May 22, 2023 • 47 mins
Granger Smith Podcast Episode 189: We will all go through waves of grief in life. What's important in a wave of grief is to realize that when you're in the trough, realizing you'll be back at the crest. Join me as we discuss about this topic and more on this week's podcast episode!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And to make things worse, I'm the one. I'm the
one that pulled the plug on the life support. How
could I be such an idiot? How could I have
done that? What's up? Guys? Welcome back to the podcast,
(00:23):
Episode one hundred and eighty nine. One hundred and eighty nine,
or some people say one hundred and eighty nine. I
say one hundred and eighty nine. I appreciate you guys coming.
I love doing these podcasts and it doesn't feel like
I've done that many, even though I've been with you
guys for a long time now, answering your questions, and
that's kind of the format of this podcast. If you're new,
(00:44):
is you email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com
and I'll put it in the queue and it could
be about anything in life, really, and we'll talk about
it in long form, like we're sitting around a campfire. Right.
I want to say too that I'm very excited expectant
(01:08):
about this book, my book Like a River, coming out
on August the first, and the reason I mentioned that
here is because a lot of the questions that I get,
especially the ones about struggle or grief or loss or anxiety,
A lot of these things are going to be addressed
(01:28):
in the book that happened to me, right, It's there's
going to be very personal experiences with me. And so
we have a couple more months of me doing a
podcast without that book out, and I'm so excited because
once it does, it's going to be a conversation starter
and it's going to allow me in many ways to say, hey,
(01:50):
check out the book. Check out the book, and then
ask that question again to me with the new perspective
of what you know from the book. I think that's
going to be very helpful. I think that's going to
push this podcast even further along and we'll be able
to go to new depths of conversation. That's what I think.
And for those of you that don't read, or you're
(02:13):
not into reading at all, I'm also recording the audiobook version,
so you'll be able to get both of those on
August first. So yeah, it's called like a River. Super
excited about that. And let's jump into the first question
here in the queue. I don't have notes in front
of me, I don't have famous quotes or answers to
tough questions. I'm just I'm just going to go for
(02:35):
it here. This one actually just came in like twelve
minutes ago, and so I was like, oh, one just
came in right before I hit record, and I might
as well just read that. And I read these for
the first time in front of you guys, so you're
hearing it at the same time that I'm reading it.
Subject line on this first one says mental health and
work with mental health with work and life balance. Hey Greiner.
(02:59):
First off, I'm a big fan of your music and
podcasts and find peace from listening to your podcast while
at work. I'm a deputy sheriff at a rural law
enforcement agency in Utah. With that being said, I have
a front row seat to the worst things that this
life has to offer, but have also seen things I
can only describe as miracles. On top of work, my
(03:21):
wife and I have been experiencing reoccurring pregnancy, loss, and
miscarriage over the past few years. We do have a
beautiful daughter who is now five years old. I feel
mentally strong most days, but still struggle. I'm not a
religious person due to experiences in my youth with organized religion,
but feel great while listening to the words that you
(03:41):
share in your podcast, your music has hit a special
place in my heart lately, especially Tailgate Church. Pew, how
do you recommend keeping my mental health strong? Can't wait
to see you in Salt Lake on June The second
says thanks Blake from Utah, and Blake, thank you for
your service. You have seen things that I can't imagine.
(04:03):
So all of us here at the podcast thank you
for what you do. What you have chosen to do
the line of work you've chosen to do to not
only put your your own life at risk, but you
are putting your mental health at risk by seeing things
so that other people don't have to see them. Right.
(04:26):
That's tough, and so I can't begin to act like
I know what you go through on a daily basis. Literally,
you wake up, you go to work, and you don't
know if that day you're going to see something really bad,
or experience something really bad, or even physically experience something bad.
(04:47):
So there's not an easy answer to that. And when
you say, I think what you're trying to say too
is hey, Grangeer, don't give me the religious stuff. I
think that's what you're kind of saying. And you've heard
this podcast a lot, so you know you know the
direction I lean, but you have to understand that by
asking me, hey Granger, give me your mental health analysis
(05:10):
without being religious. That's that's like saying, hey Granger, I
know you love you love soup, but I don't. I
don't deal with bulls and spoons, So give me the
soup on a plate, you know, Like, that's that's what
I'm trying to do. So I'm gonna try to give
you first. I'm gonna give you the spoon first. I'm
(05:31):
gonna give you the soup on a plate and see
how far we get with that. Right. Community is so
important for you to stay involved with other men and
women that have seen things that you have seen that
I have experienced, things that you have experienced, and you
(05:53):
talk through it. I can't I can't imagine just how
important and that would be for you to have some
kind of support group that other than your wife. Because
there's certain things you're just not going to tell your wife.
There's certain certain roads you're not going to walk down
with her, like hey, babe, let me let me tell
(06:14):
you about this horrible thing I said, because you don't
want to drag her into it. But there needs to
be at its simplest form a text thread with four
or five, six, seven people, it's like, hey, man, how's
everybody's week going? Man, guys, I saw something crazy on Tuesday?
What was it? Yeah? I saw this and this and
(06:36):
this and then someone else. Go. Man, I saw something
similar to that back in December of twenty seventeen. What'd
you do about it? Man? To be honest with you,
you know, I still think about it, but I did
this and this. Oh that's helpful, you know, like that
that kind of community is so important for humans because
(06:57):
on one level, it just reminds us that we're not
in this alone. We're not in anything alone. There's always
someone walking a similar path, a parallel path in some
way to what you're doing. So, Man, you might have
this blake, but you might not. And so I want
to tell you that having that kind of community if guys,
and I say guys, probably more importantly guys than girls,
(07:20):
because you are a guy and you don't want to
you don't want to confide in a girl with emotional things.
That's that could lead to bad stuff. So I'm saying
predominantly guys, you're you're going to be just pouring in
and just checking up on them and you helping them
(07:40):
and supporting them is just as helpful for your own
mental health. So, for instance, someone goes, hey, Blake, man,
I uh, I got into some bad stuff the other day.
I gotta I drove up on a bad call and
I'm really struggling with it. So then you, Blake, you
hear that, and you go tell me about it, talk
about lets talk about let me let me give you
(08:01):
some thoughts about that, and let me give you You
don't have to fix the problem, you don't have to
give them a solution, but you can. You could say,
let me just listen to you for a little bit,
let me just hear what you got to say. And
through this, as that person goes is the phone call
starts wrapping up and they say, hey, Blake, I appreciate
(08:22):
you man, thank you, thank you for listening. And then
right then boom, there's like a little spark inside of
you that goes, man, Actually I feel better myself for
my own stuff that I got going on. I feel
better for helping you and make it and helping you
to feel better. It's it's weird as humans how that works. It.
(08:43):
You know, it's like we forgive and then we feel forgiven.
We we relieve someone of their guilt and then we
feel less guilt on our part. We compliment someone and
we feel we feel that gratitude come back to us.
It's very interesting how this happens. It's almost like it's
connected to the Gospel in some way. It's almost like
(09:05):
Jesus said, love others as you love yourself. It's almost
like he said that in a way that's not just philosophical,
but it's in a way that maybe he knows our makeup,
he knows how we were created in a way, how
we're programmed in a way to respond to this kind
of this kind of stuff strange, right. I don't want
(09:30):
to I don't want to end the question here with
eating soup out of a plate. I do want to
mention Blake that you said you have seen things you
could only describe as miracles. I want to say, I
want to want to point that out. I want to
point out that you're you have been struggling in your
(09:51):
own personal life, not just work, but with your wife
and family. And then I want to kind of highlight
that you say I'm not a religious person due to
experiences in my youth with organized religion, I'm assuming you're
talking about the Mormon Church. In fact, I know you are,
and I want to highlight the fact that Jesus was
(10:18):
not religious. In fact, he was against the extreme organized
religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees. I want to highlight
that and just kind of put a pebble in your
shoe as you're walking, so that you could remember that
experiences you had in your youth due to organized religion.
(10:38):
Those are your words. Have nothing to do with God.
It has everything to do with man's misinterpretation of how
to worship God. I'm going to leave it at that.
I'm assuming we're going to get on some kind of
subject like this more in the podcast, but I want
to kind of leave it with that and leave you
with a plate full of soup and blake. I hope
(11:01):
we can keep in touch, and I know I'm going
to see you in Salt Lake on June second, so
looking forward to that, brother. All right, let's go to
another question here. The subject line says, how do I
keep myself together? They grant your My name is Michael
spelled that way? And am I c H E A
(11:23):
L spelled that way? Because of my late grandmother. I
just want to I wanted some guidance on how to
move on and try to feel better. April thirtieth, twenty
twenty three, my grandmother had passed. I was there and
she quickly declined in health and fast within four days.
(11:45):
I I'm trying to read. I'm reading exactly what he wrote.
I her only grandson. I'm assuming I mean I was
her only grandson. I was there every day until she
took her final breath in front of me. Well when
I when that time had come, my uncle, and my
father and my great aunt had all laid the decision
(12:08):
on me to pull the plug. Of course, all the
pressure I had to say yes, and I felt like
I did the right thing. But I also feel wrong
that I did that. There are there have only been
a handful of times in my twenty six years alive
that I've seen my father cry. My father is that
type to get up and work and never complain, never
(12:32):
let us see things that bother him, you know, the
typical tough guy. He embraced me, and I lost my
mind in the er. Once again, I'm trying to follow
him this email. Here he goes on to say, I
had this dark, empty hole in my heart, and I
feel like it's taboo to talk to my father and
(12:54):
mom about how I feel because I shouldn't burden them.
Some days it's harder than I appreciate your input. Thank you, Michael.
All Right, Michael, this is this is a complex email,
but I'm gonna make it simple. You you're emailing me
too early. You're asking for guidance too early, because it
(13:18):
hasn't even been a month yet since she passed, and
not only did you lose someone that you loved greatly,
your grandmother, but you you feel responsible for making the
decision to turn off the lights life support machine, even
(13:38):
though I'm certain that you had guidance by doctors right
to do this, so that this wasn't like you just
decided to kill your grandmother or help her along with
her suicide or that's weird stuff, but sometimes that's how
we feel with this, right. So the bottom line of
(14:01):
what's happening here is you are emailing me too early
because these are some things that you're just gonna have
to process day by day, minute by minute. And there
is nothing that anyone can say, or no special magic
(14:21):
spell that I could put on you that's gonna get
you further along. But there's some days you're gonna feel good.
You're gonna wake up and the sun's gonna be shining.
You're gonna get up and go to work, and you're
gonna you're gonna say, you know, I loved my grandma
and I lost her, but she lived a good life.
And you know what, I'm okay with that. I'm pretty
(14:42):
good with that. I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat a good meal,
and I'm gonna remember her. Oh, I'm gonna look through
some pictures of her. And she was so special and
we shared so many times together, and I love that.
And then in a matter of hours, sometimes sometimes it's
the next day when you wake up, or sometimes it's
(15:02):
just literally an amount. Just in a matter of hours,
everything changes, and it's like the sun goes behind the
clouds and you and the darkness falls upon you, and
you go, no, I can't, I can't. I can't live
without her. I don't I want my grandma back. And
and to make things worse, I'm the one. I'm the
(15:22):
one that pulled the plug on the on the life support.
How could I be such an idiot? How could I
have done that? And that's like two different personalities just
fighting each other. Jeck go and hide, and it's it's
these misfires in the brain, right because your brain is
just cycling through daily life and sustaining itself through thoughts
(15:49):
and in calculating hunger and being tired and needing to
accomplish goals. And your brain's doing all these things and
it'll cycle through like a computer and it goes Grandma,
the error cycle again, Grandma, dude, error. It's just like
a computer and you could feel it cycling and it
(16:11):
comes up with an error message. And the error message
shoots this message all the way across the other side
of your brain, and then the other side of your
brain goes, what's going on, right side of the brain
and it says, I'm getting an error message from grandma
and you go yeah, because she's dead. And then he goes,
what hang on a second, and it sends it sends
another message in it goes yeah, and you're the one
(16:32):
that pulled the plug. And then the other side of
the brain takes that message and goes, hold on, guys,
this is this is this is not good. You know
that's it's okay. Grandma was great and we loved her
and we're this is a natural process of grieving, and
the other side of the brain goes shut up. Man,
it's this this, this this battle. And I know what
I'm rambling and it's sounding ridiculous right now, but this
(16:55):
is what goes on. That's the most unscientific way to
put the waves of grief, but that's that's what's happening.
You'll go through these waves. And what's important in a
wave of grief is to realize that when you're in
when you're in the trough, which is the bottom of
the wave, realizing you'll be back on the crest. Okay,
(17:16):
it's that's a cycle. Life is a cycle of waves.
Everything is a wave. The sound is a wave, light
is a wave. Grief, love, it's all a wave. Heartbreak
it's a wave. Pain is a wave, right, Joy is
a wave. Happiness is a wave. Even the sunlight it's waves.
So imagine yourself like you're at the ocean, and when
(17:40):
you're in the trough, you will eventually go back up
to the crest, not on your own doing. You don't
do this, you just float. But it's important to recognize
I'm on the I'm on top. Things are pretty good,
like the sunshine and things are pretty good, but I
know I'll be back down. So then you realize you're
starting to creep down. And when you get down, it's realizing.
(18:02):
You have to realize as you're down, I'm not gonna
stay here. I'm not stuck at the bottom of this wave.
I'll be back out. But what do I do? Now?
What do I do when I'm at the bottom. I
just breathe and I let my heart beat and I
just let it be, realizing I'm just gonna let this
pain sit over me and I'll be back out of it.
(18:24):
But it's not the end. Okay, it's not the end.
That's my best unscientific way to describe what you're going through.
Let's take a break and bear it back. This show
is sponsored by Better Help. We have talked so much
on this show about people that might need a doctor's
(18:47):
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And I like the idea of this because I'm just
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scheduling an appointment for a doctor, and then you know
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better Help. Visit Betterhelp dot com slash Granger today and
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h LP dot com slash Granger. You know, if you
ever want to get a hold of me or have
me send you a message, have you ever thought about
cameo dot com. It's such a great way for me
(20:36):
to be able to reach out to you guys and
give you a gift of a video message. And you
could order it for any of your friends, or for yourself,
or for any anniversary or birthday or special occasion or
pep talk of any kind. I've probably done every scenario
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(20:57):
search for me Granger Smith. I do a message right
here on my phone, reading your prompt however you want
me to say it, and then it just goes straight
to your phone. It's literally a video message from me.
It's so easy and so simple. And then finally, you, guys,
I've told you, but please be aware that August first,
like a river. The book comes out. I would love
for you guys to check it out, and I'd love
(21:19):
to get your feedback on that. You could pre order
right now wherever you love to buy books. You could
also be directed to all of those sites from my
homepage grangersmith dot com. Back to the podcast, all right,
Back to these questions. The first one I've pulled up here,
(21:39):
subdecline says forgiveness Granger. I'd like to remain anonymous, but
I have a question about forgiveness. I got married in
twenty sixteen, got divorced shortly after in twenty seventeen after
my then wife had two miscarriages. I ended up remarrying
in twenty nineteen to my now wife and have a
beautiful little girl. My first marriage was not biblical or
(22:02):
God centered in any way. Even though the relationship didn't
seem toxic, it was not healthy and I see that
now being remarried in a great marriage. I still look
back and know that there were issues in my first marriage.
I never forgave asked for forgiveness from my ex. My
question is would it be wrong to write a letter
(22:24):
to my ex to ask for forgiveness but also forgive her?
Should I talk about this to my wife. I think
about this a lot, and I'm not sure what to do. PS.
I met you at a show in twenty fourteen in Miami, Oklahoma, Miama, Oklahoma.
Still the great memory. Thanks Anonymous. All right, Anonymous man,
thank you for being vulnerable and opening up on something
(22:45):
that's very close to your heart and very complicated. And
I appreciate that. I appreciate you trusting me with it.
I don't always have the right answers, but I'm just
going to treat you like a friend. And we're driving
down the road in a truck and you you say, hey, man,
can I ask you this question? That's that's what this
podcast is for. So here's my opinion. Yes, talk to
(23:11):
your wife. You should talk to your wife about everything.
You should be very upfront with this situation when you
get divorced and then get remarried. Kind of part of
that package. In my mind, part of the package of
the remarriage is an understanding from the new wife that
(23:32):
things weren't always you know, tied up in a pretty
bow in your life relationship wise, that that should be obvious.
No new wife is going to be surprised by this
kind of information or at least she shouldn't and you
should talk about this because this is a product of
a broken home and it's not bad. It's I mean
(23:55):
it's not. It's not a bad analysis on you because
this is just where you are, this is just what
your life is right now. This is the card you've
been dealt, and you've got to play it right. I
set that up because I'm trying to justify why the
new wife should be cool with this kind of conversation.
She should expect it. And that is the tragedy of
(24:21):
divorce itself. Divorce is just shouldn't be always part of
the plan. It shouldn't be part of a plan. But
in this world, we live with it like it is,
like it's normal, Like everyone gets divorced, and so that's
just part of it. You mess up, You strike out
the first one, then you get the second one, and
(24:41):
then hopefully that goes well. But you might strike out
on that one, and then you go to the third one.
By the time you're a little bit older in life,
maybe you haven't figured out on the third spouse. That's
kind of the way this culture thinks, and it's just
not right. It's not right. I don't agree with it
at all. But once again, it's not a bad analysis
on you. I'm just kind of kind of putting your
(25:04):
story on top of culture and going, yeah, I see it,
I see it there. It is right. So what I
think you're doing is full of integrity, and it's a
very good thing, Anonymous. It's a very good thing, and
I'm all about it. Divorce in this way, especially when
you say when you're talking about biblical or godly divorce
(25:28):
in this way needs to be completely reconciled in itself,
hopefully before the next marriage. It should be through church.
It should be So you didn't yet, but that's okay
because we're doing it now. We're talking about it now.
(25:50):
And so that would be my counsel to you, is that, Yes,
you go to your wife, here's here's the practical thing.
You go to your wife and you say, but here's
the story I feel is heavy on my heart. I'm
so grateful for you, I love you, etc. Etc. Got
to say that, and then you say, I need to
reach out to her in some way. Can you help me,
(26:10):
new wife, Can you help me logistically figure out appropriate,
in all respect to you, appropriate way to reach out
to her to start this conversation. Right, Maybe it's a letter,
maybe it's an email, Maybe it's a cup of coffee,
maybe it's a phone call, maybe it's a text. But
work that out with your current wife. And then when
(26:34):
you do reach out, and I think you absolutely should,
because this has to be reconciled. It will. Your conscience
will not let you live this down if you don't.
So I don't have to tell you your own conscious
is not gonna let you sleep until you do this.
But yes, say it's a letter. Hypothetically, let's go with
a letter. You write her a letter and you just say,
(26:57):
dear ex wife, your name. I think about the way
that things ended quite a bit, and as you know,
I'm happily married now, but because of the way that
we were bonded together, I feel a connection that has
(27:21):
not that I have not been able to put to rest.
And I feel like I could do that through forgiving you.
And I know that we had hard times. I know
that you didn't say toxic. You said it was not toxic,
but you said it wasn't healthy, So so I know
that it wasn't healthy at all times. And I know
(27:42):
that we both said some things that maybe we shouldn't have,
and maybe we left it in a way that we
shouldn't have. And I just want to tell you right now,
and you don't have to respond at all, but I
want to tell you that I'm just so sorry and
I forgive you for everything that you did. And I
know that there's pain that was associated with her, with
(28:03):
our marriage, with the miscarriages, and I just want to
tell you I don't hold any of that against you
at all, and I completely forgive you for anything that
might have happened. Right and then you could leave it
open ended, and you could. You could, you can say,
do you forgive me? But but that's almost it goes
without saying that she's that just that's part of it.
(28:26):
But here's the hard part. You can't expect anything to
come out of this beside your own healing. What I
mean is you can't expect her to reply. You can't
expect her to say I agree, I feel the same way.
I'm glad you reached out. I forgive you too. You
(28:46):
can't expect anything from her. In fact, you could get
something bad. You could get her to say, don't you
ever reach out to me again? So you don't build
old expectations on what she's going to say at all.
You build your expectation on your own ability to forgive
(29:10):
her and say you're sorry to her, to close that
door yourself, because that's what you can control. And I
believe your healing comes from that and not from the
way that she reacts to it. I think it's a
good thing you're doing, brother. Next question, subject line says
(29:31):
regrets in life. Hey Granger, my name is Joshua. I'm
a born again Christian. My question is how do I
get past the past. I feel as if a cycle
I live in has been almost ten years long now.
My wife calls me a hermit because I don't like
being around people. I suffer from depression and chronic migraines
(29:53):
that were set off by a TBI accident while I
served our nation in the army. A part of me
regrets serving because I did not used to be like this.
My wife says it has progressed and is causing problems
in our marriage. I want to change, but it seems
no matter how hard I try, I revert back to
my reclusive state of mind. I'm afraid to ask for
(30:16):
help from my pastor or from the VA because I
know the negative persona placed on veterans who have mental struggles.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you and God blessed Joshua.
All right, Joshua, scanning back on your email as I
read it for the first time. Here, So you're a
(30:40):
born again Christian, that's the interesting part you said in
the first line. And then I just want to tell you,
first of all, thank you for your service, and thank
you for trusting me with such sensitive information, being vulnerable
like this. I appreciate it, and I could feel the pain.
(31:01):
I could see the pain in your words. First off,
let's go to suffering from depression and chronic migraines that
were set off by a TBI incident while serving. Let's
start with that, because that's something that's going to get
(31:21):
into a world I cannot help you with at all.
That's going to require a doctor, which is going to
need to come through the VA. So eventually, the way
I see this, Joshua, and really this is the way
I see it, that we in life. Just like the
last question, I said, here's what you're responsible for, here's
(31:44):
what you can do, and here's what you shouldn't expect,
and here's what you're not responsible for. Right. That was
the last question dealing with the ex wife. But in
your in your scenario, it's the same thing. We have
to start separating what you're responsible for and what you're not.
And so you don't put expectations on what you're not.
You put your expectations on what you are responsible for.
(32:06):
So this is what I think you're responsible for. The
line that you said, I'm afraid to ask for help
from my pastor or the VA because I know the
negative persona placed on veterans who have mental struggles. I'm
going to say, Joshua, your job coming from me as
your friend listening to this. If we're driving in the
pickup truck and you bring this up to me, I say, Joshua,
right now, you got to get over that. You got
(32:28):
to you got to get past that. You don't have
to get past depression. You don't have to get past migraines.
You don't have to get past being a hermit. You
don't have to get past your wife feeling like the
marriage is struggling. You don't have to get past the
PTSD you have from serving. You don't have to get
past that's the ten year cycle that you're stuck in. Okay,
(32:50):
let's make a priority list all that stuff you can't
control right now. But what can start it is what
can kickstart all of this is the one thing you
can control, and that's you get in your pickup truck
and you drive down there to the VA and you say,
my name's Joshua. I'm struggling. I got a lot of
(33:13):
mental issues from serving and I need to talk to somebody, Okay.
And you said the very first line, you said, I'm
a born again Christian. Prove that to me. Prove it
to me. You know how, you know how you could
prove that to me by showing me, showing me, show
(33:36):
me that your faith is real. Right, you say I've
got faith. I say, show me live it out. Go
to your pastor. You said, I don't want to go
to my pastor. Why Because there's this negative persona placed
on veterans who have mental struggles. Brother, you're gonna have
to get past that. You got to get past that.
(33:57):
You got to go to your pastor, and you got
to you gotta say. Let me ask you this, why, Joshua,
do you feel comfortable emailing me the country singer guy
that's on a podcast, and yet you can't tell behind
closed doors your pastor or somebody at the VA. I
(34:20):
want to challenge you with that. I want to it's
a friendly challenge. I let's say, get your butt in
your truck and go to the church or the VA,
and hopefully both, and tell them your story and just
be vulnerable and just say it exactly. You don't have
to say anything more than what you told me. Just say.
My name is Josh Struggling. I've got some migraines. My
(34:44):
wife calls me a hermit. I'm suffering from depression. I
feel like my marriage is suffering because of this, and
I need some help. You don't have to be a
superman here. You don't have to be a superhero. You
don't have to be all buttoned up and everything's perfect.
In these kind of situations, you got to go now,
(35:07):
and you got to open up, and you got to
just let you get us. Let it loose. No one, Josh,
hear me. No one is gonna blame you for this, man,
no one. You served our country. You served us well,
thank you for that. Now let us serve you right,
Let us in our system, let us serve you back.
As a way to say thank you for what you
(35:27):
have done for us. You have allowed me and my
family to live a life that we get to choose
the career path and choose where we go to school,
and choose how we live, choose where we worship. You've
allowed us that, so allow us to serve you back now.
And we do that through the VA, and we do
that through our local pastors. Plug into your local church,
(35:50):
pour into the pastor, let him pour into you. I
can't speak as much for the VA because I know
that they have a bad rep sometimes and I know
that some times it might be a waiting list and
it might be long lines, and it might be no
phone calls back. But let me ask you this question,
is your marriage worth it? Is your life for these
(36:15):
past ten years, this cycle? Is it worth ending the cycle? Then?
I think you would get on that waiting list. I
think you'd make that phone call. I think you'd go
talk to the pastor. And this is not this is
not a meet with a pastor. And it's and it's
fixed because there's going to be a doctor involved that's
going to deal with these migraines. Right, these chronic migraines
(36:35):
are going to require medication, and the medication is going
to come from a doctor, and the doctor is going
to come from someone who knows you. It's not a
quick fix, but this is the starting line, the starting
line for you, my friend. My challenge is to break
this mentality. Break it apart. That says, I don't want
to open up because I'm I'm too strong. I don't
(36:57):
want to reveal that I'm soft. You gotta stop it, Josh.
Next question, subject client says, girlfriend, Hi, my name is Brandon.
I'm fourteen. I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm dating this girl.
She's amazing. I love her so much. But the problem
(37:17):
is I barely get to see her. She is constantly busy,
and I really don't want to lose I don't want
her to lose interest from not seeing me. Do you
have any idea what I could do? I'm sorry, I
said Brandon, didn't I it's Braiden. Braiden, you're fourteen. You
let me reread your sentence. Let me just point out
(37:40):
your sentence doesn't have a single punctuation and the whole
paragraph doesn't have a single punctuation point at all. I'm
dating this girl. She's amazing, and I love her so much.
But the problem is I barely get to see her.
She is constantly busy, and I really don't want her. Okay, Brandon,
(38:03):
back away from the girl, Back away from the girl, Buddy,
it's there's better things right now at fourteen. It's it's
so hard to be so wrapped up at fourteen thinking
the girls amazing and you love her so much. I'm
gonna tell you, Braiden, that's a problem. Okay. It's also
(38:28):
a problem that I keep saying, Brandon, Braiden, it's a problem. Okay,
hear me on this. Be fourteen, Be in a club,
or have a hobby, or play a sport, be with
your buddies, go out with your friends, and do stuff
like what can you do? You can't even drive. You
can't even drive yet that and you're loving a girl
(38:52):
so much. This is only going to lead to problems.
And how do I know? How do I know this
besides the fact that I was fourteen? I know this
because she's busy and she's a little girl. If she's
too busy for you, and she's a little girl, which
she is a young teenager and she's too busy for you,
(39:12):
that means she doesn't want to see you. She doesn't
want to be around you. You are smothering her. Stop
smothering her. Back away, go with your friends, your guy friends,
and get a hobby. That's my advice. If I had
a guest here like Bernie, he would say, Granger, hang on,
be nicer. But Braiden, I'm telling you. I only tell
(39:34):
you things because I want to tell you the truth.
It would be ridiculous for me to go Braiden. Oh,
thanks for emailing buddy, so sorry to hear about this
girl problem. Maybe get some roses, drop it off on
her front porch, Braiden. Maybe maybe write her a nice
love note and get some hr She's kisses and put
(39:55):
it next to the roses. Just remember be patient with her.
Text you all the time and just say thinking about
you and pour into her. It would be ridiculous. That
would be ridiculous. Uh, seriously, I just realized something. After
(40:17):
this whole time I've been talking to you, I realized something.
You misspelled your own name. Your name is Brandon, and
in the email it says Braiden. But in your email
it says b A N D O N. And then
your email says, hey, my name is braid Dawn, fix
your punctuation, fix your spelling, get your name right, dump
(40:38):
the girl, get a hobby, hang out with your buddies,
and let's go fishing sometime. That's my advice. Jump on
one more here. Seven client says guidance. Hey granderom, my
name is Andrew. I'm twenty eight from Illinois. Recently my
grandpa passed away. It's been quite a challenge for me
and my family. On top of that, there's also a
lot of changes going on where I work as a
(40:59):
car technician. I struggle with anxiety quite a bit, especially
with my job, and I know God is always in control,
but lately I feel like it's been getting worse and
worse for me. I guess my question is, how do
you truly have that comfort and peace when everything around
you seems like it's falling apart. PS. I met you
at a concert recently in Illinois and briefly discussed my anxiety,
(41:22):
and it was an absolute blessing to speak with you. Andrew,
Thank you, brother. You also included a picture of us here,
which is great. I appreciate you. It always helps when
you include a picture, and then I could put a
face to your words here. Yeah, this is an email
that there's one line that just stands out that just
(41:45):
and I wonder if people listen to this podcast and go, oh,
I know where Granger's going with this when I've heard
him one hundred and eighty nine different episodes. But there's
one line that sticks out to me right off the bat.
And you you start with a bunch of anxiety and
I'm losing losing a grandpa, and you end it with
(42:07):
a bunch of anxiety. And I want to point out
what you said in the middle. You said, I know
God is always in control. And I say back to you, Andrew,
do you No, you don't, you don't. I don't believe you.
(42:27):
I don't believe you at all. I don't believe you
one bit. I mean, it's like use that, use that
in any other scenario in life. It doesn't work that
I don't believe you. What if you said? What if
you said? Man? I just I am struggling with catching
(42:49):
the football and I don't like practices, and the Texas
heat is so rough on me in two days and
my coach yells at me all the time, and I
just I don't know. These shoulder pads are really scratching
me and making my shoulders break out with hives. But
(43:12):
I really love football. I would say, you don't love football, don't.
You don't love it at all? You don't. You don't,
and Andrew, You don't trust God. You don't say I'm struggling,
I'm grieving, I'm hurting. My job sucks. I don't know
what to do. That's the key right there. I don't
know where to go from here. I don't know how
(43:33):
to have comfort and peace. I don't know how to
have comfort and peace when everything around me is falling apart.
But I trust God. I say, no, you don't. So
you gain trust by surrendering to him and by absorbing
his words, ever living, breathing word the Bible. You absorb
(43:55):
that word and you read it, and you wake up
and you set your alarm earlier, and you say, yeah,
I'm gonna man, my life is really crazy right now God,
and so I decided to open up Philippians one right,
That's where I want you to start. Andrew. Then, my
challenge to you is to read the Book of Philippians,
the Letter of Philippians, and read through it and a
(44:17):
couple of days. It's very short, very very short, but
I want to give you a couple of days to
read it and read it again, and read it again
three times, three times. I want you to read through Philippians, okay,
starting with one. I'm not talking about finding special verses.
I'm not talking about following a map of things to
(44:38):
where the Bible talks about what you're dealing with. I'm
talking about absorbing it. Absorbing Paul's letter in one reading,
and I want you to read that three times over
the course of two days. And I want you to
keep telling God that like God, I say that I
trust you, but I'm not living like it. I say
(45:00):
that I trust you, but I'm nervous. I say that
I trust you, but I sure don't prove it at
all to anyone. Help me with this. Help me to
trust you, help me to surrender, help me to understand
that this whole job falling apart and me losing my
grandpa helped me to understand that this is part of
my life here. And so I give it to you
(45:21):
because I can't control these things. I can't control my job,
I can't control my grandpa. I can't control the people
that I love. I can't control anything falling apart. But
what I can control is how I trust you through
it all. How would you know that, Andrew? How would
you base trust on something like this? Right? How could
(45:43):
you base your trust on God? Let me give you
a hint. He knows the end, He planned the middle,
and he built the whole concept before it even started.
Would that help you trust anybody? I said, Oh yeah,
talk to him. He planned this whole thing out and
(46:04):
he knows how it ends. And guess what. Here's the kicker.
It ends good. You go, oh, well, yeah, I would
trust that. I would trust the person that planned it,
built it, ended it good. I would trust that even
when in the middle it doesn't seem like it's worth anything.
(46:27):
I've talked a lot about this and a lot of
different things in my life. Andrew, you probably heard me.
But I want to challenge you with that. Reading Philippians
three times in two days, and while you're doing it,
break out in prayer and go God, I don't trust you.
I want to help me with that, be honest. That's
(46:50):
all we got. Love you guys, all of y'all for emailing.
Thank you so much, and we'll see you next Monday.
Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate
all of you guys. You could help me out by
rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
to this channel. Hit that little like button and the
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
(47:11):
a video. If you have a question for me that
you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at
gmail dot com. Yi
And to make things worse, I'm the one. I'm the
one that pulled the plug on the life support. How
could I be such an idiot? How could I have
done that? What's up? Guys? Welcome back to the podcast,
(00:23):
Episode one hundred and eighty nine. One hundred and eighty nine,
or some people say one hundred and eighty nine. I
say one hundred and eighty nine. I appreciate you guys coming.
I love doing these podcasts and it doesn't feel like
I've done that many, even though I've been with you
guys for a long time now, answering your questions, and
that's kind of the format of this podcast. If you're new,
(00:44):
is you email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com
and I'll put it in the queue and it could
be about anything in life, really, and we'll talk about
it in long form, like we're sitting around a campfire. Right.
I want to say too that I'm very excited expectant
(01:08):
about this book, my book Like a River, coming out
on August the first, and the reason I mentioned that
here is because a lot of the questions that I get,
especially the ones about struggle or grief or loss or anxiety,
A lot of these things are going to be addressed
(01:28):
in the book that happened to me, right, It's there's
going to be very personal experiences with me. And so
we have a couple more months of me doing a
podcast without that book out, and I'm so excited because
once it does, it's going to be a conversation starter
and it's going to allow me in many ways to say, hey,
(01:50):
check out the book. Check out the book, and then
ask that question again to me with the new perspective
of what you know from the book. I think that's
going to be very helpful. I think that's going to
push this podcast even further along and we'll be able
to go to new depths of conversation. That's what I think.
And for those of you that don't read, or you're
(02:13):
not into reading at all, I'm also recording the audiobook version,
so you'll be able to get both of those on
August first. So yeah, it's called like a River. Super
excited about that. And let's jump into the first question
here in the queue. I don't have notes in front
of me, I don't have famous quotes or answers to
tough questions. I'm just I'm just going to go for
(02:35):
it here. This one actually just came in like twelve
minutes ago, and so I was like, oh, one just
came in right before I hit record, and I might
as well just read that. And I read these for
the first time in front of you guys, so you're
hearing it at the same time that I'm reading it.
Subject line on this first one says mental health and
work with mental health with work and life balance. Hey Greiner.
(02:59):
First off, I'm a big fan of your music and
podcasts and find peace from listening to your podcast while
at work. I'm a deputy sheriff at a rural law
enforcement agency in Utah. With that being said, I have
a front row seat to the worst things that this
life has to offer, but have also seen things I
can only describe as miracles. On top of work, my
(03:21):
wife and I have been experiencing reoccurring pregnancy, loss, and
miscarriage over the past few years. We do have a
beautiful daughter who is now five years old. I feel
mentally strong most days, but still struggle. I'm not a
religious person due to experiences in my youth with organized religion,
but feel great while listening to the words that you
(03:41):
share in your podcast, your music has hit a special
place in my heart lately, especially Tailgate Church. Pew, how
do you recommend keeping my mental health strong? Can't wait
to see you in Salt Lake on June The second
says thanks Blake from Utah, and Blake, thank you for
your service. You have seen things that I can't imagine.
(04:03):
So all of us here at the podcast thank you
for what you do. What you have chosen to do
the line of work you've chosen to do to not
only put your your own life at risk, but you
are putting your mental health at risk by seeing things
so that other people don't have to see them. Right.
(04:26):
That's tough, and so I can't begin to act like
I know what you go through on a daily basis. Literally,
you wake up, you go to work, and you don't
know if that day you're going to see something really bad,
or experience something really bad, or even physically experience something bad.
(04:47):
So there's not an easy answer to that. And when
you say, I think what you're trying to say too
is hey, Grangeer, don't give me the religious stuff. I
think that's what you're kind of saying. And you've heard
this podcast a lot, so you know you know the
direction I lean, but you have to understand that by
asking me, hey Granger, give me your mental health analysis
(05:10):
without being religious. That's that's like saying, hey Granger, I
know you love you love soup, but I don't. I
don't deal with bulls and spoons, So give me the
soup on a plate, you know, Like, that's that's what
I'm trying to do. So I'm gonna try to give
you first. I'm gonna give you the spoon first. I'm
(05:31):
gonna give you the soup on a plate and see
how far we get with that. Right. Community is so
important for you to stay involved with other men and
women that have seen things that you have seen that
I have experienced, things that you have experienced, and you
(05:53):
talk through it. I can't I can't imagine just how
important and that would be for you to have some
kind of support group that other than your wife. Because
there's certain things you're just not going to tell your wife.
There's certain certain roads you're not going to walk down
with her, like hey, babe, let me let me tell
(06:14):
you about this horrible thing I said, because you don't
want to drag her into it. But there needs to
be at its simplest form a text thread with four
or five, six, seven people, it's like, hey, man, how's
everybody's week going? Man, guys, I saw something crazy on Tuesday?
What was it? Yeah? I saw this and this and
(06:36):
this and then someone else. Go. Man, I saw something
similar to that back in December of twenty seventeen. What'd
you do about it? Man? To be honest with you,
you know, I still think about it, but I did
this and this. Oh that's helpful, you know, like that
that kind of community is so important for humans because
(06:57):
on one level, it just reminds us that we're not
in this alone. We're not in anything alone. There's always
someone walking a similar path, a parallel path in some
way to what you're doing. So, Man, you might have
this blake, but you might not. And so I want
to tell you that having that kind of community if guys,
and I say guys, probably more importantly guys than girls,
(07:20):
because you are a guy and you don't want to
you don't want to confide in a girl with emotional things.
That's that could lead to bad stuff. So I'm saying
predominantly guys, you're you're going to be just pouring in
and just checking up on them and you helping them
(07:40):
and supporting them is just as helpful for your own
mental health. So, for instance, someone goes, hey, Blake, man,
I uh, I got into some bad stuff the other day.
I gotta I drove up on a bad call and
I'm really struggling with it. So then you, Blake, you
hear that, and you go tell me about it, talk
about lets talk about let me let me give you
(08:01):
some thoughts about that, and let me give you You
don't have to fix the problem, you don't have to
give them a solution, but you can. You could say,
let me just listen to you for a little bit,
let me just hear what you got to say. And
through this, as that person goes is the phone call
starts wrapping up and they say, hey, Blake, I appreciate
(08:22):
you man, thank you, thank you for listening. And then
right then boom, there's like a little spark inside of
you that goes, man, Actually I feel better myself for
my own stuff that I got going on. I feel
better for helping you and make it and helping you
to feel better. It's it's weird as humans how that works. It.
(08:43):
You know, it's like we forgive and then we feel forgiven.
We we relieve someone of their guilt and then we
feel less guilt on our part. We compliment someone and
we feel we feel that gratitude come back to us.
It's very interesting how this happens. It's almost like it's
connected to the Gospel in some way. It's almost like
(09:05):
Jesus said, love others as you love yourself. It's almost
like he said that in a way that's not just philosophical,
but it's in a way that maybe he knows our makeup,
he knows how we were created in a way, how
we're programmed in a way to respond to this kind
of this kind of stuff strange, right. I don't want
(09:30):
to I don't want to end the question here with
eating soup out of a plate. I do want to
mention Blake that you said you have seen things you
could only describe as miracles. I want to say, I
want to want to point that out. I want to
point out that you're you have been struggling in your
(09:51):
own personal life, not just work, but with your wife
and family. And then I want to kind of highlight
that you say I'm not a religious person due to
experiences in my youth with organized religion, I'm assuming you're
talking about the Mormon Church. In fact, I know you are,
and I want to highlight the fact that Jesus was
(10:18):
not religious. In fact, he was against the extreme organized
religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees. I want to highlight
that and just kind of put a pebble in your
shoe as you're walking, so that you could remember that
experiences you had in your youth due to organized religion.
(10:38):
Those are your words. Have nothing to do with God.
It has everything to do with man's misinterpretation of how
to worship God. I'm going to leave it at that.
I'm assuming we're going to get on some kind of
subject like this more in the podcast, but I want
to kind of leave it with that and leave you
with a plate full of soup and blake. I hope
(11:01):
we can keep in touch, and I know I'm going
to see you in Salt Lake on June second, so
looking forward to that, brother. All right, let's go to
another question here. The subject line says, how do I
keep myself together? They grant your My name is Michael
spelled that way? And am I c H E A
(11:23):
L spelled that way? Because of my late grandmother. I
just want to I wanted some guidance on how to
move on and try to feel better. April thirtieth, twenty
twenty three, my grandmother had passed. I was there and
she quickly declined in health and fast within four days.
(11:45):
I I'm trying to read. I'm reading exactly what he wrote.
I her only grandson. I'm assuming I mean I was
her only grandson. I was there every day until she
took her final breath in front of me. Well when
I when that time had come, my uncle, and my
father and my great aunt had all laid the decision
(12:08):
on me to pull the plug. Of course, all the
pressure I had to say yes, and I felt like
I did the right thing. But I also feel wrong
that I did that. There are there have only been
a handful of times in my twenty six years alive
that I've seen my father cry. My father is that
type to get up and work and never complain, never
(12:32):
let us see things that bother him, you know, the
typical tough guy. He embraced me, and I lost my
mind in the er. Once again, I'm trying to follow
him this email. Here he goes on to say, I
had this dark, empty hole in my heart, and I
feel like it's taboo to talk to my father and
(12:54):
mom about how I feel because I shouldn't burden them.
Some days it's harder than I appreciate your input. Thank you, Michael.
All Right, Michael, this is this is a complex email,
but I'm gonna make it simple. You you're emailing me
too early. You're asking for guidance too early, because it
(13:18):
hasn't even been a month yet since she passed, and
not only did you lose someone that you loved greatly,
your grandmother, but you you feel responsible for making the
decision to turn off the lights life support machine, even
(13:38):
though I'm certain that you had guidance by doctors right
to do this, so that this wasn't like you just
decided to kill your grandmother or help her along with
her suicide or that's weird stuff, but sometimes that's how
we feel with this, right. So the bottom line of
(14:01):
what's happening here is you are emailing me too early
because these are some things that you're just gonna have
to process day by day, minute by minute. And there
is nothing that anyone can say, or no special magic
(14:21):
spell that I could put on you that's gonna get
you further along. But there's some days you're gonna feel good.
You're gonna wake up and the sun's gonna be shining.
You're gonna get up and go to work, and you're
gonna you're gonna say, you know, I loved my grandma
and I lost her, but she lived a good life.
And you know what, I'm okay with that. I'm pretty
(14:42):
good with that. I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat a good meal,
and I'm gonna remember her. Oh, I'm gonna look through
some pictures of her. And she was so special and
we shared so many times together, and I love that.
And then in a matter of hours, sometimes sometimes it's
the next day when you wake up, or sometimes it's
(15:02):
just literally an amount. Just in a matter of hours,
everything changes, and it's like the sun goes behind the
clouds and you and the darkness falls upon you, and
you go, no, I can't, I can't. I can't live
without her. I don't I want my grandma back. And
and to make things worse, I'm the one. I'm the
(15:22):
one that pulled the plug on the on the life support.
How could I be such an idiot? How could I
have done that? And that's like two different personalities just
fighting each other. Jeck go and hide, and it's it's
these misfires in the brain, right because your brain is
just cycling through daily life and sustaining itself through thoughts
(15:49):
and in calculating hunger and being tired and needing to
accomplish goals. And your brain's doing all these things and
it'll cycle through like a computer and it goes Grandma,
the error cycle again, Grandma, dude, error. It's just like
a computer and you could feel it cycling and it
(16:11):
comes up with an error message. And the error message
shoots this message all the way across the other side
of your brain, and then the other side of your
brain goes, what's going on, right side of the brain
and it says, I'm getting an error message from grandma
and you go yeah, because she's dead. And then he goes,
what hang on a second, and it sends it sends
another message in it goes yeah, and you're the one
(16:32):
that pulled the plug. And then the other side of
the brain takes that message and goes, hold on, guys,
this is this is this is not good. You know
that's it's okay. Grandma was great and we loved her
and we're this is a natural process of grieving, and
the other side of the brain goes shut up. Man,
it's this this, this this battle. And I know what
I'm rambling and it's sounding ridiculous right now, but this
(16:55):
is what goes on. That's the most unscientific way to
put the waves of grief, but that's that's what's happening.
You'll go through these waves. And what's important in a
wave of grief is to realize that when you're in
when you're in the trough, which is the bottom of
the wave, realizing you'll be back on the crest. Okay,
(17:16):
it's that's a cycle. Life is a cycle of waves.
Everything is a wave. The sound is a wave, light
is a wave. Grief, love, it's all a wave. Heartbreak
it's a wave. Pain is a wave, right, Joy is
a wave. Happiness is a wave. Even the sunlight it's waves.
So imagine yourself like you're at the ocean, and when
(17:40):
you're in the trough, you will eventually go back up
to the crest, not on your own doing. You don't
do this, you just float. But it's important to recognize
I'm on the I'm on top. Things are pretty good,
like the sunshine and things are pretty good, but I
know I'll be back down. So then you realize you're
starting to creep down. And when you get down, it's realizing.
(18:02):
You have to realize as you're down, I'm not gonna
stay here. I'm not stuck at the bottom of this wave.
I'll be back out. But what do I do? Now?
What do I do when I'm at the bottom. I
just breathe and I let my heart beat and I
just let it be, realizing I'm just gonna let this
pain sit over me and I'll be back out of it.
(18:24):
But it's not the end. Okay, it's not the end.
That's my best unscientific way to describe what you're going through.
Let's take a break and bear it back. This show
is sponsored by Better Help. We have talked so much
on this show about people that might need a doctor's
(18:47):
help or medical attention or therapy, and that's where better
Help can come in. It's so easy to get caught
up in what everyone else needs from you, and you
never take a moment to think about what you need
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airplane when the mask drop out, of a ceiling. In
an emergency, you put the mask on yourself, so then
(19:08):
you could put it on the child or whoever's next
to you. But you got to be breathing first before
you could help anybody else breathe. If you're listening to
this and you've thought about therapy but you just don't
really want to go through looking for one or driving
across town and spending hours sitting on some kind of
weird leather couch, perhaps better Help could be for you,
(19:28):
maybe to bring a little more balance into your life,
so you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind.
And I like the idea of this because I'm just
I'm not a good person when it comes to like
scheduling an appointment for a doctor, and then you know
driving in and for me it takes me twenty minutes
thirty minutes to get into town, and so I just
I like the idea of having something completely online. So
(19:51):
if you're thinking about giving therapy a try, try out
Better Help. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible,
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better Help. Visit Betterhelp dot com slash Granger today and
get ten percent off your first month. That's Better Help
h LP dot com slash Granger. You know, if you
ever want to get a hold of me or have
me send you a message, have you ever thought about
cameo dot com. It's such a great way for me
(20:36):
to be able to reach out to you guys and
give you a gift of a video message. And you
could order it for any of your friends, or for yourself,
or for any anniversary or birthday or special occasion or
pep talk of any kind. I've probably done every scenario
that you could think of. You go to cameo dot
com slash Granger Smith or download the cameo app and
(20:57):
search for me Granger Smith. I do a message right
here on my phone, reading your prompt however you want
me to say it, and then it just goes straight
to your phone. It's literally a video message from me.
It's so easy and so simple. And then finally, you, guys,
I've told you, but please be aware that August first,
like a river. The book comes out. I would love
for you guys to check it out, and I'd love
(21:19):
to get your feedback on that. You could pre order
right now wherever you love to buy books. You could
also be directed to all of those sites from my
homepage grangersmith dot com. Back to the podcast, all right,
Back to these questions. The first one I've pulled up here,
(21:39):
subdecline says forgiveness Granger. I'd like to remain anonymous, but
I have a question about forgiveness. I got married in
twenty sixteen, got divorced shortly after in twenty seventeen after
my then wife had two miscarriages. I ended up remarrying
in twenty nineteen to my now wife and have a
beautiful little girl. My first marriage was not biblical or
(22:02):
God centered in any way. Even though the relationship didn't
seem toxic, it was not healthy and I see that
now being remarried in a great marriage. I still look
back and know that there were issues in my first marriage.
I never forgave asked for forgiveness from my ex. My
question is would it be wrong to write a letter
(22:24):
to my ex to ask for forgiveness but also forgive her?
Should I talk about this to my wife. I think
about this a lot, and I'm not sure what to do. PS.
I met you at a show in twenty fourteen in Miami, Oklahoma, Miama, Oklahoma.
Still the great memory. Thanks Anonymous. All right, Anonymous man,
thank you for being vulnerable and opening up on something
(22:45):
that's very close to your heart and very complicated. And
I appreciate that. I appreciate you trusting me with it.
I don't always have the right answers, but I'm just
going to treat you like a friend. And we're driving
down the road in a truck and you you say, hey, man,
can I ask you this question? That's that's what this
podcast is for. So here's my opinion. Yes, talk to
(23:11):
your wife. You should talk to your wife about everything.
You should be very upfront with this situation when you
get divorced and then get remarried. Kind of part of
that package. In my mind, part of the package of
the remarriage is an understanding from the new wife that
(23:32):
things weren't always you know, tied up in a pretty
bow in your life relationship wise, that that should be obvious.
No new wife is going to be surprised by this
kind of information or at least she shouldn't and you
should talk about this because this is a product of
a broken home and it's not bad. It's I mean
(23:55):
it's not. It's not a bad analysis on you because
this is just where you are, this is just what
your life is right now. This is the card you've
been dealt, and you've got to play it right. I
set that up because I'm trying to justify why the
new wife should be cool with this kind of conversation.
She should expect it. And that is the tragedy of
(24:21):
divorce itself. Divorce is just shouldn't be always part of
the plan. It shouldn't be part of a plan. But
in this world, we live with it like it is,
like it's normal, Like everyone gets divorced, and so that's
just part of it. You mess up, You strike out
the first one, then you get the second one, and
(24:41):
then hopefully that goes well. But you might strike out
on that one, and then you go to the third one.
By the time you're a little bit older in life,
maybe you haven't figured out on the third spouse. That's
kind of the way this culture thinks, and it's just
not right. It's not right. I don't agree with it
at all. But once again, it's not a bad analysis
on you. I'm just kind of kind of putting your
(25:04):
story on top of culture and going, yeah, I see it,
I see it there. It is right. So what I
think you're doing is full of integrity, and it's a
very good thing, Anonymous. It's a very good thing, and
I'm all about it. Divorce in this way, especially when
you say when you're talking about biblical or godly divorce
(25:28):
in this way needs to be completely reconciled in itself,
hopefully before the next marriage. It should be through church.
It should be So you didn't yet, but that's okay
because we're doing it now. We're talking about it now.
(25:50):
And so that would be my counsel to you, is that, Yes,
you go to your wife, here's here's the practical thing.
You go to your wife and you say, but here's
the story I feel is heavy on my heart. I'm
so grateful for you, I love you, etc. Etc. Got
to say that, and then you say, I need to
reach out to her in some way. Can you help me,
(26:10):
new wife, Can you help me logistically figure out appropriate,
in all respect to you, appropriate way to reach out
to her to start this conversation. Right, Maybe it's a letter,
maybe it's an email, Maybe it's a cup of coffee,
maybe it's a phone call, maybe it's a text. But
work that out with your current wife. And then when
(26:34):
you do reach out, and I think you absolutely should,
because this has to be reconciled. It will. Your conscience
will not let you live this down if you don't.
So I don't have to tell you your own conscious
is not gonna let you sleep until you do this.
But yes, say it's a letter. Hypothetically, let's go with
a letter. You write her a letter and you just say,
(26:57):
dear ex wife, your name. I think about the way
that things ended quite a bit, and as you know,
I'm happily married now, but because of the way that
we were bonded together, I feel a connection that has
(27:21):
not that I have not been able to put to rest.
And I feel like I could do that through forgiving you.
And I know that we had hard times. I know
that you didn't say toxic. You said it was not toxic,
but you said it wasn't healthy, So so I know
that it wasn't healthy at all times. And I know
(27:42):
that we both said some things that maybe we shouldn't have,
and maybe we left it in a way that we
shouldn't have. And I just want to tell you right now,
and you don't have to respond at all, but I
want to tell you that I'm just so sorry and
I forgive you for everything that you did. And I
know that there's pain that was associated with her, with
(28:03):
our marriage, with the miscarriages, and I just want to
tell you I don't hold any of that against you
at all, and I completely forgive you for anything that
might have happened. Right and then you could leave it
open ended, and you could. You could, you can say,
do you forgive me? But but that's almost it goes
without saying that she's that just that's part of it.
(28:26):
But here's the hard part. You can't expect anything to
come out of this beside your own healing. What I
mean is you can't expect her to reply. You can't
expect her to say I agree, I feel the same way.
I'm glad you reached out. I forgive you too. You
(28:46):
can't expect anything from her. In fact, you could get
something bad. You could get her to say, don't you
ever reach out to me again? So you don't build
old expectations on what she's going to say at all.
You build your expectation on your own ability to forgive
(29:10):
her and say you're sorry to her, to close that
door yourself, because that's what you can control. And I
believe your healing comes from that and not from the
way that she reacts to it. I think it's a
good thing you're doing, brother. Next question, subject line says
(29:31):
regrets in life. Hey Granger, my name is Joshua. I'm
a born again Christian. My question is how do I
get past the past. I feel as if a cycle
I live in has been almost ten years long now.
My wife calls me a hermit because I don't like
being around people. I suffer from depression and chronic migraines
(29:53):
that were set off by a TBI accident while I
served our nation in the army. A part of me
regrets serving because I did not used to be like this.
My wife says it has progressed and is causing problems
in our marriage. I want to change, but it seems
no matter how hard I try, I revert back to
my reclusive state of mind. I'm afraid to ask for
(30:16):
help from my pastor or from the VA because I
know the negative persona placed on veterans who have mental struggles.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you and God blessed Joshua.
All right, Joshua, scanning back on your email as I
read it for the first time. Here, So you're a
(30:40):
born again Christian, that's the interesting part you said in
the first line. And then I just want to tell you,
first of all, thank you for your service, and thank
you for trusting me with such sensitive information, being vulnerable
like this. I appreciate it, and I could feel the pain.
(31:01):
I could see the pain in your words. First off,
let's go to suffering from depression and chronic migraines that
were set off by a TBI incident while serving. Let's
start with that, because that's something that's going to get
(31:21):
into a world I cannot help you with at all.
That's going to require a doctor, which is going to
need to come through the VA. So eventually, the way
I see this, Joshua, and really this is the way
I see it, that we in life. Just like the
last question, I said, here's what you're responsible for, here's
(31:44):
what you can do, and here's what you shouldn't expect,
and here's what you're not responsible for. Right. That was
the last question dealing with the ex wife. But in
your in your scenario, it's the same thing. We have
to start separating what you're responsible for and what you're not.
And so you don't put expectations on what you're not.
You put your expectations on what you are responsible for.
(32:06):
So this is what I think you're responsible for. The
line that you said, I'm afraid to ask for help
from my pastor or the VA because I know the
negative persona placed on veterans who have mental struggles. I'm
going to say, Joshua, your job coming from me as
your friend listening to this. If we're driving in the
pickup truck and you bring this up to me, I say, Joshua,
right now, you got to get over that. You got
(32:28):
to you got to get past that. You don't have
to get past depression. You don't have to get past migraines.
You don't have to get past being a hermit. You
don't have to get past your wife feeling like the
marriage is struggling. You don't have to get past the
PTSD you have from serving. You don't have to get
past that's the ten year cycle that you're stuck in. Okay,
(32:50):
let's make a priority list all that stuff you can't
control right now. But what can start it is what
can kickstart all of this is the one thing you
can control, and that's you get in your pickup truck
and you drive down there to the VA and you say,
my name's Joshua. I'm struggling. I got a lot of
(33:13):
mental issues from serving and I need to talk to somebody, Okay.
And you said the very first line, you said, I'm
a born again Christian. Prove that to me. Prove it
to me. You know how, you know how you could
prove that to me by showing me, showing me, show
(33:36):
me that your faith is real. Right, you say I've
got faith. I say, show me live it out. Go
to your pastor. You said, I don't want to go
to my pastor. Why Because there's this negative persona placed
on veterans who have mental struggles. Brother, you're gonna have
to get past that. You got to get past that.
(33:57):
You got to go to your pastor, and you got
to you gotta say. Let me ask you this, why, Joshua,
do you feel comfortable emailing me the country singer guy
that's on a podcast, and yet you can't tell behind
closed doors your pastor or somebody at the VA. I
(34:20):
want to challenge you with that. I want to it's
a friendly challenge. I let's say, get your butt in
your truck and go to the church or the VA,
and hopefully both, and tell them your story and just
be vulnerable and just say it exactly. You don't have
to say anything more than what you told me. Just say.
My name is Josh Struggling. I've got some migraines. My
(34:44):
wife calls me a hermit. I'm suffering from depression. I
feel like my marriage is suffering because of this, and
I need some help. You don't have to be a
superman here. You don't have to be a superhero. You
don't have to be all buttoned up and everything's perfect.
In these kind of situations, you got to go now,
(35:07):
and you got to open up, and you got to
just let you get us. Let it loose. No one, Josh,
hear me. No one is gonna blame you for this, man,
no one. You served our country. You served us well,
thank you for that. Now let us serve you right,
Let us in our system, let us serve you back.
As a way to say thank you for what you
(35:27):
have done for us. You have allowed me and my
family to live a life that we get to choose
the career path and choose where we go to school,
and choose how we live, choose where we worship. You've
allowed us that, so allow us to serve you back now.
And we do that through the VA, and we do
that through our local pastors. Plug into your local church,
(35:50):
pour into the pastor, let him pour into you. I
can't speak as much for the VA because I know
that they have a bad rep sometimes and I know
that some times it might be a waiting list and
it might be long lines, and it might be no
phone calls back. But let me ask you this question,
is your marriage worth it? Is your life for these
(36:15):
past ten years, this cycle? Is it worth ending the cycle? Then?
I think you would get on that waiting list. I
think you'd make that phone call. I think you'd go
talk to the pastor. And this is not this is
not a meet with a pastor. And it's and it's
fixed because there's going to be a doctor involved that's
going to deal with these migraines. Right, these chronic migraines
(36:35):
are going to require medication, and the medication is going
to come from a doctor, and the doctor is going
to come from someone who knows you. It's not a
quick fix, but this is the starting line, the starting
line for you, my friend. My challenge is to break
this mentality. Break it apart. That says, I don't want
to open up because I'm I'm too strong. I don't
(36:57):
want to reveal that I'm soft. You gotta stop it, Josh.
Next question, subject client says, girlfriend, Hi, my name is Brandon.
I'm fourteen. I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm dating this girl.
She's amazing. I love her so much. But the problem
(37:17):
is I barely get to see her. She is constantly busy,
and I really don't want to lose I don't want
her to lose interest from not seeing me. Do you
have any idea what I could do? I'm sorry, I
said Brandon, didn't I it's Braiden. Braiden, you're fourteen. You
let me reread your sentence. Let me just point out
(37:40):
your sentence doesn't have a single punctuation and the whole
paragraph doesn't have a single punctuation point at all. I'm
dating this girl. She's amazing, and I love her so much.
But the problem is I barely get to see her.
She is constantly busy, and I really don't want her. Okay, Brandon,
(38:03):
back away from the girl, Back away from the girl, Buddy,
it's there's better things right now at fourteen. It's it's
so hard to be so wrapped up at fourteen thinking
the girls amazing and you love her so much. I'm
gonna tell you, Braiden, that's a problem. Okay. It's also
(38:28):
a problem that I keep saying, Brandon, Braiden, it's a problem. Okay,
hear me on this. Be fourteen, Be in a club,
or have a hobby, or play a sport, be with
your buddies, go out with your friends, and do stuff
like what can you do? You can't even drive. You
can't even drive yet that and you're loving a girl
(38:52):
so much. This is only going to lead to problems.
And how do I know? How do I know this
besides the fact that I was fourteen? I know this
because she's busy and she's a little girl. If she's
too busy for you, and she's a little girl, which
she is a young teenager and she's too busy for you,
(39:12):
that means she doesn't want to see you. She doesn't
want to be around you. You are smothering her. Stop
smothering her. Back away, go with your friends, your guy friends,
and get a hobby. That's my advice. If I had
a guest here like Bernie, he would say, Granger, hang on,
be nicer. But Braiden, I'm telling you. I only tell
(39:34):
you things because I want to tell you the truth.
It would be ridiculous for me to go Braiden. Oh,
thanks for emailing buddy, so sorry to hear about this
girl problem. Maybe get some roses, drop it off on
her front porch, Braiden. Maybe maybe write her a nice
love note and get some hr She's kisses and put
(39:55):
it next to the roses. Just remember be patient with her.
Text you all the time and just say thinking about
you and pour into her. It would be ridiculous. That
would be ridiculous. Uh, seriously, I just realized something. After
(40:17):
this whole time I've been talking to you, I realized something.
You misspelled your own name. Your name is Brandon, and
in the email it says Braiden. But in your email
it says b A N D O N. And then
your email says, hey, my name is braid Dawn, fix
your punctuation, fix your spelling, get your name right, dump
(40:38):
the girl, get a hobby, hang out with your buddies,
and let's go fishing sometime. That's my advice. Jump on
one more here. Seven client says guidance. Hey granderom, my
name is Andrew. I'm twenty eight from Illinois. Recently my
grandpa passed away. It's been quite a challenge for me
and my family. On top of that, there's also a
lot of changes going on where I work as a
(40:59):
car technician. I struggle with anxiety quite a bit, especially
with my job, and I know God is always in control,
but lately I feel like it's been getting worse and
worse for me. I guess my question is, how do
you truly have that comfort and peace when everything around
you seems like it's falling apart. PS. I met you
at a concert recently in Illinois and briefly discussed my anxiety,
(41:22):
and it was an absolute blessing to speak with you. Andrew,
Thank you, brother. You also included a picture of us here,
which is great. I appreciate you. It always helps when
you include a picture, and then I could put a
face to your words here. Yeah, this is an email
that there's one line that just stands out that just
(41:45):
and I wonder if people listen to this podcast and go, oh,
I know where Granger's going with this when I've heard
him one hundred and eighty nine different episodes. But there's
one line that sticks out to me right off the bat.
And you you start with a bunch of anxiety and
I'm losing losing a grandpa, and you end it with
(42:07):
a bunch of anxiety. And I want to point out
what you said in the middle. You said, I know
God is always in control. And I say back to you, Andrew,
do you No, you don't, you don't. I don't believe you.
(42:27):
I don't believe you at all. I don't believe you
one bit. I mean, it's like use that, use that
in any other scenario in life. It doesn't work that
I don't believe you. What if you said? What if
you said? Man? I just I am struggling with catching
(42:49):
the football and I don't like practices, and the Texas
heat is so rough on me in two days and
my coach yells at me all the time, and I
just I don't know. These shoulder pads are really scratching
me and making my shoulders break out with hives. But
(43:12):
I really love football. I would say, you don't love football, don't.
You don't love it at all? You don't. You don't,
and Andrew, You don't trust God. You don't say I'm struggling,
I'm grieving, I'm hurting. My job sucks. I don't know
what to do. That's the key right there. I don't
know where to go from here. I don't know how
(43:33):
to have comfort and peace. I don't know how to
have comfort and peace when everything around me is falling apart.
But I trust God. I say, no, you don't. So
you gain trust by surrendering to him and by absorbing
his words, ever living, breathing word the Bible. You absorb
(43:55):
that word and you read it, and you wake up
and you set your alarm earlier, and you say, yeah,
I'm gonna man, my life is really crazy right now God,
and so I decided to open up Philippians one right,
That's where I want you to start. Andrew. Then, my
challenge to you is to read the Book of Philippians,
the Letter of Philippians, and read through it and a
(44:17):
couple of days. It's very short, very very short, but
I want to give you a couple of days to
read it and read it again, and read it again
three times, three times. I want you to read through Philippians, okay,
starting with one. I'm not talking about finding special verses.
I'm not talking about following a map of things to
(44:38):
where the Bible talks about what you're dealing with. I'm
talking about absorbing it. Absorbing Paul's letter in one reading,
and I want you to read that three times over
the course of two days. And I want you to
keep telling God that like God, I say that I
trust you, but I'm not living like it. I say
(45:00):
that I trust you, but I'm nervous. I say that
I trust you, but I sure don't prove it at
all to anyone. Help me with this. Help me to
trust you, help me to surrender, help me to understand
that this whole job falling apart and me losing my
grandpa helped me to understand that this is part of
my life here. And so I give it to you
(45:21):
because I can't control these things. I can't control my job,
I can't control my grandpa. I can't control the people
that I love. I can't control anything falling apart. But
what I can control is how I trust you through
it all. How would you know that, Andrew? How would
you base trust on something like this? Right? How could
(45:43):
you base your trust on God? Let me give you
a hint. He knows the end, He planned the middle,
and he built the whole concept before it even started.
Would that help you trust anybody? I said, Oh yeah,
talk to him. He planned this whole thing out and
(46:04):
he knows how it ends. And guess what. Here's the kicker.
It ends good. You go, oh, well, yeah, I would
trust that. I would trust the person that planned it,
built it, ended it good. I would trust that even
when in the middle it doesn't seem like it's worth anything.
(46:27):
I've talked a lot about this and a lot of
different things in my life. Andrew, you probably heard me.
But I want to challenge you with that. Reading Philippians
three times in two days, and while you're doing it,
break out in prayer and go God, I don't trust you.
I want to help me with that, be honest. That's
(46:50):
all we got. Love you guys, all of y'all for emailing.
Thank you so much, and we'll see you next Monday.
Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate
all of you guys. You could help me out by
rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
to this channel. Hit that little like button and the
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
(47:11):
a video. If you have a question for me that
you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at
gmail dot com. Yi
Host
Granger Smith
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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. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
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!