Hi everybody and welcome back to our podcast from the Kamasutra to 2020 where we look at your questions, your concerns, even your worries around all things to do with sex and sexuality. So as always we have with us Dr. Anvita Madan-Bihel. Anvita is a psychosexual therapist and she brings the psychological perspective to the advice that the Kamasutra has to give. Welcome Anvita. Thank you Seema and welcome to our vlog this week. So Anvita today I want to touch upon a subject that has suddenly come up in a very big way again which is performance anxiety. I find it's interesting, I mean performance anxiety has always been there for people, I mean we've always had questions about am I too small, am I too big, do I look like this, do I, you know, but suddenly I think post lockdown especially in certain places like in India where things have opened up, people are meeting again for so many months of lockdown where you weren't seeing anybody face-to-face and you were sexting and you had that screen to hide behind suddenly you're back physically, you have that intimacy, you're back in the proximity, you're face-to-face and all of these fears have come back and actually they've redoubled because from months of not having to deal with it suddenly we're dealing with it again. Absolutely and I think your performance anxiety actually has been the biggest drivers for more sexual problems and it has been there forever but there is an element that people were exchanging conversations and otherwise behind the screen and they hadn't met people for seven months so you could come up with the persona or you could be more liberated or have less inhibitions because you knew that you were not meeting in person and now suddenly you have to convert everything that somewhat you had shared in life and that can cause a lot of stress or anxiety.  This is a very common problem what I want to say is that it is and of course he had lots going around it but people come in really struggling like they might not get an erection or that they have these expectations and somebody who is popular and has this physique there's an aura around you know there are these ideas that you need to be a really good lover and if you're seeing porn you have an expectation that your performance needs to be like porn stars, we have said it multiple times on our podcast that porn is made out of software there's editing there's everything but the image the expectations that are there for especially young people is that I need to be a certain way that there is something known as a really good lover or a perfect lover there's something known as a good body or I need to perform, yeah and there's standards and the question we always ask is who made these rules where are these standards who decided these standards but what happens is that you go with all that pressure and anxiety and expectations you know just the way somebody would say in the exam you must get 95 percent it's similar and who like what is that 95 percent you know you have no idea what that 95 percent is so when you go in and you want to have a sexual experience you're worrying about what those criterias are and if you're meeting those criterias rather than actually enjoying or having fun or engaging like the engagement stops because in your head you're saying am I doing this right am I looking okay have I put this right have I done this right have I kissed properly have I touched properly so you're worrying what we call spectaturing you're worrying more about your performance that actually engaging in the intimacy or the sexual experience with the other person you know I like what you said about this this criteria the standard that you have to meet about you look a certain way and you've got the school persona so you have to be a good lover and I just want to say this and I'm probably going to have to say again and again many times the kamasutri doesn't say that you become a good lover it says you have to be a desirable lover which is a huge difference which means that how you come across to the other person makes you more desired it's something that makes somebody want to be with you but there isn't like a flag that you get you know like I finished this milestone and hence I give myself a gold star so there isn't any such thing as a good lover because everybody's needs are different exactly and once again you know the the idea is that if you're a desirable lover in some ways what I hear is you're somebody who is into intimacy you're listening to what your partner wants or you know you're noticing what excites your partner or doesn't excite your partner or you're actually paying attention to yourself and your partner and that's what makes you desirable like somebody you are somebody who's interested in the other person and the other person is interested in you and that changes from partner to partner so there isn't a blanket I'm a good lover and exactly what you're saying because what works with one partner doesn't work with the other one you know somebody might love their ears being bitten and somebody else might think it's the most disgusting thing to happen so there isn't a criteria and to make yourself desirable you need to be able to connect with the partner that you have so yeah so I just want to also say that you know a lot of young people particularly young men but generally young people will go to sex workers in the initial stages of their sexual explorations and it's not an unusual thing it's not a new thing it's something that a lot of people do but there's a lot of guilt around going to a sex worker you know I've even had people in the past saying that okay you know we went to the sex worker because you know we were on a high we really wanted to experiment and you know there's a lot of excitement about going but by the time we came back we have a stone cold sober and feeling not very good about ourselves and I think that comes from two things one is the reality of a sex worker's life it isn't glamorous and beautiful and exciting as we imagine this whole scenario to be and I think that reality hits you to begin with and I think that the other thing is just the guilt that then comes with it and I think that has a huge impact on performance but and I think I'd like to really say this Anvita and I'd love your advice on this as well that there are institutions with sex workers it isn't an ideal place nobody says that that's an ideal life but they're there and they do fulfill a certain need so if you don't have a partner if you wish to experiment if you want to try something out instead of getting aggressive or letting that actually build up inside you to something worse there is an outlet over here well you know there are a lot of politics around sex workers and everything and a lot of researchers now work to support them and organizations because it is an exploited life and it's a tough life and you know their health and the violence that they might face is quite significant but as you know we're talking about performance anxiety so I will not go into the politics of it but the reality is that if you've chosen to go to a sex worker and I will empathize with young men because once again they have the burden and the pressure of you need to be this good lover or you need to know how to have sex and what and where do they learn you know there is no sex education nobody is teaching them nothing's happening so sometimes they learn the ropes from sex workers because that's where they can go and they can you know and so once again but obviously that's not a relationship there is an intimacy it is pure sex and that's why and it's an interaction it's a transaction in some ways at the end of the day you're paying for sex so that experience will feel different because it's a transaction it's not coming out of a relationship where there's intimacy and trust and you have a relationship and you're doing it and so transactional sex which happens in non-paying partner as well it's common amongst people now to have friends with benefits so that's transactional sex which will feel different but if that's the need of the other and that's what you're looking for that's your choice so don't like accept that that's what you engaged in because that's what you were interested in in the moment rather than feeling guilty about it but at any point if transactional sex is actually coming in the way of you having healthy relationships so you're unable to have relationships then maybe you need to pay attention to it if not like you're saying it's a sexual need and you decided to fulfill it and it's consensual so it's actually better to have consensual transactional sex than you know forcing or coercing someone to have sex with you when they're not interested yeah I think that's a hugely valid point and I do hope that people do take that away because I know that most young men will come away with a sense of real guilt from this but if it is consensual if it is the need of the moment then don't let guilt overtake you there are different ways of dealing with certain things okay also from a lot of young women performance anxiety problems based around the fact that when they're with their partners they love the foreplay it makes them really wet everything is going great but the moment it comes to the actual sex they get really distressed about it they become more dry it becomes more painful they're backing off and this is starting to impact them any number of women yeah so I'm going to answer that question in couple of parts because I think part of it is when it comes to penetrative sex morality kicks in because people think like kissing touching like all other bases is okay but they remain a virgin until penetrative sex happens so somewhere they feel like all this is okay but not the penetration in some ways so I think there's an element of that being present and they get nervous about it and they don't know how to negotiate that they don't know how to pre-negotiate saying I only want to have foreplay I don't want penetrative sex and they feel pressured into giving up into it and they might not want to and the other aspect also is that I think a lot of women have now feel that there are expectations from them of being a good lover as well like they need to have a certain performance sexually so they might need feel like they have to have an orgasm they need to come they need to be other things and once again that's not true for every person that's not true for every woman but they they they also feel that they are those criterias and standards for them and they feel very nervous that once somebody in some ways if you think about it when penetration happens you lose control you don't have control over the situation and you might or might not orgasm and they feel very nervous that if it doesn't happen then they would not be good enough lovers or people their partner wouldn't feel satisfied in some ways so once again there's a lot of anxiety for them as well you know I wanted to actually tell you about a couple of our ancient texts so in one of our chastras one of our chastras it actually says that for a woman the foreplay is where she's extremely close to her lover so she absolutely loves it a woman loves that part of it because she's being touched she's being hugged the moment penetration has to begin he has to draw back in order to penetrate and the breaking of that contact is very distressing for most women so they don't like it the other interesting thing is that in the ancient chinese erotica I've always said that Indian erotica doesn't deal with the act of penetration it doesn't deal with all the thrusting and things you know it's all very sort of beautiful and elegant ancient chinese erotica had this thing about they actually set standards so they would say that if you are a really good lover then you should be able to trust 4000 times before you come or 5000 times before you come and and then they would put the same thing on the woman that a woman who gets tired after 200 trusts is not a good lover so I think that somewhere these things have come down to us and I just think that that's a hell of a it's a it's a hell of a burden to carry to think that you know that's what you're actually aiming for now I don't think that a lot of our audiences would have read those texts and they're aware of these numbers so I don't think that's necessarily what's bothering them I'm just using that that as an example but I think that this idea of thrusting is what puts a lot of women off because you know after a little while it's it becomes monotonous it becomes boring it becomes unexciting and we know that that's going to happen so you start to back off from the beginning yeah and and and like we're saying like it's interesting that the chinese actually had a criteria of what it makes it or not but that's missing as in we don't know what it is and and I would say somewhere we have learned that one formula doesn't work for everyone and so you adapt or you might do certain things like partners learn that when I do x y or z my partner gets very excited and tends to orgasm at that time could be for male or female like they know what helps bring climax but that is something that you observe and learn with your partner it cannot it will not work each time and I can guarantee you that that you can't like people say oh he can make you do this no that is just a myth that you're perpetuating that is not true and that's true for women as well and you know we will love to do maybe a video on orgasm because it is not something that most women can have easily especially penetrative orgasm clitoral orgasms are easier penetrative orgasms are very difficult and these days the pressure that both men and women feel to make sure that a woman gets a penetrative orgasm is so high and so problematic that it causes a lot of stress anxiety for them and a lot of problems then and one of the things that performance anxiety is based around of course is size yeah and so once again like you know there are all these myths around the sizes of the penis and that there is an ideal size or somebody feels like I'm too big will I hurt my partner I'm too small I won't and you know there are size does not matter we know this it doesn't matter the vagina is a muscle it expands or contracts it fits in like you can still have sex with your partner the size doesn't matter but you know and and and pornography is a problem because they show a certain size of a penis or they see or their ideas around it which are once again manufactured like those are they use they use different models for different parts of the body and they might use somebody else's hand and somebody else's leg and somebody else's penis and get it all together and and so they perpetuate these myths but they are myths size does not matter and you shouldn't feel anxious about it and if that is where your anxiety is about size then I have to say that this is what the positions of the kamisutra were created for to help you to bring your sizes and sink with each other so if you are too small and the woman is too big then the ideal position would be where the woman would bring her legs together or draw her knees in things that would actually help her to contract herself then there is ways of actually positioning your body in such a way that you can penetrate more deeply and so on so there are lots of different things that we can do but of course that's that initial thing to worry about but a lot of men have this thing about that they are just not the perfect size and as we've said there is no such thing as the perfect size and actually as a couple you would have to see what position works with you focusing on what gives giving you pleasure right so you know seema just mentioned certain positions try different positions and you would understand that oh this gives me most pleasure as a woman or a man and it might be different for you and a partner so once again this performance anxiety of we both need to orgasm at the same time and it will happen doesn't exist as it obviously happens at time I'm not saying it doesn't happen but a lot of time it might mean that you're getting your partner to orgasm or giving her a clitoral orgasm and then penetrating and having an orgasm there are multiple combinations you might one position might work for the woman and another position might work for the man and you would switch positions because it gives more pleasure to each of the partners so once again these ideas of like what that perfect sexual act is doesn't exist it's going to be yours and yours only with your partner and that is the combination that you need to work towards and of course orgasm is not the be all and end all you can happily have sex without both partners orgasming or only one partner orgasm orgasming or both coming together or whatever it's the variety is all there yeah and and a lot of women actually might not want the pressure of the orgasm they're just happy with the foreplay and the intimacy and the and they just actually sometimes the orgasm actually adds the pressure so when we give exercises we might actually say penetration is off limits you know you can only engage in foreplay and oral or just the touching you know the penetration is off limit and so many people come back saying we finally could like enjoy each other because the pressure of penetration wasn't there so the other pressures of like having an erection being able to insert a penis to have an or like the none of the pressures were there and they actually could you know enjoy being with their partner and have intimacy and enjoy the sexual experience and I think what I would like to add to this is that there isn't just one way to have sex which means that there isn't just one emotion that you're expected to have with sex there's a very famous book called the Amaru Shatak where which basically deals with 1000 different emotions during sex so each time you have sex you can feel differently you come differently you act differently so you can be wild one day you can be calm one day you can be almost sleepy one day you can feel musical one day it's every day is a different thing there isn't a criteria that okay we've gotten together and this is what we've got to actually you know like it's a race to the finish you've got to get to this point so if your performance anxiety is based around this idea of you reaching a certain bar that's not the bar for that day yeah that's not the bar yeah there's a thousand different ways you miss the point if you're making sex a race to get to orgasm you've missed the point completely I totally agree um that you've really as in and then you made it a formula so what's the fun in it in some way so yeah absolutely and I think that we started off this thing about how a lot of people feel guilt and once again Anvada and I've said this many times that sex should be about joyousness I know that in society outside we associated with sin we associated with guilt but while you're actually having sex if you're lucky enough to actually be with somebody that you really want to be with and it's consensual and you're having sex put aside those societal notions for a little while and give yourself the permission to enjoy it so for a little while put aside the guilt and just give yourself over to it and just see what happens being present so we speak a lot about mindfulness and being present in the act rather than being outside and looking in and saying you know am I doing this right am I doing that right rather than looking at your performance just be with your partner and be present you know so mindfulness and being present is way more important than actually judging yourself and giving yourself marks on what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong yeah your gold star sheet so I think to wrap that up from everything that Anvada said and what the Kamasutra suggests is that there's no such thing as a good lover or a perfect lover what you're aiming is to be a desirable lover because that automatically means that somebody wants to be with you and that you are trying very hard to make that a great experience the second is that if you are feeling guilty about it taking on all those notions if you've chosen to have sex then for that time and if it's consensual for that time drop the idea the guilt be mindful be present enjoy it if you are choosing to visit a sex worker and it is something that you wish to do or it's a need for whatever reason then don't keep feeling guilty about what you've done you've chosen to do it it was a need go with that don't don't judge yourself and beat yourself up over it and that the orgasm is not like a flag that you have to hoist the orgasm is a wonderful byproduct of sex it can come in many different ways and it's not necessarily something that happens at the end of a particular set of acts have I missed anything out Anvita yeah just this idea that these expectations rules criterias are we have no idea who's made them and why they made them and what they are so you know they become like they've become written in stone and they are not written in stone there are no these are mostly myths they do not exist so don't hold on to them so tightly that you know they actually cause problems in your sexual life let them go they are myths absolutely because as we said that you know people think of the kamasutra the ultimate book on sex and the kamasutra at no point talks about penetration it doesn't even talk about that on the other hand the chinese texts do talk about it so everybody has a different idea enjoy what you are doing don't judge yourself and just this idea we understand that you are going to feel anxiety for something or the other it's only human to do so but if you actually get into the pleasure part of it if you let your mind focus on that you'll find that the anxiety becomes less and less because you're thinking less about self-judgment let that be before you begin don't let that be part of the act absolutely totally focus on the pleasure yeah so as always do comment like subscribe on the video if you have any further questions i am on info.seema.anand at gmail.com and if you need any personal help or therapy anvita can be reached on anvita madan behel.com we'll see you here next week until next time


The National Emergency Management Agency has donated relief materials to flawed victims and vulnerable persons in adult states. Presenting the items on behalf of the NEMA Director-General Mustafa Ahmed, the Director of Planning, Research and Forecasting, Hajja Kasim said the items were meant to cushion the effect of the flawed victims as well as the vulnerable. Receiving the items on behalf of Governor Gaudwino Basaki, his deputy Philip Shuaibu appealed to President Mohamed Wairi to muster the will to dredge the river Niger as the solution to the perennial flooding across the country.


President of the United States, accompanied by Governor Orr. Music, like Grandma and Grandpa used to play. Pride, and we know that we here in Nebraska have special thoughts with President Reagan and he with us. I'm particularly pleased to welcome our president to North Blatt, the home of Nebraska land days. A very special person in our state, the former head of Boys Town, Father Hupp. Your vision and your courage have renewed our pride in America. And now it is with great pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, that I introduce to you the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Governor Orr. Thank you all very much. Senator Carnes, Representative Smith and Dobb, Ambassador Yatter, Mr. Mayor, Reverend clergy, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is great to be here in North Blatt. I was here some years ago, I was looking for a job. I can't tell you how good it feels to be out of Washington and back in the heartland of America. Just a while back we flew in on Air Force One, when the pilot told me we were flying over Lincoln County and then pointed out the Republican River, I knew I'd feel right at home here. I feel even more at home here in Buffalo Bill Cody's Rodeo Grounds. Like Cody, I was born in a small town, moved out west, served in the Army Horse Cavalry Reserve, then went into showbiz. Now there are a lot of people kind of thinking they're disparaging and doing it, call me, today, a cowboy. You know, I've never understood what's so bad about being a cowboy. I'm proud of my spurs. I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse. And while we're here, I want to say just a few words about another man who would have felt right at home in this ring, the Secretary of Commerce and my friend, Mac Baldrige. As you may know, he was from Omaha and the lessons he learned as a young boy in Nebraska stayed with him. He spent his life working for his country and being a cowboy and who could ask for a better life than that. When I called him, I had never met him, but when I called him to ask him to be Secretary of Commerce, I got his wife and she said he couldn't come to the phone. He was busy in a calf roping contest. And I knew right then I'd pick the right guy. I've come to North Platte today because I've got a very important message, a message that I know the people of this state carry in their hearts. It's about America's future, and I've come to say that it can be as big and wide open as the horizon over the Nebraska farmland, as independent as the Nebraska rancher, as resilient as the Nebraska farmer. And nothing gives me greater confidence in America's future than the young people of today. God, God bless them. They're the best darned bunch of kids this country's ever had. I figured there must be a few of them here today. Are there any bulldogs in the audience? And how about corn huskers? Well, before I left the White House this morning, Nancy asked me to pass along a special message to all you young people. If someone offers you drugs, just say no. Getting on with the business of America's future, that's what we're here for today. Some of you may have seen me on television last night in an address to the nation. My first priority was always to get the facts before the American people. And that's why I requested three of the investigations and endorsed and fully cooperated with the fourth, the Congressional hearings. When the Tower Commission completed its review last February, I made a report to the American people, but waited until Congress finished its work before speaking out once again, and that was last night. But now it's time to get down to the real business at hand, to move forward with America. I think a first order of business is peace and democracy in Central America. And last week I joined with bipartisan leaders in Congress in calling for an end to the fighting and a commitment to democratic reforms by the Sandinista Communist government in Nicaragua. Peace and democracy. The two are inseparable. And if any one of you think maybe I'm going too far in referring to the Sandinista government as communist, well, I've got some Nicaraguan stamps in my desk drawer in Washington. They carry the picture of Nikolai Lennon. The aspirations for democracy promised by the Sandinistas in 1979, the commitment to free speech, free press, freedom of religion, free elections, all civil rights, must be fulfilled. What this ball means is that the leaders of the Central American democracies, the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and my administration all agree the key to peace in that region is genuine democracy in Nicaragua. Now, this country stands ready to work with those in Central America who seek peace, but it must be consistent with the interests of the United States and it must be consistent with the interests of those who are fighting for freedom in Nicaragua. Peace negotiations with Nicaragua's democratic neighbors will begin to reduce and balance the standing armies in the region. In this context of freedom, demilitarization and civil rights, and only in this context, a real election campaign with real, meaningful elections can take place. We're going the extra mile with this plan. Real negotiations with a firm timetable. And all we're saying is give democracy a chance in Central America. But now, looking to the home front, we've got a lot of business to take care of. There are only 17 months left in this administration.  Well, I've never seen a happy lame duck. The way I see it, back in 1984, you hired me for four more years with no time off for good behavior. Besides, we've accomplished a number of things in the past six years. And I'd like to see them pinned down and made permanent. That's at the top of our agenda. To lock in and cement the economic progress we've made in the last six years, I pledge to you, I'm not leaving office until your paycheck is once and for all safe from those who want to tax it and spend it into oblivion. For too long, the advocates of big government have been treating your paycheck, your savings, even your pensions like their government property. They act as if they're being generous when they let you keep a little of it. Well, those days are over. In America, government is the servant, not the master, and we intend to keep it that way. One of my favorite songs a few years back went, sure could use a little good news today. But today I think we have some economic good news in America. I'm not surprised if you haven't heard much about it. I figure our economic program was working when they stopped calling it Reaganomics. But now the news is so good and has gone on so long, they don't report it at all anymore. For example, the percentage of Americans employed is the highest in history. 62 percent of everyone, 16 years of age or older, all the way up are employed. Just last week unemployment dropped to 5.9 percent, the lowest level since 1979. And I don't know what it would be if the statisticians counted the near half a million military based outside the U.S. and counted them as employed, which they are. They've got jobs, but they aren't counted when we start figuring out these statistics. And these aren't the inflationary jobs of 1979 destined to burst with the inflationary bubble. These are jobs in a strong, growing, low inflation economy. In fact, recent revisions of the gross national product figures show that our economic expansion is stronger than anybody thought. Come October, this expansion, if it is continued till then, will be the longest in America's peacetime history. That gives us only three more months to go till we break the record. So what do you say? Let's go for the gold. Now something else is also setting records. Strong, continuous, low inflationary growth has meant that not only are more Americans working than ever before, but their paychecks are growing too. American family incomes increased for the fourth year in a row, while the poverty rate continues its decline below its level in 1981. Meanwhile, the stock market reached another record high last week, and the leading economic indicators are rising pointed a good times ahead. Now that's the good news. The bad news is that there are still those who say that the way to bring down deficit spending is by raising your taxes. Now I must have promised a hundred times to veto any tax hike that comes across my desk, and that promise still stands. But you know there are some of those people in Congress, present company accepted. But some of those others that are back there that keep calling for more taxes, and I thought I was the one that needed a hearing aid. Let me tell you a little more good news. You know when we first started our economic program we said that tax cuts would be so good for the economy they'd produce so much growth that revenues would actually increase even at the lower tax rates. Well our critics thought that was crazy. But lo and behold in 1984, the first complete year that our tax cut program was in place, revenues increased about 11 percent, and they've kept right on increasing. Counting estimated revenues for this year that adds up to an increase of revenue at the lower tax rates of over 40 percent. But still some aren't satisfied. So they want to raise your taxes again and throw America back into the days of stag nation or stag flation I should say and decline. The American people made their views on taxes well known in 1984. But since some in Washington still haven't gotten the message, let's let them hear it again loud and clear. Do we want to go back to the days of high taxes and big spending? Do you want to go back to the bad old days of high inflation and low growth? Or do you want to lower taxes, eliminate the deficit and balance the budget once and for all? After hearing you, I'm ashamed to ask this next one. Do you want to keep America number one into the 21st century? I thought you might say that. I'm just going to say something here because I have read since I got here this morning that there are some advertisements being taken out in papers on radio and on television that tell them, tell you that I am responsible for the deficit. Well, I've just finished talking about why they're basing that. They think the only way to balance the budget and end the deficit is to raise your taxes. I say the way to end the deficit is to lower their spending. When you see those commercials or hear them about me and the deficit, may I just tell you that every year the law requires I send a budget to the Congress. And not one year since I've been there has Congress adopted my budget. They have cut, yes, they've cut defense every year. They've cut a total of $125 billion over what I asked for. But they added $250 billion to the domestic programs over what I asked for. So somebody's off base with their commercials. But you know we still got a lot of work to do. We have to institutionalize the gains that we've made so no one can take them away again. That's why I stood in the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and announced our call last month for an economic bill of rights to be added to the Constitution so that the American people will finally have permanent protection from the always growing and always greedy demands of big government. And the first thing it would require is that the federal government do what every American family has to do, balance its budget. And let me repeat what I said last night. If the Congress continues to refuse to vote on our balanced budget amendment, the call for a constitutional convention will grow louder and louder and one way or the other the will of the people always prevails. Now the Congress could eliminate that long, lengthy and time consuming operation of a constitutional convention by simply passing an amendment that says the government here from here on, well, we're going to take a few years to have to get down there, but then balance, keep balancing the budget. And second, to make sure that the balanced budget amendment isn't simply used as a lever to raise your taxes, we would require that more than a majority must vote to pass a tax hike on the theory that it should be as difficult for Congress to raise taxes as it is painful for you to pay them. So let's look at, instead of 50% plus one being able to raise the taxes, maybe 60% or even two-thirds should have to vote in order to take such a drastic action. And then third, it would give the president the same tool your great governor K. Orr and 42 other governors use to keep spending under control, a line item veto. I had it as governor of California and believe me I miss it. That way we can cut away the fat and leave the meat intact. Now some provisions would strengthen something our forefathers took for granted, property rights. Others would require truth in spending. Every piece of legislation would come with a price tag and an explanation of how it's going to be paid for. This just isn't some economic passage we're talking about. It's an insurance policy for America's future that can open the door wide to a generation of prosperity, hope, and opportunity. It's also about our basic principles, individual rights, and limited government. In a word, freedom. And that's why I promise you that I'm going to continue fighting for this, not just for the remainder of my presidency, but for the rest of my public life I'm going to be campaigning for these things. You know, I'm going to stick something in here that wasn't in my prepared remarks. There were some of you down here in front and was very flattering indeed who were chanting four more years. Well that can't happen with the amendment to the Constitution and no president in office can ask to change it. But a president out of office can and you know something? I think we all ought to give some thought. By what right did we tell the people of this democracy place a limit on him how many times they could vote for someone if they wanted to vote for them. I'm told that during World War II the people of North Platte set up a can team for the soldiers riding past in the railroad on their cars on their way to the war. The government didn't ask them to do it they just took it on themselves. And in those years, 1941 to 1946, they took in eight million soldiers, gave them food and shelter and a warm welcome. That's the spirit of this great country of ours, independent and full of heart. And that's a spirit that we've got to keep burning ever brightly. Shining from these prairies, from the mountain majesties, from our cities and towns, shining for all the world to see of people as good and generous as they are free. And you young people who are here, let me tell you a little true incident of a scholar from our country, recently took a trip to the Soviet Union. He happens to be able to speak Russian fluently. In the taxi that was taking him to the airport in this country, a young fellow and in conversation with him discovered that the taxi driver was a student working his way through school. And he asked him, what did he want to be? And the young fellow said, I haven't decided yet. By coincidence, he got another young fellow driving the cab in Moscow. And he got in conversation with him in Russian and found out that he was a student and working at the same time. And he said, what do you want to be? Just remember this difference between two countries. This young man said, they haven't told me yet. That's the difference. I told, I told a little while ago some of your fellow Nebraskans a little story. I collect stories now that I can find out and actually prove are told in the Soviet Union by Soviet citizens about their system. And it reveals they've got a great sense of humor and also they're a little bit cynical about the way things are over there. Now I'm going to tell you just one little one. This is told by the Russians. How do you tell a communist? And they say, well, someone that reads Marx and Lenin. And the second question is, well, how do you tell a non-communist someone who understands Marx and Lenin? I just hate to do this, but I got a long way yet to go all the way to the coast, so thank you all and God bless you all. Thank you. Mr. President, we have been so very proud to have you here in Nebraska, here in our city of North Platt. And I know I speak for all the people assembled here and the rest of Nebraskans to say thank you for coming to our state and an expression of our appreciation and gratitude for your visit here and what you are doing for us here in America. We have a special gift presented by Charlie Adams who's our Buffalo Bill Cody and this is a beautiful stetson for you to take to your ranch in California.


Hey guys! We are finally here with the painted feather video. I posted pictures of these onto social media. I did not very much expect the response that I got. I was very pleased that you all loved them. I did not expect to ever do a tutorial on them, but we're gonna do one. Alright so I will tell you first as we get started with the video that if you want to watch another couple of perspectives on painting feathers, the two videos that inspired me, one is by Jelly Arts and one is by Threadbanger. So I'm gonna link both videos in the description below, so go check them out. You will need, for the way I did this process, something to monoprint on. I have one of the small jelly plates, some feathers, these firm sort of white duck or goose feathers are the best.  It's too floppy, it won't take the paint. You can do ones, you can do black ones and I'll show you what I discovered about using dark feathers that I think is interesting.  Okay so let's get started. So the first thing we're gonna do is pick a couple colors to put out on our jelly plate and I'm gonna pick colors that go well together. At the moment I am really trying to use up some old distress paint and craft store paint, so I've been picking from there. These are Adirondack paints and distress paints, and pick colors that go together. So like this is yellow, green, and blue, yellow, orange, and red, pink, purple, and blue, something like that. Colors that normally would blend well together anyway don't go anything too crazy. You don't need much. This is a little jelly plate so I don't need much paint. I'm gonna put the yellow, then I'm gonna put the green, then I'm gonna put the blue. You're gonna need some drawing paper. Just plain drawing paper, scrap paper. I'm gonna brayer out my paints, mixing them just a little bit, trying to get my hair out of the paint. I always seem to have a piece of hair stuck in the paint. Okay then I'm gonna take some of my feathers, lay them front side down on the jelly plate. I'm gonna pull a couple of these little ones. I do try to get as many feathers as I can on there. You'll see in the jelly arts video they just do one or two, but I want to get as much as I can. Take a piece of drawing paper and then push. Now you can feel around the spine of the feather and really use your fingers to push down on that spine, push down on either side of it where the hairs of the feather would be. I still don't know what those are called. Are they called hairs? I don't know. And push down really well, give it a good rub. The bonus of this is that you also are creating mono prints while you're doing it. So here's the mono print from that. Here's the feather, right? So then just set that aside. Because you're not using very much paint and I'm also using, here's the little one, isn't it cute? Because I'm also using craft store paint, it dries pretty quickly. Okay so I'm gonna do the rest of my feathers and I'll be right back.  Put some more paper down and you get these interesting prints from your jelly plate. Look at that. Those are gonna be great to use in some mixed media pieces or some art journal pages. Just a little tip. I'll be right back. Okay to do the dark galaxy feathers, I recommend that you start with a black base. I know the feathers are already black or dark but this is the way I think works the best.  This is black flash color shift paint by Folk Art. Start with these two colors. What we're doing is just a base coat on all the feathers and for the galaxy feathers we happen to be doing a dark base coat. That's probably way too much paint but let's find out. I'm gonna roll off my brayer as much as I can. If I was really concerned about it I would clean the jelly plate but I'm not going to. Then put your dark feathers again face down. Put some of the little ones. Now these camel colored feathers you can do any color on the darker red ones. They're a little dark for the bright colors. Okay we're gonna again put the paper face down and press. Really get your fingers into all those nooks and crannies on the jelly plate that you can feel. You'll get an interesting secondary print. Well an interesting monoprint I should say. Then we're gonna pull the feathers off and you can see I don't know if you can see that on camera but you can see that there's some like shimmer to that. That's the metallic paint and then on these ones you can see that that's darkened them up a lot. We're gonna pull a secondary print. Interesting print. So now because our jelly plate is dark because of the black paint we're gonna go ahead and work on the galaxy feathers and I'm gonna grab a couple more colors of metallic paint. I think I'm gonna grab a red and a peacock pearl. This is another color shift paint. This is a Dekowart dazzling metallics paint and I'm going to just drop it in a few places. Again that's probably way too much paint but that's right. So instead of just braying back and forth what I'm gonna kind of do is do this. So we get this like splotchy thing on the jelly plate. You don't want it to be fully covered. You want it to look kind of like that. Then I'm gonna put my feathers down again. Another piece of hair there but it's gonna have to stay there. Press, press firmly. Now remember that you're painting on or printing on an organic object so you're not gonna get perfect prints. You're not gonna get perfect coverage of paint.  So just throw that word out the window. Look at that monoprint from that. Isn't that cool? If nothing else, if you don't like the painted feathers the monoprints you get from doing this are really cool. Okay so now you start to see the beginnings of something that's sort of galaxy-esque right? There's that one. So cool. Okay now this first one I pulled has some color on it but not a lot. There is some more color on here so I'm gonna just take the feather and I'm gonna do this and then that's there you go. I'm gonna take what's left on here. Pull a print which I did just mess up by doing that but that's okay. I want the feathers to be good. At this point I have a giant stack of painted papers. Alright so now before we go back to the light colored ones we're gonna clean the jelly plate because I don't necessarily want all this black and metallic paint on there.  Now we're gonna go back to some of the original feathers that we did. I did find that for my feathers I really liked one of a couple stencils. I really liked just some plain old punchin'lla and this this piece is a little bit past it. If any of you all want to send me happy mail and send me a new piece that doesn't look like this, feel free. I could use a new piece because this one's like falling apart. Alright so I did find I liked the punchin'lla. This is also a stencil by Patty Tolly Parish and this is, what's the name of it? Does it say? It just says 8x10 Patty Tolly Parish Exclusive Stencil. So it might have been one that I got for free with placing an order. It doesn't say. If anybody knows put a comment but this one worked. I liked the little larger like diamond shapes around the outside. This one that I had worked okay. I had little success with it but I think it was because of the color I used so we may try that one again today. It's also a little big for the feathers. Also this chicken wire one actually kind of worked so use what you have but the punchin'lla was my favorite one. Alright so and see there's another piece it's just falling apart. Alright so we are going to go with the punchin'lla and I think I'm going to go with the blue. Don't want that blue or going a different blue. I'm going to want a different blue actually. You know what I'm going to use this one which is another Adirondack paint. This is Clover and I'm going to mix it with this Distress paint which is Broken China Brayer. Okay so for the first pass with the feathers I'm going to put the punchin'lla down and I'm going to put some feathers on top of that. Okay and we are going to get a piece of paper. We use this one and we're going to push. Now we have a stencil and the feathers on top of the paint so for this one you really want to make sure you push you get everything pushed down, pushed hard on the spine and the hairs of the feather. Right so we get that and you see the feather stuck to it but that's okay so you get this that's really cool and then lay them out to dry.  So paint up your feathers with your mono printing system how whatever you're using if you have a jelly plate or a purchase I should say a store-bought jelly plate or a homemade jelly plate use what you have and then let your feathers dry and then when we come back we're going to do some doodling on the feathers so work on them whether you're making galaxy feathers or the brightly colored feathers work on that and we'll be right back. For the next step once your feathers are dry you're going to need some rubber stamps I'm using one of my stamp sets from my Etsy shop designed by me you can I'll put the link the link for my Etsy shops in the description so you can look it up and look at I have 11 I think different sets of stamps you may need some stencils and again I have some of my designed stencils from my Etsy shop you can find them over there I have used these on some of the feathers so we'll see what happens some makeup sponges if you're going to use the stencils some paint paint pens these you need to have black black ink I'm using archival and an acrylic block and then your dried feathers so then it's a matter of taking your feathers and really doodling on them creating something interesting and I'm going to show you how to do a couple of them I okay so when you do this you may find that are some that you just don't want to do anything to because you really like the way they look I do have to say I think these are some of those I love the way they look and I don't plan on doing anything to these so we're going to set these aside there's something about those colors I just love here's another one of those from that batch there are some of these that need some doodling you need some help to really just really pop and be pretty so we're going to do that let's start with these and let's take one of the stamps from the stamp set let's take these little circles and you'd be surprised at how easy it is to stamp on a feather so get your stamp really well and good and inky we're going to want to stick a white piece of paper under there pick a spot and push hard or maybe rock it just a little bit and that takes what was a kind of a boring feather and look look at that I mean look at that even if you do nothing else to it look at that all right so then I'm going to take one of my paint pens and I think I'm going to use yellow and for the paint pens just that tapping on don't try to actually draw on the feather that won't work this yellow is not showing up a lot but now that I got started I'll finish with it I think I'll add some white to it and I'm going inside those stamped circles and then grab a white pen I'm going to zoom in a little bit and I grab a white pen white paint pen again okay and that takes what was a boring feather and makes it really interesting look at that okay so we're gonna set that one aside let's work on another one and let's take this one and I'm going to this time I have this stamped from my set that's like little plus signs make sure I'm in frame then I'm gonna take I love these Krylon 18 gold leafing pens they have these leafing pens so there's a gold leaf silver leaf and copper leaf these are fabulous people a great addition to your craft stash and and affordable I think I'm going to take the silver one and what I usually do is try to find a spot on the feather to to add something to to add a doodle add a mark in this case a mark oops where are we there we are so I'm going to do all of these feathers and then I'll be back and I'll show you how to do the galaxy feathers and I'll share what I've done you do the initial printing on your feathers and you just aren't happy with the way the colors and marks came out then that's when I go in with the stencils and some like more paint in this case I'm taking some Bahama blue deco art Americana craft paint and my stencil called directions from my Etsy shop and I'm going to stencil some marks on that feather this one came out a little bit muddy shall we say so I want to brighten it up just a bit yeah that helped a lot so that took what was kind of an ugly feather and turned it into something much more interesting okay so now we're going to work on painting the craft the galaxy feathers and I'm going to show you how to do that so I'm taking some white craft paint and a brush with some small points on it you can use just use what you have some really it's not about what I'm using and add some stars quote-unquote stars right take some just plain water and take some of those stars and kind of blend them out or fuzz them up a little bit okay you also can just splatter it you can make a puddle of white paint and just take your brush and just do this and splatter on it I tend to like to do a little bit of both I'm going to just try to do it here on the white paper and just and just do that until you're happy with it and you get a galaxy feather right so let's do the other ones and this is a funny specialty brush especially effects brush that happens to have different kind of points on it but you don't have to have this just use a really tiny small round brush or a toothpick or something like that okay so make some white marks on your feather and then go back with some water with your brush fairly drippy and not on necessarily all of them but on some of them add some more water so that white paint gets a little bit runny right and then take and make your puddle of white paint it's best done on black feathers these little sort of dark amber-y ones will work they don't work as well but they do work if you really like the galaxy feathers and you want to make some I would recommend if you can afford it to go out and just buy some black feathers otherwise spend some time and whatever feathers you're using maybe jelly print on them a couple times letting the layers dry in between to really get them dark and black maybe even painting on both sides of the feather so you get something that's really dark and black okay and we're gonna get some watery paint here so galaxy feathers so I'm gonna dry everything and I am going to clean up my table and I'll be back to share with you all the feathers that I have and what they look like right so there we go painted feathers honestly those are all the steps I used I used just a craft paint my jelly plate some stamps and stencils some paint pens and some drawing paper nothing special all things I already had in stock except the feathers the feathers are inexpensive ones from the craft store so go out and paint your own colorful feathers use them in your mixed medium your artwork they'd be great attached to a journal cover maybe hanging from a dream catcher there there's just so many different things I could see them actually smaller ones made into earrings alright that's it for today don't forget to check out the video description for links to my Etsy shop my happy mail address a whole you know there's a link down there to a page where you can get all of my social media and website links to all my stores and places that you can find me so check out the video description don't forget to like share and subscribe and above all go out and have a great day do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later bye guys


It might be worth it in the end, maybe, but it still sucks. I try to create videos about solutions. All you have to do if you want to hear about problems is turn on the news or get on the internet. There are plenty of people out there ready to tell you about problems.  But that's not true. We do care. We're just exhausted both from carrying around the weight of all of these problems all the time, day-to-day bullshit with no real solutions in sight. It's only natural that we shut down. We smoke and drink. We binge Netflix and video games. We do retail therapy.  But we never fully recharge and the problems just keep getting bigger and bigger and we just hope that there's someone else out there that can solve all of these problems for us. But we can't count on anyone else to solve the problems and what that ultimately means is that the only solutions that matter are the ones that people are actually capable of. And that's what I tried to provide. By focusing on the solutions I do worry is that I make it look easy or I present some romanticized version of reality. Growing all of your food isn't easy. I am not a master teaching students. I am a student that's in a class that's way over my head and any lessons that I'm learning I'm learning the hard way and I'm just desperately scribbling notes so I can just help anyone get a passing grade. Over the past 14 months I have struggled with nutrient efficiency that I honestly didn't think was possible in America. All the problems we might have with processed food they're at least fortified with minerals and vitamins so that it's almost impossible for an American to be dangerously low on something. Dangerously high on something? Sure but it's hard to be dangerously low on something. One of the reoccurring problems that I've had in the past 14 months is sodium deficiency and other electrolytes but mainly sodium. Suffered dizziness, fatigue, muscle cramps. The interesting thing is just how easy it's become to tell what I'm deficient in. I got to the point where I could pour salt out in my hand and eat it and it would not taste salty. Over the winter I got better about salting my food which hadn't been a problem previously because there was enough processed food in my diet to get plenty of salt but then other problems occurred. I started to get low on vitamin C and iodine because I was not using iodized salt. I didn't have any fruit or greens in my diet. I started experiencing extreme lethargy and pretty wild mood swings and I could feel my thyroid starting to swell which is the first sign that goiter is coming and that's basically unheard of in the US. There's so much iodized salt in everything I've literally never heard of someone actually having a goiter in my lifetime. It took 16 pounds of oranges and starting to incorporate iodized salt in my diet before those symptoms started to go away. I am tired constantly and there is such a huge delay between when you do the work and when you see the results that it can be really hard to keep going at times. When I talk about the number of hours I'm working I can see the look of disbelief on people's faces because they hear those numbers and they look at the garden and they think to themselves there's no way and that really struck home for me when someone commented on how big my turnips were only a month after I planted them. That's just the thing I hadn't planted them a month earlier. I had planted them three months earlier and in those three months I'd spent a lot of time weeding and tending to those turnips to make sure they got to that size but to the uninitiated that's completely lost. That's not considering all the time it takes to sift compost and mix fertilizer and do bed prep and weed and start seeds and water seedlings and all of the other things that have to happen before things can even go in the ground. People don't see that they only see the end result. I am destroying my relationships because I don't have the luxury to choose between work and friends. If something has to be done it has to be done I don't get paid by the hour I get paid in what I produce if I produce and even though I'm an introvert that doesn't mean I can just go indefinitely without human interaction.  It's helpful that I can be outside and that I have work to keep me busy and distracted but there are only so many weeks and weeks on end without human interaction before you just need to talk to someone.  I'm so exhausted that I've failed to be 100% present with people or I'm stressed about things that I haven't managed to get done and I'm not 100% present with people.  I worry about creating a situation where I lean on them more and more and if I don't give 110% and turn whatever this is into something then they're just going to end up going down with me and that's what they'll get for all of the sacrifices and support that they've shown me. Even though I'm trying to put myself in a position where I can give back more than I'm taking I often feel like I'm failing to take care of them in the present as well as in the future. I have to make really tough decisions about what I spend my time on and sometimes that means spending a week or two on a project before realizing that I can't get it done in time for it to matter. Sometimes I have to give up a foraging opportunity in order to get something planted and then inevitably that crop fails and I end up with neither. That's compounded by the fact that the property was clear-cut so some things are just too sparse to gather efficiently or sometimes the populations are too small to harvest sustainably. It really kills me sometimes when I have to leave a plant in the ground either because I need seeds or I otherwise need to get that population established so that I don't have to worry about how much I harvest next year and the year after but that means I go without this year. It's getting to the busy point in the season and that honestly scares me. Best case scenario I have 50% of my calories in the ground but really I'm only counting 20 to 30% because so many of the early season staples are things that I just don't have good data on and I don't have previous experience with so I don't know what the yields are gonna be like. That means in the next two months I have to get 50 to 75% 80% of my calories in the ground and I know how much work is taken just to get this much done. Two months is not enough and that means I have to start making really hard decisions about what isn't making the cut this year and what I can put in the ground that will actually get me through the year. What corners I can cut without just losing everything in the process. Videos are one thing that I know I have to cut back on. One of my previous videos took 19 hours from 8 in the morning until 3 the following morning and I cannot put in those kinds of hours right now. I want to be able to make shorter videos over the next couple of months but I can't guarantee that because food is a higher priority. If I end up doing shorter content over the next couple of months I hope it's still stuff that you guys find valuable. If I'm not able to do video at all then I hope you guys stick around. It very well may be the case that the next videos will be looking at yields for the experiments that I did this year. Whatever the case may be I hope you guys are there and we'll figure this out when we get there.


Hello, thanks for joining me. I'm out on the Shelton Hills today just outside Great Missingdon in Buckinghamshire. On today's walk what we're going to do we're going to find the source of the river Misborne and over today and in the next couple of days I'm going to follow it all the way to its confluence with the river Colm down near Denham. So we're just going through this gate. Here we have the Great Central Main Line which once ran all the way from Marilynburn up to Sheffield and beyond now it's just served by Chilton Railways on their service as far as Ellesbury Vale Parkway but there are plans to reopen some of it further to the north but we'll do a separate video on that when that happens. So we're going to go under the track bed of the old Great Central Main Line so once upon a time you've seen steam expressways running up towards Nottingham and Manchester Sheffield etc. You'd have also seen the Metropolitan Line trains from Verley Junction because this was also once part London Underground, this bit of railway line now London Underground, Metropolitan Line, there goes Father Lamisham. But this video isn't really going to be a railway video as I said we're going to follow the river Misborne but as it starts so close to the Great Central Main Line I just thought I have to show it. So we're going to follow it all the way as I said I've always been fascinated by rivers in a similar way to how railways are. They make their way through towns and countryside, they connect things up and I've just always had a fascination for them. Now the river Misborne, it runs about 15 miles or so, it starts here, it's just starting to rain. This is Mobwell Pond. Now the river Misborne is a chalk stream. We have already done a video on its tributaries in Chatham St Peter so have a look out for that one, there's a link in the screen now. We looked at the tributaries, this is the main river now you look at this pond it's quite a nice large pond. Now I've never ever seen this much water in being a chalk stream a natural thing with chalk streams is they do dry up they flow intermittently so say if it was dried up now and it rained a lot tomorrow you might get sort of run off off the road but it would take a long time for that rain to filter through and make the river flow. Now from what I know at the moment it's flowing most of the way through so further up as we will discover I've discovered parts of the river is dried up but here it's flowing which I'm really pleased about it's quite often it flows in parts of Great Missingdon in Amisham but it is quite rare to see it at water at the source especially this much so this is Mobwell Pond so it's really quite a big pond. Great Missingdon, the edges of Great Missingdon are just there so we're about half a mile away from the town centre I'm going to carry on there's a footpath just up over there and we shall find some more of the River Missbourne on the way to the town centre. So I'm now walking down the footpath in the rain from just by Mobwell Pond and we're heading towards Great Missingdon town centre and what happens here oh here's the river I almost couldn't see it there there you go there's the so this is really how the River Missbourne looks for much of its course just through through the fields of Buckinghamshire down the Missbourne Valley I think this is just going to be a passing rain shower so I'm not going to let it bother me I'm just going to carry on really so yeah I just wanted to show you the first section of rural River Missbourne before it gets to Great Missingdon town centre so we just come upstream about a quarter of a mile from where we'd asked for we're just coming now like I said back there we'll be coming to the edges of Great Missingdon now I get to this rather pleasant place here it's called Bogs Meadow I hope I'm pronouncing that right there we go there's a very interesting interpretation board tells you a lot about the wildlife and the plants you can see here so the Missbourne is just here flowing under this concrete bridge and then along here so like I said I don't think I've ever seen water in this section of the for so for me I'm really pleased that you know I can see this with water it's it is a shame it doesn't flow so often there have been problems with companies taking water out the river which hasn't helped although that does make me think it I'm not sure where they took the water out but if they were taking it out further up why would it affect it here but it is also part of the natural way a short stream is formed is that they they just do dry up intermittently um because they depend on you know water in the water table so if there's no water then they don't flow and so if you have like a long period of no rain it might not happen now but later on they'll end up being no water then you'll get like when you get that couple of weeks in sort of March where it rains constantly that might not do anything till September so what happens here the river goes into a culvert just up there and it takes it underneath a park so what I'll do I'll go over there and um I'll show you we won't see the river but we'll be standing on top of the river so I've now come into the park now this line you can sort of see where the grass is a bit dead that is where the river is in a culvert below my feet um so really it's culverted all the way from just the other side of those trees right the way down to um well then it becomes private gardens so I'm not exactly sure where the culvert emerges personally I don't know why it needs to be culverted because I think if they dug all this up it could the river could be the centerpiece of this park I appreciate over there where there's a car park on the road yes culverted it there but could they not open this up and you know to me I just think it would look really nice really nice center piece of the park if you know why they can't do that or why they chose to culvert it here you know please comment let me know I'm now going to carry on walking in that direction and try and find the river where we can actually see it so here I am now in a rather attractive part of great missingdon town center now that's for the river being in a culvert well what happened I noticed when I got to the end of the culvert I was talking about I could just sort of catch a glimpse through the hedge of the river um out of the culvert but it wasn't really anywhere you know I couldn't really film it through the hedge so I've carried on here let me show you this building here this is the abbey farmhouse and over there was great missingdon abbey or missingdon abbey rather the abbey was founded in um 11 33 I believe by I think his name was William the missingdon so there was an abbey on the site it's eventually you know got dissolved as monasteries do it became a stately home and um oh hello there's the river look don't think you can see it but the river emerges here and flows along there so those people there who live in that house they have a river underneath them we're going to carry on into the abbey into the abbey's parkland um we're just just you can see what we're doing we are also going to be for a bit of time following the south buck's way so we'll leave the end of great missingdon town center behind us the main street the shops on is just up there there's also a railway station in great missingdon on the great central main line opened in 1892 these lovely cottages so where we're going to now we're going into the great missingdon or the missingdon abbey estate so it became a stately home it burnt down in about 1985 it's been restored it's now a conference center an agile education college so it's really quite a nice estate we'll see the building and you can walk through and there's the big lake which we shall see more of in a moment so i'm going to carry on up here to where we can access um the missingdon abbey estate so on my way into the missingdon abbey estate i thought i just come up here quickly and show you the parish church of st peter and st paul and how it's a little way from the town center you know not far a lot not even really a quarter of a mile away but it's kind of outside the town center now all of the land around here the one's been part of missingdon abbey now you may be able to hear the traffic here is a bypass the great missingdon bypass so in order to get to the church they come up this little lane as they probably always would have done except they have to cross the bypass now there's an interesting rumour that when they were building the bypass they discover the tunnel from the church down to the abbey now i'm not sure how true that is but supposedly somewhere down there there is a tunnel was apparently as they were digging you know they broke through this tunnel which um you know it'd be it'd be really cool if they hadn't been broken through and you could still go up and down it i'm not sure how true that is but to me you know it would be believable that a place like that could exist i'm now going to go down these steps here and um we're going to go and find the river missbourne again in the missingdon abbey estate so here we are in the missingdon abbey parkland and just down in front of us is warren water the big ornamental lake that was dug out and over there that's missingdon abbey so that's it in its um sort of later guys as a stately home i think there are some fragmentary remains of the abbey inside the house from what i've been told so um maybe one day it'd be nice to go around those gardens and make a video there something that's something we might do in the future if um i'm not sure if they ever do open the gardens for public to go and have a look around but you know if they do if anyone from the abbey is watching if your gardens are open to the public i'd be quite happy to come and have a look around make a video so let's just follow warren water it's a lovely big lake now i believe it kind of there would have been ponds here you know for the monks for fish because quite often abbeys monasteries do have their own fish ponds and as we already know there was a farm because we saw the beautiful old abbey farmhouse it's really nice to see this much water in it i think i have seen sort of a trickle flowing through the middle but i've also seen this completely dried up when you see this much water in it it to me it's hard for me to sort of think i've seen this dried up i've i've walked i've stood where those ducks are except obviously a bit lower and um so yeah it's great to see that it's completely full again and just up there there's a bridge where the weir ends and then what i should do i'll carry on through the abbey parkland because the river you know makes its way meanders through the parkland and um before it gets to the railway there's one more lake so at the end of the abbey parkland it eventually crosses the great central main line only crosses two railways in its course we'll come on to the other one so you can gather it's the children main line but we'll talk about that in a later video so got to the end here it's a very beautiful place this feels a bit like i'm in a national trust property and this is the wider part there's a bit of a shame the road's been put through the parkland because you could have once walked all the way on up there but unfortunately you can't do that so let's go through here and um carry on to where the bridge over the river is and we have a fallen tree in the river but this is the end of warren water now there's a slight problem with the bridge it appears with two of lost it's um it's flat so it looks like what i'm going to have to do i'm going to have to get over the fence and go through the stepping zone so just a moment i should stop filming across the fence so i just went back ran around to where the gate was and now i'm on this side of the fence so there's a beautiful bridge with no slats so now how am i going to get across so there's these down here is the stepping stone so it makes a bit of an adventure or it is Henry's adventure i suppose so here we are here's the the stepping stones the river me and is off down there now as i said i want to go to the end of the parkland excuse me and i'll just swap camera from one hand to another one and negotiate stepping stones there we go i want to go to the end of the parkland and um we shall end the video down there but yeah this is the end of Warren water really really pleasant place it's um yeah you can come on the train from London up to great Missingdon and come and do this walk yourself so i'm going to follow the river onto the other lake at the other end of the Missingdon Abbey parkland so i've now been walking for about half a mile through the very pleasant Missingdon Abbey parkland here's the river just here now as i said it turns into another lake which is just here so i'm not too sure about this one whether this one was to me the one by the abbey was more obviously an ornamental lake but i wonder if it's kind of been derived from the fishing pools for the abbey now this one to me looks more like it could have been fishing pools for the abbey i'm not sure so anyone watching knows wants to comment tell me please do interestingly i'm just seeing that tree there there's some some masonry in there i'm going to i was going to cross that log but trying to do that with the camera might be easier said than done i'm going to follow the lake around this way you can see where where it goes to so be up here i know the next bit beyond here is where the river is going to become a bit more difficult to access because you've got the old metropolitan and great central mainline first and there is a lake or a pond each side of the trap bed because i've seen it from when you go on the train but the one this side of the trap bed i think without going on the train it would be very difficult for me to show that so you even from on the train you'd probably only get a glimpse maybe in the winter when you know there's not so many leaves on the trees so yes this one looks to me more like it could have been have a monastic origin rather than the other one back there but i might be wrong so you know do comment and tell me but then once you get across the railway you've got the deep mill pond which is where a mill once stood again i think that's going to be rather hard to show you so what i'll probably do is this video will end when we get to here and in the next video we'll go to Little Missingdon a village not too far from here about a mile away and we'll be able to see a lot more of the river there and from there we can pretty much follow the river all the way through amisham through the chow fonts and on to denham so yeah i'm just going to carry on walking till i find the end of this lake so i've just come along here and here we are at the end of this lake just there it goes down a little waterfall and then it goes under the road and it goes through the grounds of the chilton hospital and eventually it goes under the railway and the next point where we'll be able to see it will be its suffix bridge in Little Missingdon so that's where we'll start part two there's a little weir down there so the river flows off down there so um hope you enjoyed this video thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like subscribe share comment tell your friends tell anyone you know you think might be interested and in part two we shall continue our adventure along river miss gorm thanks for watching goodbye


I see so many people with utopian visions of wouldn't it be great? And then they have a vision for making the world a better place. You, those of you watching this have a vision for making the world a better place. And I have been a fan, an enthusiast, a supporter, a contributor to various utopian movements over the years. And inevitably I always come across, well, it's, we come across, but why doesn't it work out? Human nature.  Like that's it. Like, it's like, and of course I'm biased because the core of what I do is joyful productivity. So therefore, if I have a hammer, everything's a nail, right? So therefore, from my perspective, if everyone just got really good with the joyful productivity, that's when we can have utopia. It's like the reason why various movements don't work out and not just movements, but teachers, you know, various teachers like ourselves can't build a movement.   It's like, we can't find stuff. This is why the world is the way it is. I mean, and this is why government is so inefficient.   Obviously, you know, this is glib for me to say because if there's a lot involved and then there's a lot of, a lot of, and everything, there's so much involved here. You know, there's also trauma background that creates overwhelm for people and people have difficulty therefore because of their backgrounds and regulating their nervous system and therefore maybe they're freaked out by spreadsheets or lists of items because of their background and trauma recovery, there's a lot involved. Of course, I understand. But the people teaching trauma recovery then, the people teaching regulation of nervous systems then need to get fucking organized with their spreadsheets and with their to-do list and with their calendar so that they can be really organized for their students and their clients so that we can all be healed and therefore we can all be not freaked out when we look at a to-do list or calendar or have our emails cleared so that we can get stuff done the way that is unique to us. I mean, and so, I mean, I've worked with, I've worked with so many business partners over the years and just again and again, I see two problems. I mean, two core problems. One is just most people aren't joyfully, most people don't have their productivity systems created and optimized. And therefore, so many of us are a mess and overwhelmed all the time when we don't have to be. When there are ways to get over that, like there are ways, that's my joyful productivity mission. It's my TLC mission, right? It's TLC Thoughtful Life Calendar.  And part two is to actually show up on a date now that we've got our system, now we've got our calendar, now we've got our to-do list, now we've got emails cleared to actually show up day-to-day to actually follow our calendar without freaking out and with joy and to do our to-do list items. I was thinking today, this is something I'm gonna start saying more and more. In my work, sometimes I get to do what I love. The rest of the time, I get to love what I do. I mean, how much do I get to do what I love? Actually, it's a minority of my day. I mean, right now I'm doing what I love, ranting, I love this stuff. I mean, I can rant all day long as you probably know. I love ranting and when I have my materials all prepared, I love teaching and I love talking to clients. But that's the minority of my day. The rest of my day are doing things that could possibly freak me out, like writing. I don't like writing, it freaks me out but I have learned to try to love the process and I keep trying to love the process. And the first 15 minutes, I have to really work hard at loving the writing process, the first 15 to 30 minutes and then I see something come together. I'm like, oh, yeah, this might actually help somebody. This might actually make sense to somebody more than me, you know? Or I'm, I don't know, whatever. I've got lots of things I do during the day that isn't something I'm naturally energized by but I learned to love what I, so that's the joyful product. That's a joyful part of the productivity, right? Joyful part of the joyful. So like, first you got to get your productivity systems squared away and actually, you know, humming along and then you've got to do the, you got to actually show up every day for your productivity system with joy. And actually there's a third part I want to talk about, which is leadership, you know? And Eric and Jason and Mira and Julie.  I'm talking, those of you watching this later, I know who I'm talking to. I'm talking to just a couple of you who are here live with me right now as I'm ranting. So thank you for your patience. But the third thing is leadership. Like I see so many, I mean, we all know, right? So many spiritual teachers are not spiritual to the people closest to them, you know? And they break down because they don't know how to handle fame in a very truly spiritual way, wise way. They don't know how to handle praise, you know?  It's like the leadership part of it. It's like so many people get famous too quickly and therefore haven't developed the wisdom, Eric, the wisdom heart to be able to lead in a wise way. In a wise way. So anyway, that's my three-step recipe for utopia.  And then secondly, learn how to show up every day with joy to love what you do. If you can't do what you love yet, 100%. And even if I think, I don't know if anybody ever 100% ends up, you know, has a business that where 100% of the time they're doing what they love, I don't know if anybody like that.  So anyway, productivity, the joyful part of showing up every day and then the leadership of dealing with people with grace and with wisdom and, you know, not drinking the Kool-Aid of all the praise and also learning how to deal with criticism and getting and being open to feedback and then changing and modifying our behavior and our patterns. There you go. Utopia, you're welcome. Thanks for this. And thank you, Mira Rao wrote in the chat. This is literally a quote from a client of mine, Mira, said, I didn't realize that it would take so much organization to have the life you want. Mira says, I've been wanting to do a post on it. Please do a post on it, you know? And then comment below this video, I'd love to see it. And Mira also wrote, it's very regulating for clients if the coach is reliable, 100%, 100%. I mean, I see so many people around me and it's like they are, yeah, I just assumed that everybody is always on time to their clients and always never like cancel things. And I'm always surprised when I work with business partners or collaborators, like people sometimes don't show up or they can't, I'm like, really? Like, isn't that 101 of being a business owner is you always show up for every appointment that you set? I guess not. I guess not. And I guess because I've been so lucky that the beginning of my business career was about productivity, I've had 12 years of practicing this stuff. And so therefore, that's the curse of knowledge, the curse of the expert is that I now assume that everybody is joyfully productive all the time. And that's not always true. It's usually not true. But anyway, so thanks for listening.