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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. I want to welcome everybody here today and I just want to tell you how grateful I am that you're here. And I've got an amazing topic today. It's called why can't you move forward? And what kind of personal growth does it really take to do it? Let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like you really needed to move forward, but for some reason you can't? It's not because you're lazy. It's certainly not because you're broken. It's just because something's holding you back and you don't necessarily know what it is. You know, most people, and this is truly a challenge, they really believe that moving forward is about trying harder or thinking differently or staying positive. But the problem is the real reason you can't move forward, it really doesn't have anything to do with the moving forward process. It has everything to do with learning how to let go and truly what you're holding on to. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I hear people all the time on different well meaning podcast and they say all the time, well, you just have to go get them, tiger. Get your backside off the couch and go do it. Today's the day. Write the list, go do it. And you know, I love people. I love their encouragement, I love the concept. I wish it was that simple. But the truth of the matter is, it's not. How do I know? Because if it was, you wouldn't be on this podcast for sure. But if it was as simple as just go do it, you'd have already done it. Everybody would just go do it. Well, why don't you? Why can't you? And I'm here to tell you the answer is not really what you think the answer is deep inside you. And today I'm going to give you some techniques to truly identify the why you can't move forward, the true reason why. And I'm not just going to tell you to go get them, tiger. I'm not. I never do that. I'm going to give you step by step instructions on how I moved forward and what I did to move forward. Because I say to people all the time, if I can do it, anybody can do it. You know, I Want to welcome everybody here. I want to welcome all the new listeners to the we podcast. We are growing. Amazing. I really, genuinely support. Appreciate everybody's support and the tens of thousands of downloads we're getting. So welcome. If you're new here. And I always want people to know a little bit about Joe. The truth is, I'm not a researcher. I'm not a doctor. I'm certainly not a teacher. I'm none of those things. You know who I am. I'm you and you're me. We are the same. We're people on a spiritual path, waking up to something grander than we ever knew possible. That's it. That's what's happening, and that's why I'm here. Not because I know more, not because I can teach you anything, but I can share my experience, strength, and hope. Because if I can do it, move into a world of true wonderment from the depths and the darkness and the difficulty I lived in for years, anybody can. And that's what I'm here to share. I'm here to share not only how I did it, but what it takes to accomplish the it. And what is the it in this topic moving forward? And we're going to talk about it. We really are. And we're going to. You know, I'm going to share like I always do. I'm going to share some of my stories at the end. And I have to tell you, I've gotten more practiced at doing it. In the beginning, I would say, oh, my gosh, that is not comfortable sharing the old dirty socks that Joe used to live as. But what I'm realizing is that my dirty socks and your dirty socks, they're the same. Of course the details are different. The style in which we did it differently. For most of you, the aggressiveness of my life is. Isn't yours. Because most of you weren't as addicted as I was. Most of you weren't such a control freak like I was. Most of you weren't so hateful like I was. Most of you didn't say F you every time you had the word God in a sentence like I did. Most of you are starting from a place of a much gentler beginning. And why do I say it like that? Am I criticizing myself? No. I'm saying it because what I share on the we podcast and why people are so connected to it, I share. Because if somebody like me can go from where I went to where I am now, truly anybody can. And please understand, if you're new here, welcome, Joe was never a spiritual guru. Let's go have a great relationship with God. Are you freaking kidding? No. That was never me. Now today, do I live in an absolute communion with a power greater than myself? I do. I really, really do. And I am blessed. And I can tell you I'm a living example that the more practiced you become at following your divinity, the grandness in your life is going to be expressed truly, just like the grandness in my life. And let me give you a quick example before I get into our episode. Somebody tell me if it was Joe. Like, I was so freaking special. I'm not. What am I good at? I'm good at listening to a power greater than me. I learned years ago how to separate the glass empty voices from the glass full voices. And what are the differences? The glass empty voices are the ego voices, the shame based voices, the hurt based voices, the guilt based voices. And I learned how to separate those. And that's one of the things I'm going to teach you today. And how to follow the all possibility voice, the all encompassed voice, the all encouraging voice. Now, for Joe and my path, I never stopped at the voice. I had to always go into the depths of why I had the voice, which in my world I called inner child work. And I always had help. I always had support. So please make sure you've got somebody you can bounce your stuff off of. And I say all that because I'm going to tell you straight up, if it was Joe, if it was me, how would somebody like myself, in six months, all by myself, be able to rank number five in the education category on Apple podcast? I couldn't. How is it happening? What's happening? Because of all you. And why are all you here listening? Because the same divinity in you is in me. And I'm just practiced enough now to be able to share that divine part of myself. Not Joe. It's the divine sense of Joe that's coming through. And I welcome you. You are here because you are a true spiritual warrior. We are at the beginning, beginning of humanity waking up to the. To the greater sense of ourselves. I just did a TEDx this past weekend and I said to the audience, we are the generation of change because humanity is waking up to the feminine side of herself. She is. She's waking up to the spiritual side of ourselves, which is all on that feminine side. And we all are kind of based in two, two dualities. The male side, the female side. The male side is the mental physical. The female is the spiritual and emotional. And we are all Waking up more and more every day to the feminine side of self. And it's in that waking up process that as you become more practiced at being guided by the voices, by the instincts, by your intuition from your feminine side of self, that connects you more to your divinity. I'm a living example of that. And the successes that we podcast are having, trust me, folks, it's not because. Joe, are you freaking kidding? No. I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy like you. And you know, are we unique? Yes. Are we special? Yes. Because we're all special. We're all created in God's image. We are. And the question of why can't I let go? If you're one of those people and you see yourself and you just say, I just can't do it, I'm going to ask. And what I'm going to share with you is the letting go process. Most people look at the letting go process as an action step. Just let go and let God. I remember the first time I heard that, I said, yeah, no kidding, Dick Tracy. If I could just let go and let God, I would have done that 10 years ago. If it was that simple, folks, everybody would do it. And the truth of the matter, it's not. And so if it's not about letting go, Joe, then where's the solution? People ask me, the solution isn't in the letting go. The solution is to pursue and search and have personal awareness on why you're holding on in the first place. Holding on is not our birthright. Holding on is not our normal state of being. Surrender is our normal state of being. Openness is our normal state of being. Awakened is our normal state of being. How do I know? Look at a brand new baby. I've got two brand new, a new niece and a new nephew in my world. Blessed. And my little nephew Lucas, he's. They live in Cincinnati and they sent me a picture, a little video and Lucas found himself there other day. Now Lucas is a couple months old, so he's in that beautiful, perfect wonderment stage. And they sent a video of Lucas talking to himself because he sees himself in a mirror. And just look at the essence of a brand new baby. Do you see anything holding on in that baby? No. Do you see anything fearful in that baby? No. The essence in which we come in is open, spiritual, amazingly free being. That is the true birthright of your spiritual sense of self, your divinity, your God like image. What happens? Life freaking happens. And what happens in life? Well, if the spiritual sense of you is on the female side, why isn't it stay connected our whole life? The other thing on the female side is the emotional sense of self. And society over the generations never really knew how to support the emotional growth of a being. So as the emotional side of you was not supported, your spiritual essence wasn't supported either. Is that a bad thing? No. Am I blaming anybody? No, it's just the truth. You know, I was born in the 60s, I grew up in the 70s. Spiritual growth and personal awakening and emotional support, it didn't exist in the 70s and 80s. It didn't exist. The New Thought movement happened in the 90s, not the 80s, let alone the 70s. So does that mean our parents hurt us? No. Does that mean our parents inability to emotionally empower and support us caused us harm? Yes. Does that mean we're blaming anybody? No. That means we are the generation right here, right now, waking up to a grander truth that says we can heal that which was closed down years ago. Through support, through discovery, through awakenings, we can. There's more support out in the world now than ever before. So when you're in that position of you can't let go, what I want you to start understanding is the why. And the why isn't because there's something wrong with you or you just have to work harder, all that. It's not. The why is some part is holding on. Well, why do parts hold on? What is the reason for the holding on? And the answer? Fear. Simple. Well, great. It's fear. Okay, Joe, I got it. I'm afraid. Now what? Well, the now what is the spiritual growth side of this particular talk. Why can't we move forward? Well, the answer is there's personal growth that's required to help you let go. Why do I need to let go? Because you're holding on. Why are you holding on? Because of fear. Okay, so what is the fear about? That's what we're going to talk about here today. We're going to talk about what's the source of the fear, what do we do about it and how we move through it, how we heal it, how we get on the other side of it. And why do we want to do all that in the first place? Well, the main reason you want to do it is because if everything was wonderful in your life and everything was perfect and everything was fantastic and everything just felt congruent as it could be, you wouldn't have a challenge moving forward. Why? Who wants to move forward if everything is already wonderful and if that's you, great Keep listening because you need to help others do the same thing you did. Because most people weren't born in a place of grace. They weren't. They were born there, but they don't live there. A lot of people get back there, but. So keep listening so you can share and help others do the same thing. And I want to talk about the fears of truly what the fears are and what the differences are. But I think it's also important to understand the why we need to move forward. Because if you have a big enough why, then you have more of a motivation to address the fears that are keeping you from living. The why, the bigger you. And that's the why. Quite honestly, the bigger you, there's a you inside, a grander you, the new version of you, the bigger that is wanting to be lived, needing to be lived, has to be lived or you can't sleep. Well, that sounds fantastic, Joe. Well, why don't we just live it? Because you can't let go of the old. That's the trick. So the why you're doing it, truly the why, the why we're wanting to move forward is because there's a grander you that's coming out and the reasons a grander your is coming out. I want to talk about it a little bit and I want to kind of separate this portion so you can have more clarity about the different reasons. There are grander, there's a grander sense of yourself coming forward and those fears that keep you from moving forward, we're going to address it. But I think if you understand the why and what the why really is and you know kind of how to get there and what the end result is, it'll give you more personal motivation and more personal inspiration to truly address the bigger reason. And the bigger reason isn't the inability to let go. The bigger reason is the discovery of why you're holding on, who's holding on, what you're holding on to and why you're afraid. The fear of letting it go. Now first I want you to understand that since we are truly multi dimensional beings, multidimensional being means that we have multiple parts of self from an essence, from the true essence. There's a male side and a female side. Male side, like I said, mental and physical, spiritual side, emotional and, and spiritual. So let me repeat that. Physical side, mental, physical, female side, emotional, spiritual. As we understand, we're multidimensional in the spiritual side of ourselves, in the emotional side of ourselves. You're multi dimensional. You have mad feelings, glad feelings, Sad feelings, scared feelings, and you're multi dimensional. There's multiple parts of you interacting at any given moment in time. Now, unlike other eras of time, the spiritual side of yourself is waking up in a way that's saying, I want to live a bigger life, a better life, a grander life. But the other parts of you are saying, heck no. Not doing that can't make me, can't force me. I'm not letting go. Well, if we try to battle with the I'm letting go part, you lose. Why? Because the I'm not letting go part, looking at the I'm not letting go, the part holding on, that's not the answer. The answer is the hurt underneath that part. And that's where the personal growth component truly comes into play. Now, growing and in a place of personal growth, there's multiple different things, types of personal growth, there's spiritual growth, there's personal growth, just wanting to live a better life, and then there's emotional growth. And those three things, even though they're all happening within you, there are different solutions to address each one of those different types of growth you're going through. It's going to be a lot clearer at the end of this podcast when I share my story, because I'm going to share my story on how I went through different phases in my life and how each one of those different phases really represented an emotional growth period, a personal growth period, and a spiritual growth period. So I don't really know why, where you're at in your world and why you're needing to move forward and what you're wanting to grow into, but we're going to discuss each of those. And in that process, right when we really understand that sometimes the fear of moving forward really isn't about moving forward. The fear truly isn't about the end result. The fear is about the change of going from today's reality to tomorrow's possibility. So what are we holding on to? We can't let go. Okay, we start there. Well, letting go isn't the answer. We have to address why we're holding on. Okay, so now we're at the why we're holding on part. Well, one of the biggest reasons people hold on is not because they don't want to move forward, but they're afraid of the change that goes on from going from one place to another. The change. Fear of change is one of the single largest fears, they say, besides public speaking, fear of change is humanity's largest fear. And that's why I think it's Important to understand what it is you're changing into clearly so that you can help address the parts that are afraid of the change. Well, I wish I could say that fear of change is the answer. Just, you know, get accustomed to change and you're going to change. But no, that's not really the solution. It's not really the fear of change that deadlocks us, that just grips on, that says, hell no, I'm not. What's saying with the death grip is not the change component. It's the emotions associated with the change. And that's. People are more afraid of their emotions that are caused when they have to change. And that's why their egos get so big. My ego was massive and I used to call it protector parts. And my therapist Nancy would say, joe, what is it protecting you from? And I would say all the pain underneath. So truly the source where we get it down, we keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into the solution. What is the real essence of the fear? And that's the fear of the emotion that is underneath all of it. And that's why when you truly understand that most of the time the reason you can't move forward is because you can't let go. And you can't let go because you're afraid of change. And you're afraid of change because change causes emotion. So really the whole letting go process is about embracing the emotion. Then it's a totally different thing. So how do we embrace the emotion? Embrace. We embrace the emotion by giving a voice to your darkest parts. By giving a voice to the part that's so afraid, by giving a voice to the deeper part of you that is holding on in the first place. Because why is it holding on? Because letting go is painful. And in that process, when you really get it, when you really see it, and that's where depending on the depths in which you have to go to cause surrender and to cause letting go, if you have to go really deep, like if you have to go into childhood stuff, that's why you need therapy, a therapist, a counselor, somebody you can bounce ideas off of that can create a safe environment that's there to support, there to hold your hand when you're going through challenge and hold your head when you're in depths of pain. Because that's what it takes sometimes. Most of the times. No, no, most of the times. Moving forward is as simple as changing your choices on a daily basis. And I'm going to share how that happened for me, in the beginning, years ago, I Just changed my daily choices and how I did that is I had to understand that the old way in which Joe was being guided, the voices in my head that were guiding Joe were the glass empty voices. For example, you know, one of my most profound glass empty voice was, well, I want to just go have fun. Well, great, let's go have fun. Well, I'm going to go have fun where people know me. Well, great, that's great. Well, people know me at a particular bar or we're shooting pool where there's craziness all the time. And I thought that was perfectly normal. Now, that worked. Not really, but until I had, you know, I started to stop drinking. So I don't know what your daily choices are that are causing you not to move forward. But we have to address that because sometimes, quite honestly, it is as simple as writing down whatever it is you want to move forward in. Let's say you want to change a job, or let's say you want to start a new career, or let's say you want to start a new hobby. Anything you want to start but you and the starting of the new something, the new experience is your definition of moving forward, right? Well, most people will just say, well, go do it. Just get off the couch and go pick up the pencil and go start writing a book, or go start drawing or go whatever the it is. I don't know what your it is. Everybody has their own. Well, the answer to it isn't in the action of doing the it that causes moving forward. We need to listen to the voices that come up in our head every time we think about the moving forward. Let's say you want to write a book and you just can't seem to get in the flow. You just can't seem to pick up the pencil. You just can't seem to start writing, you know, in you. But you can't seem to do it. So what's the technique? I want you to get out a piece of paper, I want you to write down, I want to write a book. I want to move forward by writing a book. And then listen. It's the listening right there that's the key. Listen. Because you're not going to hear the voices say, fantastic. I'm with you, I'm encouraging you. I can hardly wait. You're going to be fantastic. It's going to be sensational. Because if that's the voice, you'd already written the book, you'd have already moved forward. You'd already be living as a published author or an author who has written what's in your heart but what comes up. No one wants to hear your book. What the hell do you think you are? You're not a writer, you're the math guy. Joe, Joe, you can bear. You don't make any money. Joe, you're a loser. Joe, you're a drug addict. Joe, you're a drinker. Joe. Joe, I had hundreds of. Joe, you're a piece of blank, blank, blank and none of the adjectives were favorable. Well, that's why in the beginning I didn't write a book. And I don't know what yours are. But the key in the beginning, the easiest step and let's say you want a new career. Let's say you want to move. Let's say you're in a toxic relationship, you want to get out of the relationship. Let's say you want to create a different support system. Let's say you want to make more money. Let's say you want to give back money. I don't know what your definition of moving forward is, but if you can't just effortlessly move forward, the solution isn't in bulldozing additional action. The solution is in the discovery process of the voices that are dominating your head, which are keeping you from taking the favorable actions. Let me give you another example. Let's say you want to, you're in a career and you don't like your job. It's time to move on. Or you live someplace and it's time to move. Or you want to, you want to start a nonprofit or you want to start counseling kids or you want to whatever your it is, whatever your definition of moving forward is. And you can't do it. You haven't been able to do it. Moving forward would mean doing the it, living the behavior of your new grander action. And you can't, well, write the action down on a piece of paper and then listen and listen to all of your glass empty voices. The shame based, guilt based. I can't. You can't. You're not good enough. You're not. This voices, I call them glass empty to kind of encapsulate for Joe. They were self hateful, angry, ugly, horribly dismissive voices. That's where Joe started. For most of you it's going to sound more like simple, gentle. I don't have enough time. Don't have enough time. No one really cares about that, Joe. I don't really have any information to share with anybody. I don't know what your glass empty voices are. Write them down now. I wish I could say writing them down was the end result. It's not. Because writing them down is the discovery part. And I can tell you every time you write down your glass empty voices and the glass empty voices, the reason you need to write them down is because the glass empty voices are the reason that you're holding on. You're holding on because a part of you is saying, hell no I'm not. And the source of the I'm not are the glass empty voices. There are plenty of glass full voices in your essence right now, encouraging you. How do I know? Because you wouldn't have all these great ideas if you didn't have glassful voices already. Why can't you live those glass full voices? Because the glass empty voices is what you've been practiced at living your entire life. And that's where personal growth, where we grow out of living our old and into our new. Sometimes it is as simple as doing this type of exercise. Now it doesn't stop there. The glass empty voices, when they come out of your head, the power of those voices and the discovery of how many you have will give you a real sense of oh my gosh, no wonder I could never move forward. Look at all these reasons. I tell myself I can't. But the true power is when you take those voices you get with a partner, not a family member, certainly not your spouse, not somebody who hasn't done this process themselves, but you get with somebody who you can share those voices with. Why? Because where two or more are gathered, there's a higher essence in the room, period. And there's a humility associated with truly sharing your glass empty voices with somebody else. And from that position of sharing the power of the voices, those glass empty voices become less and less. And for most of you, because most of you are feeling the moving forward idea, it isn't a life changing job, changing house, changing choice. Good friend of mine, years ago he wanted to start learning how to play the guitar. He's a dentist. Million dollars worth. Millions, not millions. He's got a million dollar practice. But he wanted to learn how to play the guitar. So we talked about it and his big excuse was I don't have enough time. I was like Mike, get up earlier. I'll never forget the look on his face. He was like, well oh crap, I can do that, I can do that. That's all it took. What was his moving forward moment? The next day he were he already worked out every morning at 5:30. All he had to do is get up at and start at 5:15, 15 minutes earlier. Why? Because learning an instrument, 15 minutes a day, five days a week, stunning. The end result. So in his moving forward, the original voice was, I don't have time. And for a decade he believed that voice. For a decade he never picked up the guitar. He bought a $500 guitar. I don't have enough time. One simple awareness, he shifted his world by 15 minutes. Nobody knew except him. Nobody. Most people aren't up that early. I wasn't up that, like I told him, don't call me at 5:15. I'm not up at 5:15. But he was every morning already. And sure enough, he, over the years did that 15 minutes. Did it for years. And what he found is that the rest of his entire day was different. When he would take that 15 minutes and live from that higher sense of himself in the morning, everything in the rest of his day was fuller, grander, more wonderful because he felt like he was moving forward. Did he change his job? No. Did he change his house? No. He still has the same house now. Now, of course, the house has been paid for now for 20 years. He still has the same dental practice. He's getting ready to sell it now. Multiples of millions. But his day to day interaction of feeling grander, feeling bigger, feeling better grew because he changed by 15 minutes. So for a lot of you, the moving forward isn't life changing, life altering, massive. It's something small and the solutions to it are small. But the only way you get the solutions is that you have to be able to go into the awareness, the personal awareness of the glass empty voices that are stopping you. And from that position, you're going to be amazed at how everything shifts. Now, some of you, the behavior is much bigger. There's a true emotional growth, a spiritual growth that has to go on. And I see it the most. You know, it's interesting because I call myself the king and queen of codependence and addiction. Why? Because I was addicted to, addicted to everything. And I was codependent beyond codependent. So I can talk about both of those massively destructive, internal, powerless behaviors very clearly today because I was massive in both of them. So I can support people on both sides too. And I used to think getting over addiction was really just brutal because as I stopped drinking and I stopped drugging, the amount of emotion that came up was just off the charts. My, my talk, one of my episodes, Modern Day Monk, listen to that one. Because Modern Day Monk is really my story. And it shares about how I went through that seven Years. And my real story about the spiritual experience of drugs and alcohol being removed in a moment and then the consequence. Sexually abused and the awakening. And I thought addiction was it. I mean I really did. I thought, man, when I got over addiction, I was going to be set. Well then I came across this thing called codependence. Ouch is all I can tell you. I met a woman, I was six or seven years sober. I was in my mid-30s, she was late 20s. Beautiful, sweet, kind, anything and everything you'd want out of a person. And as we got together, we had a cool interaction. And back then I was talking to inner child and self discovery all the time. I was. And our conversations became about that. And this particular woman had a boyfriend and. But when she broke up with that boyfriend, I thought maybe we'd get together. Now from her side, it was never a thing. She saw me as a friend, she always claimed me as a friend and she was always honest, which was beautiful. You know, I don't expect anything else but honesty from somebody. But the little kid in me got attached. Somewhere somehow along the way she said something like, I just love hanging out with you. And my little kid interpret that as she said she loved me. She said she loved me. For 22 months I had the voice of my little kid saying, but she said she loved me. But she said she loved me. But she said she loved me. Now this young female, gorgeous, beautiful dating person, she had three different boyfriends over a three year period of time. Natural, the normal dating scene, right? Well, my little kid completely nails attached to her. But she said she loved me. But she said she loved me. And what did it cause me to do? It caused me to change my behaviors so that I couldn't act out the voice that said but she said she loved me. And what would that have looked like? Hanging out when I wasn't welcomed, Trying to push a relationship that wasn't going to be personal. One time I literally was on her way there because my voices were so massive. She had just met a new boyfriend and I was going to knock on the door acting like a complete fool, but she said she loved me. Why was I doing all that? Because it was easier to live my old hold on to the old choices, the old behaviors, the old way Joe lived. Joe, because when I changed, what happened? Pain and emotion. Remember I said earlier, the deepest part of the holding on process isn't the holding on. It isn't the lack of moving forward. It really isn't the fear of change. It's the fear of the emotion that comes when you change. So fear of change really isn't the stopping point. It's a true reality. Fear of change. But the stopping point, the place is under that. And what's under fear of change? Well, when you change, what happens? When you change your external behaviors, what does it expose? And if your external behaviors are unloving or codependent or addictive and you change them, you stop them, what it exposes is the reason the wound that was causing the old behaviors in the first place, the hurt. And in my world, the hurt was abandonment. The hurt was neglect. My little kid, I grew up in a family that I love you is not part of our vernacular. Nobody said, I love you. Now, my mother was always there for me. My father took care of us. Was there ever. I love you, Joe? No. Was there ever? I'm proud of you, Joe. No. Did I need it as a little boy? Yes. Did I get it? No. Were my parents trying to hurt me? No. That's why I always say this isn't about blaming. It's about realizing the natural consequence of growing up in an unconscious society 30, 40, 50 years ago or before. And so when somebody actually said, I love you, the little kid in me, the deeper part of me attached to that, and if you take that attachment and act it out, then you're acting out codependently. I'm trying to get her to love me so I would feel better. That's called codependence. Well, by the grace of God and support with my counselor, Nancy, I changed my behaviors. And every time I wanted to act out crazy, I didn't. And what would that do? It would expose my little kid, and I would sit there and feel my pain. I've got a buddy of mine that I help that has the same type of thing where he's dating a woman. And, you know, she's got some real challenges, and if she doesn't get help, she's going to die. She's an alcoholic, active. And I keep telling him, dude, you got to let her go. You can't help her. And, folks, trust me, I know the belief system that societal delusion has projected. Love heals all. That's a BS line. Love does not heal a thing. Nothing. Nada. Strength heals. Love supports. Strength heals. Well, my buddy, every time his girlfriend gets in a challenging spot, rushes right in. Look at me. I'm Mr. Wonderful. I'm rescuing her. I told him a thousand times, you're killing her. You, my friend, are killing. You are participating in her death. You can only imagine. The first time I said that, his eyes got big like saucers. Why was I saying that? Because every time he saw her in her pain, he had pain inside himself. Every time he saw her in her pain instead of. And feeling pain, instead of embracing his own pain, he went to rescue her pain. And he labeled the rescuing of her pain love. That's not love. That's codependence. And when you're dealing with an alcoholic, somebody. How do you know if they're an alcoholic? And truly, I say that from a figurative speech. The truth of the matter is only the individual can call themselves an alcoholic. But here's the facts. When it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and goes quack, quack, quack every day, it's typically a duck. When you have somebody who drinks every day, passes out half the time, can't keep a job, and their body's closing down because alcohol. Good possibility, they're an alcoholic. Do I get to call them that? No. And until they call themselves that, they don't have a prayer. There's only one solution for alcoholism, and that is turning your life over to a power greater than yourself. Now, most people don't call that God, that's for sure. Not in the beginning. This whole getting a white chip thing, you reach a place where you say, I can't do this anymore. I need help. And when somebody says, I need help, and they get to a meeting, they get a white chip, they've got a prayer to have a prayer. Now, for those of you right now that are on this call and you've got somebody who's drinking too much, you can't help them. You can't. You can suggest, you can support. You can't help them. They have to find a power greater than themselves, period. And that's going to happen in a meeting. But my friend, he kept thinking, well, I love her. I'm doing it because I love her. I said, you know what? You're full of shit. You're killing her and you're abandoning yourself. His eyes got big like saucers. And I was like, hear me. You're seeing her in pain. You're feeling pain, and you're rescuing her so you don't have to feel your own pain. How do I know? Well, because today I can see somebody in deep, dark misery. Pain. And I don't feel pain, folks. I feel compassion. I feel empathy. I don't feel pain. Why? Well, because I healed most of my pain. The podcast that I have called the moment you realize your mind can't heal your heart. I go through that whole process and I want to encourage people. My podcast is more like a library. You're going to listen to different shows and different episodes over and over and over because it's really designed in a way of a spiral. There's different things you're going to get on different episodes that, you know, you're a warrior. I don't know what else to say. If you make it 45 minutes into my podcast like you've done it right here, you are an absolute spiritual warrior. You're on a path, and your path is unique. Most people around you are not going to understand it. They're not. But you, you'll be able to find different episodes that my divinity has created out there that your divinity is going to guide you to and listen to it over and over. My podcast, the we podcast, is not a one and done. It's not. It's not really designed for that. It's designed to have people come in and have growth per episode, if you will. Well, and I. I wish I could say that I was the source of all that, but I'm not. I'm just the guy that's able to listen and able to share and my friend eventually, and this was the what I cloaked. I said, listen to me. You keep your backside on your couch and let her deal with her couch. You stay on your couch. And sure enough, he did. Eventually, with help, with support, with me, with therapy. I wasn't his therapist. I was his friend with a therapist, with meetings, with Al Anon meetings. Every time he wanted to act out, every time he saw her, he remembered the pain is in him. Well, if you're too busy acting, you've got a little kid inside who's in pain saying, what about me? When do I get my pain to be felt? Well, eventually, on his couch, in his sacred silence, he felt his pain. And by the grace of God, now, numerous years later, he's doing great. His spouse now, because they eventually got married, is two or three years sober. Why? Because there was a time where he had blocked and she hit a bottom and she couldn't get rescued by daddy or mommy or whoever the hell he was representing in her. And she had to call somebody else for help. And you know what that somebody else did? They didn't help her. They took her ass to a meeting. That's what they did. They picked her up, they put her in the car with strength because they could. They cared, but they put her in the Car with strength. It's not easy. Nobody wants to see another human in pain. Nobody does. But you can't help them. You can support. You can stand next to them. You can walk them in. You can't make him go back. Well, because he wasn't available for her to act out, his codependence basically kept her addiction fed. He sat on his couch, he blocked her. So her addiction couldn't be fed by him. As soon as it couldn't be fed by him, the pain got bad enough. And you know what happened to her? She woke up one day, vomit all over, had urinated on herself, was in a miserable spot. Typically, she called mommy or daddy, whatever boyfriend was to come clean her ass up, she couldn't call him. You know what happened? She sat like that for either one or two days in that misery. And then you know what happened? That massive addictive, alcoholic, hateful voice in her head, a little bitty voice came through and said, I need help. And she got help. And by the grace of God, that woman's sober today. Would she have been sober if my buddy hadn't stayed on his couch? No, wouldn't have been. How'd my buddy stay on his couch? He realized that for his life to move forward, he had to address what he was really afraid of. And what was he really afraid of? The moving forward into a wonderful life? No, he was afraid of if he changed his behaviors, he'd have to feel the pain. Now, did my buddy go through a ton of pain? He did. Now, was his pain anything that long? No. Basically, I don't know, five, six days. Was it horribly hard for you? Him? Yes. Did he make it? Yes, because he was in his pain. Did his female partner at the time get to use him to stay out of her pain? No. And her pain got it to the point where she said, I need help. She's. I think she's close to three years sober now. She's gonna make it. She's doing it, and they're both doing it. I am so proud of them. Because it's not easy. It's not easy. So when you really realize that the personal growth part, the moving forward part, the why you can't move forward is because there's a part holding on. The part that's holding on is holding on because you've got all these glass empty voices in your head telling you to hold on. Well, you have all the glass empty voices in your head because you've got a hurt inner self that's creating all those. So the real reason you can't move forward when it comes to life changing. Now with the guitar, was that life changing? No. Would Mike's life still have been cool? Yeah. You know, he still has his lake house, he still has his million dollar house, he still has family, he still has friends, he's connected in his church. But he was missing a sense of peace. 15 minutes. It was a 15 minute change for him. Gave him a real sense of peace. Did anyone else know? No. Did he know? Yes. My buddy who had to change his entire approach to his relationship, that's life changing. That took true spiritual shift. That's harder. It is. Why? Because that was really an emotional shift. He had to deeply change his emotional approach by changing his behaviors. That's different now. What was he afraid of? The pain in his own belly. He was afraid of his own pain. Is he fearful like that anymore? No. Why? Because he addressed the pain. He felt the pain. And because he was able to feel the pain. Truly, he's living a different world today. He is, you know, So I want you to understand, and I'm going to share my story pretty quick. There's different types of shifts, there's different types of pains. And I will tell you the most challenging of the moving forward. I shared a couple about changing, simple stuff. I shared some around deep change your life behavior, what you called love, his definition of love got changed, and that's a pretty powerful thing. But one of the changes that's happening the most right now, the personal change, was more Mike changing his 15 minutes, getting up earlier. The emotional change was my buddy John changing his approach and what he defined as love. But quite honestly, the change that's going on the most right now, right now as we're speaking, is a spiritual change. And that spiritual change is happening because there is a massive number of people that are being asked to live life differently than they ever did before. Not less. Not because of pain, not because of angst, not because they're changing the whole world, but because their divinity is waking up screaming to be listened to, screaming to be lived. The podcast that awoken my public spiritual awareness that happened back in September 2022. A woman was sharing her story, how she had just sold a multimillion dollar business, launched her two boys to school, sold the house, got a divorce. Everything changed. Now it's interesting, I've never met this woman, so I don't know what happened. One of these days, I hope to meet her so I can see what happened, but she was in this massive shift and I get it. I really do. Because that's what happened to me after listening to her story. I read something and I felt my divinity re engage. How did I know? Because my divinity was mirroring hers. How did I know it was her divinity? Because she wrote a paper, a document talking about a grander tomorrow. The voice in you folks that's talking about a grander tomorrow is your divinity. It's your divinity. Now the challenge with living a grander tomorrow, you have to allow yourself to be guided by a grander you. And here's the challenge for successful people out there. Humanity's approach to success is about putting it out into the world and receiving back and accomplishing gratitude, truly, and it's wonderful. Gratitude, lists and success and wealth and all of that, it's wonderful. But that's your humanity's definition, Success, gratitude. Well, your divinity's definition of success is grace. Well, what's the difference, Joe? Gratitude is when you receive and you're grateful for it. Grace is when you give and you have an everlasting experience because of the giving. And for most of you on this podcast, right now, you're not in deep, dark places, you're not in massive codependence, you're certainly not drug addicted and alcohol addicted. Now you know people that are and get them on here. Because my experience, strength and hope can give somebody the hope to do something different. If I can, they can. And I say that all the time. But my podcast, Gratitude to Grace, it's one of my most popular podcasts. Why? Because that's what's happening to most people. You're shifting into, you've got everything you need, you've got more money than month, your kids are doing great, you're an empty nester and you're 50 and you've got a couple million dollars in a bank or you've got a job you like, but you've got extra time because your kids are gone or you're involved and you're seeking your next thing. But the normal way to do it, the old you goes and tries to pursue another business or goes to pursue another career, or goes to another trip or another travel and is that all wonderful? It is. Is that satiating your need to spiritually grow? No. Mike changing his 15 minutes, that was a personal growth. John changing his definition of what love is, that's emotional growth. What's spiritual growth? Spiritual growth is when you go from your self loving humanity guiding you, which is going to guide you to pursue gratitude, to allowing your divinity to guide you, which is going to pursue grace, the pursuit of Grace is in the pursuit of giving back. That's why I coined the term 1%. One time, I started a nonprofit called Project Smile because I learned that over 400 million people in Africa don't have water. And I really experienced grace for the first time. A man needed $60 because a little girl had broken her arm. Her name's Patricia. And without $60, eventually they'd had to cut her arm off. 60 bucks saved this little girl's arm. I've got two caregivers in Uganda who have families, but they are dedicated to over 80 kids. Because of my live stream I did before my podcast, there was a gentleman that owns a company called Revo out of Dubai, and Farhan had a spiritual experience, and he gives a massive portion of his wealth from his development company back into the world every day. I saw a picture I introduced. And because of Revo, my kids, my. I call them my kids. The veil is gone. I feel these kids just like they're my own. 80 kids in Africa have beds because this man's divinity, an entire community, they drill. They drilled what he calls a borehole. I would call. They call it a borehole. And because of that, a community of a hundred people now have water before they had to walk. Think about that. Walking 45 minutes to get dirty water out of a stream that the cattle up the. Up the hill were drinking out of. This whole community now has a borehole because this man's divinity. And I saw the picture, he sends a team of five, he spends more money on their flights because he's going to do it right. Why? Because that's what his divinity is telling him to do. So most of us here, where the moving forward is a spiritual event, and that shift from having your gr. Your humanity guiding you and pursuing gratitude to your divinity guiding you, pursuing grace is an amazing accomplishment. And as that happens, that's how we heal humanity. As enough of us. My goal is 100 million downloads a month. And as I can have 100 million people help 100 million people, it's only 1%, 1% of humanity. And all of you are helping me do that as we can have 1% of humanity giving back 1%, wealthiest, most advanced technologies ever. We are the generation of change because we are spiritually waking up. Why? Because humanity's waking up. Literally, humanity is waking up to her feminine side of self, where the spiritual essence of you lives. And how do you live your spiritual essence? You seek divinity and you seek grace. The accomplishment of divinity is grace. And as more and more of us do it. More and more of us will do it. Thank you so much for being here. I have grace every time I'm sitting here behind this microphone. The support, the love, the everything I get from all of you is absolutely fabulous. And I thank you. Together we are waking up. Together we are the generation of change. And together we are healing humanity one smile at a time. Thank you so much for your support.