Suicide Prevention Saturday - Let's talk about Life

Hey everybody.

Welcome to A Great Start Shooting School and Suicide Prevention Saturday. Why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicides. So if we're really looking to save lives, we need to talk about mental health. Now, uh, one— oh, there he is. I was about to say I had to start my show without my DJ, so Y'all got the beginning, but then my DJ showed up, so now I feel better. All right, so anyway, uh, 2 out of every 3 gun deaths are suicide. Ergo, if people were serious about saving lives that have to do with gun deaths, we really do need to talk about suicide prevention. So Mr., uh, Mike White gets the win for being first into the room, but Now, Mr. Gwebs, who is also sitting here waiting to get in, uh, was looking forward to a conversation about the board game Life. And, uh, maybe we'll throw some other table games in here as well. That is always a possibility. But for real, here's the thing. For those of you who have actually played the table game Life, it's actually not a bad thing to talk about. It kind of could work really and truly. Because I haven't played life in a really, really long time. But last I checked, you had to get an education, you had to find a job with a salary. All of a sudden you had to get married and have children and all of these things. So in a single board game, they prepared children for what life had to continue on. And then of course he decided that no, no, no, no, we are not talking about the board game. We are going to talk about cereal. And just so we're clear, I enjoy Life cereal. I do. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, Life is one of my favorite cereals without a doubt. The red original, just so we're clear, also original Life cereal. And we could talk about Rice Krispies 'cause you know, those are awesome because they can be a cereal as well as Rice Krispie treats. And who does not love a good treat? And good evening, Surya Fan. And hi, Missy— Mrs. Wayne. Oh, and it's Fiona! I haven't seen Fiona in forever. Fiona, ready? Are we gonna lie to each other now? Let's get together and clean guns. So, um, anywho, all right, sorry, I have to look at my notes here. And, um, we are going to talk about life, but you and I know about life because you and I are living life. So one of the biggest questions we have in life is what is most important to us? Now, a couple weeks ago, which DJ has been very good about reminding me from time to time, is that I am part of this group who meets on Fridays and we talk about what our plans are for the next couple weeks. And we really work on time management stuff because being a mom, owning Great Start Shooting School, Suicide Prevention Saturday, being a wife, trying to keep my house under control, which rarely occurs. My husband has actually been doing laundry all day. So just a couple of those things. It is a lot for me to handle. Oh, yeah. And then there is my mom and then there is my daughter and then there is my son and trying to keep all of this stuff all together can definitely be a challenge. So having people around us that help us coach and help us stay on track with what our life really means. Now, you and I have different things that are our priorities in life, and that's the way it's supposed to be. And however, when we ask the question, what is most important in life? It's a hard one to answer because what is most important in life? Well, having friends like Chris, pop in and say hi. That would be one of those things. Having buddies like DJ who show up every Saturday, even when someone loses their phone and cannot text them the link to the show to get in backstage, he still managed to find a way. So, uh, we all need that friend who takes care of us and makes sure that we are where we need to be. That being said, What's most important? Well, I think the best question, and I think I told you guys this like 2, 3 weeks ago when I was talking about this group, right? Is— thank you for the thumbs up. I'm gonna go with— I don't know who put the thumbs up there, but it's on Facebook side, so it might be Mike. But no, it says Mike's here on YouTube. All right, so the question is, how do you figure out what's most important? Well, I do love the thing I told you guys a couple of weeks ago, which is if you knew for a fact you only had 12 months to live, what would be the things that you wanted to do and take care of before you were leaving this planet? And that really helped me a ton as far as figuring out what actually is important, because you and I, are very busy. We are working, we are spending time with family, we're trying to carve out some time for ourselves for dry fire practice and someone like GunWeb, GWebs, etc. Also advocacy work, things that we love to do. And then we have family, whether we choose them or not. And there's always going to be someone that we have to take care of. Sometimes it's us, but usually we all have someone else that we need to be taking care of, or multiple other people. Other people's. I don't know if that's quite right English. So, um, I totally lost my train of thought. I'm good like that. So anyway, when so much stuff is going on, it's easy to go from human being to human doing, because what are we doing? We're doing the shopping, we're doing the cleaning, we're doing the job, we're doing the schedule, we're doing all of these things. And we forget to be human beings. And it's super important to be. One of the things I love the most about shooting and being on the range is when I have a firearm in my hands, it is the only thing that matters. And I can be fully present in this moment because the thing that is in my hands, which I can't show on YouTube because for fear of, uh, getting bumped off of here, is that when the firearm is in my hand— maybe I can get away with this one, it's plastic— so when this is in my hand, this is the only thing that matters. Because if I'm not paying attention fully and completely to this, I could get injured and I could injure someone else. So this is the most important thing in my life at that moment while I am doing it. And then as soon as I get and put it away, now it's back to, are the bills paid? Is the laundry done? Who are my next students? Did they do the paperwork? What marketing have I got done? And the list goes on. So back to human being. Oh, when I am present and taking care of what I am doing right now, I get to be Brooke Cheney. When I'm human doing, that means I'm taking care of the bills. I am checking in on my clients, I am checking in on my marketing, I might be cooking myself something, all of those things. So we're gonna go back to Life: The Game and Life cereal. Now Fiona, since you posted this, and Gwebs, since you started this conversation, what is your favorite thing about Life: The Game and what is your favorite thing about Life cereal? And while that is happening, all of a sudden it got quiet. I don't understand why. It still shows a bunch of you are out there. Thank you all for popping in. DJ, what's up, buddy? I hear you.

Never enough. Yeah, I'm here. I'm a little bit late, but I was glad to be here on a Saturday, and I was glad to be part of this team. So my favorite thing about life? Breathing. The sarcasm aside, I did actually write down when you were, when you were talking Oxygen and water and then food. And then I stopped. It's like, okay, once you get past the really, the really necessary things, the basics of actual life, yes, the building blocks thereof, for sure. So once those are satisfied, what comes next? And I paused for a second. I'm like, people. It really is. And it might sound cheesy, but I also went to single person. It's my mom.

There you go.

Like that. Apparently that's the most important thing after being able, uh, to like someone or to enjoy life. And the cereal, I always liked it because Mikey would eat it. I didn't like that crap. There you go.

I got you. And for those of you who are younger and don't understand that, uh, darn it, I'm sorry, I'm trying to open a thing and it won't open for me. Um, for those who have not seen Mikey Likes It, you're just a bunch of babies. That's all I have to say. No, but babies as in you're younger than DJ and I, not babies like, well, I want to go home.

Well, bring it to your screen right now. Sorry, Fan 93 saying Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Hell yeah. I mean, easily identifiable as such, right? And then I want to give, uh, this, this comment a second here. Uh, sorry, fan also saying, I never played Life. Life cereal isn't my favorite either. I play The Sims all the time.

There you go. That was actually the thing that I was opening up is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So this is the wrong one though. Well, actually, it's not though. So physiological needs. So the stuff that DJ was talking about, we need oxygen most importantly, because we need to breathe because we can only live about a minute or 3 without oxygen. Then we need food and water, then safety and security. So our clothing, our covers, our homes, the places that we live. Then we need tribe, that love and belonging stuff. Once those are met, then we can start working on our self-esteem. And then in theory, at some point in time, we can find that self-actualization. So one of the things I actually talk about a lot with the suicide prevention, and when I'm talking up at the Capitol and talking to other people, especially anti-gun people, I'm like, we need to start at the base of this where it says physiological needs. Because when people— oops, darn it all to heck— when people are not fed and they don't have safety and security and they're missing the love and belonging, these are the things that lead to the suicide, that lead to the violence, that lead to the things in society that we do not generally Enjoy. So funny that Sergey Fan should happen to make that comment while this is what I was actually looking for. And DJ, are you familiar with this? You've seen this before as well?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. Um, what are your additional comments on this?

It was always the self-actualization thing that threw me for the largest loop. I understood those building blocks. I mean, thanks for giving— you know, thank you to Maslow for giving us this, this triangular thing. We could ascend the pyramid. Yeah, it's the self-actualization part. I don't think that we know that, or we don't know that correctly all the time. What we may have thought was a good idea in our youth, I think most of us can reflect on being not such a great idea some of the time, if not most of the time in my case. And so with the understanding that with those things, as I've been able to keep them, those steps underneath of us, as I've been able to keep them under me, I keep reaching for whatever that self-actualization is, but it keeps shifting on me too. So I think that part of that self-actualization is actually the challenge of stringing all the things, you know, that came before together. And that does sort of make sense. At least I'm able to source— I don't— I dare say wisdom kind of thing. I don't like to think of myself as all that wise, especially in these sort of references. But gaining the wisdom and the understanding of your own life and what it means to you is almost as important. Because if you have every bit of your waking self unsure of what— who you are and what you are to others and where it is that you may or may not be going, then you can't hit that self-actualization. So all those steps are incredibly necessary. When we get to the human component outside of ourselves, that's one that, along with our mothers, fathers, lovers, and others, is the most important thing afterwards, at least in my estimation.

Gotcha. Well, I'm gonna hit G Web's, uh, thing about not sure why the green part is so small. And there is a reason it gets smaller going up, because here's the deal. The reason the base is big— I don't really have a pointer or anything, but we are wired to do everything that we can to get our physiological needs met. So If we are looking to live, we will run and scrap and kill whoever we need to in order to get food for ourselves and for our families. So the physiological needs are the largest, widest step in the pyramid because everyone will do whatever they can to do that. Once your physiological needs— you're fed and you can breathe, and you can eat. Those are the things that you can do. And now, once those are taken care of, which all beings have, then we go to our safety and security level. Now, because not all beings, humans and otherwise, have their physiological needs met, that's why it's bigger than the safety and security. Think about a homeless person. They may or may not get fed every day, they may or may not have safety and security, but there's a lot of people that are in that position in the world. Then once you're fed and you have that taken care of, you've got food and water and air, next is safety and security. So you've managed to survive. So our physiological needs are the baseline for where we are. Once we've then got to our safety and security, That means perhaps we have a roof over our head. For some people, it is literally having any kind of roof over their head, and security can mean lots of different things. Once you're there, then you go to the next level of love and belonging. There are plenty of people in the world who have their physiological needs met. They have safety and security, but they are missing their tribe. They do not— they are surviving, but they don't have love and belonging anywhere in the world. And this is why each one of these things gets smaller and smaller. When you get up to the yellow where it's self-esteem, we definitely— many, many, many, many people deal with self-esteem problems. I am one of them. Most of the people I know have self-esteem problems. And that is something that some people realize that they have them. Other people do not realize that they have self-esteem issues. But things like suicide, well, do we have a problem with self-esteem if we're suicidal? Yes, because if we don't think that, um, we are worthy of all the things that we have below that— our love, belonging, safety, security, and physiological needs— our self-esteem is garbage, and that is why we would want to take our lives, and so on and so forth. Um, yeah, no, yeah, so the size versus number of people, I thought was important, or time spent on these issues or something. Well, it kind of is a little bit time spent, just simply in the fact that you're gonna spend your time on what you have time to spend your time on. I know that sounds like a circle, but it's like, if I am starving, the only thing my body is going to focus on is finding water, finding food. So I will spend the most amount of time on that. Once that's taken care of, then I will go on to the next. So each time one of those levels is met, I no longer have to spend my time on it. But if I need anything in any of those levels, that's where my time is going to go, if that makes sense.

It does to me. And that pyramid is— that's not scientific, that's soft science. It's not the same for everyone. You know, it's also incredibly fluid. So you may have portions of something on the lower levels and not be able to get all the way to the top. And I think the rub in Maslow is the ego portion. Once those, you know, once the, once the basics, the physical requirements are met, it shifts into what we also think of ourselves, what we think about that self-actualization, how it is that we set our lives up to go about it. It's wrapping back towards the beginning of the program and the game of life. We don't really know how to play it.. And you can only, you can only live your own life. You can add people to it and we all need those additions. You mentioned the word tribe. I like that. And sometimes our tribe, the one we begin in, is not the one that's best for us, or hopefully the one that we end up in. Those choices are ours. And I think you make a really good point. If you don't have these things, if you're distracted, it's not just if you're, you know, the food requirement and the water requirement. Okay, the food. I'm gonna talk about that for a second. You know, beyond the rumble in your belly, it needs to be satisfied. How is it satisfied? Think about the steps that are required. If you can't pull it out of the ground or out of your own tree in your own backyard, you've got to trade somebody something for it. And that most often for that, for most of us, is at the grocery store. That's how we— that's how most of us do that. And so if those things are removed, we have to focus on something else. If it's not as easy in your life to go to the grocery store, say they all disappear tomorrow, well, then you have to learn how to farm, or you need to learn how to trade, or you need to anticipate some of that hunger coming your way. If you have to deal with that, you can no longer spend time on looking at guitars, on looking at any other hobby that your friend, or, you know, any of those things, you know, and the more intellectual pursuits as well. So those things that we do to gain knowledge and understand ourselves are as key as some of those other more demanding, I'll say, physical requirements. Now, back to what I'm saying about the fluidity of those levels. I've jumped in and around those levels in different aspects of my life many, many times. So I don't think that Maslow had— maybe he did, maybe had the, you know, the implication here was all of these things have to be in this order. But again, as I said, this is not a science, it's not scientific. So you don't have to ascend all of those levels in that order. And I don't think that most people's lives actually allow us to do that. And if you, if you fall down steps, you can get back up. It's that getting back up right there at that break of when we are beginning to satisfy and then have satisfied our ego. And without that, the confidence is gone. The successes that we gauge, especially compared to others, some of those evaporate too. It's really easy to tumble down that pyramid and feel as though you are at the bottom, and maybe that glass of water and that carrot that you pulled out of the ground really are the most important things, and they take so many hours of your day to satisfy that you can't spend time playing chess, playing guitar, talking to friends, being a part of that tribe.

So, um, to Gun Website, uh, the fan of system places blue is more important than red. And for what it's worth, for sure. Um, so my thing when I'm looking at this, when red is at the bottom with your physiological needs, I just think about one of the things I teach in class is if you breathe in and you don't breathe out and you're holding your breath, immediately your brain goes into 'oh my gosh' mode. So air, water, and food are super important. So if that's what you're focusing on, you are in the red zone as far as self-actualization, desire to become the most that one can be, or better than you were yesterday kind of stuff. That's because all of your actual physiological needs are met. So I didn't think of safety needs as personal security employment resources, but hey, this is why we have infographics all over the internet. But I do like red as being like, oh my gosh, these are the most important things as far as to live. You need to breathe first and foremost. With that, Mr. DJ, I'm throwing you up. Would you like to run our Hello and greetings to everybody.

I'd be happy to do that. First in the room was Mike White. G-Webs was soon behind. Uh, Mike Ballinger is out there, so is Sariafan93. Misty Mrs. Wayne, always good to see her. Fiona, even greater to see you on the nights where we get to— Chris Brancato is also in the room. Gary, I think, is the most recent addition. And that's your roll call.

Did you say Mrs. Misty Wayne? I did not hear that. I am not paying attention, obviously.

I actually said Misty Mrs. Wayne. Okay. Oh my God, extra emphasis.

All right, well, I'm like, I am, I am still sleepy apparently. All right, well, love to you all. Thank you for popping in and saying hi and saying something. I forgot to highlight Mr. Bellinger's thing, which now I lost it, but anyway. Oh, there it is. Great day to be alive. So there's that. Oh, Mike, did you see the rainbow yesterday? It was amazing. Um, sorry, we had rain yesterday and I saw the first like full arc rainbow of the, the year. So Misty Mrs. Wayne, yes, you're super important and you can laugh at that. Um, Misty Mrs. Wayne, okay. Really, I do say it wrong and I do it all the time. All right, that being said, already it's been 23 minutes. Oh sure, just as I'm thinking about closing the show out, Mario has to show up and say hey, which is also always fun. Nice to see you, Mario. And all right, DJ, you talk for like 30 seconds while I go see if I can find the picture of the rainbow so I can show that to everybody.

Sound good? It sounds great. I thought that maybe there might be a Kermit the Frog reference in here, the rainbow connection sort of thing. OK, connection, interconnectedness, and interdependence. Those levels, they do have a certain degree of interdependency, and we become dependent on those things. So before this turns into wordplay completely, those steps are different for all different folks. And for me, Those steps are making sure that my physical needs are satisfied so that I can begin any other endeavor. I think another point that I'd like to make before we close out tonight is the judgment of others should not influence where your hierarchy is leading. If you need to step around somebody, do it. If you need to remove somebody or their opinion, do it. Because until those barriers are removed, you're not going to be able to pop out to the success at the top, or at least it's going to be a much harder or longer kind of ordeal. So you got some rainbow out there. We don't get to see the full arc, even if you did.

Well, I mean, this was— this is actually as much as I got to see, but I thought it was important enough that I pulled my children out of the house to actually go look at it. But, um, it was— of course, you know how these things are— it was much more vivid live and in person. But, um, It was, it was pretty awesome.

Did you not make a beeline for the, for the bottom of that? That whole rainbow pot of gold thing had me messed up as a kid. As fast as we ran, we could never reach it. I'm like, that thing resets globally? Like, this is a weather effect. Like, that pot of gold must have, you know, a lot of free travel miles or something.

Yeah, it could be.

And I bring to your screen now this, uh, for Misty Mrs. Wayne. As you show us some more photos, she says, I saw the brightest rainbow above my house and it turned into double rainbow about 2 days ago. We got G23 out there joining the group.

Oh, G23, I have not seen you in a while. Just in case you missed it, was it last week or the week before? Um, Barbecue was impersonating you, just so you know. And if you weren't here, didn't see the replay, let me know. So anyway, so now y'all got to see the back of my dirty garage in my house and my four-wheeler, and there's a little dog there and the rainbow and the best ever Mother's Day present of all, which is that lovely little chair over here in the corner. So, but yes, I think ending on a rainbow is a perfect ending, and hope you all like it. And that's what I got. Thanks again, everybody, for popping in and saying hi and giving me comments and things to talk about. Um, and yeah, GT3, you definitely are gonna have to, uh, oops, wrong one. Gonna have to go back and watch it. I think it was last week. So anyway, there's my rainbow, there's my house, there's my good night to y'all. May you have a wonderful week. Check in and see Hillbilly tonight at the top of the next hour. Oh, and Foss pops in at the very end. Yeah, I gotta send you email, dude, because I have things for you to do if you want to do things. All right, DJ, I'm gonna be quiet. You say goodbye to everybody while we're looking at the rainbow.

Thanks everybody for joining us. Everybody in the replay, thanks for checking in on that. So we see everybody again. Be safe, have fun, take care of your crew, and rock!