Transcript
Speaker: I understand radical acceptance well enough to use it daily so that when the stressors arise, I know how to be with at peace with what is as it is to be able to move on. These kids are then ready with these basic fundamentals. And so we believe that's something that will translate telegraphically on a college resume or a work resume. Hmm. Oh, wow, this kid is certified in fundamental life tools that tells a future employer or university. It kind of exactly what that is. Oh, they're trained in SEL tools with the capacity to teach it to somebody else.
Speaker: That is the exact kind of mind that we would want in our dorm rooms so that they can help stabilize and harmonize with their other peers, you know, for everything they're going to be going through through that big upheaval of change that is the freshman year.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast, where positive parenting meets wellbeing. I'm your host, Laura Olinger, teen and young adult wellbeing coach and founder of Positively Healthy Coaching. And I'm very excited to introduce you to my guest today, Raphael McMaster, who is the Executive Director of Indivisible Arts.
Speaker: So welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you. Thank you so much, Laura. It's great to be here. Yeah, yeah. So tell us just a little bit, I mean, Hermosa Beach, California, Can't get any better than that, right? I have a feeling you're not complaining too much. No, it's not too shabby. It's wonderful. The creative laboratory that we have here that I'm sitting in actually the fashion design area and the 3D design area. We're just blocks from the beach.
Speaker: um You know, it's beautiful and sunny here. And yet at the same time, so many of the kids struggle, right? The struggle is real and it doesn't matter what the person's background is. um You know, basically, if they've got a phone in their hands, And there's a good chance that they're available to some of the modern stresses and suffering that we're all here to come together with solutions to help each other walk this path.
Speaker: Yes, yes. So tell us a little bit more about Indivisible Arts and, um you know, what is it that you do? What is the mission and purpose of your organization?
Speaker: And then we'll get into some of the other stuff, but let's just start there. Sure thing. So Indivisible Arts is a 501c3 nonprofit. We're located in Southern California, and we focus on teaching creativity. consciousness, so mental health tools, mindset tools, and connection. And, you know, as a nonprofit, we are building programs that are led by teens, including a new platform that will be launching in the fall of 2026, where any teen anywhere in the world can go to learn mindset tools and mindful awareness from other teens through content that feels like the content that they're used to being you know, ah resonant with.
Speaker: um And so that's the core focus of our goal, then using creativity and culture to spread this seed of consciousness and mindful awareness to the next generation. And what called you to get into this work?
Speaker: Sure. um I had a, you know, transformative path that includes my own recovery over the last 12 years. And along that path, I realized how many great teachers there are out there from the Eckhart Tolle and Joe Dispenza, the Jon Kabat-Zinn, the Kristen Neff, the Brene Brown. Oh, yeah. yeah um Oh, yeah. so many great leaders and teachers. And along the way, I was you know just surprised at how little of that had made its way into my own academic career and the curricula that we experienced going through high school and college and so on. you know and And so here are life's challenges, this complex formula, this calculus of resting satisfaction and happiness in this modern world. Well, we send these kids out
Speaker: to navigate this complex formula of life without teaching them the basic arithmetic. We couldn't expect a kid to do the quadratic equation if we didn't teach them addition, subtraction, multiplication, and so on. And so that's when we've come up with the fundamental life tools and a group of talented people coaches and therapists, teachers, parents got together during the pandemic and said, what would be the most fundamental set of seven tools that we could possibly teach to another person, to a kid in this lifetime to be able to set them up ah to deal with life on life's terms? And that's where we landed with these seven Yeah, these seven fundamentals, which is core to what we teach here at Resin, which is Indivisible Arts at Creative Headquarters.
Speaker: And then we teach it alongside the creative arts. So these kids will learn these mindset tools then we'll go learn how to play guitar or drum or sew or do three d design, ah dancing, all the different, you know, the creative ah mediums, which are these pathways back to esteem and flow. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I love it. This is so juicy. We are not going to get into everything today. We're going to have to have a couple of parts, I think, to this. I love that. Yeah, there's a lot here. There's a lot there. I love that the inspiration was, and not that that was the the total inspiration, but the timing was that during COVID because I know um one thing that my family did, and I think a lot of others did as well, was I had every kid in my family and and every adult was responsible for teaching someone, teaching the rest of the family something. It could be anything. So I had the boys teaching me football plays. I had the girls teaching me. Who knows? I don't even remember like what the specific thing was, but but we we all kind of rotated categories and it was super fun to just like
Speaker: share that time and kind of put the ball in their court. And just the idea of like teaching and learning, I think is certainly something that came out of that time because we had nothing but time. Right. Yeah. I love that you brought all these people together. and so tell us a little bit more about those life tools. There's seven of them. do you want to go through, you want to pick your favorites? had it How was your favorite way to approach those? Well, so, you know, I can just off just by listing them, right? So the seven that we landed on and certainly there's so many tools. There's a lifelong, of infinite amount of tools, but we felt that if we were able to consolidate it down to a basic list of seven, then that becomes a very manageable set for a young person to know without having to memorize.
Speaker: Right. So, um you know, awareness is number one metacognition, knowing that I am not the voices and thoughts in my head. I'm the one having the voices. And from that perspective of mindful awareness, I can shift those voices. And this that's like fundamental and number one. And really, to you know, the best of our studies, really only, you know, 10 percent of adults are practicing with regular. Maybe 20 to 30% know of it. Maybe they heard about it from Eckhart Tolle or Joe Dispenza, but to actually practicing, that's really only about 10%.
Speaker: And we put forward this idea of how different the world would be if that number instead of 10% was 20% or 25%. So we want to make sure to get that in these kids' hands, you know, ASAP. um So, ah you know, it begins with awareness, then on to acceptance, you know, radical acceptance, intention, very how to have a vision, how to put energy into that vision, then gratitude, compassion,
Speaker: forgiveness and overcoming resentment and then connection, including connection to a higher power of one's own understanding. And so when we start ah a set of seven that begins with mindful awareness and ends with learning to connect to one's own higher power on their own terms, boy, oh boy, we feel this is a tremendously powerful set of tools, the basic arithmetic to lay at a kid's feet so they can make sense of it on their own terms.
Speaker: Wow. Yes. I mean, each one of those words, like I was like, yes, yes. i Keep going. Keep going. Oh my gosh. This is so good. Oh yeah. Thanks for holding it up. It's an amazing list. um And all the experts also that you mentioned, i mean, I know all those names are so good and and just such powerful teachers for things. And like you're saying,
Speaker: It would be amazing. Like I visualize that 10 to 20% shift of adults and just the idea of like starting with actual kids um and then kind of like lifting them up from here. So what are like some fun, don't know if I would call it like a success story or a takeaway story from kids learning these seven life tools?
Speaker: Oh, I mean, we've seen such amazing transformations. You know, we have students overcoming addiction, overcoming eating disorders, overcoming so many things. and And listen, all of these things are so complex. I don't want to oversimplify and say that, you know, just seven tools because there's the nourishment, care, love, experience, all the things that go into it.
Speaker: However, once a person begins practicing metacognition regularly enough to be able to observe what the thought forms are telling them to do, they're then able to come at daily life from a completely different perspective.
Speaker: We hear this all the time of the parents saying, oh my gosh, it's like my kid's like a different kid. And maybe they're the same kid, but now that they aren't identifying as the thoughts that are in their head, maybe we're getting a completely different set of behavior. and result resulting in different thoughts with different feelings, different actions, turning into different beliefs. And that in turn cultivates a, you know, a positive guiding them towards a positive direction. So we really feel this is the linchpin. But, you know, whether it be watching the trans the successful transformation of a youth because they're empowered to begin practicing these tools. And I think that's another really important
Speaker: insight that we landed upon instead of it saying, here, we have this model of CBT or DBT or anything of the nature. We said, let's put these tools in your hands. And something happens when a person is entrusted and empowered to have their own sovereignty and agency to be practicing these tools, then the transformation is occurring from the inside.
Speaker: You know, I know many a therapist that will say, you know, it it isn't the therapist that's healing the person or isn't the doctor that's healing the person. It's the person who's healing themselves with the support of somebody else.
Speaker: Right. You know, we've seen this do amazing things in our local sports program, the local basketball team, the high school team for which I'm the mindset coach. You know, they began practicing these tools in the off season a couple of years ago. And they came out, they won their first five games, were meditating before the games. won their first 10 games, were meditating the games. 15 games. We're doing all the work on the side.
Speaker: They won their first 16, 17, 18, 19 games. They're turning around 19 and 0, right? And part of it is they're doing their work to become masters of their own mindset. Part of it is the power of belief. Mm-hmm. And them understanding that mindset is such a critical component of success in all of the things we achieve for, but especially in particularly athletics, that when they also lean in as a team and has ah have a cohesive singular vision of what their intention is as a unit, um this experience of emergence.
Speaker: Are you familiar with the the naturally occurring phenomena of emergence? Emergency is one of my favorite words lately, right? Okay, teach me. Okay, so imagine you see a school of fish or a flock of birds whipping around, flying through the sky in the case of the birds.
Speaker: Well, how is it that they all don't run into each other? Is it really that that lead bird is the lead bird the rest of them are staring at and they're all gonna take a right, so they all figure out to take a right turn at the same time? How come one of them doesn't accidentally turn left and then you have these collisions? We don't see these birds collide, right?
Speaker: right Well, what's happening is the electromagnetic field that is surrounding any singular of the birds is actually communicating with the electromagnetic field with the next bird that extends beyond its body. And the entire system is a singular field with a singular consciousness that's communicating with itself. right We say the same thing with School of Fish. Why would the School of Fish are whipping around? Why don't they run into each other? It's because the entire system is communicating with itself as a singular unit. And that's what can happen with the power of intention when we have a group of people, a team, a sports team, a rock band, whatever it is, young people finding this power of connection. Right. And being able to understand that their intentionality and their own consciousness in connection with each other can do magical things.
Speaker: And we've always known this, but it's now, you know, um now we have a way of articulating it that high schoolers can get down with. Right. Yeah, I love that. so It's funny because, yeah, my son was just saying last night about his football game that, well, have two sons. They're on the same team. And they were saying, like, there's just something about this team that the guys just jive so well. they like He's like, we just get along. like They're like, yeah i can't remember the actual words they use, but like they're like, we've never had a team that just felt like this connected before. That's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, I was like, oh, y'all are in the flow. It's great. Exactly. You know, we we know it when we feel it. We know when we feel it. We may not have the words to articulate it or put into it a scientific framework, but we know what when news to the and when it's there. You know, humans as ah beautifully intuitive creatures, we have this sense about us that is, know, if we think about, i heard Jon Kabat-Zinn earlier this summer say that Homo sapiens sapien can translate into the species that is aware that it's aware.
Speaker: So this act of metacognition to know that I am not my thoughts, I'm the one having my thoughts is part of what is one of the defining characteristics of who we are as humans. Right. That's profound. And it's a big opportunity. So, you know, the young kids, the teenagers that are coming here and here's what's so cool. The teenagers come here and they come as volunteers, right? So we're a 501c3 nonprofit. So they come and they learn these fundamental life tools, not just so they can learn them for themselves. They learn it so they can teach it to the younger kids. So the younger group that comes here are ages 7 to 14. And the older kids that are 15 to 20, they come as volunteers to be mentor teachers for the younger students.
Speaker: Well, the best way to really learn something is to teach it. Absolutely. Yeah. um And so it's just been this fantastic unfolding of community and connection that's just filled with consciousness, creativity and compassion, um curiosity, ah courage. I guess we're sailing the seven seas here. Right. And, you know, this level of metacognition and mindful awareness is is not beyond fifth graders or seventh graders or high schoolers to be practicing with regularity. We've seen it. We took every fifth grader in the local school district through this program and had a level of efficacy over 90% that they understood awareness.
Speaker: But there's a way to teach awareness that can resonate with this youngest generation. And the older practice of how mindfulness was taught in the past doesn't necessarily quite resonate with them. And I know so many parents that say, thank goodness you're teaching our kids this because we try to teach them mindfulness and they roll their eyes to the back of their head and they want no heart of it, right? You know, here's an illustration for those that can see one of our young people drew of an eye looking at a brain talking, thought watching, mind guiding, right? Right.
Speaker: And so using the power of creativity and art to be able to articulate these concepts that otherwise are discussed in the abstraction of being the observer of thoughts and those things. Some of the kids can get lost. Like, why why are we talking about emotions? I get it. i get I'm observing stuff. Okay. What what about that? Right.
Speaker: But really getting them to understand the power of guiding their own thoughts. um And then were then applying the rest of the tools beyond that. Right. Mindful awareness and and and metacognition isn't the game. That's just...
Speaker: lacing up the shoes for the game. That's not playing the game. Playing the game is living life with joy and grace and inspiration and service and flow, right? But if a student is struggling with anxiety, fear, overwhelm, distraction, depression, then it makes it difficult for them to get into that the flow of the game.
Speaker: Right. Right. So let's let's give these kids the basic fundamentals and the same way that the fundamentals of math aren't meant to keep us forever in doing math, you know, multiplication tables, but it sets the base framework for them to transcend and move beyond it. We're asking these kids to navigate this life, this crazy modernity right without teaching them fundamentals.
Speaker: Let's give them the fundamentals. They deserve the fundamentals. Yes. Yeah. And it makes me think of, well, you know, hindsight is 20-20, but it makes me think of what could have been prevented. What kind of tragedies, what kind of types of violence could be prevented if kids had these tools? Because a lot of times that's what we see. They're lacking tools, right? And I kind of break everything into, I think, kind of how you do mindset and skill set, right? You've got to have the right mindset, but then you have to know how to do that. And you need to have the tools and the skills. And you talked about meditation. I'm sure you have lots of other skills that you teach. I mean, all these are skills, really. But when you think about it, it's like, man, if we could just have this be just a universal requirement, right, be, you know, all these things more aware, know, just, ugh, it's just kind of like, it blows your mind, right? It kind of like makes you think like what could be, and I guess that's the whole point where that's what we're striving towards, right? We're working towards that. Yeah, and what we believe could be is we believe the conscious people of this country, those practicing mindful awareness, those that are conscious, the 10%, if this is 10%, well, that's roughly 28 million adults.
Speaker: twenty eight million adults What happens when 28 million adults or even 4% of that, so let's say a million adults, come together as the conscious people's movement, the conscious people's community? So this is something else that we're launching it's fall 2026, the Aware Minds Project. It'll be the awaremindsproject.org. A person can go to the awaremindsproject.org, sign up to be part of the community. And what the community is focused on supporting is creating the destination for young people to learn these mindset tools for free. Oh, nice. And they have been working for the last three months. We had two dozen teenagers and college students spend their entire summer here. building and I tell you, and it's going to be so exciting. And if a person is hearing you this in the future, then you'll be able to go to stream of consciousness dot life, which is what they dubbed the project. And it's amazing because it looks like ah they're watching Instagram Reels or TikTok or YouTube. But what they're really doing is learning these tools. yeah um So it's students that have been conscious, been practicing mindful awareness for years on end, turning around and creating content that teaches it to each other.
Speaker: Because we found that's that's the skeleton key that unlocks the practice of mindfulness being taught to one another is the generational barrier. You have an adult trying to teach it to a younger person. The younger person rolls their eyes in the back of their head and says, I know I observe stuff. Don't judge stuff. I get it. I'm the watcher. Yeah. When they hear it from another team that's saying, oh my gosh, this is like a game changer. Like I started doing awareness and now I'm i'm guiding my own thoughts instead of letting my thoughts guide me. It's like, wait, wait's what's this? I had I just had a person, you know, a college football student referred to it as Omega thinking.
Speaker: And i was like, omega thinking, what's that? They're like, oh, it's when you're the one watching the thoughts. And I'm like, OK, cool, mindful awareness, right? Different word. Metacognition is probably the most exact way to say this, right? And there's ah there's a unique power that we're unlocking of teens teaching other teens.
Speaker: There's no doubt that the mark that's left somewhere at the intersection of the pandemic meets phones, is going to leave a mark and that's probably just the tip of the iceberg and we're definitely hitting that iceberg.
Speaker: And we've figured out a way not only to build life rafts of consciousness, but how to teach teens how to teach other teens how to build life rafts. This is how we create a successful movement of teaching these things, which are really the basics. And and what's coming next with this is a ah certification program that but will be ah will be rolling out nationally to high schools, really focused on high school juniors and seniors. We have so many parents that say, I'm just so concerned my kid is not ready to go to college on their own. I'm so concerned they don't have the basics.
Speaker: And we see um both qualitatively through the quality of the of the young minds that come out of here transformed, awakened and conscious, but also quantitatively through the data we have showing the efficacy of this program and the transformation that occurs when a person says, yes, I understand radical acceptance well enough to use it daily so that when the stressors arise, I know how to be at peace with what is as it is to be able to move on.
Speaker: Yes, I understand compassion, forgiveness, and so on and so on. These kids are then ready with these basic fundamentals. And so we're going to, and it's part of why this program is called the Fundamental Life Tools, because we believe that's something that will translate telegraphically on a college resume or a work resume.
Speaker: Oh, wow, this kid is certified in fundamental life tools that tells a future employer or university kind of exactly what that is. Oh, they're trained in SEL tools with the capacity to teach it to somebody else.
Speaker: That is the exact kind of mind that we would want in our dorm rooms. so that they can help stabilize and harmonize with their other peers, you know, for everything they're going to be going through, through that big upheaval of change that is the freshman year. I get so many texts from college students, college students that were high school students that came through here, that were trained in the fundamentals, trained in consciousness.
Speaker: They go off to college, they're having a good time. I get texts usually in the spring that are like, hey, by the way, I didn't totally get how important it was what we were doing, but I came here to college and like nobody has tools. They're all flailing around and using all sorts of different things to cope.
Speaker: And I'm the one that they all come to to get advice and guidance because I've got tools and they can tell that I've got it together. Right. Wow. I mean, there's another, you know, we asked for a story. There's a powerful story of um a young man named Prince and Prince, a beautiful, beautiful soul.
Speaker: He began coming here as a student when he was about 12. He transitioned into ah a volunteer in training, into a volunteer, ah into an employee who helped with our summer camps.
Speaker: And then he joined the Navy and he was going through a Navy boot camp. and And this was just earlier this year. and And he shared this story with me and some of the other younger students here.
Speaker: the student here was asking, oh, is it is it what I think it's like with boot camp and your rope, you're climbing up rope, you're climbing over things, all the things. He's like, yes. um and And it's even worse because so many of the people going through it don't have mental health tools. They don't have mindset tools. They don't have any mindset training. And so early on, ah his platoon mates would turn to him. His division mates would say, how is it you're doing so good with this? And he's like, I don't know. You just kind of do it. And then a couple of weeks went by and they said, how are you doing so good with this? And he's like, well,
Speaker: He's like, okay, when we go through this, what's going in your head? Oh, this sucks, I hate this. He's like, okay, well you're running that program of this sucks, I hate this. And so that's exactly what you're getting.
Speaker: Oh, boss says to make this sucky, we don't like this, create a terrible experience. And and so he starts teaching them about awareness and perspective And then tragically, you know, a couple months in, they're at the shooting range and one of the people in their group turns their gun on themselves and kills themselves. Oh, I'm sorry. And it was in that moment that he took it upon himself to begin teaching these tools to the rest of his division.
Speaker: and He would actually, they would he would teach it in the middle of the night and and they would all meet in the middle of night in the barracks. Ultimately, you know, they they they found out what he was doing and he kind of got in trouble at first until they understood what it was that he was teaching. And then they turned around and and really gave him, you know, um appreciation for being a leader. Right. I think they even did like an Instagram post on him and all these kind of different things, recognizing, recognizing his leadership. But it just goes to show that that, you know, whether the graduates of our high school program go on to the university or the workforce or the military, we're getting this feedback of
Speaker: hey, we're seeing a really big difference out here. Nine tenths of the people I'm around don't have any idea about any of this stuff. And it's leading, it it is the driver for so much of the stress and chaos and the suffering. And now they're taking it upon themselves to just teach it to others because they see, you know, with such clarity how much of a big difference it can make just to have some basic fundamentals in somebody's back pocket.
Speaker: Yeah. Wow. That was really powerful. Thank you for sharing that. I want to shift over to your role as a dad. yeah Yeah. A 16 year old daughter. So tell us a little bit about how this translates into your home.
Speaker: um Well, let's see. You know, I am so lucky. ah My daughter Tasha is just the best. You know, we made a decision early on that we wouldn't force anything upon her, right? And so here we have this 3,800 square foot creative laboratory with every form of painting, spray painting, 3D design, a band room, music studio, photography, all the stuff. And she spent maybe ages six to 11 here.
Speaker: six to 12 and then she just kind of found her own thing and did her own thing. And then recently she re-returned just as her own sovereign young person to become one of the the volunteers here and really picking up these tools. And I began actually a specific practice with her that we made up here called the ABCs of the heart.
Speaker: Right. and And it's a fun game to play. It's it's the game that me and her would play every day driving to school. You know, you would say something, one person would say something they're appreciative for. They wait till they they could feel it in their heart.
Speaker: Next person's turn. What's something that you can feel, you can feel the real beauty of this thing in your heart. Next person's turn. Compassion. Devotion.
Speaker: empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, hope, inspiration, joy, kindness, love. Go back and forth for the first 13 letters of the alphabet until you get to things that you're talking about that you love.
Speaker: Now the reason why this this might feel like a simple game, there's something bigger going on beneath the surface. It's really easy to go around this world analyzing everything, thinking about everything, cognition.
Speaker: i Growing up, no one at my high school or college put forth the idea of seeing the world through the eyes of my heart. Not one. Maybe they did, but it was such a small thing. Maybe it was like Valentine's Day. I don't know, right? And it's like, but to really sit with something until I can feel compassion before it's the other person's turn,
Speaker: What that's doing is I'm getting reps. i'm I'm logging reps at the connection between my heart and my brain. i am strengthening heart-brain coherence, right? and the more and later on, I guess the reason why i bring this up is what she said to me unexpectedly one night, we're just sitting on the couch, shes like we had just watched a movie, it was like midnight, she turns to me, she's like, you know, just want to let you know, like that practice that we did changed my life. Like it changes how I see the world. And and and we did it for a good like six to eight months straight every day, every day.
Speaker: But that repetition every day of deepening my experience to give me the eyes to see from my heart, that can shift a person. And so, you know i guess you know those would be the ways that it unfolds within my own household, not from you know requiring or forcing, um but also just in a way of modeling. I mean, gosh.
Speaker: She threw her first event here this last spring, a fundraiser for Blood Cancer United. and ultimately, her team raised like just under a couple hundred grand over like an eight week period. Oh, wow. It was pretty wild. And there was no force or requirement involved. She had just seen it modeled for her what that can look like.
Speaker: you know, I have so many parents that say to me like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're teaching my kid because they don't listen to me. And I go, well, it's possible it can feel like they're not listening to you. They're definitely modeling after us.
Speaker: They're definitely watching how we behave. And they're definitely watching how we behave. And the model, you know, for the mirror neurons follows it, even if they don't want it. That's why we end up acting like our parents, even if we don't want to. Like, how'd this end up? How'd I end up like this? know, right? Yeah. That's what I was trying to avoid. yeah But i oftentimes find that it isn't that the kid is not listening to the parent.
Speaker: It's that the moment that a kid is old enough to realize their parents aren't perfect, somewhere around age seven or eight when they realize we're no longer superheroes and that we're imperfect also, yeah then it's like,
Speaker: they listen to what we're saying, but they wait, they they hold it here until they hear another trusted outside source validate it, and then it comes online. And so, you know, so many of the the kids around here who maybe their parents taught them, might or tried to teach them mindfulness or awareness, but they feel like maybe it didn't stick, and then all of a sudden they come here and now they're soaring. It's like, well, that that that groundwork was laid, and i just validated I just validated all the great work that the parents are doing. Mm-hmm. Parents work so hard to be the best they can.
Speaker: And what they I feel like what they need is a good teammate that's outside of their own household. That's just being like, no no no, no, no, no. Your parents do know what they're talking about. They're cool. Trust me. Right. you know and um And just maybe saying it in a slightly different way or even an even more empowering method is having another teenager.
Speaker: Oh, right. Saying those same things. It's even more powerful. Then it really locks in, right? Then it becomes their own. Then it becomes their own. And that's that's such ah a big, you know, reason why we focus on teaching it through creativity.
Speaker: Because once it becomes part of their creative life, their artistic expression, then it becomes part of their cultural DNA. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And so how does one get past...
Speaker: a generation's authenticator. How do you get past their BS-ometer? Well, you wrap it in the coding of the DNA of their own culture. Well, what's that?
Speaker: That's their art. Right. It's the music. It's the lyrics. It's the fashion. It's when when these messages of consciousness get wrapped in the style and culture of the next generation, then it becomes their own.
Speaker: Then we're not talking about mindful awareness. We're talking about thought watching. We're talking about mind guiding or omega thinking or whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Whatever it is that we want to call it metacognition, whatever it is we want to call it. um Let's make it theirs because then they can run with it. They'll feel empowered. They'll feel inspired to run with it. Yes. Oh my goodness. This has been amazing.
Speaker: What's one final message you want people to know? And I know you already listed off the URLs, but could you just give us those one more time or where can people to find you? Absolutely. So our nonprofit Indivisible Arts, as in indivisible with liberty and justice for all cannot be divided.
Speaker: ah So we are indivisiblearts.org. ah The platform to unite the conscious people is awaremindsproject.org. And the platform for youth to learn these mindset tools ah is streamofconsciousness.life.
Speaker: And lastly, these tools, this book is the Fundamental Life Tools, and that can be found on Amazon. We'll be launching a website for this by Christmas time, and the website will be focused on training parents to be able to teach these fundamentals to their kids. Oh, awesome. The parents don't need to hear about gratitude. Maybe what the parents need to hear is here's an easy way and an effective way that we've found that we've tested, that we've developed with the youth. And that's a big thing about this program. This program was developed with youth day in, day out.
Speaker: That's how we know it resonates with younger people because we created a space for them to create this program. Wow. Well, Rafael, thank you for your time. I'm super impressed. This has been amazing. And i will have you back again. would love that. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Lara.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: and needed to do a debrief about my conversation with Rafael because that conversation was so powerful. I mean, I just... feel how much of a difference he's making with what he's doing. And and again, he he'll be the first to tell you it's it's not about him, right? it's It's creating this movement. It's educating young people. It's kind of holding hands together as people who are aware and are conscious. But I want to make sure that this conversation really feels accessible to the listeners, to you guys, because, you know, a lot of these topics are very high level, very kind of esoteric. It's kind of like, wait, what are we talking about here? You know, is this woo woo stuff? um Right? It's not in my daily planner to have metacognition. So what does that even mean? What is what is that? Like, how do I have time for that?
Speaker: And I just want to share a little bit about my life when I first started really becoming aware of my thoughts and really kind of practicing. I mean, everything he said resonated so much with me because I have gone through a journey and I have learned, and maybe not in this order or how he talked about it, but those seven fundamental life tools.
Speaker: And one of the ways that I've learned that is actually not that long ago, but years ago, I was in group therapy. So group therapy is exactly what it sounds like. It's what you might see on a sitcom or a movie, TV show, where you're literally in a room sitting in a circle with people and you get to know them, right? But the whole idea of sitting in that room is it's called a process group because you're processing your emotions together. But really part of that practice and part of the learning is
Speaker: understanding what you're feeling and understanding why you're feeling it. And so that's where that kind of metacognition comes in, because you have to like, think like, what is this trigger here? Like, what is causing this? And it's not like everybody needs to do some deep dive on their life every day. But the more you kind of build that muscle, like he talked about a couple of times, like being able to just slow down and building that awareness It only serves you in your life, right? Like the thing that used to bother you in the parking lot when someone cut you off, right? You're able to just like kind of say, you know what, I'm feeling a little triggered right now.
Speaker: And um maybe that person has an emergency. Maybe that person has a crying baby at home who is out of diapers or snacks or whatever. And that person just needed to grab that spot.
Speaker: And now here's the truth. Maybe that's not true, right? Maybe it really is some person who just didn't see you or whatever. They're rude. But I find that life goes a lot better and a lot smoother if you can kind of pause and stop and kind of notice, um you know, what your trigger is. Notice what your thought is.
Speaker: And here's the thing. You're going to make up a story about that person anyway, right? And ah my mentor, Joseph McLennan III, he always says, you know if you're going to make up a story, you might as well choose the good choice. You might as well choose the positive option. So that's why I do give people the benefit of the doubt. And I do give people compassion or feel compassion for them. I feel forgiveness for them a lot.
Speaker: And to be honest, like not a lot phases me. um There are times, though, when i do see a boundary being crossed. And that is when my kind of mama bear comes out in me.
Speaker: And so I really do, even in those times, have to pause and ask myself, like, what is this really about? um What is my trigger? What am I thinking? it really just slows down.
Speaker: And I think the whole point of what kind of like Raphael was getting at is just like, if more people did that, right, if the world kind of shifted into this direction where people just kind of slowed down, became aware of their thoughts and realizing that they're just spectating, they're just looking at their thoughts, they are spectators, that you do have the power to change them. And that's what I do with my clients all the time, right? We are like, okay, well, you're thinking this, what could be another explanation for why, you know, so that girl at, you know, junior high or high school or even college looked at me that way? Or what would be another possibility, right? There's always got to be another reason.
Speaker: And that just like really can free a person when they realize that there's choices. They don't have to to be stuck with just the one thing that um is the first thing that they come to their mind. They can say, hey, let's try again. What's another thought? What's a more empowering thought, a more peaceful thought so that we don't go through our days kind of just annoyed or frustrated with others and because of something else?
Speaker: The other part I want to talk about is I love the ABC game that he talks about doing with his daughter. I mean, what a powerful tool for both of them to do together. And so much of that science he He kind of just touched on the heart-brain coherence is near and dear to my heart, no pun intended, um because um I have the certification it from the HeartMath Institute called the Clinical Certification for Stress, Anxiety, and Self-Regulation.
Speaker: And that's all about getting the heart and the brain in coherence, because what most people don't realize is the heart has its own relationship. mini brain, so to speak, in itself. It actually sends more signals to your brain than your brain sends to your heart.
Speaker: And so a lot of times what will happen is when somebody's really stressed and anxious and overwhelmed, and the signals that are being sent back and forth are competing with each other. the rhythm is very irregular. It's very jagged on a graph if you look at it when they measure it. And so the more you can get in coherence, your heart and your brain sending the signals to each other, the more it comes together almost like a beautiful orchestra, right? It's it's rhythmic.
Speaker: It's beautiful. It has ebbs and flows, but in a very just smooth way. It's kind of just like a nice, easy roller coaster. So I wanted to just highlight what he was doing there, which was so cool. And then the last thing he said, which was after our recording, so y'all didn't get to hear this, but He did just say he feels like the future is humans helping humans.
Speaker: And that is the most powerful antidote to the idea of AI taking over a lot of jobs. I know my kids are worried about their future as far as what jobs will be available.
Speaker: And I always say, well, you know... We don't even know. There's going to be jobs in the future that don't even exist now. Our brains can't even wrap our heads around them. and But what Raphael was saying is the one thing that can never go out of business is humans helping other humans because no AI, no computer, no robot, no droid.
Speaker: can take over a human sharing a time of empathy or compassion or even just whatever it it it might look like, togetherness, connectedness, because that's really um just, as we know, irreplaceable.
Speaker: those Those are my thoughts. I hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker: When you get a chance, please go to the show notes and click on the link ratethispodcast.com slash TPHmom to give my podcast a rating and review.
Speaker: And if this episode resonates with you, be sure to share it with your mom friends who are going through the same things. Be sure to tune in for next week's conversation. Until then keep up the good work.
