Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope your day is going absolutely beautiful. We have with us today Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester, the Madrina, Torchbearer, and founder of Sault de Montreal, the Santo Daime Church she established in a transpersonal counselor shaped by Asagioli and Groff. She guides seekers through the fire of self-confrontation. From two thousand to twenty seventeen, she secured a section fifty six exemption protecting the Santo Daime sacrament from the state. An ordained interfaith minister, doctor of divinity and author of the two volume ayahuasca awakening. She has spent more than four years leading workshops, counseling and teaching the radical act of spiritual adulthood. Dr. Jessica, thank you for being here today. How are you? Well, I'm happy to be hanging out with you. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's right. In November, we were just groaning about that before we, before you hit the switches. And, um, And so, you know, around the world, everything changes. And so we have such an interesting topic today. At least I hope people find it of interest. I do. And I just have a couple of questions to launch out just to make sure we're always in the same definitions and working from the same understandings. Are respect and good manners a foundation of a healthy society? Yes. Okay. Can you disagree without being aggressive or rude? Yes. Very good. Can you make your point without losing your dignity? I think that is what we're losing, but I believe the answer is yes. It's possible. It's possible. Okay. So yes, you passed the first test. Aced it. Okay. So what we're looking at is You know, the question is, is respectful social behavior a victim of social media? Well, to accept that as a kind of working principle, we have to accept that around the world, through various eras, what has, you know, the rise and fall of empires and everything else, we go through cultural and social times where what might have been acceptable in the past is absolutely not acceptable. in the present owning slaves was fine for a long time. Right. And, you know, everybody kind of focuses on America, but you know, slavery has been around since, since Jesus talked about it. And I mean, going to the old Testament, you can look at the Jewish people were slaves, but before that they enslaved people. I mean, it just goes back and forth. So right now it's unpopular socially to say the least. Okay. And, you know, I'm taking this as a very good thing, right? As a very good thing, moving in the right direction. But we can then agree that some things that were acceptable, it was acceptable, but women didn't have the vote. I mean, maybe not to women, but it wasn't acceptable. But society accepted it. And so if we take that long look through, you know, the decades decades, centuries, millennia of human existence, we can see that change is something that is consistent. Isn't that funny that the one thing that is consistent is change? And so we can say, okay, well, here we've arrived and what got lost in the shuffle of change? And is there any effort to bring it back? Because does it not serve society and culture? And for me, that's the key question, that there's things that get left behind because they don't serve for the higher good of a society or a culture. It did not serve for the higher good of all people to have slaves. It did not serve for the higher good of all people for women to not be able to vote. I'm just using those two examples because they're so blatant, right? So change pressured things. It wasn't for the higher good for us to be doing all kinds of things that we have done in the past and we're doing now. And so if we look at things that kind of look like they're only in our rear view mirror because we can't see them in the present very much anymore, that's the question that we have to ask is what happened? Why is it happening? And can we Can we bring it back if it's really for the higher good? If respect, good manners, and let's just name it human decency. I'm going to call it out how I see it. Just basically human decency. Doing what all great spiritual teachers have taught us to do, do as you would be done by, for example, a golden rule. We can agree on this so far. Yes. So having agreed on some basic foundation things, let's launch into what are the key factors contributing to what's happening in our culture, in our society right now. Now we can point at AI and we can point at technology and we can point at all of the social media. But the thing is, this is like pointing at knives when somebody has been stabbed. Okay. Knife can carve your Sunday roast, or it can carve a beautiful wooden figurine. It's how you use it, what you use this, what meaning this has for you. So we can say that technology is wonderful, but how are we using it? And is it serving for the betterment of the human species? Is it increasing the positivity of the human experience? Is it contributing to the well-being of humanity? Is it furthering prosperity and peace? Because it could be used for all of those things, right? And, chapeau, it is being used for all of those things. There are many. organizations and people and individuals and groups who are using technology to further information. Look at the developers of the Wide World Web. They gave it free. Everybody was furious. We could have made billions. Yeah, it's for everyone. You know? It's for everyone. It's our gift. You know? And so... That is still possible. There are people who are still devoting their lives to technology, to research, to studying human nature, to understanding how to help us correct the mistakes that we make along the way. So let's call out some of these things and see if they make sense as to what's happening and why. What's the motive underneath, okay? So key factors to disrespectful behavior And I'm going to dare to say self-importance. That's always the thing that trips us up, right? Self-importance. OK. Being anonymous. Being anonymous equals reduced accountability. Users hide behind fake names. fake personas or a general degree of being anonymous that these platforms provide. When you're behind that screen, when you're behind that mask, you're going to feel less accountable for your actions and your words. Right? You're more likely to be aggressive or rude then you would be face to face with somebody. No, that's rather cowardly in my world, you know, but call me old fashioned and I'm okay with that. That was the good thing about what we're seeing in the rear view mirror is accountability for your behavior and your actions and how you conducted yourself, you know, for, for, A very long period of time before this kind of technology, so much of what we learned about people was how they conducted themselves socially, how they spoke to other people. You know, I've always counseled people, you know, if you're going to start dating someone, pay attention to how they treat their dog, how they treat their family members, how they speak about their ex, you know, how they treat a waiter or a waitress in a restaurant. Just pay attention to those things because they might be super nice to your face but all that stuff is going to leak out. That's what happens when you're in person face to face with someone and there's a period of time in which you can observe their behavior and their moods. I'm not the source of this research but research indicates that it takes about eighteen months to really get to know someone, to see them and many different situations to be able to make a kind of a personal judgment on their character. Cause it is our character that is manifesting through our words and our behavior. Can we, can we agree with that? Yes. That's showing, you know, no, it doesn't mean we can't have a difficult day or a bad mood, You know, that happens to everyone, but it's our character is still there. We usually apologize for it, right? Okay, so being anonymous reduces accountability. The lack of nonverbal cues also contributes to a lack of empathy. They're just words on a page. So the problem with just words or images on a page or a cruel cartoon or meme or whatever they're called, these things, okay? It's missing three fundamental things. When we talk, there's more than one thing happening. It's not the words coming out of the mouth. It's the emotional carrier of those words, the vibration of the words that we are actually hearing along with the words, okay? We can say to our cat who's just jumped on the table, oh, pet cat, what a bad cat you are. Okay, what does a cat hear? It hears all that loving tone. It doesn't care about the words. It has not figured out that it just did something wrong. It's just opening up to, mommy loves me, right? And so the emotional carrier is the key thing with words. And then you have body language and facial expressions so those three things are imperative to our understanding what's behind the words you know some people are great liars they they can lie really really well okay now often great liars need to be in a certain situation to be able to lie like that They need to be at a podium. They need to be in front of a TV screen. They need to be... So there's a distance for a lot of... There's that kind of liar who needs the stage to lie. And then there's a kind of acting. There's a part of them that knows that they're making promises like a politician. They're making promises they have no intention of keeping. Right? So there's that kind of situation. And then there's the kind of the very practiced and skilled lawyer, okay, who's like a con man, con woman, okay? Women are just as good at it as men are. And so, and they have the ability to manipulate people on this level, to lie to them in ways that they have skilled their body language and their facial expression and the tone of their voice. They have skilled it to a level where they can lie and actually might even believe their lies. This is a sign of a certain kind of character. So where are we now? Verbal cues. So when we don't have those, the body language, the facial expression, the emotional carrier of the words, that energetic kind of charge with the words, with positive, neutral, negative, all we have is the words. That's not how we have lived a human experience for hundreds of thousands of years. Animals read our facial expressions. Animals read each other's body language. There's entire, you know, dialogues that happen with how a dog wags its tail or how a cat, what it does with its eyebrows and its ears, okay? It's conveying an entire expression of something Okay, so animals will read our vibration, our tone, our body language and facial expression. And, you know, just to use an example, you can get on an elevator and there's five other people in the elevator. Okay. And within a nanosecond, you can tell who's in a good room, who's in a bad room. And no one said anything. Okay, so that's body language. And so all of that is is kind of hidden behind this mask, this screen. So because of that, the person who's behind the screen, dishing out whatever they're dishing out, doesn't have to have empathy because they're not seeing the effect of their words and their actions. And so over time, their ability to empathize shrinks. That's not a good thing. Compassion and empathy are really important human experiences that we need to cultivate and have wise boundaries with. Did you want to say something about that? It's interesting that you brought that up because I was thinking maybe what we're beginning to see is the atrophy of those skills. There's so much incentive to just show one side, if you were one dimension, just this actual spoken word without any of those other dimensions. It seems like a muscle. If you don't use those other attributes, you begin to lose them. Yes. And so the natural human experience of compassion and empathy just shrink for people who aren't paying attention. And we're talking now about the people who are driven by self-importance to think that their every opinion and word actually matters. Sorry. I mean, some people's opinions and words do matter, and I take them very seriously. I'm very happy when people who I have respect for share their thoughts and opinions on things, but they're not hiding when they're doing it. They are standing up and saying, pull on what their thoughts and opinions are, and they're doing it in a way that is self-respectful and respectful to others, speaking the truth with dignity. Okay, so right now we're talking so much about those people. That is the good, skillful use of media, okay, truth-speaking, calling out problems, having the courage to stand up and speak to that which is wrong, even if there's consequences to doing so. Yes, versus people who hide. And then from behind the screen, they're sending heat-seeking missiles, okay, and carpet bombing whatever target they've chosen today to do so, to use kind of war language. But that's what it can feel like on the other side for many people. So it's easy to, so the person doing this is going to lack empathy and compassion Other side of that becomes the facility to dehumanize others and engage in hurtful behavior. Like maybe you're the kind of kid at school that would never dream of bullying anyone, okay? You wouldn't go up and shove someone or, you know. But the next thing you know, you're in a little chat group, everybody's laughing, and they all have anonymous names, and the next thing you know, someone's laughing about somebody in your class, and you join in and laugh. Okay, and we can get swept up in these things. So, on to the third thing. What happens is that the natural inhibitions that we have, natural human inhibitions, okay, that we either are natural to our character or, you know, Lady Godiva stripped off and rode her horse down the center of town. Okay. I don't think I could do that. Okay. So, you know, people do all kinds of things and I think, no, I couldn't do that. Okay. So there's something that I can do. I can stand up and speak the truth to many things, and I'm willing to do that. But there's other things, now I'm a little too inhibited. I'll let somebody else do that one, you know? But those inhibitions are waylaid, okay? Because there's no consequences. It reinforces the sense of entitlement. I can say what I want. I can be as outrageous as I want. I can say anything about anybody. I can I can bring up my darkest aspects of myself, open the door and let it all dump out because there's no consequences. So people believe that they can do what they want, say what they want, okay? No inhibitions, no consequences. They have their opinions or engage in other people's opinions in a way that they do not face any social emotional, personal consequences. You want to say something about that? Yeah, I would say it goes even further. I think that there is rewards like there is benefits for people doing that. Like the incentive structure has been turned on its head. Yes. That's right. We're coming down to that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But there's no consequences. In the era that I grew up in, if there was certain behavior in school, you got reprimanded, you got sent out of the classroom, you got detention, you got sent to the principal's office. If it kept going worse, you could get suspended, and if it went further, you were expelled. There was always consequences to behavior. I hear nowadays in school, you know, everybody's got a phone, everybody's got their AirPods in, their AirPods or whatever they're called, the consequences have changed. There's things that happen that I hear and I think, my goodness, that wouldn't happen. That wouldn't be happening, but the consequences are different. And that's part of social change. Whereby parents, instead of supporting a certain level of discipline, and that's a whole other conversation than to itself, right? Is what happened with parents and discipline? They were leaving it all to the schools and then It's a really interesting transversion projection because they are not doing the correct discipline and the schools are trying to and struggling with it because if you don't discipline your kid and there's no consequences at home, this kid's going to do it at school, right? And so what happens is the parents then bring the schools, but that's just a transversion. It's your fault my kid's acting like this. No, that's backwards. Where did your kid learn that behavior? And then it was okay to do that. And so it's such an interesting dynamic of how society has just shifted. And accountability on so many levels has changed from how it was in the past where parents felt accountable for their children. But now their children are doing things on screens with fake names and, you know, and how much do parents watch that? and how much your parents are doing. You learn it at home. Yeah. Okay. Echo chambers and polarization. Isolated perspectives. That's what it leads to. Do we agree on that? Okay. So algorithms prioritize content. Okay. You keep looking up something. Okay. You keep going after a certain conversation in your social media. After a while, your computer algorithms of looking for that keeps feeding you more things in that line. Do I understand how this works correctly? This is how it's been explained to me. The interesting thing is you decide you want to look to see where you can find a certain winter boot, for example. So you go looking, Google search, winter boot, certain kind, you want sheepskin, let's say. The next thing you know, you open your computer, You have all of these ads and clicks to winter boots, right? Okay, some search engine noticed that you were looking for this, and now it's providing you with all this information. And so this echo chamber leads to isolated perspectives. So it can reinforce existing beliefs. So this is what technology will do. Oh, you want winter boots? Here, let's give you another selection of three hundred pairs of different winter boots. Or you like hate crimes and you want to read about hate crimes? OK, well, you know, here's more hate crimes. You want to you want to find a chat group that talks about. Should we bomb? Choose whichever country. And it will find you. It will find you that. And then it starts sending you more of the same thing. It's like how our brain works, you know? You understand that the neurotransmitter and the neural pathways, if we keep thinking the same thoughts, then we have, our brain actually builds a very strong neural pathway to that story, to that narrative. Whereas if we decide, okay, I don't like that narrative, I don't like that story anymore, I want to transform it, I want to forgive it, I want to release it, I want to let it go, okay? After a while, the brain stops taking you to that story. It realizes you're not going there anymore. So the neural pathway to that memory, that story, becomes very, very small. It's like what they do in a library. You know, you have the new books all up front on display. Then you have the popular books in the main part of the library. And then if you're looking for, you know, an author who published a certain book twenty years ago, they have to put that in the basement in the stacks. Okay? So that's what our brain does. Things that we keep revisiting, it has it right on the front shelves when you first walk in. And so that's what the computer will do. That's what technology will do. It'll keep putting in front. And now what does that do? That keeps reinforcing whatever it is you were starting to believe. No matter how, you know, all these conspiracy theories and all of these things, you start going down those tunnels. So that's saying, you know, you're lost down that tunnel. And then your brain will start mirroring that tunnel because your brain will keep going there. And the more your brain goes there, your fingers go there on your computer or your phone or your screen. And it's a repetitive cycle of negative stories and negativity. So this leads to a hardening of ideology, a loss of shared understanding, making respectful disagreement difficult, not impossible. because that tunnel vision has narrowed somebody's thoughts down into such a small narrative that they now believe, okay? Let's choose something silly. The world is flat, okay? So let's say they go flat earthing, and they go down that tunnel, flat earth, okay? The more time they spend down that tunnel, the more they come to believe Oh, my God, look, so-and-so said this, and oh, my God, look, so-and-so said that, and in it goes. Until now, it's a hardened belief system. You know, if we were talking about spiritual and religious beliefs, we would say that's a cult. But how isn't it a cult? It is. It's an ideology that is based on false premises with usually charismatic leaders. Telling the lies. How is it not a cult? So the whole cult mentality then sets in. And when somebody has that cult mentality, it is very difficult to help them deprogram from that. So if you have been going through at home and on the street and through all your social media, a narrative that tells you it's okay to call women bitches and it's okay. Oh, well, I get bleeped on my last day. Where it's okay to swear at people and you don't have to respect people and you can sing all these unbelievable songs that talk about even hitting women. I can't even believe they're allowed to play. And in my era, those things wouldn't get past censors. They would be told, no, sorry, don't belong on TV. Don't belong on radio. Don't belong. printed and don't belong published in record stores. Remember record stores? So that was an era where those things were considered negative to healthy social behavior. The thing is, is where did that slide? Where did that slide? But it did. And here we are. Okay. Next point, edited narratives and social comparison leads to self-esteem issues. These are hard things, eh? We're talking about they're hard things. When we create an idealized version of our life and put it online, and I'm talking about everything from dolling up our story a little bit to creating a completely fake persona, which many people do. You can have a a fifteen-year-old man pretending to be a sixteen-year-old female teenager and create a whole narrative and story and photographs to go along with it. That doesn't happen in person. It would be like, hey, you're a fifteen-year-old guy. What are you pretending to be? A teenager. Female. You know, weird. When that happens online, on the inside and on the outside, there's going to be, this is curious, Feelings of inadequacy, envy, and lower self-esteem in others. Oh my God, look at her life, his life. I wish I had his fill-in-the-blank body that's been completely photoshopped face by Mattel. Okay. And you know what Mattel is. They make dolls. Toys. You know, I wish I had that car, that home, that... So this whole structure is put in place where People will feel envy or inadequate on one side because they are comparing themselves to what they see. Now that's been around forever because there's always been the wealthy and the poor, right? Two thousand years ago Jesus said the poor will always be with us. So there's some of that that's been around but not faked the way it is today and not the impression that it leaves because on the one hand in the past we can see that People who had a lot of wealth either inherited it, worked really, really hard to get it, or cheated. There's only three reasons. Whereas today, it's all distorted. You don't have any idea who the real person is. You don't have any idea what's real and what's not. This is confusing. No? Yes? Yeah. It's almost impossible to make sense of. It is. It is. Because when we don't have the in-person experience, when everything is just images, Photoshopped images and words, we don't know what's real anymore. So the less we expose ourselves to that, the better. Now, there's one little note here, which again is a whole conversation unto itself, the false victims. And that can show up, motivated on a number of different levels. A person... And I'm talking about the genuine victims here, the people who've had dreadful things happen to them, okay, and who choose to share their story in the hope that their story will be helpful to others, that their struggles and how they dealt with their struggles, okay, is a narrative that might help others in this similar struggle, okay, or they're doing it to shine a light on a situation that needs attention, right? These are all valuable and worthy ways of using technology. I'm talking about them. I'm talking about the ones who falsely claim that things happen to them. I mean, there's people who've claimed to have had to have cancer and how long they need to fundraise and they go find them. They tell all and it's all false. Whereas in person, you kind of couldn't get away with that so easily. You know what I'm saying? And Why people do that? That's a whole other conversation. And then you have the cons. You touched on that a moment ago. What's the payoff? There's always a payoff for this, right? What's the payoff? So for some, it can be a feeling of power. Look what I can do. I can throw a bomb and it ignites. And, you know, four hundred people like my nasty mean comment about so-and-so. Four thousand people for a million people, okay? like my need, and it's a sense of power, false power, because, okay, so what? What do you really have in your life? It's power that feeds self-importance, but it doesn't feed your life, nourish your life, okay? So you have the cons. You have the false statements. You have misleading others for personal gain. So sometimes it's just down to greed. So self-importance, power, greed, try to con people out of how many fake people are pretending to be something or do something in the hopes of getting access to your bank account or your credit card or your personal information to then steal your identity. And so this is what technology, people used to have, put on black clothes, take a rope and climb up the side of your house to get in at your papers and your jewels, right? I mean, you had to be like a cat thief, right? You had to be really good at it, not get caught. Now, I think they can do whatever they want because they're all hiding behind the screens, which run through, because of technology, they run through so many different hide who the sender is, hide who the sender is, hide who the sender is. So these are the false. In the moment looks like a win for me. Now, lastly in the conversation is the keyboard warrior. Now, again, this has a very positive side. You know, we can think of old-fashioned journalists who would sit with their manual typewriter and they would hack out furiously a report on something that is absolutely newsworthy that they know is going to get fact-checked. They know it's going to get fact-checked. They know it's not going to get past their editor unless they have absolutely nail-down source and facts. That level of fact-checking, truth-telling, integrity in print, integrity in reporting, of which there are still many good people doing that, of course, many, many. This technology allows for the dark side. People who feel that their opinion their thoughts. It doesn't matter. They can take the most ridiculous statements and actually make people believe them. How do they do that? And they do it. They do it in a way that they would never do in person. They would never do it like, you know, like credible media where their name and photograph is, whether it's in print or whether it's online, but they're, you know, it's like, you're sitting there, we can see you. You're a you. You know, your name is there. It's verifiable that you're you, that I'm me. Okay, keyboard warriors. The ones who are working for good and who put their name and their face on things. And then the ones who hide. And now, what does this have to do with social behavior that we're looking at in the review? How did we arrive here? And is there anything that we can do to bring back a sense of accountability and social responsibility, dignity, respect? What can we be doing? I feel like it's a necessary part of the process. I think people have to, sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it. And I think that you have to see this sort of breakdown in cohesion, this atrophy of skills, so that people want to bring it back. When you just look at the demoralization that's happening online, whether it's through the the rampant rise of porn industries that's destroying human relationships. Or it's this idea of the fake influencer who appears to have everything, but is probably the most lonely person in the world. Like, I think that people need to see that and they need to go through their own sort of dark night so that they realize this is the illusion. This is the Maya. What will you do to rise out of it? And the only exit from the social media is community, I think. And people must find a way to get there by themselves. You can see mentors. You can see other people. Ultimately, the choice is yours. And you have to get to that point of despair in order to rise above it. Yes, I agree. That there needs to be some kind of, you know, awakening. And whether that awakening comes from personal suffering or the consequences on those who we love, seeing somebody that we love and care about being affected by these things. And then we realize, wait, wait a minute, I'm somehow part of this. And if I'm somehow part of this, how do I step out of it? How do I, you know, what does that next step, that next great step look like? So sometimes, yes, it's born of personal suffering and hitting that slippery, tricky patch in our life where we need to reassess the path that we're on and how we're walking it. And sometimes it's because of those who we care about. But it could equally be because we care about an ideal. I mean, look at the struggle for democracy right now around the world. Many, many countries that we just assumed were democracies and that the rights of their people would be respected. And now that ideal, that kind of way of life is being questioned and challenged. And on some level, that's not a bad thing. Because sometimes these things have to be test it and go through the fires and come out stronger, better, you know? Yeah. I think it is that clash of ideas. It's the, you know, the whole idea of democracy is changing. What we've been living through, it seems to me, hasn't really been democracy. It's been like a slow creep into totalitarianism. And we still call it democracy. And I think the younger generation especially is waking up to the idea of, like, I didn't vote for this. This is not what I want. And if I were to... That's what happens when skilled buyers get on the platform. Yes. Yes. That's it. I think it was Marshall. Very important teaching and very important teachings. All of these things are, what do we really want? And that nobody should take anything for granted, you know, and that these ideals, these concepts, these political platforms that we have, they do need to be tested and tried. Yeah. to ensure that they are doing what they should be doing, what they say they're supposed to be doing. Are you really for the people? Are you really for fairness and equality? And that's both sides. Everyone needs to wake up. Everyone needs to wake up. If you've been suffering because of the system, then you need to be part of helping the system improve. Okay, you need to add your voice to write your letter, to attend an event, a meeting or something, sign up, whatever it is that you need to do. If you feel that the system has not been serving you in a way that it says it's going to, in a way that's appropriate for the benefit of the citizens of a country, then you need to speak up. Don't go, oh, I can't be bothered. No, you need to speak up. Now, on the other side, if you have been using and bilking the system, if you've been finding some tiny little loophole or misrepresenting yourself and or your situation to try and gain through all of the dark side that we just named, self-importance and issues of power and what have you, if you've been doing that, then guess what? You need to stop. Because both sides are responsible to the system. You know, if you're misusing it, then wake up. You're part of the problem. If you're not speaking up when you should, awaken. You do are part of the problem. So everybody needs to find their voice and not just let, just go to that, oh, I don't care, it's too much trouble. Let somebody else do it. Yeah, I do see a shift in social media. And I see it, and this is only through my lens, but it seems to me for a long period of time, the narrative has been controlled by people in positions of authority and power. When you look at the legacy media and the consolidation of news channels into a large umbrella corporation where a narrative was put out into the world. Like that was a great way to control the narrative and it allowed people to be cohesive. But with, as of lately, I believe that the younger generation especially are finding ways to create their own narrative. And we have talked about some of the negative aspects of these rabbit holes that people go down to. But I think you're beginning to see the younger generation coalesce into a more meaningful message. My daughter, at the time that she's allowed to use social media, she can swipe through an ad that is purely an emotional based ad in like a second. So I feel on some level, even though some skills are beginning to atrophy, new skills are beginning to be born where they're like, this is garbage. This is no good. And they're looking for something more meaningful. And that to me is sort of a green shoot of responsible users of social media beginning to move through the ranks. What are your thoughts on that? Yes, I believe you're accurate, and we need to teach our children as best as we can how to use technology in a way that's for the higher good, for themselves and for others, and what misuse looks like, and that eventually there are consequences, even if it's just to our own soul. You know? And, you know, give them the balance that, you know, I'm a great believer when my kids were growing up you know, and my daughter will be fifty next year, it's hard to imagine, and my grandchildren, you know, being active in their lives, that sports, community activities, charitable work, all these things, you know, this is what a healthy society was based on. You know, good education, good social structure, always charitable work, you know. I was raised that, you know, you went to church on Sunday and you made your charitable efforts. You know, it was always, well, choose one that speaks to your heart. You want to do the spring cleanup on the mountain, go do that. You want to do a walk and get people to sponsor you or bike or whatever it is that you do. My daughter was working in Singapore for a year. She was with a charitable organization. They rode around Singapore. So find something and do it, you know, and this is where that's the role of parenting is that we need to instill the importance of giving our time and energy to benefit our community and our society. And that we have, that we need to have, to have self-respect, we actually need to respect others. How can we respect ourselves if we're slagging off on people online? How do we look in the mirror at the end of the day? What do we see? So accountability first to ourselves. We are accountable here. Yes? Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah. So when we're accountable here, when we really look at ourselves and say, does doing that really nourish my soul? Does it really bring good into my life? Does it bring healthy things into my life? Is it helping to enrich my family, my friends, my community? And I mean enrich in a positive way, nourishing way. And if so, how do I help others in that way? What's the message that we can give? What do you want to say? I think maybe a good way for people to redefine their relationship with social media is to see the content they're viewing as an extension of themselves. Because ultimately, that's what it is. What you're consuming becomes you. If you're watching these, whatever it is you're drawn to. why are you watching the things you're watching? If you can ask that question, I think it can help to sort of wake you up a little bit and be like, why am I watching this? And maybe another question might be, instead of consuming, try creating. Because I think that those two things are opposing forces. Are you either consuming or are you creating? Because if the act of creation is liberation, When you can create, you begin hopefully doing something positive. But I think the act of creation is a positive attribute. And when you begin doing it, you begin becoming more whole and in touch with the real ideas of who you are. And then you answer that question. Why am I doing the things I'm doing? Yes. So self-awareness. Yes. Well said. Very well said. Self-awareness. I'm thinking this. I'm doing this. I'm saying that. And then a reflection. Our ability is for self-reflection, for self-awareness. That's the key. And the four things that I say are the cornerstones is self-awareness, self-love, self-respect, self-responsibility. Those four pillars are the foundation for how we experience life, how we co-create our lives. We need awareness first. You know, people say to me, shouldn't love be first? Well, actually, no. Awareness, it needs to be first. Just simple presence. Awareness, presence, being present to ourself when I'm saying what I'm feeling, what I'm doing. Not in a hyper-vigilant way, right? In a kind, calm, neutral way. And so then self-awareness can lead to self-love, can lead to self-respect, can lead to self-responsibility. And once we're working with those things, then we find that we start to tune our thoughts and our words differently. Because now it's coming from a place of awareness and accountability. And so we begin to offer that to everything around us. kind of resetting our moral compass, which I think is kind of society's lost track. Without a doubt. And we need to re-find it as individuals and as a larger community, as a nation, as a society. We need to reset our moral compass and say, without going too tight, that excludes a healthy human that we just may not agree with, but is still healthy, you know? And at the same time is discerning as to what is harmful. Does that make sense? Yes, a little bit. Yeah, I really like the relationship between awareness and attunement. I think that it's really well said. But I do think another aspect of this is the sort of demographic divide. You know, there's a great book called The Fourth Turning. And in there, they talk about the way in which the different generations move through this larger cycle of life. And I see the younger generation that seems to be starved for opportunities. Whether it's buying an eight hundred thousand dollar home or so many people in positions of authority like our our presidents and prime ministers or some of them are well into their eighties. Like at some point in time. And there's that old idea that power is never relinquished. It's only taken. So you guys just you guys just elected a young mayor in New York. Yes. Some new ideas. Young perspectives and some. And this is what needs to happen. Yes, the voice of maturity and reason is needed. Maturity and wisdom is needed. It's needed in parliaments, and it's needed when you don't have a parliament. So, you know, it's needed, but it needs to be balanced with youth and fresh ideas and a new way of working. I mean, that's what your former president Barack Obama brought in. He knew how to work social media. He knew how to speak to young people. He was young enough that he was able to catch the social drift that needed to be paid attention to. And so hopefully going forward, our countries, because many of them are all challenged with the same issues, will be able to find the balance of embracing younger ideas And younger people bringing them into the knowledge centers and the power centers. And because we need it. Yeah. It's needed. And I think we'll see the face of social media change with these younger ideas. Oh, I sure hope so. What I really hope for is for your country in particular because it's like a drum with a very large voice. A drum can overtake just about any other instrument if it wants to. A big country with a loud voice can often set the tone culturally and so be it. And so it's a wisdom on all of our parts to be able to have a better discernment, to be able to adjust and realign from that vast amount of materialism that has taken over in North America, more so North America than in any other countries, I believe. And that that needs to be rebalanced somehow because it creates such a schism because you have the haves and the have-nots even more greatly accentuated. And the have-nots spend their life either in envy or trying to get up that grab, find any way to get a hold of that materialism because it's constantly being shoved in our faces that to be happy, we need to have this. To be fulfilled, we need to have that. So materialism has taken the place of authenticity, true authenticity, you know, as to who I am and what this life is about for me. And I think the social media has highlighted materialism and, you know, I was choking face and body by Mattel, but that's really scary. I think we talked about that in another conversation. It's kind of scary that Just being kind of old isn't okay that you somehow have to change to get accepted instead of, you know, my philosophy is my face tells the story of my life. If, you know, you can look at my face and you're going to see ninety nine percent of my wrinkles are laugh lines and smile lines. OK, and so you can look at someone's face and you see their story, see their life story there. Why would you want to erase that, you know? Anyway, conversation for another day. It's been great hanging out with you and talking about social behavior. I'm praying that self-respect and responsibility and, you know, dignity and all these important things come back into each of us and therefore into our communities and into our lifestyles and into our society and so on. more compassion, balanced compassion, healthy empathy, deep sense of gratitude for all the good things that we have, learning to disagree in a way that is respectful, to allow someone to, right, I'm going to, you know, close up with this one story, my father of my children, now deceased, right, wherever you are, that his parents long deceased, okay, They were just a wonderful example of this. And this was a very long time ago now when I first was married. This was nineteen seventy four. OK. And his parents belonged to different church, both Christian church. But one was, I don't know, Anglican. The other one was Presbyterian because of their Scottish heritage or something, you know. And every Sunday morning they would get up and they'd get their Sunday best off and they would go off to their respective churches. They'd come back and have Sunday lunch. And they would discuss the sermons. And what was the sermon on this morning in your service, dear? Oh, how interesting. Very nice. Now that is respect. Okay. That's what respect looks like. Being able to let someone be themselves and have their opinions without imposing yours on them. And as long as their opinions are healthy for the higher good of themselves and others, Okay. Then what's wrong? What's wrong? Nothing. Nothing. It's all good. Yeah. That's a beautiful story. Yeah. Isn't it wonderful? Yeah. Okay. Great hanging out with you. Wishing you all the best. You always ask me what I'm excited about. You didn't ask me today. Well, I'm just now getting there because I want to tell people, go down to the, if you look at the bottom of the screen, or if you're just listening to this, it's www.revdrjessicarochester.com. Check out the books, Ayahuasca Awakenings. They serve as guidebooks. You don't have to read them all the way through, but you can kind of sort of flip through and find something that speaks to you and for me they've been of immense value in my life so i would recommend everyone go to the site check out the books and of course what do you have coming up what are you working on and what are you excited about a whole bunch of things we just had um two weeks ago or another retreat that we have um i worked for quite a few years um with University of Ottawa and then Vancouver Island University and some other organizations to put together a retreat that would be part of the field work for the graduate level students, because now there's graduate programs in psychedelic studies, consciousness and psychedelic studies at both of these universities. I'm advisors to the programs for both these and guest lectures. so happy this in twenty twenty five we were able to launch the first one in april the second one in october we'll have another one coming up in the spring in april and this is kind of an educational aspect of the field work the students participate in our um in our central dining works we don't take any other visitors um at that time and uh and then there's you know the screening and then there's uh kind of an integration on the Sunday. There's Zoom meetings because this past one we had people and students in from Netherlands, East Coast, West Coast of the United States, West Coast of Canada, a few more locally, India. Okay, so people from all over coming in to participate in these retreats. I do quite a lot of teaching on non-ordinary states, consciousness, because these retreats aren't about the sense of dying. They're about helping the students. And we also take people from allied fields. So we've had doctoral students in psychology. We've had medical doctors working in palliative care. And so what we're trying to help them, is have their own experiences, deep experiences in the non-ordinary states of consciousness, to be able to understand if they're going to be working with people in non-ordinary states. And so, we're really happy about that. And the other thing is, we are going to be part of an exhibition, Rural Ontario Museum Spring, which will feature our church, Centre Montreal and the Sainte-Aubaine, with the clinical aspect. It's on consciousness, psychedelics, connecting with the divine, all kinds of stuff like that. Can you imagine this? Canada's best, most famous museum, the most well-known museum. And also the retail people, because when they approached me to ask me, because they were going to do something on psychedelics, and it was through my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Brian Rush, who's a senior scientist at CAMH. And he said, yeah, great, let's do something. But if you're going to talk about this, you have to phone her and get her in on it. So we did. And then I said, you have to have the Indigenous people. If you're going to do this, you've got to do the three things, the religious, spiritual use, the clinical use, and the Indigenous use, the history of it, you know, the heritage tradition. So it's a great honour that this exhibition will be sharing also with the Huichol people. from the United States. We don't have them here in the peyote people. They use peyote as their sound command. So that's coming up opening June in Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum. So we're kind of excited about that. And, you know, helping the public. I'm all about education, spirituality and education, and how can we educate people to not be frightened of these things, to be respectful of these things, To never participate unless there's really strong harm reduction and really understanding what you're doing, why you're doing it, who you're doing it with, when, why, what, where, etc. And so that's what's happening now. It's exciting. It's so cool to see it permeating into more of the mainstream and making sure that it stays viable and not get put back on the shelf somewhere. Education. You've got to educate. Community and your government. And all those people who are hoping to be able to work with either because they're in heritage or traditional or because they're new age or whatever it is they're doing, then that's the way you have to go. Stop working illicitly under the table. Educate. Work with your government. Educate your government. Educate your community. If you really believe in what you're doing and if you know what you're doing has the science and the heritage behind it, then stand up. Another conversation for another day. It's been great. Thank you so much. Always wonderful to hang out with you. Always a pleasure. Likewise. Thank you so much for your time today. And with everybody in the sound of my voice, I hope you have a beautiful day. Go to the website, check out the books. You won't regret it. Have a beautiful day, everyone. Aloha.