JayMac's Inspiring Journey - the Beginning

The journey of life is often filled with bumps, obstacles and yes, plenty of checkered tales. For J-Mac, who at 55 years shares candid reflections on his childhood, life's challenges and the power of resilience, the story is not any different. Immensely personal and marked by candid insights, J-Mac's narrative shines a light on overcoming life's darkest hours and the courage to share one's experiences.

From his non-conventional upbringing to his struggles with mental health, J-Mac leaves no stone unturned in his storytelling. He acknowledges the differences in reality that may arise from the varying perspectives of his family members, emphasising that his account is based on his own recollections. This is a narrative stripped of pretense; a raw and real account of a man's battle with life's trials, his coping mechanisms, and the inspired journey towards overcoming them.

J-mac shares his experience not to elicit sympathy but to inspire; to remind the listener of the strength and resilience that resides within each of us. He stresses the importance of knowing that no matter how grim the statistics or dire the circumstances, change and growth are always possible.

J-Mac's storytelling is grounded in honesty and humility. He acknowledges his own lack of self-understanding, his battles with personal obstacles, and his continued daily struggles. Yet, his message is undeniably hopeful. He stresses that sharing our experiences and learning from one another can save lives, as it has done so in his time on talk radio.

This is not merely a podcast – it is an intimate shared journey of growth, acceptance, and overcoming. With every tale he shares, J-mac invites his listeners to do the same, iteratively creating a space of shared experiences and mutual growth. So tune in, journey along, and join in the story-telling. Who knows? Your story may as well save a life.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, this is going to kind of sound like ramblings of an old man.
And I'm 55 now, so I guess I am kind of old.
But I've had a lot of people ask me about my experiences.
One of the reasons they ask me is because they know I have a checkered past, as you would call it.

(00:28):
Not the traditional upbringing, as you would call it.
It's interesting because if you ask my mom, she would tell you something different.
My dad would probably tell you something different.
My siblings might tell you something different.

(00:50):
But this comes from my own recollection, my own childhood.
And, you know, as a childhood, our memories fade and things can be a little bit different.
So I'm just going to do my best.

(01:10):
And I want to tell you the good, the bad and the ugly. And I want to share this
with you for a couple of reasons.
One, so that you can commiserate with me if you went through the same types of things.
Two, I think that many of you went through a lot worse than I went through.

(01:33):
And so I don't want this to be a somehow a presentation that,
oh, woe is me. Look what I went through.
The third thing is to know that you can overcome or calm.
A lot of the things that I faced, I've heard statistically that I should not

(02:01):
have been able to overcome a lot of these things.
And so the fact that I have,
the fact that I've had a successful career, the fact that I'm in front of you
now, perhaps there's some inspiration there. I don't know.
I hope that what I'm about to tell you can be entertaining in some way.

(02:27):
If not, well, you know, you always have a choice and I would love your feedback
on anything that I am here to tell you.
I will preface this with a lack of understanding of myself.
I have learned over the the years that there are things that,

(02:50):
obstacles, I would call them, that I have suffered with my entire life.
And because I was raised thinking, you know, pull yourself up, buy your bootstraps,
be a man, you know, those types of things, I never really sought to understand

(03:11):
who I was or, or, you know, what my difficulties were.
And so perhaps in sharing these things with you, I can help you understand how
I've worked through them and how I'm better for them.

(03:32):
But I'll be honest with you, I'm not there yet.
I'm not even close to there yet. it.
Every single day is still a struggle for me.
In fact, if you gave me a choice every single day, would you rather get up in

(03:55):
the morning and face the day or would you rather stay in bed and sleep that day away?
Every day, I would choose sleep the day away because I don't want to face reality.
I don't want to face hardship.
I just feel darkness in the morning. I don't feel excitement in the morning.

(04:19):
And honestly, throughout my life, I've slept through a lot of.
Trials in my life. And that has become my coping mechanism.
You know, a lot of people self-medicate.
Well, there's a lot of ways to self-medicate. And for me, sleep is one of the ways to self-medicate.

(04:46):
So I've been on this journey, and I'm sure many of you have been on this journey.
I've been very grateful that as I had time on talk radio to share some of my
stories that they did resonate with other people.
And I think we've saved lives by sharing these experiences.

(05:08):
So if we can do that here, then I will feel happy.
If nobody listens, I'll still feel happy because I will have gotten them off my chest, hopefully.
So I don't think I'm going to try and go in any order here, like from early

(05:30):
childhood to adulthood.
I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do this.
And maybe you could give me your feedback along the way.
This is just J-Mac being J-Mac. That's all it is.
So I hope that you'll stay tuned. I hope you will give me your feedback.

(05:55):
And I hope that you will take the time to share with me your experiences and
what you've gone through.
So this is kind of an introduction.
I don't even know what I'm going to call these videos.
Um, but this is an introduction to, uh, my life and what I have been through

(06:18):
and how I have been able to cope and how I have been able to overcome.