Dr. Greg Steward/From PhD to Pain: My Dad's Death Changed Everything

Absolutely know exactly what you're talking about with that, man. So, uh, so Doc, I understand you working on your PhD. Can you, you know, share with us what you're majoring in and how, how that ties into your professional, professional and personal growth?

Right. So I, I've got my PhD in, um, in, uh, counseling back in 2008. Um, and then we moved to where we are now, just out, you know, about a half an hour outside of Dallas in Rockwall. And I started working on my PhD in systematic theology because I've always had the dream of getting a PhD in both. Well, it It was a major life shift when my father, who was struggling with dementia, he and my mom had an argument and his— the dementia kept it— kept his mind from being able to settle the argument and he took his own life. So from that experience, I was doing so much, but one of my regrets was I did not pursue my dad, like talking to him. So I actually stopped my PhD. In theology. I quit doing that and I stopped becoming a, uh, start doing, stop doing adjunct professoring as well. So I had to make a major life shift and that's, you know, which then came into this year, which led to the book. So I love that. I always, you know, all the theology, but there's also this, which, you know, will lead to the book of negative emotions of what do we do with these experiences? And instead of, you know, avoiding negative emotions, leading into it. So I mean, that— I know that took a hard left turn when you say, hey, tell me about your new— your PhD. But it was really quite the experience of, of a life change, you know, if you will.

Hey, go to any direction you want to go, Doc, man. You got the floor.