Know Your Soul – Unlocking Higher Consciousness
Theresa Hubbard and Walker Bird
In this inspiring episode of My Inner Knowing, co-hosts Theresa and Walker welcome Dr. Joe Howell, founder of The Institute for Conscious Being, as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. Dr. Howell shares his moving story of transformation—a journey shaped by personal tragedy and profound realizations that led him and his wife, Lark, to create a space for soul-centered exploration anchored in the Enneagram of Soul.
Theresa, Walker, and Dr. Howell explore the practices and philosophies that help us uncover our most authentic selves. They offer insights into the journey from ego-driven living to spiritual awakening. They discuss how significant life moments can spark deeper awareness and provide tools like the Enneagram and meditation to navigate this transformative path.
Listeners will discover the essence of spiritual alchemy—the balance between ego and soul—and be inspired to cultivate their own inner wisdom. The episode concludes with George Appleton's uplifting “Gathering Prayer,” a heartfelt reminder to embrace and honor one's unique spiritual journey.
Episode Links & Resources
My Inner Knowing full episode link
Dr. Joe Howell's website and books
The Institute for Conscious Being
Heartfulness: Meditation | Relaxation | Yoga | Spirituality
Benedictine Sisters Retreat Center
A Gathering Prayer
by George Appleton
Give me a candle of the spirit, O God
as I go down into the deep of my own being
Show me the hidden things. Take me
down to the spring of my life, and
tell me my nature and my name.
Give me freedom to grow so that I
may become my true self – the
fulfilment of the seed which you
planted in me at my making.
Out of the deep I cry unto thee, O God.
Amen.
Connect with My Inner Knowing!
Watch the episode on YouTube
My Inner Knowing website
My Inner Knowing Facebook
My Inner Knowing Instagram
Episode Transcript
Walker [00:00:04]:
My Inner Knowing empowering you to find your compass for the journey. We are dedicated to supporting you to rediscover and trust your natural ability to navigate life. Each day by sharing insight and experience through the lens of two professional communicators and their guests, we intend to prompt internal inquiry that supports all those willing to explore a unique path.
Theresa [00:00:32]:
Yeah. Well, hello.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:00:33]:
Hello.
Theresa [00:00:34]:
Good morning, Joe. How are you?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:00:36]:
I am fine. Thanks for having me.
Theresa [00:00:39]:
Oh, yeah. Thanks for spending this time with us this morning.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:00:43]:
Yes.
Theresa [00:00:44]:
Yeah. Well, where do you want to start?
Walker [00:00:48]:
Well, we wanted to give a little bit of. Of background on you, Joe, and I guess starting with you have an institution called the Institute for Conscious Being, and I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about what you're doing in your life.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:01:03]:
Right. All right. Well, the Institute for Conscious Being just had its 10th anniversary, and it is a school founded by my wife, Lark and me. And it's a school that teaches people through spiritual practices, the. The methods of raising their own consciousness. And we do this through several methods. But the major teaching method we use is the spirituality of the Enneagram. Yes, when I say spirituality of the Enneagram, that means I'm not talking about the Enneagram of personality per se.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:01:57]:
It. It would be another Enneagram that is getting hardly any attention because people are so fascinated with personality. But the other Enneagram that I call the real Enneagram is the Enneagram of Soul. And so through teaching the Enneagram of Personality and of soul, we. We help us come to our true selves, our more authentic being, which we have found is the soul instead of the outer layer of our shell, which is our personality. And, you know, that personality is sometimes a false self. It's not the authentic self. And we have people from all over the country come to Birmingham, Alabama, where this.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:02:59]:
We conduct our intensives three times a year. And when someone is admitted to the school, they. They are privileged to do the online teachings that we have in between each intensive in person meeting. And if people can't come to the in person meeting, they will be able to have the recordings of those. So it's. It's a school that is. I don't know any other like it. I know some schools that teach spiritual practices, and I know many that teach the Enneagram.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:03:46]:
But this is really a unique combination of the two. And everyone who comes and studies with us seems to get a lot out of it and are. And understand about transformation. So.
Theresa [00:04:05]:
Yeah. What inspired you and Lark to start your institute?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:04:11]:
Well, sadly, it was a tragedy the. That we have been doing. We have been teaching spirituality and the Enneagram since the early 90s, but we have not done it in our own school. We have been invited to different venues to present as, as, as a speaker. And, and those events are where you are usually a retreat because what we have to say is experiential. It's not just head. You have to experience it. So it's usually a Friday night and Saturday at a minimum.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:05:02]:
And we were invited all over the. We're located in the southeast and that's where most of our. Our speaking engagements except for a few in New England. But, but we, we. We were. We were teaching the Enneagram because I had been exposed to it in the late 80s and was taught the Enneagram by the Jesuits.
Theresa [00:05:37]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:05:38]:
In Cleveland, Ohio. And the, the gentleman who wrote the first book on the Enneagram was my teacher and he is Patrick O'Leary who is one of the founders of the International Enneagram Association. And knowing the Enneagram for a long time was. Was a wonderful way to understand ourselves and then teach others how to understand themselves. And the, the. The. Our son became ill when he was in college. The.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:06:27]:
His first year of college. He. Ben was very wonderful, smart, talented young man, our son. And he was. I, I, I guess I would use the word stricken by addiction. It. It really took hold and we had to live in uncertainty all the time. We had to live in fear.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:07:03]:
We had to live in knowing that the person who was coming home from college or wherever would be someone we really didn't know and who didn't treat us as he always had. He was. He was altered because of alcohol and possibly other drugs that were going on. And it became a train wreck. And the, the upshot of it all is that we had rehabs after rehabs and the sicker Ben got the. The. His pancreas began to fail. And even after a couple of operations to move remove cysts from that organ, he.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:07:56]:
He. He. He lost the battle and died. Died in a diabetic coma. 26. So those, those were a lot of years that we were in agony and that our family was in agony. And the. We.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:08:21]:
We searched for ways to deal with our grief because this was a. No matter how much you fear the worst, you. You don't understand it until it does happen. The. The enormity and the life changing effect that it has on someone's life, our life, my life. And, and nothing. Nothing seemed to work. Even our.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:08:58]:
It seemed like even sometimes our prayers Would bounce back from. From the ceiling. It was. It was true despair. True despair. And. And we were asked to go to. I'm going to tell this story because I feel led to tell it.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:09:29]:
I usually don't, but the May after our son died in September, we were invited to Arizona just by friends who had moved there from the Southeast. And they are very close, dear, wonderful friends, Charlotte and Buddy Moas. They live in Tucson, Arizona, that they invited us out, and this was about 16, 17 years ago now. And we had never been to the west, really. We'd been to California a couple of times, but we had never seen deserts and any of that. And it was. It's so different from anything we have with all of the lush green and all of this. And we were amazed.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:10:28]:
It was like, you know, we were riding out through the country and. And the desert, and it was. I. I was amazed by these cactus trees, the saguara cactus trees that are huge.
Theresa [00:10:43]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:10:44]:
And, you know, I found out that they have to be 75 years old before they even get their first arm.
Walker [00:10:51]:
Oh, really?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:10:53]:
Yeah. And it. And then we saw all of these, and they would even go up mountains and you could see in between them because here, trees that go up mountains have a canopy and you can't see the mountain, but you can see the cactus cacti and the mountain at the same time. Just different visual things that we had never experienced. And. And we. I said to Buddy, as in the middle of nowhere, 20 miles from the nearest gas station, please, please stop. I've got to get out.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:11:28]:
I've got to be among these. These trees, and I've got to. These cactuses, and I've got to feel them and touch them and understand this. It looks like Jurassic Park. And so he did. He just pulled right over. There was absolutely hardly any traffic. And he pulled over.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:11:50]:
It was just on the side of the road, not at a tourist stop or any wide spot in the road. And we four got out and I picked a cactus and I asked my wife Lark, to take a picture of me with my arms around the cactus. You can't hug a cactus, right? Because of the spines. Yeah. And so I approximated a hug. And as. As I was looking up and down this massive tree, I made the remark to her. I said, honey, these.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:12:38]:
These spines look like toothpicks. Millions of toothpicks going up and down in rows, coming out from little pods. And. And it was unbelievable. And I reached. I. I said, you know, these, they. They look like toothpicks.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:01]:
And I reached up to pull One out. And it came right out. And in my fingers, between my thumb and forefinger was a manufactured wooden toothpick.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:26]:
I.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:28]:
My first thought is, well, this is where we get toothpicks. And then I came to myself and I. I put it next to the other. It. I pulled a toothpick out of a cactus, and you can't pull those spines, I learned. You can't pull them out.
Theresa [00:13:52]:
Wow.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:53]:
And. And it. It. That. It seems like an inconsequential and a detailed event, but that one event was very impactful to us because if your prayers sometimes are bouncing off the ceiling and maybe you don't know if the divine is listening or cares or that you matter and something like this happens to you, it hit us later that the divine God, or whatever you want to use as the word for the divine intelligence that runs this universe.
Theresa [00:14:43]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:14:44]:
Was saying, I know right where you are. I have pinpointed you with laser accuracy because you found against all odds.
Theresa [00:15:01]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:15:02]:
Something that shouldn't have been there, that was placed there. Who knows when, how long ago, by who. Whoever placed it there probably said, well, nobody will ever find this. And, you know, that that was a pivotal time. It was sort of like, well, we really are heard and we really are understood and cared for. And it gave me pause to go deeper into my studies of the Enneagram. And that's when I was. Was able to see an enneagram that is not the enneagram of personality.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:15:48]:
It's the enneagram of soul.
Theresa [00:15:51]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:15:52]:
And I saw the components of the Enneagram of soul, and that is what helped us go deeper into what this life is all about, what our purpose is all about. And the. The huge factor of that. Our ego writes a story for our lives.
Theresa [00:16:18]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:16:19]:
And that is the ego's concept of what it wants to happen to us. And that. That ego's story may come true in part, but that ego story will not always come true. And what do we do when it does not come true? How do we live? How do we manage when one. One relationship that you nurtured and, you know, your life was about promoting and loving and caring and watching them grow. What do you do when it all goes. And you think, well, what has my life been about?
Theresa [00:17:14]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:17:15]:
You know, and it. It gives you pause to understand or gave me pause to understand that I can live out of my ego in tragedy, or I can live out of my soul with comfort in knowing that it's not up to me to plan this entire thing.
Theresa [00:17:41]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:17:42]:
This whole thing has larger Patterns that, as a human, I cannot comprehend.
Theresa [00:17:50]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:17:51]:
And the soul has the qualities for us to move through the world in, enjoy and in. And having sanity, whereas if we had stayed in our ego tragedy, we would not have had joy or sanity, we would have had despair and. And possibly even become. Have become bitter. Yeah, sure. But. But we are not. Yeah, we are living productively.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:18:35]:
And after we found out that. About the Enneagram, ability to minister to the deeper. I say the truths of the Enneagram minister to us, many more worlds of thought were opened to us. And that's what made me want to write this book I wrote then, which is called Becoming Conscious. And it's the use of the Enneagram in becoming conscious. And it is. People liked it and they wanted to know more, and they said, where can. Where can we learn this? And.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:19:20]:
And I said, well, it's in the book. And they said, well, no, we want to explore it. And that's how the Institute came about. People saying, we've got to understand this. We've got to immerse ourselves in it. And the. The Institute is. Excuse me.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:19:44]:
It's very viable. Very, very exciting. And the most beautiful thing about it is that we see people going out of ego, living from the. Their soul.
Theresa [00:20:05]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:20:07]:
It's. It's a tremendous satisfaction. Yeah. And Lark and I have children who we're teaching this to, and. And it. For us, it's a beautifully redemptive thing that this school has come about. I don't know if I answered your question or.
Theresa [00:20:35]:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:20:39]:
Yeah. So it's a long story, but I think that's what you might have been going after.
Theresa [00:20:45]:
Yeah, it is.
Walker [00:20:46]:
Joe, when you.
Walker [00:20:47]:
When.
Walker [00:20:48]:
And there's so many things to ask about this. It's just. It's a beautiful sharing, number one. I just want you to know. I mean, I'm touched.
Walker [00:20:58]:
So.
Walker [00:21:01]:
When you see people in your courses, you know, you say you could see the transformation from ego based living to soul.
Walker [00:21:11]:
What do you see from your side as an observer?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:21:11]:
Yes. And as. As a spiritual teacher? Yes. I. I see people who come in to the Institute who are familiar with a body of knowledge called the Enneagram, and they are familiar with. With their desire for spiritual maturity and growth. And I see them coming in very. Some of them are leery about what it is.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:21:57]:
Some of them are convinced that this is for them, and they're gonna. Some are uncomfortable because they don't know what is in store. And they are. They. They don't want to. To appear like they don't know enough or whatever. But when they come, there's such a love there because everybody is basically in the same boat. We all know that the power of the ego, which we need, we can't do without an ego.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:22:35]:
But the power of the ego, if it's unhealthy and if we live with its distortions, thinking that's the way the world should be, that it. They. They know now from their studies that the. The ego is just a mental construct. It's just a structure whereby we negotiate and strategize how to move through the world.
Theresa [00:23:06]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:23:07]:
And that mental structure is not really who we are. And so when they find out who they really are. And the Enneagram isn't the only thing that shows us that they're multiple as you. As you know from your own vast studies and your interviews. But I watch people using the Enneagram to become more conscious.
Theresa [00:23:32]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:23:33]:
And when they do, they are most of all conscious of their own goodness. Because, you see, the ego tells us. The inner critic, so to speak, tells us that. That we don't. We are not enough. We are flawed. There's a terrible defect. We'll never measure up.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:23:58]:
How can I get the love that I want? I can't. How can people really know me? I don't feel known or understood. I'm destined to be lonely. I can't find a connection. And this ego has various ways to solve its problems.
Theresa [00:24:21]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:24:21]:
And they. They. There's nine basic ways that these problems are solved in the Enneagram. And it's just incredible. True. And I'll go over them. Number one, I'm gonna solve my. The.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:24:40]:
I'm gonna solve these problems by always being right. No matter what. I'm right. And many of them are, but they can be dead right.
Theresa [00:24:53]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:24:55]:
And I say them. It's any of us who are in that energy on the Enneagram. And then number twos negotiated by saying, well, I'm. I'm just helpful in giving. I'm going to get through just being. Doing that. You better get. You better take what I give you.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:25:18]:
And the three. The three say, well, I'm just going to be a success and accomplish stuff and get it done, and it'll be okay regardless of. Of the consequences. And when I build it, do it and make it, it's going to be so great and wow you so much that you will love me. And I can go all around the Enneagram about these. These styles. But when people find out what their style is, their egoic style and they dispense with it and find out that there are a huge set of essential, divine qualities that make them up on a much deeper level. They are given a comfort and a joy that shines on their faces.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:26:16]:
They're not worried about what they used to be worried about. They're not. They're not scared as they were. They aren't preoccupied with whether or not they're. They're loved as much. They're not as angry as some of them are not as angry or bitter or resentful. They. There's this shift, and they've tried to do it on their own for years, some, but they were still trapped into the egoic structure.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:26:50]:
And, you know, Einstein is the one who said, you know, no problem can be solved on the level of consciousness that created the problem. Right. When we're in. When we're in the egoic mode of life and use the ego to strategize a way to cope with it, that. That doesn't work. The only thing that can work is. Is the truth of the soul. And so I have gone in much deeper into this in these last years, and there's a book coming out.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:27:31]:
My. My second book is coming out in. Is. Is. Is coming out in November. I don't know when this is going to air, but. Yeah, it would be next month. And.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:27:49]:
And it's good. It's called Know your soul, Journeying with the Enneagram. And I go into great detail, but I. I don't. I don't teach it from an academic standpoint. I teach it using my own life and in my own revelations. Yeah. And our own ecstasies and agonies to illustrate the fluidity and power of these truths, how they have come together.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:28:24]:
And. And it. It's really an amazing thing.
Theresa [00:28:30]:
It sounds really powerful, Joe. Yeah. I think we. When we tell our story and the learnings that we're aware that came with it, it's such a powerful teacher for people. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you talk about consciousness for you, Joe. Oh, gosh.
Theresa [00:28:57]:
How do you. What do you imagine consciousness to be?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:08]:
I imagine it as increasing awareness of oneself and who one is, and increasing awareness of how one, from that true self relates to others and to the world, the universe.
Theresa [00:29:31]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:32]:
And it's a flowering thing. I. Experiencing it as flowering. It never stops blooming.
Theresa [00:29:41]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:41]:
It's always a new thing. I can see.
Walker [00:29:43]:
Beautiful.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:45]:
There's always a new thing that I see because I'm at least aware of the ego sitting on my shoulder, you know, whispering in my ear, you know, you got to do this or you should say this or blah, blah, blah. At least I'm aware of it. I wasn't aware of it before. I just thought that was me.
Theresa [00:30:03]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:30:06]:
And it affects everything. I mean, I remember yesterday I was doing some work, and. And I decided to get up and go into the kitchen and get something to drink. And I was looking out the window over the sink, and there's a jogging path.
Theresa [00:30:30]:
Okay.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:30:30]:
Right out there. And there was a lady walking, and she had a water bottle and her hat on, and she had jogging clothes on, but she was walking, and she was walking with a limp. And the first thing my ego said was, oh, there's a lady who's disabled for some reason, temporarily or for good, I don't know. And then I looked closer, and I saw a determination to her walk. She was working with that limp as if to restore her normal gait. I didn't know that, but it. There was a determination. I saw in the lake how she lifted her legs and.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:31:23]:
And then. And then I think my soul took over because still kept looking at her. And my soul said, I'm her. She and I are the same. I am limping. I am wounded for life, but I am determined.
Theresa [00:31:53]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:31:54]:
And she and I are the same. And it gave me pause to pray for us. And the ego, I don't think would have done that.
Theresa [00:32:11]:
Agreed.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:32:12]:
It only did the first part, but the second part of the soul came into that, and it was just getting a glass of water, looking out the kitchen window. That is a flowering of consciousness.
Theresa [00:32:30]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:32:32]:
It comes in different forms all day long.
Theresa [00:32:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. I love the visual of that. Yeah.
Walker [00:32:42]:
When. When you have those moments, does it come suddenly? Are you, like, in the ego? And then all of a sudden you realize. Or how. How does that happen for you when you know, I am. The soul is coming through in this moment. As I watch this lady now.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:33:07]:
Well, it's for me. I'm glad you asked that question, because I don't think I've ever been asked that before. So you're giving me pause to think. It's a happy and whole feeling. I feel full and free and happy. I'm not categorizing people. I'm not. I'm not figuring out a way I can survive a certain moment.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:33:37]:
It's living in the present. And when it comes, when. When you're able to do that and you work on doing that, when it comes, there's such a good feeling that you know your brain is in relief because it's not Having to work that mental structure of the ego. You're trusting the moment. You're trusting that you're seeing everything, not with the perception out of the ego, but with the eyes of the soul, which lets us see much deeper into every situation, not only visually, but intuitively.
Walker [00:34:16]:
For. For yourself, Joe. And I know that your course has got to teach this, but for you on the other side, how is it that you practice getting yourself in that space more and more often?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:34:37]:
Well, for me, it's two major spiritual practices. The. They are both. And they go hand in hand, meditation and writing. I meditate, then I write. That's how all my writings come to me. I do a daily reflection every day. And.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:35:13]:
And. And they. They go out to our institute and other friends, and there's not a day that this thing doesn't well up in me and I have to write it. And it. It is a spiritual practice because I'm doing spiritual work writing these things.
Theresa [00:35:35]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:35:38]:
And then, of course, I write my books, which is another type of writing. And it's also very consciousness raising. Much introspection, much analysis of the. The world around me. For example, I know today I was writing, what if we did know the future? What would be the implications of that? That's a huge.
Theresa [00:36:14]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:36:14]:
I haven't even begun to get into that yet, but I can't wait to see what's written. You know, the whole idea of something coming through. You sure?
Theresa [00:36:26]:
Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:36:27]:
It makes you feel great. Yeah. To be linked, to be so connected with something greater than I am. It's just a tremendous compliment and blessing and affirmation.
Theresa [00:36:44]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:36:45]:
The. The meditation I do is quite different from any meditation that I have been taught until I found out about this one. And I found out about this one when I went to India and was at an ashram there. And I've since been back to the same ashram. It's. It's a meditation called Heartfulness. Not mindfulness. Heartfulness.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:37:26]:
It doesn't mean the mind isn't used, but it means that the meditation is focused on the heart area of our bodies and the light, the source of light within our heart that draws us into itself so that our mind and body are drawn into this first organ that we were ever given as we were being made.
Theresa [00:37:56]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:37:58]:
And it's. It's another tremendous gift that has been given me, and I don't mind sharing with you and the audience that you can learn about this wonderful techniques totally free of charge by going to the Heartfulness app, which is free, and they teach you all of these meditations, and they do a good job because I've been there with. With the people themselves and, And I've had. I've seen their. Their product online or it's not. It's not for sale. It's. It's just given freely.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:38:43]:
Yeah. And. And it's. It's a very good teaching app if anyone wants to learn about heartfulness meditation. It's very, very powerful.
Theresa [00:38:59]:
Wow.
Walker [00:39:01]:
Thank you for sharing.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:02]:
Oh, yeah.
Walker [00:39:03]:
Just giving people tools is so important.
Theresa [00:39:05]:
Yes.
Walker [00:39:06]:
You had another point, though.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:08]:
I was just saying that it takes those two together. For me, it. It isn't one or the other. It's. I guess it's receiving in meditation and then. Then giving. You know, it's that flow that gets you in.
Theresa [00:39:26]:
Yeah.
Walker [00:39:27]:
Reciprocity.
Theresa [00:39:28]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:29]:
Yeah. People describe it. Yeah.
Walker [00:39:32]:
So nice.
Theresa [00:39:33]:
Yeah. Joe, when you think about your journey, what are some other, I don't know, resources that you feel like might be helpful for people to explore?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:49]:
I think that retreat is a life changer.
Theresa [00:39:58]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:59]:
Coming aside from the routine that we get ourselves into that. One of the early fathers of the Enneagram, she's named George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, who brought the Enneagram over to the United States from the east at the beginning of the last century. He was the first person to bring it to the United States.
Theresa [00:40:31]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:40:32]:
In the form of dance with the energies. How he was taught it at the monastery that he learned it. And he said most people are sleepwalking through life.
Theresa [00:40:50]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:40:52]:
And it's easy if you do until. Until something happens called a shock point or a tragedy or whatever.
Theresa [00:41:05]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:06]:
And. And we wake up for a little bit, and then we go right back to sleep.
Theresa [00:41:11]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:12]:
So many people's days are getting up, making the coffee, putting on their clothes, getting in the car, going this way, going that way, the way they did it yesterday and the day.
Walker [00:41:23]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:24]:
Yeah. It. It may be punctuated by, you know, an anniversary or, you know, or. Or. Or an event or whatever, but the. The order of the day is sameness.
Theresa [00:41:38]:
Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:39]:
And the reason that we, like most people like that is because predictability gives us control or it. It makes us think we have and that nothing bad is going to happen. If we do the same thing every day.
Theresa [00:41:56]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:57]:
If we work the same job, if we see just the same people, if we go to work just that same route, if we get our gas at the same gas station, if we shop at the same grocery store, if we go vacationing at the very same place and do the very same thing with the very same people.
Theresa [00:42:17]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:42:20]:
What, you know what life is there in that, right? It's like somebody's caught in Groundhog Day, that movie.
Theresa [00:42:33]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:42:36]:
And. And so retreat gets us out of that gerbil wheel that so many of us are on and, and we go someplace. And one of the best places to go, I have found is. Is a monastery. And they're all over. Yes, they're all over. And most monasteries take retreatants and even have a retreat house or retreat portion of them. And they.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:43:16]:
There's one here in Alabama, Sacred Heart Monastery. They even do massage. They do individual spiritual direction. They have a labyrinth that you can walk, you can, you can worship with, with the religious there at every, you know, in the morning at matins and, and for vespers in the afternoon. And then some have a service in, in the chapel at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and all of them gather for that and you're allowed to go, too. So there is a rhythm to it, but it's not the rhythm of our normal day. It's a divine rhythm.
Theresa [00:44:04]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:44:04]:
It's been going on for centuries in these orders, and we can make ourselves attuned to that if we want. And we start thinking differently when we're in a different environment.
Theresa [00:44:20]:
Yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:44:22]:
And if that environment is holy, if it's sacred space, we start thinking from our soul instead of our ego. We begin to realize we are good. We are good people. We are. We are wonderful people. We each were born as a soul child who didn't come into this world with any egoic propensities at all. They were just sheer soul.
Theresa [00:44:54]:
Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:44:55]:
And. And when she or he walks through the living room and mom and dad have guests and they walk through totally naked and everybody goes, oh, no, no, no.
Walker [00:45:07]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:08]:
They wonder, what's to fuss about. Are not beautiful. Aren't I beautiful?
Theresa [00:45:13]:
Yeah.
Walker [00:45:15]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:16]:
Okay. That's what the little soul child says. Aren't I beautiful? And then when they see the horror on everybody's faces, then they begin to wonder, oh, well, maybe I'm not so beautiful. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm ugly. Maybe I've done something terribly shameful.
Theresa [00:45:36]:
Right?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:36]:
When that shame comes in layer after layer after layer, we say, I won't be my soul child anymore. I am going to find a way to deal with all this. And that's when the ego really just sets in, Right. Usually about five. Five years old. Four. Some. Some.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:57]:
It's later, some slay. And it isn't usually until the second half of life. We. We realize that the ego really isn't doing its job of helping us feel the bliss that we so desire. And we. We are yearn to return to that essence. But we don't know.
Walker [00:46:17]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:46:17]:
And. And that's why reconnecting with. With the spirit and retreat is one of those ways to do it. The labyrinth is another way. Way. I don't know if you've. Yeah, it's. It's just been quite amazing for us to do the labyrinth.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:46:41]:
And we have been privileged to have gone to the. The cathedral at Chartres, France.
Walker [00:46:49]:
Wonderful.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:46:50]:
Been able to walk the labyrinth there, which is an unbelievably huge labyrinth in the. Done in marble, in the. In the. The floor of. Of the cathedral.
Theresa [00:47:04]:
Wow.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:47:04]:
And during the times that the cathedral was first used, that labyrinth was walked before people went up to the altar.
Theresa [00:47:16]:
Oh, okay.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:47:17]:
Because it got them into the holy rhythm and the holy space. Then they could go to the. To the. The worship, the Eucharist or whatever it may have been at the time. And I think that the. The world of art is another way. Creative expression.
Theresa [00:47:42]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:47:43]:
I. I noticed that beautiful painting in back of view. It. It's. It's a showstopper because it's alive. And did one of you do that?
Theresa [00:47:58]:
No, no, no. But I found an artist that. Yeah. That made it. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:48:04]:
And. And in doing this, we. We go to that creative part of our wonderful soul child and we express God.
Theresa [00:48:17]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:48:18]:
Through our fingers and through our musical instrument or through our singing bowls.
Theresa [00:48:24]:
Yes, yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:48:27]:
And we're connected. We have found the connection. So though I'm. I. I could go on and on about. About spiritual practices there, as you know, there. There's a myriad of them.
Theresa [00:48:45]:
Yeah, yeah, agreed. Yeah. Joe, one of the things, when you were talking about retreat, I would say for me, that was probably foundationally my first experience. I went to the White House in St. Louis. I think I was 29. And that was the first time I'd been on a retreat for myself, you know, other than someone saying, here, go to this leadership retreat or something, you know, this was my first time away. And over the years, I so value retreat.
Theresa [00:49:28]:
Exactly what you were sharing and then. And then in my work, studying even the physiological part of stepping out, you know, I. This is my words. But, you know, our body's designed to keep us alive and do it as efficiently as possible. It's not caring so much about how was Joe's day. Right. Joe's alive. Right.
Theresa [00:49:53]:
And so, you know, for me, I think it's very Difficult physiologically or to change our brain if we are always in the same experience. And so I tell people, even physiologically, not just mentally and emotionally, but physiologically, our body needs difference so that it can literally be different and. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:50:19]:
Yeah. And even make different neuropathways.
Theresa [00:50:22]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Walker [00:50:26]:
Oh, I. I've got an interesting question for you too. If I'm breaking your flow, just.
Theresa [00:50:37]:
No, no, no.
Theresa [00:50:37]:
Go ahead, go ahead.
Theresa [00:50:38]:
I'm good. I'm good.
Walker [00:50:42]:
We have these times where we're closer to living in the soul space than we are the ego space.
Walker [00:50:48]:
Face.
Walker [00:50:48]:
And then we fall back, you know, and it. There's this back and forth, I would assume, for everybody, even if you're further along the spectrum.
Walker [00:50:57]:
But.
Walker [00:51:00]:
And this is one of those big questions that you probably thought through, but why do you think that our soul goes to sleep?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:51:22]:
I. I think, Walker, that the soul is not asleep. It's still alive, but our ego is in charge. And our ego is. Is anesthetized to doing the routine, to thinking the same strategies, to relying on itself. The soul is. Is to put it in. In a.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:52:03]:
An example. It. When. When developmentally, when we were a child, we had to put that little spunt in the spontaneous, beautiful being under a crust because it was going to get clobbered.
Theresa [00:52:25]:
Right, Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:52:26]:
It was told it was not. And it just happens to everyone. Because if it didn't happen, we. Because children are so just who they are, just so spontaneous, whatever. It would be a very. There would be no organization. Okay. Everything would just be what a child does when a child wants, and there would be no organization.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:52:57]:
So the world imposes a structure on behavior, individual behavior, family behavior and cultural behavior. And we have to live in that structure. Therefore, we allow our soul, and our soul allows us to put it under a crust. To survive.
Theresa [00:53:27]:
To survive. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:53:29]:
Now it does emerge. Come on. It emerges a lot. It emerges when we're children and teenagers and young adults. It most emerges when there are times of great happiness and like a birth or a marriage or. The soul just completely takes over because it. It's reminded of what life is about. And it takes over during death.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:09]:
Many times it resurfaces because it. It. It knows more than the ego knows about death.
Theresa [00:54:19]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:20]:
The ego can only see death as a problem.
Theresa [00:54:25]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:26]:
But the soul understands the. The motif, the spiritual motif of earth, death and resurrection. And the soul comes to the fore to say, this is. This is. This is not what you think. This. This is. This is not the end of everything.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:58]:
There is more and there is Deeper and so have joy. But then the soul has to go back under the crust because remember, the ego was hired to be the CEO of our lives.
Theresa [00:55:18]:
Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:55:20]:
And then when we reach the point of, of a critical mass of suffering, and like I say, it usually happens around midlife 40 for a lot of people it happens much sooner and some later. But you reach the point that, that, that of a critical mass of suffering that you say, I don't know why I'm suffering so, but I'm going to find out why. Yeah, I'm going to do something to relieve it. And that's when many people go on a strong, well, a determined spiritual search.
Theresa [00:56:06]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:56:07]:
They search for a way to get out of this terrible pain because they know a lot of it is self inflicted. You know, everybody goes around saying that, saying, what is it? The death definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. That's a popular saying. A lot of people say it, but you know, it's true.
Theresa [00:56:37]:
And yet we do the same thing over and over and over.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:56:40]:
Yeah, that's the ego style. So when, when people do a search for their true selves, their authentic selves, and want to dispense with the sameness and the pain of the ego, they learn different aspects of themselves. And like I say that they, that they are somebody else that's much more powerful, much more beautiful than their ego ever could imagine. They're becoming under its own stain. And I think that that's an absolutely beautiful thing because then the soul can be brought out unashamedly and it amalgamates. It's, it's in our work, we call it alchemy, spiritual alchemy term and made popular by Carl Jung, psychologist in the last century. And the ego and the soul then amalgamate and become partners, but the CEO is the soul and the ego is in service of the soul.
Theresa [00:58:07]:
That's nice. Yeah.
Walker [00:58:15]:
Yeah, I see. You know, there's a, there's a balance in that and I appreciate the teaching, Joe.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:58:27]:
Yeah, thank you.
Theresa [00:58:35]:
Oh, well, Joe, the hour goes so quickly.
Walker [00:58:41]:
I can talk to you the rest of the day, maybe more. So nice.
Theresa [00:58:48]:
Yeah, it is so nice. So, Joe, to finish up today, if you were going to offer to the people listening an intention, you know, or a mantra for them to consider. What might that be?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:59:13]:
I, I, we have a prayer that we say all the time.
Theresa [00:59:21]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:59:24]:
And I, I would be glad. It was written by George Appleton a. And I think it was an archbishop in England. And it goes, it's called the gathering prayer. I would like to repeat it.
Theresa [00:59:46]:
I would love that. Please. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:59:50]:
Give me a candle of the spirit of God as I go down into the deep of my own being. Show me the hidden things. Take me down to the spring of my life and tell me my nature and my name. Give me freedom to grow so that I may become my true self. The fulfillment of the seed which you planted in me at my making. Out of the deep, I cry unto thee, O God. Amen.
Theresa [01:00:33]:
I love that. Thank you, Joe.
Dr. Joe Howell [01:00:38]:
It's been a pleasure.
Theresa [01:00:40]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [01:00:41]:
Walker, thank you. Yeah.
Theresa [01:00:43]:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. We are excited to explore life with you. We encourage curiosity, self growth, and we strive to be more compassionate every day.
My Inner Knowing empowering you to find your compass for the journey. We are dedicated to supporting you to rediscover and trust your natural ability to navigate life. Each day by sharing insight and experience through the lens of two professional communicators and their guests, we intend to prompt internal inquiry that supports all those willing to explore a unique path.
Theresa [00:00:32]:
Yeah. Well, hello.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:00:33]:
Hello.
Theresa [00:00:34]:
Good morning, Joe. How are you?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:00:36]:
I am fine. Thanks for having me.
Theresa [00:00:39]:
Oh, yeah. Thanks for spending this time with us this morning.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:00:43]:
Yes.
Theresa [00:00:44]:
Yeah. Well, where do you want to start?
Walker [00:00:48]:
Well, we wanted to give a little bit of. Of background on you, Joe, and I guess starting with you have an institution called the Institute for Conscious Being, and I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about what you're doing in your life.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:01:03]:
Right. All right. Well, the Institute for Conscious Being just had its 10th anniversary, and it is a school founded by my wife, Lark and me. And it's a school that teaches people through spiritual practices, the. The methods of raising their own consciousness. And we do this through several methods. But the major teaching method we use is the spirituality of the Enneagram. Yes, when I say spirituality of the Enneagram, that means I'm not talking about the Enneagram of personality per se.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:01:57]:
It. It would be another Enneagram that is getting hardly any attention because people are so fascinated with personality. But the other Enneagram that I call the real Enneagram is the Enneagram of Soul. And so through teaching the Enneagram of Personality and of soul, we. We help us come to our true selves, our more authentic being, which we have found is the soul instead of the outer layer of our shell, which is our personality. And, you know, that personality is sometimes a false self. It's not the authentic self. And we have people from all over the country come to Birmingham, Alabama, where this.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:02:59]:
We conduct our intensives three times a year. And when someone is admitted to the school, they. They are privileged to do the online teachings that we have in between each intensive in person meeting. And if people can't come to the in person meeting, they will be able to have the recordings of those. So it's. It's a school that is. I don't know any other like it. I know some schools that teach spiritual practices, and I know many that teach the Enneagram.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:03:46]:
But this is really a unique combination of the two. And everyone who comes and studies with us seems to get a lot out of it and are. And understand about transformation. So.
Theresa [00:04:05]:
Yeah. What inspired you and Lark to start your institute?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:04:11]:
Well, sadly, it was a tragedy the. That we have been doing. We have been teaching spirituality and the Enneagram since the early 90s, but we have not done it in our own school. We have been invited to different venues to present as, as, as a speaker. And, and those events are where you are usually a retreat because what we have to say is experiential. It's not just head. You have to experience it. So it's usually a Friday night and Saturday at a minimum.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:05:02]:
And we were invited all over the. We're located in the southeast and that's where most of our. Our speaking engagements except for a few in New England. But, but we, we. We were. We were teaching the Enneagram because I had been exposed to it in the late 80s and was taught the Enneagram by the Jesuits.
Theresa [00:05:37]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:05:38]:
In Cleveland, Ohio. And the, the gentleman who wrote the first book on the Enneagram was my teacher and he is Patrick O'Leary who is one of the founders of the International Enneagram Association. And knowing the Enneagram for a long time was. Was a wonderful way to understand ourselves and then teach others how to understand themselves. And the, the. The. Our son became ill when he was in college. The.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:06:27]:
His first year of college. He. Ben was very wonderful, smart, talented young man, our son. And he was. I, I, I guess I would use the word stricken by addiction. It. It really took hold and we had to live in uncertainty all the time. We had to live in fear.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:07:03]:
We had to live in knowing that the person who was coming home from college or wherever would be someone we really didn't know and who didn't treat us as he always had. He was. He was altered because of alcohol and possibly other drugs that were going on. And it became a train wreck. And the, the upshot of it all is that we had rehabs after rehabs and the sicker Ben got the. The. His pancreas began to fail. And even after a couple of operations to move remove cysts from that organ, he.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:07:56]:
He. He. He lost the battle and died. Died in a diabetic coma. 26. So those, those were a lot of years that we were in agony and that our family was in agony. And the. We.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:08:21]:
We searched for ways to deal with our grief because this was a. No matter how much you fear the worst, you. You don't understand it until it does happen. The. The enormity and the life changing effect that it has on someone's life, our life, my life. And, and nothing. Nothing seemed to work. Even our.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:08:58]:
It seemed like even sometimes our prayers Would bounce back from. From the ceiling. It was. It was true despair. True despair. And. And we were asked to go to. I'm going to tell this story because I feel led to tell it.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:09:29]:
I usually don't, but the May after our son died in September, we were invited to Arizona just by friends who had moved there from the Southeast. And they are very close, dear, wonderful friends, Charlotte and Buddy Moas. They live in Tucson, Arizona, that they invited us out, and this was about 16, 17 years ago now. And we had never been to the west, really. We'd been to California a couple of times, but we had never seen deserts and any of that. And it was. It's so different from anything we have with all of the lush green and all of this. And we were amazed.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:10:28]:
It was like, you know, we were riding out through the country and. And the desert, and it was. I. I was amazed by these cactus trees, the saguara cactus trees that are huge.
Theresa [00:10:43]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:10:44]:
And, you know, I found out that they have to be 75 years old before they even get their first arm.
Walker [00:10:51]:
Oh, really?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:10:53]:
Yeah. And it. And then we saw all of these, and they would even go up mountains and you could see in between them because here, trees that go up mountains have a canopy and you can't see the mountain, but you can see the cactus cacti and the mountain at the same time. Just different visual things that we had never experienced. And. And we. I said to Buddy, as in the middle of nowhere, 20 miles from the nearest gas station, please, please stop. I've got to get out.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:11:28]:
I've got to be among these. These trees, and I've got to. These cactuses, and I've got to feel them and touch them and understand this. It looks like Jurassic Park. And so he did. He just pulled right over. There was absolutely hardly any traffic. And he pulled over.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:11:50]:
It was just on the side of the road, not at a tourist stop or any wide spot in the road. And we four got out and I picked a cactus and I asked my wife Lark, to take a picture of me with my arms around the cactus. You can't hug a cactus, right? Because of the spines. Yeah. And so I approximated a hug. And as. As I was looking up and down this massive tree, I made the remark to her. I said, honey, these.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:12:38]:
These spines look like toothpicks. Millions of toothpicks going up and down in rows, coming out from little pods. And. And it was unbelievable. And I reached. I. I said, you know, these, they. They look like toothpicks.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:01]:
And I reached up to pull One out. And it came right out. And in my fingers, between my thumb and forefinger was a manufactured wooden toothpick.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:26]:
I.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:28]:
My first thought is, well, this is where we get toothpicks. And then I came to myself and I. I put it next to the other. It. I pulled a toothpick out of a cactus, and you can't pull those spines, I learned. You can't pull them out.
Theresa [00:13:52]:
Wow.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:13:53]:
And. And it. It. That. It seems like an inconsequential and a detailed event, but that one event was very impactful to us because if your prayers sometimes are bouncing off the ceiling and maybe you don't know if the divine is listening or cares or that you matter and something like this happens to you, it hit us later that the divine God, or whatever you want to use as the word for the divine intelligence that runs this universe.
Theresa [00:14:43]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:14:44]:
Was saying, I know right where you are. I have pinpointed you with laser accuracy because you found against all odds.
Theresa [00:15:01]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:15:02]:
Something that shouldn't have been there, that was placed there. Who knows when, how long ago, by who. Whoever placed it there probably said, well, nobody will ever find this. And, you know, that that was a pivotal time. It was sort of like, well, we really are heard and we really are understood and cared for. And it gave me pause to go deeper into my studies of the Enneagram. And that's when I was. Was able to see an enneagram that is not the enneagram of personality.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:15:48]:
It's the enneagram of soul.
Theresa [00:15:51]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:15:52]:
And I saw the components of the Enneagram of soul, and that is what helped us go deeper into what this life is all about, what our purpose is all about. And the. The huge factor of that. Our ego writes a story for our lives.
Theresa [00:16:18]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:16:19]:
And that is the ego's concept of what it wants to happen to us. And that. That ego's story may come true in part, but that ego story will not always come true. And what do we do when it does not come true? How do we live? How do we manage when one. One relationship that you nurtured and, you know, your life was about promoting and loving and caring and watching them grow. What do you do when it all goes. And you think, well, what has my life been about?
Theresa [00:17:14]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:17:15]:
You know, and it. It gives you pause to understand or gave me pause to understand that I can live out of my ego in tragedy, or I can live out of my soul with comfort in knowing that it's not up to me to plan this entire thing.
Theresa [00:17:41]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:17:42]:
This whole thing has larger Patterns that, as a human, I cannot comprehend.
Theresa [00:17:50]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:17:51]:
And the soul has the qualities for us to move through the world in, enjoy and in. And having sanity, whereas if we had stayed in our ego tragedy, we would not have had joy or sanity, we would have had despair and. And possibly even become. Have become bitter. Yeah, sure. But. But we are not. Yeah, we are living productively.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:18:35]:
And after we found out that. About the Enneagram, ability to minister to the deeper. I say the truths of the Enneagram minister to us, many more worlds of thought were opened to us. And that's what made me want to write this book I wrote then, which is called Becoming Conscious. And it's the use of the Enneagram in becoming conscious. And it is. People liked it and they wanted to know more, and they said, where can. Where can we learn this? And.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:19:20]:
And I said, well, it's in the book. And they said, well, no, we want to explore it. And that's how the Institute came about. People saying, we've got to understand this. We've got to immerse ourselves in it. And the. The Institute is. Excuse me.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:19:44]:
It's very viable. Very, very exciting. And the most beautiful thing about it is that we see people going out of ego, living from the. Their soul.
Theresa [00:20:05]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:20:07]:
It's. It's a tremendous satisfaction. Yeah. And Lark and I have children who we're teaching this to, and. And it. For us, it's a beautifully redemptive thing that this school has come about. I don't know if I answered your question or.
Theresa [00:20:35]:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:20:39]:
Yeah. So it's a long story, but I think that's what you might have been going after.
Theresa [00:20:45]:
Yeah, it is.
Walker [00:20:46]:
Joe, when you.
Walker [00:20:47]:
When.
Walker [00:20:48]:
And there's so many things to ask about this. It's just. It's a beautiful sharing, number one. I just want you to know. I mean, I'm touched.
Walker [00:20:58]:
So.
Walker [00:21:01]:
When you see people in your courses, you know, you say you could see the transformation from ego based living to soul.
Walker [00:21:11]:
What do you see from your side as an observer?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:21:11]:
Yes. And as. As a spiritual teacher? Yes. I. I see people who come in to the Institute who are familiar with a body of knowledge called the Enneagram, and they are familiar with. With their desire for spiritual maturity and growth. And I see them coming in very. Some of them are leery about what it is.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:21:57]:
Some of them are convinced that this is for them, and they're gonna. Some are uncomfortable because they don't know what is in store. And they are. They. They don't want to. To appear like they don't know enough or whatever. But when they come, there's such a love there because everybody is basically in the same boat. We all know that the power of the ego, which we need, we can't do without an ego.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:22:35]:
But the power of the ego, if it's unhealthy and if we live with its distortions, thinking that's the way the world should be, that it. They. They know now from their studies that the. The ego is just a mental construct. It's just a structure whereby we negotiate and strategize how to move through the world.
Theresa [00:23:06]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:23:07]:
And that mental structure is not really who we are. And so when they find out who they really are. And the Enneagram isn't the only thing that shows us that they're multiple as you. As you know from your own vast studies and your interviews. But I watch people using the Enneagram to become more conscious.
Theresa [00:23:32]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:23:33]:
And when they do, they are most of all conscious of their own goodness. Because, you see, the ego tells us. The inner critic, so to speak, tells us that. That we don't. We are not enough. We are flawed. There's a terrible defect. We'll never measure up.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:23:58]:
How can I get the love that I want? I can't. How can people really know me? I don't feel known or understood. I'm destined to be lonely. I can't find a connection. And this ego has various ways to solve its problems.
Theresa [00:24:21]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:24:21]:
And they. They. There's nine basic ways that these problems are solved in the Enneagram. And it's just incredible. True. And I'll go over them. Number one, I'm gonna solve my. The.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:24:40]:
I'm gonna solve these problems by always being right. No matter what. I'm right. And many of them are, but they can be dead right.
Theresa [00:24:53]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:24:55]:
And I say them. It's any of us who are in that energy on the Enneagram. And then number twos negotiated by saying, well, I'm. I'm just helpful in giving. I'm going to get through just being. Doing that. You better get. You better take what I give you.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:25:18]:
And the three. The three say, well, I'm just going to be a success and accomplish stuff and get it done, and it'll be okay regardless of. Of the consequences. And when I build it, do it and make it, it's going to be so great and wow you so much that you will love me. And I can go all around the Enneagram about these. These styles. But when people find out what their style is, their egoic style and they dispense with it and find out that there are a huge set of essential, divine qualities that make them up on a much deeper level. They are given a comfort and a joy that shines on their faces.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:26:16]:
They're not worried about what they used to be worried about. They're not. They're not scared as they were. They aren't preoccupied with whether or not they're. They're loved as much. They're not as angry as some of them are not as angry or bitter or resentful. They. There's this shift, and they've tried to do it on their own for years, some, but they were still trapped into the egoic structure.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:26:50]:
And, you know, Einstein is the one who said, you know, no problem can be solved on the level of consciousness that created the problem. Right. When we're in. When we're in the egoic mode of life and use the ego to strategize a way to cope with it, that. That doesn't work. The only thing that can work is. Is the truth of the soul. And so I have gone in much deeper into this in these last years, and there's a book coming out.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:27:31]:
My. My second book is coming out in. Is. Is. Is coming out in November. I don't know when this is going to air, but. Yeah, it would be next month. And.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:27:49]:
And it's good. It's called Know your soul, Journeying with the Enneagram. And I go into great detail, but I. I don't. I don't teach it from an academic standpoint. I teach it using my own life and in my own revelations. Yeah. And our own ecstasies and agonies to illustrate the fluidity and power of these truths, how they have come together.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:28:24]:
And. And it. It's really an amazing thing.
Theresa [00:28:30]:
It sounds really powerful, Joe. Yeah. I think we. When we tell our story and the learnings that we're aware that came with it, it's such a powerful teacher for people. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you talk about consciousness for you, Joe. Oh, gosh.
Theresa [00:28:57]:
How do you. What do you imagine consciousness to be?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:08]:
I imagine it as increasing awareness of oneself and who one is, and increasing awareness of how one, from that true self relates to others and to the world, the universe.
Theresa [00:29:31]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:32]:
And it's a flowering thing. I. Experiencing it as flowering. It never stops blooming.
Theresa [00:29:41]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:41]:
It's always a new thing. I can see.
Walker [00:29:43]:
Beautiful.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:29:45]:
There's always a new thing that I see because I'm at least aware of the ego sitting on my shoulder, you know, whispering in my ear, you know, you got to do this or you should say this or blah, blah, blah. At least I'm aware of it. I wasn't aware of it before. I just thought that was me.
Theresa [00:30:03]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:30:06]:
And it affects everything. I mean, I remember yesterday I was doing some work, and. And I decided to get up and go into the kitchen and get something to drink. And I was looking out the window over the sink, and there's a jogging path.
Theresa [00:30:30]:
Okay.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:30:30]:
Right out there. And there was a lady walking, and she had a water bottle and her hat on, and she had jogging clothes on, but she was walking, and she was walking with a limp. And the first thing my ego said was, oh, there's a lady who's disabled for some reason, temporarily or for good, I don't know. And then I looked closer, and I saw a determination to her walk. She was working with that limp as if to restore her normal gait. I didn't know that, but it. There was a determination. I saw in the lake how she lifted her legs and.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:31:23]:
And then. And then I think my soul took over because still kept looking at her. And my soul said, I'm her. She and I are the same. I am limping. I am wounded for life, but I am determined.
Theresa [00:31:53]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:31:54]:
And she and I are the same. And it gave me pause to pray for us. And the ego, I don't think would have done that.
Theresa [00:32:11]:
Agreed.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:32:12]:
It only did the first part, but the second part of the soul came into that, and it was just getting a glass of water, looking out the kitchen window. That is a flowering of consciousness.
Theresa [00:32:30]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:32:32]:
It comes in different forms all day long.
Theresa [00:32:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. I love the visual of that. Yeah.
Walker [00:32:42]:
When. When you have those moments, does it come suddenly? Are you, like, in the ego? And then all of a sudden you realize. Or how. How does that happen for you when you know, I am. The soul is coming through in this moment. As I watch this lady now.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:33:07]:
Well, it's for me. I'm glad you asked that question, because I don't think I've ever been asked that before. So you're giving me pause to think. It's a happy and whole feeling. I feel full and free and happy. I'm not categorizing people. I'm not. I'm not figuring out a way I can survive a certain moment.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:33:37]:
It's living in the present. And when it comes, when. When you're able to do that and you work on doing that, when it comes, there's such a good feeling that you know your brain is in relief because it's not Having to work that mental structure of the ego. You're trusting the moment. You're trusting that you're seeing everything, not with the perception out of the ego, but with the eyes of the soul, which lets us see much deeper into every situation, not only visually, but intuitively.
Walker [00:34:16]:
For. For yourself, Joe. And I know that your course has got to teach this, but for you on the other side, how is it that you practice getting yourself in that space more and more often?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:34:37]:
Well, for me, it's two major spiritual practices. The. They are both. And they go hand in hand, meditation and writing. I meditate, then I write. That's how all my writings come to me. I do a daily reflection every day. And.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:35:13]:
And. And they. They go out to our institute and other friends, and there's not a day that this thing doesn't well up in me and I have to write it. And it. It is a spiritual practice because I'm doing spiritual work writing these things.
Theresa [00:35:35]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:35:38]:
And then, of course, I write my books, which is another type of writing. And it's also very consciousness raising. Much introspection, much analysis of the. The world around me. For example, I know today I was writing, what if we did know the future? What would be the implications of that? That's a huge.
Theresa [00:36:14]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:36:14]:
I haven't even begun to get into that yet, but I can't wait to see what's written. You know, the whole idea of something coming through. You sure?
Theresa [00:36:26]:
Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:36:27]:
It makes you feel great. Yeah. To be linked, to be so connected with something greater than I am. It's just a tremendous compliment and blessing and affirmation.
Theresa [00:36:44]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:36:45]:
The. The meditation I do is quite different from any meditation that I have been taught until I found out about this one. And I found out about this one when I went to India and was at an ashram there. And I've since been back to the same ashram. It's. It's a meditation called Heartfulness. Not mindfulness. Heartfulness.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:37:26]:
It doesn't mean the mind isn't used, but it means that the meditation is focused on the heart area of our bodies and the light, the source of light within our heart that draws us into itself so that our mind and body are drawn into this first organ that we were ever given as we were being made.
Theresa [00:37:56]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:37:58]:
And it's. It's another tremendous gift that has been given me, and I don't mind sharing with you and the audience that you can learn about this wonderful techniques totally free of charge by going to the Heartfulness app, which is free, and they teach you all of these meditations, and they do a good job because I've been there with. With the people themselves and, And I've had. I've seen their. Their product online or it's not. It's not for sale. It's. It's just given freely.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:38:43]:
Yeah. And. And it's. It's a very good teaching app if anyone wants to learn about heartfulness meditation. It's very, very powerful.
Theresa [00:38:59]:
Wow.
Walker [00:39:01]:
Thank you for sharing.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:02]:
Oh, yeah.
Walker [00:39:03]:
Just giving people tools is so important.
Theresa [00:39:05]:
Yes.
Walker [00:39:06]:
You had another point, though.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:08]:
I was just saying that it takes those two together. For me, it. It isn't one or the other. It's. I guess it's receiving in meditation and then. Then giving. You know, it's that flow that gets you in.
Theresa [00:39:26]:
Yeah.
Walker [00:39:27]:
Reciprocity.
Theresa [00:39:28]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:29]:
Yeah. People describe it. Yeah.
Walker [00:39:32]:
So nice.
Theresa [00:39:33]:
Yeah. Joe, when you think about your journey, what are some other, I don't know, resources that you feel like might be helpful for people to explore?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:49]:
I think that retreat is a life changer.
Theresa [00:39:58]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:39:59]:
Coming aside from the routine that we get ourselves into that. One of the early fathers of the Enneagram, she's named George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, who brought the Enneagram over to the United States from the east at the beginning of the last century. He was the first person to bring it to the United States.
Theresa [00:40:31]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:40:32]:
In the form of dance with the energies. How he was taught it at the monastery that he learned it. And he said most people are sleepwalking through life.
Theresa [00:40:50]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:40:52]:
And it's easy if you do until. Until something happens called a shock point or a tragedy or whatever.
Theresa [00:41:05]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:06]:
And. And we wake up for a little bit, and then we go right back to sleep.
Theresa [00:41:11]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:12]:
So many people's days are getting up, making the coffee, putting on their clothes, getting in the car, going this way, going that way, the way they did it yesterday and the day.
Walker [00:41:23]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:24]:
Yeah. It. It may be punctuated by, you know, an anniversary or, you know, or. Or. Or an event or whatever, but the. The order of the day is sameness.
Theresa [00:41:38]:
Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:39]:
And the reason that we, like most people like that is because predictability gives us control or it. It makes us think we have and that nothing bad is going to happen. If we do the same thing every day.
Theresa [00:41:56]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:41:57]:
If we work the same job, if we see just the same people, if we go to work just that same route, if we get our gas at the same gas station, if we shop at the same grocery store, if we go vacationing at the very same place and do the very same thing with the very same people.
Theresa [00:42:17]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:42:20]:
What, you know what life is there in that, right? It's like somebody's caught in Groundhog Day, that movie.
Theresa [00:42:33]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:42:36]:
And. And so retreat gets us out of that gerbil wheel that so many of us are on and, and we go someplace. And one of the best places to go, I have found is. Is a monastery. And they're all over. Yes, they're all over. And most monasteries take retreatants and even have a retreat house or retreat portion of them. And they.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:43:16]:
There's one here in Alabama, Sacred Heart Monastery. They even do massage. They do individual spiritual direction. They have a labyrinth that you can walk, you can, you can worship with, with the religious there at every, you know, in the morning at matins and, and for vespers in the afternoon. And then some have a service in, in the chapel at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and all of them gather for that and you're allowed to go, too. So there is a rhythm to it, but it's not the rhythm of our normal day. It's a divine rhythm.
Theresa [00:44:04]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:44:04]:
It's been going on for centuries in these orders, and we can make ourselves attuned to that if we want. And we start thinking differently when we're in a different environment.
Theresa [00:44:20]:
Yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:44:22]:
And if that environment is holy, if it's sacred space, we start thinking from our soul instead of our ego. We begin to realize we are good. We are good people. We are. We are wonderful people. We each were born as a soul child who didn't come into this world with any egoic propensities at all. They were just sheer soul.
Theresa [00:44:54]:
Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:44:55]:
And. And when she or he walks through the living room and mom and dad have guests and they walk through totally naked and everybody goes, oh, no, no, no.
Walker [00:45:07]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:08]:
They wonder, what's to fuss about. Are not beautiful. Aren't I beautiful?
Theresa [00:45:13]:
Yeah.
Walker [00:45:15]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:16]:
Okay. That's what the little soul child says. Aren't I beautiful? And then when they see the horror on everybody's faces, then they begin to wonder, oh, well, maybe I'm not so beautiful. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm ugly. Maybe I've done something terribly shameful.
Theresa [00:45:36]:
Right?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:36]:
When that shame comes in layer after layer after layer, we say, I won't be my soul child anymore. I am going to find a way to deal with all this. And that's when the ego really just sets in, Right. Usually about five. Five years old. Four. Some. Some.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:45:57]:
It's later, some slay. And it isn't usually until the second half of life. We. We realize that the ego really isn't doing its job of helping us feel the bliss that we so desire. And we. We are yearn to return to that essence. But we don't know.
Walker [00:46:17]:
Yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:46:17]:
And. And that's why reconnecting with. With the spirit and retreat is one of those ways to do it. The labyrinth is another way. Way. I don't know if you've. Yeah, it's. It's just been quite amazing for us to do the labyrinth.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:46:41]:
And we have been privileged to have gone to the. The cathedral at Chartres, France.
Walker [00:46:49]:
Wonderful.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:46:50]:
Been able to walk the labyrinth there, which is an unbelievably huge labyrinth in the. Done in marble, in the. In the. The floor of. Of the cathedral.
Theresa [00:47:04]:
Wow.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:47:04]:
And during the times that the cathedral was first used, that labyrinth was walked before people went up to the altar.
Theresa [00:47:16]:
Oh, okay.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:47:17]:
Because it got them into the holy rhythm and the holy space. Then they could go to the. To the. The worship, the Eucharist or whatever it may have been at the time. And I think that the. The world of art is another way. Creative expression.
Theresa [00:47:42]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:47:43]:
I. I noticed that beautiful painting in back of view. It. It's. It's a showstopper because it's alive. And did one of you do that?
Theresa [00:47:58]:
No, no, no. But I found an artist that. Yeah. That made it. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:48:04]:
And. And in doing this, we. We go to that creative part of our wonderful soul child and we express God.
Theresa [00:48:17]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:48:18]:
Through our fingers and through our musical instrument or through our singing bowls.
Theresa [00:48:24]:
Yes, yes.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:48:27]:
And we're connected. We have found the connection. So though I'm. I. I could go on and on about. About spiritual practices there, as you know, there. There's a myriad of them.
Theresa [00:48:45]:
Yeah, yeah, agreed. Yeah. Joe, one of the things, when you were talking about retreat, I would say for me, that was probably foundationally my first experience. I went to the White House in St. Louis. I think I was 29. And that was the first time I'd been on a retreat for myself, you know, other than someone saying, here, go to this leadership retreat or something, you know, this was my first time away. And over the years, I so value retreat.
Theresa [00:49:28]:
Exactly what you were sharing and then. And then in my work, studying even the physiological part of stepping out, you know, I. This is my words. But, you know, our body's designed to keep us alive and do it as efficiently as possible. It's not caring so much about how was Joe's day. Right. Joe's alive. Right.
Theresa [00:49:53]:
And so, you know, for me, I think it's very Difficult physiologically or to change our brain if we are always in the same experience. And so I tell people, even physiologically, not just mentally and emotionally, but physiologically, our body needs difference so that it can literally be different and. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:50:19]:
Yeah. And even make different neuropathways.
Theresa [00:50:22]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Walker [00:50:26]:
Oh, I. I've got an interesting question for you too. If I'm breaking your flow, just.
Theresa [00:50:37]:
No, no, no.
Theresa [00:50:37]:
Go ahead, go ahead.
Theresa [00:50:38]:
I'm good. I'm good.
Walker [00:50:42]:
We have these times where we're closer to living in the soul space than we are the ego space.
Walker [00:50:48]:
Face.
Walker [00:50:48]:
And then we fall back, you know, and it. There's this back and forth, I would assume, for everybody, even if you're further along the spectrum.
Walker [00:50:57]:
But.
Walker [00:51:00]:
And this is one of those big questions that you probably thought through, but why do you think that our soul goes to sleep?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:51:22]:
I. I think, Walker, that the soul is not asleep. It's still alive, but our ego is in charge. And our ego is. Is anesthetized to doing the routine, to thinking the same strategies, to relying on itself. The soul is. Is to put it in. In a.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:52:03]:
An example. It. When. When developmentally, when we were a child, we had to put that little spunt in the spontaneous, beautiful being under a crust because it was going to get clobbered.
Theresa [00:52:25]:
Right, Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:52:26]:
It was told it was not. And it just happens to everyone. Because if it didn't happen, we. Because children are so just who they are, just so spontaneous, whatever. It would be a very. There would be no organization. Okay. Everything would just be what a child does when a child wants, and there would be no organization.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:52:57]:
So the world imposes a structure on behavior, individual behavior, family behavior and cultural behavior. And we have to live in that structure. Therefore, we allow our soul, and our soul allows us to put it under a crust. To survive.
Theresa [00:53:27]:
To survive. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:53:29]:
Now it does emerge. Come on. It emerges a lot. It emerges when we're children and teenagers and young adults. It most emerges when there are times of great happiness and like a birth or a marriage or. The soul just completely takes over because it. It's reminded of what life is about. And it takes over during death.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:09]:
Many times it resurfaces because it. It. It knows more than the ego knows about death.
Theresa [00:54:19]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:20]:
The ego can only see death as a problem.
Theresa [00:54:25]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:26]:
But the soul understands the. The motif, the spiritual motif of earth, death and resurrection. And the soul comes to the fore to say, this is. This is. This is not what you think. This. This is. This is not the end of everything.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:54:58]:
There is more and there is Deeper and so have joy. But then the soul has to go back under the crust because remember, the ego was hired to be the CEO of our lives.
Theresa [00:55:18]:
Right.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:55:20]:
And then when we reach the point of, of a critical mass of suffering, and like I say, it usually happens around midlife 40 for a lot of people it happens much sooner and some later. But you reach the point that, that, that of a critical mass of suffering that you say, I don't know why I'm suffering so, but I'm going to find out why. Yeah, I'm going to do something to relieve it. And that's when many people go on a strong, well, a determined spiritual search.
Theresa [00:56:06]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:56:07]:
They search for a way to get out of this terrible pain because they know a lot of it is self inflicted. You know, everybody goes around saying that, saying, what is it? The death definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. That's a popular saying. A lot of people say it, but you know, it's true.
Theresa [00:56:37]:
And yet we do the same thing over and over and over.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:56:40]:
Yeah, that's the ego style. So when, when people do a search for their true selves, their authentic selves, and want to dispense with the sameness and the pain of the ego, they learn different aspects of themselves. And like I say that they, that they are somebody else that's much more powerful, much more beautiful than their ego ever could imagine. They're becoming under its own stain. And I think that that's an absolutely beautiful thing because then the soul can be brought out unashamedly and it amalgamates. It's, it's in our work, we call it alchemy, spiritual alchemy term and made popular by Carl Jung, psychologist in the last century. And the ego and the soul then amalgamate and become partners, but the CEO is the soul and the ego is in service of the soul.
Theresa [00:58:07]:
That's nice. Yeah.
Walker [00:58:15]:
Yeah, I see. You know, there's a, there's a balance in that and I appreciate the teaching, Joe.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:58:27]:
Yeah, thank you.
Theresa [00:58:35]:
Oh, well, Joe, the hour goes so quickly.
Walker [00:58:41]:
I can talk to you the rest of the day, maybe more. So nice.
Theresa [00:58:48]:
Yeah, it is so nice. So, Joe, to finish up today, if you were going to offer to the people listening an intention, you know, or a mantra for them to consider. What might that be?
Dr. Joe Howell [00:59:13]:
I, I, we have a prayer that we say all the time.
Theresa [00:59:21]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:59:24]:
And I, I would be glad. It was written by George Appleton a. And I think it was an archbishop in England. And it goes, it's called the gathering prayer. I would like to repeat it.
Theresa [00:59:46]:
I would love that. Please. Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [00:59:50]:
Give me a candle of the spirit of God as I go down into the deep of my own being. Show me the hidden things. Take me down to the spring of my life and tell me my nature and my name. Give me freedom to grow so that I may become my true self. The fulfillment of the seed which you planted in me at my making. Out of the deep, I cry unto thee, O God. Amen.
Theresa [01:00:33]:
I love that. Thank you, Joe.
Dr. Joe Howell [01:00:38]:
It's been a pleasure.
Theresa [01:00:40]:
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Howell [01:00:41]:
Walker, thank you. Yeah.
Theresa [01:00:43]:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. We are excited to explore life with you. We encourage curiosity, self growth, and we strive to be more compassionate every day.