Suicide Prevention Saturday - Let's talk about smiling

Ta-da! It's Saturday night and I have no stairs to fall down. I can't trip over anything, but this is not Saturday Night Live. This is Suicide Princess Saturday. Hi, for those of you who are brand stinking new, um, hopefully you're not actually smelly. Um, uh, this is Saturday Night Live— no, Saturday Night— Suicide Princess Saturday. Oh wait, hold on. I wanted to be able to see comments and stuff, but I didn't mean to have the sound on. All right. So let's try that again. It's a little bit like falling down the stairs, just a wee bit. So Suicide Prevention Saturday, my name is Brooke Cheney. It says right there from A Great Start Shooting School. You're on my pages unless you're on my personal page. So you already know who I am theoretically, but why do we do Suicide Prevention Saturday? Well, because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicides. So if we're looking to save lives, it would make a lot of sense if we actually paid attention to mental health. So, oh, I was looking for my banner because I want to get my thing down here. So hold please. Uh, which one? That would be the one. Um, I am here to chat about mental health. I'm here to give you resources if you need help. Today, I am ignoring the chat over in the side window over here. DJ is here monitoring for me because today is my friend Michael Ballinger's birthday. And because it is his birthday, this show is just for him because he misses the original short shows that I would do. So I'm in honor of Mike and him being one of my longest running viewers at 15 minutes, I will then let DJ feed me any questions you guys have. So still feel free to jump in the chat, put in things, all that sort of stuff. Just know, unlike most Saturdays, I'm not going to do squirrel and pay attention to that right now. So let's talk about smiling. I like to smile. It's a good way to make yourself feel a little better. Imagine for a moment, ready? Try it. Here you go. Ready? Even if it's the cheesiest smile you can put on your face, do it. Do it right now.

Come on.

Good. Utilize all those little muscles in your face to go like this. Now, even if you're having a crap day and you just do a cheesy smile, it kind of cracks you up. But that's amusing because— and just smiling a little tiny bit, right? If you open your eyes even wider while you smile like a crazy person, um, endorphins and all sorts of good things are happening chemically, just naturally. Like, you don't actually have to try. That fake it till you make it thing does actually work with some things. Smiling is one of them. Oh, so I gotta tell y'all I worked for Disney World. I was in hotel restaurant management school and I went down there for an internship many years ago when I was in college, 1991, maybe '90, somewhere in there. And one of the training tips they gave you during orientation was, as you are standing in the group, you're a cast member, not an employee, just to be to be clear. They said, here's the thing, when that 440th person asks you where the bathroom is when you're standing under the bathroom sign, you put a smile on your face, you say, oh ma'am, it's right here. And the way that they told you to be able to put a smile on your face I paraphrase because you all know I don't swear a lot. While you're smiling and telling them where to go, in your head you can say things like, "You dumb fucker." So, um, this is Disney training from 1990s. I'm sure it's changed and totally different now, but I always thought that was hysterical. It's like we can put our smiles on our faces and not really have to be thinking what our faces say. However, like I said, the chemical reaction of your face smiling, opening your eyes wide, little things like this, they will help you if you're having a bad day. Like, here's the crazy thing, I cry like a baby all the time. Uh, the world is a horrible place. People are doing horrible things to people on a regular basis. And I'm one of these criers. Like, I will cry because you said thank you for coming on tonight. I will cry because someone does nice stuff for me. Like the other day when someone bought me my coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. Like, how sweet is that? And I'm like, I've done it a bunch myself, but it's like, it's really cool to be on the receiving end too. I cry if I think about, you know, animal cruelty or child abuse or any of those things because it's sad. So if I'm crying, and I can remember to, you know, you guys have heard this before from me, look up and just pick my head up. That's it. I don't even have to change my thought process because the chemicals in our body naturally know what to do based on what our physiology is, what we're doing with our bodies. And coming off of roughly 4 months on crutches, What I do with this part of my body is super important because that part of my body wasn't doing much of anything. So it's really easy to sit there in a chair and get smaller and less and kind of, oh, and if all we do is our shoulders back, notice that everything we do to pull ourselves up does the same thing for our emotions. Everything that we do and that we forgot about, and we just kind of go down lower, we also get lower, right? So what does this have to do with suicide prevention? Ha! It's called managing your states. That is what it is. And a lot of us don't realize that we need to manage our state physically. It's one of those reasons why exercise is one of the most important things you can do. Movement is one of the most important things you can do. Um, oh, so yes, I bought a magazine because it said stroke risk lowered by 68%. My mom is having heart problems and she's on blood thinners. So I bought the magazine because of that one headline. And I was going to give this to my mom who was here yesterday watching the kids. And I'm like, no, you can't take it because I need it for Saturday. So I wanted to share this with you guys because when I started reading what some of this stuff was, I started noticing some things. One of the things I noticed was the pictures. Now look how happy all these girls are, right? Smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles, and flowers. So these are all things that make us feel better. Pretty girls smiling at you, pretty sure everybody likes that, right? So I'm like, oh, that's really cool because there's so much garbage in the world where we're being told, you know, the Ukraine's, you know, people are being bombed, you know, Underground Railroad is trying to save all these children who are off in sex trafficking, uh, you know, gas prices are out crazy, you can't buy food anymore because it's more expensive than gas and you have to make a choice. Like, horrible stuff. But then you get to flip through a magazine and see a bunch of happy people, because most of us are actually happy most of the time. When you're dealing with, um, depression, anxiety, it's harder to remember to switch that. But one of the questions I get most often is that How do I help someone? So if you're worried about me and you see me like this, just say, hey Brooke, and just that, so that I pick up my head to listen to you. I'm assuming we're having a face-to-face conversation, of course. Just that alone can help get that person out of whatever they're doing. One of the most important questions someone asks is like, Oh, all right, ready? Tara, I'm picking on you. I don't even know if you're here because I'm not looking at the chat. So if you're here, great. If not, I'm going to send you the replay. Um, but you know, Tara's broken right now physically, and now I totally forgot what I was going to say because I don't know if she's here or not. So for me, back to me, because that's what I can do without being a jerk. But you know, if I'm sitting here and I'm stuck on crutches, I can't move What can I do? Physiology, right? What can I put in my brain, right? All right, so question: Why didn't the orange win the race? Answer: It ran out of juice. Got it. Um, kids are funny. Ready? 'One day I was visiting my daughter when I noticed a picture of my 3-year-old grandson Danny had drawn hanging on the fridge. Did you make that beautiful picture on the refrigerator?' I asked him. Danny shook his head and said, 'No, Grandma, I made it on the table.' So reading silly stuff can be helpful. I just started reading fiction because I like reading fiction, and I've managed to get through almost an entire book, which is always very cool. We must remember to do stuff that feeds our soul. I'm trying to look for the other thing. All right, I don't know if it's just a girl thing, but flowers are awesome. I don't know a girl, well, unless she's got really bad allergies, there's one or two of my friends that I can't send flowers to, and one of them just came out of cancer surgery last weekend. I really wanted to send her flowers and I remembered she can't have flowers because she's allergic to them. But if you walk into a greenhouse, it's totally awesome. Just the smell of stuff growing. If you go to the grocery store, some of them have the walk-in florist section. Walk in there, take a deep breath. Again, the chemicals in our bodies that make these happiness feelings are totally here with something as simple as flowers. And decorating and taking care of yourself. Obviously not everybody does the same thing that makes them happy, but smells— do you all understand how powerful a smell is? It's sort of like music, right? Most of us don't know the words to any songs until we hear the music that goes with them, because the music is what helps motivate our memory. Same with smells. You know, if you're gonna buy, if you're gonna sell a house, they say bake cookies or bake bread because just that smell makes people happy. So that's what I've got here. All my little pieces and parts today. First, smile. Fake it till you make it. If you can't put one of these on your face, tell me if you're in a bad mood right now. If you just do this, Can you really stay in a bad mood? Probably not. If everything really sucks right now for you, can't feed your dog, can't put gas in your car, any of that, and you ask yourself a simple question of what's good about this, you say nothing, this fucking sucks. Is it okay if I can't figure out what's good about this? What could be good about this? And if you still don't know, like, okay, I don't know yet, and give your brain some time to figure out what's good about this. Um, if you've watched me before, one of the other things I talk about is how the darkness in our life, the tragedy, the hardships, are the things that make us glow brighter as we overcome the things that are driving us crazy, um, or we go further down into a deep hole, and that's where we get to the suicide portion of things. I think one of the most important things that I've heard as of late, and I think Jake might have been the first one to tell me from Walk the Talk America, but suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Got it. So if you're watching, you need help, give a call or a talk, text to these things, or maybe just put your shoulders back, put a smile on your face, open your eyes really wide, put your hands up, do jazz hands. And it may feel ridiculous, but that's okay because ridiculous is way better than depressed and saddening. Anxiety-ridden. So smiling, that's it. Try one thing. Shoulders back, that's one other thing you can try. Making sure your chin is up. I don't care if you breathe in through your nose or mouth. Yoga people do, and I know they have a reason and they can tell you, but I'm not a yoga person. Um, read something, even just looking at pictures. Like I said, these pictures of pretty ladies looking happy and being smiley make me happy. I don't know if they make you happy, but find something. If you don't know what makes you happy, figure it out. Ask yourself, what can make me happy right now? Because that's a way better question than asking, why am I so depressed, or why am I so messed up. So smile, think of good questions. How can I? So you give yourself options of how you can do something. Do not go down the dark, ugly road of why am I such a blah blah blah, or why did this happen to me, or any of that, because that's a victim mentality that does not help you get you out of the hole. So that's it. Happy birthday, Mike. I ignored everyone for you. Your 15 minutes, you can go now. Now I'll be all chittery-chattery with whatever DJ gives me to talk about next. So DJ, dude, you are on.

All right, well, uh, Brooke, what I'd like to do while you take a look at the Facebook side for a comment that I really liked, an observation the gentleman made over there, I'm going to let you know who is out there. This is your roll call. Uh, Makoyo has been out there, uh, PNW Woods is out there as well, so is Gun Websites and Mike White. Uh, then To Live Moo, the Moo Man made an appearance. I think he might still be out there. Uh, G23 has also been in the room. And as I scroll down trying to catch up with the last few— have you got that comment? Tara Smith's Kitchen is in the house, and I'm going to bring a comment to you after that Facebook side.

Gotcha. All right, yeah, I've only seen— I've seen two of them. Oh yeah, so I know, I don't know why I see— all right, so go ahead, DJ.

Well, Tara announced her presence a little bit before this comment, but I thought that this one was a really good one to characterize something that might make the rest of us smile, because Tara is there and F crutches. See, it's a sense of humor, you know, it's a sense of humor. It's the laughter that we're sharing with that, uh, that poor— that reckless situation that occurred.

So yeah, and so like, I don't even know, is Tara even like mobile on crutches? Do you all know? Because I— so she got— so those of you who are new to the group here. Tara got into a wicked bad— sorry, um, a motorcycle accident, and she's— her legs were messed up. So like last I knew, she was sedentary. So if she's on crutches, that's an improvement. Or she was talking about my crutches, I have no idea.

And, uh, 2 Live Moo out there making sure that you did know that he stuck around. Great to see you.

And Moo, just so you know, I— when I saw that you were here earlier I told DJ, I'm like, I must be recorded. Moose stopped in. It's so exciting. So thank you for stopping in. And I do want to mention Mike. I love his birthday thing of I've taken around— I can't do math. Wait, 433,620,000 breaths of air in my life. He did just turn 54 and is loving it. So, um, that— and that was— that— this is Mike's birthday show because he, uh, like I said, he's one of my original viewers, and it's definitely been one of those things where he's like, they go so long now. And I'm like, I know. So I figured I'd be, you know, focused for a whole 15 minutes.

So, all right, well, Brooke, thank you very much for, uh, bringing us into the celebration and for reminding us all to be sharing some smiles on this occasion.

Absolutely. Rebecca, I just got to see yesterday and today because, yeah, we've been— she and I were at the Republican, the GOP convention to pick our state and federal representatives for this upcoming election. It was a lot of long days and nights, although it was actually way quicker than I expected. So anything else? You got for me, TJ? Because I am not scrolling through everything.

Well, I think we've taken care of, uh, everything out there after the roll call, and that brings us current with the text chat on the YouTube side.

Gotcha. All right, so I'll say hello to Miss Christine. She put up some— I mean, like, so if y'all are on Facebook, uh, be friends with Christine because she puts up some funny stuff. Without a doubt. And I can't even think of, uh, I can't think of one right now, but I know I'm always looking at her stuff and I'm liking it and laughing at it because it is just too funny. Um, all right, wait, so yes, let's get the update on Tara. So crutches and cane, can be flat foot— wait, can flat foot a bit without but not far due to balance, shoulders still hurt, two arms week. Uh, yeah, excellent. Wound care specialist. All right, that sounds like fun and excitement for sure. Um, but yeah, uh, send me updates. I will, or I'll bug you via email again. So the convention, it actually went a lot better than I was expecting. I expected— I mean, like, I don't know, for those of you who knew— know that I usually put out the, hey, this is going to happen at 9 o'clock I didn't put that up, the preview for this, until I got home at 7 o'clock tonight because I thought it was going to be a bloodbath. I really did. I thought we were going to be there all day and night, and instead we actually got out early. So we have at least 5 or 10 seats that are uncontested and are set for the November ballot. However, we in Connecticut, we have— oh my gosh, who do we have? We have Secretary of State is going to be a primary, Senator going up against our Blumenthal is going to be a primary. I think there's one more, but I don't remember because it's just such a blur. We're doing so much at the same time. It's been kind of cool because DC Project was there too, so I got to hang out with, um, who's in— what's it— I got to hang out with Mary, uh, for DC Project and talk to a bunch of people. People are so excited about DC Project. We got a whole bunch of new, um, signups, so it was kind of like double dipping. Like, next weekend I'm going to be at the Women's Convention and I'll be doing DC Project and a Great Start Shooting School, so I'm hoping that's gonna go Oh God, yo. Yeah, no, don't send pictures if they're gross. I am not— I am faint of heart. We don't want that. All right, so Rebecca says that's it that she remembers too, and she was there with me. So yeah, so this is how you get involved. I know, G-Web, this gets you excited, right? Is that we're doing something by Second Amendment supporters being there talking about these things. As far as Suicide Prevention Saturday, we are definitely— that's how I lead most of my 2A conversations is if 2 out of every 3 gun deaths are suicide and you say you want to help save lives, why aren't we talking more about mental health and suicide prevention? Just like when I testified last, whenever that was, last month, last year it feels like, it's like let's not focus on gun violence, let's focus on violence so we help them long before they get a gun in their hands. So, um, that's, that's kind of everything. That's how that went. Um, and oh, oh, I'm like, I read this real fast, I didn't quite get it. You plugged my show today and every Saturday. Well, thank you, sir. I saw you, I saw you up, but I was still in convention in the hall, I think. When your show was going on today, so I did not get to see it. Control your breathing. Yes, or at least verify that you are breathing, because I know in my line of work I have to tell my students all the time, and breathe, because people are really freaked out the first time they have a gun in their hand and they don't know what they're doing and they're sort of pensive and scared, even when they're in the classroom here and we know there's no ammo. So controlling your breathing, yes. Verifying your breathing is also important. And like I talked about the yoga stuff as well, is that, you know, there is really a whole bunch of different types of breathing you can do. If you put your hands on your chest, right, you can do breathing that's just moving your ribs a little bit. If you put your hands on your belly, sorry, I'm gonna go back here. And you blow up your belly when you take a breath in, it's a different type of breath. So not only control your breathing, but pay attention to where the breathing's going. Because oddly enough, when I was a skier, one of the things we would practice is how to breathe if you had a broken rib. And oddly enough, that was because if you got caught in an avalanche and you were crushed, you needed to know how to breathe really shallow, which, you know, it was also for hiking because we did lots of hiking and that sort of stuff out in the Tetons. And that sort of thing. So, all right, I don't have any more. Oh wait, no, wait, hold on. I have a private chat. I should look at what he said. Oh no, he said that's it. Okay, just checking.

Um, let's see, there is one last comment on the other side, the YouTube side, if you could bring that up. I posted a link in the— I posted— yeah, that's it there. Uh, there's a link, um, in the text chat that you can push over maybe to the Facebook side. It's a fundraiser that's being held for Tara.

Okay, I want to make people aware of that. Yeah, and I'll probably have to cut and paste that after I get off. Oh wait, maybe I can do it now. Yeah, I will put that on Facebook side.

Most excellent, thanks.

Oh yeah. Oh, when is that? I know it's— barbecue's putting this on, right?

And the video will explain it to everyone.

Okay, in other words, shut up. All right. Oh wait, a birthday boy stuck around for us. Um, yeah, so Mike's story— I don't even know, dude, you gotta tell me. How many years has it been now? Uh, for those who are brand new, Mike had a best friend, and every year they'd go up to Maine and that was like their happy place. They did it on a regular basis. And a couple years ago, I don't remember exactly, but they were on their annual camping trip and Mike woke up next to his friend who had died in the middle of the night. So Mike has been dealing with that for quite a few years now, and it's intense. It's another form of PTSD. It's like, not many of us have to wake up next to our dead best friends. And so for him to have another birthday knowing that he's getting a little better every year, and there's lots of things that Mike and I have talked about, but so I know that I can share this story with you guys. And it's good to know because like when it first happened, just like when my sister was killed in a car accident, I found that I was a caregiver for the rest of the family. I took care of the funeral. I took care of notifying people, lots of different things. Mike is that same guy, is that he came home from that camping trip and he helped take care of the widow and he helped take care of the family and he helped take care of his family and then had time to finally take care of himself. So, um, Americans aren't the best at dealing with death and we need to work on that too. That is part of mental health. How do we deal with the trauma and the hard stuff? But so on that lovely sweet night, happy birthday Mike and good job getting through another year. And I know that— and also just let people know, it's like there is no instant road to recovery. It is a road. Um, it gets a little better every day, and it dips sometimes. My sister has been dead for 14 years now, and I will have days or weeks where all of a sudden I will think of her and I will miss her so bad, and I'll start crying again. And I was like, what the heck, am I not over this? And she's like, well, someone who's had a piece of your heart, I don't know that you get over that. I know that sometimes you can focus on what is wonderful and awesome about why having them in your life sucks so bad that they're not, if that makes sense. But, you know, this is where the faith thing comes in so hugely. It is just the whole idea that if you believe there is something more, as simple as Einstein, Because Einstein said energy, everything is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form. And many, many, many of the religions out there are basically telling you the same thing. It's like, if you die here, you go to heaven. If you die here, you go on to another afterlife. If you die here, you go somewhere else. Um, And so it's just like the faith thing is super important. I'm not going to tell you if you should be a pagan or a Christian, or I don't even know what's out there. I don't. I know there's 5 million different types of Christian. Oh, Judaism. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of those too. So yeah, finding something that you can believe in that's bigger than yourself is additional to smiling, right? So, all right, I, uh, I think everyone's all quiet now, so I'll let y'all go. Uh, Barbecue should be starting up. Wait, I didn't see Barbecue. Does that mean he's gonna be late again tonight, or is he here? Um, I'm like scrolling up to see if he's here, but in theory, Barbecue's gonna start his show in about 5 minutes. And I— oh yeah, Happy Mother's Day, huh? That too. Um, happy Mother's Day to all the moms. I will be teaching a pistol permit class here, and currently my office is a big old mess, so I gotta get that ready to go. And Mother's Day, smile, just fake it till you make it, it actually really works. All right, so there is no barbecue tonight, my bad. Oh yeah, I'm not gonna lie, Buddhism, when I read it real quick first, G23, I'm like, Buddhism? But you know, why not? If you've got a buddy. Um, and yeah, and it's just like, I don't know how everyone deals, right? We all have different things. But like at our 10-year wedding anniversary, I reviewed, I looked, I took out our wedding pictures and I looked through there and I could not believe how many people we had lost in just 10 years. And it's crazy how fast people go. And obviously the older you get, everyone around you is older and that sort of plays into it. But it's, it's when I go to someone's funeral, I try to think about what was the happy story? What is the thing that makes me smile about that person? And that's kind of that. All right, so a— afsp.org. I forget which one that is. So anyway, gun websites. No barbecue tonight. All right, I guess he's probably off at another competition with his kids and his ex. I mean, that's going to be my guess. And eating meat was a fad. What for? Who? I don't know. Um, this is the thing with the delay thing. I'm like, I don't know when these show up versus what I was just saying. And yes, thank you. Happy Mother's Day. We have, um, I have cupcakes that my daughter cooked for us and a chocolate cake, and I'm going to be doing some lemon cake— lemon— I've got lemon cupcakes too. All right, so no barbecue tonight. What else do I want to say? Uh, not next week, but the following week, Mario Mosin is going to be on. And remember guys, it's an 8 PM start time, not 9. Uh, the announcement's already been put out. I just want to remind you all because it is going to be an hour earlier because I'm shooting the next day and I don't really want to go to bed earlier for the Aiming for Zero match. And, uh, hey Clover Attack, I did not see you sneaking in there. Um, Taco Bar is good. Uh, yeah, my husband and I sort of had date night last night where we're at the Foxwoods Casino casino here in Harwi— or in Connecticut. And, uh, tonight we had steak dinner before we left to come home just so I could see all you folks before I go to bed tonight. Yes, I'm super excited about our interview with Mario Mosin. It sounds like it's going to be a great time, and I just think it's so perfect that I get to talk to Mario the night before I'm gonna go shoot my Aiming for Zero match, which, by the way, y'all should really talk me into doing that dry fire thing again because I need to do that. I've only got 2 weeks left. All right, with that, it's 9:32. I am out of here. I do want to go to bed before I have to teach tomorrow. So love to y'all, and I'm out of here. Goodbye.