So we want to make sure that we are honoring the fathers that are out there. Those who have even stepped in and taking role taking roles as fathers and young men's life and young women's lives and in young people's lives. So we wanna make sure we're honoring our fathers, you know those of you that follow me understand this is the first Father Day Father's Day without my father here. So please keep my, myself and my siblings, siblings and our family members in your prayers, but also keep those that he stood in the gap as a father for I got a phone call probably about a month ago from one of my friends we went to high school with And it was about 1:30 AM and he was just telling me the role that my dad played in his life and he's not the only one after my father passed away. I there's a lot of people that just started coming telling me the role that he played in in their lives and what blesses me is knowing that I played that role in other people's lives help me understand where that stop came from.

So we want to make sure that we're honoring fathers this month as well. Yeah, many people define stagnation as not producing or being at a standstill. I get it. However, I would like to add a little weight to the definition and say that I may be producing, I may be moving. However, my production and my movements are disrespectful to the purpose that's inside of me, to the greatness that's inside of me. If that's going on that stagnation as well and that's okay, guess why? Because I have developed a tool, I wrote a book called from stagnation and transformation and that book was written specifically for individuals that feel stuck, that feel lost, that feel like they're just wandering in the wilderness. They feel like they just need something, it's just missing.

It's okay. I want you to hit over to www dot clinton Pettijohn dot com forward slash transformation there. You're gonna find a complimentary portion of the book. That's right. A complimentary portion of the book. I want you to read that portion after that. It's gonna ignite such a fire inside of you that you're gonna want to purchase the, your personal copy of from stagnation of transformation? So I want you to do that as well. Why? Because I believe that it will give you a 21 day jump start to fulfilling or re identifying purpose and whatever core area you find yourself stagnant in. So again, visit www dot clinton Pettijohn dot com forward slash transformation. Yeah. What's up everybody you are listening to the what now podcast where we discuss ways of effectively addressing life's most difficult moments.

Yeah, Okay. Mhm. What is up everybody. Welcome to the Wood now podcast. That's right. The Wood Now podcast where we discuss effective ways of facing life's most defining moments. My name is Captain Petty john I am your trusted voice of transformation and I teach creators how to transform their lives through embracing the entirety of their best self. I have a lot to say today. So let's do our breathing exercises. Take a deep breath in hold it, breathe out. Mhm one more time. Take a deep breath in hold it, breathe out, listen and everything that you are encountering in life. I always want you to remember that you can always pause and breathe now.

Understand we can breathe without pausing because we were created and designed to breathe without even us having to remind ourselves to breathe because let's face the fact sometimes that we have to remind ourselves to breathe, we would not breathe, but I want us to become one with our breathing patterns. I want us to understand our breathing patterns. I want us to understand that when we're happy. I want us to understand that when we're angry, when we're upset, when we might feel frightened or afraid or when we might feel under pressure. I want us to become one with our breathing techniques that when we can honestly communicate how we are feeling at that moment and then we can move from that space and then we can resolve the issue from that space and then we can just be from that space. But what all you also, what you also did was you went back to that past. All right, You grabbed the energy that causes you to keep revisiting and empowering things that happen in your past.

It causes you to misidentify those things. It causes you to want to run from those things. It causes you to feel fearful or afraid of those things. Are ashamed of those things. You've gathered that energy, you've grabbed it. You said get over here, little mortal kombat. Then you go to the future that you've dreamt about. But you are not creating right now because you aren't even you don't have enough energy in your present to create what needs to be created in order to produce that future. Therefore you grab that. And you said, come on, we are merging together, past, present, future, merging together, operating as one creating that synergy. That synergy is you. It is your best self because you have showed up aware, you have showed up present and now because you are present because you are aware because you are alert now, you can take advantage of every tool, technique and strategy. You can take advantage of every opportunity that is presented before you in this present moment.

All right. We want to make sure we're living in the present. I was on the podcast. Was it today or yesterday. Yesterday I was not on the podcast or radio show and one of the things that I was explaining to everybody. We are opening back up. We are opening back up some states are already fully open back up. And I said my prayer, my hope my my desire for all of us is that we not lose sight of everything that we've gained during this time of quarantine everything that we've gained. We've learned so much about ourselves. We've re centered ourselves. We've grounded ourselves, we're more focused than ever. I don't want us to lose focus of purpose going back and doing what we've been accustomed to do to do or what we've been known to do. I don't want us to get caught up in that anymore. I want us to be who we were designed to be because being you is enough, you are enough, not a better self is enough.

And I do believe that we need to continue to work on ourselves or we just need to continue to embrace ourselves. We need to continue to embrace the, embrace the fullness of who we are, but who you are right now, this present state. If I could just get you to be present, you would understand that you are not just enough. You're already more than enough. You have every answer and solution locked inside of you. Sometimes you just have to get with a conversationalist who can unlock those solutions in your life. I'm not here to give you anything. I'm not here to teach you anything. All I'm here to do is to, um God, uh, to bring awareness. There we go, to bring awareness to that what you have locked up inside of you. You have the key to unlock that prison that you've locked you in and you can walk free and be who you are.

All right? All right. That's my that's my hope that I that I hope I get that point across. Not hope I know I get that point across on this podcast. So I'm excited about that. So, I want to hear some of your stories, y'all. It's kind of bittersweet for me tonight because you already know, we only have one more show after this and then the what now podcast is gone now, understand everything. Well, all the catalog will fully be available to you at any time. This is three seasons of master classes. You have heard me uh talk you through various situations that have been master classes. You've heard some of my guests come on and it's been full on master classes. They've been from diverse belief systems, diverse backgrounds. Their stories are not even the same. That, as I said, diverse belief system, their belief systems are the same. So you can pull from those those those uh you can pull from those episodes anytime that you need to.

However, we have understood we are moving from the position of the question to showing up as the answer, understanding that the solution has arrived and we're signing that as the answer. All right. So yeah, we have a new podcast coming out, stay connected. It's gonna be launching in august and I'll make sure that you all can get all of the information. But let's not focus there right now because we are in the present and right now the president is focused on what now. Okay, So here's what I want to say. Mhm. I said that. Did I say that? I can't remember Anyway. It's probably a month we've been celebrating all month and we want to continue to celebrate the pride of being free. The pride of being who we are. We want to understand the history of it. I've told everybody to go and research it, understand the history of it and what was fought for us to have this month. I know a lot of people have a negative I believe system about this month and I believe that.

Well, why can't we have straight pride? You're missing the whole point of the fact that we have to have. It speaks volumes. But it's also black music appreciation month. So we want to make sure that we're appreciating the gifts, the talents, the abilities that have brought us that music. All right. It is also juneteenth, y'all this. Well by tom this airs june teeth will be over. But I pray we celebrated. I also hope I also encourage you to continue to study and research it to understand if you can, if you can celebrate that fourth of july that our people were not free during you can celebrate june team also excited that last week I saw the state of Delaware have declared it a statewide holiday and now a couple of hours before I got on here, I'm excited to find out that it is now recognized nationally and it is bittersweet for me because I'm excited because I feel like it is a victory, still a lot more work to be done.

But then I look at it and say man for us had for it to have to take so long for us to get here shows just how much more work that we have to do. So continue to celebrate but at the same time don't lose the fight and we're also celebrating Father's Day and I believe that this podcast will, this episode will be released All fathers there. So we want to make sure that we are honoring the fathers that are out there, Those who have even stepped in and taking role taking roles as fathers and young men's life and young women's lives and in young people's live. So we want to make sure we're honoring our fathers, you know those of you that follow me, understand this is the first father Day father's day without my father here. So please keep my myself and my siblings, siblings and our family members in your prayers but also keep those that he stood in the gap as a father for I got a phone call probably about a month ago from one of my friends, we went to high school with And it was about 1:30 AM.

And he was just telling me the role that my dad played in his life and he's not the only one after my father passed away. I uh there's a lot of people that just started coming telling me the role that he played in in their lives and what blesses me is knowing that I played that role in other people's lives, help me understand where that stop came from. So we want to make sure that we're honoring fathers this month as well. So let's get to what we're going to talk about on today. It's not gonna be a long podcast podcast at all. I'm gonna get up out of here alright. Sound like I'm preaching, not gonna be before you very long. No, but I want to say something to you and I think this has gone with me with with um some of the emotions I've experienced around the loss of my father and even going back to the loss of my mother and other divorce and other things that have taken place in my life. Um one of the things I realized probably about a month ago was that I was doing what I used to do and that was unhealthy and one of the things I used to do was disregard my feelings because I was worried about how my feelings would make other people feel and some people say, well that's good.

No it's not, it's not healthy, It's not healthy. # one, you should never communicate to yourself that you are not you are not allowed to feel a certain way about anything because of how it might make somebody else feel. See that's where we start to lie and create personas. And then we're fighting within ourselves for the truth of who we are. I've come to grips with a lot of things in my life and one of the major things I've come to grips with is how I've treated myself wrong. Now get it, trust, I've treated other people wrong as well. I have but I can trace why I've treated other people wrong back to the reality of me not treating myself right. So I've had to get it right with myself. And one of the things I had to do was look myself in the in the face and look myself in the mirror and say cliff. I apologize for not allowing you to feel how you honestly fell y'all.

And when you get to a space like that, that is one of the most freeing spaces you can be or get to. You know why? Because now you have the freedom of being honest about how you really feel. Then as you begin to express that to yourself, you begin to develop the skill set to begin to express it to others were necessary. But you have got to apologize. And when I say apologize, I mean genuinely mean, it genuinely free yourself from not allowing yourself to feel how you honestly are feeling. I had to get there, yo, because that was the lie I was living see for the majority of my life, I thought the lie that I was living was the fact that I was gay, but I didn't want to tell nobody I was gay, but it was deeper than that. It was rooted deeper than that, because the reality is that we want to be honest about it, I never acted upon, you know, being with somebody until, you know, I work past all of that stuff, but I had to realize that it wasn't about being gay, it was about all of the emotions that I had built up over the years that I would not allow myself to own and you all know, I'm big on ownership, I'm big on ownership of your content, of your businesses, of everything, but one of the greatest um, properties that you can own is taking ownership of you, I belong to God.

How baba Shah, y'all chill taking ownership over how you honestly feel the thoughts that are going through your mind, some of the things that you have done, taking ownership of it. Another freeing experience I had was when I began to talk freely about my criminal record, when I took back the authority from that, when I stepped into the room, I didn't have the shrink back anymore, because I understood that I took that narrative back and I owned up to what I did and it was what I did that positioned me to be able to be here to talk to you right now own it own those feelings if you're mad, you're mad, if you're angry, you're angry. If you're upset, you're upset. If you're happy and you know, it clap your hands, you feel me like, really own that thing and this, I think losing my father brought back those emotions as well, and I'm gonna be as sensitive as I can be about this, this this matter.

Um Demi Lovato has a has a song called Father. Okay now, I had probably been trying to find the right way to express myself after the loss of my father and I couldn't quite put it into words. Um until the night my friend called me and we had that conversation and it was that conversation that helped me realize, yo you you are you are ok to feel how you feel and you're not going to grieve properly and tell you own how you feel. That even goes back to my mom passing away and some of the things that I that I had, you know in the recesses of my mind concerning my mom and our upbringing and different things like that, and the way I saw her handle some things like it just, all of that started to come up and I had to finally say Cliff is okay for you to feel like that.

It's ok for you to think like that it's ok for you to process it like that. It is okay. And yes, it honestly might hurt some people's feelings, but at the end of the day, they're gonna respect you for being honest with them, I realized that I didn't or I'm reserved now I'm an introvert by nature, but I also understand that would attached itself to my introverted nous was a drawing back of me and I only identified that drawing back with me with my sexuality. But as I begin to look deeper, dig deeper, go deeper, I begin to understand that I've always had that drawing back because I don't think like other people think I don't act like other people act, I don't like what other people like. So I was going into self preservation mode, Oh I'm sorry I was going into South preservation move because I was trying to protect me Mhm Or the illusion of who I thought I was.

You feel me? You get what I'm saying? So now I'm getting to a space where I'm even more comfortable with who I am and comfortable in showing up as myself in every space that I show up in, but I had to apologize to myself, I had to forgive myself, I had to free myself. I had to allow myself just to be Oh Mhm And that's my encouragement to each of W1 of you this month. And we're celebrating pride. And we're celebrating black music. And we're celebrating Juneteenth and was celebrating father's day. Don't forget to celebrate your freedom And make sure that you're celebrating your freedom from a free space. Make sure you're celebrating your freedom from us free space. And have the conversations that you need to have. If it's a conversation with yourself, make sure that you've created a safe enough space around yourself to have those conversations.

If it's a conversation you need to have with somebody else step out and have that conversation. Don't run from it anymore. I made up my mind. I'm not running from another conversation. I'm not carrying this stuff around no more. I want to be an I am the epitome of freedom of the capital of freedom. So my encouragement to each of you. Free yourself. Free your mind. And the rest will follow. Be color blind. Don't be so shallow. Yeah, but seriously free yourself. Nobody else has the keys to your freedom. But you But the question is, will you allow yourself to be free? Listen, that's all I have for you. I love each and every one of you. You are beautiful. Listen, if you need to sit down and have a conversation, you need a safe space to have a conversation. Hit me up 30 to 6485544 texts. Help Our text conversation to that number and we will set it up. All right, because I want to see each of you free.

You're beautiful, You're intelligent, you're handsome. You are radiant, you are wonderful. You are all that and some more. So now it's time for you to live from that space, create a great day. What what purpose and by all means execute your vision peace. Yeah, yeah. Today is a great day to start your own podcast. Whether you're looking for a new marketing channel, I have a message you want to share with the world or just think it would be fun to have your own talk show podcasting is an easy and expensive and fun way to expand your reach online. Buzz Sprout is hands down the easiest and best way to launch, promote and track your podcast. Your show can be online enlisted in all the major platform directories like apple podcast, Spotify, google podcasts and more within minutes of finishing your recording.

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