Episode 97 | John Ferguson | Finding Purpose in Adversity: Inspiring Veterans’ Mental Health Journey

(1) Episode 97 | John Ferguson | Finding Purpose in Adversity: Inspiring Veterans' Mental Health Journey - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLyo9zCJVM8

Transcript:
(00:00) so I had to latch onto something positive I knew that that was my a secret of mine so I found one next day I lost it I was like oh you got to be kidding me I lost it and then I saw I said next time I found one wrote it down next thing I know I've got five pages and then 25 pages and 30 pages and they just keep coming and that is the power positive anytime that something negative comes in well you know book two number 33 that's that's my bread and butter right there isn't it amazing how like things can
(00:37) change and that first step in a New Direction like it seems impossible at first but then all of a sudden you it seems like you tasted the power of positivity a little bit and then once you tasted it you're off and running it was it was the board that I needed to leap off of of going I can do this so for so long I chased my tail and chasing your tail is easy doesn't take much energy you might get tired but breaking out of that and going in a positive direction but when you have something it's like a
(01:08) car pulling you down the road going oh my goodness I'm going in a new direction is this the way I want yes this is wonderful and then you pick up steam and it is a beautiful thing and when I'm able to share that with other people of look you don't have to be miserable you can be if you choose to but here's a little gift I'm going to give to you every single day yeah and they just come back and say this is exactly what I need because they well the pts we isolate and are angry and we don't know how to get
(01:37) out of it so we don't leave our house to get the help that we need so how do you how do you get into somebody's house to help them without me actually Crossing that threshold and being invasive on them so what I do is I just send the power of positive any veteran needs a book I send a book they want to talk on the phone I talk on the phone whatever they need and I get something to come over the house and we do the classes so it is it's a gift with all and within itself what is a gift the watching them getting
(02:05) better watching them watching the the lights go on in the in the house of hey I can do this and then when you're with them long enough you watch them coaching others and they say they turn around and say I saw this guy and I said well I'm gonna talk to him see what they say and then next thing I know they're coaching them onto their and it's just cross-pollination I teach you a little bit you go teach them a little bit and everybody's better for it it is beautiful to watch is this the power of
(02:34) service I believe in service absolutely give myself to service then the universe turns around and pays you tenfold it's beautiful to watch and it all started a lot to do with Satya um but it started when I said if I find my way out of this Darkness I had to get out of it it was bad for four years I didn't want anything to do with anybody and I made a swear I swore about if I get out of it I'm going to reach my hand into the darkness and help others and it's it's just a gift why was that your
(03:08) vowel because I know what it felt like to be at the bottom and it was such a lonely depressing angry scary feeling and I said no we don't have to do this if I can do it anybody can do it but somebody's got to be the spark and say let's fix this it doesn't matter where trauma comes from trauma is trauma is trauma you get it from a b or c it doesn't matter still hurts the body and the mind typically reacts the same way so when I give the book to civilians or military they all start going you understand and not necessarily do I
(03:45) I didn't walk the same ground as all people I didn't go through the same situations as everybody but when you read that somebody else has suffered then all of a sudden wow I'm not alone and I put that inside of every one of my books that I signed you are not alone and when you tell somebody you're not alone they think I can do this because in the darkness literally you're by yourself it's so true I think back to like the really challenging moments that I've had in my life and it's amazing how hopeless
(04:17) they they can feel but what has really shifted me out of him when I reflect is knowing that other people have gone through it as soon as that perspective shift has happened where it's like oh other people have done this then it's like oh well maybe I can do that too that's the key maybe I can do it you start getting into the maybes the maybes grow to possibly and the possibilities grow to I actually might pull this one off and then you get to the other side and you're thinking I did I didn't think I could but I did
(04:48) yeah and then all of a sudden you're on top of the world and you reach your hand back out it's it is quite humbling to be a part of it and I don't see myself leading any charge I am just a simple Pawn in the game um it's it's a lot of fun to be a part of I wanted to ask you about the word yoga and the challenge that we have because you you were writing about it and I'm realizing that it's kind of a major issue it's like all all these tools exist for us for the problems that we have
(05:22) but there's this association with the word before you've experienced it before you've experienced yoga it's very common to have an association with the word that I mean I don't know how to describe it maybe you can but that resists the movement in the direction of yoga there is a stigma to it yeah and the stigma is and this is how we tell the veterans yoga typically is skinny women tight pants doing crazy things that's what we think of and as you well know asanas and one of the limbs it is a limb it is a helpful limb
(05:55) but it allows us to climb higher and higher but people are so caught on the fact of it's going to be just this and when you start when it was amazing to me is Austin is great I love it I enjoy it you start talking about the other Limbs and Oh you mean somebody else like we were talking about somebody else has thought about these problems in their mind before and they took pen to paper and I can go back and read these notes and go huh okay book two number 33 party well I love it it's it's just so easy to
(06:28) think about anytime negative comes into the Mind positive thoughts should be thought of and when I read that I was like wow so yes there is a massive stigma yeah and uh the the common negativity bias towards something that we don't know right so realize how often I can get caught in arrogance in relation to what I don't know it's like here's this thing that people are doing or the and that's I think we're the ego when I stand in front of a group of Veterans for the first time I say you know I'm here to they talking
(07:09) about yoga and I get to oh yeah hold on guys hold on I did 20 years in the Marine Corps I did three combat tours I was in darkness for a really long time and then all of a sudden their mind the stigma of yoga is now gone if this guy can go through it and actually found happiness okay what did you do and it's always quietly why did how do I do this what do I got to do and then when I just show them simple steps they all of a sudden start to go huh they're you know like Wizard of Oz you pull back the curtain and you go
(07:43) that ain't so bad and I tell them you don't have to do the Asana part we can even go smaller and I've focused into Yoga Nidra I've taken the word picture from yogaonesia mated it with Tibetan singing bowls and all of a sudden they all go the same route they wow how did you do that what was it and let's do it again so when you show them what it is about and you know you can go to any major city you go find a yoga studio and they'll do 45 minutes an hour of Asana and they call that a yoga class
(08:18) I'm thinking you just missed the best part the tail end 15 minutes you just spent all that time working your sympathetic nervous system over to your parasympathetic nervous system and now you're going to kick them out of the door saying thanks I gotta do another class you missed the whole gist of it we're here to settle the mind I look at it this way this is an RV recreational vehicle I clean it I feed it the driver needs some help one of the things that I've really talked to Veterans about is they're a
(08:47) massive stigma about mental health if I say physical health people say oh running and oh that's fine no problem but you start talking about mental health and people think oh you're cuckoo you're going to go see the funny farm and I say why is it okay to take care of this part and not this part so I've I've been really working on it with the veterans about it and I say this is all linked within yoga you can take a part of it you can leave a part of it whatever you enjoy but yoga is a great way to go about it
(09:20) but yes hard stigma and we're fighting the 80 percent out there that are just there to make money to make themselves look good for their selfies that's not what we're here for yeah something really quick for me when you described that the difference in uh like physical health and mental health like just when you hear those words like physical health it's like oh you think of you know all these positive things and then mental health is has this negative stigma so to be aware of that and and you mentioned uh like going into battle
(09:55) without upkeep of the mental health aspect of going through that that experience I think you said something like you know uh meditation is as necessary As Weapons themselves for Success you look at the samurai one of the finest fighting people on the planet ever and they did a lot of meditation they understood the concept of being peaceful is incredibly important it's much better to be a guard to be a warrior in a garden and a gardener and a warrior in a war it's it's so much important that you yes you have to do
(10:34) what you have to do but at the same time if you don't take care of the Mind the mind will start running and that's where I think we fault we are very at fault of not telling our people okay it's over let's start to wind down and they just don't teach that yeah it's hard not to feel sad about it because you know here here's the situation of of young men and women going into as challenging of a life experience is you can imagine that is war and then we're not okay the question of
(11:07) whether or not it's necessary that's a separate question to say okay it's happening and then we're not equipping them with the tools you know and I think about the roots like okay you know after they finish and a lot of what your work is is trying to help them out after that I think about the possibility I'm sure you do too of man what if it can be addressed earlier but it's also the same question with all of us an education of like that is how I see what's happening here at yogaville and yoga in general in
(11:36) the world we're trying to undo a lot of what has been done what is the possibility if we get it right more from the start and we don't have to undo the the issue that I see is that it's a cycle our parents were never taught it because you know as a kid you were told calm down as a kid I was told to calm down I know what that meant if I didn't it wasn't going to happen that I didn't want so but they never taught me to calm down you can tell me all day long but if you don't teach me I can't do it
(12:05) so the generations of you know military and everybody else the parents don't know to teach the kids and the kids grow up and the kids don't know how to teach the next kids and it's a cycle so if you slowly put it out there in small chunks of this is what works and then people start grasping on going hey that does help me but there is a a big problem with it and to actually break into that cycle of you can do this you can teach them how to calm down and get through these Hard Times without medications
(12:41) it's meditation it's not medication and people just don't grasp that concept and that always drives me crazy oh I need some I got a headache I need some um aspirin no you don't you probably need some more water just drink more water and we'll get going again um but it is a cycle of the lack of knowledge and when we start saying hey I used to think this this is how I think this is why I think it and then you can move along and somebody will go oh that makes sense and then somebody will tell somebody and we're
(13:12) moving in the right direction but it is very hard to deal with the military and the VA especially the Veterans Administration trying to show them this is the way to go because they're quick to say well this isn't tested this isn't it's been around for 5 000 years this is not a you know once in a lifetime thing it's just going to go away this is the answer but they don't want to hear that and also you know explore for yourself I mean what what is the danger really in sitting quietly and noticing you know
(13:45) listening to some Tibetan singing bowls and and that's the and you were talking about stigma earlier and it really Rings rings a bell with me um when I talk about it with veterans they think oh I I really can't move around I'm perfect don't move around sit in a chair can you sit in a chair well yeah great I'm gonna turn your lights out we're going to have you just learn how to be peaceful for a moment and then after a while you know I started 30 minutes and I work up to 45 and I get up to about an hour
(14:14) and most of the time after 20 minutes they're sitting in a chair and they start wriggling around and they just their bodies are are not able to stay calm but you put them in front of Tibetan singing bowls for an hour and they just come out of it wow and then you show hey look at the clock we were here for now I've never sat for an hour except I was watching a movie that's it what do you think is happening there with the bulls the for me this is what I believe wholeheartedly is that it's neuroplasticity the brain has been
(14:42) damaging via whatever it is memories Shock Trauma whatever it came from and then the body has the ability to reroute and make new connections but we don't do that because as you and I are sitting here we're talking our minds are lit up and our minds burn a lot of energy if you can learn to stop that the vibrations make you focus in on one thing because right now we're thinking about oh I gotta go do this later I gotta make dinner I gotta get whatever the tasks are later they're probably bouncing through your head and we're
(15:14) never on one thing but all of a sudden if I can have the mind on one thing the body says wow I got all this extra energy not going up top I can send it down here this is shut down oh I can send it back up here once we learn to shut this down because we're burning energy just by breathing in the whole nine yards let the autonomic system kick in for the breathing send all the energy to the brain and then the brain says Ah we got all these new workers here that are going to help me fix this highway and we start fixing highways and the Brain
(15:46) responds I and and I have seen some amazing thing with these vets they tell me the most incredible stories when they come out of Yoga Nidra they are in tears but they have just let the baggage go and we're not using any form of drugs or it's just literally just sit in a chair I will tell you to tighten up a muscle you will hold your breath and then when you let go you let go and they go typically within 20 minutes they won't know that they're on this planet and then after an hour they just come back
(16:16) and it's it's a beautiful thing to watch we will I'll take you through one so your introduction was through integral yoga yes first I started I got out in 2010 about four years I was dithering around not liking people about 2014 said I got it I gotta fix this I gotta do something with my life I can't just sit around so I decided I'm going to go to my local community college and I was going to start doing surgical technician figured I just spent 20 years taking people apart I'm going to spend the rest of my
(16:48) days putting them together so I start with the classes I'm going to anatomy and physiology and one of my prereqs and I met Dharma and he great guy we got we started getting along and it turns out he's a Navy guy I'm a marine we hit it off and he said you know you should take yoga you're crazy I'm already mad you're going to twist me into a pretzel the stigma of yoga again and that's not going to work you can't put me in that position because I'm just going to blow my lid he said well and he
(17:19) kept on I kept on at it I finally said okay fine I'll try it so we did a class and I sort of you know the whole way I'm laughing being the typical person and it was at the last 10 minutes of Yoga Nidra that I had a small window maybe 30 seconds my mind stopped and it was the sun came out the heavens opened up and it was wow I I can do this I can I deserve peace and quiet I can actually how what was this let's do this again and that marked my journey so I learned that it's possible didn't know how to do
(17:56) it again but I learned is possible and then Jeff brought me down here for my first visit met Satya wow I didn't really understand her at all because if you really look at it a marine Satya different sides of the bridge completely but I realized that if I am going to get better I have to cross that bridge I have to go understand what she understands I have to get a better knowledge and I came here for a basic teacher training and within one month I just it was a beautiful thing but while I was here I took one class
(18:36) and he ended the meditation class and I'm sitting in meditation class and I'm thinking I was in this very Hall I'm thinking I'm doing this wrong this ah what you know I'm going through the Litany of things I've beaten myself up and then he struck a bowl he's just one bowl at the end just signify that was the end and it was like imagine you're on a ship and you see that light that's that Lighthouse coming on there it is oh oh and it was gorgeous and so I took the bowls I I actually
(19:08) started talking with them about it and he said you know it's no big deal here checking out site and I went home and I found a place that sold them bought three and I brought them to the veterans and the veterans like wow that's pretty cool started working with them and then they said well more can you buy more I said yeah I can buy more so and they always say we want deeper and deeper tones so over time I have progressed to working to a 15-inch bowl and everybody swears by it they're just like wow I can
(19:40) feel it feel it I can hear it it's it's it but when you play them in a certain way it just the Mind stops so it is a wonderful thing that's how I got into it and then I went back to see Satya again for intermediate training um and then I went for adaptive and I would I I if people need to know about adaptive because the quintessential you'll get 60 of the population that can do the typical Asana but you're going to find the 40 percent that doesn't want to go into a studio because they might be this or that
(20:19) they're they're hurt or whatever it may be what you do adaptive and you bring in a load of people that are afraid to do it and then they realize wow I can do it and then they see me standing there teaching and and I know come on in just be warm and welcoming and say if you can't do it you let me know and I'll fix it so it was the basic the Adaptive and then the intermediate and it was it's just she's amazing one of the things I wanted to ask you about um was around you know veterans specifically being
(20:59) able to say I feel overwhelmed or I feel angry or whatever the the tag is and the way that I see it is it's it's actually a strength to be able to do that right but it seems like such a like a weakness like everything that even has led me to to this point is like the the toughen up you know the the suck it up buttercup mentality yeah it is that's a huge hurdle we have to get over and the best thing that I do is I tell them my story I was at rock bottom and I finally had to admit it there was no other way about
(21:36) it I I was at the bottom of the barrel and when you're scraping at the bottom of the barrel and you know the concrete's next you're going to have to make a decision and when you have people that are hurting so bad then you tell them your story and then I tell them why are we angry and that's a question everybody's like well I don't know why well let me tell you why you're so angry because anger is a shield in this culture that we're in I can't walk around crying I can't that's just not
(22:07) accepted what if I walk around angry everybody's like whoa hey get away from this guy one that's exactly what I want I don't want people near me when I'm angry when you have when you're dealing with pts as a whole it can be pts from whatever trauma trauma trauma but when I have my shield up I present angry I'm really inside the sad or whatever maybe my emotion but that's gonna stand here anger keeps people away keeps me away from people so I'm not getting any better but I'm trying not to do damage to
(22:43) somebody physically or mentally but anger is a shield that we carry because it's an accepted emotion within this culture and when I start talking to them about you can be angry but let's dig deeper of why or negative too I would say like kind of the same thing with the positive thoughts anger is accepted also negativity I find it to be very accepted to complain about what's wrong exactly and because if if I tell you oh I can't stand blue cars and it's very easy to talk about that but if I say I saw the most
(23:18) incredible red car the other day that takes time effort to notice something that's positive but when we complain I might find somebody else that can complain and we're trying to find Common Ground we're finding common ground on a lower floor I would much rather find common ground on a higher floor of oh you like red cars well so do I this is fantastic what do you like about and we can talk all day about it but negativity is easy to do positive takes takes a lot of time so yes you're right on the money of people just
(23:53) complain because it's so much easier it's it's quite interesting how this culture is yeah and you also write about identity and I think maybe that's what this is about a little bit too is the forming of of identity and and getting that that is really important what what is my identity and I want to be accepted by other people therefore I'm going to take on the identity of being an angry you know negative person yep because it's so much easier I have recently learned this could be a chapter in my next book about
(24:25) the loss of identity so when you it can be Trauma from whatever but I'll just go on the military side you're a kid you're growing up you have an identity you go in the military you have an identity and a situation happens whatever it may be and you have pts all of a sudden you stop being you and you start being somebody else the person that you might not want to be or that you're flat out I do not want to be this person but it is now your identity so moving forward we have a closet that we don't open up a lot of boxes in there
(25:00) we're like I ain't doing this when you start going through Yoga Nidra you start processing it without medications without anything else and one of the things that I'm learning with the veterans nowadays is one guy looked at me and said my box is empty my closet is empty I was like that's wonderful he says I don't know who I am anymore wow it hit me like a ton of bricks you lost your identity yeah because I was pts that was my identity I don't want it but I can't lose it because that's who I am now
(25:33) and once I finally start unpacking all that baggage I have slowly moved away and that identity is no longer me and I'm left with an empty box and you look into it going who am I yeah what am I going to do now and my answer always is you've gotten so far you use so much energy to get here the world just opened up to you you get to be who you've always wanted to be today is day step one working towards who you want to be you want to be a good person do you want to be a helpful person you know all the things that we
(26:09) you want to be a Karma Yogi do you want to be all these different words that we used are easily accessible here can be easily flipped you want to be a Karma Yoga you want to be a helpful kind of guy out there you're going to do your thing and so it's the being a bridge of understanding what we're talking about here in yogaville but being able to take that and move it out and use it into a vocabulary that every day people won't go Asana what is that stuff right so yes it is a challenge but it could be
(26:41) done but it must be on the terms that they are willing to accept an identity when they you think about it identity of this moves over this from the Bomb Blast or whatever it may be and then you move along and all of a sudden they lose it they're lost and along the way they've used so much energy just a quick little hey let's go in this direction and I had a long talk with one of my veterans a couple weeks ago about it and he said and he was telling me about it and I said you just hit the golden ticket
(27:13) you've emptied your closet which most people will never do in a thousand lifetimes and now we're up to the point of you got to decide who you want to be well you get to write that chapter in your life you decide how you want to go now so it was it was like a ton of bricks hit me when they said that and I'm learning all the time from these veterans they tell me so many things and I think oh wow yeah yeah you wrote something about was it identity no person wants to lose his or her identity actually that was
(27:49) that and that I Mark that because I'm not so sure I'm not so sure because I it considers like when we're first born you know is there identity there I don't I don't really think that there there is I think it's formed over time so really what's happening now is through these practices is the falling away of this identity like the friend that you're talking about and then the world opens up and I can ask the simple question what do I want to do with my time or do I want to go from here exactly exactly we but the
(28:20) hard thing with the trauma being you know it can be losing a friend or whatever it may be that almost stops the hands of time you continue to be there yes my body is getting older but my mind continues to take me there I'm not really progressing as a person I'm just sort of here converting oxygen so when they start unpacking and all of a sudden they do a Time Warp now they're here I've lost that identity but you know all this time I wasn't you know I like when you converse with people you
(28:51) learn a little bit that day or whatever it may be Flash Forward two years from where they were stuck at wow I didn't have two years of learning or living or growing well how do I make up that time what do I do so they have a whole new identity that they get to decide what they want but you you also mentioned uh you know I get to learn from my experiences and use it use it to become something better they they bring up so many things the veterans bring up so many things and it's from the heart they just say I
(29:30) saw this or I did this um it is really amazing how much they're saying and they're talking out loud and then I'm able to connect the dots and go you're talking about this hey that's another chapter I like it um it is quite amazing and and they just talk off the cuff and they say the most incredible thing and they don't even realize they don't even realize they already have it within themselves to fix themselves they just need a sounding board to say it and and hear and then go and somebody say hey
(30:06) that was important say it again and they say it again and then their head then their lights go on hey whoa that was it and they they fixed themselves it's an auto body store that they just go in fix themselves and they walk out and you're like hey that was easy no charge have a nice day we'll see you later it's beautiful yeah yeah I kind of see people practicing yoga all the time and they don't even know it you know like on this this deeper level with this great wisdom that is just everywhere if you're
(30:35) willing to see and draw it out exactly every day there's always something that can be a part of yoga but can you take it to where the yogis how they built it into their certain dialect and you know how they talk to Everyday person that wouldn't be offended by or whatever it may be if I can bring it down to their level or up to their level hour may be make it user friendly every day that's the key move it from one to another and then everybody will start talking to it because you don't need medications for
(31:13) it you just need five minutes in the beginning start meditating but really understanding meditating one of the things that I had I had to double of a time with when I was here is the teachers say Center yourself and you've heard them say it a couple times you know what that means I was a newbie here and I thought oh classic Marine you want me in the middle of the room what do you want whatever you want I'll do it you just tell me what you want and I will knock it out of the park and nobody could ever explain it to me
(31:42) why okay so I sat on in the quad I sat on one of the benches I said I'm going to Marine the heck out of this thing I'm going to put this to an acronym so I centered it c-e-n-t-e-r each letter has a representation so when I'm standing in line of the grocery store whatever it is and I've got all these people that do not respect the bubble they have no concept of standing behind me sets me off and that's fine they that's just how they were brought up I need to live in their world now but if I can do each letter it takes me
(32:15) about three minutes to walk through it I can stand in line C clear my mind okay I am here I am now okay I'm not in Iraq anymore I am here I'm not in I'm not there this is you know whatever grocery store I'm in e even on my hips okay shoot I can let my shoulders down and neutral my shoulders as soon as you lay your shoulders down boy the parasympathetic system kicks in t three part Breath Take five deep breaths one two three four five okay e evaluate do I really I'm I'm not that bad okay
(32:50) I'm a little bit better than I thought R release starting at my toes and I relax my muscles all the way up to my head and Veterans know that inside and out I wear it on my wrist every single day because it is an easy way nobody knows what I'm doing when normally we'd lose our mind and scream and yell and and do damage to somebody in the beginning it started with a way of me just getting out of that story getting to my car and having a meltdown and then it turned into well I can stay in the store a little bit longer and
(33:22) then it turned into I can do this every hour or two to make myself feel a little bit better so when I was when I finally learned what I considered to be centering it it caught on everybody was like well how do you do that what are you doing here you go this is what we're doing when you teach them a small tool to put in their tool bag you know breathing that's all you got to do or centering or visualization or you give them tools they'll take care of it because they were never taught it they're never introduced to the tools
(33:57) it's not it's not curriculum it's one plus one we know arithmetic we know division we know calculus we know you know all that stuff but we're not taught how to control the noodle it's so emotions it's pretty wild because it seems like that should be totally foundational I I personally think and I'm no great educational leader but kindergartens should be a lot about understanding a lot more a lot less of books and more into people understanding why do I get mad and how do I do this and let's breathe and I
(34:36) taught a friend of mine she's she's a school teacher and I taught her the three-part breath and so beautiful she took it and made it the learning breath before they'd start they would do three-part breath probably practical problem they they would do Durga swasum and they wouldn't even the kids had no concept she knew exactly what was going on but the kids took it took to it like fish and water so every time they take a test oh learning breath and she forget and when the kids like learning breath and then the whole class
(35:08) would do it and it was just I was like there you go flipping lights on yeah I had the experience the other day where I just something something shifted and I realized that most of the time when I'm experiencing some discomfort it's a result of me suffocating myself oh like I'm suffocating and then tapping into the tools of the the breathing techniques everything shifts exactly when when I first started hearing the breathing techniques I was like are you are you on drugs what is this and then somebody said you've been
(35:49) breathing right your whole entire life you've been breathing your whole life once you start breathing right um you mean there's a wrong way to breathe and then it started going huh so it was quite interesting yeah and I think what you were saying before in terms of the energy that it takes to be thinking all the time is connected to this because so much energy is up in the head that there's not as much uh left for the breath exactly the brain only needs two things they need oxygen and sugar it's all it needs to operate off
(36:21) of but there is more to it I believe energy because you when you when most people talk about energy you sit down to whatever your dinner is you eat the dinner and that's your energy that's the fuel to get me from point A to point B I totally believe there's something else out there oh yeah not 100 knowledgeable about it but I believe that there is something else out there because as it goes to the brain it repairs things and we just don't understand that neuroplasticity is huge but because the
(36:50) doctors told me after I I retired you're done you're broken you're 41 there's nothing we can do for you thanks for coming have a nice life here's some pills go drooling the corner and don't bother me again and that just drove me at the wall that was that put a candle right underneath me and I was fired up I'm not taking this that was that was cool too because I saw there that there's something inside of you that knew that there had to be an answer you would not accept the fact that there is
(37:20) no solution to what you were going through it took me 10 15 years to get to that point of bad event bad event and for a doctor to turn around and say in 30 seconds write a piece of paper and say here this is going to solve it you're going to solve it 10 years of problems in 30 seconds you don't know what you're talking about you don't want me here it's like getting a nickel here boy go to the movie theater get out of here that kind of thing no that ain't gonna happen captain so I started that's where I started my
(37:52) path he that doctor really ticked me off but he lit a fire underneath me um so medication is just what I some people need medication don't get me wrong there is an actual legitimate time for it but I believe that we go to it too quickly we don't look for smaller Solutions we just go to the big one say everybody knows pills are great you know you're off and running I totally disagree I wonder too how much of an issue ownership and freedom to decide for yourself comes into play with a lot of these things that that we're talking
(38:32) about it seems that we get into the habit of being told what to do by an authority and we start to trust in that and that's even the the the guidance that we're giving as as as children to do this do that there's not a lot of well what do you think and decide for yourself what feels right to you those sorts of things and especially right in in the army that's the case where it so much depends on people uh you know obeying following their laws yeah for me that sort of transcends into the medical community I see a lot of
(39:11) doctors that's what I mean with the doctors yeah they love to stand in front of me and say I've got my white lab coat I know what's going on but you haven't chewed the dirt I've chewed on you haven't seen what I've seen how are you going to tell me what's going on with my mind when you don't know what's going on up there so when I one of the first things I tell the veterans I'm not a doctor I am a 20-year Marine I teach yoga that's the excitement I'm not going to
(39:39) come with any degree I'm not going to put anything up on the wall that's just not me I will tell you my experiences you come and take what you like I'm a Golden Corral you like that take it you don't like that fine no problem no hard feelings but with doctors if I don't follow their rules or if they turn into a seven-year-old having temper tantrum you were going to do this the second you tell me I'm like that classic kid don't cross the highway well I'm gonna go across the highway just to
(40:06) see what I can do um so I've learned with veterans here's what's offered you like it take you don't no problem have a great day yeah that's the only Pro approach I've become comfortable with uh myself and it seems to make it a bit simpler too and I understand that it's challenging it in terms of our society and the way that it's been structured that go see the professional type of thing but I don't know I think there's a lot of issues with that and something in me lights up with the type of relationships
(40:41) that you just expressed like I've learned yoga this has helped me I'm offering it to you I'm sharing my practice if it feels right to you take it if not leave it it's it's exactly right but it takes a select few to say I'm going to expose myself and I'm going to expose myself to the point of I broke down crying I lost my my mind I did I all these things that we don't talk about because Society doesn't like that I can put up my shield all day long and I can be protected with my anger
(41:17) but I'm going to get raw I'm going to tell you what I went through and then because I'm concerned with my identity the identity is right there too exactly so when I do that all of a sudden people are like oh they can associate with me and then when they associate with me they go you're not trying to push something on me you know you're you're uh you like peanut butter sandwiches uh you say here's a peanut butter sandwich take it in or not I don't care but when people say oh okay you're not
(41:45) trying to sell me something and that's why I always do my classes are free take it or leave it no problem because you know if I have a fee somebody might not come in that really needs to come in and then then I've got a problem because I've lost somebody so if I do everything for free I'm gonna get more people in and people will come people will go some people come in for three or four shots and you're like wow you just solved everything and I think I didn't solve anything you had the answers inside of
(42:15) you you just opened up that key and the door opened up and you said oh there they are you figured out I'm just a guy up here sort of moving about and it's just listening to their stories here's what is is offered take it or leave it's up to you it's a beautiful thing to watch when they go yes just like how Satya did it to for me very kind caring person here it is every day she would just go over class over and over because I was worried like can I do it can I not do it just became second nature
(42:48) it was beautiful it's unbelievable the journey and and especially I think how the challenges can end up uh igniting like a flame inside inside of us because I consider the situations uh that you're describing and would it be possible to have the motivation if you didn't hit the the really challenging you know it's because I think that's when like the will is like built up in those hard experiences like I never want to experience this again this feels so terrible what what can I do and then it seems like something is
(43:32) happening inside myself with that where there's priorities happening right yeah and so in a way setting a priority for for peace you know and that with Will can maybe override the the anger and the depression and all all of those things it feels like it's it's a choice within each of us yes it is a choice but it is I find that people they they want to do good and be good but they don't know how to get there they need a road map sure I mean if you haven't experienced something else how can you know so first you have
(44:12) to experience the variety and then you can say okay I've experienced this and I've experienced that and now you have just come into my motto my motto is ifar I said all the time everything happens for a reason everything happens for a reason efar something good happens oh that was meant to be something bad happens yeah what am I what am I going to learn from this when my all a lot of things shifted for me when I when I stopped saying you know why does this keep happening to me and in my thought pattern started
(44:45) going into what are you trying to teach me because when something bad happens you know I cross the street every day and this car runs over my toe or whatever maybe every day after day after day what is that and I could sit there and complain why is this keep on happening to me but if I start saying what are you trying to teach me trying to teach me is stay on the curb oh car goes by I'm safe and I'm walking by so everything that happens I mean everything that happens even when I am dead I want that Ferrari I need that
(45:15) Ferrari I'm gonna get it and when it doesn't work out you go any far very well the universe was telling me right turn instead of a left turn so I really believe really believe that everything happens for a reason so like the universe is trying to teach us I always say the universe is talking to me huh I just didn't realize that I needed this but the universe is telling me I needed this and that is every every experience is an opportunity to learn something always when you go from why does this keep on happening to what is
(45:47) this teaching me total shift of life had a shift it's it's a major shift that I had to because I'd easily go back to my negative of stopping my feet why is this keep on happening to me no no hold on we're not going that route we're going what is teaching me because again it's just like the negativity why does this keep on happening to me is so easy to say no responsibility on my shoulders why does this keep on happening to me I can't answer that question but it's a negativity statement of no
(46:21) responsibility I'd have to take it keeps on happening to me woe is me how terrible is this to all of a sudden you shift over to the positive aspect of it what does this drawing teach me I have put the responsibility on my shoulders I have to take time I have to learn what is the situation what can I do better and how can I solve this and how can I pull myself up to the next level so between those two it's a negative statement to a positive statement it's a simple shift of of the logic of mine it's a simple shift it's a lifetime of
(46:58) work because you know you drop a can on your toe and you're thinking okay next time grab the candle hallway don't be so fast take your time enjoy be here and now not driving your car home so you know those kind of things it's putting responsibility on yourself and I think maybe only being able to do that because you've experienced the that playing the victim card doesn't work you've tried that one right it is it's frowned upon him in the Marine Corps Marine they don't want to hear
(47:33) that garbage you know it's just suck it up buttercup it ain't so bad and that was in its own right that Avenue is hard that creates other issues but don't be the victim because people will pile on you and then you will be the victim and you're not even allowed to talk about it at that point so it was frowned upon but when I got out of out of the real world everybody was like that I thought whoa there's a total shift of personality I go from a tight-knit group of people who think the same way to 350 million people
(48:06) that think everything is different and victimhood is okay and whoa when I when I flew back from Okinawa to Mainland when I retired I had been living in Japan for four years and I came back and the society had changed to 2006 to 2010 I didn't recognize our country anymore and it was very hard to deal with these people and that's why I isolated and then I started to look at myself okay they are the way they are you decided to Serve and Protect the Constitution so you've done it for a reason what was
(48:40) that reason then I started tugging at threads why okay you have that thought what let's let's reel that in let's let's take a deeper look at that thought oh that's why I'm doing what I'm doing like the anger I just thought anger was natural perfect it was solved miles it would know yeah it's solving it but it's like driving a car down the highway you're burning gas and sooner or later you're gonna hit the empty tank so I realized that I needed to search into that but
(49:08) yes my motto is ifar and it helps me so much because it puts the responsibility on me to fix me him I don't even know what else can could do it because what a challenging situation right to to be in the military to feel like you're fitting in to have a certain way of life and then now to have to reacclimate and maybe attempt to fit into something that is so unbelievably different another example of this is I think about people that are experiencing you know the loss and death of of others and I've
(49:41) spoken to some recently and what they say is you know maybe the hardest aspect is you know after some time and they want to go out with some friends again and they're spending time with friends and and people are just talking about the most monotonous mundane things that are troubling them in their lives and it seems there seems to be such a lack of perspective there um and I feel how hard that must be to deal with uh I don't know if there's another way out than acceptance and trying to you you use that somehow to
(50:16) experience growth yeah well we're going to go well that we're going to go back to the identity an issue happen death whatever it may be and that person's trapped in that timeline they haven't grown so all of a sudden they're mourning and and if they find other people that have gone through the same thing like they were talking earlier again if I can relate to somebody and say oh you have driven the red car also well tell me all about it how did it go what was it like and then allowing that person again to
(50:53) go to Golden Corral and picking what they like out of what that person says instead of them sitting there chasing their tail over and over and over and the negativity I lost this person I lost this person I can totally understand that but you shift the thinking from I lost this person to oh you lost how did you do this what do you think share ideas and then all of a sudden two heads are better than one for better than two and you get a group together and everybody's like okay I I I it was bad it wasn't fun
(51:24) but I'm standing in a group of people that are just like me so when I think of America I see a lot of people that want to be splintered off I want this group in that group I would much rather find somebody and sit down and talk with anybody let's find something that we do agree on you know ice cream I'm pretty sure we can find everybody will like ice cream that's a great point we can start talking from Breyer's ice cream mint chocolate chip is the bee's knees and then we can start going from there
(51:55) but we can always find common ground but people when we talk about common ground I'm exposing myself not so bad with ice cream but I'm also taking energy because I'm giving positivity I like this it's so easy to say I don't like that because if I don't like that that takes all the responsibility off of me and you have to deal with it's like the Hot Potato here I don't like it you deal with it but if all of a sudden say hey I like mint chocolate chip you're like well I like Rocky Road or whatever it
(52:31) may be and it takes energy it's a flow of talking about it but it's much easier to say oh you like this or that I can't talk to you anymore I'm out of here and I think also getting stuck in the in the negativity I don't even think that there's awareness that there's another option and until it's like gratitude which is what what one of my things I want to hear you talking about you know focusing on the positive and gratitude or kind of Link linked together um like what what is there to to be
(53:04) experienced is totally foreign until I experience it acknowledge knowledge and act the hardest part is to acknowledge I have an issue I am this or whatever it may be if I can sit here and say I am angry okay that's acknowledgment once I acknowledge something the next time I face it I have that knowledge base with that knowledge okay you've done this before we're gonna act the third part is act we're gonna act a different way acknowledge knowledge and act if you can that's the cycle of negativity no
(53:47) responsibility on me I spin spin spin don't get anywhere you have to stop it you have to acknowledge that I'm doing it oh now I've got knowledge and now I can act differently I can break that evil cycle yeah I consider that it's as much about speed as anything else as far as I can tell because to acknowledge what's even happening I have to slow down I think that's the trick right now in our culture right now and all the technology and all the things because it's so easy to be operating so fast yes all the time
(54:22) just slow down we we are becoming a society that I can send you a text and it might say you know whatever it is face to face there is a real Bond there is a actual connection that's going on texting no big deal it's it's easy so I don't have to acknowledge really anything at that point because I can sit there and say yeah this guy yeah whatever and text send and you know I would never do that we would never do that talking but we can do that and we never acknowledge anything words you're saying you might say hey I'm having a
(54:58) bad day and I go LOL and keep on going that's not acknowledging I have just disrespected you I have made you go lower because you were telling me something but face to face I can't do that and I don't want to do that so when you acknowledge something that's going on whether it be somebody else acknowledges it to you and you go ah light bulb moment or you say I have seen this fault within myself and I'm going to break the chain of events from here on out um just like the cycle of violence in
(55:34) families yeah parents are violent the kids receive it and the kids grow up and they think oh that's normal let's go and do it to the Next Generation how are we going to break that cycle acknowledge it I went through this knowledge we're not going to do that again here's how I'm going to act with my kids it's just it's a very easy way and it can be applied throughout many aspects of Our Lives I think so too I think this is the the purpose that the the real inner part of ourselves are really
(56:03) looking for you think about what's the purpose what's the point of this whole thing this whole life thing what should I do to me what you just said is an answer I have the opportunity to create a new chain on the link let's say this is the situation that's been passed down there's no one to blame that's the reality of it I have an opportunity I see kind of see it as a relay race actually now it's like when I was born someone handed me the Baton now I get to run and how much further along the path
(56:31) can I go before I hand it on to the next person yes be a little bit better than the people before you yeah that's all you got to do I just tell my kids if if if you stop breathing now you've already done 10 times better than I have you have just made the world a better place great so it is it is our responsibility to say yes bad things happen got it got the concept there are some stories out there people would tell me I'm like oh my goodness I can't even believe that you're still standing from that but I
(57:03) applaud you but we don't have to continue that cycle let's break it let's do better and then if everybody just took that thought pattern of bad things have happened I'm gonna pick myself back up and I'm not gonna do that yeah you got to make mistakes everybody that makes mistakes you you're if you're converting oxygen you're making mistakes that's just what we do but try to be better than you were before and to see it clearly like that to at least just just to see it that that's the situation that's the
(57:32) opportunity it it is it's humbling that I can talk with people and they say just two or three words you go up here you go this is what's going on and to Ernest Hemingway if if you've ever read Emory I think he's an amazing writer because a writer would take half a page Hemingway will boil it down to one sentence and I go holy buckets yeah I totally get what he just said so when they say something if I can Earnest Hemingway at back here you go this is what the problem is and I don't really
(58:06) fully say the answer because that's none of my business I just tell them this is what's going on I help them acknowledge and then they'll come up with the knowledge and they'll come up with the act on their own they might not even realize they're doing that but when you just show somebody hey this is what you're doing you're chewing bubblegum in the library and we all know that's that's not right you say hey that's a nice bubble gum you got walk away I don't need to start a
(58:31) fight with you just say hey I bubble gum okay I'm out of here you go um yeah I did see that sign fine I'll go do the right thing so are you just being a mirror I try to be a sounding board I try to be as raw and personal as I can this is what happened to me this is what I went through and let them decide are they going to listen to my me bumping my gums or not and nine times out of ten I end up being the student of it all of just watching this amazing thing of them unfolding and going yep that's who I am
(59:09) it's quite humbling to say this is listening to you I consider just the the miraculous nature of this whole experience like what what a situation that we're in like talk about like slowing down and just like acknowledging like what it means to be alive and it's not so maybe common to talk about that it even feels like their stigma or tabooed to even just address the elephant in the room exactly which is you know reality we're born into these situations we get to decide where to move with our bodies and and where to go
(59:40) uh the future is totally unpredictable we have no idea what's going to happen all right what should we do about this exactly it well the good thing for me is I've had a lot of solid help along the way um my my uncle very helpful to me always a good sounding board um you know move on to Jeff and I've had many people across the Marine Corps that have you know hey here here you're not doing things right let's fix this um but I've had a lot of good solid help been married I don't know why My Wife
(1:00:13) puts up with me for 30 years but she has I'm very lucky for that I've got great friends around me um like look at Dharma Satya sadashivam it's delicious endless and I just go I'm trying to be like them that's all I can do is just take what they have taught me and make it a little bit better if you say you don't know why your wife puts up with you and I see to me I think about their like Society like socially acceptable thing to say there just just to point it out because I think I do that all the time too but I
(1:00:45) try to be aware of doing that like is that really true like I'm sure that like the truth is you know that like you hold value you know we we are even to each other yeah anything that I'm not good at she is and anything that she's not good at I am it's it were we met in the Marine Corps at 20 years old and we got married wallow in the Marine Corps both of us and you know that typically is a recipe for a train wreck gonna happen at any time 30 years later it's been I'm lucky to have what I have
(1:01:18) um and to take two poor kids and put us in the position where we can support other people it's it's really I just think about wow the universe is being nice to me I'm I'm lucky for it but I've had a lot of help along the way um so it it is I love the karma yoga portion of it um the the giving back to helping others and seeing a light bulb go off because we all know what it's like you're at the bottom of the barrel and you're thinking somebody please I think at that moment the universe said
(1:01:54) yeah we ain't going to help you because you're going to learn from us and you're going to be what other people need I've had four veterans come up to me and say I didn't commit suicide because of what you're teaching and that just motivates me to keep on going we are going to find more and we're going to find more and all they need to know is you are not alone and with the book The Blueprint basically the book came about of me just writing notes because I was forgetting things and when I had a bunch of notes and I
(1:02:22) just hand it to a vet hey what do you think about this the guy looked at me and said you're in my head how did you know all this I said this is just me trying to get things out because they're they're sort of twisted up upstairs and then my wife just said just go puke on a page I said what are you talking about she said just start typing okay and you know then you try to take the hieroglyphics and trying to really understand what I was getting out and then it just sort of bled together to you know this is a book whoa that's
(1:02:56) weird and then people just continue to ask about it how did you do it what do you do and you know I I picked this out and they talk about a specific chapter that means something to them um it's very humbling it is they just look at me and say how did you know this it's not that I knew it's that I just lived it it was in the noodle and I needed to get it out I would say what it is is that you were being honest and honesty is the place where where we meet and we find out that we're much more alike than what we
(1:03:32) thought so that's really the gift I think you know is it possible to be honest how honest can I can I be realizing that that's a service when I'm honest service to others it is and and honesty really started with me from my with my mother um I was high school-ish and in my family we didn't say I love you so Mom had an open heart surgery and I got to finally got to the hospital we didn't know if she was going to make it and I said Mom I love you I was like that's the last time I want to see her
(1:04:03) and she and and she always credited with me after that we all I say that now because if you say that I said okay if I hadn't have said that then we might not be on this power positive so exposing myself I don't care I'll tell you whatever you want to know you're going to hold on for the ride if you like it you like it you don't you don't but it's not going to offend me why is it not gonna offend me because I lived it already I don't mind talking about it again but people are just in this in this
(1:04:35) culture in this country in this world whatever it may be they want to put on the happy face and and that's fine you know every once in a while you go to a party and you're like hey this is you got the small talk on my hand drive me crazy I'd rather find one person at the party that I can talk Knee Deep with about life then talk to 50 people about nothing except for oh it's a hot day today I would love I love talking deep with people because I can learn from them fear there of exposing ourselves is is
(1:05:08) really interesting and I I consider as a maybe an antidote for this a little bit is to cultivate a relationship with death I wonder about this like is that the possibility right if if I take time to slow down to acknowledge the fact that this all can end at any moment that's just the nature of the game as far as I can tell if I if I do that if I feel that then putting on a mask being phony trying to manipulate how other people view me that doesn't seem to be like a course of action I want to take but that was the
(1:05:46) gift of what combat gave me no going through it okay we're gonna go on patrol am I gonna come home I don't know but we'll we'll do what we can with what we got so it was I and while I was out there I realized I'm worrying about this so much that I'm not doing my job and I am making my chances higher of not coming home so I let go I it was really hard to let go and say okay I'm not making it home it is what it is so but my survivability jumped light years because I was focused in on my job
(1:06:23) I was here I was now the tricky part is trying to hold you trying to grasp it again of I care I want to live again so when I finally got to the point of came home still didn't care because I was angry I didn't think I deserved to be home I knew someone in my guys didn't make it home but it's I consider it a gift of I know what it's like to go I could I could it could be any time now right behind that tree it could be the guy that's going to get me or right this is going to be a bomb right here whatever it may be
(1:06:59) so in the beginning I was mad about it and I stopped asking why is it happening to me I started asking what is this trying to teach me oh I'm not in that zone anymore I'm not in Iraq or Afghanistan anymore I am now here and I have learned what it's like to let go do I have enough strength to take a hold again to understand what you were exactly talking about to not care if you live or die it is a world altering thought and feeling to go through but once you do that and you go huh I'm going to be right here right now
(1:07:39) and everything shifts again you just keep on finding ways for the world to shift the power of positive here and now centering yourself all the tools negative and to positive all these things if if you start understanding them then the universe starts talking to you and it is amazing how good things can get John thanks so much my pleasure oh feel honored to meet you the honor of mine I I love meeting good people if anyone listening or watching uh would like to get involved with your work is there a way that people can support what
(1:08:19) you're doing yeah living beyond pts is the name of the book and there's a website living beyond PTS and it's a 501c3 I'm I'm My ultimate goal is to buy land put up a yoga studio it's not going to be a yoga studio it's going to be the healing house and a place where we can gather we can talk we can actually start doing some Asana again and we can move on to my favorite thing of Yoga Nidra the the Tibetan bowls and working through how to do it the book is on Amazon and there's a
(1:08:53) recording to do it I've got a 30 minute and a 45 minute and a 60 Minute with the bowls and people can just access that no problem but that's the key if if they want to help get living beyond pts going um doing those things would be good thank you so much friend my friend my pleasure thanks for listening if you've enjoyed this content and think others might as well please feel free to share and subscribe