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If you felt lonely, isolated, disconnected, with an empty feeling inside, and just yearning for more, knowing something is missing, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Joe Mittega.
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Hello and welcome to W.E. my name is Joe Mitiga and I'm the host of the we podcast. For years, you've been trying to heal, trying to fix yourself, trying to change yourself, trying to become someone better, someone calmer, someone stronger, someone more peaceful, someone worthy of love. And maybe parts of your life have changed. But you know what? Deep inside most of us, we still feel tired. We still feel overwhelmed, anxious, disconnected. We still carry that heavy burden that kind of leaves us empty. Eventually, I don't know about you, but for myself, I started asking myself the question, why am I still hurting? Like, what am I doing wrong? For years, I asked myself that question. For years, every day I gave it my best. And every day I hurt. And then one day I realized, what if it wasn't always about fixing myself? What if it was different? We were taught that self discovery and growth and spiritual growth and awakening and the whole spiritual process is supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be let go and let God. But, you know, for me, it never worked. And I used to just shame myself unmercifully. But what happens if healing isn't really about a war with yourself? And we eventually start to realize that healing is a process. There's no real end result. There's no real end spot. It's an awakening process. And what if just what if this whole living in God's image is a real life thing? And what if your life is about reconnecting with that? And what does it really take to get there? What does it really take to do it? How do you do it? Is what we're going to talk about today. The name of this episode is called why Healing Begins when you stop trying to fix yourself and what personal growth requires to finally surrender. I will never forget. For five years, I would wake up every day, and if I could lift my elbows off the bed, I knew I was going to have an okay day. But 98% of the time, I couldn't. No matter what I did, no matter where I was, no what matter. No matter what I tried. And you have to understand where my path was back then. We're talking late 90s. My sobriety date is 94. My memories are in 94 of being sexually abused. And I shut my world down to heal. Did I have any idea it was going to take as long as it did? No. I didn't None. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about the how to. Like, how do you let go and let God? How do you surrender to a power greater than yourself? How? Because I used to hear it all the time, and I don't know about you, but it always seemed everybody else could freaking do it and I couldn't. And today I'm going to tell you what I did, how I did it, why I did it, and how you can do it too, if you're in that spot. And you know what? First off, I want you to understand that anybody that lives in the delusional ridiculousness, the fabricated nonsense, that waking up and surrendering is an action step, folks, it just tells me they've never done it themselves, because it's not. Now, I'll caveat. If you see somebody walking across water, like I know one guy did, A, you know, a couple thousand years ago, you see that person, A, have them call me and B, I'll give that person the red star. But for the rest of us, surrender is not an action step. It's simply not an action. It's like forgiveness. I hear people say you just have to forgive. No kidding. But if we could just forgive like a light switch, we all would do that. Forgiveness is not an action step. Forgiveness is the consequence, happens as the consequence of taking action steps. I have a really powerful podcast on that particular topic, the forgiveness topic, called why can't you let go? What forgiveness really means. Please listen to that one. That one. It's a powerful story. It's where I actually, years later, had a deep forgiveness experience, the forgiving experience of one of my perpetrators. For those of you that don't know, when I was 54 days sober, hadn't drank for 54 days, I had memories of being sexually abused as a little boy. I was 6, two neighbor kids, 17, 18, took me in a field, had a stick, did stuff to my backside that no one should ever have to go through. Pure sexual abuse. Did I know? No. Did I remember? No. Did I remember it full blown? April 15, 1994. Yes. Like a movie theater, like a movie just started on. And from that moment forward, I knew my life was never going to be the same. For that moment forward, I knew I was. I needed to heal because I was hurting all the time. Now I always need to caveat and I always want to caveat. My stories, I share my stories from the place of the deepest, the darkest, the hardest, the most aggressive spot. And I do it because if I can, you can. And I don't really. I hate it. I don't mean to say it like that. I care where you are. I do care where you are. I genuinely care where you are. And regardless of the depth you're in now, if I can make it, you can make it. Why? Because most aren't. Most people aren't. Most people that are listening to this podcast literally around the world now are not in the deepest and darkest and most painful spots. You're not literally. I want to thank people from around the globe. We have people from Norway. Thank you for being here. People from the United Kingdom, Canada, India, France, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Japan. Thank you, all of you. And of course, everybody here in the States. And why do I need that shout out? Because you know what? We, we, all of us, we people on this podcast, we are the generation of change. We are the people healing humanity. We are it right here, right now. But you say to yourself, what the heck, Joe? How am I going to heal humanity? I can't even heal myself. Well, for most of you, you're a lot farther along than you know. And you're a lot farther along than you know. Because most of the people out there that are, that have larger influence, they describe it as if action step, as if easy, as if everybody can do it. And folks, that's just not the case. That's not what it is. And that's why in this particular episode, I talk about what personal growth is required to finally surrender and the finally surrendering concept. Surrender is not the. The end result. Surrender is an adjective. It is the process that we go through again. Unless you're walking on water that we're going through constantly. Do you know every awakened thought you have, every new awareness you have is a type of surrender, Everyone. I'll never forget my first conscious thought ever, and it was after my third DUI. Now we're talking, I don't know, 35 years ago. I'll never forget it that I. My first conscious of thought was the police officers are not trying to get me to stop driving. They're trying to get me stop drinking and driving. I thought, well, what the heck, I can do that. I'll just start smoking marijuana. And that's what I did. I had my the wisdom of the day. I was about 36 years old and old belief. I didn't know it. I never thought about it. I never comprehended it. I wish I'd have comprehended it before my first dui. I never even had that thought until my Third DUI from that point forward, I never had another dui. Now, that's kind of a crazy and silly example, but that was a part of a surrender. An old me surrendered into a new me. The old me never thought about just don't drive after you've drink. The new me did. That's a surrender. I can promise you right now, folks, if you take five minutes and simply look back at your day, look back at your year, look back at the past years, you can become aware of hundreds of different awakenings that you've had over the years, that they're all levels of surrender. This all or nothing end result. We're going to ascend to heaven when we surrender to God's will. That isn't what it is. It was never designed for that. It wasn't surrender. What is it? Literally, Surrender is the process that you go through as you grow beyond your old self into a new self. As you go from the ego you to a higher you. When you go from a glass empty you to a glass full you. Now, for some of us, me, I was so wounded, so empty, so, so addicted, so codependent that the darkness of my day was so extreme and the support of the arrow was zero that it took me forever, Literally. Listen to my. One of the podcasts. I have modern day monks. Seven years. I graved every day, almost literally. I lived on less than $3,000 a year. A year? $3,000 a year, folks, that's $250 a month. Try that. I went to dinner last night with my boys and my one son ordered because he's. He's an elite athlete. He's trying to bulk up, says, dad, can I have two entrees? I'm like, sure, 120 bucks. I lived on $250 a month. I had to pay rent, so why? Because I was growing and I was shifting and I was hurting and I was in pain all the time. And I dedicated. And I say it like that, because if I can, you can. And we're going to walk through the process today. And of course, at the end, I always tell my stories. I tell the story about myself and I tell some of the experiences that I have. And I'm super excited. I'm adding. I'm adding what I call voices of we into this podcast. And I was going to do a second episode and all that. That isn't what it's going to be. Basically, I have four different super enlightened beings that I'm going to be connecting with. And then I'm going to share their stories in this podcast, my experience of their stories, because I want to continue to move into the world to where I can have legitimate answers to actual factual situations out there. My life coach, Dr. Karen Louise, she is just a powerhouse female, super experienced in the relationship world and the connection world and the awareness world. So she and I are going to have conversations on a monthly basis and I'm going to bring that information here, share it in my caveat, share it from a man's perspective, share it from me. And I've got that same thing. I've got three other people, I'm not going to share their names today, but one woman, she is in the divorce world and the, the starting over world. I've got a man that's in the Recovery World for AA and all of that and any of the 12 step programs. And I've got another man that this man, Jesus, he's a powerhouse. He works. He literally goes into crack houses and gets people out one at a time. He's done like 500 people like that. His first name's Ben. I'm gonna have a lot of conversations with Ben. I'm gonna share that here. Why? Because together I want to bring an awareness to the world, quite honestly, that there are people out there doing a lot of really, really good things. And the we podcast is about discovery, but the we podcast is truly about personal discovery. And literally what we do here is I help people understand that their emotional perspective, the emotional side of themselves, as you connect to the depths of you, the spiritual understanding is remembered. That's how I did it. I was never seeking this God thing ever. Never. Nada. I wanted nothing to do with God. Nothing. And today I consider myself a God guy. Literally. And I say it like this because we bring in emotional experiences and emotional growth and emotional awareness because that's what's happening in humanity, quite honestly. Humanity's waking up. She's waking up to herself. She really is. And she, meaning humanity's consciousness. Think about 200 years ago, the whole concept of owning a human, it was normal. 200 years ago, you go right through the generations and the awareness changes in voting rights and women's rights and you name it, you know, democracy versus not. And today, where are we today? 2026, the world's waking up consciousness is waking up. That's why literally the we podcast is on 17 different charts around the globe and we're only six months old. Why? Because the same awareness, the same humanity is in Japan, as in India, as in Australia, as in the States we are one. And that humanity that's waking up is the feminine side of self, the female side of ourself. And in that female side of self is where your emotions live and your spiritual sense of self lives. And what so many people have been taught over the past, the whole change of mind, change your thoughts concept, is that you can go into a meditative state and create a relationship with a power greater than yourself. Okay, if it's working, go for it. But for most of us, and if you're here, probably didn't work long, if it worked at all. I'll never forget the first time I heard positive affirmations. I remember thinking, I can do that. I can do positive affirmations all day long. And I did. And Monday I did it, and then Tuesday I did it. And I just knew Thursday I was gonna feel. Well, crap, I felt horrible. Why was that such a bad thing? Because I just knew I was the only person in the world that positive affirmations didn't work for. Well, folks, no, I've got an entire podcast on that topic. The moment you realize your mind can't heal your heart. Why? Because your emotions are in your heart, not your head. Thoughts are in your head. Is there anything wrong with that? No, of course not. Nothing wrong with it. But that isn't how you heal. Thoughts are not how you heal. Your glass empty, not good enough. Shame based, guilt based voices are not the source. They're the reflection. They're the band aid. They're the top. They're not the source. You can tell yourself over and over and over, I am beautiful. I love me, I this, I that. But if you still feel hurt, it doesn't change anything. The we podcast gives different ways to help that. Got a podcast called why youy Feel Stuck. Listen to that one. I go through the process of giving a voice to the deeper parts of yourself. I call it the inner child. Some people call it your inner innocence. Some people call it your intuition. I don't care what the hell you call it. But there's a deeper part in you that as we give that part of voice that helps heal. I have the caveat. My. My podcast, a couple of them get this little red thing on it. I asked Chad, what is that? It's called it. Listen, I'm like, what the heck does that mean? I think it's because I cuss. I work on it, folks. And I made it 18 minutes before I cussed. You know what? I will do the best I can not to cuss on this podcast. And I just want to apologize ahead of time because you're probably going to hear me cuss. Why? Because when I get passionate about something, whatever comes out comes out. And I can tell you part of my spiritual path is generating a position of softness. Well, I ain't there. My path is more about strength, my passion. My path is about passion, sharing what I feel. And I'm trying to be respectful for people's to people. And if I cuss and I. And I've offended anybody, I do apologize. And I can't tell you that I won't do it again because I probably will. When I heard the concept let go, let God. Now of course, I was a 12 stepper, right? And that was a big one. Let go, let God. Everything okay? That's fantastic. How do you do it? Crickets, Freaking crickets. Give it to God. Fabulous. I got a whole trunk load here. I'm gonna give it to God. How? How? No one ever answers the question how. Why? Because don't. People don't know how. I don't care. Most people don't. They cliche the terms. They act as if they've done it. And then when others don't do it their way, all sorts of adjectives come forward. Should know better, need to get it. Everyone can do it. What's wrong with you? Now most people aren't saying that out loud, but a lot of people are thinking that in their head. I know I was thinking that in my head for myself. And the whole idea, that whole concept of surrender, the turning it over to a power greater than yourself. The reason I never understood it is because I thought it was an all or nothing experience. I thought it was the totality going from A to Z in one now moment. No, not how it works. That isn't surrender. That's not. And you know what you can be. You can have a spiritual awakening like I did on the 15th day of April, and a new awareness of old pain, which I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that pain was there. And choose to do nothing about it. If the pain doesn't surround you. My pain absorbed me. Or on the other side, literally. What happened to me? February 20, 1994. Dear God, if I'm not supposed to drink or drug today, I need your help. I had never asked God for help in my entire life. Never. Why? I never wanted to be a hypocrite. A lot of things. I wasn't going to lie to God, that's for darn sure. I wasn't going to say Dear God, forgive me for all the craziness, knowing that on the very next day I was going to go do it. So I just got rid of the conversation with the God concept. I did. I always knew there was a God. I was never atheist or agnostic. I knew there was a God. I just had no relationship. On that particular day, I reached that spot. I'd gone seven days without drinking. And I said, dear God, if I'm not supposed to drink or drug, I need your help. Because the compulsions had me by the throat in that moment. A rush of energy, physical energy, I felt it go through my body. And a literal tear, a physical tear comes out my left side, my left eye, and my compulsion for drugs and alcohol were good gone. Did I know God did that in a moment? No, not really. I walked out the door, didn't think a thing of it. But as I became aware more and more that I had a. I had a spiritual awakening. I had a spiritual. My. My compulsion for drugs and alcohol were removed in a moment. I was in a 12 step program for years. I never heard my story. 99.9% of everybody that comes into an AA meeting, you stay because you hear people's story, you can connect through their story. I walked in there 15 months without drinking and drugging. I never did hear my story. Five years later, I heard a man tell a story about his sponsor who had a spiritual awakening with alcohol. But you know what? You can have a spiritual awakening, but if there's no emotional growth, it's literally like having the nicest car in the world sitting in your driveway with no gas in it. It's fabulous. Oh, I know God's there, no question. But how do you connect to it? Like, how do you live it? Like, how do you literally make that God connect, that awareness, that spiritual awareness, how does it bring value to your world? Well, it does it through emotional growth. And that's the process, that emotional side of the process where most people get confused. They don't get it. I had a person years ago. I'll never forget this. They came up to me and they said, joe, I've believed in God my whole life. I go to church, I pray, I'm. I. For those of you, I always want to caveat because I've got tens of thousands of new people all the time. I grew up in a religion I simply didn't believe in. I didn't. And my priest saved my life. Father Cam lived exactly what the Bible and Jesus and every spiritual guru has ever preached. One God live with Love, one God, live with love. All of the rest of it, regardless of your religion, is built around that premise. One God, monolithic God and love. And my priest, Father Cam, he saved my life 8th grade. He was literally the man who cared for me. He cared about me. He put me first. He kept me first. He did things with me for me. As I got older, he knew I didn't believe a thing he said from the front of the stage. I didn't believe one word of it. He didn't care. He loved me anyways, literally. And that's a powerful thing around the concept of what spirituality truly is and what spirituality truly is. There's one God and live with love. Now, the question is how? Well, this particular person came up to me and she said, you know, Joe, I've believed in God my whole life, and I pray all the time. And I pray for help. I pray for to be rescued. I pray for God to make my life work better. And it just doesn't work. Like, why do I hurt all the time? Why is my life always so horrible? Why can't I get off these drugs? Why can't I keep a job? I pray all the time. And I said, the problem is you're praying for the wrong thing. You're praying for the wrong thing. God is not codependent, folks. God is not going to rescue. Your higher power is not going to rescue. I was literally in an event Dr. Karen did, an event called a live collective. And I said to this group, love heals. Nothing, Nada. Not a thing. Love heals zero. And people say, how the heck can you say that, Joe? Love supposed to heal up? No. No one ever said love heals anything. Anyone that says it hasn't done it. Strength heals. Strength heals. Why? Because you have to have the strength to keep walking. You have to have the strength to make changes. You have to have strength to do it different. Now, you need to have a loving environment around you. But love by itself doesn't heal you. You have to heal you. How? By doing things differently. How? By getting support, by getting guidance, by making changes differently. And that takes strength. I said to the man who asked that question, I said, sir, it's not easy. And anybody that says a spiritual path is easy hasn't done it. They're making it up. They read it in a book or they're looking for TikTok likes or some craziness because it's not easy. That's why I say to people all the time, if you're on my podcast and you've made it 28 minutes into a podcast like this. You are a true spiritual warrior. And please go to our website, wepodcast Global, and sign up as we're going to be giving stuff away. I'm going to be doing these types of presentations live online, and I want everybody there. And, you know, I've created a library of episodes. Listen to them over and over. I can promise you folks, it's not Joe doing this talking. It's a higher part of Joe. Why? Because there's a lot of things right now on this beautiful May Day I'd rather be doing than this, but I'm sitting here sharing from my divinity to the world, literally. And it's your divinity that brings you here. How do I know somebody else? Give me a reason. Give me a how. How could the We Podcast be ranked today 138th on the globe if it wasn't a power greater than me doing it? If it wasn't a power greater than you bringing you here? There's 4 million active podcasts. The We Podcast. This is our 29th episode. We were ranked 138th on the globe. How. This is not Joe. Trust me, it's not me. I'm just a normal guy. What am I practice at? I'm practice at listening. What am I practice at? I'm practice at asking. I ask, I listen, and I live. Prior to sharing one of these messages like this, I ask, dear God, share through me. God can do for me what God can do through me. That whole concept. And each of you have that same ability. We're going to talk about that later in other episodes. But, like, what is your thing? What is your divinity asking you to do? That's the ultimate level of surrender that I'm going to talk about later in the show and where I tell my story. The seven stages of surrender. It's the best way for me to just talk about it because I can share the different experiences that I had. And when I said that to this woman and I was meaning it kindly, she looked at me and she. She was, like, befuddled. She didn't understand. She literally believed because somehow, somewhere, someone said to her, well, all you have to do is believe in God and everything's going to be better. No, that isn't true. You can believe in God all you want, but belief doesn't. It doesn't change anything. What you do with the beliefs is what changes things, what action steps you take differently because of your belief. That's why I tell people all the time, I'm not here to tell you what to call your higher power. I've had numerous people rate my show and I had one person give me a one. And I guarantee you that human came on here and they heard something about Joe's. I'm not going to say that any one particular religion is grander than any other religion. Why? Because the people that these religions were created around never said what the religion themselves project. Never ever. Let me give you a great example. Why didn't I believe the religion I was in? I just don't believe you're going to burn in hell if you don't do it a particular way. I. I don't believe it. I'll never believe it, and no one will ever convince me it's true. Now the human interpretation of that delusional ridiculousness is that based in fear. How do I know that for a fact that religion is based around Jesus? Do you know what Jesus said as he's nailed to a board naked with. With spikes in his head and he wasn't dying fast enough, they started cutting him up. You know what Jesus said, dear Father, please forgive them, for they know not what they do. Father, please forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now, let me just tell you something real quick. Wouldn't you think that those people who are crucifying Jesus, if that whole concept was true, don't you think every one of those guys that were crucifying him should be burning in hell if it was true? It's not true. How do I know? As Jesus said, dear Father, please forgive them, for they know not what they do. And then after he's dead, an entire religion creates this delusion that do it his way. You're burning in hell when he's being cut in half and he's asking his father to forgive him. No way. No way. That's why I just don't believe it. I'm not saying if you do, you're right or wrong. I'm not here to tell you what you believe. Not at all. The we podcast isn't about telling people what to do or what to believe. I tell you what I believe and I tell you what I've done. And I'm here because I'm sharing my divinity with you. I'm sharing as openly, as honestly as I possibly can. I shared the day after my father died. I grieved the entire episode the day after my dad died last week. I was missing my mother in a painful way. That Mother's Day episode last week. So I'm going to share when I'm sad and I'm going to share when I'm passionate. And that whole concept, I just don't believe it. I don't. And I'm not here to tell you what to believe, but what I'm going to ask you is, are you following whatever it is you believe? Whatever your higher power says, whatever your religion says, whatever your deity says, are you following it? And why do I get to make that projection? Because I'm following mine. How do I know? Because I'm doing this right here, right now. And when I said that to that lady, right, she kind of looked at me funny and I said, ma', am, God's not going to rescue you. God didn't create your pain, but God will give you the strength to walk through your pain. Humanity created that pain. My first true understanding of unconditional love, like literal unconditional love, was after three or four years. I cussed God every day. Why? Because I was hurting all the time. I couldn't breathe most of the time. I was starving most of the time. Try it. Try living on $250 a month and paying rent. I was hungry a lot. And I remember thinking, if God loved me, if God loved me, God loved me. And I would cuss hard a lot. I'll never forget the experience of true unconditionalness when I heard a power greater than myself say, I love you anyways, Joe, I love you anyways. That was a powerful moment for me. But that was four or five years in. And in that whole concept of multi dimensional and higher power and the how to, how do you do it? I want to get into that a little bit here. This whole concept of the we higher sense of self, human self, inner self. It all happened as on a random day I get an email of. And there's a bunch of really pretty women on this email. And it was like, I'm not even sure what it was. It was some type of social group. And I click. And the next thing I know, I'm reading a document from a woman that she's talking about a grander tomorrow. And I feel my divinity start waking up inside. And how do I know? Because through those seven years of darkness that were literally back in the 90s, the experience I'm getting ready to share, that happened in 2022. Those 25 years, 20 some odd years, my divinity and my spiritual sense of self was not public at all. I had five pictures of me online. I did nothing in the Internet world. Zero. My staff did. I've got a very successful company and we have staff that do it. I didn't at all. But back in that original day, I had an entire book channel through me. It's called your inner child has rights too. It's been renamed three times. We're getting ready to publish three different books. That's why I hope you go to my website, wepodcast Global. I'm going to be giving a bunch of that stuff away. And that book channel threw me about two years in. It took me 22 months. I would sit and listen. I'd be in a room. No television. No. It was. This was almost. This was pre cell phone. We had beepers. I would sit in that room starving, and I'd hear a voice. You're going to write. I'm not writing. You're going to write. I'm not writing. Voice finally says, you're going to write. You're not going to sleep. Of course, bunch of cuss words. And eventually started writing. 106,800 and some odd words later, 22 months later, an entire book got channeled through me. Now, you have to understand, I'm two years without drinking. I have no money, I'm hungry all the time. I have no friends, I'm grieving every day, and I've got a book coming through me. Oh, yeah, God's talking to me. I thought I was nuts, let alone tell somebody else that story. I didn't tell anybody. Eventually I did, and both people I told left my life. The second book came through me back then. It's called 21st century sales from the Soul Again. It's changed, changed, change, changed. I know what it's like because both of those books channeled through me. All I did was listen. And I would write. I would write. Like, literally, if you could dictate me right now as you're listening to my voice, and you could write as fast as I'm talking, that's what I would do. That had been dormant for 20 some odd years. And on the 22nd day of September, 2022, I read this document. The same woman, I hear a podcast, I feel her heart, and I hear the same voice. You didn't fail your marriage. You chose to live your divinity over your humanity. Now, again, this is me with me, and a book called Unequally Yoke starts pouring through me. I just found that book today. I haven't finished that book. It all started three years ago, September of 2022, almost four years ago now. And so I know that feeling. I know the experience. I know what happened because it started happening Again. And in that writing of that book, I started hearing these biblical phrases. Now folks, I have deep respect for all spiritual books, especially the Bible or the Quran or other biblical books. They're iconic. I have deep respect. Have I ever read the first page? No. Why? Because it's too confusing and I don't read well, unfortunately, I can hear it. I could have it read to me, but when I start reading, the words get all jumbled literally. So I've never read the first page of the Bible. Now here I am hearing these biblical phrases. So I go to Handy Dandy Chat. My kids teach me about Chat AI, and I say, you know what? What is the. There's one. There's all sorts of amazing spiritual deities out there, right? But if you literally believe that today is the date May 18th at 5:30, that's when I'm recording this. If you believe this date, you have to look back and ask, how did this date. May 18, 2026. What does 2026 stand for? 2026. What happened 2026 years ago? Oh, that's right. One guy died. Bc, ad that one guy was Jesus. I don't care what your religion is. If you believe today's date, it happened around one guy. So I said to myself, what the heck? I should at least consider what this guy's got to say, right? Doesn't that just make sense? If all time has started around this person, doesn't it make sense to at least consider what this man's got to say? So I'm asking Chat some questions. And I asked, I said, what was the last thing he said? Jesus, what's the last thing he said? And Chet came up with all these cool different biblical phrases. And for you biblical scholars, please don't quote me here. Go look it up for yourself. Just ask Chat. What's some of the last things Jesus said? One of the last things Jesus said is he said as he's getting ready to ascend, and the apostles are like, dude, his disciples. Where are you going? This is a messed up place here. We need you here. Why are you leaving? And Jesus says, I have to go sit by my father so that he can put the spirit that was in me in you. In you. Not outside of you, in you was in that moment, the concept of we happened for Joe, in me. Well, the in me means that same spirit that guided Jesus is in me, is in Joe. And it's in each one of you now, humanity. And I asked you, hey, Chat, give me all the adjectives that are created for a higher power. Are the Christ consciousness. I'm thinking, okay, Chad's going to give me 11 after like 970 different adjectives. I said, okay, Chad, I'm tired. Stop. Do I care what you call your higher power? No, folks, I don't. It's not Joe's role to tell you what to call your higher sense of you. My question is, are you following it? Because it's in you. How do I know? Because the man that all time is created around said so, said so and higher sense of self. And how would that whole concept. If you look at the Native Americans, you look at the people, the original people, the Eskimos in Alaska, the different tribes in Egypt, Africa, the different native people in Australia. How could all of those original native beings have the same basic understanding of a power greater than themselves? They didn't even know that the world existed outside of their villages. But now you can study how? Well, because each one of those original indigenous organizations, indigenous groups of people, they all had a. They all had a connection to a higher power, a higher sense of themselves. They all called it different things. Perfectly fine. Years ago, folks, I couldn't say God. I couldn't do it. The hair on the back of my neck would raise. In the beginning, I'd call it Spirit. In the beginning I'd call it Great Spirit. Then eventually, now I call myself a God guy. I love it. I am God guy. And the whole idea of that concept, right, is okay, so it's in me. How do I follow it? How do we do it? And that's what surrender is. What is truly surrender. Surrender is when you figure out how to have. How to start living life from a different you. Surrender. The old you is surrendered, is gone beside you. It's gone by you. And the new you is being lived how? Well, first off, you have to understand that's what it is. That's what surrender is. And surrender is an ongoing, an ever going, an everlasting. It's a continuing event. It's not a one and done. It's not a big awakening. And even if you have a powerful spiritual awakening that there's a God and it's not you, how do you live it? The living of it is the personal growth position. It's the personal growth part of what it requires to truly finally surrender the personal growth side of it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So what I did and what I started to realize, and then I connected all with the life that I've lived over the past 20, 30 years. Is what's the difference between the higher you and the other you? What's the difference, the difference between those parts of self, the higher you and the lower you are? I call them glass empty, glass full voices. Literally. Glass empty, glass full, glass empty voices are the shame based, guilt based. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy enough. I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, I'm too ugly, I'm too old, I'm too white, I'm too black. I'm too something. Those voices, your higher power voices, are the all inclusive voices, the maybe we can. Hopefully we will. I bet I could get some help. I think I can do it. I believe I can do it. I should be able to do it. God loves me, God will support me. It's the voices of encouragement. It's the glass and I call them glassful voices. The question is, why don't we lift the glassful voices? The answer is because most of us don't even know the difference between glass empty and glass full. Why? Because you've never a been taught the process to actually go inside yourself and listen. Most of society literally believes that the God of their understanding is outside of themselves. I see these professional athletes all the time. I love it. I say to my oldest son, do they not know that the gift that they have that just struck out an elite baseball player is in them? God is in them. When I see him pointing to the skies, I'm not saying God's not in the clouds, God's everywhere. Our higher sense of self is everywhere. But it's in you. Your gifts, your talents, your grace, your gift to the world. It's in you and it's sourced by the power greater than you. That's your gift. Now what you're doing with your gift, that's a different topic. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. But the whole process, the whole spiritual awakening process, as you understand that there's a higher power in you now, the question is, how do you live it? And the way you live it is you have to identify the different components and for each different person on this podcast today, we're all in different places. Literally. There's no right and wrong. There's just exactly where you are. I have a podcast early on that said there's only one spiritual path and it's yours, no one else's. No one else can do your path for you and no one else can tell you what your path is. I got a friend of mine, bless her heart, little codependent bleeding heart constantly lives in the delusion. She can tell her alcoholic boyfriend what to do, how to heal, and what he needs to do. I'm like, he's got a higher power. It's not you. Literally, you can't heal him, you can't fix him. I know, but he can't do it himself. I know he can't do it himself. That's why sooner or later he's got to either surrender to a power greater than himself or alcohol is going to kill him, just like it kills people all the time. But you can't fix him. He's got his own path. How about you fix your world and let him fix his world? How about that? She never likes to hear that because every time she goes back and tries to fix her own world, she's got to feel the pain in her own world. Why? Because this is a deeply connected, deeply intense, deeply sensitive, higher vibrational being. Her path is not simple. For most of us, basically, there's three different phases, three different types of surrender. Mental surrender, emotional surrender, spiritual surrender. And is any one better than the other? No. No. Why are we doing it in the first place? The only reason we're doing it, the only reason we're guided to do it, is because some part of us is wanting our tomorrow to be grander than our yesterday. But your tomorrow cannot be grander than your yesterday unless you make changes today. I teach my kids all the time. People live in patterns. Boys. I have two boys, a 19 year old and almost 15 year old, Joseph and Ryan. I say, guys, watch people's patterns. Whatever they did yesterday, they're going to do today, they're going to do tomorrow unless they change today. Literally. Hear me. You can literally predict somebody's tomorrow behaviors by looking at their yesterday 99% of the time, unless they've changed something today. And for most people on this podcast, where you're at is not necessarily on this. I can't breathe. I'm addicted to everything. My life is horrible and. And I'm broke. You're not there. You're not. You're at a better place than I ever was and you're just at a place of awakening. You realize there's a higher you and it's starting to come in and it's starting to be cool. You're at church and you're hearing things differently. I was just, I just supported a woman not long ago where literally about four or five months before she and I started talking, she was at church one day and out of nowhere she starts hearing God talking to her. She thought she was nuts, literally, because she could just hear a voice in her head that she'd never heard before. And I actually met her because she was introducing me to her husband. Her husband was actually in the beginning days of treatment. And she thought I could help him, which I did. I supported him by the grace of God. That man is probably 15, 16 months sober now. And his wife, my friend, I could validate for her. No, that's your higher power. That's your higher sense. She couldn't hear it. She's an audible person. And out of nowhere, she starts hearing. She's an author, she's a writer, she's a speaker. And she was so connected, always doing more, being more, healing more. And one day she just stopped. Her body gave out. She's in her mid-30s. She felt like she was 80. And as she just stopped, she started hearing. And that's where a lot of people are. You're going to start hearing a different approach. You're going to start hearing a different voice. You're going to start thinking about things differently. Why? Because you're 52 minutes into this type of podcast. You wouldn't be here if you weren't on some type of spiritual path. You wouldn't be here if you weren't some type of spiritual warrior. Spiritual warriors come in all forms, all fashions. It's all perfect. There's no better or worse. It's all the same. Each person just has their own path. And for those of you that are on a path where you're hearing voices differently, you're being guided to go left where you used to go right. You're being guided to get a new job where you've been in the same job for forever. You've been guided to change churches, you've been guided to start a school. You're hearing it differently. Why don't you just automatically do it? And that's the personal growth side. If people could just hear a higher voice, know it's their higher self, and then just go do it, there would be no surrender needed. Wouldn't have to. And that's where people. That's where I hear all these. I hear these different podcasters out there. And there's one, I just love her to death. She's like, get your ass off the couch and just go do it. I'm like, you know what? If people could just go do it, A, you wouldn't have a podcast, and B, everybody would, why can't you just go do it? Why can't you Answer. Because the part of you that's guiding your choices in that now moment is your glass. Empty voices. It's the I can't do it voices. How do we heal that? You have to write them down. You have to sit and listen. Let's say for an example, you want to go to a different church, or you want to change schools, or you want to change friends, or you don't want to go to some event on a Saturday. Whatever it is, I don't know what your it is. Write it down. Let's say there's a family event on Saturdays and you don't want to go. You want to go to a car show instead. But. But everybody always goes. And on Saturday you have to go. What do you do? You write it down. Go into mom's house on Saturday. Going to my wife's house on Saturday, whatever. And no, I don't want to. Why do you do it? Because I have to. They'll be mad at me if I don't. I've always done it. I can't change my mind. Start listening and start writing down on a piece of paper. Every voice in your head that's keeping you from actually changing your choice, write it down. All of the I can't voices. I should go. I have to go. I'm obligated to go. They need me to go. They'll miss me if I don't go. Write them all down. Write them all down. Why? Because most people are guided their entire life by their I have to. I'm obligated. I'm afraid if I don't, I'll get in trouble if I don't voices. So they never change. They never make a different choice. The person who's sitting on the couch and just can't get up to do a different task. Why? The why is there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of I can't do it voices in their head that are all generated from their heart, which is all sourced from a pain deep within that says I can't. And you can yell at that person all you want. You can motivate that person all you want. You can tell them, go get them, tiger. You can do it all you want. But the reason they can't is because they can't hear you. They can't. All they hear is. Is the glass. Empty voices, folks. The first time I did a first step, I did numerous first steps because I had thousands of voices. But the first time I did a first step, it's called a first step. My counselor of the Day Nancy said, joe, start writing down your voices. Like, what the heck are you talking about? She said, yeah, write down the voices in your head. You know, my very first voice was, I don't have any voices. That was my first voice. 12 legal sized pieces of paper later, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. I can't do it, I'm too fat. I'm a drug addict, no one likes me, no one loves me. I was abused on and on, everything down to, I don't have the right clothes, I, I don't have enough money. Hundreds of voices. And when you write those voices down, you have to understand the process, the personal growth process that happens right there. There's a part of you doing the writing and there's a part being written about the glass empty part of you which is all based in hurt and wounded, which most people do not have to heal the depths of their wounds to change their life. You just have to change the voice you're listening to. I want to go to a different church for an example. I want to go to a different school, for example. I want to buy a nice car. I had a man that I sponsored in the program for years. He made tens of thousands of dollars salary. His company was worth a lot and he wanted a nice car for himself. He battled and battled and battled with nobody except himself. I said, donnie, we have to write down the voices. I don't have any voices, Joe. Yeah, you do. Why don't you have the car? Well, because it wouldn't be right for me to buy a car. You know, my wife needs a car. Oh, her dad would think I'm selfish. My kids, I don't want my kid. And we started writing those voices down. The guy had tens of thousands of dollars. Money was a non issue. It was all self worth. He did not believe he deserved that car. Why? Because his voice has told him over and over and over and over and over. And then he would like the voices. He would blame the voice as if it was his wife saying to him, I said, susie doesn't want you to get a car? No, she thinks we should get a car. But you just said it was her. He literally would blame his own voices on his wife. But his wife wanted him to have the car. And the father in law lived in Florida, he's here in Georgia. Like literally what happened over time, he'd write, right, right. Now here's the key. When you're writing them down, right, that's awareness. That's where you start becoming multi dimensional for the very first time. There's a part doing the writing and the part being written about the part doing the writing is a higher you, It's a grander you, It's a more full you. Who's taking a self discovery step of writing down the old voices? What are you discovering? All of the old voices. That's why it's personal growth, self discovery. And the self discovery is. Every time I would write down another voice, I would say, oh, my God, how I learned this when I first started therapy back in my twenties, my. My therapist at the time, Marion, said, you know, Joe, every time you criticize somebody else, one finger pointing out, three pointing back. I didn't hear what she said. Didn't matter to me. I was still drinking, drugging. All I was trying to do was survive. Five, six, seven years later, my counselor, Nancy, said the same thing. At this point, though I'd stopped drinking, she says, you know, Joe, all those critical voices you have about Susie and your parents and your work and your friends, you know, every one of those voices that you're critical about them is actually you're critical about yourself. I'll never forget I had this Big Gulp moment thinking, oh, that can't be good. That just can't be good. Because I have all sorts of voices. And I started writing them down, and sure enough, I'd write them down and then I'd take them to therapy. In my case, the person I told was my therapist. Now, do you have to have a therapist to do this? No. But you do have to tell somebody the voices. Why? Because getting the voices out of your head is cutting the power of the voices down. Having the courage to tell those voices to somebody who creates a safe environment that can just hold the space for you, causes humility. And where humility lives, fear cannot live. Where humility lives, ego cannot live, can. Now, these voices are not your wife's responsibility, your husband's responsibility, your mom's responsibility, your dad's responsibility. Stop it. No. Your partner's job in your world is to receive your own overflow. Nothing more, nothing less. Now you have a death in the family. You have a loss of a job. You need emotional support in the physical world. Fabulous. Spiritual, emotional, mental support. Not your partner's job. Find somebody who's already done it. And I'm not kidding. My entire book, Filling the Void, which is coming out here soon, is around this topic. And it's something that I walked through that the book originally was called we because Create an environment and tell people that voice. And you watch. The more you get those Glass, empty, big, boisterous, convincing as all get out voices out of your head. Then you start hearing the other voices. And when you hear those other voices, those other voices are going to guide you and say, you know, maybe we could get that truck. I think we can afford it. I wonder what color I would want. And I literally witnessed this with him. And lo and behold, eventually got the job, got the truck. Now did he have to go through deep emotional discovery to buy that truck? No, he didn't. Was the buying of that truck a huge emotional support, self loving act for him? Yes, it was. That's all he needed for his life to really be better. Now, for a lot of us, it doesn't just stop at the voice. We end up going into the emotions that cause the voices, which is the emotional surrender. There's mental surrender where you change surrender from the listening to the old voice and being guided to the new voice. That's surrendering of the old voice and, and being guided and listening to a new voice. On the emotional side of that, the emotional side is more. There's going to be deeper pain. That is the source of the old voices and is the source of behaviors. So when it's time to change true behavior, I drink too much, I smoke too much, I eat too much, I'm too codependent, I, I'm too self. I have too much self hate, I'm too critical, I'm too judgmental. Those are behavior changes. Now that's a different thing. Folks. When it comes to behavior changes, you're probably going to need support. You're probably going to need somebody like a doctor, Karen, or a therapist or somebody who can truly guide you into the deeper part of your emotional sense of self. Why? Because 100% of unloving behaviors are caused by wounds. Hear me, 100% of your unloving behaviors are caused by inner wounds. Now where do those inner wounds come from? Years ago, when you grew up in an environment that could not emotionally support you, does that make your parents bad? Of course it doesn't. Everybody did the best they could. I mean for most of us. I was born in the 60s, I was raised in the 70s. The whole concept of emotional support and empowering of self in a higher sense of self, let alone positive affirmation, it didn't exist. How could you be emotionally supported 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago when the concept didn't exist? That's why we are the generation of change. We're healing what we didn't get years ago. We're giving it to ourselves. Now so we can give it to our kids and our kids will give it to our grandkids. And that's a process that I really truly believe in. That's why we are the generation to change. And for those of you who are trying to change, drinking too much, get help, that's what AA is for. For those of you that are, that feel yourself always trying to rescue somebody else too codependent, always thinking about somebody else. You know how the, you know, how you know the difference between codependence and not codependence is just listen to your own thoughts, Listen to them. If you listen to your own thoughts and you have somebody else's name in your thoughts more than once or two per 50 sentences, that's codependence. Hear me. Listen to your own thoughts. If your thoughts over and over are talking about your own self thought, your own self talk is talking about somebody else's life, somebody else's actions, somebody else's behavior, somebody else's woes, somebody else's celebrations, that's codependence. That's what codependence is. The sequencing of care is you take care of somebody else first, second, third and fourth and then yourself, hopefully fifth and sixth. Now the queen of codependence, you're, you're listening to him right now. Literally. I was massively codependent. The only thing I wasn't, I was more codependent is I was an addict too. I had the double whammy. Most of you are either addicts, self centered addicts or codependent bleeding hearts. You're one or the other. Now we can be though, we can care about somebody without being codependent. You can genuinely care but not lose yourself in the act of caring. That's the difference. And that's a sequencing event. How do you know? Because if you see yourself always caring for everybody else first and you last, it's codependence. And people say that's what a mom does. Does. Yeah. Good. That's fantastic. I'm not talking about you caregiving your newborn. I'm talking about when you've got a nine year old who can walk to the school bus by themselves and you take time for yourself. And that's why there's thing called babysitters. That's why there's thing called family. There's, that's why there's events where people will share caregiving. So you can take time for you and parent to child, young child. I'm not even going there. Do I really care if mom Kind of abandons herself because she's giving her heart and her soul and her wonderment to her young child. No, we'll deal with mom later. I'm not talking about that. That I'm talking about when mom can't stop controlling her 39 year old brother, when mom can't stop rescuing her 72 year old father, when John can't stop rescuing his 27 year old son. That's what I'm talking about. That's codependence. And why is codependence so toxic? Because it's, what it's doing is you're abusing the person you're rescuing and you're abandoning yourself. And people say, Joe, how can I be abusing them? I'm helping them. No, you're not. You're not helping them. If you're doing something for a grown adult, you're basically calling them an imbecile. You're literally by your action steps calling them neglectful or neglected not good enough or a loser or whatever. You want somebody to stop drinking, stop rescuing. There's whole programs for that, whole al anon programs. And why do I say it like that? Because every time your voices are caregiving somebody else, you're abandoning yourself. And the only reason you're doing it is because the pain you think is in your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your aunt, your uncle, whoever. The pain you think is in them. And that's why you're going to rescue them. It's not in them that pain is in. You hear me folks? You think the pain that you're feeling is because of John or Sue or someone else. It's not. The pain you're experiencing in your heart when you see them is your own. And every time you take action step to rescue them, you're abandoning yourself, you're abandoning your own pain. How do I know the difference? How will you know the difference? Because today when I see somebody in pain, I have empathy, I have compassion. I offer support, not rescue. I can literally be around somebody today in deep dark angst pain and feel no pain of my own. Why? Because I've been healing my pain for 40 years, literally almost now. That's the difference. How do you know the difference between co dependence and autonomy? Codependence. You see somebody else in pain and you feel pain. That's codependence, autonomy. See somebody else in pain and you experience compassion, empathy. That's the difference. Why is it important? Because as you start changing your behaviors, you start surrendering the old behaviors of drinking all the time of rescuing, all the time of working, all the time of eating, all the time as you start surrendering those behaviors. And you're going to need help. You're going to need a power greater than yourself, for sure. You're probably going to need literal support to do it because it's not easy. It's not. And the more you change your behaviors, the reason you're going to need real support is because what's underneath the behavior is pain. Why do people do, why do people have eating disorders? Why do people drink so much? Because they're trying to fill a void that their brain is saying food, their brain is saying alcohol, their brain is saying another person. But in reality, it's a little kid inside. I talk about a host who was deeply abused as a little girl by a grandmother. And I won't mention names. I pray someday, one hour, give me one hour with this person and a loving support around. We give that little seven year old a voice. She'll heal. She'll heal. You can heal. I don't care. The depths. I had a voice inside of me that, that for 22 months. But she said she loved me. But she said she loved me. But she said she loved me. My four year old, but she said she loved me. While I was codependently addicted and attached to a female who had three different boyfriends over a three and a half year period of time. But my addiction, my codependence, because my little kid, but she said she loved me. My little kid, I hurt him. I couldn't do anything about it, but I could stop my behaviors with support. Surrender associated with behavior changes is emotional surrender. And that takes personal growth, that takes spiritual growth, it takes awareness and it takes support. And you need support. Get support. Because if you get support and you heal the depths of you, then all the voices go away. The only reason we have those 10,000 voices, because there's hurt inside. The reason I don't have many voices today, almost none. Because the depths of my pain is gone. Literally. I had a voice not long ago that kept saying, what about me? What about me? I do these podcasts, I support tens of thousands of people. I've supported hundreds of people over the years. I've written books and support the world. I love it. It's a passion. And I heard a voice forever. I kept thinking as a little kid, what about me? What about me? And I can tell you the people in my world that. And it really came up this past weekend with Mother's Day because my mother and I. Over the years, we became a pretty good friendship. I was in her life my entire life. When she passed, she was in her mid-80s and I was almost 60. So we had a really solid relationship and there were genuinely things she did to help. But sure enough, I realized I got in touch with a part of me, the adult Joe, who was through that era of my darkness where I'm constantly embracing an inner child and I'm constantly asking for support from a higher sense of self. The human man. The man who was sitting in the middle of the warehouse when my grandmother died drinking two bottles of Jack Daniels. The man who had the aloneness I felt when my counselor and my mother both, when I gave them my book. My counselor called me a thief, my mother called me a liar. The two people in my world that I genuinely supported, to me, the man who walked, walked through all of that. I never consciously supported the humanity of the man. I've been doing, I've been doing that this past week or so and I've been processing for a week, literally grieving the loss of those events as a grown man. And I can tell you it is hard to grieve as a man. It's harder. It just is for me anyways. And there might be men out there that do it easier than me. Hard for me. It's just, it's a challenge. And that what about me is really feeling better? I feel great, I feel better. I feel much more whole. I have much more overflow, much more to give to the world. The emotional process of surrender is when you're surrendering old behaviors and shifting into new. Old unloving behaviors and shifting into new. There's going to be emotional consequence, there's going to be pain, there's going to be hurt that comes forward, get support, have help. The last part of surrender that I'm going to talk about before I go into my story is spiritual surrender. And there are, there's a whole world of people out there now that are in good places, made more money than they've ever known, their kids are launched, they're doing good. They don't have the deep addictions, they don't have the deep angst. Their life is good, their life is really good. And the woman, I hope she says yes. This is the one person I've never met, I hope she says yes because she transcended an old business and now she's doing a new business. And she's the perfect scenario of a 50 something young 50 year old, made more money than she could ever spend. Launched the kids, sold the house, sold the old business, now she's starting a new one. And why do I say that as a spiritual surrender? Because humanity as a concept is the way we are, the generation to change the way we are going to heal the world. Literally. My presentation at the Alive Collective was on this topic is 1% one time. Because there's more money than ever before and there's a whole world of personality, the entrepreneurial personality, personality out there that's seeking their next thing at much younger ages, 40, 50, 60 years old. And what's shifting is they're moving from a lifetime of pursuing gratitude, of pursuing accomplishment, of pursuing goals and pursuing gifts and working hard and putting it out there and receiving back. And they're living their humanity in a wonderful space, literally. And the reward of success from your humanity is gratitude. And for most people think gratitude is the end. But folks, it's not. Gratitude is the launch point. It's the start. Literally the start. And where humanity is going and what's happening more and more and more. We're shifting from a place of pursuing gratitude to pursuing grace. From living from our humanity, from living from our divinity. Why? Because our inner world is already okay. You've been on a conscious path for years. You're, you're already doing good things. You already feel okay. You might be a 20 year, 12 stepper, you might be somebody who healed co dependence years ago. You might say, yeah, I catch myself every once in a while wanting to rescue my 17 year old, but I tell people about it and I catch myself fabulous, fabulous. Celebrate those things. I went five years in the beginning and I never once stopped and looked at how far I came. Five years I was sitting outside of a movie theater and out of nowhere I thought, I've been grieving every day for five years, like literally. And I'm not kidding. And it didn't feel like I'd done anything, didn't feel like anything had changed. It didn't feel like I had grown. And out of nowhere I get this awakening of how far I'd come. Like five years worth of growth in the moment. And that's why I'm telling you now, folks, take the time to look back at where you've come and celebrate the progress. When we realize, when we sometimes understand that when we stop always trying to fix ourselves, when we stop always trying to grow, when we stop always trying to pursue the next level of enlightenment or awareness, our growth, and we stop and we say, wow, look at how far I've come. Is there always tomorrow yes. Is there always more? Yes. A caveat. I always go back to unless you're walking on water, there's going to be more. There is. Why? Because that's spiritual awakening, spiritual awareness. But the more now for millions and millions of people. That's why the we podcast is such an important event. And we're going to continue to develop this podcast so we get out to more and more people on broader and broader topics. It's all going to come back into the self discovery of self. But a lot of what I've been talking about is the feelings of anxiousness, the feelings of grief. Grief, the feelings of disconnect, the feelings of pain, the feelings, all of those deeper feelings, all those things we need to try to fix. And the response has been fantastic. And I'm also going to start bringing in topics of shifting the world. How do we feel? I know sometimes I look at the political scene and I feel an emptiness. I look at the no water in the continent of Africa, and I feel. I used to. I don't anymore. I feel an angst. We're gonna. We're gonna continue to expand our topics into more and more broader topics. That's why the voices of we is gonna be so important, because I'm gonna. I'm gonna be learning more and more from these four spiritual warriors that know a heck of a lot more on their topics than I do. And I'm gonna bring that information here and share my view and what eventually happens. And for my guess is a large portion of the listeners to the we podcast, you're already at a pretty cool spot, truly. You're already at a good spot. You're already at a place that says, you know what? Life is good. But what am I going to do for the next 20 years? I'm only 50. I can only go on so many ski trips. I'm 60, and I can only get in so good a shape. I'm 45, and I've already had three successful businesses. What's the now? What's next? Well, the next is learning how to pursue life from your divinity versus your humanity. Remember the we human self, divine self, inner self? I was talking about the inner self and the other part in the emotional surrender part. If your behaviors are unloving on a daily basis, you're probably more in that place of getting on the other side of those unloving behaviors which have wounds underneath. But for a lot of you, you did that 10 years ago, literally. There's millions of 20 or 12 steppers. A 12 stepper. The 20 year 12 stepper is somebody who's been in a program, an AA program, an AL Anon program, a food addiction program for 10, 15, 20 years. Well, all of those people, you're already in a place of pretty okay world you are, period. Why? Because the 12th step basically says you're in service some way somehow. And you know the difference between the alcoholic and then somebody eventually says, I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. I remember the first time I heard that, I looked at them and I thought, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Grateful recovering alcohol. Who the hell would ever be grateful for being an alcoholic? Well, they were. Why? Because of their disease of alcoholism. Took them into a 12 step program. The 12 steps are to get you closer to a power greater than yourself. And there's a spot in people's lives through working the steps. There's a spot in people's life where one day they're 49% still being, still living. And their higher power isn't guiding them yet their ego's still guiding. And there's a spot sometime, and some people know it, some people just feel it, some people talk about it later, but there's a spot where your reach where when 51% of your life is being guided and you know it's a power greater than you, guiding you. That's when you become a grateful recovering alcoholic. Why no alcoholism, no relationship with a power greater than yourself, period. And that's why the grateful recovering alcoholic is what it is. Now, I don't know what the terms are, but I know in the Christian world, in different types of religious worlds, there are people that literally call themselves reborn. What does that mean? That means one moment they were themselves and then they became aware of a God essence. In the Christian world, that would be Jesus. In their world, I can't speak of that, folks, because that isn't something I'm. I personally experienced, but it's powerful. I've read books, I've read different articles, I've seen different people, and it happens a lot. Now you can be born again in awareness of God, but if you still live your old garbage, then it's the big Mercedes with no gas in it, but people that have done it long enough. You've also done the emotional work. This woman I keep talking about, someday I hope I can share her name. When I saw a profile, I saw the term for the very first time. High emotional, emotional iq. I thought, that is the coolest term I've ever seen. I didn't know that existed, of course, I Lived. I live. I still live a pretty sheltered life. If I had my choices, I'd be in the woods somewhere and at the event I was just at. I ended up being a keynote on this, on the stand, but I'm the guy in the back. I'm the guy. I'm hanging out with the manager of the restaurant and helping sweep the floor. And the. Me and the sound guys, we became pretty good buds. And so I end up being on the stage a lot. But my personality, I'm very private. Very, very private. So I don't have a whole lot of social out there and that from that place. I'm not a big reader, and I was never really online, so when I saw that phrase emotional iq, I thought, that is freaking cool. Like, what a great concept. What does that mean? It means she has a true wisdom IQ about her emotional sense of self and why I just. This all just came to me in this past awakening, this past week. Why was this person so powerful in my life? I've never met her literally is because she's the first person that I came across who not only had a connection to her higher sense of self, but she had a heart connection, too. Now, I can't say that I'm around that many people, because I'm not, but this woman, I heard her divinity because she. In the. In the. In the document I read, she's talking about a grander tomorrow. When you hear yourself talking about a grander tomorrow, folks, that is your divinity. That is your higher sense of self. Your higher sense of self is the part of you talking about a better tomorrow, a grander tomorrow, a more wonderful tomorrow. And as she was sharing, she's sharing from her heart. Literally, she was sharing an experience that she still had pain around. And she's grieving, literally, on a podcast. So a heartfelt woman who's sharing from her divinity. This is the first time I've been around that I'd ever heard it in somebody. And in that moment, for the first time, I realized I wasn't alone. I've been on this path a long, long time. Now I know the we podcast. I mean, global ranking. What does that mean? It just means there's tens of thousands of us. I wasn't kidding when I said the goal was 100 million downloads a month. Why? Because I always knew I wasn't alone. But now I know I'm not alone. And this person was the first person. Anyways, that whole concept of living, the surrender, your spiritual surrender, what does that mean? It means surrendering life from your human sense of self or your humanity and living more from your divinity. You're surrendering the old style in which you did life and integrating in a new style in how you do life. And what does that mean? Well, the, what's the new style? When you're pursuing your divinity, you're pursuing grace. And how do you gain grace? You gain grace by giving back. Project Smile was a nonprofit that I started and I'm the sole donor of Project Smile. And I have two caregivers, two caregivers in Uganda that I care give, one has. Together they have about 80 kids. And this all started when I was in south africa after my TEDx a year ago. And I learned that the continent of Africa has over 400 million people with no water and no running water in their house. I don't know about you, but everywhere I freaking look, there's water. Africa isn't the case. And so a man tells me that he needs some money because little girl broke her arm. And he said he needed $60. I was like, what the heck? I'm learning all this, right? I didn't know how the hell that worked worked. So I found this app. I push a button, within five minutes he's got my 60 bucks. Within two hours he sends me a video back. Thank you Ms. Uncle Joe for the money. And this little girl Patricia got the medical care she needed. I asked him later, I said, so what would have happened if. What would have happened if she wouldn't have gotten that money? She said, well Joe, eventually it would have gotten infected. They had to tourniquet it and cut it off. Cut off her arm for a broken arm? They had cut it off above the elbow for $60. And Patricia is her name back then I was doing a live stream, starting this whole process and I got to meet her because technology through WhatsApp, you can do video, talk to people, video. And this precious little eight or nine year old little girl, she speaks Zuhee. She didn't understand a word I was saying. I didn't understand a word she said. She didn't have to say anything. She had these big beautiful eyes and she's moving her arm. 60 bucks. That happened about a year ago now, last May. The grace I experience still today for that $60 is the same. Unlike gratitude, which is a human event. Gratitude, it's wonderful. Gratitude lists, but it's humanity's wonderment, not spiritual wonderment. Gratitude's great, but gratitude is an ever chasing event. It doesn't matter what you do, you're always pursuing more. You can be grateful for something you accomplished on a Monday, but by Thursday you're trying to accomplish something else to regain that sense of gratitude. Anything wrong with that? No, it's fabulous. I hope you have a bunch of it. But eventually you reach a place to where you're pursuing something else and it's service. And from that place of service, you're literally living through your divinity. And as you live through your divinity, the experience of your divinity is grace. Grace is just this internal sense of peace, wonderment, fullness that's eternal. It doesn't go away. Now, this particular, the caregivers, the divinity and how divinity truly works. Just like the WE podcast is in 17 or 18 different charts, literally 12 or 13 different countries already. My live stream, because I had so many people on it, I had a live stream one time, had over 50,000 people on it, literally. And so a man from Australia, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. A man from Australia introduces me to a caregiver in Uganda. A man from India introduces me to an entrepreneurial, spiritual man in Dubai. So I'm talking to the man from Dubai. His name is Farhan. He owns a company called Revo, Revo Development out of Dubai. And Farhan has a spiritual experience years ago, and he committed in this experience that as he rebuilt business, he was going to give back a portion of the proceeds, not the profit proceeds of his business, back to heal humanity. Well, I said, fantastic. I've got two caregivers I'd like you to meet. Fantastic. Farhan then has his man. I can't really pronounce his name, so I'm just going to call him Mr. M and gets in touch with me. I get him in touch with my caregivers. I don't hear anything. Three months out of nowhere, I get a video and a picture and sure enough, Farhan and Mr. M and three other people, Farhan's wife and three of his workers, co workers, are in Uganda with my caregiver brother Allen, and they went there and they visited both of my caregivers. The next day I get a picture and Farhan, in his grace, bought these kids beds to begin with. I get a picture, I get a video of these two different. Two or three different videos of these kids. They've never seen a bed, Never. They slept on dirt floors. The one group, the little kids, they didn't even have a floor when it rained. They have to sit up. That's where they live. He bought them beds. That same community, brother Allen Farhan, he bought him beds, he got him food, He Stocked the man's store that so he can have more things to sell which, which he cares for these kids. The other community. I asked, I said, if you could get him a water tank, that would be great. And Mr. M says, oh, no, no, Joe, we don't do that. They bought, they did a borehole. I said, a borehole. I think you call it a well, Joe, a well. So they put a well in this community. A hundred people now have a well. They were walking 45 minutes a day pitching water out of a stream that an entire community and farmers and their animals drank out of. Farhan gave him a well. And the grace I felt is just amazing. I thought to myself later, to these people, to these kids, to this community, a well and beds. And they built a school on a piece of ground that I bought for them. They built a school. I asked Mr. M, I said, so how much was all that? He said, the well was about 25,000. The school building was about 15. So all total somewhere in the neighborhood. 40, $50,000 for this community. Life changing for Revo. By the grace and by his giving and the wonderment of this man's spirit. He gave that money to his business. His businesses were tens of millions and he's giving back millions. So I thought about it later, I thought from the business side, it's barely even a decimal place moved on an accounting sheet from the people receiving it. Life changing. Kids with beds, kids with food, a whole community with water. That's divinity, folks. That's grace. That's giving back. That's where a huge portion of the world is. We are shifting in. We're surrendering our old style of living from our humanity in pursuing gratitude and shifting into our divinity, pursuing grace. I leave you with this one of the most powerful speakers that has ever lived, Mr. Tony Robbins. I will never forget when he was a new and up and coming, been around a long time. I literally saw him the other day on a reel. I learned what a real is not long ago. And with tears in his eyes, he says, folks, what keeps me going? I've got a hunt. I'm paraphrasing. I've got 110 or 12 companies. We do billions of dollars in business. What keeps me going every day? He says it's service. He says, I have a heart for service. And he's right. I mean this guy could do anything he wants anywhere in the world, with anyone he wants. And he continues on a daily basis. And that message is exactly what the we podcast is about. It's exactly what it's about why? Because there are millions of us that are in that place that we're in, that spiritual surrender of our humanity to our divinity. You're moving from gratitude to grace, and you're hearing the voice, but you don't know what to do with it. Get a coach, get support, get people to help, because there's a higher you that's guiding you to go out into the world and do you differently. And that's how we heal humanity. Literally, I say 1% one time. As we continue to grow, as we continue to shift, as we continue to go through the spiritual awareness, as we continue to have the courage to feel the depths of our pain sometimes, or just change our behavior sometimes, or literally just change our mind, and then take the action steps necessary as you're willing to write down those voices that don't work anymore, the glass empty voices, and you have the courage to find the humility needed to share, share that with somebody else and then help somebody else do it. Together we're changing. Together we're healing. And together we're healing humanity one smile at a time. Thank you for being here, everybody. I genuinely appreciate your support.
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So that's it for today's episode of the WE Podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or itunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Joe himself. Be sure to head on over to wepodcast Global and pick up a free copy of Joe's gift and join us next time for the We Podcast.