Mental Health Matters - Life is hard, don't make it harder

Mm. Hey everybody, I hope that when you listen to that thing, you got to do a little dance sort of thing. Um, just cause I don't know, uh, who is it? DM Foss did a great job putting that together for us. So anyway, hey everybody, welcome to Mental Health Matters, uh, formerly Suicide Prevention Saturday, because after all these years, I have a hard time not saying that. So why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths we hear about are suicides. And if we talk about mental health and we work on helping people have better mental health, then we can help prevent suicides. And not just those that occur by gun, but those that occur by any means. So notice I am in my jacket, I am in my scarf. Do I have heat in my office here? I do. Is it really, really warm? No. Uh, I just came off a class today and, um, sorry, I'm gonna quickly hide the chat real quick because— oh, I warned DJ we might go long. I've got notes. We might go short because being out in the cold like just sucked every ounce of moisture off my little eyeballs, and so they're red and angry. So if I'm blinking a lot, I'm not crying for once. It legit is just they're annoyed at this point in time. All right, so if we can help people with their mental health, if we can address the issue of why people commit suicide and stop getting them there way sooner, that is why I do this every Saturday night since 2018. Now, what are we talking about? Well, jacket scarf, long johns, all of it. Oh, boots. That's right. So DJ was in here earlier. Well, DJ's still here, um, and I had to go adjust the lighting. He's like, are you wearing boots? Because my boots are big and you can hear me walk across the office here. So here we are, Snowmageddon, January 24th, 2026, and across America most people have really, really cold weather. Um, or are about to have really, really cold weather. My brother is down in Tennessee, they're gonna get ice and frozen ice and stuff like that. We're here in New England and we're gonna get snow, and it doesn't start till mid to late morning tomorrow, but once it starts it's gonna go for a while. So hopefully y'all have been getting ready for this cold. For some places like Florida, Georgia, um, where else did I see? I don't know, from Texas, basically all across the east. I see states of emergency and all sorts of other stuff. So tonight's— what is this called? Title. There we go. Life is hard, don't make it harder. Humans, we're kind of silly creatures. We can absolutely make things way worse than they need to be. So here's the thing, a lot of you guys out there are gun owners. Yay for us! A lot of you guys out there, and ladies, are people who conceal carry your firearms on a regular basis. So you are prepared for worst-case scenario. So tonight we're going to talk about preparation. Now we have this nice cold snap/winter storm coming through. And so that gives us some of the physical preparations. We're going to go over some stuff there and then it kind of melds really good together with all that mental health preparation, because here's the reality. We are all busy. I don't know what we're doing. I really don't, but we're always quite busy. It seems going from here to there. And I feel like most of us are little ping pong balls running about. And maybe that's just because I'm running around all the time. And so I run into all of you other people who are running around like little ping pong balls. So here is the deal, physically and mentally. So number 1, let's take a breath. Actually, we're going to take 3 different types of breath because I know, you know, this is going to sound like a broken record, but paying attention to how you breathe is a little tiny itty-bitty meditation and it brings you present to the moment. So if you just do that, just a big breath in and a big breath out, for a lot of people that feels pretty good because they don't think about it. So when you do do it, then it gives your nervous system kind of a little baby reset because most of us breathe all day long. At least I hope so, um, because if not, we've got other issues. So taking that big breath in gives you all that oxygen. Now that helps reset your nervous system because it feels happy when you expand your lungs and inhale all that air. However, there's a couple different ways I'm going to teach you tonight because what is great about being prepared? Well, it means you have more than one tool, and our goal here is always to give you more than one tool. It may not just be a phone number to call if you need to talk to someone. So there's different names for the different breaths, and I honestly don't know all of them. So we're going to do the first one, was just a simple breath in and out, right? We did that one.

Done.

2, this one I do know the name of. It's called square breathing. It's a count of 4 in, a hold for 4, a count of 4 out, and then a hold for 4. And as you know, this repeats. So everybody ready? Tara, put down the guitar just for a second. No, because I need you to have your shoulders back. So Mike, you already know this stuff, but anyway, shoulders back, head up. Take a breath in. There's 4. Hold for 4. And then out for 4. And then hold for 4 again. And then do that 5, 10 times maybe. Like today, we're just going to teach you how to do these things because this gives your system that reset. So as we're preparing to do something, It allows us to chill out, and it does lots of things physiologically that I'm not going to get into right now. All right, here is another one, and in yoga it has a name that I'm not even going to try to pronounce, but it's going to be 4 in and then 6 out. Ready? No, just kidding. Shoulders back, head up. 1. Oh, sorry, we're going to inhale now. Ready? And then out for 6. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Apparently I have 6 fingers on my hand, but anyway, 4 in and 6 out. And you have to go at your own pace. That's why we're not going to sit here and do the counting and do the breathing, but it just gives you something to choose because here in my classroom over there. It says one size never fits all. So that's why I want to give you some options, because just like a toolbox, it'd be pretty useless if we only had one tool. All right, and then on to our final breath of the evening. It's just 3 in and then 3 out. I think y'all can handle this. Ready? And out for 3, 2, 1. Right? So there's lots of things going on when you pay attention to your breath, breathing. When you count your breathing, you're more present than just breathing as you do all the time. When you listen to my cues of shoulders back, head up, we're opening our cage, our brain is getting the message. We're not doing panic, we're doing preparation, because the breathing evenly and unevenly and square, all of the different ways allows your nervous system to chill and reset. So preparation is— oh boy, this one, I like this, I have to read this. Preparation is self-respect, not fear. Mindset prepared does not equal paranoid. Because DJ, I talked about this really briefly before we got on the air today, But so often people who can still carry their firearms are labeled as paranoid, and you and I know it's not about being paranoid, it's being about prepared. We don't want the bad thing to happen. Pretty sure those of us who drive vehicles have a spare tire in our car. It does not mean that we are driving around expecting to get a flat tire. By the way, if you get a hybrid, ask whether you're gonna get a spare tire because I don't have a spare tire anymore because where the spare tire would go is where my battery is. But that's another problem that I have, not you. All right, so preparation is self-respect, not fear. Preparation is being prepared, not paranoid, not expecting the worst. We are not trying to catastrophize things because let's be real, For those of you who are actually watching the weather and watch the news, they catastrophize a lot. We don't need to do it. Um, now everybody's got different weather that they're expecting over these next couple of days. Like I said, some of you— well, we're going to be the last to get it, I guess, because it is coming up from the south. So some of you guys are already in this bad weather. If you're feeling edgy, don't worry about it. It's okay. Try one of those breath things I just taught you, and your system is absolutely going to respond to risk. Now I'm hoping since Tara is sitting there strumming along on her, on her guitar, that that means she's not going to be driving over the weekend in this yucky weather. So onto my next bullet point. I love it when I'm all organized and whatnot. Oh, and DJ, by all means, if there are things that are starred or any of that, Actually, I think this is— oh, there is a starred one. I will stop for a second. It's Taryn. All right. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. My dad and probably someone else long before him. Yes, this is true. And it's said in so many different ways, right? It's like if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That was kind of one of the other ways that I've heard it as well. And there is, there is that. And this is one of those mindset things that a lot of people don't get. I had a bunch of students here this morning. And we did talk a little bit about politics and being at the Capitol and talking. And it's just like, it's amazing how many people don't understand how to prepare. Oh, yeah. And actually, Taryn, for those of y'all know, I'm going to try to get her on here so y'all can hear about her— what is it? Her experiment in living out of her basement. Wait, that didn't sound quite right. Her storage room. No, she's not living in a storage room. All right, never mind. Someday I'll get her on here and she will explain it way better than what all the things I just said. Right. All right, so wait, so you're parked but you were strumming on your guitar? You got your guitar in your truck? Okay, Tara. Yeah, people can't drive in the rain. I heard— I saw a funny thing. Well, not— I don't suppose it's funny if you're in Texas, but only 169 counties of however many Texas counties there are are in a state of emergency. And my brother, like I said, he's down in Tennessee and we were talking about this, and we're going to talk about physical preparedness, some realistic checklist, heat and power. And that's what made me think of it. In Tennessee, what he told me is happening, his people are going and getting propane heaters and that sort of thing. And he is actually police chief at his, um, firehouse. And he's like, the cold isn't what's going to kill them, but people burn their houses down because they've never dealt with a propane heater before. So that's kind of— if you have heat and power, awesome. Make sure that it's something you know how to do. Um, batteries, power banks, flashlights, headlights. And yes, one of the little notes here is not just a phone, because a real flashlight— oh, here you go— real flashlight should always be in hand or within arm's reach, especially if you guys are worried about ice and and power outages and that sort of thing. For those of you on medical devices, I know when Sean's dad— oh, there you go, DJ knows 254 counties in Texas and only 165 of them are in emergency. So, you know, it's Texas. So physical things— oh, what I was going to— medical devices, So your CPAP machine, uh, I don't know if they come with extra batteries or not. When Shawn's dad was with us, he was on oxygen in the end, and so batteries were a big deal. Um, having a generator of some sort for medical devices. So for those of you who I know, none of you are on any of that, but I'm sure you know somebody that you might want to check in on. Water and food. Water you can drink even if you can't cook. So we have 5-gallon buckets, or, you know, we have those. So we have water whether we have energy or not. Food— eat without power. Please tell me that we're not going to have to eat the MREs, but we have them. Camping food is awesome. Now, uh, Taryn, since I was bringing her up before, uh, she cans her own food. So she's got plenty of food. She can just pop the top off the can. Layers of blankets, hats, gloves in the house, in your cars. So my daughter has to go to work tomorrow and she just brought her friend home and my husband's like, why is she taking the truck? And I'm like, I don't know. And then she called and I'm sorry if I haven't told you all this story yet. She called to verify that the truck takes gas. Because for those of you who hadn't heard the story, about 2 weeks ago, my son— I told him to go get— put gas in the truck, and well, he put diesel in it. So the truck was out of commission for a couple days there. So at least my daughter called to verify it takes gas. But I think on Thursday I sent the kids a text saying, hey, make sure by Friday you have a full tank of gas. So these are some of those immediate things that most of us probably already have, but it's nice to know, okay, does it work? And I can tell you right now, this one does not because it's one of those silly rechargeable ones. It looks good though. Um, so like, that's something I'll plug in before bedtime tonight. I sent my daughter down in the basement today to go put her car kit together so that there's a blanket, at least 2 blankets. Because here's the thing, I don't know, Tara probably because she's out there, but how many of you have ever been stuck in a traffic jam where you're literally just sitting for hours on end? I've done that. I was on my way to Vegas, there was a truck And the highway we're on, it's rocks on one side, cliff on the other. And so we literally were all like sleeping on our cars because it was hot that day or that evening. So, um, safety stuff. My dad, he was a firefighter, so it was— we also have our, the cones, like trying to make a teepee, like the, the triangles, safety cones, that sort of stuff. Meds, ice, don't be a hero, falls change lives fast, one family text thread, out-of-town contact, agree on if we lose power we do X, having a plan, that preparedness, right? When you have a plan, even if things don't go according to your plan, you're still going to be happier and calmer. In any situation. And Mr. DJ, I've been going blah, blah, blah for a whole like 18 minutes now, so that means you get to say hi to everybody for me. And while you're doing that, I'm gonna read the comments.

Well, hello everybody, thanks for coming to Mental Health Matters for another Saturday night. Got the roll call for you right now. Crabby Turtle was in the room. First, and G23 was in here next. Chasing Ghost is out there, so is Mike Ballinger. Sorry, Band 93 is in the room. Guns and Barbecue is out there with raccoons and snowflakes, I think. Got New York Outcast, thanks for being here. Rob Taron Gomez is in the room, so is Hillbilly Up, and Jamie JH586 was, uh, in the room most recently. I, I like the, I like the angle, uh, preparedness versus panic. I don't know that I've heard those two thrown together in quite the same way before. So I was thinking about that and the list of things that people think to keep in their vehicles, you hit that up pretty good. And the two things that I was focused on were water, and yes, it will unfreeze when it's next to you, and snacks. And maybe check because that chewy granola bar you have in the glove box might have an expiry date and chocolate chips and gone south a long time ago. And wanted to be good food, emergency food in the best possible way. So a couple of high-energy bars. And I didn't know how many counties were in Texas. I did look that up.

Gotcha.

Can't do the math on the percentage for you.

No, no. And then, like I said, and I could be wrong with the 165. I just, for some reason, that's the number that stuck because it just said most, a fair amount of Texas was in uh, distressed to say the least.

Yeah, and when you showed the flashlight, I was— I went to look up, just ask Google flat, how long does the average cell phone last when using its battery for a flashlight? It said 6 to 10 hours. And so if that's based on 100, uh, yeah, that had me thinking a little bit. And the rechargeable flashlight's always good to double-check those, and sometimes regardless of the cell cold weather is going to sap some of that power, at least on startup. So check your batteries.

Absolutely. And make sure you have the right chargers too. But so yeah, um, all right, so we're going on to physical stuff, right? We just talked about all the physical stuff. Um, also, like I said, if you have a group of people that you care about, um, that single family text can absolutely make a difference. Uh, here in our household, we talk on Discord, uh, because my kids are gamers, my husband's a gamer, and people think I'm a gamer because I talk on Discord, but I just do it to get to the rest of my family. So having that single thread, uh, my mom lives in condo complex, so, you know, they take care of her. I'm not so worried. All right, so Being prepared versus panic. Um, then the mental preparedness, just doing those simple breathing things, right? And just— I don't think I mentioned that, DJ, but yeah, that 3 in, 3 out, that's DJ's favorite. So, um, you can thank him for that. Mental preparedness. Here's the thing, here's something that will help us in all situations, right? Because if we have a plan, then we have something to follow along. If we have something to follow along, it gives our brain a rest. Because I was actually talking to somebody the other day about this— if I on Saturday or Sunday create a meal plan for the week, and usually I only create like 3 meals because If I make 3 meals, I have enough leftovers for the rest of the meal. But if I have a meal plan, even if it doesn't go according to plan, it gives me a specific shopping list. It usually gives me days in, uh, which day is going to be what meal, and that takes stress off of our brain. So, um, the catastrophizing stuff— if you haven't heard that before, it's when we say, I've had a bad day. Everything is horrible. When in actuality, the day wasn't that bad. Um, the most recent one for a bad day for me was I crushed my toe. Um, and it was not an awesome day. However, the crushing of the toe was yucky. The pain was also yucky. However, my girlfriend brought me lunch. My husband brought me to the hospital. I had people to take care of me. So relatively speaking, it could have been a much worse day. Don't personalize. Why does this always happen to me? Oh, and I know all of us feel that at some point in time. Like right now, I don't know if you can hear it, but the dog is pushing his water bottle or his water dish around saying, why don't I have water right now? Don't create extra conflict at home. And I'm not gonna lie, That was the beginning of why I chose this topic of don't make a bad situation worse. If we are, are stuck at home and we don't have our downtime, we can get in our family's face. And sometimes we're feeling stressed because there's so much going on around us that we cannot control. Sometimes it's rain, sometimes it's ice, sometimes it's weather. Sometimes it's just life. So this is where that mental preparedness stuff is. This is where, like, Bruce Lee is one of my favorites. It's like moving with the wind and watching how water can just run around rocks, and it does it long enough and far enough that we have the Grand Canyon. So you can be very gentle and very powerful all at the same time. So the snapping at people, doom scrolling, rushing, decision paralysis— those are the things in overwhelm that many of us feel. And this is where we can make our timeline bigger or smaller depending on what our issue is right then and there. So what do I need right now? I need right now? Super easy. Whew. Nice big breath, right? What do I need for the next 6 hours? Well, it is almost 9:30 at night. I know that within the next 6 hours, I need this head to go on the pillow and I need to close my little eyeballs, snuggle up next to my husband and take a nap. Well, hopefully I'll actually sleep through the night because that's always more fun. And then Here's the other part of that. We can also make things bigger. When we stub our toe— I don't know, I keep going back to the toe thing, sorry, I guess it was trauma— but like, when something happens that's not spectacular, or when someone says something to us that upsets us, we can ask the question of, will this matter 5 days from now? Will this— sorry, let me go— sorry, we go small and then we go big. Will this matter in 5 minutes? Depending on what they said, maybe. Will it matter in 5 days? Chances are not so much. How many of you and I have had conversations, aka arguments or screaming matches, with people who 5 minutes later you don't remember what the heck you were barking about? Will this matter in 5 months or 5 years? Because all of a sudden that thing that seemed like such a big deal at that moment that got you all mad and angry and frustrated or scared or whatever, if you start realizing over time how important or not important it is, this allows your system again to calm down because we have this survival thing going on in our brain and our brain wants to survive and sometimes it doesn't do it very gracefully. We have to remember we are in control of what's going going on in here. So, um, for mental health, the other thing to think about other than the weather right now is ignore as much as you can the news. Yes, people say, oh, I need to be educated. I'm like, the news does not educate you. The news agitates you. 'But Brooke, how do I know what's going on?' Like, I don't know, actually talk to your neighbors, maybe take a trip to the Capitol, read those lovely emails you can get from your representatives to see what's actually going on at Capitol Hill if you're interested. So limit doom news, which is kind of all news. I stopped watching the news when my children— when I was pregnant with my kids, because I realized no one ever feels better after watching the news. So storms can turn small annoyances into big blowups. I'm feeling edgy, I'm distressed, any of those things. This is where having a team helps. Whoever— oh, look at DJ go. DJ's like, I'm going to show you how to call those people that you want to talk to and/or get on their lists so that you can then find out what's actually going on. And yes, G23, politicians lie. However, they also tell the truth. Um, they are not all good, they are not all bad. They are human just like you and I. They think they're doing good things, and then some of them know they're doing awful things. But if you talk to them, you can figure that out for yourself versus having anyone tell you what you think, because I find often people don't know much of the information of what they're dealing with. But anyway, here we go back to mental health. Those 3 different types of breath— breathing, which is really 4, I guess. Physical preparedness, knowing that if you lose power for a day, an hour, a week, you can get through that. I believe most of us are there. Uh, in America, however, realistically, not a lot of people are there. So this is where the panic sets in, and this is why it's super important that our brains stay focused on the calmness and having our preparedness plans. Um, just like preparing for the storm— life is a never-ending storm, if y'all haven't noticed. So being ready mentally for how do I deal with the stressors of life And this is where having friends and family to talk to, having a plan— like, I know Mike Ballinger's out here, and, uh, one of the things Mike talked about with his quitting smoking after many, many, many years of smoking many, many packs of cigarettes a day is that he didn't do it all by himself. He got help, he got counselors, he got medicine, he got everything that he needed and then he had to do the work still, but he knew not to try to do it all by himself. I know here in our neighborhood we have not exactly a neighborhood watch, but we've got a guy who sort of coordinates to check in on everybody and understands what our resources are. Like, we have heat and hot water because of our generator, and so it's one of those things Drink water, like DJ was saying. Protein, warm shower, physically warm. If you get too cold, your body starts freaking out because it's like what we were talking about, hypothermia. Or sorry, I think I read that because I think Tara put that in there, that just sitting in the traffic for a little while can— it doesn't take long to go into hypothermia. And We have all these numbers here, 988 nationally, 211 still here in Connecticut, but 988 works as well. And, um, Tara lost power for 5 weeks after Hurricane Ike. Yeah. See, here in New England, it doesn't happen that much. When we first moved into the house, we lost it for 10 days. Um, so that is helpful. All right, I got to the 988 thing. What do I have here? In the end recap: prepare body, prepared mind, safer, calmer you. Pick one physical thing, one mental thing to do after we sign off here besides go visit Hillbilly at his thing. Um, physically, charge your devices, make sure your gas tanks are full, water, all that good stuff. Mental health, right? 3 actions, uh, set news limits. Like I said, news kind of sucks. Um, and as I've seen here in the chat, the whole idea of these days, if you don't have firsthand knowledge of something, it's hard to believe anything. Sadly, um, that is terribly true often. And, uh, yeah, GG3, there's actually— where is it? There's a— there is a poster on my wall here that says trust but verify. So life is hard. Don't make it harder. Be prepared and be kind to yourself. Like, take those breaths as you need them. All right, Sir DJ. Sir DJ, you've just been knighted, apparently. So, um, let's see. I don't think there were any more starred. I think I got all the starred stuff. And, uh, I will not unmute you unless until you are ready to be unmuted. Yes, so I start most of the, uh, these, these, uh, broadcasts with my hands up like this because DJ and I'll be in the back room talking and our little counter in the corner here goes down and then it says showtime. I'm like, okay, you touch everything, I'm not touching anything. Although I have no DJ and I don't know what happened, so I'm lying. I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw him up here and maybe he'll magically appear. Or unmute, or not. I don't know.

I had to be on the stage before I could unmute because you couldn't hear me swear, so you wouldn't hear me swearing in the background.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did it not work?

It didn't work. I was isolated. I felt alone, but you brought me back.

I'm sorry, I didn't know you got— yeah, it does. StreamYard works awesomely when it works awesomely, and other times, I don't know. Uh, all right, so GT3, if you sent me a text, I won't get it till I go up to the house. Because my cell phone is not down here with me. So I'm not ignoring you, but I probably won't get until tomorrow morning because I don't know when I'm going back up. But we will see. Um, all right, sir, we got anything else? Any last minute tips and tricks for preparing mentally or physically before a storm?

I got it. I hope everybody out there got it. You gave us plenty of good things to think about, write down, and make sure that we're prepared for. So appreciate it. Now, where did you go?

Sorry. Well, as we discussed, my little eyeballs feel like they're gonna burn out of my head right now, so I'm like, oh, just squishing my face, that's all.

All right, we'll give those eyeballs a rest. And, uh, once again, we are joined tonight in the live chat by Crabby Turtle, G23 Chasing Ghost, Mike Ballinger, Sariafan93, Guns and Barbecues Out There, so is New York Outcast, Taren Gomez, Hillbilly Up, who has a show coming up next. I'll drop a link to that jam in the text chat. We also had Jamie, JH586. And for those listening as lurkers or in the future, thanks for being here. Next week, bring a friend. Let's build the numbers up and get more people here for something more than just practical advice. It's different every week, and I'm glad that you could be here with us for this one. Until I see everybody else again, be safe, have fun, take care of yourself and your crew. And rock with—