July 12, 2025 • 37 mins
So pleased to have Kevin Faulkner on the show. He's an accomplished artist, graphic designer, and poet - and also happens to be my son. So I am proud of him as his mom, but also excited to share his work with you.
My Amazon affiliate link to buy his book!
Kevin's Website - Wondered Bliss
Follow Kevin on Instagram: @wonderedbliss and @kevinfaulknerpoetry
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura Wakefield (00:00):
Welcome to The Joy fulicity Podcast.
I'm your host, Laura Wakefield,and I'm very excited today to
have on my first podcast guest,Kevin Faulkner, who's just put
out his very first book, acollection of original poems and
(00:22):
art called "What StruggleBrings." Welcome, Kevin.
And I need to say...
It's also extra special to havehim here today because he
happens to be my son.
And so this book represents ajourney that I kind of walked
with him in some ways.
I was there through thehardships and the things that
sort of led to some of this andalso through the joy of seeing
(00:45):
it come through to fruition.
How does that feel to have thisfinally published?
Kevin Faulkner (00:50):
It feels good.
It feels good.
I'm very, very happy to behere.
Very happy to be here.
It's a mix of emotions.
It's a mix of emotions.
And I talk about that some inthe book.
How it's both exciting.
I have a product to sell.
I can share my story and do allthese things.
But at the same time, I'm quitevulnerable in this book.
(01:12):
I'm very honest, and I pridemyself on my honesty.
But it's a lot to put out.
Some of it's heavy.
Some of it's tough.
So to wrap that up and put itout to the world and hope that
they take it well.
It's a mix of emotions, butit's also just an expression of
(01:33):
my heart and soul.
I put everything into thisbook.
So to see it come together andbe the final copy, the first
time I picked this book up and Igot my test proofs in the mail,
it was almost an out-of-bodyexperience that I was having,
because I was for the first timekind of being able to see it,
(01:54):
not through the criticaldesigner eye, but through the
eye of a viewer.
And it was just an entirelydifferent experience to watch it
all come together, especiallyafter years of working on this
thing, to see it finally puttogether and published, it's
many emotions all swirling atonce, but I can't say that it's
(02:16):
not good.
Laura Wakefield (02:17):
Yeah, I should say Kevin got a degree in
graphic design.
So when I say this is aself-published book, it
literally is.
He did all the design, all theart, all of the writing,
everything.
This is a big deal.
Kevin Faulkner (02:33):
Everything through and through.
I mean, I couldn't make it anymore me if I
Laura Wakefield (02:38):
That's absolutely right.
Kevin Faulkner (02:40):
I couldn't make it any more me.
So.
Laura Wakefield (02:43):
So what led you to write poetry, Kevin?
You have been a good artistsince you were a little kid.
You know, everybody always knewthat you were an artist and
creative.
How did you get into writingpoems?
Kevin Faulkner (02:58):
Well, you know, it's tough to say.
Kind of the same process of howI started to draw and to
create.
You just kind of do it.
You kind of fall into it.
How does anybody know what theylike?
It just kind of happens.
Laura Wakefield (03:15):
Maybe through school assignments or things?
Kevin Faulkner (03:18):
Maybe.
I had seen art, seen painters,seen this and read poems, seen
other writers.
I listened to a lot of music, alot of hip-hop, rap, all that.
All of that is poetry, too,just wrapped up in a slightly
different form.
And it's something I'd alwaysenjoyed, but it was sometime
mid-high school.
(03:38):
It's the first time that I everkind of really started to
write, but it was very sparse,and I probably wrote 10 poems
while in high school.
But it's something mid-collegeI kind of fell back into.
I'd stopped for a long time.
I'd even stepped away fromdrawing and creating art for
years, trying to do the rightthing, trying to...
(04:00):
I was undeclared in college forthe first two years, and then I
had to pick a major.
I picked business finance, andit just, it wasn't me.
It wasn't a fit.
I felt so misaligned with myactual inner soul, and I
ended uphad dropping out ofcollege - you weren't very happy
about that one.
But in that process, thatsemester off, I had started to
(04:24):
draw again.
And I realized, oh, well, Imight be able to do something
with that.
So I went, got back into schoolfor graphic design, started
exploring that, really gettingback into art.
And it was maybe a year or twolater, almost by coincidence, I
just started to write again.
And much of it in the beginningwas to music.
A lot of it was songs in thebeginning, but if you can hear
(04:46):
my voice, I'm no singer.
But the process of writing wasjust, it was a very freeing
experience.
It was another mode ofexpressing this thing inside of
me that just wants to speak,that wants to sing really, but
can't do it.
Laura Wakefield (05:03):
And how do you go from, I enjoy writing poetry,
to I am a poet and I'm going toput together a book?
Kevin Faulkner (05:15):
That's an even tougher question.
Because really, when do youever identify yourself with the
things that you do?
At what point do you make thatswitch?
I write poems, but does thatmean I'm a poet?
Well, yeah.
If you drew a picture, you arean artist.
Many of us, we oftentimes...
(05:36):
accept identity when otherpeople call us that thing, when
I've sold a piece or done it ina way that's respectable, right?
I can put it on a business cardor on a website and then I'm
the thing.
Laura Wakefield (05:52):
It's almost like an outside force has to
declare you a poet or an artist.
Kevin Faulkner (05:55):
I'm a poet when the world thinks I'm a poet?
No.
I'm a poet when I write poetry.
I'm a poet in my thoughts.
I'm a poet in this exchange,because this is just who I am.
To be able to identify with it,that same thing has always been
a problem for me.
(06:15):
It probably wasn't untilhalfway through writing the book
that I finally started to admitthat I'm a poet or that I'm
even a writer.
It's just something that I do.
I'm not the thing.
There wasn't an exact momentwhere I started to realize it,
but it was, yeah, about halfwaythrough, I'd finally, and maybe
it was because I started to seejust the collection, the stack
(06:37):
of papers that I'm sitting on.
I can't have this many poemsand not be a poet.
Laura Wakefield (06:44):
And what made you decide to turn that into a
book?
I know you were influenced bya couple of people.
Kevin Faulkner (06:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
So that's a different story.
So I had never consideredwriting a poetry book.
It had never crossed my mind,even as a possibility.
I wasn't really aware ofself-publishing really being a
valid option or anything.
It had never crossed my mind.
I was just writing to write,because it's something that just
(07:14):
needed to be said from within.
I never even necessarilyplanned on sharing many of them.
But later in college, I met agirl.
Lovely girl.
She's my ex-girlfriend now, buther name is Ellen Everett.
She's a poet herself.
Go buy her books.
"If Hearts Had Trainingwheels," " I Saw You as a
Flower." They're on Amazon.
(07:35):
Go give her all your money.
But she is one of the sweetestpeople I've ever met in my
entire life.
But because she had alreadypublished her own book in 19, it
blew my mind.
I was like, oh, wow, that'sfantastic.
That's an option?
Laura Wakefield (07:53):
Yeah, can you do that?
Kevin Faulkner (07:55):
Okay.
You can do that?
She was like, of course youcan.
And I showed her some of mypoetry, and she was like, oh my
goodness, Kevin, of course youneed to.
And I'm still not evenidentifying as a poet.
I'm like, I don't know.
We'll see.
But she kept encouraging me towrite and write and write and
write.
And as I was doing it, sittingon that stack of paper,
(08:16):
realizing how much these poemswere affecting me.
And and allowing me to overcomethe nonsense and BS that was
boiling inside of me, the goodthat it was doing for me and
freeing my soul.
Seeing that, I started torealize the good that maybe it
(08:37):
might do for someone else, atthe very least in validating
their feelings and letting themknow that it can progress and
change.
So about midway through thatprocess, I started to see it
kind of come together and itjust became the one Ellen was
telling me all the time that Ineeded to do it.
Laura Wakefield (08:59):
And that's so motivational just to have
someone who believes in you.
Kevin Faulkner (09:03):
Oh, it was probably the biggest part.
I say it in theacknowledgments.
It's like I wrote a bookbecause she believed in me.
Laura Wakefield (09:08):
Yes.
Kevin Faulkner (09:10):
And she pushed me at times, times that I was
feeling insecure and all thesethings, dealing with all of my
nonsense, depression, anxiety,all the things I was dealing
with.
She kept pushing me and keptpushing me and kept encouraging
me, in just such a gentle andpure way.
Like she genuinely believedthat I was good and wanted to
(09:31):
see me do it.
She knew before I knew what itwould be.
Laura Wakefield (09:37):
Well, and I like what you said that you were
kind of earlier that you wereusing these to kind of process
through some of the things youwere going through, because the
book is set up in threesections, the dark, the haze and
the light and kind of aprogression that you personally
went on.
And this book does share sometough topics, addiction and
depression and some family dramathat we had, and and all of
(10:02):
that.
It kind of paints a picture ofa lot of pain, and I think that
it's so important that that paincame out onto the paper and
that you then want to share thatto maybe lift somebody else
that's going through a hardtime.
Kevin Faulkner (10:16):
Of course.
I mean, it was for me.
One of my biggest pains inlife, frankly, was the fact that
I often hid my feelings.
I often suppressed it.
for the sake of other people'shearts.
I didn't want to overload themwith all of this stuff, and I
(10:37):
was just drowning in my ownemotions, the inability to get
them out.
But as I started to get it out,even just to myself, that
process alone was the mostpowerful and wonderful thing
that I've ever gone through.
It's painful at times.
It's not easy to address thethings you've been trying to
(10:59):
suppress.
Laura Wakefield (11:00):
Well, and to write a poem about something,
you have to take a good look atit.
Kevin Faulkner (11:04):
I'm analyzing it and organizing it and doing all
these things.
And it was that process,because if you've ever felt
anxious or you have a verycreative mind, it can swirl and
swirl and go down rabbit holesin each and every direction, and
it can leave you in a muddledmess.
(11:26):
But this process, it helped toorganize.
It helped to clear my mind ofall of the nonsense that didn't
actually fit, but was taking upspace unnecessarily.
But yeah, and helped me addressthose things.
But this process of putting itthrough and overcoming it as
(11:50):
I've gone and seeing thatprocess, seeing it happen in me,
knowing the depths of what I'vefelt before, and now seeing
that light, living in thatlight.
All I want to do is share, youknow.
When the cup is full, itoverflows, you know?
Laura Wakefield (12:07):
Well, and I think that there's something
about seeing that the thingsthat you've been through might
be able to help someone elsethat gives them a purpose and it
makes it feel more okay that,you know, that you went through
it, you got through it, and nowthere's a reason for that.
That you're now going to beable to help somebody else.
(12:29):
I find comfort in that.
Kevin Faulkner (12:31):
Oh, absolutely.
And that's something I'vemulled over a lot is that idea
of purpose.
It was one of my big pains fora long time, because I had
fallen away from religion and Iwas a real strong atheist for a
long time.
Very nihilistic, all thesethings.
I couldn't see the purpose foranything that was happening in
my life.
I couldn't see the purpose forlife in general.
(12:51):
And there's some big discussionthat could be had just off of
that.
Laura Wakefield (12:59):
But a lot of that time is talked about in the
poems that are in the darksection.
Kevin Faulkner (13:04):
It is.
It is.
It's all there.
Laura Wakefie (13:07):
And I should say, I don't remember if I said this
earlier, but there's a lot ofcursing in here.
There's a lot of tough topics.
So be prepared.
Kevin Faulkner (13:14):
I say what I say.
Laura Wakefield (13:16):
If you read the book, that it's not necessarily
always hearts and flowers.
It's a tough book, but it endsin light.
And that's super,super important.
Kevin Faulkner (13:28):
Of course.
And that process, I mean,alone, it's a tough one to find
that purpose in, but to knowthat everybody is going through
something and to know that whatI've been through and how I've
come out of it could help, Imean, of course that gives a
purpose.
Of course it gives a purpose.
(13:48):
And that alone, I mean, I thinkpeople will go to the end of
the earth if they believe theyhave a reason to do so.
They will go through anything.
They will put themselvesthrough the hardest things in
life if they believe it's for apurpose.
Laura Wakefield (14:03):
Yes.
Kevin Faulkner (14:04):
And that, that is the key to life is to have
purpose in all the things thatyou do.
I had battled with that for along time.
Laura Wakefield (14:12):
Yeah.
And I think too, like we'vetalked about this before, but
there was hesitation to put thisbook out.
Kevin Faulkner (14:22):
Hmm.
Laura Wakefield (14:23):
It kind of is like a little bit of an expose
on some things in our family and
Kevin Faulkne (14:30):
And expose on me.
Laura Wakefield (14:31):
On you and on just some things our family had
been through.
And there's this hesitancy toput that out for public
consumption, you know, on socialmedia and different places.
We want to present this veryrosy image all the time, but
it's so important to have thatlevel of honesty because nobody
is problem free.
Kevin Faulkner (14:53):
Nobody.
Laura Wakefield (14:53):
Every single person has something going on in
their life or they have had orthey know someone who has.
Kevin Faulkner (15:00):
Or they're about to go through.
Or they're about to.
Yeah, exactly.
And so the more open and honestwe can be about some of that, I
think it gives other peoplepermission to maybe share what
they're going through.
It's one of my biggest gripes with the modern
world and social media and allthis is that we really are
(15:21):
putting out, like you said, thisrosy idea of what our lives
are.
And we know that's not thewhole truth.
We know when we're posting justthe smiley times that we were
going through all this otherstuff we didn't share.
But as you're viewing all ofyour friends and family and
strangers on the internet, goingthrough, you're looking at
(15:42):
everything like, oh, their livesare so perfect.
Their lives are so perfect.
And it leaves you feeling morealone than you've probably ever
felt.
In your sadness.
I'm the only personexperiencing this.
Nobody will understand me.
Well, the truth of the matteris everybody will, but it's
uncomfortable to talk about.
We don't like to share itbecause, you know, these are the
hard things.
These are the things that maybemight make someone look at me
(16:04):
different.
Laura Wakefield (16:05):
Right.
Kevin Faulkner (16:05):
Or make them judge me.
Laura Wakefield (16:07):
Or that what we're going through is forever.
That we will always feel...
this way and that's what i lovethat this book moves you on a
progression out of darkness andinto light.
It's not like you ever get donewith that process, you know,
(16:29):
life keeps going and you there'sstarts and there's stops and
there's rewrites and all thatsort of thing, but if you are
struggling it's notnecessarily forever.
Kevin Faulkner (16:40):
No it's not.
And it's something like, Iorganized my book in those three
sections, the dark, the haze,and the light, because that is
the general progression of thestates that I went through, how
I was living in this darkness,and then starting to kind of
come out of it, starting to findnew identities and new things,
(17:01):
but that's a tough space tobe in. You don't know who you
are.
I spent so much time as apessimist, as an atheist, as all
these things, Who am I now asthis hopeful person?
What am I supposed to expect?
That I'm happy now?
I'm not angry anymore?
A lot of these things are myshields and my safety net,
(17:21):
however destructive they were.
But it's like now the world'sscary.
I have to go do something I'mnot familiar with.
It's a rough spot to be in.
And you don't know what's goingon.
Laura Wakefield (17:31):
Isn't that always true as we go throughout
our lives that every singlething we go through, whether
it's good or bad, shapes us andcreates a new person,
essentially.
Kevin Faulkner (17:40):
Oh, absolutely.
And we almost face every day,every moment as a new person.
Oh, you are, because you've never lived as
that person today.
Laura Wakefield (17:49):
Yes.
Kevin Faulkner (17:49):
Today's battles.
They may be similar, but onething that I point out in my
book though here is thatalthough I put it in this nice
little progression, dark tolight, it was anything but a
clean progression.
To find my way out of myanxieties, my fears, my
self-judgments, my addictions,everything that had built up, it
(18:11):
was all over the place.
Up and down, left and right.
Kind of like a stock marketchart.
It goes up and down, up anddown, up and down.
But it was following a trend.
But it is anxious time.
These things are not easy todeal with.
And they're even harder to dealwith when you feel like you're
alone.
And that's my motivation forputting it out.
(18:33):
It has been nerve wracking toput this out, because I'm
putting out my darkest moments.
I'm putting out all the thingsthat I wanted to hide for many
years.
The world may judge me.
Many people might not like thisbook.
Maybe it confronts them andthey don't like that.
I don't know.
But I put it out anyway,because if there is at least one
(18:58):
person out there who it makesthem feel not so alone, then it
was worth it.
If it helps them get throughit, it was worth it because I
know how bad it can feel.
I don't want anyone to feelthat way.
There's better ways of being.
Laura Wakefield (19:12):
Or if they do, you want them to know that
there's hope.
Kevin Faulkner (19:17):
Of course, of course.
With a little bit of time andeffort aimed in the right
direction, you can overcomeanything.
And I genuinely believe that.
Would you be willing to share acouple of poems from the book?
Of c ourse.
Laura Wakefield (19:33):
My favorite one, Kevin knows, I like a lot
of them, but my favorite one hasalways been a poem called Don't
Get Too Lost to Fly.
And I'll show the accompanyingartwork.
There is artwork all throughoutthis book as well.
Not for every poem, but but allthroughout the book, there's,
there's original pieces of artthat Kevin has done.
(19:53):
It's, it's, it's really alovely book.
And like you said, thisrepresents when I look at it, it
represents not just art andpoetry.
It's my son.
This is Kevin right here.
And it's lovely to me.
Kevin Faulkner (20:06):
I'm trying to make it as cool as possible.
I know everyone loves a picturebook, but yeah, no, it's
together.
I mean, it's, it's been myheart and soul put in every
page.
I've gone over everything.
But yeah, I'll share this poemhere.
This is a love.
It is one of my favorites.
But don't get too lost to fly.
(20:28):
Birds will spread their wingsto fly and ride the wind to
where it goes.
Whether tree or mountain high,their future is never told.
They could go anywhere.
I wonder if that scares them.
I wonder if they stresssometimes, like I don't know
what's there, I should turnback, I think I've changed my
(20:49):
mind.
But maybe they don't think.
Maybe they just trust theirwings and take a flight.
Maybe stress is just a peoplething, a curse of having bigger
minds.
Birds developed wings.
They're free to go get lost andfind their hope.
We get lost in imagination.
But like the birds, we'llalways need the earth to find
(21:12):
home.
Laura Wakefield (21:15):
I love that.
And that poem came to me at atime when I was struggling with
some anxiety and some fear aboutthe future.
And there was something sohopeful about that imagery of
the birds taking flight withoutfear that was very moving for
me.
And we've talked about this,that what the poet means when
(21:35):
they write it and what thereader takes from it aren't
always the same.
Like it'll hit, it'll come toyou where you are at the moment
and it will speak messages toyou that you need to hear at the
moment.
And that one really did for me.
Kevin Faulkner (21:52):
Yeah.
And I'm glad it did.
And in many ways that was whatI was going for, but how it will
affect you is different thanhow it affected me when I wrote
it.
When I wrote it, though, Imean, I was literally out
watching the birds.
I was sitting out in nature.
And I was just observing them.
They were picking up and flyingall over the place.
(22:15):
You'd see them.
Try to track one, you'll loseyourself.
They're everywhere andanywhere.
But what was catching me aboutthem was that it was just as if
it's their nature.
They're I don't think they everthink not to fly or ever fear
(22:37):
the process of flying or whereit might take them.
It's just what they do.
There's no back or forth.
It's just who they are.
So they would have no reason tofear, right?
But I was sitting therecomparing the differences
between us and them.
And obviously we can't fly, butwe as humans, we've been
(23:00):
blessed with this amazingintellect and creative ability
to have ideas and to create withour hands and build and create
the lives that we want to live.
And like the birds and theirnature just to fly, that should
just be our nature to create, tothink, to ponder, to do these
things.
Yet so often with uncheckedanxieties and things, we'll find
(23:26):
ourselves locked in thought,locked in fear, of bringing our
thoughts to life, to go create,to go build the lives we want,
when it should just be ournature, right?
But looking at thosedifferences between the two,
it's just funny how different weare, how similar we are.
(23:50):
At the end of the poem here, Italk about how both with the
birds and with us, it's like thebirds, they'll fly around all
day.
But they always need to comeback to Earth.
This is where they find theirfood, they find all the stuff to
build their nests, all thesethings.
They are an integrated part tothis life, to this Earth.
And so are we.
(24:10):
And as I was thinking aboutthat and looking at the
similarities instead of thedifferences between us, I myself
was outside nature watching,which I hadn't done for a long
time.
And as I was remembering backto the different periods of life
where I was extraordinarilyanxious and fearful and angry
(24:31):
and all these things.
I was very busy with school andcollege and with work,
everything.
I was spending all my timeindoors on computers,
disconnected from the earth,disconnected from life,
disconnected from even the stuffI was engaging in because I was
too lost in my mind.
But it wasn't until I reallystarted to just reintegrate
(24:53):
and start to go outside, startto re-engage with life in a
meaningful way, that a lot ofthese fears started to drift
away.
Laura Wakefield (25:00):
Yeah.
Kevin Faulkner (25:01):
It was a beautiful thing as it started to
happen.
Laura Wakefield (25:03):
It comes back to what's real.
Kevin Faulkner (25:07):
Yeah, of course.
Of course.
And how lovely it is.
Laura Wakefield (25:11):
Yeah.
Kevin Faulkner (25:12):
Like if you're ever thinking life isn't worth
living, go out into the woodsand just look.
Just observe.
Watch life happening all aroundyou.
It is this beautifullyintricate system that we are a
part of.
Laura Wakefield (25:27):
Yeah.
Kevin Faulkner (25:28):
And that we need to be engaging in it.
Otherwise, you lose sight andyou lose connection.
Laura Wakefield (25:33):
100%.
Kevin Faulkner (25:34):
And you find yourself trapped in fears and
not even living the life thatyou want to live instead.
It's just silly.
It's just silly.
Laura Wakefield (25:42):
Do you have a favorite poem in the book?
Kevin Faulkner (25:46):
That's a tough one.
That really is a tough one.
I have many favorites.
I don't even have a favoritecolor, to be honest with you.
But if I had to pick one toshare, I'd gone through this one
called conflicted.
It's kind of stemming off ofsome of those ideas of
(26:10):
unfettered imagination how canlead to anxieties and all these
things.
That can be a reality.
Absolutely, that can be areality.
And probably most of us havefelt that way.
Gotten too lost in fears and start fearing things that will never happen.
Laura Wakefield (26:20):
Right.
But there's also realities to your life. Things that have hurt you. Reasonable things to fear, right? And, something in my life that hurt me several times was this silly thing called love.
Because you're putting yourheart out on the line.
(26:44):
You're vulnerable in thesemoments because you're letting
yourself be connected tosomeone.
And if that breaks, that hurtsso bad.
And it's real.
Nothing that I had experiencedthere was fake.
And I had reason to be fearful.
But at the same time, it's alsoso worth having.
(27:04):
But I kind of get into thispoem here.
Some of you said this isprobably one of my tightest
poems.
And And I do love how it turnedout.
So I'll share this one with youand let you see if you like it.
But Conflicted.
Love is what matters, right?
That's something I've beenhearing my whole life and I
(27:25):
believed it.
I've built up expectations witha dream of what it feels like.
And for the most part, I'vebeen wrong.
Which doesn't mean it's bad.
It's just different than Ithought.
It's really moreresponsibilities, because
tending to a heart was nevermeant to be an easy thing.
You've both lived your livesapart, and then one day the two
(27:47):
start melding, quickly turninginto one that then the two of
you are sharing, and that isterrifying.
The thought that my life hereis not my own, the fact that
someone else relies on me, am Igrown enough for this?
When I barely know myself, do Ihave enough love to give?
And if I give you all my heart,will you commit the same or up
(28:09):
and split?
I've seen it all before and nowI'm hesitant.
I have trouble trusting folks.
Shit, I have trouble trustingme.
My heart's enthralled in ropeand chains, a tangled lock that
wound for free.
I'm sure I could get out.
But would that really be thebetter thing?
I've been conflicted.
(28:30):
End scene.
I love that because you don't get to be...
an adult without having feltthose feelings.
There's almost, I mean, thereare those very rare few people
that fall in love with theirhigh school sweetheart and get
married and are married for 70years.
(28:51):
You know, that does happen.
That's the rare thing.
Kevin Faulkner (28:53):
That's a beautiful thing.
Congratulations to them.
Laura Wakefield (28:55):
Yes, absolutely.
But most of us do sufferheartbreak at some point in
time.
And I liked what you said abouthow you start to mistrust not
just other people, but evenyourself within relationships.
Kevin Faulkner (29:07):
Yeah.
Laura Wakefield (29:07):
And once you start doubting yourself, it just
complicates all of it.
So I love, love, love that.
Kevin Faulkner (29:14):
Yeah, well, it's tough because, you know, at
times I've been hurt by others.
At times I was the problem.
At times I have broken hearts.
And to sit there, I mean, todeal with the pain of your
broken heart is one thing.
To deal with the pain ofknowing that I shattered another
heart is a whole other thing.
(29:36):
That's a guilt that you have tosit with because you know the
pain of how bad it hurts.
Laura Wakefield (29:42):
Right.
If you've been on both sides.
Kevin Faulkner (29:45):
Yeah.
And you're like, oh, hell, Idid that to them.
Laura Wakefield (29:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Kevin Faulkner (29:50):
I don't want to hurt anybody else, but me and
myself, I was running from lovefor a long time and had a series
of, mishaps I'll call them,mistakes.
Laura Wakefield (30:02):
That's a good way of putting it.
Kevin Faulkner (30:04):
A series, I'd say.
And you start looking at yourtrack record and building up
judgments of yourself and allthese things.
And you're tired of the lifeyou're living.
You want this thing over here,but you're terrified of it.
You're terrified that you willeven be able to handle it
because you've runfrom it before.
Laura Wakefield (30:24):
Well, and that kind of conflict, will often
lead you to just retreat andwithdraw and just not
participate.
You feel a little paralyzed.
by conflict like that, I think,sometimes.
Kevin Faulkner (30:37):
I did for quite a while.
Yeah, for quite a while.
I definitely had stepped awayfrom the dating scene for
probably a good year, year and ahalf, two years before I met
Ellen.
And we just kind of felltogether and all of this started
happening and led me to where Iam today.
Laura Wakefield (30:59):
And I love that you guys are still such good
friends.
I'll put some links to Ellen'sbooks also.
Yeah, definitely.
Maybe I can even talk her intocoming on the show at some
point.
Kevin Faulkner (31:08):
Oh, I think she'd love to.
Laura Wakefield (31:09):
She's a lovely person, and I'm very grateful
that she came into your life andkind of was the catalyst or
part of it to get this book tocome to be.
Kevin Faulkner (31:23):
Of course.
She played a massive role in somany things, and that is the
power of love.
That is the power of love.
of this type of beautifulthing.
Love when lost can shatter you.
But love in itself will healevery wound.
It really will.
It really will.
And she did.
(31:44):
She just came in with this verykind heart and just showed me
in so many ways that it wasn'tlove that was wrong.
It wasn't that.
It was maybe the way that I wasapproaching it.
Maybe with the people I wastrying to approach it with.
But love in itself is onlywonderful.
(32:05):
And that's why losing it's sopainful.
But it's a tough thing and oneof the most beautiful things in
life.
So we must face it.
We must go after it.
We must never stop searchingfor love.
Laura Wakefield (32:21):
I agree.
I agree.
Kevin Faulkner (32:22):
You have to do it.
Laura Wakefield (32:24):
Kevin, I have one more final question for you.
But before I get to that, wherecan people find this book?
Where can they connect withyou?
So everybody knows how to findKevin Faulkner and What Struggle
Brings?
Kevin Faulkner (32:36):
Yes.
So the book is available onAmazon.
Search up What Struggle Bringsby Kevin Faulkner.
You should be able to find it.
If it doesn't pop upimmediately...
Search for it in the bookscategory and it should pop up.
Amazon's search tool isn't thebest, but you can find it there.
I have a website,wonderedbliss.com.
(32:58):
Follow me on social media,@KevinFaulknerPoetry or
@Wondered Bliss.
And I too will have a podcastof my own I'm launching very
soon, which will be The WonderedBliss Podcast.
So you should be able to findme in all of those places.
But yeah, what's your finalquestion?
Laura Wakefield (33:19):
So my final question is, to anyone out there
who is wallowing in the darkcurrently of their life, they're
struggling, they're suffering,maybe they're dealing with
addictions, maybe they'redealing with a different kind of
pain, but they feel like theyare in the dark part of their
life.
What would you say, afterhaving been through this journey
(33:43):
and written this book, wouldbe...
I know this is a huge questionto put into just a couple
sentences, but what would yousay would be the key to reach
back toward light?
What's the starting point?
What gets you going back towardlight and toward joy?
Of course.
Well, it starts with buying mybook.
No, I'm k idding.
(34:04):
Welldone.
Kevin Faulkner (34:07):
But I say it in the book.
I talk about it.
I would tell you to write.
Write.
The process of writing.
The process of organizing yourthoughts and preventing them
from continuing to swirl.
Of just getting your thoughtsout from inside of your mind and
in your body onto paper.
It solidifies them.
(34:29):
It finalizes them.
And it creates this separationbetween the problem itself and
the life that you're living.
The experience that you'rehaving.
And can allow you to...
experience your life in a newway with new perspectives.
Especially if you want to gothrough a process of writing
poetry, things like that, whereyou really have to to sit with
(34:52):
it to make it rhyme to to followa cadence to do these things it
really makes you address thethings that you're facing.
But you have to be willing tobe honest with yourself.
It doesn't have to be inpoetry.
It can be journaling, scratchnotes on a napkin, whatever it
is that helps you get yourthoughts out in an organized
(35:12):
way, do it.
You don't ever have to sharewith anybody.
You don't have to do it.
It's a terrifying thing to do,I'll tell you what.
But just going through thatprocess alone was one of the
biggest factors for me.
Because frankly, I alwaysbottled my stuff up.
I never told anybody.
(35:34):
And I even tried to tell myselfthat I was fine, that I didn't
have any problems.
And it just let it boil andfester under the surface.
So get it out, put it on paper,write it.
Do everything you can tounderstand what is happening to
me right now.
What am I actually dealingwith?
(35:54):
Because with this mind thatlikes to swirl and go, you'll be
off on 20 different tangents.
And all of a sudden, you don'tknow what is actually bothering
you anymore.
What is the root?
What's the cause?
What are you really feeling?
Get it out.
Write it down.
And read it to yourself andtell this story to yourself as
(36:16):
if you're someone who gives adamn.
Laura Wakefield (36:19):
Because you should be.
Kevin Faulkner (36:20):
Yeah, you should be.
It's your life.
You should care about yourlife.
If you don't, you should writeabout that to understand why.
Laura Wakefie (36:29):
Absolutely. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for
being on here today.
Kevin has been my guinea pig onfiguring out how to do an
interview.
And I have to do have a littleconfession here.
We actually recorded an entirepodcast interview before
realizing that I had not hitrecord properly.
Kevin is a very, very goodsport to have sat...
(36:50):
30, 40 minutes in weren't we?
Yeah, yeah, we were.
We were well into it and he's avery good sport to agree to do
it again with me once werealized that.
I think some of my answers werebetter in the first one.
Laura Wakefield (37:05):
It'll be a great story to tell of my very
first interview that didn't getrecorded.
Thank you for joining me todayon The Joy fulicity Podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please like and share and come
follow me on all major socialmedia sites at Joy fulicity or
(37:27):
on my website, joyfulicity.com.
You can follow the link in thedescription for this episode to
all of the places that we canconnect.
Have a great day, everybody.
And remember, dare to dream,plan to play, live to learn.
Welcome to The Joy fulicity Podcast.
I'm your host, Laura Wakefield,and I'm very excited today to
have on my first podcast guest,Kevin Faulkner, who's just put
out his very first book, acollection of original poems and
(00:22):
art called "What StruggleBrings." Welcome, Kevin.
And I need to say...
It's also extra special to havehim here today because he
happens to be my son.
And so this book represents ajourney that I kind of walked
with him in some ways.
I was there through thehardships and the things that
sort of led to some of this andalso through the joy of seeing
(00:45):
it come through to fruition.
How does that feel to have thisfinally published?
Kevin Faulkner (00:50):
It feels good.
It feels good.
I'm very, very happy to behere.
Very happy to be here.
It's a mix of emotions.
It's a mix of emotions.
And I talk about that some inthe book.
How it's both exciting.
I have a product to sell.
I can share my story and do allthese things.
But at the same time, I'm quitevulnerable in this book.
(01:12):
I'm very honest, and I pridemyself on my honesty.
But it's a lot to put out.
Some of it's heavy.
Some of it's tough.
So to wrap that up and put itout to the world and hope that
they take it well.
It's a mix of emotions, butit's also just an expression of
(01:33):
my heart and soul.
I put everything into thisbook.
So to see it come together andbe the final copy, the first
time I picked this book up and Igot my test proofs in the mail,
it was almost an out-of-bodyexperience that I was having,
because I was for the first timekind of being able to see it,
(01:54):
not through the criticaldesigner eye, but through the
eye of a viewer.
And it was just an entirelydifferent experience to watch it
all come together, especiallyafter years of working on this
thing, to see it finally puttogether and published, it's
many emotions all swirling atonce, but I can't say that it's
(02:16):
not good.
Laura Wakefield (02:17):
Yeah, I should say Kevin got a degree in
graphic design.
So when I say this is aself-published book, it
literally is.
He did all the design, all theart, all of the writing,
everything.
This is a big deal.
Kevin Faulkner (02:33):
Everything through and through.
I mean, I couldn't make it anymore me if I
Laura Wakefield (02:38):
That's absolutely right.
Kevin Faulkner (02:40):
I couldn't make it any more me.
So.
Laura Wakefield (02:43):
So what led you to write poetry, Kevin?
You have been a good artistsince you were a little kid.
You know, everybody always knewthat you were an artist and
creative.
How did you get into writingpoems?
Kevin Faulkner (02:58):
Well, you know, it's tough to say.
Kind of the same process of howI started to draw and to
create.
You just kind of do it.
You kind of fall into it.
How does anybody know what theylike?
It just kind of happens.
Laura Wakefield (03:15):
Maybe through school assignments or things?
Kevin Faulkner (03:18):
Maybe.
I had seen art, seen painters,seen this and read poems, seen
other writers.
I listened to a lot of music, alot of hip-hop, rap, all that.
All of that is poetry, too,just wrapped up in a slightly
different form.
And it's something I'd alwaysenjoyed, but it was sometime
mid-high school.
(03:38):
It's the first time that I everkind of really started to
write, but it was very sparse,and I probably wrote 10 poems
while in high school.
But it's something mid-collegeI kind of fell back into.
I'd stopped for a long time.
I'd even stepped away fromdrawing and creating art for
years, trying to do the rightthing, trying to...
(04:00):
I was undeclared in college forthe first two years, and then I
had to pick a major.
I picked business finance, andit just, it wasn't me.
It wasn't a fit.
I felt so misaligned with myactual inner soul, and I
ended uphad dropping out ofcollege - you weren't very happy
about that one.
But in that process, thatsemester off, I had started to
(04:24):
draw again.
And I realized, oh, well, Imight be able to do something
with that.
So I went, got back into schoolfor graphic design, started
exploring that, really gettingback into art.
And it was maybe a year or twolater, almost by coincidence, I
just started to write again.
And much of it in the beginningwas to music.
A lot of it was songs in thebeginning, but if you can hear
(04:46):
my voice, I'm no singer.
But the process of writing wasjust, it was a very freeing
experience.
It was another mode ofexpressing this thing inside of
me that just wants to speak,that wants to sing really, but
can't do it.
Laura Wakefield (05:03):
And how do you go from, I enjoy writing poetry,
to I am a poet and I'm going toput together a book?
Kevin Faulkner (05:15):
That's an even tougher question.
Because really, when do youever identify yourself with the
things that you do?
At what point do you make thatswitch?
I write poems, but does thatmean I'm a poet?
Well, yeah.
If you drew a picture, you arean artist.
Many of us, we oftentimes...
(05:36):
accept identity when otherpeople call us that thing, when
I've sold a piece or done it ina way that's respectable, right?
I can put it on a business cardor on a website and then I'm
the thing.
Laura Wakefield (05:52):
It's almost like an outside force has to
declare you a poet or an artist.
Kevin Faulkner (05:55):
I'm a poet when the world thinks I'm a poet?
No.
I'm a poet when I write poetry.
I'm a poet in my thoughts.
I'm a poet in this exchange,because this is just who I am.
To be able to identify with it,that same thing has always been
a problem for me.
(06:15):
It probably wasn't untilhalfway through writing the book
that I finally started to admitthat I'm a poet or that I'm
even a writer.
It's just something that I do.
I'm not the thing.
There wasn't an exact momentwhere I started to realize it,
but it was, yeah, about halfwaythrough, I'd finally, and maybe
it was because I started to seejust the collection, the stack
(06:37):
of papers that I'm sitting on.
I can't have this many poemsand not be a poet.
Laura Wakefield (06:44):
And what made you decide to turn that into a
book?
I know you were influenced bya couple of people.
Kevin Faulkner (06:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
So that's a different story.
So I had never consideredwriting a poetry book.
It had never crossed my mind,even as a possibility.
I wasn't really aware ofself-publishing really being a
valid option or anything.
It had never crossed my mind.
I was just writing to write,because it's something that just
(07:14):
needed to be said from within.
I never even necessarilyplanned on sharing many of them.
But later in college, I met agirl.
Lovely girl.
She's my ex-girlfriend now, buther name is Ellen Everett.
She's a poet herself.
Go buy her books.
"If Hearts Had Trainingwheels," " I Saw You as a
Flower." They're on Amazon.
(07:35):
Go give her all your money.
But she is one of the sweetestpeople I've ever met in my
entire life.
But because she had alreadypublished her own book in 19, it
blew my mind.
I was like, oh, wow, that'sfantastic.
That's an option?
Laura Wakefield (07:53):
Yeah, can you do that?
Kevin Faulkner (07:55):
Okay.
You can do that?
She was like, of course youcan.
And I showed her some of mypoetry, and she was like, oh my
goodness, Kevin, of course youneed to.
And I'm still not evenidentifying as a poet.
I'm like, I don't know.
We'll see.
But she kept encouraging me towrite and write and write and
write.
And as I was doing it, sittingon that stack of paper,
(08:16):
realizing how much these poemswere affecting me.
And and allowing me to overcomethe nonsense and BS that was
boiling inside of me, the goodthat it was doing for me and
freeing my soul.
Seeing that, I started torealize the good that maybe it
(08:37):
might do for someone else, atthe very least in validating
their feelings and letting themknow that it can progress and
change.
So about midway through thatprocess, I started to see it
kind of come together and itjust became the one Ellen was
telling me all the time that Ineeded to do it.
Laura Wakefield (08:59):
And that's so motivational just to have
someone who believes in you.
Kevin Faulkner (09:03):
Oh, it was probably the biggest part.
I say it in theacknowledgments.
It's like I wrote a bookbecause she believed in me.
Laura Wakefield (09:08):
Yes.
Kevin Faulkner (09:10):
And she pushed me at times, times that I was
feeling insecure and all thesethings, dealing with all of my
nonsense, depression, anxiety,all the things I was dealing
with.
She kept pushing me and keptpushing me and kept encouraging
me, in just such a gentle andpure way.
Like she genuinely believedthat I was good and wanted to
(09:31):
see me do it.
She knew before I knew what itwould be.
Laura Wakefield (09:37):
Well, and I like what you said that you were
kind of earlier that you wereusing these to kind of process
through some of the things youwere going through, because the
book is set up in threesections, the dark, the haze and
the light and kind of aprogression that you personally
went on.
And this book does share sometough topics, addiction and
depression and some family dramathat we had, and and all of
(10:02):
that.
It kind of paints a picture ofa lot of pain, and I think that
it's so important that that paincame out onto the paper and
that you then want to share thatto maybe lift somebody else
that's going through a hardtime.
Kevin Faulkner (10:16):
Of course.
I mean, it was for me.
One of my biggest pains inlife, frankly, was the fact that
I often hid my feelings.
I often suppressed it.
for the sake of other people'shearts.
I didn't want to overload themwith all of this stuff, and I
(10:37):
was just drowning in my ownemotions, the inability to get
them out.
But as I started to get it out,even just to myself, that
process alone was the mostpowerful and wonderful thing
that I've ever gone through.
It's painful at times.
It's not easy to address thethings you've been trying to
(10:59):
suppress.
Laura Wakefield (11:00):
Well, and to write a poem about something,
you have to take a good look atit.
Kevin Faulkner (11:04):
I'm analyzing it and organizing it and doing all
these things.
And it was that process,because if you've ever felt
anxious or you have a verycreative mind, it can swirl and
swirl and go down rabbit holesin each and every direction, and
it can leave you in a muddledmess.
(11:26):
But this process, it helped toorganize.
It helped to clear my mind ofall of the nonsense that didn't
actually fit, but was taking upspace unnecessarily.
But yeah, and helped me addressthose things.
But this process of putting itthrough and overcoming it as
(11:50):
I've gone and seeing thatprocess, seeing it happen in me,
knowing the depths of what I'vefelt before, and now seeing
that light, living in thatlight.
All I want to do is share, youknow.
When the cup is full, itoverflows, you know?
Laura Wakefield (12:07):
Well, and I think that there's something
about seeing that the thingsthat you've been through might
be able to help someone elsethat gives them a purpose and it
makes it feel more okay that,you know, that you went through
it, you got through it, and nowthere's a reason for that.
That you're now going to beable to help somebody else.
(12:29):
I find comfort in that.
Kevin Faulkner (12:31):
Oh, absolutely.
And that's something I'vemulled over a lot is that idea
of purpose.
It was one of my big pains fora long time, because I had
fallen away from religion and Iwas a real strong atheist for a
long time.
Very nihilistic, all thesethings.
I couldn't see the purpose foranything that was happening in
my life.
I couldn't see the purpose forlife in general.
(12:51):
And there's some big discussionthat could be had just off of
that.
Laura Wakefield (12:59):
But a lot of that time is talked about in the
poems that are in the darksection.
Kevin Faulkner (13:04):
It is.
It is.
It's all there.
Laura Wakefie (13:07):
And I should say, I don't remember if I said this
earlier, but there's a lot ofcursing in here.
There's a lot of tough topics.
So be prepared.
Kevin Faulkner (13:14):
I say what I say.
Laura Wakefield (13:16):
If you read the book, that it's not necessarily
always hearts and flowers.
It's a tough book, but it endsin light.
And that's super,super important.
Kevin Faulkner (13:28):
Of course.
And that process, I mean,alone, it's a tough one to find
that purpose in, but to knowthat everybody is going through
something and to know that whatI've been through and how I've
come out of it could help, Imean, of course that gives a
purpose.
Of course it gives a purpose.
(13:48):
And that alone, I mean, I thinkpeople will go to the end of
the earth if they believe theyhave a reason to do so.
They will go through anything.
They will put themselvesthrough the hardest things in
life if they believe it's for apurpose.
Laura Wakefield (14:03):
Yes.
Kevin Faulkner (14:04):
And that, that is the key to life is to have
purpose in all the things thatyou do.
I had battled with that for along time.
Laura Wakefield (14:12):
Yeah.
And I think too, like we'vetalked about this before, but
there was hesitation to put thisbook out.
Kevin Faulkner (14:22):
Hmm.
Laura Wakefield (14:23):
It kind of is like a little bit of an expose
on some things in our family and
Kevin Faulkne (14:30):
And expose on me.
Laura Wakefield (14:31):
On you and on just some things our family had
been through.
And there's this hesitancy toput that out for public
consumption, you know, on socialmedia and different places.
We want to present this veryrosy image all the time, but
it's so important to have thatlevel of honesty because nobody
is problem free.
Kevin Faulkner (14:53):
Nobody.
Laura Wakefield (14:53):
Every single person has something going on in
their life or they have had orthey know someone who has.
Kevin Faulkner (15:00):
Or they're about to go through.
Or they're about to.
Yeah, exactly.
And so the more open and honestwe can be about some of that, I
think it gives other peoplepermission to maybe share what
they're going through.
It's one of my biggest gripes with the modern
world and social media and allthis is that we really are
(15:21):
putting out, like you said, thisrosy idea of what our lives
are.
And we know that's not thewhole truth.
We know when we're posting justthe smiley times that we were
going through all this otherstuff we didn't share.
But as you're viewing all ofyour friends and family and
strangers on the internet, goingthrough, you're looking at
(15:42):
everything like, oh, their livesare so perfect.
Their lives are so perfect.
And it leaves you feeling morealone than you've probably ever
felt.
In your sadness.
I'm the only personexperiencing this.
Nobody will understand me.
Well, the truth of the matteris everybody will, but it's
uncomfortable to talk about.
We don't like to share itbecause, you know, these are the
hard things.
These are the things that maybemight make someone look at me
(16:04):
different.
Laura Wakefield (16:05):
Right.
Kevin Faulkner (16:05):
Or make them judge me.
Laura Wakefield (16:07):
Or that what we're going through is forever.
That we will always feel...
this way and that's what i lovethat this book moves you on a
progression out of darkness andinto light.
It's not like you ever get donewith that process, you know,
(16:29):
life keeps going and you there'sstarts and there's stops and
there's rewrites and all thatsort of thing, but if you are
struggling it's notnecessarily forever.
Kevin Faulkner (16:40):
No it's not.
And it's something like, Iorganized my book in those three
sections, the dark, the haze,and the light, because that is
the general progression of thestates that I went through, how
I was living in this darkness,and then starting to kind of
come out of it, starting to findnew identities and new things,
(17:01):
but that's a tough space tobe in. You don't know who you
are.
I spent so much time as apessimist, as an atheist, as all
these things, Who am I now asthis hopeful person?
What am I supposed to expect?
That I'm happy now?
I'm not angry anymore?
A lot of these things are myshields and my safety net,
(17:21):
however destructive they were.
But it's like now the world'sscary.
I have to go do something I'mnot familiar with.
It's a rough spot to be in.
And you don't know what's goingon.
Laura Wakefield (17:31):
Isn't that always true as we go throughout
our lives that every singlething we go through, whether
it's good or bad, shapes us andcreates a new person,
essentially.
Kevin Faulkner (17:40):
Oh, absolutely.
And we almost face every day,every moment as a new person.
Oh, you are, because you've never lived as
that person today.
Laura Wakefield (17:49):
Yes.
Kevin Faulkner (17:49):
Today's battles.
They may be similar, but onething that I point out in my
book though here is thatalthough I put it in this nice
little progression, dark tolight, it was anything but a
clean progression.
To find my way out of myanxieties, my fears, my
self-judgments, my addictions,everything that had built up, it
(18:11):
was all over the place.
Up and down, left and right.
Kind of like a stock marketchart.
It goes up and down, up anddown, up and down.
But it was following a trend.
But it is anxious time.
These things are not easy todeal with.
And they're even harder to dealwith when you feel like you're
alone.
And that's my motivation forputting it out.
(18:33):
It has been nerve wracking toput this out, because I'm
putting out my darkest moments.
I'm putting out all the thingsthat I wanted to hide for many
years.
The world may judge me.
Many people might not like thisbook.
Maybe it confronts them andthey don't like that.
I don't know.
But I put it out anyway,because if there is at least one
(18:58):
person out there who it makesthem feel not so alone, then it
was worth it.
If it helps them get throughit, it was worth it because I
know how bad it can feel.
I don't want anyone to feelthat way.
There's better ways of being.
Laura Wakefield (19:12):
Or if they do, you want them to know that
there's hope.
Kevin Faulkner (19:17):
Of course, of course.
With a little bit of time andeffort aimed in the right
direction, you can overcomeanything.
And I genuinely believe that.
Would you be willing to share acouple of poems from the book?
Of c ourse.
Laura Wakefield (19:33):
My favorite one, Kevin knows, I like a lot
of them, but my favorite one hasalways been a poem called Don't
Get Too Lost to Fly.
And I'll show the accompanyingartwork.
There is artwork all throughoutthis book as well.
Not for every poem, but but allthroughout the book, there's,
there's original pieces of artthat Kevin has done.
(19:53):
It's, it's, it's really alovely book.
And like you said, thisrepresents when I look at it, it
represents not just art andpoetry.
It's my son.
This is Kevin right here.
And it's lovely to me.
Kevin Faulkner (20:06):
I'm trying to make it as cool as possible.
I know everyone loves a picturebook, but yeah, no, it's
together.
I mean, it's, it's been myheart and soul put in every
page.
I've gone over everything.
But yeah, I'll share this poemhere.
This is a love.
It is one of my favorites.
But don't get too lost to fly.
(20:28):
Birds will spread their wingsto fly and ride the wind to
where it goes.
Whether tree or mountain high,their future is never told.
They could go anywhere.
I wonder if that scares them.
I wonder if they stresssometimes, like I don't know
what's there, I should turnback, I think I've changed my
(20:49):
mind.
But maybe they don't think.
Maybe they just trust theirwings and take a flight.
Maybe stress is just a peoplething, a curse of having bigger
minds.
Birds developed wings.
They're free to go get lost andfind their hope.
We get lost in imagination.
But like the birds, we'llalways need the earth to find
(21:12):
home.
Laura Wakefield (21:15):
I love that.
And that poem came to me at atime when I was struggling with
some anxiety and some fear aboutthe future.
And there was something sohopeful about that imagery of
the birds taking flight withoutfear that was very moving for
me.
And we've talked about this,that what the poet means when
(21:35):
they write it and what thereader takes from it aren't
always the same.
Like it'll hit, it'll come toyou where you are at the moment
and it will speak messages toyou that you need to hear at the
moment.
And that one really did for me.
Kevin Faulkner (21:52):
Yeah.
And I'm glad it did.
And in many ways that was whatI was going for, but how it will
affect you is different thanhow it affected me when I wrote
it.
When I wrote it, though, Imean, I was literally out
watching the birds.
I was sitting out in nature.
And I was just observing them.
They were picking up and flyingall over the place.
(22:15):
You'd see them.
Try to track one, you'll loseyourself.
They're everywhere andanywhere.
But what was catching me aboutthem was that it was just as if
it's their nature.
They're I don't think they everthink not to fly or ever fear
(22:37):
the process of flying or whereit might take them.
It's just what they do.
There's no back or forth.
It's just who they are.
So they would have no reason tofear, right?
But I was sitting therecomparing the differences
between us and them.
And obviously we can't fly, butwe as humans, we've been
(23:00):
blessed with this amazingintellect and creative ability
to have ideas and to create withour hands and build and create
the lives that we want to live.
And like the birds and theirnature just to fly, that should
just be our nature to create, tothink, to ponder, to do these
things.
Yet so often with uncheckedanxieties and things, we'll find
(23:26):
ourselves locked in thought,locked in fear, of bringing our
thoughts to life, to go create,to go build the lives we want,
when it should just be ournature, right?
But looking at thosedifferences between the two,
it's just funny how different weare, how similar we are.
(23:50):
At the end of the poem here, Italk about how both with the
birds and with us, it's like thebirds, they'll fly around all
day.
But they always need to comeback to Earth.
This is where they find theirfood, they find all the stuff to
build their nests, all thesethings.
They are an integrated part tothis life, to this Earth.
And so are we.
(24:10):
And as I was thinking aboutthat and looking at the
similarities instead of thedifferences between us, I myself
was outside nature watching,which I hadn't done for a long
time.
And as I was remembering backto the different periods of life
where I was extraordinarilyanxious and fearful and angry
(24:31):
and all these things.
I was very busy with school andcollege and with work,
everything.
I was spending all my timeindoors on computers,
disconnected from the earth,disconnected from life,
disconnected from even the stuffI was engaging in because I was
too lost in my mind.
But it wasn't until I reallystarted to just reintegrate
(24:53):
and start to go outside, startto re-engage with life in a
meaningful way, that a lot ofthese fears started to drift
away.
Laura Wakefield (25:00):
Yeah.
Kevin Faulkner (25:01):
It was a beautiful thing as it started to
happen.
Laura Wakefield (25:03):
It comes back to what's real.
Kevin Faulkner (25:07):
Yeah, of course.
Of course.
And how lovely it is.
Laura Wakefield (25:11):
Yeah.
Kevin Faulkner (25:12):
Like if you're ever thinking life isn't worth
living, go out into the woodsand just look.
Just observe.
Watch life happening all aroundyou.
It is this beautifullyintricate system that we are a
part of.
Laura Wakefield (25:27):
Yeah.
Kevin Faulkner (25:28):
And that we need to be engaging in it.
Otherwise, you lose sight andyou lose connection.
Laura Wakefield (25:33):
100%.
Kevin Faulkner (25:34):
And you find yourself trapped in fears and
not even living the life thatyou want to live instead.
It's just silly.
It's just silly.
Laura Wakefield (25:42):
Do you have a favorite poem in the book?
Kevin Faulkner (25:46):
That's a tough one.
That really is a tough one.
I have many favorites.
I don't even have a favoritecolor, to be honest with you.
But if I had to pick one toshare, I'd gone through this one
called conflicted.
It's kind of stemming off ofsome of those ideas of
(26:10):
unfettered imagination how canlead to anxieties and all these
things.
That can be a reality.
Absolutely, that can be areality.
And probably most of us havefelt that way.
Gotten too lost in fears and start fearing things that will never happen.
Laura Wakefield (26:20):
Right.
But there's also realities to your life. Things that have hurt you. Reasonable things to fear, right? And, something in my life that hurt me several times was this silly thing called love.
Because you're putting yourheart out on the line.
(26:44):
You're vulnerable in thesemoments because you're letting
yourself be connected tosomeone.
And if that breaks, that hurtsso bad.
And it's real.
Nothing that I had experiencedthere was fake.
And I had reason to be fearful.
But at the same time, it's alsoso worth having.
(27:04):
But I kind of get into thispoem here.
Some of you said this isprobably one of my tightest
poems.
And And I do love how it turnedout.
So I'll share this one with youand let you see if you like it.
But Conflicted.
Love is what matters, right?
That's something I've beenhearing my whole life and I
(27:25):
believed it.
I've built up expectations witha dream of what it feels like.
And for the most part, I'vebeen wrong.
Which doesn't mean it's bad.
It's just different than Ithought.
It's really moreresponsibilities, because
tending to a heart was nevermeant to be an easy thing.
You've both lived your livesapart, and then one day the two
(27:47):
start melding, quickly turninginto one that then the two of
you are sharing, and that isterrifying.
The thought that my life hereis not my own, the fact that
someone else relies on me, am Igrown enough for this?
When I barely know myself, do Ihave enough love to give?
And if I give you all my heart,will you commit the same or up
(28:09):
and split?
I've seen it all before and nowI'm hesitant.
I have trouble trusting folks.
Shit, I have trouble trustingme.
My heart's enthralled in ropeand chains, a tangled lock that
wound for free.
I'm sure I could get out.
But would that really be thebetter thing?
I've been conflicted.
(28:30):
End scene.
I love that because you don't get to be...
an adult without having feltthose feelings.
There's almost, I mean, thereare those very rare few people
that fall in love with theirhigh school sweetheart and get
married and are married for 70years.
(28:51):
You know, that does happen.
That's the rare thing.
Kevin Faulkner (28:53):
That's a beautiful thing.
Congratulations to them.
Laura Wakefield (28:55):
Yes, absolutely.
But most of us do sufferheartbreak at some point in
time.
And I liked what you said abouthow you start to mistrust not
just other people, but evenyourself within relationships.
Kevin Faulkner (29:07):
Yeah.
Laura Wakefield (29:07):
And once you start doubting yourself, it just
complicates all of it.
So I love, love, love that.
Kevin Faulkner (29:14):
Yeah, well, it's tough because, you know, at
times I've been hurt by others.
At times I was the problem.
At times I have broken hearts.
And to sit there, I mean, todeal with the pain of your
broken heart is one thing.
To deal with the pain ofknowing that I shattered another
heart is a whole other thing.
(29:36):
That's a guilt that you have tosit with because you know the
pain of how bad it hurts.
Laura Wakefield (29:42):
Right.
If you've been on both sides.
Kevin Faulkner (29:45):
Yeah.
And you're like, oh, hell, Idid that to them.
Laura Wakefield (29:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Kevin Faulkner (29:50):
I don't want to hurt anybody else, but me and
myself, I was running from lovefor a long time and had a series
of, mishaps I'll call them,mistakes.
Laura Wakefield (30:02):
That's a good way of putting it.
Kevin Faulkner (30:04):
A series, I'd say.
And you start looking at yourtrack record and building up
judgments of yourself and allthese things.
And you're tired of the lifeyou're living.
You want this thing over here,but you're terrified of it.
You're terrified that you willeven be able to handle it
because you've runfrom it before.
Laura Wakefield (30:24):
Well, and that kind of conflict, will often
lead you to just retreat andwithdraw and just not
participate.
You feel a little paralyzed.
by conflict like that, I think,sometimes.
Kevin Faulkner (30:37):
I did for quite a while.
Yeah, for quite a while.
I definitely had stepped awayfrom the dating scene for
probably a good year, year and ahalf, two years before I met
Ellen.
And we just kind of felltogether and all of this started
happening and led me to where Iam today.
Laura Wakefield (30:59):
And I love that you guys are still such good
friends.
I'll put some links to Ellen'sbooks also.
Yeah, definitely.
Maybe I can even talk her intocoming on the show at some
point.
Kevin Faulkner (31:08):
Oh, I think she'd love to.
Laura Wakefield (31:09):
She's a lovely person, and I'm very grateful
that she came into your life andkind of was the catalyst or
part of it to get this book tocome to be.
Kevin Faulkner (31:23):
Of course.
She played a massive role in somany things, and that is the
power of love.
That is the power of love.
of this type of beautifulthing.
Love when lost can shatter you.
But love in itself will healevery wound.
It really will.
It really will.
And she did.
(31:44):
She just came in with this verykind heart and just showed me
in so many ways that it wasn'tlove that was wrong.
It wasn't that.
It was maybe the way that I wasapproaching it.
Maybe with the people I wastrying to approach it with.
But love in itself is onlywonderful.
(32:05):
And that's why losing it's sopainful.
But it's a tough thing and oneof the most beautiful things in
life.
So we must face it.
We must go after it.
We must never stop searchingfor love.
Laura Wakefield (32:21):
I agree.
I agree.
Kevin Faulkner (32:22):
You have to do it.
Laura Wakefield (32:24):
Kevin, I have one more final question for you.
But before I get to that, wherecan people find this book?
Where can they connect withyou?
So everybody knows how to findKevin Faulkner and What Struggle
Brings?
Kevin Faulkner (32:36):
Yes.
So the book is available onAmazon.
Search up What Struggle Bringsby Kevin Faulkner.
You should be able to find it.
If it doesn't pop upimmediately...
Search for it in the bookscategory and it should pop up.
Amazon's search tool isn't thebest, but you can find it there.
I have a website,wonderedbliss.com.
(32:58):
Follow me on social media,@KevinFaulknerPoetry or
@Wondered Bliss.
And I too will have a podcastof my own I'm launching very
soon, which will be The WonderedBliss Podcast.
So you should be able to findme in all of those places.
But yeah, what's your finalquestion?
Laura Wakefield (33:19):
So my final question is, to anyone out there
who is wallowing in the darkcurrently of their life, they're
struggling, they're suffering,maybe they're dealing with
addictions, maybe they'redealing with a different kind of
pain, but they feel like theyare in the dark part of their
life.
What would you say, afterhaving been through this journey
(33:43):
and written this book, wouldbe...
I know this is a huge questionto put into just a couple
sentences, but what would yousay would be the key to reach
back toward light?
What's the starting point?
What gets you going back towardlight and toward joy?
Of course.
Well, it starts with buying mybook.
No, I'm k idding.
(34:04):
Welldone.
Kevin Faulkner (34:07):
But I say it in the book.
I talk about it.
I would tell you to write.
Write.
The process of writing.
The process of organizing yourthoughts and preventing them
from continuing to swirl.
Of just getting your thoughtsout from inside of your mind and
in your body onto paper.
It solidifies them.
(34:29):
It finalizes them.
And it creates this separationbetween the problem itself and
the life that you're living.
The experience that you'rehaving.
And can allow you to...
experience your life in a newway with new perspectives.
Especially if you want to gothrough a process of writing
poetry, things like that, whereyou really have to to sit with
(34:52):
it to make it rhyme to to followa cadence to do these things it
really makes you address thethings that you're facing.
But you have to be willing tobe honest with yourself.
It doesn't have to be inpoetry.
It can be journaling, scratchnotes on a napkin, whatever it
is that helps you get yourthoughts out in an organized
(35:12):
way, do it.
You don't ever have to sharewith anybody.
You don't have to do it.
It's a terrifying thing to do,I'll tell you what.
But just going through thatprocess alone was one of the
biggest factors for me.
Because frankly, I alwaysbottled my stuff up.
I never told anybody.
(35:34):
And I even tried to tell myselfthat I was fine, that I didn't
have any problems.
And it just let it boil andfester under the surface.
So get it out, put it on paper,write it.
Do everything you can tounderstand what is happening to
me right now.
What am I actually dealingwith?
(35:54):
Because with this mind thatlikes to swirl and go, you'll be
off on 20 different tangents.
And all of a sudden, you don'tknow what is actually bothering
you anymore.
What is the root?
What's the cause?
What are you really feeling?
Get it out.
Write it down.
And read it to yourself andtell this story to yourself as
(36:16):
if you're someone who gives adamn.
Laura Wakefield (36:19):
Because you should be.
Kevin Faulkner (36:20):
Yeah, you should be.
It's your life.
You should care about yourlife.
If you don't, you should writeabout that to understand why.
Laura Wakefie (36:29):
Absolutely. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for
being on here today.
Kevin has been my guinea pig onfiguring out how to do an
interview.
And I have to do have a littleconfession here.
We actually recorded an entirepodcast interview before
realizing that I had not hitrecord properly.
Kevin is a very, very goodsport to have sat...
(36:50):
30, 40 minutes in weren't we?
Yeah, yeah, we were.
We were well into it and he's avery good sport to agree to do
it again with me once werealized that.
I think some of my answers werebetter in the first one.
Laura Wakefield (37:05):
It'll be a great story to tell of my very
first interview that didn't getrecorded.
Thank you for joining me todayon The Joy fulicity Podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please like and share and come
follow me on all major socialmedia sites at Joy fulicity or
(37:27):
on my website, joyfulicity.com.
You can follow the link in thedescription for this episode to
all of the places that we canconnect.
Have a great day, everybody.
And remember, dare to dream,plan to play, live to learn.
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