The One You Feed - How to Work Through Fear and Depression with Paul Gilmartin

Episode Date: October 15, 2022

Paul Gilmartin is a stand-up comedian, podcast host, and television personality best known as the long time host of TBS’ Dinner and a Movie.  Since 2011, Paul has been the host and executive producer of the podcast, Mental Illness Happy Hour. In this episode, Eric and Paul discuss his strategies and practical approaches to deal with fear and depression. But wait, there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you! Paul Gilmartin and I Discuss What How to Work Through Fear and Depression and … His podcast, Mental Illness Happy Hour How we all have something that we worship that orients our actions Learning to be truly and deeply vulnerable How there is no instant gratification in spirituality Living a fear based life and addictive behaviors Reconnecting with the body’s instincts Getting curious about the thoughts that come up during meditation The difference between self reflection and self obsession Strategies for moving away from self obsessing Finding himself stuck in the paralysis of perfection The importance of taking a break from the world when you need it The opposing forces of fear and hope Moving through his fears and depression How acting according to his values keeps him connected to his higher power His spiritual growth includes facing his everyday fears Learning to see past our mental barriers and realize what we’re capable of Paul Gilmartin Links Paul’s Website Twitter Instagram Facebook By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! If you enjoyed this conversation with Paul Gilmartin, check out these other episodes: Paul Gilmartin (2014 Interview) Discovering Spiritual Truths with Pete HolmesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we are just pushing that dopamine button of instant gratification, everything else loses its color. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how

other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Paul Gilmartin, a stand-up comedian, podcast host, and television personality best known as the longtime host of TBS's Dinner and a Movie. Since 2011, Paul has been the host and executive producer of the fantastic podcast called The Mental Illness Happy Hour. Hi, Paul. Welcome back to the show. Oh, buddy. It's good to be back. It has been a long time since we had you on, but it is one episode that stands out to me as a really, really fun one and lots of good laughs and lots of really deep stuff. And this is even better because I am sitting in your house in California. So I love when I can do these face to face. So yeah, it's nice. You know, we had briefly talked about having you on remotely and I was

like, now I want this to be face-to-face. I'm glad we waited. Last time we had this schedule, though, I completely stood you up. Do you remember? I totally forgot. Oh, I'm so glad. I was supposed to come to LA. We booked a time and a date and then I ended up canceling the trip and I forgot to tell you and you called me i saw it come up and the instant i did i was like and then my my first reaction was i'm not answering that then i thought come on just answer the phone so anyway i'm glad we got to do this and did you realize in that moment that deep down you're a terrible person i already knew it okay it was just it was just a remember yeah just an eighth or tenth remembrance that day.

I was on the Peloton bike at the time, though, so that sort of counterbalanced it. I went, well, at least I'm an exercising POS. All right, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent talking with a grandchild, and they say, In life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. Grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second, looks up at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to know what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I think everybody worships a God. Some of us are conscious of what that God may be. And by that, I don't mean a conscious entity with a beard in the sky. But for me, from the time I started using drugs at 14 until I got sober at 40, my God was self-pleasure.

And I sacrificed a lot of things, my integrity, my faithfulness as a husband, my kindness as a person. All those things took a backseat to me getting what I felt I needed in the moment to feel okay in my skin. And so I was feeding that bad wolf. And it wasn't until I had to ask for help because I knew I was going to kill myself that I realized that I also have a good wolf inside me. And as I began to feed it, I began to feel it winning as corny as that sounds. But for me, I had to expand my network of the time that I began to experience the comfort that I needed. I previously needed drugs and alcohol to experience. bad side effects of being helpful to someone or telling the truth or which the saying goes, just trying to be the man my dog thinks I am. Well, your dog is at our feet and she clearly thinks highly of you. She thinks highly of everybody. She likes me. Her standard is very low. You mentioned everybody, you know, worships a God. And I think you're sort of pointing to like we all have something that orients as the center of our life. That motivates our actions.

Yeah. Yeah. What I wanted to start off by asking you is when did you get sober? 03. 03. So 19 years, something like that. It's been a while. Yeah. October? 03. 03. So 19 years, something like that. It's been a while.

I'm curious in what ways has your conception of God, or we could be more general than that, your spiritual life, in what ways has it grown and changed over the years? In what ways is it growing and changing now? That's a great question. I think in the beginning, possibly because of my Catholic upbringing, was my idea of whatever ruling force in the universe has created everything around us, that it was a vindictive force and that it was just waiting for me to fuck up, to pounce on me, to punish me, and that at best it was tolerating me. And it wasn't until I started going to a second support group to deal with intimacy struggles that I began to learn how to be vulnerable. You know, even though I'd experienced that in my first

support group, I wasn't doing it as deeply because the first support group was great at helping me see where I'd been an asshole. The second support group, if I could paint it in broad strokes, helped me see where I was being an asshole to myself. And I was tolerating people treating me with a lack of respect. And it wasn't until I began to say, you know, I deserve to feel safe in the world. I deserve to feel autonomy over my body and my decisions because I didn't feel that as a child. And I was still looking at the world through that prism of I've got to be everything to everybody. Well, who's not going to want to escape from that mind frame? As I began to say no to the things I didn't want to do and to not make plans with people who were toxic, I began to feel safer in the world.

And I began to view my idea of God or a higher power as much more benevolent. And even today, when I stumble in my support group, the first thing I try to go to now is, okay, you're not perfect. Clean up your mess. If an apology needs to be made, make an apology. But you're still a human being worthy of love. And you are trying. You know, I had a hockey game this past weekend. And it got really chippy and heated.

And this one guy was, you know, like 10 yards from me. And, you know, it was between whistles. And this guy was just barking at us. And it just triggered, I don't know, trauma, childhood shit. I don't know, but I wanted to punch this guy. And so I started barking at him and we were nose to nose and he's like, come on, you know, let's go, let's go. And of course, neither of us wanted to throw the punch because the first one to punch would be penalized. And then our team would be, you know. I was so close to just taking my palms and jamming them underneath his chin and just watching him fall backwards to the ice. And I could feel it in my body. It was like a volcano that wanted to

explode. And I didn't. And five minutes later, we're skating and I chipped the puck past him and he kind of gets in my way. And I just grabbed him by the head and try to throw him down. And of course, karma came in and I fell down right on my elbow, split it open. I had to have stitches. But when the game was done, and this is where I can feel all the work I've done in support groups, working practically in my life, is I knew if I didn't apologize to this guy for the things that I had said, I was going to carry that hate in my body for probably a day or two. And so I skated up to him and I stuck my hand out and I said, I'm sorry. He said, I'm sorry too. You know, I was really frustrated out there. He's like, man, that's hockey. It's all good. And it lifted and it was gone. And that is to me a great example

of I'm so fallible. I'm such a work in progress. I fail so spectacularly sometimes. But what I can do is I can clean up my mess. I can apologize where I'm wrong and I can experience the freedom so that I am not so uncomfortable in my body that I want to get high again. Yeah. I think that's been one of the biggest gifts of recovery for me and particular part of that recovery, which was that encouragement to constantly be looking at that and sort of cleaning up messes as I make them. When I got sober, I think any of us, we come in and we've got like a laundry list of things that need cleaned up. But ideally, if we get that done and we sort of stay current, it's such a gift to me. It's a clean feeling. Yeah. Yeah. When I worked in restaurants, you just learn to kind of clean as you go. If you don't, the kitchen's a disaster.

It's a disaster. And then you don't even want to think about the kitchen and you start looking for ways to escape. And it might not be drugs or alcohol, but my most recent struggle has been with video games. And I've been off them about three months now. And I'm having to face my discomforts with being in my skin. I have to face the voice that says, oh, you're so fucking lazy. There's so much more that you should be accomplishing. You're going to die poor. You're going to die filled with regrets. And you're going to realize how much you've blown it. You just can't see it now, but oh boy, are you going to see it in 10 years? How are you able to not go right back to the video game,

right? That's a pretty uncomfortable... It took me years to get to this place. What do you think? I hit a bottom. I hit a bottom where I think I've been playing it for six hours. And I just, you know, like the moment that you realized heroin's not working for me anymore. Something just told me you need a break, whether it's forever or not. I don't know, but I knew I needed a break. Because one of the things that, as you know, that happens to our brain when we are just pushing that dopamine button of instant gratification, everything else loses its color. I had no desire to go make furniture in the wood shop. I was not playing as much guitar as I would have liked. I was not working on my creative projects as much. Everything was just, I'm uncomfortable. Let's go play Golden Tee or let's play Civilization. And

it's an amazing feeling when you're pushing that dopamine button. It's a God in a lot of ways, because I feel instant relief. But as you know, spirituality is not instant gratification. There's a lot of faith involved that if I do these things on a daily basis that I'm told are healthy and will help me, I'm going to trust that it will. And it has been for 19 years. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting when we sort of encounter other addictions beyond our primary one. Yeah. I've struggled with pornography, collecting things obsessively, in many ways living a fear-based life. So many of my decisions were based out of fear, fear of being bored, fear of not being enough, not having enough, not doing enough. And I think that's where the self-compassion, the second phase of how I viewed a higher power had to come in. And to say, if I fucked up, we'll do better. Make a mental note. Let's not obsess about ourselves because that's not going

to help you or anybody else, but let's make a mental note. What triggered that? Let's keep an eye out for that next time. We can do better. Yeah. I love what you said a minute ago about your first support group taught you not to be the asshole yourself. The second one taught you to recognize the ways in which other, I'm putting words in your mouth a little bit, but recognize the ways that others had harmed us, that the actions of others had impacted us in our development. And it really does seem that we need both those things. I see people who only get one or the other. And I mean, it's better than not having either of them, you know, but both is a pretty helpful combination because they're both very true. And one of the things that I discovered was when I stopped numbing myself with these high cattle prod,

shocking myself, pushing that dopamine button, whether it was looking at porn or obsessively playing video games, I began to get back into my body and I began to feel the subtle things in life. And I began to reconnect with my body's instinct that would tell me, this person's draining.

We don't have to be around them. It's not your job to be their savior. Let's keep our battery from being drained so that we can be the person that we want to be. Whereas before, when I was numb from the video games and the pornography or whatever, I couldn't feel that feeling. I couldn't name it. And my only driving thought was, if you don't give this person what they want, you're a terrible, selfish person. Yeah. Video games or other forms of obsessive busyness that sort of completely take us out of the moment does take away any sort of reflection time and ability. I will notice if I'm really busy, which I sometimes get,

I'll sit down and meditate and my brain will be like, I've been waiting for you. Like I've been waiting for you to give me any time because I've got a list of things we need to talk about. Whereas if I've got a little bit more space in my life, I'm doing some of that reflection throughout the day at different first start meditating is to judge the quality of our meditation and say, oh my God, you know, I stopped thinking about my breath for 10 solid minutes, or I only said my mantra twice in 20 minutes, you know, God, I'm a shitty meditator. What I began to do was instead of judging the quality of focusing on my breath or thinking of my mantra was I began to say, what are the thoughts that keep popping up? And that showed me what it is that I'm uncomfortable

with or what I'm passionate about. You know, sometimes I'll just start thinking of a woodworking project and the joints I want to use for a table and I'll get excited about it. I'll be like, that's awesome. Yeah, I think that's great. I heard you say that recently on one of your episodes talking about that. And I thought, you know, that's very different than the meditation advice that's often given, right? Which is just don't attach to any thought, let them all kind of go. But I do think there is particularly in our busy world, right? Where we just have so much going on that sometimes that seems to me the point of sitting down and stopping is not to get the mantra right, but is to see what's going on in my brain.

Sometimes it points me towards the stuff I already know. Like you think that thought 10,000 times, like it's pointless, but sometimes it points to things that need attention. Yes. Couldn't agree more. You've talked about the difference between self-reflection and self-obsession. How do you tell the difference? How do you stay on the healthy side of that? How quickly I move on from the thought. Self-reflection rarely takes a long time for me, unless I'm, you know, maybe doing a writing exercise. Self-obsession is endless and usually pointless, and it usually involves negative self-talk. I like to just think of make a note to self. Maybe I need to sit and

reflect for a couple of minutes to uncover what's really going on. Is it trauma being triggered? Is it a negative self-belief I need to let go of? Is it a mistake that I made where I need to understand how to better handle it next time? So it all kind of varies, but usually self-obsession is just endless and pointless. Hi, everyone. I wanted to personally invite you to a workshop that we are offering at the end of October at the Omega Institute, which is in the Hudson Valley in New York. And it is really beautiful this time of year. It's going to be a great chance to meet some wonderful people, recharge and relax while learning foundational spiritual habits that will allow you to establish simple daily practices

that will help you feel more simple daily practices that will help you feel more at ease and more fulfilled in your life. You can find details at oneufeed.net slash omega. I'm really looking forward to meeting many of you there. Hey y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls, and I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag,

it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present, and future all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

One of my favorite ways of thinking about thoughts is just the question, is this useful? Yes. Most of us can tell that the point where a thought goes from being useful to ruminative. Yes. Where it's like, okay, up till this moment, I was uncovering some new ground. I was having some new insights and now I'm circling the drain. Same thing over and over and over. I love that. And I believe that ruminative negative self-talk is really the other side of the coin of grandiosity. They're both ways of keeping us stuck in self.

Whether it's I'm the king or I'm a piece of shit, you're still wasting your fucking time obsessing about yourself in a pointless way. What are some of the strategies you have for, okay, I recognize I've left self-reflection land, I'm in self-obsession land. What are some strategies you use? What do you do then? There's usually a fear underneath the self-obsession. And it's, I think, my primitive way of trying to bring myself comfort. So I ask myself, well, what are some more constructive ways that I can find comfort? Well, first of all, if I need to forgive myself or I need to apologize to somebody for the thing I'm ruminating about, I'll do that. If it's because I didn't do something, I'll ask myself, well, should I make a list of things to do as you talk about? If it feels overwhelming, can I break that down into baby steps? And can maybe I take one of those baby

steps right now? And usually that's enough to release that feeling of anxiety and being overwhelmed. So sometimes it's picking up the phone and calling somebody and saying, you know, I'm not in a good place right now. I am just so in fear of the future and that I'm not doing enough, but I can't bring myself to do the things that my brain's telling me I need to do to have a good life in the future. And that's a tough place that I often find myself stuck in is paralysis of perfection. Yeah, yeah. That is a really deeply uncomfortable place to be when you sort of go, well, like even rationally and reasonably, I realize like these things need done for my life to be good. And I can't seem to get myself to do them.

You know, there's times where we're putting unreasonable standards upon ourselves. But there are times where they're not unreasonable. Some ourselves. But there are times where they're not unreasonable. Some part of us knows like that's an important and useful thing to do. And I can't get myself there. You know, I know one of the things that you wrestle with still a lot is depression and the lack of energy that comes with that. There are times I hear you talk about sort of just letting it be that way. And you just go back to bed. And then there are times I hear you talk about sort of moving through it. Do you have any way of gauging when it's time to do which? One of the things that I began asking myself when I'm feeling that lack

of vitality, and I'm wondering, is it depression or is it fear of taking action? As I ask myself, the things that normally bring me pleasure, the good, you know, nurturing things, woodworking, playing guitar, have I lost interest in those? And if I have, that's generally depression. And if those things do seem interesting, but I don't want to do them, is it that I'm afraid I'm not going to do it perfectly, that I have some unreasonable expectation on myself? And so those are the things that I ask myself to try to suss out, whether it's depression or the burden of perfectionistic thinking and setting too high of a bar for myself. And sometimes I just need a nap because I'm stressed about just the burden of living, the burden of returning a phone call, of making dinner. Sometimes it just feels like too much and that's okay. I no longer tell myself you're weak for not being able to face it. No,

I feel it in my body. And I don't even sleep when I lay down. I lay down because I don't want to face something for an hour. And I always feel better after I wake up because I don't shame myself when I wake up. Okay. It's actually a strategy that sort of brings you out the other side in a good place. Yeah. I take a break from the world. Yep. One of the things I've started to think about more and trying to discern in myself, and I don't think I have it figured out completely, but I'm getting it a little bit, is when am I tired and when am I depressed? I think for a long time, I just attributed it all to depression versus going, well, maybe you're just tired.

to depression versus going, well, maybe you're just tired. Are you talking about mental emotional exhaustion or pure physical can't keep my eyes open exhaustion? Because I almost never experienced the latter. I almost always experience just a feeling of being overwhelmed, not physically, not can't keep my eyes open, just tired of standing up. It's not can't keep my eyes open, but it is a decided lack of vitality. For me, there's a difference in there of tired. And part of it is, I don't know, you know, we're getting older, you know, we're in our fifties. I don't know, like how much energy should I have at this

stage in my life? I've just started to ask myself a little bit more, makes me think a little bit about the hungry, angry, lonely, tired thing, you know, that we were advised early in recovery. Just, okay, it seems like I want to drink, but is there something else going on? And so for me, I'm just getting better at going, particularly in the evening, I'll find myself like feeling lower. And I'll think, oh, this is depression. I'll be like, no, you'll wake up in the evening, I'll find myself like feeling lower and I'll think, oh, this is depression. I'll be like, no, you'll wake up in the morning and you're going to feel fine. Like just relax. And I would add scared to that list.

Yeah. That's one probably that pops up more than any of the other ones. Have you gone in and out of high degrees of fear in your recovery? Mm-hmm. It seems like you may be in a higher phase of it currently. I don't think so. I think since I've taken a break from the video games, just the act of facing the fears, and most of them are the fears of a bigger life, of the responsibility that might come with more success, more things to do in my schedule as I create a to-do list of things I've always wanted to do professionally, that fear is there, but there's also an opposing force, which is hope. Because I'm taking the baby steps as you

talk about in your podcast. And so I'm kind of experiencing both at the same time, but it's better than there may be being less fear, but no hope for solving this paralysis of perfection. Yep. You say that the main mantra in my brain is you don't have enough because you don't do enough. And the things that you do do, you don't have enough because you don't do enough. And the things that you do do, you don't do well enough because you are not enough. How do you work with that? I take a nap. I can see why you feel like you need a nap with that thought. I look out for when I'm thinking that. And I realized that's the voice that was planted in me as a child

by others or by myself or both or by society, you know, the you're not a success unless you're living a big house and have power and notoriety. And I let those things go and I think about my higher power. And am I acting in accordance with the morals that I believe that higher power stands for? That's the only way that I know to connect to my higher power is to embody, try to embody qualities that I believe a great higher power would stand for. Showing up on time, being nice in the grocery store, the shit we were taught in kindergarten. Yeah. And so I say, that's what's important.

The results of my efforts is up to the universe, is up to my higher power. But what I can do is I can act in a principled way and let go of the things that I can't control. I can act in a principled way and let go of the things that I can't control. And that helps alleviate the fear because I'm reminded I'm not in control of the outcomes. I might be able to influence the outcome of things in my life, but ultimately, all I can do is put the effort in and really try to make sure that my efforts are in keeping with who I want to be. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls.

And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves,

and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It could be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really

podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the wayaffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor we got the answer will space junk block your cell signal the astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer we talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth plus does tom cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you say morals that your higher power would bring, I think that's another way of saying your values. Is that something that you feel like you have a pretty clear idea of at this point?

Or is that something that you periodically feel like is useful to revisit? I think it's useful to revisit. And I'd say about 90% I'm pretty clear on that. I think the only place that it gets a little fuzzy is honestly with the satire that I do. I do satire as a really right-wing congressman from my home state of Ohio. That's right. Who embodies everything that I dislike, either about the world or sometimes even within myself, a kernel of a part of myself, be it greed or meanness or whatever. Sometimes I worry that I'm putting negative energy into the world. And I worry about that, but I also feel like I do this character

well. I think it exercises the highest functioning part of my comedic muscles. And it's the most satisfying to me. I have no desire to do regular monology as a standup anymore. I enjoy this. And because some of the things he says are super fucked up and dark, because I'm satirizing that real element in our country, I question myself sometimes, does this need to be put out into the world? Are you going to just create more animosity and contribute towards that, what feels like a civil war on the horizon? Yeah. Or does it bring relief to people who feel helpless and voiceless with the meanness

going on around us, especially by people who call themselves Christians? meanness going on around us, especially by people who call themselves Christians. I don't have the same issue that you do like with that from a satire perspective, but I do have that general thought about what's the right way forward with very radically different opinions among people. Is it to really just dig in and go, this is what I think is right and that's effed up or is it to try and broker some sort of conversation? That's when I wrestle with all the time. I tried once on Facebook to broker a conversation and it was a shit show within five minutes. And I really have not spent any time on Facebook since then.

I can't imagine that's the place to do it. My politics lean leftwards, but I've got a couple of people in my life who are fairly conservative, but are also very thoughtful. And so I'd like to be able to talk to them. But most people, I feel like it's very difficult. It's a waste of time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's not our job to teach them. It's up to us to embody the values we want. But to think that we are put here to change people is just going to make you an angrier person because you're going to see the results of doing that. I think the only change we can bring about in the world is through embodying the values that we think any God who possibly exists wants us to embody. I mean, I'm not a Bible reader, but I believe the teachings of Christ

are a great place to start. Yeah. There's a lot of beautiful things. All the wisdom traditions out there, you know, or all the religious traditions have their very beautiful aspects of them. I mean, there's a lot of beauty. Buddhism, letting go. Oh, yeah. You know, accepting that suffering is a part of life and not trying to not suffer, but say, how can I live in acceptance with the fact that there is suffering? Yeah. Yeah. That's my primary, probably. Spiritual lenient is Buddhist, but the spiritual habits program I created, I sort of went through and surveyed like a bunch of the traditions out there and was like, what are the core things that seem like they underlie all these? But I don't want to go there. I want to ask, how often does traffic come up in your conversations with your therapist? Almost never. It comes up often when your podcast. It does.

Because I use it as an example of how my recovery has benefited me in a practical way. It's pretty rare that I get upset by traffic. And if I do, it's usually short-lived because I go to the work that I did in my support group, which revealed to me all of my fears and the ways I dealt with my fear in a way that was selfish and immature and didn't embody the values, you know, following somebody, tailgating them, you know, rolling down my window and telling them they're a piece of shit. That used to be how I would handle the fear that would come up when somebody almost cut me off. Today, I go, well, I've been that person. I've been so filled with self. I don't even look in my side view mirror. I cut somebody off because it's all about me. And I'm afraid if I don't get somewhere on time, I'm not going to get something I need.

And my life is going to be miserable. So in that moment, when somebody cuts me off, I think to myself, well, they're probably filled with fear and self. And I've been that guy and I'm grateful that in this moment, I'm not experiencing that. And I go from feeling angry to feeling grateful and feeling my higher power in the car with me. I want to talk about an important reflection you had recently that nothing will shatter love like a canoe ride. like a canoe ride. It's so true, man. It's so true. I don't think I have stumbled as hard emotionally in the last five years outside of hockey that I did in that canoe with my girlfriend. I was so excited to be in there, but I did, as you know, that thing that we do that sets us up for anger and resentment was that I had expectations about how well we were going to be able to canoe. And all of my character defects

came to bear. My arrogance, my impatience, my feeling like, you know, it's up to me to teach people how to do things. And we were just paddling around in a circle. It felt to me like it was all her fault. And when she said, how much longer do you think we're going to be across the lake? And we get to, you know, see that clear stream the person was talking about. I said, you know, I see it taking us hours and hours and hours. And there was a silence, of course, you know, she see it taking us hours and hours and hours. And there was a silence, of course, you know, she was behind me. So I couldn't see how that was received until I heard sniffling about 10 seconds later. And I just went, man, why did you have to be such a dick?

And I apologized to her, but I couldn't really feel the apology because I was still in that moment angry at her. It took me probably about an hour of really talking and apologizing more deeply and more sincerely that we were able to kind of laugh about it. And we joke about it to this day, but it's a great example of be careful of expectations. You said something when I heard you tell that, that I really liked. You said, I learned that when I set my mind on something, I can lose my sense of humor and become mean. That really hit me that when I get my mind set on something,

the world narrows a great deal. Yeah. You know, and, and I'm generally, you know, not perfect. I'm generally good at keeping my meanness internal, but I certainly lose my sense of humor. And internally, I do get a little bit mean, you know, when I think not everybody's doing it the way I think we should be doing it. Right. And I find myself doing that in hockey, sometimes barking at my teammates because I've showed up at the rink feeling the absence of something in my life that

I want to feel. And I look to the score of the game to fill that part of me, the feeling of winning, which is super fucked up, but it's been with me since I was a kid. And I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that the only time I saw my dad express pure joy was when I pitched a winning game against an undefeated team. You know, maybe that's stuck in my brain. And so I associate winning with my value as a person. But it's still a battle, even though I can consciously be aware of that. I have to ask myself when I hear myself telling people to skate harder or whatever stupid thing that I'm doing to say, what is it that you want to feel in your life that you're looking for this to provide? Yeah. You know, when I play a game, I definitely get competitive, but I really look for

like, how do I embody the parts of that that are enjoyable and fun. A similar thing as I took up the sport of indoor rock climbing, primarily bouldering over the last year or so. And my nature is to be like, and now I'm going to get a trainer. And now I'm going to, like, I'll turn something that should be enjoyable into like work. It's really interesting, that dynamic. The thing that I try to bring it back to is I'm going to take it one moment at a time in the game and just try to bring out my best and let the results fall where they may and not focus on my teammates.

Keep my mouth shut. If somebody doesn't want to skate, it's up to them to not skate. And maybe we'll lose 10-0, but that's not a reflection of my value as a person. Yeah. Hockey's a big part of your life. It is. It is. I think it's great that you still play at your advanced age. I mean, I have a walker. I put a blade on it. Well, speaking of walkers, I went roller skating recently. I'm terrible. So I would not be a hockey player.

I'm terrible. They have invented this thing that was the most humiliating thing I've done to myself in a long time. They basically created a walker on wheels. So you can learn how to skate. You could hold on to it and skate around with it. It's a good idea, actually. It's a great idea, but it really looks preposterous. You know, I've got elbow pads and wrist pads.

And I'm here, though, in LA because I'm surfing. Being from Ohio, how did you discover surfing? I didn't until two months ago. My partner, Jenny, and I had been planning a long time a trip to Europe. And she was going to be in some training part of the time. And so one of the places that I was going to go was San Sebastian, Spain. And as I was reading about it, they kept saying it's great for surfing. And I've always wanted to learn to surf.

I thought, why not? I loved it. And you were able to get up. Yeah. That is no easy feat, learning how to stand up. I practiced. You're also in good shape and you're skinny, so you're not battling extra pounds. Yeah. And I practiced ahead of time, but I really liked it.

And so then I was like, well, I've got a good friend who lives here and I knew I wanted to talk to you. And I thought, why not come out to LA, do some surfing in the morning, work during the day. I did it this morning. So it was good. How was it? It was fun. Where'd you go? Santa Monica. Nice. Yep. All right. What ways do you feel like currently in your life, whether psychologically, spiritually, you're growing? You mentioned sort of giving up the video games. I mean, that's a big one, but what ways are you feeling like you're kind of being called to grow?

I feel like by putting the video games down, because I've, you know, I put the drugs and alcohol away years ago. I stopped looking at pornography, you know, probably, I don't know, seven, eight months ago. I am having to face my everyday fears of that thing that you quoted of, I don't do enough because, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'm having to find practical ways to set goals for the things that I'm deeply afraid of committing to, because either it's going to take a lot of time or it's going to take a lot of effort, or I might fail, or I don't think I'm good enough, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the little nibbles, you know, I've been eating away at it with by actually doing things, recording things, writing things, sharing things. I'm beginning to feel that it's maybe not as overwhelming as I thought it was.

So I'm getting a sense of myself that I'd actually gotten a taste of when I went glacier climbing 20 years ago. I was so amazed that my body was able to endure the pain that I went through that it made me realize I'm capable of so much more than I think I am. And it's almost all mental. An hour into this eight-hour hike with an overpacked backpack that probably weighed 80 pounds, it felt like somebody was stabbing my hips with screwdrivers. And I thought, my only choice is to soldier through this or to have one of the guides take me back all the way to the parking lot and drive me all the way back into town. And then they're going to have to hike up by themselves. And so I suppose my ego came to the rescue

and said, you can't be that guy. And I found a place in my head to go to, to deal with the pain. And by the time we got to base camp, I realized, wow, we are capable of more than we think we are if we can find a way to deal with it mentally. Yeah. I love when we're able to do that, when we're actually able to sort of see, oh, I am able to do these things that my brain was telling me I can't. And what you just described is one of the strategies I often use, which is to remind myself of times I did. Because my brain will be like, well, yeah, but then I'll be like, but actual facts says we did. Yes. And I also try to leave open the option that I won't do it. Yeah.

That I'll fail in doing it. And that's not a reflection of who I am as a person. It just is. Yep. Well, Paul, thank you so much for having me out and coming back on the show again. It was such a pleasure. Yeah. And listen to Eric as a guest on my podcast, if it's out when this airs. Yeah. Tell people where they can find your absolutely wonderful podcast. I don't listen to very many, but one of the ones I do listen to is yours. It's the Mental Illness Happy Hour. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, they can find it wherever you get your podcast. And the website for it is mentalpod.com and metalpod, also the social media handle.

You can follow us there. Excellent. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, brother. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We

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