Special Guest Expert - Daniel Aaron: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Daniel Aaron: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
Aloha, y'all. Daniel. Aaron. I am so happy to be with you today. And this is part of a series, a tribute and homage to some of my mentors, teachers, coaches, guides. Today is a bonus day because I got two kind of two. First one though. Well, and actually let me give you the context. I recently came out of the closet and even though I was ordained as a minister 31 years ago, I never used the title. Recently, it became clear to me a series of synchronistic events and insights brought me to the clarity that. It's time. And primarily. For me. And I mean that on the level of two, you know, since I had the divine whack upside the head 30 years ago, my focus has been 100% awakening or that's been the 100% priority. I've had lots of distractions as well, and that's been the top priority. And as it's deepened recently in miraculous ways, I've realized that me using the title Reverend, which means reverence or comes from reverence, helps me to be more aware of what matters. Right? And being a a good vessel for spirit, being a vessel for love, and serving everybody I meet, clients or otherwise, from that place of reverence and love. So who could be a better recipient of my homage today than a woman named Pat Schneider? And probably you don't know who she is. She's one of those kind of mentors. And yeah, I got some really famous ones that, you know, heard of, most likely. And I'll speak about them in the course of these 30 days. And the other one that I will speak about today is my daughter, Zeta Aaron, who is 17 on this day, May 9th. So first, though, Pat Schneider, uh, I met Pat, I believe it was 1993. And the reason I met her is because she had started an organization called Amherst Writers and Artists, Amherst, Massachusetts, and she'd also written a book called The Writer as Artist A New Approach to Writing Alone and with others. And I had moved to Amherst, Massachusetts. I was so excited, uh, to really focus deeply on writing, and that was my greatest desire and passion.

Daniel Aaron:
At that point in my life, I had cleared away most of the other things. I had the tiniest rent, so I didn't need to work very much so I could really devote myself to writing. And I went to buy a sofa. And when I went to buy a sofa off of whatever the equivalent of Craigslist in those days, uh, I called and got an answering service, and the woman said, if you're calling about, uh, Amherst writers and artists, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the sofa. And so when I met her, I was like, what? What is this? And I had thought previously, okay, I'm going to this great college town and I'm going to get into an academic program and study writing. And eventually I did some of that. However, she told me about this writing workshop. I'd never heard of such a thing like that, and she invited me to come check it out. So I did, and honestly, I was so full of judgment about it because here's the format. And I tell you this now, having later on become trained in it and facilitating these same kind of workshops, the format and this is so useful, right, for any kind of facilitation or for facilitation of self, the format is well, the host provides a prompt and the prompt helps stimulate the participants to write something or they can ignore it, write whatever they want. We write for a timed period. That's an important component. And then the host says ding! And we all come back together. Or if you're like, really on it, you can stay and keep writing. That's okay. And then there is the opportunity to share, to read what you just wrote. Now here's where I got judgmental about it, because the rules are the person reads and then the others respond with what they like and what they remember. No criticism. Now, at this point in my life, I thought, no criticism. How is anything going to get better? What kind of pansy writing thing is this like? I still at that point believed in you gotta, you know, break it down and be harsh. And who. However. I went to the the workshop and it was cool, like it was beautiful.

Daniel Aaron:
And I wrote some things that I liked. I was like, huh? It like stimulated and opened up a different part of me in writing. So. Uh, the workshops with Pat Schneider, the woman that started those were full. However, she trained other people. So I did some of their workshops for maybe a year. It took me that long to get into Pat's, um. Workshop Wednesday nights. Amherst, Massachusetts McClellan Street. I still remember it. 77 maybe in any case. What I learned, and why this is useful for you as well is that when we have fresh writing and you can substitute in here any other kind of creation, write. That is something that's new, it's nascent, and it's vulnerable for most of us, like the act of creation is, it's a scary thing, and we tend to associate what we've created with ourselves. And so if somebody criticizes that thing, it feels like they're criticizing us. So. The reason Pat came to this style of creating these workshops is because. It facilitated an encouragement of the creative side. Now, as I deepened in my understanding of creativity and writing specifically, I learned there's a great place for criticism. There's a great place for editing. It needs to be separate from the creative process, though. So. And what ended up happening is we would read, people would comment what they like, what they remember, and it would give this awareness of, oh, hey, there's something that worked there, right? And we didn't have to focus on the things that didn't work. We just get this positive reinforcement of, okay, that kind of worked. That's interesting. That would encourage us to write more of that. I could go on about the intricacies of the the style and the methodology, and there's more to it. And the my main focus here is to thank Pat. Now, Pat is no longer in physical form. I'm so grateful that I got to visit her in the last year or so of her life. When my daughter and I came back from living overseas and, and got to actually go to a two day event with her and write with her again in that same room, it was so meaningful for me.

Daniel Aaron:
And here's what. Here's why. Though she's holds such an important, special place for me. Yes, she helped me to learn to write in powerful ways. And yes, she taught me so much about how to help other people write and and really how to lead groups and encourage support and help people. I learned a ton from her on that level. What I also got though, which is really miraculous and and hopefully, Pat, wherever you are now, you can hear me. Oh. Oh, good, I feel emotion. Just, um, just speaking at thinking of her. Um. She was really the first person that I'm aware of that shared with me unconditional love. And and, you know, with no blame or criticism toward my parents or the other people in my lives. They were doing the best they could. However, they they were nowhere near what Pat was capable of, who she'd created herself to be. So in my time with her. And I'm lucky enough to have gotten closer beyond the student relationship and trained. And we became friends. Um. I was just so lucky to receive her unconditional love and the safety that that created in me, and not just artistically. One of the things that happened is as I wrote more and more and more and more, right? And she gave me this beautiful definition, you could take this, and this would be the only thing a teacher of any subject, or a good teacher or a great teacher of any subject is this when you spend time with that teacher afterwards, do you feel more like doing that thing or less? Because if you feel like more like doing it, even if they're tough with you or challenging at times, yet there's enough encouragement that you want to do more, then you're going to get better at it. You're going to grow. Right? When I lived in Spain and taught English as a second language, my goal when I was teaching children was that it was fun because they were going to have so much opportunity to learn English if they stayed engaged, if they wanted to. So, Pat. Showed me for the first time unconditional love, and also the writing allowed me to write about my family.

Daniel Aaron:
I had never done that before and from the earliest age I had. Put up walls and borders and armor in myself because even though there was so much love in my family, there's also a lot of pain. And in opening myself up to writing about my experiences in mostly that was in I was going to say mostly poetry, but it was prose poetry. And I did write some short stories and even a novel in that period. It allowed me to open up something in my heart, in my subconscious, to. There's a saying that I learned in those days that all art begins as pain and is an attempt at healing that pain. And I don't think that's categorically true yet. It's pretty often true in the level of pain I had around my early days, and family was significant. And as I started writing and opening that up, 100% convinced that that was one of the major causes, the instigators of the spiritual awakening that I experienced in that period. So. What else about Pat? Um, she's a brilliant writer. Her own writing is fantastic. The organization that she created lives on has served so many people, uh, including and especially women in low income housing projects and in prisons, the empowerment that's come to people. Um, and I think part of why she comes to mind for me right now is I've returned to writing by hand for the first time in many years, and I can feel just the power of how that's opening me up to another level of access to my own psyche and subconscious. Now, last piece to share with you today. Since it's my daughter's birthday, 17 she's also been one of my greatest teachers and mentors. I used to joke when I would start leading groups, and specifically the yoga teacher trainings and say, I'm going to introduce you to my guru. And then, you know, she was like four years old and would come out. Why? Because so many reasons. The main one, though, because when any of us truly love, we rise to another level of presence, patience and service, right? Nobody is able to provoke us to be the instigator of our triggers, like the people that are closest to us, and mostly specially our children.

Daniel Aaron:
So to be in service even when it's challenging is an incredible gift. There's so much more I could say about how she has blessed my life, how grateful I am to get to love her, care for her, be in service for her, to her how much I've learned from her and continue to learn. She's an amazing being and I'm right at the point. 17 I'm saying. And she's an amazing girl, young woman, woman, I don't know. She's all of those things mixed up in one, just as we are all many things. So coming back around today, so grateful to you, Pat Schneider, my writing teacher, the first person to share with me the possibility of unconditional love. And to y'all who have watched tuned in. Thank you. I love that you're here. I love that you are interested in more vibrancy in your life. Your dedication to that changes not only your life, it changes the world. I appreciate you, I love you, thank you, and aloha. Hasta la pasta. See you soon. I will be back for more.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your mp4 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you'd love including automatic transcription software, automated subtitles, automated translation, share transcripts, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.