I Am Excited to Learn How to Keep Moving Forward Because I Don’t Want to Go Back to Who I Used to Be — The Emotional Growth That Helped Me Trust My Higher Power as I Become the Person I Was Born to Be

We!

Joe Mittiga explores the transformative journey beyond healing—where emotional growth leads to a profound shift in identity. He shares how,

Key takeaways

• Healing isn't just about feeling better—it transforms who you become.
• Moving forward requires trust in your evolving identity, not just fixing past pain.

Main topics

• Emotional and spiritual transformation
• Letting go of old identities

Notable quotes

I didn't want to go back to the person I used to be—not because that person was bad, but because I was simply surviving.

Conclusion

Joe concludes with a powerful message: embracing change and trusting the journey forward is not

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) If you felt lonely, isolated, disconnected, with an empty feeling inside and just yearning for more, knowing something is missing, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Joe Mitiga. Speaker 2 (0:27) Hello, and welcome to we. There comes a point in our healing when something begins to change. For a long time, I thought healing was about fixing what hurt. I wanted to understand my pain. I wanted to understand my fear. I wanted to understand why I felt so lonely, overwhelmed, anxious, angry, or stuck all the time. And you know what? Little by little, I began to heal. But something happened that I wasn't really expecting. As I started healing, I began to realize that I didn't want to go back to the person I used to be. Not because that person was bad, of course. That person, the old me, was doing the best I knew how to do. Though, quite honestly, I was simply surviving. Speaker 2 (1:32) I was reacting to life through the pain, through my fears, of course, the old beliefs and the experiences that had shaped my entire life. But as I began to understand myself emotionally and spiritually, I started to see something I could never see before. Healing wasn't only changing how I felt. Healing was changing who I was becoming. And that realization, quite honestly, was pretty exciting. But to tell you the truth, it was more than just a little scary. Because when we begin letting go of who we used to be, we don't always know exactly who we're becoming. The old version of ourselves, it's familiar. Old thoughts are familiar. Old relationships are familiar. Old reactions are familiar. Even old pain can feel familiar. And sometimes, believe it or not, those familiar feelings feel safer than the unknown, even when we know the familiar isn't where we want to live anymore. And that's where I found myself. I knew I wanted to keep moving forward. I knew I didn't want to go backwards. But I was beginning to understand that moving forward would require something more than simply changing my circumstances. I had to learn to trust the person I was becoming. And even more importantly, I had to learn to trust that my higher power might know who that person was before I did. Maybe I didn't need to have the rest of my life all figured out. Maybe I didn't need to know exactly where this journey was taking me. Maybe my responsibility was simply to keep growing, keep healing, keep learning, and keep taking the next step. Because perhaps the purpose of everything I had been through wasn't simply to help me feel better. Perhaps it was preparing me to become someone new, someone more loving, someone more peaceful, someone more courageous, someone more connected, someone capable of living with purpose and helping other people along the way. And today, I have to tell you, I'm pretty excited because I never look back, and I am super excited that I'm always moving forward. I'm excited to discover who I'm becoming tomorrow because today, it's been a pretty good day. My name is Joe Mitiga, and this is we. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the WE Podcast. And as always, I want to just tell you how grateful I am that you're all here with me. And it's been an exciting week. This weekend has been kind of peaceful, quite honestly. My world is one of those that's kind of, I'm a half empty nester. I'm a two-thirds empty nester. My oldest son is in college now, and my dog of almost 12 years, Zeus, passed away a couple weeks ago. So used to be a household of four, and the two loudest ones, my dog and my oldest, are now in their next adventure. and myself and my youngest son ryan you know we have a wonderful time together ryan spends a lot of time with his mom so my silence and my stillness has really been quite amazing and i have to tell you i'm excited to share that the peace in my heart today is really it kind of takes my breath to be honest with you sometimes i remember back on how just chaotic and how crazy and how painful and how hurting and all of life used to be And now it's just not. It's really not. And, you know, this is a great topic I have for us today. The whole idea of moving forward and the emotional growth that helped me move forward and this whole concept of not only what a higher power is, but trusting a higher power and then acting on it based on trust. You know, I've said years ago, what is faith? Faith is trust in action. And you can have all the faith in the world, but if you don't take action on it, nothing really changes. Speaker 2 (6:33) You know, I'm here to share that it's time. And, you know, the We Podcast is a podcast where... I have a calling, quite honestly, to challenge some of the social norms. If you've listened to any of my podcasts, I do it around a religion a lot, with no judgment, no right or wrong. I'm a guy who says, if the it is working for you, please keep doing it. And I applaud you. And your it and my it are, I'm sure, very different in a lot of ways. The reason for the podcast originally, its initial form, and this is my 52nd episode, was to truly honor this thing called spiritual growth, people considering themselves more spiritual than religious. And the reason I talk from that side... It's because that's my path. Now, if I was deeply religious or in the Christian world or, you know, more from a place of the Bible, I would be here sharing those experiences. But I'm not, you know. Religion didn't work for me. I have some wonderful people that it worked for their whole lives. Some of the kindest, most loving people were deeply. Catholic, my priest, Father Cam. He saved my life. And I don't mean figuratively. I mean literally. It was a man that in the eighth grade, my dad was never around, and he would go out of his way to come pick me up, take me in the car, and he's the one that helped me, taught me how to lift weights. Now, as I grew older, he knew straight up. I did not believe. his message from the pulpit i didn't but i believed his living and that's what i talk about here i talk about a monolithic god and love the foundation of all essence is a monolithic god and love how you get there i'm not to judge i can only share my experience strength and hope so I'm glad you're here. I've said it a thousand times. If you can make it through my podcast, you are an absolute spiritual warrior. My last podcast on sexual abuse, it's one of the top podcasts now out there in my episodes, and you can make it through that. I applaud you. That was not an easy conversation. And it was actually the one podcast that... It took me a long time in preparation. You know, I'm a guy that pretty much, I speak from the heart. And I share what I'm feeling. I share my experience. I let everybody know. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a researcher. I'm not a therapist. I'm certainly not a teacher. I'm just a guy. And, you know, I say that all the time, but I'm not kidding. I'm just a guy. And it's interesting because if you saw me. If you would say, well, who is this Joe guy? You know who I am? I'm the man sitting next to you at church. I'm the man sitting next to you at the baseball game. Look across the grocery aisle. You'll see me. I'm right there. That's me. Nothing more, nothing less. I have the same struggles as you do. I have the same challenges you do. The literal only difference with me and most, I've been on a conscious path. since 1990. My first conscious, my first therapy session where I learned about the inner child was February the 16th, 1990. And for a lot of you on this podcast, you were young, probably really young in 1990, pre-millennia, pre-internet, pre-cell phone, pre-texting, pre-Google, pre-everything the world says is normal today. And my first conscious thoughts were a couple of years before that. And, you know, and I say that, so what makes me a little different than most practice, but doesn't make me any different. It doesn't. And that's why I share from the heart. I just share me and, you know, you and me, we're the same. And that's why I call the podcast, the we podcast. a community and connection in a divided world. And the divided world isn't the sense of Person to person or essence to essence. It's because we're all around the world Literally and I want to welcome people from around the world. The we podcast is literally exploding Welcome everybody in Norway United Kingdom Canada, thank you. Thank you for your support. Thank you for being here Thank you for telling people about what we're doing Kenya, Malaysia South Korea, I mean I have to literally just stop sometimes. I am so humbled. You know, it brings tears to my eyes. It really does. to think that people around the globe are listening to this message and it doesn't really surprise me not because i'm anything special and when i say that i'm not putting myself down i'm not i'm just a guy and i'm not kidding but it's humbling it is the biblical quote ye shall do what i have done in grander things the the technology of today allows people to reach the globe with a click of a button. And that's exactly what's happening with the WE Podcast. And I am extremely grateful that you're here. The overarching foundation of why I believe this is so important, the message I put out there, is because we are the generation of change. We just are. I've done numerous podcasts on this. I have a keynote presentation I do on this particular topic. You know, I literally believe over the next 10 years that the masses can heal the physical ailments of the world, of the globe. A lot of you know, I did a TEDx a year ago or so in South Africa, and I learned that the continent of Africa, 400 million people don't have running water. I just didn't know before. And, you know, I am a guy that can't unsee something. I can't like, oh, be really bothered by it on a Tuesday and wake up on a Wednesday and act like there's nothing wrong. I can't do it. It's not me. And that's really the foundation of how the We Podcast was started. truly on that concept right there. And because of technology, because of the global economy, because of the long-term caregivers, because of Generation Lab and other things, we literally have the capacity as a humanity to make sure that the people on the globe that are in the poorer communities with less resources The rest of us, if we share 1%, simply 1 % of the wealth, there would be no human on the planet that didn't have running water. And I'm going to share a story later on how that all came true, literally. And my nonprofit, Project Smile, helped. And that's one of the reasons I'm here. How the We Podcast was started, I came back from South Africa. I started a live stream called We. Go figure. and got that live stream up to over 50,000 people. And my very last guest, his name is Farhan. He's an owner of a development company in Dubai, was my last guest. And I'm going to share that story on how this man's spiritual essence and his spiritual communion is about giving back. I literally just saw a presentation that he gave on LinkedIn, and I'm going to talk about that later. I'm going to tell that story. on the why we need to move forward. Because together, we're changing the world. We really are. We're healing the world. And from the physical sense of things, Basically, it's money. That's it. The only reason human beings don't have running water, money. The only reason there's the simplest of diseases, literally one of my groups in Uganda, these kids, they have no shoes. No shoes. Well, we got them shoes. But we have to get them nets. They have no air conditioning. They sleep in big-ass huts. But because if they get... bit by mosquitoes, malaria kills them. Like, I don't know how many kids a year, but a bunch. Crazy. Doesn't need to be that way. And I believe with awareness, we can heal all of that. The human physical challenges of the world like that, I really do. And, you know, that's a big reason I'm here. That's a big reason to bring awareness to that type of stuff. You look at most of my social media, and please follow me around on my different social media platforms. And I Speaker 1 (16:08) always have to kid because I Speaker 2 (16:09) wish I'd Speaker 1 (16:10) write them down. I don't know the platform's names off the top of my head. I know LinkedIn. Speaker 2 (16:14) Oh, Instagram is one. Facebook is another. I don't know. Y'all know them better than I do. Look up my name, Joe Mitiga, something you'll find me. And follow me, please. Why? Because what are you going to see there? You're going to see Joe promoting Joe now. No, you're going to see Joe promoting Project Smile. And please put the message out. We can help others. We really can. And that's all about healing of humanity. It is. My ultimate goal, heal humanity one smile at a time. My little nonprofit is about helping bring water. What's yours? And I know a lot of you don't have a nonprofit, which is fine. But there's also ways you can give back. And the moving forward and the living from the highest of you is about figuring out your... action steps on a daily basis that you can add to start giving back a little bit. And that we're going to talk about that later on in the show. And the foundation of the show, the true foundation is to help people heal. You know, We live in an era of time where humanity as a concept, the entire humanity consciousness of humanity is waking up. It's waking up to the feminine side of herself. It is. And I always use the example of 100, 200 years ago, the owning of a human perfectly fine. I literally, my last podcast was a story which would have been, I spoke. to the grandson who's now 76 years old so it would have been his grandfather however whatever era of time that was where he used his wife in a community neighborhood as a prostitute to make money and thought nothing of it and the community did zero not a nothing think about how unconsciously dead that humanity had to be, that consciousness had to be. Well, when I think about it, that was probably around the 1900s, somewhere that time. What the heck? 50 years before that, owning a human was okay here in the United States. Well, I share all that because we now, I'm not saying there's not an epidemic of human trafficking and all of the abuse out there. There is. And there's a global Fight to heal it. There's a global fight to stop it, to shift it, to change it, to grow. Because humanity is waking up. Perfect example. And as we wake up. There are the rest of us, the 99.99 % of us, that are in a place to where we're going through things inside of ourselves that you might not have before. And you're waking up spiritually, but the challenge is the more you wake up spiritually, there's going to be emotional challenges that you have to walk through. There are. There just is. The concept of the new thought movement of 40 years ago, it worked forever. The changing of your thoughts. Great. Is it a wonderful technique? Yes. Is meditation a fabulous support? Yes. Do either one of them heal? H-E-A-L anything. Does it heal anything? No, it doesn't. I literally just saw a clip on a reel where a lady, 4,000 years at the best school on the freaking planet, and our brain controls everything. We can just poof-o, click-o, and it's all done if we want it to be. Speaker 2 (20:00) You know what? I promise not to cuss. But if I was cussing, I would just start cussing right now. Ma'am, I'm sorry. You're wrong. Speaker 1 (20:12) Wrong. Falsehood. Not true. How Speaker 2 (20:16) do I know? She's the best leading this, that, and the other thing of some Ivy League school for 50 years, and she says it's true. Speaker 1 (20:25) No, it's not. It's not Speaker 2 (20:27) true. How do I know? Because if it was true, everybody on this podcast, which is global, which was actually ranked 57th in the globe, no one would be on my podcast if what this woman's delusional ridiculousness was true. Why do I get so big? Because... The influences of the day put out this fast fix, automatic, it's all you have to do is change your mind. And if you can't, it's your fault, as if that's true. It's not true. It's false. And I'm just big enough to tell you, it's not true. So if you've had voices in your head that are driving you nuts, we've got techniques to help. It's called a first step. Start writing them down. If you've got angst and you're taking your stuff out on your wife, fellas, have you started the 15 minutes of beating the bed? There's several things I'm going to talk about every podcast before I get into the topic of the podcast. And one of it is emotional release in a healthy way. I have zero tolerance for men taking their anger out on women. Zero. Less than zero. Nada. It has to stop. How? I hear a lot of influencers. I hear a lot of people out there saying how horrible, but how? The how-to, fellas, is get a bunch of pictures of people you don't like, including your wife every once in a while. She doesn't have to know. She's going to push your button. She's in your world to push your buttons. It's not her responsibility for your rage. It's okay. Put her picture in the pile, though. And on Saturday before the football game, when your buddies are drinking and having beer, go into one of their extra bedrooms with a wiffle ball bat and start beating the bed on those pictures. 15 minutes a week, fellas. That's all I'm asking. 15 minutes a week. I promise you, your entire life will change in 90 days or less. It'll change in 90 days or less if you just get the release valve of rage out in a healthy way on the bed instead of drinking beer all day long. Silence. You know, people wonder how do they find their higher power? How do they know where their higher power is? If the higher power is in us, Joe, how do we do it? The how-to, how do we follow it? You have to be able to hear it. How do you hear it? It's the quiet voice. How do I get to the quiet voice? Practice silence. Silence isn't no movement. Silence is no external stimuli. No radios, no talking, no internet, no kids, no flipping of the reels, all that stuff. And notice the big thoughts and listen for the small thoughts. Listen. And I'm asking everybody, and I've been doing this now for several weeks, and I hope... There's a lot of you on here now that can say, yeah, Joe, you know, I've gotten in the routine. I got up a little earlier and I've started my five minutes of pursuing silence. I say to people all the time, if I can go five or six hours, you can go five or six minutes. About two months ago or so. I follow my higher power voice almost exclusively now. I really do. And that's one of the advantages because I spent so many years healing the pain. All unloving, shame-based, guilt-based, hurt-based, hate-based voices in your head come from a hurt little kid in your heart. All the voices in your head. That's why the affirmation concept doesn't work. All the voices in your head are sourced from a hurt in your heart. All of them, 100 % of them are sourced from the hurt in your heart. Heal the hurt in your heart, the voices go away. And as a lot of you know, but I know a lot of new people, welcome to everybody new, I spent seven years starting in April of 1994. Speaker 2 (24:41) when I had memories of being sexually abused as a little boy, brand new memories. I was 31 years old. I spent the following seven years in silence and solitude, isolation, literally with just me. Seven years. I had a therapist. That was it. I moved to a city, Gainesville, for three of those years, 50 miles away from everybody, in the nighttime because I lived in a business district. I was three miles from a living human, literally. And I spent that time healing. I did. Giving a voice to the darkest parts. It's called inner child work. Dual hand journaling is what that's called. I have numerous podcasts on dual hand journaling. And that's how you heal. You give a voice to your darkest parts. You give a voice to your deepest emotional hurting parts. Give them a voice through the dual hand journaling. Eventually, you're going to feel grief as you emote. The grief, you will be amazed at how wonderful eventually you feel. I've got a great story I'm going to talk about on that topic later on in the episode of a woman that I've been working with now for a while, and it's working. And her spiritual communion now is... Her words, Joy, it's just hard for me to comprehend because it works. It really does. Why? Well, because the feminine side of self is waking up. And if the feminine side of self is waking up, if the feminine side of self is where your spiritual communion is, your emotional sense is there too. And if God is love, if we're trying to commune with this thing called God or higher power or oneness or universe or Jesus or whatever adjective you're putting on your divinity, right? If you described it with one word, you would call love the word. Well, love is an emotion. The challenge is to really have