So people ask me, okay, Dr. Sweet, how do you put together these sweet spots? Like, how do you figure it out? Like, how do you know what you're gonna say? Well, look, today is Sunday. Today is slowdown Sunday. It has to feel earned. I don't want it to be louder than the rest of the week. I I want it to be deeper. And um, this is the integration episode, right? So when we do the sweet spot, we use Sunday to integrate the entire week. It's the axis, it's the sky above the battlefield. And we and and there are three things I'll try to do to this uh on in this episode. I'm gonna summarize takeaways from each of the days that we did, this whole line series. I'll also try to elevate the frame from battlefield to the cosmos because we always do astrophysics on Sunday. Not that we are astrophysicists, but we love to look into the cosmos for some insights, and then we try to end with some stillness or something that feels strong, not sleepy, but strong. And so that's the frame. And once we understand our frame and what we're gonna do, we dive right in. We dive right into slow down sundae, and welcome everyone, welcome to slowdown sundae, sweet spotters. You're here, you are here in Hold the Line, our seventh episode, seven of seven. You did it, you did it, and you're walking along with me here on the sweet spot. We're gonna call this episode Stay Steady When It's Quiet and Stand Firm, Stand Strong. It's slow down Sunday, and I hope that introduction of how I think about Sundays was helpful to somebody because a couple of people ask me, How do you think about it? And that's what we do. We take a breath on Sunday. We remember that we fought all week, that we had to hold the line all week. And Sunday is where we zoom out because Monday you learn that holding the line begins with clarity, you decide your ground before pressure arrives. You don't wait for the problem, you hold your ground, you're ready, you wake up ready. On Tuesday, we learned that action beats mood, that you move without waiting for the emotions to carry you. You're no longer in that category of people that need to feel it before you can do it. That was take action Tuesday. So on Wednesday, when it all wednesday, what do we learn? We learned that pressure reveals your conditioning, it reveals whether you've been practicing anything. That could be meditation, prayer, visualization, doing reps in the gym, imagining what could go wrong and having a plan for it, doing your homework, whatever that is. We learn on Wednesday, when it all wednesday, that pressure reveals your conditioning. You default to habits, not hope. And on Thursday, we learn that self-trust actually stabilizes doubt. That preparation becomes confidence remembered. That the person who looks so confident in the pressure situation is the person who's actually prepared. And that preparation is looking to you and me like they're confident, but they've been prepared, they're ready. Remember, we talked about that. Some athletes and performers they they anticipate what the fourth quarter is gonna look like, they anticipate what it's gonna be like on stage. A good race car driver anticipates what if the the wheel alignment goes wrong? What am I gonna do? How am I gonna handle it? They prepare, and preparation can become confidence. And on Friday, Finish Strong Friday, we learned that fatigue can lie, right? That fatigue is a liar and the truth is not in it. We said that. We said that fatigue can distort your perception, it can make everything feel bigger and louder, it can over-exaggerate things, and you don't make big decisions when you're fatigued. Don't chase greatness when you're fatigued, chase fundamentals, right? Yeah, because a lot of times you feel done before you're done. And when you feel done before you're done, that's fatigue. Many times. Saturday, self-care Saturday, we went in. We learned that recovery is reinforcement, that the boundaries that you're setting are going to protect a version of you, a future you needs you to set boundaries now. Yeah, on self-care Saturday, that was yesterday, we talked about the idea that look, there are these invisible lines that you have to draw to keep you whole, so that you're not depleted. Because we said a line that doesn't rest, a line that doesn't have self-care, it doesn't restore, is a line that's going to crumble from the inside out, not even from the outside pressure. It's going to fold because it's too tired. And that brings us, beloved, to Slow Down Sunday. Here we are. Sunday, like I said earlier, is the axis. Sunday is where we go and talk about the stars. It's metaphysical. Yeah, we're not astrophysicists, but astrophysics tells us something about what's extraordinary. And what we're learning is that everything is moving. That's what we learn from the universe. The Earth spins at roughly a thousand miles an hour at the equator. It orbits the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. I looked it up, I saw it. Yeah, our solar system is moving through the galaxy at even greater speeds. Absolutely. And yet, sitting in your chair right now, me and you, we're feeling still. Do you understand what I just said? That the Earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, orbiting the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, the solar system moving through the galaxy at even a greater speed, and you and I can't feel it, we're just sitting still. Wow. Let that land. So, from a relativity perspective, you are free to declare your body and frame and mind at rest. The cosmos is moving really fast right now. But you and I, we can stay centered. You know what we're doing when we are still like this? We're holding the line. That's our entire series. Stillness at the center of motion is a way of holding the line. Yeah, a hurricane has an eye. The earth has an axis. Motion can surround a quiet core. And if you don't cultivate an inner axis, breathing, prayer, awareness, surrender, sleep, naps, whatever it is, if you don't cultivate an inner axis, external movement will try to own you. Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic philosopher, said it this way. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. How powerful is that? That's where peace is. That's not escapism, that's alignment. And of course, the ancient wisdom bears it. Step out of the traffic, take a long loving look at me, your high God. That's in Psalm 46 of the message Bible. Yeah, it said traffic, literally. You're not gonna find that in the KJV. Step out of the traffic, take a long loving look at me, your high God. Step out of the traffic. Not abandon the mission now. Just step outside of the noise. Now let's move from stars to water. Picture a pond, right? A still pond. And now I want you to picture a stone hitting that surface, right? I want you to see the ripples spreading. Can you see it? And then the pond returns to its stillness, looking like glass. The pond doesn't resist the stone, it receives the stone. It lets the disturbance come and go. It lets the disturbance pass. You see, holding the line is not tightening against every single impact. It's more about your ability to return to baseline. Remember the rubber rubber band theory we talked about? That rubber band will stretch and do all these other things, but you know where it's going back to? Being a rubber band. Try it. You can pull it, you can twist it, you can do a lot of different things. But it ends up coming back to baseline. Even in Buddhism, in the Dhammapada, it says, the wise make for themselves an island which no flood can overwhelm. That's a grounded island. It's not a rigid island, it's grounded, it's it's not going to allow itself to be overwhelmed. The rubber band doesn't get overwhelmed by all the stretching and turning. It's grounded. Let's zoom out even further, right? We're in astrophysics, we're talking about astrophysics. Remember, we've said that you in in previous Sundays, in previous slowdown Sundays, we've talked about this. That we are made of stardust. Literally. Literally made of stardust. The carbon in your cells was forged in the heart of ancient stars. Facts. Supernova explosions scattered the elements that became our bones, our blood, and our brain. So we are small in scale, but we're not insignificant. There are billions of galaxies, billions of galaxies out there. The carbons, hydrogens, nitrogens, seleniums, the various atoms, uh they're all swirling around, and we're a part of that. Billions of galaxies, so many universes. When you think about this, if you zoom out high enough and you look at Earth from a really, really high perspective, respects your problem, your deadline, your embarrassment, your anxiety. Oh, they're real. But they're not at the cosmic level. Think about that. They're not at the cosmic level. Yeah, you know, there's a crazy thing called cosmic insignificance therapy. It's I know cosmic insignificance therapy. You know what that therapy does? It zooms out far enough for you to be able to see how small what you're dealing with is compared to the cosmos. Maybe it's not for everybody, but it's cool. So cosmic insignificance therapy suggests that when we zoom out, the ego softens, that the urgency begins to relax because we see a bigger picture, we become more humble. We take what we have to do seriously. Our assignment is serious here on this planet on Earth, but we're not dramatic about it. We get a sense of the perspective. You hold your line in your lane under a sky that has been doing this thing for billions of years. You understand that. You understand that this is not the only line, and there's a deeper surrender here. There's a deeper surrender once you understand the perspective. Because nature works in cycles. We said this before. We said it last week. There's day and night, the sun rises and sets. There's summer and winter seasons change in a particular order in a certain cycle. Things grow and then they stop growing. There's life, there's death. You know, there's so much going on. And winter is not failure, it's preparation. So sometimes holding the line looks like like that, like that. Sometimes it looks like a winter. Sometimes it looks like stillness. Sometimes it looks like silence. Sometimes holding the line looks like finding solitude. Stillness is not retreat, it's recalibration. This week you fought for clarity. We fought hard. We held a line. We fought for action. We fought against shrinking in the moment on When It All Wednesday. We fought through fatigue on Finish Strong Friday. And we restored our boundaries on self-care Saturday to protect our invisible lines. Now today we align. We align with the universe. Yeah. So here's your Sunday practice. I want you to find what the earth has in it. Find your axis. Five minutes of quiet breathing. No cell phone. A slow walk if you can't do that with no cell phone. A moment of prayer. A moment of meditation. Maybe it's just visualizing the future you're looking for. Or maybe you just sit and notice what's around you. Two things in the room, two things you can see, two things you can smell, two things you can touch, two things you can hear. So that you can be in this moment. Not just sitting with future problems or past regrets. You're right here, right now. You're not fixing anything, you're not achieving anything, you're just being aware, returning to your baseline. Because you have an inner axis. In fact, let's say that out loud. I have an inner axis. The world can spin, I stay centered. I hold my line in stillness. When you can say these things in the middle of whatever chaos or situation you're facing, and you can come back to your baseline, come back to your center, you are allowing your brain to rehearse the idea that you have a level of control. You're controlling the controllables, what you can control within your sphere. Because tomorrow the movement will begin again. Tomorrow it'll be making moves Monday again. Yeah. So today we slow down. Yesterday we cared for ourselves. We took this weekend to anchor something deeper than noise. Under a sky that's older than our worries, something made of stars, something moving fast, yet very capable of stillness, very capable of making us stand firm, helping us to hold the line. The miracle is that you're holding the line on a planet that's moving so fast in the universe. You're already amazing to me, the fact that you can do that. Yeah. Absolutely. We went from the battlefield to the cosmos and back in this conversation. For science, for soul, and for success. You have held the line all week, and you know what? You've been good at it, and you're gonna do it again tomorrow. This is Dr. Derek Sweet. I commend you on a powerful week of holding the line, my friend. Keep the faith, keep your strength, don't back down, know your ground, trust, and get ready. I'll see you tomorrow for Making Moves Monday. Once again, for science, for soul, and for success.