All right. Welcome, everyone. How are you doing this morning? Good. Not energized by the awesome keynote? All right. I feel the energy is low, so I'm not going to try and take too much time. But my name is Naresh. I happen to be one of the people who started this. Any idea when we started the Agile India community? Any guesses? One person can read the slides. All right. Awesome. That was a quick check to see if you can read the slides or not. But that's right. We formed the Agile Software Community of India, which is a non-profit body back in December of 2004. 2005 was our very first conference, and this is the 15th year of running the conference. So thank you for being part of this journey. 15 years, but 57 conferences, which means basically we did a lot of regional conferences when we started, and then we kind of said it's just too much, so we settled to doing only one conference every year, which is kind of what we call the Agile India conference. This is a little bit of... I'm wearing the data science t-shirt, so I should show some graphs and talk about stats, right? That's important. So that's a bit of what our journey has been, if you see, over the years. Ups and downs started very small and kind of growing the community over the years. I'm pretty excited to say that we have 14, 74 people this year at the conference, and I'm sure we'll hit the 1,500 mark, right? There are three more days left. There were 48 registrations last night, just to give you a sense. And in the last two weeks, we had half of the registrations for the entire conference. It's the true hockey stick growth, if you see. But yeah, we have people from 23 countries here, which is what makes this amazing, in my opinion, is that the kind of diversity of people coming from different backgrounds. If we had time, I would do a little exercise, but I'm going to skip that now. We're going to do that maybe tomorrow, because we need to do something different each day. This is the first year in the 15 years, and it's a bit of shameful, but this is the first year in the 15 years that we have actually childcare at the conference, because we want to encourage everyone to come in and participate and bring their kids. The youngest person at the conference is three-year-old, which is pretty amazing. We're trying to get the agile gene built right from the beginning. So we have a few kids who are here in the room next door who are going to be with us for the whole day and maybe for the next four days.  If you've not registered yet, that's okay. You can still go to our website and register from there. So if you want to bring your kids tomorrow, day after tomorrow, please bring them to the conference. We want to make sure that you feel welcomed and parents can enjoy the conference equally, all right? With that, I want to call Deb on stage quickly for a quick exercise. She's promised she's only going to take five minutes. Yeah, I think we have time. All right, good morning. So my third day here, and I'm really happy to be with you, so I'm a coach and I coach coaches and change leaders. And I'm curious how many of you would consider yourself some kind of coach or change leader? Wave at me. My people, hi. So you know you're going to understand what I'm talking about when I say that one of the greatest enemies of the agile mindset is your inner critic. Your inner critic. Here we are talking about experimenting, having new experiences, learning, taking risks, and inside is your inner critic going, no, no, no, no, don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake. And I can tell you from experience, you cannot teach or lead from here. So I want to teach you a nervous system hack to undo that, and you might be able to use it today. Because I have good news and bad news for you. If you're like me, you'll make a mistake today. And the good news is called the failure bow. I'll tell you last time I used it. Oh, I think I used it teaching yesterday. On Friday here in the hotel, I dropped a china plate on the stone floor in the middle of the lobby. And it made a beautiful bell-like sound that expanded through the whole place and then there was dead silence and watermelon on the floor. And I stood there and inside I was going, no, no, no, no, no. I was right beside the concierge desk and immediately three helpful men were right there, saying, don't worry about it, we'll take care of it. And I just looked composed and walked to the elevator and got in and I could, it was still in my body. I was a mess. And I thought it's not too late for the failure bow so I introduced myself to the people I was in the elevator with. Turned out one of them was the groom on the second floor. And I said, here's something you may be needing soon. And I did the failure bow with him and we all laughed and went on our way. And I can tell you this story now and it's funny. And I didn't think about it again. It's a simple practice to undo this cringing and let you come back to the present because you are here to do great stuff and you need to be present to enjoy it and to share and to teach and to learn. Are you going to take a chance today? Are you going to do a talk for the first time? Or a new talk? Are you operating in your second language? People are taking risks all over the place here today. And there are going to be mistakes and we're going to celebrate them. I'd like to teach this to you. I'm going to do it. Do you want to do it with me? So I'm going to invite you to do this. The first step is to remember the last time you did something really embarrassing where you felt this. And you know sometimes it happens in a conference room where you can pose but you know that inside you're going... So remember that. And put yourself in that body and know that you cannot do the work from there. So here's the failure bow. It has three steps. The first step is important. It's a big grin. And the second step is to let go of that cringe. Undo it. And the third is to say, thank you I failed. So if you'd like to try it with me please stand up. And anybody who's still sitting you have a role too. There's a fourth part which is to be the audience and applaud. And we're not applauding the mistake. We're applauding the agile mindset. The courage of this person. I'm going to count this down. I'm going to say one, two, three. And then we're all going to say together thank you I failed. One, two, three. I invite you to use this liberally this week in order to create a culture that invites and supports the agile mindset that we value so much. And it has a really weird effect. You'll experiment with it. You'll see what happens. This weird effect is that it erases the mistake. I've used it in large groups and afterwards nobody remembered that I even used it. It's very strange. See what happens. And so now you need to get back to doing that. And I wish you a happy agile mindset day. Awesome. Thanks, Deb. How many people know Deb and I partnered together to start the first coach camp back how many years? 11 years ago. Long time ago. And Deb has been kind enough to offer to be around and offer some coaching. So if folks are interested in taking that role, there are two chairs over there. So you can catch hold of Deb over there for a coaches corner. If there are other coaches in the room who would like to do the same, there are more chairs in this side kept for you to kind of participate in coaches corner. With that, where do we stand in our agenda? We kicked off the conference on 17th. We had a small coaches gathering, the agile coach camp, 50 people. Yesterday we had a pre-six pre-conference workshops, a five pre-conference workshops. And today is technically the first day of the larger conference where we have expecting about 450 people today. And that's the agile mindset day. And we have three awesome keynotes. We just finished one and we have two more to go. And then amazing talks through the day. But if we were to look at how did we get here? I think for a couple of you who read my email yesterday, right, we started this nine months ago. It takes about nine months to put this conference together. Some of the volunteers who participated in that are like, oh, no. Yes, it takes nine months. We got about 398 proposals, almost 400 speakers put in saying, hey, I'd like to present at the conference. And out of that, we were able to select 118 proposals. So that's what happens over the last nine months of filtering and doing this. All of this is done in an open fashion, which means that the proposals are open. People put their proposals, selection happens openly. Feedback is given openly. So everything is done in a very open and transparent manner. Many people don't like it, but we believe this is the way to run conferences and we continue to run this for 15 years. All right. And we have 94 speakers from 23 countries here. So big round of applause for the speakers who traveled far from here. And something that we have been trying really hard is to make sure that we are more inclusive and we try and focus on diversity. One aspect of that is the gender diversity that I would want to highlight. So we have almost one-third of the speakers at this conference who are women speakers. I wish the number goes up. But this is not bad, right, from where we stand. I want to quickly thank the awesome program committee who helped us put this conference together. So if you're in the room, I would request you to please quickly stand up so people can notice you and complain to you. So with that, I would like to invite the chair for today, Tataagat Verma in short TV. TV is going to quickly walk us through what to expect today. Thanks, Nareesh. It's my pleasure to be a partner in crime with Nareesh and the gang for the last many years. I can't say 2005, but definitely a few years down when it got started. And I think I've donned a lot of hats in the last 10 years as a volunteer here. It's been a volunteer. It's been a reviewer. It's been a track chair. And every time I come back, very satisfied and amazed by the kind of energy, the kind of freshness of ideas, the kind of original thinking that a lot of proposers here submit to us. This year has not been an exception. It's been equally easy, equally difficult or probably even more difficult. As you can see, our selection rates have been one fourth. So out of four, six accepted only one proposal. And I think that speaks a lot about the kind of high bar that we have been able to maintain here. And, yeah, of course, not at the cost of demarketing other days, but I would definitely want to take pride in what better way to start in Agile India Conference than to start it with Agile Mindset. And I want to thank Brian here for setting the stage on fire with leaving the stage with a lot of questions, probably more questions than answers, which is how I believe a keynote should be. We should not really be handing out some cookbook solutions. It should really be raising a lot of questions in the mind so that you cannot sleep in the night. We believe that that is what we would like to do. You should not be able to sleep in the night tonight and for the next four days, because we want to leave you with so many meaningful questions, so many new people to talk to, so many new ideas to pilot and prototype with, that you go back brimming with energy and you go out and change the world there. Just a quick here. We have five parallel sessions. All the sessions are going to be on this room. This is GBR1, then we have 2 and Jupiter 1 and 2, and then we have Neptune there. So these are the five ones. Please familiarize yourself there. We do have somebody in each of the room that will be kind of not really controlling it, but just kind of facilitating the whole thing, but we do expect it to be really self-organizing kind of a behavior. Nareesh will talk a little bit more about how we do that, but these are some of the awesome speakers that we are lucky to have. Amidst today there, please use this opportunity to be in all the five of them if you can be, but if not, obviously there will be recordings available later on that will help you understand what happened in the sessions that you could not do that. So with that, I want to go back again to Nareesh here and I look forward to chatting with you guys and give us your feedback so that you can see what we have always done there. Thanks a lot and have a great agile conference. Thanks, TV. Awesome. I like the way you said the whole day. So that's cool. And TV has been amazing help. I know for folks in the community who know TV, he is a person that is highly respected in the industry. So thanks, TV, for being the chair. We finished, like I was saying, we finished five workshops yesterday. There are a few more workshops happening. So if you've not signed up for the workshops, there's still some availability. You can go online and look it up. This conference would not be possible without the awesome support from the sponsors that we have. Yes, this is a completely voluntary nonprofit run conference and so we need support from sponsors to help us. It's not only financial support. Financial support is a big part of it to help us reduce the cost of this conference, but also just all support in terms of, you know, like we believe this conference is important. If you see, we don't do a lot for sponsors. We are one of those arrogant conferences which basically say, look, this is a community conference. This is not a sales marketing conference. People come here to learn. People don't come here to, you know, basically meet sponsors or exhibitors. But in spite of that, these guys have shown tremendous support and have been behind us. So if you see them around, they are all outside, so please do thank them. Without them, we wouldn't be possible. With that, I want to play a quick two-minute video from the founder of Zoho which is one of the, which is the kind of the day sponsor for today. One thing that we say, we joke about in Zoho is that we have never shipped any software product on time ever in our 20-year history. And the reason, of course, we don't ship on time is we don't actually set a particular time at which a particular product has to be ready. This is something that goes so much against the grain of what we all know as project management. It definitely bears some explaining. Let's step back. When you think about project manager's cradle, what is the first analogy that comes to mind? Something like let's keep the trains running on time. That's a very familiar analogy we all use. A train running on time goes on an already laid track where everything is predictable. Barring some unforeseen like a weather event or an accident somewhere, everything must be predictable on a track. But a software project is more like laying a new track through an unknown terrain. If you accept that analogy that software projects are like being in an unknown terrain, laying a track through an unknown terrain, what do you do? How do you actually keep those projects on track, so to speak? Well, you improvise. You make it up as you go. And that's actually there is this very familiar to us Indians. We have this word jugad. How many of you have heard this jugad, this term jugad? And the definition in Wikipedia I would say it's basically improvising or coming up with a solution to a problem using in a low cost way using available materials all of that, that jugad. Basically you improvise with what you have at hand. That's what you do in reality in software projects. You keep improvising. And interestingly we look at a jail project management as a formalization of that jugad. As a way to come up with a formal ways of recognizing this improvisation process. And if you look at Indian classical music Indian dance, all of them have that strong element of improvisation in them. So jugad is something that is woven into the fabric of Indian culture, so to speak. To a very large extent, even our formal things, our formal music has that essential element of improvisation in it. And that's exactly how we marry that whole formal stuff that you track with the improvisational ways that we work together in order to achieve our objective. So these folks are outside, so I would request you to go meet them. Thank you. How many people here believe that they are experts on agile? Come on. There are some interesting quizzes that are running out there at different booths that are interesting quizzes. It's a great way to see where you stand, so I would encourage you to kind of take the quizzes that are there. Different sponsors are running lots of different quizzes. Great goodies to be won, so hey, something to get before you go home. We have a lot of authors here and we thought it would be cool for people to get a personally signed book from the speakers. So if you have the books of these speakers, you can bring them along. The speakers will be ideally the best place would be to catch them right after the talk. So you go to the talk and right after the talk you can catch them and they would be happy to sign this. There's also a little bookstore that we have set up because a lot of times people say hey, it would be nice if you can bring a collection of books here. So we have a small bookstore available where you can purchase books and then get signed by the speakers. So please use that facility. Quickly talking about the Wi-Fi. I believe everyone's got the email with the Wi-Fi username password. If not, you can quickly make a note of it. On all the doors outside there is a signage which shows the Wi-Fi username and password. So that is available. I'm hoping all of you have downloaded the app, the Convengen app for the day. This is where you have the schedule. This is where you can rate the sections. You can give feedback about things. You can see who else is attending a particular session and so forth.  Again there is small posters put outside where you can get how to download this app. With that I just will take two more minutes and wrap up. Many people ask us why don't you have a code of conduct on the website? These days every conference has a code of conduct on their website but we don't. Why is that? Is it because we don't believe in a code of conduct? It is because I believe that just simply putting a code of conduct on the website and saying okay we believe in code of conduct doesn't solve the problem. I would say that it is our responsibility as a group here to make sure that every other person in this room feels comfortable, feels safe, feels at home and I'm sure each one of you will help us achieve that. Yes? In case if you notice something that you think is not appropriate, is not a good behavior at the conference, then I would encourage you to drop a note or come find any one of us in person, whatever you are comfortable with but we do have Ellen who is volunteer to basically receive that feedback and act upon it. Any one of us that we are here please bring it up to us and we will make sure that such behaviors is not tolerated. We've not had such incidents before. We don't expect it will be there but it's important to highlight it so people feel that we are serious about this stuff. All right? How many people have been to an Agile India conference before? Clap. Okay? Half of the room I would say. One of the things that I think we take pride in ourselves is that we actively talk about the law of two feet. The law of two feet basically comes from open space and one of the things that I do want to really emphasize is that we've tried our best to pick the best sessions we could find but there will always be a possibility where you will go into a session and you will find yourself adding value or getting value. Right? What do you do in such cases? Use your two feet and take yourself to a place where you can add value or take or get value, right? Yes? It is completely okay. It's completely acceptable to leave a session in between. It's not it's not offending the speaker. You are investing your valuable time here and we want to make sure that you take charge of that, right? That you are responsible for making sure you are getting value. Do not expect that, you know, in the end you will fill a feedback form and everything will be fixed because the time is already gone. So please make sure you use the law of two feet. It is not rude to get up in between and leave. It is rude to make disturb everybody else when you leave and leave. Nobody is going to be upset about it and hopefully you will find something much more better. I think TV made a mistake. He said there are five tracks. We actually have six tracks, right? There are five tracks in the hall and there's one track which is the most interesting track outside the hall. Which is where I think the best discussions happen. All right? So there are six tracks and if you don't find anything valuable in the five tracks, it's the sixth track which is outside. So that's the law of two feet. I hope everybody uses that. Can everyone please look into their kits and see if they found the feedback forms? If you don't find one, it's not a mistake. We do not do feedback forms at this conference. I know a lot of people started leaving now. We don't do feedback forms. It's a very terrible idea to fill a feedback form and give feedback to people. It's much better to walk up to people and tell them or try and influence and contribute in terms of improving the situation. There are small things that can be fixed and I hope you will take responsibility along with us to fix some of those things. For example, there's not enough chairs in the room. That's okay. There are a lot of empty chairs and we can try and help each other. No point filling that in the feedback form because that's only going to happen a year later. Too late to fix the problem. Let's take charge now and let's fix some of these things.  We will meet again post lunch where we will have the second keynote for the day. Thank you again. Coffee and tea will be outside. This is going to be hall number one. Track number one is going to be here. Track number two is over there. Outside, we have marked so you can figure these things out, I'm sure. Coffee and tea is served outside. I'm going to open these halls now. Thank you again.


The man of your dreams is sitting across from you. What's stopping you from reaching out and grabbing his hand? Well, a lot of things could be. Most likely it's the fact that you've been friends for years and you don't know how to tell him about this sudden change. You're worried you'll ruin what you've had if you try to pursue something further. It's certainly a risk, but nothing worth doing is without risk. If your friendship has recently blossomed into a sexual tension fest, listen on and see how easy it is to get him interested. 1. Let him know you're interested in him sexually. Sometimes a direct approach is best. This doesn't have to be a proposition nor a proclamation. It can be as simple as a probing question or a flirtatious text message. Something fun and casual to hint that you're interested in something more with him. However, this can be too blunt for some people. If you want to try a softer approach. 2.   By suddenly bringing up these subjects in a serious way, you're able to explore them with more depth. This also has the added benefit of getting him thinking about sex while you're around. In fact, maybe you will realize that you have something in common. With any luck, he'll connect the two ideas and start thinking about you more than a friend. 3. Invite him to more intimate hangouts. Maybe you two aren't best friends. Maybe you've only ever hung out at parties or with other mutual friends. The first step to let him know you're interested in more is to initiate one-on-one time.  Anything to get you two alone together without 20 of your closest friends. 4. Get his friends to drop hints about how you feel. Getting our friends' opinions on our significant others is inevitable. We want to be assured that we've made a good choice and that our new lover is as great as we think they are. If you two have a lot of mutual friends, bring up your feelings with some of them. He will likely talk to them when you're not around and they'll be able to drop some hints about your budding desires. 5. Forget the subtle hinting. Just say it. You don't even need to tell him you're interested sexually. Making it clear your feelings have changed is enough of a jumping off point. He'll most likely appreciate your honesty and will be more willing to have an open and frank discussion with you. This is also low risk when it comes to mixed signals. Nothing can be confused when you're saying it plainly. 6. Invite him into private areas of your life. Do you have a talent he doesn't know about? Let him into that aspect of your life. Invite him to your next open mic session or show him the newest chapter of the book you're writing. He'll not only respect your bravery but will be touched to know you're letting him into your world. 7. Dress in a way that makes you feel the most confident. Nothing gets a guy going like confidence. Don't dress to please him. Dress for yourself and dress however you feel the most powerful. This will instantly make you more attractive and compelling. He won't be able to resist you when you're strutting your stuff and radiating confidence. 8. Talk about the future before anything happens. Boundaries, family and mutual friends are the most important topics to discuss. If you two had a close relationship or if you've worked together, you'll want to be very clear about what will happen in the future. This will save the both of you from any misunderstandings or heartbreak later on and gets both of you on the same page. Many individuals often realize at this point that because they have such different goals in life that it is sometimes better to just stay friends and that's completely okay. 9. Cook him his favorite meal. Everyone loves food. If you like to cook then this is also a fun way to show off one of your passions. 10. Initiate more physical contact if he's okay with it. Not everyone likes to be touched. If he's one of those people who does appreciate physical contact it can be a good way to hint at a change in your relationship. Use gentle arm touches, shoulder rubs and hand squeezes to send the message that you want more. We also have a video on the different love languages if you wanted to figure out which one he would be the most comfortable with. 11. If he's got interests you're not interested in try asking questions about them anyway. You might find weightlifting more interesting than you initially thought. You also show that you're excited to learn about him and care about what he holds dear in his heart. He'll also appreciate the passion you bring out in him by talking about his favorite activities. However, you must also remember to be genuine. If you don't like baseball, don't force yourself to get into watching it just to impress him. 12. Wear red or try out a red lipstick. Red is the color of passion. Wearing red means people will associate you with passion and sexuality. It's vibrant, vivacious and attention grabbing.  13. Ask him what makes him happy in a relationship. For most people, sex is near the top of the list. He might not say it out loud, but he'll certainly be thinking it. This also gives him the option of initiating things which some men find attractive. It also hints to him that you care about his opinions and want to work towards something fulfilling together. 14. Make it clear through body language. Communication doesn't have to come from the words we say. Body language adds an extra dimension to understanding as many studies have proven. Try using subtle changes like getting closer to him when you're together or straightening your posture. Both of these changes will show off your confidence and sexuality without having to rely on simply words. Do you have any tips? Let us know in the comments down below. And as always, thank you so much for watching and please be sure to join our community of Psych2Goers.


And plus we have six inches of snow on the ground in New York, so it's really, yeah. We're heading to 85 degrees here, just to rub it in a little bit. Hey, friends, you're watching behind the scenes, Divine Intimacy Radio. In a moment, we're going to be on with Father Matthew McDonald's, otherwise known as Super Dooper, Father Matthew McDonald. And we're going to be talking about spiritual direction and who needs it and why and all that good stuff, what it is. But before we do that, I want to tell you about a couple of opportunities. Eche Homo, oh, it's still spelled wrong on the thing, but I said it right. Prayer in the Paschal Mystery, Free Online Lenten Retreat, March 30th through April 1st. We only have 50 Catholic speakers. Only. Only have 50. And they're all amazing. I mean, gosh, the crew is just insane. Yeah. Father Mitch Pacqua, Father Dr. Anthony Lillis. I don't know why I'm listed here, but a lot of... And a lot of current, those that are like out in the front currently. Yeah, Father Boniface Hicks. Yeah, just really awesome speakers. And I think you and I are speaking. I decided not to. I'm going to do a breakout on spiritual direction. Are you really? To go with the topic today. There you go. Yeah. So spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. And it's free. And it's free. So people are like, why would you do this for free? And how are you funding all of this? Well, here's the thing. We want to change the world. That's why. We want the Catholic church to grow like crazy in the midst of darkness. We want the people of God to be holy and faithful and good and true and just and right and honorable. And so, and we want no one to be denied, to be denied, you know, whether they have the funds or not. But so if you love that idea, help us out. Also spend time and energy spreading the word. I mean, who gets to have 50 speakers? Yeah, it's really amazing. Right. So share it on all of your social media. Yeah. Even if you've, you know, if you've fasted from it for lent, just go throw it on your social media and then run. Don't don't scroll. Just post it and run spiritualdirection.com events page. The next thing I'm going to tell you, and then we're going to jump into the show on spiritual direction with Father Matthew McDonald is he's actually teaching a course coming up here discernment of visions and revelations in the interior life. It's a new course for the Avalon Institute and he'll be talking about private revelation from major apparitions like Lord's Fatima, Guadalupe, Divine Mercy, Sacred Heart, and then lesser fight for revelations and mystical phenomena and using a fantastic. You're using the text we brought back into a print by Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene, right? Father. Yes. And the Ascent to Mount Cormel as well. Awesome. Ascent to Mount Cormel as well. Don't miss that course. Avaladashinstitute.org. Don't miss Eche Homo, the free Lenten Retreat, spiritualdirection.com. Go to the events page and there's all kinds of stuff. You want to be holy, hang out with us.  That's right. Okay. Are you ready? On your mark, set, go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio. Your Radio Haven of Wraths. Your Hermitage of the Heart. Your Monastery of the Mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints to help us to navigate this tumult of life. And today we've got a navigation extraordinary show. Yeah. So today we have joining us Father Matthew McDonald. He is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He is the eldest of three children. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Franciscan ordained by Cardinal Timothy Dolan in 2014. He obtained a bachelor's degree in sacred theology, masters in divinity and a masters of arts in theology from St. Joseph's Seminary Dunwoody in Yonkers, New York. He is currently assigned as parochial vicar at St. Mary's Church in Washingtonville, New York, where they have six inches of snow today. He has written articles on topics dealing with theology, history, spirituality and current events for Catholic World Report, Crisis Magazine and our own spiritual direction. As a priest, he desires to draw people in himself close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary through understanding and living out the basic teachings of the church on prayer and living out the interior life. And today is his birthday. There you go. I mean, that assumes they're listening to the show on his birthday. Or that they're listening on a year that there's a leap year because there's a leap year. Because if you listen on a year that there's not a leap year, then will they hear this podcast? I don't know. He actually was born on a day that doesn't exist this year, which is really kind of crazy. You know, it's kind of like if a tree falls in the forest. Right. You know, who hears it? So the thing I love about Father McDonald is he has two things about him that are exceptional. He has a gigantic brain, like if it was represented physically, it would exceed, far exceed the bounds of his cranium. And he has a gigantic heart, which also would fall far exceed the bounds of his physical heart. Although that's not necessarily, you know, that's a metaphor. But anyway, welcome to the show, Father McDonald. Thank you, Dan and Stephanie. It's an honor and blessing to be with you here again. And yeah, it is part of natural law God's plan. If you're born on February 29th, every leap year baby in between years celebrates it both on February 28th and March 1st. So that is part of, like, divine law. So I'm just following, you know, that. You just fall. I just, I just fixate on this idea like a Twilight Zone episode where you could do a whole show on this where the priest actually disappears on the leap year day where the day doesn't appear and then reappears the next day. Right. Because his birthday is gone. It's gone. So, you know, there you go. Something interesting about me. Yeah. Yeah. My birthday doesn't exist on some years. Well, very good to have you with us, Father. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry for interrupting. No, thank you very much. So let's talk about spiritual direction before we jump into, you know, who needs it and why. I think we got to talk about what it is. And so maybe once you give us a definition of what spiritual direction actually is. Spiritual direction is basically guiding individual souls along the path to union with Christ in their particular life. You know, Pope Benedict the 16th stated in his address to Thereseon in 2011, today the church continues to recommend the practice of spiritual direction not only to those who desire to follow the Lord closely but to every Christian who wishes to live responsibly, his or her baptism, that is new life in Christ. And it gets to the heart of who is God and who is Jesus? What is the church? What's my place in this world? What does the Lord want me to do with my life? And how do I accept the gift of God? That is me. And I think this is where spiritual direction is so important in the life of every disciple, no matter what your background or vocation is. Very good. Well, and you know, it's important to note then also, so spiritual direction is essentially a process in which a director and a directee come to discern God's will. So there are three actors, if you will, in this play. What's the order of importance of those participants and how do they all fit together? So the order of importance is obviously God moving the heart of the directee and also the director facilitating a place where there can be vulnerability, listening, and reverence to that action that of God in the soul and listening. So there is formation but it's more so just seeing where the person is at and where the Lord is moving in their life and what is he calling them to do? Right. And the spiritual director is the least important in the order, right? Because they're the servant. They're the servant of God to aid the child of God that they're working with and they're the servant of that child of God who is seeking to understand God's will. So it's the order of priority then of God, directee, director, properly understood. You know Pope Benedict in that address at the Tresianum said all who wish to draw near and live responsibly, which implies that you maybe can't draw near and live responsibly without a director. Would you concur with that strong of a statement? In some way, shape or form, you need spiritual direction. But that varies according to each person, what the Lord is doing in their life, how he's calling them to union with him. That varies also according to the different seasons of their life and also what they're dealing with. And some people are called to a more constant, direct, lifelong spiritual direction because they are giving their life completely to Christ in the shape of alright, I'm in seminary formation, I'm in religious formation, I'm a priest, I'm a deacon, I'm a religious sister, I'm a bishop, or I'm a lay person that's working full time within the humanity of the church within a particular apostolate like faith formation, spiritual formation, evangelization, exorcism, deliverance, ministry, leading souls in RCII to understand the basics of the faith. And this is where it's constant, you cannot refute that every disciple of Jesus Christ needs direction and guidance from his church in spiritual direction but needs vary according to season and person. Yeah, I think the, and one of my favorite arguments for why people need direction, you gave a list of kind of categories of activity in state and life and things like that that would indicate it would be helpful but I think at the essential level of our humanity and our brokenness, we all have blind spots and so we have blind spots because of kinkupasinsinsin and then God has also then designed us in such a way as he revealed through St. Catherine of Siena that we are incapable of getting to heaven on our own. And so both, so we have a fundamental design that requires the input of other people and then when you add on that sin and kinkupasinsins, you have blind spots that require others to help you to see those. Do those resonate with you or you want to add to that idea? Yes, absolutely. Everybody is affected by the wounded kinkupasinsins, again which we inherit through original sin. The wounded kinkupasinsins is not sin of itself but it means me towards sin. But another idea that I think is also important is that everybody is called to holiness. Everybody is wounded by sin and needs healing but everybody is called to be a saint and to be a saint is to be another Jesus Christ. And that's why we are disciples. We're not just disciples to follow Jesus we're disciples to allow Jesus to just permeate and fully flower within every aspect of our lives and our humanity as an extension of his own sacred humanity. And I think both there's two quotes that I found that are very interesting. Once from the Second Vatican Council, the holiness of the church is unceasingly manifested and must be manifested and the fruits of grace which the spirit produces in the faithful is expressed in many ways in individuals who in their walk of life tend toward the perfection of charity thus causing the edification of others. Then Pope Benedict and his audience saw the faith of the church states this whoever had and lived the faith in the price risen was called to become a point of reference for all others setting them in this way the message of Jesus reveals the face of the living God this holds true for us a Christian who lets himself be guided and gradually shaped by the faith of the church in spite of his weakness his limitation and his difficulties becomes like a window open to the light of the living God receiving this light and transmitting it to the world and like you said we can't just do it by ourselves Bernard Clairvaux Saint Jerome would also say if you're your own spiritual director you're being guided by a fool but this is the goal of direction help you become the saint that you're meant to be and saint is another Jesus and that may sound Yodish but you look I heard it from Monsignor John Essef and it sounded Yodish first to me but when you read into the mystical patrimony of the church it makes 100% sense yeah absolutely and we have about a minute left father but one of the things that you said in those definitions is that we're called to be other Christ in the world and essentially what that means is our life is not about us that each one of us was individually created by God for a particular purpose he has a design for us he has a will for our lives he has a divine plan that should be lived out through us in order for us to become saints and if we don't have someone helping us and navigating this journey to see where our blind spots are to see where we need to draw near to help us discern what's happening in and around us we're going to miss that we're going to miss that mission and in our narcissistic society we tend to go well I want to do my own thing but there's a huge price to pay for that I always think about how devastated so many of us will be when we stand before God and he says if you had followed me look what I would have accomplished through you look how many souls would have come with you I may have accomplished through you had you cooperated with me but you chose not to and so department from me I never knew you and I just I really want to encourage folks to lean into this understanding that our life is not about us and there's this beautiful invitation to love God and love others according to the way God desires us to that is never boring it is the grandest adventure of our lifetime and the world cannot offer anything to even remarkably compete with that so we're going to take a break when we get back from the break I also want to give people a list of resources where they can learn more about spiritual directions spiritual direction schools for priests help for men discerning the priesthood so we'll give you a bunch of resources after the break and join us with father Matthew McDonald on spiritual direction okay so we'll go to 12 in the next segment so 12 resources will go and seek direction okay father do you want to go after I give the list do you want to go a specific direction sure maybe just talking about different scenarios where direction is especially needed okay we'll do that welcome back this is divine intimacy radio and you're listening to Dan and Stephanie Burke and father Matthew McDonald talking about spiritual direction before we jump back in this always piques the interest of listeners and there's a handful of resources we have that are just head and shoulders above anything else out there primarily because it's all orthodox but extraordinary professors extraordinary people so let me just give you a handful of things the most important one the one I'm most excited about is we have a program to help young men who are discerning the priesthood and a website dedicated staff dedicated we work with 40 plus dioceses around the country to help guys discern the priesthood one major seminary coming up here this year but it's myhighcalling.org myhighcalling is it .com or .org .com sorry myhighcalling.com and you can see it on the live screen screen there the next thing I want to tell you about is if you're looking for a director and you're in any state in life seekdirection.app which is unusual seekdirection.app is a website we developed in concert with some friends of ours to get how people connect to directors and all of the directors in seekdirection.app go through orthodox schools in the United States the last educational institutional mention is Avala Institute and the heart of Christ spiritual direction program so if you think you may be called to spiritual direction we have an exemplary program the heart of Christ is for anyone and then we have a priestly program where we form priests on how to be spiritual directors but specifically dedicated to helping young men discern the priesthood so all of that can be found out at Avala.institute.org and then the last one I will say is I wrote a bestselling book on this topic in 2011 which still sells very well called navigating the interior life spiritual direction for me to God so there's a handful of good resources for you you can get that at spiritualdirection.com shop but let's jump back to Father Matthew Father let's talk about the kind of stages in life where spiritual direction might be a little more important than in other stages okay so two of these stages right off the back after one's confirmation into young adulthood when one's still discerning their primary vocation from God my call to the priesthood, religious life, married life and also after a major conversion in which I returned to following Jesus in his church after living a life of hardened sin ignorance and unbelief and in these stages these two areas something that's at the heart relationship of faith or just questions regarding basic discipleship who am I, who is God who is Jesus, what is the church what is my relationship to Jesus through his church supposed to look like what are my individual gifts talent, strengths and interests what are my sins mortal sins, venial sins root sin, what are my wounds addictions and areas of growth how is Jesus asking me no love and serve him in his church in my life and how do I accept the gift of God that is me in love and I think especially the last one today and this is a consequence of original sin and I think this has always been a stream that has affected every age of history but especially today we see both within the church and in the world a lot of self hate and that's a big sign of the evil one I think spiritual direction is a very key area where you learn how to accept God's love for you and learn how to accept yourself as a gift of love from God absolutely along those lines I think one of the very key parts of spiritual direction is discernment is the gift of the director and the directed listening to the Holy Spirit in the conversation to see where the enemies that work and where the Lord is calling and being able to discern what's God's voice what is the enemy's voice how to reject that what's my own voice how to reject the enemy's work in my life where he is sowing those seeds of self loathing self hate that cause our own self destruction because we're following the path of the enemy rather than God's path and how beautiful God's love is tender and good and healing he is to his people that he's constantly calling us back to himself and to help us navigate that to figure out where that where we may have stepped off and we're listening to that wrong voice and get right with the Lord you know another place Father maybe you can comment on it and you mentioned it actually categorically but I think when you have a new con conversion it's sick of being mired individuals and maybe talk a little bit about the power and how important spiritual direction is to breaking out of habits and cycles of sin and addiction it's so important because when you just come back to Christ you may have a lot of grace move in your life but you don't know how to process and integrate it fully in your life and this is where spiritual direction can help healthy habits of Christian discipleship so identifying where my sin is what's the common thread that's behind all my mortal and venial sins what are wounds and lies and developing a rule of life that helps me to combat sin through proper acesis and we're focusing in on that right now a lot because it's the Lenten season but also develop moments of intimacy with the Lord by learning what prayer is going on basic definitions like vocal prayer is so important but transitioning from that to mental prayer and from mental prayer to the contemplative life where you can really be attentive to the Lord His movements, His love for you and being in a position to love Him back and to discern like Stephanie was saying earlier I think somebody can hear this is completely new to this conversation and say well that sounds wonderful and beautiful but I don't have time for this and I think part of the discernment process of working with a spiritual director is finding how to rightly order our lives so we can find those moments where we can pray and listen to the Lord and allow Him to love us and love Him and return to receive that grace that He wants to give us and that's a beautiful thing because when we draw near to the Lord He'll meet us there He has not abandoned His people He wants to reach all of us He wants to save all people and draw them all to Himself and so I think this is just so important that we understand how necessary this is of whatever stage in life we're in Father you've written a three part series if I remember right for spiritualdirection.com it's funny I didn't mention that as a resource but it's the largest website, Catholic website in the world with respect to the number of articles, videos and resources related to how to grow spiritually but also specifically on spiritual direction itself. Tell us a bit about the articles you've recently written for us. So I wrote three articles one is why is spiritual direction needed what are the seasons of life where I have a need for spiritual direction and when do I need lifelong, vocationally based spiritual direction Yeah, so if you want to if this show has been interesting to you, especially if you're discerning the priesthood head out to spiritualdirection.com and just type in McDonald and M-A-C-D-O-N-L-A A-L-D-D-O-N-A-L-D and spiritual direction you'll find that they're easy to find. Also don't forget to head out to myhighcalling.com for some specific personal care if you're discerning the priesthood but I want to just be careful because I though I am excited about what we're doing for the priesthood now spiritual direction is really for everyone as we open the show and in the quote, of course, of Father Matthew, even provided from Pope Benedict regarding the Tresiana began my book in navigating the interior life because I thought it encapsulated so clearly that priest-religious laity deacons if you got a pulse and you want to make progress in the interior life you've got to have somebody to walk with you. One of the things that we talked about in the last segment was blind spots and that sort of thing but I think also blind spots plus our fundamental design which requires others and in our sin all of those together equal, the equation equals we have an infinite capacity for self-delusion and it is just beyond powerful to have someone dispassionately walking with us through prayer and through decision-making and through all of this Father, maybe you could just as we're wrapping up the show we've got two minutes what's been the biggest impact in your personal life regarding spiritual direction like who's, maybe, how has it affected you personally? So one of the biggest influences on my vocation besides my parents and my maternal grandfather was my high school guidance counselor, I went to Kellanburg Memorial High School in Neune-Dale and he was just a real spiritual father to me and he helped me understand, you know, the beginning of what the church's patrimony is not only in general but also what is the interior life and throughout seminary I've met various priests my own director, Father Donald Hagerty Monsignor John Assef who I was blessed to go on canonical retreat for five to six years and I owe a lot to him on my priesthood they were kind of supports for that especially Monsignor Assef, he was like God wants you to make spiritual direction appeal your priesthood when somebody with his caliber says that you kind of take a moment and pause and you listen and you don't say no to that so and and I've guided a bunch of people and some people are constant throughout your life some people you guide for a particular period some people you can do more than others but it's not about the director it's about God it's about serving the Lord and his plans for the soul and not just imposing my own ideas on them but at the same time giving them solid formation that the Lord is asking me to give them not just what I think but how the Lord is moving and reverencing that. Amen, awesome great way to end the show. Yeah so head out to spiritualdirection.com and look up Father McDonald's articles there if this is interested you and so until next time may the God of peace make you perfect in holiness may he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen Amen


Between 1990 and 2010, some of our leading cause of death and disability haven't changed. Heart disease was the leading cause of loss of life and health then, and remains the leading cause today. Some things got better, like HIV AIDS, but others got worse, like chronic kidney disease—a doubling. And the tens of thousands of deaths and the hundreds of thousands whose kidneys fail completely, requiring kidney transplants or lifelong dialysis. And about one in eight of us now have chronic kidney disease whether we know it or not, and most of those with chronic kidney disease don't know it. About three-quarters of the millions affected are unaware their kidneys are starting to fail, which is particularly worrisome given that early identification provides an opportunity to slow the progression and alter the course of disease. So what can we do about it? The Western-style diet is a major risk factor for impaired kidney function, and chronic kidney disease, also known as the meat-sweet diet, or standard American diet, causing an impairment of kidney blood flow inflammation and subsequent leakage of protein in the urine and a rapid decrease in kidney function.  The consumption of animal fat can actually alter the structure of the kidney, and the animal protein can deliver an acid load to the kidneys, increase ammonia production, and damage the sensitive kidney cells. That's why restricting protein intake is recommended for preventing kidney function decline, though it may be animal protein in particular, not just protein in general, so the source of the protein, plant versus animal, may be more important than the amount regarding adverse health consequences. Animal protein intake has a profound effect on normal human kidney function, inducing what's called hyperfiltration, increasing the workload of the kidney. This may help explain why our kidneys fail so often. Unlimited intake of protein-rich foods, now generally regarded as normal, may be responsible for dramatic differences in kidney function between modern human beings and their remote predecessors, who hunted and scavenged for meat here and there, sustained rather than intermittent excesses of protein, requires us to call on our kidney reserves continuously, causing a kind of unrelenting stress on our kidneys that can predispose even healthy people to progressive kidney scarring and deterioration of kidney function. It's like always revving our engine into the red. On the other hand, administration of an equal quantity of vegetable protein does not appear to have the same effects. Eating meat, for example, increases the workload on the kidneys within hours of consumption, but apparently taking care of plant protein appears to be a cinch. This was done with beef, but any animal protein will do. Eat a meal of tuna fish and you can see the increased pressure on the kidneys go up, again within just hours, for both non-diabetics with normal kidneys and diabetics with normal kidneys. If instead of having a tuna salad sandwich, you had a tofu salad sandwich, with the same amount of protein, no effect. And same thing happens with eggs and dairy protein, both in people with normal and diseased kidneys. Short-term studies have indicated that substudent plant proteins like soy for animal protein is associated with less hyperfiltration and protein leakage, therefore slowing deterioration of kidney function. However, the long-term effect has not been adequately studied until this study was published in 2014. A six-month double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial soy versus dairy protein, and the consumption of whole soy tended to preserve renal function, kidney function, compared with milk in individuals with lower renal function. Similar results were reported in diabetics, even just giving isolated soy protein appeared to make things better compared to dairy protein, which made things worse. Once once kidneys have deteriorated to the point where they're actively losing protein in the urine, a plant-based diet may help turn it off and on like a light switch. Here's protein leakage on a standard low-sodium diet, switched to a supplemented vegan diet. Low-sodium? Vegan. Low-sodium? Vegan. What is going on? Why does animal protein cost that overload reaction, but not plant protein? It appears to be an inflammatory response triggered by the animal protein. We know this because administration of a powerful anti-inflammatory drug abolishes the hyperfiltration, protein leakage response to meat ingestion. Here's the typical kidney stress response to a meat meal, but here's with the anti-inflammatory drug on board, confirming the role of inflammation and the impact of animal protein on our kidneys.