Real stories, told by real people.
Dealing with a major depression disorder, and anxiety as well, today, Derek joins us. And he's got a story to tell.
Derek is a former award-winning sportswriter. He talks about the day he gave up his dream job in order to keep 50% custody of his daughter after his divorce. Since middle school, Derek struggled with major depression, and anxiety. And after losing his career, his mental health would only get worse.
When the meds didn't work or seemed to worsen his condition, he sought answers elsewhere. Diggin' into self help books, listening to psychology based podcast, participating in talk therapy. And then, he learning about meditation. And that was the big break through for Derek. He's currently working on completing his meditation teaching certification. With plans to bring to others what's been a huge help for Derek with reducing his anxiety and improving his overall health. And that's the medicine in meditation.
Be inspired. Be encouraged. Be the change you wish to see.
This was a pleasure. And I'm happy to introduce another GIANTS AMONGST US. if anything struck a chord with you, I'd love to hear back from you. Share your thoughts or reach out to us on any of the platforms you see us on. You're always welcome to add to the conversation. It's a two way street on these parts.
Til next time
and very soon,
PEACE!!
IF YOU ENJOYED THE SHOW, AND LIKE TO SUPPORT US,
YOU CAN RATE AND REVIEW THE SHOW ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS :
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_____
Derek Dueker :
Website : https://showmyscars.com/#connect
_____
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00:00:02 --> 00:00:41 You're amazing! we're thankful to be alive over
00:00:41 --> 00:00:46 here with episode number 45 this is Giants Amongst
00:00:46 --> 00:00:50 Us where we share in the unique human experience
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 and it's where you're going to hear real stories
00:00:53 --> 00:00:58 that are told by real people people just like
00:00:58 --> 00:01:02 yourself if this is your first time tuning in
00:01:02 --> 00:01:06 pull up a chair please do stay a while it's good
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 to have you on board and when you're done with
00:01:09 --> 00:01:14 this episode you can go to giantsamongstus .org
00:01:14 --> 00:01:18 and there you can find past stories past guests
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 talk about the ways that they transcended struggles
00:01:21 --> 00:01:25 challenges setbacks and started to create changes
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 and new realities for themselves because that's
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 what the show is about it's to give examples
00:01:31 --> 00:01:35 and to share real -life testimonies of how somebody
00:01:35 --> 00:01:40 can create changes in their life so if you're
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 not happy or satisfied with the way things are
00:01:43 --> 00:01:48 going be inspired be encouraged be challenged
00:01:48 --> 00:01:52 we're all works in progress this is a constellation
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 of imperfections but we're striving for more
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 over here and may these stories and these testaments
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 and these testimonies be a beacon of light to
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 anybody in a dark spot right now know that you're
00:02:04 --> 00:02:08 worth it your life has value your life has meaning
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 and you're capable of great things we just have
00:02:11 --> 00:02:15 to realize it we just have to actualize it we
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 just have to want it so i hope you guys are having
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 a good one hope you guys are in good spirits
00:02:21 --> 00:02:25 and if not well maybe this show can help you
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 out a little bit we've been enjoying some sunny
00:02:28 --> 00:02:32 days over here spring is just around the corner
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 mother earth is going through her cycles we have
00:02:35 --> 00:02:39 the birds chirping the flowers blooming the trees
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 are starting to fill in and we're getting the
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 garden ready so it's a it's a real real treat
00:02:45 --> 00:02:49 and it's nothing to be mad about one more thing
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 the links are going to be in the show notes there's
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 going to be three links and if you find value
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 in what we're doing if you appreciate these stories
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00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 few minutes of your time go to one of those links
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 it'll send you to the website giantsamongstus
00:03:10 --> 00:03:15 .org it'll send you to Spotify and the other
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 link is for Apple and what you can do there is
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 you can either review the show or you could rate
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 the show or you can do both it's up to you but
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 if you appreciate it and if you find value in
00:03:26 --> 00:03:30 it you can write a little review send a few words
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 off into the ether good or bad constructive criticism
00:03:33 --> 00:03:37 we're open to everything or you can give it one
00:03:37 --> 00:03:41 star two stars three stars four stars five stars
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 whatever you seem fit but what that is going
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 to do it'll do two things the first thing it's
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 going to do is to help this show these stories
00:03:49 --> 00:03:53 these experiences reach the ears of new listeners
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 and the other thing On the back end is for us
00:03:56 --> 00:04:00 over here. It'll help us improve the show, better
00:04:00 --> 00:04:05 it and create an overall wonderful, enjoyable
00:04:05 --> 00:04:09 and valuable experience. So with all that being
00:04:09 --> 00:04:13 said, let's talk some story. Today, Derek joins
00:04:13 --> 00:04:18 us and he's got a story to tell. As men, like
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 a lot of our purpose seems to kind of gravitate
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 towards what we're doing for our career. And
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 that was, you know, that was my case. And so
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 when that went away, it was like I was forced
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 facing two different deaths. It was the death
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 of my marriage and then the death of my career
00:04:35 --> 00:04:40 and purpose in life. Ladies and gentlemen, without
00:04:40 --> 00:04:45 further ado, this is Derek and his story. This
00:04:45 --> 00:04:49 is Giants Amongst Us, where we share in the unique
00:04:49 --> 00:04:53 human experience. And I am happy to introduce
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 our guest for today, Derek took time out of his
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 day. He was flexible. We had some hangups, but
00:05:00 --> 00:05:04 we worked it out, stuck around. So I really,
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 really appreciate that. And yeah, I'm looking
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 forward to this conversation. Derek, you could
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 have been doing anything right now. You could
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 have been anywhere, but here we are having to
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 sit down, sharing a conversation. Appreciate
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 it. How's it going? Doing well. Wouldn't want
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 to be anywhere else right now. And we were talking
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 about before the show this these things are we're
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 kindred spirits and that these conversations
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 are some of the best parts of our week. So I'm
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 happy to be here. That's right. And hopefully
00:05:34 --> 00:05:38 it translates over and to the other side, whoever's
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 listening, I'm sure that it will. And it's going
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 to be that extra juice and everybody's battery
00:05:43 --> 00:05:49 pack today. I hope so. Yeah, right. So, Derek,
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 just for starters. I always like to get a little
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 background on the guests. So if you don't mind,
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 can you share some of or a bit of your background
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 and how it was for you growing up? Yeah, for
00:06:01 --> 00:06:05 sure. So like I said earlier, I was I'm a 90s
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 baby born in the early 90s there. So grew up
00:06:09 --> 00:06:14 with four brothers. I'm the oldest. And so there
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 is kind of a hectic household. Lots of all boys.
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 Yeah, all boys, lots of sibling rivalries, lots
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 of bruises and nicks and everybody survived though
00:06:23 --> 00:06:29 so went to college for broadcast journalism but
00:06:29 --> 00:06:33 I I tell everybody I used all my what do they
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 call those little electoral classes or what electives
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 used all those on different journalism classes
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 only took one blow off class and that was bowling
00:06:42 --> 00:06:47 so I wound up being you know, able to go and
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 do any job that I wanted to after college. I
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 accepted a job as a sports writer and I grew
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 up in Missouri. This job took me out to Oklahoma,
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 so not too far away from my family. Immediately
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 became the sports editor there. After that, I
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 moved back into Missouri pretty close to St.
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 Louis and worked at a paper that's closed down
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 now, but it was the Waynesville Daily Guide and
00:07:11 --> 00:07:15 I wound up winning Uh, it was over 10 different
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 awards for my writing, lots of them first place
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 and second place awards, uh, for sports features
00:07:20 --> 00:07:24 and news stories. And what I found during that
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 time is that I realized I was the reason I was
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 probably winning those awards is I wrote a little
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 bit differently. It was less about the X's and
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 O's though. I was fascinated by those things,
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 but more about the people underneath those jerseys.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 So. Fast forward a couple years, I was going
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 through a divorce and she moved back to where
00:07:43 --> 00:07:47 her family lived. And I was forced with a decision
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 because she got the education address. And I
00:07:50 --> 00:07:54 know this. I don't know how family law is where
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 you live, but in the United States is still kind
00:07:57 --> 00:08:01 of messed up where it's a lot of financial decisions
00:08:01 --> 00:08:06 as opposed to personal decisions there. So she
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 wherever she lives is where my daughter goes
00:08:09 --> 00:08:13 to school. And they told me I could either get
00:08:13 --> 00:08:17 visitation rights or I could keep my 50 percent
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 custody of my daughter if I moved to where she
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 was. There was no decision there. I wanted to
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 keep that relationship with my daughter. And
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 so I moved where I moved to. There was no there
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 was no sports journalist opportunities. So I
00:08:30 --> 00:08:34 had to decide how I was going to rebuild my life.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:38 from there on, and it was a difficult thing for
00:08:38 --> 00:08:42 me. My career life at that time, especially when
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 I was just winning awards, I'd gotten called
00:08:44 --> 00:08:48 by a sports writer who covered the Kansas City
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 Chiefs, which they just lost the Super Bowl yesterday.
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 Shout out to all those fans. Keep your head up.
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 But the guy that covered the Chiefs at the time
00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 actually called me when I was winning my first
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 award, and he told me he had read the story.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 that got me first place. He was like, this is
00:09:06 --> 00:09:10 incredible. And so it felt like I was on, you
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 know, a 45 degree angle pointed up as far as,
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 you know, career growth and everything. And so
00:09:16 --> 00:09:20 as men, like a lot of our purpose seems to kind
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 of gravitate towards, you know, what we're doing
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 for our career. And that was, you know, that
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 was my case. And so when that went away, it was
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 like I was forced facing two different deaths.
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 It was the death of my marriage and then the
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 depth. death of my career and purpose in life.
00:09:37 --> 00:09:42 But as I started to be faced with some of my
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 mental health struggles, I was able when I was
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 working, I was able to, you know, kind of put
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 them on the back burner and distract myself with
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 my work. But once that went away and I was, you
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 know, doing nine to fives that I wasn't used
00:09:53 --> 00:09:57 to used to doing, those thoughts started creeping
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 in and really taking a control over my life.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:03 And so that's when I Reached out to a family
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 friend of mine. I call her my aunt I just said,
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 you know, I know you went through a divorce hers
00:10:09 --> 00:10:13 was You know on paper looked a lot worse than
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 what I was dealing with and somehow she remained
00:10:15 --> 00:10:20 bubbly and very loving and and at the time I'd
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 everything I looked at I was just like man I
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 hate all this, you know, and I was like, how
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 do you do that? And she same night drove up It
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 was a three hour drive from where she was at
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 and sat with me and talked with me. And that
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 was the first time I really looked at my life
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 and I was like, oh, what I'm dealing with right
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 now is that mental health stuff that everybody
00:10:41 --> 00:10:45 talks about. And that's when I first started
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 trying to take care of myself in those ways.
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 So that's kind of catching up to a few years
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 ago. So we can take that conversation wherever
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 you'd like. No, I appreciate you sharing, sharing
00:10:55 --> 00:11:00 all that. And It seems like the so the big hits
00:11:00 --> 00:11:04 for you emotionally, mentally was the divorce
00:11:04 --> 00:11:08 for one. And then a sense of identity that's
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 lost in a way, you know, your whole your whole
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 world is wrapped around what you do and what
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 you love and to lose that and to start from scratch.
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 Were those like the two big components that that
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 put a hit on you mentally, emotionally? Yeah,
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 for sure. I was the first person in my family
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 to go to college. And so I was putting all this
00:11:28 --> 00:11:32 pressure on myself of I had to succeed and I
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 had to do that for myself. And then to show,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:39 you know, my youngest brother at the time hadn't
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 reached, you know, college age yet. So I was
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 trying to show him, you know, here's what you
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 do. This is how you do it. You know, maybe not
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 going into journalism like I did, but that there's
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 a way out. There's a different way to live. A
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 lot of my family and there's nothing against
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 blue collar workers, but that's all we That's
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 all any of my family at the time was really doing
00:11:59 --> 00:12:03 and I had identified in myself I was like this
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 stuff doesn't make sense to me, you know, I went
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 to well junior and senior in high school I was
00:12:09 --> 00:12:13 taking dual credit classes. So for several hours
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 of my day I was actually attending college and
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 I was trying to learn auto mechanics because
00:12:17 --> 00:12:21 I had always loved cars and It went alright for
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 a little while but in the last year that I was
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 there they were starting to get a little bit
00:12:27 --> 00:12:31 more advanced and like how engines work and diagnosing
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 them. And no matter how hard I worked, it just
00:12:34 --> 00:12:38 never clicked in my brain. You know, I was like,
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 Oh crap, what am I going to do now? And that
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 year of high school, we were doing really well
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 on the football team and I was a big video game
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 guy. So I was playing Madden stuff and I was
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 always fascinated by sports. So I was like, well,
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 I know I'm not going to go pro. pretty sure of
00:12:55 --> 00:12:59 that. So how do I stay in this world? And I loved
00:12:59 --> 00:13:03 reading, I was reading like Bill Simmons, back
00:13:03 --> 00:13:08 when he used to be a writer, gosh, Peter King,
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 sports writers. Oh yeah, all sorts of sports
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 writers. And when I first got to school, I'd
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 go straight for the computer lab and pull up,
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 you know, ESPN or all, you know, all those different
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 sites and look at who is doing what. loved reading
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 the behind the scenes stuff of these players.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:29 And that's where I got the bug for sports journalism.
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 But now that I'm older, I can see that really
00:13:32 --> 00:13:35 what I love at the center of all that is storytelling.
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 I feel like we learn so much of what, you know,
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 what to do in life and, you know, learn about
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 each other through storytelling. Yeah. Were you
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 able to go to since you were a sports writer?
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 Did you have access to go to the games? Oh, yeah.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 Yeah. I don't know if you're a big NBA guy, but
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 even on the field? Oh, yeah. Oh, right on. OK.
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 At the newspapers I was working at, I was mainly
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 covering high school athletes. But especially
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 where I lived there, just south of St. Louis,
00:14:05 --> 00:14:09 I covered a lot of NBA talent there. Two of them
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 right now is OG Anna Newby, who I think is still
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 on the Toronto Raptors and then Boston. politics,
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 Jason Tatum got to cover games with both of those
00:14:19 --> 00:14:23 guys. Wow. So very thankful for that. When I
00:14:23 --> 00:14:27 was interning, I got to cover some college teams
00:14:27 --> 00:14:31 in the area. So it's pretty cool. Lots of Yeah,
00:14:31 --> 00:14:35 the access is unbelievable in the seats to when
00:14:35 --> 00:14:39 you're not down on the field. But Yeah, yeah,
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 definitely. Best in the house. Yeah. Man, so
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 I got it. I have to commend you on that because
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 this is your pride and joy. This is something
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 that you love. This is who you are, who you were.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:56 But to give all that up for the sake of being
00:14:56 --> 00:15:00 with your daughter. I have to tip my hat off
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 to you, even though some would say, well, that's
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 what a father should do. But I'm saying that
00:15:04 --> 00:15:08 because of the fact that there's a lot of mothers
00:15:08 --> 00:15:14 or fathers that, you know, unfortunately, they
00:15:14 --> 00:15:19 don't have that desire to want to sacrifice to
00:15:19 --> 00:15:24 want to maybe lead a healthier life. And it ends
00:15:24 --> 00:15:28 up affecting the relationship between their son,
00:15:28 --> 00:15:31 their daughter. And so just the fact that you
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 were willing to sacrifice all that so you can
00:15:34 --> 00:15:38 be with your with your daughter. Was that something
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 that throughout the time when you were dealing
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 with the depression and the loss, because that
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 is a thing that it's a sense of grief. You know,
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 we talk about the the disease of our family members
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 or loved ones, but then also you have different
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 losses. You have loss of identity, you have a
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 loss of a career, you have loss of a relationship,
00:15:56 --> 00:16:01 of a spouse, and even loss of your physical attributes.
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 You know, when you start getting older and you're
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 like, my God, I wish I was young again. And so
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 there's a lot of things that people can grieve
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 about and they don't get over. And so that can
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 affect you in a lot of different ways. Yeah,
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 no, I really just wanted to say that, man, that
00:16:16 --> 00:16:20 that's honorable and respectable that you were
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 willing to put all that aside so you can be with
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 your your daughter. Yeah, I appreciate that,
00:16:26 --> 00:16:30 man. It there really wasn't a question early
00:16:30 --> 00:16:35 on whenever that that was when I was made to
00:16:35 --> 00:16:36 know that, you know, I was going to have to make
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 that decision. I immediately was like, well,
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 I'm going to have to go in. Yeah, even though
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 it's unfortunate that it had to be in those kind
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 of circumstances. I mean, you know, there's no
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 middle ground that you can do, but it's like,
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 I guess you have to bite the bullet. Right. Yeah.
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 Ever since that little girl was born, she had
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 me wrapped around her finger. And I remember,
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 I still remember when we found out we were going
00:17:00 --> 00:17:05 to have her. And I immediately, I didn't cry.
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 I wasn't like, oh crap, what do we do now? I
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 just immediately hugged her. my now ex wife,
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 I hugged her and was like, I'm going to take
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 care of this and, um, take care of our daughter.
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 And, you know, there for a long time, I was the
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 only one working there. She had a lot of complications
00:17:20 --> 00:17:23 with the, uh, with the pregnancy and everything,
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 but I never once did I ever think, you know,
00:17:26 --> 00:17:29 I would, I would trade that for anything. And
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 I don't know what that was in me, you know, growing
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 up, I, you know, I look back at my relationship
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 with my parents and there were some things there,
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 you know, we all want to do better for our kids
00:17:39 --> 00:17:43 and our parents did for us. And so I just remembered
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 I wanted to really develop a relationship with
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 her. And my gosh, to this day, she's about to
00:17:48 --> 00:17:52 be 13 this year and we do everything together.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:56 We love going to the movies. We at home, she
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 comes to my room to watch Netflix and I play
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 some of her little kitty games with her roadblocks
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 and stuff like that. Don't know what I'm doing,
00:18:04 --> 00:18:08 but by gosh, I'm playing with it. That's a beautiful
00:18:08 --> 00:18:12 thing. That's a beautiful thing. Yeah, we could
00:18:12 --> 00:18:16 definitely use more parents or just more people.
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 that are in the lives of our children because
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 eventually, of course, these are the ones that
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 are going to be leading. They're going to be
00:18:23 --> 00:18:24 taken care of. They're going to be servicing
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 everybody else. That's a great thing to see in
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 here. I wanted to ask you, when you were dealing
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32 with all of what you were dealing with psychologically,
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 financially, having to start over and everything,
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 you said it was definitely taking a toll on you
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 mentally and you had a... You had a talk with
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 your aunt. Was she kind of just bringing all
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 this to your attention? Like, this is what's
00:18:45 --> 00:18:47 going on? Or is she just trying to understand
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 why you're feeling the way you're feeling or
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 she's seeing you? I guess she's seeing your demeanor
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 and she's seeing your behavior and she's just
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 kind of trying to let you know that she's there
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 for you. Or how was that conversation like? Or
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 what was that relationship like? Yeah, I just
00:19:03 --> 00:19:07 like I said, she had been through a really terrible
00:19:07 --> 00:19:13 divorce. Oh yeah, yeah. Her husband left her
00:19:13 --> 00:19:17 right after their son was born. So I asked her,
00:19:17 --> 00:19:19 I'm like, you know, how, how did you go? How'd
00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 you keep going? Like, you know, my marriage wasn't
00:19:22 --> 00:19:25 perfect. It seemed like it was, you know, going
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 downward there for a while, but I was literally
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 just about to prepare to, you know, talk to her
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 about marriage counseling or, you know, find
00:19:33 --> 00:19:37 ways to fix things. And Instead, you know, we
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 wind up wound up splitting up. And so I asked
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 her, I was like, how is it that yours, you know,
00:19:41 --> 00:19:44 when you look at it from a 30 foot view,
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 some of the I don't want to share all the details
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 of what happened with her and her husband, but
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 it was it was bad. And so I was like, how do
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 you you were the most bubbly, happy person I've
00:19:55 --> 00:19:59 ever met. And you went through all of these things
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 like how did you come out on the other side to
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 be the person you are today? And so she talk
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 to me, you know, it's about, you know, reworking
00:20:08 --> 00:20:10 your perspective and figuring out, okay, this
00:20:10 --> 00:20:15 is over. What do I do next? And I knew that the
00:20:15 --> 00:20:18 things that I was dealing with and I had been
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 dealing with for a long time, my, you know, my
00:20:20 --> 00:20:22 anxiety and depression, which I didn't have the
00:20:22 --> 00:20:27 words for then, but she had worked at a behavioral
00:20:27 --> 00:20:31 health company here in town. And so she had the
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 words to give me, you know, this is what what
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 it is you're dealing with. And, you know, she
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 recommended that I go to therapy. And once I
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 was there and started figuring all of those things
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 out, I knew, you know, I had actually been dealing
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 with suicidal ideation before I had my talk with
00:20:48 --> 00:20:52 her. And so once I found out, you know, that's
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 not necessarily what everybody goes through.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 I knew that I was a little bit, I was going too
00:20:58 --> 00:21:03 far without healing. And so I knew then that
00:21:03 --> 00:21:06 I had to work on myself to show my daughter that,
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08 you know, no matter what you face in life and
00:21:08 --> 00:21:10 how you're feeling that, you know, you can continue
00:21:10 --> 00:21:15 forward. And I also knew I had some work to do
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 with, you know, figuring out what my identity
00:21:18 --> 00:21:22 was. You know, I had thought, oh, it's your identity
00:21:22 --> 00:21:24 is what you do for a living. And that's not the
00:21:24 --> 00:21:28 case. You what you who you are shows up in what
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 you do for a living. But it's not your whole
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 identity. once I figured that out it was a little
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 bit easier to you know now I'm able to say oh
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39 what I really enjoy is storytelling you can do
00:21:39 --> 00:21:44 that anywhere and I also was able to start looking
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 at some of the mental health struggles I was
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 having I was able to look for the silver linings
00:21:49 --> 00:21:53 and those things you know both of us like we
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 hopped on this call and immediately connected
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 because at least in my eyes the things that I
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 struggle with actually give me empathy for others
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 and an understanding, uh, or an ability to understand
00:22:05 --> 00:22:09 others. So I probably ventured way off of what
00:22:09 --> 00:22:13 your question was there. No, no, no. You, you
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 covered a, covered a lot of ground. You got into,
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 yeah, actually more than what I was asking. It
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 was pretty much just the conversation. Cause
00:22:21 --> 00:22:24 I was curious what that looked like or how that
00:22:24 --> 00:22:28 kind of sparked your move towards wanting to
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 figure out what's going on with you or even look
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 in a direction where you can find maybe some
00:22:33 --> 00:22:36 help. And you said that therapy was a big part
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 of it. And also just, you've seen the fact that
00:22:39 --> 00:22:43 she was able to go through whatever she went
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45 through, all that she went through, and still
00:22:45 --> 00:22:48 on the other end, she's bubbly, she's positive.
00:22:48 --> 00:22:51 Like, what is it? What what's the secret? What
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53 did you do? Let me have some of that juice, you
00:22:53 --> 00:22:57 know, let me have some of that soup So that that's
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 something that that's also kind of ties into
00:22:59 --> 00:23:03 why I think these type of conversations are important
00:23:03 --> 00:23:06 to share and expose other people to because this
00:23:06 --> 00:23:09 is something that is a Good reference point for
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11 someone who's down and out, you know, they feel
00:23:11 --> 00:23:14 as if they have no no no hope They feel as if
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 they're just in a dark pit and it just keeps
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 getting further and further away from where they
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 would like to be. And they seem to not have any,
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 any reason or any, any drive to want to do anything.
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 But there, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 And for you, it's you are actively, I guess maybe
00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 your daughter was a big part of you wanting to
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 get well to be there for her, but there had to
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 also be something eventually where it was inside
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 of you. And you started to see like, I'm, you
00:23:40 --> 00:23:44 know, I'm also worthy. of something better and
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 getting well and being well and doing good. Yeah.
00:23:47 --> 00:23:51 Yeah, it was definitely my daughter. So the suicidal
00:23:51 --> 00:23:55 ideation I talked about, you know, I dealt with
00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 that a little bit in middle school. Were they
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 protruding or was it like was it something that
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 was constant or they would come here and there
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 and sometimes heavier than others? Yeah, it was
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 here and there. So the first time I can remember
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 is back in middle school. I was dealing with
00:24:11 --> 00:24:15 some bullies and then, you know, the the goofy,
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17 you know, middle school relationships type stuff.
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 And one of the most vivid memories I have is
00:24:22 --> 00:24:24 my mom coming across my journal and found that
00:24:24 --> 00:24:26 I'd written in there that, you know, I wanted
00:24:26 --> 00:24:30 to die and things like that. And I remember times
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 where I was I would literally go in my room and
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 shut the lights off and just lay in the floor
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 because I felt like and what I didn't know now
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 is that it was panic attacks. But I felt like
00:24:40 --> 00:24:45 You know just super scared unsure of everything
00:24:45 --> 00:24:52 and my heart would start racing and then You
00:24:52 --> 00:24:55 know, I didn't really suffer panic attacks in
00:24:55 --> 00:24:59 between you know my teenage and at the time of
00:24:59 --> 00:25:03 my divorce I was 26 I think but I would I would
00:25:03 --> 00:25:07 experience different Different forms of anxiety,
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 but after the divorce The days that my daughter
00:25:10 --> 00:25:15 was not there, I felt like life was super pointless.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:20 The panic attacks had come back and I would just
00:25:20 --> 00:25:24 go through not fits of rage, more so I would
00:25:24 --> 00:25:28 just feel like I'm self -destructing. And so
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 there was one day where I reached out to my parents
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 and I told them, you know, I'm going to give
00:25:32 --> 00:25:36 my daughter back to my ex and I'm going to end
00:25:36 --> 00:25:40 it. No sooner was I saying those things, I was
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 like, actually, why don't you come up here and
00:25:43 --> 00:25:48 stay with me and help me calm down. And that's
00:25:48 --> 00:25:52 when I realized there was not going to be anybody
00:25:52 --> 00:25:53 else that was going to be able to show my daughter
00:25:53 --> 00:25:56 what it would be like to overcome these things.
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00 And that's what really propelled me into going
00:26:00 --> 00:26:03 ahead. And I booked a session with a therapist.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 I have been in and out of therapy a little bit,
00:26:07 --> 00:26:10 but pretty much there hasn't been a year that's
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 gone by where I didn't have, you know, a long
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 standing relationship with a therapist. And I
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 go regularly to this day just about every other
00:26:18 --> 00:26:22 week. The meditation stuff came a little bit
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 later, but yeah, that's one of my biggest tools
00:26:24 --> 00:26:27 for sure with the therapy. What was it for you
00:26:27 --> 00:26:31 that was a big help? Was it just having a ear
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 so you can go ahead and talk about things that
00:26:34 --> 00:26:38 were, you know, tucked in deep down inside and
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41 you, you didn't have an outlet for it. Or what
00:26:41 --> 00:26:43 was it for you that helped with the therapy?
00:26:43 --> 00:26:49 It was partly that, but with my depressive thoughts,
00:26:50 --> 00:26:53 I'm way too close to the problem right in the
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 center of it all. You know, the, I think sometimes
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 our depressive thoughts are egotistical and make
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 everything about us. You know, I'm Worried about
00:27:02 --> 00:27:05 what other people think about me or yeah, I just
00:27:05 --> 00:27:08 needed a 30 foot view of what was going
00:27:08 --> 00:27:12 on I needed somebody else to tell me, you know
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 give me ways to think about my problems from
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 a different vantage point and That's been the
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 biggest help for me I would say if you don't
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21 have a therapist that's able to do that if they
00:27:21 --> 00:27:24 are just there to be in here That is definitely
00:27:24 --> 00:27:29 helpful however one of my Am I able to cuss on
00:27:29 --> 00:27:33 here? Yeah, go ahead. One of my psychiatrists
00:27:33 --> 00:27:36 said something the other day that like really,
00:27:36 --> 00:27:38 really made sense to me. She was like, you need
00:27:38 --> 00:27:42 a therapist that's on your ass. And I was like,
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 I kind of laughed at it. But I was like, no,
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 she's right. Because the ones that I have left,
00:27:47 --> 00:27:50 they were just an ear. And I have told several
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 of them like, I don't want to come in here and
00:27:53 --> 00:27:56 this just be, you know, a complaining fest like
00:27:56 --> 00:28:00 I I need somebody who is able to say like, Oh,
00:28:00 --> 00:28:03 you're, you're catastrophizing again, or you
00:28:03 --> 00:28:07 have two negative of a mindset. And that actually
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 wasn't, I was about to say it was a therapist
00:28:09 --> 00:28:11 that said this, but it was actually a personal
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 trainer that I had hired years later. He caught
00:28:14 --> 00:28:18 me one night. We would get on these zoom sessions
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 and kind of talk about how things were going.
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 And we would have kind of a group meeting on
00:28:22 --> 00:28:26 there to help build each other up. And He caught
00:28:26 --> 00:28:28 me one day. He was like, everything you say after
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 I am is something negative. You know, I am bad
00:28:31 --> 00:28:36 at this. I am, you know, whatever. He was like,
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 you have to stop doing that. And that was one
00:28:39 --> 00:28:43 of the biggest things that helped me was he was
00:28:43 --> 00:28:46 like, if you say I am, stop and make sure what
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 what it is you're about to say is positive or
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 at least constructive and not simply negative.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:58 Because my whole life, Has been that I had? Constant,
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 you know negative outlooks on life or myself.
00:29:01 --> 00:29:06 I have a perfectionist mindset and so anything
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 that I don't succeed at I immediately consider
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 it a failure and not not something that I can
00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 build from and that's been the biggest shift
00:29:14 --> 00:29:19 in my mindset Is that the negative? Self -doubt
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 or the negative self time really reshaped the
00:29:22 --> 00:29:24 way that I talk about myself and the way that
00:29:24 --> 00:29:28 I view the struggles that I have in life because
00:29:28 --> 00:29:32 I didn't ever realize what the, what is that?
00:29:32 --> 00:29:34 The yin yang logo. I never understood what that
00:29:34 --> 00:29:38 meant until it sounds silly, but a couple of
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 years ago, I was one. I really realized what
00:29:40 --> 00:29:43 that meant. And, um, you know, there can't be
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46 any light without dark. There can't be six without
00:29:46 --> 00:29:50 struggles or failures because those failures
00:29:50 --> 00:29:54 are simply teaching moments. Yeah. No, that's
00:29:54 --> 00:29:58 true. And I think a lot of people struggle with
00:29:58 --> 00:30:01 that. Me included. I'll put myself in the bunch
00:30:01 --> 00:30:05 as the self -doubt, the negative talk. There's
00:30:05 --> 00:30:07 a lot of different reasons for it, but just being
00:30:07 --> 00:30:11 a perfectionist or having... too high of a standard
00:30:11 --> 00:30:14 or just the fact you don't want to miss the mark
00:30:14 --> 00:30:17 and have people around you, you know, point the
00:30:17 --> 00:30:19 finger or there's a lot of different reasons
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 for why we do that. But that's a big key. And
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 I like that you said that this is something that
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 you're working on, because this is also something
00:30:26 --> 00:30:29 that I'm really trying to be more conscious of
00:30:29 --> 00:30:33 and more mindful of is what I'm telling myself.
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 and what I'm feeding myself. You know that there's
00:30:36 --> 00:30:40 a real good book, James Allen's, As a Man Thinketh,
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 So He Is. I think that's the name of it. But
00:30:42 --> 00:30:47 yeah, it really is. Your mind is a garden. Whatever
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 you give it, it's going to yield. So it doesn't
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 care if you're giving it good or if you're giving
00:30:51 --> 00:30:53 it bad. But whatever you give it, it's going
00:30:53 --> 00:30:55 to yield. And so you have to be mindful of the
00:30:55 --> 00:30:59 things that you're thinking on, meditating on.
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 You spoke about meditation. You're imagining.
00:31:01 --> 00:31:05 You're entertaining. upstairs because eventually
00:31:05 --> 00:31:08 it manifests itself in the real world with the
00:31:08 --> 00:31:11 people that you even associate with the things
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 that you do, your behavior, your habits, and
00:31:13 --> 00:31:17 it really starts from within inside. And that
00:31:17 --> 00:31:22 old upstairs chatter sometimes could be detrimental.
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 Yeah, for sure. Another book I would recommend
00:31:25 --> 00:31:29 on that topic, the one that I think was the first
00:31:29 --> 00:31:32 one that was recommended to me. um, in regards
00:31:32 --> 00:31:37 to negative self -talk is no mud, no Lotus. Okay.
00:31:37 --> 00:31:39 I never heard that. Yeah, it sounds like a good,
00:31:39 --> 00:31:42 yeah, it is incredible. So obviously it's, it
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45 talks about like, you can't have a Lotus flower
00:31:45 --> 00:31:49 without planting it in the mud. So yeah, I can't
00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 recommend that book enough and it's, it's very
00:31:52 --> 00:31:56 easily read. It's fairly short. So anybody out
00:31:56 --> 00:32:00 there that with that? Oh yeah. Yeah, super practical.
00:32:00 --> 00:32:03 So you had the therapist that you're still to
00:32:03 --> 00:32:06 this day, you say weekly, you speak with and
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 they've been a very good help. And one of the
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 things was the fact that they give you that outside
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13 perspective because you need somebody who's not
00:32:13 --> 00:32:15 in the mix in the thick of it. Someone on the
00:32:15 --> 00:32:17 outside looking in and they can kind of give
00:32:17 --> 00:32:19 you a different angle and see things differently.
00:32:19 --> 00:32:22 And that is helpful. I'm curious because I know
00:32:22 --> 00:32:24 another ingredient for you. We spoke a little
00:32:24 --> 00:32:28 bit about offline was the the meditation and
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 how you came to to understand that and appreciate
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 it and apply it to your own life. Yeah, there's
00:32:34 --> 00:32:37 this and they sponsor my podcast. I love them
00:32:37 --> 00:32:40 to death. But I was working for this company
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 called Two Oddballs Creative, a digital marketing
00:32:43 --> 00:32:48 company in Missouri. And one of the co -owners
00:32:48 --> 00:32:52 there went to college with me and we quickly
00:32:52 --> 00:32:55 became friends while working together. And he
00:32:55 --> 00:32:57 saw a lot of the stuff that I was going through,
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 and we had a lot of deep talks similar to this.
00:33:01 --> 00:33:05 And he told me about this guy named Sam Harris,
00:33:05 --> 00:33:08 who has this meditation app, which you can get
00:33:08 --> 00:33:12 for free, by the way. And it's more of a trying
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 to think of the best way to say this, but he's
00:33:15 --> 00:33:18 very intellectual. And so he's not for everybody.
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 Sometimes it sounds like he likes to smell his
00:33:22 --> 00:33:26 own farts a little bit too much. But he took
00:33:26 --> 00:33:29 away that feeling that, you know, meditations
00:33:29 --> 00:33:32 like that woo woo type stuff that is not real
00:33:32 --> 00:33:35 that it doesn't doesn't actually work because
00:33:35 --> 00:33:38 I had tried it before and struggled mightily.
00:33:38 --> 00:33:41 I would get frustrated when thoughts would creep
00:33:41 --> 00:33:43 in while I'm trying to meditate. And it's not
00:33:43 --> 00:33:47 so much that meditation is meant to you don't
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 want to go in with the intent of I'm not going
00:33:49 --> 00:33:51 to have a thought because you're going to fail.
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 We're all going to have those thoughts that the
00:33:54 --> 00:33:59 thing that works for me is when I'm meditating,
00:33:59 --> 00:34:02 I will let myself off the hook in those times.
00:34:02 --> 00:34:07 I just say, oh, I'm thinking about this. And
00:34:07 --> 00:34:11 I let go of it. And the saying is to imagine
00:34:11 --> 00:34:14 it as clouds passing through the sky or a leaf
00:34:14 --> 00:34:17 that floats by on the river and not to become
00:34:17 --> 00:34:22 too attached to those things. And once I got
00:34:22 --> 00:34:26 that out of him. It was like off to the races.
00:34:26 --> 00:34:30 I fell absolutely in love with it. Even in the
00:34:30 --> 00:34:31 times like there are going to be times where
00:34:31 --> 00:34:33 you sit down to meditate and you're just constantly
00:34:33 --> 00:34:37 bombarded by thoughts. I think our life these
00:34:37 --> 00:34:42 days moves super fast. We're constantly inundated
00:34:42 --> 00:34:45 with things that grab at our attention. So I
00:34:45 --> 00:34:47 feel like nowadays it's like harder than ever
00:34:47 --> 00:34:51 to kind of have a slow train of thoughts. And
00:34:51 --> 00:34:54 that's what I struggle with the most is racing
00:34:54 --> 00:34:59 thoughts. And so I started listening to him.
00:34:59 --> 00:35:03 That was, let's see, it's 2025. Now I had to
00:35:03 --> 00:35:05 just look at the calendar. So I've been meditating
00:35:05 --> 00:35:10 for about five years and I just recently this
00:35:10 --> 00:35:13 last year decided that I was going to try to
00:35:13 --> 00:35:16 obtain my meditation teaching certificate. And
00:35:16 --> 00:35:20 because I reference it on the podcast a lot,
00:35:20 --> 00:35:24 I tell everybody that I know who struggles with
00:35:24 --> 00:35:27 severe anxiety about it. And finally I'm like,
00:35:28 --> 00:35:30 I think, you know, I had watched too many people
00:35:30 --> 00:35:34 leave those conversations and not go do it. And
00:35:34 --> 00:35:37 so I'm like, maybe they, they just need somebody
00:35:37 --> 00:35:39 that can talk about it in a little bit different
00:35:39 --> 00:35:42 way. Talk about it in a more real way. Cause
00:35:42 --> 00:35:45 there's, I listened to a lot of self -help podcasts
00:35:45 --> 00:35:48 or mental health podcasts and a lot of them,
00:35:48 --> 00:35:51 It just seems like they're not real. They don't
00:35:51 --> 00:35:54 talk like you and I are right now. They seem
00:35:54 --> 00:35:58 to be talking down as opposed to somebody that
00:35:58 --> 00:36:00 may be in a peer support group or something like
00:36:00 --> 00:36:04 you're on the same level and can talk about things
00:36:04 --> 00:36:09 in layman's terms. And so that's kind of what
00:36:09 --> 00:36:12 led to me going and I think about two thirds
00:36:12 --> 00:36:14 of the way through. So hopefully later this year
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16 I'll have that and that can be something that
00:36:16 --> 00:36:20 I offer my Friends and the people in this area
00:36:20 --> 00:36:24 five years. That's a long Stretch that and you
00:36:24 --> 00:36:26 when you practice it because you said in the
00:36:26 --> 00:36:29 beginning you got frustrated I think there's
00:36:29 --> 00:36:31 people out there can relate and understand I
00:36:31 --> 00:36:33 know me me I'm one of them because there was
00:36:33 --> 00:36:36 a time when I was doing this on the side this
00:36:36 --> 00:36:39 mindfulness Course, it was just one of these
00:36:39 --> 00:36:41 free courses you could take online and then one
00:36:41 --> 00:36:44 of them was the meditation and just to, or to
00:36:44 --> 00:36:47 give yourself a quiet space, sit down and be
00:36:47 --> 00:36:49 with your thoughts, be with yourself, be with
00:36:49 --> 00:36:53 the feels, be with your feels. And like you said,
00:36:53 --> 00:36:55 because of everything being so fast paced and
00:36:55 --> 00:36:59 we're bombarded, billboards bombarding us with
00:36:59 --> 00:37:03 advertisements, with news headlines, with articles,
00:37:03 --> 00:37:07 it's really a challenge. And I think it's really...
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 that makes it evident that it's more important
00:37:09 --> 00:37:12 than ever to get well, to be well, psychologically,
00:37:12 --> 00:37:15 spiritually, emotionally. And so that's one huge
00:37:15 --> 00:37:19 tool, but just the challenge that it really is
00:37:19 --> 00:37:23 just to allow five maybe minutes of your day
00:37:23 --> 00:37:29 away from everything and to just be by yourself.
00:37:29 --> 00:37:32 But for you, I was saying all that to say when
00:37:32 --> 00:37:34 you were struggling in the beginning and you
00:37:34 --> 00:37:36 were just getting frustrated, what? What was
00:37:36 --> 00:37:40 it that made you pick it back up again and try
00:37:40 --> 00:37:42 it again? Was it, did you hear something that
00:37:42 --> 00:37:44 kind of clicked and you said, okay, you know
00:37:44 --> 00:37:45 what? I'm going to go ahead and give it one more
00:37:45 --> 00:37:48 shot. Yeah. How did you not just throw the talent
00:37:48 --> 00:37:53 completely? So one, it was everybody that I was
00:37:53 --> 00:37:58 listening to at the time because I, I got, and
00:37:58 --> 00:38:00 this is something I want to tell, tell people
00:38:00 --> 00:38:04 is like, I had like 12. freaking self -help books
00:38:04 --> 00:38:09 on my nightstand. I had dozens of podcast descriptions
00:38:09 --> 00:38:11 like you got to be a little bit careful with
00:38:11 --> 00:38:13 that because that's going to that's going to
00:38:13 --> 00:38:16 make you give up, right? Yeah, there's so many.
00:38:16 --> 00:38:18 I felt like every time I'd go to bed and I'd
00:38:18 --> 00:38:20 look over there, I'm like, oh, my God, I haven't
00:38:20 --> 00:38:23 finished reading that like and there was too
00:38:23 --> 00:38:27 much too much input. And but something that somebody
00:38:27 --> 00:38:31 said did make me I don't know if I had. ever
00:38:31 --> 00:38:33 really thrown in the towel. I definitely went
00:38:33 --> 00:38:36 stretches without meditating. But regardless,
00:38:36 --> 00:38:39 I noticed at some point, regardless of how quote
00:38:39 --> 00:38:43 unquote bad my session was, that I did feel better
00:38:43 --> 00:38:49 when I was done. And what the saying that really
00:38:49 --> 00:38:52 got me back into it and really helped put everything
00:38:52 --> 00:38:54 in perspective. And I can't remember who said
00:38:54 --> 00:38:59 this, but they talked about our emotions as almost
00:38:59 --> 00:39:04 like Our body is a ship and the emotions that
00:39:04 --> 00:39:08 you experience are the crewmates trying to tell
00:39:08 --> 00:39:11 you something. And that's definitely what I feel
00:39:11 --> 00:39:15 like my anxiety is at times is my crewmates telling
00:39:15 --> 00:39:17 me like, hey, don't forget like iceberg ahead,
00:39:18 --> 00:39:21 you know, adjust your adjust your rudders or
00:39:21 --> 00:39:23 whatever it is. I've never I've never been the
00:39:23 --> 00:39:27 captain of a ship or it's reminding you of a
00:39:27 --> 00:39:30 of a goal that you have for yourself. And once
00:39:30 --> 00:39:33 I had that perspective, that was like I said
00:39:33 --> 00:39:35 earlier, when I have a thought, I'm like, Oh,
00:39:35 --> 00:39:38 I'm thinking about this again. Or there's that
00:39:38 --> 00:39:41 thought again, or whatever, and letting it go.
00:39:41 --> 00:39:45 But throughout, one thing that I've found helpful
00:39:45 --> 00:39:47 is following a meditation session, if something
00:39:47 --> 00:39:51 came across that really struck a nerve with you
00:39:51 --> 00:39:56 in some way is to journal that and kind of ponder
00:39:56 --> 00:39:58 on that thought throughout the week, you know,
00:39:58 --> 00:40:02 anytime you get of a few minutes, because one
00:40:02 --> 00:40:05 thing that had been coming across my mind a lot
00:40:05 --> 00:40:10 in the early or the late 20 teens and into 2020
00:40:10 --> 00:40:14 was so when I moved back to when I moved after
00:40:14 --> 00:40:17 my divorce, the first job that I was able to
00:40:17 --> 00:40:19 get was washing cars for eight bucks an hour.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:24 And I have my degree. I had good grades in school.
00:40:24 --> 00:40:27 I have a, you know, I don't have a criminal record.
00:40:27 --> 00:40:30 There's nothing. On paper, there should be no
00:40:30 --> 00:40:33 reason why I can't get a job. But to this day,
00:40:33 --> 00:40:35 when I applied to part time jobs, I don't get
00:40:35 --> 00:40:37 them either because they say I'm overqualified
00:40:37 --> 00:40:40 or I've had one guy go, you don't want to do
00:40:40 --> 00:40:43 this. And I'm like, yeah, I do. I need money.
00:40:43 --> 00:40:48 So like, please. But I was able to get a good
00:40:48 --> 00:40:51 job in marketing with that two oddballs creative
00:40:51 --> 00:40:55 company. However, I was still with meditation
00:40:55 --> 00:41:00 on on medication. going to therapy, I was having
00:41:00 --> 00:41:04 deep, deep, dark depressions. And even though
00:41:04 --> 00:41:07 I was, I had told myself that, you know, I was
00:41:07 --> 00:41:10 going to keep going for my daughter. I was starting
00:41:10 --> 00:41:13 to have suicidal ideation again. I was just able
00:41:13 --> 00:41:17 to simply recognize that and tell myself, you
00:41:17 --> 00:41:19 know, that's not what you want. That's just a
00:41:19 --> 00:41:22 thought that you're having. But I tell my therapist
00:41:22 --> 00:41:24 about it. And the one that I had at the time
00:41:24 --> 00:41:27 simply kept recommending medication. And I'm
00:41:27 --> 00:41:30 not telling people not to take their meds. However,
00:41:30 --> 00:41:33 if you continue to have these types of thoughts
00:41:33 --> 00:41:37 and emotions, there's probably something going
00:41:37 --> 00:41:40 on there. And for me, it was that I had never
00:41:40 --> 00:41:44 found my purpose after or at least in my career
00:41:44 --> 00:41:46 life. I had, you know, I had decided then that
00:41:46 --> 00:41:49 my purpose was to live a life, you know, that,
00:41:49 --> 00:41:52 you know, I would be proud to show my daughter
00:41:52 --> 00:41:55 like when she grows up, she always said, you
00:41:55 --> 00:41:59 know, Dad kept going and. kept seeking what it
00:41:59 --> 00:42:01 is that he is happy, you know, he would be happy
00:42:01 --> 00:42:05 with in this life. And so one thought that had
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07 kept coming across my mind and meditations or
00:42:07 --> 00:42:09 when I would talk to friends is that I wanted
00:42:09 --> 00:42:12 to get back into some sort of creative outlet.
00:42:13 --> 00:42:16 And one of those things was to start a podcast.
00:42:16 --> 00:42:20 And however, I kept finding reasons why it wouldn't
00:42:20 --> 00:42:23 be successful, why I wouldn't enjoy doing it,
00:42:23 --> 00:42:26 how I would always come up with some reason why
00:42:26 --> 00:42:29 it wasn't going to work out. And that eventually
00:42:29 --> 00:42:34 cost me my job with that company. I got so depressed
00:42:34 --> 00:42:39 and so down that I wasn't creating work to the
00:42:39 --> 00:42:42 standards that they know that I'm capable of.
00:42:43 --> 00:42:47 And unfortunately, Missouri is a what they call
00:42:47 --> 00:42:50 in the states is an at will employment state.
00:42:50 --> 00:42:52 So they can pretty much let you go for any reason.
00:42:53 --> 00:42:56 And they did it very in a very kind manner since,
00:42:56 --> 00:42:59 you know, he he's a friend of mine and she his
00:42:59 --> 00:43:01 wife who co -owns the business with him had become
00:43:01 --> 00:43:04 a friend of mine. And so they didn't just outright
00:43:04 --> 00:43:08 let me go. They kind of weaned me off on the
00:43:08 --> 00:43:11 hours, so to speak. And throughout that time,
00:43:12 --> 00:43:15 I was, you know, flailing around like, what am
00:43:15 --> 00:43:19 I going to do now? And I finally decided if I'm
00:43:19 --> 00:43:23 not going to start. If I don't start this podcast,
00:43:23 --> 00:43:26 it's never going to happen. And so I started
00:43:26 --> 00:43:28 then planning everything out. And once I got
00:43:28 --> 00:43:31 back on my feet, I started acquiring the equipment
00:43:31 --> 00:43:36 to do this and finally started it last year.
00:43:37 --> 00:43:40 And they built a website for me for free and
00:43:40 --> 00:43:43 the rest is history. That's a great story of
00:43:43 --> 00:43:48 how someone can. turn it back around. Even though
00:43:48 --> 00:43:50 you get knocked off the horse, but getting back
00:43:50 --> 00:43:54 on it or having the will, sometimes the why is
00:43:54 --> 00:43:57 somebody else. In that case, it was your daughter.
00:43:57 --> 00:44:00 And being there for her and showing her being
00:44:00 --> 00:44:04 an example of what somebody is able to do, capable
00:44:04 --> 00:44:09 of doing, and to have that positive light that
00:44:09 --> 00:44:14 she can always reference as she grows and becomes
00:44:14 --> 00:44:17 an adult later on in life. So that's great to
00:44:17 --> 00:44:20 have. With meditation, what do you think is the
00:44:20 --> 00:44:23 main challenge with some people with wanting
00:44:23 --> 00:44:28 to try meditation or just writing it off as it
00:44:28 --> 00:44:30 not being something because, you know, of course,
00:44:31 --> 00:44:32 some people are going to find something that
00:44:32 --> 00:44:34 works for them and something that doesn't work
00:44:34 --> 00:44:38 for them. And so this is really about exploring
00:44:38 --> 00:44:40 and being open to different ideas. But what do
00:44:40 --> 00:44:42 you think is a big challenge for some people?
00:44:42 --> 00:44:44 Is it just that first step of getting frustrated
00:44:44 --> 00:44:48 because of the thoughts that are constant and
00:44:48 --> 00:44:51 the constant chatter that's upstairs and, you
00:44:51 --> 00:44:54 know, some have a hard time shutting it off or
00:44:54 --> 00:44:57 dealing with it or getting past it? Yeah. So
00:44:57 --> 00:45:00 the couple of people I've asked this question
00:45:00 --> 00:45:03 pointedly just like, why don't you listen to
00:45:03 --> 00:45:10 me? One of them literally said that they didn't
00:45:10 --> 00:45:11 think they could be alone with their thoughts,
00:45:12 --> 00:45:16 which is, which is valid. And so I would definitely
00:45:16 --> 00:45:19 if that's your biggest fear, I would definitely
00:45:19 --> 00:45:24 recommend therapy first. But with for myself,
00:45:24 --> 00:45:26 because I had gotten to a point where I was like,
00:45:26 --> 00:45:30 I'm willing to try anything like I was talking
00:45:30 --> 00:45:36 to some some out there folks and tried psychedelics
00:45:36 --> 00:45:40 and everything. But for me, it seemed to be that
00:45:40 --> 00:45:43 I constant like, I guess with the thoughts that
00:45:43 --> 00:45:45 you know, the racing thoughts and you know, the
00:45:45 --> 00:45:48 way that I was trying to ignore them prior, you
00:45:48 --> 00:45:51 know, through video games or, you know, drugs
00:45:51 --> 00:45:54 or anything like that, I constantly felt like
00:45:54 --> 00:45:56 I needed some sort of stimulation. So whenever
00:45:56 --> 00:46:00 you sit down to meditate, and you remove all
00:46:00 --> 00:46:05 that, You kind of feel itchy or something, you
00:46:05 --> 00:46:08 know, you and then the other thing is that there's
00:46:08 --> 00:46:12 no goal. My goodness that that really that caused
00:46:12 --> 00:46:16 me issues to start. There is no you won. There
00:46:16 --> 00:46:19 is no there's nothing that you receive when you
00:46:19 --> 00:46:23 finish. There's seemingly no point to it. And
00:46:23 --> 00:46:27 so you really have to just be OK with just sitting
00:46:27 --> 00:46:32 with yourself. watching thoughts go by and almost
00:46:32 --> 00:46:37 be bored and people can not like speaking for
00:46:37 --> 00:46:39 myself like I cannot handle being bored a lot
00:46:39 --> 00:46:42 of times until you know hopefully someday you
00:46:42 --> 00:46:44 know I keep meditating I'll be alright being
00:46:44 --> 00:46:48 bored again but I think what helps me is I grew
00:46:48 --> 00:46:50 up in a time where I didn't we didn't have cell
00:46:50 --> 00:46:53 phones we didn't you know we had three or four
00:46:53 --> 00:46:56 channels on the television so if there was crap
00:46:56 --> 00:47:01 on would go outside and fling sticks around or
00:47:01 --> 00:47:04 you know I used to actually I was talking to
00:47:04 --> 00:47:08 my cousin about this the other day I lived they've
00:47:08 --> 00:47:10 paved it now but back in the day the road outside
00:47:10 --> 00:47:14 the house I'm sitting in right now was a gravel
00:47:14 --> 00:47:17 road and they would have you know I don't know
00:47:17 --> 00:47:20 if other places around the world have what's
00:47:20 --> 00:47:22 called a road grader or not but they go down
00:47:22 --> 00:47:25 and they have a blade that smooths out that gravel
00:47:25 --> 00:47:29 road And they would also dig, they would move
00:47:29 --> 00:47:31 the blade around. So it would dig a ditch on
00:47:31 --> 00:47:34 either side and it would unearth all these rocks.
00:47:35 --> 00:47:37 And so sometimes I had nothing better to do.
00:47:38 --> 00:47:41 I'd walk down the road and dig out cool rocks
00:47:41 --> 00:47:46 that I found in that ditch. So, you know, I have
00:47:46 --> 00:47:49 a memory of being bored. And so I think sometimes
00:47:49 --> 00:47:52 that I'm able to sit with that feeling a little
00:47:52 --> 00:47:54 bit easier than somebody that's grown up with
00:47:54 --> 00:47:59 a with a computer in their pocket. So I know
00:47:59 --> 00:48:02 that's the case for a couple of my friends. I've
00:48:02 --> 00:48:04 shared that story with them and they're like,
00:48:04 --> 00:48:08 no way, no way am I gonna be fine with walking
00:48:08 --> 00:48:13 around picking up rocks. But I love going hiking
00:48:13 --> 00:48:16 and things like that. So taking away different
00:48:16 --> 00:48:20 stimulus is effective for me. that's a big part
00:48:20 --> 00:48:22 of it too. The age of distraction, that's what
00:48:22 --> 00:48:24 we're living in. The age of distraction, just
00:48:24 --> 00:48:26 pick your poison. There's so many things that
00:48:26 --> 00:48:29 could distract us and we distract ourselves willingly.
00:48:30 --> 00:48:32 But I think, like you just said right now, taking
00:48:32 --> 00:48:36 away that stimuli, a lot of, I'm not a doctor,
00:48:37 --> 00:48:40 I can't diagnose anything, but I think it's pretty
00:48:40 --> 00:48:45 fair to say that a lot of this extra anxiety,
00:48:45 --> 00:48:49 these fears, these worries that us as people
00:48:49 --> 00:48:52 are dealing with, us as a society are dealing
00:48:52 --> 00:48:55 with is coming from this extra stimuli, whether
00:48:55 --> 00:48:59 it's us looking at somebody else's life, wishing
00:48:59 --> 00:49:02 we had that, thinking we need this. And so we're
00:49:02 --> 00:49:04 comparing ourselves to this person and that person.
00:49:04 --> 00:49:07 And then you have all of these rumors of wars
00:49:07 --> 00:49:10 and wars and the sky is falling and the bomb's
00:49:10 --> 00:49:13 gonna drop and oh my God, this country's against
00:49:13 --> 00:49:19 that. So. everything on the outside is, it's
00:49:19 --> 00:49:21 draining the life out of us. And it's all these
00:49:21 --> 00:49:24 extra worries of what if, what can be, look at
00:49:24 --> 00:49:28 this, I need that. And if that is just removed,
00:49:30 --> 00:49:32 aside from the medication, but if that is just
00:49:32 --> 00:49:35 removed, if we're mindful of what we're consuming,
00:49:35 --> 00:49:38 not just physically, but also mentally, that
00:49:38 --> 00:49:42 can... also help with a lot of the anxiety we're
00:49:42 --> 00:49:44 feeling in a lot of the fears that we're having
00:49:44 --> 00:49:46 in a lot of the worries that are troubling us
00:49:46 --> 00:49:50 and it's going to take some sacrifice, you know,
00:49:50 --> 00:49:54 you have to be willing to maybe be bored or just
00:49:54 --> 00:49:56 get away from it. You can just compare it. That's
00:49:56 --> 00:49:59 really something that, and I do this all the
00:49:59 --> 00:50:01 time. I talk to my wife about it. I'm like, just
00:50:01 --> 00:50:05 compare, do a little experiment on yourself and
00:50:05 --> 00:50:09 take a walk. Through the forest take a walk outside
00:50:09 --> 00:50:12 just get out in nature do that for 30 minutes
00:50:12 --> 00:50:18 or so and then track Journal right just take
00:50:18 --> 00:50:21 note a mental note of how you feel After that
00:50:21 --> 00:50:26 and then compare that to you being on your smartphone
00:50:26 --> 00:50:30 doom scrolling or just just a zombie scrolling
00:50:30 --> 00:50:34 or whatever it is that you do on Instagram or
00:50:34 --> 00:50:38 tik -tok and do that for 30 minutes and then
00:50:38 --> 00:50:41 now track how you feel, what you're going through
00:50:41 --> 00:50:46 and compare it. There really is a huge difference
00:50:46 --> 00:50:51 to those two different activities. And like you
00:50:51 --> 00:50:54 said, this is something that's missing and it's
00:50:54 --> 00:50:57 something that's needed. And I think it can be
00:50:57 --> 00:51:01 a big ingredient to help people with some of
00:51:01 --> 00:51:05 these things that they're struggling with. taking
00:51:05 --> 00:51:08 it back to meditation for just a second, probably
00:51:08 --> 00:51:12 to start out with, you should probably try the
00:51:12 --> 00:51:14 traditional, you know, sitting and focusing on
00:51:14 --> 00:51:18 your breath type meditation. However, once you
00:51:18 --> 00:51:21 feel like you have like not that you went through
00:51:21 --> 00:51:24 X amount of minutes, which taken back something
00:51:24 --> 00:51:27 you said about the five minutes, there is a doctor
00:51:27 --> 00:51:31 out there, Amisha Ja, who does what is her podcast
00:51:31 --> 00:51:34 called? But she she wrote a book on mindfulness
00:51:34 --> 00:51:38 and meditation. And she found through scientific
00:51:38 --> 00:51:42 studies with military members that 12 minutes
00:51:42 --> 00:51:46 a day was all you needed to receive the benefits
00:51:46 --> 00:51:49 that she was tracking, which is growth in your
00:51:49 --> 00:51:52 gray matter and your prefrontal cortex. And they
00:51:52 --> 00:51:56 reported less anxiety. So it doesn't have to
00:51:56 --> 00:52:00 take a whole lot of time out of your day. But
00:52:00 --> 00:52:02 there's also different forms of meditation and
00:52:02 --> 00:52:07 one of those is walking meditation and I have
00:52:07 --> 00:52:08 done that and that's one of my favorite like
00:52:08 --> 00:52:13 you just walk around and After you connect with
00:52:13 --> 00:52:15 your breath then you start walking around and
00:52:15 --> 00:52:18 you can look at like I live out here on a farm
00:52:18 --> 00:52:21 so I You know, I'll look at the different trees.
00:52:21 --> 00:52:24 I'll look at the the grain that's coming up and
00:52:24 --> 00:52:28 and really like look at the differences in things,
00:52:28 --> 00:52:32 the shapes, the textures, the colors, really
00:52:32 --> 00:52:35 zero in on those things. And it's one of my favorite
00:52:35 --> 00:52:39 ones to practice. And it's the physical, you
00:52:39 --> 00:52:40 know, walking around, that's always going to
00:52:40 --> 00:52:44 help you exercises, you know, there's countless
00:52:44 --> 00:52:48 studies that show that exercise isn't, you know,
00:52:48 --> 00:52:51 just super beneficial to our physical health,
00:52:51 --> 00:52:54 but our mental as well. Yeah, that's right. I've
00:52:54 --> 00:52:57 read a lot of stories about how also like when
00:52:57 --> 00:53:01 you're walking and you're engaging in something
00:53:01 --> 00:53:04 mindfully, you're taking a stroll, you're observing
00:53:04 --> 00:53:09 the nature around you that also the subconscious
00:53:09 --> 00:53:13 comes alive and a lot of these creative juices
00:53:13 --> 00:53:16 in that inner man, the inner woman, the inner
00:53:16 --> 00:53:19 world that we have inside of us, it just blossoms
00:53:19 --> 00:53:22 and opens up and there's a lot of old thinkers,
00:53:23 --> 00:53:26 old scientists, old intellectuals that they can
00:53:26 --> 00:53:31 be laboring over a problem over something that
00:53:31 --> 00:53:33 they're trying to figure out or something that
00:53:33 --> 00:53:36 they're working on. And they pull away from that.
00:53:37 --> 00:53:39 They go take a walk in nature. They go take a
00:53:39 --> 00:53:44 walk. And a lot of those times is when the answer
00:53:44 --> 00:53:47 comes to them. It's like they give they give
00:53:47 --> 00:53:49 that space for the subconscious to kind of now
00:53:49 --> 00:53:53 they're They turn off the conscious mind, they've
00:53:53 --> 00:53:54 wrestled with this problem, they've struggled
00:53:54 --> 00:53:59 with it and sometimes in dream, sometimes out,
00:54:00 --> 00:54:04 about, with nature or being mindful of your surroundings
00:54:04 --> 00:54:08 or even in meditation just being alone with self
00:54:08 --> 00:54:12 and allowing whatever to come to surface and
00:54:12 --> 00:54:15 not suppressing anything but just being. Yeah.
00:54:15 --> 00:54:18 And you hear a lot of people too. What was the
00:54:18 --> 00:54:20 number one place that people talk about? Like
00:54:20 --> 00:54:25 having good ideas. They talk about, you know,
00:54:25 --> 00:54:28 I had that idea in the shower. Yeah. Why is it?
00:54:28 --> 00:54:31 Because that's the one place they can't take
00:54:31 --> 00:54:36 their phone. Yeah. They're alone with their thoughts.
00:54:36 --> 00:54:40 And that always cracked me up. Um, after, you
00:54:40 --> 00:54:42 know, I got into meditation, I thought about
00:54:42 --> 00:54:45 that and I was like, Holy smokes like it was
00:54:45 --> 00:54:47 right there the whole time. You know being alone
00:54:47 --> 00:54:50 with your thoughts and you're right That's I
00:54:50 --> 00:54:53 love going on walks Whenever I feel like I have
00:54:53 --> 00:54:57 a creative block of some sort love get I just
00:54:57 --> 00:55:00 get up Walk outside. It's cold right now. So
00:55:00 --> 00:55:05 it kind of sucks, but There's still I do love
00:55:05 --> 00:55:09 how the landscape changes whenever things freeze
00:55:09 --> 00:55:13 over and looks like a lot of death to some people
00:55:13 --> 00:55:15 but I love like whenever it ices and you get
00:55:15 --> 00:55:19 to see like how that coats different things and
00:55:19 --> 00:55:22 makes things shine but yeah getting out and just
00:55:22 --> 00:55:25 walking like that's where all my best ideas have
00:55:25 --> 00:55:30 come from like there's a few parks nearby and
00:55:30 --> 00:55:32 there's been several times where I take just
00:55:32 --> 00:55:35 a pen and paper where I used to live I could
00:55:35 --> 00:55:40 walk straight to a park from my apartment and
00:55:40 --> 00:55:43 I would just take a pen and paper. I would leave
00:55:43 --> 00:55:46 my phone at home and walk all the way out there.
00:55:46 --> 00:55:50 And it was about a 20 minute walk and sit down
00:55:50 --> 00:55:54 in the park and just jot out different show ideas
00:55:54 --> 00:55:56 or, you know, whatever it was I was working on
00:55:56 --> 00:56:02 for that actually makes me money. Not making
00:56:02 --> 00:56:04 all my money off my podcast. That's for sure.
00:56:04 --> 00:56:08 But is just something about it, like, yeah, being
00:56:08 --> 00:56:12 alone with self because outside of all the mental
00:56:12 --> 00:56:17 health benefits of meditation, or, you know,
00:56:17 --> 00:56:20 simply just being alone with yourself, think
00:56:20 --> 00:56:22 about all the things that we are told that we
00:56:22 --> 00:56:26 want, or the goals that are set out, seemingly
00:56:26 --> 00:56:29 being set out for us on social media, you know,
00:56:29 --> 00:56:31 the keeping up with the Joneses or whatever it
00:56:31 --> 00:56:35 is consumerism. Those things are pulling us away
00:56:35 --> 00:56:37 from the things that we actually want in life
00:56:37 --> 00:56:42 when you think about people I forget who who
00:56:42 --> 00:56:44 was a wrote a book about you know, they would
00:56:44 --> 00:56:47 sit with people who are on their deathbed and
00:56:47 --> 00:56:51 they would talk to them and they're like They
00:56:51 --> 00:56:55 never bring up the things that are sold to us
00:56:55 --> 00:56:59 like through commercials or celebrities or whatever.
00:56:59 --> 00:57:02 It's never the things that were chasing right
00:57:02 --> 00:57:04 now that they bring up. They wanted more time
00:57:04 --> 00:57:07 with family. They wanted. They wanted to ask
00:57:07 --> 00:57:09 that girl out. They wanted to go for that promotion,
00:57:09 --> 00:57:13 whatever. Like they had actual goals that they
00:57:13 --> 00:57:16 wanted to achieve. And those were the things
00:57:16 --> 00:57:18 that they look back on and wanted more. They
00:57:18 --> 00:57:22 didn't want more time watching whatever the heck
00:57:22 --> 00:57:25 is on Netflix right now. They didn't. And I'm
00:57:25 --> 00:57:27 not saying like I didn't just sit and watch a
00:57:27 --> 00:57:29 football game for four hours yesterday, but.
00:57:32 --> 00:57:36 I know. We're not talking like we're holier than
00:57:36 --> 00:57:39 now. I mean, I could say that just a couple of
00:57:39 --> 00:57:41 weekends ago, I went I was on a Netflix binge
00:57:41 --> 00:57:46 with Squid Games 2 and I watched the whole series.
00:57:46 --> 00:57:48 I'm like, my God said I'm going to watch two
00:57:48 --> 00:57:51 episodes. And it ended up being I watched all
00:57:51 --> 00:57:53 seven or eight of them. Like, oh, yeah. What
00:57:53 --> 00:57:57 am I doing with my life? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:57 --> 00:58:00 There's still like We're never going to be perfect,
00:58:00 --> 00:58:03 especially now that we're being pulled in by
00:58:03 --> 00:58:05 these different things, you're going to go off
00:58:05 --> 00:58:09 of your path. However, another thing like coming
00:58:09 --> 00:58:12 from a perfectionist, I want to always be mindful
00:58:12 --> 00:58:16 of what I'm saying, but success is never a straight
00:58:16 --> 00:58:19 line. You're going to go off to the side. You're
00:58:19 --> 00:58:22 going to go backwards several times. Like it's
00:58:22 --> 00:58:26 going to look like, you know, a toddler. drawing
00:58:26 --> 00:58:29 a picture when you're done with it. But you don't
00:58:29 --> 00:58:31 want to completely, you know, I'm not saying
00:58:31 --> 00:58:33 like you just want to constantly let yourself
00:58:33 --> 00:58:35 off the hook, but you do have to give yourself
00:58:35 --> 00:58:39 some grace. Yeah, no. And that's a good point
00:58:39 --> 00:58:43 with the whole fact that it's just being mindful
00:58:43 --> 00:58:46 of it. Now, if you're mindful of it, because
00:58:46 --> 00:58:49 you we can really get into a. Zombie mode where
00:58:49 --> 00:58:52 you're not thinking in it and it's just autopilot
00:58:52 --> 00:58:56 like I see some people and I'm I'm one myself
00:58:56 --> 00:58:58 I'm on YouTube and it's just like they have it
00:58:58 --> 00:59:00 set up like it's a slot machine So you're just
00:59:00 --> 00:59:02 you're pushing the button and you're hoping to
00:59:02 --> 00:59:04 hit triple sevens and just like YouTube or whatever
00:59:04 --> 00:59:07 it is and you're just Flipping through all of
00:59:07 --> 00:59:09 the videos you're hoping to catch one and then
00:59:09 --> 00:59:11 you end up you're like I've been doing this for
00:59:11 --> 00:59:16 15 minutes now with that so to be mindful and
00:59:16 --> 00:59:21 Catch yourself when you do that And that's already
00:59:21 --> 00:59:23 progress right there, where you're not falling
00:59:23 --> 00:59:27 into that autopilot of you're doing things and
00:59:27 --> 00:59:29 you're doing it just out of reaction. You're
00:59:29 --> 00:59:33 doing it out of just habit and you're not mindful
00:59:33 --> 00:59:36 of what you're doing. And I like this whole overarching
00:59:36 --> 00:59:39 view of where you're coming from, just the fact
00:59:39 --> 00:59:42 of coming back to self. and being present, being
00:59:42 --> 00:59:45 in the moment and what meditation has has done
00:59:45 --> 00:59:48 for you. So throughout these five years of you
00:59:48 --> 00:59:50 meditating and putting it into practice, has
00:59:50 --> 00:59:55 it been like a consistent daily thing? So as
00:59:55 --> 00:59:58 much as I can. Yeah, there's definitely days
00:59:58 --> 01:00:01 where I don't get to it. And it's just recognizing
01:00:01 --> 01:00:05 that and being cognizant of that and not letting
01:00:05 --> 01:00:08 myself it's just like with exercise. There's
01:00:08 --> 01:00:12 gonna be days where you know as far as meditation
01:00:12 --> 01:00:14 there aren't days that I can't do it like as
01:00:14 --> 01:00:16 you know with exercise Sometimes you're just
01:00:16 --> 01:00:18 like if I go in there. I'm gonna injure myself
01:00:18 --> 01:00:22 today But there's definitely days I've let it
01:00:22 --> 01:00:25 lapse and not do it is just remembering to build
01:00:25 --> 01:00:28 up another streak You know just like with exercise
01:00:28 --> 01:00:30 like especially getting started It's like just
01:00:30 --> 01:00:33 start a streak and try to keep it going for as
01:00:33 --> 01:00:35 long as possible. It's been very beneficial for
01:00:35 --> 01:00:38 you, right? So you talk about that doom scrolling
01:00:38 --> 01:00:41 thing. Some of the things that I've noticed that
01:00:41 --> 01:00:44 I'm better at and I attribute it to meditation
01:00:44 --> 01:00:49 is being able to recognize both when you're,
01:00:49 --> 01:00:52 you have veered off the road of your goals of
01:00:52 --> 01:00:55 some sort. I don't want to get in a little TMI
01:00:55 --> 01:00:59 here, but you know, people getting on their phone
01:00:59 --> 01:01:02 on the toilet, like remembering like, Hey, I'm
01:01:02 --> 01:01:05 here to do a different job. I'm not here. This
01:01:05 --> 01:01:07 is the second YouTube video that I've started
01:01:07 --> 01:01:10 catching yourself. You're doing something that's
01:01:10 --> 01:01:13 not beneficial to you in whatever capacity. And
01:01:13 --> 01:01:18 also a tip that I picked up was every time that
01:01:18 --> 01:01:22 you notice that you've noticed something that
01:01:22 --> 01:01:24 you're doing and you correct that action, remembering
01:01:24 --> 01:01:27 to kind of say to yourself a little bit, like
01:01:27 --> 01:01:29 give yourself a little bit of a like, Hey, you
01:01:29 --> 01:01:33 know, I noticed that, you know, and I made changes
01:01:33 --> 01:01:36 because that recognizing those little wins is
01:01:36 --> 01:01:40 super important. But to your question, yeah,
01:01:40 --> 01:01:43 it's it's been semi consistent. I would, you
01:01:43 --> 01:01:46 know, there has been stretches where I get, you
01:01:46 --> 01:01:50 know, have a depressive episode and I just can't
01:01:50 --> 01:01:52 meditate. You know, I would start to meditate
01:01:52 --> 01:01:55 and I would ruminate instead. But I always get
01:01:55 --> 01:02:00 back to it because. Like I said, it has been
01:02:00 --> 01:02:03 able when I. I'm doing both meditation and going
01:02:03 --> 01:02:05 to therapy. It almost cements everything that
01:02:05 --> 01:02:09 they say. I'm able to be more cognizant of what
01:02:09 --> 01:02:12 thoughts are crossing my mind and recognizing
01:02:12 --> 01:02:14 which ones are helpful and which ones are not.
01:02:15 --> 01:02:18 And I'm trying to think of some good tips on
01:02:18 --> 01:02:22 how to remain consistent with it. But it's definitely
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 difficult in the present day, present day life
01:02:25 --> 01:02:29 of all of us, I'm sure. One of them that I have
01:02:29 --> 01:02:33 noticed is right before I go to bed, I try to
01:02:33 --> 01:02:36 put on Netflix every freaking night. I've noticed
01:02:36 --> 01:02:38 that about myself right before I go to bed. I
01:02:38 --> 01:02:42 just want to get one more good episode of Sopranos
01:02:42 --> 01:02:45 or something. I will tell myself, yeah, we can
01:02:45 --> 01:02:50 do that. If you meditate first, it is finding
01:02:50 --> 01:02:53 something to reward yourself with for doing beneficial
01:02:53 --> 01:02:57 things for yourself has been super helpful. for
01:02:57 --> 01:03:00 me. That's a good one. Yeah. That was something
01:03:00 --> 01:03:02 that came to mind when you spoke about being
01:03:02 --> 01:03:06 mindful, how meditation has helped you with that,
01:03:06 --> 01:03:09 to be mindful and to be aware, to be conscious
01:03:09 --> 01:03:12 of what you're doing and to catch yourself sometimes.
01:03:13 --> 01:03:16 And that's a huge, that's something that's huge
01:03:16 --> 01:03:22 for somebody who is going into a dark hole with
01:03:22 --> 01:03:27 thoughts, with negativity and now If you continue
01:03:27 --> 01:03:30 to entertain those thoughts, you just keep spiraling
01:03:30 --> 01:03:34 further and further and further into that endless,
01:03:34 --> 01:03:40 endless dark pit. But if you catch yourself and
01:03:40 --> 01:03:43 you're conscious of it, you can start to feed
01:03:43 --> 01:03:46 yourself something that's the complete opposite.
01:03:46 --> 01:03:49 You can start to maybe just take note of what
01:03:49 --> 01:03:53 you do have, that extra breath of life that you
01:03:53 --> 01:03:56 do have to maybe do something different. the
01:03:56 --> 01:03:59 people around you that are still around you and
01:03:59 --> 01:04:01 they love you for who you are and the support
01:04:01 --> 01:04:03 that you have. Whatever it is, it could be the
01:04:03 --> 01:04:06 smallest or tallest of things, how good the coffee
01:04:06 --> 01:04:10 is tasting or how nice the sun feels today. But
01:04:10 --> 01:04:13 you catch yourself and you can start going in
01:04:13 --> 01:04:15 a different direction instead of just. being
01:04:15 --> 01:04:18 pulled deeper and deeper and deeper into that
01:04:18 --> 01:04:20 dark hole until it gets to the point where it's
01:04:20 --> 01:04:23 just completely crippling and you just lock yourself
01:04:23 --> 01:04:27 in a room or worst case scenario, who knows what
01:04:27 --> 01:04:30 can happen. But yeah, that's a strong point right
01:04:30 --> 01:04:33 there to the fact that you're able to be mindful
01:04:33 --> 01:04:38 in how much that can really, really benefit somebody
01:04:38 --> 01:04:42 during those times of a crisis or when things
01:04:42 --> 01:04:45 just seem. to be slipping away at a fast and
01:04:45 --> 01:04:50 rapid pace. So you have the therapy, you have
01:04:50 --> 01:04:54 the meditation, and also you said that you want
01:04:54 --> 01:04:56 to get your certification so you could start
01:04:56 --> 01:04:59 leading meditation. Do you want to do that when
01:04:59 --> 01:05:01 you go ahead and take it in that direction? Do
01:05:01 --> 01:05:04 you want to do it in person or this is something
01:05:04 --> 01:05:06 maybe you think you can do online or probably
01:05:06 --> 01:05:10 both? Probably both. I would love to do it in
01:05:10 --> 01:05:14 person. There's just something about that like
01:05:14 --> 01:05:17 group meditation or one -on -ones both Yeah,
01:05:17 --> 01:05:19 I would love to do it in person though whether
01:05:19 --> 01:05:23 one and one because I definitely feel like some
01:05:23 --> 01:05:26 people would prefer that however something that
01:05:26 --> 01:05:31 I just learned a few weeks ago through one of
01:05:31 --> 01:05:35 our lectures was There is something to group
01:05:35 --> 01:05:39 meditation and what they are finding is that
01:05:39 --> 01:05:43 it might be tied to the magnetic field that our
01:05:43 --> 01:05:47 heart generates so Your heart actually has a
01:05:47 --> 01:05:49 magnetic field that and I've heard different
01:05:49 --> 01:05:52 numbers But the one that I trust most is that
01:05:52 --> 01:05:55 it extends three feet from your body However,
01:05:55 --> 01:05:57 whenever everyone is in a group, there's different
01:05:57 --> 01:06:00 there's a there's also a sleeping study that
01:06:00 --> 01:06:04 I found one time that people sleep better With
01:06:04 --> 01:06:08 a partner or at least a pet in the same room
01:06:08 --> 01:06:10 their breaths will start to synchronize So there's
01:06:10 --> 01:06:12 definitely something about being around other
01:06:12 --> 01:06:16 people that is beneficial and especially for
01:06:16 --> 01:06:20 myself like if I am completely spiraling out
01:06:20 --> 01:06:23 of control and I can't I can't get myself to
01:06:23 --> 01:06:28 Be more mentally stable. I reach out to people
01:06:28 --> 01:06:31 and we hang out whether it's I've ran errands
01:06:31 --> 01:06:35 with people Or, you know, we just sit down and
01:06:35 --> 01:06:38 binge Netflix together. Getting around another
01:06:38 --> 01:06:41 person has always helped me. So I'd love to try
01:06:41 --> 01:06:44 to do at least part of it in person. However,
01:06:44 --> 01:06:48 I know in the day that we live in, it would be
01:06:48 --> 01:06:51 a death sentence to not likely offer that online.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:55 So offering it both in person and online would
01:06:55 --> 01:06:58 probably be the direction I head. Yeah. No, that
01:06:58 --> 01:07:01 would be great. That would be great and and you
01:07:01 --> 01:07:03 know now talking with you and hearing hearing
01:07:03 --> 01:07:06 more about it This is because it like I said
01:07:06 --> 01:07:09 when I was taking that mindful Mindfulness course
01:07:09 --> 01:07:12 and and I was making it a practice and I was
01:07:12 --> 01:07:15 pretty consistent about it meditating I can't
01:07:15 --> 01:07:17 say that I've been I've been as consistent but
01:07:17 --> 01:07:22 I do Make it a point nowadays to just to allot
01:07:22 --> 01:07:25 myself some time where it's just me and Whether
01:07:25 --> 01:07:29 it's going to and from work the route that I
01:07:29 --> 01:07:33 take or even a little bit before I go to bed
01:07:33 --> 01:07:36 or When I wake up or something, you know, whatever
01:07:36 --> 01:07:39 it may be and even uh This breath work that I
01:07:39 --> 01:07:42 came across this holotropic breathing or just
01:07:42 --> 01:07:44 breath work in general but there's a lot of different
01:07:44 --> 01:07:48 rhythmic breaths and breaths and The whole the
01:07:48 --> 01:07:50 holding your breath retention and that kind of
01:07:50 --> 01:07:53 thing even ten minutes fifteen minutes of it
01:07:53 --> 01:07:55 But that has put me in a good place the last
01:07:55 --> 01:07:58 few times that I've tried it in this last these
01:07:58 --> 01:08:00 last two weeks, that's something that I've been
01:08:00 --> 01:08:04 experimenting with. But the meditation is something
01:08:04 --> 01:08:07 that now I'm speaking with you, hearing more
01:08:07 --> 01:08:12 about it, and especially how much you enjoyed
01:08:12 --> 01:08:14 and how passionate you are about it, especially
01:08:14 --> 01:08:16 because it's something that helped you out. I
01:08:16 --> 01:08:18 mean, you were in a dark place, you were in a
01:08:18 --> 01:08:20 bad place, desperate. And this is something that
01:08:20 --> 01:08:22 was that lifeline for you. So it was good to
01:08:22 --> 01:08:25 hear this, because now I want to go ahead and
01:08:25 --> 01:08:28 throw this back in my tool bag and make make
01:08:28 --> 01:08:30 more use of it. Because like you said, we're
01:08:30 --> 01:08:33 living in a or we both said this is the age of
01:08:33 --> 01:08:36 distractions. And it really, really would be
01:08:36 --> 01:08:39 beneficial for all of us if we just allow ourselves
01:08:39 --> 01:08:42 some time to be by ourselves away from all the
01:08:42 --> 01:08:45 white noise, all the distraction, all the fuzz.
01:08:45 --> 01:08:48 And there's a you can look up as well. There's
01:08:48 --> 01:08:52 several studies on meditation and how there's
01:08:52 --> 01:08:57 actual physical benefits within the body. Like
01:08:57 --> 01:09:01 I wrote down some before the, we started recording,
01:09:01 --> 01:09:06 but they have seen that meditating over a stretch
01:09:06 --> 01:09:08 of time. I can't remember what the time is. We
01:09:08 --> 01:09:11 can find the studies online had rebuilt neural
01:09:11 --> 01:09:15 pathways and reduced inflammation in people's
01:09:15 --> 01:09:19 central nervous systems. There's increased levels
01:09:19 --> 01:09:24 of oxytocin, melatonin, serotonin, GABA and endorphins.
01:09:24 --> 01:09:28 while lowering several of the bad chemical compound,
01:09:29 --> 01:09:31 quote unquote, bad chemical compounds in our
01:09:31 --> 01:09:36 body. So that's what really reinforced my belief
01:09:36 --> 01:09:39 that it was helping me out and that I should
01:09:39 --> 01:09:43 look into it further and just remembering those
01:09:43 --> 01:09:46 things and also understanding that it's just
01:09:46 --> 01:09:49 a small portion of our day. That's That's kind
01:09:49 --> 01:09:52 of what has cemented my practice a few minutes
01:09:52 --> 01:09:54 out the day You said 12 minutes just 12 minutes
01:09:54 --> 01:09:57 a day has been proven to I mean that's if you
01:09:57 --> 01:10:00 think about it in Relation to watching TV or
01:10:00 --> 01:10:03 something. That's just a few commercial commercials
01:10:03 --> 01:10:10 Yeah, yeah still we find ways to avoid it But
01:10:10 --> 01:10:12 so the science is actually yeah, you know what
01:10:12 --> 01:10:17 I've heard a lot of neuroscientists and a lot
01:10:17 --> 01:10:20 of a lot of people in the medical field that
01:10:20 --> 01:10:23 they've had studies, even just where they were
01:10:23 --> 01:10:27 able to read the brain waves of, let's say, monks
01:10:27 --> 01:10:32 or any group of people who practice this habitually,
01:10:32 --> 01:10:35 and the benefits, and even to be able to read
01:10:35 --> 01:10:37 it. So the science is definitely catching up
01:10:37 --> 01:10:40 to it. This is something that's been... This
01:10:40 --> 01:10:44 is an old practice. It's been around for ages,
01:10:44 --> 01:10:49 millennia. The teacher of my course is also a
01:10:49 --> 01:10:53 neuroscientist and she performed a study and
01:10:53 --> 01:10:59 it was with adolescents who had been abused and
01:10:59 --> 01:11:01 they were trying to I think it was the judge.
01:11:02 --> 01:11:04 I forget how the story goes, but somebody thankfully
01:11:04 --> 01:11:06 throughout the process was trying to figure out
01:11:06 --> 01:11:12 how to make it easier for them to testify and
01:11:12 --> 01:11:16 not be traumatized throughout the court. process
01:11:16 --> 01:11:20 and things like that. And so she sat down. They
01:11:20 --> 01:11:22 had hired her to sit down with these kids and
01:11:22 --> 01:11:26 she conducted a study throughout and found that
01:11:26 --> 01:11:31 they had lower levels of cortisol. They reported
01:11:31 --> 01:11:35 less mental struggles throughout the whole the
01:11:35 --> 01:11:38 whole ordeal. So, yeah, the science is definitely
01:11:38 --> 01:11:41 catching up to it. Like the fact that it regrows
01:11:41 --> 01:11:45 neural pathways is what got me because When you
01:11:45 --> 01:11:49 do a brain scan of somebody who has major depressive
01:11:49 --> 01:11:53 disorder, like I do, like our brains are actually
01:11:53 --> 01:11:56 look different than a normal brain. There's like
01:11:56 --> 01:12:00 a smaller prefrontal cortex, I believe. And you
01:12:00 --> 01:12:03 can actually see physical changes in the brain
01:12:03 --> 01:12:07 as you, as you meditate, if you continue to get
01:12:07 --> 01:12:11 brain scans, but They've already they do that
01:12:11 --> 01:12:12 for us, you know, through these studies. But
01:12:12 --> 01:12:15 as you go along, you'll notice actual physical
01:12:15 --> 01:12:18 changes in the brain. And that that blows my
01:12:18 --> 01:12:22 mind. That's powerful. It's like one of those.
01:12:22 --> 01:12:26 Well, you know, I can't say best kept secrets
01:12:26 --> 01:12:28 now because it seems like there's a lot of things
01:12:28 --> 01:12:31 now that people are exploring that they weren't
01:12:31 --> 01:12:35 before the alternative ways to get well rather
01:12:35 --> 01:12:41 than just depend on a medication. There's a quick
01:12:41 --> 01:12:43 fix for everything, but just a lot of different
01:12:43 --> 01:12:47 ways that people are exploring to get well, to
01:12:47 --> 01:12:50 deal with the anxieties, the fears, the worries,
01:12:50 --> 01:12:54 and the stresses of modern life. This is something
01:12:54 --> 01:12:58 that a lot more people are open to. A lot of
01:12:58 --> 01:13:00 people are seeing the benefits of it, such as
01:13:00 --> 01:13:03 yourself. Now, the course that you're taking,
01:13:03 --> 01:13:06 are you currently still taking the course, or
01:13:06 --> 01:13:09 you're almost wrapped up with it? taking it.
01:13:09 --> 01:13:15 It's 150 hours of both lectures. The part I'm
01:13:15 --> 01:13:18 on now is I'm finally actually starting to record
01:13:18 --> 01:13:21 meditations that I'm leading and I submit them
01:13:21 --> 01:13:26 in to be critiqued and things. There's three
01:13:26 --> 01:13:28 different sections and then a community service
01:13:28 --> 01:13:32 aspect to it at the very end. And I'm just wrapping
01:13:32 --> 01:13:37 up the second section. So I have a another section
01:13:37 --> 01:13:42 to go. And then I think it's 25 hours of community
01:13:42 --> 01:13:46 service in which I offer. I can't remember what
01:13:46 --> 01:13:50 the syllabus and what I'm doing for it is I'm
01:13:50 --> 01:13:54 actually going to go to a an organization called
01:13:54 --> 01:14:00 NAMI, which is the Alliance for Mental Illness
01:14:00 --> 01:14:04 in our area. And I'm going to offer meditations
01:14:04 --> 01:14:07 for free to People who come in there that that
01:14:07 --> 01:14:11 place is a they hold peer support groups and
01:14:11 --> 01:14:14 other resources for people struggling with mental
01:14:14 --> 01:14:17 health and I actually took part in that in the
01:14:17 --> 01:14:20 early goings of When I when I wasn't able to
01:14:20 --> 01:14:23 get a therapist in the area, I was doing peer
01:14:23 --> 01:14:24 support groups there So it's gonna mean a lot
01:14:24 --> 01:14:28 to me to be able to offer People some help there
01:14:28 --> 01:14:31 and kind of give back to the place it help me
01:14:31 --> 01:14:33 out. Since you've been taking the course and
01:14:33 --> 01:14:35 then throughout the years, have you been meditating?
01:14:35 --> 01:14:38 Are there people that you kind of guide or teach
01:14:38 --> 01:14:42 or mentor in a way with that? Not yet. Okay,
01:14:42 --> 01:14:45 yeah, it's getting there. I don't know. It's
01:14:45 --> 01:14:48 part of that negative perspective I have on myself,
01:14:48 --> 01:14:52 I guess. I feel like until I get that piece of
01:14:52 --> 01:14:56 paper that I probably shouldn't even recording
01:14:56 --> 01:15:00 the meditations I'm doing right now. It's just
01:15:00 --> 01:15:04 kind of like a podcast right now. I record myself
01:15:04 --> 01:15:07 in my own sessions to submit them. I don't have
01:15:07 --> 01:15:10 anybody that I'm actually talking to just myself.
01:15:11 --> 01:15:14 But yeah, once I get that certificate, I'll feel
01:15:14 --> 01:15:18 better about leading a meditation. No, I mean,
01:15:18 --> 01:15:20 you're taking the steps in the right direction.
01:15:20 --> 01:15:22 And even with that, if anything, you're putting
01:15:22 --> 01:15:24 in the repetition and the practice and then,
01:15:24 --> 01:15:26 you know, you become more comfortable with it,
01:15:26 --> 01:15:28 confident with it. And then when it's finally
01:15:28 --> 01:15:30 time and then you have people, because I'm sure,
01:15:31 --> 01:15:34 especially with this facility that you, you plan
01:15:34 --> 01:15:36 on reaching out to and giving back to, there's
01:15:36 --> 01:15:39 going to be people there that in need. I've heard
01:15:39 --> 01:15:42 that there's been a lot of psychologists, psychiatrists,
01:15:43 --> 01:15:44 therapists that they just been overbooked and
01:15:44 --> 01:15:48 there's a, there's a big big need right now for
01:15:48 --> 01:15:51 people to provide a service that can help people
01:15:51 --> 01:15:54 with different struggles that they may be going
01:15:54 --> 01:15:57 through. Meditation seems like that's going to
01:15:57 --> 01:15:59 be something that this is going to be a great
01:15:59 --> 01:16:03 addition and a very, very useful tool for a lot
01:16:03 --> 01:16:06 of people. There is no side effects. There's
01:16:06 --> 01:16:09 no negative side effects. Only known side effect
01:16:09 --> 01:16:13 or potential negative side effect of this is
01:16:13 --> 01:16:16 from what I understand, I mean, there's some
01:16:16 --> 01:16:18 people that definitely are saying like, you know,
01:16:18 --> 01:16:21 there is no side effect. However, people have
01:16:21 --> 01:16:26 reported that they somehow sink more into their
01:16:26 --> 01:16:30 thoughts, ruminate or or something like that.
01:16:30 --> 01:16:37 So it's I have a hard time believing that that's
01:16:37 --> 01:16:41 entirely centered on the meditation aspect of
01:16:41 --> 01:16:45 it, because I definitely ruminate and there's
01:16:45 --> 01:16:49 definitely been reports of I know that that waking
01:16:49 --> 01:16:53 up app that I spoke about earlier when he started
01:16:53 --> 01:16:56 adding like a podcast style element to it he
01:16:56 --> 01:16:59 calls it the theory section and he'll bring in
01:16:59 --> 01:17:03 different meditation leaders or just different
01:17:03 --> 01:17:06 people in that world there was a group that came
01:17:06 --> 01:17:08 on to talk about the the dark side of meditation
01:17:08 --> 01:17:13 but from what I could gather it was they ruminated
01:17:13 --> 01:17:17 more, they got stuck in thought loops and things
01:17:17 --> 01:17:19 like that. That's why I kind of feel like it's
01:17:19 --> 01:17:23 super important to have, if not a therapist,
01:17:23 --> 01:17:26 like go to some peer support groups where you
01:17:26 --> 01:17:29 can talk about whatever it is that you seem to
01:17:29 --> 01:17:31 be ruminating on. And when you're talking about,
01:17:32 --> 01:17:36 yeah, the therapist need help. So that's how
01:17:36 --> 01:17:38 I ended up at NAMI, which I think I misspoke
01:17:38 --> 01:17:41 earlier. That's the National Alliance on Mental
01:17:41 --> 01:17:45 Illness. And I stumbled across them because,
01:17:45 --> 01:17:49 especially during COVID, the two biggest places
01:17:49 --> 01:17:53 that my insurance worked with in the area were
01:17:53 --> 01:17:57 booked up for months. I called, say it was March.
01:17:58 --> 01:18:00 They were telling me that it would be September
01:18:00 --> 01:18:03 or October before I could get my initial appointment.
01:18:04 --> 01:18:08 And so I started to panic. And once things opened
01:18:08 --> 01:18:11 back up, And to like every time if there was
01:18:11 --> 01:18:14 a therapist you weren't working well with And
01:18:14 --> 01:18:17 you needed to switch it was you were right back
01:18:17 --> 01:18:20 in that on that wait list and so at some point
01:18:20 --> 01:18:25 I just kind of looked around and I found Nami
01:18:25 --> 01:18:30 and they had a couple different peer support
01:18:30 --> 01:18:33 groups that were that were weekly open weekly
01:18:33 --> 01:18:38 and If you have something like that in your area
01:18:38 --> 01:18:41 I can't recommend it enough. There was I'll never
01:18:41 --> 01:18:44 forget there was a guy that was attending that
01:18:44 --> 01:18:49 that support group who was homeless and he had
01:18:49 --> 01:18:54 survived a serial killer and it affected him
01:18:54 --> 01:18:58 so much that he became homeless and he was showing
01:18:58 --> 01:19:02 up every day. He I asked him, you know where
01:19:02 --> 01:19:04 he was staying and he was actually living out
01:19:04 --> 01:19:07 of a car wash. during the day when people were
01:19:07 --> 01:19:10 using it, he would walk, you know, go somewhere.
01:19:10 --> 01:19:14 He would come out to NAMI and whenever it was
01:19:14 --> 01:19:17 about time to close up, the owner was letting
01:19:17 --> 01:19:20 him go inside the car wash before he closed it.
01:19:20 --> 01:19:22 But he would be stuck in there until the next
01:19:22 --> 01:19:25 morning when the owner would open back up. And
01:19:25 --> 01:19:29 to have him come in there, that was another person
01:19:29 --> 01:19:31 I looked at. And I was like, if he can do this,
01:19:31 --> 01:19:35 I damn well better be able to do this. This guy
01:19:35 --> 01:19:39 is showing up and working on himself at the absolute
01:19:39 --> 01:19:44 lowest point in his life. And yet, like he would
01:19:44 --> 01:19:48 sit there and listen to everyone else, air their
01:19:48 --> 01:19:52 issues. And he all like almost always had something
01:19:52 --> 01:19:57 to say at the end of it that was super insightful
01:19:57 --> 01:20:02 or, you know, lift your spirits. And there was
01:20:02 --> 01:20:04 other people in there like I remember There was
01:20:04 --> 01:20:08 this elderly couple that would come in and they
01:20:08 --> 01:20:12 brought him like an old style radio. They brought
01:20:12 --> 01:20:15 him a radio to have in there with them. They're
01:20:15 --> 01:20:18 like, so you have something to do overnight or
01:20:18 --> 01:20:23 whatever. And I remember him also. He had he
01:20:23 --> 01:20:27 had this dream that someday he was going to print
01:20:27 --> 01:20:30 t -shirts with a smiley face on the front of
01:20:30 --> 01:20:32 it. Because he was like, man, people just don't
01:20:32 --> 01:20:37 smile anymore. I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, you
01:20:37 --> 01:20:39 know, it's it's silly. But at the same time,
01:20:39 --> 01:20:42 I was like, that is such a wholesome thing. Like
01:20:42 --> 01:20:45 you warm my heart every time I saw him in there.
01:20:46 --> 01:20:50 It all started out like from what I was told
01:20:50 --> 01:20:52 is that he showed up one day and he was just
01:20:52 --> 01:20:57 asking for something to eat. And so the peer
01:20:57 --> 01:21:00 support group leader. Always brought him like
01:21:00 --> 01:21:03 the a little milk box like you used to get at
01:21:03 --> 01:21:06 school He'd bring him a little milk jug and then
01:21:06 --> 01:21:10 a packet of oatmeal every morning That place
01:21:10 --> 01:21:13 man. I know that especially in our area if anybody
01:21:13 --> 01:21:16 in my area is listening this I know our local
01:21:16 --> 01:21:19 Nami like if you go into the reviews like it
01:21:19 --> 01:21:22 gets a bad rap and I feel like especially having
01:21:22 --> 01:21:25 been there Like the majority of it, I think,
01:21:25 --> 01:21:28 is that there are a lot of homeless that show
01:21:28 --> 01:21:31 up there or at least they did and they would
01:21:31 --> 01:21:36 come in. And I just like, man, if you're so stuck
01:21:36 --> 01:21:41 on like where people are in their in their life,
01:21:41 --> 01:21:44 like I I get I do understand what they're saying.
01:21:44 --> 01:21:47 Like when I first showed up out there and there
01:21:47 --> 01:21:49 was a whole bunch of homeless people like out
01:21:49 --> 01:21:52 front, I was like. Oh, they're going to, you
01:21:52 --> 01:21:56 know, dominate the the group or whatever. But
01:21:56 --> 01:21:59 they didn't. That is such a negative perspective
01:21:59 --> 01:22:03 of a person, especially I said when I moved here,
01:22:03 --> 01:22:06 I was washing cars for eight bucks an hour. I
01:22:06 --> 01:22:08 will never forget what changed my perspective
01:22:08 --> 01:22:13 on the homeless was I did not have enough money
01:22:13 --> 01:22:18 to gas up to get home from my job one day. And
01:22:18 --> 01:22:21 I pulled into a come and go with like The little
01:22:21 --> 01:22:24 thing that tells you how many miles you have
01:22:24 --> 01:22:27 to empty was on zero. And so I'm like, I pull
01:22:27 --> 01:22:31 in and I don't have a dollar in my bank account.
01:22:32 --> 01:22:35 And so I walked over to the closest person who
01:22:35 --> 01:22:38 was filling up and I was like, dude, do you like
01:22:38 --> 01:22:41 you have five dollars so I can put a gallon of
01:22:41 --> 01:22:44 gas or whatever, two, two gallons of gas in my
01:22:44 --> 01:22:47 car is just so I can get home. Nobody would do
01:22:47 --> 01:22:50 it. And so at some point I kind of sheepishly
01:22:50 --> 01:22:52 walk up to the front of the building and I'm
01:22:52 --> 01:22:54 just standing there trying to catch everybody
01:22:54 --> 01:22:57 that comes in and out. And before I know it,
01:22:57 --> 01:23:00 the manager of that gas station comes out and
01:23:00 --> 01:23:02 is like, Hey, I'm going to need you to leave
01:23:02 --> 01:23:04 because people are complaining. You're asking
01:23:04 --> 01:23:07 for money. I was like, I can't leave. I'm like,
01:23:07 --> 01:23:09 that's my car over there at the pump and it will
01:23:09 --> 01:23:12 probably run out of gas as soon as I started.
01:23:13 --> 01:23:15 And they were like, well, I'm sorry, but we're
01:23:15 --> 01:23:17 going to have to call the police. You know, we're
01:23:17 --> 01:23:20 not going to, you know, file against you or whatever
01:23:20 --> 01:23:22 it is. Like we're just, we don't know what to
01:23:22 --> 01:23:25 do. Like people are complaining. I was like,
01:23:25 --> 01:23:28 man, you've got to be kidding me. Like, no way.
01:23:29 --> 01:23:32 But finally somebody overheard that and they
01:23:32 --> 01:23:35 walked up to her, gave her a 20 and was like,
01:23:35 --> 01:23:38 just put it on his pump. Like that's, that's
01:23:38 --> 01:23:42 insane to me. And I will never forget that day.
01:23:42 --> 01:23:47 Like I have, I have given money to the homeless
01:23:47 --> 01:23:50 when I did not have it because of that time.
01:23:51 --> 01:23:55 It is no wonder. When you walk around, I have
01:23:55 --> 01:23:58 an interview on my podcast with a former homeless
01:23:58 --> 01:24:01 person and she broke my heart. She was like,
01:24:01 --> 01:24:04 people will not acknowledge you. They will not
01:24:04 --> 01:24:07 look in your direction for fear. of me asking
01:24:07 --> 01:24:10 for money or whatever it is, like they don't
01:24:10 --> 01:24:13 wanna see somebody that looks like that. I can't
01:24:13 --> 01:24:15 imagine what that does to somebody's psyche.
01:24:16 --> 01:24:18 Yeah, some of them, they can feel invisible.
01:24:18 --> 01:24:22 They're being walked over, stepped over, pushed
01:24:22 --> 01:24:25 aside for a lot of different reasons. You really
01:24:25 --> 01:24:27 never know what somebody has been through, what
01:24:27 --> 01:24:30 someone has went through, and the misfortune
01:24:30 --> 01:24:32 that has happened to put them in that situation.
01:24:33 --> 01:24:36 And yeah, to treat people... with the same kind
01:24:36 --> 01:24:38 of dignity or respect you would wish someone
01:24:38 --> 01:24:43 to do for you. Exactly. As I thought about this
01:24:43 --> 01:24:46 the other day when I was in elementary school,
01:24:46 --> 01:24:51 I had the fortune of having and I wish I remembered
01:24:51 --> 01:24:54 his first name, but my principal's name was Mr.
01:24:55 --> 01:24:59 Frazee. And man, I gave that guy hell when I
01:24:59 --> 01:25:01 was in elementary school. I was always the class
01:25:01 --> 01:25:06 clown. So I was in his office nonstop. But we
01:25:06 --> 01:25:10 started every day. He had a poster with the golden
01:25:10 --> 01:25:14 rule on it and every morning before we went to
01:25:14 --> 01:25:17 class he made us read that out loud is do unto
01:25:17 --> 01:25:21 others as you would have done done unto you and
01:25:21 --> 01:25:25 My goodness like you would never I've never heard
01:25:25 --> 01:25:27 anybody else say that in my entire life other
01:25:27 --> 01:25:29 than you know I've read it in the Bible before
01:25:29 --> 01:25:33 but I am so thankful for that man because that
01:25:33 --> 01:25:37 has served me well throughout my life. And I'm
01:25:37 --> 01:25:40 thankful that that's a that's a part of me. Yeah.
01:25:40 --> 01:25:44 I mean, if man or woman were to apply that to
01:25:44 --> 01:25:46 their life, then that would eliminate almost
01:25:46 --> 01:25:50 the majority of the transgressions and the wrongdoings
01:25:50 --> 01:25:53 that are going on, because a lot of it is self
01:25:53 --> 01:25:55 -inflicted. And we're doing this to ourselves,
01:25:56 --> 01:25:58 even though you feel as if you're hurting somebody
01:25:58 --> 01:26:00 else or you're taking from somebody else. But
01:26:00 --> 01:26:03 ultimately, you're also in the process hurting
01:26:03 --> 01:26:06 yourself. Yeah, that is something that I really
01:26:06 --> 01:26:11 try to meditate on. Do one to others as I would
01:26:11 --> 01:26:14 want somebody else to do to me and just to treat
01:26:14 --> 01:26:16 them with the same kind of dignity and respect
01:26:16 --> 01:26:18 that I would wish that would be afforded to me.
01:26:19 --> 01:26:24 So, yeah, definitely. I agree. And Derek, I'm
01:26:24 --> 01:26:26 just thankful that you were flexible. You hung
01:26:26 --> 01:26:28 around, stuck around, and we were able to do
01:26:28 --> 01:26:33 this because it was great to hear. some of your
01:26:33 --> 01:26:38 journey, your experiences in life, not just the
01:26:38 --> 01:26:40 down times, but how you were able to turn that
01:26:40 --> 01:26:43 upward slope and move in a better direction for
01:26:43 --> 01:26:48 your daughter, for yourself, and also now with
01:26:48 --> 01:26:51 what you plan to do with paying this forward
01:26:51 --> 01:26:53 now and what has helped you along the way with
01:26:53 --> 01:26:56 the meditation, but to bring that to people who
01:26:56 --> 01:27:00 may be in need. who may find it very beneficial
01:27:00 --> 01:27:02 for their situation, their mental health, whatever
01:27:02 --> 01:27:05 they're struggling with. And like you mentioned,
01:27:05 --> 01:27:07 there's a lot of benefits to it. Science is catching
01:27:07 --> 01:27:11 up to the fact that there's a lot of things that
01:27:11 --> 01:27:14 this can do for somebody, not just physically
01:27:14 --> 01:27:17 for one, also mentally, emotionally, spiritually,
01:27:17 --> 01:27:21 this is a very good tool practice. We can all
01:27:21 --> 01:27:27 do it. We can all afford 12 minutes a day. And
01:27:27 --> 01:27:30 why not take a stab at it and see if it works
01:27:30 --> 01:27:32 and give it an honest effort? You know, what
01:27:32 --> 01:27:35 do you got to lose? Yeah, for sure. Derek, I
01:27:35 --> 01:27:40 know you have your podcast. You have the website
01:27:40 --> 01:27:44 that's tied to your podcast, correct? Yeah. So
01:27:44 --> 01:27:47 the podcast is called Show My Scars. Take it
01:27:47 --> 01:27:50 day by day, you know, and feel the emotions and
01:27:50 --> 01:27:52 move through them, you know, because the more
01:27:52 --> 01:27:55 you try and keep that push down the worst it's
01:27:55 --> 01:27:57 going to be on yourself. So try and fill them
01:27:57 --> 01:28:00 and just try and move on, you know? You know,
01:28:00 --> 01:28:01 if you see that man at the liquor store begging
01:28:01 --> 01:28:04 for your change, like it says in that song, ask
01:28:04 --> 01:28:06 him what happened, ask him how his day is. Maybe
01:28:06 --> 01:28:08 you're the only person that acknowledges him
01:28:08 --> 01:28:10 that day. There's not a family on earth that
01:28:10 --> 01:28:12 I haven't met that when I share my story, they
01:28:12 --> 01:28:17 say my uncle or my dad or me, myself struggles
01:28:17 --> 01:28:20 with depression and anxiety and it's turned into
01:28:20 --> 01:28:23 I deal with that through alcoholism. And I'm
01:28:23 --> 01:28:25 like, then let's talk, you know? I don't have
01:28:25 --> 01:28:28 the answers, but I want to talk to you and share
01:28:28 --> 01:28:31 what I know. Media literacy is the ability to
01:28:31 --> 01:28:34 apply critical thinking skills to the mass media.
01:28:34 --> 01:28:37 And a lot of people like to complain about it.
01:28:37 --> 01:28:40 But then when you kind of probe into what they're
01:28:40 --> 01:28:42 complaining about you realize they don't really
01:28:42 --> 01:28:44 even understand what they're watching and reading.
01:28:44 --> 01:28:46 You know one of the things I try to do is just
01:28:46 --> 01:28:49 normalize conversations. You know not put a label
01:28:49 --> 01:28:52 on someone right away because I know what labels
01:28:52 --> 01:28:54 people typically research or they run with that
01:28:54 --> 01:28:57 label and they cannot see themselves outside
01:28:57 --> 01:28:59 of that thing that they've been identified as.
01:28:59 --> 01:29:02 All of the research consistently over the years
01:29:02 --> 01:29:06 has said that when we do engage with someone
01:29:06 --> 01:29:08 on a conflict situation that we end up with a
01:29:08 --> 01:29:10 stronger relationship with that person on the
01:29:10 --> 01:29:17 other side. It should be available on every podcasting
01:29:17 --> 01:29:20 app that's out there. But you can also if not,
01:29:20 --> 01:29:23 if you can't find it, you can go to show my scars
01:29:23 --> 01:29:27 .com. And all my episodes are hosted there as
01:29:27 --> 01:29:30 well. If you're having trouble finding it on
01:29:30 --> 01:29:32 one of your apps, I also have a button that you
01:29:32 --> 01:29:34 can click that says listen now and it should
01:29:34 --> 01:29:39 bring up Spotify YouTube music Amazon music and
01:29:39 --> 01:29:42 Apple music links directly to the show on those
01:29:42 --> 01:29:47 apps Yeah, and I'm also you can find me at Facebook
01:29:47 --> 01:29:51 comm slash show my scars That's where the I post
01:29:51 --> 01:29:53 the episodes let you know that they come out
01:29:53 --> 01:29:57 I've sim same as you it's bi -weekly So I think
01:29:57 --> 01:30:01 I just an episode come out last Friday the third
01:30:01 --> 01:30:12 No, we are not February 7th. I think I had a
01:30:12 --> 01:30:14 show come out. So the next one won't come out
01:30:14 --> 01:30:17 until not this Friday, but the next. So, okay.
01:30:17 --> 01:30:20 So you've been good with the scheduling and the
01:30:20 --> 01:30:23 posting pretty consistent with it. Yeah. Yep.
01:30:23 --> 01:30:25 Yep. Every, every two weeks. I think I only missed
01:30:25 --> 01:30:28 one due to a death in the family. Other than
01:30:28 --> 01:30:32 that, it's been out every, every two weeks. So
01:30:32 --> 01:30:37 I do talk similar to years I bring on. I've had
01:30:37 --> 01:30:39 mental health professionals. I've had, you know,
01:30:39 --> 01:30:42 people just like myself that just has the lived
01:30:42 --> 01:30:46 life experience. So I've had I had my aunt that
01:30:46 --> 01:30:47 I was talking about earlier. She's that first
01:30:47 --> 01:30:50 episode. I kind of wanted to let people know
01:30:50 --> 01:30:53 like this is my story. Here's how this is all
01:30:53 --> 01:30:56 coming about type thing. I've had, you know,
01:30:57 --> 01:30:59 a recovered alcoholic on that former homeless
01:30:59 --> 01:31:03 person who now she actually works. and a nonprofit
01:31:03 --> 01:31:06 helping out homeless people. So that was an amazing
01:31:06 --> 01:31:10 story. Super thing for her. And I've had therapists
01:31:10 --> 01:31:14 on. So it's just like a mixed bag of guests that
01:31:14 --> 01:31:17 come on. Just anybody that can offer, you know,
01:31:18 --> 01:31:20 interesting perspectives to help us live a more
01:31:20 --> 01:31:23 mentally stable life. That's the goal. Right
01:31:23 --> 01:31:25 on. That's a beautiful thing. I like to hear
01:31:25 --> 01:31:27 that. I'm going to have to check it out and I'm
01:31:27 --> 01:31:30 going to leave the information in the show notes,
01:31:30 --> 01:31:33 so anybody listening to have access to it, they
01:31:33 --> 01:31:36 can hear more of what you're doing, they can
01:31:36 --> 01:31:38 check out more of what you're doing, and even
01:31:38 --> 01:31:43 keep in contact with you when you do decide to
01:31:43 --> 01:31:48 have this meditation, this guiding meditation,
01:31:48 --> 01:31:50 and when that gets going, I'm sure it's gonna
01:31:50 --> 01:31:52 be a great thing, and I'm sure a lot of people
01:31:52 --> 01:31:55 are gonna benefit from it. It's just... you know,
01:31:55 --> 01:31:57 once you get around to it. But that's cool. That's
01:31:57 --> 01:31:59 great. That's great to hear that you're actually
01:31:59 --> 01:32:01 giving back and then you're going back to a place
01:32:01 --> 01:32:04 that you already have some kind of relationship
01:32:04 --> 01:32:08 with and keeping it close to home in a way. Yeah,
01:32:08 --> 01:32:13 absolutely. I wanted to give him back to Nami
01:32:13 --> 01:32:18 was a huge thing for me. The executive director,
01:32:18 --> 01:32:22 I had her on a couple of episodes ago. I definitely
01:32:22 --> 01:32:24 encourage people to check out her story. She
01:32:24 --> 01:32:27 suffered from agoraphobia and couldn't leave
01:32:27 --> 01:32:30 her house. And now she's the executive director
01:32:30 --> 01:32:33 of a nonprofit in the mental health world. So
01:32:33 --> 01:32:37 that quite the transformation. Yeah, after connecting
01:32:37 --> 01:32:39 with her, I talked to her and let her know what's
01:32:39 --> 01:32:42 going on with me. And it was especially in our
01:32:42 --> 01:32:47 area. It's a huge, huge thing. So that my grandfather
01:32:47 --> 01:32:50 passed away a few months ago, something that
01:32:50 --> 01:32:52 stuck with me and let me know I need to keep
01:32:52 --> 01:32:57 things close to home. was the coroner as a just
01:32:57 --> 01:33:00 a tidbit to that he thought would help us get
01:33:00 --> 01:33:03 through that time. He let us know like, well,
01:33:03 --> 01:33:06 he lived a good life. Did you know that the average
01:33:06 --> 01:33:09 age of heart attack in this area is it was like
01:33:09 --> 01:33:13 mid forties. I was like, holy smokes. I was like,
01:33:13 --> 01:33:17 that can't be all. Wow. You know, that can't
01:33:17 --> 01:33:20 just be all of what they're eating or what they're
01:33:20 --> 01:33:22 doing. Like part of that has to be mental health
01:33:22 --> 01:33:25 as well. mental health related because you know
01:33:25 --> 01:33:28 myself like I'm fairly healthy you know when
01:33:28 --> 01:33:31 they look at me and you know as far as a physical
01:33:31 --> 01:33:34 person there's not a whole lot wrong with me
01:33:34 --> 01:33:37 and yet I suffer from high blood pressure and
01:33:37 --> 01:33:39 they're what do they always tell you like keep
01:33:39 --> 01:33:45 your stress under check and so uh yeah it definitely
01:33:45 --> 01:33:49 I was like oh if this is if this is the average
01:33:49 --> 01:33:51 age of heart attack in my area like in two knowing
01:33:51 --> 01:33:55 like the mental health resources that were there
01:33:55 --> 01:33:59 when I first started. There's definitely a need
01:33:59 --> 01:34:02 for help in the Springfield, Missouri area for
01:34:02 --> 01:34:04 sure. Yeah, there is a need and you're feeling
01:34:04 --> 01:34:08 that need. Thank you again for your time, your
01:34:08 --> 01:34:13 words, your story and some of those tools and
01:34:13 --> 01:34:15 the ingredients that helped you and how you were
01:34:15 --> 01:34:19 able to share that with myself and everybody
01:34:19 --> 01:34:23 listening. we can all take from it what we think
01:34:23 --> 01:34:27 will be resourceful and valuable. And yeah, everybody,
01:34:27 --> 01:34:30 like we were saying earlier, if we allow ourselves
01:34:30 --> 01:34:33 that time to be with ourselves, to get in touch
01:34:33 --> 01:34:36 with ourselves, to be mindful, to be aware, to
01:34:36 --> 01:34:40 be conscious of what we're doing, and of course,
01:34:41 --> 01:34:44 to treat other people. the way that we would
01:34:44 --> 01:34:47 want to be treated. If you have any, any other
01:34:47 --> 01:34:48 words or anything else you'd like to leave off
01:34:48 --> 01:34:51 with before we wrap it up, feel free. I would
01:34:51 --> 01:34:54 just say, uh, the phrase that has helped me time
01:34:54 --> 01:34:57 and time again, especially with my meditation,
01:34:58 --> 01:35:00 I think it was Sam Harris said, like, begin again.
01:35:00 --> 01:35:03 That's, that's all that you have to do with meditation.
01:35:03 --> 01:35:06 When a thought comes in and you find that you
01:35:06 --> 01:35:08 have stopped concentrating on your breath or
01:35:08 --> 01:35:11 whatever was the focus of your attention, just
01:35:11 --> 01:35:16 begin again. But I have extended that to the
01:35:16 --> 01:35:18 things that I've had to overcome in my life.
01:35:19 --> 01:35:21 Just begin again. That's really all that you
01:35:21 --> 01:35:24 can do. So if you can remember that phrase, you
01:35:24 --> 01:35:27 can overcome any of the obstacles in your life.
01:35:27 --> 01:35:29 That's right. Every day is a new day for the
01:35:29 --> 01:35:31 wise man. As long as we still have breath in
01:35:31 --> 01:35:34 our lungs and we can create change, create new
01:35:34 --> 01:35:39 possibilities and actualize new potentials. Absolutely.
01:35:39 --> 01:35:43 All the best to you, your daughter, all the works
01:35:43 --> 01:35:47 that you have going on and the endeavors that
01:35:47 --> 01:35:51 you plan to pursue. I appreciate that. I hope
01:35:51 --> 01:35:54 you all enjoyed the conversation as much as I
01:35:54 --> 01:35:57 did. It was great to have Derek on the name of
01:35:57 --> 01:36:01 his podcast. Again, you heard a snippet of it.
01:36:01 --> 01:36:03 I added a trailer in between the conversation
01:36:03 --> 01:36:07 show my scars is the name of Derek's podcast
01:36:07 --> 01:36:09 and he's doing a real, real good deed over there.
01:36:09 --> 01:36:13 He talks about mental health. He talks about
01:36:13 --> 01:36:15 meditation, how it's helped him the benefits
01:36:15 --> 01:36:18 of it. But you can check out the link and see
01:36:18 --> 01:36:22 what he has going on over there. Derek once again,
01:36:22 --> 01:36:25 thank you. for taking time out of your day for
01:36:25 --> 01:36:28 being vulnerable for sharing some personal stuff
01:36:28 --> 01:36:31 about what you went through your losses some
01:36:31 --> 01:36:35 of your failures your feelings opening up being
01:36:35 --> 01:36:39 honest transparent to complete strangers but
01:36:39 --> 01:36:42 just so maybe there's somebody out there that
01:36:42 --> 01:36:44 can benefit from your story and to see that if
01:36:44 --> 01:36:47 you were able to do it so can I and to maybe
01:36:47 --> 01:36:51 look into and try out Meditation see what it
01:36:51 --> 01:36:54 does but I like the fact that you touched on
01:36:54 --> 01:36:57 just getting back to self getting grounded spending
01:36:57 --> 01:37:00 time with self getting away from distractions
01:37:00 --> 01:37:02 that's great because that's something that I'm
01:37:02 --> 01:37:06 really really embracing and working on myself
01:37:06 --> 01:37:09 and again I have to commend you and tip my hat
01:37:09 --> 01:37:12 off I've got to give you your respect everything
01:37:12 --> 01:37:16 that you work for Your dream job, everything
01:37:16 --> 01:37:18 that you put into it, you dropped it for the
01:37:18 --> 01:37:22 simple fact of you wanting to be closer to your
01:37:22 --> 01:37:24 daughter to help raise her, to help support her,
01:37:24 --> 01:37:28 to be there for her. And that right there shows
01:37:28 --> 01:37:31 the type of character and the type of man that
01:37:31 --> 01:37:34 you are. Salute, my friend. May you and your
01:37:34 --> 01:37:37 daughter continue to grow together, create that
01:37:37 --> 01:37:41 loving bond that is special, that is only what
01:37:41 --> 01:37:43 a father and daughter could enjoy. Though we
01:37:43 --> 01:37:46 were strangers before the conversation, but I'm
01:37:46 --> 01:37:48 happy that you're in a better place. I'm happy
01:37:48 --> 01:37:52 you've found a way to reduce your anxiety, to
01:37:52 --> 01:37:55 help with your depression and to get well for
01:37:55 --> 01:37:57 not just yourself, but for your daughter and
01:37:57 --> 01:38:01 then for others as you pay forward moving into
01:38:01 --> 01:38:04 this meditation and creating a space where people
01:38:04 --> 01:38:07 can meditate, where people can be guided and
01:38:07 --> 01:38:11 can enjoy the benefits that Meditation with being
01:38:11 --> 01:38:13 with self, with being away from distractions
01:38:13 --> 01:38:17 can provide to each one of us. So again, if anybody
01:38:17 --> 01:38:19 is interested in learning more about meditation
01:38:19 --> 01:38:22 or what Derek offers, even if you might even
01:38:22 --> 01:38:26 be in the area, check him out. I'm sure he'll
01:38:26 --> 01:38:30 be happy to hear from you. Derek, you are a giant
01:38:30 --> 01:38:34 amongst us. And also a big thank you to all of
01:38:34 --> 01:38:37 you listening. Wherever you're listening from,
01:38:37 --> 01:38:40 however you're listening to the show, appreciate
01:38:40 --> 01:38:44 you each and every time checking in with us and
01:38:44 --> 01:38:47 spending some of your day with us. If you wanna
01:38:47 --> 01:38:50 reach out, if you wanna let us know where you're
01:38:50 --> 01:38:52 listening from, how you're listening to the show,
01:38:53 --> 01:38:56 YouTube. Reddit you have the website you have
01:38:56 --> 01:39:00 the email address you can say hi How's it going
01:39:00 --> 01:39:03 small talk shoot a line send some warm words
01:39:03 --> 01:39:07 your thoughts Whatever it is. It's always great
01:39:07 --> 01:39:10 to hear back from you all I want to wish you
01:39:10 --> 01:39:13 a great rest of the week you guys be safe out
01:39:13 --> 01:39:18 there Smile to a stranger be the change that
01:39:18 --> 01:39:21 you wish to see Spend a little bit of time with
01:39:21 --> 01:39:24 yourself away from the chatter away from the
01:39:24 --> 01:39:29 white noise away from the buzz and just Be it's
01:39:29 --> 01:39:31 time to get back to who we are. It's time to
01:39:31 --> 01:39:36 get back to self Come back home because if we're
01:39:36 --> 01:39:38 not careful With the way things are going and
01:39:38 --> 01:39:42 how fast they're moving we can get lost in the
01:39:42 --> 01:39:46 shuffle But ultimately the choice is ours We're
01:39:46 --> 01:39:50 gonna catch up and do this again real soon Before
01:39:50 --> 01:39:55 I wrap it up, I've got to remind you if you would
01:39:55 --> 01:39:58 like to be a part of the show and share your
01:39:58 --> 01:40:01 story or even a story of someone in your life
01:40:01 --> 01:40:03 that has impacted you in a positive way, you
01:40:03 --> 01:40:07 can always reach out to us via email. We'd be
01:40:07 --> 01:40:12 happy to connect until next time and very soon.
01:40:12 --> 01:40:32 Peace. Looking for a sign to know I'm on the
01:40:32 --> 01:40:40 right road Ain't seen no sign since Jericho
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