The Resilient Mind - Feeling Depressed, Stressed, or Anxious? Listen to This.

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

This powerful compilation brings together some of the most inspiring and uplifting messages designed to help you rise above life’s toughest moments. Whether you're battling anxiety, overcoming depression, or navigating deep emotional struggles, this episode offers a beacon of strength and clarity.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_Journal Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to, if you are feeling depressed, stressed or anxious, listen to this. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. You just want to step out of it, to step out of the whole race, the whole business. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you. If you have depression, if you have anxiety, if you have anxiety, if you have post-traumatic stress disorder.

If you have any kind of mental health condition, this is not something to ignore. Depression, frustration, anxiety, pain, disillusion. It's just a natural part of the process of becoming a stronger version of yourself. The thing that keeps one living is a sense of future, that there will be a tomorrow, and tomorrow I've got to do this, and then the day after I've got to do that.

I'm going to tell you right now, it won't be easy. It won't be easy. It will be hard because life is hard. That's what life is. With depression, one of the most important things you could realize is that you're not alone. I have been places and someone that said, well, you lost an arm and a leg, so you had a right to be depressed. And I stopped them. I was like, depression is real.

No matter what you're going through right now doesn't mean that it's not going to end. I think too often we're thinking about the stresses that we're dealt with right. now and we think that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. All that you can see is darkness and everything that you try to do just kicks you right back in the face and you just can't seem to get yourself up. You don't even have to go through something traumatic. Some are caused by something traumatic. Some can be a chemical and ballad balance in the brain.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Life is hard. Life is chast. is challenging. There are ups and downs. And these challenges, these challenges that you face, they're going to do their best to take you down. Do not let them. Of course you have to work. Of course you have to show up. Your team needs you. Life needs you. Your family needs you. Life is for the living. Depression is not only normal. It's essential. And because, grateful for it because it allows you to reorder yourself at a higher level.

I speak with so my heart and I gave my speech and as I was closing, I kind of mentioned some depression because I was coming out of the winter months and it hit me again this past winter and I went and saw the doctor and so it was on my mind and it came up and as I was saying I thought this generation of people probably aren't connecting to what I'm saying. When I walked off the stage and they lined up the amount of people that thanked me for talking about mental health. And here I was, I thought they didn't want to hear. I thought I was stepping out of line.

No, it needs to be talked about it because it's not just this generation. It's people are realizing more and more that it's an issue. And the more we talk about it, the easier it is for people to be honest with themselves and get the health they need. Line up those problems and confront them, face them, fight them. Do not let them bring you down. Do not personally identify with your depression. See it as you see winter, and winter always leads to spring and summer again.

See it as you see nighttime. Nighttime becomes daytime again. Hold on to that fundamental quality of faith. And on the other side of your pain is something good. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. No matter what you're going through right now doesn't mean that it's not going to end. Stand up, dig in. Let those challenges raise you up.

Let them elevate you. Let their demands and their trials make you stronger. Adversity you face today, turn you into a better person tomorrow. You are worth more than diamonds. All the diamonds in the world, you are so precious. Every single one of your hearts, you can do something. Life is not always good. Life is always not rosy. Life is worth living.

There's one thing, one thing, that if you did every single day, it would make an extraordinary difference in whatever mental health issue you're struggling with, and that is exercise. that is exercise. And the reason you've got to exercise every day is because what we know about human beings is that when you physically move, your physiology changes, and that changes your brain. Take the time to rest. Because just what if that resting is the key to world-class producing. Get outside and exercise every single day as if your life depends upon it. Because you know what? It does.

Your brain needs it. Your body needs it. Your mental health needs it. And I feel like if you had heart problems and saw a cardiologist, well, everyone would be concerned about it. You would know you're doing better and it would be open and honest with the crew. But the most complicated origin in your body, if you have a problem with it, suddenly there's a, we don't want to talk about that?

No, and you can get over it. And that's what people need to realize. You can be cured. You can get past it. I assure you the clouds will lift. Right there is sunlight above the clouds, you're just looking at the clouds right now. And they will lift and crisis has come to teach you the big lesson you're meant to learn to move to your next level and the next chapter of your greatest life.

This depression will pass. It will go away and something much better will take its place. But for right now, all that you really need to know is that you have to make it through. Getting your heart rate up, getting outside, breathing, feeling connected, getting out of your house, which may make you feel depressed and trapped. The man I am with you right now as I speak with as much authenticity as I know how to share is the result of my times in the Valley of Darkness. Doing that every day, that physical push, you don't have to run. You don't have to go to an aerobics class. Get outside with your dog in the woods. Walk with a good friend for two or three miles. Doing that every single day, not only moves your body, which

changes your mind, it gets you out of your physical environment, which is one of the things that people with depression tend to have a hard time doing. And it also creates a bit of momentum and a bit of a routine in your life. Every time I experience a bouts of depression, I come out on the other end a different person doing different things. But it's because I'm aware of what's happening and I'm looking, I'm aware. I want to see the opportunities as they present themselves to me instead of falling into the depths of a spiral down depression because I'm personally identified with what is happening when I'm upset. And your schedule is not full and you actually feel like you're wasting your life because you're not this epic producer. What if those times were actually

a different form of productivity? What if those times We're actually being productive in a different way. Where you're actually producing, not in the world, but producing within yourself. Producing strength, producing new insights, producing new ideas, producing new capabilities, producing new energies, producing new emotions, shifting from fear to love. Because when you go through difficult times, what do you really do if you feel your fear and your pain? You release it. It's out of your system.

And you grow in love and bravery and strength. What does that do to your craft? What does that do to your power? What does that do to your bravery? What does that do to the light that you bring into the world? You become this incredible force that is undefeatable. I suggest to you that if you are facing a challenge, don't stop. Stay busy.

Work your plan. Continue to do those things that you know that work for you after you have evaluated yourself in the situation. Continue to move. Stay busy, stay busy, stay busy. You are part of a larger cosmos. Whether you know it or not. And communing with nature allows you not to see the bars of the prison cell, but the stars of the universe.

And if you can connect with those every day, my dear friend, you will use your pain as an instrument for your greatest growth. Then you try something new. And then you'll also go to school and people will put you down and parents will tell you that you're a failure because you failed at a test. And you start believing the lies around you. you saying that you're not good enough and no one's going to want you and you'll never ever do anything good in your life and you'll never ever you know achieve the dreams and goals that you

wish you had done or wish that you could do and these steps take you closer that voice saying you're not good enough you're not good enough you're not good enough and all you need is one more step to fall so you have a choice to know which step you're going to take today what will sometimes haunt my dreams still is just like a general feeling of morose anxiety. Everyone experiences a version of anxiety or worry in their lives. I don't know why I opened up and talked about it, but I guess I was just sick and tired of just having it inside of me for 20 plus years and I was ready to make a change. What helped me the most that I want to impress upon all of you is that I'm

And I realize that part of my identity is saying no to things I don't want to do. And you are all in school and you all have a lot of teachers and a lot of people around you that tell you all day what you have to do, but it is your right to choose what you do and don't do. It is your right to choose what you believe in and what you don't believe in. It is your right to curate your life and your own perspective. We all go through things. We all go through struggles, right?

There's probably everybody in this room that goes through struggles, the same exact And I think that's what we all have to realize. It's just something that every single person goes through. And maybe we go through it in a different or more intense way for longer periods of time. But it's not, there's nothing wrong with you. To be a sensitive person that cares a lot, that takes things in in a deep way, is actually part of what makes you amazing. I also struggled a lot with anxiety and depression.

If you start to feel like you are twisting things around you, and you start to feel like there is no sunlight around you, and you are paralyzed with fear, here's how you can help yourself. First, you have to understand what anxiety is, and you have to understand the connection between worry, which is something we all do in self-doubt, which is something we all do, and anxiety. Anxiety is what happens when your habit of worrying spirals out of control.

spirals out of control. It's important for you to foundationally understand that anxiety and worry are the same thing. It's just that your body starts to get agitated, and that's when we call worrying anxiety. Your heart races. You might sweat a little bit. You might feel tightening in your chest. You might feel a pit in your stomach. You have a surge of cortisol. You can actually beat it. This is how you're going to do it. So all day long, you're going to have moments where your thoughts drink. You'll just be hanging out with your friends and then suddenly you're like, I'm not sure that that person likes me anymore. I haven't heard from my kids lately.

I wonder if they're dead or, you know, oh, you know, is like check. Like you just start worrying about stuff. Why? Because it's a habit. Because when you're not paying attention, your brain shifts from you being a decision maker and paying attention to you just kind of spinning things on autopilot. And one of your habits is worrying.

The second you wake up and you notice, holy cow, I'm talking some negative garbage to myself right now. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You've just shifted the part of the brain. You've shifted from the basal ganglia, which is where your habit loops are spinning, and you've awakened your prefrontal cortex. You've also interrupted that pattern. Now what you're going to do, because your mind is actually ready to receive a different

thought because of the counting. Now you can put in an anchor thought. Like if you have a mantra, if you've got a vision about the way that you're your business is going to turn out in five years. If you just have a thought that makes you really happy and proud, insert that. Now, why does this work? It works because of the counting. And I'm not kidding. We know, based on research, the positive thinking alone, not effective. In some instances, trying to force yourself to think positive can actually make the worries worse. Why? Well, the reason why is because it's really hard to just change the channel.

What we have to do first is basically interrupt it and turn off the TV and then turn it back on with the prefrontal cortex awakened. So the counting is essential. And so you can start using this today. And the problem that I have with anxiety is the physiological side of it. I got shallow breathing, rapid heart rate and most terrifyingly the blood is actually leaving the prefrontal cortex and so you're getting into a position where your higher level cognition is actually being shut down because it doesn't have blood flow and then I began to visualize that what I was trying to do was get myself into a calm state where the blood could actually go back to the places that I needed it so that my higher level ability to reason would kick back in the first thing that I started to do to

To be able to consciously control that was meditate. In meditating, what you're learning to do, at least for me, and I don't consider myself a meditation expert by any means, but this was one of the huge wins for me in meditating was learning to breathe from my diaphragm. Even one breath from my diaphragm had a really big impact. Breathing from your diaphragm instead of from your chest, right? So most people breathe like this.

And it's all in your upper chest. you're not getting a very deep breath. So in meditating and learning to breathe from your diaphragm, in learning to consciously calm yourself down, meaning you're lowering your heart rate, you're breathing much more deeply from the diaphragm, getting the blood reallocated to the parts of the brain that are actually useful.

That meditating was my first step into that. When there are really hard times, there are so many tools that you can use to help yourself in those times. And it does get better and easier as life. goes on and you start to get to know yourself more and what will trigger, trigger certain instances of anxiety and where you feel comfortable and safe. So I'm just saying, don't ever feel like you're a weirdo for it because we're all weirdos. In 1973, a young man were a letter to American author, E.B. White.

The young man was losing his faith in humanity. And this is the reply he received from White. Hope is the thing that has left us in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock. E.B. White wrote those beautiful words in response to fears surrounding our future. As long as there is hope, get up and wind the clock. At times it doesn't matter the view, does it? You may be looking in the mirror at your own life.

You may be looking out the window at what's happening around you. The future becomes bleak, days full of fear. It's when darkness forms, clouds roll in and life gets heavy. Sometimes we feel it together. Sometimes we feel it alone. Those times surrounded by sadness. And in those moments, what are we to do? For there is but one sensible response, isn't there?

We wake up. And we make tomorrow better than today. We get up. We rise. We wind the clock. And we are to do it with our heads held high so that we can be the first ones to see the sun as it starts to poke through.

You know, if you're down and you can see a reason why you should be down, then that brings with it a certain clarity. But if there's no reason, you tend to think, well, why on earth am I feeling like this? I don't understand. If you're like me, you're feeling it later. where in a moment when the clouds have covered some of the light. The way forward may seem to be slipping from view.

The path of progress, which has been so hardly fought for, can feel like it's fading. Perhaps it was the path you were declaring for yourself, and now it's changing. It's shifting. Gone. And hope is the thing that has left us in a bad time. Hope is not the final fragile string. Hope is the start. Hope has a strength.

It means something new is coming. Because it always does. Clouds break. The sun shines. In fact, it's never stopped. So in E.B. White's words, hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope.

And wind the clock. For tomorrow is another day. I want you to know that, no matter where you are in life. No matter how low you have sunk, no matter how bleak your situation. This is not the end. This is not the end of your story. This is not the final chapter of your life.

I know it may be hard right now, but if you just hang in there, stick it out, stay with me for a little while. You will find that this tough. moment will pass. And if you are committed to using this pain, using it to build your character, finding a greater meaning for the pain, you will find that in time you can turn your life around and help others going through the same struggles. The world right now is in the middle of a mental health crisis. It's estimated almost half the population suffers from depression at some stage throughout their life. Rather than join the queue, it's important we learn why we get

down and then how we can change it. Because believe it or not, we create our own negative feelings and we can also ensure that we turn our lives around and be a positive change for others. The reason anyone gets depressed always comes down to the consistent thoughts we think and the consistent beliefs we hold. Let me say that again. The reason anyone gets depressed always comes down to the consistent thoughts we think and the consistent beliefs we hold. The point here is that anyone that is depressed is so

because there is an external factor that didn't materialize in their life. They have lost something outside of their control or don't have something that is out of their control. In school, we are taught how to get a job, but no one teaches us how to live in a state of happiness. No one teaches us how important our conscious and unconscious thoughts and associations are. Is our happiness not worth more than a job? Yes, it is. And before you say happiness won't pay my bills, happiness will pay your bills.

When you realize you will be ten times more energized, focused, and take positive action in your life, action in your life when you first choose to develop yourself as a priority and then get to the stuff of the world. I've seen some people who many would consider to have it all in their life because they thought they were not good enough. A thought, a belief within them, told them they were not worthy. These people that many were jealous of, many envious of, were not good enough. You must value yourself enough.

enough to take the time every single day to work on you, to engage in something that will ensure you are a positive influence on the world. This, of course, doesn't mean life will suddenly be perfect. The same life challenges will show up. But if your mind is strong, if your mind is at peace, your reaction to the challenging times will be very different. Your reaction will be, how can I make this work? not why is this happening to me?

And then others will look to you, not with pity, but with hope. Because your strength will become their hope, their strength. You really can be that powerful. You can ditch the victim story. You can leave the pain behind and focus on how you will react next. How you will react positively. Read. Read all you can read to get your mind in a,

positive place. Take steps to ensure you will be in a better position next time, whatever pain you are suffering from, how you can ensure it won't show again. Take little steps and soon you will be at the top of the staircase. Don't give up. You are worthy. You are more than worthy. You deserve to experience how great life can be and you owe it to the world to be that positive change for others to inspire others who will look to you and say, he did it, she did it, and I can do it too. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.