People say my hair sticking out this fine.
Oh, your hair looks wonderful. Wonderful.
Well, by the way, welcome to another edition of What's Good
with John and Joyce.
Brought to you
by our good friends over at Woodwinds and Branford with Silvio's sauce. Oh.
So good.
And our esteemed guests got married over at woodwinds.
By the way, you're going to tell you a bit more about that in a bit.
What's Good with Johnny Joyce is sponsored by woodwinds Wedding and Special Events
Venue in Branford, Connecticut and Silvio's award winning Italian sauces,
which you can buy anytime online at silvio's.
Sauces.com that's silvio's sauces.com.
But I'm John Cadillac Seville from iHeart radio, along with hello, Joyce
and Cassie.
I'm going to read this now because I want to make sure I get it right or right.
Because he was a joyful and positive man, which I picked up right away
when I met with him with a passion
for inspiring and motivating others to be the best version of themselves.
In addition to being a full time dad and husband use of somatic practitioner,
I say that right.
Wellness educator yoga instructor, mindfulness practitioner, and author of
We Are Enough, which I read, by the way, a heartfelt children's book
that resonates deeply with readers of all ages,
including those big kids, and inspiring both young minds
and adult hearts all over the world and the universe for that matter.
Even the Klingons love this book.
The Romulans, you know.
right in here.
You are just sunshine walking down the street.
Here's what you're plunging into.
Yeah.
Richard Waters of winter.
You've done that, too.
I've, I've done so many polar plunges over the years.
Oh, I could do one together.
Sea ice to get into it.
So good for the immune system.
It really is. And you'll get it to that.
But, yes, I find it to be more of a, mental stimulation.
It kind of safeguards you against a lot of depressive things.
You've done the hardest work you could possibly do is just this uncomfortable,
and then you come out of it unscathed and you just feel great blessed.
And that's a good point.
Like the book Eat the Bullfrog, which I already read that book.
Do the thing that you load the most
first thing in the morning and boom, the rest of the day.
Yeah. Easy peasy. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Eat the bullfrog.
Which, of course, we're not talking, you know, figuratively.
It's a metaphor. Okay. All right. Right.
So, I know school was about to begin.
It is? Yeah.
And what do you look forward to the most when you're meeting your meeting?
Yes, for the first time. Yeah.
There's always a lot of excitement around a start of anything that involves
children, I think. You know, they're coming into a new year.
They're missing their friends.
They've had great summers, hopefully.
But some of them, the thing that I try to remind myself
is that they don't have someone like myself in their life all the time.
So when I'm at school and when I'm expecting these kids back,
I'm really here myself up and after myself up to bring that positivity,
to be that support system for them that, you know, they remind me all the time,
I wish you were.
Yeah. Yeah. Like that.
I remember when I first started that at this particular school,
I had kids come up to me, tell me I'm their favorite teacher, and I'm like,
you're not even in my class. We don't even know each other.
You're my favorite teacher already. And I just met you.
Just by holding yourself in high esteem, in high regard.
Just as the person that you see in the mirror.
If that reflects on everybody that you interact with.
That's a real good point, too, because it's not being arrogant.
You know, a lot of times I'll say I expect good each and every day
when I wake up, not because of who I am, but because of who's I am.
And I go throughout the day, each and every day.
And and the thing is,
when you speak highly of yourself, you're honoring the one who created you.
And you have to be.
Everyone needs to be very careful about what comes next after
I am.
Two most powerful words it you say.
That's right.
So I'm sure you, you're able to teach that in school.
Do you get in like your hands get tied in in terms of what you can say.
You can't say spiritually.
Well there's a curriculum that I have to teach.
And I also understand that
not everybody comes from the same mindset and background as I do.
So I'm very careful about how I word things.
I try to keep it very universal. Yes.
Sometimes kids
will want to take a deeper dive and ask me and I'll give them a little bit more.
But, when you're dealing with sixth or seventh and eighth grade students
and maybe they haven't really decided which way they want to go in life.
I just try to lead by example.
I can point into some books.
I can point into some YouTube videos. Yeah.
Social media influencers.
Or I can say just look at my page and there's nothing positive.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah.
I don't kind of
give them anything more than what I'm legally supposed to give.
That makes sense. Right?
I try to stick to what I'm what my job description is,
but at the same time I can put my own flair and flavor on it.
And then they kind of get a feel for you
by the way you live your life and by your walk.
They know there's something very unique about you and that you have a deep faith.
And, you, you basically walk the walk.
You're not just talking to talk.
I mean, I noticed that right away when I met you, by the way.
You talk, your body language, your eye contact.
You're the real deal.
It's the most important thing to have that integrity and do the things
that you want others to be able to do, even when no one's looking.
Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
So everyone needs to go to your Facebook page.
Yeah. All right, so check it out.
It's easy to find, and not a lot of cars seem outlaws.
Ha ha ha. I'm the only one.
How did you come up with that costume? Outlaw.
I love it. So my father came up with the name.
He got it from you.
Remember the old Sinbad? Absolutely.
You bet.
Movies.
There was a prince named Prince. Yes.
Different.
And, he was transformed into a buffoon.
This year.
Okay. Spelling.
Right, right.
And, you know, I think that's who I am now, right?
Yeah. You know. Well, it's very powerful. Thank you.
You know, in this book that you wrote, even though, Yeah, let's let's show it.
Let's put it right there in the camera there so people can see that we are.
I know. Well, I love it.
Well, if you're not watching on YouTube, you have to watch this show on YouTube.
You have to. Yeah.
You have to see some of the pictures we're going to be adding.
You sent me some great photos. Awesome.
But this book kind of reminded me, remember when Winnie
the Pooh book came out?
But it really was for adults and it was like the philosophy.
Yeah, it's like lessons for lessons or something like that.
Yeah. This is it really is.
Because one of my favorites, I always actually I have this next to my bed.
What we have is enough.
What we do is enough.
What we are is enough.
We are here and we are alive and that is enough.
It's just this whole book is just perfection.
You can turn it to any page and you can read it with your children.
You can read it to your grandmother.
You can. Yeah.
It's just a great little book.
And you really represent what we try to do with this podcast,
just to have it be a safe place to land.
There's so much negativity out.
There's so much divisiveness as, you know, consume that just so much of it.
We just want to realize that, you know, we're going to bring people together
if it's one person at a time, one viewer, one listener, or whatever it may be.
It may sound Pollyanna, but that's basically how we live our lives.
One of the first things that I tell my students
every time I meet them, aside from I love you, right, that's one of the it's crazy.
Kids walk into a class and like, hey, I just want to let
everybody know before I can tell you I am that I love you, right?
That kind of they take they're taken aback by how it is.
Some of them, they might not have heard that.
And who knows how.
Right.
You know, I come from a family where we say it almost compulsively.
Each other I love you. Yes, I love you.
I love you back. You know, that type of thing.
And it's not just lip service but it's, it's a mantra you're reading.
Right.
And to let people know that they're safe, that's the first thing that they're loved
and that they're supported.
I think that's the real essence of the book.
And that's something that comes from here, you know, so important
because a lot of people will say, maybe I love you, but it's robotic.
Is it real? And like you said, it's real.
You look them in the eye and they could sense that it's real.
You could. You could tell. Yeah.
And they know. And then your actions kind of reinforce that as you.
Right. Exactly.
How you handle situations where people may
come in a very negative way
about what happened in your day, about what's happening in the world.
Instead of engaging in that, what do you do?
I always try to add some positive light to it
and sometimes that's met with a little, I don't know
with the resistance sometimes it's met with resistance and you can feel it.
And sometimes you have to just be silent and give people the space to vent
and to get things out, because a lot of them are parroting what they saw on TV.
Yeah. From somebody else. That's right.
Something else that happened to them in their life
that that keeps that record skipping over and over again.
So just holding space for them.
Not allowing them to bring down my,
word.
You know, when I noticed
that that starts to happen, then we create a little distance.
So if you can't help someone, then just love them from a little bit.
Yes. Right.
So I certain family members you have to love from a distance, right?
We all do. We all do. Right.
All right, I gotta go.
Or certain people can be energy zaps, but, you know, we can do our best.
Like, my whole motto in life and choice.
And I talk about I'm going to love everybody,
but some people from a distance, the people that I hold in my circle
are usually uplifting, positive, spiritually based people going.
And they have they're walking the walk. They have some spring in their step.
But we're going to pray for the world. Yeah. Wherever we go.
As a wise words. Yes.
You have to see your shirt.
Oh yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
It's for well-being.
It really is all about inner. Yeah.
I love that t shirt.
Yeah.
This is a program that I did, back in 2014.
It's by the Isha Foundation, which is funded by Sadhguru.
You guys can look him up.
He's all over the internet.
It's got a bunch of different initiatives, but this is the flagship program.
It's called Inner Engineering,
and it's basically about, you know, being the architects of who we are.
You know, we can create a lot of comforts and convenience and the outside world,
you know, we get our house just right with your car just right.
And we think that after doing that, everything's going to be fine.
But we're still there as we are.
So if we start from the inside and work our way out.
We start to change that.
So, so if someone is just new to this
and comes to you to say I want to be more like you, how are you?
Yeah.
Would you say I would point them towards this program.
And I'm not affiliated in any way, but it's one of the biggest,
hallmark events of my life.
You know, people talk about the day
they got married, the day they had a child.
You know, maybe they had some traumatic event that opened their eyes to something.
Right?
This was a, 3 to 4 day event that I went to just by myself
with a thousand other people that had this transformative experience.
And it was really just about reflecting on this.
Life is my responsibility. It's no one else's.
And if that's the case, if we really take that to heart.
Now we start to craft the life that we want.
And joy is at the top.
I love that. It's amazing.
So many people nowadays do not accept accountability.
We want to pass the buck.
And like you said, it all starts.
It's an inside job.
It really is an inside job.
And you talk about that in your books as well. It's the same thing.
And you know, something can happen.
All three of us, the same exact event.
We all look at it in different ways, right.
And shows us that we have this,
you know, particular lens that we can view the world through, right?
We have autonomy and we say, how do I want to view this now?
Right. Become very powerful. Right.
And it really is okay to walk away from it.
Turn off the TV.
You know, don't be stuck to the to the news.
I mean, truly, the news is there to bring you breaking news.
Not good. Right. They're breaking news.
We don't need to know about whether disasters in
other countries that we can do nothing about.
You know what I mean.
Sure, sure.
We could pray for them, but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
And you can send money to wherever, you know, that that they have there.
But I know people who get so stuck that they can't sleep at night.
Because they're worried about everything
that they're, we're not meant to have all of us.
No we're not.
I was just going to say our nervous systems aren't designed for this overload.
You know, we're supposed to be in small
groups, tightly knit, and then we can expand out and enjoy.
Yeah, but when we're constantly getting fed this information, it's just too much.
And the thing is, I think it's all about how you start your day.
We talked about that off air a little bit.
I'm not going to let external random things
come into my thought in the morning. I'm not going to look at my phone.
I'm not going to listen to the news or read the news.
I'm going to, first of all, go to my creator in the morning,
and then I'm going to do my exercises, my breathing exercises, my yoga,
Pilates movements every day to take care of this,
this amazing machine that God gave me and all of us here.
And then I'm going to do do some more perfect work, go to the gym,
all that done by 9:00, and I'm ready to move on with the day I've set.
I've taken care of my spiritual,
my mental, my physical being, and it makes you feel good.
It does that.
Anyone has it. It's positive. Yep.
So what do you do?
I know what John does in your grounding program of the school season starts.
Yeah.
What do you have time to do before you go to get you started?
So I'm not a huge fan of waking up early, but I know,
Sam here, reaps a lot of rewards.
So I know if I'm cognitively if I know that I'm going to wake up early
and have all this time to myself to get things done
and set myself up for a successful day, then that's not a problem for me.
I've always been a person where you show me the truth.
You show me with the right decision to make it, and I can.
I can make it like that.
Some people struggle with that.
You know, you tell them something like,
I know I should eat this, I know this, right. I could go to that.
But they get caught in that, that the trappings of life.
Right.
So what. It woulda, coulda shoulda.
Yeah, exactly.
And then you also got to remember, like, sometimes the spirit will move you to
do things, and sometimes you have to use the body to get the spirit going.
Do they work together?
That's a really good point,
because if you're waiting for motivation, it's never going to happen.
You just get up there, don't think about it, do it.
And then all of a sudden the inspiration, motivation follows.
That was a really good point. Yeah. So,
like I said, to answer your question,
I wake up somewhere around 6:00, sometimes a little earlier.
If I want to do some more things.
One of the first things I do is meditate.
So I have a meditation practice that's anywhere from, like, 21 to 30 minutes.
I'll do that.
I'll do a yoga practice.
Maybe I'll go to the gym because it's not far from my house.
Sometimes I'll meet a friend there and we'll work out together. Yeah, yeah.
Come back, take a shower, have a nice smoothie
or something to drink, and then I'm off to the races.
Yeah.
So it's very simple.
Yeah, but it's just a decision.
Yeah.
If you don't take care of your body when you're younger,
you're going to pay off.
I mean, a lot of people go ahead. You.
It's it's the consistency.
Consistency. Exactly.
All good to people when they first start.
But it will it will grow on you
and you'll feel better and that will make you want to do it.
You just have to be consistent until it becomes natural to you.
Right.
And that's and that's the key because I learned from a mentor a long time ago.
Would you rather eat medicine for breakfast or eat real food?
And to me, food is medicine.
Proper, proper, proper food, you know, and there are some people
watching or listening right now maybe don't have a choice.
They have to have certain.
And we're not discarding, you know, that there may be something you need,
but a lot of people, when they say they have joint or ligament
problems at 65 or 70, that started when they were 35.
Yeah.
By the practices they did their entire life.
So these small little incremental things and it's never too late to start,
by the way.
Never too late to start a new.
And you know that as well as anybody.
Our, our next show that we're doing.
It's going to be all about food. Oh, yes.
We love food.
Yeah.
But tell me about somatic somatic healing.
So the word somatic practitioner.
Yeah.
So you you study, you became certified in this.
So I, I'm a certified yoga teacher.
Instructor.
Well I don't teach at a school or anything like that,
but I take that education that I had and I bring it to wherever I get called to go.
So I've done private practice stuff.
People have called me to their house for their family to facilitate some things.
I've done things for people in recovery.
I've done meditations and different workshops for all sorts of, demographics.
But in terms of the somatic part. Right.
So you're using the body.
Massage therapist would be a somatic practitioner.
Reiki, chiropractic, all these different things like kind of acupuncture.
Yeah. For me it's it's yoga based.
So moving the body through whether it's,
a vinyasa flow or whether it's actual fitness.
Right. There's so many ways you can do it.
But getting things moving.
For a lot of people were really stagnant.
We sit and we sit at work, we go back home, we sit,
we're in the car, and, we're just not getting the body.
You know what they say sitting on a couch sometimes is worse than smoking.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm not sure if that's true or not, but.
But just move. Just move. Get up. You walk.
Walk. Stretch. Stretching.
All your body systems are going to jump online.
You start to use them.
And if you're not using them, things right that you have blockages.
And all of a sudden you have these big health concerns, right?
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
So I try to bring it to the kids at an early age, get them used to this.
We talked about consistency.
You got to see the fruits of your labor right.
So you start to work out.
You start to feel better. And you what can I attribute this to?
Right. Daily movement. All right. So this is a great thing.
And when you keep yourself fit
I mean all three of us keep ourselves fit all ego side.
And when people see that you're actually speaking from a place of credibility,
it goes a long, long way.
Yeah.
Because I remember being in high school and there were gym teachers
that would tell me to run a lap, and they couldn't even get off the chair.
Yeah. Right. Right.
So you have to go out there and walk the walk, so to speak. Yeah.
If you can show people what it looks like, then that's like the first step. Yep.
That's right.
I like what I see. Let me try to emulate that. That's right.
Go deeper into the research and say well what do I have to do?
Sure. Right. Like that.
Yeah. I remember back.
Back always,
when I lost about
40 pounds and I changed the way that I ate,
I stopped smoking, I stopped drinking.
I mean, I did this all in one night. Wow.
Which is something that I made a hard core decision on.
And and, of course, people don't notice right away, and I didn't talk about it.
And then one day, my my boss, a woman
who was always struggling with her weight and everything.
She looked at me and she said, this is how she worded it.
She said, you know why you lost that weight?
And we never really talked about what I said. Why?
She said, because you're stubborn.
She said you're just.
You have a stubborn personality. Yeah.
And I think that she wished that she had,
meaning just sticking to something.
But I never wanted I never wanted it to make it sound like,
oh my God, I'm watching what I, I wish I could eat that.
I never said that. Right.
I kept saying to myself, I just innately knew
to say to myself, I love eating this way.
I love drinking fresh water.
I just love this.
Now, initially I did not.
I mean I missed it a little bit, but I just kept saying that
when people asked me if I wanted a cigaret.
You know, I want to go outside and have a smoke
I say, I feel like it right now and my brain accepted this
and then it just easily happened for me.
So I, I just want to preface this by someone
called me out a little bit about this online,
and they said that people with true addictions, you know, that,
this, this doesn't work and can be harmful for them.
So I just want to preface it by saying that in my private practice,
if someone came to me and they truly had a drug
or alcohol addiction, I did not treat them.
I did send them to specialists for that.
So I just want to preface that because I fully recognize,
you know, that could be a whole other journey
that they need to go through with professional health.
But for me, it worked for me that where you basically rewired your home, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Because because of the brain.
It doesn't know the difference between what's real and what isn't.
It is what what you tell it.
The neuroplasticity of the brain can just change.
Yeah.
And I think we tend to think we're controlled
by our brain in our thoughts when it's the other way. No, no.
That's right.
To interpret the world. Yes.
Use our intellect in the right way.
Brain is all about survival.
You'll be at the gym, and you could do a lot more than you think you can.
But the brain's telling you no, no, stop stop, stop, stop.
It doesn't want you to progress.
You know, you could do that. Extra five, ten pushups.
Come on, you can really do it.
You could do a whole lot more than you think.
We're all capable.
Much more than we actually put out there in the world.
Yeah, right. When I was doing my internship,
on my way to be a therapist,
I just remember the cycle of therapists, Jane Miller
saying to me, one day I'm going to write a book called My Stupid Brain.
That's when I realized what you just
said, Cassie, is that we are
the ones that tell our brains what to in a brain will accept it.
So when you smoke, sometimes you'll say, I just need a cigaret.
I just love, so I just need a cigaret.
And then your brain says, oh, you need a cigaret.
But what you're really doing is taking a break and you're taking a deep breath.
Which you can do without.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. That's right. That's right. Program.
That's I guess what she was trying to say.
You know that just you know it's not your brain, it's you.
Yeah.
And we give the brain too much credit in a way saying
know my brain doesn't allow me to do that.
My brain is it's like, no, you you're not allowing yourself right now.
Yeah.
When you look at the work of Doctor Who's left and, Doctor Joe Dispenza,
like the power.
Yes. Yes.
Really want that goal or that end product?
And you can program it in here.
Then you can change anything.
And the thing is, you need to have an accountability partner
to somebody is going to keep you accountable with
they're trying to do it on your own.
Willpower does not work.
It it only goes a certain amount of time.
I'm so glad you said that.
That because when I go back in my own mind, the very first book I had my.
I have a lot of fears growing up.
But everything, you name it, I was afraid.
My mother gave me the book The Power of Positive Thinking.
And I want to say, who was that?
Oh my gosh, I think it's even.
I'm like, I'm having a brain fart in that too.
But I've read the book.
Yes. When somebody's great,
that's before our time, you know?
But when
it's a very good.
It is. It's timeless.
So, my mom just gave it to me to read
because I realized she had a lot of fears and things to overcome.
So I had her to bounce things off of.
Yeah.
You know, or she would say, look, you're just having an anxiety attack.
It's okay. Take a deep breath.
You know, go out for a walk.
Focus on something else.
And that really helped a lot.
So having that accountability person. Yes.
Is Yeah. Right.
Yeah. Or a group you know. Right.
So like I've been doing these polar plunges for five years.
And when I first started, I was doing it by myself.
And then slowly, people would see it online, like, I want to come join you.
Some would come join once, and then I'd never see them again.
Yeah.
That's great.
You know, they're calling me the night before.
I say, hey, what time? Meeting. Where we going?
Yeah, it looks like.
And, you know, on days where I'm saying, like,
maybe I'm just going to take this one off, right?
I can't do you do it every day.
I do it every weekend. Every weekend. Okay.
When I first started doing it because, I'm a I'm a tropical person.
Right. Is not really my place.
Yeah, it's not your jam. You know how I am.
Somewhere near the equator or something? Yeah.
Right.
But, I told myself if I'm going to be here, I have to
enjoy it in some way, shape or form. Right.
Need to, like, pay and pay for it.
So it's kind of like, I don't want to call it, like, self torture or whatever,
but it's self torture to a point.
Yeah. This one right at the water.
Sometimes I got to break to the ice
sometimes and going in the ocean and it's it's a spiritual practice.
Yeah. You know so it's not just the physical aspect.
It's this discipline.
It's consistency.
Spiritual thing too. Right.
And I've got people riding with me now.
So I'm like all right let's go guys. Wow.
That makes it a little bit easier when you have that accountability.
I think I've watched that from almost the beginning.
When you started posting.
And you were alone and then as you added people they didn't look too happy.
No, no, no no.
Am I really going to do this. Yeah.
Yeah. We did it with a radio station.
We do a lot of fundraisers. So that's where I did it.
Working in different like 3 or 4 times and we'd all be rushing for the water
and we looked at each other like, what the heck are we doing?
You want to stop?
But the thing is, you didn't because there are other people there.
And I just told right in, you know, it was like hitting a cinder block.
Yeah, but boy.
But but the feeling of it.
Think of what you accomplished.
And then you get out of the water, run into the tent
and have your hot coffee or hot tea or whatever it may be.
Do you know what?
I don't have a tent. You run into your car.
So it depends on the on the time? Yeah.
Or the.
Depends on the temperature.
Right.
So sometimes I'll leave the car running with the heat
blasting and the seats warm, and all the other times not.
But I have, like, some gear now, so when I first was going out,
I was like a barbarian. Like I'd walk out with no shoes on.
Yeah, yeah. Wow. I've got some gloves. I've got some. Yeah.
Just lost my fingers and toes.
It was really.
It was pretty scary.
I didn't know frost nip was a thing.
Yeah. Frost, you have precursor to frostbite.
So I had to research this field,
and then they got really hard, and then they turned kind of black is blue.
Yeah.
And that's a little disconcerting.
Yeah. Yeah. My mom was like.
Yeah, I was thinking I was.
I'm sure she was somewhat concerned at first.
I was more concerned for the person that I went with at that time.
Right. Fell back into.
You don't want to kill. No.
That's right.
That's right. Yeah.
I, I guess we've been given by Stephania, our director,
that with the end of our show, we're going to continue this.
Oh, we're going to have a come again? Yeah. I love it.
We have much to speak about.
Yes. Love food.
Yeah, exactly.
But thank you so much for tuning in to another rollicking edition
of What's Good with John and Joyce, brought to you
by our friends over at woodwinds, the home of Silvio's sauce.
It's just so good. Speaking of food. It's so good.
But check us out on all the streaming platforms where they're
the iHeartRadio Podcast Network, YouTube, among others.
And we really appreciate you listening in.
And, you know, CMA has been a great, great, you know, fun having you on.
I love the whole vibe of this broadcast.
And we just wish you and your family nothing but the best.
Thank you for tuning in. Bye.