Podcast: COVID-19 A Society Changing Moment

 

PODCAST: The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated our country into a heightened level of awareness. We start with our families and we start in our homes. Dr. Alex Jimenez, chiropractor in El Paso, TX, and Dr. Mario Ruja, chiropractor in El Paso, TX, discuss their perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic as healthcare professionals. Following the CDC’s guidelines, including staying at home, and washing your hands, has been recommended to help control the COVID-19 pandemic, among other CDC guidelines. Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja continue to discuss the changes that the world is going through as countries learn to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and other modern circumstances. – Podcast Insight

 

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[00:00:07] And what we’re going to be discussing today is the issues of how this coronavirus is affecting us. Mario, I know you just came in here right now and what we were trying to figure out is the angle that people are noticing this thing happening on. And we’re getting bombarded by a lot of issues. Now, you’re a business owner, right? So you’ve owned a business for how long Mario?

 

[00:00:31] You know what, I guess? Twenty plus years.

 

[00:00:36] Yeah, and I’d venture to say that I’ve done it for about 30 years. You know what? We are being presented today with one of the craziest dynamics that has ever hit our country and particularly our world. This is like almost like a movie, War of the Worlds situation, where we actually see mankind adapting in a way. But you know what? We see our government coming in and discussing particular issues about how to protect the small business. I heard today that they’re protecting the 500 less employees companies and they’re offering benefits for that. But we also have issues of families at home and how to deal with that. Now, I know you’ve done a lot of work in spirituality in homes and understanding the dynamics of being at home and the dramas of being at home. So you can almost, I can see in Facebook a lot of drama that is occurring as a result of being at home. And those effects ripple through the communities as we’re not used to being at home for up to three weeks now. We started at a level of first, two weeks, one week or an extension of a week for schools. Now we got two weeks. Now we’re even hearing April 6 even further in to or even at the shutting off the school year for some students. How do you suggest people kind of look at this and approach this new dynamics with all the things that are happening because it’s affecting companies. I mean, you’re a business owner. It’s going to affect you. It’s going to affect us. We certainly don’t want people working when they’re sick. But how does it affect you and your particular practice Mario?

 

[00:02:11] My world. Alex is like everyone else. Throughout.

 

[00:02:21] Gosh, I mean, this is like a very, very pressing conversation. The one thing I can tell you is…

 

[00:02:32] Any time…

 

[00:02:34] There is a state of alert to the point where…

 

[00:02:41] Nationwide, worldwide, it starts to impact. Normal. Life, family function, work function. It starts to have some really. Hard. Dynamics that everyone is not used to dealing with, understanding, and working through. So this is not a conversation that…

 

[00:03:15] We are prepared to deal with and prepared to do our very best. Just like in sports, you know this very well.

 

[00:03:28] When you are prepared for high stress, high impact, high performance. You have to have your 10,000 hours put in to be ready for that event, for that rigorous competitive mode. So you don’t breakdown. Now, what’s happening here, Alex? For all of us, this is a conversation that none of us have been primed and prepared and mindfully…

 

[00:04:06] Really?

 

[00:04:08] Thought about to any extent. All the way from healthcare professionals to…

 

[00:04:17] Teachers to business owners and…

 

[00:04:22] And employees.

 

[00:04:24] This is not something. I mean, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re even like a fire drill, you know, something that occurs in many places, Alex. A fire drill. At least you go through a fire drill, you know, at least you go through it. You evacuate. Where’s the exits? Where is this? So at least you do it maybe once a year. I don’t know, maybe twice a year. I’m not sure what it is. All of us are prepared for that. We’re prepared to evacuate. We have a plan. You have your map. You know exactly to go to the door closest to your office. And then there is an evacuation…

 

[00:05:07] System that everyone talks about. And there’s an emergency system.

 

[00:05:14] You call 9-1-1 and there’s a protocol just like, you know, there’s a protocol for, you know, an emergency, whether it’s, you know, someone that has a heart attack or someone who stopped breathing. There’s a protocol and you actually get licensed for those things. You prepare for those things. And you practice them on again, on a model. And you do your breath exercises and you say, okay, one, two, three, breath, push. So now what’s happening with all of us? This is a conversation where I will venture to say people talked about like maybe 20 years ago and I’ve listened to different podcasts and different things on YouTube, like, well, you know, this doctor talked about this pandemic, you know, 20 years ago and 10 years ago and five years ago. And it’s like, oh, yeah, whatever, you know, heard about it. He’s fanatical or he’s extreme and, you know, putting fear. Now all of a sudden, Alex, it’s here. Yeah. And a conversation that we have is, OK. It’s spring break, but it’s a little longer than spring break. Yeah, this ain’t spring break. This is a long break. This is a break. Not only from school, but now we’re talking about work. Now we’re talking about, you know, staying at home. So this is a different, different animal. This is a different environment that we as human beings, we as citizens, as family members, we are not mindfully trained for this. So some of us overreact. OK. You have those who overreact like they’re walking around with wet wipes and Clorox wipes and, you know, spray bottles, Lysol bottles in their hands. OK, you have those that are very diligent, very you know, they’re taking this serious and they don’t want to shake your hand and they don’t want to even look at you, as a matter of fact, they wave at you or whatever it is. And again, I’m not making fun of any of that. But we need to be mindful that you have those people in that state of mind that are not just precautions, but they’re very diligent and very…

 

[00:07:41] Very afraid. I mean, they’re very afraid.

 

[00:07:44] So you have that group and then you have the other group on the other side of the spectrum that says this is a bunch of bull. I mean, you know, it’s another flu and it’s not a big deal. Just wash your hands and, you know, don’t cough on people and all of that stuff. OK. So you got both sides. And then there’s a group in the middle. And that’s where we stand. Now, when the officials, when the government, city, county, and federal government all of a sudden says, hold on. We don’t want you to go to school. Now, it’s not really a decision that you make on your own. Someone makes this decision for you.

 

[00:08:35] All of a sudden it escalates this type of fear or this type of situation to another level. Then all of a sudden, you see events like the, you know, NBA. We’re not gonna have fans in the stands to watch it. Concerts. I know one of the biggest concerts in Texas. I think it’s the Austin Music Festival or Austin Music, you know, festival. It’s for a whole week. Facebook, I believe I may be wrong, but that’s what I heard. Totally pulled out the sponsorship and the whole concert shut down. So this is something that like, hold on. We’re talking about sporting events. We’re talking about… this weekend I was invited over to Phoenix, a couple of months ago, to participate in the spring training for the MLB.

 

[00:09:37] Guess what, Alex? It shut down. So you’ve got sporting events shut down. You’ve got schools shut down. You have concerts shut down, all of March Madness. There’s no March Madness. It’s March sadness. You know, again, this month, the month of March is the biggest college basketball event. This is a whole month, event of the year. So this is the biggest one of the year. So what happens is that in this event, this is where teams, colleges go head to head to, where there are only two teams standing. There are only two teams standing. So this is awesome. Well, guess what? There is no March Madness. So now colleges don’t go on TV. The ratings are different. All of a sudden, the sponsors are down. So there’s a cascade, there’s a domino effect Alex, that is not just mindful, not just, you know, self-preservation, but it’s a social patterning that creates a inner chaos. And this is where financially…

 

[00:10:56] Work environment, family, and personal is all inclusive. And I venture to say most of the people are not used to being at home with their kids this long. OK, most people are not used to preparing. Now, we prepare for… OK, I believe in El Paso we had five years ago, we had the freeze and all the sudden for let’s say three days, we didn’t have water or, you know, or we didn’t have electricity maybe for a day. And people just went crazy. I mean, they just went, hold on. This is horrible. Well, guess what? That’s nothing. And I remember floods. I mean, you’re talking about Dallas. We’re talking about, you know, Katrina, Maria and all of those. Well, guess what?

 

[00:11:47] That.

 

[00:11:50] Event is only a week. It’s not a month. It’s not two months. It’s not three months. And those events, catastrophic hurricanes are to the point where you can go to safer ground so you can leave the town.

 

[00:12:09] You don’t have to stay there, obviously.

 

[00:12:11] You know, just like in, you know, most of Houston and you had Louisiana and New Orleans and Florida. You know, you’re from Florida.  And I grew up in Georgia. I went to school there. You evacuate, you evacuate to another town. So you pack up and get your gas and you move on.

 

[00:12:32] Okay. Got it. This is different. You’re not evacuating anywhere. You’re staying where you are. Stay in the house. And guess what? There is no toilet paper. And guess what? You’re going to Wal-Mart and it is clean. Yeah. And so it’s a different dynamics with that.

 

[00:12:53] One of the things that we did was that we’ve been experiencing a progression of anxiety.

 

[00:13:00] I think. The progression by that I mean is that it first started as a kind of a rumor. OK, we saw it traveling through China as it propagates. We’ve seen the impact. I got to tell you, I’m very proud of our local community leaders. We got our mayors, we got our senators, we got our House of Representatives people here. Actually, they’re front pretty good and they’re front really clear. You can read the body language, the confusion, sometimes even the medical directors of the local area. I don’t think they have it right. Actually, I think that they were a little bit open on their options. The options of going to restaurants, the options of going to places. In my family, I’d be very, very clear that to avoid and I’m not in the large majority, I mean, a majority of people that I can see that when you see the senator as she was speaking, she was very clear. No, no, you don’t have to go there. If you don’t have to go, don’t go. Some of these restaurants, sometimes they’re contained and sometimes the bars are actually well, they’re closed. And the heat and the body and the dancing and the loud speaking does bode for a certain type of environment and not to cause any sort of drama. But the reality is that the less we can expose ourselves to this kind of situation, even if it is a 2 percent fatality that they got it at right now, the information is very important to learn from our people. And we’ve seen that the progression started first with large areas, venues such as big concerts and big, you know, competitions like March Madness. And then the thing became literally logarithmically in reverse. So there you have 5,000 people together. So they stop those and they start, you know, big gatherings like football games, that’s 50,000 or baseball games or big NHL. That’s the 50,000, the 30,000 on the order of logs log. So, you know, drop that down by 10 and top to 5,000 a little. It actually started to 500. Now you hear rumors of individuals or people in our government limiting the amount of space to less than 50 together. Right. So it’s going down fast. But you can also see the confusion because we get information from outside sources such as CNN, which are magnificent. But you do in today’s world we do get information such as things that are happening in Italy and the drastic effect of making decisions on those that are older over the 80. They’re not able to, you know, medical providers have to make decisions. So the chaos is because of the confusion. The fear is because it’s unclear. Today, we haven’t hit that area of confusion, but we have to depend on our leaders in our local community to guide us. And that becomes a very important thing. You’ve seen that in the past. And what I got to tell you, it’s amazing to watch the ratcheting up of this. And almost every time you go a couple of hours later, the whole design is different. So the thing about it is as a family unit, we’re sitting inside our homes and we now have our children. Some of us have teenagers that don’t want to kind of be limited in this way. And for the first time in the history of their lives, they have to be contained inside of a house. So you’ve mentioned, you wanted to mention something on that. Go ahead. Right.

 

[00:16:28] And this is a point where I would like to share with our listeners and viewers a concept where you utilize the worst of times to create the best of times. OK. So this is what I called a reset button. Alex, this is a reset. You know, in nature, it resets, in life it resets. In many areas of business. It resets, you know, sometimes called bankruptcy, sometimes called, you know, a catastrophic event to reset to be more mindful, to be more thankful, to be more gracious. So in a way, I would recommend that all of us become more mindful, prayerful, spiritual in this time, instead of becoming more fearful, increasing our anxiety and end this frenzy. So why don’t we look at it another way? Why don’t we see this as a plus value, as a blessing, as I’d like to tell people, you know, the worst of times maybe your blessings. The definition of a blessing is how you look at the event and interpret it through your own mind. What story do you want to tell yourself of that event? So I can say this is the worst of my life. And this is horrible. And you know what? It really traumatized me. And during this time, I made some really horrible decisions where, you know. You know, I can’t go back on or you can say, you know, this is a very impactful time in my life, Alex. And this is where I took the opportunity to self evaluate, to meditate, to pray. To have that time that I didn’t have before because I was working every day because I was dropping off kids, picking them up, dropping them off. So I felt like a Uber program where I didn’t even think about what I was doing, saying. Now, all the sudden, life creates that timeframe. We say, you know what? Now you’re gonna sit in front of your 16 year old and talk to them.

 

[00:18:52] Yeah. You know, he’s avoiding you. You’re avoiding him. And guess what? You can’t go nowhere, baby. Right. Yeah. You’re there and you’re gonna engage. So now here it is.

 

[00:19:04] You know what? Here it is. So we’ve got our famous, you know, cell phones and, you know, all of the paraphernalia of instrumentation.

 

[00:19:16] This is a moment to reset our relationships. This is a moment where husbands and wives can come together. You can pray together if that’s what your faith is. You can meditate together. You can just spend time together. Yeah, you can just be there. Just be there. Instead of going through the motions instead of talking at each other and through each other and missing each other. Why don’t you take this opportunity to listen to each other, give each person an opportunity to share their dreams, their visions, you know, those things that we took for granted, Alex. And so this, I would say, is a huge blessing. And that’s where I would like to really switch that. I would like to turn the page on this coronavirus. You know, fear and doom and, you know, you’re locked up. No, no, no. This is a huge blessing for all of us where we can come together as a family unit. First of all, family unit, because that’s where communities are formed. Nations are not created out of single events. They’re out of family units. So this is where the husbands and wives can come together or partners. This is where the children can start playing board games, can start talking. You know, I encourage families to, you know, have talent night.

 

[00:20:48] You know, I’d encourage people. Oh, wow. This is my wife right here. There you go, mama. Yeah. So this is. Yeah. Mama is calling right now during my podcast. You’re live, honey. So, can you hear me?

 

[00:21:09] Oh no. She doesn’t wanna be alive. How about that family? Hey, we’re talking about family. Karen, come on. You can jump in on this. Oh, geez. We almost had someone extra. Yeah. You know what, Mario? The point that you’re saying is… I mean, does that make sense? Well, let me tell you a little bit about my story. My daughter. You know what?

 

[00:21:33] She is a very social creature. And for the first time, she’s had to learn how to dig in and have a good time. And I got to tell you, I think we’re not unique to society. These new rules that are being placed upon us are there for us, to save us to prevent any issues. But as you indicated, the opportunity to sit and talk to each other, to be able to really, really beyond. Okay, I’m done. I got to go because work is in the way. Oh, I got to go because we’ve got to do this and that. For the first time, we’re actually sitting in front of each other and we ain’t getting in the way. So now we have the opportunity to up the ante on the conversation, on the things that you wanted to if you had a dream. A lot of people want to read a book or two books.

 

[00:22:18] Now they’re going to be offered at least three weeks. You can go to a library. Do you know what that is? Hey, hey, hold on, Alex. I don’t know if I want to go to a library. I got books at home. Yeah. Okay.

 

[00:22:30] We’ve got our E-books. Yeah.

 

[00:22:35] But this is the wonderful opportunity. So why don’t we create this healing impact and why don’t we look, observe, redirect, and redefine this time in our lives to where instead of saying this is the worst of times, why don’t we say this is the best of times, Alex.

 

[00:22:59] So spiritually we have to start to really manifest that spiritually and spirit by its nature is internal. It’s not external. You know, we’re not gonna go out and find spiritual. We have to go deep within ourselves. We have to like be silent, be quiet, you know, shut up sometimes and quit talking.

 

[00:23:22] And this is where this time is such a critical time.

 

[00:23:29] This is a very opportune time for ourselves, personal, and then our relationship with our significant other, husband, wife, partner. All in congruence. He decreed that congruency and to stop this running around. See, we talked about this and maybe we should talk about it more, Alex. This running around, this busyness, this busyness of life creates a chaos of non-appreciation or the gratitude level. Our gratitude is on empty Alex. You know, our gratitude is really nondefined.

 

[00:24:13] So can I add something in terms of the important things to life? It’s real easy to find out what’s important. If God said, hey, you know what, tomorrow’s your time at 3:00 p.m., you’re done. Done. You’re done. Yeah. He says you’re done. What’re you going to do? Most of us. We go and we call all those we love. Right. And we tell them how much we love them. Right.

 

[00:24:39] Exactly. How much we appreciate them. We lay it down. We make sure in the depths of our minds that we can communicate what it is that we feel that was misunderstood. And we got some time because God’s going to pick me up at three o’clock tomorrow. So I’m not gonna sleep tonight, but I’m going to call those that I righted or I wronged for that matter. And I left. And I’m gonna work hard to make sure I write it before I go. And I’m going to make sure I tell people how I feel about them with gratitude. As you said, an appreciation. So if I’d venture to say that most of us would not be interested in a car payment or in a bill or in a car or in a watch. We’d be interested in a relationship. So as we develop this time, this is a great opportunity to almost have like a dry run, a war game of relationships and a sense of let’s go deeper into our relationship. Take the opportunity. You know, an opportunity is a great word for it, because opportunities is almost like an object. It has a physical handlebar. It has a name. What is this opportunity? It could be my daughter? Right. And the opportunity has a timeline, has a beginning time and an end time. It has a stage at which it goes as the third thing and at the very end it has a value. So whether it’s opportunity, look at, you know, you meet it or your wife and it’s an opportunity at a window to tell her you love her. Right. And it’s a stage that it progresses through. It has a value in life. And it also has a cost. It’s your life. Right. So these opportunities that are small, they’re they’re broken up into this three week window. Right. It has a beginning. It has an end. It has a stage that seems to be changing every couple of CNN’s later or only when the president speaks and it has a value, this value, so that at three o’clock when we check out, you know, or at three weeks, so to speak, we have the opportunity to discuss how we feel about that individual and not lose that opportunity, because it really matters. If we already know by nature what we would do, then take this window of time and ask ourselves, most of us to say, if I only had another day, I want to rest another day so I can tell my wife or when you have that conversation that silent dead and then you now have the opportunity, look at someone across the living room and say, you know what, I got something to say. And if you hit it with appreciation, kindness, love, and you open your heart, it will be taken properly. It’s almost like a baptism of beginning for us in the society. Right? A new beginning. And if we already know what it is and we know that relationships are what matter, well, then let’s take the opportunity now to nourish our relationships.

 

[00:27:32] Don’t you agree? Absolutely, yeah. A hundred and ten percent, Alex. And I would like to motivate people to take this opportunity. Empower people to take this opportunity. Inspire people to take this opportunity instead of fear. To build faith instead of lack. To build abundance instead of worrying…

 

[00:28:04] To focus on the hope that they have within them already, that is not dependent on any other factor except their own belief.

 

[00:28:16] Their own…

 

[00:28:18] Hope, their vision, and their own actions. So these are the actions that I see could be amplified and optimized during this time. Number one, forgiveness.

 

[00:28:32] You know, again, we need to. Yeah. I said you need to because it’s good medicine. Because when you forgive people…

 

[00:28:42] Guess what happens to your immune system, Alex? It goes up. We’re doctors. It goes up, meditation, it goes up.

 

[00:28:48] You know, Mario you said you need to. Why do I need to? Yeah, we need to…

 

[00:28:53] Yeah, we need to. Because we want to be healthy. We want to be happy. And we deserve that. So this is where when we have this opportunity to say, guess what? You’re gonna be in that house for a week, two weeks.

 

[00:29:08] Mm-hmm. This is your opportunity. Now I can create more chaos. Or I can take this opportunity to create more order, I can create more disconnect, or I can create more connection and bonding. So this is a choice. Again, everything starts with a choice. Everything starts with a belief and everything starts with a vision. So let’s inspire each other to create a vision of growth, of renewal, of rebirth, and manifestation of. Gratitude.

 

[00:29:44] Forgiveness. If you have someone to forgive. This is a time to do it. This is the time to do it. If you have missed somebody, you miss somebody, then stop missing them, and look at him in the eye and say, you know what? Hey, I want to, you know what? I want to spend time with you. I wanna listen to you. Because for all these years, I’ve been talking and talking and telling you what to do and telling you what to do. Guess what?

 

[00:30:09] What do you believe in? What are your dreams? What are your hopes? What are your fears? I want to listen to you and empower you and nurture you. This is a nurturing opportunity, Alex. And beyond that, I see this as an opportunity for our families to come together, for our communities to come together, for our nation and world to come together. So let us not miss this opportunity. Let us not get confused and be reactive. Let’s be proactive, proactive in this state, be purpose driven, purpose minded, and create the outcome that we want. So there’s a statement that resonates within me and that I always say become. Become the change you want to see. Become the change you want to see. And you go. Well, I can’t find a cure for this. But you know what you can do? Why don’t you find a cure for your own self? You know, why don’t you find a cure for that relationship within your own family. Why don’t you do that and start with that? Because now you have no excuse. Now you’re not too busy because everybody loves to be busy working and providing for everybody. Everybody’s gonna be sitting, looking at people for three weeks. Yes.

 

[00:31:28] This is the time to actually open up that heart of yours with the people that you have to spend time with. And some of us. We might be alone, but pick up the phone and call people and talk to them. Because in all reality, the things that create a better immunity is actually peace.

 

[00:31:45] Meditation takes some time. The ability to tell someone how much you feel it really, really to this day, we already know that it empowers the immune system. So it allows us to rest, to bring quiet to our souls. This is very important to us. And as you and I know, we have lived our own, you know, traumas in life, our own difficult times. And we’ve maybe kind of come across the wrong way at times, even to our own kids. If we just start with our families and just pick up the phone or just talk to your wife and say, you know what? Let’s open, a little bit, with open heart, with gratitude. Gotta do that. Just take the opportunity, because actually these three weeks will not be in vain or two weeks or however they call.

 

[00:32:34] However, it works out. It’s a moment in time that will be remembered, because I remember when we saw things like O.J. Simpson. Many of us remember when Kennedy was shot. We remember when the towers were affected. We’ll remember this forever. We’ll remember the weeks that we spent sitting there trying to figure out what can we do, what can we talk about, if we base it on relationships, Mario? We’re gonna be going far. I mean, I enjoy, for example, you and I, and we sit here and talk and we discuss, literally we should record what we don’t record because that would actually let you have a window into what we really feel about life. Sadly, the camera can’t follow us everywhere, but we have our own little cameras in our own homes and we only have our thoughts because you get to sleep a little bit more maybe in these times. The government’s making sure that they’re doing their part. I feel very proud to be an American because our government from our president, no matter what your position is, you can see the leaders coming together to help us and support us during this period.

 

[00:33:41] But they’re not talking about something. They’re not talking about what we should say in our homes or how to fix our relationships. A lot of them say meditation or eat the right foods. But this is human soul food. Right. And I think that’s important to discuss that, because though it may not be obvious, I can bet that our kids and we know who the relationship is that we need to amend. We all do. We all have them. And we should pick up the phone and use this opportunity to fix it and say that during that prayer time, I fixed it, I fixed with my uncle, I fixed it with my aunt.

 

[00:34:14] I fixed it with my brother, with my teacher, my preacher, whoever it was fourth. It’s a special time and we cannot let this period of time. And I think what you and I are trying to do is to say, wake up, wake up and say something, wake up and build on that relationship. Use it in a positive way, because as people who really care about people and we deal with individuals on a different level, whether it’s physical or mental, emotional, we’re physicians and what we do is we look for how we can better people and sometimes what our goal here in this in this dynamics is to look at what other people aren’t saying. So we can kind of carve out a new option, a new idea.

 

[00:34:58] This is…

 

[00:35:01] What the conversation tonight is all about.

 

[00:35:05] The conversation tonight is not what everyone else is saying. Alex.

 

[00:35:12] The conversation tonight. It’s what is not being said. Yeah. Okay. The conversation tonight is not about fear. It’s not about buy five hundred rolls of toilet paper. It’s not about lock yourself in with a case of Clorox wipes. It’s not about that conversation. The conversation tonight, Alex coming from. From myself and yourself. And this portal. This podcast. This portal of energy is that we are servants and we need to serve at the highest level. And we need to bring forth the message that’s not said that actually creates a higher impact of healing than what is being said. Now, again, we need to be mindful and respectful. Yes, there are certain things that we need to do. Thank you. That’s great.

 

[00:36:10] But why don’t we create that that ecosystem that provides hope and specific direction and that direction needs to be placed in such a way where our children don’t become fearful, where we don’t create more anxiety than necessary, where we don’t create more fear the necessary, where we don’t create more distrust than necessary. Why don’t we all take this opportunity to be kinder to each other? First of all, to our own self, you know, and yes, we are servants and those people who take care of everyone else. We are the ones who miss our own self. Alex, we miss our own self because we’re so busy giving and giving that we don’t have that time for ourselves. And you know that. And I know that I’m being transparent, vulnerable and translucent. This is what we’re talking about. We are the ones, the health care, the servants out there, whether it’s police officers, whether it’s firefighters, everyone else who does not sleep, when everyone else is, who is running in when everyone else is running out, who is there when everyone else is in a state of shock. They’re the ones who bring order. Those are the ones. Those are their families that now I encourage and I pray for and visualize. This is the time for us to come together. First of all, within our inner self, to pray, meditate, be mindful and…

 

[00:37:51] And really be introspective. Yeah, and this is where now we shift this from a negative into an opportunity to grow. An opportunity for us to be thankful.

 

[00:38:08] And I know it’s hard. I don’t want to get the wrong message. Now, we’re not being thankful for people being sick. We’re not doing that. Listen to me. We’re not doing that. What I’m saying is we need to create the story in our book that we can be proud of because we can easily take whatever is going on in our life and write the story that is the most traumatic, most violent, more destructive and that we will never grow out of. So this is a very, very strong topic, Alex, because a lot of us will have this opportunity, to say, now I need to rise up. I need to level up to my greatness because a lot of us have been stuck in this old, old conversation living in the past. Well, you know, I never had this opportunity to do this to my kids or, you know, I’ve been traumatized for one reason or another. Now we have an opportunity to stop. Call a time out to reset and say, hold on. Do you want to continue that story or do you want to build a new story and rewrite it and write that new script for our children, especially. Our society at this time. And we know this, but again, is the elephant in the room? Alex, it’s a huge, huge elephant. Huge right now. The time. More and more of our young children are, you know. And this is the paradox. We sacrifice for them. You know, hat parent have you heard say this? I’m doing this for my children. How many of them? How many of them? All of them. All of them. Right. I’m doing this for my children. But then somehow I’m doing this for my children. But we’re losing our children. We’re losing our children. Why? Because they are disconnected. They’re more disconnected than ever before. We’re not eating breakfast together. We’re not eating lunch together. We’re not eating dinner together. We’re eating in the car. We’re doing drive-bys. Oh, sorry. Drive-thrus, OK. I mean, we’re doing this. Guess what’s happening? We’re going to more tournaments than ever before. And guess what? All these tournaments are not bringing us closer together. They are separating us because now we’re dealing with what? Competition, performance. You need to work harder. You need to win, you know, try, be more aggressive. You know, all of this, the parents on the sidelines are like pit bulls. They’re yelling, you know, half of them are battling each other. Yeah. You know, in the parking lot. I mean, forget the wrestling match on the mat. Baby, I want to watch the match in the parking lot. I think that’s more exciting. So what happens is we need to just put a stop to that and say, look, it’s not about your tournament. It’s about our relationship. It’s not about how many wins you’ve got right now. It’s how many wins. I am already. Yeah. Yes. And this is where the disconnect has been happening for many, many years. I mean, now kids are starting to perform at three years old and four years old. I mean, they have private coaches and trainers at 6 years of age.

 

[00:41:24] I mean, this is, you know, like K-1, you chose a subject matter, which I’d venture to say that spring break is under a lot of, for all of us. It’s a time to disconnect and a time to relax for those as you’ve indicated.

 

[00:41:43] We’ve seen that teams and coaches, the level of competition is high, but there’s very rarely a time to heal. It’s not enough time. This is a great opportunity. When in the history of man.

 

[00:41:58] Yes. Have they stopped all sports? All these girls that are having knee pain, joint pain, back pain, all they needed was rest, you know.

 

[00:42:09] And this is a great time as the body knows, the body knows, the body knows that the downtime is the opportunity. As a matter of fact, that’s the design. We’re diurnal, biurnal rhythm creatures that we need a system of time. I don’t care who you are or what kind of creature you are or what kind of planetary system you come from. All things that exist and live need time off. Plants don’t grow all year long? Oh, everybody knows that. There’s a time in the season for that. This is the time in the season that actually was imposed in a very odd way. Or we can take the opportunity to rest our bodies, to rest our minds, to read those books, to nourish our spirits, so to speak.

 

[00:42:52] And listen to this here. I want to throw OK, we got tournaments. Usually, tournaments Alex, happen where? During breaks, during holidays. Right, now the other aspect about spring break is what? You’re missing this, Alex. You’re missing it.

 

[00:43:07] You remember Fort Lauderdale, baby. Come on. What happened during spring break? Yeah. That’s right. Daytona Beach, baby. You know what happens there?

 

[00:43:20] It is party time. It is called drink and drown.

 

[00:43:24] It’s called cochinadas. Yeah, that’s OK. All right.

 

[00:43:28] Yeah, we’re throwing. So this is where. Oh, you thought we didn’t handle this one. Oh, you thought we’d just talk about prayer. Oh, we’re not gonna. Mario because we’re. OK. All right. We’re going to keep it real. Is that all right? But the point is…

 

[00:43:44] This is the point, that’s destructive. This is destructive. So this is where I know instead of coming together, this is where many, many kids end up not remembering the weekend. Or the week. And this is where a lot of the kids end up not coming back the same way they left. Okay. You know, so let’s really put it, you know, again, our shows about being real. Real. Yeah, this is real, Mario.

 

[00:44:12] You know what? We’ve seen some things happen. The Rock. You know, you’ve heard of him. He lost his father recently. Right. To digress a little bit. What he said after his father passed away, it was always unexpected. He wished he could just tell him things. Tell him how much he loved him, how much he cared.

 

[00:44:30] This is a great opportunity to take the moment to tell the people. And I keep on hammering it because it’s so important. Hammer it. Hammer it. Yes. And, you know, like you said, you’ve got to, you’ve got to, you’re got to get the guts and say, you know what, son, daughter, sit down, sit down. First of all, I got to tell you how I really feel. Now, do it with an open heart, first of all. Yes. You know, don’t do it with this and exceptions. Just do it. Lay it there, you know, and the healing that’s gonna come from that. Have you ever won something or got a great grade on something? You just feel like a million bucks. Your immune system, your T cells, your lymphocytes, your thymus, your whole body. Humoral. Your normal antibody system just rises up. You can’t lose when you win something.

 

[00:45:18] It’s a win-win. Yeah. And I will say this, Alex. And I’m gonna use this model. And I know it’s gonna hit home to a lot of people.

 

[00:45:28] When you hold in grudges, when you hold in that envy, when you hold in that that pain against someone else or an event that happened in your past.

 

[00:45:42] Yes. This is what happens to your immune system. This is what happens to your dopamine. Serotonin. This is what happens to your whole being in spirit.

 

[00:45:54] You can hate someone, you can dislike them for whatever reason, whatever reason, and you want to just hold onto that and you want to amplify the pain and you want to amplify the damage and everything else. But I will say this to everyone, the one who is going to suffer most. The one who is going to be damaged most is the person that holds on to that feeling, Alex. The person who holds on to that story that they don’t want to let go. And a lot of people don’t want to let go of that story because they find comfort in being a victim or they find comfort in that event because, oh, look what happened to me. Oh, or they find excuses for what they didn’t do. Because it’s easier to blame someone else. So this is getting a little deeper right now. So we’re going down. We’re talking about sports now it’s getting a little deeper. What happens is this when you get down to that soul level, when you get down to me, myself and I.

 

[00:46:58] If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me. You’re right. You are exactly right. You know, there is a little, quote, that I sent out and it was from a Chinese Zen Buddhist quote.

 

[00:47:14] And he says, if you blame someone else for your unhappiness. You’re far away from peace. If you blame yourself for your unhappiness. And your failures. You’re halfway there. But if you blame no one for your unhappiness and failures.

 

[00:47:48] You’re there, you’re there. We need to be there. We need to really be real. We need to be real and say, you know what?

 

[00:47:59] I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming myself. You know what? It was an event that failed. It was a relationship that failed. But I’m not a failure and you’re not a failure. Maybe we’re together. Maybe we’re apart. Maybe there’s hope. But one thing is this. We need to let go. Let God. We need to let go of that mental thought, that story that we tell ourselves, because the person who is going to get destroyed the most is the person who repeats the story and the belief within their own minds. Alex. Yes. And this is deep.

 

[00:48:37] Well, I totally understand what you’re saying in that process and all the issues that we’re dealing with in our personal lives. I think we have to. I look at it and this is how I look at pretty much a lot of my goals.

 

[00:48:54] You know, sometimes you have to figure out you can’t give yourself a way out. See if you give yourself a way out. If you tell people what you’re going to do, sometimes you find that it doesn’t happen. But here’s the way that I would do it. And sometimes it works. And for some people, but it doesn’t have to be firm. But this gives you an idea. Back myself up against the wall and they’re against the wall. My back is up against a hard surface. From that moment on, I have to go where? Forward. So I backed myself against an issue and I got to talk to my kid. So I backed myself against the wall and I say, OK, from here I have no option. I can no longer back up. I have to go forward for that person you have to call, you make yourself do it. And the challenge of this special time is to make yourself do things that, like you said, you have to, because now that we know that this opportunity is here. It really is. Now we’ve converted. Now this period of time into an opportunity and a window of time that it will certainly end and will pass. And a blessing and a blessing. We will know something. Therefore, what we know, you and I speak about, it’s to know something and not to do it is not yet to know it. So now in order to do it, we got to act it and we got to fulfill it. So for all of us that are going through this night, new dynamic change around the country. I got to tell you, it is now, as I see it from when you have mentioned and I’ve been able to think about things as you’ve been able to talk about it. And I appreciate it, Mario. But it also allows me to know that I gotta go home. And I got to tell my family or the people that I need to how I feel. Right? And try to open it to another level and take this opportunity to lay it with great gratitude, with love and appreciation. Because I have to. I have to do it. And whether it’s it’s something we all have those moments and times. Let’s not let this opportunity go by without having become better from it.

 

[00:50:53] Right. And that becoming better, Alex, is where we take self-responsibility for our own happiness, self-responsibility for our own actions, and self-responsibility for our own outcomes. And this is a wonderful, wonderful time. We’re where we can disconnect from all of these other factors, work or busyness, sports, all of these things.

 

[00:51:19] We can disconnect from that and look at our own inner self and say, you know what, let me be real. Let’s not label. Let’s not just have this little bland conversation and say, oh, this is who I am. No, that’s not who you are. That’s who you’ve been telling yourself you were. And then all of a sudden you’re believing in that or someone else has been telling you who you are. That’s not who you are, who you are is beyond what someone tells you you are, is beyond what you have told yourself yesterday or an hour ago or 10 years who you are. You’re more than that. Why? Because we are dynamic miracles. If you look at our DNA RNA, if you look at all the intricacies of 50 trillion cells working together to create the harmonics, to create an ecosystem of thought, of belief, of fear, of greatness, of, you know, dynamics of creating, innovating.

 

[00:52:24] This is where we do not have limits. This time of the coronavirus is an opportunity of no limits.

 

[00:52:35] This is an opportunity where each individual can have that time. And I know we’re going to feel very uncomfortable, Alex. I’m telling you right now, especially those type A personalities who are drivers, we want to just do it.

 

[00:52:49] Go, go, go. We want to direct everyone. And you know basically tell everyone what to do, we’re delegating.

 

[00:52:59] And we’re doing all that. This is very difficult for us. For myself, this is a time for me. And I know you’re a driver. OK. You’re not passive like, oh, well, let the games come to me. No, you make the game. I make the game. And so this is a critical time for those of us who call ourselves type A plus personalities to say something simple.

 

[00:53:24] I can develop more than just that. I can develop my soft skills. I can develop my listening skills. I can develop my empathy skills. I can develop my parenting skills where I don’t have to be a driver. Maybe, just maybe I can be a listener. Maybe I can just be a support system and let someone else be a driver. That is something that is unbelievable. And for those people who have labeled themselves as well, I’m an introvert and you know, I’m passive and I’m this. Why don’t you find the other side of you during this time to say, let me develop my extrovert side.

 

[00:54:12] Let me develop my side where I can take initiative and do something.

 

[00:54:19] For those of us who have missed a lot of life opportunities of breakfast, of lunch and of dinner, and I know I keep harboring on that. And people look at me like, oh, yeah. Here you go again. Talking about, you know, eating. Well, let me say this.

 

[00:54:36] Let me say this. And I’m gonna say it a million times, a family that eats together, stays together, a family that eats and prays together creates a legacy.

 

[00:54:53] This is the real deal. You don’t need an Ipad for that. You don’t need a eight figure income for that. You don’t need to be a billionaire for that. I don’t care if you have red beans and rice, baby. I don’t care if you have a bucket of chicken. I remember when my parents, once a month, we used to have a bucket of chicken from KFC. And I tell you, man, I thought it was my birthday once a month, Alex. But I’m gonna tell you right now, we ate it together. And during that time we were together, we shared thoughts.

 

[00:55:26] We looked each other in the eye. And we realized that we’re blessed. This is the time where it’s not about the coronavirus. This is the time where it is about our enlightment, our manifestation of greatness, of human love, and human unlimited believes to create.

 

[00:55:52] Now.

 

[00:55:56] Well, I think you’ve put it in good point, Mario. I think that’s good. I think that what we have to do is we have to take the information that we’ve got here. Mario, because you’ve laid down quite a bit of information and you really make us think because this is what it matters. And, you know, we ultimately really appreciate being real. You know, we have to turn off the TV just for a few moments. I know this has affected you. And it certainly does. It is now. And there’s one thing I can tell you is that your passion is clearly felt by myself and by many. But what we want to take away from it is that moment that we don’t want to lose this and we want to take that opportunity right now, right now. And I keep on saying the opportunity, because if there’s anything left in the title of this thing is take the opportunity, take the opportunity of the coronavirus, because it’s going to make a lot of people speak about what they feel with each other. It would be shocking if we just turn off the TV, turn off the Netflix for an hour and talk and get to know ourselves and get to know the family because this is going to be memorable. And in that memorable moment, I think that if we look at our families and we can actually touch them and communicate with them, they’ll forever remember that moment that dad, mom sat down and talked to us that we had nothing to do but to eat together. Right. We don’t need toilet paper to eat together. We do need some food to eat together. The smells of foods are rampant around our city and take that opportunity to talk to each other, to have compassion, because we know what to say. We don’t have to be told what to say. We know what to say. It’s just what’s in our hearts. So if there’s anything that we’ve learned in this coronavirus in terms of the fear, the anxieties, the stresses that we have had. You know what we’ve learned that we’ve been able to watch dynamic changes. We’ve seen the government in somewhat of a interesting quandry, dynamic fear from different countries. But the bottom line is we don’t want to leave this earth without having said those things. And those mindful things and those kind things to the people we love. And if we had that, we’ve walked away. And we will always remember that was when we did tell the ones we loved that we did love them.

 

[00:58:27] The thought that just came to mind when you were saying those words, Alex and I went into a zone when I was talking about this is this. Let the coronavirus set back, become your personal comeback. Nice.

 

[00:58:50] Oh, I think that’s a title. I think there’s the headline there, huh? Well, we’ll leave it at there, Mario. And it’s a blessing. Thank you for being part of this. And we are very spiritual people. We’re real, we have nothing more than to lay it out as it is. We can’t read this and we certainly don’t have a teleprompter. We share our thoughts and we have our teachings of all the people that have stood behind us and taught us where we are. Our parents, our teachers, our guidances that we’ve had and we ultimately have life that has shown us things. And we want you guys, serving you guys to teach you what we know so that if it helps and is useful, then continue the story and keep on sharing.

 

[00:59:35] So. God bless to all you guys. Thank you guys so much. And look forward to hearing you this week.

 

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