Suicide Prevention Saturday - Just talking about it can help prevent it.

All right. I'm going to give you a minute all to read that, right? Courage is knowing that it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same, and that is why life is hard. So happy Suicide Prevention Saturday, everyone. Sorry, I got little warnings pop up as soon as I did that saying, oh, Facebook may not be working. Hmm. Uh, hold on here. I'll let you read that again while I see if I can fix the little thingy that just popped up. Hold on. Uh, edit. Does that help any? No. All right, we're gonna— oh well, too bad to Facebook, I guess, for this evening. Um, but now I can't get out of the thing. Okay. All right, so, curse knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same, and that's why life is hard. Welcome to Suicide Prevention Saturday. Does it feel like Groundhog Day? Well, we just finished February, it'll be March soon. Um, why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths we hear about are suicides. And yeah, I've been bad to my hands lately. I don't know if you can see all my Band-Aids. Uh, this more— this morning was a bagel injury, and that was last night, and I just broke a nail and it just broke really bad. You know, when it gets all the way down here. Yeah, not awesome. So anyway, um, why is life hard? Uh, let's see, do we need a reminder? We can, we can both do that again, right? Because courage and stupidity are kind of the same thing. However, um, you know, it's good to do stuff that you know is going to be painful sometimes, like ripping up— oh wait, wait, ready? Like ripping a Band-Aid off. Sorry, DJ, I didn't mean to like throw you on there. Ripping Band-Aids off. You know, it's not going to be lovely, but you know, got to do it at some point in time. So, ah, all right. So I've got 3 things for you guys tonight. And oh, um, DJ, I'm going to ignore the comments. I'm going to not even look at them. So DJ, you're totally in charge of that. Um, and, and we'll, we'll go in a couple minutes and then I'll have you tell me what I should know. So I have 3 things tonight: laugh, sing, and love. That's it. Laugh, because hopefully the courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway would make you laugh, because stupidity being the same, and all of us have been courageous and stupid. There are a fair amount of things that I've done that were definitely not necessarily brave at all. No stupidity. Yes. But were they fun? Yes. Also yes. I think we used to do these things called Wizard Wars and, well, we were younger and in our 20s and we had access to fireworks. So we would get Roman candles and we would shoot each other with them. And those were our Wizard Wars. It's like we were, you know, mighty wizards with our magic, and we were shooting them across the field at each other. And one of the best stories from that event was— we all— we only did this in the summertime. Well, most of the time we did summertime. So one of the guys— this is actually before my time, before I started playing Wizard Wars or knew what Wizard Wars were— and he was all hot and sweaty, and he actually got one right there And because he was so hot and sweaty, it just fizzled out and dropped. So he didn't lose an eyeball. And it was a funny story because he didn't lose an eyeball. So there's that. All right, so laugh. What is other stuff you can laugh at? Well, you know, I have stuff here. Sometimes we wanted to celebrate and that's a way to laugh, right? So my celebration picture, right? Ready? This was from, I don't know, a couple of years ago when I was skinnier than I currently am. Maybe a little bit fuzzier. Not really. All right, ready? There he is. Celebration squirrel. So he is saying, oh my goodness, give me food. I have no idea what he's saying, but it just looks like he's super happy, right? Arms spread, looking up, saying hallelujah, amen. And maybe that's what a squirrel says. I have no idea, but I just think that is like one of the cutest pictures ever. All right, so squirrels. So we've got our laugh part. Why is it so important to laugh? Oh, I don't know, because laughing is good for us. There are lots of things that have actually been proven, i.e., when people are in recovery, you know, like they just got out of surgery or something along those lines. Now Facebook is telling me to start my video. Holy smokes. All right, DJ, I'm gonna let you do a roll call for anyone who has said hi, and I'm gonna see if I can fix whatever Facebook is yelling at me for.

So, all right, it isn't very often that we get to see in context an absolute squirrel from something other than the text chat, and now you're passing me to the text chat after something pops up on your screen. I like that. Early in the room this evening, C&T Designs and Arms was out there. Crabby Turtle Turtle with the pink waving hand that happens so often from our East Coast buddy out there. Got Gun Websites checking in from the desert Southwest saying it won't let me comment, but I can see that comment. I can even bring it to the screen. Geez. So give us another try on that one and we'll see if it'll let you finally comment. And Brooke, last person in the room was Vanessa Kitty, and I'm needing to pass back to you. Do we have Facebook people that'll be joining us soon?

Oh, I don't know. It's I just went on to Facebook to see what the heck is going on and it just says it's having a hard time streaming. So hopefully Facebook will not kick me off forever because, you know, they do that sort of things. It just says we're having trouble screening— streaming. Yeah, no screaming. We're trying not to scream. So, all right, so unfortunately people that are on Facebook are not going to be seeing this. They're going to have to come over to us over here on YouTube. So I guess if I'm being a good hostess, I will go throw that up there under the chat of saying— yeah, no, apparently I can't do that either because this is not true. All right, I give. I don't know, Facebook tonight is just not happening. Oh, I did see Fiona's thing. Facebook is powered by AT&T, so they have crashed. If anyone didn't know, yesterday AT&T was one of the many tech things that crashed yesterday, but AT&T was the one who got most of the attention in the headlines. So good job, Fiona, on keeping us on that laugh side of things. So, and hi to everybody else. Uh, I know you said Vanessa, Katie, what gun websites? And yes, Crabby Turtle was here early, 8:30, but CNT wins for earliest at like 6:13 this afternoon. So, um, you know, it's, it's all good. The algorithm loves comments and all of that. So whether you're here live and in person or you're watching the replay, thank you for popping in. And, um, G webs is number 2, which means barbecue never showed up and is not number 1 today. So, all right, so what makes you laugh? Oh, back to the laughing thing. Sorry. So when people have had surgeries or they're in the hospital recovering and that sort of things, it has been shown time and time again, if you sit there and you watch comedies, you get out of the hospital faster. And so if you are not feeling well, even if you're just sick, right, the endorphins and everything else that trigger when you are laughing, um, Oh, all right. Sorry. When you're laughing, like, 7 times. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna hide the things again so I can stay on track because the squirrel, right? That's my little totem animal is the squirrel. So when you are laughing, you are releasing endorphins. See, I'm just gonna put him up every single time. Squirrel. So yeah, clinically proven that it is actually healing to laugh on a regular basis. So telling jokes, like there is this crazy game called LOLZ, LOLZ, and you put these things in your mouth and they hold your mouth open so you look like you're at the dentist basically. And then you, then you have to like recite poetry or something and the people listening have to figure out what the heck you're saying. It is hysterical. So games like that are good to play. You don't have to just watch funny movies, but if there's a funny movie that you think is hysterical, by all means drop it in the chat. If you're watching the replay, or pop it over here in the comments. I'm gonna ignore them for right now because, you know, squirrel. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do squirrel every time I say squirrel today. There's gonna be lots of squirrels in this one. Anyway, all right, so laughter. There's lots of ways you can laugh. You can think of something stupid you've done in the past. I gave you the example of the wizard war. It was fun, but it was probably not the most intelligent thing I've ever done. There's more to that story. I mean, there's more not so smart stories, but I'm sure you have something that you did and you survived and you probably wouldn't do it again, but it's funny because you survived. So think about happy things that make you crack up that you've accomplished. Then what is your favorite movie? What is like a movie that you watch and either makes you happy— sorry, I'm like drooling all over myself apparently— or makes you laugh a lot? I mean, Caddyshack is one of the ones that when I was little, when I was this big— yeah, no, not quite that little big. Um, not that little big. Awesome. I swear I have not been drinking tonight. I'm just on lots of not enough sleep tonight this week. So Caddyshack is funny. There is one scene, if you all know. If any of you all know Caddyshack. There's this one scene where a kid throws a Baby Ruth into the pool. And you've got the Jaws theme. And then someone notices the Baby Ruth floating in the pool. And, you know, Baby Rose floating in a pool. Does not look like a candy bar. No, it looks like a piece of doo doo. So Floating in the candy bar— floating in the pool. So then you see the, ah, and everybody, um, jumping out of the pool. And if you've not seen this, I apologize, but then they sterilize the pool, they, uh, find the Baby Ruth, and, um, Bill Murray, who is the caddy or the greenskeeper— my bad, assistant greenskeeper in the movie— picks it up, looks at it, and bites it. And yeah, so anyway, it depends on your kind of humor, what you think is funny. So some people think Kill Bill is funny. So it just depends. So find something that makes you laugh is all I'm saying. It actually improves your health in general. Do things that make you laugh, like playing LOLs game or something along those lines. Now, DJ and I were talking earlier because I saw a little clip from a friend of mine, Joseph McClendon III. And if you want to have happiness in your Instagram box on a regular basis, Joseph McClendon III is someone who I met through Tony Robbins many years ago. He's a guitar player, he's a health coach, he does lots of stuff. But he was talking about this thing called— what's it called? I will tell you what it is and you can call it whatever you want. So music, we're talking about how laughing brings your, uh, brings your immune system up. Music, how many of you guys actually have a favorite song that you hear it and, well, maybe it makes you think of something? Now, as a kid, I was on many sports teams. Uh, soccer was probably my favorite. And on the bus, at least once or twice, or maybe every time we were on the bus going to a game, we would hear this one song, right? All right, so DJ, how'd the sound go? Did y'all hear that?

That worked well. Okay, I like that, especially the grin on your face because you're like getting to put this through to us tonight. I was not warned and I was pleased immensely. Thank you for that.

So, but like, that was literally like 5 seconds because I believe GWebz told me that's as much of a thing I can play without it like saying, oh, you're copyright infringement. So that's 5 seconds. You hear something, you immediately recognize it, and hopefully like me, it brings up like, ooh, that's fun. Or, you know, I had fun while I was doing that. So back to Joseph McClendon III. What he was talking about this week was you listen to a song, it makes you happy, you squeeze your— you can associate this with a good feeling because music generally makes us happy as well. Like, you know, if there's a good drum beat or something and you notice you feel good about this song, and then you squeeze your fist and you say yes, and then the next time you hear it or during it, you just squeeze your fist and say yes. And you're making this association with your brain and the music. So the way we're explaining it is that it's like Pavlov's dogs. So for those of you who have not heard about Pavlov's dogs, short version is he would ring a bell, feed the dogs, and then he would ring the bell and feed the dogs. And he did this for a long time. And one of the things he would measure is they would salivate because they knew they were about to get fed. Now, after doing that a bunch of times, he would take the food away and he would ring the bell, and the dogs would still salivate. So making a fist, saying yes— the idea is to capture that feeling of goodness in your body of that song that makes you happy, so that when you make the fist and you say yes, you don't have to have the music. So it's just like Let's say you're at work and you can't put on We Will Rock You for whatever reason. You can just say yes and make a fist, and your body will associate the yes and making a fist with that good feeling you have from that song. So you can do it even without the song. So now, since DJ talked about this before, I do want to ask DJ, I'm like, so does that make more sense, sir? Do you get it now?

Absolutely, it's made crystal clear in these moments.

All right, well, because you and I were talking before, you're like, I don't get it. I'm like, I'll do better on Saturday. So I just wanted to verify I did better on Saturday.

Nailed it.

All right, uh, comments or anything I should say hi? Do we have other people we got to say hi to?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, uh, Guns and Barbecue out there having some technical issues, um, but he is able to comment now because we can see it at least now. Guns and Barbecue, so we know you're out there. And Bubba Triclops Ballistics out there knowing exactly what you were talking about when it came to Caddyshack.

Yes, he did. I'm so honored, Bubba. I think this is the first time I've seen you here live and in person. I'm so excited. Oh, whoops, I hit the wrong thing. Sorry, DJ. All right, so Bubba, nice to have you here. Um, yeah, I just want to know, is the alarm clock still running away from you? So anyway, um, for those of you who have not seen, uh, Bubba on Hillbilly Up channel. Yeah, I sent him alarm clock that literally has wheels and runs away from you when the alarm is going off. So, all right, so here's the thing. Songs that make us happy, we can catch them basically. And I'm putting the fist up here just so y'all can see it, but it's like you could be listening to a song and go, yes, or you can have it down by your side and just say yes wherever you want. And it doesn't have to be a fist. It was just the example that we use because when we're at a Tony Robbins event, that is generally one of the things we use as an anchor. I think that was the word I was looking for a long time, is it's like yes. And you just do this because it's a physical thing and it's a verbal thing, and you're doing it while you're in what we call a peak state. You're happy, you're excited, all that sort of stuff. Um, um, uh-oh, G-Webs was 5 seconds too long. Is that what you're telling me? Uh, I thought it was, um, oh, what do you call it? I thought I had 5 seconds, or was it really only 3? Bummer. So I guess I better not play the next song because y'all would hear that one too. But so the other song that I had up because I'm going back to like high school because I went to, you know, that's when I was playing soccer. So the other song, I went to my 20th high school reunion, I think, and the DJ played Journey, Don't Stop Believing, and everybody, everybody started singing. All right. G Web said play it, so I'm just gonna do the same thing. 5 seconds, are y'all ready? Oh wait, it has this long pause in them. All right, so y'all know the words, right? I mean, those of you who are older like me know the words to that one, and it was like the entire room started singing this song. And so that ends up being just such an emotional thing. Like, those of you who are in church choirs, right, or any choir, you don't have to— there you go, Fiona, living in it. No, no, I will not sing for y'all. That's just, that's just mean. I would not do that to y'all. But, um, so there's so many things that we can associate, and I just like if you start noticing those happy moments, those times where you can make that fist, say yes to try and catch that moment. And I mean, I guess sort of the fist thing kind of helps that whole, like, you're holding on to that feeling. And then it's something you can do really discreetly if you're somewhere where you need that happy endorphin drop. So because you can just have your hand in your pocket and squeeze it, and you can just say yes in your head. And if you practice this on a regular basis, you can actually— it's like having your own little endorphin thing. Sorry, we have to go. Just a small town girl, ready? I'm not going to sing to y'all. But yeah, all of those things. But when you have an entire roomful singing that, it was super fun. All right. So not to try to go to squirrel on you. Ha, I love my squirrel tonight. I might have to keep the squirrel as my third co-host. I'm not sure, because goodness knows I can do the squirrel thing a lot. All right. So I told you I had 3 things at the beginning of this. Number 1 was laugh at yourself often, the absurdity of what life is these days, and singing. Now you don't have to be the one singing. I mean, God bless those of you who have actual voices that can sing. I love listening to y'all. I will sing as long as there's no one around to listen to me. So, and then the third thing I said was love. So one of the last little things I have for you guys, is— oops, wait, I hit the wrong button. Hold, please. I'm almost there. When I'm talking about love, I want to talk to you a little bit about the 7 rules of life. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present. Right now is the only moment that you have. We don't know what is tomorrow. We don't know— we can't fix anything that we did yesterday, so we need to stop beating ourselves up for that. 2, what others think of you is none of your business. I will say for sure that I've heard awful, horrible things about myself from people who've never met me ever. And it's okay with me because what others think about me, it really isn't any of my business. I need to have a good relationship with myself. 3, time heals almost everything. Give it time. Yeah, for some of us old folks, more things are broken than are whole. Healed, but you know, we'll get there. 4, don't compare your life to others and don't judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about. This is one of the harder ones for most of us is because especially in this world of social media where everybody's got everything just so, and all you get to see is the perfectness or the prettiest picture or the filters or whatever. Um, a lot of people, Even before social media, it looks like everything is great, but it's not as much as necessarily as you think. We all have our trials and tribulations. 5, stop thinking too much. It's all right not to know the answers. They will come to you when you least expect it. So I just think too much in general. So it's not even about having the answers, it's just overthinking stuff. And number 6 is super important. No one is in charge of your happiness except for you. We have no control over what happens around us. The only thing we have control of— over is how we react to what happens around us. And 7, one of DJ's favorites: smile. You don't know all the problems in the world. And no, that's not what he says, but yes, smiling is definitely one of DJ's favoritest things. So, um, that is Those are some of the things you need to do to be able to love yourself and love others. Um, when you see someone who's having a bad day, you have no idea how bad it really is. And when you see someone having a good day, you have no idea if they've been suffering for the past 3 years and they just found out that, oh, they are free of cancer finally, and that's their good day. So With that, be the magic in the world. Remember that everything you do is amazing and spectacular and wonderful, regardless of whether it's courageous or if it's just straight-up stupidity. But that smile that you share with somebody is, um, is magic. And your ability to get up each day and put your feet on the ground and go to work and hug your mom or your sister or your brother or whoever it is that you are around and make a phone call. All of that stuff is absolutely magic. And if we can start looking at the world— oh, now CMT shows up. Hi, buddy. Um, sorry, you missed all the good stuff, dude. You gotta go back and watch the replay. Oh wait, what was that? That would be a squirrel. Hold on. Ready? Are we going for the squirrel? So here's my squirrel. Just so you know, CNT, you made me have a squirrel. So, hey, and D23. Yes. And Fiona is the light and laughter and love, damn it. And she is the magic for sure, without a doubt, because magic is important. All right. Um, yeah, okay, DJ, did we say hi to everybody? I said hi to G23, CNT, we got Fiona, Guns of Barbecue with, um, autocorrect, um, Mad Me Typos.

Autocorrect made me typo and apparently made his MADD out of that one too. So it's a non-stop laugh, right, with the guy. You never know how he's going to get you.

There is always that. So, all right, so we got laugh, sing, and love. Make a fist, say yes when you're feeling good. That's called creating an anchor, and it's a simple thing. Again, the person we talk to the most is us because we're always hearing that voice in our head. Because if I shut up and I'm thinking in my head, that's the voice in my head. Not that we're all crazy, although that's always a possibility as well. That's it. Laugh, sing, love. Think of stupid things. Remember, you might be stupid, you might be courageous. Sing. Find that favorite song that is the right thing for you right now. For Fiona, that's going to be some Metallica song. So DJ, what about you? What's one of your favorite songs?

Right now I'm listening to a lot of TV on the radio. That's the name of the band, TV on the Radio.

Okay. All right. Um, and then what else? I don't know. Oh yeah, and love. Love yourself, have grace for yourself. Love for others, have grace for them. Everyone's fighting their own battles. I may look all happy and sweet and all of that, but I'm darn exhausted. I'm sleepy and I want to go to bed and I want to stay asleep for a whole night because I've had a hard time sleeping. And get your sleep, it's so important. It's one of the top things that, um, physiologists, people who actually work with human bodies on a regular basis, not just doctors but psychologists as well and neurobiologists, it's like the sleep is like the most important thing you can do for yourself. So with that— uh-oh, hold on, wait a second. Debbie Downer? No, dude, you're, you're the— hold on, hold on, wait. You are now officially I shall call you Squirrel Man. That is, that is what you're going to get now. The ever grateful squirrel. So, and I'm glad to know you don't actually talk to yourself. You have company meetings. That is always good. Um, uh-oh, sorry, I just read, uh, G23's sadness. Um, reverse into his Rogue and she'd probably 3K in damage. Well, there's a— I don't know, that's the, uh, what's the bright side of that one? I got nothing. Hopefully she's got insurance. Um, but yeah, we get to choose how we respond to stuff. What is the blessing in this? Ask yourself that question. I will leave you with this and then I'll make DJ leave you with something else, but when my sister was killed in a car accident and people would come up to us and ask how me and my mom were doing. I'm like, well, my mom agreed— my mom and I agreed on the front porch that we were going to say, what's good about this? And people looked at us like we lost our ever-loving minds. And it's like, well, we lost my sister, we lost her daughter, we know what sucks. That's really obvious. But if we can ask ourselves, what good— what's good about this when we lose someone like that, then we can look at lots of things and just try to figure stuff out. It's like there's always a way. Now, something like that, you may not find what's good about this immediately, but as long as you're willing to ask yourself that question you will find an answer eventually because your brain is super smart. And if you ask it what sucks, it'll also give you a litany of lists of things of why it sucks. But if you can ask yourself what's good about this, no matter what the situation, you're gonna find it. And with that, DJ, you get to take us out.

Uh, this evening we have been— right on, thank you, Brooke. This evening we have been joined by G23 the Krabby Turtle, C&T Designs and Arms, Bubba Triclops was out there, so was Vanessa Kitty. G-Web's finally able to type, so was Guns and Barbecue. And yeah, Fiona out there rocking the Casbah and the crowd this evening. Uh, thanks everybody for tuning in to another Saturday. Uh, hope to have you back next time. And go ahead and let somebody else know about this great place that you found to carve out a couple of minutes on a Saturday night to think positively about things like violence, uh, project violence prevention and mental health awareness. That's what I got. Hope that you'll have a great rest of the evening. Be safe, have fun, take care of your crew, and rawr!