Mental Health Matters- Let's talk about gifts

Hello everyone, it is Saturday night and what does that mean? We are here for Mental Health Matters, formerly known Suicide Prevention Saturday, but you know, TOS changes, we gotta change with the TOS. All right, so why are we here? Well, that could be a very philosophical question if we really want to get into it, but no, we are not here to delve into all of that. All right, why are we here? Suicide prevention. Because when we hear about gun deaths, those of us who own them, those of us who are aware, 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicides. So if we want to attack the problem of people dying by firearms, the number one priority should always be mental health and it should always be suicide prevention. For those of you who are new to the show, hi, my name is Brooke Cheney. I am the owner and instructor here at A Great Start Shooting School. I can't look at the screen while I'm doing things because it's all backwards. And, um, so yes, so that is, that is me. Thank you for anyone who is new watching. I did get some new viewers last week, I know, because I talked to them real live in person, even if they did not chat or put anything in the chat and all of those things. So welcome to all of you, my brothers and sisters. I just want to say thank you for this Saturday night and this live. I appreciate y'all popping in. I appreciate y'all saying hi. Apparently I did not give DJ his access in here, so I'm here in the back all by myself. DJ's out there on the YouTube side though. If you guys have questions or if you want to see stuff, honestly— oh wait, no, last minute, I did get him in there. That little pop, I don't know if y'all just heard that, but there he is. So just so we're clear, a moment ago he was not. Hello, DJ. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?

Oh no. Oh, absolutely. Except this is the second live link I've gotten for tonight's show. The first one was a completely different StreamYard address, but I did check my email based on what you said in the text. And so that's how I get here today. And that's how I say, okay.

Uh oh. Oh no. And then he— I didn't do it. I wasn't touching anything this time. It is him. All right. So for those of you brand new to the show, Mental Health Matters, DJ is my guy who pushes the buttons and does the things. He will— if you chat, if you mention, if you say something in the side chat, he will be able to see it and he'll be able to call you all out once whatever technical difficulty he just had was that made him to go disappear. All right, so tonight, um, oh, where the heck is that thing? All right, hold on, hold on. Like I said, he does stuff, but I am Uh, all right. So, um, what are we talking about tonight? Tonight we're going to talk about gifts. Now here is the thing. Last week, if you guys are following along, we did quadrants, right? Because life is crazy busy. I don't know about y'all, but my calendars are just not syncing. I have too many things on them. I am messing up what days and time stuff is going on. And last week when I talked a little bit about the chaos of life, and if we can take these 4 quadrants of important, not important, put that across your top quadrants, and then urgent and not urgent, and put those top and bottom. And then you just say, ask the question when something comes up, a phone call, an email, a, I don't know, a finger. Go watch the previous one, you'll understand. Then you figure out, well, is this urgent? Okay, there are things that are urgent. However, then put it on the other scale of important or not important, and you get to decide that. So that was last week. So you want to learn more about that, by all means go look. Um, then, um, tonight we are going to talk about gifts, because why are we here again? 2 out of every 3 gun deaths are suicides, y'all just nod your head and say yes. And if we're going to talk about suicide prevention, sometimes we actually got to talk about suicide prevention. And for those of you who have never been suicidal, God bless, you're awesome. I'm so glad you've never had to put up with that. For those of you who are currently suicidal and/or have ever been thus, I apologize, and it sucks, and I know your pain because I too was that way. Again, for those of you who are brand new to all of this, um, And so a lot of people are like, well, why would someone commit suicide? And when you go to a funeral where someone has managed to do that successfully, what happens is nobody talks about it. It's like Fight Club. If we don't talk about it, then it doesn't exist, right? No, that's not how this works. Um, the first funeral that I went to was someone who had been in my group session And this was back in the '80s when I was a teenager. When I— this is when I was suicidal as a teenager, went to group therapy. And this guy, he was a doctor, had kids, had grandkids, had lots of things what most people figure to live for. And sitting there in group therapy, he would talk about how much he loved his family and he would talk about how much he loved his children and his grandchildren, but the monsters in his head just won. And I could go down a whole other story, but that'll be for another time. But the point of this is people that I'm aware of, and also from my personal experience, who have been suicidal in the past or are currently, is often because they forget about the gifts that they have. Now, When I'm talking about gifts, hold on, I've got visuals again today. See, I did prepare just a tiny bit. Um, can I get them to come up? Let's see. Yes, yes I can. All right, so let's— yes, it's just a cheesy iStock video or picture. However, what is the thing you notice about these gifts? Are they all the same size? No. Are they all the same color? Also no. Do they all have the same bow? Also no, they do not. Are there similarities? Are there things that we have in common? Yeah, they all have ribbons. Good job. However, when we are thinking about the gift that we are to the world, once you say that, a lot of people feel like they're being conceited. A lot of people being me, right? For those who've been with me for a while, you know, I was picked on as a kid and I never wanted to be one of those stuck-up girls who thought they were better than everybody else and would beat everybody else down. So we have this funny balance thing. Girls, boys, we, we all deal with this differently, so I'm going to go from my personal experience. But remembering you are a gift— and hold on, more visuals. Hold, hold that thought. Maybe I can make this bigger. I don't know. No, apparently not. All right, I'm just going to share this out anyway. Part of your giftiness is your uniqueness. For those of you who did not pay attention in science In theory, according to mathematicians, there is not a single, single of the bazillions and bazillions of— I don't even know what googolplex numbers there are out there— of snowflakes. No two are perfectly alike. We all have our unique individual crystals and spikes and general how we are put together. And we are unique. So that, my friend, in case you didn't realize, is your gift. You and I have different things to offer the world. And folks who are struggling with depression, folks who do commit suicide, they forgot that they've got their gifts. So if I could do nothing else tonight, it is to remind each and every one of you who are listening to this or seeing this for the first time or for the 100th time— maybe this is the one you put on replay because You are the gift. And yeah, I know it's hard. People will tell you you're a gift. You're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And people will tell you you're pretty, you're smart, you're helpful, you're loved, all of those things. And here's the challenge with this. If you don't open your hand and your heart to accept the reality of the fact you are a gift, that is the demons winning. And I've got, oh, look at me. I've got a special, special guest, Miss Carrie Anne. Carrie, oh my goodness, goodness gracious, Carrie Anne. We were discussing her name earlier and I love everything Carrie Anne does and I am a gift to many and ooh, do you know how hard that is for me to say? Almost as hard as it would be for me to say it to Carrie Anne and Carrie Anne to say, oh yes, I'm wonderful and spectacular because Carrie and I are cut from the same cloth. But Mr. DJ, are we— we're at that like 10-minute-ish time, and, uh, do you got a roll call that I can throw you up here for? Because the dog is getting restless and I want to step away for a moment if that's possible.

No. Yes, I do.

Sorry, I will mute myself.

You're good. Uh, this evening we were joined first by 2 Live Moo. Crabby Turtle's also out there, so is Sorryfan93, Jamie JH586, Vanessa Kitty is in the room. Room. So is the man of the Great Pacific Northwest, Mr. Woods. Mario's out there, so is Hillbilly Up. Mark Thomas, uh, Viejo 2A was the last one in the room. And yeah, good to see on the Facebook side, Carrie Ann Sampson Auclair is joining us tonight. God to have everybody here.

All right, thank you very much for all of that. You want to push the buttons to do the things? Okay, sorry, I'm trying to get my husband to get the dog who just decided he had to go out right now. So anyway, all right, so GIFs, let's talk about that.

Mario.

So for those of you who are new to the YouTube side of things, there's this gentleman, Mario Mosin, who also talks about suicide prevention, PTSD, and vets, 'cause he is a veteran and he does struggle and he shares that with people on his YouTube side. And where the heck is it? So anyway, when Mario comes on a show and people know Mario, if you go watch from time to time, you will hear Mario go, hey. And then if he's on somewhere else, then everyone else will do that as well. So guess what? That's a itty-bitty simple example of how Mario blesses a room by walking into it, whether it's physically or virtually. I've never met Mario live and in person. Yay for the internet. So, um, all right, so Mark Thomas, uh, is talking about my running for a political thing in here in town. I'm running for ZBA, and so I'm a politician. I'm an elected official. Yeah, of many of, of the other things. So those of you on Facebook, by all means, you can go check that out. I did put it up on my profile today. So we are not here to talk about me, right? Because Oh dear. All right, wait, hold on, let me— yes, awesome, DJ. Just want you to know this was the one I was about to go look for. Uh, Viejo says each of us sees and interprets the world differently, so nobody can tell a story the same as you. Exactly. Our unique, um, our unique ways of seeing the world, our unique ways of interpreting the world, our unique ways of telling a story whatever it is, because every time we share an idea or something that we think about, we can find a different way to look at it. Like when Carrie and I— Carrie Ann and I discuss stuff, uh, it's often centered around Second Amendment stuff, and, um, we have very different approaches to stuff, and I admire her for the way that she does stuff and she admires me for the way I do stuff. And if we were exactly the same, life would be so boring. So anyone who is out there who has any concerns about whether or not you are worthy of taking another breath on this earth, the answer is yes. Yes, you are. Your story is needed, and it's super important that we remember to tell our friends this. I called up Hillbilly just the other day, and I just called him. I'm like, dude, we need to pray right now. And I said, because I know you're not going to ask any questions. And so we did. We got to just pray. So Hillbilly was out there just so I could make a phone call, and he picked up because, you know, that's not always going to happen. Um, and we got to pray. And Jamie, uh, last night on Georgia Shooting Connection, they're talking about the Bible, and I forget which thing we were talking about, but, um, it made me think of the gifts because, ah, my brother also talks about the Bible a lot, and my brother was talking about the oil. And Jamie, you can help me if you want to as far as which story this is in the Bible, but the short version of it is A man of God— and forgive me for not remembering the names— goes to this woman who has a little tiny bit of oil left in her household, and she is poor and she cannot afford any more. And what happens is the lady, even though she is poor, she takes care of this man by using her last drops of oil in order to make this man a meal. And the man assures her it will be okay. And so she does, she complies, she gives the man food. And the man says, go get all of the containers that you can. And with that little last drop of oil— and sometimes that's all we have, that our faith in ourselves is that little tiny drop of oil in that little vessel— and the man says, all right, Now, with all of those containers you've just grabbed, take that last drop and pour it into each one of those. And what happens is the woman, because of her faith and her obedience, she pours and she pours and she pours and she pours and she pours, and she has so much more. So When you feel like you're at the very edge of whatever it is that's crushing you, destroying you, making you feel less than, know that little tiny drop of oil, that little bit you're holding on to, is all that you need with a little bit of faith and belief in yourself. And here's the other thing: pick up that phone, call someone, text somebody if you need to text somebody,. It doesn't have to be me or Hillbilly or DJ or Jamie or Woods. And it can be anything, but whether you're a Christian or not, the Bible's got some really good lessons in it. And it's sort of, I figured, the original self-help book that is out there in my experience, right? And then there's what Woods says here. Tough expecting you have a gift because we don't want to be conceited. Yes, I can raise my hand for that one for reals, uh, because that was my fear when there were other women around me. And by the way, there were girls, you know, 9, 10 years old, um, but they were mean girls and they would make fun of me. They would make me feel this big, you know, all of those fun things. And luckily I learned How do you have the tallest building in town? There are two ways. One, you knock down everybody else's, or you build yours up, right? And the people who are bullies, the people who tear other people down, they're the ones knocking down everybody else's because they don't know how to build themselves up. So my gift to you today is to remember that You are spectacular, amazing, and there are things that you do and you don't even think about that are things I could never imagine doing. Mark Thomas is here. Yes, I think we said that, right, DJ? And Mark Thomas does leather work, and he does it because it's a craft that he loves. And because he loves what he does, he does amazing work. And I've never met Mark Thomas directly in person either. Nor do I have any of his holsters, but yet when I found someone, uh, when I was at the fair in Goshen in August, someone was looking for a leather holster and I'm like, hmm, I know a guy. And so his gift of me being able to refer him to somebody else, hopefully they will get together and create a wonderful cross draw holster that, uh, I don't know, it was, it was a very weird holster request. So good luck with that, Mark. So here we go. Ready? We're going to go backwards now.

Snowflake.

In the meaning of the crystalline sub— um, wow. The crystalline drop of water that falls from the sky on a regular basis throughout the world. Each one of those is unique. So when I use the word snowflake, I am not talking about you being brittle or easily melted or any of that. I am talking about the uniqueness of who and what you are. When you look at this picture of— these pictures of snowflakes, they are unique, just like you. Now, why is that important? Because you are a gift to the world. And no matter what you think it is, "Ah, shucks, not me. I'm not, you know, that special." It's like, here's the thing, you know when you're at a conference or they're doing a team building thing, or your friends are just weird and they say, "If you could have a single superpower, what would it be?" The answer I come up with is just to get a glimpse of what you see in me, because that would help. Because here's our challenge: you and I know ourselves the best. You and I have experienced our own lives in its totality as best as we can, as much as we remember, because I gotta tell you, there's parts of my life I do not recall. And so we are generally the harshest critics upon ourselves. So for that superpower, just once, I'd like to see the gift that you see in me and have that feeling. Because I look at my husband and I just, my heart fills with life and love, and I'm just so excited. I hear DJ's voice and it makes me smile. I picked up the phone and called Hillbilly and, you know, just his make somebody's day better. Make someone's day better. Yeah, I got to make sure I got the quotes right here. So, you know, guns, beer, and therapy. That's how we met. So each little thing you do, each little smile, each little tear you shed, sometimes crying with somebody else is a gift. I've got some friends from last weekend's class, and we were discussing the importance of grief and tears and community and all of those things. So we just don't know. All right, so I know I saw it, and the lesson is— there we go— Elijah. Elijah. Widow's oil is a powerful reminder of God's provision and faithfulness. In Kings 2:4-7, a widow in distress asked Elijah for help to pay off her husband's debts. Okay, so, um, and then, yeah, so of course Jamie and Hillbilly came up with it all about the same time. And, um, so all of those things. All right, Mr. DJ, what do you think? What do I— did I miss any of the things? All right. So Viejo says, I'm so different sometimes I don't even recognize myself in the shaving mirror, but then at my age could be Alzheimer's. It could, but I currently have an Alzheimer's patient as a parent. So no, probably not. I've seen you talk too much, although I do not spend all day with you. And here's the funny sad thing about the Alzheimer's com— comment here is that people who do not spend lots of time with my mom don't even really know that she has dementia at all. For those of us who end up being caregivers, uh, it's a bit different. And be like, oh, how's she doing? And I'm like, hmm, relative to what? It's sort of like, you know, 9mm versus.45. It's relative to what? What are we trying to do? So anywho, fantastic chair art. Oh, here we go. Ready? Air hug. Oh yeah, get it in. Oh yeah, there we go. Yeah, Mario, let's go. It's early out on the West Coast for Mario. He just got home from work. I'm getting— I am running out of words. So you know what that means, DJ? If I'm running out of words, you got to come up with words. So, uh, Mark Thomas, thank you for that. And, uh, I really do hope that, uh, that you got business just from that one referral. Not that that ever happens, because I know we refer people out all of the time. Alrighty then. Okay, that's what I got for you. Gifts and snowflakes. So until next week, TJ will give you all of the particulars of saying goodbye to everyone. I do want to get better at thanking all of you, my brothers and sisters, my friends and family, all of those folks that are out there watching or listening to this. And remember, you are the gift. You are spectacular just as you are. And we will slowly grow into something, as Viejo said, that may be unrecognizable to what we were yesterday. But we always have somewhere to grow. All right, DJ, you good?

I am good, and I'm glad that we're talking about gifts tonight. And every time that I think about gifts, I am taken back to the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." And so I want to read, um, the first verse and the chorus to you, because when you can apply it to yourself outside of the context of any religion, it is as true as when people use it within one. So, 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed. To turn, turn will be our delight, till by turning, turning we come round right. And I think that's more than a simple solution that attaches itself to almost any complex problem you have. Breathing is simple. Inviting friends into a conversation is simple. There are so many simple things we can do to be able to appreciate the gifts that others have and that others see in us when we can't see them clearly ourselves. Thank you for coming into the show tonight, everybody. Remember, bring a friend next time. Share out the link early when you get it, if you see it in your announcements. And until we see each other again. Be safe, have fun, take care of yourself and your crew, and rock! We're out.