Shifting Perspectives: Mindfulness and Mental Health | Jeremy Grater

00:00
And you know, it's not the big dramatic story, right? I was a new dad. I was in bed early one morning when the Amazon grocery delivery guy knocked on the door and it made my dog bark. And any new dad knows if that dog wakes the baby up, the dog's finding a new home. So I get out of bed and when I stepped, nothing unusual, literally took a step and just collapsed under pain in my knee. I couldn't tell you what happened. I don't know what was wrong, but I could not get up.

00:30
Eventually got well enough to go to doctors and try to figure it out. And it turned out there was just some sort of neat and like nerve damage that was done. But in the process of discovering this, my physical therapist said, you know, given your family's history and what's going on with your knees, if you don't get on a bike and start biking regularly, you're going to end up replacing both of them. And I thought, well, that's insane. I haven't ridden a bike since I was like six years old. Why would I, why would I start now? I'm, you know, however old I was 30 something.

00:57
So I did, I did what I always did at the time. I went to my brother and was like, this crazy doctor thinks I'm gonna start riding a bike. Ha, where's my beer? And he was like, dummy, all you have to do is decide that you're that weird guy that rides his bike to work. It can't take longer to ride to work than it does to ride the bus right now. So just try it. Today's guest is Jeremy Grater. He's a guy whose life was actually significantly changed by an unexpected knee injury. And this injury led him down a path of mindfulness and meditation.

01:27
and it's one that he'd eventually lose 70 pounds and really gain a new perspective on life. Jeremy's a fellow podcaster and he's the cohost of the Fit Mess podcast. And it's a place where he kind of candidly explores men's mental health issues with his cohost. And at the start of our conversation, you'll kind of get to hear how we got connected. In this conversation, Jeremy shares his journey through depression.

01:53
and how we went from someone living in constant anxiety about the future to someone who's present and appreciative of the now. This episode's a good reminder that even in our darkest times there's hope and a potential for change. So anyone feeling alone in their struggles, I think his story will hopefully make you feel less alone and that there is an opportunity to change, but the first step is usually the hardest. But as we talk about in this episode, it's the most rewarding.

02:23
Before we get into the episode, I want to thank my Patreon supporters. So that's Traci, Miki and Emily this week. They all support two episodes a month on the Patreon tier, and I'm forever thankful. This helps me to update equipment, software, other tools, all sorts of stuff that I use to put this show together by myself. If you'd like to directly support the show, you can head over to patreon.com/thelifeshiftpodcast and you can find all the information there. So without further ado, let's jump into my conversation.

02:53
with Jeremy Grater. I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is The Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

03:13
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am joined today by Jeremy. Hey, Jeremy. Hello. I want to commend you. Jeremy is a podcaster. He's been in the podcasting industry for 100 years. It's something like the 104, I think, if we're doing the math. 104 years. And you currently have a podcast called the Fit Mess Podcast, right, with a friend of yours, Zach. Yeah, correct. And so I've been listening to your show.

03:41
I want to say probably for maybe like a year now. It's kind of hard in podcasting years. I don't know how long that is. Like, I don't know what that's like, but recently as of this recording, you guys had an episode that just really spoke to me and you were just so vulnerable in sharing and the two of you had just such a honest, open conversation that is rare to hear recorded out there.

04:11
but it was so impactful. And so I reached out to you and I just wanted to let you know that it meant something. So thank you for doing what you do with your podcast, but also for that episode specifically. Thank you for hearing it the way that, I hoped that it would land. As you described, I mean, I was in the middle of a pretty depressed state and depression is something that I've lived with my entire life. And Zach and I sat down to record the content that we had prepared. And he was just like, dude, what?

04:39
What is up with you? Something's off. And we just started talking like friends, which is really how our show started. It was two guys that eventually, once the walls were broken down, we got vulnerable as new dads with each other. Just talking about the pains and the struggles we were having as new dads, and that just evolved into all of the other things that we were working on in our lives. And in this particular case, I just opened up with like, this is where I'm at right now. I just, I feel...

05:05
Like I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not reaching the things I'm supposed to do, I'm not living the life I'm supposed to live. Like all of that stuff that was just heavy on my shoulders in the moment. And that conversation went on for a while and we just decided, let's put this out there as an episode because we don't wanna be another one of those Instagram influencers that's, everything's perfect, all you have to do is just think differently, just be happy, make a choice. Like, cool, a lot of times you can do that. But for those of us that live with this stuff, there are times when no.

05:34
You absolutely cannot, there is no choice in it. You can have all the tools in the toolbox and know exactly what to do, but the ability to actually take the action when you're in those deep, dark, depressed places, it's a whole other beast that isn't solved with some, you know, Canva created image on Instagram, so. Yeah, and I feel the same way. It was just, it really spoke to me because I felt that

06:01
Growing up after my mom died and I was kind of going this grieving journey from nine from eight years old till 30 something until I really got a grasp on it. I felt like I was like the only one no one was talking about like how I felt. And so I didn't feel comfortable enough to say this out loud. And so with this journey of the life shift podcast now I feel a little bit more open. I share things that I'm like why did I say that? Oh well. And

06:30
That's what I loved about that episode. It was like, I think conditionally, we were taught to never put that out in public, right? Yeah. But there's such power in doing it because I'm sure more than just me heard that and felt less alone in their experience. That, I mean, I think probably more than any other episode we've ever done. And we've talked to some like big deal people in this space. That one, I got more response from people that were just like, thank you for saying that. Thank you for putting that out there.

06:58
And I struggle with it too, because when I do see people that I know struggle with mental health and they, you know, turn on the camera and, and display it, I have, there's a disconnect for me where the, the minute the camera's on, like the ca the character takes over the mask goes on. So I really don't know how to capture that authentically in the moment. Like that episode was unique because I was on a call with my friend who asked how I was doing, and so we just had a conversation.

07:28
and it turned into an episode. Had I felt that way, sat in this chair and turned on this camera, all of a sudden the mask would have gone on with, you know, today I'm feeling kind of depressed and I wanna tell you what I'm going to do with it. But I don't wanna be that guy. I don't wanna wear a mask. I don't wanna BS people. This is hard. Like all of this stuff, the stuff that we talk about on our show in terms of trying to follow a path to better health and wellness, to living with more intention, all these things. It is a hard, lonely, challenging path.

07:58
to live. And when you're carrying the baggage of depression, anxiety, social anxiety, you're an introvert in an extrovert world, whatever your thing is, it just makes it that much harder. And so our mission has always been to try to make it less lonely because the further you go on this path, you're often more isolated because you lose a lot of the friends that don't understand what you're doing. They feel uncomfortable because they're not changing and you are. Whatever the thing is, it gets lonelier. And so we wanted to be a place where

08:27
You have community, you have somebody who thinks like you, who talks like you, to make you feel like you're not the only one, to hopefully just make it a little bit easier to take the next step on the path. Yeah, and you guys, I mean, I like the... that Zach was compassionate, but also, like, realistic. And, you know, like, there was some no BS comments to you. But that's that real conversation. And to just put a...

08:57
pin on this piece, I think you're right. With this performative nature of the world and coaches and gurus and people that are telling us to just do these five things and you'll not be depressed anymore or you won't have anxiety, then those of us that have those feelings, we feel like we're failing even more. 100%. We absorb that and then it just, to your point, it just isolates us. And so, you know, I kind of try to do that on this show is like make people...

09:26
or have conversations in hopes that someone listening feels a little less alone in their circumstance. Like, oh, so-and-so is going through the same thing. They've kind of made it over a hump, or maybe they didn't. But you know, like, I'm not alone in this. And so again, thank you for that episode. Thank you for what you guys are putting into the world, especially from the male perspective. I think that is often lost in the performative world that we live in. Yeah, I agree.

09:54
especially when it comes to sharing any kind of feelings or vulnerability. There's not a lot of space. I do think it's changing slowly, but there's not a lot of space for guys to just hurt publicly, right? Yeah, and guess what? We're human, so it's going to happen. We have the range of emotions, just like everyone else, and I think we are getting more comfortable. Some of us are getting more comfortable sharing that and feeling power in that, I guess.

10:19
in some way? Yeah, well, it's work like you're doing and work like we're trying to do that is slowly kicking that door open inch by inch. So thank you as well for what you're doing. Well, I appreciate that. Nothing feeds my soul more than when I hear from someone behind the scenes that like, I just need to hear that. I just needed that today and thank you. So, any case, we're here to talk about you, which we did a little bit, but the show started in the idea that

10:47
When I was eight, my mom was killed in an accident. And I knew at that moment that my dad told me, my life was never going to be the same. And so going through that grieving journey, thinking I can't be the only one that's had like a significant something happen, whether that's internal fire or movement or something from the external side that shifted things. So.

11:12
I invited you on and we don't know what we're gonna talk about today. You have an idea, but you know, we all have these pivotal moments. And so I always ask, choose the one that you feel has changed you the most. So tell us a little bit about who you are right now. And then we'll go into you painting the picture of what your life was like leading up to this. Yeah. Well, I mean, now I'm a 70 pound lighter version of myself than I was. I'm someone who lives with depression, who is who is not a depressed person.

11:40
I am someone who is in much more control of my own destiny, in much more control of my own emotions. I am a better dad than I ever thought possible with a lot of room to grow. Try to be a good husband, do my best every day. But in all, I'm just a guy that tries some stuff to make his life a little better. And when they work, I get excited about it and want to share it with people. So that's sort of what we do on the podcast. We've shifted.

12:05
really a lot more directly into talking about men's mental health issues. Because as it turns out, we're men that have mental health issues and we're trying to make our pain our purpose, right? We're trying to help other guys to understand this stuff. So that's sort of a snapshot of who I am, but how I got here was a really strange knee injury and you know, it's not the, a big dramatic story, right? I was a new dad. I was in bed early one morning when the Amazon grocery delivery guy knocked on the door.

12:35
And it made my dog bark and any new dad knows if that dog wakes the baby up, the dog's finding a new home. So I get out of bed and when I stepped, what I, nothing unusual literally took a step and just collapsed under a pain in my knee. I couldn't tell you what happened. I don't know what was wrong, but I could not get up. Eventually got well enough to go to doctors and try to figure it out. And it turned out there was just some sort of neat and like nerve damage that was done. But in the process of discovering this.

13:03
My physical therapist said, you know, given your family's history and what's going on with your knees, if you don't get on a bike and start biking regularly, you're going to end up replacing both of them. And I thought, well, that's insane. I haven't ridden a bike since I was like six years old. Why would I, why would I start now? I'm however old I was 30 something. So I did, I went to, I did what I always did at the time. I went to my brother and it was like this crazy doctor thinks I'm going to start riding a bike, ha, where's my beer? And he was like, dummy.

13:31
All you have to do is decide that you're that weird guy that rides his bike to work. It can't take longer to ride to work than it does to ride the bus right now. So just try it. And for whatever reason, the way he said it, when he said it, I, in that moment became the weird guy that rides his bike to work, bought a bike within like a week. And it was a nine mile ride. And I started riding every day. And I had no idea how much having to be present in the moment and paying attention to

13:56
the next few feet in front of me or where I was on the bike at any given time was going to completely change my life because the power of being present in right now was never more apparent than that ride. And after doing it for a few weeks, a couple of months, I went to my wife and I was like, I got to find a way to bring more of this into my life because before it was stressing about how I messed up at work yesterday, how I'm going to mess up today or dealing with that difficult colleague or...

14:22
The stress of, you know, how I'm failing as a dad. I want to do things better all this time. I was just in my head constantly. And when I found peace while navigating city streets on a bike, I was like, I need more of this. And so I found a therapist who taught me all about meditation. And that was like the first two doors that were kicked open toward a path of, you know, cold plunges, breath work, all kinds of, I mean, just you name it, I've done it, but it was all because I hurt my knee one day and had to try something different.

14:52
And it's, I mean, you say it's not significant, but it is significant. It was like your stop sign. It was your like something that was like, hey buddy, wake up, you know, like, instead of the dog barking, it was your alarm clock. Like it's time to maybe think of life in a different way. Cause it sounds like, were you living a lot in future? Like I should be doing this or this is gonna happen. And so my life is gonna suck more. And

15:20
Because you said like how I'm going to mess up today at work or how I should be a better dad or all these pieces and all you needed was something that to remind you like today is important as well. Yeah, I think really up until recently, and I mean very recently in the last year, I lived in a place of by default, I'm not good enough either for this crowd, for this room, for this show, for my family, for this job.

15:47
I'm going to be discovered as a fraud and somebody's going to bounce me out of here. That was just my base level. That's where I worked from. So every day on the way to work in a 20-year career in radio, I was like, maybe today's the day they figure out I shouldn't be here. Meanwhile, from the outside, everyone's like, don't you dare leave. We can't do this without you. So none of that messaging ever penetrated. So that was my baseline. And so the deprogramming I worked on...

16:14
particularly in the last year, has eradicated that voice from my head. And like the silence is eerie. Like I don't know what to do with the space now because I spent so much time thinking, I'm going to mess this up. I'm not good enough for that. This money problem, that family problem, whatever, that's just where I live. And now there's this quiet that I have to figure out how to fill it with, you know what, you're all right. You're doing pretty well. What can we focus on to maybe take the next step on this path?

16:42
In that moment when you had your knee injury, you were doing your physical therapy, you were doing probably following the rules as much as you wanted to. Maybe. Yeah. Do you think if you hadn't called your brother, do you think that he was really that trigger to like be like, like almost like a permission slip to do the weird thing and bike to work? Yeah. I mean, I still very much reliant on external validation. So.

17:10
I don't know that I ever would have found it in me to just go, I think this is a good idea because the doctor said so. I think this is a good idea. I'm going to pursue this. But having somebody else who I cared about, you know, who was basically like a mentor to me to have him say, yeah, it was like, oh, maybe this isn't weird. Maybe this is like, maybe being weird isn't the weird thing. Let's give it a shot. And so yeah, I absolutely I think that was a pivotal moment.

17:35
I never, you know, I don't know how to word something sometimes because of the way that I felt in moments like that where, you know, someone tells me, I know I need to do something. Like I know on paper that it makes sense. I know that it's possible. I know that it's logical, but I know that I'm not going to get to the point where I can admit that out loud. So then I seek out someone that I know might tell me. Yeah. Does that feel like it was part of your journey? Like you actually

18:03
Do you should be doing that? And so you were like, I know he's going to tell me. I think it was so, I mean, just full disclosure, you know, I was the podcast I was doing before this was with him and a friend of ours. And the premise was basically the three of us would just get hammered and talk about the nonsense in our lives. I was going into it with an arrogance of, oh, this will be the hilarious story. I'll tell my brother that this this nut doctor thinks I'm going to start riding the bike, ha, right, like that, like that was more of the approach. And when he was like, no, that kind of makes sense. It's like, oh.

18:33
It just was like a different light was turned on in the room that made it clearer. Were you quote-unquote unhealthy at that time? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I had 70 more pounds on me than I do now. I still wrestle with whether or not alcoholic is the term I would use, but I certainly manage my emotions with alcohol, which I did not realize until I took it out of my life and realized how many times I felt badly. And my default was, oh, go to the fridge. Oh, no, I don't do that anymore. So.

19:01
certainly depending on alcohol for that. I was not going to any kind of therapy. I did not eat well. I did not exercise. I did not do probably 90% of the things I do now to try to manage, to really manage the noise in my head. Right, like there are physical effects from things that I do, but all of it is to manage and, you know, suppress, keep at bay the depressive episodes that come along. So yeah, I would argue that I was very unhealthy, very washed out, burned out, tired.

19:32
You know, yeah, in a bad place. Yeah, and now this version of you having gone through therapy and done all this stuff, all this work on yourself, like motivated by yourself, do you look back at that earlier version of you and see why you did that? See why things got to the place where they are? I mean, I'm coming at that from my own perspective of when my mom died and I changed my behaviors.

20:02
for the people around me because that eight-year-old was afraid that other people were going to abandon me because my mom dying was abandonment in my tiny eight-year-old brain. And so everything that I did until I was like 30-something was out of this fear that I was going to fail and therefore people were going to leave. And I didn't discover that until therapy. And then when I looked back, I was like, oh.

20:31
I see how I got to where I was and how messed up and how, I shouldn't use the word messed up, but how off path I was, I guess, in the way that I felt and the things that I did and the decisions that I made. So when you started to unravel things and look back, did you have a awakening in that sense? There's been a lot of them. And yeah, I mean, when we're children, we're dependent on...

20:56
the adults in our lives for survival. So we adapt and we behave in ways that wins their love and their affection so that we are safe. And, you know, there was certainly alcoholism in my family that I had to hide from, make myself small from, not contribute to anything that might lead to an argument or a fight. I'm trying to not throw anybody under the bus here, but there were things said by adults in my life about how they basically constantly threatened to kill themselves. And their absence would be a massive hole in my life.

21:26
And so there was weapons in the house that, you know, they were just there. They were never used. There was never a threat of any kind, but they were there. And so that in combination with the constant threat of suicide, the abuse of alcohol. There was just a lot of instability that created a ton of fear. And so my reaction was shut down, be small, feed the fear with food, whatever was in the pantry, because I'm certainly not, you know,

21:52
old enough to prepare real food, so get whatever processed junk is we got at Costco out of the closet. And so that was the behavior was just hide and numb, hide and numb, hide and numb. And I also just recently discovered how the things that our parents and the people we look to as children, the things they say out loud about themselves, we identify as our own. And I've told this story a few times, it's much less harmful than some of the others I could. But

22:21
but I was at a Thanksgiving with my mom. The whole family's there, bunch of different dietary restrictions, right? Different things. So she makes four different lasagnas, like a gluten-free, a dairy-free, like four, who makes one lasagna, right? But she made four. And the whole time, like as we're all gathering and she starts like downplaying, like, oh, that one's probably gonna be a little watery, that one's probably gonna be like all these excuses for why they weren't gonna be good. And I was like, oh my God, that's the voice in my head. That's the one that's always telling me.

22:50
whatever I'm doing isn't good enough. Cause I've heard her do that her whole life, which no slight to my mom. My mom's an amazing person. I love her death. She was probably repeating something she witnessed from her mom or her dad. And it's just that generation of, or that generational cycling of not taking stock of the way you interact or behave around your children can have a big impact on them. And so, you know, the voices of suicide, the voices of, you know, how they're gonna deal with that, that was not my mom, but.

23:19
That is a voice that I heard in my head all of my life. And I thought, that's just me. I'm broken and programmed the wrong way. And hearing that lasagna conversation, I was like, that's me. And so is that. Like all of it was these, the things people were saying about themselves that I adopted as my own identity. Yeah, because you were hiding to not disturb things. And so the only way to build an identity is to absorb it. And in my opinion of these little extra things, you know, I...

23:49
even growing up had very similar things to what your mom would say about those lasagnas is almost like I would do that to just in case it wasn't good. Because that would dampen my fear. Like I told you it wasn't going to be good. And so that failure is a little bit smaller because I warned you just in case. Yeah. And P.S. all of the lasagnas were good.

24:15
gone. Everyone got like third and fourth help and it's like everyone loved it. So. But that's also helpful. Yeah. Like for those of us in those depressive moments or that, that live with depression or however we want to word it, that's also helpful because if we set it up, that it might not be that good. When people say it's great, it's like this, this euphoric kind of feeling that we don't often

24:43
Like we almost set ourselves up to feel better because we know we can't on our own. Yeah, yeah. It's such a, we're very interesting people. Like this, not us, not the two of us, but humans and you know, like our brains are really trying to protect ourselves without us realizing what we're doing. It translates in so many ways. Like, you know, how many times do you show up for a Zoom meeting or a meeting at work where you've got the story of, I'm not prepared enough because, like you've got to have the story of.

25:10
Oh man, I was up late last night. I hope I'm on par today, right? Like you gotta sort of lower the bar for everybody just by showing up. And if you can, and this is the next phase of my battle, if you can discover a shred of self-acceptance, then just maybe there's a chance that in this reality right now, you are perfectly good enough, right as you are, right now, whatever you're doing. Imagine what you could...

25:39
Imagine the life you could create if instead of creating the excuses of why you're not good enough right now What you could become if you focus the energy that way rather than constantly trying to dismiss how you may not be good enough For somebody else. Yeah, what were your what were your scales that made you feel? Or that you know may currently make you feel in certain moments not good enough Like where were you getting this information or were you making it up?

26:07
Because I feel like society was very much telling me that I was a failure if I didn't do X, Y, or Z. Yeah, I mean, especially, you know, something I'm dealing with right now, and we may be doing an episode on it soon, is, you know, I definitely escape into my phone now. Like, you know, when I've just had enough and I'm tired, I will doom scroll. And that's where I'll find all of the perfect Instagram posts, all of the, you know, billionaires telling me how I could just, if I could just do this simple thing, suddenly I wouldn't have, you know, financial problems.

26:35
Yeah, three simple steps to life. Everybody's got them figured out. Uh, and it's funny how the people that have loads of money and teams and resources, it's real simple for them. They just outsource everything to everybody else. So the measure, I mean, I guess the most recent example, I went to a big conference a few weeks ago and you know, there I am in a room full of people that have been in this industry for a half or a quarter of the time that I have that are either experiencing greater success than I am or putting out the illusion that they're

27:03
you know, creating better success than I am. And, you know, by day three, day four of being surrounded by these people and all the stories of all you have to do is, and man, just follow this plan and you'll have it figured out. The feeling of I don't belong here, how did they figure it out faster than me? What's wrong with me that I couldn't solve this puzzle back when I was one of the only people on the planet doing it? That started to creep in of like, oh man, I'm not good enough here. And then I came home.

27:33
And in the community where I live, we are renters in a community where it's, um, I mean, I live in a resort community, but I'm a renter, right? And most of the houses are empty because it is the second or third vacation home of a lot of the people that are here. And so they're here in the summertime and there was a concert in our neighborhood. And I'm sitting there at this concert in the, in the grassy field and surrounded by a hundred people. And I'm looking at every one of them going, all homeowners, all making more money than me.

28:02
I don't belong here. And even as a podcaster, like the band that was there was essentially a cover band, a great cover band, but they were a cover band. And part of me started going like, I am a self-help podcaster. Am I a cover band? Am I do, am I just a knockoff of Mel Robbins? Am I a knockoff of Tony Robbins? Like, what am I doing with my life? So this is the story. Like this conference set off the cycle of I'm not good enough, which buried me for like a week of just like, I've.

28:31
It's too late now. How am I going to turn this around? But, you know, enough time, enough rest, enough using of the tools, support, therapy, all the things, start to, you know, you start to claw your way back out. But yeah, that's that that is probably the most recent recent example of feeling like I don't measure up. And I think a lot of what you just mentioned was on that episode that I reached out to you about was that you were kind of in that feeling of, I mean, but we think of conferences and we realize that that there are a lot of performative nature.

29:00
about these conferences. It's not like us saying like, guess what happened last week when I felt like a big pile of garbage? They're going out like, look at what I did on this particular episode. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done. And I got 4 million people to listen in the first 10 seconds, whatever that may be. And you're just like, but I get it. I absorb those same things maybe in this industry and every industry. One thing that this podcast has taught me.

29:31
personally is how to just listen to somebody. Yeah. Because for so long in corporate America, I felt that you would go to a meeting and you'd just be waiting for the next silence, or I would be waiting for the next silence to say the most profound thing that I could think of that I had written down. So I wasn't listening to what everyone else around me was saying, I was just waiting for that silence because Matt was going to sound smart. He was going to say something that everyone was going to be like,

29:59
I can't believe he said that. But it probably had nothing to do with everything else because I wasn't listening. And so before we started, I was like, I don't do a lot of research because I really just want this to be a conversation. And I think if I did a lot of research, my problem, I know me personally, I would just be waiting for the person to stop talking. And then I'd look at my sheet of paper and be like, okay, how do I fit this question in? Right, right. So we do, we get wrapped up in like,

30:29
or I got wrapped up in so many checklists that the world was putting out there, but maybe they weren't. Like no one was, my dad did the best he could with what he knew how to do. He wasn't expecting me to perform at my highest and not fail him. He wasn't gonna leave me. He wasn't, but I just took all that off. I just absorbed that. And so, I think the idea of just finding this ability to be present.

30:56
Funny enough, it happened to be riding nine miles on a bike to work every day, but the idea of being present has been so impactful in my life. So what were some of the first things that it triggered when you were riding your bike? I'm sure the first time you're like, this sucks.

31:14
Or was it like right away where you just like this is the most amazing thing I've ever experienced No, it was it was hard and yeah There was a massive hill anyone in Seattle knows Fremont Hill biking up or down that thing is a nightmare And that's actually where I ended up getting in a crash But I think it was it was articulated well by my therapist when he explained how meditation works And he was just like, you know If you imagine a glass of water that's got a bunch of like soot and stuff in it You're constantly just swirling it around trying to clear it. It's constantly cloudy. There's no clarity You can't figure out what's actually in there

31:44
whatever and he's like the craziest thing that happens is as soon as you set it down and just do nothing all of that stuff just settles to the bottom and you have clarity you can see the path really clearly and that ability to realize the amount of stress and anxiety I was putting myself through trying to figure out a how do I not just you know get discovered as a fraud how do I deal with this difficult co-worker how do I show up enough to perform and you know keep my job

32:13
All this stuff that I worried about when I realized I'm here, I'm doing it, focus on the task in front of you and stop worrying about all these stories. It just created more space in my head and really allowed me to discover a lot about myself. And part of it was that I absolutely hated that job. That was part of the problem. I hated this thing, but I was dependent on it because without it, my family didn't have healthcare and we were going to starve and die. Right? So I kept showing up to do this thing and going to my doctor every year and having him say,

32:43
Have you quit that toxic job yet? It's killing you. And there was just so much fear. And when I put all of that stuff down and allowed some space for your inner child, the inner you, God, whatever you subscribe to, when you make room to hear what they have to say, man, there's a lot of wisdom. And so that really opened my eyes to, I need to get out of this job. I need to do something else. I need to completely change my life.

33:12
which still was only enough to move the needle a little. And it wasn't until COVID shut the world down and made all of us go, what do you really want out of this experience? That was the catalyst for me that, I mean, we completely changed our lives. We left the, we sold our house, left everything behind, left everyone behind and moved to a new country and a new town where we knew nobody and just trusted that by taking that leap, some net was gonna appear. And not only did it appear, but it has dramatically improved our lives by every measure.

33:43
I mean, so it's for someone or like the story you told of who you were before that seems so hard and foreign. Yeah. To get to that place, right? Like to even trust yourself enough to quit a job or to pack up your stuff or leave stuff behind or leave people behind. Like I'm letting someone down, like how can I do? So how did, like, what were some of the things that got you to that point? Like what was like something, you said meditation.

34:13
You say cold plunges. What was like the most impactful thing? Give me your three things to change my life. Here's my three step formula for happy life. Just follow along, it's really. Exactly. Because it's so fascinating to me because it's such a difference, right? Like I feel like that old version of you would. Oh, never. Seems like that would be a really far-fetched thing to do. No, so I mean, short backstory. My wife was born in Canada to American parents who just happened to be in Canada when she was born. So she is a dual citizen. All of our lives, she.

34:42
had this idea that it'd be kind of fun to live in Canada. Because why not, right? She was born there. We have this opportunity. And there were just, you know, sort of the surface level things. There were some things happening in the country, in the town where we lived, where I was like, okay, like lines were crossed. And I was like, done. I'm ready to go. Let's go somewhere else. But the work leading up to it was understanding that I could do hard things, that I could bike nine miles or 18 miles.

35:11
that I could sit in ice water for three, four, five, 10 minutes and survive, be okay. That I could lift heavy things. That I could be a dad. That I could own a home, right? Like these things that were scary to me, little by little I started testing, can I do this? And I kept building up the evidence that proved that I was who I said I wanted to be. And that, I mean, I'm not kidding of all the things that have happened in my life.

35:41
moving was the scariest thing I've ever done. I mean, the six months it took to make the decision, list our house, come up with a plan. I cried in my kids' room every single night, putting them to bed, worrying, am I ruining their lives? I'm taking them away from their friends. I'm taking them away from their families. We know nobody. This could be the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life and it could damage them. Just sobbing in their room every night. But I have also learned, you know, and it's so funny, but the Ryan Holiday book, The Obstacle Is The Way,

36:11
Fantastic book, but that title is a mantra that I tell myself all the time. Whatever the hard thing is, is the path I need to go on to grow. Because if I stay comfortable, if I stay in my little box, I get miserable and there's no growth, there's no change. I just take up space on this rock, you know, for another spin around the sun. So I would much rather be pushing myself to do these hard things. And don't get me wrong. There's still plenty of things. There's still plenty of roller coasters I will not get on. Yet.

36:41
But I look for what's the next challenge, what's the next thing that scares me and try to put myself through it so that I can have more evidence that I am who I say I am. Yeah, it's like you built trust in yourself that even if you take a misstep or what someone else might see as a misstep or what the old version of you might see as a misstep that you can find your way out or you can find your way around or.

37:09
And it just goes back to that, like what all the gurus are telling us, just take that next step. But it's really hard sometimes. Yeah, it is. And sometimes, you know, I tell this story a lot. Maybe I told it on that episode. But you know, in Frozen 2, when Anna is in the cave and she's singing about just taking, doing the next right thing. When I'm depressed, sometimes it's just opening a window. Maybe that's the next right thing. When I'm feeling good, maybe it's going to the gym a little bit longer.

37:38
adding a little bit more weight on the bar. Sometimes it's just putting the phone down and talking to my kids, right? Like, it doesn't have to be huge, but I promise you that if you are unhappy with your life and you're not doing anything different, I know how tomorrow's gonna go and the day after that and the day after that. But if you try one thing, for me, it was riding a bike. That introduced me to more things than I, I mean, literally things that I would tell Zach as I got to know him.

38:07
That's crazy, I can't believe you do that. That's so stupid. And then six months later, I would be telling him, hey, I tried out this thing. Have you ever heard of this cold plunging nonsense? Yeah, dummy, I told you about that six months ago and you laughed at me about it. Like there are things that I literally would laugh at as being just ridiculous nonsense. And now they are staples in managing my physical and mental health. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I think there's something in that personal development, especially for someone that lives with depression.

38:38
It's, I find in my moments of depression, I don't, I've never been clinically diagnosed or anything like that, so I don't know for sure what the terminology is, but I find it so much easier to say, stay in that space. Oh yeah. To, it becomes like a comfort, like, I know this place. It's familiar. I also know that this is a terrible place for me to be. Yeah. But it's so...

39:06
easy for me to just stay there. And it sounds like in your development, like I love that you probably acknowledge that, but also are like, no, I have to do just like one thing. I have to just take one step. I don't think I've gotten there yet. Mine is more just, I acknowledge it. I tell people around me, I'm like, Hey, I'm feeling this way. I know it's not permanent.

39:33
I know my body and my mind is doing whatever it needs to do to get through this and it might take a couple days, it might take a day, I don't know what it's gonna do but I'm acknowledging it. I don't know that I actually take actual steps in like the way that you're saying yet. But let me tell you, that is a step that I struggle with. That's not one that I'm good at. Usually my wife is the one that will tell me you have that look on your face. And I'm like, I'm fine. You know, I'm just, I'm powering through, I'm trying to get work done and whatever the...

40:03
To-do list demands that day. I'm just tired. I'm fine. And I refuse it because I don't want to allow it. But you play the song you know, right? Like when you've spent your life, maybe often in that place, there's a lot of comfort there and being the victim to this thing and wanting to be rescued, wanting someone to see you and acknowledge your pain. And for me, when I start coming out the other side of it and I can start to see the light again and it's

40:33
and I start to feeling just a little bit better, that's when there's this round of shame that takes over. It's like, ah, it happened again. How did you let it happen again? And that will kick me back down the hole for a while. And it's this awful cycle of like, I couldn't show up for my kids, I couldn't show up for my wife. I, you know, I phoned it in at work because I got to pay the bills and this isn't a good enough excuse to, you know, take a sick day or whatever. But having the ability that you have to say, this is where I'm at, just everybody heads up.

41:02
That's huge. I can't. It is so hard for me. My family is very outgoing. They want to go do all the things and be around all the people. And that's my nightmare. So when they're like, let's go do this thing, there's this pull of self care. That's not where you thrive. That's going to drain you, but you want to show up. You want to be a good dad. You want to be a good family member. You want to be a part of the team. And they're always going to win because they mean more to me than I do.

41:32
So I have to find the balance and I have to give my wife sometimes the authority to say, you're not coming.

41:41
is that like, how do you tow that line? Because it seems like it'd be really hard to be selfless but also selfish. You know, like I feel like there's a line to tow that is healthy or, you know, in some way for other parties as well as yourself. How do you find that space? Or how have you navigated your way to maybe eventually finding that space? Badly. Badly, yeah. Yeah, it's hard. Because it's hard to hear also that

42:11
that you feel that they are more important than you. Because without you, they are not them. As you know, growing up, you wanted the approval or you wanted the status quo or you wanted the people to not pay attention to be mad at you. But, you know, you are important in their lives and you're the reason that they are as good as they are. You know, it's like this weird mind F word that...

42:40
It plays with us. Yeah, I mean, it helps to have a supportive partner that understands. And, you know, we go to a therapist who helps us sort these things out, too. That's so important, too. I love that you guys just talk about therapy on your show and just... We got to take this stigma or shame or whatever it is out of the public voice saying that therapy is just like...

43:06
It's remarkable to me that, I mean, it's 2023 and there's still a stigma around going to talk to somebody about your feelings and having them reflect back what they hear. I mean, that's what it is. It's somebody who holds a loving space that allows you to get the stories out of your head and say them out loud and have them say, here's what I hear. It's funny. Do you find this too, that the stories are much scarier when they're in your head? Oh my God. When you say them out loud? Yeah, because they also just, they just keep beating you over and over and over again.

43:36
where once it's said, it's landed. I have a, there's a couple of guys that I text with, we have this text thread, we went through this like nine month group therapy project together, and we're still on this text thread. And it's incredible how when I do start to notice I'm feeling drained, I'm feeling down, whatever the early signs are, or even if I'm in it, before meeting these guys, that would just live there. And I would use all my tools when I could and not when I couldn't, and I would just go rest.

44:04
and just get through it. But now I have the power to just send a quick text to these two guys and say, guys, I'm there again. And just that, right? Like that one little blurb. It's the acknowledgement. To get them to say, I'm sorry, that sucks. I'm there with you in spirit, hugs, you know, whatever it is, it's now landed somewhere outside of my head. And so it's giving me room to start going, okay, it's out, now how can I fill it up with something better? How can I replace that with?

44:34
something positive, what can I do that's the next right thing to start to feel even better now that I've got this out? Yeah, there's so much pressure. It's like, and I'm sure you've experienced this as someone that's lived with depression, is that like, some people just don't understand it. No. And you're like, how do I explain this to you in a way that might make sense to you? And how can you not understand this? You know, it's like, it's so fascinating to me that

45:03
People just, and they're just like, well, just like, be happy. Right. Not really what it's about. Just choose to feel better. Yeah, what is your best advice for someone that is struggling with someone that doesn't have a lot of support around them? Do you tell people what to do? I'll tell you what to do. But like in your own experiences, I'm sure people are like, hey, what do you do in this situation?

45:34
I mean, it really depends, right? I mean, everyone's experience is so unique. I know for me, there are times when, you know, things get heavy and I start going through the list of, oh, go get in the cold water, that'll feel better. Go for a run, that'll feel better. Go lift some heavy things, that'll feel better. Go spend some time with people as much as you hate it. It'll get you out of this space. And as I'm going through the list, every once in a while there'll be something that's like, okay, I'll text that person. And if they reply, I'll go hang out with them.

46:03
I'll go take a walk around the block. I mean, I live, it's ridiculous where I live. There's like mountains and trees. I mean, I live in the mountains. It's stunning. I can take a nature bath anytime I want by stepping out my front door. But there are many times when despite the knowledge of all the things I have at my fingertips, none of them are good enough. None of them, there's not enough of a desire to get out of that or enough of an ability.

46:31
to get out of that, to even try any of them. And those are the points where I need to just acknowledge that it's time to rest. I just told the story on an episode recently about this clip of Jim Carrey that goes around where he talks about depression and to be depressed and how it's really deep rest that you need when you are depressed because your body, your spirit is tired of playing the character that you put out into the world. And you need to just retreat and recover and recharge those batteries. Sometimes that's it. Sometimes the next right thing is go take a nap.

47:01
Go put on your favorite movie and escape into that for a couple of hours and see if that just moves the needle enough so that you can open the window or go outside or drink some water. Like just some simple thing and whatever that simple thing is will likely lead to the next thing. But sometimes the best answer is like it's just to rest. It's it's an illness. If you get the flu nobody expects you to just keep powering through and smile and go to the things and go to work.

47:29
So this is the same thing. When the illness is winning, give it time to run its course and know that it will pass. And on the other side, you'll feel better again until you get it again the next time. I think that's important to remind people that this is not like a choice. You know, like, I'm not like, I'm feeling depressed today because I want to, you know, like I'm feeling anxious because I love how this feels. You know, it's not.

47:57
It's not a choice and I think that's important. Is it fascinating, this version of you, to think that this was all triggered from a weird step out of bed or jumping on a bike? Is that a fascinating pinpoint for you? Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many podcasts I've listened to or stories I've heard or books I've read. Or even in your case, right? The loss of a parent, major event.

48:27
some huge car accident that they had to recover through these years of therapy or whatever. These major life shifts for people that I see those, I'm like, that totally makes sense. And in my story, I'm like, I stood up and it hurt. You know, I tell this story a lot too. When I first started the life shift, I was like, yeah, my life shift is when my mom died or my main life shift is when my mom died, but it really wasn't.

48:53
It was like five hours after she died because I didn't know she was dead. She was already dead and my life was still the same. And my dad had to sit down in front of me and like say these words, probably the hardest words he'll ever have to say to anyone in his life. And that like, so it was a conversation, you know, which is on the surface, very much like stepping out of bed and hurting yourself. You know, it's this little tiny thing that happens every day, but it was the way he strung those particular words together.

49:23
that really like no choice but your life is changing. You know, so it's not as silly as it seems. Sometimes like I had a guest who, she got a piece of mail and it changed her entire life. You know, and it wasn't a good piece of mail, but it triggered something in her to change her life. And so, you know, it's fun in a way to look back and see like how can, like where does it all come together?

49:52
And it's like you have a couple that are intertwined with hurting your knee, which led you to call your brother, which led you to, okay, I'll get on the bike. And then you're like, wait a second, there's clarity. There is something other than what I've been experiencing. I'm curious about your dad. Have you talked to your dad as an adult about that conversation? What was that like? Yeah, he reminds me. There was actually, I don't know if you've ever heard of the show Chicago Fire on NBC.

50:22
I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that with a strike, but I'm not in it. I'll talk about it. It's Chicago Fire. It's on NBC. Is it still on? I don't know. Well, nothing's on right now. But yeah, we have. And so there was an episode on this where one of the characters had to deliver the news to a child that their parent had just died. And we were both watching it at the same time separately.

50:48
and we were both thinking the same thing. And the way they did it, they didn't have, it was just, there was music and you could just see it happening. And both of us from our perspectives texted each other like immediately like, have you watched this? This is us, like this is our experience. And you know, I don't, it's really hard for me because I feel so bad, but why am I feeling, and you know, like this wasn't

51:17
my choice. It wasn't his choice. And it's just I feel bad that he had to say that to me. Yeah. When I was just a fragile little kid, you know, because my parents were separated, they lived 1500 miles apart. I was visiting my dad for the summer. My mom was my primary caretaker. So I was going to see my dad like every holiday or something like that. So it was like, you know, it was a fun trip. He wasn't really playing the role of

51:45
full-time dad because he didn't have to at that time. And then to suddenly his life completely changed. He has to be double parent and also help a grieving child. So it's been a blessing having this show because I recorded my version of my story or my own episode with a guest host and he was able to listen to that. Nice. And what was nice about that is, you know, like you know.

52:14
When you have a conversation with someone, there's always an interruption. There's always like, no, that didn't really happen that way, or I saw it this way, or no, you did this. But he didn't get to do that, right? He had to hear me tell it from beginning to end. And we had a lovely like hour and a half conversation after he listened, just, you know, like, you know, this is how I thought this was all playing out, or I'm sorry for this. I'm like, no, no sorry's at this point. You know, we were doing what we knew how to do, but it was really just so...

52:43
such a blessing to be able to do that with this. But yeah, I don't want to ever have that conversation with a child. Yeah, it's one of my biggest fears as a parent is to have to tell my kids that at some point, or to have my wife have to tell our kids that at some point. And man, I just can't even imagine what a life disruptor it is and the pain that he felt and that you went through and are now processing, hopefully in healthy ways. That's...

53:13
You know what? I do say this, I've said this on many episodes, but the loss of my mother at such a young age, the failure of grief for such a long time, and I'll take that word and be okay with it, I failed at grieving for so long. I didn't know how to do it, nobody was talking about it, it wasn't my fault, but I did fail at it. But once I crossed the line, once I was able to kind of absorb that...

53:42
And in that process, I got really close with my dad's mother, my grandmother. She was diagnosed with cancer like in my thirties. And because I had failed so hard grieving my mom, I knew it like gave me all the tools that I needed to do it right with my grandmother. And so because of that bad experience, I was able to like sit her down before she got too sick and say all the things that I needed to say and have that conversation.

54:11
I think if I hadn't had that previous experience, I would have missed out on all that. I wouldn't understand how final death is. And so I sat with her last 96 hours of her life and just was there for her. She was there for me when I was born. I'm gonna be there for you when you take your last breath. And so the bad experiences taught me so much. And so I can look back now and be grateful for that failure.

54:38
That's like the expression, right? No wins and losses, just wins and lessons. It's hard to get there though, you know. And sometimes even still when you know, it's still hard to believe it, right? Like when you're just like, like you said, you logically know how you're feeling and it's not the right place to be, but you can't get out of it. Yeah. And it just doesn't make sense. Yeah, so you just give it time, let it pass, and then the logic starts to make more sense.

55:06
If you, like the version of you now, if you could go back to an earlier version of you that was riding the bus to work, hating, going to work, thinking you were always going to get found out, is there anything that you would want to say to him for this upcoming journey he was about to go on? I mean, the thing that usually comes to mind for me with this is the idea that I know now that I spent most of probably the first half of my life or more always looking for the shortcut.

55:36
believing the shortcut existed, believing I was smarter than the system and could work around what it takes to be whatever. And my effort to now accept that everything you want in life requires hard work, and it requires showing up a little bit every day, and not worrying about the outcome, but worrying about the work, do the work for the work sake, will provide what you're trying to shortcut to. So

56:04
dropping out of high school thinking, oh, I'll just start working early. That's the plan. Didn't work out so well. You know, like at every turn, like what can I do? What's the thing nobody's doing here that I can do better and faster? Turns out most of them don't work and you end up defaulting back to, oh, I should have just stayed the course and done the thing and I'd be better off. So again, no losses there, but I have now learned that it's just, you just gotta show up a little bit every day.

56:33
on whatever the thing is. You want to learn how to play guitar? Play for 10 minutes every day. You want to start an exercise routine? Start taking a walk for 10 minutes every day. And then you'll just get better and better. But if you think you're going to buy the magical course or you're going to find the magical guru that knows all the secrets, you're not. There are a few steps ahead of you maybe and they can show you, you know, hey, come this way. Maybe it's a little bit faster. But there is nobody that knows...

57:00
We're all faking it, right? We're all making it up as we go along. So trust yourself a little bit. Don't tell anyone. Yeah. Don't tell anyone that we're faking it. That's right. I don't want them to know. No, you're right. I think... You... Your earlier version needed to know that it was okay to trust yourself. And trust that you were going to be okay. And that you could do the things, and you could do hard things, and you could do easy things, and you could do all the things. It just might take longer in some instances. Yeah. There's no race.

57:32
I think we're conditioned to think that there's a race. I think we're conditioned to think we have to be at the top. And it goes back to your idea of going to that conference and seeing other people. And then we start comparing ourselves with all these people. They're not running the same race. It might look like they are, but they're not. We're all on this journey on our own. And I think your story reminds me that we need to believe in ourselves and the journey that we're taking and know that there is a purpose in all of the things, even the really crappy things that

58:03
that we're sometimes take on this unnecessary shame about. There's purpose in all these pieces. And what this also tells me or reminds me is that the Life Shift podcast is serving me too, because hearing you say these things validates my experience, validates that, oh, I am just normal. You know, like I am just like every other human.

58:30
So thank you for putting what you put into the world, for sharing your story here, even though you're like, it's just a knee injury getting out of a bed. It's something, you know, it was what you needed at that moment in time to kind of wake up a little bit more than you were awake before. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you, and I will continue listening to what you do. I will share in the show notes the links to...

58:58
your show any other way that you want people to come into your orbit or connect with you? Whatever podcast player you're using right now, you can find our show. It's called The Fit Mess. And I will say that if you listen to one of The Fit Mess episodes and it connects with you in some way, reach out to them. Let them know. As a podcaster myself, when we hear from you guys that

59:23
that a story or something someone said and something like affected you, it's nice to know that like there are people out there hearing that and that we're helping you in some way. So you responded that day. So I was like, oh, hey. Yeah, it's remarkable how much one email, one review, like one thing from somebody that says, I hear you and it means something to me, that will stoke the flames for like six months of like, that's the reason I do this.

59:52
You can get all the hate mail all day long. There's another one, whatever. I can't please all the haters. But one email that says thank you, this meant something to me, and that's where it's at. Well, thank you for coming into this orbit of the LifeShift Podcast and being a part of this, and we'll connect people to where you're at so that they can connect with you more. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can write a review, like Jeremy said. I don't know what they do, but they're nice to see. So, you know, if you have the time.

01:00:22
I would love that. I got a three-star review once and I made it into a t-shirt. That's amazing. Anyway, thank you for being a part of this, Jeremy. Thank you. And for everyone else, we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

01:00:47
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