Let's Chat... Writing and running through grief (with Justin Creps)

Episode Transcript
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Claire Sandys (00:00):
Hello there and thanks for joining me for
another episode of Let's Chat.
I'm Claire Sandys, host of TheSilent Why podcast and blog
writer for www.
thesilentwhy.
com, a podcast that explores howand where we can find hope in
loss and grief.
In these Let's Chat episodes, Italk to a guest who has
experience or expertise in aparticular area of loss, and I'm

(00:21):
really excited about thisepisode's guest because it's
fellow podcaster and writer,Justin Creps.
Justin is also a teacher andlives in Ohio, where he co-hosts
the podcast Writing in Progresswith Jon Woolley, and that's
how I first came across him.
Justin and I share a love fortwo things podcasting and
writing.
He's also a fantastic runner,which is where our shared

(00:41):
interests come to a screechinghalt, but that didn't stop me
wanting to also explore howthat's helped him through grief
as well.
A while back, justin shared adeeply personal blog post with
me, one he wrote in 2022 abouthow both running and writing had
helped him navigate the griefof his wife's miscarriage.
His story was such a powerfulreminder of how we all process
loss in our own ways, and I knewI had to invite him on the

(01:03):
podcast to talk about it.
In this conversation, we diveinto writing as a tool for
healing, whether through fictionor non-fiction, the creative
processes we both enjoy and howlife's hardest moments can shape
us as writers.
We also explore the surprisingways that helping others can, in
turn, help us through our ownstruggles.
It's a very honest, vulnerableconversation and I can't wait

(01:24):
for you to hear it.
And with each of these types ofepisode, I aim to capture a
little bit of wisdom from everyconversation, kind of like the
Hermans in our usual episodesyou need to pop to
thehermancompanycom for more onthat one.
So to do that, I'm building ametaphorical toolshed filled
with resources to help usnavigate grief and loss, and at
the end of each episode I ask myguest what kind of tool their

(01:46):
insight represents and I add itto the shed.
And so far I've gathered areally valuable collection,
which I will get a list of ontothe website as soon as I get
around to it.
So grab a cup of tea, a coffeeor maybe a sports drink of some
kind and relax with me andJustin as we chat, writing and
running through grief with meand Justin as we chat writing

(02:07):
and running through grief.

Justin Creps (02:13):
I'm Justin Creps, aspiring author.
My main job is I'm a teacher,but I do very much enjoy writing
on the side.
I live in Ohio.
Yeah, I grew up in a towncalled Toledo, it's up in
Northwest Ohio and now I'm abouttwo or three hours south of
there in Columbus, just kind offrom the heartland in the United
States, and I started a podcasta few years ago with my fellow
teacher, john Woolley, andthat's how Claire and I kind of

(02:33):
connected.
So we record an episode maybeonce or twice a month and put it
out there.
And I wrote a blog a few yearsago about a life experience I
had and it lined up with a lotof what Claire does here on the
Silent why.
So we'd kind of become podcastfriends.
So I shared it with her and sheinvited me out.

And you're the guest today.
How does it feel to be theguest rather than the host?

It's funny.
I feel a little nervous becausemy guests always talk about
being nervous and when you'rethe host I'm never really that
nervous because I guess I knowthe questions and stuff ahead of
time.
But yeah, I'm interested to seewhere this goes.
It's kind of fun not knowing.

And you don't get the editing afterwards.
That's my job, so you can relax.

I'm very excited about that.
Sometimes on my end the editingcan be a pain.
There's a lot of behind thescenes stuff when it comes to
like syncing audio, andsometimes it goes smoothly and
it's no problem.
But every once in a while youget a kind of tricky piece of
audio that can turn into a lotof work rather quickly.

Definitely.
When I first started I thoughtediting an hour interview would
be like roughly an hour and abit, because you're listening to
an hour, right, you're justdoing a little bit as you go.
I did not think it was going tobe maybe three, four times the
length of the episode to get itright.
So, yeah, there's a lot of workgoes in, so hats off to you for
doing that.

Oh, and to you.

Thank you.
You do a podcast called Writingin Progress with John Woolley.
We have to give a shout out toJohn.

Oh yeah, John's great.

Co-hosting in your writing mission.
There was something I pickedout from the blog that you did
that I'll talk about in a bit.
A little bit about the second,and that's how we connected.
How did?

writing and running.
What sort of age did they comeinto your life?
How far back did these two go?
Quite a ways, actually.
So running started way back,gosh.
I was probably in about sixthgrade, so I think that would
make me like maybe 12 years old,and I was really into soccer or
football where you guys arefrom right.
And I was really into soccer orfootball where you guys are
from right and I was never themost skilled.
I had decent skill.
I'm a very competitive person.
I want to be good at the thingsI do and I knew to be good at

(04:32):
soccer I just had to be reallyfast and fit and I would just
basically outwork people.
So what was kind of the naturalextension of that was I'm going
to start running.
So I would run outside ofpractice so that when I got on
the soccer field I knew I couldjust outrun whoever I was
matched up against.

(04:52):
And then along the way I kindof became pretty good at running
.
My second sport was track andfield and I started doing that
in seventh grade and, yeah, Iwas pretty good at the 800 meter
, which is about half a mile, alittle under a K for you guys.
That kind of took me into theworld of running and as I got
into college I found that Iliked having something to train
for, a goal to strive for, andkind of just the way my
personality is.

(05:13):
It was like, okay, I guess themarathon's the next thing to do.
So I went from the 800 meter upto the marathon, which was
quite a jump, and there was alot of learning that went along
with that.
But yeah, it started when I waspretty young and writing was
actually funny enough.
Right around the same time Insixth grade I had a teacher
named Mrs Carroll and sheassigned us a short story.

(05:34):
I don't know assignment and Iremember a lot of kids in my
class wrote a page or two.
We had the weekend to write itand I came back on Monday with
like 12 pages which for a sixthgrader, you know and I just kind
of realized at that moment likeI have a pretty active
imagination and it's fun to kindof let it turn into a story.

I love it when there's a teacher early on that
just sparks that creativepassion in somebody.
I hope they find out sometimesthat they did that because it
must be such a big thing forthem.
And what sort of writing do youenjoy most?
Because we sort of connectedroundabout around a short story
competition called WritingBattle, which I heard about I
think I heard about it on yourpodcast.
I must have heard about yourpodcast before the competition,

(06:14):
so I entered in a couple ofthose with a really short, like
250 word, 500 word, but you guyshave been doing that for a lot
longer than I'd even known aboutit.
What sort of length is yourfavorite kind of type of writing
?

It kind of depends .
Honestly.
Again, I like competition andstuff, so that seems to bring
out the best in me.
So it's kind of whatever I getprompted that weekend, it's got
to be my favorite.
But yeah, I think I've foundafter the fact, after it's done,
I do like having a longer piece.
So I guess in the moment I kindof approach them all the same.
So, like writer's playground,which is another one we do, is a

(06:48):
longer one it's 3000 words andI do find myself kind of liking
those stories more when I'm donewith them because I had more
time to kind of dive in and goplaces with it.
When I do write unpromptedwhich these days isn't all that
often, just because it's hard tofind time to do it uh, it seems
like a lot of my stories end upin kind of that three to five

(07:10):
thousand kind of word area.
A lot of my blogs tend I don'tblog that often anymore either,
but uh, I think they kind of endup in and around that area as
well.
So the longer stuff obviouslyit's more work in the moment,
but when you're done with it youkind of have a bigger thing to
be proud of, maybe yeah, andit's.

I think it's a lot of work because I'm the I'm
probably the exact opposite ofyou.
I like having, I like having ago at the 250.
That feels like a challenge.
Or I want like 90,000.
I don't really the bit inbetween feels like a lot of work
.
Um, I mean 3,500.
That is difficult, I think, tofit in the full structure of a
story and to do it well.
To me feels like so few words.
That's what I found reallyinteresting about this.

(07:47):
I just discovered this shortstory well, which I'd never
really come across before rightto hear how all the different
people, especially on yourpodcast, like all the different
lengths of story and I'mlearning that there's such a
different skill to doing a shortstory than there is to doing a
novel.
They're not the same set ofskills.
When I try and put my hand ofwhat I know about novel writing
to a 250 or a 500 or a 1,000, itdoesn't work.

(08:12):
It's just there's not enoughwords to do the same kind of
thing.
So, yeah, I've got a lot ofadmiration for people who do all
the different lengths, becausethat is very difficult and for
most people listening probablywon't know that a lot of these
competitions it's not just acase of writing a story.
You're given a genre to write toor you're given a prompt which
might be a character or asetting or an object or
something.
So you're writing to veryspecific things and the art of

(08:33):
it is to be creative, I guess,within that genre and around
those prompts, which again wasnew for me and I found really
challenging.
I love the idea of it but inpractice, in the first five
minutes of getting them, you'relike, oh, this is exciting.
And then, like an hour later,I'm like this is really hard.
So yeah, is it something thatcomes easily to you?

I guess it kind of does.
I think I tend to be a littlebit of a rambler, which you
might realize when you'reediting this episode.
So I think kind of having thatconstraint and forcing myself
actively to budget my words forlack of a better phrase kind of
forces me to stay on topic, stayfocused and I'm less likely to

(09:13):
veer off into something that'svery, very long.
And I know, even from the fewtimes I've kind of revisited
over the years, there's a lot ofstuff that leaked in there
that's just like me personallyventing through my characters.
And now that I'm looking at itwith new eyes and maybe some

(09:36):
better trained eyes from doingall of these competitions and
writing, I'm like, okay, yeah,that's not that relevant.
That was me writing for myselfrather than writing for the
story, which is still good andsometimes needed.
But I think there's there'ssomething to be said for
learning to kind of tell thedifference between you know
what's something I wrote becauseI wanted to write about it that
day and what's a scene that wasactually moving the story

(09:58):
forward.

Yeah, definitely.
I think I've learned that overthe years I've had a novel that
I've been working on.
I'm getting there.
I think I've learned that overthe years I've had a novel that
I've been working on.
I'm getting there, but, yeah,I've definitely had to rewrite
bits that have been meprocessing life really.
But when I reread it it needs adifferent voice, it needs a
different take on it and, likeyou said, it's a great place to
start, but it's not thefinishing thing if you want to
sort of take it any further.
And I think that's a realinteresting part of my writing

(10:21):
journey has been learning thedifference between just writing
something to get something outof you and then actually making
it into something that otherpeople will want to read or that
has a good structure to it.
But yeah, I love I don't get totalk about writing very often
on the podcast, so I don't wantto get too waylaid with that
side of it.
But, um, that is, that is theimportant bit, and I think it
really comes together.
And what we're going to talkabout with you, I think, brings

(10:42):
together in such a lovely waygrief, loss, running, how
writing can help with processingthese things, and it all
started with a blog that youshared with me.
That was just like.
I don't want to sound tooexcited about it, because it is
a sad subject, isn't it?
You're processing somethingvery deep, but for me it was
very exciting because I was justlike this is so well written
because you are an incrediblygood writer, thank you.

(11:04):
You're not just on here becauseyou write.
You write very good stories andyou can tell that through the
blog.
There's a few bits I'll pullout that.
I just thought that's how youcan see your writing skill.
It's really well written.
I mean, there's a lot aboutrunning in it which I don't know
, so I learned a lot about that,but I loved at the time in 2021
.
So do you want to just, in yourwords, just tell us a bit about

(11:26):
what that blog was and how thatcame about?

Sure.
So the blog and I'm actuallynot super familiar with blog
terminology there's the big blogwith all the articles and that
is a running blog.
That's my running blog.
I used to write in it quite abit.
I've actually kind of notwritten in it as much the last
few years.
But then you have the specificarticles and it's actually funny
, looking back at the blog, thelast three articles are actually

(11:51):
all me like processingdifficult things.
So it's kind of turned intothat.
It went from like a runningblog to a running slash Justin's
dealing with emotions blog.
But the one I sent you was apretty heavy one, inarguably
probably the greatest loss thatI've experienced.
So my wife and I had our firstchild in 2020.

(12:12):
His name's Mac.
He's now four years old.
He's great.
Afterwards, we went on avacation one summer.
It was our first time away asparents without our kid, which,
when you become a parent, youstart to value those trips a
little more.
And yeah, we had a bit of asurprise.
We found out we were pregnantand it was scary in the moment

(12:35):
because we were not planning tohave a second child that quickly
, and so we kind of allowedourselves.
There's something you're kindof told when you become a parent
of like, especially that firsttrimester, like don't get too
excited, almost, you know,because things happen Doesn't
always go the way you want it togo.
So you kind of temper thatexpectation.

(12:56):
But this time, because we werealready feeling nervous and
stuff, we almost leaned theother way intentionally of let's
get excited about this.
So we just really started kindof talking ourselves into this
is a good thing, it wasn't theplan, but that's OK.
This is great.
And also, growing up and even asa young man, I was nervous to

(13:20):
become a father, just to behonest.
And so I think, in some ways,when Melissa, my wife, was
pregnant with Mac, I had somefeelings of what's this going to
be like?
Am I going to be a good dad?
I was very nervous about it andthat was all going on during
2020, which had plenty of otherthings to worry and be anxious
about as well.

(13:40):
But then we had Mac and I foundout I loved it and I am a good
dad and it is just this greatblessing.
So, this second child when wewere expecting it, I was fully
excited.
I was all in.
In a way, I wasn't even with myfirst child and because it was
2020 with Mac, I wasn't allowedto go to the ultrasounds or any

(14:03):
of those doctors meeting becausethey were very strict on how
many people could be in thedoctor's office and all that
stuff during COVID.
So the second time around I wasallowed to go and it was the
first time I got to hear mychild's heartbeat and I never
got to do that with Mac.
But very quickly it wasactually that first appointment
I got to hear the heartbeat.
It was great.

(14:24):
But then, like right away, thedoctor was like something's not
right, they're not measuring theright size and there was
definitely a period of denialand then, pretty quickly after
that, we realized we were goingto lose the baby.
And that was hard, obviously,and I think because I had let
myself get so excited and I hadgotten in the mindset of let

(14:48):
yourself get excited, take offall the reins, you know, feel
all the things.
It hit very hard and I'm notalways great at processing those
emotions, but through runningand through writing, that's kind
of when I was able to do it andwriting, I think, makes sense.
Right, you're vulnerable as awriter.

(15:08):
Your emotions go into what youwrite.
That's kind of how we do it, atleast how I do it.
I think that's probably howmost people do it, so that one
kind of makes sense.
Running might be harder toexplain and I'm not sure if I
can completely articulate it.
I think part of it's just beingalone.
You know you're out on your own, there's no one there that you
have to put up a front orpretend like things are OK and I

(15:30):
don't know.
For me, running has always beenan emotional thing.
It's part of what makes me agood runner is I let myself get
all fired up and when you're inthe 25th mile of a marathon it's
emotional, emotional.
It's an emotional experienceLike the.
The physical part of your bodyisn't really working anymore.
You have to rely on, on, youknow, your heart making, making

(15:50):
it that last mile or so.
So I think, for whatever reasonthat I'm, I'm in an emotional
state when I'm running often.
So, yeah, there were someworkouts where I was literally
like running and crying and thatlittle part of my day, each day
, was where I let myself feelall the things and and it was an
important part of the grievingprocess for me.

I remember you mentioned one place in
particular I can't remember thename of it where you had that.
You had that moment of justlike running and crying and
you're in the dark.
Do you think that that?
Do you think you would haveprocessed it in the same way if
you hadn't have had somethinglike that for that outlet?

It's kind of hard to say.
I think it's kind of likeplugging a hole with water
rushing.
It's going to come outsomewhere.
You know, I don't think you canbottle that up forever.
So who knows, it might havecome out in a negative way, you
know.
Could it have turned into, youknow, resentment at home, you

(16:45):
know.
You know, could it have comeout in my workplace if I'm
irritable and I think havingthat outlet of a place to feel
the things and let the grief go,you know, running was really
important for that.
Because I don't know, I can'tsay how it would have come out.
I like to think I would havefound a healthy way to deal with
it.
But I do think I would say withcertainty it would have come

(17:07):
out.
I like to think I would havefound a healthy way to deal with
it, but I do think I would saywith certainty it would have
come out in some form of fashionsomewhere.
So you know, using it to getemotional and run extra fast and
you know, run a little furtherand work a little harder is
probably a pretty positive wayto use those emotions.
So I think that's a good way ofdoing it for me.

It's interesting, especially when you said
running's emotional for you.
When you allow yourself to getemotional about anything in any
way, I think that does allowother emotions to come through.
Maybe that's a really key,important thing, especially for
men, I think, because men don'ttalk about these things as much
as women do with each other.
They're often afraid of showingsome form of weakness.
In inverted commas and alsoaround babies, miscarriages, ivf

(17:45):
heard a lot of people say.
Quite often even the medicalprofession will look to the
female to support the female, tosupport what they're going
through, and it can be very easyfor the male to be ignored and
then therefore the grief doesn'tcome out or they're supporting
the wife going through somethingphysical.
So they sort of shut down whatthey're feeling a little bit to
try and be strong.
But interesting that you'vealready got an outlet there for
emotions.
I wonder if that helps it out.

(18:07):
I don't know.
I mean, I think most women willunderstand, like if you're
feeling in a particularlyfragile place and you start
laughing a lot, sometimes itwill just make you cry.
It's very confusing.
But sometimes there's, like youknow, you let out one emotion
and another one like hijacks itand was like oh quick, we're
being emotional.
Actually, we're sad aboutsomething.
So, yeah, that's reallyinteresting.
It's making me really thinkabout the different ways of

(18:27):
processing stuff like that.
Um, and in your blog you talkvery specifically about the
training leading up to this onemarathon, was it?
columbus, columbus, yeah, that'sit yeah yeah, and you, you've
named your daughter logan in theblog.
It's actually just let's askyou about.
Do you think it helped namingher and then making her into
something that was with you onthat run?

so you can walk through.
But the town we stayed in wascalled Logan, ohio.
So we were, like I said,normally and I don't know what's
normal, it's different foreveryone, I suppose but I

(19:10):
remember even with Mac, wewaited till we were done with
the first trimester before weeven started talking about names
, because you don't want to gettoo attached, right, because
things can go wrong.
But that's actually a perfectexample of in this case.
We were like, let's pick a name, like, like, let's get excited.
You know, it was this scarything we weren't planning on, so

(19:31):
let's find things to getexcited about.
And so we were talking aboutnames and we hadn't completely
decided on one prior to this butone of the names we talked
about was Logan, after the placewhere the baby was conceived.
We also, frankly, didn't knowfor sure if it was going to be a
boy or a girl.
Yet we were hoping for a girl,because our first kid was a boy.
But kind of pretty quicklyafter the fact, once we knew we

(19:53):
had lost Logan, we knew we weregoing to hope for another child,
which we have had another childsince but we knew we were never
going to use the name Loganagain.
So to me.
You know that was a name, thatit I guess giving it an A made
it feel real, which allowed meto process the loss more.
And I don't know I'm not anexpert in loss and grief if that

(20:16):
was a healthy way to deal withit or not, but to me it seemed
to help.
So I think that's all we can doin those moments is do what is
best for us.
I'm sure it's different foreveryone and my wife swears, you
know, she's very convinced itwas going to be a girl, which
I'm not going to question, thatyes, to us it's a little girl.
Main blog and yeah, I don't knowProcessing it.

(20:36):
I talk about it in the blog.
There were days where Ipretended I was running with her
, you know, and maybe that'sweird, maybe people listen to
this and like man, this dude'scrazy, but to me it allowed me
to exist alongside that griefprocess.
It be with it.
I think that's an importantpart of dealing with it is
letting yourself feel it andfeel all the things.

(20:57):
And maybe I think in loss, withsomething like this, there's an
element of what, if of notknowing.
You know, that kind of unknownpart of it is one of the biggest
things that's hard to deal withof it is is one of the biggest
things that's that's hard todeal with.
So so by giving her a name feltlike I knew her, kind of took
out that unknown bit a littlebit, even if it was just for me

(21:18):
personally yeah which helped.
It helped me.

I think that makes a lot of sense.
I actually think that, um,because my audience are mostly
people going through, beenthrough grief and loss.
They take anything that anybodydoes to get through it, because
that's, that's all you can doisn it.
And actually I think that'sreally healthy.
And I've heard, even in themore childless world which is
obviously where I'm based, thatactually it's really difficult
grieving something there's nosubstance to at all because it

(21:43):
was never there.
So if you're in a situationlike us, where you never even
had a pregnancy test that waspositive, you've got nothing
specific to grieve, and I didn'tthink about that for a long
time.
But I've since heard people whohave literally made up their
children and named them so thatthey have something to grieve
like oh, let's say, we had twolittle girls and they were
called this and this and that'swho we're grieving and that can
actually make you confront yourgrief a bit and really help get

(22:06):
through it.
So what you said I think makesa lot of sense, puts substance
and it puts a person to whatyou've lost, which can be very
difficult otherwise.
And it was her name.
One of the bits in your blogthat showed me the writer in you
was like the structure bit thatkept coming back, and I wrote
them down because you were likehey, logan, this is what it
feels like to be alive.
Hey, logan, this is what itfeels like to be loved.

(22:26):
Hey, logan, this is what itfeels like to go fast.
Hey, logan, I'm really glad wedid this together.
Hey, logan, we did it and I waslike that's just brilliant.
That's a story right there forme.
There's a structure of yougoing through it and then
connecting with her along theway and her being with you and I
think that's what makes theblog so special is that you take
us along on that journey withyou and with her, which I think

(22:48):
is just what I mean, what alovely tribute to her.
When you hit publish on thatblog, how were you feeling?
Is that a really scaryvulnerable place for you, or was
this like?
Actually, this feels quitecathartic.
This is good to put out there.

I think mostly the second thing.
So it took me a long time towrite it.
That's another thing I thinkit's important.
You know, I ran the race inOctober um, this isn't like I
wrote this and published inNovember, like it was like the
following spring, but I think Imostly felt good about it.
For me personally, I think itwas a step like I'm I'm

(23:23):
comfortable talking about thisnow.
I'm comfortable sharing.
So one one thing I think worthmentioning for sure is I
definitely like followed mywife's lead, because there is a
female male when it comes tosomething like this.
Like if my wife wasn'tcomfortable with me talking
about this, I would not havetalked about it.
So for a long time we didn'ttalk too much about it, much

(23:55):
about it.
Pretty early in the process,once we had officially lost
Logan, my wife did postsomething just to kind of let
people know, and that's when Itook it, as it was okay for me
to talk about it as well.
So I remember not long after welost her, I had a cross-country
meet.
So I coach and people weregoing to be at that meet seeing
me who had seen my wife's post.
So like they knew that we hadjust lost a child and we were

(24:17):
feeling some sort of some reallyheavy emotions and I think it
would have been perfectly validfor me to say, oh, I'm not going
to be at this meet, I have myassistant coach cover for me or
whatever.
But I I wanted to keep kind ofgoing, you know, keep life
normal, take my mind off of itfor a little while.
But what I didn't want was likepeople that I know at the meet

(24:38):
coming up to me in that momentoh, I'm so sorry, we heard.
I didn't want to deal with allthat.
So I just put out a message tothe.
I'm very close with thefamilies that I coach and, you
know, just was honest with themand told them what had happened
but also said I don't want totalk about this today.
I'm here to coach the athletesand have a good meet and I

(24:59):
appreciate all the good feelingsand stuff and anyways, even
from that, it spread aroundfairly quickly.
When you're a teacher and acoach in a community like ours,
people talk about you.
But what was cool was theyrespected us.
On.
That day went fine, but in theensuing weeks I started to get
more and more messages of, hey,I went through this and I just

(25:23):
wanted to reach out and peoplewere very gracious and courteous
and respectful, and courteousand respectful.
But it was eye-opening how manypeople had also been through it
and how much I learned frompeople who reached out to me.
So there was one mom herdaughter runs for me and she
reached out, shared that theyhad lost a child through a

(25:45):
miscarriage and one of thehealthiest thoughts she had
afterwards they ended up havinganother child who they would
have never had if the miscar up,having another child who they
would have never had if themiscarriage didn't happen
because they would have beendone.
So the only reason they havethis, this new person that they
love, is because thatmiscarriage happened.
And and I guess now I'm in avery similar situation of we

(26:07):
have our second son, parker, whoI love, that kid I wouldn't
change a thing about him.
He wouldn't be here if Loganwas, we would have been done.
So I guess you know I don'tknow if I would have found that
thought on my own or if I wouldhave found it as quickly.
So I think, having benefitedfrom other people sharing their
experiences with me, it made mevery excited to hey, if someone

(26:30):
reads this and takes anypositive out of it, then I've
kind of paid it forward you knowand that's how I teach and
that's how I coach.
I am very much like anexperience driven coach.
This kid's struggling withsomething I'm going to talk
about.
A time I struggled withsomething similarly and
hopefully they can learn throughmy experience.
Like that's just kind of how Iam.
So I'm pretty open aboutsharing things and you know if,

(26:52):
if someone else can benefit frommy experiences, then that's a
huge win.
So, yeah, I think, having gonethrough it and felt the love
from other people, it made mefeel mostly positive and excited
about.
Excited it's probably the wrongword, but it definitely made me
feel mostly positive aboutsharing my experiences and in

(27:12):
the hopes that someone elsewould read it and benefit.
And I guess the other thing Iwould add is I know my blog is
not like a big blog that, like,thousands of people are going to
read, like it's probably justgoing to be people who know me.
Maybe some people from yourpodcast might read it now and
that's totally great.
But there's a measure ofcomfort.
It wasn't like it was going outon the Internet for people on

(27:34):
Reddit to rip apart or, you know, call me weak or something.

Anyone who would go to that link is someone who
cares about me.
Yeah, so it was going to bepositive.
Yeah, that's nice.
In my experience, sharinganything that you've been
through that's hard has apositive response from other
people.
Because I think it's just oneof those things.
Think it's just one of thosethings people identify with hard
stuff, with suffering, with badthings, more than they do with
the.
You know the celebrations andthe things that people achieve.
I'm pretty sure you know you.
Sharing that with somebody itmakes a lot of people feel more

(28:01):
comfortable than you're saying.
I've run this many marathonswhere people are like, oh, I
can't even run like two, likeit's like there's something good
about identifying with the badstuff that people really, really
connect with and I can't.
I mean, I just can't get awayfrom grief.
Every time I've done a shortstory in any of these
competitions I've thought I'lltry and do a funny one.
I've never done funny.
Let me try funny.
By the time I finished it it'sback about grief again.
I don't know what it is, butbig emotions, they're fun.

(28:24):
I find them enjoyable.

It's funny, I judged one of yours in writing
battle once, once and I yeah, Ididn't realize it at the time.
Um, and it actually was myfavorite.
I'm not even pulling your leg.
It was my favorite of thestories.
I judged that season.
I remember it was someonespeaking at a conference oh,
that was the really short.
That was a 250 yeah, yeah, and Ireally enjoyed it and I didn't
put.
I haven't read enough of yourstuff to put it together, but
when I saw on the debrief it wasyou, it's like oh yeah

(28:47):
someone's speaking about grief.
I probably should have.

Should have connected that I've got all mine
on my profile and they are allabout something bad happening.
I just can't get away from it.
I love.
I find it really hard to writehappy emotions.
Actually, if I need to do ascene in my book that's upbeat
happy the redemption bit I findthat really difficult.
I don't know if that's just meor everyone else.
Do you find the happier bitseasy?

uh, I wouldn't say I find them easy.
It does seem, just from havinggone through a lot of debriefs
and judged a lot of cases, stuffuh does seem to be.
People naturally seem togravitate towards.
You're always trying to get,you know, the biggest gut punch
you can, the biggest bang foryour buck.
You want someone to feelemotional and I I think it's.
I think it's easier to make theconnection when it's something

(29:34):
negative, right, it's easier tokind of get in that headspace.
You know that when someonereads about something like child
death or or the the puppy died,right, then they're going to
get emotional about it.
It's kind of harder, especiallyin short word counts.
I think the key to happyemotions is you have to build to
it, right.
You have to.
You have to earn that happiness, right.

(29:55):
I think sadness can happen muchmore suddenly, where happiness
is something that takes time togrow into, and if you're in 250
words, that's really hard to do.
So I think that's probably partof the challenge from what I've
seen.
But I do think both can be donewell and I do think especially
it's funny, you know, writingbattle has been around now for a

(30:16):
few years and you're startingto have these veterans that have
been doing it for a few yearsand I think what we value has
changed.
I think I've seen that even inthe competition in the community
of we kind of respect more,like because we've seen so many
of the sad stories, when you getone that comes out that's like,
oh man, this nailed that happyemotion.

(30:36):
I think we value that morebecause we've kind of seen how
rare those can be yeah, yeah,definitely no.

That's true.
Someone who can do that reallywell would definitely stand out.
I do struggle with the.
I'm someone who likes rules so Istruggle with the like, uh,
like this is the genre you needto write.
Let's say you need to writeromance, something which I don't
think either me or youparticularly want to pull out of
a hat then when it's not inthose strict genres because when
you're writing a novel you'rein a strict genre you know you

(31:04):
can't just have an alien dropdown in the middle of a romance
novel.
No one's going to publish that.
So you have these strictboundaries to to an extent and
if you're gonna, you know, breakthem, you need to be pretty
good or like well known, right.
But in the short stories, whenyou're, when you're judging and
you're peer judging, they movearound a lot within the genre.
So a story can be like oh, thisis like a winner and you're
like, well, that doesn't seem to.
Really I struggle with that,with all the discussion and

(31:24):
debate.
I'm like, yeah, I have to notget too involved.
Find that quite yeah, it's.

It's always a recurring thing on the forums
and the thing is you don't knowwho's judging in writing battle.
You could have one round.
You could have someone that'slike a super strict rule
follower and that's like whatthey're really concerned about,
and then the next round youmight have a judge that's like I
don't care about the rules atall, I just want a good story
you know so you kind of have towrite what you enjoy and hope
you get lucky a little bit yeah,yeah, I have not got lucky, by

(31:50):
the way, if anyone's wondering,how does she do not?

well, and short stories are not, but I have fun,
but uh, yeah, it's definitelynot my, not my bag long term.
I just it's amazing, exactly.

Have fun and it's fun hopefully you can take a
story out of it that you caneither be proud of or try to
sell somewhere else or or buildon or whatever, and there's
actually quite a few people whohave taken their writing battle
stories and have expanded theminto longer pieces and stuff.

Yeah, that's a nice idea.

Yeah, if you're in it to win the competition,
you're setting yourself up fordisappointment.
It's hard to win, but you neverknow, so there's a couple that
got close.
I've never made it like top twoor anything like that.
I won my house before, which Iwas proud of.

Yeah, it's hard to be competitive in something
like that, which I was proud of.
Yeah, it's hard to becompetitive in something like
that.
I heard someone say once theyenjoy writing.
It doesn't matter if anythinghappens to it or goes anywhere,
they just enjoy doing it.
That is not me Like.
If I write this novel and itdoesn't go anywhere, I'm not
happy about it.
I don't write just for fun.
I write because I want to seeit published.
I want to see it somewhere, Iwant some fruit from my book.
So I do enjoy writing, but notto the extent that I can sit and

(32:51):
write stuff and then put it ina drawer and I'm happy with that
.
I know some people have adifferent love of writing in
that way.
I admire them for that massivelyyeah, but I guess it's like for
people like you just run anddon't record what they're
running for, what they're doing.
It's just a different way ofdoing it.

I'm somewhere in between.
I have lots in the drawer, butI still have like the hope that
it comes out of the drawer atsome point, like I never put
something in the drawer and I'mlike I'm good with it just being
in the drawer.
I'm okay with it being in thedrawer for now, but at some
point it needs to come out ofthe drawer.

Yeah, yeah, you need to see some reward from it.
It's a lot of work.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, yeah.

So you wrote about this loss with Logan.
Have you had any other losseswhere you've used writing to
help you through it?
So yeah, there's actually it'stwo other articles in the blog.
I think one is actually morerecent than the Logan article
and I think one is possiblywritten right before the Logan
article.
So there's three right in a row.
The most recent one is it's aloss but it's a happy loss.
I wrote a letter to an outgoingsenior class.
So I coach these kids startingin seventh grade and I'm their
coach for six years and thenthey graduate and go on with

(33:58):
life and it's a happy thing,it's the way it's supposed to be
.
But you know, sometimes youknow you have a kid that you
really connect with and you seehim every day for six years and
then it's kind of happy trails,good luck.
And so, yeah, I wrote.
There was a class of a few kidsthat I was really close with
that I valued a lot and I valueall my classes, but, for

(34:18):
whatever reason, with this one Ijust felt inspired to kind of
write them a kind of going awayletter and I put in my blog and
so I think that in a way, was meprocessing the loss, another
one that I wrote about.
This was actually I'm trying tothink if it was 2020 or 2021.
It was definitely Christmastime.
So, yeah, this was hard.

(34:40):
One of the kids I had coachedshe had been graduated for a
year passed away in a caraccident on Christmas Eve.
She was 19 years old, her namewas Jessie, and so that was
obviously tragic.
And at the same time, my dad,who I'm very close with, had
gotten COVID and ended up in theICU for about a week, like he

(35:01):
was in very bad shape and he, mydad, can be stubborn and it was
hard because it was likeconvincing him to go to the
hospital.
And it's probably one of themost like tension filled times
I've ever had with my dad.
He wasn't clear thinking withwhat he was going through.
We had to have some hardconversations and but I remember
going to the funeral of a girlI had coached for four years who

(35:26):
had tragically died at 19 yearsold.
So I'm heartbroken over that.
I'm trying to be there for thekids that were her teammates,
that I'd, you know, kind of beenan adult in their life and
watching them.
You can't process that grief.
It's, it's, you know,especially at 18 years old you
just lost a friend and trying tokind of grapple with those

(35:48):
feelings and at the same time,like I'm at that funeral, like
feeling guilty because I'mchecking my phone to see if my
dad's OK, it was a lot toprocess at once and I think at
that time there was so muchgoing on, it almost like fried
your sensors, it's almost likeyou can't even.
There's so much you can't feelany of it because it's just too

(36:09):
much coming at you at once and Ijust remember kind of existing
through that and not reallyprocessing any of it.
And at the same time I wasn'trunning much, probably just
because I was emotionally friedand didn't have any energy to go
out and run.
But I wrote an article on thereabout when I came back to
coaching and actually I think itlined up where I think this was

(36:32):
a big part of it.
Now that I'm I haven't thoughtabout this in a while Not a
happy time to think about.
I think we had just had Mac, soI think it was 2020.
I actually hadn't seen a lot ofthose kids for a couple of
months because I had taken timeoff to be with my wife and our
newborn son.
So this all happened onChristmas Eve and I remember
coming to practice on likeJanuary 3rd or something like

(36:54):
that, and it was the first timeI had like addressed the team in
several months and it was likecoming back to that and trying
to like how do I deal with this?
Do I pretend like everything'snormal?
That doesn't seem right.
You know what do you say?
Say so, yeah, I wrote aboutthat whole experience and that

(37:16):
obviously is a pretty emotionalblog, but I think, once again,
writing about it kind of allowedme to parse through it, feel
the things I needed to feel, saywhat I need to say just kind of
a step in in feeling what Ineed to feel, but also like
thinking about how do I feellike.
Well, sometimes when you haveto put it into words, it forces
you to like dissect it a littlebit more, and sometimes you gain

(37:39):
some understanding just byforcing yourself to go through
that process.

Yeah, definitely I've had that.
I started to write somethingdown thinking I should probably
write about this and it'samazing what can come out just
with pen and paper that wouldn'tcome out necessarily verbally
when you're talking.
Do you think your writing isbetter now because of what
you've been through and maybebecause of writing about it?

Definitely.
It's a hard thing to articulate, but I think we all have an
emotional well.
We kind of draw from right.
You know the capacity for whatyou can put into your characters
.
You have to have that capacitywithin yourself somewhere.
So I do think when we gothrough the hard times it does
kind of stretch you can put intoyour characters.

(38:17):
You have to have that capacitywithin yourself somewhere.
So I do think when we gothrough the hard times it does
kind of stretch you.
You feel things you've neverfelt before and now you know how
that feels.
And so I think, definitely Ithink if you lived maybe I
shouldn't say it but like Ithink if you lived a perfectly
like happy, boring life andnever had anything bad happen to
you?

my guess is it would be.
You'd be a pretty bad writer.

I agree, unless you've got just an insane amount
of empathy and you're just ableto, like, put yourself in a
position you've never been inand there's definitely some of
that you have to do as a writerlike especially writing fiction.
You have to be able to imaginewhat it's like to, you know, in
a situation you haven't been in.
But I think if you haven't hadat least some situations that

(38:55):
are adjacent to that, you knowit's it would become very hard
to sound genuine and authenticas you write about it.
So I think, um, you know, Iwouldn't wish hardship on anyone
necessarily, but as a writer, Ithink in in a way, we are
grateful for the tough times wego through, obviously, way after

(39:15):
the fact, because, yeah,there's things you learn about
human nature and, let's be real,when you write fiction, your
characters are going to gothrough hardship.
Like that's part of just storystructure, right?
So if you've never had to dealwith that, if you've never had
to gone through that, to feelwhat it feels to come on the
other side of that, you knowthat's kind of the happy emotion
too.

(39:36):
You know it's easier to writeit when you've experienced
something like it before.

Definitely you can tell sometimes in books,
when I read something I thinkthat author hasn't fully
experienced that.
It's just little things.
But I mean, even on the podcast, we're all stories about
finding hope in grief and loss.
I think I'm quite empathetic.
I can put myself in people'ssituations quite quickly.
That's why I like doing thepodcast, because I can ask
questions about their situation,because I feel like I can put
myself there.
It's hard to do that if youcan't, but listening to them has

(40:00):
made me a more authentic writerwhen it comes to grief, because
I've heard all these stories ofhow people have reacted with
grief.
So even some of them might seema bit off the wall or a bit
different or like would someonedo that?
But they are authentic and theyare things that people do and I
think people connect with that.
And I really think if you're notgood at it or if you haven't
experienced much listening toother people's stories, I mean

(40:21):
if somebody wanted to write ascene about grief and they
hadn't been through it, you know, I would say, listen to any of
my podcast episodes on thattopic and you will get a very
authentic idea of what it lookslike and it'll probably be
different from what you wouldhave imagined it would be, and I
think that's why I just end upwriting about it all the time,
because it's so fresh in my mind.
But also, like you said, welook at hope and it's very hard

(40:41):
to imagine if you haven't beenthrough a situation.
How on earth do you find hopein that kind of grief?
Again, you've got to listen tosomeone who's been there and
like this is how I did it, thisis how I found it, and that
again gives me kind of notfodder.
I'm not using any of yourstories, by the way listeners,
for my book, but it gives meideas as to how the human can
come from one situation intoanother when you find it hard to

(41:04):
imagine that yourself.
It reminds me, actually,another line I really like that
you wrote in your blog.
I've got to find it because Iwrote it.
I've always found one of thebest ways to beat your demons on
the inside is to focus yourattention on caring for others
on the outside.
It's not directly linked towhat I'm saying, but it just
reminded me that sometimes youknow, focusing on others really
helps you do stuff yourself.

(41:25):
Just tell me about that.
Is that something that's had aprofound impact on your life,
because that's quite a strongstatement.

I think when you focus on caring for other people
, you're never going to feelworse, you know you're never
going to feel like I just didsomething nice for someone.
I'm going to feel bad, you know.
So I think that's kind of andsometimes you know, when you're
really in the thick of it maybeit's not possible for you in

(41:51):
that moment to be giving ofyourself to someone else.
But when you get to the pointwhere you're hurting but you
just need to focus somewhereelse for a while, Really good
place to focus is on like what,what's a positive thing I can do
to help someone and in general,it's a pretty good way to live
your life, probably.
But yeah, I found I strugglewith anxiety sometimes when I'm
running.
Um, I've kind of suffered likealmost panic attacks while
running before I think in theblog I was kind of going through

(42:13):
something like that the my footwent numb on like the eighth
mile of that race.
It's this race that I'vetrained for and I've put so much
into and I've I've made it suchan emotional thing for me
because I'm in my head I'mrunning with Logan and you know
getting to that finish line wasvery important.
So like when there wassomething that put that in
jeopardy, like, oh man, thatthat was a hard moment.

(42:35):
So what you find when you'rerunning a marathon is you got a
lot of time with your ownthoughts, and sometimes you can
control that those thoughts morethan other times.
And in that moment of that raceI was not able to control what
was going on inside my own headvery much.
So I needed to just get out ofmy own head and luckily at that
moment someone I knew happenedto be kind of running by me and

(42:56):
so, rather than, like you know,just keeping my head down and
and wallowing in my thoughts, Ijust hey, for half a mile I'm
going to kind of tag on withthis person and I'm just going
to be there like hype man, I'mgoing to be positive.
And it's crazy how, like whenyou start being positive for
someone else, it's just kind ofeasier to be positive for
yourself.
And, sure enough, after acouple of miles I had kind of

(43:17):
gotten into a better headspace.
But yeah, I do think that's apowerful life lesson.
You know, if we all go throughruts, we all go through
difficult patches, and if youlet yourself just kind of
internalize everything andwallow and isolate.
It's probably not a recipe forgetting out of it too easily,
but if you find a way to makethat hard choice of, even though

(43:38):
I'm not feeling my best, I'mgoing to do something positive
for someone else or for theworld, or I'm going to go
volunteer at this place, myguess is when you come out of
that, you're going to be feelingbetter.
Not always easy to do, notalways possible to do, but if
you can it's a good thing to try.

And sharing that blog afterwards.
You know that was helpingothers.
That was another way of youkind of looking outward.
From that you had a personalbest.
That race went really well.
What is your personal best now?

245, so I I beat it.
Let's see, I think I think I'vebeaten that one twice now,
maybe once, I can't remember butnow I'm 245.
So I just uh PR'd in Octoberagain it was at Columbus again
so I I've improved.
I think I think that one was a249, so I, so I've since gone
2.47 and 2.45.

(44:24):
So just kind of continuouslytrying to get a little bit
better.

So that's two hours 45 minutes.
What would the average personrun?
Because people won't know howgood that is.

I think out of the 5,000 or 6,000 people that ran
Columbus this year, the averagetime on the course was like four
hours 30 minutes, so it's quitea difference, difference yeah,
yeah, um, in america we talkabout mile splits a lot, so I'm
basically averaging six minutes15 seconds per mile, which I
don't think in k's all thatoften, but I think it's about

(44:56):
four minutes a k.
So, yeah, yeah, it's, it'smoving.
Um, I'm not like an eliterunner, like I'm not a
professional by any means, butfor a 35 year old dad who kind
of does it on the side, it's apretty respectable time.
I'm proud of it.

It is.
You've got a lot going on.
I mean I'm surprised you caneven fit running and writing
together as a joint.
Like man.
If I took all the time I spentrunning and put that into
writing.

I'd probably have a couple of books by now, but I
don't know.
They both make me happy indifferent ways.
I kind of stumbled intosomething during 2020 when there
was a lot of time to do somesoul searching at home.

(45:39):
At home, I've identified I callthem the six pillars of my life
, and if I neglect any of thosesix I don't feel whole.
And running and writing are twoof the six.
So I can go through seasonswhere maybe I don't run as much
or I don't write as much, but ifI feel like I'm completely
neglecting either of those, I'mjust not me.
So it's kind of who I am.

(46:01):
I'm a runner and I'm a writer,so I gotta find a way to squeeze
them both in that feels veryhealthy yeah, it helps me.
It kind of keep even how I likeorganize my life.
Like when I make my weeklycalendar I have my six
categories and if one of mycategories is completely empty,
I'm like maybe I need to rethinkif I'm neglecting that part of
my identity right now so wheredoes podcast fit in with your

(46:23):
six that's?
Not, that is a sub category ofwriting.
The podcast was definitely.
It was in 2020.
2020 was a wild time.
You had a lot going on.
Well, here's the thing Like Ifind a way to keep myself busy
at all times.
I'm not one to just like sitand not do something Like I'm
just always there's to besomething I'm working on, and in

(46:44):
2020 we couldn't go to work orgo outside or do much.
We were, we were stuck at home.
So I had time to do some thingsthat I had never done before,
and one of those things I'd kindof ventured into podcasting
once before, but it was a verylet's not talk about that but.
But this was my first and and itwas funny because because John

(47:04):
Woolley and I had workedtogether for a long time and we
had kind of recently discoveredthat we both had aspirations to
become writers, but neither ofus had any sort of platform at
all.
And we decided why don't weboth like talking we're both
teachers, we're kind of good ateducating, I guess why don't we
just try this podcast thing?
I had a friend who had done apodcast very different genre of

(47:25):
podcast.
He's a great photographer andhe made a photography podcast
and it had really taken off.
And he had told me like youneed to.
If you want to grow a platform,this is a great way to do it.
You'd be good at it.
So I talked to John.
I was like you want to do this?
We're both sitting at home withnothing to do.
And actually at the time asteachers we had to teach
ourselves a lot about likecommunicating virtually because
all of a sudden classes wereonline.

(47:47):
So like it's kind of a naturaltransition, like we're teaching
online, let's just keep it goingwith a podcast.
And it very much started aslike just kind of a fun thing we
did and it still is but like wewould get like I don't know, 25
downloads.
I think our good episodes werewere maybe close to 100, like it
was.

(48:07):
It was not something a lot ofpeople were listening to and
it's still not like a massivepodcast, like it's definitely
still kind of, uh, just a funlittle thing.
But it has been fun to watch itgrow and, um, we have kind of
gotten our own little communitykind of tied to the competitions
.
We do a lot of those writersare just obsessed with those
competitions, like they.
They when they get into onethey want to eat, sleep and

(48:28):
breathe it.
You know, you look at theforums while it's all going on,
you know, and so it.
When we kind of made thatconnection, all of a sudden it's
like wait, there's a podcastthat talks about this thing I'm
obsessed with and and it's beenkind of fun to connect with some
people that way.

It's a good niche for that.
You've kind of found a nicelittle groove there.
If, for people who arelistening, who you know are
going through stuff and theyhaven't ever thought about
writing not necessarily writing,you know fiction and stuff but
just writing in any way, shapeor form why should people
consider it?
Why should people think aboutwriting?
What's the benefits?

So I think one thing I would say right off the
bat is we all write way morethan we realize anyways,
especially in the age of socialmedia.
You know a lot of us arewriting captions or comments and
you write more than you realize, even if it's work emails,
you're constantly having to putyour thoughts into words.
So I guess some advice is likeespecially if you're going

(49:20):
through something like, just putyour thoughts into words, even
if it's just in a notebook onyour nightstand, and maybe you
tried a few times and you don'tlike it and that's perfectly
fine.
But I do think there's power injust taking a moment to feel
what you're feeling and thenthinking about it enough to put
it on a page.
There's naturally going to besome processing that happens

(49:41):
there and in my opinion that'susually pretty healthy
processing.
It be some processing thathappens there and in my opinion
that's usually pretty healthyprocessing.
It does give you some measureof allowing you to feel your
feelings in a safe space.
If you don't want to share it,you never have to share it.
You know it can just be yourown little thing.
But I think an important stepwith dealing with loss or grief
or pain or whatever is allowingyourself to feel it and allowing

(50:02):
yourself to think and processit when you're ready to and I
think writing is just a verynatural way of doing that it
takes time, so you're having tospend time feeling that, getting
in that headspace, and then youhave to attach words to it, so
you have to think enough aboutit to articulate it, to
understand it.
I think that's why it's goodWhatever's comfortable for you.

(50:30):
You know it's different foreveryone, I'm sure, if it's
writing a letter to yourself, ifit's writing a blog, if it's
writing a diary, if it's tellingfictional stories, but the
stories deal with somethingadjacent to that you went
through.
You know, I think there's justanytime you allow yourself to be
in that space, feel it, thinkabout it.
I think that's a healthy step.

Definitely, and there's so many different ways
to do it, like you said.
You know it could be any ofthose, or like, could be poetry,
and there's all sorts of theseshort story communities that I
didn't know anything about.
You know, if you want to feellike you're in it with other
people, then writing in theseways and joining the forums and
seeing people talk about it canreally help you not only kind of
hone your craft, but also justyou're less alone in it.

(51:06):
So I think, yeah, there's awhole world out there for people
who are interested in it, andsome people might just want to
write and put it in a drawer,which is absolutely fine.
Yeah, loads of ways.
So writing is a useful tool fordealing with loss and grief and
for people going through it, butalso, maybe, people preparing
for it.
You know some people can writeabout these things, put

(51:27):
themselves there, imagine it.
That can actually help you whenyou go through it, maybe.
So, with my last question andmy metaphorical tool shed, if I
was to go in and pick out a toolthat represented writing and
how that can help us in thesesituations, what kind of tool do
you think it would be?

So I hope this counts as a tool.
I'm not much of a gardener.
I'm going to go with somegloves, though, some good heavy
duty gardening gloves, becausefirst of all, it can fit to
whatever you need.
All right, it's one size fitsall a little bit, but then it
allows you to get in the weeds,right.
It allows you to get into thathard thing, right, feel what you

(51:58):
need to feel, exist with it,but it protects you.
There's a buffer, right, youknow.
You can talk about it in a waythat feels safe.
If you want to, you can attachit to a character that's not you
.
If you want to write fiction,you can.
You know, let's use my examplewith Logan.
If I wanted to, I could havewritten a story about a father
whose wife just had amiscarriage, and I could have

(52:22):
made it all fictional and it'snot me.
But obviously, if I wrote thatstory, I'd be forced to feel a
lot of what I had to feel, right, but it's not happening to me,
it's happening to Bob, you know.
So I think writing allows youto exist with and approach those
feelings that you need to feel,but it just gives you a little

(52:46):
layer of protection where it'smaybe not quite as fresh, not
quite as sharp.
So that's the gloves.
You know you're still pullingthe weeds, but your fingers
aren't going to get all caughtup or cut up and scratched up
because you've got that layer ofprotection there as you're
doing the work that needs to bedone, and it's hard work.
So you got to put your gloveson there as you're doing the
work that needs to be done, andit's hard work, so you gotta put
your gloves on Gloves.

Every gardener knows you need a good few pairs
of those in the shed, and forthe toughest jobs you need the
heavy duty ones.
I had a feeling Justin, as acreative, would come up with a
great analogy, and he didn'tdisappoint.
He's absolutely right.
Writing is like a protectivelayer.
It gives you a safe space toprocess your experiences,
shields you from sharing beforeyou're ready and allows you to
explore your emotions in a waythat might truly surprise you.

(53:27):
If you haven't tried it before,I urge you to give it a go.
If you want to find out moreabout Justin and his writing,
you can check out www.
justincreps.
com and I'll put links in theshow notes to the blog posts
that he mentioned and hispodcast and social media.
Thank you so much for thisconversation, Justin.
It was so good to chat abouttwo subjects that are so close
to my heart, and I'm hopefulthis will encourage a lot more

(53:49):
people to process what they'regoing through through writing,
even if you do just put it in adrawer afterwards.
And thanks for listening to TheSilent Why podcast.
If you've got a subject you'dlike me to chat to an expert on,
please get in touch via socialmedia or the website, or drop me
an email at thesilentwh y@gmail.
com and let's chat.

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