talking about practical mental health. And just so everybody knows, we've we've talked about this in the show a little bit in the past, but we're, we're reprograming like neurons. Right? But we're also reprograming biological devices like the amygdala and other parts of the brain. Not just that, but the physical part of the brain literally changes shape. Exactly. So it's actually physiological stuff. Yes. That is changing literal shape. And so that's why mental health is so important to how we're moving through this world spiritually. Because as you and I, I've kind of been talking here. We haven't said the words completely, but like, it's this is about being grounded. This is about being centered. This is about having a lifestyle that fits something that you can actually wake up and have good, good habits and have right and be and be well and have this, this holistic wellness, which is one of your, kind of things that you right now, these that you focus on is, is that overall holistic wellness. Yes. And you know, you were talking about letting it take time. You know, letting the changes take time and developing the habit slow. Don't try to do like a whole bunch at once, you know, because your your brain and body is just nope nope nope nope nope nope. And it's going to do everything it can to undermine you because you've got like this little entity in your brain, right? And Edgar Allan Poe actually called it the imp of horrors, right? The end of the perverse. That's what it was. Right? And it's basically it's your ego, but it's a part of your ego that is really negative. It is a negative, negative part that's like doom and gloom, you know, everything's terrible. Nothing's ever going to work out, you know, and basically it's trying to keep you immobile. It says, I'm keeping you alive because everything we've done so far, no matter how terrible it's been, we're still alive. So we should keep doing this. And you're like, no. And it's like, yes, but you can't change that unless you change it in small increments. So you kind of push it a little bit and coax it along. You don't force because if you start forcing, you're going to get resistance. But if you coax like it's a little kid or pet, like training a pet, you know, I know that sounds really weird talking about my brain like it's a pet, but, you know, it's kind of a similar sort of thing you're kind of making friends with and saying, hey, this is safe. It's okay. And actually, it's fun. And I was going to ask you about that. When you go out, when you make yourself go out, do you enjoy it? Once you're out? Typically I do, yeah. Yeah, I usually do too. And I'll feel like in the morning I don't want to go out, but I've been doing it every day for like four years now. So, you know, it's changed my thinking about it. So even if I wake up and every once in a while I'll have like a back sort of. Yeah. And a reminder of like some old version of myself gone. I don't want to go out, let's watch TV. I'm like, put my shoes on. And it's like, I don't want to go out and I'm going out the door with my kids, and I'm not really listening. And then once I get out there, I'm like, oh, it's so pretty. Oh look, these flowers are blooming. And then all of a sudden I'm happy, you know, and I want to be outside. So I think it's the doing of it. Eventually it becomes a thing, especially when you get the dopamine, the good dopamine. You don't want the the cheeked opening. No, you want the good stuff. You want the good stuff. And the good stuff comes from the achieving of goals, the attaining of the next level. And that's how we talk about the journey. And it's so funny you say the journey because on threads we're doing June Journey this month with my group. So this is like so perfectly aligned. But, you know, it really is. You know, you got to enjoy getting to the next level. And that's where you get that degree that that makes you want to go forward to the next level. So you don't it's hard. You miss. It hurts. You remember back oh man, that was really good. Let me do it again. You know, let me get to the next one. And then when you start getting in the higher levels, that's when it really starts getting fun. Yeah. I love that you talk about that progress and like you start out and then it builds. And I think, you know, we talk a lot about starting the journey and starting that journey of a thousand steps. You got to take that first step, right. But right. The everything behind after that, you've got to take the next step and you've got to take the step after that. And you've got to have you have to have a little bit of faith in yourself that if you keep taking these steps, good things are going to happen. Yeah. You know, you don't have to blindly commit to something and say, I'm going to do this indefinitely, but do it for a while, see if it works like you were talking about meditation or journaling or whatever it is that you decide that you want to do. That is going to be something that's kind of practical, to help you kind of move along the path, give it a shot. Don't just do it once or twice. Do it several times and see what happens. Yes, because you might not like it the first time, but you might start to realize the benefits and then all of a sudden you're like, okay, I want to keep doing this. Or you might find that it's not working for you and it's okay. It's just like with boundaries. So you want to be flexible about changing as you change because you're not going to be the same you in five minutes. You're changing right now. So you got to adapt and move with it. And that's what I think they call flow. You know, as you're moving with it, you're going with the flow. You're saying, okay, this is what it is right now, at this moment, and I'm just going to deal with it the way it is. Then you start using a different part of your brain than if you were trying to resist it. You start using that thinking, you know, clarity parts. It starts making sense of things. And, you know, that happens in, you know, people who, let's see how to say this, a YouTube algorithm, does it get mad? People who, self-medicate. Right. They actually we're talking about the structure of the brain. Eventually what it does is no matter what, that, you know, addictive self-medication is whatever it is, distorts to diminish the prefrontal lobe of the brain, which means they have trouble making decisions, clear decisions, or thinking of things in a rational sense. It's a trap. It's a really bad trap, because once that starts, it's really hard to reverse. It can't be done, it absolutely can't be done. And lots of people have success, but it's really hard. That's why when you start down that road, you basically are developing maladaptive patterns to dealing with the situation now because probably because you didn't have the tools, you know, and it's probably not your fault. But once you know, then it's your responsibility to heal once you know. But it's not your fault when you don't know, you know. No, that's that's a that's a great point. Right. Like we all kind of go through parts of our life where we didn't have the tools we needed to to live the life that we could or should have maybe needed to have lived. And so once we get to a point where we have a realization where, oh, okay, kind of I kind of figured that out a little bit, then suddenly you do have the responsibility to say, what am I going to do now? And, and there's a lot of work there because you've got a, you've got a one be where you're at, which can be difficult acceptance of where you're at. You have to let go of the past. Yes. And you have to suddenly do which will cling. It'll want to say, oh, it's like, don't leave me behind. It's the cleanest thing. The past, our past self is or is the cleanest thing. And it comes back. You let go, you'll get rid of it and be like it. We'll just you turn back around one day and it'll. Exactly. Right. Be right there and. And then you also, as you're accepting your present situation, you also have to not be worried about the future because, you know, the future is it doesn't exist and never it will actually never exist. Yeah, yeah. True. Let's think of teacher like the best laid plans of mice. And then you do everything right and it's still not within your control. It is not. You're say, what's going to happen specifically now? It is your say to get back up and get knocked down because failure is quitting. You know, to fall down is wonderful because now you know what doesn't work. Now you know this isn't what's working. So let me try something else and I mean, if I think about when the Industrial Revolution and things were going on and the technology that we have now in like 100 years, right? Just the development of that technology and how many failures they had to have. And I used to be a technical instructor. Right. So I get how this process goes, the failures and the failures and the failures. Right. So just how many times they had to fall down and get back up for us to have a cell phone, you know, for us to have tiny little computer chips and an entire network that connects the whole world. It's incredible, by the way. But, you know, yeah, just the idea of what it took, the tenacity, you know, when you start looking at that perspective, you start realizing as a human being, we are incredible innovators. When it comes to progress, incredible innovators. Even as individuals, we're we have so much, so much ability to adjust ourselves much more than any other animal that has ever been that I can even think of. I mean, animals can do some interesting things for themselves, but as far as what our brain and how we see the world and how we think and how we perceive, and creating entirely new habits, systems, or maybe even entirely new communities if we need to. You know, the fact that we can adapt and change is so amazing. And, you know, it always makes me think of the the structures that you have, these concepts, these maps of the universe that look like a brain, they're basically shaped like a brain. I think about that. And I talked about the neurons, you know earlier how the neurons fire together. But they can be in totally separate parts of the brain and they will fire at the same time having no connection to each other by the way. So they will just do it at the same time because that's what's become the. Makes me think of that superposition and how these particles fire together across millennia in the universe. And then I'm like, yeah, there's this has to be something. This has to just be some amazing experience that we're having because it's too perfect. It's so, so perfect in a way. And people are like, the world is horrible. I'm like, if I think back to history and I'm a big history buff, so I'm like, you know, I remember a time when people didn't even care about human rights. You know, there was not even a thing about human rights. You're like, yeah, kill everybody. Yay! You know, and now we actually care about each other's feelings and we're talking about our emotions openly. I think it's incredible that we've progressed to this point. Well, I think that I see us going in the right direction. I love this because and it's so important to me, this is really important conversation for mental health. This right here, because. There's so many boomers out there, they're like, oh, we're we're doomed. And you know the and I believe in science. Like I mean like take something like like like whatever it is out there, we're probably going to be okay. Humans are pretty resilient. we're pretty amazing. And that's just a fact that you and I can can communicate across space and time over the internet and have this conversation on social media. It's what's proof of the amazing advancements we made, how safe we are, how healthy we are. It's it also proves that you're able to use social media in a healthy way. Like, as you and I are talking, this can be seen if someone chooses on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, you know, wherever you know. And that's pretty amazing. We we choose what we consume. We choose where we put our energy out. Like you and I are putting our energy out right now into the world, talking to each other, having a great conversation, hoping that someone out there finds it helpful. And that's what I'm passionate about is, yeah, giving people the tools. Like you said earlier, you know, they don't have the tools. So, you know, I really want to give them the best tools that I know work. And I'm actually grateful for the experiences that I had as as difficult as they were, because how else would I know how I could never have any comprehension of it, not having lived it? So how would I be able to develop tools? It's like the doctor, you know, the surgeon who's never had surgery or something. But I mean, yeah, obviously they can have surgery, but know I there's no way that I could get the deeper insights without living those things. And it gives it a different perspective and it sees it from a different angle and it gives it a different meaning in my mind. So it also gives me a different meaning about myself and my progress and where I've come from. So people are like, well, don't you hate your parents? I know they're just people. They were people. And I'm sure that I made dozens of mistakes raising my own kids. You know, I'm sure that I was not perfect, but they they did what they could with what they had, you know? Right. They were operating with what they had. And I think because, you know, especially and this is a thing about spirituality and religion to which religion is like a whole separate thing, that's like a human thing to me. I think if I were to say spirituality is like the most basic things that are not human, then the awareness, the consciousness, the most basic of energy in the universe is is probably what I think of as spirituality, which I don't label, by the way, I don't have any labels specifically because I don't want to apply them to my identity, and I want to be very open to other people's ideas and their perspectives. So and I think that, you know, it's not impossible with the labels. Absolutely. You can still be open and, you know, but I just think it makes it easier for me personally to not have those labels and to be very flexible about my beliefs and let them change as they go. Yeah, I think we we very much overlap in that. I mean, I call myself a universalist roundness, which basically means I believe in everything. So yeah, I have used that one before. So yeah, I'm an omnibus is the main one I use and people haven't heard it very often. So I call myself a universalist. So people will kind of have a reference point, but Gotcha. Yeah, but. I very much feel I'm an omnibus. So. I mean, there's this truth and everything. It's just. Yeah, you got to get to the truth and the truth. That truth part is fundamental, you know, it's the. Yeah. For each person. Truth. Everything. Yes. Yeah, yeah, it has my truth. Yeah, exactly. You know, I think that's the that's the beauty of spirituality. That's the beauty of self-exploration and introspection, is that you kind of end up in this place where you were meant to be, where everything just makes sense. Life is easier, you're happier, you're living, you're in your purpose or dharma and all that. And, things just kind of flow. You're flowing with the universe, and I think we can all get there. I mean, that's what this I believe it shows all about. I believe that we can. Yeah. And I think, you know, I don't think it matters how long it takes, you know, I know we want to get there, but this is a wonderful process to see. I mean, from watching from when I was young and the development of everything, especially the mental health tools that are available now. I mean, they're so much better than they were, trust me, so much better. And the comprehension of what is good for people on an a mental and emotional level has really improved. I mean, it's not perfect. Obviously, you've got a lot to do, but you know. No, I mean, the. Progress is there. Even like so like when I went to when we were at war back in the day, like my unit was one of the most deployed units in the US military after 911 and and we had people in like 22 different countries at one point and a lot of mental health problems, but we all had top secret security clearances. And so back then, this is like 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, between Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else. Yeah, we weren't allowed to go seek mental health because we would lose our clearance. And they've changed that now. Like, but they didn't. They only change that fairly recently, where you could actually go seek mental health and still maintain your. Yeah pretty clear. So I mean it's even in something like the military U.S. military, which is pretty rigid. Yeah. Yeah. They're starting to, to, to see, the utility in it, which I think if the US military can see that, then, we know that society is probably moving in the right direction. I'm really hoping that it is, because I think what we need is, like I said, a return to a system that is serving the individual. You know, it's not going to serve every single individual. Obviously, you know, there's always going to be a little bit of marginalization, but, you know, I think at some point we could nearly eradicate it. You know, if we just learn to help people help themselves learn how to manage ourselves, how to be there for ourselves, we know how to use each other correctly. Sometimes I think people don't abuse each other so much as, let's use each other. You're my security blanket. No, that is not what that person is for. The person. Maybe they do give you comfort and security, but if you can't leave the house without them, this is a problem, you know. Right? It's it's. It's enabling. That's what it's. Here. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And well and I think that's about too about like we can teach spirituality and mental health both at a younger age for people to kind of have that approach to it and be open with it. And I mean, we're making some strides there. So yes, definitely. Yeah. And I really think that, the mental health tools are extremely important for, for young people, like, I homeschooled my son, who's autistic. So I took him out in third grade because he just he just didn't fit into the school system, and, he just did so much better once I had him at home. So he went into Boy Scouts for his, socialization and stuff. Right. So he's going to be Eagle Scout soon. I'm really excited about. Oh, congrats. Because I was like, yeah, it's actually a really, really major achievement. So, you know, with him growing up and stuff, a lot of the things that I try to teach him is how do you feel secure about yourself, even if other people don't like you, you know, you know, if other people are mean to you, how to how to be the bigger person, sort of, you know, I guess that's how I could say it is. It's how to be, you know, have the integrity in yourself without letting them trigger you or affect you. And, you know, he has something of my temperament, which, you know, that's my karma. Ho. It's fun. Love it. But, no, he's great. He's very smart and just he's got that sort of willfulness I just really love because he won't let anybody push him around. He's like, no, if I'm if I want to do it, then I will do it. If I don't want to do it, I will not do it, you know? But he's still very responsible. So, you know, if he weren't, then that would be a problem. Sure. But, you know, teaching him that, you know, you have to look to yourself, like I'll even tell him, you know, I understand that you see me as your mom. I brought you into the world. I showed you around. You know, I was your first contact point for this physical plane. But you have to learn to trust yourself because only you know you. I will never know you like you know you only you know the inside of you as well as anyone ever will. No one will know the depths of you. So it's really important for you to explore them, to know them. And to be to that. That's great. That. Yeah. And that. And that's not done a lot. I don't think like that. That idea is that introspective thought is not taught much I don't think. No. but, you know, in, in my workplace, I used to work at a web hosting company. I was a technical trainer and we did start something like, very shortly after, I got into the technical training department. This was just the two of us, and it was tech support and web hosting and web design and things like that. Well, I was mostly over the technical support people. That is an incredibly stressful job and will seriously damage your mental health. If you're not careful. And the the jobs that we were doing is think about if you have they've actually changed it now, partly because of some of the systems I put in. I'm very proud of myself for that. But they they made some changes to the way the system is working because we had like for chats like chat, you know, where you're typing in a chat. Right. And then we would have a phone call at the same time as doing an email. So we had to do at least one email per hour while doing for chats consistently for chats and a phone call at the same time, having conversations about people fixing their websites or their web hosting. Right. And we had to do it in under ten minutes was ideally what it was. Right? So they made a lot of changes, even imagine how incredibly stressful that is to do that for 8 to 10 to 12 hours a day, you know, that's incredibly crushing on your mind and body. I mean, I gained tons of weight at that job, like I really did. It was it was so stressful. Like, unfortunately, they also had really great food and snacks. Right. You know, but I lost the weight later, so that's fine. But, you know, the things that people go through when what I started reviewing with them, their, their contacts and stuff, because that's part of my job, is to do monthly reviews with each person and see how their contacts were going. And, you know, talk to them about the ways they can improve. I would always ask them, how are you doing? How are you feeling about the job? How do you feel about the work? It's keeping you up at night and, you know, is everything okay? What would make this better? Yeah, right. What would make this an easier job where it's less stressful? And I have every single one of them. And most of the time it was, fewer contacts at the same time, fewer contact, I would say. So they eventually did do fewer contacts at the same time, which actually improve the quality of the calls, because multitasking is not a real thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a really important point. Multitasking doesn't exist. Right. It's not. So you're switching between tasks really, really fast just means you're losing quality every time. So I might get on a call with somebody that I was talking about their website and you know, the next one I'm like, hey, hey, what about your email? They're like, no, you're talking to somebody else. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's that's really important that that we just do the thing that we're doing and then move on to the next thing. And yes. We're so much more productive. If we didn't, that's a valuable life lesson, not just for work, but just like how we process our our daily lives, like, don't multitask, do your thing, do the next thing, do the next thing. And I think mental health, program in every workplace. I mean, I would love to see it be mandatory to be honest, in every place, just even a simple mental health program, something to say. Here's some ways to improve your mental health in this job, right? You know, can you imagine what that might do? I mean, we'd see productive. We'd see productivity go up. It people higher job satisfaction and less people leaving jobs less often. yeah, it would probably lead to all kinds of and that's, that's why I think a national discussion on mental health, is so important. Yeah, yeah. So that we can can move this forward and people can, can get the help that they, they need. And that would honestly help our whole society, our whole culture. So definitely, As we've been as we've been talking today, is there anything that we, we haven't talked about yet that you think we should touch on? You know, there is, something that I think is kind of magical, even though I tend to be much, very much a skeptic, I'm always questioning, like, if somebody says something supernatural, I'm like, okay, here's a million reasons why. It could be just some mundane thing, you know? But, the idea of of synchronicities, especially thought synchronicities. I read this book, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She's the same woman who wrote who wrote eat, pray, love. Yeah, but she wrote this one called Big Magic. getting over creative fear. Something like that. I can't remember the exact title, but, it's talking about how creative ideas are, like these thought forms that are floating around looking for somebody to make them real. Right. So she was saying how sometimes she get these book ideas, and if she didn't take them down and didn't do anything about them, they would go on to somebody else. Absolutely. So and then she would see that book come out later on. So I had that idea, you know, what I was like, yeah, that's happened to me, you know. So I really do think that we are so connected in a way that we can literally transmit thoughts out there if enough of us are doing that, you know? And I really see, just like so much evidence of that all the time. And people are like, oh, it's just a coincidence. I'm like, how many coincidences? You know, I actually know kind of, you know, the, the statistics and things, you know, probability have some sense of what probability could be. And I'm thinking about some of these instances. I'm like, there's no way. I mean, I can't directly measure the probability, but that's like way a coincidence, you know, because it's so specific. It's like really specific. So and I like the it's like the journey thing. We've been talking about the journey. And I know, you know, in self-help you talk about the journey a lot, but it's like specifically something that's been coming up in the community and it's almost like the community catches those waves too, you know? And I've noticed that I'll see, like, you know, it's not just people reading each other's posts. I see it like, wait a whole other platform. And it's like in the same time period, like same day or same hour, you know, and I'll see these same ideas all day long. And I like, you know, I really wonder if these ideas are just running around looking for people to make them into reality. You know, like, I'm bored. I the real make me a real boy. Right? No, I, I have no idea. Yeah. Absolutely. No, I, I, I love the idea that we're all connected to this oneness of the universe that, we're definitely having our own human experience separate from everybody else. But, like, we're all connected back to this source, and, it speaks in, like, vibrations that come out, and sometimes we we we are, we process similar vibrations in similar ways. Yeah. I mean, you know, sorry to be, I guess for sure. Yeah. So, sorry. Excuse me. I have a frog. I don't know. That's right. I, I know how that goes, but, yeah, I think the synchronicities, I mean, I, I've, I believe when the synchronicity happened is probably the universe communicating something to us. I think so, too. And it's funny because I see them a lot and I see them for years, and I have no idea like what they are. I can't explain it. It's so in my face. And sometimes I wonder if it's so in my face because I'm such a skeptic. It's like, you know, I have to be like, really literal with you. Like, I'll find a note on the ground. I've had this twice. Twice. I found a note, a written, handwritten note on the ground telling me something about what I was thinking about. Literally about what I was thinking about. What is happening, you know, so I don't have explanations for everything. I don't know what it is. you know, I don't have a real name, but I don't mind not knowing. In fact, I kind of like not knowing because I can explore in that way. You know, it doesn't have to be absolute in that way, too. I think the universe is always saying yes. And, you know, I think in that connection that we were talking about with each other, I think that's where a lot of our empathy and compassion comes from is in recognizing the connection that we're all in this together. Yeah. Because if we're all connected to the universal source of oneness or whatever, however you see it, then then that's compassion for ourself and each other. Like it's the same thing. it's very much, this beautiful bridge between between each of us. I think. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, I think we can reinforce that too, by just being, you know, not just honest with people that we're comfortable trusting, you know, with our, our beliefs, but also, you know, being respectful of each other and, and letting each other, holding space for each other. In that sense, you know, what do you believe? How do you feel about it? You know, how do you feel about this? In essence, what do you think about this life? And for it to be okay for us to have different ideas about what that might be? You know, I think that it's completely I don't even just think it's okay. I think it's wonderful that we have different ideas. We have so much variety of ideas and perspectives to pull from. I, I would think it would be just hell to have a world full of people who are all the same, just all doing like the same automatons look the same thing to say it would just be like a nightmare for me. Yeah, like, get me out of here. Yeah. No, I think it. Yeah, celebrate our differences and embrace it and and then appreciate the similarities. that we have, because we all have so much in common as well, which is nice. So it's nice to be able to see both sides of that coin. You know? for sure. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So, yeah, just saving off. I mean, I think the most important thing too is, you know, using the spiritual tools and being mindful of your mental health at the same time, you know, and and there are losses. There's breathwork. I mean, I think prayer has a lot of benefits. Studies even show that it has a lot of benefits for self-soothing, for self connection. you know, it just depends on what what speaks to you. What's what feels right to you, and what benefits you in a way that you're moving forward and, you know, happier with your life and in the direction that you won't go? Yeah, that's honest about that direction. And that's absolutely being honest with yourself and looking at all these tools and modalities that are out there, and different spiritual philosophies, religions, however you want to look at it. and what works for you, what speaks to you? Because there's so much out there, it's about exploring it and saying, oh, this makes sense to me because this over here doesn't make sense. But this does make sense. So, okay, go that, go with that. It's okay. Yeah. And maybe it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but not so much these other, these other 2 or 3 things over there. That's fine too. you can mix and match. It's allowed. yeah. And don't let anybody ever tell you guys out there that you has to be one or the other because it doesn't. No, no. And that's the thing with labels too, is like, you know, we all have these words and a lot of the time we're talking about the same thing. We're using different words. And it gets confusing, you know, because it's hard to articulate something that's so fundamental and basic and, you know, it's not attached to anything else, you know. But except for us, of course. Yes. For sure. No, I 100% and yeah. And I think that's, that's one of the best lessons out there. Definitely. Yeah. I mean I'm just going to keep researching and just keep looking for for ways to help people, you know, improve their mental health and or find a way to make their life feel better. Yeah. I want to see a world full of people who are, like, smiling when they walk down the road. You know, I get really happy about seeing people smile to themselves, and I'm just like watching them. I'm like, yeah, somebody is happy about something. I don't even know what it is that I'm like, excited. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, it's it's been great to get to know you. And I know that my wife is my wife has met you a lot, and you guys have interacted a lot over on threads and I ask. Thanks for coming. And, so we're going to put up the link, your link, if you want to tell us a little bit about that and anything else that you want, the audience to know, the floor is absolutely yours. Oh. Thank you. Yes, sir. I'm starting up the newsletter again, so it's going to be at Method Music beehive.com. It's going to post the link over there. So I am going to be setting up a, a free self-care. Now you're going to actually have an email that has like a self-care kit that I'm going to be setting up a free self-care course that's going to be coming out soon. So definitely sign up for that newsletter if you want to get that. And then later, you know, I'm going to be doing some courses on things like boundaries and, you know, self-awareness, building self-awareness and mindfulness, building the daily practices, where to start, how to start off and actually get some progress, especially once you get to the middle, because that always seems to be the problem area, right? Yeah. Get to the middle. And you're like, I hate this, but I heard at the end it so it's like you said during the journey, and it's not always easy to find the things that are enjoyable about it. But if you look, there's always something there's always something there. Yeah. Always something to be grateful for. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the themes that you've been mentioning kind of throughout this stream is you're a gratitude practice. You mentioned it a couple of times. I'm so much it changes your whole life. guys, anybody out there that's not it. Is life changing. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's the best. It really is the best. Because then you're thankful for all this stuff that you have, like, inside and outside, within and within us. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a difference between, you know, you can feel like you're really rich even if you have nothing, you know. Yeah. You don't have, like, right now I don't have a car just because I don't have a car. I mean, a city where I don't have to have a car. So I'm on foot. I'm a pedestrian, which is do for me. I haven't done this since I was a teenager. You know, it's very outside of the comfort zone, but I love it now. Now I'm like, hey, I'm a pedestrian, you know? So when I, when I first started, I did not love it. I hated it, especially summer in Vegas. Yeah, I was not not a happy camper at first, but every time I would find a reason to be happy about it and say, at least I made some progress, at least I did it. You know, even if that was the only thing to be grateful for. But when you look at it that way, I mean, I know people who have tons of money and they feel like they're poor, like there's never enough, there's never enough money. There's, you know, they have everything and it doesn't feel they're like, oh, something's missing because it's in you. It's not outside. You can't get what you're looking for outside of you. You can give it to yourself. It is there, available for you if you can learn how. Yeah. And I think if anybody takes anything else away from this conversation, I think that that's it. It's there. Yeah. It's always there. And always, It's, it's it's going to be there. And so be patient with yourself. Take time. Grandma Julie said, thank you. Thank us both for the, the conversation. Thank you Julie. Oh thank you. Appreciate that. And, thank you so much for coming on. Like, you know, I sure. Thanks so much. It's been it's really fun. It's been a great conversation. Yeah. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. I haven't done in a long time. This is actually outside of my comfort zone. So it's been probably, I don't know, like seven years. I think it's like, oh, it's good to. Get back out there. Right. It's good. It it it is good to go. Yeah. Yeah. How much fun it is. Yeah it is, it is fun. yeah. I really appreciate you having me. Everybody remember to check method me out. Method used up beehive.com. The link is on the screen. It'll be in the description of the permanent show. we're going to have a show next week at seven Central on Friday, as same as every week. We're going to be talking to a guest, is talking about channeling the Ascended Masters. Should be an interesting conversation. And, Chloe, if you want to just stick around for just a second, we'll close on a live stream and say goodbye off screen. And then everybody else. You guys have a good night. We'll see you, next week. Bye, everyone. Thank you.