December 27, 2024 • 39 mins
SHOW #72! Season 3, Episode 3: Welcome to the disSOLViNG fear podcast! Find the podcast, free resources, our monthly newsletter and more at missalissa.com
IN THIS EPISODE: Author Toni Bergins and I talk about how movement and dance bring us into our bodies and build self-awareness. What's so great about self-awareness? To know yourself is to love yourself. Noticing how we feel is the first step to knowing how we feel: what works for us, what doesn't work, and what makes us tick and lights us up.
Toni believes movement helps unlock joy, fear, and our entire spectrum of emotions, so that we can see, acknowledge, and love ALL of ourselves.
Rather than "figuring everything out" in our heads, dance helps us "let it out" and release our deepest fears, desires, and creative ideas! Toni has a new book called EMBODY.
Links to her book, website, and her upcoming online event on 12/28/24 are below! Get yourself the book or the online dance event as a special holiday treat!
Get Toni's book, EMBODY, or listen to it on Audible!
Join Toni's 12/28/24 online event at Kripalu.org
Check out the song: Heart's Mystery
Find weekly online classes and more at:
Remember:
- It takes courage to live our dreams, but it's worth it.
- Facing and getting over a fear actually builds our confidence.
- Movement can unlock joy, release repressed emotions, and get us acquainted with ourselves. Move that body!
If you liked this episode, you'll love my other interview with Toni right here on the disSOLViNG fear podcast back in May, 2023!
Thank you for being HERE at disSOLViNG fear.
Fear doesn't run the show, YOU do!
Much Love, Alissa
Visit missalissa.com to join the free newsletter community, book a 1:1 coaching call, and explore awesome ways to create your best life!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Dissolving Fear Podcast.
If you have big dreams and plans, but you get distracted by
fear and doubt, TuneIn because we can all live a more fearless
and free life starting today because fear doesn't run the
show. You do.
And fear doesn't run this show. I'm your host Alyssa, and I'm a
(00:20):
life coach and so much more. In 2025, I'm launching super
affordable virtual group coaching, so check out my
website for the newsletter and more at Set Sail and soar.com.
The mission here is the world where fear doesn't control us.
So follow this podcast. You'll love the results.
(00:42):
Loving life is what we're all about here at the podcast and at
missalyssa.com. Enjoy the show.
So, Tony Bergens, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you so much. Last year, you came onto the
podcast and we talked about so much, but we talked about how
dance takes us on a journey intoour body, into our heart and
(01:03):
soul, and I think it even helps us improve our mindset.
And you've been hosting dance retreats for years in Mexico, at
Kripala Yoga Center, and even atOmega Institute in New York.
It really seems like your calling has been getting people
into their bodies to express themselves through dance.
And now you have a new book called Embody.
(01:25):
Tony, Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Oh, wow. What do I tell you?
Based on the concept of this podcast, I will say that I am
someone who really decided at one point that I was not going
to live in fear and I was not going to follow the the trap,
the trail that was blazed for mein advance.
You know, I was not going to go into the corporate New York life
that was sort of laid out for meand from where I grew up.
(01:47):
And I was not going to become a doctor or lawyer.
But I'm not going to become likewhatever I was supposed to
become. I just like, went, I turned
sharp, right and went a whole different direction.
And that takes fearlessness. And I have to admit, like, I
feel like I am a courageous being.
I didn't think that about myself.
I thought it was just what I hadto do because I had no choice.
(02:10):
Sort of on an emotional level, Ilike this is what I have to do.
But I realize now looking back that a lot of people look at me
and they say, wow, you did it. You know, you, you broke out of
the norm and you just went your own path.
And I'm like, wow, I did the biggest thing I've been talking
about lately is for other peopleto really acknowledge that it
takes courage to do what we wantto do.
(02:32):
Being in the status quo is much easier.
You can just, you know, get get something that works for you,
that keeps you safe and that keeps you feeling content and
some level. But then there's this part that
isn't really living or doing itsthing, which is the energy of
your life, unless you have like a great outside work life.
But I feel like I want to encourage people to just be
courageous and live their dream,even if it's outside the box and
(02:54):
it's there's other people and I think you're weird or whatever
it is, and it's really just worth it.
Yeah. And you have this idea like,
this is what I need to do. This is what I want to do,
whether it's change your career,leave your husband, whatever.
A lot of us say this is what I need to do.
And emotionally, we know it. But then we say, but I can't.
(03:14):
And that that's where you know, like your life can come to a
screeching halt and it can feel like it's ending when really
it's the new beginning. And you can step into these
things that you feel like you need to do and emotionally and
the things that you want to do. I heard a quote the other day,
the ego wants to impress the soul wants to express, express
(03:37):
who we are. You know, the ego says this is
what we should be expressing ourpassions.
That's your expertise. So tell us, what does
self-expression mean to you? Wow.
You know, it means every I thinkthat that's what we're here for.
We're here to express some unique, you know, version of a
human, some unique version of a soul that is here for for its
(03:58):
own development and growth. You know, so self-expression is
much more than just like you being like, well, I'm gonna just
do dance. It's much more than that.
I mean, I'm a songwriter, I'm a writer.
I mean, I wrote a book this yearand I write music and I express
myself through whatever creativeoutlet I can find.
Because otherwise I sit on my emotions and it's OK to sit with
(04:19):
my emotions, but I also sit on them, which is not the same as
sitting with them. So if I'm suppressing and
compressing and compartmentalizing and shutting
down, I'm actually not in my life force.
I'm in the opposite. I'm in constriction.
So that and I think The funny thing is fear sets in.
I feel when we're not like when sometimes when you don't know
(04:40):
what you want, fear sets in because you don't know what to
do. You don't know where to go, you
don't know what step to take. And then that's like when fear
sets in. So if we could trust that, you
know, every day I'm going to say, OK, today I'm doing this in
order to propel my life's vision, my desire forward, then
I'll be so much less fearful because I have like a plan.
(05:00):
I think that's the thing that scares people the most is when
they don't know what they want to do.
And then all of a sudden we're sitting in this like kind of
Stew of what do I want to do? And then it's like, like, I
don't know what I want to do. And that's pretty scary for
people. They don't know.
So not knowing is something thatI've learned to sit with and
say, OK, what does it mean when I don't know?
It means I'm not inspired in this moment.
It means I haven't, I haven't gone deep enough to touch what
(05:23):
is my next project? What is my next thing?
Like I'm a project person. So I decided like, and I just
got somebody sent me a like a, aholiday card or something saying
something with a clip of me singing on stage with these
famous musicians who I just love.
And I was like, Oh my God, I didthat.
I had a concert like it was a couple.
(05:43):
It was last year and I, I made ACDI made it.
I made ACDI made an album. I made an EP, whatever you call
it nowadays. I made, I recorded a bunch of
music and I did a, a thing. And that was the most terrifying
thing I've ever done in my life.I was up upstairs before coming
on stage and like my body, my heart was pounding so loud that
this, this friend of mine, he put his hand on my chest and
(06:04):
he's like, it's going to be OK. This is energy.
It's not fear. It's not terror.
It's energy. And we went down and we did the
whole show and it was totally amazing.
But you know, that is fear, Like, feel like fear of like
being seen. I just have to share that with
you because it made me think like, there's so many things
that you might want to do in your life.
I'm talking to everyone on who'slistening to this podcast, So
many things you might want to do.
(06:25):
And maybe you'll do three of them, maybe you'll do three,
maybe you have 1000 things you want to do, maybe you'll do
1000. But if you did 3, you would be
so happy that you did it. It's like there's something
about getting over a fear. That is the most confidence
building thing I think. I think you could do really at
the end of the day. And it's funny, you said leave
your husband. I thought that was funny.
(06:46):
It's like you might get a new job, you might leave your
husband or your wife or whatever.
But making these big decisions, it's always comes with a sense
of what we call fear, which is really an energy.
I want to like redefine fear. You know, I'm sure, I'm sure
you've heard all the expressions, false evidence
appearing real and all the things people break it down
into. But it's really energy in the
(07:08):
body. It's energy of it's whether it's
nervous excitement, whether it'sactual terror and shutdown.
When you get into your body and really, truly start to move,
dance, learn how to express whenyou can understand who you are
as a person, like, and you have what I call self mastery.
And it's a very old word. But you know that idea of like,
(07:28):
oh, I know this feeling, this isfear.
Oh, this is excitement. Oh, this is this is new, this is
wonder, this is curiosity. This is this is intensity.
This is what you really start toget to know yourself when you
can be in your body in the way that I'm teaching.
And then the fear is just another one of the emotions.
It doesn't run your life. It's just like, oh, I'm feeling
(07:48):
fear, OK. Just like I feel anger or I feel
sadness or I feel joy. It doesn't have to be the the
underlying, you know, constant. My favorite action for fear is
face everything and rise. So if you're about to go and.
That's a good one. You're going to face your fear
and rise above and go out there and perform music.
(08:08):
But also, you know, if we're in a sticky situation that is
making us feel very fight or flight, very anxious, face it
and get out of there, right? Like you don't need to stay in a
house where everyone's arguing and then get super dysregulated.
This is good. And you're around the holidays
y'all, you know, like you can decide, OK, I'm feeling anxious
(08:32):
and dysregulated. I'm going to get out of here.
I'm going to go get some fresh air.
I'm going to go get whatever it is so.
What you're saying is it's the recognition of it that's so
important because once you recognize, some people don't
recognize when they're dysregulated, they just are
dysregulated and all of a suddenthey'll be in a total
dysregulation and then they'll notice it.
But if you can notice it before it becomes dysregulated, like
(08:56):
that's my goal as a teacher is to help people be so in their
body and be able to play in all the different emotions that when
it comes, you're like, oh, something's going on for me
right now. Even if you don't know exactly
what it is like, that's, that's the point before you get this
regulated. And that's what I'm trying to
aim for. Like that's what I'm aiming for.
Like, how do we stay regulated? It's it's not easy.
(09:17):
And especially now with all the fear being pumped into our
culture right now. And the world is very, very
intense right now. It's not cover that up, but it
could. It could bring fear to the
surface for many different people for many different
reasons. I've been in one of your dance
classes, more than one in Massachusetts, and I just think
(09:38):
you don't even realize what you're going to express when
you're dancing until you feel the emotions come up and you're
like, Oh my gosh, like I'm feeling emotions.
And sometimes I think while we're working out or dancing, we
find our most authentic self so we don't have to think, what is
my, what do I want? What's my authentic purpose?
Sometimes it just finds us and it hits US like in this aha
(10:02):
moment. How do you think listeners could
create like an atmosphere to feel their feelings and say, oh,
this feels true to me. This is what I stand for.
This is what doesn't work for me.
Do you think sometimes just getting into our body has these
aha moments versus journaling and trying to figure it out?
(10:24):
I love that I mean, I I love journaling and I mean I have my
journal right here. This is one of the processes
that I teach. It's called the remedy.
I do it with my Co facilitator and we help people like, you
know, write their their soul story in a sense.
And it's really it's really powerful stuff.
But we always dance first. We always move first.
(10:45):
We get everybody into their bodybecause what happens is like
what I, what I think you're saying in that question is
there's a state that we're looking for that is not in the
thought I'm going to figure it out state, right?
There's a mental state that doesnot figure it out.
It's flow state. I like flow state and it's for
me, it's like soul flow states when I'm slightly altered
(11:05):
because of the music. So like if I'm talking and I'm
getting you into the music and we're playing right now, it's
like we start moving and we start becoming like this.
I don't know how to describe it.I call it liquid body.
Like we just get into like liquid body.
We let go of like the we let go of it like the edges of
everything. And then the minds like, oh, I'm
so busy focusing on my hand. I don't even know what she's
(11:26):
thinking. I'm not even going to worry
about it right now. Look at this.
And we take our focus off of theproblem, right?
Or off of the whatever our thingis, which, you know, we call it
a problem. We take it off of the mind and
we put it into the body. And the next thing you know,
we're like in this slightly altered state where we like we
realize, oh, you know what? I know why I got so upset
yesterday. Oh, yeah, that was a really,
(11:47):
it's like you're in a totally different, not writing.
Why did I got so upset yesterday?
Right. You know, you're not in that.
You're in the different state. And then I'm like, oh, you know
what? I need to talk to my son
tomorrow in a whole new way. I need to say, Oh, This is why I
got so upset because when we, it's like the reflection comes
usually during these other times, not when we want it to
come. It's when we're like open the
(12:08):
space for it to come. So one way that would really
help people is to I, I did writea book about all this and it's
called embody. I have it over here.
Feel, heal and transform your life through movement.
And I did something super fun with it.
I, I even, I asked them if they could make a flip book for me.
That's so fun. I just love it.
Anyway, So it goes through chapters of the journey dance
(12:28):
process and teaches people aboutthe mind, what I call the mind
busting technique, which is, youknow, very similar to many
different things, but I've been doing it for so many years.
Years ago I called it mind busting, like way back in the
day, which is when you have a thought that comes in and you
say, oh, that thought is an old junkie fear inducing, painful
thought that I no longer need toattach to.
(12:50):
I know it sounds so easy, right?But it's really, really complex,
high level stuff. If you can say, no, I'm not
going to agree with that anymore.
I'm not going to take that into my body and become less than
because the thought is fear inducing, pain inducing, self
abusive, right? We have so many thoughts a day
and we can decide which ones we're going to cling to, which
ones we're not. And that is a big pill to
(13:12):
swallow. Some people are like, no, I will
never believe that. That's not true.
My mind is just the way it is. And I'll say, OK, well let's
discuss that. Let's try to break that down.
What? But if you could pause for just
a second and say, oh, that thought is mean.
Am I mean, No, I'm actually not mean.
It's an old recorded thought. I don't need to listen to that
anymore because that shrivels myenergy.
That makes me slouch, that makesme hide, that makes me run away.
(13:35):
What is that? If I want to be here, present
with you, I want to face it and say, OK, I that thought.
I need to transmute that. So if it's I hate myself, we're
not going to go straight to Oh, I love myself.
That doesn't make sense. Like you can't just do the jump.
It's too big of a leap. But if we say, OK, I know I
don't hate myself. I know that's an old recorded
thought, right? I know it's just an old thought
and it makes me fearful, it makes me sad, it makes me angry,
(13:58):
all the things, it makes me diminish all the things.
So if I say, you know what? I I no longer, I'm going to
agree with that thought. I'm going to say, what if I
didn't hate myself today? Today was the first day I
started loving myself and just take these little baby steps.
And that's what I teach people in in the book, like, how do you
get so into your body and feel how amazing you are?
And then like, what do you do with all that?
(14:18):
Then your mind comes in. So the last two chapters are on
the mind because even though thebody is, is my work, the mind is
where we have to. Like this is what you know, you
and I are speaking. We're speaking soul to soul,
heart to heart, mind to mind. You know, we are, there's no way
around it. You can't like eject the minds.
You have to learn how to like. So I make it funny like
(14:39):
Ghostbusters, you know, like mine, Busters, I'm going to go
green goop on that thought. You know, I try to make it light
so that people don't get so hardon ourselves and we don't beat
ourselves up for having negativethoughts because that's another
negative thought cycle, right? Yes, but I think about your mind
busting technique that you writeabout in your book Embody.
I think about like the emoji where the little guy's brain is
(15:00):
like bursting out of its head, you know, So it's kind of like
you have a negative thought. We all do.
And sometimes they come from ourparents or something.
You know, we think that, well, that's just something your mom
told you when you're 12. But anyway, we have these
negative thoughts. And instead of feeding the
thought, like you were saying, we're just compassionate.
And we're like, OK, that's not always true.
(15:23):
What is a better thought? And you reach for a better
feeling thought, then you feel better.
Then your life becomes better. As far as manifesting goes,
we're just going to, as you said, choose a slightly better
thought so that we don't feed the negative thoughts.
Absolutely. And if we do get into a loop,
which is very common, like let'ssay I'm totally triggered,
right? I'm totally triggered,
(15:43):
something's happened, I'm upset,you know, my relationships,
basically the two things we get upset about our basically our
finances, our life and our relationships.
What's the most important thing is we feel secure and safe and
financially we have a relationship, right?
This is what we want, everybody,whether it's with your kids,
your pets, your person, your lover, blah, blah, blah, and get
triggered. It's normal.
We're all gonna get triggered. I'm never gonna say like you'll
(16:04):
never get triggered. No.
But if you have a practice rightwhere you like you, you say,
okay, I'm so triggered, you gonna do today on my dance, I'm
gonna let it out. I'm gonna be angry, I'm gonna be
pissed, I'm gonna be emotional. I'm just gonna let it go in a
container. That's why I love.
This is like my little containerhere in a container of emotional
release of expression. It's not going to hurt anybody.
(16:26):
You're not going to do it to anybody.
You're going to do it to releaseit, to process it, to move
through it, to feel it, to embrace it.
Sometimes you have to feel it. Sometimes it's deep core
sadness. Sometimes your trigger is so old
that you don't even get to it until you're in the final
moment. You're laying in deep relaxation
and you're like, it's fear of abandonment.
Like like even though you think it's like jealousy or anger or
whatever, it's something, it's always something else, right?
(16:48):
The emotion is always taking youinto deeper layers.
It's like a cake, you know, you get the frosting is like that
first emotion and what's under that and what's under that and
what's under that and what's under that.
And then you get to it and you're like, OK, I, I got to be
here for myself. What would be one thing that you
recommend my audience start to do at home tonight to take care
(17:09):
of themselves or even crack open, like their authenticity
and their hopes and dreams? I do have a song for everybody
that I'd like to give them actually.
And I, I'm going to play the song on, I don't know when this
podcast is airing, but I am doing a live stream next week of
my first live stream ever at Kapalu.
So hopefully it'll be hundreds of people on it.
It's December 28th, there'll be a live stream from Kapalu.
(17:30):
So I've been, I had this song that, so I've done a lot of
medicine ceremony in the last five or five years or so.
And I was in a very deep journeyand I was really like, there's
certain plant medicines that really connect you to music.
Like in a way that is just, I mean, I don't know if you've
ever done plant medicine, but plant medicine is like a plant
(17:50):
like San Pedro or Ayahuasca or they call, you know, mushroom
psilocybin. And some of them really connect
you to music in a way that is just just, it's epic.
I can't describe it to you in any other way.
It's like you feel like you are the music.
And I'm so into music as it is that for me it was just next
level and every song that was played, every lyric, I was just
like, Oh my God, this is my journey.
(18:11):
Like and at one point the song came on and I heard it and I
literally I said if I forget this I would like, I would just
never forgive myself, you know? It was like 7 hours later, I run
back to my room and I wrote the lyrics down and I searched the
Internet for it, thank God and Ifound it.
And the song is when you let go of fear, the truth will appear
(18:32):
so simple and clear. It is so beautiful.
And I will give it to you for the show notes.
And it's called Heart's Mystery.And I just played it the other
day. It's this beautiful man singing.
I played it on the dance floor with everybody holding their
heart. I use these scarves that you can
see over there as, as representations of our of our
dreams or our heart or our innerchild, whatever we're working
(18:53):
with that day. In your plant medicine state,
you heard it in Ted, and it existed in the real world.
Had you ever heard it before your?
Nope. Nope.
I'd never heard the song before.I didn't even know it existed
and I was like, so afraid I'd never find it.
It's called Hearts Mystery by Nick Barber.
This is crazy, like you already thought of his song in your head
(19:14):
and then you went and found it online and it wow, it came.
To it was, it was amazing. Yeah, it was an amazing moment.
And so I, I'm going to play it, you know, for whoever.
However, hundreds of people cometo this class, I'm super excited
about it. And we'll all do it and we'll
all cry together. And I think that I mean that in
the most loving way. I don't, I'm not afraid of any
of the emotions. I think that we have to feel
(19:36):
them all. My goal is that everyone has joy
as their baseline emotion. That's like what my book is
about. This whole book is about make
joy your baseline emotion because the phrase that I, that
I used in the book that I think most people are interviewing me,
they're asking me this one question is what does that mean?
When I said resilience plus joy equals empowerment, that's my
equation, because resilience minus joy equals suffering,
(20:00):
right? I know a lot of very resilient
people who are very upset and unhappy and all the time.
And I know many empowered peoplewho are like, OK, I have joy in
this body of mine. And then they can be resilient
in a way that feels empowering to them.
So joy is just as simple as, youknow, snap your fingers, let's
move around, let's get this thing going.
If I just start moving, we're just instantly going to feel
(20:21):
better. It's it's just a natural bodily
chemical that we are setting off.
Resilience plus joy equals empowerment.
I love that. If you're just resilient without
joy, you're bouncing back from BS and situations you don't
want. And where are you headed?
Probably back into the same situation.
But resilience plus joy is not just bouncing back.
(20:42):
It's like bouncing forward. Make some changes around here,
you know? That's why we're resilient.
Not so we can go back and do thethings that don't work for us.
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you an example of something that I've
done recently this year, which is like so hard for me.
I don't know how much time we have, but I'm, I had a tendency
to be a for many years of my life, I ran a business where I
(21:05):
would stay up really late and get up really late.
So I had this really bad cycle. So when I raised my kids, I kind
of like, they don't, they don't have to go to school yet, so
we'll just stay on the same cycle.
So we stayed up really late, we slept really late and I just was
missing the whole morning. And in the last like year,
literally I have just, I have changed.
I was like, I don't think I can do this, but I did it and over
(21:26):
it took me like 8 months to makethe change to get up.
Like I've already worked out, meditated and I'm like ready to
go, you know, by 9, by 10, I'm already done with all my things
that most people are doing. Like, you know, at six AMI was
doing them at like 10 and be ready to go by 12.
Now I'm backed up and I'm backedup.
But I was afraid, literally afraid.
(21:46):
Like I can't do it. I was like running this game
like I'm, I'm, I can't do it. I'm too this, I'm too that.
And I was like, wait a second, no, I can do it.
And what I love about what you do, helping people dissolve fear
is that I think one of the things that we need to build and
that's why I love dance because dance builds will like will in
the sense of like if I want to make a change, I got to have
(22:07):
will. And to do that I have to be a
somewhat discipline. I have to be able to like shake.
I have to dance the whole 10 minute song, not just the first
minute and then give up and flopon the couch.
I have to go for it. So this book is about going for
at your own pace and you can take your you take yourself
through the journey, self-paced journey.
There's playlist if you if you go on like page, whatever,
there's like a barcode. I can't find it right now, but
(22:29):
there's this awesome barcode andyou go into the portal here,
it's in chapter 3, the bar here it is the barcode.
So you go into the barcode and you click it and then it takes
you to a portal with like 30 videos and at least 17 playlists
and it's just all the music you could ever want.
I just decided like I'm just going to like, just give this to
(22:50):
the world. Just like let's just do this.
So all the qualities, If you want to feel sadness, I've got
your sadness. If you want to feel anger, I got
your anger. You want to feel joy, I got your
joy. Whatever you need to express,
You want to feel empowerment, Wegot your empowerment.
You want to feel celebration, You want to feel heart
sensuality. You want to feel your sensual.
You want to reawaken your sexuality, your sensuality.
(23:10):
I got that playlist for you. It's just all in there.
So it's a journey. Barcode in the book I'm going to
have to. Yeah, it's on page.
I'll tell you, I have to wear glasses.
Page 65 barcode into the portal.It's tonybergen.com.
You can get in there too. Nice.
Yeah. So do you have a favorite
(23:32):
journal method or a simple journaling method to share with
my audience? Because I know that in a lot of
your workshops you do journaling.
What do you what do you journal about?
What do you I love? I love this question.
So I've been working. This is just, I have to just
tell you there's a back story tomy journaling prompts and they
really come from my covacilitator and I.
(23:53):
What we learned about journalingprompts is it doesn't really
matter what the prompt is what matter.
As soon as you hear the prompt, let's say, I say, let's say the
prompt is on this beautiful day,I dot dot, dot and you're just
like, I am having a shitty day. Like you are not going to
respond to the prompt unless theprompt is responding to you.
It's just not. And if I said like, you know,
there's cracks that we take likelyrics from the songs and we do
(24:14):
all these cool things and make these amazing writing prompts.
There's cracks in the ceiling and you know, everything is
falling apart. And I say, and that opens a
window from my light to flow it.You don't know where where
you're going to be, right? If you're in the cracks in the
ceiling, you're going to go down.
If you're in the light, you whatever, whatever the light
coming through the window, you're going to write about
that. So I really believe that if you
are authentically in touch with yourself, you will write what
(24:36):
you need to write regardless of the writing prompt.
So in a way, I mean, we have in the remedy, which does start in
February, we were doing the remedy again online.
We have a Friday mornings, 10:00AM Eastern Standard Time course.
That is like a six week course where we just, it's an hour and
20 minutes. We dance for 40, we write for
15. We share in private groups and
(24:59):
then we come to the big group and people share their full
writings and it's just absolutely the most powerful
community. It's called the Remedy.
And Joy Okoye does the writing prompts with me.
I do the playlist. She makes the writing prompts
out of the playlist. So it's just it's, it's
epically, it's epically deep. And we had such a connection.
We've been doing it since the pandemic and it just been
growing ever since. So that's one way you can write
with us. But if I was going to give you a
(25:20):
writing prompt, the book is fullof them.
But I like to write what I call invocations.
I really like to write invocations.
Let's say we're going to write 1together.
Let's say I'm on your podcast. We're going to write one.
Dear you. Are on my podcast.
Right here I am right? So I'll say, dear fear, I've had
a long term relationship with you.
I would like to keep you in my back pocket for when I need you,
(25:42):
but I would. I'm ready to move forward in a
new way without holding on to you and clinging to you as my
safety blanket, my cloak of shame and hiding.
I am ready to remove this cloak and step forward into my dreams.
You helped me so much during this time in my life when I
really needed you. And now I really feel ready to
(26:02):
to move beyond because I have dreams I need to live.
So could you could we make a newrelationship?
That's how I would start. I would do everything based on
like, what am I going through inthat moment in time?
What do I need to hear? And I really like to do that a
lot more like channeled writing,Like what do I need to hear?
Like, dear Tony, you know, dear you know, and you put your name
in the slot and you just write yourself a letter.
(26:24):
I feel like that's such an such a powerful way to write.
I had Colin Bedell on the podcast and he said fear makes
an excellent catalyst but a terrible lifelong companion.
You know, keep it in your back pocket for when you need to get
out and out of there. You know and follow your fear
and get out of a sketchy but don't carry it around your
(26:46):
entire life and let it run the show.
I had this crazy idea. I wanted to I'll share it with
you. I probably someone will probably
take it and run with it. But I had this idea.
I wanted to make this journal that was basically called the
the journal, like with a big curse word on the front or
something. And just all you did was write
like rap and just let it out because people just don't, they
just they're so afraid to let itout.
(27:07):
And then you can RIP it up and burn it.
It could be, you know, the burn it journal, whatever you want to
call it. Like I feel like one of the
things that that I will say is I'm never bored because I'm
always I'm like an actively creative person, right?
It's like you're so creative. I'm so creative where every
single human being is constantlycreating.
So if you think of that, if you imagine that you're constantly
(27:27):
creating with your thoughts, just imagine that responsibility
for just one second. You have to take that more
seriously, right? If I say I'm constantly creating
with my thoughts, like every time I say something out loud,
if I'm creating that, I'm going to be more careful.
I'm going to say, wait a second,hold on a second.
I'm going to create something good.
So I'm going to start self editing and start creating
something good. So when I get bored and I
(27:48):
noticed myself creating something negative, bad,
fearful, shameful, judgmental, if I start judging someone
immediately, I have to go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's
going on with me? Why am I doing that?
It's like, it's like becoming this observer of your thoughts,
you know, just like, you know, what is it from?
DA says be here now in the present moment, unless you're in
(28:09):
a really difficult situation in the present moment, there's
nothing to fear. You know what I'm saying?
But in, in our mind, there's so much to fear if we're not living
in the present moment. So it's like this way of how do
I take my energy? And I say, OK, if I'm always
creating, then I want to create something beautiful.
I want my future moment, the next moment to be as beautiful
(28:29):
as my moment I'm having now. So it's like staying on top of
your energy and saying I am a ball of creative energy.
I want to use it for the highestgood of all.
I don't want to be sitting in fear and creating more of that.
Because you look at your own Instagram feed and you will know
it's like a litmus test. If your Instagram feed is all
(28:49):
fear inducing, you need to change your Instagram feed and
the only person who can do that is you.
It's literally like if you focuson the fear, you'll just see
more of it. Have you ever done that before?
Look at your Instagram feed. My goodness, I had a time like a
couple years ago and my Instagram feed was so I'd never
wanted to go on Instagram because I was like, Oh my God,
it's so bad. So I was like, I need to mute
all this fear stuff. So I just muted everything that
(29:11):
was fear based and I went into adifferent space and I'm like, Oh
my God, there's so much great stuff on Instagram.
Yeah, especially as parents, we create the little algorithm for
our kids, you know, like down the street, like whatever I'm
talking about with them, that's what they're focusing on like
all day, maybe for the rest of their lives.
(29:32):
I'm like, programming where their thoughts are going to go.
And when I was a kid, my mom used to complain about the
drivers and she was like having an adversarial relationship with
like all. Drivers.
Other drivers, right? Made too close to her, behind
her or whatever. Like she was so obsessed.
Oh my God, mine too. Road rage or whatever, but
(29:54):
would. I totally, my dad had serious
road rage. I'm serious.
I have to really work on that ona daily basis.
If I'm late and I'm on someone'stail, I'm like, whoa, I, I, I'm
really good now. I'm so active with my driving
because I, I watch. I live with that.
My kids, they're oblivious to the other drivers because that
is not what we're focused on, You know, so whatever we're
(30:15):
focused on, our kids are going to pick up on it.
Whatever we're talking about on the phone, they're listening in.
The kids are in the back seat orwhatever, listening.
And so, yeah, whatever we're focused on.
And that's programming. And whether we, whether we know
it or not, it's not just that they're listening, it's
literally programming, right? So we're programming, we're
constantly programming everyone around us with how we talk and
(30:36):
our kids. I mean, I think about how you
were programmed by your parents and your grandparents.
I mean, that's why I do did all the plant medicine ceremonies
because I had to do some deprogramming and reprogramming.
So I've done a a ton. And one of the programs that is
in the, one of the stories in mybook that I will share with you
really quick is that the closingstories by my grandfather,
because my grandfather did not live his dream.
He, he lived a life of duty and service and did what he was
(30:58):
supposed to do, which is very common.
Many of us do that and nothing'swrong with that.
But I, I decided I was not goingto do that.
I didn't even realize where thatwas coming from until I wrote
the book and I remembered the story of my grandfather and how
I was going through a very difficult time.
I was like kind of anorexic. I was working out all the time.
I was not healthy. I was like 20-4 or five.
(31:20):
I was really just self abusive and I had to drive him
someplace. And you can read the story, but
the basic story is he's like, hetold me that he didn't, that he
was, he wanted to go to Juilliard and he wanted to be an
opera singer and all the. I never, never knew any of this.
He never told us. He used to sing.
And he had his deep baritone voice.
And I never got to know him as an individual because I was just
(31:41):
in the family. You know, it wasn't like you
hung out with grandpa by yourself.
And he would tell you stories like that.
I mean, I was only this is when I was in my 20s.
He told me. And I was like, I, I left him
that day. And he basically said to me, eat
the cookie, Tony, Like, eat the cookie.
Like, live your life. Yeah, do what I did.
But he didn't say any of those words.
He did it in a very much more metaphoric way.
(32:02):
And I, I thank him for that. And then I went on many journeys
of just saying, OK, I have to break the cycle of being just a
dutiful, a dutiful daughter or adutiful son or a dutiful person
just does what they're supposed to do instead of like saying,
wait, what did I come here to do?
Yeah, your idea of what you're supposed to do, that's like your
own little illusion, like when you were 21.
(32:24):
Oh, I'm supposed to be on a dietand exercise.
Like, no, you thought you like had to do that, you know?
Right. I was protecting myself from
fear. I mean, I was definitely in a
fear state at that time in my life that I will not be good
enough for all the things. Yeah.
So like, we're just, we have so many amazing stories that we can
like, look back now and actually, you know, they say
hindsight is 2020. And that's the whole point of
(32:45):
the reflection. Reflection teaches you.
So it's a good thing to do to reflect and to look at your
story. So the book, when I mined all my
stories, I was like, wow, I get why I'm who I am today and all
the things that I went through to get to this point where I
feel like some semblance of selfactualization, whatever the word
is. And that's what I wish for
everyone, that everyone can experience this.
And of course, if your life is not feeling good right now, I
(33:07):
just want to say to anybody who's listening, who's not
feeling good, courage to get on the dance floor, courage to like
say I'm just going to feel is a is a huge, huge deal.
So I honor that. It takes so much bravery to feel
and to let yourself like expressthe emotions and then clear the
body and say, OK, now without all this holding, what could I
(33:30):
open to? Like that's really the question
that I, I want to leave people with.
I think for me. Yeah, don't underestimate the
power of your body and movement.It can totally change your life.
I just got a personal trainer and just going to the rec center
on a weekly basis with my personal trainer has made a huge
difference. You wake up at 6:00 AM and work
out. I can't do it.
(33:50):
I need to like have an appointment and spend a ton of
money because I can't get. It to get yourself to.
I love that. That's OK.
I'm getting into your body. It's so important.
What inspired you to write your book, by the way?
Because when I interviewed you, it was May of 2023.
Were you already writing it? I forget.
Oh yeah, definitely. I was already writing it.
(34:12):
I, I the whole year of 2023 was all the book basically.
It was that I've been doing thiswork for a long time and I, I
felt like I need to like, get itout of me.
It's, it's weird. It's like, it's almost like I
was holding on to it and now I'mlike, I released it.
So now my relation to the work is my relationship to my own
(34:34):
work has changed. Like now I'm ready to like
become the next iteration of me because this dance person is who
I am on many levels, but I'm also so much more than that.
Like I'm I have other things to do in this lifetime.
So I felt like I really needed to sort of get it out there and
say, how can I share this at thebroadest level so as many people
as possible could do it. I wrote the book so that I
(34:56):
could, you know, inspires many women and men.
More men are coming to the dancefloor, which is amazing.
And when I say come into the dance floor, I really mean
coming into their bodies and coming into feeling because
there's a way in which we just live in our heads.
And it's so common just to be inthe intellectual mind and just
to think that you could think your way through life.
It's just not the same. Eat the cookie as the whole
point. It's like really feel it like
(35:16):
eat the mango. I wish he had said to me, but
you know, back then it was the story is about cookies, but it's
about really like while we're here is every moment just saying
like, Oh my God, like, like MaryOliver, this is the precious
life that we have. And every moment I want to be in
that, in that state of just likemy for the precious life, even
(35:37):
if I'm just touching my own heart and saying, Oh my
goodness, I'm so happy to be alive right now.
I don't know how much time we all have left.
So I'm just kind of trying to I'm trying to really embrace
every second that I can, not trying to.
I'm embracing every second that I have.
Yeah, do that while you're driving.
Hand on your heart. One hand on the wheel, one hand
on your heart. Like that metaphor, by the way.
(35:57):
One hand on your heart, one handon the wheel.
I like it. Yeah, I might write that down.
It's. So funny how we talked about
like car rides as an opportunityto connect.
And I guess what I would tell everybody is like, when you have
that moment and you connect withyourself and you're like, this
should be my next step. I should put my toe in, I should
try something new. Do it because that's the true
(36:20):
empowerment. That's how we prove to ourselves
that we can change and level up our lives is when we take one
little step, we have that hunch.We're like, maybe I should eat
the freaking cookie. And then we do it.
And then we prove to ourselves, oh, I can do something
differently. I can change now.
It's empowering. Thank you, I love it.
(36:42):
If you get the audible buck, canyou have access to the barcode
to? Scan yes, it's right there yes,
the audible has like a PDF and there's 3 pages.
There's the barcode to get into the portal and there's like this
chart that I made, which I thinkit's really fun and I'll show it
to you really quick. This chart is called Oh, and by
the way, my nephew did all theseillustrations.
(37:02):
He's a tattoo artist. So he did all the, all the
bodies, like made them look kindof like they're just these
androgynous bodies so that anybody can can read the book.
I liked it a lot. But this, this chart that I made
is called the embodiment scale. And I'll tell you about it
really quick. So I have the emotional
flexibility scale, the embodiment scale and the energy
flow scale because I feel like we have three different levels.
(37:23):
The embodiment, we're either like a lead balloon, we're not
getting off the couch, or we're like Spacey disembodied and like
completely like, I have no idea what to do with my life.
That's the disembodied, right? Or that's the somebody who
can't, you know, be in their body because it's too painful.
Then we have the emotional flexibility scale, which is like
this flat numb energy or this like hypersensitive energy, and
there's like this middle energy.It's kind of fun.
(37:45):
This is also in the audible. You'll get it.
And then I have the energy flow scale where there's like a lot
of boundaries, like just no energy flowing.
And there's just like this open container on the other side,
which is like just no boundary. So the center is like, you know,
a tree, a river and the hardwarelike you're just kind of in the
center where you can flow, you can move through all the levels.
(38:06):
But I love this little piece of the book and it's it's in the
audible as well. You get a, you get the chart.
Awesome. Well, Tony, any last words for
the listeners today? I'm just so excited and I'm so
grateful to be alive and to be on this podcast with you and to
say to everybody, find somethingthat makes you feel joyful and
(38:26):
just do that. If you never come and dance with
me, it's all good. Just go and be joyful in your
life. And if you want to explore some
kind of movement every Tuesday in the entire world, we have a
journey dance teacher, whether it's my team or me teaching a
Tuesday class, it's like just ongoing since we started getting
online during the pandemic. And we have a Tuesday noon
(38:47):
Eastern Standard Time with people from all over the world
coming on. And we teach a journey dance and
we take people on a journey. So even if you just love music,
that is a reason to come on and hear just really interesting
music and just be part of the creativity of life.
I. Love it.
Yeah. Do what's true for you.
We think it's selfish, but it's not.
(39:07):
Look how many people you've helped.
This has been your life's work for over 20 years.
Like, you ate the cookie, you got in to dance, stopped doing
all the New York City stuff thatyou didn't want to do, and now
you live in the Berkshires and you're doing what's true for
you, and that is helping other people also.
And so anyone listening, whatever your idea of the cookie
is, go and do that and do what makes you happy because it helps
(39:29):
everybody around you and helps the world.
Well, that completes our episode.
If this podcast content felt true for you, feel free to leave
a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and follow the podcast
today so you can keep exploring your favorite ways to dissolve
fear and make some room for yourbest life to unfold in fun and
(39:49):
miraculous ways. Believe in yourself, take care
of yourself, and thank you for being here.
Thank you so much.
Welcome everyone to the Dissolving Fear Podcast.
If you have big dreams and plans, but you get distracted by
fear and doubt, TuneIn because we can all live a more fearless
and free life starting today because fear doesn't run the
show. You do.
And fear doesn't run this show. I'm your host Alyssa, and I'm a
(00:20):
life coach and so much more. In 2025, I'm launching super
affordable virtual group coaching, so check out my
website for the newsletter and more at Set Sail and soar.com.
The mission here is the world where fear doesn't control us.
So follow this podcast. You'll love the results.
(00:42):
Loving life is what we're all about here at the podcast and at
missalyssa.com. Enjoy the show.
So, Tony Bergens, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you so much. Last year, you came onto the
podcast and we talked about so much, but we talked about how
dance takes us on a journey intoour body, into our heart and
(01:03):
soul, and I think it even helps us improve our mindset.
And you've been hosting dance retreats for years in Mexico, at
Kripala Yoga Center, and even atOmega Institute in New York.
It really seems like your calling has been getting people
into their bodies to express themselves through dance.
And now you have a new book called Embody.
(01:25):
Tony, Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Oh, wow. What do I tell you?
Based on the concept of this podcast, I will say that I am
someone who really decided at one point that I was not going
to live in fear and I was not going to follow the the trap,
the trail that was blazed for mein advance.
You know, I was not going to go into the corporate New York life
that was sort of laid out for meand from where I grew up.
(01:47):
And I was not going to become a doctor or lawyer.
But I'm not going to become likewhatever I was supposed to
become. I just like, went, I turned
sharp, right and went a whole different direction.
And that takes fearlessness. And I have to admit, like, I
feel like I am a courageous being.
I didn't think that about myself.
I thought it was just what I hadto do because I had no choice.
(02:10):
Sort of on an emotional level, Ilike this is what I have to do.
But I realize now looking back that a lot of people look at me
and they say, wow, you did it. You know, you, you broke out of
the norm and you just went your own path.
And I'm like, wow, I did the biggest thing I've been talking
about lately is for other peopleto really acknowledge that it
takes courage to do what we wantto do.
(02:32):
Being in the status quo is much easier.
You can just, you know, get get something that works for you,
that keeps you safe and that keeps you feeling content and
some level. But then there's this part that
isn't really living or doing itsthing, which is the energy of
your life, unless you have like a great outside work life.
But I feel like I want to encourage people to just be
courageous and live their dream,even if it's outside the box and
(02:54):
it's there's other people and I think you're weird or whatever
it is, and it's really just worth it.
Yeah. And you have this idea like,
this is what I need to do. This is what I want to do,
whether it's change your career,leave your husband, whatever.
A lot of us say this is what I need to do.
And emotionally, we know it. But then we say, but I can't.
(03:14):
And that that's where you know, like your life can come to a
screeching halt and it can feel like it's ending when really
it's the new beginning. And you can step into these
things that you feel like you need to do and emotionally and
the things that you want to do. I heard a quote the other day,
the ego wants to impress the soul wants to express, express
(03:37):
who we are. You know, the ego says this is
what we should be expressing ourpassions.
That's your expertise. So tell us, what does
self-expression mean to you? Wow.
You know, it means every I thinkthat that's what we're here for.
We're here to express some unique, you know, version of a
human, some unique version of a soul that is here for for its
(03:58):
own development and growth. You know, so self-expression is
much more than just like you being like, well, I'm gonna just
do dance. It's much more than that.
I mean, I'm a songwriter, I'm a writer.
I mean, I wrote a book this yearand I write music and I express
myself through whatever creativeoutlet I can find.
Because otherwise I sit on my emotions and it's OK to sit with
(04:19):
my emotions, but I also sit on them, which is not the same as
sitting with them. So if I'm suppressing and
compressing and compartmentalizing and shutting
down, I'm actually not in my life force.
I'm in the opposite. I'm in constriction.
So that and I think The funny thing is fear sets in.
I feel when we're not like when sometimes when you don't know
(04:40):
what you want, fear sets in because you don't know what to
do. You don't know where to go, you
don't know what step to take. And then that's like when fear
sets in. So if we could trust that, you
know, every day I'm going to say, OK, today I'm doing this in
order to propel my life's vision, my desire forward, then
I'll be so much less fearful because I have like a plan.
(05:00):
I think that's the thing that scares people the most is when
they don't know what they want to do.
And then all of a sudden we're sitting in this like kind of
Stew of what do I want to do? And then it's like, like, I
don't know what I want to do. And that's pretty scary for
people. They don't know.
So not knowing is something thatI've learned to sit with and
say, OK, what does it mean when I don't know?
It means I'm not inspired in this moment.
It means I haven't, I haven't gone deep enough to touch what
(05:23):
is my next project? What is my next thing?
Like I'm a project person. So I decided like, and I just
got somebody sent me a like a, aholiday card or something saying
something with a clip of me singing on stage with these
famous musicians who I just love.
And I was like, Oh my God, I didthat.
I had a concert like it was a couple.
(05:43):
It was last year and I, I made ACDI made it.
I made ACDI made an album. I made an EP, whatever you call
it nowadays. I made, I recorded a bunch of
music and I did a, a thing. And that was the most terrifying
thing I've ever done in my life.I was up upstairs before coming
on stage and like my body, my heart was pounding so loud that
this, this friend of mine, he put his hand on my chest and
(06:04):
he's like, it's going to be OK. This is energy.
It's not fear. It's not terror.
It's energy. And we went down and we did the
whole show and it was totally amazing.
But you know, that is fear, Like, feel like fear of like
being seen. I just have to share that with
you because it made me think like, there's so many things
that you might want to do in your life.
I'm talking to everyone on who'slistening to this podcast, So
many things you might want to do.
(06:25):
And maybe you'll do three of them, maybe you'll do three,
maybe you have 1000 things you want to do, maybe you'll do
1000. But if you did 3, you would be
so happy that you did it. It's like there's something
about getting over a fear. That is the most confidence
building thing I think. I think you could do really at
the end of the day. And it's funny, you said leave
your husband. I thought that was funny.
(06:46):
It's like you might get a new job, you might leave your
husband or your wife or whatever.
But making these big decisions, it's always comes with a sense
of what we call fear, which is really an energy.
I want to like redefine fear. You know, I'm sure, I'm sure
you've heard all the expressions, false evidence
appearing real and all the things people break it down
into. But it's really energy in the
(07:08):
body. It's energy of it's whether it's
nervous excitement, whether it'sactual terror and shutdown.
When you get into your body and really, truly start to move,
dance, learn how to express whenyou can understand who you are
as a person, like, and you have what I call self mastery.
And it's a very old word. But you know that idea of like,
(07:28):
oh, I know this feeling, this isfear.
Oh, this is excitement. Oh, this is this is new, this is
wonder, this is curiosity. This is this is intensity.
This is what you really start toget to know yourself when you
can be in your body in the way that I'm teaching.
And then the fear is just another one of the emotions.
It doesn't run your life. It's just like, oh, I'm feeling
(07:48):
fear, OK. Just like I feel anger or I feel
sadness or I feel joy. It doesn't have to be the the
underlying, you know, constant. My favorite action for fear is
face everything and rise. So if you're about to go and.
That's a good one. You're going to face your fear
and rise above and go out there and perform music.
(08:08):
But also, you know, if we're in a sticky situation that is
making us feel very fight or flight, very anxious, face it
and get out of there, right? Like you don't need to stay in a
house where everyone's arguing and then get super dysregulated.
This is good. And you're around the holidays
y'all, you know, like you can decide, OK, I'm feeling anxious
(08:32):
and dysregulated. I'm going to get out of here.
I'm going to go get some fresh air.
I'm going to go get whatever it is so.
What you're saying is it's the recognition of it that's so
important because once you recognize, some people don't
recognize when they're dysregulated, they just are
dysregulated and all of a suddenthey'll be in a total
dysregulation and then they'll notice it.
But if you can notice it before it becomes dysregulated, like
(08:56):
that's my goal as a teacher is to help people be so in their
body and be able to play in all the different emotions that when
it comes, you're like, oh, something's going on for me
right now. Even if you don't know exactly
what it is like, that's, that's the point before you get this
regulated. And that's what I'm trying to
aim for. Like that's what I'm aiming for.
Like, how do we stay regulated? It's it's not easy.
(09:17):
And especially now with all the fear being pumped into our
culture right now. And the world is very, very
intense right now. It's not cover that up, but it
could. It could bring fear to the
surface for many different people for many different
reasons. I've been in one of your dance
classes, more than one in Massachusetts, and I just think
(09:38):
you don't even realize what you're going to express when
you're dancing until you feel the emotions come up and you're
like, Oh my gosh, like I'm feeling emotions.
And sometimes I think while we're working out or dancing, we
find our most authentic self so we don't have to think, what is
my, what do I want? What's my authentic purpose?
Sometimes it just finds us and it hits US like in this aha
(10:02):
moment. How do you think listeners could
create like an atmosphere to feel their feelings and say, oh,
this feels true to me. This is what I stand for.
This is what doesn't work for me.
Do you think sometimes just getting into our body has these
aha moments versus journaling and trying to figure it out?
(10:24):
I love that I mean, I I love journaling and I mean I have my
journal right here. This is one of the processes
that I teach. It's called the remedy.
I do it with my Co facilitator and we help people like, you
know, write their their soul story in a sense.
And it's really it's really powerful stuff.
But we always dance first. We always move first.
(10:45):
We get everybody into their bodybecause what happens is like
what I, what I think you're saying in that question is
there's a state that we're looking for that is not in the
thought I'm going to figure it out state, right?
There's a mental state that doesnot figure it out.
It's flow state. I like flow state and it's for
me, it's like soul flow states when I'm slightly altered
(11:05):
because of the music. So like if I'm talking and I'm
getting you into the music and we're playing right now, it's
like we start moving and we start becoming like this.
I don't know how to describe it.I call it liquid body.
Like we just get into like liquid body.
We let go of like the we let go of it like the edges of
everything. And then the minds like, oh, I'm
so busy focusing on my hand. I don't even know what she's
(11:26):
thinking. I'm not even going to worry
about it right now. Look at this.
And we take our focus off of theproblem, right?
Or off of the whatever our thingis, which, you know, we call it
a problem. We take it off of the mind and
we put it into the body. And the next thing you know,
we're like in this slightly altered state where we like we
realize, oh, you know what? I know why I got so upset
yesterday. Oh, yeah, that was a really,
(11:47):
it's like you're in a totally different, not writing.
Why did I got so upset yesterday?
Right. You know, you're not in that.
You're in the different state. And then I'm like, oh, you know
what? I need to talk to my son
tomorrow in a whole new way. I need to say, Oh, This is why I
got so upset because when we, it's like the reflection comes
usually during these other times, not when we want it to
come. It's when we're like open the
(12:08):
space for it to come. So one way that would really
help people is to I, I did writea book about all this and it's
called embody. I have it over here.
Feel, heal and transform your life through movement.
And I did something super fun with it.
I, I even, I asked them if they could make a flip book for me.
That's so fun. I just love it.
Anyway, So it goes through chapters of the journey dance
(12:28):
process and teaches people aboutthe mind, what I call the mind
busting technique, which is, youknow, very similar to many
different things, but I've been doing it for so many years.
Years ago I called it mind busting, like way back in the
day, which is when you have a thought that comes in and you
say, oh, that thought is an old junkie fear inducing, painful
thought that I no longer need toattach to.
(12:50):
I know it sounds so easy, right?But it's really, really complex,
high level stuff. If you can say, no, I'm not
going to agree with that anymore.
I'm not going to take that into my body and become less than
because the thought is fear inducing, pain inducing, self
abusive, right? We have so many thoughts a day
and we can decide which ones we're going to cling to, which
ones we're not. And that is a big pill to
(13:12):
swallow. Some people are like, no, I will
never believe that. That's not true.
My mind is just the way it is. And I'll say, OK, well let's
discuss that. Let's try to break that down.
What? But if you could pause for just
a second and say, oh, that thought is mean.
Am I mean, No, I'm actually not mean.
It's an old recorded thought. I don't need to listen to that
anymore because that shrivels myenergy.
That makes me slouch, that makesme hide, that makes me run away.
(13:35):
What is that? If I want to be here, present
with you, I want to face it and say, OK, I that thought.
I need to transmute that. So if it's I hate myself, we're
not going to go straight to Oh, I love myself.
That doesn't make sense. Like you can't just do the jump.
It's too big of a leap. But if we say, OK, I know I
don't hate myself. I know that's an old recorded
thought, right? I know it's just an old thought
and it makes me fearful, it makes me sad, it makes me angry,
(13:58):
all the things, it makes me diminish all the things.
So if I say, you know what? I I no longer, I'm going to
agree with that thought. I'm going to say, what if I
didn't hate myself today? Today was the first day I
started loving myself and just take these little baby steps.
And that's what I teach people in in the book, like, how do you
get so into your body and feel how amazing you are?
And then like, what do you do with all that?
(14:18):
Then your mind comes in. So the last two chapters are on
the mind because even though thebody is, is my work, the mind is
where we have to. Like this is what you know, you
and I are speaking. We're speaking soul to soul,
heart to heart, mind to mind. You know, we are, there's no way
around it. You can't like eject the minds.
You have to learn how to like. So I make it funny like
(14:39):
Ghostbusters, you know, like mine, Busters, I'm going to go
green goop on that thought. You know, I try to make it light
so that people don't get so hardon ourselves and we don't beat
ourselves up for having negativethoughts because that's another
negative thought cycle, right? Yes, but I think about your mind
busting technique that you writeabout in your book Embody.
I think about like the emoji where the little guy's brain is
(15:00):
like bursting out of its head, you know, So it's kind of like
you have a negative thought. We all do.
And sometimes they come from ourparents or something.
You know, we think that, well, that's just something your mom
told you when you're 12. But anyway, we have these
negative thoughts. And instead of feeding the
thought, like you were saying, we're just compassionate.
And we're like, OK, that's not always true.
(15:23):
What is a better thought? And you reach for a better
feeling thought, then you feel better.
Then your life becomes better. As far as manifesting goes,
we're just going to, as you said, choose a slightly better
thought so that we don't feed the negative thoughts.
Absolutely. And if we do get into a loop,
which is very common, like let'ssay I'm totally triggered,
right? I'm totally triggered,
(15:43):
something's happened, I'm upset,you know, my relationships,
basically the two things we get upset about our basically our
finances, our life and our relationships.
What's the most important thing is we feel secure and safe and
financially we have a relationship, right?
This is what we want, everybody,whether it's with your kids,
your pets, your person, your lover, blah, blah, blah, and get
triggered. It's normal.
We're all gonna get triggered. I'm never gonna say like you'll
(16:04):
never get triggered. No.
But if you have a practice rightwhere you like you, you say,
okay, I'm so triggered, you gonna do today on my dance, I'm
gonna let it out. I'm gonna be angry, I'm gonna be
pissed, I'm gonna be emotional. I'm just gonna let it go in a
container. That's why I love.
This is like my little containerhere in a container of emotional
release of expression. It's not going to hurt anybody.
(16:26):
You're not going to do it to anybody.
You're going to do it to releaseit, to process it, to move
through it, to feel it, to embrace it.
Sometimes you have to feel it. Sometimes it's deep core
sadness. Sometimes your trigger is so old
that you don't even get to it until you're in the final
moment. You're laying in deep relaxation
and you're like, it's fear of abandonment.
Like like even though you think it's like jealousy or anger or
whatever, it's something, it's always something else, right?
(16:48):
The emotion is always taking youinto deeper layers.
It's like a cake, you know, you get the frosting is like that
first emotion and what's under that and what's under that and
what's under that and what's under that.
And then you get to it and you're like, OK, I, I got to be
here for myself. What would be one thing that you
recommend my audience start to do at home tonight to take care
(17:09):
of themselves or even crack open, like their authenticity
and their hopes and dreams? I do have a song for everybody
that I'd like to give them actually.
And I, I'm going to play the song on, I don't know when this
podcast is airing, but I am doing a live stream next week of
my first live stream ever at Kapalu.
So hopefully it'll be hundreds of people on it.
It's December 28th, there'll be a live stream from Kapalu.
(17:30):
So I've been, I had this song that, so I've done a lot of
medicine ceremony in the last five or five years or so.
And I was in a very deep journeyand I was really like, there's
certain plant medicines that really connect you to music.
Like in a way that is just, I mean, I don't know if you've
ever done plant medicine, but plant medicine is like a plant
(17:50):
like San Pedro or Ayahuasca or they call, you know, mushroom
psilocybin. And some of them really connect
you to music in a way that is just just, it's epic.
I can't describe it to you in any other way.
It's like you feel like you are the music.
And I'm so into music as it is that for me it was just next
level and every song that was played, every lyric, I was just
like, Oh my God, this is my journey.
(18:11):
Like and at one point the song came on and I heard it and I
literally I said if I forget this I would like, I would just
never forgive myself, you know? It was like 7 hours later, I run
back to my room and I wrote the lyrics down and I searched the
Internet for it, thank God and Ifound it.
And the song is when you let go of fear, the truth will appear
(18:32):
so simple and clear. It is so beautiful.
And I will give it to you for the show notes.
And it's called Heart's Mystery.And I just played it the other
day. It's this beautiful man singing.
I played it on the dance floor with everybody holding their
heart. I use these scarves that you can
see over there as, as representations of our of our
dreams or our heart or our innerchild, whatever we're working
(18:53):
with that day. In your plant medicine state,
you heard it in Ted, and it existed in the real world.
Had you ever heard it before your?
Nope. Nope.
I'd never heard the song before.I didn't even know it existed
and I was like, so afraid I'd never find it.
It's called Hearts Mystery by Nick Barber.
This is crazy, like you already thought of his song in your head
(19:14):
and then you went and found it online and it wow, it came.
To it was, it was amazing. Yeah, it was an amazing moment.
And so I, I'm going to play it, you know, for whoever.
However, hundreds of people cometo this class, I'm super excited
about it. And we'll all do it and we'll
all cry together. And I think that I mean that in
the most loving way. I don't, I'm not afraid of any
of the emotions. I think that we have to feel
(19:36):
them all. My goal is that everyone has joy
as their baseline emotion. That's like what my book is
about. This whole book is about make
joy your baseline emotion because the phrase that I, that
I used in the book that I think most people are interviewing me,
they're asking me this one question is what does that mean?
When I said resilience plus joy equals empowerment, that's my
equation, because resilience minus joy equals suffering,
(20:00):
right? I know a lot of very resilient
people who are very upset and unhappy and all the time.
And I know many empowered peoplewho are like, OK, I have joy in
this body of mine. And then they can be resilient
in a way that feels empowering to them.
So joy is just as simple as, youknow, snap your fingers, let's
move around, let's get this thing going.
If I just start moving, we're just instantly going to feel
(20:21):
better. It's it's just a natural bodily
chemical that we are setting off.
Resilience plus joy equals empowerment.
I love that. If you're just resilient without
joy, you're bouncing back from BS and situations you don't
want. And where are you headed?
Probably back into the same situation.
But resilience plus joy is not just bouncing back.
(20:42):
It's like bouncing forward. Make some changes around here,
you know? That's why we're resilient.
Not so we can go back and do thethings that don't work for us.
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you an example of something that I've
done recently this year, which is like so hard for me.
I don't know how much time we have, but I'm, I had a tendency
to be a for many years of my life, I ran a business where I
(21:05):
would stay up really late and get up really late.
So I had this really bad cycle. So when I raised my kids, I kind
of like, they don't, they don't have to go to school yet, so
we'll just stay on the same cycle.
So we stayed up really late, we slept really late and I just was
missing the whole morning. And in the last like year,
literally I have just, I have changed.
I was like, I don't think I can do this, but I did it and over
(21:26):
it took me like 8 months to makethe change to get up.
Like I've already worked out, meditated and I'm like ready to
go, you know, by 9, by 10, I'm already done with all my things
that most people are doing. Like, you know, at six AMI was
doing them at like 10 and be ready to go by 12.
Now I'm backed up and I'm backedup.
But I was afraid, literally afraid.
(21:46):
Like I can't do it. I was like running this game
like I'm, I'm, I can't do it. I'm too this, I'm too that.
And I was like, wait a second, no, I can do it.
And what I love about what you do, helping people dissolve fear
is that I think one of the things that we need to build and
that's why I love dance because dance builds will like will in
the sense of like if I want to make a change, I got to have
(22:07):
will. And to do that I have to be a
somewhat discipline. I have to be able to like shake.
I have to dance the whole 10 minute song, not just the first
minute and then give up and flopon the couch.
I have to go for it. So this book is about going for
at your own pace and you can take your you take yourself
through the journey, self-paced journey.
There's playlist if you if you go on like page, whatever,
there's like a barcode. I can't find it right now, but
(22:29):
there's this awesome barcode andyou go into the portal here,
it's in chapter 3, the bar here it is the barcode.
So you go into the barcode and you click it and then it takes
you to a portal with like 30 videos and at least 17 playlists
and it's just all the music you could ever want.
I just decided like I'm just going to like, just give this to
(22:50):
the world. Just like let's just do this.
So all the qualities, If you want to feel sadness, I've got
your sadness. If you want to feel anger, I got
your anger. You want to feel joy, I got your
joy. Whatever you need to express,
You want to feel empowerment, Wegot your empowerment.
You want to feel celebration, You want to feel heart
sensuality. You want to feel your sensual.
You want to reawaken your sexuality, your sensuality.
(23:10):
I got that playlist for you. It's just all in there.
So it's a journey. Barcode in the book I'm going to
have to. Yeah, it's on page.
I'll tell you, I have to wear glasses.
Page 65 barcode into the portal.It's tonybergen.com.
You can get in there too. Nice.
Yeah. So do you have a favorite
(23:32):
journal method or a simple journaling method to share with
my audience? Because I know that in a lot of
your workshops you do journaling.
What do you what do you journal about?
What do you I love? I love this question.
So I've been working. This is just, I have to just
tell you there's a back story tomy journaling prompts and they
really come from my covacilitator and I.
(23:53):
What we learned about journalingprompts is it doesn't really
matter what the prompt is what matter.
As soon as you hear the prompt, let's say, I say, let's say the
prompt is on this beautiful day,I dot dot, dot and you're just
like, I am having a shitty day. Like you are not going to
respond to the prompt unless theprompt is responding to you.
It's just not. And if I said like, you know,
there's cracks that we take likelyrics from the songs and we do
(24:14):
all these cool things and make these amazing writing prompts.
There's cracks in the ceiling and you know, everything is
falling apart. And I say, and that opens a
window from my light to flow it.You don't know where where
you're going to be, right? If you're in the cracks in the
ceiling, you're going to go down.
If you're in the light, you whatever, whatever the light
coming through the window, you're going to write about
that. So I really believe that if you
are authentically in touch with yourself, you will write what
(24:36):
you need to write regardless of the writing prompt.
So in a way, I mean, we have in the remedy, which does start in
February, we were doing the remedy again online.
We have a Friday mornings, 10:00AM Eastern Standard Time course.
That is like a six week course where we just, it's an hour and
20 minutes. We dance for 40, we write for
15. We share in private groups and
(24:59):
then we come to the big group and people share their full
writings and it's just absolutely the most powerful
community. It's called the Remedy.
And Joy Okoye does the writing prompts with me.
I do the playlist. She makes the writing prompts
out of the playlist. So it's just it's, it's
epically, it's epically deep. And we had such a connection.
We've been doing it since the pandemic and it just been
growing ever since. So that's one way you can write
with us. But if I was going to give you a
(25:20):
writing prompt, the book is fullof them.
But I like to write what I call invocations.
I really like to write invocations.
Let's say we're going to write 1together.
Let's say I'm on your podcast. We're going to write one.
Dear you. Are on my podcast.
Right here I am right? So I'll say, dear fear, I've had
a long term relationship with you.
I would like to keep you in my back pocket for when I need you,
(25:42):
but I would. I'm ready to move forward in a
new way without holding on to you and clinging to you as my
safety blanket, my cloak of shame and hiding.
I am ready to remove this cloak and step forward into my dreams.
You helped me so much during this time in my life when I
really needed you. And now I really feel ready to
(26:02):
to move beyond because I have dreams I need to live.
So could you could we make a newrelationship?
That's how I would start. I would do everything based on
like, what am I going through inthat moment in time?
What do I need to hear? And I really like to do that a
lot more like channeled writing,Like what do I need to hear?
Like, dear Tony, you know, dear you know, and you put your name
in the slot and you just write yourself a letter.
(26:24):
I feel like that's such an such a powerful way to write.
I had Colin Bedell on the podcast and he said fear makes
an excellent catalyst but a terrible lifelong companion.
You know, keep it in your back pocket for when you need to get
out and out of there. You know and follow your fear
and get out of a sketchy but don't carry it around your
(26:46):
entire life and let it run the show.
I had this crazy idea. I wanted to I'll share it with
you. I probably someone will probably
take it and run with it. But I had this idea.
I wanted to make this journal that was basically called the
the journal, like with a big curse word on the front or
something. And just all you did was write
like rap and just let it out because people just don't, they
just they're so afraid to let itout.
(27:07):
And then you can RIP it up and burn it.
It could be, you know, the burn it journal, whatever you want to
call it. Like I feel like one of the
things that that I will say is I'm never bored because I'm
always I'm like an actively creative person, right?
It's like you're so creative. I'm so creative where every
single human being is constantlycreating.
So if you think of that, if you imagine that you're constantly
(27:27):
creating with your thoughts, just imagine that responsibility
for just one second. You have to take that more
seriously, right? If I say I'm constantly creating
with my thoughts, like every time I say something out loud,
if I'm creating that, I'm going to be more careful.
I'm going to say, wait a second,hold on a second.
I'm going to create something good.
So I'm going to start self editing and start creating
something good. So when I get bored and I
(27:48):
noticed myself creating something negative, bad,
fearful, shameful, judgmental, if I start judging someone
immediately, I have to go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's
going on with me? Why am I doing that?
It's like, it's like becoming this observer of your thoughts,
you know, just like, you know, what is it from?
DA says be here now in the present moment, unless you're in
(28:09):
a really difficult situation in the present moment, there's
nothing to fear. You know what I'm saying?
But in, in our mind, there's so much to fear if we're not living
in the present moment. So it's like this way of how do
I take my energy? And I say, OK, if I'm always
creating, then I want to create something beautiful.
I want my future moment, the next moment to be as beautiful
(28:29):
as my moment I'm having now. So it's like staying on top of
your energy and saying I am a ball of creative energy.
I want to use it for the highestgood of all.
I don't want to be sitting in fear and creating more of that.
Because you look at your own Instagram feed and you will know
it's like a litmus test. If your Instagram feed is all
(28:49):
fear inducing, you need to change your Instagram feed and
the only person who can do that is you.
It's literally like if you focuson the fear, you'll just see
more of it. Have you ever done that before?
Look at your Instagram feed. My goodness, I had a time like a
couple years ago and my Instagram feed was so I'd never
wanted to go on Instagram because I was like, Oh my God,
it's so bad. So I was like, I need to mute
all this fear stuff. So I just muted everything that
(29:11):
was fear based and I went into adifferent space and I'm like, Oh
my God, there's so much great stuff on Instagram.
Yeah, especially as parents, we create the little algorithm for
our kids, you know, like down the street, like whatever I'm
talking about with them, that's what they're focusing on like
all day, maybe for the rest of their lives.
(29:32):
I'm like, programming where their thoughts are going to go.
And when I was a kid, my mom used to complain about the
drivers and she was like having an adversarial relationship with
like all. Drivers.
Other drivers, right? Made too close to her, behind
her or whatever. Like she was so obsessed.
Oh my God, mine too. Road rage or whatever, but
(29:54):
would. I totally, my dad had serious
road rage. I'm serious.
I have to really work on that ona daily basis.
If I'm late and I'm on someone'stail, I'm like, whoa, I, I, I'm
really good now. I'm so active with my driving
because I, I watch. I live with that.
My kids, they're oblivious to the other drivers because that
is not what we're focused on, You know, so whatever we're
(30:15):
focused on, our kids are going to pick up on it.
Whatever we're talking about on the phone, they're listening in.
The kids are in the back seat orwhatever, listening.
And so, yeah, whatever we're focused on.
And that's programming. And whether we, whether we know
it or not, it's not just that they're listening, it's
literally programming, right? So we're programming, we're
constantly programming everyone around us with how we talk and
(30:36):
our kids. I mean, I think about how you
were programmed by your parents and your grandparents.
I mean, that's why I do did all the plant medicine ceremonies
because I had to do some deprogramming and reprogramming.
So I've done a a ton. And one of the programs that is
in the, one of the stories in mybook that I will share with you
really quick is that the closingstories by my grandfather,
because my grandfather did not live his dream.
He, he lived a life of duty and service and did what he was
(30:58):
supposed to do, which is very common.
Many of us do that and nothing'swrong with that.
But I, I decided I was not goingto do that.
I didn't even realize where thatwas coming from until I wrote
the book and I remembered the story of my grandfather and how
I was going through a very difficult time.
I was like kind of anorexic. I was working out all the time.
I was not healthy. I was like 20-4 or five.
(31:20):
I was really just self abusive and I had to drive him
someplace. And you can read the story, but
the basic story is he's like, hetold me that he didn't, that he
was, he wanted to go to Juilliard and he wanted to be an
opera singer and all the. I never, never knew any of this.
He never told us. He used to sing.
And he had his deep baritone voice.
And I never got to know him as an individual because I was just
(31:41):
in the family. You know, it wasn't like you
hung out with grandpa by yourself.
And he would tell you stories like that.
I mean, I was only this is when I was in my 20s.
He told me. And I was like, I, I left him
that day. And he basically said to me, eat
the cookie, Tony, Like, eat the cookie.
Like, live your life. Yeah, do what I did.
But he didn't say any of those words.
He did it in a very much more metaphoric way.
(32:02):
And I, I thank him for that. And then I went on many journeys
of just saying, OK, I have to break the cycle of being just a
dutiful, a dutiful daughter or adutiful son or a dutiful person
just does what they're supposed to do instead of like saying,
wait, what did I come here to do?
Yeah, your idea of what you're supposed to do, that's like your
own little illusion, like when you were 21.
(32:24):
Oh, I'm supposed to be on a dietand exercise.
Like, no, you thought you like had to do that, you know?
Right. I was protecting myself from
fear. I mean, I was definitely in a
fear state at that time in my life that I will not be good
enough for all the things. Yeah.
So like, we're just, we have so many amazing stories that we can
like, look back now and actually, you know, they say
hindsight is 2020. And that's the whole point of
(32:45):
the reflection. Reflection teaches you.
So it's a good thing to do to reflect and to look at your
story. So the book, when I mined all my
stories, I was like, wow, I get why I'm who I am today and all
the things that I went through to get to this point where I
feel like some semblance of selfactualization, whatever the word
is. And that's what I wish for
everyone, that everyone can experience this.
And of course, if your life is not feeling good right now, I
(33:07):
just want to say to anybody who's listening, who's not
feeling good, courage to get on the dance floor, courage to like
say I'm just going to feel is a is a huge, huge deal.
So I honor that. It takes so much bravery to feel
and to let yourself like expressthe emotions and then clear the
body and say, OK, now without all this holding, what could I
(33:30):
open to? Like that's really the question
that I, I want to leave people with.
I think for me. Yeah, don't underestimate the
power of your body and movement.It can totally change your life.
I just got a personal trainer and just going to the rec center
on a weekly basis with my personal trainer has made a huge
difference. You wake up at 6:00 AM and work
out. I can't do it.
(33:50):
I need to like have an appointment and spend a ton of
money because I can't get. It to get yourself to.
I love that. That's OK.
I'm getting into your body. It's so important.
What inspired you to write your book, by the way?
Because when I interviewed you, it was May of 2023.
Were you already writing it? I forget.
Oh yeah, definitely. I was already writing it.
(34:12):
I, I the whole year of 2023 was all the book basically.
It was that I've been doing thiswork for a long time and I, I
felt like I need to like, get itout of me.
It's, it's weird. It's like, it's almost like I
was holding on to it and now I'mlike, I released it.
So now my relation to the work is my relationship to my own
(34:34):
work has changed. Like now I'm ready to like
become the next iteration of me because this dance person is who
I am on many levels, but I'm also so much more than that.
Like I'm I have other things to do in this lifetime.
So I felt like I really needed to sort of get it out there and
say, how can I share this at thebroadest level so as many people
as possible could do it. I wrote the book so that I
(34:56):
could, you know, inspires many women and men.
More men are coming to the dancefloor, which is amazing.
And when I say come into the dance floor, I really mean
coming into their bodies and coming into feeling because
there's a way in which we just live in our heads.
And it's so common just to be inthe intellectual mind and just
to think that you could think your way through life.
It's just not the same. Eat the cookie as the whole
point. It's like really feel it like
(35:16):
eat the mango. I wish he had said to me, but
you know, back then it was the story is about cookies, but it's
about really like while we're here is every moment just saying
like, Oh my God, like, like MaryOliver, this is the precious
life that we have. And every moment I want to be in
that, in that state of just likemy for the precious life, even
(35:37):
if I'm just touching my own heart and saying, Oh my
goodness, I'm so happy to be alive right now.
I don't know how much time we all have left.
So I'm just kind of trying to I'm trying to really embrace
every second that I can, not trying to.
I'm embracing every second that I have.
Yeah, do that while you're driving.
Hand on your heart. One hand on the wheel, one hand
on your heart. Like that metaphor, by the way.
(35:57):
One hand on your heart, one handon the wheel.
I like it. Yeah, I might write that down.
It's. So funny how we talked about
like car rides as an opportunityto connect.
And I guess what I would tell everybody is like, when you have
that moment and you connect withyourself and you're like, this
should be my next step. I should put my toe in, I should
try something new. Do it because that's the true
(36:20):
empowerment. That's how we prove to ourselves
that we can change and level up our lives is when we take one
little step, we have that hunch.We're like, maybe I should eat
the freaking cookie. And then we do it.
And then we prove to ourselves, oh, I can do something
differently. I can change now.
It's empowering. Thank you, I love it.
(36:42):
If you get the audible buck, canyou have access to the barcode
to? Scan yes, it's right there yes,
the audible has like a PDF and there's 3 pages.
There's the barcode to get into the portal and there's like this
chart that I made, which I thinkit's really fun and I'll show it
to you really quick. This chart is called Oh, and by
the way, my nephew did all theseillustrations.
(37:02):
He's a tattoo artist. So he did all the, all the
bodies, like made them look kindof like they're just these
androgynous bodies so that anybody can can read the book.
I liked it a lot. But this, this chart that I made
is called the embodiment scale. And I'll tell you about it
really quick. So I have the emotional
flexibility scale, the embodiment scale and the energy
flow scale because I feel like we have three different levels.
(37:23):
The embodiment, we're either like a lead balloon, we're not
getting off the couch, or we're like Spacey disembodied and like
completely like, I have no idea what to do with my life.
That's the disembodied, right? Or that's the somebody who
can't, you know, be in their body because it's too painful.
Then we have the emotional flexibility scale, which is like
this flat numb energy or this like hypersensitive energy, and
there's like this middle energy.It's kind of fun.
(37:45):
This is also in the audible. You'll get it.
And then I have the energy flow scale where there's like a lot
of boundaries, like just no energy flowing.
And there's just like this open container on the other side,
which is like just no boundary. So the center is like, you know,
a tree, a river and the hardwarelike you're just kind of in the
center where you can flow, you can move through all the levels.
(38:06):
But I love this little piece of the book and it's it's in the
audible as well. You get a, you get the chart.
Awesome. Well, Tony, any last words for
the listeners today? I'm just so excited and I'm so
grateful to be alive and to be on this podcast with you and to
say to everybody, find somethingthat makes you feel joyful and
(38:26):
just do that. If you never come and dance with
me, it's all good. Just go and be joyful in your
life. And if you want to explore some
kind of movement every Tuesday in the entire world, we have a
journey dance teacher, whether it's my team or me teaching a
Tuesday class, it's like just ongoing since we started getting
online during the pandemic. And we have a Tuesday noon
(38:47):
Eastern Standard Time with people from all over the world
coming on. And we teach a journey dance and
we take people on a journey. So even if you just love music,
that is a reason to come on and hear just really interesting
music and just be part of the creativity of life.
I. Love it.
Yeah. Do what's true for you.
We think it's selfish, but it's not.
(39:07):
Look how many people you've helped.
This has been your life's work for over 20 years.
Like, you ate the cookie, you got in to dance, stopped doing
all the New York City stuff thatyou didn't want to do, and now
you live in the Berkshires and you're doing what's true for
you, and that is helping other people also.
And so anyone listening, whatever your idea of the cookie
is, go and do that and do what makes you happy because it helps
(39:29):
everybody around you and helps the world.
Well, that completes our episode.
If this podcast content felt true for you, feel free to leave
a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and follow the podcast
today so you can keep exploring your favorite ways to dissolve
fear and make some room for yourbest life to unfold in fun and
(39:49):
miraculous ways. Believe in yourself, take care
of yourself, and thank you for being here.
Thank you so much.
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