Speaker 1: When we are just pushing that dopamine button of instant gratification,
Speaker 1: everything else loses its color. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Paul gil Martin, a stand up comedian, podcast host,
Speaker 1: and television personality best known as the longtime host of
Speaker 1: TBSS Dinner in a Movie. Since two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: Paul has been the host and executive producer of the
Speaker 1: fantastic podcast called The Mental Illness Happy Hour. Hi Paul,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show party. It's good to be back.
Speaker 1: It has been a long time since we had you on,
Speaker 1: but it is one episode that stands out to me
Speaker 1: as a really really fun one and lots of good
Speaker 1: laughs and lots of really deep stuff. And this is
Speaker 1: even better because I am sitting in your house in California,
Speaker 1: so I love when I could do these face to face.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's nice. You know, we had briefly talked
Speaker 1: about having you on remotely, and I was like, now
Speaker 1: I want this to be face to face. I'm glad
Speaker 1: we wait. Last time we had the schedule, though I
Speaker 1: completely stood you up. Do you remember I totally forgot Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. I was supposed to come to l A.
Speaker 1: We booked a time and a date and then I
Speaker 1: ended up canceling the trip and I forgot to tell you,
Speaker 1: and you called me. I saw it come up in
Speaker 1: the instant I did. I was like, and then my
Speaker 1: my first reaction, I'm not answering that, and I thought,
Speaker 1: come on, just as the phone. So anyway, I'm glad
Speaker 1: we got to do this. And did you realize in
Speaker 1: that moment that deep down you're a terrible person? I
Speaker 1: already knew it. It was just just to remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: just a t rememberance that day. I was on the
Speaker 1: peloton bike at the time, though, so that sort of counterbalanced.
Speaker 1: I went, well, at least I'm at least I'm an
Speaker 1: exercising bos. All right, Let's start like we always do
Speaker 1: with the parable. In parable, there's a grandparent talking with
Speaker 1: a grandchild and they say, in life there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. Grandchild
Speaker 1: stops and thinks about it for a second, looks up
Speaker 1: with their grandparents as well. Which one wins, and the
Speaker 1: grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: know what that parable means to you in your life
Speaker 1: and in the work that you do. I think everybody
Speaker 1: worships a god. Some of us are conscious of what
Speaker 1: that god maybe, and by that I don't mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a conscious entity with a beard in the sky. But
Speaker 1: for me, from the time I started using drugs at
Speaker 1: fourteen until I got sober at forty, my god was
Speaker 1: self pleasure and I sacrificed a lot of things. My integrity,
Speaker 1: my faithfulness as a husband, my kindness as a person,
Speaker 1: All those things took a back seat to me getting
Speaker 1: what I felt I needed in the moment. Two feel
Speaker 1: okay in my skin. And so I was eating that
Speaker 1: bad wolf. And it wasn't until I had to ask
Speaker 1: for help because I knew I was going to kill
Speaker 1: myself that I realized that I also have a good
Speaker 1: wolf inside me. And as I began to feed it,
Speaker 1: I began to feel like winning, as you know, as
Speaker 1: corny as that sounds, but for me, I had to
Speaker 1: expand my network of human connection. I had to learn
Speaker 1: how to become vulnerable, and I had to learn how
Speaker 1: to tell the truth. And I discovered that through doing
Speaker 1: those things very imperfectly and certainly not a percent of
Speaker 1: the time, but enough at the time that I began
Speaker 1: to experience the comfort that I needed. I previously needed
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol. Two experience and I realized, Wow, there's
Speaker 1: no bad side effects of being helpful to someone or
Speaker 1: telling the truth, or which the saying goes, just trying
Speaker 1: to be the man. My dog thinks I am what
Speaker 1: your dog is at our feet, and she clearly thinks
Speaker 1: highly of you. She thinks highly of everybody. Her standard
Speaker 1: is very low. You mentioned everybody you know worships a god,
Speaker 1: and I think you're sort of pointing to like, we
Speaker 1: all have something that orients as the center of our life,
Speaker 1: you know, motivates our actions. Yeah. Yeah. What I wanted
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you is when did you
Speaker 1: get sober? Oh three oh three, so nineteen year or
Speaker 1: something like that. It's been a while. I'm curious in
Speaker 1: what ways has your conception of God, or we could
Speaker 1: be more general than that, your your spiritual life in
Speaker 1: what ways has it grown and changed over the years,
Speaker 1: And in what ways is it growing and changing? Now,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I think in the beginning, and
Speaker 1: possibly because of my Catholic upbringing, was my idea of
Speaker 1: whatever ruling force in the universe has created everything around us,
Speaker 1: that it was a vindictive force, and that it was
Speaker 1: just waiting for me to funk up, to pounce on me,
Speaker 1: to punish me, and that at best it was tolerating me.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I started going to a second
Speaker 1: support group to deal with intimacy struggles that I began
Speaker 1: to learn how to be vulnerable. You know even though
Speaker 1: I had experienced that in my first support group, I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing it as deeply because the first support group
Speaker 1: was great at helping me see where I had been
Speaker 1: an asshole. The second support group, if I could paint
Speaker 1: it in broad strokes, helped me see where I was
Speaker 1: being an asshole to myself and I was tolerating people
Speaker 1: treating me with a lack of respect. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I began to say, you know, I deserve to
Speaker 1: feel safe in the world. I deserve to feel autonomy
Speaker 1: over my body and my decisions, because I didn't feel
Speaker 1: that as a child, and I was still looking at
Speaker 1: the world through that prism of I've got to be
Speaker 1: everything to everybody. Well, who's not going to want to
Speaker 1: escape from that mind frame is I began to say
Speaker 1: no to the things I didn't want to do and
Speaker 1: to not make plans with people who were toxic. I
Speaker 1: began to feel safer in the world, and I began
Speaker 1: to view my idea of God or a higher power
Speaker 1: is much more benevolent. And even today, when I stumble
Speaker 1: in my support group, the first thing I try to
Speaker 1: go to now is Okay, you're not perfect, clean up
Speaker 1: your mess. If an apology needs to be made, make
Speaker 1: an apology, but you're still a human being worthy of love,
Speaker 1: and you are trying. You know, I had a hockey
Speaker 1: game this past weekend and it got really chippy and heated,
Speaker 1: and this one guy was, you know, like ten yards
Speaker 1: from me and that you know, it was between whistles,
Speaker 1: and this guy was just barking at us, and it
Speaker 1: just triggered I don't know, trauma, childhood ship, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to punch this guy. And so I
Speaker 1: started barking at him and we were nose to nose
Speaker 1: and he's like, come on, you know, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1: And of course neither of us wanted to throw the
Speaker 1: punch because the first one to punch would be penalized
Speaker 1: and then our team would be you know, that was
Speaker 1: so close to just taking my palms and jamming them
Speaker 1: underneath his chin and and just watching him fall backwards
Speaker 1: to the ice, and I could feel it in my body.
Speaker 1: It was like a volcano that wanted to explode and
Speaker 1: I didn't. And you know, five minutes later, we're skating
Speaker 1: and I chipped the puck past him and he kind
Speaker 1: of gets in my way and I just grabbed him
Speaker 1: by the head and try to throw him down, and
Speaker 1: of course karma came in and I fell down right
Speaker 1: on my elbow, split it open. I had to have stitches.
Speaker 1: But when the game was done, and this is where
Speaker 1: I can feel all the work I've done in support groups,
Speaker 1: working practically in my life is I knew if I
Speaker 1: didn't apologize to this guy for the things that I
Speaker 1: had said, I was going to carry that hate in
Speaker 1: my body for probably a day or two. And so
Speaker 1: I skated up to him and I stuck my hand
Speaker 1: out and I said I'm sorry. He said, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to you know. I was really frustrated out there, and
Speaker 1: he's like, man, that's hockey. It's all good. And it
Speaker 1: lifted and it was gone. And that is it, to me,
Speaker 1: a great example of I'm so fallible. I'm such a
Speaker 1: work in progress. I fail so spectacularly sometimes. But what
Speaker 1: I can do is I can clean up my mess.
Speaker 1: I can apologize where I'm wrong, and I can experience
Speaker 1: the freedom so that I am not so uncomfortable in
Speaker 1: my body. Then I want to get high again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's been one of the biggest gifts of
Speaker 1: recovery for me, and particular part of that recovery, which
Speaker 1: was that encouragement to constantly be looking at that and
Speaker 1: sort of cleaning up messes as I make them. When
Speaker 1: I got sober, and I think any of us, we
Speaker 1: come in and we've got like a laundry list of
Speaker 1: things that he cleaned up. But ideally if we get
Speaker 1: that done and we sort of stay current, this is
Speaker 1: such a gift to me. It's a clean Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I worked in restaurants, you just learned to kind
Speaker 1: of clean as you go. If you don't, the kitchen
Speaker 1: is a dissats and then you don't even want to
Speaker 1: think about the kitchen, And yeah, you start looking for
Speaker 1: ways to escape. And it might not be drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 1: But my most recent struggle has been with video games.
Speaker 1: And I've been off on about three months now, and
Speaker 1: I'm having to face my comforts with being in my skin.
Speaker 1: I have to face the voice that says, Oh, you're
Speaker 1: so fucking lazy. There's so much more that you should
Speaker 1: be accomplishing. You're gonna die, pour You're gonna die filled
Speaker 1: with regrets, and you're going to realize how much you've
Speaker 1: blown it. You just can't see it now, but oh boy,
Speaker 1: you are. You're going to see it in ten years.
Speaker 1: How are you able to not go right back to
Speaker 1: the video game? Right? That's a pretty uncomfortable It took
Speaker 1: me years. So what's different? What do you think? I
Speaker 1: hit a bottom. I hit a bottom where I think
Speaker 1: I've been playing it for six hours and I just,
Speaker 1: you know, like the moment that you realized Heroin is
Speaker 1: not working for me anymore, something just told me you
Speaker 1: need a break. Whether it's forever or not, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I knew I needed a break because one of
Speaker 1: the things that is, you know that happens to our
Speaker 1: brain when we are just pushing that dopamine of instant gratification,
Speaker 1: everything else loses its color. I had no desire to
Speaker 1: go make furniture in the wood shop. I was not
Speaker 1: playing as much guitar as I would have liked. I
Speaker 1: was not working on my creative projects as much. Everything
Speaker 1: was just I'm uncomfortable. Let's go play Golden Tea or
Speaker 1: let's play Civilization. And it's an amazing feeling when you're
Speaker 1: pushing that dopamine button. It's a god in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, because I feel instant relief. But as you know,
Speaker 1: spirituality is not instant gratification. There's a lot of faith
Speaker 1: involved that if I do these things on a daily
Speaker 1: basis that I'm told are healthy and will help me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to trust it well. And it has been
Speaker 1: for nineteen years. Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting when we
Speaker 1: sort of encounter other addictions beyond our our primary one.
Speaker 1: I've struggled with pornography, collecting things obsessively in many ways,
Speaker 1: living a fear based life. So many of my decisions
Speaker 1: were based out of fear. Fear of being bored, fear
Speaker 1: of not being enough, not having enough, not doing enough.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where the self compassion, the second
Speaker 1: phase of how I viewed a higher power, had to
Speaker 1: come in and to say, if I funked up, we'll
Speaker 1: do better. Make a mental note. Let's not obsess about ourselves,
Speaker 1: because that's not going to help you or anybody else.
Speaker 1: But let's make a mental note what triggered that. Let's
Speaker 1: keep an eye out for that next time we can
Speaker 1: do better. Yeah. I love what you said a minute
Speaker 1: ago about your first support group taught you not to
Speaker 1: be the asshole yourself. The second one taught you to
Speaker 1: recognize the ways in which other I'm putting words in
Speaker 1: your mouth a little bit, but recognize the ways that
Speaker 1: others had harmed us, that the actions of others had
Speaker 1: impacted us in our development. And it really does seem
Speaker 1: that we need both those things. I see people who
Speaker 1: only get one or the other, and I mean, it's
Speaker 1: better than not having either of them, you know, but
Speaker 1: both is a pretty helpful combination because they're both very true.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I discovered was when
Speaker 1: I stopped numbing myself with these high cattle prod shocking myself,
Speaker 1: pushing that dopamine button, whether it was looking at porn
Speaker 1: or obsessively playing video games, I began to get back
Speaker 1: into my body, and I began to feel the subtle
Speaker 1: things in life, and I began to reconnect with my
Speaker 1: body's instinct that would tell me this person's training. We
Speaker 1: not have to be around them. It's not your job
Speaker 1: to be their savior. Let's keep our battery from being
Speaker 1: drained so that we can be the person that we
Speaker 1: want to be. Whereas before, when I was numb from
Speaker 1: the video games and the pornography or whatever, I couldn't feel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that feeling I couldn't name it, and my only driving
Speaker 1: thought was, if you don't give this person what they want,
Speaker 1: you're a terrible selfish person. Yeah, video games or other
Speaker 1: forms of obsessive dizziness that sort of completely take us
Speaker 1: out of the moment, does take away any sort of
Speaker 1: reflection time and ability. You know, I will notice if
Speaker 1: I'm really busy, which i I sometimes get, I'll sit
Speaker 1: down to meditate and my brain will be like I've
Speaker 1: been waiting for you, Like I've been waiting for you
Speaker 1: to give me any time because I've got a list
Speaker 1: of things we need to talk about, you know. Whereas
Speaker 1: if I've got a little bit more space in my life,
Speaker 1: I'm doing some of that reflection throughout the day, through
Speaker 1: you know, at different points, instead of like okay, I'm
Speaker 1: actually still now and so here it all comes. And
Speaker 1: I think you bring up a great point about meditation
Speaker 1: that I think the instinct when we first start meditating
Speaker 1: is to judge the quality of our meditation and say,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you know, I stopped thinking about my
Speaker 1: breath for ten solid minutes, or I only said my
Speaker 1: mantra twice in twenty minutes. You know, got I'm a
Speaker 1: shitty meditator. What I began to do was, instead of
Speaker 1: judging the quality of focusing on my breath or thinking
Speaker 1: of my mantra was I began to say, what are
Speaker 1: the thoughts that keep popping up? And that showed me
Speaker 1: what it is that I'm uncomfortable with or what I'm
Speaker 1: passionate about. You know, sometimes I'll just start thinking of
Speaker 1: a woodworking project and the joints I want to use
Speaker 1: for a table, and I'll get excited about it. I'll
Speaker 1: be along with it. That's awesome. Yeah, I think that's great.
Speaker 1: I heard you say that recently on one of your episodes,
Speaker 1: talking about that, and I thought, you know, that's very
Speaker 1: different than the meditation advice that's often given, which is
Speaker 1: just don't attach to any thought, let them all kind
Speaker 1: of go. But I do think there is particularly in
Speaker 1: our busy world right where we just have so much
Speaker 1: going on that sometimes it seems to me the point
Speaker 1: of sitting down and stopping is not to get the
Speaker 1: mantra right, but is to see what's going on in
Speaker 1: my exactly. Sometimes it points me towards the stuff I
Speaker 1: already know, Like you think that thought ten thousand times,
Speaker 1: like it's pointless. But sometimes it points to things that
Speaker 1: need attention. Yes, I couldn't agree more. You've talked about
Speaker 1: the difference between self reflection and self obsession. How do
Speaker 1: you tell the difference? How do you stay on the
Speaker 1: healthy side of that? How quickly I move on from
Speaker 1: the thought? Self reflection rarely takes a long time for
Speaker 1: me unless i'm you know, maybe doing a writing exercise.
Speaker 1: Self obsession is endless and usually pointless, and it usually
Speaker 1: involves negative self talk. You know, I like to just
Speaker 1: think of make a note to self it. Maybe I
Speaker 1: need to sit and reflect for a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: to uncover what's really going on. Is it trauma being triggered.
Speaker 1: Is it a negative self belief I need to let
Speaker 1: go of. Is it a mistake that I made where
Speaker 1: I need to understand how to better handle it next time?
Speaker 1: So it all kind of varies, but usually of obsession
Speaker 1: is just endless and pointless. Hi, everyone, I wanted to
Speaker 1: personally invite you to a workshop that we are offering
Speaker 1: at the end of October at the Omega Institute, which
Speaker 1: is in the Hudson Valley in New York, and it
Speaker 1: is really beautiful this time of year. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a great chance to meet some wonderful people, recharge
Speaker 1: and relax while learning foundational spiritual habits that will allow
Speaker 1: you to establish simple daily practices that will help you
Speaker 1: feel more at ease and more fulfilled in your life.
Speaker 1: You can find details at one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Omega. I'm really looking forward to meeting many of
Speaker 1: you there. One of my favorite ways of thinking about
Speaker 1: thoughts is just the question is this useful? Yes? Most
Speaker 1: of us can tell that the point where a thought
Speaker 1: goes from being useful to ruminative, where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: up till this moment, I was uncovering some new ground,
Speaker 1: I was having some new insights, and now I'm circling
Speaker 1: the drain, same thing over and over and over. I
Speaker 1: love that, and I believe that ruminative negative self talk
Speaker 1: is really the other side of the coin of grandiosity.
Speaker 1: They're both ways of keeping us stuck in self. Whether
Speaker 1: it's I'm the King or I'm a piece of shit,
Speaker 1: you're still wasting your fucking time obsessing about yourself in
Speaker 1: a pointless way. What are some of the strategies you
Speaker 1: have for Okay, I recognize have left self reflection land.
Speaker 1: I'm in self obsession land, what are some strategies you use?
Speaker 1: What do you do? Then? Is usually a fear underneath
Speaker 1: the self obsession, and it's I think, my primitive way
Speaker 1: of trying to bring myself comfort. So I ask myself,
Speaker 1: or what are some more constructive ways that I can
Speaker 1: find comfort? Well, first of all, if I need to
Speaker 1: forgive myself or I need to apologize to somebody for
Speaker 1: the thing I'm I'm ruminating about, I'll do that. If
Speaker 1: it's because I didn't do something, I'll ask myself, well,
Speaker 1: should I make a list of things to do? As
Speaker 1: you talk about? If it feels overwhelming, can I break
Speaker 1: that down into baby steps? And can maybe I take
Speaker 1: one of those baby steps right now? And usually that's
Speaker 1: enough to release that feeling of anxiety and being overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it's picking up the phone and calling somebody
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, I'm not in a good place
Speaker 1: right now. I'm just so in fear of the future
Speaker 1: and that I'm not doing enough. But I can't bring
Speaker 1: myself to do the things that my brain is telling
Speaker 1: me I need to do to have a good life
Speaker 1: in the future. And that's a tough place that I
Speaker 1: often find myself stuck in is paralysis of perfection. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a really deeply uncomfortable place to be when
Speaker 1: you sort of go well, like even rationally and reasonably,
Speaker 1: I realized, like, these things need done for my life
Speaker 1: to be good, and I can't seem to get myself
Speaker 1: to do them. You know, there's times where we're putting
Speaker 1: unreasonable standards upon ourselves, but there are times where they're
Speaker 1: not unreasonable. Some part of us knows like that's an
Speaker 1: important and useful thing to do, and I can't get
Speaker 1: myself there, you know. I know. One of the things
Speaker 1: that you wrestle with still a lot is depression and
Speaker 1: the lack of energy that comes with that. There are
Speaker 1: times I hear you talk about sort of just letting
Speaker 1: it be that way and you just go back to bed,
Speaker 1: And then there are times I hear you talk about
Speaker 1: sort of moving through it. Do you have any way
Speaker 1: of gauging when it's time to do which one of
Speaker 1: the things that I began asking myself when I'm feeling
Speaker 1: that lack of vitality, and I'm wondering, is it depression
Speaker 1: or is it fear of taking action? As I ask myself,
Speaker 1: the things that normally bring me pleasure, the good, you know,
Speaker 1: nurturing things, would working, playing guitar. Have I lost interest
Speaker 1: in those? And if I have, that's generally depression. And
Speaker 1: if those things do seem interesting but I don't want
Speaker 1: to do them, is it that I'm afraid I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do it perfectly, that I have some unreasonable
Speaker 1: expectation myself. And so those are the things that I
Speaker 1: asked myself to try to suss out whether it's depression
Speaker 1: or the burden of perfectionistic thinking and setting too high
Speaker 1: of a bar for myself. And sometimes I just need
Speaker 1: an app because I'm stressed about just the burden of living,
Speaker 1: the burden of returning a phone call, of making dinner.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just feels like too much. And that's okay.
Speaker 1: I no longer tell myself you're weak for not being
Speaker 1: able to face it. No, I feel it in my body.
Speaker 1: And I don't even sleep when I lay down. I
Speaker 1: laid down because I don't want to face something for
Speaker 1: an hour. And I always feel better after I wake
Speaker 1: up because I don't shame myself when I wake up. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's actually a strategy that sort of brings you out
Speaker 1: the other side. In a good place. Yeah, I take
Speaker 1: a break from the world. Yeah. One of the things
Speaker 1: I've started to think about more and trying to discern
Speaker 1: in myself, and I don't think I have it figured
Speaker 1: out completely, but I'm getting it a little bit is
Speaker 1: when am I tired and when am I depressed? I
Speaker 1: think for a long time I just attributed it at
Speaker 1: all to depression versus going, well, maybe you're just tired
Speaker 1: and you're talking about mental emotional exhaustion or pure physical
Speaker 1: can't keep my eyes open exhaustion, because I almost never
Speaker 1: experienced the latter. I almost always berience just a feeling
Speaker 1: of being overwhelmed, not physically, not can't keep my eyes open,
Speaker 1: just tigured of standing up. It's not can't keep my
Speaker 1: eyes open, but it is a decided lack of vitality
Speaker 1: for me. There's a difference in there of tired. And
Speaker 1: part of it is I don't know, you know, we're
Speaker 1: getting older, you know, we're in our fifties. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like how much energy should I have at this stage
Speaker 1: in my life. I've just started to ask myself a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Makes me think a little bit about
Speaker 1: the hungry, angry, lonely tired thing. You know that we
Speaker 1: were advised early in recovery. Just okay, it seems like
Speaker 1: I want to drink, but is there something else going on?
Speaker 1: And so for me, I'm just getting better at going.
Speaker 1: Particularly in the evening, I'll find myself like feeling lower
Speaker 1: and I'll think, oh, this is depression. I'm be like, no,
Speaker 1: you wake up in the morning, You're gonna feel fine,
Speaker 1: Like just relax, And I would add scared to that list. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one probably that pops up more than any of
Speaker 1: the other ones. Have you gone in and out of
Speaker 1: high degrees of fear in your recovery, It seems like
Speaker 1: you may be in a higher phase of it currently.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think since I've taken a
Speaker 1: break from the video games, just the act of facing
Speaker 1: the fears, and most of them are the fears of
Speaker 1: a bigger life, of the responsibility that might come with
Speaker 1: more success, more things to do in my schedule. As
Speaker 1: I created to do list of things I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to do professionally. That fear is there, but there's also
Speaker 1: an opposing force, which is hope. Because I'm taking the
Speaker 1: baby steps as you talk about in your podcast, and
Speaker 1: so I'm kind of experiencing both at the same time.
Speaker 1: But it's better than there may be being less fear,
Speaker 1: but no hope for solving this per realysis of perfection. Yea,
Speaker 1: you say that The main mantra in my brain is
Speaker 1: you don't have enough because you don't do enough. And
Speaker 1: the things that you do do you don't do well
Speaker 1: enough because you are not enough. How do you work
Speaker 1: with that? I took a nap. I can see why
Speaker 1: you feel like you need a nap With that thought,
Speaker 1: I look out for when I'm thinking that, and I
Speaker 1: realized that's the voice that was planted in me as
Speaker 1: a child, by others or by myself, or both, or
Speaker 1: by society. You know, the You're not a success unless
Speaker 1: you're living a big house and have power and notoriety.
Speaker 1: And I let those things go, and I think about
Speaker 1: my higher power and am I acting in accordance with
Speaker 1: the morals that I believe that higher power stands for.
Speaker 1: That's the only way that I know to nnect to
Speaker 1: my higher power is to embody. Try to embody qualities
Speaker 1: that I believe a great higher power would stand for,
Speaker 1: showing up on time, being nice in the grocery store,
Speaker 1: that ship. We were taught in kindergarten, and so I say,
Speaker 1: that's what's important. The results of my efforts is up
Speaker 1: to the universe, is up to my higher power. But
Speaker 1: what I can do is I can act in a
Speaker 1: principled way and let go of the things that I
Speaker 1: can't control. And that helps alleviate the fear because I'm
Speaker 1: reminded I'm not in control of the outcomes. I might
Speaker 1: be able to influence the outcome of things in my life,
Speaker 1: but ultimately, all I can do is put the effort
Speaker 1: in and really try to make sure that my efforts
Speaker 1: are in keeping with who I want to be. When
Speaker 1: you say morals that your higher power would bring, I
Speaker 1: think that's another way of saying your values. Is that
Speaker 1: something that you feel like you have a pretty clear
Speaker 1: idea of at this point, or is that something that
Speaker 1: you periodically feel like it's useful to revisit. I think
Speaker 1: it's useful to revisit, and I'd say about I'm pretty
Speaker 1: clear on that. I think the only place that it
Speaker 1: gets a little fuzzy is honestly with the satire that
Speaker 1: I do. I do satire is a really right wing
Speaker 1: congressman who see my home state from Ohio. That's right.
Speaker 1: Who embodies everything that I dislike, either about the world
Speaker 1: or sometimes even within myself, you know, a kernel of
Speaker 1: a part of myself, be it greed or or meanness
Speaker 1: or whatever. Sometimes I worry that I'm putting negative energy
Speaker 1: into the world, and I worry about that, but I
Speaker 1: also feel like I do this character well. I think
Speaker 1: it exercises the highest functioning part of my comedic muscles,
Speaker 1: and it's the most satisfying to me. I have no
Speaker 1: desire to do regular monology as a stand up anymore.
Speaker 1: I enjoy this, and because some of the things he
Speaker 1: says are super fucked up and dark, because I'm satirizing
Speaker 1: that real element in our country, I question myself sometimes
Speaker 1: does this need to be put out into the world.
Speaker 1: Are you going to just create more animosity and contribute
Speaker 1: towards that which feels like a civil war on the horizon?
Speaker 1: Or does it bring relief to people who feel helpless
Speaker 1: and voiceless with the meanness going on around us, especially
Speaker 1: by people who call themselves Christians. I have the same
Speaker 1: issue that you do, like with that from a satire perspective,
Speaker 1: but I do have that general thought about what's the
Speaker 1: right way forward with very radically different opinions among people.
Speaker 1: Is it to really just dig in and go, this
Speaker 1: is what I think is right and that's left up
Speaker 1: and or is it to try and broker some sort
Speaker 1: of conversation. That's when I wrestle with all the time.
Speaker 1: I tried once on Facebook to broker a conversation and
Speaker 1: it was a ship show within five minutes, and I
Speaker 1: really have not spent any time on Facebook since then.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that's the place to do it. My
Speaker 1: politics lean left words, but I've got a couple of
Speaker 1: people in my life who are fairly conservative but are
Speaker 1: also very thoughtful, and so I would like to be
Speaker 1: able to talk to them. But most people, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's it's a very good waste. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And it's not our job to teach them. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: up to us to embody the values we want. But
Speaker 1: to think that we are put here to change people
Speaker 1: is just going to make you an angrier person because
Speaker 1: you're going to see the results of doing that. I
Speaker 1: think the only change we can bring about in the
Speaker 1: world is through embodying the values that we think any
Speaker 1: God who possibly exists wants us to embody. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a Bible reader, but I believe the teachings
Speaker 1: of Christ are a great place to start. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of beautiful things. All the wisdom traditions out there,
Speaker 1: you know, are all the religious traditions have their very
Speaker 1: beautiful aspects of them. I mean, there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of beauty. Buddhism letting go. Oh yeah, you know, accepting
Speaker 1: that suffering is a part of life and not trying
Speaker 1: to not suffer, but say, how can I live in
Speaker 1: acceptance with the fact that there is suffering? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my primary Probably spiritual lenion Is is Buddhist. But
Speaker 1: the Spiritual Habits program I created, I sort of went
Speaker 1: through and surveyed like a bunch of the traditions out there.
Speaker 1: It's like, what are the core things that seem like
Speaker 1: they underlie all these But I don't want to go there.
Speaker 1: I want to ask how often does traffic come up
Speaker 1: in your conversations with your therapist? Almost never. It comes
Speaker 1: up often when your your podcast. It does because I
Speaker 1: use it as an example of how my recovery has
Speaker 1: benefited me in a practical way. It's pretty rare that
Speaker 1: I get upset by traffic, and if I do, it's
Speaker 1: usually short lived because I go to the work that
Speaker 1: I did in my support group, which revealed to me
Speaker 1: all of my fears and the ways I dealt with
Speaker 1: my fear in a way that was selfish and immature
Speaker 1: and didn't embody the values. You know, following somebody tailgating them,
Speaker 1: you know, rolling down my window and telling them they're
Speaker 1: a piece of ship. That used to be how I
Speaker 1: would handle the fear that would come up when somebody
Speaker 1: almost cut me off. Today, I go, well, I've been
Speaker 1: that person. I've been so filled with self I don't
Speaker 1: even look in my side view mirror. I cut somebody
Speaker 1: off because it's all about me, and I'm afraid if
Speaker 1: I don't get somewhere on time, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get something I need and my life is going to
Speaker 1: be miserable. So in that moment when somebody cuts me off,
Speaker 1: I think to myself, well, they're probably filled with fear
Speaker 1: and self and I've been that guy, and I'm grateful
Speaker 1: at in this moment I'm not experiencing that, and I
Speaker 1: go from feeling angry to feeling grateful and feeling my
Speaker 1: higher power in the car with me. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about an important reflection you had recently that nothing
Speaker 1: will shatter love like a canoe ride. It's so true, man,
Speaker 1: it's so true. I don't think I have stumbled as
Speaker 1: hard emotionally in the last five years outside of hockey
Speaker 1: that I did in that canoe with my girlfriend. I
Speaker 1: was so excited to be in there, but I did
Speaker 1: as you know, that thing that we do that sets
Speaker 1: us up for anger and resentment was that I had
Speaker 1: expected as about how well we were going to be
Speaker 1: able to canoe, and all of my character defects came
Speaker 1: to bear. My arrogance, my impatience, my feeling like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's up to me to teach people how to do things,
Speaker 1: and we were just paddling around in a circle. It
Speaker 1: felt to me like it was all her fault. And
Speaker 1: when she said, how much longer do you think we're
Speaker 1: going to be across the lake and we get to
Speaker 1: you know, see that clear stream the person was talking about,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I see it taking us hours
Speaker 1: and hours and hours, and there was a silence. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, she was behind me, so I couldn't see
Speaker 1: how that was received until I heard sniffling about ten
Speaker 1: seconds later, and I just went, man, why did you
Speaker 1: have to be such a dick? And I apologized to her,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't really feel the apology because I was
Speaker 1: still in that moment angry at her. It took me
Speaker 1: probably about an hour of really talking yeah and apologizing
Speaker 1: more deeply and more sincerely that we were able to
Speaker 1: kind of laugh about it, and we joke about it
Speaker 1: to this day. But it's a great example of be
Speaker 1: careful of expectations. You said something when I heard you
Speaker 1: tell that that I really liked you said. I learned
Speaker 1: that when I set my mind on something, I can
Speaker 1: lose my sense of humor and become mean. That really
Speaker 1: hit me that when I get my mind set on something,
Speaker 1: the world narrows a great deal, you know. And and
Speaker 1: I'm generally, you know, not perfect and generally good at
Speaker 1: keeping my meanness internal, but I certainly lose my sense
Speaker 1: of humor, and internally I do get a little bit mean,
Speaker 1: you know, when I think not everybody's doing it the
Speaker 1: way I think we should be doing it. And I
Speaker 1: find myself doing that in hockey, sometimes barking at my
Speaker 1: teammates because I've showed up at the rank feeling the
Speaker 1: absence of something in my life that I want to feel,
Speaker 1: and I look to the score of the game to
Speaker 1: fill that part of me. The feeling of winning, which
Speaker 1: is super fucked up, but it's been with me since
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I don't know if it
Speaker 1: has anything to do with the fact that the only
Speaker 1: time I saw my dad express pure joy was when
Speaker 1: I pitched a winning game against an undefeated team. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe that's stuck in my brain and so I associate
Speaker 1: winning with my value as a person. But it's still
Speaker 1: a battle, even though I can consciously be aware of that.
Speaker 1: So I have to ask myself when I hear myself
Speaker 1: telling people to skate hard or whatever stupid thing that
Speaker 1: I'm doing, to say, what is it that you want
Speaker 1: to feel in your life that you're looking for this
Speaker 1: to provide? Yeah, you know, when I play a game,
Speaker 1: I definitely get competitive, but I really look for, like,
Speaker 1: how do I embody the parts of that that are
Speaker 1: enjoyable and fun. A similar thing as I took up
Speaker 1: the sport of indoor rock climbing primarily bouldering over the
Speaker 1: last year or so, and my nature is to be
Speaker 1: like and I'm not. I'm gonna get a trainer, and
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna like I'll turn something that should be
Speaker 1: enjoyable into like work. It's really interesting that dynamic. The
Speaker 1: thing that I try to bring it back to is
Speaker 1: I'm going to take it one moment at a time
Speaker 1: in the game and just try to bring out my
Speaker 1: best and let the results fall where they may, and
Speaker 1: not focus on my teammates. Keep my mouth shut. If
Speaker 1: somebody doesn't want to skate, it's up to them to
Speaker 1: not skate, and maybe we'll lose ten nothing, But that's
Speaker 1: not a reflection of my value as a person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hockey is a big part of your life. It is,
Speaker 1: it is. I think it's great that you still play
Speaker 1: at you know, your advanced stage. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a walker. I would a blade on it. Well, speaking
Speaker 1: of walkers, I went roller skating re sently. I'm terrible,
Speaker 1: so I would not be a hockey player. I'm terrible.
Speaker 1: They have invented this thing that was the most humiliating
Speaker 1: thing I've done to myself in a long time. They
Speaker 1: basically created, I'm not joking, a walker on wheels so
Speaker 1: you can learn. You could you could hold onto it
Speaker 1: and skate around with it. It's a good idea, it's
Speaker 1: a great idea, but it really ridiculous, looks preposterous. You know,
Speaker 1: I've got elbow pads and wrist pads and I'm here
Speaker 1: though in l A because I'm surfing, being from Ohio.
Speaker 1: How did you discover surfing? I didn't until two months ago.
Speaker 1: My partner Jenny and I had been playing a long
Speaker 1: time a trip to Europe and she was going to
Speaker 1: be in some training part of the time, and so
Speaker 1: one of the places that I was going to go
Speaker 1: was San Sebastian, Spain. And as I was reading about
Speaker 1: they kept saying this great for surfing, and like, I think,
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to learn to surf, but why not?
Speaker 1: And I loved it. You were able to get up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is no easy feat. I'm learning how to
Speaker 1: practiced like I practiced in that ape and your skinny
Speaker 1: so you you're not battling extra pounds, yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: I practiced ahead of time, but yeah, but I really
Speaker 1: liked it. And so then I was like, well, I've
Speaker 1: got a good friend who lives here, and I knew
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you, and I thought, why
Speaker 1: not come out to l A. Do some surfing in
Speaker 1: the morning during the day. I did it this morning,
Speaker 1: So how was it? It was fun? Where'd you go?
Speaker 1: Santa Monica? Nice? All right? What ways do you feel
Speaker 1: like currently in your life, whether psychologically spiritually, you're growing.
Speaker 1: You mentioned sort of giving up the video games. I
Speaker 1: mean that's a big one, But what ways are you
Speaker 1: feeling like you're kind of being called to grow? I
Speaker 1: feel like by putting the video games down, because I
Speaker 1: you know, I put the drugs and alcohol away years ago.
Speaker 1: I stopped looking at pornography. You know, probably I don't know,
Speaker 1: seven eight months ago. I am having to face my
Speaker 1: everyday fears of that thing that you quoted of, I
Speaker 1: don't do enough because you know, etcetera, etcetera. And so
Speaker 1: I'm having to find practical ways to set goals for
Speaker 1: the things that I'm deeply afraid of committing too because
Speaker 1: either it's going to take a lot of time, or
Speaker 1: it's going to take a lot of effort, or I
Speaker 1: might fail, or I don't think I'm good enough, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But the little nibbles, you know, I've been eating away
Speaker 1: at it with by actually doing things, recording things, writing things,
Speaker 1: sharing things. I'm beginning to feel that it's maybe not
Speaker 1: as overwhelming as I thought it was. So I'm getting
Speaker 1: a sense of myself that I had actually gotten a
Speaker 1: taste of when I went glacier climbing twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I was so amazed that my body was able to
Speaker 1: endure the pain that I went through that it made
Speaker 1: me realize I'm capable of so much more than I
Speaker 1: think I am. And it's almost all mental, you know.
Speaker 1: An hour into this eight hour hike with an overpacked
Speaker 1: backpack that probably weighed eighty pounds, it felt like somebody
Speaker 1: was stabbing my hips with screwdrivers, and I thought, my
Speaker 1: only choice is to soldier through this or to have
Speaker 1: one of the guides take me back all the way
Speaker 1: to the parking lot and drive me all the way
Speaker 1: back into town and then they're going to have to
Speaker 1: hike up by themselves. And so I suppose my ego
Speaker 1: came to the rescue and said, you can't be that guy.
Speaker 1: And I found a place in my head to go
Speaker 1: to to deal with the pain, and by the time
Speaker 1: we got to base camp, I realized, Wow, we are
Speaker 1: capable of more then we think we are. If we
Speaker 1: can find a way to deal with it mentally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love when we're able to do that, when we're
Speaker 1: actually able to sort of see, oh, I am able
Speaker 1: to do these things that my brain was telling me
Speaker 1: I can't. And what you just described as of the
Speaker 1: strategies I often use, which is to remind myself of
Speaker 1: times I did because my brain will be like, well yeah,
Speaker 1: but then I'll be like, but actual facts, as we did. Yes.
Speaker 1: And I also try to leave open the option that
Speaker 1: I won't do it, Yeah, that I'll fail in doing it,
Speaker 1: And that's not a reflection of who I am as
Speaker 1: a person, it just is. Yep. Well, Paul, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me out and coming back on
Speaker 1: the show again. It was such a pleasure. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: listen to eric guests on my podcast if it's out
Speaker 1: when this air. Tell people where they can find your
Speaker 1: absolutely wonderful podcast. I don't listen to very many, but
Speaker 1: one of the ones I do listen to is yours.
Speaker 1: It's the Mental Illness Happy Hour. Thanks buddy. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: can find out wherever you get your podcast, and the
Speaker 1: website for it is mental pod dot com and metal Pod.
Speaker 1: Also the social media handle you can follow us at excellent.
Speaker 1: Thanks Paul. Thanks brother. If what you just heard was
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