March 27, 2025 • 29 mins
Episode 65: Everything can change in Just One Moment
Transformative Moments: How the Darkest Times Can Lead to Remarkable Growth
In this episode of 'Conversations with Kimen,' the host explores the concept of transformational moments that often arise from challenging or hard times. Drawing from personal stories and experiences, including working with a talented athlete and a harrowing personal journey through depression and self-doubt, Kimen highlights how pivotal shifts can happen. He delves into the idea that our greatest changes often come disguised as difficult, even heartbreaking moments, and emphasizes the importance of recognizing and embracing these shifts. Touching upon teachings from Buddha and his own near-breakdown in a stressful job, Kimen illustrates how he discovered his potential and purpose. Through resilience and seeking the hidden lessons in life's toughest moments, this episode serves as a powerful testament to human potential and the profound changes that adversity can spark.
00:00 Introduction: The Power of a Single Moment
01:21 The Athlete's Awakening
03:05 Buddha's Wisdom on Belief
03:59 Personal Struggles and Self-Worth
04:57 A Life-Changing Encounter
15:50 The Turning Point: Finding Purpose
18:53 Navigating Career Challenges
27:26 Embracing Life's Cycles
28:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Something I've learned in my lifeis the greatest shifts in our lives.
Start with just one moment,
although it takes a lot of timeto build up to that moment.
(00:29):
A lot of work, maybe a lot ofhardship, maybe a lot of frustration
with an underlying understandingsomewhere in the back of your mind.
I think even though we sit in avery negative state, um, as in
hypervigilant to fear or threat, whichis the natural state of human being.
(00:56):
I believe that we still havesomething in the background lurking.
Maybe it's not even on the surface.
Sometimes it is for some peopleare inspired and they have this
possibility of where they want to go,and yet there's so much in the way,
and these things can show up as reallyhard moments or really amazing moments.
(01:21):
I'll share with you one, I've talkedabout it before, but, uh, an athlete
I work with, um, it was cross countryseason and they were running in the
provincial, um, championships, and theycame in right behind these two fast women.
And after that race, they cameand s they basically said to
(01:43):
me, I can run with those women.
I'm like, yeah, I couldhave told you that.
Like, I already saw that, but it'sincredible how incr like really, truly
amazing people don't see who they are,
um, until one moment, onesituation happens where suddenly
(02:07):
they see and they believe,
and that moment started something,a fire inside that athlete.
And then they, they went on to, to win thetwo, uh, major university races that year.
They placed very high in thenational championships and went
(02:28):
to on their first world team.
So you see sometimes it's somereally incredible situation where
you suddenly realize who you are.
And it's not that you weren't.
Incredible.
Before that, you've actuallyalways been incredible.
(02:48):
You've always been thisamazing human being filled
with this incredible potential.
But until you actually see that, likephysically see that for yourself,
then you just may not show up that.
You know, Sid Art Gima, theBuddha, the who we call Buddha
(03:09):
was, I think the Buddhism talk.
Buddhism talks about every,there's a certain cycle and then
every once in a while in a cycle,along comes a being who's ready to
step forward into enlightenment.
And that was Shar Katima.
And, uh,
(03:30):
he said this, he said, believe nothing.
Be believe Nothing you think.
Believe nothing you see.
Believe nothing you hear,believe nothing you read.
Don't even believe anything I sayuntil you've tested for yourself
and you have experiential knowledge.
And this is the thing like.
Yeah.
Even though we're filled with incrediblepotential, you, yourself, you are
(03:54):
filled with incredible potential.
I am in, I am filled withincredible potential.
I'll tell you, there was a huge,huge portion of the life I live
where I thought I was nothing.
I thought at best I was taking up at spaceand displacing air on this planet until.
(04:16):
I died and I'd rot, and then Iwouldn't displace so much error.
Like I didn't feel like, did I wannamake a, oh man, I wanted to make a
difference in this world so bad, such aincredible desire to make a difference.
Did I think I ever wouldever reach that potential?
No.
No.
I didn't think there was a chance.
I, I'm like me.
Come on.
(04:37):
Who am I?
I'm just nobody.
I mean, my internal dialogue was so cruel.
Like that conversation going in your head.
Um, just like you're a loser.
You're a loser.
You suck.
You suck over and over again.
(04:57):
And yet even I had this moment, andI'll tell you this story, and I mean,
this is, it's a bit of a heart wrenchingstory when I tell it sometimes,
but just bear with me for a minute.
So I was living in Nanaimo,uh, British Columbia.
And, uh, summer had come,so I had had a winter job.
(05:21):
So how it worked was I wasworking in construction as
a labor first aid attendant.
And it was interesting because if you,or if I was, wasn't able to pick up
a win a job before the end of summer.
Then I would probably be unemployed forthe winter, but I figured out what to do.
(05:42):
Then I would go up northand work in the, uh, in oil
exploration as a first aid tenant.
But also if that winter job went toolong, too far, too close to summer,
then there wouldn't be a summer jobfor me because they need that first aid
tenant from the first day of the job.
And this was one of those circumstanceswhere there wasn't any work.
(06:04):
And I, I think the economywas a little bit poor.
And I was pretty stressed out'cause I just can't sit around and
do nothing because, you know, ifI'm working then like go, go, go.
Keeping busy.
Um, distracting my mind.
'cause my mind would always go to negativesp spaces if I didn't have something going
(06:27):
and yet I had no work.
And I heard about this job and it was in.
In a mining camp, uh, up byGinsburg, while it was in the
bush, about four hours, four, fourand a half hours in the bush from
Ginsburg up in the TCO Lake system.
And it was a, it was a mine job.
So I talked to the guy and hesaid like, they desperately need
(06:50):
a first aid attendant and a cook.
And you know what's interestingin my life, even though a lot
of times I speak up, speak mytruth on the way into something.
I forget and I blame myself for things.
And this showed up in this situationbecause they said, oh yeah, we need
(07:11):
to cook and a first aid attendant.
And I'm like, well, I have some experiencecooking, but I can't run a camp.
I'm not experienced in that way.
Um, I can come up and helpyou out for a little while,
but you'd need to get a cook.
And I'd be, I could be their helper.
And they said, yeah, yeah, no problem.
For sure.
You got it.
(07:33):
And so it, I should have known right away.
So I took my little car, it wasn't muchof a car, and I drove up and it turns
out they were gonna, we were gonna storemy car in, in a yard and they were gonna
drive me up, but something went sidewaysand they like, you gotta drive in.
And they gave me directions.
But like, my car is not a bush car,
(07:57):
but you know, I needed a job.
So I drove the four, four and a halfhours into the bush to this job site,
and it was at pretty high altitude.
So at the time I didn't realizethat, that I was at high, high enough
altitude to get, um, altitude sickness.
(08:21):
But I didn't know enough aboutaltitude sickness to know, and I
didn't know that I was up high enough.
So I got up there andI started working away.
I. And funny thing happened, it's likewithin a day or so, I couldn't sleep.
Like literally, I, I barely sleepfor any, any given amount of time.
(08:44):
And as the days gone by, um, theyended up telling me that they
wouldn't be able to get a cook upthere to help or to do, to run it.
That I had to run it and.
I felt like I made a big mistake andI forgot that, and I didn't speak up.
(09:05):
But as the days got went by withoutsleeping over and over again, I
started to get, feel more and more off.
I couldn't sleep.
Um, and I started to sink into depression.
Now tell you the truth.
Depression's a familiar, or it was,let's put it this way, it ha it's.
(09:27):
It's hasn't been a friendfor a very long time.
It hasn't been something that I'vedived into deeply, but at this point
in my life, I was still diving intosome pretty significant depression,
and my anxiety level was high.
My heart rate was beating throughmy chest, uh, sweating all the time.
(09:48):
I can't sleep.
I'm so depressed, andmy mind's going crazy.
And I'm trapped 'cause I don't havea job and I don't have a lot of money
and I don't know what to do.
And finally, it got to be so much like Iwas on the verge of tears the whole time
(10:13):
and thinking, I can'tquit, but I have to quit.
And if I quit, my life's over.
So finally I told 'em I can't do this.
And they were able to get theold cook to come up and I mean,
they were really good people.
They wanted to offer me a job so Icould stay, but I just so incredibly,
(10:38):
like, depressed on verge of tears.
I just could not, I mean, I'd,I'd go for a walk down the road to
the, to the creek and I'd just cry.
And thinking that.
And all my brain was, my life's over.
I remember walking back, um, from thecreek and I bumped into one of these
(10:59):
burley miners and, 'cause they knew Iwas gonna leave the next, the next day.
And he said, do you haveenough money to make it home?
'cause they're not gonnapay you for a little bit.
And I said, I don't know.
I hope so.
And this guy opened up his wallet andhe gave me everything he had in there.
And I'm like, I can't take that.
(11:21):
He says, take it like, howam I ever gonna pay you back?
He said, don't worry about it.
So the next day, um, the cooks loadedme up with a bunch of food and I filled
up my car at the, the gas tank there.
And I started driving out and as I'mdriving my car's like almost overheating
(11:47):
and I'm stressed and it's like fourand a half hours out of the bush.
And then I finally get to the highwayand I go and I fill up my, my gas
tank and it's starting to get darkand I'm driving and I'm driving and
I'm driving and I'm so, so exhausted
(12:07):
and all I'm thinking is my life's over.
It's like, this is it.
And then as I'm driving down this highwayin the middle of the night, I, every once
in a while I see a truck coming towardsme and I keep on thinking, all I just
have to do is at the last minute swervein front of that truck, and that'll be it.
And all my problems will be solvedand tears are running down my face
(12:30):
as I'm driving and thinking abouteverything that's happened in my life
and how I'm completely useless anyway.
And.
I'm a waste and that I'm nevergonna ever amount to anything.
And I kept on looking at trucks coming andI was, I was falling asleep at the wheel
(12:51):
and for some reason there was a pull offand I pulled off and I crawled in the back
seat of my car and I, I actually sleptfor about six hours and I woke up, still
depressed and like still with the negativethoughts, but a tiny bit refreshed.
So I started driving towards v Vancouver
(13:15):
and when I got, you know, within cellrange, I called up my little brother.
He was living in White Rock with, uh,with a girlfriend who had a, a daughter
about two and a half years old, I believe.
I said, Hey, can I crash at your placea couple days the job didn't work
out and I'm just not doing great.
(13:36):
And he said, come on down.
And I remember the night,
so they had a sectional couch andI'm lying on that couch trying
to sleep and I just can't sleep.
I'm just thinking aboutlike, what am I gonna do?
Like I got no value.
(13:56):
I got no worthwhile, I chickened outand like ending it on the way of it down
and I. I just don't know whatI'm gonna do, and I don't know.
At some point, I guess I wasso tired, I finally fell asleep
and in the middle of the night I woke up
(14:19):
and I stretched my arms outand I hit what I thought was
a dull, I like ahead of hair.
And it was really cold evening
and I realized that mydaughter's girlfriends.
A two and a half year olddaughter had got outta bed
(14:40):
and come into the room and laiddown beside me and went to sleep.
And it struck me, you know, the thing,the amazing thing about kids is they
don't think they're, it's not cognitive.
It's not that
kids see something in people, you know?
(15:03):
Kids are at attracted to something.
And sh this little kid saw somethingso beautiful in me that she decided
to get out of her bed and in the coldsleep beside me, and I just broke
down and cried, and cried becauseI didn't think I had any worth.
But this little being looked atme like I was something beautiful.
(15:27):
And in that moment, I decided I, Ihave to dedicate the rest of my life.
To try to figure out what she saw.
This was one of the greatest moments ofmy life and it's, it's interesting because
(15:50):
usually really great shift moments
that come disguised as really bad moments.
And I've said this before, like I don'tknow for sure if there's a God, I believe
there's something higher, some power.
I don't know for sure if we, if weplan our own life before we come in
(16:14):
order to learn something, in orderto do something on this planet.
I kind of lean into that oneand kind of feel like before we
come down here, we decide, hey.
I want to do something big.
I want to help people.
I wanna make a difference in the,I want to have a real impact.
And they're like, oh, you know what?
(16:35):
You're gonna have to, and like, youknow, in order to have a huge impact
on this life, in order to do somethingamazing, you have to go through hell
like compassion.
You're not born with compassion.
You set up a life if, if.
If we planned this life beforewe came, before I came here,
(16:57):
I planned every situation
and I'm a smart cookie.
I knew there's gonna be certain timesin my life where it's gonna be too much.
So that's when I went to other soulsand said, Hey, listen right here.
Right this moment in life, I am goingto be at the lowest point where I
(17:21):
don't think I have any value and Iwant to end my life and I need a being
to come in and show me that there'ssomething about me that's beautiful.
And that was that little munchkin
is just like, if you believein a God, think about it.
Think about the hardest times you'vebeen through the massive, massive
(17:43):
things, and then somebody shows up.
Right at the right moment and just ithelps you get by or something happens.
I so believe in that.
So I went from that moment and I decidedthat for the rest of my life, I would
(18:06):
work to figure out what this child saw.
What was it?
'cause I didn't see it.
But they woke me up in a moment.
That was one of thegreat impacts in my life.
(18:28):
Now, one of the other ones, andit's interesting that most majority
of, I feel like the majority of mybig shifts have really appeared.
In that idea the, like that the mostimpactful moments in our lives arrived
(18:50):
disguised as really, really bad moments.
And if you listen to some of myepisodes, like my story talks about
when I moved to Vancouver and Ibuilt my way up into this building
operations manage manager's job, and
I went over my head.
(19:10):
I wasn't ready for that.
But I thought, you know, this is progress.
I'm moving up.
I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'mgonna finally be somebody.
I'm gonna be a building operationsmanager in one of the highest
profile buildings in town.
And as long as I can make it throughthis, I can, I can show that I
have value, that I have worth.
And it's like funny becauseyou're never gonna find worth
(19:33):
or value outside yourself.
That can only be found inside.
So I took this incredibly hard job,
and it was the worst job I ever,it was a nightmare and there was
problems, and I like emergency callsin the middle of the night and like,
(19:53):
you know, major things like somebodyscrewed up, um, the massive blackout
blinds in, in this room and, and, uh.
The premier was coming the next dayto do an address, and we needed those
things closed and it, it was brokenand there was, so I called in some
people and we, in the middle of thenight, we took this massive curtain
(20:15):
down and sent it in to get fixed.
And I went home and I tried tosleep for an hour and got up and.
And it was like this every, every week.
There was another problem.
Another problem.
And I started losing weight.
It was, it was interesting, like myclothes were just like hanging off
me and I was sweating all the time.
(20:37):
And then one Saturday
I, or no, it was, I thinkit was Sunday actually.
There was a snowfall and there wasall kinds of problems and nobody
knew what to do, and I got called in.
I'm trying to work it out.
People are freaking out.
A bunch of all kinds of stuff,and I do my best to sort it out.
(20:58):
And I go home
and I get home and I sit on thecouch and it's kind of weird.
I can't catch my breath and my,my chest is starting to hurt.
I'm getting dizzy.
And, uh, I'm getting real worried, so.
(21:19):
My, my, the clinic, the medicalclinic I go to is across the street.
So I go down and I walk in andthe girl at the front desk,
do you have an appointment?
I'm like, no, but my, I'mhaving trouble breathing.
My chest really hurts.
And she rushed me back into the backand you can hear her banging on the
door in the next room, the doctor comesover and she's taking my vitals and
you know, next thing I know, I'm in St.
(21:39):
Paul's hospital in the cardiac ward andthey're shaving my chest and I'm doing
x-rays and I'm doing blood work and.
And I'm sitting there connectedto all these wires and I
think, so this is how it ends.
(22:02):
I always knew I neededto do something more.
I wanted to do something bigger, somethingthat would help people, something that
would make a difference in the world.
But I got lost again.
So I basically said, basically,basically prayed and like if, if there's
(22:24):
anybody up there, if there's anyonelistening, help me through this and
I promise I'll figure out where I'msupposed to go, what I'm supposed to do.
Turns out it was just likeincredible stress and.
I did quit that job
(22:49):
and then
I, I remember I would sit in my chairat night thinking I, I'd, I'd heard
this idea of, I. Like manifestationand feeling the wish, uh, feeling
the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
So I would sit in this chair before Igo to bed and I imagine, how do I want
(23:09):
to feel when I wake up in the morning?
I'm like, oh, I'm charged.
I'm excited.
I'm going to, I'm going to help people.
I'm gonna going to heal the world.
And through the day I was workinghow, like, this is amazing.
Look at like the privilege ofworking with human beings and being
there for them and like holdingspace and like helping people.
Get past things and at the endof the day I was, I'm gonna be so
(23:33):
jacked, it's gonna take me a whilebefore I can even go to sleep.
And then one thing after another LED ledme to massage therapy, which I do now,
and I've talked aboutthat in other episodes.
But there was some incredible thingsthat happened through that that
(23:56):
showed me that I'm in the right place.
And then of course we,I, I got outta school.
I got into a job right away workingat a clinic owned by somebody else.
And it wasn't really acomfortable environment.
Um, there was a lot ofstress in this place
(24:19):
and, you know, we just, I neededto work and my wife worked
here too, in the same place.
And then it came to a head at one time
and the owner of the clinic decided that,um, they would terminate my contract
(24:40):
halfway through, uh, the day on Friday.
And yeah, there was somestuff in the contract that,
yeah, so she had grounds, um.
No, I didn't do anything malicious,but she had grounds if she wanted.
And so she handed me the letter and said,you, you can finish the day or we can
cancel it and you can work tomorrow ifyou want, but after that you're done.
(25:07):
And my wife heard about it rightaway and we're, we walked a
block away and she's so angry.
And I've got my cell phone in my handand then my phone rings, uh, rings and.
It is this, uh, this guy who ownsa clinic, um, about six blocks away
(25:27):
and talking about timing, right?
So there we go from a moment that'sabsolutely horrendous and like, what
the hell are we gonna do to phone rings?
And this is within like five,10 minutes of this happening.
And it's this guy and he's like,Hey, I just called the clinic.
(25:47):
And, uh, I was trying to bookmy wife in with you and they
say, you don't work there.
What's going on?
Like, well, I told him what's going on?
And he says, oh, I've gottaa spare room in my clinic.
Do you wanna come there?
Wow.
Go from hell to heaven in a moment.
And so I started looking outand it's, it's like funny, I was
(26:11):
walking down the street one dayand hey, I see a building with.
Room for release
and I came and I looked and we foundour place, and we're gonna be here.
We, we will, we will have beenhere for 10 years this August.
(26:32):
So, you know, sometimes reallygood news comes as really bad news.
Think about it.
Think about the pivotalmoments in your life.
Some of them are fantastic and wild,and like where you're awoken to who
you are in a good way, or where you're,you're given this clue of who you are
(26:55):
in a kind of a more scaryor more like ominous way or
something that just wakes you up.
And you can, you can pinpoint that shift.
So.
Let me put it this way, no matterwhat you're going through right
now, and no matter how longyou've been going through it,
(27:20):
it could all shift in one moment and itcould come disguised as really bad news.
You know, I feel like thingscycle through life, right?
When it's time to move, you get thiscycle and the like, and if you don't
listen, it gets a little stronger.
You don't listen.
It gets a little stronger, don't listen,gets a little stronger, and then finally
(27:44):
it knocks you on your back backsideand then you don't have a choice.
It's time to move.
You can't miss what'smeant to be in this life.
You can't.
It will happen.
And even when things look.
(28:06):
Completely hopeless and lost.
Maybe that's the shift you need.
So trust no matter what you're goingthrough right now, it could all shift
in just one moment.
Thanks for listening again.
(28:28):
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of conversation with Kimen.
Please follow me on Instagramat conversations with Kimen
and feel free to direct message me.
Also, please share my podcast withanyone you may feel would benefit
(28:49):
from its content and let them know.
And you can find me atconversations with Kimen on Apple
podcasts, Spotify, and Podbean.
Have an amazing day.
Something I've learned in my lifeis the greatest shifts in our lives.
Start with just one moment,
although it takes a lot of timeto build up to that moment.
(00:29):
A lot of work, maybe a lot ofhardship, maybe a lot of frustration
with an underlying understandingsomewhere in the back of your mind.
I think even though we sit in avery negative state, um, as in
hypervigilant to fear or threat, whichis the natural state of human being.
(00:56):
I believe that we still havesomething in the background lurking.
Maybe it's not even on the surface.
Sometimes it is for some peopleare inspired and they have this
possibility of where they want to go,and yet there's so much in the way,
and these things can show up as reallyhard moments or really amazing moments.
(01:21):
I'll share with you one, I've talkedabout it before, but, uh, an athlete
I work with, um, it was cross countryseason and they were running in the
provincial, um, championships, and theycame in right behind these two fast women.
And after that race, they cameand s they basically said to
(01:43):
me, I can run with those women.
I'm like, yeah, I couldhave told you that.
Like, I already saw that, but it'sincredible how incr like really, truly
amazing people don't see who they are,
um, until one moment, onesituation happens where suddenly
(02:07):
they see and they believe,
and that moment started something,a fire inside that athlete.
And then they, they went on to, to win thetwo, uh, major university races that year.
They placed very high in thenational championships and went
(02:28):
to on their first world team.
So you see sometimes it's somereally incredible situation where
you suddenly realize who you are.
And it's not that you weren't.
Incredible.
Before that, you've actuallyalways been incredible.
(02:48):
You've always been thisamazing human being filled
with this incredible potential.
But until you actually see that, likephysically see that for yourself,
then you just may not show up that.
You know, Sid Art Gima, theBuddha, the who we call Buddha
(03:09):
was, I think the Buddhism talk.
Buddhism talks about every,there's a certain cycle and then
every once in a while in a cycle,along comes a being who's ready to
step forward into enlightenment.
And that was Shar Katima.
And, uh,
(03:30):
he said this, he said, believe nothing.
Be believe Nothing you think.
Believe nothing you see.
Believe nothing you hear,believe nothing you read.
Don't even believe anything I sayuntil you've tested for yourself
and you have experiential knowledge.
And this is the thing like.
Yeah.
Even though we're filled with incrediblepotential, you, yourself, you are
(03:54):
filled with incredible potential.
I am in, I am filled withincredible potential.
I'll tell you, there was a huge,huge portion of the life I live
where I thought I was nothing.
I thought at best I was taking up at spaceand displacing air on this planet until.
(04:16):
I died and I'd rot, and then Iwouldn't displace so much error.
Like I didn't feel like, did I wannamake a, oh man, I wanted to make a
difference in this world so bad, such aincredible desire to make a difference.
Did I think I ever wouldever reach that potential?
No.
No.
I didn't think there was a chance.
I, I'm like me.
Come on.
(04:37):
Who am I?
I'm just nobody.
I mean, my internal dialogue was so cruel.
Like that conversation going in your head.
Um, just like you're a loser.
You're a loser.
You suck.
You suck over and over again.
(04:57):
And yet even I had this moment, andI'll tell you this story, and I mean,
this is, it's a bit of a heart wrenchingstory when I tell it sometimes,
but just bear with me for a minute.
So I was living in Nanaimo,uh, British Columbia.
And, uh, summer had come,so I had had a winter job.
(05:21):
So how it worked was I wasworking in construction as
a labor first aid attendant.
And it was interesting because if you,or if I was, wasn't able to pick up
a win a job before the end of summer.
Then I would probably be unemployed forthe winter, but I figured out what to do.
(05:42):
Then I would go up northand work in the, uh, in oil
exploration as a first aid tenant.
But also if that winter job went toolong, too far, too close to summer,
then there wouldn't be a summer jobfor me because they need that first aid
tenant from the first day of the job.
And this was one of those circumstanceswhere there wasn't any work.
(06:04):
And I, I think the economywas a little bit poor.
And I was pretty stressed out'cause I just can't sit around and
do nothing because, you know, ifI'm working then like go, go, go.
Keeping busy.
Um, distracting my mind.
'cause my mind would always go to negativesp spaces if I didn't have something going
(06:27):
and yet I had no work.
And I heard about this job and it was in.
In a mining camp, uh, up byGinsburg, while it was in the
bush, about four hours, four, fourand a half hours in the bush from
Ginsburg up in the TCO Lake system.
And it was a, it was a mine job.
So I talked to the guy and hesaid like, they desperately need
(06:50):
a first aid attendant and a cook.
And you know what's interestingin my life, even though a lot
of times I speak up, speak mytruth on the way into something.
I forget and I blame myself for things.
And this showed up in this situationbecause they said, oh yeah, we need
(07:11):
to cook and a first aid attendant.
And I'm like, well, I have some experiencecooking, but I can't run a camp.
I'm not experienced in that way.
Um, I can come up and helpyou out for a little while,
but you'd need to get a cook.
And I'd be, I could be their helper.
And they said, yeah, yeah, no problem.
For sure.
You got it.
(07:33):
And so it, I should have known right away.
So I took my little car, it wasn't muchof a car, and I drove up and it turns
out they were gonna, we were gonna storemy car in, in a yard and they were gonna
drive me up, but something went sidewaysand they like, you gotta drive in.
And they gave me directions.
But like, my car is not a bush car,
(07:57):
but you know, I needed a job.
So I drove the four, four and a halfhours into the bush to this job site,
and it was at pretty high altitude.
So at the time I didn't realizethat, that I was at high, high enough
altitude to get, um, altitude sickness.
(08:21):
But I didn't know enough aboutaltitude sickness to know, and I
didn't know that I was up high enough.
So I got up there andI started working away.
I. And funny thing happened, it's likewithin a day or so, I couldn't sleep.
Like literally, I, I barely sleepfor any, any given amount of time.
(08:44):
And as the days gone by, um, theyended up telling me that they
wouldn't be able to get a cook upthere to help or to do, to run it.
That I had to run it and.
I felt like I made a big mistake andI forgot that, and I didn't speak up.
(09:05):
But as the days got went by withoutsleeping over and over again, I
started to get, feel more and more off.
I couldn't sleep.
Um, and I started to sink into depression.
Now tell you the truth.
Depression's a familiar, or it was,let's put it this way, it ha it's.
(09:27):
It's hasn't been a friendfor a very long time.
It hasn't been something that I'vedived into deeply, but at this point
in my life, I was still diving intosome pretty significant depression,
and my anxiety level was high.
My heart rate was beating throughmy chest, uh, sweating all the time.
(09:48):
I can't sleep.
I'm so depressed, andmy mind's going crazy.
And I'm trapped 'cause I don't havea job and I don't have a lot of money
and I don't know what to do.
And finally, it got to be so much like Iwas on the verge of tears the whole time
(10:13):
and thinking, I can'tquit, but I have to quit.
And if I quit, my life's over.
So finally I told 'em I can't do this.
And they were able to get theold cook to come up and I mean,
they were really good people.
They wanted to offer me a job so Icould stay, but I just so incredibly,
(10:38):
like, depressed on verge of tears.
I just could not, I mean, I'd,I'd go for a walk down the road to
the, to the creek and I'd just cry.
And thinking that.
And all my brain was, my life's over.
I remember walking back, um, from thecreek and I bumped into one of these
(10:59):
burley miners and, 'cause they knew Iwas gonna leave the next, the next day.
And he said, do you haveenough money to make it home?
'cause they're not gonnapay you for a little bit.
And I said, I don't know.
I hope so.
And this guy opened up his wallet andhe gave me everything he had in there.
And I'm like, I can't take that.
(11:21):
He says, take it like, howam I ever gonna pay you back?
He said, don't worry about it.
So the next day, um, the cooks loadedme up with a bunch of food and I filled
up my car at the, the gas tank there.
And I started driving out and as I'mdriving my car's like almost overheating
(11:47):
and I'm stressed and it's like fourand a half hours out of the bush.
And then I finally get to the highwayand I go and I fill up my, my gas
tank and it's starting to get darkand I'm driving and I'm driving and
I'm driving and I'm so, so exhausted
(12:07):
and all I'm thinking is my life's over.
It's like, this is it.
And then as I'm driving down this highwayin the middle of the night, I, every once
in a while I see a truck coming towardsme and I keep on thinking, all I just
have to do is at the last minute swervein front of that truck, and that'll be it.
And all my problems will be solvedand tears are running down my face
(12:30):
as I'm driving and thinking abouteverything that's happened in my life
and how I'm completely useless anyway.
And.
I'm a waste and that I'm nevergonna ever amount to anything.
And I kept on looking at trucks coming andI was, I was falling asleep at the wheel
(12:51):
and for some reason there was a pull offand I pulled off and I crawled in the back
seat of my car and I, I actually sleptfor about six hours and I woke up, still
depressed and like still with the negativethoughts, but a tiny bit refreshed.
So I started driving towards v Vancouver
(13:15):
and when I got, you know, within cellrange, I called up my little brother.
He was living in White Rock with, uh,with a girlfriend who had a, a daughter
about two and a half years old, I believe.
I said, Hey, can I crash at your placea couple days the job didn't work
out and I'm just not doing great.
(13:36):
And he said, come on down.
And I remember the night,
so they had a sectional couch andI'm lying on that couch trying
to sleep and I just can't sleep.
I'm just thinking aboutlike, what am I gonna do?
Like I got no value.
(13:56):
I got no worthwhile, I chickened outand like ending it on the way of it down
and I. I just don't know whatI'm gonna do, and I don't know.
At some point, I guess I wasso tired, I finally fell asleep
and in the middle of the night I woke up
(14:19):
and I stretched my arms outand I hit what I thought was
a dull, I like ahead of hair.
And it was really cold evening
and I realized that mydaughter's girlfriends.
A two and a half year olddaughter had got outta bed
(14:40):
and come into the room and laiddown beside me and went to sleep.
And it struck me, you know, the thing,the amazing thing about kids is they
don't think they're, it's not cognitive.
It's not that
kids see something in people, you know?
(15:03):
Kids are at attracted to something.
And sh this little kid saw somethingso beautiful in me that she decided
to get out of her bed and in the coldsleep beside me, and I just broke
down and cried, and cried becauseI didn't think I had any worth.
But this little being looked atme like I was something beautiful.
(15:27):
And in that moment, I decided I, Ihave to dedicate the rest of my life.
To try to figure out what she saw.
This was one of the greatest moments ofmy life and it's, it's interesting because
(15:50):
usually really great shift moments
that come disguised as really bad moments.
And I've said this before, like I don'tknow for sure if there's a God, I believe
there's something higher, some power.
I don't know for sure if we, if weplan our own life before we come in
(16:14):
order to learn something, in orderto do something on this planet.
I kind of lean into that oneand kind of feel like before we
come down here, we decide, hey.
I want to do something big.
I want to help people.
I wanna make a difference in the,I want to have a real impact.
And they're like, oh, you know what?
(16:35):
You're gonna have to, and like, youknow, in order to have a huge impact
on this life, in order to do somethingamazing, you have to go through hell
like compassion.
You're not born with compassion.
You set up a life if, if.
If we planned this life beforewe came, before I came here,
(16:57):
I planned every situation
and I'm a smart cookie.
I knew there's gonna be certain timesin my life where it's gonna be too much.
So that's when I went to other soulsand said, Hey, listen right here.
Right this moment in life, I am goingto be at the lowest point where I
(17:21):
don't think I have any value and Iwant to end my life and I need a being
to come in and show me that there'ssomething about me that's beautiful.
And that was that little munchkin
is just like, if you believein a God, think about it.
Think about the hardest times you'vebeen through the massive, massive
(17:43):
things, and then somebody shows up.
Right at the right moment and just ithelps you get by or something happens.
I so believe in that.
So I went from that moment and I decidedthat for the rest of my life, I would
(18:06):
work to figure out what this child saw.
What was it?
'cause I didn't see it.
But they woke me up in a moment.
That was one of thegreat impacts in my life.
(18:28):
Now, one of the other ones, andit's interesting that most majority
of, I feel like the majority of mybig shifts have really appeared.
In that idea the, like that the mostimpactful moments in our lives arrived
(18:50):
disguised as really, really bad moments.
And if you listen to some of myepisodes, like my story talks about
when I moved to Vancouver and Ibuilt my way up into this building
operations manage manager's job, and
I went over my head.
(19:10):
I wasn't ready for that.
But I thought, you know, this is progress.
I'm moving up.
I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'mgonna finally be somebody.
I'm gonna be a building operationsmanager in one of the highest
profile buildings in town.
And as long as I can make it throughthis, I can, I can show that I
have value, that I have worth.
And it's like funny becauseyou're never gonna find worth
(19:33):
or value outside yourself.
That can only be found inside.
So I took this incredibly hard job,
and it was the worst job I ever,it was a nightmare and there was
problems, and I like emergency callsin the middle of the night and like,
(19:53):
you know, major things like somebodyscrewed up, um, the massive blackout
blinds in, in this room and, and, uh.
The premier was coming the next dayto do an address, and we needed those
things closed and it, it was brokenand there was, so I called in some
people and we, in the middle of thenight, we took this massive curtain
(20:15):
down and sent it in to get fixed.
And I went home and I tried tosleep for an hour and got up and.
And it was like this every, every week.
There was another problem.
Another problem.
And I started losing weight.
It was, it was interesting, like myclothes were just like hanging off
me and I was sweating all the time.
(20:37):
And then one Saturday
I, or no, it was, I thinkit was Sunday actually.
There was a snowfall and there wasall kinds of problems and nobody
knew what to do, and I got called in.
I'm trying to work it out.
People are freaking out.
A bunch of all kinds of stuff,and I do my best to sort it out.
(20:58):
And I go home
and I get home and I sit on thecouch and it's kind of weird.
I can't catch my breath and my,my chest is starting to hurt.
I'm getting dizzy.
And, uh, I'm getting real worried, so.
(21:19):
My, my, the clinic, the medicalclinic I go to is across the street.
So I go down and I walk in andthe girl at the front desk,
do you have an appointment?
I'm like, no, but my, I'mhaving trouble breathing.
My chest really hurts.
And she rushed me back into the backand you can hear her banging on the
door in the next room, the doctor comesover and she's taking my vitals and
you know, next thing I know, I'm in St.
(21:39):
Paul's hospital in the cardiac ward andthey're shaving my chest and I'm doing
x-rays and I'm doing blood work and.
And I'm sitting there connectedto all these wires and I
think, so this is how it ends.
(22:02):
I always knew I neededto do something more.
I wanted to do something bigger, somethingthat would help people, something that
would make a difference in the world.
But I got lost again.
So I basically said, basically,basically prayed and like if, if there's
(22:24):
anybody up there, if there's anyonelistening, help me through this and
I promise I'll figure out where I'msupposed to go, what I'm supposed to do.
Turns out it was just likeincredible stress and.
I did quit that job
(22:49):
and then
I, I remember I would sit in my chairat night thinking I, I'd, I'd heard
this idea of, I. Like manifestationand feeling the wish, uh, feeling
the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
So I would sit in this chair before Igo to bed and I imagine, how do I want
(23:09):
to feel when I wake up in the morning?
I'm like, oh, I'm charged.
I'm excited.
I'm going to, I'm going to help people.
I'm gonna going to heal the world.
And through the day I was workinghow, like, this is amazing.
Look at like the privilege ofworking with human beings and being
there for them and like holdingspace and like helping people.
Get past things and at the endof the day I was, I'm gonna be so
(23:33):
jacked, it's gonna take me a whilebefore I can even go to sleep.
And then one thing after another LED ledme to massage therapy, which I do now,
and I've talked aboutthat in other episodes.
But there was some incredible thingsthat happened through that that
(23:56):
showed me that I'm in the right place.
And then of course we,I, I got outta school.
I got into a job right away workingat a clinic owned by somebody else.
And it wasn't really acomfortable environment.
Um, there was a lot ofstress in this place
(24:19):
and, you know, we just, I neededto work and my wife worked
here too, in the same place.
And then it came to a head at one time
and the owner of the clinic decided that,um, they would terminate my contract
(24:40):
halfway through, uh, the day on Friday.
And yeah, there was somestuff in the contract that,
yeah, so she had grounds, um.
No, I didn't do anything malicious,but she had grounds if she wanted.
And so she handed me the letter and said,you, you can finish the day or we can
cancel it and you can work tomorrow ifyou want, but after that you're done.
(25:07):
And my wife heard about it rightaway and we're, we walked a
block away and she's so angry.
And I've got my cell phone in my handand then my phone rings, uh, rings and.
It is this, uh, this guy who ownsa clinic, um, about six blocks away
(25:27):
and talking about timing, right?
So there we go from a moment that'sabsolutely horrendous and like, what
the hell are we gonna do to phone rings?
And this is within like five,10 minutes of this happening.
And it's this guy and he's like,Hey, I just called the clinic.
(25:47):
And, uh, I was trying to bookmy wife in with you and they
say, you don't work there.
What's going on?
Like, well, I told him what's going on?
And he says, oh, I've gottaa spare room in my clinic.
Do you wanna come there?
Wow.
Go from hell to heaven in a moment.
And so I started looking outand it's, it's like funny, I was
(26:11):
walking down the street one dayand hey, I see a building with.
Room for release
and I came and I looked and we foundour place, and we're gonna be here.
We, we will, we will have beenhere for 10 years this August.
(26:32):
So, you know, sometimes reallygood news comes as really bad news.
Think about it.
Think about the pivotalmoments in your life.
Some of them are fantastic and wild,and like where you're awoken to who
you are in a good way, or where you're,you're given this clue of who you are
(26:55):
in a kind of a more scaryor more like ominous way or
something that just wakes you up.
And you can, you can pinpoint that shift.
So.
Let me put it this way, no matterwhat you're going through right
now, and no matter how longyou've been going through it,
(27:20):
it could all shift in one moment and itcould come disguised as really bad news.
You know, I feel like thingscycle through life, right?
When it's time to move, you get thiscycle and the like, and if you don't
listen, it gets a little stronger.
You don't listen.
It gets a little stronger, don't listen,gets a little stronger, and then finally
(27:44):
it knocks you on your back backsideand then you don't have a choice.
It's time to move.
You can't miss what'smeant to be in this life.
You can't.
It will happen.
And even when things look.
(28:06):
Completely hopeless and lost.
Maybe that's the shift you need.
So trust no matter what you're goingthrough right now, it could all shift
in just one moment.
Thanks for listening again.
(28:28):
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of conversation with Kimen.
Please follow me on Instagramat conversations with Kimen
and feel free to direct message me.
Also, please share my podcast withanyone you may feel would benefit
(28:49):
from its content and let them know.
And you can find me atconversations with Kimen on Apple
podcasts, Spotify, and Podbean.
Have an amazing day.
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