I've put together these anthologies of poetry, gratitude, hope, kindness, connection, joy.

I feel like they're all just ways of feeling more alive and feeling more connected to yourself

and to the world. And that's what we're looking for.

Welcome to the One You Feed.

Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,

quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet,

for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,

self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.

It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.

This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,

how they feed their good wolf.

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is James Cruz, the editor of the best-selling

anthology, How to Love the World, which was featured on NPR's Morning Edition,

as well as in the Boston Globe and the Washington Post. James is the author of four prize-winning

collections of poetry, and his poems have been published in The New York Times, plowshairs,

The New Republic, and The Sun magazine. James also co-founded The Poetry of Resilience Seminars.

Hi, James. Welcome to the show. Hi, Eric. Thanks so much for having me.

I am excited to have you on. I was telling you before the show, first and foremost,

you're a poet. But secondly, you have compiled three of my favorite compilations of poetry.

And so the work that you do has been in my life for quite some time, even before I really figured

out that it was all sort of one person. So I'm excited to talk to you. We're going to be reading

...