Life, Lessons, & Laughter - The Spiritual Warrior 4-9-21

In this episode of Life, Lessons, & Laughter I dive into the term Spiritual Warrior. What does that term mean? What are some of the attributes of a Spiritual Warrior? What are some misconceptions about the term? How do you know if you're on the path of the Spiritual Warrior? I answer these questions and more in this episode

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hello everybody,

Welcome to the show.

So here I am at my neighbor's house because the internet has not been figured out yet.

So they're nice enough to let me use their place.

And it's cool,

I get their lights on and stuff.

I'm styling man.

So today we are talking about something that anybody that's listening to me should be able to relate to once we dive into it.

So the term is actually called spiritual warrior.

And right now,

Especially with all the changes that are going on in the world,

We're all a spiritual warrior in our own way.

You know,

Sometimes,

I mean,

There's plenty of people recoiling and hiding and not doing the work.

Of course,

You know,

There are always is that that group of people,

Which is fine,

You know,

We're,

We're not going to change them anytime soon.

I'm gonna try to get this lighting a little better.

Yeah,

We're not going to change them anytime soon.

So it's really,

You know,

We just let people be as they are.

But most of us that are that are in any doing any type of work on ourselves trying to be better and not trying not hiding from the difficulties that are going on in our lives and around the world,

Then we're tapping into the spiritual warrior that's within us all,

Which actually kind of leads me into the first aspect of being a spiritual warrior.

One of the aspects of being a spiritual warrior is understanding that everybody has this divinity within them.

Everybody has the ability to open up to a broader aspect of themselves,

A better version of themselves.

You know,

We all have this within us.

And it's important to as we embark on our spiritual warrior journey,

Our spiritual walk,

Our just our walk through life at this time in history.

To the to have the understanding that everybody has this within us,

You know,

It's the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu talk about how they use the concept of oneness to really give themselves solace and keep moving forward and to be their own spiritual warrior.

And one of the things that that gives us that a lot of people aren't aware of is that it does give us solace when,

You know,

In recovery,

They call it terminal uniqueness.

When we're caught up thinking that we're the only ones going through struggles or we're the only ones working on ourselves or the we're the only ones anything.

We don't have that connection with others,

Even if it's even if it's not a even if you're not interacting with people just to have the understanding that there is divinity within every person.

Maybe it's covered up by a bunch of crap and they can't get to it yet,

But it's there.

It's in them.

And when you you can't you're not going to know this unless you just attempt it.

And what I'm spirituality,

There's a lot of aspects of spirituality that are like that.

Oh,

Let me let me put on my little comments here.

Hi,

Sarah from and you're in California now.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So like a lot of things in spirituality,

You know,

Oftentimes when I'm in a role as a teacher,

People are,

You know,

Asking questions and I'm trying to convey information.

And it gets to a point where,

Like at the end of the day,

You don't know what you're doing.

Neither do I.

Neither does anybody.

Like you just have to do it.

They're like,

You're never going to get to a point with most spiritual things that you fully grasp them,

You fully understand them,

And then you go do them.

Really,

Nothing in life is like that.

And spirituality is immensely like that.

Just a little bit more than other things.

We'll say so like.

So people want to feel comfortable before they do something,

Before they interact in a way.

They want to think that they fully understand that they fully comprehend it and they're fully capable of doing it before they actually do something.

And nothing is ever like that ever.

I mean,

You graduate from college.

Does that mean you're ready for your first job?

Of course not.

You don't know what the heck you're doing.

You know,

There's always training on the job.

If you leave one job after 40 years and you go to another job and you've got 40 years of experience,

Do you know how to do that next job?

No,

Of course not.

You have to,

You know,

There's a learning curve there.

There's a learning curve everywhere.

We are constantly jumping into things without fully grasping them.

You know,

And so and that has many kind of dynamics on it for a spiritual warrior because you have to have courage to do that,

To lean in when you're not 100% sure.

So,

You know,

Back to what led me in this direction was I was talking about how you need to it.

You're not going to comprehend fully how the concept of oneness can make you feel better unless you just try it.

It's the only way you're and you don't have to like perfect it or go out into life and sing Kumbaya with 350 people holding hands.

That's not what I mean.

I mean,

Just you can sit in your house and,

You know,

Some people will be able to do it this way.

And just think about the oneness of everybody.

Think about the fact that,

You know,

Everybody was created divine.

I mean,

When they were children,

When there were babies,

There was no life that beat them up.

There was no dysfunctional behaviors.

There was,

You know,

They were innocent.

And,

You know,

The dysfunctions have come up after dealing with life,

You know.

So,

And I mean,

Of course,

You know,

Sometimes there's past life stuff that needs to be healed and all that.

But the point is,

Is that everybody is divine at their core.

You know,

If you think back to a younger version of you or a child that you might have or a niece or nephew or grandchild,

You look at them.

I mean,

The world is there.

You can see it.

The world is their oyster.

They have something special within them and everybody has that.

Like I said,

A lot of times it's packed up and covered and difficult and all that stuff.

So,

I mean,

You know,

That happens.

I mean,

Stuff gets on top of our divinity,

We'll say.

And it's difficult to see that.

You know,

It's difficult to access that.

It's difficult to see it in other people,

Especially when they're thinking and acting in ways that we don't like.

But we need to try.

We need to try.

And it doesn't mean that we have to approve of what they're doing or even understand why they're doing it.

It's just a matter of simply,

Simply sitting there and going,

OK,

There's divinity in every person.

You know that we are all connected,

We are all one.

And if we can anchor into that.

That's going to give us some solace.

We're not going to feel so alone.

And if you are having trouble with this,

Read some of their books.

The Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu did one together fairly recently.

I don't remember what it was called,

But it's fairly recent and it's those two.

So I'm sure you can Google it.

But as you read that book,

You can see how they lean into that in times of difficulty,

Because those two people have gone,

They are leaders of their groups.

They are political and spiritual leaders that people look to.

And the people that they are leaders of have gone through tremendous amounts of suffering.

So for them to be able to leave their heart open.

So this is really the point of it all.

To really leave their heart open so they can be loving and compassionate and move forward in those energies as the spiritual warriors that they are.

The way they can do that is by understanding that there is divinity in all of us and we are all on this journey together.

And just that thought,

Just like,

Oh,

Okay.

It relaxes your heart because you know you're not alone.

And just this is what I mean.

I just said that and I felt it.

I felt it in my heart.

That connection.

Just saying that we are all in this together and really allowing yourself to feel it and leaving your heart open.

So you can move forward.

That's a big aspect of being a spiritual warrior.

So,

You know,

Leaving your heart open like that is another key aspect.

So if you can leave your heart open to really move forward,

That's what a spiritual warrior does.

You know,

We don't close off or hold our breath.

So think about how people usually go through difficulty or change.

Sometimes,

You know,

In unhealthy ways,

They'll close off or block themselves down and,

You know,

And they'll close their heart off,

Really.

That's what they're doing is closing their heart off and being strong and tough.

And this is a big,

This is one of my big points here with the spiritual warrior is understanding what it is.

And it is not a warrior in the term of fighting against things.

This is why aspects like keeping your heart open are so important.

Because you have to close your heart off and you have to think that whatever you're fighting against is not like you to fight against it.

It's bad and you're good.

That's how,

That's the old mentality that has plagued this world for thousands of years.

You know,

That me against you,

That doesn't work anymore.

It's,

You know,

Me against you fighting against things.

We have to stop fighting against things and against people.

So when you leave your heart open and you start connecting with people,

Now all of a sudden you can start seeing how that's different from closing yourself off from other people and thinking that there's something separate from you because as soon as there's something separate,

Like we don't,

We don't realize that we're doing this.

But as soon as somebody is an other,

Well,

They're like this and I'm like this.

As soon as you do that,

You're stripping their humanity and you don't even realize that you're doing it because it's a subconscious thing that you're doing.

And it's been happening since the beginning of time.

This is how all wars have taken place because every religion on the planet which has basically ruled most cultures for thousands of years is religion and has played a part in war.

All these religions said thou shall not kill.

Well,

How are they all going to war and killing people if their religion that dictates their culture and their society says that thou shall not kill?

How can you pull that off?

Well,

It's by making people an other.

A non-believer is another and we don't think anything of it.

Oh,

Well,

They're bad and I'm good.

But it's more than that.

It's stripping the humanity of them.

That's why you can kill somebody that you think of as an other,

You can kill them because they're not like you.

In what way?

Well,

Subconsciously,

As a human,

You don't consider them human anymore.

You consider them a non-believer or different or whatever and subconsciously that strips away their humanity.

So this is why being a spiritual warrior takes the courage because it's harder to stay open.

It's easier to close off.

This is why so many people close off.

The way of the spiritual warrior is not easy,

But it can be simple and it can be worth it.

But by no means is it usually easy.

Nothing we're doing is easy.

This spiritual walk isn't easy,

But it's simple and it's worth it.

That I can promise you.

So I'm going to go click on something as I go through here and throw some comments while you're out there too.

Luke is listening.

I don't know if I know Luke,

But it looks like he's listening.

I think they're both listening from YouTube.

That's interesting.

I don't have any comments from Facebook yet.

Hopefully the comments are working okay.

I know Facebook was doing a change thing.

And of course,

I'm just going to kind of do my version of this.

Well,

This is a good point.

Noticing the difference between pain and suffering.

We're going to experience things in life that are painful.

Sometimes physically,

Sometimes emotionally.

It's going to happen.

That stuff happens.

But we have to make sure we understand that suffering is different.

And the way it's phrased here,

This thing that I'm looking at says,

Pain is the inevitable hardships of life.

And suffering is the avoidable negative narrative you add on top of that.

Losing your job is pain.

Telling yourself that this means you're a failure is suffering.

Ending a relationship is pain.

Interpreting this to mean that you'll never meet anyone again is suffering.

You see,

So they did a really good job.

I didn't read that ahead of time.

They did a good job explaining that.

So that's important.

We're going to experience pain.

But 90% I venture to say is that of the uncomfortability is suffering.

And it's needless.

It's because we create all these stories about what the pain that we're experiencing means.

Or what it meant.

Or what it's going to mean for our future.

Or what it actually meant the past.

You know,

A lot of times in relationships,

When a relationship ends,

One of the first things that the ego does to protect itself is it starts going back and going,

Oh,

Well,

They broke up with me.

So remember all those amazing,

Wonderful times where we had those deep connections?

You know,

When we spent that weekend at the Airbnb and when we did this and when we did that and we had that moment and it was just so tender and we're so connected.

It obviously didn't mean that much to them.

It meant a lot to me because I'm good.

See,

We're creating otherness again.

So that's a story that we're creating.

You know,

And it's not true.

I mean,

Who knows?

I mean,

You know,

Of course,

There are times where something meant more to you than it meant to the other person.

But more often than not,

I've been on both sides of that coin.

And more often than not,

When I was in that moment with that person,

It was magical.

It was beautiful.

It was,

You know,

I felt like so connected with them.

It was absolutely wonderful.

Now,

All of a sudden,

Six months or a year later,

The relationship didn't work out for other reasons.

And I end it.

Well,

That doesn't mean that that time that I spent with them,

I was lying or it didn't mean that much to me.

It's not true at all,

You know,

And then a great deal to me.

And it might still mean a great deal to me.

But it doesn't mean that the relationship needed to continue on forever.

Otherwise,

Everything I said or experienced in the past meant nothing.

You know,

It will just I'm just a cold hearted jerk because the relationship ended.

Well,

That,

You know,

That's not the case.

So that's just an example of these narratives we create in our head,

Which elongates the suffering so we can open up and deal with the pain and work through the pain.

But the suffering,

We need to know the difference between those two.

And we need to let go of the stories and stop the needless suffering.

We're going to experience pain in this life,

But it's really not that big of a deal.

We've all experienced that many,

Many,

Many times where we run into problems is the stories we create around it and trying to avoid it,

Trying to avoid pain.

And like I said,

90 percent of it is the suffering from the narrative we created around it.

We we're never going to avoid pain.

This this that's life.

This life is an experiential realm.

We are here to experience everything.

So we're going to experience pain.

We're going to experience sadness.

We're going to experience anger and frustration and joy and happiness and peace and love.

And we're going to experience it all here.

We all are.

You know,

That's that's an aspect of us all being connected.

So where we get into trouble is when we start thinking that we can avoid some of this stuff or wanting to avoid stuff.

So gaining,

You know,

I never know how these talks are going to go.

And the way this is going is kind of it's kind of piecemeal.

Looking at it,

Going to try to give you some clarity on some aspects of being a spiritual warrior.

Because then when you have some clarity about what it means,

You can start to try to live your life like that.

And when you try to live your life like that,

Now,

All of a sudden to me,

It kind of all funnels down into all the specifics that I've talked about earlier,

As well as other specifics about being a spiritual warrior.

They all funnel in to the term spiritual warrior,

Which to get there,

They it goes through courage.

You know,

When I when I woke up,

Like I you know,

I when I was younger,

I fought everyone and everything.

So when I heard when I woke up and I heard the term spiritual warrior,

I was like,

Sweet man,

Freaking Yeah,

Spiritual warrior,

You know,

I'm a spiritual warrior.

And it was like empowering in an egoic way,

Which I didn't know at first,

But I liked that term,

You know.

And then,

As as I really kind of got accustomed to who I was in my new life,

I started I didn't like that term.

I was like,

I don't like a warrior mentality.

Like,

I don't want to fight everyone or everything that that's my one of my biggest problems in my previous life was I was fighting all the time.

I don't want to fight.

I don't want to be a warrior against anything.

You know,

So I dropped the term.

I just dropped the term.

I didn't use it.

I didn't really pay much attention to it.

And I just said,

It doesn't resonate with me,

So I'm not really going to use it.

So I didn't.

And then I don't know how long a year or two,

Maybe I started seeing it everywhere.

And I started hearing people that I respected in the spiritual community using that term.

And it started capturing my interest because it was it was coming up a lot.

So I was like,

You know,

Why am I seeing this all the time?

Oh,

Well,

Maybe it's time to revisit it.

So I started thinking about it and I'm like,

All these people that I respect.

In their spiritual walks resonate with this term,

But I'm not resonating with it.

Why?

Like what?

What about this term do they resonate with?

Maybe there's another way to look at it other than fighting.

So I started thinking about what you know,

What does a warrior do?

What does a warrior represent?

And the first thing that popped up was courage.

I was like,

Courage?

I'm like,

Oh,

OK.

So now all of a sudden I have this image of this warrior standing there in the face of danger with courage.

You know,

Not necessarily absent of fear,

But standing there anyway.

And with courage and faith and things like that.

And I'm like,

Oh,

You know,

Now all of a sudden.

So once my brain kind of resonated with a different mentality of what a spiritual warrior was,

Then I brought it back into my vocabulary and started using it again and resonating with it again.

And,

You know,

I think it's a great term because,

I mean,

I don't personally I think I just kind of I don't use it to speak of myself that often.

I mean,

I do.

But sometimes it just comes out here and there.

But really what I see it is where really like comes up and I really resonates with the situation.

Like is other people.

Because when you're going through your stuff,

You've got your emotions and you know that sometimes like you're actually being courageous,

But you still feel a fear and sometimes you don't feel like an actual warrior standing against stuff.

Right.

But it's clear to see when you look at other people.

Like years ago,

I did a sacred fire walk,

You know,

Walking on hot coals.

And I did that.

And the first time I did it,

I did it alone.

I don't think I knew anybody in the group that was doing it.

And it was really amazing and profound and wonderful.

And then the second time I got together a group of people and we took a bus up from Rhode Island up to Massachusetts,

Southern Mass,

To do this fire walk where my friend hosts them.

And at Sisters of Solace,

If anybody's in that area,

Check out Sisters of Solace and check out Carrie Cudmore.

She's the one that leads these and other things.

So I'll give those two places and people a shout out.

And so I kind of got a group of people that I knew to go up there and do it.

And we took a bus up.

So I had,

I knew at least 80% of the people that were doing the fire walk.

And I knew at least a little bit about their story.

Some of them were working with me.

Some of them I knew personally.

I knew enough about them to know that they had stuff going on in their lives.

Because everybody does,

Right?

We all do.

But I knew kind of a little bit of the subjects.

So I kind of knew this.

And it was,

I mean,

I did the fire walk too,

But watching people go through the process,

The five hours beforehand of working through what you have to work through to get yourself in the right state of mind to be able to go walk on hot coals when your body and your mind is going,

Don't do this,

This is bad for you.

And you do it anyway.

Watching people walk through fear and knowing a little bit about all their stories,

It was like watching a group of spiritual warriors in action.

It was really such a profound experience because I got to see people.

I knew that they had fear.

I knew that they had issues.

I knew that this was symbolic.

And I saw them and I witnessed them push through and be the warrior that was within them,

Connect to that spiritual warrior within and walk through the fear with courage and strength.

Like,

Wow,

Man,

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

And I see it regularly.

The reason I'm doing this is I had a conversation with a friend of mine recently about that.

And I saw the spiritual warrior in her.

And if you are on this path and you have your eyes open,

First you understand,

This helps open your eyes,

Understanding that we all have divinity within us and we all are going through our own struggles and understanding that.

If you have that as a foundation,

You're going to see it more because you're not going to be so judgmental,

Judging everybody for the way they're doing their things or what they're doing or how they're doing it.

You're going to be like,

Hey,

How do I know they got their stuff?

Just like I got my stuff and they're trying to work through it.

And all of a sudden you start seeing the courage that people go through.

You start seeing the,

You know,

When people,

One of the most courageous things that we can do is stand in our shame and face it and verbalize it,

You know,

Because shame can't stand the air,

You know,

It needs to be kept secret.

That's part of shame.

So when we speak our shame,

Whatever we're shameful about,

The courage that it takes to do that is amazing.

That's a spiritual warrior.

You know,

That's when I I mean,

I've experienced it many times in my own life.

I've experienced it many times with with Sponsees when I was sponsoring alcoholics and addicts.

I saw it many times because that's the first time I saw it.

You know,

When you do a fifth step.

Fourth step is writing down all your fears,

All your harms done others,

All your sexual harms done others.

You know,

All this,

This stuff,

All your stuff,

All your resentments,

Everything.

And then you've got to verbalize it.

You actually have to speak it to another person.

And it's amazing how speaking that stuff,

Especially to somebody that knows what they're doing and can guide you a little bit.

It's amazing the energy,

The trapped energy around whatever you have your shame around,

How it releases.

And all of a sudden,

You know,

I'm not saying that all shame,

You just speak at once and then you're free.

I'm not saying that what I'm a lot of times that is the case,

Though.

Sometimes it takes a little more.

But whatever.

My point is,

Is that the when somebody speaks their shame,

The trapped energy that is causing the suffering and the pain is some or most or all of it is released instantaneously,

Because it's no longer shame if it's brought to the light,

You know.

So and that takes real courage.

And again,

It goes back to that oneness when we you know,

It's commonplace in the recovery area,

But like,

A lot of people outside recovery don't really understand this as fully because they haven't gone through the 12 steps,

Which takes you on this journey.

But what it is,

Is like,

There's so much fear that if people know who we are,

They're not going to like us,

They're not going to accept us.

So we all have this shame on so many levels.

It's like most people are just walking through life with it.

And we don't even realize that that's what it is.

But it's this fear that we won't be accepted,

You know.

So now you like I can see and hopefully you can see too,

How spirituality all blends together.

You've got this concept of oneness.

Now all of a sudden we're leaning into the concept of authenticity,

And how important it is to be your authentic self.

You're never going to be able to be happy unless you're able to be your authentic self.

Well,

How can you do that?

You need to be a spiritual warrior.

You need to dig deep down,

Find the courage within to stand up against these things within you that are uncomfortable.

These things that need to be brought up to the surface and these things that need to be healed.

We need to find the courage to do that.

So,

So there.

So I just I just had a wall of information just splattered.

So I might take another look.

Let's see what did I.

Self ignorance,

The ultimate source of suffering,

According to a Buddhist philosophy.

A heroic being with a brave mind and ethical impulse like that,

A heroic a sport spiritual warrior is a heroic being.

With a brave mind and an ethical impulse.

That's well phrased,

Man.

And which,

You know,

If you're kind of new to this term,

Like what I just kind of check out hero's journey.

Just Google it and look into it.

You know that the hero's journey,

If it like with Joseph Campbell,

Like the the the journey of of being scared to be who you truly are.

And then going through difficulties and then eventually opening up to who you truly are,

Your spiritual warrior,

And then having the courage to stand in that and perform a difficult task.

That could be for a lot of us just working through our stuff and then coming out the other side as a hero.

You know,

That hero's journey,

That story is just resonates with everyone.

And the reason it does is because it's it's within us all.

It's a universal story.

We all have that story within us.

We all go through that journey while we're here.

You know,

This this is why when when you watch a movie about Superman or Spider-Man or any other superhero or if you watch Disney movies,

You know,

Like there's a specific journey that those movies and those stories go on and they are the hero's journey.

That's the story they all go on.

You know,

Somebody is like called to do something and they go,

Oh,

No,

I don't want to do that.

You know,

No,

It's too difficult.

Not me.

I'm just a regular person,

You know,

And then they go through something and then they come out the other side.

And then also they open up to the greatness that they are and then they do this wonderful thing.

And,

You know,

So that's the hero's journey.

So,

You know,

Look into that.

You know,

Google the hero's journey so you can I think because I think it's important for us that each understand that we have the spiritual warrior within us.

We have the hero within us.

We all do.

It's nothing unique.

That's why we resonate with these stories.

Anything that we resonate with,

Anything that like large groups of people resonate with,

May it be a joke,

A story,

Anything,

A movie,

Whatever it is,

If you look deep enough,

You're going to find spiritual law underneath there.

You're going to find some spiritual truth under there because not everybody likes the same stuff.

Like it's just so the stuff that goes viral or the stuff that's immensely popular has always have some spiritual message or story or law underlying it.

That's why it resonates with so many people.

I mean,

You know,

Look at things like the Wizard of Oz.

I mean,

Come on.

Like that.

How can how can so many people like one movie because it's really good?

Come on.

Yeah,

Nothing's that good.

It's because it resonates.

There's something on an unconscious level that we don't even know we're resonating with that's on a spiritual level that's eternal,

That we're connecting with it.

You know,

That's why.

So we all have this spiritual warrior within us.

And it's important to understand that,

You know,

It does have some,

It doesn't have specific things for everybody.

Some people are going to lean into one aspect of it more than another aspect of it.

And it doesn't really matter.

At the end of the day,

It bubbles down to to having courage.

And some of the surface things help you find that courage,

Help you find that sense of connectedness.

So we know that we're not alone and we're all in this together to bring a solace,

To keep our hearts open so we can go at something fully courageous.

You know,

Do you see how you see how it works?

It's like this.

All spirituality is like this.

It's like it like when you lean in the direction of of one thing and you go,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's the you know,

That's the concept of oneness.

What the hell does that have to do with me doing,

You know,

Something over here?

Well,

It has everything to do with it if you use it properly.

That's why it's part of being spiritual warrior,

Because it gives you the courage when you know you are connected and you are all one and you can and you get that automatic solace and the feeling of that connection.

Now,

All of a sudden,

You're not suffering and you're not feeling like you're alone and therefore your courage can come up.

You know.

So,

So,

Yeah,

So and Sarah's been nice enough to throw out some comments.

I've caught myself judging people for being judgmental.

Yeah,

I mean,

So have I.

That's probably the biggest like my judgment.

That's probably the biggest judging I do.

Not to be the most common judging I do probably is for people being judgmental.

Because,

Like,

Or,

You know,

The garden variety being judgmental,

I probably,

You know,

I have my ups and downs,

But conceptually and stuff,

I've worked through that.

So then it backdoors and then I judge people for judging people.

You know,

It's hilarious.

And then I was talking about the hero's journey and stuff like that.

And Sarah says,

Like Harry Potter.

Yeah,

Exactly.

You know,

All these things that resonate with us all have the same storyline.

You know,

Which is,

Which is cool.

It's and once we understand that we can get,

We can understand the deeper meaning to this stuff.

Instead of just going,

Oh,

That was a great movie.

Like,

Oh,

Well,

That holy crap.

Like all those movies that have been famous for 60 years all have that same thing.

And the reason they're famous is because people unconsciously resonated with it.

They must have,

Because most people aren't awake.

Most people don't know that why they resonated with it.

You know,

I didn't know why I resonated with it.

So they must not.

Holy crap.

You know,

And you start seeing how we're all connected and how this stuff affects us,

Whether we want it to or not.

That's what I love about spiritual,

Spiritual law is that it flows underneath all the time.

And it doesn't matter if you believe in it.

It's just natural action consequence.

It's it's impersonal.

It just happens.

And it doesn't matter if you believe in it or if you don't believe in it.

You know,

You can walk around going,

Well,

There's no,

You know,

There's no truth to positive thinking.

Like,

You know,

And I don't think positive thinking is the end all be all,

But it is something.

But,

You know,

You can have somebody that's very negative going like,

Yeah,

Changing the way I phrase things or the way I look at things isn't going to do anything.

It doesn't change the reality of the situation.

So I'm not going to do it.

And that's fine.

You know,

And they'll continue getting negative aspects,

You know,

And and unless they change,

It will always be that way.

And they don't have to believe that it's true for it to be working.

It's still going to work.

And people who are positive,

They might be like,

I don't know,

This isn't a spiritual law.

There's no,

You know,

I don't know,

I'm not spiritual,

But they talk positively all the time.

And then,

You know,

They live a happier life.

So we spiritual law works whether we believe in it or not.

We resonate with things that are spiritual,

Whether we know it or not.

You know,

That's what's cool about opening up to this type of stuff is,

Is you start understanding on a deeper level why you resonated with things.

And,

You know,

We are all connected and we are all on the same version of our journey.

It's it it's really,

You know,

It's amazing journey we are on and we're a whole bunch of spiritual warriors on this journey.

I'm just going to kind of glance real quick to see if there was anything else I want to touch on before I go.

OK.

Yeah,

This this was kind of cool.

I'm just going to read it instead of like I'm just going to read it instead of prereading it and then telling you stuff.

So this thing,

Spiritual warriors must.

This is what this says.

Not me.

Have a spiritual awakening.

OK.

And I'm not familiar with all some of these terms because it's a specific like I don't even know what it is,

To be honest with you,

Some type of spiritual or religious belief system.

So not the perfect thing,

But the better thing.

So we are seeking the better thing every day,

This says.

So one,

Have a have a personal awakening to seek the better thing each day,

Not necessarily the perfect thing,

Just the better thing.

Develop spiritual courage and indifference in a face of struggle and success like it.

Look for God in all things,

Or at least the mystery in all things,

Realizing there is always something beyond our understanding,

Which they call God.

Finally,

Do this work in the company of loyal companions with brothers and sisters who care about one another in community.

Yeah,

That's more well said stuff.

You know,

When you dive into stuff that has some some real meaning to it and can benefit your life.

This is the type of stuff you you come across.

So I would you know,

I don't usually say this,

But yeah,

You know,

I did say it earlier in the show.

Google this stuff,

You know,

Google the hero's journey,

Google spiritual warrior,

Read,

You know,

Like just the stuff that I read.

I just read some things with some bullet points and stuff.

I didn't like spend four hours and 16 books,

You know,

Like just and just see what resonates with you.

Oh,

What did I mean by that?

Oh,

OK.

I see what they mean.

I see that.

I like that.

Cool.

That's how you get deeper understandings of this stuff,

You know.

And of course,

Reach out to me if you have any questions.

So let's see,

Nicole,

Thank you for joining.

And I got a comment from Facebook from Nicole.

So that's good so that I know at least one of my pages is forwarding the comments.

One of my favorite movies is the Book of Life.

It's a cartoon,

But it resonates with me.

I believe I've seen that,

But I just can't think of it right now.

But checked out out to people,

You know.

I mean,

The Book of Life and it it resonates with Nicole on a deep level.

So that means that if we go deep enough,

We're all going to resonate on a deep level.

Like if you if you watch that movie and you don't sit there judgmentally and going,

Oh,

I'm not sure if I like this type of thing.

I don't know about that.

That's kind of corny.

If you do that,

You're not going to get anything out of it.

But if you you're like,

Well,

There's somebody that is on a spiritual path that said they really like this movie.

So much so that they made a comment about it on a on a live show as somebody was talking about spiritual warrior.

I'm going to see what they meant by that.

I'm going to try to uncover that.

You know,

When you go in there with that mentality,

It doesn't matter if you like the movie.

And after it's over with,

You go,

I didn't really like that movie.

That's OK.

So you didn't like the movie.

But did you understand what the resonance was for Nicole?

Because that was something spiritual.

So look for that.

You know,

You'll find deeper meaning in all kinds of things.

Doing stuff that way.

God knows I have so.

And Elena says,

Is the spiritual awakening like a program?

It can be,

You know,

I mean,

The 12 steps are there to induce a spiritual awakening.

That's the purpose of the 12 steps.

A lot of people don't.

Understand that,

You know,

This is this is why,

Like,

I woke up spiritually.

Everything that I am,

That I have,

That I've lived in the last 17 years is because for me,

It was because I went through the 12 steps with reckless abandon,

Giving it one hundred and ten percent.

And that induces the spiritual awakening that woke me up in all areas of life.

And eventually it actually I actually my personal journey,

I had to separate myself from A.

A.

You know,

Just so I could reach I'm supposed to be reaching everybody,

Not just alcoholics.

And I was so tied into that program because of the wonderful things it did to me.

I needed to disconnect to that to open my mind up so I could reach other people and do what I'm supposed to be doing.

Not everybody has to do that.

But my point is,

Yes,

The whole point of A.

A.

Is 12 steps.

It's not going to meetings.

It's 12 steps.

The A.

A.

Program is the 12 step program.

The 12 steps are there to induce a spiritual awakening.

That's the whole point of them.

I mean,

Getting sober,

Stopping drinking is an aspect of that.

You know,

Everything has a spiritual solution,

Including addiction.

So,

Yes,

You know,

Of course,

It works through that.

But it's more than that.

It's a spiritual awakening.

You know,

That's you know,

That's the beauty of it.

You know,

I mean,

Even if you look at the last three steps,

It's about expanding your expanding your spirituality.

You know,

Like the first nine are about waking you up.

And then the last three are about you continuing to grow and spread and you know,

You're on your spiritual journey.

So so,

Yes.

And I'm going to wrap it up with this.

Nicole's quote,

One of my favorite quotes in the movie,

Anyone can die,

But it takes real courage to live.

There you go.

Perfect place to wrap it up.

It does take courage to live.

It takes fear to not live.

You know,

We live so fearfully,

We recoil away from everything and that's not living.

You know,

I'm scared to die.

Oh,

I'm scared to experience pain.

Oh,

I'm scared to get hurt.

Oh,

You know,

And I mean these things in an emotional way,

Not a physical way.

You don't have to go stick your hand in a fire to prove that,

You know,

You don't have fear.

That's just foolish.

So but it does it takes courage to actually live authentically.

So tap into the spiritual warrior within you and find that courage.

Sweet.

All right,

People.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening and watching.

And that's going to do it for tonight.

And I will talk with you soon.

Peace.