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"Morning Routines" with Michael Ravenwood #66
9 Plays1 year ago
Betsy and Halcyon are joined by Michael Ravenwood, Founder & CEO of Skyfire Arts, Empowerment Coach & International Circ Performer.
Michael is a someone who truly walks the walk with his practices and has powerful insight on Morning Practices and their benefits. He shares his personal routine and tons of useful resources to get us inspired.
LINKS MENTIONED
Make Your Bed - https://youtu.be/sBAqF00gBGk
Clean Your Room - Peterson https://youtu.be/Vp9599kwnhM
Need Less Sleep - https://youtu.be/zs3bps_dX9Y?t=166
Joe Dispenza https://drjoedispenza.com/
https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/
https://www.flowresearchcollective.com/
GUEST:
MICHAEL RAVENWOOD
Michael Ravenwood promotes ecological awareness & renewable energy through his performing arts company SkyFire Arts by wearing a high voltage protective suit, becoming electrified by a giant Tesla coil & throwing 10 foot bolts of real electricity. A deep & loving care for his family drives his passion to transform culture through these presentations, talks & coaching programs designed to empower participants to design their lifestyles in harmony with both nature & technology. http://skyfireacademy.org
Michael on LinkedIn
Facebook- SkyFire
Instagram- SkyFire
YouTube- SkyFire
TikTok- SkyFire
Michael's Nonprofit https://stormlightdreamfoundation.org
HOSTS:
BETSY FINKLEHOO is a healer of massage therapy, CranioSacral and Dharma Coaching. She is an 8 year burner and has spent the last several years seeped in the personal development world, cultivating her passion for transformation and growth. Her recent project, The Power Affirmation Journal and virtual group empowers women to cultivate self awareness and healthy habits so they can live in greater freedom, mind body and spirit.
http://poweraffirmation.com/
Click here to get a FREE affirmation for Stay Sparked Listeners!
HALCYON is full-time Love Ambassador. He is the founder of Hug Nation YouTube channel and daily zoom gratitude circles. He is co-founder of the Pink Heart Burning Man camp and the 1st Saturdays project for people experiencing homelessness. In his free time he coaches individuals on how to live joyfully and authentically. His other podcast is "Hard on the 80's."
http://LifeStudent.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Morning Practices
00:00:00
Speaker
On today's episode, we talk about morning practices, the importance of setting your day, some ways that you can do it, and some ways to forgive yourself if you get off track.
00:00:11
Speaker
We are sparked in this conversation by welcoming our friend, the morning practice wizard, Michael Ravenwood, the founder of Skyfire Arts and international Cirque performer who shares so much inspiration on morning practice and how you can create your own inspired morning practice.
00:00:30
Speaker
Enjoy the episode.
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to Stay Sparked.
00:00:33
Speaker
We are here to share conversations aimed to light you up.
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm Betsy Finkelhoo, the creator of the Power Affirmation Journal and Somatic Bodyworker.
00:00:43
Speaker
I am John Halcyon, the host of the Hug Nation morning broadcasts and author of Love More Fearless, Float More Steerless.
00:00:52
Speaker
And we are so excited to bring on a very special guest today, Michael Ravenwood, who is a dear friend, dear soul brother, my previous roommate, forever soul ally, here to share some inspiration.
00:01:07
Speaker
So welcome, Michael.
00:01:09
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So glad to have you here.
00:01:11
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Always starting off with gratitude.
00:01:13
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So what are you grateful for this morning, Michael?
00:01:16
Speaker
Honestly, this very moment to be able to share my mission and experience and my message and to hear your reflections and to be enriched by them and to learn from them and hopefully to make some really positive impact on the people
Michael Ravenwood's Journey and Insights
00:01:32
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that are listening.
00:01:32
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:01:36
Speaker
How about you, Halsey?
00:01:37
Speaker
What are you grateful for today?
00:01:39
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I am appreciating the cooling off of the days and being so grateful that I've had so many chances to jump in the ocean this summer, more than I have in many, many, many years.
00:01:50
Speaker
And so I'm really grateful for the proximity of the ocean and the many times I've been able to jump in this year.
00:01:57
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Yes, so good.
00:01:59
Speaker
I will share my gratitude is for this morning.
00:02:03
Speaker
The sun was out and the last many days there's been this overcast.
00:02:08
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And so right when I woke up, I saw clear skies and something came over me and was like, get up, go outside.
00:02:15
Speaker
And I went for an early morning sunrise walk and it was absolutely stunning.
00:02:19
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My whole morning was just filled with so much joy and beauty.
00:02:24
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And now I'm just so grateful that I got up early.
00:02:27
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So that's my gratitude.
00:02:28
Speaker
And it actually is kind of relevant to our conversation today.
00:02:33
Speaker
So we are going to share a conversation with Michael, the three of us, about morning practice.
00:02:41
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Because personally, I got a chance to live with Michael Ravenwood for seven years.
00:02:47
Speaker
And he was such a role model for me and continues to be for discipline and morning practice.
00:02:53
Speaker
We're going to get to dive into some conversations around that because it's a very important and sometimes challenging experience of how we start our day.
00:03:04
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Before we get into it, I want to give you a proper shout out because your morning practice is just a very small fraction of who you are and what you're putting out into the world.
00:03:15
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For those of you who don't know Lyle Ravenwood, he is a creative visionary and just
00:03:23
Speaker
beautiful, radiant, heart-led being, an entrepreneur who has Skyfire Arts, and now Skyfire Arts Academy is being built, which is a production company that really teaches about sustainability and does these incredible performances where he gets to wear a chainmail suit and throws lightning, and he's done it all over the world.
00:03:46
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And now he is getting to teach some beautiful practices around sustainability and building culture.
00:03:52
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He's also an event producer.
00:03:54
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So I've gotten to go to some of his amazing events.
00:03:57
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And I know you've got one coming up pretty soon next season, Ignite, which is a really amazing festival for flow artists, which Michael is indeed.
Exploring Morning Routines and Philosophies
00:04:07
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A flow artist, teacher, guide.
00:04:10
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I've learned personally how to fire dance.
00:04:13
Speaker
Michael was my teacher, my activator, my muse for fire dancing.
00:04:19
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And so very multifaceted being that you are Michael.
00:04:23
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So...
00:04:23
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So glad to have you on this show, this episode, because we've had so many conversations, very inspiring kitchen conversations and conversations at parties and gatherings.
00:04:36
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And it's such a joy to finally get a chance to record one of our inspiring conversations with the intention to hopefully inspire some other people out there that will be listening to this.
00:04:47
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So a little love shout out for you, Michael.
00:04:50
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Thank you so much.
00:04:51
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You bet.
00:04:54
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Yeah.
00:04:57
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So Halcyon, do you want to get us started in this conversation around morning practice with maybe a question or maybe your own personal process with your own morning practice?
00:05:08
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Well, I'd love to start maybe with a little bit farther back or higher up.
00:05:14
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And because to me, so much of morning practices have to do with discipline and setting an agenda for your day or whatever it is.
00:05:27
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And I would love to just hear from you, Michael, kind of your thoughts or philosophies around discipline and around kind of
00:05:36
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choosing how you're going to make decisions.
00:05:40
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Sure.
00:05:41
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Thank you.
00:05:42
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So I'll start by saying that I am inherently not a terribly disciplined person.
00:05:49
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I'm not like a person for whom discipline came naturally.
00:05:53
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I had to work very hard for a long time and
00:05:56
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to craft those behaviors into my life.
00:06:00
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And it's because I'm just naturally very spontaneous.
00:06:03
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And every gift we have is also potentially a flaw or a weakness, meaning that because in one situation I can go with the flow and let go of things and allow new things to evolve,
00:06:17
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It's an advantage to me and those that I'm with in some circumstances and then others, it's not.
00:06:23
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And so it is the dance of life to find out where our gifts are serving and where those same gifts are just a quality or characteristic we have that might turn into something that holds us back.
00:06:36
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So, you know, one of the perspectives that I'll share is that I didn't start out with it.
00:06:40
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It's something that I had to work for, you know, put effort into.
00:06:43
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I want to avoid saying like that it was difficult because difficulty is really only in the mind.
00:06:49
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Things can require effort.
00:06:50
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They can be physically painful even.
00:06:52
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But for them to be difficult, we have to look at them that way.
00:06:55
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And so that mindset, for example, is very much how I think I have, you know, to people who look at me from outside, like a lot of discipline is I just look at things a certain way.
00:07:03
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So it isn't as hard for me.
00:07:06
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And then, you know, I'll also say that, you know, Kung Fu was a practice that, you
00:07:13
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Really helped me a lot.
00:07:14
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You know, just martial arts in general, develop discipline.
00:07:17
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And so I'm very fortunate to have really amazing teachers that supported me in that.
00:07:22
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Thank you for saying that.
00:07:24
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I love hearing that discipline was not always there for you and that you built it, because that is definitely something that I have struggled with.
00:07:33
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Like I mentioned in my gratitude, I don't get up every morning at sunrise.
00:07:38
Speaker
And I would love to.
00:07:39
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It would be wonderful to have such a consistency of practice.
00:07:44
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And from what I witness, you seem to have a morning practice that is daily, getting up early.
00:07:51
Speaker
So I love hearing that that has been built for you.
00:07:55
Speaker
And I'd love to just hear what is your current morning practice, if you would be willing to share.
00:08:04
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Absolutely.
00:08:05
Speaker
So I'll first spin off of what you said and just say that, you know, last week, one morning I got up at two thirty in the morning.
00:08:13
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Another morning it was four thirty.
00:08:14
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Another morning was five thirty.
00:08:15
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Another morning it was six thirty.
00:08:18
Speaker
So it isn't as if I get up at the same time, but I get up early.
00:08:22
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I just get up early and I've actually developed a sort of set of practices that I do that help me need less sleep.
00:08:31
Speaker
And I'm happy to share that as part of the whole thing we're talking about here.
00:08:36
Speaker
But, you know, in terms of just laying out what the daily practices I'm doing every single day at this point, I'll use the mantras that I've used to teach my son.
00:08:45
Speaker
So Remadredri.
00:08:49
Speaker
Affetote and Po Brevometta.
00:08:52
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So Revadredri is, you know, rehearse, make the bed, dress and drink water or drink, you know, a nutrient beverage that I have in particular.
00:09:06
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But for most people, it might just be water or whatever.
00:09:08
Speaker
So rehearse is I've learned from Dr. Joe Dispenza and from Bishop Lakhiani that right when you're getting up, right when you're going to sleep, your brainwave patterns are moving from the delta stage of sleep through theta into alpha and then beta, the waking state of consciousness, and then back down into delta as you go to bed at night.
00:09:28
Speaker
And you have this very powerful window with which to program your subconscious mind.
00:09:34
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And so I rehearse.
00:09:36
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Every single morning as I arise, I rehearse my day and I imagine myself doing all the things that I'm going to go do that day, or at least the things that I think I'm going to go do that day, you know, in a way where I'm like, I'm going to meet with this person and we're gonna have a wonderful conversation and then I'm going to make these kinds of calls.
00:09:54
Speaker
And I mean, this is going to be the kind of quality of those calls.
00:09:56
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And then I'm going to hang out with my son or my wife or whatever it is like.
00:10:01
Speaker
And so I rehearse my day and I envision myself doing it as my best self.
00:10:05
Speaker
And programming into my subconscious that I just do everything the way that I would love to do it.
00:10:10
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And I did.
00:10:10
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That's just what I do.
00:10:12
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And so then
Adapting and Maintaining Morning Practices
00:10:13
Speaker
after some time of that, that's a little bit flexible.
00:10:15
Speaker
I just do that, you know, for however long it feels right.
00:10:18
Speaker
But they they say that for at least the first five minutes, there's this very profound window right when we wake up.
00:10:24
Speaker
So I rehearse and then I make the bed.
00:10:27
Speaker
And if you need, you know, to know a reason why to make the bed, I would watch the video by by Admiral McRaven, who's, you know, a guy who led a SEAL team to do very profound things in our military.
00:10:40
Speaker
And it's just basically a really good video on YouTube about why you should make your bed every morning.
00:10:48
Speaker
And so I do that.
00:10:50
Speaker
And then I.
00:10:52
Speaker
I dress in my workout clothes and then I drink some fluid.
00:10:55
Speaker
I drink a certain amount of fluid every single day.
00:10:57
Speaker
That's part of the needing less sleep thing is proper hydration.
00:11:00
Speaker
So that's remodredri.
00:11:02
Speaker
And then there's hafatoti, which is hair, face, tongue, and teeth.
00:11:05
Speaker
So when you rub your scalp, even if you're bald, you can rub your scalp.
00:11:08
Speaker
You release endorphins, transform your kind of experience of life just by managing your neurochemistry.
00:11:15
Speaker
And then, you know, splash face with cold waters, you know, scrape my tongue, brush my teeth.
00:11:21
Speaker
And then Pobreva Meta is poetry, breath work, visualization, meditation and dance party.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so every single day is like a little, you know, there's a little poem by Hafiz.
00:11:38
Speaker
There's a really amazing book called A Year with Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky.
00:11:42
Speaker
It's his interpretation.
00:11:43
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It's a brilliant book.
00:11:45
Speaker
So every day, just a little bit of poetry to inspire me.
00:11:47
Speaker
And then breathwork, I do Dumo, which is a Tibetan technique, or I do Wim Hof.
00:11:54
Speaker
Sometimes I'll do both because I do it with my son in the morning as well.
00:11:57
Speaker
And then visualization, I visualize gratitude of the past and present and then visualization of the future that I am I've already created in my mind's eye.
00:12:06
Speaker
I live there for a while.
00:12:07
Speaker
Another part of, you know, programming our subconscious.
00:12:10
Speaker
And then I meditate, release all attachment, any attachment, any of that visualization or anything like that.
00:12:14
Speaker
I just like be just straight be for a while and have faith that everything's going to happen.
00:12:21
Speaker
And then I celebrate the fact that I that I did all that.
00:12:25
Speaker
And I'll do my workout.
00:12:26
Speaker
I also do HIIT training and X3.
00:12:28
Speaker
I always have a dance party as well to celebrate the fact that I did my practice.
00:12:34
Speaker
Woo.
00:12:34
Speaker
And what's – do you have a window of how long that takes you generally?
00:12:41
Speaker
Oh, I actually flex that.
00:12:43
Speaker
I do have this amazing timer on my phone called Insight Timer.
00:12:48
Speaker
And it's a really great, I actually understand Betsy, you're on Insight Timer, which is so awesome.
00:12:53
Speaker
And so this timer is very flexible.
00:12:55
Speaker
You can, you know, tell it, okay, I want, you know, a three minute period at the beginning, and then two five minute periods after that, or I want
00:13:06
Speaker
24 periods that do, there's this long or that long.
00:13:10
Speaker
And I do my HIIT training that way.
00:13:12
Speaker
For example, even using a meditation app, I do like workouts because for 45 seconds, you just like do pushups as hard as you can and then you rest for 15 seconds.
00:13:20
Speaker
And then you do your squats as hard as you can, 15 seconds, then you rest.
00:13:23
Speaker
So 45 seconds, then you rest.
00:13:25
Speaker
So that flexes really, but maybe half an hour to an hour every morning.
00:13:33
Speaker
From rehearsal to dance party?
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:37
Speaker
Awesome.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much.
00:13:38
Speaker
I love that so much.
00:13:40
Speaker
That is so powerful that you need a mantra to go along with it.
00:13:44
Speaker
Can you just repeat with the letters?
00:13:48
Speaker
So Rema Dodri.
00:13:51
Speaker
Let's see it mapped out.
00:13:53
Speaker
Here.
00:13:54
Speaker
So Re Ma Dre Dre or Dre say whatever.
00:14:02
Speaker
So that's rehearse.
00:14:04
Speaker
Make the bed.
00:14:07
Speaker
And then dress.
00:14:11
Speaker
So I put on my workout clothes and then drink.
00:14:15
Speaker
Drink.
00:14:16
Speaker
Right.
00:14:16
Speaker
Hydrate.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:17
Speaker
Right.
00:14:17
Speaker
So it's a really simple, amazing thing, but it gives you the structure.
00:14:21
Speaker
And that's what I'm really hearing from you is that you have created a very specific structure that you stick to.
00:14:29
Speaker
And that I'm also hearing you give yourself some flexibility with the timeline and
00:14:35
Speaker
on how you do that every day.
00:14:38
Speaker
So I love that so much.
00:14:39
Speaker
And I also just really want to highlight the one that you spoke about making your bed.
00:14:45
Speaker
And I love, I'm so excited to watch the video that you shared about the seals, because there's also another video that talks about the psychology of cleaning your room, which is another link that we'll put in the show notes.
00:14:57
Speaker
But it is so powerful to include making your bed as part of your morning practice.
00:15:03
Speaker
So I have a question.
00:15:05
Speaker
When you have some flexibility in it, one of the things that I sometimes struggle with is if I have flexibility, then my tired brain starts to negotiate.
00:15:20
Speaker
So how do you or what aspect of your conversations or arguments that you had in the past that allows you to not negotiate with yourself in the morning?
00:15:33
Speaker
Hmm, that's a good question.
00:15:37
Speaker
I think that the way that I'll go into that is just to share that it was more than 20 years that I knew that a daily practice would be the right thing for me to do.
00:15:50
Speaker
But for 20 years, I didn't have a super consistent daily practice.
00:15:56
Speaker
I would do it for several weeks, and then I would fall off it for a week, and then I would do it for a couple months, and then I would fall off it.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I just, I had many, many years and loads of, like, kind of this self-doubt around it, like, why don't I do it?
00:16:10
Speaker
I know I should do it.
00:16:12
Speaker
And so I went through a lot of that.
00:16:15
Speaker
And, you know, being perfectly frank, it was all the way, you know, even up until the pandemic where I would like go for months and then, yeah, I'd go off for a week or two, go for a month, whatever.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I would just fall off, you know.
00:16:27
Speaker
And it was really during the pandemic that I like I was like, no excuses.
00:16:33
Speaker
It's like, no freaking excuses.
00:16:35
Speaker
Like I'm creating a spreadsheet and this is what I typically do.
00:16:38
Speaker
I don't know if this is, you know, works for some people, doesn't work for other people, is I tend to go to extremes and I was like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do this, that, this, that, I'm going to do all these.
00:16:49
Speaker
These are the things that I'm going to fill my day with.
00:16:51
Speaker
And I made this list in a spreadsheet and I kept track every single day.
00:16:57
Speaker
I kept track, did I do this practice or didn't I do this practice?
00:17:00
Speaker
And if I didn't do it,
00:17:02
Speaker
What kept me from doing it?
00:17:04
Speaker
Was it watching a video late at night?
00:17:06
Speaker
I didn't wake up as early in the morning.
00:17:08
Speaker
Was it was it I went to help a friend?
00:17:12
Speaker
I was actually going to do it.
00:17:13
Speaker
And then some friend called up.
00:17:14
Speaker
They had something crazy happen.
00:17:16
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And I prioritized the love of my friends, you know, and so there's like things that you do where it's like, all right, you know, like.
00:17:23
Speaker
There's priorities that you sometimes will put in front of other things.
00:17:28
Speaker
And then also there's like, well, why didn't you do it just right before bed?
00:17:33
Speaker
So now I actually even have something at night that I'm crafting where I'm doing yoga every single night and then a rehearsal every single night.
00:17:39
Speaker
But I'm not quite as consistent with that yet.
00:17:43
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't know if that...
00:17:45
Speaker
If, you know, answers your question, Halcyon, exactly.
00:17:47
Speaker
But that I did have a lot of struggles in my head and I worked them out eventually by tracking myself.
00:17:53
Speaker
There's another YouTube video we'll put a link to in the show notes, which was and I watched a number of videos about motivation and how humans are truly motivated and various, you know, neurologists and, you know, psychotherapists and people have studied like how people actually change their behavior.
00:18:11
Speaker
And one of the things is tracking because when you track it, then you can see your improvement and it's feedback and you get like rewarded by your own feedback.
00:18:19
Speaker
Also, social rewards.
00:18:21
Speaker
There's like a number of things that are talked about in this video I'll share.
00:18:24
Speaker
Great.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, I found that when I've done a.
00:18:28
Speaker
I put like a habit tracker worksheets that I, that picked up where you fill it in with the things that you can do every day.
00:18:36
Speaker
And then you get a little checkbox and, you know, you look at a series of checkboxes that start to add up and you feel the momentum.
00:18:44
Speaker
You feel, there's a couple of things I think that you feel.
00:18:46
Speaker
You feel one, the pride itself.
00:18:49
Speaker
In getting getting streaks going, when you see a gap, you feel like it's it's like it's almost like a Tetris thing.
00:18:57
Speaker
Like, I got to feel it.
00:18:58
Speaker
Come on, you know.
00:18:59
Speaker
And the other thing that I think that happens is that I would imagine that you are experiencing right now pretty deeply is you build trust in yourself.
Balancing Comfort and Growth
00:19:09
Speaker
which is, I think, such an underappreciated aspect of any personal growth.
00:19:17
Speaker
Because if you are living in a place where at some level you don't trust yourself, then your word is a little wobbly.
00:19:29
Speaker
Everything is a little wobbly.
00:19:31
Speaker
If you don't have that trust that I'm going to do what I said I do, or I'm going to follow through on what I really want to do.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, what you said is so important and it keys into, you know, something that I focus on strongly in Skyfire Academy, which is self-respect and that self-respect cannot be bought.
00:19:51
Speaker
It can only be earned.
00:19:53
Speaker
It cannot even be given by others.
00:19:55
Speaker
The esteem of others does not fulfill the need for self-respect.
00:19:59
Speaker
Self-respect is only gained by doing things, or in my perspective or whatever, it's only gained by doing things that you're not sure you can do.
00:20:09
Speaker
things that are out of your comfort zone, and then you freaking do it.
00:20:13
Speaker
And then you're like, wow, I've proved to myself that I can do things that I'm not sure I can do.
00:20:19
Speaker
So you know it's like scientific evidence.
00:20:21
Speaker
Like, oh, okay, it's proven to me.
00:20:23
Speaker
And so you believe in yourself, like what you're saying, Alziah, that you trust yourself in a way that it's not possible to get.
00:20:30
Speaker
And I think even a lot of wealthy people who end up getting a lot of money
00:20:34
Speaker
And then they like kind of rest on their laurels and then they don't do anything for a long time.
00:20:39
Speaker
Like the self-respect starts to wade away, like fade away.
00:20:43
Speaker
And they don't understand why they're disquieted.
00:20:46
Speaker
And like what, like, is there like, hey, I got all this money.
00:20:48
Speaker
I got all the things that I'm supposed to have or whatever.
00:20:50
Speaker
But they are continually trying things that are difficult for them.
00:20:54
Speaker
And their wealth has actually created a level of comfort that's inhibiting their ability to constantly keep up or maintain their self-respect.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's the comfort is comfort versus growth is one of those ongoing awarenesses that is is part of my chapter right now.
00:21:16
Speaker
Like for a long time, I was overvaluing comfort.
00:21:20
Speaker
And and as you say, when when you are not.
00:21:24
Speaker
when you're not stretching, when you're not growing, when you're not reminding yourself of your capabilities by achieving things or overcoming things, there's something starts to kind of wither inside of you.
00:21:36
Speaker
And so, but we have kind of, I think, a cultural story, like,
00:21:41
Speaker
Get comfortable.
00:21:43
Speaker
Get away from – remove obstacles.
00:21:45
Speaker
But truthfully, that does not make us feel good.
00:21:49
Speaker
So trying to get in that headspace of like, okay, no, I want to have obstacles.
00:21:53
Speaker
I just want them to be things that matter and that mean something to me.
00:21:58
Speaker
And I think that's one of the things about a morning practice is that you are saying –
00:22:02
Speaker
I want to invite obstacles that I know are in line with the things that I want to be achieving and I want to be growing in those areas.
00:22:11
Speaker
And you have to, so that's, as I'm saying this aloud, I think that's one of the things that can be helpful in overcoming your negotiations is to say like, at a fundamental level, I'm looking for the right obstacles.
00:22:23
Speaker
So let me do the morning practice because I know that those are the obstacles that I want to start this day.
00:22:30
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:22:32
Speaker
And it builds a strength, right?
00:22:34
Speaker
Because if we are comfortable, then we're not going to grow, right?
00:22:38
Speaker
If you go to the gym, and you don't get to that point where your muscles are starting to feel tired, it's going to take a lot longer for your muscles to grow, right?
00:22:47
Speaker
You got to really get to that edge and lean into the comfort zone and go beyond that.
00:22:53
Speaker
It's like the, I love this kind of consideration around what's
00:22:55
Speaker
much easier to just stay in bed and be all cozy and I'm so comfortable.
00:23:02
Speaker
And it's like, well, actually, when we get up and we do the practices that we know are going to either stretch us or bring us into these deeper states of presence or strength training or the breath work, all of these things that you're talking about,
00:23:21
Speaker
I think is a really important part of this.
00:23:23
Speaker
It's like, we've got to keep growing.
00:23:25
Speaker
Otherwise, what are we here for?
00:23:28
Speaker
And so I also like to consider how we start our day is kind of like the bell, right?
00:23:35
Speaker
It is like sets the tone for the day, you know?
00:23:40
Speaker
So I know personally, when I start my day, like I did this morning, going to the ocean, I'm
00:23:45
Speaker
My whole system, my soul, my mind, my body was just lit up.
00:23:50
Speaker
And now I'm feeling amazing.
00:23:52
Speaker
It just really has set the tone for the day.
00:23:54
Speaker
There's so much light and so much beauty I can see from getting up a little extra early and starting my day like that versus a day where I just...
00:24:03
Speaker
you know, might be moping and not really wanting to do much.
00:24:06
Speaker
And then I notice when I start my day like that, that carries throughout the rest of the day.
00:24:12
Speaker
And then by the end of the day, I'm feeling like, man, I didn't really have a good day or I didn't really do much today or, you know, some more negative beliefs.
00:24:21
Speaker
And then I might stay up late and then the pattern continues.
00:24:25
Speaker
Right.
00:24:26
Speaker
So I love the importance of really setting the tone for the day.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:32
Speaker
And I have begun to like see the results in like a very tangible way at the morning meetings we have at Skyfire, because every morning we have a little check in and every morning we say, you know, how are we feeling in this moment?
00:24:49
Speaker
What's one thing we're grateful for?
00:24:50
Speaker
And we take one minute of silence as the beginning of the meeting and.
00:24:55
Speaker
Pretty much every single morning, I'm like, well, I feel pretty fantastic, actually.
00:25:02
Speaker
And day after day after day of this, it's pretty much a joke.
00:25:09
Speaker
Like where it's like, yep.
00:25:10
Speaker
like feels amazing again, you know, whatever.
00:25:12
Speaker
It's just like, but it feels so good to like be able to to have that measure and have like some feedback of like, wow, they I get to be seen feeling amazing like every single morning.
00:25:23
Speaker
And it just it really comes from something that's very interesting.
00:25:28
Speaker
It's been discovered in neuroscience about baselines and, you know, neurochemistry.
00:25:33
Speaker
So like we've got these dopamine levels and when we get, you know, dopamine release in our system,
00:25:39
Speaker
We feel pleasure,
Practical Tips for Morning Practices
00:25:40
Speaker
right?
00:25:40
Speaker
But if we keep feeling pleasure and more pleasure and more pleasure, for example, by looking at our phones over and over and over again, then our level of expectation comes to actually increase to expect that level of dopamine.
00:25:54
Speaker
And so then if that level of dopamine goes away, then suddenly we feel down even though there's nothing wrong.
00:26:00
Speaker
And so ironically, we actually can experience more pleasure in our lives by making things periodically challenging and difficult on ourselves because then we reset our dopamine baseline and suddenly you're just sitting there doing nothing and you feel amazing.
00:26:18
Speaker
And that totally relates to Kung Fu and the meaning of Kung Fu mastery that I was taught, which is the first level of mastery is just being able to perform a difficult task.
00:26:28
Speaker
The next level is being able to perform a difficult task with ease.
00:26:31
Speaker
And Kung Fu mastery was taught to me that being able to perform a difficult task with joy, but a difficult task moves like a moving target.
00:26:39
Speaker
Something becomes easy for you as you do it more and more.
00:26:42
Speaker
So you have to keep finding something more and more and more challenging for you to do.
00:26:46
Speaker
And that's how you keep yourself in that zone.
00:26:48
Speaker
And it's that there's a part of me that's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
And then there's another part of me that that knows how hard it can be until you have the patterns going, until you have the practices going.
00:27:04
Speaker
You're like my morning this morning.
00:27:06
Speaker
I did not start my day early with a beach experience or.
00:27:11
Speaker
tongue scraping visualizations you know i i had a a pretty slow morning actually yeah and um and and so there's another part of my brain that wants to kind of beat myself up and that especially as we're as we're hearing this conversation like i'm like i so like i'm hearing this going like oh really a morning practice would be good for me like i know it i didn't do it so now i'm like you idiot you know
00:27:35
Speaker
And so I think that there's a part of this, if you're listening to this and you're sharing any of my headspace, part of this is just reminding yourself the way the mind works and remind yourself that it's totally normal to be resistant.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's totally normal to have cycles.
00:27:53
Speaker
And then also, remember how good it can feel when you get these things going.
00:27:58
Speaker
When you get those patterns going, it's so helpful.
00:28:01
Speaker
One of the things that I've sometimes helped is
00:28:03
Speaker
is knowing how the brain works and knowing how we get these grooves with behaviors that the second time you do anything is easier than the first.
00:28:14
Speaker
So that knowing the first morning that you do your practices is a gift to tomorrow you because it's going to be a little bit easier tomorrow and it's going to be a little bit easier the day after that.
00:28:26
Speaker
So when you feel that massive obstacle is starting,
00:28:31
Speaker
And I'm saying this as someone who has done this in the past and needs to do it again now.
00:28:34
Speaker
You know, it's like, okay, it's going to be hard today, but you're going to be thankful tomorrow.
00:28:40
Speaker
And then the day after that, you're even more thankful.
00:28:42
Speaker
And then in a few weeks, you're going to be in a morning meeting going, I feel great.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:28:51
Speaker
And then you can also give yourself grace as well.
00:28:55
Speaker
If there's some days where you might not do the thing, right?
00:28:58
Speaker
Or I'm sure, Michael, if you're a human, there's maybe some days where you miss a few of those letters.
00:29:04
Speaker
you know and it's like wow okay as long as we do at least one of the things um you know i think then that we can start to be kinder to ourselves um one of the things that's sparking for me to share right now is a little hack that i've tricked myself into uh in the morning because my tendency and i think a lot of people unfortunately reach for their phone and
00:29:29
Speaker
is one of the first things, right?
00:29:31
Speaker
And we know that's not necessarily the healthiest habit.
00:29:35
Speaker
But if it's right there, you want to check the time, you want to get your day going, you start to look at messages or whatever it is you're going to look at.
00:29:42
Speaker
So my little hack is I started to put my affirmation cards where my phone would normally be.
00:29:50
Speaker
And right when I wake up and I go to maybe reach for the phone to look for the time or whatever it is, oh, there's my affirmation cards.
00:29:59
Speaker
And then I pull a card and I read the affirmation, which I think for me, my alternative to the rehearsing thing that you do is affirming.
00:30:09
Speaker
And so I started thinking an affirmation and repeating an affirmation and remind myself of these positive thoughts before I get into the checking of the messages or like getting that blue light into my eyes.
00:30:24
Speaker
I love that.
00:30:25
Speaker
That's a good idea of like putting positive things or the thing that you know you want in the way to the thing that the weaker version of you is going to go for.
00:30:36
Speaker
You know, like that's awesome.
00:30:39
Speaker
Mike, I got a question for you.
00:30:41
Speaker
So you...
00:30:42
Speaker
That's what you're just saying.
00:30:43
Speaker
Like, if you miss a few things, do you have any practices or, or things that you think about if you do miss a few things or if you get off for a few days, is there, is there a trick or something that to get back into it that you, that helps you or to not miss it?
00:31:00
Speaker
Is there, is it, is it like you, do you, do you have a, some sort of absolute, is that not a thing where sometimes you miss something?
00:31:06
Speaker
Oh, definitely.
00:31:08
Speaker
I have mornings where like I meditate for much longer periods of time.
00:31:12
Speaker
I don't do like the hours long meditation.
00:31:14
Speaker
I have done like a Vipassana where I did 10 hours a day for 10 days straight.
00:31:17
Speaker
And that was amazing.
00:31:19
Speaker
And I recommend that by the way to every living human who has not already done it at least once.
00:31:24
Speaker
It's a very powerful experience.
00:31:25
Speaker
And it's free.
00:31:27
Speaker
Vipassana training, you can go there.
00:31:28
Speaker
They feed you.
00:31:30
Speaker
They house you.
00:31:31
Speaker
They teach you to meditate for free.
00:31:33
Speaker
So plugging Vipassana training.
00:31:36
Speaker
And so but, you know, I just, you know, I'll meditate much longer if I get up at two thirty in the morning than I do if I, you know, get up at six thirty or whatever.
00:31:46
Speaker
And so the thing that I really feel like is, you know, a primary anchor, a thing that.
00:31:53
Speaker
help me get the flywheel going because I really resonate when you were saying, you know, Halcyon, like the first one is the hardest and then the next one is a little bit easier.
00:32:01
Speaker
And then eventually you're just running down the road.
00:32:04
Speaker
You know, you got inertia and there's such power in inertia.
00:32:07
Speaker
And to get, you know, to get yourself started, really anchoring in your why.
00:32:13
Speaker
Like, who are the people that you are going to serve by being the best version of yourself?
00:32:21
Speaker
Like, you love them and you know that you would be able to, like, help them yet more if you did your morning practice because it's been proven by scientific studies and thousands of human experience like that these things work.
00:32:35
Speaker
You know, so...
00:32:37
Speaker
Getting, you know, some people love a vision board.
00:32:39
Speaker
They'll put like the pictures of their favorite people on it and the pictures of the house maybe they want to one day want to buy.
00:32:46
Speaker
And then some people actually end up buying exactly that house.
00:32:49
Speaker
So vision boards are freaking magic in many cases.
00:32:53
Speaker
It's super interesting how that all works.
00:32:57
Speaker
So anchoring in your why however you can.
00:33:00
Speaker
And we are motivated from two ends primarily, you know, fear and love.
00:33:06
Speaker
So you could say, you know, pain, things we want to avoid and things we desire.
Advice for Beginners
00:33:11
Speaker
So obviously, like, it's much better to be inspired by those things or to be motivated by those things that are inspiring, because then you feel drawn, you feel like
00:33:20
Speaker
energized rather than you're kind of like stressed running away from something.
00:33:24
Speaker
But fear can also actually be a very strong motivator.
00:33:28
Speaker
So if you want to put like on your vision board, like even midline or something below it is like the things you really don't want, you know, and you actually move yourself like, okay, that's what's going to happen on the other side of not doing morning practice every day.
00:33:40
Speaker
Like I'm going to go more and more into that and then look up and like feel like, ah, and also neuroscience has validated something I learned in Qigong, which is if you look below your line of sight,
00:33:50
Speaker
you kind of lower your energy.
00:33:52
Speaker
If you look above your line of sight, you can raise your energy just by the position of your eyes.
00:33:58
Speaker
So that's a very interesting thing to leverage as well.
00:34:02
Speaker
Ooh, let's all look up right now.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:05
Speaker
Let's look up.
00:34:06
Speaker
That does feel good.
00:34:08
Speaker
Just fuck up and you can raise your energy.
00:34:11
Speaker
I love that.
00:34:15
Speaker
The powerful.
00:34:15
Speaker
Well, I have a question.
00:34:19
Speaker
Because I think Halsey and you are sparking something in me that I want to, you know, just really touch on.
00:34:24
Speaker
Recognizing that not everyone has cultivated such deep discipline and not everyone has done the Vipassana or maybe any meditation.
00:34:36
Speaker
And so what I'm curious about, especially because of, you know, this knowing that you've got here, you've built this.
00:34:44
Speaker
If there's something that you could say to yourself 20 years ago about building a morning practice, you know, that being someone that might be listening that is aspiring to have a morning practice, but is just very far from the deep discipline that you have cultivated, what would you want to say to yourself back then or someone that's early on the stages of building the morning practice?
00:35:10
Speaker
That's a really good question.
00:35:11
Speaker
I think that one of the things is what I just mentioned in terms of like, remember your why.
00:35:16
Speaker
Like, remember, like, keep in mind, like, the vision of the future that you want for yourself and the people that you love and, like, be motivated by that inspiration and let go of the fear.
00:35:28
Speaker
Like, I actually am not, like, I feel like...
00:35:31
Speaker
forgiving yourself is an incredibly powerful way to just take such a weight.
00:35:37
Speaker
Like we think that somehow we're going to force ourselves into the thing, you know, by shaming ourselves or whatever.
00:35:43
Speaker
But like, and Brene Brown's done such powerful work on like the difference between shame and guilt.
00:35:49
Speaker
And like shame is like, I did that thing.
00:35:51
Speaker
I'm bad versus guilt.
00:35:53
Speaker
Like I did that thing.
00:35:54
Speaker
And that was a bad thing to do.
00:35:55
Speaker
That behavior was bad.
00:35:56
Speaker
And like separating the, separating the identification with the negativity.
00:36:01
Speaker
is super important.
00:36:01
Speaker
So, you know, I definitely used to beat myself up like all the time.
00:36:08
Speaker
I was very self-critical.
00:36:11
Speaker
And so I would say, you know, like go easy on yourself.
00:36:14
Speaker
Like if you miss a day, don't sweat it.
00:36:16
Speaker
Like because that actually can hang you up, you know.
00:36:20
Speaker
So just, you know, keep getting back on the horse.
00:36:23
Speaker
Keep be systematic.
00:36:25
Speaker
Get friends, you know.
00:36:26
Speaker
Like, get friends that do it with you.
00:36:28
Speaker
Like, I think I would have done it much earlier in my life if I had, like, hung out with the people that did it and, like, did it with them.
00:36:36
Speaker
I've always just been such a maverick that I didn't really do that.
00:36:41
Speaker
But...
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:43
Speaker
What else would I say to myself?
00:36:46
Speaker
You know, love yourself like regardless and allow yourself to unfold into the practice and allow yourself to feel like the benefits of the practice and for it to naturally motivate you that way.
00:37:00
Speaker
And, you know, like I said, hang out with the people that understand the value of it and that treat you with kindness and respect.
00:37:07
Speaker
And, you know, I guess some of the things.
00:37:10
Speaker
I have a little sparker on that.
00:37:12
Speaker
But so that I think I've heard something about like, you know, we we overestimate what we think we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in five years or whatever the there's something like, you know, and or underestimate one year and over or whatever it is.
00:37:28
Speaker
But but.
00:37:30
Speaker
Like, I think that if I could remind myself of that idea and that, dude, you're going to be alive and 53 years old, like that concept of being alive past 40 was like, I just had no ability to visualize that.
00:37:46
Speaker
And I think that if I knew that I was going to be a, you know, vibrant, creative person 20 years in the future, then the idea of having little practices or little bits of, of
00:37:59
Speaker
creative journaling or whatever it is, knowing that that was going to be this cumulative thing, as well as taking care of my body in a way, I think would have been a different, I don't know if it would have resonated.
00:38:09
Speaker
Probably me 20 years ago would have been like, shut up, old man.
00:38:15
Speaker
But I think that if I can look at my whole life, that the value of little efforts over a long time is now something that's a lot clearer to me, but I'd like to have understood that sooner.
00:38:29
Speaker
And today's another day, right?
00:38:31
Speaker
You got many more years to go, hopefully.
00:38:33
Speaker
I might be 70-something now.
00:38:35
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yes, very likely so.
00:38:36
Speaker
Maybe 90?
00:38:37
Speaker
Maybe you'll hear.
00:38:43
Speaker
Oh, geez.
00:38:44
Speaker
You know, doing those practices, knowing Michael, if you're keeping consistent, you got another like probably 100 years.
00:38:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:38:53
Speaker
All right.
00:38:54
Speaker
Well, I have one other inquiry because I know you're married to one of my dear, dear friends, Anja.
00:39:01
Speaker
And so how does that work as far as
00:39:05
Speaker
Being in partnership and staying committed to those morning practices.
00:39:10
Speaker
And I'm asking because that is something I have struggled with in the past.
00:39:15
Speaker
You know, it can be really easy to just kind of get into the rhythm with your partner and morning cuddles and just kind of go right into...
00:39:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:39:41
Speaker
So our bodies are just, like, different.
00:39:44
Speaker
And so I just get up much earlier than she does.
00:39:47
Speaker
So we just kind of accept, like, that the morning cuddles are not something that we get, like, unless I jump back into bed, like, later.
00:39:54
Speaker
And that's super sweet when that happens, right?
00:39:56
Speaker
You know?
00:39:57
Speaker
But the reality is that, you know, that's just...
00:40:01
Speaker
the way our bodies are and she does her practice, you know, uh, later and we, we have separate practice schedule.
00:40:08
Speaker
We don't do our practice together.
00:40:09
Speaker
Uh, I do, uh, the practice with Kai every morning when he gets up.
00:40:13
Speaker
So actually at this point, many, many, many mornings, I do two morning practices because I do, you know, the one that I do when I get up and then I do the one with Kai.
00:40:25
Speaker
Uh, and he does the whole, like,
00:40:28
Speaker
you know, Remadredri, Avidzozi, Poe Brevometta with me.
00:40:32
Speaker
And also, he has introduced wrestling.
00:40:34
Speaker
He does not, he's like, I love dancing and the flow arts, but like, I want wrestling.
00:40:39
Speaker
And like, okay, buddy, wrestling every morning.
Influence of Morning Practices on Work and Life
00:40:41
Speaker
So we do a song of dance party and a song of wrestling because he's so into it.
00:40:46
Speaker
So that's a little bit about how I like manage my, you know, family relationships with it.
00:40:52
Speaker
I just, I am such a better anchor
00:40:57
Speaker
for the family vibe when I get up early and I do my practice.
00:41:02
Speaker
Like, I am like the pillar of centeredness and all of that.
00:41:09
Speaker
Like, cause you know, any parent who has to get kids to school in the morning knows that there are mornings
00:41:17
Speaker
that are better than other mornings.
00:41:19
Speaker
And so, you know, if I can get up early and be there for them in that way where I'm totally centered, things always go much better.
00:41:28
Speaker
I noticed that the worst mornings are always when I have a very brief morning practice or,
00:41:33
Speaker
You know, or if I'm sick, whatever, I'll get to do.
00:41:36
Speaker
I do Wim Hof no matter what, even if I'm sick, because Wim Hof actually improves your immune system tremendously.
00:41:42
Speaker
So I always do a practice every day, even though I'm sick.
00:41:45
Speaker
But if I'm, you know, feeling off or whatever, that's when the mornings can go south.
00:41:51
Speaker
Right.
00:41:55
Speaker
How does the, I mean, you are a entrepreneur and you are setting your own schedules and priorities of the ways that you spend your days.
00:42:05
Speaker
How does your morning practice affect your entrepreneurship?
00:42:11
Speaker
I think that it supports it tremendously in the sense that I'm always in a more focused and clear place when I come to my work.
00:42:18
Speaker
It also helps sometimes I get like when I wake up at 2.30 in the morning, I get an hour or two of work done, you know, several hours of work done.
00:42:27
Speaker
Before my family even gets up.
00:42:28
Speaker
So that really obviously helps with more productivity.
00:42:32
Speaker
And, you know, I can't say I really always do it before I hit my desk.
00:42:40
Speaker
So...
00:42:42
Speaker
I mean, rarely I will, like, have weird things happen in the morning, and then I'll have to do my workout, like, around lunchtime or things like that right before I actually eat lunch or something.
00:42:49
Speaker
And I only eat a smoothie for lunch at this point because reduced calorie intake is part of what, you know, has you need less sleep.
00:42:58
Speaker
But –
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think that it really helps tremendously on the whole.
00:43:06
Speaker
I keep getting stuck on this mention of your morning of 2.30 because I was under the impression that that was evening.
00:43:15
Speaker
And so... You know, 2.30, right?
00:43:19
Speaker
That's at the end of the day.
00:43:22
Speaker
No, I actually have woken up at midnight before.
00:43:25
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah, I went to 7, and I woke up at midnight, and I was like, and it wasn't like I woke up like, I woke up like, bing, and my eyes are bright-eyed, bushy, freaking-tailed, midnight.
00:43:41
Speaker
And I thought, there's no way.
00:43:43
Speaker
I was like, there's no way.
00:43:45
Speaker
Actually, no, I was like, this is impossible, or whatever.
00:43:48
Speaker
And so I rolled around for half an hour, and then I was like, no, I'm freaking up, so...
00:43:53
Speaker
I got up and I did my whole day all the way to like eight, nine at night that night.
00:43:58
Speaker
And I just I was fine.
00:43:59
Speaker
So this is, yeah, two, two thirty in the morning is when I got up one day last week.
00:44:03
Speaker
And I just again, I just woke up.
00:44:05
Speaker
I was like, I'm like, oh, OK, I'm up.
00:44:07
Speaker
And I went to my thing.
00:44:08
Speaker
And, you know, like I said, longer practices and stuff.
00:44:12
Speaker
Got some hours of work done.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
It's really.
00:44:15
Speaker
Do you want me to share the way I woke that up?
00:44:20
Speaker
Sure.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah, so Sadhguru, it all started for me with Sadhguru, who's an amazing teacher, and he did this video about how to need less sleep.
00:44:31
Speaker
And I was like, that's interesting, because getting less sleep, I mean, you can do by drinking a bunch of coffee or just keeping yourself up, whatever, but needing less sleep, that's a whole other thing.
00:44:39
Speaker
And he said basically that with a standard Western diet,
00:44:42
Speaker
Most people are actually eating more food than they can absorb the nutrients from.
00:44:48
Speaker
So then let's say you're only able to absorb the nutrients from 70% of the food you're putting in your mouth, and that's 30% of the food you're actually having to process without actually getting any benefit from it.
00:44:59
Speaker
And so that means that you're wasting your energy.
00:45:03
Speaker
And then there's the fact that lots of the food that we eat these days does not have the same nutrient count as it did even 20, 30 years ago or whatever.
00:45:11
Speaker
So we are like chronically low on energy to some degree because we're eating too much of food that is insufficient in nutrients.
00:45:18
Speaker
So that's the first thing he says.
00:45:20
Speaker
If you just literally cut out one meal or if you make your meals smaller –
00:45:26
Speaker
then you will already need less sleep.
00:45:27
Speaker
And I kind of paired that with a bunch of other stuff that I learned, which is if you eat at least, and he mentioned this in another video, if you eat at least, you know, finish eating at least two to three hours before you actually sleep, then that means your body's not trying to digest food and sleep and rest at the same time.
00:45:43
Speaker
So make sure your sleep is more effective.
00:45:45
Speaker
There's also drinking a certain amount of water.
00:45:47
Speaker
Half your body weight in ounces of water a day is kind of a minimum.
00:45:52
Speaker
Keeping yourself properly hydrated.
00:45:53
Speaker
And then making sure you get physical exercise every single day.
00:45:58
Speaker
I work out every single day.
00:46:00
Speaker
And I don't work out anymore because it's like I should work out.
00:46:03
Speaker
I work out because I feel much, much better when I work out.
00:46:06
Speaker
And so I want to work out at this point.
00:46:09
Speaker
So and also to hit training, which means that in 24 minutes of training, I get as much benefit as many people get in like an hour, an hour and a half of other kinds of training.
00:46:16
Speaker
So that's really great.
00:46:17
Speaker
And then I also drink magnesium right before bed.
00:46:22
Speaker
There's a warm glass of magnesium.
00:46:25
Speaker
Like I have this magnesium power I mix into hot water.
00:46:27
Speaker
And I drink that right before bed.
00:46:29
Speaker
And that is one of the hinge, you know, like key pieces.
00:46:32
Speaker
Because when I do that, I get up like super early.
00:46:35
Speaker
If I don't do that, sometimes I forget that piece.
00:46:38
Speaker
Then sometimes I won't get up as early as I normally would.
Building Habits and Closing Thoughts
00:46:43
Speaker
Damn.
00:46:43
Speaker
Wow.
00:46:44
Speaker
Awesome.
00:46:44
Speaker
Wow.
00:46:45
Speaker
Wow.
00:46:45
Speaker
Sparks, sparks, sparks.
00:46:47
Speaker
I'm like, sparks.
00:46:48
Speaker
I'm like, oh, my God.
00:46:49
Speaker
You guys are going to remember to take my magnesium.
00:46:52
Speaker
I do that, too.
00:46:53
Speaker
But the last week, I have forgot.
00:46:54
Speaker
So, wow.
00:46:56
Speaker
I'm so inspired, Michael.
00:46:58
Speaker
This is just so beautiful to be witness to someone who is so integrated.
00:47:02
Speaker
And I just love hearing you talk about it.
00:47:06
Speaker
I love seeing how much energy you have every time I see you and I'm with you.
00:47:10
Speaker
So much energy.
00:47:12
Speaker
vibrancy and vitality and that you are role modeling that for your son Kai who is also a dear dear being in my life too so I just love this conversation so much I feel like I'm gonna I'm gonna start shifting some of my practices in this these coming days just to reignite and and come back because I'm also healthy and like that it's like my consistency kind of
00:47:38
Speaker
shifts from depending on my cycle depending on where i am in the world my travel schedule those kinds of things so this is really great uh medicine for me to hear right now definitely feeling sparked um and on that note would love to instigate some closing sparks either of you got any closing sparks to share
00:48:00
Speaker
My clothing spark is just the appreciation of, of the reminder, the compassionate, forgiving reminder of, of how good it is to write down and keep a list.
00:48:13
Speaker
I actually, without moving, I realized I had my habit tracker within arm's reach.
00:48:18
Speaker
I haven't touched it for three months, but I am, I'm, I'm, my spark is to get back on my habit tracker and, and,
00:48:28
Speaker
Hold on to that knowledge, that knowing of how much better I feel.
00:48:35
Speaker
And so super appreciating the inspiration and the role modeling and the racked in a whole bunch of self-forgiveness.
00:48:43
Speaker
That's my spark.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah, I know that.
00:48:48
Speaker
Now, I'll follow up with one, too, is the closing spark of we can always start again.
00:48:55
Speaker
The teacher of the Vipassana, Goinka, right?
00:48:58
Speaker
He always says, start again, start again, start again.
00:49:02
Speaker
Joe Dispenza says the same thing.
00:49:04
Speaker
I don't care if you stop.
00:49:05
Speaker
I care if you start again.
00:49:07
Speaker
And that's it.
00:49:09
Speaker
That is so important to just keep starting each day, recognizing that we can
00:49:13
Speaker
Even though it might have fallen off our morning practice for many days or years even, we can start again.
00:49:20
Speaker
Each day, a new opportunity to start again.
00:49:23
Speaker
And maybe that's just one thing.
00:49:25
Speaker
Maybe that's one minute of meditation.
00:49:27
Speaker
That's 10 specific practices.
00:49:30
Speaker
So I'm loving this concept of just keep coming back to that practice.
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, you said a couple of really important pieces for me right there, Betsy.
00:49:42
Speaker
One of them was around starting small.
00:49:45
Speaker
Like you can literally just say, okay, I'm just going to do one minute.
00:49:50
Speaker
And if you do just one minute, but you commit to 30 days of one minute and say, I'm definitely going to do that.
00:49:58
Speaker
30 days of one minute.
00:49:59
Speaker
And then you link, for example, a lot of people, this will work for them, your coffee in the morning.
00:50:04
Speaker
Like I am not going to have my coffee in the morning until I do my one minute of meditation.
00:50:10
Speaker
And then if you create those kind of boundaries for yourself, then it's a reward.
00:50:15
Speaker
It's like, oh, I meditated.
00:50:16
Speaker
I get this delicious thing.
00:50:17
Speaker
I meditated.
00:50:18
Speaker
I get this delicious thing.
00:50:19
Speaker
All of a sudden, you're going to think about meditation and like a Pavlovian dog.
00:50:22
Speaker
You're like, oh, meditation, you know, because you're associated your meditation with this delicious thing.
00:50:27
Speaker
Now, that's not going to work for everybody.
00:50:30
Speaker
But I definitely do not have my Love Dragon Mocha, which is my invigorating morning beverage that I drink.
00:50:36
Speaker
I don't have it until I'm done with my workout.
00:50:38
Speaker
And so my workout comes after my practice.
00:50:40
Speaker
So I do that for myself or to myself or however you want to put it.
00:50:44
Speaker
But yeah, and I just love also the piece that you were sharing about, you know, start again.
00:50:51
Speaker
That is like so such a beautiful like it doesn't matter how many times you fall off the horse.
00:50:56
Speaker
It matters.
00:50:56
Speaker
that you get back on because as long as you keep getting back on, eventually, like Halcyon was saying, it gets easier.
00:51:02
Speaker
It just keeps getting easier.
00:51:04
Speaker
And even getting back on the horse gets easier, not just the thing itself, but the getting back on the horse because, you know, I think it's an illusion to think of the fact that we're, you know, to think that we're ever going to be what we imagine to be perfect.
00:51:21
Speaker
So the real trick of life is being happy on the path.
00:51:25
Speaker
Being happy wherever you are on the path, if you can just completely accept yourself and your situation exactly as it is, you lose all resistance or friction to what's going on and your energy can flow most freely and clearly through you.
00:51:38
Speaker
So I really love, yeah, what we both were sharing just there.
00:51:43
Speaker
Man, well, listening to you makes it really clear that more people should be listening to you.
00:51:48
Speaker
So can you give us some ways that people can find you and your upcoming events and what are the ways and places that people can find you?
00:52:00
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:52:00
Speaker
Thank you so much for asking.
00:52:02
Speaker
So skyfirearts.com is my performing arts company's website.
00:52:09
Speaker
And that is where we, as Betsy was mentioning in the beginning, we wear high voltage protective suits.
00:52:15
Speaker
We become electrified by giant Tesla coils and we throw 10 foot bolts of lightning.
00:52:20
Speaker
to promote ecological awareness and renewable energy.
00:52:23
Speaker
And we have a whole mythology behind the heroic characters on stage, and we're inviting everyone to be a hero of their own lives, take responsibility for themselves, and really live in a joyful way from the stage.
00:52:34
Speaker
But then to go deeper, for people who resonate with that message, there's skyfireacademy.org.
00:52:41
Speaker
And that is where I offer, you know, events, you know, like Ignite, which you're throwing.
00:52:48
Speaker
You mentioned, Betsy, next year.
00:52:50
Speaker
It's March 28th through the 30th of 2025.
00:52:54
Speaker
And that is where we are doing the lightning performance that I mentioned in Skyfire Arts, but we're also teaching flow arts and science.
00:53:02
Speaker
So, you know, there's the flow arts, which is what we do to get into flow, the practices.
00:53:06
Speaker
But flow science is the study of flow states.
00:53:09
Speaker
And how do we get that state of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and richness that Stephen Kotler and Jamie Weill talk about in their flow research?
00:53:18
Speaker
Like, how do we enter into those states?
00:53:20
Speaker
So it's mind and body harmony, and then
00:53:22
Speaker
You find Ikigai, which is a personal harmony where you're doing what you love, what you're good at, what you serve the world and what you can make money doing.
00:53:29
Speaker
And then from personal harmony, we can find ecological harmony and societal harmony.
00:53:35
Speaker
And so we're seeking to help produce that through having an event where that's just the ethos.
00:53:40
Speaker
That's just what we do.
00:53:41
Speaker
So yeah, skyfirearts.com and skyfireacademy.org are the two portals.
00:53:48
Speaker
And I've also started a nonprofit.
00:53:49
Speaker
So I'll just throw that in there.
00:53:50
Speaker
Stormlight Dream Foundation.
00:53:53
Speaker
dot org is something I started with my friends Nick Hyming and Michelle Levon and it is a non-profit to support artists that are working on you know promoting ecological awareness and personal empowerment so those are the portals through which people can you know connect with me and I might serve them amazing beautiful thank you so much Michael and Betsy how can we find you
00:54:22
Speaker
Well, you can find me also on the web portal, as you call it.
00:54:26
Speaker
Poweraffirmation.com is where you can find the products that I've made that support integration of personal growth and development.
00:54:34
Speaker
The journal basically helps you to get into a better relationship with yourself and reprogram limiting beliefs.
00:54:41
Speaker
And then a variety of other tools for cultivating affirmations.
00:54:46
Speaker
So find it on poweraffirmation.com.
00:54:48
Speaker
And then you can learn also about some of the healing gifts that I offer with some somatic bodywork and aerial somatics on finkelhoo.com.
00:54:57
Speaker
And also, of course, you mentioned Insight Timer.
00:55:00
Speaker
I love giving free audio affirmations on there.
00:55:04
Speaker
So feel free to find me and follow me on Insight Timer, which is basically a platform for what Michael shared is a really amazing timer that you can customize for whatever morning practice you're going to do.
00:55:16
Speaker
And then also thousands of teachers of meditation and of many different just affirmations, visualizations.
00:55:24
Speaker
It's an amazing, amazing tool that you can incorporate into your morning practice.
00:55:31
Speaker
Look at that.
00:55:32
Speaker
Full circle.
00:55:33
Speaker
And speaking of morning practices, you can find links to my daily live broadcast, 9 a.m.
00:55:39
Speaker
Pacific time.
00:55:40
Speaker
I do a broadcast every day, and the link to that is at lifestudent.com.
00:55:43
Speaker
If you want to get a little gratitude sharing and direction setting of your day, you can join me every day at 9 a.m.
00:55:51
Speaker
And of course, one more mention.
00:55:54
Speaker
I think most of you out there know you can probably find us as well on all the socials.
00:56:00
Speaker
So Instagram, Facebook, please do find us on there.
00:56:03
Speaker
Michael is at Skyfire Arts.
00:56:05
Speaker
I am Betsy Hu.
00:56:07
Speaker
I think Halcyon, you have a burner prep page right now on Instagram that just talks a lot about Burning Man and integration.
00:56:16
Speaker
I think it's Halcyon Pink on Instagram.
00:56:19
Speaker
Yeah?
00:56:19
Speaker
Exactly.
00:56:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:56:21
Speaker
What else did we miss?
00:56:23
Speaker
I think we got it.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think we do.
00:56:26
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just, yeah, it's on, you know, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook.
00:56:33
Speaker
I think it's all Skyfire Arts or Michael Ravenwood.
00:56:36
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:56:38
Speaker
You can find us anywhere, right?
00:56:40
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like if you can't find me, you're not looking.
00:56:48
Speaker
I know.
00:56:48
Speaker
My voicemail message, if anyone knows my personal phone number, basically says, you can leave me a voicemail, send me a text, send me a voice memo, send me a WhatsApp, send me a messenger, send me an Instagram message, send me a message.
00:57:02
Speaker
Letter in the mail.
00:57:04
Speaker
There's so many ways to reach out.
00:57:05
Speaker
So please do.
00:57:08
Speaker
And in the spirit of our Stay Sparked flow, I'd love to close this out with an affirmation.
00:57:13
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:57:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:57:16
Speaker
So wherever you are, you're welcome to close your eyes if that feels good to you and take a nice deep breath.
00:57:26
Speaker
This is one of my favorites.
00:57:28
Speaker
Every day in every way, I am committing to my practices.
00:57:33
Speaker
Every day in every way, I am committing to my practices.
00:57:37
Speaker
Every day in every way, I am committing to the practices that serve my life.
00:57:43
Speaker
I am committing to the practices that serve my life.
00:57:47
Speaker
Every day is a new opportunity to start again.
00:57:51
Speaker
Every day is a new opportunity to start again.
00:57:54
Speaker
I am patient.
00:57:56
Speaker
I am committed.
00:57:59
Speaker
I am consistent.
00:58:01
Speaker
I love myself and I love you.
00:58:05
Speaker
Thank you all for listening.
00:58:07
Speaker
Thank you, Michael, for joining us today.
00:58:10
Speaker
Thank you, John Halcyon, for being such a spark of inspiration.
00:58:14
Speaker
I love you guys.
00:58:15
Speaker
Much love.
00:58:16
Speaker
Stay sparked, everyone.
00:58:20
Speaker
Find us on Instagram at staysparked and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
00:58:25
Speaker
Thanks so much for helping us spread these sparks.