Our Friendly World with Fawn and Matt

Show notes #25 “Peculiar” Nugget of Wisdom: Jesus and the Bread Guy – Fawn recalls “… two things, two, if you pick two things in the neighborhood, within the community that are a constant, you never thought about together at the same time; in the neighborhood, you never thought had a connection. If you take two things or two people that are consistent in the neighborhood that you never connected; like they are not going to cross, or it didn't even cross your mind, but when you see it, it makes total sense. Have you ever had an epiphany like that?” This story is about two main fixtures in the Santa Monica/ Venice neighborhood that one early morning Fawn became aware had a divine, spiritual connection to one another that brought her a deeper understanding of our connections within our community.   PECULIAR - pe·cu·liar  /pəˈkyo͞olyər/  adjective strange or odd; unusual. Similar words: Strange, unusual, odd, funny, curious, bizarre, weird, uncanny, queer, unexpected, unfamiliar, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, untypical, different, out of the ordinary, out of the way, exceptional, rare, extraordinary, remarkable, puzzling, mystifying, mysterious, perplexing, baffling, unaccountable, incongruous, uncommon, irregular, singular, deviant, aberrant, freak, freakish, suspicious, dubious, questionable, eerie, unnatural, bizarre, backasswards, eccentric, idiosyncratic, unconventional, outlandish, offbeat, quirky, quaint, droll, zany, off-center, wacky, freaky, kooky, screwy, oddball, off the wall Opposite: normal, ordinary Particular; special. Similar words: distinctive, characteristic, distinct, different, individual   BUT ALSO: Peculiar comes from Latin peculiaris, an adjective meaning "privately owned" or "special" that is derived from the word for "property," peculium. ... Peculiar borrowed the Latin meanings of peculiaris, but it eventually came to refer to qualities possessed only by a particular individual, group, or thing.   An article by Jess Zafarris: The Etymoooology of “Peculiar” “Peculiar” comes from the Latin peculium, literally “property in cattle,” a meaning that lingers in “peculiar to,” meaning “belonging solely to.” Its “odd” sense arose after the term evolved to mean “distinguished, special,” describing a person or thing of great wealth or renown. Peculium was used to describe property in general, for cattle were considered the most important form of property, and wealth was often measured in livestock. Cows were especially considered a mark of wealth and social standing because they were used to expand the scale of crop production, to haul goods and weapons in trade and war, and were also (obviously) a rich source of protein. Owning, purchasing, and breeding cattle was considered an investment in the future, and practices involving cattle were handed down from generation to generation—meaning that cattle played a not-insignificant part in establishing early ruling classes and families. Peculium gave rise to peculiaris, “belonging exclusively to one person,” which carried its meaning over to English in the 15th century. From there, in the 16th century, “peculiar” came to mean “distinguished or special,” suggesting someone endowed with great wealth (not necessarily in cattle) or esteem, or something else particularly renowned or remarkable. This noteworthy sense led to what might be considered a more common use of the word today, “unusual, strange, curious,” from the 17th century—though, of course, its sense o

Episode #24 – US/THEM/SYNTHESIS  - Is it possible to have synthesis? How can we have Synthesis in society when there is so much of “us” versus “them”? Pearl of wisdom from Santa Monica: the light within can really touch someone out there that you may not know. What you do in your own home can seriously affect someone on the outside.   SYNTHESIS:   1) the combination of ideas to form a theory or a system. 2) The production of chemical compounds, by reaction from simpler materials. Fawn: I have an issue with “simpler materials” for so many reasons. If you're going to take it outside the science scope (I'm going to talk about synthesis), like communication with people and culture, using the word “simple” is a mistake. If you look at something through a microscope, you can get more powerful microscopes and keep going and going and going and going as you look at any given thing. Does anything ever stop being or existing? Like numbers, is everything infinite? You look at something through a microscope, you see the smaller particles. You magnify it even more, you see even more. A flower is complex. If you look at the design of anytihing in life, if you really look at things, everything is incredibly complex. Another thing about synthesis; another definition is to combine a number of different pieces into a hole. And it made me think of the term “melting pot”. The description of a culture or society being a Melting pot always bothered me. It never sat right with me growing up. I heard that a lot, but I never really thought about why it bothered me. I was always asked (it was actually demanded of me) to erase my culture; to erase my identity, not only growing up in the United States, like to become Americanized, but also within my family who was very terrified of having to escape from a country that was in turmoil, to erase who I was. And even though my family loved their culture and wanted to keep their culture, they had to flee the country that they were originally from, come to a new place and where they had to deal with a whole new set of problems and persecution in so many ways. There was this confusion of, do we assimilate? Do we keep our traditions or get rid of them? Do we teach our traditions and culture to the next generation? How do we do that, when the culture you live in despises you and the next generation is caught in between these two worlds?  I noticed this peril not just with the family I was raised in, but with so many different families across so many different cultures other than mine. I watched the struggle with: do we keep the traditions, do we do a dare speak together, out in public in this other language? I just don’t like the analogy of a “melting pot”. Instead of a melting pot, I think it should be a dish that holds the integrity of every ingredient not something that melts and becomes something else. I don't want to melt. I do not want to melt. I want all of my cultures. I want my languages. I want everybody else's cultures and everybody else's languages, everybody else's fashions, everybody else's ideas to hold their own and contribute a vast delicious balance of tastes that light up your life force when you taste it. I want it to remain whole. I don't think it's a good idea to melt into one thing and lose your unique flavor. I think if we can appreciate the integrity of each individual ingredient, that it will lead to world peace. We talk about assimilating and what that means. We ask if there’s a constant assembly line of hate. The focus may end on one group, only to focus on the next group. Eventually, you will be the target so best to stop the hate now.  When your mind is open enough, you can see the profound in

Show notes #23 The Frog and the Scorpion   Nugget of wisdom from Fawn’s neighbor in Santa Monica, upstairs Joey – the lesson of the hot stove.   Today’s episode revolves around the fable, “The Frog and the Scorpion” “The Scorpion and the Frog”  “A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" Replies the scorpion: "It’s my nature...".”   Our super friend, psychotherapist KJ Nasrul joins us to discuss: the changing of minds; our belief systems, specially in times of argument. Can a person fundamentally change? How do you know when to reenter a friendship? How do you know when to end a friendship?   THEN… Fawn: I have lots of people I had to totally cut off like the scorpion, right? The end from the very beginning, I knew their nature. I knew how they were, they were showing it to me, but I assumed, Oh, they'll never do that to me. You know, the last ones were some of the yoga crew around where we live. I saw how they treated each other, their family members. And I assumed they wouldn't do that with me. And we had the established where we're family, men were sisters. And then all of a sudden they treated me like family, which is how they treated themselves, which was not good. And I had to cut it off, and I knew they wouldn't change. They were the scorpion.  And they already stung me and boy, did it take a long time to heal from that. So never again, because they tried to apologize. They tried to come back and I'm like, “Nope!”. Matt: But if you take a look at that, you just take a look at, let's say the yoga people, they get continual reinforcement to act the way that they do. They get continual positive reinforcement to act the way that they do because they have blood family, if you will daughters, et cetera. And they act that way towards them, but there's still that relationship. And so they've had continual reinforcement that they can act like an a-hole and it's going to be okay. You know, the way that, oftentimes families will fight and they will just lay it all out. They will just devastate one another and then they'll figure out how to get back together without talking about it. So there's no impetus for them to change other than the fact that they they've lost your friendship, but they can, they can find an excuse. They can excuse that away and make it your problem or your fault.   Question: Have you been friends with a scorpion? Have been bitten, or knew that they would bite, but continued to have a friendship out of desperation of wanting to have a friend so badly that you played with “fire”?   why do you think the frog did it anyway? Matt: Otherwise we wouldn't have a fable, but also I think that the frog dog is the optimist on the outside and the inside. He believes in the good in everyone and he believes everyone can change. And he believed in the logical argument back to emotion versus logic, the scorpion stung, because that's what he does. It's an emotional thing. Whereas the frog understood on a logical level that if he got stung, he would die in the middle of the river. And so he believed that the scorpion would take the logical argument, but the scorpion was never going to do that because i

Episode 22  - Emotion Motion – the Good, the Bad, the Ugly Nugget of wisdom from Santa Monica: Moses and the Ten Commandments – Why hearing a crowd chant your name is important. It is a healing. It is validation. We need that. My friend hearing his name chanted - that's a good thing. It gives you that strength and that validation, that power that says "I exist. I am powerful. I am loved". What is it about words? I always say words have vibration, words have power. There's so much energy associated with sound. The internal emotion logic works between two people. Two people are arguing and one person takes the emotional argument. The other person takes logical argument. We're working in a whole different system. We're working against imposter syndrome. We're working against everybody tells me whatever it is I want to hear, except for there's one person who says that hurtful comment. That's the only person (maybe I feel because I'm an imposter walking through the world because we all feel this way at some time where, you know, I don't belong. I'm not worthy. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not), so this is the only person who is telling me the truth and you start to become emotionally connected to the one person who tells you the truth. And it also can be because you are, you do feel like you're wearing this. It's like you're wearing a coat. This is your body. You're wearing it like a coat. And you’re you. You go through life sometimes worried that somebody is going to call you out on your BS. And so if somebody calls you out on anything, you feel like this is the one person who is being honest with me. This is why we are so emotionally attached to that ONE ugly comment.   Anecdote:  this company called Despair: they do these demotivational motivational posters. There’s one for dysfunctional. The only thing in common between all of your unsatisfying relationships is you. So it's really hard to shuck that off or understand that.   More on criticism: (the unkind mean things people throw at you): …and then we have being a youth or being an unexperienced; un-fully formed kind of a person who's still trying to figure out who they are. And people love to tell you who you are. Why do they do that? Because they want you to be just like them. This concept takes you into a brand new completely other world of "the way I live is the best way to live. So you should live just like me, because then you living that way validates me".   Matt: …”and that's a lot of what I grew up in was, I lived this way, my parents lived a certain way and the people who they associated with lived basically the exact same way. And if you didn't kind of live that way, you were a little, either a little off, if it was only a little bit different or you were nuts, if it was completely different or they couldn't even fathom how you would, but by the same token, because you're their child and they are tutoring you and they are, providing a role model for you, if you choose not to live the same way they did, then you invalidate them too. So there's a jumble of all these emotions caught up inside of people”. Fawn: Why do you think that that happens? Why do you think that people are so attached to you being like them as the only way to be? Why isn't it that they have a slate that says, you know what, you don't have to be like me, cause I want to be different; even if you are my child or my student. Why is that the common thread? Is it going back to when we were hunting and gathering, and you have to stick together. I mean, I don't understand where that thinking comes from. Matt: It does. It has. It evolved from this, team-based kind of a feeling where, I'm on a team, we're all going forward. And this gets, I think, lost inside of a lot of emotions, but on some level,

Your responsibility to party – How to be a good guest Nugget- The blind date – How to be gracious   “To Be a Good Guest” When I was little, my immediate family quite honestly, was pretty stressed all the time and angry and kind of hateful. I was always surprised by how the relatives put up with. I actually had to cut them off. It's not something I did lightly. It took many, many therapists to get me out of that situation. As a whole though, my family and its dynamics was very much the movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. It was exactly like that but Persian. The relatives would get together every week; parties all the time, get-togethers all the time; always in each other's business and very loud and the dinners are not just like quiet dinners with seven people. As a child, every time I had to go to one of these parties, (I mean, other people would call them parties for us, it was just a Friday night), the amount of stuff that would happen in our home that I grew up in was just not happy. There was screaming, yelling, criticism, body shaming, all kinds of shaming, you name it. It was heavy. And this was right before going to see the relatives. As a kid, you can't just switch that off and go to a party and be the life of the party as a guest in someone’s home (at least, I couldn’t). Every time I was at a party, I would be in a corner sulking. At parties, I just wanted to be alone. I didn't want to be around anyone. My feelings were hurt and no one else really understood that. My relatives would try to force me to dance and grab my arms, drag me to get up out of the chair, to get me away from the corner. And it just hurt my feelings even more. I didn't understand the concept of a party or being a guest, even being a host.  To this day, when I have to go to a party I have inner turmoil because I feel less than, ugly, body morph issues galore stemming from those times as a child.   It took years, many, many years to realize the responsibility I have as a guest and how important that is. It took being away from all that drama, moving away and hosting my own parties, attending all kinds of parties, to realize the art of being a good guest. What is it to be a good guest?  As much as I have empathy for my childhood self, I realized the act of sitting in a corner, sulking and not being a participant is giving the haters all the power, it’s such a downer for the whole place and a waste of time. We are here to live and to enjoy life. And just like that, I realized all of a sudden, like a flip of a coin, that I was the life of the party.   Here’s what I do: I interview people at parties like they’re major celebrities. I asked them questions about their lives. I marvel at what they are wearing, about how great they are, how great they look, and how interesting they are. I will give people the red carpet treatment. I enjoy the food and drink and express gratitude for the amazing feast. I dance like a fool and laugh. I help carry the party. And here’s the thing, the party is in daily life. These are the things I am trying to teach my daughters. But really they were born with these instincts, until we came across one mean person after another and now I have to make sure they are brave and strong again; so they can go out boldly, enjoy and embrace life again, before the time the haters tried to dampen their flame. We all need to embrace life again! My little girl (at two years old) with gusto, would step into every room and victoriously make an announcement that we were there (that we had arrived). We would go to swim lessons. We would push the doors of the public indoor swimming pool open together and with arms stretched out like she was embracing the entire place and all the swimmers, with voice echoing loudly she would exclaim that we’re swimming toda

Fawn and Matt break out all their dictionaries and read all the definitions of friendship and have a good laugh. Then THEY break it down for real. Fawn feels a kinship, like a family type feeling about certain people, to which Matt says they are not friends because they don’t even know you! Fawn says we're all connected, at the risk of sounding way too woo woo. So yeah, this person doesn't know I exist perhaps, but they've touched my life profoundly. And because they touched my life, I shared how they touched my life with my close friends and so they also get touched and changed because of this person. Do they (the person that hasn’t met us) know how they changed lives? When I tell other people about this person and it changes their life, it's a ripple effect. My idea of friendship is getting a little bit more fluid, especially in the time of 2020, and the fact that we can't be together. Before 2020, our criteria was that to have a substantial friendship, you had to be together within a close proximity and not on social media, but in real life.     What are we going to do? How can we define it? Are we growing as friends? Are we growing together towards something?   Matt: I'm still gonna take the hard line and say, there's a mystical connection that happens when you're physically present; physically adjacent to one another. Fawn talks about how sometimes all she has is a tree to lean on… “I'm just saying, I'm trying to get it (the support of a friendly force) wherever I can find it. And if you think about it spiritually, you're never alone. There's always,  you're a part of everything. Everything is a part of you. You have to broaden your scope.” Fawn and Matt totally disagree about what a friendship is. Fawns point: it is about connection. You have to recognize the connection. So when you are in a physical friendship situation, you can say, yeah, this is the connection. You have to look for it, even though you're locked down. Well, if you want to talk about it, as far as it feeling like you have to exercise those muscles, you have to exercise attention to the feelings. You need to have those feelings to live. It's like water and air. You need those feelings. And I'm saying to you sometimes you're in solitary mode and you need to have those feelings, first of all, within yourself. You have to be your own friend. You have to recognize happiness within yourself and not from the outside world. And that's key to friendship. You have to have that knowledge. You have to have that expertise about the feeling of friendship when you meet other people. It will enhance everything because you know that feeling, you know that dance, and you can pick it out from the ether. THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENS! Fawn convinces Matt to shift his view!  Matt: Friendship has to have a component of effort. There is no passivity in friendship. Leave a review on iTunes to be eligible to win a print from Fawn's coffee table book. Send us an email with a screenshot of your review to be enetered.Go to our website to eamil and to leave us a message: www.ourfriendlyworld.com

Today's Pearl has to do with fine lines and the path that we walk on. We discuss having the intention, awareness, and the wherewithal of knowing how we walk in the world.  One of those paths we referred to as “A.W.O.L.” which in Santa Monica, California, stood for “Always West of Lincoln”. Then there’s the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James) which is a large network of ancient pilgrim routes stretching across Europe and coming together at the tomb of St. James (Santiago in Spanish) in Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. We talk about this path and Fawn talks about listening to Caroline Myss and her experience as she walked part of this path and the insight she (Caroline Myss) shared. There's a fine line to everything. We can walk on a path and if we veer even one step to the left or the right, we’ll have a completely different experience. As a photographer, Fawn is especially true in her field of art and how looking at the same thing, we will all have a completely different perspective.  Matt: “I think generally speaking, when you're walking the path, you're meant to walk, it feels easy. It feels comfortable. It feels right…and so it's about trying to find where that spot is or where that path is.” Fawn: “I felt like a needle in an acupuncture session (there are some paths and places that I feel perfectly in tune with and others I pop out of and just don’t belong in)…it's just taking into consideration everything that's involved; even the forces that you may not be aware of, that you can't see, you have to feel for it.” On today's episode, we are talking about foundation -  Isaac Asimov's “Foundation”. Matt explains the story and explains how Asimov is one of the great classic science fiction writers (science fiction writers of the 1940 and 50s were the seers of our society). Fawn’s take on Asimov and the questions that arise for her are: what are we fighting for? What is it that we're striving for?  What are we going to create as far as a society in which there's balance, truth, and something symbiotic. How are we going to create that? Once again, we bring in Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics (the three kinds of friendship) and bring it into focus as it relates to Asimov’s “Foundation” story. Aristotle pointed out the three forms of friendship as 1), there are those who love you because you are useful to them. 2), there are those who love you because your company provides them with pleasure. 3), is what Aristotle says is when you know, you have true friendship, like lifelong friendship that will withstand: those who love you because you're a good person. In relation to the Nichomachean ethics and relating Aristotle’s ethics to Asimov’s Foundation: it's all about knowing who we are, knowing how we are useful, knowing how we are of service, and knowing how we make other people feel. Matt shares a painful lesson about a work relationship. Matt’s advice is to focus your attention where it matters and figuring out where it matters can be a tricky thing. Matt: “…and if you want to look at it, very digital and hard and logical and everything else, same goes for friendships. You know, you cast your net out upon, across the waters it feels like to me sometimes. And sometimes you catch a fish and sometimes you don't.  And where you don't, where you don't get something back; if your friendship is strictly a one way street, it's maybe not a friendship.” Fawn explains that to know if there is balance is key, and using Aristotle’s ethics we can save so much time and heartache because once we are in the beginning of getting to know another person, we can (in a non-charged way), look at a situation and figure out which of these three is

 Jennifer Lopez, (aka Jenny from the block, JLO) visits and shoots a movie in the neighborhood and comments about our little village by asking: “Does anyone work?” when filming the movie “Monster In-Law”. She was noticing our way of being in our community. The truth is we all worked but we didn’t all have traditional “9-5” jobs. We also knew how to luxuriate and enjoy every single day and to someone looking in from the outside, it appeared that we just hung and played all day. The Pearl of wisdom is to enjoy your life for God's sake. Just enjoy. Notice the trifles. There is really no need to rush. Put on your roller blades, roller skates, flip-flops, sit, sit at a coffee shop holding on to a cup of your favorite coffee, play, eat, watch the light change, drink a great delicious drink, ride a bicycle, feel the sand between your toes, feel the sun on your body, take a stroll, do a little dance down the sidewalk…you get the idea, right?   The focus of this week’s podcast is on the alpha, beta, omega, gamma, sigma… definitions of personalities that seem so rigid and outdated according to Fawn and Matt, as they break down the meaning of each stereotype and discuss who and how people really are away from these limited beliefs that society tries to impose. Fawn and Matt share their experiences.  Fawn shares her own limited beliefs about herself and how she realized that her friendship with one of her greatest friends got weird for her at one point, without her friend even realizing it, all because of her (Fawn’s) own insecurities about herself and her professional qualifications/identities where she felt “less than” or subordinate and not the alpha dog she perhaps wanted to be. The DEFINITIONS: (We DISLIKE most of THESE DEFINITIONS! They are awful! One of the sources for these definitions came from themindsjournal.com Alpha is generally considered the strongest of the group. They're very, very competitive. They're aggressive, very domineering. They're like the influencer. They're the ones that take charge. They're very bossy and often they're considered uncaring. They're just kind of like a bull. They just go and go for it. They take over. Beta is the supportive person, who is sensitive, modest, easygoing, and reliable.  They're collaborative. They tend to be more reserved. They're more responsible and they're often seen as insecure. Omega is the type of person that will be seen as neurotic, laid back, eccentric, and least likely to take initiative. They're considered, the lowest on the chain of command. They tend to have low self-esteem. They are seen as having dismal lives, and yet they're creative. They're, unambitious and unsuccessful in their careers.   Gamma are seen as restless, adventurous, and fun. They like to do their own thing and create their own rules without giving into peer pressure. Alphas may mature into gammas they say, and become more considerate.  Gammas are more social, socially conscious, and more diplomatic. For Alphas to become better human beings, they would turn into gammas.  Gammas generally appear to lack assertiveness. They freely express their emotions and they aren't very interested in status symbols or gaining popularity.   Sigma the definition is they’re sardonic, cynical, bitter scornful. (That's what Sardonic means. I had to look that up - a little side note; sardonic comes from the Greek adjective Sardonios, which actually describes a plant from a place called Sardinia that supposedly made your face contort into a horrible grin... right before you died from its poison. The Greeks used sardonic for laughter, but we only use it when someone's

Nugget and pearl of wisdom from Santa Monica Days: Iraq and Iran – the adventures of turtle/babysitting. Fawn’s Santa Monica friends (Anders and Liz), named their turtles Iran and Iraq to bring peace to the Middle East. The reasoning for the choice of their names was that every time they called their turtles lovingly by their names, they not only sent their turtles love but they held loving kindness for the Middle East at the same time. Words have power. Fawn and Matt begin relating words, numbers, zeros, ones and computer coding. Matt corrects Fawn and says as a programmer, he thinks “all things are code, code is not necessarily math. It’s Boolean logic and saying it’s a bunch of zeros and ones fails to convey the true majesty that is.” This week’s topic is about the first time you felt the power of friendship and what it did for you and your life. The alliance that we talk about this week is all about the sense that together, you’re able to do ANYTHING. You can overcome racial injustice, you can overcome economic injustice. You're able to overcome any obstacle or any hurt in front of you, TOGETHER.   This is why we began this friendly movement, because we’ve found that our society has really deteriorated as far as people really being together in neighborhoods, offices and at home, and how in-person friendships, walking arm in arm is now rare.   Friendship and the alliance that is created within that sanctuary are incredibly powerful and we wonder why it has disappeared and why we've become so disconnected. Together, we can create great beauty, peace and strength and have a kinder, healthier, richer, more compassionate world, and a stronger, more balanced society.   Do you have a first Alliance story? When was the first time that you felt the kind of friendship where you felt the power of a union, the power of a bond that made you feel invincible? What was it that drew you together? What was the common thread?   Feeling the great life pressures, not feeling supported and feeling upset and overwhelmed (and maybe not even realizing you have been feeling all of this), can wreak havoc on us, our lives, our health, and our relationships, and as a result, bad things can happen. When you’re in the thick of it, you don't understand that you're in pain because it feels normal until you get a break from it (if you get a break from it).   So we need to support each other. People do communicate their deepest pains. It may be subtly. It may be slyly. And if you're paying attention, you can pick up on it and you can ask the questions.  A friendship is a cocoon where you can grow into what you're supposed to be, within a safe environment. You're protected within this friendship, within this circle. We've all been disconnected. Come back and don't judge so much. Everybody's in pain. Don't judge it. Let's just be together and offer comfort. Let's provide a safe space for our friends to express the things they need to, and then in return, they will provide us a safe space so we can communicate the things we need to communicate.   Many of us have been treated “less than”, felt generally alone and absolutely isolated. It is a horrible feeling. How can we be heard and also hear our fellow brothers and sisters? It's about trying to focus in on what we can do. And here's the issue: we don't have a society where friends are a thing, (like real, for real friends, not talking Facebook friends but someone who has your back and can offer a shoulder to lean on).     When we don't have friendship, when we don’t have support, our capacity is limited, and we tend to lash out. This is why making sure that we develop bonds with one another is so important. It’s time to begin talking and paying attention

Our nugget  AKA pearls of wisdom for this episode involves Dr. Bradley Nelson, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Gregg Braden, the Heart Math Institute, Electromagnetic field, Heart math, heart brain, heart wall, intellectual humility, social intelligence, IQ, emotional intelligence, shared reality, Magneto cardiogram and it measures the magnetic field of the heart. These machines record this field to be about 12 feet in diameter, but they're all saying that the machines are actually limited. That in fact they believe the, the field to be infinite, which makes sense. How do we “Agree to Disagree”, especially now with so much charged emotion within our divided nation in the United States? How can we maneuver the misconstrued tones, the arguments that grow, the unexpressed resentments, the unheard voices, the differences of psyche, culture, sex, race, social/economic, generational points of view, the mess under the rug? How should we step away when both sides are deeply emotional? Can we find a shared reality? Do we have a shared reality? How can we acquire humility and be open to being wrong – can we commit of the possibility of being wrong? The topic is super big, so big we are going to do many shows on this subject and we invite our special guest (our super-friend), Psychotherapist KJ Nasrul. We begin the conversation today.    

This week’s nugget is a 16th century Norwegian term, meaning to comfort or to console -  related to the English word “hug”. You need HYGGE in your life, especially these days, guys, this is how we can feel better! Here are some words words associated with HYGGE – comfort, cozy, relaxation, indulgence, and gratitude. This is about taking pleasure in the presence of a gentle thing, soothing things like a freshly brewed cup of coffee, cozy socks, food, drink, pastries, whatever your favorite things are, you partake in them and have them all around you. There’s even a HYGGE manifesto containing 10 things that will get you to a HYGGE state! We share them with you! There's a book that's called the book of” HYGGE  -  the Danish art of contentment, comfort and connection”. There's a quote from it:  “a practical way of creating sanctuary in the middle of a very real life and a cure for S a D” a cure for sad, which stands for seasonal affective disorder. In this episode, we learn about the unfortunate engagement Fawn had long before she met Matt, her fiancé’s very racist mother and the ultimatum she was given before her departure of her photography project to Ethiopia, how she came to being in the same room as Caroline Myss, and learning first-hand the meaning and significance of EMOTIONAL CURRENCY. Then of course, Matt has his take on the subject and the hilarity ensues over who came up with the concept. They both agree however that this form of currency is a major factor to consider in any relationship and discuss how to develop a healthy account.

First, Santa Monica’s pearl of wisdom: This week’s pearl of Wisdom from Santa Monica comes via Fawn’s Santa Monica Bathroom conversation delivery and what was shared with her that was a game changer. There are three words that have to this day been chanted by Fawn and those close to her. We talk about a couple of things here regarding the pearl of wisdom. Number one is what you focus on grows. So focusing on money coming, it's going to make that grow and happen. When Fawn was first learning to drive, her point of focus would have her not able to drive straight because she focused on a short, short distance (because she was fixated on the hood of the car) instead on the road ahead. You need to look way down the road where you want to go. Don't focus on that spot so close to you. Look to where you want to go. Look really far out, look way ahead of you. Your vision always has to be shifting. It’s about knowing what the next step is, and knowing where you’re going. If I have both of those things, things will feel pretty darn good on any particular aspect of your life. Look to where you want to go. Look really far out. When you're riding a mountain bike down a trail, if you focus on the pothole in the middle of the trail, you're going to hit it. If you focus on the clean line around it, you're going to do that. So it's all about where you draw your attention. If you keep your attention focused on the negative, well then guess what the negative is more, more likely to happen. And if you focus on the positive, it's the positive. Show topic: “Busy” Have we become shackled by an invisible force? Fawn argues YES! Matt has his take on the subject that is more optimistic than Fawn’s. Fawn believes this is the four letter word that has contributed to the loneliness epidemic. From business, the corporate world, to standing in your kitchen, feeling overwhelmed, to feeling if you're not busy you’re are missing something, that you’re not doing enough,  to the feeling of guilt that is all over everything, we discuss what it all means and go with Matt’s sage advice: “on a day to day, focusing at least for a minute, a while, on the things that are truly important and realizing what those things are that you need to completely break yourself away from wherever you are. That's key.” Bottom line- everyone is operating at their highest capacity and we need to relax and appreciate each other.

Critic: A person who expresses and unfavorable opinion of something a person who judges the merits of literary artistic or musical works, especially one who does so professionally Criticism:  The practice of judging the merits and faults of something. Fawn thinks they're the downfall of our culture, of our society. She can't stand them. ARE THEY VITAL TO OUR SOCIETY????What kind of critics are there? Art, business, coding, neighborhood people, friends, family, randoms, yoga women…Is there a semblance of a constructive opinion, constructive criticism????? We talk about the HATERS (thank you Katt Williams and Busy Philipps).Then there is the silent critic: complicitness This episode almost didn't get aired. Fawn ended up in tears towards the end and Matt stepped away from the mic. The issue was resolved. If only we could have more conversations like this one (that got uncomfortable for a minute), we would all end up feeling good.

What happened to the village? We always heard that “it takes a village”, but Fawn points out that most of the time; we’re left on our own. This leads us to mentors. Where are the mentors? Does anyone truly have the knowledge to guide us? From Fawn’s point of view, the world is changing so rapidly and radically that we’re all trying to figure things out and the role of the mentor, apprentice, journeyman...etc, is no longer really there…EXCEPT, Fawn believes that friendships, the friend, babies, and THE COW (tune in to hear Fawn’s story and inspiration from the cows in New Delhi, India) are the new mentors as we guide each other through life. Matt has a totally different take on things (of course).

How do you handle criticism when it is beyond the simple critique? How to hear the good voices telling you, that you’re great, and why do we get stuck on the attacks and become unable to hear the good? Fawn shares her personal experience with her career, being a woman of color in an unkind, white dominated art world, how she was treated, resulting in her fighting back and making a radicle turn in her work , how she does business, as well as how she relates to people. Listen to the funny and revealing stories of the art photography world and her experience out in the bush on the border of Kenya and Ethiopia, how Matt’s code blends in to this issue and how to move forward while staying true to yourself. “Emotion builds Taj Mahals. Logic says F you and walks away. There is a certain element of compartmentalization. There's a certain element of looking holistically at your life and saying, does my life suck or does my life rule? If your life in general rules, one tiny little piece of one tiny little piece of gray sky, isn't going to affect it.” Everybody has moments that they suck, and everybody has moments that they rule. It's a question of what you focus on grows; where you want to spend your emotional currency.