Bitcoin, Death, & Inspired Living — Erin Crawford

Link to the YouTube (the timestamps are based on this): https://youtu.be/iCaLjLRUE7Q

DJ Valerie: Hey everybody, what’s up? I’m DJ Val — this is Erin Crawford, and we’re having some fun collaborating today on both of our podcasts. And so this has been a really great pleasure having Erin get to come hang out with me for a while here in my little mountain place.

Erin Crawford: I did leave but then I came back!

DJ Valerie: It’s great — I know! I’m like, I want the citadel for all of us to have our own little pocket, because it’s been really cool being able to have space but then come together and have our coffee talks and then being able to think about new opportunities to collaborate with each other and to get the message of our own work that we do out in the world in service of Bitcoin adoption and helping Bitcoiners live their very best lives and helping people who aren’t Bitcoiners hopefully become Bitcoiners, too. Erin and I are submitting this as kind of a mini little proposal for a talk at Pacific Bitcoin conference. We think it’s very valuable — this content that we’re about to share, and we think it will really benefit the bridge from before and after Bitcoin and helping us each reach our full capacity for joy and human expression, individually.

Erin Crawford [1:47]: Yeah, and it was BitBlockBoom this weekend and we had this conversation about the next level of where these Bitcoin conferences are gonna go. I was thinking this morning: it’s a lot of Bitcoin maxis that come to the events, and so it’s like, How many more talks do we need on why you should take self-custody? It’s like, Yes of course those talks are important, but now I feel like the whole Bitcoin community is leveling up — instead of just talking about these Bitcoins citadels, there’s actually people out there building them! So it’s like, How do we make it a more holistic experience? How do we have more tangible opportunities for connection with people one-on-one? I was listening to Cafe Bitcoin this morning and of course all conferences are amazing and so so good, but there’s people that are on that panel together every morning who are like, Oh I didn’t get a chance to run into you! And that’s the juice that we miss — that’s why I love the Beef Initiative so much: it was just such a small event with such deep connection. So it’s all the experiences that are built around Bitcoin. It’s like, Yeah we can discuss Bitcoin itself for hours on end — and we have, and we will continue to do so — but it’s like, Okay now it’s like Lightning being layered in as a level two! It’s like, Okay how do we layer in more conversation and more experiences into this whole ecosystem that Bitcoin is turning into?

DJ Valerie [3:29]: Yeah I think it’s like the soft side — I call it the soft side of life. Even though Bitcoin isn’t something you can touch in your hands, in my mind it feels tangible to me: it’s math. It’s predictable. It’s not this subjective thing like the human experience and the human emotions that we have. And so it feels like that’s there, and then to continue expanding the conversation to the soft sides of: what it means to be human, what it means to be a Bitcoiner, what it means to go through this revolution together, what it means to stay strong and grounded in your unique self — your one and only you. And how do we — I say the word reverse engineer, and you said what is it, back-casting?

Erin Crawford [4:19]: Back-casting. It’s not me it was Peter Attia that said it but I heard it this morning and I thought, Oh that’s cool! It kind of helps just — again, language: some people just understand different things differently. So back-cast.

DJ Valerie [4:34]: Yeah I get stuck sometimes on the like, Oh there’s too many Bitcoin podcasts out there! There’s already enough people talking about personal growth! Or, There’s already enough of this, enough of that, whatever. And what you just said: different people’s voices resonate with different audiences, and you might be saying similar stuff but somehow I’m going to listen — I’m magnetized toward this person or that person. And so I think for all of us as Bitcoiners and people who want to help educate and empower others to be able to utilize it, all of our voices — they matter! And even though we may not be as technical as others or we may not be as financially savvy about how the macro stuff works, we can at least point people in the right direction. And so I think it’s important that we don’t shy away from speaking and sharing these things with each other — not just Bitcoin, but contemplating our death: how to live the fullest life in each moment and being always incurably curious! And I always think of like, How can I keep that mindset? Because it’s easy to go into old patterns and get a little rigid and crusty. And for all of us — for any of us [we’re] like, This is how it’s supposed to be! With whatever!

Erin Crawford [6:00]: Just to interject: I was always one of those people — and I still am in a lot of ways — where I’m like, Oh my routine is what helps me be my best self, it’s what helps me regulate. Yes — and it’s also what keeps me rigid and not willing to make room for a new possibility in my life. Perfect example this morning: we need to record, and I’m like, [But] I have to go to the gym! And I was just saying yesterday — I sweat daily, it’s part of how I feel my best, but — I think at the very least we have to be able to contemplate like, Well if I didn’t do that, if I didn’t have that outlet for my energy, what might I create? Or what might come in if I needed to consciously redirect it towards something? It’s that self-awareness! Am I falling into these same neurological pathways? I don’t know if it was Michael Pollan or what author it was, but that’s why psychedelics — because they help bust you out. They talk about it like a toboggan hill: when you first go down it’s like all that fresh powder — the track is very slow. And then the more you continue to go down it the deeper the ridge and the faster — so that’s how our brain works, also. And I think that’s just one of the beautiful aspects of Bitcoin is that it does help us to look at the things that we do from a different perspective.

DJ Valerie [7:38]: Totally different perspective! Well I mean clearly it’s like what’s going on right now in this moment, but I think it definitely puts that lower time preference of looking a lot more to the future and not being as short-term gain, short-term instant gratification mindset — I know it’s changed me immensely in regards to that. And I think I’m still patterned a lot in my old ways of like, Okay what’s going to give me the quickest relief right now? Or, What’s going to get me the most money right now? And it’s like, Okay let’s really step out a few years, decades, many decades. And it’s hard to do that because I’m a nowist — I love being here now. I’m a total nowist. And Ram Dass has taught me so much over the years as, That’s really it: is being here now, being loved now, being just aware because even if we do this back-casting or reverse engineering and writing our treasure map and code for life and our obituaries, it’s still like, The juice is in the moment! Right now — this second, this little moment that we have! And it’s like, How do you do both gracefully and not just be like, La la la I’m just gonna do what I feel like all the time — that doesn’t work!

Erin Crawford [9:12]: Yeah there is that interesting juxtaposition, because Bitcoin does help you have a lower time preference, which is actually good for thinking about your death: what do you want your life to look like, what do you want the life of your kids and your grandkids — and so you go to that place and then you think, Okay well what do I need to do now to make that happen? And I have a saying in my work as a death doula that, What matters in the end is what matters now. So it’s not being in one place versus the other — always future focused, low time preference — it’s that and getting all the juice at the same time.

DJ Valerie [10:00]: I love that — what matters in the end is what matters now. And it is — it’s so true! And it’s just this — how are we consciously designing our nows so that it can achieve that vision of what matters. And so it is true. What do you find in your talks with people that matters the most to them at the end?

Erin Crawford [10:23]: Relationships. And not having regrets — that’s the big one. I was saying this morning: we’ve been having the death-Bitcoin-life engineering conversation for the last couple weeks, and in my experience working with people as a death doula, we talk about this fear of death, but that’s kind of an umbrella — what does that mean exactly? And I’ve come to discover: people are mostly afraid of having regret at end of life. So: not having healed relationships, not having taken that cruise through the Mediterranean. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s a deeper — if it’s like, Oh I never had a connection to God. Or if it’s, I never took that cruise. What matters to the individual is what matters to the individual! It doesn’t matter the depth of the thing — if it’s gonna be a regret, it’s gonna be a regret.

DJ Valerie [11:25]: Right. If I didn’t enter my quilt into the quilting competition because I was afraid and I never — it doesn’t matter what it is!

Erin Crawford [11:34]: It can be material, it can be spiritual, it can be emotional, but yeah — what are those regrets going to be? And the trap that we all get caught in is: we all think we have time. I fall into that trap every day like, Oh I’ve got time to write that article, I’ve got time to call my dad — I’ll call him tomorrow. And yeah chances are if you had to bet: do I have more time than not? You probably do — but we never really know that, and that’s the whole point.

DJ Valerie [12:09]: Yeah I think it’s a delicate balance because you’re hoping you’re gonna have some more time to do all these things, and these connections, but it may be you might get rugged. In December just 7–8 months ago I flipped my minivan — it was a totally dry afternoon, I was completely sober, I was totally good — and it was like two in the afternoon and I was on my way to go get my greys done and so I’m just driving down and somebody veered in my lane and I’m fucking honking on the horn and they weren’t paying [attention], they were on their phone and I live in the mountains and I was like, Holy shit! And so I overcorrected and then I smashed into the mountain and flipped my van. And I wasn’t planning on that that morning! Nobody ever plans that — like, what the fuck — and thank God I walked away from that, but I could have died for sure. And the van’s — oh my goodness — and so yay seat belts and airbags, but that was one of those like, Oh wow that’s real. This is not a joke. It ends. This shit ends for real. Okay so let’s circle back to Bitcoin, Death, Inspired Living: let’s talk about the no regrets living, the bucket list living, your daily practice, how can we as individuals create something that gives us the future that we’re looking for?

Erin Crawford [14:21]: Well I think it’s so interesting because I think just — maybe it’s by default? — I don’t know I’m curious what you think about this, but just being part of the Bitcoin space, you are going to go down the rabbit hole, whatever, you’re going to go down that path at some point. Because we always need mirrors in life — we need to mirror ourselves off of other people, other things in order to understand our own inherent goodness. We talk about it all the time: Why do people that love Bitcoin, why are they all of a sudden spiritual? Or, Why are they all of a sudden taking care of their health? Or thinking more deeply about their relationships? And it’s because we see this thing in Bitcoin — and all that it represents and all of the hope and all of the optimism — and we want to become more like Bitcoin! I thought I was in a pretty good place — and I was, before Bitcoin — and even I have changed as a result. We were talking as well this morning: you get to these places where you think you’ve plateaued and you’re like, Okay I think I’ve made it! And then inevitably something either knocks you down and you have all this work to do, or you see something that you want to aspire to. And I think that’s a whole other conversation I suppose like, Why is it this thing? — that in a society we’ve been removed from death, we’ve been in survival mode for so long, we’ve had a high time preference, and we haven’t had a thing to feel really inspired about. We certainly don’t feel inspired by our politicians or the banking system or this hamster wheel that we’re on. So it’s like, Okay now this new inspiration is coming in, I’m actually starting to think about the future — Oh, what’s gonna happen in the future? I’m gonna die. So what do I need to do now? What do I need to start to bring into alignment so that I’m not on my deathbed going, Oh shit — I never did X, Y, Z, or I never forgave that person for the thing I’ve been holding in for so long. What was your question?

DJ Valerie [17:08]: The question was about practices that we do on a daily basis so that we can stay in alignment, and so it’s that self-awareness.

Erin Crawford [17:19]: Yeah, I just think about it straight up — there will just be times in my day where I’m like, Oh yeah I’m gonna die.

DJ Valerie: And so what do you envision? You were saying earlier before we hit record that that gentleman talks about your last 10 years of your life. What do you envision the last year of your life looking like? To squish it down a little bit more.

Erin Crawford [17:41]: I was thinking about that on my walk this morning! So, to be transparent — which is the whole point, and we were talking about it before we sat down — I’m like, Am I going to be an old lady alone just sitting there? Am I gonna be full of regret? And it’s really interesting — as mindful of it as I am and as much as I feel like I’m going to produce good things in the world and do good things for humanity, that fear is still there that none of this will matter and I will not have anyone who loves me at the end. But then, like I was saying: We have to look at the now for evidence that that’s not true. So here you are beside me and we have this thing happening, so why would I allow myself to fall into that fear-based mindset? And I just happened to be wearing my Freedom Over Fear shirt and we’ve had this conversation before, too, is that: I think all things in life boil down to either love or fear. So we’re gonna go to the fear-based mindset — it’s part of our survival instinct, it’s just that reptile brain, and we’ve been conditioned and indoctrinated into a system where we exist in a fear-based mindset! Everything is scarcity — there is not enough — we see homeless people everywhere. It’s hard not to think, Ooh fuck — what if that happens to me?

DJ Valerie [19:19]: Every time I drive by homeless people I think that, and I’m just so grateful that in this moment it’s not me. And I also understand the fragility of the human spirit and the human mind: I believe the human spirit is very strong — I think the human mind is not, and especially a human mind that has not been trained and the spirit being aware of what the mind is up to and how it can hurt us on accident.

Erin Crawford [19:51]: Yeah it’s so interesting because it really is — mindset is everything. Mindset will get you through any physical, emotional, spiritual challenge. So as much as we can prepare and train for the hard stuff — that’s why I go for runs, that’s why I lift weights, because I have to coach myself through those hard moments all the time, and we also need things that come in and just knock us on our ass. That we can be proactive, and we’re also going to have those moments of being reactive. And not that one is better than the other, but I think those reactive moments are really fertile training grounds.

DJ Valerie [20:39]: Those are the biggest training grounds for this woman here! I definitely struggle, still, with the reactivity of my nervous system being the way that it has been programmed for so many years. And then coming out of that fear-based reactivity, the fear-based storytelling that goes on up here because of all the shit that’s going on out here and then just not having the capacity and the energy, depending on what point of life we’re at, especially when we’re taxed with hormonal issues, if we’re taxed with sleep deprivation, if we’re taxed with issues around money, if we’re taxed with issues around our relationship struggles, etc. We don’t have the capacity sometimes to pause, parse all the information, determine if it’s true or not, and then make clear choices — we are in a reactionary state because of a lot of these things all happening at once. And if we don’t consciously step back and out of it and take note of how the things are working, we’re just going to be tumbling along in it and then hoping like, Okay maybe I won’t react today! Instead of really understanding like, How do I keep my center? And I think the mindfulness practice is very important — 100% — and your vibe practice, your practice of connecting with your essence, with your heart, with your spirit, with your soul, through states of ecstasy whether you’re in nature, whether you’re with music, whether you’re doing art or dancing or whatever. It’s those moments too that I think, for me personally, get me in a state of faith — they get me in a state of faith and understanding that I am safe in this moment. Everything is okay. And so then it allows that energy to flow and my nervous system can chill the fuck out, and then I can think clearly — to a certain degree. Sometimes I’ll still be reacting, but at least I’m listening to that more intuitive thing, and then it can help my mind think more logically, but it takes practice. I’m not always in the like, I’m in the highest vibe state! It’s like — I just had a big important call before this and I did a lot of prayer, meditation, I wrote things out, I got clear. I wrote two letters so that my brain was like, Okay what are your intentions? What are your objectives? All those things. And so and I did a few things to get my body in a place of ease — and it went really well! So I was grateful, but the conversation that caused me to have to have this conversation today — last Friday: I didn’t do the prep, I didn’t get my mind and body into a place of power. I was on default and I just thought, Okay I’m just gonna go casually have this conversation about something very important — and it backfired, because I ended up going into a place of reaction and then that was not helpful at all, to any of us. And so I completely own that, but I realized like, Wow — not prepping, not being mindful of being in my power and my intention, and then prepping and being in my power and intention and doing this? Two totally different consequences and results! And that’s just like, Oh — one thing I can do to help live a better life in the moment is be mindful of how I’m gonna show up and communicate with people.

Erin Crawford: Yeah, because we do some forecasting.

DJ Valerie [24:27]: Seriously! Just like, Oh I got this — I’m surfing on the wave and I’m fucking about — I’m not a big surfer but I know that surfers, especially surfers who are hitting the big waves, they have to study the waves for a little while and they go see what’s going on and they watch what’s happening with other people and they have to get themselves prepared to get out there and go do these big things. Life is sometimes like that! And I guess I just think like, Oh just paddle out! It’ll be great! I’ve done this before — I’m so good at this! It’s like, No dude! That’s just real. So I think sometimes just pausing and remembering: you get a better result when you pause. Pausing is so important. Start now: allow a pause. Snap snap start now: allow a pause.

Erin Crawford [25:21]: Yeah that’s a huge thing to remember and be mindful of and to practice. I don’t know if it was Scott on the last day of the Beef Initiative that did the devotional or if it was Slim that mentioned the pause? And that’s like, Oh yeah that is so powerful! And I thought, I’m always going to pause from now on. I just realized I had completely forgotten about that until you mentioned it!

DJ Valerie [25:50]: I know, and it’s like the snap goes mommy thing that I’m working on — I came up with it because I wanted to do like, Start now: achieve progress. Start now: access power. Start now: align peace. Start now: allow a pause. And so the first thing you have to do is allow the pause — that’s the number one. It’s start now: allow pause. And then you can align your peace. Then you can access your power. But if you’re not pausing? You’re on autopilot and you’re just hoping that it fucking works.

Erin Crawford: Yeah, not even hoping that it works — you’re just reacting.

DJ Valerie [26:29]: Yeah so it’s that mindful living — this is this 11:11 project mindset of mine, because I need sticky notes! I forget things. And at the 11 minute of the hour 24 times a day, it’s this opportunity — if we wish to tune in — and be like, I’m going to reset my mind. So whether it’s 2:11 or whatever-11 your time, but imagine a tapestry of all of us in the world that have developed one simple practice together and it’s allowing a pause on the 11 minute of any hour — not that you have to do it 24 times a day — but imagine five years from now.

Erin Crawford: You have to wake up in the middle of the night, pause, and then go back to sleep! I was already pausing!

DJ Valerie [27:21]: But think about the consciousness shift that we could implement on our planet if we could do that one tiny simple thing — wouldn’t it be interesting? As a thought experiment to understand like, What would be the implications of that? And I think the implications would be exponentially gorgeous and wonderful and big for the way that we operate as humans. And it doesn’t matter what political [party] you believe in, it doesn’t matter what god you believe in or not believe in, it doesn’t matter if you’re green or purple or short or sideways — whatever. Nobody cares! Everybody could use this tiny little tool, and then that’s your moment to reflect: How am I doing right now? Am I aligned with love? Am I aligned with fear? Am I breathing? Am I abundant? Am I truly in lack or is that a bullshit story? Am I powerful? All of it! Sending love out to the world and peace to yourself and peace to the world — it sounds so cheesy and corny but it’s real!

Erin Crawford [28:32]: Yeah and that would also be a good opportunity to remember your death at the same time. So in the moment if you’re caught up in this reactivity — I talk about this a lot: we need to zoom out as much as we can. We need to zoom out, we need to observe — you talk about this as well — observe the life from above and go, Oh, remembering that one day I’ll be dead, does this thing that has taken over my reality and completely hijacked my nervous system, in that context of remembering that one day I won’t be here, does this thing really matter? Is it worth all this energy that I’m giving to it? Imagine if you had a calendar that showed you every single day of your life that you had left, and then you’re gonna sacrifice one of those days to spin out on some bullshit? And the mindfuck is that we don’t have that calendar, so we think that we have infinity! And some people, depending on the environment you grew up in: chaos is actually what feels normal. So if you are giving a lot of your time and energy to chaos, that might actually be where you feel most safe or what feels familiar.

DJ Valerie [30:10]: Dr. Joe Dispenza talks a lot about that and just how we’re trained because of these default neural pathways that like, Oh, this is familiar to operate at this much uncertainty, this much confusion and chaos.

Erin Crawford: When you’re hyper-vigilant like we talked about.

DJ Valerie: And our bodies just feel more familiar there, not that it’s comfortable or where we wish to reside, but they talk about changing your behavior and your default neural network, and so they talk about like if you were driving a truck through the mud back and forth to go from Point A to Point B, at some point all you have to do is push the gas.

Erin Crawford: Yeah like the toboggan hill.

DJ Valerie [30:54]: Yeah like toboggan — like that.

Erin Crawford: You can just close your eyes and just hammer the gas and you’re still gonna make it!

DJ Valerie: Exactly. And so in order for us to create behavior shifts so that instead of going left we want to go right at this turn, you have so much more effort and awareness that you have to put in to get the new neural pathway to take the turn. So if you’re in default mode — rather than reacting and going over here — you have to consciously keep pushing yourself over here until this is a deeper groove, so that if you are on autopilot then you’re going to go that way. And so that to me is where that daily practice comes in — it comes in obviously being with each other in relationships. This is the training to be in your daily practice and your soul dojo I like to call it, but then the real tests come when you’re with other humans. These last three weeks have been Hell on Earth for me — great! It’s lessons! It’s fucking lessons — some more lessons. And wow — I thought I was doing so great and I realized: You are, and you still have all this to learn and you’re still in default mode over here.

Erin Crawford [32:18]: You’re never outside of the soul curriculum — you get summer breaks! You get recess and you get snack time.

DJ Valerie: Do we get graham crackers and milk with our soul curriculum?

Erin Crawford [32:33]: There’s no graduation — death is the graduation.

DJ Valerie: Oh you’re right it is. There is no graduation.

Erin Crawford: And we were talking too about like, How do you want to be at the time of death? And we want to be like, Fuck yes! Let’s take it to the next level!

DJ Valerie [32:48]: Let’s go! That was fucking awesome!

Erin Crawford: Put me down death river! Because I don’t know if it’s a buddhist idea, but it is an idea that’s out there that the state of mind you inhabit at your time of death is actually — if you believe in reincarnation, who the F knows what happens, but — that will be the reality that you enter back into. I forget what I was reading but it could have been one of Ram Dass’s things — he said, Somebody died thinking about a mango. Mango was their favorite fruit. And then they came back as a mango or something to that effect! So I think about that a lot: I don’t want to just get to the end with no regrets — and I mean of course, yes — but I also want to be like, Let’s go! Let’s see what’s next!

DJ Valerie: No shit! I do too! I feel like I want to leave this the way that I would leave Disneyland! I want to leave Disneyland being like, Weren’t those rides great? It was fucking awesome! I like the twister thing — it was so cool! Cotton candy — I love blue cotton candy! My lips are fucking blue and everything was great! And oh we got lost along the way but found each-other — yeah! I want to leave really really book-worthy — I want to leave knowing that my life is interesting enough to have written a book about it, and I also want to know that other people felt more loved because they knew me. That’s it! I want to just have adventures that are fucking crazy and wild, and I want to know that the people in my life felt more love in this world because I love them. That’s all — and we want to get Bitcoin.

Erin Crawford [34:43]: I think that that is it, and I had a similar conversation with Texas Slim: at least for me, I know that my purpose is to increase the amount of love in the world. And I think intrinsically as humans, that is the purpose. And maybe it’s God’s will or who knows why we have that innate desire, and then life happens — especially fiat life — gets layered on top and then we’re unable to fulfill the sole purpose of being here! And again here comes Bitcoin where it’s like, Oh my gosh if I didn’t have to constantly worry about money, live month to month, how am I going to pay the electricity bill, I could actually tap into how am I going to increase the amount of love in the world and what is my medium going to be! We all have different mediums: Slim’s doing it with beef, you’re doing it with 11x LOVE and community, I’m doing it through death, but we’re all just doing the same thing at the end of the day, and we’re all comparing and contrasting those things against Bitcoin and finding this community of people that are also doing the same things just in different ways. And that’s what’s so cool about it. I thought I had to keep death and Bitcoin separate because I kind of discovered both at the same time, and the more I tried to keep them separate, the more I realized like, Oh they’re actually the same thing — it’s all about more love.

DJ Valerie [36:32]: It is all about more love. It is!

Erin Crawford: Look at these glasses!

DJ Valerie: I love these glasses because they remind me I have a choice: every time I look at something I can choose to look at life through just plain glasses or I can choose to look at life through the lens of love. And yes that is corny and cheesy and I don’t care because that’s me that’s the queen of corn! It’s true though man and it’s just like some people are chefs — their love language is cooking food for people and that’s the service and unique gift that they bring to the world. And so imagine a world where we all truly said yes to our essence and yes and took time to understand what it is that lights us up, what it is that we can share with the world that will provide value, what it is that we can exchange value for because, Oh yeah this person does that and this other person — wouldn’t it be a magical world if we could all do that? And I don’t know it sounds like wishful thinking because someone’s always got to clean the toilets is what people say like, Oh there’s always somebody like that. Yeah I agree, and what if they’re just on a different level or layer or tentacle of spiritual journey, evolution, and that’s where they’re supposed to be? It’s none of my business. My business is to just worry about my business. I just used to tell my kids, I’d say MYOB like mind your own business!

Erin Crawford [38:31]: I always think of that scene from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air because that’s the generation I grew up in where I don’t even remember the girl’s name but this, Mind your business — that’s all! That’s your business! If we all just really would mind our own business, the world would be a much different place because by minding our own business we make ourselves better and that in turn just makes the world — everyone’s so caught up especially these days oh my gosh in the last couple years with trying to manage other people’s behavior.

DJ Valerie [39:05]: Oh my god — it is so obnoxious. And well I think it’s a divisive tool that’s being used against us on purpose by mainstream media. Honestly I think it is a divisive tool, and I say mainstream media which is a puppet of others.

Erin Crawford: They’re just the spokespeople for the politicians who are also spokespeople for the forces of evil in the world. The dark side.

DJ Valerie [39:32]: The central banks and the money. It’s true: when you keep people afraid and if you keep them worrying about other people pitting them against each-other, you can control them and you can you can deplete them of their life force energy to fight back against bullshit, and so that’s again circling back to being exhausted and not having enough time to parse through different information and so you default to whatever seems to be in front of you instead of taking time. And I think that’s the fiat loop that once you wake up and you see like, Oh my goodness I’m in this hamster wheel of this stuff and I didn’t realize that I’m actually feeding the hamster wheel by standing in the hamster wheel and then it is intimidating and disorienting to jump off into this new world. And I don’t know if it was for the thing that we just wrote or an e-mail, but it was just about questioning our sanity like, Is this real? Is Bitcoin real? What else is not real? Is it something else? This whole worldview of ours that we had for decades and decades that we subscribed to but still felt uneasy in our system like something’s wrong here this doesn’t feel good or right but I just don’t know what the next thing is? But I think a lot of us people who are waking up or angry were like, Oh that’s what that was! It was like we were operating with shackles on our soul and on our mind because of the way that the money is and was.

Erin Crawford [41:19]: And I talk about it too it’s like they say: if you take a healthy organism and put it into a toxic environment and the healthy organism dies, it’s not the fault of the organism it’s the toxic environment! And I’ve seen that from being in the yoga space, the life coaching space for the last 10 years, and you and I have had this conversation also where it’s like we have this vision for the future where we live together, we support each other, it’s not all scarcity and money and just work until you die — so we had that on the inside but then we didn’t have the external environment in which to make that happen. And I think a lot of people still just spin our wheels. We think, Oh there must be something wrong with me, there must be something I’m not doing, something I need to do better, another course I need to take. I just saw this docu-series that’s going to be coming out on Netflix in a few weeks about how to fix your relationship with money and it’s like: how are we supposed to fix a relationship with something that is inherently broken and evil?

DJ Valerie: That’ll be interesting. I’d be curious if they put Bitcoin on there at all. How to change your relationship with money so that you like crickets!

Erin Crawford [42:42]: I went into Barnes & Noble last week and it’s like you go into the finance section and it’s like: all of these books are completely irrelevant! Anyways, the point of that is that I feel like right now is such a cool time because dreamers, creators, people that have had a hopeful and optimistic view even with really no sense of there being a light at the end of the tunnel, now it’s like, Oh my gosh there is actually a way that we can construct and create this external environment so that we can align love on the inside — the goal of human existence — that can actually be realized on the outside!

DJ Valerie: And I think feathering in the proof of work mindset that we get as Bitcoiners now and I know a lot of people have already had that in their life, like: you work — you get something in life. And not always something fair because of systems, but the handout mindset is very fiat — Oh let’s go just put our money in and we’re gonna get this interest. It’s like, Well for what? And if you don’t know where the yield comes from, you’re the yield! And so it’s that gambling mindset, that lottery ticket mindset that a lot of people have and young people have, and Bitcoin is definitely shifting that into a place of — it’s still like, Yes we have this tool which is amazing and we still have to have life practices in place that will emulate the value of what it means to be a whole human, and that means to contribute. That means to pull out of yourself that which is excellent and great. And that means to develop and cultivate that and then use it for good, Batman! And I really feel like there’s this superhero ethos of a lot of Bitcoiners and it’s good because we all understand we have these weaknesses but we all have this vision toward — I say all. Yeah I think so!

Erin Crawford [45:05]: I say all and then I’m like, Well I’ll put “most” in parentheses. But I’m like, No — all!

DJ Valerie: It’s like once you get it, you get it, and you’re like, Oh there’s nothing —

Erin Crawford [45:14]: Because there’s a difference between having Bitcoin and being a Bitcoiner. Bitcoiners see the truth — they see it.

DJ Valerie: It’s undeniable.

Erin Crawford: You can have Bitcoin and not be a Bitcoiner, and you can be a Bitcoiner and not have Bitcoin! I say that to people all the time. I met this guy last week and you’re like, Oh is he a Bitcoiner? And I’m like, Well he is, he just doesn’t have any Bitcoin yet.

DJ Valerie: He just doesn’t know it yet.

Erin Crawford [45:49]: That might be the only reason to stay on dating apps is just to orange pill people!

DJ Valerie: I’m just gonna orange pill people via Tinder. Oh my god…

Erin Crawford [46:01]: But I was I think a big part of it too — and this is a topic of conversation — I always say the Bitcoin community community community. And I know that’s a major tenet if not like the juice of the 11x program is: community, accountability — because it’s one thing to decide you want to do something but then to hold yourself accountable is really really hard. And I think we need people who will be radically honest with us and who we can be radically honest with. I think about friendship, relationships, and we’re very afraid of telling people the truth. And a lot of the times because we can’t handle the truth. So we need to be able to handle the truth and we need to be able to tell the truth about what is happening.

DJ Valerie [47:00]: I agree. And it’s that personal responsibility, energy around being a Bitcoiner and holding your own keys and you can’t call customer service to get it back — that trickles into the personal responsibility of being able to receive the truth and speak the truth even when it’s uncomfortable, unpopular, doesn’t feel good, you might lose somebody as a person in your life if you share your truth. So rather than hiding behind the masquerade of the old way of being with fiat, I think it helps us become — for me personally, I definitely always want to be like WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get and I like that idea of living a WYSIWYG lifestyle. However, when those of us are in that transition — and again, I’m not saying I’m some kind of perfect person, but — when there’s shame attached to the truth, when there’s guilt attached to the truth, a lot of times we hide and we might go around it a little. I had to have a tough conversation today and it was like, Okay I can either try to be righteous and I can try to be the right one and the better one, but the reality is I acted like an asshole and I made the situation worse and so I had to come clean with my asshole behavior before we could even fix this other situation that was going on. And so if I hadn’t have just gotten out of the defensive posture and be like, It’s all you! — that conversation would have went ugly. So taking personal responsibility for your assholeness.

Erin Crawford [49:16]: That is how this whole Bitcoin ecosystem is working! It’s like, Oh I have to take responsibility for my money, I have to take responsibility for my keys, and if I lose my keys I lose my money. We’ve been outsourcing all of our responsibilities for so long.

DJ Valerie [49:38]: We’re outsourcing the truth, we’ve been outsourcing like, Oh I trust my doctor, I trust the politicians — not that we ever trust politicians — or I trust the media or whoever.

Erin Crawford: Canada does, or used to.

DJ Valerie: Oh my god, I know!

Erin Crawford [49:53]: That’s how we ended up where we are.

DJ Valerie: It’s crazy man. It truly is, and then now with information being a weapon — and it is a weapon of mass destruction in my opinion — and when I did this episode with Tomer we talked about spiritual “terrorism” and how I think that these powers that be are acting in a horrible way against us on purpose! And it is designed to exhaust our physical being and our mind so that our spiritual being — which wants to be free and wants to be fully expressed and different perhaps than what other people’s vision is — gets less attention because we’re forced to be in conflict and survival mode and fear mode. And so I think that there is an external malicious attack that we constantly have to be aware of. And it takes again that word, personal responsibility, for sifting through the shit and trying to align with where are our sources of truth.

Erin Crawford [51:00]: Using the truth to empower you and bring you closer to love and closer to God. People don’t want to talk about death because it scares them and it disempowers them, so we need to — again, maybe community is part of it — we need to be able to look at things from a different perspective, and that’s where other people come in really handy because you can use a thing, a tool, to either empower you or disempower you. I find the conversation of death incredibly empowering because it makes every day sacred even if it’s monotonous, even if it fucking sucks and you have to have shitty conversations. When you look at it from that lens as opposed to, Oh my god my time is running out! But I never used to look at it that way. It took something — I don’t really even know what that thing was, perhaps just divine intervention — for me to be like, Oh death is actually really empowering for us. Because we’re gonna go through it, so you have a choice — and I guess maybe that’s where empowerment comes in. You don’t have the ability to choose what happens but you can choose how you interpret it and how you act on it. So: recognizing that we have a choice to use even really scary things, to alchemize those things into love and the sacred.

DJ Valerie [52:37]: But it takes that practice! That reminder to pause, that reminder to get present with the truth and the truth that you are divinely aligned — always. It’s just remembering: am I divinely aligned right now? Yes. Am I divinely aligned right now? Yes! We always are we’re always being held somehow. And those of us that are lucky enough to be in first world countries — we are taxed with a certain amount of survival mechanisms every day — but there are other folks who are like, Where am I gonna get a cup of water for my child today? And because we know that and I think we do see the world as one organism just like we see Bitcoin as this one organism — it’s not a node, it’s not a Bitcoin, it’s not a Bitcoiner — it’s an organism, and it’s infinitely interconnected just like we are as humans, as we are with the water, as we are with the planets. And when you keep considering those things you realize like, Wow I got lucky. I got dealt the lucky hand up here in the USA. And so if I don’t do something good with my hand, I’m a dick — and I don’t want to be a dick! It’s that sense of duty and obligation: if you don’t do something with this gift and you’re aware that you have the gift and you’re still squandering it because of old bullshit programming, that’s a disservice to the gift that you’ve been bestowed.

Erin Crawford [54:21]: I tend to look at the gift as like, Okay it needs to be something that impacts a massive amount of people and changes the world, like Oprah-level type stuff. And again: zooming out is really helpful and zooming in is also really helpful, because really at the end of the day if you can just help ease the suffering and thereby increasing the love of one other person, then that is enough. You gotta learn how to dance between those two places — being in the now, and having the low time preference. It’s also like, If what I produce, if what I put out there changes the whole world? Oh my god that’d be so great! But it’s also like, Okay first I need to change my world, and then by changing your world you will change the world — you’re not even going to have to try! It’s just like osmosis.

DJ Valerie: I say, Inner peace leads to world peace.

Erin Crawford: Be the change.

DJ Valerie [55:35]: Be the love now, and then because you’re full you can operate from a place of fullness and abundance, not a place of fear, duty that is like a guilt duty instead of an overflow duty.

Erin Crawford [55:47]: And that’s where the fiat mindset continues to infiltrate because we think like, Okay this thing isn’t good enough — how am I going to make money? How much are people going to pay? Is this going to support me? Oh my god, how much more savings do I have left to get this thing off the ground? It plays into what I do and how I do it and often gets me stuck! It would be really lovely just to produce and give freely from a place of abundance.

DJ Valerie [56:22]: It’s interesting: last night I don’t know who it was on but it was an author and she had 170,000 Twitter followers but it said something like she’s completely reader-supported, a reader supported author. And so that circles around to value for value and that idea of: there’s obviously different structures of how to exchange value in the world — it could be a donation thing, it could be a set price, it could be individual agreements with people on things. But as an accountant and business person, I understand it’s nice to go, Yay let’s do all this value for value stuff! But the reality is there’s also hard costs of operating businesses. So do we just all say, Well I hope somebody gives me some money today because I delivered some value! Or do you just say like, Yeah this is how I operate. And so just because we have this tool doesn’t mean the mindset around how to exchange value or how to receive value is — it needs a lot of attention and massage. I don’t think that there’s just this one way to do it, because of the psychology of value. My dad always said, If it’s free, take two. Just because it was like, Sweet! — something’s free! I want two. So his mindset was always in a hoarding kind of scarcity, World War II, Depression mindset. And so that trickled into me like, Oh you need to stock your cabinets, you need to have all this stuff, you need to be prepared for when Winter comes, because it’s coming. And Tony Robbins talks about that — all these different spiritual teachers — they all talk about the cycles of life. And so as much as, Yay at Summer! It’s like, Fall’s coming — you better harvest some shit so you don’t starve during the Winter. And then, Yay the planting it — that is the truth of life and death and rebirth. It’s cyclical no matter what — there’s never been anything that isn’t following that pattern of nature! So why would we be the exception?

Erin Crawford [58:42]: And if something is stagnant it’s already dead. And I’ve been thinking about this too like, If you don’t have an open mind, if you don’t have curiosity, if you don’t have a willingness to listen and learn and take in different points of view, if you have a closed mind, that mind is stagnant and you’re already dead, really. You’re going down that same toboggan path over and over and over until the day you die so it’s like your future is already pre-planned.

DJ Valerie [59:20]: Yep: I can’t change. It’s too late! What’s done is done. I’ve got to just keep doing this horrible thing. In this moment right now as you’re watching this, as we’re watching this: we have a choice. You have a choice in this moment to pause, allow yourself to just say, Is this the direction I want to keep going in my life? In my relationship? Or in my money? Or in my health? Or in my home? Or in my anything? And you get the choice to say, Yup this is cool I’m gonna keep going it’s great. Or you have a choice to be like, Mmm actually I kind of want to check this other thing out over here! In most countries — we’re lucky again here — most of us have the freedom to go do that, and that is a blessing. We do not have to keep doing that same thing. Certainly there will be consequences, but we still have the opportunity to change if we so desire. You don’t have to live these other ways if you don’t want it.

Erin Crawford [1:00:29]: And at least for me when I think about, Do I want to keep living this way? I’m going to change the trajectory of my life! That seems like, Oh my gosh I have to do this massive overhaul, I’ve gotta completely start doing things differently — but it’s literally just: have a cup of tea instead of a cup of coffee, do what I did like don’t go to the gym, sit down and have a conversation. And it’s just those little — like the flap of the butterfly wing that changes the course of the future.

DJ Valerie: It does. Micro steps equal macro progress.

Erin Crawford [1:01:06]: Like what we were talking about: what can people do on a daily basis? That’s one of the things! Notice where you get stuck habitually — I’m just talking to myself here while I talk to everybody else — and notice the story that you tell yourself about that habitual behavior. My story is: I’m not gonna feel as good as I should feel if I don’t do XYZ. But then it’s like you and I are sitting down having this conversation putting it out into the Twitterverse — who knows? Maybe someone will be like, Oh do you want to write a book about this? And I’ll be like, Fuck yeah! That was the one thing I was waiting for! Because it’s uncomfortable for me. It’s uncomfortable for me to choose to not go to the gym and to do something else because I have convinced myself that this is how I’m the best version of myself.

DJ Valerie [1:01:59]: Well let’s talk about this for a second. When I was doing the yoga for 12-step teacher training, my teacher would ask like, If you’re five minutes late for something, why are you stressed out? And do you future trip? And then what happens when you future trip? And so whether you’re choosing a different thing like not working out first and then doing this conversation, the mind has a tendency — if you keep asking it — to go where? To death and dying alone with squirrels eating your face off in the park. And it goes from, Oh I don’t know if I’m late? Oh then your boss will get upset. Oh your boss gets upset? You don’t get the raise. You don’t get the raise? You don’t get the girl. You don’t get the girl? You’re depressed and you’re gonna start going and doing stupid things. Now you’re doing stupid things, now you’re bankrupt, now you’re in the fucking gutter, and now there’s squirrels eating your face off because you’re five minutes late!

Erin Crawford: The squirrels are thriving.

DJ Valerie: You’re fucked. But those squirrels, man.

Erin Crawford: Those squirrels have never been better fed.

DJ Valerie [1:03:02]: The fucking Alvin and the Chipmunks — they’re having themselves a little buffet with your little self. But it’s true! That’s why if you keep going to the root Why? It always boils down to dying alone — always.

Erin Crawford [1:03:17]: Fear of death, fear of being alone. And the truth is: we are going to die and you kind of are always alone in here — inside of our own experience — we’re always alone. You and I could spend the rest of our lives together sharing every thought that crosses our mind and I would still never know what it feels like to be Val, and you would still never know what it feels like to be me. So in that way you are gonna die alone so it’s like, Okay my worst fear is actually gonna happen! And again that can be empowering instead of disempowering.

DJ Valerie: It’s something we avoid and don’t talk about — don’t talk about it! It’s a scary thing for a lot of people to think of it.

Erin Crawford [1:04:12]: For me it just helps me to be ballsier in taking more risks, just getting out there, doing things, because what’s that saying? Everything matters absolutely and nothing matters absolutely at the same time because no matter what I do — one day I won’t be here. So in that way that’s very freeing because you really can do whatever the fuck you want because one day you’re not gonna be here. And that is also motivation to that legacy aspect. I think you make a difference in the soup of human consciousness whether you’re actively writing a book or doing a podcast or whatever it is that you’re putting out there — you are contributing to this greater expansion. Knowing that you’re gonna die gives you permission to do the things.

DJ Valerie [1:05:16]: Yeah and do them fully without permission and regret and feeling like Frank Sinatra and I did it my way. It’s legit: that’s a song that’s very popular for a very real reason is because you do reach a certain point in life and you start to wake up to the truth that nobody really gives a shit what you’re doing — they don’t. They think they do and they think they might want to go control some other things, but for the most part…

Erin Crawford [1:05:51]: Like the people that announced that they’re going off social media for a month and then you don’t even notice they’re gone! Or they announced their comeback and you’re like, Oh I didn’t even realize you weren’t here.

DJ Valerie: And that’s a sad thing obviously in human life.

Erin Crawford [1:06:09]: But it’s also full permission to just go balls to the wall, do your shit, whatever the thing is.

DJ Valerie: Pink hair, jump out of a plane, whatever the hell you want to do.

Erin Crawford: People are so wrapped up in their own neuroses and their own self-interest that they really don’t notice what other people are doing. Which seems counter-intuitive because then you’re like, Well then why should I care? Why should I try to make the world a better place or put something out there that will help people?

DJ Valerie [1:06:41]: Personally for me the answer to that question is: it feels better vibrationally in the consciousness soup when the world is operating from a place of love and pleasure and ecstasy and bliss and connection — I feel better! So, selfishly, I want to make the world better because I want to feel better too. And so that’s a truth that I think you can all relate to.

Erin Crawford [1:07:06]: And I think that’s like being in service to God. That’s about your relationship to God and allowing God to work through you.

DJ Valerie: Exactly. And really it is that divine connection and that divine dance. And it does fucking feel good! It feels nice! And wouldn’t it be nice if we all felt this nice? Yeah there’s a shitshow and it’s the opera and the world and up and down and tragedy and pain — that’s unavoidable. Unavoidable! But we certainly have the capacity in our hearts and our resourcefulness that needs to get more activated. We have the resources to make this world a better place for most everybody who wants to show up and participate — I believe that. I believe we have some missing resourcefulness and some missing incentives. And again that incentive structure around the old way of being is what has kept the power dynamic so fragile and then it doesn’t allow people for that creative expression into like, What if we could all just work on being these amazing versions of ourselves? Instead of, Oh I’ve got to fucking fight to survive each day just to get by. And then these guys are over here keeping you down so that they can stay up. I think that we have a chance with this new tool to shift that.

Erin Crawford [1:08:35]: Totally. Mind your business and do God’s work, basically. And it doesn’t really matter if everybody had that as the goal. Don’t do things to please or try to change the lives of other people or manage other people’s behavior — get your own shit together and then do your best to tune into the ways in which the creative force of God is attempting to work through you. And then just do that! Do your work in service to God and then maybe other people pick it up, maybe they don’t, but that’s not really what matters, perhaps ultimately. We’re in this ever-expanding universe that is just constantly reaching and hurtling forward through space — towards what? No one knows why. What are we doing? We don’t know what the plan is or what the purpose is, but if you have that connection to God spirit source universe nature love — they’re all one and the same thing — and then how can I continue to expand and reach with my soul, with my heart towards that thing that we’re all moving towards collectively. Maybe one day we arrive — I don’t know! And we’re not going to be here to find out because we’re going to be dead.

DJ Valerie [1:10:13]: Or if the journey is just the journey itself. As a sailor and somebody who loves the ocean and being on the water, I remember the man who introduced me to sailing, he was very philosophical — I loved it — he was very much into expanding himself. But he was in this old system too: he’s a Bitcoiner and didn’t know it. This was back in the early 90’s. But we talked a lot about Ram Daas and being here now and he was really into that idea. But as a sailor, especially if you’re in a fucking storm, you’re not looking back at the wave that just passed your transom — you’re not looking back at the transom going, Look at that wave! Oh my god it’s really kind of unbalanced. What a stupid wave — you are fucking in the moment dealing with what’s in front of you. You can’t see three waves ahead of you because you can’t. And your job as a great sailor — to stay safe and to enjoy the ride — is to be present. Just like surfing — we were talking about surfing earlier and how big wave surfers need to check shit out before they go in. And then when they’re on it it’s like, Well I’m here! You’re not thinking about, Did I get groceries yesterday?

Erin Crawford: It’s a matter of life or death to be present.

DJ Valerie [1:11:36]: Exactly. And so it’s like, Can we apply those same principles to each moment even in the mundane?

Erin Crawford: That’s when it gets hard, because when it’s a matter of survival, again, that reptilian brain takes over and we don’t make a conscious choice to be present — we have to be! The body just goes there! So yeah in being there in those mundane moments — that is a real practice.

DJ Valerie [1:12:10]: But again when we drive the toboggan or the truck repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly — whether we’re in heightened situations or calm situations — we want to train ourselves to operate in that default power mode in the now. And again: student — definite student of this! All students. Maybe all the monks who sit in the caves forever, but here’s the thing that I don’t get: I’ve never seen a study done like this — it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been but I haven’t seen one — and I think there’s a great reason why! You know how there’s those studies where they’ll take the monks who’ve been meditating for 25, 30, 40, 50 years and they’ll put the little things on them and then they’ll give them a trigger and then they can calm themselves down with the trigger with these things on, right? Well that’s nice if you’re lucky enough to have not had to be a parent — if you’re a monk and all you do is practice every day getting those those pathways just dialed in. What about the rest of us schlubs? The rest of us schlubs, particularly moms whose bodies have been disfigured hormonally because of giving birth — we never ever never bounce back to where we once were — so that means not only do the physical body chemicals and all that, our brain chemicals don’t ever go back. And we are programmed in a state of protection when we are parents — especially moms — and we are programmed to like, Mama bear! And so that shifts as a human and how we can cooperate and be monks in the world. And I’d be curious: are there any studies with mom meditators and mom practitioners and seeing how do their brains maybe differ than monk practitioners, because I’d be curious to observe that protection mechanism that is biologically triggered somehow in us — it is! Before I had kids I was sort of protective of other people and their kids but I didn’t have that motherly instinct! It wasn’t there! And this comes with a lot of women that I’ve spoken with: that they change and then all of a sudden it’s like, Don’t mess with the kids and all this — especially if we’ve spent time with other people’s kids in like Mommy & Me groups or things like that.

Erin Crawford [1:14:59]: And I noticed that as a woman without kids — I am definitely the you before kids that you speak of!

DJ Valerie: I know! You don’t know what you don’t know until it physically happens in your brain and then it’s not like —

Erin Crawford: It actually changes your brain.

DJ Valerie: Totally! And you can’t go back — there’s no like, Oh I don’t want this anymore! Well too bad. This is the new you, and you have to figure out how to navigate that in a way that’s helpful for the future and not just like, Oh well this fucking it. It’s a very difficult thing. So we all have our challenges of staying grounded, staying centered, staying here now, being in a place of conscious awareness around our death, around our inspired life, what are the choices that we want to make in this moment. Do I want to keep pushing Play on those old records of fear and doubt and uncertainty and can’t and not enoughness and all those things? Or do I wish to keep pushing Play on a new song that I want to sing and a new song that I want to hear and a new opportunity that I want to create?

Erin Crawford [1:16:18]: And what’s the serenity prayer? It’s like: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

DJ Valerie: Difference motherfucker!

Erin Crawford: I was thinking so much of this also really does come with age — literally: the closer you are to death as you get older, you do start to think about things differently and approach your life differently. And that’s not to say that there aren’t things that people in their teens and 20’s and 30’s can do — there absolutely is — I just think it becomes more real as you get older. And you do acquire the wisdom to be able to decipher between, Do I have control over this? Do I not? What conscious choices can I make so that maybe I can shift the direction this is going in? What do I need to just learn how to navigate differently because that shit ain’t gonna change?

DJ Valerie [1:17:28]: Wisdom and age are a bonus and you get a lot more wisdom if you’re paying attention and then it’s up to us to apply it.

Erin Crawford: It’s so weird: the outside starts falling apart but the inside is better than ever! In your youth you’re just beautiful and vibrant but you’re like an empty vessel on the inside — you’re just confused! You have no idea what’s going on. I don’t even remember myself in my 20’s and 30’s — I don’t even know who that person was anymore. I’ve never felt better but I notice the gray hair and I notice the bags under my eyes and especially for women that is a whole other situation.

DJ Valerie [1:18:15]: I think it’s both! I believe that men go through the same exact mid-life change as we do: they get bald, they get pudgy, their dick doesn’t work the way that it used to — all of it. We have the same shit! We have the self same self-consciousness stuff. We operate differently because of the ticking biological clock of reproduction and stuff like that so it does shift, whereas men if they decide like, I’m Hugh Hefner and I’m 70 and I want to go have a kid —

Erin Crawford: I’m Larry King and then there really needs to be more of me.

DJ Valerie: Yeah you can go leave your spawn juice wherever and the shit works. So it’s different. I think we have different experiences with it and we handle it differently, but I do believe — coming back to this inspired living, coming back to focusing on our death every day as a Today is a good day to die, it’s okay — if I died today do I feel happy at the end of the day? And did I live a full day?

Erin Crawford [1:19:25]: That’s a good question to ask in the morning and in the evening because in the evening I find if I don’t think about that until the evening I do have like, Could have done this, I could have done that! If you think about it in the morning then there’s more proactivity that can happen.

DJ Valerie: So if you died at the end of the day — if you knew you were going to die today at midnight —

Erin Crawford: Well we’ve got to get some heroin first of all!

DJ Valerie [1:19:58]: We’re like, Where’s the death river and the smack?

Erin Crawford: You got to drive me to Melissa’s house.

DJ Valerie: I’m going to go get some smack, Val! Oh my god that’s our dream is to finally do heroin for once — our death river with our fireworks. That’s my dream. And then I want everybody around me to do ecstasy and acid. That would be the coolest.

Erin Crawford: Yeah, and blow you up with fireworks.

DJ Valerie: Yeah, I wanna get exploded. Explode ’em, Lucy!

Erin Crawford: We’ll get one that explodes in the shape of a heart and rainbows.

DJ Valerie [1:20:33]: That would be the coolest shit ever. That’s whose death I’d want to go to — that would be so much fun. But let’s say today don’t look up that meteors coming at midnight — what must you do before you die tonight at midnight, Erin?

Erin Crawford: Just call all the people I know and tell them I love them. That’s it.

DJ Valerie: Me too. That’s it.

Erin Crawford [1:20:58]: Even the people that I wouldn’t consider my best friends or just like everyone I have on social media. I’d have a lot of phone calls to make. And probably Hoʻoponopono — it’s like, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you.

DJ Valerie: I do: I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. I always start with I love you. Some people do I love you at the end. I like to start with I love you. But do whatever you want.

Erin Crawford [1:21:38]: And we think like, Oh I don’t have anything to apologize for but oh my gosh there are so many moments where I’ve withheld love or withheld appreciation because of whatever drama was going on inside of my head but you realize at the end all those moments where you withhold love and affection, whatever, you’re just hurting yourself by doing that.

DJ Valerie: Exactly. There’s this self-righteousness that we get of like, Oh well I’m not going to condone that behavior so I’ll pull some love away or I’ll show you by not doing this or doing this and it’s just old thinking — it’s not the way that we wish to be in an evolved state, that’s for sure. But it does take that ego conversation of like, Dude I know you think you’re protecting me from getting hurt again by this person or this experience or whatever it is, but you’re making things worse. So I love you, ego, I’m going to give you a hug, and you can go away and you’re serving some purposes but you’re creating disconnection with source and with this other human. We’re going to do an ego death talk at some point with Tomer. And so to me that’s the ego getting in the way of connecting our hearts with each other, because it thinks it’s protecting us and in some cases it could be and it’s doing its job, but it can also overdo its job. And that’s where I think the higher voice and spiritual consciousness comes in and it’s like, Who’s got the mic? Is it the fear protector ego? Is it the spiritual love connection that lives within us? And so we have to understand who’s holding the mic in our internal dialogue which in turn is our external actions that we are in the world.

Erin Crawford [1:23:48]: And I think too you can use the word death in many different ways: death doesn’t mean the end forever — it means the ending of one way of being but the beginning of another way of being. So people think like, Oh I have to abolish my ego — no you’re never gonna do that, but can your ego take on different characteristics? Have a different nature moving forward? Just like every in-breath is the death of every out-breath — there is literally death in every moment but it’s not this black nothingness in the way that a lot of people think about when they think about death. It just means an ending and it’s a renewal!

DJ Valerie [1:24:36]: Yeah it is and I think that’s the misnomer that some people have about ego death: it doesn’t mean you’re not gonna have your ego — it means the construct that it was up until this moment is open to be malleable. You want that malleability of letting go of the things that aren’t serving this higher mission of being love.

Erin Crawford: And that’s where the pause comes in so handy because you can go, Okay pause — am I gonna go into this situation with my ego forward? Or is the ego going to be in the back seat? If the ego does need to be forward, how does the ego show up? How can the ego serve in a healthy wholesome loving way as opposed to just this protection armored sort of a way?

DJ Valerie [1:25:30]: Exactly. Yeah I think about the way the police are trained — there’s different intervention techniques that they can be trained where they can come and use aggressive force and hurt somebody and overpower them and it’s just my way or the highway fuck you! That’s one way to have situational control, but it creates a lot of shit in the wake. There’s other situations where it’s like, Okay the protector the ego can come in and be a warrior in a strong grounded peaceful way and not in a let’s just power over and blunder the situation with my agenda.

Erin Crawford: There’s the immature ego and the wise ego.

DJ Valerie [1:26:18]: I don’t know if it was you were telling me this or somebody was telling me somebody would have bouncers at their club that were trained in controlling situations in a very cool way — not like the dumb doofus bouncer wants to come in and just throw his his muscles around.

Erin Crawford: Like non-violent communication or whatever.

DJ Valerie: Totally. Those guys who are just kind of like, Yeah I’m watching this I got it we’re cool okay let’s go see. And so that’s how I want to keep sculpting my ego going forward is in that position but not in a position to inhibit what’s going on — which hopefully is cultivating love! But it takes time. A lot of practice and reflections and that’s where we get in the community with each other and people who are trusted with each other’s vulnerability and not judging because, Oops you fucked that one up way to go!

Erin Crawford [1:27:26]: And having the courage to ask: How did I show up this past week? What are my blind spots? Listen to us talk — we have it all together! We all have blind spots. And other people’s feelings are not our responsibility — which is true — and it’s helpful to recognize how it does affect other people the way that we show up. And it’s all just information. It’s more opportunity for learning. It’s just the chance to go deeper within yourself, to go deeper with your connections to other people. I look back on the majority of my relationships in friendships romantic family whatever and it’s like, Oh my gosh — we talked about this at the beginning but — we just try to make keep everything comfortable. We don’t want to tell the truth and it’s like, Gosh we are just not doing ourselves or each other any favors by not telling the truth.

DJ Valerie [1:28:40]: Again circling back to the personal responsibility, circling back to valuing trust and truth and transparency as Bitcoiners — it comes into that: how are we communicating with ourselves? With each other? Are we operating authentically? Are we operating compassionately? Doesn’t mean you need to be a doormat to be a compassionate person.

Erin Crawford: It’s actually the opposite.

DJ Valerie: It is. And I really feel like when I first started learning about codependency, when I first started learning about different behaviors that I had adopted over the years in my marriage, I was just really defensive to the idea of being codependent! And then I started realizing like, Wow we both kind of did this thing in our marriage and it made me more in like a victim mindset kind of thing and trying to be responsible for this other person in ways that I have zero business doing and zero capability to do and vice versa! And so that was a big wake-up call too just about like, Wow I was really not minding my own business! I was not minding my own business.

Erin Crawford [1:29:59]: No one told us, Just mind your own business!

DJ Valerie: I know and it’s hard! Well it’s one thing if you’re in a relationship as a friend. It’s another if you’re in a relationship as a business person because you have shared responsibilities to achieve a certain outcome versus just a friendship or an acquaintance. It’s another if you’re in an intimate relationship where you share living where you have to figure out agreements and how do things work and I don’t like that you leave the toilet seat up or whatever the fuck — it’s a whole nother thing when you have children on top of it.

Erin Crawford: It makes me overwhelmed just to think about it. Like how are you still alive?

DJ Valerie [1:30:36]: I know. It’s just insane. I mean seriously: the idea of — I mean I’m not trying to be like whatever!

Erin Crawford: No I know you’re not.

DJ Valerie: I didn’t know what I was getting myself into — honestly. This is why I almost got fixed in my 20’s because I was just like, I don’t have the tools and the capability to deal with this yet. And clearly in some ways I did and in some ways I did not. And I wish for anyone who’s listening: if you’re thinking about becoming a parent whether you’re a man or a woman — do the work on yourself first. Get to know your trauma. And some people think trauma means you have to have been raped or experienced war and that’s not true! If your mommy didn’t give you an ice cream cone in aisle three when you were six years old and that made you feel not cared for? Possibly that imprint is what actually is driving the bus for you on a daily basis and you not feeling good enough or whatever — unworthy. And so really starting to understand yourself is such a key ingredient.

Erin Crawford: And why you do the things you do.

DJ Valerie [1:31:42]: Yeah what motivates you what demotivates you what repulses you.

Erin Crawford: What makes you feel reactive because that’s usually the key indicator.

DJ Valerie: What’s your threat model for becoming triggered? I remember learning about that word triggered and people started using trigger trigger trigger and I’m just like, Ugh this so ridiculous. And it makes sense — you need to know these things!

Erin Crawford: One of my teachers she uses the word evoked instead of triggered, and I like that because I feel like trigger’s another one of those overused words. What makes you feel evoked.

DJ Valerie: What makes you feel pricked. And I call it one of the villains and it’s like: the thing can be the thing, but how are you going to respond to the thing whatever the thing is? And that’s where that pause comes in. That’s where that checking in with yourself throughout the day comes in. That’s where when you don’t have it together, the three words “I need help” with a trusted friend or a therapist, that can make all the difference in the world.

Erin Crawford: Or a 1–800 number. To live an unexamined life — there’s so many resources out there now.

DJ Valerie [1:33:01]: There’s no excuse at this point for not living an examined life.

Erin Crawford: Unless you’re just completely numb to reality.

DJ Valerie: If you’re interested in the lie and the facade and the illusion that we’ve been fed then keep on, but that’s not required. I know it sounds kind of culty! It’s not required, you can live our new way! But it’s true — it really is. But it’s disorienting again when you start shifting your world view towards one of absolute personal responsibility. It can be a little intimidating — and to me that’s that maturity bridge going from the teen young years in our evolution to being an adult and being responsible for your shit. It’s that, but way bigger even! And I think a lot of people get stunted emotionally in their teen years and they still are operating as teenagers with credit cards. We haven’t taken the time to emotionally mature, especially if we come from broken families, especially if there’s drugs and alcohol in the situation. And rather than learning inquisitive practices about yourself, rather than learning — Oh if I don’t feel comfortable I’m just gonna go smoke weed or I’m gonna go drink or whatever, because that’s what everyone’s doing around me — you default into this pattern of avoidance and numbing and just kind of being a little cork in the river. And so at some point with our emotional and spiritual maturity we become the boat and we become the captain and we can understand how the water and the wind work instead of just being a little cork floating around the river. But it’s difficult! I have two teenagers, and the challenge I face with them is the programming that they’re in the soup of: they’re in this mainstream world, they’re in the mainstream high school, they don’t want to go and travel around the world and do all that with me. They’re like, We want to do this! And so it’s a huge challenge to try to raise conscious and aware children if I don’t have a partner who’s trying to do the same thing with me and if they’re constantly being manipulated by these multi-billion dollar trillion dollar organisms that don’t have our best interests or their best interests at heart. I don’t feel powerless to the point where I want to give up, but I feel very like, Wow I don’t get to control the situation or the outcome — I get to add to it, hopefully, my experience as a woman and a mom and a person, but they have their own karma and how it’s gonna go. It’s a weird thing!

Erin Crawford: Yeah it’s really weird. It must be.

DJ Valerie [1:36:22]: When they’re little you have a lot more control over like, Okay you’re not gonna have play dates with those friends, you’re not gonna put red ink on the wall — all that shit. But like when they’re older they’re just like, Okay I’m not in the house and you don’t know where I’m at and I don’t know what I’m doing with this little gadget that’s in my pocket and you have to trust so much that hopefully you’ve done a decent job of making good decision-makers. Speaking of — one coming down the stairs. How’s it going dude? You feeling okay? Did you eat your soup? One of them’s home sick. But it’s a tough one.

Erin Crawford [1:37:10]: I’m trying to imagine — I’m trying to put myself in that space.

DJ Valerie: And it’s just an act of surrender. It’s an act of faith. It’s an act of just do the best you can with what you got right now.

Erin Crawford: Just like fucking pray!

DJ Valerie: I do pray a lot. Prayer works man. I really believe it does. It helps relieve my nervous system if nothing else. If nothing else if it’s just all hocus pocus and woo-woo and if it gives me a feeling of a little bit of ease then it works.

Erin Crawford [1:37:56]: That’s another one of those things too that’s really interesting like we kind of talked about being in the flow state the survival instinct and how when you really are faced with life and death it’s automatic — you don’t have to think about it. Prayer is the same: you grow up if you never went to church, you considered yourself an atheist, what happens when someone you love is in ICU? You’re like, Please God.

DJ Valerie: It’s like, Are you there? It’s me, Margaret. We all want to go back to God or when —

Erin Crawford: Or during sex you’re like, Oh my god oh my god! Isn’t that so interesting? God is just this instinctive default that we go to without consciously thinking about it.

DJ Valerie [1:38:51]: Isn’t it funny that we go to it when we’re in our most heightened state of ecstasy bliss orgasm, and we go to it when we’re this close to death and losing something that is sacred and precious to us like another human or our own life? And that says a lot! It’s like, Well why not stay in that state of connectedness with the divine all throughout the day as much as we can consciously give ourselves that awareness and that pause to like, Am I connected? Of course you’re connected! You always are but we forget because this little thing wants to think it’s going to control.

Erin Crawford [1:39:32]: Yeah and we have things we want to do and things to take care of.

DJ Valerie: All right so this was a good episode! What do you think? Bitcoin, Death, and Inspired Living.

Erin Crawford: I think so!

DJ Valerie: I think it’s great! Hopefully you guys get something out of this and hopefully Erin and I chatting here and there will be able to just touch on stuff.

Erin Crawford [1:40:00]: Yeah I’m just trying to make sense of it all. We’re all just trying to make sense of it all and how it relates to love and God and Bitcoin.

DJ Valerie: Yeah where’s the intersection of the philosophical and the spiritual, and where’s the intersection of the practical and the mundane? And how do we dance all of those rhythms together? Because really that’s to me the gift of a full life, is all of it.

Erin Crawford [1:40:35]: It’s just so interesting that it’s a real topic of conversation in the Bitcoin community.

DJ Valerie: We love all of you. You guys are inspiring us to have more conversations with you and with each other and it feels really —

Erin Crawford: We’re all trying to figure out like, Why why why? What is it about Bitcoin that’s having this happen to you? It’s so interesting. It feels like we’re just scratching the surface and it’s just the beginning.

DJ Valerie: It is interesting and it is just the beginning and I really believe the more that we can keep the conversation centered toward our hearts and centered towards staying connected with our own version of the divine and then honoring the divine in each other — they say namaste in yoga and they say satnam in kundalini yoga. It’s like the divine in me — I see the divine in you. When we can truly remember that’s not just a thing to say and give lip service to and make a T-shirt and sound cool like I’m a yogi — that’s part of the practice! That is observing and being aware having the awareness of the divine within yourself at all times and then knowing that everyone else has this divinity too. And it’s not easy! It is not motherfucking easy dude! It’s like you want to make an enemy — somebody needs to be the enemy — and that’s the old thinking.

Erin Crawford [1:42:14]: And even when it is easy it’s not easy! It’s not just like looking at a murderer and being like, I see God. It’s looking at your best friend and not looking at Val as Val with Val’s ego and Val’s whole situation going on here — it’s like, Oh hi God!

DJ Valerie: Hi God!

Erin Crawford [1:42:36]: Again there’s a thin line of separation between everything.

DJ Valerie: And I think that thin line of separation truly simply is the story that we tell ourselves — it’s not real! Again if you go out and then go all the way in on the tiny quantum level or whatever level you get down to? We’re all the same shit! And scope out: we’re all on planet Earth we’re all human we’re all in the same solar system! We are all connected. And so the illusion of that line is a story that we tell ourselves. And it’s a story that we tell ourselves and it causes us to behave in certain ways that maybe aren’t aligned with love. Us versus them and whatever that looks like. And so that’s why I like Bitcoin because there’s room for everybody to participate in this! It’s not us versus them good guys bad guys.

Erin Crawford [1:43:40]: And there’s the potential for everybody to be to be made better or to become better because of it. We should want the people we don’t like to come into Bitcoin, we should want our enemies to come into Bitcoin, because we’ve all seen the ways in which it helps to move your consciousness your evolution your enlightenment forward. So yeah we want to bestow that gift on to everybody.

DJ Valerie: Totally. And there’s conversations right now being had about Tornado Cash and people worrying about blocks from North Korea and all this stuff with Bitcoin and I think it’s valid conversations. And the reality is it’s like the Internet: you can’t just decide like, Okay we don’t like Russia or we don’t like the purple country so we don’t want it using the Internet. We’re not going to not make the Internet because we’re worried about that! It’s a service to humanity to have the Internet, and I feel like Bitcoin is the same. And so rather than worrying about the bad guys using it, why don’t we do something where we can help the bad guys maybe not feel like they need to be bad? That to me is a bigger — that’s where I want my sights, versus the cancel, exclusion kind of thing. Can you imagine a world where the Internet was so censored that it wasn’t available in these certain countries? Who decides who’s worthy of having this communication mechanism?

Erin Crawford [1:45:22]: I mean I can imagine that because it kind of already happens! And just with the level of censorship that’s happened over the last two years.

DJ Valerie: Yeah like North Korea. And it’s not good — we don’t want that! It’s words. It’s code.

Erin Crawford: It’s either one or the other. Again circling all the way back: it’s a matter of getting your shit together, minding your own business, and it’s either a free-for-all or it’s not. It’s either uncensored or it’s censored. So we need to have the fortitude emotionally mentally and spiritually to deal with it.

DJ Valerie [1:46:08]: And that’s where we have to have our own unique daily practice.

Erin Crawford: Yes personal responsibility.

DJ Valerie: What do you do on a daily basis that makes you unruggable that makes you just the best version of yourself up to this point? Because hopefully tomorrow you have a new best version of yourself and the next day and the next day and comparing yourself to yourself. And there’s a multitude of practices that we can all have and it’s our job to treat ourselves as the guinea pig of life. There’s no right or wrong way to have your daily power and peace and warrior practice. But I can say that if you don’t choose to try to have one and have conscious awareness, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage! You’re putting yourself at a disadvantage for your ability to have more freedom and choices in the future. Because if you’re operating from a place of just reaction, you’re not necessarily in a place of your own ultimate power.

Erin Crawford: And if you think about shit hitting the fan food shortages energy shortages fiat system collapsing, there’s going to be more challenges for us to deal with than just what’s going on in [yourself] and in here. So there is a sense of preparing the self for the self for the betterment of humanity, and preparing the self for when the shit hits the fan.

DJ Valerie: It’s always when, and then there will be a new shitting fan cycle at some point with something else that comes as a result of this shit. That’s the essence is it never ends until you die — and then you get a possibly new round of curriculum in your shitting cycle!

Erin Crawford [1:48:12]: Yeah same thing: prepare yourself for death. It’s coming you just don’t know when. Prepare yourself for the zombie apocalypse, you know it’s coming you just don’t know when. Prepare yourself for your car to breakdown you know it’s probably gonna happen you just don’t know when.

DJ Valerie: Make the most of each moment each breath. But don’t not live! Don’t stop living because you’re preparing for this thing. That’s the thing.

Erin Crawford: Use the thing to actually live.

DJ Valerie: And be stoked for today!

Erin Crawford [1:48:41]: For me that was one of the biggest crimes against humanity over the last two years was we’re all operating on this fixed amount of time and yet we all had that time taken from us. We missed holidays with family, we had to stop working, some places you couldn’t even go to the park. It’s not worth it! Yes you’ve prevented death but you’ve also caused death at the same time. And again life becomes static and if you’re static you’re dead. So we need to be mindful of that and that’s what really boggled my mind about people’s views on the whole thing over the last couple years. It was like, Oh the sacrifice is worth it — really? Is it really worth it if grandma dies while everyone’s locked down? Or would you rather have seen grandma? And there’s no right or wrong answer but it’s really something to deeply consider. We’re sacrificing time and our lives either way, so which way are you gonna go? Are you gonna sit in a padded room and never meet challenge and uncertainty and therefore life is just passing you by? Or are you gonna go out there and live life? Are you gonna go surf the wave and maybe risk drowning? But at least you’re out there experiencing. And everybody gets to choose, but therein lies the difference: it’s choice. But we were told, This is what you have to do! And that’s where so many new Bitcoiners were minted over the last couple years because we’re like, F that!

DJ Valerie [1:50:34]: I know dude. And I reframe it a little bit to be like, Oh if we didn’t have lockdowns I wouldn’t spend all that time on YouTube learning about Bitcoin and shitcoins! And at the same time it’s like, Would I trade that and not be a Bitcoiner so that grandma — and we couldn’t have the lockdown? I don’t know. I don’t have that choice to go back and turn the dial, but I’m glad I’m a Bitcoiner. And what are we gonna do with it? That’s it. It’s just: what do we get to do with it going forward? I think that’s sort of our task, our spiritual task, is: what to do with it going forward? Always.

Erin Crawford [1:51:08]: How to take the circumstances, the situation you are dealt, and how to use it to your highest and best good? As you often say.

DJ Valerie: Highest and best highest and best. And that was something that I was taught gosh I want to say over 30 years ago, because I remember always thinking like, Oh I want to manifest this exact thing or I want to do this one thing and I hope the outcome is just like this! And I would craft this vision up in my head of what this outcome was supposed to be and I would get attached to that thing instead of attaching myself to the prospect of whatever the highest and best outcome is for all parties throughout all space and time. So: thinking implications of generational things as well. And I remember when I learned that concept it just changed my whole way of not feeling so attached to like, Oh I hope my kid goes to college. I hope I get this guy or I hope I have this money or I hope I have — it’s just more like, What’s going to be the highest and best good for myself? And how can I magnetize that in and then how can I repel the things that aren’t? And it’s that still that clarity that comes like when I do this 11x LOVE code thing, you get really clear on these things, but you don’t get attached. You can’t get attached! Just put it out there and it will do what it needs to do in this universal soup I think.

Erin Crawford: Yeah allow it to show up in the way that it shows up and allow the outcome to be what the outcome is.

DJ Valerie [1:52:49]: It’s like the Stones song: You can’t always get what you want but sometimes you get what you need. So that’s super important of learning about how to go about this and keep a mental state that feels clear yet in the flow of what’s in front of you and not feeling disappointed because it didn’t.

Erin Crawford: Exactly because you’re constantly battling against things that you have no control over.

DJ Valerie: And then you’re in the state of disappointment and judgment and that’s not the frequency that you thrive at.

Erin Crawford [1:53:23]: It’s like the universe is giving you these gifts you just don’t recognize them because it’s not the new pair of shoes that you thought you wanted. It’s the new coat or whatever. Again I’m just talking to myself here like I feel like we miss so many of those gifts because we’re looking just for one specific thing to show up in one specific way. It’s like, Oh actually all the things I think I want — I don’t know I want — all the things that are meant to show up are showing up! I’m just not able to see them because again you’re stuck in maybe your rigid mindset or you think you have it all planned out you have this focus.

DJ Valerie [1:54:06]: Yeah that’s a path to definite disappointment. That’s regretful mindset. You think, Oh it didn’t turn out that way. But what’s the gift? Did it lead you closer to love? Those kinds of things.

Erin Crawford: Hindsight.

DJ Valerie: So it just it does take time. And we need to talk to each other about these things! I was having a conversation a couple weeks ago with somebody about her ex and just the, Oh he cheated on me and the younger woman and the whole thing and just of course heart-wrenching and feels abandoned and all those things — and this person is a Bitcoiner and I was like, So would you be a Bitcoiner today if you were still in this relationship as it was? And she was like, Fuck no! And I’m like, [Well there you go!] And she just woke up to that like, Yeah wow I wouldn’t get to be doing this thing — which she’s passionate about! And so I felt like sometimes we need a friend to just get us out of the way: But isn’t this awful? It’s so shitty! Look at what he did or she did or the fucking World Economic Forum! Whatever the fuck it is, sometimes we need a little buddy to be like, Dude! And that’s why we need our buddies and you guys are our buddies. Yeah we really think these conversations are very important especially I think for younger Bitcoiners too people who maybe haven’t had — like we’re a little bit further along the age bracket.

Erin Crawford: We’re closer to death!

DJ Valerie: Speak for yourself! But I wish I would have had me in my pocket when I was 30.

Erin Crawford: Well would you have listened to you?

DJ Valerie: I would have possibly listened to me because I’m so cool, but I don’t know. I think that’s the thing is just keep listening for who you’re going to listen to that’s going to ignite you to act on your highest and best voice! And so it may or may not be Erin and I — it may be you like the kid who got banned from these channels you might be interested in that guy’s voices. Find who you resonate with.

Erin Crawford [1:57:00]: That reframed that whole thing for me: the reason why when people say things and they resonate with you, it’s because you already have that wisdom within you — it’s just we have amnesia about all the things that we know and that we’ve forgotten. And that helps you not to put other people on a pedestal and idolize them and all that kind of stuff because it’s like, Oh the reason why that makes sense to me is because I inherently know that. Maybe again that’s God showing up in everyone! But we need each other’s voices to remember like, Oh yeah!

DJ Valerie [1:57:41]: I like to say sticky notes for the soul, and whether it’s literally a sticky note, whether it’s an angel card, whether it’s a quote, whether it’s a song lyric, whether it’s your friend telling you something that you already know, these are all these little reminders I think that we need to purposefully put in our way. We need to be strategic about putting these things in our daily existence! And so: having those phone calls with your friends or reading that one page that you just flipped your book open to and you just needed to hear that one thing that it was going to say to you or that jam that you’re like, This my jam to get me to this vibration that I want to be feeling. You have to actively put those things in your path because you need them. If they’re around you a lot they’ll be like, Oh right I can go calm down and sit on my cushion. Oh right I got Erin on speed dial I’m having a panic attack about something or another, and you’re already in the habit of having those things in your consciousness so that when you really need them they’re gonna be easily available and you’re not scrambling for like, Oh my god who do I call? I’m empty here! That’s why cultivating your environment is very important — to me — and your consumption. What are you consuming? What are the podcasts the songs the videos the books the meetings the events that you go to? Are you consciously consuming things that get you closer to love or are you consciously consuming all of these things that separate you from love and keep you in the fear loop?

Erin Crawford [1:59:22]: And something that I need to be mindful of because I am such a consumer of information it’s like, Am I taking enough time to not take in anything and to allow my own thoughts and God and whatever to come through? And especially traveling alone being alone I put on a podcast so I don’t feel so alone!

DJ Valerie: It’s a really helpful tool!

Erin Crawford: Someone said this in a quote it’s like When you’re taking in all of other people’s stuff there’s no room for your own stuff to come up, essentially. And it’s uncomfortable I’m not gonna lie! I would way rather go for a walk and stick my earbuds in and just listen to something really cool and interesting, but I have to force myself to not put them in and just be by myself with my thoughts.

DJ Valerie [2:00:24]: I know it’s a weird one! It’s like giving permission to yourself because you’re the only one who can do that and to do both, but giving yourself little awareness challenges right. So for me I noticed I went through little phases where I’m like, Okay I’m only going to create content before I consume it every day. Create before you consume. And literally if that creation simply is me going on spotify and picking a song of the day and copying and pasting it and saying I’m creating a post that says, Go listen to Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles? Okay that’s me putting my energetic essence and imprint forward versus me responding to holy shit look at all the texts and the thread and the Twitter things! So I’m more in a conscious place of how I’m going to approach the day versus how I’m going to react to the day. And people do that with their e-mail, with their digital stuff, and I noticed very much a difference in my operating system if I do that versus don’t do it. And I feel like I’m a lot more at the will of that collective whatever’s going on in that social channel or e-mail or whatever, than me being at the helm. It’s a different thing! But it’s easy because we’re seeking dopamine hits. We’re drug addicts! And so that’s why we’re doing that — that first thing like, Ooh what’s happening? What train wreck are we gonna see today on Twitter? And it’s just like, Fuck! I gotta steer the little dog away from rolling in the poop! You know what I mean? Because we’re seeking that drug that chaos that experience.

Erin Crawford [2:02:10]: For me it’s about connection. I wake up alone and I want to not feel alone so I grab my phone! And I really notice it because when I’m spending time with people one-on-one I have no inclination to look at my phone. No inclination whatsoever. And people comment on it they’re like, Oh I’ve noticed you’re hardly ever on your phone! It’s like, Well it’s because I’m with a person that I feel engaged with and connected to so it’s like I don’t have the desire to look at my phone! But inevitably after a few days that fades, but I still try to be mindful of it but still. Again we’re always seeking we’re always in that state of —

DJ Valerie: Belonging. I call it filling your soul hole. We’re always trying to fill our soul hole and I said five D’s: it’s diamonds digital drugs donuts dicks. Don’t forget the dicks. And it’s true! The only D that’s going to fill that is the Divine! It’s the divine connection that you will never ever lose. It’s always there! It’s just you put all this stuff on top of it thinking this is going to make it feel better and it doesn’t and so it’s that conscious moment-by-moment nature of, All right thanks — I’m connected! It’s the magic of our breath and we can utilize it as our sticky note for our soul.

Erin Crawford: This is God calling.

DJ Valerie: I’m here with you.

Erin Crawford: Hi God are you on Twitter this morning?

DJ Valerie: Did you see that post? Oh my god!

Erin Crawford: Oh it’s a struggle man. It’s a fucking struggle.

DJ Valerie: It’s a struggle of the spiritual being that lives within us and also the animal being. They exist! And to pretend like, I’m just gonna feed the spiritual all the time? No! This animal one is important! And we’re human we’re flesh creatures. And so we can operate differently — it does take a little bit more awareness and intentionality.

Erin Crawford: You dance between the two spaces.

DJ Valerie: It’s a dance the yin and the yang, sister. All right we love you guys this DJ Val and Erin Crawford go follow @erincrawford41 and I’m @djvalerieblove and you guys can go check out show notes over at djvalleybeloved.com and support both of our shows. I’ll put them on both of the shows. Go to Fountain and you can check us out you’re on Fountain. Swan, see you at the Bitcoin conference — we don’t know if you listened to this whole two hour and five episode chances are pretty low but if you’re did we love you and Erin and I really would love the opportunity to be on one of your stages and talk about these important issues. I think it would really help benefit Bitcoiners and helping to cultivate daily awareness through daily practice and how do we make the world and ourselves better with Bitcoin. Yay! All right let’s everybody inhale together. Exhale. Peace. Inhale love and exhale peace. God bless you all thanks for tuning in may you be safe happy healthy and at ease in this moment. Thanks Erin this was so much fun I love you.

Erin Crawford: Thanks Val!