All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted, and need to somehow find a way

to reignite the fire within, but how do we spark that flame?

Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit.

We'll discuss the art of re-igniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm.

And now, here are your hosts, Natalie Davis, in Pamela Kass.

If I could get a doctor to sign off on it, yeah sure, this is fine.

I'd be doing six shots every morning, I mean, to live in that world, or maybe two shots

can keep it rolling, you know, like when you go out with friends, and you're like,

you hit that buzz, you don't want to drink more, you just want to stay in the zone and have

fun.

Maybe I'll say four shots, and then two, everything, the equation, what it's going to be.

I think this is technically what they call self-medicating, right here in this moment, we're

just watching it happen.

It's all by two shots every two hours until you get to that dream state.

Have you been able to get into that state again since that moment?

No, I haven't been doing much work, so I haven't had a chance to live in it.

And that the dream world, when I'm working, everything isn't grayed out, it's the hyperfocus.

The thing was, in that particular moment, I was out among people, so all this stuff

is going on all around me, and it's not my ears aren't buzzing, it's like there's no

other physical thing going on, I just watched for a while, and I said, I'm in the dream

world.

It's like, wow, I get to be here, and it took about a couple hours for that to wear off.

That was quite an experience, and I've never been a drug taker, I've never done any drugs

at all, I don't do marijuana and nothing.

I do have drunk very, very much time, but that's not the same thing at all, drinking is not

the same thing at all.

This was magic, it was truly magical, but don't tell anyone about it.

I know, it's just between your secrets, right here, we're good, we're good, I love it.

Well the way that you describe it, James, it's kind of like being in that flow state or

this meditative state, like, you know, depending on what modality or however you land there,

I know that writers get into that flow state where it just happens, right, like there's

no turning it on or off, and they're not doing anything, they just happen to be in that

state, and the words continue to flow out, yeah, same, like if you're meditating and you

get into that meditative state where if you once you've experienced it, and I think that's

the addiction with meditation, which is, I don't know if that's healthy or not, is that

once you get into that true meditative state, that you know the magic of that place, and

you think I've got to get back into that meditative state again, or in that flow state, or in

the magical world, right, like whatever that may be.

But I don't do spy any substances, like you said, it truly is just this magical

state.

Because that flow, because I have done that, I've been meditating, the thing that I do is

I go beneath the surface, literally beneath the surface of the sea, and just I go down

and down and down, and there are various levels where there are various things, and I get

down there, and honestly, I could stay there a long, long time.

It's just calm.

It's calm.

It's very quiet.

There's nothing going on, and I say my eyes closed, and so it's black.

It's dark, and there's nothing going on.

And I guess I don't know if somebody comes to meet me or what, but I feel very safe.

You know, you don't always feel that way, so that's kind of a thing.

But yeah, well, that may be calm, but what are the calm, a gateway, drunk?

Exactly.

Yes, meditation.

It's right after six shots of espresso.

Right.

Exactly.

More.

Exactly.

High.

We're going to go for the real deal.

Yeah, 100%.

Either you're in or you're not.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A funny thing about the dream state being in the dream world is that I have no awareness

of time, but if I need to know what time it is, I do.

And if it's hours and hours, I'll be like, it's got to be 4.30, and I look at my phone

and it's 4.25.

Wow.

This is after six, seven, eight hours of being, you know, hyper focused.

Some there, back in my brain, you know, somebody else is keep track.

It's autopilot.

Exactly.

You know, I mean, if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have asked.

You wouldn't get out of that space.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You've got to eat and function and do all of the other things.

Yeah.

Somebody not necessarily crack in the whip, but like knocking on the door.

Tapping.

Yeah.

Let's remember.

Yeah.

I love that.

I love that.

So you said right now, you're trying to get rid of some of the inventory that you have.

Talk to us a little bit about your, the outlets that you have or online, are you doing

shows?

I have a little online.

You do it online.

I have to tell you Natalie, it doesn't bear a lot of talking about because I haven't been

successful yet.

But the work that I'm showing is the work that I told you that the in-man had that

response to it.

And honestly, I go, I would go, like you go to Chamber of Commerce meetings, you know,

meet and greet, you know, hello, I'm that kind of thing.

And I show people, and almost universally, people's eyes get wide.

And they're like, you know, they get quite a moment.

Not like that young man.

I mean, he had a different response.

That was a different response.

But there's certainly in the same zone, in the same zone.

So yeah, I'm trying to move merch.

I'm definitely trying to move merch.

And the way I do it, there's a, it's kind of a two-step.

The things that we haven't really talked about, the kind of ways I've learned to bring

myself up from the bottom.

Do you want to talk about that?

I would love to hear that.

Yeah, please.

Okay.

All right.

So there's basically one thing, and that is seeing the bottom as a foundation, not a launching

pad or anything like that, it's just a foundation, because in the beginning, it's a negative

foundation.

Wow.

I'm not going to do this.

I'm not going to do that.

But as you start to step up, it is the base on which you build.

This is what I want to do.

This is what I want to do.

And honestly, if you didn't have that bottom, you wouldn't be able to build the top.

So that's a real fundamental thing that works for me.

And the other thing is something I call the sorting game.

And I know it sounds like popsike and I'm not going to put it out there.

It's like, everybody needs to do this.

But it's what works for me.

And what happens is that I divide the pain into four different categories.

And the first category is the real pain.

That is what I can't change.

What did I do this time?

What's wrong?

What happened to me?

That's the things I cannot change is the first bucket.

Second one is things that maybe I can change.

I go to people, I am so sorry, I messed up or go and say, you know, I was really mad

about what you did.

And we talked this through, just whatever things that might be able to change.

So there's that.

Then the next one is really kind of the saddest long term.

The things about me that I can't change that are problems.

So like with me, I've said I tend to be selfish.

You know, I just have this selfish streak in me.

And I got to watch it because I will.

I'll be the one to take the last three brownies.

It's just there, I have to watch it.

And the other is I get irritable.

I think I might have mentioned that too, I just, I remember a couple of days ago, somebody

had done something small that I felt like was a little, you know, a little odd.

And so when I sent this snippet email and then half hour later, I'm like, I did it again.

You know, here I am.

Like all I want to do is not do that.

I'm paying, I cannot be paying more attention to not doing that.

And yet there it is.

So that is the four, that's the third category.

And the fourth category is a little happier.

And that is the things that I didn't do.

You're not my fault, you know, not my fault.

I might have been there.

I might have been on the periphery, but somebody else was driving.

So that feels good.

And that leads into kind of another, another technique I use, which is to take on more.

And I found, especially in this really downtime after my second marriage, that ended very,

very badly.

I'll take full credit for that.

That was really bad.

But when I was down on the bottom then, I took all of it on me.

There was good reason for that, because toward the end, it was me.

It's things I did.

I never, it wasn't drinking, it wasn't, you know, womanizing, it wasn't, it was all the

classic things.

It wasn't that.

It was just not being present and, you know, going out and living a happy, fun life.

And, you know, my wife said, it's home, you know, there's nothing for her.

And yeah, it just kind of deteriorated from there.

So sitting there, thinking about boy, you know, what are I done?

I took it all on, you know, the whole, everything, the whole marriage, it's all my fault, it's

all my fault.

And then I realized it's not fault, it's responsibility.

You know, I was responsible for this, I was responsible for that and I didn't do it.

And knowing that I'm responsible, that's a powerful thing, because if I was responsible

for that, and I could have done it differently, then I'm responsible for the future, and I

can do it differently, and I can have better outcomes.

So that's a really positive thing to come out of it about that.

So I'd recommend, as one guy who has experience, you know, maybe, maybe accept a little more

than you think is truly in your court, because what could happen is if you don't, well,

you'll be finding that out later, and that's really bad, you know, to find out, oh, no,

I did that too.

You don't want that.

It's, I think, easier, not easier, it's hard, it's very painful, but it's better in

the end to take on more, and to then be able to pitch it at the end, you know, just like

spit that out.

Now, here's all the other pain, it is what it is, but I can spit this out, not my thing,

did not do that.

Let's take a quick break.

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I think we're really good, naturally, just as humans, we're really good at, like, saying

that's not my situation or that I didn't really contribute or attribute to that piece.

And so, James, when you say, like, looking a little bit deeper to understand, like, well,

maybe I did have something to do with fill in the blank, like taking that moment to just

pause and taking ownership of it, responsibility for it as well.

Very much.

And it is ownership, responsibility.

When you see it that way, I mean, it's not, I'm not saying take on blame.

It's like, okay, I did that wrong, I did that wrong, I did that wrong, and it naturally

goes to that.

I mean, even I have been seeing it, you know?

But what it is is responsibility.

What am I responsible for?

What was I responsible for that I didn't do?

I mean, what was I responsible for that I did badly?

You know, then it's like, there's a whole new game, like blame and thought are all about

the past.

They're all about what went wrong.

And responsibility is forward looking.

It's like, okay, I can take a model here and maybe a negative model, but I can put it

in the future and I can use that.

That's responsibility.

It's a much better way of looking at things.

You have to have a higher level of empathy as well to be in that space, right?

Because it's not about you, just you, like you truly have to think about the situation,

the other people, all of that.

Yeah, yeah.

I think a lot about pushing this relationship was leaving someone bad choices.

If I do things that put someone else in a bad situation and the choices they have are

not good and then they do something that really hurts me or something bad, well, that's

not all their fault because I kind of set them up for failure.

So that's something you got to look for as well and look for ways that you're responsible.

You're not responsible for somebody else's behavior, but you're responsible for the situations

you create.

It gets complex really fast.

So maybe that can be distracting.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't have it all mapped out, but I just try to come through with just some basic ideas

that work for me and if they can work for somebody else, something useful, that would

be great.

That would be great.

But I'm not, I'm not doctors, somebody.

I'm not anything.

I haven't written three books.

You've created artwork that obviously speaks to people.

So that's like writing a book, that's like doing anything.

It's sharing your gifts with other people and obviously it resonates.

I feel very good about that.

I'm not writing it down.

You know, I'm not, I'm not saying that I'm an expert.

I'm in a different way.

To me, writing a book is artwork in a different way.

I'm going to, and people can find that it's feel as expertise or they can feel it as

whatever they feel it is, as long as they tell me what they're feeling.

Exactly.

You must tell me, you don't know what your view of your artwork, don't say that.

Don't say that.

Don't say that.

What it is about it.

Yeah.

We're never saying that again.

Yeah.

I know.

I'm probably insulting a lot of people and people who are, I mean, I was, I was this

person.

I'm sure I've done it.

I genuinely want to say, you want to connect in some way, you want to leave somebody

with something positive and that's all you can think of.

But it's real easy.

You pick out whatever you would like about it.

What's the thing you like most?

Say that one, I like that one the most.

And here's why, this and this and this, thank you for making that.

I'm glad you made that.

Have a good day.

It's totally different.

You're going to have a better day.

I was going to say you're going to have a deeper connection with that artist, right?

Like that's so, that's huge, right?

Yeah.

You get to share a little bit about what they've brought out in you and they get to see

a little bit of you as well, like, and yeah, that's such a great connection to have.

Yeah, it really is.

I mean, if art fairs were that way, if everybody, if there was some sign at the front, you

can't have, you know, you know, here's exactly art fairs, you know, you know, we need

that instead of people just, you know, milling around like sheep.

Yes.

Yeah.

I would pick up that book because I'm always doing it.

Can I touch it?

Can I not touch it?

I just want to be expressive about it.

That's what I need to do.

Yeah, yeah, express it.

You got to express here's what I'm feeling and it's related to what you did.

And I hope that's valuable to you.

I do like your work.

I can't afford it.

I tell people, the point is that I have no space on my walls and this is true.

I have no space on my walls, just be kind and say something positive, say something

useful.

That's it.

Something useful is not positive.

Like, you know, I want to like your work, but I have this difficulty with it.

Even that, even that would be something.

It's like, you know, I just, your colors are really dull and I, that doesn't feel good

to me, but it's just me.

So I'm sorry that I just don't respond that while you work or, or, but this one right

here, I love the shape of this one, it's something you can interact, you can engage.

And that's, that's what makes the day for artists.

Well, it makes it more genuine because you think about how surface level conversations

are with people.

I love how you're dressed or I, you know, it's also surface instead of making it that

deeper connection, speaking to the crux of the artwork or the crux of the person and

how it made you feel when you've had it.

And maybe, you know, I mean, this is, this is pops like, I'll say people don't want

to feel.

And maybe there's a little bit of truth in that because if you went from stall to stall,

it had feelings in every stall by the end, you'd be exhausted.

Yeah, exhausted.

I think people are not numbing, you know, numbing them up to failure, you know, maybe

maybe you just need to pick one or two and do that.

People be people.

Be which are people.

People can do people.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James, you gave us the four bucket formula or practice.

So when do you use that and how frequently are you using that when you use those four buckets?

It's a, it's a retrospective thing.

It's what I found that I do.

And can you use it by like writing on a piece of paper and writing things down?

I actually tried this last week that thought, you know, if I'm going to tell people about

this, I'd better do it.

And it did shed some light on things.

I mean, I didn't get to the part where this is not my fault because like, I did that.

Yeah.

That's my fault.

This is over.

That's over.

Yeah.

100% me.

Yeah.

I'm going to do that again.

This one.

I'm going to do that again.

I know.

So that was, that was pretty much.

I didn't get to step four is like, I'm done.

I can't, I can't take anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not a practice where you set up columns or anything like that.

And like I said, I'm not, I'm not Dr. Phil.

I'm not telling you how to do it.

That's just kind of how I find that I do it.

And if you're finding your stuck, that might be a way to think about it because they're

or they are very real buckets.

What you can change, what you can't change, what you may be able to change, what there

is a value that you just, it's not going to go away and what is not your fault.

I mean, everything falls into one of those buckets.

I think those are, that's a great way.

And people can do it however, whether it's just introspective, it's writing it down,

it's journaling whatever it may be.

So I think those are really valuable for anybody that's gone through something.

I think it's, especially like if you're looking at stressful or hard situations or scenarios

that you found yourself in or even relationships that might have been strained, as you mentioned,

like that was one that you did as a reflection with your ex-wife and, and that relationship.

I think from relational or situational, you can absolutely use that for bucket practice.

I think we're sad because I think it, yeah, it allows you to learn something from the

event so that it's not this pattern that keeps necessarily showing up.

Yeah, yeah, that is the goal.

What I find the older I get, the more things are in category three.

That's the painful awareness.

That's like I was telling you, you know, I'm irritable.

I'm not going to be irritable.

Today, I'm going to be positive.

And then it's like, right, you know, it's nine thirty, I've already done it.

Yeah.

The internal voice that tells you that, the internal voice is like, yeah, I don't think so.

It's a career.

It's a career.

It's typically a come around, but sometimes people have to have to stay and tell me.

But I know I'm in an age where people don't tell you, because if you go over, I'm at

that age level.

They don't tell.

So, yeah.

She's just who she is.

It has to be a little voice.

Yeah.

Yes.

As I'm going to say on this show, we've named that little evil voice, the Dr. Evil

Pork Chomp.

Yes.

Dr. Evil Pork Chomp.

And so, yeah.

We tried it.

You can address it.

The voice.

Or her or them.

We've named that voice.

Yeah.

Yes.

We name it.

We've given it an identity.

Maybe it's the Dr. Evil Pork Chomp that's making it happen in the first place.

It works.

It doesn't say anything.

Exactly.

And then wait.

And then just giggles with a little shanker in at the end of it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yes.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That's a good point.

We might have to go down that road.

We might have to figure that out.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know if I want to characterize the voices in my head as Dr. Pork Chomp.

It was a Dr. Evil Pork Chomp.

It was the name of a cat at the vet.

When my daughter was taking her dog to get to the vet and the woman came in with their cat

and the cat's name was Dr. Evil Pork Chomp.

And I was like, I feel like we need to use that name.

That's great.

That's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And James just be here.

I don't give a name to all of the babies in my head.

That's just that one.

Right.

I want to be clear.

Yeah.

It's going to start out.

Which of the, that's a railroad hole I don't want to do.

Of course.

That's not a problem.

That's not a problem.

Yeah.

But if I listen carefully, I can get some wisdom coming down the line.

I try to do that.

I try to pay attention to that one.

Okay.

I went down that rabbit hole.

Didn't I?

That's good.

I'm glad that you did.

Well, I know that you told us that you're definitely sharing your artwork and it's available

for purchase.

Can you let our listeners know where they can find you more about, learn more about you

and your artwork?

They can find me.

I have written here on a piece of paper because I knew you were going to ask, it's a tiny

URL dot com forward slash scraps to sculpture spelled out scraps word to sculpture.

So it's tiny URL dot com forward slash scraps to sculpture.

Well, wisdom I have, you will get it by using that because it is a little booklet.

It doesn't correspond exactly to things I've been telling you.

But it's essentially the process of getting from the bottom up to somewhere that's not

the bottom.

I love it.

I love it.

This has been a lot of fun.

It has been amazing.

It has been amazing.

I can't believe we're having fun at all.

I was thinking this is really not very rarely don't have fun.

I know that you had a little bit of reservation as you hopped on.

You're like, I don't know where we're going.

I'm truly both of you, Pam and Natalie, I just, I thought, I listened on your podcast

like these women, they're so positive and they like to laugh.

And the people that come in, they have all these positive things to say.

I'm like, so I said it right up front.

I'm not positive.

You know, it's not going to be a success story.

And you guys, I tell you what, you know, you made my day.

Oh my gosh.

And I'm going to let you know, James, you absolutely wholeheartedly have the success story.

You do.

So thank you for sharing it with us.

Thank you for sharing it with our listeners.

Oh my gosh.

Do you have any final words that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

Advice, insight.

One thing I didn't get to talk about was if I could be the older,

why is a person to talk to my child self?

I had several things I want to say, but I just want to say one of them.

And that is listen to your heart.

Not follow your dreams, not anything like that, but listen to your heart.

Because it's not going to be far from wrong.

Most likely it's not going to be far from wrong.

Beautiful.

That's beautiful.

Oh my gosh.

I think to end on.

I think so as well.

Listen to your heart.

Love it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, James.

Again, I want to thank you for sharing your story and the vulnerability

and bringing all of that forward for us and for our listeners.

We are very grateful for you and to you for that.

We will make sure that we drop the link in the show notes as well.

So our listeners and viewers, I guess I should say,

can head on over and find that and support you.

Again, you're welcome to come back if you decide to go down a different path

and knock out those 14 books that you reference to that you're going to write.

Come back and talk to us about it.

We love to go about it.

If every writer has a novel in a drawer somewhere and I do have that novel,

so maybe I should tap that out or not write that, not publish it,

I'll just tell you about it.

We can spend an hour on it.

That would be amazing, James.

Just follow your heart.

That's it.

Follow your heart.

Alright, that's all I got.

Oh my gosh, thank you, James, for our listeners.

We will make sure that we put James' contact information in the show notes for you.

And if you want to learn more about what's happening in the world of regnet resilience,

head on over to regnetresilience.com.

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and joy that we experience on every episode.

Until next time, we will see y'all soon.

Bye, everyone.

Thank you for joining us today on the regnet resilience podcast.

We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real-life ideas to fuel the flames of passion.

Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform.

Like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family.

We look forward to seeing you again next time on regnet resilience.

Regnet resilience family.

We are so excited to share with you that the book, The Quiet Gift,

a journey of self-worth and resilience is now available on audiobook at Amazon.

Make sure that you check the link in the show notes so that you can click on that

and download a copy of the audiobook.

This is an amazing story written by Pam.

It's a part of the red journal series and narrated by Kristen Aiken Salada.

So we hope you enjoy.

Until next time, we'll see you soon.