Refuge From Worry And Suffering

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Train your English. Speak powerfully. EffortlessEnglishClub.com Welcome. We're live today. We're live on YouTube today. I'm trying YouTube again. Usually I do my live video shows.

Usually I do my live video shows on Facebook. Because, why on Facebook? Because Facebook has the best comments, I find, that in the past when I have done live shows, you know, the chat, the Facebook live video chat, just very high quality, great commenters, lots of great questions, very positive, all these great things, probably because it's all people who

follow, who like, who subscribe to my Facebook page. We'll see about YouTube. YouTube is usually okay, occasionally. Not quite as good as Facebook. And then there's Periscope, which is awful and terrible, and I don't use it anymore.

But anyway, we'll try today. We'll see. Stretch. Let's take a look at the quick hello to people saying hello from various countries. Hello from the Netherlands.

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All right, here's how it works, guys. I'm going to talk about my topic today, which is refuge, sanctuary. Maybe new vocabulary words for you, maybe not. But anyway, I'll discuss them.

So I'll talk about the topic. I will ignore you. I'm going to ignore the chats. I will ignore your questions. I will not read them. I will not mention them.

I will not answer them in the beginning because I will focus on my topic, talking, so I don't get interrupted and distracted because it's annoying for most people who are listening. But after I finish talking about the topic, after I finish talking, then I will come back.

And then, you know, after the middle of the show, I will come back and then I will... answer some of your questions, read some of your comments. So if you're on the chat, just relax for a while.

And when it's time for questions and comments, I'll tell you and then I can do it. Because otherwise, if you start typing questions now, I will not see them. Just to warn you. Okay, let's start.

Our topic today, refuge and sanctuary. Refuge. That's a nice word. Refuge. It's pronounced refuge. R-E-F-U-G-E. Refuge. What is a refuge? And a similar word is sanctuary.

Sanctuary. Sanctuary, very, very similar meaning. So refuge, sanctuary. Sanctuary. Sometimes you'll see this used, for example, a wildlife refuge. You might see this in the news or somewhere else where they describe a wildlife refuge or sometimes they'll say a wildlife sanctuary.

So what do these words mean? Refuge and sanctuary have a similar meaning. Well, basically, a refuge is a place called of safety a place of safety right it's a safe protected place it's a protected place so a wildlife refuge is an area land area where it's a land area where the wildlife the animals are protected they're protected protected from what protected from humans usually right so humans can't kill them

Humans can't build houses on their land. That's a wildlife refuge. It's a protected area, a sanctuary, same meaning, where the animals are safe and protected. A refuge or sanctuary.

Same idea. We don't only use this for animals. You can use this in many different situations. Refuge or sanctuary. Okay? In a recent show, an audio show, I talked about the word inevitable.

Inevitable. Inevitable. And again, this means not avoidable. Cannot be avoided. So evit, that middle part of the word inevitable, has the root of evade.

Evade. It means to escape. To escape. To get away from. To escape. So again, able means able, right? Able to escape. Evitable means able to escape, able to avoid.

So the whole word in makes it negative. Inevitable cannot escape, cannot avoid. Inevitable. For example, death is inevitable. Death, dying, is inevitable.

Cannot be escaped. Every human being will die. Not just every human being, every plant, every animal, right? Every living thing, every living being will die.

Death is inevitable. Cannot be escaped. No amount of money, no amount of magic, no amount of medicine can help you avoid death. Maybe you can live a little longer, but you cannot avoid death.

It is inevitable, unavoidable. So there are many things in life, as I discussed recently in my audio show, my audio podcast, there are many things in life that are inevitable, that cannot be avoided.

And some of them are painful. Of course, death is the big one, but failure is one. Failure is inevitable in life. At some time in your life, you will fail.

You're going to fail sometimes in life. You can't avoid it. There will be times in life you will try to do something. You will have a goal. You'll try to do something.

You will want something, but you will fail. This is inevitable. You can't avoid it. You cannot completely avoid it. Loss is another one. Loss. Losing.

Losing money. Losing things. Losing people, right? People around you you care about might die or leave or go away or break up, right? Some people who are dating, right?

Sometimes the other person, you love them. They don't like you. They don't love you. They break up with you. These kinds of social losses, right? are also inevitable.

They will happen. You will eventually, you know, lose friends or family members or relationships or something. Inevitable cannot be avoided. Physical pain, physical pain, physical pain is inevitable.

You will feel physical pain in your life. You can't avoid it completely. And, you know, recently I have two new babies now and I can see Even from the very beginning, right, as new babies, little new babies already, they have pain, right?

Sometimes they drink milk, their stomach hurts, they get gas or something, and they cry, and you can look on their face, it's obvious they feel some pain, physical pain. Right immediately in the beginning of their life, the first month of their life, they already have pain.

And of course, at different other times in your life, you know, sometimes you're going to have physical pains. You're going to get sick sometimes. And of course, also emotional pain. Emotional pain in your life you will have.

And you have probably already in the past you had, you might have now, and you probably will have again in the future. These are all inevitable things. Cannot be avoided.

100%. You know, other things like fear. Fear. Fear, being afraid. There will be times in life when you are afraid. There will be times in life when you feel weak, when you worry, when you feel lonely.

All these things are inevitable. So we discussed that and that's kind of the topic of, you know, one of the topics of our book club now. We're doing the book club How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie is the book. And of course, worry is one of those things, right?

Worry is really fear, and fear at some level is inevitable. It's part of human nature. And one of the chapters of the book talks about that in life, some things are inevitable, some things you can't avoid. And so...

We have to learn to deal with them because worrying about them doesn't help. It doesn't help to just worry about dying, for example. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.

I'm going to die. Oh, no. Oh, my God. It doesn't change anything. You still will die. It just makes you unhappy now. So you have to find a way to deal with these inevitable things.

Also, you know, physical pain or suffering, anything like that. Failure. Lots of people worry about failure all the time. Oh, my God. What if I fail? And they're afraid.

They don't do things because... They are so worried about failing. So maybe they want to start a business, but they worry about failure, so they never do it.

Maybe they like a girl. There's a boy. He likes a girl. But he worries she'll say no. She'll reject him. So he never asks her anything. He never says anything.

He never talks to her. Again and again and again, these inevitable things we try to avoid, but we can't. So what to do? As we discussed before, this seems quite pessimistic in a way, right?

It seems a bit negative. I mentioned before, you know, in Buddhism, in Buddhism, they have the four noble truths, they call it, the four noble truths, truths, truths of Buddhism. And the first one is life. Well, suffering is inevitable, is the first one.

Suffering is inevitable in life, cannot be avoided. That seems quite pessimistic. It's not just Buddhism, though. I think all the major religions have some version of this.

In Sanatana Dharma, there's the idea that we are all in illusion, therefore we all suffer. Christianity, man, humans are fallen. We live in a fallen world.

So again, suffering is inevitable. And of course, Islam would have a similar idea So this is an idea that is recognized by all the major religions, by major philosophers. Every human knows this because we all experience it.

We have all. Every one of us have felt pain and suffering. We all know they cannot be avoided completely. And we all know that we will die. So that does seem negative, right?

It seems kind of tough. Hmm. So what to do about it is the question, right? And the thing is, we need a refuge. That's why we're talking about this word today.

Our word, refuge. We need a refuge from this suffering. A refuge, a sanctuary, right? Because in life, we will have tough times. You know this. You're going to have tough times in life.

You're going to have stress. You're going to have suffering. You're going to have pain. You're going to have loss. 100% you will. Maybe right now, if not now, definitely coming.

And probably already in the past for you and for everyone. This can become quite hard. It can become scary, right? We can be afraid of this. It can make life seem very tough.

And this is why we need a refuge, a sanctuary from the suffering, from the pain. We need a refuge, meaning kind of a place where we can feel comfort even during the tough times in life.

A place or things that help us during these hard, hard times. That's what a refuge is. I'm going to give you some examples because again, traditionally, through tradition, if we look back hundreds of years, thousands of years, we find in all different parts of the world, we find

this idea of refuge or sanctuary in spiritual traditions, religious traditions, psychological traditions, philosophy, in the Mediterranean, in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia, etc., throughout the whole world, different parts of the world. They give slightly different answers, but this basic idea is there, this idea of a refuge.

I'll give you just a few examples that I know personally, but there are many more. You know, one example, again, I'll go with Buddhism first, is that in Buddhism they have what they call the three jewels. The three jewels. And Buddhists, they repeat this.

They say, I take refuge in. I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Those are the three jewels of Buddhism. And what they're saying is that when they...

They're... Finding power from suffering, protection from suffering in those three things. That those three things protect them or comfort them or help them with suffering, with pain, with these inevitable problems of life.

Another one, a traditional one, it's not religious, but again, often it's three, I don't know why three, but often you'll find it's three things. Another one in the past, which is really non-religious, not religious, but was God, family, and nation.

God, family, and nation. That these were the three sanctuaries, refuges, for humans, for all people. This is where you would find comfort, safety, help, relief from tough times, from suffering.

God, family, nation. In Sanatana Dharma, it would probably be God, Dharma, and Sangha, again. Sangha is a spiritual community, religious community. You know, Christians have similar, you know, God and

the church and family. It doesn't matter. All different religions and traditions have something similar to this. How are they all the same? What's the similar idea in these?

All of these. It doesn't matter if it's Islam or Christianity or Sanatana Dharma or Buddhism or Confuciusism, the Chinese philosopher, Taoism, the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, even ancient Native Americans in North and South America. All over the world, you find this idea of refuge, sanctuary, where we have kind of these things that give us some help, some protection from the suffering.

and they have different words they use and maybe each one's a little different but there's something that's similar with all of them there's something that's the same with all of these and what is it?

all of them go beyond you they all are more than you individually more than you the individual person it's something beyond something bigger than yourself right? family

So you're focused not just on you, little you. When you focus on yourself only, you suffer more. You suffer more. But when you have family, and by family, not just mom and dad, brothers, sisters, but also grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins, maybe great-grandparents, this big extended family.

That's a refuge traditionally for thousands and thousands of years for humans. A refuge, a safety, a sanctuary in life from suffering. Yes, you still have some suffering in life, some pain. But when you have a whole big family to help you, your suffering is less.

I'm going to use one, talk about one. I'm going to use three words here, and I think this is maybe the most general that fits all of them. It doesn't matter. All these different countries and traditions and religions.

We could say God, natural law, and family. God, natural law, and family. The three refuges. The three things that will help you in life most during tough, tough, tough times.

That will help you the most deal with problems, with pain, with suffering, with loneliness, with fear. with failure. These three. God, natural law, family.

We'll use those three. Those are the three words I'll use. You can use whichever words you want. It doesn't matter. Lots of people describe this in different ways.

So God, of course, being the biggest... That's the most beyond just you, right? But they all three share the same thing, more than just you. When you focus on your selfish self, only just you as a little individual person, of course you feel weak, of course you feel small, of course you suffer more, of course you're more afraid.

But when you go beyond yourself, when you go outside of yourself, that's where you find more power, more confidence, more strength, more courage. You can deal with the problems of life better when you go outside yourself.

And this is also how you find purpose in life, your purpose, your mission. We talk about this a lot. Purpose and mission in life. And many people, especially young people, ask me, how do I find my purpose, my life purpose?

How do I find it? How do I find my life mission, my life purpose? Well, find it outside yourself. Outside yourself, not inside yourself. If you're just looking at you, me, me, me, me, me, you're not going to find it.

Purpose, the idea of a purpose is something bigger than you. Automatically, purpose is something bigger than you. This gives meaning for your life. So God, devotion to the highest.

I'm saying God, but you could say Tao. You could just say truth, if you prefer. If you're not religious, you could just say the highest truth. Because this is what God represents, right?

Devotion, love, loyalty, helping, serving. The highest. The highest truth. The highest beauty. The highest goodness. Beyond just your little self. The second one, natural law.

Natural law. Now this is a very old idea. Natural law. This is an old idea from, again, many cultures. Everywhere in the world, this idea of natural law.

In India, they say Sanatana Dharma. In other parts of Asia, they just say Dharma. Same idea. It's the eternal, natural way or natural law. In Latin, it just translates to natural law.

I can't remember how to pronounce it in Latin, but it's something like Liga Natura, something like that. That's probably Spanish, but it's that same idea, natural law. So all through

Europe, pre-Christian Europe, same idea, natural law. You find this is what Taoism is, the Chinese philosophy. Taoism is natural law. It's a whole philosophy focused completely on natural law.

So what is natural law? Natural law, if you're religious, you might think of it as God's law, or you could think of it as the natural, eternal, always natural way, the path to goodness. It's the path. If God is truth in the highest beauty, in the highest truth,

Natural law is the way. It's the way to live. It's the path of virtue, the path of goodness, the path of duty, the path of truth. And many have described it.

Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Confucius, the Bhagavad Gita, the Sutras, the Bible, the Quran, Rumi, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, on and on and on have described different versions of this.

but natural law. But this will, again, when you focus your life on virtue, on natural law, on being virtuous, good, on becoming the best person possible, this also gives you great power, even when you're having a hard time, even when you're suffering. Because again, this is something that it goes, it's bigger than just you.

It's bigger than just you. If you focus on money, if you focus on power, on being famous, you're not going to be happy. You're going to be unhappy because those things will disappear quickly.

And often you will fail to get those things. You can't control it all the time. Those things don't bring happiness. Money will not bring you great happiness.

Being famous will not. It's obvious. Just look at famous people. They're not happy people. They're miserable people, most of them. Or lots of them. But natural law, trying to be a good person, virtue, duty, trying to develop that inside yourself, that you can control because that's you.

And you're trying to reach something that's higher, that's bigger than you. This will bring you great power and strength and wisdom and happiness in your life. And it will help you a lot when things are tough, when life is hard.

So natural law number two. And then the third one is family again. Family, loyalty to family. Because this is your true community. Your family, your extended big family, is your first and most important community.

I've talked in the past about loyalty. This is the word loyalty. That's where you're devoted to, you love, you care for. You're loyal, L-O-Y-A-L, loyal to family.

Too many people are loyal to or focused on just ideas instead of family. That leads to evil and to hell eventually. Your family gives you people. That's how you develop your virtue, right?

With real people. How do you become more generous, a more generous person? Well, by giving people. Who do you give to? Do you just give to a charity, like write a check?

That's just an idea. It's not real. It's just an organization. It's just something in your mind. That's easy. No, you're generous to your family, the real people, the flesh, meaning the skin, the flesh and blood, meaning the real physical people in your family.

Sometimes it's not easy. They might be difficult. Some people in your family will be difficult. Maybe lots of them. But that's why it's good practice.

That's how you become a better person. How do you practice forgiveness? Well, the best people to do that with, start with your family, forgiving family members. Again, it's not always easy, but that's the point.

Wisdom, learning, love. These are nice ideas. Lots of people talk about these ideas. Love, love, forgiveness, compassion, love. They love the ideas. They'll read about them.

Oh, and maybe they'll do some little meditation. Oh, may all people be happy. May all living beings be happy all the time. But that's just an idea. It's like a fantasy in their mind.

But in real life, with the real people they're living with, their family, their closest friends, they're not compassionate. They're not patient. They're not generous.

It's just a fantasy idea. That's easy. The fantasy is easy. It's easy on Facebook to say, pray for the poor victims of the earthquake. Pray for the poor victims of this or that.

That's nothing. That's not compassion. That's nothing. That's called virtue signaling. It's not real virtue. It's not real goodness. You're just trying to show, pretend, right?

Not you, but they, people who do that. They're trying to show it's just an image. But it's meaningless because it requires no sacrifice. It's not difficult.

It doesn't change you in any way. If you want to pray for someone, pray for your family members. If you want to forgive, forgive someone in your family who did something bad.

Or someone in your, you know, a close friend. If you want to love, practice love with them. That's harder because they are real people and you disagree with them sometimes and sometimes they're difficult. Sometimes you're difficult too.

But that's how you really develop it, right? Virtue. And that's also where you will see honestly the truth, right? Like I can easily say, I can tell you, be patient, be a patient person.

Patience is a virtue. Oh, I'm going to meditate now and patience. Oh, look at me. But then, in real life, dealing with some problem in my life, I'm not patient.

I get frustrated very quickly. And so I realize, well, it's a nice fantasy, but life shows me the truth. Real people in real situations show me the truth.

And then I have to be honest with myself. I'm not very patient. I have to try to work on this. This is a weakness of mine. This is a weak point. but at least it's honest, it's real.

I will know myself truly, and then I can truly try to be a better person because I'm dealing with real face-to-face people. And a lot of people like to avoid dealing with family because they're difficult, but that's a big mistake.

It's a big mistake. Unless they're truly evil. I know, I know, I know, I know. I know there are, of course, some cases where maybe you have a family member who's truly evil, like very, very abusive, truly evil.

Of course... Avoid them. But that's not the normal situation. The normal situation is we have some big disagreement with family. Maybe politics, for example.

But never choose politics. Family is more important than politics, right? In my family, my big family, I have many people in my family that I disagree with about politics. Now, in my regular life, outside family,

I probably will not be friends with. I would not be friends with someone who's, you know, like a communist, super left wing, hates America, that kind of person. No, I will just cut them. I'm not going to be friends with someone like that.

But inside my family is different. Family is different. And so if someone in my family is like that, then I have to practice some forgiveness. I have to practice patience.

I have to try to understand because family is more important than politics. Family is more important because politics is just an idea. But family, that's a real person.

That's real connection. That's real love. That's real understanding. And no, it's not always easy. But again, this gives you a purpose in life. This gives you a purpose.

It gives you God, natural law, and family. Because this will help you. It will make you a stronger, better person. And also then in those tough times in life, who's going to help you?

Who's going to be there for you? It's going to be those people, your family. And when I say family, I also mean your very, very close friends. In life, if you're lucky, you'll have a few very, very close friends.

They're like family. But those closest people, they're the ones that are most important. That's where you also find meaning and purpose in your life. So these three will give you refuge in life.

These three will help you with the suffering. These three will help you with the inevitable difficulties of life. Otherwise you're alone. Otherwise you suffer alone.

And that's much, much, much harder. Much, much, much worse. Okay, the three refuges of God, natural law, and family. These are the traditional three. By the way, join my VIP program.

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Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com right here. EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Join my VIP program and commit. Don't quit. Okay. So refuge. Just a summary. Refuge.

Refuge. These are the three. The three most powerful things in life that that make the suffering less for most of us, that comfort us, that give us some comfort even when we are suffering and have pain.

It's these three that eliminate loneliness. When you have these three, you're not lonely. You don't feel lonely. Even if you're single, even if you're not dating, you're not married, but if you have these three, if you have God and natural law, virtue, and family, you're not going to feel lonely.

You're not going to be lonely. It's these three that give us true, deep purpose and meaning in life. Without these three, your life feels meaningless. You feel lost.

It's just you. And you're trying to get success. You're trying to get money, maybe and maybe even successful. But it feels empty without these three. And really, ultimately, the deepest happiness, again, comes from these three.

Now, that's at the normal level. At the highest level, and I'm not at the highest level, but at the highest level we know because the saints, the bodhisattvas, the rishis, the Buddhas, the prophets tell us that at the highest level these three can completely end our suffering.

Can totally and completely end suffering. But of course, we have to have the highest devotion, the highest faith, the strongest practice of these three for that level. And only very few people, of course, reach that level. But this is what the saints, the prophets, the rishis, the Buddhas call moksha, enlightenment, salvation, different words, same idea.

So there's even that promise that at the very highest level, if we give all of our mind and heart and focus devoted to these three, that even that is possible. And that's what saints are. A saint is someone who achieves that.

And again, different religions and cultures have the same idea of the saint, different words for the saint. So that's refuge, the three refuges. I wanted to talk about that because when we talked about inevitable and...

That's kind of, I guess, the side where we're talking about the problem, we're talking about the pain, we're talking about the disease, the negative side of it. It's all true. It's just a hard truth of life. But I wanted to give the other side, which is the cure, the positive, the happiness, the meaning, the purpose in life that come from these three.

So it's not a hopeless situation. Life is not hopeless. And quite the opposite, in fact. Okay, let's go to the comments and questions. Comments and questions.

Let's see how we do it on YouTube. So YouTube live audience, now is the time to put your comments and questions, put your questions into the chat. I will read them and answer them. Of course, I cannot answer all of them because already there's, there are a huge number.

There are lots of them. But I'll try to answer several. All right. Put on the reading glasses. Let's see what we got. All right. Here's an English question from Sudhir Kumar.

I'm from India. I want to speak like a native. There are no native speakers in my city, Pune. Pune. I think I've been to Pune. There must be some native speakers there, but anyway.

How can I speak like a native speaker so I can improve my pronunciation? Okay, so first of all, you don't need to have a native speaker in your city. Not necessarily. You have the wonderful internet, okay?

So you can improve your pronunciation a lot. A lot. Just using different audios online. I mean, you're on my YouTube channel now. So after this show, look at my videos.

You'll find I have some videos about this topic, pronunciation. So just search through my videos on YouTube. I have several videos about this exact topic, how to improve your pronunciation alone. Just you.

Just you and the Internet. I have a pronunciation course also on my website, effortlessenglishclub.com. So there are some free techniques you can use. My YouTube channel tells you free techniques.

If you want a course, it's not free, but you can buy it. It's at effortlessenglishclub.com. I have a whole pronunciation course. It's not expensive. So yes, there are many ways to do that.

Just check out those videos because it's too long. It's a big topic. It's too long for me to talk about in detail. Okay, MLM Training says, thank you for your wonderful guidance.

Well, thank you. Very nice comment. Okay, Hawida says, what is the best advanced grammar book? You don't need one. I mean, if you want something like just a basic grammar book for writing, for example, just to check it sometimes.

I mean, I don't know. Any grammar book probably is fine. Just some general grammar book. I don't have a specific recommendation. But don't study grammar rules for speaking.

It won't help you. In fact, quite the opposite usually. How to improve my fluency. Listening, listening, listening, listening, listening is the short answer.

Okay, this is a good question. This is a common question. Lots of people ask this question. I'm going to give you my answer. AJ, why don't you have any lessons or tutorials about IELTS?

Because I don't like those tests. I don't want to teach tests. I don't want to teach test preparation. I don't like the idea of it, just preparing for a test.

I want to teach English. Improve your English and your test score will get better. So focus on the English. Focus on the real skill, the real world skill, instead of the test.

It's just like, you know, the GRE or SAT. You might know these tests. These are tests for universities in the United States. GRE is for grad school. Well, I had to take the GRE.

If you want to do well on the GRE, how do you do it? Well, you can study GRE test books, but Learn math, okay? There's a math part and a verbal part, which is reading.

It's basically math and reading. So learn and practice math and read a lot. Both of those things will improve your GRE. You don't need some test book.

In fact, those two things will help your GRE the most. So same idea with the IELTS. Listening, listening, reading, reading, audiobooks, all that, you know, Anything that helps your English will help the IELTS.

Amine says, I think that school is the first source of worry and suffering. Yeah, that's a good point. In fact, school produces peoples of tomorrow. Traditional way of teaching makes people weaker and weaker and more competitive.

That is right. You're right. I agree with you. School destroys tradition, first of all. School, modern school, usually is totally against family, totally against religion, totally against tradition.

Those three, God, natural law, and family, school is against all of them. School weakens them all, all three, and therefore school will produce unhappy people, mostly unhappy people.

This is nice. Yongchao Zhao says, I almost listen to your audios every day on the way to school and work. Thank you. Oh, fantastic. That's a great way.

I encourage that. Listen to my audios, whether it's the lessons like VIP or the podcast, the show, either one or both. Listen while you're going to work. Listen when you're coming back from work.

Listen while you go for a walk, while you exercise, while you're active. It's a great way to get more time listening to English. And it also keeps your brain awake. You're moving around a little bit.

You won't get sleepy. When you just sit in a room, you know, trying to listen, it can be harder because your body gets lower energy. Diogenes. An interesting question.

I live in Miami, but I don't have enough time to go to school. How can I do the best way of learning English? Well, you're in America, so you should be able to get lots of practice. Of course, Miami has a lot of Spanish speakers, so avoid them, especially if you speak Spanish.

Machado, is that Brazilian or is that Spanish? Either way, avoid people who speak your language if you can and try to hang out in the areas where people speak English.

But then otherwise, it's the same advice as everybody else. You need to be listening to lots of English. So a lot of audiobooks, podcasts like this podcast, any other podcast in English.

If your English is more advanced, you can listen to TV shows and movies. But tons of listening. Also try to read a lot of books in English. Easy books.

So lots and lots and lots of input. And, you know, you're in Miami, so when you have a chance, try to chat with people if you can. Aha. Ahog says, hey, Jay, first time I'm watching you live.

I've watched your video several times. Well, this is my first time live on YouTube in a long time. Usually I'm live on Facebook. I do live videos. You probably know because on YouTube I put the recordings.

But when I do live, I'm usually on Facebook. But today we're doing YouTube. Maybe I'll do more on YouTube. Kind of do both. YouTube, Facebook, YouTube, Facebook.

And Rajni is asking the same question. Rajni from India. I'm from India, Dehradun. My question is, why don't you give regular live videos? So I do actually, Rajni, but I do it on Facebook usually.

That's why you missed it probably. But, yeah, maybe I'll change. Maybe I'll do, you know, half on Facebook and half on YouTube live. We'll see. We'll see.

Okay. Gabriel Inacio. Hey, Jay, can you help me? I've been studying English hard for seven years, and I can't come out from the intermediate level. Ah, kind of that plateau.

I know. What can I do in order to become a fluent speaker? Okay, Gabriel. I'll just give you some general ideas. Number one, try my movie technique. Try the movie technique.

Now, again, I have a big video about this. So look in my YouTube videos. So same YouTube channel, this one. Look in the YouTube videos. You'll see a video about the movie technique.

Movie technique. Watch that video. Take notes. And then use that technique because this is going to help you jump up to a more advanced level with your English.

You're going to start learning more slang, more idioms. Also with movies, your listening will get faster because the people speak faster in movies, right?

Often. Um... So I think that you probably where you are now, your situation, that movie technique, you can use it with movies, you can use TV shows, you can use even podcast videos like mine, you can use talk shows, anything you find on YouTube with English speakers, you can use. So it could be TV, movies, talk shows, motivational speakers, just anything you like, okay?

But use that movie technique that's basically you're going to take one video, you're going to watch it, go back, watch it again, take notes, look at the subtitles if necessary. You're going to do lots of different things. You're going to practice your pronunciation with it.

All these different things you'll do with the movie. And this will jump up your speaking. It'll help you jump to that advanced level. So good luck to you.

Okay, here we go. Oh, I hear a baby crying in the next room. Nassar says, Hi, Jay. I'm committed and not quit. First, how to improve my English to native speakers.

Second, how to be okay with long-term suffering. For example, suffering from chronic disease or something. Well, yeah, that's a hard question, right? You know, for improving your speaking to that native speaker level, I think the advice I've been giving, you know...

Read my book, EffortlessEnglish.com. Watch my videos here on the channel. Lots of listening. Maybe the movie Technique, what I just told, was it Gabriel?

Gabriel? All those things will help. Now, the second question is harder, right? Long-term suffering, that's hard, right? So there's suffering, but... Many times when we're suffering, it can help us if we know it's going to end.

If we're like, okay, this is terrible, but eventually it will stop. But it's hard when you know it's not going to stop. It's going to keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. And that is indeed difficult.

I would recommend for chronic disease, chronic pain, to practice something called Vipassana meditation. It's spelled Vipassana. v-i-p-a-s-s-a-n-a vipassana but it's often pronounced vipassana it's a kind of meditation that focuses on your body and the feelings in your body and the reason I'm recommending this is it can help you deal with pain it's not easy but when you practice this meditation method for a long time you can kind of relax and deal with

physical pain better. That's my best advice to you. All right, Anand with a good question. Deep question here. Anand, actually, a couple deep questions from Anand.

How to maintain the thin line between self-awareness and selfishness? Excellent question. And, Second question, I don't have any close friends, not a single one.

You look like you're young from your picture, so I wouldn't worry too much. But anyway, I'll answer it in a second. Can it affect my life in any dimension? Okay, let's talk about the first one because that's a very deep question, very philosophical.

Self-awareness means you're aware of yourself, right? You understand yourself. That might be another way to say it, self-understanding, which is a very positive thing. I think everybody realizes understanding yourself truthfully is positive.

Selfishness... is a word that in English has a negative feeling. And that means that you only care about yourself. You're only focused on yourself too much.

Indeed, this can be a danger. If you focus too much on just yourself, you can become selfish. And what's the problem with being selfish? Well, selfish people typically are less happy.

It does not actually make you happier. You need to take care of yourself. You need to do what's important for yourself. You need to fight for yourself when necessary.

Those are all good things. But just focusing on yourself too much actually will make you less happy. And that's again why I would say that how to maintain the thin line is to remember those three things. God, natural law, and family.

Because those three are all outside of you and beyond you. Those will prevent you from being too selfish. At the same time, you can practice meditation, you can think about your life, all those things that are good to understand yourself. So you do both.

You'll have both then. The second question, I don't have any close friends, not a single one. Can it affect my life in any dimension? Well, if you have lots of family, you might not need it.

Some people, if you have a good family, a strong family, a fairly large family, Maybe you don't need close friends. The other thing about it is that close friends take time. As I said, your picture, you look quite young.

You know, I have a couple of close friends, but I've known them, you know, 15 years for the shortest one. I've known for, no, I guess about 13 years. My good friend, Joe, 13, 14 years, something like that. Okay, 14 years.

He's probably my closest guy friend, right? So 14 years to develop that friendship. I didn't think of him as a very close friend after just the first or second or even third year. Yeah.

at least for me, people are different, right? But for me, it takes, you know, when I say close friend, I mean someone I have known for 14 years or longer. And I've got a couple other friends. I've known them and I've been friends with them longer than 14 years.

That's only a few. You know, I have one, two, three, four, four very close. I'd say probably have four close friends and I've known them all. 14 years is the shortest and most of them,

20 years of course I'm 51 but you see the point right so if you're only 20 or something you're 24 or 25 maybe you don't have any close friends yet but you might in the future and as I said the second thing is that you know maybe for some people family is more important than friendships some people find that closeness the connection in family their family now and also you know maybe you get married you have children your wife will have family also So that also gives you, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, as long as you have those social connections, you need social connections of some level.

So if you find them more in family, if it takes time to develop, don't worry about it too much, as long as you're happy. You know, if you're doing happy, you feel good, don't get stressed about it.

uh moni rudin says i'm your podcast listener can i improve with it you most certainly can that's why i do it so yes keep listening a lot of people improve their english just listening to my free podcast just doing that only uh and then sometimes you know when they become more advanced they listen to other podcasts too so that yeah absolutely that's why i'm doing it for you all right

Paul, Paul Mahdib, got a Dune fan here, says, by the way, I agree with you about listening. Absolutely listening is more important than speaking. First, we need input, which means listening. It's the best way for input for me.

Also reading. Thank you. Paul Atreides here is exactly right. That is exactly right. That is my philosophy too. You know, as an English teacher, I have seen the best results for my students using exactly this, focusing on input.

lots and lots of listening, and then also reading too. You can combine them by doing audio books. Vladimir says, big thanks from Russia. Thank you. You're a great teacher.

AJ, thank you. Well, thank you very much. Thanks, Vladimir. All right, let's go skip forward here a little bit. You guys are typing fast. Okay, Hera. Hera Enchanted.

That's a nice name. When I listen to your podcast in recent days, I feel you're really inspiring. Well, thank you, Hera. I'm trying. You know, most of the topics, by the way, if you don't know, it's probably obvious, but these topics are all things I'm thinking about for myself in my life, right?

I'm thinking about all this exactly for me, too. You know, these are my notes. Okay. Because I have problems and pain and suffering and difficulty in my life too.

And so I go looking for answers as well. And I struggle with all these different things also. I'm not a saint. I'm not at that high level. I'm just a normal person like you.

And searching for the same answers to these same questions. And when I find something that helps me, I share it with you. That's all I'm doing. So I'm happy to do that.

And I see that as my main purpose. Paul says, oh, we missed you. I hope everything's okay. If you're doing well, I've got two new babies. One baby in the hospital still, but he's doing better.

Hopefully we get our second baby home soon. Okay, another Fathi from Morocco. I'm from Morocco. I usually use English in my work, emailing and messaging, some kind of text stuff, yeah.

But when I try to talk, I've lost the words. I don't know why. Please, I need your advice. Well, the reason why is speaking is more pressure, more emotional pressure, more time pressure.

When you're messaging, typing, you can pause, you can think for a minute. It's not so much pressure. But speaking, someone speaks and then you feel this pressure that you must answer very quickly. There's this pressure of time.

And that can kind of create a kind of stress, a kind of tension that makes your brain work more slowly. It actually makes your speaking seem more difficult.

What can you do about that? You know, of course, lots of listening and audio books. And some of it's just practice, honestly. Some of it's just time. You just try to do it more and more and you'll start to relax more as you talk.

In the beginning, you can be very stressed and then each time getting a little less. Focus on pronunciation. That's a good way to do it because you'll start training your mouth and the muscles and even your mind in speaking and speaking a little faster. And this will help too.

So good luck to you. Don't worry about it. That's totally normal. Don't get stressed about it. That's the main thing is just relax. It's okay. It's normal and it will get better.

Eve Spring says, hey, hello, AJ. We are not familiar. I just wanted to say that you're an amazing teacher. I want one day to become like you. Well, thank you.

That's very nice, Eve. Thank you. And good luck to you in your teaching as well. Oh, okay. So there's following up saying, um, I've heard I can get native speakers online.

Yeah. There are different websites, chat websites. You can do it. Um, I don't, I don't use them, so I don't, I can't give you a specific one, but just do a search, you know, um, English or foreign language chat.

And sometimes you can trade. If someone's trying to learn your language, sometimes you have to pay. And sometimes people volunteer and it's free. Uh, So you can do that.

Someone likes my hat. Louie says, by the way, look handsome with this hat. It fits you. Very American, right? It's American style. Thank you. Okay, here's a question, a request.

If you have time, we need a video about stress syllables. Which syllables in a word to stress? Alright, that's a pronunciation thing. You know, I did one of those.

I think I might have... I think I did a video about that, but maybe on Periscope. So it's gone. It's a good suggestion. I'll do one again. I'll remember that one and do it again sometime.

And do it on YouTube and Facebook so it doesn't disappear. Ah, Diana here. Diana Lamb, I'm going to cut off my working hours to give me more time to relax. I am working a lot but still not happy as I wish.

That's a great idea, Diana. I mean, that was my first solution in life. You know, yesterday I was saying this on Facebook that I had the same problem. I was working a lot and just hating jobs.

All jobs. And I was very frustrated. How do I escape this? What do I do? I want more time for my life. It's the main thing. I wanted more time. to do other things.

And finally, my solution, I just lived a very simple life. I cut my expenses. I actually lived in a car for a while, but other times I lived in very cheap apartments.

And I cut my working hours and I was much happier. Just cutting the number of hours helped so much. So good luck to you. You might find that helps a lot.

Daoud, I'm from Pakistan. Do you have Gab? Yes, I'm on Gab. It's my name, just like YouTube, A-J-H-O-G-E. I am on Gab, Gab.com. Oh, also on Gab, we have an Effortless English group on Gab.

So if you join Gab, G-A-B.com, it's a social media site. Join Gab and you'll look on the menu, you'll see Groups. So go to the groups and search and you'll see there's Effortless English. You can join it.

So other Effortless English members and fans are there. You can meet each other. And I'm on there too. So yes, I do have Gab. Intellects Channel. Interesting.

AJ, can you talk about marketing yourself? That's a big topic, maybe a future topic for a show. So I guess this is probably the idea of... I'm guessing you're talking about for your job or your career.

And it's a good word you're using because that's exactly what I recommend. Anytime you're searching for a job, even just in your career, in life... As you go through, you're getting different jobs.

Career is kind of long-term, right? It's your series of jobs in one type of work. But you should think like a marketer. Think like a business person. That's exactly the right word to use, that you market yourself.

And this is a great way to get better jobs and to make more money. You've got to learn to market yourself. Market yourself. Sell yourself. to employers right to companies to employers to people who will hire you who will pay you um it's a big topic i'll talk about it maybe more in the future it's probably i could do a few shows about that well in fact i'm going i think i'm going to um again i'm going to sell my business english course i did a business english course with my father actually we did it very it was very popular lots of people like it um

But then my dad decided to retire. He decided to retire. He was tired of working. So we stopped selling it. But I think I might start selling it again.

And I'll just pay my dad some money. I'll talk to him about it. I have to get his permission since he helped. But I'm sure he won't mind since he doesn't need to do any work.

And the reason I'm mentioning that course is about exactly this topic. A lot of that course, Business English course, is about marketing yourself, how to have a better career, get better jobs, make more money, using the methods of marketing yourself.

So I'll give you more news and update about that, hopefully, in a couple weeks. Lots of Russians saying hello. Hello. John Wabi with a comment about a common situation.

We go to school, but when we come to an environment in front of where native speakers are, native speakers, so British or American or Australian, we can't understand their fluency. Right. This is the problem with schools. They don't really teach you fluency and you can't understand the real speakers.

That's kind of a problem. Christopher says, AJ, you're not only a teacher, you are a lifestyle. Thank you. I like to listen to you all the time. Thank you very much.

That's very nice. Adam says, hello from Yemen. Maravanor is asking for subtitles. I'll look into it. I'll check it. Some people have asked me about that.

Okay, here's Rime with Rime or Rime. I'm not sure how that's pronounced. But after reading your book, Effortless English, I find reading really enjoyable things. I find in your book that you advise to start reading books like Goosebumps, but I didn't like it too much.

Okay, yeah, that's just an example. the Goosebumps book I'm just giving an example you don't have to read Goosebumps you don't have to read Hardy Boys just people ask me sometimes can you recommend a book so I'll recommend Goosebumps I'll recommend Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew because a lot of people like those books if you don't like them it's fine no problem read what you like that's the real advice read books that you you like not that I like not that someone else likes read books that you like

So if you don't like Goosebumps, no problem. I understand. Personally, I don't really like Goosebumps that much either. They're okay, but they're a little bit childish.

And I generally don't like that kind of fiction anyway. So I understand. You don't have to read that. Read something else. Maybe you like nonfiction. I read mostly nonfiction now.

I like to read about history and philosophy, religion, things like that. So just that's the key thing is you have to choose books about topics that you, you, you like. You know, if you like science fiction, read science fiction books in English. You know, we had one of our, one of the, you know, Paul Maudib was one of the avatars here.

Well, that's a, that's a character in the book Dune, which is a great, fantastic science fiction book. Read that in English if you can, might be difficult.

That's probably a tough book. But anyway, try that. Or if you like science fiction, maybe try easier science fiction in English. Or if you like fantasy, you could try something easier.

Maybe C.S. Lewis might be good. You know, or like I said, maybe you prefer some other kinds of books. Just think about what do you like in your own language?

What kind of topics and books do you like in your language? Then find something... Similar in English. Similar but easier in English. So if you like, you know, if you like spy books, books about spies and James Bond, that kind of stuff, if you like that in your own language, well, find those kind of books in English.

But maybe starting with kids level and then get harder or difficult. So that's the main advice. You do not have to like goosebumps. It's totally fine.

Okay, well, here's another, here's a question. Shakhzad says, are there any tricks to help you read books faster? Because reading English novels or any kind of books takes a lot of time.

Not really. I mean, the trick is read. The more you read, usually the faster you read. I mean, I read very fast now, but that's because I read a lot. So because I'm reading, I have been reading, you know, I'm 51 years old,

I've been reading my whole life, lots and lots and lots of books. So yeah, now I'm very fast, but it just comes with time. It's not a race. Don't worry about it.

It's not a race. You don't have to hurry. Just read. If you have one hour, just read for one hour. It doesn't matter if you're reading fast. It doesn't matter if you're reading slowly.

It doesn't matter. Just read for the time you have. If you have 30 minutes, read for 30 minutes as much as you can. That's all. If you read three pages because you're very slow, okay, three pages.

That's okay. If you read 50 pages because you're fast, great. Also good. I just say don't worry about the time, okay? You're not doing this for school.

You're doing this for yourself. So the time doesn't matter. The speed does not matter. It's not important. It will naturally get faster. As you do it every day more and more, you naturally will faster.

And of course, you probably will read more slowly in English. It's not your native language. So of course you're going to read it more slowly. In the past when I was learning some Spanish, I would read in Spanish super slow.

And now I would be super, super, super slow in Spanish. So it's okay. Don't worry about it. It's a nice idea. John Priya from Thailand. Swati Krap. Anyone here want to do a speaking club like sending voice clips or online calling group?

I'm from Thailand and listening and reading and chatting with, but I'm poor at speaking. It's a nice idea. See this, you can do this with each other. So yeah, good luck.

Nice idea. I like it. You're becoming much stronger. You're becoming stronger. It's the power of the force. Thank you, Umar. Okay. Okay. Here's an interesting question.

Okay. Very nice question from a teacher. I like the teacher questions too. I'm sorry about pronouncing your name. I'll try my best. Al Mubarak. Al Mubarak says, Hi, AJ.

I'm an English teacher. Good. I'm not a native like in pronunciation. It's okay. So what's the best way to get students to learn English? I see. You're worried about your own pronunciation.

Okay. You can play audios in the class and also give homework to your students to listen to native speaker audios. I mean, you can make them listen to my podcast or something easier if they're lower level.

So it's OK. Don't worry about it. Do your best. You know, it's OK. You have an accent. No problem. OK, you can still help them a lot. You can still help them a lot.

You don't have to be a native speaker. And especially because You know, your goal, your role as the teacher, you're the leader. It doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself, only yourself.

You can bring in, right? You can bring in books. You can bring in videos. You can bring in audios with homework, even in the class. And you can use stuff from native speakers.

And you can also do things yourself. You can tell stories. It's okay if your pronunciation is not perfect. It's not, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it.

Okay. Okay. They can improve their pronunciation more and more in time, but you can help them a lot with their vocabulary, with their fluency, and you can use audios even to help with pronunciation.

I know a lot of English teachers who are not native speakers. A lot of you feel nervous because your pronunciation is, you have some accent. Just relax, okay? Just relax.

Relax and use native speaker audios when you need to. And don't get stressed about it. Do your best. Just do your best. You don't need to be perfect. Do your best.

That's all. Let's see. I got, Akash says, I got a better band score because of your guidance. I guess you're talking about IELTS. So congratulations. Very nice.

I love your face. I'm from Saudi Arabia. Thank you. That's nice. Ira says, love you. Thank you. Ira, thank you. Very positive. Appreciate your comments.

There's a request from Yongchao again. AJ, I will be so blessed if you can do more audio books. Thinking about that, actually. Actually, because I've been thinking like, you know, how to give you more, you know, kind of easy, short listening practice.

And this is one way to do it. Maybe I might even write some stories like fiction, just some little story, like a little short book and do an audio book with it.

One of my ideas. We'll see. Austger says, oh, nice comment here. Faith is the source to overcome the hardest problems. Yes, indeed. It's a remedy for our souls whenever we suffer.

On the other side, you can gain self-control when you meditate, because this way you're going to avoid a lot of pain. That's right, yeah. And this is working on both sides.

Faith in what? Faith in God, right? Which is above and beyond you. And then meditation, many ways of meditating, many benefits of meditating. One of them is self-discipline, mental self-discipline, which gives you strength.

All right, we are almost finished, I think. Let me just go down. I'm going to zoom down here towards the end of the comments. Dowd says, AJ, your podcast helps when I'm in the gym or stuck in traffic.

Good. Good. Yeah. Great. I have, you know, I listen to some podcasts, too, in English and, you know, other people. But I use kind of the same, like I, with the babies now, with our baby.

I'm up late night usually here. And, yeah, sometimes kind of difficult. It's very late at night and... Everybody's asleep. I can't do anything. So I usually listen to podcasts too.

Podcasts are great. So I hope mine is helpful. Renato says, even if someone is part of your family, there's not affinity. Affinity sometimes is important.

Sometimes family is not enough. Well, you know, both are good. But that's also the advantage of family, as I was saying before. See, it's easy to be patient.

Easier, I'll say. I'll say easier. I won't say easy. It's easier to be patient. It's easier to be understanding with a friend who is like you, who has your same affinity, as you're saying, the same beliefs, the same values.

I mean, that's a good thing. You know, that's how we choose our friends usually, and that's fine. But on the other hand, it's less challenge. Family can be much more difficult.

Like I have some family members who are like, The opposite of me in many, many, they have different values. They have different beliefs. They have different ideas.

Their personality kind of goes against mine. And, but it's good, right? Because that's challenging to me. It's like, well, they're family, so I'm going to love them and try to understand them and try to be patient with them, even though all of those things are difficult.

That makes me a better person. And if they do it, you know, we all do it as family. That's where we can really grow. So that's why I think family gives us more opportunities for growing.

It's not that friends are bad because I, like I said, I have, I consider, you know, in my mind, my close friends are also family. You know, my closest friends. I have a, like I said, I have just a few small number, but I, but they're so close. There's a strong affinity, like you said, and also just so many shared experiences that

They are family also. So you don't have to choose one or the other. Both. They're both great. Again, don't think like it's this or this. It's both. Great friends, of course.

Family, of course. And they both have wonderful things to offer us. So you don't have to choose. Well, that's interesting. Jerky shooter. Interesting name.

He must be a gamer, I'm guessing. I'm really good at the American dialect, the American accent, but I'm not fluent. Well, that's quite interesting because that's not a usual situation.

Because if you're good at the American dialect, American accent, idioms, it means you probably have listened a lot. You probably just need more listening to normal stuff, is what I would say. Listen to lots of podcasts. Listen to some audio books.

Maybe start doing audio books a lot. And maybe focus on your pronunciation a little bit with time. But it's a good sign. If you're good at the American accent, that's actually a very good sign.

You probably just need a little more vocabulary, a little more time. You'll be okay. Tom Tom says, what do you think about Anki? Anki is okay. If you don't know, Anki is just one of these, it's like a flash card system, right?

Just Some people like it. There's different ones. Anki's one. There are many of them. Some people like doing those, and some people don't. If you like it, go ahead.

It's okay. Just a way to review phrases, really. AJ's on Gab, too. I'm on Gab. Get on Gab. Ah, here's a nice suggestion for our book club. Could you do Miracle Morning next time?

That's a good one. That's a good book. I've read it. It's about, basically it's about having a good morning routine in your life where you, really where you focus on the most important things in life.

And you do them all in the morning. This kind of habit in the morning. And this will change your life. It's a good book. Miracle Morning. All right. Okay, I'll go with this very last one from one of my favorite countries in the world.

Hello, sir. I'm from Nepal. If you want to visit Nepal, heartily welcome in Nepal. Thanks for your knowledge. I have visited Nepal. I've been there two times and I hope to go again.

Nepal is absolutely one of my favorite countries in the world, right near the top of For me. Beautiful, beautiful country. Fantastic food. Great people.

I love Nepal. So thank you. If I visit Nepal, when I visit Nepal next, I will certainly mention it. I'll say it on Gab and on Twitter. So maybe I can meet some effortless English members there.

Usually when I travel, in general, when I travel to other countries, I will follow me on Gab or follow me on Twitter. And I will mention, you know, I'm going to Thailand. I'm going to Nepal. I'm going to, you know, Italy.

And I'll mention where I'm going. And then I try to meet as English members and fans when I travel. So just have coffee or something or go to lunch. So watch my social media.

And maybe I'll meet you in face-to-face someday. Okay, that's all for today. This was fun. This was really good. Live YouTube worked very well this time.

No technical problems. Knock on wood, right? So because of this, I think we'll try to do more YouTube live. So what I think I'll try doing now is I'll alternate.

Maybe do half my live shows, live video shows, do half on YouTube, and then do half of my live video shows on Facebook. So YouTube, Facebook, YouTube, Facebook, live.

Follow me on Twitter and Gab so you'll know which one I'm doing each day. I announce it on Gab and I announce it on Twitter, so that's how you'll know. All right, thanks. Lots of love to you all.

Have a great day. Good luck with your English. And as always, speak English powerfully, speak English fluently, speak English effortlessly, speak English confidently, and think in English. When you commit to my VIP program, join my VIP program, go now to my website.

That's where you join. That's where you get my lessons. That's where you get my courses. That's where I teach you English directly. EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

Go now to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Lots of love to you. See you next time. Thank you.