S6 E20 | Jack Daniel's Chicken Tenders

J Money. Last episode, we teased it and said mental health is super important, and that's a realization we both had. So tell me, as a strong male, when did you realize that mental health was important? And then how do you find it like pop up in your life as a reminder, hey, maybe I need to do some stuff to manage this potential mess up here?

Yeah. Yeah, you know what's fun? The first time I ever had an experience of being aware that mental health was a thing and that people even needed it was November 6th, 2012, in Orlando, Florida.

Oh, this sounds like a good story.

I was in something called UPW. Oh, UPW stands for Unleash the Power Within. This is also where I met my future life. And Tony Robbins goes through something called the Dickens Process.

Oh.

And for those of you who may or may not know, the Dickens Process, it's essentially the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, where you have the 3 ghosts, and you have the ghosts of the past, the present, and the future, and all 3 are bad. And that's the only way you're ever going to make a change. So what most people do at some point in their life is they go, Yeah, it really sucks right now, but it'll get better. Or it really sucks right now, and I don't know if it's gonna get better, but it was really awesome 2 years ago.

Right. The good old days.

The good old days. So they kind of like stay attached to that. And so even though the now is bad, so like their body is overweight or they're, you know, in chronic inflammation, and the future they're like, you know, I don't even know if I'm gonna be alive in 4 years because this all sucks presently. But man, when I was in high school, it was really cool. So Tony mentions the Dickens process is you understand that The past sucks, the future sucks, the present sucks. When all 3 are awful, you'll make a change.

Jeez.

And that's how you get ultimate leverage over change. Now, the way I found out that mental health was really a prevailing issue for a lot of people, specifically men, was I was sitting in a group of individuals, and during this Dicken process, he's like, get really angry, like your current life is awful, make the sounds. that you would make if your current life was awful. And these people around me were in like hell. Oh, I mean awful. Screaming, yelling, cursing, like blood-curdling screams.

Yeah.

And I was over there like, my life's kind of awesome right now. Like, I don't— I have a really hard time relating to you. But I didn't know that people— I thought everyone was like me. I'm kind of like a Labrador. I'm generally happy all the time, and I have a really tough time to understand mental anguish. But here's why. I never opened that box.

Oh.

That box that your boy Locke was talking about. I too thought that was a skill. And that's why I love that story, is because I had girlfriends all the time. They're like, hey, how do you manage all the, you know, interesting things, the stresses of life? I'm like, I don't manage it. I just shove it deep down in a box and close that box and never mention it. I'm really good at it, right? So a lot of guys think that's this awesome badge of honor. My box is awesome. So I just never unlocked it. And so even in that moment of the Dickens process, I didn't unlock it at that moment. I was like, man, this is— people are weird. I'm awesome. This is great. So I had what's called toxic positivity. I was always happy, always positive. There was never any problems.

Man.

So the mental health piece I, that's when I became aware that other people strived and challenged with it, but not me. And so then it was a little bit of a badge of honor. So then about 4 and a half years later, 5 years later, because at that point in my life, things were going pretty okay. Um, and then I just keep getting kicked in the absolute face for 5 or 6 years. And then I started going like, okay, I think it's a me thing.

Alrighty then.

I think this is me.

There's something I need.

The common denominator in all of these problems with all these losses and all of this death and all of this tragedy.

It's me.

And I go to a meditation retreat. And this meditation retreat was hosted in the middle of nowhere, Maryland. And it's 16 hours a day.

Oh my.

For 4 days. Now here's the cool part. Guess how many times— how much I've meditated up until this point?

Zero.

Zero. Not only did I meditate, I didn't know what it was.

Why did you sign up for it?

I only thought gay people meditated. I didn't know what it was like. I had no clue. I'm like, what is meditating? What do you do? Just sit there and just breathe? Right? I just had no idea. So the meditation piece was like, I was so unaware. I thought it was some type of like goal-setting exercise.

Thank you for your honesty.

Yeah, I'm just trying to be honest, right? So I was like, it's a goal-setting exercise, right? That's all meditation is. And when I sat down and the lady started leading me through the very, very first meditation, sort of walking me through and like these different exercises, these different visualizations, I just started crying uncontrollably.

Ooh.

And it was weird because I started going into places I'd never journeyed before in my brain, opening these boxes. I mean, she literally— and you might have heard in some of my meditations, right? You actually open a box. That box, that's the one I'm talking about, right? When I say like you're opening a box and you receive a gift, like you're actually practicing opening this box that you shove everything down inside of to release. And so that's why almost every time I do a meditation, right, people are always gonna cry 'cause you're opening these boxes of emotion. And I just was weeping uncontrollably. And then I had a bunch of older— because mostly it was older people, but I had a lot of older women like come and hug me, and I felt super uncomfortable about that.

Yeah.

And so this whole thing was so strange and weird. But I started for the very first time in my life really digging down into me and understanding that the enemy is in me, right? This whole time I was saying it's everyone else, and I stopped pointing the finger at me. And when I started pointing the finger at me saying, all right, what are my You mentioned the word demons right earlier. What are my demons? And really accepting them and looking at them in the face and seeing what they were and my attachments and my fears and my addictions. Oh, I became so much better and my mental health became so much more clear. And truthfully, after that, guess what happened?

Your life started to change.

My life started changing so dramatically.

It's a Christmas miracle.

It really was. Thanks, Ebenezer Scrooge. Like, it became so much better and Really, since that moment in my life, I have obviously had trials and tribulations. But they all happened for me.

Yes.

Right? They stopped being to me. I started seeing these things as a gift. And I started realizing that this is a very stressful moment currently, but it's going to be a growth moment in the future. I'm gonna learn from this. And I just don't stay upset about it. I don't stay broken about it. I am aware of the pain. I'm aware of the turmoil. I'm aware of the haters. We get their letters, right? We read them, and then we burn them. Because haters be my motivators.

They're not my motivators. I don't care about you that much that you will not motivate me.

That's okay.

You're not.

I kind of get motivated.

No, I don't care.

But I will say this. I had a situation where that, that was the big one for me. That was like that big process. And meditation now is something that I strive to do every day. That's great. Even if it's for 10 or 20 minutes.

Yeah, guys, I think one of the big top takeaways that I want to make sure you're hearing is it's the way in which he perceives his life. The way in which he perceives his life changed his life. It's literally going from everything's happening to me to everything's happening for me. Same kind of incidents, probably.

Yeah.

But it's that faith inside you that's going to open that door to good things versus spiraling into bad things. And I think that's really powerful because our whole life is going to be equal to the perspective in which we filter it through.

You want to know where my wife is at?

Where?

So this is wild. This is, this is me revealing and being aware that there's different levels to the game.

Oh, so I don't know if they're ready for that.

There's most people in life, everything's happening to them. And then you then elevate into for me. Right now it's through me for her. Oh, and that's a whole different ballgame. That's really cool.

We're gonna have to touch on that.

Yeah, at some point we shall. But just the coolest, like, oh man, babe, you're so awesome.

She's not just hot, people. Yeah, she's amazing.

She is amazing.

Oh man. All right. Well, when you have some struggles, yeah, which all of us face, give me, give me a couple tips for the followers, for Lithuanians specifically. What do you do to get yourself back to what I call center versus spiral?

Center versus spiral. Um, you know, it'd be fun, like, so 10 years ago, I would just go buy a giant bottle of Jack Daniel's and a Coke and some sweet tea and some chicken tenders from Publix.

It is effective.

It's effective. It works.

It does work, but it may not be the best tool.

Exactly right. So that's the thing is what's beautiful for people is you have to realize you can, again, you can stay stressed out and angry and frustrated. And now I simply changed and took all of that direction of like, oh, I'm stressed, alcohol, super easy fix.

Yeah. It works.

Bearing it into the box.

Yeah.

To now, I go for a nice long hike.

Nice.

Walk. Nature time.

Nature time. That was my first one on my list, literally. That's so funny.

It really is. It's spending time in nature, understanding, and just being with the energy of God, being outside, trying to listen, trying to download. 90 90% of the time I don't have any electronics on me.

That's nice because you're a male. Yep, not worried about getting raped on the trail.

Yeah, it's easy. It's easy for me. I can just walk around and exist and no one's gonna attack me. Dang it.

Um, wish I could do that.

Yeah, so definitely carry your phone or something.

No, I do that. It's like a life dream and you're like, uh, yeah, whole different game. Anyway, we're not going there.

So we both do nature.

So nature. So my first thing, if I get Really triggered.

Yep.

I, I don't, I try not to use words like burnout and stuff like that. Like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to change my words to change my life instead of saying I'm so stressed and like verbalizing, um, these things. I try to just realize if I'm feeling this emotion, how can I start to turn it into something good? And so immediately get out in nature, but specifically on the island, that is a sacred place for healing. And that is where like the first images in my mind was going out on those trails and there I can hike without a phone. Which is so nice.

Yeah.

I can go down, I can swim without, I can do so many things 'cause I'm safe. And so being there and looking at the cliffs, like there's specific places on the trail that God just talks to me and I feel so much peace and I can watch the waves crash on the rocks in the ocean up against the cliffs. And there's certain times of day that the water shines through like glass. And so that's my number one, if I have access to being on the island and just going outside, That's the fastest way for me to just breathe in that beautiful salty air and, uh, and just be. Yeah, you can get by water. That's a big pro tip. What else you got?

So I mentioned earlier meditation. Um, I'll blend it with like meditation and or yoga. So the type of yoga that me and my wife do is called Kundalini yoga. K-U-N-D-A-L-I-N-I, I think. I can't spell it either. And, uh, Kundalini yoga, it's generally more breathwork and you hold one pose for longer periods of time.

So like you're not really like flow yoga, which is very common, right?

Like hot yoga, you're always doing different poses.

Mm-hmm.

You just, all right, we're in this pose for 8 minutes, enjoy. And you just gotta breathe, you gotta breathe, you gotta breathe. So I'll do some version of that generally, because obviously everyone works out a lot of times if they're stressed. It's like, yes, but what you also don't wanna do, I think, is you wanna continue to have your body and your mind and your muscles guessing, right? You don't wanna have this, this is always what I do no matter what. You want to have the ability to go, all right, cool, I can go outside and be with nature. Awesome. I can go swimming. I can be— I mean, the island, you called it a sacred place of healing. Yes. If you haven't been yet, why? What's going on?

Find a way.

Trying to figure this out.

Like, how come you haven't been?

Make sure you go. But yes, it is. It's a very sacred place of healing. It's incredibly safe. It's incredibly eye-opening and amazing. But for me, I was telling a gentleman yesterday I was working out with, like, anytime I go to the gym, I also— my body has no idea what's about to happen. So I don't have a very, very strict, like, this is what I do. I do this type of workout. Like, I'm always keeping it guessing because I think that that's fun. That's exciting. So I will pick something kind of at random to do, but it's going to be a workout. It will be a meditation or it'll be some type of yoga. Interesting.

Yeah.

What about you?

I do have working out on my list as a healthy outlet for just, again, moving things through your body. Something I'm learning a lot. There's a good book out there called The Body Keeps the Score. I've been reading new books, but The Body Keeps the Score, and, um, there's a lot of science around different diseases that are caused by traumatic events that are kept in the body. And so how do we get things out of our body? And specifically, the more I'm learning about people who have been sexually abused, they don't want to be in their body. And I don't blame them. That's where the pain was caused.

Right.

That's where the pain was caused, was in my body. And so a lot of times they're very susceptible to addiction, you know, all the things, all the things that make you not want to be here. And so if you can find healthy ways to get into your body, to still like this place, to still be friends. with this vehicle. That's good. So I do, um, I lift. It's so funny, you talk about meditation and we're here to be real with you guys.

Yeah.

We are very here. I've heard incredible things about meditations. I've heard amazing, like amazing things. And I'll go to sleep to different really powerful things to try to train my subconscious to be better than it is for whatever negative thoughts I'm having. How do I override these? So I'll go to sleep to, um, Stuff like that. But I can't say I've ever just like meditated. And I can't say I've actually been able to listen to a meditation without wandering off into ADD land and actually done it properly. So I'm going to put that on my bucket list.

Yeah.

And things to, to do before our next season.

Yeah.

And I'm going to make myself enjoy a real full meditation and like actually Not go off the trail.

Well, hold on, let me come back to you on that though for a quick second.

Yeah.

Yes and yes and yes, but also there's no right way and there's no wrong way.

I feel like there's got to be a more right way than I've been doing it, which is not paying attention.

There's a, there's a way that— there's a way to probably meditate even better.

A little more presently. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's like a competitive thing, but anyway, we're being real with you guys.

Sure. No, thank you.

Meditation is his way, yoga is his way. I've not been into either one of those.

I think what would help you a lot is actually doing a meditation to someone, because then you'd have to be really present. So like, I would sign up for a guided meditation in person by Brittany Turner. Like, yes, that's a—

That sounds good. That sounds like—

I'd do that for Heal.

Hey.

But it's like, if we go, hey, listen, you're gonna lead the meditation. You're gonna be a lot more in that, so you're not gonna wander off into the trail as much. So we probably start there for you.

I think it's funny, like, as you said that, like, when you're wanting to learn something and do something, find out what's the automatic negative thought that's blocking me from doing that. And it was like, that's not who I am. Well, why not change it, Brittany? You are a very deep, compassionate person that loves helping people heal. Why would you not add this to it? My husband says, just add it to your rucksack as another tool that you can help people with. Why are you just saying, I'm not that person? So I'm going to work on that.

Cool.

That's a commitment.

I mean, hey, you've already done psilocybin. So at this point, you might as well just do all of it. Might as well meditate now too. All right.

So, uh, my next one would be journaling. That's one of the best ways that I can move these thoughts through me.

You are a journaling machine.

Definitely. You know, I was, I was, and then I had a boyfriend read my dang journal and he caught me doing a pro-cons analysis on a different guy.

Bro! Caught you!

Ah, you totally caught me! So I used to be a really avid journaler. Before that, I would— yeah.

Bro caught you on a pros and cons list.

Totally busted me. So I've been less open in my journals ever since. So now I have to have like a key on it and still write in code or something just in case, because yeah, I got in trouble for that.

Fair.

Um, but anyway, we didn't end up married.

So, no, it's cool.

But that was my story. But journaling, and now it's mostly me and God time. It's asking, it's listening, it's trying to do, I don't know, some people would probably call it automatic writing. I don't know if that's too woo woo, but whatever I hear and I just write what I hear. And that's a really cool way for God to remind me who I am, remind me of my calling, give me downloads. And that's like the way I hear from God. And so what's a better way to get to center than to find center to the center of the thing that created you?

You know, I'm gonna pick apart something for just a moment. I love that you shared that you got caught, because here's what's very fascinating. Me and you both know this, but I'm looking at your journal, it's full, right? You take a bunch of notes, you love writing, you're very good at it. But me and you have— we've asked this question so many times: why don't more people write down their goals?

Yeah.

Right? Why don't people literally spend 3 minutes—

I just can't even fathom.

With pen and paper.

I have to.

But that's why they have a similar judgment or fear somewhere in their mind that someone's going to read this. Oh, wow. And judge me for what is written down. Now, you've gotten past it a lot, but not even entirely. But for them, they haven't even gotten caught yet. They probably— most of them probably haven't even done anything negative.

Someone's gonna read this.

And they think someone's gonna read this— mom, dad, cousin, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, mom, husband, wife— and they're gonna think I'm an idiot and they're gonna make fun of me. And that's why I think that people don't actually write their goals down. That really interests me.

I've not thought of that. But yeah, there's like crazy statistics, like you're 90% more likely to accomplish your goals. Well, I know you have a few more amazing pro tips.

I do.

I do too. But we're gonna have to cover those in the next episode.

We'll see you there.

If you have watched Or listened to this podcast and had your heart set on fire, and you're so excited to go to the next level, but you are looking for a coach, both Jerremy Alexander Newsome and myself have been struck by God and felt convicted to coach people. Now, we're not the right coach for everyone, but we might be the right coach for you. Go to broke2awoke.com, reach out to us, and we'll have the conversation.