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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. So I want to welcome everybody here today and hope you're having a great week and a great month. It's the middle of March, and spring's in the air here in Atlanta. Just really happy that we're kind of on the other side of the cold front that that we've had here in the South. And the spring flowers are coming out, the trees are blooming, and new life is happening, and that's a wonderful time of the year. I love the springtime. And it's really kind of a wonderful metaphor of today's topic. And I've got a great topic today. It's called why spiritual awakening requires you to return as a child. And the whole concept of spiritual awakening, that's such a cool term, I think. And today we're going to kind of get into what the heck it actually means and how we do it, quite honestly, because there's so many misconceptions in the world today about what it really means to wake up, to spiritually become alive, to spiritually reconnect to the truth. Called you because there's so many different belief systems out there that more tend to separate than commune. I'm going to try to put a spin on it today, my perspective of how the spiritual awakening process is just an amazingly beautiful thing. And quite honestly, it can be challenging. So if you're here for the first time, welcome. I'm glad you're here. The WE Podcast is a podcast about helping people remember who they are. I let people know right from the beginning that I'm just a guy. I'm a guy like you. I'm no different than anybody listening here. And I really want you to understand that I'm not here to tell you anything. I'm not here to really teach you anything. I'm here to help you remember. And I do that by sharing my experience, strength, and hope. And I want to caveat before I even get started because there's just a tremendous number of new people. And I want to thank everybody who's been on the podcast from day one, November 11, because our growth has just been absolutely amazing. And I really appreciate the support, the numbers of people that have been visiting our website, we pod, we podcast global and enrolling in our stuff and our email list and everything. It's just been fantastic. So if you haven't done it, please visit the site, get on our email list, because, you know, we've got a lot of cool things coming up in the future, and I want people to. To be aware of it. And please understand we're not here to sell you anything. We're here to help and we're here to support and we're here to just love on you, quite honestly. Well, this particular topic, the spiritual awakening topic. And that's why I want people to understand that I'm not a doctor, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a researcher. I'm none of the ifs out there like that. That's just not who Joe is. Joe's just a guy. Now, I've been sober a long time. I've been on a spiritual path for 40 years, 35 years. And really I'm here to just share with you what I've learned and what happened for me and why. I know that the awakening process isn't a learning process, it's a remembering process. Because all of us created in God's image, that whole concept of a spiritual image, Basically what it means is that we all have a spiritual sense of self inside us. And I'm here to kind of share my experience on how I was able to over the years. Not because I was looking for it, not because I was pursuing a relationship with a God of my understanding at all. Quite honestly, I've said it a thousand times on my podcast. Back in my 20s, the only adjective I would use if the word God was in my sentence was kind of the F word and God around it. I was not a God person at all. I just had those really hurtful, harmful beliefs based on how I was taught, do it my way or you burn in hell, that whole concept. And I rebelled. I rebelled against the social norm. Now we're talking 40 years ago. And because of that, my misunderstanding, and basically I was just uneducated of the facts, but my gut always knew the truth. And for me, a monolithic God. God is love. And love has only unconditionalness to it. Not do it my way or burn in hell. That's just Joe, and that's where Joe comes from. And the reason a podcast like this is so important is because humanity is changing. I mean, literally, humanity is waking up at a faster rate than ever before. And I've got different examples that I give. The simplest one was 200 years ago, owning a human, perfectly fine. 50, 60 years. Elvis Presley couldn't shake his hips on national television because the consciousness of the day, that was almost like sexual to be shaking your hips as a musician, literally the whole idea of judging a human being by the color of their skin, racism, that whole concept 50, 60 years ago was really horrible. Well today are we perfect? No. But have we come a long, long way? Yes. And for the masses, the consciousness of the day is just so different than what it used to be. We lived for millennia based on the male dominated power struggle, control whoever had the biggest guns and the biggest muscles controlled. Well, those days are over, quite honestly. It's changing. Things are changing. Humanity is waking up to the spiritual sense of itself. Humanity is waking up. We are all shifting in to the feminine side of ourselves. And for those of you that don't know, again, if you're new here, welcome. We are all, we both, we all have a male side and a female side. All of us do. The male side is the part of you, the sense of self that connects you to your intellect, your mind and your body, your physical sense of self. And the female sense of self in you is your spiritual side and your emotions, your spiritual sense of self, your gut instincts, your knowings and the emotional side of self, the mad, glad, sad and scared. The emotions called you. Well, I'm here to tell you that we've gone through a 40 year era of time with the new thought movement concept that basically has kind of been dismissing the emotional component as if light switch experience can turn emotions on and off. Hence new thought mental experience. And I'm not judging it as right and wrong. And I'm going to tell you over and over and over, if anything you're currently doing is working great, keep doing it. But if you're searching for something more, if your gut is telling you there's more, if there's something in you that is, it just hasn't been sitting well lately. Understand, you're okay and I get it because you're changing, you're shifting. There's numerous people. I'm a 32 year, I'll have 32 years of sobriety coming up here in April. 32 years. I've been sober longer than I was ever a drinker. And so the programs, the 12 step programs out there, they're powerful. But hear me when I tell you, 12 step programs are not really designed to heal your emotions. They're not. 12 step programs are 12 steps of getting you closer to and creating a relationship with the power greater than yourself. And what people don't understand is that a 12 step program doesn't really have anything to do literally with alcohol or people, our sex, our drugs. It doesn't. The 12 step program. What it does is it helps you create a relationship with a grander power than yourself, a higher power. So you turn to the higher power instead of turn to the substance. Do it long enough, the substance becomes a non issue. That was me. Drugs and alcohol were a daily event. And February 20th in 1994, I had a unique experience with kind of a literal spiritual awakening in the moment where my compulsions were removed in an instant. More rare than most, but the concept is relationship building. And what I witness all the time out there in the world more and more. It's almost like there's this misconception that says I can't be spiritual and have unloving emotions are hurtful emotions at the same time. And that's just a falsehood. It's not true. You are an emotional and spiritual being at the same time. And please hear me when I say your spiritual sense of self and your emotional sense of self, quite honestly, they have nothing to do with each other, although they're all part of the same. You. It's kind of like your left hand doesn't have anything to do with your right hand, but you need them both to pick something up. It's the same with your spiritual sense of self and your emotional sense of self. Are they truly interactive with each other? Yes. But are they developed differently? Yes, they are. Your spiritual sense of self is called spiritual growth. Your emotional sense of self is called personal growth. And those two things happening simultaneously is really needed because the truth of the matter is you're transcending your humanity, whether you understand it or not. And these parts of you are becoming more and more integral parts of your normal day to day. And how does that live out in the world? Well, your gut instincts, for example, where does that come from? That your gut gut instincts, not your mental instincts, your gut instincts, where does that come from? Comes from your gut. Where is that? That's in your female side of self. That's your intuition. It's a spiritual sense of self. Does something feel right? That's an emotional sense of self. Put all that in combination together, it's a powerful guidance system. That's what we are here to help you develop. Because humanity as a concept, literally humanity as an energetic essence is shifting more and more into the female side of ourselves. So I want you to understand that you can be a powerfully spiritual being and still go through all sorts of emotional angst, emotional traumas, emotional highs and emotional lows. So this particular episode, I'm going to be talking about emotion. I'm going to be talking about my path. So before I get started, please subscribe, join the show, go to wepodcast Global, get involved with us, help me build this. My goal is 100 million downloads a month. And we're going to do it. Why? It's only 1%. Only 1% of humanity. And with a click of a button, technology allows us to reach millions and billions of people. Well, if you really want to be that spiritual warrior that your dream of and you inspire to be, there's an emotional component to it that you have to understand. And I'm trying to help people instead of demonizing the delusion that difficult emotions, like there's something wrong with that. No, the real answers to your questions are on the. Are in the other side, are through the depths of the emotion, not the dismissal of the emotion. There's so many techniques out there that literally they're trying to create oneness. All except those hurtful emotions. Because we're just gonna, we're just gonna tell that. We're just gonna tell our mind those don't work. They're trying to create oneness, but they're trying to create oneness through their mind and their spirit, completely dismissing an entire aspect of yourself, which is the emotional sense of self. And again, I'm here to tell you, if it's working for you, great. I love it and I hope it is. The positive affirmation, the concept of forgiveness as a light switch and surrender as a light switch. If you're able to do all that, great. I have a sense though, if you're here and you've listened to any parts of my podcast, you're craving something more because forgiveness is not a light switch. Forgiveness happens as the consequence of taking action steps to heal the part that's hurting. The reason we can't forgive, there's a part that's still hurting. Heal the hurt. Forgiveness happens. Surrender. It's not an action step. Surrender happens as the action steps, as the consequence of taking action steps for the part who's holding on. Ask yourself the simplest of all questions. Why do we have to surrender? The only reason you have to surrender is because some part is holding on. What is the concept of holding on? It's fear based. Something. You can't just flip the switch and say, I'm not scared anymore. It doesn't work. We embrace, we nurture, we give a voice to the part who's afraid. Eventually the part Lets go because it's not fearful anymore. These spiritual attributes that society has created called action, like flip of light switch, that's all the mental side of a spiritual path. Again, it's worked forever for a lot of people. If it's working for you, keep doing it. But if it's not, please know you're okay. And that's why I want you to understand the difference between spirituality and emotional healing. Spirituality is about connection and communion. Emotional healing is about expression. Your emotions are about expressing yourself. Spirituality is about connecting with something grander than you. And the difference between connecting and communion, the longer you do this, connection is kind of the concept where you're in the process of learning the concept of a power greater than yourself. And connection with a higher power is more like you. And the higher power holding hands like you finally have a friend that's there that can guide, that can help, that can support. But connection is more like holding hands. Communion is more the energetic expression of you and your higher power becoming one. And that's called divinity. Living as your divinity. And I am graced to say that a lot of my life I live as my divinity because I'm special. Are you freaking kidding me? No, I'm not special at all. I just been doing this a really long time. And quite honestly, as I share back, one of the characteristical traits of living as your divinity is you're willing to share back. And if you're willing to share, if you're willing to give, if you're willing to be in that place of unconditionalness, then you're living as your divinity. You just are. And from that position, you're listening to me right now. Living as my divinity. How can I say that so clearly? Because it's my evening here on the 16th day of March, and I'm sitting in front of a microphone sharing my overflow with the world. By definition, if you're sharing your overflow with the world, you're living as your divinity. Now, until you're walking on water, you're probably not living as your divinity all the time. Does Joe live as his divinity all the time? No. Ask my kids. No, I don't. But do I try? Yeah, I do. I really do. And that's why podcasts like this are so powerful. And there's something going on. There's something going on. How can I say that? This podcast is about 120 some odd days old and we're already ranked in the top 20 in relationships. We're already ranked in the top 30 in how to we're already ranked in the top 60 of education. Why? How? Well, because as I speak, from my divinity, it's your divinity bringing you here, listening. So something I'm saying, not the Joe the human. Believe me, it's not me. It's the grander me that I've just gotten practiced at sharing from. So I see the evidence all the time. And I want you to understand, if you're here, you are a true spiritual warrior. If you can listen and make it through any of my podcasts, you are a definite spiritual warrior. And if you've listened to more than one of mine, I mean, you're just. You're conscious. You are. And I celebrate you. Why? Because more and more of us get together as more and more of us connect together. That's the we in the community sense of healing humanity. That's how we do it. We heal humanity. And I say it in such a way because most of what I share on this podcast, I challenge the human norms. I challenge the status quo. I challenge the consciousness of the day. Why? Because it's not working anymore for a lot of people. 67% of humanity defines themselves as spiritual versus religious. Does that make religion wrong? No, of course it doesn't. No, it doesn't. This isn't about right or wrong. This is about honoring everybody, all paths. And everybody's got their own path. What you call it? I don't care. Some of my dearest friends, my single closest friend is a Catholic in religion for his entire life. And I honor Catholicism. My priest saved my life as an eighth grader. You heard my stories. My dad wasn't around a whole lot. Father Cam. No. Father Cam. No, Joe. Hear me. A Catholic priest saved Joe's life. Now, did I believe in what he said from the pulpit? No. But did he love me anyways? Yes. All religion, the basis of all religion, monolithic God and love. Well, Father Cam, God rest his soul, I know he's sitting with Jesus right now because that man blessed me. He saved my Life. And at 26 years old, 8th grade, 12, 13, 14. At 26, he tries to get me to go into confession. I'm in a Catholic wedding. There's 30 people. What's he say to me? He says, joe, we're all going to confession. You're gonna go, right, Joe? No. He knew I hadn't been in Church in 10 years. You were gonna all go, right, Joe? I said to him in front of everybody, I said, yeah, Father, I'll go as long as you face me face to face. And you Know what he said to me? Absolutely. I'll do it. So in that conversation, right, you know what I told him? I said, father, I can't sit here and say I'm sorry in a confessional position for behaviors that I know for a fact. As soon as I'm done, I'm going to go do again. I might not believe in this God thing that much. I don't have that much of a relationship. But I sure as hell am not going to sit here and lie to you and to God in confession knowing I'm gonna go do it again. You know what he said to me? He says, joe, confession isn't about you doing things right or wrong. Confession is about you having the humility to at least pursue the difference between right and wrong. Stop me right in my tracks. I've never forgot that. That was 40 years ago. I never forgot that. So if religion's working for you, fabulous. If you consider yourself spiritual, not religious, fabulous. The essence of all of it is what Joe is about. I'm not here to tell you what your it is. I'm not here to share with you or tell you what to call your higher power. I'm not here to even describe it or define it. I'm here to tell you mine. I'm here to share with you mine and my relationship. But my quest and my challenge to each of you. Are you following it? Not do you have a relationship? Not what you call your relationship, but are you following that relationship? That's my message, and that's my challenge. And I get to say it because I follow mine. I do. In future episodes, I've had some just crazy stuff happen. Just pure blind faith. And the way it ends up on the other side is just amazing. I'll tell those stories along the way. This whole process, for me, the entire concept all started back in the 90s, literally 1990. I'm sitting there, and I always like just telling my story because I wasn't pursuing God. I wasn't pursuing health. I wasn't pursuing anything. I was really doing it from a very narcissistic position. And what my narcissism kept saying is, I just want to stop hurting. And when I was drinking and drugging every day, I didn't know I was in so much pain. I just didn't know. Now when I was drinking and drugging every day, drug of the day back in the 90s, thank God, was marijuana. If the drugs of today would be back then Joe would be dead. I would just be dead. There's no question it's so serious. What we're doing here is serious because the voices in people's head that say, I want to die, I want to kill myself, those are real life things back in the day. I want to die, I want to kill myself. You had to find a 357, put it in your mouth, have the balls to blow your head off. Today you take a pill. So this is a real live issue, this mental health issue, this epidemic of isolation, this epidemic of separation. And how do you know somebody is so super separated from themselves? They hear the voice, the only voice they hear. I want to die. Well, we can help. We can. Now, I'm not a doctor. I'm. The very first thing I'm going to say is get professional help. Everybody needs a professional support some way, somehow. Now, do you have to always pay for it? No. There's support groups everywhere. That's why we're part of the generation of change. Because 1-800-call- somebody is so available everywhere, literally. But we all need somebody. I have a life coach. Dr. Karen is my life coach. I excited to talk to her now. I talked to her a couple times. I'm talking to her at the end of the month and with her permission. I've never. I haven't asked her yet if I can give her full name, but one of these days I'm going to ask her. Why? Because I'm not a pot calling any kettle black. I'm not. I do what I share here. Back in the day when I had the awareness that I had drank and drugged every day Since I was 14, I'm in my early 30s, I stopped. The stopping wasn't that hard at first, and then it got kind of hard. And then I had to have the spiritual awakening, the God I didn't want anything to do with. Hey, dear God, if I'm not supposed to drink and drug, help me. The 20th day of February, 1994, and sure enough, a tear comes down my face. Compulsions for drugs and alcohol gone. Not a little gone, completely gone. 54 days later. Same compulsions, tried the same behavior. Couldn't do it. Smoked a quarter of a cigarette, a marijuana cigarette. And that's why my sobriety date is April 16, not February 20. Though I had memories of being abused as a kid, I just didn't remember. It was totally blank. Sexually abused as a kid. So I say this all the time. I literally just told 1 million people that I was abused and sexually abused as a kid. So if I can tell a million people, if you've got that in your past. Please tell somebody. Please get some help. If I can tell a million people, you can tell a professional in the sacred silence of their loving, kind office. This whole stigma, as if yesterday's abuse has anything to do with your today. Those days are over. We are the generation of change. I get it. You were hurt 30, 40, 50 years ago. 20 years. I get it. Is it still affecting you today? Yes. If you haven't healed it, it is still affecting you today. And can you heal it? Yes. How do I know? Because I did. Listen to my episode on forgiveness. Listen to it. My perp, one of the boys. At the time, I was seven. He was 18. He was a boy. I learned later that he was systematically sexually traumatized his entire young life. No wonder he was such a mean sob. He died a complete heroin addict on the side of a mountain. And I grieved. Why? Because at that point in my process, I could see a man who was hurting, not a man who hurt me. So hear me clearly. If I can heal through trauma of the past, so can you. Because believe me, when I did it, there wasn't near the support, there wasn't near the help, there wasn't near the availability to communicate. What the hell? There wasn't the Internet. The Internet started in 1995. I started this path in 1994. So help is available today. And understand that your personal healing journey is a sacred path. It's not your spouse's responsibility, that's for sure. And no, if you're hurting deeply, it's not your husband or wife's responsibility. It's not unless they've gone through it themselves and they can help. No, your husband didn't marry you, ma', am, to support you through your angst. He married you for your overflow, just like you married him for his overflow. And for you men out there, stop this nonsense of taking your rage out on your female partner. Freaking stop it. Get a bat and beat the bat. I did, so you can, too. I've got episodes on that. This emotionally taking crap out on each other. Those days are over. That has to stop. Why? Because we're the generation of change. And it's time. Every time you shame, blame, guilt, or make somebody wrong, you're abusing them and abandoning yourself. And you're causing yourself more wounds. How do I know? Because I did it all. I did it all and now I don't. Now my life is very cool. And how I got through it. One day in therapy, before therapy, I had to say to myself, I was in Enough pain. I had to say. Joe had to say, I need help. I need help. Could anybody say it for me? No. Could anybody make me say it? No. Could anybody encourage me to say it? No. Why wasn't listening to anybody? The only voice I heard forever was I don't need help. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Then one day the pain got so great, I need help. So for you amazingly loving, good hearted, overflow control freak codependents who live in the delusional ridiculousness that you can make somebody need help, you can't. But there's an entire organization called Al Anon just waiting for you. You want your partner to stop drinking, get in a 12 step program yourself. You want your partner to stop being so co dependent, get in a 12 step program yourself. The best way for you to help your partner who's in pain heal yourself, period. And challenging thing is sometimes relationships have to grow or they go. That's true. We all have to kind of figure out what our spiritual path is. And the easiest way for me to do it is to share my experience. And in therapy, I need help. There's two voices in your head. And until the I need help voice happens, the I'm fine voice takes over, the I'm fine voice dominates you, the I'm fine voice, I don't need help. I'm okay. I've got this, I've got it handled. All of those voices are dominating narcissist ego voices. And when you come into that position of I need help, what's truly happening inside is humility. And the only way you can truly grow is humility. Has to be the internal experience. Humility is the energetic experience that communes you as your humanity to you as your divinity. No humility, no connection. No humility, no definitely no communion. No humility, no growing. Those are absolute statements. So humility happens a lot of time. Pain motivates. But you know what? Those days are freaking over. You don't have to be in deep dark, I can't breathe pain anymore to just go get support, get in a woman's group. I'm literally just been asked and I am honored to share my story. Coming here in May at a group called Alive Connection. You are going to hear a lot about it. Again my coach, Dr. Karan, she has got this experience she is calling a live connection and I am going to share my story. It is awesome. There are places you can go now to get help and to grow back in the day. Did I know any of this? No. All I wanted to do is stop hurting. Started in therapy. Figured out my therapist through the mind and hypnosis introduced me to the concept of the inner child. And what is the inner child? The inner child is your emotional sense of self. Joe calls it inner child. Literally, that's what I called it. You can call it whatever you want. Inner sense, inner self, little kid, gut instinct, emotional self, whatever adjectives work for you. It was very simple for me. Why did I call it inner child? Because when Joe imagined himself as a little boy, as a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old little boy, it was easier for my massive hateful ego to be nicer to me as I saw myself as a little kid. Because as I saw myself as a grown man, there wasn't one nice adjective. I called myself like zero. So I imagined myself as a little boy because it just allowed me to make it easier. I could just be nicer to a little kid. So that just stuck with me. Inner child, little kid, little boy, little girl, whatever. And so whatever, it works for you. That's the part. That part of you is how you start connecting and healing the depths of your emotional sense of self. And if you've done some of the work before, great. If you haven't, buckle up. Because it's not easy and it's not comfortable. And I'm here to tell you, it's not supposed to be comfortable. And this whole, oh, I'm connected to God, everything's airy, fairy and wonder. They're different. They're not the same things. Your spiritual connection, your spiritual communion has zero to do with your emotional sense of self. Nothing. They're separate. Until such time as you start communing it all together. Why do I say it like that? Because so many people think they're not connected to their higher power because they're sad. No, you are. You're both at the same time. I literally was just talking to a woman the other day. I've been on a path forever and she's connecting to her higher power in magical ways. But she couldn't see the success because every time she connected to her higher power, it helped her stop doing some unloving external action step. And every time she stopped the external action step that was causing her more pain, she had to feel deeper emotional, inner child pain. Now this woman's path is intense. No wonder she's been around me forever, because it's similar. But she couldn't see or experience her higher connection because she kept feeling emotion. And like I said to her, I said you know what? You're not going to identify your higher connection, your higher power connection based on your emotional consequence. You're going to identify your higher power connection based on how you change your external behaviors. What re engaged me back into the spiritual path back on September 22nd or 20th, 2022, is I heard a woman say, my only failure in my life was my marriage. And my huge spiritual voice came in and said, you didn't fail your marriage. You chose to live your divinity over your humanity. Now, I've never met this woman, Never. But the power of me hearing Joe, basically, this woman chose to live her divinity. So she outgrew her husband, good or bad? No. Maybe he outgrew her. I don't know. I don't know the story. But I've written an entire book called Unequally Yoked that y' all will get to be able to read over time. My book, We Me to We is what it's called. It's all based on that concept, humanity. What's Joe's definition of the Me, ego, self, the human self. What's Joe's definition of we? Human self, divine self, inner self. We go from me, human self only in the mindset of a me to an awakened consciousness of a we. All that happened because I hear this woman's. I hear this woman's story. Literally. Did it have anything to do with her? No. No, it didn't. But her awakening, her path mirrored what Joe's path was awakening too. Literally, back in the day. Now we're talking years ago, when I was intellectually being hypnotized and starting the process of becoming aware of an inner child. I did it through the mind. I did, and it worked. I had a sense of something. I knew there was a something. Was I emoting yet? No, I was still smoking and drinking all the time. But was it better than nothing? Yes. How do we heal the epidemic of aloneness? How do we do it has nothing to do with humanity and people around you. Aloneness, loneliness, the emotional sense of loneliness. Why are we lonely? Because our humanity is disconnected from our emotional sense of self. Our little kid. Why do we feel lonely or alone? Humanity disconnected from your divinity. Let me say that again. What is the source of loneliness? Loneliness, the emotional angst of grief and wanting somebody around. How do we heal it? Having more people around? No. Being lonely. Connect to the little kid. Feeling alone. Connect to your higher power. How do you do it? Give a voice to both. And that's what I did. Well, in that process of giving a voice to my Little kid. Over time, my next therapist, after three and a half years, she got me into my body. She also called me down on my drugs. Hey Joe, you can't come again. Stoned or drunk. I was like, okay, that's a dilemma. Well, I've got the solution. I'm not stopping. But Instead of my 3:30 appointment, I moved at the 9:00 clock in the morning because I could wake up late, get there and not drink and drunk. The wisdom of the day. Well, it worked because eventually I started to feel and as that process started, right, wow. Had no idea. Now for me, I started with rage. I did rage, and I mean tons of it. And I'm not talking just a little bit of rage, I'm talking a lot of rage. And what does rage really have to do with grief? Nothing, quite honestly. But rage is typically the layer of emotion. If you think about your emotional sense of self, like an onion, you got a lot of rage. Or you're angry, you're blaming, you're hateful, you're hurtful, you're shaming other people, you're guilting other people, you feel out of control, you're trying to be controlling. Those are all rage based behaviors. Let alone cussing at somebody, hitting somebody, beating somebody, raping somebody, whatever the anger is, that's all just hurt acting out. All of rage behaviors in society is hurt, inner hurt acting out. Well, how do we heal it? Well, we got to get through the layer of rage before we can get to the grief. Now did I know any of that? No, I didn't. Basically in the beginning, I learned the concept of rage in therapy. I learned the concept of getting a plastic bat in therapy. And that's what I would do. I would beat and beat and beat and beat on this one particular couch. And energy in motion, instead of all that rage being stuffed inside, the energy started flowing through me. It started coming out. And my therapist at the time, Nancy, she'd sit there, keep a very safe environment for me and she let me rage. It's fabulous. It's fabulous. Now, before I get into the next part of this episode, I hope you subscribe, I hope you visit wepodcast Global. Because the next part of this is where the pain, the grief really started to come through me. I didn't even know it was in there. And I'm not kidding, not like I had any awareness. I had none. I'm living in Gainesville at the time, in the middle of a business district in an abandoned warehouse, literally that had four walls that I called a bedroom. So I could rage and get my rage out. And I did. Well, one day, out of nowhere, water starts coming out of my eyes and I thought I'd gone crazy. I didn't know what it was. I called my therapist, Nancy, at the time. Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. I don't know what's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me. Jesus. I'm crying and I can't stop. I've lost my mind. Nancy, what's. I was frantic and she says to me, she says, joe, you have lost your mind, but you found your heart. Oh, well, that didn't help. I grieved for about 14 minutes, literally thought, wow, that was fantastic, that was great. I must be done. No, I grieved every day for the following three or four years. I did. So that's how I know. How can I speak so clearly? My other podcast, one of my recent podcasts. Your mind can't heal your heart. Why? Because your mind is your head, your heart is your heart. Emotions are in your heart. Healing your heart the way you heal your heart, you have to go through and emote and embrace and feel the feelings that are causing you the hurt. The only reason you have to heal your heart is because your heart is hurting. Now, if you're listening here and your heart's not hurting on anything, and all topics are great, wonderful, send people to the podcast because you're the unique and wonderful. Keep doing whatever you've been doing. For the rest of us, there's probably some issue somewhere, somehow that your heart needs to heal. How do we do it? Like what? What did I do? How did I do it? Well, what I did was I gave a voice to the hurting part. I gave a voice to the inner child and I gave the way I did it, the technique I did was dominant, non dominant handwriting. I would write out a question, I'm right handed, I'm right hand dominated. I would write out a question with my right hand and then I would answer the question with my left hand. Right hand, adult, left hand, inner child. It's a powerful thing. You give a voice to your darkest, deepest parts. Now, there's many people out there because a lot of people know about the inner child, but I see it on TV all the time where the adult is talking for the little kid. My little kid's feeling this and my little kid's feeling that and my little kid's fine. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, my God, your little kid is right there freaking. Shut up and let the kid talk. People don't know it if you're listening to this podcast right now, try it, try it. Get a legal sized piece of paper. And no, you can't computerize this. You can't do it on a keypad, pen and paper. Write with your right hand, then let your left hand, or opposite, if you're left hand, dominant. And just, it's so uncomfortable and slow in the beginning. And that voice, that part of you who's speaking in the non dominant side is your inner child. And as that part is given a voice, when that part is given time, when that part is honored, you as the adult of today, 2026. The adult today is giving the inner child in you the time, attention and focus that you probably didn't get as a little girl 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, or a little boy 20, 30, 40, 50 Years ago. Because if you got the time and attention you needed as a little kid, you wouldn't have emotional hurt that needs healed. Now, 30, 40, 50 years later, you just wouldn't. Why does so many people have to? And why does 99%? Because 50 years ago, back in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the consciousness of the day was different. Emotional support, it didn't even exist. The whole idea of honoring emotions and it didn't exist. Positive affirmations didn't exist in the 60s and 70s, so that doesn't mean that anything right or wrong. But the emotional part of you as a child those decades ago wasn't honored. If it wasn't honored, you were abandoned and neglected back in the day. That abandoned, neglected part of you is still in you now. The new thought process says what? Just change the mind. How do you know it's in you? Listen to your voices. Why does anyone ever have to do a positive affirmation? Why? Well, because you have voices in your head that aren't positive. Why? I always ask the question, why do I have the voice? Not how do I change the voice. Why do I have the voice? That was always Joe's question. Answer. Every unloving voice you have in your head has an emotional inner child as a source. An emotional inner child as a source. That's why when you hear a voice and you try to change its mind or really focus in and try to change the adjectives in the sentence. That's why it feels good on a Monday and it kind of still works on a Tuesday, but by Wednesday or Thursday, it's right back the old voice. Why? Because that's like having a wound and pulling the band aid off and putting a band aid over the wound and Thinking that the band aid is the hurt. No, the voice isn't the hurt. The voice is the consequence of the hurt. The unloving voices you're hearing in your head are the consequence of an emotional inner child, an emotional sense of self who's hurting, who has emotions suppressed inside. How do you get that emotion out? You give a voice to that part. Now, I wish I could say it's that easy. I just give it a voice, Everything's fine. But it's not. It's just not. Because basically, once you give a voice to that part, you know what happens? That voice starts trusting you. The whole inner child process, the whole responsibility of the adult, is to create a safe environment for your little kid, for your inner sense of self. I call it sacred silence. Give yourself sacred silence. In other words, sole focus you on you. And if you do it long enough, right, and you do it consistent enough, you can do it over time. That part of you who has never heard as a little girl when she's six or seven, who has never embraced or acknowledged as a little boy at 9 or 10, was never honored at 12 or 13, was never spoken to at 13 or 14. Those parts of you that didn't get what they needed, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years ago, you give them what they need. Now, today, March 16th, you give them what they need today, they'll start opening up. Now here's the challenge. When they open up, you know what they're feeling? Sad. They are. And it's that sadness that has to be expressed. What's emotion? Energy in motion. What's depression? What's suppression? Energy stopped. Suppressed inside. Why do we do that? Well, we're trained big boys. Don't cry. Little girls are to be seen, not heard. Don't you dare get mad. You. You little girl. No, no, no. That's not a. It's freaking nuts. But that was the consciousness of the day. It was today. That emotion's in you. If it wasn't. If it wasn't released 20, 30, 40 years ago, it's in you. How do you know you have emotions? Listen to all your crazy voices in your head? I'm not kidding now. Do you have to heal all of it to have a great life? No, you don't. Did I? Unfortunately, yes. That's why it took seven years. Is it taking people seven years now? No, it's not. Literally, it's not. Things are happening so much faster and people. There's so much more support. There's so many more people doing it. There's so much More awareness that for a lot of people, just being aware they're a multi dimensional being is all they have to do to have a great life, truly. But for me, the grieving process and I came up with over time, there was eight different types of grief and I'm going to go through them here in this podcast so that if you're going through any one different type, you're not nuts. That was my biggest challenge. I was isolated. I lived in a room. I had a bathroom, but I had no phone. I had no television, I had no radio. Like literally. There weren't phones. Cell phones didn't exist. I had a beeper, literally. So I spent a tremendous amount of time. Joe with Joe. That didn't help. Why? Because I would go through stuff and then even when I was done healing, then I would spin my. I'd go crazy because I just didn't know. That's why I have such a passion for a show like this. If I can help one person path go just a little bit easier and my entire life makes more sense. I plan to help 100 million. Why? Because we're going to do it together, all of us. And it's happening. It really is. So the first emotions that I felt with that little kid were emotions of abandonment. I felt sad. Why? Because my dad was never around. He was around, but he was never there. Never, like literally never. He was around, but he was traditional Italian. My father. I never saw my father in anything except black suits and black shoes till I was 25 years old. Literally. The look and this whole mafia nonsense, it's all nonsense. 99% of that's all nonsense. But if you watch the show the Godfather, you pick a character that was my dad. Literally hard working, traditional, amazing man. Did he embrace his son's emotional capacities? No, he didn't even know how to play baseball, let alone come be at a baseball game. He didn't even know how to throw a baseball. So here I am, an 11 year old baseball player. Where was my dad? Nowhere. So every other kid had a dad there except me at 9, 10, 11. How do you think that made me feel? Happy, joyous and lucky and free? No, it made me feel like, what about me? Where's my dad? Why don't I get to have a dad? What is that experience? Abandonment. Lo and behold, in therapy I bring up the baseball thing because in therapy that was the first vision I had, was myself as an 11 year old baseball player. Hated baseball, wasn't any good at it, people were doing it. So I did it. And, you know, my dad was never there, abandoned. So the first emotion that I felt was grief around abandonment. And I grieved a lot. I'd sit there and for me, I used music. I still use music. I share the story that my dad just died. You want to hear a grown man cry? Listen to the podcast that. It says something about quoting Wayne Dyer. Listen to that podcast that was scheduled. I literally did that podcast the day after my dad dies. I was scheduled. And I had a great relationship with my dad later. I hated him for years. I did. I just did. Now, that dates back 40 years, the last 20 years. We had a fine relationship. We did so. But those initial grief, it was abandonment. I grieved and I grieved and I grieved. I missed my dad. I missed not having a dad. Now who's doing the missing an inner part of me. Where's that inner part? In the emotional sense of self. Why is it important to grieve it? Because humanity is opening up to the spiritual and emotional sense of self. That part of you is opening up. So if you're sitting here right now, and out of nowhere, you're having memories of being a little girl and. And at a ballerina thing, and no one was there, and you were sad. And for. You haven't thought of it in 40 years, but the past couple of weeks or months or a year, you've been thinking about it. That's your little kid waking up. You're opening up to those parts. And you big boys out there, the men out there, buckle up, boys. Emotions are coming. Whether you want them to or not, they're coming. And it's okay. You think about the deities of the past that we talk about over the millennia. Most of when we don't talk about their intellect, we talk about their passion, their wisdom, the way they changed life, their creativity. All of that comes from the female side of self. You want to live a legacy? Embrace the female side of yourself. If you don't do it anyways, because it's happening sooner or later. If you're drinking all the time, you got to ask yourself why. Sooner or later, all the time. If you're drugging all the time, you have to ask yourself, why? And why do I get to project that onto you? Because I did. And if I did, I can tell you, you need to look. Ask yourself the question, when's the last time you went? 90 days. If it's any period of time, just try to stop. And when you can't get help, why? Because life is so much Grander the rest of my path. You know the amazing thing about. There's eight different types of grief. Only three of them are painful. Four of them. The other four or five are amazing. So stick around, subscribe. I'm going to get to those other ones. The next level of grief I felt, the next type of grief I felt was neglect. What's neglect? The neglect is when you're not emotionally supported. Now, for me, in the beginning, rage. Oh, man, I was so easy to be mad at my dad. First off, he wasn't, you know, he just wasn't the nicest guys. It was easy to. Now, he wasn't disrespectful, but he was just this cocky, whatever. He was easy to be pissed off at. My mother, I couldn't be mad at her. I couldn't. Not at first, for sure. She was always there, never not there. Sacrificed her entire life, always around, always at every game. Did the best she could. She raised four of us. I was the youngest. I had three older sisters. She was always there. So it was very, very confusing for me when I started grieving my mother's neglect. And someone would say, well, Joe, how could your mother neglect you, Joe, if she was always there? Because the always there was in a physical sense of self, the mental side. The physical sense of self, Yes. I never missed a meal. My clothes were always clean. She bathed me as a little kid. She taught me how to drive. She did all the physical things. And did she know how to emote? No. Did she know how to support me emotionally? No. So what's neglect? Neglect is when people are around you but you're not being emotionally supported. Now, I can tell you, for some of you, neglect is not nearly as challenging or wasn't nearly as devastating as others. There are some people out there, I've got a great friend of mine, she was so intuitively in touch, way out there in the right brain, extremely sensitive. As a little girl, she would cry if she'd see a bug being killed or so. So she was extremely sensitive and emotional. And so her emotional needs were two and three and four times that of anybody else. My two sons are both keenly intense. My oldest son, deeply passionate, deeply connected, an elite athlete and an emotional being. But my youngest son, his capacity of emotion is 10 times more than anybody I know. So he has a whole different need of emotional support. My son Ryan, now how does that transform into his life? He's a modern day Mozart. Someday I'm going to have him on here. He's learning the song my way Frank Sinatra's My Way on the piano. It blows my mind. How amazing. This young boy, he's 14. He started when he was 9, can play. Why? Because he's been emotionally honored, kept in a safe space his whole life as his adulthood is growing so that he never lost his spiritual communion. Because his emotions and his spiritual connection is all together. It's all in the same place. If you're a little. If you as a little kid were super sensitive, I can pretty much guarantee you you probably weren't honored. Sensitive kids are the ones that are made fun of the most. Oh, you. What's the matter? You get your feelings hurt? All of the unconscious nonsense that caused even more pain now for Joe. I didn't feel the first sense of loneliness or aloneness until I was 18 years old. I had a great kid. I had a great childhood. My abuse happened when I was 7, 8 years old. I forgot about it. It just went into a compartment and it wasn't even around. My parents were not mean. My parents were not hateful. They were not spankers, they were not yellers. My. I got spanked twice my entire life. Probably deserved it 40 times. I was not. How would you call me? I was that stereotypical kid that hunted frogs. You know, I was dirty and rough and I had two rules. I couldn't go out before the sun came up, and I had to be home before the sun went down. I was outside playing all the time. You can imagine I wasn't an easy kid. But my parents were not hurtful, they were not harmful. My dad was never around, so I was abandoned. My mother could not emotionally support me, so I was neglected. Is that a bad thing? No. Am I blaming mom and dad? No. Am I blaming your mom and dad? No. Those days are over. We are the generation of change. We are honoring where we are and how we got here so we can give to ourselves through the inner child connection, that which we never got from the adults of the past. That, my friend, is called human Transformation of consciousness. We are transforming our consciousness. What does that mean? Transforming our consciousness. In the past, our consciousness said, it's everybody else's fault that I'm hurting. Mommy didn't love me. Daddy was never around. Their fault. I'm a victim to them. Days are over. No. And the word victim. Victim in the moment that the pain happened. Victim. As a child, when you were being abused. Of course, yes. Now, let's fast forward 40 years now. And I'm going to caveat. I. Of course, if you are just traumatized by somebody over these past days or weeks or months in physical, harmful, hateful abuse. Yes, you are a victim. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the person that's in emotional sense of growth and moving from the consciousness of I can't do anything about it. Because that's what a victim is. When you're being traumatized by somebody, it's not your fault. You can't do anything about it. That's why you're called a victim. When you're being traumatized. Yes. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking after the fact. When you're healing, when you're in therapy, when you're in community, when you're safe, the mindset of I can't do anything about it or victim is over because you can. How do I know? Because if I can heal, anybody can heal. Where I started, as closed down as a man, as a male, as the macho, as every social belief against the whole concept of emotionally healing, I lived from. And I don't anymore. I consider myself a God guy. I'm traveling the world telling people how to emotionally heal as a man. Well, ladies, if I can do it, you can do it. And boys, men, buckle up. Because it's nothing you've experienced. You think you're rough and tough? Wait till you're bent over in pain because your little kid needs to grieve. Is that a threat? No. It's time. Why? Because the reward on the other side, which I'm going to get to in a second, is 10 times that of the pain. The last part of the grieving process that was just not freaking comfortable is psychic death. Ouch. All I can say about psychic death, it's a fricking ouch. And what is psychic death? The experience of psychic death. When you're grieving, it's like you literally, it's like your best friend died. It's a real sensation of loss. Real sensation of loss. When I was grieving, neglect, it was literally a pain of hurt, was like a knife stabbing. Neglect is like the pain of a knife stabbing. Where I was grieving. The sense of abandonment, it was more like a bruise. It was just this ache. I couldn't touch it. I couldn't heal it. It was more just an ache, feeling of grief. Psychic death, the grief of psychic death, it's like the loss of your best friend. And what is psychic death? Well, I keep saying we're changing. Humanity's changing. Yeah. How do you go from the consciousness of your yesterday into the consciousness of your tomorrow? You have to grieve the transformation while you're grieving the transformation. That's called psychic death. You're literally shedding the skin of your yesterday. In this metaphor, the skin is the your consciousness of your yesterday. You're literally grieving who you used to be so that the new you can move forward and live from a grander place of self. I'll give you an example for myself. Years ago, I considered myself a macho badass. Wanted to get as strong as I could. I drank all the time, I sexed all the time. I smoked marijuana all the time. I did. I smoked marijuana like people smoke cigarettes. And I dared anyway. I cussed every other word. And I was purposely felt like I was the king of the world because I could drink better than everybody else until some kid down in Florida beat me. And then I felt devastated. I was self hateful, harmful, hurtful, you name it. I had an ugly adjective to call myself. This whole concept called God. Fricking hated God. Why I should say if God loved me, I wouldn't be in so much pain. That's when I learned wasn't lack of God loving me that's causing the pain. It was lack of an environment that could be there for me. Abandonment, emotionally support me, neglect. That's why I was in emotional pain. And then my behaviors of myself, that's why I was in emotional pain. God had nothing to do with all that. And God isn't codependent by the way. Just so y' all know, God doesn't rescue. Why the greatest gift that your higher power gives you is this thing called free will. You want help from a power greater than yourself? Humility. How do you get humility? Ask for help. That's it. Well, fast forward. I consider myself a God guy today. Haven't drank or drugged in 30 plus years. The concept of sex today is the act of loving, not the act of relief. The concept of giving back is my normal. I've moved all the way through the process of gratitude from an experience of accomplishment to grace from an experience of giving back. Think about the conscious shift that Joe's gone through over the past 30 years. How did I go from one area to the next, to the next to the next? I embraced the depths of myself. And the more I embraced the depths of myself, which is on the feminine side of self, the more I embrace the depths of the darkest, deepest, most painful parts because I gave a voice to those parts, the more I remembered a power greater than myself. It was a remembering experience, not a learned experience. I'VE read one book my entire life. It was called Conversations with God. I used to go out into the woods and the trees and I were my friends. Different trees. I live here in Georgia. If you've come to Atlanta, go to a place called Stone Mountain. Single largest outcropping of granite, I think, in the world. Stone Mountain was my best friend, literally. I would lay on Stone Mountain and I couldn't tell the difference where I started and Stone Mountain started or where I started and stopped and Stone Mountain started and stopped. I could literally experience myself as one with the mountain. The yellow daisies were my friends. I literally named animals I would see up there. Nature was my friend, literally. And I wasn't always like that. I wasn't. How did that happen? Was I pursuing any of that? No. How did it happen? Because I was pursuing not hurting. What did I do to not hurt? I gave a voice to the deepest part of my emotional sense of self. Where does the emotional sense of self reside? In the feminine side of you. What else resides in the feminine side of you? Your spiritual sense of self. And that's where personal growth and spiritual growth eventually commune together. They're separate events in the beginning. Creating a relationship with a higher power and creating a relationship with the inner child. In the beginning, they're separate. So you can have a powerful connection with your higher power and grieve and hurt all the time, too. You can do both, but over time, they become one. They just do. And how do I know? Because eventually in my path, my emotions went from always an emotion based on hurt and angst, our death, our grief, our abandonment, our neglect, to emotions associated with gratitude, with completion, with pride, with grace. So the reward, the true reward of doing deep emotional work, the reward is the overflow you have because you're healing the depths of yourself. And the deeper you heal, the grander you commune. And that experience over time, from going from living glass empty, all the ego based, fear based, hate based, shame based, guilt based voices guiding your life to glass full voices guiding your life. Hey, note to self. I'm doing a global podcast. Are you freaking kidding me? If you knew me. I'm just a guy, but I'm practiced at this. I'm really practiced at the following of my divinity, truly. And the emotional side of that. Literally the very first time it happened, I was in a place I had been grieving a long time. And when I say grieving a long time, I have to put it in context. I mean, five years for me now. Do you have to do five years? No, you don't. But I had to before I felt really any sense of relief. Truly, any sense of relief. Well, eventually I'm sitting there and I was in my bedroom, and I start feeling. And it's like I woke up. I used to wake up and say I could tell how my day was going to be if I could lift my elbows off the bed. Literally. That's how much the challenge I lived through. Well, this particular day, lift my elbows right up, it's like, what the hell? That's different. And I got up and I'm not kidding, it was like the sun was brighter that day. It was like I felt lighter. I literally got up and before I felt misery, I felt okayness. Before I felt tired, I felt energetic. Before I felt dark, I could see the sun. And it started to happen. I literally. And then I'm sitting there doing kind of my morning time stretch, wake up, whatever, and I hear it, and it's my little kid saying thank you to me. And for years, all I heard is, I'm hurting, I hate, I want to die. I'm sad, I'm lonely. For years, that's all I heard. The first time that I heard my little kid say thank you to me. And he said, thank you for finding me. Like, thank you for not leaving me behind. Thank you for being here for me. I grieved and I grieved and I grieved. Gratitude. I was feeling pure gratitude. I remember thinking as I started grieving, I'm like, what the hell? I grieve sadness all the time. Now I have to grieve gratitude. And that thought didn't last long, but I grieved and grieved and grieved. True gratitude, where the inner sense of self, inner me thanking adult me. Powerful. Really, really powerful. And in that place, from that spot, from that sense, I knew I had accomplished something. I had gotten to another spot. And in that original sense of gratitude, it was more just my inner me saying thank you. And so it was a me with me experience. And it's pure gratitude. And the grief was amazing. It was so cleansing. It was so freeing. It was so pleasurable. It was such a sense of overflow. And that's why I know the difference in what real love is. True love is when you're sharing your overflow with somebody, and when you're sharing overflow with no condition, then it's true love. It's a true sense of overflow love. It's a beautiful experience. It really, really is. And that experience stuck with me for 20, 30 minutes. I never forgot it. I had several like that. In the future, I try to go back to it. And then like any other kid, my little kid's like, yeah, you know, I'm doing good, how are you? You know. But in that moment, I really learned what gratitude is and agreed. Well, then, just like psychic, death is the ending of the old, so the new can come forward. I would have these grieving sessions of grandness and I just knew that I had completed like a phase of my yesterday and there was a completion feeling. And from that sense of completion, I would grieve. Grieving mean tears of joy, tears of wonderment, tears of overflow, tears of I just can't believe it. I did it. I freaking did it. I made it. You can only imagine some of the times. Listen to the podcast where I quote Wayne Dyer with Jesus says return to the child because that's why I use it, you know, this return to the child. Why spiritual awakening requires you to return as a child. Well, the return as a child for Joe is returning to your inner child. Why? Because the childlike nature in you is where childlike faith comes from, where childlike joy comes from, where childlike innocence comes from. And as you integrate those that faith and that joy and that innocence as your child feels better and you and the child become one, that communion, that's where your ability to commune with the power greater than yourself becomes so powerful. Think about it. Think about the faith of a six year old. A faith of a six year old. You've got six years old, you've got a son or a daughter, or you had one, that's six. You've got a granddaughter right now who's six, seven. When you say to them, okay, honey, it's time to go, jump in the car. They don't ask you where they're going, they don't ask you where the directions are. They don't ask you. Oh no, should I? No. What do they do? They jump out of the car. Why? Because you're their higher power in that moment. As a six or seven year old, they have unlimited faith in you. Undeniable, unconditional faith that you're going to take care of them. You jump in a car, well, do that with your inner self. Your capacity to have unconditional faith in a power greater than yours becomes even grander. And that's a very, very powerful thing. Another place of, of gratitude I felt was a sense of pride. And where pride happened for me was not pride for me, but I was so proud of others. Eventually on this Path. I got into the AA program, and 15 months after not drinking and drugging, I walked in. I'm probably the only guy that ever walked in and says, oh, my God, this is a spiritual place I'm in. I had not drank or drugged 15 months before I walked into that meeting. But then after, I went through the terror of asking somebody to be my sponsor, Wayne V. And I became a sponsor, and I sponsored several men. And each time, these men would reach another level of accomplishment. The first and biggest level of accomplishment in the AA program is you get a white chip. You know, that white ship is a physical representation of the emotional sense of humility based on the statement that said inside that person, I need help. An AA white ship is a physical representation of an emotional state of humility based on the vulnerability of I need help. That's what it is. Well, there's a sense of gratitude. That guy, our gal is in that place. But where pride came in, I'll never forget it. I helped the guy almost from the beginning. And where. When he picked up his wife, when he picked up his blue chip, his first birthday, I was so proud that I grieved. I didn't know what the hell I was grieving about. You have to understand, I wasn't that familiar. It wasn't easy for me. I didn't really know. Now, this particular man I sponsored lived on the other side of the tracks here in Atlanta, down here in the 90s, 2000. He was a gay guy hooked on heroin, who was a prostitute to make his living, put that combination together and try to get sober. You think you're having a tough day? Let me repeat that. His name was Jimmy. Gay black man, heroin addict, prostitute. Him. He was the prostitute who made the decision. It's time. And I was able to freaking help him. And he got sober because I could listen the only way I could listen. He told me stuff I've never forgotten. But there was no judgment. Why? Because I'd done so much emotional work, I'm like, dude, if that's all you got, bring it on. And his stories were bizarre. He lived in areas where, back in that period of time, if a white person like myself went into that area, you wouldn't come out. It was rough, really rough. We all have communities in our big cities where white or black, green or fricking orange, if the wrong person walks in, you ain't coming out. Jimmy was in the center of that. Well, not anymore. 12 months, he got sober. He had been sober 12 months. I'll never forget it as Long as I lived, sponsored him. He actually asked me at his 10 year sobriety to tell his story and I did. And the pride I felt of him, not me, I didn't do anything. I listened. Go to a meeting, Jimmy, I'll meet you. He called me. He had a sex addiction that was to kill him. And he called me because he called me instead of doing heroin because he knew if he did heroin then he'd drink. He made it, he did. And I'm sure he's been prosperous. But I grieve because I was so proud. Now, now I can go to a movie and I see a dad hugging a soldier, I cry. I see a little girl hugging daddy, I cry. You know, I go to weddings, I cry. I mean, I cried everything now. And I just never knew that feeling. And there's no grander sense of our humanity than to cry because you're so happy for somebody else. And that is a human experience. And, and it's a, it's an amazing one. It's a reward. The first time that started to happen for me, actually my first emotional release associated with gratitude when my little kid in his preciousness said thank you to it made the five years, seven years of just misery. It all went away in a moment. It was worth every second of it. That 20 minutes of internal grace and gratitude made the seven years of really dark hard times worth every second. As time went on, being able to give back. The 12th step of every program is the service step. Well, being so proud of somebody else and their accomplishments, you just want to hug their neck and just love on them and tell them just so proud of you. It's a reward. It's a reward you get for embracing the depths of yourself. And I used to think that was kind of the end all be. I thought that those experiences were the real deal. And then I was asked to go to South Africa and to do a TEDx. Guy calls me on the phone and says, hey Joe, here, you want a speaker? You want to do a TEDx? I'm like, yeah, that'd be great. He says, great, jump on a plane and meet me in South Africa. I'll never forget. I was like, south Africa, the country? He's like, yeah. So I had one of those gulp moments. I've never even left Atlanta, barely. I'm certainly not a traveler. I want to be. I'd love to travel the world. I plan to go back to Africa for sure. So get on a plane and 15 hour flight non stop. I get there, I meet the people of that country, absolutely fabulous. They glow, their eyes are amazing. Just amazing people. So I share the story because as I'm there, one of the other TEDx speaker who's a global traveler named Chris, he says, anybody up for an adventure? Meet me. We do, we're walking around and Chris is the one that helped me, who taught me that 400 million people in the continent of Africa don't have water. My head exploded. I literally make fun. I said, I am probably the only guy on the planet that didn't know I call myself, I am stereotypical white guy in upper, upper middle class suburbia Atlanta. You know what? Everywhere I look, everybody has water. But my eyes were opened that day for sure. Then I learned that one of the single largest killers on the planet is people drinking dirty water. The largest percentage of hospital beds in the globe is because people drinking dirty water. I just didn't know. Well, now I do. And I started something called Project Smile on the way back. And because I'm a guy, when I have an awareness, I have to take action. I've got this big personality and my grandness can't sit still. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do something about it. And so I started a website, a nonprofit called ProjectSmile World. And I started a live stream called Project Smile. And look me up, look on my LinkedIn ProjectSmile World. And I had this as a flying back because Chris, as we're walking there were two beautiful young boys who came up to us. I said, Chris, what about them? Do they have water? He looks at me and says, joe, there's no way those two kids have water at home. And I was dumbfounded and I said, but water? But they all have cell phones. And he looked up, he pointed up and when he's pointing up, he pointed at the satellites and I was like, oh, so what these countries do is they make satellite communication for cell phones super cheap so they can communicate, but they don't have water. Okay? So I came up with this idea that if I could offer free education to the poorest communities in the world, we can at least start educating people for free Change consciousness, which worked, go to projectsmile. 80 some thousand people have downloaded our stuff. But where I experienced this feeling. So I get back, I'm in Atlanta and this is where I really started understanding that why we're the generation of change. As I'm flying back, my, my ticket in row 43 was like $3,000. But the people in first class, about 50 of them up there, 13 to 18 to $25,000 just so they could stretch their legs for 15 hours. Now, am I making them wrong? No, I think it's fantastic. You have 20 grand to spend on a flight. But I said, if they've got $20,000 to stretch their legs, what if I could help them realize that let's take another 20,000 and drill a well for these people? Long story short, I realize, I come back, I'm going to support. I go online, I find a caregiver. I can't even pronounce his name. I call him Mr. B. And he tells me he needs 50 bucks. I'm like, what the hell? I'll give him 50 bucks. Click, click. I have to figure it out. Thing called world remit. And within five minutes, this man has $50. Within two hours, he sends me back a video of 12 kids in his orphanage that have a sign that says, thank you, Mr. Joe, for your love and support. Technology, the wealth of the planet is amazing. The technology is there. And I'm starting to generate this understanding of why we're the generation of change. Well, the next time he calls me, we're communicating. He said he needed some money because a little girl named Patricia needed money because she broke her arm. Now, in that country, you break your arm, all they do is wrap it in gauze because you don't have the dot money to go to the doctor. And he's like, what the hell? I'll send him the money. It was like, 50 bucks, 60 bucks. And he sent me pictures of when he's at the doctors. He sent me a video while he's at the doctor's, the X ray. And you see this little girl's arm, Think about this. She's eight or nine, broken arm, bone out of place. They can do nothing. I said to him later, I said, what would have happened if he went and got the money? Well, eventually they had a tourniquet the arm and cut it off for $50. When I realized later that my $50 saved a little girl's arm, the experience I had was grace. I wept and I cried and I wept and I cried. The grace I felt was absolutely off the charts emotional grace. Because 50 bucks. And I started this live stream. So I had this little girl, Patricia, on my live stream, and she can't understand a word I'm saying. She speaks zuhili. And. But you could see the beautiful eyes, the big smile. She's shy as she can be. And he told her, because this is four or five months later, right? Move your arm, Grace. That's where I really learned the concept of our humanity is about accomplishment and gratitude. When you're living from your humanity, it's a wonderful thing. Gratitude list and accomplishment and growing wealth and growing things, it's wonderful. Gratitude is wonderful. But what I learned is that gratitude is not the end spot of the human experience, it's the launch spot of the human experience. The true end relationship with your humanity is when you connect from your humanity to your divinity. And what the action steps of divinity are are giving. What the emotional sensation is. When you're giving from your divinity is grace. When you're in your humanity and the action steps of accomplishment by doing hard work and receiving its gratitude, gratitude is wonderful. The difference is gratitude is an ever chasing event. You do something wonderful, you're grateful for it on Monday, but by Tuesday the gratitude kind of dwindles. So you go and pursue something else for more gratitude. Is there anything wrong with that? No, it's called the human experience. It's a beautiful human experience and we're waking up to something grander. Because your divinity is the experience now of giving back. And how do I know the difference? Because in my heart today this experience I'm talking about was last May, May of 2025, it's March of 2026. And the grace I feel in my heart today, eight or nine months later because my $50 saved a nine year old's arm is the same. It's the same. Grace is not an ever chasing event. Grace is an ever giving experience. And that's where I learned the difference between gratitude and grace. One of my podcasts right there, Patricia. And from that whole concept, that's where I came up with this whole idea of where the generation of change and where Joe's role out there and doing a podcast like this in writing my books, which I've got several books that are coming out, please go to we podcast, we podcast global and sign up so you can, you know, get free copies of my books and all that when they come out is I figure there's so much wealth and people that need help, physically need help, but the real gift, if I can help people with all the physical experiences they'll ever need and all the gratitude they'll ever need and all the gratitude they have in their moment right now, if I can help them understand that gratitude is the launch position, not the end, then the scratch they have that they can't itch isn't pursuing more gratitude, it's growing into their divinity which then will be pursuing grace. That's why I Came up with the concept 1% one time. And it worked because of my live stream, right? My last livestream had 55,000 people on it. Now think about that. That's a ton of people from what I hear, 55,000. I've got this guy, his name is Farhan. And because my live stream is going so well, you know, he was willing to come on, he's willing to talk to me. Long story short, he has a spiritual experience years ago. He now is one of the single largest developers, land developer in Dubai. And Farhan, through his spiritual experience multiple years ago, he had committed that as he rebuilt a business, 10 to 20% of the profits of his business, would he be giving back? Well, sure enough, I met him, we talked, I sent him my book, my original book, we. And through that book he realizes that the God he's been praying to is actually inside of himself versus outside, has a bigger spiritual experience. So he and I are connecting pretty well. And I introduce him to my caregiver with the. With Patricia. I have two caregivers and the other guy, Mr. Allen, Lo and behold, Farhan says, I'm going to have my guy get in touch with you. And he does. So his guy, I can't pronounce his name. I'm just going to call him Mr. M. Well, Mr. M contacts me, I get Mr. M on live streams with both my caregivers in different meetings. Well, sure enough, this is five, six, seven months ago. Five months ago, last summer, a week, a month ago, I get a message from my caregiver Alan. And Alan Farhan and his staff of five visit my caregiver in Uganda and they do the whole thing. They give them stuff, they support them, they pay their rent and they give them beds. And the experience, I felt it worked because my divinity has the ability to put a voice out there into the world. Now I have to put all of this in context on how it's divinity, not Joe. My divinity connected with a caregiver in Uganda. Now I was introduced to Mr. Allen in Uganda by a gentleman who was on my live stream out of Australia. Okay, so Australia introduces me to caregiver in Uganda. First divinity. Then a gentleman in India introduces me to Farhan in Dubai, another set of divinity. Then Farhan and his team connects with Joe in Atlanta. And then Farhan and his team goes to Uganda. Think about the distance between the humanities but the sameness of the divinity. And the reason I share this story is because about a month ago, three or four weeks ago, I get a video and there's A there's my guys, my caregiver and my kids. There's 44 of them sleeping on beds because of Farhan. And the experience I had was oneness. And that's truly, I have to tell you, I've been on this path a long time. I've never felt that kind of magical emotional release before of oneness. And that's the reward of doing all the deep work. That's the reward of doing all the facing the pains, giving a voice to the deepest parts, having the courage to embrace. That's the reward. And that oneness I experienced in that emotion, it changed my life. It really did. Every emotion you could possibly have came through. You know, I came up with this concept of Project Smile that came up with the concept called, came up with the live stream called Project Smile simply because of that live stream. Fairhand came on. Now literally after that live stream, I never did another one. I was guided to do something else. You know what it was? Start this podcast. And it's because of this podcast right here, the we podcast. We are going to build this thing with so many millions of God centered divinity centered Jesus centered, Buddhist centered higher power centered people, all people pursuing relationship with their higher power, connecting with that higher power through embracing the deeper side of themselves, creating a oneness inside first and then a community called we here on the we podcast. And that's how together we heal humanity. There are thousands of these full time caregivers, the Allens, the Mr. B's, the Mr. M's around the globe. All they need is money. And there are millions of people out there with billions of dollars pursuing their next adventure. And their next adventure is to seek grace, not gratitude. They've outgrown the need for more gratitude, but they're in the beginning infantile stages of pursuing grace. The we podcast is to help people understand that when you live in grace, you live in oneness. When you live in oneness, there's no grander experience. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. This is one of those shows that I know changes people. It changes me. As I hear my own story, I'm like, what the heck? It's been quite the journey from a place of deep, dark misery to the emotional experience of spiritual sense of oneness and the humility that says, oh my goodness gracious, if I can, anybody can. It's not me. I am just a guy, just like you, nothing different. We're all the same. We all have. We're all created in that image of God and we're in a time where we're waking up to it. And collectively, as more and more of us do it, collectively, as we come together, we create a big, powerful force here on the We Podcast. Together, we heal humanity one smile at a time. Thanks for being here, everybody. I really 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 $25,000,000 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.