Anchoring the Present

but it's not always easy. But today we're going to talk about anchoring in the present. And it's something that I learned very early on in my rehab journey and my journey of trying to change my life. And there's something that Donnie coaches and has been teaching for a while and his experience in his own life. So Donnie, why don't you kick this off in give people an introduction of what anchoring in the present would look like for them.

So anchoring can really be any positive habits of mindfulness or gratitude or things that are going to bring you back to your body. I always like to say that the body knows where home is, but it's the mind that often takes us down these roads that makes us

feel so disconnected and so homeless. I think Tony Robbins has the quote that says, if you're in your head, you're dead, And I know that might sound harsh, but in many ways it's true because we're living from a place of looking into the future, worrying about the past, and really not landing in the present. And as we know, Darren, as we've been on this journey separately and together, that

really all the magic happens in the present moment. So it just becomes like a foundational practice that keeps you tied to the present moment, and we can An anchor can be really anything from anything in your physical environment, from a ring on your finger, a meaningful bracelet, it could be a candle, it could be Well, your breath is going to be the anchor that's always going to be there for you, no matter where you're at or

what you're doing. That's always going to be the one thing that brings the mind back to the body because cause the breath becomes like an access point to that mind body connection and the bridge to the present moment. So I think we can we can have these anchors. They're all around us, and the more that we have around us, the more we can kind of use those as pattern interrupts to bring us back to the present moment.

There are those little reminders as to really why you're here and why you're doing this work, and why presence is so important to us.

or contentment, or whether it was regret. And you know, to make it even simpler for the audience, if we look at everybody knows the concepts of past, present, in future, and the things that rob us mostly of being in the present is our past something that we regret, some a mistake we made, some way that we were harmed in our past by a parent, by a friend, by

a coach, teacher, anyone. And we hold on to those things and we lose hope, we lose faith, we lose a vision for a future that has joy and happiness, and those are things that can keep us arrested or in prisoned to our past. And then there's the future aspect on the other side, which is I want to arrange every thing so perfectly so I don't have to experience a single failure, I don't have to step in

a single pothole. I don't have to hurt myself. I don't have to cry, I don't have to worry as long as these things go the way that I plan for them to go. And we spend so much time there, but all that does is produce anxiety, produce worry my relationships, which both of those are equally trying to pull us

away from the present moment. And it's not hard to do that as people like you and I that have been meditating, that have been putting in practices for years on end, at least for speaking for me, I can find myself being pulled out of the present moment so quickly, and it's like, man, I preach mindfulness. I've seen the impact that I've had in my life, but still I can be so quickly pulled out of this moment. How

do I get myself back to it? And you hear people say things like, you know, be where your feet are, and it's really like Donne said, what are these things around that you can listen to? For me in the morning, I love listening to the birds chirp when I walk to my car in the driveway. That lets me know like, hey, I'm right here in my driveway. I'm not trying to figure out my work day and trying to be great

before I get there. I'm not trying to be a superhero and fix everything that I've ever done in my past. I'm just right here in this moment and allow myself to flow through my day in the most present way that I possibly can.

I could only convince people the best I could to like, I'm okay like. I may not be the you know, the the image of what black is to you or whatever that may be, but I'm okay like, and I got to show it to you, and I got to prove it to you. And that would always have me scoping out moments in the future to where I could what mask I would have to put on, how I would have to act. I would have to show up an energy I would have to try to embody that

wasn't even really authentically my own. And this is elementary school. I showed up to the playground. This is middle school in Pe, this is you know, in high school football locker rooms at fourteen fifteen years old, not being able to not feel like I was able to show up as who I was because I just felt so deeply down at early age that I just wasn't good enough

as I am. And you know, with the skills and the talents I've been blessed with, I was able to see that my performance in sports is what got had me in good standing with people. It created these friendships, not knowing how shallow they were at the time and the quality of relationships I was seeking, but it felt

like love, It felt like real appreciation. And so I just continued down that road of performing, and that turned into what was pulling me out of the moment then was my performance, whether it was getting a scholarship offer turning into when I'm going to get playing time in college, and then when I'm going to be the top receiver on the team, and then when I'm getting to the NFL, and then when I'm when I'm going to arrive to a certain place. If only I can get there, if

only this would happen, then I'll be okay. If only I achieve this, then I'll be content. Then my life will be okay. I'll stop chasing I'll stop feeling like I'm not good enough because I'll have so many things that I accumulated and achieved that convince you that there's no way you can't tell me I'm not enough. But achieving all of those things just made the hole in the void even deeper. And you know, you get into my using my active addiction, it's where's the next high,

where's the next feeling? How quickly can I numb what I'm feeling? How quickly can I escape physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually from what I have to face and what I'm facing right now? And never allowed me to stay in a certain place long enough to listen to my body, to listen to my mind, listen to my soul, to allow myself to heal, to allow myself to just pause and be like, you know, why am I doing the

things that I'm doing? Why am I continuing to float down this path knowing that I'm just even more anxious, knowing that I'm just even more afraid, and I don't feel like I'm getting any closer towards being enough yet I'm checking off all these boxes. So it just it continued to change as time went along. But it all spawned from just wanting to prove that I was okay, you know, and not knowing that it came from the inside first, being present with myself and being able to

sit there. And nobody's really going to know that at twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. But when you approach twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, really becoming a man and we're still carrying these childhood wounds around, being present just becomes even more exhausting. You know, what are some of the examples from your life that you feel like we're pulling you out of the moment from very early on to even as as right.

I can come back again. If I fast forward, I can remember early on in twelve step meetings where in the format of meetings, sometimes you'll have a ticket and your your ticket might be randomly called and then that's your call to share, or it might be sitting in a circle and eventually it's going to be your turn, And I can just remember those first few years, and most of these meetings were men's meetings do so it wasn't like I was like trying to impress the girl

that was in the meeting, but I would sit there and rehearse what I was going to say, so I could really bring the fire and drop some nuggets and sound like I knew what I was talking about. Where the reality is, alls I really needed to do is just be honest and maybe show some emotion and be vulnerable. But I had to even then act like I had

it all together. So I would rehearse what I was going to say, and then it would be like in a circle meeting, it would be almost my turn, and then time would run out and the meeting would end, and I wouldn't even get to share, nor had I heard a single word that anybody else had said, because I was in my head the whole time, never listening right and so, but it all was rooted and can still sometimes be. But it's so much better, thank God,

in caring what other people think. If I go back all the way back into the childhood and even into the depths of my addiction, it was all those same things, just being uncomfortable and my own skin needing performance to get validation on the baseball field through family, through friends. It was just a lack of self love and an

assurance in myself. And a lot of it, looking back, was even just the way I was living and not being authentic and honest and being true and really showing up as like the authentic version of myself, and it just begins to spiral and snowball to a point where you're just so uncomfortable in your own skin that for me, the easiest way to get out of that was just

to pop pills, do drugs and escape. But even in the depths of my addiction, I can even think about, you know, having my pills and then finally being able to take them, or going to the pharmacy and getting my refill and getting them, and then it would be I would take the pills and for an hour I would be good and everything would go away, and then the cycle would start and I would start to think about when I'm going to take them again, because I'm

starting to feel anxiety come on. And it was all like so worried about the future, as if it's not going to be okay, It's not going to be okay until I get this so very rarely. I don't know if I really ever was actually in the present, nor did I have the willingness or any tools to actually come back to a place and notice all of this madness going on. But you know, I think about it, it's nobody stops us from being present. It's only ourselves.

And really all of our stress and all of our anxiety and all this fear it comes from wanting the moment to be something that it's not so, or wanting maybe somebody else to be somebody that they're not so. When I look at the root of it, it's trying to control things you can't control. And in our program of recovery, you know, they teach us that control is

just an illusion. Now there are things that we can control eventually, and that's our perspective and our attitude and our ability to control our internal response to what's happening outside of us. But that shit doesn't happen overnight, and it really takes like the willingness to start to practice and use little anchors big anchors to come back home to the body.

I go. And for those that may I have a relationship with God or know the prayer, it's God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, and continuing to pray that and just having a deeper meaning and trying to pray it slower and not in a hurry and feel every

word of that. It's like, you know, I want to be at peace within myself and I need direction on how to find that piece Like, help me find that, help me to know and not chase my tail around, help me to not exert all my energy on these things that I can't determine the outcome. I can't force

them to go my way. I can't. It's not possible help me, and I need the wisdom to know the difference, because if I don't know the difference, I'm gonna exhaust myself on the things that don't matter, and when it comes time for the things that really do matter, I may be depleted. My cup may be more empty. So

that's one of the anchors for me. Because you think about being present, I always think of like that picture of the of the iceberg, and you know, you see you see an iceberg above water by like right there. It's like that's huge, Like if a ship runs into it, it's going down. But then you see the picture of how deep it goes beneath the surface. And that's what being present allows us to do. From an interurn pernal standpoint.

It allows us to not just stay on the surface and with money and material things and shallow relationships and feeling like those are the things that are going to bring us fulfillment. But it allows us to get down to the root of my emotions, the root of the pain that I'm feeling, the purpose behind the things that I'm doing, and really get down into those things. That's what being present really means. It's I'm aware of all

that is me. I'm aware that's all that's inside of me, all that is eating at me, all that's nourishing me, and sitting there and being aware of it and knowing that I need to be present. I need to be aware of my attitude. I need to be aware of my perspective. I need to be aware of the way that I'm treating people, because odds are it's a reflection of the way that I'm treating myself. So just trying to paint this picture for you guys of what it looks like for us, how we see it through our eyes.

Because everybody's different, everybody's coming to this topic with different experiences, different pains, different traumas. We want to try to help you, guys get this as in depth as possible because we know it's something that can change your life if you consistently build the habit to allow yourself to keep coming back to it.

the courage to actually control the controllables. And then the wisdom to know the difference is awareness. The wisdom to know the difference is not going to come by just sitting on your ass and hoping it's going to show up. It actually takes practice. You have to meet the universe or meet God half way in order to get it. You know, the spiritual tools, they're sitting there at our feet, but it's up to us to get off of our asses and actually use the tools, because the tools only

work if we use them. So when I hear that the wisdom to know the difference, that's kind of that's a big anchor for me because it inspires me to know, Like, I just want to be aware for so many years, as you're describing your your past and as I see my past in your past, and just how asleep and unaware we are now the tough part about being awake or a little bit more awake than we were before is it's not always easy. It takes work, and we know better now and for me today, it's more about

the con the impact of not doing these practices. So if you stick with these practices, and we're talking maybe a little bit in depth, but I know Darren and I also like to just keep it simple and have practical tools that can actually work for us to get us back into the present. And there's simple, simple practices,

you know. Another one, I mean I have so an anchor could be anything on your physical environment also, and I mean Darren's got a lot more tattoos than I do, but I have some too, And a tattoo, I mean, I have my sobriety birth date on my forearm, and that certainly is a huge anchor. So that if I feel like my mind is going somewhere, or maybe it's a day where I'm just like being lazy or being selfish, not really wanting to take action, I can look down.

I have the word freedom on my bracelet here. That word is like you know, it brings me back to the depths of my addiction. Lying on my couch so bound by my addiction, so I want to remember that. I don't regret it, I don't like get stay stuck in it, nor do I beat myself up over that anymay more. It's my reminder like I want to be free.

So you can create these little accountability partners or these anchors all around you, and the truth is, the more of them that you have, you know, whether they're in your site. That could be something on your desk, it could be a screen saver of your family, it could

be a word, it could be anything. But these are the things that are going to serve as pattern interrupts so that when we are spiraling, which it's going to happen because we just live in a world of addiction and affliction to distraction, so we're going to constantly being pulled. So we have to have we have to have the antidote. We have to have practices, and we have to be the we have to be willing to lean into those practices.

And yeah, they might be hard, but it's not as hard as you know, trying to do it the same old way and actually expecting things to change.

we aren't. Like there's times where you know, I get a phone call and it's not something that I want to hear, or something in my day with my schedule or something that I'm doing. I may mess up, and these things may serve as distractions and things that may knock me off of the present moment and the momentum that I built during that day. And it's more so about bringing yourself back to it. And that's where I

feel like the misconception lies with mindfulness with meditation. It's people think, oh, my mind has to just be completely still, there has to be no thoughts, it just has to be complete bliss, and anything that comes and knocks me off, it's like, oh, my meditation, my practice is ruined, when really it's a out allowing those things to come, embracing those things when they happen, and bringing ourselves back to the center, bringing ourselves back to the moment and think

of it. It's been it was put to me in the early days that it's to think of it as a bicep curl for your mind. Right anything, you go into the weight room and do you got arm day, you got back day, you got chess day. You're going to do certain things and continue to build repetitions in those things, and over time you grow stronger. Over time,

your muscles are more stable. Over time, you know, somebody try to bump into you, they're not You're not moving no more because you continuously put the repetitions in and continue to show up, no matter if it was discouraging, no matter if it was frustrating, you continue to show up in practice. And that's what we're trying to present

to you, guys, being present as a practice. There's nothing that's ever going to be completely perfect about it, but you practice to continue and continue for a lifetime, continue for as long as you're here on this earth, to be as present to the moment because you're relying on you first and foremost. A significant other in your life is going to rely on you the way that you live your life and write your comeback story communities around you.

People around you are going to be leaning on you, drawing inspiration from you, future generations of your family, grandkids. You know, we have to think in those ramifications, because how we show up in this moment right here, odds are is going to depict how we show up in the next moment, in the next moment after that, in

the next moment after that. So it's very important stuff not to put pressure on you, but more so to develop a sense of urgency around just showing up for the practice and putting in your best effort with the best attitude you can.

maybe some culture shock of making that move. What were some early challenges and what are you doing to really dial that in and ground yourself in that chaos that's all around you?

I was a little over one month married. But the bond that we had and still have allowed me to forget about some of the things that I faced when I was living alone prior to being married, and some of the anxiety, the allowing myself to be too drawn out of the present moment, pressure to perform, being on a new team and trying to put that in its rightful place in my mind, you know, wanting to be excellent, but it's more so about being than doing and performing.

You know. There was you know, as me as an addictive person, drugs and alcohol were like the main thing, but there were behaviors underneath that as well that I leaned into, like like masturbation that became that was something that ran parallel with that to take the edge off, to get that high end. Because that addictive thinking is still in me, and urges like that pop up when

I'm in an environment by myself. So it's making sure that I'm letting people in to my struggle and being like, hey, like this hasn't been something that's been tearing my life apart, but it's knocking on the door a little bit here, like and you know, letting my letting my wife into that, letting my friends into that, and knowing that I'm not ashamed because I'm tempted to go back into these new behaviors when I'm facing you know, adversity early on in

my marriage, moving into a new city across the country, and not to mention all the other different projects and little things that I'm involved in. It's allowing the moment to be hard, allowing the present to be a challenge, but knowing and still having joy amidst those challenges being present. So I would say it's the performance aspect the marriage. Being aware of addictive patterns and behaviors that I turned to when living by myself previously pre addiction and post using.

So those are some of the things that stand out. And the noise will only continue to grow. I mean talk about the media capital and all the attention that's there, and if you perform the way you want to perform, noise is only going to increase. People reaching out to you is only going to increase, you know, and these things, these are things that I'm going to have to navigate, and it's going to continue to put my practice of staying in the present moment to the test, because it's

no longer about arriving somewhere and achieving something. It's more so about abiding and living and being in the present moment, which brings the true joy and fulfillment of going along this journey, and going along the journey with the people that I'm doing it with. So it's it's it's a journey man like for people that's listening, I'm right, I'm right there with you. I'm exploring new challenges, I'm I'm dealing with these things as they come and trying to

do that from my center, which isn't always easy. Yeah.

ourselves in that process. There's no foundation, there's no place to come home too, and it can really lead to a lot of struggles in mental health and addiction and just overall unhappiness in the way that our lives are unfolding.

So it is there's nothing more important. And this is fascinating to me someone that teaches meditation and meditates daily, that sometimes even in my meditation, I will notice thoughts that are telling me I need to be doing something else, as if there was something more important than trying to quiet down that noise, Like what could possibly be more important than calling myself and laying the foundation for my day and training my mind to be my best friend

and not my worst enemy. But what I found that that little voice, that self sabotage voice that's saying, oh, you need to be doing this, or you're doing it wrong, or you know, it will creep in any opportunity it gets. So if we go back to the serenity prayer with like the wisdom to know the difference, when we are aware of those thoughts, we are now not those thoughts thoughts are just thoughts, but thoughts become things when we believe them, attached to them, or maybe judge ourselves for

having some crazy ass thoughts. But when we can actually practice and just be the observer and be aware of them, it really does loosen the grip and then we get to understand ourselves more and those patterns of thinking that pull us out of presence. So yeah, it just it

always is going to come down to the practices. Speaking of practice, as you were sharing earlier, I was just curious when you showed up for those first one, two, first or second day of practice, as you know, the new kid on the team, did you notice like any of the old, like childhood shit coming up at all?

anyone here. I you know, where do I begin and not trying to begin by pleasing people, not trying to begin by trying to fit in and be cool. But by this time I've had practice and conviction in knowing that who I am is going to, you know, always create room for myself and always create just a level of respect amongst my peers and the men that I'm around, because I'm just being who I am. I'm not conforming to what other guys are doing to try to be cool.

I'm not trying to get into anything like even like like the like the like fashion aspects and these material aspects, things that are like cool and that are really dope, but if looked at the wrong way, they can be used as a tool to please or to gain approval. And so it's just really showing up in you know, I wear the same pair of sneakers every day, same

pair of flip flops, wearing a T shirt in the shorts. Man, I'm just showing up, and I'm trying to give the best that I can give and lead with an example when I come in. I'm not going to come in and say a whole lot because that's just not who I am. I'm one of the older guys on the team, and I feel like over time, a more vocal leadership

role than I've ever had will come about. But I feel like a great way to begin is just being present to each and every day, showing up to every meeting with a desire to learn, a desire to be coached, a desire to be a part of the team, not necessarily come in and demand what I can get. So it's that's where those core values and just those things that we talk about come into play. Because when you're in the midst of uncertainty and things are changing around you,

you're in new environments. I have faith that these same habits, these same practices are going to allow me to create room to be successful and to enjoy my experience anywhere that I go. And you know, I say all that to say that's not that's not to say that I'm going to experience those same emotions that I would as a kid, because my inner child's in me, little Darren's in there, like you know, I don't know about this, Like I'm a little I'm still got a little social

anxiety in there. I'm still you know, got to feel people out, i still got to feel situations out. You know, I don't. I don't want to fail. I don't want to mess this up. I want to do the best that I can. And it's hearing that voice and knowing like, Okay, I know that you're there, but I can't allow that to dictate how I go about this new environment. It's really just who am I being able to see with myself and ask myself that consistently and then just go be who I am and keep it as as simple

as simple as that. Man, So what are what are what are things looking like for you today when it comes to the present moment, because it's an interesting dichotomy with you being a teacher but also as we talk about remaining a student, what there are some ways today that you find yourself trying to find that balance between those two and to just continue your journey with the president.

if I'm enlightened and have it all figured out. So often it's usually something that I've struggled with for a long time and then found a way or got some wise counsel and implemented it and started to practice it and found another solution, or it's just still stuff in

this moment that I might still be working through. And so I think, you know, teaching it back for me is such a gift because I feel like the story I tell myself is I'm a slow learner even in school, like having to auty extra to memorize things, and so the gift of being able to teach it back has allowed me to retain so many of these things. Now that doesn't mean that I'm still practicing them, you know.

One of the key points I wanted to touch on when we talk about anchoring in the present moment is

the practice of slowing down. And I think about still to this day, the way that I eat food, and I do a talk and I talk about mindful eating and how you know, our brain it takes twenty minutes for the sensory pleasures of our brain to even feel the satisfaction of being full and we're supposed to technically chew like twenty bytes per two and I'm like, wow, like I'm teaching this, and then I can see the way that I eat, and it shows up most often

when I'm eating with somebody else, you know, and my meal's gone and they're like four or four bites in. So slowing down has been a practice where when I get rushed, when I feel like there's not time, if I haven't prepared for something, that feeling of being rushed or out of my body like that's where I go off the rails. And it doesn't maybe show up externally like I'm yelling or anything, but man, internally, it's just

it's not a fun place to be. So the practice of slowing down is so essential, and I'm really trying to work on the eating part of it, because you know, eating and breathing are such a vital part of the whole digestive process, you know, the way we chew, the way we breathe, and to eat in like a stress state or eating on the go, it's like one of the most counterproductive ways to fuel and feed our bodies.

So that's been like a huge one for me that I've been in the practice, and sometimes I'm teaching it back and I'm like, dude, you need to you need to remind yourself of the shit you're you're telling your people.

But that's just that's just where I'm at. I can relate a lot also to because I'm in a long distance relationship and those gaps of when we're not together, like I feel like I'm I can be very present and less on my phone and engage, but it's in those pockets where there's more time or maybe I am feeling lonely that I will do something to numb it out, which the easiest way is just to grab the phone and you know, numb out and distract myself that way.

So oftentimes when and I would say the phone is my greatest addiction to this day, I'm so thankful that it's not drugs or alcohol or some of the other ones that you know bring us to our knees a lot quicker. But the phone is the one where I can notice, and if I notice myself going to it too often, I will just ask myself, like, what am I unwilling to feel right now? And if it's a time where maybe I'm not with my partner, it's usually just feel alone or on board or what am I chasing?

And why? That's the other kind of These are anchors. These are questions that you can ask that if you get honest, if you answer them honestly, they're going to to bring you back to the truth and bring you back to the present moment. So yeah, I would say the practice of slowing down is, and specifically around eating, I'm giving myself enough time to get to places, to get to the airport, to get to a class where I'm not rushing and going last minute because I just

know the impact and I do not. I am so uncomfortable in my own skin when I get in that place. So it's kind of proactively giving myself enough time to get to these places so that there is no rush, because yeah, rushing for me is when I become one of the worst versions of myself.

for it. But that whole instant gratification thing. And he has quotes in the areas like love and hurry are incompatible. So when it's like it speaks to what you're saying about not being the best version of yourself when you're in a rush, when you're in a hurry, and a lot of us are rushed and hurry without even knowing it.

We're so busy, we're trying to get that next promotion, we're trying to get to the bag, we're trying to do all these things, but we're not allowing ourselves to slow down and take in the goodness of the moment, to reflect, to affirm ourselves, to check in on how we're doing. And it's so important that we do that, and how counter cultural slowing down is. People don't want to be outside of what everybody in culture are doing.

But for us to really nurture our spirits and to nourish that spiritual life and to just be in tune with ourselves and be the best version of ourselves. We got slow down, and I feel like that plays into the idea of solitude as well, like creating moments of silence, time for meditation, time for reflection, time for prayer, time for journaling, whatever it is for you to be still

and have that quiet moment with yourself. We've got to find a way to do that that's personal to you, that works for you, that doesn't feel robotic to you, because that's the way we can fill our cups back up. And a lot of our lives are spent pouring into other people, pouring into situations, pouring into the vision of our job, pouring into friendships, relationships. But what are we doing to fill our cut back up so that there is something to pour, so that I do have something

to offer. You know, the big book that we read out of in our Fellowship of Recovery says you can't transmit something that you haven't got, and in order for us to be that transmitter, we have to create that time of solitude of cutting all the noise out, cutting Netflix off, turning the Xbox off, logging out of Twitter and Instagram, and just being in that silence, being in that void and dealing with the uncomfortability of it. It's not easy. It's not going to be a walk in

the park and just bliss all the time. But we have to embrace the fact that the discomfort always leads to something better for us. It stretches us, it expands us, it pushes us to our limits, only to find out that our limits are way farther than we ever even imagined. And it starts with something that's so simple as sitting in the quiet, because those things are going to come up. Those thoughts are gonna come up, those fears are going to come up, those insecurities are going to come up,

and they need to come up. It's not going to feel good when they come up, but they need to come up. Otherwise we're just going to continue to brush them under the rug. And we can't allow ourselves to do that any longer. And that's what I speak about with that sense of urgency. So we just want you guys to see it through that lens of and see why.

You know, Donnie and Darren talking about meditation again, but it's like it's just the healing and just the calm and the joy and the inner contentment that overcomes you and intertwines in you as you take that time. And we just can't stress the importance of that enough.

want to get out of and slow down. And that's why solitude and meditation And if you're struggling with a meditation practice, you're not alone. I struggled for years. There's so many different techniques out there. I recommend guided meditations. David g who's been on our guests. He's a two time we went back to back with him, amazing meditation teacher, amazing guided meditation teacher and storyteller who made meditation accessible

for me. So the resources are out there. You can go on Google and find I mean, I can sit here and give you a bunch of breath techniques and I'm happy to do that. But if you take the action and just pop it into Google, there's going to be different breath techniques, patterns of breath that you can use,

different types of meditation. You just have to be willing to try things on to see what works for you, because what works for me might not exactly work for you, and so the mind is going to look for every reason not to do it, because the mind just likes to have me jobs, and it likes to jump from thought to thought. They call it the monkey mind, where it jumps from branch to branch. But all of a sudden you slow it down, and then the mind is

out of jobs, right, and then it gets uncomfortable. But it's in that discomfort that really the magic is found. And so if we can clear the clutter, we make space. The only way to bring something new in is to let go of the old. And so much of our reality comes from our thinking. I mean, it comes from our belief system, which is which shows up in our thinking. But to change the way you're living, you have to

change the way you're thinking. And to change the way you're thinking, you have to actually be willing to do something to notice what you're thinking about. Because when you get out of your head, you start to tap into the flow state the spiritual world. You get back to the heart and you start to see through the lens of the heart and not like the madness that's going

on in the mind. And when we can see from the heart, we can see with clarity, and it's like just coming back home to the heart and to what matters most, so that we can show up authentic and we're not like I used to do, just rehearsing everything I was going to say before I said it, which if you're having a conversation with somebody, you cannot listen

if you're thinking about what you're going to say. So what gets in the way of intentional listening, which you know, if you want to connect more in any relationship, you know, practice the art of listening. The only things that get in the way of listening are judgments and distractions and defenses. So you got judgments distractions if you're thinking about something else.

And if you're in any kind of relationship and you start to defend after somebody says something, you're not listening to what they're saying because you're already defending your stance, so people want to be they people are always say people are not going to remember what you said, They're going to remember how you made them feel. And everybody loves to be heard. Everybody loves to be heard, and

in that they feel a greater sense of connection. But in order for them to be heard, we actually have to listen, which comes back to getting out of our heads. So there's a lot of practices. There's a lot of different meditations. I mean, anybody listening and I'll be happy you could reach out to me on Instagram and I'll give you recommendations or techniques. But I think it's also important for you to take the action to actually do

a little research. You won't get past page one in the Google search with just amazing information and resources that will help you really just get back to present and find these anchors that we're talking about.

I'm going to be up in the way something was in the past, whether it was good or bad, or I'm gonna be caughting, kind of what I was talking about earlier, of when I get to this moment in the future, then things will be okay. When I get this thing, then I'll be all right. But gratitude is taking both of those extremes into account and choosing the perspective of I don't lack anything. I have everything that I need. I have everything that I could ever have

wanted in this present moment. But that's not how we're taught to live, that's not how we're wired. That's not how America and the world works. It's about getting somewhere.

It's about arriving there. And it's just that counter cultural aspect of living that we have to embrace and stand firm in because otherwise our peace and just our overall gratitude in the moment is going to be what's lost on this chase for what we're being told is success or what we're being told is what's going to fulfill us. But gratitude is so important because it defies that logic and it says what I have now here is good

enough for me. And I feel like that goes such a long way because it allows you to have such a full and deep appreciation for everything that comes into your life. If you don't appreciate what you have when you have little, you're not just going to magically start to fully appreciate what you have when you have a lot, because that's not your character, that's not your habit, that's

not your practice. And we just want to help you, guys, to be able to develop practices as we are currently in the moment of doing as well that will allow your life, your story, your comeback story that you're continuing to write, as you're putting into paper, and as you're experiencing these moments and the beauty that life has to offer, you're going to be there, fully present to take all of that in and be overwhelmed by the joy, be just so happy and content and just full of praise

that you won't have words, you know, like I'm sitting here trying to describe it right now. In some of the moments that I've been able to experience in my life that have stemmed from me going to rehab, and one of the first things they taught us about was mindfulness, being present to the moment in meditation, and I'm like, what are you guys talking about? But sticking with it, continuing to practice, continuing to wake up and just keep chopping,

keep putting reps in. It's turned into an amazing life to where I just wake up and scratch my head and I'm like, how did I get here? Like even fighting this to this day, the internal unworthiness that I had most of my life, it's like, it's just irritating the crap out of that unworthiness and it's and it's beautiful, just like the how it's it's all coming out and coming together. And man, it's just a powerful thing. Dog, It's a powerful thing. And we can't get there without

being in the moment. If there's any way we could wrap this up, there's no way that I appreciate my life as it is today, with all the good things out of there, if I'm not present to each and every moment of that journey along the way. And hope you can take that with you.

Slowing down is so important. You have your breath. Your breath will always be there. It's been there since day one, when you've took your first breath and you arrived, and it's going to be the last thing you do when you leave this earth and your legacy begins, You'll take that last breath, So you have that in your back pocket at all times. And really just being mindful with our devices and technology, making sure we're taking time to relax.

And I would say to begin, just start with small targets. If you want to start a meditation practice, take ten deep breaths for the next week and let that be your meditation practice, and then just build on it. These small practices will compound over time and start to create a system and a foundation that's going to always bring you back. All the magic lies in the present moment.

And you know, Darren and I when we talk about we could talk about this all day long, and I feel like we could go on hours for this with this, because this is when I'm the most present, is just listening, especially this solo or duo episode where we don't have a guest and we can really talk about these things and then just kind of like reflect on the journey that it's that it's taken to get to this point.

It's so beautiful. And you know, if you're listening and this has really moved you or inspired you, or maybe you have somebody in your life that you know could benefit off this. Darren and I's mission has always been to reach as many people as possible and share this message. So maybe you put a screenshot, put it on Instagram, send this to somebody. The reviews on Spotify and iTunes or Apple Music really help the reviews or help the help us reach more people if we have reviews in

five stars. So we're not trying to get as many as possible for our egos. We're just wanting to reach as many people as possible.

We're going to keep coming back. You can find us on the Inflection Network on YouTube as well, and we're just going to continue on this journey with you guys, trying to stay in the moment, trying to figure out this thing called life and enjoy it while we got it. So we appreciate you guys joining us and we'll catch you next week.