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

I'm writing notes because we don't really have an actual thing for tonight. Hi y'all, uh, Gunpowder Beauty, G-Web, G23, DJ is here. Um, and luckily I have DJ because I almost wasn't here because I was in next week's, not this week's. So anyway, we all gotta give DJ a round of applause for actually getting me here. It's Gizzard Gary. Gizzard Gary is going to be quiet tonight except on the keyboard because he had his teeth removed yesterday, or a tooth. Yeah, I guess he had a tooth. Yeah. So anyway, so everyone be nice to Gizzard Gary. All righty. Oh, To Live Moo also here. All right. I am here. I am fresh off another fundraiser, which is, I feel like, my life now, because that's what you do when you're a politician is go to other people's fundraisers so that they will come to your fundraisers. So, all right, tonight, Suicide Prevention Saturday. Welcome! If anyone is here watching for the first time, my name is Brooke Cheney. I am the owner and instructor here at A Great Start Shooting School. So why does a firearms instructor talk about suicide? Hmm, there are so many reasons. One, as a gun owner, it's good to know that 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicides. And if people are really interested in saving lives, we have to talk about mental health because mental health goes to preventing suicides. Hello, Woods, nice to see you. It was nice to see you last night too. Uh, hard week, need some— sorry, I was already reading Woods's thing. Um, so Woods was with me yesterday, right? You were on the Polite Side podcast when I was doing training Thursday, training Friday. What day is it? It's a day that I'm working. That's all that I know. All right, so Suicide Prevention Saturday, because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths are suicides. And if we were actually going to save lives and pay attention to mental health, we can then save lives of so many other people who need the help. And funny, after all of these years of studying suicide prevention— oh, and violence prevention— there's a whole lot of the same stuff with mental health that helps prevent violence too. So we can do a whole bunch of stuff. Anyway, I'm going to stop. I'm going to start ignoring the comments and see if I can stay on task. DJ, as you always do, if there's anything I need to answer or take care of, I will happily do that. So my notes for today, ready? Because I wasn't sure what we're going to talk about tonight because we do sort of fly by the seat of our pants here sometimes, even though I'm wearing a skirt. So I don't know how well I can fly in a skirt. Pain, suffering, growth, definitions, failure, laugh or cry. That's what I got for my show notes for today. At least I have show notes, so I've got that going for me. Here's the thing: all of us have pain and suffering. Most of us grow the most from our pain and suffering when things are going well. We kind of take them for granted. Give you a perfect simple example: when's the last time you had a stuffy nose, you had a cold, or a sore throat, or bad back? When these bad things happen, we're like, oh, this sucks, I hate this, pain and suffering, ugh, just no. However, when we are healthy and everything is working the way we want it, Do we ever say, oh, I'm so thankful my nose, that I can breathe through both sides of it today? Do we ever remember to say, oh, I'm thankful my back doesn't hurt today? No, no, not often. Maybe you do. Maybe you are not as thick as I am, but the pain and suffering is where we start paying attention. But most of us want to avoid the pain and suffering. Hence the reason we have such an opioid and alcohol problem in America. Where people will go to numbing things versus dealing with our pain and suffering. As much as we're not thankful for not being able to breathe out of one side of our nose, or if our back hurts and we can barely walk, or anything along those lines, we have a choice. We always have a choice. We can laugh about stuff or we can cry about it. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want you laughing when someone dies, And I would probably be one of the first people that would do something like that because unfortunately my stress response is to laugh at things, which means I laugh at things in some of the most inappropriate times ever. So I'm going to try to have you not be like me on that one. We can have our pain and suffering and we can cry about it and whine and complain, or that word choice that we have too, we can discuss with ourselves first, what can we do about this? So why am I talking about pain and suffering? Because I've got some. Uh, I have physical pain. I have arthritis in my lower back. Every so often it rears its ugly head, so much so that most of this week I've literally been in a zero gravity chair to try to get it to calm down. And I have to take lots of anti-inflammatories to make it sort of so I can actually move through the day. Now I'm telling you this because if you talk to anyone who's worked with me this week, none of them are going to know that. No one's going to know that my back is making me want to cry because it's in so much pain, because I have a choice. I can take care of my pain and suffering for myself, i.e., sitting in my zero-grav chair, and taking anti-inflammatories and making sure I drink enough water so that it will calm down. Because here's the other part that I've been saying a lot this week: pain is temporary, glory is forever. Yeah, no, um, I have really been saying that a lot because it makes me laugh, because my back pain sucks, and yet at the same time, glory is forever. So I will grin it out and bear it. As long as I'm taking care of myself, I don't have to tell everyone about my back pain and get sympathy and all that fun stuff. Uh, none of my students know, so— except I have one tomorrow, so hopefully she's not watching this, so she won't know either. But here's the thing: pain and suffering, we learn how to deal with it. We deal with it head-on as much as possible. Sometimes we get piled on and piled on and piled on. Uh, I don't know about you, But there are that ebb and flow of life, right? Everything is awesome, then it's like, yay, and then all of a sudden Grandma dies, then my dad dies, and my uncle dies. Oh wait, my sister dies, like, all in a really short period of time. So did I deal with all that pain all at once? No, not really. But by dealing with our pain, we learn how to deal with it in a way that is useful to us, and then we are taking care of ourselves. Growth. What does back pain have to do with growth? Well, I know my core, my belly, and all of that is not strong enough to support my back, and that's why it goes off. So I know I'm losing weight currently. The pain is really only temporary. It is not there forever. I have friends who have constant pain all of the time. I am truly amazed by them. I have a friend of mine who has MS who's in constant pain all the time, and she's stuck in a wheelchair. So never compare your pain to anybody else's. I'm amazed by her, and she is one of my superheroes. And it's like, anything is possible. You can work through pain. Failure— failure is the only way we get to success in that Huh, did I get to do a lot of stuff while I was stuck in my chair trying to rehab my back, like the dishes and the laundry and the cleaning house? No. But let's be real, do I do the dishes and the cleaning and the laundry when my back is good? Hmm, not all the time, no. So sometimes we use pain as an excuse why we didn't get something done, but let's be honest, I don't like cleaning house that much. I love the result of a clean house. Like right now, when I'm done with you guys, I need to clean in here and to get stuff, uh, back together for my students tomorrow. And this brings me back to wanting to kill the mosquito that is flying around that you may or may not be able to see. Um, the gift of giving. I am able to ignore the pain in my back because I am here to teach and help other people learn how to use firearms. It's not that it's not important to them to know that I'm in pain, but the beauty of it is that taking my students and not canceling them because I can barely walk, or I'm not sure if I'm going to walk without wanting to cry, is that I am now serving them. So by focusing on them and making sure I can take care of them, and I can give them what they came here for, which is how to handle a firearm safely or get more confident in the things that they're doing, it takes the focus of the pain that I have and I can ignore it completely. Does it still hurt? Sure it does, but because I am serving someone else, all of a sudden my pain is so much less and I can ignore it. And yes, when I'm done, I will go and I'll sit in that zero-grav chair and I'll realign my back and I'll drink my water and take care of myself. But I know in the past we've talked here about giving, whether it's giving $10 to your favorite charity, whether it's taking time to go volunteer at your library and reading to kids, whether it's whatever you want to do, working at a pet shelter. That giving thing really, really helps reduce that pain and suffering. And unfortunately, a lot of times when we get into our pain and suffering, we end up focusing on ourselves. And the more we focus on our own personal pain and suffering, we make it worse because our energy is going there. So we're making that grow. So my suggestion is, if you are in pain and suffering, yes, you need to get help like this in crisis call, um, text talk, or the 988 line actually just hit its 1-year anniversary. Call and reach out for help. If there isn't anyone there to help you, see who there is that you can help. And that, my friends, is what I have for you this Saturday night. So, Mr. DJ, since I've been ignoring the 35 comments over there, which I'm guessing is just a bunch of people saying hi and hi, why don't you do roll call for me and see who—

yeah. And if there's other questions I need to answer, I'd be happy to do that. There are lots of folks out there tonight, including G23, the Gunpowder Beauty. G-Webs is out there too. We have the Barnyard Crew. We got 2 Live Moo and Gizzard Gary clucking it up. Uh, reaching towards the East Coast, we got the Crabby Turtle, Guns and Barbecue checking in as well. From the Pacific Northwest, the great Baconator himself, PNW Woods, formerly now just Woods, is there. Chris from the 740 checking in from the Upper Midwest. We got on the Facebook side Michael Bellinger and Anne is out there. Got late additions though to the crew out there in the text chat on the YouTube side in Mario Mosin and Mike White. Uh, might have something to say about a little dry fire practice challenge you got going on there, Brooke. Mario's out there. What do you got?

All right, so Mario and I have texted a little bit. For those of you who don't know Mario, I was talking smack with Mario basically on Thursday, I think, when I was talking about Friday's show that I did on Flight Side Podcast. So last weekend I was at Area 7, which is a USPSA competition, and I came in dead stinking last. And so in roughly 4 weeks, maybe 5 weeks, I have another competition, state competition, um, also a large competition. This one's IDPA. So due to the fact that I came in dead last, which I really don't care about, but obviously I do because I'm saying about it, so Mario came on and I'm just like, here's the deal. Mario is one of my West Coast buddies, and he is also one of my favorite veterans. And I told him, if I don't dry fire every day starting on Monday— I'm gonna post it up on YouTube. It's just gonna be on my YouTube. I don't think I'm gonna put it on Facebook and YouTube. Um, so every day starting Monday until my competition, if I don't do that, I'm gonna be sending Mario's favorite veteran, um, charity $100. So the deal I made with Mario is every day from Monday on, there will be some dry fire dropped here on YouTube. For those of you on the Facebook side, it's easy enough to jump over to YouTube. It's all right. So, um, that is our dry fire challenge. And I realized after I made this bet with Mario that I'm actually gonna be out of state for the couple days leading up to the final competition, which means I will not have my guns with me because I do not have a Rhode Island permit. I have Massachusetts and Connecticut and Florida, but that doesn't count in Rhode Island. So for the last 4 days of the challenge, I'm gonna be getting creative on how I'm gonna do dry fire. So that is kind of the updates on what the Dry Fire Challenge is between me and Mario. And I think Mario and I are going to try to catch up and figure out if there's a time when he and I can go on and talk about this a little bit more, because I'll make him talk about his veteran— his favorite veteran charity. All right, and Eli, I'm gonna say good evening. Yes, it is another one of my shooting friends. Speaking of, you know, competitions and all. All right, DJ, is there anything else?

Well, we've got some thanks out there from Gary. You mentioned his oral issues, and he says, be thankful that you have strong teeth. I myself do not have strong teeth, nor Brooke do I have a strong back. So there are at least two people in the chat today that I can relate to when it comes to our physical ailments. Sometimes they are quite a challenge, not quite as easy to affect as some of our day-to-day mental challenges. Challenges. I mean, catching your breath, trying to grab a smile, those are things that are a little bit easier to achieve than say lower lumbar issues. But I'm glad to know that you have like your zero-grav setup kind of thing. Sounds all kind of fancy and space-age to me. And we have another comment that I wanted to get, and this is from Woods. Woods has used this several times before in my presence. I really like this quote. It reminds us that we are going to face challenges constantly And that really, we are being challenged by things all around us. So we become worthy by accepting the challenge. We don't always get to meet it with the best result, but if you accept the challenge and you sally forth with some effort, there will be results. There will be results. Find the small things to be pleased with and find satisfaction in.

And as far as God testing the worthy, I know one of the things I heard all the time as a kid is God will not give you what you cannot handle. And as someone who at the time was sexually abused, suicidal, and really not loving life that much, I said, I wish God did not have quite so much faith in me. So there's always a way to flip that over sometimes.

Well, Brooke, there's a line I'm reminded by of a performance I played. I was a lead role in Fiddler on the Roof, and Tevye had a line. He says, God, I know that we are the chosen people, but just once, couldn't you pick someone else?

Exactly.

Yeah, sometimes the challenges that we are met with on just, you know, not only the, the day-to-day but our lifetime challenges and crises of faith like, uh, Tevye was having in that moment are things that— it's universal. We all deal with those kind of challenges. We truly do. I want to let you know really quick that on the Facebook side we got Eli Farnsworth out there, and on the YouTube side Ozzy Oresbourne has joined, and he's barking at the moon.

Yeah, you gotta bark at the moon if you're Aussie. So, um, yeah, so this is just— it is— this is one of those things too where faith does matter. It doesn't matter what you name your God, whether it is, uh, what— there's so many names for God, so I'm not even going to try to start to go down there. And even my atheist friends, they still believe in something. They still know that there's something that is true that they must believe in. And our belief, whether or not it is that God gives us only what we can handle, and if we couldn't handle it, he wouldn't give it to us, um, that there's something larger than us. Like I said, my pain goes away when I go to help someone else. When I get to focus on something beyond myself, this is where my pain subsides and is better. Do I still need to take care of me? Yes. Do I love the fact my husband takes care of me? Yes, absolutely. But yeah, it's—

my—

Moo wants to know what my necklace is. It's a necklace. What would you like to know about it? It's metal on one side and it's colored on the other, and it's— what is this? Like porcelain. What do you do when— DJ, what's it called when you take clay and put it in an oven? Ceramic?

Firing? Firing? It's like glazing. Is it a cloisonné? Are you trying to— I'm getting the cloisonné.

Oh, I don't know. I mean, that, that's what I got for you. And oh, well, here, since we're going to ask about my accoutrements, here we go. These are my owls. Owls are, um, let's see, they are for wisdom. Uh, they are also for the goddess Athena. Um, they are also the sign that my mom and I remember my sister by. Like, when we hear an owl hooting, we think of her, and there's a whole other story for that, but we won't go into that. Um, but yeah, so I went to a fundraiser, and my whole thing is I want to show what I believe in, and I believe in wisdom. And almost always there's something sparkly that I have on, and then hearts, because everything matters. And showing hearts and love are kind of the most important things we can do as humans. And we have to remember, we have to show the love to ourselves first with self-care, and then we can shine bright for everybody else so that they too can feel that. But we're all reflections of those around us. So be careful who you hang out with. You wanna hang around with cool people like me and DJ, right, DJ?

Ultimately, yes. The cool people are some of the most fun, I gotta say. But with those owls that you're wearing hanging off ears. I waited until you concluded because I was about to bust in and say they better not be for Hootie and the Blowfish because then I would lose complete total respect.

Oh, because we're in the— I don't know, do you guys all have Hooters out where you are, or is Hooters— yeah, we do, or have, because there's that too. Um, yes, because they're big owls. So, but yes, it's fashion time. Yes, as of late, I— you guys I am cutting short other events I'm coming. So I'm already dressed up for you before I get here. That'll make up for all the times that I show up all hot and sweaty from the range. So wintertime, all that. It is always election season. That is the most challenging part of it all. All right. So the other thing we should throw up there just because we talked about it. So if I fail at the dry fire challenge, which is posting up a video every single day of me doing something with dry fire, touching my firearm, or doing something that has to help me with my speed and accuracy in shooting. If I fail, Wounded Heroes Fund of Bakersfield, California wins because I will send them $100. And this is where I think I will do a shameless plug. DJ, do you have my Patreon channel?

Yes, I do. And I also, I dropped the link out there also to, uh, to that fine organization. We got the Wounded Heroes Fund up there on the screen and out in the text chat. Sorry for the Facebook side. Come and join the dark side over here at YouTube. You get all of the links. So I got that link up on the screen, and I will most definitely encourage those out there in the text chat, uh, spread to your friends also the word that, uh, Ms. Cheney does have a Patreon, um, fund. And, uh, I'm a member, got a few others out there. That you might know that are as well. From a couple of bucks to as much as you got to give, consider supporting efforts that she's involved in, just like this one.

Right. For example, next weekend I am going to be home because I am not going to Detroit because I can't afford to. Detroit is an all-weekend-long thing where this gentleman, Rick Ector, lets women shoot for free and teaches them how to handle firearms for free.. And having gone out there once, I'm sad that I'm missing this year, but it's important to let you know that there's programs like that, that if you support me on the Patreon channel, that's the sort of thing they're helping send me to so I can donate my time. Because as the sole proprietor of a great start shooting school, if I'm not working, I'm not making money. So, and I usually try not to talk about these things, but there you have it. Cause I went to a fundraiser, we have pain, suffering, and laugh or cry. So here we are. We've got the fashion show portion of a Great Star Shooter School done. And well, let's see, who was it? Was it Woods? Who in the beginning said that they had a bad week and they needed some Brooke?

Who was that? That was indeed Woods. Yeah, you're right about that.

Woods, I can't leave until I know that I've successfully done anything to help you just a little bit. So we'll have to sit here and wait until you reply and say, yes, you can go now, or no, you suck. And you have to just come up with something better. But all right, see, now I'm looking at the things, but I will stop looking at the things. What do you think?

And so tell us, what are some of the things that are coming up for you in the weeks ahead? Something that you're looking forward to, something that will lift the corners of your mouth and help to share that smile with others.

All right. So August, which is my birthday month, by the way, National Shooting Sports Month. So the NSSF has sent me tons of stuff. So I have hats, I have gun rags, I have challenge coins, I have shopping bags— oops, sorry— to give away in August. So I have new shooter programs coming up that I'm doing, like little tiny classes, super inexpensive. So people can get some cheap, really inexpensive training. So I'm actually kind of excited about that. The challenge coins, I actually have— thank you for asking, DJ. I actually have to put these up on my scheduling page because if you're one of my students currently and you bring a friend, there's a special deal where you can buy an hour of training time and bring a friend with you and you get a half hour for free. And really, it's cool because when you get here, if you're allowed to, you get a picture with this really funny— not really funny, but this cool actual frame for the shooting sports thing. So for the challenge coin, it's called the Join the +1 Movement. So all of you out there, wherever you are, if you're a shooter, and you have a range you go to, you can ask whether or not they have the challenge coins or not, because the idea of August and the shooting thing is to share our fun, our zen sport that we have, and, um, do that. All right, so see, now I gotta get all excited because Wood's here, just said he signed up on Patreon. Yay! Um, so that'll make me smile too. Um, what else am I doing? I'm going away from my family. We've got a beach week. Planned for 4 days before my competition, which is going to make this dry fire challenge a challenge. But laugh or cry, here we are.

Um, did you just say beach? Beach. Oh my. All right, well, I am landlocked in Nebraska. I am from the land of no coast, and the envy is green, the deepest, most verdant green right now. Also want to let you know that Vanessa Kitty joined the crowd out there, and so did C&T Designs and Arms.

Very cool. Oh, so Eli here, he's talking about need to find some time to transfer a MAS permit. And yes, I had my first MAS permit class 2 weeks ago, and it was great, and it's small. And yes, and here's the thing with the MAS one, it's super easy. And oh, you need to get it soon. Poor Massachusetts. Oh, They have the worst, like worst, worst bill ever coming out, and it will change what the training requirements are. So yes, Eli, get your FAST permit as soon as possible. Reach out to me directly, let me know when it would work, because I don't have another one scheduled because I need more people interested.

And now I gotta guess that there was a modest delay in the reply to your live shout out for Woods to reply to whether or not you helped out that bad week while he was over signing up for Patreon. By the way, everybody go ahead and swing on over there just like Woods did. And he says yes, on your screen now, Brooke. Thanks for helping my bad week.

All right, and so here's the other thing that I'm gonna spit back at you just for a moment though. You didn't have a bad week. You had a week and you had some moments that sucked. Just remember, there were some good stuff there too, 'cause you're still 6 feet above and not 6 feet under. So you're still here, your heart is still beating, your fingers are still typing,. And so there are always blessings even in the garbage of what is our life. So I'm super happy that you are helping. I'm helping a little bit, and, um, that makes me happy. All right, anything else, DJ?

Well, I'd like to thank everyone for coming in today. Um, encourage everyone to swing by next Saturday, check out that dry fire content on the A Great Start Shooting School channel. That's the one you're on now. If you're not subscribed, do so. If you have a friend who has not, pass the link to them. There's all kinds of stuff going, uh, good stuff going on over here. So until I see everyone again, or hear everyone again, or read from everyone again, I would like you all to be safe, have fun, take care of your crew and yourself, and always rock.

All right, so I have to laugh because G23 didn't see Woods's comment before. He said, I think Woods is going to keep the stream going and not answer Brooke's question. So with that, I think we are ready to go. And DJ, last week you asked if we want to do an after chat, and I've never done an after chat. So how does one do an after chat?

Well, we'd have to provide the StreamYard link to folks to be able to do that, either push it out into the text chat live here or distribute it to maybe club members. Maybe Patreons get to participate as a benefit in an after-chat on Saturdays or any other day you might set it up, Brooke. So maybe we'll hear about that next week, be able to pass out the links kind of thing. That'd be fun. I would love to do that.

All right, because it was your idea, so I'm like, I was just crazy, crazy busy yesterday. All right, so real quick, because Eli got the last thing in, the mass bill is getting jammed through the Massachusetts legislative body. They are trying to get it through without a single meeting or opportunity for public to voice their opinion on it. So as far as when the mask bill is going to pass, no one knows, and they don't know how to stop it. It's like I said, it's the worst thing ever. All right, so y'all have a great night. Love you all. Thank you for showing up because you make my night better too.. And I will see you all next week. Oh no, no, no, no. If you wanna check out on Monday, at some point Monday, I'm gonna throw a dry fire up there. On Sunday, I'm gonna do a comp— classifier, and then I'll post that up. And then yeah, we'll go from there. But anyway, see y'all later. Bye everybody.