Movie About Me

Crazy, right? But someone made a movie about me.
My friend, Michael McCoy, has made a film--somewhat about me, somewhat about the present day upper Amazon, somewhat about jungle medicines, and somewhat about how that river and those medicines can create major positive shifts in your life. The film's title, More Joy, Less Pain, comes from an insight I had from one of those medicines, ayahuasca, during the very worst part of the dissolution of my marriage. Though separated, we had regular contact, and my wife and I fought constantly. I was always hurt. She seemed to always be pressing buttons that prompted me to go into a rage. It was not good for us, not good for the kids, and not good for her mother, who was living at my house while dying of cancer.
One night I had the insight that I had a choice and that I'd always had a choice about the anger, even though I hadn't seen it. The insight was that every time I felt my buttons being pushed, I had the opportunity to create more joy, or more pain. I could break into a rage, causing more pain, or bite my tongue, refuse to engage, and create more joy.
It took a while to get that routine down, but almost immediately we began to fight less frequently, and in fairly short order she stopped pushing my buttons and we started getting along pretty well again. It was good for the kids, good for us, good for my wife's mom.
Simple, right? More Joy, Less Pain.