February 4, 2025 • 47 mins
Finding stillness amidst chaos is a powerful form of mindfulness that can transform pain into purpose. Jonah Primo shares his personal journey of resilience and self-discovery, emphasizing that awareness, rather than relaxation, is the true essence of mindfulness that can help us navigate life's challenges.
• Jonah's insights on the fluid nature of identity
• The significance of living in the present moment
• Common misconceptions around the practice of mindfulness
• Observing thoughts as a method to detach from emotional responses
• Practical mindfulness practices: meditation and journaling
• Jonah's personal struggle with chronic pain and long COVID
• The connection between pain and self-discovery
• The role of resilience in self-care and personal growth
• Encouraging listeners to confront discomfort for growth
• The transformative power of sharing personal narratives
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured.
I'm excited about this one.
I think this will be a verygenuine episode.
Here we have Jonah Primo, whois the host of Work in Progress
on the Waking Up app and theOverexamined Life.
Jonah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Man, you're a force for good,you're doing good stuff here.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that Well, as Ialways do.
I love starting the show offwith.
Who is Jonah?
How would you explain yourselfand how do you spend your time
today?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, well, that's a great question and a big
question.
I mean I think yeah, well,that's a great question and a
big question.
I mean I think it's hard.
In fact I try and not thinkabout who Jonah is.
I'm actually quite subscribed tothis idea of not having an
identity.
It's kind of like a Buddhistidea that the self is always
(01:00):
flowing and always moving.
And you know, if you would askme this two or three years ago,
I would have said I'm a composer, I'm a musician or I'm a
podcaster, I'm a philosopher,whatever all the things that I
study.
But I actually find that if yougive yourself too many labels,
you start boxing yourself in andyou try and become the label
(01:23):
that you've set for yourself andthen you have expectations for
yourself best on those labelsand it can get a little darker.
You can even spend time tryingto prove that you are one of
these identities to people and Ithink that that is a way of
making your life a littlesmaller and perhaps being a
(01:43):
little less authentic.
But I mean like, for example, Istudied music at Sydney
Conservatorium but then therewas a time in my life where I
wasn't writing music.
So it would be disingenuous tosay, at that time I was a
musician as opposed to, you know, trying to prove it to people.
(02:05):
So I guess right now I am inthe mindfulness space and I work
on mindfulness podcasts andphilosophy podcasts and I
compose a bit of music and I'dsay that's who I am.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
No, I love that.
Two things right.
I love how you don't putyourself in a box, right, and
you don't have a label, and it'sa certain uniqueness with how
we should be living, right, andeverybody is different.
Everybody has a different wayof doing things.
When you live in that way of,you know, just flowing with life
(02:45):
, right, and not allowing tohave a label kind of dictate
what you do on a day to daybasis, and so I just love ask.
I like asking that questionbecause everybody answers it
differently, right, and the wayyou answered it, you know I love
(03:14):
it.
I love how you see yourself, asalways, evolving never really
being stagnant, hopefullyevolving in the right direction
yeah, in the right direction,but not always.
So what folks don't know aboutyou is that you know, obviously,
if they can hear your accent,they hopefully they can hear
that you're in Australia.
You're in the future from whereI'm at right now.
But the world of mindfulness?
(03:35):
Right, I want to talk aboutthat because I think I've always
had an interest in mindfulness,in the world of meditation.
I've always had an interest inmindfulness in the world of
meditation.
I can't even say it right nowvisualization Help me out,
brother Visualization,visualization, visualization and
just quiet in the mind.
(03:56):
Right, especially in today'sworld, there's so much going on,
news a lot of creativity,social media and real quick for
me quiet in my mind.
What I've started to realize isthat I have an internal voice
that is not necessarily beinginfluenced by others.
(04:18):
I'm able to really understandmy unique voice and what I
actually value and what I want,not by scrolling on my phone and
seeing, oh, I should get thisapartment.
Oh, I should talk this way.
Oh, I should do this for mycareer.
Oh, I should do this with mymoney.
Oh, I should do all thesethings that weren't my original
(04:39):
idea in my mind, or even thingsthat I valued in life.
And so I've definitely realizedthat in the last I don't want
to say like year or so reallystill pretty fresh for me I've
quieted my mind so that I stayunique in my own way of living.
(05:01):
But I would love to hear fromyou like mindfulness.
What do you think it is?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, that's really beautiful, and it takes a lot of
introspection to get to whereyou've got, and it sounds like
you're right on this journeyalready.
But I mean, for me, mindfulness.
The great power of mindfulnessis that you don't have to become
your thoughts or your emotions,and that's actually a bigger
deal than it sounds.
(05:28):
So like, say you're.
You know you're going for a job, you and your coworker gets it,
but you're better than them,you deserve it, you put in more
work and they get it.
It feels unfair, it feelsunjust.
Now, what you're going to endup doing is you're going to
think about that moment, you'regoing to replay it.
You might get really upset forweeks, etc.
(05:49):
Etc.
Etc.
But when you're replayingsomething again and again and
again, you miss out oneverything that's happening in
the present.
And what might be happening inthe present is you're having
dinner with your kids, you'rehaving time with your partner or
playing whatever it isbasketball with your mates and
(06:10):
if you're just replayingsomething that's already
happened, you miss life.
You actually miss life, and wespend almost our entire life
being lost in thought, eitherreplaying something that's
happened or thinking about thefuture and thinking about things
that we want to happen and thefact is, life's ticking away and
(06:31):
we're missing it, and that'sactually really sad, that's
really scary, because there's somuch beauty in the world and
there's so much fun to be had,there's so much joy to wrestle
into your life, and if you spendyour time not being present,
you will miss it.
You will miss it.
So mindfulness to me is aboutgetting back to reality, and
(06:54):
reality is what's right in frontof you.
Reality right now is me havingthis conversation with another
human being.
I can feel the fan on my body.
That's happening right now.
I don't want to spend this timewith you.
This is, you know, a sacredopportunity.
I don't want to spend thisthinking about, you know, how
(07:15):
many Instagram followers I have,or whether or not I'm going to
do a good job on this podcast,or whether or not I'm going to
have the lunch later, or what Ishould have said to the last
question, or whether I misspokeI'm going to have for lunch
later, or what I should havesaid to the last question, or
whether I misspoke.
I want to be in the moment,right now, all the time, and
that's what mindfulness givesyou yeah, and so it can be tough
(07:36):
to be in that space, right?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
oh yeah, it takes practice, yeah to to get back to
to Right and to actually see mycurrent state.
And so many times, especiallywhen I'm laying down at night
wrestling with certain thoughtsabout the day and tomorrow, you
know, I found myself beinganxious about things that aren't
(08:01):
real Right, about things thataren't real right, and I think
it's very common that we couldbe anxious about things that
have happened, things thataren't even an issue, and I
think it's so important to bepresent.
What do you think most peoplethink?
Mindfulness is right.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I mean, and just with yourpersonal example, you know, like
lying awake anxious in bed,like, imagine if you had the
power to, instead of feelinganxious, to recognize that
you're anxious and recognizethat those thoughts don't have
to become you and that theymight not be true, like being
(08:43):
able to see your thoughtsobjectively, externally, as not
who you are, is an incrediblepowerful thing to have in your
arsenal, to have in your toolkit, because it will allow you to
get that night's sleep that youneed, because you're not
thinking about how you're afailure or whatever it is.
You're going oh, I have athought about I'm being a
(09:04):
failure, but it is.
You're going.
Oh, I have a thought about I'mbeing a failure, but that
doesn't mean that that is true.
Um, so you just, yeah, you stepoutside of it.
But to answer your question,what do most people think
mindfulness is?
I mean it's a range.
I mean I think some peoplethink it's just, like you know,
hippie bullshit.
Some people think that it's,you know, requires this
(09:26):
incredible focus, this intenseability to concentrate, and you
know people go okay, well, Ihave ADHD or I have a short
attention span.
It's not for me.
Some people think it's aboutrelaxing.
It's not about relaxing.
Relaxing is something thathappens when you're good at it.
It's a positive externality ofthe practice, which means that
(09:49):
you don't do it to relax, you doit to understand the meaning of
life and reality and, as aresult, you relax.
So I think people have you knowthe results, the outcome, as
the goal, and I think that'sincorrect.
The goal is to actually be ableto be present and notice your
(10:10):
thoughts and notice how to notbecome your thoughts and then
all of those good things like agood night's sleep and
relaxation and stress reliefthat comes as a kind of bonus on
the side.
So, yeah, it's just figuringout what the actual intention is
of mindfulness that peopledon't quite understand.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, I love how you put.
You said being an observer ofyour thoughts externally, kind
of taking yourself out of theequation and separating yourself
from your thoughts.
How can you describe that topeople Like?
I mean, it sounds simple, right, but you also said it's a
(10:50):
practice too.
Have you practiced that?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
in theory, okay.
Well, let me give you ananalogy.
Say you have this annoyingneighbor and they're knocking on
your door.
They're constantly knocking onthe door.
Now you have two options.
You can either let them in andlet them, you know, screw with
your decorations and change thethermostat and put on their
music and connect to theBluetooth and just get all up in
(11:15):
your life.
Or you can ignore them.
And it's the same with emotions.
And if you ignore your annoyingneighbor, eventually they get
bored and walk away so saythere's some sort of emotion and
it's knocking at your door.
It keeps appearing in your mind.
Now you can go all right, mylife is worth nothing.
(11:36):
Maybe that's the thought.
If you let that thought in, youcan start building your whole
life around how your life isnothing.
You can just become reallymiserable, you can lose all your
self-esteem, you can make theseknee-jerk reactions and changes
to your life, but if you areable to ignore that thought, it
will eventually go away.
(11:56):
Everything that arises doespass.
So it's this idea of saying Idon't have to let every thought
in.
And the fact is, your brain isnot always on your side in terms
of your brain has evolutionarygoals and it's a mess and it's
(12:16):
ancient technology, it'sprehistoric technology and we're
trying to shove it in thismodern world where there's so
much going on, there's so muchchaos and, yeah, frankly, you
don't always want to think ithas the best intentions for you.
So the way to practice it is tostart off with just a little
bit of meditation.
(12:36):
And meditation isn't this, youknow, really difficult thing
that requires you to do itperfectly Like meditation is
something that you can do forfive minutes and if, at any
point in those five minutes, younotice that you weren't
meditating, that is meditating,so you don't have to cancel your
(12:58):
brain from all thoughts to feellike you're doing it right.
And this is what people don'tunderstand.
They go oh, I can't meditate.
I tried it for five minutes.
I just thought about, you know,all the football and this and
that, and I, you know, I nevergot any moments rest.
No, you're doing it.
If you realized you were lostin thought at any point, you're
doing it.
You're actually pulling offmeditation.
(13:19):
All you have to do is noticewhat's happening in your mind or
your body, and the more you doit, the faster you notice these
things, the great superpower youend up with after you've done
it for enough time is noticingthose thoughts so quickly?
I'll notice very quickly thatI'm having this sensation of
(13:47):
sadness and depression withoutspending an entire day being sad
and depressed.
So I can just go oh, this is afeeling that I'm having, that's
okay, that's normal, that's howthe brain works.
We have emotional ups and downsinstead of spending days, weeks
, months before I recognize I'mlow.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I love that.
Yeah, it's powerful.
Yeah, Because the more youpractice it, the more you get
used to that sensation, maybe inyour chest right and it's
connected to your body, physicalsensations.
Yeah, and you're like, wait, whyam I feeling this way?
And what's going on here?
Like, how am I thinking, right,and I know, um, it's a lot of
(14:28):
different things, right, thatyou can do for mindfulness,
right.
Um, journaling right.
When I get a chance to journalmy thoughts, I naturally feel
like an observer of my thoughts,right, that's a really good way
of putting it.
Like, when I, when I journal,I'm talking in.
It's almost like I am talkingto myself.
(14:49):
From another person I'm sayingyou, I'm, I'm not using I right
a lot of times and so, yeah, Idon't know.
Do you have experience withthat?
Do you journal at all?
What does that look?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
like yeah well, I mean, my podcast is kind of a
journal yeah it is just talkingabout literally the emotions
that I've felt and thephilosophy that I'm using to
navigate them.
So it's been a very powerfulsource of uh reflection for me.
(15:20):
But what you said was reallyreally clever and kind of subtle
too.
Just changing the I to the youis the big deal there, because
you're not embodying theseemotions.
You're going okay, these are alittle removed from me, yeah,
and that's it.
We're all happier when we justare not completely stuck in our
own sort of ego, right, and ourownism.
(15:44):
It's okay to just take a stepback, take a breath and just go.
This is just things thathappened Neurons, that fire, as
opposed to you know, problemswith how my life is structured
100%.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I love it, and you said something earlier.
You said your mind is not onyour team, and when you said
that, it made me think about aquote I heard it's your mind is
a beautiful servant, but adangerous master, right?
And so what I've learned,though, is that there are things
you can do to not put your mindon your team, right?
(16:23):
What do you think is thingsthat people do on their like
day-to-day that causes theirmind to work against them?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
That's such a fantastic question and, just to
clarify, I don't think that yourmind is always not on your team
, because your mind doeswonderful things, like help you
experience beauty and love andall of these things, I feel like
it always comes from a goodplace, a place of protection
right.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Well, I mean, I think, I thinkit's a great question.
I mean, if you, if you like,say you're at a dinner party and
(16:58):
you spill soy sauce all downyour shirt, now you have options
, right, like you can.
If you're mindful, you go okay,this happened, you change your
shirt and you move on.
If you're not, you keepreplaying the soy sauce on your
shirt and you think about howembarrassing it was, and then
(17:18):
you systematically go throughthe opinion of everybody else
and you create all these falserealities about how you looked,
how you people think of you, allthese different pinpoints, and
it can basically take up allyour energy and all your time,
and I think in that way, yourmind cannot be on your team,
(17:40):
because there's actually nobenefit a lot of the time to our
thoughts.
And I mean, what if yourthought is replaying an event
again and again and again, anembarrassing event that's
already happened?
You know, how is that servingyou?
How is that helping you reachyour goals?
How is shame, guilt,embarrassment, anxiety about
(18:01):
things you can't control?
How are those actually makingyou the person you want to be?
They're not.
They're just noise in your head, and I think you know my, my
all of my work.
It's about helping people getsome sort of freedom from that
noise, just because, because themind yeah, the mind's going to
(18:22):
keep on shoving it in your face.
It's kind of like you knowannoying advertisements or like
you know social media algorithms.
They go you take this, takethis, take this, and you don't
have to.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You don't have to, I guess, practical things right,
like things that most people do.
They get up First thing they dois look at their phone.
Right, I'm guilty, right, I'msure most I wouldn't say I would
say a lot of people can beguilty of that right, first
(18:57):
thing you do is check phone.
Right, last thing you do ischeck phone of the day.
It could be diet, it could be alot of certain things that um
can kind of get those wheelsturning in a negative way.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know well, I mean, I
think the social media one is isa little tricky, like obviously
, I think people are designeddifferently around social media,
like some people are reallyattracted to this sort of short
form stuff and some people getreally obsessed with their
(19:34):
social media presence and thenothers don't.
It's hard to know exactly whatthe effects of social media are
from.
From what I've read, it tendsto not be good.
At the same time, if you're acreator, you kind of have to be
on social media, which is thispainful irony, especially in the
mindfulness space.
But like, yeah, broadlyspeaking, I don't know if it's
(19:58):
about necessarily taking toomany practical life hacky type
steps.
I mean, I think meditation is agood one.
Or, like you said, journaling,like having some kind of
practice around what you'redoing.
I think that really helpscondition your mind, I mean, and
you're obviously an athlete oran ex-athlete, and so you know
(20:22):
how training works and you haveto do the work in order to have
the benefits on game day.
And that's why meditation issuch an excellent starting point
, because game day is every timeyou feel something you don't
want to feel, when you havethese negative emotions, but you
need to do that practice whenyou're feeling okay.
So yeah, even if it's fiveminutes, 10 minutes of just
(20:47):
thinking about what you'refeeling as a third party, just
sit anywhere and go.
What am I feeling right now?
And you can start physical.
So you know, I'm feeling thewind on the hair on my arm or
whatever you can start mental,you go.
Okay, I'm feeling the wind onthe hair on my arm, or whatever
you can start mental, you can go.
Okay, I'm feeling a lot ofdifferent thoughts.
They're just kind of all overthe place.
You can look at the back ofyour eyes and see the colors
(21:09):
that are sort of sparking there,and then, when you do that
enough, when you meditate forlong enough, everything just
becomes a meditation.
You're just sitting on the busand you're experiencing life in
real time.
You're just sitting on the busand you're experiencing life in
real time, and that's kind ofthe goal is to not actually sit
on a chair meditating forever,but to just be in this state of
(21:30):
open awareness.
Wherever you go, whatever youdo and whatever you're
experiencing, actuallyexperience it.
If there's a beautiful bird,see the bird and don't think
about tomorrow's work day.
You know, like engagingconversations just be what you
imagine being a human is like,instead of just going from
(21:52):
thought to thought.
So yeah, I think, like you said, there's hundreds of practices.
I think meditation is a goodone.
I think journaling is afantastic one.
Um, you know, you can do thesethings like all this, like
e-media hygiene and stuff getssome blockers, you know, but
that's that.
Stuff's all good too, I mean, II definitely found myself deep
(22:12):
in a youtube hole at some pointin my life and that would be my.
That's my personal vice.
Like the reels and stuff, don'tget me but YouTube.
Oh my God, that one sucks me up.
So, eventually I was like Ican't do this on my own, I just
need a blocker.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, I can definitely watch YouTube all day
if I'm not careful.
Yeah, so many different typesof videos, but you said
something very interestingbecause you've talked about, you
know, being an athlete intraining and, um, and a lot of
people don't think about.
A lot of people think abouttraining physically, um, running
(22:50):
, lifting weights, um, I don'tthink a lot of folks think about
the mental fitness, right, the,the reading, the, putting good
things in your mind, the, likeyou said, meditation and
journaling, and like ways tomake your mind stronger, ways to
get more mentally tough, yep,doing things that you're afraid
(23:11):
of, right, these are all thingsthat are kind of that stretch
you mentally, that make youstronger longer, and so I
actually want to go back to yourstory a little bit, because I
want to understand how you evengot in this space to begin with.
Right, I can tell and I knowfolks can also hear how
(23:32):
passionate you are aboutmindfulness in the mind, right,
it wasn't always like this,though, right?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
No, no, josh, man, like you, have to learn some of
this stuff the hard way and I I,you know, I've meditated for a
while but I didn't get this intoit.
Um, until I got to a very darkplace in my life.
And just to give you a sense ofthe story, you know, in my sort
(24:01):
of mid-20s I was doing a ton ofsports.
I was running, I was playingsoccer three, four times a week.
It was my whole life really,sport, and I know obviously you
relate to this in a very deepway.
It was the only thing I wantedto do when I finished work and
you know, I found myself got, Igot COVID, and it wasn't a big
(24:23):
deal.
I got a bit of headaches, a bitof dizziness, um, and they just
never went away.
That was the problem.
So, even though they weren'tthat bad, they never went away.
And then I went to, you know, acouple of doctors.
I was taking a bunch of youknowrofen and Panadol, and I
went to a few doctors and I wasjust like what's going on?
(24:45):
It's been four weeks, six weeksand I'm still sick with these
headaches.
And they were like well,there's this thing we've been
exploring called long COVID.
We don't really know what it is, maybe do some blood tests,
we'll try and figure that out.
So I went and did all theseblood tests.
They said, referred me to someneurologist, neurologist
(25:09):
diagnosed me with long covid andthen I was like, okay, what
does this mean?
Because I was, you know, I'dspent my whole life in a very
good physical space and this ismy first sort of experience of
the medical system and all of asudden people were telling me I
had this like you know conditionand I was having these terrible
(25:31):
headaches and I was having thisterrible dizziness and I
started getting all thesedifferent medications from the
neurologist to kind of fix it.
Nothing worked and my headacheskept on getting worse, to the
point where I had to startcutting things out of my life.
So, obviously, I quit sport, Iquit running, I started going
(25:54):
okay, what else can I do to tryand free myself of these
headaches?
They were all day, every day,like from the second I woke up
till I went to sleep and I cutout okay, I'll cut out alcohol,
I'll cut out caffeine, I'll onlyeat, you know, vegetables.
I tried all this differentstuff.
And then, you know, I haddoctors and they're like well,
(26:15):
just, you need rest, you needrest, you need rest, you need
rest.
Okay, well, maybe I'm workingtoo hard.
So I started cutting out workand then I started to stop
socializing and all of thesedifferent things and the
headaches got worse and worseand worse.
Like I was basically just thishomebody.
(26:40):
I was just this guy who woke up, took a bunch of meds and sat
in a chair watching TV all dayand like I'm condensing this.
But this took a year and a halffor me to get from here to here
Really just regression of thiscondition and my life getting
worse.
And the fact is, nothing wasactually coming up on the scans.
(27:04):
So I had the long COVID for abit.
I had some bloods that weren'tthat great that's why they gave
me long COVID but after sixmonths all of that stuff was
gone and yet my condition wasstill there and I started
getting really depressed becauseit felt like I was never going
to be free.
I was just never going to befree of this condition and all
(27:27):
the doctors, all the bestneurologists I could find,
didn't know what to do.
And I got to the point where Iwas engaged at the time and I
was like I'm just thisdepressing mess.
Life's not really worth living.
I'm a burden to everybody,can't socialize.
I'm going to call off theengagement, um, and just you
(27:48):
know, live alone, watch tv,whatever it is, smoke, weed, who
cares?
Just my life's a waste of time,and yeah it's.
And then eventually, um, I mylowest point was I woke up one
day feeling excited and I waslike I'm gonna walk around the
block just to show that, showmyself that I can, because I've
(28:08):
become so unfit, I've become sosick and I was in so much pain
that I couldn't move.
So I was like, okay, I'm gonnawalk around the block.
And I walked down the hill nearmy house and I got to the
bottom of the hill and I lookedup and it looked like mount
everest getting back up.
I was like I can't do this, Ican't get back up this hill.
So I tried and because thedizziness was so bad, the
migraine was so bad, I fell overafter a few steps and I crawled
(28:30):
on my hands and knees up thishill through in broad daylight,
in public, and then like intobed and I decided I was never
going to leave my bed again.
But the amazing thing is thehuman spirit doesn't.
Let you give up that hard.
It just doesn't.
And so, even though I gave upfor, like you know, weeks, maybe
(28:54):
months, one day I was like, nah, I'm going to keep researching.
I didn't find anything, give up, keep researching.
I didn't find anything, give up, keep researching.
Eventually I found someliterature on the mind-body
connection and that was sayingthat not all pain is helpful and
(29:14):
not all pain is indicative of aphysical problem.
There can be this mismatchbetween pain and reality.
And I started looking into allof this and I started trying to
understand what pain was for.
And pain is about protecting us.
Pain is this ancient mechanismof saying you know, don't stand
(29:36):
in a fire.
But when the signals getcrossed, when it's not doing its
job, it's just about saying,hey, stay in the safest possible
environment, close off yourlife so that you can be safe and
keep procreating, or whateverit is humans are supposed to do.
And what I startedunderstanding was I could,
(29:59):
actually I'd been training mymind to think that giving me
pain signals was protecting mereally well.
So I had been training my mindto form this habit of pain
equals safety.
And then, when I startedflipping it, when I started
trying to tell my mind.
No, these pain signals don'tlead to the behavior that you're
(30:25):
trying to get me to do.
Things started changing, so Iwas like, okay, I'm going to go
to a party and just have amigraine the entire time.
I'm going to walk and I'm goingto fall over, and that's fine,
I'm going to do everything Iwant to do in pain and just see
what happens.
Because there are some peoplesaying that you can train it the
other way, and I kept on doingthis.
(30:46):
I had to go two steps forward,one step back.
So I'd go okay, I'm going totry and go up the stairs.
I'd go up the stairs, I'd feelhuge amounts of pain, but I'd
get up the stairs.
And then at least I've provento myself I can get up the
stairs.
And I started proving to myselfI can actually do a lot of stuff
while in pain.
Like pain doesn't mean I don'thave to do everything I like
(31:09):
doing, and if you do that enoughtimes, the most magical thing
happens the brain realizes thatthe pain signals that it's
sending aren't actuallyimpacting your behavior, and so
it stops sending them.
And so, in the course of aboutsix, nine months, I went from
having pain all day, every dayto no pain at all.
(31:30):
But I had to suffer a lot andhad to do a lot of stuff in pain
in order to train my mind tostop sending those signals.
And that was where I was like,okay, the mind is a big thing,
it's, it's actually it's.
It's leading everything.
It's leading everything from.
You know, I knew, I alreadyknew it was a big part of
(31:53):
emotions and all this kind ofstuff.
But the fact that it couldimpact pain, physical stuff
happening in the physical body,that's next level.
And so I really want to get thismessage out that if you're in
chronic pain and I'm not talkingabout acute pain, I'm not
saying you can heal a muscletear or a fracture or cancer or
anything like that but if youhave this pain that you've had
(32:15):
for years and doctors don't knowwhat to do, maybe look into the
fact that it might not beindicative of an actual physical
problem.
So, like, you can start going.
You know you can start runningin pain.
You can start, and this is backpain, neck pain, doesn't have
to be headaches.
It's all like.
There's stories, thousands ofstories in this space, of people
getting over long-term chronicpain, particularly unexplainable
(32:38):
, unexplainable pain, by justexposing themselves to new
situations and pushingthemselves a little bit.
And this is the terrible thing.
We're always told to rest bydoctors.
We're always told to medicate.
Actually, that, not, that's notalways right.
That's not always right.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Sometimes you have to fight, yeah so you had to
because I was going to ask youthat, that that was going
through my mind.
The whole story was what wascausing it, like what was the
root cause of it, and it soundslike the pain was sending pain
signals to keep you safe, tokeep you from pursuing a life
(33:17):
that was better, or even justthoughts that were better.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, no, you're right, because I mean, if you
think about it, if you're like,oh, I have a back pain, so I'm
not going to go to this party,you know that you might spend
that time feeling sorry foryourself, being like, oh, if
only I didn't have back painthen I would have gone to that
party.
But, to be honest, you've stillchosen the easy route.
Parties are a little they're alittle scary.
(33:43):
You know you have to see people, you have to socialize and a
lot of sort of anxiety and youknow fear of failure and stuff.
It actually gets built intophysical pain To the body, like
exactly exactly.
And so you think you go oh, ifit wasn't for my pain, I'd be
there having fun.
That's not always true.
Sometimes you need to take ahard look at yourself and be
(34:05):
like am I closing my own lifeand using pain as an excuse?
Ooh, yeah, I mean, I don't knowwhat was your experience with
your injury?
Like, was there ever a pointwhere you were healed and yet
you were still a little nervousof of of going back to going
back to?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
what?
Well, here's the thing, right,the reason why we came up with
playing injured and it's veryunique to your situation was we
wanted to understand the mind ofan athlete, right, and it's
kind of crazy that you theexample that you're giving the
mind of an athlete when they dohurt themselves.
(34:44):
What makes them want to pushthrough it?
Right, and it is a lot of caseswhere it's you know, hey, it's
a big game and I am hurt to somedegree, right and um, I have to
be out there because my teamneeds me.
(35:04):
Right, and I could take theeasy route and just sit out, but
knowing that I have to playthrough it, it is a feeling of
confidence that you gain, right,that's amazing.
And then, over time, over time,right, yes, you do play with
pain and it does hurt and you dosuffer.
(35:26):
Right, play through it.
And then, all of a sudden, whatyou realize is that your mind
is the mindfulness of it.
Right, you are so present thatyou don't even necessarily feel
the pain, right?
So my last year playingbasketball, I broke my thumb.
(35:50):
I was out for 11 games and Irushed back.
I had to get back and I wasplaying through it and I wasn't
fully healthy and sometimes Icouldn't catch the ball, but
eventually I got to a pointwhere I was so present that the
obstacles of playing didn'tmatter.
Matter of fact, it got to apoint where I didn't even feel
it anymore, because I was justso-.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
This is exactly what I'mtalking about, right.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
So you expressing yourself of like, hey, the pain
actually was keeping me safe andme using it as an excuse to
keep me from playing through itand being able to kind of grow
through the obstacles, right?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
um, yeah, very unique stuff, man well, I mean, it's
interesting what you say, right,like you could have been like
oh, I have this broken thumb,that means that I can't play.
And if you had said that, youknow what else is tied up in
that decision, is it that youdon't want to fail on the court?
Are you worried about, you know, the girl you like seeing you
(36:59):
fuck up, like it's just like.
You know you have to figure outwhere's this coming from.
And you chose the hard route,which is going out there anyway
and, as you said, all of asudden you're not thinking about
, you're not spending the wholegame thinking about your thumb.
You're actually spending thegame, engaged in the, the joy of
the game.
You know you're free, flowingthrough it.
(37:20):
It's because you chose the hardroute.
And I think, like this is theother thing that people don't
really realize in themindfulness and mental health
spaces.
They think it's very sort ofsoft and all about self-care and
all of this stuff.
You know it is some of thatstuff, but some of self-care and
all of this stuff, you know itis some of that stuff, but some
of self-care is doing toughthings, doing hard things and
(37:40):
having someone say get up offyour ass and be brave.
That's self-care too.
It's not always about just youknow sweet little flowery chat
Like.
A lot of self-care is actuallybeing strong, being tough, being
resilient.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I agree with you and I think a lot of of self-care is
actually being strong, beingtough, being resilient.
I agree with you and I think alot of times self-care like
traditional, you know, justlounge around and it makes me
feel worse, for me personally,right, and I can say, you know,
during those holidays, you knowduring the Christmas time and I
don't know how things are inaustralia, but I know for sure
here in in the states um, thosetwo weeks of christmas, new
(38:21):
years, right, nobody is doinganything and you can just easily
watch christmas movies all dayand not work out and eat
whatever and relax.
Right, you tell yourself thatyou're relaxing, but it does not
.
I'd never feel great like afterthose times, and I do, you know
(38:42):
.
I'm not saying never rest,never take time and relax and
watch movies and do all that.
But when you start to do it fora week straight or three days
straight, um, you become um,it's not self-care anymore.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
You know I'm so with you, man.
It's actually so interesting tohear you talk about this
because I completely subscribeto this space, um, and and the
ideas that you're talking about.
Like you know, we often gettold we need to rest and people
think they're doing us a serviceby saying you're burnt out, you
(39:19):
need to rest, and sometimes youdo.
Sometimes you get there and youdo need rest and you need to
switch off, like that's goodstuff.
But you have to know when tostop, and sometimes stopping is
a little sooner than people wantto tell you.
And it's okay if you get a lotof energy and joy from working
hard.
It's okay to work hard.
Like every people are different.
You're a hard worker, so whenyou rest for too long, you
(39:42):
actually feel, you know, jittery, you feel frustrated.
Not everyone's like that, soit's fine wherever you are on
the spectrum, but I don't thinkthat everybody should try and
put their own feelings on otherpeople.
So it's like if you're, ifyou're not a hard worker and
there's nothing wrong with beingnot a hard worker, because some
people are just good atenjoying life for what it is and
(40:05):
if you're one of those people,then you have to understand that
there's some people who justdon't rest while they're resting
.
I don't rest while I'm restingeither, like I am happier when
I'm working.
It's just the fact.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, 100%, brother.
We have to go back to painright, because I know there's
some emotional, um, pain can befelt in so many different ways
(40:43):
and I think it.
It like me, I'm thinking aboutit.
It's like taking a moment toreally think about what the pain
is holding you back from andsee, at least try it right.
At least try, hey, what pain isholding you back from and
(41:07):
persevere through it and see ifit helps.
See if it helps the pain.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Like you're so right, like what have you got to lose
If you're already in pain?
What have you got to lose?
And this was already in pain,what have you got to lose?
And this was what my I have tocredit my neurologist, who's
like the third neurologist.
I tried and I remember I toldher that story about me going up
the hill Real sob story.
I was feeling really sorry formyself.
And she was like tomorrowyou're going to try again.
And I was like how dare youmake me go through that again?
(41:33):
I had to crawl in public andshe's like, yeah, and it didn't
kill you, so do it again and itwon't kill you again.
Like just go and fail, go andsuffer.
If you make progress, you'llhave learned so much about
yourself.
If you don't make progress,you're only in the exact same
spot you were yesterday.
It makes no difference.
So you only have upside rightspot.
(41:56):
You were yesterday.
It makes no difference, so youonly have upside right.
Like you can't lose fromexposing yourself to something
hard.
You just can't lose failure.
What's the what's the problemif you're already sitting around
in pain, closing off your life?
You know what's so bad about itnot going well yeah, 100 and I.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
And one more thing is but the amount of confidence
that you gain from having thatpain and not letting it be an
excuse for you, yeah, and whatyou get on the other side of it,
it's, it's, it's tenfold, it'slike time grow yeah it's times
(42:35):
10 of what it would be if youdidn't have that pain or that
excuse right, spot, spot on,spot on.
So that's huge and I love yourand and man.
I just love that story that youshare of the pain was holding
you back from from doing thingsin life and, um, with the pain,
you were able to now be in thisspace of mindfulness, right,
(43:00):
without that chronic pain, youwouldn't have learned about the
space of being mindful andhelping others do it right, and
your journey has been amazing.
And I think that journey, uh,has been amazing and I think
(43:20):
that, um, it's just so manydifferent ways that you can, um,
use mindfulness to help yourlife, right?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I mean, yeah, it's, it's one of those.
It's one of those things where,like you know, anybody who's
gone through a lot of pain oftenlooks back on it and be like
that was the best thing thatever happened to me in terms of
in terms of how much they grow,like that's, like it's the same
with you, right, you wouldn't behere if you hadn't gone through
, you know, various injuries andsuffering and like now, all of
a sudden, you're helpingthousands of people.
(43:45):
Like it's transformative stuff.
It really is, and it's a goodlesson that when you're in pain
right now, don't be scared.
It'll probably end up makingyou a stronger person.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, 100%, and that's why we have this.
We have this platform so thatpeople can see pain as an
opportunity.
Right, beautiful, and it's hardto see it in the moment.
It's very hard to see it in themoment, right, you don't realize
it until you look back, onceyou've gone through it, um, but
(44:17):
I don't think, I don't thinkanybody has ever regretted not
um, persevering through pain,through a tough time, um, you
always gain more right asopposed to letting it defeat you
.
So, uh, no, I love it.
Jonah, where, where can peoplefind you?
Where can people listen to thepodcast that you host both?
(44:40):
Yeah, I would love to open itup for that.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Well, I think the best place to find me would be
on the Overexamined Life.
So that's my podcast.
You'll find it on any podcastapp.
Overexamined is one word, the O, one word, the over examined
life.
And we do two episodes a week.
They're only 10 minutes longand they just look at a
different emotion or problem oranything.
It's bite size and you just, uh, could get a few of the world's
(45:07):
best teachers telling us about,uh, how to sort, how to sort
out certain emotions andnavigate certain everyday life
struggles, things that we all gothrough.
Um, and we, you know, we drawfrom neuroscience, psychology,
buddhism, whatever it might be Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
10 minute.
10 minute shows um.
I know people can appreciatethat that's right with it.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
With this short, short attention, short attention
span, it's good for all of us.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
No, I love it.
I love it.
Well, jonah man, I appreciateyou making this happen.
This was a really powerful showand I think in today's world we
can definitely use moremindfulness, and you made it
very simple for folks to reallyunderstand what it is and kind
of take the pressure off of itas well, and so, um, I
(45:59):
appreciate that's right, yeah,it's.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, it's just if you want to do it, just have a
have a go.
By trying, you are succeeding,and I mean I think that's.
You don't have to.
You don't have to perfect it onday one.
There is no perfection anyway.
So just just have a go and yourlife will be better for it.
And, josh, thank you so muchfor having me on your show and
for, as I said, doing whatyou're doing, because you know,
(46:23):
like you said, you have grown somuch from you know
understanding life struggles andfrom you know building this
resilience, and people just needto hear that.
People need to hear that.
People need to hear that theyneed to hear from people like
you who are pushing throughtough times and coming out with
a good attitude, because we onlyhave one life and we want to
(46:45):
spend it happy and joyous andthere's no point wallowing.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
And if you have one life, it would be great to be
present right, it would be greatto be present in right.
It would be great to be presentin it, as opposed to living in
the past or in the future.
Then you have a chance to livelife right.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
That's right, that's right.
Life's happening right now.
Right now, yeah Well.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I love it.
Well, brother, thanks again,and everybody follow Plan
Injured.
Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured.
I'm excited about this one.
I think this will be a verygenuine episode.
Here we have Jonah Primo, whois the host of Work in Progress
on the Waking Up app and theOverexamined Life.
Jonah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Man, you're a force for good,you're doing good stuff here.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that Well, as Ialways do.
I love starting the show offwith.
Who is Jonah?
How would you explain yourselfand how do you spend your time
today?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, well, that's a great question and a big
question.
I mean I think yeah, well,that's a great question and a
big question.
I mean I think it's hard.
In fact I try and not thinkabout who Jonah is.
I'm actually quite subscribed tothis idea of not having an
identity.
It's kind of like a Buddhistidea that the self is always
(01:00):
flowing and always moving.
And you know, if you would askme this two or three years ago,
I would have said I'm a composer, I'm a musician or I'm a
podcaster, I'm a philosopher,whatever all the things that I
study.
But I actually find that if yougive yourself too many labels,
you start boxing yourself in andyou try and become the label
(01:23):
that you've set for yourself andthen you have expectations for
yourself best on those labelsand it can get a little darker.
You can even spend time tryingto prove that you are one of
these identities to people and Ithink that that is a way of
making your life a littlesmaller and perhaps being a
(01:43):
little less authentic.
But I mean like, for example, Istudied music at Sydney
Conservatorium but then therewas a time in my life where I
wasn't writing music.
So it would be disingenuous tosay, at that time I was a
musician as opposed to, you know, trying to prove it to people.
(02:05):
So I guess right now I am inthe mindfulness space and I work
on mindfulness podcasts andphilosophy podcasts and I
compose a bit of music and I'dsay that's who I am.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
No, I love that.
Two things right.
I love how you don't putyourself in a box, right, and
you don't have a label, and it'sa certain uniqueness with how
we should be living, right, andeverybody is different.
Everybody has a different wayof doing things.
When you live in that way of,you know, just flowing with life
(02:45):
, right, and not allowing tohave a label kind of dictate
what you do on a day to daybasis, and so I just love ask.
I like asking that questionbecause everybody answers it
differently, right, and the wayyou answered it, you know I love
(03:14):
it.
I love how you see yourself, asalways, evolving never really
being stagnant, hopefullyevolving in the right direction
yeah, in the right direction,but not always.
So what folks don't know aboutyou is that you know, obviously,
if they can hear your accent,they hopefully they can hear
that you're in Australia.
You're in the future from whereI'm at right now.
But the world of mindfulness?
(03:35):
Right, I want to talk aboutthat because I think I've always
had an interest in mindfulness,in the world of meditation.
I've always had an interest inmindfulness in the world of
meditation.
I can't even say it right nowvisualization Help me out,
brother Visualization,visualization, visualization and
just quiet in the mind.
(03:56):
Right, especially in today'sworld, there's so much going on,
news a lot of creativity,social media and real quick for
me quiet in my mind.
What I've started to realize isthat I have an internal voice
that is not necessarily beinginfluenced by others.
(04:18):
I'm able to really understandmy unique voice and what I
actually value and what I want,not by scrolling on my phone and
seeing, oh, I should get thisapartment.
Oh, I should talk this way.
Oh, I should do this for mycareer.
Oh, I should do this with mymoney.
Oh, I should do all thesethings that weren't my original
(04:39):
idea in my mind, or even thingsthat I valued in life.
And so I've definitely realizedthat in the last I don't want
to say like year or so reallystill pretty fresh for me I've
quieted my mind so that I stayunique in my own way of living.
(05:01):
But I would love to hear fromyou like mindfulness.
What do you think it is?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, that's really beautiful, and it takes a lot of
introspection to get to whereyou've got, and it sounds like
you're right on this journeyalready.
But I mean, for me, mindfulness.
The great power of mindfulnessis that you don't have to become
your thoughts or your emotions,and that's actually a bigger
deal than it sounds.
(05:28):
So like, say you're.
You know you're going for a job, you and your coworker gets it,
but you're better than them,you deserve it, you put in more
work and they get it.
It feels unfair, it feelsunjust.
Now, what you're going to endup doing is you're going to
think about that moment, you'regoing to replay it.
You might get really upset forweeks, etc.
(05:49):
Etc.
Etc.
But when you're replayingsomething again and again and
again, you miss out oneverything that's happening in
the present.
And what might be happening inthe present is you're having
dinner with your kids, you'rehaving time with your partner or
playing whatever it isbasketball with your mates and
(06:10):
if you're just replayingsomething that's already
happened, you miss life.
You actually miss life, and wespend almost our entire life
being lost in thought, eitherreplaying something that's
happened or thinking about thefuture and thinking about things
that we want to happen and thefact is, life's ticking away and
(06:31):
we're missing it, and that'sactually really sad, that's
really scary, because there's somuch beauty in the world and
there's so much fun to be had,there's so much joy to wrestle
into your life, and if you spendyour time not being present,
you will miss it.
You will miss it.
So mindfulness to me is aboutgetting back to reality, and
(06:54):
reality is what's right in frontof you.
Reality right now is me havingthis conversation with another
human being.
I can feel the fan on my body.
That's happening right now.
I don't want to spend this timewith you.
This is, you know, a sacredopportunity.
I don't want to spend thisthinking about, you know, how
(07:15):
many Instagram followers I have,or whether or not I'm going to
do a good job on this podcast,or whether or not I'm going to
have the lunch later, or what Ishould have said to the last
question, or whether I misspokeI'm going to have for lunch
later, or what I should havesaid to the last question, or
whether I misspoke.
I want to be in the moment,right now, all the time, and
that's what mindfulness givesyou yeah, and so it can be tough
(07:36):
to be in that space, right?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
oh yeah, it takes practice, yeah to to get back to
to Right and to actually see mycurrent state.
And so many times, especiallywhen I'm laying down at night
wrestling with certain thoughtsabout the day and tomorrow, you
know, I found myself beinganxious about things that aren't
(08:01):
real Right, about things thataren't real right, and I think
it's very common that we couldbe anxious about things that
have happened, things thataren't even an issue, and I
think it's so important to bepresent.
What do you think most peoplethink?
Mindfulness is right.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I mean, and just with yourpersonal example, you know, like
lying awake anxious in bed,like, imagine if you had the
power to, instead of feelinganxious, to recognize that
you're anxious and recognizethat those thoughts don't have
to become you and that theymight not be true, like being
(08:43):
able to see your thoughtsobjectively, externally, as not
who you are, is an incrediblepowerful thing to have in your
arsenal, to have in your toolkit, because it will allow you to
get that night's sleep that youneed, because you're not
thinking about how you're afailure or whatever it is.
You're going oh, I have athought about I'm being a
(09:04):
failure, but it is.
You're going.
Oh, I have a thought about I'mbeing a failure, but that
doesn't mean that that is true.
Um, so you just, yeah, you stepoutside of it.
But to answer your question,what do most people think
mindfulness is?
I mean it's a range.
I mean I think some peoplethink it's just, like you know,
hippie bullshit.
Some people think that it's,you know, requires this
(09:26):
incredible focus, this intenseability to concentrate, and you
know people go okay, well, Ihave ADHD or I have a short
attention span.
It's not for me.
Some people think it's aboutrelaxing.
It's not about relaxing.
Relaxing is something thathappens when you're good at it.
It's a positive externality ofthe practice, which means that
(09:49):
you don't do it to relax, you doit to understand the meaning of
life and reality and, as aresult, you relax.
So I think people have you knowthe results, the outcome, as
the goal, and I think that'sincorrect.
The goal is to actually be ableto be present and notice your
(10:10):
thoughts and notice how to notbecome your thoughts and then
all of those good things like agood night's sleep and
relaxation and stress reliefthat comes as a kind of bonus on
the side.
So, yeah, it's just figuringout what the actual intention is
of mindfulness that peopledon't quite understand.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, I love how you put.
You said being an observer ofyour thoughts externally, kind
of taking yourself out of theequation and separating yourself
from your thoughts.
How can you describe that topeople Like?
I mean, it sounds simple, right, but you also said it's a
(10:50):
practice too.
Have you practiced that?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
in theory, okay.
Well, let me give you ananalogy.
Say you have this annoyingneighbor and they're knocking on
your door.
They're constantly knocking onthe door.
Now you have two options.
You can either let them in andlet them, you know, screw with
your decorations and change thethermostat and put on their
music and connect to theBluetooth and just get all up in
(11:15):
your life.
Or you can ignore them.
And it's the same with emotions.
And if you ignore your annoyingneighbor, eventually they get
bored and walk away so saythere's some sort of emotion and
it's knocking at your door.
It keeps appearing in your mind.
Now you can go all right, mylife is worth nothing.
(11:36):
Maybe that's the thought.
If you let that thought in, youcan start building your whole
life around how your life isnothing.
You can just become reallymiserable, you can lose all your
self-esteem, you can make theseknee-jerk reactions and changes
to your life, but if you areable to ignore that thought, it
will eventually go away.
(11:56):
Everything that arises doespass.
So it's this idea of saying Idon't have to let every thought
in.
And the fact is, your brain isnot always on your side in terms
of your brain has evolutionarygoals and it's a mess and it's
(12:16):
ancient technology, it'sprehistoric technology and we're
trying to shove it in thismodern world where there's so
much going on, there's so muchchaos and, yeah, frankly, you
don't always want to think ithas the best intentions for you.
So the way to practice it is tostart off with just a little
bit of meditation.
(12:36):
And meditation isn't this, youknow, really difficult thing
that requires you to do itperfectly Like meditation is
something that you can do forfive minutes and if, at any
point in those five minutes, younotice that you weren't
meditating, that is meditating,so you don't have to cancel your
(12:58):
brain from all thoughts to feellike you're doing it right.
And this is what people don'tunderstand.
They go oh, I can't meditate.
I tried it for five minutes.
I just thought about, you know,all the football and this and
that, and I, you know, I nevergot any moments rest.
No, you're doing it.
If you realized you were lostin thought at any point, you're
doing it.
You're actually pulling offmeditation.
(13:19):
All you have to do is noticewhat's happening in your mind or
your body, and the more you doit, the faster you notice these
things, the great superpower youend up with after you've done
it for enough time is noticingthose thoughts so quickly?
I'll notice very quickly thatI'm having this sensation of
(13:47):
sadness and depression withoutspending an entire day being sad
and depressed.
So I can just go oh, this is afeeling that I'm having, that's
okay, that's normal, that's howthe brain works.
We have emotional ups and downsinstead of spending days, weeks
, months before I recognize I'mlow.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I love that.
Yeah, it's powerful.
Yeah, Because the more youpractice it, the more you get
used to that sensation, maybe inyour chest right and it's
connected to your body, physicalsensations.
Yeah, and you're like, wait, whyam I feeling this way?
And what's going on here?
Like, how am I thinking, right,and I know, um, it's a lot of
(14:28):
different things, right, thatyou can do for mindfulness,
right.
Um, journaling right.
When I get a chance to journalmy thoughts, I naturally feel
like an observer of my thoughts,right, that's a really good way
of putting it.
Like, when I, when I journal,I'm talking in.
It's almost like I am talkingto myself.
(14:49):
From another person I'm sayingyou, I'm, I'm not using I right
a lot of times and so, yeah, Idon't know.
Do you have experience withthat?
Do you journal at all?
What does that look?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
like yeah well, I mean, my podcast is kind of a
journal yeah it is just talkingabout literally the emotions
that I've felt and thephilosophy that I'm using to
navigate them.
So it's been a very powerfulsource of uh reflection for me.
(15:20):
But what you said was reallyreally clever and kind of subtle
too.
Just changing the I to the youis the big deal there, because
you're not embodying theseemotions.
You're going okay, these are alittle removed from me, yeah,
and that's it.
We're all happier when we justare not completely stuck in our
own sort of ego, right, and ourownism.
(15:44):
It's okay to just take a stepback, take a breath and just go.
This is just things thathappened Neurons, that fire, as
opposed to you know, problemswith how my life is structured
100%.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I love it, and you said something earlier.
You said your mind is not onyour team, and when you said
that, it made me think about aquote I heard it's your mind is
a beautiful servant, but adangerous master, right?
And so what I've learned,though, is that there are things
you can do to not put your mindon your team, right?
(16:23):
What do you think is thingsthat people do on their like
day-to-day that causes theirmind to work against them?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
That's such a fantastic question and, just to
clarify, I don't think that yourmind is always not on your team
, because your mind doeswonderful things, like help you
experience beauty and love andall of these things, I feel like
it always comes from a goodplace, a place of protection
right.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Well, I mean, I think, I thinkit's a great question.
I mean, if you, if you like,say you're at a dinner party and
(16:58):
you spill soy sauce all downyour shirt, now you have options
, right, like you can.
If you're mindful, you go okay,this happened, you change your
shirt and you move on.
If you're not, you keepreplaying the soy sauce on your
shirt and you think about howembarrassing it was, and then
(17:18):
you systematically go throughthe opinion of everybody else
and you create all these falserealities about how you looked,
how you people think of you, allthese different pinpoints, and
it can basically take up allyour energy and all your time,
and I think in that way, yourmind cannot be on your team,
(17:40):
because there's actually nobenefit a lot of the time to our
thoughts.
And I mean, what if yourthought is replaying an event
again and again and again, anembarrassing event that's
already happened?
You know, how is that servingyou?
How is that helping you reachyour goals?
How is shame, guilt,embarrassment, anxiety about
(18:01):
things you can't control?
How are those actually makingyou the person you want to be?
They're not.
They're just noise in your head, and I think you know my, my
all of my work.
It's about helping people getsome sort of freedom from that
noise, just because, because themind yeah, the mind's going to
(18:22):
keep on shoving it in your face.
It's kind of like you knowannoying advertisements or like
you know social media algorithms.
They go you take this, takethis, take this, and you don't
have to.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You don't have to, I guess, practical things right,
like things that most people do.
They get up First thing they dois look at their phone.
Right, I'm guilty, right, I'msure most I wouldn't say I would
say a lot of people can beguilty of that right, first
(18:57):
thing you do is check phone.
Right, last thing you do ischeck phone of the day.
It could be diet, it could be alot of certain things that um
can kind of get those wheelsturning in a negative way.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know well, I mean, I
think the social media one is isa little tricky, like obviously
, I think people are designeddifferently around social media,
like some people are reallyattracted to this sort of short
form stuff and some people getreally obsessed with their
(19:34):
social media presence and thenothers don't.
It's hard to know exactly whatthe effects of social media are
from.
From what I've read, it tendsto not be good.
At the same time, if you're acreator, you kind of have to be
on social media, which is thispainful irony, especially in the
mindfulness space.
But like, yeah, broadlyspeaking, I don't know if it's
(19:58):
about necessarily taking toomany practical life hacky type
steps.
I mean, I think meditation is agood one.
Or, like you said, journaling,like having some kind of
practice around what you'redoing.
I think that really helpscondition your mind, I mean, and
you're obviously an athlete oran ex-athlete, and so you know
(20:22):
how training works and you haveto do the work in order to have
the benefits on game day.
And that's why meditation issuch an excellent starting point
, because game day is every timeyou feel something you don't
want to feel, when you havethese negative emotions, but you
need to do that practice whenyou're feeling okay.
So yeah, even if it's fiveminutes, 10 minutes of just
(20:47):
thinking about what you'refeeling as a third party, just
sit anywhere and go.
What am I feeling right now?
And you can start physical.
So you know, I'm feeling thewind on the hair on my arm or
whatever you can start mental,you go.
Okay, I'm feeling the wind onthe hair on my arm, or whatever
you can start mental, you can go.
Okay, I'm feeling a lot ofdifferent thoughts.
They're just kind of all overthe place.
You can look at the back ofyour eyes and see the colors
(21:09):
that are sort of sparking there,and then, when you do that
enough, when you meditate forlong enough, everything just
becomes a meditation.
You're just sitting on the busand you're experiencing life in
real time.
You're just sitting on the busand you're experiencing life in
real time, and that's kind ofthe goal is to not actually sit
on a chair meditating forever,but to just be in this state of
(21:30):
open awareness.
Wherever you go, whatever youdo and whatever you're
experiencing, actuallyexperience it.
If there's a beautiful bird,see the bird and don't think
about tomorrow's work day.
You know, like engagingconversations just be what you
imagine being a human is like,instead of just going from
(21:52):
thought to thought.
So yeah, I think, like you said, there's hundreds of practices.
I think meditation is a goodone.
I think journaling is afantastic one.
Um, you know, you can do thesethings like all this, like
e-media hygiene and stuff getssome blockers, you know, but
that's that.
Stuff's all good too, I mean, II definitely found myself deep
(22:12):
in a youtube hole at some pointin my life and that would be my.
That's my personal vice.
Like the reels and stuff, don'tget me but YouTube.
Oh my God, that one sucks me up.
So, eventually I was like Ican't do this on my own, I just
need a blocker.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, I can definitely watch YouTube all day
if I'm not careful.
Yeah, so many different typesof videos, but you said
something very interestingbecause you've talked about, you
know, being an athlete intraining and, um, and a lot of
people don't think about.
A lot of people think abouttraining physically, um, running
(22:50):
, lifting weights, um, I don'tthink a lot of folks think about
the mental fitness, right, the,the reading, the, putting good
things in your mind, the, likeyou said, meditation and
journaling, and like ways tomake your mind stronger, ways to
get more mentally tough, yep,doing things that you're afraid
(23:11):
of, right, these are all thingsthat are kind of that stretch
you mentally, that make youstronger longer, and so I
actually want to go back to yourstory a little bit, because I
want to understand how you evengot in this space to begin with.
Right, I can tell and I knowfolks can also hear how
(23:32):
passionate you are aboutmindfulness in the mind, right,
it wasn't always like this,though, right?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
No, no, josh, man, like you, have to learn some of
this stuff the hard way and I I,you know, I've meditated for a
while but I didn't get this intoit.
Um, until I got to a very darkplace in my life.
And just to give you a sense ofthe story, you know, in my sort
(24:01):
of mid-20s I was doing a ton ofsports.
I was running, I was playingsoccer three, four times a week.
It was my whole life really,sport, and I know obviously you
relate to this in a very deepway.
It was the only thing I wantedto do when I finished work and
you know, I found myself got, Igot COVID, and it wasn't a big
(24:23):
deal.
I got a bit of headaches, a bitof dizziness, um, and they just
never went away.
That was the problem.
So, even though they weren'tthat bad, they never went away.
And then I went to, you know, acouple of doctors.
I was taking a bunch of youknowrofen and Panadol, and I
went to a few doctors and I wasjust like what's going on?
(24:45):
It's been four weeks, six weeksand I'm still sick with these
headaches.
And they were like well,there's this thing we've been
exploring called long COVID.
We don't really know what it is, maybe do some blood tests,
we'll try and figure that out.
So I went and did all theseblood tests.
They said, referred me to someneurologist, neurologist
(25:09):
diagnosed me with long covid andthen I was like, okay, what
does this mean?
Because I was, you know, I'dspent my whole life in a very
good physical space and this ismy first sort of experience of
the medical system and all of asudden people were telling me I
had this like you know conditionand I was having these terrible
(25:31):
headaches and I was having thisterrible dizziness and I
started getting all thesedifferent medications from the
neurologist to kind of fix it.
Nothing worked and my headacheskept on getting worse, to the
point where I had to startcutting things out of my life.
So, obviously, I quit sport, Iquit running, I started going
(25:54):
okay, what else can I do to tryand free myself of these
headaches?
They were all day, every day,like from the second I woke up
till I went to sleep and I cutout okay, I'll cut out alcohol,
I'll cut out caffeine, I'll onlyeat, you know, vegetables.
I tried all this differentstuff.
And then, you know, I haddoctors and they're like well,
(26:15):
just, you need rest, you needrest, you need rest, you need
rest.
Okay, well, maybe I'm workingtoo hard.
So I started cutting out workand then I started to stop
socializing and all of thesedifferent things and the
headaches got worse and worseand worse.
Like I was basically just thishomebody.
(26:40):
I was just this guy who woke up, took a bunch of meds and sat
in a chair watching TV all dayand like I'm condensing this.
But this took a year and a halffor me to get from here to here
Really just regression of thiscondition and my life getting
worse.
And the fact is, nothing wasactually coming up on the scans.
(27:04):
So I had the long COVID for abit.
I had some bloods that weren'tthat great that's why they gave
me long COVID but after sixmonths all of that stuff was
gone and yet my condition wasstill there and I started
getting really depressed becauseit felt like I was never going
to be free.
I was just never going to befree of this condition and all
(27:27):
the doctors, all the bestneurologists I could find,
didn't know what to do.
And I got to the point where Iwas engaged at the time and I
was like I'm just thisdepressing mess.
Life's not really worth living.
I'm a burden to everybody,can't socialize.
I'm going to call off theengagement, um, and just you
(27:48):
know, live alone, watch tv,whatever it is, smoke, weed, who
cares?
Just my life's a waste of time,and yeah it's.
And then eventually, um, I mylowest point was I woke up one
day feeling excited and I waslike I'm gonna walk around the
block just to show that, showmyself that I can, because I've
(28:08):
become so unfit, I've become sosick and I was in so much pain
that I couldn't move.
So I was like, okay, I'm gonnawalk around the block.
And I walked down the hill nearmy house and I got to the
bottom of the hill and I lookedup and it looked like mount
everest getting back up.
I was like I can't do this, Ican't get back up this hill.
So I tried and because thedizziness was so bad, the
migraine was so bad, I fell overafter a few steps and I crawled
(28:30):
on my hands and knees up thishill through in broad daylight,
in public, and then like intobed and I decided I was never
going to leave my bed again.
But the amazing thing is thehuman spirit doesn't.
Let you give up that hard.
It just doesn't.
And so, even though I gave upfor, like you know, weeks, maybe
(28:54):
months, one day I was like, nah, I'm going to keep researching.
I didn't find anything, give up, keep researching.
I didn't find anything, give up, keep researching.
Eventually I found someliterature on the mind-body
connection and that was sayingthat not all pain is helpful and
(29:14):
not all pain is indicative of aphysical problem.
There can be this mismatchbetween pain and reality.
And I started looking into allof this and I started trying to
understand what pain was for.
And pain is about protecting us.
Pain is this ancient mechanismof saying you know, don't stand
(29:36):
in a fire.
But when the signals getcrossed, when it's not doing its
job, it's just about saying,hey, stay in the safest possible
environment, close off yourlife so that you can be safe and
keep procreating, or whateverit is humans are supposed to do.
And what I startedunderstanding was I could,
(29:59):
actually I'd been training mymind to think that giving me
pain signals was protecting mereally well.
So I had been training my mindto form this habit of pain
equals safety.
And then, when I startedflipping it, when I started
trying to tell my mind.
No, these pain signals don'tlead to the behavior that you're
(30:25):
trying to get me to do.
Things started changing, so Iwas like, okay, I'm going to go
to a party and just have amigraine the entire time.
I'm going to walk and I'm goingto fall over, and that's fine,
I'm going to do everything Iwant to do in pain and just see
what happens.
Because there are some peoplesaying that you can train it the
other way, and I kept on doingthis.
(30:46):
I had to go two steps forward,one step back.
So I'd go okay, I'm going totry and go up the stairs.
I'd go up the stairs, I'd feelhuge amounts of pain, but I'd
get up the stairs.
And then at least I've provento myself I can get up the
stairs.
And I started proving to myselfI can actually do a lot of stuff
while in pain.
Like pain doesn't mean I don'thave to do everything I like
(31:09):
doing, and if you do that enoughtimes, the most magical thing
happens the brain realizes thatthe pain signals that it's
sending aren't actuallyimpacting your behavior, and so
it stops sending them.
And so, in the course of aboutsix, nine months, I went from
having pain all day, every dayto no pain at all.
(31:30):
But I had to suffer a lot andhad to do a lot of stuff in pain
in order to train my mind tostop sending those signals.
And that was where I was like,okay, the mind is a big thing,
it's, it's actually it's.
It's leading everything.
It's leading everything from.
You know, I knew, I alreadyknew it was a big part of
(31:53):
emotions and all this kind ofstuff.
But the fact that it couldimpact pain, physical stuff
happening in the physical body,that's next level.
And so I really want to get thismessage out that if you're in
chronic pain and I'm not talkingabout acute pain, I'm not
saying you can heal a muscletear or a fracture or cancer or
anything like that but if youhave this pain that you've had
(32:15):
for years and doctors don't knowwhat to do, maybe look into the
fact that it might not beindicative of an actual physical
problem.
So, like, you can start going.
You know you can start runningin pain.
You can start, and this is backpain, neck pain, doesn't have
to be headaches.
It's all like.
There's stories, thousands ofstories in this space, of people
getting over long-term chronicpain, particularly unexplainable
(32:38):
, unexplainable pain, by justexposing themselves to new
situations and pushingthemselves a little bit.
And this is the terrible thing.
We're always told to rest bydoctors.
We're always told to medicate.
Actually, that, not, that's notalways right.
That's not always right.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Sometimes you have to fight, yeah so you had to
because I was going to ask youthat, that that was going
through my mind.
The whole story was what wascausing it, like what was the
root cause of it, and it soundslike the pain was sending pain
signals to keep you safe, tokeep you from pursuing a life
(33:17):
that was better, or even justthoughts that were better.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, no, you're right, because I mean, if you
think about it, if you're like,oh, I have a back pain, so I'm
not going to go to this party,you know that you might spend
that time feeling sorry foryourself, being like, oh, if
only I didn't have back painthen I would have gone to that
party.
But, to be honest, you've stillchosen the easy route.
Parties are a little they're alittle scary.
(33:43):
You know you have to see people, you have to socialize and a
lot of sort of anxiety and youknow fear of failure and stuff.
It actually gets built intophysical pain To the body, like
exactly exactly.
And so you think you go oh, ifit wasn't for my pain, I'd be
there having fun.
That's not always true.
Sometimes you need to take ahard look at yourself and be
(34:05):
like am I closing my own lifeand using pain as an excuse?
Ooh, yeah, I mean, I don't knowwhat was your experience with
your injury?
Like, was there ever a pointwhere you were healed and yet
you were still a little nervousof of of going back to going
back to?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
what?
Well, here's the thing, right,the reason why we came up with
playing injured and it's veryunique to your situation was we
wanted to understand the mind ofan athlete, right, and it's
kind of crazy that you theexample that you're giving the
mind of an athlete when they dohurt themselves.
(34:44):
What makes them want to pushthrough it?
Right, and it is a lot of caseswhere it's you know, hey, it's
a big game and I am hurt to somedegree, right and um, I have to
be out there because my teamneeds me.
(35:04):
Right, and I could take theeasy route and just sit out, but
knowing that I have to playthrough it, it is a feeling of
confidence that you gain, right,that's amazing.
And then, over time, over time,right, yes, you do play with
pain and it does hurt and you dosuffer.
(35:26):
Right, play through it.
And then, all of a sudden, whatyou realize is that your mind
is the mindfulness of it.
Right, you are so present thatyou don't even necessarily feel
the pain, right?
So my last year playingbasketball, I broke my thumb.
(35:50):
I was out for 11 games and Irushed back.
I had to get back and I wasplaying through it and I wasn't
fully healthy and sometimes Icouldn't catch the ball, but
eventually I got to a pointwhere I was so present that the
obstacles of playing didn'tmatter.
Matter of fact, it got to apoint where I didn't even feel
it anymore, because I was justso-.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
This is exactly what I'mtalking about, right.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
So you expressing yourself of like, hey, the pain
actually was keeping me safe andme using it as an excuse to
keep me from playing through itand being able to kind of grow
through the obstacles, right?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
um, yeah, very unique stuff, man well, I mean, it's
interesting what you say, right,like you could have been like
oh, I have this broken thumb,that means that I can't play.
And if you had said that, youknow what else is tied up in
that decision, is it that youdon't want to fail on the court?
Are you worried about, you know, the girl you like seeing you
(36:59):
fuck up, like it's just like.
You know you have to figure outwhere's this coming from.
And you chose the hard route,which is going out there anyway
and, as you said, all of asudden you're not thinking about
, you're not spending the wholegame thinking about your thumb.
You're actually spending thegame, engaged in the, the joy of
the game.
You know you're free, flowingthrough it.
(37:20):
It's because you chose the hardroute.
And I think, like this is theother thing that people don't
really realize in themindfulness and mental health
spaces.
They think it's very sort ofsoft and all about self-care and
all of this stuff.
You know it is some of thatstuff, but some of self-care and
all of this stuff, you know itis some of that stuff, but some
of self-care is doing toughthings, doing hard things and
(37:40):
having someone say get up offyour ass and be brave.
That's self-care too.
It's not always about just youknow sweet little flowery chat
Like.
A lot of self-care is actuallybeing strong, being tough, being
resilient.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I agree with you and I think a lot of of self-care is
actually being strong, beingtough, being resilient.
I agree with you and I think alot of times self-care like
traditional, you know, justlounge around and it makes me
feel worse, for me personally,right, and I can say, you know,
during those holidays, you knowduring the Christmas time and I
don't know how things are inaustralia, but I know for sure
here in in the states um, thosetwo weeks of christmas, new
(38:21):
years, right, nobody is doinganything and you can just easily
watch christmas movies all dayand not work out and eat
whatever and relax.
Right, you tell yourself thatyou're relaxing, but it does not
.
I'd never feel great like afterthose times, and I do, you know
(38:42):
.
I'm not saying never rest,never take time and relax and
watch movies and do all that.
But when you start to do it fora week straight or three days
straight, um, you become um,it's not self-care anymore.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
You know I'm so with you, man.
It's actually so interesting tohear you talk about this
because I completely subscribeto this space, um, and and the
ideas that you're talking about.
Like you know, we often gettold we need to rest and people
think they're doing us a serviceby saying you're burnt out, you
(39:19):
need to rest, and sometimes youdo.
Sometimes you get there and youdo need rest and you need to
switch off, like that's goodstuff.
But you have to know when tostop, and sometimes stopping is
a little sooner than people wantto tell you.
And it's okay if you get a lotof energy and joy from working
hard.
It's okay to work hard.
Like every people are different.
You're a hard worker, so whenyou rest for too long, you
(39:42):
actually feel, you know, jittery, you feel frustrated.
Not everyone's like that, soit's fine wherever you are on
the spectrum, but I don't thinkthat everybody should try and
put their own feelings on otherpeople.
So it's like if you're, ifyou're not a hard worker and
there's nothing wrong with beingnot a hard worker, because some
people are just good atenjoying life for what it is and
(40:05):
if you're one of those people,then you have to understand that
there's some people who justdon't rest while they're resting
.
I don't rest while I'm restingeither, like I am happier when
I'm working.
It's just the fact.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, 100%, brother.
We have to go back to painright, because I know there's
some emotional, um, pain can befelt in so many different ways
(40:43):
and I think it.
It like me, I'm thinking aboutit.
It's like taking a moment toreally think about what the pain
is holding you back from andsee, at least try it right.
At least try, hey, what pain isholding you back from and
(41:07):
persevere through it and see ifit helps.
See if it helps the pain.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Like you're so right, like what have you got to lose
If you're already in pain?
What have you got to lose?
And this was already in pain,what have you got to lose?
And this was what my I have tocredit my neurologist, who's
like the third neurologist.
I tried and I remember I toldher that story about me going up
the hill Real sob story.
I was feeling really sorry formyself.
And she was like tomorrowyou're going to try again.
And I was like how dare youmake me go through that again?
(41:33):
I had to crawl in public andshe's like, yeah, and it didn't
kill you, so do it again and itwon't kill you again.
Like just go and fail, go andsuffer.
If you make progress, you'llhave learned so much about
yourself.
If you don't make progress,you're only in the exact same
spot you were yesterday.
It makes no difference.
So you only have upside rightspot.
(41:56):
You were yesterday.
It makes no difference, so youonly have upside right.
Like you can't lose fromexposing yourself to something
hard.
You just can't lose failure.
What's the what's the problemif you're already sitting around
in pain, closing off your life?
You know what's so bad about itnot going well yeah, 100 and I.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
And one more thing is but the amount of confidence
that you gain from having thatpain and not letting it be an
excuse for you, yeah, and whatyou get on the other side of it,
it's, it's, it's tenfold, it'slike time grow yeah it's times
(42:35):
10 of what it would be if youdidn't have that pain or that
excuse right, spot, spot on,spot on.
So that's huge and I love yourand and man.
I just love that story that youshare of the pain was holding
you back from from doing thingsin life and, um, with the pain,
you were able to now be in thisspace of mindfulness, right,
(43:00):
without that chronic pain, youwouldn't have learned about the
space of being mindful andhelping others do it right, and
your journey has been amazing.
And I think that journey, uh,has been amazing and I think
(43:20):
that, um, it's just so manydifferent ways that you can, um,
use mindfulness to help yourlife, right?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I mean, yeah, it's, it's one of those.
It's one of those things where,like you know, anybody who's
gone through a lot of pain oftenlooks back on it and be like
that was the best thing thatever happened to me in terms of
in terms of how much they grow,like that's, like it's the same
with you, right, you wouldn't behere if you hadn't gone through
, you know, various injuries andsuffering and like now, all of
a sudden, you're helpingthousands of people.
(43:45):
Like it's transformative stuff.
It really is, and it's a goodlesson that when you're in pain
right now, don't be scared.
It'll probably end up makingyou a stronger person.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, 100%, and that's why we have this.
We have this platform so thatpeople can see pain as an
opportunity.
Right, beautiful, and it's hardto see it in the moment.
It's very hard to see it in themoment, right, you don't realize
it until you look back, onceyou've gone through it, um, but
(44:17):
I don't think, I don't thinkanybody has ever regretted not
um, persevering through pain,through a tough time, um, you
always gain more right asopposed to letting it defeat you
.
So, uh, no, I love it.
Jonah, where, where can peoplefind you?
Where can people listen to thepodcast that you host both?
(44:40):
Yeah, I would love to open itup for that.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Well, I think the best place to find me would be
on the Overexamined Life.
So that's my podcast.
You'll find it on any podcastapp.
Overexamined is one word, the O, one word, the over examined
life.
And we do two episodes a week.
They're only 10 minutes longand they just look at a
different emotion or problem oranything.
It's bite size and you just, uh, could get a few of the world's
(45:07):
best teachers telling us about,uh, how to sort, how to sort
out certain emotions andnavigate certain everyday life
struggles, things that we all gothrough.
Um, and we, you know, we drawfrom neuroscience, psychology,
buddhism, whatever it might be Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
10 minute.
10 minute shows um.
I know people can appreciatethat that's right with it.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
With this short, short attention, short attention
span, it's good for all of us.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
No, I love it.
I love it.
Well, jonah man, I appreciateyou making this happen.
This was a really powerful showand I think in today's world we
can definitely use moremindfulness, and you made it
very simple for folks to reallyunderstand what it is and kind
of take the pressure off of itas well, and so, um, I
(45:59):
appreciate that's right, yeah,it's.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, it's just if you want to do it, just have a
have a go.
By trying, you are succeeding,and I mean I think that's.
You don't have to.
You don't have to perfect it onday one.
There is no perfection anyway.
So just just have a go and yourlife will be better for it.
And, josh, thank you so muchfor having me on your show and
for, as I said, doing whatyou're doing, because you know,
(46:23):
like you said, you have grown somuch from you know
understanding life struggles andfrom you know building this
resilience, and people just needto hear that.
People need to hear that.
People need to hear that theyneed to hear from people like
you who are pushing throughtough times and coming out with
a good attitude, because we onlyhave one life and we want to
(46:45):
spend it happy and joyous andthere's no point wallowing.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
And if you have one life, it would be great to be
present right, it would be greatto be present in right.
It would be great to be presentin it, as opposed to living in
the past or in the future.
Then you have a chance to livelife right.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
That's right, that's right.
Life's happening right now.
Right now, yeah Well.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I love it.
Well, brother, thanks again,and everybody follow Plan
Injured.
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