All Sides of Adversity

In this episode I explore trauma and other extreme stories of adversity as a way of offering a new perspective that I hope can change how we see ourselves, others and world. 

We’re all just a Dad or few dumb decisions away from being an addict on the street. 

Compassion comes from looking at others without judgement.

Instead of condemning others for their poor choices or different ways of living consider that their life took a different turn than yours, and realize that you're just a drunken night and a dumb move from the same... or worse. 

That’s compassion. 

We are all the same. 

Compassion leads to connection.

Connections leads to community.

I am you and you are me. 

Imagine if you made one different decision how different your life could be. 

We are all in this together, on this spinning rock in space hurling through infinity. 

This conversation is graphic and difficult to stomach, at times, but I believe it needs to be had so we can work together to overcome our past and create a future beyond our wildest dreams.
 
We need each other. 

Season 2 - Episode 3 is live!

Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

Transcript

Unknown: 0:04

Welcome to the action hour. My name is Jesse Simpson. And I believe there's never been a better time in the history of the world to be alive. I'm on a mission to bring you the insights, ideas and inspiration, you need to uncover your greatness and take action on your dreams. If you want to start a business, write a book, take a big trip, or level up to a higher state of living in the world, mentally, physically, spiritually, or financially, the stories found in the show will provide the action steps and energy you need to succeed. No matter what you are going through where you've been. You can at any time, break that cycle and transform your life, this show is going to show you how to do it. If you've got the itch to act, now is the time allow the inspiring stories within this show, to serve as your guide. This is the action hour, buckle up and enjoy the ride. Welcome back to the action hour, I hope no matter where you are in the world, you have an amazing day. And I feel grateful to be a part of that in some way. And so whether you're driving to work, or you're working out, or you're going for a walk with your dog, whatever the hell you might be doing. Thank you for tuning in. I seriously appreciate that and I Yeah, thank you. So on this episode, I first want to offer a trigger warning, because I'm gonna be talking about some pretty serious shit in this episode. Trauma, things that I've seen as a firefighter, or as a marine. People that I've met on the streets, people that I've worked with, now with some of the things we'll be talking about these tools that can release trauma, things that have happened to them, which is traumatic, sometimes in and of itself. But I want to paint a picture here that this is going to be about trauma. And I'm gonna talk about some really serious shit. But my my goal, my intention with this episode is to shed light on some of these things and these different perspectives. So whether you are someone who has experienced trauma, or you're a first responder who is seeing the effects of trauma, or maybe you are, you are fortunate enough to not have anybody who's experienced any sort of trauma in your life in your life, so you don't really understand it, maybe you just know what they say on TV or like what you read about, it doesn't matter. I've had all those perspectives, and I have a different understanding of what these things mean. And I think it's important to share, because this is an important conversation to have. And it's very much so relevant to the action hour, because if we want to enjoy our life, we have to be aware of what's going on around us. And what I'm going to say is that right now, there is a lot of people who are traumatized out there in different ways that have never been traumatized, then you wouldn't understand, and that's okay. But we shouldn't be punishing these people or judging them, or saying, hey, fucking just buckle your bootstraps on and get to work, or just keep going, like, whatever, these things are not possible for some of these people, they're actually not possible. So I want to talk about this idea of compassion. Because as it relates to the action, our we are taking conscious action, we're aware of our surroundings, and creating our life. And in order to do that, again, we have to be aware of our surroundings. In a way that is understanding and it's accepting, and we show compassion to people on their journey, no matter where they are, because we don't fucking know what they had to go through. And that is a reality. Maybe you think you had a heart, and maybe you actually did. But that's not the point. We're not trying to fucking figure out who had it the worst, we're trying to work together. So by showing compassion, you can have a greater sense of connection, a greater sense of connection with that person, In yourself, because you'll understand yourself a bit more, and realize that you are only like a couple of things, like a few decisions, or a bad turn, or when you know, you Zig when you shouldn't zagged or you fucking you know, you're very fortunate, we are very fortunate to have what we have. But if we're always blaming other people, we're disconnecting from ourselves, we're pointing fingers or judging people for something they've experienced. Then, you know, we're not going to be able to take conscious action, we're not going to move forward and really create our life because we're always would be punishing ourselves and the people around us for where they are on their journey. And this connection we create through this compassion leads to community. And right now what we all need as the Coronavirus, and these sort of things have stripped us of our community right now what we need more than ever is community because we can get around and help each other and we're in community and we're aware of what's going on in the people around us, and these different things that are they're experiencing, and we show them compassion, then you're going to be successful. Like if you can do that you're going to be successful. So whether you're working with trauma, you have trauma, you see trauma, you never have this episode in a ways for you if you want to understand it from a different perspective, because again, I've experienced all these things, and they're all important to understand. They're all subjective. But right now, so many people are frozen. And they can't actually take action to create their life and do whatever it is that you might be trying to do, because they're stuck, they're frozen. So I want to start off by talking about some people that I've come across through my work with 22 zero, which is a nonprofits that I'm on the board of directors of, I'm very fortunate to say that, and we're working on some really cool things. Dan Jarvis, a founder who I've interviewed in season one, which you have to check it out, he's a fucking badass dude, and he has an incredible story, and what he's doing with 22, zero is fucking legendary, legendary, it's life changing for people. And I'm gonna talk a bit about that more. But I've been working with these people one on one with trauma, right and back up a little bit in my life, when I was a firefighter, I wasn't working with these people who have these like psychological these dysfunctions, these these glitches that are happening. And so through a lot of my life, I'm going through these challenging experiences, and I've plowed through them and you know, I survive kind of thing. So I'm in a lot of times judging. These people that I meet in the fire department, as in customers, people call 911. And most people don't know this, but the vast majority of 911 calls are mental health in nature, ranging from drunks and addicts in the streets, to suicides and overdoses in people's homes. You know, we do go out and we do help people, we do go on heart attacks and strokes, and there are times we bring those people back. And of course, there are times where we're on fires, although it's like 3% of calls, like very rare, honestly, it's like a huge breakthrough if you get a fire. But also like traumatic calls like car accidents, and these sort of things. Where you see dead bodies, or mangled bodies or decapitations or limbs missing, you know, these sorts of things, and, you know, you see these things, but you don't always think about how they're affecting other people, you know, you're kind of dealing your own with your own shit. Maybe you talk to somebody about it, and maybe that's how you deal with it, whatever. Right. But the vast majority of these calls are mental health in nature. And what is so prevalent in the first responder community is substance abuse, you know, so they're going on a call, where they see a mangled body, and that triggers this sort of, they probably can't even put words to it, but this feeling that they are they, they, they felt like they should have saved that person. Or they should have, you know, they felt helpless in that situation. And that can be traumatic to people. That's literally what we're talking about here. And it's important to recognize that I was going on that, and I wasn't being considerate to how the sort of experience was affecting other people. Because I was like a hard motherfucker. I was a firefighter of the year and I was just like, suck it up. But then my best friend from the Marines died of a heroin overdose. And I was a firefighter, you know, going on these heroin overdoses. I've seen suicides before, I've seen people hanging from the rafters I've seen a man who put a bullet in his head, his brains were saying hanging off the side of his head, but he was still breathing. He was not there lights off. No one home. Maybe it's was, the lights were on that his eyes were open. But he was not home. And he was breathing these agonal respirations you know, and what's, um, like, you know, what the fuck ever and that might be traumatic to you. Maybe Maybe you want to be I don't know, but his sister found him. Imagine that. And that's, that's not the only you know, like, imagine how traumatizing that would have been for her. And then when she goes out and gets addicted to painkillers, because she has this immense hole, or this, you know, panic about seeing her brother, breathing agonaly, struggling for breath, eventually dying, with his brains hanging off the side of his fucking head, you know, we're gonna judge her for that. And we're missing the point. There's an opportunity here to really heal yourself. When we treat other people with love and respect, and this sort of sense of compassion. So now that I am working with these people who have been traumatized, not going on them, you know, after the they were addicted to some sort of substance Or actually, after the trauma happens as a firefighter, I'm working with them, and these sort of different ways where I'm allowing it, we have a process basically, and it's what we do with point zero, that literally fucking eliminates trauma. Because I'm gonna tell a couple stories here now, and I want you to feel, imagine the weight of the story, as if you were living it in imagine then being stuck in that story over and over again, with intrusive thoughts or nightmares, or the sort of Terrors that you can't control. So leading into that leading into that, I want you to think about trauma as a glitch, like we're given this hardware, this computer, this body, our subconscious mind, to process to store to run our bodily functions, so we can survive. It's this program here you go like a Mac versus you know, a Mac versus a Windows I don't know who would have windows to be honest. But I love macs and shots, Steve Jobs, but whatever it is, like it's okay, if it works for you, it works for you, or this is what you got, and this is what you got. But trauma as we look back on ourselves in this sort of hardware that we have, gets stored in the body, like a computer program. And it's like a glitch, where our emotion, terror, hopelessness, you know, fear, these sort of traumatic experiences, these emotions, we feel that we can't really put words to this fight or flight response is triggered. And the glitch happens when that that emotion attaches to the memory of that experience. And then that glitch, as if there are two things stuck together get stuck in what's called the amygdala, which is where the fight or flight response comes. That's what you want to have, when you're running into a fire or you're going up to a medical call, you don't be resting in fucking digesting, you need to turn it on, you know, you if you're in combat, or you're in this life or death situations, you want to have the fucking fight or flight. But the problem is, these people can't get out of that. And this process, we have evil, it fixes that glitch, it literally fixes that glitch. And I can do it like in a single session, max three, no matter how complex trauma is, you don't have to tell me about what happened. You don't have to go into any detail, you just have to know what happened. Think about and walk through this, this guided process visualization process that will literally remove that glitch, you'll fix the glitch, remove the emotion from the memory. But think about this, I met two. I want to tell two stories right now. The first one is one that Dan passed on to me. So it's secondhand information. But imagine living your life like this. The story is we worked a lot of veterans, the first responders and Dan does a great job going across the country and training and, and going to conferences and speaking and he's getting more as we're growing. So it's really, really amazing. So important right now. But what I am trying to communicate is that he met this lady in Utah, and she was married to a firefighter, and this firefighter was always just kind of like down on himself always beat himself up. Then eventually, I think he had some sort of substance abuse problem, whether it's drinking or whatever. And he was just always hard himself the trauma from the job. Like who knows childhood stuff? I don't know all the details to that. But whatever. Honestly, that's not okay ever to project that deep seated sadness on other people and blame them. But that's exactly what this lady got. Because he was always feeling sorry for himself, blaming her blah, blah, blah, you did this to me. And then he would eventually say something along the lines of like, I'm gonna kill myself. I'm just gonna fucking kill myself. I'm no good. Like you say things like that, right? And eventually, I don't know what happened, how long it lasted, whatever. She's like, fine, just go and do it. Probably sick of all the fucking taught times. He said he's gonna do something he didn't follow through. She's like, go, fucking do it. And I'll probably say the same thing at some point. So I can relate to this too. But actually, don't think I would say that. I wouldn't be in a relationship with someone who would I would have to get to. But so I there's obviously some going on here. But either way he went did it. He went hung himself. And she went and found him. And he's like, you know, going under and I've seen people hanging, you know, and it's, it's very eerie. And I've never seen people like still alive. That's not true. I would say seem to live while still hanging but I realize I have. But either way, someone you love, right there flailing, you know, or whatever the fuck you do when you're hanging. And she's trying to lift him up off the rope, but she can't she's not strong enough. Or he's got to get the rope off. So now she feels responsible for this man's death his her partner, her husband. And not only that, but she was super close to saving him like, if anybody if it was going to be anybody, it was going to be her. Imagine that. I mean, please don't fucking to go too far into imagine that because that's fucking intense. But if you've never experienced this sort of stuff, but, you know, if you never experience the sort of stuff, just understand that understand that feeling, and then reliving that in your nightmares and you can't sleep, and always being on alert or feeling this extreme guilt. Another lady I recently met who isn't quite ready to let go of these things, we get it, we get it in a way addicted, not addicted, It's not the right word. It sounds like it's like on purpose, but we get sort of like set into our computer program ways. And this poor lady that I met, she's a she's a mom of two young boys. And she reached out to me after reading one of my posts, or somehow on social media, and she talked about how she's opened up. And she said, you know, about six years ago, the man I was dating the father of my eldest boy died of a heroin overdose. And at the time, she was going to medical school, and she was going to become a nurse. And she couldn't are in so she was there, she has like this sort of medical background, and she comes home and sees her baby's dad dying of a heroin overdose. Well, she knows that he's dying, but she doesn't know he's taking heroin. And you can't fucking do CPR know how good you are at CPR, which is it's a little bit like we cracked some ribs like it takes a little bit of practice, fine tuning. You know, you you she knows CPR, let's say and maybe mouth to mouth and she's trying to breathe form and all this sort of stuff. If you've done heroin, not gonna fucking happen. Not gonna happen. But she didn't know he done heroin. She just knows he's dying. He's dying. So she's trying to save him. He died. And now she is living with that feeling. Like she should have been allowed to do them. And worse on top of that, his parents or family are like blaming her. And I don't know what all happened with that, obviously there maybe there's more to it. But still, it's like that's fucked up. And now imagine as a mom of two, single mom of two, you've just witnessed that your partner, baby's dad die. Now his family's putting all that on you. She said she's what she calls a runner. What therapist call a runner because this is so painful for her. This memory is so fucking painful for her that she runs out. She can't dare she she can't sit down and talk about it. Which is something else I want to talk about that talk therapy is completely obsolete at this point. Some things can't be rationalized, some things are so fucking dramatic. That you your your brain is like abort, abort, fucking glitch. Hello. And we have now a process that fixes that glitch. So I just want to paint that picture. These things are serious, but they don't have to be death sentences. So as I always like to share in these sort of episodes is like If that's you, if you're experiencing that goddamn, I feel for you. Or if you know someone is like give them some love some some compassion, understand that this is something they can't help. This is something they actually can't help. But if they come to 22, zero, or if they messaged me directly, I can fix this process or walk them through this process. They will fix this glitch, they can have their life back. I work with a man. Tony, we met on social media and you know, for the first, for his his entire upbringing. His dad died when he was young. His mom remarried. Obviously, that was probably very traumatic for her. So she married somebody out of desperation. Maybe she wasn't that well off. Who knows the story on that either way, he was violent. He beat Tony's mom, and stepdad did. He would drink and beat Tony. And that was how he grew up. And so eventually, I believe he ran away, and he joined these gangs. And, you know, he joined these gangs and would beat people up himself and do all these things. He was continuing on the cycle. He was continuing on the cycle. But eventually, you know, he was a gang I think for like six years for my dad and then finally like his gang banger friends or he got sick of it or whatever. He told me he's here now and he they jumped him in almost killed him. The cycles are going on or life's and he was still trying to move on because he found a gift and his newborn son to want to change his life for the better. But he still fucking triggered because of the violence he's experienced in his life. So we were able to clear those things for him for him. Very, very simple process and I Tony, if you listen to this man, I love you, brother. I really acknowledge the man you becoming and I hope all as well, I really do. Now I feel like I've told a lot of trauma stories. I hope your hope you're getting the picture on what this can be whether you're again a first responder, you have no idea what traumas like or somewhere in the middle. And I also want to talk into the fact that what happens to us the first seven years of our life especially, are deeply planted into our subconscious and they they become our they become who we are, right, we become our traumas, especially often, that's what I meant when I said earlier addicted, but especially they're the first seven years of life when we determine when we're determining if the world is safe, or dangerous place to be. If something happens as traumatic and this can be something that's like violent, or loss or emotion, emotional trauma, people abandoning you people not being fair either. Someone's there, maybe you have all the food you need, but they're just fucking so caught up in their own shit. And there was one girl out I met that I always think about, and I just wonder how she's doing. I hope she's doing okay right now. But as a firefighter at the gas station, just waiting for one of my partners to grab a drink. And this girl walked in, and this lady, probably like a young, middle 20s, maybe a little bit older, she was dirty. And she had like, as in like physics, like kind of like dirt all over her. Not in a judgmental way. She was just like, actually dirty closures pretty ragged, but she had this sweet little girl with her, maybe like four years old, and she was filthy. Her hair was a mess. And she had no shoes on. And I was like, What the fuck. And then I just heard the mom talking to this four year old girl. And she was just like, berating her, like, you're so fucking stupid. I wish I would have never had you. Bla bla bla bla bla. And I'm just like, feeling disgusted. As I look at her. And, you know, I'm, I don't really have a whole lot of regret, necessarily, I don't know what I could have done better in that situation, I feel like going up to her would have said something. I just realized what I should have done. I should have went up and gave that lady compassion. That lady who was being so mean to her young daughter, if I give her compassion, and understand that that is exactly how she grew up, then I'm changed. And I actually just realized that because what I was trying to get at with this story is that that poor girl is going to be traumatized. She's going to think so poorly of herself her whole life. And I mean, fucking don't quote me, I don't have this specific science right now. But very good chance, she's going to be that addict on the street, or that drunk, or she's going to end up in an abusive relationship, or she'll be in a dangerous situation, and bad things will happen to her. And this cycle continues. And if I could have given that, that that person love that woman, who will probably the mom of this young girl who was probably treated the same way, as a kid, the grown up if I could give that grownup version of her some compassion, some love, not gonna fucking hang out with her, that's for sure. But maybe you could have done a little bit of something. Otherwise, I imagine it would have been like a defensive fight, you know. And like, I don't know, I don't know if I should have said something or not. But I'm learning and I'm trying to be an imperfect human just trying to learn as I go. If you have any ideas on what to do in that situation, I would actually love to hear that. But the the point of all this is, while while this is going on, my best friend, like I said, died of a heroin overdose. I was going on these people who were committing suicide, and I've known now people that have committed suicide, I've contemplated myself. You know, I started to wake up a little bit to like these, some things just you can't always just fucking unfuck yourself. As much as I said that to people. And I felt you know, I honestly felt that. But then as I started to experience my own sort of trauma, and these things that I was running from those things happen when I was a kid, those cycles that were going on, and I was one of which was judging people thinking I was better as a way of not addressing my own shit, which is what judgment is, it's an excuse to not look at yourself in the mirror. I then started to break down and people around me were committing suicide in I've seen suicides and I'm starting to relate with these people or experienced what they were feeling like, you know, you wake up one day and your husband's fine The next thing you know, he's literally dying right in front of you and your two kids. Imagine how traumatic that would be and I was like, Damn, I felt that and then the, the little boy, his little boy, not knowing what happened. He was sleeping when it all happened. We were there and tried to bring this guy back and you know, he did not come back here. He's dead, and she is with a four year old and a two year old boy, boys. And his four year old, we took him out to see the fire truck, and he was, you know, just so excited. And he talked about his dad and how he pointed to his dad's truck and how they always go to school and his dad's truck, and he just loves it every day and seemed like a good man, you know, young like 32. And he was just this little boy was talking about how he couldn't wait to tell his dad that he rode in the fire truck, and that he wanted his dad to be there, he wished his dad could be there, that boy will never have an opportunity to see his father again. And so this loss of people experience really started to make wake me up. And then here I am having suicidal thoughts, the firefighter of the year smoking weed at work going on heroin overdoses, and I'm realizing that I'm not so fucking different from these people. And I don't think anybody is. And I think that allows us to have a bit more compassion, it's a bit more, it's a different perspective to look at these things, whether again, you're experiencing these things, often, or you're meeting these people often, or you meet someone today. And you know, you just offered to give a little bit of love a little bit compassion for the journey they're on. Because some of these people is fucking traumatic, the sense of loss. And I also want to, that's depressing, it's really sad, you know, it is sad, but it should be. But I also, with this episode, want to paint a picture. I've talked a lot about trauma, and what it can mean and probably give you a feeling a sense of feeling what that would be like this sense of loss. In our mind, I want to remind you, not as a way of scaring you, but as an incentive to be compassionate to yourself, the people around you, whether you know them or not, whether it is trauma related or not the journey that they're on, because one thing that I've noticed is that you are always doing something that someone was doing when they died. Now that's really heavy. And you can feel the weight of that. But you could also use that fuel to wake you up a bit, to realize that your time here is limited. And that whether you're going to go for some big dream, and write a book, or take a big trip, or you just want to show up as a better better firefighter, or father or boss, whatever it is, that is so it is so important to realize that you could be taken or the people around you could be taken at any time. And that is one of the things that I have realized with this, with my experiences now. And with myself, like you never know. So live fully where you are, and be grateful for what you've got. Because it's not guaranteed. And it'll be traumatic if it happens. So show love to the people around you, because once you give that, if it's ever your time, or someone you loves time, then they will receive that as well. You will receive that when you need it. And allow this episode this to serve you as a reminder to wake up to be compassionate, and understand some of these things that people are going through. And there's a lot of this happening, you wouldn't believe I mean, it's all over the news. There's so many suicides, with so many people addicted in some different way. And if you're addicted to something, it could easily be something else. So if you're addicted to something that you can justify with food or exercise or like whatever, fucking whatever feeling sorry for yourself, then you can understand that you're only a few steps away from these different lives. There was a time before I was actually smoking weed at work as a firefighter that I was on my way home after a really rough night at the fire station and what we got up five or six times, probably went on some stupid ass calls. Because although there's the trauma ones, there's those ones that are just like some buddy just can't shut the frickin hose off in their bathroom or something stupid. You wouldn't believe how many people don't know how to change a battery out of a smoke detector. That is a very common call. Oh, hey, it's chirpin dude, fucking switch the battery out. And I'm obviously judging this dude, but it's a little a little bit less that everyone needs to know how to switch out the fucking battery of a smoke detector. But one night after a rough night or one morning after a rough night, I was going home and I was like No, all I could think about was going home smoking weed and going to bed. And I realized that like how easy it is for veterans and first responders and these people have experienced these things. Or even night shift or, you know, whether you're seeing trauma or experiencing it or whatever, how easy how valuable sleep is one, and how these substances are often used to help cope with the stress of the job, or the trauma that we experienced yet last week, last month, or as a child, we just don't know what someone's going through. And we can't control those other people, but we can lead by example. And we can show compassion to the people around us to homeless people, you know, to the people in the street, the people we meet, whatever, wherever that might be, because it shows other people just in that, how they could approach their way of being in the world and how they treat other people. When you show someone love and respect, then you show other people a new way, because it's so foreign at this point. You know, the media is so good at dividing us. separating us making us feel like the problem is always outside of ourselves and other person, the Republicans, the Democrats, makes me want to fucking vomit. It's all a part of the fucking scheme to control people's minds. You know, but we have a way of, we can only control what we what we do. So give compassion. If you're experiencing trauma. Reach out to me, reach out to somebody on the 22 zero team. It's a free service for veteran and first responders. And it's unlike anything, you don't have to be a runner, we're not going to fucking trigger your ass. You know, we're just gonna talk therapy, so it's so outdated. You don't need to talk about something for 30 years, I can sit down with you for 90 minutes less probably, and 30 minutes and clear this stuff out. And if you don't know what what I'm talking about with trauma, that's not you, be grateful for them because you don't know live your life a different way. Because you don't know how quickly things can change. Everyone always thinks it can wouldn't happen to them. Alright, so keep your eyes up, keep your heart open, lead with compassion. Create that connection and build a community of people around you who live this way. Because that's what we need right now in the world. So that's all I got for you today. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode about trauma. I hope you got something value something valuable out of this. I would love to know what that might be. Send me a message Action_Jesse on Instagram. Check out my website action-oriented.com if you want to learn more about the clearings that I offer, we just set up a call go through it. Check out 22zero.org 220 spelled out zero.org for 22zero regression and first responder and if you're not going to call me have an amazing day. Be this loving, compassionate, keep your heart open and realize each other. See you on the next episode.