It Can Still Feel Scary as I’m Beginning to See the World Differently Because I’m Becoming Someone Different — The Personal and Spiritual Growth That Helped Me Trust My Higher Power, and Live My Life with Love, Purpose, and Passion

We!

Joe Mittiga reflects on his personal and spiritual transformation, exploring how internal growth has reshaped his perception of the world, r

Key takeaways

• True peace begins internally, not in external changes to the world.
• Personal transformation can feel scary because it involves becoming someone different.

Main topics

• Internal vs. external sources of peace
• Spiritual growth and personal transformation

Notable quotes

Maybe my external world was never where my peace was supposed to come from. Maybe peace begins in me.

I don't have to wait for the entire world to change before I can experience love.

Conclusion

Joe concludes that transformation starts within—when individuals choose love over fear and

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (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 1 (0:27) Hello, and welcome to WE. There was a time in my life when I believed that if the world around me would just change, then maybe I could finally be happy. If people would change, if my relationships would change, if my circumstances would change, if the world, you know, would just become a little less divided, a little less angry, and a little less afraid, then maybe, I don't know, just maybe. I could finally feel the peace I've been looking for. But something is happening to me that honestly, I never expected. The world hasn't necessarily changed at all, but I have. And as I continued changing internally, I'm beginning to see everything around me differently. The people in my life look different to me. My relationships feel different. Success looks very different. My dreams look different. Even the things I once believed were important don't always feel as important anymore. And as exciting as that can be, to be honest with you, quite honestly, it can feel pretty scary. Because when I begin becoming someone different, I can't always see the world through the same eyes I used to. For much of my life, I viewed the world through my fears. I worried about what people thought about me. I worried about whether I was successful enough. I worried about whether I was good enough. I tried to control people, circumstances, and outcomes because I thought controlling my external world would somehow give me peace inside myself. But the more I healed my internal world, the more I'm beginning to understand something. Maybe my external world was never where my peace was supposed to come from. Maybe peace begins in me. Maybe love begins inside of me. Maybe purpose begins inside of me. And maybe, just maybe, when those things begin changing inside of me, the entire world I experience begins to change too. And that doesn't mean the world suddenly becomes perfect. People are still going to hurt each other. Relationships are still going to change. Life still becomes uncertain, and there's still fear, anger, division, and pain all around us. And I'm beginning to realize that I don't have to become what I see around me, though. I can choose something different. I can choose love instead of fear. I can choose understanding instead of judgment. I can choose compassion instead of anger. I can choose faith instead of trying to control everything. I can ask my higher power to guide me towards the person I was created to become. But even that can feel scary because becoming someone different sometimes means questioning things I've always believed for years. It means looking at relationships differently. It means looking at success differently. It means looking at myself very, very differently. And sometimes it means realizing that the life I once thought I wanted may not be the life my soul is asking me to live. So today, we're going to talk about what happens. When our internal transformation begins changing the way we experience our external world, we're going to talk about why growth can feel uncomfortable, even when it's leading us somewhere beautiful. We're going to talk about why seeing the world differently doesn't necessarily mean the world has changed. It means we did. And we're going to explore how trusting our higher power can help us stop allowing the fear around us to determine the life within us. Speaker 1 (5:22) Because I'm beginning to believe I don't have to wait for the entire world to change before I can experience love. I don't have to wait for everything around me to change before I can discover peace. I don't have to know exactly where this transformation is taking me before I begin living with purpose and passion. Maybe I simply have to keep becoming, keep trusting, keep loving, and keep allowing my higher power to show me differently how life can look when I become different first. My name is Joe Mitiga, and this is we. Welcome to WE, everybody. It's an amazing night here in Atlanta, Georgia, and super excited to be with you guys tonight. We're finally getting a little bit of the break. Here in Atlanta, the southeast, we definitely have the four seasons, and our summers can be pretty brutal, you know, 100 degrees. And my son especially knows that. He's a college athlete now. He's out on AstroTurf, 100 degrees outside, 120 on the field. And they work through it, you know. They're tough, and it's all part of the sport. It's all part of living here in Atlanta. And, you know, we get a couple months that it's pretty cold. Nothing like the north where I grew up. And quite honestly, it's hot here in Atlanta, but not near as hot as it can be. You know, Texas, South Louisiana, high humidities. But it's getting a little cooler. And it's just, it's beautiful when this time of the year happens. And over the next couple of months, it'll be extremely beautiful here. The We Podcast is something that... I have a real passion about it. And today we're going to talk about passions. We're going to talk about purpose. We're going to talk about the why. Like so many of the episodes, and I'm talking about the emotional healing and the grief and the anger and the angst and the I can't breathe and all that. And you know, that's real life. It is. And the other side, the reason we need to do it is because Living from that same emotional sense, but where fullness and overflow is your guidance system versus empty and fear, life becomes a totally different thing. It really does. And we're going to talk about that totally different thing today. We're going to talk about the human transformation of why the WE Podcast is here and what I believe all of you have the potential to do. So welcome. Again, I want to just thank everybody. I want to thank you for your support. I really, really do. I always like mentioning that the We Podcast now, I think we're like in 25 countries around the globe. We're ranked in eight or nine or 10 countries, Norway, United Kingdom, Canada, Kenya, Malaysia, South Korea, Germany, and a brand new country on board now, Oman. And I thought, I kind of heard of Oman. I didn't know where it was. Well, it's right there in the Middle East. And welcome, everybody from Oman. I am so excited that you're here. And every time I share that part of the global experience called We Podcast, I have to remind people why that's so exciting to me. And it's exciting to me because, as a humanity, we're waking up. And it doesn't matter where you live. It doesn't matter the color of your skin. It doesn't matter the religion or your gender. It doesn't matter your sexual orientation. None of that matters. If you're human, you are waking up. And what is it that you're waking up to? You're waking up to the feminine side of yourself. And the feminine side of yourself is where emotions and your spirituality lives. It's where it resides inside. Your Christ consciousness resides in your feminine side of self. And as that part is waking up and as we're becoming more and more connected to it, I'm going to give you some examples of people that have followed that over their lifetimes. And you'll know their names because they've created billion-dollar organizations that have literally changed the way the world functions. And we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about the... you know, the emotional side of stuff. And because it's necessary, you know, I tell people all the time, if we're going to heal humanity, we have to help everybody understand that emotions are a good thing. They are part of who you are. We are a spiritual and emotional being equal to a physical and mental being. The challenge with the emotional component of ourselves is that's the part that so very often is used against other people. People get angry and then they take their anger out. It causes harm. It causes fear. It causes destruction. And I say it all the time, you know, fellas, just taking your anger out on your partners, that's got to stop. And hopefully, if you've been on my podcast for any length of time, you're taking my advice. And for new people, the advice is, 15 minutes a week, get a wiffle ball bat, a bunch of pictures of people you don't like, take them into the bedroom, either at your house or your buddy's house. I always use the example. It's football weekend. Go 15 minutes early. Your buddies won't care. Your beer will be waiting for you when you're done. Go in the bedroom and get your anger out in a healthy way. And what does it look like? It looks like put pictures on the bed, literally human pictures. You put them on the bed. You take the bat, you put it over your head and start slamming it down on the bed. That's it. Over and over and over. And you'll see the energetic movement will start to happen. And say what you need to say. You're in a sacred space. And if people can hear you, go somewhere they can't because this is private to you. But it's important. The more we can teach people how to get their emotions. Speaker 1 (11:39) validated but then experienced in a healthy way, then the taking of emotions out on each other, the harm caused by unhealthy emotions, it goes away. And that's all part of the healing of humanity. And of course, you know, I have to remind you that the anger is not the source. The anger is kind of the first layer, especially for men, most of the time. The layers underneath the anger is hurt. It's suppressed emotion. And that suppressed emotion is always there because when we were kids, this whole idea of validating our emotions, it didn't exist. So that's why we are the generation of change. And that's why we're doing it differently. The adults on this particular podcast, we're doing it differently. And it's time to truly embrace and feel and emote the depths of stuff that weren't felt, embraced. and honored years ago because it's suppressed inside of you. All of your unloving voices have an emotional source in your heart, regardless of what's being said out there. And, you know, there's a lot of different influencers out there that have a different approach to the voices in your head. If it's working for you, great. I say it all the time. Keep doing whatever's working. And in that, the We Podcast is exploding around the globe. We're literally ranked 62nd. in the rankings of the global rankings in Apple Podcasts on 20 countries around the world, and we're 10 months old literally tomorrow, it just tells me that there's a lot of us that the old styles of healing aren't working anymore, and we're searching for and seeking the next thing. Does that make the other things right or wrong? No. It just means that we here at the We Podcast We're here, I'm here to teach and support and talk about things that will help you literally heal. I also tend to challenge some of the human norms. And if most of you know, I'm sure that the country of Nepal was just decimated. And I hear this constant, I'm going to pray for them. All right, but what the heck does that do? You want to know what it does? Nothing. It gives you a little bit of a cop-out relief. I prayed for him. But you know what, folks? God's not codependent. What is God going to do without a human being doing something for him? And that's what I get the, I prayed for him. Am I making fun of that? No, I'm not. But what I'm asking you as part of the generation of change, I'm asking you in your prayer to ask for something different. Instead of just saying, oh, dear God, please help the people in Nepal and stay on your knees or whatever for a long time. And then you feel all better about yourself because you prayed for him. It didn't do anything. Why? Because God's not codependent. Now, I'm asking you to say, dear God, show me how I can do something, I, me, Joe, can do something to help the people in Nepal. That's what I did. Well, I started a GoFundMe account. Everybody on this podcast can start today, whenever you're listening, a GoFundMe account. Helping Nepal. So instead of the old, I prayed for them, acting like that does something and move on with your day, feeling better because you prayed. I'm asking you now to ask for something you can do to help. God can only do. for us what God can do through us. And that whole concept is a very different thing. I say it all the time. God is not codependent. It's not God's job to rescue anybody anywhere. And you can ask for God to help, but you know what God is doing? He's sending hundreds of thousands of people from around the globe to Nepal to help. He's sending millions and billions and billions of dollars to Nepal to help rebuild and to help kids and to help whatever. Well, each one of us can be part of that just depending on how you're guided. So if you don't want to do your own GoFundMe, go to mine. I literally started one. Go to helpnepal.world and give $5 to me, Kyle. I would love to be able to tell the world. that the We Podcast helped raise $100,000 on my GoFundMe account. And trust me, folks, you will see where every penny of it goes. I'm right now interviewing and seeking out caregivers on the ground, human beings in Nepal who've been there forever, just like my Uganda guys. I've got a couple people right now in Nepal. What do they need? Money. Why? One group. They just got like 20 more kids. Why? Because mom and dad are gone. Gone. And infrastructure doesn't do anything. The kids just sit there. So if you're not guided to start your own, and if you're not already involved somewhere to take an action step, praying is not an action step. It's not. Praying is a great thing. Of course it is. But as part of the generation of change, it's now time to ask for guidance from your higher power what you can do. Start your own GoFundMe account. Well, Joe, I don't know how. GoFundMe.com. Trust me. AI will walk you through the whole thing. I don't have anybody to send it to. You have a family. You have church. You have people at the baseball game. Send it to 20 people. How about if all 20 people gave $10? That's $200. Where do I send it? Go online. Speaker 1 (17:49) or come to mine, helpnepal.world. You'll see my GoFundMe account. I know what to do with people. I know how to get it on the ground, and I'm doing it now. So please, $10. You want to donate $1,000, $10,000, you can do it there too. But $5 is fine too. It really is. And I want to continue to help people understand. We're different. It's time for us to start taking the old action steps and the old behavior patterns and expanding. I literally have seen numerous people. I'm praying for all the people in Nepal. Okay, what do you literally think that's going to do? Nothing except make you feel better in the five minutes. Nothing. Why? Because God can't do anything for us that God can't do through us. So it's time. to start putting any level of action step associated with your prayer and if you ask for guidance which is really what this entire podcast is about the asking for guidance then everything ends up being different Speaker 1 (18:59) Unfortunately, I have to share about some really, I had a really tough day yesterday. I did. For those of you that are new, my 12-year-old, 11-and-a-half-year-old German Shepherd, Zeus, I had to put him to sleep on August the 5th. One of the harder things I've ever had to do. Not the putting him to sleep, because, you know, it was his time. The decision wasn't hard to make, but as you make the decision, the grief is hard. It is. And it was very hard. Look at my, you know, the episode 46, I think in my catalog, I can't let go because I'm feeling anxious or something like that. Listen to that one. That's me telling you what I did in a very deep sense of grief. And, you know, what we're building here at the We Podcast is a library of episodes where you can go in wherever you are emotionally in any one given day. If you're feeling scared. Go listen, go find one of the episodes about feeling scared, feeling overwhelmed, not able to forgive, you