PTSD Recovery With Wilderness Survivor Terrance Joseph Kosikar

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset, and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. Today, my guest is Terence Joseph Kosakar. He's the founder of Camp My Way. But we're doing this to if this is different. This is probably one of the most unique shows I'm doing. You know, sometimes we get a little tired of the boring sports podcast, but I don't think my podcasts are boring. I have to be a little bit cocky here, but, Terrence, how's it going? How are you today?

I'm doing very well. Sitting on the top shelf, Mike.

Yeah. And I have to hear if people are saying, boy, is that my radio that's clicking? Is that the podcast? No. Terrence is actually outside, and we're going to get into where he lives. And you'll be fascinated to learn a little bit more about. About Terence. We're going to talk a lot about mental health. We're going to talk about life in general. Terence is going to keep it real. He's a Canadian that lives out way. I mean, he doesn't, you know. So where does he live? Out in Vancouver. No. Terrence, tell people where you live.

I'm up here in the beautiful backcountry mountains of British Columbia, Canada.

How far?

Well, we're back, so we're two hours away from humans or civilization. Yeah.

And I've, you know, I've read a lot about you. We have a mutual friend, Joe Stoinger, who's. Who's a great guy. I love. I love this guy. This guy is like. It's like I owe that guy something because he's done, you know? You know, sometimes you feel like you owe somebody something. It's all he does is he's a giver. He gives, gives, gives to me and everything, in every way helps me. Connected me in New York, brought me to this Bloomberg thing. Always giving. And then he introduced me to you, and I heard your story, and I go, this is a great story. It's an inspirational story. It's a motivational story that's a lot about what we do. We do like. We call it, like, stories, mindset, and champions. And you got a great story. So this just the start. So I know that now we're going to start with A little bit of the struggle on. So I know you were a first responder and you had a fatal accident happen right in front of you. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Are you comfortable talking about that?

Very comfortable with that, Mike. You know, in fact, all these years later, I've come to realize that that incident that happened during the 2010 Winter Olympics was the greatest gift I've ever been given. You know, what I, what I've learned about myself and you know, you know, since that accident, what we're doing today, it's important to learn that, you know, when we have been, you know, traumatic experiences or things that have happened to us, our darkest days are our greatest gifts. So. So back to the story there. Yeah. Back during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, I was a firefighter and worked as an emergency medical responder and also volunteered some time as a ski patroller up on Blackcomb Mountain. And during the 2010 Olympics, I worked up at the luge track. What were you doing during the Games there, Mike?

What was I doing during the Games? I was just a fan of the Games. In fact, just prior to you, we had one of the Olympic participants that were, that was in the game. Her name is Lisa Chesson and she was with the women's Olympic team. And I talked to her about, about the same year you were working is, was her first Olympics. So she was just my last guest, coincidentally.

What sport was she competing in?

Hockey.

Canadian?

No, she's, I've had a lot of Canadians on the show, but she's, she's American.

Okay.

And she's got a great story and people heard it. Yeah, she's got a great story and I want, yeah, I want to. So 2010. So you're, you're up there, you're. Something happens in front of you.

And so two.

And it led.

Yeah, go ahead.

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah. 2002, 2010. I'm working up the lose track as a first responder. And opening day of the 2010 Games, an athlete by the name of Nor Kumarat Tashvili from Georgia came down for his opening training run. Came down at 153km an hour. Came in hot into exit into the entrance of corner 16 and watched him kind of skid out. You know, I'd watched about, you know, 80,000 sleds come down the track over the years and something wasn't right. I looked over to the exit of corner 16 to see if there was going to be a crash. Unfortunately, I witnessed the athlete collide with the Short wall, and then came out of the track and connected with a solid steel post. I immediately, you know, ran over. By the time he had landed in the gator pit, myself and another first responder were on scene there, and we did what we do. It was, you know, as sad as this may sound, it was another day at the office. This is what we do. Pocket mask on, airway in, started giving breaths, scooped up notar, put him in the ambulance, and continued doing CPR all the way to the polyclinic, where, unfortunately, Nodar, he didn't make it. Right. That was a tough. It was a tough day, not just for myself and our team, but for the whole world.

I remember. I remember.

Yeah, that was. That was. That was a tough day. And, you know, I tell you, Mike, the toughest part of it all for myself was the amount of guilt that comes over you, the emotional impact. You can't train for that. There's no training in the world that can ever prepare you for this sort of. For this sort of scene. So, you know, each day of the Olympics kept going on, and, you know, we, as either firefighters, police officers, you know, whatever it may be, we have to show up to work the next day and put on that mask and smile and continue to help serve the public in whichever profession that we're in and pretend that, you know, these things don't bother us. That's the. That's. That's the tough part. Right? It's that, you know, there. There's moments where you want to scream, you want to punch the hell out of something or somebody, in your case, Tai Domi. Right.

Right.

You know, you're sitting there trying to hold back tears at the same time that you're. You're extremely angry, and you can't make sense of these emotions and why you feel this way. And that's the tough part, is you got to show up to work every day and put on that mask, put on your uniform and continue to do your job. Or, as you know, we're human beings.

Yeah, I can't even imagine. I couldn't even imagine that. And then you're right. You have to. We talk about, oh, you have to have. You have to be mentally tough or you have to have the mindset that going there isn't anything that prepares for. For, you know, when you're looking at some sort of a tragic event right in front of your eyes, it's easy for people on the outside to say, well, you know, I would have handled it this way. But until you're actually Living it. I mean, yeah, it's, it's got to be tough. That fire sounds good by the way, out in the middle of where you are, in the middle of Vancouver and out in where Mother Nature is, but yeah, I can feel it. It's cold here in Charlotte. I'm getting warm just listening to the crackling of the fire. So, so then, then it led you down a down road spiral. You went through a little bit of a downward spiral in your life. And, and I don't know if I'm going to say the right words, I'm not an expert in mental health. I don't claim to be, but you ended up having PTSD from, from this. Right? This, this is what helped.

Yeah, you know, Mike, that, that's, that's the whole, you know, you're right. Let's, let's just back up through the story a little bit here. After the, after the, you know, you show up for work the next day and then there's another crash and you respond and then there's another crash and you respond and another crash. All the meanwhile, the public screaming and waving their flags and they got their faces painted and dinging their cowbells and they're all happy. Meanwhile, the thought of being unable to save a man's life, the look in his eyes and the screams from his coaches and fellow athletes that were on scene that day, the sounds of the sirens, every single day felt like I was just digging my grave deeper and deeper and deeper. And after, I'll wrap this up here, make a long story short, on the 17th day, Team Canada had just won the gold medal. And everybody was, you know, screaming, yelling, everything was great. An hour later, Mike, I went to try to die by suicide.

Oh, boy.

Boy, I, I, and I, I'm not a suicidal guy, you know, like I, I, my family. What the is wrong with you? What, you know, we need to go see the doctor. So we go to see that my family doctor three days after my first attempted suicide. And I said to the doctor, is what's happened? You know, what's going on with me? And he had said, I think you have ptsd. And I'll never forget this. I looked him right in the eyes and I said, what the beep is ptsd? Like you're telling me I have some disease or some mental health problem, like what is ptsd? Says you're going to need to see a psychiatrist, get a diagnosis. And she doesn't come up here to whistler. She doesn't come up here for the next three months. But in the meantime, this is where the horns grew, Mike. And the tail came out and the flames come up behind him. And take some of these, take some of these and take some of these pills. Pills, Pills. Yeah.

And that led down a severe depression for you. Anxiety, nightmares, and substance abuse. And then finally, I think the family had enough. I'm not going to tell your story. That's just what I've learned from, from you. But how did you. I don't know how you could deal with that. How did you, how did you cope with that?

Well, more and more pill, more and more Percocets. Percocets led to the Oxycontin, and then that on top of the Tirnazepam, which is a very heavy sleep medication, on top of giving some antipsychotics, one thing led to the next, Mike. And over the course of those file. Wrap it up, because we could take this quite, quite the long way.

This could be a three hour podcast by the time you tell everybody what's easy.

Well, and I tell you, brother, you know, we all have a story. The key is what do we do with it? And we're definitely going to get to that. But over the course of those five years, I ended up getting addicted to the painkillers and the, the OxyContin, which, I mean, I used to be, you know, in a previous life working with organized crime, I was addicted to heroin and crystal meth. And that, That's a whole other story. But I've never been a pharmaceutical guy, so I didn't understand the grasp and the power of these pills. I trusted the doctor and the medical system as to what I was taking. But when you get to a certain point, they cut you off. And at that point, I go to the streets and I start getting into the heroin, I start getting back into the crystal meth. And very long story short, I ended up losing my career as a firefighter, as a medic, and stopped ski patrolling. I even quit playing hockey. I ended up losing my family of 13 years, three more attempted suicides, in and out of a couple different treatment centers and detox centers. And back in 2015, I found myself ultimately living homeless on the downtown eastside streets of Vancouver. Man.

And, and that was the breaking point. That was that what you kept saying, you know, the point, the point. But that's. That was your breaking point. I, I could imagine, right? You're homeless, you're. You're out there, you're, you know, the, you're on OxyContin, you're on different Drugs. And the million dollar question is, okay, what happened after that?

What happened after that is I ended up going to the Lions Gate Bridge to jump. I had been up for about three and a half weeks. I'm about 50 pounds underweight. My bones are sticking out, my cheekbones are. My eyes are caved in. Haven't slept, haven't eaten. Deep psychosis. I got scars on my arms and my face from. You know, you get to a point where you actually feel like you have bugs crawling on your bones, and you just pick and pick and pick at your skin. And I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't. I couldn't take the. Watching the public walk by me and look down at me like I was some alley rat. Whereas only a few years earlier, I was helping save their lives. You know, I got in my truck, I went to the Lions Gate Bridge, and I'll tell you the truth. So straight up, brother, Right off the hip. And I know this might sound a little bit crazy, but I truly believe in it. I think I jumped. And this is the next life. I woke up out of this psychosis. Last thing I remember is jumping up on the edge of that bridge. And I came to out of that psychosis, up here in the mountains, up here at my summer cabin, shaking, shivering, starving. How the hell did I get here? Where am I? Why am I? Who am I? What's going on here? Yeah. Let me ask you something, Mike. Let me tell you. Let me ask you something. Let's just say you woke up in the middle of the mountains with nothing. No food, no money, no heat, no nothing. What's the first thing that you're going to need to do? The first thing a man does or a human does?

Well, you got to find secure. You got to find a place that you need food to survive.

Okay, where do we get that usually?

Well, like I said, it's easier for me to sit on the other side. I'm a guy that grew up right outside of Oak Park, Detroit, like two miles from eight Mile, if you've seen that movie, okay? But I lived in. My grandmother lived closer to 8 mile. I lived on the. On a nice side of oak park, which. 8 miles. Nice, too, let's not get me wrong. But I. I didn't grow up a city boy. And I tell you that that's a great question, because somebody like me, maybe I'm not mentally tough enough to survive. That. I. I've never thought about that. I had a friend that was on our show recently, and he lived homeless by Lake Ontario, in a tent. And I'm afraid the other day, you're going to laugh at me. You might want to hang up on the podcast. But I was walking in North Carolina. I go on this. It's not a hike. You would laugh. If you call. I'm not in the middle of. I don't even know how you have Internet where you are. I'll ask that later. But I was going on a walk on a greenway where there's people, and I was there early. I was one of the first people there. And a coyote was staring at me, and I. And a coyote. And I'm thinking, you know, and I'm not an expert on coyote. I read. Oh, they just go after dogs or they go after little. You know, little pets. Really? I'm not gonna. It was a big one, so I started walking really fast. So it's fight or flight. So you're gonna ask me. I don't know what I do. Because that little coyote. Well, it's not little. It's the size of a German shepherd. I was. I thought it was a wolf. I'm walking really fast, like, walking, and I'm gonna say, I can't outrun a coyote. And I'm. And I panicked, and I started booking over to the bridge, and I didn't go back. And I get over the bridge and I see a runner, and I tell this girl, I have a hat on, a hoodie, and I'm there in the morning. And I said, don't go back there. There's like a wolf or something in the woods or a coyote. She looked at me like I was nuts. So that's to show you what a wimp I really am when it comes to stuff like that. So you asked me a question that I cannot even answer. I would be stuck there. Maybe I wouldn't be able to survive that. I mean, help me out. The first thing you need is water. You need. You need the water. You need food. You need a place to cut. You need a tent to cover your body. And you're shivering. You need. I hear the fire cracking right now. There's a lot that you need. But there's really. There's a lot that you need. But then there's not a lot that you need, right? So tell me, what is the first thing that I. That I need?

Well, let me tell you something, brother. You're. You're. You're. You're not a wimp. You know, you saw coyote and you responded naturally, because when was the last time you saw coyote? You Know you, you grew up outside eight Mile. You know, you played in the NHL your whole life. You're, you know, when is the last time you were actually faced with a coyote?

Just moved back from outside of New York City. We didn't see coyotes there.

Right, right. So your response to danger, to what you perceived as danger was a natural response. That doesn't make you a wimp, that makes you a human being. You haven't had that experience. And what we'll get into later in this podcast, I hope about with our camp is being able to offer these sorts of experiences to the next generation, to the 12, 13, 14, 15 year old kids so that they are exposed to these sorts of situations, to this sort of harsh, harsh environment and the things that we need to do to manage our emotions, our behavior, our psychological responses, all these sorts of things. So we'll back up in the story. I didn't know, I mean, what to do. I do know I needed heat and I needed some firewood. First thing I needed. I mean, I'm shivering. I'm going through some serious dope withdrawals. So I came outside and you know, this is where I have a summer cabin here. I came outside and started gathering up some wood and tried to light it and it wouldn't start. You know, there's, you think in a forest you would start wood and it's just going to light and that's just not the case. It doesn't work that way. I grabbed my chainsaw and I went up across the mountain here. I'm just looking over at White Cap Mountain and I started falling a tree, a very dead tree. I knew I needed dry wood and I started falling the tree. Turn my saw off, I turn around and there's a native man sitting there on his ATV. You know, he's got his 30 odd six sitting on the front and I'm thinking, oh, oh geez. Like here's Whitey, you know, falling trees on the side of the mountain like they're mine. I'm thinking, this man's gonna scalp me and I'm gonna die. No, that was my impression. Like that's, you know, I'm in the wrong here. And he just looks at me and he says, how's it going? Well, you know, I gave him a little bit of my story and I, where I just came from and I, and I just need some firewood right now. And he says, he looks me up and down, he says, why don't you come on over to my property and you can have all the wood that you need, and I'll help you get it. And here's a man that I. That I know nothing about. I don't know anything about first nations people. I've never met him before. In my past, I've. I have, you know, people who. Who just want to take, take, take from me. And here's a man who's offering me something out of the goodness of a total stranger. Yeah. I go over to his property. I fall a whole bunch of trees. I buck up a whole ton of firewood. And. Are you getting that feedback right now?

That's okay. Keep it going. Let's go.

Okay. Sorry, sorry. So I fall bunch. I come back to my. To my house, to the cabin here, and I start. I'm splitting up the firewood. And on my second day, you know, I've got some. I've got heat now. I have some fresh water from the lake, and. And I hear the sound coming up the road through the mountains, and it's an atv. And here it is. I turn around, and it's this. This man again. His name is Ambie Alexander. He's from the Statliam tribal community here. And he. He kind of just stops his ATV and looks at me and, how's it going? I said, brother, you know, came over, shook his hand, gave him a hug. Thank you very much for the firewood. I'm warm, but, you know, I had to be humble. I had to be honest. And I said, and it's the first time in my life I've ever had to do this. But I said, you know what? I'm starving. I'm hungry, and I have nothing. He looks me up and down again. He says, let's go fishing. Okay. Let's go fishing. No, because this is, you know, we're going back to the basics, to how humans survived, how the first nations people lived long before we had grocery stores and everything that we have at the flick of the switch today. So we go down to the river, and it's not like there's a whole bunch of fish just sitting in one spot. If you want to eat, you actually have to hunt your food. You have to figure out where the spots are. And you. And I didn't catch any fish that day. And he caught two beautiful Dolly Varton, which is a trout, and he gave them both to me.

Wow.

I'd never been so grateful just for firewood and these two fish. A total stranger, total act of kindness, just giving. And what I learned from that was, you know, just. Just having gratitude just for a fish. You Know, today we don't realize what we have until we've lost everything. We take advantage of it. The fact that the grocery store is right there and if we need heat, we just flick the switch on the wall. So. So yeah, that's. That's that part of the story.

So you appreciate now the things life. So what's that noise in the back? You're the first person I ever interviewed besides the fire in the background and lives out in. And I know you where you really live because people are saying, is this true? And I'll tell you why it's true in a minute. But what is that noise in the back? What the heck is.

That's actually. Well, it's actually, it's quite amazing. I have a neighbor who has a summer cabin up here. I haven't seen him for two and a half years and he must be up there pulling something apart. I've. I'm quite surprised also.

Well, tell them we're doing a podcast. I'm kidding. So, like here, here's the crazy thing and we're going to get into. Then we're going to get to your mission. That's important for our listeners here. So, so the, the important thing is that I was talking to my friend Joe Storinger. Now he's a Wall street guy, New York City guy, dressed to the nines. You know, I take a. Taken him to the Ranger games. He's a friend. We became really great friends. We became really good friends of being in New York. And he told me about you and he said, hey, I'm really going to. I'm going to go up to, to Vancouver. I go, oh, nice for vacation? No, I'm going up in the middle of the. Of the mountains to see Terrence. I said, are you nuts? You don't know this guy. Are you out of your mind? He goes, yeah, I think I fly into Vancouver and then I gotta, you know, I gotta rent a car, then I gotta do this. I gotta take a ferry that I got. I don't know. I said, are you. Are you crazy, man? You're gonna go out in the middle of the darn. Like in British Columbia in the mountains with, you know, it's that what is hunted or be hunted, right? Either. Right. That's some. Sure. But anyways, I didn't know yet. But he said, he came back and says, what an experience. What a great guy. And he decided to help you with your whole mission to, to help people with ptsd, right? Overcome this and tell us that. Like, tell us your mission.

Well, I tell you, let me. So how much time do we have here? Mike Hartman, just so I.

Can we go.

We'll go.

10 more minutes for our listeners.

I see. Okay, well, let me back up here real quick, because after I got that fish, I'm eating, I have some nutrition, and I have some heat, and now I need to start getting my mind back, my life back, my health and my strength. So I was down fishing two days after I met up with Ambie, and I'm down fishing to get some more fish for me to eat, and I see this big, huge tractor tire, and I'm thinking to myself, do you ever watch ufc?

I'm not a big fan of it, but I do watch it. I do. I do see it.

I do.

Yeah.

Well, years and years and years earlier, I remember watching a title fight between George St. Pierre and Matt Hugh, and I remember watching the title fight thinking, you know, I remember watching how they trained, and Matt Hughes was actually flipping this big, huge, massive tractor tire up a mountain. And I remember back in those days watching that going, that's how you become a world champion. That's how you. How you get into the cage and battle is training like this. And I remember watching that years earlier. So now I'm down at the river, and I see this tractor tire, and I had this little bit of a flashback from watching Matt Hughes flip this tire around. I thought, you know what? I'm going to flip this tire just like Matt Hughes all over these mountains, and I'm going to come back one day, back to society and civilization, and show all those people who laughed at me, put a knife in my back, slammed the door in my face. I'm gonna show all those people who's the real boss, who's the champion. I put down my fishing pole and I grabbed this tire. Been laying there 20, 30 years, get all the grass and dirt out of this dang darn thing, and I get underneath it. I go to pick it up, get it up, and I flipped it over, Mike. Oh. Oh, yeah. That's not for me. I'm no Matt Hughes. I'm no UFC cage fighter. I'm nothing but a homeless drug addict. Nothing. Lost my career, lost my family. I am a piece of garbage. I went fishing, didn't catch nothing. Came back here to my cabin with my tails between my. My tail between my legs, and I just sat here and thought, you know, after everything I've in this life, Mike, I'm gonna let that tire beat me. No. No way, man. No way. If I want to be the champion. I gotta get back on it. So I walked all the way back to that tire, and I flipped it two or three more times, and then I gave up. Keep going. What's that?

That's my music. I'm hearing, like, a little dramatic music, but I like it. Keep going.

Okay, okay. Because it's. It's just. It's loud in my ears there for a second, so I'll just. I'll turn my. My thing down here. Here.

No.

Are you down with the story?

No, I love it. I'm just giving you a hard time because I love you. Keep it going. We want to hear it. No time limit today. I want. We want to hear. Come on, keep it going.

I'm down there. And I flipped this tire two, three more times, and I gave up. You know, I got all excited to go to the tire. Like, I'm gonna do this. I'm the champ. I'm gonna the be boss. Ego, ego, ego. And I flipped it two or three more times. I failed, and I came all the way back, talking myself out of it. Next day, you know what? I'm gonna try again. I'm gonna try again, Mike. So I get all the way back down the tire, and I flip it 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 times, and I gave up. I'm weak, so I can't do this. And I went back and forth to that tire every single day. After about my second week, instead of walking home with my tail between my legs, I actually sat there and took a nice, deep breath. I sat in the tire, and I looked up, and I could finally see the color in the trees. I acknowledged that I'm in the mountains. I could see the green in the trees. I could hear the birds start to sing. I could feel the wind on my face. And this is like a huge, huge turning point in my life. I had been detoxing from all these drugs, and I'm not eating much, but I'm back there trying and trying on this damn tractor tire. And I sat there and I thought to myself, you know what? I'm alive. I have my health today. That's what I do have. And I started flipping the tire a few more times, and I sat back down instead of walking back home. And I thought, you know, I need to forgive myself.

Yeah. Yeah, that's.

That feeling of energy came over me, that. That really. That positive energy for forgiving myself. And I started flipping the tire a few more times. I sat back in it again. I thought, well, I sure am grateful to see the color in the trees. To hear the sound of the songbirds singing. And it gave me more energy. And very long story short, Mike, after almost six weeks of flipping this tire this way, I was out there 18 hours a day flipping that tire for nearly a kilometer a day. Wow. Wow.

And that's that. So you know, what you did, you went through. We call this in coaching transformational. So I, I, there's nothing that bothers me more when I see like, we have these coaches out there that say, oh, you gotta go out and hear the birds chirp like you did. You have to go into the mountains. You have to really do it. Come on. They don't really do it. You really did it. Like you really are out there seeing nature or you have to go through nature to help clear your mind. And, but, but what it is that you went through, you went through this total transformation and you went through some tough times where you were fighting just to, just to eat, just to survive. And I wanted you to go through, you know, a typical day with mother nature right now. Just tell me your typical day there and then I want to hear your, your mission and share. We're going to share where people can get in touch with you, but go through a typical day of Mother nature in the wilderness because I think our listeners would love to hear it.

I tell you, nothing changes since those days. Nothing has changed. I have created my own formula to what I need to follow as part of my daily routine in order to stay mentally, physically, and spiritually connected. So I'm up. I don't, we don't use clocks up here. I don't see the time ever, unless I have important podcasts to do with Mr. Mike Hartman. But I'm up at 4:00 in the morning, roughly, give or take five or 10 minutes. Every single morning. I wake up and I start my day with a body scan. I call it like a pre flight checklist. And that's before my feet even touch the ground. What I do is I open my eyes and I try to find any problems with my body, my machine, before I even get out of bed. And I let, don't let my mind take me to, oh, you got to go do this, you got to go do that. It's stop. It's the self care first. Check in with your machine. So I wiggle my toes, consciously connect the mind to the physical. Wiggle, wiggle. Okay, everything's good. Rolling my ankles, calves, knees, bending my knees, flexing my quads, roll my pelvis, tighten my core, flex, bounce my pecs, shoulders, elbows, fingers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Okay, there's myself. I'm good. Everything's working fine. And if I do come into a problem, let's say my right knee, I bend it and it hurts. I stop right there and I ask myself, why? Why the physical pain, where's that come from? And, oh, you know, yesterday I was doing box jumps and I slipped and I hit my knee on the rock. Do I need a hospital? Do I need a doctor? Am I going to be okay? And I rule out everything right there that continue throughout my body now before I get out of bed. Body's good. Now the mind. How do we check that one? Mike?

Yeah, help me on that one because deep breathing, I could. Let me guess, do you do deep breathing exercises? Do you close your eyes and look at the wilderness and listen to the birds hum, the bears in the woods making noise? I don't know. You tell me.

I love it. Well, I tell you, if anything, if you want to take out anything of this podcast, you'll want to maybe erase all that other stuff that I went rambling on about and focus on this tool is number one, the mind. How do we control it? How do we bring ourselves calm? Our stress, our anxiety, our depression, our suicidal or even homicidal thoughts or fantasies, how do we deviate away from that and manage those emotions? Starts with this tool. Number one, before you get out of bed. So we've done our body scan. Great. Now we get to the mind. What I do is take a nice 5 second breath in my nose and a 5 second breath out of my mouth. And I do that five times for the beginner. 101. We call this five by fives. Keep it real simple. In fact, I tell you what, Mike, let's do a set right now so you can experience. And our listeners can also take a second and experience this together.

Okay, let's do it.

Okay, so we're gonna start with a five second breath in our nose. And on three. One, two, three. Five seconds in. And five seconds out. Five seconds in, Five seconds out. Now hold on a second. You know what, I got to take a leak. I got to go. I got interviewed today. I got worked my mind, Mike, and I'm telling you, brother, even this morning, while I'm doing my five by fives, the monkey mind starts talking to us. You got all this other stuff to do.

Yes.

You don't have time to do some breathing exercises right now. You gotta go to work. You got bills to pay. The freaking landlord. Oh, my dog's got a piss. Oh, I got a piss. Every the mind, yeah, always about the second or third set, the monkey mind starts. Hey, Terence. Hey. Hey, Mike, you got a podcast to do this. It starts talking to us. And that's natural, that's okay. So what do we do about that?

Yeah, what do we do?

Well, I'll tell you what we do, Mike, is we start over again because the mind was interrupted with negative thoughts or just other thoughts that aren't keeping us present. And that's what meditation is. Meditation is just being present in the now.

Yes.

Not yesterday, not tomorrow, and not in 10 minutes from now. And that's where humans today get into trouble, is our thinking. So we want to stay present and we want to control that. And at the end of this sharing with you, this will make more sense. Bear with me. So, hey, we're human. Let's just start over again. Five seconds in. Five seconds out. Four, Five. Five seconds in. I gotta use my fingers, eh? Five seconds out. Five seconds. Five seconds out. Five. Five seconds in. Five seconds out. Last one, Mike. Five seconds in. Five seconds out. Wow. Hold on.

Good stuff.

Oh, hold on a second. See, already you're already ready to go. Ready to go. Right? Just.

That was four seconds.

Yeah, Just relax Now. We've controlled the mind, we've checked the physical, and most importantly, we've set the pace for our day. And what you may be unaware of right now, Mike, is you've now just begun to repave the neurological pathway for where it's safe, comfortable and easy. So that later on in your day, this is, this is the big happy ending part. Later on in your day, maybe an hour from now, you're sitting in rush hour traffic, you're late for work, all these stupid five by fives, I'm late now I'm late. The guy in front of me is doing the frickin speed limit. Ah, my boss, whatever it might be. Whenever you start to, you know when you have that, when your anxiety is coming on or your stress, that feeling in your gut.

Yeah, yeah, that's. I like, I like this. And I. We had somebody on, her name is Danielle that did some breathing techniques. You have to go back and listen to her. And I love this. You know the most frustrating part, if I go to yoga and they're having us do some breathing and all of a sudden they say, say don't think about the kids at home, don't think about your job, don't think about finances. All of a sudden my mind starts going there. Why do they do that. Why do they.

That. That's it. That's. That's, that's no problem. Everybody has their own thing. The best part for you is you do it your way. If you want to think about your kids while you're breathing, good. Be present. Embrace that feeling. Not a problem with that. What I'm talking about is when you're driving, when you're at work, you're at the office, you're on some. Some freaking zoom call that you don't want to be on, and you have that feeling of anxiety or stress or something's depressing you about it, stop, close the computer, pull your car over politely and respectfully leave the room and close the door, Go inside, sit somewhere and find the problem. And you do that by sitting and doing another body scan real quick. Where's the problem? Wiggle your toes, roll your ankles, go through your whole body. Now you'll sit there and do your five seconds, and nine times out of ten, you probably can't even take the first five second breath. Problem number one, it's you, not your. What you think is the problem.

Well, that's true. That's true. The first breath, I struggled. So I want everybody to be able to find you because you gave us a lot of good tips today. And I want people to be able to go on your website because there's a lot to read there. So tell everybody where they could find you, because Joe sent me your website and you and I talked like a year ago when I was in New York because I had to hear your story. And it wasn't even to do a podcast. I just. As a coach, I just wanted to hear about. About you, about Terrence. Tell us where people could look at your website because I think it shows the tire. It shows all of this about you, mental health. Tell us a little bit about camp my way.

Well, okay. That was a couple questions there. I feel like all of a sudden we're wrapping this up, Mike, So. Which I can understand. I could go on about this and the things that we do. The best way to get hold of us. I would have to suggest Facebook, of all things. The website, campmyway.com. no problem. You know, that that's. That's one little bit of about 25% of what we do.

Okay.

The other 75% is traveling around the world to bring more education, knowledge and a better understanding to fire departments, police departments, universities, high schools, kindergarten classes, and bringing them these sorts of tools to help manage their own emotional responses to life. You know, and especially during this Whole Covid thing right now. These tools are of absolute, most vital importance to all humans. The psychological and emotional impact that's going to happen in the next couple years is going to be devastating. And we're going to need you to know how to take care of ourselves because there's just not enough services out there and not anybody can really afford those government run services anyways. Take care of yourself, put in that work and add that formula to your daily routine. Seven days a week with no excuses and that's it. So Terence Joseph Kozakar on Facebook, go through there and take a look over the last five or six years at some of the actions that we've taken in society to work with governments and educators and emergency services and military and reach out to me through messenger if you're looking for somebody to talk with, laugh with or even shed a tear with, we're very happy to, to jump on a call and help help support you in any way we can.

And I'm going to add your website link to the to it will hit some of the directories that we do this on. So that will be out there to the show notes and because we really need about five, four hours because there's so much more to the story. There's so much more to camp my way and we know that but you know we do a nice show. We do a show where we, we want to get to the point. I mean we could have called it get to the Point. I call it the Mike Hartman Show. But Terence, you have such an amazing impact. So I bring on people that have great stories and they're impactful and there's no way somebody like yourself who's right now when I get off I'm to going, going to walk outside and there's a Starbucks down the street where you're walking out looking at the gorgeous mountains of Vancouver. There's a part of me that's jealous and there's a part of me that envies you for, for what you're doing and how you're giving back. We're going to keep this website out for everybody. And yes we, we don't usually go, you know, we, we don't time the show but we have it. We do have a show. People tell me our listeners, they're in New York City, they're on the subway listening, they're driving in their car. But you know what? This was special. This was great. The mental health, the way you give. Thank you so much for doing this Terrence. It was so great having you here.

I tell you, Mike, this morning I took a look at some of your other podcasts there, and I say, holy smoke. You know, you're talking with, like, nhlers. You're an NHLer, NFL guy, like, all these kingpins. I'm like, what? I'm just a guy in the mountains. And it's truly an honor to be here today and speak with you, Mike. I tell you what, let's do a recap in the new year and continue the conversation. And thank you for your time and your support, brother.

Yeah, well, I'm going to correct you, and I don't ever correct people, but no, we are all unique in our own way, Terrence. So just because a guy played a sport. Sport, or a female played in the Olympics or somebody is a comedian, we're all unique. That's just. That's entertainment. That's what we do. So I'm gonna have to correct you. You're special. You're unique. And thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Mike Hartman Show. If you're enjoying what you've heard so far, please feel free to rate, subscribe, and leave a review on your professional preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.