Even with the many traumas and roadblocks in life, there’s always room for appreciating everything around us. Navigating the zigzags of his life with Tesa Baum is coach and author David Brower. Hailing from Beverly Hills, his deep love for the arts brought him into different fields, from the entertainment industry, culinary, and now poetry. He shares how every road in life leads to love, which is key to escaping the feeling of being stuck and managing even the harshest emotions. Tesa and David also talk about their experiences with COVID-19 restrictions, their many food escapades, and how mindfulness sessions like meditation can help break the pandemic’s dull pattern.

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Listen to the podcast here

David Brower: How Appreciating Everything Can Lead To A Better Mindset

I’m thrilled for you to know me to speak with David Charles Brower. David expresses his love for life through writing, poetry, dancing, creating delicious meals, gathering and hosting people and helping others transform. His former work experience was in the entertainment industry and cinema for over twenty years, which shapes his love for the creative process of people and their stories. This laid the foundation for his next adventure in love, writing his first short story, Dance of The Love Caterpillars. The storytelling gem is a universal, romantic love story between two caterpillars, an inspiration to lovers and would–be romantics of all agents. David is an American writer and has chosen Paris as his home for many years. I’m so excited for you to know all his zig-zag stories. 

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David, how are you? 

Tesa, I’m doing great. 

I’m so happy we are connecting. This has been a long time coming. I was so happy you reached out and I’m looking forward to our conversation. I know, you land and back in Paris. Life is a little whirlwind. Anyhow, David, I know we talked a little bit about the theme of The Zig-Zag of Life and I would love to hear if you have an impactful zig-zag story or anything you want to share. 

[bctt tweet=”Life, at the end of the day, is really about connecting with people.” via=”no”]

Life is full of zig-zag. Some of them are more important than others. I suppose the most important zig-zag in my personal life and probably my whole life was losing my wife. Coming back from that and living through that has been the hardest thing that I went through in my life and put into perspective all the rest. That’s life overall. Life speaking, that’s surely the biggest piece of I have had the zig-zag. 

We have been through COVID and that was a year. We have lost track of time, but was this in 2019? 

It was before COVID in June of 2019. 

I’m so sorry. I read about you. I have seen some of your work. You are extremely creative. I’m just curious, what made you decide to live in Paris? I know you are from the States. I would love to know your story. 

Sometimes, we want to escape let’s say, a destiny or environment that promotes a certain destiny. When you get out of college in the States there are a lot of pressure to keep moving forward, either go to graduate school or get that next job. I felt that I was going to law school. As that turned out, I didn’t because I did horribly on the LSAT, which was a good thing. I realize that even though that was quite a creative field in a space, I wasn’t heading down the right path that way. I wanted to get away and see what would happen if I adventured and roamed. Would I live up to who I am, start to face what I’m drawn to, make different decisions, be able to discover parts of myself that I had hidden or denied? It was a flight, go adventure and explore something. Three weeks after college, I’ve got on a plane, came out here to Paris and had a little mail boy job in a law firm. That was many years ago. 

You didn’t know anybody and you didn’t feel out of sorts like, “This is going to be a nice trip.” You see, which is incredible. 

I knew the person who gave me a job because my dad had tried to make a movie with their help here in France many years earlier but that was it. It was starting over at every level. 

Did your parents help you at all to find a place to stay and give you a little bit of starter experience? 

It’s more like friends. I had a list of three different friends when I’ve got into the city off the train. The first number I called, the person doesn’t answer the phone. The second number I call is a friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing. He says, “Come on over.“ I come over to his place and it is like a 16 square meter box, 160 square feet. I’m like, “Am I staying here?“ It was for a friend of his that was coming back into town and I ended up living with him for the first three weeks. Afterward, you start to meet people. Life, at the end of the day, it’s really about connecting with people and people help people. That’s how you run this life. 

How long did you stay in that job? Where you then call to do other things? 

I was only in the mail boy job for about three months and then I took a three–month trip around Europe with my college friends and then came back. I’ve got a job before I left. I’m teaching English here. One of the famous schools here is called The Wall Street Institute. I taught English in advertising firms. It’s like big American advertising firms here. I would go to them and teach there. It was very intimate, one-on-one or in groups. A lot of the time for the first year that people would cancel, I would have a lot of free time. It was great. I learned French while walking on the street. 

You carved it out for yourself. To me, in a very smart way. I’m assuming you didn’t fluently speak French. At that point, it wasn’t just getting by with the language. 

No, not fluently at all. I spoke Spanish as the second language. I’m pretty good with languages or at least Latin languages. I had had two semesters in the college of French about three years before I’ve got here but I hadn’t practiced it at all. It was all about being here. My choice when I’ve got here was not to surround myself with expatriates, English, speaking people. I was heading more towards the full immersion. I might even go to French–speaking classes. I listened to people, read stuff, read signs, talked out loud, like try to as much as possible immersing myself, which was super painful. I‘m missing everything for several years before finally, you can slip something in during the dinner conversation and people laugh like, “I made it.“ 

You just kept on meeting people. I guess a full year went by, do you feel this was home? Do you have foresight like, “I’m here for the long haul?” 

I started to get inklings of that in the first year. There’s something magical about being taken out of the environment you have spent twenty years in and being dropped into another that you know nothing about. Not the values, not the habits, not the lifestyle, not the culture, not the language and not the relationship between men and women. 

You love that it was foreign and the newness. A lot of people want comfort but then again, if we are running from something, then it’s like anything different. Anything new is exactly what you are going for. 

I was running and it was both ways. You are running toward and running for the adventure, discovery, and meeting. At the same time, you don’t want to go back. 

That would be something you would never want to go back to. 

I didn’t seem like it at the time but you were in very much a comparison mode. In your own head, your zipped lock on back and forth. You are constantly like, “What’s better here, what’s better there?“ 

Where are you from initially? 

I grew up in Beverly Hills, California. 

What a difference? I love California. 

That’s what I’m hearing. There are all these images, most people would never even have been there in their life and have seen stuff on TV or something. 

You being a foreigner and being from California is very appealing for them as well, I’m assuming. 

Absolutely. They don’t understand why I’m in Paris. 

Isn‘t that funny? The grass is always greener on the other side. 

Everyone got their thing. No one is necessarily appreciating as much as they could where they are, the whole hedonic adaptation and change of ambiance. Certainly, when you change the culture like I did, country, language and everything, you have a long runway of moments of feeling like a stranger and a foreigner. 

Did you hit a wall at all? Did you hit a moment where you second–guessed it at all? Was there ever a moment of like, “Is that all there is,“ or you haven‘t experienced that? 

There have been moments where you feel a bit challenged and you wonder if it’s because of you is not like everyone else from here. At the same time, I have always sought to be somewhat the outsider. There are so many advantages of being the one American of the group or something. The fact that I was Anglophone was a significant advantage. Even though it’s still is. Let’s put it in perspective. There are only 100,000 Americans approximately in France. This is a percentage versus 330 million is 0.01% or something ridiculous. It’s not so common for people to come. I have seen a lot of people come and go but I didn’t know what I have. I guess I’ve got lucky and fell in love with a beautiful French woman, fell into a beautiful family and got fortunate with my first French friends. I visit all of them and I’m still friends with them until now. 

You found a home so her family still very much part of your life. 

Yes. I have ten nieces and nephews and they have had fourteen children, so there’s quite a bit of them. 

That’s an incredible David. My husband’s name is David. It’s funny because I’m working before COVID but we want a connection with France and Paris. You contacted me but there were a few different French connections that started. Whenever you have your eyes on something, a vision, it then starts to come into your life. It’s so cool. What have you been up to? I have read your book, you are extremely artistic and I’m also interested in the food aspects of your life because I used to be in the food business as well. 

I’m focused on bringing life from this, bringing people back to their senses and doing it with love. It’s like finding love, chasing the love, myself and creating love. Everything is there for me, more or less. One way or another, all the roads lead back to love. That could be the love of what you do. It could be the love of the food you are eating. It could be the love of groups of friends you have. For me, that’s the sweet spot to always ask myself, “Am I loving this? Is this what’s pleasing me?“ I have been around manifesting that and bringing that to the world through the book that I just wrote, Dance of the Love Caterpillars, which came out in March 2021. It’s a love story, an inspirational story for anyone looking for a Renaissance or they have lost hope and are not trusting in life as much. Maybe they have lost love for X reason and they were walking along on their path. In a lot of ways, it was a reminder for me to realize that from one second to another, your life can always change in a great way. I‘m always an addict, of course, but in a great way. 

If we are open to that possibility and we can live through life with that spirit, energy, vitality and continue to live from that space, you bring abundance into your life, you open up opportunities and have encounters that you wouldn’t otherwise. I can’t see living another way. I love loving, being loved and I love that in friendship and I like what I do. I can never do a professional activity that I didn’t love in life. I can‘t do stuff that’s not likable as part of that. That’s why I left the path that I was heading on in life that you have to love, too. 

It’s the opposite. The antithesis. I know so many lawyers I feel trapped. It’s pretty much a different way of thinking and also using a different part of your brain. I do feel everything you are saying, I’m resonating with and I do feel that a lot of people have lost their intuitive sense, enjoyment of life and people tend to get a little sour. They also get cynical and they seem to go through the motions. You could see that. It’s like the glaze in their eyes. You are going through without smiling. You can feel that. 

You also can tell when someone is alive because you feel the vibrancy. It’s being present in the moment. I try to help people in that manner as well. I try to help people understand if there is a challenge and many people have challenges. This is what life is all about. It is the zig-zag of life. Stopping for a moment and understanding that this is maybe a message or a gift for you to find something else about yourself. I love what you are saying in terms of love. If we can appreciate that we are breathing and often when I’m in a ceremony because I facilitate a couple of ceremonies and other rituals for people, I have been doing that even during COVID with a mask on and in a small studio. The idea of taking a moment to appreciate all the elements, understanding that the breath of life taking a moment to breathe, appreciate the air and how it can refresh our beings, I’m very in sync with what you are saying. 

How can we help people that aren’t feeling it? There are a lot of anxiety out there. There are a lot of other issues. People are in survival. Also, when people do things a lot of time, it could be coming off of a crisis like something you experienced and you clearly are looking at it differently. You are in crisis mode, so you have to live and you have to keep it ongoing. Any words of advice for people that do feel stuck or aren’t feeling the joy that you are describing? 

[bctt tweet=”One way or another, all the roads lead back to love.” via=”no”]

In one way, you can’t get stuck in that feeling, emotion or thinking and grab onto it, start executing, living your life and making decisions things based on that endlessly in front of the television at night because that’s all that you can muster the energy to or the desire to and I feel you’ve got an insight in yourself but desire to shake things up. That’s triggering that yourself or getting a friend is useful like getting back to what we love. For me, whenever I feel like I’m not what I want to be, I look at my life and it’s like, “Am I going out and roller skating as I love? Am I dancing? Am I reaching out to others to see how they are doing and see what I can do to help them?“ All these things and it’s simple to come up with a list of the activities when you are in a good space that you get pleasure and meaning at it. Always remember to go back to those. It could be a massage or a walk. These simple things, at the end of the day, it’s almost, there’s a kind of a fine line between going to the dark side and light side. I believe we need to play in both. 

When you want to get back into the light side, it’s almost very simple to go back to what brings you joy and double up on that and/or as we were saying the novelty factor is a huge thing. Take a different way to the office or different transportation. If you do something differently, it’s going to stimulate you. All I ask is that you be present and you don’t go into lost in thought chronic thinking that takes you out from sensing what’s going on so you don’t get the benefit of having consciously chosen to do something differently or creatively because you are falling to the same things. You are taking advantage of it. 

Even if they say you are a student or you are in any situation where you are always sitting in the same place, a wonderful exercise is just going into a different seat. It’s going and looking at everything from a different perspective or change your furniture around regularly. 

Food and cooking are great ones. Stretch yourself to cook something super complicated. 

You can’t go back once you have stretched yourself and you did that then you have to become comfortable with that. When we have not met these patterns or going on autopilot, then we begin to get numb again. As you said, shake it up, keep it going and moving. 

Get pleasurable. Pleasure has got a bad name. I’m talking about the pleasure that’s potentially purposeful and ideally leads to performance in your life at some level. I know how that translates but sometimes, it‘s having super drunk but it’s about opening a nice bottle of wine and being present to it and eating something lovely with it, trying to match it with something. There are lots of ways to help yourself again through the senses to bring you more present that’s part of our everyday life. When we have left that and got lost in this chronic darkfield, which we all are one way or another been going through in and out of, these are tough times for people but we can’t allow ourselves to get stuck there. That’s not acceptable as far as I’m concerned. We’ve got to get through this together. 

It’s funny that you mentioned pleasure because I had a couple of people on the show. They are going to be going live. They had addiction issues, both of them. It was seeking that pleasure and overindulgence but you are explaining it healthily as long as everything is balanced and if you are enjoying it. If you are abusing anything and, if you are taking anything that isn’t healthy for your system, you are going to have these curls, you are not going to feel good. It’s in a mood or anything you are consuming, check in with yourself to see if it makes you feel good. Sometimes, people go overboard with pleasure. They are only seeking pleasure. 

It’s like one of my favorite books. I don’t know if you know Hermann Hesse‘s Narcissus and Goldmund. 

Tell me about it. 

It‘s a beautiful story about two male characters where one leaves the monastery pretty much, goes off and ends up living this wildlife in a lot of ways. The other one stays in the monastery and becomes a very deep-thinking person etc. It’s the contrasting depiction of those different worlds. One, either hedonic, free–spirited, no limits, etc. The other one is more on a spiritual path and inward path. It’s two ways of getting to the same thing. It’s beautifully written. There’s that make me cry. Literally, it’s one of my most favorite books. What I’m seeking for all of us is that we develop our range. We don’t live in a black and white world, a yes and no. With lights, I don’t want on and off, I want a variation so I can adjust the light for the purest things. The same things with food or relationships with people in between men and women or let’s say people were attracted to each other. There are lots of layers to this. We were a little bit quickly go to a rational, very yes, no and right, left. 

Is that clarity? What you are describing to me are the extremes of things. “If you have wronged me, I‘m never going to talk to you again.” It’s like that harshness. I think it’s in Western culture because a lot of times, I have been doing so much work and studying about indigenous cultures. There are more community-based and not competitively based. The idea is we have to move away from that, thinking of black women, as you say. There is this range. This is a balance. I love the way you just described the light because that is exactly where we have to move to for sure. 

Sometimes, you are on one extreme or the other, either by choice or not by choice. You don’t live there. Overall, you have a little bit more agency in your experience of life. We’ve got a little bit too much, either on one extreme or the other or some monotonic, which is not good in anything. It’s like listening to music with one tone or dance where there’s only one move. Life is way more diverse. That‘s what makes us human, to be able to explore. It takes practice, intention, desire and afterward, some people have conditions that make their lives not able to balance in that way, like unbelievable addictions or these types of things for sure. 

For most of us, we can develop a little bit more expansive range. It’s a rainbow. It’s not a black and white scenario. Between day and night, there are all these different lights during the day and heat. The sun is in a different spot. Again, food is a great metaphor for me that there are so many nuances. If you explore that, you pay attention to that. You get curious about it, you start noticing, and then suddenly, you start translating that in your conversation with somebody or in the way that you are dealing with someone at work and how you are reacting. You start to open yourself up to all these layers, nuances and dimensions of yourself, which you have not permitted yourself to for whatever reason, whether it’s related to pleasure, you are fleeing or something. 

What came to me is you are a very healthy person. Mindset, physically, very healthy. The work that I do, I have been on energy healing for a long time and starting getting into the Akasha field healing. I don’t know if you are familiar with that term, the Akashic fields. The idea is that we have core traumas, core fears, core beliefs and it could come from a past life. It could come from your ancestors‘ background. When we have these feelings that far from us often, it’s a memory, it blocks us from being the best we can be and moving forward. Through muscle testing, working and connecting to the Akashic field, we can figure out words and they always resonate with someone. It’s incredible. Once you connect to these records, it’s 100% accurate. 

What I have been coming across are core traumas, core fears and core beliefs. When someone is traumatized, as you are saying, a lot of that fleeing or frozen but you have not been frozen. The trauma that you experienced in this lifetime, losing your wife at such a young age, often, people would be so traumatized but they can’t live through it. It’s very interesting to me because certain people can’t breakthrough. It’s a beautiful thing how you are handling your life and gently with such light. There are some spiritual health for sure coming your way, I feel. Anything that you can say in terms of that because you can’t break through easily if you are traumatized, there’s nothing you can do but anything that came through your mind when you experienced this that perhaps you could help somebody that may be feeling similar feelings. 

Everyone is different, perhaps. I always go back in some ways to a story when I was about ten years old. I went to see the movie, The Champ with my mom. In the theater, when we sat down, a friend of mine from school came up with his father so he and I sat next to each other. Throughout the whole movie, I’m trying not to cry. I‘m just holding in, sniffing and looking up, and I’m looking over again, I’m trying to hide and all this kind of stuff. I’m preventing myself from experiencing what I was experiencing. Holding back, denying the emotion from releasing in a dark room where you were like, “Who cares?“  

This movie is a total tear–jerker. I remember this. More than 40 years later, I still have this story inside me. Part of it is, in some ways, finding whatever the way it is to let the emotions go through you and then crying. I spent a lot of time alone crying about everything that I have been through. I also feel and again, I have to be careful with this, I’m not giving doctors, psychiatrists, providers or anything like this. Everyone is different and some people go to depths or darkness. I’m not suggesting anything. 

[bctt tweet=”The greatest spiritual expression is to get back to loving life.” via=”no”]

Of course. It’s your human experience. 

What I want to say by this is that I always said to myself that I’m going to be alone potentially a lot. If I can’t handle myself and my emotions because I have an experienced then and I have held them back until the last minute or I’m just trying to be so strong, like open the release valve, I’m not going to know them. I’m not going to know me. I‘m going to fall back into this movie theater thing where I’m trying to put up a pretty face or I’m trying to be strong when the stronger is letting it all out, expressing it and finding the people around you, which I had a few people that emerging with this cry and others who would hold me. I’m quite well surrounded, which again, comes back to people. 

At the end of the day, I spent a very large amount of time alone so I could process this in a way that would be a healthy, viable way for the rest of my life. To feel like I had authentically been there for her and me. I was very much there for the family and everyone is saying, “You are so strong. When is this going to stop?“ It’s because I have had nine months of releasing and getting to know myself. There’s the association between the timing of what’s going through you. 

Some people hadn’t spent any time in the grief. I had spent nine months. I’m certainly not blocking. I think we have a tendency. It’s interesting. I don’t know if you have experienced this but if there are groups where people start to cry because it’s something really deep. I have no final word on this, but at times, I see people run over to somebody who starts to cry. I don‘t feel that’s not where we should be doing. We should be there to hold the space for the person and to be sending the energetic love, etc. They need to be able to handle that, so when they go back and be alone again, we are not all running. If there’s no one there, they are going to freak out. If they get used to experiencing themselves, I may let out this release valve. Crying is a great thing. It‘s healthy. 

It’s so brilliant because your soul needs to go through something. It needs to experience this. This is happening for your soul growth. Sometimes, when we try to help someone, we save them. You are not really saving them in the long-term at all. It goes for children too because I have two kids. I stop trying to be there for everything. It’s not breaking my heart when they are sad. When they were younger, I think I did that more. Let them feel the pain. I want them to be strong. I don’t want everything to go so easily for them. They do have a very easy life, which sometimes, I want to throw them in the wolves a little bit. 

I think that‘s a great idea. If you know the whole thing about desensitization, think about how allergies work. If you try to get people over allergies, you go through a desensitization process, almost like a vaccine. It gives them something different. We think about this in terms of having emotional experiences. For example, you expose or allow yourself to experience something a little bit more challenging, you expand and grow yourself. You are different the next time around, for sure. 

As you are saying, everything is a fine line because I wholeheartedly believe this but I also came from a family that had a tough upper lift like, “You are fine. You are okay. Be tough. Be strong.“ That also could be the wrong way to do it because sometimes, as you said, we can be vulnerable like you were in the movie theater. You are holding it back because you need it to be cool. You didn’t want to be so sappy in front of this kid. Especially for men, showing their vulnerability. Women are trying to be so tough and so cool. It’s nice to be a little softer too because we are authentic. We are human. I think we have tried so hard to be so perfect. 

Again, for me, the range is such a cliché to impression. 

When your card is down, you can be yourself. There are certain people that you don‘t want to show all your cards because they are putting up a facade but when someone is completely themselves, you just feel more relaxed with that person. As I do with you, I feel very relaxed. 

It’s fun to play with other people that you find a way to provoke them or crack them. That’s where it gets interesting. I feel like we are here also to raise people’s consciousness to stretch them by holding up the mirror, joking about something or finding ways to get them to react and think differently so they are aware of it and we fall out of a knee-jerk reaction that they are doing. 

You are not afraid of a challenge. 

I don’t know that that’s necessary. I will say that I aspire as much as I possibly can in those kinds of situations because this is what happens for me. I feel like conflicts. If we are not living up to the situation that feels bigger than us, that feels may be intimidating or it’s like a conflictual thing. I‘m not particularly fond of conflict. At the same time, I’m usually projecting all sorts of things that don’t have anything to do with the situation or either taking out of context. These kinds of things can happen. Your head plays as a way to flee. Do not be put into that situation. If you can come back and be present, not make so many assumptions and prepare what you want to prepare so you are ready to argue or get into a conversation with someone. 

Ask a lawyer in you. 

It’s also like how you say things. 

It’s diplomatic. You are not coming aggressively. You are showing thought process. You are flipping it at sometimes. It’s like, “What if?“ Is everything very restricted for you guys? Are you still quarantined there or are things opening up? 

We are not quarantine. There’s a curfew. There has been, in some respects, a travel restriction. It looks like on May 3rd, 2021, that’s going to be lifted. People can travel all around France. 

Vaccinations, is everyone getting vaccinated? 

Vaccinations are not going along terribly quickly. That’s maybe going to speed up a bit before summer, but so far, it hasn’t been that fast. 

A lot of us were getting vaccinated, thank God. It feels a lot, for me, freer. My kids did get COVID but it was so minimal. They lost their sense of smell, they didn’t expose to anyone, so it was a blessing. I love your book and I see that that is part of the work you do. Can you tell me a little bit about the foods or any other work that you have been up to? 

I haven’t obviously been able to do that in this period here but I put on something called sensorial experience day, which is I started gathering for ambitious people that are trying to get out of their head and reconnect with themselves. It’s a lot around pleasure in the senses, intuition and connection. The elements are gorgeous food and gourmet food that makes you more mindful than anything else. Artistic expression and performances that we both admire and also participate in, break down the barriers. For example, you have a crazily hot Latin dancing the Bachata going on and everyone is sweating and pulling their collars so gorgeously sensuous. The next thing you know, we are all up, learning a few steps of something on our own and then suddenly, we get to dance with each other. 

In a world where there are a little bit too much performance on the audience or the speaker in the audience, the dynamic is completely different. Nowadays, it’s about connecting horizontally, vertically and in all these different directions. My brain breaks down those barriers and gets people from peak experience out of their heads and into their bodies in a somatic way. In a way, it’s very safe and it‘s unintentional. Some people said to me at the end, “Does this end in origin?” This goes to show this idea that the minute you open up your senses and let go of the control because you haven’t practiced being in the space of stimulation, emotional and physical that you go from one side to the other very quickly when there are all these speeds in the middle. You don’t go from 1st to the 6th year like, “There are all these other speeds and we can go up in speed and use a higher torque this year.” There are all this interesting stuff going on in between the on and off. 

This already happens. You have facilitated these groups in the past. 

Yes. We did it here in France. We did a couple of times in Austin, Texas and Los Angeles. 

That’s so much fun. All walks of life are not only those that are interested in culinary exploration. I’m assuming you do have chefs come? 

[bctt tweet=”Everyone’s got to choose their own way. There’s a lot to get out of everyday life if people become more creative about it.” via=”no”]

The chef that usually has come in the past cook my menu because originally, I was only created the menu for that and they usually bring one of their own dishes and signature does for themselves. It’s twelve dishes served through the period. The whole idea is a lot about a mindfulness experience. I call it Alivefulness because it’s more sensorily–related and it is more about a feeling, thinking thing, sharing thing and internal necessarily. It’s solely an internal voyage. It’s a mix of those different things. Food is one of the variables that let you connect with your presence, taste and masterful in getting you out of your head. Cooking and making love are the only two activities that use all of the senses that I can think of. If you have more, let me know. 

Is it a whole weekend? 

Single days. We are looking at doing a different kind of format. 

It’s something different because you have so many of these retreats where people are doing yoga and meditation. I don’t know if you can incorporate that but this is so much more active. It’s more of creating, I see. 

This is how I look at this. We were learning all of these activities that don’t have anything to do with our life. 

It’s that escape, you mean, like the meditation? 

It‘s hard to integrate that into your daily life. In your life, meditation is being present while you are chopping onions with this unbelievably sharp Japanese knife. If you are not present, you are probably going to cut out a finger or you are cooking something more complicated. You really need to have all of your presence there. I’m interested in doing activities and using the activities of life itself as the spiritual practice of life to celebrate the art form itself in life and that slight shift in intention. You don’t have to go hide in a mountain or somewhere. I have been outspent time with the Dalai Lama or these types of things. Unbelievable. I’m not saying these things are not useful. I meditate, I do many activities like this but I want to bring it more into the world, into the actual activity. My life is driving me crazy, and I’ve got to slow down and say, “This is my teacher.“ These kinds of things. I relate more to life. 

I do believe in dancing, artistic expression, singing, movement and lots of different connections things between people that you can use in events. In senses, are you gazing, is it your touch, is it blindfolded, or voice singing? There are so many ways for us to connect with the other intelligence that are part of us and I feel we can use these more easily. Make your dinner table the most gorgeous thing ever from now. Another pattern break that we were talking about for COVID like, “Take the challenge and open a single piece of plastic on your table, no containers, put things in nice little pretty bowls, use the finest China you have and make a celebration. You have to join me as it’s Christmas.” Don‘t do that. Your music time is now. It is waiting for the moment. 

When my kids got COVID, it was Passover. We get a nice meal and I’m like, “I’m not letting anybody get into a bad mood right now.” We have all went full force like a celebration and the table is so pretty and the flowers. We all had a really good time. I could see it turning because my little one said, “I have the thing that people died from.“ In fact, my dad died from COVID. He‘s 85. He died in January 2021. He lives a good life. It was okay. I do feel that way. I could see the fear coming. These things that you are describing, are so important. Some people may admit. Let’s make it easy. The kids aren’t feeling well. Let‘s throw things on the table like, “No, these matters.“ 

If I had been there, I would have found that to be an exceptionally wonderful occasion. As I was saying to people, come to a dinner party at my place. If you still feel the same way about making everyday life, not a celebration, not a sensorial feast, not something special, maybe with some serendipity and surprises, you romanticize everyday life. I don’t believe there’s anything greater than that as a demonstration of us living our purpose. 

Did you grow up this way? Did your mom do this for you? 

My mom was a vegetarian, first of all, and didn’t cook very well. She taught me to love and hate vegetables or vice versa and always cook with the same spices. It was always with a steamer. I think she was ever concerned about her weight. She was a performing actress kind of a person and very health conscious. It was always tofu and there’s no red meat. My parents didn’t drink. I‘m not the polar opposite. I want to call myself an omnivore like a healthy Mediterranean–style diet. I’m certainly a hybrid of those types of things. My dad is allergic to some fruits and things but I‘m a hybrid. I hope that I have taken what they brought to me and spend it. My mom was quite a hostess. 

She put on a band and some were very much in artistic space. We put on shows so there’s a bit of an association there. I definitely come from a family map, Hollywood theater space and world but not the food side of things. Food and cooking became part of who I am. I have layered that into the human expansion side of things. I think this is the spiritual voyage or the soul voyage. A lot of it fits irritated and enhanced by this. 

If you look at the Dalai Lama or some of these other Indian masters, they are walking around with a smile on their faces all the time. I‘m like, “You are telling me you are serious, you are crushing me and all this kind of stuff. Every day, you are not that happy that you are jam-packed with this. How’s that going for you?“ Everyone has got to choose their own way but it feels like there are more that we can draw out of everyday life to get creative and we care about it. We save some of our energy to bring it there and we don’t give it all to work or stress. Food is too delegated for most people. They delegate that to someone else to do for them. I don’t think that’s such a great thing. 

It’s not laziness. It’s interesting because my mother, was a smoker so she passed younger but she loved cooking for us and making everything beautiful. We used to sit around, they did love wine and they also smoked cigarettes. My mother planted so many flowers. It wasn’t even so many people into the house to entertain, it was just the four of us, my mother, father and sister, and we have had a lot of fun. They pretty much threw caution at the winds, like. You are smoking cigarettes. You can die from this. My mother loved cooking. She was very slim. I don’t think she was eating the food that she was cooking for us. She would sit with a bagel all day but she made these beautiful meals for us. I’m like, “Did you save any for yourself?“ It’s interesting. 

There’s cooking and cooking. I often say I’m not interested in following checks that are very heavy around. If I eat your fruit, I’m going to look like you. I will make my own. I will follow somebody else. 

It’s funny. My mother loved Ratatouille. We were so big on Ratatouille and Coq Au Vin. That was our main dish. It’s bringing it back for people because I think what you are saying is so great and it’s contagious. Like if you start to enjoy it, then you want to do it more but if it’s so easy to get access to run in and pick up some food to go and not have to say, “For the next 1.5 to 2 hours, I’m going to be cooking.“ When you have a whole house of kids and everyone is getting home from work late, it’s difficult to make the time but if you can set, that means at least once a week, sort out once a week to make it special. 

I have a friend of mine who’s into cooking. He wants to get into that more and offer that to people. We were talking about that and a lot about people are not very strategic around food. If you brought 15% of the strategic meals that you bring to the rest of your professional life in your kitchen and your life, believe me, you would be recycling things. You would find sustainable ways. You would use that heated oven to cook something else at the same time, so you don’t have to cook another thing tomorrow. 

You would recycle and take your carrot stems and all these things and use them to make a broth later. There are lots of things that we have been initiated in. We have been so picturized in Western cultures that cooking is a chore and granted, some people love it so much. They will spend time there. Others can’t but there are a lot of people in the middle of it with little exposure and help. Again, this is the thing I was talking about earlier. It‘s a great thing to go do a cooking course at someplace that you will never go home and do what they have taught you to cook. It’s like, “I will go and do the cooking class. It’s going to have the ten things that you will do that are more bring a bowl back into your life.” 

Dave, are you offering anything online? Any programs? Have you moved it to other? 

I have not yet done that for some of the stuff I’m working on. 

Good to know. Keep me posted. It‘s such a pleasure. I hope to speak to you again soon. I would love to eventually meet you and hopefully, I could bring some friends and come to some of these events because they sound pretty. Anything you want to close with or anything you want to share with the world? Go right ahead. 

I wish for everyone to have on their tombstone, which I almost wish I will have a mine this thing or I could say the people around me in life that they loved life so much that no one loved life more than them. I want to be able to say that to everyone in my life, no matter what they have been through. They demonstrated through it all, amidst it all, in the good, bad and the ugly that they love life. That’s our greatest spiritual expression is to get back to loving life. There are many ways to cultivate, work on and be open to that but to keep that front and center. 

I do have to say when my dad passed because it was present and bizarre. He couldn’t breathe so he didn’t choose I don’t want to be attached to this and I’m going to call it a day. It’s wild. He said, “I couldn’t have asked for a better life. Let’s pack it in. See you down the line.” I was okay with it because I wanted him to be vibrant again, the spirit. I saw him as a young person going on a plane. It was hysterical. I saw him as an old-fashioned plane. I‘m like, “My mom would be on the other end, your family, your parents, just go.“ He did enjoy it. He enjoyed life. That’s what we asked. That’s pretty much all we need to enjoy while we are here. Thank you. This was such a pleasure. I am excited for everyone to read this conversation. I look forward to speaking with you soon. 

Thank you, Tesa, for having me here. I appreciate it. 

Thanks, David. 

Great talk.

Important Links

• Dance of The Love Caterpillars
• David Charles Brower
• Narcissus and Goldmund
• Alivefulness

About David Charles Brower