In this live‑streamed episode of Suicide Prevention Saturday, the host (Speaker A) opens by highlighting the link between gun‑related deaths and suicide, urging more open conversations about mental health. The discussion moves to the challenges of constantly busy schedules—especially for adults juggling work, parenting, and household duties—and the necessity of balancing activity with downtime. A central theme is reframing everyday chores and responsibilities (e.g., dishes, laundry, firearm dry‑fire practice) as privileges rather than burdens, which can improve mental outlook. The host shares a personal 30‑day dry‑fire challenge, explaining how daily, short practice sessions build skill, confidence, and mental resilience. Throughout, the host acknowledges and thanks community members (DJ, Tara, Crabby Turtle, Mike, Mario, Barbecue) for their participation, emphasizing the value of mutual support, encouragement, and simple gestures like smiling. The conversation also touches on consistency, self‑measurement, and self‑compassion, concluding with a reminder to keep commenting on the challenge and a hopeful sign‑off.
Chapters
It was awful nice of DM Foss to put that intro together for me, um, because like I'm sitting here just bopping along to the music because I don't know where it came from, but he made it magically appear one day. All right, it is Suicide Prevention Saturday. Why? Y'all can say it with me, because 2 every 3 gun deaths we hear about are suicide. And if we want to save lives, we should really start talking more about mental health for everyone, because then we can save the lives not only of those who take their lives by firearms, but for those who do the additional other things. Um, hello, Crabby Turtle. Um, all right, so it says hand pink waving, and I always wonder, is it supposed to literally be a little hand waving? But it doesn't equate because I really don't know because I'm not that much of a geek. I'm sorry. All right, but I— hand pink waving, so that's what I'm gonna do. And yeah, okay. Um, all right, so Let's talk about mental health. And one of the things that we find all the time, and we may not realize how important it is to our mental health, and that is our life. How can mental health and our life have anything to do with each other? Lots of things, right? So I'm really talking about schedules. A lot of adults that I meet, and looking at kids, honestly, we are always busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. We're going to here, to here, to here, to here, to here. And what are we doing when we're being so busy? Uh, Tara, for example, she's literally going from here to here to here to here to here because she drives truck. So So she goes all over the place. And, uh, anyone who's a parent, there's— okay, the kid has to go here, the other kid has to go there, this one has to go there. Oh, and then there's this job thing, and then there's this— oh wait, we have a house we have to take care of in our apartment. And we are constantly zooming around. And if you are not constantly zooming around, I'm jealous. I am so jealous. However, we all need our downtime. We can't have all of one without the other. Everyone does need their downtime, and that's where our mental health can come in. But it's also being aware of, are we busy doing things that are feeding our souls, or are we busy doing stuff that is sucking the life out of us? And we kind of need to pay attention to all the stuff that we are doing and give ourselves credit for the stuff that we are doing. Because one of my students today, we were just chatting about this randomly, but it's interesting how often— like, I'm doing this dry fire challenge for the next 30 days, and so you guys are going to see me up every stinking day. And I can make it happen because I've decided it must happen in order for me to get better, right?. And believe it or not, I grit my teeth and I kind of, you know, I'm like, oh, I gotta do this again. But in the reality of it is, I know, you know, that the logic part of our brains is like, provided I touch my gun every single day, even if it's only for 5 or 10 minutes, I'm gonna be a boatload better than if I didn't touch it every single day. So with that, look at your schedule, think about all the stuff you do. Since I've got DJ here, sleep is also important as part of your schedule. Oh, and Tara is here. All right, so real quick, because I've tried to go away from the things. Did I miss anyone else? We've got Crabby Turtle, DJ, Tara. Did I miss any— anybody, DJ? Because I just am happy that you got them. Okay, awesome. As far as those who have commented, now I know some of you watch and you never comment, and that's okay, but just know if you did comment, I would say hi or I would make DJ say hi. Oh, Mike White has joined us as well. Sorry, DJ, I don't mean to take all your stuff, but I started talking about you, so then I'm like, oh, I should go look. All right, so time, our commitments, what we see others in comparing, um, that to ourselves. What my student and I were talking about is how if you watch someone do something and they're successful at it, you think that, oh well, that must be easy for them. For some reason, we transfer that accomplishing stuff is ever going to be easy, and the truth is it's not easy for anyone ever. We all have different challenges. And some of it is— pick any— anything you want, anything that comes to mind. What is your challenge right now? What stops you from really being as happy as you can and feeling satisfied with all the stuff that you're doing? And honestly, I think the answer is simple, because someone once said to me and I believe her name is Celia, and I will check back with Celia to find out if she was the one who said this to me, but instead of saying, "I have to put the dry fire videos up. I have to go do the dry fire," I just changed the words to, "I get to do the dry fire. I get to put the videos up. I get to do the dishes. I get to do the laundry." So, um, when we are struggling with what do we have to do in life— because yeah, we have to go to work, or do we? No, we don't. We can be thankful that we have a job that we get to go do, and we can do it well. And this is the thing that is important to me right now, is remembering any challenge that you have, whether it's dishes, laundry, dry fire, videos, uh, playing music. I don't know, DJ, I'm gonna pull you up, man. Just be— so finish chewing that, that Asian food you're eating. All right then.
Um, letting everybody know that I had Korean food for—
oh, Korean food. I don't know, it was— we were talking food before we came on, that's what I knew. Um, so do you ever feel like you have to practice guitar to get better, or do you feel like you're— you get to practice guitar to get better?
It is portions of both. I do recognize that my skills will not increase my dexterity, for example, with my fingers. I'm not working those fingers just like you're working those muscles and the muscle memory for dry fire, then you'll stagnate. Yeah, mental tone as well as physical, you know, muscle tone Gotta get that. And you, you know, not having— you know, I think that it's a case of familiarity. Sometimes it just breeds comfort for people, not contempt. If you don't go out, you know, into what it is that you want to do or accomplish every day with that positive attitude, likely not going to have the same kind of success. I think most people get that. Um, those who are mired in a bad attitude, there are some that just will never get it, and I guess the advice I give to friends of folks like that, and I have a few, is just understand that at a certain point you have to walk away from offering them further insight or something, but make yourself available should they decide eventually to reach out to you. And as far as what you were saying about, you know, what challenges you, yeah, challenging your skills creates growth. If you no grow, no go. You have to be able to work out things for your mind, your body, and spirit, and whatever arrangement and percentage as suits you at the time, and keep your awareness open for opportunities that do challenge your own status quo. Carpe something, damn it!
So, um, yeah, so like, what the heck was it? There was something I said. Oh, um, on tonight's dry fire video when I was talking about trigger control, that I was just going to do a couple and that then I was going to turn off the video and do some more. And it's just, and it's just like, you know, sometimes it's not fun, but you have to keep doing it. And doing a little bit every day is going to make the dividends pay off. And here's the thing, we all know this. Like, we know if I do a little bit every day, it will get better. Our challenge, or at least my challenge, often is getting in there every single day to do that thing. Whatever it is, whether it's dishes or laundry, because that's my favorite thing that, that really piles up, at least in my life, uh, if I don't do it continually. And the dry fire is one of those things where, for real, it becomes a realization that it may not be fun, it may not be sexy, but just moving my finger like this while watching my sights is actually really and truly what will make me better. And getting better is work, and it's hard. So what do we do with our mental health? We notice where we're at, just like we did the classifier with the dry fire thing. We measure stuff, figure out where are we in our physical health, in our mental health, in our spiritual health. Kind of look at all the parts— our work life, figure out where all that stuff goes, and then figure out, okay, what part is doing awesome right now and what part needs maybe a little more attention. And for real, that's all I got for tonight, unless you have additional words of wisdom, DJ. That's kind of it today. Well, I don't know how—
measure, right on. And I don't know how high is it of these observations that I ever make are. But tonight, you got 6 down of the 30. That means you're one shy of 7. 23 more days of committing to that dry fire. Glad that Mario tossed out, you know, tossed out that challenge to you, making sure that parts— go ahead.
I offered. I'm like, dude, you're here, you're the, you're the man. And so yeah, I think I even did put in tonight's comments about I love the fact Mario's checking in every day and leaving a comment. But all of you guys are— all of you, every last one of you. Mike and Crabby and Tara and DJ and Barbecue. And even people who aren't commenting right now, it's like, I know you're out there. And I love the fact that people come and tell me that they're watching even though they don't comment. So it's, it's great to have an audience, and we all need to have support. So I thank you for that, actually.
Well, and Mario and some of the others that mentioned and were unmentioned are exemplars of the kind of thing that, you know, you and I both recommend. And that is, you know, like when you think of somebody, reach out. When you reach out, offer encouragement. If you can't offer the encouragement, offer the ear. It doesn't take long. You can make a smile. Like something I picked up from somebody that I've been using recently is And I say this to people just kind of randomly, grocery store, street, doesn't matter, is if you don't see a smile, make one. Because if you do smile, and that's what I stop at, but if you do make a smile, people will smile back. Humans like to echo the behavior of others and duplicate it often. So you start that infectious smile, it might turn into infectious laughter, and then everybody gets to have a good time with it. You know, as far as your dry fire, I don't want to leave without mentioning this because I referred to it earlier in the cast, and that is that you're providing good tone for those skills. Ultimately, your greater comfort, your facility, they all grow, and that's going to breed success and accomplishment. You're going to have success to some degree. Be gentle on yourself and be gentle to others. Small successes are successes after all.
That's what I got. Absolutely. All right, so with that, I'm gonna say good night to y'all. Uh, I know DJ likes hitting buttons, but I'm just gonna hit the end broadcast. So see y'all next week, and by all means, keep commenting on the dry fire challenge. It's gonna go on through August 20-something. All right, good night everybody, and thanks DJ. If I can find the end broadcast.
