November 17, 2024 • 51 mins
Gfuel: Use code RMTS at checkout for 20% off Are you tired of feeling stuck in your personal growth journey? In this episode of The Lonely Road, we dive deep into one common life mistake that's quietly sabotaging your path to success. Discover how steering clear of this pervasive error can catapult you towards achieving your dreams. 🔍 What You'll Learn: Identify the subtle mistake holding you back from success. Practical steps to avoid this life-changing error starting today. Real-life examples and insights that can transform your mindset and habits. Strategies from experts in personal development and success psychology. 👉 Subscribe for More Insights: If you're committed to personal growth, don't miss out on our series where we explore various facets of life improvement, success, and self-mastery. Click the subscribe button and hit the bell icon to stay updated with our latest episodes. 💬 Let's Engage: Have you encountered this life mistake before? Share your stories or ask questions in the comments below. Let's grow together! 🔗 Connect with Us: Follow us on HotloadsZac on X for daily doses of motivation and life hacks. 🎥 Watch Next: If this episode resonated with you, check out our playlist on [Related Playlist Title] for more transformative content. #SuccessTips #LifeAdvice #PersonalGrowth #AvoidingMistakes #LifeLessons #Motivation #SelfImprovement #LonelyRoadPodcast #Episode4 #TransformSuccess
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the fourth episode of The Lonely Road. This has,
you know, done more than I kind of expected it to.
I don't know what your expectations were. kJ before we
even go into the full complete intro. Thank you guys
for coming. We've gotten four thousand viewers in the past month.
I didn't expect that to do that and not getting
(00:22):
promoted anywhere, not getting shared anywhere other than like our
personal stuff here and there. Thank you because it seems
like this is you know, completely raw and genuine. So
that's awesome. So thank you guys for coming and hanging out.
Make sure to subscribe and like the podcast. It is
now on Apple podcast as well, so we might just
see another burst of growth here real soon. We are
(00:43):
here to join you on the journey to heal and
become a better human. Many of you know me from
my job or my other podcast. It's going to be
a very different show. We'll be going in on deep
dive do with grief and mental health, whether it's stats
and stories or we're just going to export all in depth.
After dealing with the trauma that I'm dealing with and
everything else, I looked at my girlfriend and I was like, hey,
I need to do something. So now we're here, AJ,
(01:06):
how are you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm doing okay, buddy, I'm doing okay. It's been a
long week. I'm kJ I'm just here to heal and
help others heal with my knowledge and growth that I've
done so far. And it's been one heck of a week.
How have you been?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Not too bad? It's been a it's been a rough one.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I kind of just zoned into playing video games and relaxing.
I was so happy we had an extra episode recorded
so I could just do that. I needed time to
just decompress and relax and kind of just shut down
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
But I thought I thought that was the case.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Good. Yeah, Surprisingly, I opened up to my mom, I
opened up to Bree, and I was like, I just
I can't people, I can't do this right now. I
need just to put me back together and kind of
be okay. Yeah, oh it's been a rough week.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
But what happened to you this week?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yep? So, as always, half of the money that this
show makes and we'll ever make, we'll be going to
charity or a nonprofit organization. And if you want to
use g fuel and use code R and tsa checkout.
Of that, twenty percent of that will come off a
checkout if you use that. They use buy one, get
one free sales right now. So if you guys want
(02:22):
some energy drinks and want something sugar free that's not
going to make you feel horrible, go check them out.
So surprisingly, we have a lighthearted video that we want
to help people. We haven't done one of these yet,
so it was, you know, we were talking after the
last show, was like, okay, well, how do we want
to organize and do things next and everything else? And
(02:44):
I was like, okay, so I'll peek behind the curtain.
I have to move marriage problems and everything else down
a little bit just that way gets a little bit
of space for my divorce. I was like, let's put
on these episodes. Let's try these and see exactly how
this goes, because fuh man, there's a lot of shit
that's happened that we're like, okay, we want to talk
(03:05):
about this, and we're going to talk about this. It's like, okay,
no two positive ones, two negative ones, this one not
four fucking negative ones. We need some positivity year well
as everybody's gonna leave us.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Definitely have to keep things positive. And you know, as
much as it's important to talk about death, and most
of my growth links in with my grief, it just
it just does. And although it links in, it doesn't
always have to be uh, weighed down episodes. I agree,
(03:36):
we need to have something light once in a while.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and it helps. It kind of takes out the
whole shit of oh, well, no, it's just going to
be sad always no. Yeah, nope, it's not going to
be sad always no. So I thought of this in
a way because everybody kind of looks at me and
telligent me, Oh, you've grown so much since your divorce happened.
You've grown so much since you're separated, You've grown so
much in this way or that way. How do did
(04:00):
you do it? What did you see? What did you change?
And I don't really know exactly why everybody kind of
looks at me like that. It really, genuinely, to me,
is very weird. It makes me feel very uncomfortable because
everybody's like, how the fuck did you do this? Were
you always like this or did you actually genuinely see
things that you had to change? And the answer is both.
(04:22):
I always was kind of internal and just accepted fault,
and I knew I needed to change in order to
fix things or do whatever I wanted to do. I
don't know. I guess it's just really weird.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, it's funny how life evolves. Like sometimes I feel like,
well for me anyway, and for you, obviously, a big
event has to happen, something needs to happen to jolt
you out of whatever you're in, and it generally is
the catalyst for a transformation.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
No, And it's super super interesting exactly how that works,
because I think it is so linked to my ADHD,
because I will find the calm I will find even
in chaos, Like even at the beginning of my separation
and everything else, my mom and my aunt asked me
all the time they didn't understand exactly how I was
able to be so calm and level headed and okay,
(05:22):
even when things were chaos. I was able to pick
apart every single systematic thing that was going to happen
when it was going to happen. And whether that's my
overthinking and kind of being able to put those pieces
together and understand it, or just being able to be
calm and chaos, it brought me through a situation that
most people struggle with. Most people lose everything with and
(05:44):
I changed as a person. Yeah, I went from losing
everything to actually being okay enough to having almost everybody
that I had beforehand, before I was taken away from everybody,
Like I grew everybody back. I was able to put
those pieces back together and fix it.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Most people are led in situations
of devastation. They're led with their feelings. And I think
that you have an advantage where being an overthinker, which
I don't really think is overthinking is a bad thing.
I think thinking things through to the degree that you
do is is a positive for you because it allows
(06:23):
you to be prepared for things in a logical way.
Whereas I I am a big feeler and I just
had to learn how to change and get a grip
on my big ass feelings in order to make that
big change it in my life. You know, I didn't
have that logic. I don't have that think through or
that that visualization, you know, from beginning to end.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It's really weird. It's weird how my mind kind of
overthinks things and puts into perspective everything that could happen
within minutes, whether it's Bree or my mom, and I'm
giving them everything in kind of just explaining out what
I think could happen. Where I see people's perspectives and
stuff like that, they get really genuinely confused because I
(07:08):
see things that most people don't. I'm able to understand,
like an emotion that most people can't put their hands
on or or grasp exactly what the hell's going on.
There's such a disconnect in some of those situations that
it's kind of just weird. It's weird that some people
just don't grasp it.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's basically the way people take
in life, and I take in life in a completely
different way than you take in life. And it's evident
in the way we process our emotions.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And you even saw it when we had that the
conversation about starting this podcast as a whole, I was like,
either it's going to do nothing and it's going to
heal us, or it's going to heal us and it's
going to do things that we did not expect it
to do, because as a whole, those are the only
two genuine answers not going to be a middling podcast.
Where it does oh, one hundred views here on hundred
(08:00):
vieuse here like it can do that, sure, but it's
going to do one of two. It's going to impact
a lot of people, or it's going to impact us
and heal us as humans either ways positive. I don't
know which one's gonna happen. Y See.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I think we've already impacted more than just ourselves, and
I think on a scale that we are on that's
commendable in itself, and I'm thankful for it. It's helped
me particularly so.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And you know, the interesting part about my overthinking is
like my ex wife overthought everything but didn't like come
to grips or understand the logic of the puzzle that
was in front of her. Yeah, but she was able
to overthink and fear everything that possibly could happen, but
didn't understand why something was going to happen, what was
going to happen. She couldn't put the pieces together. I
(08:52):
with my and I don't know if it's logic, I
don't know if it's ADHD. I don't know exactly what
it is. I can tell you exactly what's going to
happen next, Like you're in a group chat with me
and my mom and my aunt. And how many times
have I called out, well, this is going to happen.
I knew that this was going to happen, this is
where it's going to go next. And I've called every
(09:14):
single shot through and through of so many different circumstances
where it's just like, Zach, you should not be able
to do this.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
We have all happen in difference different situations. Absolutely, we
have each one of us in that chat have a
different perspective on life and on the situation itself. And
I think that that brings uniquely to that family chat
brings value so much value because we all can call
(09:45):
one thing or another.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah exactly, and all of us will see things in
a different way. And it makes my overthinkingness work in
a way that people I don't think fully grasp. Like
the family dinners that we did, right, it was figuring
out number one, how it was paid for, who's going
to take care of, what what are we doing, where
are we going or even going and doing a family
(10:10):
vacation or something like that, and setting that up. All
of those things I've pre thought out. I figured those
things out, and it's just like is everybody okay with
this or that, and I'm able to play the game
of like mismatching what I planned in my head and
just piecing it together because I already have it all done.
And it's so weird. It's so weird because that level
(10:31):
of being an overthinker, I'm able to put those pieces
together that people genuinely don't understand.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard for me. It's very hard
for me to do systematically. Like I have to have
a map put out in front of me in order
to do something like that. I have to I have
to sit down with a piece of paper, make a
list and check it twice and then do the whole planning. Yeah,
it's it's not so. I can't just it's not something
(10:58):
that might my mind maps out like that.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Like I'll reveal a little bit. I can't. I can't
go super super in depth for obvious reasons. But my
ex and her her boyfriend husband whatever showed up the
other day to pick up the kids, and uh, it
was the first time that I ever saw him in person.
Because obviously, you know, there's pending possible problems regardless of
(11:23):
what the hell's going on, and there's lots of context
to the situation. But I looked at Brien, I was like, well,
there's two answers why he was here. There's not fifty million,
there's two. One he wanted to prove that he's here.
He wanted to prove that he's not just going to
shy away and hide and whatever. Or two he was
(11:47):
begged and plead to come so that way I have
an emotional reaction, because if I have an emotional reaction,
it portrays them in a positive light. I was like,
those are the only two possible answers. There's no in between.
There's nothing else. It was either I'm not a cook
and I'm here, or let's make Zach emotionally react and
(12:08):
try and smash somebody's head in and neither won't happen.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
But because that's new, right, that's not something that happens. Yes,
it's it's there's a third party that comes and exactly
transports that your your your baby. So it's it's definitely, uh,
it's not a far fetched Might we stop talking about that?
But it's not far fetch So so yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
No, I just it's easier to show behind the curtain
of like this is this is how my mind works.
I'm able to break things down and see exactly why
somebody is doing something, and it seems like a lot
of people like And I'm realizing it more and more
as I do podcasts, as I'm sitting here and kind
of just telling dick jokes online. You realize who genuinely
has the train of thought to understand what's going on
(12:54):
or who doesn't. And it's weird.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, in most situations that that is the case. I
mean insert X here variable. You know that's that's the case.
In most situations. Either you see it or you don't
see it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So I have I have this big thing and I
think you probably saw it when I was a kid too.
Is I'm very quick to point inward towards a problem.
And you said you do too. How do you see
that as a negative or a positive? What did you
want to say towards that? Because I probably have some big,
long diatribe.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well, I mean, I guess there's positives and negatives towards it.
I mean I could go into the let's go to
the positives first, just because I like to stay on
a positive. Nope, but validating my goddamn self rather than
looking for outside sources of validation. That's a really positive
way looking inward, you know, making making myself accountable. I
(13:55):
am the result of my own choices, looking inward first,
taking care of me for in situations, so that I
can give the world or a situation what I can
give it to the best of my ability, because I
can't do it with half a battery or a non
charged battery, if you will, So, you know, taking care
(14:17):
of yourself first.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So those things as far as looking inward, the positive
things that I've taken and just making those adjustments, They've
changed me in so many ways. But looking in different situations,
whatever comes at me in the world, I like to
(14:41):
take the situation, even if I don't think I'm in
the wrong, and I like to take the situation. I
look inward first now instead of pointing fingers outwards or
to it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
So it's it's a situation of I'm not going to
play the blame game right away. I'm going to turn
the situation inwards and I'm going to take it, and
I'm going to point at myself and say, what could
I have done differently in the situation.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
That right there, I was explaining depret earlier. I don't
remember if it was earlier today or last night. We
were having a nice, in depth conversation and I'm obviously
really good at this. I talk in depth about everything.
It's just my thing. And I told her. I was like,
you know, there's a difference in between holding yourself accountable
and saying, Okay, this is why I feel like I
(15:40):
did this or this happened or whatever, and the world's
against me, it's my fault, blah blah blah blah blah,
I'm a piece of shit, I'm an asshole, whatever. There's
a difference here when you look at something and you
hold yourself accountable in that situation and not turning to
blame of like fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and
(16:02):
you're looking inward and you're like, okay, how did I
cause this? How did I feel towards this situation? What
did this cause? Where are my emotions here? And and
not turning into I'm a piece of shit? Oh everybody
wants to walk away? Oh everybody is this or that?
That's where the mental illness comes in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, it is like as.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
As a whole, It's like, if you can hold yourself
accountable and say Okay, I am. The first reason a
problem happens to Zach. I just am because either I'm
in a place I shouldn't be, I'm doing something I
shouldn't be. I'm I'm dealing with something that I shouldn't
regardless of what level that is. Those things you have
to kind of look inward and be like, Okay, this
(16:43):
is why I did this, This caused that.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know I I I learned self deprecation early. I
learned how to beat myself up early, and I beat
myself up.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I'm harder on anybody. I'm harder on myself than anybody
could always. But I've learned to turn that into not
not a punching bag, but more of a how how
can I better the situation? How can I do things
differently next time? Kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I almost use that as like a roadmap to like
smooth out the edges I have. And that might sound stupid,
but like dealing with hundreds of thousands of people, whether
they're like poking at you saying, oh, well, you'll look
like you're you're underweight, and you do meths and whatever. No,
never done any drugs, but good job, Like, no matter
(17:46):
what level this is whether it's the problems that I
have going on, whether it's my job, no matter what
it is, I promise you that anything you've said negatively
about me, if I've elt it, I've said it two
inches from the mirror, saying that I need to get
over it, get past it, and get through it and
(18:06):
hold myself accountable to do that. Right, Like, kJ think
about me fifteen years ago, how underweight was I It
was one of the biggest things that most people would
pick at me for why because I'm six it's five
and one hundred and fifty pounds. That looks weird? It
(18:27):
just does. And I turned that into okay. So if
I can make fun of myself and hold myself accountable
in that light, I'm going to say whatever I fucking
feel like, because if I make fun of myself and
do that in front of everybody, I'm going to hold
everybody to that same level.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You get through it, how you got to get through it,
you know what I mean? You develop those those defense
mechanisms early. You know, I'm not really sure and I can't.
It was early, very early where I pinpointed that and
I started doing that early, and I don't really know
where it started or why.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
It's hard once you get that first laugh, Like you
make the joke of like oh this or that, and
they're like yeah, and everybody giggles, and then all of
a sudden you're like, oh, so if I shit on
myself and don't shit on them, everybody laughs.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Okay, escalated Yep, that's part of the whole, you know,
screwing yourself situation you get yourself into, because then you
know you're becoming more of people pleaser than anything else, and.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You devalue yourself. You devalue yourself so fucking much because
you're constantly kicking yourself. You're constantly pushing yourself down and
down and down, when in the grand scheme of things,
you don't have.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
To, No, you don't, but you have to have You
have to kind of get sick of your own shit
before you can change any of that. You have to
get tired of of that self blame game, because you're
the only one that can turn that around for yourself.
You're the only one that can draw that boundary. And
(20:08):
before you can draw boundaries with other people in your life,
you have to draw them with yourself.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, and it's it's hard not to blame. Well, you
did this and this hurt me. And that is such
a big thing I had to learn is it doesn't
matter who the fuck did it? What did I do
that caused them to react? And if that, if the
answer is not nothing, then there's something you can always
(20:35):
learn from every situation that is not they are a
piece of shit, because there is situations where people are
just pieces of shit.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh yes it is. Oh always I always answer no, no,
it doesn't have to be. And I always look back
at a situation and it's it's it's interesting because you're
when you're looking in word at yourself and you're trying
(21:04):
to think of how you could have communicated differently, even
if they hurt you, Even if the if there was
a situation an outside stimuli, the corruption came from outside
the house, and you trusted that person and you just
were the reactor. You're still responsible for your actions and reactions,
(21:25):
and so what could you have done differently? How could
you have used your words and your tools to communicate,
communicate that situation better to save that relationship. That's where
I'm looking in word because there are a couple of
relationships in my life that did not get repaired because
of ways that I reacted to things that I felt
(21:49):
slighted by or more than slighted by.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah. Hey, and you showed me be at a very
very young age to always be loud about everything. Everybody
else told me to be quiet. kJ was always the
one that's like, just be loud, just openly speak about everything,
because if you do, then at least you're wearing everything
on your sleeve and you know your interpretation of what
(22:15):
the situation might be wrong. You might be saying something wrong,
but at least everybody knows where you stand.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You're being genuine. And I think that's what I lost
somewhere along the way, is that air of genuine miss
about me because I was molded by something else that
the world had pressed upon me, and I allowed it
to be intrusive upon who.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I was, and it gets so hard, it gets so
hard to just be raw. I remember, like almost it
was the second nature to just be quiet. It was
second nature just to shut down and kind of hide
my feelings. And even in a lot of this situation,
I've frozen so many times. And that's the biggest thing
(23:01):
that I struggle with, is like my PTSD is I freeze.
It's not because I don't want to keep going forward.
Is I don't want to hurt people. I don't. I
don't want to just it's almost like the inaction makes
this the way nobody else gets hurt. The only person
that gets hurt is me.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, I'm the same way. And I don't know. I
don't know if I impressed that upon you somehow in
earlier in life or I have no idea, but I'm
I'm actually very very similar to that. And it was
I remember it very early on in life because my
parents divorced early four or five years old, and I
(23:43):
was always trying to make them both happy, and so
it was a constant, a constant game of not doing
or saying the wrong thing to make somebody unhappy. So yeah,
that was the lot of the push up and be
quiet kind of situation. But my also, my parents were boomers,
(24:07):
so that was a whole nother generation as children.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
And you know, it got turned into a joke as
a teenager. It was, oh, Zaxson his dungeon. Zach's not
able to come out of the dungeon. And it's like,
when I look back at that, and I even look
at Madison now when she's you know, off doing her
own thing or whatever, my first answer is, are you okay, kid?
Every single time? Like you good like? Is it just
(24:35):
you're shutting down or is it you're trying to just
relax and calm down, Because they look exactly the same,
but at the same time, there's such a big difference there.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, being a teenager is very very hard. It's very
very very very angsty time in life. Fragile, fragile as fuck.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
And the only way that I found to be able
to get past that freeze, to get past the shut down,
sit down and shut up and shut down is just
breaking it down. If I could take the next step,
that's the only step that I have to worry about
right this second.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Even if it's the tiniest step, but at least you're doing
something towards making the.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Phone call, it's sending the email, it's it's hoping that
just somebody, somebody can fucking hear it. That's all you
need is just somebody to accept that step forward. And
that gets weird, It gets really weird. And you know,
I'm dealing with two things at the same time that
are at the same exact thing of me freezing and
pulling away because I'm like, I don't want to hurt people,
(25:42):
and I'm repairing one of the relationships now. It's like,
if if I freeze and I pull away, it's not
because I don't want you in my life. It's because
I don't want to change your life based off of
my triggers. But I know my trigger will affect every
single person in the situation, and it's so hard. It's
(26:05):
so hard because it's like, do you say the thing
that changes everybody's life because you know it will, or
do you shut up and just keep accepting what's given.
It's weird.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, that's that's definitely a heavy one.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
The big answer that is taking that next step is
learning your fucking instinct. Now, it may not always be right,
but you know, sometimes it feels like everything's against you
and you aren't listening to yourself. It has been such
a weird thing. And I don't know exactly how this
all works because I'm not a religious person. But the
(26:51):
second that I started questioning religion, the second that I
started questioning to understand the way life works or the
way religion works, everything I started clicking. Everything did. Yeah,
and it's weird. It makes me confused because it's like, Okay,
my instinct is to protect everybody, and it's like, no,
(27:13):
you don't have to protect everybody. Your answer is not
to instinctually protect everything. Your answer is to instinctually do
this or do that. And that changed so much.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yeah, you have to absolutely along the way your instincts
get mine. I guess I can only speak for myself.
But along the way, my instincts got muffled, and I
have I test a lot of that to the medication
(27:46):
that I was on. I was on depression medication and
anxiety medication, and I feel like at the beginning it
helped me, but for the majority of the end time
I was on it a good fit fifteen years and
I was on it, it was masking my genuine self
(28:08):
and not allowing me to feel and deal with the
feelings that I had. So it's interesting that you talk
about authentic because it wasn't allowing me to be my
authentic self.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
And that's such a huge thing. And like even in
our circles and people we know, they are very quick
to blame their medication. It'll be the first answer, Oh, well,
I didn't take my meds today. I'm sorry, I'm an asshole,
or I didn't have a cigarette today, or I didn't
have this, or I didn't have that. And it's like
those things, those things that you have in your life
(28:44):
that are escapegoats to you, they are the things that
need to go away. It's nothing. Nothing about life should
ever be. This thing caused me to be an asshole.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
No, it's recognizing those things that weigh you down in
one way or another and doing things actively, consciously doing
things to make the changes, to do something different about it.
Continue to do the same thing over and over again,
you're gonna get the same results. You have to make
a different choice if you want something different.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And it's so weird. It's so weird because you know,
that was my childhood. I saw that a lot. It was, oh, well,
I don't have this, so I'm an asshole today. And
it's just like, no, that's not what it has to be.
Regardless of if you have the thing or not, you
can hold yourself accountable. You can be instinctual about what
(29:39):
life is and just not look at it through a filter.
And that's almost what it seems like to me. It's
like when they tried me on depression medication. It's almost
like you remember watching Shindler's List or like World War
two movies where it just has that great filter over everything,
like they filmed it in color, but it's just like
Withdrew all the saturation. But that's what life is. That's
(30:03):
what having an addiction, that's what having you know, a
connection to a medication to where like you can use
it as a scapegoat. That's what life becomes. Then, that's
what my life was when I was on I believe
it was zoloft. I was on it for a month
and my old psychiatrist told me that I was bipolar
(30:24):
because I took myself off of it. And I looked
at her and said, no, I don't want to feel
like this anymore. Yeah, you made it so way. My
life doesn't fucking matter. And guess what, my life fucking matters.
I don't need to feel like my life doesn't fucking matter.
It may not matter to you, but it matters to me.
I've had twenty six years of life that I didn't
(30:46):
care about. Today is not going to be another day
of that.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, No, I agree. I got to a point of
anger when I couldn't get my refill of anxiety metzon time,
it got to got to it, and that's where the
scapegoat part comes in. But you gotta it happens one
(31:11):
too many times, and you gotta turn to yourself and say, self, living.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
My living life exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah. So I I personally made the choice to wean
myself off the medication knowing that I could very well
do with life at that point because I had been
put on it when I was twenty something, twenty five,
twenty three, four years old, and so it was all
the way. It was just what two years ago that
(31:49):
I that I did that. I don't recommend it, don't
do it without a doctor's you know, I wouldn't recommend yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
But when you go to a doctor, don't don't google
the diagnosis, don't google your symptoms. Google what you're experiencing,
like I am dealing with this, and try and find
an answer and don't feel negative about what the answer is.
And that's such a huge fucking thing that I've told
(32:17):
so many fucking people, is like they want to worry
about what the fuck the letters are on a paper. No,
there's so much overlap in between ADHD and depression and
borderline personality disorder and UH bipolar disorder too, and everything
else doesn't. It doesn't matter what the name is. You
are a human and if you and if you sit
(32:39):
here and you take on this moniker or that moniker
and you and you create this into being some big
negative part of your life, you will never heal from it.
And most of them you can heal from.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That's that's part of the acceptance portion of just about
any cycle that has you know, like the grief cycle.
So if you're talking about the grief of your your
your mental health, you know, that's a that's a thing.
So that's the whole cycle that you need to go
through to be able to grasp back whi. You can't
(33:14):
again stay in one of the one of the the
the stuff the stages for too long or you will
get in some very deep, complicated UH situations where that's concerned,
and it'll stop a lot, and you'll have to do
a lot of backtracking and a lot of repairing to
(33:37):
dig your to dig yourself out of it.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And it's it's almost disgusting what what these diagnosies do
for people.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Sometimes that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
It becomes an excuse, it becomes something that it's like
a boogeyman almost. It's like if I don't have my meds,
or if or if something bad happens, it always has
to be this. I don't have impulse control. I have ADHD.
You don't know who the person is that holds me accountable,
not a single fucking person other than myself.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You have to be you have to be. Accountability is
the biggest portion of any kind of any kind of
self reflection.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
And it's weird. You know, you saw my very very
very early stages of my marriage and you were around.
I struggled with my morality. I struggled with everything because
I wasn't really sure of what being a human was.
And in the past few years, that right there is
(34:46):
the thing that changed everything was just finding what morality is.
It's not wondering what this person or that person would accept,
it's what do why fucking accept? What? Am I okay
looking at myself in the mirror for tomorrow and.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Then being able to stand in that notwithstanding what everybody
else out here is thinking or saying about it.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Exactly like, it was such a disconnect, It was such
a fuck up in my mind. And I remember a
few years ago when I looked at my wife at
the time and I'm like, I'm about to go into
next surgery. It was right before I scheduled my surgery,
and I was like, if they offer me the surgery,
which I had a twenty percent chance of dying it during,
I was like, I don't care. She was pregnant with
(35:38):
my baby at the time, and I looked at her
and said, I can't. I can't keep going on with
the way life is. I can't wonder if I'm going
to pass out holding the baby. I gotta put my
life together in enough of a way that I can
move on through tomorrow. So whether this is a twenty
percent risk or a coin flip, that is a relevant
(35:59):
to me. I was like, the check only gets bigger
as I die, So as a whole, I have to
make sure that you guys are safe. I have to
make sure that you and the kids are okay, and
that that fucking that situation changed my entire outlook on life,
(36:20):
because now it's no longer living to where something's gonna happen.
I'm living on borrowed time. Already I was okay dying
and that is such a weird kind of life altering
situation and thought process.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
To have about.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
About it changed the morality of Okay, my life is
for me. No, my life is not for fucking me
at all, just for service of those three kids and
bettering the world in every single way I possibly can.
And you know, fifteen year old Zach, the one you
knew so well because you were with me all the time,
(37:01):
was I somebody who bounced off the walls? Absolutely did.
I try and make every single person's day brighter when
I saw them. Apps fucking lutely. It's weird that that
goes away in shitty relationships. It's weird that that goes
away when you're trying to find yourself. It's not about self, guys.
(37:23):
You can better yourself, but you're not bettering yourself for you,
bettering yourself for your kids. You're bettering yourself for your dog,
You're bettering yourself for your significant other. You're bettering yourself
for the people that are around you every single day.
Because if you keep accepting what you are today, tomorrow
you're not any better.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah. I think that a lot of it has to
do with being able to do it for yourself, though,
because if you don't start with self, you have nothing
to give those kids grandkids. In my case, you know
what I mean, you have nothing.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Especially when we were taught the most selfish saying that
there is you know what I'm saying, like, Oh, your
significant other needs to take care of you, so way
you could take care of them. The fuck you do.
You're not taking care of me. That's not what you're doing.
You're taking care of you that way on my bad days,
(38:25):
you're there and you can catch me if I need
you to. And I'm gonna take care of me and
I'm gonna push myself to be the absolute brink, the
absolute craziest level of Zach I possibly can that way
on your bad days. Guess what, you have the best
version of me by your side. That way, you know
you're not gonna fucking fall, and I'll put you back
up on that pedestal I put you on.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But we were taught so many times, Oh you know,
you take care of me some way I can take
care of you.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
No, it's a lot of it goes back to taking
care of yourself is selfish. It's not, it's not. It's
it's selfish is a completely different thing than loving and
taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
It's selfish is putting yourself above every other person in the.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Room, regardless of context.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yes, that end, that is what selfishness is. Selfishness is
narcissism and only worrying about your outcome in the entire
situation and not giving a fuck about what anybody else's
perception is or anything else, or only caring about how
people perceive you. Narcissism is the most painful thing that
(39:43):
I've ever dealt with in my entire fucking life. Ever.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, and it's hard to see when you're in that web. Yeah,
very hard to see when you're in that web.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
It's just it's so sad. It's sad because the only
way to dix it is more reflection and looking back
at yourself and saying, okay, I forgive myself for not
seeing this.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It's okay, you have to forgive yourself, you know, as
a genuine person. Earlier, earlier in life, I didn't realize
how how just corrupt people were and out for themselves
and in situations most people were, you know. Instead of
(40:33):
continuing to persist to be myself and set boundaries, I
ran and tried to mirror what was around me, and
that was the wrong choice, but it's very important. We're
not taught. This is another thing we're not taught. We're
not taught how to deal with these things in life,
how to move forward. And our parents didn't know. I
(40:55):
know mine, you know that you didn't learn how to
deal with your feelings.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
And he's that even in a more exaggerated way. With
politics now, it's like one one is feeding off of completely, Oh,
you're a bad person if you don't believe my opinion,
and the other side is like, Okay, we're being beat
over the head because we don't care about people's feelings.
And it's like, guys, no, you guys are all in
it for yourself. And both sides are like they're saying
(41:22):
that we care about this thing because it gets you
to click yess on this side of the box, and
the other side is saying we care about this thing
because they want you to click on that side of
the box. And it's like, guys, why are you so
fucking selfish and self indulgent to think that anybody cares
at all about which fucking box you click?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Two wings of the same bird. There's mounds and mounds
and mounds of corruption for talking politics.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Even if your best friend cares and you're voting for
them for whatever, even if it's the greatest podcast in
the world, you know, and I'm like, okay, guys, we're
going to vote for us for the greatest podcasts in
the world. Guess what that is selfish because I want
to beat every single person in that fucking category. But
guess what, I still want it. I want it. I
want to be able to say, oh, I have the greatest, this,
(42:15):
I have the best That selfishness isn't always uniquely negative
because that arrogance and confidence is okay. And that's that's
the biggest last thing that I had to understand is
it's kJ you can you can back me up on
this one. There were numerous times that I was told, Okay,
(42:35):
your arrogant ass is going to get you in fucking trouble.
Your arrogance, your ego, everything is something that is inacceptable.
There were so many times as a whole that was
the entire argument against me was my ego was going
to be the thing that dictated what I was able
to do with my life. But guess what when I
(42:59):
finally figured how to use my ego and my confidence.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Honing it down is the key. And that's the thing
with my mouth. My mouth was off the charts. It
was in places where it didn't need to be. It's
not all about you know. You can you can refine
what you say so that you're not firing from the hip,
but you can still give a slap and a kiss
(43:28):
and let them know what you mean and that you
mean business. But I didn't refine that until much later
in life and until I realized how it hit people.
And I didn't get to realize that until later in life.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
It seems like people that are self conscious when they
become parents want their kids to be self conscious, and
not in like a malicious way, but because they're self conscious,
they're very quick to point something out. They're very quick
to poke something that hurts.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
That's what they know. Because learning to not be self
conscious yet absolutely and.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
In my ego was either a hundred or it was zero.
And when I was confident in something, whether I was
whether it's a point that I knew or something like that,
it was, oh, well, you're being arrogant. And it's just
like no, if you're right, you're allowed to point out
the thing and say I'm right.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
It's okay, But it's all in the way you say it.
Sometimes back it doesn't hit people, you know, it's all
in the way if you want to be received, sometimes
you got to look at who you're speaking with and
taylor what you're saying to be received by that person.
It's just the way life is if you want them
to hear saying.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And it's so weird to go from being self conscious
to where you are stepping on your toes trying to
figure out exactly what to say to everybody, to not
caring if somebody receives something correctly because you understand what
you meant. And that is such a big fucking step
in the word right direction that I think a lot of
people can make is is Yeah, you have to say
(45:04):
it for the correct audience. You have to say what
you need to say and say in a place where
it can be received. But as long as you're saying
something in the correct ideology and you're saying something with
the correct intent behind it, even if it's not received,
it's okay. If if they're taking it wrong.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Coming from you, yeah, if you're coming from a place
of genuine of being genuine, you know, then it's it's
definitely a point that you can, you know, further discuss
if you're misunderstood. But I'm talking about, you know, just
shooting from the hip. You know how I used to be.
I just just used to run my mouth and not
(45:46):
care who I mowed down with it. And it didn't
make sense half the time, but I just ran it anyway.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
No, And it hurt the people that were closest to
you a lot of the time. And I felt it firsthand.
And it's until you realize that something's fixable, it's really
kind of hard to fix it.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Well, I didn't know how. Yeah, even if I knew
something was needed fixing, I didn't know how to take
control of that and fix it. You got to be
willing to look inward to do that.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And you even see that in the relationships that we
form as humans, whether you're in a straight relationship or
a gay one, like you're shown or told how to
handle the other sex. Like, think about it, logically, you're
told how as a man, you're told how to treat
a woman. You open the door, you make sure that
they're able to get into the car, You make sure
(46:43):
that they don't have anything to worry about, and you
protect them. But you don't know how to hear a woman,
You don't know how to love them, You don't know
how to do anything other than show them what they're
supposed to be shown. And on the opposite end, you're
shown what to expect from a man. You're not shown
what to give. You're not shown how to heal or
(47:04):
fix something or except that you're wrong in this or
that it's always one side or the other. That's why
this show is here is I want to better the
fucking world because a lot of these things man are
not shown to people and how to fix something.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
They and people aren't. They aren't brave enough to put
themselves out and be genuine and vulnerable. I wasn't. I
wasn't until we started this whole thing, and now I
just I'm back to like I. That's part of the
whole that I wanted to do, was go back to
being the genuine person that I started out as before
(47:46):
the world hardened all of this, I don't want to
be a hard individual.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And honestly, and I'll wrap it up here, I think
that the three of you, my mom, my aunt, and
you see the most raw version of me you'll see
me get excited about something that somebody's pointing out. You'll
see something hurt me and be like, ah, fuck, nobody's
gonna see this, and it freezes me or something catches
(48:14):
my PTSD, and you guys are like Zach, you need
to put your head down and keep fucking going.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
It is.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
It is so fucking hard to just realize that, no
matter if it's growth yesterday, growth three years ago, growth
a decade ago, or just taking the fucking shell off
and letting somebody hurt you because it doesn't fucking matter
if they do. It's genuinely hard to realize that it's okay.
(48:43):
It's okay to be hurt. But guess what. The only
person that cares if I get hurt is me. That's
it I can control. If I get hurt, I control
if it's going to be okay. And guess what, I
control my reaction to every single thing you're doing.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
That part. You control your actions and reactions. It's the
only thing you can control in life. So why not
start with the master of self? And I'm far from
the master of my own self, but damn it, I'm trying.
And that's a good place to start, is find something
that you don't like about yourself and do something different
(49:22):
and change it. Master that one thing, as small as
it may be, take and master that one thing about
yourself and move forward.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Four years ago, I was such a broken human. I
couldn't fully put together what I wanted in life. I
couldn't put together exactly what I wanted in my future.
And I was trying to heal from a next surgery
that I didn't know if I was going to live through.
And guess what, I was able to put those pieces together.
I was able to figure out why being diagnosed with
(49:52):
ADHD is in a fucking death sentence. It was an
answer of why everything seems so different to me than
everybody else. It was dealing with, you know, dealing with
a narcissist for so fucking long and being triggered for
so many fucking years. And guess what, I was okay
to deal with it. And I can forgive myself. I
(50:16):
can forgive myself for every single thing I dealt with.
I can deal with myself for the trauma that I
dealt with, the trauma that I caused, the trauma that
I caused others. Guess what I could admit I was
a broken person. Every single one of those days. But
you wanna know what I did do every single day
since twenty nineteen. I got better. I got better every
(50:37):
single fucking day because the person yesterday should not be
able to recognize the person of me today. Because every
single day, even if I it's a day where I
stay the same, I know what I need to do
better tomorrow. Subscribe like you know, do all the sharing stuff.
(50:58):
Find us on audio platform. Go check out kJ and
all of her you know, political stuff. Go check out
all of my stuff. See you next time. Peace,
Welcome to the fourth episode of The Lonely Road. This has,
you know, done more than I kind of expected it to.
I don't know what your expectations were. kJ before we
even go into the full complete intro. Thank you guys
for coming. We've gotten four thousand viewers in the past month.
I didn't expect that to do that and not getting
(00:22):
promoted anywhere, not getting shared anywhere other than like our
personal stuff here and there. Thank you because it seems
like this is you know, completely raw and genuine. So
that's awesome. So thank you guys for coming and hanging out.
Make sure to subscribe and like the podcast. It is
now on Apple podcast as well, so we might just
see another burst of growth here real soon. We are
(00:43):
here to join you on the journey to heal and
become a better human. Many of you know me from
my job or my other podcast. It's going to be
a very different show. We'll be going in on deep
dive do with grief and mental health, whether it's stats
and stories or we're just going to export all in depth.
After dealing with the trauma that I'm dealing with and
everything else, I looked at my girlfriend and I was like, hey,
I need to do something. So now we're here, AJ,
(01:06):
how are you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm doing okay, buddy, I'm doing okay. It's been a
long week. I'm kJ I'm just here to heal and
help others heal with my knowledge and growth that I've
done so far. And it's been one heck of a week.
How have you been?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Not too bad? It's been a it's been a rough one.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I kind of just zoned into playing video games and relaxing.
I was so happy we had an extra episode recorded
so I could just do that. I needed time to
just decompress and relax and kind of just shut down
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
But I thought I thought that was the case.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Good. Yeah, Surprisingly, I opened up to my mom, I
opened up to Bree, and I was like, I just
I can't people, I can't do this right now. I
need just to put me back together and kind of
be okay. Yeah, oh it's been a rough week.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
But what happened to you this week?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yep? So, as always, half of the money that this
show makes and we'll ever make, we'll be going to
charity or a nonprofit organization. And if you want to
use g fuel and use code R and tsa checkout.
Of that, twenty percent of that will come off a
checkout if you use that. They use buy one, get
one free sales right now. So if you guys want
(02:22):
some energy drinks and want something sugar free that's not
going to make you feel horrible, go check them out.
So surprisingly, we have a lighthearted video that we want
to help people. We haven't done one of these yet,
so it was, you know, we were talking after the
last show, was like, okay, well, how do we want
to organize and do things next and everything else? And
(02:44):
I was like, okay, so I'll peek behind the curtain.
I have to move marriage problems and everything else down
a little bit just that way gets a little bit
of space for my divorce. I was like, let's put
on these episodes. Let's try these and see exactly how
this goes, because fuh man, there's a lot of shit
that's happened that we're like, okay, we want to talk
(03:05):
about this, and we're going to talk about this. It's like, okay,
no two positive ones, two negative ones, this one not
four fucking negative ones. We need some positivity year well
as everybody's gonna leave us.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Definitely have to keep things positive. And you know, as
much as it's important to talk about death, and most
of my growth links in with my grief, it just
it just does. And although it links in, it doesn't
always have to be uh, weighed down episodes. I agree,
(03:36):
we need to have something light once in a while.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and it helps. It kind of takes out the
whole shit of oh, well, no, it's just going to
be sad always no. Yeah, nope, it's not going to
be sad always no. So I thought of this in
a way because everybody kind of looks at me and
telligent me, Oh, you've grown so much since your divorce happened.
You've grown so much since you're separated, You've grown so
much in this way or that way. How do did
(04:00):
you do it? What did you see? What did you change?
And I don't really know exactly why everybody kind of
looks at me like that. It really, genuinely, to me,
is very weird. It makes me feel very uncomfortable because
everybody's like, how the fuck did you do this? Were
you always like this or did you actually genuinely see
things that you had to change? And the answer is both.
(04:22):
I always was kind of internal and just accepted fault,
and I knew I needed to change in order to
fix things or do whatever I wanted to do. I
don't know. I guess it's just really weird.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, it's funny how life evolves. Like sometimes I feel like,
well for me anyway, and for you, obviously, a big
event has to happen, something needs to happen to jolt
you out of whatever you're in, and it generally is
the catalyst for a transformation.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
No, And it's super super interesting exactly how that works,
because I think it is so linked to my ADHD,
because I will find the calm I will find even
in chaos, Like even at the beginning of my separation
and everything else, my mom and my aunt asked me
all the time they didn't understand exactly how I was
able to be so calm and level headed and okay,
(05:22):
even when things were chaos. I was able to pick
apart every single systematic thing that was going to happen
when it was going to happen. And whether that's my
overthinking and kind of being able to put those pieces
together and understand it, or just being able to be
calm and chaos, it brought me through a situation that
most people struggle with. Most people lose everything with and
(05:44):
I changed as a person. Yeah, I went from losing
everything to actually being okay enough to having almost everybody
that I had beforehand, before I was taken away from everybody,
Like I grew everybody back. I was able to put
those pieces back together and fix it.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Most people are led in situations
of devastation. They're led with their feelings. And I think
that you have an advantage where being an overthinker, which
I don't really think is overthinking is a bad thing.
I think thinking things through to the degree that you
do is is a positive for you because it allows
(06:23):
you to be prepared for things in a logical way.
Whereas I I am a big feeler and I just
had to learn how to change and get a grip
on my big ass feelings in order to make that
big change it in my life. You know, I didn't
have that logic. I don't have that think through or
that that visualization, you know, from beginning to end.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It's really weird. It's weird how my mind kind of
overthinks things and puts into perspective everything that could happen
within minutes, whether it's Bree or my mom, and I'm
giving them everything in kind of just explaining out what
I think could happen. Where I see people's perspectives and
stuff like that, they get really genuinely confused because I
(07:08):
see things that most people don't. I'm able to understand,
like an emotion that most people can't put their hands
on or or grasp exactly what the hell's going on.
There's such a disconnect in some of those situations that
it's kind of just weird. It's weird that some people
just don't grasp it.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's basically the way people take
in life, and I take in life in a completely
different way than you take in life. And it's evident
in the way we process our emotions.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And you even saw it when we had that the
conversation about starting this podcast as a whole, I was like,
either it's going to do nothing and it's going to
heal us, or it's going to heal us and it's
going to do things that we did not expect it
to do, because as a whole, those are the only
two genuine answers not going to be a middling podcast.
Where it does oh, one hundred views here on hundred
(08:00):
vieuse here like it can do that, sure, but it's
going to do one of two. It's going to impact
a lot of people, or it's going to impact us
and heal us as humans either ways positive. I don't
know which one's gonna happen. Y See.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I think we've already impacted more than just ourselves, and
I think on a scale that we are on that's
commendable in itself, and I'm thankful for it. It's helped
me particularly so.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And you know, the interesting part about my overthinking is
like my ex wife overthought everything but didn't like come
to grips or understand the logic of the puzzle that
was in front of her. Yeah, but she was able
to overthink and fear everything that possibly could happen, but
didn't understand why something was going to happen, what was
going to happen. She couldn't put the pieces together. I
(08:52):
with my and I don't know if it's logic, I
don't know if it's ADHD. I don't know exactly what
it is. I can tell you exactly what's going to
happen next, Like you're in a group chat with me
and my mom and my aunt. And how many times
have I called out, well, this is going to happen.
I knew that this was going to happen, this is
where it's going to go next. And I've called every
(09:14):
single shot through and through of so many different circumstances
where it's just like, Zach, you should not be able
to do this.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
We have all happen in difference different situations. Absolutely, we
have each one of us in that chat have a
different perspective on life and on the situation itself. And
I think that that brings uniquely to that family chat
brings value so much value because we all can call
(09:45):
one thing or another.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah exactly, and all of us will see things in
a different way. And it makes my overthinkingness work in
a way that people I don't think fully grasp. Like
the family dinners that we did, right, it was figuring
out number one, how it was paid for, who's going
to take care of, what what are we doing, where
are we going or even going and doing a family
(10:10):
vacation or something like that, and setting that up. All
of those things I've pre thought out. I figured those
things out, and it's just like is everybody okay with
this or that, and I'm able to play the game
of like mismatching what I planned in my head and
just piecing it together because I already have it all done.
And it's so weird. It's so weird because that level
(10:31):
of being an overthinker, I'm able to put those pieces
together that people genuinely don't understand.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard for me. It's very hard
for me to do systematically. Like I have to have
a map put out in front of me in order
to do something like that. I have to I have
to sit down with a piece of paper, make a
list and check it twice and then do the whole planning. Yeah,
it's it's not so. I can't just it's not something
(10:58):
that might my mind maps out like that.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Like I'll reveal a little bit. I can't. I can't
go super super in depth for obvious reasons. But my
ex and her her boyfriend husband whatever showed up the
other day to pick up the kids, and uh, it
was the first time that I ever saw him in person.
Because obviously, you know, there's pending possible problems regardless of
(11:23):
what the hell's going on, and there's lots of context
to the situation. But I looked at Brien, I was like, well,
there's two answers why he was here. There's not fifty million,
there's two. One he wanted to prove that he's here.
He wanted to prove that he's not just going to
shy away and hide and whatever. Or two he was
(11:47):
begged and plead to come so that way I have
an emotional reaction, because if I have an emotional reaction,
it portrays them in a positive light. I was like,
those are the only two possible answers. There's no in between.
There's nothing else. It was either I'm not a cook
and I'm here, or let's make Zach emotionally react and
(12:08):
try and smash somebody's head in and neither won't happen.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
But because that's new, right, that's not something that happens. Yes,
it's it's there's a third party that comes and exactly
transports that your your your baby. So it's it's definitely, uh,
it's not a far fetched Might we stop talking about that?
But it's not far fetch So so yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
No, I just it's easier to show behind the curtain
of like this is this is how my mind works.
I'm able to break things down and see exactly why
somebody is doing something, and it seems like a lot
of people like And I'm realizing it more and more
as I do podcasts, as I'm sitting here and kind
of just telling dick jokes online. You realize who genuinely
has the train of thought to understand what's going on
(12:54):
or who doesn't. And it's weird.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, in most situations that that is the case. I
mean insert X here variable. You know that's that's the case.
In most situations. Either you see it or you don't
see it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So I have I have this big thing and I
think you probably saw it when I was a kid too.
Is I'm very quick to point inward towards a problem.
And you said you do too. How do you see
that as a negative or a positive? What did you
want to say towards that? Because I probably have some big,
long diatribe.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well, I mean, I guess there's positives and negatives towards it.
I mean I could go into the let's go to
the positives first, just because I like to stay on
a positive. Nope, but validating my goddamn self rather than
looking for outside sources of validation. That's a really positive
way looking inward, you know, making making myself accountable. I
(13:55):
am the result of my own choices, looking inward first,
taking care of me for in situations, so that I
can give the world or a situation what I can
give it to the best of my ability, because I
can't do it with half a battery or a non
charged battery, if you will, So, you know, taking care
(14:17):
of yourself first.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So those things as far as looking inward, the positive
things that I've taken and just making those adjustments, They've
changed me in so many ways. But looking in different situations,
whatever comes at me in the world, I like to
(14:41):
take the situation, even if I don't think I'm in
the wrong, and I like to take the situation. I
look inward first now instead of pointing fingers outwards or
to it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
So it's it's a situation of I'm not going to
play the blame game right away. I'm going to turn
the situation inwards and I'm going to take it, and
I'm going to point at myself and say, what could
I have done differently in the situation.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
That right there, I was explaining depret earlier. I don't
remember if it was earlier today or last night. We
were having a nice, in depth conversation and I'm obviously
really good at this. I talk in depth about everything.
It's just my thing. And I told her. I was like,
you know, there's a difference in between holding yourself accountable
and saying, Okay, this is why I feel like I
(15:40):
did this or this happened or whatever, and the world's
against me, it's my fault, blah blah blah blah blah,
I'm a piece of shit, I'm an asshole, whatever. There's
a difference here when you look at something and you
hold yourself accountable in that situation and not turning to
blame of like fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and
(16:02):
you're looking inward and you're like, okay, how did I
cause this? How did I feel towards this situation? What
did this cause? Where are my emotions here? And and
not turning into I'm a piece of shit? Oh everybody
wants to walk away? Oh everybody is this or that?
That's where the mental illness comes in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, it is like as.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
As a whole, It's like, if you can hold yourself
accountable and say Okay, I am. The first reason a
problem happens to Zach. I just am because either I'm
in a place I shouldn't be, I'm doing something I
shouldn't be. I'm I'm dealing with something that I shouldn't
regardless of what level that is. Those things you have
to kind of look inward and be like, Okay, this
(16:43):
is why I did this, This caused that.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know I I I learned self deprecation early. I
learned how to beat myself up early, and I beat
myself up.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I'm harder on anybody. I'm harder on myself than anybody
could always. But I've learned to turn that into not
not a punching bag, but more of a how how
can I better the situation? How can I do things
differently next time? Kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I almost use that as like a roadmap to like
smooth out the edges I have. And that might sound stupid,
but like dealing with hundreds of thousands of people, whether
they're like poking at you saying, oh, well, you'll look
like you're you're underweight, and you do meths and whatever. No,
never done any drugs, but good job, Like, no matter
(17:46):
what level this is whether it's the problems that I
have going on, whether it's my job, no matter what
it is, I promise you that anything you've said negatively
about me, if I've elt it, I've said it two
inches from the mirror, saying that I need to get
over it, get past it, and get through it and
(18:06):
hold myself accountable to do that. Right, Like, kJ think
about me fifteen years ago, how underweight was I It
was one of the biggest things that most people would
pick at me for why because I'm six it's five
and one hundred and fifty pounds. That looks weird? It
(18:27):
just does. And I turned that into okay. So if
I can make fun of myself and hold myself accountable
in that light, I'm going to say whatever I fucking
feel like, because if I make fun of myself and
do that in front of everybody, I'm going to hold
everybody to that same level.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You get through it, how you got to get through it,
you know what I mean? You develop those those defense
mechanisms early. You know, I'm not really sure and I can't.
It was early, very early where I pinpointed that and
I started doing that early, and I don't really know
where it started or why.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
It's hard once you get that first laugh, Like you
make the joke of like oh this or that, and
they're like yeah, and everybody giggles, and then all of
a sudden you're like, oh, so if I shit on
myself and don't shit on them, everybody laughs.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Okay, escalated Yep, that's part of the whole, you know,
screwing yourself situation you get yourself into, because then you
know you're becoming more of people pleaser than anything else, and.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You devalue yourself. You devalue yourself so fucking much because
you're constantly kicking yourself. You're constantly pushing yourself down and
down and down, when in the grand scheme of things,
you don't have.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
To, No, you don't, but you have to have You
have to kind of get sick of your own shit
before you can change any of that. You have to
get tired of of that self blame game, because you're
the only one that can turn that around for yourself.
You're the only one that can draw that boundary. And
(20:08):
before you can draw boundaries with other people in your life,
you have to draw them with yourself.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, and it's it's hard not to blame. Well, you
did this and this hurt me. And that is such
a big thing I had to learn is it doesn't
matter who the fuck did it? What did I do
that caused them to react? And if that, if the
answer is not nothing, then there's something you can always
(20:35):
learn from every situation that is not they are a
piece of shit, because there is situations where people are
just pieces of shit.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh yes it is. Oh always I always answer no, no,
it doesn't have to be. And I always look back
at a situation and it's it's it's interesting because you're
when you're looking in word at yourself and you're trying
(21:04):
to think of how you could have communicated differently, even
if they hurt you, Even if the if there was
a situation an outside stimuli, the corruption came from outside
the house, and you trusted that person and you just
were the reactor. You're still responsible for your actions and reactions,
(21:25):
and so what could you have done differently? How could
you have used your words and your tools to communicate,
communicate that situation better to save that relationship. That's where
I'm looking in word because there are a couple of
relationships in my life that did not get repaired because
of ways that I reacted to things that I felt
(21:49):
slighted by or more than slighted by.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah. Hey, and you showed me be at a very
very young age to always be loud about everything. Everybody
else told me to be quiet. kJ was always the
one that's like, just be loud, just openly speak about everything,
because if you do, then at least you're wearing everything
on your sleeve and you know your interpretation of what
(22:15):
the situation might be wrong. You might be saying something wrong,
but at least everybody knows where you stand.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You're being genuine. And I think that's what I lost
somewhere along the way, is that air of genuine miss
about me because I was molded by something else that
the world had pressed upon me, and I allowed it
to be intrusive upon who.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I was, and it gets so hard, it gets so
hard to just be raw. I remember, like almost it
was the second nature to just be quiet. It was
second nature just to shut down and kind of hide
my feelings. And even in a lot of this situation,
I've frozen so many times. And that's the biggest thing
(23:01):
that I struggle with, is like my PTSD is I freeze.
It's not because I don't want to keep going forward.
Is I don't want to hurt people. I don't. I
don't want to just it's almost like the inaction makes
this the way nobody else gets hurt. The only person
that gets hurt is me.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, I'm the same way. And I don't know. I
don't know if I impressed that upon you somehow in
earlier in life or I have no idea, but I'm
I'm actually very very similar to that. And it was
I remember it very early on in life because my
parents divorced early four or five years old, and I
(23:43):
was always trying to make them both happy, and so
it was a constant, a constant game of not doing
or saying the wrong thing to make somebody unhappy. So yeah,
that was the lot of the push up and be
quiet kind of situation. But my also, my parents were boomers,
(24:07):
so that was a whole nother generation as children.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
And you know, it got turned into a joke as
a teenager. It was, oh, Zaxson his dungeon. Zach's not
able to come out of the dungeon. And it's like,
when I look back at that, and I even look
at Madison now when she's you know, off doing her
own thing or whatever, my first answer is, are you okay, kid?
Every single time? Like you good like? Is it just
(24:35):
you're shutting down or is it you're trying to just
relax and calm down, Because they look exactly the same,
but at the same time, there's such a big difference there.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, being a teenager is very very hard. It's very
very very very angsty time in life. Fragile, fragile as fuck.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
And the only way that I found to be able
to get past that freeze, to get past the shut down,
sit down and shut up and shut down is just
breaking it down. If I could take the next step,
that's the only step that I have to worry about
right this second.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Even if it's the tiniest step, but at least you're doing
something towards making the.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Phone call, it's sending the email, it's it's hoping that
just somebody, somebody can fucking hear it. That's all you
need is just somebody to accept that step forward. And
that gets weird, It gets really weird. And you know,
I'm dealing with two things at the same time that
are at the same exact thing of me freezing and
pulling away because I'm like, I don't want to hurt people,
(25:42):
and I'm repairing one of the relationships now. It's like,
if if I freeze and I pull away, it's not
because I don't want you in my life. It's because
I don't want to change your life based off of
my triggers. But I know my trigger will affect every
single person in the situation, and it's so hard. It's
(26:05):
so hard because it's like, do you say the thing
that changes everybody's life because you know it will, or
do you shut up and just keep accepting what's given.
It's weird.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, that's that's definitely a heavy one.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
The big answer that is taking that next step is
learning your fucking instinct. Now, it may not always be right,
but you know, sometimes it feels like everything's against you
and you aren't listening to yourself. It has been such
a weird thing. And I don't know exactly how this
all works because I'm not a religious person. But the
(26:51):
second that I started questioning religion, the second that I
started questioning to understand the way life works or the
way religion works, everything I started clicking. Everything did. Yeah,
and it's weird. It makes me confused because it's like, Okay,
my instinct is to protect everybody, and it's like, no,
(27:13):
you don't have to protect everybody. Your answer is not
to instinctually protect everything. Your answer is to instinctually do
this or do that. And that changed so much.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yeah, you have to absolutely along the way your instincts
get mine. I guess I can only speak for myself.
But along the way, my instincts got muffled, and I
have I test a lot of that to the medication
(27:46):
that I was on. I was on depression medication and
anxiety medication, and I feel like at the beginning it
helped me, but for the majority of the end time
I was on it a good fit fifteen years and
I was on it, it was masking my genuine self
(28:08):
and not allowing me to feel and deal with the
feelings that I had. So it's interesting that you talk
about authentic because it wasn't allowing me to be my
authentic self.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
And that's such a huge thing. And like even in
our circles and people we know, they are very quick
to blame their medication. It'll be the first answer, Oh, well,
I didn't take my meds today. I'm sorry, I'm an asshole,
or I didn't have a cigarette today, or I didn't
have this, or I didn't have that. And it's like
those things, those things that you have in your life
(28:44):
that are escapegoats to you, they are the things that
need to go away. It's nothing. Nothing about life should
ever be. This thing caused me to be an asshole.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
No, it's recognizing those things that weigh you down in
one way or another and doing things actively, consciously doing
things to make the changes, to do something different about it.
Continue to do the same thing over and over again,
you're gonna get the same results. You have to make
a different choice if you want something different.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And it's so weird. It's so weird because you know,
that was my childhood. I saw that a lot. It was, oh, well,
I don't have this, so I'm an asshole today. And
it's just like, no, that's not what it has to be.
Regardless of if you have the thing or not, you
can hold yourself accountable. You can be instinctual about what
(29:39):
life is and just not look at it through a filter.
And that's almost what it seems like to me. It's
like when they tried me on depression medication. It's almost
like you remember watching Shindler's List or like World War
two movies where it just has that great filter over everything,
like they filmed it in color, but it's just like
Withdrew all the saturation. But that's what life is. That's
(30:03):
what having an addiction, that's what having you know, a
connection to a medication to where like you can use
it as a scapegoat. That's what life becomes. Then, that's
what my life was when I was on I believe
it was zoloft. I was on it for a month
and my old psychiatrist told me that I was bipolar
(30:24):
because I took myself off of it. And I looked
at her and said, no, I don't want to feel
like this anymore. Yeah, you made it so way. My
life doesn't fucking matter. And guess what, my life fucking matters.
I don't need to feel like my life doesn't fucking matter.
It may not matter to you, but it matters to me.
I've had twenty six years of life that I didn't
(30:46):
care about. Today is not going to be another day
of that.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, No, I agree. I got to a point of
anger when I couldn't get my refill of anxiety metzon time,
it got to got to it, and that's where the
scapegoat part comes in. But you gotta it happens one
(31:11):
too many times, and you gotta turn to yourself and say, self, living.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
My living life exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah. So I I personally made the choice to wean
myself off the medication knowing that I could very well
do with life at that point because I had been
put on it when I was twenty something, twenty five,
twenty three, four years old, and so it was all
the way. It was just what two years ago that
(31:49):
I that I did that. I don't recommend it, don't
do it without a doctor's you know, I wouldn't recommend yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
But when you go to a doctor, don't don't google
the diagnosis, don't google your symptoms. Google what you're experiencing,
like I am dealing with this, and try and find
an answer and don't feel negative about what the answer is.
And that's such a huge fucking thing that I've told
(32:17):
so many fucking people, is like they want to worry
about what the fuck the letters are on a paper. No,
there's so much overlap in between ADHD and depression and
borderline personality disorder and UH bipolar disorder too, and everything
else doesn't. It doesn't matter what the name is. You
are a human and if you and if you sit
(32:39):
here and you take on this moniker or that moniker
and you and you create this into being some big
negative part of your life, you will never heal from it.
And most of them you can heal from.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That's that's part of the acceptance portion of just about
any cycle that has you know, like the grief cycle.
So if you're talking about the grief of your your
your mental health, you know, that's a that's a thing.
So that's the whole cycle that you need to go
through to be able to grasp back whi. You can't
(33:14):
again stay in one of the one of the the
the stuff the stages for too long or you will
get in some very deep, complicated UH situations where that's concerned,
and it'll stop a lot, and you'll have to do
a lot of backtracking and a lot of repairing to
(33:37):
dig your to dig yourself out of it.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And it's it's almost disgusting what what these diagnosies do
for people.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Sometimes that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
It becomes an excuse, it becomes something that it's like
a boogeyman almost. It's like if I don't have my meds,
or if or if something bad happens, it always has
to be this. I don't have impulse control. I have ADHD.
You don't know who the person is that holds me accountable,
not a single fucking person other than myself.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You have to be you have to be. Accountability is
the biggest portion of any kind of any kind of
self reflection.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
And it's weird. You know, you saw my very very
very early stages of my marriage and you were around.
I struggled with my morality. I struggled with everything because
I wasn't really sure of what being a human was.
And in the past few years, that right there is
(34:46):
the thing that changed everything was just finding what morality is.
It's not wondering what this person or that person would accept,
it's what do why fucking accept? What? Am I okay
looking at myself in the mirror for tomorrow and.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Then being able to stand in that notwithstanding what everybody
else out here is thinking or saying about it.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Exactly like, it was such a disconnect, It was such
a fuck up in my mind. And I remember a
few years ago when I looked at my wife at
the time and I'm like, I'm about to go into
next surgery. It was right before I scheduled my surgery,
and I was like, if they offer me the surgery,
which I had a twenty percent chance of dying it during,
I was like, I don't care. She was pregnant with
(35:38):
my baby at the time, and I looked at her
and said, I can't. I can't keep going on with
the way life is. I can't wonder if I'm going
to pass out holding the baby. I gotta put my
life together in enough of a way that I can
move on through tomorrow. So whether this is a twenty
percent risk or a coin flip, that is a relevant
(35:59):
to me. I was like, the check only gets bigger
as I die, So as a whole, I have to
make sure that you guys are safe. I have to
make sure that you and the kids are okay, and
that that fucking that situation changed my entire outlook on life,
(36:20):
because now it's no longer living to where something's gonna happen.
I'm living on borrowed time. Already I was okay dying
and that is such a weird kind of life altering
situation and thought process.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
To have about.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
About it changed the morality of Okay, my life is
for me. No, my life is not for fucking me
at all, just for service of those three kids and
bettering the world in every single way I possibly can.
And you know, fifteen year old Zach, the one you
knew so well because you were with me all the time,
(37:01):
was I somebody who bounced off the walls? Absolutely did.
I try and make every single person's day brighter when
I saw them. Apps fucking lutely. It's weird that that
goes away in shitty relationships. It's weird that that goes
away when you're trying to find yourself. It's not about self, guys.
(37:23):
You can better yourself, but you're not bettering yourself for you,
bettering yourself for your kids. You're bettering yourself for your dog,
You're bettering yourself for your significant other. You're bettering yourself
for the people that are around you every single day.
Because if you keep accepting what you are today, tomorrow
you're not any better.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah. I think that a lot of it has to
do with being able to do it for yourself, though,
because if you don't start with self, you have nothing
to give those kids grandkids. In my case, you know
what I mean, you have nothing.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Especially when we were taught the most selfish saying that
there is you know what I'm saying, like, Oh, your
significant other needs to take care of you, so way
you could take care of them. The fuck you do.
You're not taking care of me. That's not what you're doing.
You're taking care of you that way on my bad days,
(38:25):
you're there and you can catch me if I need
you to. And I'm gonna take care of me and
I'm gonna push myself to be the absolute brink, the
absolute craziest level of Zach I possibly can that way
on your bad days. Guess what, you have the best
version of me by your side. That way, you know
you're not gonna fucking fall, and I'll put you back
up on that pedestal I put you on.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But we were taught so many times, Oh you know,
you take care of me some way I can take
care of you.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
No, it's a lot of it goes back to taking
care of yourself is selfish. It's not, it's not. It's
it's selfish is a completely different thing than loving and
taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
It's selfish is putting yourself above every other person in the.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Room, regardless of context.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yes, that end, that is what selfishness is. Selfishness is
narcissism and only worrying about your outcome in the entire
situation and not giving a fuck about what anybody else's
perception is or anything else, or only caring about how
people perceive you. Narcissism is the most painful thing that
(39:43):
I've ever dealt with in my entire fucking life. Ever.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, and it's hard to see when you're in that web. Yeah,
very hard to see when you're in that web.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
It's just it's so sad. It's sad because the only
way to dix it is more reflection and looking back
at yourself and saying, okay, I forgive myself for not
seeing this.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It's okay, you have to forgive yourself, you know, as
a genuine person. Earlier, earlier in life, I didn't realize
how how just corrupt people were and out for themselves
and in situations most people were, you know. Instead of
(40:33):
continuing to persist to be myself and set boundaries, I
ran and tried to mirror what was around me, and
that was the wrong choice, but it's very important. We're
not taught. This is another thing we're not taught. We're
not taught how to deal with these things in life,
how to move forward. And our parents didn't know. I
(40:55):
know mine, you know that you didn't learn how to
deal with your feelings.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
And he's that even in a more exaggerated way. With
politics now, it's like one one is feeding off of completely, Oh,
you're a bad person if you don't believe my opinion,
and the other side is like, Okay, we're being beat
over the head because we don't care about people's feelings.
And it's like, guys, no, you guys are all in
it for yourself. And both sides are like they're saying
(41:22):
that we care about this thing because it gets you
to click yess on this side of the box, and
the other side is saying we care about this thing
because they want you to click on that side of
the box. And it's like, guys, why are you so
fucking selfish and self indulgent to think that anybody cares
at all about which fucking box you click?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Two wings of the same bird. There's mounds and mounds
and mounds of corruption for talking politics.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Even if your best friend cares and you're voting for
them for whatever, even if it's the greatest podcast in
the world, you know, and I'm like, okay, guys, we're
going to vote for us for the greatest podcasts in
the world. Guess what that is selfish because I want
to beat every single person in that fucking category. But
guess what, I still want it. I want it. I
want to be able to say, oh, I have the greatest, this,
(42:15):
I have the best That selfishness isn't always uniquely negative
because that arrogance and confidence is okay. And that's that's
the biggest last thing that I had to understand is
it's kJ you can you can back me up on
this one. There were numerous times that I was told, Okay,
(42:35):
your arrogant ass is going to get you in fucking trouble.
Your arrogance, your ego, everything is something that is inacceptable.
There were so many times as a whole that was
the entire argument against me was my ego was going
to be the thing that dictated what I was able
to do with my life. But guess what when I
(42:59):
finally figured how to use my ego and my confidence.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Honing it down is the key. And that's the thing
with my mouth. My mouth was off the charts. It
was in places where it didn't need to be. It's
not all about you know. You can you can refine
what you say so that you're not firing from the hip,
but you can still give a slap and a kiss
(43:28):
and let them know what you mean and that you
mean business. But I didn't refine that until much later
in life and until I realized how it hit people.
And I didn't get to realize that until later in life.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
It seems like people that are self conscious when they
become parents want their kids to be self conscious, and
not in like a malicious way, but because they're self conscious,
they're very quick to point something out. They're very quick
to poke something that hurts.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
That's what they know. Because learning to not be self
conscious yet absolutely and.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
In my ego was either a hundred or it was zero.
And when I was confident in something, whether I was
whether it's a point that I knew or something like that,
it was, oh, well, you're being arrogant. And it's just
like no, if you're right, you're allowed to point out
the thing and say I'm right.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
It's okay, But it's all in the way you say it.
Sometimes back it doesn't hit people, you know, it's all
in the way if you want to be received, sometimes
you got to look at who you're speaking with and
taylor what you're saying to be received by that person.
It's just the way life is if you want them
to hear saying.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And it's so weird to go from being self conscious
to where you are stepping on your toes trying to
figure out exactly what to say to everybody, to not
caring if somebody receives something correctly because you understand what
you meant. And that is such a big fucking step
in the word right direction that I think a lot of
people can make is is Yeah, you have to say
(45:04):
it for the correct audience. You have to say what
you need to say and say in a place where
it can be received. But as long as you're saying
something in the correct ideology and you're saying something with
the correct intent behind it, even if it's not received,
it's okay. If if they're taking it wrong.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Coming from you, yeah, if you're coming from a place
of genuine of being genuine, you know, then it's it's
definitely a point that you can, you know, further discuss
if you're misunderstood. But I'm talking about, you know, just
shooting from the hip. You know how I used to be.
I just just used to run my mouth and not
(45:46):
care who I mowed down with it. And it didn't
make sense half the time, but I just ran it anyway.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
No, And it hurt the people that were closest to
you a lot of the time. And I felt it firsthand.
And it's until you realize that something's fixable, it's really
kind of hard to fix it.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Well, I didn't know how. Yeah, even if I knew
something was needed fixing, I didn't know how to take
control of that and fix it. You got to be
willing to look inward to do that.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And you even see that in the relationships that we
form as humans, whether you're in a straight relationship or
a gay one, like you're shown or told how to
handle the other sex. Like, think about it, logically, you're
told how as a man, you're told how to treat
a woman. You open the door, you make sure that
they're able to get into the car, You make sure
(46:43):
that they don't have anything to worry about, and you
protect them. But you don't know how to hear a woman,
You don't know how to love them, You don't know
how to do anything other than show them what they're
supposed to be shown. And on the opposite end, you're
shown what to expect from a man. You're not shown
what to give. You're not shown how to heal or
(47:04):
fix something or except that you're wrong in this or
that it's always one side or the other. That's why
this show is here is I want to better the
fucking world because a lot of these things man are
not shown to people and how to fix something.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
They and people aren't. They aren't brave enough to put
themselves out and be genuine and vulnerable. I wasn't. I
wasn't until we started this whole thing, and now I
just I'm back to like I. That's part of the
whole that I wanted to do, was go back to
being the genuine person that I started out as before
(47:46):
the world hardened all of this, I don't want to
be a hard individual.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And honestly, and I'll wrap it up here, I think
that the three of you, my mom, my aunt, and
you see the most raw version of me you'll see
me get excited about something that somebody's pointing out. You'll
see something hurt me and be like, ah, fuck, nobody's
gonna see this, and it freezes me or something catches
(48:14):
my PTSD, and you guys are like Zach, you need
to put your head down and keep fucking going.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
It is.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
It is so fucking hard to just realize that, no
matter if it's growth yesterday, growth three years ago, growth
a decade ago, or just taking the fucking shell off
and letting somebody hurt you because it doesn't fucking matter
if they do. It's genuinely hard to realize that it's okay.
(48:43):
It's okay to be hurt. But guess what. The only
person that cares if I get hurt is me. That's
it I can control. If I get hurt, I control
if it's going to be okay. And guess what, I
control my reaction to every single thing you're doing.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
That part. You control your actions and reactions. It's the
only thing you can control in life. So why not
start with the master of self? And I'm far from
the master of my own self, but damn it, I'm trying.
And that's a good place to start, is find something
that you don't like about yourself and do something different
(49:22):
and change it. Master that one thing, as small as
it may be, take and master that one thing about
yourself and move forward.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Four years ago, I was such a broken human. I
couldn't fully put together what I wanted in life. I
couldn't put together exactly what I wanted in my future.
And I was trying to heal from a next surgery
that I didn't know if I was going to live through.
And guess what, I was able to put those pieces together.
I was able to figure out why being diagnosed with
(49:52):
ADHD is in a fucking death sentence. It was an
answer of why everything seems so different to me than
everybody else. It was dealing with, you know, dealing with
a narcissist for so fucking long and being triggered for
so many fucking years. And guess what, I was okay
to deal with it. And I can forgive myself. I
(50:16):
can forgive myself for every single thing I dealt with.
I can deal with myself for the trauma that I
dealt with, the trauma that I caused, the trauma that
I caused others. Guess what I could admit I was
a broken person. Every single one of those days. But
you wanna know what I did do every single day
since twenty nineteen. I got better. I got better every
(50:37):
single fucking day because the person yesterday should not be
able to recognize the person of me today. Because every
single day, even if I it's a day where I
stay the same, I know what I need to do
better tomorrow. Subscribe like you know, do all the sharing stuff.
(50:58):
Find us on audio platform. Go check out kJ and
all of her you know, political stuff. Go check out
all of my stuff. See you next time. Peace,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.