(Auto-generated)Welcome back, you wonderful people who matter so very, very much.
I'm so glad to see that you returned for more.
To kick things off today, I wanted to pass along another useful thing that I've discovered,
particularly during my time explaining the Breaking Laugh to people.
It's a way of talking about something that I don't really have the words for.
And I hope you don't mind if we talk outside today, because, well, I just think it'd be
nice to sit outside with you today.
I think we could all use a little outside time given the last year that's taken place.
Let's go outside to a nice sunnier day, and come sit with me and we'll talk about a few
things.
We'll see how an outdoor show goes.
If you like it, let me know.
If you don't, let me know.
So yeah, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is something that you're
not sure how to talk about.
When you're dealing with a very complex thought or emotion, you may understand it yourself
to a degree, but have a hard time explaining it to someone else.
Well, perhaps in response to the concepts that I had to figure out how to explain, I
developed the Michelangelo approach or the footprint method.
It's incredibly useful for situations that are emotionally charged because, as I mentioned
before, emotions are one of those things that you tend to have to describe in the abstract.
And if you've read my book or heard me read my book on here, which if you don't know,
that's the entirety of season one of the podcast is my book, then you know how abstract some
of these concepts I talked about are.
This method is so useful for talking in relationships about your emotions and about your feelings.
But in order to tell you about the Michelangelo approach, I need to tell you a little bit
about Michelangelo.
If you never looked into the great master sculptures and marble, he was that he was
a master.
You should absolutely look up his veil sculptures and his anatomy studies.
He had this brilliant way of giving weight and realism and texture to flesh and cloth,
though these pieces were sculpted out of marble.
It's said that Michelangelo was quoted as saying that his sculpting process was, he
looks at a block of marble, sees in it what he wants it to be, and then he proceeds to
cut away everything that isn't it.
There's a lot of times where you're in an argument or trying to explain something that
you are emotionally charged about, and you won't have the right words to just express
what's wrong or what it is that's right.
In those cases, there are bound to be sentences that you know you could say to the other person
that would tell them a lot about what it is that you mean to tell them, but to say that
sentence would imply a bunch of other stuff that isn't the right way to describe it.
The Michelangelo approach, or the footprint method, encourages you to state that you're
going to make a statement, and then encourages you to put out the whole block of marble,
make that sentence statement, and then spend time chipping away at what that statement
doesn't mean, so that they can see the foot by way of the footprint, so that they can
see what it is you mean to say by way of what you didn't mean to say within what you did
say.
They get a clearer picture of what it is you actually mean as you start to carve it down.
I'm telling you, this is useful for explaining anything, really.
In fact, I may actually use that right now in answering a question that was recently
posed to me.
So the question in question, it was regarding what happens from here, with the show, with
the book, and with me.
They asked me if I was starting a religion, and I had to think about that for a minute,
because I am proposing a new point of view when it comes to our interactions with our
creator, but I am in no way excluding any other faith.
The concepts I'm teaching plug in well with all the existing religions.
So is this a religion?
No.
Is it a belief structure?
Not really.
Is it a cult?
Definitely not.
I haven't asked you guys for anything, except I guess I will now.
Subscribe if you get the chance.
You know what?
Subscribe.
Do me a solid.
Subscribe.
That will help the show out a lot.
The more subscribers you have, the bigger an audience you have, and the more it gets
recommended out, the more it hits the algorithm that shows it to new people, the more of a
chance that other people have to learn what you've already learned.
It's good, right?
It's worth knowing.
So we're not a cult.
All it is is a series of concepts and observations arranged so I can show you what I've found
to be the reasons we laugh, what some of that laughter is actually doing to us, rational
reasonings towards believing in a creative force, what our purpose is, some of the reasonings
behind why we don't get to have proof, and how real happiness works.
And you, my friend, are one of the very first steps that this series of concepts and understandings
is making on its way into the waters of human knowledge.
And I know I've said this before, but I do hope that you will pass it along, continue
it forward, live with it, and teach from it.
It takes a little bit of courage, but so it would seem do all things that are truly worth
doing.
But before it takes courage, it takes some just doing it.
Some just saying, okay, we're doing this, and go.
And pushing yourself into taking the first steps and boom!
Suddenly you're there, and you know what?
After the first steps, most of the time, it's really not that hard, nor does it really require
courage, especially if you already trust God.
During your first steps of living this, it's easy to see all the rest of the world as what
I used to have, to feel surrounded by a world full of comforts and temptations of what would
seem to be the easiest routes.
Those go with the flow routes, and ones that your feet used to trot, those paths will feel
like a home that you are away from.
And they feel a bit like going back to them as a trespass of sorts.
But then, as some time passes, you begin to see the path for what it is.
A self-motivated arrow towards that which you thought you wanted, banged around from
different events, being stumbled and knocked around by different occurrences, the path
that you find yourself on apart from it, is less of a narrow strip of guidelines, but
a whole wide open world to walk through.
Allow yourself to be drawn off course to help someone else.
I'll say this again, allow yourself to be drawn off course to help someone else.
You've already talked about exploring the paths that you find yourself landing on.
All the very best paths require someone willing to step onto them.
Slight focus shift for a moment, but let's say you need some help finding the path.
Ask for help.
And after you ask for that help, one of the best things you can do is focus on doing some
good.
In fact, and this is something I should definitely share on the show, all you have to do to feel
God's presence is to do good.
If there are scarier moments where you want to feel God with you, actively turn your mind
from fear and place it in love's hands.
Make a plan, something and fall through with it, but come up with something nice that you
could do for someone, some way that you could help someone, some way that you could just
make their life just a little better, just even for a moment.
Aim your heart at what good you can do in the world, and then aim your head and your
hands at it.
And make the decision to desire doing this more.
Because God speaks on a whole nother level, way beyond that of clumsy human language.
And yes, languages are beautiful and brilliant, but it's not ideal for something that is magnitudes
greater in complexity than we are.
From what I've experienced, God doesn't speak through words as much as he speaks through
emotions and through everything else.
Don't forget that God is hidden in everything.
He tends to speak in moments.
For me, he flecks the fabric of reality in response.
During my journey he had a billboard put up several years before I asked a question, just
waiting for me to come out from under that bridge when I asked if I could wait a day
to leave.
I asked it and boom, right there.
My answer on a billboard that had been weathered from several years of exposure.
And do remind me please to tell that story, because that's a pretty good one.
My point is, I think that emotion is a lot closer to the language that God speaks.
And when we start aiming those hearts and minds and hands at doing some good, we start
tuning ourselves into that connection we have with God, that frequency that God speaks on.
And nothing properly helps to switch from fear living to remembering that God is all
and he's got my back, like turning your heart, your mind, and your hands towards making someone's
day a bit better.
Making someone happier makes it so much easier to talk to him and to hear him.
And you know what, hey, added bonus, you get to put some more good out there into the world
as well.
Yay you.
So there you go.
Yet one more reason to be good to them.
Please be good for them and you're going to be magnificent.
So be sweet.
Bye everybody.