 Well, hello and welcome to Jonathan from the Heart. I'm Jonathan Asley of JonathanAsley.com and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. Our topic, what a 19-year-old male can teach us about love or what a 19-year-old man can teach us about love. Really quickly, this is actually a personal share. So if there's something you'd like to write to me personally regarding this video, please post a comment below or post a question. I'm going to do my best to read every single one and respond. So our topic, what a 19-year-old man can teach us about love. And this is going to be a very hard video to shoot. So please give me a little bit of latitude. Today is the second anniversary of the loss of my 19-year-old son Connor. You've heard me talk about this several times in previous videos. And today is, this video is actually a little bit of a tribute to him. It's an honor to him. I'm going to be all over the map. I don't know where my emotions are going to be. So please bear with me. But I began reflecting a couple days ago with the last time. It was actually July 1st, 2018, was the last time I saw my son alive. And those are pictures of Connor right there. And we did our usual thing. We got together for lunch like we always do. We had a great time. We talked about how the world is a matrix. We're all in this weird simulation, which feels this way, especially where we're at right now in the world. And it ended as it always did with a hug and a kiss. And I love you. And I'm so grateful that's my last memory because when he passed, as a parent, the worst thing to see in your life is your lifeless child. There was nothing worse than that. And I experienced that two years ago today. It actually broke my heart open into something much broader and much more profound because I began doing a deeper dive into what it means to love and what it means to love. And it actually inspired me to write my second book called What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway. And this was literally inspired by Connor. It was inspired by him and especially what I'm going to talk about today. Because there's one thing in particular that he can teach all of us that I write about in the book. Now really quickly, you might be wondering why the shirt says, Stay Salty. Connor's nickname was Salty. I get all these little gifts from people, Salty, Carmels. I can't begin to tell you how many precious little gifts I get. And if I ever respond to you and you see a little salt shaker, that's because I'm honoring Connor. And what was so fascinating about my son is, well, a couple things. But one in particular was he had this unique ability to not allow others' opinion of him affect who he was. He had this unique ability to literally brush off any kind of negativity in his life. I was always amazed at this. I mean, now he would freeze up a little bit, but he really didn't allow it to affect him. And so I wrote a chapter in the book. I wrote a chapter in the book. By the way, if you want a copy of it, there's a link below, selflovethebook.com. And the chapter is called Don't Let Anyone Fuck With Your Chi. Don't Let Anyone Fuck With Your Chi. What that means is your Chi is your inner peace, your inner being. And he had this unique way of allowing that negativity to bounce off of him. And this actually reminds me, I mean, while he was slightly schooled on personal development, because my sons would have to listen to personal development CDs in the car with me, it reminds me of the book, The Four Agreements. The Four Agreements. And if you're not familiar with the book Four Agreements, please check it out. But one of the fundamental principles is others' opinion of you is a reflection of them, not a reflection of you. And one of the other principles is don't make assumptions. So we as human beings, especially in the dating, mating or relating realm, literally give our power away to other human beings. We literally give our power away. And ladies, I witness you do this over and over and over again. You literally, how a man feels about you is how you feel about you. Let me repeat that. How a man feels about you is how you feel about you. And then what happens is if he's not interested, if he moves on, if he has some issues or he goes through whatever, all of a sudden it's affected your inner being. And my invitation for you, actually it's Connor's invitation. It's Connor's invitation is to not let anyone fuck with your chi. Don't, you know, this takes a fair amount of self-discipline. Don't get me wrong. It takes a fair amount of introspective work. But I really appreciated this about my son. He had this amazing ability. And so I talk about this in my private coaching and in my group coaching program, Midlife Love Mastery. I talk about being passionate and detached, being passionate and detached. And what that means is passionate means being open to all the possibilities in life, being open and receptive to love and detached from any outcome, detached from any outcome. Buddha says all suffering comes from attachment. So it's being aware and recognizing that we are sovereign human beings. We have the capacity to self-nurture ourselves, hence self-love. We have that capacity to nurture our own soul. So why give our power away? Why give our chi to someone else? And I gotta tell you, you know, he was just amazing at that. In fact, you know, very few parents, most parents love their children. I mean, they really love their children. And well, not all parents, but most parents do. You know, in my particular case, I like my boys. I like who they are. I liked who Connor was. I liked him as a person. And this lesson he taught me and throughout my book, throughout my book, there's so many lessons from Connor that I learned. I just... Oh, now it's hitting me. This is hard. I miss him. I really do miss him. I miss his energy. I miss that capacity. And by the way, for the record, he wasn't disassociated because he was an amazing child. He would call his grandmother to take her out to lunch. He would always call me up and say, Dad, when are we getting together next? I'm reaching out to me, which is unusual for children. So Connor had this ability to be passionate and open in his life. And he wasn't attached to outcomes. He literally enjoyed the ride and what I'm so grateful for. You know, he graduated high school when he was 18. And he wasn't going to go to college. And he asked his mom and I, would you give me one year to figure out my life? Would you give me one year to figure out what I want to do? And I was so proud of him because he was starting a t-shirt company with his friends. And he was taking trips and he was living balls to the wall. I mean, he was a rebel and he was just living life to the fullest. And he passed one day, one year and three days after he said, will you give me one year? I think on some level he knew. And so he knew, don't give your power away to anyone else. Don't give your chi to anyone else. And if there's one lesson you can learn from my son, this 19 year old man, this 19 year old man, what you can learn from him is don't give your power away. Don't let anyone fuck with your chi. You know, it's interesting because it's July right now and Connor loved Christmas and he would always ask his mom, when are we getting our tree? When are we getting our tree? And this just reminds me of his little cute face and asking about when are we getting our Christmas tree in July? And I'm reminded of that right now. My invitation for you is to start taking your power back if you've given it away and start loving on yourself. This is how I honor my son by spreading love, by doing my best to operate from what would love do. And there are people that disagree with my philosophies. They don't get it. You know, we all have our different opinions. But the one thing we can't disagree on, or at least I hope we don't disagree, on the importance of loving on ourselves, to really love on ourselves. And that's my invitation for you because that's what a 19 year old can teach you. What 19 year old man can teach you about love is don't give your power away. Don't let anyone fuck with your chi in one of the highest forms of self love. Thank you for allowing me to share this with you today. I hope you found value. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please post a comment below if this resonated with you. If you want to get my book, there's a link there. If you want to join my VIP group, if you want to schedule a call with me, the links are all there. I'd be honored to connect with you. And I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do. First, giving myself a big, gigantic Jonathan Bear hug of love. And I'm going to ask you to give yourself a big, gigantic hug of love. And I'm going to ask you to turn to the person next to you and give them a big, gigantic hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And it's a great antidote to inner suffering so we don't let anyone fuck with our chi. Thank you so much and wishing you a super-duper, wonderful, fantastic day. Thanks so much. Bye-bye now.