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September 24, 2024 38 mins
In today’s episode: Mindful Therapy Group (00:38), the power of impacting just one person with this podcast (01:34), resilience and grit (07:27), opening doors story (09:20), winning the day (16:24), developing resilience and grit (19:50), growth mindset (25:40), and you can overcome (36:46).

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Big Raise, Garage Grind. I want to
bring awareness and my voice to something that's meaningful and
purposeful more than just who's the best football player, who's
the best football team. The intersection between life, football and
mental health. When you need help and you ask for help,
you're operating from a position of power. When you need

(00:21):
help and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness.
Now here's your host, Seahawk's Legend, Ray Roberts. What's up, fam,
Welcome back to Big Raise, Garage Grind Mental Health Edition,
where we keep it real and we're always focused on
leveling up your mental health game. Today's episode is brought
to you by the Mindful Therapy Group. If you're seeking

(00:44):
or looking for therapy services, visit the visit Mindful Therapygroup
dot com to find your therapy person. And now, when
we first started this podcast, you know, we're trying to
figure out what the audience was, what the intention is,
and started out as a way to kind of destigmatize
mental health and wellness for athletes and men of color

(01:06):
and just men in general. But I think it has
kind of grown to a bigger audience than that, to
just destigmatizing mental health and wellness for everybody, and I
think that's where I would like it to live more
than anything. But you know, it was if all the
effort that we put into this, the videotaping, the editing,

(01:28):
the recording, the finding the time to do it, all,
finding the topics, all these different things, if if it
impacts one person, then it makes all the effort worth
the wild And so it was very exciting for me.
Last week in my inbox on Twitter, I got a
message from a listener and I won't use the listener's

(01:50):
name or their Twitter handled or whatever, but they kind
of explained to me what their struggle was and some
of the things they had gone through and things that
had to overcome. Said because of they've been listening to
the podcast and we're encouraging people to go out and
you know, engage the mental health industry and find the

(02:10):
therapist and you know, talk to people and you know,
get some help in those types of things. It was
through that inspiration that this person said that they finally
went and to find mental health services. And not only
did they find their service, they said they found their person.
And that's a really strong statement to make when you're
going through the whole mental health challenge because I went

(02:33):
through several different therapists before I found my person, and
it can make it a little bit frustrating. It can
make it make you feel like you want to give up.
I can remember when I went to the the After
the Impact program in Michigan through the NFL. Even my
ex wife was surprised that I actually went because I

(02:53):
had had some really strange experiences and my therapy and
just didn't find the person. But I'm so glad that
I went, obviously, because then I did find my person
there and the program itself was very good for me.
And so if this person said, use the words I
found my person. And so then I responded like, hey,
that's awesome. I'm glad that you you know, you know,

(03:14):
went and found help. If this person does not work,
then why don't you visit the mindful therapy group and
see if you can find someone there. And then they responded,
That's exactly what I did. I went to the Mindful
therapy group. I found this therapist and this seems to
be my person. And so when I saw that, it
just brought joy to my heart because you sometimes you're

(03:37):
trying to do something good for you know that you
think it's going to help people in their lives, and
you never know if it is or not. So because
a lot of times you're just planting the seeds, but
you don't get to see the seed grow, and so
you're just hoping that these seeds are growing somewhere that
is impacting a life on some level. And uh. And
so to have this listener respond and say yes, like

(03:58):
I've been listening, I heard the call, I needed the help.
I went and got the help, and I also used
the Mindful Therapy Group. And so it just made me
feel good because we do put a lot into it.
And I wanted to shout out, like our our team
here with the Seahawks, my guy Nasa that sits like
right off the off the screen here who's running a ship.

(04:20):
Our guy Edwin who's does some of the videotaping and
the editing and stuff, and he's been a fan of
the podcast from the very beginning. And then also Jessica
and Dereka Crane, who are the founders of the Mindful
Therapy Group. That one person has for me at least
made this all worth it because it means that someone's
life is going to be better. That someone is gonna

(04:40):
that's not they're not suffering alone, that they have someone
that they can talk to, they have someone that can
help them sort through what's going on. This This person
had a lot of different layers to what they were
dealing with. And uh and from what I've seen of
the Mindful Therapy group and and knowing some of the
therapists there, uh man, they are they are ready for
the challenge and they can address all those different things.

(05:03):
So I hope that this person remains, this therapist remains
the person for this for this listener. And I'm just
telling you it's just good stuff to know that that stuff
is happening. And so if you are listening to the
program or listening to the show and you have reached
out and found you know, going to therapy on your own,
or maybe it's not even official therapy, maybe you found

(05:25):
a good friend to talk to to help you sort
through things. Maybe use some mind for Therapy group or
you use some other group like we would love to.
I would love to know if that is happening. So
you can inbox me at on my Twitter at big
Ray Roberts or on Instagram at the dude zero seven
two or that dude zero seven two, And I would
just love to know, you know, if this is planned

(05:47):
out in your life, or if it's having an impact
or or how it is impacting you, whether you're doing
you know, official therapy or not. And so that's that
was just a real feel good because you just you
just it's good to know that there's fruit to the labor.
So moving on, the Seahawks are to and zero and

(06:09):
they have a whole new staff, they have a whole
new core players. They have a different approach, a different
process the offenses. The offensive system is new, the defensive
system is new. There's a lot of newness going on.
And so what does that have to do with mental health?
And so I was thinking this through last night, and
the way that it relates to mental health is I'll

(06:34):
get to this first. In the first game versus the Broncos,
the game could not have started any worse And even
coach McDonald said it like, yep, we planned it to
start that way, so you know that he's joking about that,
but it could not have started any worse than that.
I think I counted eleven zero to negative plays in

(06:54):
the first twenty something plays of the game, which is
not good. And then in the second game versus the Patriots,
defense was on its heels a little bit and it
was a back and forth game down to the very
last seconds of the game, and somehow the Seahawks found
a way to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat.

(07:15):
So the thing that it took in those situations is
that they remain calm, They looked at the information that
they were given, acknowledged the situation, and responded accordingly. And
that takes resilience and grit. And that's what I want
to talk about today, is those two things. This idea
around resilience and grit. The same grit and resilience it

(07:39):
takes to address and manage and win a football game.
It's the same type of grit and resilience that it
takes to manage your mental health battle. So grit and
resilience are crucial when it comes to manage your mental
health and wellness. So if you think of grit, there
was a a book I think that came out. I

(08:01):
forget the author's name, but she was trying to describe
what grid is and how you attain grit and there
were some flaws in it, but at the end of
the day, grit is like it's like another way to
say that perseverance. So you have passion for some goals
that you've set for a long time, and you stay

(08:22):
committed even when times get hard or when you come
up against difficulties, and it's a mindset that encourages determination
and so it helps you. Grit helps you navigate the
ups and downs. And for me, an example of that
would be in my own mental health journey was the

(08:43):
After the Impact program. Like when I went there, I
set a goal that I would go outside every single
day because part of my challenge here was that I
was getting beaten down by the doorknob, Like I could
not put my hand on the doorknob, turn it, open it,
and go outside. So I was just stuck in the
house a lot. So there was times when my kids

(09:03):
wanted me to come visit and I would say, hey,
I'll be right over there. We're going to play video games,
whatever it is, and I could get myself to go
out the door, and so I have to call their
mom and say, hey, like I'm not feeling good. Can
you tell the kids that I can't make it. Well,
eventually they figure something out, something is going on. But
when I went to the mindful therapy group, I mean
when I went to the after the Impact program, I

(09:23):
was like, I'm going to step outside every single day,
even if I just make it to the porch, open
the door, step on the porch, I'm outside. But I'm
going to open this door and I'm going to step
outside every single day. That was one of my challenges Kim.
It didn't matter what was happening, what was going on,
I was going to do that. And there were two
funny things in that whole situation though. Was one is

(09:44):
that after like the first week there, like we had
these suites that were inside the house, so there's like
two or three doors you had to go through to
get to my bedroom. Well, at night, you're kind of
closing the doors because you kind of want your own
privacy and you know, you're watching TV. You don't want
to care everybody else awake and all this other kind
of stuff. But every morning I would wake up, all

(10:04):
those doors would be open, and I would go like, man, like,
did I like get up in the middle of the
night and open all these doors? I don't remember opening
the doors and so then finally one day in our
group therapy session, I said, hey, man, I don't know
what's going on, but every night I closed these three
or four doors, and every morning I wake up they're
all open. So, like, am I like sleep walkingt someder?

(10:25):
Do you guys to see me walk through the house.
And this one brother that was there, this big Polynesian dude,
was like, no, Big Ray, Like you told us that
you have a hard time opening doors, and so every
morning I get up before you wake up and I
open the doors for you. And I thought like, man,
like will you talk about like needing somebody in your

(10:45):
corner and people hearing what you're saying. This dude heard
what I was saying to the nth degree to where
every morning he made sure he got up before I
got up, and he opened up every single door. He
was like, I don't want you to have to open
up any doors, Big Ray. And so it helped me
not think that I was going even crazier than what
I thought I was, because I was like, am I

(11:05):
getting up in the middle of the night and opening
these doors? But it also was like, man, here's a
dude that is like in here for his own services,
but he's also hearing and seeing me and acknowledging, you know,
what I need in those moments. And then another time, man,
it was this driving rainstorm. You couldn't see like two
feet in front of you. But I was like, I said,

(11:25):
I was gonna step outside every single day, and so
instead of just stepping outside, I just like, man, I'm
just gonna walk down to the end of the drive
and then I'm gonna get to the end of the drive.
I'm gonna walk to the next stop side. And I
just did that until I walked about a mile mile
and a half and it's driving rainstorm. And I came
back and all the guys and the people weren't running

(11:45):
the house. They're like, oh my god, dude, you're okay,
Like what's going on? Like da da da dada, it's raining.
I'm like, you do know, I'm from Seattle, right, Like
if you can't do with the rain, then you can't
live in Seattle. And so it wasn't even a big
deal for me, but it's a big deal for them
because I was soaking wet and everything. But I was
not going to be deterred from every single day stepping
outside and so there was some grit and being able

(12:07):
to kind of keep that up every day. And then
the other thing was that I wrote these affirmations every
single morning. I would take, you know, I've told the
story here before, I'd take a legal pad of paper
and I would just write down all these affirmations and
probably like fifty of them. And then I would also
do that every night before I went to bed. I

(12:28):
rewrite them every single time because I was trying to
rewire my thoughts. You know, we talked about in the
previous episode about our self talked and how negative it
can be, and and so in some of the therapies
therapy I've been there, and they call those ants or
automatic negative thoughts, And so I was trying to reframe
or defeat the automatic negative thoughts. As soon as my

(12:52):
feet hit the ground in the morning and then as
soon as I put my head on the pillow at night,
I just wanted positivity to be going into my into
what I was thinking, into what I was saying. And
then the other piece of that is resilience or like
and to me, resilience is the ability to bounce back,
and it's the the ability to adapt to like difficult circumstances.

(13:15):
So when you think about the Seahawks men, they were
in some difficult circumstances in the first game. You know,
like I said, the first or second pass of the
of the of the year was an interception, and so
you're just every I hit the panic button. I was
sitting in the press box. I was already panic. And
but from everything that you hear about the sideline Jim Mueller,

(13:37):
who's our sideline reporter, and uh, listening to the players
in the locker room at halftime, Man, there was no panic.
There was no panic in the coaches, there was no
panic in the players. I've been on teams where the
panic would have like engulfed the whole team. Coaches would
have been screaming at each other, punching boards, throwing stuff,
players would have been yelling and fighting with each other.
But what you heard was like, there was this unbelievable

(13:59):
call and because they had assessed the situation and they
knew what they were going to do, and that takes
resilience to do that. It takes resilience to start where
they started in that first game and come back and win,
and then in the second game to be down and
you have to drive the ball down the field to
get a field goal to win the game. That also
takes resilience and grit because you stuck to your game plan,

(14:21):
You stuck to what you knew. So that's the grit
part of it, and then the resilience parts. The part
is that you had to bounce back from You had
to bounce back from some stuff. The defense in the
second game didn't play as well as they did, or
they played differently than they did in the first game,
and they gave up a few things, and they had
to find a way to fight themselves back to a
place where they could take control of the game and

(14:42):
calm this offense down and not make it a big threat.
And so they kept it at a place where the
offense was able to respond to it. I think Brian
Walters said it best, and our post game show was
that every time that the Patriots did something positive, the
Seahawks offense would come back and try what they did.
And so that in itself shows grit and resilience, like

(15:04):
you stay committed to what you were doing, and you
had the resilience to bounce back, to bounce back from
the setbacks, and and so that was one of the
things I did in my kind of resilience mind is
that I was trying to make sure that I or
in my grit mind, still trying to make sure that
I was speaking to uh, those automagative, automatic negative thoughts.

(15:27):
And then the resilience thing is that so I had
said that I was gonna not I was gonna step
outside every day doing this therapy thing, and I wasn't
gonna stay in the bed all day, because when you're
depressed and have anxiety and stuff, you just want to
sleep all the time. You can't. It's not even like, uh,

(15:48):
you have a choice, like you just want it dark
and you just want to sleep. And so this one
day I slept half the day. I just could not
get myself out of the bed, and so I got
up and then I went through the day. I still
made it to my therapy session. I still took a
step outside, I was working out every day. I still

(16:09):
worked out every day. I had other things that I
had on my list that I did every day. I
still did those things. But when I went to my
therapy session, I was feeling bad about myself, and my
therapist was like, well, what's going on. I'm like well,
I'd slept half the day and I told myself I
wasn't going to do that, and she goes, but Ray, like,
you still accomplished all those things that you set out
to accomplish, and so yeah, you had a little bit

(16:31):
of a setback, but look at all the small victories
that you had, and those small victories mean something. And
so then that in itself showed some resilience because she
kind of spoke it, she kind of reframed it for
me so that I could see that, hey, man, like, yeah,
I had a little bit of a setback, but I
overcame that. I still won the day. The way the
Sea Awks started out slow in the first game, the

(16:52):
way it was kind of not the way they expected
it in the second game, but they found a way
to win the game. I found a way to win
the day. And it took someone to kind of paint
that picture for me. But once she painted it, like,
I bought into it one hundred percent because I'm like, yeah,
you're absolutely right. Yeah, I may have slept in half
to day, but I still went for like a four
mile walk. I still stepped outside. I got my They

(17:14):
had a little gym downstairs in the basement, I got
my workout in, I cooked my own food. Like all
the different things I wanted to do that day, I
got done that day. And then the other part of
like being there, I was there during my birthday. So
it's kind of hard to be away from my family
and still stay committed to what I was doing because
my kids always liked to celebrate my birthday and do

(17:35):
all these different things, and so it's really hard to
be away from them and celebrate my birthday. And so
I had to kind of have some resilience and some
grit to kind of work through that moment and still
stay because there were forces that were pulling on me
that were like, yeah, you should just go home, like
it's time you should. Yeah, you've been here for two weeks.

(17:55):
That's good, but man, it's your birthday and your kids
are home and all this other all this other stuff
that was going on, like you should probably just go home.
But I stuck with it. I stayed there for the
for the next three weeks and was able to get
it done. The other thing that was going on during
that same time is my work with Special Olympics. I
had put together the very first urban city school youth

(18:19):
summit that was going to be held in Detroit, Michigan,
and I left to go do this work for myself
on myself, about eight weeks before we were gonna put
this thing on. So we're in the throes of it.
We're finalizing speakers, we're finalizing events, we're finalizing sessions, all
these different things, and I was like, yo, I got

(18:42):
to dip out, and that was really hard to do.
It was hard to kind of have that on my
mind and then stay at this place. I remember calling
one of my colleagues, which I had told myself I
wasn't gonna do, but I ended up doing it, and
she said, Ray, don't worry about what's happening here. Just
go ahead and do it. You what you got to do,
and don't call us, like, do not call us again,

(19:04):
do not open your laptop, do not check your emails,
do not do any of the work that you were
supposed to be doing for this thing. Because we got it.
You set us up so that we can make it successful.
We got it, so just go take care of you.
And so that was another thing where I had to
show some resilience to what I had said. I was
set it out, set out to do. And so this

(19:24):
idea around grit and resilience is necessary for you to
manage this mental health thing. And so I think it
would be unfair for me to say, like, grit and
resilience aren't just things that you're born with. I think
one of the flaws in this book about grit was
that it was either you had it or you didn't

(19:45):
have it, and in some ways it kind of made
you feel less than if you felt like you didn't
have it. But there are certain things that need to
be in place for you to display that type of
grit and that type of resilience. And so I just
there's a lot of different things, but here's are just
a few things that I pulled that I think are
that are important if you're trying to develop grit and

(20:08):
resilience or live in those spaces. And the very first
thing I will say is that both grit and resilience
is rooted and positive supportive relationships. If anyone tells you different,
they're lying. That's why this whole idea around hey, I
just made it on my own, or I'm gonna do

(20:29):
this by myself, or you know, none of that stuff happens, man,
because when you're trying to be successful, there's a lot
of ups and downs. If you don't have supportive and
positive relationships, it's hard to find the energy to keep
pushing forward. So all these self made gurus and self
made this, that and the other nobody's self made. It
may have been your plan and you executed your plan,

(20:51):
but there's a whole lot of people along the way
that kept that were the guardrails to kind of keep
you going. So you need these positive and supportive relationships
around yourself, with a system with a support system, whether
it's your family or a combination of these things. Your family,
your friends, mentors, but you need a positive social connection

(21:14):
to offer encouragement and a perspective during tough times because
when it gets hard, it's easy to kind of lose
perspective of what's happening, and you can distort your thoughts
and distort your your I think in psychology they call
it cognitive distortions where you're not seeing there's fog in

(21:34):
front of you and you're not seeing the real picture,
and so you need someone outside of the fog or
beyond the fog that can see the real picture. There's
a I don't know if it's a true story, but
there's a kind of a story that people will tell
about this lady that was trying to row across this
big body of water, and it was a tough task,
and her mom was in a boat out in front

(21:55):
of her, just kind of making sure that, you know,
things were going to be right, with a safety crew,
and she got always almost across this body of water,
and she decided that she just couldn't do it anymore.
She wanted to stop because she couldn't see through the fog,
but her mom could see through the fog and told
her no, just keep rowing, keep rowing, keep ruing. And
the fact that she kept runing, she didn't realize she

(22:16):
was only about ten feet from the other side, but
through the fog she thought she was still half She
hadn't even gotten halfway through, but she had gone so
far and she was about to give up and stop
because her perspective was fogged and her mom was able
to see beyond the fog. And so in this mental
health journey, man, your thoughts and things that you think

(22:36):
and think that you see and think that you know
and get so distorted that you can't even imagine what
you might be what you may be thinking that is real,
that's false. So for me at this therapy thing, I
just there's things that I've done in my life that
I'm not proud of. And that's kind of how I was.
That's kind of how I was describing myself. That's kind

(22:56):
of how I was living. I was living in that darkness.
And so these these other players that were there and
the therapists that were there, was like, dang Ray, like,
that is not the dude that we see. Like, let
us tell you what we see and and we need
you to trust and believe us in that. And so
there were one time we sat in this room. It's
six dudes, five other dudes and a therapist, and they oh,
one by one went around the tables go like, man,

(23:18):
this is what we see. This is the type of
guy you are. This is how you've helped us here,
this is how you've helped me. Da da da da
da da da. You're not this dude that you that
you keep telling yourself that you are. So I had
this cognitive distortion that where my my my mentals had
just gotten to a place where I was just beating
myself down with it, and so I needed that positive encouragement.
I needed someone else that can see the perspective that

(23:39):
I couldn't see to kind of speak it into me.
So having those positive and supportive relationships is important. And
then the other thing is self compassion and uh being
Being kind to yourself is hard because we tend to
be our own worst critics. But but if you want
to have some some resilience and grit and be able

(24:00):
to push through some of the times that are hard,
you have to be you have to have some self
compassion because the self criticism is just like the negative
the automatic negative thoughts and those ten thousand words that
we use each day, and eighty percent of them are
a self talk. Like that is where the self compassion
needs to show itself. Because you're gonna make mistakes, you're

(24:23):
not gonna do things right, You're gonna feel certain ways,
you're gonna have setbacks, and you have to be able
to forgive yourself. You have to be able to be
kind to yourself in those moments so that you can
keep moving forward. It's okay. Like the sea Hawks, you know,
they if you want to call it that, they had
some self compassion because they were doing they started out
and didn't look like anything the way they thought it

(24:44):
was gonna look, especially on offense, and so they had
some setbacks. It would have been easy to just be
you criticizing yourself like crazy, you know, and like, man,
I made a mistake, I'm making the team fail. It's
my fault this, it's my fault that. But they were
able to overcome that because the calm in the room
and the coaches approached. Geno's approach, the leadership's approach on
this team to the team was even though they probably

(25:07):
wouldn't call it, that was to show some self compassion
and just be like, you know what, like, yeah, we've
had these setbacks, We've made these mistakes, but look this
is where we are. We're only down this many points.
Or we just need this drive to get that field
goal to win the game. Or we need to tighten
up this defense, or make sure you're on the pressures,
we're getting the quarterback to the ground, like those types
of things. So they were able to forgive themselves in

(25:30):
those moments so they can move forward. And it also
it's interesting that I put this one down because I heard,
I think on one of the radio stations today they
were talking about Mike McDonald having this growth mindset and
the difference you have to have a growth mindset when
it comes to addressing your mental health and having displaying
resilience and grit, because the difference between a growth mindset

(25:53):
and the opposite of that would be a learned mindset,
is that a learned mindset means that whatever is happening
in the mon moment, you're taking it for that's what
it is, that's what it's always gonna be, and there's
no there's no way it can possibly change. That is
a that is a fixed mindset, and usually that's not good.
It's not it's not very good for many things. It

(26:15):
has its place, but around the mental health space and
around sports thing. If you have like a fixed mindset
and you start losing, then you're already telling yourself there's
no there's nothing I can do to change the course
of this game. If you're struggling with your mental health,
you're telling yourself in a fixed mindset, this is who
I am, this is who I'm gonna be, and this
is who I'm always gonna be. I was in that

(26:36):
fixed mindset. I didn't because I told you I had
some weird experiences with therapy. Uh, and so I just
felt like the therapy thing just wasn't for me. And
so this is just who I was gonna be. I
was gonna be this dude sitting in the dark, crying
all the time, can't get outside, not having friends, talking
myself to the to the games, telling NASA all the time,
I'm coming in hot because I'm running late getting to

(26:57):
the games, and all this other kind of stuff. And uh,
to the point where when I went to this mindful
therapy group, I mean when I went to the after
the Impact program and I and I've told this story before,
when they bought me the ticket, they put Ray Roberts
on the ticket, and my real name is Richard Ray Roberts.
That's what's on my I D And so I had
told my ex wife and Sandy Gregory, who's to work

(27:19):
with the Seahawks, who are helping helping me through all
this stuff. I said, hey, like, if this, if one
more little thing happens where I can't get the help
I need, then this is just who I'm gonna be.
My I'm just resigned to this is going to be
my life. And so I was stuck in this kind
of learned mindset space. And so when I got to

(27:41):
the airport, I want to check in, and they looked
at my ticket and they looked at my ID and
they're like, oh man, we can't, we can't, you know,
issue a ticket. I'm like, why not. They're like, well,
your i D says Richard Ray Roberts, and your ticket
just says Ray Roberts. So if it said rich Roberts
or Ricky Roberts or something like that, we could do it.
But with Ray and Richard aren't the same. And so

(28:03):
I just remember asking the travel agent to come from
behind the counter, and it took everything in my mind,
everything in my body to not just grab this dude's
body and just squeak, but I put my hands right
around his face. I say, hey, look man, like, if
I don't get on this flight, this is going to
be my life is going to be ruined for the
rest of my life. So it is my living depends

(28:25):
on me been on this flight. And so I was
already trying to like, I was already in this learned mindset,
trying to find my way out of it. And if
I had not gotten on that plane, I won thousand percent. No,
I wouldn't be sitting right here in front of you
having this conversation. I know I wouldn't have hurt myself,
but I would have been living a miserable, painful, lonely

(28:46):
life because I would have given up on therapy. I
would have just said, this is what my life is
and this is what it's going to be. But it
took a growth mindset to push through that. The growth
mindset means there's something I can learn. I can accept
the mistakes and the setbacks and know that that's not
what the situation is. That I can find a way
through it and I have the ability to learn there's

(29:08):
some way that you can advance and move forward with
where you are in your life and move forward with
the circumstances that the circumstances are temporary. That's kind of
what the growth mindset is. So you need that and
this idea around grit and resilience, uh the set. The
fourth thing would be set meaningful goals. So you have

(29:29):
to have a purpose that helps you persevere through the obstacles.
And so my purpose and my goal, like I had
many little goals like to kind of get outside the
house when the day, that kind of stuff, But I
needed to I needed to be the light in the
world that I know that I am. I needed to

(29:51):
show up in a way that that this life was
intended to show up, to improve life for other people,
to show up for other people, to show give other
people a new perspective, to be a light in the world.
And you know, I talked about this last the last episode,
like my purpose was is greater than me sleeping on

(30:13):
the couch all day. In some regards I've said, I
felt like my purpose is greater than you know, being
a significant other or father, Like I just feel like
my purpose is greater and so for me to live
out my purpose, for me to be able to sit
in this chair, do this podcast and have a listener
tell me that because of this podcast they went and

(30:34):
got therapy. That's the purpose that would not have happened
if I didn't have these meaningful goals, if I didn't
have the growth mindset, if I didn't have the self compassion,
if I didn't have the positive and supportive relationships that
kind of can be summed up in those two words
grit and resilience, It would not have happened if that
was the case. And then optimism and hope is the is,

(30:56):
the is the last one and then And that's just
the belief that things It kind of goes hand in
hand with the growth mindset, but it's just a belief
that things will improve in the future. Doesn't mean it's
gonna improve right now today, but it might improve tomorrow,
or it might improve but it may improve today by
the end of the day. But it's just the ideaity
you have help hope that the present moment is difficult,

(31:18):
but it's not that difficulty isn't gonna define what the
future is. It's not going to define when you wake
up in the morning what your expectations is. It's not
going to destroy your motivation to keep moving forward. So
those five things positive and supportive relationships, self compassion, a
growth mindset, setting, meaningful goals, and optimism and hope. Those

(31:45):
five things among a lot of other things, but those
are the five that I've pulled out that will contribute
to you having the grit and the resilience that it
takes to manage to maintain, to battle and a lot
of times the defeat those mental health struggle that you're having. Uh,
they build a strong foundation for being able to persevere

(32:08):
through the tough times to be able to have emotional regulation,
and then the ability to view setbacks as opportunities, which
is interesting, like a lot of times we look at
failure and mistakes as something that we can't benefit from,
but actually there's opportunities and setbacks if you if you

(32:30):
if you review, review it, and and self reflect the
proper way, you can find the things that can use
make that. You know, sometimes you hear this quoting foot
sports and stuff like, uh, it's a minor setback for
a major comeback kind of a thing. So you're so
in that setback, you're trying to find the opportunity to
help you move forward, to make this negative uh into

(32:52):
a positive. And then even when all these things are
clicking and working well, it's still value in self reflection.
I just made a post today that said, like, because
I was thinking about this, people always say like, you
learn the most in adversity, and you learn the most
when you lose or when you fail, you learn the most.

(33:14):
The only reason you learn the most is because you're
there's more intention on trying to figure out what went
wrong and then trying to figure out what can you
learn from it? But you can learn from just as
much from wins and victories. You just have to have
that same intention and that same purpose and openness to
learn and find the things in the win that you

(33:36):
can grow from. And so this idea that you have
to fail to win and move forward is not true either.
So in both the failure and in the success, there's
persevere I mean, there's grit and resilience to kind of
to kind of self reflect and figure out what it
is that that you can learn from it. So I
hope that this today has given you just a little

(33:58):
bit of inspiration in some ways to think about your
own mental health and wellness. I hope that some of
the examples that I use kind of help you kind
of see it and things that have happened in your
own life. There is nothing more important in my life
right now than doing this podcast and having this message.
And so the fact that you know, NASA helps me out,

(34:20):
you know, you know, setting up the times and doing
the recording and the video and the editing and things.
The Sea Awks give me the space. The Mindful Therapy
Group are backing me and have made Jeriica, I mean Jerica,
Derek and Jessica have become really good friends of mine. Man,
it just has made this whole effort worthwhile. And then
on top of that to have a listener say this

(34:41):
is how this has inspired me to get the work,
to get the help that I need. So if you
need some inspiration on how to look at your situation,
if you are struggling with your mental health, and look
at the sea ow It's first two games. There's no
better example of that. Just look. Just watch the game.
Recognize the setbacks, recognize the hurdles, and then look at

(35:04):
the sideline. Look at the calm on the sideline, Look
at the leadership on the team. Look at the calm
and the leadership, and then watch them slowly, played by play,
minute by minute, quarter by quarter, work themselves back to
a place where they put themselves in a position to
win the football game. And we can do the same thing.
You can do the same thing when it comes to
overcoming your mental health challenges. Just take a deep breath,

(35:30):
remain calm, lean on your great and resilience which is
rooted in those five things that we just talked about,
and you can find your way out of it. It
doesn't mean it's going to be easy, doesn't have to
be hard, but it doesn't mean it's going to be easy,
doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight. For me, it
was probably a three or four or five year process
to get to the place where I could actually go

(35:50):
get the help. And then it probably I went to
that place for thirty days and I came home, and
it probably took me another year or so before I
was really comfortable in what I was learning and what
I thought about myself and how to how to have
great and resilience show up in my life in a
way that I can manage all of this, And this
podcast is part of that. This is part of my healing.
Part of my healing has been able to share my

(36:10):
story in a way that it inspires somebody else. That
is the purpose in this whole thing that it gives me.
When when we're talking about setting meaningful goals UH and
optimism and hope, this is this is those two places
for me. And so I really do appreciate you guys
for listening and give me an opportunity to share UH
and then being willing to hear what I have to
say and offering feedback you know, whatever it is, whether

(36:33):
it's positive or negative, anything that's going to help us
do to show better UH is is important for me,
and I will just end with this that when you
are faced with these types of challenges, be super compassionate
with yourself, surround yourself with with UH positive and supportive people,

(36:58):
and just know, like, if there's one voice that you
can hear in the darkness, just hear mine, because I've
been in the darkness, that you can overcome it, that
you can defeat it, that you can live with it,
and that that you can find your way out of it.
That there's always another side to it. And so in

(37:20):
your darkest moments, if you can just hear my voice
saying that, just know that you can get through it
and you can win the day. I've been there and
I've done it, and I know that you can too.
So we'll wrap it up the same way we always
wrap it up. Number one is okay to not be okay.
Number two, if you're experiencing a mental health crisis, reach

(37:40):
out to your medical provider for guidance and assistance. And
number three, if you need help and you ask for help,
you're operating from a position of power. I'm big ray,
thank you for tuning in peace and them out
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