Happiness Is A Choice: Turning Inward To That Inner Four-Year-Old With John “J” Stanton

 

On today’s show, Rebecca Victor invites a special guest to talk about how we should treat other people like they’re four years old. It might seem like a ridiculous perspective, but John “J” Stanton, co-founder of Studio Volant, doesn’t see it that way. He shares how it is important to treat people with kindness and respect, just like a 4-year-old child-loving unconditionally and compassionately, and one that sees no prejudice in others. Bringing that to his professional life, John takes us throughout his career journey and the lessons that allowed him to find success. He also talks about the importance of choosing happiness and, when it becomes difficult to do so, how we can take care of ourselves, turning within, and nurturing the parts of us that needed it.

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Happiness Is A Choice: Turning Inward To That Inner Four-Year-Old With John “J” Stanton

I have the opportunity of interviewing an awesome individual that I’m looking forward to you meeting. His name is J Stanton. J and I have known each other for quite a few years, and we both share a love for music. If you look at his Facebook, he’ll often be playing and sharing songs and music that he loves. I too have had an opportunity to perform with him and have enjoyed that immensely as well. In addition to playing the piano, he is a Cofounder of Studio Volant. It is a branding, marketing and creative design studio in Dayton. He is also the Creative Director for Hot Head Burritos and Rapid Fired Pizza. Being a professional pianist, he plays often around the Dayton area and has a regular gig at The Paragon Supper Club in Centerville. J, welcome. It’s nice to have you.

I’m glad to be here. How nice. Thank you for asking me to come on.

I’m excited when you said yes. As I was sharing with you when we were talking, I love to bring on guests who I know walk their own journeys, who understand the beauty and the value of turning inward and sharing your story. I learned from other people’s stories. I’m excited about what you get to share with us as you talk about your journey, and whatever subjects we come up with as we’re going through our time together. Does that sound good?

Sounds awesome.

I know you, but the individuals who are reading may not. Tell us a bit about yourself and how turning within for guidance and understanding has helped you.

I am in Earth years, 51 years old but I’m really four years old. I have 47 years of experience at being four. I decided long ago that four years old is the perfect age. You know enough to tell people that you’re hungry. You’re old enough not to mess your pants. You’re still connected and curious to the unknown. You’re adventurous, at least I was. It was the time right before the proverbial shit hits the fan. You have to go to kindergarten, pay attention, sit down, mind your Ps and Qs, don’t be creative and don’t talk. It is a perfect place for me to rest because with all these 47 years of experience at being four years old, I’ve learned how to still stay curious but also to allow myself the freedom to make little mistakes and be a dum-dum sometimes. I like to treat other people like they are four years old. I was a flight attendant right after I graduated from college.

You’re dealing with people in a stressful time. Each individual passenger has their own story. One may be going to a funeral. One may be going to a vacation that they’ve saved a lifetime for. One might be going to a wedding. Everybody’s got a different story. I treat people like they are four years old. What that means is as a sane individual, I would treat a four-year-old with kindness, respect, a bit of humor, a whole lot of love, a whole lot of understanding and compassion. That’s not to be condescending, although if they get out of line, I can turn on the condescension. I grew up being surrounded with incredible parents and a wonderful woman who cared for me when I was a child.

The answers all lie within you. Click To Tweet

She was my nanny. She was an example of unconditional love. No matter what I said, how I behaved or how I acted, she always was kind. She would say, “I love you. I don’t like you right now but I love you.” When I was right between my 17th and 20th year, both my mother and this woman named Bee died. The two sources of real honest to goodness, unconditional love and support, somebody you could go to day or night and tell them whatever you needed to tell them, and they would help you sort it out. They were truly my allies, both of them. From that moment until now, I’ve been on a path to figure out a way not to feel sad every day. It was distressing for my mother to die. Bee had a stroke and I found her on the floor of her home.

After those moments, I knew that I was a happy person by nature, creative, curious, fun and slightly smarter than the average bear but enough to get myself in trouble and be dangerous probably. I knew that I needed to find a way to make this horrible thing at the time that happened be okay. I was raised Roman Catholic, very strict. The word isn’t Orthodox because we weren’t Orthodox. We did not miss a Sunday or a holy day of obligation. Even if we’re on vacation, Saturday afternoon was spent looking for the local church, finding the priest, probably going to the rectory and talking to him. It’s almost assured we’re going to dinner with him if we talk to him, and then the next morning, my brother or I would be volunteered by my father to either serve as an altar boy or I’d have to play the piano or something.

After my mom died, I was eighteen. I left the organized religion part of my life and the rigor of that and held on to all the good things like the mystery of faith, and the things that I did enjoy whether they were real or made up. You and I both have a connectedness to what is unseen. I believe in something that is unseen. When people say, “I’m a recovering Catholic.” I say, “What are you recovering from?” I never had a bad experience as a child at all with the church and the guilt part of it. I still read as more of a press to maintain personal responsibility. I don’t allow fear and guilt in my life, two useless emotions. Fear is future-based, which is not now. Guilt is past-based, which is not now. I try to, as much as I can, alleviate those. I always try to make the right decision, so I don’t feel guilty. If you don’t lie, you don’t have to make up another lie about lying, mom used to say.

That became that turning point where you began to take ownership of a journey for yourself in a way that you wanted to take it.

I took a class in college called Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques. I did this deep meditation. It was cool. I had this spiritual experience with my mother. It was lovely. I don’t know what it was, maybe my mind made it up but if my mind made it up, I am all about it because it was cool. The path that you’re on doesn’t end, you don’t arrive. You stay on the road and you learn as time goes by, as time passes, as you get another year on your four years old thing. You go around the block one more time. You learn more and you learn more grace, and you learn what to let go. You learn to say, “I don’t give a crap,” and that’s okay.

When you were telling you had a spiritual experience with your mom, it sounds in a way that you were always connected anyway even as a child. Is that an assumption that’s accurate that I’m making?

I was always thought of as a sensitive child, in a way not so much as I was one to be reduced to tears. I had a strong connectedness to compassion. One of my favorite stories is a friend of mine, our families have known each other before we were born. He and I have been friends and he still remembers me teaching him how to tie his shoe. He’s one year younger than me. We were up in the woods. We were walking home from school and he was saying, “I couldn’t tie my shoe,” and I was like, “I’ll help you.” I showed him how to tie a shoe. He’s like, “You taught me how to tie my shoes.”

When you’re a kid, you don’t know what you are. When I was a child, I was precocious and my parents had me tested as a child for my IQ. I’m left-handed, there’s a bit of that too. I’m a weirdo but in a good way. I mostly passed as normal. I was gifted and I was playing the piano at five years old, I started lessons and I was bilingual. The lady who took care of me was German. My parents told her to speak German to me. I was bilingual from the age of two on. I don’t know, it just happened. When a child is child, you can speak twenty languages to them and it’s all the same thing. We absorb it as children. I was also hyperactive. My parents didn’t take me to a psychiatrist. They didn’t believe in those things. I didn’t burn things down. I was active. My parents took the tack of instead of medicating me, scolding me or admonishing me, they were like, “We’ll just give him more to do.”

They were cool. I built a beautiful two-story clubhouse with a loft. I built a train set with electric switches to turn lights on and off in the house. Anything I got into, I got into it and I loved the perfection of it. My mom was great. She was the best ally a kid could have. I was like, “I need a 4X8 sheet of plywood.” She’d say, “I got the station wagon. We’ll head on down to the lumberyard.” My dad is like, “Your mother spoils you.” I wasn’t spoiled rotten and mean about it. I did come back to take care of him in his old age.

He thanked you for that. You were spoiled creatively.

He was a fine artist. He went to Notre Dame. He had two Bachelors of Fine Arts degrees. He was a technical illustrator. He was visually-gifted.

That’s where you probably come through that line too.

My mom was a painter too. She had, I saw when she painted, they were beautiful. She had a gift. She didn’t study it. She did dental hygiene. I was blessed to have a good spiritual upbringing.

When you were making this journey, how do you turn within to receive guidance, understanding or clarity. What do you do? How do you know the direction you’re being guided? What is a clue that you’re going, “This is where I need to go?” What do you look for? What do you feel? What do you sense?

One thing I do is turn off the naysayer’s voice. A lot of people have this and maybe somebody will read this, you have that voice in your head that says, “No, I can’t do that because.” It has something to do with feeling shame or badness. I’ve learned to tell that voice to shut the fuck up. I do not place judgment as best I can. I’m actively trying to remove judgment from things and events in my life. Other than seeing them as good or bad, I see them as what it is. The outcome is predicated on me making the right decision of what to do with that information. As far as guidance, I tell myself regularly that as long as I’m here now, here now is always a place of safety and security. In that time, solutions to problems or how to work things out more easily flow to you. I do believe that answers all lie within you. You need to tell the voice to shut up and then listen. I know you know that when you have a feeling about something, it feels good in your soul, your synapse, and your neurons are firing. It feels right.

Be here now, be present, not there and then. Click To Tweet

Another thing that I always do is I wait in excited anticipation for what wonderful, amazing, cool things could happen next. There are rainy days, cold and crappy. The thing about it is even on those crazy, awful days, you find moments of grace. In every horrible thing that’s happened to me in my life and everybody’s had horrible things, so my horrible stuff is not worse than any other person’s horrible. In the real tragedies or horrors in my life, I consistently found not only are they growth moments so much but they’re also filled with moments of grace. When my father died, I came home from Colorado and thought my dad had a stroke. I’m going to be here for a couple years. I’ll come home and I’ll make sure he’s taken care of. When he passed away, I go back to Colorado and can resume my life. That was during the time that I had to adjust my attitude. What I learned is that you can choose how you feel about things. You can choose how you feel about them. Because you can choose how you feel about them, you can choose to react or act in a way that supports a good outcome.

You found in that experience that you were on choice of whether how do you want to experience it.

My father’s dying was the point. I say this all the time to people like, “You’re going to die, just not now.” You are going to die, get right with that but not now. It sounds cliche and all that but the reason cliches are cliche is because they’re generally true. They’re true that people repeat them. “Be here now,” is a mantra that is legitimately a great mantra. Be here now, be present. Be here now, not there and then. It went on for six years. He ended up losing his mind and it ended up getting two felony counts against him because somebody walked in front of his car and they got in this argument and my dad hit him. He was out of his mind. Even in those moments, I’m like, “If he didn’t hurt the guy, that was good.” That being the case, I was like, “Dad, you mowed that guy down in the parking lot. Do you know half of Chinquapin Parish would give their eye teeth to run over somebody in a parking lot once in a while?” It’s all about taking everything for a moment and allowing space for inspiration and new thought to emerge.

What practices do you do that will allow you to move inward or to get quiet? What practices do you engage in?

I read a book, don’t ask me anything more about it than the name of it and the constructs but it was called The Silva Mind Control Method. I picked up this book because after my mom passed away, I was having all these racing thoughts and I was upset. I knew I needed to get a grip on it and throttle that stuff. I thought, I knew that if I worked at it, that I would be able to quell that inability to turn off the flood of thoughts I had. I learned a way and I know this sounds silly but here it is. I have an island and, on that island, it’s got a tall place like a plateau, and there’s a big, huge glass. It’s beautiful, almost like the shell in Sydney, Australia, The Opera House, glass windows and there’s a Steinway grand piano in the middle of it. It has terrazzo floor. This is fully-formed in my head. When I need to shut it all down, I get in a car, the same car at this house I live in, I go to the airport, I get on a Learjet and I know the color of the plane, I know what the carpet looks like. I legitimately have it down to the detail. I close my eyes, I go to my island. When I go to my island, I’m happy.

To get to my island, I have to get in that car and my driver has to take me. I’m wealthy enough to have a driver, access to a Learjet and a private Island. In happy world land, I got everything I need. I go to my island and I usually will sit and look at the ocean off the island and that’s all it takes. I rarely make it down to the beach, which is down from the big pavilion where the piano is. It’s a little beach house in a lagoon. I rarely make it down there. Whatever is bothering me, I’ve either gone to sleep or faded out. I do empty my mind regularly. I talk about emptying my mind and everything stops. I close my eyes and this is due to Silva Mind Control, I’ve practiced the thing. I couldn’t give you anything more than what I gleaned from the book. It’s how to do it. All I remember saying is like, “This will not be easy at first but anything with practice, it is good.” I’m a terrible pianist, I practiced a lot. When I play something beautifully and somebody says, “That’s gorgeous. That was great. You’re good.” I’m like, “I’m not, I’m a horrible pianist. I have practiced a lot and that rendition went smashingly.”

What’s the difference between you being a horrible and a good pianist? How do you know you’re horrible? You have to practice.

I was there in front row center for every one of my train wrecks. Every time I missed that note and I’ve been playing professionally for many years. I was lead pianist with Nordstrom for years. That time I was playing 30 hours a week. This is back in my late 20s, early 30s when I was smoking a little pot. I’ve been there on every one of my mistakes. You are your own worst critic. I don’t think I’m my own worst critic. I’m my own worst realist. I can play a song and it can be pretty. It’s like even with spirituality. You never arrive at enlightenment. They say you do but I don’t think so. You’re always stretching to be more and be better.

When you’re opening into that, one of the techniques that you were sharing that you use, especially when you’re not able to slow the mind down, you use this opportunity instead to go back to that island, to picture yourself in your car, being driven, getting on your Learjet. What color is it?

 

It’s an off-white, it’s like bone color. It has a beige stripe and a deeper brown stripe. The car is a Mercedes-Benz, but it’s a chocolate brown. It’s not a black Mercedes. It’s a dark chocolate brown with a camel interior.

That speaks to you though because you are visual too. You’re such a visual that you’re picking up all these. I struggle oftentimes with the visual component. I’m a feeler more than I am, kinesthetically speaking. I can describe the feeling and the sense of it all and then sometimes, “What does it looks like? Wait a minute.” I find it enjoyable listening as you’re describing that visually because I can picture it. It’s fun to picture it where someone else might look at the island and they’re hearing all the birds and the waves.

The way the salt smells, this water smells and how the hot sand smells on a sunny day, those kinds of things. Make your own safe space and whether it’s an Island or whether it’s a cabin on the top of a mountain or it’s in a hole in the middle of the desert, whatever it is, where you go where nothing can get you. No phone will ring, nobody will tell you need to get up or sit down. You get to be four years old again. You sit in your seat and give yourself a place that at least in your mind you can go. It’s like people say, “It’s my happy place.” Legitimately you need a happy place. Make it right now.

You did this after reading The Silva Mind Control Method as you were moving through your experience of the loss of your mother.

That was calming the waves. What I didn’t learn more later was probably when my spiritual journey gotten kick-started in ‘95, right after I graduated from college. I had been a huge fish in a little pond here in Dayton. I was pianist down at Stouffer’s. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, I was on the radio for Jazz Brunch. I was a University Ombudsman at Wright State before I graduated. For four years, I was the Ombudsman for the university, which is quite a prestigious position for a student to hold. I’m only saying this not to brag but to say that when I graduated in ‘94, I received the distinguished graduating senior. There were four of us that were mentioned for our leadership and for the good things we had done for the campus while we were there. I was on top of the world. I started my own business. I was a designer. I was wallpapering. Everything that didn’t move in Dayton I wallpaper.

I was doing a lot of that. Everything was great and then out of the blue, I got this phone call to ask me to be a flight attendant because I speak French. I ended up getting a Minor in French. I was fluent in written and spoken French. United Airlines was only hiring people with degrees, only people who are fluent written and spoken in a foreign language. You had to take a test and all that stuff. People say it’s hard to become a flight attendant. I don’t know that. I went and got an interview. The next thing you know I was on a plane. That’s another thing that you do. Sometimes life happens to you. Instead of saying no, just go, “Sure, why not? Let’s see what happens.” The worst thing that happened is I could say, “I don’t like this,” then I’ll look for something else.

Life can be lonesome for an extrovert, for a person who cherishes time with other people. Click To Tweet

That’s what you did when you were doing the flight attendant.

I took the job. Before I knew what I was doing, I moved away from Dayton to Denver, Colorado. I knew nobody. I had one friend, the guy whose shoes I taught to tie. he coincidentally was living out in Denver. I did have an old buddy who lived out there, so it was a bit okay, but I had never felt so isolated. As a flight attendant, you’re gone four days a week. When you’re that junior or that new at it, you’re gone to who knows. You might be in Tampa tomorrow or you might be in Fargo, North Dakota tomorrow. Pack your warm long johns and also bring a swimming suit or a pair of shorts because wool pants on the boardwalk in South Florida is not comfortable anytime.

There was a lot of alone time and it threw me. When you do something new, you learn stuff you never knew you never knew. I was learning things I never knew I never knew. Some of those things were hard truths that life can be lonesome, for an extrovert, for a person who cherishes time with other people. There’s no social media. To call home was a calling card. It cost me dollars to talk to people. I fell in love and it was wonderful. We dated for six months and I knew nobody but he and his friends. He was not ready to be in a serious relationship with somebody. He broke up with me and it crushed me. I didn’t know anybody. I had no support group. The one friend I did have didn’t want to want to hear about me or boohoo about this guy that broke up with me. First of all, he was straight and it’s not that it mattered to him that I was who I was. You can’t burden somebody all the time.

It takes time, especially when you’re connected. Did you stay then in Denver?

I stayed in Denver but I was at a point where I said I need to get professional help because I am trying to do this myself and work through this. I know that getting professional help, getting a counselor, getting a psychiatrist, it’s good. If you want to become a real estate agent, you go to classes. If you want to get healthy, you go see a psychiatrist and find a good one that appreciates that you know the answers do lie within you. I wasn’t going to get fixed. I was going to get somebody to help me look at this automobile that was me and figure out a way to fix it. I went. He was good, great guy. The first two meetings I had with him, I was crying the whole time and telling him that I’m a happy person. He was like, “The first two hours we spent together, you were sobbing about all these things.” He reminded me constantly that I am a happy person. That was fun.

Here was the moment that changed my whole world. I asked the universe for guidance. I brought in the Catholic saints because I’m connected. I asked my Mom, I asked Bee, I asked the universe at large to help me with an answer. I went to a bookstore in a mall and I went to the self-help area because that’s what they called it at the time. I ran my hand down the books and I stopped on a book called Happiness Is a Choice by Barry Neil Kaufman. It is truly the most profound reading I’ve ever done in its simplicity. It’s simple. It’s not a hard read. It’s a quick read too. There are some basic things that, and one of them is happiness is a choice for sure and misery is always an option. You get to choose. If you want to be happy or be miserable. You can do that if you want. There’s another thing.

 

I read that book and that got me started on if I choose to be happy, even though I’m sad because I don’t know anybody, I can still choose to be happy. Even if it’s just I am happy that now is 70 degrees and sunny and I get to go on my roller blades, or I get to take a bike ride. Even if it’s dumb little stuff that most people are like, “You got to use floss now.” You can be thankful that you have floss in your bathroom because a lot of the world don’t have floss. That was my thing. I ended up reading all of his books and then went to his retreat center. It’s called the Option Institute. I went to the Option Institute for a class when my father had a stroke and I moved town and changed my whole life, after finding out that I love Denver.

Once I decided to be happy and make a go of it, it moved there. I moved to Germany for a year because I was offered a transfer to Germany with United. I felt that I should live overseas. I did that for a year. That was lonesome. I was equipped with ways to ensure that if you choose every day and every moment of every day to be happy, and you do it on a minute-by-minute basis even when it’s tough, what you’ll have is a lifetime of knowing that you actively sought to be happy no matter what the circumstances are. When you’re looking back on your life, you’re not going to be filled with regret because you wasted time being sad. You know that in your whole life, the minute you decided that happiness is a choice, you are consciously deciding to put happiness first.

Happiness doesn’t have to be silly, dumb like I’m out of my mind. It’s coming from a place of not angry and not mad. I went away to the training and it happened that this Barry Neil Kaufman wrote a book called No Regrets about his dealing with his father in his father’s declining time. I read that and I was like, “This has given me a blueprint for dealing with my father.” It’s not hard. There’s nothing weird about it. It’s simple. First of all, be nice and know that if somebody has a different opinion, you can choose to not give one single care. Not that you don’t care about that person, but not caring about how they feel about something frees you up to not be angry with them. In the end of my father’s life, it’s because of that. My takeaway is that it takes work and practice, but anything is possible if you stick with it.

It’s also the choice in choosing happiness doesn’t mean that you are pretending the sadness isn’t there. It’s an acknowledgment that it is. It’s real. It’s what it is. In addition, I’m going to invite happiness in and I’m going to go for it.

Happiness is a choice for sure, and misery is always an option. Click To Tweet

In those moments of sadness, I’m going to look for those moments of grace. When you’re super sad like my dog died, I’d put my dog to sleep but I knew that was coming because I’ve lost a dog before, a couple of them and I know how crappy that day is and the day after it and the couple of days after it. Knowing that there will be a day when this is not an issue at all put me in the mind of more of reverence and solemn memorializing of this wonderful dog, and spending time in moments of how much love I had for that dog. He clearly had that for me. This dog was special. Like all dogs are to their owners to their person, they are.

Even if you feel sad, don’t be angry with yourself because you’re not happy. Always remember that you have the choice to choose happy. My mommy used to say think happy thoughts when I was a kid. It turns out those were brilliant pieces of advice. We as human beings or we as a culture are trained systematically that feeling bad about things is the way to show that you care. When people are like, “I’m heartbroken for you because your dog died.” That’s ridiculous. Why don’t you feel full of love for love of animals for that person who’s lost a dog and knows that’s a sad thing? It’s almost like it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. It’s the same thing. It’s how you couch it. People are like, “That’s ridiculous.” Why is it ridiculous? Only because that’s how you’ve been trained. If you laugh at a funeral, that’s inappropriate. I want people to laugh at my funeral. I want them to tell ridiculous stories about me and laugh to the point that they cry because they’re laughing so hard.

I’d imagine I was asking people of different techniques and you had shared some. One time I was teaching in class and one of the students said a practice for him was humor. A spiritual practice was humor. He said, “Do you think that’s spiritual?” I’m like, “What do you think?” He said, “I do.” I’m like, “Think about what laughter and humor does. It helps lighten things up.” It doesn’t mean that you’re negating whatever it is, it adds a lightness to it. When that lightness comes, all of a sudden there’s available to me a new idea, a new thought that when I’m in the energy or in a depth of sadness or depression, it makes it difficult to become aware of that. When you’re talking about feeling good, choose to be happy, Abraham Hicks has that Emotional Guidance.

I don’t know if anybody out there has ever heard that, but they have an Emotional Guidance Scale that I love. What they’re saying is you’re not going to go from feeling depressed or angry to feeling absolute bliss and joy and love. What I appreciate is that the feeling better could be I can remember being in a state of depression, to the point that I had no association with anything. Everything was as if it was way far away. I remember being encouraged to be angry. I’m like, “That’s not right to be angry.” It’s like, “Yes, it is because anger is a level up in energy than depression.” Being angry doesn’t mean I go out and knock off somebody because they tick me off.

That’s not what it means, but it means owning that I’m angry, owning that I didn’t like what happened, owning that this was wrong and being clear within myself. The energy that came as a result of that was invigorating. I didn’t have to take it out on somebody but there came a point in time, because I ended up in therapy too, it was a wonderful gift because it was a gift of how I learn to drive this car. It’s an awesome car and I don’t quite know how to drive a stick shift yet. What are the ways that are unique about mine that I can learn to drive and the subtleties so it’ll make it enjoyable, pleasurable and smooth?

Even when it’s raining, at least you have wipers in your car. Make that rainy day more comfortable.

Anger was something, at least in my upbringing, was not a safe thing. It frightened people. I had a lot of anger. It frightened different people. I didn’t know why I had the anger but I had it. I thought there was something wrong with me but many years later when I decided to move into therapy, either move into therapy or end up in jail because I knew I would have hurt somebody at some point. I was to a point where I was going to take out something. I’m like, “I don’t want to do that. Let me go talk to somebody.” It was probably one of the most profound gifts that I gave myself because somebody helped me to see life differently. They gave me tools and techniques to handle and deal with life, and process that anger because I was good at being helpful.

 

I remember there was a book I wanted to read and the therapist looked at me and she said, “We’ll look at that book when you deal with this,” which was be okay in the emotion. It took me time to understand but then there came a point that the anger for me was appropriate until it came to a point it didn’t feel good anymore. It was a practiced activity that no longer helped me. It was a way of engaging and I felt no sense of pleasure. It was, “Isn’t there something better here?” It shifted then to instead of being angry, I was a little pissed off. You go up that emotional scale. I love that because it’s okay if I’m in this state not to be able to reach that state of nirvana. It’s like me trying to leave the Grand Canyon. Good luck. I hear what you’re saying there and I love that sense of I can choose happy. I can choose better feeling. That’s what I like when it’s shared. What feels a little better when you choose that thought or that vision, that idea. When you’re sharing that, that’s what I hear you doing. You’re choosing thoughts that feel better.

You talk about Abraham Hicks, there’s a line that I heard in one of the recordings I listened to, it’s seek relief were the words that I heard Abraham said. In a trying time or in a frustrating time, what is that to people? Something that I would love to implant in everybody’s brain that would be helpful to everybody is to learn to responsibly ask the question how would it feel if I didn’t care about that? Whatever it is that is making you angry or frustrated, if you say to yourself, for a minute we’re going to make beliefs, not make believe but we’re going to make beliefs. What if we choose to see that situation that’s causing us this angst or anger or frustration as something that we could not possibly care less about, I call it my give-a-fuck-a-meter.

What it comes down to is and I learned this at the Option Institute too, it’s that question, give yourself the permission to ask yourself the question, how would it feel if I didn’t care about that? What that means is not that I don’t care about it, but how would it be if I chose not to have a negative response to that thing, whatever that stimulus is. Even if you have to go back to being super fucking pissed off about it, it doesn’t matter. For a moment, give yourself the luxury of not caring about it. It not being an issue. Sometimes I ask myself the question, “In five years, is this going to be a big deal?” If it’s not, I’m not putting any energy into it now. That’s another good way. I asked myself the question, “How would it feel if I didn’t care about that?”

Not that I’m not going to be a responsible person, not that I’m not going to be loving to a person if it’s somebody that has created a situation where I could choose to be angry or not. It’s allowing yourself the relief. The seek relief from that frustration or that anger is to not care about it. Actively say, “That is not a thing for me to care about.” My trip was canceled, I was going to go to San Diego and I’m disappointed because I love San Diego. What I thought was, first of all, San Diego is not going anywhere. It’s something to put as a flag out there in the future when this COVID stuff is subsided to the point that we can safely travel and not be on lockdown. San Diego is still going to be there and I’m still going to have a great time. It’s not now but on placing that little trip that I could be upset because my big trip to San Diego is ruined. How would I feel if I didn’t care? I feel great. I’m okay not caring about it.

When you’re in a space where that’s difficult to even do, how do you take care of yourself? What is one action that you take to nurture yourself?

Humor. That was a good one. There is no horror great enough that you cannot find some humor in it, something that’s like, “Isn’t that ironic?” I like to look at a situation in retrospect immediately. How is this story going to play out in the two years when I tell that crazy story of that time? How can I make it a little spicier and more fun? The only time I could think of a time that I would be out of my wits or at least on the edge would be an instantaneous, traumatic experience like watching a plane crash or being first on scene of a bus crash. What I know about myself, because I’ve been in situations where I’ve been first on the scene of an accident, is that I go right into autopilot. I’m clinical and I’m good in an emergency. It turns out I’m good at it. This part comes from being a flight attendant. You’re brainwashed in that situation to make safety the first priority and if this plane is on fire, get everybody off in 90 seconds. Don’t be afraid of blood.

Give yourself permission to allow good things to happen to you. Click To Tweet

This has been a lot of fun, J. What would you share with someone who’s new in this practice of turning within?

First of all, know that the answers to everything that you are questioning or querying, those answers do lie within you. Nobody else has an answer for you. They may have thoughts and decisions but what is right for you will feel right to you and you will know it. Be super patient, like me playing the piano. When I was six years old, I wanted to play Fur Elise so badly I couldn’t stand it. Now I’m 51 and I do not wish to play it again. You will get there. Give yourself permission to allow good things to happen to you. Allowing is a big part of it and what that means is being okay with good stuff happening to you and looking forward to something good happening. Probably the biggest one is to know that you always have a choice about how you feel. Nobody makes you feel anything. Nobody makes you mad, happy and sad. You choose sadness or happiness. It’s all choice.

Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your journey and giving people an opportunity and myself to peek into your world. I want to thank you. To our readers, thank you. As you’re going about it, remember who and what you are makes a magnificent difference in the world. I surely hope that you have a lot of fun discovering what that is even when it means you got to work through those moments of pissosity. It’s okay. Be pissed and it’s okay in that to seek something that feels better. Here is to your life, embrace the possibilities and enjoy it.

Important Links:

• Facebook – J Stanton Solo Piano
• Studio Volant
• The Silva Mind Control Method
• Happiness Is a Choice
• No Regrets

About John “J” Stanton

John J. Stanton was born and raised in Fairborn, Ohio. J. graduated from Fairborn High School in 1987 and Wright State University in 1994 where he received the distinguished graduating senior award for his leadership on campus. While at Wright State, John served as University Ombudsman for 4 years and was team leader for “Leadership Lab”, a student organization that held seasonal retreats for leaders on campus. J worked full time throughout college as lead inside sales for The Sherwin Williams Company and as house pianist for Stouffers Hotels and Resorts. He founded SouthPaw Creation & Design specializing in residential and commercial interior design. After graduation he was recruited for a language qualified international flight attendant with United Airlines. Based in Denver, Colorado and then Frankfurt, Germany, J spent three years traveling the world, practicing the art of being gracious and kind to every single person of every color, culture, language, and creed…and serving lots of drinks at 37,000 ft.

After his return to the states, J worked in Denver for Janus Mutual Funds as a Retirement Plans Specialist, Quiznos Corporation as a Marketing Manager and Director of International Operations, The Aveda Corporation as Team Leader where he served on the President’s Advisory Council, and as Lead Pianist for Nordstrom.

In 2002, J returned to Ohio to care for his ailing father. He continued his work with Nordstrom and returned to his design business, SouthPaw Creation & Design. In 2009, J and his team were selected to be guest designers on ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition when a home was built in Beavercreek. J has most recently held positions with Country Club of the North as Director of Residential Sales and Brand Manager, Hot Head Burritos as Director of Integrated Communications, Boston Stoker Coffee Company as Director of Sales and Marketing, and as Director of Public Relations and Communications with EF Hutton. In 2019 he co-founded Studio Volant and currently is the Creative Director for Hot Head Burritos, Rapid Fired Pizza, and Wiley’s Wings in Dayton. He still plays the piano for many area country clubs and for The Paragon Supper Club as house pianist.

J has served on The Wright State University, College of Liberal Arts, Dean’s Leadership Board, The Dayton Public Schools Foundation Board, and The Dayton Philharmonic Volunteer Association, Board of Trustees where he champions his life cause, to give every child the opportunity to learn an musical instrument as Chair of the “It’s Instrumental” program which collects instruments for Dayton area schools and music programs.

In his free time J thinks about what it would be like to have free time.