Stargazing Without Screens (Episode 360)

Stargazing Without Screens (Episode 360)

Wonder doesn’t just inspire us. It calibrates us. We open up about a phone-free night that paired live music with an immersive trip through the cosmos and somehow made the ground under our feet feel steadier. The experience rekindled a childhood dream of space, reminded us how small we are, and gave us a bigger reason to keep going: serving others at scale, one honest story at a time.

We talk about the early spark—wanting to be an astronaut—and the practical hurdles that pulled that dream to the background. Then we step into a planetarium-style experience that challenged old anxieties and delivered a quiet victory: no panic, no vertigo, just presence. That pause from screens mattered. When the phone stayed in the pocket, attention came back online, the music regulated our nervous system, and the stars did what stars do—widen the frame. From Earth to Moon to Sun to galaxies, the sheer scale turned status into noise and service into signal.

Across the conversation, we connect awe to mental health and purpose. The science and the story agree: moments of vastness can reduce rumination, increase humility, and make room for courage. That’s the fuel behind our audacious mission to help three billion people. It’s not about plaques or street signs. It’s about impact that outlives us. We invite you to try your own presence practices—stargazing, a planetarium visit, a phone-free concert—and tell us what you notice when you look up instead of scroll down. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a lift, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Your voice expands the constellation.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Global Community

0:57 Milestone And Listener Support

2:24 Childhood Dream Of Space

4:58 Space Camp Hurdles And Letting Go

7:52 Wonder Under The Night Sky

8:59 Musk, Mars, And Big Goals

9:42 The Song That Connected Two Skies

12:43 Life With Screens And Skeptics

14:13 The Phone-Free Event Begins

16:44 Immersive Cosmos And Live Music

20:37 Mental Health Wins Amid The Spectacle

21:14 Awe, Scale, And Renewed Purpose

25:43 Gratitude, Faith, And Legacy

28:13 Choose Wonder Over Distraction

31:06 Keep Dreaming And Help Others

36:14 Closing Thanks And Support

#Stargazing #NightSky #AstronomyLovers #NatureViewing #Coldplay #StarryNights #NoScreens #Galaxies #Stars #Sing2 #CelestialWonders #MusicofSpheres #SkyWatching #TelescopeTime #MindfulMoments #Constellations #NatureTherapy #ExploreTheUniverse #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices360

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Global Community
• 0:57 Milestone And Listener Support
• 2:24 Childhood Dream Of Space
• 4:58 Space Camp Hurdles And Letting Go
• 7:52 Wonder Under The Night Sky
• 8:59 Musk, Mars, And Big Goals
• 9:42 The Song That Connected Two Skies
• 12:43 Life With Screens And Skeptics
• 14:13 The Phone-Free Event Begins
• 16:44 Immersive Cosmos And Live Music
• 20:37 Mental Health Wins Amid The Spectacle
• 21:14 Awe, Scale, And Renewed Purpose
• 25:43 Gratitude, Faith, And Legacy
• 28:13 Choose Wonder Over Distraction
• 31:06 Keep Dreaming And Help Others
• 36:14 Closing Thanks And Support

Transcript

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 0:02

Hey everyone, welcome again. This is Justin, Voices for Voices, TV Strong Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Whether you're watching, listening, whether you're here in the United States, the state of Ohio, or in a country, territory, province, somewhere else in the world. We're so grateful to be bringing this show to you, uh, to 90 countries, 900 cities, uh, 90 countries and territories in 900 cities across this great world on the planet Earth that we uh we're living on at this moment in time. Uh thank you for all the love and support. We love each and every one of you. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in to this episode. Uh just uh heads up that we have over 355 uh episodes. I believe this actually is episode 360 total episodes. Uh so it's uh it's been quite the journey, and we can't do this without you. So thank you for uh all the love and support you've given us, both monetarily and uh mentally and on the uh social media platforms and where you're able to go and subscribe. We ask that you smash that subscribe button, give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, share, uh, comment, uh, reach out if you have an interest in uh being on uh guest on our show. We'd love to have you. Share your story as well as uh the stories of uh each and every one uh of us uh across the world. We do have this huge lofty goal of helping at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, and uh any help is greatly appreciated. Pass it along word of mouth. Uh we we we love everyone equally, and we are grateful to be with you. So uh as we grow up, um I'm now talking about my myself, and sometimes we get asked, where do you see yourself in five years, or when we're even younger, what do you want to do when you want to grow up? Uh uh, do you want to be a uh a fireman, firewoman, policeman, policewoman, uh a professional sports athlete, uh uh an astronaut, cosmonaut, uh, and and for me, uh the answer was was clear, and and that was I wanted to be an astronaut, and I'm not sure what really piqued my interest in that. I think maybe some of the the pictures and photos that I had had seen at that time, uh looking in the space, outer space, uh, seeing stars many millions and billions of years ago, uh, that are still shining, uh, different planets, galaxies, and I think that's what probably drew me to wanting to be an astronaut because that would bring me closer to those experiences. So that was my goal. That was something that I I wanted to do. And again, not sure what what exact point uh that turn turned away. Uh I I think part of it had to do with how limited individuals get to actually be astronauts and to go on the missions on on the uh on the spaceships. And so there was a space camp for juniors that I forget how again, I forget how this happened. May have been when uh my family and I went on a vacation when when uh I was growing up, and uh we we we went to Cape Canaveral in Florida, which was still active uh with NASA at that at that point in time. And I don't know if it was a pamphlet, if it was some type of material that I was able to read, and and it had to do with uh there's a space camp for younger younger kids to my guess is to pique their interest, see if they might be a fit to go through the program because to become an astronaut, you don't just show up one day and go, oh, I want to be an astronaut, and then the next day you're on the you're on the space shuttle and and you're you're ready for a mission. There's months and months and years of uh practice and training and uh planning that goes into that uh into that process. And I I think that's what I I saw was this space camp for kids, and then I I knew there was a price tag to that. It wasn't free. I can't remember exactly how much it was uh you know comparable to today's uh you know pricing, it would be you know less than what it is now. Uh and so that was a constraint. Uh it wasn't I didn't come from a uh you know a royal family or a family that had lots of discretionary income, and that didn't bother me, so I I think I just moved on and thinking like, oh, that'd be cool if I would get a chance to do that, um, and various reasons, so I didn't, no big deal, but I do remember, and I still remember to this day, the different pictures and photos of again the the stars, the galaxies, uh, planet, other planets, uh shooting stars, and so many things in in the sky. It was just incredible. The as a regular person living in a regular town, uh, when we look up into the sky, you know, we're we're lucky to see see some stars. Um, there are certain times of year in years where we're able to see eclipses and uh and some planets are closer than others, um, and and so we we get from time to time the ability to see just to an absolute tiny teeny tiny fraction of what's out there in the world, and when you know Elon Musk and SpaceX, uh, you know, one of their goals is to uh not only make it to Mars, but make it a habitable place uh for human beings to to live on. And so that's the lead end to the the episode today. I've talked about dreaming, I've talked about having inner strength and inner courage. We've talked about a lot a lot of those types of things on numerous shows. So we're not gonna reiterate as much on that. What I want to really just cover in a I guess a to me a bait a basic part of what gives me the what gives me some of the strength internally to to dream to know that there's there was a uh forget what with the I think Five O F-I-E-V-A-L. I think there was a movie when I was growing up, and it was there's a song in it uh titled Somewhere Out There where I think they were I think they were animated animals, maybe been humans. I'm not I'm not quite sure. I'm really turning back the clock in my brain, and it's not wanting to turn back, but I'm I'm I'm using the crank to turn it back, and it's not turning back, but in any event, the song somewhere out there, there were two again, two animals or two humans, and they were apart, and the one night they both looked up into the sky, and I think they saw the same stars, the same moon, and and that really was like a connection point for the two of them. So while they weren't right next to each other with each other, they're looking up in the sky and looking and seeing the very same thing, obviously from a different location. But when they looked up, they they weren't in uh you know a different time zone, different part of the world where you know, obviously, with time changes or time zones. Time could be an hour ahead, an hour behind, two hours ahead, two hours behind. And so they're looking up and seeing the same moon, the same stars, the same sky, and and so that came to me. And then I had a very experience or an event, I guess you call it, and uh you know, I talked about you know the inner strength of your courage. I I just said that a minute ago about dreaming and how remarkable this world, the earth is, the sky, the solar system is, and how as I've grown up, some I think I haven't grown up, but uh as as I've grown up we've had just such an influx of smart devices, you know, meaning a phone or iPad or computer and TV. We have all these screens. And when people are like, oh yeah, like you're just dreaming, that'll never happen. Or you know, where'd you think about that? Where'd that how'd that come about? Or that'll never happen because that's too far out. That's there's just there's no way for that to happen. And so I attended an event and had the phone, everybody had their phone put away and was at the event. The the amount of time doesn't really matter, but it was uh yeah, the time does time doesn't matter. What matters is everybody had their phones turned off, nobody's filming what's happening, or it like you go to a concert or go somewhere, ever at least one person's got their phone up filming, and I will say the first time I got filmed from an audience was right after I had my mental health crash, and I was at the Miami Dade uh in college with Professor Eric, Eric Terry, and I was able to give like a it's like a five-minute talk to try to try to inspire. And when I looked out in the audience, there was at least one, at least one handheld smart device that was uh filming my my talk. I was kind of blown away because it was just a matter of weeks before that I was not sure how I was going to survive. And so then here I was on stage just being myself and not being somebody else, and there's somebody that thought I was important enough what I was talking was important enough for that for them to want to want to record it. So fast forward to this at this event, yeah. So we go in, and again, phones are away, and the event had two things. Number one, it had music, and number two, it had scenes of the sky, the solar systems, the planets, the stars. Uh what looked like to be time travel, and I talked the other day, or the other episode, about not having my blue light blocking glasses with me, and I was able to make it through, not sure how, but I did. But what I want to talk about this one is is how the all the phones were put away that nobody had to be told, and so anytime you get the chance to do that, do that. We're we all have a lot going on, we all have a lot of messages, a lot of things that we can do, but that's by example. Big tech and bigger tech of the you know, the device owner, uh the device um builders who who put the smart devices together. Their goal is to have us spend as much time as humanly possible on on those devices. Get that of like, oh, it's you know, um don't disturb this time. Uh but in this moment I was able to listen to some really neat music from a band, a group, and then have these just photos and pictures and some look kind of like kaleidoscopy, where it was like spinning and looks like you're you know doing time travel, and those things usually would bother me, so I was proud of myself or happy that I was able to get through that. Number one, number two, this is the biggie, it's what this episode's all about, is being there without my phone on, I was able to concentrate on nothing else but listening to the music, which it it helped by having the band uh that was playing the music that'd be a band that I I like right now, and so when I was listening to the music, when I was basically looking into the sky and and these different um so it wasn't just kind of like a TV screen, it was like an immersive whereas like you could look up and down and left and right, and it was just incredible. And so, what's that to do with voices for voices or mental health? Well, number one, I got through it with with no complications of you know not getting dizzy and not having panic attack, so that was huge, but the real big takeaway on this is how big the universe really is. How little of that universe do we know? We know a lot of things about planet Earth, but we know less about you know getting into outer space and the different um the different layers stratosphere and all those that and so it's very it was very eye-opening, mind opening that a little bit like VR or virtual reality, we're able to kind of go on a journey for a little bit, and so it was I know I'm doing a hard job, I'm not doing the best job of explaining it, but just imagine closing your eyes and just going on a journey listening to your favorite one of your favorite bands, and then having different scenes from outer space and galaxies and moons and planets and asteroids and it's it was just incredible to to do that because going back to my roots of dreaming and what I wanted to do when I grew up with the astronaut deal and you know where where I'm at, and I kind of saw why Elon Musk is so bought into uh making it to Mars and to have Mars be a uh a place where we could we can live, humans can live. Because the beauty and the splendor of the sky and the galaxy, just everything. Uh it was just it was my like mind blowing. It was mind blowing. And I think I I don't think I think, I think I know that even though it's been a whole lot of time since I've experienced something like this, and haven't had complications mentally, and you know, vertigo feelings, and and that that to be able to experience it and the splendidness and the colors, and it's just so incredible that I think that's part of why I dream and why I believe that we can help three billion people at least over the course of my lifetime and beyond, because there were at certain points in in that at that event where it showed the planet Earth, and then the sun, and then the moon, and then all around were all these beautiful stars and galaxies and and planets and uh constellations. It was just so it was just so neat to be there to have a chance to experience that and I think it refueled because it blew my mind in a good way. I'm just a teeny, teeny teeny teeny teeny teeny teen part of this whole whole thing we call not just Earth, but the entire world. There's so much out in space that we we don't even know about. It's almost like where do we start? And so I don't know for sure, but if I were to take a guess, I would think, you know, the planets and those that have been named that those are maybe the bigger or the biggest planets out of the whole the whole outer space. And I know it's just like mind-blowing. It really is. That it's not just made up of the planet Earth with sea and land, there's so much more out there, so much, and I've taken it for granted way, way too many times. That's the part that when we have our smart devices, I mean heck, we take them to the bathroom when we go. I think that that's what you know, having phones put away. And yes, this was a screen. But it was an immersive, I think they said it was a 12k screen or higher. So it was just the beauty of not having not having my phone on and to be able to experience the wide vast wide vast array of again the stars, uh, the moons, the planets, black holes. And that right there, I know it took me a while to get there, to get here to this point, you know, uh about 30 minutes in. But it's because of things like that that yeah, I I could have done um a lot of other things during that time. But I wanted to do that. It was something newer. It was so mind blowing. And to just sit here and think that this is this world is so big. I'm so small. But also gave me. The firepower, the fire that burns in my body to want to help as many people as possible. I throw out helping three billion or more over the course of my lifetime and beyond. I'd love to help every single person, and even if it's a small way or organization to help, if it's even in just a small way. And so to see that show, to be there, to listen, to see with my eyes, I am grateful to God that I do have eyes. I am able to see, that I do have two ears where I am able to listen. And then I was able to just be a spectator and watch and look. And it was just incredible. And so I know one of the intentions of God wanting me to go to this show was to stop thinking so much on my phone, on my device, devices. But to open up, open up my heart, and do the best I can, the best we can to help so many people. Because as we know, we can't take anything with us. When we pass away, we can't take anything with us. And so what I want to do, what I am doing, what we are doing with voices for voices, is the way we can leave a lasting impression, is to leave a lasting legacy, and that's by helping others, and that's how we remain helpful even when God decides to take us from this earth. So if you ever have an opportunity, try something different to expand your mind a little bit. I hope you do it. I did it. The smart devices. Expand your mind. Because I think that's one of the downfalls that I've had. But the take ourselves. The take ourselves and look at the world around us. The emphasis on on certain words and phrases. I want that to come across in this show. Because that's truly. No matter what, no matter who says no, no matter what barrier barriers come up. I'm gonna continue to dream. And that show right there, I talked about for 30 minutes or so. It's kind of like if you get the chance to do it, you're able to. These experiences, your eyes and ears peeled, it was really fun, and so because our solar system, our world, outer space, everything, because it's so so vast, and to see how look, I mean, look at a globe, just the thing. I'm how many people live on just earth, but then think about expanding that and getting higher and higher and higher above the earth, and then you have the moon and the sun, and then all other planets and galaxies, constellations, and stars, you name it, it's just amazing. So give it a give it a try. I know I'm gonna use this as much as I can to the positive because it has truly helped me. Truly open my eyes even more. But the world is such a vast and beautiful place that I might as well give it my all to help as many people as possible. I don't need a road named after me. I don't need a statue. Uh I don't need awards. I don't, I don't need, I don't want any of those. What I want to do is to help people. That's the A1 thing I want to do. Because I'm not gonna be able to take those awards, the street sign with my name, the naming of a building on a school campus, a scholarship name. All those things are all well and good, but I want to have a greater impact in that. Thanks to you, your generosity, your support. So let's all celebrate the voices in each and every one of us, no matter how we express that voice. And if you can go ahead and smash that subscribe button, thumbs up, like, follow, share, subscribe. Those are all free things, F-R-E-E. They're all free things to do, and they help us get closer and closer to helping those 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. So until next time, this adjustment of voices for voices, and we'll talk to you then. Bye bye for now.