Nuanced. - 3. Rebekah Myrol: Psychology Communicator

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Rebekah Myrol is a current student at the University of the Fraser Valley. She is an honest, driven individual. In this conversation,  Rebekah discusses her background to explain her passion and enthusiasm for psychology.  Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Hello, friends, and welcome to the show. My guest today is a student at the University of the Fraser Valley. She is incredibly driven, focused, and determined. She can be found on Instagram as the psych enthusiast. Please give it up for Rebecca Myroll. And we're live. you doing. Good. How are you? I'm doing good. I am so grateful to have you on. And one of the reasons is because you've started this psych enthusiast page on Instagram. And you're really doing a really good job of connecting

with people about the benefits of knowing about psychology. Obviously psychology overlaps a lot of our life. And you're kind of exposing that to, I would say, the lower mainland and helping them realize that they are interacting with psychology and the mind every day, whether they know it or not. But you have a background. You have experiences that led you to this point and to appreciate the value of psychology and how to work through things and how to think things through. So I wanted to start the interview by talking about the beginning, the prequel of your life that has led you to that point and we will end off with discussing the psych enthusiast.

That sounds great. Okay. So first, I would like to get into some of the memories you have as a child that have helped form you. So what comes to mind for me is your relationship with your family and experiences at school as well. We'll start with the family. So one of my first questions, what was it like growing up? What were some of your memories? And what did you get out of those memories now, having such a passion for psychology? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I found that I was the black sheep out of my family in a lot of ways. My sister was really good at the academic side of things, and I was more good at the sports sort of things. And I found that over the course of my life, growing up and to preteens and getting into middle school, high school, I felt a lot of things that I didn't really know what I was feeling. and I did go through some depression, which was really the turning point for me, I think, as a 14-year-old and watching my parents' divorce, that's what happened when I was 14. So those moments really changed me. At that time, I think I handled it very immaturely because I was 14, right? I didn't know what I was feeling. I didn't know what was going on, like most 14-year-olds, right? So I think

it was not knowing how I felt, which is really what drove me to psychology and like figuring out how the mind works and how it connects and, you know, all those feelings that really do help you understand what's going on. And so if you don't know what's going on, you're just more confused. And that's really how I felt was so confused all the time growing up and feeling so different than other people, just intellectually too. I wasn't into what most normal kids were into. I wasn't into the partying. I wasn't into just having a lot of friends. I was into being more of myself. I was more of an introvert. I guess you could call me. So I was more to myself, which I found, you know, I was happy with. I was content with. I didn't really have any issues with it in particular. But I did find

that once my parents did divorce, that really turned everything around for me where I really had the choice of going down a bad path or a good path. And what route did you take at the time? At the time when I was 14, I took the bad path, the wrong path, in my opinion. Not saying that it's bad now, I look back at it. And I've really learned from the experience. I've really learned from all the things that I went through 14. Now I can appreciate it, but when I was going through it, it definitely made me go down dark paths where I was doing very destructive things to myself and to my friends and people that I loved. I was very, distraught. I was very overwhelmed. I had a lot of feelings inside of me that I didn't really

know how to express. So I was walking around with all of these feelings and feeling like I had them under control. And I didn't because I didn't know what was going on. So I would say that I was, I went into a lot of self-harm when I was young and I did a lot of terrible things to myself and to other people where I would, you know, lie and, you know, not come home at the certain time that I should be coming home at, I would just go against the grain all the time.

That was kind of my way of acting out, I guess. I would just always go against the grain, always push back. That was always me. And very keeping people from a distance was what I, was good at when I was young. So that was kind of what I really dealt with at that time. It doesn't sound like you had much of a role model to aspire to be like or someone to compare yourself to and say they went through it in this form and I would like to repeat that because that seems like the right track to go down. What was going on in terms of examples set for

you? At that time when I was 14. Yeah. I didn't really have any role models when I was 14. The only thing that I had when I was young that really stuck out that really structured me as a person was sports and was soccer. And I used to play competitive soccer. I used to be in rep soccer. I was like the top, like at the very, very top. I was doing really, really well. And all the coaches told me you have major potential. You have, you can go places. We can pay for things for you. Like, we can get you to where you want. You want to go if that's what you want. And when I was 14, I didn't know what I wanted. You know, I didn't know what I wanted to do and I didn't know if that was going to be for me. And then at

that time when my parents split, it just crashed everything for me. It didn't have a direction even more than what I didn't have when I was 14. So it really shook me off balance. But the only thing I had to hold on to was sports. And it really did change things for me because when I stopped playing, I thought that everything would, you know, maybe I would get into something else and maybe that would, maybe soccer wasn't really my thing. And then I realized that once I quit, it was a big mistake because I gave up a lot over something that happened that was out of my control. And I could have used soccer as a way as a positive outlet to release my energy, but I didn't. What happened with the split specifically that had such detrimental effects? Because I think, think one thing we hear a lot is that people have divorced families, the children are hurt, and it affects them greatly. But I don't think we get into the real manifestations of how that occurs. More importantly, we don't know where in the child's life to try and pivot, to help them better. And I think we really miss out on that on a lot of children. So what were some things

that occurred that viewers and listeners would be able to utilize if they're going through a divorce to help their child. Yeah, I would just say, like, the biggest advice that I would give, you know, I'm not a parent, so I'm not, you know, really qualified to give those parent advice. But I would really suggest just the communication, being open, just be honest with your kids, you know, be completely open and say, hey, you know what? The marriage is not working for me and your dad. And this is what the options are.

And we want to include you and what's going on. and we want to understand how you're feeling and those things are important, you know, for sure, they're crucial and helping people get along with tragic things like divorce. And for a child, right, it's something that it's out of their control, which makes them feel more overwhelmed because they can't stop it. They can't do anything about it. And sometimes children feel as though it's their fault. And that's how I felt when I was 14.

did feel like I caused my parents divorce and it's a natural feeling right because you're so used to this familiarity of your father and your mother and then being together and for so long and that's all that you know and then all of a sudden one day it's it's gone and you feel responsible you feel like what did I do what could I have done what did I do to do something wrong you know and that's where those destructive thinking patterns patterns come from for sure and that's what I really dealt with when I was young and not having those role models and not having someone else to talk to about it. And, you know, hey, maybe that was partially my fault. Maybe I should have reached out to some people, but I didn't. So I'm not trying to run away

from responsibility. I'm not trying to, you know, say that there was people or that there wasn't anybody. I'm sure I could have found someone to talk to. I just didn't know what was going on, right? And so I did go to a counselor once. I remember that my mom did take me one time to a counselor to sort out my feelings, but it wasn't really about the divorce. I was going through, like I said earlier, a lot of self-harm and depression when I was young. So that was more of the conversation that had occurred with the counseling, more than the actual divorce, which I think was wrong because I didn't really,

I wasn't really honest with the counselor. which I think only hurt me more, if that makes any sense. Yeah. So let's dive into that then. Your experience with a counselor, because currently you're interested in psychology, counseling, those types of fields. Yes. How was your experience back then? And what things would you have done differently, perhaps, from the counselor's perspective?

I don't really remember as much, like when I was going through those counseling sessions. I don't remember a lot, so I can't say too much on that. But what I would say is from my experience when I was 14, I did find that the counselor was not, like, she wasn't really pushing towards figuring out the root of the issue. I think that being 14, I was giving her this information. And I think that from a look on her face, she felt very, I don't know the right word. She felt, it seemed to me that when I told her about my cutting and the self-harmes, I was going through, she didn't really have a lot to say. She was more just listening, which made me feel, I think, a bit worse because I just wanted all those feelings to go away. I just wanted

to stop. I didn't, you know, I wanted to really talk about what was going on and she just sort of listened and then I became more quiet. So I think I shut down in those sessions. I think there was only like maybe three or three or four sessions. It wasn't like a huge ordeal because I gave up. I blamed it on the counselor. And I'm not saying that it was a counselor's fault and per se. Obviously, it takes two to tango, right? Like, I have to be able to be willing as well. And I have to be able to be honest. And when I was 14, I just, yeah, the last place I wanted to be was at a counselor's office. So I would say that now, you know, if I was a counselor, you know, the way that I would approach things is I would approach it in a holistic way. There's so much that could be going on in

that child's life that you know you don't really know and it's easy to say oh okay well you have depression or you have anxiety but what about your sleep what about you know your diet what about your friendships like your social circles like those are all very critical into helping someone who's going through a divorce that's going to really shape the child's life i want to know some of the experiences you were going through and some things that perhaps parents could do to help their children get through those moments or somebody who can take a role in somebody's life who's going through a divorce and kind of go through what the symptoms are of a divorce after it happens. Well, yeah, like I mentioned earlier, communication is key. Honestly, it really is.

Like, being able to communicate with your kids about what's actually going on is crucial because then there's no secrets and no lies. And I get it, you know, when the child is young, it's harder to tell the truth. It's harder to really talk about. what's going on in the marriage and you don't have to go into huge depths about what's going on and all the nitty little gritty things but it's just important to say you know what maybe mom is moving down the block because she just needs some space for a while and we're going to figure it out but you know we're going to do our best and just the encouragement and reminding the kids that hey it's not your fault it's not your fault that mom and dad are breaking up it's not your fault and whatever

you're going through will help you. And recognizing, I think parents need to do more is recognizing that divorce is traumatic. No matter how you try to run around the subject, it's traumatic for the child, no matter how old the person is, whether they're five or they're 20. It's still traumatic, you know, because that's your family. It's all you know. And then all of a sudden, it's broken. And what do you do? Right? Like, that's something that shakes you in life. And yet, again, it's something that you can't control, which is hard for people. We all feel like we need to control things. And if we don't, you know, it can either go on a good way or can go in a bad way. And for me at that time, it didn't go so well. But I learned a lot from it. And so the advice that I

would just say is to be honest with your kids and to get them the help that they may or may not know they need and just say that, hey, it's okay if you need to help. Even if you don't know you need help right now. Maybe just talking to someone might help because for me, if I was a parent, I'd want to do everything I could then to sit back and think, oh, I'm sure my kids will be fine, or oh, I'm sure my kids will talk to me if they feel comfortable. They're not going to. They don't know how they feel. And what just happened is an instant break, right, into a marriage that resembles love and commitment, and then all of a sudden it's just done,

you know, what does that speak to the child that speaks? Oh, love doesn't last forever. And that's how I really felt. And that's really what damaged me, I think, most out of my divorce with my parents, was I was questioning really what love was. And if I was worthy of love, which is a very dangerous place to be, especially if you're young. Yeah.

How did your relationships change? with your family after that? From what I can remember, my mom and I, we were pretty close for a while after the divorce. Her and I, we talked a lot about it, and not really in like a meaningful way, but we talked about it happening and kind of where we felt at the moment on the surface,

not really in depth. The relationship with my mom became when I was 14, Yet again, like I keep saying because when I was 14, I'm a different person now. So how I would handle things now to then is different. So being 14, I just wanted to have some connection to my family. And I think I hung on to my mom a bit more because I was hoping that she would come back to my dad. And I was really trying to convince her that coming back would be the best thing for all of us. And that's why I think I spent so much more time trying to talk with her because she left, right?

And I used to say to her, hey, like, come back. You know, we need you. The whole family needs you. And we miss you. And, like, I can't believe this is happening. And she was moving out. And bags were being packed. Car was being driven away.

My dad went through crazy depression. So I'd say at the time when I was 14, it didn't push me away. I just felt more helpless because watching your dad go through depression like he was and crippling pain with an injury that he didn't ask for. You know, he didn't ask for that injury and to have someone walk out on him the way that it happened was extremely heartbreaking for so many reasons because I used to hear him cry at night. I used to make him food. I used to go downstairs and make sure that he was.

okay you know so there was a lot of responsibility held on to me and my sister a lot and me being only in middle school going into high school that's all I knew and I was really trying to keep my mom involved and I was trying to keep my dad okay and sane but I didn't you know I didn't know what I was doing so I just wanted some sort of structure I wanted to to fix something and that's where I think another symptom of divorce is that the kid or the child wants to feel like they have some control so they try to fix the marriage and they try to sometimes meddle in I think a little too much and that's I think what I did yeah I can't imagine being in that circumstance and trying to put the pieces back together of something that you don't understand how it's broken

and what the root would be to go to fix it exactly and you're trying to get involved and improve things what did that yield and how did you look at your family after that? The concept of family to me, even today, is still very, it's much of a question mark for me. I think through all of that, though, it really did bring me closer to my dad because I went through depression. Then I got to see him go through depression. And I really gained a lot of respect for him. Because even men, let's just talk about men for a second, they don't show emotion as much as women do. Not that they don't have emotion, but they don't show it as much, right? So seeing my own dad, you know, on his knees and crying and me going downstairs and giving

him food and making sure he's okay, like that was me taking over like the mother role, like being like the wife figure of taking care of him and, you know, cooking him food, making sure he's okay, making sure he's sleeping okay, that he's not doing anything destructive. That really gave me a lot of respect for my dad in a lot of ways where then the dynamics shifted with my mom because then I became more distant as she became more distant. And what I mean by that is after she lived in the apartment that she lived in for about, I think a year, she then decided to move again. and it was farther away from both me and Naomi and my dad. So then it was another sort of slap on the back and a, okay, I'm moving farther away now. What do you think about it?

Okay, well, I don't want you to move. So how about you don't move? Why don't you stay? Why don't we figure this out? No, I want to move. And I'm going to. And that's exactly what she did, which was hard. because again, I lost her again.

It's the second time I lost her. And then the third time, you know, she went with someone else. And again, the relationship is becoming more and more, more strained and distant again, right? So I'd say that my dynamic really changed after, really realizing what my dad went through and how similar him and I were, it brought us closer. Yeah, and it obviously shows that he valued the relationships that you cared about.

because you're watching your family break and he's facing the same type of struggles and you stepped up because one of the things we were going to talk about was that you lacked discipline prior and then your dad's going through depression and that discipline starts to manifest through making meals cleaning that type of involvement and that type of responsibility you had to help carry that. Well, and sorry, also responsibility that I didn't even know how to do when I was 14, not to mention, because what you said was really important, my mom, she didn't teach us how to vacuum and to clean and to do our beds and have everything in order because she always did it for us. And so that was even more of a shock and more of an adjustment in a lot of ways because I didn't know those skills. I didn't know how to vacuum. I didn't know how to clean my room in those ways that she used to do it. That was so perfect. And then having to also take care of another family member and then myself and then the house and then school was overwhelming for sure. Yeah.

And I can't imagine taking on the first part, which is trying to support your dad through this process. And then having to go and pretend at school that everything is normal. And I think a lot of people are going through that when they're going to school, elementary, middle, and high school is they have a whole. to do list at home of managing relationships, dealing with people, cleaning up, doing all of those things. And then we send them to school where you're trying to fit in, where you're trying to seem and keep some form of normalcy. And then people will ask you at school, well, is everything okay at home? And it's like, well, I don't want to turn this calm place of order into chaos. So I'll just not say anything. Yeah, I think a lot of kids have that struggle for sure where they

feel like they don't they shouldn't say anything or they don't know what to say so they just should just stay quiet and that's definitely not an option I think that it's an option but it's not a viable option it's not productive so I think whether it's a counselor or it is a friend even if it's one friend that you can trust or a teacher or someone right it's just about getting that out so then you can sort of deal with it and understand what's wrong because a lot of people get anxious when they don't know how they're feeling, but most of times they do know how they're feeling. They just don't know how to understand what they're feeling. They don't know how to actually get out the words and articulate themselves. So it causes more anxiety. It causes, you know, more stress on them

because they're living with this feeling and they, it's uncomfortable, but they don't know how to express it. So I think even just giving it your best shot and trying to be honest with yourself and with other people that you can trust in that moment is more valuable than anything else than than keeping quiet for sure. Absolutely. So how would you recommend going forward communicating with youth who are going through these types of things? What steps could they take in their life that might assist them in your mind through your experience? Like dealing with hard times and like depression and just difficult moments? And going to school and trying to cope with both worlds that are completely different, have completely different players and the

dynamics are completely different. So when you're at home, some of these people have to deal with you and you're used to it and you have rules and you have a personality at home. Yes. Then you go to school and most people try and save face and try and leave their problems at the door. What steps could they take within, from what you've learned, to better cope without just leaving everything at the door? Don't leave everything at the doorstep. Yeah. Yeah, don't, don't leave it there. I think that that's where the problem starts to get worse is when you start leaving your problems at the doorstep continually over and over and over again. And then you go back and then you realize, oh shit, my problems are bigger than me now. And I don't even know how to have a hold on it.

And that's where those destructive thinking patterns and behaviors can occur is when you leave your problems at the door again and again and again and you just choose to not face them. So I would suggest, like I said earlier, talk to someone, be honest with yourself, even if it's talking to yourself in the mirror. I used to do that all the time and just talk to myself because I didn't know who to talk to. So just talk to myself and I would listen to music or I would just write things down. Writing things down is very common for people, like who struggle with depression, anxiety. A lot of times writing things down can be useful and it can. But it's, but it's depends on you, right? I don't think that there is a one step that's going to fix

everything for everyone. I think that it's going to be unique to every person, whether it's journaling, whether it's going for a run, whether it's talking to someone. Some people like talk therapy. Some people don't. So I would suggest figure out the best way that you can, wherever you are, how old you are, use your tools to the best of your ability, and try to find the answers within yourself and try to be honest with yourself because then when you get older, you'll be that much more healthier and your mind and in your body and you won't feel burdened by your problems because you'll be able to look at your problems a lot differently. Yeah, I think that's really good advice because to me, you've turned around a lot in terms

of changing your approaches to status quo, seeing that that wasn't working and modifying the approach moving forward over the past 40 years, every chance you've had to review a normal approach that you've had, you'll go through it and try and figure out how to do that better, how to approach people better, how to communicate better, and how to get tasks done, how to bring discipline into your life. Well, and too, keep in mind, it doesn't matter if you fail because then you learn something, right? So even if you do trust the wrong person and you open up and it doesn't go your way. Of course, it's easy to react and feel, oh, I feel portrayed. Oh, I feel hurt. Oh, I feel angry. I feel very, very, very upset. Shouldn't have done that kind of attitude.

Exactly. And kind of regret, but it's not about thinking, oh, I shouldn't have done that. It's about thinking, okay, yes, maybe that person didn't handle what I told them very well and I didn't like the response, but that's not my problem. I got it out. At least I got to get out what I felt out. And yeah, it didn't go my way. But then I get to learn for next time on maybe who to trust or when to talk about something. Maybe it was the wrong time. Maybe, you know, it just wasn't meant to be in that moment. But that doesn't mean that it's the person's fault for opening up, right? I mean, you can't always control what people are going to react to, right? that people are human, we react to everything, and sometimes we react not in the best ways

when we should be. So I just would comment on that as well and just say, failure is part of the success. And if you don't have failure, you're not going to get success. Right. That's absolutely true. The other part that you experienced in your childhood was you had a teacher that was a phenomenal influence on you that really helped during those moments. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, Mrs. Bartell. Yeah, yeah. In elementary school, I went to Sheehm Elementary,

and she was absolutely phenomenal because this all happened, obviously, before my divorce with my parents, like before all that crap happened. It was really nice having, like, a mother figure in my life, having someone who was so happy to see me every day, always encouraged me, always motivated me to, hey, are you enrolling in those sports? hey like am I going to see you on the field yep like I'll be there and it just felt so good to want to be wanted and to feel like I was special and she always treated me like I had this special gift with my running abilities and being able to adapt so well to different sports like I could play any sport and I was always so good at it even if I didn't know how to play it I would just figure it out and I was just just was my talent like my gift almost was just to be able to adapt to those

circumstances. And she always lifted me up. She always made me feel invincible. But she also was there for me when I would fail. You know, when I would fall down, when I would continually beat myself up, she was there too. And that's the biggest thing out of all of this is that you have to, the way that you know that someone's there for you is when they're there for you to the good times and the bad times, especially the bad times. Because That's where their character shines out the most. And she always shined the brightest in those moments, especially in the dark moments. She made everything so easy.

And I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I really did. That's awesome because that is a role model that you had. What ended up happening there? Well, she was a role model, but she was, I would say, she was like a second mom where I didn't really think that, you know, I wanted to be like her when I grew up, but I felt like just more myself with her. I felt like she was a mom to me. And I know she's not a mom to me biologically, but her and I, we had this connection

where it was beyond anything else that I can even explain. So the relationship was so strong throughout my whole years of elementary school, my very, very young stages throughout my life. And later on in my life, I want to. had to reconnect with her, but then I had found out that she had passed away. And that was really sad because I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell her how much she impacted my life. I never got to tell her all the things I wanted to tell her. And being young, you think, oh, they'll always be there and you can always go back. But life happens. And that's really where I realized,

oh, like she's gone. Life is short. Like life is really short. And, I wouldn't have thought that she would have passed away. Like, I was just so flabbergasted. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. I just, it was hard because I hadn't seen her in a couple of years. And I wanted to go back and tell her how much that she meant to me and how much of a mom she was to me, like a real mom.

She'd picked me up from soccer practices. She'd be there early. She would encourage me. she would train me, she'd take me out to ice cream when my real parents weren't there. So that's more of a parent to me than anything else. And I just wish I could have said something to her. I wish I could have done something. But that's really what happened, which was so sad to realize.

Yeah, and especially because who knows if she was still there, the impact she could have made later in your life, even now. Yeah, absolutely for sure. Yeah. The other part I thought would be interesting to talk about is we both grew up in Chilliwack. Yes. But completely different landscapes of what our childhoods looked like. I was living in downtown Chiluac on social assistance and that world was completely different than the more rural life you lived out past near Little Mountain.

Very calm, quiet road. can you talk about some of the differences that you definitely experienced in enjoying the rural life and then I can talk about my experiences in the downtown life yeah honestly living where I was

was really awesome in a lot of ways like that is one of like I will give my parents prop to that for moving to where we moved being out in like sort of the middle of nowhere I guess and with lots of trees and places to walk and there wasn't really any homeless communities out where we lived, so it was safer.

I never felt weird whenever I walked. There was an ice cream store, like, right across from us. We would go get our milk and food, and then we had neighbors down the street. We played with them all the time. We got to build relationships and friendships over time with their parents, and all the parents knew our parents, and it was just a really cool community because it was a very safe neighborhood. There wasn't obviously any crime,

not that I knew of at least, being young girl. Yeah, me and my sister, we loved going down there and riding our bikes and playing on the grass and having a nice home too was amazing because you get to be able to have your own room and have a hole upstairs and downstairs and you have everything that you've kind of ever wanted. And when you're a kid, you don't really think about that in the moment.

But looking back now, for sure, like, I'm really grateful that my parents moved down there because, you know, the schools I went to were great. The friends I made were great. The place was great. The house was awesome. The community was amazing, too. So I know that for you, living in downtown was completely different experience. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely crazy different experience because just memories of walking over to Jake's place and knowing that I was going to pass some people.

curled up in a corner while I was walking down main roads, crime within our apartment building was huge, yelling, screaming, fighting, fist fights, drug deals, all types of crazy things that I was very well aware of were dangerous. But I couldn't even imagine that, honestly. I could not imagine, like, especially for being a girl too, right? Like seeing that, like you did. I couldn't imagine that. And you did. And it was like your life every day. You would go down there and fear sort of for your life and not knowing you would always have to look over your shoulder constantly and so did your mom and for me and my parents and never had to worry about that which was a huge advantage of course but it also i think made you stronger too right absolutely i

learned a lot of street smarts and how to be how to think things through in a circumstance when you're in any business you're thinking of where the exits are what's going on when you see people disagreeing, you recognize it and you keep an eye on it to moderate what's going on and what the possible outcomes could be because, yeah, there were a lot of different circumstances of waking up in the middle of the night and in the middle of the road. There were two people yelling at each other and dealing with one of the more vivid experiences I had was my mom and I were coming home from seeing a movie at the Paramount. And right when we came through the door, two guys were barreling down the staircase, pushed us out of the way, and just ran. And we were like,

what's going on? Then we heard the lady screaming. So we go up to the first floor. We walk down the hallway. We're hesitant because we don't know what just happened. And we see that it was, I believe, room 101, 101 or 102. And we look at the door, and it's just destroyed. And so we start to open the door, and the lady's right there. And her face is just, half of it is absolutely destroyed. So I guess what happened was two guys thought that there was another person living there. And she went and the doors have this component where you can put a little latch over it. So she had that still on it and she just opened the door a little bit to see who was there. And they took that door and they pulled it in and they pushed it forward with all their force.

And they just collapsed part of her face by slamming the door into it. And so her Her face was absolutely destroyed on half of it, and she was crying, and I saw it, because we didn't know what to expect, so I saw it. And that was incomprehensible. Then I had to turn around and grab out my cell phone, because my mom didn't have a cell phone, and call 911. How did you feel making that first 911 call? It probably wasn't the first. Really? No, that was something that happened that I remember, but it was not the first time that I had seen something absolutely incomprehensible.

And to think, sorry, to think that, like, my first 911 call was when I was working at Ann Davis and I'm 22. And you probably made a phone call to the police way younger than I did. Yeah, probably seven. That is absolutely insane. Yeah. Like, no child should have to, you know, memorize those phone numbers or even think about that when you're 10 or 12 or even in your teens. Like, you're not thinking of those things. And that was your life that you always had to prepare for.

Yeah. I still remember the subway was another experience where I was there. and just hanging out, somebody walks in the door with a mask on. Now masks are pretty common due to this pandemic, but they were wearing a mask, and you could just feel something was wrong. He walks past me all the way up to the till, doesn't order a sandwich, so you know he's probably not doing anything good. And then I just watched the cashier, open the till,

and start to put everything onto the counter. There was no explanation. He grabbed it all and started to exit. in that moment it was like there isn't another option than to go after this person but see what made you think that though being so young what made you different than what most people might do is not do anything and some people when they're in groups right like people tend to just follow what other people do and so you were with jake right were you with jake no or just by yourself just with another group of people okay so yeah but take that right i mean you were

the only person out of that group that was like there's no other option i need to take action yeah that's incredibly unique yeah i think that a lot of that was knowing where i was growing up and seeing how superheroes handled it that they didn't and i know that that seems silly to people that that could somehow influence you but it does because they don't look at it they view it as their responsibility to make a difference remove the the powers and stuff when they see a problem they address it. They go out. They do things that they're not comfortable with. None of the heroes you watch any of the shows are relaxed. They're doing something completely insane. And I view that is my, this is my community. You're coming into my favorite place. And you're causing shenanigans.

And that's just not okay with me. And so, yeah, I walk out the door and I see him going around the corner and I try and keep a distance. I have no idea whether or not he has a gun. And I sincerely think he might have a gun and so I go around the corner and that still made you want to go after him even thinking like what if he has a gun like what am I going to do you still with all your strength and energy at that time being so young just continue to still fight yeah I was probably 13 or 14 somewhere in that age still a kid right like that's still so young yeah and so come around the corner he sees me he tries to scare me away and at that point in time I'd realize he cannot have a gun because if you're trying to scare someone away, you use the gun. You don't have

to murder me, but you use the gun. So I see him cross the road and there's a car facing the wrong way. And I was like, okay, that's the car they're going to get into. And I immediately call 911 and I'm chasing the car down the road on foot. They caught him. I had to go to court for it. They caught him based on that experience and that interaction. And yeah, the police officer was really surprised that I did that and did not recommend me do that again. But didn't that feel amazing to know that you also, like, you made a difference, you stuck out of the group mentality, you ran all by yourself, called the police as you were running, and then the crime got solved because of you. Like, that's absolutely phenomenal, just to think that that even happened. Well, and that's where you start to realize that you don't have to go status quo with a lot.

of things. You can do what others won't and yield benefits that they won't yield because you're willing to put yourself out there. If I'm willing to risk myself for that, what am I willing to risk for myself for my own benefit? How much work am I willing to put in for myself to grow and to develop? And so it's interesting to see the differences between us, even though we lived in the same community. If you say you live in Chilawak and I say I live in Chilawak, we're going to assume that there's some sort of consistency. But it's a completely different world. Absolutely. No, you're so right. Like I never went through any of that. I even lived, you know, like I'd say five, 10 minutes away from CSS. And CSS and CMS are obviously very closely related. And I've heard a lot of stories

surrounding those areas. Even when I went to high school, I did feel not 100% safe. But I had nothing compared to what you had went through and you're right. Like if we talked about shallowak and our experiences completely different. Absolutely. And I just think that that's crazy to think that you did that despite everything. And that was your motive. And it and it takes those moments for people to shine. And I think that's where people like me, I think my moment is going to shine maybe when I get older or even in my 20s now, because, Because as a young kid, I was so shy. I wasn't exposed to the things that you were exposed to, which made you had to grow up faster and which made you had to start thinking ahead all the time.

And for me, I was so in the moment and do-to-do-do, you know, like going to school and go home and the same thing over and over again. And every time you had to think, okay, what am I going to do next? Okay, who's this person? Okay, what's behind me? Okay, I have to get home. What's the fastest way and safest way to get home? I never thought of that. And even when you and I walk the streets, you're obviously so much more street smart than me because I'm so used to thinking that things are safe. I never had that exposure. Yeah, I am very used to having to get involved in situations. I have no interest in being involved in, but things can go very south if I avoid responsibility. This is my community and that's kind of the mentality you probably adopt more so when you're living in the community. And that's one interesting thing. I've noticed almost my whole life is downtown people, they have that communal strength. And I'm not saying that that doesn't occur in rural areas, but it's applied more when you're living in downtown.

Because I remember all the businesses along me, Wellington, knew me. They knew my mom, and they would keep an eye on me. And so it wasn't like nobody cared and I was completely alone. It was that certain areas had supports, certain roads. didn't. And those roads that don't have any support can get shaky on the outcome. I know lots of people who have been walking through Townsend who've been robbed with a knife. Yeah, that's absolutely bananas to me. It's two blocks away from us right now. Yeah. And that still occurs today and you can find it on the beware pages. I was walking through and this person grabbed out a knife

and told me to hand over my wallet. And when you're living in this community and you're walking through towns and you have to keep an eye out for those people and make sure people don't get their wallets taken because that's not okay. Nobody is a millionaire in this community, so we have to watch out for each other. Do you think that there's any hope and improving downtown Shelilwack? Do you think it will always remain the same? No, I've seen a lot of improvements with the developments they're doing. Hopefully there's more eyes out there that are willing to get involved and build, but as we both know, the more people you have in a community or in a small area, the more people delegate responsibilities and avoid them.

And so there's been studies done of a homeless person on the side of the road in a busy place like Vancouver versus a rural area like Chilliwack. Yeah. The outcomes are different because people's mentalities are nobody else is going to help this person, him and I are the only person on the block, so I should help them. where in Vancouver it's like thousands of people walking past someone all day long and so there's less responsibility because you're like well somebody else will give them a $5 bill somebody else will get them the help they need or most commonly someone should go help that person and they don't

view that someone as themselves that's also yeah like you said in larger communities and city areas like Vancouver and New York and those places like you said it's always oh well someone else will probably take care of it. Oh, you know, pass it on. Oh, yeah, it's okay. And that's what makes the person feel better in that moment. But yet again, it's the group mentality, right? Like we're all operating under the same level of understanding and, oh, yeah, someone else will do it.

Oh, yeah, someone else will do it. There's no evidence of that. Be that person that does. Exactly. And that's kind of the mentality I've kind of adopted is believing that nobody else is going to get involved. If I don't do it, no one else will. And so it is a mental responsibility that you have.

have to get involved in your community. Part of the reason the podcast has come into existence is because I don't see any role models in Chilliwack. I don't see anyone I'd aspire to be like on a grand scale that I believe reflects that. And I don't think I'm that. But I definitely think those people are out there. I've talked to them. Well, and you're pointing towards up. Like you are aiming higher and higher, which does make you more of a role model than anyone else because you're doing all the right things. And so I say that, yeah, maybe right now you're not where you think you should be, but you're definitely, you know, checking off all the criteria that fits a role model

because you're making all of this for people to hear and to understand and to learn more about the Chilwack community and learning about you and me and the other guests that you bring on is that it's all part of it. You know, these are all gems, all these people that you're bringing on are all gems of what makes Chilwack Chilwack. I 100% agree, and what makes BCBC is that there are these people, hidden gems operating amongst us that are not getting the recognition they deserve, that are not being lifted up by the city of Chilliwack. No offence to the Chamber of Commerce, but they're not being lifted up by them, and they're not being lifted up by the Chilliwack progress, and something needs to be done, because we're relying on bad news sources to tell us how to move forward. forward. We're not being inspired anymore. There's no motivation to take up responsibility within

the community. I work out in hope and the responsibility that they have in comparison to us with their community is a bit stronger. It's not worlds different, but it is stronger in the sense of if they see something wrong, like a rock out of place. It's a mentality of what's a small community, I should go help. Kind of that simple mindset. Yeah, again, again with the whole group thing, right? It seems to be like a common trend of depending on the locations, right, that where people live is where people are more willing to help and who aren't. Like you say, Chilawak is becoming busier and busier and more people so we're becoming, I think, more lazy. And like you said, like we're not really stepping up like we should be, but people out and help because it's a smaller

community, people are probably doing a bit more. Not that they're perfect and not that we're perfect either, but there's still probably more being done because of yet again the people, right? Yeah. That's insane. And who are you aspiring to be in Chilac? What person, we don't look highly on the farmers, even though they're crucial to our survival. Yeah, agriculture. Yeah, we always just blow past that like it's nothing.

And you really don't understand all the hard work they have to go through. Yeah, and how important the role is for you to be able to get all of your cheeses, all of your milks, all of the different things come from them. But I don't hear anybody talking about wanting to be a farmer when they grow up. and that's an important job. That's really true because I remember there's one kid in my class. He really wanted to aspire to be a farmer and everyone made fun of him. It's like, why? You know, he's going to get good money.

He's going to be actually producing stuff for people, for the community. He's essentially a community helper. Being a farmer is essentially saying, okay, I'm going to serve the community. Yeah. And serve BC because that milk goes all across BC and you're going to be a part of something that makes sure people have nutrients in their body. Whether or not you're lactose intolerant, it really doesn't matter. Some people are drinking milk, and that's fine.

And the other person is the Keltya guy. Robert, he is absolutely phenomenal at his job, but nobody's aspiring to do that job, and people are really judgmental about it. But to me, he does a 10-to-10 job at something he could do 2-10, and I'd have a bad experience. but I show up. He remembers my name. He asks me how I've been. He makes sure that I don't overpay. He explains all the processes that are going to occur and why it is this price and how that works out and wishes me a great day, calls me if there's a deal going on that I might be interested in, not because anyone's forcing him to. To me, this person has a family. This person is a part of a community. And no matter what, he deserves your respect. because he is taking a role within the community

and he is pointing upwards. So I want to have him on because people need to understand that a role model isn't a billionaire Mark Cuban. It can be right down the road. It can be the person you see once a year when you get new tires. It can be a university student.

It can be a worker at Beyond Nutrition. It can be lots of different things. And people, this should be tailored to the viewers. This should be tailored to the community. Who do you think is that? I don't know what the best role model in Chilliwack is. Vote these people up. Support them by going and shopping at their local business. Talk to them. Like their comments, like their posts. Tell other people about them. Be proud that you go there and stop looking at it. Like it's, yeah, like I had a good day and the Caltyre went well. It's like, well, let's slow down. What happened? Why did it go well? Exactly. And I'm sure you've

heard of the same little nicknames about Chilliwack too about how Chilliwack sucks and it's a farmland and oh, it just, it smells awful and there's nothing to do in Chilwack. Why are you in the community then? You know, like if you're not going to uplift the community in a positive way, make the best out of this community and help grow and vote and use your voice and be active, why are you in the community? You know, it doesn't make sense while people will say, well, I don't really know anybody in the community. I don't really know who to look up to. That's a problem. You shouldn't just foster that idea and then let that sit there and do nothing. Well, and also because it's just not true. There's lots of people in this community that I'm sure I don't even know. There's like 85,000

people in this community. You're saying not one of them would be a good role model. That's nonsense. And to say that Chilliwack is good or bad is also silly because you have Coltis Lake, Harrison, you have Fairfield, Promontory, you have-Chilwack Lake Road. Chilowack Lake Road. Yeah, lots of different areas throughout Chiluac that are absolutely not the same thing. You have downtown Chiluac, you have Sardis, you have garrison, you have promontory, you have all these different areas that have completely different energies. And if you don't think that they're different, you're not paying attention. Well, and you're clearly not going to those different areas and seeing the beauty and seeing the difference yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And so to say that is just silly,

because think of all the cool spots we've seen in Chilliwack that most people don't go to. And it's, Chilliwack is beautiful if you go and look and you go and search. Yeah, too many people will be like, oh, tell me where you went. No, you go find out yourself and you take the initiative and, you know, you go ahead and explore yourself. That's the whole point. That's the beauty of exploring. That's the beauty of going out and stepping out of your comfort zone. You've definitely shown me that. You've taken to me so many places and so many roads that I never thought existed in Chilliwack. When we first met, you took me to Hope and I was like, what's hope? I've never been there.

I was just like absolutely blown away by that hope was like 30 minutes away and yet I didn't know what that was like and I didn't know really what Sartis was like and I only lived in a certain area for so long and you're right like it does blind you and it makes you believe that there's nothing else out there until you go and step out and get in your car and go exactly and the benefits of that can manifest themselves in different ways first of all if you're going to see a lookout you're probably going to have to do some hiking so if you want to see beautiful things you might have to put in work you might have to bring in bring some food what's that food going to be well how about you make it bananas and apples instead of McDonald's why don't you take those steps and take those opportunities to improve yourself while you're learning about our community and take pride in it and take it seriously like you're supposed to because one of my biggest issues at this point in time is that politicians get paid because i'm happy to be here and I would be happy to improve this place in a professional way

and you wouldn't have to pay me a dime for it because I love it here. I'm happy here. And I see the beauty and you can make different fiscal arguments for paying politicians and I see those arguments but it's not necessary.

That's not. Because you should want the best for this place whether or not anyone's paying you or not. And seeing the lack of role models and the Chilliwack hate on itself is so unfortunate because there's a lot of great things about this place. You just have to unravel it. And not just Chilawak.

We go to Fort Langley. We go to Pemberton, Squamish. We've seen different areas and seen that same energy and how important it is to nourish. Yes. And that's what I hope this can do is start to nourish that idea that people are good. We just have to find them.

your community is good, you have to put in the work, and things can get better. It doesn't have to stay this way. Yeah, stop waiting for other people to take the baton and go with it. Maybe it's your calling to do so. Maybe you need to buck up the courage and do something about it. And that develops a lot of character growth, right? Like, that isn't something that, like, you think, oh, well, it's just going to be a short-term satisfaction.

No, it doesn't matter. Like, it matters in the long term more than. does in the short term because long term you can look back and realize the impact that you've made and that means something and that should be essentially what you're here to do on this earth is to make a good impact the best way you can and get involved and be active and use your voice in the right ways and you know don't get caught up and what everyone else is doing i've seen over and over and over again we have this site called chillak beware and yeah that's helpful but where are the positive chiloac pages you know where is oh these are all the good things or all the good spots you can go to

and like where are those things we need more of them not saying that there's not any of them at all but there should be more of them than just negative negative negative negative and it does impact people with their moods it sure impacts me it's depressing all the time to get notifications of oh someone's on my car oh typical chiloac oh drugies you're not helping you know this isn't fostering a good environment for people. You know, yeah, be aware of those things, but you can get that anywhere you live. Things are still going to happen no matter if you like them or not. Yeah, and be a part of the solution and stop viewing it as those people have a problem over there. Those beware sites are so tough to look at because you're reducing people who have

been through hell to the word drugies. And we have no idea what these people have been through. No, we don't. And we say that a lot, but there's actual substance there. We don't know what childhood abuse they went through. I work out in hope with individuals who are experiencing homelessness and there are people who have been abused sexually. They have FASD. They are impoverished.

Their parents are struggling with the exact same things. And they have no community supports because you're calling them druggies. And they go online and they see a photo of them themselves with the listing, druggy, that's not going to build anyone up. And that's not going to motivate anyone to try and change. And anyone who's doing that is part of the problem. Because those things discourage and they remove the humanity out of us and our sense of selves. And social media as a whole is an issue. But the idea that anyone could be reduced to

to one word and it could be about their addiction is just harsh well and guess what we're not far from that all of us and that that's the one thing too that i think people like to assume that we're better than other people and homeless people we're better than them because i'm more civilized and i've had different background that's just by chance you know you still no matter where you come from no matter where you live no matter what background you have you're still close to falling off the edge no matter like there's so many things that could happen to you you know it doesn't matter if you're rich poor in the middle doesn't matter and so I think a lot of people assume that well I'm not there so that makes me better that doesn't it really doesn't because they're still a human being too

they're suffering in different ways but you know what you could do you could help you know you could donate money and help do something productive don't sit there and think oh that's never going to be me because it could you don't know what something in your life could push you to that edge into depression for me right i was in there and i felt so alone and depression and anxiety and other mental disorders they make you live through a fog and so you're not thinking clearly so to give those people such a right off it's disgusting it really is disgusting on a different level because like I mentioned, it's so unfair and you're taking one moment out of someone's life and you're exploiting them for your own personal gain, which is just absolutely nonsense.

I absolutely agree. Let's pivot a bit back to university because that was kind of the point in which we met where that was on your radar, but you didn't have the financial support from your family to take those steps in an easy, no-stress way. You didn't have a vehicle, but you wanted to go to university. Yeah, so you want me to talk about that experience exactly? Yeah. So, yeah, I was at a time in my life where when we met, I was about to graduate from high school.

And I always pictured myself going to school someday. I just didn't know when that day was going to be. and I didn't know how I was going to get there like you said because my car financial reasons lack of parent support no funds to go to I didn't have any benefits so I was at a really huge disadvantage for sure and I remember when you and I talked and you said hey well we can make it possible we can make it work are you willing to put in the work and I said I don't know for a while you know we talked about it for a while and I was like I don't know maybe maybe not It's very doubtful for a while there, and then we kept talking and you were so persistent

and the energy and the inspiration that you gave to me was so motivational in a lot of ways because I needed that. I needed someone to push me. I needed someone to encourage me. I needed someone to want the best for me when I didn't want the best for myself, and you were that person for me in a lot of ways. And I really got to see the benefit once you helped me enrolled, we got to look at different classes, where I could be, what I could be. It was endless, and you gave me that. And so once I got there, once I restarted to save money and I was working at the town butcher, I worked and worked and worked, and I saved so much money. And I remember that winter, we went in together and you helped me with

my application and we talked about class, we talked about, you know, my degree and we talked about where I wanted to be. And I sort of said that counseling and psychology. I remember that for a little bit, but we were still a bit unsure. I knew I wanted to be in a field where I wanted to impact people and to help. That was definitely where I knew my calling was. I just didn't know what it was exactly. We talked about social work, talked about psychology, child youth and care. And then, yeah, you every day you were there for me every day you were pushing me and motivating me and saying hey like look at you you're in classes now and you bought me textbooks and you were just that light that kept shining through through all the darkness that I had and I didn't have a lot of family support you know my dad

didn't save any money not that it was his fault entirely but he was going through a lot of different things and my parents never got to save any money because my mom was terrible with it and My dad didn't have any, and he was struggling by himself and with the house, and trying to get me to graduate. That was a whole other story, though. So, I mean, look where I am now. I'm a couple years into university, and I feel better knowing that I made that decision and that I got to make that. And you helped me through that because I don't know if I could have done it on my own with the circumstances that I was under in those moments. What was going on in high school?

that graduation? Well, yeah, because I was still dabbling in a lot of darkness in myself. So I was definitely better from when I was 14, but I was going through a lot of relationship turmoil, I guess you could say with different people. And when we met, it was definitely interesting. So in those moments, I looked to my dad and I said, hey, you know, graduation's almost here.

I'm nervous and I really like it if you and mom can be there. And I remember that my dad told me that he was afraid that I wasn't going to graduate. And he said, I just don't know if you're going to graduate, kid. You know, I don't know if all the things that you've done in your life, you know, you're not reliable, you're not responsible. Your grades aren't great. Your grades. Yeah, your grades aren't great. You know, you're just passing math and you're just getting through earth science. I failed earth science probably about three times, by the way, because I wasn't interested. I wasn't, my head wasn't there. You know, the teacher, I guess wasn't that great, but I'm not going to blame it all on the teacher. It's just not me. But yeah, I was, my dad gave me a lot of discouragement for a while, and it did really affect me for a while because you and I talked about that for a long time and you had to piece by piece take those doubts away of over the years of constant negativity and you got to see that and you were just so concerned for me

and over and over again you'd ask me you know like what did your dad say that was so wrong like what what's going on why are you so doubtful where's your confidence you know how come you're so how come yourself esteem is so low your self-esteem is just so cracked and I looked at myself and I said, you know, my dad didn't think I was going to graduate and I don't have a lot of money. I can't get there. I don't have a car yet. That's already so embarrassing to admit, you know, when you're out of high school and

I didn't get my license when everyone else did. So it already put me at an embarrassing moment in my life because I wanted to be where everyone else was and I couldn't be. So I didn't know how to get there and I didn't feel like I was worthy enough at that time. And so now looking back at it, all those decisions that I made, even all the discourages, discouragements that my dad threw at me, it's hard. It's still hard today, but that drives me more now. It strengthens me now more than anything than it did before, but that was because of you, because you helped me through that and you helped me understand more of why I was feeding those things. Yeah, I can't imagine someone

Just talking about the differences between where you grew up and I grew up My mom was always supportive And as I've talked about before Not a lot of people thought I was going to graduate either Not a lot of people thought I was going to get through middle school Elementary school There were a lot of different points in which people had doubt in me But that drove me more

Because they didn't know what was going on the other 23 hours in the day when I wasn't in their class and but I had the support at home of somebody who did think I was going to make it and that's one thing that you went through of having someone who you went through depression with you have these memories with doubting you

standing in your way in a sense of not hey kid I know you're going to figure it out it was a I don't know if you're going to figure it out and that doubt undercuts your own belief in yourself because it's like oh you're saying I'm not going to make it well am I going to make it then how can I make it if no one thinks I'm going to make it the most important person and when I first met you it was interesting because when you were giving me all this encouragement I looked at you like you were crazy because I remember telling you I was like

you don't know me like you don't know what I've been through and what do you mean I can do it when you have so much discouragement and negative emotion in your life coming from a mom who always supported you right always a ray of sunshine always giving you the best encouragement always showing up, always being there, doing her best, loving you unconditionally. And my parents were always at a far and will love you from a distance and, you know, you can figure it out or you won't figure it out. It was so independent all the time, which, yeah, in some ways it's positive. But in other ways where I want to start making something out of my life and I don't want to be

10 years at a butcher or at a grocery store and wonder where the fuck did my life go. You know, what happened, you know, and that's where I don't want to be there. So that scared me, but it also made me feel confused because when we met, I told you about those fears and I told you about how I have this passion. I want to be something more. I just don't know how to get there. And I think admitting that really helped open the door because then you got to see, okay, you know, she's scared. Fair enough. well, what can I do to help and to give her that light that she so desperately needs?

And you gave me that and I got to see, wow, there's a whole world out there. I get to learn more. I get to learn about astronomy. I get to learn about anthropology. I get to learn about sociology. Psychology. Wow. Like, there is so much out there.

And that's why education is beautiful. It's absolutely life-changing because you get to be whatever you want to be. you get to put in the work, you get to meet new people, you get to form relationships with your professors, like good ones, and they can be your references one day. And that is irreplaceable on so many levels. Like, don't you agree? Yeah, absolutely. I think one big part of going to university is exposing yourself to people who have really thought some things through. Obviously, if you're specializing in a certain area, you're not knowledgeable in all the areas perfectly, but you get to meet people who know some things

and they know some things about what you're sitting there to learn about if you go into a class on sociology it's likely that they know something about sociology hopefully and you can hear from them and you can start to develop an understanding of this is this person's position then you take another class

and that professor doesn't agree at all with that other professor and thinks that it's all due to another reason and people have different views but they're thought through and that's one thing that people who don't go miss out on is that there isn't one right answer there's like 50 and they're all put together into one coherent argument and that's how

you start to grapple with different ideas is that some people have thought them through and it makes more common sense than another person's argument saying that everything is nurture is wrong because we've got DNA and so it's not just nurture it's also nature and how much nature well quite a bit and figuring those things out then you can start to master yourself that's really where I feel like you're heading because you've been through hell you've done some suffering you've realized that it's all within your control then you started the psych enthusiast and that was kind of I started buying the stuff to start the podcast at the same time you were starting the psych enthusiast took me longer to get the podcast going

but the psych enthusiast just tell us about it, I guess, to start. Well, the psych enthusiast, as you know, really came from our conversations over and over and over again of just walking at night and doing our thing and we were talking and then all of a sudden you said,

hey, why don't you dedicate a page to all things psychology? Like, why don't you give it a try and use your voice and use research-based approaches and use evidence-based approaches and keep everything to how you want it to be. Talk about sleep, talk about health, talk about diet, talk about whatever you want to talk about, and enjoy it, make it your passion.

And it took a while, you know, I remember when you told me I was instantly thinking, oh, well, like, me, why me? There's other people out there who do similar things and what's going to make me so different and what's going to make me better. And that means that you have to open yourself to the media. And that's a scary thing, because you have to open yourself to criticism. You have to open yourself to people writing,

maybe not great things about what you have to post about. Maybe people want to argue. Maybe people want to debate with you. And that's not easy for someone like me who is an introvert and who doesn't want to face confrontation and, you know, those sort of negative ruffles. I really don't like it. But once I did it, once I started to really make the page that you encouraged me to do so, a lot of that came from our talks of just really trying to make it a reality.

And that's what you have to do is even if you have an idea and it pops up once, you have to think about it again and again and again until it just makes sense. And I thought about it so many times over that it just made sense to make a page. And I really wanted people to learn about the real things about what psychology offers, because it's not just about the science of the brain and where the brain has different functions and the neurotransmitters and the neurons. It's about that too, but it's more. It's about your childhood and what makes you who you are today and what will make you into the future later on. And those things are critical in everyday life. And self-care and what does that look like? And I don't really learn about self-care until

a couple of years ago. And I really realized, well, what is self-care? It's drinking water. It's having a good sleep routine. You know, it's treating yourself good. It's giving yourself positive thoughts, even in moments when you don't want the best for yourself. And it's sort of self-care in itself is yourself that's taking care of you. It's not someone else taking care of you. It's you putting yourself first and sitting, okay, you know, maybe I really need a bath today. You what I'm going to do? I'm going to bubble a bath. I'm going to make it nice and warm. I'm going to have a book. I'm going to just chill out. That's self-care. And whatever that looks like to you, do it. It doesn't have to be what I do. It doesn't have to be exactly what I post about on my page,

but it's a guide. You know, it's sort of a way to give people that insight of, oh, this is what I can do. And this is what really works. And I'm not giving my opinions. I'm not saying, oh, yeah, drink water, I don't know. It's all proven to work. And it only works if you're consistent with it. Yeah, you definitely utilize the research aspect as the backbone of the psych enthusiast. It's kind of the protector of, if you don't like what I have to say or how I phrased it, that's fine. But you can't disagree with the research. Exactly. You can't come on and comment on things and say, oh, that's incorrect. No, it's actually correct. Yeah, I grabbed this out of a textbook. I followed a expert in psychology. I listened to this person. And that kind of leads into an interesting component as well, which is your health

history because you talked about the importance of water, the importance of sleep. But how did that all come about? Because you have a lot of background with discomfort and health problems. I feel like this podcast is just going to be dedicated towards you because a lot of what we talk about is stems from you because when we met again people on this podcast are going to be like fuck again but when we met for real though honest honest truth when we met you knew about my health problems you knew that I was struggling I was still dealing with some levels of depression not as much as I was before but I was lost and I didn't have a car. I wasn't directed in really any sort of area in my life. I would lay in bed for hours and hours. I would not eat proper meals. I wouldn't get the proper sleep

like I should be getting. I didn't even know what proper sleep was. I'd sleep for 12 hours in a day and sometimes I wouldn't text you back until like 2 p.m. And I'm like, oh, I'm up. How's your day? And you're like, I've already accomplished a whole day. Like, what do you mean? You just woke up. I would sleep and sleep and sleep. And I didn't really know what was wrong with me. I just knew that something was off. And at that time in my life, I didn't want to deal with it head on. I didn't really want to face the music.

And you and I kept talking more and more about my health. And then you introduced me to a probiotic. You know, for a while, we were trying cranberry juice because I had problems in my bladder. I had a cyst before. So that was causing a lot of health issues and a lot of. a strain, a lot of pain in my back, and my stomach took the point where, you know, when we were talking about university, it wasn't a reality because of where I was in my circumstance in that point in my life. I just didn't know if I was capable. I didn't know if I could

sit in the classroom and not get a flare up. I didn't know what that reality looked like because I was so used to living the same day every day and out and and out and and out. so I didn't see a lot of hope until we really started to research what was going on and research is very important that way because it removes all of your feelings you know oh yeah I don't know about this I don't know about that I don't think it's that I don't care about what you feel it's about the research and we talked about that you and I used to say oh yeah I don't think it's that well this is what the research says so let's get you to a doctor let's do something let's get you to a supplement store and that's where the probiotics came in is that you went to johnny at beyond nutrition hold on i have to call out sardis health food store first because you wanted to go to sardis health food store first well i guess that's true i did because i didn't know who beyond nutrition was at the time yeah so when you had mentioned that um i under my impression from what my sister told me from what i was told i thought sartist health food store was going to be the best option for me but it wasn't yeah i'd be

more than happy to have Sartis Health Food Store on at some point in time, but our experience there was abysmal because we walked in and you were like, I don't really know what I need. My dad says I might need B12 and we went in there. Oh, just get more the better. Get as many I use as you can and know what are you dealing with. What are you facing? Are you okay here? What are you eating? What do And so having that experience of walking in And granted, their job isn't specifically Just to explain all the products to you in detail But goddamn, you better know something about I use

And how many is appropriate for the human body Because we certainly don't know we're relying on the business To have some knowledge on it. So we went there and I was very unimpressed Then we went to be on nutrition And things got so much better. Yeah, they do. yeah, after that, we both realized for sure that my intuition was wrong on going to Sartis

Health Food Store. Not saying that, you know, to the viewers who are listening, it's not saying that Sartis Health Food Store is bad or that it has bad quality service. No, it's just the fact that when we went in there at the time, it didn't seem that it was a good fit for me. And with what they were saying, it just wasn't suited for me. So when we went to be on nutrition and Chilliwack, that's where things started to really open up for me mentally and physically where the probiotic really did turn around my entire health. And then I started to figure out, wow, this whole time I've been missing a probiotic. And you don't really get it much in foods. And if you do, you have to be really consistent with it. Well, let's get into a bit of the suffering and the discomfort because the

probiotic helped. But what did it turn around? What were you going? Like, what was the day in the life of pre-probiotic oh in the day of life okay um yeah the day in the life of my pain was was hell it was i had extreme back pain in the lower parts of my back on both sides all the time i would have frequent feelings of pressure in my bladder where i felt like i had to go to the bathroom but i couldn't go and if i did it was very little or it was nothing at all. And it was just that constant pressure of like feeling like someone was squeezing my bladder all the time. And I couldn't sit properly. You know, I had to like lay a certain way. My sleep patterns were all messed up because I'd wake up frequently in the middle

of the nights, sweating or, you know, having nightmares or just getting up and feeling restless. That was all a part of it. And sometimes I would, well, the one time actually, I, I, remember being in the shower and I was in pain that day but it wasn't really anything other than what I had already been through in my periods of pain until all of a sudden I remember getting out of the shower and I immediately started to bleed. I was wondering what's going on. You know, why am I bleeding? It's not my period. It's not anything else. What's going on? So then I remember yelling from my sister and saying, like, Naomi, I'm bleeding. It's not my period. And I'm obviously in pain. We need to go to the hospital. I don't know what's wrong. And I remember she like packed all

her stuff, got ready really fast, and we're walking down the stairs. And I remember that car ride so vividly because I felt like someone about to like, I felt like I was a woman about to give birth because I had to sit in such a way where, like, my legs were spread, and I had to, like, sit in such a way where, like, I wasn't putting strain on my bladder. And I had to, like, hold on to the car, and she'd move certain ways, and it would just hurt more and more and more, and I was thinking, I just want this to be over. Like, I don't know what's going on.

I didn't even know if this was how serious it was. I didn't know what was going on inside my own body, which is very, very, very alarming. So when we got there, I remember they asked for a urine sample, and I get him a urine sample, but not full of urine. It was just all blood. And I remember the nurse saying, that's not good. That's not normal. That's definitely, you need to be put on an IV right now because you're lacking fluids and hydration. So I sat down, and that's when I remember calling you or texting you.

and showing you the evidence and saying, yeah, like, I'm in the hospital right now, and, like, I'm in pain and I'm bleeding, and you came at, like, three in the morning or two in the morning, or however late it was, and you showed up, and I remember that's when we both looked each other in the eyes and said, you know, enough's enough, we didn't really start changing things. Yeah, so one of the first places we started was the doctors. Let's talk about it. Yeah, the doctors, um, my doctor was okay. in some ways, but he didn't give the service and he didn't give the time that Johnny does beyond nutrition, which is where I really felt understood the most was when I was talking to Johnny because he treated me like I was a human being and he listened to me, talk and talk and my doctor, you know, you'd have to schedule certain times and you'd have to schedule only certain amount of times to talk with him and, you know, that was very frustrating and you couldn't come in

with me and that was frustrating because you didn't get to be a part of the conversation and that was draining and, you know, I'd go to different specialists and he'd refer me to a urologist and that didn't work and they thought that, you know, maybe I have a kidney infection and it came out to be that I did have a kidney infection when I was bleeding, but after I stopped bleeding that one time at the hospital, they thought that I just had, you know, a bladder infection or a kidney infection or a UTI, and I had the same diagnosis over and over and over and over again. And then that's when I got diagnosed from my doctor with the cyst, and that's when I got the surgery done at Abbisford Hospital, and I thought, okay, you know, this is going to be over,

this is all going to be done, and I won't have to feel this pain anymore. And then after the surgery, after I was done, you know, I felt a bit better. started to have my life come back into order a bit. And then again, more symptoms, the same symptoms, not bleeding, not to the point where I was in crying and excruciating pain, but to the point where, yeah, it was immobilizing. I couldn't move some days. And I still feel so tight in my stomach and in my bladder again. And I'm like, oh, not again. You know, what am I doing wrong? and we were on the probiotics, and we were starting to move in a positive way with the probiotics. And I thought, okay, come on, like, this has got to work. And now, even to this day,

I'm still battling episodes, but it's not to the point where it's every day anymore. It's the probiotic has helped me live my life to the best way I can live, where I don't have to sit and feel uncomfortable anymore. I don't have to cry. I can get good sleeps. I won't be up in the middle of the night. My moods have changed dramatically, you know, and so my doctor, you know, in some ways he did what he could, wasn't the best in my opinion, but things started to really change and turn around dramatically once you got me and to see Johnny and things looked up for the better and we started doing more research and the oil we introduced was really, really, really useful as well. And that's helped because we use it in smoothies and the diets changed.

So all those steps have really helped me turn around my health. Which is surprising because if you talk about natural health to a lot of people, it's nonsense. It's not reliable yet. You'd go into the hospital, your doctor, a urologist. I think one more person, but I can't remember what other specialist you would have seen. Oh, it was the natural path that I was supposed to see. Okay. No, I thought you saw one more.

It doesn't matter. But you went to all these people, no cures. I remember you were on medications you wouldn't take because they made you feel uncomfortable. They affected your body in certain ways, and they didn't work. So there were a lot of limitations there. Then you go to a natural health store. and all the products start working. And I talked to Johnny about this,

but it really turned a lot of things around because I remember during all of this, you're trying to make this decision between going to university. And you're like, I can't even know whether or not if I go out for dinner, whether or not I'll be able to stay. Because you kept needing to go to the bathroom in those moments. And obviously at dinner or when you're out,

you don't want to have to go seven times in 30 minutes because it keeps feeling like it needs to happen. And you're like, I can't go to school like this. I can't sit in a three-hour class like this with this feeling of needing to get up. And those things started to turn that around for you. Yeah, they did. And once I started to feel more positive in my head space and in my physical space again, things started to look up in different ways where I never thought they could have before. And when I was in that pain and those feelings of urgency, that's why when I have episodes to this day, it brings back that trauma. And I think it is like a form of trauma because it's your body, you know, and when you go through physical body pain, it messes with your

nervous system. You know, it does. And it messes with your psyche because you're, so tense all the time and you're constantly like clenching and your you know your teeth are grinding and you just feel so uncomfortable all the time that that's going to do some damage over the time right and going through surgery and taking medication and those things all to your chemistry over time and so it was really hard for me to adjust to that and then once we started to figure out it was natural natural health that we should be targeting to and investing in we realized that this is a hell of an investment, that it's not a waste of money. It doesn't matter if it's 30 bucks for a bottle. I'm going to do it because it's my health. And that's where if I didn't have this health

circumstance come up the way it did, when it did, I don't know if I'd be this person that I am today. You know, I wouldn't probably be interested in probiotics. I don't think I would even know what it is. And I thank Johnny for that, because now I know what probiotics are. I know about the microbiome. I know that those things are useful to feed your gut because your gut is essentially like another brain. It pretty much is the brain. It sends signals to your brain. So it's very important to take care of it. And that's all through the experience of going to be on nutrition and talking to him again and again and again and trusting and putting my faith in him. And yeah, it was scary because like you said, most people think, oh, natural medicine, like yeah, yeah, yeah. And

you know, people have, you know, myths and things like that about it. But honestly, the natural way is to go because the food that you eat matters, you know, the meat that you eat matters. Even if you don't eat meat, you know, you have to be careful on what you eat because everybody's different, you know, and that's the thing is that it's not going to work for every person the way that one person does it. That's not the goal. You need to find what works best for you. Absolutely. And you noticed the difference and you haven't had to go back to the doctor for this so you know that they did something whatever the probiotics doing whatever the oil is doing it's doing something that your body needed and now it's addressed yeah and i don't even care if it's half placebo or the rest actually

works i don't care about the ratio i just care that it works and that's the most important thing is that what works for me is going to be different than what works for you but you know the science is there, though, regardless if it worked for me or not, the science is still there to support that probiotics and certain oils and supplements and collagen and things like that, and chaga and mushrooms. Like, they're all beneficial, you know, and of course, you can have, they can all be bad to a certain degree, depending on how you use them or how much you use them, but they're still important. And you shouldn't let that scare you because someone else may have a different experience or a different review. That doesn't matter. You have to look at it holistically and look at the

bigger picture and say, okay, well, how much am I willing to invest in myself? And that comes from having confidence in yourself and having self-love. You know, you have to want the best for yourself or to give yourself the best. And if you're not there, you're going to continually fall off every time. And you're not going to prioritize your health. And you're not going to prioritize your mental health and you're going to become so detached from that reality that things are going to start occurring in your body that you never thought would and the body is a very interesting temple because stress and environment and where you work and your partners people who you surround yourself with matter and they all contribute to your physical and mental health absolutely so

moving forward what is the drive for the psych enthusiast what would you what would you like people to get out of it moving forward, not just today, but in general, what is the ethos of the psychic enthusiast? Well, I want people to understand that psychology is more than just the science of, like I said, like, you know, the brain and things like that that are very complex. It's about, you know, trying to be a better person to yourself, to other people, figuring out where you came from and who you are today, how that it impacted you and your parents and divorce and things like that. Things that occur that are out of your control are usually what really tends to interest me because I find that the more and more that people are not in control,

they become different people. And so with saying that, I want this page to be a place where people can feel like they have control. I want people to come to my page and feel like I have all the resources and I have all the phone numbers for resources and calls to go to. And there's places for people to feel like they're comfortable. And I have motivational videos to help lift people up. You know, I'm talking about real things like health and psychology and how that intertwines together and why it's important to pay attention to. And so, So really the research aspect of this is essential because, like you said, you can critique how I phrase things all you want, but the research is there.

And that's the importance of it, is that you need to understand that psychology is everything in life. It affects everything. And so it doesn't have to be complex things like the brain and like the, you know, senses and how all those things work. They're important for sure. they all contribute to our understanding of ourselves. But I just really want people to come to my page and really see the hard work too that I'm

doing into these slides. You know, it takes a long time for me to write these slides and to present them in a presentable way and to write everything the way that it's supposed to look appeasing to. That takes time. That's a skill. You know, people underestimate that. I think a lot in the social media aspect in that little world of the media, I think people tend to overlook all the hard work that it takes to get there.

And I had to be willing to do it. And I want people to see my hard work. And I want people to be encouraged by that and to go to me to feel uplifted and to go to my page. And maybe they're dealing with depression and they want to know more about depression. So I'll have a video about depression. I'll have a video about certain disorders. You can learn and you can try to understand yourself more through my page. And until I get my degree in psychology, you know, there's going to be so much more coming.

And that's kind of where I want to tell the viewers of who's listening to this about my page, is that once I get my degree and I can only start moving more and more and more, the content is only going to get better. And right now I'm just starting out. I'm trying to figure out what people like. I'm trying to figure out if what I'm doing is useful for people. And so far, so good. You know, it's not a thousand followers, but who cares?

I'm happy with what I do, and that's what matters. Absolutely. And it's a huge step in a direction of saying that you are capable of something and that you can take responsibility for something that you manifested in your head, which is a pretty crazy thought, that at one point in time we talked about what would it look like to share psychology information with the world? Today we have the psych enthusiast, which I like in a lot of levels, one of which is that it is communicating locally. So as great as famous psychologists like Jonathan Heider, they're not here.

No psychologist is going to recommend something locally if they are famous because they're likely not from Chilliwack. So one of the barriers you remove for people is how to operate in Chilliwack, the phrase Valley, the lower mainland in a positive way by recommending hey i go to the better trail you can go to the better trail hey i go to be on nutrition you can go to be on nutrition hey i shop at the town butcher you can go to the town butcher it's not with outside the realm of possibility and then on top of that if you're in abbotsford surrey there's local places you can go to there as well to get natural things to get healthy things to start to build your life up in a way you enjoy it Exactly. And so, yeah, like you said, that's a really good point about keeping it local matters to me as well, because sort of with the podcast that you're doing right now, too, is I want to be a role model to some people, too. I want to be able to give Chilliwack this page of resources and of information. And that's just all I want to be is I don't want to, I don't want social media to think that I'm just here to rant on about my opinions. And I

don't want to cause controversy. I just want people to think that psychology is fun and I really want to do it in a way where it appeals to all ages in any groups of people. I don't want it to be just tailored to one sort of person. I want it to be something that is unique to everyone and that they can take away from. And like you said, it's all come from my head and of the feelings that I've felt and the experiences that I've been through and that I know have my friends have been through and what you've been through. And all of that is combined into me and my page. And that's what makes me unique is that I don't want anyone else to be in charge of it.

I want to be in charge of it because it's my vision. And it's my perspectives, right? It's my page. And I get to be able to be creative and go outside of the boundaries as much as possible. And I don't want to be like every other self-help book or every self-help Instagram page. You know, I don't want to be like everyone else. I want to be different. I want to bring something different to the table.

And that's what I think my page offers. Well, and it offers that on different levels because personally for you, it's going to pay dividends. You're learning how to market information prior to getting your counseling degree or psychology degree. And so you're already learning the skills of how to communicate with the public through these mediums before needing to do it. before you need to start to have money coming in based on this. You can make your mistakes now, and they're not that expensive. If you post something and you're like, this isn't working, you can learn from that and then just remove that style and keep the good things.

And on top of that, you're building a following. You're building connections with people. People will reach out, ask you for advice, get guidance on how to live their life better, and you can open those doors for people. if people are sick and tired of being sick and tired they can come to you and the things you're doing for yourself worked for you here in the Fraser Valley and so that's possible for other people there are 80,000 people in Chilliwack and like 130 in Abbotsford that's lots of people to start with to try and build people up and the act of trying to build them up and help people address

their lives is exactly what a role model is a role model is a role model. is not just a nice person that's friendly, that's a naive person, because they haven't experienced the world. You have had the health problems, you have had the childhood trauma, you have felt alone and misunderstood, and lack of role models, and you're here today, a university student, working hard, trying to connect with people and trying to build them up. Despite all the things you've been through, you still want to make people's lives better. That's role model. Exactly. And the role model also has to exhibit also has to be an example for other people to look up to. Like you can't say that you're all about health and you're all about

psychology and then you don't apply it to your life, right? You have to be able to embody what you preach, right? So I try to make sure that when people come to me or when people watch my page or my videos and follow me, I want them to know that they're investing in me and that they're trusting me to give the good information that they can know that it's not about opinions or feelings, it's about the truth and about what I've experienced. And that's where I want to bring in that, you know, widespread of opinions from different scholars and like Jordan Peterson and people like David Goggins. And those people are all people who have inspired me and you. And I want to incorporate those in my page so that people can know that that reflects me and it's not just

because I want to boost Jordan Peterson up it's because he also reflects the way that I think and he's changed my life and he's changed your life and so is David Goggins and Joe Rogan and all those people have literally inspired us to do what we're doing today yeah so that's something to not also forget too and respect that what they gave you and the benefits they offered you because one thing that both of us are doing right now is listening to a biblical series on neither of us have a strong religious background but we're listening to a biblical series by jordan peterson on the story of adam and eve the story of kane and abel and the story of noah and the flood and how these apply with psychology and with a psychological perspective

on them and that's that's impacted me in major ways because the story of Adam and Eve being put into a psychological perspective is that the first individuals on earth ate from the knowledge of good and evil and were cast out of the Garden of Eden and that's that's us we're conscious now we're trying to figure it out we know what good is and we know what evil is, even broadly, we understand what those things are deeply within us. And we're almost all ashamed of the times we've chosen bad in a sincere way, where we've not wanted the best for ourselves. And we've made a decision that harmed us. And then with the story of Cain and Abel, it's this idea that there are two ways of being in life. Kane, which is

He made the wrong sacrifices, or he didn't sacrifice enough, and he's unhappy, and he's mad at God. And then Abel, who made all the right sacrifices, and is happy and is loved by God, and then Kane kills Abel. And it's this whole idea that people who are frustrated and feel like they have been given a raw end of the deal, get angry and take it out on the world. That's the Columbine killers. That's Nazi Germany. That's Maoist China. We've acted that out. We know people act that out and what it occurs.

And it scares us. We watch movies about it. But there is a way of being in the world where you make everything worse. And you ruin everything around you. And you try and take out the good people in the world because you're mad at them. How often do people love soccer, but they're jealous of all the soccer players who are really good? because you're destroying your own ideal. You're taking this thing that you look up to

and you aspire to be the best soccer player in the world. But I hate all the best ones because I want to be them. It's like that selfish energy. And there's so much psychologically there that nobody ever thinks about or puts it into that lens. Because the last one I'll talk about is Noah and the Ark. And this idea that if there's a flood and a flood has occurred,

you weren't prepared for it because it flooded. And those floods happen all the time. The other day, I can't find my car key. And that's a flood. I didn't have a spare ready hanging up on a hook. I was ill-prepared to lose a key. And that wakes you up to the reality I wasn't ready. Because if I was ready, it wouldn't have mattered.

And there wouldn't have been a flood. I would have had the key ready to go. Well, and that's how you all approach things, right? Is that you need to start to approach things from a, okay, tragedy always occurs. You can't escape it. So how are you going to deal with it? How are you going to move forward? How are you going to deal with those realities around you that happen every day? You have to be able to be equipped for them. And when you're not, you should be grateful that you had a chance to start again because what if that chance was your last chance? You know, and when you lost your

keys, for example, about how you approached it, that's what was what mattered. You approach that fairly well considering how most people would react in those moments when you had to get up for work and you knew you were late for work and everything else in the morning was stressing you out and fair enough but I mean yeah humans are prone to stress yeah humans can do very bad things but we can also make a bad situation better if we choose to or way way worse exactly but that's what it means to be human right is that's that's why we're so different is that it can be worse if you choose to or it can be better because you choose to. And so that's why I don't really agree with a lot of people who tend to fall victim to things

and say, well, it wasn't my fault or it was everything else but me. So you didn't play a role in it? Are you really going to tell me that you didn't play a role in it? That's kind of BS, you know? Like you can't walk away from that and really think to yourself, critically think, that you didn't, you weren't a part of it at all. You know, and that's dangerous. Even taking a small amount of responsibility for it

is way better than saying there was nothing I could have done on heaven and earth to do anything about it is a bad way to look at the world because there are people who are not pointing upwards who would like to see everyone around them suffer just as much as they do. And you have to be careful of those people because they're out there and they're not going to tell you that that's their plan but you watch how some people handle some things

and you realize you don't want the best for yourself and you certainly don't want the best for me. And when you should also want to help those people more. You know, you should, instead of saying, you know, we should be afraid of them or that that's dangerous it is, but we should really want to help those people because it's because that they're suffering

that they want other people to suffer. But fair enough, I mean, if we're all suffering, do we really want the best for that one person in the group who has it all? it's obviously going to create feelings, negative emotion. That's natural. So it's, it's about recognizing that and saying, okay, I'm human. Those are natural human emotions that I feel, but how am I going to better myself because of it? What am I going to do that's going to yield fruit, positive fruit, not negative fruit, and not towards me and someone else? And that's where,

like you said, psychologically, it's very complex there because there's lots of reasons why someone could be doing something and we don't know, but it's better to operate in a way to help them than to judge them and to put them down, right? Because we're not far from that. Like we talked about earlier, we're not far from, you're not far from that. I'm not far from that. I've been very close to the edges of depression where at one point I wanted to end my life. And so I know what that's like. And I know what it's like to take a crappy situation, so do you, and make it better. all of your background, you know, stat wise, you don't really have a chance, you know, because of where you grew up and because of your ethnicity and all that stuff and your single mom and you

made the best out of everything that was given to you. And you could have turned out to be like a cane if you really wanted to. But that's the beauty about choice, right? And that's a beauty about realizing that it doesn't have to go one way if you choose to unless you do. And then that's the consequence of choosing your choices. That consequences can occur whether you make a good one or a bad one. But it's about how you go about those consequences that matter. That's one thing I do not think is said enough. Is that no matter how good of a decision you make,

whether you've dotted your eyes and crossed your T's perfectly, there's a consequence because you're diverting energy. from one thing to another thing if you're really focused on university and everyone's like, that's a really good thing. You still have to pay for it. It's still going to cost you something. You're still paying a consequence and you can say, well, that sacrifice is worth it. And that's fine.

But what if you're sacrificing food to be able to go to university? There's always a sacrifice and it has pros and cons, no matter how great the best idea in the world has a consequence and to think other. otherwise is just silliness because you can find one and it's about trying to make sure that when you make the best decision you're ready for the consequences to come no matter how good it is and this leads into responsibility because a lot of people talk about the meaning of life and what they should be doing and one thing i think you and i are doing so is jake but what we're doing is we're turning around history we're turning around what our genetics have been up to

for the past 100 years, because if you look at my biological family, they've experienced some hellish times. And I'm not, and I've turned that around, and I'm an outlier amongst my community because I have a degree. I'm heading for law school. Like, good things are occurring, and I've started a podcast. These things are good things that are outliers to, if you compare me to the other 600 members of my community. Absolutely. Or my family. And those are really good things because we're trying to change the trajectory for genetics in a way.

And that's a very biological way to look at it. But we're also trying to help her family, do better. And that's one thing I've watched since starting the psych enthusiast. You've really, really infested in is looking at your family and saying, how can I be better? How can I do better for them? could you touch on that a bit yeah exactly you know i every day i look at my family and i think what can i do to not be them and it's not out of a i hate my family i don't want to be anything like them it's not that it's that i want to avoid any possible history that has

been made through my parents that have been traumatic or negative i want to get away from that I want to be able to, yes, there will always be negativity in anyone's lives, but I don't want to repeat the same ones, which is what you talked about, right? Yeah, exactly, is I don't want to repeat the cycle. So being able to look at that from a bigger picture and say, okay, well, this is bigger than me. It is bigger than me. You know, exactly. Like, your podcast resembles that because in my story and in your story and people that you bring on here, there's always that essential. It is bigger than you. And that's when you realize in those moments that you have a chance to make something out of yourself. And that's what I wanted to do is I wanted

to say, okay, my parents didn't save for my college education. But when we have kids, I want to. You know, and this is what I'm going to do. So since they didn't do that for me, I'm not going to then do that to my kids. I'm going to make sure that they have a better outcome than I did. And that they can be pushed farther ahead than I was. And that's the goal that you should always try to do when you have kids, you know, is to make sure that they're better off than you. And that's what really I wanted to be is I don't want our kids one day to sit there and say, well, you could have done better. And I say, you're right. I could have. I want to do better. And for them to turn around and say, wow you secured my future you know even if they don't go to college if they don't want to at least

we saved for it because we care about them and we want the best for them we want them to have an education we want them to feel supported and loved and that's the biggest thing right that is what is bigger than you and you have to realize that and accept that in order to start showing those attributes absolutely but you're not just doing that with potential future children you're doing it for your family today and I've watched you want to rebuild connections with your father and go through that type of history that you guys have had and come to a resolution on that rebuild connections with your sister go through that rebuild connections with your mother address the issues that are underlying that have gone unspoken since you were 14 yes yes and with

those in particular, I really did want to find a way to make things better because I knew what it was like to be down and not have anyone believe in me. And when I thought about repairing my relationship with my father and my mom, you know, I thought, sure, I could be spiteful. I could be vengeful. I could be malevolent. I could be evil if I wanted to. They're all possibilities. But I chose the other way because I don't want to bring that into our lives. I don't want that to affect it. It's only going to cause more stress to me. It's only going to cause more hateful energy for me and for you and for people around me. And, you know, I don't want to have baggage anymore. I don't want to be that person that says, well, I have all of these,

you know, untreated traumas and negative emotions. So here you go. And let's pass it on to my kids and my friends and my relationships. I don't want that. I want to be better. And so I think it's because I got to see that there was a way for me to improve personally in my life that I got to realize it's possible for anyone. If I can do it, someone who's been through in my circumstance, my situation, if I can do it, then maybe I can show a little compassion to my dad. And maybe I can look at things more holistically and say, well, how did he grow up? You know, how do my mom grow up? How did my sister grow up differently than me? You know, what am I missing? And that's the most important thing, even about being a psychologist or a counselor, is that you have to look at things from the

bigger picture all the time and you have to put aside your own feelings and say, okay, wait a minute, you know, I know that this is stressful and I'm angry and maybe you have all the reasons to be. But it's always better to be kind and it's always better to be on the side of compassion because you just don't know what someone's going through. And that is more relevant in today than I think anything else because, you know, even with this whole COVID-19 pandemic and everything else is going on in the world, you know, it's, it's always been a scary time. It's always been stressful. It's always been unknown. It's always been this way. It's just now it's becoming more in her face is because things need to stop repeating themselves. Something needs to

change. And I wanted to be that change for my parents. And I had to be the bigger person in order to heal and to want better for myself. And if I didn't do that, then I would just be resentful like my mom was to her mom and like my dad was to his mom and so on and so on and so on. And that doesn't get you anywhere. So I think that's really where I had to step out of my own head and my own feelings and say, yeah, okay, I'm right. Maybe I do have to feel these feelings. Maybe I'm justified, but for a moment I am, not forever, because those feelings will change. And if I mess something up in this moment for how I feel right now, it's probably not going to be worth it. Yeah, that's absolutely fair. And the other question I was going to move forward on was

university and what you've thought of that experience and in comparison to high school where teachers underestimated you and were harsh what is it like now well i think what it's like now is all of those moments like i've said it's it's made me stronger and i don't have a lot of When I face adversity now, I'm able to look at adversity like it's a challenge more than it's a burden, which I used to a lot, which was, oh, like this teacher's coming down on me, and oh, screw the teacher, it's the teacher's fault, and oh, everything else is wrong. It's everything else that's the problem. And when you start realizing that everyone else has a role to play and that we all have lives and that teacher goes home and he's got a life to deal with, and she's got a life to deal with, and we all have lives to deal with. And that just comes from growing and experiencing and getting older and just realizing that it is bigger than you, right? It has to be. It is because you don't get things done if it's all about you. And it's not healthy to think that way, that it's all about you and how you feel and, oh, yeah, well, with me, no.

You know, it's about realizing that everyone has, you know, plays and roles to be in a certain way. So, hey, you know, look at it from a different perspective. Try to really be honest with yourself and with people that you interact with. And if something upsets you or bothers you, tell someone. You know, it's so natural for people to not say things when they're, discomfort, like when they're in discomfort. You know what I mean? Like it's something that people tend to just go silent and, oh, well, this person said this, but in that moment, I didn't say anything. Why? Why didn't you say something? You know, if the teacher is talking to in a wrong

way, you're just not going to say anything? What if that affects you in your life like five years from now? You don't know, right? Or even a family member, if they say something really rude in a certain moment, and you're always worried about how they're going to feel time and time and time again. Is that really what family is to you? Do you want that environment? Do you want to always bite your tongue and sit there and just be angry and never feel like you can really talk to them? That's not family. That's not communication. That's not even a friendship for that matter. It's not really anything if you can't be yourself and be honest with them and if they can't take that that's an issue that they have not you right and so it really just comes with growing and learning

from those experiences and trying to always now especially be cognitively aware of those things instead of reacting on my emotion which most people do and I do sometimes to right? We're all guilty of that. But it's about training your brain, right? And making sure that you can be in charge of it as much as possible in the best ways. Absolutely. Well, we've just done just over two hours. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on. You are so insightful. Please tell people how they can find you on. Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram. I don't have a Facebook page yet, maybe one day. Right now, you can find me on Instagram at the psych enthusiast. And, I mean, you can find me there and right now I don't have a Facebook page or a Twitter page, but maybe eventually one day

you can find me there and I'll let you guys know, but stay tuned for more. I mean, I'm working towards my degree. Once that gets done, there's going to be way more ahead. So hopefully all my followers and viewers can appreciate me for now and like what I'm doing now, but then also look forward to the future and what I'll have in store. So thank you for having me on. And also, thank you for making this experience really comfortable and easy. I was obviously nervous and it's natural going to a podcast, right? For sure, it's definitely something that talking when you're in front of a camera and talking to someone else and watching what you say, it's a very hard thing to do. So I appreciate you and how well you've been able to host this podcast. So thank you.

Awesome. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on. You're incredibly sightful. Most importantly, I love you so much and I'm so glad you came on for those of you who don't know Rebecca is my partner and I could not be more proud Thank you so much for listening As always you can find us online

at Bigger Than Me Podcast As you know we care about small businesses within our community and we're trying to build them up I thought we could switch it up today and discuss places to eat in Chilawak First we have to talk about Shandar Hot Their food and service is absolutely amazing

Our favorites are their buttered chicken and mackany prawns, but I'm sure everything on their menu is absolutely delicious. They are located on Young Road in Chilawak and can be found at shandarhot.com. Give them a try today. Second, if you are thinking breakfast, you have to try the corner nook. They have classic restaurant vibe with high-quality food. Their hash browns are just absolutely fantastic. They are right in the heart of downtown as well.

They can be found on Vedder Road. They are open 7.30 to 2 every day. If you're thinking breakfast, think the corner knock. Finally, I'd like to mention Bubba's Big Bites. If you want to try Flavor Town, go to Bubba's Big Bites. Their menu is online, and they are one of a kind. They can be found on Vetter Road in Chilawak. I highly recommend.

If you want a meal of a lifetime, go to Baba's Big Bites. We're going to be able to be. You know what I'm going to be.