Category: Tommy Stoffel

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LMTV #89: Family of Choice

Many of Us Feel Somewhat Alienated from our Families of Origin—Especially During the Holiday Season.

On multiple occasions in recent weeks, both Tommy & David have heard from different friends about some of the challenges—and even tough times—they have experienced with their families at Thanksgiving. A common theme is that these people feel like they have very little left in common with the people who raised them and influenced their early lives. And stemming from that feeling, they may also express frustration that their family members “just don’t ‘get them'”—and may even mock them or put down their spiritual nature. What’s up with that?

  • Don’t they see that I’ve changed?
  • Can’t they see I’m feeling better about myself and my life?
  • Why don’t they join in instead of trying to jab me with their dull wit?

Maybe you’ve experienced some of this dynamic yourself…?

On the other hand—and since you’re plugged into the Soul Talk Guys way of being—it’s probably safe to assume you have other people in your life who totally get you and support you. People who are kindred spirits with similar spiritual perspectives, inspirations and aspirations, right?

It’s amazing when we’re able to attend a spiritual conference, workshop, or talk. Amazing, not only in the teachings and insights we receive, but in the people we meet.

No matter where we are in the world or who we meet, humans with an awareness of their true spiritual nature have the ability to relate, connect, and get along harmoniously—and all quite naturally. Because they recognize that we’re connecting at a level of Human Nature—our True Nature—which is that of Spirit.

It’s really quite remarkable and amazing how a spiritual connection can (and usually does) easily and lovingly transcend the man-made boundaries of race, creed, color, gender, belief systems—and any other “box” you care to name!

It seems that our Spirits have no race, creed, color, sex, suffering, or stupidity at all! When we connect at a spiritual level, all those messy, artificial, human boundaries just seem to dissolve away—to the point that we might well wonder where they came from in the first place!

In this episode, recorded on Christmas Day (the eve of both Kwanzaa and Boxing Day), Kindred Spirits join Tommy & David to explore the topic of Family—with particular focus on the questions:

  • Do we have a Family outside the boundaries of our blood relatives?
  • Do we have a choice?

Check out the video and join the conversation as David & Tommy bring powerful focus to these important issues!

Oh, yes: Don’t forget to leave a comment below!

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LMTV #88: Pre-Forgive

What If You Could Forgive…In Advance?

Forgiveness is a powerful force. No doubt you are already aware of this. But we’re all human, right? Which, of course, means that we make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes can cause pain for others. Or for ourselves. Well, what could be better than adopting an attitude of pre-forgiveness?

Just think about that for a minute…

As long as you are on a path of personal growth, you are always going to be trying out new ideas. From time-to-time, things won’t work out the way you hoped or expected. And you may be inclined to judge yourself because you didn’t quite live up to your own expectations of yourself. You may even think of yourself as a failure. This is bound to happen, wouldn’t you say?

Well, wouldn’t it be nice if you could be more loving and compassionate to yourself? Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep that image of forgiveness right out there in front of you—no matter what you do, or how things might turn out?

Interesting concept, wouldn’t you say? It’s something that Tommy & David have alluded to from time to time, and in this episode they take a deeper dive into this topic. JoAnn RotermundAnd who better to help them with this than the “Forgiveness Lady” herself, JoAnn Rotermund!

JoAnn has been on the show with the Soul Talk Guys a couple of times before, and she always brings a warm, loving attitude of forgiveness and gratitude that is totally contagious. So Tommy & David figured that having her on right before the holidays would be a great way to help you prepare for what can often be stressful time of year.

Consider the potential benefits that you might derive if you could develop a practice of pre-forgiveness:

  • You’ll be more self-compassionate and self-loving.
  • You’ll have much less stress.
  • You’ll be happier in your life.
  • You’ll be more attractive and magnetic to others.
  • Everything about your life will be better!

Don’t those sound like great things to bring into your life?

Well, then check out the video for this episode and remember to leave a comment in the space below.

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LMTV #87: The Magnificence Within

What You’re Looking For is Far Closer than You Might Imagine!

All of us go through the Ups and Downs of the Spiritual Adventure. This is an unavoidable fact of life. Sometimes we feel the exuberance and excitment of making great strides; other times we feel the sadness or frustration of backpedaling or slipping into a hole.

That’s why it’s important for us to make time to remember the strides, the successes, the ahas and the wins. For when we do this, we can more easily see that we are all works in progress.

Yes, it’s important for us to periodically step back and see how well things have been going. Because, in reality, we are masterpieces in the making. Whether we believe it or not, inside we’re already Perfect; we’re already Enlightened. We’re already Life Masters. Even though we may not be fully aware of it.

Legend credits Michaelangelo with a clever response to a curious sculptor-to-be, who wanted to understand the master’s process. As the tale goes, Michaelangelo said

First you decide what you want to create. Then you just bring your hammer and chisel to your block of marble, and chip away everything that isn’t part of your masterpiece.

Whether Michaelangelo actually said this or not doesn’t really matter. What matters is the intention behind the message—

The masterpiece is already there inside the raw material.

Think about that for a moment. If you direct your attention inward, then you must realize that the great Masterpiece of YOU is already here just waiting to be uncovered and brought—fully formed—into the world. In other words, there is no need for you to reshape or remold or recast all that you imagine you have become into something different! You just need to clear away some of the clutter, some of the stone, some of the dust—and the Masterpiece will be revealed.

What a concept!

And where is all this clutter and stone and dust? Well, that is the product of distorted thinking by an ego-mind that truly believes that it is trying to keep you safe. It’s just a question of realizing the truth so that you can see what is real and what is not.

Clear away all that stuff and—guess what?—you expose the treasure of who you really are. And you become totally free to embrace your full self and to show up more fully in the world.

Check out the latest video from David & Tommy to learn some tricks & secrets for uncovering

The Magnificence Within.

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LMTV #86: Into Me You See

Two Guys Chatting About Intimacy—Not Something You See Every Day!

It’s true. Say the word intimacy, and many people will immediately conclude you are talking about sex. But while sex very often does imply some level of intimacy, intimacy can exist without any sexual activity at all! And it is that kind of intimacy that the Soul Talk Guys talk about in this episode.

As members of the Human Race, we’re not generally trained or taught very well in the use of our emotional energy system. It’s just not something that’s been passed down from one generation to the next. And in some households, not only is the idea of expressing emotions treated like a dark art, very often it is completely taboo! Hard to imagine for some of us, but it really is true!

It seems that when we don’t know something about ourselves that should be blatantly obvious, all our defenses rise up to quell the unrest. We get particularly touchy when someone tries to tell us something we should already know—such as how to control our minds or feel our emotions!

You might well wonder, “Why didn’t anyone teach us something as basic as how to experience our human emotions when we were younger!?” The answer is quite simple: “No one taught our parents, so they weren’t able to teach us.” Thankfully, this dynamic seems to be changing in our world today, but there are still many people of adult age who have great difficulty with Emotional Intelligence.

We are all taught how to think, however—although some people might say that we are taught what to think! Yes, we have all kinds of powerful programs to get our thinking muscles into great shape.

Well, the Soul Talk Guys are dedicated to talking about the tough topics—and emotions are right up there at the top of the list. Fear, sadness, jealousy, judgment, as well as generosity, joy, courage, compassion, and true love—these are all topics that David & Tommy happily discuss and share on a weekly basis.

And so, for this episode, they figured, “Why not talk about the courage and vulnerability involved in the energy of Intimacy?”

You read that right! True intimacy requires immense bravery. It takes guts to move beyond the concerns of self, to get beyond the fears and worries of what others might think or that you might get hurt. It may feel like you’re standing at the edge of a cliff, with only a hang-glider to help you down—and never having flown in your life! You could easily have questions in your mind like these:

  • Do I dare take the next step?
  • Do I dare expose my own feelings and emotions to someone else?
  • Do I dare open up to the possibility of heartache—or worse?
  • What if they judge me?
  • What if they don’t like what they see?
  • What if I crash and burn?
  • What if, what if, what if …

Join David & Tommy as they put on their Headlamps of Awareness and go spelunking into the inner caverns of the Soul.

Treading where few dare to tread. Into the depths of their own hearts.

Come see a couple of guys chatting about Intimacy.

You’re in for a very interesting ride…

Into Me You See.

DISCLAIMER: Apologies, but the recording ended abrubtly about 12 minutes into the broadcast. Nevertheless, we think you’ll still find value in the video, so please take the time to watch…and REMEMBER to leave a comment below!

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LMTV #84: Getting Ready to BE Ready

Do You Ever Postpone Something Because You Don’t Think You’re Ready Enough?

We all have things in our lives that are important to us, things that we really want to accomplish or things that we want to share with others. And, naturally, we want to be proud of what we do and how we show up in the world. The question is:

How perfect does our creation have to be before we’re willing to reveal it to the world?

For some of us, it seems like we believe we have to be super-heroes—completely polished and poised and practiced to perfection—before we dare step out and share what it is we have to offer. We have this nagging story in our heads that, before we let anyone see our creation, we have to:

  • fix this little flaw over here;
  • add that feature over there;
  • make sure that we address every conceivable objection that might come up.

In short, we are never quite ready. Instead, we are spending all our time

Getting Ready to BE Ready!

One of the great ironies of life—if you pause and reflect on it—is that everything is perfect already—at least in this moment. The only place that imperfection really exists is within our ego-minds, which has a quirky tendency to remind us of all our mistakes of the past and to imagine that those same mistakes will show up in the future! The problem is, if we allow ourselves to buy into the drama created by this infinite loop, then we spend no time at all in the present moment and so we cannot appreciate its beauty and perfection. Instead, we allow our ego-minds to bounce us back and forth between the past and the future. And so, in this way, we justify our own procrastination…and then wonder why we’re not getting anywhere!

As you might have guessed already, Tommy & David are no strangers to this phenomenon. In fact, they will be the first to admit that they still find themselves challenged by it from time to time. But over the course of many opportunities to deal with this kind of ego-mind dynamic, they have found some techniques that help them to overcome the inertia that sets in when they are working so hard

Getting Ready to BE Ready!

This week, the Soul Talk Guys will be addressing this issue at length and offering some ideas about how you can break the cycle and simply

BE Ready!

It takes trust in yourself, to be sure, but Tommy & David know that you are up for the challenge—and for the journey that will result. So, invite yourself into this week’s episode and watch the video now!

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LMTV #83: Healing with Tales

Do You Ever Tell Yourself Disempowering Stories?

Our ego-minds are really good at finding fault with whatever is going on—and if that is not enough, to find fault with us as individuals. Maybe you’ve heard that voice in your head saying things like these:

  • You’re not good enough, smart enough, attractive enough, athletic enough, fit enough…
  • You never get things right.
  • The world is a dangerous place, so you have to avoid all the things you love.
  • Freedom of choice is an illusion! You have to live your life according to society’s rules.
  • There is not enough money for you to have your share.
  • There is no such thing as a soul-mate, so you might as well settle for whoever seems interested in you.
  • And so on, and so on…

Believe it or not, this sort of disempowering self-talk is pretty common for a lot of people. And David & Tommy want to invite a powerful shift to this kind of thinking.

To help with that, they invited Martina Kreiner to join them for this week’s episode. Martina is all too aware of the phenomenon of negative self-talk and she has devoted a great deal of time and energy creating a practice that she calls

Healing with Tales!

In her process, Martina takes the power of storytelling to a whole new level. Using a unique form of intuitive storytelling, she creates healing tales to help release trapped emotions and energies. With her special intuitive gift, she retrieves and shares tales from people’s past lifetimes, in order to reveal and release any trapped or stuck energy that might be affecting their current lives. Martina shares some examples during this week’s webinar, and providing some guidance about how you can do this for yourself.

Check out the video and enjoy yet another amazing journey into the wonder of being human!

Please remember to leave a comment in the space below!

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LMTV #82: Work-Life Balance

Ever feel frustrated? Tired of the grind? Burned out?

These indicators may just be powerful messages sent to you…by YOU! If you ignore them, you’ll probably just feel more frustrated, tired, and burned out. It may be a good idea to recognize these less-than-pleasant feelings as signals from your higher SELF to take a look at things, at how you’ve got your life set up.

For most of us, it’s pretty common to continue doing what we’ve been doing—sometimes quite unconcsiously—perhaps with an underlying belief that we have to keep moving forward or else risk being seen as a failure. So, we deny ourselves permission to take a pause, and as a result we fail to shed light on our current situation and see what it has to tell us. Not only do we wear ourselves out, but we simply don’t get around to taking stock of what’s going on in our life.

Every once in a while, it really pays to stop right where you are, recognize how much you have done and how far you have come, and check in on your Work-Life Balance.

Let’s face it. Most of us have to do some sort of work to get the money we need to live on this planet. It’s just the way it is—at least for now! And after being told again and again to get a good education and get a job, it’s often easy to get lost in the Real Purpose of Life.

So this week, the Soul Talk Guys shine the light of awareness on something right there in front of our noses:

Our job. Our work. Our source of income.

David & Tommy ask the all-important question:

Do you live to work, or work to live?

And of course, they spend a lot of time helping you to answer that question for yourself, and then decide what you want to do with your answers. It may very well change the way you think about your life going forward, so watch the video now!

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LMTV #81: Thrive in a Box

What would happen if you could live beyond the boundaries placed on you by the world?

Eckhart Tolle recently shared an illuminating perspective on the world we live in. He offered the idea that most of the systems—or structures as he calls them—that we live in were created by unenlightened, ego-based minds. Created by humans with good intentions and great educations, but nonetheless, limited Conscious Awareness. Tolle uses the term Unconscious Thought to explain perspectives that recognize the ego-mind as the sole identity of a human being. Someone completely identified with the ego-mind—or pain body, in Tolle's terms—has no separation between the mind and the self. Conscious Thought only occurs in people who are awakened and no longer under the spell of the ego-mind.

Right now, in this amazing time in Earth’s history, there are more and more humans awakening from their Unconscious Thought state and becoming ever more conscious in their thoughts, words, actions and emotions. And while this shift in human consciousness is wonderful and amazing, Tolle reminds us that while we’re evolving individually, most of the structures we live in were created prior to the beginning of this shift. In other words, those of us who are going through this inner awakening are actually living in two worlds!

In one world, we’re becoming more and more aware of our true nature, and simultaneously letting go of old beliefs, patterns and behaviors that no longer serve us. At the same time, we are still working in, learning in, being governed by, being medicated by, being fed by, and generally being infused by the systems and structures developed during a less conscious period in human history.

No fault of ours. No fault of our ancestors. No fault of anyone at all… This isn’t about shaming, blaming, or pointing fingers!

We just happened to be born at an amazing time when a huge shift is happening all around us. A huge shift in systems and structures we are born in, raised in, and seem to adopt as “the way things are”.

Notice, that this concept applies to:

  • the corporate structures we work in;
  • the financial system we must trade in;
  • the religious structures we’re raised in;
  • the educational systems we’re taught in;
  • the medical systems we rely on for health;
  • the political systems that rule and govern us;
  • the nutritional and food structures we’re fed by;
  • the entertainment and marketing systems that influence us; and
  • virtually any other structure that you care to name.

In the long run, these box-like structures simply won’t survive in a more conscious world. Some will be changed from within; others will collapse and be replaced. The How and When of these major transitions are being discussed in many different forums all over the planet. But big question that doesn’t seem to get a lot of air-time is:

“What do we do in the meantime?”

Well, that is precisely the question that the Soul Talk Guys plan to address in this week’s episode of Life Mastery TV!

As it happens, David is Beata Lewisheading out of town to lead a men’s weekend in Racine, Wisconsin, so Tommy will be hosting this episode. In order to make this as powerful an interesting as possible, the Soul Talk Guys have invited Beata Lewis back to the show to offer her brilliant perspective to this subject. You may remember Beata from last year when she shared her wisdom on the topic of Trust.

Beata and Tommy will dive deep into ways the Awake and Conscious can Thrive and Grow while still living in the boxes of unconscious structures and systems.

How do we Live Consciously in a Waking World?

How to we Thrive in a Box?

Join Tommy and Beata this week, and see what they have to say about it.

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LMTV #80: The Calm After the Storm

Have You Ever Found Yourself Being Bugged by Something for Weeks? Months? Even Years?

It seems like a pretty common human experience, to be hurt by something someone did, to feel injured or damaged by someone’s words. And maybe to expand it in our minds until it is larger than life. Does this ring a bell for you?

But what really happens when an incident like this occurs?

For some of us, it creates a whole cycle of anger and pain within us that leads to an even bigger problem than originally existed. Our ego-minds become attached to the idea of being damaged beyond repair, and holding the other person responsible, expecting him or her to understand the depth of our pain and to take responsibility for it…even though to that person, the event was almost certainly much smaller than we imagine (or remember). To that person, it may even seem—heaven forbid!—insignificant.

So while the other person goes about his or her life not even thinking about this situation, we create a whole cycle of inner turmoil that creates even more pain for us! Essentially, we create an inner storm that rages relentlessly. Sound familiar?

If you’ve been following the Soul Talk Guys with any regularity, then you probably already know that the first thing they tend to do is remind you not to beat yourself up for behaving like a human! Because, after all, beating yourself up just adds to your inner storm!

But they also have great suggestions for finding your way out of this pattern. And that’s exactly what they talk about in this week’s episode of Life Mastery TV. Tommy & David can’t promise you that you’ll never experience this kind of turmoil again in your life, but they can help you to make a much faster transition to

The Calm After the Storm.

Do you want to find out how quickly

  • You can recover from egoic injury?
  • You can let go of the attachment to being right about how you were mistreated?
  • You can drop your own suffering?
  • You can soothe your ego-mind and dismiss your inner dimwits?

Well, if you answered yes to any of these questions, then make sure you check out the replay for this week’s free webinar! Because with Awareness, Understanding and Practice, you’ll soon get to a place where nothing can hurt you.

That’s right: Nothing!

Enjoy the video, and please remember to leave a comment below.

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LMTV #79: Anybody’s Guess

What Happens When the Soul Talk Guys Are in the Same Place at the Same Time?

If you’ve been paying attention (and we know you have!), then you have almost certainly noticed that when the Soul Talk Guys check in, David is usually coming in from Belmont, California, and Tommy is usually coming in from Thousand Oaks, California. Of course they both travel, so sometimes one or both of them call in from different parts of the world. And yet, every week since they started this Life Mastery TV journey, they have always managed to be there for you—on time, and on point! Well, for this episode, the planets aligned in such a way as to allow them to connect in person! So, you are in for a special treat, because Tommy & David are in the same place at the same time—for the first time ever!

And what kind of treat might you be in for? Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

Even when Tommy & David have a specific topic in mind, you never quite know what shenanigans they get up to—although you can probably guess about some of it! But if they’re in the same room…? Well, in that case, all bets are off! What happens in this episode is, well,

Anybody’s Guess!

But you know the kind of wisdom these guys share every week. You know the way they provide all sorts of insights and perspectives on virtually all aspects of life. You know how they offer so many different ideas and suggestions for making your own life more fulfilling and satisfying. And, after all, isn’t that why you keep coming back for more?

Where else do you get

  • Unconditional love and acceptance from two really cool guys and their guests?
  • Answers to some of life’s most perplexing questions?
  • Suggestions for taming your inner critic and quieting your endless mind-chatter?
  • And so much more?

And all of this offered to you—for FREE—every single week?

It really is a deal you can’t afford to pass up, because you can’t get any better wisdom anywhere else—especially wisdom that is served up with such humor, authenticity, and lots of love.

So, do what the Soul Talk Guys have suggested at virtually every opportunity:

Take a risk and trust that you’ll hear exactly what your Soul needs to hear!

You’ll be glad you did!

Oh, yes! Please remember to leave a comment in the space below! Thanks!