A group discusses why hiding depression, addiction, and suicidal thoughts makes things worse, and how openness creates healing. They talk about rediscovering who you are, faith as cleansing rather than reward, and recognizing the turning point in recovery.
Chapters
You ready?
Mm-hmm. Okay.
For me, it's finding a space where I could be vulnerable is definitely crucial because it's better than bottling it up. Bottling it up. Excuse me, guys. Bottling it up. And it's easy to, I want to say, be vulnerable in an invulnerable place when you're not alone. And I really appreciate Having you on and having our listeners listen and everybody just like pouring out like the feedback and the, the solid work that's like, oh yeah, this is a great podcast. You guys are doing great. Like you guys are being personable and you guys are being knowledgeable. But I'm letting you guys know right from the jump, again, I'm not a therapist. I'm not licensed to diagnose you. I'm not here to critique you or to basically scold you. This is an open space where— Conversation needs to be had, and conversation is raw, it's authentic, and it's refreshing. And yes, there are going to be topics where we talk about like the heavy stuff, like depression, addiction, suicide, all the mental health challenges that we go through. But also, it's not to scare you, it's to bring awareness that you're not alone. And if you're able to, or if you want to share something that important with not only myself, but with the world, then that's huge. And you're taking the first step in kind of getting not better, but in, in a sense, having yourself be more open to sharing your story. And I think that's very important.
Yeah.
I just, I just really wanted to put that out there so that for anyone who's listening right now, if you are dealing with feeling like you're not authentic and not being yourself, I'm not going to just say flip the switch, go from 0 to 100 and just be yourself and do everything. Like, no, like It's going to take time. You're going to have to pace yourself and kind of wean yourself back onto being who you truly are. And to something I'd mentioned earlier where I was talking about finding ways to validate yourself, go back and look at some things that you've done that you know you really resonated with, things that you loved to do when you were a kid or when you were younger or maybe a few months ago, whatever it is, right? Find those things that you love to do and lean into those things a bit more, not just because it's stuff that you like to do, but because it's going to help you reawaken a part of your brain that knows who you are fundamentally.
A lot of people, myself included, think that we have to clean ourselves off before we can come back to God, that we need to get clean ourselves, that we need to get better before we come to for the first time or come back to. Um, but you don't clean yourself off and then get in the shower. You get in the shower to get clean. You don't get better and then come to Jesus. You come to Jesus to get better. You don't clean yourself to come to Jesus. You come to Jesus to get clean.
Um, it can get better if you want it to. If you want it to.
Keep trying. Keep trying. If it didn't work the first time, get up and try again. Tried a dozen times, two dozen times. I tried every day, and even even when I failed, I still kept trying. I still had the thoughts, you know. Even even when I was in the pits of it, there was still like you could do something to change it. You know, you could give into it. Give it your all because if not, what are you gonna be? Gonna be a mess. You might you might be be a mess like me. You know, just keep trying because it can get better. It will get better, but you have to give it your all. You can't half-ass it. You gotta like open up yourself. You gotta be vulnerable. You gotta listen to yourself, listen to your loved ones. So don't give up.
So it starts with you. It starts with how you treat others, how you affect others, how you communicate with the world and message you put out, you know. And, and over time you create that stage yourself, and it's just, um, it's a unique privilege that we get as human beings to be able to care for each other.
I stopped asking the question of like, what do I want my business to look like? And I started asking the question, what do I want my life to look like? And once I finally started saying, what do I want my life to look like? I had to look at all the hard things. I had to make a lot of hard decisions. I had to make a lot of really hard changes. I had to take a lot of steps backward in order to make those big leaps forward. So it's like, doesn't matter where you are. You're starting off, you got a huge business, you're living on the couch, you're somewhere in between, you're just at this existential moment in time of which you know you need to make a change. Well, you have to ask yourself, what do you want your life to look like?
Don't think you've already got it figured out, number one. Number 2, your journey is nobody else's, so don't compare yourself to how other people are doing the thing. Uh, and, and, and number 3, Recognize those who are around you who love you and want the best for you, because they're going to point you in the right direction.
Saying to fix it, you know what I mean? But you have to hit that point in your life, whether it takes you three months into your drug addiction or three years, you know what I mean? You have to hit that point before you're willing to participate in your own recovery.
People aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are. I think there's. There's a large part of that fear and that resistance and that hesitation that comes from, how am I going to be perceived if I do this thing? And people aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are. There's always some type of negative something. That's the world. But do you want to get to the end of your life and then regret not doing that thing? Or do you want to get to the end of your life and you're like, man, I'm so happy I did that?
