June 11, 2025 • 16 mins
Have you ever been stuck in your thoughts, circling the same memories, the same pain? In this deeply introspective episode, The Timesmith takes us down to the metaphorical fifth floor—a space of isolation, confusion, and darkness within the mind. Drawing from childhood memories, trauma, and spiritual resilience, he offers listeners a vivid and healing exploration of what it means to walk through emotional darkness with the light of truth.
This episode isn’t just about suffering—it’s about reclaiming your mind, remembering the truth, and discovering that healing is possible. Whether you’re stuck in repetitive thoughts, battling trust issues, or simply searching for peace, this message is for you. Bring someone along who needs to hear it.
“The truth is, that betrayal is not happening today. And that’s where healing starts.”
🎧 Topics Covered:
- Intrusive thoughts & emotional looping
- Childhood fear and its lasting symbolism
- Trust, betrayal, and reclaiming inner safety
- The power of spiritual grounding and truth
- How to gently help others out of their emotional darkness
👉 Trigger warning: Sensitive themes of trauma and healing are discussed with care.
🙏 You are not alone. You are loved. Let's keep going—together.
🎙️Thanks for listening to The Time Smith
✉️Join the Mission: https://linktr.ee/TheTimeSmith
đź””Subscribe and leave a review to help more people find this message.
Forged in thought. Built in Truth. Spoken from experience.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Have you ever been lost in your thoughts?
Randomness?
A thought pops into your headand you don't know where it came
from.
Many times it's your past.
Things that have happened thathave not let you go.
(00:32):
Why have they hung on?
Let's talk about that.
Hi, I'm the Timesmith, andwelcome back.
I hope you had time to check outthe last lesson, Release.
(00:54):
I know that it's not an easything to do, but it's necessary.
Remember, this is a journeyabout overcoming brokenness,
searching the mind ofbrokenness.
And if you have been listeningfrom the beginning, then you'll
know that this is also aboutsharing, not just for my
(01:16):
healing, but for yours.
In fact, I do hear people tellme, this is good, Time Smith,
that you're doing this.
It must heal you.
I will add that, yes, it doesheal me, except that this has
worked for me, and I've justbeen hiding and keeping this to
myself.
(01:38):
Most of these situations I'veovercome, and my life reflects
it.
But what good is it if thosearound me are stuck?
So I took on this task.
The sense of responsibility tohelp others lays heavy on my
heart.
So it might not be for everyone,but that doesn't bother me.
(01:59):
I'll just go ahead and continueto share.
And if you're just listeningbecause it's interesting, feel
free to just grab your snack,sit back and Maybe learn
something.
But don't forget that theremight be someone around you that
might need this.
Please feel free to pass italong.
I'm convinced that it canactually help somebody.
(02:19):
And not everybody had such a badstart the way I have.
So there's still a chance.
But I do hope that it's sparkedyour curiosity to find out
what's inside of people.
Maybe that it can help.
Again, I'm not a doctor.
And please be...
Respectful of people.
(02:39):
Don't just unlock people just tounlock them.
Be mindful of why they've hiddenand isolated themselves.
So, if you want, we can begin.
Isolation.
What does that look like?
You know, at the core of thesesubfloors, there was a situation
(03:01):
that happened.
A trauma.
A trauma that changed my lifeforever.
After the fact, it didn'timmediately affect me, except
that I knew.
But it grew within me.
And what that did is it causedmy mind to sink.
My mind would get stuck in arepetitive thought process,
(03:22):
constantly thinking over andover and over again.
For those who have not heard,that is suffering.
We tend to play situations over.
One of the bad things about thisis that It's not something I've
entirely broken.
Many times I do play situationsover and over again.
(03:44):
And we all have our methods asto how we want to break that
cycle.
In my case, I tend to pray andread the Bible, exercise, work
on my projects.
In my daily life, I'm a welder.
I fabricate.
I build things and someblacksmithing.
I also like working on cars.
(04:06):
Well, all that to say is that Iwill find something to get my
mind off of the repetitiveness.
That's the sickness.
But I do want to show yousomething that's a little bit
deeper than the core, than thesituation which we found on the
fourth floor.
But let's go down to the fifthfloor.
Let's see what happens after.
(04:27):
Remember, in the center of theforge, there's a counter.
To the right, there's astaircase.
To the left, there's anelevator.
There's a couch against thewall.
There's also frames andpictures.
And before I go down, I likeadding and showing you that
there is more to this room.
There are pictures in here,things that remind me of what's
(04:50):
good.
And not only that, but what'sreal.
If you've been in your head toolong, you do lose the sense of
reality.
You forget what the light lookslike.
You forget that there's good inyou.
that there's good thingshappening to you.
I know for some people, theycontinue to suffer long after.
(05:11):
Well, for some of you, in thissituation, you might not be
going down with me to the fifthfloor.
You're already there.
But let's get in the elevator.
I've always liked the way anelevator rocks back and forth.
Large doors that close as ifwe're bringing storage into this
(05:35):
space.
Well, the fifth floor.
Let's step out.
What do you see?
There's darkness.
There's no light here.
There's nothing recognizable.
In order to find a room in here,you'd have to feel against the
wall and try to find a room.
(05:58):
But why the darkness?
This is where our minds begin tosink.
When we can't make sense ofwhat's happened.
Confusion.
That the situations that havecaused us to be traumatized.
To be hurt.
That we replay.
Are more of a sound than theyare a visual.
(06:18):
But it's dark in here.
Let's step into a memory.
Let's walk up and see if we canfind a door.
But I know where everything'sat.
I've been here.
many times when I get off theelevator I count the doors and
there's an odd room in here thatmaybe I wouldn't think would be
in here but it is because ithelps me to see down here well
(06:42):
here's the room let me open thedoor one of the things about
this room as we slowly walk inis me as a child when I was a
kid we would watch Saturdaymorning cartoons I would watch
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,Bobby's World, Tiny Toons, just
(07:03):
to name a few.
And I would sit there on thecouch, right, with a bowl of
cereal on the table, with thevolume low, trying not to wake
anybody up and disturb my peace.
But there was a commercial, andit asked, are you afraid of the
dark?
(07:23):
Some of you guys might evenremember that.
that on Saturday evening, therewas a show called, Are You
Afraid of the Dark?
I just say that to remind you ofyour childhood.
But this was a commercial.
And again, they'd ask, are youafraid of the dark?
Do you know how to stop beingafraid of the dark?
(07:44):
And what they would do is theywould show a room.
They would show the bed and thechair and the jacket on the
chair, a small TV, shoes.
And they would tell you, try toremember as much as possible in
the room.
And that's what I would do.
I would remember.
Then they said, now we're goingto turn out the lights.
(08:07):
And they would turn out thelights.
And some of those figures didn'tlook like the chair or the
jacket or the shoes.
The shoes might look like atroll or the chair might look
like a short monster.
I can't forget the closet.
There was always a monster inthe closet.
But they would remind you whatyou saw when the light was on is
(08:30):
the same thing that is therewhen the light is off.
Hmm.
I always found that interesting.
So in our house, we had a longhallway and I would walk down
that hallway with the light offand I would walk into my room in
the dark and look at my bed.
Well, until the fear took overand I ran back into the living
(08:52):
room.
I would rush out and turn thelight on in the hallway and and
take a second look back and forsome reason it just took a
second to be able to look insideeven though I was already
inside.
Let's step out.
Are you afraid of the dark?
Is there something that'shappened in your life that you
(09:14):
can't make sense of?
That it's unclear?
That when you think about itthere's no clarity?
It feels dark and it feels evil.
But yet it continues to thrustyou back inside that you can
take a second look.
If there was a way to turn thelight on, quite possibly, you
(09:34):
would.
Well, how can this room be thatvisible even though it's on a
floor that's dark?
Well, I brought truth to it.
Truth is light.
And when I went in this room, itstarted off with some of the
simplest things.
That when I was asked, are youafraid of the dark?
(09:58):
I would look around and makesure my siblings weren't around.
And I would whisper quietly.
Yes.
Yes, I am.
I didn't want anybody to hear methat it scared me mainly because
I would get made fun of.
I think that that's how traumais.
(10:19):
Are you afraid of being hurtagain?
Are you afraid of someoneviolating your trust?
Are you afraid of betrayal?
Well, sometimes it's hard tospeak those things because we
know what it feels like.
We know that creepy feeling.
That's kind of what being in thedark is like.
(10:40):
If you've ever tried to walkdown a hallway, there's always
that sense of somebody walkingbehind you, causing you to look
back and second guess eventhough you know no one's there.
Do trust and betrayal respondthe same way as fear?
Do they make us forget that whentruth is around, it might not be
(11:03):
the way fear interprets it?
It might not be the way betrayalinterprets it.
Truth is what matters.
If I were to remember in thatdark room, before it was dark
and it was light, And it wasonly a chair and it was only a
jacket and a bed and a closet.
It wasn't those monsters andtrolls that, well, maybe for me,
(11:26):
that's what scared me.
As you get older, those thingsturn into faces.
They turn into hallucinations.
It reminds me as why we copebecause it wasn't just coping
from trauma.
It was the continued sufferingand what comes from it.
what it does to our character,even though we know the truth.
(11:50):
And what's the truth?
Is that I've been hurt.
But that doesn't necessarilymean that the next person will
hurt me or betray me or violatemy trust.
It's something that took a longtime to build.
And maybe this analogy seems alittle spread out, how I
associate a room about acommercial when I was a child to
(12:14):
trust and betrayal.
Well, the way I'm trying toconnect it is this, is that
there's sometimes things that wesee knowing that it's the truth
turns into a falsehood when weallow fear and betrayal and
trust and lies and hurt to enterour lives.
(12:39):
The lens of suffering, as wespoke about a few days ago, is
exactly that because there aremany different lenses it's not
just suffering and just the waywhen i was a child in that dark
room that lens of fear it didn'tallow me to see just a chair or
a jacket i saw things thatscared me i kept having to tell
(13:03):
myself this as i got older thatit was just a chair it was just
a jacket Because it was nolonger about being scared of the
dark.
It was being scared that thedarkness was actually taking
over me.
And again, I have to say that itdid.
That for many days on end, Iwould stay down here trying to
(13:25):
make sense and find my way out.
And you might be in here, stuck.
But can I tell you something?
What I offer is truth.
And the truth is, is that that'snot happening today, the
betrayal.
that happened yesterday or theday before or years ago is not
happening today.
(13:46):
That's the truth.
So maybe you don't know how toget out.
Well, grab my hand and I'll leadyou back to the elevator.
And I might not know what thatsituation is.
Give me a second.
Let me close this door.
You might wonder how I maneuverthrough here.
(14:08):
Well, I've banged up my shins.
I've hurt myself.
I've tried and I've wondered.
I've done things to try to getmy mind to break that I can find
healing.
But the reality is that the onlything that will bring healing is
truth.
Well, that door's closed.
(14:30):
Let's go back to the elevatorwhere there's light.
And let's go back up to theforge.
We will come back to this.
Maybe on our next lesson, we candiscover a little bit more about
darkness.
Can I ask you something?
Can you bring somebody to thenext lesson?
(14:51):
Somebody that might need this?
I think it's time that we getpeople out of their head.
This is a monumental task, butif you feel hurt and at time you
feel like you're dying, Or thatyou're blind.
Can you imagine that yourneighbor or your friend or
(15:12):
sibling might be feeling thesame thing?
That they may be stuck in aplace where they can't get out,
not because they don't want to,but because they don't know the
way out.
Give them the truth.
I do have to say that the truthis this, is that you are loved.
(15:33):
Love is an important thing inthis life.
You have a friend, a friend thatwill do more for you than anyone
else ever will.
And this friend cares about you.
Doesn't want to see you bang upyour shins in the dark.
So I do feel that there's moreto this, but I also don't feel
(15:56):
that we need to spend too muchtime here.
We'll go down again.
There's a lot to explore.
And this journey of this podcastis just starting.
I'm not sure how many people areactually listening.
And sometimes I hope that I canpick up steam to hear people.
(16:21):
I have been invited to go speakand I'll continue to push this
message physically and not justhear on a podcast.
Always remember, If you feellost, you can be found.
If you feel unloved, you areloved.
(16:42):
God bless you.
I am the Timesmith.
Have you ever been lost in your thoughts?
Randomness?
A thought pops into your headand you don't know where it came
from.
Many times it's your past.
Things that have happened thathave not let you go.
(00:32):
Why have they hung on?
Let's talk about that.
Hi, I'm the Timesmith, andwelcome back.
I hope you had time to check outthe last lesson, Release.
(00:54):
I know that it's not an easything to do, but it's necessary.
Remember, this is a journeyabout overcoming brokenness,
searching the mind ofbrokenness.
And if you have been listeningfrom the beginning, then you'll
know that this is also aboutsharing, not just for my
(01:16):
healing, but for yours.
In fact, I do hear people tellme, this is good, Time Smith,
that you're doing this.
It must heal you.
I will add that, yes, it doesheal me, except that this has
worked for me, and I've justbeen hiding and keeping this to
myself.
(01:38):
Most of these situations I'veovercome, and my life reflects
it.
But what good is it if thosearound me are stuck?
So I took on this task.
The sense of responsibility tohelp others lays heavy on my
heart.
So it might not be for everyone,but that doesn't bother me.
(01:59):
I'll just go ahead and continueto share.
And if you're just listeningbecause it's interesting, feel
free to just grab your snack,sit back and Maybe learn
something.
But don't forget that theremight be someone around you that
might need this.
Please feel free to pass italong.
I'm convinced that it canactually help somebody.
(02:19):
And not everybody had such a badstart the way I have.
So there's still a chance.
But I do hope that it's sparkedyour curiosity to find out
what's inside of people.
Maybe that it can help.
Again, I'm not a doctor.
And please be...
Respectful of people.
(02:39):
Don't just unlock people just tounlock them.
Be mindful of why they've hiddenand isolated themselves.
So, if you want, we can begin.
Isolation.
What does that look like?
You know, at the core of thesesubfloors, there was a situation
(03:01):
that happened.
A trauma.
A trauma that changed my lifeforever.
After the fact, it didn'timmediately affect me, except
that I knew.
But it grew within me.
And what that did is it causedmy mind to sink.
My mind would get stuck in arepetitive thought process,
(03:22):
constantly thinking over andover and over again.
For those who have not heard,that is suffering.
We tend to play situations over.
One of the bad things about thisis that It's not something I've
entirely broken.
Many times I do play situationsover and over again.
(03:44):
And we all have our methods asto how we want to break that
cycle.
In my case, I tend to pray andread the Bible, exercise, work
on my projects.
In my daily life, I'm a welder.
I fabricate.
I build things and someblacksmithing.
I also like working on cars.
(04:06):
Well, all that to say is that Iwill find something to get my
mind off of the repetitiveness.
That's the sickness.
But I do want to show yousomething that's a little bit
deeper than the core, than thesituation which we found on the
fourth floor.
But let's go down to the fifthfloor.
Let's see what happens after.
(04:27):
Remember, in the center of theforge, there's a counter.
To the right, there's astaircase.
To the left, there's anelevator.
There's a couch against thewall.
There's also frames andpictures.
And before I go down, I likeadding and showing you that
there is more to this room.
There are pictures in here,things that remind me of what's
(04:50):
good.
And not only that, but what'sreal.
If you've been in your head toolong, you do lose the sense of
reality.
You forget what the light lookslike.
You forget that there's good inyou.
that there's good thingshappening to you.
I know for some people, theycontinue to suffer long after.
(05:11):
Well, for some of you, in thissituation, you might not be
going down with me to the fifthfloor.
You're already there.
But let's get in the elevator.
I've always liked the way anelevator rocks back and forth.
Large doors that close as ifwe're bringing storage into this
(05:35):
space.
Well, the fifth floor.
Let's step out.
What do you see?
There's darkness.
There's no light here.
There's nothing recognizable.
In order to find a room in here,you'd have to feel against the
wall and try to find a room.
(05:58):
But why the darkness?
This is where our minds begin tosink.
When we can't make sense ofwhat's happened.
Confusion.
That the situations that havecaused us to be traumatized.
To be hurt.
That we replay.
Are more of a sound than theyare a visual.
(06:18):
But it's dark in here.
Let's step into a memory.
Let's walk up and see if we canfind a door.
But I know where everything'sat.
I've been here.
many times when I get off theelevator I count the doors and
there's an odd room in here thatmaybe I wouldn't think would be
in here but it is because ithelps me to see down here well
(06:42):
here's the room let me open thedoor one of the things about
this room as we slowly walk inis me as a child when I was a
kid we would watch Saturdaymorning cartoons I would watch
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,Bobby's World, Tiny Toons, just
(07:03):
to name a few.
And I would sit there on thecouch, right, with a bowl of
cereal on the table, with thevolume low, trying not to wake
anybody up and disturb my peace.
But there was a commercial, andit asked, are you afraid of the
dark?
(07:23):
Some of you guys might evenremember that.
that on Saturday evening, therewas a show called, Are You
Afraid of the Dark?
I just say that to remind you ofyour childhood.
But this was a commercial.
And again, they'd ask, are youafraid of the dark?
Do you know how to stop beingafraid of the dark?
(07:44):
And what they would do is theywould show a room.
They would show the bed and thechair and the jacket on the
chair, a small TV, shoes.
And they would tell you, try toremember as much as possible in
the room.
And that's what I would do.
I would remember.
Then they said, now we're goingto turn out the lights.
(08:07):
And they would turn out thelights.
And some of those figures didn'tlook like the chair or the
jacket or the shoes.
The shoes might look like atroll or the chair might look
like a short monster.
I can't forget the closet.
There was always a monster inthe closet.
But they would remind you whatyou saw when the light was on is
(08:30):
the same thing that is therewhen the light is off.
Hmm.
I always found that interesting.
So in our house, we had a longhallway and I would walk down
that hallway with the light offand I would walk into my room in
the dark and look at my bed.
Well, until the fear took overand I ran back into the living
(08:52):
room.
I would rush out and turn thelight on in the hallway and and
take a second look back and forsome reason it just took a
second to be able to look insideeven though I was already
inside.
Let's step out.
Are you afraid of the dark?
Is there something that'shappened in your life that you
(09:14):
can't make sense of?
That it's unclear?
That when you think about itthere's no clarity?
It feels dark and it feels evil.
But yet it continues to thrustyou back inside that you can
take a second look.
If there was a way to turn thelight on, quite possibly, you
(09:34):
would.
Well, how can this room be thatvisible even though it's on a
floor that's dark?
Well, I brought truth to it.
Truth is light.
And when I went in this room, itstarted off with some of the
simplest things.
That when I was asked, are youafraid of the dark?
(09:58):
I would look around and makesure my siblings weren't around.
And I would whisper quietly.
Yes.
Yes, I am.
I didn't want anybody to hear methat it scared me mainly because
I would get made fun of.
I think that that's how traumais.
(10:19):
Are you afraid of being hurtagain?
Are you afraid of someoneviolating your trust?
Are you afraid of betrayal?
Well, sometimes it's hard tospeak those things because we
know what it feels like.
We know that creepy feeling.
That's kind of what being in thedark is like.
(10:40):
If you've ever tried to walkdown a hallway, there's always
that sense of somebody walkingbehind you, causing you to look
back and second guess eventhough you know no one's there.
Do trust and betrayal respondthe same way as fear?
Do they make us forget that whentruth is around, it might not be
(11:03):
the way fear interprets it?
It might not be the way betrayalinterprets it.
Truth is what matters.
If I were to remember in thatdark room, before it was dark
and it was light, And it wasonly a chair and it was only a
jacket and a bed and a closet.
It wasn't those monsters andtrolls that, well, maybe for me,
(11:26):
that's what scared me.
As you get older, those thingsturn into faces.
They turn into hallucinations.
It reminds me as why we copebecause it wasn't just coping
from trauma.
It was the continued sufferingand what comes from it.
what it does to our character,even though we know the truth.
(11:50):
And what's the truth?
Is that I've been hurt.
But that doesn't necessarilymean that the next person will
hurt me or betray me or violatemy trust.
It's something that took a longtime to build.
And maybe this analogy seems alittle spread out, how I
associate a room about acommercial when I was a child to
(12:14):
trust and betrayal.
Well, the way I'm trying toconnect it is this, is that
there's sometimes things that wesee knowing that it's the truth
turns into a falsehood when weallow fear and betrayal and
trust and lies and hurt to enterour lives.
(12:39):
The lens of suffering, as wespoke about a few days ago, is
exactly that because there aremany different lenses it's not
just suffering and just the waywhen i was a child in that dark
room that lens of fear it didn'tallow me to see just a chair or
a jacket i saw things thatscared me i kept having to tell
(13:03):
myself this as i got older thatit was just a chair it was just
a jacket Because it was nolonger about being scared of the
dark.
It was being scared that thedarkness was actually taking
over me.
And again, I have to say that itdid.
That for many days on end, Iwould stay down here trying to
(13:25):
make sense and find my way out.
And you might be in here, stuck.
But can I tell you something?
What I offer is truth.
And the truth is, is that that'snot happening today, the
betrayal.
that happened yesterday or theday before or years ago is not
happening today.
(13:46):
That's the truth.
So maybe you don't know how toget out.
Well, grab my hand and I'll leadyou back to the elevator.
And I might not know what thatsituation is.
Give me a second.
Let me close this door.
You might wonder how I maneuverthrough here.
(14:08):
Well, I've banged up my shins.
I've hurt myself.
I've tried and I've wondered.
I've done things to try to getmy mind to break that I can find
healing.
But the reality is that the onlything that will bring healing is
truth.
Well, that door's closed.
(14:30):
Let's go back to the elevatorwhere there's light.
And let's go back up to theforge.
We will come back to this.
Maybe on our next lesson, we candiscover a little bit more about
darkness.
Can I ask you something?
Can you bring somebody to thenext lesson?
(14:51):
Somebody that might need this?
I think it's time that we getpeople out of their head.
This is a monumental task, butif you feel hurt and at time you
feel like you're dying, Or thatyou're blind.
Can you imagine that yourneighbor or your friend or
(15:12):
sibling might be feeling thesame thing?
That they may be stuck in aplace where they can't get out,
not because they don't want to,but because they don't know the
way out.
Give them the truth.
I do have to say that the truthis this, is that you are loved.
(15:33):
Love is an important thing inthis life.
You have a friend, a friend thatwill do more for you than anyone
else ever will.
And this friend cares about you.
Doesn't want to see you bang upyour shins in the dark.
So I do feel that there's moreto this, but I also don't feel
(15:56):
that we need to spend too muchtime here.
We'll go down again.
There's a lot to explore.
And this journey of this podcastis just starting.
I'm not sure how many people areactually listening.
And sometimes I hope that I canpick up steam to hear people.
(16:21):
I have been invited to go speakand I'll continue to push this
message physically and not justhear on a podcast.
Always remember, If you feellost, you can be found.
If you feel unloved, you areloved.
(16:42):
God bless you.
I am the Timesmith.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!