EP27: Gold in the Shadow | A Masterclass in Duality with Wes Hamil

In this soul-stirring and expansive conversation, I sit down with professional songwriter and recovery veteran Wes Hamil. With 34 years of sobriety and a deep-rooted apprenticeship in Native spiritual traditions, Wes provides a profound roadmap for navigating the tension of the human experience—learning to hold ourselves accountable without falling into self-abuse and finally stepping into a life of true abundance.

We dive deep into the "shadow side" of our journeys, the struggle to be a graceful receiver, and the radical idea that healing isn't just about stopping a behavior—it’s about unlocking a latent superpower.

Three Core Shifts:

• The "Magic Consonant" Shift: 
  How changing your life’s motto from "What’s in it FOR me" to "What’s in it FROM me" can explode your opportunities and sense of purpose.
• Recovery as a Superpower: Why clearing substance abuse is just the "cover charge" to enter the mezzanine of emotional and spiritual healing
• The Key in Your Pocket: 
  We often feel trapped in "cells" of unaddressed pain or old patterns, but we forget that the key to the lock has been in our own pocket the entire time.

 My favorite quote from our talk:

"There is a name for being accountable to yourself without compassion. The name for that is self-abuse." — Wes Hamil

Full show notes: netanyaallyson.com/episodes/27

Transcript

The Journey of Duality and Recovery

Netanya 0:00

There are moments in life that split us open. By unraveling such frames or truths, we didn't know it. Until we had no choice. This podcast is about those moments. It's about the turning points that change us. The things I wish someone had told me that I only understand and looking back. Come on in. You belong here. And we're gonna talk about all of it. I'm your host, Natanya, and this is what I didn't know. Before we begin, a quick note. This podcast explores themes such as mental health, addiction, trauma, and recovery. While the stories here are honest and heartfelt, they're not a substitute for professional advice, therapy, or medical treatment. Please listen with care and pause anytime you need to. Take whatever resonates for you and leave the rest. Today's guest is Wes Hamill. Wes and I pull a lot of different threads in this episode. We get into how we hide behind intellect and information as a shield to avoid knowledge, how we're often sitting in a prison cell that we already have the key to, and that getting clean and sober isn't the finish line. It's just the cover charge to get in the door to deeper healing work. Here we go. Let's just take it back to where we were. We'll go back to the beginning and duality. Duality.

Wes 1:27

All right.

Netanya 1:28

Whatever road you want to take it on.

Wes 1:30

Okay. Well, so here's what I want to do. To give your listeners just a little context, I got clean and sober 34 years ago. In my case, substance abuse recovery was where I had to start before I could get to all the other kinds of recovery I needed to work on in my life that I didn't know I needed to work on. Some of your listeners may relate to that. And so this whole thing about duality, so much about life can be so good and then concurrently have such these heavy, heavy challenges. And um I really came to learn about that in a, for me, in a very powerful way. And the way that happened, the journey to that was basically this. I had gotten sober, and in the in the pro the process by which I got sober involved finding a power greater than yourself. Okay, that was going to help you. And fundamental to that was the understanding that if drugs and alcohol were a power greater than yourself, then you already had a power greater than yourself. And what you needed was a different power greater than yourself. Right. And and then one of the things that that helped me with that, so this was like they said, Wes, you it's a spiritual journey. And I was very intellectual about spirituality. It was I I confused information with with knowledge. Okay. I read a book, man. So I thought I knew what I was talking about. And um so but you know, it's one of those things you learn the more you go on this the journey of recovery, the intellect is a place we often go to hide. Right. I like that. That was good. But you know, uh I read about it. Let me tell you all of the stuff I think I know, rather than it disclose anything about what I feel. And if I'm the expert, I don't have to ask you for help.

Netanya 3:21

Yeah.

Spirituality and the Power of Connection

Embracing Light and Shadow

Wes 3:22

So intellect is such a it's a wonderful gift and also a common hiding place. And certainly that was my story. And um and I had a lot of issues with the organized religions I had been presenting growing up. Okay. They just they just basically scared me to death in many ways, from the time I was knee-high to anything, right? But then I uh I want to touch on this Christian writer I met briefly, uh, or I discovered it was re-recommeded I read this guy named Emmett Fox. In the process of reading Emmett Fox, it kind of reframed my relationship to all of those particular religious traditions in a way that felt incredibly healing, and I could really embrace all the things that that I felt I could learn and and grow from with that. And the the really profound thing for me with that was this one thing he wrote about the commandment thou sh thou thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, which I probably just screwed up. But anyway, um what he said, what that means is that what your life will reflect, the scale of your life will reflect whatever you've chosen as your higher power or your spiritual connection or whatever language you want to use with that. Okay. So you are bound. So if your boundary, if you're like, I I shun all that, I I I just don't believe in any of that, uh, it's not a um, that's fine. That's your journey, okay? You know, the bigger question from there is on, you know, do you treat the world with any kindness? Do you treat yourself with any kindness? How do you live in the world, whatever you've chosen? Okay. All right. But your life can only be as big at that point as your ideas and perceptions have gotten to at that point. That's the shoreline of your life. And what I realized, what hit me so much about that is that by trying to manage, intellectually manage that space of spirit in my life, because I wanted to say, well, those people are hypocrites and look at all the bad stuff there. And I had some guy uh have a dear friend who's who's who talks a lot at at different spiritual things, and he goes, somebody asked him from uh he was at the podium to go, Well, if there's a God, then how come all these horrible things happen like famine and war and you know racism and all that? And his smart ass but brilliant response was he just stopped and he smiled and he goes, God is not codependent. And so there at the heart of free will, the gift of being human, we get to choose our spiritual journey. And when I when I got that quote, I went, oh what are you picking? What are you choosing? Is your life defined by the shoreline of your intellect? And everything intuitively about me said, that's a place to hide. That's a place to limit myself out of fear of things I don't know or understand. And the longer I've been on the spiritual journey, the less it's in a requirement for me to know or understand anything about that. What's important for me is how I engage where it pulls me to. And so where it pulled me to was I was I was newly sober, and I was sitting with with a bunch of newly sober people, and we were at a dinner party at this woman's house who was the soon-to-be ex-wife of some big rock star because the rock star didn't want to get sober. He has since departed this earthly plane, um, as as happens when you stay in that lifestyle. And um, and we're all sitting around it's about midnight, and we're overlooking the lights of Los Angeles. It looks like a scene from a movie. And we're talking about how confused and we don't know what to do spiritually, and where do we look and what do we do, and what does it even mean, and blah, blah, blah. And uh, I mentioned that I had, when I'd lived in Austin, gone to this thing called a sweat lodge. And I said, I'd really like to try one of those now that I'm sober. And this guy sitting across the table from me looks at me and says, I'm going to one tomorrow night. You want to come with me? And I go in Los Angeles. And he goes, Oh yeah, in the San Fernando Valley, come with me. So the very next night I went and I met a guy who changed my life. He became my teacher. He was a native guy. And at the end of the first sweat lodge I ever did with this guy, he, and the sweat lodge is not really, it's it's in some just culturally, to be culturally respectful in many native cultures to call it a sweat lodge is actually disrespectful. It's really a place you pray. Your body sweats because that's your body cleansing itself. But the spiritual and emotional cleansing that occurs is so much more vast than the fact that your body is getting toxins out of it. And there's the old joke, the more you think about it inside a sweat lodge, the hotter it gets. Because it really re- it really removes intellect and figuring things out because your body's busy sweating and it's being hot, and that kind of opens you up for a different experience. Okay. So I just wanted to like if if there are people out there who know about this stuff, just you know, it's it's a commonly used term. I mean no disrespect. Um and so we're sitting in this lodge, and um, I come out and this guy looks at me and he says, You can come back. I said, uh, when? He said, Tomorrow. My wife was with me. I go, I don't know, man. You know, I was kind of scary. And she goes, uh, she goes, uh, that's an invitation. And if you don't act on that invitation, you'll regret it your whole life. And she would have been, had I not, she would have been a thousand percent correct. And when I say scary, I don't know about, you know, I'm assuming listeners will come to this at all different points in their journey of recovery. And early in my re journey of recovery, I used to do this thing where I would welcome people to these meetings I was going to for to reinforce my recovery. And this is how, this is how fragile I was. I was stand at the door of that meeting and someone would be crossing the street, and I'd look at them. I'd go, how scary do they look? This is the dialogue in my eye. I would have to decide if I felt like I could say hello without just like it being overwhelming. And then they would approach and I would shake their hand, go, welcome, and then they would go in the door of the meeting, and I would be completely emotionally and psychologically exhausted and literally, you know, screen approaching candidates for three or four more people till I had rejuvenated enough to just say hello and welcome. That's how bad off I was when I got when I first got sober. So I wasn't joking. This this saying hello thing was, this sweat lodge thing was scary. I became apprenticed to this man, and in addition to my recovery work, this became the spiritual, a very spiritually focused component of my recovery work. And I ended up apprenticed for eight years, and I did ceremonies all all over. I went to reservations, I was invited into communities that were such a privilege to participate in from outside the culture, given the history of the culture I was coming from and the culture I was sitting in. So when we find somebody we think could have been one of us, but by accident of birth was not, we will teach them if we see them being a respectful student. And so for eight years I did this, and I actually ended up doing something called a sun dance, which is one of the most sacred ceremonies within those traditions, and I sundanced with a Shoshone elder. It was a trem it was almost killed me, but it was also a tremendous spiritual growth gap. So this is leading me directly now to talk about duality in those traditions. They would say little things, and they're not little cookie, they're not fortune cookie things, they're very real things. They would say, you know, they talk to you, okay, Wes, pat me on my little head, you know, you maybe you'll get this one day. They weren't condescending, they were kind, but they were very patient. Different cultures, different ways of learning, different communication styles, different a different balance between intellect and feeling and spirit. Yeah, I got to I got to move way out of the way I was raised. And so what ended up happening was they told me, listen, stick your hand out on a sunny day. And it was a sunny day when we're there at the lodge getting ready for ceremony, stick my hand out, and they go, What's that on the ground? They said, That's a shadow. I said, That's my shadow of my hand. And they go, right, and the brighter that light shining on your hand, the darker that shadow. But move your hand, and I move my hand, and the shadow went with it. And it goes, light and shadow are always connected. There is never a disconnect. And if it's high noon and you think there's no shadow because the sun is directly over your head, it's only because you're standing on it. It's still there. Because you see it does not mean if you can't see it, it doesn't mean it's not there. And these very simple things, they were actually really profound spiritual insights, right? They gave this to me. And and I have I have really lived within that in the 30 plus years since I was taught that, because everybody, everybody on their journey, they want the light. Oh, uh, you know, I want to live in the light. But you it is spiritually impossible to live in that light without the shadow. And that brighter that light burns in your life, the darker the shadow is that comes with it. And and the gift of the duality is to understand, to me anyway, in my experience, this is not theory, this is just what I've lived, okay, is the gift of that shadow is you learn that just like the light, it's a teacher. Okay, it's a teacher, and it's there to teach me things that will help me more fully integrate the light and do something constructive with it, but also learn not to be afraid of anything that the shadow has because it's just it's just me. And I have that's the nature of unmet recovery. How I'll I'll call it unmet recovery because it doesn't narrow it down just to substance abuse. Okay, we can talk about we can talk about anything where it's a part of our life. We need to work on recovery, emotional recovery. Maybe we're maybe we were raised in like massive narcissism or you know, we we can't, we don't out of value ourselves. We don't, you know, we just got all these messages. We don't have a drinking or drug problem, but we have that living problem and we need recovery. So these things that we talk about, that the they're for that journey, right? Uh and they and they help they help all recovery journeys. So the the problem with that unremet recovery is all the fear that we carry. Right? Rooted in my ex my experience. It's always in my ego. But then that ego's just got that shadow. The shadow side of that ego is what do I, what, how do I feel about my value and and what do I think other people feel about my value and my place and all that. For me, that's shadow side of ego and the healthy side of ego is that thing where ego tells me, don't quit on yourself, Wes. And you know, when you're not actually doing something to your full capacity. You know, when you're sort of kind of showing up, but not really showing up. So my ego nudges me along, goes, you know, you know, you, you know, there's better in there. There's a better version of you. And thank God for my ego doing that for me. Okay. But then I slides into the shadow side, and then I get worried about all the other stuff. And and it's another, it's another one of those things that's been common in my experience of recovery, where people think that they've got to get rid of things. I've got to get rid of my ego. I've got to get rid of, I've got to get rid of the shadow. I've got to get, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm scared or I'm hurting, I'm doing something wrong. No, the shadow is just going, that duality is just going, hey, I I I go, um, one thing I work with people, I tell them, fear is nothing to be afraid of. And it's just a way to make it funny. But what fear is, spiritually, in many respects, like fear is in every human being, and it keeps us from getting eaten by the saber-toothed tiger, right?

Netanya 17:06

Yeah.

Wes 17:06

It keeps us, you know, it has this very practical purpose, but very few things that we think are putting us at that degree of risk are actually putting us at that degree of risk. Right?

Netanya 17:18

Yeah.

Wes 17:18

The the rest of it is, I call it a spiritual smoke alarm. So it's just that it's something going off that's driven me into some fear-based, usually ego driven, where I've gone to the shadow side of all that, and that gives me an opportunity to practice some tool or gift or skill I've learned in living in recovery so that I can move back. A saber-toothed tiger turns out to be a kitten that just has a you know tag on it and I need to take it back to the neighbors, you know. But not always, but there's a lot of that uh, and I'm probably gonna misattribute this, but I believe it's my understanding, Mark Twain said it, that 98% of what scares me is all imaginary. It never happens. You know.

Netanya 18:10

Yeah.

The Role of Ego in Recovery

Wes 18:11

And and I just tell people 98% of what you're scared of, you're making up for your own entertainment. Because fear is a great place to justify bad behavior. Fear is a great place to go sit in to excuse yourself. I can't do this because I'm scared of it. And one of the one of the fundamental tenets I found of recovery is accountability. And if you want to tell yourself that you're too frightened to address being you in this world, that's okay. But you are the one who will write the check. Okay. At some point you will probably get tired of writing that check. And then you will take accountability and you'll act on it. And it doesn't mean it doesn't mean I want to be real clear when I say this. There is a saying that in my culture that I grew up in that is one of the most it is is one of the two most attractive statements I think people can tell other people in many ways. But this one is you gotta be harder on yourself than anybody else. And what that and what that is is a destructive distortion of the true statement that you must be accountable to yourself. But when there's a name for being accountable to yourself without compassion. And the name for being accountable to yourself without compassion is self-abuse.

Netanya 19:48

Yeah.

Wes 19:49

Okay. So if you are if you are looking at yourself and you see uh part of my life is just stuck over in that duality of that shadow. And I need to do something about it, and I'm scared, and you can't approach that with compassion, like you would maybe a a child that you you want to help because they're scared, then that then you're not being you're being abusive. You're you're you you are abusing yourself.

Netanya 20:17

I've had to work on that a lot, that specific piece of um I ha so I pick a word of the year every year. I don't do resolutions or things like that. I just pick a word. And last year, the word I chose was grace. And for the exact reason that you're talking about, there's many ways to look at a word, right? You can have different angles or different ways to perspective something. But the reason I chose it specifically was because I realized that I have so much compassion and kindness and grace for everyone else. And I mean it. Oh man, do I mean it? You know, someone's having a hard time. I hear myself talk to them and I mean what I'm saying. And I'm like, you got to give yourself a minute. Of course that's where you are. You know, take whatever you need to get through that thing. And then my internal voice did not match what I'm telling other people. It's like I have to walk the walk that I'm speaking about and I wasn't doing it internally for myself. Internally, I was like a hammer on myself. And I have all these un you know, realistic expectations and standards of things. And I don't know where they came from, probably a long time ago, but I just started realizing that I'm out of integrity because I'm speaking this to other people and I'm not living it internally. And so I spent a year with that word on and off of where is this showing up? And I also chose it the year that I moved to a new, a new state, a new city. I didn't know anyone when I moved to Nashville, not a single person. And so by nature, I'm thrust into a new environment, working environments, recovery environments, just neighborhoods, you know, roads. There's a lot of new that I'm stepping into in which I need a lot of. Grace for myself because I'm the new kid everywhere I go here. So being gentle behooves me in a situation like this.

Giving and Receiving: A Balance of Abundance

Wes 22:08

That's beautiful. I mean, my experience is that is I believe vulnerability is a superpower, okay? And it's not viewed that way necessarily in our culture, but the strength and the self-accountability, okay, that you need to be truly but vulnerable is staggering compared to, you know, the fronts and the veneers that can get presented to the world. There's um there's a saying that we use in in the community that I I've come to use it, I use it in all the lodges, and now I use it just in recovery period, just my whole life. And it's a very succinct way of talking about what you just said. And this it's a single phrase, you know, as a my day job as a professional songwriter, so I tend to like boil things down to a little, you know, like the hook of the song, right? So so so here is a hook of a song about that, which would be this, um, which is I grow what I give. All right. And and the people, most people that I deal with on this, I say this all the time in the in the lodges when we're praying, you grow what you give. And they view that as w exactly the dynamic you explained. They they're thinking about what they've got to give to the outside world. Okay, so they and and they are genuinely giving kindness and they are genuinely being patient, and they are genuinely being compassionate, and they are wondering why they're suffering so much inside, because they have not, they're not giving that first and foremost to themselves. Okay. So, so it's just a goofy story, but it's like the way I I'll talk to people about this is I go, let me, let me, let me ask you a question. If I gave you a seed and you planted an apple seed in the backyard of your of where you live, and you nurtured that seed and it grew into this beautiful apple tree with these gorgeous apples hanging from the branches, and I asked you to go out back and pick an orange off that tree, you would look at me like I was like, he we already knew the guy with the funny hairstyle had lost the plot, but you know, but he's really lost it this time. And then I go, okay, here's the deal. You will not pick healing, the fruit of healing, off the tree of self-abuse.

Netanya 24:41

Yeah. Yeah.

Wes 24:43

So you cannot plant that story and then pick the beautiful fruit that you're not actually growing for yourself. You're going to the market, taking all your time and energy to collect up and give all that beautiful fruit of healing to others. And what you've got to do first is just plant the tree right there in your life. And then you're gonna have all, then all you're gonna, you're gonna have all this beautiful fruit. You don't have to go to the market anymore. You just pluck it off the tree and hand it to them.

Netanya 25:16

Yeah. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna tangent here on two seconds because this is like similarly related. Part of this practice and something I have had to work on over many years. I started, I think I really, really started about 10 years ago, um, was the concept of being a better receiver. That w just is so much of how I was raised and you know, being a good person and and wanting to be kind to people and whatever was so much about giving and service. And that's beautiful on a hundredfold levels, is service beautiful? And the the concept of not being able to receive, like you put out there's a blockage in there if you can't be a good receiver. In addition, like being a better receiver has made me a better giver.

Wes 26:03

Absolutely. Well, my experience, I completely a thousand percent relate to that because of the, I mean, when I look back at the work I've done to better understand how I got here, uh I can see that that the value proposition, my value in the world was only contingent on what I gave.

Netanya 26:24

Yeah.

Wes 26:25

And I had no sense of being worthy of receiving anything. And so I was very uncomfortable with that. And if I wasn't giving or saving the day in somehow, why would anybody want me around? Like, why would they even want me in the room? And and it when you have that somewhere down in the core that needs to be exhumed out of the, I won't say the grave it was in. It's more like a rut. And there's a great saying in Texas. There's a great saying in Texas that says, it's probably all over the South, but it says, a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out of it. And so down in that grave slash rut was this belief that needed to be exhumed and and shed, like what you're talking about, because you're exactly it's again, it's duality. I mean, that's exactly it. That's just another example of duality, giving, receiving.

Netanya 27:21

Mm-hmm. Well, and I had to, I had to fight. Um, and when I say fight, I mean me. I'm internally fighting myself and my own beliefs. And I I don't fight it anymore, but I I did for some time of the concept of worthiness, of value, of allowing, of letting good things happen to me, and that there wasn't a cap on that or some miscellaneous limit to how good I could take it, how good my life can get, or in what area of which like this quota has now filled and I'm not allotted anymore. Um, and I've had to work on that over time to keep being in a space of receptivity, letting good things happening to me, giving genuinely from a place of being full and still allowing more good in. And I'm and I'm talking like um experiential things, financial things, just abundance as a concept in general, that I can still let that be okay. And that doesn't make me selfish or a bad person.

Wes 28:20

I completely agree. And so as relates to sort of the spiritual journey with what you're talking about, and I'm really, I'm really continuing to grow into this, suffering from exactly the same list you laid out. Okay.

Netanya 28:36

Yeah.

Wes 28:37

Um the longer, the closer I become aligned with whatever, you know, I love that the community that taught me how to pray and taught me all these ceremonies that they referred to God or creator or things like that. They referred to it as the great mystery. And I love that because it's something I'll never explain. And if I'm ever caught explaining God, then the one thing we can be sure about is I'm wrong, is I'm wrong. I'm just freaking wrong. Okay. It's just okay. So it's just I don't get to explain that, okay? Just it's out, it's above my life human pay grade, you know? Um and I don't need to. The beauty uh that uh longer I go working on the very things that you just talked about working on, is that the more I work on them, the less, this is gonna sound really weird, the less I need to be concerned about working on them. Because as I've gotten deeper and more in the sense of that if I live, if I grow what I give, I live a life of grow what I give, starting by giving myself that the antidote, so to speak, to that list that you came up with. That's my list too, my exact same list. If I'm living in the giving of freedom to myself from that, and then giving the benefit of that freedom to the world outside me, every other thing on that list has a way of taking care of itself.

Netanya 30:18

Yep.

Wes 30:19

Okay, it just does, and it does because I'm not figuring out the quid pro quo or the direction anything needs to come to take care of what I perceive as a need on that list.

Netanya 30:34

Yeah.

Wes 30:34

It can come from anywhere and does, and totally does, you know. But that's to me part of it's like my working definition of faith right now is a simple statement. For me, faith is simply this I will have what I need to meet the moment.

Netanya 30:57

That's I just felt my whole I know you can see me, nobody else can see me, my whole body just relaxed.

Wes 31:04

That isn't for me, that is an end-to-end working definition of faith. Now, spiritual practice, and if you want to do a sweat lodge, or if you want to go to church, or you want to do yoga, or you're a Buddhist, or you're an atheist, or you're whatever you are in relationship to the structures and ideologies that you want to put around all of that stuff. Okay. On the other side of all that for me, whatever gets you wherever you're going, the other side of all of that for me, and I've done over 1200 sweat lodges. Okay. The other side of all that is I will have what I need to meet the mama. And that is spiritual recovery for me. So what do I need to do on my journey? How do I need to embrace the light and shadow? How do I need to embrace the parts of me that I went? Man, after all this work, your capacity for being a knucklehead is still astounding. You know, I I mean, I'll I will have that conversation with myself at times, not in a hurtful way, just in a laughing at myself way of like, oh gee, still human, you know, kind of way, right? And then if I'm in a situation where, well, yeah, that's not the version of me I would prefer being, let's do what we need to do to get back to that version. Okay. That's just that's the care and feeding of the journey.

Netanya 32:32

Right? Yeah. I have a I have a question. Um that is why we're here. Um part of so another duality that came up in my brain as we're talking about this, which I think goes along with this same concept in terms of letting things in, is the duality of hiding versus being seen. And you brought it up a little bit earlier, but I want to go into it a little bit deeper. Of I had spent many years in hiding, right? And and whether that was I can remember being in high school and being in a classroom. And specifically, I remember this. We were reading Romeo and Juliet, and the teacher asked like a question, and does anyone know the answer? And I knew the answer, and I wouldn't raise my hand. And I would listen and let people answer, and I'd be like, She's wrong, he's wrong, whatever. And then someone would get it right. And I would like, I'm answering in my head, but I'm not doing it verbally out loud. And that's one small example. But I used to function like that in all these different spaces where I didn't use my voice for a lot of years for a long time. There's many reasons I could get into as to why I think how I got there in the first place. But what I started to realize in recent years was all of these blocks that I was putting on myself and keeping myself small in the process. And it's still the same, sort of the same um umbrella of like, well, I don't want to make anyone else feel bad. I don't wanna, you know, I don't want to take her spotlight, I don't wanna, you know, do anything to dim anyone else's light. And so instead, I stay small and quiet. And um, I had to get to the point where I named that this is a disservice to myself and everyone else.

Wes 34:12

Yeah. I completely relay. And uh, there's just my brain is racing with thoughts. So first thing I want to say about that is remember I mentioned that that writer Emmett Fox earlier in our conversation. He had a wonderful thing. I'm gonna When I say the word abundance, which is what he talked about here, the reason I'm relating that to what you just said is that when we cheat ourselves and the world around us from the abundance of who we are. Yes. That's that is that is what we're we're talking about here, okay? And Emmett Fox said, spiritual abundance is like now remember, he this is written in maybe the 30s of the of the previous century before they realized that doing before they realize that what he's gonna be talking about here gives you skin cancer. Okay, but he said, if you if you went out in the front of your home and you set up a like a lounge, lounger, and you said, I'm going to get a suntan today. And then you looked, and your neighbor in the yard over was doing that. And then the neighbor passed them, and you looked in all directions and across the street, and everywhere you look, everybody was doing that. He goes, There's still plenty of sunlight to go around for everybody's suntan.

Netanya 35:33

Yeah.

Wes 35:34

Okay. So one of the important, important, important issues that we have to face in our healing, and and I would dare say culturally, even, is this thing of competition rather than collaboration. Okay. And so here's here's the beauty of uh of what I found in the journey of recovery, and then I want to specifically talk about even more what you're saying. But my if let's say, let's say we're gonna do the premise of recovery as a one day at a time thing, which is a common thing in certain ways of being sober, but in reality, I don't know anybody that could do it any differently, no matter how you want to be sober or recovered from anything, because we're just living one day at a time. So, you know, this one day at a time thing is kind of like how it's built, okay? So uh the one day at a time I have to be the best version of Wes in no way denies you the opportunity of your one day at a time to be the best Natanya. There is no competition for that opportunity. And yet we treat life as such a competition. We're we treat life as if it's such a zero-sum game in so many areas. So when we're when I'm afraid, well, if I raise this and call attention to myself, it's a threat to this other person's competition, you know, their moment to shine. Okay? Yeah. That's that is that is an ego-driven thing, not ego because you were trying to be egotistical, it's just our ego working that way that's rooted in some sort of competition in a way that says, well, there's only so much of appreciation that can go around for people being who they are. And if I if I'm appreciated, then somebody else can't be, right?

Netanya 37:35

Oh, it's rooted in scarcity, literally.

Wes 37:38

Of course. Yeah. Right? So so that we got we start addressing that. But the other thing, this is the journey. Oh, and I screw this up so much learning how to step past is it's important for me to use my voice, but the challenges, having spent a big chunk of my life not using it, when I started, I realized I didn't know how. And because of that, I could be inappropriate. Or I could, I can't, and and it, and if if I did, if I used my voice in a way that brought me a response that because you know, people that are talking about these things are usually very sensitive human beings to their environment. You you really feel the perception of the room. You're not oblivious to people's reactions. And if I used my gift or talent or whoever I was inappropriately, I I kind of figured that out real quick. The room let me know, which only would serve to reinforce the cycle of, oh, I shouldn't be doing that. And so it's a courageous journey. I guess is what I want to say for anybody going on it, to learn to start using your voice to learn to start finding the appropriate places. I'm around on occasion a lot of like I I get to hang around like famous and successful people from time to time with the work I do here in Los Angeles. Nothing sounds more needy and desperate when I'm in a room full of these people being celebrated than me going, well, look, I got I got game, I can do this, I can do right, you know what I mean? So what I've learned is I've learned not only that it's important to do it, but when and where to do it.

Netanya 39:34

Yes.

Wes 39:35

And because there's a there's an old saying that you know, you can't sell a steak to a vegetarian. Doesn't matter how good the steak is, okay? You have to have the right thing for the right moment. And so I think this is a part of the journey that you talked about that people can benefit from hearing people who've been on that journey to go, okay, can be kind of messy as you start into that, as you start, but I believe it's absolutely essential that we do it. Because at the end of the day for me, what I had to do was realize that I what I was really, what was I really afraid of? Okay. I was afraid, I was afraid of those things of not being in community, of not being valued, of not being liked, accepted, not being good enough, not being it was it was all those things I was a these were all things I was afraid of. And then I realized that I was the worst possible judge of those things.

Netanya 40:40

Yeah.

Wes 40:41

That if I was truly living on a spiritual basis, that whatever the result of this thing was going to be, whatever the shadow might end up being this, I was gonna learn something for it that was gonna help me live stronger in the light. And that because it once the more I lived in the faith of I will have what I need to meet the moment, even if the moment is disappointment, I will have what I need, then I started getting the the the it quib it out. I won't say it didn't that the emotional risk is ever gone. I think that would be disingenuous to say the emotional risk ever feels like it goes away. But what does go away is that sense of life or death around it.

Netanya 41:23

Yes, well put.

The Perception of Value

Wes 41:25

Okay. That sense of emotional life and death around risking decreases and it doesn't mean that there's isn't risk, but that's okay. Because you know, because the more I become to become to value what I have to offer, I also see that I may perceive I have something to offer a situation and I make myself available to it, and I really don't. Or they're vegetarians and I got a steak in my pocket. And it doesn't mean what I have isn't valuable, it's just not valuable in a way that they're gonna want to be able to integrate it.

Netanya 42:00

Well, and or sometimes people just don't see your value the way you wish they did. Just because someone, you know, what is it? Somewhere I read this somewhere. You might be the right package at the wrong address. And what whichever way you want to take that, that I was talking to a friend about this the other day. She was struggling with something in a similar concept, and the people in question who were talking to her were kind of condescending and treating her as if she didn't know anything. And she does know things and she's very smart. But they're not seeing it and or treating her as such doesn't mean she's not valuable or doesn't know what she's talking about or isn't smart. And you don't need to show them or demonstrate that to them, and to try to do so is probably going to be exhaustive and lost on them because sometimes people just can't hear you. And that doesn't mean that you're not valuable.

The Power of Labels and Identity

Wes 42:51

Uh, absolutely true. And one of the big takeaways I find from that is in situations where people have there's two different scenarios I see with that. There's there's scenarios where people genuinely want to hear what you're saying, but it just doesn't, they just are not at a point of life experience or on their journey in such a way where it makes sense to them. And it's sort of like, I think I understand Italian a little bit because I speak Spanish, but I really don't understand what you're saying, right? You know? And so as as they get further down the road of or they further down the road implies like a hierarchy. I really don't mean that. As they have a life experience that begins to complement, that's a better way of saying, it becomes to complement what you have to offer their journey. Okay. It's not about who's further or who's behind. It's not about that. It's just complimentary experiences. So uh as as they start to have that, then suddenly they can hear and value what you're saying. There's that scenario. Then there's the scenario, which is the one you described where people are being condescending. And in my experienced those people i i had to finally learn without with releasing the need to from an ego's standpoint be condescending in response yes in my own heart i had to i had to work on the fact that their need to be important in that situation had nothing to do with the reality of who i am yes and so i'm gonna then i'm back to the stakes to vegetarians thing i'm like okay look you're you're spending a lot of i i mean i have a direct story about this and that i was invited to a gathering uh with some people who had helped this guy who wrote a really famous book about spirituality and i g I'll I keep it kind of vague because I don't want to like blow anybody's cover here but including the author of that book but it's a very popular book and it's a really cool book and and these were all acolytes of this person whom were now because of their relationship with them they had been anointed with the term master so I'm sitting at a table with four people who were kind of wearing if they were wearing name tags it said master okay and I'm and and they're having wine and they're having a wonderful time and they're sharing memories and telling good stories and I'm sitting off the side and um I'm not drinking. And they're going to have a drink with us and I'm like you know I'm gonna thanks I'm enjoying your stories but one they weren't inviting me to contribute a story and two I was not gonna drink I said no thanks uh I'm not gonna drink and they they looked at me this a couple of them looked at me and this one guy said are you an alcoholic and I said you know as a matter of fact yes I am a recovering alcoholic I had not had a drink at that time in like 20 some odd years their response was this is exactly like your story their response was oh that's so sad that you have to put such a label on yourself what a limitation that you have to walk around with this label alcoholic and I went okay and then I but I was kind I was not snarky I this is a proud moment if if pride is allowed to be a part of any story like this I said um I said uh really I said let me can I ask you a question in response and they go yep certainly you know they were in full on master mode and um I said uh you you guys all you guys call yourself masters that's right we're masters and I'm like is not master a label and this guy kind of he's he just takes him back and I go let me tell you something about my label here's my here's what my label does for me I have walked into rooms all over the world and I have said my name is Wes and I'm an alcoholic and immediately been engaged in a common conversation and I have gotten to depths of talking about avoiding hiding and telling this is where I am and this is who I am and I met you 10 minutes ago but we're already speaking this language and we're sharing our experience with living through that and I go and I have stood on stages in front of 1500 people and the minute I've said my name is Wes I'm an alcoholic 1500 people went yeah we are two and we're living in this shared experience I go that's what my label does for me so I wear it proudly and I am happy I don't really care who knows um and you know it's a my label's a gift I go I hope and I go I have no idea what it means to be a master so I cannot speak and I wasn't being sarcastic I mean that's a true statement I just said I don't know what it means to be a master so I don't know what your label does for you this guy it was really interesting he turned around and he um he just walked away didn't say anything about three hours later I was sitting I just got bored with it all I was sitting oh because I just there's nothing I got there was no way for me to engage it wasn't because they weren't bright wonderful witty people and I'm sitting my drinking my coffee with my feet up by the fireplace and this guy comes over and he sits down to me and he goes man I owe you a total apology I went well okay I mean I'm not fishing for one but I accept yeah I do but that's not really the point of the conversation right there I'm not I wasn't trying to shame you under an apology I was just offering a perspective because here's the thing man what when what we say and how we communicate like your friend with the story about the people being condescending how we use our communication we can really hurt people we we can really do some damage and so if we can help as we're educating ourselves if we can with kindness bring a little perspective to other people who are communicating and especially those representing themselves as someone with something to offer like a master then that's an opportunity. How can we how can we collaborate on this journey as humans rather than compete with each other?

Netanya 49:45

Well and like to to bring it back to what we were talking about using your voice you can use your voice for good you can use your voice as a weapon you know and that's a choice you get to make every time you open your mouth and to to go to the dual it will go into duality it's also my choice to understand and know when to not use it so important.

The Importance of Letting Go

Wes 50:09

You know as a musician when I'm writing a song or working on a piece of music the note you do not play is every bit as important as the one you do because without silence and pauses between things it turns into noise all running together. And so sometimes the sweetest note we can offer is the silent one because because here's the thing there's a great I think Wordsworth said it. It's a quote I cannot hear what you're saying because what you are doing shouts so loudly yes and so sometimes that silence is exactly what somebody you don't even know is watching will benefit from because they it gives them a sense of safety there's just so many ways that we can help each other but in no way does this minimize or negate you can't use that as the excuse to hide, right? You can't use that as oh I'm doing a good deed by keeping my mouth shut sometimes no I need to just bring my voice you know I do have something to offer the challenge is so much in wanting to form an attachment to how what we are offered is received. Because then that's how we start to then we place a value proposition back on what we had to offer. And if we could just know it's valuable that's hard. This is all hard stuff. It is yes and it's also to your point with the non-attachment of it I'm I'm giving it or using it as a as a doorway as a gift as an opportunity as an opener and I also have to trust in the letting go of that that it will land wherever it needs to absolutely that that's that's not our so in the lodge this is a great tradition in those lodges I talk about they say that the way they taught me they said when we pray our prayers out loud so we say I say maybe I say prayers for you and your journey and your healing and all the great work you're doing and what you're doing with your with your show here and all that. And I'm like boy like whatever between creator between you and her whatever is best for all of that that's my prayer you know what they taught me is that when we give voice to these prayers and we release the energy of these prayers they then join the ceremony mixed with all the other prayers and the energy of all those prayers together they that steam rising up out of that lodge that's all those prayers rising up out of the lodge to go be whatever is best for all things so we've done our part by bringing in the voice everything past that doesn't belong to us. It doesn't belong and we hurt ourselves by trying to then it's like letting it's like letting go of a knife and then reaching out to grab it and grab it by the blade instead of the handle. We hurt ourselves reaching out to grab a hold of that which we've let go of in a good way. And so it's really it's really you raised such an important point. It's just about letting go. You've done your job here you know and you'll get plenty of opportunities to do that job someplace else if you keep doing it that way.

Netanya 53:40

Well and I've also I've had that experience where you're just between two people you're you're talking you're communicating and say someone else goes silent or doesn't respond or um goes you know quiet for a couple days or whatever. The amount of things that I have made up in my head that that means is astronomical. The stories that I have made up that are complete fables that have no fact to them about what someone is or isn't thinking or what it does or doesn't mean all of which is constructed around my own vantage point and perception my it's colored by my beliefs or patterns or my insecurities is is phenomenal. And so in that space of allowing this to be a co-creation, this to be a dance, whether and this is work, this is personal, romantic, however you want to place it, um the experience of of going back and forth and letting letting something just be what it is and trusting that even in that silence that sometimes someone hasn't answered me for a couple of days and maybe it was a touchy subject that we were on or something and I made it mean all this things all these things and really it really landed well with that person. They're processing they need time to work through something to to let it all sit with them and formulate a response that feels solid enough for them to voice it.

Wes 55:07

Yes I I mean I have I have thousands at least of moments like that in my in my life you know it's just like and and then again and that's see but that that beauty that shadow part of the duality we came in the light and we offered our gift and now we're sitting in the now we're sitting in the dark waiting for a response you know it's um it's that chance to do exactly that that work that you talked about the gift that that their silence is giving you or me is a chance to let go of that. You know to let go of our definitions about what it's supposed to mean to us when they reply if they reply and to and to know like okay the one question I ask myself in those moments that I try to I I I make I just don't I make a really strong effort to avoid doing anything other than this. Because my brain will want to do exactly the same thing. I will ask myself did I offer what I offered from a place of love, kindness and without like attack or any kind of manipulation did I offer it did I offer in that in you used the word integrity earlier did I offer it in that place of spiritual and emotional and psychological integrity okay if I did then I just gotta let it go. If I didn't then I need to go where did I get in such a hurry to say what I needed to say that I failed to do that. And then know without reading that into their lack of response know that that's something I might need to clean up next time. Yeah well and and anytime you're if you're giving from a place of getting if I'm giving to see what I'm gonna get out of this yeah it's it it's become so transactional and well okay so this is you just you just I have another one of my little bumpers my friends all go God West and his bumper stickers but this is a West this is one of my West bumper stickers the culture but what you said just reminded me of it the culture that I was raised in it and was marketed to by this culture and through so many different channels is to always be on the lookout of what's in it for me. What's in it for me F-O-R-T the magic trick is a single consonant here's the magic trick you I I mean I've told people I gave a talk in New York it was like a TED talk years ago in 2015 I think it's even on the internet it's on the it's a it's my name Wes Hamlet 92Y and this was the subject of the talk forget about the diet forget about going to the gym forget about do all those things if you want if you want to change your life in the next 90 seconds here's what you gotta do you need one consonant you know F-O-R you take the consonant M you put it in there with the F O R and you put a little scrabble and F-O-R becomes F-R-O-M and when your life becomes what's in it from me rather than what's in it for me my experience when I when that landed in my heart and I started living it my life exploded it got bigger than I could handle in all the best ways and that's that giving because that's the job. I'm here to live a life have life experience and share that in a way so that it can be useful to others and in the process they're going to return that and then I get to work on being that receiver you were talking about. And I can receive their version of that story. What's in it from me? I mean literally one consonant changes everything because everything about my life right now okay you know three years ago I was sitting in Denver Colorado where I met you that was a gift of being in Denver I was a frustrated somewhat in a profession of being a songwriter and I'd reached a point in my life where there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to think a person of my age would have any opportunity opened up to them. Zero somebody contacted me and said we're working on a project we need help. We know that you could help it I said okay and I I didn't ask how much money I didn't ask what kind of credit I was going to get I just went and helped them. That turned into a two and a half year project that turned into something where two years ago yesterday a song for your listeners is called Brand New Heart and it was written by me and an Academy Award-winning songwriter named Paul Williams. It came out on a record and because of that song coming out these people in Los Angeles reached out to me and said boy if you'd be willing to come back to Los Angeles we'll put you on our record label our publishing company will try to find homes for your songs and we'll have you write with all our younger writers and produce some of their songs and do all this stuff in my life so at the same year that I got my Medicare card this is perspective for your viewers and your listeners thank you for that I I am not you know hey I lived long enough to get this old I'm I'm proud of it you know I love that you shared that yes okay the same I get my Medicare card I get a record deal and a publishing deal okay this does not happen statistically speaking for people this age okay and it's been nonstop I have had so much work I have there's so much music I've contributed to people's careers in the last 20 months okay and so much more coming. I'm very busy living what's in it from me with a set of gifts and abilities that bring me joy to engage in that I had basically if I was looking at it pragmatically would have to say well okay great you're always going to do this because you love to do it but there's no real future outside of you know sitting in the living room playing for some of your friends and you know and here I am back in a city I really enjoy being in and working with people from 20 to 45 all with these careers going that are very grateful to have my input into what they're doing. So that came from somebody asking me if I would help and my answer was simply the what's in it from me answer. I'm gonna go do this and it's gonna go where it goes and it's going to bring what it brings but what I know I'm gonna do is I'm gonna be living what I'm supposed to be doing which is contributing back to life. Boom here I am so that's what I mean that's what I mean by if you're stuck in your life and you're and you're and you're stuck in the trying to navigate the what's in it for me aspects make a 90 day experiment out of the what's in it from me and do that thing this is direct this is a direct comment on exactly what you said. Do that thing about giving without the quid pro quo of what you're looking to get from that giving and just give because you grow what you give and as you give what's in it from me your life starts to fill with then you got to receive just like you said life starts to fill with things that want to come back your other way but you can't push it you can't manufacture it and you can't even necessarily know where it's coming from you know and it doesn't have anything to do it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with money or stuff. It might but it might be all sorts of other things that make your life really big it's a big um self-help thing to uh there was all these movies like the secret and all this stuff like you know if you hold on if you hold on to this particular thought you'll have a Maserati in the driveway in three months and all that it's it's sort of the Peter Pan thing of the lost boys and if you could hold on to this thought you could fly okay yes but but you also never grew up okay so little that's a duality that people don't talk about about the Peter Pan thing. So yeah you fly but you never grow up so but the the there's no there's nothing about that in it. Just give. And trust in the giving you'll have what you need to meet the moment. It that's how it works.

Recovery as a Superpower

Netanya 1:04:27

I want to talk about one more thing and then I have one final question to ask you after that. The last thing I want to talk about is when you were talking about when you were telling the story earlier about your label and the master label and then you were talking about what your label gets you one of my fiercest beliefs is that recovery is a superpower. Absolutely in saying that I I do not just mean substance abuse I mean recovery from anything recovering in life from pain or wounds or what you didn't know hence what I named this podcast is that the basis of all the things I hadn't learned or beliefs I took on from other people and had to unlearn or relearn or grow past and anyone in that space on a any kind of transformational journey where you are intentionally doing an about face and looking at yourself in the mirror, taking full accountability and responsibility for that and and choosing to move forward in a new direction and to face all of those things is a superpower. And I think that that gets when people often come into recovery the label of alcoholic or addict can be can bring all sorts of stuff up. And again take that onto any kind of recovery that doesn't just have to mean substance abuse. That's just the lens that I that I use because that's mine. Thoughts on that yeah well

Wes 1:06:00

First comment, our life gets bigger by what we let go of, not what we put in it. So they're living at the heart of recovery. The stigmas associated with that label that frighten people, they go back to all those things we've already talked about today about what will people think of me? How will I be valued? Will I be accepted? Am I enough? Am I and most people recovering from almost anything, whether it's a substance abuse issue or deep emotional wounds, that's a component of the recovery journey because they're struggling with some place that feels so fractured and broken. And recovery, look, as anybody who's gone through substance abuse knows, the recovery from the substance abuse part of it is just the cover charge to get to work on all the rest of it.

Netanya 1:06:54

Yeah.

Destigmatizing Recovery and Labels

Wes 1:06:55

And then, you know, we get wigged the gift of the substance abuse, and people might find it that aren't don't have that, might find it odd to hear the word gift associated with it. But the gift of that is that was what was bad enough that became life and death enough enough to force us into dealing with the first floor of recovery, which was the substance abuse. And then once once we got up to the mezzanine, oh wow, there's like 17 stories of things to we get to recover from above that. Okay. We've got to destigmatize the label. And the only way we destigmatize the recovery label is through things like what you're doing and through the process of having the willingness to, you know, tell be truly who we are. I have no problem coming on your show here and giving you this is who I am. This is my goofy stuff. This is, you know, my crazy stuff. This is authentically, this is how I hurt, and this is how I heal. And if we do that, what we start to do, there's a line in recovery that I know you're familiar with. That one of the ways we grow and heal is we look for the similarities rather than the differences. And the label is the first thing that creates the difference. Because somebody can look at that label and go, I'm not that. They may be, but it gives them something to look at that and go, I'm not that. That's a difference. And what we have to lead is that's why it's who we are and how we live. It's why the I can't hear what you're saying because what you're doing shouts so loudly thing is so important. That's how we destigmatize. That's how we just live who we have become. And, you know, period, I'll I'll give you an example. Uh something I I have a lot of life challenges right now. As cool and wonderful as things are going, I got a lot of them. And I'm showing up for every one of them. But it was, it was a, there was a tough moment this week where I was like, I don't know if I can show up. I'm overwhelmed. I'm like at the ragged edge of showing up. And I have a trick when I'm in that place. It's not really a trick, but the trick is, the trick that's not a trick, is to try to find, is to find some gratitude in the challenge. If I can find even a tiny crumb of gratitude for the circumstance, I can flip, I can flip it into something that is me living into recovery rather than me living in the overwhelm. And I was looking at this set of circumstances, and this was what came to me. I've worked on my recovery really hard for 34 years and like four months. And I realized that process, what that process of recovery had has turned me into, and I'm giving credit to that spiritual journey. This is not, oh, I'm gonna break my arm patting myself on the back. This is the gift of showing up for that work. What that work has given me is this it has made me into a person that is willing, keyword here is willing, to be useful. It's never been about capacity. I was always capable of being useful, but I was too damaged through all these things that needed recovery to be willing. Recovery grew me into a person that was now that is now willing. From that willingness, I take what's in it from me, and then it it's wide open. What can happen? So your point about the stigmatization and the label, our best shot at people going, damn right I'm an alcoholic. I could not be prouder, is how we, those of us who feel that way, conduct conduct ourselves. And through channels and opportunities of addressing people like what you've created with your work here. It's essential. It's it's it's a really, you know, I I look, I'm an exuberant soul. So I'll use exuberant language sometimes. But I would say it's, if you want to use this word, it's a holy mission, these things. Yeah. It's very it's very sacred. And it's gonna help it helps a lot of people because it's the job of people who've done the work, it's the job of an artist, it's the job of all these. We can all be artists in recovery at the art of recovery. And it's the job of an artist to give people permission. And so what we can do is we can help give people that thing inside of them that goes, God, I so relate to this. But ah, but I don't want to be called an alcoholic. I don't want to be an addict, I don't want to be a sexual abuse survivor, I don't want to be whatever that is. I don't want that label. We just need to help people give themselves permission to own what they are, no matter what it's called. So they can then do the work to heal.

Netanya 1:12:33

Well, you just you couldn't have segued into my final question any more than you did. Because my last question is, what do you hope that people listening give themselves permission to do after listening to this episode?

Wes 1:12:52

If someone listening to this episode can if they can find a just a quiet place if something in all of our conversation, the things that you've said and I've said and that we've shared rings as something that feels like their story. They see the or hear themselves in this story. There's a reason for that. There's that's the reason they listened. That's the reason they heard this particular episode. We don't have to try to figure out where the reason came from. There's just there's that's the reason. I would hope for them that they can find with themselves the willingness to reach out. I don't know what your show offers in terms of people commenting where people can find help or or go, I I really related to this, but I don't know what to do with what I related to. You know, I think that if they are willing to give themselves permission to to to just to go looking for where that thing is calling them to go. Just a little bit, just a little bit unaddressed issues of recovery, regardless of what they are. They are a prison. And here's the the most brutal thing about that prison. You're in the cell, the door is locked, you can see the lock. But what nobody tells you is in the top pocket of your prison uniform is the key. You're locked in the cell that you have the key out of. So if you relate to anything in this talk today, in this conversation, take the key out of your pocket and put it in the lock and walk out that door.

Netanya 1:15:05

That's my wish. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here, for sitting down, for spending time with me. I I'm just so glowy over here. This was lovely. Thank you so much. I appreciate it greatly. And it was wonderful to spend time with you and hear your voice again.

Wes 1:15:25

Uh likewise, and now uh, you know, send me, send me all the where I can follow all this. And um, because I'm I've got to be a devotee of the of the journey now you're on with all this. Thank you for doing it. Thank you for asking me. It's been a real gift.

Netanya 1:15:43

Thank you so much for being here. It means more than you know. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a quick rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find the show. If you want more of me, head on over to nataniallison.com and enter your name and email for behind the scenes updates in between shows. New episodes air every Tuesday. We'll see you next week.