The Happiness Habit + The Heart Guy - The Keys To Living A Happy Life & Why Presence Is Everything

The Happiness Habit Podcast. The Happiness Habit's Kara Payton & The Heart Guy, Kevin Crenshaw dive deep into living truthful, healing trauma, growth, how we are manifesting based on how we show up and everything in between.

Transcript

Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, Let's do it. All right, Kevin. It is honestly, It's so good to see your face again. And over the years, I'm loving the heart guy thing. I am. I'm loving it because it's like watching your evolution from, I mean, I met you back so far before all this. You were, I mean, You were still just like this amazing, Powerful energy. And this is before you had become disenchanted with your, The gym and fitness life and taking it onto a new evolution. And so it's just, It's good to see that after you're like planted in a new plateau, In a new zone. I'm so stoked to be talking. Yeah, Thank you. That is crazy. That's been, What, How many years? Five years? Six, Six-ish maybe, Which blows my mind. But yeah, That I'm a fucking different person. I'm not feeling like I have 15 different lifetimes in that time. So, Yeah. I feel like that's all of the people that we were connected with. We have gotten, Everybody that we've known in the personal development world, We have gone through so many different evolutions. Even just a year ago, You were a person. And the year before that you were a different person. And it's like, I have had so many deaths and rebirths, Different chapters and different awarenesses and different levels and some things I would adopt. And then even just like new ideas and new levels, I was like, Oh my gosh, This is amazing. This blows my world up into a whole new level. And then, Nope, That doesn't work for me anymore. I was just in my life for a quick bit. I got what I needed to, And then it was out the door again. Yep, And I think that's important to highlight is know when to let it go. There's some people like, Hold on. Oh, This works for me. I'm gonna keep doing it. And it keeps you stuck on a plateau. And it's like letting the death rebirth cycle happen versus trying to control it or seek for certainty. I don't know. That was one thing that really shifted for me. Because when we met, I was very certainty driven, Controlled when I ate, Controlled when I worked out, Controlled like when I woke up. I mean, My life was controlled. Yeah. Going from that to then being nomadic now twice for two years and just literally going with the flow and not knowing the next thing was a huge shift for me. And then on that same token, Not only knowing when to let go, But knowing when it's appropriate, Allow yourself to return back to something. There's so many ways I would let go of something. I'm like, No, That's behind me. It would be disingenuous to my growth to return to something. But I have allowed myself so many times to walk away from a truth, Organically find myself in this mess of qualifying and disqualifying new things. And then being like, No, That actually, That still resonates with me. I'm gonna go back to that home. And yeah, Especially in the way of like spirituality and everything I found myself- It's normal when you're trying to find yourself in the evolution. Yeah. I was just so versed. Fitness, Like I was like, Nope, That's not me, Fuck it. And then went completely the other end of the spectrum and then got sick, Got, I lost like 45 pounds of muscle mass, Like, And then picking it back up was revisiting to some extent. And I noticed I had all the pure intentions of revisiting it differently. And it didn't happen in the beginning. I just tried, Went right back to my old self in the same environment in the gym. And I was like, Wait, I gotta train different. I'm at 45 pounds lighter. I can't just do that weight anymore. Like, So it is somewhat of an ego trip, I think, And an identity crisis, But using the same tools in a different way, Maybe. Yeah, I would have to agree in the same token, Even with fitness, Even though I was never the gym guy you were at all, I never had reached that level. There was a time where I built and built and built and built and then got sick with COVID and had to relearn how my body will be trained. There was a lot of different things that had changed and evolved from that. And I had to adapt and be humble and listen to my body as opposed to just, No, This is what's healthy. This is what we do. This is how we do this. This is when and how much and all of that. And okay, We need to adapt this to where I am my own compass of true North. And what does that say that I need to do? And not beating the hell out of myself because it doesn't look or reflect what I expected. Right, Well, That's the dropping expectations. Yes. Definitely important. And it creeps up on us, I think. It's the work that I help people with. And sometimes my own expectations get on things and I'm like, Ah, Fuck, What was that? So it's, I think part of the human experience to have that. It's just having a self-awareness of when it's showing up can help tremendously in expediting that cycle. Yeah. Because it can get in the way and cause some unnecessary suffering, Which we don't wanna do. Well, We think we don't wanna do yet. We back up into those patterns and have to, I find that with patterns, I have to get to the end of myself before I will start. I have really got an identity thing with being bullheaded and stubborn, Where I have to reach the absolute end of something before I'm like the altered state, Not another day, Not another second, Not another minute of this, I'm done. I'm moving out of it. And I have to get to the pain point before I'll change things. I, A week ago, Two weeks ago, Became aware of that pattern in myself. It is somewhat similar where my biggest motivator in life, When I look back and was like, Wow, I pulled off some fucking magic, Was in moments of desperation. When there was a do or die situation, You've gotta make it happen, Is when it happened. Every time, Every single time. And even if it wasn't literal desperation, I got there in my mind. And so it was like, That was the only card I had in my deck to play to motivate myself. So no wonder I was stuck, Because I couldn't experience fullness or ease, Because it didn't match my motivation cycle. So it was like, I would go to these extremes, Overwork myself and drop the ball on other areas of life and shame myself for dropping the ball and getting behind there. And then the shame was used as fuel to push myself to try to make it happen even more. And it was this vicious cycle that just, When this was explained to me by a friend and I kind of, We pieced pieces together, I was like, What the fuck? I've been living like that for a while now. And so now I'm coming into like this season of harmony, Of showing up in multiple areas of my life fully, Instead of all or nothing. And when shame comes up, Catching it quickly and able to drop it and just have more gratitude with myself and do shadow work is a big part of that. And then using a positive anticipation and a possibilities, A pull to what could happen in like a good sense, Not what could happen in the negative to motivate me forward. And that's been the past two weeks and a loss has shifted. Would you say gratitude is a huge part of that? Or what are the key- Yeah, It's almost like gratitude for what's going to happen. I mean, We met in the Tony stuff. And so I recently redid my values. And I feel like this is the ultimate value structure for anybody to have. And maybe this is just me being biased towards myself. But presence, Whole slash complete, Truth and love. And from that, It was be present, Which is a lot of the stuff that I've learned with nervous system regulation and fully being in your senses and out of the mind. Be present is number one. And from being present, You realize that you're whole and complete and actually don't need anything. You create a sense of safety in your essence. And from that, You can speak your truth because your insecurities are still safe to be expressed and your desires aren't out of lack. They're out of I just desire more. So it's not going to have an expectation or an attachment. And then acting in love as from love really as your North compass. And that to me is like the ultimate fucking being state. And anything else is just lack or illusions. And that can look different. It could look like being present could also be present with negative emotions if you want to label positive or negative or even positive stuff like being joyous and filling up in that. So it's like filling up even though you're sad, How can you still feel whole and sit with sadness? And again, You can seek a higher truth when you feel that and when you're present and you're whole. It's like the paradox of the friend she said yesterday was like to transcend duality, We have to accept duality. Trying to stop it from happening, You just accept it and love it and then it actually creates unity. Yeah. It's interesting you say too that you had a shift two weeks ago as I had a shift two weeks ago that was so dynamic that, And it was, It was out of a state of desperation. I had finally reached this state where I was finally willing to relinquish the barrier that I wanted to keep. It was pertaining to a relationship and I was still operating in this relationship with, OK, I will let this person in, But when I let them in, I'm going to lock up all the valuables. You can't get there. They can have all of these other things and they can go in and they can feel like they know me intimately and I will share and express emotions. But it was almost like, Here's my ace, You can have all the other things, Don't mess with this, Don't poke at this because I don't know how to deal with that and I have to stuff things and I have learned how to operate functionally without this. Like I've taped this part of me to me and even though, Yes, It would be nice to have this moving arm, I don't know how to go about that process and I'm not going to. This is survivable. But fortunately, As the universe would have it, That type of relationship is not what my inner being has ever wanted. And so I was coming up against this, Unbeknownst to me, I was asking for this press to go to that place and go to that place that I wanted to keep locked up because my inner being knew that I didn't ever want to keep that locked up and I was ready to go there. And the relationship that I've called into my awareness and the relationship that I've meditated and visualized and that whole ground zero, They know everything about you all the way to the core. There was a conflict in that. This process that I was trying to make this broken bone stay untouched and unused, It was like your inner being's going, I'm sorry, But you've asked for this and that's got to be dealt with. So you're asking me to do this thing that's in conflict with what your fear is telling me. So we're going to go and it's going to be very uncomfortable because you're resisting it while you're also asking for it. And the conflict just exploded in a weekend of self-awareness. And after coming out of it, I'm so grateful that it happened that way. But by God, That was the worst weekend ever. It was like, Do not disturb, Four hours of immersive, Intensive just journaling and coaching and questioning, Just, Oh my God, Realizations of I've done that this whole time. This is how I'm operating this whole time. And then coming out of it, It's amazing when we do actually let ourselves go there and just trust enough, I don't know how far I'm going to fall, But I'm letting go. And coming out of it, It's like, Thank God. Because not operating, You don't even realize some of the tension in your body that you've just gotten used to. Let's say people in pain, A lot of the times people in chronic pain don't realize they're in chronic pain. Their level is so up here that if somebody were to just put that pain on us in a normal moment, These people with chronic pain would be like, We would be like, Oh my God, Where's the pain reliever? This is horrible. But they've grown so accustomed to it. I feel like emotionally, That's what I was used to. This emotional discomfort that was just constantly creating tension. I noticed that in the relationship after I went through that, There are moments that I noticed my saying something more simply, More clearly. I didn't have this need to kind of almost, I needed to incite an indirect response from them without saying it. Because saying it would have been too vulnerable, Would have been too absent of insecurity. And it would have just put me squarely in the position of assuming I am safe in this love. And I've never been comfortable with just assuming I've been safe in any love. So I needed to kind of almost make it to where they would need to assume and then compensate with language that assured me. So it's a manipulation. It's trying to get an indirect, Indirectly trying to get a response or evoke some sort of security or assurance without asking for it, Or without just operating with that assurance that I've given myself. So yeah, Two weeks was wild on both of our sides of the plan. It sounds like. It is. It is. And you're bringing up safety and feeling safe in love. And that's a large part of the work that I do and I've even done within myself. And the piece that I've been to more recently was being safe with my insecurities and dispelling those insecurities. And that's through being honest with myself. And I caught a lot of my shadow in a lot of ways, Which I was lying to myself in life trying to keep a front, I guess, Or trying to be enough in many ways. And I pride myself in having impeccable integrity. And so when I caught that, I was like, What the? And it's just being shown to me. And I'm like, OK, We got to have a court meeting. I'm having a seven right now. And really digging deeper into myself. And the more that I can do that, The more that not only I'll feel safer and more connected with myself, But the people around me will as well. And that's been my process in that recently. But it is always a leap of faith. And it is always like, I don't know how I'm going to fall, But I can't do this anymore. And I think that's also healthy to say I can't do this anymore at times. Yeah. Because most of the time it's something like that. I remember, It's so strange. The lens that we view other people and the lens that we view ourselves in has continuously just shocked and awed me. Because when you talk about, Especially back then when I first met you, Before I got to know you intimately, It's so strange. Because when I met you, This presence, You were a tower of a person. You were everywhere. Your presence was everywhere. Look in a room, It's like, Kevin's here. I know Kevin's here. Yep, See, There he is. And to know that you, After getting to know you, Throughout our friendship, Seeing that's like, How could he feel that about himself when there's so much? What we see, The lens that we view other people in and the lens we view ourselves, Could not be more opposite. And it's staggering sometimes, The disparity between our own. Because you were such a masculine presence that, I don't know if you remember this, But the first few months that we were working together, You knew that there was a very huge wall up when it came to me trusting masculinity and trusting male friends. And there was always some sort of unspoken transaction in regards to friendship. And it was making my friendships through our work with Tony, All of the male friends, The bonds that I would create, There was this, I was almost positioning myself in a constant state of gathering leverage to where I could keep this friend. Like, OK, There's got to be some sort of friend communication that I have to participate in that lets this person know what my expectations are and no further. And because there was always just distrust that the male presence wants more from me than just friendship. Nobody could love me like a family member or like a friend or like a sister or a confidant or just a deep, Profound connection without needing or wanting something that's been unspoken. And you walked me through a forgiveness. I remember that. And I remember that because you knelt in front of me and you made me focus. I don't even remember where we were in the room because I just remember you were there and you made me forgive you in place of my father, Any man that's ever betrayed me, My biological father, Stepdad, And all of the very fundamental, The first initial romantic relationships I'd ever had all combined. And you made me do this forgiveness thing. And it was so incredible because, I mean, Instantaneously, The very next day, I operated so clearly with my friends without that need of, OK, I have to be careful about how I position myself like it's a chess game. It was just show up as you, Be you, Communicate as you. That's what creates the mess is when we start to communicate on clearly and with all of these objectives and loaded agendas and assumptions that I'm putting on somebody that has not even participated in that. And I'll never forget being like, I can have guy friends, Like brothers. These are my brothers. These are my friends. These are my brothers. And then seeing my dad through a lens of he was just an imperfect person creating and making decisions the best way he knew how in the moment and having this genuine, Deep, And profound understanding that nobody meant to ever walk me through that kind of pain or everybody's doing the best they can with what they have. And just operating with that was such an understanding, Seeing my dad as a little boy or seeing the first person I've ever dated as a child with their first hurt and how it affected them and their protection and their levels of they're not good patterns. They're not good rhythms or behaviors. But it's what they knew how to do in order to survive and gain love as safely as they could. It was just it was wild and profound. But all that to wrap around long winded way of saying it's so incredible to watch somebody and how they have learned to operate based on how they view themselves. And it could not be more opposite. And I threw myself under the bus there too. I know that other people view me so much better than I view myself. And it's just like the whole we're our own worst critic thing. I think too, I've always had this belief that our biggest strength is usually also our biggest shadow or something that we struggle with the most. It's not necessarily shadow, But like I'm throwing. What's the word? Dang, I'm brain fart right now. Not an assumption. Stereotype. I'm stereotyping like crazy for a second. That the feminine is by essence beautiful. And most women struggle with beauty. And the masculine by essence is enough. And strong strength and most men struggle with their sense of strength whether that's emotional or physical. I don't know. There's an observation I had pretty early on when I started the hard guy stuff. And I was like that is so interesting. And I'm not sure if the struggle of it creates the thing or I or it's part of like the soul's path I think. Yeah, Lean on and accept instead of shoving those things that are us. That's the whole like our deepest fear is not that we're inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we're powerful beyond measure. It's our light, The thing we're good at that everybody else sees and that our darkness, What we believe to be true, That most frightens us. It's the actual like you saying, Oh, Yep, There's Kevin fucking tower of a man presence in the room. I'm like, Really? I'm just being me. But that's the beauty of it as well I think. And so I guess for people listening, Getting reflections from other people is so healing. I had a mastermind guys group meet up a few weekends ago. And we sat down and all shared reflections one by one. Hot seat one guy in there and we all just went around and shared what we see in them. And there wasn't a dry eye in the house. And it was like, Holy fuck, I didn't know I needed that. We don't sit down and just share appreciation and what we see in other people. And so it's hard. We get lost in our own perceptions of ourselves. Yeah. We're not getting that reflection from other people. And if we get the reflection from other people, It's criticism. It's never usually praise. And so I feel like a lot of us are starving for that praise. And even maybe if we get the praise, We dismiss it. Yeah. And so it's uncomfortable to hear it. Because we went along seeking the outside stuff, But the bad is easier to believe. We came into the world knowing all of these things. And then we were trained not to listen to those things. And so we're like, OK, Where do I get it? We get it from our parents first, Our friends, Things like that. And then as it goes, We're only seeking the outer validation and this outer approval or just confirmation of what we believe about ourselves. And by then, The confirmation of what we believe about ourselves is confirmation that what I believe, The negative things that I believe are true. And we've lost this ability to go within and understand. And the inner child work, The heart work, The shadow work, All of that points back to the self that we have spent, In my case, 35 years learning how to ignore. When you go back to it, It's like, That little girl, She was wonderful. Why did I ever abandon her? She was happy beyond measure and nothing needed to cause it. She was delighted at everything. And in this room, Because I have done the work to connect deeply with this tiny human that was so just otherworldly, She didn't belong here. Her feet floated off the ground. I could find 30 things to be completely utterly fully delighted about right now. But I mean, I'm 35. I've only done that over the last, In little tiny bits over the last four or five years. I have so much further to go. And a lot of us, We go throughout this world, Our whole lives, Not knowing how important those things are to even do. We're not taught that. It's go to work. Pay your bills. Be on time. Get married by a certain age. Have kids by a certain age. It's sad because we have all of our answers. We have all of our answers. But we live in a society that Amazon has the answers. Google has the answers. I think that slowing down is how you get the answers within, At least from my experience. Because you knew me Kevin Crenshaw, Fitness Days. And I was not the person I am today, To be honest. There's sides of me that I still have, Don't get me wrong. But I've definitely slowed down a lot. And with that, I think I have more of a potent presence, Actually, Than just being super hyper-energized all the time. I can still go there if I want to. But I have a range, I guess is what I'm saying, Capacity to do otherwise. But anyway, In slowing down, I've found the answers that we usually are seeking when we are frantic, Or frazzled, Or overwhelmed. When you see it, You can't see anything in focus. Exactly. Yeah. I was the jack of all trades, Master of none. I find somebody that could do something well. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I could add that. I know how to do that. I could figure out how to do that two or three years ago. I was running four businesses. And I was doing none of them well. Yeah. You're just slow. And the fast-paced world, Everything's instantaneous. Add to cart, Drag and drop, Copy paste. We are so instantaneous. Everything is instant. Everything is fast. If it takes two minutes to get our copy, We are boiling mad. And I think it's going to be trickier for generations to come to understand that it is in the opposite of how we are programmed on a platform, Straight out of bed basis. You have to slow down intentionally. It's going to require more and more of our intention to be able to do that. And fortunately, I don't think that the human, Because of the way we're made, I think that there will be a breaking away from that. Because after a certain point, We're not designed for all of this. We're not designed for this pace, For this constant overload of stimulus. And I just think that people are going to organically fall away. You go, This is just overwhelming. I feel it's happening. It's going both ways. People are speeding up with it. And some other people are disconnecting, And at least from observation, From my perspective. And it hasn't been working with all the diseases that are happening. People can't keep up with the lifestyle stresses. And for one reason, People go to the doctor. Underlying reason, They have a symptom. But it's usually stress-related or diet-related and other things. But yeah, It is because of the instant. And I think the next generation does have something there because of phone screens and how it hijacks dopamine and things with YouTube or any of the apps or video games. I grew up on that stuff, But I didn't grow up on it. I got it when I was in elementary school. There's some kids that are getting it before they even go to school. And so it's going to be interesting to see what happens there. But I think it's just going to require a different level of presence for those that can see to make sure. You say slow down. What would you be saying to somebody who is genuinely, Say, A version of yourself from the past? What would you have said to somebody when it comes to slowing down? What does that practically look like? You slowed down in your life. What did you do? Well, First off, I did less. I wasn't adding doing more. People always would tell me to slow down. And that had fueled my fucking fire to speed up. So I'm still dealing with some of the weeds of that today. Egoically, Tell me you can't. Yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to help. Yep, I can do this. And so if I could go back and talk to that guy, I don't know if he would slow down, To be honest. He was so dead set on how life should be and how he gets shit done. And speeding up gave me attention. It was part of how, As a presenter, As a performer with group fitness, How I was able to make it work. And I was the shy guy before group fitness. So shy and super quiet, No attention to, Tons of attention. I'm loud. Oh, Well, Then I need to be energetic all the time. It's no wonder I developed a caffeine addiction because I couldn't slow down. Because if I slowed down, I subconsciously lose love, Feel uncomfortable, Unsafe, Unwanted. So that's the first thing is you're either going to hit a breaking point, You're going to get to the hospital, And God's going to smack you on your face. Or you can start to decide to be just kinder to yourself. What if you could still get as much done in a different pace? So still, Even today, I have crazy books scheduled sometimes, Some days. Like yesterday was pretty intense. I'm able to be present with it all. I'm not frantic and down in coffee to be enough. And I got to be, There's so much going on. I'm with right now. And I'm going to look at the time. And when it's time for the next thing, I look at my calendar. And it's the next thing. I don't have to keep it all in my brain. Yeah. I don't have to overwhelm and try to do it all now. And then wrestle with, Am I enough? And oh my God, And how is this going to happen? I think it's also more trusting. That's kind of like saying, How do you breathe? Slow down. How do you breathe? How do you blink your eyes? You got to do it. The hard part is allowing yourself to. And then making that decision. Because we think that if we slow down, We're not going to be productive. And if we're not productive, Then we're not going to be achieving. And if we're not achieving, Then we don't have any value in society. Yeah. That's a deep one if you want to talk societal conditioning. Well, Societal conditioning, I feel like, Is the chasm where everything gets mixed up. Because slowing down can be synonymous with being lazy. And I feel like the absent part of that is slowing down is OK, Provided you still have a purpose. Because if you slow down, But you still know your target, There can be more intentional, Filtered, Or kind of a curated path to it that does not involve all of these things at once. Remember when Tony was talking about putting everything, Just kind of your spillboard, Where just everything that you want to do, And you chunk the pieces together, What actually moves towards this target up top? This goal, This vision way up here, If you, These three things, Does that work toward it? And then there would actually be things that were not circled. That was like, That's actually, I could outsource that if I really needed it done. But it doesn't directly right now impact my ability to go forward toward that goal. And so you just, This was the thing that drove me crazy, Because I was a list person. Huge list person. Just write it down, Get it all done. It doesn't matter if it was important or not. It was just, I needed to get it all down. And I needed to get it all done. And I had to let go of so many things that I'm like, I would really like to do that. I don't have the ability to do that. It doesn't have a definite ROI for my time. I'm going to let it go. And it would just torment me, Because it would pop back up in my head after getting rid of the list. I'm like, OK, Well, If it popped back up in my head, Is that important? Should I write it back down? Is it a sign? Yeah. I think it's also momentum comes into play. If you've been speedy for so long, Slowing down is when you hit the brakes, And that takes effort, Ironically. Yeah. But the biggest thing you'll have to wrestle with is your mind, Because the body wants the rest. Yeah, For sure. And if the mind gets in the way, And knowing what I know about trauma now, It's the stuck energy of not expressing shame or sadness or anger or whatever. We suppress it in our bodies, Because it's not OK to, Or I shouldn't cry or whatever. It's the mind that's doing all the suppressing. And when we get the mind out of the way, And let the body do what it's been trying to do this whole time, It won't make sense. It will be goofy as fuck. It will be like, That was weird. Am I crazy? No, Your body's just expressing what it needed to express. And that's why things like plant medicine or breath work are so powerful, Is because they do that. They get the mind out of the way. To give your body an experience of finally expressing, Oftentimes, Anger, Sadness, Because we're trying to be strong, And we keep pushing beyond our limits. And it's glorified, Especially in the fitness community, To push beyond their limits. And you're breaking your psyche when you do that. You're also dysregulating your nervous system. It's not safe. Really? Yeah, The way I train now is get to the line. What's your 100%? Then maybe go like 101 for like 10 seconds, And then back down. And ride the line. Then you recover stronger. Now your line is at 120%. And you ride it. Don't go past your limits. If you lose presence, You're doing too much. That's with work. That's with life. That's with workouts. If you lose your presence, You're doing too much. And how do you know your presence? Well, For me, My blood pressure goes up in a healthy way. I can feel warmth in my body. So if I get cold, And it has nothing to do with cold in the environment, I'm usually in my head. I'm super speedy. I've built this relationship with my body so I can really tap in and tell. If you don't understand what presence feels like, It's going to be hard to know. You've been living dysregulated, Like you were saying. You're living with that emotion tied to you. You don't know how to live without it. You think it's normal. So a lot of people's normal is not natural. And so they don't know what a healthy relationship feels like, Or safety feels like, Or peace in their body feels like. So they're doing them. They're being normal. Doing them, They're being normally who they are and looking for the thing. It's hard unless you have touch points on it. And meditations are a good way to do touch points. Events are a good way to give you an experience, Falling in love, Getting in the flow with a hobby or art. Yeah, There's touch points of ways you can go there. And then you learn to embody it and be it all the time or more of the time and not needing the thing. Because sometimes for the thing that gets people to relax is alcohol or weed or whatever. That's cool. And it can be useful at times, Especially if you don't know how to regulate your nervous system on your own. But learn to do that and get there emotionally without the substance. Hmm. Because right now I use meditation. And that's my, There are things that organically happen to me. I'll be singing. I'll be just in the moment where I've learned to be in a meditative or a beautiful state. And it just kind of happens to me. When I do it intentionally, It usually is a meditation or it's something that I'm, I have tools or props or something that I'm doing to consciously create the environment. And then so I'm consciously choosing and it involves things. Or the moment will happen to me because I'm just kind of in a receptive place. But it would be so wonderful to experience. And perhaps the things that I've gone through the last two weeks, Those things will start happening more often where I can understand that I'm about to enter in and then go there and not need anything. But yeah, That's so spot on with safety and things that we desire to feel that are unencumbered by things we haven't processed and haven't gone through or won't be present with and won't allow to pass. And I love what meditation does with allowing the things that come to us. Not everything needs to be fixated on, Particularly pertaining to thought life. It doesn't all need to attach. It doesn't need to all mean anything. And thoughts are one thing to just kind of let them happen because it's just raw and programmed. And we have our habitual ruts and brain functions that just kind of run as usual. We wake up, And we haven't done anything to shift the pattern. So the pattern just runs. It's like, OK, We're up. We're awake. We're conscious. Start running that shit. But with feelings, Those are different because they are either thoughts that didn't need to be validated, Didn't need to be owned, Didn't need to be given attention to, But they have. And so they cause this feeling. And a lot of the times, That's not a necessary thing either. That's something we do need to excuse from us, Like, Thank you, But I was going there based on this thought pattern. It doesn't need my validation. But then there are those things that are that genuine stuff that's like, What's back here? What didn't I face? What didn't I allow myself to define? It's like these undefined. We go through an experience. We label it. We define every piece. We put it in our story. And we're like, OK, And done. But then we regurgitate it over and over and over in time. And it warps, And it creates these feelings. Some of these feelings are accurate, Inaccurate, Whatever. And then there's this raw stuff. It's just a tangle. And so presence, I could see how presence would be so imperative as a daily 24-7 practice to even be able to function, Let alone deal with the crap that's just going to start gathering up because we're too busy in our lives to deal with. I had a realization the other day. It was like, If you lose your presence, You lose your patience. So if you're realizing that your patience is running thin on something, You have an expectation, An outcome that you're desiring, And you're losing presence in it. Because true presence is right here, Right now, Trust and faith that it will happen perfectly. It's not thinking about the future at all. It's here. So hopefully that helps somebody listening. You get a grasp of presence and what it feels like. I mean, It's peace in your body. Think about the last time you really like on a vacation, Lay at the beach, Nothing in your mind, Nothing to do, Just enjoying life. You can feel that while you're doing things. No, You don't need the beach. Bring that energy. You're just nice. Bring the word of the beach. Bring that energy with you throughout your day, The multiple things that you do. Even the mundane things, Can the mundane things be meditative? And if you're doing everything intentionally, Mindfully, And with your senses, You can get there. It's not a mindset thing. Presence has nothing to do with the mind. It's everything to be present with your senses and your felt sense to experience reality. It's funny that you say that because I used to live in a house where the dishwasher kind of sucked. It's washed dishes by hand. And I used to love it. Yeah. So I didn't. It was a chore, But I never viewed it as a chore. It was something that was like, OK, And here's my time. And now I'm living in a house with the dishwasher that works. And I find myself, Ugh, There's dishes again. And I just throw them in, Throw them out. It's always this annoyance. But I remember a time when that wasn't, Where my hand to it was just like this. It was so enjoyable. Nobody can help me too. I was like, No, Get your hands off my dishes. It's my time. You were probably, It was probably space processing things. I do remember fully enjoying that. Yeah. So it's like, How do we now use to fully enjoy loading the dishwasher in a little bit? Wash it. Right? It's a little different, But it's finding that with different things in life. And this is a constant practice for me too, Because I'm no expert by any means on being present. But it's definitely been a crazy shift in the past few years. I would say offhand, Being on the outside looking and that your work has transformed from what it was to just this constant practice of being one and in tune with yourself in any light. Is that accurate? Totally. I mean, That's because I did the fitness thing. And then I did the relationship thing. And I still talk about relationships. And to some degree, I still talk about the body. But you are the one constant, Yourself, Your relationship with yourself. It's like the mirror of life and looking at how you interact with things or people in your life and what that says about you. And really, That's true spiritual evolution. To grow in your sense of care towards yourself automatically grows your care of others and your compassion towards others. And when we do that, We raise our level of consciousness or our sense of caring and loving, And we love more. That's it. We couldn't have had this conversation two weeks ago. I was not there yet. Were you not there yet? Not there yet. I was still, It's that thing that shifted out of the way. Oh, The fun thing, Yeah. There was a me versus them that I wasn't even aware of. And there was that lack of ability, Not lack of ability, Because I knew that I could, A lack of willingness to allow this person to guide me to my own change. It was them. I recognized the shortcomings, Their reactions to me, Their expectations of a situation that I didn't match up with. It was them. It was my focus was on this person. Like, I am in the personal development world. I know my own shadow. I'm OK with looking in a mirror. I know how to process my stuff and heal stuff, And I've been doing that. Don't tell me what I still have to work through. And then I reached the end of it, And it was almost just like this motivation by desperation and God and the universe going, OK, Great, You're here. This is what you've been asking for. By the way, This is all you. Because it's so much easier, Especially in a relationship, To go, This is what I need you to do for me, Not realizing that if I did that for me, I wouldn't need you to do it for me. And then I could just exist with you and presence, What you're talking about. I could just be present with you, And our relationship, If I deal with me and you deal with you and there's total honesty on both sides, Those people can have a relationship. If you don't have a relationship with yourself and don't have this inner dialogue with yourself and don't have this process and evolution with yourself, Forget about trying to tangle up with anybody else. You're too much of a knot. It's just not going to work. That's it. All back to presence. It's back to presence. Getting present with yourself sets you free. And that's been where my work has been leading now. You mentioned self, But it's really working with trauma and the nervous system and to find a felt sense of presence and to embody that and integrate it into your daily life. It's definitely set me free from a lot of things. And now I'm blending the mindset stuff with that because I kind of went all on the other side of the spectrum. And it was needed for a season in my life because I had so much pent up stress in my body that I was unaware of. It's a process and move through and cause a lot of pain in my body that was just needed to move, Really needed to be let out. And so here I am. So what's next for you? What's next for me? Well, I got a call right after this. No, But seriously. You're so present now. I'm just so present. No. Yeah, To be honest, Don't fully know. There's projects in the works. There's a men's group thing that I'm launching to do men's work. There's a course that's launching for True Love Accelerator. We're relaunching that course. We got a group starting in a week. I'm going to Columbia to do plant medicine ceremony with a bunch of amazing people and a whole space for that in December for Christmas, Around Christmas. And yeah, Just living life. I don't know. I'm going to cross that bridge when I get there. But right now I'm here. It's funny, The other day somebody asked me, What's your biggest goal right now? I got pissed. I didn't say anything. But it was a message, A voice note. And I was like, Weird feelings in my body right now. Why did I get so pissed? And I was like, Why did I get so mad? He just asked me, What's my big goal right now? It's like, You know what? It's because I don't have one. Well, Why don't I have a big goal? Or why do I need one? We took on, He took on his question. His question was from his lens and his perspective that he was genuinely trying to connect. And he's like, Oh, Well, This is my assumed way of how I can connect with him. I have a goal. I'll share mine or ask him his. It was his perception of the world that, You know, So everybody has goals. What's his? All these assumptions about Kevin, That's how I'll connect with him. Yeah. Yeah, It's crazy. So anyway, I don't know, To be honest. We'll see what happens. But definitely more activation, More things, More creations, More fun, More love, More play. That's what I'm calling it. Beautiful. What about you? What's new? What's next? I'm the writing. The writing, The book, The embodying it. I feel like the last few weeks, I have been, I've always been a gifted writer. I've been writing since I was a little kid, Writing poems and stories and everything. I mean, I think I made my first book with cover and everything. I was in second grade. And I've never owned it. I've never been there. I've always known that I could write, But it was just one of those things that I have this story embedded that you can't make any money and it can't be a job. And so it's just I locked it away, And therefore I didn't do it. Picked up a lot of careers on the way and focused on those. And so now I'm coming into it, And I have a gifted way of putting so much of the things I've learned over the past six years into play, And especially writing about my experience as it's already happened. However, I have this conflict that I've just recently discovered that I'm now walking out and walking through in a whole new way. And I was super excited to see where it goes. I can write about all the things that I know and all the shifts that I know one can make and all the change makers that somebody can implement into their day to day and into their routines or into their mind and heart and how to meditate through nearly anything that they can go through. And relationship, We know these laws and how to govern ourselves in this helpful way, And I know all this stuff. But when I write, It's hyperbole because so many of the things I know to do I am not doing. And so I'm offering so much of this wisdom and so much of these guideposts along the way that's, Oh, This is what you need to see. This is what you need to become aware of. Here, Try this. I'm going to challenge you to do this. I'm not doing it. And so right now I'm in a shift of, OK, Embodying what it would mean to write that as if I've lived it like I have so many other things. And so right now it's literally less of a work and more of a practice which you preach and walk into it and an embodiment that I honestly think it's going to take me all winter, I think, To really get that mindset and that new identity of who I am. I've done that before. I think that's natural in the fields that we're in, Where what we speak on, Whether it's a post, Social media post, You write something, A video is usually what you need to say. I can't tell you how many times I'm with clients. I'm like, Fuck, I needed that. That's good. Yeah. And so in that situation, I would say like read your book as if it wasn't you that wrote it. That's, I mean, That's. Take it on. You're the first person to read it. You're the first challenger, Right? We are so future-minded people. Anybody that's doing self-exploration and hoping to live the best life that they can are really focusing and intending that. We are always 10 steps ahead of ourselves so much. Looking into the future of calling that future highest self into our being, That so many times I'm like, I've got some catching up to do. I'm thinking so far ahead. So maybe a presence, Pulling a presence into that would be beneficial as I kind of close the gap into this highest self. Bring her to me. I'm ready for her now. And then embodying all that stuff. And then we can walk together. That's it. Well, You do have a gift for writing. And I'm glad that you're exploring that and working in that field, Allowing yourself to do that. Well, It was astounding to catch up. Where can people, Where can my people find you? Heartguy. Com, The heartguy on Instagram. So it's heartguy, The heartguy. Com? Yeah, Heartguy. Com and then the heartguy on Instagram. Beautiful. Yeah. Well, Thank you so much for having me here. It's been an honor, As always. We have amazing conversations. But seriously, It's such a blessing. I value our friendship in the years that we've shared. I'm, I adore you. Likewise. Thank you. All right. I am. That's it.