The Reckoning
I've got my beautiful sage here.
And I'm holding it over this candle
burning a little bit of it for us here
to start out our session.
I send a little bit of it your way.
The sweet smell of this incense.
And clear the air.
Clear
the mind is a reminder, if nothing else.
Have a bit of a reset here in our day.
Could you use something like that?
Calm and beautiful like that?
I take a deep breath of that
and I just feel.
Sense of calm
and a sense of peace from it.
Sometimes people ask me,
they say doctor Z
how can I find motivation
on my health path.
Like I have some things
that are on my heart.
Some things that I want to do.
Some things that feel like the step.
But then I don't do them.
And it's hard to take the step.
That is a struggle that I have.
How do I navigate that space?
We're going to dive into that today.
Really nice to have you here with me.
Grab a coffee. Gravity settle in.
Do some thinking
and do some feeling with me on it.
Where do you find motivation?
I'm happy to hear it.
What?
I'm going to suggest today
that the deepest level
of motivation that we can have is love.
That love is the answer.
I did a session like that once.
Is love the answer?
I say yes, it is.
But the type of love that it is is a
very deep kind of love.
The kind of love
that is willing to sacrifice for something
that is willing to hold somebody's
hand during a difficult time
and in the struggle of life.
The reality of it, the difficulty of it,
that we have our eyes wide open.
We're not trying to
pretend that darkness isn't present.
And when we think about a kind of deep,
compassionate
love, a presence like that,
I think, do
we have an attitude like that for ourself?
Like, do we start?
It's easy to think, oh, do we have
a perspective like that for someone else?
Do we have a perspective like that
for ourself?
And is this where a motivation starts
to come from?
Say we're trying to be the healthiest
we can in the midst of an unhealthy world,
an unhealthy culture.
That sort of processes starts here.
We have to care for ourself
in order to do that.
The not an easy thing to do,
not even an easy thing to know how to do.
In a world where everybody trying
to sell things and different perspectives.
And comes
a moment where we have to take a step,
we have to move forward,
we have to do our best.
We have to step forward and trust
that the path is there,
even if we can't always see it.
Even if we've taken a step like that
in the past
and it doesn't seem like
it was the case, right?
Like, I've taken steps
and it's like we're not still quite
where we want to be.
Many times
when I look across a health landscape,
when I talk to people who are consulting,
weight management, type two diabetes,
people putting so much pressure
on themselves, we're starting
from a place of stress and pressure.
We can so easily
get into a space guilt
tripping ourselves for not doing more.
This is a big message
that I have on this channel.
Fasting space.
Really a process of doing less
and taking the pressure off.
Just giving some space to a lot of things.
Body and mind,
our thoughts, the stress, blood sugar,
body fat, energy flowing through the body,
all of these things in the mix.
And today I want to really dive into it
with one of my favorite
little books, Dear Artist by Jaya John.
And I want to
really dive in to the subtitle
A Love Letter.
This is some of the most
passionate writing I've read.
I've got to tell you. Really,
really is.
Written to artists helping to encourage.
People are trying to create, trying
to bring something new into the world.
People
maybe who are needing a little boost.
You feel that way sometimes,
like if we're trying to be healthy,
this is a message I love to bring.
This is an artistic expression.
We are whole life like our being.
We are trying to find a way
of being in the world
that is the healthiest expression
of our life
in this moment,
and that is not an easy thing to do.
And so sometimes on that artistic journey
of health, we could use a little boost.
And so this is the message
that this book is trying to give.
This is the message that I want to take
and channel to you through these
words today.
Two kind of levels on it that I see.
There's a level
that I think the author is operating on,
which is just a really big level
of the human experience.
You know what it's like to be a person
in this world, alive in this moment,
with all the beauty
and pain and difficulty of the world.
And then there's the second level,
which is like my level here for us.
Can we kind of piggyback on this vibe
and say, like,
how do we tap into this type of ethos,
this type of mindset,
make critical, you know, decision?
If we're seeing
where do I find motivation?
Right. That's where we started.
I'm seeing we're reaching deep down
into our being
to say, is love present here?
How do I
bring more love and kindness
toward myself?
Making decisions that help us to be
healthy is like a loving gift to the body.
Do you see that?
And so we should always be
trying to do that right in every day.
We should be trying to do that.
How do I take the best care of this
miraculous gift that I've been given
this human body for this moment, you know,
and then to do it all out of a place
of deep love,
never punishing our way to health
like so many people try to do.
Never guilt tripping ourself,
always just staying on the positive side.
How do I sink deeper
into a loving presence in this space?
All right, so that's our vibe.
And then the higher vibe,
maybe there are higher things than just
what is a blood sugar reading.
What is a scale say. Right.
Maybe we also just say, look,
we're just people here in this moment,
okay?
And we're just going to think deeply
about what it means to be a person here.
As we listen to these words.
With each horror
that a nation visits upon a people.
The souls of that nation
are thrust into a fatal question
that determines
all human life.
Do I care more for this way of life?
Or do I care more to stop the horror?
If our way of life must die
for our way of death to die,
we must be willing to endure and hasten
the death of our way of life.
How does your creative fire
play a role in this?
Your passion expression.
It makes us feel and contemplate.
Which brings out of our group days.
Brings us back into the sensation
of being alive
in our aliveness.
A grand jury is formed in the soul.
In that chamber, we indict, interrogate,
and rule on this reality we have made.
We rule on
whether and how we are to un make it.
Your art, you see, is both an invitation
and a seduction into reckoning.
And so that is where I chose the title
for our session here, The Reckoning,
getting into this deep place
where he is suggesting
we have an assessment of what is happening
here,
you know, lovingly in this space.
How does that writing
land with you?
What thoughts or feelings
does it stir in your being to hear it?
Maybe you find it difficult or offensive.
That's fine.
It is a very challenging, I say,
but life is challenging, I say.
And we are trying to do something
very deep and I say, very important.
Say, what does it mean?
We can read a Tonic Habits. We've done it.
We talk about change. We say the the.
This book is giving us steps to change.
It has a superficial layer,
small incremental changes,
but then it has a deep layer,
which might be the real message,
which is to say,
if you really want to change,
you have to first change your identity.
And what does that actually look like
to sink down that deep into our being?
Is it actually getting into a place
like this,
talking about what our way of life is,
you know?
And how we feel about it
and what is our role?
What has our role been in creating
and shaping the experience that we have
is complex, right?
It's some amount of the things
that happen to us
and some amount of our decisions
and how we react to things.
And there's a certain number of things
that are within our control
and a certain number that aren't.
And if we want to use
the small bit of agency
that we have in this experience
with whatever time we have left in it
some number of years, right?
There are some number of years left.
And we say we want to make the most of it.
We want to create the expression of health
that is the most beautiful and powerful
expression that we can.
Does that mean
that our current way of life
needs to stop?
In a way, this felt to me.
Like flowing out of these sessions
we've done in the last couple of days,
floating up
above Earth from the space station
and looking down and just seeing
almost everything that the
that we stress about
money and politics and the economy
and these things, it all disappears
when we float up
and we see there is a planet here, right?
And then the session yesterday,
we float back in time
and we look at the cycles
and the conflict and people fighting over
land and money and, and things,
and we find ourselves here in this space.
Unsettled times.
We said yesterday. Right.
And the conflict and the disagreement is
just feels never ending.
And so it feels good.
Pulled back a little bit.
Not that we don't engage.
I want to engage.
We are engaging.
Right.
But pull it into this space.
What does it mean?
What are the steps that we can take
to make something like this a reality?
To really dig deep sea,
both in the world and in health?
Maybe they are connected.
This is what I am suggesting
that there is a connection
between these things,
that our choices matter
more than we think in the big picture.
Take care of ourselves first.
Let that space flow out.
What we eat matters,
the choices that we make.
I really believe that
how we move through the world matters.
These things really physically
and how we do it.
Our health matters.
If eating matters, fasting space matters.
That's a balance that everybody strikes
in a day.
To me, it's very important.
It's very under appreciated
in these spaces.
How much healing can come to the body
through
even a practice of nothing,
through saying no.
When we think about deep
and painful spaces
like this book is getting into.
Just think of the power of saying no.
How many things in the world
need to be said no to like
there's always this propensity
right, to say yes and to say yes.
We always want to be agreeable.
We don't want to disappoint people.
Hard to say no.
Hard to have a reckoning, right?
Part of a reckoning that's part
of creating a border
where we really define an edge.
And we say, this is the space.
You know, this is my space.
This is how we take care of ourselves
here.
So we're looking in this to see
life has to change, right.
He uses stark, kind of brutal language
to say, does this way of life need to die?
Right?
One season dies as another is born.
That's what we are seeing yesterday.
That is the way where we can say
things that are dark and difficult,
not always a bad thing.
Sometimes there are seasons
that need to come to an end.
The winter has to happen in order
for the spring to come right.
There are cycles.
That's what I thought was beautiful
about that session yesterday.
Just looking at the cycles,
we can get stuck in linear thinking
and we start to realize
many things in life cycle up and down.
The sun sets and then it rises again.
It is darkest just before the dawn.
So we are sitting here in this moment.
Can we sit in a space like that?
Can we see that confronting things
that have been barriers for us,
that actually not looking away from issues
like this, that if there is a reckoning,
is there something that
we have been dealing with for a long time
that finally the time has come
to step right to it,
to stop avoiding it, to sink into it,
maybe to bring
love and kindness, acceptance to it
so that we can step over it and onward,
take some time
and sit with these thoughts.
I would love to hear your reflection
on it.
It's a message to myself
as much as anyone else.
I'll be thinking on it.
Love to have a conversation with you
in the comments.
if you're here on the replay.
So nice to have you here.
Throw your thoughts in the comments.
They all come to me
and let's have an ongoing
reflection on it.
I'll come and welcome all comments.
Welcome.
If you're listening on the podcast, audio
should be a link on most platforms
to find the YouTube stream,
and you can come in and
share your thoughts.
I hope the words from this book.
I hope my reflection on it helps
you really to think deeply about life,
about your life, all of our life here.
How we take the most beautiful, powerful
and healthy steps forward.
We can do it together.
We meet in this beautiful digital
experience that all this technology
is allowing us to have.
We find some gratitude for that.
And then we also hit the off button,
and we'll get outside and
breathe the fresh air and
look at the natural world
and contemplate also
the importance of.
A little bit of screen
free time in the day.
Also wish you the very best in this day.
Look forward to connecting with you again
soon.
Be well everybody.
