Sense of Soul - Finding Mindfulness

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

We really enjoyed having David W. Berner on our podcast! He is a wonderful writer, broadcaster, journalist, teacher and award winning author. He joined us to talk about his new book that releases on September 1st  “Walks with Sam”. This book is about his beloved dog Sam and how walks with her opened him up to a spiritual awakening and mindfulness!  Join David and bring along your four legged friend for his book launch Sept 13th... http://evite.me/d9nPQP8bns Learn more about David and his new book at his “Walks with Sam “ blog, www.walkswithsam.com  or at his main website www.davidwberner.com To learn more about Sense of Soul check out our website and social media www.mysenseofsoul.com  

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today, we welcome David Werner. David is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author, and teacher. David has more than 40 years experience in broadcast journalism. He has written many amazing books. The book that we're going to concentrate on today is about his beloved dog, Sam, and how when he goes on walks with Sam, it opens him up and he has found himself going through a spiritual awakening, finding a lot of mindfulness on his walks with Sam. I did it typical Mandy style and finished your book

yesterday afternoon. That's great. Yes, I loved it. I will say that you are very mindful. You might be the only person in the entire world that could find a beautiful meaning around carrying dog poop through a neighborhood. I don't know if it's a beautiful meaning, but I don't know about you guys, but certainly for me, you know, the idea of mindfulness is a wonderful thing, but it is a hard thing to get to sometimes. It's tough to get to. Humans have the capacity to think about past, future, now, then, upside down, backward. It gets in our way. Dogs, however, they stay in the present, you know, and that's helpful to me, at least to me. Tell us the story about how it came about that you were discovering mindfulness during these walks. It wasn't right away. You know, to give you a sense of how this

all began, I was on sabbatical for my college job. I had some projects to do, but I also had some shifts in my life at the time. And my sister died, a few other things were happening, not unlike a lot of people's lives, just shifting in thinking of where you are in your world. We had had the dog about a year or so, and I decided to make it a habit to get out with the dog as often as I could, even more so than we normally would, and to do it with myself, just myself and the dog, and have no destination. And it was a way to just kind of let the world sink in and figure out where I was and where I wanted to be and where I wanted to go and what things meant to me at this point in my life. I was turning 60 and it just seemed like the right

thing. It became a blog first because I was just trying to keep notes and I didn't expect that it was going to be any big blog that anybody's going to pay attention to. I was really doing it for myself. But in time, the entries started to take on a more thematic sort of approach about what it was to be mindful in a way. Not that I'm any expert at all, but I was sort of just envisioning what it would be like if anybody else would be trying to find this same space. The pieces started to evolve that way. And when I had a bunch of them, I had a number of people just mentioned who were either following or had read a couple or whatever, said to me, you know, that could be a book and I'm like, I don't know about that. I was really reluctant but then I started playing around with it and I

said, you know, there's something here so I put together a manuscript and somebody wanted it and here we are but as far as to your question about mindfulness, I don't know what clicked in. There are certain walks that were just certainly a lot more meaningful in that spectrum like you're talking about than others. And they weren't at the beginning. I have to be very honest with you. At the beginning, it was just, oh, let's take a fun walk with the dog and see what happens. Then it became a little more like, hmm, okay, this gives me time to think. I made sure that I didn't have a

destination. I wanted the walks to be, I didn't want to have like a place to be at a certain time. I thought that would take away from it. The more I thought about that, the more I put that into the equation, the better I was with trying to allow my mind just to be in the moment. It took work. It wasn't easy. I'm not an expert. I'm still not. But I did find a path along the way of finding that better place to be about where I was and what I wanted to do in my mind clearing. And it came with time. It came over the many walks in time. But I've always been a walker. I like to walk. I appreciate that. When I was younger, I hiked a bit and things like that. I can't say that I kept that up to any great degree. But, you know, when I want to clear my head, a good walk around the block is a good thing.

Combining that walk along with taking the dog out, meaning the dog that, like all dogs, live in the present moment more than anything else. Dogs don't have a capacity to think about what happened three days ago or what's going to happen. They have a nose that senses what has been and what is coming, but they don't think about nostalgia or our past like we do. That's not in their capability. And that's kind of a good thing. Yeah, I'm jealous. Yeah, I think that was a really big key for me is

not to think so much about where I was going to go and just let the walk take me where it was going to take me it took a little bit of work to fight that a little bit because we're so ingrained in like oh we're going to go here we're going to go to the grocery store we're going to walk over here and then walk back it's kind of like what we do to kind of compartmentalize how we're going to walk over here and then walk back. It's kind of like what we do to kind of compartmentalize how we're going to approach something. And I really fought that as hard as I could. And at some point it came naturally. Like I didn't care. Have you always been a deep thinker?

I don't know if you have to ask my wife about that one. I think sometimes she thinks I am. Sometimes she thinks I'm out of my mind. I don't know if I have to ask my wife about that one. I think sometimes she thinks I am. Sometimes she thinks I'm out of my mind. I don't know if I'm a deep thinker. You're always internalizing things? Oh, goodness gracious, probably so. My wife wonders sometimes if I'm maybe just a little bit crazy. Is it a good way?

I'm one of those kinds of people who, I don't want to say sensitive, but I tend to take things in deeply. So you're an empath I guess so but not so much as my wife my wife is really yeah that way I mean like hardcore she can walk into a room start to feel somebody's energy she's very much like that I'm not so much like that but I definitely to answer your question I have deep emotion I don't that. I'm not so much like that. But I definitely, to answer your question, I have deep emotion. I don't know if I'm necessarily a deep thinker. Okay. I think that's slightly different.

You know, it's interesting. When I got done with your book, I felt like I kind of knew you. My wife, we did not know each other when I wrote Accidental Lessons. And then the second book was Any Road Will Take You There, which is a trip I took with my sons and a friend of mine after I found a weird, very strange, unexpected photograph of my dad when I was young. And it set off a whole process. I won't get into all that, but that was the book, what the book was about. And she read that book before we actually started the date, and she said to me, I feel like I already know you. It's true about a lot of my writing is that

I don't know how to filter it. I just put it out there. I guess I feel comfortable enough with that. If it's a memoir, I have to check with my family members all the time to make sure they're good with it. While I was reading your book, I said, oh my gosh, I feel like this book is similar to The Alchemist in the way that when Shanna first handed me The Alchemist, I was like, what in the hell is this? I'm like, this is so freaking cool. You're talking about Paula Quello's book, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yes. And so I was like, what the hell? She's like, Mandy, I promise. Just keep going so with your book I opened it up and I'm like wait what the hell okay okay but then I felt like it was very similar it was like this very simple story and earthly experience that brought these very beautiful deep spiritual messages and I loved it here It was very nice of you. I mean, to be even talked about in the same way, it was amazing.

As I was trying to, because I'm very much one of those people, I have to listen. I'm so glad for Audible. There's a few of my books at Audible. Thank God. I've been able to read so many things, well, listen to so many things

that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to. I have ADHD. I have four kids, but I really do love to soak in all this knowledge. So I was looking for something to listen to about you. And here I run into Colm Holland. We just had him on our podcast too. Great. I just met him and I just find him fascinating. Oh, don't you? We loved him as well. So I was excited about that episode. So then when she sent me the link to that, you were on his podcast. I'm like, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense.

Because I felt like your book was similar in that beautiful way of taking simplicity and making it into this journey. And I felt like at times I was walking with you. Oh, that's good. It's good to hear that. Yeah, you know, people have asked me if I had, if that was the purpose when I sat down to start writing, if I was thinking in those terms.

And I really wasn't. There was nothing manipulated about it. Like, oh, I'm going to make this like the alchemist or I'm going to think in this way. When I was questioning something or when I wasn't certain about something, I just said it. I didn't try to be, and I hope it doesn't come across that way in any way that I'm some kind of expert on this. I'm not. You didn't. And I have to say, I really appreciated your authenticity and your vulnerability because there was one part in the story where you

were like quick to judge people that you were walking by or that you saw at the park and then you know you immediately brought awareness to that thought you know it's not like you're just acting like you're some holy person walking down the street and you know not passing judgments on people and i'm definitely not you were very raw and very real and very authentic. And I appreciated that when I was reading it. Well, good. I'm glad that came across because I really want that to be true of this book. That it doesn't come across as some kind of manual or any like, hey, you should be listening to me because I've got it together.

That's not it at all. No. I loved that you referred to Tick Hanh, but I didn't get any sense that you feel like you're like Thich Nhat Hanh. No. Don't we all inspire to be so? The other day

I tried to answer a question as if Thich Nhat Hanh was going to. Which you know how long he pauses. So it's like, hey mom, can I go to wherever and i'm like well you know can you imagine we are programmed in this day and age to fill that space when someone's silent isn't it true yeah and it's so much better if we can just hold back it's hard it's hard you know another thing i thought about the things you can see in the space of mindfulness that you've never

seen before that you've walked past a million times yeah and when when you mentioned the park do you remember long ago mandy i think it was when we did an episode about a year ago about how we suggested people sit at the park and just watch. Watch the kids, how they play. There's no judgment there. They don't care about color. They don't care about what your mom and dad do for a living, what kind of car do you drive. They're just playing and being. Yeah, I think society sort of, as we grow older and get responsibility

and all those things about adulting, as they say, that we forget that all that stuff is just societal pressures and cultural norms and things like that. And they aren't really about the essence of things. And I think in this book with, you know, Sam, I think that's, she reminded me of that. And they aren't really about the essence of things. And I think in this book with, you know, Sam, I think that's, she reminded me of that. I mean, dogs don't think about other dogs and what kind of better dog bowl that they

have than the other ones. You know, they don't, that doesn't even come to mind. You know, they're just unconditional love. Yeah. They're like the epitome of it. Yeah, absolutely. Dogs are like humans. They just want to be loved and give love. Yeah. They're like the epitome of it. Yeah, absolutely. Dogs are like humans. They just want to be loved and give love. Yeah. And they just want to be with you. At least all the dogs I've ever had.

Mine follows me everywhere. Yeah. I have a mini Labradoodle. Okay, cool. He looks even a lot like Sam, but he's smaller and a little scragglier. Was it a, was it a miniature poodle?

Or what was the, why does it look like a poodle? So it was a phantom poodle. A phantom. It is. So a phantom poodle is kind of like where you get the colors of like a German shepherd. That is an actual breed of poodle. Oh, wow. You know who had phantom poodles was Robin Williams, also Jackie Kennedy.

They are more rare, so they have the same markings of like a German shepherd, but they're whole breed poodles. Donated to my son who's autistic. And the dog is mine. Does your son know this? Everyone knows this. Everyone knows this knows this of course i think dogs kind of love who feeds them you know yeah it's so funny but i wanted to bring that up because the doodles i know that they're very popular and it's how you know they have these big puppy

mills everywhere trying to mass produce them be careful about it i had all kinds of different dogs growing up i had a collie it was my very first dog given to me by my grandson a year old and then i had mutts and scraggly dogs and then we had a golden retriever and had a labrador and now sam and uh so i've had the gambit of the you know the fancy dog and the dog that's just like please take me from the rescue pound too so and they've all been just great dogs I mean yeah although from personalities obviously but they've all been good animals and I think you know in a lot of ways dogs are end up being good people in a way if you could put it that way, because of what they experienced. And that's just like us, you know, like if our environment or our upbringing or whatever is troubled, then, you know, we have a difficult time and dogs are the exact same way. That's why they have rescue. Have you heard the song on Tik TOK? Well, I only know this because I have children,

but it's like dogs are great. Dogs great i haven't heard that dogs are great person but i know you're a music guy i am a music guy we go around singing dogs are great all the time in this we're a musical family we always have a song going on in the household well you've got kids too that helps yeah but that is one of our favorite ones. Dogs are great. Whenever I'm around Shanna's dog, I get this deep sense that her dog is her father reincarnated. And I can see him. And his rascal reminds me so much of your dad, Shanna. We all feel that way. I know this is really out there, David, but in your book, I was like, I wonder if Sam is your sister.

Ooh. Yeah. I never thought of that really no it never crossed my mind yeah I don't know I like Sam might be your sister and your sister brought you through this journey so Mandy actually she does some mediumship, and she's received some stuff from your sister overnight. You're serious? Very. She debated telling you. She debated.

It's kind of freaking me out. When you mentioned about how dog reminded you of your dad, my aunt, who is my mother's sister, when I was growing up, had a big St. Bernard, had a big st. Bernard like big st. Bernard she insisted it was her dad reincarnated she just absolutely insisted it and there was no reason for her you know she wasn't in any way before or after necessarily a believer in reincarnation but she said that's that's my dad I guarantee that dog is my dad yeah i hear more about what you felt i never crossed my mind well so my story kind of goes like this when i

was young i wanted to be a veterinarian i always felt very drawn to animals and then i found out that i have like one of the oddest, weirdest cases of asthma on earth. I'm like a guinea pig to asthma doctors and you name it. And I've died twice from asthma attacks that were triggered by pollen and exposing myself to animals. Because I just love them so much. And I feel like they've always just been missing from my life because I can't be around them. And so after my second near-death experience, that's when the mediumship started coming in and I started getting messages. And so last night,

after I read your book, I was actually taking a bath and I started yelling for my husband. I'm like, give me my phone. It was all just coming so fast. I grabbed my phone and I just started writing everything I was getting. Yeah, it was very intense. And I really felt like I knew you and your sister. I felt her and it was, it was beautiful. So. Wow. Wow. That is, I guess it is kind of odd that I never thought about that. Why don't you tell him some of the details that you received and see if he can validate any of it? You know, it's probably important. Part of the book is about sort of me understanding passing of my sister and sort of reconciling her life was all about. So there's no question about that. I mean,

I didn't dwell on it in the book cause I didn't want the book to be about my sister, but there, but it, it actually I'm writing something about my sister right now. There was something, you know, about that that was one of the reasons why I needed the space out there with the dog. Yeah. You know, I lost my brother, too, so I could relate to the loss of a sibling. And I don't know that there's a lot out there for people that have lost siblings. It's always the parents.

And, of course, I mean, it's so hard on my parents, but the siblings were kind of like, what do we do with this grief? And I found that when I was going through it, you don't hear a lot about the pain that the siblings go through. So I really related to you on that. Just another thing we have in common, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. You know, for me, it was coming. coming I mean she had struggled with drugs and alcohol for a long long time so I just knew I was going to get a call it's just one of those things I knew and it came just as I expected and I just recently had a very strong dream about her she was struggling with something in our backyard or childhood home. And she was an adult at the time, though, in the dream.

For whatever reason, I don't remember death dates like my parents. I don't remember the death dates. I remember the birth dates, but I always have to look up the death date. It's something about me blocking it out or something, I guess. I couldn't remember the day that I got the call from the emergency room on my sister. And I looked it up a couple of days after that dream. And I had the dream on the same night the call came. Oh, that's not a coincidence.

Four years to the day. That was weird. Yeah. You know, I'm in recovery. So my heart goes out. That's why she came to you. Probably. I'll have 10 years in November.

I'm very blessed. I was able to crawl out of that hole. But maybe that is why she came to me because I just have a feeling honestly, I don't know if I'm right or wrong. But I feel like I was a lot like her. I feel like she was like the center of attention. She was fun. She was tons of energy. And you always kind of looked up to her because you were more like the sit back, like introverted. And she was just out there and she'd walk into a room and the attention went to her and she talked a lot. She had so much energy. My sons absolutely loved her, their favorite aunt

in the world. She was that kind of person. But with that energy came recklessness. And that's what did it. I'm curious, was there a certain chapter in the book that was more leaning towards like kind of maybe an epiphany or an experience around your sister? For me? I don't know if there was a particular one. She was kind of always on my mind at that point. But there's a walk where I go to the park and I notice there are a lot of memorials. I had never noticed before these little memorials, like a tree planted for somebody. Like it was the park for the dead. So I think she came to mind there, but she was always on my mind at the time.

I love that chapter. It was about leaving our mark in the world. Yeah. I think that might be the same chapter or our mark in the world. Yeah. I think that might be the same chapter or close to it where I had never noticed before the handprint. And the one that's outside my garage here, the house we live in was built in the 40s. That was put there in the 40s. Somebody's little footprint of a baby. Speaking of leaving your mark, if you wanted to leave one mark behind on earth, what would it be?

Wow. Tangible would be any creative work that I have. Somebody could pick up and read or listen to. That, to me, lives on. But if it's just a mark, to me, it's that my children, my two sons, have somehow taken something from me that will help them through whatever they go through. That's, you know, when I'm gone and I'm not around and their mother's not around, and they're going to be fine

because they're both very strong, independent people. But lean on us from time to time for emotional support. And I just hope that they gain something from us. So for me to leave something behind for them to feel strength, belief that they can move on, that to me is the best thing for me to leave behind. That's amazing. I feel the same way. The things that I write, it is kind of like just that mark in history that you leave behind that maybe one day they'll read and understand. Yeah, right. It's funny because my sons, both of my sons have not read all my books.

My younger son has listened to the audio books and he goes, dad, these are really good. It's like, okay. But for memoir, my kids will always say, dad, we don't need to read them. We lived it. We lived them. Mandy and I talk about our kids all the time.

I think we probably embarrass them most of the time. That's part of our job, right? You know, they're like, yeah, you talk about that shit all the time to us, you know? But now they're listening to it and they're getting all of this great knowledge and wisdom and seeing beyond moms, right? Yeah, that's cool. I really liked how, you know, i thought about writing a book once called through the eyes of the soldier because my brother passed away in iraq and i got his journal i felt

like thank you i felt like your book was like you were actually sometimes trying to see the world through sam noticing sam walking around the political signs in people's yards. And you're like, hmm. Sam Boat. I tried to do that. That came later on as I, you know, spent more time with her out there. But I definitely didn't think that. Like, what would she be thinking if she had the capabilities to do that? I have a feeling Sam's a progressive.

You do. So I used to have a poodle. She was 16. But we always saw her as a little French old lady. This is what we visualized. So with Rascal, my new dog, which is funny because really I did get him right after my dad died. And it was on Father's Day. He was offered to me by a woman who just lost her dad, who was coming here to Colorado to put his ashes. And we're talking on Father's Day. Both just lost our dad.

She's donating this dog to me. We're just like both crying. Yeah, that's a lot of things going on there. A lot of synchronicity. And then this dog shows up. And really, when you look into this dog's eyes, and I think you probably can relate, there's so much more. I mean, he's looking through my soul.

Funny thing that you say that because Sam, when she gets these moments where she kind of stares at you, and I feel that too. And see, now you're laughing and you're smiling. I think you're thinking that's my sister looking at me. Yeah, she's kind of like, and sometimes I look at her, you look like you're a human. Look at me. Uh-huh.

Me too. Yes. You know what I'm talking about. That's exactly what I meant, David, is that they're looking at you and you're like, this is not just like an animal looking at me. Yeah, it feels different. It feels different. You can sense this empathy coming from them. That's on another level, on a really deep level. Yeah, so is that my sister looking at me? Do you think that's on another level on a really deep level yeah so is that my sister looking at me do you think that's what's going on come on i want to hear this just tell him tell

him the things you received mandy yeah it's fine i mean i'd love to hear it because you know even though it's not a main theme in this book it is something that carries through the book so I get that so the color yellow kept coming up I sensed that she was very vibrant and electric but she didn't know how to calm her energy and that makes sense now with the drugs and alcohol she had some pretty special abilities some people call them gifts and so did one of your parents. I feel like you came from a very loving family is what I was told. You're very open and loving and that you're an empath. She wants you to know that you are enough. She says that you are always very hard on yourself and that you've done enough and you are enough. Well, I do. I do get hard on myself sometimes.

Yeah, that's definitely true that's definitely true my wife will remind me of that there was something about sunflower a blue car and kept trying to connect with her and I the vision came to me two visions that were very different one was her standing out of a sunroof and laughing in a car okay yeah I don't know if that was just her showing me her spirit but i feel like she was very free spirited yeah that would be something she would have done she said she's ready to meet with you she says that you are already just yet a few more years let me explain you tend to be a lot in your throat chakra and your heart chakra. And I don't know if you're familiar with that space, but it...

Help me. Well, interesting you say throat, because most of my career has been in broadcasting and the voice box and singing and band for a while too. So singing. Okay. So seated communication and then heart as in got a lot of love um but you're not you don't trust up here and i loved the grounding that you talked about in your book going barefoot through history and so you do bring awareness to the fact you need to ground yourself more but for some reason you're afraid to go up here open up completely there open up want you to go up here. Open up completely there. Open up. I want you to open up and meet you there.

And the vision I had with you, this is really weird, but you were levitating like into this tunnel. And she has been meeting you in dreams, but she wants to meet you in other ways. And that it can be opened if you're willing. She doesn't need to be in dreams. I've had a fair amount of dreams with her lately. Really?

Yeah. The more you open yourself up and you raise the part of your vibration. No, I don't want to turn this into a therapy session for the author. I'm trying to understand what you mean by open yourself up above your head. I actually wrote it down specifically. This is the crown chakra. This is where your information comes in, the energy. And then you have third eye.

If you're looking at the chakras or your energy centers. Okay. So opening yourself up, maybe like maybe meditation. For some reason, you have this blockage when it comes to spirituality. You're afraid of the super known, but you could get there in seconds. But you lack trust in your experience and your out of box thoughts when it comes to spirituality. I think that's true.

I mean, I think I mentioned that in the book about how, you know, I grew up Roman Catholic and the only part I've ever liked about mass and Roman Catholic church was, you know, saying peace be with you to the other person beside you. That was the only thing that was authentic. He loves that you're romantic. Are you romantic? I can be, I think I am. I think my wife would probably say I am. Let me put it this way. Not romantic in the sense like I'm going to show up with flowers all the

time. I think I'm a romantic in that. I want to have discussions about where our hearts and heads are all the time. I want to be open. I want to be authentic and real with in a relationship, a love relationship. So that part of me, I think, is probably you could label it. Well, then there's the heart chakra for you. That's that heart part. Yeah.

What I got was that sometimes when your wife is talking to you, you're not even listening because you're just looking directly at her like, wow, I love her. Oh my God. I do that all the time. Do you? I do that all the time. You're not really listening to me right now, are you? That's what I'm saying. And sometimes I'll say, and it's not because I'm thinking about something else. It's because I'm saying, how did I get this lucky? I say that all the time to her. She goes, stop, stop, stop. You have that exact thing on your lips.

She says she loves how romantic you are, that you're the husband that has a hard time listening while your wife is talking because you are thinking, wow, she's beautiful. And you catch yourself watching her mouth move and the expressions on her face. Oh, my God. I do that all the time. She said that you were a great student and that she was only average. That's probably true. I don't know if I'd even say average for her. It's not that she was not

smart. She didn't say anything like, what's the purpose? Was your mother or father, one of them, was a person of little words? My father was probably more of little words. My mother was kind of freaky connected. Yeah. Always had a feeling. She always used to say, I have a feeling. Sister had a gypsy soul, something about.

Oh my God. She was. Oh my God. I can't believe you said that. My mother used to call her gypsy. Oh, there you go. That's my notes.

Okay. Check it out. Gypsy soul. I don't know why I just write it down. Don't shoot me. I, there you go. That's my notes. Gypsy, man. You're a gypsy. Okay, check it out. Gypsy soul. I don't know why. I just write it down. Don't shoot me. I'm just the messenger. I cannot permit my ego.

That's so wild. Peanut butter and jelly bikes, 1111. I don't know what that number means. Ones. I don't know if that's in the past or if you need to start paying attention to it or if it's going to come up. It might be her. A tent.

Oh, a tent. Yeah. She was a big camper. Yeah. So that's what I got for you. But I will tell you, I have to end with this. He loves you. She's proud of you.

She wants you to know that you are enough. If you want to open yourself up to her even more, she's ready to talk on that spiritual level. She comes to you in dreams, but she can also come to you in other ways that you need to trust your experiences, trust your heart, trust things that you might think are weird, because you are about to also do something really outside of the box. I don't know what you're mixing up over there. You need to trust it. And spiritually, if you are ready to connect,

I don't know if you've had like stomach issues in the past. Yes, you have. And that's that yellow digestive issues. It's freaking me out. I know, and I'm emotional. I feel like I'm connecting with your sister right now too. I know my sister, she's laughing right now because she's being vulnerable.

She just thinks that's a little weird. Well, okay, ready? This is going to really, you're going to be like, oh, tell my sister to fuck off. This is what the last thing she told me to tell you. You sit and play music. You love listening to music. Yep.

But she says that she loves that you're doing the walking and the mindfulness, but she wants you to take it up a notch she wants you to turn on some music whether it's in your office by yourself and she wants you to dance wow okay i can do that you've always like had it all here your your vibration is definitely controlled yes she wants you to throw your hands free and dance and fucking move that opens this that's what this is. You know what? That was her.

She was much more willing to do something crazier than me. I was a little more in a box. You're reserved. Yeah. That's awesome. What was your sister's name? Diane. Her actual name was Mary Diane because my mother had a difficult birth.

And she said, if we live through this, I'm going to name her her after the Virgin Mary so it was married I am but she never really liked the name Mary wow that's just amazing I just think that you should probably open yourself up to that a little more I think I should it's she's on my mind a lot lately well you're writing a book about her yeah I don't know where it came from well I know where it where it came from. Well, I know where it started. It came from the dream I mentioned before. And I said, I just got to write some things down. So I started to write little short 300 word.

So pieces that all connect somehow about her life and then issues with alcoholism and alcoholism. My family, my grandfather was also an alcoholic. It's funny though. I find it through ancestry.com, I found his death certificate. And on his death certificate, the cause of death is the exact same words for my sister. Exact same words. Wow. Yeah, too.

There's that connection with that. And that all seems to be coming together for this book. Like, I don't know if it's going to be a book. Right now, I'm just writing. We'll see what happens. Well, it's going to become something bigger. I just know it. Yeah, she loved this book.

You know, my heart goes out to you and I'm so sorry for your loss. But your sister is dancing and she's freaking happy. Totally her. Apologize. I hope this didn't catch you off guard. It just- No, no, I think it's great.

I think it's great. And it is a connection with the Sam book. Who Walks With Sam. It is a connection because there is a thread of that family difficulty there through the book to some extent. It's not, you know, Walks with Sam, to make clear, it's not about my sister, but it has the thread of that sort of coming to terms with something in your life and your family that it doesn't seem balanced. And that's part of the reason why I think Sam's eyes and Sam's presence helped me sort of figure that stuff out.

I'm not saying I figured it out completely yet, but it does feel a little more focused than it did before those walks, that's for sure. Well, I think it's a beautiful representation and reminder to our listeners that awakening doesn't have to come from some huge traumatic events for you it came in a very subtle beautiful way and i think that's important for people to know that it can come in all shapes and form wow it did come in a year that's a good way

to put it it came very softly yeah i love that that. It's just the hammer banging me over the head. Yeah. It came in the stillness. You had to just shut everything out. Yeah. I like that way you said that it came in the stillness. I think that's very true. It didn't come with a hammer over the head or something with epiphany. That's not funny. Well, I'm going to have to go take a nap after this. Well, when you do, write down everything after so you can dream recall. Yeah, I should. My dreams are very vivid all the time. Very vivid, very animated. I wake up startled. I had a dream one time. I've never felt as euphoric in my life as I did after that dream. I did this a few years ago. I still talk about it. Like I was high on something. I mean,

I was the most euphoric I've ever been. I've learned how to manifest people that have passed away into my dreams. Literally out loud to my brother the other night, I said, Ryan, I want to see you. You can come now or you can come in my dream. So cool. Because now it's like I get to set up an appointment with them. Well, I could do that with my sister, but knowing her, she'll forget or she won't. I just had a picture of you two dancing together in her dream. Ah, interesting. I danced with her at a wedding. Wow.

And now it's time for break that shit down. Okay. Right now with your mood that you're in right now, what's your favorite chapter and break that shit down. What's that chapter about and what's the message in it? Wow. You're putting me on the spot here. Let's see. I think it's at this moment in time, it's Walk 18, which is America, the 4th of July walk. I think this resonates even more than I expected. It's really about having a love hate relationship with your country and your world. So I cried when I read that chapter,

because this year, I felt like I dishonored my brother because he died in the war in Iraq. And I had a hard time looking at the flag with honor this year on the 4th of July. And you said it so beautifully that I was able to, you offered me peace with it. So thank you. The way you described it was, we have to remember that it's flawed. But the very beginning of the idea of America is still so beautiful. So thank you for that. Because I had this guilt and shame around my anger towards America, that it's okay to feel that way.

Also, you helped me remember that it's okay that it's flawed and it was based and started on a beautiful idea. I appreciate that. I mean, I truly believe that patriotism is not about rah-rah. Patriotism is about trying to make things better. And if it means, you know, yelling and screaming in a protest, then yell and scream in a protest. I mean, that's what you give.

That's what you got to do. The Boston Tea Party was a protest. We celebrate that like it's a wonderful thing. But yet people, there are people today who see a protest and think that people are all crazy. Well, that's how we got started. It's like, what? You mean Yankee Doodle didn't ride to town riding on a pony?

And everyone was like, woo-hoo! And I just think that people are bringing this more to awareness than I think that it should be. But, you know, we often get mad about it and don't ever reflect on the good, but you can reflect on the good when you have mindfulness. And if you spend some time just being open without all the busyness of the news and suggestions and opinions. Right. Right. Yeah, I think that's true. I think it's important. And I think this comes out on the the book too that the more that you can keep your mind open the better that you're going to inform your life you know ignorance comes from not being

exposed the more that we know each other's stuff the less we're intimidated the less we're prejudiced yeah there's so many things that separate us but i do believe that it is in those still moments like walking and just being like a dog just being there's so much knowledge you will get in those moments way more than you will when you pick up a book or you listen to the news or you're trying to figure out your life you will find a lot of that in that certainly absolutely well that's because we're just a bunch of assholes that want what we want and we want it now so and we're like i don't want the signs to come like from a dog walk we want like big ass burning bush we need to like humble ourselves and tell our listeners you know what some of the most beautiful messages and signs come from the most simplest things.

Yeah, I agree with that. And that's what your book does. That's awesome. Is there any places that you want to throw out for our listeners to find you at? I'm asking people to come to the Zoom launch on September 13th at 630 Central Time. It's a Sunday. And we really, really hope to have people bring their pets if they want to. You don't have to have a pet to be there, but it's a Zoom event and we're going to do some

readings. I'll have a chance to give away books, maybe an audio book too. And I think it'd be fun if we could get people to bring their pets. And then, you know, you have your blog that's Walk With Sam and you have a lot of information on there. I was reading one thing which actually made me kind of sad, though, that we were all wrong about the seven years, dog years to human years. It's more like 30? Apparently the years ramp up quickly. Yeah, and they quickly and then they slow down. So it isn't like 7, 7, 7, 7.

It's like 6, 10, 15, And it starts to get more like five. They get to middle age quicker than we realized. So, but yeah, so you have the block. It's walkwithsam.com and all of these things can be found at your website. David W. Berner. Berner, B-E-R-N-E-R.com. David W. Berner too, because there's another David Berner out there somewhere. Okay.

What? He can't do that there is what does the W stand for Warren no it's my mother's maiden name but also the man's first name do some writing on medium to the blog medium mostly that's about the craft of writing though so if you're into that sort of thing. The Writershed is what it's called. Just started last year. And this coming year, we're putting out a yearly journal of people's writing. None of mine. I just curate it.

Called The Writershed Stories. So Writershed Stories Volume 2 is coming out in November. We had over 300 submissions this time around. 15 pieces of prose and poetry about all kinds of things. And that's coming out in November, just finishing up the editing on that. So I love to promote people whose writing doesn't get in the hands of a lot of people.

So that's kind of what the Writership Stories came from. Beautiful. Thank you, David, for joining us today. It was a delight. Appreciate that. Awesome. Now go take that freaking nap. I'm going to take a nap and dream of my sister.

Have a good one, David. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much. You guys are great. Dogs are great. Dogs are great. Guess what? Dogs are great.

Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.