Rising Strong: Mental Health & Resilience

Did you know that the feelings of boredom and restlessness that you might be experiencing in midlife are part of a scientifically recognized pattern? Many people experience a surprising dip in happiness during their forties and fifties, and it's completely normal. This phenomenon, known as the happiness curve, explains why midlife can sometimes feel unfulfilling despite life being good.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Understanding the Happiness Curve: Discover the science behind the U-shaped trajectory of happiness and why many experience a dip in midlife.Combatting Midlife Boredom: Learn practical strategies to reignite your passions, strengthen social connections, and set new goals.Boosting Midlife Happiness: Explore actionable steps to enhance your happiness and well-being, ensuring you rise strong through midlife challenges.Feeling bored and unfulfilled in midlife? You're not alone. Dive into this enlightening episode to uncover the secrets of the happiness curve and transform your midlife experience into a joy-filled journey. Don't miss out on the valuable insights and practical strategies discussed in this episode.Need extra help? book a Discovery Call with Lisa..............................................................You will also enjoy this related episodes: 5 Lessons in MidlifeRe-Aligning your Life for More Happiness

In this episode, we dive deep into a topic that's often left unspoken yet profoundly impacts midlife women—shame. Many women in midlife find themselves burdened by the weight of unfulfilled expectations, internalized guilt, and a relentless pursuit of perfection. But where does this shame originate, and how does it shape our lives? Join us as we explore how shame can quietly dictate our actions, self-worth, and relationships, often without us even realizing it. This conversation will open your eyes to the hidden struggles that many women face and how they can begin to break free.In this episode you will:Discover how childhood experiences and societal pressures lay the foundation for shame in midlife.Uncover the surprising ways shame manifests in everyday life, affecting everything from self-care to professional success.Learn about the connection between perfectionism and shame, and why chasing perfection can keep you stuck in a cycle of self-doubt.Tune in to hear more about how recognizing and addressing shame can lead to a more authentic and fulfilling life.Kyira Wackett's websiteFREE resource to Stress Less and Live More!Two other episodes that you will enjoy:Procrastination is holding you BACK!Clutter and Mental health in Midlife

In this special episode, host Lisa Boehm highlights the topic of achieving a balanced life without feeling overwhelmed. Midlife women often find themselves juggling numerous responsibilities—from career pressures and family obligations to caring for aging parents. This constant balancing act can lead to feelings of burnout and overwhelm. In this episode, Lisa explores why addressing these issues is crucial and how making small changes can significantly improve your overall well-being. Listen in as we discuss common challenges, share practical tips for setting boundaries, and hear inspiring success stories from women who have found their balance.What You'll Learn:Practical strategies for setting boundaries and managing your time effectively.Real-life success stories of women who have transformed their lives by overcoming burnout and finding balance.The importance of self-care and how to incorporate it into your daily routine.Links MentionedPrevious episode: Five Steps to Setting Limits and Boundaries in MidlifePrevious episode: Letting Go of PerfectionWork with LisaVisit the WebsiteBook a Discovery CallDon't miss out on this insightful episode that offers actionable advice and real-life examples to help you find balance and joy in your midlife journey. Tune in now!

In this quick tip episode of Rising Strong: Lisa Boehm explores the transformative power of gratitude and introduces a simple yet impactful practice to incorporate into your daily routine. Through her personal journey and the innovative 3-2-1 method, Lisa demonstrates how gratitude can shift your mindset, enhance your resilience, and boost your overall wellbeing.Why You Should Listen:Practical Tips: Get actionable advice that you can implement immediately to improve your mental health and emotional wellbeing.Inspiring Stories: Hear Lisa's personal experiences with gratitude, even in the face of grief, and find inspiration to apply these lessons to your own life.Free Guided Meditation: Access Lisa's free guided breath awareness and visualization meditation to further support your journey toward mindfulness and inner peace.For more ways to cultivate mindfulness and relaxation, download Lisa's free guided breath awareness and visualization meditation. Visit www.risingstrongpodcast.com/free to get your free copy today.Other episodes you will enjoy:How Comparison is Killing Your ConfidenceMental Health & Clutter

In this episode of Rising Strong: Midlife Burnout & Resilience, we welcome Robin Kulesza, a divorce and resilience expert who helps midlife women overcome disconnection, disruption, and discontent. Robin shares her inspiring journey from a fulfilling military career as a pilot to becoming a counselor, focusing on resilience and authentic living. Together, we explore how midlife women can face their fears, embrace change, and find happiness in the next phase of their lives.Key Takeaways:Embracing Change - Discover how Robin transitioned from a military career to counseling and what lessons she brought with her.Building Resilience - Learn practical strategies for overcoming fear, dealing with stress, and fostering resilience in everyday life.Finding Your Path - Understand the importance of self-compassion, mindfulness, and asking the right questions to navigate midlife transitions successfully.Feeling overwhelmed and stressed? Ready to make small, impactful changes to transform your life? Sign up for exclusive 1:1 resilience coaching with Lisa using her unique 1% Shift Strategy. Hurry, only limited spots available! Book your session HERE.Tune in and start your journey to a more resilient and fulfilling midlife!Find Robin HEREOther Episodes that you will LOVE:Are You Having a Midlife Crisis?Setting Limits and Boundaries in Midlife

Have you ever wondered how our mornings impact the entire day? What if I told you that a few small tweaks in your morning routine could reduce stress, increase focus, and help you feel less overwhelmed? It's amazing how a few simple actions can change your day.In This Episode, You will:Discover how starting your day with mindfulness can set a positive tone, reduce stress, and help you feel more centered.Learn how to plan your day effectively to increase focus and reduce overwhelm, ensuring you tackle the most important tasks first.Understand how incorporating even a small amount of physical activity into your morning routine can boost your energy and mood, making you more productive throughout the day.By starting your day with intention and calm, you can prevent the rush and chaos that often leads to stress. A well-structured morning routine helps you prioritize and set clear goals, allowing you to tackle the day's tasks with a clear mind. By taking control of your morning, you can feel more in control of your entire day, reducing feelings of overwhelm.Bonus: Don't miss our new free PDF download, "Eight Simple Strategies to Manage Midlife Stress," available HERE. Implement easy stress-busting tips in minutes to feel better faster and create more time for what matters most.

Feeling like you're just going through the motions in midlife? The latest episode of Rising Strong dives deep into the phenomenon of the midlife rut and offers practical advice to reintroduce excitement into your life. Host Lisa Bame shares her personal struggles and actionable tips such as revisiting old passions, trying new activities, and making small intentional changes. Learn the importance of self-care, local exploration, and social connections to rejuvenate your midlife experience. Don't miss out on advice that can turn your 'meh' days into moments of joy and fulfillment.

Caring for aging parents while juggling your own life, family, and work responsibilities can be a daunting task, especially for midlife moms. This episode of Rising Strong highlights practical strategies and heartfelt advice to help you manage this challenging phase with resilience and balance. Join host Lisa Boehm as she shares her insights and tips to navigate the complexities of this critical time without feeling overwhelmed.Why You Should Listen:Learn how to set up open and honest conversations with your family to ensure everyone is on the same page and no one feels overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities.Discover the importance of recognizing your limits and effectively communicating them to prevent burnout and maintain your own well-being.Find out how to utilize support from extended family, friends, or professional services to lighten your load and provide emotional support.For more strategies to manage midlife stress, download my free PDF, Eight Simple Strategies to Manage Midlife Stress.Here are 2 more episodes I know you'll love:Boost your Mood with the Right FoodMental Health Red Flags

In this eye-opening episode, we dive into the topic of midlife procrastination. Our guest Larisa Makuch, procrastination expert and coach, shares her experience and expertise with this topic that seems to become more challenging in midlife. Discover how procrastination can silently erode dreams and learn strategies to overcome this common midlife challenge.In This Episode You Will:Uncover why midlife procrastination is prevalent, especially among women, and how societal and personal expectations contribute to it.Learn about the emotional impact of procrastination, including guilt and shame, and how to navigate these feelings constructively.Gain practical tips for rekindling motivation and maintaining enthusiasm, even for the tasks you least enjoy.Tune in to explore how to reclaim your time, align with your core values, and stop procrastinating on the life you truly desire.Find Larisa here: stopprocrastinatingbook.com FREE Stress-Less Resource shared in this episodeOther episodes you will enjoy:Is Comparison Killing your Confidence?I Lost my Passport: the Power of Perspective

Welcome to a quick tip episode of Rising Strong, where we empower midlife moms to thrive with resilience. I'm Lisa, and today we're diving into three unique strategies to stay motivated to exercise even when you're feeling tired and overwhelmed. In this episode, we'll explore practical and enjoyable ways to keep up with your fitness goals despite the challenges of a busy life. Tune in to learn how to make exercise a consistent and fun part of your routine.In this episode you will: Discover the power of setting small, achievable milestones to make your exercise routine more manageable and consistent.Learn how to keep your workouts interesting and enjoyable by trying new activities and varying your exercises.Understand the importance of having a workout partner to keep you motivated and accountable.Grab Lisa's new free PDF download to help you reduce stress: 8 Simple Strategies to Manage Midlife StressOther Rising Strong episodes that you will love:A Powerful Question to Ask Yourself3 Ways to Cope with anxiety & Overwhelm

In this episode of the Rising Strong podcast, we delve into the complexities of the midlife crisis—a concept often misunderstood yet impactful for many. Join us as we explore whether midlife crises are myths or realities, and uncover the emotional layers that accompany this phase.What You'll Learn:The origins of the term "midlife crisis" and its psychological implications.Signs to recognize if you're experiencing a midlife crisis.Personal reflections and realizations that come with midlife transitions.Strategies to prevent or navigate through a midlife crisis.How to shift perspective and view midlife as an opportunity for growth and transformation.FREE Stress-Less, Live More download

In this episode of the Rising Strong podcast, learn how to combat the habit of doom scrolling and set healthier boundaries with technology. Host Lisa Boehm addresses the issue of tech-induced stress and offers three actionable strategies to reclaim your time and reduce stress. Discover how to create tech-free zones, establish specific tech times, and practice mindful technology use. These 1% shift strategies can make a big difference in managing tech habits effectively, improving your focus, and fostering more meaningful connections with loved ones.

Is your home cluttered? Does it feel like your possessions are starting to possess you? In this episode, we dive into the intriguing link between clutter and mental health. Discover how the spaces we inhabit can impact our peace of mind and overall well-being. Join Lisa and clutter expert jessica Dunn as they uncover practical strategies to clear out the chaos and create a more serene environment, both physically and mentally.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How accumulated items can contribute to anxiety, stress, and a sense of overwhelm, especially in midlife.Simple, actionable steps to start minimizing clutter without feeling overwhelmed or guilty.Insights on why we hold onto items and how to honour sentimental belongings without letting them take over our space.Tune in and learn how to reclaim your space and your peace of mind. Let's declutter our way to a healthier, happier life!..............................................................At Home With Jess www.athomewithjess.ca..............................................................LINKS mentioned in this episode:8 simple Strategies to Manage Midlife Stress................................................................Other episodes like this one:Ditching Perfectionism5 Signs of Burnout You Need to Know

Do you ever feel like you're not enough or that you don't fit in, despite your accomplishments? In this episode of "Rising Strong," host Lisa Boehm explores the impact of societal expectations and social media on confidence, especially for midlife professional women. Discover practical steps to build your confidence, including Lisa's 1% Shift Strategy, and learn how to navigate the damaging effects of comparison.What You'll Learn:The harmful effects of comparison on social media and how to overcome them.Practical tips for practicing self-compassion and finding your supportive tribe.How to apply the 1% Shift Strategy to shift your focus from external validation to internal strength..........................................................................LINKS mentioned in this episode:Stress Less, LIVE MORE free download..........................................................................Other episodes you might be interested in:Feeling MisalignedHow to Evict the Bully in your Brain

Imagine planning a perfect winter escape to sunny Phoenix, only to be faced with a situation that could have turned your dream holiday into a nightmare. Picture yourself at the airport, frantically searching for a missing passport while anxiety bubbles up inside you. How do you stay calm? How do you keep things in perspective? In this episode, we dive deep into a real-life story of chaos, resilience, and the power of perspective. Learn how facing challenges with a calm and positive perspective can make harship so much easier to andle.What You'll Learn:Discover how maintaining a clear and calm mindset can help you navigate stressful situations effectively, even when everything seems to be falling apart.Learn practical strategies for building resilience and turning unexpected challenges into opportunities for personal growth.Understand how shifting your perspective can transform seemingly insurmountable problems into manageable tasks, making your journey not only bearable but also memorable...........................................................LINKS mentioned in this episode:Work with LisaRising Strong website...........................................................Two other episodes you might enjoy:Find Clarity, Calm & Inner PeaceMastering your Mindset

In this episode of the Rising Strong podcast, Lisa focuses on the importance of core values in achieving life alignment and satisfaction. She shares her personal journey of discovering her core values and introduces the 1% shift strategy—making small, manageable changes that lead to sustainable improvements. Lisa provides actionable tips, such as reflecting on moments of joy and pride to identify core values and making minor adjustments in daily routines to better align with these principles. By the end of the episode, listeners are encouraged to take a small action step to start living a more aligned and fulfilled life......................................................................FREE download to help you Manage Midlife Stress......................................................................Other episodes you might be interested in:5 Signs of Burnout you Need to KnowHow to Evict the Bully in your Brain

Navigating a career change in midlife can be a daunting experience, filled with uncertainty and fear of the unknown. This episode of Rising Strong: Mental Health & Resilience focuses on the emotional and psychological challenges of making such a significant transition, offering valuable insights and practical advice to help you overcome these obstacles and thrive in your new career path or in retirement.What You'll Learn:The most prevalent fears that arise during midlife career changes and gain strategies to effectively manage and overcome them.Actionable steps and expert tips to ensure a seamless shift into your new career or retirement, from skill-building to networking.Inspiring stories of individuals who successfully navigated their midlife career changes and receive guidance from career change experts on how to make your transition a success.Tune in to this episode to equip yourself with the knowledge and confidence to embrace your career change and embark on a rewarding new chapter in your professional life.......................................................................Find Dr. Breese Annable HERE.......................................................................Rising Strong LINKS mentioned in the show:Free downloadable guided meditationRising Strong Website..........................................................................Here are two other episodes you might enjoy:5 Lessons in MidlifeDitching Perfectionism

Brain fog is a common issue among midlife women, often linked to hormonal changes, poor sleep, and dietary deficiencies. In this episode, Lisa explores how changing certain lifestyle habits and improving our diets can significantly enhance cognitive function. She offers practical strategies to help listeners navigate this challenging phase with greater mental clarity and overall well-being.What You Will Learn:The impact of hormonal changes and nutrient deficiencies on brain function.Key dietary adjustments to support mental clarity.Lifestyle habits that can reduce brain fog and improve cognitive performance............................................................Listen to this previous episode on sleepListen to this previous episode on wine & midlifeUse my favourite Zen Blend Smoothie recipe to help you get all the nutrients I talk about in this episodeMy new website!

In this episode, we dive into the essential practice of setting limits, especially for those of us navigating midlife. We'll explore why setting boundaries is crucial for maintaining mental and physical health, boosting productivity, and enhancing personal relationships. You will gain valuable insights into the importance of setting limits and how it can transform your daily life. By understanding and implementing these strategies, you will reduce stress, improve your well-being, and foster healthier relationships with those around you. This episode offers practical advice and relatable examples that resonate with anyone feeling overwhelmed by the demands of midlife.Key Takeaways:Discover a simple strategy to uncover and prioritize what truly matters to you.Learn the surprising benefits of a small but powerful word that can transform your daily life.Find out how one tool can help you maintain boundaries and reclaim your time.........................................................................Links mentioned in this episode:Previous episode 5 lessons in MidlifeVega protein products.........................................................................Two other episodes you might enjoy:3 Ways to Cope with Anxiety5 Signs of Burnout You Need to Know

In this episode of the Rising Strong podcast, Lisa addresses the common issue of brain fog experienced by midlife moms. She discusses how hormonal changes, poor sleep, and dietary deficiencies can impact cognitive function and shares practical strategies to enhance brain health and improve clarity, ensuring listeners can navigate midlife with a sharper mind and better overall well-being.What You Will Learn:Natural and easy strategies to improve sleep quality.How hormonal changes and lifestyle factors impact cognitive function in midlife.Nutritional tips to support brain health and reduce brain fog.................................................LINKS:Check out S2, Ep 7 for more info on wine & alcohol in midlife.Try my free downloadable meditation to help you sleep.Check out the new Rising Strong website!

In this deeply insightful episode of the Rising Strong Podcast, Lisa is joined by Tara Duckworth , a registered therapeutic counselor, to explore the profound topic of grief surrounding empty nesting. Tara's unique perspective, shaped by her personal experiences and professional expertise, sheds light on why it is common for parents to feel a sense of loss when their children leave home. This episode delves into the complexities of ambiguous grief and how acknowledging these feelings can pave the way for healing and growth.The Importance of Understanding Empty Nest GriefAs children grow up and leave the nest, parents often find themselves grappling with an unexpected wave of sadness and loss. This grief is not just about the physical absence of their children but also about the end of an era filled with daily routines, shared moments, and parental responsibilities. The transition to an empty nest signifies a significant life change, where parents must redefine their roles and find new sources of fulfillment. Understanding and accepting this grief is crucial as it allows parents to process their emotions and embrace this new chapter with grace and resilience.Three Key Learning Points:Ambiguous Grief in Parenthood: Discover how grief isn't only tied to the loss of loved ones but also to significant life transitions. Learn why feeling a sense of loss when your child leaves home is natural and how acknowledging these emotions can aid in the healing process.Balancing Joy and Sorrow: Explore strategies for holding both joy and sorrow simultaneously as you watch your child grow into an independent adult. Understand how to manage the conflicting emotions of pride and sadness that come with empty nesting.Creating New Roles and Routines: Gain insights into how parents can redefine their roles and find new sources of fulfillment once their children move out. Learn practical tips for maintaining strong relationships with adult children and fostering personal growth during this transitional period.Tune in to this episode for an enriching discussion that will leave you feeling understood and empowered in your journey through the empty nest phase. Don't miss out on Tara's invaluable advice and heartfelt stories that resonate with parents navigating this bittersweet transition................................................................................Resources: related to this episode:Calming JournalsLisa's websiteTara's website

In this quick tip episode of the Rising Strong podcast, Lisa delves into the often overlooked connection between menopause and wine consumption. She candidly shares her own experiences with wine and menopausal symptoms, highlighting how alcohol can exacerbate common issues like hot flashes, disrupted sleep, and bladder irritation. Lisa encourages listeners to approach their wine consumption mindfully, suggesting alternative treats and reframing their relationship with alcohol to prioritize well-being. In this episode, you'll learn:The surprising ways in which wine consumption can worsen menopausal symptoms.Practical strategies for enjoying treats without sacrificing well-being.The importance of reframing your relationship with alcohol to support overall health and resilience.Tune in for practical insights and a fresh perspective on navigating midlife with resilience and balance....................................................................................Check out the Rising Strong website for blogs, free resources, and more.Try the Zen Blend Smoothie instead of an alcoholic treat!

In today's episode, lisa discusses a topic that resonates with so many of us: burnout. Burnout isn't just limited to the workplace anymore—it can permeate every aspect of our lives, leaving us feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and disconnected. Join us as we explore the five signs of burnout and discuss actionable steps you can take to reclaim your well-being.What You'll Learn:The evolution of burnout: Learn how burnout has transitioned from a workplace phenomenon to a pervasive issue affecting individuals in all areas of life.The five signs of burnout: Discover the subtle yet powerful indicators that you may be experiencing burnout, from bone-deep exhaustion to a lack of motivation and brain fog.Practical strategies for prevention and recovery: Explore three actionable steps you can take to combat burnout, including defining your core values, prioritizing self-care, and setting boundaries.Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tools for recognizing, addressing, and preventing burnout in your own life. Remember, healing from burnout is a journey, but with awareness and intention, you can reclaim your vitality and resilience. Stay well, be resilient, and join us next time on the Rising Strong podcast..............................................................................More ME time pdf downloadFollow the podcast on Instagram

In this Quick Tip episode, Lisa delves into the pitfalls of perfectionism and how it can negatively impact our lives. Through a relatable personal anecdote, she highlights the dangers of striving for perfection and the importance of embracing imperfection as a path to greater happiness and fulfillment.Key Takeaways:The Pressure of Perfectionism: Lisa discusses how the pursuit of perfection can create overwhelming pressure and set unrealistic expectations for ourselves.Learning from Mistakes: By sharing a personal story, Lisa illustrates how her own perfectionism nearly ruined a special evening. She emphasizes the value of accepting mistakes and failures as opportunities for growth and learning.Embracing Imperfection: The episode encourages listeners to adopt a mindset of embracing imperfection, recognizing that it's okay to make mistakes and that true joy comes from letting go of the need for perfection........................................................................www.risingstrongpodcast.cominstagram: @risingstrongpodcast.......................................................................Do YOU have an idea for an episode of Rising Strong? Send Lisa a DM on Instagram!

In this episode, Lisa delves into the topic of reclaiming confidence, strength, and sanity in midlife with Jodi Barrett, CEO of KB Stronger. Together, they explore the challenges faced by midlife mothers, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing self-care without guilt. Learn about Jodi's personal journey of transformation, the significance of mindset and resilience, and the powerful impact of holistic wellness to the midlife journey.Key Takeaways:Understand the struggle of balancing roles as a midlife mom and the importance of prioritizing self-care.Discover practical habits and rituals, such as gratitude practices and positive internal dialogue, that contribute to mental resilience and well-being.Explore the concept of a growth mindset and the value of embracing failures as learning opportunities for personal growth.Find inspiration to prioritize self-care, cultivate resilience, and embrace the journey of aging with gratitude and joy................................................................................Free breath awareness & visualization meditation by Lisa...............................................................................Find Jodi HERE

Are you a midlife mama looking to boost your energy levels and enhance your mental clarity? Look no further than the Zenblend Smoothie. This podcast episode from Rising Strong introduces a powerful recipe that combines nutrient-rich ingredients to fuel your mind and body. By incorporating smoothies into your daily routine, you can prioritize your health and well-being while juggling the demands of midlife. From enhancing digestive health to supporting muscle strength, this smoothie offers a range of benefits to uplift your overall well-being. Take on the challenge to incorporate this healthy blend into your morning routine and experience the positive effects on your energy levels and mental clarity.

In this episode of the Rising Strong podcast, Lisa dives into the heart of midlife struggles and shares five invaluable lessons she's learned along the way. Here's what you'll discover:You Matter Too: Lisa reflects on her journey of realizing her importance amidst the chaos of marriage, motherhood, and societal expectations. Discover the power of prioritizing self-care and filling your own bucket.Move It or Lose It: Explore how shifting your perspective on exercise from a chore to a gift can transform your physical and mental well-being. Lisa shares her personal experience of using movement as a tool for healing and resilience.Embrace Mindfulness: Learn the art of being present and its profound impact on navigating midlife challenges. Lisa discusses the power of letting go of the past, releasing anxieties about the future, and finding empowerment in the present moment.The Power of No: Gain insights into the liberating practice of setting boundaries and saying no. Discover how reclaiming your time and prioritizing your needs can lead to greater fulfillment and balance in midlife.Challenge Societal Norms: Join Lisa in challenging ageist stereotypes and societal expectations placed on midlife women. Explore the possibilities of rewriting your narrative and embracing the richness of life at any age.Listen in as Lisa empowers midlife women to reclaim their worth, and rewrite their stories. Don't miss out on this empowering episode!..................................................................................FREE download: Create More ME TimeWebsite: www.risingstrongpodcast.com

In Season 2 of the Rising Strong Podcast, we're embarking on a journey through midlife, mental health, stress, and all the changes that women experience in this season of life. Host Lisa Boehm is back from a short hiatus and share how Season 2 will be more focused on midlife matters. She will be crafting episodes that deeply resonate with midlife mom's needs, blending her expertise as both a health and wellness coach and a grief mentor. Throughout this season, she'll delve into the many challenges of midlife—aging parents, hormonal shifts, weight fluctuations, menopause, empty nesting—and explore their profound impact on mental well-being. Expect captivating conversations with experts spanning parenting, wellness, finance, and grief and loss, all aimed at empowering you on your journey through midlife and beyond. Follow us on your favorite streaming platform to stay connected and never miss an episode. Join us as we embrace vulnerability and rise strong through midlife and grief together.www.risingstrongpodcast.comFollow us on Instagram too!

It's a new season with a new focus, so what better way to tell you about it than with a new trailer! You'll find out what our new focus is , our continued dedication to mental health and resilience, and what you can expect in the coming season.

Join host Lisa Boehm in a heartfelt conversation with Tiffany Agnew as she shares her journey of loss, love, and resilience in the face of unimaginable pain. Tiffany bravely opens up about her son, Braedon, his illness, and how her life changed forever. In this episode, you'll discover: Tiffany's incredible resilience in the face of adversity. The power of journaling and embracing memories as a tool for healing. Perspective and mindset play crucial roles in shaping our experiences and responses to life's challenges, allowing us to choose hope and light even in the darkest of times. Experience Tiffany's inspiring story and gain valuable insights into finding hope and healing in the midst of life's greatest challenges. .................................................................. Find Tiffany: @tiffanyagnewinspires www.tiffanyagnewinspires.com ........................................................................ Rising Strong Podcast links mentioned in this episode: Hope & Healing Community for bereaved moms

In this episode, host Lisa Boehm delves into a powerful conversation with Sundance Robson, a sound creation artist, transformational coach, and indigenous relations representative, exploring his journey of self-discovery and healing from intergenerational trauma. Sundance shares his insights into the impact of residential schools on Indigenous communities and how he found resilience through reclaiming his authenticity. What Listeners Will Learn: The devastating effects of the Sixties Scoop on Indigenous families, revealing how Indigenous children fwere removed rom their homes and stripped them of their cultural identities. The concept of intergenerational trauma and its profound impact on Sundance's life, illustrating how trauma passed down through generations influenced his behavior and coping mechanisms. The transformative power of community and authenticity in healing, as Sundance discusses how connection and creative expression helped him navigate his journey of recovery and reclaim his voice. Key Takeaways: Gain insight into the systemic injustices faced by Indigenous communities through Sundance's personal experiences and historical context. Understand the complex dynamics of trauma and resilience, exploring how personal and collective healing intersect in Sundance's journey. Discover the importance of authenticity and creative expression in the healing process, and learn practical strategies for cultivating resilience in the face of adversity. .................................................................................... Connect with Sundance: https://www.sacredcompassjourney.ca/sundance .................................................................................... Rising Strong Podcast links: Mental Health PDF Download Promptly Calming Journals ................................................................................... Stay well and be resilient XO

Money and mental health are intertwined in complex ways that are often misunderstood. While financial stability can reduce stress and anxiety, the pursuit of wealth and material possessions can actually lead to lower levels of happiness and well-being. It's important to evaluate spending habits, prioritize experiences over possessions, and educate oneself about personal finance to maintain a healthy relationship with money. Practicing gratitude, limiting exposure to social media, and focusing on meaningful experiences can shift mindset and improve mental well-being. By understanding the link between money and mental health, individuals can make conscious choices to enhance their overall quality of life. In this episode you will: Discover what the 'hedonistic treadmill' is and how it affects our happiness. Explore the strong link between financial stability and mental health. Learn how comparison and materialism affect our mental health. ...................................................... LINKS: FREE Mental Health Checklist: bit.ly/risingstrongchecklist Resilient Reflections Newsletter: bit.ly/resilientlist

This podcast episode delves into the hidden connection between stress and mental health. Darren Lang, a motivational speaker and author, shares his personal journey of stress and mental health issues and how he took proactive steps to improve his well-being. He introduces the chill and choose principle, a simple yet powerful tool to manage stress and make conscious choices in stressful situations. By calming down and choosing how to respond, we can reclaim our peace of mind and improve our mental resilience. The episode also explores the concept of the downward spiral, where unchecked stress can lead to anxiety and depression. Lang emphasizes the importance of seeking help and understanding the impact of everyday stressors on our mental health. Additionally, he discusses the role of mindset and perspective in managing stress, and shares practical tips for developing daily rituals to maintain mental well-being. In this episode you will learn: Darren's "Chill & Choose Method" of dealing with stressful situations. The science behind the downward spiral of stress Effective ways to make that spiral move upward ............................................................... https://www.darrenlang.com ................................................................ Rising Strong Links: https://bit.ly/risingstrongchecklist https://bit.ly/calmingjournals Thanks for listening and supporting the podcast!

In a world where mental health is often overlooked until a crisis arises, these 10 questions provide a simple yet effective way to assess your current mental wellness. From evaluating your moods to analyzing your sleep habits and social support system, this guide helps you identify areas that may need attention. By focusing on energy balance and finding joy in everyday activities, you can take steps towards a healthier mindset and improved mental health. Key Takeaways: Energy Balance Equation: Lisa emphasizes the importance of energy balance over time management. The Four Aspects of Energy Balance: what they are are how we can fill each bucket so that we can lived in a more balanced way. Importance of FUN: Lisa encourages listeners to identify what brings them joy and how to balance our own energy equation. Remember to prioritize your mental health and well-being to live a balanced and fulfilling life. ...................................................................... LINKS mentioned in this episode: Calming Journals: bit.ly/calmingjournals FREE Mental Health checklist: bit.ly/risingstrongchecklist .......................................................................

Shailynn Taylor's journey with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a degenerative genetic disorder, is one of incredible resilience and hope. Diagnosed at 18 months old, she was told that her life expectancy was only twelve years. At the age of 22, she started experiencing rapid deterioration in her health and even planned her funeral. But just in time, a treatment for SMA was approved in the US, and Shailynn began advocating for access to this life-saving medication. Shailynn's mental health journey, which includes battling depression and anxiety, has been just as challenging as her physical health. She emphasizes the importance of counseling, learning coping mechanisms, and finding a balance to navigate both SMA and mental health complexities. Through her advocacy work, Shailynn shines a light on the need for change in various areas, such as accessible housing and air travel. Despite everything, Shailynn refuses to let SMA define her, instead focusing on living a life full of joy, positivity, and possibility. .......................................................................... You can find Shailynn on Instagram @shailynntaylor .......................................................................... Rising Strong Links: Instagram: @Risingstrong FREE ME TIME download mentioned in this episode: bit.ly/freemetime ............................................................................ TRANSCRIPT: Host/Lisa: Welcome back to another episode of rising strong mental health and resilience. I'm your host, Lisa Bain, and today I have an inspiring guest who shares her story of resilience in the face of a debilitating genetic disorder. She literally went from planning her funeral to planning her future. Now, let's get started. Host/Lisa: Today I'm speaking with Shailen Taylor, who's a disability advocate and motivational speaker. She has shaped her perspective to value connection and authenticity above all. Welcome to the show, Shailen. Shailynn: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you today. Host/Lisa: At age 18 months, you were diagnosed with SMA, a rare degenerative genetic disorder similar to ALS. Can you tell us more about this and how it shaped your future? Shailynn: For sure? So at about a year old, my parents started to notice that I was having a bit of trouble. When I would walk, my ankles would curve in a little bit. But other than that, I was happy and healthy and meeting most of my milestones. My mom went to lots of different doctors, and they all said that it was fine, I would grow out of the way I was walking, and it would be fine. But after many opinions, at 18 months old, my parents got the diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy, type two. They unknowingly were both carriers of the genetic disease. And by both being carriers, they had a one in four chance of having a child with SMA. And so my brother and I are 17 months apart. So before they had my diagnosis, my brother was born. And he was born with a heart defect that required open heart surgery and months and months in the ICU. And so he thankfully, is not affected by SMA, but also has his own medical battles. And so SMA is a genetic disease. It starts at birth, impacting the muscles, slowly deteriorating from the spine out. It leads to other complications with health, but ultimately takes away the ability to walk, to speak, breathe, eat, until it has deteriorated all the muscles in the body. So when I was diagnosed, they told my parents that my life expectancy was twelve years old, that there was no treatment, no cure, just to take me home and love me. But there was nothing that medicine could do to prolong my life in any way. And so I hit twelve and then hit 18. And it wasn't until I hit 22 that I finally started having health practitioners saying to me, your health is deteriorating at a rapid rate, and you need to be aware of what that looks like. Making end of life plans, I completely planned my funeral with my best friend at 20 years old, and then suddenly, there was a treatment approved in the US for my disease when there had never been something on the market. And so I began advocating for those treatments, and it would be a long fight of many years. But I eventually, in 2018, accessed treatment because of the help of my community, who fundraised hundreds of thousands of dollars in order for me to not only pay for four doses of treatment, but knowing that that would qualify me for a medical study in New York, for a clinical trial of a new treatment for my disease that was still at phase one study. Host/Lisa: And you are currently enrolled in that study and taking part in treatment? Correct. Shailynn: So I have completed that study since. After five years, I hit the end of the study. Unfortunately, about the last two years into treatment with that drug, I began seeing a decline in my strength and my energy again, and knew that likely the dose just wasn't high enough for adults as I was receiving the same dose as small children were getting. And it was an oral drug, and the drug that I had purchased was spinal injections of a drug called spinraza. It was the first drug ever to come out for SMA and has been around for almost 14 years now in the SMA community. But this is the first year that they're starting to study a new dose for adults and are really investing in the research and collecting the data of what this drug can do for adults and what possibly increasing the dose could do to benefit adults with SMA as well. Host/Lisa: So how old were you when you started these treatments at an adult, and how old are you? Shailynn: I started my first clinical trial was a two month study out of Alberta children's hospital, and it was an oral drug. They had never made it very far, but that was my first taste of wanting to see what research was like for my disease. And that was in 2016. I was 19 years old then. And so, yeah, I am now 28 years old and have been on treatment consistently since I was 23. And yeah, it's incredible to be 28 and as healthy as I am and able to still keep planning a future when for a long time in my life, that wasn't something I ever allowed myself to do. Right. Host/Lisa: So you've gone from planning your funeral to planning your future. That's a huge turnaround. Can you tell us how all of this has affected your mental health? Shailynn: Definitely. My mental health has been something I've battled with since I was in grade eight, is when I first started struggling with depression and anxiety. And it wasn't until I was 18 that I first was diagnosed with seasonal depression and anxiety. At the time and started my journey of mental health, medications and the battle of trying to be independent as a kid and wanting to push your limits and become your own person was definitely what first made me realize how different I was and how different my future would look. And that grief and jealousy for a long time was just too much, and I didn't have the tools to understand it or to cope with it. My mental health has been something that's come and gone repeatedly. I've recently been being looked at for bipolar, bipolar depression. And so just like medically, my mental health is complex, and then my life is complex on top of it. And so the combination has been much harder of a battle for me than living with SMA has been the battle with my mental health and trying. Host/Lisa: To. Shailynn: Find a balance and find the right medications, the right counseling, the right tools to be able to cope with my life and move forward in my life. Host/Lisa: So that just segues perfectly into my next question, which is, what does coping look like for you? What are your tools? What are your skills? What have you learned over the years? What works for you? Shailynn: So coping for me has definitely expanded a lot. For a long time, I coped by dissociating and learning to stay in my body and cope with the pain. I have a lot of chronic pain, so staying in my body, being able to cope with the pain I'm in, and there's the never ending medical battles. Learning to stop dissociate. Dissociating was huge for me. That was a lot of counseling. I have been going to a counselor for over 15 years now, and that's not like consistently every month, but through the hard times in my mental health journey, I lean back into counseling and being reminded of the tools that are there to cope. My medication, my sleep, being able to prioritize little things like that and realize that they also can have a big impact on my mental health, really has helped me feel a bit more in control of it. And just the more I learn about my mental health and the way I think and my patterns, the more I'm able to correct them and learn from them and be aware when I'm starting to fall back into patterns and be able to implement the different tools that are available at the time. Host/Lisa: Would you say that your counselor has helped you discover different tools, or has that been something that's just been part of your life experience, just your own learning as you go along? Shailynn: My counselors have definitely helped me discover new tools, but I think what I find most helpful with counseling is having someone who can challenge my thoughts and make me aware of the unhealthy patterns in my thoughts. And I think that those reminders I still need sometimes to be able to get out of the loops I'll get into. But I've been to over 20 counselors and I think that each one kind of leaves something different with me. And I've been able to come to terms with different things with each one. And I don't think that a person has ever done counseling. In a way, I think there will forever be ways we can learn to cope and to show up differently in the world. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. And I think an important thing that you just brought up and I can definitely relate to, is we're in our own heads. Twenty four seven. And so even though when we say things out loud to our counselor and they call us out on our bs, right, but in our own heads, it's a dialogue that goes on all the time, so it becomes our normal. And I think you're absolutely right. Having somebody be able to call us out on that or just even question, maybe not call us out so blatantly, but even just take us down through some questions and have us examine our own thoughts by exploring different things so that we can realize the self chatter in our own heads that may not even be true. Shailynn: Right, exactly. Host/Lisa: So you do a lot of advocacy work, which I absolutely love. Can you tell us a bit more about what you're involved in? Shailynn: Yeah. So my advocacy work was not something that I went into planning to do. It evolved from me advocating for treatment and realizing that really I was the only person advocating that every adult with SMA's life mattered and could be made better by a treatment that was sitting on a shelf. And the more I got into that world, the more I saw just how many areas need light shone on them and need consistent pressure and awareness in order for change to happen. So I work with advocacy for accessible housing, for accessible air travel, and then I work with newly diagnosed SMA families and helping them through their journey. I've worked with the Canadian Organization for Rare diseases, doing a lot of political advocacy with them and being right in Ottawa meeting with the people making the decisions for rare. Yeah, it has. It's ebbed and flowed and it's something that I have to be very aware while I'm doing because I burn myself out very easily. And so I have to remember that there will always be time for advocacy, and I can only do so much. But it's definitely once you have something that you're so passionate about and so passionate about changing, it just kind of becomes a part of your life, whether you want it or not. And just seeing the changes that have come from different projects I've advocated with is really like fuel to keep advocating, because changes do happen. When multiple voices and people come together, there's room for change. And believing that change is possible is key for me and my mental health to not just get down with the way things. Host/Lisa: Are. You feeling overwhelmed? Constantly juggling your responsibilities with little time for yourself? I'm excited to share a free resource with you. This eguide offers practical tips to reclaim your time and prioritize self care. Discover simple strategies to carve out moments for the things you love and recharge your batteries. Download your free copy now at bitly Freemeetime. That's bit ly freemetime. Now let's get back to the show, and you talk a lot about hope. What gives you hope? Shailynn: I think a lot of hope for me has come since treatment. But more than treatment giving me hope, it's seeing little kids and how incredible they're doing on treatment and being able to say, like, wow, if they're able to do that on treatment right from birth, this treatment can do something for me. And believing that I don't need to change anything about the way I am, but hoping that my quality of life can improve. Those little bits of hope are what I cling to. And then, just like family and friends who have always believed so much is possible for me and the community who has come alongside me over the yeah, it's everyone, it's the people who believe in me that give me hope. And then the hope I have for the future of SMA. And SMA not being something that is terminal one day, well, and by being. Host/Lisa: Part of clinical trials, you are creating that change. It may not happen today or tomorrow or next year, but you are a part of that journey of creating that change. Should be very proud of that. You have been quoted as saying that you will not let SMA define you. Can you speak a little bit more to that? Shailynn: Yeah. I think as a teenager I was really scared that my life would only be about SMA and trying to stay healthy. And it is a full time job. SMA is like a huge part of my life. And the research, the conferences, the advocacy, all of it is SMA. But I refuse to let my life just be SMA. I never wanted all my hours to be spent trying to stay alive, because then what was I staying alive for? And so I've always wanted all these experiences. But never really thought I could wait for them in the future. And so instead, it just brought me to live really fast and do all the things I'd ever dreamed while my body was healthy enough. And in doing all of those things, I was able to find myself and realize that I am so much more than SMA. But because of SMA, there's some very special work that I get to do and some amazing people in my life that I would not know if it weren't for the disease. And so I have finally, as an adult, now come to realize that SMA does not define me. It's a huge part of my life. It's a huge part of who I am. But I am my own person with my own goals and just my own experiences I want to have and vision for my life. Host/Lisa: It's interesting because I say the same words about my grief journey. Grief is embedded into every cell of my being. It will never be removed from me. I will carry it until the day I die. But I refuse to let it define me. Shailynn: Definitely, no. Host/Lisa: We are so much more than the challenges that we face. We can let them define us, definitely. We both know probably lots of people that allow that to happen. But when we make that decision not to let that happen, that's where the magic happens. Shailynn: I think it really is. And still being able to give space for that grief and for how it shaped you, but then still choosing to live and to make the most out of life, it's such a duality. But I think it's something that by the end of our lives, almost every human will have experienced both sides of life. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. I think the longer we're on this planet, the longer we're alive, the more adversity we face. Now, you may never experience another adversity such as sma. You might experience other, smaller adversities. I may experience nothing like losing my daughter ever again. Dear God, I hope not. But life is constantly throwing curveballs at us. It's unfortunately part of our learning process as human beings is what I've come to accept, I guess, on some level. But I think we do get stronger. I mean, I hated hearing that term, and I don't know how you feel about, you're so strong, right? You just kind of want to throat punch people sometimes. Nobody gave us a choice. Nobody gave you a choice or me a choice. But here we are. And it used to make me angry, but now I think, yeah, I am strong. And you, my dear, are definitely strong. And I think we get stronger by learning to carry our stuff longer and longer and longer. Right. And facing these other curveballs completely. Shailynn: Yes. And we learn to carry it with the memory of the people who are not with us. And that makes it less of a lonely battle. Always when you can just step back and remember that, yeah, there are people right next to you that other people may not see, but they're there. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Now, I've met you a handful of times and you're always chipper and happy and you're just like oozing with positivity. What's your secret? Shailynn: I think my secret is that I know depression, I know sadness, I know grief, and I don't want other people to be feeling those ways. And so I choose to show up joyfully. I choose to be positive and find the positives. But there is no magic trick. It's being around other people who are positive, who choose to show up with joy also, because it's a choice. It's completely a choice to show up angry, bitter, miserable, or to show up with a smile on your face. And I think it's the simplest choice we can make, is to spread kindness to the people we encounter in our day, because we all have no clue what anyone's going through that we pass. And yeah, it's taking space for myself. It's coming to a place where I've learned what I need, what breaks I need to take in order to show up that way. And for me, recently, this last year has been super hard with. I ended up getting c diffs for months and then I was declining on treatment and I had to move home. I was living in Calgary on my own and I had to move back in with my parents at 28. And there was just like a lot of grief that I was experiencing and frustration. And I chose to step away from social media for almost a year. And it wasn't because I didn't feel comfortable sharing the space I was in. It was because I didn't feel I had any positive in me to also bring to people. And I feel that it's important that we talk about the heavy and the grief and those things, but that we also are able to show up with joy while talking about those heavy things. And yeah, it was a long time for me to be able to come to terms with the quick shift my life took and building back what I was dreaming about before it kind of tumbled down. Host/Lisa: So do you think that we can fake it till we make it? Sometimes? Like, even if we're not feeling up to putting that smile on our face or being that person that brings joy. Do you think sometimes we just have to make ourselves do it to get to that point? Or do you think that's doing ourselves a disservice? Shailynn: I think that at some point, we do have to make those tiny changes, because you can stay in that heavy, but nobody is going to bring you out of the heavy except yourself. And so it really is something that you have to force a bit at first, and then it becomes natural. It becomes natural to want to make people smile and to say something kind to them and to make people feel seen. But if you're not feeling seen, the forcing will just drain you. Host/Lisa: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think that there's two sides to that coin. And I agree with everything you said. I mean, there are days that I didn't feel like putting the happy face on, but I did it, and then it got easier. But I also got myself into a heap of mental health trouble by putting that mask on too much and not being honest with myself, even about what was going on inside. So I think it is a little bit of a balancing act, definitely. And there's no easy step by step process on how to work with that. I think we've all got to figure out what works for us. But on that topic, do you have any physical or mental rituals that you do for your physical and mental well being? Shailynn: Yeah, when I'm at my healthiest, I'm going to the gym, I'm stretching. I'm leaving the house at least a few times a week. But it's a bit of a balance, as everything is for me, because I also can only do those rituals when my health has the capacity for them. So they've become things that I know are good for me and that I'm my happiest when I'm doing them. But I also have to be able to pause and know that I'll be able to get back to those rituals and those activities. But sometimes I need a break. So finding that balance is tricky for me. My one ritual that I started in high school, and I'm very privileged to be able to do this, but every winter I go somewhere hot for at least a week, because being in Saskatchewan, where it's freezing and so much snow, I'm pretty much trapped in my house so much. And I need to have that freedom back, to be able to drive my wheelchair down a sidewalk, to be able to go where I want on my own time, and also to have a break from the muscle pain that I get all winter from being so tense. And so that is my one ritual that I try my best to save for and stick to is to have that week of recharge in the season that I know is most challenging for me. And it really does help me to make it through the rest of the winter when I've had a bit of a break from feeling so isolated. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. I think there's something powerful, too, in having something to look forward to. Right. Even though things are really awful, like, it could be 400 below or so, it seems, you know, that that trip is coming so good for you for making that a priority. Shailynn: Yeah, it's been very good for me. And then just like I love to swim, I can move freely in the water. So just things like that in that week, I can really take care of myself and move my body. And, yeah, it's very healing. And something that I very much recommend when it's possible is just any kind of little break from everyday life to really recharge. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. I agree. I know that our listeners are going to want to go online and check you out and maybe book you as a speaker. So where's the best place for them to go and do that? Shailynn: The best place for them to reach me is on Instagram. I'll have the link to you for the episode. And, yeah, send me a message. I love being able to be out in the community. I work with everything from schools and kids to women's events, and it really does give me such a purpose to be able to go and spend time connecting with people in the community and being able to normalize disability a bit more. Host/Lisa: And thank you for being so raw and vulnerable. And you've made me comfortable asking you some really hard questions. And I feel like I have learned a little bit more about what SMA is all about and the challenges that people like yourself face. So thank you so much for being my guest today on rising strong. Shailynn: Thank you for giving me a space to share my story. I appreciate it very much so. Host/Lisa: And to the listeners, stay well and be resilient and remember that you were made for more. Catch you next time.

In this heartfelt episode of Rising Strong: Mental Health & Resilience, we delve into the transformative power of three simple daily habits that can elevate your mental health. Join Lisa as she shares candid personal experiences, including how running became a beacon of hope during her darkest hours. Discover the science behind endorphins, the art of 'closing mental tabs' for better sleep, and why social interactions are more crucial than ever in our post-pandemic world. This episode offers relatable insights, practical tips, and the gentle push you need to prioritize your well-being. It's a reminder that resilience is built upon the small actions we take every day. So, choose one habit and take that first step towards a stronger, healthier you. Tune in for an episode that's not just a conversation but a call to action for anyone looking to rise strong in the face of life's challenges. To share your thoughts or suggest topics, reach out to us at info@risingstrongpodcast.com, and don't forget to subscribe for more inspiring content that helps you stay well and be resilient. ---

In a world where constant busyness and digital distractions can lead to feelings of isolation, this episode explores the profound impact of human connection on mental health. Delving into research findings and personal experiences, it highlights the crucial role of meaningful relationships in fostering resilience and well-being. From the detrimental effects of social isolation to the transformative power of supportive communities, it offers insights on how prioritizing connections can lead to greater happiness and fulfillment. By providing practical tips and suggestions, the episode encourages listeners to cultivate stronger bonds with loved ones, friends, and peers for a healthier mind and heart. Follow us on Instagram: @risingstrongpodcast FREE download mentioned in this episode: How to Find More ME Time

Mindfulness is a practice that brings clarity, calmness, and inner peace by intentionally paying attention to the present moment without judgment. It helps reduce stress levels, improves emotional regulation, and enhances focus and concentration. Mindfulness also promotes active listening, empathy, and compassionate communication, leading to more fulfilling relationships. In this podcast episode, Lisa discuss the various aspects of mindfulness and guide listeners through a brief breathing exercise to experience its ease and effectiveness. By being fully engaged with the breath and the present moment, individuals can cultivate relaxation, reduce stress, and develop mindfulness in daily life. ........................................................................ LINKS: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast Email your ideas for episodes: info@risingstrongpodcast.com TRANSCRIPT: Does the idea of mindfulness just sound. Too woo woo to you? Have you ever tried to be more mindful or more in the moment? In today's shorty episode, we are going to learn a bit more about mindfulness. And then I'm going to guide you.Through a short exercise that will prove to you just how easy this process can be. Now, take a big breath, sit back, relax, and let's get started. Mindfulness is a practice that involves bringing one's attention to the present moment with openness, curiosity, and nonjudgment. It's about intentionally paying attention to our thoughts, our emotions, our bodily sensations, our surrounding environment, without getting caught up in past regrets or future worries. All the thinking mindfulness encourages a state of awareness and acceptance of what is happening right now, and this fosters a sense of clarity, calmness, and inner peace. Mindfulness is helpful for mental well being. Because it helps reduce stress. A mindful practice has been shown to reduce stress levels by helping people cultivate a greater sense of calm and relaxation, as well as improving their ability to cope with stressors in life. It also helps us with emotional regulation by increasing the awareness of our emotions and developing the capacity to observe them without reacting. This leads to greater emotional resilience and stability. Mindfulness is also helpful because it helps improve our focus and concentration. Regular mindfulness practices strengthen the ability to sustain attention and focus on tasks, which of course, leads to improved concentration, productivity, and cognitive performance. So really, all that's saying is we can get more done. We can be more efficient at getting the things done so we can get them done quicker and have more time for ourselves. And lastly, I just wanted to mention that mindfulness is helpful because it helps us with our relationships. Practicing mindfulness can lead to more fulfilling relationships by promoting active listening, empathy, and compassionate communication. Mindfulness helps individuals become more attuned to the needs and experiences of others, fostering deeper connection and intimacy. There are a few different aspects of.Mindfulness that typically include focusing on theBreath, being aware of our surroundings, being.Aware of our sensations, observations that are.Nonjudgmental, and just a deepening sense of relaxation. Now that we've learned a little bit.About mindfulness, I want to lead you.On an easy breathing exercise. However, this exercise does ask you to close your eyes. So if you are driving, please do not close your eyes. Please keep your eyes open and focused on your task at hand. This exercise is truly meant for when you are not engaged in any kind of activity like that. If you are in a place where you are able to close your eyes, please find a comfortable seated position. Rest your hands on your lap or your knees, then close your eyes if it feels comfortable for you, or soften your gaze and focus on a spot in front of you. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth, allowing yourself to release any tension or stress. With each exhale. Begin to shift your.Attention to the natural rhythm of your breath. Notice the sensation of the breath as it enters your nose and leaves your nose. Notice sensation of your chest as it rises and falls as it expands and contracts. Without trying to control your breath, simply observe it as it flows in and out, moment by moment. If your mind wanders or becomes distracted, gently guide it back. Go back to focusing on your breath with kindness and patience. Continue to breathe mindfully for a few moments, allowing yourself to relax more deeply with each. Inhale and exhale. Feel a sense of calm and presence wash over you as you remain fully engaged with the breath and the present moment. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and take a moment to notice how you feel. Carry this sense of mindfulness and relaxation with you as you continue with your day. This simple mindfulness breathing exercise can be practiced anytime, anywhere, providing that you are not operating machinery or driving, and serves as a powerful tool for promoting relaxation, reducing stress, and cultivating mindfulness in daily life. If you've enjoyed today's mindfulness exercise and would like more episodes like this, please review this episode on Apple or Spotify. It helps me create episodes that resonate with you most. Take care, my friends, stay well and be resilient and we'll catch you next time.

In this insightful podcast episode, Alannah Boyle sheds light on the impact of ADHD and addiction on mental health. Drawing from her personal experiences and healing journey, she discusses how childhood trauma and family dynamics can shape our mental well-being. She shares her own struggles with addiction and the pivotal role youth played in inspiring her to change. Alannah emphasizes the importance of understanding these underlying factors to heal and thrive. From her work with youth, Alana highlights the power of connection in creating safe spaces for young individuals facing mental health challenges. She also delves into her work with adult women with ADHD, empowering them to embrace their unique wiring and find strategies for managing their lives effectively. Through routine, self-acceptance, and self-compassion, Alana encourages individuals with ADHD to navigate life with resilience and find their own path to success. ............................................................................ Alannah's Links: https://www.alannahboyle.com/ Instagram: @alannahboyleyqr ............................................................................ Rising Strong Links: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com ........................................................................... Transcript: Lisa/Host: How do ADHD and addiction impact mental health? Alana Boyle is my guest today, and she will explain all of this and more. It's real and raw. She doesn't sugarcoat the hard stuff, but instead uses it as fuel to light the way towards the good stuff. I'm Lisa, and this is right, rising strong mental health and resilience, where I share powerful interviews to inspire you on your own path. Don't forget to follow or subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Now, let's get started. My guest today is Alana Boyle, who has taken her own experiences and healing and now works as a certified life coach. When you hear Alana's story, you'll understand why she's so passionate about helping youth overcome trauma and build trusting relationships. Welcome to the show, Alana. Alannah : Thanks, Lisa. Lisa/Host: I love the quote. We are shaped by where we come from, meaning our past influences are present. Tell us about your journey with mental health. Alannah : I love that quote, too, Lisa, because it is something that is very important. And when I do talks on mental health, that's what I usually say is it's understanding our past and where we came from, and that's the only way we're going to heal our mental health. And so mine started when I was a little girl and my dad was not in my life and my mom drank until I was eight or nine. So unknowingly, these things impacted me. So I'm 45 right now. And so in today's world, we have a little bit more understanding how these things would cause abandonment, attachment issues, things like that. And then not until I hit university did I really start to struggle. And again, not talking about anxiety or talking things about different things, but I started drinking at that time. And so that was my way to cope. That was how I thought I could fit in. That helped with my self confidence, with that, with that transition and change from my small town in northern Saskatchewan to a university in Regina, which I felt like I felt comfortable in. But, yeah, so then the drinking started, and then there was drug use, and those things continued on and ended up losing my house and being a really bad car accident and just the things that come along with addictions, really. And then it was youth, really, that helped me change that. I was working in a facility, and I was like, if I'm going to be a role model to these people, I need to stop doing these things. And there was a fairly big incident that happened, too, as well. And then after that, I did quit drinking. I quit using. And there's been relapses since that. But it was then in the next two years, there's this thing called post of acute withdrawal symptoms and pause for short, but not many people know about it, but in the addiction world, we do. And so then in that time, there was more depression, there was more anxiety, there was more like I always tell people, I just kept hitting these brick walls. Not that I'm better than this, but I knew that I had more purpose or more potential to do things. And so one day in December 2012, I slipped on a piece of ice going to work, and I was like, I'm done. I'm done. Went to my doctor, and my doctor wanted to give me meds right away, and I'm like, what do I need meds for? Again, mental health. Not really knowing too much about it at that point, even though I worked in the industry, I was like, I'm stressed. I just can't take anymore. So I went on a leave, and that just started that search. I was going to call it a spiral, but it was more of a searching a journey. And so I was off work. And for those two weeks, then I went back. And then I agreed to the meds because my body started unwinding and I started things where I was paying attention to more things. And I had those thoughts of, like, I'd be better off dead or who would come to my funeral. All of those aspects, right? And then see my doctor. We worked through things. I ended up on accommodation at work. She encouraged me to go back. I was really reluctant, and I'm grateful that she kind of did that nudge because it's always harder to do these things the longer you wait, right? I still wasn't who I thought I was. Looking back, I really liked, I didn't mind my childhood in that sense, but I knew who more I was at that time, and I wasn't that same person anymore. And so eventually my doctor referred me to a psychiatrist, and we continued on the journey with meds and a lot of resistance and stuff from insurance companies because they're like, well, if you're depressed, then you shouldn't be doing this. And I'm like, no, I actually want to get better. I'm doing the things to get better. Thank you. And then I was diagnosed with ADHD. And it just like, I'm like, I'm myself again. I'm not hitting the walls. I'm going over bumps or having to navigate things like you do in life. But it was no longer just like banging my head against the wall or just hitting these big brick walls. And so that was kind of. In a nutshell, it's kind of my journey of finding out what was actually going on in the root of a lot of whether it was the addiction piece or even behaviors or then the mental health pieces. Lisa/Host: That's a lot. There's a couple of things that I want to unpack. One, thinking back to my university days, when did you put two and two together to realize, okay, there's university partying, right? Especially when you're moving away from home and all that. But when did you separate that in your head and think, this has gone beyond university partying? When did you recognize that maybe there was a bit more of a problem? Alannah : I didn't. That's the honest answer. I didn't. So I didn't even when. So I got my first degree. So I tell people, like, I got my first degree as an alcoholic, as an addict, and I had undiagnosed ADHD. I would drink and party the night before midterm. Because here's the thing again, I had undiagnosed. I didn't study in high school. I didn't know how. I couldn't retain things. I wasn't able to read. Well, I was able to read, but retain that information and focus. So me studying didn't mean anything to me. So I was like, oh, you want to go drink? Let's go party? Let's go. And back then, checkers was Open in Regina. So that was always a big. It was. It wasn't. And I'm from a small town, so in small towns, we glamorize the ability to drink. That that's what we. You know, all of the things. And it wasn't until I ended up moving back to Regina again. I think it was the third time I'd lived in Regina in my life that I realized it was problematic. People were talking about it. I always say people were talking about it behind me, but I don't remember a time that somebody said to me, alana, your drinking is impacting us, or it's out of control or that sort of thing. So luckily, I was able to navigate it and get out of it. But, yeah, no, in university, I was just fun and inappropriate, really. But I was a young person. Lisa/Host: It sounds to me like the ADHD diagnosis was a big, pivotal moment for you. Can you explain how that tied everything together. Alannah : In a few words? Hey. Like I said, I always felt I had this potential. I was smart enough. But like I said, I didn't study. I didn't read books. I didn't read books until I was Medicaid for ADHD. I have two degrees without reading a textbook, and my grade twelve. So having that diagnosis again, like I said before, when I was a teenager, I liked my life. I did like my life. There was like bullying and different things, but I liked my life. And once I got that diagnosis, I felt more like myself. I felt more connected, I felt more even ambitious or things like that. And so the diagnosis just helped me connect the dots again. And so many people with ADHD, often, especially in their teen years, will say they don't feel like they fit in, they don't feel like there's something missing or whatever, right? And so because of the path I took, it just answered everything in terms of both addiction. People with addiction and ADHD have low dopamine, right? So just seeking, so seeking so much stimulation in terms of fun or spontaneity or actual impulsivity. But yeah, I still struggle with finances. It's still my biggest thing to understand and comprehend. But again, these things just. And then you internalize things. So that diagnosis, actually, one of the biggest things I found, besides emotional regulation, it's helped me with, is that self esteem piece that I can be confident again. I can have these financial struggles or other struggles and still be myself and be confident. And it allowed me to be those separate pieces instead of really having that inner critic or having that negative conversation with myself all this time and having all the shame and all that lays you down. And so the ADHD diagnosis, I tell my clients most of the time, is that it did a 360 for me. And so would I have liked to have had it when I was a teenager or child, probably. But at the same time, the path I took has been able to help me help other people and to understand things a little bit better. And it never was like, I have such good support systems, my family, I never had to be on the street or different things like that. So it never went into, it was deep enough and dark enough, but it didn't ever go into those places that it would have been harder to get out of. Right? Yeah. It totally changed how I navigate my life, how I'm showing up in my life, how I even present in terms of tact and stuff and being. I'm not as sarcastic and I'm not as, like, our words hurt, right? And there's definitely times that ADHD is one of those things that we struggle to hold back. And so, yeah, definitely my words have hurt other people at times. And that was one of the, it's helped me to put that pause in to be like, should I say this? Shouldn't I say this? Right. Like just so many aspects, because I'm really curious. Lisa/Host: Was it the diagnosis itself, knowing that this is something that I have, or was it perhaps medication or a prescription that helped with some of these aspects? Alannah : It's so interesting because to me it's been both. Like, it really has. The medication has helped me. I always like people to be coachable, right? So the medication has helped me be my own coach and be able to do those things because, again, I had, because 38, when I started medication, I had 38 years of telling myself I wasn't good enough or that I wasn't lovable or all of these negative things that kept showing up. So you have to unlearn all of those things. So the thing with ADHD, just this past couple of weeks, I've learned another thing that is affected by ADHD. And it's crazy because I'm like, well, that happened to me in high school, too. It's just crazy. And so to me, it really is a combination. When I'm working with people, that's their choice. Right? Like medication can help you. I also know the negative pieces of it, but the understanding, because it is so complex and it's actually very contradictory. I think it's just really important to find that acceptance that this is how my brain works and it's going to impact me in these ways. And to me, the acceptance piece is the biggest part. The medication definitely is a piece. It's just like having a coach. It's just something that helps get over a hill or whatever. But there is so much more to ADHD than just taking medication. And that is one of the things that I think is so important for people to know. Lisa/Host: That's really great information. I appreciate you sharing that. Let's circle back a little bit to the topic of mental health. That's a big umbrella. But in your opinion, how do you think addictions and ADHD affect mental health? Alannah : There's so many stigmas around both of them. In all of them, like mental health, addictions, ADHD, all of the things. And then I think that's where we, for whatever reason, as humans, we get stuck in those stereotypes or those stigmas or whatever about things, right? And so I think it's just really important. And I know that's why there's a big fear about people who have ADHD taking medications. They think they're going to be addicted, and it's actually the opposite. Right. You're less likely to have addiction issues if you're medicated and properly managing ADHD. So I think it's, um. I'm trying to remember your questions. Here's my ADHD popping. It's just they all impact each other. And if we're not. So Gabor mate is an amazing canadian doctor. I'm not even sure what his actual credentials are, but he's just amazing. And it comes back to not why the addiction, but why the pain, right? And so if we look at mental health, and if we look at addiction, ADHD, all of the things, if we look at all of these things that are impacting, then we can help create a healthier mental health. And lots of people don't understand if we're not managing or treating ADHD, we end up with a lot of physical health symptoms, right? So many people, especially women untreated, end up with things like fibromyalgia or like rheumatoid arthritis. There's so many things because of the stress that is caused by ADHD. And so, again, if we can find those ways to understand the mental health pieces. So, like, okay, so my dad wasn't in my life. How is that affecting me? And during my journey, I actually went to a psychologist. He's like, you're good. And I'm like, can I talk? When I was trying to quit drinking? And he's like, you're good. And I'm like, I'd actually like to talk about my dad is. I'm sure I've got issues. And he's like, no. He's like, if you relapse, you can come back. And I was like, what? Again, it's having the supports, it's having the people, it's having the recognition that, hey, this might have impacted me. Maybe it didn't impact somebody else, but it might have impacted me because that's how trauma works. It's so different. We're individual people and so we have to look at it that way, right? And so, for the most part, again, using my dad as an example, it didn't impact me because my mom parented it in a way that this was normal. So he wasn't in and out of my life. There wasn't even conversations about that. It wasn't until I got older and I was like, oh, I was technically supposed to have a dad kind of thing, right? And of course, it's likely impacted relationships, but it hasn't necessarily impacted who I am. And it doesn't make me depressed because I didn't have one. It doesn't make me lonesome because I didn't have one. Right. But it could be for somebody else. And it's just, again, hearing those stories and understanding that. So again, and I'm going on and on. But that's where I think it's really important when we go see a counselor, a therapist, a coach, or whomever, that we give that big picture. That's why we ask. That's why there is those initial intake kind of appointments, and we get all that information and so that we can understand what's kind of all going on or what's all transpiring, so that we can help have that person be whole and be there to support them and guide them through whatever they need to be guided through. Lisa/Host: Absolutely. Even, I mean, you are the expert in ADHD, and that's actually something that I don't know a lot about. So I'm really grateful that you're sharing this information, but what I'm hearing from you, and correlates to my way of thinking as well, is that we are like Shrek says, we are like an onion, right? We've got so many layers, and there are so many aspects to our well being, even just the mental, spiritual, physical, blah, blah, blah. But everything affects everything else. You're absolutely right. I think mental health affects our physical well being, our spiritual well being. And even when we start taking care of parts that maybe aren't directly in line with our mental health, it does help our mental health. Even with my background in grief, I have this picture in my head of like a pie, if you will, and that every aspect that we work on helps us in our grief journey. That's really interesting that you said it. I think very much the same, but in a different way. Alannah : And that's where I really like the medicine wheel. When you look at indigenous cultures, right? If we're not filling each aspect of those things, the wheel goes like. It doesn't flow. There's been. And so that's the thing. If we're depleted in those areas or we're not filling those areas where there's going to be some aspect of our human piece that isn't going to function properly, and it's hard to make. This is a very complex machine that we're trying to drive. Right? Lisa/Host: 100% agree. Tell us a little bit about the work that you do with youth. Alannah : Well, I actually really love the youth. They're fun little creatures. And so I currently have a contract with one of the first nation communities just near Regina, and I work with youth in their school I have worked with youth for probably since I've been out of university, and so they've always been my go to in the city here. I work more with adults, and that's just who I'm attracting into my space. So I am really fortunate that I do have this contract with them. And so we get to spend time, like, in a one to one kind of counseling session and work through whatever they're going through. And it's so important for me for youth to know that there's people out there that care about them, that will show up into their space, that build that relationship and build that rapport, that they can feel safe with other people. Because we all know as youth, there's so many things going on for them these days, right? And so that's my favorite aspect. And then creating, like, we just talked about whether it's a spiritual or emotional or physical need, right? And that was a lot of my work in the city here when I was working for an organization was like, okay, so you don't get to practice this skill. Let's go do that. Right? So whether we were going for lunch and they had to actually order their own lunch, we'll do it, because you know what? These life skills are things that you're never going to eat food because you can't order it. Some of us take going to a restaurant for granted, but this was a real thing, or, like, asking for a box to get or paying for something, all of these things. And so it was like, those opportunities are still my favorite pieces of being able to work with youth or showing up, like, if they're playing basketball, showing up and cheering them on or doing those things. So I have a kinesiology degree as well. And so that was the thing that I did as a rec coordinator for a community school. And so that was what we did. We did fun things and created those relationships. And so that's one of the things that I think I'm really good at, is really just creating that structure in that relationship and that rapport so that they know, like, hey, you can come to me. And I really just believe in showing up. So, yeah, maybe I'm your counselor, maybe I'm your coach or whatever, but I'm going to show up in the gym and play volleyball with you. Or, I had a kid a couple of weeks ago be like, hey, Alana, you want to play table tennis? He called it ping pong. But where I'm from, it's like, a kid has to be table tennis. And so we did that, and you know what? They don't even know. I felt so good that he asked me to do that, but they don't even know how therapeutic that is for them. And that's the best thing. But the fact that he could be like, hey, what are you doing? I'd like to beat you. Like, a little bit of competition, but just creating those relationships so that they know, because it is uncomfortable to talk to people about your feelings or in general, as kids, we feel like we're talking bad about our parents or whatever, but having those moments that we can do those things. Yeah, that's my favorite part with working with youth, is just, they help light me up as much as I'm helping them along in their journey. Lisa/Host: That's the beauty, I think, with connection. And as you were talking there, my brain was kind of cycling back to my conversation with Dr. Jody Carrington and her underlying message about just the power of connection between human, you know, in your situation, how to make a youth feel seen, heard, and validated. And I think that spreads into all areas of our lives. We all need that, no matter what our backgrounds, no matter what our trauma, no matter what anything. Even as adults, as somebody who's almost 55 years old, we need to still be seen, heard, and validated. So I think that is such a gift that you're offering these kids. Alannah : Well, and I find it healing. Right. It is so healing to have that connection and to create those opportunities. I think Covid was a wake up call in a lot of ways, but in the sense of now, people are slowly finding their way back to that connection. And I spoke with somebody this morning. They were talking about how difficult it was to find a counselor or whatever, but it was even more difficult to find somebody in person. Right? And so just that. And as much as I love keeping my energy safe, the in person stuff is so much better. Right? And so that's the thing. It's interesting, right? And being able to connect just on a deeper, different level. Lisa/Host: 100%. Now, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the work that you do with adult women. And I know you work with men somewhat, too, but women with ADHD tell us about. Alannah : Have a. I have a workshop that I created, and it's crazy how even just over the last few years, there's just been more research that come out. So it went from a six week program. I had a few people say, hey, alana, why don't you do it one day? And I'm like, because it's a lot of information. But, you know, what people showed up for it because that's what they, what they could give a day. Six weeks was hard, but I just revamped it just not too long ago. And because there's just so much more information on women. So I do individual work with women. And then, like I said, I have this workshop again, going back to what I talked about with myself, like finding that acceptance. These women, especially in that group setting, get to know that they're not alone like that. These struggles are struggles of other women. I just love hearing that they learn that they're not alone in this and just learning from each other. I'm there basically as a lead or almost like a consultant, like, here we go, like a know. And they get to know, oh, Sally said this and Jean said this. And now I get to, I can try know at home because as much as I know a ton about ADHD, I don't know how people's lives run, right? So for, like, I help myself by, I always have tech issues. So typically I either give myself a lot of time because I know I'm going to get frustrated. I need to find a way to regulate and be patient, or I get somebody else to do things for me. And so that's the thing. It's like knowing that it's okay to do these things because lots of women with ADHD have that perfectionism. So then it's ingrained that they have to do it. So working with these women, they get to learn that there's nothing wrong with them, that their brain is just wired differently. And we can still live and have productive lives and we can work through the challenges, whether it's emotional dysregulation or whether it's like our executive functioning or whatever it is, our relationships, all those things. And so that we can find that productivity that we love and find the dopamine and the stimulation all those things and decrease the burnout and the stress that ADHD tends to have. And so working with these women, it's always empowering, it always is interesting. But ADHD, not that it's always changing, but there's always more information coming out, especially more research being done on how it's impacting women. Right? Yeah. I love that they show up for themselves. I love that they are taking that time to learn, right? Taking that time, because I think that's the biggest thing. It's just learning about that and then it's genetic. And so you can get that mum factor in there and be like, well, if you learn about it for yourself, then you'll be able to pair. Right. And so it's great to work with these women. Lisa/Host: The burnout, I did not know that. But now that you've said that, it makes a lot of sense. And what I'm hearing from you is that not only are you sharing your experience, teaching, facilitating, but I would say that you are empowering these women to make life changes, to make maybe not even changes, but adaptations. Alannah : Right. Lisa/Host: Working with their ADHD, not against it. You're helping them grow. You're giving them the tools to adapt to a life with ADHD. So not changing their lives, but learning to live with the ADHD. I would say that you're also teaching them to be resilient. Alannah : Do you consider yourself resilient? Yeah, I don't know if it's an ADHD thing, but I'm definitely resilient. And so you know what? Again, like you said, there's so many pieces of ADHD that are just like the research I was telling you about earlier. It's actually talking about hypermobility. And there's another term, but there's so many pieces to it that we don't even know. And so we're just learning. And so it is helping them. And my thing is, this is why I like working with youth, is prevention is super important to me. So if we're looking at prevention, like, say, even of addictions, well, then if we know that addictions and ADHD are comorbid, so, meaning that they go hand in hand, then why are we not looking after our youth and assessing them or treating them or looking at these things, right? And so, same for women. If we can prevent them from having something like fibromyalgia or another car accident or falling down the stairs or whatever it may be, then why aren't we doing that? And so that really is a lot of the basis of my work and why I enjoy doing these groups, because I want them to have as much information as possible so that they can, again, like you said, they can create better lives for themselves by knowing that, hey, if I'm doing too much, then I might burn out and I need to cut back at work. There's so many different things. And people look at. There's so many people out there saying, like, ADHD is my superpower, okay? ADHD can be very. We can get a lot of things done because we have ADHD, but if we're utilizing it as a superpower, this is kind of my belief, or how I've been looking at it lately, is that we are leading ourselves to that burnout. So again, if we're like all out on all of our cylinders, we're not going to be able to sustain that. So I'm not going to be able to be, if I go to twelve events and I'm away from home and I'm doing whatever it is and I return home, I'm going to be flat out on the couch, right? I'm not going to be able to. So again, it's like finding those ways and those pieces that help us sustain and be good parents or wives or partners or humans or whatever it is, right? And navigating all of that and being okay with communication is very difficult for people with ADHD and expressing ourselves and all of that stuff. And so going like, hey, giving ourselves that break, like, okay, I didn't say that the way I needed to say that. And so you can kind of bring yourself back to going, oh, wait a minute, I need to say that differently, right? Because I just caught myself in how I was projected because I wasn't recognizing how I feel. And so it's a lot of work, but at the same time there's so much benefit. Lisa/Host: What would be your top two tools that you've learned over the years? Alannah : I think routine is one of them. I think whether it's a sleep routine or a morning routine or just an everyday routine, like whatever it is, having some sort of structure and routine and then again giving myself that grace and acceptance that, you know, what if I blow up, okay, well, I missed a queue and I can go back and I can learn. It's just again, creating room that I'm going to screw up, right? Instead of being that somebody's going to like I'm going to be in trouble again kind of thing, but creating room and being acceptant of that. There's so many takeaways over the years and some of it is just like, again, that education and knowing that, you know what, people with ADHD are more likely to get into a car accident. Okay, so I can be more aware that, you know what you need to be more. Or making sure I'm sleeping really well. There's so many little pieces because of my kind degree too. I know how our body works a little bit more. And so even just like, hey, what else does my body need? And I'm not 100% all the time and it's not always good, but I'm aware of it and I'm accepting of I'm still going to drink Pepsi every day even though I know that it's not good for me. Right? It's just finding those pieces. It's like, what am I? Wow, this is a long answer for this question. What am I willing to accept and what am I not? Right? Yeah. Lisa/Host: So really, what I took away from that, I love the routine. I think we can all benefit from routine and giving ourselves grace. And I'm just going to change what you said a little bit, I think. Give yourself grace as a human. Alannah : Yeah. Lisa/Host: We're all human. None of us are going to be perfect. None of our days are going to be perfect. We're going to say things. We're going to do things with regret. We're going to need to go back and apologize because we're human. So maybe we can take some of those labels away, too, and just say I'm. And that's okay. Alannah : And you know what? I like that you said that, because that's one of the biggest things for me, is like, yes, I have ADHD, but at the end of the day, I'm a la. I have an addiction, all of those things. I have this history, but at the end of the day, I'm a laugh. And so that is something that is super important to me. The ADHD is an understanding. It's not who I am. Right. And so I'm really glad you said that because that is something that's super important to me. I look at these things for understanding so that we can unravel some things, but it's not who you are. Lisa/Host: Exactly. It's like me saying I have irritable bowel syndrome. I have know another thing that has letters. Alannah : Right. Lisa/Host: It's part of something I deal with, but it's not me. I'm Lisa. You're Alana. So I love that. So let's talk about where people can find you on social media, your website, and all of that good stuff. Alannah : Well, you know what? We kind of make that simple around here because it's just my name. It's Alana Boyle. Like, Alana is hard to spell, but it really is. It's alanaboil.com. That is my website. So A-L-A-N-N-A-H-B-O-Y-L-E was in Ireland this summer, and they're like, dear, you do not need to spell your last name here. And I was like, oh, okay, that's fun. And so then my instagram is Alan of oil, YQR. So, yeah, it's pretty easy to find me if you can spell my. So. Lisa/Host: Absolutely. And I will link up those links in the show notes as well. So folks are listening, and you're not sure how to spell it, you can check it out in the show notes. Alana, it has been so awesome to have this conversation. I have learned so much from you today, really and truly. So thank you so much for being here again. Alannah : I appreciate you asking me to be here. It's always my pleasure. Lisa/Host: Awesome. Well, to my listeners, stay well, be resilient, and we'll catch you next time.

Feeling stressed and overwhelmed? Discover three unconventional ways to tackle stress and find relief. Explore the relaxing benefits of flotation therapy, where you can effortlessly float in a weightless environment. Dive into the world of art therapy and use creative activities to process emotions and enhance well-being. Laugh away your stress with laughter yoga, a unique practice that combines laughter exercises and yogic breathing techniques. Don't have access to these options? Step into nature and take immersive walks in the tranquility of the forest. Alternatively, unleash your inner creativity with various artistic pursuits. Take control of stress and boost your mental health with these uncommon techniques. ........................................................................................... LINKS: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ............................................................................................ Do you ever think that you've tried everything for stress and nothing seems to help? Maybe you've done these things over and over again to the point of boredom. Today I'll be introducing three uncommon ways to deal with stress. Hi, I'm Lisa, and this is rising strong mental health and resilience it earlier in my career, I was a health coach and loved learning new tools to share with people. Let's face it, most of us are tired of hearing about self care, but we become more attentive when we hear something new. Are you curious yet? Do I have your attention? Then let's jump into today's quickie deep dive episode. So the first uncommon way to deal with stress is flotation therapy. And it's actually exactly what it sounds like. You float in water. It's a controlled environment, but the whole idea is that it's based on sensory deprivation, so you float effortlessly. So you float effortlessly. So you float effortlessly in a tank filled with warm water and epsom salts, creating a weightless environment that promotes relaxation and stress reduction. So how does it work? Because of the salt, your muscles unwind, and because you're unwinding and relaxing, the cortisol levels start to decrease and your mind enters a really relaxed and meditative state. There are obviously great mental health aspects to flotation therapy, such as reduced stress and anxiety, improved mood, enhanced creativity and problem solving skills, along with increased feelings of well being and mindfulness. Now, not every area has access to flotation therapy, and I will be covering some alternatives at the end of this episode, so make sure that you listen all the way till the end. The second thing that I want to talk to you about that's a little bit less common is art therapy. So it's an expressive therapy that uses activities such as painting, drawing, sculpting, or collage making. And it helps us explore our emotions, process trauma, and improve mental well being. The benefits of this, very similar to flotation therapy, include stress reduction, increased self awareness, self expression, because sometimes talking is just too hard, improved mood and relaxation, enhanced problem solving skills, again, coping skills, and a sense of empowerment and accomplishment. It is always best to access these services through art therapists. There are counseling centers, community organizations, and online platforms which can actually offer virtual art therapy sessions, which is kind of cool. And it's kind of interesting to explore new art forms, perhaps something you've never tried before. Maybe you've always been interested in sculpture or digital art. There are so many different ways out there to access that creative part of us, and then of course, there's different ways that we can incorporate these things into our daily lives. Some people journal, which is great, but you can also get a journaling book that's just for sketching, where you can just doodle and sketch. Perhaps you want to take an art workshop or a class. Sometimes there's community art projects. Really, your possibilities are limitless. And last but far from least, is laughter yoga. It's really a unique practice, as you can imagine, that combines laughter exercises with yogic breathing techniques to promote physical, mental and emotional well being through intentional laughter and playful activities. Now, I'll admit when you're feeling really low or depressed, or you're dealing with a terrible tragedy, the idea of laughter can seem beyond any possibility. But my suggestion is just to give it a try. If you think of it as another form of yoga, another way to cope, sometimes just having an open mind is all you need. The science behind laughter you may have heard before includes the release of endorphins and dopamine, reduction in stress hormones like cortisol, stimulation of the immune system, and improvement of mood and overall sense of well being. So all of this together can help reduce stress and anxiety. It can increase resilience, it can improve social connections and communication skills, and it can also help with emotional regulation and coping abilities. So lots and lots of good stuff there. Now, finding laughter yoga sessions can be maybe a little bit trickier, especially if you live in a smaller center. But oftentimes there are laughter yoga clubs, or you can find them through your community center or even your local yoga studio. Best thing is just to ask around. Now, one thing that you can do is that you can search this out on the Internet, and oftentimes you'll find YouTube videos that you can follow along with. But let's face it, there's nothing quite like an in person belly laugh with someone else. Now, if you're thinking, well, this all sounds interesting, but I live remotely or I just don't have access to these things, don't worry, I've got you covered. I did pick out a couple of things that you can use as an alternative, and I think they're both awesome. The first one is nature walks. Try to get as far away as you can from city streets while a city park is okay, if that's all you can find. You're still going to hear street noise, you're still going to see concrete and buildings and all of that kind of thing. The best thing you can do is immerse yourself into the forest or somewhere where there's just no streets, no buildings or anything around. If you can go by yourself, even better, something called walking meditation where you just let your mind go in nature. And the second thing I've got for you here is just some form of creativity. So find a YouTube instructor that'll help you learn how to paint or take a pottery class. Start knitting. Maybe you've always wanted to do some woodworking. Get creative and come up with something creative. Well, that's it for this episode. As always, thank you for listening. Stay well and be resilient, my friends, and we'll catch you next time. Hey, did you know that you can now watch the rising strong interview episodes on YouTube? Yes, you can. You can find us by typing at rising strong podcast into the search bar on YouTube. You can also find us on Instagram at the same handle at Risingstrong podcast. Give us a follow or subscribe. And thanks for all your support.

Join us in this podcast episode featuring Spencer Beach, a burn survivor who shares his incredible journey of finding positivity and resilience in the face of unimaginable trauma. After a devastating workplace accident that left him with severe burns and a slim chance of survival, Spencer defied the odds and emerged stronger than ever. Through his story, he emphasizes the importance of support from loved ones, finding meaning in the midst of struggle, and shifting perspectives to overcome challenges. This episode offers a powerful reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is always hope for a brighter future. ..................................................................................... Spencer's links: www.spencerspeaks.ca Instagram: @spencer.beach LinkedIn ...................................................................................... RISING STRONG links; Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com ............................................................................ TRANSCRIPT: Host/Lisa: How is it possible to find positivity and resilience when 90% of your body has been burnt and you're given a 5% chance to live? Stay tuned because my guest today is going to tell you exactly how he did. That's about ten years ago. A friend of mine attended a presentation at her workplace about workplace safety and the keynote speaker was Spencer beach. My friend said, you have to read his book. He has quite an amazing story. So I did. And unlike other books, Spencer has always been in the back of my mind. I've been a fan of his for years and I'm thrilled he accepted my invitation to be a guest on the Rising Strong podcast. Welcome to the show, Spencer. Spencer: Thank you, Lisa. Host/Lisa: So in 2003, you were involved in all I can say is a horrific workplace accident. Can you take us back to that day? Spencer: Sure. So I woke up in the morning, average, ordinary day. I've done a lot of mentoring over the years and I found everybody's story starts out the same way. On an average, ordinary day, you never expect trauma to enter your life. And then it does. I had a feeling in my gut that I was being asked to do a job that I didn't feel was right. I told my wife that I was concerned about it, but that gut feeling. I did what everybody does when your gut's talking to you. I ignored it. Right. That's what we tend to do. I convinced myself everything was going to be great and said, I love my wife. Have a good day. See you later. And went to work. I was a flooring installer. My specific role was the flooring the service guy. So basically I drove around Edmonton, Alberta, going from new home to new home, fixing other qualified installers mistakes. I was extremely skilled at what I did and the reason being was I grew up in the industry. I went on my first job when I was six years old with my dad. Anyways, the job I was being asked to do was to go and remove vinyl flooring because another crew installed the wrong color. And my dad had taught me that you use a sharp scraper and it's going to take a lot of elbow grease and lots of sweat. It's really hard work and lots of time. But my employer had a method where you use a chemical, it's a contact thinner, really close to a paint thinner, and you dump it all over the floor, skipping some steps. So nobody can do what I did, but you dump it all over the floor and it would absorb through the material, reactivate the glue and the flooring would peel up in sheets. So what used to be really hard work of days of two people working really hard, my employer had a service guy doing his off time, saved tons of time and loads of money. Unfortunately, I was never trained in Wimis. We had zero safety systems at work. Even if I had any personal protective equipment, it was because I purchased it, not because my employer supplied it or encouraged it. So I walked into there blind when it came to my rights, my roles and my responsibilities and safety. And all I had was that gut feeling as my defense, which I ignored. And it was about four in the afternoon when I heard a loud whistle. And that whistle was a precursor that something bad was going to about to happen. And that whistle was all the air being pulled into the house from the outside because I was in a flashfire and that flashfire required a lot of oxygen. So there was a loud whistle and then bang. It was an extremely loud bang. Technically they called it an explosion and I was engulfed in flames. The biggest issue with being engulfed into flames in a chemical fire is the average fire burns at about 700 degrees celsius. But because it was fueled by a chemical, the fire burnt out the properties of the chemical. So my fire was 1500 degrees celsius. It was more than twice the heat of the average house fire. When the fire did start, honestly, I didn't know what happened. All of a sudden I was in the normal home and all. Now I'm surrounded in flames and I can honestly tell you, your first instinct is just, holy ****, I need to get out of here. So I purely worked on instinct. When the fire happened, I was right at the front door on my knees, working away. I was almost done for the day. Honestly, I had maybe five more minutes of work to go. So I sprung up from my knees and I reached out and grabbed onto the front door. And that loud whistle I heard pulling all the air into the house to feed the fire also created a pressure difference, so it sealed the door shut. And I'm six foot, 2220 pounds, I'm a big guy and I'm used to carrying full rolls of carpet on my shoulder and big boxes of tools and buckets of glue. Like man, I didn't have the strength to open that door and break that seal. So again, working on instinct, I just like I need to get to the next closest exit. And because I'm in surrounded by fire, your eyes and your mouth will naturally shut on a fire. So everything I did was not only on instinct, but I also did it blindly. So I let go of the door handle and I turned to my right and 10ft away from me, down the hallway that I just removed all the flooring from, was the garage door. So I ran into the laundry room where the garage door was, and tried that door, and it didn't open. Now I'm trapped because the only way out of that laundry room is the hall I just came down or the door that's not opening. So I let go of the door handle, I went back into the front entry, tried that door again. It didn't open. And people always ask about sensations. They always want to know, did it hurt or anything? It was like, yeah, it hurt more than you can imagine. I often will joke and saying that women in childbirth have nothing on me, but the pain was different. We've all been burnt before. That's one unique thing about burns, is not everyone will experience a car accident or go through cancer, but everyone will have a burn. The only difference is usually they're pretty minor, but it was nothing like any burn you've ever had. I could feel the heat inside of me, and honestly, it was so intense that I could also feel my life being drained from me. I knew I was in trouble when this door didn't open. I knew if I didn't get out soon, I wasn't getting out. So I let go of the door handle. I ran back through the hallway to that laundry room, tried that door again. It didn't open. And I estimate it took no more than 20 seconds for me to do all that when I'd had enough. Now I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted it over. I collapsed into a ball and interlocked my fingers with the back of my head. I tucked my face as close to that floor as I could, and I gave up. It was horrific. I could feel my hair being burned off of me, my skin. Out of all the sensations, the one that I remember the most is how the skin on my face felt like it was shrinking as it was melting to my skull and tightening up. And it was horrible. Host/Lisa: I truly believe that you were made for more. There must have been some divine intervention or something that day. As a medical professional, I am shocked and surprised that you lived through that. You had a near death experience, and you say that that resulted in your greatest message. Can you expand on that a little bit? Spencer: Yeah. So when I gave up, you got to put yourself in my shoes. At this moment, I'm in a raging fire. Like, the howl of the fire was intense, and the heat was more than you can imagine, and the pain was unbearable. And I got all these extreme sensations going on at once, and then I just slipped into this place. The way I describe it is like going to sleep. When you're comfy in your bed and you're tired and you're just ready to go to bed, and you just let yourself go there. You let yourself fall asleep. That's kind of what I was doing, was letting myself go to the next realm. And when I did, everything became really peaceful. All those extreme sensations totally disappeared. It was the most euphoric feeling of my entire life. And in that moment, all I could think about was my wife, Tina, and she was four months pregnant with our first child. It took me a long time to truly break down what was occurring in this experience. But if you back up just a millisecond prior to that experience of dying and prior to the fire, it was like I was worried about getting a job done, living up to my commitments, making money, paying bills. I was worried about what I had to do tomorrow. This was a rushed job. I had to be out of there that day. I was being pressured to do that. I had his going home to plan my friend's bachelor party that night. I had all these commitments that were dictating my day and also dictating my responses in my day. And now, on the verge of death, I didn't care about my bills, I didn't care about my job. I didn't care about that house. I didn't care about my friend's bachelor party. I didn't care about anything other than my wife and my unborn child. And what I came to determine or appreciate, and it took a long time to figure this out, was my near death experience, was I was thinking about my last thoughts. And if they're my last thoughts on this world, I'm pretty confident they're probably going to be my most important thoughts. And it turned out that what was important to me weren't all those things that dictated my day or also the responses in my day. It just turned out to be the people I loved. So my greatest message to people is it's really hard to give me a bad day. And the reason being is I know what my most important thoughts are. And my most important thoughts are not anything that's happening on social media, not any political thing going on, not any restructuring of any government agency, not any bill that I might be tight on or living paycheck to paycheck. My greatest thoughts every day is the people I love. So I measure my success of every day like this. If at the end of the day, my family is happy, healthy and safe. I had a real good day. I can honestly tell you nothing will matter beyond that. And what I found really interesting. And being a motivational speaker, you're always looking for the similarities between me and other people. Everyone has the same most important thoughts. Everybody has people that they live for, that they love, that love them. And I can promise you, like, death is a natural thing, it's going to happen to everybody and we're all going to experience that moment when we get to have our most important thought. But I had to learn mine, actually dying. Everyone else just has to appreciate what it is because I guarantee you already have it. We let all these other things dictate and distract us in our day when they're really meaningless. Thinking about my wife and the baby, I relived all the things I was going to miss with them and the things I was never going to see, like no bad a boy or girl or what the name of my child would be or walking them to school or dating my wife again or anything. So I tried for them one more time and when I did, the flash fire was burning itself down because the fumes were dissipating. So the seal, that vacuum was being also decreased. And I now had the strength to open the door. Door opened. I jumped into the garage, created another fire because that's where all the garbage from the construction was. And on the top was all the flooring I removed, soaking the same chemical, and I'm on fire. So I created the second fire when I landed on that garbage pile. But the overhead door was open, so I just regained my balance and ran to the end of the driveway and collapsed on my back. So then now emergency services came. It took eleven minutes for them to come. 13, I believe 13 calls went out to 911. And my first experience actually with the healthcare system was lying on the ground screaming. My life was over waiting for the ambulance when an off duty nurse came and muscled her way through the group of tradespeople gathered from their homes. And she told me she was an off duty nurse. She tried to keep me calm. She found out I was married and my wife was pregnant. She did everything she could to get me to focus on those things and I'm very thankful for her because I was really screaming. My life was over. I didn't see me ever getting to the hospital, but her training kicked in and it's what I needed right then. Paramedic came. I don't really remember the ride to the ambulance because I'm being heavily medicated now, but I did get to the University of Alberta Hospital. We have the best burn unit in Canada and it's the third best burn unit in North America. They took me right into a private room in the emergency and there was this massive team waiting for me, consisting of probably about seven to ten people. And it was basically all the heads of the departments on the burn unit. So the charge nurse, the doctors, a few doctors, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, dietitians, psychologists, everybody it was going to take, if I survived, to help me get back. The first thing the doctor did was introduce himself, Dr. Trejit, and reassured me I was in a great hospital. And then he asked me how I was burned. I didn't understand the question. So actually, just a couple of weeks ago, I run a charity event called it's over burn Awareness week, and there I educate. We speak to me and another burn survivor speak to nine schools over five days and we reach about 5000 students and we talk about burn awareness. But he was trying to find out the type of burn I had. I didn't know you could have more than one type of burn. So he asked how I was burned and I didn't understand the question. So I told him that I was burned in a fire. Probably wasn't the most helpful answer, but it was the only answer I had. He then asked a couple more questions. What were you doing, what were you working with? And determined it was a chemical fire I was in. After he found that out, it was my turn to start asking questions. And the first question asked was how bad it was. I could have looked at any time like I was naked, my clothes were burnt off of me, but I was too afraid. I didn't want to see the damage. I wasn't ready to see the damage. So he looked me up and down and told me I had third and fourth degree burns to 90% to my body. That made no sense to me because at the time I couldn't tell you the difference of degrees of burns. And now I have these burns to most of my body. Well, what does that mean? And he told me I had a 5% chance to live. The reason he gave me a 5% chance to live was because when the fire started, I also had the fumes. I'd breathed in the fumes, so my lungs actually ignited as well and I had a huge lung injury. Now if you get a big burn with no lung injury, your odds of surviving are actually pretty good. But the moment you have a lung injury, even with a small burn, your odds of surviving are really low. I've come to appreciate that that 5% was a generous number. Honestly, I don't think I should be here. From other burn survivors journeys, I've seen that they didn't make it anyways. So after he gave me that 5% chance to live, he then asked me if I wanted to live or die. And the reality is I'm very thankful I had that. Normally, I'm the first person I'm told by him that he's ever given that option to. Normally, it would have gone to my wife or closest relative. And I'm thankful that it went to me because there was no right answer for my wife if she would have said, let Spencer live. And then I have a horrible quality of life, and I do survive, and I chase a woman on my life, and I become addicted. She's probably like, well, maybe it was better to let him not live. Or what if she said, die, let him go. And then five years later, she's walking down the mall with my daughter, and she sees a burned survivor with his head up high in their family and smiling and having a good time. And she's like, that could be Spencer. There's no right answer for her. The right answer is honestly. When I woke up in the morning and had that gut feeling, so I chose to live, and that was the start of my journey. Host/Lisa: You were, thankfully, in a state where you could receive that question and answer it. Tell us about your thoughts as you were in the hospital. I mean, I cannot imagine everything that went through your head. Spencer: Well, first I went into coma for six weeks, and they gave you a medication called ketamine to create amnesia. There's a very small percentage of the population it doesn't work for. I'm one of them. So not only do I remember going through a fire, but I remember going through a coma. And all my dreams are the same. I was cold, helpless, alone, hungry. And that's my reality. I took what was happening in isolation in the burn unit and twisted it around in a dream state so my mind knew what was happening to me, although I couldn't really feel it or emote it. But I came out of a coma six weeks later, and I went from having nightmares to living one. At first, and I say this generously for the first couple of days, it wasn't super bad when I came out of a coma. And the reason being is I remembered everything. Yeah, I was severely injured. I had tubes all over a tube in my mouth. I couldn't talk, but I knew where I was, and it was the right place to be. But I did what everybody does. I fell into a trap. And I think it's a natural process. But if you can identify this trap, you can get out of it a lot faster and a lot easier. But I started to replay all the events over and over again. What could I have done differently? What went wrong? Why did my life have to change? Why did I have to have go through this fire? Right, sorry, my lung damage happens every morning. But I really boil it down to just two words now. And I think there are phenomenal words everybody says in life in one time or another. And that's why me. Why did my life have to change? And why me is the key to anger and depression, anxiety. It what opens the door for those things to be possible. Because you're anchored to a moment or an event or a feeling that you don't like. And you will examine that, looking for an answer. And how can I get out of here? But you can't get out of an anchor. An anchor is like sitting there, holding you there. So by asking, why me? You're not going to find an answer to it. Instead, what you're going to do is be anchored to it. And then it's going to open that door to where you're going to get angry, and the anger is going to bleed into depression, anxiety, and it's going to turn to addictions or chase people out of your life, or it's the source of everything is anger. And I got trapped into that. Eventually, I did find the answer to why me? Host/Lisa: Hey, rising strong listeners. If you've been enjoying the inspiring interviews on the podcast, we'd love your support to help us reach more listeners and hopefully gain some sponsorship. To do that, please, like, follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. And here's a little extra incentive. Leave us a five star review and you'll be entered to win some cool rising strong swag. Your support means the world to me. Now back to the show. Spencer: I am an expert at YMe. I've asked that question more than a million times, probably a thousand times a day. I was asking it, and I couldn't understand why my life had to change. Eventually. When I did find the answer, though, I looked to Prince Henry and William, and because I wanted to find someone with a perfect life, someone who's never had any reason to experience hardship. And then I was like, well, have they ever had a bad day? Because honestly, that's what I boiled down to. I had a bad day. That's what you see on me? And I'm like, well, when they lost their mother in that car accident and the Princess Diana died, pretty sure they felt bad and had a bad day, and they asked, why me? Why did my mom have to die? In that know? I found that it's so universal, not only why me, but bad days, that I started to change the question, and I didn't mean to do this, but I started to do it by overcoming things, I convinced myself I was never going to do again. And every time I overcame something I thought I could never do again, I started to be like, well, what else could I do? What else can I do? So I've condensed that question down now to, what can I do for me? And honestly, I don't use that question a lot. But when Covid hit, I put it right back into play because I had another bad day. I lost all my business in three days. So many people experience that, right? So at first I felt what I was feeling. I'm a huge believer in feel your feelings, but know, to cap them off and then start moving forward, but to go back. You asked about my mental health, my thoughts. So the anger was first. After Yme came, anger. I was ****** off. Someone had to pay for this. I was angry at my boss. There was another tradesperson that just left. I was angry that he didn't come to help me. I was angry at the hospital because ultimately their care wasn't good enough, which is just bs, but I was angry at a lot of things. One time, I told my wife when they pulled the ventilator, I was so angry, I told her she could leave me. Anger does that. It chases people out of your life, and then it boils to depression. And the depression I found is what I found about depression is it took my morals and my values, and it threw them out the window. And now anything's possible. So when I was depressed, I'm not a suicidal person. I believe everyone contemplates suicide to the point, like, if I died, who would show up at my funeral? But that's kind of like, see if we're loved, right? But when you start deeply, how can I kill myself? That's a different type of suicide. That's when you're really into it. I'm not that type of person. I've never contemplated it, except for when I was in the hospital and I played that game. If I could kill myself, how would I do it? I was completely immobile. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything. So the depression led me there. It took my morals and values and it threw them out the window. And what I found with depression is you're not going to make good decisions, although you feel like you are and you don't see it, you're actually making bad decisions. And you can see it when you're opposing people that love you and you're, like, pushing them or you're getting mad at them because they didn't say something in the right form or they didn't know exactly how to help you, and you get mad at them and you push them out of your life because of the anger. And what you need to do when you're depressed is you actually need to lean on those people. You need to have them help you navigate better decisions so that you make less damage in your life while you're depressed. Part of coming out of depression is you actually have to go and repair the damage you've done while depressed as well. And then the anxiety came. Anxiety is the weirdest thing in the world. I described it like having a sumo wrestler sitting on my chest and I just couldn't breathe. Honestly, I could not breathe. And what I've come to appreciate is nothing was stopping me from breathing. It was things in my head I had going on that I wasn't tackling or taken care of. And it was creating these physical repercussions to me. And I can tell you there was a time in the hospital when they'd take the ventilator out and then bring me down to surgery and they'd have to beg me for air. And every once in a while, the nurse would forget to give me a breath of air. I tried to breathe. I really did. I can tell you, being completely mobile, extremely underweight, heavily medicated, tubes going in, every part of my body stuck in isolation. The most helpless feeling I had in the hospital was when the nurse forgot to give me a breath. And that's what I describe anxiety as, like not being able to breathe. The most helpless feeling in the world. Host/Lisa: There was a time during all these deep, dark feelings you were feeling. Your wife gave birth. Unfortunately, you couldn't be at the birth, but she came to visit you soon after with this new little bundle. Can you tell us about that moment? Spencer: Sure. So, first of all, the only regret I have is missing the birth of my child. And the reason being is that's supposed to be your happiest day in your life, and I missed it and I don't get it back. You don't get the birth of your first child back. Once it's gone. It's gone. So when people look at me and they see the burns in that, they also see a guy that will never have a happiest day. I've come to face that. I've come to appreciate it. But that's another thing. The fire stole from me was my happiest day, but it also was a great blessing at the same time. And I've chosen to look at the blessing more than the Regret. The day after my daughter was born. My wife is an extremely strong lady, and she hates me saying that. She's also very humble. But from what I'm told, giving birth is not an easy process. It's painful. It's exhausting. There's healing that needs to occur after. And usually mother and child both want to sleep like, and go and start healing. So they brought him to the misery Cordy hospital. She actually gave birth at home. She gave birth so fast to our first child. So ladies get to the hospital fast. But the Iowans picked him up, took him to the misery Cordy hospital, which is where she was to give birth, but that's also the wrong hospital. I was at the university hospital, so that was like. And you take those small little things like, I'm in the wrong hospital, and that's enough to crack open the anger. And so they checked them both out. Both mother and child were healthy. And then the next day, they released them. So September 20 eigth is the birth of my daughter. 29th, they released them. And instead of Tina going home to rest, she was like, everyone knew how angry and depressed it was. They would have done anything to cheer me up. So instead, Tina jumped in the minivan my father in law was driving. And they came right to the university hospital so that I could meet my daughter. And when they got to the hospital to enter my isolation room, he had to put on sterile garments. So sterile gowns, gloves, masks, and a hat. They don't make little baby sterile garments. So they put Amber into. Amber is the name of our child into a sterile pillowcase. And we called her Amber because Amb is for ambulance and ER is for emergency room because she spent a lot of time in the first nine months of her life in the hospital coming to see me as well as Amber goes really great with my last name. So Beach. Amber beach is just a beautiful name. But they brought Amber in to meet me, and I couldn't hold her. I was that weak. So Tina raised the railing with the hospital bed up, and then she put a blanket over it and laid Amber right here on the crook of my arm when she laid there, I looked at her hair and her nose because I was missing a big chunk of my nose. So it was really important that she had a nose and her ears. I counted all her fingers because mine are all messed up. And I'm a religious person, always have been. I did fight with God in the hospital, but I've come to really appreciate. There were so many times I prayed in my life, Lord, find me a girlfriend or a wife. Have a good job. Help me through this time in my life. So many things I've prayed for to either get me through something or improve my life. I never once prayed for hair or nose or ears or fingers. And I kind of looked at my daughter and I'm like, well, everything I lost, she has. She has a fresh start. And to me, that was really important, because part of that fresh start is she also needed two things in that fresh start. She needed her mom and her dad. She had the mum, but at that moment, she didn't have a dad physically. She had a dad emotionally, mentally, she did not have a dad. What my daughter did for me that day, figuratively. And I have to say that because I've actually had a child ask if she really did do this. I'm like, no, it's figuratively. But up until the first five months of my incident, up until the birth of my daughter, I found my eyes were looking the wrong way. My eyes were turned inward, and they were examining everything about my life that had changed. And they didn't like anything they saw. I hated it all. And that was a big cause of that anger. Was that why me? But my eyes were looking the wrong way. And when my daughter was born and laid my arms, what she did is she forced me to look outside of myself. And that was really the first time I truly did look outside. And when I looked outside, I saw my wife and supporting, becoming every single day, wanting nothing more. She only had one want, and that was try, try to get better. I'd convinced myself there was no point in even trying to get better. I saw a daughter who needed a dad. I saw this hospital, this amazing hospital with all these people, like extreme professionals, doing everything they can for my care. I saw my friends and family and doing what they could to support me, mostly by supporting my wife and doing things around the house for her that as a pregnant lady, it's a little difficult for her to do. I saw all these things in my life, these people, these most important thoughts that I had worth fighting for. And it was because of them. I chose to try. And I share this message with people all the time. I don't care what your eyes see. When you find something worth trying, grab onto it and try. You don't have to want to fight for yourself when you're that deep and dark. But if you see someone or something worth fighting for, fight for it. And eventually your eyes will start to appreciate what they do see within yourself as well. But at the beginning, it may be hard to look at yourself. Host/Lisa: Do you think that shift in focus is really what pulled you through? Spencer: It was the start of the positive journey. The anger didn't disappear overnight, neither the depression or the anxiety. It was a journey I was on, but it was the start of it. There was a few more other stories I could share that really helped to see perspective and engage. For me to really grab onto that, I need to fight. Host/Lisa: Let's dive into that a little bit, because those are the messages that I really like to share with listeners. Because I think when you're in the weeds, when things are so freaking dark, there's not even a glimmer of light anywhere. Sometimes it's perspective, right? It's like you say, flipping the lens. So share some of those stories with us, please. Spencer: I'll share three, and I'll stop at each one so you can ask a deeper question if you want the first one, we got to go backwards in time. My fifth wedding anniversary happened on June 27, 2003. So I'm in the hospital, angry, depressed, and I had ventilator in my mouth and tubes in my lungs and my stomach feeding me and helping me breathe and draining fluid from my lungs. And on my fifth wedding anniversary, I woke up and there was Dr. Trejit at the foot of my bed and the charge nurse and the respiratory therapist, and he's pull, we're going to extubate you today. I'm like, I've just pulled a ventilator. I'm like, okay, great. And this is all in my head because I can't talk. I'm like, I remember all those times going to or when I had to get bagged and I couldn't breathe, and I tried to breathe. Like, what if you're wrong? And you didn't prepare me at all. This is a surprise for me. What if you're wrong and I can't breathe? So they pulled the tube. He asked me to take a deep breath. I did. It was more of a sigh of relief that he wasn't wrong. He asked me to say a few words. My first words were with a really small, scratchy voice were, what do you want me to say? Can you believe six months of being quiet and your first words are angry words? What do you want me to say? And he was testing my vocal cords to see if I even had a voice. He asked me to cough a few times, and the reason being is now I had to start expelling all the fluid from my lungs out myself, which is a long process. But honestly, when I said, what do you want me to say? I was not wasting my voice on that man. There was no way. Prior to that, the way I communicate was by blinking. And they'd have a board, and my wife would spell A-B-C and I'd blink the word, and that's how I communicated. But I was heavily medicated and I was always extremely tired, and it did not take me much to lose focus or not know. And I'm also dyslexic, so if I couldn't spell a word, anything ****** me off. If I missed the letter, if I couldn't spell it, if I made a mistake in any way, I'd just get so mad, and I'd roll my eyes on the back of my head and pretend I was asleep and just get out of my room. Can't even talk to you because I can't say it. And then. So I finally had the chance, and I can't tell you how many times I blinked. I love you. To Tina. But that voice was not being wasted on that doctor. So I waited all day. Tina came every evening, and she got to the hospital. She didn't also know what happened, so the nurses, they couldn't hold back good news, but they also didn't tell her what had happened. So she knew something positive happened that day. And she came into my room, and when she opened up the door, I told her I loved her. That was her fifth anniversary present. It was a present the hospital gave us. I share that story with you because I have come to appreciate that you can't go through life on your own. And when days get hard and we all have bad days, you need to have people there to support you and help you through those bad days. The problem is those when we're hurting, we tend to be like, I can do this on my own. I don't need anyone's help. I'm actually not going to share what's happening with me. And that's a very. Again, that's a dangerous thing. That's the anger taking control of you because you're limiting yourself on success. And the interesting dynamic is, though, is if you see someone you love going through something hard, you want nothing more than to help them. And I find it's a very ironic dynamic that we have is like, when I'm hurting, I don't want any help, but if I see someone I love hurting, I want to do everything I can to help them, which is ironic. We have to learn to accept help. And the reason being is when I was dark and angry and depressed and whatever, the way I look at is like the hand, right? I was this little thumb, and I was trying to solve all my problems by this little thumb, by myself. But the moment I started to accept help, I started to embrace my support of my wife and the doctors and nurses and therapists and all their expertise and my friends and my family. And there was complete strangers. All of a sudden I had all these people trying to help me solve my problems. And I can tell you that the hand is way stronger than the thumb. It's like all these experts and loved ones trying to help me were way stronger and more quick to help me through that problem than me on my own. So that would be the first story I'd share, is that love story of my wife supporting me, telling her I loved her. What's interesting, though, and I'll conclude it with this, that was a high pain to my journey, and I was excited. That was actually the first day I was happy in the hospital. Three days later, Tina came to see me. And that's when I said, this is not the man you married. Take everything and go. I'll completely understand. The anger took control of me again. And it's a journey. You don't get through a journey going through. I had a great day. It's all going to be great now. It's ebbs and flows. You're going to have low points. You're going to have high points. When those low points hit, you're going to want to push people out of your life when that's when you want to bring them back in and be like, you know what? It's hard for me today. And right now I just need your shoulder. I need you to just support me right now. Host/Lisa: I first have to say, that is such a beautiful story. And I think that your message is such a good one. And I think it's relatable to every kind of adversity out there. Whether it's mental health struggles, whether it's enduring the loss of a child, whether it's anything, is that we are stronger together. I am guilty of this as well. Do you think it's not only I can do this myself or that we don't want to burden our loved ones with our troubles? Spencer: I think it's a combination of a lot of things. One of them is we use, I don't want to burden you as an excuse. I don't want to burden you as an actual reason. It's an excuse. But I really do feel like it's more that we don't want to open up. Because to open up and say this is what I'm going through means that I also have to expose who I am and parts of my internal self that I don't show the world every day. And I'm really not comfortable with sharing the world those things every day. And you know what? You're not an expert either. You're probably going to give me advice that I don't want to hear. I find that a lot. I don't like the advice you just gave me. Right. So then I get mad at you or you didn't say it exactly what I wanted you to say it. It's like, who cares? I'm here because I love you and I'm supporting you. I'm not going to have all the perfect answers, but you know what? I'm going to be there perfectly supporting you. And if you let me, let's talk. Host/Lisa: A little bit about resilience. I think you are truly one of the most resilient human beings I know. What makes you resilient? And what do you think makes people in general resilient? Spencer: Well, I've already given you two stories, so we'll go to the third story, which is perfect timing. So the first story is you can't get better on your own. That's the support of my life. Second story is you got to start finding things worth fighting for. Let your eyes turn out and find those most important things. Third story is perspective. I went home to the hospital on boxing, or I went home from the hospital for 2 hours on boxing day. I was supposed to go on christmas, but it didn't work out. It took two paramedics and two nurses and about three bags of medical garments. I stayed in the stretcher the entire time and I dictated. I didn't want a single child in the room because I didn't think any of my nephews or nieces could handle what they're going to see. The only child in the room was amber, and she was my baby, so that made sense. When I did get home, there was my grandpas, my grandmas, aunts, uncles, friends, adults, all adults, brothers, sisters, and they had all these presents and everyone else had already opened their presents, and I couldn't open presents. I was completely useless still at that time. So my wife would open the presents and anger took over me. Every time I saw something, I'm like, well, that's nice. I haven't worn clothes in nine months. Thank you for a sweater I'll never wear again in my mind. That's what I'm saying, right? Or, oh, you got me an xbox. I know it's a $300 gift, but these hands will never play with a controller again. Thank you. I just turned everything into a moment to be angry, this love from people. And then after 2 hours at home, it was time to go back to the hospital. So they loaded me back in the ambulance. And in Edmonton, we have the white mud freeway. I lived on the west end of Edmonton, and the time of year is really important. This is Christmas. So four in the afternoon, the sun's already setting here in northern Canada, and I'm going from west to east to the hospital. So I'm looking at the sunset the entire Way, going down the white mud freeway. And as the sun set, all I could see looking out the Back of the ambulance was red and orange and yellow painted right across the sky. And it was just super beautiful. And in my mind, I sat there so quietly, lied there so quietly, just looking at that sunset, taking it in. And what the Paramedic didn't realize was the Perspective I was gaining. The last time I saw red, orange and yellow, my life was being destroyed. And now it's painted right across the sky in the most beautiful way I could ever picture it. And in my mind, I'm like, maybe the Fire didn't have to be destructive. Maybe this could be a Sunset. And it really changed my perspective on what was possible. And so when Tiana came to visit me that night after my family left, about an hour and a half later, she walked by the window. There's a big Bay window for isolation that they can observe you. And as soon as I saw her, I was like, here comes my Sunshine. Sorry, I don't get to tell that story a lot. Honestly, that moment, I needed to see a Sunset. Put it that way. I needed to see some hope. And that hope came from realizing that fire can be beautiful, and maybe I could be, too. Host/Lisa: I absolutely love that story, and I'm so glad that you told us, and maybe you weren't ready to see the sunset before that, but I am so, so happy that. That did help you on your journey. Can you share with us? As you said, I think anything after trauma, after something terrible in your life has happened, I call it a roller coaster. After losing Katie, I would say that I was on, like, a Six Flags scream the whole way, want to vomit kind of roller coaster. And now I'm more on the kitty roller coaster. How do you cope? How did you cope? How have your coping skills changed over the years? Spencer: That is so funny that you describe it as a roller coaster, because I do as well. So your screaming moment, Six Flags roller coaster. For me, it was my life changed, and you hit rock bottom, and it's a far fall and it's a hard fall, and that's the screaming part. Right. And then you get to that low point. And I'm sure you had this ultimate low point, was that initial despair of grief and overwhelming emotions of finding out your daughter is no longer here. But what ended up happening is after you hit that low point, you actually start going up, but you don't realize it because you're now in the healing journey forward. So, for me, it was physical and emotional, mental. For you, it'd be, and spiritual. For you, the physical part wouldn't be there, but I'm sure all the emotional, spiritual, and mental stuff would all be there. But you start finding this way to heal, and then you hit a high point. And you hit those points where you wake up one day or halfway through your day or whatever, you find yourself laughing. You haven't laughed in a week, and now you do. So for me, I say the first high point was when I came out of a coma, right? Because it wasn't that bad. That was the first time I was like, okay, it's not so bad. But then after I found that high point, I hit a low point again. Because what ended up happening is I gained something that day. Like, I'm now awake, right? And for you, it was like, oh, I can laugh again, right? Or I can smile again, or I can hold my husband again or something, right? Something hit that high point. What happens when you hit that high point? You get to keep it. You can't be taken away from you. It's something I gained now, but I still have a lot more journey to go through. That one thing on its own is not enough. So you hit a low point again. But what's interesting is you don't fall as far because you actually got something, you got to keep something. And then you hit that low point, which would be like, after I told Tina I loved her three days later or after I woke up, I was like, I became angry really quick or told Tina she could leave me after I told her I loved know I hit those low points every single time in my journey. Whenever I had a point that I was high, I have found that within an hour or a day or three days, I hit this low point where I tried to push something out of my life. But then what I came to realize I kept what I gained. So the next climb wasn't as high and the next drop wasn't as low. Which is weird that you then get to, like, an amonic kitty roller coaster. That's how I exactly describe it. It's like everyday life is little ups and downs, right? We don't have these huge drops and huge ups, but we're back to everyday life where we have ups and downs. What? I will go back to my near death experience a little. I say what happened to me was a bad day, right? But I challenge people in my presentations. I'm like, have you ever had a bad day? Everyone's like, yeah. I'm like, I bet you you've had so many bad days, you can't remember them all. Am I right? But then I go even further. I'm like, tell me a bad day you had three months ago or six months ago. And most people can't even tell me what their bad day was three months ago or six months ago. Yet I guarantee you had one then. And then it's like, well, and when you have those bad days, they consume you. They absolutely consume you. It's like they change the whole outcome of your day sometimes. And yet they were so meaningless, you don't even remember it three months later. The only time anyone can ever say, I do have a bad day, I can share with you. Six months ago was when they lost somebody or when they lost a job or they had something that affected their most important thoughts. When you have something that affects those most important thoughts, you remember those days. But short of that, our bad days usually are so meaningless, we don't even remember them. Host/Lisa: Yeah, they're blips in the big scheme of thing, right? I think both of us comparing our journeys to a roller coaster, I think that that is a good analogy, in my mind, at least, of resilience. And I think resilience is keep staying on the darn roller coaster and accepting that the ride is not always fun and accepting that the ride is hard and that the drops are going to come and that those moments that you want to scream and barf are going to come, but to keep going. And I think we get a little bit stronger, right. Every time that we have a really tough time on our journey, that makes us stronger. I know in the beginning I hated when people said, oh, you're so strong. And I just wanted to scream, I have no option. And you probably felt the same way as well. Nobody gave me a choice in this, but I truly think that when you go through hard times, you do become strong. Do you think that as humans, we have to go through adversity in order to become resilient? Spencer: Yes and no. In a perfect world, no, we shouldn't have to go through these things to become resilient. And your listeners are going to be like, oh, that so makes sense. But then the next time you have a bad day, are you really going to think back to, well, what did Spencer say and how do I apply? Like, that's what I did with COVID because I have been through it, that I know these tools and I know first you feel what you're feeling, right? Then you have to be, instead of letting that trap happen and catch you, you cap it off. Like, I give myself three days. I don't care what the situation is. Three days I will grieve. After three days, I will start to move forward. It doesn't mean I give up the grieving instantly, but I'm now on a path of moving forward. But you have to flex those muscles. You have to grow them. And the way you do it is by putting into practice positive habits when things get hard, because then you become more resilient on being able to get through things. So you say resiliency is these ebbs and flows and going through the roller coaster thing. I say resiliency is having the strength to get out of your own way. Host/Lisa: That is so good and so true. I know there's some people that are listening that are going to want to look you up. They're going to want to find your book and they're going to want to find your website, maybe book you as a speaker. Where's the best place for them to go? Spencer: Well, you can google my name, Spencer beach. There's two Spencer beaches in the world. One's a real beach in Hawaii, which I've been to. It's a beautiful beach. Please don't pee on it. There's public washrooms there. The other is me. Or you can go to Spencerspeaks, ca. The book can only be found on my website. You can get used books through Amazon. If you are looking for saving money, and I'm completely fine with that. I wrote the book to help people. And I think the worst thing for a book, once it's read, is to sit on a shelf and never be read again. So yeah, if you can find a cheaper way of getting the book, take advantage of it. And you can also get the book as an ebook as well. It's called in case of Fire. Host/Lisa: Yes. And read it. Like I say, it was amazing. I don't remember many of the books that I read, but I will always, always remember yours. Spencer, you truly define resilience. Massive gratitude for being here today. Spencer: Thank you. Host/Lisa: And to our listeners, be well and stay resilient and we'll catch you next time. Remember, you were made for more.

In this episode, the complex relationship between social media and mental well-being is explored. While social media offers benefits like reconnection and access to information, it also comes with challenges. The positive impacts include enhanced social connections, access to resources, a platform for self-expression, and community building. However, there are negative aspects such as comparison and self-esteem issues, cyberbullying and online harassment, information overload and misinformation, digital addiction and screen time, and privacy and data security concerns. It is important to be aware of the pros and cons of social media, set boundaries, and fill our feeds with uplifting and positive accounts. Additionally, being mindful of mindless scrolling and its impact on other areas of life like exercise, family interaction, and sleep is crucial. ..................................................................................... Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ........................................................................................ TRANSCRIPTS: Disclaimer: I have a love hate relationship with social media. Does it drive you nuts too? Yet you find yourself scrolling through social media just out of habit. If you can relate to any of this, then this episode is for you. I'm Lisa, and this is rising strong mental health and resilience, where we focus on awareness, hope, tools and resiliency. We now drop two episodes every week, including a powerful interview with mental health experts or inspiring guests and a quickie deep dive episode. Thanks for following and listening. Now let's dive into the pros and cons of social media on our mental health. In today's digital age, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. It shapes how we connect, communicate and consume information. While social media offers numerous benefits, it also comes with its fair share of challenges, especially when it comes to our mental health. In this episode, we'll explore the complex relationships between social media and mental well being, examining both the positive and negative impacts it can have on us. So what are the benefits? I think it's safe to say that social media has reconnected us on some levels. It's enhanced our social connections. Social media facilitates connections with friends, families, communities and all around the world. I bet you anyone who's listening right now knows of someone that they've reconnected with. Maybe it was someone you went to school with years ago, or maybe it's a cousin. These connections can help us maintain relationships, share experiences, and receive support and encouragement at any hour of the day, regardless of location, even if it's the middle of the night. There's usually somebody online somewhere. I just want to quickly share a story about my own experience with social media and social connections. Now, most of you know by now that in 2015, we lost our daughter Katie in a car accident. And while grief is not an uncommon thing, it's certainly not something that everyone feels comfortable talking about. So I did find a fair amount of support online in specific groups that were made for grief and in my case, grieving mothers. So it was very helpful until it became unhelpful, and I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. Another benefit of social media is the access it gives us to information and resources. Social media can provide access to a wealth of information, educational content, and on so many topics, including mental health, wellness, self care, for example. If you're looking how to meditate or journal, you will find helpful resources and groups to help you do that same thing with fitness and yoga. If you're learning how to run a ten k or you're learning how to do yoga. You can find all of that online. Another benefit is that social media is a platform for expression and creativity. Social media platforms serve as creative outlets for self expression, allowing individuals to share their talents, passions and perspectives through photos and videos and writing and art. The creative dog and cat videos are my personal favorite, but I've also followed accounts that have helped me learn how to paint on glasses and paint canvases. Use the search bar in your favorite social media platform to help you find creative activities that you're interested in. And another benefit is community building and advocacy. It's kind of like what we're doing right here. But social media can help us foster communities, can raise awareness and mobilize support for social causes, activism and advocacy. So these are all benefits. And as I said, we're going to talk about some of the negative aspects of social media as well. The first thing that I want to mention, unfortunately, I think affects our teens and our young adults perhaps more than any other group, although I have been impacted by it myself, and that is comparison and self esteem issues. The impact of social media on self esteem and mental well being, including the tendency for users to engage in upward social comparison and experiencing feelings of inadequacy or envy, is very common. As I said, I find myself falling into this as well, thinking, oh, look at that couple out on another date night or look at their fancy holiday. I think we all compare everyone's highlights to our own low points. And don't get me started on all those filters on the photos. How many times have you met someone in real life and thought to yourself, oh, you don't look anything like your profile picture? Rarely do we see untouched photos on social media anymore. Be aware of that one. Another negative aspect, and this one drives me crazy. Cyberbullying and online harassment unfortunately, the prevalence of cyberbullying, harassment and online abuse on social media is getting worse, which has serious consequences for the victim's mental health, leading to increased stress, anxiety and depression. Now, remember earlier when I said that social media was good for me at the earlier stages of my grief? And it was good until it wasn't? Well, my story ends in a bullying story. As you can imagine, everyone grieves differently, as they should. We're all unique snowflakes. But there was one time when I was expressing the fact. Well, there was more than one time. There were a few times that I was expressing the fact that I truly, truly believed that we can carry joy and grief and pain at the same time, and that I chose to look for joy in my life and that I believed that living with joy as much as I can honors my daughter in heaven. And that's my opinion. I don't necessarily think that everyone has to think that way, but I wrote it somewhere in a grief Facebook group and I actually was bullied for that and to the point where I actually thought that my opinions were wrong and that I was doing my grief wrong and it was horrible. So that is one thing to be careful of is the bullying. Another negative aspect is information overload and misinformation. Now I think we really saw a lot of this during COVID but this can include the spread of false or misleading content related to health, politics, current events which can contribute to confusion and anxiety. And I think we've all seen in recent years how this confusion and misinformation can break relationships down and act as a huge divider in our society. Yet another negative aspect is digital addiction and screen time. More and more we are seeing digital addiction and excessive screen time associated with social media use, including the potential for compulsive behaviors, decreased productivity, and disrupted sleep patterns, all which can negatively impact mental and emotional well being. Parents, this is tough territory to negotiate with your kids, but it is a worthwhile conversation if you can. It's best for all of us to charge our devices outside the bedroom. And last but not least, I'm not going to dive into it too much, but I think we can all agree that a negative aspect of social media is privacy and data security concerns. So in summary, there are pros and cons of social media in regard to mental health. So awareness is key. Setting boundaries with ourselves is important. Before following someone or responding, check in with yourself. Is this someone who is helping me feel better or is it someone who's hindering my mental well being? Delete the accounts that make you feel worse or annoy you. Aim to fill your feed with uplifting and positive accounts. I did a little housekeeping activity myself and deleted a lot of accounts that just weren't aligned. It felt really good actually. Set timers and be cognizant of mindless scrolling. And what it's keeping you from is the mindless scrolling. Keeping you from exercising, interacting with your family, getting to bed at a reasonable time. Just be aware and make good decisions. Since we are talking about social media today, I would be remiss if I didn't suggest that you follow the rising strong podcast account on Instagram. Our handle is at rising strong podcast and last but not least, please rate and review the rising strong podcast. Your reviews help us grow and reach more listeners. Together we can offer hope to more people. I read each and every one, and they mean the world to me. Stay well and be resilient, my friends, and we'll catch you next time. And remember, you were made for more.

This podcast episode features Trevor Muir, who shares his journey from a dark place to a place of strength and resilience. He opens up about his struggles, fears, and change of thinking that led him to seek help and transform his life. Trevor emphasizes the importance of sharing our emotions and seeking support, as well as learning to love and accept ourselves. He encourages listeners to put down the bat of self-judgment and fear, and to prioritize self-care and self-compassion. Through his own experiences and lessons, Trevor offers hope and inspiration to those who may be going through similar challenges. His story reminds us that even in our darkest moments, there is a path to healing and finding a more fulfilling life. ................................................................................................ Trevor is the president of Surepoint Group and the founder of the Surepoint Someday to Today initiative. He is laser-focused on building a culture of caring and believes to his core that authenticity and vulnerability are strengths. He strives to be an inspiring leader and knows that people help people best, by sharing their experiences. LINKEDIN - TREVOR MUIR YOUTUBE - SOMEDAY TO TODAY LINKEDIN - SUREPOINT GROUP ................................................................................................ Rising Strong podcast links: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ................................................................................................... TRANSCRIPT: Host/Lisa: My favorite quote from today's episode is, if you're tired of being beat up, put down the bat. How profound is that? My guest today is Trevor Meer and he is going to take us step by step through his journey from the moment that he found himself laying on his bathroom floor, contemplating taking his life, his fears, his change of thinking, everything that he has done for himself to get to the place that he is today. My name is Lisa Baim. Welcome to rising strong mental health and resilience. Last November, I attended a conference about empowerment that featured some pretty big name speakers like Jack Canfield and Arlene Dickinson. It was an absolute incredible event. Today's guest was also at that conference and his short speech has stuck with me. In fact, his words impacted me more than anyone else's at the conference and I knew that I wanted to share his message with you too. Welcome to the show, Trevor. Trevor: Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here. And yeah, what touching, kind words to say. Thank you all. Host/Lisa: Truth so about twelve years ago, you found yourself on the bathroom floor with some pretty dark thoughts. Can you take us back to that time and tell us what was going on? Trevor: Yeah, I certainly can. It will be 13 years in May. 16, actually. I know the day I couldn't tell you the time when I shared on that. It was a time in my life where I had accomplished a lot and I had everything that people believe they want or need to be happy. I had a beautiful wife and kid. I'd been married for a long time. I'm close with my parents and my siblings. I had a strong friend network, and I was a part of a very successful business. But all that stuff had started to unravel on me at a time where financially had become quite stable as well. We had sold a big part of a business that I co founded at that time. Things started to disintegrate in my life and I ended up separated from my wife and in this fancy condo where I woke up on the bathroom floor that morning with an almost overwhelming desire to end my life. And the reality is, for years it had been leading up to that point and I had always kept everything inside of me. If you met me at that time, I was super positive. And if you asked me how I was doing, I would say good grade or awesome, which I still do today. But that morning when I woke up on the floor, I can still tell you almost 13 years ago the color of the tile. Like I can tell you the specs in the tile. I lived there for ten weeks I can tell you the color of the sink of the countertop. I can tell you every single detail about that bathroom. And I woke up on the bathroom floor, and I was starting to cry. And I had made a commitment about 20 years earlier that I was never going to have an emotional breakdown again because I had gone through a really bad breakup and my heart had gotten broken. And ironically, I was laying on the bathroom floor for what seemed like an entire day. It was probably 5 hours crying. And I got up and I looked in the mirror and washed my face and said, I am never going to let somebody let me help, have somebody make me feel this way again. And so I was starting to cry, and I got up and was washing my face because I was like, I am not going to cry. And I think for the first time in my life, certainly my adult life, I saw myself in the mirror. My eyes connected with my eyes. Host/Lisa: I'm just so curious why you were so hesitant to be honest with people, even leading up to finally meeting with a psychiatrist. You're even lying to him. Why that? Trevor: You know, I've reflected on it a lot, and I believe it's this, Lisa, as a man and as a person who grew up the way I grew up, and I think many of us do grow up the same way. I was never taught how to process my emotions. We never talked about emotions in my family. I learned a lot of amazing things from my family and from my dad, like work ethic and responsibility and accountability. And it didn't matter. We grew up on a farm. We had cows and chickens and pigs and grain, and it didn't matter how I felt. You had to get up in the morning and feed the animals. I recognize that now. I grew up being this guy who had this image of what I was supposed to be. I was supposed to be strong, and I was supposed to support my family. And those were just sort of absolutes. And what I never learned was that I was also a human being. And I was so afraid of everything. I was so afraid of judgment. I felt so insecure, I felt so inadequate. And I never wanted anybody to know that. I thought I would be judged, and I thought I'd be judged negatively, certainly as a man. And it didn't matter what I had accomplished in life. I had those feelings inside. And so when it comes right down to it, the number one thing was fear of judgment. And that was because I didn't truly accept myself for who I was, and I truly didn't love me. It's taken me twelve years to learn that, and I'm learning more and more about it, but that was the reality for me. And when I went to Dr. Gone, so that day that I woke up on the bathroom floor and I was looking in the mirror and it caught my eyes and I thought, what would I tell a friend if they said, I have all this stuff, but this is how I feel. I was like, I would say, I get it and both are real and please get some help. And I reached out for help, thankfully, that day. And as I shared, I googled and I saw a psychiatrist. And even at that moment, I was like, there is no way I'm going to a psychiatrist. I'm considering ending my life still at that point. And I was still so afraid of what people would think. I don't want people to think I'm crazy. And thankfully, the universe works the way it's supposed to. And I ended up seeing life coach, and I actually reached out to a life coach first, and she got back to me within half an hour, and she had a cancellation for the next day, which is unheard of. And when I went in to see her, turned out she was a psychiatrist. And she asked me how I was doing. I said, I'm fine. I'm good. And she said, what's going on? And I told her, separated from my wife, my son's not talking to me. I'm probably going to get kicked out of the business I co founded, but other than that, everything's good, and I'm just here to get some help to improve my life. And she was like, oh, my God, you're not good. And I said, no, I'm fine. And she said, no, you're not, and I can't help you. And she said, do not leave this office. She's like, please do not leave this office. I need to go get somebody, and I will be back in two minutes. Please don't leave. And I was like, okay, like, you're freaking me out. I'll stay. And she came back in probably two minutes with a great big man and put out his hand and said, hi, trevor, I'm Dr. Gonz. Nice to meet you. Anne says you're struggling with some stuff. And I was like, she's got me freaked out, like, I'm fine, though. And he said, no, I'm sure you are. Do you have ten minutes? And I went and chatted with them for ten minutes, and that was the beginning of the journey I went on, and that man helped save my life without a doubt, and, and did like the fact that she picked up on it and didn't let me leave that office because I was still playing the con even at that point. And it was all to do with fear and that I'd had my whole life. Host/Lisa: I think that so many of our listeners can resonate with that. I was actually at something completely different last night, but I was at an event at the end of the evening. We were asked to reflect on what we'd been talking about. And that's what came out of my mouth, too, is fear. I would not think of myself as a fearful person, a scared person, but we are all humans. Trevor: When was the first time you felt hope, like? Personally, I believe it was a defining moment. When I walked, I'd gone to Dr. Gonz for about ten sessions, I think, or so, maybe a few more, and he would ask me lots of questions. I was starting to feel better for sure. Like, there was no doubt that things were improving in my life and mostly in my mind. But I went in and sat down one time, and the first thing he said as I sat down was, trevor, how are you feeling? And I blurted this out. I said, how am I feeling? I've been insecure my whole life and felt inferior. I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of success and afraid of failure. I feel sad a lot, and worse than that, I mostly feel numb. And I am so lonely. I'm so lonely. I'm lonely when I'm with my friends. I'm loneliest, but I'm loneliest when I'm with my family, and I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. And I said that, and it's like the thing you say to your spouse, that you wish you had enough. And that's how I felt. And my mind was spinning, and I was thinking, oh, my God, I can't believe I just said this to this guy that I really respect and I look up to, and I thought, he's going to look at me and he's going to tell me that I should be more grateful and I need to change my perspective and look at all of the awesome things I have. And instead, he looked me in the eye and he said, oh, man, I get it. And he was like, if you would have told me anything else, I wouldn't have believed you. Thank you for being vulnerable with me. And that day, my life changed, and I left there feeling different. But I realized something after that meeting with him. I had never in my life been asked how I was feeling unless somebody knew I was sick or I'd been in the hospital because I broke a bone. Nobody had ever asked me that, and I had never asked another human being that. And those words, that sentence changes conversations. I use it a lot with people. I'll ask them how they're feeling instead of how they're doing, because even today, with all the awareness I have and all the work I've done and the place I'm at in my life, if somebody asks me how I'm doing, I will respond with good, great, or awesome every single time. Sometimes I'll catch myself and say, actually, I'm having a little bit of anxiety. I'm struggling with some things right now, but my immediate response is those three things. And if I ask somebody how they're doing, I pay attention to it. I will hear it. If I ask somebody how they're feeling, and especially when you just sit down, it's remarkable, the response. You'll get the difference in response most times. And I was like, holy ****. More people need to talk about their feelings, I believe because I had stuffed mine for so long that I ended up on a bathroom floor and wanting to end my life. And thankfully, I made a different choice that day. Host/Lisa: And I think words have power, as you say, I think part of our north american greeting, it's kind of like all hello, but it's, hey, how are you? It's kind of an extension, right? And we're not maybe always looking for a response, right? Like you can pass somebody on the sidewalk with no intention of stopping, hey, how are you? It's just kind of an extended hello. But you're right. When we can stop and just take even a beat, how are you feeling? Trevor: Yeah, it's incredible. Obviously, don't walk down the street and say, how you feeling? To everybody because there are casual pass bys and there's times where I catch up with my budies and I'm like, hey, how are things? And then we just kind of have our lunch or whatever. But there are times where I'll have a sense or we'll have a longer period of time and I'll ask somebody how they're feeling. And it's remarkable. I've shared this when I've spoke before, when I've been asked, how do I connect with my spouse, say, ask them how they're feeling and see what the response is instead of, how are you doing? How was your day at work? Especially with men, because we want to be strong in front of our wives and our family. We want to look like we have it all together and oftentimes I found that I was struggling inside and suffering inside, and my wife could definitely pick up on it, but she was the last person I was going to talk to about it. I mean, I was the supporter. It's not because I didn't love her, it's because I did. And my form of love was, I need to be strong. And so when all of this dysfunction was happening, I'm beating the hell out of myself, to be honest with you, because I'm like, I need to be stronger than this. And now I'm letting the people down that I love. And then I became my own worst enemy. I beat myself to death over all the things that I wasn't doing and wasn't being. And I had a mentor one time say to me, are you finally tired of being beat up? And I'm like, oh, my God, yes. He said, good, then put down the bat, trevor. It's like, wow. And so often we beat ourselves up way more than others do at reconnect. I just spoke and I did a keynote there. I shared about a poem that I wrote and why I wrote it. And it was about a fellow that I knew that passed away. And he was young and he had a lot of issues with addiction and stuff, and that's how I actually had met him, working with him on some of that. And he ended up getting going out and using again and ended up dying that night in an altercation. And his little boy, long story short, I went to his service and I just felt compelled to go. And I heard the pastor talking about what is life? And I wrote a poem called what is life? And then at the end, I ended it with, life is a gift from God up above and so it must be life surely is love. And I wrote that poem like 1 hour after I left the funeral. And the reason I remembered why I wrote it after, when I was reflecting here recently, and the reason I ended it that way is because at the end of the service, he asked if anybody wanted the pastress, if anybody wanted to say any words. And some of his friends went up. And then just as it kind of got silent, they sat down, heard this little voice, and this little boy said, mommy, I want to say something. And the place goes quiet and out walks this little boy. He turns five years old, and his mom says, okay, honey. And she's got a little girl in her arm. And Mark had two kids, and he loved them to the capacity he could love anybody. And this little boy goes up on stage and he grabs the mic and he says this exactly so stoically looking at us all, he said, I miss my daddy. He was a good man and I love him. And he handed the mic back and he walked back to his seat. There was not a dry eye. I still feel it. And I left there going, the problem wasn't that Mark didn't love his kids. The problem was he didn't love himself. That was the problem. And I asked everybody attending reconnect. I said, how many of you love somebody's hand went up. How many of you are loved by somebody? Everybody's hand stayed up. I said, how many of you love perfect human beings? How many of the people that you love are perfect? Like, how many don't make mistakes? And how many of you forgive them for the stuff they do wrong? And how many people love you in spite of the fact I'm assuming that you're not perfect either, because I'm certainly not. And then I talked about what my mentor said. Put down the bat. If you're tired of being beat up, put down the bat. We love others more than we love ourselves. We wear selflessness as a badge of honor in our society, and it's creating human beings and men especially, who stuff their emotions. And then we become full of anger and resentment and sadness and pain. And as I talked about at lead, what you're full of overflows in your pyramid. And for me, it was oftentimes sadness and despair or nothing, which was as bad. Host/Lisa: Hey, rising strong listeners, if you've been enjoying the inspiring interviews on the podcast, we'd love your support. To help us reach more listeners and hopefully gain some sponsorship. To do that, please, like, follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. And here's a little extra incentive. Leave us a five star review and you'll be entered to win some cool rising strong swag. Your support means the world to me. Now back to the show. Trevor: When I went to Dr. Gonz, he had asked me to come in and make a list of my priorities. And I came in and I had my wife and my son, and I was back with Renee by that time, and my mom and my dad, my sisters and family and work was in there and some other things. I think I had about 20 things on the list. And he'd always said to me, you can't give what you don't have. And he's trying to get me to understand this, and he's talking about money and different things in business, but he's really talking about emotions. And I wasn't getting it. So I come in with this list of priorities, and I hand it to him and he says, that's a great list, trev, but where are you on it? And I was like, well, I'm kind of everywhere. And he said, well, fair enough. Humor me. Add your name. So I put my name just above work. And the only reason I did was because I'm like, this is a trap. If I put myself below work, he's going to call me out on it. And I knew that, and I wanted to get an a, but I actually believed it. I thought, what I provide to the people I love, like everybody above work, is financial stability. I can provide for them. It's a way of protecting them. And so anyway, I put myself just above work and I hand the list back to him, and he says, that's interesting. Why didn't you put yourself at the top of the list? And I said, I am not a narcissist who would put themselves at the top of the list. And he sold. And he said, yeah, well, that's the problem with human being strip. He said, very few people put themselves on the list, and even the ones that do rarely put themselves at the top. And then he said, have you ever saw a champagne glass pyramid where they pour the champagne and it flows perfectly to all the other levels to empty the bottle? And I'm like, yeah. And he said, have you ever saw them fill it from the bottom up? I was like, no. He said, I want you to close your eyes and visualize this and tell me what you see. And I said, well, I closed my eyes. Well, it's going to take more champagne. It's going to be inefficient. It's going to spill on the side, so the glasses are going to be sticky and there's going to be a mess on the table. And he said, exactly. And that's how you're living your life. He said, your champagne glass pyramid is your priorities. Your priorities make up that pyramid. So there's you, your wife and your son, your mom and your dad and your sisters all the way down. That's your champagne glass pyramid. And he said, you have your own pyramid, and your wife has her own, and your son has his own, and your mom has her own, dad has his own, and you fit into each other's. And what, you're full of overflows. You've been trying to fill your pyramid from the bottom up, but you're out of champagne and you're making a mess of your life and their life. Your champagne is messy. He said, go and start to do things that are healthy for you, to fill yourself up with forgiveness and acceptance and patience and love, and that's what's going to overflow. And that analogy changed my life. He gave me permission to be selfishly selfless, to go and do things that are good for me so that I show up as the best version of myself in the relationships that matter most. Even on the days that I don't show up as good as I have, on another day, when I do this, I'm showing up as the best version of myself that day. And it changed my life. It changed my wife's life. And we started to do things independently so that when we did things together, I use the mall analogy. My wife likes to go to the mall. And I heard this from Dr. Gonz. And I went home that night and I was like, oh, my. Like, I got this thing, and Dr. Gonz has told me that I need to start doing things that are good for me, and then it'll be good for you. And so I know I was going to go to the mall with you this weekend, but instead I'm going to go hiking with my buddy. That wasn't popular. She was not happy about that. She's thinking, I'm being selfish again, because I worked all the time, like 300 days some years. And when I took time off, she wanted to do something, and I'd say I'd do something with her, but she had to endure this. When I went to the mall with her, every time I'd go there and I'd want to show up. I'd want to show up patient, but I wasn't, and I'd go there. I don't like them all that much anyway. But I would walk between stores and I'd get into the store and I would literally be all smiles. And the ladies that were helping her would be like, you are so lucky to have a husband like him. Like, what a great guy. He's carrying your bag. And I'm smiling and talking to them, but in between stores, I was like a five year old child. I'd be like, I'm hungry. I'm tired. This sucks. I want to go home. Can I go to my truck? I wait in the truck. And by the time we left, I ruined her experience. I took the joy out of the thing that she liked, and both of us went home miserable. And so I said, look, that's what you're going to get again. That's the reality, because that's how it is. Every single pine and I said, so how about this? You go to the mall with your sister, I'll go hang out with Sean, go for a hike, and then I'll meet you there in the afternoon. So I'll just take a couple hours. And I showed up, and it was remarkably different. I showed up, and I didn't like being at the mall any more than I did prior times. But I had patience, and I wanted to spend time with her, and I wanted to add value to her day, to her experience. And at the very least, that day, I didn't take away from it. I'm not sure I added a lot of joy, but I certainly didn't take away from it for her. And we were like, holy ****, there's something to this. And it's the way we live our life now. Host/Lisa: We hear it all the time. But I think it is so true, and it ties in so nicely to your champagne analogy. But you cannot pour from an empty cup, right? Trevor: You can't give what you don't have. No, you just can't. Host/Lisa: In all this time, all this growth, what has been your biggest aha moment? Like, if you met somebody today who is really struggling, what would you say? Trevor: I would say, no matter how much you love yourself, love yourself more. And there are simple tools that you can use to do that. That I've learned more about that recently, again. But I would say, don't be afraid to share how you're feeling and in any area of your life. And if you give people permission to do the right thing, they will always do the right thing. And all we have to do is give them permission. And if you are feeling down, if you're feeling lost, if you're feeling lonely, people actually want to help. They actually want to. And the other thing is, and I share this with people as I get to know them, you are not alone. And that's not a catchphrase. You truly aren't. And when I was going through this process, and I was doing a lot of work on myself with some people that had gone before me, and I was getting together with these men that were older than me, and I'd go in and talk about my life, and I'd share. Oftentimes, it was like, today was tough and it sucked, and my wife is not nice to me. And it was a lot of that, right? I'd feel better when I left because I sort of vomited all the stuff that was in me. And I've been going a long time to meet with these guys. And one day, this person that I'm really close to. And he's a mentor of mine now, a giant in my life. He said to me, trev, it's awesome that you come and share. Like, we love seeing you. And I'm like, hey, thanks, man. And he said, but I have some good news for you. And I was like, like, what's that? He said, you no longer have to suffer from terminal uniqueness. And I was like, ouch. Like, at the moment, it was hard. And he said, you come and you share, and you have a different wife and a different son and a different house and a different job, and you live in a different area of town, but at an emotional level, when you share about how you're feeling, every single one of us can identify every one of us. And I went on a mission, Lisa, to prove this. I've traveled all over the world, and I've been on Kilimanjaro in Africa, working with. Hanging out with people who work harder than anybody I know to pack bags up a mountain that's so hard to hike, and they get $15 a day. And I've had the privilege of spending time with a multibillionaire that I got to know well and everything in between, from school teachers to farmers to business people. And I started to ask very similar questions when I was in Kilimanjaro, and I got to know the porters, and I'd go hang out with them, and I'd be like, a lot of them are young. A lot of them aren't. I'd be like, hey, do you have any? And, yeah, yeah. Do they drive you crazy? Like, do you ever get ****** at them? And it's like, yeah. Do you worry about them? Yeah. Why are you on this mountain doing this? Well, I would want to give my family a better life, and if I do this, I can send my kid to school. And I'm like, are you married, or do you have a girlfriend? Swing guy's like, I had a girlfriend, but she dumped me. Oh, man. How'd that feel? Terrible. And I've asked similar questions to everybody. I'm like, do you worry about your parents? Do you worry about your kids? And when I sat with the guy that I know, that's the wealthiest man that I know, and he's extremely wealthy, and I say, hey, man, he. And I know it's kids. I'm like, do you worry about your kids? Yeah, of course I do. Said, do you worry about your. I said. I said, do they drive you crazy? Yeah, of course. And you love them? Yeah. I said, have you ever been, like, have you ever been broke up with? And he started laughing. Of course I have. I had a wife that left me once when I was younger. And I'm like, how did you feel? He says, what do you mean, how did I feel? Chuff. It was terrible. My heart was broke. And I'm like, holy ****. We are all at an emotional level. We are exactly the same. If I tell you that I'm feeling sad, you have had moments in your life where you're sad. If I tell you that I've been in love, you've been in love. There's not one person that hasn't, at an emotional level that hasn't experienced emotions. And so we are actually way more the same than we are different. And an emotional level, we're exactly the same. We feel differently for different reasons, but we feel. Host/Lisa: And I think that is where the power of sharing our stories really is, the core of this next step that I feel like that we can take on a mental health level, because I think when we are vulnerable, we share our story. We share how awful we're feeling. It opens the door, and it gives other people permission to share their story. And that is where the magic happens. That's where the healing starts, and that's where these really important conversations come in. Trevor: Yes. And it's giving people permission to do the right thing. There kind of the tagline for my speech at lead was, turn your struggles into strengths. And that means, to me, that means share your story. Partly. It's also the worst day of my life, I tell people, was the day on the bathroom floor, and I never felt like I would feel worse than that, ever. But the darkest moment became the catalyst for change. My worst day of my life became the best day of my life. I'm so grateful for it now, and I truly am. And I say that right from my heart, because I could have continued to live in a state of numbness for another 20 or 30 or 40 years, however long I lived, and that would have been so much worse. So feeling the pain and going through what I had to to get the life I have today, I wish it on the people I love. I say to folks that I'm close with, I hope you never wake up on a bathroom floor with an almost overwhelming desire to end your life. But if that's what it takes, I hope that if you end up there, you make the choice I made. And that's what I pray for every day. But if that's what it takes to get you to change your life so that you have a life better than you can ever imagine. Then I hope that you end up there, because life is amazing, even though it's hard and parts of it suck. And I've come to realize that life is actually supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be hard, and I accept that today. And any meaningful pursuit in life is supposed to be really hard. And the more meaningful the pursuit in life, the harder it's supposed to be. And the universe will constantly check us to see how badly we want something. And it actually has to happen. Life has to be hard so that we can become the person that we need to be to grow into the person that we need to be to overcome the next challenge that comes in our life. I look at goals differently than I used to. I used to be like, the goal of the goal is the outcome. It's finishing. And it hit me that actually the purpose of the goal is to become the person that I need to be, to be able to achieve the goal. And I use a marathon analogy. If I'm going to go and run a marathon and I want to actually run the whole thing, I have to become a certain person to do that. I have to be disciplined. I have to get up. I have to train. I have to change my eating habit. I have to go to the gym. And if I do all of that stuff and I show up on the day of the marathon and the marathon gets canceled, it's actually not a big deal because I become the person that I needed to be that could run a marathon. So that's the purpose of a goal, is to become the person you need to be to accomplish the goal. And when you set big goals in life in any way, personally, professionally, inner growth, anything that you set as a goal, the bigger the goal, the harder it's going to be. And the universe will challenge you so that you become the person that you need to be to accomplish the goal. Host/Lisa: I feel much the same way, and I say this all the time. You talk about the universe. That is my feeling as well, that we are humans. We're living this human existence. I think we're all spirits by nature and that we all came here to grow. And the only way we grow is through the gross, hard, awful things. We don't grow when we're sitting on a beach sipping a mai tai and having a chocolate chip cupcake. That's everyone's goal in life, right? Yeah, but it doesn't really amount to much, really. And like you say, even reflecting back on my own darkest times. I wouldn't be the person that I am today without having gone through all of that. Trevor: Yeah. And it's so true. And I think everybody, if they reflect on their life to realize where they are, it's the same for everybody, right? So I've learned this. For me, I don't see cappiness and joy anymore. I see contentment. And for me, it's peace and contentment. And for me, that means that no matter what I'm facing, because there's going to be days and weeks and months. There's going to be hard times. I'm going to have sadness, and I'm going to have emotional pain, and I'm going to feel grief at some time, and I'm going to feel happiness and joy, and I'm going to be excited. And all of those things are actually fleeting. They come and they go, and they're varying degrees. But if I seek peace and contentment, I want to know that when I'm sad that I'm going to be okay. And when I'm really overjoyed, I want to know that I'm going to be okay. And that's why I seek contentment now. I'm like, life is going to happen, and I'm an emotional being, and I'm okay with that. I accept that. It's that I want to be able to go on that emotional journey. And if I focus on contentment, it helps stop me from trying to stuff the feeling of sadness and grief, the feelings I don't like. I'm like, I'm going to be okay. This is something I'm experienced, and it hurts really bad, but I'm going to be okay. I can be content in the fact that I'm feeling the feeling. It's a work in progress for me. I'm still a student of life, but I just can be like, I'm going to be okay. Host/Lisa: And I think that reminds us. I think when we've been through really awful, awful, awful times, part of our growth is being able to look back on that and say, at least myself, I've been through that. I am still standing. I am still here. For me, that was the worst. Losing a child. If I can get through that, dear God, I can get through anything. Trevor: Unreal. Absolutely. And things happen to human beings that are so horrific, and they find most people, or many, find a way through it and can find a way to use that to become a better human. And I have so much respect and admiration for people who go through things like you did by losing a child and can be the person that you. I know the things that put me on my knees and they were know not as painful of the actual experience. I felt like that, but it wasn't anywhere near that significant. And yeah, I admire you a lot, Lisa. When I watched this video and learned about life's supposed to be hard, and this lady just said it so eloquently to a woman's basketball team, I think, at Notre Dame. And she said, the purpose of life is not to have an easy life. If the people who want an easy life stand on the street corner and the buses go by them. And she said, the purpose of life, your life, is supposed to be hard. Any meaningful pursuit in life is supposed to be hard. And the more meaningful the pursuit, the harder it is. The goal of life is to learn to handle hard better. That is the purpose of life. You learn to handle hard better. And I use that analogy sometimes when I'm speaking to people and I'll say, when I was 13 years old and this girl that I had a crush on was moving away, or twelve or eleven, whatever I was, I was heartbroken. I saw, like, this girl that I love, and I thought, I am never going to feel worse than that in my life. But you know what? When I was 18 and my girlfriend broke up with me, I was sad for a day, not for weeks, and I didn't solve, I don't think it's about being harder. I think it's about learning how to handle hard better. You learn that life happens. I've stopped saying this is the worst experience of my life, because every time I've said it, the universe has proven to me that there can be more pain. Host/Lisa: Buckle up, Trev. Trevor: Exactly. Host/Lisa: So that's a perfect segue into my next question. And that is, what does resilience mean to you? Trevor: I think it's the ability to move forward in spite of the pain, in spite of where you're at. And I am now, like, I have got to a point in my life where I'm more proud of myself now for the days I show up when it's hard than when I crush the goal when it's easy. And it took me a long time to figure that out. Those are the days I should applaud myself. The days when I was going through stuff that was so hard in business at times and personally in my life, I would literally lay, and this is since in the last five years or six years, I would lay in the basement in the dark for a better part of a day in a fetal position because it was just under so much stress. And I would eventually be like, I don't get to quit. And I'd get up and I'd put my pants on and my socks and I'd go back out into life. And that was resiliency for me. It's like, this is hard and I don't know how I'm going to get through it, but I know I'm going to get through it. And I tell myself, I told our team that when we were going through a real bad financial time in sharepoint and I mean close to bankruptcy, and I'll be like, this is scary. This is our reality. We're in a lot of trouble. I don't know how we're going to get through it. And I'm scared, but I know we will. I know we will figure it out. And that's how I live my life now. I'm like, this is bad. It's scary. I'll give myself few moments to feel it. I'll lay on the couch for a little while and then I will say, it's time to get up. It's time to get up and go. I don't know how I'm going to get through it. I just know I will. Host/Lisa: Where can people find you? Whether they want you to come and speak or all of the great stuff. Trevor: That you've got going on LinkedIn or Facebook is actually the easiest. And I do respond to every single person who sends me a note on either of those platforms. I'm on Instagram, but I'm not very active on there and I will always get back to folks through those platforms and set up a time to meet if they'd like to. Host/Lisa: Sure, that's great. And I will put those links in the show notes as well for anybody who's listening. Trevor, your journey serves as an inspiration to all of us, reminding us of the strength and resilience of the human spirit. Thank you for your bravery and for shining a light on such an important topic. It's been an honor to have you as our guest. Trevor: This has been so awesome. And again, thank you for reaching out to me. It really means a lot to me, Lisa, and for all your kind words. That's incredible and I'm touched. Host/Lisa: My pleasure. Stay well and be resilient, my friends. Remember, you were made for.

This podcast episode features a conversation with Kevin Crispin, a mental health advocate and podcast host. Kevin believes that stories are a powerful tool for healing. He shares his own experiences with anxiety and panic attacks, showcasing his humorous and sarcastic approach to mental health. Through their discussion, Kevin and host Lisa Boehm emphasize the importance of humor in dealing with mental health challenges and finding joy in the midst of difficult times. ............................................................. Find Kevin here: www.sadtimespodcast.com @sadtimespodcast (instagram) Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/373292146649249) ............................................................. Rising Strong links: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast Email Lisa your ideas for solo episodes: https://www.lisakboehm.com/contact-lisa WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ............................................................ TRANSCRIPTS: Host/Lisa: If you think humor and mental health don't go well together, you're wrong, because today's guest is going to make you giggle and smile. Kevin Crispin is a mental health advocate and podcast host who believes that stories are the great healing currency of humankind. Kevin and I connected in the podcast space online, and a few weeks ago I was on his podcast, sad times. It turns out that Kevin and I have a lot in common, including a long history with anxiety and panic attacks. Now, don't let that scare you. I think you'll really enjoy Kevin's humorous and sarcastic approach to mental health. Welcome to the show, Kevin. Kevin: Hey, thanks for having me. And I do want to say at this recording, we did record a couple of weeks ago. We have not released it yet, but don't worry. Now, as I watch you and learn how to do social media, I will tag you once we do release yours in the upcoming weeks. Host/Lisa: Perfect. Look forward to sharing that to the internets. Yes, to the Googles and the internets. Kevin: And the chat gbts, who will then explain to us what we just. Host/Lisa: Yeah, yeah. So let's jump right into this. Kevin, you have, as I said, a long history with anxiety. Let's go back in time and tell us when that started. Kevin: Yeah. When we conversed a little bit beforehand, I did make an attempt at a pithy remark to say it started when I was born, but really, I would say it was about when I was four was when I really started to notice it. I was someone who would get very anxious and wanted to make sure everybody around me felt okay and was okay. The first time I had a knowing panic attack, or at least where I felt like this doesn't feel right. I was about five years old. I was staying in my grandparents, and I was sitting in the living room at their house, and it was almost as if the walls were closing in on me because I just kept having the same thought over and over again. I'm going to run away. I'm going to run away. I'm going to run away now. I didn't want to run away, but I was so afraid I was going to run away. And I became consumed with that fear. So I'm consumed with this fear, which is antithetical to what I want to be doing at that moment, which was sitting in that chair thinking about the cubs or something. And I was consumed by the fear. But also a part of me was thinking to myself, but I don't want to do this. Why am I so worried about it? And this was long before I had had any sort of mental health diagnosis. This is long, a couple of years before I started therapy, and I had no idea about what that disconnect meant or what my perception of reality when I am anxious meant. Like, I couldn't have dove down into any of those things, but at the time I was just very afraid and very confused. Host/Lisa: Wow, that must have been frightening, especially as a little kid. Kevin: Yeah, it's pretty hardcore. And I think this is true and maybe this will be true of some of your listeners. I had all these thoughts, I got through it, but I didn't know how to talk to anybody about it because I didn't know how to explain to them. I thought if I went up to my grandma and said, I'm afraid I'm going to run away, she would say something very loving like, well, you're not going to run away. We won't let you. You're going to be just safe here. But when I try to explain, I don't want to run away, that's when you get the perplexed look like, well, why are you afraid of it? And so I just kind of kept it to myself. And that's something that I've done a lot of my life, is I've kept my worries to myself because I didn't always know how to explain them to people, and often too, at no fault of anybody else's. If you start to have a long explanation about the struggles that you're having, that can cause the anxiety for them, like, we'll wait. I don't understand what we're talking about and all this stuff. So I think I learned early on self learning behavior. Nobody taught me this to keep it to myself and just get through it and make sure everybody else is okay. Host/Lisa: I know myself with anxiety in particular. I felt really stupid saying things, just. Kevin: Saying them out loud. Host/Lisa: Saying them out loud. As soon as I started saying them out loud, it just sounded ridiculous that I would be anxious about something and then I was self conscious and then I wouldn't want to embarrass myself. And like you say, it's just for a variety of reasons. It's sometimes easier to keep it on the inside. Not so much healthy, but easier. Kevin: Or what we think is easier. Right? Host/Lisa: You're right. Kevin: It goes to something else that I've learned over the many years that often what's going on? I'm a big believer in storytelling. I believe, as I have said a couple of times, stories are the great healing power of humankind. The more we hear, the more we heal. But there's an adverse to that. And there are stories we tell ourselves in our head that are, in your case, that you just said, that's stupid. Or I'm self conscious about that. That's a story where, let's just say it's you and one other person and you don't want to tell them. It's almost as if you're taking their agency away, too, without giving them the chance to say, well, no, Lisa, it's not stupid. Or Kevin. No, it's not weird that you are afraid. You want to run away, but you're not wanting to run away. Host/Lisa: Yeah, that's really interesting, too. And I know we had talked, know the quote unquote voices in our love. You call yours Frank. Tell us, what about Frank. Kevin: Frank's a ************. I do want to say where Frank's name came from. I'm a big Tom Waits fan, and he has a record from 1983 called Frank's Wild Years. And there's a song on there, I believe. No, I'm sorry. 1983 was swordfish Trump bones with a song called Frank's Wild Years. He then had a record called Frank's Wild Years in 1987. Anyway, the song Frank's wild Years is a spoken word song about this dude who's just a **** and crazy and likes to drink Mickey's big mouths and burns down a house. And so I thought, that seems like the type of voice I've got going on in my head. And it's not that I hear voices. I'm lucky that I do not struggle with that. It's that it's my inner critic. Right? Critic being the nicest word I could ever say about Frank because he's much worse than he. For example, many times I've talked to somebody and I'm talking to them, and Frank is literally saying, you ******* idiot. They don't care what you're saying. You're not saying it right. You said, um, too many times. What the **** are you not. Just shut up, Kevin. Nobody wants to hear from you. Why don't you just go over there? I mean, it's just constant, constant. Host/Lisa: Hey, I have a Karen. I have a Karen. Kevin: Karen. There you go. Host/Lisa: Yeah. And my apologies to any listeners who are named Karen, but, yeah, my voice is Karen, and she's really annoying. I wouldn't say that she's always in my head criticizing me, but she's. She's calling me a dumb *** quite often for a variety of things. And I don't know if that's normal. I'd like to know how many people have that negative self talk going on. Kevin: My best guess is this. I think that there are variations of it, just like there are variations on most things. And I think certain people, it's very quiet, right? And then certain people, it's very loud. And I think a good example of this is something I've noticed about myself the last couple of years. I'm holding up my phone here, and I misplace that thing all the time. And it doesn't help that when I'm on the phone almost all the time, I have my wireless headphones on. So I'm walking around, and often I say out loud to myself when I can't find it, I say things, and I'm not kidding, things like, Kevin, you're a failure. Kevin, you idiot. Out loud. And then I've learned to stop and say, well, it's just a phone, so maybe not. But even this morning, I'm currently in a hotel room. And even this morning, as I went to leave, I had left the bolt lock thing on. So I opened the door and it caught, and it gave me a start. And I said, before I even thought about it, I said, ******* idiot. Come on. About something like that, right? And I'm not saying, feel sorry for me. Please don't think that that type of negative self talk throughout the day about something as innocuous as a bolt lock. It adds up for people, and it really can be very difficult to deal with. Host/Lisa: And I think especially, we're talking about mental health here. To hear ourselves talking to ourselves. I mean, the person that we spend the most time with, that we should love the most, and we talk the trashiest, too. That's not good on a good day, when life is good, but when we're in the worst of it. Yeah. I can't imagine anything worse. And yet we do it all the time. All the time. Kevin: It's almost as if. Have you thought about why we do it all the time? Do you have any hypotheses about that? Host/Lisa: I do, and I don't know if it fits or not. I think growing up, I was the kid. I was never an outsider, per se, but I was never one of the cool kids. I was always on the periphery, moved around a lot. There was a variety of reasons, but I found that acceptance, a lot of times came from self depreciating humor. Kevin: Yes. I'm sorry. I'm nodding, but yes. Host/Lisa: Yeah. And I feel like that has just stuck. Even though logically, I'm a reasonably intelligent human being, logically, I know that that is damaging logically. I know that I'm not stupid. I flub up. I do silly things. I'm a human being, but I catch myself on the daily just trash talking myself. And that's why I wonder, does everybody do. Kevin: Very, I think it's got to be on a know and know. I've had therapists say to me, well, now I'll explain a situation to them and I'll be like, I'm so mad at myself about X, Y or Z. And they'll say, well, Kevin, what would happen if your good friend came to you and said that they were in this situation? I'd say, well, that makes sense. That's normal. They're going to be fine. And they said, well, what's the difference between them and you? And I say, oh, well, I can't give myself that break. I don't really know. The best answer I could come up with is I still think it's some form of control. I still think, think that I am in some way exercising control over the situation by putting myself down. And I think that's foolish. But I think that at some point these voices develop in our heads and maybe they had a small need at that time that they met, but these patterns develop in our brains and then we grow and they stay and they get larger and larger and larger and larger. And so getting out of those patterns is a whole other thing. Host/Lisa: Well, and I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I read something a month or so ago and it keeps coming up daily in my life because I think it's so true. We do more of what we do more of and we get better at what we do more of. So, for example, if you trash talk yourself on the daily, that's a habit, right? It's a habit and it's something that I'm guessing would be as hard to stop doing as smoking or going on a diet or changing your eating habits, whatever. And you'd think of, I've been doing this for a number of decades now, right? So this isn't going to be something that I just read about, think about, hear about and go, oh, I'm so done that, right. And I think, yeah, it's something that I would like to stop and I would like to see you stop and I would like to see everybody who's struggling with that because it doesn't help us. Right. And even I think about raising kids, our kids definitely will all the time follow what we do more than follow what we say, right? So if mom is constantly looking in the mirror. I'm too fat, I've got to go on a diet, blah, blah, blah. Guess what? Kids are going to probably start saying, particularly daughters. And same thing with the self depreciation, right? Kids are going to grow up hearing that, too. So, yeah, something that we've got to stop. But let's change direction a little bit here. You and I had talked about this a little bit before we jumped on, and I love your sarcasm. Honestly. Like your sarcasm and humor. What? Do you think that the place, or do you think that humor has a place with mental health and why? Kevin: Absolutely. I think that humor has a place most places in the world. And then I'm going to say the word place again. Place. Place. So humor, I had, a long time ago, I had a realization, which was the only thing, there's so many things befuddling in life and so many things befuddling in the world, that the only thing that seems to make sense in any situation is kindness every time, 100%. But I think a close second is humor. And humor absolutely has a place in mental health, because if we take ourselves, in my opinion, if we take ourselves too seriously, we're in for a difficult road, because you have to laugh at yourself. And the way that I get through all the painful things that I've been through in my life is dark humor. I have to laugh at it. And before we got on, I told you about that thing that my mom said. And basically, I said to my mom, oh, I know why I was around. So she has a very dark sense of humor. We're at the Mayo clinic, and she's here. She has cancer. And I said, mom, I'm thinking about writing a travel diary for this. And she goes, oh, you can call it before my mom died. And that right there is a home run to me. I think that's perfect, because, well, we're all going to die anyway, so humor has to be there, because humor also elicits joy. Humor makes you laugh. I think of the movie airplane a lot. That's my favorite movie of all time. And that movie makes more sense to me than most anything I've seen, because it's so absurd all of the time, and it's so funny. And if we take not only ourselves too seriously, but the whole world around us, again, it's going to be tough going. I think so. I think there is that line you have to walk with people, because some people are different steps in their mental health journey, and they're not comfortable with the humor around it. And so on sad times, we do have levity when appropriate. There are times where humor maybe is not appropriate, but most of the time, I firmly, firmly, firmly believe it is going back to the self deprecating humor that you were talking about a moment ago. The summer of 1995, I got really obsessed with David Letterman because I could stay up late. I didn't have to get up to go school so I could watch his show. And he is Mr. Self deprecation. That's, like, all his humor is. That and irony, all day, every day. And it really struck a chord with me, and I thought it was really funny because it also keeps people off guard. But it shows. I like that guy because he doesn't think he's better than anybody or any of that. Right? So humor is unbelievably important to me. Host/Lisa: Do you seek funny things out, or do you seek things out that make you chuckle or laugh? Kevin: Not as often as I should, actually. My favorite thing in art is sadness. And the reason I say that is sadness. When I see sadness being put back to me in art, it makes my life make sense. It makes me feel less alone. Now, I know a lot of people, they need only an escape, and their escape is, oh, I'm going to go watch a comedy. Makes sense. I think that I could do more of that. But then Frank comes in and says, well, you're not doing enough. Why are you watching that Instagram reel? You should be reading. You should be writing. Apparently arithmetic, too. Reading, writing, arithmetic. And I don't allow myself that break for that joy. But that's a mistake on my part, I think, and that's a pattern I've learned. So I do seek out certain things. I love comedy, but I think it has to be curated around what mood I'm in, if that makes any sense. Host/Lisa: No, I think I understand that completely. My thing is I don't allow myself to have fun until all the work is done. All the things on the list are all crossed off. The dishwasher is empty. Is that stuff ever all done? No. So I find myself always having a reason not to go and have the fun. So, a little bit different from funny, seeking out humor, but along the same lines. And not to blame anybody, but that was kind of ingrained in me growing up. To be successful, you got to work first and play when there's time. And I've kind of become an unfun person, I want to say. And I just wonder if, again, these are ingrained thoughts or if it's a control thing or why we get into those habits. Kevin: You. Host/Lisa: If you're loving the show, I want to hear your feedback. Take a screenshot showing your five star rating and that you're subscribed to us on Apple Podcast or are following us on Spotify. Then head over to the rising strong podcast Facebook page, hit the message button and send it my way. You'll be entered to win some rising strong swag. I will draw one name at the end of each month. Good luck, and thanks for listening. Kevin: Well, I think a couple of things. These couple thoughts come to mind with one, I think you're a fun person, so stop that bullshit. Two, the human condition. Everybody says human nature, human condition. I think one of the things in the human condition that we don't acknowledge often is overcorrection. So we see something and say, I'm going to do better or I'm going to do that more. And we overcorrect. And usually it's like a pendulum. We go way the hell over here, and then we're like, we beat ourselves up or whatever, and we start to realize through the mental health work, et cetera. Okay, we got to come back over here. Not everything's the end of the world, to use your example, if I don't empty the dishwasher before I have a glass of wine and watch airplane, the other thing is, I think I've lost it. So overcorrection is one of them. And I think that, oh, nuance. Nuance is a word that has a meaning, but that meaning does not seem to be appearing in a lot of the culture anymore. Nuance is. Do you know the US show Yellowstone? Host/Lisa: Yes. Kevin: So I watched the first episode of that, and that's all I've watched. And I got done with the episode. I said, you know what? That show doesn't have any. And it's nuanced. It's just beating you over the head with it, which is fine, but when having complicated discussions about mental health, about the way we treat ourselves, people forget about the nuance of it and that it's not all or nothing all of the time. Host/Lisa: Right? Kevin: Yes. I was told the same thing. You got to work hard to get ahead, et cetera. Yes, of course, but there are limits to that. And the easiest example I can do of that is I've got this bottle of water. There is a way that you can overdose on water. If you drink too much water, you drown your cells. So let me get back to work on that. I never learned to swim, so that'll help with that. Host/Lisa: There we go. Yeah. When we talked before as well. You said that you really struggle with self doubt and impostor syndrome. And I guess that kind of ties all into what we've been talking about here today as well. Like that Frank guy. Is he playing a role in that? Kevin: Oh, yeah. Frank is the president, CEO, CFO, COO of the Kevin Self Doubt Institute, and he has built quite a massive I. So I did a writing exercise a number of years back where I started to write a letter to Frank. Okay. So I'm typing it out, I'm writing it, and then I started to let Frank's responses get typed out. And I would quickly switch to italic and it would be Frank's response then back to me, non italic. By the end of the letter was like the last page was all italics, which is him just beating me down. Host/Lisa: Wow. Kevin: Yeah. And it went out with my Christmas card and I lost a lot of friends. I'm just kidding. I don't send Christmas cards. I've always wanted to send a Christmas card where it's just me looking very confused and angry and alone, and just send it to people and be like, happy holidays. Because I think that'd be ******* hilarious. But I digress. Host/Lisa: Well, honestly, yeah, I dare you. Double dog dare you. Kevin: I also was taught to save your money when I was a kid. So Frank says to me, see, Frank takes. Frank is not interested in nuance either. So Frank's like, you're not going to spend that money on that. What are you going to do? You're going to waste your money on a joke like that? Which wouldn't be a waste, as we just talked about for ten minutes, because it would make people laugh. And laughter is great. Host/Lisa: So true. Do you have this thought that you need to, quote unquote, fix your anxiety, fix your mental health, fix anything about you? Or have you kind of gotten to this place where this is me, this is Kevin, and I accept that. Here's me. Kevin: I think I'm probably more in the latter. I think I've spent a lot of my time trying to fix it or trying to understand it, and by understanding it, think that I have control over it, when really control is an illusion. So I think I mostly accept it. I think where that gets dangerous is. So I've been diagnosed with OCD. And to put too much of how you see yourself in your diagnosis or how you view yourself gets to be if you're accepting of it, but at the same time, say, I am OCD, Kevin, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Again, nuance over correction gets you into trouble. I feel less about needing to fix it because I have done a lot of work through therapy, through medication, working out, et cetera. That helps me balance that. And it's helped me understand that who I am is not just my anxiety, but an anxiety. I've heard a lot of my mentors or people who I look up to call it a superpower, right? So my OCD, it can be debilitating, but it also has led me to accomplish a lot of stuff because it does keep me focused and driven and et cetera. So I don't think that I necessarily need to fix it as much anymore. Although Frank is telling me, and I'm not kidding, Frank is telling me right now, no, you do need to fix it. Be honest, Kevin. You always feel like you are not doing enough. So the version of me that I like, the non frank version, right, is saying everything's okay, but there's still work that I need to do to allow myself to sit quietly with that feeling that everything is okay and not have to immediately jump on top of it and make changes to it. Does that make sense? Host/Lisa: I think so. First of all, I think, can you fire Frank? He might be the CEO, but maybe it's time to give him the boot. Kevin: I've tried. The board of directors won't let me, which is just a bunch of mini franks. The ************ cloned himself, too. And look, he's not good company, and he's not funny, but it becomes so intense that I want anything but to feel that. And I think that is kind of one of the dirty little secrets about people with severe anxiety is they know they're not in their right mind when they think, I'll do anything to not feel this. But it is very. So uncomfortable that we just want to do anything. And so what we do, which perpetuates it, is we try to fight that thought or that feeling which invites the thought to stay. And then you just start doing this instead of just sitting with the thought, right. And then letting the thought dissipate on its own. I call it the voice, then I call it the anxiety, and then I call it a world. So what I mean is, the voice will say something. Here's an example. In a workplace, my boss comes in and says, kevin, can you pop in my office for a second? Right. My voice says, she's mad at you. You're going to get fired. Which causes a feeling of anxiety. That anxiety is that unease we feel, which is actually a. What's the word I want? Evolutionary trait. Right. To save us. But it is bastardized and magnified. So then you get that feeling which causes you to create a world to stop that feeling in your brain, and it happens in like 4 seconds. So it goes, Kevin, can you come step in my office for a second? I'm going to be fired. Oh, God, what am I going to do? You start to feel something, and then all of a sudden, in the world, you're walking out after having packed a box of your stuff and being ashamed as you walk by everybody because you've lost your job. And all that happens almost always way faster than we even know it's happened. And then what happens? What happens is we, I think at least I, more often than not in my life, have clung on to the world I've created and forgotten about which. He just popped her head in my office. Even so, in this example that I go into the office and I'm like. And not literally shaking, but very afraid, and they're like, oh, we just wanted to let you know that next Tuesday we're going to be closed, whatever it may be. And you're like, oh. And so it's like a push, pull, push, pull, push, pull. And that goes on for so many people all day, every day, and often, unfortunately, because so many people are parents and they're worried about paying their bills, and they're worried about, obviously, their children, maybe other members of their family, friends. They don't even have the time or the luxury to sit back and say, well, now let's follow that train of thought in my mind there for a moment. I did this, this, and this. Oh, wow. That's what happened. I created this whole world when that world didn't exist, if that makes sense. Host/Lisa: Yeah. Been there. Been there. You and I talked about this, I think, on your podcast, and I don't know if anybody else finds it helpful, but I would ask myself, is this the end of the world? Like this thought I'm having this worry I'm having. Is this the end of the world? And most of the time, the answer was no. The world will not end if I get fired. The world will not end if the garage doesn't get organized. I know. Yes. Talk about OCD. Yes, I've had panic attacks over. The garage will not be organized by this weekend like I had planned. Yes, this is true. But in my family, we've also had the worst possible thing happen to us. I mean, we've lost a child in a car accident. And that has also changed my perspective on things as well, because, frankly, I don't think anything can compare to that. So I feel like I've been through the worst. So other than, God forbid, losing another member of my family, my son, for example, anything else is survivable, but a lot of it is perspective. Kevin: Perspective. I love that word. I love the value in perspective. Having perspective, it's one of the most valuable things in the world, but it's really there on time. Host/Lisa: Oh, 100%. Kevin: And I think the way that you and I are saying that in a very solemn, accepting way says a lot about both of us. Right. To know that we are closer to forgiving ourselves for that than we may have been, as you said, 20 or 30 years ago. To say, you know what? I didn't do as well today. I'm going to try again tomorrow. Host/Lisa: Even just being aware of Frank and know, just being aware of the negative chatter, being aware of the habits, being, you know, even after you say it, Lisa, you dumbass. Yeah, okay. That's not serving me well. Awareness, right. I'm going to try not to say that anymore. Or being aware of just the terrible things that we do for ourselves and to ourselves. I think first we have to be aware, and then we have to believe that change is possible and that a change would be in our best interest. So, for know, kicking Karen to the curb when she shows up or being able to just have that perspective on the spot, which is really hard. But when Karen shows know, it's like, okay, shut up, I'm done. Kevin: I sometimes say that out loud. I don't know if you do. Oh, I do. You're not welcome here, or shut up. And that's why I can't go to Kroger anymore. But I say it out loud because it's almost as if it's like I'm now putting my foot down and we're moving forward. Right. Host/Lisa: Right. Kevin: I love what you said about awareness and then belief. And belief is similar to hope. And if you believe that things can get better, then I think the third thing is the actions and the work. Because the thing is, people always say, well, knowing is half the battle. To which I would say, well, often with my mental health struggles, I'm the Alexander the great of half the battle. But the other half, I don't have a ******* clue. I don't know how to change it. So awareness is the first step, and it's very difficult to have the awareness. But there's also that second step. Well, I guess third step, because second step is believing, and then third step of doing the work to make the change. So you can do it differently going forward, but it's hard, man. Host/Lisa: Oh, absolutely. I think that's why a lot of us are in this club. Right? It's because it's not easy. It's not something you can read one book about or listen to one podcast episode or go to one counseling therapy session. It's an ongoing process, but I think that segues perfectly into my next question, and that is, what do you do to help yourself? Kevin: Exercise. So, when the pandemic hit, I had been going to gyms for a while, and I would do, like, the elliptical or things like that for the cardio part. Well, all the gyms closed, and I had a very stressful job at the time. And I said, well, I'm going to lose my ******* mind. And I hate running. But I was like, I got to run. So I'd start running, and I became a bit of a runner. And that helps a lot. That helps me clear my head. It helps me organize my thoughts, and it kind of tires me out. I think what a lot of people maybe who aren't as anxious don't realize about anxieties, is it is exhausting. I know somebody who has a puppy, and one of the ways that she keeps her puppy calm, especially if the weather is bad, is she gives them little puzzles to try to get the treats out because it engages their brain and it wears them out. It's the same thing with anxiety. You could see somebody sitting there all day worrying, and then they're like, God, I'm exhausted. And they're like, you didn't do anything, but your body becomes so exhausted from the use of your brain. And so running not only enriches your brain, it allows your brain to reorient itself, very much like. And so exercise is a big one for me, writing. If I am able to get over the frank Hump, I guess we'll call it, which sounds terrible, if I can get over the frank Hump and actually write. I always write to figure something out. And one of my favorite things about writing is you start to write, and then it could be a couple of sentences or a couple of paragraphs. You're writing about something you had no idea you were going to write about, because it just comes because it's allowing those thoughts to flow freely. So exercise writing, and then mental health advocacy and making sure that people through the sad Times podcast, through motivational speaking that I'm trying to do, making sure that allowing people to share their stories and be somebody who can be there to listen and serve people that way is another good, positive thing for me, because when I was a kid, I had all these racing thoughts, and I really thought, nobody's brain is like this. I'm insane. I don't know what to do. I felt so isolated, so alone. And then I found out no other people go through this. And there was such an unbelievable relief to learn that I was not the only one going through this. And it wasn't relief that others were suffering. It was relief that I was not alone. And that's why I think stories are the great healing currency of humankind, because they help us feel less alone. So I guess those things. And reading, ******* reading. I'd always rather be reading. Always. And this phone ***** that up a little bit. But sometimes I'll put the phone in another room and I'll just sit with a book for an hour or whatever. People say, oh, I don't have time for reading, to which I say, well, you can make time for reading. Host/Lisa: Yeah. Kevin: Point for me to say, for somebody who has maybe two jobs and children, right? That's different. But somebody, maybe in my position, who has no children, you can always make time for reading. And I believe that we as a society, the greatest thing we ever did as a society was not invent the wheel, although that has helped. It was public libraries, because public libraries allow people to congregate. They allow people to understand ideas they'd never thought of. I think at the Chicago public library where I used to go almost daily, there was a quote from Oprah Winfrey on the wall that said something to the effect of getting my library card was like getting my citizenship. And so reading, understanding new ideas, being challenged by ideas, it is very good for me, and I think it's good for us as a race of people. Host/Lisa: Well, I think on some level, it circles back to what you had said earlier about the power of stories. And, I mean, to me, a book is a story, even if it's not a fictitious boy meets girl, whatever, or the three little pigs. A book is still a story, even if it's all based on fact. That's all about World War II or all about politics or all about whatever. It's a story. And I think our stories are very powerful. And what I have learned in the advocacy space as well is that when we tell our story, it allows other people to feel safe telling theirs. How many times have you shared a story where you've said, gosh, I really struggle with anxiety or this or that, and somebody else says, oh, my God, me too. Let me tell you about that. Yeah. Kevin: That's so well said. And one of the great parts of stories. And being human. Host/Lisa: Yeah. So I'm going to challenge you. I'm going to say that not the greatest thing is not maybe libraries, but the old campfire when we were cave people, instead of clubbing each other over the head at night, we were maybe grunting out a story or using our stick to draw a story in the dirt, because that's how the information was brought forward. Kevin: Yes, but to satirize the years I've spent in corporate culture. But is that scalable, Lisa? Host/Lisa: No, it is not. Kevin: Good Lord. Anyway, no, I think that's a very fair point. And I take your point. I think it's. Yeah. Instead of clubbing yourself over the head with it, using the club to draw in the sand or somehow to write on the wall with it. Right. Host/Lisa: There you go. See? Look at how far we've come. Look at how far. Yeah. Kevin: I mean, we've got bottled water. We pay like $3 for it, right? Yeah. Host/Lisa: What gives you hope, Kevin? Kevin: Kindness. Kindness gives me hope above all else. I think I'll use your phrasing. It's not the end of the world that gives me hope. I think for me personally, the more I learn about how the universe was made, the more I learn about my infantile spec spot in. It gives me hope. It makes me realize now, it makes you realize not everything is that big of a deal now. I still have my emotions, I still have my reactions, et cetera. So I still struggle with that. That gives me hope. Kindness, humor, gives me hope. The fact that we are able to change gives me hope. And I think mortality gives me some hope. And what I mean by that is if you read Walt Whitman, who I adore, it helps you focus on now instead of them. And that is hopeful to me. Host/Lisa: That is powerful. You're right. Kevin: I think I fail at that most of the time, but it does help me get there when I need to. Host/Lisa: What about resilience? What does resilience mean to you? Kevin: Resilience is, again, I'm going to go back to kindness. It's forgiveness. It's quite literally persistence. Maybe I use that grammatically wrong. Literally. I wrote it down on that sheet. What else did I put down? Host/Lisa: Trying to be more empathetic. Kevin: True. Host/Lisa: Laughing at myself and the world. Kevin: True. Host/Lisa: Trying to be kind to myself. It's not easy. Kevin: It is not easy. But as I've gotten older, as I've done some work in therapy, as I've tried to make changes to my patterns, I've learned that beating myself down is the opposite of resilience, and forgiving myself is kind of quintessential resilience. But, man, is it hard. It's very difficult, yeah. Host/Lisa: But it's like riding a bike, and only in the sense that we fall down a lot when we're first learning. And we just have to keep getting on that **** thing, right? Yeah, we're all scabbed up and scarred up. You just keep getting back on it. Right. A little farther the next time before you fall off. Kevin: True. Host/Lisa: So, we haven't really talked about your podcast sad times yet. So before we wrap things up here, can you give us a little synopsis of sad times and what you do over there? Kevin: Sure. So, sad Times is a podcast that was actually born out of my one man show. I did that one man show in 2017. It was called invisible now from the Dylan lyric, you're invisible now. You got no secrets to conceal. And in the show, the idea of the show was, you know, it would be funny is if I did a show where I talked about all the weird **** I've been afraid of. And I'm talking about, like, when I was a kid, I was afraid I was going to stick my head in a tornado siren and lose my hearing, to which everybody goes, well, just don't stick your head in a tornado siren said, ah, you're missing the point. I was afraid for a good long while, I was going to die in the electric chair. I had a full on panic attack about that in Chicago. My poor dad didn't know what the **** to do. And the goal of the show was, here's my weird ****, very much like what you just said. Here's my story. And then people say, oh, my God, I feel the same way. And I partnered with a mental health organization in the city of Chicago, and I was doing the show. And after one show, I came out, there was a woman standing there with her daughter who was maybe 1819, I don't know. And she introduced herself, said, hi, my name is. And I. Shame on me. I don't remember her name. I work with Cathedral counseling, which is who I worked with, and said, this is my daughter. And I looked to my right where she was, and she had tears in her eyes. And she all. All her life, she's been trying to explain to me what's going on with her brain. And then at the end of the show, she pointed and said, that's what's happening. And that was one of the best moments of my entire life ever. Because again, it helps people feel less alone. It helps them feel less ashamed of what they're going through. And that was wonderful. So I did that show. And then a friend of mine approached me. He was trying to build a streaming channel on Twitch. He said, I want you to do your show. Said, you know, I've already done that. And then one night I got drunk and we stopped by his house. I said, all right, here's my idea. I want to have people come on the show, and I wanted them to talk about sad, difficult times in their life. And what I don't want to do is try to fix it. I don't want to diagnose it, and I don't want to judge it. I just want them to talk about it. And the goal here is to help people feel less. So it was originally a twitch streaming show, and then due to life changes having to move and stuff, we turned it into a podcast. And so each week we have a kind and generous guest come on and talk about those extremely difficult times in their life. And I know it's called sad times, but it's really about the stories and about listening, wherever you are listening to that story and hearing something and saying, oh, I thought I was the only one who felt that way. You can find us at wwW, which means worldwide web, sadtimespodcast.com or on Instagram at sadtimespodcast. At the website, you can listen all episodes. You can register to be a guest. There's some other cool stuff. We have a blog where we do guest blogs, et cetera. So that's what sad times is. Host/Lisa: Actually, I have to say, your website is very robust. Very robust. Kevin: Oh, thank you,. Host/Lisa: kevin, I have enjoyed this so much. Thank you so much for coming on today. Kevin: Thank you for having me. I truly appreciate it. And I love the work that you're doing, and you're just kicking *** and taking names. So congratulations to you and thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. So thank you. Host/Lisa: And to my listeners, stay well and be resilient, and we will catch you next time. In season two of the rising strong podcast, I'll be dropping two episodes every week. The first will be interview style, dropped on Tuesday, and the second will be a deep dive into a specific topic of mental health, which will be dropped on Fridays. So if you have a certain topic that you'd like me to discuss, please reach out. And if I use your topic or your idea, I will shout you out on social media and your name will be entered to win some sweet rising strong swag. So thanks in advance and thanks for listening!

This podcast episode delves into a powerful story of resilience and overcoming mental health challenges. Guest Todd Rennebohm shares his life-changing experience of a 911 call that not only saved his life but also opened up important conversations about mental health and addiction. Throughout the episode, Todd discusses his journey as a mental health advocate, a survivor of suicide attempts, and his recovery from addiction. From being diagnosed with chronic anxiety at a young age to battling alcohol and substance abuse, Todd's story sheds light on the connection between mental health and substance use. Todd emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy and seeking help within the flawed healthcare system. The episode also touches on Todd's book, which tackles the topic of mental health through a child's perspective, aiming to start conversations and normalize discussions surrounding mental health in families. ..................................................................................... Listen to Todd's podcast Bunny Hugs & Mental Health on Apple podcast or Spotify Follow Todd on Instagram @bunnyhugspodcast .................................................................................... RISING STRONG LINKS: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Follow us on Instagram: @risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ..................................................................................... TRANSCRIPT: host/Lisa: In today's episode, we unravel the powerful story of a lifechanging 911 call that not only saved a life, but also opened up a conversation about mental health and addiction. Welcome to the Rising Strong podcast. I'm your host, Lisa, and today's guest is going to inspire you in so many ways. Tod and I met almost exactly one year ago at a mental health event where he openly shared his journey from the stage. He's a mental health advocate, suicide attempt, survivor in recovery from addiction, speaker, author and host of Bunny hugs and mental health. Welcome to the show, Todd. Todd Thank you. It's lovely to see you again. And at that exact same event a year ago this year, you were speaking at it. And so that was very exciting. Lisa: Right? It seems like we're like in a pinball game or something where we keep literally bumping into each other at these mental health events. So clearly, I really believe in the universe. When you meet people, it's for a reason. Todd: It's a reason. A season or a lifetime, I've been. Lisa: Told yes, or a lesson somewhere in there, I have a few lesson people. Todd: Well, yeah, that too. Yeah, sure. Right. Lisa So we're having this chat because you've had a long journey with mental health. How long does that go back and when did things start? Todd: Oh, boy. This could be a three hour episode if we wanted it to be, but it actually started in grade five. I was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. When you're grade five, most kids don't have stomach issues that like 80 year old ceos of billion dollar companies have because they have so much anxiety and pressure and worry. But that is an ailment that kind of runs in my family. My grandfather had it and my mom has issues, so nobody thought anything of it. So they treated me for the physical part of it, but nobody really questioned why was there anxiety? Why does he worry so much? And that was the thing. Nobody called it anxiety when I was grade five. So I'm 46 years old, so that was almost 40 years ago. So, yeah, the word anxiety wasn't really a thing. It was more like, oh, you worry too much, or my mom would call it a nervous stomach. So the nervous boy love. It's called chronic anxiety, actually. So that's kind of when it started. And then in high school, I kind of was introduced to alcohol. Being in a small town mean, I say that, but I mean, kids drink everywhere. But that was very much the culture when I was that age in small town Saskatchewan. And a lot of my anxiety kind of, I don't know, it didn't go away, but I didn't worry about every little thing like I used to. And then, yeah, out of high know, drinking turned into more and more. And there's a lot of addiction to my family, a lot of anger issues with the men. So a lot of my anxiety and depression eventually turned into anger. I was bouncing around from job to job. It's so weird. I've been discussing this lately, how life can be very polarizing at all times. So it's like some of these moments, I look back and it's like, that was the darkest time of my life. But then I'm also like, oh, but I had so much fun, too. So it's like you can be miserable and happy at the same time, and it's hard to wrap your head around how that's possible. But I don't know if it's like different frequencies, so they're not actually overlapping, they're actually just happening at the same time or something. Anyway, yeah, I used to play in bands and stuff, and it was like, I mean, talk about touring with a band and stuff. It is so much fun, but also so anxiety inducing. And you're drinking all the time and you're calling home and the girlfriend's crying and upset and missing you. And so it's like, yeah, it's very polarizing. So anyway, I had cool things like that going through my life, but also just everyday kind of schlub stuff. Band breaks up, and then you're doing just labor jobs for minimum wage. So then my anxiety depression stuff kind of turns more into the anger. And I think I'd rather feel depressed than angry. I can't stand that feeling. I'd wake up angry and go to work angry just because I felt unfulfilled or something, or not satisfied with life and the drop of a hat. I would just be throwing stuff and smashing stuff, and it's not a good look. I mean, I felt like a child having a temper tantrum. Like, I've seen family members do it, and every time I'm just like, oh, my God, this is so, one, scary for people, two, just annoying. You just want to shut up. And then there I am doing it, and it's like, oh, my God, I hate this. But eventually I started drinking and using marijuana constantly, and my issues came to a head. I had a suicide attempt. I tried going to the hospital once and was basically turned away, which is kind of a reason for when I started advocating, because I went to the ER and was turned away. So then, yeah, eventually stuff came to a head again and I ended up. I quit drinking, and that was huge for my anger and my depression. Still working through anxiety, then Covid hit and more job bouncing around. Then eventually I was diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago. And so this fall I was working with EMDR therapists to maybe work through some of my trauma stuff. It's basically lifelong, and there's always, anytime you peel off a layer, there's another layer there that you could definitely work on. And whether it's you use the same strategies or the same tools that you used before, or you need a different strategy like EMDR, or a different diagnosis, like ADHD, a different medication, or a different perspective when it comes to therapies or different modalities. I'm just trying to get through the day without letting these extreme polar feelings pull me one way or another and just keep the balance, really. It's a journey. Lisa: I have a question for you. I just want to circle back to something that you said. Todd: Definitely. Lisa: In your opinion, do you think that there is a connection between. I don't want to just say mental health, but let's say anxiety, just because that's something you're familiar with. Do you think that there's an association, a link, a parallel between substance use, whether it's alcohol or drugs, and anxiety? Todd: I do, of course, everybody's different, but when I worked, because I worked at the treatment center I went to after I quit drinking for a couple of years, and it was quite obvious that addiction is a comorbidity of not just anxiety, but like PTSD, bipolar, different personality disorders. And really an anxiety is just a symptom of a greater thing quite often, too. So, yeah, I do think that substance abuse and anxiety, not only do they link, but they are a very common comorbidity of a lot of other bigger issues, including trauma. And I mean, trauma is also a huge contributor to personality disorders and things. It actually drives me nuts a little bit that when we say mental health and addictions, I wish we could just get rid of the addictions part, because it is part of mental health. When I say mental health or mental illness, it includes addictions. Someday it would be nice to just drop that. But for people that maybe don't understand, I don't know, they're still separated for some reason. Lisa: Absolutely. I found we were talking about this earlier before I hit record. Even amongst our own stories, we are not just this one silo, this single aspect of mental health. I really see mental health myself, as a massive umbrella. And under that umbrella. There are a myriad of topics, including addictions, including grief, including so, so many things. But you're right, the more I learn, and I feel like there's so much still to be learned, that trauma. Trauma, my goodness. I think if we could all heal our traumas, we would probably be far better off. But unfortunately, we live in this symptom, fix the symptom kind of society, right? So we kind of have to pick at the layers, as you say. We kind of maybe get a handle on one layer, and lo and behold, there's another layer to deal with. So interesting. Todd: Sorry, I was going to say also, even with my ADHD, I feel like that's a huge contributor to my anxiety, depression, substance abuse, maybe not the cause. I do think it caused those things, but also other things also contributed to those things. So it's very nuanced. It's all very complicated. There's no one treatment, one pill, one disorder, one diagnosis that's going to fix everything. For me, anyway. I'm finding that I think I have ADHD, but I also think I do have chronic anxiety. On top of that, I also do think that DNA has something to do with it. And nature versus nurture, like you were saying before, you throw spaghetti at the wall and you try different modalities and tools and things, and hopefully you figure out what's going to help you with that particular, I don't know, symptom or whatever. You peel another layer off and you go, okay, that's better. Now moving on to the next one. Lisa Exactly. And I'm certainly not an expert with a bunch of letters behind my name, but I do know that because we are all complex human beings and we are all learning so much more that I think the key maybe is being open. Right? Maybe we don't know what it is that we need or that what's going to, quote unquote, work. I don't know that we can be fixed as human beings as much as people try to fix us, but to cope better or to deal with the situation, whatever it looks like for us. Todd: Or change a belief system within yourself, right? Lisa: A mindset shift, whatever you want to call it. But I think the key is being open and like you say, to keep trying the things, even though you might not think that it's your thing. Like EMDR, man. Game changer. Game changer. When I first read about what it was and what was entailed, I thought, this is insane. I come from a long history of working in the medical system. I'm research driven. I'm data focused. And that EMDR, just when I was reading about it, I thought, well, I'm not so sure about this, but it was one of the greatest things that I did for myself and I cannot say enough about it. Todd: And I tell people all the time, even if it's a placebo and it works. It worked. So who gives a ****? Yeah. Lisa: So tell us about a visit that you had that involved a 911 call. Todd: Well, I'm getting so old. It was like eight years ago. And then it's like someone's like, no, that was like twelve years ago. It's like, oh yeah, I guess you were kidding. So I'm not sure how long ago it was. It was quite a while ago. So this was really some of my darkest times. The year before, I had drove myself to the hospital in Regina, in the ER, asked for help. None was given. And so I felt, as a man in a small town prairie, it was embarrassing for me as a man to go look for help, for emotions. It was huge for me to go do that and then to be told to go home. And basically I was super embarrassed. So I was like, all right, well, I guess I just got to suck it up here. I guess I was already on meds and kind of seen a counselor, but still, it was embarrassing to me. So over the year, I was a bad father, I was a bad husband, I was a bad employee, I was a bad son, and I was using marijuana, drinking all the time I was at a job. I wasn't finding fulfillment in whether that was at the job itself or just because I was in that frame of mind. And things came to a head one day and I had a few drinks in me already. I wasn't like super drunk or anything. My wife said something that triggered me. I don't even remember what. I don't know if it's a psychotic episode, but it's like a dream. I don't remember. I had people fill in some of the blanks, like even years later. But my wife said something and I snapped and I started punching myself in the face. I started slamming my head on the table and it freaked her out. She grabbed our kids. They were little at the time. She went out the door. And while I was there by myself, apparently I just put my head through the wall and I was slamming it as hard as I could against appliances of things. I was convinced in my mind that I just had ruined my life. My wife and kids are gone forever. Over that year, I not just had suicidal ideation, I mean, I was obsessed about it every night before bed, I was pushing knives against my throat and against my wrists, and I was doing really reckless behaviors at work that was dangerous, not for other people, but for myself. When people ask if you had a plan, when doctors are assessing you, do you have a plan? Are you suicidal? Do you have a plan? It didn't matter where I was during my day. I had places I could do things to take my life, right? I worked at the PFRA, at the tree nursery in indian head, and was like, that's a great tree. Mental note. Tools in my shop, I was, like, at work, it was like, didn't matter where I was. I had a plan. So things really came to a head, and, yeah, I was basically slamming my head against stuff. And then my brother showed up. He was the one I had a couple beers with earlier, and my wife apparently went to his place and said, what the hell were you guys doing? Like, you have to go help Todd. He's freaking out. And I pulled out a knife because I'd been practicing for a year, and this was it. And he tried to stop me, and I swung the knife at him, and then he jumped on top of me. He's a big dude. Got on top me and pinned me down. And apparently my sister was there too, and she's, like, trying to get me to smoke weed. To calm down, someone called the ambulance or called 911, and next thing I know, there's three or four police officers in my dining room. They don't know what the hell is going on. They see a knife on the floor. They see a big guy on top of another guy, and all hell breaks loose. Eventually, I'm screaming at them to shoot me. I'm begging them to kill me. I grab one of their guns. I didn't get it out of the holster, but I got my hand on one of their guns. And then things really escalated, and I had parts of my body that I didn't know had feelings that were hurting, because police are very good at detaining people, let's put it that way. And, yeah, they tied me up, and I just remember crying. Not sobbing. I mean, like, scream crying, begging them to shoot me. And I remember saying, like, you're hurting me. I'm tired of hurting. Stop hurting me. I'm tired of hurting. Kill me. Shoot me. But anyway, they detained me and got me in their vehicle, and they took me to my local hospital here in needing head, which then they put me in an ambulance and took me to Regina, to the general hospital, and they finally admitted me into the hospital there. But I remember pulling up. It was almost a year to the day that I tried going to the hospital on my own, and I thought, holy ****, this is what it took to get into the hospital this time, I'm handcuffed to a gurney, strapped to a gurney in an ambulance with two police officers on either side of me. But anyway, I got there. I spent a couple of weeks there, and, I mean, I could write a whole tv series just about the two weeks being in there. And I learned something while I was in there. I learned that you don't really get help in the hospital necessarily. It was a safe place for me to be to chill out for a couple of weeks till I was, like, got my wits about me again. And it did speed up the process to start seeing a psychiatrist because I was on, like, a year long waitlist. And once I got there, it was like, instantly I pushed up the waitlist. So there was that. And it was the beginning, I guess, of my healing process, even though it still took probably five years of really dark moments. There were a couple of kind of rock bottom moments after that, but that was kind of the major one that kind of got the ball rolling a bit. So that was scary. Lisa: Hey, rising strong listeners. If you've been enjoying the inspiring interviews on the podcast, we'd love your support to help us reach more listeners and hopefully gain some sponsorship. To do that, please, like, follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. And here's a little extra incentive. Leave us a five star review, and you'll be entered to win some cool, rising strong swag. Your support means the world to me. Now back to the show. Well, what breaks my heart the most listening to that? Is that something, a situation so extreme is what it took for you to get some attention. Medical, professional, whatever. All the attention. Todd: Yeah. Lisa: How many people suffer in silence? Some people don't have these major breakdowns. That's terrifying that our system is so broken that it takes that much to finally get attention. And then what did your journey after that look like? Were you able to access a psychiatrist or a counselor? Did it tell us what that looked? Todd: Well, actually, while I was in there twice, aa came to my hospital room, and I was like, I shooed them away because I was like, well, I'm crazy depressed. I'm not an alcoholic. I have enough issues. I don't need to join a cult. I shoot them away. In the next few years, I was not thriving. Let's opposite. I was surviving, not thriving, let's put it that way. I was just going through the motions of my day to day. I kind of quit drinking on my own for a little bit, but I really upped my marijuana use because as a stoner, it's like, it's good for you, man. It helps my anxiety, bro. I know different now, but it drives me nuts when I hear people say that. It's not even addicting, man. And then I run out of weed and I have a nervous breakdown 4 hours later. It's my anxiety. Well, yeah, I wonder why I have anxiety. Anyway, I think it was a couple of years later. I did have another stint in the hospital. About a year after that, I had a kind of a bad weekend. It was only a couple of nights I spent in there. I'm doing my best. I'm self employed. Like I said. Eventually I start drinking again. I'm drinking, I'm smoking weed every day. And then I see in the newspaper that the health region or health district or whatever the hell it was called back then, they were laying off. I think it was like 20 some people from the general hospital, all from the psych ward, and I think it was something like 17 of them were psych nurses. And I thought, holy ****, like, I was in there. I know how I've seen how it operates, and I've seen how often security is called. At one point, security was called on me, and I ended up spending the night locked in a room with no bed. They just threw a mattress on the floor, and there was like, cameras. And I was like, security does not de escalate things like the psych nurses are trained. So anyway, I read this. I was like, how is this possible? And once in a while, anger, it's a good motivator. And I was so ****** off. Not like emotionally dysregulated anger. I was like, focused anger. I was like, this is bullshit. So I wrote, I don't know, a letter or blog. I don't know what I was doing. I just let my feelings out on. Well, it's not paper. It was on a keyboard. And I went through my. I basically told my story up to that point and how I thought this is all bs and all this stuff. And I talked about my suicide attempt, which I'd never really done publicly, especially in a small town. And I don't even remember doing this, but I sent it to a bunch of different media outlets and I posted it on facebook and stuff, and it blew up. It kind of went like, I don't know how many tens of thousands of times that letter got shared. I saw it on web pages, like in the states and stuff. Even. I'm like, what is going on? And the next day, it was like all the news outlets from Regina came out to indian head to interview me and talk to me about the stuff. So then I was kind of thrown into this advocacy role that I never thought I'd ever be doing. So then I felt like there was extra pressure on me. Now it's like, oh, okay, I've got people's attention, attention now, so let's keep this ball rolling and make some changes and make a difference. And within two months of having that pressure on me, not that other people were doing it, but my own pressure, I was in the hospital again, and I woke my wife up extremely intoxicated, told her I was going to harm myself and whatever. And that night, I wrote something on my computer. I considered it kind of a suicide note, but it wasn't really a suicide note. But again, a moment of clarity. I woke my wife up. Don't remember. I was so drunk. And that was the last night I drank, actually. I went to the small town hospital here in indian head, and I had an amazing doctor in town at the time, and he basically convinced me to go to treatment and start going to aa and stuff. And so I detoxed in the hospital here for a few weeks. And that really started. Well, actually. Okay, no, the other one started my journey. This was kind of mid journey now, but quitting drinking and quitting the marijuana and all that stuff, that was a huge thing. To this day, I have people reach out to me about a loved one they have, or even about themselves, and they're like, they're drinking, they're using, they're also depressed and all this stuff. And what do we treat first? The depression or the addiction? Again, no two people are the same for me. I had to get rid of that addiction before I could start healing about the anxiety and the depression and what was causing the depression and anxiety. That was the brown skin of the onion. I couldn't even get to layers until that big Chunk came off first. I'm assuming most people are like that, but again, everybody's different. Lisa Yeah. I think that is not a road that I have traveled, however, being on the sidelines of observing people in my life, I would say, from what I have observed, purely that I would concur with that. And so powerful. And it must be so difficult for loved ones spouses. May I ask how your marriage got through these years? I mean, that had to have been a massive strain. Todd: Oh, yeah. There was more than once where I wasn't sure we were going to make it. And I don't want to get too personal, but like I said, I was a bad husband. I was a bad father, I was a bad son. I was doing things that were against my own moral code. And then once you have some moments of clarity, you're like, what am I doing? This is not me. So she was amazing. My wife was amazing. After the first big stay at the hospital, I continued to see my psychiatrist and a counselor regularly. My wife knew somehow she's just a very intelligently, emotionally intelligent person. She knew that we couldn't work as a couple until she dealt with some stuff, too. So whatever I was going through kind of triggered some stuff in her. So she saw someone separately to deal with issues, traumas, and things she was dealing with, and then we would see someone together. So this was all happening at the same time. I was seeing my own person, she was seeing her own person. And then on separate days, we would see someone as a couple. And I really do feel like we got married young, like, we've been together for over 20 years, and I really do feel like we grew up together, even though we did know each other as children. We met when I was, like, 20 and she was 19 or something, but we really grew up together going through that. And then the next time when I was detoxing in the hospital and I quit drinking that night, it was shortly after that that I kind of wanted to leave the hospital and come home. And she said, like, I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore. I love you too much, and I just can't watch anymore. And she was like, if you are coming home, just come home to get your things, because I can't do this anymore. And I thought, oh, ****, okay, this is affecting people more than I thought. So I ended up staying at the hospital and detoxing and going through the whole thing the second time, it wasn't like she was mad or anything. I mean, I'm sure she was mad, but, yeah, it was just too. She was protecting herself and the kids. She's like, we can't do this anymore. I can't watch you do this anymore. And the kids are getting affected by it, and they're going to have traumas and stuff. Lisa: Do you think that hard line in the sand from her? Do you think that gave you a little nudge? A big nudge, maybe? Yeah. Todd: In addiction treatment, they're like, you're not doing this for other people. You're doing this for yourself. And it was kind of an ultimatum in a way, but also I was ready. I was so sick of it and I was just too scared. I was too scared to do it on my own. I didn't know how to do it. I was terrified. I tried for so many attempts to quit and to heal and it was too scary. So I'd quit. So generally, I don't think ultimatums work unless the other person is ready. Like I was ready. I just needed that nudge. And I tell people all the time too, that I think she had the harder end of the deal then. I've had people say, no, you can't compare pain, you can't compare traumas, and you can't compare, which is true. But as a parent now, it's like if my kids were going through it or my wife was going through the things I was going through, I don't know if I'd be able to stick around or just the sleepless nights, the absolute helplessness that she must have felt. God, I can only imagine how scary. Lisa Well, I'm glad that the two of you were able to work it through. I don't know the statistics, but marriage is hard enough on a good day to have extra stressors on it and so on and so forth. I mean, you clearly worked as a team, so I'm really glad to hear that. For anybody who might be listening, who is maybe at their lowest point struggling with either many of the aspects of mental health or addictions, what would be your advice to them? Todd: Oh man, there's so many things because there's so many levels to it. For one, keep advocating for yourself because the system does suck. And even when you're doing what your doctor's orders and you think things are going well, want more, demand more, get certain dates, whatever, like demand more. Because I guarantee you, I feel bad saying this because everyone I've ever met that works in addictions and mental health and in the health authorities, they're all sweet, lovely people, but the system, it's the system that sucks. And they know that. They even know that. So nothing against anyone that works in this field. It's just you have to demand more because the system will probably fail you at some point if you don't demand more. And I've seen it time and time again, and as far as we've come from my first suicide attempt to now, which has been about twelve years, it was only a year ago or a year and a half ago where that young guy was again told to leave the hospital in an hour later, he's found swim floating in the lake. So it's still happening. It's still not perfect. I know that there'll always be a certain percentage of people that get lost, but it's still very frustrating. And the other thing is, no one's going to do it for you. No pill, no therapist is going to fix you. You have to do the work. And that's the hardest part, is taking that first step to actually start doing the work. It took my wife saying, leave, I can't be around you anymore, to really start doing the work. I had seen a counselor for probably two or three years. Off and on. I wasn't doing anything. Like, I would go to the counselor session, I'd come home and not do anything to ask me to do. I'd be taking the pills and then be going like, why aren't they fixing me? Why haven't you cured me yet? And it's hard. It's simple. What you have to do is simple, but it's hard. It's not easy. It's a very simple plan on paper, but executing it is extremely difficult. It's painful, it's terrible. You think of having a broken leg, like the trauma of the broken leg, you don't even feel it at the time. It's the healing, it's the pain. That journey of healing sucks. And then it gets itchy under the cast and there's all types of things, and then you have to go through rehabilitation and all this stuff, like healing sucks, but if you don't do the work, you're just going to get gangrene and who knows what. It's kind of a weird analogy, I guess, but it works. So, yeah, it takes a lot of courage to heal, and unfortunately, a lot of people either don't get that nudge or they never, or something tragic happens before they're able to get into the mindset of doing the work. Lisa: I think you nailed it. There's no fairy godmother that's going to show up. No one is coming to save your butt. We've got to do the work ourselves. And you're absolutely right. It's simple, but far from easy. So one of the things I like to ask my guests on the podcast is what the word resilient means to you. Todd: I just used this word the other day, and I don't know if I've ever really used this word to describe myself or anyone other than Europe after World War II or something, but I use it the other day in a text to my know, life is still hard, whether it's financial or we were watching loved ones being sick. And like you said, even on a good day, marriages can be hard. So to me, resilience. When I think of the word resilience, I think of my wife and I, and I think of our family. And I said, we've been resilient in the past, and we're going to be resilient still, and we're going to get through this patch of it's not a relationship thing, but there's people around us that are suffering financially and kids are graduating, so we're borderline empty, nesting in a few months. So it's just a very transitional period in our lives right now for not just my wife and I, but for other people in our family. So when I think of resilience, I think of my wife and I, and I've never used that word to describe me or our relationship before. So it's kind of funny you use that word. You asked me about that today. Lisa: Well, when I started the podcast, and I knew I wanted to focus on mental health, but I knew that I also wanted to focus on people like you who really are resilient. And it's just really interesting to me because I do ask every single guest that question. Their answers are all varied, right? Because we're all unique snowflakes, but they're all the same at the same time. And I just find it so interesting. And I think it's your story that makes you resilient, right? I did a talk just a couple of weeks ago, and I said, unfortunately, we can't even talk about resilience until we talk about adversity, right? Because when we're sitting on a beach eating cupcakes all day long and the unicorns are running by, we're not growing, right? We're not becoming resilient. That's almost the opposite of resilience. So unfortunately, it does take adversity to get resilience. And like you are, you are that person. And I am so proud of you, Todd, so proud of you for the work that you've done, for the advocacy work that you continue to do. We didn't even get to your book. You've written a children's book, which I just think is just such a gift. It's such a hard topic to talk about. Yes, sometimes, daddy Christ, tell us just real quickly about your book and who it's for and where people can get a hold of it. Todd: Well, actually, the night I quit drinking and I said, I went to my computer and typed up a suicide note. It was actually the first draft of this book. So the night I quit drinking was the first draft of this book, and it was very different. It was the first draft, but it's basically the perspective of a kid watching his father go through depression, anxiety, and stuff. So the father never actually says anything in the book. It's always a conversation with the kid and the mother and the mother explaining to him that it's like having a stomachache. You're not well, so you have to get help. Sometimes you need rest. Sometimes you need medicine. Sometimes you have to go to the hospital. For whatever reason. I have a hard time tooting my own horn. But it's one of the things I'm very proud of, is that book. I think I've walked that fine line of making it realistic, but also not scary for kids. It's just this is what it's like. And kids do tend to understand physical things, so they can apply that to their emotions and to their mental health. And, yeah, it's gotten really great feedback from parents and from professionals. So, yeah, I'm really proud of it. lisa: Well, I think to me, the most important part is that it opens the door for conversation. Right. I mean, I am no parenting expert, but I do know that our kids don't necessarily learn from one conversation. Right. It's that constant revisiting topics. And a book for a small child is just a brilliant way to ease into it, open the door, make this a normalized part of conversations. Todd: Right, exactly. Lisa: It's very brilliant. And I'm, again, just so grateful that you were able to find the space and the heart space, really, to write that. So if people want to get a hold of your book, is it on Amazon? Todd Yeah, it. Yeah, if you go on Amazon ca. Or it's on some other websites and stuff, too. Yeah. Sometimes daddy cries. I wanted to add real quick that something I didn't expect with the book was opening up that conversation with the mother and the father, because probably 99% of the people that bought the book are females. So it's the mother or it's the mother of a child whose husband is suffering. Because for whatever reason, men. I don't know what it is. I talk about mental health all the time, and it's like 80% or 85% of my audience is female. And so it's like, I think men don't even know it's the problem because they either are drinking it away or getting angry. They don't realize their anger is actually depression or anxiety. Or whatever, so they don't even realize they're suffering anyway. That was a very interesting thing with the book, was finding that. Lisa: Absolutely. And maybe we'll come back and we'll do another podcast another time. But I think you critters, you males are absolute masters at a word I can never say. Compartmentalization, it's a big word and you just are able to put it somewhere. Push it down. I mean, not effectively. You don't get bonus points for doing that. But it's something that I think men do do, and I read something or heard something that we simple, right? We get better at what we do. So the more we push down, the better we get at pushing it down. The more we talk about it, the better we get at talking about it. So you know what? You are doing this world so much good by being a male voice speaking to mental health. And I know that eventually things will change and more men will know, opening up to this whole concept of doing the work. So I cannot thank you enough Todd for being here today, being vulnerable, sharing your story in such a raw and real way. Friends, make sure to check out Todd's podcast called Bunny Hugs and mental health. And make sure to follow him on Instagram at Bunny Hugs podcast. Stay well and be resilient and we'll catch you next time.

In this powerful podcast episode, Christine Elliott opens up about her health journey, facing breast cancer and later discovering a separate lung tumor. She discusses the importance of mindset and how it played a crucial role in her ability to navigate through the challenges. Christine's journey from diagnosis to treatment is filled with resilience and hope. As a cancer survivor, she now works as a mentor and wellness coach, helping others find strength and transform their pain into power. Her upcoming book shares her story and offers guidance for those looking to overcome adversity. Christine's insights serve as a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is always hope for a brighter future. .......................................................................... Find Christine here: Linktr.ee/lvfree .......................................................................... Rising Strong Links: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates FREE Resource: Create More ME TIME: bit.ly/metimeresource Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ........................................................................ TRANSCRIPT: Host/Lisa: Imagine how it might feel to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Now imagine you are into treatment and another separate lung tumor is found. How do you navigate that? Today's guest, Christine Elliott, is going to tell us how she harnessed the power of mindset to get through this time in her life. Hey there. I'm Lisa, host of rising strong mental health and resilience. Stories like Christine's need to be told so that we can all find hope in the darkness. Now, let's get started. Christine and I met online, as many of us do, and quickly discovered we had a lot in common. I knew from the first conversation I wanted to have her on the rising strong podcast. Christine Elliott is a cancer survivor of both lung and breast cancer. Since recovering, Christine has gone on to work in mentorship, public speaking, educating and writing, utilizing the lessons she learned from turning her pain into power. Welcome to the show, Christine. Christine: Thank you for having me, Lisa. Host/Lisa: So you've had quite a health journey. Can you take us back in time a little bit and tell us about your journey and what that looked like? Christine: Absolutely. Well, we'll take you back to August of 2020. I was just living my life as a 30 year old does. I was preparing to have babies. I was working in my career, doing all the things that you do. And lo and behold, one evening, I didn't realize my entire life was going to change. I looked across the room and I was laying in bed, and I realized that there was a very large divot in my breast. And so, of course, I immediately felt for the lump, hoping to find nothing and instead finding a very large, gumball sized tumor. And I just knew, Lisa, right away, that it was cancer. I've never felt something quite so hard, quite so stationary, quite so impressive to pull the tissue down and away. And so I just knew instantly what it was. My husband turned totally white, and we both just got struck. We were paralyzed with what was going on here. And of course, he tried to kind of say, oh, it's probably nothing, let's just go to bed. And I stared up the ceiling all night, and I just ran through my head. My entire life, everything that I had done, everything I had failed to do, everything I wanted to do, and I just pictured all of it. I didn't know what was coming for me. But what I did know is that every movie, every podcast, every social media post that had to do with cancer was someone who was dying, someone who was sick, who was just, that looked so ill, and that was in a lot of pain. And so all I knew was that going forward, it was going to be hard. Host/Lisa: Wow. And I'm imagining that it's kind of like when you're going to buy a new suv and you're looking at Red suvs. That's all you see when, after that moment, is that all you were seeing and hearing and seeing in the news and everything was cancer? Christine: Yeah. It's funny that you should say that. Yeah. This part of the brain that allows us to see the things that we weren't seeing prior to this really kicks in. And everywhere I went, it was just cancer, breast cancer. Cancer, breast cancer. It was surprising. And the next morning, actually, I was able to get in with my doctor and get everything squared away, which I was really pleased about. After a night, of course, no sleep, I woke up and got up and called the doctor's office and said, I need to be in right away. And they heard my concern, and so they got me in that afternoon. And the doctor, she felt for the lump, and she said, well, it's fairly large, but chances are women of your age, it's more likely to be a cyst. Let's just not panic. Book you some appointments, and we'll go from there. And so I was grateful to that doctor for kind of soothing me a little bit. Then I had a week to wait, and that's when the Red suvs really showed up. Everywhere I went, I just kept thinking about cancer. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. Now, I've never been on that side of cancer. I've worked in cancer care as a radiation therapist for going on 33 years. But I've never been in your shoes. Even when you were going through all the workup, did you think that there was only one outcome? Were you bombarded with that message? As you said, you heard people speaking who were dying, who were writing books, who were dying. Was that your focus, or were you starting to fight from that millisecond onward? That will not be me. Christine: Well, it's interesting. In the beginning, I don't know how to describe it. It's not necessarily that you're even aware of either of those options. There's just this feeling of, I liken it to a deer in a headlights. The car is coming. And so you'd think that the deer would think, should I run or should I dive into the vehicle? But instead they're just sort of stunned. And I would say that that would be the best way to describe those first few weeks, was that I didn't know if I was going to die. I didn't know if I was going to live. I didn't know if this was cancer. I didn't know if this was nothing. And so there was just this feeling of deer in the headlights, this stunned feeling. I remember writing my book, trying to recall a lot of those first weeks was like trying to remember a memory. When I was five, everything seemed muddled and confused, and I couldn't get the timeline right. It was certainly an area of trauma, and I think that anybody who's been through trauma, yourself included, might remember that memory in that way of that traumatic moment of, like, I don't know, really where I was, other than in shock. Wow. Host/Lisa: That is very descriptive, very muddled. Like you were trying to remember it as a five year old. Do you think it's part of our brains and our body's way of protecting us to not maybe remember those horrific things in such great detail? Christine: I do, very much. Host/Lisa: Yeah, I'm there with you just based on my own experience. Now, my guess is, again, being an observer on the other side of all of this, but my guess is that this exploded into every crevice of your life. Can you tell us how this started to affect maybe your career, your marriage, whatever you're comfortable with sharing? Christine: Absolutely. You're absolutely right, Lisa. Being in the cancer industry, you know that what goes from a question of what will we do here to this is your life now? So to kind of fast forward a little bit, I went to my mammogram a few weeks later, and when the radiologist came in, his first words were, it's not benign. And so what was so unique about my situation is we didn't really have period of time where we were just waiting for results. It was. There was so much clarity that it was cancer before the results came in, that it became this really grueling process of waiting to find out what kind really. And so after the radiologist told me that this is not benign, and I remember that moment very clearly, that one's hyper clear. The doctors got me into blood tests and scans and doctors appointments and meeting with the surgeon and the nurse navigator, and as it goes. And in that time, I was kind of like, so it's not benign? Is there any chance it's not cancer? And I remember the surgeon saying very clearly, today we're going to discuss your plan. It's that advanced. And I was like, oh. He's like, so we'll decide what we're going to do, and then when the results come back, we'll decide, we'll make some changes, or we'll make sure that it's the correct plan. And so I found this out during COVID when my husband was in the truck outside of the hospital, not allowed in. And so I'm sitting with this surgeon and he's telling me, you're going to lose your fertility, your opportunity to have children. You're going to lose, for sure, your nipple, if not both your *******. It is cancer and you will have to do chemotherapy. And you. And you, there's a good chance you're going to be okay. But we don't know that. Host/Lisa: Yeah, that's a lot. Talk about dropping a bomb. Christine: It was a lot. It was a lot. And I just remember asking him before, he said, I'll probably be okay. I said, how much time do I have? Because that's the only reference I had. Because going back when I was 26, 26, my stepdad of twelve years, he was given a diagnosis of stage four lung cancer. And within a very short time, he was told he had three months to live. And he left us in two and a half. And so my reference of cancer was that you die, right? Definitely at this point in the story. To go back to your last question, at this point in the story, I was sure that I was going to pass away. I didn't have any other reference other than that in my own personal, immediate life. And so in this time, I remember staring up the ceiling and as cheesy as it is, thinking about the movie P-S-I love you, and how he leaves all these wonderful little notes for her to move on. And I remember planning that at that stage in my journey, how I would help my husband to move on. And so, to zoom back in the office, when I found all this out, I said to the doctor, I said, you have to let my husband in. I can't do this. And he was like, oh, of course, please. I didn't realize he was here because the security guard stopped us at the door and said he had to leave. And so we had the nurse call him and he came in and we had to re explain it all. And then he cried. So it was a very intense period of time for both of us. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. Christine: Thank you. Host/Lisa: Yeah. There's no words. At what point in all of this did you then find out about lung cancer? Christine: Sure. Okay. Yeah, I guess I could talk for hours, couldn't I? So about three weeks later, from the time of my first scan, I was given the diagnosis of stage three C cancer. And what that is for the listeners is there's stages ABC. Sorry. Now one, two, three and four. And then there is a, B and c. Within one, two, three and four. And so stage three c is minutes from stage four, and stage four being what they call palliative cancer. And now that's changed. People are living from stage four, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. Again, my reference of stage four is that you die. And so stage three C was pretty scary. The mass itself was 7 cm, so the hardened portion was the gumball sized, but the surrounding inflamed tissue was 7 lymph nodes, and it had moved into the skin. I'm not sure what that's called, medically perhaps, you know, but it had moved into the skin, so it had left its region, which is where it gets a little scarier. Absolutely. And so all of this came to pass, and then the question became, is this stage four? So I had more tests to go into. But what was really interesting about this time is that when I found out, I finally got the diagnosis, that was around the time where my mindset started to shift from this deer in a headlight stage to this question of, what am I going to do? Can I do this? And kind of pass this weird, murky stage of having to make a decision to run towards the vehicle or jump out of the way. And I recall very clearly there was an afternoon and an evening where I was sitting on a boat, because it was summertime, I was sitting on a family member's boat on the water. And there was such a unique feeling that came over me, Lisa, this feeling of complete calm and kind of hyper awareness of where I was in the world. And that feeling was really invigorating and new for me after really a month of this silent dread. And there was an eagle flying ahead, and that eagle always represented my stepdad. When he passed, he had an eagle around his neck, and we kept that chain close in my family. And so the eagle was flying ahead. And I just thought, I don't know where the thought came from, but I am a believer in the above and that there is power with us. And there was a power in me that said that I'm going to be okay and that this is going to change my life in a positive way. And I don't really know where that came from, but I just remember my resolve being so deep in that moment, and of course, it fluctuated and flickered as time went forward, but my resolve being so deep in that moment that whatever this is, I'm going to beat it, I'm going to be okay, and it's going to change my life. Host/Lisa: Wow, that's so powerful. You and I have spoken before, and I am a big believer that there is more to life than this human existence. And our loved ones don't leave. It's a fact. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Christine: Right. Host/Lisa: It just changes form. I think that was your stepfather visiting you with a message of power. I mean, the symbolism of an eagle alone is so powerful. Do you think that his energy in that moment also was a big part of that strength that you felt? Christine: I do, very much. It's interesting. I don't think I've ever equated that until this very moment, but I do think that I should say eagle. It was an eagle or a hawk, I'm not sure, but it was a grand bird, nevertheless. And I really believe that rod, when I see that his energy is there. And so I truly do believe that that energy reached out to me and gave me that resolve. I know that all of us have felt this. When you're really, really in tune with a conversation or you're really speaking wisely, and it almost seems otherworldly to somebody else, there's kind of this feeling. Maybe not everybody's felt this, but I have. But there's kind of this feeling of almost like an energy or a tingle in the ends of your fingers and the ends of your toes when you're really in tune. And that was the feeling I felt. And so did I touch energy? I believe I did, yeah. In that moment. Host/Lisa: Hey, rising strong listeners. If you've been enjoying the inspiring interviews on the podcast, we'd love your support. To help us reach more listeners and hopefully gain some sponsorship. To do that, please, like, follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. And here's a little extra incentive. Leave us a five star review, and you'll be entered to win some cool rising strong swag. Your support means the world to me. Now back to the show. Was the lung cancer a metastases of the breast cancer? Christine: Right? Okay. Yes. So the lung cancers, this is new to the listeners. So what happened was, in these tests, we're trying to figure out if we're stage four. And the scary part is that we find out that there is a pocket of suspicion in my lung directly behind my left breast. And so this doesn't look good. It looks like it could potentially be a metastasis for sure. My oncologist was very hopeful that it wasn't, that it could just be a pocket of air or deposit of fat or something along those lines. It does exist to go that way, and so he didn't really want to pursue biopsies and all these things while in the middle of chemotherapy, because we got started with chemotherapy shortly after. And so he's asking the question of, could this be nothing and whatever else? And I'm asking the question, could this be metastic? And so now I'm going back to staring up at the ceiling and thinking of my husband and all the things. And so in that time, we finished the chemotherapy. So I actually sat with this unknown diagnosis for three months. And actually it was probably closer to five months from when we were kind of like, what is this? We scanned it again and it seemed a little more sinister and what have you. And so at the end of my chemotherapy, that is when we decided to do the needle biopsy, when the chances of inflection had gone way down after a month's time had passed. And so after all of that, that's when we checked to see what it was. The needleball, epsy, came back inconclusive. It was attached to a rib. We couldn't get to it. Then we did a PET scan. It came back inconclusive. It said it was too small and so that there's no cancer present. And so my oncologist was ready to leave it go, but I just did not feel comfortable with whatever this was, even though I believe it was 1.2 chemo, but it had gotten smaller during chemo, not much, but a bit. And that bothered me. And so when I went for another scan, I was very firm. I said, we're doing another scan. Everybody thought it was useless. I went in for another scan. It had moved in one month's time from my first scan around the biopsy time to the next scan about a month later. It had moved to 1.9 in that time, so it was growing rapidly. And so I just said, no, I don't know what this is. You don't know what this is, but I'm not sitting with this. And so, to be honest, a bit reluctantly, my team referred me to a lung oncologist and to a lung surgeon. And actually the lung oncologist also thought it was nothing, but I just kept pushing. And I got to the surgeon finally, and he said, you know what? If you push this hard, you're clearly concerned about it. I can take it out if you'd like. It's probably nothing, though. And I said, yeah. And he's like, well, this is a no joke surgery. Are you sure you want this? And it could be nothing. And I said, yeah, I do. I was so completely convinced that this needed to be taken out and so I had it removed. The surgery was as awful as he said. And then on the other side of it, I about a month later, got a call from the surgeon, and he said, have you ever smoked? No, why? Said, okay, have you ever been around farm chemicals? No, why? Can you please tell me? And he said, no, it was cancer. 100% it was cancer. And my heart just dropped. And I thought, oh, my gosh, I have stage four cancer. I have palliative cancer. And then he interjected in my thoughts, and he said, what's interesting, though, is that it's not breast cancer. It's another cancer, a separate, unattached cancer. And so I just can't believe it either. My staging came back as stage two B lung cancer, completely independent of stage three c breast cancer, directly behind my breast, in the exact spot that a metastasis would go if it were to go. But it was, in fact, a separate cancer with no genetic tie, according to the medical studies that we have so far, with no reason for it to be there. It was a unique cancer. I believe they called it a menius cancer. So a mucus based cancer. And we didn't know what it was. We don't know why it showed up. Nothing. After that. We had to do a bunch of other tests, because menus cancers generally don't start in the lung. Apparently, they start in the reproductive system of a woman. So then we had to check for stage four lung cancer, or stage four menus cancers in other parts of my body. But that came back clear. This story is long, and that came back clear. And so, for whatever reason, I have gone through cancer two times at the same time, separately. But you know what's interesting, Lisa, is something hit me right away, actually, when he told me that, which was, if I wouldn't have had breast cancer in the advanced stage on the left side of my body, if I wouldn't have had it at the time that I had it, if I wouldn't have had the oncologist that I had or the mindset that I had that I was going to remove it, I would not have had removed lung cancer, which, as you know, is a much harder cancer to be cured from and to be caught. I wouldn't have caught it. And so I have decided that God universe source placed my breast cancer on the left side of my body to save me from lung cancer. So that is what I decided it was. Host/Lisa: I'm covered in goosebumps, and I'm kind of with you there. I think that, in a very strange way, that was a gift. That's incredible. Now, I am well aware of what patients have to go through when they come to the cancer clinic for breast cancer and for lung cancer. I know the radiation end of things very well. As a professional, can you let our listeners know what that part of your journey was like? Christine: Absolutely. Okay. So after the five months of chemo and the two surgeries, we moved on to radiation. And what was interesting was the radiation, although not directly impacting the lung nodule or lung tumor, at this point, we decided it was a tumor, although it wasn't going to directly affect it. We just had to move the beam a little bit, and then it would radiate both spots. So it was perfect. But the radiation was, compared to the rest, so easy. But it wasn't easy compared to the rest. It was so hopeful and exciting because I was coming to the end of this arduous journey. I remember the radiation oncologist smiling at me every time I came in, and I just kept thinking, like, 18 days until I'm not walking in this center anymore. 17 days until. And it would go on and on. The radiation, it was difficult because of how tired I began to become. It was difficult because of the wilting of my skin, how it began to redden and then kind of disintegrate, really, after a period of time, it would start to lake and boil and fall away. But the radiation, to me, was just so much smoother than the rest that when I look back on the radiation stage of my journey, I look at it with a fair amount of happiness, which is not really what I'm sure radiation oncologists expect to hear or technicians. But I just knew I was nearing the end of my journey, and so I was just so happy the whole time. Host/Lisa: That's really good to hear for our listeners. Just a real quick overview. Chemotherapy is something that we call systemic treatment because it goes through your entire body, depending on the drug used and so on. A lot of times, it's iv drugs. So think of it. It's essentially a poison, a very well controlled poison that goes into your body, goes into your vein, or if you take it orally, it's digested, whichever method, it is going to every cell in your body. And therefore, it can wreak so much havoc in a controlled way, in a way that is of benefit to the patient. Otherwise, docs would never do it. But it is hard. Of course, we see hair loss in a lot of our patients, not all. I mean, honestly, there's hundreds, if not thousands, of different chemotherapy drugs. But in your case and what you would have received and the knowledge I do have, and it affects your fingernails and your toenails and your tummy, and vomiting and nausea and diarrhea, and it's awful, awful, awful, awful. I mean, I'm really grateful for patients that it exists because our cure rates are higher than ever. You're one of them. You're a living statistic. And then, on the other hand, radiation therapy is very site specific. So the side effects that patients experience from radiation are all dependent on the body part. The area of the body, I guess, is a better way to say it, that we are treating. So in Christine's case, we would have been treating all of the breast tissue. And given the stage that you've shared with me, I have not seen your case or anything, but just my knowledge that we would have treated your superclavicular nodes, your posterior nodes, and perhaps an intermamory chain. And then, because your treatment would have been honestly quite unique to include the breast and the lung, there would have been some differences there, but the side effects would have all been just in those areas that I mentioned. But those two modalities work very well together, especially when we combine it with surgery. But just a huge ordeal. How long from diagnosis until the day that you quote, unquote, graduated treatment? Is it about a year or longer? Christine: It was about a year, yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot. And as you know, the ringing the bell, I remember everybody mentioning, are you going to ring the bell? And I was like, what is this bell? And then eventually I figured it out. The ringing of the bell is supposed to signify the end of treatment. And what's interesting is that ringing. I rang the bell, which was a beautiful moment, by the way. And then the next day, I went in for an appointment, and then next week I had another appointment, and then I had to continue taking my herceptin, which was a targeted therapy, which was in the iv chair in the chemotherapy ward. And I had to keep taking that for another, I think I had another four or five months left. And then we started an after chemo, so a post treatment chemo to try to avoid recurrence. And then I was put on five to ten years of anti hormone drugs. So what's interesting about graduating therapy is that I didn't realize it. And certainly people who come into cancer therapy don't generally realize it, but you're not really done. You want to be done. And I would call that the graduation of my active treatment, which I really appreciated. But the story doesn't end there. And part of me kind of wishes somebody would have told me because I think I would have kept this resilience that we get. You know how when you're driving home from a very long drive, that last ten minutes is like, I just can't do this anymore. I think I need to stop the car and walk, right. Four times, and then I'll get back in. I can do that last ten minutes. I kind of wish someone would have warned me that there was longer than a year, because that last really kind of five more months followed by five to ten years, but that one's easier. But that last kind of five months felt like the ten. It was pretty hard to get through and begin new treatments that had new side effects and all of these sorts of things. My resilience was just gone at that point. Host/Lisa: That's interesting. And as a professional in oncology, I think that that is something that I need to take back to my group as well, and to. To really maybe be more, dare I say, transparent. I mean, we're never. Are we trying to hold back information? What I maybe can see is that rather than bombarding patients at the beginning with this and then this and then this and then this and, oh, and by the way, we're going to give you tamoxifen or some kind of hormone treatment, like you say, 510 years, perhaps that's the mindset. But very important. You're right. It's almost like, am I running a marathon or am I running a ten k? Because I really need to get my head around this plan, like you say. I think when we can see that light at the end of the tunnel, right, we can keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. But if we cross some magic finish line and then somebody says, oh, guess what? There's another five k in your race, I would probably just stop running. Christine: Yeah. Host/Lisa: That is a really important thing to know that. Thank you so much for sharing that. So you've said that your mindset was off the hop. Like, I'm doing this, and then I'm going to say, crashed maybe for a little bit there. How important has mindset been on your journey? Christine: I cannot say enough about mindset. I believe so deeply, and again, this is my belief, but I believe so deeply in the power of the mind to heal the body. Everything that I went through feels like proof to me that the mind can heal the body. This conviction that I had that I was going to be okay, and the extraordinary result that we had in chemotherapy, I went from a seven centimeter tumor to 1.2 in five months. That's an extraordinary result. My oncologist was beyond happy. The conviction that I had to get through the surgeries and all of these things. I just remember people saying, if anyone can get through this, it's you. And I held on to that, I really did. And that was such a powerful statement for people to say to me, because it worked. And so mindset over and over again. Yes, it helped me with side effects and my resiliency, but I really, truly believe that it is part of my healing, too. And there were times where I would have fair amount of side effects because everybody does, but there were times where they weren't quite as bad as, say, another person my age going through the same thing. And again, I attributed it to the way that I thought about chemotherapy, the visualizations that I went through about it being sparkles that went through my body and would scrub away the tumor, but it would go past my fingers and toes like the blood of the lamb. The plague would pass. And that was the way that I envisioned this chemotherapy. I had very little trouble with neuropathy. I had very little trouble with loss of fingernails or toenails. I definitely had some pain, but in terms of all those things, they passed. And so I really believe in the power of the mind and its ability to heal the body, to mitigate side effects, to get through, to keep your mental state on board. People kept saying, I don't know how you're getting through this, because something new would happen and over and over again. You think you're getting a little bit ahead, and then, oh, well, no, you might have stage four menus cancer now, and it would just over and over again, it just felt like a lashing. But this ability to get through and keep my head on straight I attribute to my years of researching the law of attraction and law of rhythm and polarity, and all of these laws, to learning about God in a different context than maybe strict religion had taught me prior energy and belief and the fact that everything means something. All of those things culminated to be this powerful pack that I always had with me. And it truly changed the experience that I went through. And I think the result too. I really believe that. Host/Lisa: It's so interesting to hear you speaking about your journey. I don't know if you can see my eyes, my brain is just going, because I will also add to that as an observer, as somebody who interacts with cancer patients like yourself, I see it every day. From the time that I graduated a long time ago, I have always wanted to do some kind of formal study on mindset and perspective in our patients, because I see it. You see the patients that come through the door, and pretty much, like you say, there's ups, there's downs, there's good days, there's bad days, but come through the door pretty much with the mindset. Let's do this. I've got this. And then there's people that come through the door, and they might have an incredibly highly curative cancer. And not to minimize anybody's cancer journey, it sucks. All of cancer sucks. But as you said, some cancers statistically are more likely to be fatal, let's say. And some are more highly curable. And some people have given up before they walk in the door. And I'll tell you as an observer in the setting, almost 100% of the time, the folks that have that fighter mindset, and they're finding the tools, they're doing the additional work, always do better, at least in the short term. Always, always. Mindset is just so incredible and so powerful, and I just don't even think we know the half of it. Thank you so much for sharing that piece, so much. Christine: Oh, it's my pleasure, Lisa. And thank you for sharing your professional perspective. I had a hunch that you would agree. Host/Lisa: Absolutely, 100%, hands down. Like I say, I still think about that all the time. And when I eventually leave the career, I really, really hope. The problem is that we can't measure it, right? If we can't measure something, it's really hard to have a clinical trial or a study or anything of that nature. And I'm quite sure that's what has held people back from doing something more formal. But I would jump in with both feet if I had the opportunity to be involved. So you've taken all of your experience, all of your learning, and all of this mindset, and you've become a wellness coach and a mentor. Tell us about your work doing that. Christine: Absolutely. Well, it has morphed and changed over time. It started off I wanted to work with women before some sort of diagnosis or disaster or whatever else, to really kind of help empower them ahead of time. Like I had been empowered prior so that they have the faculties that I had, if something. And really, when. Because I think every human being goes through a dark night of the soul of some kind, whether that be a dirty divorce or a loss of a child or a cancer diagnosis or something. I think that people go through something and their something may be lighter, and I put bunny ears around that kind of quotations. It might be an easier something or it might be a harder something, but whatever that is to them, it's going to feel really hard. And so my intention was to empower people before their dark night of the soul so that they could get through with vagar. And I found that there was something missing. And so over time, I began working specifically with cancer patients only and helping them to get through the process and to get through the survivorship process. The harder part of my journey, as I call it, when my mindset and resilience had gone down. And so then that was where I was working. But again, something was missing. And so I moved and moved and moved until eventually I course corrected myself into the, where I am now, which is the pain to power general sense. So if you have gone through some sort of pain and you would like to transmute that into power, I'm your gal. And so it has moved and shifted there. Yeah. Host/Lisa: I love that so much. And I think what you said, I just want to circle back to, and I see this in the work that I do as well. Nobody wants to talk about grief. And honestly, what you went through, a huge part of that was grief, too. Right? You lost your independence for a long time. You were grieving your health. This sense of quote unquote normal, whatever that is. Christine: Well, another podcast for another day is really the grief of what happens to a marriage in cancer and what happens to the children that you'd like to have and the life that you'd like to have. There has been a lot of fallout as a result of everything that I went through. And so it definitely took time there for things to kind of start to equilibrium, and they are just now. And my story started in 2020 at the time of this podcast, it's January of 2024. And that's not to say that it's all been bad. So if someone's recently diagnosed, listening to this, thinking, oh, my God, I can't do four years, it isn't. It hasn't been four years. We've had a lot of great experiences. And like I said, my life is amazing now. I really believe that I wouldn't have changed my cancer for the world. As awful as it was. It would have never been this good without this. Right? And so things are really good. But that being said, there was a lot of fallout. There was a lot to work on as a result. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. I know what I was going to say. I think that whatever it is that we go through in life, like, when things are good, our life is good, the last thing we want to think about is grief or building our tool belt so that one day when bad things happen, we're ready for it. Our brain doesn't want to go there. Right? So kudos to you. And I think that that is such an important piece is as humans, as we go along, we do need to learn about these things, because you're right. Nobody gets through this life living on a sunny beach, eating chocolate cupcakes all day. Like, everybody's life, unfortunately, has some kind of ****, some awful ****. And the more prepared we are, the better. So kudos to you for that piece. I think that that is so important. But if people are finding you after the fact, to have somebody who's walked the walk and who isn't just speaking in theories and what should you do? And all this, but it's coming straight from your heart and from your experience, what a gift that is to other people. Now tell us about your book. You've got a book coming out soon. Christine: Yes, I do. Yes. I'm really excited about it. So my book is, I would say it's a half and half. It's a memoir and a self help book kind of comboed together. So the first half of the book is, of course, the story of the diagnosis and everything like that. Everything that I went through all the way down to the ring the bell, and then there's a little bit of after stuff. And then I move into all of the lessons that I learned from my experience. And so those final ten chapters are really a huge glimpse. Not even a glimpse. It's a look into my structure that I bring my students through. What that is, is the transformation that I can help people go through from the stage of what just happened to, how do I turn this into my dharma, into this life that I want to live? How do I make my life extraordinary? It's that structure. So it's all the lessons that I learned, all the ways that I changed my life, all of the ways that I kind of fumbled through and then went back and fixed it and fumbled through, went back and fixed it all put into structure of how you can implement the stories that I learned in order to come to the transformation that I came to. Host/Lisa: So almost your coaching in a book. Christine: That's right, yeah. And a couple of people have asked me, why would you give away the farm in a book? Won't people stop buying your course or your programs or your coaching? And the reason why is because, number one, I want this value to be able to be purchasable. Not everybody can buy a course not everybody has the time. So I want to be able to bring this transformation into people's hands for $20 or less, number one. And then the second is that I truly believe that if you can see my heart, my purpose, which is me wanting to help you change your life around, that if you decide that you want a hand in what you've just learned, that you'll contact me, and if you don't, that's fine, at least I was able to help. So that was the resolve and the reason for kind of giving away the farm, if you will. Host/Lisa: Yeah, no, I'm behind you on that 100%. And I would echo that with the work that I've done as well. And working with you in person, personally, whether it's course or what have you, that brings just a different level to it. Right. Beautiful. So let's talk for a moment about resilience. That's what this podcast all is, and that is really what you exemplify is resilience. So what is your definition of resilience? Christine: Well, thank you. My definition of resilience for myself would be resilience to me is compassion. I used to believe that resilience was this ability to not fall down the dumps, to get depressed, to believe that you're going to die instead of having hope. I used to believe that resilience was somebody who was happy and strong, and I'm going to do this and all of those things, but I would say resilience to me has changed so much since everything. And that is to say that resilience is falling down in the dumps, it's believing you're going to die, it's being depressed, it's losing your ability to smile, and having the compassion to say that this is just all part of the process. Host/Lisa: Wow, I have not heard it explained quite that way. I love that. How do you think you've become resilient? I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear it from you. Christine: Well, thank you. I would say that I have come to resilience through trial and error, through going through what I went through, through, over and over again, having to being mad at myself for not being more resilient, and then realizing that shaming myself into submission isn't going to work. And so it just took time. And over time, my definition of resilience and my ability to be self compassionate came out of necessity. Host/Lisa: So true. I was just doing a talk last week, I think it was, and it was a talk about resilience. And I said, unfortunately we can't have resilience without the adversity first. Yeah, exactly. That's the fact of the matter. I know that some of our listeners are going to want to check out your stuff, your website, your social media. Can you give us a couple of places what people can go to find you? Christine: Certainly. On Instagram I am live free wellness. On my website it is ww livefreewellness ca. Once you are in those two places, you can find just about everywhere else. I've got a Facebook page, YouTube, podcast. Everything is all there. I usually tell people to head to at live free wellness on Instagram, that's usually the easiest place to find. Host/Lisa: Awesome. Awesome. Christine, thank you for being here. Your insights are incredible and admirable. Be well and stay resilient, my friends. Catch you next time.

In this podcast episode, host Lisa delves into the concept of mindset and how it can impact our success and relationships. She shares insights from a peak performance coach and highlights the importance of reframing challenges as opportunities for growth. By asking the question "Why is this happening for me?" instead of "Why is this happening to me?", we can change the trajectory of our lives and find meaning in our struggles. Lisa also discusses the difference between fixed and growth mindsets and encourages listeners to embrace a beginner's mindset to overcome self-doubt. She shares personal experiences and emphasizes the power of mindset in achieving resilience and personal growth. ................................................................. Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates FREE Resource: Create More ME TIME: bit.ly/metimeresource 1:1 Resilience and Wellbeing Coaching: bit.ly/risingstrongdiscoverycall Calming Journals: bit.ly/calmingjournals Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode ............................................................ TRANSCRIPT: Host/Lisa: Hey there. I'm Lisa, host of the rising strong mental health and resilience podcast. Today we're going to be diving a little bit deeper into the whole concept of mindset. Perhaps you've heard the quote from Henry Ford before are whether you think you can or think you can't, you're absolutely right. Think about that for a moment. Our mindset predetermines our success a lot of the time. It's been said that our mindset is more powerful than our education, our careers, and it can also predetermine our relationships. So why not learn more about it? Learn how to become not only more resilient, but to develop that healthy mindset that will help us in our life's journeys. Now, a lot of the guests that I have had on the show thus far do speak about the importance of mindset, but one person in particular that comes to mind is Joe Alvarez. He's a peak performance coach here in Regina, and he talked about mindset a lot in our interview together. If you haven't listened to that interview yet, I highly recommend that you go back and listen to it. But he talked about the way we look at our challenges, our adversities, the stuff we have to deal with in life. Now, I don't think there's a competition to say that one person's pain or adversity or challenges is worse than the other. Life is stinking hard sometimes. So no matter where you're at, what you're dealing with, what your kids are dealing with, what's happening at work, we've all got stuff. We're all facing adversity of some kind. But the way we think about it is where the power lies. For example, in my interview with Joe, he said, reflecting back on his adversity, on being an addict living on the streets in Montreal, he started to ask himself, why is this happening for me? Not that why is this happening to me, but why is this happening for me? What is the gift inside this struggle? It's hard, trust me. I lost a child. But as time has gone by, I've asked myself that, what can I do with this tragedy? To help other people to grow as a human, to be more compassionate, more kind. And when you look at your struggles like that, why is this happening for me? You change the trajectory of the direction in which you're going now. There is lots and lots of articles and studies and lots of discussion, frankly, around the topic of mindset. Years ago, there was a determination that there are really two main mindsets, fixed and growth and there's a lot more detail to it than what I'm going to share. But in nutshell, a fixed mindset is that which limits us. If I can't do this today, at this moment, I guess I can never do it. Rather than, gosh, I don't know why I did so poorly on this test, but I guess this is telling me that I need to study more, that I need to go and ask the Prof. More questions, that I need to join a study group. There's a message in our mass, but we have to choose to be open to that. Now. I think about a toddler learning how to walk, and I've used this scenario in other episodes, but I just think it's such a classic, right? We've got these innocent little children who are not broken down by self thinking and messages like we do as adults, right? Like a little child who's one six months old. However they are when they're learning how to walk, they stumble, stumble, fall, stumble, fall, stumble, fall, stumble, get up, stumble, fall, hit their head and so on and so forth, but they keep getting up. Whereas if you and I were to try something new, we would quit, most of us, way before a toddler would quit, because we have all of those thoughts and messages and self doubt and self worth and confidence and all these other things which, for the most part, are usually working against us, right? Let me tell you about a story. I'll make it quick. It was years ago. My husband was at a conference at a beautiful ski resort, and I thought, I'm going to learn how to snowboard. I'd only skied my whole life. I'm going to learn how to snowboard. Well, I come from a province where we are landlocked, Saskatchewan. And the fellow that was asking me about my snowboard, I was getting my equipment. He goes, do you surf? At that time, no, I had never surfed. And honestly, I still can't surf. But at that time, I'd never been on a surfboard because he was asking me if, if I snowboarded regular or goofy. I didn't know what he was talking about. By the time I got my equipment, I was convinced, I don't know a thing about this. I am never going to be able to do it. And then to top it off, I got grouped in with 720 year olds from Australia, young guys who literally surfed all the time. And here's a young mom who hasn't been on skis for two years, and I've just gotten frustrated picking out my equipment. And I've got all this self doubt. And before I even got on my board, I was sweating. I was embarrassed. I felt totally out of place, and I'd already convinced myself that I couldn't do this. Guess how that lesson went. The seven surfers from Australia hopped on their board and were at the bottom of the hill before I got up from my first fall. It wasn't pretty, but that is one of the clearest moments in my life where I can think that, on a simple level, mindset really defeated me before I even started. And I think that there are so many examples in our lives. You probably have examples, too, where you wanted to do something. Maybe you signed up for a learn to run program. Maybe you showed up there and you weren't able to run for the first minute or whatever, right? But I think the important thing is that we take a step back and say, okay, today I'm a beginner at this. Those surfers, they were not beginners, right? They might have been new to snowboarding, but they had the skills, the know how, and the youth, frankly, to help them be successful. And I didn't see any self doubt on any of their faces. They were all thinking, this is going to be easy. I'm just going to do this like I was surfing. And that's exactly what they did. They didn't self defeat. But that is my number one takeaway message for you today is let's allow ourselves to be a beginner no matter what we're facing. Maybe you're a new parent. Parenting is hard. You're not going to master it. I don't know if anybody masters it ever, but you're not going to master it in the first week or the first month. Maybe you're starting a new job and things are really uncomfortable. You're a beginner there. It's okay. Maybe you've just lost a child like I have. Eight years ago. I was a beginner then. I do my grief so much differently now. I have learned so much, but I've allowed that learning to happen so that I can keep going. So if you are facing some kind of adversity and you want to apply this beginner open mindset, growth mindset to your challenge, I would love to hear from you. Send me an email at lisa@lisakbaim.com that's Lisak boehm.com. And tell me about it. Let's talk about it. Also, if you are a business, you have a business, and you would like to advertise on my show, which is primarily right now, Saskatchewan people. If you've got a Saskatchewan based business, I would love to promote you on my podcast. Let's chat. Until then, stay well, my friends. Stay well and be resilient, and we'll talk to you next time. Take care. Hey, rising strong listeners. If you've been enjoying the inspiring interviews on the podcast, we'd love your support to help us reach more listeners and hopefully gain some sponsorship. To do that, please, like, follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. And here's a little extra incentive. Leave us a five star review, and you'll be entered to win some cool rising strong swag. Your support means the world to me.

The rise of disconnection in society has led to a mental health crisis, with increasing rates of loneliness, domestic violence, and mental health. Dr. Jody Carrington, a top psychologist, highlights the impact of social media and technology on our ability to maintain meaningful connections. The solution lies in fostering resilience through agency and gratitude, and actively choosing to prioritize human connection in our lives. ................................................................... Find all of Dr. Jody Carrington's books, podcast info and speaking page here: www.drjodycarrington.com Instagram - www.instagram.com/drjodycarrington ................................................................... *** LINKS associated with the Rising Strong: Mental Health & Resilience podcast: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates FREE Resource: Create More ME TIME: bit.ly/metimeresource Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com ***Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode*** .................................................................. TRANSCRIPT: Host/Lisa: Have you wondered how we ended up in this mess, how we are experiencing this mental health crisis? Well, that's exactly what I'll be talking about today with my guest, Dr. Jody Carrington. Welcome to the Rising Strong podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Baim, and I'm so excited to dive into this topic. So let's get started. Dr. Jody: You. Host/Lisa: In May of 2023, I was invited to be a part of a panel discussion at a stronger together event in Regina. And as a bonus, I got to meet the amazing keynote speaker, Dr. Jody Carrington. If you don't know her, buckle up because you are about to be inspired. In short, Jodie is one of North America's top psychologists, is an author, speaker, podcaster, but above all, she is a woman on a mission to reconnect a disconnected world. Welcome to the podcast, Jodi. Dr. Jody: Lisa, I want to take you on the road with me. That is like the best introduction of all time. Host/Lisa: I don't know about that, but I am with you. I'll go on the road with you for sure. Dr. Jody: Oh my gosh. I'm so like, after we met, I've thought about you so much and I know your work has inspired so many people, so I cannot wait to jump in. Host/Lisa: In your book, feeling seen, you indicate that we are more disconnected now than ever. Do you think this is the root of our mental health crisis right now? Dr. Jody: Yeah, 100% without question. I often think about this even as parents. We are the first generation of parents that have had so much inundation by social media. So we talk about the worries for our kids and all of those kind of things. But we are the first generation of parents that have been just so overwhelmed. And the data is interesting to me. Our great grandparents, it is estimated, looked at their children 72% more of the time than we look at our babies. And not because we don't love them less or more or any of those kind of things. We've never had this many exit ramps. And what I think is remarkable in this human race, like, whoever made this human race, like, whatever, you believe that to be true, sort of came up with two rules which said, I'm going to make two things happen. You're going to be neurobiologically wired for connection, right? You disconnect from an infant, they die. We're neurobiologically wired for connection. But the other thing I'm going to do, I'm going to throw in this second rule, which is the hardest thing you will ever do, is look into the eyes of the people you love. Okay? So go ahead. Go. And in the olden days, if you will, we had so many more opportunities to look at each other, to do that hard thing that was always hard. We lived in smaller houses, we slept in smaller beds. We didn't have computers and phones and all those things. And so this thing that has always been hard to do, to maintain connection and relationship with each other, has been given so many opportunities to just make that easier not to do it. So I think one of the biggest issues we're facing, a loneliness epidemic. We're in the middle of a mental health crisis. And I mean, keep in mind, I mean, you and I are both in Canada, relatively well resourced and safe, and all of those things. We are killing ourselves at faster rates now than ever in the history of the free world. Domestic violence, child maltreatment, those numbers have never been this high. So it begs the question why? And I really think it comes back to this idea that we were never meant to do any of this alone, and we've never felt so alone. Host/Lisa: Do you think social media plays a role in this? As you said, our phones, our devices, our computers, we're at everybody's beck and call 24/7 it seems. Dr. Jody: Oh, my gosh. And have so much access to everything. I don't think social media plays a role in it. Well, actually, I do. The way that we use social media plays the role. And I think we often sort of vilify social media. I mean, the intention of technological developments in any generation is to make the world a better, safer, more efficient place because of technological advances, I hope that our cars are safer to drive. I hope that pancreatic cancer isn't a death sentence in my lifetime because of technological advances, the issue remains how we use it. And if the problem, if one of the hardest things we will do is look into the eyes of the people we love, and this is one opportunity to make that easier, to sort of stay disconnected and safe, away from the criticisms or the learnings of other people, we're going to take that. And I don't think that was ever the intention of social media. I think that though the outcome is now our responsibility to figure out, like, holy wow, in a very short period of time, this has become dangerous, and what do we do about that? What do we have control over? And so we can say all the time, this is the government's issue, or that's the problem. But really, at the end of the day, all we have is you and me just trying to figure out exactly how we get ourselves in much more regulated states so we can continue to stay connected to the people we love. Absolutely. Host/Lisa: So the question begs to be asked, how do we do that? Dr. Jody: Well, I think, first of all, we always want to fix it so much faster, right? I think you can't address what you won't acknowledge. I think the cornerstones of mental health are two things. And I was listening to a podcast from Paul on Andrew Huberman the other day with Paul Conti, Dr. Paul Conti, and he said the two cornerstones of mental health are this agency and gratitude. And even in the shittiest of storms, being able to understand what we have control over, what is our agency becomes very internally focused. And so I feel like this is a bit of a sequential process. Agency and then gratitude, and then it goes on a loop. Okay? And so agency is like, we can get out of our heads and think, like, what about why? Oh, my God, this is so overwhelming. What do I have control over in this moment as I'm stepping into the holidays? Do I have control over my mother in law? How do I respond to this? What do I do for my babies when they're really struggling? Whatever. What do I have control over? Becomes the most important question. And then how you switch to then this external focus of the best parts of you really live in this space of gratitude. And gratitude has sort of got this overused wrap, I think, these days. But it becomes still the most important thing that we can do, I think, is to sort of, like, even when I get overwhelmed and I think about all the things that I don't have or couldn't do or I'm missing out on or I've lost being able to step into that sense of, like, okay, in this moment, what do I have allows you to get back to the best parts of yourself and from that place, making decisions about whether you charge your phone by your bed or you leave it in the kitchen, whether you choose to go for coffee with somebody or wave at your neighbor or do all of those things that require you to be physically present in your day and will make for stronger families and communities, becomes much more accessible. Does that make sense? Host/Lisa: It absolutely does. I'm wondering, have we lost the skill of being social thanks to the pandemic and a variety of other things? Dr. Jody: Yeah. So I think, to your point, it is a skill, and just like any other skill, like your golf swing or whatever that looks like, you got to practice it. And the less opportunities we have to practice it, taking our kids to the grocery store, getting together as a group of people, I think the pandemic expedited that process, that disconnect in so many ways. Here's the thing that I think also contributed to it. Right. We're the first generation of parents that have had this much access to social media. We used to love on the weekends to get together with our friends or come home at the end of the day and sink into our family because we'd worked apart or separate from or outside in the fields, or we were alone in our kitchens or whatever that looks like. And in two generations, we're so inundated by data, at the end of the day, we don't even want to talk to each other. The last person I want to talk to is my personal husband at the end of the day, because we're probably going to have to talk about something dumb that I'm going to have to do, and I'm not interested in it. And I feel like, you know what I just want to do? I want to just launder money in the Ozarks. I want to just disconnect from the world. Right? Host/Lisa: If you're loving the show, I want to hear your feedback. Take a screenshot showing your five star rating and that you're subscribed to us on Apple Podcast or are following us on Spotify. Then head over to the rising strong podcast Facebook page, hit the message button and send it my way. You'll be entered to win some rising strong swag. I will draw one name at the end of each month. Good luck, and thanks for listening. Dr. Jody: You. Host/Lisa: As you're speaking, I just thought, you know, I don't know if I consider myself an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert, but I am very comfortable in my own skin being on my own. But I feel that over the last three years, I want to hibernate in my house almost all the time. And I've recognized that is actually getting worse. And I'm wondering if that's just me or if that is something that we're seeing across the board. Dr. Jody: I don't think that's just you. I think everybody feels like that. And then it begs the question, like, why and where do we then get refueled? Because you can't automate relationship, right? And the more I think you've experienced in your life, where life has become difficult for whatever reason, the energy it takes to just even connect with the world becomes more compromised. But oftentimes, what happens is the more we struggle or the more we've experienced trauma or disconnect, we actually need healthy relationships and other people to help us navigate those things. We were never meant to do any of this alone. Host/Lisa: And yet I feel that sometimes it's instinct to pull within. Dr. Jody: Oh, yeah. This is not to say, right, that there isn't for sure, solitude, reflection, spending some time to do those things, that has always been necessary, right? Like the exact opposite can be true. Like you just fill yourself so much with busyness and people and substances and whatever that is to try to avoid the feelings. It's like. I think the question is, what are you doing in those times of solitude, right? Is the intention to just refuel your soul so that you can engage with the people that you love and you lead and you laugh with? Or is it a complete and utter desire to avoid everything and everybody? And I think understanding the intention behind those two things really, then direct. Whether it's good for our soul or it might just be survival, right? Host/Lisa: Why are our youth struggling so much right now? Dr. Jody: I say this all the time. I've assessed and treated over 1000 kids in our country and I've never met a bad one. Kids these days are as resilient and brilliant and probably even more inclusive and desire connection more than probably any generation that's come before them. The issue, I think, is the job of kids as they grow, are to make mistakes and be ********. And that's the only way you learn how to not. And I think when we are overwhelmed and lose our ability to just sink into the people around us and navigate big hard conversations because we don't have the time or the space to do that, the generation that's going to suffer most are the people with the less prefrontal cortexes, do you know what I mean? The ones who need people to be present. And if we've never not been this present or this distracted or this disconnected, then the issue is the people who suffer the most. And we've seen this in the post Covid data, that sort of age range of 17 to 23 struggle so much because we've missed just the noticing, right? The going out to the grocery store, the family trips, attending the funerals as a family, attending the weddings as a family. That's where you learn the ****. That's where you watch other people, right? We've talked a little bit about this, and I know just from the perspective of grief and mourning, you're born with the ability to grieve. If you're old enough to love, you're old enough to grieve. But nobody teaches us how to mourn unless you watch other people do it. Right. The more disconnected we are, the harder it is for our babies or the next generation or even grandpas to understand how do we do it these days? Right? And is it okay if we say her name? Is it okay if we all get together? Yes. ****. Coming. Come on. And if I stay away, if I want to avoid that, which is typically what we want to do when we're in pain, we avoid things. Right? We shut in on ourselves. And that initial instinct is so normal and natural and even necessary. The issue is, then, what do we do next? And before, I would say we had to gather because I couldn't phone you to talk about some things, or I couldn't just text you or email you. I actually had to physically come to your house and be like, okay, what's the plan? Or, what do you need? Or, what are we doing next? And I wanted to because I didn't have any other way to connect to you. But now we assume in so many ways that just because I've sent you a heart emoji or we've talked about it, it doesn't replace the fact that I would just show up on an anniversary or a birthday or whatever. Not only doesn't it land the same, there is a completely different physiological experience in your body when I just send you a note versus whether I show up with a coffee. Host/Lisa: Absolutely. I'm seeing this in my son as well. He's 23 now. He was very fortunate that he had a job that he worked right through. Covid. I asked him last time he was home, I said, what are your thoughts on the pandemic and mental health? And he looked at me and he says, you know what, mom? He goes, I know I was very lucky. I kind of had a normal life, just in the sense that he had a very small group that he would interact with and then his work. I also observe this generation, and I am guilty, too. Like you say, when was the last time I even phoned? Someone talked on the phone. I will choose texting or emailing first, hands down, all the time. And when my phone rings, even I go, okay, I'll answer that one. Dr. Jody: Right? Host/Lisa: Yeah. Dr. Jody: And we get the opportunity to decide if I just think about in my generation, or, this isn't like the good old days. This is like you and me when the phone rang at our house. I don't remember as a child ever sort of making a decision or anybody ever being like, don't get it. Don't answer that one, because we don't know who it is. Right? Like, before caller id. You were curious. You were like, obviously somebody needs to. But now it's all like, don't do it. I can decide, I don't want to talk to this guy right now, or I don't want to, whatever, right? So that agency or that ability to make those calls, I think, further perpetuate that allowance, for sure. Host/Lisa: So one of the things that I love to talk about on this podcast is the whole idea of resilience. Do you think that connection helps us become more resilient? Dr. Jody: Oh, yeah. Here's the thing. I think resiliency is such an individual experience and our context, the stories in which we come or walk through this world with dictate so much of our ability to sort of decide how the world operates, how people operate within the world. And I think that most of the time, none of us were meant to do any of this alone. And oftentimes when we get in our own head, we tell stories about why we showed up or why this happened to us or why this person responded in this way. And typically speaking, if we don't have anywhere to check that every once in a while, those assumptions, if we don't have anywhere to put those things, every once in a while, they become problematic. Because we tend to be our own worst critics. We tend to be our own worst enemies. We tend to get stuck in stories where, like, this is how the people, obviously she doesn't like me, or obviously this is, I'm a ****** mom, or my mother in law has told me that forever, so then that must be true. Versus when I have this conversation about, like, no, just a second. That could also be because the story in her head is whatever that is. I mean, it's the basis of therapy for me. Lisa, how do we check our assumptions? And rarely can we do that alone. Host/Lisa: Very interesting. Makes a lot of sense. Dr. Jody: I was just thinking, when we get stuck in our heads over, like, this happened, or I should have, I could have, I would have. There's sometimes truth to all of those things. But again, it's the ability, I think, to then be able to check that every once in a while that allows us to heal or shift or move past something. And I just think about how critically important that is. And if it's so hard to look at each other and the opportunities to look away become greater, I just see, like, there's the issue. Host/Lisa: Do you think it's possible for people to go through trauma, tragedies, life changing situations, and still come out and be resilient? Dr. Jody: Yes, 150,000%. Because, see, again, it's not what happens to us that is the issue. It's what happens inside of our bodies as a result of what happens to us that becomes the deciding factor on whether we. How not whether. How we heal, how we move forward, how our story of our life continues. Because it's not a question of whether bad things are going to happen or hard things are going to happen or difficult things are going to happen. It's when. And mostly it's about who we have to walk us through that, who we have, how we make sense of those things, what is in our world to help us navigate those big emotions that dictate this word, resilience. Host/Lisa: So would that be an explanation, then, why some people seem to kind of roll through horrific things and other people just struggle so greatly? Dr. Jody: Yeah. I mean, context is a prerequisite for everything. And so people would often say to me when I worked at the children's hospital for ten years on a locked psychiatric inpatient unit, and we would see some kids who seemingly have just quite a lovely story, but they were really struggling. And then there'd be another kid who survived foster care and multiple generations of abuse and neglect, and they seem seemingly like we're doing better. And the question so much isn't about what's wrong with you, it's what happened to you that helps me understand our ability to then navigate the world. And even in some of the worst know kids or people who have experienced unthinkable things, if there was somebody, opportunities to walk through it, to navigate it, to be supported through it, to have a place to help make meaning. I mean, those are Kessler's words, the five stages of grief. The 6th stage is always about meaning. And it doesn't mean it excuses or condones, but it assists in the understanding of. And that, I think, is really what's critically important in the human condition. Host/Lisa: I find people's stories of adversity just so interesting and so inspiring. And it seems like you say, sometimes the most unlikely person is shining the brightest. And I think, why can't I be more like them? Or what's their secret? Dr. Jody: Yeah, 100%. And I think sometimes we really just wonder about how people did this or do this or survive, or how can you be so positive when you're in the middle of a cancer diagnosis or you've experienced whatever? I do really think it's who you have, what happened in that process, who do you have in your world? And I think all of those things, that context becomes so critical, the story. Right. Host/Lisa: Very true. So let's just shift gears here a little bit. I think we have a lot of parents who are listening to this podcast, and I know I've been getting a lot of questions, how can parents support our kids in this age of disconnection, and how can we bring them back to us? Dr. Jody: Yeah, I love think. You know, part of the question always has been, and we're not the first generation that has experienced this. I mean, if I think about every generation that comes before us, it's, know, innovation and technological. You know, we thought the Beatles were going to be the death of everybody, and then Elvis and his hip swinging was going to be bad, and then all the pot smokers were going to kill the world. And I think sometimes when we want to stay connected to this next generation, it's a very big task. But it's so critically important to figure out how they speak, how they learn, how they communicate, and instead of trying to get them to do it the way that it's always been done. What do we know about TikTok? What do you know about pronouns? What do you know about vaping? What is the thing? And they know the thing. And sometimes one of the biggest lessons, the greatest lessons I've ever been taught from my children, and I think it's like when I watch my kids with their grandparents, when I watch them having conversations about the residential school system or pronouns or whatever that looks like, and watching them wonder about those things is a place that I just love so much. And so I think so much of this is a, meeting them where they're at, right? And b, on purpose, because you're tired, too, really recognizing that if you're going to say you're off screens or everybody's phones down, then what are we going to do about that instead? Are ours phones down? Are we in the place where we get to stay connected as well? And I think about that all the time. I say to my kids, Kate off while I sit there on my computer or my phone. And I think a lot of that comes down to how do we, on purpose, on purpose, connect with each other, which requires things like charging your phone outside your bed, going into a restaurant with your friends and family, and leaving the phones in the car, things like that. Host/Lisa: That's brilliant. I know after we lost our daughter, Katie, our son was 15 at the time, and I think being 15 these days is kind of a hard place to be on a good day. But after we lost our daughter, connecting with him, literally, I felt like we had a five minute window every day. If we were lucky, and that was the supper table. And he started taking an auto mechanics class, which I know absolutely nothing about. But that was our ground of connection, and that was what lit him up. And I think that time in our lives really taught me so much about, as you're saying, meeting people where they're at. He didn't want to meet me where I was at because I was a hot mess. And seeing your mom broken into a million pieces must be a hard thing. But when I met him where he was at, he ended up meeting me halfway, and then that transitioned into going for drives because he thought I might need to talk. And he loved to be in his car. He's a car guy. Dr. Jody: Yeah. Host/Lisa: Oh, man. And being in the car with your kids is the greatest thing ever, because as the driver, you sure as heck better not be on your phone. And when you're talking, you don't have to look at each other. Dr. Jody: Yeah. Right. And I think that's the mean. Staring at each other is weird, but spending time physically present with each, you know, watching our phone side by side. But when you're driving and having a conversation or listening to music or, you know, what is your favorite Taylor Swift song? I mean, I'm now a huge swiftie because my daughter makes me sing everything that ever was. That's the point, right. Is really, how do we stay present in the physical proximity with each other? Host/Lisa: Well, the interesting thing with my son is when he was still living at home, I would see that this is the way he would be with his friends. He would meet them where they were at. Dr. Jody: Yeah. Neat. Yeah. He's a superstar. Host/Lisa: Yeah, he really is. He's been through stuff that I wouldn't wish on anybody. But at the same time, he knows as well as I do that because he's been through that hard stuff, he can get through anything. And I think that that has been a gift, a gift that nobody expected to come out of a disaster. Dr. Jody: And I think also, if I can, I mean, I haven't met your husband, but just a little that I get to spend time with you and watch you on social media and do all those kind of things. I think that we should never, ever underestimate our ability to be as present as we possibly can in our pain. And I think there is probably so much debilitating pain when we think about, like, what happens when you're in pain or you're in grief is you stop looking. Right. Because you physically have to deal with your own personal internal structure. You can't give away something if you're absolutely broken inside. It's impossible. Yeah. And so when you get that experience, our ability to sort of heal our own selves first, to be able to look inside, to even get us remotely well enough to be able to start to give it away again, or to check on our other babies, or to look at our partners, or to do all those things, that becomes some of the most difficult steps. And even if we do that in small chunks, even if we do that in seconds, in milliseconds, that is where the healing lies, because it is that transition from that internal locus to that external locus. And gratitude lives in that external focus, the reconnection, the hope, the little slivers, as tiny and minuscule as they are of joy, live outside of that. And so that shift, and having something to want you to shift, or to kick your *** enough to shift, as I just watch you be so connected to that amazing human, I know that he's so lucky to have you both. Host/Lisa: I give him a lot of credit too, because he was the reason that I put my feet on the floor every day, probably for the first two years after Katie died. And I thank God all the time because it forced me to figure out a way that I could carry grief in one hand and life in the other, and that they could coexist. And then I realized if I would have had a third hand, that joy was in there too. And when I was grieving, it didn't mean that I couldn't have joy. And when I was dealing with my son or trying to parent, didn't mean that I wasn't grieving. And that all of these things could coexist in their own little way. And it was just a lot of aha. Moments, if you will. Grief has taught me a lot. Dr. Jody: Well, I love that so much because I think that we all play these roles, the griever and the grievy. Oftentimes in the exact same moment, we are experiencing debilitating grief, unthinkable loss. And then the people around us are also experiencing that, whether because it's of the same loss or because they have their. Nobody gets out of here alive. And that's the thing that just ******* knocks me on my feet all the time. I can't believe that people lose people every day. I can't believe that we lost my mother in law just suddenly, tragically, last January. And I remember being in those moments thinking, like, how the, like, this was not the plan. How do people do this? Aren't you amazed at that, Lisa? Aren't you just like the people are walking around like you are conducting a podcast, living your life and you had to bury your own baby. It's remarkable to me that in this human condition, we can love so deeply and lose so greatly and still live so fully. Host/Lisa: We are so much stronger than we know. I remember literally laying on the floor in the days that followed Katie's accident, just thinking and swearing at God, saying all the bad words. Are you effing kidding me? And yet, like you say, here I am. And I could list off dozens and dozens and dozens of people who've been through, frankly, far worse than me, who are still standing, who are still shining. And it is also part of the human condition that we have that ability. Dr. Jody: It's remarkable, and nobody wants it. And people say that all the time. I didn't want to have to do this. When people say, I think I've even heard you say this, people are like, you're so strong, you're so amazing. Well, when you don't have a ******* choice, it's remarkable what you learn. And everybody intends to be kind in those words. I'm not saying you should never say that to anybody. I get why we say that to people and why people admire you for navigating things the way that you do or you have. But I think it's also sometimes in this human condition, the ability to just really marvel at how incredible we are, how we were never meant to do any of this alone, and to never, ever underestimate your power in a season of knowing that so many people, in fact, everybody you know, is in a state of grief, for mourning. And if that's not a reason for kindness, for compassion, for seeking first to understand man, I don't know what is. Host/Lisa: Oh, I agree. And I think sometimes it takes these awful tragedies and traumas to make you realize that we're all a heartbeat away from something going completely sideways in life. Dr. Jody: And we get into this comparative suffering place, too. Well, at least I didn't lose a child. Or at least you're not in the middle of a cancer diagnosis. Or at least we try to do all of those things right. But as hard as that is, and as I would never want to take away from anybody else, that doesn't get us anywhere. Right. We just honor the spaces that we're each respectively in. And it's knowing that it will be, regardless of how hard it is or what that looks like for anybody, it will be so much easier if we're in it compassionately and together. Host/Lisa: I think you're right. I think the way we approach things is what it's all about. Dr. Jody: Yeah. Host/Lisa: As a clinical psychologist, I'd be really curious about how you think grief and disconnection are related. Dr. Jody: Oh, gosh. I feel like you know the answer to this question. Okay, so I'm going to take you back to labor. What happens when we are in labor is that there is a necessity. Well, not even labor, but. Okay. So I'm going to just use labor for a minute. But when we're in so much pain, what we tend to do is shy away from it or clench or avoid or go undercover. Okay. Now, the initial response is so brilliant. From a neurobiological, even survival perspective, you should shy away. Cower from. Back away from the pain. Like, if somebody's going to kick you in the teeth, it's a good idea to just be like, try to back away. Versus, like, yeah, just give it to me. Now. Once we hit that initial response from the body trying to protect itself, either emotionally, physically, whatever that pain looks like, the healing often happens when we sink into it, when we actually don't avoid it. But rarely can we do that alone because our body has now understood that this is so ******* painful and that the thing I need to do is just avoid it or shy away from it or clench significantly to try to get away from it. What I always think about this in labor is that when that first contraction comes, now, you can think about this all the time before the labor starts. If anybody's ever been in labor, you can be with me. If you haven't, you can imagine it'll work the same before. You practice this **** called la maz or breathing, or like, you get a dolphin and assisted pool birth **** and you make a birth plan and we're going to just breathe through whatever. And you practice the breathing. You do all the ****. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but what happens in the first contraction when that first ************ comes along and just punches you right in the ******? Host/Lisa: What happens to the breathing out the freaking window? Dr. Jody: Right? So we know all day long what we should be doing in the moment, and we can practice it as much, but when it hits. When it hits, there is no preparation for it. Now, it is often helpful to do some work before so your body knows what it feels like to be relaxed. All of those kind of things are not for not, but often what is necessary in that moment, in things like emotional pain or physical pain, is having the reminder, either in your own internal mechanisms that you've built in which are usually not accessible or a village of people or a person or a community or something to remind you about the importance of just sinking, of just going in. And so I can tell you, when I was in labor with my son, I had the most incredible midwife, because I be ********* if I was going to listen to my husband, who was like, jody, look at me. I was like, oh, I'm going to rip your wedding ring right off your finger and shove it. And this midwife, God bless her, was the best thing that ever happened to me. So could grab my hands, could look at me, and could say, okay, I want you to open everything in your body in this moment. We're going to get that baby, that pain, to go as smoothly and as gently to us as we can make it happen. I need you to help me with that. So it's going to hurt, and you're going to want to sink into it, or you're going to want to, sorry, shy away from it. But what I really want you to do to the best of your ability is to sink into it. And it's going to be hard, and it's not going to feel even right. But I promise you, it will make this process easier. And she probably said it way more articulately than that. But I can tell you, for so many reasons, it was a beautiful experience for me. Our twin birth was a completely different story. But I attribute so much of that ability to have that experience with her walking me through it. And I feel like that is so true with grief. The problem with labor and grief is labor is the celebration of you get something great on the end of it if everything goes well. Yeah, grief is the exact same process, but people are so ******* scared of it, because what is the end goal, right? How do we ever, ever get through this? We cannot bring Katie back. We cannot do this. So we avoid also those of us experiencing it, but those of us around it. So it makes the process of navigating, healing, if that's even a word we want to use, of creating a story around it that allows us to live again or be in this world now with this other chapter that is a part of our story in any way, that is imagining that it could even be better than it was before, that the next years of your life could be equally as good as those with our loved ones in them. Is that a possibility? And I believe that to the core of me, that it is. It is so hard to do, because our instinct, our safety is to clench, is to avoid, is to not put ourselves in positions where we have to see the pity in the eyes of other people. And it's sometimes even altruistic. We don't want other people to have to feel bad or it gets into a place of hate where we're like, you ******, you got your kids and you can't even come over and say merry Christmas to me. Get bit. I'm not even going to go out. And the result, I think, sometimes is survival and is necessary. The long term effect, I think, is it becomes very difficult. The anticipatory anxiety becomes even more debilitating than the grief. Host/Lisa: 100%. I see this all the time because the first couple of trips to the grocery store, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Hope I don't see anybody. Oh my God. There's my neighbor. Oh my God. I haven't talked to her yet. If you'd like reminders when new episodes of the Rising Strong podcast are released, make sure you're on the notification list. You can find that at bitly risingstrongupdates. That's bit ly risingstrongupdates. Now back to the show. I've always said that feeling is healing. There is no way forward until you lean into that horrible, uncomfortable stuff. Dr. Jody: Again and again and again. And that's the issue. It's not an end game. How would you answer this question when I would say, has the intensity and the frequency of that feeling of grief changed for you since moment one? Host/Lisa: Absolutely it has. I think the best analogy I've heard was actually out of a dad's mouth. And that was now President Biden. He compared the loss of his son and the grief he experienced to waves. And he said at the beginning, every wave is pulling you under and you're crawling to get back up for air, and you barely get a breath. And another one sucks you down. Another one sucks you down. And he said it changes because those waves still come, but they're not as intense usually. And when they do come, they're farther apart. And he said it much more eloquently than that. That is exactly what it's like. I will grieve, Katie, as long as I walk this earth, but I don't fall to my knees like I did. I can have great days. I can go on holidays with my husband. I can go to parties. I can go to barbecues and have a phenomenal time. I never forget her. I never forget my grief. Yes, but grief does change. And I really, honestly can't think of a better word to use than just change. Dr. Jody: I love it. Yeah, I love it. And I think so oftentimes, too, it's like we would just like to erase it or wish it never happened or all of those things. And I think, again, that is so natural and normal. And it's like that step of sort of integrating it into the story that you never wanted to be a part of your story. That's where the intensity and the frequency decrease, those waves, as you say. I love that concept of the waves. Host/Lisa: I would do anything, and, I mean, I'd put myself in jail if I could do anything to have my daughter back. Dr. Jody: Yeah. Host/Lisa: I would do almost anything to have avoided that physical, mental, emotional pain and to see it in my husband and my son. But I also know that the growth I have experienced all comes from that pain. Dr. Jody: Yes. Host/Lisa: And that I am so grateful for. Katie still continues to give me gifts in her death. As crazy and bizarre as that sounds. Dr. Jody: That is not crazy or bizarre at all. That would be the whole purpose. When I think about this six stage of meaning, I cannot fathom why one of my best friends on the planet had to end her life at 44 when she's just had her two babies. She's waited for her whole life. There's no concept in my life that that makes sense if I stay stuck in that place. And when I watch what has happened as a result of how many times I've spoke about her, how many times people have spoke to me about her, when I watch her babies and all of these kind of things, then it has to mean something, I think. And it takes people sometimes a lifetime or never to get there. But I think her legacy, her ability to continue to influence the world better live forever. And that's my hope for me. That's my hope for you. Right. Is that there is this place where that continues to happen. And I believe that to the core of me, about your little girl. I mean, I never got to meet her, but I feel like I know her. When we got to present together in the room that day, there was not a question to me that she was there cheering her mom on. It was so phenomenal to just see what she has now because she's only always an inch away from you, moved you to do, and in and of itself, that alone is it. That alone is enough. That alone is phenomenal. Right? Host/Lisa: Yeah. I do feel so grateful, and I do feel so fortunate that she is still a part of my. Dr. Jody: Always. Host/Lisa: Yes, always. Jody, you are a one in a million woman. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and expertise on relationships and connection. Today you are a blessing. Dr. Jody: I loved every second. Host/Lisa: Thanks for listening. Friends. Remember to stay well and be resilient. Catch you next time.

Stress has become the norm in our society, but it's important to prioritize our mental health. In this podcast episode, we learn five simple ways to reduce stress and improve our overall well-being. From staying active and exercising regularly to exploring relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation, these strategies can help us manage stress levels effectively. Slowing down, prioritizing tasks, and setting healthy boundaries are also crucial in maintaining a healthy balance. Additionally, connecting with others and seeking therapy or counseling can provide the support we need during challenging times. By implementing these techniques, we can combat stress, improve our mental health, and live a more resilient life. ..................................................................... *** LINKS associated with the Rising Strong: Mental Health & Resilience podcast: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates FREE Resource: Create More ME TIME: bit.ly/metimeresource 1:1 Resilience and Wellbeing Coaching: bit.ly/risingstrongdiscoverycall Support this podcast by purchasing a Calming Journal: bit.ly/calmingjournals Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: · Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode .................................................................... TRANSCRIPT: Lisa/Host: Have you noticed that stress has become the norm? And it's almost a badge of honor to be so busy that you don't know what day of the week it is? Well, it's affecting our mental health. Today, I'm going to share five simple ways for you to reduce your stress. So let's get started. Hey there. I'm Lisa, and this is rising strong on mental health and resilience. Mental health struggles are becoming more the norm and we all have them, and I really feel that it's important to talk about them in all aspects of mental health. I really hope you enjoye today's episode about stress and the things that we can do to combat it. Now, let's get started. Everyone experiences stress from time to time. When it becomes chronic or long lasting, it can affect your mental health. This is when stress interferes with your everyday life and causes you to stop doing the things that you love. What causes stress for one person may be quite different for another. Stress often happens if you feel high pressure or trying to meet a deadline. It can also arise if there's a threat to you or the things or the people that are important to you. Mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression may make some people feel more easily stressed than others. Common causes of stress include money, work, relationships, health problems, job stability, family responsibilities, life changes, a history of trauma, loss of a loved one, or poor sleep and diet, which we talked about in episode 13. And I highly recommend you listen to the symptoms you experience when stress can show up in the way you think and how you feel emotionally. Stress can also show up physically or in your behavior. Because everyone experiences stress differently, symptoms may vary from person to person and range from mild to severe. Here are some cognitive symptoms of stress. Difficulty making decisions difficulty concentrating memory problems. Here are some emotional symptoms of stress. Irritability moodiness feeling anxious nervousness. Feeling sad or depressed anger low self confidence. Physical symptoms of stress include headaches, muscle pain, insomnia, digestive issues, skin rashes, acne, fatigue, lack of energy, low sex drive, and reproductive issues. And last but not least, behavioral symptoms of stress include changes in eating habits, crying more often than usual, social withdrawal, changes in sex drive, increased use of tobacco, alcohol or other substances. Now, let's take a moment here. Did you identify with any of these symptoms? Are you being real about the stress levels in your life? Often we get so busy that we quit listening to the feedback our body and brains are giving us. I don't think it's important what category your symptoms fall into, but I do think it's important to recognize that stress symptoms can manifest in all kinds of ways and to be aware so that you can manage your stress before it becomes chronic or unmanageable. After 23 years, I have become more aware of the feedback and messages my body gives me. I am prone to stress, headaches, anxiety in my guts and ridiculous fatigue. When these things start happening, I know it's time to slow down and use the tools I have in my mental health tool belt. Here are some of those tools. Number one, and probably the highest one on my list, stay active and exercise regularly. Just 20 minutes a day outside can help lower stress hormone levels. If you want to get the most out of your walk and reap all the benefits, then try walking in nature. Number two, explore relaxation techniques. Did you know that your breath is an effective stress reliever and it's always accessible? Deep breathing techniques such as the four seven eight breathing technique are designed to bring your body to a relaxed state. They're great to use in times of high stress. To try this method, sit comfortably and breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds. Hold your breath for 7 seconds, then breathe out through your mouth for 8 seconds. There is also something called progressive muscle relaxation which can also help. This involves tensing then relaxing the muscle groups throughout your body to relieve tension. I personally love these techniques because I can do them anywhere, anytime, and most of the time nobody even knows that I'm doing them. Number three, slow down and prioritize. Life can be busy and sometimes it's hard to say no to things, even though you know the added commitment may stress you out. Take time to slow down and prioritize. Think about what needs to get done, what can wait, where you can ask for help, and what just doesn't need to be done. You can also try managing feelings of overwhelm by breaking larger tasks into smaller, easier tasks. Setting healthy boundaries with other and yourself can also help you manage stress better. Number four, connect with other people. It's common that the dizzier we get, the more withdrawn we get, which further works against us. A strong support system of people you trust, feel safe with, and are supported by can get you through tough times. A community is also great for strengthening your mental health. And last but not least, number five, talk with a therapist. If you feel stressed more often than you're not, it may help to talk with your doctor or mental health professional. If stress is affecting your life or relationships. A good therapist can help you find the appropriate treatment for your specific symptoms. Let's recap the five ways to cope with stress. Include physical activity, relaxation, whatever that looks like for you, prioritizing your to do list, connection with other people, and therapy or counseling. Reminder that if you are in cris, please call the new nine eight eight number in Canada or 911 in the US or your nearest crisis center. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget to follow or subscribe and leave us a positive rating. I read every single one and they mean the world to me. Stay well and be resilient, my friends. Catch you next time. Did you know that I now offer one on one resilience and wellbeing coaching. I want you to do the things that you love. I want you to get off the hamster wheel and feel like you're in control again. So I'm going to show you how to decrease feelings of overwhelm, help you get more organized, find better work life balance, and create time for your goals and passions. If this sounds interesting, I want you to book a call today and learn how I can help you. Go to bitly risingstrongdiscoverycall that's bit.ly/risingstrongdiscoverycall. I can't wait to get you off the hamster wheel and doing the things that you love most.

Joe Alvarez's incredible journey from addiction and begging for money to becoming a high-level performance coach is a testament to the power of adversity and resilience. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Joe struggled with feelings of insecurity and turned to alcohol and drugs to mask his pain. However, a pivotal moment in the hospital led him to seek a higher purpose. After leaving his successful corporate job, Joe found his passion in helping others transform their lives. He realized that addiction is just a symptom of deeper issues, and he wanted to help a wider range of people overcome their challenges. Through mindset shifts, self-reflection, and acceptance, Joe has embraced a life of growth and service. His story is a reminder that even in our darkest moments, there is always hope for change and transformation. .................................................................... Connect with Joe Alvarez: Instagram : joe_alvarez_coaching Website: Joealvarezcoaching.com .................................................................... Rising Strong Links: Get new episode notifications: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates FREE Resource: Create More ME TIME: bit.ly/metimeresource 1:1 Resilience and Wellbeing Coaching: bit.ly/risingstrongdiscoverycall Calming Journals: bit.ly/calmingjournals Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/risingstrongpodcast Facebook page - send your reviews and comments via the 'comment' button here: www.facebook.com/risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: Email a screenshot of your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com ......................................................................... TRANSCRIPT: Lisa/host: How do you go from an addict asking for money to a high level performance coach? Today's guest, Joe Alvarez, is going to share his story of adversity and resilience. Welcome to rising strong mental health and resilience. I'm Lisa, and until 2015, I had a pretty charmed life. Then everything fell apart when I lost my daughter in a car accident and found myself in the darkest spot imaginable. Rather than let grief take me down and destroy me, I seek out inspiring people like Joe to keep me going. Joe is a coach and expert in subconscious self transformation who helps people all over the world transform their lives and businesses. This fall, I saw today's guest, Joe Alvarez, speak at an event. It was the we see you mental health event in Regina. He only spoke for 15 or 20 minutes, but I was drawn to his story and I knew I wanted to share it with all of you. Welcome to the show, Joe. Joe: Thank you. Glad to be here. Lisa/host: So, people look at you now as a peak performance and mindset coach and may assume that you have never struggled, that you just had everything all figured out. But it wasn't always that way. Tell us about your life before your pivotal change. Joe: Sure. Thank you for that. Thanks for the question. And it's interesting, right? I mean, people look at me now and assume that I've never struggled. And I would just invert that, right? And saying, because I did struggle, that's why I have a pretty good life today. I mean, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a life beyond the wildest dreams that I could ever drum up once upon a time. I grew up, born and raised in Saskatchewan to immigrant parents from the Philippines. Father's side are all spaniard descents to give all the listeners an image or a vision. I mean, I grew up with a circle of friends where know had a deeper tan than everybody else. And to keep a long story short, from a very young age, I didn't feel quite comfortable in my skin. And for me, there was being a class clown. There was being a funny guy, being the daredevil. And then ultimately, fast forward. I got introduced to alcohol, and that seemed to work for me, where the feelings of insecurity, not being good enough, not being tall enough, funny enough, good looking enough, white enough, seemed to have disappeared upon the ingestion of alcohol. And so when I got introduced to the effect of that, for me, it seemed to quote unquote, work, meaning it was a solution to the problems that ailed me. I had a really good childhood growing up my family were amazing, and I know that they did the best that they can with the resources that they had and all of their history and their baggage. I did experience abuse when I was young, sexual abuse as I was young, that had a huge impact on me as well. And I began to lead this life where I wanted to present to the world a stage character that I knew in my heart I didn't deserve. And that would call for more alcohol and eventually drugs. And in my addiction just took off to new levels and new heights. I had moved all over the country. I'd moved down to the Caribbean. I tried to change all the external environments, be it groups of friends, cities, schools, jobs, girlfriends. And I always found myself in the same place feeling lonely, despaired, riddled with fear, regret, shame, and continuous addiction. So, yeah, that's how my life was before. Towards the end, it was very bad. And for people that know me or listeners that know me, they might find it hard to believe. But at the was, I can remember very distinctly being outside a shoppers drug Mart in, know, begging for money because I didn't have any. It was a pretty low spot in my life. In the same token, Lisa, it's know, when I look back on that today, it's like, I am absolutely grateful for that. Why? Because I wouldn't know the level of freedom and happiness that I know now if it weren't for the pain and suffering that I experienced. Lisa/host: Isn't that the truth? I mirror those words exactly. So here you were outside the shoppers drug mart in Montreal asking for money. You ended up in the hospital at some point. Can you tell us about that? Joe: Yeah. So it wasn't long after that. It must have been within 24 hours after that, or 48 hours, I ended up in the hospital. October 2, 2006. Not in good shape. My lungs were collapsing. I hadn't slept in about eight days, almost as a result from substances and alcohol and whatnot. Hadn't bathed, hadn't eaten, was going into a bit of a psychosis. But I ended up in the hospital in really not good shape. Just to put it plainly, the way that I ended up there, I probably shouldn't be speaking to you now. Obviously, the universe had other plans for me, but the day that I ended up there. So I'm 170 pounds soaking wet. I'm lacking any luster in my skin. I mean, I'm pale, my eyes are just hollow. I've got tubes coming out of me, and I'm in this hospital gown because I had tried to get sober before, to no avail. But the idea came wilt, being in the hospital and on my hospital bed. There's got to be some sort of divine intervention that needs to happen with me, because the way that I was living my life was for the purposes of leaving here. And I sat up in my hospital bed and I looked at the nurse, and I said, nurse, could you tell me where the chapel is? I'm not a practicing religious person. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We all have our own subjective beliefs. I did grow up with religion, however. And that day, in that moment, I knew I just needed something greater than me. There was a level of humility that I had never touched before, meaning the way that I look at humility is just about being right sized. You're not better, you're not worse. You're just exactly where you're at. And there was another depth of honesty that happened, which was a moment of clarity, which I got to see my life for, what it really was, what it had really become. I asked the nurse where the chapel was. In the hospital. It's in the Montreal general. And she said, Mr. Alvarez, you're an intensive care unit. You should probably stay here. And I said, ma'am? And I demanded, please tell me where the Chapel is. And she pointed me in that direction, and I went into that chapel that day, Lisa. And as soon as I crossed the threshold of the doors to enter it, I buckled to my knees and I wept like I hadn't wept. Not cried. I wept like I hadn't wept before. I don't know exactly what happened. Like, I could put some language to it to try to describe it to you, but I think the experience in itself was ineffable, difficult to describe with words. What I've come to believe is spiritual in nature. And I basically said something to the effect of, like, if there is some sort of creative intelligence, God source, whatever you want to call it, if that exists, would you give me another chance at this thing called life? And I will serve you to the day I leave this body. Within less than 24 hours, a man came to see me, a man who had openly shared his journey with recovery and sobriety and whatnot. He took me by the hand, and that's where my journey began. Really? That's incredible. Lisa/host: I've got goosebumps from head to toe thinking about that ask and that delivery. Sometimes we just have to ask. Joe: Yeah, often we don't ask. Yeah, often. The problem is not that we don't receive as we don't ask. Lisa/host: So after rehab, you quickly began to thrive in roles where you served others and were climbing the corporate ladder with great success. Joe: I had gotten a job in a big tech company, telecom companies, a customer service agent. So literally, it'd be like I was, the guy was saying, hi, Lisa, thank you for calling. You know, how can I help you? I quickly progressed in that organization up to the highest position that you could have in that field. So I was making lots of money and winning presidents, clubs, trips, the accolades. I had a book of really good clients, very fortune, 501,000 clients, and I was doing very, very well. So basically what happened is I started to get this idea or this question, and the question was like, am I really happy doing this? And I would put that aside based on, I guess, the external validation that I was getting, I. E. My results, the money I was making, the accolades, the rewards, et cetera. And then six months later, down the track, I would ask it again, where it come up again. And then I would start to lose a bit of motivation, the drive that, I really wonder what that was about. And then it got to the place where I just really didn't enjoy it. And I was sitting in a boardroom meeting with a bunch of executives, and essentially what happened was I noticed all these people talking about the technology. I noticed how passionate they were. And I was like, this isn't the place for me. This is not what I want to do anymore. This is just my experience. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anybody. But what I did is I messaged my boss, well, in that meeting, and I went to go see him, and I said, I can't do this anymore. To which he responded, that's okay. We'll take the day off. And I said, no, I don't think you understand. I cannot do this anymore. I was searching for more. I think us as human beings, Lisa, we're like onions, right? There's so many layers to us. And in my own personal experience, when I was living in this world of drug addiction, I was thinking from a consciousness of, like, me, me, very selfish. Not thinking about consequence, not thinking about the future. I want what I want when I want it now. And I started to realize my mortality. And from that, I went into rehab, which gave me structure. There was a system that was put in place in order for me to abide by. And then going into the corporate world was the same thing. Like, I learned systems. I learned how to work now to get later. I learned how to do the right thing. I put that in air quotes, the right thing. But then, as I was continually growing, because in parallel with my career in the corporate space, I had a spiritual practice by which I was intentionally practicing in terms of my own growth. And when you choose to consciously or intentionally expand, to grow, to transform, I started to question who I was and what I wanted. And so there was a little light in me about, I think you're meant to do something different. I think you're meant to do something more. So I left that job without having any plan. Lisa, where did this lead? Lisa/host: That's very brave for you to leave a job with no further plan. Joe: What's important to mention is it led me within. First of all, I had to pose the question, like, what do I want to do? And I sat with that for a couple of months. What is it that lights me up? What is it that excites me? What is it that I want to do? What kind of mark do I want to leave in this world? What am I good at? I had the opportunity to share my story about my recovery and about my addiction to thousands of people. That really lit me up. So then I was like, okay. I was like, I'm going to help people. This is what I want to do. I want to help people in the recovery world. And so I started to go into that direction. And I was sitting at home watching a tv show called intervention. I don't know if you've ever seen that before, but, yeah, okay. So I was watching one of these moments, and I just was just crying. And I was like, that's what I want to do. And I found the contact of the interventionist on the show, and I called him up, and I said, hi, my name is Joe Alvarez. You don't know me, but here's my deal. And he was so gracious to give me the time. And he said to me, joe, one of our satellite offices are in Montreal. It's one of the biggest rehab centers in Canada. And he said, go visit this woman. Talk to her about it. And I went to talk to her about it and got information, went back, went back inside. Is this what I want to do? And then I had this realization that if anybody knows anything about addiction, addiction to the substances is really just a symptom of a deeper problem. It's not really the problem per se, albeit it becomes a problem, but it's not really the problem. It's a symptom of a problem. And then I had this realization, Lisa, that. Hold on 1 second. Lots of people have these problems. The deeper problems, they just don't have the same symptomology. Right. So they don't go and use illicit drugs or drink alcohol in the ways that I did, but they procrastinate, or they hold themselves back, or they don't believe in themselves, or they just kind of pass the time by and watch life go by without actually doing something that enriches their lives or that they're passionate about. I said, oh. I said, okay, well, then I need to have a different toolkit so that I can help a wider range of people as opposed to just being in a recovery world. And the moment that I made that decision, and you can probably attest to this, but in my model of my world, when I make decisions that are congruent, that are honest, that are from the depths of my being, the universe will conspire to support that. And that's what happened. And then all of a sudden, I came out of meditation one day, having this thought, and then the phone rang. This woman who was calling me about a completely different matter, I knew she had gone to some coaching school, and I said, hey, didn't you go to this coaching school? She said, yes, I did. And that coaching school was like three blocks from my house, which I'd never been. Become aware of it before. Now. I was aware of it. I went to an introductory weekend there, and then I was off to Atlanta to share my story about recovery, telling my story about this, and someone come up to me and says, I know somebody who trains people to become coaches, et cetera. And then it's just a domino effect, and here we are. Lisa/host: Do you think that that all really began just by being open to the idea? What do you think flipped the switch with the universe? Joe: When a decision is made that is earnest and honest and from the depths of it's a heartfelt decision, our feelings are magnetic. And when we broadcast that out into the universal field, the universe will reflect that, right? The feeling of being so excited to help people transform, change, grow their lives to better, more meaningful lives, that just excited me. And so the universe reflected that. Lisa/host: Hey, rising strong listeners. If you've been enjoying the inspiring interviews on the podcast, we'd love your support. To help us reach more listeners and hopefully gain some sponsorship. To do that, please, like, follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcast. And here's a little extra incentive. Leave us a five star review, and you'll be entered to win some cool, rising strong swag. Your support means the world to me. Now back to the show. And I think when our actions align with our purpose, things just start to happen. Joe: Yeah, it starts to happen. I believe that the things that start to happen were already available, but I became aware of it as a result of a course of action that I took. So it's like when I just gratefully became a father 19 months ago and when Lindsay was pregnant and I started to have this shift internally about becoming a father. Lisa, I could tell you every kind of stroller that was out there. Baby stroller, could tell you the ones that were for jogging, the ones with the big wheels, the smaller wheels, four wheels, three wheels, the ones that collapse with one hand. You needed two hands to collapse with a canopy? No canopy. You could add a seat. Not add a seat. Water bottle holder. No water bottle. Prior to that, I'd never noticed. Lisa/host: Right. Joe: But yet they were always there. It's about tuning into the frequency. It's about tuning into that which is already available to you. Maybe you've heard it before, maybe not. But it's just like when you're in your car, if you think about changing the radio station, the airwaves to the rock and roll radio station are there. You don't see them. They're out there, but you don't see them. The country station, the airwaves and frequency to that station is out there. Lisa/host: You tune into it. It's being aware, but it's also choosing to tune in. Joe: That's right. Lisa/host: What do you think is the most important thing when it comes to rising above our challenges, whatever they may be? Joe: I think before rising above them, transcending them, getting over them, it starts with a level of acceptance. And here's the reason why. The more we resist a challenge in our lives, whatever the challenge is, whatever the adversity is, whatever the obstacle is, the more we resist, it persists. So the more I resist an obstacle or a challenge, the more I'll suffer with that. The moment that I get to a place of acceptance. Now, when I say acceptance, it doesn't mean that you need to like what's going on. It doesn't mean that it needs to stay that way. But the moment that I accept it, then I can start employing some actions to change it. Lisa/host: I agree, and I see that in the work that I do as well. Mindset is a big part of the work that you do. What is mindset and how do you change that when you're at the lowest point in your life? Joe: Well, let's just say, let me start by saying that mindset is a buzzword, right? It really is a buzword. A lot of people talk about mindset and get your mindset right. And have a positive mindset. And I agree with all that. But sometimes when it becomes a buzword, we lose the essence of it, right. We lose the importance or the understanding of what it really is. Mindset is about how we internally experience the external world along with our own thoughts and self talk. There's a famous saying, I might botch it. I believe it's Wayne Dyer. He says, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. But the question is, how do you change the way you look at things? What is our capacity, ability, capability of being able to change the way we look at things? And so mindset is all about that. Lisa/host: I wanted to circle back, and I wanted to ask you if asking yourself some of these questions about your values and your beliefs and your mindset, et cetera, if these came into play earlier on in your journey or if these came later. Joe: Well, in my journey, let me just go from the journey of when I got sober and I began my process of recovery. That's when these things started to come in. The questions around these started to come in mastery with these things, it'll take a lifetime. I mean, I have so much knowledge and training and experience and wisdom with all of these things, and yet I know that I'll be mastering them for the rest of my life. So, again, what I said earlier is like, we're like onions, and we peel back layers, and there's so many layers to us. And as we move along and we change our lives and we grow or we expand, our mindset will change. Lisa/host: I feel like, as human beings, we are here to grow. You know, Joe, it took me a while to come to this place or this mindset of acceptance after our daughter Katie died in a car accident. But eventually, I moved into a mindset of growth, I guess you could say by asking myself, what now? How can I be a better human and honor my daughter's life? But, man, it's hard. Joe: It is uncomfortable. I mean, sometimes it's quite simple not to be confused with easy. I want to make that distinction. Right. It's simplistic in the practical sense, but it's, like, far from being easy. And I can't even imagine me becoming a father recently. Right? I cannot imagine your experience. And yet I find it so inspiring that you had brought yourself to a place of choosing to view that in the way that you just expressed. Because the way that I live my life, and this is choice. This is a choice, is that everything happens for me and in my highest good now, it is a choice that I operate from that mindset. It is probably not something that I can prove to you, like I can prove a line between a and b. And yet I have so much evidence that it has been so in my life. Lisa/host: I do agree with you, Joe. I have come to that place as well, that I feel know I'm a spirit going through this human existence and that it's my role in this lifetime grow. And unfortunately, my soul needed to learn what losing a child was like. And I have not enjoyed this class a whole lot. I wish I could get a refund on this class, but I believe that it is my soul's purpose, and it is my choice what I do with it. I do believe that my daughter in heaven deserves more than to have lived her life in vain. And it is a choice. Hard things are a choice, but it is what we do with it. For those who might be listening, and maybe they're at their lowest point, what advice do you have for them? Joe: It doesn't need to stay that way. Right. So nothing is permanent. It will pass. It will pass. And any advice that I could provide is pay attention to the stories that you're telling yourself and the questions that you're posing yourself. Right. So part of having a healthy mindset is to be able to pose better questions. If we want a better quality of life, start by posing better quality of questions. So instead of, like, why is this happening to me? Why am I here again? How come this. I have to go through this, just switch up the questions? Like, what is it that I need to learn in this? How is this making me grow? What do I need to pay attention to? Who could help me with this? When we just switch around our questions, it starts to open up a whole different world. Lisa/host: Do you ever reverse engineer things in your life? Do you ever think, I want to be at this spot, doing this thing and work backwards from there? Joe: I absolutely do. Yeah, I do that all the time. Most people work from this paradigm. If I just have XYZ, then I will be able to do XYZ, and then I will be XYZ. So if I just have a lot of money, then I could do all these things, then I'll be happy, right? But this is backwards. This is what I call living your life backwards. This is working from the outside in. And so what I like to do is, I like to work from the inside out. Let's just keep it really simple. If I wanted to have, I don't know, $100,000 in the next couple of months, I'd ask myself, if I had it already, how would I be being? Who would I be being? Right. Because it's the beingness that creates the doingness, which creates the havingness. Lisa/host: I love that. What does resilience mean to you? Joe: Resilience is not about resisting the challenges or obstacles or suffering, but rather the ability to bend to it without quote unquote, breaking. I know sometimes some people we seemingly seem broken, but we're not. It feels that way, but we're not. Lisa/host: Right? Joe: Perhaps. Maybe the strategies we've been employing are broken, but we in of ourselves are not broken. So it's this ability to have flexibility in our behavior, right. It's this ability to bend without breaking it. Lisa/host: What kind of tools and strategies have helped you become more resilient? Joe: Well, meditation has helped me. There are some different spiritual practices that have helped me. I am trained at a master level of neurolinguistic programming which know basically a manual to the mind. So how do we use the language of the mind to create the results that we want? Hypnosis has been a big help for me in not the hypnosis that most that Hollywood has done a disservice to bark like a dog or, but really the ability of learning how to work with the subconscious part of our minds, which essentially run our lives. But the ability to learn how to do that has been very helpful as well. Lisa/host: If people want to learn more about your coaching services or ask you questions, where is the best place for them to do that? Joe: They can look me up on Facebook. Joe Alvarez, or they could go to my website, joealvarescoaching.com. Lisa/host: Perfect. I'm sure lots of people will be checking you out after this. Joe, your story is a testament to the incredible strength that lies in all of us. You've shown us that regardless of the adversity we face, we all have the power to rise strong. Thank you so much for being a guest on the rising strong mental health and resilience podcast. Joe: Thank you for having me, Lisa.