Alright, thanks for staying with us now. Buying gifts for our loved ones and getting ready for Christmas is part of the festive holiday chair and yet millions of households experience holiday shopping and preparation as a source of stress rather than enjoyment. For them the Christmas spirit is more about pressure and anxiety instead of calm peace and peace of mind. This year financial pressures can be harder to manage than usual as a result of the deteriorating economy, insecurity, the fuel scarcity, in fact the list goes on. However, how prepared are you rather for the festive season and how will you be managing the pressure amidst economic hardship? Now that's the question we're asking ourselves tonight. Now please let's hear what you have to say. Remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS or WhatsApp to the red one 8034663 you can also Twitter us at weishoafqa1 for the hashtag weisho. I mean you go to a supermarket now so today I was shopping at the mall and supermarket nearby and apparently the price tag on the you know the display tag that you see display prior before you pick the item so the lady picked the item and then took it to the till when she got to the till it was a thousand something on the on the display on the till it was 2000 almost 3000 something right almost 3000 she then goes to meet the manager that Olga when I am shopping there's a reason I am looking at the prices it guides my purchase that it is so unfair that you put a price there and I go to the till I'm meeting a different price so I wasn't thinking in my head is it that supermarkets now are beginning to also use that as a tactic because maybe sometimes you might not really check so me to when they were now tilling my own I picked a shrimp shrimp 15,000 I said what is 15,000 I said shrimp one sachet of shrimp I told her please go and check it out for me I'm sure there has to be a cheaper one so she got something that was around three thousand three thousand two or something so basically I'm saying that right the the pressure is real that like it's getting worse right so we must be really smart because again I don't want us to fall into depression because you cannot and I mean I reached out to Chinayla I was saying Chinayla is my new saving night and shiny ammo my eyelash now before I've I saved 50% of what I used to pay for my lashes I saw some lovely shoes she had I said please where did you go me they have not been to Balungu in years I have not Balungu market you know I'm just saying that we we just at as much as possible right you still want to look good you still want to whatever but there are cheaper ways to achieve all of those things right maybe we should start to explore that but let me hear your thoughts how are you guys managing the pressure something happened today right my son and dummy went to the market so before that we're even going to buy toiletries and whatnot and then we picked what's it called deterrence and we asked someone and then guy said oh it's one thousand seven and then we was like wait we used to buy this thing nine hundred nine how did we get to one thousand seven hundred for one bottle of and I'm like you know what I didn't want to think about the game let's just keep it moving so you see it's affecting every single thing every thing from food to you know your personal items to clothes to I can't imagine what's happening people that are trying to shop well thank god for black Friday I had a lot of slash prices that were slashed but even at that it's been it's it's been crazy and like I always say leave within your means there's there's several ways to actually look beautiful you know smell nice and all of that within a budget I'm a fan of budget you know leave within a budget it's okay to you know splurge and what not what not what not but I always say that you always find nice things cheaper but cheaper absolutely yeah you have taught me well I think for me and what I've noticed recently is anxiety has become the order of the day so before I go to a store or even go to the market to buy anything it's like god what would the price be this time around I know I know last month I I kid you not in terms of groceries and everything that I spent for feeding was about 100 000 wow I've not cooked yet too I just bought like raw raw ingredients and I had to tell myself last month I'm not eating out for any reason nothing will make me eat out I will cook is what I have in my fridge that I will eat until I finished it to the last bit of my fridge is empty before I step out and I I stuck with it because I realized that amount was very ridiculous I can't be spending that amount of money and then another thing that I started to do is sometimes you know you want to impulse buy you want to buy something you want to buy this and I have to ask myself and sit with myself I give myself three days before I actually have to ask myself whoa why me why me like today I went out I was like oh this fragrance looks nice and trust me I have a lot of fragrance and that's because I'm a frug head so I was like I smelled it it smells nice I said Jennifer do you really need it and I realized I don't need it I'll stop buying clothes as much as I used to because one I don't go out a lot and I mean I work from home most of the time so I'm like I'm not going to be buying outfits that I would not wear and I always try to buy sets I buy things that I know I can pair with other things now I look into my cupboard and my wardrobe I say yes this pink shirt and I mix it and I mix I style it in different ways and also it also comes down to food and every other thing that you need now sometimes you want to splurge with the way the economy is set up I don't think you people a lot of people have the the liberty or the grace to actually just splurge except you feel like okay I can I mean you only leave once if that's for me I don't like to do you only leave once I like to make sure that I manage my funds as much as possible Christmas is coming I have to buy things for my parents I'll send money home as I'm going home I'm thinking bag of rice the price has increased what do we do and we are cooking we're not just cooking for my immediate family we're going to school for a lot of people my mom likes to invite people to the house for Christmas so I have to think about that you think about protein okay are we buying goat's meat and we're buying chicken chicken is not cheap at all you understand this is like a lot of things are very expensive you mentioned so you know the getaway we are having this year I was supposed to hire someone just so the plan was to get people to just cook and bring all my money we're calling price and I told my friends but right now they have a chef that comes like he wants to do Christmas food and I told the lady better my order the turkey the chicken and everything when they went to the house just so you know the prayer the pressure has always been there you just have to be creative we've never had a situation where I mean when we're in double digit inflation we have all sorts of situations both man-made and natural cause disasters or causes that are affecting our reality not to mention the things that are happening around the world I remember when the Ukraine war first started and we were chatting with the group right and I can't remember which of the ladies I think was Elsie who was Elsie yeah yeah it was Elsie you just wait you just wait in this global globalized world that we're in it will eventually catch up to us and we're really seeing the effects of it now so it sounds bad to say that we've always lived with this it's just the degree to which we're seeing it increase and a very short space of time so I mean anybody that knows me knows how much I love open-air markets love going to Lagos Island and all those places and I'm a bit meticulous in my record keeping right so I have what I call a market book and I've been keeping that book since 2015 thereabouts I've been keeping that book it's scary to see how prices have gone up in that time so when I asked now how much Gary you know we saw they say in the paint of Gary how much the paint of Gary is now and I look at that book and I remember buying it for 600 Naira it sounds ridiculous right so when I look at the total amount I used to spend back then I would go to the market with 70,000 and I would buy everything I needed to buy from meats down to dry goods fresh vegetables everything and I'll come home sometimes with some change now that 70,000 doesn't even it doesn't serve me in one store like one place where I buy things you know come to talk of the whole day I spend in the market so it's it's it's scary to imagine how people are coping right how people are still eating things have gotten smaller so the price stays the same the package the quantity inside the package have gotten smaller like now it's just creativity so when you were talking about the shrimp right when you were you call the amount of the shrimp I laughed because I told people that I buy shrimp once a year now I know the seasons I can tell you when things are in season I've always followed it but now is even more meticulous right where I only buy shrimp in rainy season like in the height of rainy season end of July August I will literally like at that point in time it's almost like a third of the price of what you would buy normally and I just buy and I stock up and I know that okay I know my situation is a bit unique yeah I tried to get to that freezer man it's my luck but but so that's that's the where the creativity comes in where you try to buy things in season if you are able to find people to share with to buy in bulk so that it's cheaper and then you you know you share down to the regular quantities going to I mean going to the market in December for me say no no if you cannot do it in the last week of November or the very first you know weekend in December even by then it's late but just trying to buy things when they're in season because really and truly it's not easy folks and it's across everything I think that's what's scary it's across everything and it's everywhere you took the story yesterday of the robberies in the UK yes and I literally I think I've shared this picture that my friend sent to me of butter so me I'm looking forward to like ah you know and they sent me a picture of butter that a tub of butter was seven pounds 25 and not only was it that expensive it had an anti theft device around it you know the way they the butter was tagged so it's not even just a Nigerian problem but I mean it's crazy to think about it really is the world that's going to be I mean I'll thank you for what you for reminding me because I was going to say that yesterday when I took that story because every time people just hear things and they think is unique to Nigeria in London two of our celebrities don't come back to one another yeah you know they have been robbed with their bags everything so it's not a it's not a Nigerian thing this is a global pressure yeah and that's why really utey thank you for that tip so maybe what I would just do now target august next year it's true but it's a challenge now I am lucky I'm fortunate yeah my house I have an inverter that powers my freezers 24 hours and all of that who are about the people that do not even have preservatives you understand because now it's not even enough to buy if not enough for you to stock up if you didn't stock up like I was going to buy I like these titles fish a lot but you can't buy that thing and store it because if it stays in your freezer for too long yeah it loses its form so utey how do you even how do we even start because again it's only it's only very few things that you can actually stock up like that maybe your chicken your beef you know there are some things you really cannot stock up and just keep there and again with the fluctuating power yeah go ahead I honestly feel like in a time like this you have to let go of some things do you understand if you can't afford it you have to let it go and then I mean we're talking about managing pressure a lot of people need to find ways to manage pressure because now it's like especially when you have a lot of people that are dependent on you you still need to find a way to manage their expectations look out for yourself and still have reserve because guess what every time we get into December you start hearing oh remember in January is two months or is three months and nothing is real because people get into this festive mood and they just go haywire they forget that it's just a month it's just another day it's just weeks it's there's the only special thing is it's just a special celebration but you can't cue yourself it's still the same rice chicken clothes my sister cannot give myself if you can't afford to buy new clothes money to ones that you have look for ways to style them if you can't tell me we're black we're black it's for economics you wear black you wear blazer wear this one mix it you are good to go if last year you were able to afford good meat by fish see guess what everybody will be all right if your wife your husband your uncle and say a complaining they will be all right they don't want to eat it let them know it's all you know is that you have provided what you cannot provide do not let people pressure you into doing things that you can't afford or into making you feel some type of way because you're living first of all the economy is hard look at the financial situation of the country a lot of people are suffering people are still earning the same amount of money two years ago and things have gotten so expensive so at the end of the day even people tell you oh invest now people can't even invest you can't even save as much as you can so the best that you can do is to manage your resources wisely let go of things that you can no more afford let's go doesn't make you less of a human being it just means that you're trying to live within your means just live within it avoid pressure anybody that wants to stress you it's the time to let them to shift on that note let us take a break when we come back from the break we will continue this conversation and take your messages please tell us how you are dealing with this prayer you know how you how you're managing the pressure stay stay with us we'll be right back all right thanks for staying with us now if you just tuned in we're discussing festive season and we're asking how do we manage pressure amidst economic hardship now remember you can join the conversation send us an sms or whatsapp to<PHONE_NUMBER> you can also tweet at us at weiss your africa one with the hashtag weiss shown um uti i wanted to come to you because i like what um jennifer just said before we went on the break about helping other people to manage their expectations right um so my god you as well okay you know what how do we how do we help people to manage their expectations because it's one thing for you to understand like for me now automatically my system can shut down if i don't have money to do anything so if his food maybe like fancy restaurant i'm craving my system can literally just shut down from anything that will make me to spend money i can afford to just like blank it off completely and it doesn't seem like it's existing but the people around me might not be able to do that so if we say we really want to help manage other people's expectations how do we begin to start that so you waited until it was my turn to give you a job you know the very first thing for me is that we have a very strong entitlement culture hmm people feel that um you owe them something they don't really put that in context of your circumstances don't matter um and some rightfully i would say rightfully so but let me use the the phrase black tax so when jennifer was talking talk about having to send money to her family all of these things are built into our culture then they're all the regular people that okay so we're coming to december if you're like me my budgeting includes how much money is going to to different people that i know that will be expecting money um at this time of year but then at some point if my budget is unable to carry that i'm going to have to have a tough conversation with someone to say look i really want to be able to give you as i've always given but it's not possible you know in this situation that is one way to go some people will still try to kill themselves to give what they have been given because they need to protect a certain image that's dangerous right we almost i don't think that there's anybody that will say they don't know how difficult it is we are at the point where even the uber rich are feeling it so everybody's affected so when it comes to managing expectations for me it's about honest conversations i can't give what i don't have but i know people that do to their own detriment because they're more worried about the image but in my own case i'm very happy to give but i can only give what i can afford because you still have to keep on living you still have to keep on ticking um so that really for me is the way in terms of managing people's expectations you just have to be able to tell people that look this is where i find myself whatever you're still able to do go ahead and do even if it's not as much as you could do before but if you find yourself in a place where you are not able to manage your budget manage your mental health manage your physical well-being and just say i cannot do it because it is because if we are talking about it like this imagine the people who are earning 50 000 the people who are earning 30 000 the people who are earning 80 000 i don't even want to begin to think how they're coping because every single thing is affected food everything is affected it's just crazy i mean somebody was complaining the other day about how fast the data on her phone was running it's like everything just seems to have you know risen to the next level and we are all just trying to find the right yeast to rise right along with it the honesty is the way okay so i mean shopping is here whether we like it or not you still need to buy a few things so what are the creative ways to help i mean uti has talked about sharing like calling a pool because i remember that there was a time when my kids were still a lot younger there was a time where my friends would call me that oh because that time you know famous emus and cereal you know like you would just be spending so money so much money on cereal and all of that um i so um we we then got someone to go to i think i don't know if it's balogona the place ok area where they do the bulk yeah buying the buying cartons and we share um that period one and i had one funny nani like that i don't know how that nani did it rat multiplied in my house and guess what happened you see all those sachets of milk they will go to the new one poke a hole because the new one poke so i threw it so i think that's what just gave never again i might buy anything in bulk but i mean that bulk buy still does help right so i mean if if you were to cancel so what would be an ideal thing to do if you say you want to go buy should we be buying it like um um now or should we be buying it maybe after the season because this is the season is already upon us like what they rightly said no you shouldn't actually be there's anything you shouldn't be shopping for in december right okay so well well you can't you might not be able to preserve food as much but things like oil you can actually keep oil right you can keep rice you can keep um flour you can keep um maybe things like biscuits and so you might not be able to preserve as much as oil and all of those things but then as much as possible the things that you know that you can keep and that can stand time before we let's say another six weeks or eight weeks you should actually buy them to keep because i've noticed that guess what so i went to the salons today and then they had just after making my hair she then gave me the bill and i was like wait what happened she said at that point it's now 2000 error oh that waits why she said guess what before by next next week we might even get to two five two weeks ago i made my hair and i thought it was 1600 and in two weeks we've gotten to 2000 and that's we were going to get 2000 so if i had known maybe in september or october would have bought me like four knowing that okay i might have to make my hair i can't start selling attachment just because this season is here so those kind of things you can actually you know buy them to keep because we know these things have it has always been like that anyway in december prices of things tend to rise and then by generality that it's dropping so you can actually you should bulk buying is so are we saying that the people that have missed the window shopping should not bother to shop at all or how do they not money themselves no they can still they can still shop i my own advice would be buy what you need okay and then also coming together with your friends to actually buy in bulk because i know last month when i was in abuja my friend sends this lady to go to the market is this market a orange market these are so cheap there so i was like oh buy me 1000 naira what of lemon i went that lemon came back and it was those yellow ones that they sell in shop rights are you i was too shocked i was uh huh so because of that we're like okay let's place the bill let's ask other people if they want as well and then just spread it around at the end of the the amount that we thought would have spent on groceries or those items or food ingredients wasn't as much as as um as it was uh my friend recently posted on instagram that she went to mile 12 and she spent only i think 17 000 naira on things so i think so she was like oh who is interested so basically what i think she's about to do is ask people what do you want what you want onions she probably buy like a bag and then she will split it so basically it's cheaper so instead of me buying what like five big onions for 2000 or 2000 or 1000 naira she's probably giving me about 10 pieces for the same amount or even cheaper because she's getting it from a market that is cheaper than that yeah but at the end of the day i'm going to buy what i need i'm not going to buy what a very big bag of onions onions gets bad plantain gets bad even if you buy sweet potatoes sweet potato gets bad yam gets bad yeah all these things vegetables get bad even your vegetables when you store them in the fridge it also gets bad except you're going to freeze it so things like that you might not necessarily have to buy and work you might buy them when you actually need it but then there are other things like she mentioned that you you can buy in bulk but also like advise people to come together like maybe your neighbors ask them oh i want to send somebody to the market or i want to go to market let's contribute and then buy these things so talking about fuel crisis right of course now i hear that there is the pool services for these ride healing companies they have those pool services where three four people can but it's almost like a cab the way the taxes were running so that is already helping do you think that going moving into a friend's house would save you more money so for instance now the way you poke do a poker everybody go go in one car instead of everybody driving their own cars what if we all came together and said this season let's live together maybe if i was spending 20k by myself before would not split that 20k into like four people everybody bring for 5k would that not help that would do help but it depends on it so it depends on your relationship yeah it's heavily dependent on relationships but would you do that with someone that yeah yes i would so if i wasn't going to my parents house for christmas i mean i have friends in lego's who their parents live far away some of their parents live abroad and they are the only ones here if i was the only one as well who come together who cook who eat who be merry and be happy it's cheaper honestly it's cheaper so if you have a good relationship it helps because you're not going to fight over you didn't bring salt or this you're eating five pieces so you just divide it okay you're very good in cooking fried rice cook fried rice you can make a goosey soup you make a goosey soup or for breakfast you make this oh you're very good in grilling chicken or cooking chicken or even boiling or seasoning chicken why not do this because even in my house at home we do that when it's time for celebration everybody pick what you have chosen you do that so they know that oh Jennifer can make fried rice and party gelof that's what you would do i would say i cannot do two give me one and then somebody will decide okay i'm going to make pepper soup my mom is chairman for soup so nobody touches soup my mother will make the soup the boy is pounded yam oh yeah you pound yam so it's like the vision of label everybody comes together so instead of just being by myself yeah would you agree would you do that if you had the um the chance to because you guys are actually used to those kind of things actually leave it haven't lived abroad uti are you there oh did we lose uti i'm here interesting interesting no but would you i would you take up that option which option that's what i'm saying i like if for instance a few friends of yours we come together and have a few friends come together yeah live in the same house that's the norm in my life oh is the norm is a norm in your life right but some people are not some people don't see that as saving does it really save costs if for instance instead of staying by yourself everybody shuts down their house and you pull move together into one apartment and you know split all the bills do people would people take up those options i don't well so i think we are coming to that point because shared housing is more of a normal thing it wasn't a thing before but i think more and more we're getting to that so for me that's the norm but then that's the norm outside of nigeria i say nigeria you see one person living in a four bedroom five bedroom house all the rooms are empty it's just them so for me it's the norm but it only makes sense right because today power is getting more expensive when you put on a gen whether you put on all the lights or not the same amount of diesel or petrol is going to power the gen right so what if there are more people sharing the cost so i think a lot of people today it's we're just now coming around to ways of being more efficient in how we spend our money but of course if you're going to do things like that you have to find the right people sharing houses the very sensitive let me give you this example i remember growing up as a child when we first moved to legos we lived in this normal face me i slap you kind of situation but then you know it was like a big compound with a very wide quadrangle and then we had people from different tribes had uroba ibo we had um aquaibom we had um ganna and togo and there was something i noticed um between the ganna and togo family when it's towards christmas if they don't travel to um aqua they come together and then they cook in one big pot once they finish cooking they divide the food the togo whom sometimes they even just sit together eat then they remnant to divide it in coolers to go to their separate houses so i mean for people who have who have like big houses your friends can afford to come but then not everyone has um that kind of living situation the people who live in like one one bedroom apartment apartment you have your neighbors so you can always still do that come together cook share the food go back to your separate houses yeah good just takes some comments all right so i have a comment here say um good evening ladies compliments of the season i've missed your show the economic hardship hasn't reduced as we all thought i called for a painter last month the bill was outrageous i asked my brother if he can paint i'm a painter he's been coming since last month anytime he's off duty and we've been doing the painting together i will do the last bit tomorrow we need to manage what we have this season knowing that january is a long month we'll do what we can i'm not even thinking of clothes i advise close friends to leave a day at a time to avoid health issues have fully adjusted and helping my family to know it's a face that we need to be in control of thanks ladies this is from bc oh thank you missy we missed you too go ahead okay good evening my dear beautiful sisters of what are you saying hashtag wave first tips is in managing pressure admins economic hardship we should always plan our shopping precious goods should not be bought and stored it should be used immediately let us cut our cloth according to our material when shopping anymore let's be very careful because they can be very smart with their prices let us not get enough let us get enough funds so that we don't get embarrassed i'm the happiest person today and excited my dear beautiful sister genfinical ass is in the house i have missed her in love still looking beautiful and lovely you'll welcome back my name is daniel thank you daniel we miss you too and we will miss you some more mauti i mean let's have our final words if you had anything to say to anybody right now my own is that when you go to supermarket check the price and guess what they now did too so i bought something two pieces of something i saw on the display that i was three pieces i said but this is only two so you really must scrutinize don't be ashamed i stood there for a minute i was looking in bill one by one so what is this item again what is what is this so please um check your bills check it um it is not a thing of what's he called there's no shame in checking your bills make sure you double check because some of this um supermarket attendance they can also be smart so you need to outsmart them you know check the bills if the thing is not working tell them i'm sorry i cannot afford it you drop it off i mean there's no shame in it instead of putting yourself on that what are you gonna say so i mean the last thing i think i'll say is just be a savvy shopper i don't know that um particularly for those that shop in supermarkets that people shop around uh one thing that me i do is when i go shopping i'm phone in hand thank god that today you can buy almost anything on junia and conga so when i go out i go and check prices like i just check on different online stores i go to different different supermarket it's a bit more work but when you're trying to save money you have to do the work right so sometimes you see a price the days when we could just go to the supermarket like you said and just put things in your cart and whatever price they tell you you pay these days when you pick up a few things they tell you the prices you're taking a back your first reaction is what did i buy so uh you know every time i say that to a supermarket attendants you know it's the usual funny laugh but the truth of it is that's how we all feel like i've only picked up a few items why is my bill 15,000 20,000 but it's now shopping around so we all thankfully supermarkets are you know almost on every other street these days so it won't take too much to shop around particularly for the things that you know you buy quite frequently to know where you can get the best price and i still say to open air markets they are your best friends i would say they don't like the k-hop don't say that too uti don't say that i went to balogun that's how i love his dress i pointed that the dress and i asked the lady i said how much is this she said 60,000 there and i looked at it i said is it 16,000 she said 60,000 there i said it's not the best price i say 55,000 i said thank you very much i was like literally shocked that how can you put that same price in a store like that or via in a boutique and get the price then you go back to her i say i know they buy okay um remember that january is the longest month of the year that's all i have to say so while you're dating your december remember that january is the longest month of the year absolutely so for me i would say one way to manage pressure is to put your foot down and say no learn the word no unnecessary expenses no is he your wife no your husband no your child no your mother your father no everybody no okay no to you too why are you coming over for death in december no but thank you so much we've had a fantastic conversation thank you uti thank you um nello and thank you genny baby all right so before we go and show you follow us across all the social media handles you can interact with us further drop a comment or more importantly follow all languages on social media like share and invite your families and friends to watch and follow the conversation now if you missed our quote here it is again there is no dignity quite so impressive and no independence quite so important as living within your means it's so clear please please please let us live within our means we'll see you guys in the new year hopefully by the grace of god christmas and happy new year in a time merry christmas and happy new year in a thank you guys


Omentin-1 is a novel adipokine with anti-inflammatory properties that has been shown to be elevated in critically ill patients with sepsis. In this study, researchers found that serum omentin-1 levels were higher in patients with sepsis compared to healthy controls, and that these levels continued to increase over time. Additionally, higher levels of omentin-1 were associated with worse outcomes, such as higher mortality rates. This suggests that omentin-1 could serve as a potential biomarker for sepsis. This article was authored by Irene Karampila, Natalia G. Valina, Demetrius Cylangiris, and others.


Item number SCP-2840 Object Class Euclid Special Containment Procedures SCP-2840 is contained within three nonviolent D-class hosts housed in a humanoid containment suite in Satellite Building C at Site-66. These three hosts must follow a sleep schedule as outlined by Dr. Bridge in our permitted entertainment material as requested. Dr. Bridge himself found a sleep within 100 meters of SCP-2840's current host will be demoted. Description SCP-2840 is an incorporeal psychic entity that exists within the minds of humans experiencing REM sleep. SCP-2840 resides within one human subject at a time, and appears dormant when the subject is conscious. It is capable of transferring itself between hosts that enter REM sleep within 100 meters from one another. It is not currently possible to track the movement of SCP-2840 between subjects outside of self-reports. While hosts to SCP-2840, individuals will remember their dreams each night, though imperfectly and forgetting minor details. SCP-2840 gravitates towards individuals that have a history of chronic nightmares and night terrors. Subjects suffering from recurring nightmares will find themselves unable to experience the recurring dream again after occupation by SCP-2840. Hosts experience a change in their nightly dream cycles after acquiring SCP-2840. After this period, their night terrors will be interrupted by a dramatic shift in scenario. Details vary, but the interaction always ends in the neutralization of the nightmare and its replacement by SCP-2840. SCP-2840 will manifest mid-scenario, violently interrupting the dream and changing it to a different scenario. For example, a subject dreaming of being chased found that the pursuer was attacked and consumed by a featureless figure and then found themselves trapped within a dark forest with a figure pursuing at a relaxed pace. Another subject with terrors of drowning experienced a sudden expulsion of bubbles from below which led to a dream of falling in a clear void. While still asleep, hosts realize and understand that they are dreaming, but also in understanding that they are entirely safe. Each host recognizes that the entity or scenario, such as the featureless figure or the void, should cause fear or anxiety, but instead instills a sense of safety and relaxation. Upon waking, hosts recognize that SCP-2840 and whatever form it took during the dream was aware of their existence and that it removed the perceived threat from their nightmare. SCP-2840 was recovered in a psychiatric hospital in ██████. Over a four-month period, 29 patients reported similar dreams, now understood to be SCP-2840's primary symptoms. An embedded agent following an instance of SCP-█████ noticed a trend among unrelated patients and initiated an investigation into the phenomenon. The then-current host of SCP-2840 was determined and extracted for containment, and remains part of the containment procedures as D-2840-B.


Well, welcome back to the theater. I'm happy to introduce Catherine Lang. She lives in Gunnersville, which is a little bit to the north and a little bit to the east of Birmingham and she drove in this morning. She's also one of our organizers for Word Camp Birmingham. But she loves to blog and she loves to use social media. Every now and again, I'll see her, like she'll mention, like at WP all, which you should hashtag and we have at WP all and hashtag WP all, which all should use. But I get all the notifications and every now and again, I'll see her answering like a question of the day or something like answered the question number five and she'll tag, you know, Word Camp Birmingham and it's like awesome and it's just like routine for her. But today, she's gonna actually talk, not talking about blogging, she's not talking about so much social media, but podcasting, so welcome Catherine Lang. Thank you. The good news is my husband and I are supposed to co-present this and he woke me up with him being sick at 10 in the morning. So we are free-willing it today, which would drive Javacia absolutely crazy. So we're gonna talk about podcasting. Who in here has a podcast? Starting, yes, starting one on Monday Counts. Who in here wants to have a podcast? Who in here is interested in podcasting? Who in here knows what podcasting is? Yay, okay, there we go. All right, so a little bit about me. See, that's how you knew, because he didn't get to see that. My husband and I both do podcasting, live streaming and social media broadcasting. So podcasting is simply audio. It's radio on the internet. Radio requires a lot of rules and regulations. So if you try to get on terrestrial radio, you are limited in what you can say, how you can say it, how you can do advertising, all of that. That's why so many people have moved to podcasting, because on the internet, you're free. You're not under those regulations. All podcasting is audio. So if you're doing a live stream on your Facebook, or if you're doing recorded shows, you can turn those into podcasts. All you have to do is capture the audio. I am a wordsmith, I love to talk.  I am a hopesmith, I believe in the strength, the power of words, the power of positive thinking, and I'm a dream igniter. My husband is all about, love God, love others. That's his broadcast. And together we do, he said, she said, which is what we're supposed to be doing today. But we're not. So if you have any questions, jump in, ask me. But mainly what I'm gonna do is tell you how you can podcast. You can do your podcast. The technical aspects of podcasting, you don't have to make it complicated. As Jovacea was saying earlier, I know you probably mentioned this, if you're gonna write a book, you have to write.  So what is podcasting? Kinda covered this, basically it's just audio. It's audio that you're going to put out over the internet. There are a thousand different ways to share your podcast now. Mine is on iHeartRadio, it's on Spotify, Amazon Music, pretty much anywhere that you can listen to music online, you can find podcasts now online. Once you have been podcasting for a little bit, you can get your podcast and submit it to the different places so that you can get on there. You'll wanna host it somewhere, but we can get to that. What scares you about podcasting? Commitment, yeah, commitment. The what? Oh, editing. I didn't know you could edit your podcast. That's a new thing for me. For me, it was microphones. I used to be afraid of microphones. I didn't want to public speak because I was afraid of microphones. So I had to get over that fear. Once I got over that fear, I was able to do it anywhere. If you're worried about editing, don't edit. Who said you had to edit? Podcasting, when you're listening to the radio, especially talk radio, you get most engaged when it's somebody having a conversation with you.  So be okay with messing up. Be okay with laughing at your husband. I knocked him flat on the ground during, and now he deserved it. But in the middle of the show, I knocked him on the, he prat-falled. He'll lie to you until you something else, but that's what happened. Whatever scares you about podcasting, try it. You don't even have to publish it. Just record yourself, see how you do. Listen to yourself, see how you sound, and then keep doing it until you feel comfortable with it. What do you need to podcast? Microphone, a computer. Did you know you carry a podcasting instrument with you in your pocket? Cell phone will work. You can get as fancy as you want. You can get as simple as you want. So this is our, he said, she said, setup. It's really fancy. That's a clothes rack, and a piece of material that hangs over it. Our spotlights, just for those who do broadcasting, live streaming, are construction lights that we put parchment paper over to soften it. $5 at lows. So instead of spending a fortune on lights, that whole setup is probably $10. I use a fancy mic for, he said, she said, and we use a webcam. That's my husband's setup. All he uses is his computer. He records directly onto his computer. He does all his uploading from his computer. I use software, but that's cause I'm special. This is my hidey-hole. We are currently in a rental, so I'm in a closet to do a growing hope, but this is one of my growing hope setups, and I've got a little bitty mic down there, and then I got my webcam. And I record onto Reaper, which I'll share that link with y'all. And then this is my double camera setup, so I have two cameras, so I can do two different angles if I want to, and another mic. So we have multiple setups. It's whatever you wanna do. My favorite mic is the MXL990. Runs about $100, but you have to have a power source to use it. My second favorite mic is my Samson Abroadim. That's it, right there. He folds up, he goes with you. He does a really good sound. Y'all are welcome to look at him, but he plugs right into your, don't need a power source for him. My husband just uses the webcam on his computer. He's not fancy or special. Okay, so Reaper is my favorite software. You can try it out for free for 60 days, and once you do, the discounted rate is $60 for a life use of it. And it's really cool. You can put in different tracks when you start getting fancy, so you can do your intro and your outro. And what I like to do with my podcast, I've been doing this since 2013, is set up my tracks. So now every podcast I do is 20 minutes long, every single time. So when somebody comes to growing hope, they know it's gonna be 20 minutes long because I have broken down my template and I just pop out that middle one and I start recording that middle one. So now I know when to stop talking and I need all the help I can get. My favorite broadcasting software, if you wanna use broadcasting software, is open broadcast software. Open source is always great because it's free. And again, you can put in different scenes. So you can see right here, I have face shot, desk facing and scene two. So the face shot is one camera, desk shot is the other camera, that's that last one I showed y'all. And I can just switch scenes. So as I'm doing a broadcast, I can just switch the scene and it'll go to look at the notebook that I'm going through or whatever. I know it sounds, it sounds like it's a lot, but it really is easy. The more you do it, the easier it gets. How many of you can get on the internet? How many of you have gotten on the internet before? Okay, how many of you have used this software? Well, show off. It's always gotta be one. But the more you use it, the easier it's going to get. My dad could not get on the internet. We don't want him on the internet. All right, so what else do you need to podcast? This is the important stuff. Yeah, what do you want to talk about? What zings your heart? Cosplay. Zings your heart? Cosplay, okay. That would be a good, if it zings your heart, it's going to zing somebody else's heart. And you'll be able to talk about it a lot. Now you can expand around that thought. Mine is growing hope. Love talking about hope, encouragement, that kind of stuff. So any topic around that is something that I will utilize. Keeping your life simple is a series I just recently did. Being an encouragement is a series I did. And then playing off Javacia, take your podcast material and turn it into a book. Now you've multipurpose. And I'll stop talking about multipurpose because that's the next session. A voice, not speaking voice, but an attitude. What's your attitude gonna be? What are people gonna get when they get there? When I was introducing myself at an event, I explained that I love encouragement, but I love sarcasm. And the gentleman sitting across the table from me said, I just, I can't do this. I can't imagine encouragement and snarky at the same time. It's like trying to imagine a snarky rainbow. I went, oh, that's me. I'm a snarky rainbow. So you're gonna get some humor in what I'm doing. Doesn't matter if it's growing hope. I'm the one that laughed when Ryan was talking about Javacia. And Javacia having, say look, I hear it ate my mic again. And then it stole my earring. Now you can hear me. Nope, still can't hear me. Ugh, this is the mic guy telling me how to do this. Say they don't plan for people with as much hair. I give up. Okay, so a voice, an idea, and an ideal listener. Who are you speaking to? When I first started, I was working with a guy that was in radio. And he said, take a picture of someone that you wanna talk to and put it above your mic. And have a conversation with that one person, right? Then you become, it becomes a coffee talk. Instead of having to fight with it and say, y'all, y'all. When you say y'all, anybody from the South understands. Y'all is how many people? Yep, what if it's one? All y'all is not one person. Okay, your ideal listener.  So I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna smile more. I'm going to, and you can hear a smile on a podcast. You can tell when somebody's really enjoying themselves and it makes you laugh. I've taken to listening to my podcasts and my husband's and I, or he said, she said, when I'm at the gym on the treadmill, I'm gonna have to stop doing it though because I get so tickled, you know, especially when you get to punch him and lay him out on the floor. So you need an idea and it can be anything that zings your heart. You need to use your voice. It is your voice.  So let your uniqueness come through. Somebody out there needs to hear your voice even if it's only you. And sometimes that's the most important person that needs to hear it. And then your ideal listener. Also, think about this. Are you trying to entertain people? Are you trying to educate people? I mean, both are important but there's a big difference in how you're going to present your material. I am first and foremost an entertainer. If you're not laughing, if you're not enjoying yourself, I'm doing something wrong. Unless you're my kids, then I'm doing it right.  If you're trying to teach somebody about cosplay, you know, the etiquette of it, the rules behind it, you know, what you can and can't do, how old you should be before you go to a cosplay. Because there's some cosplays that my son won't show me the pictures of. All right, now, some more technical. Where do you get your intro music? Yeah, there's many different places you can get free. But do you need intro music? Yeah, you want it to be nice, you want it to be, but it has to reflect your voice. And you want to make sure that it's covered by copyright. So what we did, and hopefully it'll play, and it didn't. Oh well. That's he said, she said. And for the record, we didn't make these for the camera. That's the faces we make during the show. But the music that plays during that was a friend of mine, a guitar riff that he played. And we just took it and did repeat for the seconds that we have these showing. I can use that for my podcast or I can use it for our live stream. My growing hope, the intro that you hear is music that someone else did for me. They did a minute's worth, all you need is a minute, and then you can cut it as short as you want. But I fade my intro music in. And I had my son record my intro and my outro. So he was seven at the time.  And it makes me laugh every time he does it. So your intro and your outro is totally up to you, but make sure it reflects your voice. Make sure it reflects the attitude of the podcast that you wanna do. And most importantly, make sure you have the copyright or you will not be able to put your podcast on all of the different services that are available. So if it's not on, if you don't have the copyright, then you won't be able to get on Spotify. You won't be able to get on iHeartRadio. And that's where you're gonna really pick up your numbers. Should you record and then edit? Or should you go live? Or should you record live? Who has ever watched Saturday Night Live? Okay, you know that they're not live. They record live. And that's because Saturday Night Live and they need to be able to push the edit button or the quiet button. So record and then edit is where you go in. You do your, this is probably best if you're gonna have guests.  One, the guest wants to look good. So you wanna be able to help the guest look as good as possible. So you may need to edit that. The ums, the mess ups, the flubs, I don't edit those. I mean, we all know that we all mess up, right? I mean, except me. That's why my husband's not here.   Live consistently is a huge challenge.  And if you mess up, you've messed up. I mean, you can't do as bad as I did. Livestream on YouTube. A full week, an hour long program. Day four, someone messaged me and went, I don't think your mic is on. What was really sad is people were watching it. So, there you go. Well, record live and then share later.  That's all that I have because my partner is not here. But I can answer any questions. And I know there's a lot of technical questions, but I can try to answer those as best I can. And so I have a microphone and dropping it off here. Hey, I'd love to just hear about how you design those spaces, like what inspires you to get like your backdrop and all that stuff. And then my second question is, how do you keep the ideas flowing? Have you met me? I have no lack of ideas that is not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is I have too many. Now, this is my favorite backdrop. This is my growing hope backdrop. My mom built this, made this for me. It's a quilt top. And she passed away before she was able to finish it. So it inspires me to inspire you to live your dreams because she died with her creative spirit in a box. And I never want to say that happened to anybody else. This is my husband, you know, it's fancy. It's an extra sheet he found in a drawer and he draped it over. So that's nothing inspired him. He just wanted something back there. And this one is polka dots. It is our peculiar productions. Being normal is overrated. So we went up to the fabric store and looked at the large tapestry fabric so that we would know it would hang wide enough and long enough. And we found some in there clearance bin for 4.99 a yard. A follow-up, do you end up leaving those backdrops up for long periods of time? Do you take them down and put up the other one? Do you trade them out? We trade them out. This is the same as this. This is the same room. So yeah, it's our bedroom. So, oh, I thought you were asking that question. But you can see we have the sea clamps holding them in place. But he doesn't have to do that with a sheet because it just fits over the... So you're talking about all this. I'm assuming you're releasing YouTube videos too. So it's more than just a podcast. And I'm curious how much extra reach you get off the videos. And you know, if you could share some thoughts about why you decided to do that in addition to just having an audio podcast. Well, it started because someone told me to. And now all of our stuff starts. Somebody said you have to do that. But then I realized it's not any more difficult. And I'm a huge fan of repurposing. So if I can do the YouTube video and then just capture the audio and have it on multiple platforms, that's what I want to do. The he said, she said is live stream because y'all need to see us. I mean, y'all saw the faces that we make. And that's just like a drop in the bucket of how we react to each other. As far as reach, I'm sorry I didn't answer that. I don't know. I mean, I really don't. I don't pay attention to who's listening. Just, I just get in on there and have a good time. So I apologize, I missed the first couple of minutes. I had no idea you had this many podcasts for one thing. So I'll be listening to some of those. But how do you monetize this? Why am I doing a podcast? I'm doing a podcast because my husband gets tired of hearing me. So I have to have my words go somewhere. Anybody had something happen to them in 2020? So we had a tornado fall on our house after a month of quarantine. Easter Sunday, we had a tornado land on our house. Our own EF-1. And if you ever get offered an EF-1 tornado, turn it down. So we are still not in a home. And we decided at the beginning of the year, we are not going to focus on monetizing anything. Our goal is to do what we were uniquely designed to do and do it boldly and intentionally and let everything else work itself out. So that we really have not even thought about how it can monetize itself. We are just throwing it out there and doing what we feel we're supposed to be doing. And we both believe, I mean, if somebody came to me today and said, you can do a three hour talk show on encouragement, I would be all over it. It just fires me up. So it is something that we really enjoy doing. And that's been our focus. I just wanted to say that I podcast and then I use YouTube, but I'm not on camera. I use YouTube because I talk to people from different parts of the country and accents can be very hard to understand online. So usually after I finish my podcast and I released it, I send the podcast to be transcripted out and I use transcript on YouTube. And I feel like that is for people who may be hard of hearing but will like to experience my podcast. And it's for people who may be listening to the podcast. Maybe they're in discussion. Maybe they're having an argument and they need some receipts. Then go back into the podcast and do screenshots. It works really well. And then, well, I have a compelling picture, but my podcast is really juicy and usually I get about 8,000 views on that YouTube with no video because of the way that it's done. And then just for monetizing, you can sell ads. You can get sponsors or you can do paid content. Yeah, there are ways to monetize it. It's just not something I have really been invested in. One of the things that I do, I use Blueberry, BL, UB, RRY. And that's because it is related, it relates to WordPress really well. I load my podcast directly into my website. So when you're on my website, you can find my podcast there and play it on my podcast on my website. And I will take my content and create a blog post of my content, either transcribed materials so that someone who comes can read it or listen to it. Same reason. Hey, so I have a two-part question. I'm in maybe a little bit of a unique position because I work in marketing for the business college of a large university and we already have a podcast that's run by an MBA student, but I'm sort of coming alongside, guiding, possibly helping produce some episodes for that. One question I have, I guess the most important question is, right now the way we've got it set up is the student's very charismatic, he's a good interviewer, but he's basically interviewing VIPs and we have these long three and four episode things where he's just sort of spitballing with VIPs and I don't feel like it's getting a lot of thought leadership out of there. So one thing that the director and I are interested in doing is making it more thematic. Like, here's 10 leadership lessons from this CEO or something like that. What are your thoughts about that? Oh, I think that's great because you catch them. You've got a hook, we all need a hook, right? That's the only way you catch fish is if you have a hook on your line. You don't have a hook on your line, you can't catch fish. So having, I love to do series because then you can turn around and put it on your websites and you've got something you can draw people to multiple directions. It also makes it easier to produce questions for your guests if you have a theme. Anybody in here create content for your blog, for your website. Anybody in here have an editorial calendar? Same thing for your podcast. Have an editorial calendar. What are we gonna talk about this week? What are we gonna talk about this month? Look at even what holidays are this month. Especially if you're going to be going live, look at the calendar. You wanna watch Thursdays because you've got multiple holidays that fall on Thursdays.    But yes, I love the idea of having it streamlined like that because it will help the interview process. Okay, that's great. Yeah, the other question is, so I'm basically a writer. I interview people all the time. I'm very comfortable with that. I don't necessarily think I have a great radio voice, though. And so I guess one question I have is like, how much does that matter in your experience? Yeah, I think you have a great voice, but here's the thing. Everybody has a different voice. So your voice will appeal to somebody. And my husband has a, it's on video. He said, not he said, you can hear him on that, but he is very professional. He sounds like a broadcaster, and he sounds like you think a broadcaster is supposed to sound. I do not. And I don't want to. I want it to be more me, and he is more him. And it's probably best that way, right? So your voice is good. It is what it's supposed to be. You don't need your voice to sound like somebody else's. This whole idea of it's a radio voice, you know, I just think we all have value, use your value to touch the people that you need to touch. Thank you. Unless they have a red sticker on there. Hello, as someone who does podcasts too, I find it very important that if somebody leaves a review, like an Apple podcast or Spotify or Google to appreciate that review and maybe respond back. Oh yeah. Look, I don't care what you're doing.   I don't care your business, developer. It is all about relationships. If you are not invested in relationship, you are doing it wrong. And another thing is when you sync your podcasts, when you start one, Apple's kind of the gold standard with podcasts is that you sync up to all your podcast players. But also don't forget Google, Spotify and Amazon. Yes, yes. What's great about Blueberry and a lot of your other hosting places is that they are connected. So I can go through Blueberry and line up all of those. That's how I got on Amazon. That's how I got on iHeartRadio, Spotify, whatever else there is, Pandora. There's a free program called AudisCity for audio editing and recording if you don't want to pay for anything to get started. Down the road, you'll probably want to get better software but that's just the basic way to just get going. Yeah, that's why I like the Reaper. Did I, where is that hiding? See, just for the record, I'm always right. It's on the show and everything. I have a little, it's proof. Where is it? Reaper, there it is. Reaper, that's a lifetime license. That's not a yearly license. So if it's just you doing it, it is a $60 lifetime license and it's very easy software. You can do multiple tracks. You can do guests in different mics. So it works out. I like it. But yeah, free is always better. That's why I like the OBS because that's free, that software is free. Which one performs better? For me, both of them work really well. For what's great about is the OBS is that you can do it live. You can go to Facebook or you can go to YouTube from this camera. It does not do just audio. You'll have to transcribe that in but there's several easy, any video converter will change it out into just audio if you need just audio. But those are my two favorite. And I am by no means a huge tech person. Daniel from known hosts can confirm that because he's my host and I'm online with him about once a week. Do you have any opinions about the online like Riverside or those kinds of things where you can do recordings with multiple people in different places? Well, considering I have no idea what that is, I'm all about it. I do think having a... So like right now, my partners and I have been doing recording podcast episodes and for now we've been zooming with each other so we can see each other but recording locally on our own computer is the audio and then editing it together. But we've been wondering if it's worth paying for like Riverside.fm is one where you can go and it records all the tracks separately and you see but it's like, you know, a sass. So another thing to pay for. Yeah, yeah. And that's the big thing is if you're not monetizing, you better have a budget.  We use StreamYard to do, he said, she said which is right there. And I'll, it'll start in just a second and then I'll stop it. I don't know if I can do that. That's too much technical stuff. So he tells you all what technical. The StreamYard is a new broadcast, live stream broadcast, but what's great about it is if you get, if you pay for that service, you can do two people and you can go across mediums. So you can be on LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook all at the same time, one stream. So it's easy to control. But anytime you can avoid editing together is a good thing. Because think about that. You're prepping for your podcast. Let's say it takes you two hours to prep, then you spend another two hours editing it together. It's a nightmare. That's a lot of time and time is the only resource you cannot get more of. So be thinking about that. But yeah, if you can use something that's not going to require editing, I'd jump on that. Hey, I just wanted to add some value. I've seen some podcasters online and what they do is they'll run a banner across the bottom of the podcast. They'll have a cash app, Venmo. So if they're saying something that the audience likes, they'll just send them something live. Yes. That's a contribution. Yes. So that's how they- That is a good way to monetize. And if you're doing video, that's one of the things I really liked about the StreamYard is that I can change out the banner real easy and I can have a banner like that on there and I can also put on there, she's right and he's wrong. It's the most important reason right there. So one of your questions was, what are you scared of? And I said commitment because it's just one more thing to add to the pile of things that I need to do. But at the same time, it's something I'm interested in. You have a family, yes. I do. You have lots of other commitments in addition to these gazillion podcasts that you do. How do you structure your time or deal with the commitment?  I mean, they're probably too old, that doesn't matter to you. But you get my point, right? So how do you deal with the commitment aspect of it and making yourself, you don't have to make yourself do it because you love it so much. For those of us who might be approaching it for the first time and are like thinking of it as a business tool and I have to do this thing, how do I deal with the commitment issue? Okay, so what I would recommend for everybody is don't go live. Live is a huge commitment and it is easier if you have multiple hosts because then if somebody does get sick, one of the other hosts can step in or can solo. Record. And I would bank at least a couple of weeks depending on how often you're gonna go live.  I would bank six to eight weeks before you release your first because that gives you some wiggle room. That gives you some vacation time and I would plan in your vacation time let people know ahead of time we will not be having an episode or we're gonna do reruns. Talk shows do it all the time. On the radio, they'll do replays, reruns of their shows. Bank it. So I just wanna tell you about one of my failures. I'm not good at doing anything consistent and one of my mentors taught me something very valuable. For some reason, when we start something new, we think, oh, I need a weekly episode.    So for me, I don't do anything weekly because that is a full-time job and I left my full-time job to be an entrepreneur. So what I do, I have a podcast, a very sensitive podcast. So I put out one to two episodes a year. It gives me 12 months or six months to market that particular episode. So this idea that you need a weekly podcast in my opinion is for the birds because your podcast is only probably an extension of what your business is, how you make your money. So it's better to say, I'm gonna put out four of these a year, eight of these a year, 10 of these a year. And then in three years, you have 30. You get what I'm saying? So you have a new one for every month. So that's just my advice. I learned that. I never hear anybody else give it, so I just wanna share it. Yeah, the key is to find out what it is that you're gonna do, what it is you want to do. That's the most important. There is always gonna be somebody that wants the audio, but do they want the audio of what you're gonna teach?  So think about that and also how you're gonna use the podcast that you're gonna release.  Five hours. My five minute show is not five hours, it's probably five minutes because I don't edit it. I'm just gonna go on there, I'm gonna do, but I have that template and I know it's gonna be five minutes, same with the 20 minutes. I rarely re-record, rarely. And, you know, unless the phone rings or the husband walks in, that's why I'm in a hidey hole now, so they can't find me. But find what works for you. Any other questions? I'll be here all week. Thank you so much, Catherine, for your presentation.


Hi my name is Danny and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today I have a book review for you and that is Pagan Dreaming by Nimue Brown. I wrote this on my Kindle. It is one of the coolest dream books you will read and I don't say that lightly. Dream dictionaries always kind of frustrate me mainly because books about dreaming are often like symbol a means this, symbol b means this and there's very little process or explanation about like the magic and mysticism of dreaming or even the psychology or like biology involved in it and Pagan Dreaming actually takes a look at all of those elements. First you'll notice it is not a dream dictionary. There is no specific explanation of symbols you know you can't just go to an index and look up cockroaches or make it in a dream. Instead this book really takes you through the whole process of how do you carry out dream work as a Pagan. So what do you need to be aware of as you start working with your dreams? What are the kind of influences on your sleep patterns be they your diet or your nightly ritual? There are lots of ideas on how to enhance this process and understand how your body and your lifestyle actually affects your dreams. The book also goes into a great detail about how dreams can be interpreted like not just what a symbol is but how one can interpret and decide a moment different types of dreams. So sometimes you're just dreaming about something because that's what you were thinking about during the day right? For instance I play a specific video game I might dream about that video game because my head is still thinking about that the whole night or you might have a dream that seems divinely inspired but how do you tell that versus just like a normal dream that your subconscious is working through something? That was one of my favorite parts of the book kind of the meaty chunky middle part where you really go into how you interpret a dream and how you find an interpretation process that works for you as an individual in your practice. The authors surprisingly candid about their own dreaming experience and share some pretty personal details including how their anxiety affects dreaming and some of the things they've worked through in dreaming work. A level honesty that as you know I really appreciate in the books that I read I think it makes it easier for me to relate to the author and also put whatever they're teaching or talking about into practice in my own life because I know the the raw grittiness of it a little bit better. There was one part of the book towards the end that talked about some kind of external impacts on dreaming that I didn't entirely agree with. The kind of overall theme was that one must be aware of external influences. That's super vague and generic and not really the point of the end of the book so you should read it yourself. But in particular the author had some point of views on like porn and entertainment like video games and stuff like that that was just like not quite what I would have agreed with. But the point was how do you consume conscientiously because that does affect your dream work and that does affect your spiritual practice.  I just think that the author and I fall on that line on those two topics just slightly separated but really my only complaint was the book. In the comments below I would love to hear if any of you do dream work specifically. I'm really interested in how you might incorporate that into your practice. I myself am very conscious of my dreams and have been from a very early age. I don't necessarily keep a dream journal but if there's a dream that is particularly enticing or seems especially important I'll write that in my normal journal but I always take time in the morning to kind of sit and review what I dreamed about and I'm the person who sits at parties and like let's talk about your dreams and that awkward social situation. So tell me about your dream work and how you incorporate that. I think it's a super fascinating topic from that psychology point of view and also from a pagan point of view.  This is a book published by Moon Books which is incredibly affordable for ebooks. So if you are on a budget and you're looking for a really great pagan book I would suggest heading over and purchasing this. Of course you can get it in paperback too. If you like this author and you should or you're curious about what the tone and writing style of this author might be you should check out Annemoi Brown's blog and she is also on YouTube although only a few videos but more druids on YouTube so that's great. This author is interesting because she has lots of books on druidry and paganism but also some like steampunk fiction work and stuff so very cool. Thanks for watching and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove. I attempted at one point to use a black plain sketchbook as a book of shadows but I didn't get very far and it was never a super inspiring project. There were a few pages that I found really interesting or that I liked a lot that I've migrated or I'm in the process of migrating over to my new book.


My name is Miss Toya Tenay Taylor. I'm the executive director of WEAP, we act, present, and perform. And we have an amazing program called Speak with Purpose, which we are happy is the only public speaking program offered in Seattle Public Schools. This is my amazing team, Miss Sophie. Hey there. And Miss Crystal. Hi. And today we are going to learn about body movement. Now, why is body movement important in a public speaking class? I'll tell you why. Because in WEAP, we talk about the whole instrument. Your body is this amazing instrument that you use to speak with purpose, all right? So what are some of the parts of the instrument? Our voice. Absolutely. Arms. Our face. Face. Legs. Legs. Our minds. Minds. Our hearts. Our hearts. And our facial expressions, our eyes, when we look at people it says so much about us. So today we are going to use our whole body with our voices, okay? So we always do heroic stance. This is where your feet are shoulder width apart, your shoulders are relaxed, your sternum is high, and your chin is like so, all right? Body movement. We are going to teach you how to really just get comfortable with your body with one of our most popular activities called Super Simon Says. Now you might be like, Simon says, I haven't played that since I was a little kid, you never played Super Simon Says though, all right? So usually what Simon says, you have to repeat or the person will tell you Simon says, do this. We don't do that in Super Simon Says. You learn a signal that is connected to a movement. Sounds complicated already, right? This is how it works, okay? If I clap my hands, that's the signal to stomp your feet. So if I clap, you stomp. Clap, stomp. See, it's super already, okay? So what we're gonna do today is teach you the signals and moves to Super Simon Says, and then if I do a signal, you do the roll move, you're out. So you always wanna do the right movement to the right signal, okay? Standing up, you ready? Learn the moves with us. Here we go, I'm gonna do all of them, all right? When I clap, you stomp. Clap, stomp. If I stomp, you clap. Stomp, you clap. If I do this, run this way. This, run this way. If I do this, slide to the left. This, slide to the right. If I do this, you're gonna duck down, get all the way to the ground as low as you can go.  Jump as high as you can. Swipe, jump. Swoosh, good low. You better stay low. Why am I down on the ground? You get low. Hahaha. Swipe, jump up. They're cheating you guys. If I do this, circle up. If I do this, run in place. Get those legs up, ladies. Get those legs up, hey. Hurrah, stance. Woo, feel the burn. All right, let's try it again. Watch the signals. Here we go. If I clap, you stomp. If I stomp, you clap. Slide to the left. Slide to the right. Run, run, run, run in place.  Circle up, swipe in the air. Swipe on the ground. Jump up, and I missed one. Do the snake to the left. Do the snake to the right. Do the snake to the right. Do the snake to the right. Used to be a Janet Jackson fan, so I had to get on the snake it out. That was for you, Janet. All right, woo, I think I need a breathe. All right, super Simon says we're going to do a practice run. You ready? Be some place where you have space. Here we go. And I'm just gonna do the signals. I'm not gonna save them, just do them.  I'm gonna swipe the floor, snake on them. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Here we go. Practice run, not bad. All right, you ready? I'm good. You ready? Heroic stance, you got this. Getting your heroic stance. Here we go. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. I'm out of shape you guys. That was amazing. You guys, woo. I feel like I'm sweating up here. That was Super Simon Says. And as you can see, now you know why it's super. It's not your regular Simon Says. This is what we do when we have to teach our scholars body movement. It's a great way to learn listening, memorization. What else? Learning new directions. Direction following directions. Improv. Improv and having fun, all right? So do it at home. You can do it with your friends. You can do it with your parents. Tell your teachers to do it with you at school as well. That's the body movement. These are the things you need to learn when you are using a stage. How do you use the whole stage? Using your whole body, the instrument. So thank you for joining us for that segment. I'm Toya Tine Taylor, Executive Director of WEAP. And we are happy you joined us. Remember to always enjoy life. Be true to yourself and do what? Speak with purpose. We'll see you in the next segment.