Kind: captions Language: en foreign ERS those of us like our spirituality with a Twist we are back um I am reunited with Daniel and it feels so good to reunite with everybody that we get to talk I've been out of the loop for a little bit um traveled in Morocco Daniel and I were talking about that a little bit uh off Mike you know before the episode started and highly recommended apparently Daniel has family even in Marrakech so it can all be a little bit jealous because he gets a good America if he wants and uh I mean you can go whenever you Eric you can go I can do whatever I want too I just right can I go and stay with your family yes for sure our friendship pays off again that's right yeah yet yet again the friendship that just keeps giving that's right um I thought it was like a total Daniel thing too because there's just tons of like drum circles like in the uh the old city at night and I thought oh Daniel should be here just I should be there I definitely should oh great you know all the music going on just exactly right so anyway so that was that was my uh kind of New Year's experience and then like I was one of those people who got stranded with the air travel so I got an extra week in Montreal just stuck in Montreal oh I couldn't get back in the country uh and then everybody then then Colvin oh that's been the start of the Year all the things I rode the emotional wave from high to low um but anyway so I'm glad to be back like to be doing this again and uh even though Daniel had done one previous I just had the thought of doing kind of like what would be maybe our New Year's resolution episode but maybe it's leaving a little bit bigger picture than that we're going to talk about a lot of things just beyond the resolution thing yeah um my idea for the episode was kind of sparked by my conversation with my daughter I got my 20 year old and she kind of asked me what my New Year's resolution was and I gave her an answer and she really hated it that means you're doing good Eric if that if that's the case you know she rolled her eyes and mocked me it was like what the [...] so I will save uh my resolution thing for later uh foreshadowing as they say uh her resolutions were really cute though because they involved different things some of which involve better skin care which is a good resolution why not self-care is the best resolution man self-care self-care so um so I guess what we'll go through we got a number of different things maybe to talk about around this uh as far as the New Year's resolution thing overall do you have any specific ideas about that as a concept I know you talked about in the other episode anything you want to throw back to about that uh no I think you know what we talked about and maybe a place where we can kind of talk about it now is that like culturally this is um a time in which there is open space for dialogue around change and that like that is looked at positively and it's encouraged and even supported you know I I was reading the the kind of New York Times little free reader they send out in the morning and this morning they had like some exercise thing in there that I've never seen in there before now regardless of what you think about the New York Times does it matter they have they had a little exercise thing in there you know like I had noticed that I'm sorry I had noticed that too I put it in the notes for myself on this that they started doing that I'd never seen it yeah so their own little New Year's resolution bit that they're dropping in occasionally yeah so I think it just like it's it's it's an interesting time and you know like you have written down here like uh this idea of like special windows and time yeah yeah and yeah yeah no that that's probably that's probably one of the things that you know we can look at on a larger on a larger scale not just simply like New Year's resolution but it's a microcosm for this idea of like opportunities you know like large-scale Collective opportunities whether that's astrological or cultural or whatever you know probably astrological you know yeah yeah it's gonna be interesting we'll kick that all around I think I know people who really believe in the New Year's resolution thing I have one friend who used to like okay what are you doing New Year's Eve you know make sure you're doing something good that will set the tone for the new year yeah I do think about that normally I'm on Retreat yeah I'm coming out of retreat yeah yeah yeah and then so I always feel like that sets a good vibe for a year no matter what right yeah and actually it was like with uh our beloved uh spiritual friend and Mentor Lama Glenn Mullen uh I actually got an empowerment with him on New Year so that was kind of fun and a pretty good one I felt pretty good afterwards so my year started off with a good bang the nyt thing the New York Times thing has been kind of funny because I've watched a little bit of it and they had one interesting one which was the idea of like talking to a stranger that was one of the ones they listed for the week and I thought well that's an interesting one you know just go and have a nice conversation with a stranger and I thought okay you know I don't whatever you think of the New York Times you know uh but I thought okay that's cool that they're doing that at least you know yeah and uh I thought about that whole thing of people feeling so lonely now yeah these like terrible studies of like people really being like lonely and we're gonna do some episodes in the upcoming year we're going to talk about what our goals for the year are a little bit but we want to talk about kind of like uh what would you call it like men's mental health and Men's Health and Men's Health and awareness and Spiritual Development or something yeah and it's like we talked about earlier and now once I have this up and and running or or I have all the pieces hammered out like so I'm going to lead a men's myself in a friend a classmate of mine um we're gonna lead a men's retreat in March and we don't have room for about a half a dozen people men to come but it's something that like you know it's similar to like a women's group or uh whatever's group it provides an opportunity for you know like-minded or like-bodied people to be able to express in a space that has resonance you know not that other people can't have residents but there's something that's inherent to being whoever you are and if you're around other people the same kind of identity I guess we can call it then you know you might feel a little bit more apt to open up a little bit more deeply a little bit more authentically because you're not worried about you know some of the things are intrinsic to our human kind of cultural experience or human tribal experience you know if a man was to show emotion in society that would most often be viewed as a weakness yeah you were talking about in some of your cacao ceremonies now a lot of men will get very emotional very emotional and and it's not feeling safe to be in that space so that's not just a men's thing that's no it's everybody can do that yeah yeah but yeah but it's nice is yeah and it's just nice to be able to be in these kind of spaces and not feel like you know and feel like it's okay you know if you want to open up about something that it's it's not okay it's encouraged other people are probably you know I find that when people open up in a group space they do it for themselves but other people feel the release also oh yeah you know because they see it and they're like oh I want to be able to do that one day I want to be so bold to be able to express myself you know so like taking that like we're talking about Windows of opportunity you know yeah take that window of opportunity and if not personal expression then then feel the resident of that other person expressing it happens all the time yeah so it's kind of like the idea of like sometimes these we'll do the windows of time but sometimes it's like since since everybody's being minded that way it just creates maybe that little bit of energetic Vibe right if a bunch of people are thinking about this it almost has a resonance like kind of like our Dean Raiden episodes you know I mean where yeah people's minds affect one another right yeah a bunch of people starts thinking the same [...] like oh no Trump's gonna win this election that was one of his examples in that episode right then all the random number generators in the world start freaking out yeah because the minds are making the random number generators go wonky yeah people for people who haven't checked those you know if we have newer listeners which we do which you know thank you for tuning in by the way uh new listeners old listeners not say old we'll say classic um yeah some of the the episodes with Dean Raiden and his name will be a reference in the title uh are really really cool from uh psycho spiritual scientific aspect you know uh he's an author of a number of books and we were happy to have him on you know he's he's a funny guy you know I like him called his uh told his like uh his life background story too like on the men's thing and then we'll do our Windows of time but it was just you were talking about in some of these things men feel free to dance in a way that's very free right yeah to be able to express themselves and I think it's like uh we want to do this is I guess foreshadowing or foreshadowing because we want to do some episodes around the sort of the course of the year at the end of this episode we'll talk about some of our goals for the upcoming year even in the show yeah but uh uh you know like we'll do episodes around that and the study that I'd seen Daniel was just how lonely a lot of men are there's yeah crazy statistic and I I don't want to try to quote the number but it's shockingly high of men who feel like they don't have a single friend like not one and it was like 38 percent or something like ridiculously high people feel like they have no no friends no social context whatsoever so anyways go harder to make friends as an adult number one it just is um but this goes to this idea of community you know the larger idea of being connected and we talk about this I talk about this in the episode with Priscilla that that I just did uh and we started out the conversation with the Buddha Dharma and the Sangha right the awakened nature within you the teachings that that help you to get to that awakened nature or or awaken that uh sleeping nature if you want to call it that but then the spiritual Community both the tight-knit one the people that are meditating with you working with you but then also the community at large and and I think having a balance in all of these three things is really important and from a Chinese medical perspective it is extremely important the the kind of sharing of the heart fire has to happen through up the reflection of that through other people you know passing the torch of the heart fire yes it's just so important so if you feel that if you don't have that even on a small scale the the sense of isolation is overbearing and it's it's I don't know that it's I don't know that you could overcome it actually you know because even even in a monk in a monastery they take their time away but then I come back to the monastery they talk with their people about it and you know they're not just like away a hundred percent of the time living I mean when you go to a treat it's actually a lot of people are in your face like all the time you know it's like it's really an exercise of learning how to deal with other people yeah you know yeah so yeah so this is I mean I guess if you look at long-term goals 2023 and Beyond I mean I think we both like to see this podcast to be a chance for people to build community too yeah keep shipping away at that project as we go yeah all right so special windows and time we'll talk about what we think about New Year's time as being a special window in time but you would say spiritually astrologically and so forth yeah who knows what yeah what makes that what makes the the window and time special you know yeah yeah I tend to think it's probably astrological tasked forward you know so we'll give some examples right um so actually it's funny because we're going into one of the special Buddhist tantric Windows here right especially for people who have certain kinds of Buddhist teachings Buddhist tantric teachings and empowerments and all that uh in what they call the mother tantras which is the class of the tantras that have to do with feminine energy which in which this Tantra gets tied into the experience of wisdom um masculine gets tied to the idea of bliss so it's kind of interesting of course there's Bliss and wisdom on both sides but uh you know the wisdom energy time is coming upon us right and uh uh dependent energies are also probably associated with this idea of the Buddha nature and or the clear light mind so we're heading into that window so like I was just thinking about as we were prepping this episode you know these times either kind of special at the end of the year in the lunar calendar in uh tantric Buddhist culture you do especially if you have this you do one special ritual at the end of the year and then you do kind of another one going in and we're approaching that time so I'm saying okay yeah so I guess the idea is that there's like times when the energy gets kind of special you know astrologically uh and just in the general Vibes of what's going on so we're going into that one which I think I will definitely be practicing on the 17th right uh I haven't like I have it set in my calendar okay it's usually in like uh the 24th day of the lunar month and then in the 10th okay which is kind of a funny one I've talked with llama Glenn a little bit about it and I don't know if he said anything that particularly striking about but it's kind of like four days before the full moon and four days before the new moon you do this okay this little window here but so it's a there's a monthly one and we'll talk about different Windows weekly and monthly and all that but um you know this one's special because it's like kind of the end of the year so it's the year Eclipse you know the end of the lunar uh the end of the lunar year and then the start of the next one we haven't you can count time by the Sun or you can count Time by like kind of like the cycles of the Moon and like Buddhist culture they a lot of times do like cycles of the moon right so it's slightly different calendar setup like on the Chinese calendar right we should we you know we have that's one thing we have oddly neglected is astrology I know I mean like oddly neglected you know and we have there are many things we've oddly neglected no but that one because but we talk about that you know what I'm saying like we we it comes up well okay one of the promises is that we're going to talk more about sex in 2023 okay we've oddly neglected that too oh yeah true frustrating it's been a slow burn it's been a very cool bird this is still we're still in a texting phase you know like and we had reasons in the beginning for some of these things like we really made the call like okay we didn't want to come up with this name and then just start talking about uh uh you know sexual positions immediately because it would seem kind of cheesy and then there was also a question like you brought in the beginning of like audience trust like that just to start talking a bunch of sure stuff that was super intimate in the beginning it's yeah but anyway so I was just bringing it up because it's one of our Slow Burn conversations but the astrological thing too and you and I got interested in that and we know people have deep interest in it yeah I used to do it kind of like semi-professional so I'm definitely interested so a lot of this is astrological I mean even with this you know Tibetan uh thing you're really looking at the moon and what's happening with the moon and you're kind of hooking up your meditation around the Moon yeah yeah um the other one that came to mind to me because I kind of I do kind of keep it funnily enough even though you know uh uh well it's interesting for me so the Yom Kippur one's another good example of this okay right uh and because of my interest in the Kabbalah I tend to do something a little special on that day but it's considered to be a special energetic window and it's astrological too right right and it's based around uh the moon right and especially you know this idea that you're in the fall and you're dealing with this certain little energetic window where there's I probably with the father's the idea of like probably like the change of the season and like death to be honest right just that transition from fall into winter has that feeling you know um but it's also like this time of purification right right during that little window of time uh I always think about it has to do with like the Chinese medical metal phase you know if we kind of like do a little bit of a cross-cultural link up here yeah like that's kind of a time of purification right probably the metal phase has something to do with purifying the uh you know the lungs and the large intestines so you [...] and purify and you breathe and purify right yeah the uh psychedelic philosopher extraordinaire uh Terence McKenna oh yeah yeah uh he always talks about how like if you have a a psychedelic experience that is just very very difficult like very you know it's it's more I guess we'll say more Strife than than not that you've had those experiences right and oh definitely stuff that we would you know yeah these episodes like we have years of material well literally um but he said that like if you are unable to isolate you know some mitigating circumstances as to why that might be the case right assuming you have the right setting your intention is clear like you've been preparing yourself for this kind of a thing nothing crazy happens you know during but it's just difficult and an astronomical level he says he goes it's very likely astrological like there's oh yeah yeah yeah there is something that is in the cards for you at this time that is going to make this harder than it would normally otherwise be and maybe that's karmic that it happens that way but that it's there and it brings I think my point is that like there's probably powerful astrological times throughout the year in various cultures you know depending on what they look at you know so um it's you know I think seemingly appropriate to acknowledge the the strength of the astrological influences on us whether we want to acknowledge them or not I think what I really got interested in this was partially back in grad school I had a friend who was really interested in the astrological sides of things and probably like a lot of people I was like well that's just a bunch of hokey right [...] yeah but when we do our Deep dive we'll do it and I'll kind of tell people maybe foreshadowing how I got like convinced of this because I did get pretty convinced like oh no there's something to this for sure you know yeah um but then you know once I got interested in it it was also like traditions where you pay attention to this like in tantric Buddhism or in the Kabbalah or something there is this thing that like you can start to see the connection between the rhythms and the the macrocosm and then the rhythms and your own micro life right and you could kind of use that so I you know like I tried to take it this is I think what was one of the interesting things we want to do with this episode is I know for me I try to I guess the phrase would be take advantage of these that's always the right phrase because that sounds weird in English but um no one's getting taken advantage of but I try to use those opportunities yeah so I'll like I'll do you know because I do love the Kabbalah and it's just part of my history as a person to have this Fascination we haven't done our Deep dive there yet either but we will um but you know I got interested and so I keep that day I keep Yom Kippur and I do I do kind of I do the food and water fast and I you know I kind of do the meditations that seem right for the day you know as far as uh appropriate and so I keep that one you know because it's one of those times a year and it feels special it does right it seems to have a special vibe to it um I wanted to say something a little bit funny about it this is like a maybe a preview of our Kabbalah episodes but there is something really fascinating like about how like old cultures think about these things because it's associated with the time of Libra that astrological sign right and um and then in uh in the Hebrew alphabet there's this whole thing where there's a tradition of associating the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet with the planets that were visible in the solar system so there's like a a letter that corresponds to Venus and there's a letter that corresponds to Mars and there's a letter that corresponds to Jupiter and so on and they also have letters that correspond to each of the astrological signs which is very cool you know and we'll probably have to do something about that as we preview our 2023 I'm like looking for it at some point to talking about that yeah super interesting but the the letter that corresponds to Libra uh uh is very interesting in that it like kind of is a special letter that it reaches above the line so you know when you write in the line when you're a kid you know and this is a a letter that like reaches above the line it's the only one that really does it it like stretches above all the letters are a certain height and this one has this upper extension kind of like reaching up you know and um and that's the whole idea that that that letter captures the idea that you know of like reaching up to higher energies reaching up to the Divine reaching up to at an eye or something right you're reaching up right and that will draw a response to like reach back down to you right and you were talking about that pre-show that that reaching out and then the energy comes in right yeah yeah yeah so it has that quality to it that reaching up you know which is kind of like the vibe of that time and so you know it's associated with Libra right and it's associated with that energy of the year and it's a time when you can reach up you know so Yom Kippur in a way is kind of like symbolized by that letter or maybe you could say or that process in part of like reach there's more to it than that obviously but reaching up you know is the energy of that time so it's a special time to to lift up your heart or something like that right and even like sidebar thing but I wanted to do it because it's so interesting because it's how cultures think about these windows of time you know so you know that letter you know that reaches up is also the letter that starts the word for the heart right and so it's a time when you can kind of reach up from your heart right it's cool yeah so we'll try to do more about like this kabbalistic thing going forward but I just wanted to do that little that little side thing because it kind of like I know it captures the feeling of like uh how people think about this you know how people think about these special Windows you know they have these symbols around them and these meanings and then you know if you can get into it you can kind of sort of even start to feel it you know what I mean I know what do you think before you go on Daniel did you want to talk about any shamanic ones that you think are really important or how do you feel about that I don't know as much about shamanic thought around that I mean certain people are going to be you know more drawn towards the lunar calendar for sure um I mean it depends on what you talk about like shamanic because this shamanic practice is a practice it's not an ism like a like a series of codified sort of things you know you and Mary Kay like make that point a lot yeah and so but like if you look at like some of the more pagan holidays which are shamanically based you know those are all astrologically based as as are all the other you know kind of Christian holidays you know we we did an episode with Mary Kay on Yule right uh and that's obviously referencing you know not just you know Jesus's supposed or his uh I guess you could say potential time of birth yeah yeah yeah but that's what also gotcha okay but also like the you know the kind of like winter solstice and Easter is the Spring Equinox and uh you know what I'm saying so all these various points throughout the year that are that are observed uh in the Pagan tradition or in you know whatever what we what we view now as the Pagan tradition of course there was very place by place um are all shamanically based so I think those two things probably uh are closer related like you know it's not Shamanism in one side by paganism on the other side something else over here they're completely intermingled you know it's like calling prayer prayer is ubiquitous throughout Tibetan Buddhism and Islam and Judaism and Christianity you know just depends on like what specific style or language or whatever they're saying you know yeah it's like kind of like okay so we were talking kind of about there and I knew a lot of people who were kind of wicked yeah so you can go through the sabbaths of the year right you know and they all have like they're all astrologically tied in you know in different ways right and they're these little special units of energy and it's cool because you can see um like in myself but also even in others like I I watching the experience of someone else you know go through these things I had a really interesting one where someone I knew went to like the Yom Kippur one Kabbalah wise so they had a kind of a special Kabbalah Yom Kippur thing sure and she went to it and she came back and it was amazing like how much like just healing Vibe she had you know it was incredible I was like when I saw her I wasn't feeling good or something I think I was like physically sick I had a headache or like maybe I was even in a cold or something and it was just like gone immediately just being around the person because she had carried out so much of that that Vibe of that window of time and that practice right those rituals within that window you know yeah so um yeah that's cool you can see how it affects people but my travels in Morocco I had that thing where I saw the mosque in uh Casablanca which is where one of the I know I think maybe it's the third biggest mosque in the world or something like that definitely worthwhile going to to go see and uh the way the timing worked out I was there on a Friday for the call to prayer you know oh yeah so the call to prayer was coming out you know and people were starting to find their way in the mosques and there's like a huge Courtyard around this mosque it's really beautiful and I was like oh this feels so fantastic you know just to be around this you know all that human intention in that little window of time flooding into that area you know it's just like that special feeling that can happen from these things you know and I don't know if we really like have these things in our culture you know for a lot of people you don't get to do that thing where you say okay this is a special time you know whether that's like the astrological part of it where you get to connect to the the macrocosm part of that feeling or whether it's just even like getting the whole community of people all going in to do that thing at one time I mean you're doing that because you're running cacao ceremonies and other things but like it's it is something that isn't like kind of there in the culture I know that's something that you really think about a lot because it's not Community feeling right and and what yeah what you're talking about even a larger scale is is there is a ceremony you know and ceremony does not exist in this in this westernized culture you know you might have you know for people who have experienced ceremony before when I say the word it's understood instant okay got it ceremony but if you've never experienced this ceremony before then you might be thinking of like a wedding ceremony like it has to be associated with a thing uh baptism or a bar mitzvah or you know some kind of ceremonial thing you know as opposed to just a healing ceremony or a prayer ceremony or something you know some ritualistic kind of a thing that people to your point have a similar you know kind of intention maybe different person to person you know but the desire to be there to experience you know all at the same time on a larger scale doesn't doesn't really occur when you were talking about it I was trying to think okay is there a ritual or a thing that we do as a culture that like we're all around the same place doing the same thing thinking similar things the only time I could think of that has a Time associated with it is July 4th watching the Super Bowl watching the Super Bowl yeah but like man you know even more July 4th yeah yeah you know because it's night time and everyone you know you got you're not gonna do fireworks during the day you're gonna do them at night and you're supposed to think about the awe of fireworks and you know the people who gave life and limb and you know for our liberties or whatever the case you know whatever the story is you know yeah uh because Christmas Eve is different times for different people and different multiple families and Hanukkah you know I don't know you know maybe Sabbath but that's only really for you know sub communities of people yeah so this is like kind of like American you know Alexa kind of experience yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean like we have our Catholic rootsu and I talk about occasionally and there was a thing of going like a Sunday mass I think having those experiences made me think made me a little bit more set up to appreciate these kinds of ritual things when it came up in new settings so we've talked about that off and on sometimes in the show yeah but yeah so I don't know this part of the episode was just sort of like yeah maybe you get to think in your own life about like cycles of time right and when there might be these like special windows that you can kind of maybe set something apart you can hook that up with some of the examples we'll go through the rest of them for the month and the week and all that um uh and we could maybe talk a little bit about how we've done it with our own lives right but there is something maybe about thinking if you're listening to this about what it would be like to just maybe start to build some of that into your into your life right yeah yeah and uh whether you do that around these specific ideas that might be more astrological astronomical like you were talking about Daniel or whether it's just something that you do from your own point of intention that's good too right so um okay so I know for me I've tended to do it kind of like this I'll do and it's again because I've been involved in these things like Kabbalah and tantric Buddhism in my life that you know I'm used to kind of working Within These Cycles so now at this point in my life there's kind of like the 10th and the 14th of the month in Buddhist Tantra where I do something a little special right I have like two kind of like tantric practices that are kind of like special for me on those two days everyone in that tradition will do this thing maybe you could do little variations as your own personal things so I got what I like to do on those days I kind of like they do like I do what they call like self-empowerments so I kind of re hook myself up to the topic practices that I do but in the Kabbalah they have things like the new moon could be a special time right uh where you're tapping into the energy when the moon comes up again that's a special Vibe right I have kind of a soft spot for the new moon because my daughter was born in the new moon I was born on a new moon oh look at you special you special ones what do they say what do they say about that Erica what is the uh it's it's uh what would they say it's fortuitous it's auspicious you know you're tapping into the energy of that of that of that uh thing in a kind of a very intense way like my daughter was born on the new moon of like Sagittarius right and she's like a little Sage creature running around with sort of a very sort of pure embodiment probably at that quality or something I think that would be the idea what's yours the new moon in Capricorn Capricorn yeah oh so you're so capricorny yeah well you reference it more than I do yelling these episodes go well you know I'm a Capricorn so I want to see a Society improve I want to build something I want to see things go forward right you gotta own it man wow at some point you gotta just accept that's who you are you know I'll have to double check it I might be born in the noon when going into cancer I'll have to see but probably not I think I missed it no one's perfect Eric you know well what can you do right we all got our we all got our crosses to bear we all have our chains wrapped around our ankles not like you all no we're free people born in the moon just I'm Capricorn we're we're born free here we're freedom freedom children um so you can do new moon rituals um I know one um Buddhist teacher um interesting guy he was you know Japanese he was a dentist oh Japanese dentist and he got this special kind of calling to go to what are they it's Myanmar now is that what they're calling Burma Myanmar Myanmar yeah so he got called there and um he just you know became this Buddhist teacher he's kind of a fascinating person I'll talk about my experiences with it maybe some other episode sure but um he does like New Moon full moon rituals yeah go ahead yeah in Chicago that you know in the summertime they had the the full moon jams you know which is a gathering of you know people Spitting Fire and people playing music and dancing out at like Foster Beach you know which I've been playing music I've been playing music at that for many years at this point you know it's a pagan ritual it's a pagan ritual yeah I mean it's a live thing it's live like it's it's intense you know well so I think the thing in this for me when I was thinking about this is that you know we as 21st century folks we can do this yeah oh yeah right you don't have to just leave this idea sitting in the some old books or some old [...] from the past or something we could make these things happen like you could go every month to a Full Moon ritual and yeah you know uh bring your Kong up you know and like do your thing and your participating in the energy of that thing right and then it's kind of like the full flowering of the moon is kind of like the full you know again it's like the new moon and then that full moon is kind of important right yes that feeling of that energy coming through really strongly for whatever month that is and you know whatever my astrologically be happening then you're getting that whole feeling you know yeah I think in a lot of the Dallas stuff they talk about the full moon being like that's when the spirit shines like super strong you know uh because the moon kind of reflects the rhythm of a person's life you're Our Lives end but we're reborn with the new moon and then we reach this full flowering of this full moon and then our lives will kind of again you know go through it will come around again but you know that full moon feeling is kind of powerful right that was talking about that too so we can find those monthly rituals for ourselves if we're into it you know you can come and like hang out with Daniela on uh Foster Beach and if you're like local enough to do it but you know we can do it like it's not like it's it's not not available to us you know I'm trying to say right it's available for sure it's available or um I think I do sometimes try to keep a weekly kind of ritual thing too where I do try to like again maybe it goes back to like my interest in Kabbalah back in the day and things like that where you try to like maybe Keep Saturday kind of free for Spiritual practice on a weekly basis do you have anything like that's up in your life on the weekly I do the monthly for sure especially with these sort of tantric things the 10th and the 24th I do you know no not not particular yeah I guess I got used to doing this so I'll sometimes try to make a Saturday where I'll be like okay this is the Saturday and this is the day when I work on myself sure a day of rest which really means like kind of a day of like practice you know right of looking inside yourself as opposed to looking at the outside world or something like that yeah yeah and they got used to it kind of on the daily for me because there is this idea that you can kind of just take those windows of time throughout the day like in the tantric Buddhist thing there's the idea you can do like six sessions okay meditation a day like we can't always do that as modern people because our lives aren't always set up easy to do that you know but if you listen to like the Dalai Lama he'll keep that thing right he'll keep that schedule every day and do those sessions and it's a lot like you know what we're talking about in Islam or in Judaism where you keep the you know the practice you know throughout the day but we could do that for ourselves in our own way and I know I have where I like yeah go through and it's like okay I'm gonna make sure that I wake up I do my morning session I'm definitely going to have an evening session and I'll try to do like stuff in between so I try to keep maybe four sessions or something two in the Earthly part part of the day two in the last part of the day which is like kind of part of one of the tantric practices that I do to do that so I'm a person who kind of tries to keep my things you know uh going you know I try to like you know if I'm doing something I'll try to do it but you know it depends on your day if your day is super busy you know it makes sense but even if you just take those five or ten minutes with that it'll feel good right because you're tapping into that Rhythm of the day you know yeah two sessions in the sun part of the day and maybe two two sessions after the sun goes down even if you spend five minutes or ten minutes just pulling back into yourself a little bit with whatever you like to do you know re-center yourself that's like a good daily vibe to have you know um how's it for you I mean I don't know we don't talk about this too much so this is how it is for me you know like but I got used to doing this you know I mean I kind of built this up over years um yeah I think we'll all work on it in whatever way we can make things work practically but I mean I don't know when you do you have something like this in your life are you kind of more freestyle to think what's going on your schedule for today no I'm always mourning and then um you know decent about the evening not all not you know definitely not a stickler um during the daytime not usually just that there doesn't opportunity if your life is too busy you got too many things yeah it's it's hard you know because I don't like to feel like I have a super tight time to do it you know it's better than nothing I get five minutes of course I have five minutes yeah everybody has time there's not about you have time uh but I have it prior unless I'm on Retreat or getting ready for something the extra two three sessions a day I don't prioritize it for whatever reason just be just being honest you know yeah yeah yeah yeah um it's like uh uh we're all gonna handle it in our own ways yeah right I think for me it got to be well you know I'm like a I don't know maybe an overly sincere person you know probably even like with something like galic Tibetan teacher who passed away you know he would say these things kind of knowing that most people aren't going to do it right but I I don't know I felt like I like with someone like him I felt like okay he was so nice to me I'm gonna try to do this you know what I mean and maybe it's a little guilty feeling but he was kind of a big person about keeping commitments and I kind of like okay out of respect for remember check but I try to do this and right but in the end ended up being good for me I you know when I was doing my zen in the very beginning I definitely would do like my sessions for sure so I had a kind of a discipline in me right you know there's a certain discipline you have to build up yeah right there's no doubt it's a discipline thing right I think the payoff is it just feels good yes so it's not like a just uh okay I just did this really unpleasant thing and okay good for me right it's more like uh like oh like if I actually take the time to make myself do this this is gonna feel great it's going to feel much better than the you know the move that might have been in that made me not want to do this right which is what happens right we all be honest about that yeah yeah when we talk about our New Year's resolutions a little bit at the end like I'm trying to make myself better with this because I know that I can feel really good if I just make myself do this but every once in a while I'll kind of half asset well let's let's just go there then Eric what you know we kind of have this in the notes let's talk about like what what are these you know what are the sort of like Tibetan view of the obstructions that would stop you from yeah I was just gonna say like my one teacher from China Master shangley Wong would also talk about this other thing that was good on a daily basis which would just be at the end of the day you can go through and you can just say how did this day look to me so he would recommend this nighttime practice I just wanted to throw it out like a reflection yeah like a self-reflection thing at the end of the day okay what was this like you know so that's another thing that you might think of incorporating okay and then like you can kind of resolve things for yourself in the evening kind of go like sorry my voice is getting copied and you go like um yeah go ahead go ahead go ahead well it it sounds like kind of like a uh like you know like he would Journal at the end of the day or something like that yeah something that you would do mentally I think like part of the idea was like at the end of the day you could look at like he always thought that when you look back at your day you're probably realizing you did a bunch of good stuff sure you did a bunch of good things for other people yeah maybe you did something nice for your your uh significant other you did nice things for your kids maybe you called your mom you help somebody out at work if you really look back at your day you probably did a lot of good things so it kind of puts your mind in a good space at the end of the day to realize oh wait a minute my day was actually pretty good right a lot of good things for myself if you don't feel that way you know because you know hit the accurate observation a lot of people at the end of the day you just feel like man another crappy day or something a lot of times you do feel that way but when you really take a step back and you look at it you realize oh no my day was actually I did a lot of good things in this day you know and then he would suggest you know even the things that you were like well oh I kind of got an argument with my friend that wasn't the great thing you could kind of like just say okay I'll resolve that tomorrow you can make a little plan of how you're gonna do it and it puts your mind at ease you know and then he said it was kind of things that then you could kind of do a little bit of just allowing your mind to relax in some kind of meditative thing and fall asleep and I thought well that's a great thing to do too you know I spent some years doing that I just want to throw that one out there just it's nice it's nice yeah it's a kind of a nice thing that's very accessible right no um and like kind of very handy dandy on you know like yeah for anybody you know it's just a nice thing to do yeah all right so okay to the New Year's resolution part of this um I know you did an episode with Joey uh so wherever well before Eric before you go there let's do that let's do the obstacles oh yeah I was going to do that with that thing though okay all right we're talking about the same thing it's cool okay so you know like to me I thought well how do you choose what you're going to work on that was my thought right okay this question you know what I mean yeah so we're on the same page yeah yeah so I thought well well I've always found to be very helpful and again I think really accessible is just to look and go what's the most obvious thing that might be causing me a problem in my life sure so if you're in the New Year's frame of mind you could say okay so this is the this is the part of my life that I can really see clearly what I can work on and that's I think one of the really handy Buddhist tantric ideas that didn't like they kind of ask you just it's a self-reflection again sure right but you look back and you say okay let me look at this honestly why do I really have an issue with let me start chipping away at that you know so it focuses you in on what the most Salient thing is right when I think of that you know I think that's good I think the only issue for me with with this kind of mindset is that like it it it does it direct it's moving towards your negative aspects with a a positive tone but that you're still trending towards like the thing that the the should Nots you know as opposed to like something else where you can and not saying it has to be binary but like I'm more akin to feel like looking at my things that I want to improve upon because I just because they're just untapped you know what I'm saying like gotcha gotcha gotcha you know what I'm saying they're similar there were splitting hairs essentially but like I want to try and like Foster more growth out of this you know how do I become more creative not maybe you know maybe and maybe yes that will that would I can reduce my habits of you know whatever Sports gambling you know and that with I could take that time and be more creative you know whatever but with that with the focus on like I want to Foster the Foster growth of things as opposed to like the kind of like whittling away at other things even though that is also important because you do want to tackle the hard things also interesting like way to think about that I suppose what's happened if I were to be all personal about it sure if we try to do yeah there's been times when I just had the thing because I I get what you're saying I do like to like accentuate the positive right yeah so um yeah let me look at the things in me that I want to grow and develop more I like that idea yeah I think even part of my resolutions for the year for me when we get to it but there are times oh go ahead yeah yeah and I just I feel like you know as practitioners we're looking for pathologies right looking for things that are not functioning well in our patients that's literally our job right and but then I always the the most difficult questions I'll ask my patients and for those who you know I have never seen which is more than I have unfortunately but I'm still young give me a chance you know um I asked people to I said give me your two best things about you at the end they have the hardest time answering that those that question because they don't they're only they're so focused on like okay uh my sleep it might have a headache and like you know nose is running and or whatever the case is and we're like all right well don't do this anymore stop having that you know we're always saying no and and I'm trying to like okay well then where are some places we could balance it out and say yes to you know where are some things we could put our energy towards um just because it provides a little bit of a balance you know it's a little it's it's less structured but it is still a structure like I said kind of like uh Vibes with what you know my uh you know TCM Mentor you know my like my medical Mentor was talking about Mr Wong you know what you're saying like Okay at the end of the day look at the positive stuff don't sit there and go like okay I [...] this one up and I could have done this one differently if you take a step back and you look at all the positive stuff that you did you realize you did a lot right you know um and that actually came from a certain like Chinese tradition it wasn't even just his idea but there was like a route to that you know because people have so many uh negative feelings about themselves right yes yeah so what you're worried about in this thing is it's just going to make you think about okay this is the negative things about me that kind of suck and I'll just dwell on them some more or something like that and the problem is that like inevitably when we screw up because it's gonna happen we're human then there's the shame and the guilt around yeah yeah you know all I you know I didn't do this thing and I know I'm not supposed to be doing this thing and here I am doing it again you know like it just it uh my cousin Joey brought this up that like you know he has these things that he'd like to do in the morning cold showers and and you know whatever and he's like if I don't get it he goes oh then my hormones are going to be off and my day is going to be ruined and I'm not gonna sleep well tonight not tomorrow's messed up he's like oh cause I missed a shower he's like he's like I still took a shower it just wasn't cold you know and he's like so he's like there's got to be some level of like movement towards a betterment you know having good overall habits but then also having some flexibility within that to be like okay well now I need to practice whatever patience or forgiveness or whatever on myself so that I'm not like the no's or not no no no no no no no no no no you know yeah yes it could be like even with I was talking about earlier with like Galaxy in my experience there I wanted to keep these practices that he had thrown out as optimal to do you know because okay I'm a sincere person and I felt very grateful to him I felt great for the Llama Glen too but llama Glenn's much more flexible and very flexible he's a yogi I'm gonna sure you do it don't do it you know probably be good if you do it but if you don't do it it's still okay so llama Blends like the balancing those two have been in my life the two poles of my uh connection to like tantric Buddhism right yeah of course but you know those two and um and uh uh so in the beginning with the Galaxy thing I could be like okay I'm gonna be really strict with myself you know but eventually you're gonna [...] it up eventually you're going you know even if you're trying to be in like so I really learned was like probably from the Llama Glenn side of me I was like okay [...] this up it happens right I didn't get that cold shower and all right it's not gonna like create this Cascade of catastrophe in my existence yeah I'll like if I'll be flexible I'll figure out how to do it tomorrow and I I do think about that you're like I was in my retreat a little bit towards well I could get in once I got back from Montreal to all my air travel disaster I did get a couple of days in where I was able to do my kind of New Year's style Retreat would normally be longer but and I I always think about that that whole thing of like okay so you know I could be a little top of myself on these things so how do I Orient this so that I don't get the kind of thing that you're talking about you know what I mean right like self-reproach I had I had to hit pause for a second because your screen was froze but we're good oh we're good okay yeah yeah I'm okay um all right so okay with the caveat of what you're saying I guess I'll go through like this other side I guess my experience with this Daniel let's see if this resonates with you yeah because I was thinking about this going from 2022 into 2023 I was like well okay if I look at myself honestly I can say this part of myself is causing me some problems you probably have to work on it so maybe this is when you know you have those moments where you can go okay let me like the tough love part let me show you yeah that's right I mean go okay well this I have to acknowledge is something that I have to think of what I want to do about maybe with the gold not of like against self-approach but like okay I'm gonna work on this part of myself and my life will get better yeah yeah no spiritually and practically yeah yeah so how they did sometimes do this in the the Buddhist world including like the tantric with this world because you can kind of talk about sometimes I'll say it's like three poisons but I don't like that because that sounds too harsh too I don't like that kind of language yeah you know that kind of like for the reasons you were talking about earlier but maybe these you could call like obstructions or something if you look at yourself in terms of these three you can kind of go okay again Buddhist thought they say probably a lot of your problems are going to happen come from either the idea that you have issues around anger and aggression that are going to cause your problems right these are also sometimes framed as like the more masculine energies within everyone's system kind of like acting out right yeah you can have problems around ignorance which means just not seeing things clearly enough not understanding things clearly enough and then there's like deep things within this idea like you know can you understand like deep parts of Buddhist philosophy and stuff but even outside of that it can just be okay do I have problems because I'm not seeing the world clearly and accurately you know and then there's this whole idea of having problems around like the negative sides of attachment or my attachment things causing me problems so that was the most fun yeah or potentially the most difficult right yeah like the ones that you know so the general thought is it's a lot easier to identify the anger and aggression ones right yeah because you've had issues around that you're probably going to notice this yeah but you can ask yourself where do these things pressing there's no doubt if I get personal on this when I was younger I had Pro I was an Angry Young Man in the quintessential classic sense I had issues with society that I still have issues now with society that I'm just as angry about it right [...] every week I pitch every week it's nice yeah I transformed it into a whole spiritual philosophy so that was good you become productive in your anger I took it and made it something good but yeah I was I definitely had issues I would act out angry in ways and later I'd be like why did they do that you know uh and it was something that I had to be honest with myself like oh yeah this is a problem I came from a very angry family right people would act out like violently angrily you know I was like physically abused when I was a kid and stuff and you know there's a cycle that has to get broken in those things and you know um and I did it you know but it was like that was pretty obvious it was like okay this is like right up in my face and I guess I didn't feel at the time like I was like it wasn't even the question of being hard on myself you know like for what you're bringing up earlier it was more like okay this is pretty obvious I better try to fix this because this is obviously a spiritual problem a psycho spiritual problem right and so that was pretty clear um then you know I'll throw it back to you but then as I got along I've tried to work on ignorance in different ways you know this kind of thing of okay can I see the world clearly psychologically because I see the world clearly of myself and others um uh um you know we're like people who like to like uh learn and you know and so it was like all the things I learned Chinese medicine or even before that I was doing psychology and physics and the spiritual stuff I got involved hours I I was always kind of based on the idea like let me try to see the world more and more clearly for myself you know sure for what that means to me so that was probably the thing that I tried to work on and I guess I would feel like I made some progress with that you know I had lots of concerns about because I was sick when I was young I had lots of concerns of like anxiety and fears around like mortality death and things you know because I was sick for a long time I was in my teens so I felt like that was really important to work on uh and that was I guess for me part of like seeing I know the the spiritual parts of life that are a little bit Transcendent of death that was a big deal for me you know so that was kind of like maybe my shipping away of what I thought was ignorance or something and then uh you know the attachment is the one that probably will talk about maybe when we look at New Year's resolutions a little bit but you know that's the hardest one right because it's the most emotional and it's probably the most complex to figure out what you want to do with yeah but that's you know probably how it's been for me I don't know how this is does this resonate with you at all houses but of course yeah I mean I would you know say that you know I feel like people probably some of this might also be like uh lifelong type situation you know where like when you're younger you're probably more quick to react if you have you know the energy the you know saying like you're yeah you're more volatile yeah you just you're not concerned about consequences you you know what I'm saying you just do your thing you're like ah whatever you know um and and so I think that you know with time and with responsibility and with seeing some of the consequences for people around you maybe even yourself hopefully not so bad but you know definitely people around you you can see that like some of these behaviors can really be detrimental to your health and the health of other people you know around you uh that work in your life did you have to go through something like this on the personal level or oh yeah of course yeah there's no doubt when I was much younger I definitely was you know uh far angry or individual you know by far right you know breaking things and punching holes in walls and you know just like you know intimidation and you know things like that and I look at you know I look at some pictures from when I was a teenager you know there's definitely a level of like um I don't know residual resentment that I've that I saw Within Myself and you know some of that I you know I definitely when I was really young uh I had a bully for a good year you know also resisting someone who was a bully yeah and so I just and moving around a lot I you know you're always having to fit in and sometimes the fitting in in new places is just you know you have the your armor around you because you're not quite sure because you're not you're in a new environment You're Not Safe yeah yeah yeah you know you're supposed to that's when you're supposed to be on edge a little bit or guarded or whatever you know from a I don't know historical standpoint of our species you know if you're dealing with with kids it's weird too because sometimes that you know like if kids Target another kid it doesn't even a lot of times make any sense right like we've all seen that like why is this kid why is that good yeah there's no reason they're just you know something weird happens you know and I and I you know and I've definitely been the savior of other smaller kids even though I'm definitely not a big person but I'm willing to get in there you know and mix it up which has been a theme in my life now that I'm thinking about it you know so then that draws the ire towards me but versus a little kid who's got asthma and has to Puff every 10 seconds you know like yeah I can't handle the physical intimidation because it just you can't or the abuse and not just do it like the abuse the actual like beatings you know whereas I'm more willing to this is like a very strange thing we're talking about this you know as I thought about this yesterday you know um okay that like yeah like I I there's one kid in particular first grade like he his name was Graham he was a super skinny you know probably was a preemie as my guest because he was really little uh we were friends and he had a an inhaler and he just you know he couldn't run he couldn't do it he just he was you know always have this thing his parents were divorced at a young age I mean I'm sure if we went through and got his trauma we would find it you know but he was picked on uh at a school that I went to in Oak Park and I just remember they would always like put wood chips in his pants and like push him down the slide Jesus you know like just you know and beat him up and humiliating oh he yeah he'd be like kick him and whatever and so I got in the way you know but then I took the brunt of the punishment at that point you know and he was never willing to let him sell and I don't know why this feels like apropo but I'm gonna just share it you know he never let himself cry he wouldn't do it in public whereas I my my emotionality ran the entire gamut you know if I got kicked in the balls which happened several times I'm crying you know yeah because it hurt you know what I'm saying I got junk and you know you don't want to get kicked in your nuts um and so like I think part of that was like you know me protecting him you know and then as as I moved to different places I just wanted he might have been getting abuse at home and sometimes you're abused at home you hold that [...] yeah he might he might that's true foreign just piss him off more right right you want to just go to the end and so Eric you were saying that's like maybe another 10 minutes right you were saying that sometimes when people get have abuse at home they hold they withhold it right yeah they hold it in right because you don't want to cry in front of a parent they'll just piss him off more yeah and so I was willing I was willing to take the to take the abuse you know to be the protector and then as that went forward I just stepped I was in that role very frequently and then eventually I just I I think I learned to just take the attention myself you know because I was used to getting it anyway so I just became the loud kid you know and that was just that's how it went you know and so from you know from that it's like and then and then working through that was like you know then I could be angry you know I'm justified in my anger right and that was for a long time how can I be justified in being angry that and that was really the way in which I I felt like I could be angry and then you know within the tantric practices I mean like the ones that like seem to resonate with you were the ones that expressed power yeah right you know yeah the defense yes like at times a lot of times we talk about the one that resonates with you is like a yamantaka because it's a Defender showing wow yeah right yeah that's like back in the day when we were talking earlier off Mike when we've done each other for a while now yeah it's kind of weird to think about yeah but it's like 10 years or a lot but I mean the very beginning of us meeting one another we were talking about like the use of power yeah how do you direct power in meaningful and uh beneficial ways yeah with beneficence behind it yeah that was a good question for you because it was your idea like I wanted like protect and defend yeah right that was a deep part of who you are and it's been that way forever it's been that way it's been that way since I was a child always been that way you know yeah and so getting but but having that you know using anger as using aggression using assertiveness has a negative side and that like it has that residual you know we don't know how to pick up and put the emotions down we pick them up I'm angry but then I'm also kind of always a little bit angry you know yeah yeah I'm not able to like go like you know when you people cry okay they cry and then they're done crying for the most part you know they may be sad but they're done whereas like if you're angry it sticks you know it's like always a little bit there because it helps you to get through things so um as I got older looking to see what where that anger can be justified and where that anger is detrimental to me and then being able to turn it on and turn it off has been kind of the the sort of realization for me on that on that part which I guess then goes to the ignorance part you know it's like learning about those differences in like the Buddhist Tantra thing like and we all get to think about this right that's the point that this conversation is like how do you take these qualities the more aggressive and angry things and learn how to use them in the best ways yeah never addressing them not repressing them right no no no uh not repressing the attachment part too if you're gonna do this Tantra right yeah you don't repress it but how do I learn to use this in ways that are good for me good for other people spiritually enlightening you know yeah yeah like was spiritually helpful for people how do I learn how to use these feelings in ways that will be helpful to myself and others that's the Buddhist Tantra thing that's why it's appealing to me at least right because it says like okay you can't really repress these things past a certain point right you know and that my thing has been attached but you know even like one of my favorite like Zen you know kind of Buddhist poets EQ he has this whole thing like the red thread of attachment I can't cut it you know it's incredible sense right yeah uncuttable thread it's always kind of there you know so as opposed and that's always been like an appeal to me of this way of thinking you know like I there's a part of this these these energies should be able to be used for the good yeah you know what I mean you know like take these energies and use them for the good whether we think of it this way or yeah we haven't really done a lot on the on the uh the five phases of Chinese medicine in Dallas culture but maybe all of those things have a place yeah right if you can learn how to use them in the right way you know you're right when you're saying medically we tend to emphasize the negative right yeah because we're trying to fix problems for sure and I guess this idea of focusing in on like oh this is the area where I had the issues as a way of trying to fix a problem it's a medical metaphor yeah right a lot of Buddhism uses medicine as a metaphor it's like yeah this is the diagnosis so this is how you apply the medicine and the medicine is like dealing with this issue but maybe the part that gets more positive from what you're talking about is like okay I'm going to take this thing and I'm going to learn how to use it for the positive yeah and I thought this way I felt like this more aggressive part has a place it's going to function to do something good for myself and others you know I mean it's going to mean something in my life that's going to be good yeah yeah maybe you stand up and you defend other people right or whatever it is you know yeah maybe that bridge is the two things again good we Bridge the two things we we wove them together like a nice tantric thread right that's right like a nice pashmina scarf that some guy in the market that meritesh is trying to sell for too much money but you'd buy it anyways which I did all right so it may be quick before we totally go like yeah how is 2022 for you how was it as a year what'd you think of it man I I it was fantastic I bought it everything that I wanted to buy I bought it we finally traveled you know we were in Italy we did our episode you know uh on uh yeah yeah when I was in uh Florence and um I mean yeah it was good I mean there was definitely some there was a level of frustration for a good period um and there was some some interpersonal things that are still not quite yet worked out but are I made a point to do to to address before the end of the year um which does for me those are the hardest parts you know it's the relationship things of people because I you know I want to have people around me and I want to be everything to be flowing and good and when they're not it's like uh you know it's a person it tugs at my heart you know um but but overall like I I'm you know you know me man I'm gonna be I'm gonna be positively tinged and say like in comparison to the couple years previous yeah better better work wise better uh you know some amazing Journeys and meditations and practices and you know we we developed this program you know as we went on and I you know I feel like we have a we're at a new sort of like level of presentation with where we're at um with it now and that comes with practice you know and so like 2022 was a year of continued prac you know continued positive practice uh and for me to be able to uh allow myself to enjoy some things you know motorcycle and you know whatever else right so for me I look at it I was like pretty good I'll take it I'll take it again so this is kind of interesting I wanted to do it because we all have these years that are easier or rougher right so when you get to this little thinking okay you can kind of like look back look forward and there's no doubt that 22 will go down as a a very tough year for me sure with some Silver Linings in there I didn't feel like on the silver lining side something happened with my creativity I got like more musically creative I think yes you know I made steps musically that were like pretty good and I did think about things having to do with writing and we have projects we want to work on around that but certainly like I felt like my creative juices were kind of driven a little bit in a in a paradoxical way because there were tough things that happened uh my uncle died you know yeah in the summertime yeah we realized the full extent of his dementia and it was a lot of caretaking with that and then I had you know like some personal losses and then as you know one person like very very special to me where like you know things just didn't quite work out uh you know in our connection with one another and that was really kind of like was sort of like almost like like fled through like flowed through the whole year but in a funny way it also kind of drove some of my creativity and some of my you know like other things that happened because sometimes it works that way right yeah you have something that like okay this is uh a painful experience but it's also inspiring something maybe yeah so I definitely felt that that Vibe throughout the year but it's definitely going to be here I'll look back on and be like Oh yeah this wasn't that easy you know this was kind of a tougher one right because of like personal loss you know family member and uh you know loss of uh close people especially someone very close to me yeah um but I was thinking about because I went back to 2021 I was like this is great and then you know and I just wanted to share it because we all have times like this you know one year you're like man this is like wow this has happened so great and the next year ends up being difficult it's got a little bit Mary Kate likes to talk about from the Dallas Point of View things are always going to go up and down I was going to be up and down on that practical level I mean even but like even in 20 you know which is a tough year for everybody I we had so many people over our house all the time I know bad naughty naughty you know but we had you know the whole summer was just jam-packed with people just parties and hanging out like you know I know it was rough financially whatever for for myself and many other people just like the uncertainty you know um but we just had people you know we were partying like basically not all the time but like we just had people over we're playing games we're doing dinners we're you know outside barbecuing you know like it just we the community aspect of it was was really fulfilling you know really what's fascinated about because 2021 I was like this is a great year even though things were still messed up in the world I was like this here is awesome yeah so it just goes to show like the personal rhythm of things and the disconnects you know sure where probably for me going from 2019 into 2020 that was a little tough but that always is something personal for me yeah they used to be like I'll have some problem in my life and some person who's close to me will have some difficulties like what you were talking about earlier a little bit Yeah and that'll Max they'll mess my shirt up I I feel like this I'm just a hearty person that's always gonna Cosmic issues you know I feel like this year I feel like this year for me started in December and I have been in a creative space since then you know and that what that what the year that I have planned or at least the next four four or five months have planned came from like 10 days in December and so whatever how it works out right yeah whatever the year was weird I did good music and like uh and I actually got in touch with like uh you know the writer George Saunders so this is the year I Met George Saunders in this crappy year but I was sending him music and we talked about creativity a little bit whether I can never get them to come on this [...] podcast it's a different question yeah I'm less excited about that relationship at this point to be honest I guess it won't turn out for us to come on the podcast I'm a little bit like uh I'm a little bit like uh guardly disappointed about that too but anyways you know it was like kind of a cool thing because my creative creative juices were flowing and I was like sending him musical stuff and he was like oh this is cool I don't know you know like funny [...] happens even in the midst of what I would ultimately say was like right up here I thought creatively kind of inspired so I guess it was kind of my mind it but good to talk about right because I like act through this call but uh because it was like yeah we all go through these ups and downs so I thought good to share about that a little bit because we're all going through this for I mean like with 2023 as far as the resolution goes and when you're saying my daughter well she asked me this and I think she thought I was going to say to fix my workout schedule and like lose a few pounds or you know whatever whatever I was supposed to say and I said you know what I really want to do is I just want to get even more deeply into my Buddhist Tantra you know and she went um because she was like that's just what you would say about everything what a boring answer you know that was like no I really meant it I was like I knew there were things I could do and I started doing it right where I could start working on aspects of my my own self and my own um my own stuff with this that is very meaningful I tried to like refine the Bliss in myself right I want to refine this contract listen no that's good so that's sort of my goal for the year and then the acknowledgment of like I'm on this Pat we'll talk about it like in future episodes but I know I'm on this path of attachment sometimes I call the Buddhist Tantra is the path of attachment and I was like yeah okay I'm on this path and uh This Is How I Roll I mean what happened yesterday about it you know that's what I was taught me that's what I bought all these things I'm attached to now you know I'm like oh I love that thing I'll give you that thing oh my favorite I had a funny conversation with somebody yesterday because he's like a more Dallas guy that I know and he was like well I want to like I want to like have not interference and just flow with things and you know I don't want to control things and that's what he's working on I was like okay yeah you're doing a very daoist thing and my answer was something like yeah I'm a path of attachment person and I like I always want to own that and I just have been thinking about that a lot like what that means to me where I think that goes and I guess part of my goal with that too the close of that would be like I want to like make sure that we do episodes around that too which we do sure yeah but in a certain sense we're all on this path of attachment because we're not nuns and monks and stuff you know we have people that we're close to and we love and family members and friends and significant others and so on yep so I don't know I think it all like kind of that came together for me in the idea of like yeah you know I want to find this blissen myself after what was like maybe kind of a difficult year and I know I could do that within my own practice and within my own self and then I want to also continue to work in the world on like understanding this path of attachment idea and uh you know and it also related back to some of the podcast episodes I want to do so that's kind of like maybe my little summary of 2023 for me how about for you what do you got going on man I got there's just so much I'm I'm giving you know like I'm I've re not recommitted but it's just sort of like it just sort of opened back up again for me in terms of being public facing and and I guess I could say holding spit holding uh public space for healing that's what I'm doing that that new new moon Capricorn guy yeah that's what's happening you know so a friend of mine uh asked me to do a cacao series money for her birthday which I hadn't really done for a couple years and and like immediately it went from three people to 15 and then I've done several synths and they they all sell out like immediately and I was inspired to name it do some uh graphic design around it and give a nice description of so now I have that thing and we're making t-shirts and I'm probably gonna change my website and you know so that came and we're doing that regularly yeah you know where I'm doing like I mentioned earlier we're doing a men's retreat with myself in a you know classmate of mine and uh you know ceremony will again be this year and we're leading a retreat in Mexico and um you know the shamanic courses will come up in in April again and um just you know and and having and trying to incorporate you know like inviting people to to do these things because they they're not here you know they're not really in existence that much so I feel good and feel confident that like oh that's really from your heart too though that's like that's your space right that's right that's right so I'm you know but there's a level of vulnerability right when you you open yourself up maybe it's not well attended maybe nobody comes you know what I'm saying so you feel like you're here to do your thing and there's like you know one person there waving your little flag around yay you know um that sounds kind of interesting about that I did the dollar like I go to 2022 would also be the year that I got my favorite tantric Buddhist practice empowered from the Dalai Lama via Zoom you know right oh that's a cool part of 2022 you know which is still available online by the way it's on YouTube you can still get it I wonder what I wonder what that's supposed to be like like you're supposed to like say that you have that empowerment if you just watch it I wonder but anyway so he did it and uh that kind of shook me up a little bit that was certainly spiritually for me but you know like there were only thousands of people in the world who attended that it wasn't like it I thought like there could be all kinds of people doing this seeing the Dalai Lama he's not gonna be around forever I thought to be people all over the world and there were people all over the world but in the thousands and I was like okay so the Dalai Lama could only drop up like some thousands of people you know like yeah we random we're all doing the best we can you're a random right your random Tick-Tock influencer eating whippets you know can get millions of followers so you know foreign [Music] because it it is the kind of thing that you know for you know if you're listening and for all of us you go through these ups and down things and you know yeah that'd be good just kind of share it at the end of the episode right yeah no so maybe it does make sense to kind of make these goals what's coming up for the next year right so maybe if you're listening you all have your own goals too yeah all right brother well thank you we're getting here Daniel we're getting our year started um and you know more to go see you again yeah you as well a little bit about these things yeah glad we're in the flow I want to thank everybody for tuning in whether this is your first episode or you're um teeth it's not even a word um teenth but you know whatever we'll say it um you know if you're watching us on YouTube like comment subscribe we definitely we love the feedback uh if you want a little bit more of a deeper conversation feels please feel free to hit us up at gin and Tantra at gmail l.com that's Jin and Tantra gmail.com uh you can find us on Instagram at uh Jin and Tantra and uh yeah if you're listening to us on Apple podcast give us a review give us the review man it helps the show share share share is caring sharing is caring and we do appreciate all the love from everybody uh so from Eric this is Daniel we appreciate everybody listening we'll catch you the next one peace