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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 Mittega, and I'm the host of the we podcast. Have you ever looked around at your life and wondered, why do I still feel so lonely? Maybe you're surrounded by people. Maybe you have a loving family. Maybe you have friends, coworkers, and a partner that are always there. Yet deep inside, there's still a quiet ache, a feeling that something is missing. Loneliness isn't always about being alone. Sometimes it's about feeling unseen. Sometimes it's about feeling disconnected from the people around you. And sometimes it's because we've become disconnected from ourselves. In today's world, we are more connected than any generation in history. We can reach almost anyone with a touch of a button, yet millions of people quietly carry loneliness they don't know how to truly explain. We keep trying to fill the emptiness with more conversations, more success, more entertainment, more achievement, hoping something outside of us will finally make us feel connected inside. I know that feeling, folks, because that's where I used to live. For years, I thought loneliness meant I needed different people in my life. But what I eventually discovered was something much deeper. The greatest relationship I had lost wasn't with another person. It was with myself. Today's episode isn't really about finding more people. It's about rediscovering the inner connection that makes every other relationship possible. Because when we reconnect with our own heart, something remarkable begins to happen. We stop looking to others to complete us. We begin showing up as our whole selves. And from that place, that place of genuine connection, all possibility truly begins. Today we're going to explore the emotional growth that helped me personally rediscover that connection. So I no longer feel lonely every day. I don't. From that position, from that awareness, from this new connection. Today, life for me is a really beautiful thing. Welcome to we. Welcome to WE because you know what? Healing doesn't happen alone. Healing happens with the voices of we. So, folks, I want to welcome everybody here today. It's a super exciting day. This is the inaugural episode of the we podcast that I'm calling the Voices of We. Starting this week, we will have two episodes a week. A Tuesday episode, which I'm producing right now, and a Thursday episode, which is kind of the same structure we've had before. And why I'm doing it is it's time to continue to expand on the possibilities of what we has to offer. You know, I've lived in my own isolation for many, many years, and isolation meaning a sacred silence. I've been on a journey to discover the depths of myself since I was 26 years old. I came through all sorts of challenges years ago and came out the other side, I have to tell you, in a really great spot. And what I'm wanting to do, though, is to continue to share my experience, strength, and hope in my stories and share with you as openly and as honest and as vulnerably as I can. Though I also want you to hear other people's stories. Why? Because if it's to be, it's up to me, is only from Joe's position. But if you can hear those same types of inspirations from other people, people that have lived in really dark spots, what they did on their Tuesday mornings to help them make it through the day till the next week to the following week, it'll broaden the possibilities. And I am very, very aware that my message from my position and my voice and my style, it connects to people. It connects to a lot of people. But you know what? There's some people that it might not. And I'm always going to be as authentic as I can possibly be. And I need everybody to hear the we podcast is not about the man. It's not about Joe. It's about the message. And why do I say it like that? Because the message that comes through me on a weekly basis isn't of Joe. It's of the divinity in Joe. And I could go through the statistical analysis of how. I kind of know that's true, but quite honestly, because of all of you, and the we podcast has been in the top 200 podcasts in the globe, we've hit as high as a 153 globally. How could that possibly be? Statistically, it's impossible. Well, I'm not talking about stats. I'm talking about divinity. And my divinity is talking to your divinity. And that's why we're all here. So I figured since we're going to be telling stories, the best story to start off the whole thing with is mine, because I know there's a lot of listeners. We are growing at such a rapid pace. There's more listeners coming on literally every day than we used to have in existence six months ago. We're number one now in Norway for the how to category in the top 10 for education. I could go down the list. I'll do that. More on Thursday. But welcome everybody from Norway. Thank you for your support. And you know, it continues to validate. What Joe has said over and over is that this is a humanity message. It doesn't matter who you are, where you live, the color of your skin, the religion you practice, the country you live in, it doesn't matter. We are all part of humanity. And the divine part of ourself is waking up. I talk about it all the time, what the we is. And the we is your human self, your higher self and your inner self. And that whole sense of inner self connecting to higher self that all lives in the feminine side of you. And the feminine side of humanity is waking up. So today I want to share with everybody my story. And I'll do it in a way to kind of tie it all together. And over these next few weeks, I'm going to be doing that same thing so all new listeners can kind of get to know me. And I'm going to be starting to integrate other people's stories into this particular segment of the WE podcast, the Voices of We. I've got several people that are volunteering to be contributors. Over time, the this Tuesday episode is where we'll have interviews with people and you're going to be able to hear people's voices live. And you know, it's just a really powerful thing when you can hear the same message just in a different style, when you can hear the same hope just in a different presentation, when you can hear and you can feel the same strength but from other people's styles, what they did, it's really going to be beneficial and I'm super excited about it. I have to continue to tell everybody how excited I am filling the void. My book, which is literally my story, that was the book that was channeled through me close to 30 years ago now will be available very soon. So keep visiting joe mitiga.com Joe mitiga.com currently has pointed to one of my TEDx's, but soon it'll be there and download the book. The book will be free. All of my books will be free on joe mitiga.com I'm working on several more. We'll have three out by, you know, probably the next six or seven or eight months. And I just really appreciate your support and I really want to give back my book. I want to give to the world that which was so freely given to me. And quite honestly, that's kind of a good place for me to start my story. Thirty plus years ago, I was living in an unfinished basement. A buddy of mine came in. I was a daily drinker. I was a daily pot smoker. I was in my early 30s, right before my 31st birthday, and I worked hard. I went to college up in the Midwest at Purdue University and had a family business here in Atlanta. We were in the roofing and construction business. Worked seven days a week in the hot sun. Hard worker and my family, all hard workers. So we were very functional. I was a very functioning, quote, unquote, alcoholic. Did I know I was an alcoholic? No, I had no idea. I really didn't. But I never thought about it, to be honest with you. Well, this fateful day, February 13, 1994, buddy of mine comes in screaming, hollering, joe, you're never going to believe what these people want me to do. They want me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I remember thinking, really? That's interesting. Why? Because they want me to stop drinking, Joe. And my first thought was, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Why would anybody want to stop drinking? Now, I have to tell you, I've shared that story a thousand times. And why is that particular exchange so important in Joe's life and my life? Because for the first time, really, I heard myself. I could hear what I just said out loud to my friend. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Why would anybody want to stop drinking now? From an alcoholic's position, from insanity, from darkness, from misery. That made all the sense in the world, but from a higher sense of self making fun of people, like, making them wrong, because they don't drink, and I do. It didn't make any sense, quite honestly. And I literally, in that moment, was one of the first times I truly heard me. I talk about it a lot. Most people around you, if you're on this podcast, you are on a divine path. You're a spiritual warrior. That's no question about it. You are consciously aware you can Hear your thoughts. 98% of the people around you can't. And I can tell you that's what's happening in the globe, because more and more and more and more people are able to hear their own thoughts. That's the first stage of the awakening process, when you can actually become aware you can hear your own thoughts. Well, this happened to me, really, for the first time, I heard my own voice saying that. And that's why it's such a spot in my life. February 13, 1994. I said, you know what? I'm going to do it. I made it seven days. And on the Seventh day. My addictions had me by the throat. I sat in a buddy's house trying to muscle through. And like a lot of you know, I was not a God guy at all. I was raised in a religion I didn't believe in. I didn't believe and I still don't believe there's a punishing God. I don't believe that concept exists. I believe that's human interpretation of what people have read and what the stories have been told. I believe human interpretation genuinely believes that God is a punishing God or could be a punishing God. I don't. And I believe in all religion because all modern day religions are based on a monolithic God and love. And quite honestly, my Catholic priest, Father Cam, in the eighth grade is the reason I'm still here today. The man lived the principles that I believe. Jesus and all the deities of the past were sharing one God, live with love. And Father Cam knew at a young age I didn't believe anything he was saying from the pulpit. But did he care? No. Why? Because he showed me unconditional love. So in that moment in time, now it's February 20, 1994. I had no God experience at all. I was really just desperate because I didn't want to drink a drug. I wanted to do it 90 days. So I stood up after 30 minutes of just absolute struggle and put my hands in the air and I said, God, if I'm not supposed to drink or drug, need your help. And I feel literally a rush of energy go down my body. I feel a tear come out of my left side. My compulsions for drugs and alcohol were removed in that moment. I walked out the door. I didn't think another thing of it. 54 days later, I was down in Florida. The same compulsions had me. It didn't work this time. I reached out, still acted out. And the next day I have full blown memories of pretty severe, not pretty severe, truly severe abuse as a kid. And it was in that moment in time my sobriety date, April 16, 1994. I am blessed. One day at a time to say it's been over 32 years. And it was in the process of that moment where I truly knew because the memories I had were like turning on a movie screen. It was that vivid. Were they always there? Yes. Did I know they were there? No, I didn't. And I came out that day that as I'm driving back from Florida, knowing my life would never be the same. The following seven years is what I call my modern day monk experience. The Book Filling the Void was written during those first initial years. So please visit my website, joe mitiga.com and download a copy of that book. Download a copy duplicated as many times as you want. Give it to everybody you want. I don't care. And I want people to come to the website because I want your email addresses so I can keep you informed of cool stuff we're doing. But you know what? The book is free because it was freely given to me. And it's kind of a funny part of that path because I basically, you know, I was getting sober pre Internet, pre cell phones. I had a beeper, and it was me with me in a vacant room. And I heard the voice, joe, you're going to write. I said, I'm not writing. I said, joe, you're going to write. I said, I'm not writing. And I cussed all the time back then. And eventually the voice said to me, you're going to write or you're not going to sleep. And did I know at the time it was God talking to me, a higher power talking to me? No, I had no idea. I just wanted to sleep. Well, the following 22 months. This is about two years into the darkness, about the following 22 months. 108, 106,816 words. Something like that came through me, channeled word one to word hundred thousand. And that book now is called Filling the Void. Originally, your inner child has rights to. And why was it your inner child has rights to? Because the inner child is what I learned is how you heal. Now let me explain the inner child, and I want to explain what loneliness is. But let me explain the inner child first and why I put child into this position. We are all multidimensional beings. We have a male side and a female side. On the male side is your brain, your mind, your physical, and the physical is your physical body. That's the male essence of self. The female essence of self is the emotional part of yourself and the spiritual part of yourself. The female side of you is where your intuition, when your gut feelings, when your deep knowings, when your senses. That's where all that lives. And also in the female side is where your emotions live, the mad ones, the glad ones, the sad ones, and the scared ones. And for me, Joe, I didn't have any of those emotions. I was so emotionless. I was so devoid of emotion. And a lot of it was based on social belief. I was raised a traditional Italian and big boys don't cry. And you have respect for everybody and you're completely controlled. And my father is a very disciplined man. Well, when I got into therapy and I was in pain all the time, my therapist Nancy at the time said to me, she said, joe, the inner child will put a visual concept to an emotional energy. So think about it. If you're hurting, why you're hurting because you got deep hurt, well, the deep hurt is based in the emotional sense of yourself. In Joe's case, a tremendous amount of anger, massive quantities of fear, but the depths of pain was sadness. Well, the only way you can really heal is you have to emote those suppressed energy. The reason I was so closed down was because I did not know how to express myself. I did not know how to emote well. So when Nancy explained it to me, she says, joe, I just like to call it the inner child, because if you can visualize yourself as a little kid, then it's just easier to be nice to yourself. And that is definitely true for me because I had such a critical voice that it, you know, if I would have imagined myself as a grown man, I would have just beat myself up unmercifully. My critical voices were massive. And that part, the way that you actually heal the depths of yourself, is you have to give a voice to the darkest parts. Well, if you're trying to give a voice to sadness and there's nothing really to connect the sadness too, that's a lot harder thing to do. At least for Joe it was. So my therapist Nancy would have me imagine a little boy and just assume that the child in me was in communion with the emotional parts of me. So when I'm trying to give dialogue or a voice to the deeper parts, I could visualize, I could feel, I could experience as if it was a little boy in me, part of the multidimensionalness of ourselves. So it was like I was talking with a 4 year old child, or I was listening to a 12 year old child, or I was celebrating a 16 year old boy. All of those are parts of Joe, but they're in the emotional side. And when I say we are a multi dimensional being, we are multi dimensional. You're not an isolated eye. How do I know? Because a, the spiritual sense of yourself is a part grander than you. I've got all sorts of proof. Listen to any of my other podcasts. I talk about it all the time. The biblical phrases that talk about Christ consciousness inside of you. Well, divinity. I call Christ consciousness my divinity. Now, you can call it whatever you want, whatever fits for you. You call it that because it all works. That's the position of it, right? But from the emotional part of yourself. So if we're a multi dimensional being, from a position of the we, a higher self, which is divinity, you're the part of you that's always connected to the grandest essence of you, the human part, which is the ego part. The natural human man or woman that has to pay their bills and brush your teeth and fix food for your kids. But then the emotional sense of self, the inner you, the part where the mad, glad, sad and scared resides, that's the part that society has not honored. Not because society's wrong, but because the evolution of human consciousness wasn't there yet to truly honor the emotional side of self. Well, that's what's happening now. Humanity is waking up to the feminine side, which means it's waking up to the emotional side of self. Very similar. Almost identical to 40 years ago when the New Thought movement was born. New Thought, it was way back, 40 years where the whole concept of your thinking your thoughts, hearing your thoughts, you can change your thoughts. Positive affirmations, all of that, when it was originally introduced, it was life changing. It was monumental. It was a. It was a mark in time. Prior to that, no one even had the conceptual ability or to even think about thinking of your own thoughts. Who the heck would do that? You didn't even know what you didn't even know. Well, that was in the 70s, a lot of the 80s. Well, the new Thought movement, when it came in, and some of the leaders of that, these amazing spiritual beings, they start teaching the globe, you can hear your thoughts, stop and listen. Those thoughts are yours. You can hear them now. The belief was at the time, and it worked for a long time. The thought was, you can change your mind. Well, it worked. And what I want people to hear is that I am an advocate of meditation. Meditation is a wonderful technique to calm your mind, to calm your emotions, to calm your energy patterns. But the we podcast isn't about trying to calm your emotion or your mind. The we podcast is helping people heal. The reason you need to calm your mind. I was listening to 20, 30 seconds of a podcast of a pretty big influencer out there. And, you know, it's got millions of followers. And there was this celebratory moment where the one guy says, yeah, you know, I meditate an hour a day. And this guy with all these followers says, oh, I know, I meditate four hours a day. I'm thinking to myself, my goodness, if you literally have to meditate four hours a day, to calm your mind. Think about how many voices are in the mind, in that mind and. Am I criticizing? No, I'm just making a statement. Why? Because the reason all those voices are in your head is because of suppressed emotion in your heart. And that's where the inner child work comes into play. That's where the embracing of your inner deeper parts come into play. The only reason, and this is an absolute statement, the only reason you have critical voices in your head, glass empty voices in your head, that you need to meditate, to calm those voices. The only reason you have those voices is because you've got a hurt part of you in your heart. The source of those voices, even though you hear them in your head, the source, the reason, the why they are there is not in your head. It's in your heart. So what I found, what Nancy taught me, was through a concept called dual hand journaling, you can actually start communicating with the depths of yourself, with deeper aspects of you that are beyond your ego and are not your higher power. They're deeper parts of the emotional you. Now some people will call that intuition. Some people will call it gut instincts. A lot of women just call it their feeling centers. That's why I'm telling you men, whatever your woman is telling you she feels, stop talking. Simply listen. She knows what the heck she's talking about. She does. Why? Because there's a massive quantity of women out there that even though they might have been living in their wounds and acting out their addictions and all that, their intuition, their gut instinct, which is in their stomachs, never left, now a lot of them have to heal later that they didn't listen to that gut instinct. And in my opinion, the reason that so many women, their stomach chakra is open and stays open is because that's where all life is created. Women are the reason humanity exists. You create children in you which duplicates humanity. So fellas, the next time you're going to get mad at your wife and take your crap out on her, stop it. Without her and her friends, humanity doesn't exist. That's what I teach my boys anyways. And it's one of those things to where that gut instinct, how do you give a voice to it? Well, that's the dual hand journaling which I'm going to explain here in a second. So I put the concept of inner child, the child, so I could just get into practice. It's easier for Joe to be nicer to Joe if I imagine myself as an 11 year old little baseball player in the Minnesota Twins outfit with the big long curly hair. Trying to be a catcher. And I say trying to be a catcher because my oldest son is a catcher, which I'm going to talk about him in a minute. Well, I could give a voice to that part. And the reason lonely exists. What is lonely? What is it? What is the actual sensation? Well, the sensation of lonely is this internal emotional longing for something. A longing for something. Aloneness is when you feel like you're isolated on an island. Aloneness is caused from your separation of your higher power. Lonely, I feel lonely is because of the gap, the separation between you and the inner you. In my words, inner child. So, and think about it. You're multi dimensional and each part of the essence inside of you has an emotional component to it. And when those emotional components aren't honored, aren't expressed, aren't validated, aren't supported, that part of you goes into hiding, that part of you gets buried, that part of you goes away. And it's when those parts go away, they're not present, then it causes a deeper and a grander separation, a bigger cavern between you as the adult and you as the inner child, you as the inner sense of self. And why did that happen? Well, for most of us, we grew up in an era of time where this supporting, the conscious support process of validating and honoring the emotional side of yourself, it didn't exist. Not that our parents were bad or hateful or hurtful. It just simply didn't exist. Now add on to that. Being raised by, you know, a parent that's ill who has nothing to give you, or a parent that's addictive who takes the crap out on you, or our parents that separated. So, you know, you have one parent over here and one parent. There's all sorts of life reasons why we didn't. Why the inner emotional you that needed to be developed at the age you were wasn't. It wasn't done because we didn't have a society that honored that. We do now. That is why I consider us the people on a podcast like this, the generation of changes. We have the availability to give to our children what our parents did not give to us. Hear me. We, the adults on this podcast right here, and any adult on this podcast from 18 to 800, I don't care how old you are. We have the availability to nurture our younger generation in a way that we were not nurtured. We'll talk about that when I get to the second part of this episode. I talk a lot about this in my Book Filling the void. Please go get it joe mitiga.com so in that communion, in that how do you give a voice to your deeper parts? And why do you need to give a voice to the deeper parts? Well, you need to give a voice to the deeper parts so that part of you, the multi dimensionalness of you can actually share what's going on. I talk about this a lot. There's a particular show, the host that has been around forever and was pretty traumatized as a person, as a child. And I've watched, you know, different influencers over the decades tell this person, just have to forgive you just after this. You just have to that. But if John Bradshaw was on this particular person's show, John Bradshaw was the man who taught my counselor Nancy about the inner child. You know what John Bradshaw would tell her? He would say, stop, breathe deep. Imagine the little girl in you who was traumatized so deeply and let her talk. Let the little girl in you speak, not the adult telling the world what you think the child's feeling. Adult. Stop talking, little girl. Start talking. And when that little girl, in the beginning, she won't because she's so scared. She's been abandoned, abused and neglected unconsciously forever. That's how all of us are. But when the little kid inside starts talking, that's when eventually that part will share with you. And eventually that part will feel safe enough. And eventually that part will emote on the other side of the inner part of you. Grieving is where your loneliness goes away. Now how do we create the environment necessary for that inner part of you to feel safe enough to start talking? A awareness. That's what I do here at the we podcast. Awareness. I bring awareness that it's possible now if you are guided to get into the depths of your inner child, into the depths of your emotional sense of self. Please go get help. You need help. Healing does not happen alone. Most healing happens in a we. Well, that was Joe. I always had a therapist and I always had a counselor. 12 step sponsor happened to be the same person for many years until she left. But and I say that because when you go into the depths of your emotional sense of self, that is not easy. And if you're guided there, which a lot of you are being guided there, get some help. That's why the voices of we is so important to Joe. Because the people that I have on as contributors, they have a passion to give solution long term support. And you know, right now would be a place and I'm not going to mention names and I'm not going to mention people's websites yet until I have their permission. But one of my contributors, he has a software program, a download called Remy. And because of that people can download it and literally you can. It talks to you. It helps you get deeper with yourself. I'm going to have him on here, his name's Shane Pope. I'm going to have Shane as one of the original voices here. I'm going to be telling his story in the next couple of weeks. So the we podcast is about awareness, the voices of. We are going to be people whose passion is to support you long term. Well, Shane Pope, a 35 year old who lost his dad at 17. He created a download a software where right on your phone and it guides you through getting to know yourself. Powerful stuff. So in the whole process of connecting to the deeper part of you, how do you do it? You have to have a safe environment and you have to give it time. The safe environment basically means sacred silence. Be quiet with yourself, get to a place where you have some time for you and safety really happens for the depths of yourself when all the critical and shame based voices aren't attacking you constantly. That's why in so many episodes I talk about writing all those voices down. Because all those ugly voices, they're talking about truly the pain of a little kid. A pain of your emotional sense of self. Well, if you don't remove those ugly voices through first steps or calm them down anyways, these deeper parts don't feel safe. And if they don't feel safe, they're not going to emote, they're not going to share. So safety is the key. And then time is what heals. I always say I write it in my book, Filling the void that love is spelled T, I, M, T, E not L, O, V. Love is spelled T I, M, E. And that's what I did. I am the extreme case. Mine took seven years. Now I was pretty thick headed. I was addicted to everything. My rage was off the charts. And I lived in an era of time where there was zero support. Think about it folks, no Internet, no cell phone, me in a room, literally living on less than $3,000 a year. All of those contributing factors is why even Joe's path took seven years to get to a place where I could function again. Will any of you have to do that? No, I don't. I really don't. I think there are people that are going far be deeper than me in a lot quicker times. A, you come in spiritually different, B, there's so much support around and see humanity and the energetic pattern of humanity is supportive of it also. Humanity is waking up to the feminine side of herself and anybody that's going into the depths of that feminine side are supported with the energy of humanity also. Well, what I did and what I learned is what I was taught. Dual hand journaling. So I would first imagine envision myself as a little boy. For me, the first vision that came through was an 11 year old. I was 11 as a little baseball player. And eventually I would start writing with that part. I would with my dominant hand, which I'm right handed, I would write, how are you doing? What are you feeling? What's going on? I'd ask some question and then I would change the pencil into my other hand. And when you change the pencil into your other hand and the non dominant part of you starts expressing, it basically puts words to the intuitive sense of you. It allows words to be expressed through your humanity, but of the intuitive, of the emotional sense of you. That's why this particular episode is called why I Still Feel so Lonely. The emotional growth that helped me rediscover my interconnection well, the emotional growth that helped me rediscover the my interconnection was realizing a that my emotions, mad, glad, sad and scared need to be expressed, need to be honored, need to be felt, need to be heard. Give a voice to the darkest parts. And so first I became aware of that and then I learned techniques to actually accomplish it. When I have Dr. Karen Louise on the podcast and she's going to be sharing like how to truly do it, she's a professional. She's been doing this type of stuff for 25 years. She's the type of person that I'm going to create a whole directory of people like her. I can bring awareness. People like her can support you weekend, week out, month in, month out, as you heal the depths of yourself. And I can tell you as I did that I started with rage. I eventually got to fear. I emoted the grief. And on the other side of the grief, life was different. I could go into story after story after story. And in future episodes I will. I'll go into different stories about that healing process. But the literal communion, what causes loneliness, Loneliness is not caused from the outside. In loneliness, you're feeling lonely because you and a deeper part of you have a cavern between you. You and a deeper part of you have separation between you. How do you bridge that separation? Awareness first. Writing second, Dual handwriting second. And giving that part safety. So it feels trusted. So it feels that it can emote and then expression. Grieve the grief. Yes. In the today moment that needed to be grieved. For a lot of us 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, I literally would have grieving sessions where I'm a 40 year old man or a 30, 38 year old man. I'm grieving literally like a 4 year old child. I'm not kidding. I know that sounds bizarre. Wait till it happens for you. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about. And I always had a professional with me. Nancy Carter was always there. Now, the cool thing about it, right? And people always say, well, that all sounds great, Joe, but why do I need to? Well, first off, you need to because if your world was already cool and you already had a great life and you already had emotional connection and you weren't feeling lonely ever, and emotionally you were doing great A, you wouldn't be on this podcast, you'd be on a sports podcast or listening to all the crazy news that's going on out there, or you'd be traveling the world or you'd be doing something else. But you're not doing all that. You're here on this podcast, on the we podcast, which tells me if you're on this podcast around the globe, you're searching for something more. What is the more in the past, the more was create another business so I can have more gratitude because I want more money. Well, massive quantities of you people out here right now, you've already done all that. That's why my other contributor that I can hardly wait to be able to. I would tell you all about her right now, soon. That's what she does. She's got a website coming out that literally helps people reinvent themselves after divorce. Well, why are people divorcing? Because we're outgrowing each other. Bad thing? No. Painful thing? Yes. Confusing? Yes. Well, a lot of people are in that place right now and on the other side, right. The reward is eventually you've reinvented yourself to now you're living in a place where your next adventure is filling you not from the outside in, but from the inside out. And you're taking your fullness to the adventure. The adventure isn't the source of your fullness. Let me say that again. We reach a place when the depths of ourselves are doing pretty good because they're expressing and you're healing those deeper wounds. And now it's time to go live what you've healed, living it out into the world. That living it is where we're living our overflow, literally. And when you live your overflow, the more you live your overflow, the better you feel. The better you feel, the more you want to live your overflow. Well, today I want to talk about my overflow and how I raised two boys and my oldest son, Joseph, who literally just launched two days ago, July 1st. He's moved into his own apartment, 80 miles from home, going to college. And I want to share back and forth the differences between Joseph being raised by a conscious dad and me being raised by an unconscious dad. Better or worse? No. Is Joe perfect? No. Trust me. I've been putting five bucks a week away since Joseph was a little boy because he's going to need therapy. Being raised by somebody like me, there's no question about it. And I was able to teach him things that I was never taught. I was able to show him things I was never shown. I was able to give him things I was never given. You're doing the same. I was in a conversation with a woman and her daughter. The woman said, yeah, my mom never told me I loved her. I was never told I was loved. Well, this woman tells her daughter she's loved all the time. And her daughter just had a baby, and now the daughter tells the little boy the baby he's loved all the time. We didn't get that we're the generation of change. We're giving it that we what we didn't give. Well, when I went to college, misery, angst, emptiness, darkness, confusing. When Joseph went to college, I said, no, you know, he leaves in July. He left July. I said, so it's June. I said, so how's it going? He says, I'm pissed. I'm like, what are you mad about? He says, dad, it won't come fast enough. I said, Bud, it's July 20th. I know, but I want to go now. Why? Because he's ready to launch. He's ready to live. He's ready to take his fullness out into the world. Well, where did he get that fullness? He was born with it. Why does he still have the fullness at 19 years old? Because he was raised by a conscious dad. He was raised in an environment that honored his expressions, that sat with him when he needed to grieve. Who listened to him in his confusions? That was me. How did I do that? How did Joe As a 50 year old, I raised my kids in my 50s. How did Joe as a 50 year old know how to do that? Well, because Joe as a 35 year old and a 40 year old learned how to do it with my own inner child. How was I able to sense or know when Joseph just needed to be heard? Because I learned that by listening and sensing with my own inner self. How did I know when Joseph needed to be celebrated with his successes or empathized with his pains? Because I did that to myself with the inner child. The depths of myself with the inner child. So my sons, my youngest son, which I'll talk about in another episode, is a modern day Mozart. Literally, he's genius on the piano. Anything he does, he's got this conscious capacity that is far beyond the normal. Why? Because we're all born with it. What's the difference? My son Ryan, who is massively creative, we kept him in a safe environment so his creativity wouldn't be squashed by humanity's unconsciousness. While his maturity was able to catch up. I'll talk about him later. Back to my oldest son. He was mad because he's so excited, he's so full. He's ready to go live his college world. And that's where he's at now for me. I missed my family constantly. I was in pain constantly. Now the great news back then is I had a fabulous solution for it. Oh, that's right, just drink more. And then when drinking didn't work, oh yeah, then you just smoke marijuana more. That was challenging because on a college campus you couldn't really find marijuana back then. And thank God the drugs of today didn't exist. Well, then there was other drugs, solutions. You just find the right girlfriend because the girlfriends that I would find would have the same desires as me and we'd fill that void until Tuesday morning came. And the difference is that the angst that I was living because emotionally I wasn't supported in an unconscious family was hard, you know, it was really, really hard for me. Fast forward to my oldest son today. He's out there, he's doing his thing and he's got a sense of esteem because his entire life he was told, I love you, Joseph. By myself and by his mother. His mother, every time she sees him, she will tell him that she loves him. Now does he and his mother have different types of conflicts? Yes, he and I have different types of conflicts. Yes. Why is that? Why is there conflict like that? Because I never squashed him. I empowered him to be him his whole life. How did I know to do that? Well, as I was listening to my own little kid and I asked a power greater than myself to give me the strength and courage. My higher power empowered me to embrace my own inner sense of self. So now I'm doing that same thing with my son Joseph and my son Ryan. I have told Joseph, Joseph is an elite baseball player. He's beyond normal. Write his name down, Joseph Mittega. You will see that 36 months from today in the 2029 draft, he will be in the top draft. I predict he's going to be the top five. Why? What does that sound so arrogant and ego? It's not. He was given a gift and his entire life that gift has been honored, embraced, allowed and learned about. And what's the learned about mean? I've told my kids their entire life that their gifts are of God, not them. Their gifts, his ability to play baseball, his intellect, his intuition, his skill sets, all of his abilities are gifts from God. And I've told him that his entire life from little. So there's no confusion for my son. He knows that his gifts are of God. And like I said to him, God can only do for you what God can do through you. So it's your responsibility to take those God given gifts, go be the best version of yourself in the world. Go live those gifts. And then if you really want a great life, make sure you, as you're living your own gifts, make sure you give back to the world some percentage that allows you to live from grace young instead of always. Just gratitude does it right now. Does it automatically, well, where did I learn all that? I learned all most of that in the 12 step program, the giving back. That's what the 12th step is of every program. How does it affect my son today? It affects my son today because he's launching from the home he lived in his entire life at 19. Now he'll always have a bedroom here, he'll always have a home here, but he's launching into his new adventure. But he's doing it full, he's doing it with esteem. His esteem is high and his esteem is high because the voices in his head say that he's loved, say that he's acknowledged, says that he's safe. Where did he get all his voices? Well, from his mother and I, we told him that his whole life and I share all of this because if you're listening here and you've got young people, whether you've done it before or not, start today. Literally, when you get off this podcast, start today. Now. If you're like me, the I love you, it's harder for me, especially harder for me to tell it to my boys. Face to face, it's just harder for me. I can tell them I'm proud of them. I can tell them, you know, I'm looking forward to hearing everything. But you know what I do, since I can't speak it easily, I text it. We live in the most connected community ever. So right now, when you get off this phone, tell somebody that you love them. Especially if you have a child. Whether you mean it or not, tell them anyways. Why? Because the I love you isn't for you, it's for them. And the more that happens, the better they're going to feel. Are they going to heal from your I love you? No. But it might just give them the esteem they need to go heal themselves. And for those of you that have babies and real young kids, start from now. Tell them. Figure out your ways and not just show. It's got to be verbal. Little girls need verbal even more than little boys. Little girls need to be told little. They're beautiful, they're wonderful, they're expressive, they need it young. And then as you give it to them young, then they develop it on their own. Little boys need to hear they're. You're proud of them, you respect them, you honor them, you cherish their abilities as you do it in the beginning, then eventually they do it for themselves. I want to end with a story, probably two stories. The first story is I've taught my kids, listen. There's an intuitive voice in you, that soft voice. Listen to it because that's the voice of your higher power trying to guide you. So my oldest playing 16, 17U baseball, I don't know what it was. And I see him out there with no elbow guard on, always wears an elbow guard. Why? Because the pitchers throw baseballs. They call it a baseball. It looks like a missile. It's coming 90 plus miles an hour. And most of these pitchers, they don't know where their feet are, let alone where the baseball is going to go. So my kid has always had an elbow guard on and I see him up there, no elbow guard and sure enough, plucked right on the elbow to the point to where he's walking down to first base now. He's tough as nails. I've only seen him really emotionally emote one time and that was when he was little because he got hit right in the glasses with a baseball and he was so mad he thought they're going to take him out because it broke his glasses and busted his nose. He was emotional because he thought they're going to take him out of the Game, not because he was hurting. Well, this particular day, he's on first base, I see his arm limp. He got hit that hard in the elbow. I said to him afterwards, I said, why no elbow guard? Says, I got rushed, Dad. I said, was there any part of you telling you to put the elbow guard on? Yeah, yeah, I heard it, but I didn't do it. Next time, what do you think is going to happen? I said, he said to me something about, well, I'll listen next time when I hear that voice. Was that a punishment? No, it was his higher power in the dugout saying, put the elbow guard on because this guy might hit you. So I teach my kids how to listen to their softer voice. Just like how did I learn how to do that? I learned how to listen to my softer voice by giving a voice to my darkest parts. That's how I did it. The last thing I taught my son or something I taught him from the age of 10 or 12, 11 is when you do something great on the field. When you're walking off the field, look at your dad, look to me. I will acknowledge you. When you're 10, 11, 12 years old, don't look to your coaches. Why? Because the coaches are busy and the coaches are doing whatever else. I said, look to me. Look at. Find me in the stands, know where I am and look to me. And I will celebrate your successes and I'll empathize you with your challenges right as you're coming off the field. And why did I do that? Because I told him, you look to me, Joseph, and you will see. I'll do it every time, I promise you. And eventually you'll be doing it to yourself. So you won't need your dad when you're older. At 11, you still need your dad to emotionally support. I will never forget the day he's probably 14, something like that. He did whatever he did, home run or struck out the side or whatever, and he just walks right off the field. And I said, it freaking worked. It worked. He didn't need at 14 anymore to look to dad because his own confidence was talking. His own self esteem was talking, his own self worth is sharing with him 1. Why is that so important? Because my oldest son does not acknowledge or does not need an external praise to feel internal celebration. Hear me? He does not need external praise to feel internal celebration. And how does that live in the world? I can't tell you how many times coaches, because he's a catcher who can pitch, he literally in one particular game, caught the game until the Sixth inning, and then the coach said, I'm putting you in if we get people on base. They pulled him out from behind the plate to go warm up. 20 seconds to go out with bases loaded and one out. Now he walked out there like he was walking to the ice cream parlor. And I didn't even ask the questions because I'd already known. Did he feel any stress about the people on base?
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No.
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B
No. Did he feel any pressure because there's people watching? No. Did he need to get that guy out to feel better? No. Why? Because from young, he was taught his gifts are inside. From young, he was empowered. From young, he learned his esteem. And now as he's a young man out there producing in the world, he's literally his own son. He's his own source. And he's out there now launching because of that. His skill sets are elite. They are gifts of God. Each person on this podcast know people just like that. And elite isn't necessarily externally, you know, famous. That's all bs. You know, your kid might be great at math, they might love to read, they might want to be a. A chef, they might want to be a veterinarian. Whatever the it is, each person has their own internal it, their own internal gift that God gave them. It's up to us to empower, to embrace, and to support in the beginning, verbally, over time, supportively. And as we do that, and that way we learn how to do it with the outside world is we learn how to initially do it in the inside world. Why do I not feel lonely anymore every day? Because myself and my inner child, my inner children, the depths of me are one today. I've taken the time to express. I've taken the time to listen. I've emoted from the depths of myself. And the more you connect inside, the more you share it in your world outside, the more loneliness becomes a thing of the past and the more oneness becomes a thing of the future and the present. And I can tell you today, I live from a place of oneness that books are written about, and I am very, very grateful. So thank you for being here, everybody. I really appreciate your support. Welcome to the Voices of We. You're going to hear my story these next few weeks, and then you're going to hear the stories of others, and then eventually you're going to hear interviews from others. We're going to just continue to expand the globe with the we podcast. And for everybody around the world who has been connected here, welcome to we. I really appreciate your support.
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A
So that's it for today's episode of the We Podcasts. 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.