2 WOLVES WALK INTO A HIGH SCHOOL 🐺

Don't know if y'all know this about me, but for about 16 years I've worked with young people, and used to be a speaker to groups of all sizes of angry, "at risk," and/or apathetic high schoolers. Sometimes, I was the final step before people just gave up on them. Public schools always reminded me of that Tale of 2 Wolves story. You know the one. There are 2 wolves inside you, one is love, one is fear, and the one that lives is the one you feed. Sh'mon. We all LOOOVE that story right? 

I ALSO WORK & SPEAK WITH THE MOST "AT RISK YOUTH" OF THEM ALL... ADULTS

We can always boil everything down to love/fear, craving/aversion, or yin/yang. However, inside you is basically a high school. There's a nerd, a shy kid, an artist, a jock, even a wise janitor. Your life and your choices are the school itself. You have an inner voice, and it often speaks to you just like most of the other speakers I worked with. Telling you that the system is broken and working against you, as they smear their projections and fear wolf poop all over your experience. You wonder why you're hopelessly overwhelmed, and often stuck in a state of apathy, chronic healing, or honestly... Kinda bored. With a to do list of having to fix crap you didn't know was broken till they told you. Why am I here if it's broken?

Are you the rambunctious jock that is just sitting in a desk? Are you the artist full of inspiration having to do another timed 1 mile run/walk? Are you a 90 pound intellectual that just got shoved onto the football team? Are you a complete bad ass that has to hold back all the time? Do you just want to sleep in for a day? 

We talk about this with kids, and how "the system" doesn't honor who they are. Are you honoring who you are? Because when you do, you'll find that all these other parts of you show up and feel seen too. When you take a sec to honor the parts of yourself you've left behind, you become open to new things.I remember the first time a teacher saw how insane my life was. It was right after she had a cop take me out of class and into a little room, because she was certain I was a drug addict. I wasn't, and we actually talked that day. That class turned from nap time, to being one of my faves. I'll never forget Ms. Ritchie, a crazy far right republican that doesn't like my kind, but we connected, she's rad, she even took me to the senate. Politics has a way of amplifying high school stereotypes, she laughed as I basically mocked her colleagues, and supported my right to disrespect authority. 

When are you shy? When are you confident? I found that when I was able to create and experiment, I loved math and history. Heck, I absolutely despised PE and anything dealing with sports. Yet now, I am a professional athlete. It's all the container that it's wrapped in. Through journaling, movement, and meditation, I connected the wise janitor, to the nerd, to the bad ass. In my school there is no football team and definitely not soccer. I'm more of a FAME type of arts school or maybe Space Camp. 

Through consistent practice of writing, training, and competing with who I am now, to help that person get a little better, more creative, and more expressive. I came to realize that, personally, I have a hard time with competing for glory. I like to compete to learn stuff and test myself, but honestly, I feel worse if I win, because that meant I had to beat someone. 

So this is why The Yama System, The Journal Journey, the mindfulness, and the Video On Demand (2 weeks free yo!) is moving in the direction it's moving. 

I get it, we all want to have our abs out distracting the chump sitting across from us at the chess table. But, is that for your fear wolf? Or is your love wolf really into abs chess? 

Just like school. You go to learn the fundamentals, that's easy. You have to dig, experiment, and try to integrate the work into your voice and your life, that's art. 

Matt