Welcome to the Recovered Attic podcast. I'm Dwayne Yardman. Frank, That's. Jason Rigby And today this is the exciting thing. This is what I'm super excited about because we're going to be ultra practical. Yes, like these are going to give you steps. Like you know, we all, especially our ego mind loves steps. We like degrees. You talked about that last podcast. And directions.
And so today we're going to get into part four of our materials, practical steps, surrender and then part five, we're going to get into embracing treatment opportunities and community. So don't tune us out. You cannot do this alone. And I always like to let people know we're not medical
professionals. No, what we do not all we're doing is just sharing our story with you guys and being open and vulnerable and maybe we can be a blessing to you guys and and help you out that that's what we're here for. Yes, yes. We don't serve others don't affiliate with any. Specific religion, medical practice or recovery group, or just here offering spiritual tools that have worked for us. And then, God willing, it'll work for somebody else and help them find their own road to
recovery. Yeah, I love that. Let's get into Part 4, Practical Steps to Surrender. And this first one really fucked me up. This is the hard one, and this is super. This is harder than you think. It's going to sound cool, but it's way harder than you think, because what we view the word as the R word is totally different than than what it is. It involves trust and all different kind of things. So let's get into this one first practical step surrender is allow yourself to rest, Tyrell says.
Understand that it's okay to step away from situations that you cannot control. And here's the T word with the R word or the T word, and trust that things will work out as they should. Allow yourself to rest. What do you think about doing when you when you hear that? I'm not doing that. I have so much resistance to rest. I'm not going to that treatment center 2 speeds. I'm all or nothing and I also have 35 years of conditioning to go, either all or nothing.
So the idea of rest, the idea of take your foot off the gas, the idea of don't push, push, push. You always push. Why are you swimming upstream? So I'm a champion swimmer. That's all I know to do. Of course I'm going to swim upstream. The idea of rest is against my natural inclination. I don't wake up like that. But I also have never had the perspective of, well, in order to surrender, in order to allow a recovery to enter my life, I need to give myself the opportunity to heal.
And rest is a huge component of that rest, stepping away from the situations that are. Kick in my ass. Yeah, And then, you know, I always think of like the story in the first beginning of the Bible with the creation story where on the 7th day it says God rested. Even God rested. He built the earth. He's like I'm built the sky, the waters, the animals. Here's Adam and Eve. Here's all this. And then the 7th day God rested. Yes, yeah. Do you know the penalty? For not observing the Sabbath.
For not observing rest. The penalty for not observing the Sabbath is you don't get the Sabbath. Yeah, you don't get the benefits of rest. You don't get the benefits of unplugging, going into yourself, going into source, going into spirit and connecting to that power. It's just go, go, go, go, go. I'm guilty of working. Four different jobs at the same time, thinking I need a certain amount of money in order to be OK and then put in my my foot to the gas pedal and giving it
everything I got. Yeah, and and I always think of like a long time ago I had the whoop band WHOOP, and there's so many different of these bands you can wear ring or rings, all
these. And it was really cool because I had a recovery part on it. And it was so interesting because whether I worked out like too hard, like I'd work out, you know, really hard, and then you wake up in the morning, or whether you had a shitty night's sleep or whether I went to Vintage, it's a nice bar here that you used to. We used to see each other there and had cigars and drank a bunch of beer. I would wake up in the morning and my recovery would be in the red, like from zero to 100.
It'd be like at 20 something, you know? And then. It would. It's like heart rate variability. It's looking at all these different metrics, you know, your pulse. And then you would rest for that day, like just relax, chill, maybe just go on a walk, you know, take the dogs for a walk or whatever. And then by about 6:00 or 7:00 PM, you'd look at the recovery thing and you're in the green, you know, eat some clean food, drink a lot of water, those type of things.
All of those things are important. They call it in your world, in the fitness world. They call it active recovery days. Yeah. You know where like you do a walk or something like that, or if you're if you're sick you have to recover. So how many years of you being sick because that's what it is, dis ease. Yes. What does recovery look like for you, you know? Stepping away from that dis ease is not impossible, but it might seem impossible.
And when I can bring a deep yes to the present moment. And get in connection with the power that helps me accomplish the seemingly impossible. I have a chance, and the rest component of recovery is I'm just no longer willing to spin my wills in that crazy insane delusion of this time it's going to be different, right? This time, it's going to be different. This time I'm not going to lose the relationship. This time I'm not going to lose my job. This time I'm not going to get
in a fight. It was never any different for me. I kept trying the same experiment, expecting different results and getting the same result each time I asked, got kicked. So that's the definition of an insanity for an addict. Over and over again I proved to myself that I cannot do this on my own. My form based power is not enough. So do you, do you think like? I mean rest can be just being in the present moment. Absolutely. I'm no longer spinning the
wheels of my mind. I was noticing myself the other night. I'm watching a spiritual podcast. It's going really good. I'm about 10 minutes into it, paying deep attention to it being in the present moment. Next thing you know, like my phone's doing now is like, I instantly grab my phone, disconnect from I'm laying in bed watching it. You know this podcast, Disconnect from the Pocket. I didn't hear anything they said. And I'm on Instagram. Yeah.
You know, And then then 10 minutes later, 15 minutes later, I get back onto the podcast, watching it, listening. Oh, that's really good. That's really good. Oh, I love that. Oh, I needed that. That one the guy got me. Oh, pick up the phone. Yep. There was no rest, like. And I think for an addict's brain to understand this addiction to thought, this addiction to narcissism, this addiction to dopamine. Resting is really like you said. I'm not going to do that. You know, resting is really
hard. Even bringing that over to, you know, the physical side of things with working out. Yeah, like you you when you're a bodybuilder. Yeah, it's like I'm going to work out. Didn't you say you secretly worked out the second time or something? Yeah, during my bodybuilding shows, my brain said you need to do more. It doesn't matter what you're holding, I'm just addicted to more of it. And it was easy for me in early sobriety to replace my alcoholism with the gym.
Because I could go, I could get the endorphins. And then, you know, it was like, well, we don't just go to the gym. We get on stage like we're going to take this body and we're going to have 3% body fat and you're going to be in the one percentile of the whole globe. And you're going to do that over and over and over again. And I used to train. I had a trainer. I would never, I would never do a show by myself. So I had a trainer and he would tell me, OK, now you're that was
good for today. Now go rest. Recover the rest of the day, allow your body to heal. But my brain was so busy. My ego had those comparison thoughts going on, and I was so worried I wasn't going to look as good as I possibly could. I would sneak to a different gym and work out again just so that he wouldn't catch me, because I went to the same gym a couple times, twice and he got furious. And in reality, I was not improving the.
Condition of my body. I was on such low fuel my body was eating its muscle to try and find the fuel to get me through my second workout. So allowing yourself to rest, and I think the word here is allow. Very good. Like so when I when I think of allow, I'm thinking of what we talked about earlier is the surrendering apart. You know, like surrendering to REST. Like trusting. And they talk about this in the material. Trust the things that will work out as they should.
I want to control so I can't rest when I'm paddling the kayak upstream. I can't if I rest. Something bad's gonna happen if I rest in this relationship and I don't try to perform all the time. Then she's going to leave me very good if I if I don't work harder than everybody else and make sure that I answer the emails right away and I'm on Slack and my little dot on slack, there's like a little dot that shows that you're online
all the time. So I want everybody to see on Saturday and Sunday my dots on. So I'm going to make sure I'm I'm working on Saturdays and today just so. And then everybody else is having fun and on vacation doing their thing. They're not checking Slack, but I'm like if they do. I'll be there. It's the same mentality. It is. And it's difficult, especially, you know, in our world, well, work harder, do more. I'm going to show up. I'm going to work harder than every single person in that
room, right? That's that's a, that's a hero, that's someone that is idolized. That's, you know, a good thing in our world today. But it's not good in regards to my crazy, addictive mind. So it's very paradoxical. It's very backwards. Last podcast we were talking about tools that can help us surrender. One of the nice tools that I try and use if I'm present enough too, is a a prayer, a few prayers. One of the prayers is God help me be kind. God help me be kind. God help me be kind.
And the undercurrent of that prayer, you know, my daughter taught me this one when she was four. We were on the way to school. The undercurrent of that prayer is, yes, God help me be kind, but help me be kind to myself. Yes, help me be kind to myself when I'm go, go, go. And I'm working for jobs and I'm chasing the dollar and I'm prioritizing money over everything else.
My hair was falling out. I was having physical symptoms from my cortisol levels being through the roof and not allowing my body to heal and recover. And that's in sobriety. That's not what I was doing to my body with drugs and alcohol. With drugs and alcohol, my organs are dying. They are shutting down.
But I I want to clarify something because you know, self pity comes in and all that and I I face that issue when you are putting in a 6 to 8 hour day or you're going showing up at work and you're not really working and you're just you know, but you're there for 8 hours but you're not really doing shit and then you're like Oh my God, I'm so tired. I work all the time. It's it's to be honest with you and I'm not being mean here. I'm I'm being loving and kind.
It's your narcissistic brain telling you that you're narcisstic and that you're sacrificed when you really haven't. I had to catch myself on this like you worked a 12 hour day, but really you're productive about 3 or 4. Very good. You know what I mean? So don't fool yourself by thinking cuz I I think work and and and four hour 4, you know, four jobs is way too much. But I think the best thing that you can do if you're an addict is to get a mission, a purpose.
A clear vision and a goal and head in that direction and almost be obsessive over that. Like in a good way, like in a positive way. I'm not talking being excessive, like where you're hurting yourself or whatever. But there's something about being on mission and on purpose. Like having a purpose, a solid purpose where if you're just sitting around watching Netflix and saying I'm resting, I'm going to smoke weed and just rest. You know, the government gives me a check, you know, and I get
free food and all these things. That's not, that's not what we're talking about when we talk about rest. If you're doing those things, you need to get off your ass and get a freaking job, like a JOB and do purpose like you said, take out the trash. Get busy. Get busy. Go mow some lawns. Do. Do whatever you can do to get busy because people fool themselves in America. And if you're not an American, you listen to this podcast and you're working 1215 hours. You know, just survive for your
family. I get it. I've been there, done it, got the T-shirt, and you have two. But you can do way more than you think you can. Yeah. The God consciousness inside of me is not capable of getting tired. Yes. So if I'm coming from that place, I could work all day. But to come from that place, I have to have that clear direction. Yes, I have to have that purpose. I have to have. Beautiful motive. But but but your mission and purpose is not working for jobs. No, no. Does that.
That's not a pure motive. That that's a pretty selfish, self-centered motive. So if my motive is pure, if my motive is provide for my family, If my motive is be the best individual I can be, If my motive is simultaneously be the best individual I can be, be the best person I can be for my family. Be the best person I can be for my community. I'm helping all areas of life because of my motive. That's a pure motive, and it's excellent to head in that direction, excellent to give
that everything I got. What you just said is fantastic advice, especially for someone who's looking for purpose, someone who's looking for meaning, you know, if I'm stuck on the couch, if it's Netflix 24/7, if it's medical marijuana or whatever it is 24/7, I need this substance to be okay. And then simultaneously, I'm being told by the government, this is good, this is all good here. You know what? We'll fund this. We'll fund your. Lazy delusion.
Then you're just eating junk food, sitting on the couch, not doing shit. I'm still the victim. Yes, there you go. Of the world around me, I'm still the victim of whatever government thing. I'm still the victim of whatever oppressive thing I'm still the victim of. My parents didn't help this thing. I'm still the victim of my education. Victims never recover. I'm going to use a harsh word, but they're slaves.
You're slave to the government. You're a slave to Some people even are on the tit of their parent. Whether it's a mom that gets her identity based off of you. And you're 25 years old and you're still getting money from your mom. Yeah, and you don't have a job. Okay, dude, you need a man up and go. Take some responsibility. You want to help your addiction. You want to recover? Take some responsibility. Beautiful. Beautiful. How do I transcend? The tragedy of being a victim,
yes. How do I go beyond that? If victims never recover, how do I go beyond that? Exactly what you just said. You just nailed it. Start taking responsibility. But to find rest you need to find your breaking point. And a lot of people haven't found that yet. Like go work two jobs and be like, whoa, whoa whoa, I need to take a rest. Yeah, it's different for every individual. That's a good point. Or like, I don't know, my gains don't happen at the gym, but those last three reps?
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's tough to get to that threshold of OK, now I'm transforming into something new. It's definitely a powerful experience. If I'm willing to walk the line, I'm walking the road and seeing where my threshold is, and it's a fascinating adventure, different for every individual. But the responsibility is what gets me moving. The responsibility of a job, the responsibility of a family, the responsibility of I'm going to
be good to myself. You know what? Actually, I made a commitment to be kind to myself. What does that look like? Does that look like the couch and Krispy Kremes or does that look like 8 hours at this specific job so I can take care of my bills and not feel worthless? Yeah, the feeling worthless is just that. Depression, self pity. That's how that's I know because I was that yes, you know, and sometimes I have to battle that still, like that's not real.
But when I get in super self pity mode. Junk food and Netflix for me. Totally. And I don't want to talk to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody's irritating to me and all I want to do is just been watch the show. And enough of that progression, enough of that behavior becomes my condition response to hard shit. Yes. I don't know how to go through hard shit. I know how to do Netflix and food. Yeah, 100%. So that I just it makes it OK.
Or I get my feelings hurt so I have to withdraw as an introvert and run to some La La Land like a TV show or something. I like the next part. Because this is going right in hand with what we're saying. Notice your need to control, so I'm going to skip to the last part. It says consider your motivation for control and the reality of the situation. So noticing our need to control, let's start, we're going to go backwards here. Let's we're going to reverse engineer this.
Let's start with the reality of the situation. Because so many people, especially people with addictive personalities like myself in yours and me, we don't accept reality. No. No, I want to manufacture reality. It's up to what? So a nice analogy or or a nice saying for us is just I'm not, I'm not right sized. I'm either King Duane most important, which is not reality, or I'm the worst thing that ever existed and everybody just pisses on me, which is also not reality.
So I have no, I have no right sizedness to my to my worldview. I have no get real. I have no one of one of the a woman's definition of reality was of humility. Was great. She said. Well, just get real, Dwayne. Just get real. Like see reality. And reality is. I cannot figure out my addiction by myself. I'm lost in my own consciousness and I behave in my ego. And to start taking action to correct those behaviors, it takes a lot of courage. So how?
Because this is very important. So in the vertical dimension that we put first and you need to listen to our other podcasts to understand that in that vertical dimension, how does our Higher Self take control? How can we take control with our Higher self and how much power does the Higher Self have to help us? Higher power has all power. It it, it can help in any situation, in any problem. I'm walking around 24/7 with the solution to my problem. Which problem? All problems.
Any problem. The trick or the the journey for us is to allow that to be forefront is a lot to allow higher power, to allow Spirit to be the part of me. That views the world to be the part of me that can make. Can I make a spiritual decision here? Can I make a decision based on integrity? Can I make a decision based with in honesty here? Or am I making a selfish, selfcentered decision because the world of form is more important?
Is my integrity forefront or is my selfish desire to have more money or more sex forefront every single decision throughout the day? We have opportunities to practice making decisions based on self or making decisions based on principle. I love that. So I start making decisions based on principle, and I'm simultaneously rewiring my mind. I'm rebuilding the structure of my selfish, conditioned, addictive mind. Am I allowing myself to rest? So change the programming,
change the matrix. Is that a? Is that conducive to my recovery or am I going to get, well, just 1000 miles an hour down the road burning the tires? I'm never going to get well if that's how hard I'm pushing my body. Yeah, it was funny. I was talking to my girlfriend the other day and I we, I always call out my ego, especially with her because we have a relationship that way. And I was like, I had an amazing day. Everything was awesome and I had
20 good things happen. At least 20 great things happen. And I didn't have to manufacture. I just had amazing things happen. But I need to focus on the one thing and ruin my emotions, ruin my attitude, be pissed off at the world because out of 20 great things that happen, yeah, one thing just derailed me and I called it out to her. You know, cuz it's it's great to do that If you have, you know, two spiritual, if you have a partner that's spiritual, then you can just laugh at.
I was laughing at I was like I gotta have that one thing to just fuck me up. But in the material it says the reality of the situation and then it says consider your motivation for control. Yeah, you know, this, this. Which part of me wants control? Where does that come from? What's the undercurrent of needing control? No, no. The lights need to be facing this way. You need to be arranged like this. You need to. No, no, don't behave like that. That's always my ego.
Yeah, and it I had that way. Because I I was probably too disciplinarian as a father. And I'm older, you know, so, So there was this whole thing that I, my kids are rebellious and I need to control them and put them on the straight and narrow path. Yeah. You know, and and so I used Christianity as guilt to kind of hold over it. At the time, I was, you know, into that pretty heavily. And I'm saying anything against it. I used it in a wrong format.
You know, Jesus was all about love and, you know, acceptance. I was all about. You doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. Why are you acting this way? You know and and so in that moment, what is my motivation for control? Trying to control my children? Yes, so difficult. It's such this is such a big topic, Jason. It's wonderful that we're addressing this. Every addict has control issues.
I don't care who you are, you're on a you're on a level playing field in regards to this game, my ego. Cannot surrender to the fact that it's not getting what it wants. So it's easier for my ego to say, well, what's wrong with me instead of my judgment, instead of my fear, instead of my disillusionment. I can't see reality. That's not what's wrong. What's wrong with me is you, your behavior. Is what's making me feel uncomfortable on the inside.
That's so good and in and and with an understanding of a spiritual practice and understanding of. I want principle to be forefront in my life, not self to be forefront in my life with that understanding. That means that's delusional. If I have an unrealistic expectation that you're going to behave a particular way, and then I'll be OK and I walk through the world that way. It's miserable. It's miserable to try and control people, surroundings, places, things they never listen
well, you say. That all the time you you say you know, if only you were OK, then I would be OK. It's the second greatest lie any addict ever tells himself. It's important to realize that this is a lie. It's important to catch myself in the middle of it with my ULP. There's a crazy thought. There's a judgmental thought.
Yep, there's a fearful thought. The more and more I can catch these crazy thoughts, these controlling thoughts, the better and better I get at rewiring my brain to turn towards a spiritual solution based on principle rather than based on self. But what we're really doing is so powerful, Jason, what we're really doing in that moment, and you know this, and you do this every, every day. Is we're taking responsibility for the vibration inside of us.
We're taking responsibility for my vibration. I'm vibrating at a judgmental level but I want to make it your fault. I feel low. I feel it's a low vibration. It doesn't feel good. But I want to make it my two year old's fault because he's screaming he's just being 2. And when I can be present and honor the God consciousness inside of me and if I can catch the crazy controlling thought and. Return to a spiritual tool like God help me not judge.
God help me not judge. I can meet that little 2 year old on a spiritual vibration and it's pure bliss. Bro, I have this love for this little boy, this little child. Like a Mini. He's a Mini youth. He's a totally a mini me, whatever I have, he has. And in that moment where he's not afraid of my judgment. And I'm offering my presence instead of offering my judgment. We can connect, and it's so powerful. And the love is there, bro. It feels so good. His eyes are big. My eyes are big.
It's electric. But when I'm in control and when I'm in selfishness and when I'm in, you need to be this way or I'm not OK. He runs from me. Yeah. Who like as far as mentors you mentioned, Bill. And then you mentioned another guy who was the guy that picked you up from the hospital, Bobby. So Bill was one, right? Dick. Dick and then Bobby. And then there was a lady, right? You said that was kind of helping you out a little bit. There were a lot of people that.
Yeah. So I mean, you could probably name five of them. Easy. Oh yeah. Countless. It's countless. There are 10, let's say 10. The cool part about this is how those five or ten people helped you. You have a little 2 year old addict. Yes, he's like you and you get to be all of those people. To him, yeah. And I and I, I'm so grateful for the experience of the men and women that have helped me through through my own recovery
journey. We'd like to say, you know, we're standing on the shoulders of the men and women that came before us. I'm not, we're not reinventing the wheel here. We're just doing what has worked for others and doing what has worked for us, and that's all. I'm extremely grateful because of that experience, because I have a really good education on what to do with that energy. If he has the more gene and is addicted to more, I know what to
do with that energy. I know a good thing to do with that energy is turn towards spirit. I know a good thing to do. That energy is channel it towards something useful. You want to be 100? You want to be all or nothing. We'll be all or nothing in helping others. You want to be all or nothing, be all or nothing in being successful and and being kind to yourself at the same time. Yeah. And I I think with the control thing, the motivation, consider
your motivation. And you just said, you know, be kind to others, help others, that will help you eliminate the control. I want to kind of go in that direction and this will lead us to the next one. But I, I, I want to go in this direction in the sense of what you just said. So many people are so narcissistic and so prideful, they're not willing to express themselves in humility towards another.
And what I'm talking about is maybe right now in your life you working for free to learn something, Always tell people. Maybe you make minimum wage. But you found that your passionate purpose, you always hear of the stories of, you know, the artist or the photographer or, you know, you always hear it in the creative room or whatever it may be. But that person that you know, they saw, like almost like it's like a God tier person. Like I want to be that person.
Yeah. So you come in and you're like, hey, whatever it takes, I'll clean the floors. I'll sweep the floors. I'll do whatever it takes. I just want to learn from you, you know, If I have to get my time for free after I get off my regular job, I'll do whatever it takes because I want to. I want to be you. You know, you know what I'm saying in like a good way, not an ego way. But I I want to, I want to understand you as an artist, and I want to paint like you.
We'll just use that, for instance, And you get in this moment and you begin to understand and you watch him as he's painting with his brushstrokes or her and you, you hands on, see that you would never be that way. If you're like, why isn't this person paying me at least minimum wage? Why am I, you know, why am I doing this for free? You don't.
And I always tell people this. No matter what you do in life, do something that you want to do and if it doesn't pay a lot in the beginning, if you dedicate your life to it, I guarantee you to pay off if you're passionate because the higher self loves passion. And. In your unique God made you unique. We're like snowflakes. You know the whole thing with the snowflake, each one God put you on. I believe every person is put on this earth for one unique
purpose. And there's something that you're going to do that you don't even realize. It's going to be a blessing and a help to someone else. No matter. You're like on meth right now. I guarantee you, if you put yourself first, if you begin to prioritize what it means to be on this vertical, and then you began to pour yourself into other people, you're going to help people. How many people have you helped in 13 years? It's countless. You don't even know until you know.
And and I always love the story of. Like that. You've always heard these stories when you go to heaven and then people are going to come around you. You know, there's always this beautiful story about and I I think this is like true, you know, in in such a beautiful way. I think we'll see it in our when we go back to source. I think that would be a beautiful way to for source to show us love is to show us all the lives and every little
moment. We didn't even realize it, just a moment when we were sitting across the table from somebody and Ed Milette said that about his dad. And I shared that story with you, you know, where his dad had a guy at a bar that was an alcoholic, talked to him and it changed his life. And then when he died, he found when his dad died, Ed Milett's dad died. And he tells the story way better than I am, but he found all these envelopes that his dad had in like a drawer or
something like that. And they were birthdays of and sobriety birthdays. And this guy every year would call these people. So alcoholic. Another guy changed him, sitting at both, sitting at barstools. Then he begins to help other addicts, other Alcoholics, calling, just calling them on their sobriety year, seeing how they're doing. So everything's going. There was hundreds of envelopes. Yeah, yeah, so. The guy at the bar does it. He didn't even know what he did.
We have no idea how much effect we could have on another individual, especially if. We're offering our presence, especially if we're. Cooking you just teeing right into the. From a present moment, look at this. You just stepped right into it, bro. Practice, presence. Here we go. Yeah, present a present moment practice. That's what we like to call it.
I have built an entire business based on present moment practice, but I've also been able to change and revolutionize my life with the present moment practice. And and present moment practice can be a very big idea, should be an expanding idea. What? Where does all power come from? This God. Source. Yes, God's source. Where does God's source live? In me now, In the here and now?
What's real if I'm if I'm having a hard time seeing reality and I'm interested in shedding those glasses of delusion and starting to look at the world in a in a reality based? Form in reality, place platform. God or the presence inside of me is eternal. It's not ten days ago. Only then I'm, you know, in resentment in my mind. It's not two weeks from now. Then I'm in fear. In my mind. I'm not present and I'm not being real. What's happening now?
What's real now is I'm in front of a microphone with Jason. And we're unrecovered Attic podcast. That's right here, right now. Where does God, where does my consciousness, my God consciousness exist? It exists in the here and now. It cannot experience. Two weeks from now. It's not possible. I lose myself. I lose reality. When I go 2 weeks in the future. In my mind, I'm entering the world of form. I'm entering my ego and I'm, I'm detaching. From the power that exists in
the present moment. Yeah, it's like, I mean, to go back to our last point, what type of eternity? If you look at eternity, where's control in that? How can you control eternity? Not possible, there's no. How can you worry? It's a losing in eternity. It's a losing battle that and it's how can. You judge in eternity. It's it's comical to think I can control eternity. You're a you're a God consciousness. I got it.
I'll, I'll deal with it. I know what's best I when my ego takes over and I it's so funny because my ego can sneak. Now my ego can sneak into my spirituality and I'll pray for a particular outcome. God help this sick person get well, it's a good thing. But in that moment my ego has reentered and I am pretending to know. Better than God, maybe It's God's plan for that sick person
to die. Because when that sick person reenters non physical, their life's going to be a lot better than the suffering they're experiencing now with their illness. I don't get to know that. No, yeah, exactly. I do get to trust that God know I've proven it to myself enough times to where the trust I would like to think is a working part of the mind. God usually has a better plan than me anyways, so let's just let God deal with that. One nice prayer.
One nice tool for me is God. You deal with that because I can't. God, you deal with that because I can't. But to get back to the present moment practice, I believe that God can only exist my higher power. My shoes of inner being can only exist in the present moment. I believe true power is aligning with that present moment. So where does all power exist in the here and now? Why can I heal from my addiction? Because I'm connected to the present moment. I'm connected to all power.
And it's so hard when you've never done it and everybody thinks to be in the present moment, you need to meditate, you know, So you have to do some special like, you know or whatever, and you need to do all these special things, and those are all great things. I've been sharing a meditative
practice. I've been doing not every day, but I've been trying and I try to do it several times a day sometimes, but it's noticing things and the material talks about this, like, engage with your surroundings, don't make it all about you. That's what happens when you're so narcissistic and you have this addictive personality. You can't be in the present moment because you're judging every single thing based off of you.
Exactly. So if you can just accept to surrender to the present moment, that means looking at the guy walking the dog and and being in the present moment and saying a prayer of kindness and love. I I get. I want to give this person love and light herself. Give this person love and light. Oh what an amazing dog. So cute. You know? Or that's a really ugly dog, you know? Whatever. But you know what I mean? Like it's like practice. Go to a park. I used to do this. Go to the dog park cuz I love
dogs so much. Go to a dog park and just watch the dogs. They're totally present. So I've never seen a dog worry. No so powerful that Eckhart totally likes, excuse me, likes to refer to animals as guardians of being. We call them guardians of being because sometimes for for some individuals who are so lost in their mind, so lost in their ego, the only time they can be present is when they're interacting with their animal.
So their animal is holding space for the owner, and that's the only time the owner gets to be present because. The owner meets the dog at the dog's vibration. The dog is vibrating in pure presence all the time. He's not worried about paying bills two weeks in the future. I guarantee you he's not worried about that last time I didn't feed or whatever. He's pure presence. That's why they're so excited to see you every time. They don't exist in a mind that has fear and worry or judgment
and control. They're just pure presence. That's why it's so beautiful. Excellent, excellent, simple tools that can help us enter the present moment one. And it this kind of turns into five is 5. Tools are sense perceptions. Like you said. Go to the park, Look at the green grass, read a sign. It says 25 mph. So simple. It's it's it's almost stupid. It's so simple. But I cannot simultaneously be in my mind worrying about my addiction and reading 25 mph. So I love that sense.
Perception brings me to the present moment when I'm washing my hands. Be with the water, fill what the water feels like when I'm laying in bed. Fill the sheets, fill the cool comfortable sheets. Hearing music is a fantastic one. Music can bring us present. A podcast can bring us present. A spiritual talk. Anything. Anything. You Gosh, I have YouTube. We have YouTube going all the time. We're constantly sending each other powerful spiritual talks that we think can help each other.
What is, what is the hearing of the podcast? What is the hearing of the spiritual discussion? That's a sense perception. It brings me to the present moment. I'm not worried if I can be present with what's going on in my ears. I'm not simultaneously. Angry. About two weeks ago when this woman in the grocery store cut my card off and I had to pause for this overweight woman. And I just that's judgment. That's fear. That's anger. That's worried.
That's two weeks in the past. It's not real. It's not happening now. So sense perceptions bring me to the present moment. The present moment is where all power exists. Another nice tool. Well, let me, let me, let me suck you there before you go to the second one, because I think this is, this is really important. One of the things that's helped me is. And and maybe I'm more
traditionalist type. And so like this thing I've been doing with before I meditate and I had read this is I wash my hands kind of like a form of purity. Yes. And I practice, like you said, just washing my hands and paying attention. Cleaning my hands, just, you know. And then I drink a glass of water And then how does the
water feel? How when it's, you know, just and then I I go into my meditation and maybe it's going to maybe you're Catholic. And maybe it's going to church and practice sitting there as you're doing the rosary beads or whatever you're doing. Practice being present in that moment. Practice when you're praying. Maybe you, you're a Christian Church and you're listening to
worship music. You know, when you're sitting there and you get your hands and practice being totally present and feeling that music because music is so powerful, you know, and and whatever it may be. Yeah, Greek Orthodox. And you're listening to the priest. You know, church is a good way. It's a freeway. It's free. It doesn't cost anything. It's a good way to practice being in the present moment because you'll be listening to the speaker, the passer, the
priest, whatever. And you're gone in like 5 minutes and next thing you know, he's like, man, you're like, man. I was thinking about that girl's ass and then I was thinking about I'm not getting paid enough and I need to do this. You know, so it's a good hour that you have to sit there hour and a half and practice. It's a great way to practice being so not just a park, church. But for me, rituals really help. Absolutely. For me.
And I know they're ancient, so and that's why they had rituals, not so much that there was any act like a crystal. There's no power in the crystal. It's a rock. You know, I mean, it can vibrate and there's different things like that. But it's the whole idea of of taking being present with that. You know, whether you, you look at it and it's this type of crystal or it's this type of crystal, you know, we don't get too woo woo here.
But you know, whether you're looking at that and and you're studying it and you're figuring it out and you're seeing that it has this and that, that's just you being present. It's just a practice of present. So it's going to #2. But the but the present moment practice what I was going to say or just to kind of piggyback off of what you just said. Another nice, simple present moment. Practice. Keep it simple, they said. Dwayne, you know, you're a little smart and trying to
figure this out on your own. We need you to keep it simple. It's just, God help me offer my presence. That's it. I'm having a hard time being present. I'm thinking about getting drugs. I got to call the drug dealer. They took my phone. I can't. I can't call the drug dealer. How am I going to? My skin's crawling. I'm having a difficult time being present. Well, let's get in contact with the appropriate power that can help me be present. Keep it simple, God help me be present, bro.
I found this little tool, this little nugget. This is getting good around 8-8 years sober. I found this little nugget around 8 years sober. That was when the ex fiance left. My ego had to crack open. I had to learn what my real identity was. But is my identity my relationship? And sex or is my identity, God, consciousness and presence. So I I I started down this journey of realizing and having an inner knowing of my identities. Actually wrapped up in sources
is wrapped up in spirit. And I was working at a restaurant at the time. Is very easy in a restaurant environment to judge people. Very. The one common thing in any restaurant is drama. Every single restaurant has drama. It's chicken, and people treat it like life and death. And every single restaurant has that. It's it's fast, it's it's quick, it's constantly moving. It's you. Got customers and they're coming in. Chaotic. And they're insane. They're just as insane as the
employees. That's if there's alcohol. It's yes and and people are dropping levels of vibration, dropping levels of consciousness because they're drinking and. You know what? I'm trying to navigate all of this, and I used to approach the table and my vibration was immediately emitting fear. My vibration was immediately emitting A nervousness, or my vibration was immediately emitting judgment. You better tip me the amount I deserve. My vibration was immediately
emitting anger. Dude, this is so helpful. It's could be in a meeting. I do this with meetings, work meetings. Absolutely. Coming into the meeting with fear. Yes. Dude, this is like so powerful. You're not realizing what you're saying right now with people that are listening. This is going to be such a help because that chaos, yes, that craziness then that fear. It's how most people are approaching things.
Their entire life? Yes, I I, I I talked to the operator on the phone because I didn't get my package delivered. And I'm coming from the vibration of You did me wrong. I would never articulate with my words at the table. Hey, if you don't tip me right, I'm going to be pissed. I would never say that out loud, but energetically they are reading my energy. Human beings are much like magnets. Chinese medicine figured this out 3000 years ago. We admit a magnetic field.
In quantum physics you would call it particle wave. The particle is matter and the wave. Is energy. Yes, that energy is carrying information and science has proven that that energy, that particle wave, that particle wave can be 9 meters in circumference. So my energy has the power to effect 27 feet in circumference around me. Extremely powerful. So fear when a crazy person is walking down the street. You everybody can feel it.
You can you go to the other side of the street to avoid this And so we're emitting energy. So instead of this at this man, I'm telling you this eight years, this eight-year mark was so huge for me instead of approaching and I was at work, so I was trying to practice spiritual principle in my work environment. Instead of approaching the table in this restaurant with my fear, with my judgment, I started approaching the table. With my presence.
Yes, keep it simple, stupid. I would literally walk to the table praying God help me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. So my presence is not judgmental. My presence is not afraid. You know, it's amazing. That's about the exact time I met you. That's true at the restaurant. And I'm not saying that's like some significant thing, but I mean, we're doing this podcast, that's. Probably not by.
Action and we're Yeah, exactly. I mean, that was manifested, yeah. And and it wasn't you being based off of fear. No, no. So God help me offer my presence. Jason, how comfortable does it feel to be in someone else's God centered presence? It feels so good, bro. I can just be who I am. I don't have to behave in a certain way. I don't have to show up a certain way. I don't have to do what you think I need to do because then you'll be OK. It feels so good being in someone's presence.
People started throwing money at me. I I had. That was not my intention. My intention was to heal this. Yeah, because when you were. Working in relationships. You were making five times more than any other person, hands down, making more than the managers. It was. It was a lot of money. People started the rowing money at me and then to articulate that to the rest of the staff or to articulate that to a manager, they couldn't understand what are you doing? I said, well, I'm just offering
my presence. Not really. That's the most powerful. Thing. But that's how powerful it was. People had an energetic response to my presence. I was no longer offering them my fear. I was no longer offering them my judgment and my anger. I was just offering them the part of me which allowed them to be whoever they were. And they had a blast and they treated me accordingly. It was fantastic. It was fantastic. And especially for an insane environment like a restaurant.
To be my practice ground. So grateful that that was my practice ground. That's where I got to practice presence first. And what a nice tool. Simple could keep it simple. Stupid. God help me offer my presence. That's so good. I love that. Let's get into the next one because I think we nailed that one. I mean, that's like perfect. I really appreciate that. That helped me out. This one is the hardest one for me. Like, I mean honestly, like allow yourself to rest. That one's pretty good.
You know my ego likes that when you're I work seven days a week, whatever. Practice, radical self love. This is really hard because you know, my ULP is I'm not good enough. So that's, you know And then and I want you to share with this because you were talking something about this. We were talking something about this the other day about how much we bully ourselves, how much our ego bullies us, and then how horrific we are to ourselves. Yeah, yeah, we'd like to say.
And you know our our teaching and expansion and with a present moment practice, one of our tools is if anyone was as hard on me as I am on myself, I'd beat the shit out of them. I don't let people be this mean to me. I'm a decorated champion bodybuilder like I get on stage and I win trophies because my body looks so good. Two weeks ago I was in the mirror assassinating my character. You have fat piece of shit.
Look at you. How could you let yourself give and still, you know, top percentile, whatever and and I can easily go there. And get your app show. This is my app show year round and I'm calling myself a fat piece of shit. And how delusional, how easy is it for the ego to sneak in in my vulnerable spots and my spots that aren't healed and take over? Oh. Be hard on yourself.
Go ahead, tear yourself apart. I walk around 365 with visible abs and I and I can call myself fat and a piece of shit. It's it's delusional. But that also drops my vibration and it makes it easier for me to behave in my addiction. Do you think because I've done a lot of self-awareness practice with myself on this, I think it's an excuse for me to focus narcissically on myself? And I don't want to kind of. I don't want to do vague with ego. I want to kind of get really specific on this.
It's hard for, it's hard for me to accept compliments from people. Yes, very good, Jason. You know what I mean? Like if somebody, if somebody said hey Jason, you're doing a good job, I'm like yay or whatever, we need to work harder and do this better. My instant response, it's almost. Like you brush it away. Yeah, like like somebody telling me they love me or something like that. You know? I have to really. It's like I have to really practice.
Like accepting it and and that's really hard to do whenever. And then I really, really want us to look at this like understanding when somebody picks you up at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning and you called him probably at 4:35. Yeah. And then they get up. You know that he's comfortable laying in a warm bed. It's snowy outside. 6 inches of fresh. He's with his girlfriend, warm, another warm body. The worst thing that would happen is.
Some stupid addict young punk kid calls me and now I got to go to this stupid hospital to pick this dumb fuck up. You know? I mean that. That's ego saying all that. Instead, it's this whole idea of him taking the time out of his schedule to come show love to you. Why would he do that? Because he knows what you. Well, he knows he understands love. He understands he's valuing more, valuing you more than you're valuing yourself.
I don't know if he would have had the words to articulate it then, but when he's coming to pick me up, showing love to me, he's simultaneously showing love to himself. He's simultaneously honoring the God consciousness inside of him that knows this is the integral thing to do. This is the you're you're you're dead right. This is the hardest one by far. Like if if not resting is hard. This seems impossible. Yeah, when?
Eckhart Tolle. That said, if you really want to practice love, show up at a family Thanksgiving. Yes, yeah. Because we're just so judgmental with our family. And it was like, Oh my God, my uncle's coming over and he's going to talk to me for two hours straight. Let me see if I can. I need another drink to handle this. You know, it's it's just like constant oh, look at. You know, look at my mom. I can't believe she's acting this way. Or you know it.
It's it's so tough. But the reason that we're judging for me, I'm going to say for me, the reason I judge others is because I feel like my my ego likes it to be like Jason, look at you. You're good. Yeah, like I need to find pieces of shit Are people that I feel
are worse off than me? To give myself kind of a ego pat on the back and it's it's like you know you were telling me of a circumstance with your and I don't wanna get too personal here but you're telling me circumstance with with something that you're facing now with a client and instantly instantly I went into hardcore judgment mode. Yeah it's easier. Instantly I went into hardcore and then I compared it to me yeah. And I'm like you know why joins friend and I do a podcast and.
You know, he's my trainer, you know, and I and I pay him on time and you know, the list goes on and on, you know what I mean? I don't have problems with money. Yeah, I don't have, which I do. I mean, I checked my bank account, you know, multiple times a day worrying that, you know, the the money thief is going to come in there or the bank's going to screw up or something's going to happen. I literally, this is so funny with my girlfriend.
I was literally stressing about money so much last month. I was stressing so much. I thought I probably had $1400 in my checking account because I have investments and stuff like that, but I was worried about like I had to pay this bill so I thought I had 14. And I'm not. This isn't a brag or anything like this, but this just shows you how silly my ego is. I thought I had $1400 in my bank
account. If you would have said put a gun to my head and said Jason, how much money do you have in your checking account, in this checking account that you pay your bills with? I just said probably about 1400 bucks, you know, and I'm kind of getting nervous. I I clicked it on and I had $7000 in there. Yeah, yeah, it's good. And I. Almost was like, where did this money come from? That's not real. Yeah, that's not real. No, that's real. That's the wrong type of that's
not real. My mind loves fear. My ego loves fear because that's the only place my ego can exist in my mind. So I lose myself in these fearful thoughts. I lose myself in these judgmental thoughts and. I'm definitely not practicing radical self love, you know, That's why this is such a hard one. The hard surrender healing practice is because I cannot be offering love if I'm offering ego. I cannot be offering love if I'm
offering selfishness. And if, if I think I am, there's usually some underlying hook of Oh yeah, yeah, I'm going to be real nice. I'm going to be. I'm very kind here, but I have selfish motives underneath that because I'm trying to get what I want from you. And man, what a, what a powerful thing to start practicing. Very simple tool, nice easy tool, but very, very. I mean, it's simple out loud, but the practicality, the practicing is difficult. You know what?
We talked about Bobby coming to pick me up. I think that opens the door. When I start being kind to others, when I start showing love to others, genuine love to others. Not wanting anything returned, not having selfish hooks underneath my behavior, just offering love. I think that opens the door for me to start loving myself. At least I'm practicing. At least I'm practicing showing love.
At least I'm practicing honoring the God of consciousness inside of someone instead of making decisions because I want to get something. Yeah, perfect practice for me, and I learned this several years ago, was to look at myself in the mirror. It helps if you're if. You're naked, so good. And because you, I do the same thing you do. It's like, oh, look at you're a piece of shit. Look at this. You workout, you do all the stuff and you still got this
problem. What you're eating good and what you still look like this, you know all these things is to say I love you, Yeah. It's so hard to do. Try it. Look in a mirror and be really sincere and you'll start laughing. You'll start crying, you'll start, you'll go. I love you, Jason, but but the but you know you need to do this and this and you need to like this has to happen. I love you but and it's really hard to do. It's harder than you think. It's extremely difficult.
To do, but I want to get back to you serving the tables with the the with the presence of fear. Because the Apostle Paul in the scriptures in the New Testament he says perfect love casts out fear. Yes, so the opposite of love is fear. So if you're approaching yourself in every circumstance, if your reality is fear, no love can enter in. It's not possible. And then that energy that I'm vibrating at. Affects everyone around me. It's like a disease.
It it it infects them. They just if they don't have powerful tools to be present, they just meet me at my vibration. So now you got two fearful people having an interaction where I'm supposed to get money. It doesn't go well. No, it doesn't. And I think that's our present state with politics, absolutely, especially here in the United States. For some of you that aren't in the United States, you just laugh at us. But.
It's just all fear based. If if this doesn't happen or this person doesn't get in an office, then this is going to bad happen and they just play these these puppets of corporations and these politicians on both sides just play this game of fear. They're just constantly just throwing those seeds of fear into you and getting you riled up and getting you at the point to where you feel like. You're a victim and you're hopeless. And they're the savior. So good, very good.
That's that's the that's a very powerful perspective because if I know that I'm not the victim of the tyrannical structure and it's important to understand for me that the tyrannical structure is not necessarily the political system, it's how my mind responds. That, yes, that's. When the when, whoever the political system.
Is putting that energy on me very easy to get lost in fear, very easy to get lost in guilt and unfortunately the government knows that and they know how to control us with fear and guilt.