These Fukken Feelings Podcast© - From Despair to Balance Jonathan Niziol's Quest for Inner Peace | Season 3 Episode 310

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Send us a Text Message.Welcome to the latest episode of "These Fukken Feelings" podcast! In this captivating installment, we are joined by Jonathan Niziol, a mental health advocate with an extraordinary life story.Prepare to be taken on a compelling journey as we explore the aftermath of life-altering tragedies and the hidden pressures that accompany seemingly glamorous careers. Micah, Rebecca, and our special guest Jonathan Niziol delve into the depths of the human experience, unraveling the...

you don't have to be positive all the time it's perfectly okay to feel sad angry annoyed frustrated scared and anxious having feelings doesn't make you a negative person it doesn't even make you weak it makes you human and we are here to talk through it all we welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast a safe space for all who needs it. Grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now. What up, guys? Welcome to these fucking feelings podcast. I am Micah. I got my girl Rebecca here with me. And today we got our guest on who is also a mental health advocate, Jonathan Neisel, right? You got it. Yes, I am. I be practicing people's names, right? Because I'm dyslexic. I appreciate it. That's not an easy one to get.

It's a weird one. But thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate you guys inviting me on. No problem. And so one thing we do like to do here is we ask our guests to introduce themselves. I feel like it's the best way for our audience to get to know you. Sure. So I'm coming to you from Texas. I'm originally from Canada, though. I've lived here since April 2019. I am a model. I'm a real estate investor. And I'm also a certified personal trainer.

I'm an Aries. I grew up on a farm just outside of Toronto, like you guys are saying, like we were talking about before the recording started. Yeah, just very laid back guy. Like you said, I'm starting to talk more about mental health and use my social media platform to talk a bit more about my life story

and things that I've been through. And I'm really passionate about that and lowering the veil of social media and really getting the real stuff out there just to not the whole everything that glitters is gold and what you see on the surface kind of stuff so yeah that's about it and also break stigmas when you get to see like a person you know like yourself real estate uh which call that stuff working out i think is what they call it you know yeah i don't do it yeah so uh but no it's cool when you see

like it's funny but a lot of men, if they don't host the podcast show, then they normally don't speak on it. So what I think about the number of women we have compared to men, like it's few and far in between. So thank you for coming on and to be willing to share your story. Yeah. My pleasure.

I think, like I said, it's really important thing to, yeah, like you said, break the stigma. You're absolutely right. And to show that, you know, this kind of stuff happens to everybody.

And we all have a predisposition to judge a book by its cover. And like you said, you don't know what people are going through, what they've gone through. And yeah, I'm sure we'll get really, really deep into that. So I won't go too much right now. But how long have you actually taken the journey to start talking about mental health so it's really within the last i'd say the last six months to a year i mean talking about it publicly i started going to therapy and stuff like that and

and doing that when probably six years ago when i realized that all the stuff that i was doing to try and mask my mental health and to try and not deal with my fucking feelings was not working but in the last six months it's been it's like i said it's been more recent and there are certain things that i talk about now that i've gone through in my life that i just thought i was going to take to my grave because of like you said said, the embarrassment of, you know, being a guy and having gone through these things or breaking the facade of you know, everybody's

whatever they, you know, what you see and it's a newer thing and finds a weakness in his and a little boy fell and he was crying and his dad was like, are you a little girl? Are you a little girl are you a little girl and little girls cry like bro chill out he's bleeding like i'm about to cry and i didn't

yeah so actually i was watching your instagram and i know that you i saw that you like broke your story up in two parts and you were kind of sharing it with everybody can you tell us a little bit about that now so sure so i guess um i'll start where it all really gets started um like i said before about like my upbringing i was raised on a farm i had a wonderful upbringing um a 500 cattle farm but there's a very decisive day where my life changed completely and took a pretty dark turn and that was the day before my 21st birthday. And it was a regular day like any other. I'd moved back from college and I just moved out of my house to get my first big boy job. I was selling cars at a Ford dealership. And I had the morning off. I was going to buy some fish for my tropical fish tank.

I remember as I'm walking to the building, I got a call. It's a home number. I figure it's just, you know, they're calling just to like plan my birthday celebration for the next day to come visit me. And it was, hey, Jonathan, are you by yourself? And I'm like, well, yeah, I guess. I'm just about to walk in the fish store and it was your mom's dead. And I was like, what do you mean my mom's dead?

Like she wasn't sick she wasn't like it was just an absolute like complete you know shock and it was completely devastating uh tragic my mom was my best friend my my biggest supporter she and i had a wonderful relationship and like i said it was so sudden. I went through all the emotions initially, mostly denial. And I was like, you're wrong. I'm going to prove you're wrong. Calling whatever hospital, calling to do all these things and, you know, your head's spinning and everything's going crazy. And I remember looking around and seeing like the gas stations open and, you know, the Wendy's drive-thru is filled up. And I'm like, what are these people doing? Like, don't they understand what just happened?

Like, why is the world still working? Like, what is going on here? Like, shut it down, man down man like my life as i know it has ended how is this happening and that was the first time that i learned that that's the world and that's life you know you don't know who are going through these days or who's you don't know people's situations and you don't know and you know people are just going about their day going through whatever and you really don't know so that's why I'm a really big advocate of leading with grace and treating people with respect. And I don't care if it's the person who delivers your food to your door or if it's the person you work for or whatever.

I think everybody deserves your utmost respect. And that was a big one for me. So yeah, I kind of tried to keep it together for the next couple of years, but slowly started to deal with mental health issues. I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and clinical depression and self-harm and panic disorder. I didn't know what was going on because back then, it was 20 years ago, it wasn't talked about. Mental health wasn't talked about. I didn't know the words anxiety or whatever. And like you said, I mean, I was raised, you know, with my parents, it was pushed through. Like, they weren't bad people. And it's just, it wasn't as, they didn't have the tools either. They weren't taught the

tools. They couldn't pass it along to me. Only thing they knew was put your head down and keep moving. And I just thought I was going crazy. I was like, Oh, I'm losing it. Like, I'm absolutely losing it. I don't know what's happening to me what so finally diagnosed with those things. So I started to try to educate myself. And that's a big thing I always talked about with, with people is if you find out that you're going through something and you're dealing with something and not just a bad day or or you know stress and but you find out you have anxiety or you have depression educate yourself on what that looks like and why your body and your mind are doing certain things and so that way you can deal with it better when you're in the moment and you're feeling panicked and you're having physical reactions to it.

And then you're like, oh, I understand now. But that took me years to learn because I figured my first step was, hey, this is a lot easier when I drink like, oh, I don't know, 15 to 30 beers at a time. Like, I'm just going to, you know, get wasted and all my feelings magically disappear until i sober up and then they come right back and then i have more problems and then and it's harder when they come back it's like filling it all again and from not feeling it so like now you're reliving it it's exactly you're reliving it and then like add on the stuff that you did when you were like when i was wasted like and you know being an acting a fool and causing like starting stuff with like my family or girlfriends or whatever like all that

kind of stuff so it's like yeah you're just resetting but the easiest thing to do is to keep drinking so you know one of those things and i just did that for years and quickly became a non-functioning alcoholic and i say i say i was non-functioning because it was ruining my relationships with my, like I said, my friends, family. It was ruining my work. It was ruining my health. It was ruining my finances. It was ruining my...

I was a professional lacrosse player. It was ruining my passion for sports. It was taking everything away from me. And I knew exactly why. I knew what was doing it. But it had a grip on me. Sorry. Did you know that you were this non-functional alcoholic?

Or did you think you were functioning okay? Oh, I thought I was... I started to notice even for myself. I remember the day that I told myself that I was an alcoholic. And I admitted to myself. Because other people had told me. And I was like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, I can out drink you. I guess that's just a compliment. Like, thanks. But I remember it was like eight o'clock in the morning and I called in sick from work because I would get the shakes in the morning I would get from withdrawals. And it's eight o'clock in the morning. I'm cracking my first beer for the day.

And I'm like, what am I doing? Like, this is, this is not what I was supposed to be doing. This is not my life. Like I'm an alcoholic. I know that I can now admit that I'm an alcoholic.

I don't know how I'm going to fix it, but I knew it had, I could have had it's a, it's crips on me and, and had taken control. And it was, like I said, that's what I started to realize, realize like and look around and i was 265 pounds 40 body fat i was like i said everything around me was crumbling but as soon as i got back into that that safe space of you know uh inebriation then everything kind of was okay but that was was the first time. And I remember just

being so destitute and so broken and just being like, man, like, I don't know where to go from here. And I didn't know. So I just kept drinking. And I'm very, very lucky because I got a very bad case of acute pancreatitis. And that's severe inflammation of the pancreas and usually brought on by drinking, brought on by other things. But in my case, it was definitely from drinking. And one day I was drinking by myself. And it was the night before Canadian Thanksgiving. And I remember starting to get like a little pain in my stomach. So I was like, whatever, I'll just drink through it. And as the night went on, it got worse. And then by six in the morning, it was like, man, I've got really bad gas pains or something. And by 10 o'clock, I had checked myself into the ER and took him out of the day to realize

what it was. And from there, I spent just under a month in the hospital. i had to have five blood transfusions i lost in total i lost 60 pounds i lost 40 pounds in the first two weeks and i almost died twice and that was a huge wake-up call for me that was one of the point that you started to wake up yeah that was one of them i mean i've had dozens of rock bottoms throughout my life because unfortunately otherwise that our interview would be over and be like hey nice talking to you like um but there's a lot more to this story but it was definitely i'm so grateful for that it happened because i like i said before i i knew that i was an alcoholic but i didn't know how i was going to quit and have all the admiration of the world for people who can choose the path of if they need to again i'm not a preachy not drink i don't think everybody should not drink or be sober and that's

not at all i for me it wasn't able like but people who realize like i have some close friends who realized that they were getting to a point where it was becoming a problem and they chose to you know stop and i think that's incredible because it took me that severity for me to get the picture and to realize that alcohol couldn't be a part of my life anymore. And that was just that was 16 years ago. Last I know in October, it was 16 October or something. It was 16 years ago that that happened. So I haven't touched a sip of alcohol since since then. Congratulations.

Thank you. I appreciate it. It makes me alcohol since then. Congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate it. It makes me think of my relationship with Fruit Roll-Ups. I mean, I wake up. I wake up. We're going to compare alcoholism to Fruit Roll-Ups. No, no, we're really not. We're really not.

However, I do wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, eat one, and then go back to sleep, and then wake up in the morning and eat one again. They just actually, it's very similar behavior, for sure. For sure. And I do love a good fruit roll-up. Yeah, so I got sober from alcohol and my life started to immediately look and feel better. I got scared straight about my body

and learning that things come from the inside out. And that's where my passion for fitness started. I wanted to learn more about the body and like how it works and taking better care of it and like hey i i'm still alive at 25 after going through that and i was eating garbage food and fast food and all kinds of stuff and maybe for a roll up or two yeah one or two well we'll talk later but i just yeah i started realizing like hey if you put better stuff in your body you know within moderation like you learn but you'll yeah you'll get better results from it i started going back to the gym and playing lacrosse i had a lacrosse uh knee injury but i was i was 26 at the time it wasn't paying as a profession um

it was a lot of fun but you know it's a very rough sport and there's a lot of fighting and stuff. So going to work like my real job with black eyes and stitches and stuff on a regular basis was kind of getting old. So I was like, OK, maybe it's time to like, you know, call it a career. And that you were playing lacrosse like in a game. Yeah, exactly right my dad came to the first game that i uh i finally made this local pro team and he's like all right i'm coming i got in a fight and i remember i was getting i was getting beat up like i've i've won a lot of fights but i've lost a lot of fights too and i was getting just pummeled by this guy and i remember looking down the ground and just

seeing like blood trailing around and after the game i was like hey what'd you think you know before i go to the hospital he's like this is what you want to do really i'm like yeah it's great isn't it he's like meanwhile they my parents got me into lacrosse when i was young and and hockey and all that stuff but so i i uh i had a better appreciation for fitness i got in a better shape and then i thought i would look into doing some modeling and i my mom had been a model in the late 70s and early 80s so i'd had a you know an interest from her fashion background um and i thought you know crystal like said i wasn't so bad on the heart and the eyes so i was like hey maybe i'll check out some check out some agencies or something and i ended up going to a couple agencies in toronto

got some offers and i started modeling uh professionally and and that was my first contract and i had the ability to start traveling pretty soon after um my first stop was cape town it was wonderful it was uh six months in there it was it was absolutely incredible i could you know spend a whole podcast just telling you about that but the one thing that i started to notice and i started to plant the seed in my own head of body dysmorphia, because when I saw all these people on these magazines, you know, like guys I was preparing myself to, I'm like, oh, these guys are jacked, they're ripped, all this kind of stuff. So I was still working out like a professional athlete. I was using fitness as a distraction in place of alcohol, which I didn't realize until later. I'm like, it's working out. It's healthy.

You can't do too much of it. Well, you can. I mean, but I got there around all these other international models and I'm like, you know, twice the size of them. And I'm still booking work and it's still doing well. But I started to plant the seed of like, and that's why I think it's so important, like we're talking about getting rid of this whole social media thing. That comparison of, oh, well, they booked that job. Maybe if I looked a bit more like so-and-so, I would book that job, including these other jobs. So I started to plant that body dysmorphia seed in my head. I left South Africa after six months, went back to Canada in the middle of the winter,

miserable. But I quickly drove to Miami. That was my next stop was Miami. And I'd only been in Miami for two days. And yeah, I was like my first major US like in a place stop, like I'm in a big market. I'm in a major market here. I've got a Miami agency. Like I'm ready to make this happen. So I was there for two days and I remember my agency, I'm looking for a house. I'm trying to like, or a place to live and all that kind of stuff.

My agency is like, we've got a go see for you. So I don't know if you guys know what go see is, but like, it's a, it's like a casting, like specifically for you. If you're new in town or if you've had some new pictures or something that a

director or a photographer or designer will say we want to meet with him and try some clothes on or whatever so i was like they had a go-see program like great two days in i'm already got you know stuff but they said it's going to be at this guy's house at like 8 30 at night red flag And my agent proceeded to tell me, this guy is a bit of a creep. And I was like, okay, well, all right. So I go in and, you know, I shoot all kinds of stuff. But, you know, there are some people who are body guys in the industry who, you know, are better built or have bodies and shoot more underwear and swimwear stuff. But I've always been a body guy. And so it wasn't weird for me to go to a casting and to, you know, strip down

and get into like a pair of briefs and come back out and, you know, that kind of stuff. So that was pretty normal stuff. But after a couple of times of going in the bathroom and coming back out, he started to make, you know, some uncomfortable comments and, you know, make some like inappropriate references to my anatomy and came back out.

And then he sexually assaulted me. And I was like, what is going on right now? In the moment, I was just frozen, completely frozen. What is happening right now? And then when I finally came to my next step with my background in lacrosse and when my mom died, I had a lot of misplaced anger. So I've been in a lacrosse and you know i when i my mom died i had a lot of misplaced anger so i've been in a lot of fights and stuff like that i was like oh i'm gonna beat the crap out of this guy like i'm gonna beat this guy to death and i was like okay well you can't do

that because you'll probably get charged and it's his word against yours and now i really open that it's like the story i know it's coming to that you knock them out but like I said I thought I'm like I'm going to get charged with attempted murder because I don't know if I didn't know where the stopping point was like I and so I just figured okay I need to get out of here I need to get out of the situation I got myself out of the situation said you know do not

touch me like just get away from me I left and but I didn't think to report like talk to my agency about it because this is before the me too movement so it was like the wild west out there so i first of all i was embarrassed i also didn't want to be labeled as a toll maker because that's the way that it worked in markets is like these things would happen and there'd be kind of like the under you know the the kind of talking between the designers and the photographers and stuff like that who did this kind of stuff.

And if somebody threw up a red flag or caused trouble, then all of a sudden you're shut down. Like you're blacklisted. So I'm like, I just got from Miami. Not to mention, though, I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I was confused. I was. Men can't be sexually assaulted. and there's always that thing also

like who believes that a man was sexually assaulted it's always such a big thing with that that's exactly and like so many people have asked me like in like i've only recently started talking about it but they're like well why didn't you just eat him up you know you're such a you know good fighter and stuff i'm like you don't understand when i was in the moment when that was happening like i was like that was exactly my my i was like what is go what is going on right now there's no way this is happening to me right now so i just internalized it and about two weeks later i guess like my demons were just like becoming too much and the body just morphe was coming becoming too much and the body dysmorphia was becoming too much. And that's when I started an eight-year battle with an eating disorder because I figured,

okay, I need to make a drastic change now to get work in Miami. And I needed some kind of a release, like the same way that like getting drunk would be. I always say that I was a functioning bulimic. I'd wake up in the morning, I'd eat all my normal meals, all my healthy stuff. I would do all that. It'd be fine. And then whenever I found myself alone with my thoughts in my place, in my four walls, it was like, oh, I can't be with my feelings. There's no way. So I would go get $100 worth of junk food or something or however much and just eat garbage and then immediately regret it and purge it up. And that was an absolute cycle because of, you know, just a it was another distraction, another release of a way to, you know, escape my feelings and to, you know, just, you know, disassociate or just take me away for a minute so yeah i did that for a long time and

i that's those are the two things that i never thought i would ever talk about out loud like i've talked i would talk to people about my alcoholism i'll talk about like mental health and stuff but those two things because the stigma is behind them like you're saying right and like i never thought that i would ever talk about those two things publicly because i'm like oh people are going to think this or people are going to think that and like as i've gotten older and as i've come to terms with and i'll talk about forgiveness later because that's a big part of it but i realize that like these things need to be talked about and they need to be talked about by sometimes the people that you least expect to talk about them and to talk like to have gone through them.

And to, like I said, like we keep saying, dropping the stigma out and just knowing that these things happen. So I traveled quite a bit more. You were a bit of a renter. I appreciate it. I mean, Crystal might say that, but. Well, no, I was just thinking like, what hasn't he done? He did the pros, he was a model, got the real estate, cars. He didn't even say that in his introduction.

Yeah, it's like, you done done it all. You know, you done beat people up. So, like, all the things I wish I could have done. Yeah. Yeah, I've had... Yeah, people are like... I look back at some of the stuff that i've done in some of the crazy situations that i've gotten myself in or just the things that i've

like you said i've done and i'm like man i'm over here i'm just living a life but i mean there are 15 years of that that were you know very dark um where i was just trying my best and so i go from miami go to new york. And right after New York, I get called to go to London, England after Fashion Week. And I'm over there and come back to New York. And I'm just doing pretty well, really doing well as an international model and loving it. But I started to notice every time I'd stop, go back home for a little bit, back to Toronto or back to Canada. I'd know i kind of i'd miss my father and i don't miss my friends and notice that everybody's lives just keep going and i'm you know living out of a suitcase for like a few

years kind of starts to wear out you a little bit so i decided i needed to put down roots fitness like i said was very important to me so i wanted to start my own fitness business. I wanted to get a dog who I still have. I wanted a little Bailey, but that's what I put down roots and decided to stay in Toronto and stop traveling for a bit. And everything was great for a bit again, which is kind of a theme, you know, everything's great for a bit. And because I had that distraction of traveling, traveling was a distraction, the new places and the new, you know, you get to a new city and, you know, you have to find a new gym and a new corner store and you meet new people and new relationships and all that kind of stuff. And then I settled into, you know, regular life of, you know, just being in Toronto and stuff. And then those fucking feelings, man. They just kept creeping up. And I was, then I was like, okay, I need to just, I need to turn to drugs now. And I,

it started out with weed smoking. I'd smoked weed in college and like when I was younger and stuff. And, but I started smoking a ton of weed, like two ounces a week by myself, like just a ton of weed. Just couldn't function without it. I'd go throughout my day and be fine and stuff. When I came home, the anxiety would start to creep up and then it'd be like, I need to get away from these feelings, so I'd smoke. I was addicted to that and that was a big one. adderall was a big big one for me because it's like hey you want to stay in shape and be productive have you tried legal mess um see from the makers of so and so we bring you adderall like this is great i can lose weight and i can scrub my floor tiles for eight hours at a time and have fun doing it. Like this is, this is incredible.

People always say it's like, oh, it is until it's not until it gets scary. Like I, I was literally on my hands and knees for eight hours with a toothbrush, scrubbing the grout, my floor tiles and having the time of my life. But I had been up for like three days.

I would be up for like three or four days at a time. It was just, it was nuts, man. It was absolutely nuts. And I was always with my drinking and with my drugs and stuff like that. I was very insular. Like I was very much like,

it wasn't like, Hey, let's go out and get like, you know, go out and party. And I invited her to or I was like, Oh, I've got these feelings and I need to like,

I'm alone and I need to like do something about it. So it was that it was Adderall as well. And then I was hooked on nitrous on whippets as well, because I did those in college. And I was like, well, I can bring those back those things, you know, help you disappear and kill some brain cells at the same time. But you know, you don't feel your feelings, it's better to feel your feelings. And the final straw for me was, I was taking an over the counter muscle relax relaxer and the one thing i will give myself credit for is i was i was very good at staying on the baseline drugs like i mean adderall's kind of aggressive but for the most part staying on the baseline because i knew the moment that i

got heroin or did coke or anything like graduated to the next level i or took oxy whatever or hydro whatever they're called i knew that my life would be over i knew absolutely i knew with my addictive personality with my demons that i wasn't dealing with i knew that my life would be over sounds like you have a very addictive personality big time and it's it's in me and it's a genetic thing it comes from my mom's side um and And my parents would notice it at a young age when I wanted to do something like play lacrosse. I was like, I had to go. It was, I was obsessed.

Like you and Furolos. Well, you know, I was thinking about, cause I was thinking about lacrosse and I was thinking about, you was talking about the fights and like your dad saying like, this is what you want to do. And I was like, dad, to me,

that was like a mental health moment because it is a good question. Like you're bleeding. Okay. And you're bleeding. Okay. And you want to come back tomorrow? Yeah, exactly. No, that's exactly it. And yeah, it was always my way with things.

I was really good at school when I focused on it, but I was more interested in like sports and stuff like that. And I would just get like very focused. And so I finally, my body was telling me that these things were bad for me like weed started to turn on me it was like my sanctuary and then it started to become like paranoia and anxiety and like really uncomfortable and i had some really bad experiences with it where i was like okay i'm done with that that felt awful and same with the adderall but i always i had these like i said i would say i had dozens of rock bottles because i get to the point where i was like i look at the life i'm living i dump out

my adderall the toilet dump out my weed flush it and i'd be like that's it i'm done and then a couple days later i'd be like man here come these feelings again and they creep up but so i had i need big events to really to really get the to get the idea like with pancreatitis and stuff like that so we'd had some really bad experiences that i'm going to the hospital just because i was freaking out and it was like a really bad experience on really bad trip on weed and then sit with the adderall started noticing and but i'd always taken these back pills and they're over the counter just buy them on the off the shelf regular old back like back medicine and they had 500 milligrams of methocarbamol that was the active like muscle releaser and they had 200

milligrams of ibuprofen in each pill and I took them for you know lacrosse aches or like fitness pain you know stuff like that like for years and years and then i was left with no other like other vices to fall back on so i was like oh i'm gonna go all in on these pills so it's amazing what the body can tolerate but i in the span of like a month and a month or two months i went from taking like it says don't take more than eight per day. I went from taking like eight per day to a hundred pills every single day. I would take 50,000 milligrams of methocardamol and 20,000 milligrams of ibuprofen every single day. And I'm like, I'm not being hyperbolic. I'm not proud of it. It's not a brag, not a brag at all, but I would buy a generic bottle. It was like $38 and change.

And I would just go home. I'd dump out, you know, a handful of 30 or 40, pop them in, swallow them. And every single day I'd go through a hundred and I'd go back the next day. And I start doing the math. You need organs. It's like, you shouldn't have with the drinking and the kidneys. Tell me about it. That thing probably is what saved you maybe

being healthy saved you from all those things that's the thing that's the thing is because eating very healthy what i wasn't you know doing my bulimia stuff i was still eating healthy and keeping that down and i've always been very good at taking my vitamins i always like wake up in the morning and take my vitamins and also eating healthy. But yeah, with all this throwing this other stuff at it. So I started to lose weight like crazy. And the next day, I'd be kind of lethargic and I'd be like, oh, I'm just probably feeling the effects of having 100 pills the day before. But I started having fainting spells. And I remember I fainted in my house and cracked my head open and came to and I like I should have gotten stitches but

I never ended up getting the stitches and I woke up my dogs licking my face and I'm just laying on the ground you know big pool of blood and then my anxiety starts going through the roof because I start thinking oh I'm gonna like this is gonna happen in public or like when I'm driving and I'm gonna hurt somebody or cause a scene and but i was like it's got to be something else and but i was losing weight i had no energy i was like you know what you're just being a wimp push through it you just probably don't have enough carbs go eat this do that anything to it was anything else except for the obvious you know what was going on and finally i got to the point remember i was i remember i was on a shoot and I was

shooting a cover of a romance novel and I've done a bunch of romance novels She's probably read it and she said you look familiar I've been on the cover of like over 150 romance novels they used to be great when I was in Toronto they were a great

gig really great to work with they were wonderful people so Crystal novels they used to be great i was in trial they're a great gig really great to work with they're wonderful people so did they know uh crystal i will send you a list of the titles yeah good oh my god this was funny so i don't know which one is worse the fact that you have a list or that rebecca just did to everybody and i mean you're pretty good on our download and know that you beat your wife how do me what then doesn't i want to know this i feel like immediately don't admit in public no but that's the thing though what about there's 50 shades of gray that came out everybody was like oh and it's like what are you talking about they

been doing this for years harley quinn's been doing this for years like don't watch that then there's something wrong with it ray was a little sexy because he was choking on shit so that was like oh different okay now we're gonna i'm not choking anybody i'm just reading a novel like that and 50 shades of gray allowed them to like it in public yeah this conversation make a turn well because we talk about like drinking and he was like uh jonathan would say explain it i don't know what i was just saying but i did want to bring this point because jonathan was saying like you know he's not saying drinking is bad. It's just kind of like bad for him. You know, it's like anything else, kind of like the sadistic stuff that people like and that BDSM and shit.

I mean, choke me every now and then, you know. But also to me, like I actually found myself because of weed. It really is. Weed allowed me to open myself up to accept like all of me. Like it was most people, the reaction that people have with weed, I don't have. Like I do weed or like smoke weed or whatever. And I want to build a house. i don't get lazy i become productive and now i'm designing stuff i think this podcast was made off of weed but um but it also like it was at the lowest moment of my life too that i decided i also am a cancer survivor and i had cancer so for years doctors been trying to push medical marijuana on me right and um but i was one of those people that it didn't matter what drug you did he was a crackhead so i didn't want to be a crackhead you know what i'm saying yeah but finally one day it was kind of like me at my lowest point i didn't i didn't want to go through like you know saying similar things like the anxiety and depression and i was going through that and

people wanted to prescribe medicine but i had been out of control of my body for so long because of my ailments that now that I had control, I didn't want to be under something else that controlled it. So that's my issue. Yeah. But anyway, I finally decided to like, okay, I was going to try weed. And I'm telling you, when I tell you it changed my life, like it did. But it allowed me to like visit things.

What's wrong, Rebecca? Don't be laughing at me. It allowed me to like visit places, really, really dark places that I wouldn't visit because I knew to stay away from it when I was sober. Oh, yeah. No, I totally I totally get that. I totally respect that. And yeah, it helped me deal with a lot of trauma and get out a lot of trauma that now I'm OK. Like, you know, I'm still on my healing journey

but i'm pretty much okay oh yeah for sure that's i definitely like you said i'm not i'm not a preacher i'm not preachy like i don't think that the things that i do or did or whatever everybody should not do and i do see a lot of validity i've heard that a lot and i do think that there's a very like it works and and it's it's that's the thing is as an individual that's what's wonderful about it is what is what what works for us and us as individuals i think we have to judge things on the harm if it's causing you harm and is making you not safe then it's something you need to visit no matter what it is yeah and every for everybody you know mine is my love of rola so i'm gonna be in the diabetic but right i know i know that your teeth will fall out i'm not sure what i'm worried about these so i'm gonna be in the diabetic but right i know i know that your teeth will fall

out i'm not sure what i'm worried about these teeth i'm about to go buy some hold what no it's exactly a diabetic part okay yeah and i will say in my defense i don't have a list of the romance novels that i shot so whenever i'd see them in the store i'd buy them so i have a bookshelf with about like 150 of these romance novels and that i that i've never read before people whenever they see it they're like have you read these i was like no but i'm on the cover dressed as like you know all these different characters and stuff and people are like is it weird about blonde yeah i don't think i did they put me polychail on me two times my hair was long like some bizarre ones

lots of cowboy stuff um but because of my ethnic background because nobody can really figure out what i am and i just i could play like a whole range of characters so like i got and like what they when they like you they use you a lot so i got booked a lot for them and they were great but it was at that shoot and shooting one of those where i was like, I've got it. Like, this is like enough is enough. So the next day I went, I went home. I didn't get a hundred pills after work. Like I normally did that day. I woke up the next day and I was supposed to go to shoot another cover of the next day,

like at six in the morning. And I'm sitting there brushing my teeth and I could barely stand up. Like my body was just like buckling. I could, and I, so I was like was like i called my or texted my agency and said or email whatever and said i can't i can't go to work i'm going to the emergency room and i had internal bleeding massive internal bleeding in my intestines from an intestinal ulcer and that's where you said like my intestines like but i didn't know because i wasn't passing blood i wasn't like what i would like what i

would throw up i wasn't there was no blood coming up i wasn't there was no blood in my urine or stool or anything like that so i didn't know and but i was losing weight people were commenting i'm like you know what's how like why are you losing so much weight i'm like oh i'm just you know changing it up a bit but all the signs were there and and i finally like they got me on uh some iron supplements to try and help rebuild my blood cell count, stuff like that. So that was really the final rock bottom that I could hit where I said, okay, I'm 35 years old now.

I've been doing this for 15 years, give or take. It's not working. I mean, this plan of mine, I'm barely living a life. I'm living a life that's not meant to be living. I'm not enjoying. And I'm struggling. And I've got to do something different. And when we talk about that stigma, for years, it was like, people would say, what about therapy?

And I'd be like, therapy's for wimps. Therapy's for losers. I'm not going to sit there and have somebody judge me. And I'm not going to pay somebody to sit there and judge me for all the things that I've done. I got it covered. Thanks, but no thanks. And that's when I finally said. We all often that what happens in the house stays in the house era.

And I know that kind of didn't help either. Very much so. Very much so. And it was like people would see me. And, you know, again, it's our national our natural disposition to judge a book by its cover and be like, oh, there's Jonathan, the international model. And, you know, he's super fit. And I felt like a fraud because I felt like the person that they'd saw on the outside was not who I was on the inside.

I felt on the inside, I was broken. I was shattered. I was empty. I was all these things that everybody would see everybody like, Hey, what's up? And I'd be like, Hey,

great. And then I'd go home and be like, like, I can't, like I take the mascot. And I was like, I was, I can't realize that.

Like, you know, I'm living this, this life, this, this life where it's not me. And so I, I dove into therapy and I went to a therapist and i thought for all for many years

it was like i don't want to waste waste money on it meanwhile i've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on drugs and alcohol and all that kind of stuff so i was like oh i think i can afford to pitch a little bit over this way and for something and it changed you know it started to change my changed my life but it was things got heavy after that because i was unpacking 15 years of nicely placed compartmentalized boxes of trauma and things that i hadn't dealt with and i was i got both i'll just put this over here and i'll forget about that and i'll push the sexual assault over here and i'll just put the eating disorder on top of that one and they're kind of balancing and then they started to fall man they started like i started talking about them and i had no and I'll just put the eating disorder on top of that one and they're kind of balancing. And then they started to fall, man. I started talking about them and I had no distractions or substances to run to and it was heavy. But you know what? I said to myself,

I am going to do this. And with my all or nothing mentality and with my athletes mentality as well i would say too because i've been a athlete all my life and and i love the challenge of like you know being in the in in the game and i still play hockey four times a week and and i just love playing sport but i would i always wanted to play against their best player like if i was the best player no no i'm not no i'm not i'm not like'm not. I loved when I was on sports teams and stuff like that. And they'd be like, okay, Jonathan, your goal is their best player on their team is this person. I was like, okay, perfect. I want that challenge.

So that's how I looked at it. And I was like, but it was bleak and it was dark. And it was, you know, I mean, I was just thinking there were so many other times I thought I got to take the easy way out. I can't do this. And I would find a little bit of positivity like that day. I would try to focus on the positive. And like I talk about a lot, like some days will seem bleak, empty, and like there's nothing to live for or nothing positive. And then I'll look over my dog and she'll do something silly.

And that will just be my little positivity for the day. That would be all I'd have for the day, but I would try and focus on that. And I love that little dog. I like nobody's business because he got me out of the house. And I had a responsibility when I picked her up, when I got her, that I was going to provide for her and give her the best life that I could. And, you know, grow up on a farm, we learned that like our animals are reliant upon us. It doesn't matter how you feel that day. It doesn't matter if it's minus 40 degrees. It doesn't matter, whatever, you have to get up and do it. And she got me out of the

house and she helped me so many times. And she was my positivity for that day so many times. And then more and more, my positivity started to grow and I had more things to look at. And she was my positivity for that day so many times. And then more and more, my positivity started to grow. And I had more things to look at. And it was still lots of heavy lifting. And every day, as you guys know, is some heavy lifting. There are going to be good days and bad days. But it's trying to just slowly focus on the positivity. And I remember when I would feel something positive or if I was feeling completely down,

I would write to myself like, you can go to the grocery store because I started having anxiety about everything. And I would paste that on my wall. So every time I'd walk to my bathroom or my kitchen, I would see these little notes to myself. And I've never said that before on any other podcast, but I would write these things and I'd write lists of things that I, like, you got this, like, you can do this and you can beat this and this is not going to beat you. And I needed those affirmations because I wasn't telling anybody. I was very much, again, just doing it on my own, the way that I do things. But I needed to see those things. I needed to hear those things. I needed to hear them for myself.

And slowly the tide started to turn. And I remember when I was in the thick of my drugs and stuff like that. And I told my dad, I'm like, I think I'm going to move. I just need to change the scenery. And he said, look, I don't know what you're going through. I know you're going through some stuff. I don't know what it is exactly. You can tell me as much as you want.

I can't force you to tell me. But don't think that moving is going to solve your problems because your problems are going to follow you no matter where you go. So if you're moving because you think that it's going to solve your problems, forget that. So I really took that to heart. And when I moved down to Texas, I was finally in a good enough place where I was moving towards opportunity and not running away from anything anymore. I had done the work I'd done, you know, two and a half years, whatever it was of intensive therapy and personal healing and learning and educating. And then I saw an opportunity to try something new and to, you know, come down here and I was moving in a positive mindset towards an opportunity and

towards a new adventure and towards a new uh opportunity and not running from my demons because yeah like i said they follow you around so that's kind of the long and the short of it of of what i've uh yeah what i've kind of been through what brought me to where i'm at um i'm where i'm at now and it's kind of i I remember this story talking to a guy and it just it's just about you moving. I actually moved away recently. It's been almost three years now that I moved to New York from Virginia. And it was like my big change. It's kind of like when everything kind of got together for me, too. I actually started really dealing with my mental health. And I, I too had a therapist, even though she quit on me. But yeah, I always just got to say that just to make sure she watched, you know, like, ah, I didn't need you for real. But, um,

but I moved away too, but I was talking to somebody recently and he was addicted to heroin for 15 years and he moved away and was living in california he was a new yorker and he lived in california but he had to come back so he came back to new york and he said as soon as he got off the subway he wanted heroin again so he got his ass back on the train got on a plane and went back to california so sometimes it is that muscle memory you know sometimes i feel like you do kind of need to start over and move away or get out of certain situations because that muscle memory won't let you go anywhere yeah for sure you know and and it could be anything it doesn't mean you have to move away from home but it does take sometimes leaving something yeah you know i totally agree with

that i totally agree with that and i had now that i'd done the work and gotten sober but i didn't see a it was very, you know, Toronto is a very expensive city. And, you know, I felt like I was stuck in that way, like getting back into the real estate market and looking at like, you know, how much like doing well, making six figures and barely like living paycheck to paycheck. I'm like, what's going on here? Like what? So I'm, you know, that kind of, yeah, it's's it's extremely expensive and get to where we are now and like why i'm talking about this stuff now and i said before that i wanted to like talk about forgiveness and and the biggest thing that i've learned in the last year and the reason why i've

started talking about this stuff publicly is because of i finally within the last year, started to forgive myself. And I forgive myself for becoming an alcoholic and going down the path of drugs addiction and stuff like that. Because I always say I was just doing my best with what I could. I was trying. I didn't have all the tools. I didn't know all the right things to do, but I was trying my best with what I had. And I can't go back and change my path. And I wouldn't change my path because all of those things, as dark and as bleak as they were, they've made me who I am today. And I needed to go through all those things. But I've also forgiven myself for the things that have happened to me that are out of my control, like my mom passing away and the sexual assault. Because I didn't choose that. But I don't forgive the person. But I don't

know. I don't even remember the person. I did such a good job at disassociating. They could walk by me today and I wouldn't know. But those are just unfortunate facts of life that are exactly that. They're facts of life. They're part of my life and they're part of what made me. And I didn't choose that, but I forgive the fact that I went through that. And that's okay. Because again, it's maybe it's brought me to where I am now. And I don't know who I would be without all of those things.

And there are a lot of great times too, like throughout for sure. But it's it's that forgiving myself and actually like you know when when you know people tell you that or people talk about like oh yeah people told me i need to go get help and stuff like that and you're like okay whatever whatever or maybe people will go through the motions go to rehab for somebody else and it's not until you do things for yourself that it really sticks and with my quitting addictions and knowing that i was doing it sticks. And with my quitting addictions and knowing that I was doing it for myself and with my forgiveness and knowing that I had truly and

am forgiving myself, that really has helped me immensely. And to be able to talk about these things and to be able to admit to the things that I've been through and the mistakes that I've made or things that have happened and know that they don't change the person that I am today. And I'm, you know, just working hard to try and be a good person and live my life and keep learning every day. And yeah, just do my best like everybody else, just a regular Joe. Definitely. I mean, we kind of have a scene here that I'm always the best. I'm better today than I was five minutes ago. I'm better now than I was five minutes ago. It's continued to grow. I feel like rebecca we didn't let had a whole notebook of like notes and stuff but you know we already touched on every i was like rebecca didn't get to ask a question no it's okay um

no everything that i had written down was already answered okay i just wanted to make sure that your voice is heard hey my voice is heard okay is there anything like that was specifically like on podcast people like want to ask you about like specific things they're general anything like anything like that i did just talk about that you guys want to ask me about or anything that like anywhere you want to comment on or like anything i don't know just i'm i'm here and like you guys i love your your vibe and thanks the only thing that came to my mind and I wasn't really even sure if I should ask because I was afraid it might be a bit intrusive I don't know but see the whole mom passing away thing is a kind of hits home with

me as well because my mom is gone too but did you ever find yourself angry at her for passing? I mean, I know it's nothing she could do about it, but I know I find myself sometimes, even though my mom, of course, couldn't help passing either, but I go through the grieving process even still. Every day I think about her. Some days I'm like, mom, why aren't you here or mom why did you leave you know i have those moments where i'm just did you ever have those absolutely and that's nobody's ever asked me that and i think it's something that like like you said that you just experienced and like we're in this club that unfortunately where our moms have passed away and we've experienced that and it's interesting you say that because like i

said i've never had but yes absolutely i mean there were so many things like so many times where i was like you're not going to see me getting married you're not going to or i could really use your help with this or whatever it was like i i you know i felt the whole spectrum of emotions with regards to but there were absolutely times where it was like I you know I felt the whole spectrum of emotions with regards to but there were absolutely times where it was like yeah like there were there was misplaced frustration or anger or whatever you want to call it where it was like you know I and I didn't I didn't never blame the situations that I got myself into on my mom and it her passing because I I know it was a catalyst but I made my choices after that

but you're absolutely right like there were times where it was like man i could really use you right now and i could i really need you or you know you don't get i know that i i you know i believe she's watching and she you know she never got to see me follow in her footsteps and and you know model internationally and you know that kind of stuff and there's but yes that's to answer your question absolutely yes i did and it's uh yeah it's first time anybody's asking that that's the real that's really it's all yeah it's it's tough for me too when we and whenever i hear anybody on our show talk about losing a mother or any sort of grievance of any kind that's it brings it up for me too and it's it's a tough topic for me yeah yeah no for sure it is are you i appreciate

that and i'm sorry you did as well it's uh you know there's no handbook there's no guidebook and we all handle things differently right and you know we just we like i said we try our best and it's it's just an unfortunate fact of our lives that, you know, that's what's happened to us. And we could only go forward and try to. I mean, there are other options, but we're not going to take those options. We're going to just try and do our best to keep moving forward. But yeah, there is definitely that feeling for sure it's kind of these conversations that still makes me always think about god and the existence of a higher power because i'm like you had somebody create me

now i love them and i spent my whole life loving them and then you take them away for me to hope that i see them in my next lifetime or when i die and those like that is true is hell but that's a different conversation and a different podcast but no i totally i totally get what you're saying and like i've had a lot of ins and outs about that with spirituality and stuff like that but like yeah you're right it is it's hard to come to terms with these things and try to like make sense of it and you're like wait how is this? What's going on here? But we don't have it all figured out. And we're just trying to do our best as individuals to try and figure it out.

And hold on to whatever we believe or whatever. But it is definitely something that I've thought about that as well. It's about the journey and taking the journey. What do you do now for, I mean, I know you do the houses, so you're flipping houses, flipping out with personal training. We know he does hockey four days a week. You're keeping busy.

So that's the way you're handling all these emotions now. You did the therapy. So you're in a good place. I am. I'm so, I actually really, I just recently started going back to therapy probably about eight, nine months ago, something like that. Just more as like a check-in. Like when I went to therapy before it was like dire, like I need to learn how to live

as a sober functioning adult because I've never been that. Like when the, you know, from the day that I was 21 till 35, there was always something. So, but now it's more of like a check-in and just the same way that I go to the gym six days a week and play hockey four days a week and that kind of stuff. I think it's important to check in mentally and i have learned how to function and keep better tabs on my addictive personality and live a more balanced life that's what i i need to learn how to do is live as learn to balance and it's balancing work because yeah i am still modeling and i'm uh like i said flipping houses and still training clients. And I'm still, you know, physical activity is very important to me.

It's a very, I think it's important to me very mentally. And like, it's a very meditative thing to be out on the ice and just kind of be able to like check out and do that kind of stuff. But I was going to the gym six days a week. So I was playing hockey four days a week and I was running six miles a day. And I was like, oh, wait a minute. There goes Obsessive Jonathan. week and i was running six miles a day and i was like oh wait a minute there goes obsessive jonathan we gotta i think that my knees are telling me that the six miles a day we don't need to do that like that's so i'm i'm very cognizant of that and i eat healthy i enjoy

eating healthy but i also am a big believer and you have to live your life like whenever i'm talking what i i've always told my clients and i make believer i don't think there's every this thing is a cheat meal eating implies you're doing something negative you have to live your life and if you are having that cheat meal the whole time you're eating it you're thinking i shouldn't be doing this i'm cheating i'm doing bad i'm being bad like no it's like if you want a three-room pro roll-up at three o'clock in the morning that's a different story it's not though okay i'm a single now right and what's the single thing got to do with it because i've been single i haven't had any sex oh my god so they say that pro-love releases the same endorphins there's extra the box that's written on the box yeah right

really really really fine print they're really fine printed yeah i'm still trying to figure it all out right and that's why i figured out i don't want to be intimate with nobody so i need something to be intimate with and me i will tell you how bad it is though only referral i was doing a tiktok video i was making a tiktok video and it wasn't until like watching it a week later that i had like full up wrappers all around my neck but i wanted to say something before we go because so um you you were saying that toronto was expensive right but but in my mind or for some reason i heard trauma is expensive oh well, well, that's for sure. And that should be a church t-shirt. Right.

And I was like, that's kind of like the basis of this is basically, you know, you know, it's kind of like you said, here you are, you know, modeling, but yet you live at paycheck to paycheck. But it was dealing with your trauma that you were kind of like, you know, kind of being wasteful. I'm going to say wasteful, but, you know, it's still being wasteful. So it's like, I think that's kind of like a big takeaway from this episode trauma is expensive and until you start dealing with your trauma you always gonna be broke it's very true in a lot of ways

yeah broken physically emotionally mentally spiritually financially and it's you know it's the toronto accent people from toronto we don't say tor, we say Toronto. We don't pronounce the second T. So I kind of sound like trauma, but Toronto, like Toronto, if you're like, if you're from Toronto, that's the way you say Toronto. But you're absolutely right. I mean, it is extremely and it's, you know, that becomes your priority because that's your only outlet to help with the demons that are inside of you and and and you're you're dealing with mentally and stuff like that is is to find that money and i i always had money for for that i mean i skipped

a few meals i'm sure but i always had money for my vices because you know your priorities and where your priorities stand and stuff like that but yeah trauma is expensive let's let's collab out of the t-shirts yes i'm with you because even though you didn't make it i made it but i misheard you so i guess i cut you in three crystal you got me crystal crystal's witness crystal's witness look crystal was just good out of everything you said all she heard was that you weren't married and she was like yes no i one day i hope to be but i that's the thing too is like I've gone through so many people like, oh, why aren't you married?

It's like, well, I've gone through so many phases of my life and gone through so many things where like I dated people and been through different relationships when I was at different places. And sometimes I just needed somebody to get high with. Sometimes I needed to be on my own or whatever. And I think I'm a big believer

and you'd have to learn to become the best version of yourself or work on being the best version of yourself, you know, I think it's, I'm a big believer and you'd have to be, have to learn to become the best version of yourself or work on being the best version of yourself and you'll attract that kind of a person. And, you know, I'm just trying to do my thing

and I just didn't know that she was sitting behind the camera in, I'll say, New York. So. And we don't have no problem coming to Texas, but we got to go together

because we don't know you. Oh. Of course. It's non-negotiable. You guys are all coming out. And that's just an excuse because I think you're a great guy and i've never even met you um he is like the main one that says you can't judge a book by its cover yeah okay true story but no i you know what's kind of funny because we were 20 years ago you were a person that i

probably would have hated because i would have hit myself no because you know what i grew up right no but me to me it was the fact that i always grew up and i was a feminine boy and always known as pretty and i didn't play sports and i was masculine enough so no one invited me to play sports and you know i kind of went through those things and then as i got older i found out that i was really sick and sickly and even now like i have a hypothalamus issue so my body overheats so even now like my doctor's like you're probably like the first person i've ever had to tell do not work out really so to me for years i both wanted to be a regular guy and it wasn't until my healing stays that i'm like i'm dope as shit you know, it took a long time to get there.

Yeah. So I guess in my own way, I kind of went through a whole phase. I think we all do. We all go through those phases. I wanted to ask, was there anything that you wanted to say to our audience that we didn't let you say? No, not really. I mean, I really appreciate you guys having me on. And I'm really thankful to be able to be a part of what you guys are doing

and what you're you're doing you're doing so well with and just want to like congratulate you guys on on that and you know very genuinely say thank you for letting me be a part of it and you know i love um meeting new people like yourselves and connecting and having these conversations and and you know back to the stuff we talked about regards our mom you know that was really like something i'm gonna i'll take away a lot from this conversation but that was something that i hadn't really thought of or or you know brought up in a long time and i appreciate that uh for you for doing that because it is something that i'd forgotten that i had felt and i'm glad that i've been reminded of that you know i'm very glad that i've uh you know been able to and i i love the way you guys are doing your

show and it's you know life's too short to not have fun and i think that like when we're talking about serious stuff and we're talking about serious issues and stuff like that like we can still you know find that that you know let's have some fun with it. And let's keep it light and have some fun too. So I really do appreciate that part of it. Because a lot of the podcasts I do are very serious. Very, very much. But yeah, I appreciate you guys. And I want to connect with as many people as possible.

I love hearing from people. I love learning from people. I love learning from people. Opening up like this has given me the opportunity to... First of all, I don't think I have it all figured out. Like I said before, with regards to drinking, I'm still trying to figure it out. Use my story as if you're going through something, maybe there's something you can take from it, some tools that I've learned, or use it as a do not do this like stay away from that path let me save you 15 20 years of like don't do that but i've it's been wonderful connecting with people and learning from them and connecting on social media and people reaching out and

messaging and learning and just for the the genuine sake of wanting to help your fellow human it's it's a wonderful thing, you know, like to. Now in season three, one of the big things for us is that we're focusing on love, self-love, love for self. So we did want to get your take on that and just give our audience something on some love. I think it all starts with self-love. And, you know, like, I think there's a big difference

between loving yourself and being in love with yourself. And I think that's a big thing that's happening with regards to social media and the narcissism and the, you know, the putting out the picture of perfection that's going on. And everybody, you know, getting the external validation and stuff like that, and being in love with themselves. But I think it's a very important thing to love yourself and to forgive yourself when you make mistakes, but love yourself, take care of yourself, whatever that looks like for you, but don't fall in love with yourself because that's a very dark, that's a whole different way to go with it. And there's a line of self-love and in love with self. And I think that what you guys are talking about,

self-love, is important to like... Yeah, no, that was actually pretty dope. You did... I like your answers. He's over there swooning. And I go, and you're like, ah. I just, I see how you're going to be followed by her in five minutes, okay?

I'm going and checking your followers right now. You followed me last night. It was an important thing because I put out my social media version of what I wanted into the world. And that's fine because I'm a very private person. But I it it was important thing because i i put out my social media version of what i wanted to into the world and that's fine because i'm a very private person but i felt it was important for me to let down that veil and i'm not pretending that everything's protect perfect and i wasn't trying to before i just didn't think that people had access to and people still don't have access to certain things i'm i'm very proud with some other things but

that whole idea of you know just the real like what people are actually going through and not everything that glitters isn't necessarily gold and you know just being real and and loving yourself and again not being in love with yourself and not looking for external validation get your validation from the person you see in the mirror and the people that are around you the people who are your ride or dies and not like you know random people are hitting the like button that's that's cool and all but when it comes down to it if you get sick you know who's going to be there for you who's going to be there with you who are you like who are your people so right yeah we kind of say the same thing i mean we started this podcast we're like i don't care

if just one person watches you know as long as you can just help one person. But it's kind of like you said, it starts with the self-love, making sure that you have a safe place and that if you need help, you seek it. And most likely you need help with something. So go seek it. Yeah. Because remember, drama is expensive. Drama is expensive. Copyright. Trademark. Oh, I'm happy. Thank you for being on here. It was great chatting with you and great hearing your story.

And I'm glad you're doing a lot better. And I'm sure someone out there will have benefited from your story. Yeah, definitely. And we'll stay in contact and keep track of you because we're healing as well. So you know what? We're getting through this thing together. Once again, thank you so much, Jonathan. Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much.

I appreciate you. And with that, we're wrapping up another episode of the Fucking Feelings Podcast. Thank you all for tuning in and engaging in another intense and real discussion on understanding and navigating through our feelings. Don't forget, we're here each Wednesday bringing you brand new episodes filled with stories, advice, and perspectives to help you handle those fucking feelings. So set a reminder on your calendar, grab your headphones, and join us every week.

And if you're interested in exploring more ways to deal with life's stresses, make certain to tune in to our sister podcast. Trauma is expensive. Dive deep into discussions on managing trauma, building resilience, and fostering healing with new episodes dropping every Monday. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and comment on both podcasts on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, each comment and rating can catapult us further towards reaching those individuals who could really use our discussions. Your feedback is invaluable.

Before we close, we want to remind you that discussing feelings is never a sign of weakness, but a display of courage. Stay brave, stay strong, and keep feeling those fucking feelings. Until next week, take care and keep the conversation going.