What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and today I am joined by Michael from Michael Miracles Yoga and Michael for my audience out there who does not know you can you please just introduce yourself and let them know what you're all about. Hi audience my name is Michael Miracles I'm coming from Pittsburgh I've been a yoga teacher for over six years now and it's been a really I don't know how to sum it up oh in one sentence but it's been a journey that's really helped improve my experience of life and now more and more helping me to bring that light of awareness to other people helping them find it. So awesome so I keep yoga basic yeah so you've been teaching for six years how long have you been doing yoga like in total? I took my first class about ten and a half years now. Okay and then you just you just took the class and fell in love with it and you're like I need to teach this to others? Well the first time I did it I was in a particular circumstance in my life where a girlfriend and I had moved from Pittsburgh we drove all the way across country to try to set up in Hollywood and so we were out there I was out there for about nine weeks and I came back to Pittsburgh again to play it I'm a musician too to play a show and she brought me broke up with me so when I went back to get my things I had tried it one time while I was out there and then I was I was distraught like I was having a real trouble doing anything I was crying in public. Yeah and yeah so the only thing I was able to do I mean at the time I like tried to drink away my thoughts I tried to drink away my you know whatever smoke drug away my TV away watch as much TV to just get out of it like nothing was nothing was working and I would turn to those things in the past to you know get out of my head but so when I was out there trying to you know deal with the whole thing I ended up trying that three yoga class again and at the end of the class and we're laying in the final wrestling pose Shavasana I for the first time I really felt like oh I felt a little bit of relief from my mental anguish I was like wow there's something to this so then with my tail behind my legs went back to Pittsburgh and I was already like for a few years you know trying to do the gym things trying to run stuff you know someone stay in shape or get in the first place and when I came back to Pittsburgh I found more of a you know a studio environment because one in Hollywood was in a park so it was like you know more of a free class and then the studio so it became like this huge physical thing for me at first it was a long way of telling this story but soon after I started to do that hot yoga I was like well this is more than any other physical one I've ever done you know like I would go to the gym and be like okay doing chest today I think yeah by the end you know by the end of those classes I was just like and in a way I think that's really what I wanted and what I needed at that point was to like sometime I'm not even sometimes I think a lot of the time a lot of us are disconnected from our bodies and that's how we're disconnected to our minds yeah so I was definitely get disconnected to both but away from the path in for me and that's why I think yoga especially when it's still held with with the philosophies behind it teaching and a lot of yoga classes are just focused on the physical fitness class which you know it's always it's good it's a good thing to be moving every day no matter how yeah yeah and like real quick like that it's it's interesting too because one of my questions we're gonna be like how did you get into yoga because uh you know I I'm a big meditator I haven't tried yoga yet and I'm gonna talk to you about that in a minute but like I often find that you know so many people you know they they come into things like yoga or meditation or um I'm also in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction like like when we when we reached this like extreme point of suffering you know what I mean and like something that I try to do and I don't know if you try to do this as a yoga teacher too it's like try to get people to start doing this before they reach that point of just severe suffering like do you find that when you're when you have new students coming in like are they you know going through a breakup or they lost their job or they're dealing with like a lot of stress or depression or like do people just like come in and check it out I think it's all of the above like you never really know you can't I never really try to assume when I know what's going on in somebody's life what I do as it this what I do as a yoga teacher as much possible is I see the higher vision the highest vision of them so even if someone might be having a bad day and they're like true don't be faced coming in yeah it's like oh okay you're here so that's what I can talk later about the the bonama stay thing you hear at the end of the yoga class I mean I really have a huge connection with that that's that's kind of that's my practice the fundamental that's the fundamental basis of my practice of yoga but I'm sure we'll get more into that later yeah but oh when it when people come it's all the above I'm sure and then one person might just be coming in for one thing one time and then maybe in a year they're they're coming back for more thing that's one of the things that separates yoga from most other physical activities too is it's really about the mind it uses the body that's why it's taken off so well in the west because in you know in America you know the west we're we're pretty body obsessed you know yeah yeah all things physical really not just the body but our possession so one of my my my theories on yoga is why it works really well is because even though it's not about the body it it's kind of like it engages that part of our mind that can identifies with the body yeah right or wrong or I'm good at this it makes it wants to participate with that so that's what go ahead no I was gonna ask so like because there's so much of this like like I got into meditation probably I think it's been about three years now and you know a lot of it is about that mind body connection but you know I just pretty much sit and I meditate well I practice mindfulness meditation and you know I'll do it you know walking or listening or you know just whatever I can bring my my attention to and awareness and like a lot of it is that that like mind body connection so one question I have too is like so as as a yoga practitioner do you also meditate or is yoga your meditation yes and yes that's a really good question I find I mean I haven't taken a scientific poll but it seems roughly that there's as many people who don't do yoga who meditate as actual people who do yoga on a regular basis that meditate so I think that there's a pretty I mean you might have a little bit higher people who do identify themselves as yogis or whatever to have a practice but I find there's a lot of people who do yoga almost every day that don't actually sit and meditate on a regular basis some of the thinking one on the physical I mean I buy into this a lot like ultimately the physical part is to prepare your body you know from outside in to be able to sit and notice yeah sit and meditate so again to your question for me personally I I had spoke to this when how I got into yoga I I didn't really know my my mind was making me miserable the way you know basically and so I would have been one of the camp where I hear a lot of people say this all the time where it's like oh I can't meditate I can't get my thoughts right yeah I can't deal with I can't deal with these thoughts that come up when I'm not doing something else so I think that's another that's the pathway where like okay well the part of your mind that is giving you all this stress in your that your awareness to and the the thought that I can't do it that's the part that is for some of us for a lot of us is going to be like okay yeah we'll do this we'll do this yoga thing because a lot of times like oh it's gonna make you look better or it's gonna make you yeah see more having it together in your life you know yeah so that's that's interesting but um yeah for me personally I did I think maybe three years ago myself give or take I started to get really disciplined at finding it's actually slipped off I didn't do it this morning but I wasn't so good that I didn't need I didn't meditate I would feel good but um yes I fairly you know almost every day I take 10 15 minutes at least okay meditate so I I got it all and then over time the the practice was really physical and I wasn't in a great you know I was okay physical shape I guess but then it was so hard so it was just like this thing where it was physical and then recently I feel like even in the past year I've talked to deeper levels of meditation yeah and uh like is there is there like what like I was mentioning like I practice like mindfulness meditation is there a specific form of meditation that you do like what's your meditation practice look like it's mindfulness and that's really how I think so and I mean I I'm not as studied in just meditation as I am in the yoga itself cross-section I am but um yeah um it's it's I just basically I sit and I'm like all right I'm here I'm gonna keep bringing maybe I'll choose to take my attention just to my breath or maybe I'll spot along my spine I guess got it yeah so just finding like an anchor spot and then any time a thought comes up you just bring it back and just keep noticing thoughts yeah and a lot of the time this is what I tell my students who would have trepidation and certain meditate is I'll maybe you know maybe by like if I'm doing 15 minutes maybe by like minute 14 I'll start to get a couple seconds of space in between I'm just okay with my mind just you know yeah this might be interesting one thing that I'm I'm gonna get a little bit more a little better at doing it myself but I again recommend it to students is if you're trying to develop a meditation practice take 20 minutes aside the first 10 minutes don't actually start meditating get a piece of paper and anything with your minds like I gotta figure this out or I have a thought I want to work this out today or just like just you know write write down your thoughts try to attend to something even if it means like you know sending one email or something like yeah get a free meditation time where you can be like okay now I can give myself this 10 minutes where does it still things might might show up like oh no no you you needed 20 minutes with that you know yeah I feel like that's even for someone's trying to start it up I think that's a good step to be like okay well then maybe I can just allow my mind to like not attach on to wanting to do that thing yeah so long story long story short to your questions for me personally I'm just I'm just there just like I'm here I'm sitting yeah I'm gonna notice my thoughts I'm gonna choose to notice my breath yeah so so can you like as somebody who has literally never tried yoga before like but as a meditator like can you kind of explain to me how how yoga might help calm your mind or alleviate stress or anxiety or like how does that work it's in I I'm pretty sure it's almost the exact same way as meditation except now you have this anchoring thing where instead of just asking you to just sit you know or you know you said you did there's other forms of it walking meditation you know you can actually draw you don't have to like sit in the lotus pose on the pillow yeah yeah you can actually with mindfulness meditation you can be in a meditative state at least I don't know if there's actually I don't know what you think but maybe there's layers to it maybe it seems like there's layers to it but you can drop into a meditative state oh yeah no matter what you're doing but answer your question this this physical this is a really cool list so I feel like the more I don't I think for some people are just like you know I got it I got a meditative practice it's making huge changes in my life and I love it and good but for those of us who would have had trouble just sitting down and starting to meditate it's great and as to how well it these each yo let's look at it this way each yoga pose is almost like can serve as a mini scientific experiment or a metaphor okay so it's and it's all low states relatively speaking so if we go into a pose and you're balancing on one leg and kicking your other leg back behind your head and you fall out of it everyone's gonna fall out of that pose hundreds and hundreds of times or even if they've been doing it for 10 years they'll still fall out of it occasionally so you start to notice how you react to all these variables and I practice a lot of hot yoga to teach it too so that's another variable the hot yoga the hot the heat in the room to actually scientists scientists doing more studies on it that on different elements of yoga but that one element in particular it's actually turns out that it's really good for your lungs breathing in stronger and the sweating is just you know it's not it's not a magic bullet like oh if you sweat every day you're going to be healthy that's right it's of itself but it is it is something that is helpful you have like the element of heat in a room where it's actually helping you but it feels but your mind comes in and says oh no that's good out this is poor you got it yeah it's almost like a little oh and here's another one in the metaphor well I could go two places with that but um in different spiritual studies that I've been coming more and more familiar with some of them over the years and a lot of them will say like and this is what you pointed I believe you just pointed to this um a lot of people having a lot of suffering before they start to have awakening before they start to progress well in a way you're kind of in a safe environment a controlled environment making them very many very many um what would you call it a a chance where you could suffer yeah a lot of us end up doing it over these stupid yoga poses right yeah and then the first thing I noticed I think when I first doing it for a couple years and like I have to I was not really diagnosed but I'm probably probably whatever the diagnosis is pretty severely depressed my whole entire life with things fluctuation between anxiety and depression my whole life and pretty miserable um what I started to notice is that it was you know it's my thoughts for doing that that can kind of break into a different thing but I just wanted to say on this point that when I was first getting into it I noticed I was stressing out and worrying about these poses but then at the end I was like oh well I got all that time away from bigger problems that are right yeah as your practice develops you start to see that there is really actually not that you only give as much significance and weight to all all the problems yeah so there's there's a lot of interest I don't know I don't I'm definitely here yeah I'm digging I'm digging it though like it's all it started to make sense because I've read some books and stuff like that by you know meditators who practice yoga and stuff but um you know part of it too and like can you like you said that kind of controlled suffering like um I teach a lot of my clients I work at a drug and alcohol rehab and you know a lot of them struggle with depression anxiety anger issues some traumatic and when I'm teaching meditation and we bring up certain emotions or anything like that I kind of talk about it like a five pound weight you know what I mean like like let's practice it here like in this controlled environment think of something think about maybe that guy who said something that you didn't like rather than dealing with like your mom who you like hated your entire life or whatever it is like now we can start practicing and kind of building up that resistance you know but it also sounds like what we're talking about with yoga especially like when you did that thing like I could just imagine me falling over and top you know and a lot of meditation is noticing noticing judging myself noticing frustration and not attaching to those things but just simply noticing them you know and letting them be and then and yeah and that makes sense because then it carries out through the rest of my day and not just when I'm meditating like I was just talking to somebody and you touched on it earlier like so many people think that they're failing at meditating like meditating is supposed to clear your thoughts and if you can't do that you failed you know what I mean I'm like now it's just about noticing my saying is if you're trying to meditate you are meditating exactly exactly you know so I dig that so yeah and sometimes it makes me wonder like where these misconceptions like came from because I think they like think of that Buddha I have like right there not the panda but the Buddha you know and they're just like oh this is gonna be you're just gonna clear you're gonna find Nirvana it's like no man no it's just to sit down with the poses too it's the well you you the term ego yeah the mind the ego the ego wants to be good at everything right off the bat never even wants to be or mean some of us will be in beginner mind but like it's like a fear of public humiliation and it's I mean it all boils down to a very simplistic way of putting it that you want to either the ego it wants to be right it wants to be right about this pose or even if that means oh I'm right this isn't for me yeah that's interesting I haven't thought about it like that so I did want to touch on because okay because you mentioned the namaste thing and like I hear it I hear it all the time and I have no idea what it means so like explain explain this to me this namaste so it points to um a deeper philosophy predating yoga the practice of yoga the dance the Dante I mean I think I'm not very good at the same script words either but it means non-duality now on a very non-duality I'm not going to really get I hopefully not going to get too deep into that but on a very practical experiential level and this is I feel like what happened to me is um well I'm going to have to maybe expand out to bring it back in around the same time that I tried yoga for the first time I had this experience and that's a whole different it potentially another interview but I had this experience where it dawned on me that I did have I actually did love all being all human and uh with that realization there was a huge you know awakening but then I needed something to be able to actually practice it experience it so even though that I intellectually came to that thought where oh I love I love all people right uh I wasn't you know feeling that recognizing that uh living that a lot almost all it was it was pretty much how it was before this thing that happened so then going back you know um going back to your original question what is the namaste I mean you'll hear the yoga teacher at the end of class the light in me recognizes the light in you and that's the very general of what it means but a lot of even yoga teachers never really got exposed to or you know get into what is the light you know what is that light we're speaking of so what I believe that light is is conscious awareness um and then the whole non-duality thing I brought up is uh basically that philosophy proposes that we're all actually connected and we never left each other and we've had experience of separation suffering of the world for us to remember and to come back to each other yeah so yeah you say the light is um the words I like to associate with it is loving kindness unconditional love there you go boy um I feel like laughter laughter is part of it it's it's joy and it's a it's a sign of healing and a symptom of joy yeah so when you and then the other factor of it which leads to the non-dualism is what I am experiencing this is why I still say after every class and that's why I'm talking about it right now is the more I can you know pass any expectation any judgment any separation and just like I said I was I see the highest vision of my student that's not a mistake I so the more I actually see people like that and then goes way beyond these things being but yeah um the more I see that the more I feel it it's like it's completely connected it's reciprocal it's like another way of looking at it is like you can't truly you can't really have something unless you get you're willing to get it you don't really know something unless you teach it and like teaching it you're always teaching I don't know it's yeah it's the way that's where everything the yoga practice the meditation practice supports my ability to not mistake so let me ask you this how much so like and this is something that I I came to kind of this like realization is that it's easy for me to kind of do that with my clients right and like you your yoga students how is it do you find it difficult to do that like just in the everyday world going to the grocery store the gas station or you're driving and somebody somebody like cuts you off are you like no mistake or like you know what I mean like yeah does that kind of make sense like that's funny because I talk about that's that's a great example um less and less I realized in the past I was driving around not only anxious but angry like beyond angry like I wanted to like one thing and like so and then I'd link this into balancing poses too because what I what I noticed is that you had mentioned a moment ago about working with your clients it's um what yoga can help you do is it helps you this is the mind body connections like a buzzword that you know I don't think a lot of people really even unpack but really what this is it like this thing happened you notice how you feel when your body you notice what your thoughts around it are and then you kind of step out of it for a second to like do I want to feel that way yeah I be okay feeling that in my body and then the key to all of it is really breathing in my opinion so like anytime I anyway I'm going back to the traffic so I'm still not to that point where it's not I still feel like I get that first I get that first sting of annoyance or that sting of fuel that person yeah that maniac five miles under the speed limit right now and then then I'm able sooner and sooner to just step into that second response now but but yeah like that's that's something I try to teach people about like just developing a practice what happens is is that you start to notice it you start to notice that and that initial kind of you said like that little sting of irritation and now we can step out of it and we have a choice like how do I want to respond to this but so many of us we get into this autopilot and people snap at people they they argue they fight they yell at a stranger you know all these things but the more you start developing this thing had to be done they were wrong yeah exactly and yeah yeah like I was just teaching my clients about meditation the other day and they said how do you how do you know when it's working how do you know when it's working and I tell them I said chances are a lot of the people in your life are going to notice it's working before you do like your husband or your wife or your kids might be like you're not as much of a jerk as you used to be you know what I mean because you're you're learning how to respond to this stuff and you know in a loving kindness matter rather than snapping off your basic primal instincts um but yeah and you touched on like when you were talking to Namaste like and you mentioned loving kindness that's where I I find it too like it really just helps me develop empathy because I I think you know now more than ever not to get too deep in that is we're so disconnected you know what I mean it's just those are those people these people those that's a stranger and stuff and the more I practice any kind of loving kindness I'm just like this is another human this is a person with their own struggles their own emotions their own past their own history and it helps me it helps me cut them some slack you know because we're all dealing with this human thing you know yeah even if you step further than Namaste would be like that's not even a different that's me that's me someone someone slightly born in a slightly different time in a different space like but in the grand scheme of the universe the universe is so vast that space doesn't even show up as a numeral you know right yeah exactly and that's helps build empathy too is like you know what even if I don't like what that person's doing right now and it could be something that almost all of us could agree like oh that person is meeting their kids right now I wouldn't I would never do that that's a different that's a different tension altogether about the projection but that person you know I can I could very easily you know what if I was in there's exact same shoes and had the same experiences I would be yeah true but every single person that's interesting that helps them but the two is like you can't hold someone I mean they did what their level of consciousness was at at that point so yeah you know this this is a little bit this isn't something you would introduce to someone just getting into all this yeah right it's the key to never have any grievances or or hate or fear against any other person it really is yeah yeah it's just it's cool because you know a lot of people who are going to be watching this or listening to this you know a lot of them are you know gonna be being introduced but like I know when I first started I liked hearing these conversations because it kind of let me know like oh wow that's where I could be eventually like I can get to that place like it sounded crazy at first like when I first got started and all this stuff and just working on my own mental health but like I saw people were happier I saw people were able to treat others with more empathy and I was like how do you do that because maybe I can do that too you know what I mean there's huge payoff in doing it too I mean and again coming from my past I was walking around miserable my my mantra in my late teens in my early 20s was I hate people like I hate that person like a person stupid that person stupid that little much friend's okay but I was so miserable and now I mean again I had to get to that level of suffering apparently yeah this lifetime to find the opposite but I found the opposite now and it's like I walk around like man I just love people I just yeah yeah exactly it's a it's a huge payoff I mean if you just even want to think about like you can do it for selfish reasons like I want to feel good I'm just gonna love everybody exactly so uh so one thing we got a couple minutes left one thing I wanted to ask you okay now that I'm finally talking to a yoga teacher so as you can see I'm a pretty big dude I have been making the excuse I've been making the excuse forever that I can't practice yoga because I'm a bigger guy like I need you to sell me on the fact that maybe I can like where should I get started I would like the since you're already in a meditation mindset maybe just doing ones that are more geared towards a meditation but the the type of there's two main types of act of physical yoga that I practice um one the more ubiquitous one is is called like you hear it called venosa or flow yoga and that's the one that's a lot more like calisthenics like a Pilates type of thing where you know yoga's been around for a lot longer than Pilates but yeah it's gonna be tangent the most of the yoga poses you see nowadays are just developed over the last 200 years and most of them over the last 40 years oh a lot not all of them maybe I'm just gonna say roughly maybe like 16 positioning all leading the lotus pose basically where develop over the years so people could sit meditate and you it goes back 3000 at least 2000 years in the in the 1920s or so a lot of the modern day yoga poses you see in the yoga class came from the imperialist armies in India the Dutch and the English the the yogi we're like watching them do their routines like this stuff could be useful in teaching the 11 year old or 11 year old pupils yoga so that's where all so the poses you know if just see it as like I'm gonna not not just I'm not I'm gonna do my my meditation practice but I'm gonna move a little bit today I'm gonna get you don't have to do it like they like it looks like on Instagram you don't yeah oh yeah I've seen I've seen your Instagram I'm like I can't do that Michael I can't do that yeah like you said when you're like you were working with your clients something about taking them to the point where they can deal with it yeah practicing there that's what I'm gonna suggest oh a lot of people they don't we're in gym mentality we're in American you know baby I don't know what the heck we're in right now we're yeah make people like no you find the spot where uh I'm noticing things happening this is this is a little bit challenging can I be calm can I breathe calm here I can breathe calm here let me try it here so got it that's the way to do it and I would really recommend um hot yoga and the type of hot yoga is the the guy has no longer you know he's had he's had his problems with the way he's behaved apparently you know um allegedly but um the bickering yoga is a really good way to come into it because it's unlike the flow yoga they're longer held poses and you get space you get breaks in between the poses so if someone's just trying to find their body they have time to come into the pose they have time to hold the pose they have time to come out of the pose they have times are you know recalibrate in between the poses but at the same time they're blasting me with heat and humidity so yeah someone doing it for the first time and somebody like me who's been practicing that style for eight and a half years you know there's the the the the body can just keeps you know the body just keeps providing a slightly different scientific experiment for you to do the yoga got it okay when you're practicing next together you're gonna be having your experience and it doesn't matter what looks I mean our ego thinks it matters but it doesn't matter what it looks like you're gonna be practicing yoga and then with the heat and humidity both of us by the end of the classroom be like they're like oh something's happened here yeah whereas you know there's especially I think people just trying to find more relaxation you know more of a meditation in their life you know more of a gentle style is fine and I you know I'd like to do a gentle style I probably should do one once yeah when I practice on my own it appears gentle when I get into a room I'm like let's let's do the work you know yeah got it so this yeah so yeah and kind of like you said like I think that's where my issue has been like because I get that gym mentality where it's like push it push it to the limits like go crazy you know and like I like how you use the word gentle and it's just kind of like just checking my limits you know and then eventually like progressing and all that kind of stuff how easy can you do this because that's like basically yeah and really a lot of times when our body and our minds are like okay yeah I'm not going to try and then you don't you don't actually try how can you how easy can you do it while you're still fully trying and then it could be different like one week you get a tight shoulder out of nowhere so it might be a little bit different you know got it okay I'm willing I'm willing to find out this in the present moment what's going to be like got it teaches you so much you know yeah present moment it teaches you possibly how to enter states of love cool cool all right now I so you got my word and everybody else watching or listening you got my word I'm going to try this thing I might even document it um but yeah it's it's something I really want to do to kind of step up come down to Vegas let's let's go to a yoga class together oh yeah you're coming to Vegas okay hopefully and I'm gonna be in like I think it's ooh like 14th of February around around Valentine's Day around Valentine's Day that weekend I think it's the 16th and the 17th okay yeah yeah no that'd be awesome that'd be cool yeah that'll be a whole another video beautiful awesome okay cool well Michael we are out of time so do me a favor for everybody who's watching out there let them know where they can find more information about you and what you got going on in your world sure the best way especially if you're not in Pittsburgh to just see see what's going on and to hear more about some of the things I brought up is on my instagram you know you'll see me doing the the yoga pose yeah that's you know and they're fun to watch they're nice to look at but the words with it is really what I'm I really that keeps me doing it you know I'm not as as the years go and I'm like I'm so sick looking at myself but uh the word so the to answer your question it would be check check out my instagram Michael Miracles yoga oh and word I don't know if you need a hashtag in front of that or not but just yeah follow me on instagram and you know I get in about three days a week and there's there's useful I like to call it practical spirituality what we just talked about today is what I would call you know who you call it Michael this cool practical spirituality so that instagram and um yeah and from there my website as well Michael Miracles got it and I have a ebook I released a few months ago with oh cool more of just that it's like a day by day like you know inspirational blurb to read maybe a page maybe just a paragraph oh cool that's that's available on my site as well so uh if you're interested check out my site and come to one of my classes that's the best way beautiful awesome so cool and yeah everybody who's watching or listening I will have links to his instagram and his website as well as the link on his website to his ebook it'll be down in the description but Michael thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come chat with me and we're going to link up and we're going to talk and we're going to meet up when you come down to Vegas next month all right that'll be really fun I think cool all right all right everybody but yeah if you like this video give it a thumbs up be sure to subscribe and we'll see you next time


Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of johnathanasley.com, and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today, why men reject the right woman. Why do men reject the right woman? Okay, really quickly, if you're new to my YouTube channel and this content resonates with you and you're interested in speaking to me directly, check out the link to a free discovery call to see if working with a coach is right for you. And that call is with me directly. All right, we're gonna talk about why men reject the right woman. So let's talk about first, what is the right woman? Okay, I believe the right woman is a person who is emotionally mature, has their act together, doesn't have a lot of drama in their life, and I'm using the term drama. But what I really mean is a lot of chaos going on in their life. In other words, they have a sense of balance between the challenges in life and be able to overcoming those challenges. And I also believe the right woman is someone where there's mutual attraction and chemistry, and the right woman is that person who's capable of being in relationship and has the capacity to be in a healthy, happy relationship because she's an emotional grownup. Okay, and really quickly, the emotional grownup which I shot a video on it, it's called The Five Signs to Emotional Maturity. You may wanna check it out, I'll give it to you really quickly. An emotional grownup is someone whose actions match their words. They take personal responsibility for their choices. They know how to fight fair, which means that they know how to listen to the other person's point of view and accept the other person's point of view when both are doing the same. The emotionally mature person has empathy, and empathy isn't just I feel your feelings, empathy is I care about your feelings. And lastly, transparency, transparency. And what it means, transparency centers around relationship, emotional maturity is that if it's material to the relationship, you are transparent with your partner. If your partner asks you something that's material to the relationship, they divulge it, they're not hiding it. That's what transparency is. All right, so now we just established the right woman, right, or man, why would someone reject someone great for them? You know, really the number one reason it always boils down to this time and time and time and time and time again is fear of intimacy, fear of intimacy. And I say this because I've been there, I've been that person that's afraid to go deeper because I didn't build the emotional maturity and foundation in my own life to be able to lean into the one of the most important factors in a relationship, which is intimacy. Now I'm gonna explain, I'm gonna explain, I'm going to explain why in a second. But what I wanna introduce you today is a new book that I haven't talked about before. It's the work of David Data and the book is called Intimate Communion, Intimate Communion by David Data. Now why this is so, you know, when I read this book, I was floored.  Intimacy is that ability to be vulnerable, authentic and transparent with your partner. Now I can tell you, I've met a lot of women who were incapable of being vulnerable, authentic and transparent with me. So this isn't just a one way street that it's men who are fear of intimacy because I know plenty of women are have fear of intimacy. And the fear of intimacy is usually centered around a childhood wound or trauma or an adult trauma such as divorce, job loss, physical afflictions in one life or other trauma in one's life that cause them the challenge is that they're stuck in woundedness or traumas and haven't healed from it. And going back to the childhood wounds and traumas, that's usually where they center around the fear of intimacy because they're most likely was some sort of abandonment that happened in their childhood.  It can be sometimes as simple as that. And for humans, I'm a big proponent of doing personal development, self-help and spiritual work to shore up that area of themselves in emotional maturity. It's why I wrote my book, What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway? What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway? And this is a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. By the way, there's a link below to all my books called Jonathan Recommend Books as well as my book, selflovethebook.com. Now, here's the thing. We can judge that we've been rejected by this person. We've been rejected by this person or we can simply recognize that maybe they didn't have the capacity to go into deeper intimacy and that doesn't make them a bad person. Would we judge a child for being unable to be in an intimate relationship? No, we wouldn't.  We wouldn't judge them for not being able to play sports because they have a physical ailment. There's physical as well as emotional ailments that makes it very difficult for people to lean into intimacy. And this is true of men and women alike. This is why I'm such a big proponent of getting, there's a new book that I've introduced to you recently. It's How to Be an Adult in Relationship. How to be an adult in relationship. Ladies, I'm here to say that it's not just men, it's women as well. And this is why I'm a big proponent of both people reading books together if you're going to spend time together.  You could be in your feminine energy all day long if he has unhealed childhood wounds and traumas or adult traumas that haven't been addressed. It's going to be, I'm yelling. I apologize, I'm yelling. But I think you're getting the point. It has nothing to do with being in feminine energy. It's all about two grown-ups traveling on the road at the same time and investing in each other. And if someone has unhealed wounds and traumas that at least hasn't addressed them, it's gonna be problematic. And that's one of the reasons why men reject the right woman or a good woman. Okay, I hope this is sinking in. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my term on the whole feminine energy. Please post a comment on what you thought about that. If you liked this video, please hit that like button so others can see this. I'd truly be grateful if you passed this on to your friends. And I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do.  I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to a friend or a pet or a teddy bear or a pillow. We'll grab salty over here and give him a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and we can all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch, bye-bye.


Marriage and relationships is a beautiful thing. Somebody says, you know, marriages are made in heaven, so is thunder. Sometimes it's some beautiful, but it could turn so crazy. Every marriage, it needs these three things. We need to plant good seeds, remove weeds, and kill the snake. In marriage, you need to learn to remove weeds.  Remove weeds might mean that if you're a gentleman and you're following a lot of girls who cannot afford to buy clothes, you unfollow them on your Instagram. Remove weeds could mean that you bite your tongue. It's not worth to look at Victoria who has no secrets in the mall. It's not worth to look at her when you're walking with your husband or with your wife because it's not worth the fight that you're going to get afterwards. So removing weeds is practical things. Planting seeds is simple things. It's giving words of compliments. It's giving attention. It's giving flowers. It's spending time together. It's being nice to each other. Planting seeds. But Adam and Eve failed at this one.  In the Garden of Eden, there was a snake that was in that garden. And that snake came and started to talk to Eve. And Eve is the first snake talker. She should have not been talking back to this. If a snake ever talks to you, don't talk back. Run. It's not a good place to be in. And Eve just talks back to the snake like she's like talking to somebody. And the snake finally convinces her, deceives Eve and disarms Eve. And Eve reaches out and takes the fruit. And the Bible says she gives to the husband who was with her. Meaning Adam was standing and observing that whole conversation. How many husbands today stand idle while their wives talk to snakes? How many wives today stand idle while their husbands are being tormented by snakes? Be a snake killer. Not a snake talker.  Sometimes these snakes come in the form of generational curses. Where everyone that you know and you see in your family, auntie, uncle, grandma, grandpa, father, mother, all divorced. And marriage is beautiful.  Where one of the spouses says, I don't love you anymore. I don't know why. I don't have feelings for you anymore. And I'm going to divorce you. I'm going to leave you. It's a snake. Because it's exactly what happened to his mama. It exactly happened to his daddy. It exactly what happened to his grandfather. And that snake, instead of saying, oh, you know, what did I do? You need to both join together, begin to look for counseling prayer.  So that your kids don't have that snake anymore. Sometimes the snake shows up where one spouse starts dealing with a spirit of rejection. And the husband gives all the love that he gives and the wife still feels rejected, feels alone. And it's not because the wife is just this bottomless vacuum or bottomless pit is never enough. Is that there are some hurts and there's some rejection that has happened. There is inviting that spirit and that spirit wants to bring distraction in the family.  Sometimes the spirit of depression with the person just literally shuts down. And we can come and say, come on, cheer up, you know, turn on some funny stuff. But it's just, when it's a spirit, you don't just fix it with funny comedies. The Bible says you got to put a garment of praise instead of spirit of heaviness. That means you got to come against the spirit together so that not the person is defeated, but the spirit is defeated in the person. Come on, somebody. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Sometimes it's a spirit of lust. It's a hissing snake. Maybe it attacks the husband. Where you see that he struggles or he battles with the spirit of lust and you're noticing and it's hurting you and so you may be venting it out and you say, you don't love me. I know I'm not beautiful for you. Why did you marry if you're looking at other women, but you have to understand if it's a snake that's attacking him, don't attack him. Attack with him. The snake. Your spouse is not the snake. Now that is a revelation. There is a snake and it's not your spouse. They will use the spouse, but they're not the spouse. To understand spiritual warfare in marriage, you must first understand the real enemy is not your spouse.  When Peter came to Jesus and said, Jesus, don't go to the cross. Jesus knew that it wasn't Peter who was speaking. It was a snake behind Peter and he says, get behind me, devil. Peter's like, excuse me, Jesus. I thought you changed my name from Syphus to Peter. Now you're changing it from Peter to devil. I'm confused. What is my name, Jesus? Jesus wasn't talking to Peter. He was talking to the snake that was behind Peter. Jesus affirmed Peter. Jesus helped Peter, but he was attacking that. Are you with me? Deliverance in marriage, spiritual warfare in marriage is so, so important. I get this question asked more than probably I want to hear it. Typically it's a wife that comes and asks this question. She starts out saying, my husband has demons. I don't debate that. Okay. Great. I don't know how she came to the conclusion, but she's convinced he has demons. And then her second question is, what do I do to get those demons out of him? A lot of times, wives are convinced that the husband has demons. I think if you're married, you're convinced one of you has demons. At one particular season of your life, you'll recognize there are certain things that you're like, man, these things are not normal. These are not natural. You are crazy. There's no explanation for why you do that. And not everything we accuse each other is actually demonic. A lot of times it's personality disorders or personality differences. Personality differences and personality disorders. Sometimes it's flesh and sometimes it's just life. But there are cases where there are evil spirits operating behind the other person and they're operating to destroy the marriage by turning the couple against each other instead of turning against the enemy. I had a situation that happened in our church. And some of you who maybe was coming for a while in the church, you might remember this testimony, it's on our YouTube, where one young man, he came from Texas and his wife, he was convinced, had a demon living in her. And so he came here with his wife for prayer, got so excited. He says, I have to tell you a story. And I said, what's the story? He says, my wife has a demon. I said, exciting, awesome. You came for prayer line? Great. He says, I tried to cast the demon out. And I said, well, that's even better. Let's work for us. He says, I only provoked it. He says, it started to manifest in the shower. He says, and I, he says, I do what you guys do. I recorded everything on the camera. He said, you want to see it? I said, no. He's like, it's right here. I was like, no, no, no, no, I don't want to see the deliverance. I don't want to see your wife. I don't see nobody. He says, she just came out of shower. He says, explaining to me in detail what the demon was saying. And he's like, and I was holding water and the phone. And he's like, and I was recording for the purpose of testimonies. And I was like, really? What kind of glory is that going to give to God? Naked woman running around and demon speaking through her. I was like, bro, he need Jesus too. Eventually she came for a prayer and she got delivered. And she was bearing for, I think, 13 years. And after that, she conceived and they came back with a child. And she was completely free. If you ever attempt to do deliverance on your spouse, make sure they were close. I want us to open the Bible and we will look at the story of that most of us are very familiar with the story of David and how David brought freedom to his brothers. First Samuel chapter 17 and verse 37. Moreover, David said, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Go and the Lord be with you. Somebody say amen. David shows up on the battle not to fight as a soldier. David shows up as an errand boy for his dad to bring money, to bring food, I'm sorry, some cheese and some other food to his brothers and to the general. So David has no obligation to fight the Goliath. Goliath opposes no direct threat to David. Goliath is not David's problem. It's the problem to his brothers because they're the soldiers. It's Saul's problem, not David's. And I want you to see this. David comes on the battlefield and Goliath over there who is the problem of David's brothers and Saul. But David gets involved to help his brothers overcome their battle. The whole story of David killing Goliath is actually a story of a man coming in someone's battle and helping someone else win a battle that wasn't their own. I genuinely believe when you arrive on the battlefield of marriage, I know marriage is beautiful, but marriage is also a battlefield. For some people it's a battlefield because they fight each other. But battlefield in meaning that the other person that you are marrying, the other person that you have married, many times will have their giants that they're fighting, will have their issues that they are trying to resolve in their life and you're coming alongside as David help him to beat that Goliath instead of beating them in marriage. And I want to share with you this afternoon and practically how do we go about helping someone else in our family win a spiritual battle without crippling them or diminishing or destroying them? Because a lot of times what happens is we don't beat the Goliath, we beat each other, Goliath triumphs. And yes, we can get divorced and we can restart that. But for many cases it never fixes the real issue. There are cases I'm not going to go into that's not a message today on divorce and remarriage and all of this stuff. But for a lot of people the problem continues to next. Statistic even says that the second marriage is the divorce rate is 75%. The third marriage is 80%. The further you go the divorce rate goes on. Why?   It's their spouse that got crushed, nothing enemy. And we can restart and we can start clean, move to a new city, get a new person but if it's the same problem you find yourself in the same situation and we don't want that. I always tell people if there is a light bulb that went out in your house you don't replace the house, you replace the light bulb. Are you with me? I want you to write this down. The first point is remember your lions before you attempt to help someone with their giants. Before David could help his brothers with their giants David had to be aware of the fact that he had had alliance in his own past that he by the grace of God has dealt with. Before you can help someone with their issues make sure that your own issues are being addressed and being faced. One of the reasons we love to ignore our issues is we try to shift the blame for how we are reacting how we are acting on someone else and because our spouse is nearest to us we blame it on them. And it goes like this, the reason why I'm angry is because my spouse is crazy. The reason why I am impatient or the reason why I do this is because they do that. If they stop doing that, my problem will be resolved. So the problem is never you, it's always them. If they clean up their mess, if they get rid of their demons and their issues you won't have nothing, actually you don't even have any problems. It's their problems they're creating problem for you. Amen. Hallelujah. So I want you to come with me, where's the water? So this is just, this is you. This is you, hold it together close to you. It's called your issues. Now the interesting part with your issues is that they're there. You're not bothered by them. And when you're younger and somebody comes and bumps in and you see the water's about to splash you distance yourself from those people. If it's your brother and your sister you're like, I won't talk to you no more. Why?  If it's friends you just block them, disconnect with them, but then you get married. And the person next to you keeps doing this. Five minutes. I'm going to get ready in five minutes. Twenty minutes. You always say five minutes. Why is it taking you thirty minutes all the time?  I rebuked the lying spirit in you in Jesus' name.  Of course the person who bombed you. But remember this, I never put the water in the cup. I only expose the fact he has had water in his cup. If he would have no water, look at this. Nothing comes out. Your spouse provokes the issues you got in you that God wants you to deal with. I remember I had that with my brother. Well, mention which brother there's only two. It's not hard to guess, by the way. And so one particular brother, when I was not married and he once I'm dreaming crazy. So crazy. We had to translate for my parents and he didn't want to translate. Actually like he didn't speak English. And so I had to step in and translate it for my parents. And I was like, man, why couldn't you do it, man? You never do anything. And I just got so mad. I remember I go to the restroom. I sit in the restroom now and I'm just like my blood is just boiling inside. And I hear this still small whisper.  And I said, no, my brother is just insensitive, disrespectful, rebellious child. He never respects mom and dad.  And I said, if it wouldn't be for my brother, there would be no ounce of anger ever coming out of me.  You don't see it. Therefore, you don't deal it.  How could you see any other way if I wouldn't let him bump into you? You can't fix someone until you acknowledge the fact that the water that came out of the cup is not their fault. Now they have a fault. They should be careful not to keep bumping, but you should also empty your cup. You should also deal with the issues that are inside of you. Come on somebody, are you with me? I want you to see what Jesus Christ said. He said to people who want to go fix everybody. I want you to see what he says in Matthew 7. He says that before you go about, he says, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and do not consider plank in your own eye?   Jesus is saying, in fact, is if you keep blaming the other brother or your wife for the fact that the water came out.  And then if your brother, sister, wife, husband bumps into you. He says, we can deal with the bump because we don't have the water being splashed. Many of us, we blame our reaction on the action of someone else. In reality, your reaction is a result of your character, not whoever bumped into you. In order to help someone with their spiritual problem, we have to first be watchful that we are taking care and we are owning up to the issues that are surfacing in their heart because of their problem. Are you with me? You know, I did not know how impatient I was and how controlling I was until my wife did not want to pray as I prayed. She's supposed to be like me, she's supposed to pray like me. And I was trying to pull that flower instead of water that flower and she wasn't growing, she was dying because of that. And I thought that it was just a spiritual issue, it was a spiritual issue and I wasn't helping. Are you with me? Thank you Eric so much. It will dry up, don't worry. Appreciate your help. When people came to stone a woman with an issue of blood, I had a person who volunteered. They wanted me to use them as a Goliath. Woman was caught in the act of adultery, which is interesting too because in order to have an adultery, you have to have a man. The man never made it to the stoning. I think the man was one of the Pharisees, reported the woman and he himself picked up the stone. Besides the point, people gathered together with stones and they decided to throw stones on this woman to help her of course. You know, to get her out of the society and everything and Jesus came alongside. I want to show you something. Every time you want to help someone with their problem, who you're married to, your opinion, your advice, your insight could come out as this. Cold, hard and actually painful. Ask Job's friends. They didn't want to hurt Job when they shared their insight on what Job's problem was. Did you think they came around? They just want to hurt Job? No, they wanted to help Job. But somehow, you know, Job was hurt by their advice. Why? Because anytime you give this, before you get this, even if what you're saying is correct, it will hurt people. Because it will be projected in the tone of your voice, in the tone of your attitude. Your words might be correct, but they're cold. They're hard. And that's why Jesus said, hey guys, first of all, you're aiming at the wrong person. This belongs in Goliath's head.  Wrong head. Before you start throwing stones, why don't you pick up a mirror and start remembering where you came from. Remember that when you sinned, God didn't throw a stone from heaven, but had mercy on you.  Wow, I don't think I should like this. One is magnifying glass, okay? Why don't you... Make sure you pick up the right mirror. Why don't you look at the fact that... And remember on how God delivered you from drugs. How God delivered you from the depression.  How you wrestled. How you struggled. How other people showed you mercy. Or how people didn't show you mercy and how it really hurt. And when you looked in a mirror, then you look at your spouse. You look at your family member who's currently struggled. It's crazy how this hard, true advice becomes graced with grace. Mercy and patience.  The spirit of grace. The spirit of patience. The spirit of longsuffering. The spirit of love and kindness. You come around and you actually end up helping them instead of hurting them. Are you with me? For those of you who are carrying a lot of stones and you became a crazy amazing stone hitters. I ask you today that you stop throwing stones. And you pick up a mirror. And you take a good look at what God has done in your past. Because it will surface mercy in you. Grace in you. You know one of the reasons why David was not judgmental. And he didn't come trashing his brothers. Trashing Saul. It's because David remembered. If it wouldn't be for the grace of God, he would have been a lion's lunch. If it wouldn't be for the grace of God, he would have been a bear's lunch. It's only the God who helped him to overcome the bear and the lion. It wasn't David's slickness. It's not David's own strength and power. And so he's looking at the Goliath. He says, guys, I know you're struggling. I know what it's like. I've been there and I'm going to help you. And that help actually proved to be helpful to his brothers. They were not eventually offended. They rallied around him. Because a man who fought his lions becomes anointed to help others with their giants. Amen. Secondly, you can't kill Goliath by throwing stones at other people. I want you to see this. What happened is that after David comes on the battle and David recognizes that I have a history. I have walked with God. I have seen the work of God in my life. I have seen the Holy Spirit move supernaturally. I've seen God and now I see my brothers. They're facing a battle and I can help them. I can come alongside somebody who has experience.  And I can offer some help. And David is very, very wise about his brothers. Because when he told his brothers about the idea of killing a Goliath, his brothers flipped out. They right away start questioning his motives. They said, who do you think you are? You have an evil motive. You're here to see the battle. I think David's reply was like, what battle?  Battle? The guy's been screaming at you for 40 days. You're not fighting. What is there to see?  David never said that. He could have. Did you know why David never accused his brothers of being cowards? He was reserving his stones for the head of the Goliath. Never waste your stones on the people. Then you have none for the Goliath's head. Do you know why sometimes we don't have any more anointing to fight the real enemy? Because we wasted on the wrong enemies. We wasted on the enemies that the devil tempts us with. Because the devil wants to drain you of the anointing. That God has given you for the Goliath's head. So he sends you brother, sister, husband, wife, kids, neighbor, boss, ex-Christian, or fellow Christian, or people who are hypocrites in church. People who provoke you. They want to get under your skin.  And you want to reply. You want to create that video on Facebook to show how dangerous those people are. How bad people can be.  You really, you're just raging. But in reality, it's actually a trap. Satan want to milk the anointing.  Sometimes the best thing you can do is not to reply. Sometimes the best thing you can do, let them think they're right. Let them think they won the battle. But you got the anointing. So what? That you won the argument, but you lost the grace. You lost the peace. Yeah, you lost the grace. You lost the peace. Yeah, you proved everybody right. Yeah, you even backed up with the scriptures. But it's really that fight was worth it because David asked the first question before the battle of the glad. He says, what will I get if I fight this man? Not every battle that presents itself to you, you have to take it. Some battles have no spoil. Some battles have no reward. You prove to your skunk. Every person in here can beat a skunk. But before you go, start a competition with a skunk. You have to ask yourself a very important question. Is the smell worth the fight? You can beat the skunk. I don't doubt that. There's anointing on your life to beat skunks. The question is, do you want to live with the smell of skunks for the rest of your life? No, you don't. And there are some people in our life, certain situations, honestly. I'm just going to say the way it is. Skunk situations. Devil sets us up there and we feel great because we want to fight. God created us to fight and we beat it. We beat it.  Well, you don't get a trophy.  God wants you only to fight battles that have spoil. And that's not what your spouse, that's not what our friends, sometimes the best thing we can do is to walk away, bring a resolution because a real enemy is Goliath, not each other. Are you with me church? Are you with me church? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord. So what do you do? You attack the issue and affirm the person.  Giovanna, can I borrow you for just a second? You know, somebody would see Giovanna about two years ago and see her living in a life of alternative lifestyle and a life the way she dressed, the way she talked, the kind of girlfriend she had. And people would be very quick to throw stones.   But see the Holy Spirit doesn't see a lesbian. He saw a woman of God. And when about two years ago Giovanna came, what the Holy Spirit did is he attacked the spirit of homosexuality. It's a spirit. It's not just the same sex attraction. He attacked the spirit that was hurting her without hurting her. We love Giovanna. We didn't hate Giovanna, not a bit. But when she was delivered, when the evil was removed, the beautiful person that was there all of those years is the beautiful person now that signs off every person's t-shirt who wears it as a volunteer. And you look at her today and during worship, as we were just worshiping and singing about beautiful nameless and I kind of glanced at Giovanna. I remember at the race to deliver when she was going through her deliverance and all these pictures flashed how three days God was delivering her tears still rolling down my eyes and I said, only Holy Spirit can see the identity and remove the issue. Thank you. Work with Holy Spirit. People are good. They're created in the image of God. And whatever evil that's tormenting them, whatever evil that's hurting them, we can together with them and the Holy Spirit come against it without destroying the person.  It's like Holy Spirit, you just differentiate where they go. Be careful who you affirm and who you attack. We affirm the identity. We attack the issue. We speak life to the person and we come against the real enemy and the enemy and the person are not the two things. Sometimes the enemy can temporarily possess or oppress or link himself to the person, but they're not the same. Amen. As we bring this message to an end, I want you to see the third point. There is only one name, but many stones that can defeat Goliath. I want you to see that when David came up against the Goliath, he finally got the permission from Saul. He walked away from his brothers. He didn't want to create a fuss with them. And then David finally comes up against the Goliath.  Because this coat, many victories happen here. It's not working for me today, but it might work for you. Just try it. And David put it on. I mean, it's great. It looks great. It's good for the pictures. Eder, Eder, where are you? Okay, Eder, not here right now. And so it's good for the pictures. It's really nice. And honestly, it makes me kingly. Saul said, I don't know. It just doesn't feel right. And then Saul is like, what do you mean it doesn't feel right? You can't win a battle if you don't wear my armor. And David says, well, it's been 40 years. Your armor hasn't been really working for you. It's great. I'm not against it, but it's not working for you. Why will it work for me? Let me put it aside. And let me just go like that. He didn't look like a soldier. It wasn't conventional. But the interesting part is God brought freedom and victory. I want to shatter a Pentecostal, charismatic and a Baptist way. This is the only way God brings deliverance. They have to be in a prayer line. Otherwise they'll never be free. If they don't confess the root sin, God will never set them free. If you don't stand in your authority and you always plead and beg, God will never give you freedom. And I understand what this is coming from. It's good. God gave it grace. But you know that the God we serve is actually bigger than Pentecostals, than Charismatics, than the Baptists, than the Catholics, than Presbyterians. Our God is bigger. I meet people sometimes who, for example, they have a child that's not serving God, and they fast and pray, fast and pray.  I know a mother who comes to her church. She didn't do that. Her child wasn't serving God. You know what she did? She prayed one prayer and she said, God, I give you my child and you're going to find them. You're going to bring them. And she said, I felt peace and ever since then, I only thank God that God is working on them and everything is fine. And I continued praying for other people. The other person met with them and says, you can't do that. You got to pray like I pray. You got to fast like I fast. But sometimes one person's armor is another person's slingshot, and God can use both. Never limit what God can do. I believe in deliverance and deliverance has to happen. The way we have it happen. You come for screening. You get prayed first. You get confessing your sins. You get led through prayer. But sometimes people get delivered in their own car. I know how God touched my brother. It was at his own bed after an accident. God just visited him and something snapped for years. We prayed for him. I know one mother in the Bible. She had a demon possessed daughter. I'm not sure if her daughter knew that she was demon possessed, but she came to Jesus and this mother, she did not understand about the authority of the name of Jesus. She came begging Jesus for mercy. And Jesus didn't say, you're not naming and claiming, blabbing it and grabbing it, confessing it and possessing it. I'm not going to give it to you. He didn't say, you don't know your authority? You're not a child that sits at the table and receives no, no, nothing for you.  I know I'm not sitting over there with your children. I don't know who I am in you. I am not part of the covenant.  Jesus, I'm just a Gentile, but I'm just broken. And I know that you have the solution. Please, if you don't let me take it from the table, I'll lick it from the floor. Drop me a crumb. And Jesus says for that statement, your daughter is free. And the daughter was instantly free. There are people who take it from the table and we're those people. We teach people to know who they are in Christ. But we meet people who that revelation doesn't hit them. Never shame someone who doesn't walk in the level of your revelation. We need to grow. We need to encourage people. But there are people who will come with their revelation and their revelation is this. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And they say, I call upon God. I ask for His mercy for my children and their baptism. Maybe they don't speak in tongues and chase the demons all around town and breaking spiritual principalities and anointing buckets of oil over their house. They're just simply kneel before the bed of their child and say, God, bring my wayward child home.  You're like, how is that? I claim blades. I named it, claimed it, grabbed it, grabbed it, confessed it, possessed it. I took it all. I did the whole nine yards. I got the new anointing oil, the old anointing water, the new oil, the old oil anointed me. I got the virgin oil anointed to me and nothing was happening because you put too much hope in the armor and the stones and the sword. You have to take all of that off and understand one thing. There's only one name that brings freedom, but many different stones, many different ways the Lord can bring that freedom. Church, you know, we're more vibrant. We love to confess it. We like to rebuke the devil. And I think what we're doing is super. But maybe you're coming here today and you're not used to that. Maybe your way of approaching God and approaching freedom is more you're on there to speak against the devil and that's okay. Let's work with what we have today. Let the Holy Spirit do the rest. It is not even your declaration. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that will move today to bring freedom and to bring deliverance. In Jesus name.


that she needs something special to win that event. Here's the lineup for the under 20 girls, Long Jump, Tamara Dorival of Haiti, Jeanette Agans, the favorite of Trinidad and Tobago, Emily Pulsary of French Guiana, Marie Maria Durante of Martinique, Naomi Pierce of Trinidad and Tobago, Shania Thomas Barbados, Coy Adalia of Bahamas, Ocean Saint-Hilaire on Guad Lupe. Richelle Stander, the triple jump champion, Jamaica Alia Vanoukia, Guad Lupe, LaNesha Lubin Bahamas, Rivka Godi of Akira Sal, Aisha McMaster of the British Virgin Islands, and Rohanna Sodlow of Jamaica. The championship record, coming into this 6.48 meters, set by Yanis Davids. Well, that's no more. Jeanette Agans coming in here with a tremendous reputation, and she has, oh, this is a high jump performance. The high jump on the 20 girls final is also taking place. Can each shell born we just saw clearing there? Yeah, bronze medalist last year, and I'm pretty sure we'll get to that as well, as we will get to what's going on in the long jump final for on the 20 girls, where I can confirm for you that Jeanette Agans has set a new record, 6.50 meters, terrific performance coming earlier. Shelbon already, of course, with a triple jump on the 20 silver medal. We saw her clearing there a little while ago, 1.70 the height on the high jump, but they are, of course, reconfiguring the field in the Javelin throw. The Bahamians will now go last and the next to last as the two best throwers, just before them will go Zuhel Jamal of Jamaica. Right now, sitting in that bronze medal position, Charles has looked good this far. Courriel setting a new personal best. Now we're with the... Yeah, long jump final for the on the 20 girls, and that's competitor 1.97 Riftca Godi of Curacao. If you get the white flag, we'll get legal measurement. The second round of this competition. That tells you that Degans means business. 18 years old this year, we're looking at Aja McMaster, British Virgin Islands. Competitor 1.76 McMaster, continue with the best of 5.40, the new championship record, 6.50 meters, good effort. Waits for her to exit the pit, gives it the white flag. The only time you'll see the red flag going up immediately is if the athlete has overstepped that whiteboard. You see the little strip there at the bottom, plasticine. If it leaves an imprint, then the athlete does not get a legal jump. Roshana Sadlo of Jamaica, she's on the runway, gets ready for her second round jump. Alia Vanuke of Godloop has gone on to 5.71 meters. She is currently in third position. 5.72 for Pierce of Trinidad and Tobago. Jamaica's Stanley at 5.57 behind the Bahamian Koi Anili, who is at 5.67. And now the second Jamaican, Roshana Sadlo. And she is looking for something close to 6 meters here, Roshana Sadlo. Sadlo very close to a 6-meter jump at her best. Two championship records already going down this morning, both events still in progress. She has gone over 6 meters three times this year, Sadlo. Two of them wind assisted though, and don't have a 6.21 lifetime best, which was done in February, coming off the Jamaican High School Championships, where she won in her category, the 6.37. But that was wind assisted with 2.8 behind her. This time plus 5.89 meters, so moves into second place, I make it. Samara Doreval of Haiti, based in the United States. No relation, I don't think, to Dudley Doreval. Back to the top of the order for the long jump, final for on the 20 girls. And this is the start of the third round, business round this one. 14 young ladies entered in this one, so she will certainly wanted to make an impression, and advance for three further attempts. That little Doreval, great Haitian athletes. This is the record holder, the leader in the competition. What an outstanding talent she is, Jeanette Agans, one of seven Concorde athletes in the Trinidad and Tobago team. Let's see what she delivers here in the second round. Already an amazing start from round number one. Here is the Gans. Oh, that's another big effort. Chomps on to the pit with an expectation that she is at least once again, well over six metres coming off a fine 2023 season. Wanda Nakak on the 18th title, on the national title as well, in Trinidad and Tobago, and came in here with a personal best of 625, and she has added 25 centimetres on to that 6.40, showing tremendous consistency here, Jeanette Agans. He's followed by Amélie Poulchieri of French Guyana. The Gans back in 2017 at the Nakak Combined Defense competition injured her knee, and she said she was disappointed, Ricardo, because she felt that she wanted to do her country proud. I think she's more than making up for that at the moment. Third round of the long jump. Durante of Martinique there to be followed by this young lady. Pierce Trinidad and Tobago, Naomi Pierce. 5.37, 5.37. 5.37 for her. Pierce 5.72. She's within striking distance, looking to get amongst the medals here. She'll always to go to catch up with the compatriot, the Gans. New record holder. Down the runway, that's a good one. Just be consistent, approaching that six metre region. Here we have the 5.46 metre mark to the credit. 5.64 for her. As we now have a look at Shania Thomas of Barbados. 5.44 in round one. Just on time, the Barbadian journalist, Anwar. Goodridge Boyz just stepping into the shotters. Shania Thomas goes flying into the pit and gets the wide flag. Second round of the long jump for the 20 girls final. Number 293 there, Ocean Centellaire. Yeah, make that round three on the long jump final for under 20 girls. Being led by the Trinbeconian, Gennady Gans with a 650 opening round effort, 640 in the second round. And we're getting close to midway the third round. Centellaire lost out in the triple jump under 20 girls. Place the fourth on count back. Yeah, and there's new Bruce of Jamaica. Bruce in action over in the high jump, but here's Centellaire. Yeah, let's just get that right. It is round number two in the long jump for under 20 girls final. The Gans leading 650 in the opening round, 6.40 in the second round. And we are getting close to the midway point. Well, we are now beyond the midway point of the second round. And there is Rachele Stanley of Jamaica 5-2-8 for Centellaire of Guadalupe. And now Stanley, triple jump winner earlier in the championship. About half of these athletes will be fighting for one spot. Eight spots in the final. There are 14 of them. Six will be eliminated after round three. And there is Scott Paas in the fourth round of the Javelin throw final for girls. Camilla Straun chasing her 42-53. Well done on what she requires as Rachele Stanley runs all the way through in the second round of the long jump final. Yeah, triple jump for champion earlier this weekend in the under 20 division, Rachele Stanley. 5.57 meters in round number one. She is good enough to be in the top eight at this stage, but she wants a lot more. Here is Alia Vanuquia 5-7-1 in the opening round. Vanuquia in fourth position at this stage. Looking for an improvement. Gets the wide flag, the Guadalupe athlete. 4-6-8. That door any good. And she does have that 5-7-1, which should be good enough to get her into the final eight. Lanesha Lubin. As far as 5.92. Seek support from the fans. Lubin with her second round effort. Lubin well down in the triple jump, earlier this weekend she was seventh. Yeah, that was a disappointment for her as she gets to 5.83 meters. Moves into third in the long jump final, second in the triple jump final at home in the Bahamas last year. And so she came here with high hopes in that event, but wasn't able to deliver a medal for a second consecutive games. But here she is in the long jump, moving into medal contention. Kurosawa. Kurosawa's Rivga Gaudi. And she runs through on her second attempt. Like something there. She doesn't get that back. That counts as a foul. 5-58 in round one for Gaudi. So still has a great shot of making it to the top eight and has one more round to come. Aisha McMaster on the British Virgin Islands. 4-89 in round one. She is so much better than that. McMaster. Well, she'll want to show her class right now and confirm her place in the next round. Looks like an improvement, but not a significant one. We'll get the measurement momentarily. 5-0-9 for her. Yes, it is an improvement, but that will not be good enough to get her into the top eight. And now competitor 4-0-2, all of Jamaica, Rohana Sodlow, attends St. Catherine High School, the same school that Julian Alfred went to. Your world indoor champion in the 60 metres. St. Lucia's first global gold medalist. Never had a medal at the Carifta Games. Hmm. Competed at the Carifta Games, I think twice or three times, never had a medal at the Carifta Games. That's shocking. But now a world champion. Here's Rohana Sodlow for Jamaica. 5-89 in round one. That looks good for the Jamaican. Challenging the six-metre mark, I think, with that effort. I do believe so. And she gets the white flag. Let's see what the mark is on this one for Sodlow. Three times, she's been over six metres this season. Twice it was wind-assisted. 6.30, if that is wind-legal. That is a lifetime best for Rohana Sodlow. Had a wind-assisted 6.37 at the Jamaican High School Championships. So she knows she is in terrific form.