Episode 036 with Mika Woodruff - Sharpening Your Emotional Toolkit Through Writing, Grit, Gratitude and Resilience

[00:00:06] Intro: Hello and welcome to the junkyard boy hello welcome to the Junkyard Love podcast today's recommendations before we get kicking off is two podcasts that you can check out on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever else you find your podcasts that's gonna be the Align podcast lign align and stuff you should know these are completely different but they're both wonderful they both teach you wonderful things about the world around you your brain and your body today we've got Mika this episode was recorded somewhere around a month ago maybe a month and a half ago at the most premiering now for the first time but it's quite wonderful excited to get into it so let's get going take care of yourself check on your posture and breathe from your diaphragm let's go well we're recording hello Mika Hi how are you today

[00:00:06] Mika: I'm good how are you I'm hanging in there I am a what we'll just Start with how I started with you're like how are you and I was like honestly I'm kind of having a depression day and

[00:01:36] Jacob: I think that like I already feel better just like we just talked about it like you know what I mean like just being open to where it's like and you probably understand that I can be open about this like I'm not maybe my own 100% today but I'm still here you know it's a you can't go in too many jobs or like things where

[00:01:57] Mika: You can be like hey boss or hey

[00:02:00] Jacob: Customer welcome to Starbucks I'm really **** depressed today so if you just go rate wasy on me you know yeah if you could just really be nice today of all days also a we scoot in give me like a fist distance and you talk to the front of it right here like this distance yeah that's totally good and you can also that's the things all you so you can manhandle it and just move it around if you need to it is from Amazon so it's a little on the cheap side be a little delicate but it doesn't

[00:02:32] Mika: Matter um

[00:02:34] Jacob: Mika

[00:02:36] Mika: Shears first of all sure you want to talk about a little bit of your background a little bit of because I forgot what did we originally when we are first messaging back and forth what was our first like hey we should get together and talk about this I feel like it's branched out to so many like we just like talking about emotions in our minds and in all these things anyway but camera szekely what it was at the beginning do you I can't remember and I don't really feel like I'm a person who has like ADHD but when we're talking I feel like it's kind of just done that and it's just spiraled out and to like so many different topics that I don't like we can cover so much right I'm like

[00:03:21] Jacob: Here take my ADHD thoughts and now you think like me yeah I can't remember I

[00:03:29] Mika: Know we were originally talking about an Interest in exploring more about like my writing or like I guess like the therapeutic practice of it we talked about Journaling and gratitude but then from there we kind of just talked about um mental health which

[00:03:49] Jacob: It kind of spurs that direction a lot

[00:03:52] Mika: With me right

[00:03:56] Jacob: Yeah I'm open to any

[00:04:00] Mika: Content you want to talk about today

[00:04:02] Jacob: Okay I want to talk about mental health

[00:04:04] Mika: For sure but let's talk about riding first so riding is a thing we talked about just I mean just the act of like journaling just getting something out we were talking about like being our own worst critic to like it like sometimes you write something and you're like okay that is like I got it like you hit Enter that's not because at some point it seems like for one when you're writing a piece like it's never really done but at some point it's kind of like

[00:04:28] Jacob: Okay I think that's less sentence right

[00:04:30] Mika: So there's that and then

[00:04:32] Jacob: We were talking about how sometimes you can put a piece out or like ride up like you do blogs and getting your writer than that whip put a piece out and then like a couple months later you're kind of like I don't know like when I think of like it do I think that's still like is that still what I like do I represent I don't know you know do you do you ever have like

[00:04:52] Mika: As you're going through like for me when I'm writing I'll be discouraged like sometimes halfway through like I'll be a **** I don't know if I think this even because it's coming out how do you get to where you can like post it but tell me about your posting how you get to where you're like this is done I finished this piece this is good enough to submit I actually think the moment of

[00:05:16] Jacob: Posting is more of an impulse maybe it's sometimes just being tired of like looking at it or I feel really overzealous about it and I'm like oh I just feel really confident about this like I don't know why I didn't turn it in sooner um I definitely relate to like getting bored of something some point through writing it I'm like I have all these ideas and then just like my mood deflates and I was like oh maybe I don't really want to keep writing about that right now and a lot of things I've

[00:05:46] Mika: Returned two months weeks years later

[00:05:49] Jacob: And ivory vamped it from there and so there might be like seven different variations of the same idea throughout the different places I've saved your posted it mm-hmm um but I guess it's like not cooperating to fit yourself so you always have that yeah writing down something for me usually if it's a really good thought idea it takes like the bulk of it and like one place and I end up sitting down and writing on that topic anywhere between like 45 minutes to like three hours sit there writing and editing on it and it'll only end up being like a page maybe a page and a half but

[00:06:31] Mika: I just have I don't know it's like someone it's like some other part of me takes over and helps me write mm-hmm some other part of me is working extra hard creatively to come up with like those really nice words for what I'm trying to describe or those really profound phrases or it's definitely like the philosophical side of me has to be turned on for a piece of writing to feel valid I need to have a couple of key

[00:07:01] Jacob: Phrases or lines in there that I'm like yes I've never heard anyone describe it that way and if this was like a tagline for a movie um that would be it like that would be what you pull from it's enough of a thought inducing but specific enough

[00:07:20] Mika: Freezing do you ever impress yourself like you write something or some philosophical standing like Jesus that's great do you ever yeah I do

[00:07:28] Jacob: Yeah that's a great feeling it's hard to like you're like I don't want to inflate that you know I don't wanna like lock onto that but this thing is good because it's you know you have those feelings like because that because I have the same thing and I'll write something in my ah man that's juicy that's fantastic you worded it great and everything and then sometimes the next day you're like you're a dumb idiot and that word sucks like so sometimes you gotta just like do when you have that little like hey that's pretty good you gotta really give that to yourself for me anyway right and sometimes a thought is really good but you cannot find the perfect word for it and those are the times that I wish that like Google was more adaptive and you could explain a sensation and be like what is the word I'm actually trying to use here that I'm maybe not aware of yet I feel like it's probably gonna have that soon do you think yeah algorithms just so good I hope so because I have

[00:08:19] Jacob: That a lot even in conversation I'm like what's the word that I'm thinking of is it's kind of uncomfortable how often people come to me and they ask for my opinion on something and then I want to

[00:08:31] Mika: Describe a person or that place or my experience with something in a very specific way that I don't want to mislead them by using like typically functional words like good or fun all right I'm gonna go it needs to be much more specific than that especially if I'm kind of criticizing something because I don't want to just knock something as that's bad or that's a moral or I want it to kind of have

[00:08:58] Jacob: Like a like a bittersweet understanding of it because not all things are just black or white and so I feel like

[00:09:06] Mika: Me putting so much pressure on having words to mean something and to be intentional when I write and when I'm talking and what I'm doing counseling with students it really wears on me mentally because I just won't don't want to put the wrong implication out on any person's

[00:09:24] Jacob: Personality or experience or

[00:09:28] Mika: I still want other people who read my

[00:09:31] Jacob: Stuff or go out and you know spend time with the person they were asking about that I've already had experiences with to build their own opinion of it right yeah III think that do you ever find that like because I get impostor syndrome I don't I think that like leans into that sometimes the imposter syndrome of like sometimes you can really know what you're talking about or like you're talking about this thing very in-depth at work or your fluently saying the words and you're like oh I give this person great advice and then sometimes you're you go to write it and it's like what you were trying to say and the whole thing that you were trying to express the whole feeling that you're trying to like tell them it's like words just don't get to it you know like do

[00:10:19] Jacob: You forget that like it so it's like man like I know what I'm trying to say but like this **** pencil you know this paper like it just doesn't seem to flow what's out of my mind you know exactly it's almost like when I learn about some like stuff in the Eastern traditions like look like reading like Buddhism and Hinduism and that sort of stuff they have words that we don't have like we don't have like the Dharma and the Dhamma and like you Vic words that mean something so much greater that like in America we just want to condense it down like no what's that mean it's like well you can't exactly just put it in one sentence and understand the whole thing and then also based off of like who you think is reading your blog post or who you think is reading the long message that you send or who like

[00:11:06] Mika: We live in such a diverse world with everybody's like diverse ways of understanding and comprehending things like sometimes I feel like you have to like alright who do I need to like well

[00:11:17] Jacob: You know it's not a mask so much but like what like wording and what kind of style of phrasing do I need to do or speak of to get to these right people I don't know if you ever had any of that like it essentially what I'm saying is like you ever have where it's like you go to say something on Facebook or you go to give someone a text but then it's completely different kind of like person or style of writing in words that you're using then your blog you that yeah I try

[00:11:44] Mika: To think about my audience especially when I'm speaking to someone in person or I'm texting them directly

[00:11:52] Jacob: Because some people can hear my humor because it's really dry it's really monotone it's very sarcastic and it's just so subtle so I'm very like particular with who I use that with to make sure that they're not being misled in some way right

[00:12:11] Mika: Because I'm also serious and it's just really hard to tell sometimes unless I give you like a smize or I laugh and

[00:12:19] Jacob: It's but usually I don't indulge in that I just kind of like I'm gonna let you work that out on your own right but you're like are you mean to me right now can you be less me you're like no I'm laughing I like what you said about us not having all of the words and I've thought a lot about how things get translated between languages but also I like playing the game like telephone when we were kids and how quickly just like a couple of words it misunderstood and how everyone's comprehension isn't the same or hearing or a level of understanding or whatever that might look like I also feel kind of disappointed that we don't have more ways to describe some of the most influential ways of expressing like care

[00:13:05] Mika: For someone like saying I care for you or I admire you or I love you or I'm in love with you like I don't feel like there's enough to really incorporate how you specifically feel about more than

[00:13:18] Jacob: That certain people because you like it's I don't know like I think there's I

[00:13:24] Mika: Have guy friends in my life that the

[00:13:29] Jacob: Cues are misread sometimes maybe on either side and I want to tell people a lot how much I care for them or admire them or love them and I don't think our society really accepts like openly doing that without it coming out very like hippie dippie like just walking around like peace love happiness or whatever and that it's a bummer that you can't just openly tell people with sincerity like oh I really I really care for you it makes him uncomfortable right it's like a look like we don't do that we're not talking about the real stuff this is WWE world we're living in we don't we don't say I love you know like it but it would be nice if there was like a new string of words or a new like I mean I think that we should make it okay in our society to say like I love you and like I feel like

[00:14:20] Jacob: My friends and I when it comes to full mobility like it just seems like something we improve on all the time being able to like sincerely like I had my friend Nate over yesterday and we had a podcast not like I mean I'm pretty sure that we hugged each other in like made eye contact looked each other in the eyes and said I love you bro like it was this sincere like I felt that you know and the amount of men that probably never felt like that you know that like you know I'm gonna feel pretty lucky you know that like I have friends who are willing to be so vulnerable with me and say like hey man thanks you know I love you I do appreciate you in my life and stuff what a saying that you had to that you had a young cat here's a situation for y'all son he had a young cat he's 17 he's got

[00:15:02] Mika: A manly ass dad he's like we don't show love in our house like we don't we don't do that how can you like what would you say to him if he's like I feel like I have like love for my friends and I want to tell them but I don't want them to call me gay I don't want them to like call me call me a **** like all

[00:15:18] Jacob: These things that all these you know shitty words in high school that are apparently so devastating for us to hear you know what advice would you give to a 17 year old who doesn't know how to communicate love because it's just kind of around a hard-ass family oh man put you on the spot I know

[00:15:38] Mika: I feel like there's a student I currently talked to that's around that age that I

[00:15:46] Jacob: My perception of his home life growing

[00:15:49] Mika: Up is like that and he is

[00:15:53] Jacob: He's been vulnerable enough to cry in front of me about the things that he's experiencing and he's one of my favorite students that I connect with just because he is so mature and he tries to hold so much back but I can see those guards coming down with me and you know it's not exactly what you asked but whenever he is like more vulnerable and

[00:16:16] Mika: He's more candid and I see his guards like not being utilized during a session with me I just really commend him and tell him how much I appreciate his honesty with me and his ability to be vulnerable in here and I know that we don't grow up in a society that traditionally values men being sensitive and sharing that with someone else and I just tell him how much I appreciate it and how validated he should feel for having those feelings and it goes over pretty well I mean you can still see that it's hard for someone to accept compliments when they're not used to having someone be so involved with them emotionally

[00:16:57] Jacob: Right but if you were to try and like take that to his friends I think he does in subtle ways I see him becoming more

[00:17:06] Mika: Agitated by things that maybe didn't bug him six months ago that are now kind of like peeping up on him and he's not vibing with his friends in the same way and when they try to like pick little fights with him or if they've been drinking and I can see it bugging him now because he's like he just doesn't see the point of it he doesn't understand why they can't just act like brothers and have those harder conversations so I guess I just if that if it's really important if it was really important to that person I would say just keep continually like

[00:17:42] Jacob: Leaning in to those

[00:17:46] Mika: Desires of wanting to express and be

[00:17:48] Jacob: More of a vulnerable person around your

[00:17:51] Mika: Friends and maybe not all of them are gonna like adhere to those kind of things and they might kind of step back or be weird about it or

[00:18:00] Jacob: Even be intentionally like rude back at you or in a joking way even which is also hurtful but I think you're gonna find that a couple of people in the front group are gonna get on board with that and maybe at first they'll respond to you in the same way when you're one-on-one right and then as soon as you get you know more people on board of like know where we're going to share with back here like even what is it I talk about all the time

[00:18:28] Mika: With my students and tell them how unhealthy it is self-deprecating humor that's a huge one in today as well deprecating humor on other people how unfortunate it is that we utilize that as a coping skill all the time I was like it's so unhealthy and eventually other people will see how good it feels to be in your presence if you're just constantly respectful right yeah I

[00:18:50] Jacob: Really like how you said the when I was thinking I was kind of visualizing like the talk with the counselor if I was a 17 year old like I feel like the moment that he wouldn't realize until you pointed it out or until you gave him this advice would be the like the moment where it's like hey if you don't realize it right now you're doing you're telling me this too right now that's amazing like you that's a think about you know three months ago man you wouldn't have even told me you would have been vulnerable in front of me I think that like getting to the point where you can talk to someone or like showing tears in front of someone like man that's actually a huge step right there and that's a step in the right direction and I think I definitely want to talk about the self-deprecating humor I feel like that's something I love memes like

[00:19:32] Mika: Memes are **** hilarious comedy has never been so instantly on our fingertips and so absolutely hilarious like the amount of things

[00:19:42] Jacob: Pretty much three times a day you can be scrolling through Instagram but like oh my god I didn't realize it but I have that same exact thought all the time and that's hilarious I'm a piece of **** like it's like this joking thing in it's it's hard because this stuff is genuinely like hilarious like even if it's like I care about other people but there will be ones that are making fun of other people that I'm like I can't help but laugh you know and it's like it's this thing that I noticed when I when I quit social media for you that's like one thing that you know it like oh like a lot of my friends I would stay in contact with them during the week because we'd send you know memes back and forth and we're just like kinda we have our own little humor we made a lien for and we would just send back kind of the same typical whatever and it's all great but I think that when it comes to mental health it's not a

[00:20:28] Mika: Really good thing to jokingly make fun

[00:20:31] Jacob: Of yourself every day or even try to find things that you can make fun of easily and other people every day and what do you think about what's your perspective on like memes in the kind of culture around like the self-deprecating memes I guess I think there's a lot of

[00:20:46] Mika: Little fine lines and I also think it's about getting comfortable with the things that you don't like about yourself and making a choice as to whether or not you actually want to change them like I have it on my water bottle and I don't remember what TED talks so I'm not sure who to give credit to it was about career choices actually but it ended up being really mental health directed and it'syou can either choose unconditional love and acceptance or change at any time in your

[00:21:17] Jacob: Life that's like your only two options only two good options you know and unconditionally love yourself and accept yourself or decide to make a change or something that you can unconditionally love and accept because the other alternative is just being miserable yeah I like that a lot the amount of work is kind of the same because you're gonna keep thinking and ruminating on it

[00:21:40] Mika: You can either be ruminating on the fact that you're like well I am trying to work on that and sometimes I lapse in judgment or sometimes I do like driving here I went out of turn for like a threeway stop and I was like I'm so stupid and I'm like out loud like verbally I still do that and I have to really think and some I

[00:22:02] Jacob: Have to add like a sometimes or you know

[00:22:04] Mika: I don't get it yet like I preach that to gets to adding yet on the end of something just because you can kind of save the thought and be like yeah well I said the thing but I'm not saying it's

[00:22:14] Jacob: Definite right I'm you know I'm not

[00:22:17] Mika: Always on my guard like I'd like to be are not always making positive growth choices but I can be like I'm working on it though I think it's not yeah I noticed that I mean just the noticing of like you didn't just let yourself feel

[00:22:30] Jacob: That like how you're an idiot for going out of your turn on that three-way stop you noticed that you were trying to like feel bad to yourself think you're trying to say like hey you know you suck or whatever in this way I think that moment of noticing always like just like putting a pin in that you know like that's all you need to do so that moment of noticing and then what you know you don't have to like hold on to it you can make okay a little mad at myself for that but that's okay I'm just I'm changing like I you know I'm working on it like maybe I'm not the best driver that's okay you know whatever yeah let yourself off the hook as much as you can morally do so I feel like that's kind of the line that I like to you know don't let yourself off the hook for bad things that you know you need to fix or correct or apologize for to feel better but little things like that um there's

[00:23:20] Mika: So much that's not illegal like I know we have all these new laws and stuff but in a very real way like Washington state laws or federal laws there's so much that's not illegal that I don't know why we incorporate so much guilt and shame

[00:23:34] Jacob: Into our life if there's not

[00:23:36] Mika: Like a philosophical or a federal law

[00:23:41] Jacob: That's telling you like that's a no-no like you're not supposed to do that you know you don't need police officers constantly like in your face for like why didn't I just do the dishes last night it really wasn't that tired or why didn't I just let that person go instead of being you know maybe feeling like selfish about going first I just think about that a lot how much we feel guilty for or shame ourselves for or make fun of ourselves and use self-deprecating humor and it's like for what does anybody really listening like most the time we're by ourselves who we trying to make laugh yeah it's unimportant if things still get done or you feel like you still have the opportunity to make an amend or you really do agree with what you said even if it didn't come out the nicest you don't have to completely back step and be like oh well I shouldn't have said that you can just be like mmm my heart was in the right place and I should have phrased it differently um

[00:24:37] Mika: I talk to kids a lot about not apologizing for things that you're not sorry for like it's not transparent and

[00:24:45] Jacob: You shouldn't do it Rachel Hollis talks about that - yeah I like I mean it

[00:24:52] Mika: Sounds kind of **** but like sorry not sorry it's just a shorter way of saying I'm not really apologetic for what I

[00:25:01] Jacob: Said because it's how I feel but either I could have setup more respectfully or I could have asked if you wanted my opinion first but if you did ask for my opinion and you weren't happy about it you know I I'm not gonna in just the way I open that door I can't like you said I got a spike it you know like it's if someone's saying like a help me then you don't get to choose the way that it's helped sometimes you know right yeah I think that we do get to the sorry not sorry thing I think we I see that too much in like the mean girl world like where they like they just love that saying right I guess I'm saying they as if I'd like you know an entire group or something but uh but just like the it's not about being rude and it's not about like just plowing over people and like being like well I'm just I'm focusing on myself and I'm being the best version myself and all that like just **** stepping on people that's not how it works but I think like yeah not always

[00:26:01] Mika: Apologizing not always

[00:26:05] Jacob: Even the you know give the little apologies I mentioned Rachel Hollis she

[00:26:10] Mika: Like if you're late apologizing or if you bump into someone saying sorry or if like these you realize the word sorry I mean that's a word that a lot of us get into saying more than we say any other word like as soon as you're in the presence of another one I probably you know what I'll ask you about this I don't this could be just something that I'm I just watched birds of prey and I just I've been talking a lot about like the masculine feminine energy that's going on in society do you feel as a woman do you feel that

[00:26:41] Jacob: You like not knowingly but like do you feel like you like apologize to men more like if you like bump into them or something like it did you feel that very much so you want to talk about that I've gone through phases especially working and serving industry when I was working at Silver Star where I felt like I

[00:27:02] Mika: Always take a backseat when I'm walking

[00:27:05] Jacob: In public places to me adjusting where

[00:27:08] Mika: I'm at if someone is like possibly going

[00:27:12] Jacob: To run into me whether it's they're not paying attention because they're on their phone or they're simply just not acknowledged like how close their bodies about to be to my body that I will move to the right or to the left or stop or you know reposition myself and for a while I was like that's really great because I'm just I'm just I'm so aware of where my body is and I'm just being respectful of other people but then I kind of got to a point especially working in a bar that I was like screw that why do I have feet moving like I have a tray full of cups or drinks or like I'm the only person that really needs to get from point A to point B right now to provide service and people are standing in like circling in pathways and walkways and so I stopped moving out of the way and I actually had people to spill their drinks on me I had drinks that I had on trays spill and I let other people be sorry for a change I'm like well maybe you should pay attention to where you're going it shouldn't have to be on me you know and

[00:28:11] Mika: I struggle with road rage a little bit and so occasionally I think the same thing in cars and I was like that I don't really want to have to deal with like damages if I decide to like be like

[00:28:21] Jacob: You don't just ram into people but you know there might come a day just

[00:28:27] Mika: Watch out you can see you on the road you just gonna rant like I'm not oh my blanket was on first let's see who happens yeah but I feel like it's a choice now that I'm aware of that especially when it comes to like moving where I'm at when I'm around people or

[00:28:42] Jacob: And I'm in a crowd if I'm taking the back seat and I'm being more submissive and I'm just choosing to be respectful and be like alright I'm just gonna make sure that I don't you know have anything spill on me today or I'm not gonna bump into anyone and then there are other days that I'm like you know it I don't understand why more people aren't making that conscientious choice it's crazy and I don't like using gender stereotypes at all but I do feel like it's usually whether it's like a height thing it seems to be more men and women it seems like women will be distracted on their phones but they will happen to like look up just in the nick of time and they'll like move and then they'll do that to me and look I'm sorry like for almost touching me right um so it's just I don't know it's just one of those little things that once now that I've noticed it and it sounds like you kind of think about it I know there are other people I've talked to about it um

[00:29:35] Mika: It's silly but it still feels

[00:29:38] Jacob: Important or like it's the principle sometimes it's not so much about like getting up in arms and like hey like you know what you should be the one to say sorry it's not so much that it's kind of like a like you

[00:29:50] Mika: Noticed that it's like hey like that everybody who wasn't a jerk kind of just kept aware up the people around them and like didn't want to bump into like oh and if I'm the one in this chicken we're

[00:30:02] Jacob: Walking towards each other situation and it's more logical for me to move I'll step out of the way you'd think that like everybody thinks like that I think you know working in a bar you probably definitely experience like oh no these people are just so folk you know drunk of course but just so focused on themselves I think that I am I I don't know I think that I've always kind of been the like I'll step out of your way as well but I think that it's probably like my upbringing my I did a lot of walking like it's walk to school in the morning walk home from school walk to work walk home from work all these things so is pretty much like a very aware of like where I'm at when someone's coming up on the sidewalk and I'm like it's just something that I've always been crazy aware of like where I'm walking and not being other people's way in these things but you realize that not everybody thinks like that and there's people who are just walking completely thinking about themselves the entire time it's

[00:30:59] Jacob: Not supposed to be maybe a selfish thing but they're like they're blowing past other people you know it's a so some guys are living their life as if they're the monster-truck and in women and in small people are just kind of like the **** little cars and in the field you know um yeah that's interesting I think noticing

[00:31:16] Mika: It though I think like just not a lot of us can take down our importance or our sense of our sense of importance in public situations like when our chest is so out and our tough guy is so on that it's like if you

[00:31:33] Jacob: Bump into me I'm gonna give you a look to make sure you're not a guy trying to bump up against me in that way because I'll **** you up you know it's okay you're being so tough but your ended up like you're taking out people who are not trying to intimidate you people are just trying to live their life you know I just think it's huge to be watching out or where you're going you know like don't over obsess about it think about yourself but like watch out for people you know yeah and I think some of it is made worse by cell phones I feel like it probably wasn't that way 25 years ago um you know manners have changed around

[00:32:07] Mika: What's decent to do around other people

[00:32:13] Jacob: And how much your attention should be

[00:32:15] Mika: Focused on them or looking up or where

[00:32:18] Jacob: You should be walking mm-hmm as a female I pay attention when I'm on dates if you have the opportunity to walk on a sidewalk next to your date if the guy is

[00:32:31] Mika: On the outside and I really don't care

[00:32:34] Jacob: So much um because I feel like I'm perfectly capable and I'm pretty aware you know when you walk by yourself I mean you can walk on whichever side you want right but I do think it's a nice thing to see men are that are aware of that and I would never complain about it or be like OOP switch me sides like be a gentleman but I do take notice yeah it's nice to know that they thought about that right and you know for the ones that don't do that maybe their family didn't teach them that way and so it's not like they're not a gentleman they're just maybe not a gentleman in that way because it wasn't taught um but there

[00:33:12] Mika: Has been like some that are on the other side of it and they were taught and they just don't do it and I'm like oh it's a huge thing in my head I don't know I wonder if I was taught I must have been taught at a young age that because that's definitely that's been huge in my mind like if like Shane and I will walk to the store and I'll be switching sides of her like it's not a short it's a short walk but I'll be like switching sides to make sure I'm just it's like this automatic thing where I'm on the outside but it's kind of a it's a silly thing but I think it is more of a gesture it's like a it's almost one of those things we were talking about like there's not words for but what I'm doing is I'm not trying to like a certainty

[00:33:46] Jacob: Dominance or anything it's kind of like a there's a gesture towards the woman towards the person you're walking with of like hey I'm thinking about you right now yeah I can hear the Brio yeah I'm looking out for you just so you know like if a car comes out that car up you know thank you boy he'll kill me first you know this thing you could stop a car with your hand or something yeah and anyone who is older than the person next to them or

[00:34:10] Mika: Like if it's a child specifically anyone should take that role and be on the outside with a child or a pet like we should for people who this is not clique in their brain we should explain what this is actually we should like for the people who are like what are you talking about so as a as a man there's like a

[00:34:26] Jacob: Thing where it's a safety thing I think you know you walk the side nearest the car so if you're on a sidewalk the woman would walk on the inside and it's kind of it's a gesture of like I don't know like do we really think the cars going to hit skip the curb or what do you think on this with it I've seen some crazy wrecks and there have been some like vehicle malfunctions lately with them crashing the buildings oh yeah so I mean anything is possible I simply think just you know talking about bad driving for like the bad drivers out there that miscalculated if they're gonna hit a curb or not or if they took a corner too closely um putting you know the masculine person the male and the relationship on the curb has just been an act of safety for like women or like I don't know maybe it came from like a like a misogynist place like let the women window shop while we walk put her on the inside but they kind of like change the script on they're like hey maybe this sounds better for being men but

[00:35:27] Jacob: Yeah I don't know I don't I wonder where that got established or I mean as soon as we had streets and roads or like was there like a kind of a gentleman courtesy back in like the olden days to like you know of like a like what would a lion do like if there's like cuz I feel like you know a female lion is just as badass as a male lion in so many ways alright I'm just trying to think of like there's like okay there's a predator over there like it's the male gonna just out of instinctual like if this

[00:35:55] Mika: Other lion tries to attack our family sort of such Ottoman line works really positioning yeah positioning yourself like I don't maybe it is like a an

[00:36:03] Jacob: Intuitive like evolution thing even I think I do think it is and there's a lot

[00:36:10] Mika: Of psychology behind positioning and I learned about this when I was getting my bachelor's and I found it really interesting we talked about a proximity and positioning based on what you want to get out of

[00:36:25] Jacob: Something in a classroom so people who sit in the back are trying to look more laid-back like it's an impression that you're wanting to give or people who sit closest to the door maybe have anxiety or PTSD and they need that escape like you position yourself you know where you

[00:36:43] Mika: Feel most comfortable in a classroom or when you're at a bar or a restaurant like I think a lot of people instincts really do that and then when you're with a person I think you're always making choices and I feel like I'm kind of like

[00:36:54] Jacob: I get anxious so I think about weird outcomes of things and I like to know where the exits are and that doesn't have any attachment to like PTSD or anything like that I'm just trying to have a game plan in case chaos kind of

[00:37:08] Mika: Broke loose for some reason mm-hm when you're with someone else you take into account like am I putting myself first am i putting them first and so when you're walking with someone you know taking the outside towards the road no matter who you are you're kind of choosing them over you in a way you're

[00:37:27] Jacob: Thinking that's the safest place for a person to be is on the inside yeah it does actually communicate quite a bit you know if you're paying attention like that it's interesting to point out and it's also the thing about where you choose in the classroom like because I was definitely like in the back but my thing has always been I have to go to see the door I have to be able to be facing the door like my back can't be to the door because I don't like being snuck up on but like it's interesting I've actually you know in my healing process and in my like okay that's how I am but I noticed that it would start to distract me like oh we went to the we went to the dermatitis center we went to that concert and like where I was we're kind of we're on the side and we're just right in the front of the stands there so I can see everybody in general admission and everybody who's like walking it doesn't have a chair you know they're standing in front so I can see them and that's not too bad but the corner of my eye

[00:38:19] Jacob: Right here on the right side was the entrance for all of them and there's a bar and this is people going in and out in and I literally could not I couldn't focus on this on the **** stage because I couldn't let myself get rid of like these people the corn Amaya like I always had to make sure it's like a like way like you have a gun to you like yeah you know it's not like I'm really I'm not I didn't actually think I was in danger I what it was just a an intuitive thing that's always turned on for me of I can't really if there's a distraction on the corner my eye of like people or like things that like I don't really know who you are what you're doing or you know movement it's interesting but I think that over

[00:38:57] Mika: Time that was more recent and I noticed it but over time when we go to restaurants and we go to eat somewhere or when she and I sit down she knows that I'm like that and she know like she'll usually pick the one where were my back's not to the door but actually I have because I'm sick and I'm sick of being in a fight or flight when I'm just trying to be really experienced this moment with the person I'm with so I've actually been making the choice to have my back to the door and it's a I can feel it's a little it's nervous

[00:39:24] Jacob: I don't like it at first but then before I know and I forget you know I forget and I'm having a conversation and because a lot of times when you kind of do things based off of fear like you get to the back of the classroom or you do choose that seat nearest the door you are deciding like be ready for this thing sort of right and it's almost this like you're looking for something you're not fully present with that moment right it's a it's a we're protecting ourselves but it can be non-beneficial it's very accurate your body is always

[00:40:01] Mika: Trying to keep itself safe your body wants to preserve itself your body wants to stay alive your body is always acting on instinct and of things raised four little red flags here make you nervous your body is always encouraging you to

[00:40:15] Jacob: Sink back into your comfort zone do what it means to protect yourself and so when you step outside that bubble it's very intentional you're choosing to do something that makes you a little bit nervous you're choosing to go outside your comfort zone it's a choice and sometimes that choice is for other people you know and so I just think that's something that people don't think about that comfort is what comes naturally comfort is so hard to fight with and challenge back and forth and be like I'm gonna take time away from you because it's everything in your body says no don't do that thing I want to remain safe and so it's hard you have to train

[00:40:56] Mika: Yourself to yeah try to challenge

[00:40:59] Jacob: Yourself to step outside of that and tell yourself you know when you get those nervous anxious feelings like there's a good percentage I'm okay but there's gonna be like a 90% chance that I'm gonna be okay doing this you know unless it's not some like crazy extreme sport that has like no boundaries but it's tourney guys against a rug rugby

[00:41:18] Mika: Field right

[00:41:21] Jacob: Yeah I mean I used to watch when I was younger a thousand ways to die and there was some weird things on there just like off the wall I go I never thought about that being a possibility no I do but if we think about how much chaos and destruction and opportunities there really are to like injure ourselves in a day if we're not careful if we're totally clumsy you know if we woke up everyday drunk and we had no other choice or on psychedelics and tried to like configure our way around you know a

[00:41:55] Mika: Moving platform even like um we really do okay most people day to day like the fact that we don't constantly get paper cuts or we don't break fingers and toes every month like it's kind of crazy how strong and invincible our bodies are

[00:42:14] Jacob: Most of the time we're pretty soft and

[00:42:16] Mika: Fragile man like have you ever worked it like a machinery like a mill somewhere where it's like at all times it's like I worked at warehouser I'm like dude at any point I can reach my arm into this thing and it will not even skip a beat it will rip my arm off with all the skin and it will not miss a beat like we have we have so many little things that we have done to protect ourselves and like learn about like in their natural things now like the paper cut thing like wit and we'd come across a lot of paper and we never get paper cuts mm-hmm we've gotten this down pretty well but I think we need to there is a lot of places in it for me anyway there was places where I'm like man my guards up too much my guard is up too much armour has been on too long I am

[00:42:56] Jacob: In a safe environment and my partner safe and I don't need to be watching the door the whole time I could think about Olive Garden I can think about these breadsticks you know like you don't have to be are in fear

[00:43:09] Mika: What do you remember what got you into like psychology and studying the mind in emotions and stuff and like what first part that you remember um a lot of little things probably the biggest thing was a suggestion from my grandma she and I are super close I know we talked about that first time we met up she was the one who raised me for my kindergarten school year so like my first big year at school and she had all this extra time I'm I think they were retired already both my grandparents and so they were just always around teaching me like school on top of school but not in like an annoying way and I think my grandma really helped me build my like social-emotional piece of myself and

[00:43:59] Jacob: Always allowed that patience for me to learn and make errors and you know when I made mistakes at Grandma's house like I didn't flinch or worried that I was gonna get yelled at she'd be like oh well what happened here and so I really

[00:44:11] Mika: Learned and developed that from her and

[00:44:13] Jacob: So I would go to school because she would make me second-guess like why bad things happen and try to come up with like a silver lining as to like you know there needs to be there's some good that comes out of bad - there's lessons and so I would come home from school and I would tell her about the children that were like particularly like naughty just like bad behavior screamers hitting friends you know using foul

[00:44:38] Mika: Language whatever it might be and I come home and I got to the point with her that I would start coming home and instead of just complaining to me like well this kid is just nuts like I don't want to be their friend they scare me I come home and be like well I wonder if their parents yelled at them yesterday or I wonder if they didn't have breakfast and so she really helped me change the script on like I don't I can't begin to understand why a person is acting shitty today I don't know maybe if I ask them they still wouldn't tell me the truth maybe they don't even so just assuming that people are inherently good and they just make mistakes and maybe something happened um and it was an off day because you're still getting to know these kids and we're young and so powerful are young age I took that with me um I did well enough in school I got honors or like at least like a of a 3.0 but nothing really particularly hit like I liked writing and I like literature and I liked reading and but it wasn't what I wanted to focus on

[00:45:37] Mika: And I didn't like being told what to do with my writing um very like respectfully defiant

[00:45:45] Jacob: But when it came time to do Running

[00:45:48] Mika: Start I took a lot of psychology courses

[00:45:51] Jacob: Because she said well if you don't want

[00:45:53] Mika: To be a nurse cuz that was what she wanted for me she's like maybe you should go into psychology because you've always tried to understand why people do the things they do and why you do the things you do and how you can understand both them and yourself better and so I just kind of took it and ran with it and classes were hard classes were intense but they were usually interesting and I would be able to apply everything I learned in my classes and my waking life my normal life and I just

[00:46:26] Jacob: Even if I don't end up continuing to

[00:46:28] Mika: Pursue careers and psychology fields I can use it in any career field and I still hold on to that like I don't know it's just it's such an interest of mine that I never stopped researching or growing out of just pure

[00:46:45] Jacob: And trinsic motivation to do so in that realm yeah so I feel like I would have been doing myself a disservice to go to college for business or medicine

[00:46:58] Mika: Unless I tumble major it because it's just that's where my heart was at the time and sometimes I knock myself because the pay is not good for this

[00:47:08] Jacob: Career choice um but I really like it and I get a lot out of it and I feel like I've matured a lot faster just because of a fascination in it right and it's actually coming like full circle you said something or posted something about like four months ago that

[00:47:29] Mika: You weren't meaning to like come off

[00:47:33] Jacob: Bold I don't think but I got really defensive about it and whenever I get defensive I like to think about like why am i defensive like his act is it actually encroaching on my morals my ethics my beliefs or is it because it's something I need to work on and do better and the thing that you said I can't remember the exact words verbatim but you were talking about like why if

[00:47:56] Mika: Someone has studied psychology and mental health still suffer with it like was kind of like the thought you were having and I'm like and I got frustrated

[00:48:05] Jacob: By that because I do struggle with it still and I'm like why study it and like I should you know but I just really sat with it and I'm like that's kind of the point is like you never really get you never really get to like understand mental health like you can have answers

[00:48:24] Mika: You can have tools or solutions or

[00:48:28] Jacob: Understanding and awareness but you never really get to like know it's not like solving a math problem where you're like oh there's one answer to this math problem I'll send you feel better oh that's the answer cool blue skies right and I think some people really strive for that and they need that and they need that consistency of like there is a problem and there is a solution you know and mental health is

[00:48:49] Mika: Like there's both sometimes not both like it's kind of just this like shoulder shrug like I don't know oh

[00:48:59] Jacob: Okay I want to I want to unpack my arrogance they're trying to think cuz I mean we can talk about that this morning like I was saying like well this is something I tell Shaylee like today for example is you know I woke I was just not a great day for me in my head but what would I get so frustrated about is I'm such like I can handle it I can do this I can **** find the answer like I will do it give me ten hours close that door you come in ten hours I'm gonna have this salt like that's who I am and like when it comes to mental health it's like it doesn't work like that it's so frustrating like for me um I can be talking to Shaylee

[00:49:36] Mika: This morning when I was talking to Shelly about it and I'm like I know the answers okay like I know like it's not logical for me to be thinking these things and in the end to feel better I know that I'm gonna go outside and do physical activity it'll kind of pull me out of that state and then I'll be able to like I know like what I can do but you can't just hear these things you can't just all of a sudden like it's

[00:49:56] Jacob: Like you don't become God just by reading some **** in the Bible you know like you don't you know you know the difference between the words in the conceptualization of like okay I think I understand that and then like the actual knowing understanding and knowing there's like a huge gap there and

[00:50:19] Mika: That's crazy I wonder what I'm trying to think of like what I want what more I was saying in the situation because it I feel like I of how much time is just a lot of stuff that I'm like aggressively sprouting on Facebook or like on my pedestal about

[00:50:33] Jacob: Is like I'm ten hours deep into the content of what I think other people are like Nicki like it's almost like my

[00:50:40] Mika: Social media sometimes with what I'm saying is aggressive and I understand it because I'm like I'm starting the conversation halfway through they don't know what I was just reading what I'm talking about exactly so they just get like that part I'm getting better at clarifying that I guess but I think it was just a really it was a really good thought and I like I've grown to like the things that make me defensive because it doesn't sit and

[00:51:06] Jacob: Like eat at me anymore for most things

[00:51:09] Mika: Um I'm still growing I'm human but

[00:51:15] Jacob: It makes it really draws my attention to

[00:51:18] Mika: Like the like the Robin Williams quote like when the bad things happen it draws your attention to the good things you weren't paying attention to so like when I get defensive about something it draws my attention to something that has bugged me but maybe that has been lessened over time like maybe it doesn't sit with me as long or I'm like well I have really made strides in this area it's now it's just kind of a thought that I can allow to pass and now we're working on just getting rid of that thought I was kind of thinking of a metaphor for like

[00:51:47] Jacob: I don't know like

[00:51:50] Mika: Positive feelings of self-worth and your

[00:51:54] Jacob: Value and like good solid wellness and mental health is kind of like trying to like hold sand like you don't get to keep it the whole time it's gonna fall through the cracks and if someone comes over and like smacks your hand from underneath and all the sand falls off of it you know you're gonna be angry like you can be rattled you can be shaken you can be tested you can't just hold things for yours to keep and expect nothing to fall out or to lessen and so you know

[00:52:22] Mika: They preach in elementary schools like to be bucket fillers for yourself and for others and I think that's my self-care is so important because like if it is like sand and it is false or your fingers and you don't get to control it you just have to keep filling it like if a bucket had a hole in it just keep filling the bucket so that it's never totally empty instead of being like oh well things just aren't going my way there's a hole in my bucket so I'm just gonna eventually not have sand and that's fine like it's such I feel like if you put it that way it's like so obvious they're like just keep I don't know I mean maybe someday we'll figure out a way to like stop that so it doesn't happen but if it doesn't do you really just like lay down and give it up and say oh that's just I'm gonna let today be a shitty day like no just decide to laugh decide to make it easier

[00:53:10] Jacob: On yourself because we don't get to move time faster or slower you mean you still have to experience what you're going on that's a you know it's that resonates with me because I had a conversation with my mom yesterday about like my family just has like a history of like mental breakdowns and like really bad depression and all this stuff and I was talking about mom yesterday she says like her mom did it and my mom like my mom like you know we

[00:53:38] Mika: Dealt with like a lot of stuff when I was younger and that was her she's kind of checked out she just kind of broke down it was like I'm done being a mom sort of thing the inn it was essentially I was kind of like talking about like what like that feeling of like it follows

[00:53:52] Jacob: Fills I can just give up I can let my bucket empty right and I was like do you know so that's like I feel it like you can take a look at that like like why do I think that it's okay to just let my hands go and say you know what **** it all I'm gonna I'm gonna let my bucket be empty and I'm gonna lay on the ground and I'm not gonna pick myself up and in these things and uh you know it sparked some interesting thoughts between her and I but I think that you know I've had to tell myself it's something that I have had now that I haven't that I have you know I moved like a huge will to live now you know like my depression isn't sometimes it really **** kicks my ass but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be to where I was just very debilitating I didn't have I dreamt of that empty bucket you know like I was just like that's what I'm saying is I think that like removing that as an option like it like looking at that like hey that's a thought that like I could just give up

[00:54:47] Mika: Like that is a thought itself like that's not like a viable option um and I think what life is a lot of the times is filling your bucket even having the faith that you don't know how

[00:55:01] Jacob: To repair that hole in that bucket right now but if you just keep filling that bucket and keep out just keep you know keep going and you're going to learn how to block that hole you're gonna learn like okay there is a hole here in this bucket something's coming out like I don't have the right tools the right emotional tactics to handle these things but I think having the faith that right yeah I don't have it yet yeah but you can't just like give up on it yeah because I

[00:55:27] Mika: Mean realistically I feel like it is such a morbid thought and like suicide rates are high I guess um just the mentality that I mean that really is honestly always a choice if people really want to choose it but again like I said it's a choice like are you really I don't know I get so stuck

[00:55:50] Jacob: On like don't be a victim to circumstance like don't be a victim to what other people say about you can you know you can experience it don't

[00:56:00] Mika: Fall victim to it don't let it become you don't just give up and throw in the

[00:56:06] Jacob: Towel and act like you know it's all everyone else's fault that you are the way you are that's not true it's a choice you gave up you chose to be miserable like I'm sorry that's just the way it is you always have the choice to try you know to try and save yourself to try and be better to work through it and

[00:56:24] Mika: I think the middle ground to that is just taking days to be in your own space

[00:56:30] Jacob: With yourself if you need it like if you feel like you can't handle with the world's throwing at you know maybe that is a day that you lay in bed all day then you listen to music and it's kind of like the middle ground like you don't always have to be out there like fighting the good fight if you feel like you're just exhausted but you also don't have to like sit there ruminating on the bad circumstances that are around you and continuing like to perpetuate them and doing nothing about it right so yeah I mean I feel like the biggest stride that I mean maybe other people only reason I want to say this is because I think it might make other people feel better is that when it comes to mental health I think the biggest start of all is going from thinking that

[00:57:11] Mika: Suicide or just like total decline thinking it as like a plan B or a plan Z

[00:57:18] Jacob: Or whatever and just deciding that it's

[00:57:22] Mika: Not an option it's not an option you

[00:57:24] Jacob: Want things to happen as they occur naturally so yeah at some point you know if you're really sad like your natural time will come to pass but

[00:57:34] Mika: Choosing to like choosing that is

[00:57:37] Jacob: The way letting it happen naturally so everything between then and now that unknown date is you making the best out of what you think you can work with right yeah I really like that you said it is about it not being an option like removed removing that option from the table I think it's kind of what I did at some point I was like it's not like I'm not doing that I'm not going to bring that pain to the people in my life I'm not going to and you know you want to do it for yourself but at that moment that was like people first yeah that's you know I think I said this I had this long

[00:58:14] Mika: Facebook post this was years ago but in

[00:58:17] Jacob: A got misconstrued because you know it's typing and I come out aggressive sometimes and but it was it was essentially like this long thing about like listen like if you don't love yourself if you don't care about yourself if you hate yourself if you're like why would I do better I don't deserve to be bit like these things like because sometimes you can and I know very well you can get so far down that it's like any sort of like positive influence towards yourself is just **** ridiculous you want to laugh at it you're just like yeah that guy doesn't deserve that like it you know because people's brains can get like this but the post was essentially like well you know if you don't have it for yourself like think about your friends and it's not about thinking about their pain so much as like do

[00:59:05] Mika: It for your friend like you

[00:59:10] Jacob: You do bring value to their life like how do you bring value to their life you could if you died if you end your life

[00:59:18] Mika: You bring sorrow and pain to your friends and this is a hard thing because it gets it gets messy there you don't want to put that **** self hurt self-worth you know but I do I think

[00:59:29] Jacob: That in moments where you just you admit you just can't give any love to yourself if you just let yourself think about a couple of your good friends and you think about you know their mom and their dad and you think about your friend and

[00:59:43] Mika: You think about how 10 years ago he was just kind of a young turd and you think about five years before that he was a young kid and you think about their whole life and I think that you can start to find value in this is worst case scenario if you have no self-worth for yourself I think that you can find value in just the life of the people around you and be like okay I don't have really any self-worth here I don't really have any like will like I don't think that I'm super cool but I do

[01:00:11] Jacob: Have people in my life that their life you know I could be a good person for them I could improve myself I can get up off the ground because like my friend Jimmy is probably one of the coolest people I know and like it would make me feel really good to buy him a beer tomorrow or it would make me if I could

[01:00:28] Mika: If I'm available to watch my friends

[01:00:31] Jacob: Cindy's hid when she's on a work trip like that I bring value to Cindy's life and her in her kid's life you know these are stretch but essentially my facebook post was a was it's hard to understand but I think some people might have resonated like if you don't have it for you could just think about other people like serve your friends like get better for other people and that's not something that you really want to hear like first like kids you want to get better for yourself first and foremost but I think that some people get so dark and I know for a fact because I did you get so deep that you're like why the **** would I do anything for myself I'm the one who screwed all this up you know I'm the one who whatever like these foolish thoughts that were stuck in the groove you know yeah that was a post that I had a while back oh but I like doing it for other people it brings up some really good points though people who are depressed or struggle

[01:01:21] Mika: With anxiety and like bipolar disorder and all sorts of things they really get pegged as a narcissistic or only thinking of themselves or them as the center of their universes but really there's so much guilt tied in with not

[01:01:37] Jacob: Wanting to burden other people with their condition and so when they're ditching plans and being flaky and people are having to make special adjustments for them you know they

[01:01:49] Mika: It makes you want to refrain from it

[01:01:52] Jacob: Like experiencing things with other people because you don't want to take away or you know make you have special treatment because you don't feel like you deserve it at that time but I've seen a lot of people who have mental health stuff going on it's particularly

[01:02:06] Mika: Women just because that's my experience with it but come out of it like women

[01:02:12] Jacob: Who go into a pregnancy depressed come

[01:02:15] Mika: Out and they don't have postpartum and I just think that's kind of like a crazy thing like having something else to care about having someone else to care about and it happened so instinctually oh yeah it like removes it and it alleviates it from them and so if you don't have a child in your life and a reason to do that maybe it's a grandparent maybe it's younger sibling maybe it's a friend and I think that's where you're kind of going with that it has to become about other people for a while because you don't have that self-worth and you don't have that self-love and so you can't motivate yourself to do things for yourself and then validate that practice

[01:02:52] Jacob: Yet but you can validate it for available to other people and when someone who struggle with mental health is strong enough and gets really

[01:03:02] Mika: Good at

[01:03:06] Jacob: Empathizing because they've been there

[01:03:08] Mika: Or they still are there

[01:03:11] Jacob: You really begin to realize that someone who's depressed earnings and anxiety bipolar disorder isn't in our Cystic at

[01:03:18] Mika: All they can really meet other people

[01:03:21] Jacob: Where they're at when they're low and maybe they can't you know be at a higher

[01:03:27] Mika: Vibration with people sometimes because

[01:03:30] Jacob: They have that mental health piece going on that's not always up to par but they can certainly always meet someone where they're at because they understand it and what I just think sometimes like what would the world. we be and now if we went back in time where there was no understanding of mental health and

[01:03:49] Mika: Everyone was just either like

[01:03:53] Jacob: The coolest thing ever like that over

[01:03:56] Mika: Confidence that people just had to have because it was like there was no other option yeah um

[01:04:03] Jacob: I'm really grateful that society now is kind of reaching a point where we're really validating like meeting people where they're at and we're trying to find the humility and things again and preaching like empathy it's so important to have empathy for others that word has come up so much on my podcast I love it just not I don't know just thinking for

[01:04:26] Mika: A second outside of yourself maybe this person is experiencing something that I'm never gonna get to understand or I'm never gonna know the answer to but choosing to believe that they're not

[01:04:37] Jacob: Intentionally being in an unsavory way yeah I think yeah right you know I think

[01:04:46] Mika: That it's hard for our brain to fully comprehend but I think like a lot of like the Buddhism stuff that I read is it has made me like it's a fact in like you could say the sentence but there does start to become this understanding this comprehending and I began to see it and like total strangers like I see that I see this light in myself when I see it right strangers but um just this fact of like nobody wants to suffer there's nobody is

[01:05:13] Jacob: It do you know anybody who's like I **** love suffering I love not having a bed to go home at night like it's so great to sleep outside and be cold like no man they you know they're like when you talk to them they're you know even a lot of times their ego is defending their body they're like their egos defending their actions their he you know they don't want to be embarrassed it's already an embarrassing situation like just think about a homeless person like want to be homeless they want love a human wants love a human wants to love themselves more than anything and there's clearly some things that have caused that person in their life to like not be able to feel that love for themselves and in I don't know I feel like as I progressed and as I keep like reading all these things it's like a genuine like I get you know virtue signal signaling like I'm so much more compassionate than everybody but it really is profoundly like you start to see the world in a different way when you could really just look at everybody who's suffering and just be like they just want love

[01:06:14] Mika: Like they just they truly want love at

[01:06:17] Jacob: The core of their being it's kind of hard when we get so far fetched you know we have like you know politicians and like all these things that we see in the news right of like that **** I just mean whatever but at the core of their being they want love you know yeah it's super interesting let's uh I want to back up to your writing a little bit more we were talking about you were like down on yourself because you like submitted something in it in it didn't get accepted but I was like hey do you realize that I think about submitting stuff all the time and like I don't even get **** done to where it's submitted bull like you're like it like you were you were discouraging to yourself but like you're already you're doing just fine like you're like getting to the point of

[01:07:06] Mika: Actually submitting like okay well I'm gonna I'm gonna put this to where people can read it online right guy I'm gonna people this isn't now available this is my words from my head and now people can like have it and use it like that's a huge step that's like that's a huge thing and when was the do you remember the first time like how long ago it was since you first like posted or like finish something to where you're like I'm gonna put that for the world can read it remember that I think the first

[01:07:33] Jacob: Time I posted something online or like

[01:07:36] Mika: On my personal blog probably would have been within like five to like seven years ago sometime towards the end of high school that's longer than I thought but the first time that I actually submitted it to em

[01:07:54] Jacob: They get another website to be represented by you know an actual

[01:08:00] Mika: Business was November of last year so that's been like really short term yeah was it a freeing feeling when he hit submit or like was it like it I don't know it was kind of like hitting submit was it was like not a big feeling when I hit

[01:08:21] Jacob: Submit um it felt very like oxidase

[01:08:26] Mika: Achill or something I was just like huh

[01:08:27] Jacob: Okay well I do think this is good and I finally figured out how to do it and I just hit summit and then I went about my day and I did other things it was like a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon um but when I didn't know how long it would take to get rejected or accepted or to get the email from them that says it's on the site I didn't even know what the process really looked like so um when I got the email gosh it was the week of my birthday

[01:08:52] Mika: Actually it was a Tuesday and I just gotten off work and I was going to my friend Kelsey's house and I got my emails and I was deleting them before I went into her house just sitting in my car and when I saw the little hot emoji is that I think it's like a fire emoji that says like your article has been submitted to a Thought Catalog and I saw that and I literally like started like screaming and like oh yeah like I have I haven't been that excited about something and maybe like a decade

[01:09:24] Jacob: Honestly just I don't think I've ever

[01:09:27] Mika: Experienced that I can remember like now that

[01:09:32] Jacob: Feeling of just like utter happy that

[01:09:35] Mika: Something of mine got published in some

[01:09:38] Jacob: Way and that's what I realized like you know it lasted for about an hour I was very excited very happy and I wanted everyone else to match my emotion so I you know I told Kelsey and I told a few people in that hour called my parents and sent them the link can you know about hour and hour half later I was sitting there with myself and I'm like oh now that means we feel like we're gonna be really let down if the next one doesn't get accepted and like and I just

[01:10:06] Mika: I started to realize how important it was to me to get my writing out there

[01:10:13] Jacob: And I get really stuck sometimes I'm thinking like I'm only making baby steps or like there are lots of days where I don't write in a row anything and I watch Gary Vee and I'm like oh I should be pushing myself harder like I should be a real go-getter about this and it just maybe I'm just like not there yet you know I just like the I like the

[01:10:35] Mika: Relaxed benefit of just being able to write on my own accord when I feel passionately when I feel like I have the words when I feel like that philosophical creative side of me is like really activated and submitting at

[01:10:47] Jacob: My leisure because I don't have any writing deadlines and you know in the back of my head I kind of hold hope that someday I will because that's where the big deals are thank you but right now I like that I don't I feel like I have so much else in my life so much personal work that I'm just trying to like shovel

[01:11:07] Mika: Through that's just like falling leaves

[01:11:09] Jacob: Constantly falling and I keep breaking and I'm like oh my goodness when does this personal growth thing get like just a tad easier to where I'm not constantly being challenged every day you know with

[01:11:20] Mika: Old concepts and ideals so I think maybe when my life slows down

[01:11:26] Jacob: And I get more established in my like

[01:11:29] Mika: Material world when I have nothing else

[01:11:32] Jacob: To really think about that's what I'm gonna get so restless that I'm just gonna sit and write in my free time and start really cranking out you know when I get the when I get to the end of like my emotional journey that kind of started about year ago maybe even two

[01:11:50] Mika: Years ago what the end of like my most recent relationship when I feel like I've kind of reached a pause in it or like the finality of some of those things that I've been struggling with I can be like okay now that I've seen the whole thing through I can actually piece it together and write about it and then write about it in a way that is current tense right and silver lining string through all of it because I've seen it I've seen the finality of it I've seen the silver lining now that I've worked through it

[01:12:20] Jacob: To a comfortable amount and so yeah just I think I pushed myself but I don't want to push myself in so many different venues that I'm just exhausted and the

[01:12:32] Mika: Quality of my connections with people or my writing or you know how I show up to work every day is

[01:12:40] Jacob: Diluted because I'm overextending myself unnecessarily a lien on one thing but kind of not balancing the other things or yeah I think that yeah that's that's good that you're still like your I think you see where you're at

[01:12:57] Mika: You're like okay like that is where I'm at I mean and it's cool to think of like I know I don't have all the answers to like finish that chapter that needs that's gonna tie in the whole thing that'll make me start writing it but just like that knowing of yeah one day I know that's coming or that I know that I know that I'm going to be in the position to be

[01:13:20] Jacob: The one who needs to write these things for somebody you know yeah writing is such a fascinating thing I always think about like you know cuz someday is all just I'm a self self-proclaimed poet and I'll just be I'll write some and some days I'm like oh my god this is so sick this is the coolest thing ever you're the coolest in the next day I'm like what the **** am I talking about you know but I think that for me I'm I've tried to like let go a lot of my like you know I was one identify myself like on the poet I'm a writer and all these things but I'm like it doesn't matter it's like what do you do that you love just do that I think

[01:13:57] Mika: For me I like writing and though there are many days where it's more frustrating them not I feel like I have this thing like I know that I'm going to write something that's very important and I'm sharpening that tool like maybe it's not time 65 years old and I'm gonna write some like stupid article it's gonna make something laugh maybe that's what it is but like I wouldn't I wouldn't be as good as I need to be when I'm sixty if I don't do what do the work I'm doing today and it's both enjoyable and frustrating but riding man is so great I love riding it's do you ever get the it well so this

[01:14:35] Jacob: Is a sense that I say I like sorry I'm skipping all around but yeah do you ever get the feeling like I always say that you don't know what the **** you think and tell you until you think it or you don't know what the **** you have to say until you say it with riding I'm like I could write like one subject at the top and then I'm like I don't know what I'm riding but before you know it you just wrote a whole page of stuff you didn't know it's like you start just putting the words on paper and you start kind of like who's doing this writing but he seems to be figuring this out when I get out of the way you know yeah I like that like that selfless feeling when you're writing and it's just start it's almost it's almost like your body your interior knows what it needs to be set what needs to be said what needs to fall out on the paper but you just your job is to get there in front of that paper and just keep going and keep letting

[01:15:23] Jacob: Yourself right and when distraction comes up you say no we gotta get this thing done and eventually you're in something inside will get that thing on the paper you know you're do you

[01:15:35] Mika: Have a daily writing practice now do try to insert a daily writing practice at all or no I don't sometimes I think well I mean I do as of the last couple of weeks but it's not to improve on my writing I started doing 10 things I'm grateful for before bed because I have I have nightmares and extremely lazy person in the morning I don't like being asked to do anything that requires a lot of thought in the morning I have a routine very creature of habit that way but supplementing my nightly routine which is fluid as to when I go to sleep it's helped my nightmares it's actually helped me stop dreaming it's calmed me

[01:16:20] Jacob: Down before bed which has been a relief and it allows me to show up more refreshed the next day like I'm actually waking up before my alarm lately and I think that's because my brain isn't like freaking out over itself and going through all these like nasty little insidious thoughts I've had throughout the day it's not even trying to digest them anymore and if it is it's doing them like behind a veil and it's not it's not feeling like I need to do that

[01:16:46] Mika: Like I'm just focusing on the good and the few dreams I have had in the last couple of weeks they've been like quirky but they've not been nightmares and so I'm very I'm very pleased with how things are doing so far that's a huge thing I mean nightmares are you know we hear nightmares all the time they kind of seem like a kid thing but dude nightmares will **** your life up like if you get to the point where you're just constantly having nightmares you get to the point where like I don't want to go to sleep like it's and it's not like you're afraid to go to sleep but it's just like what's the point it's literally gonna make me feel worse when I wake up I'm not gonna feel rested I'm just going to give my mind like a new set of energy to work on

[01:17:25] Mika: These shitty thoughts on you know what would you be willing to share like a couple of like what so when you write down ten things that you're grateful for like or any listeners that maybe they'd have nightmares like what are some kind of things that you think like oh my house my family like what do you like to write down I do really little things I mean I think

[01:17:45] Jacob: When I first started trying to do gratitude like I don't like eight months ago I was thinking of like the big things like I was thinking like well I'm grateful that I'm smart and I'm grateful that you know I'm healthy and it's like they're so vague like it doesn't really register in your brain like telling yourself it's not me or that like I almost thought about packing it with me but so I think like last night

[01:18:10] Mika: And almost every night I write something about my cat cuz I'm just super grateful for her so it surprised me Gigi

[01:18:17] Jacob: She is awesome and she's really attuned to me and she found me as a stray and so I just have this really unique bond with her and so almost every day she's kind of joining me when I go to bed she always be around like a little shadow and so I write something about like her

[01:18:34] Mika: So I write like either that I'm grateful that she is so snuggly when I'm in a bad

[01:18:40] Jacob: Mood or I'm grateful that she comes to

[01:18:43] Mika: Bed with me every night or I'm grateful for like the weird little noises that she makes when she's sleeping or like just like it's very it's very specific but it's like little things like not like I'm grateful to have her which I am but it's why do I enjoy her why do I enjoy the things I have and so I'll write down like that I got to have ice cream today or that I was able to make a connection in a Very specific way with this student or my hair was just they get my hair just laid perfect this morning and there was no struggle you know just very good about the we get so bummed when it's like a bad hair day but then we forget to think a good hair day right and so just super teeny tiny things that are particular to that day and sometimes I even choose things that didn't go right that day but like it wakes me up to the times that they have gone right and I'll still write down you know I'm grateful for the friends that feel comfortable just coming over and talking when I

[01:19:44] Mika: Don't want to do anything even if I got denied that day and someone didn't come over it makes me think about the last time someone did I'm like well I'm still grateful for when it happens that's beautiful I like that and so that's that's my spin on it is just I take I don't know five to ten minutes and just whatever pops into my head I write it down find a way to word it and like Tencent like ten words or less purple it

[01:20:09] Jacob: And eventually I'll go back and look through it I'm sure if I need to I haven't so far but I try to write it

[01:20:16] Mika: Down and then let it go and then I'm wondering if I do go back and read it how many of them will be like repeats or like kind of like different ways of saying the same thing and maybe I do end up using it for something like when you're having a bad day and you need to pick me up like maybe that will be like a piece of writing at some point for me that I use it condense hundreds of

[01:20:36] Jacob: Examples of ways that I've enjoyed you

[01:20:38] Mika: Know a normal melancholy day and there's still been good in it and condense it in down to like an article about like did you even bother

[01:20:48] Jacob: To think about you know how your morning went is your hair lay down right at someone say hi to you did someone you know I just like having little scraps of things around my room in my life said I can

[01:21:04] Mika: Modify and make into something later and when that time comes it's just like I just know what to do with it or I just know where that last thought was writ down and I know which journal to go to and I think in a world of

[01:21:19] Jacob: In a world of like so much information so much content in we have so much fed into us so much we like it was so quick pace and we kind of break like things are going good we just we

[01:21:31] Mika: Blast past him because like they're good we don't have to stop we can keep going you know but I think that when we have things in our life or reasons in our life to stop and be grateful for them it

[01:21:41] Jacob: Kind of reminds you of like what you're doing this all for you know like a like a I think that if you're if you're

[01:21:48] Mika: Filling your lowest but then you're forced to read a hundred things that you've written in the last 50 days of things that you literally were grateful for that day like you're gonna pull yourself you're gonna be like okay this is just a thing today I am okay like maybe I'm saying maybe it's a terrible day I'm so a real bad day maybe lots of bad things maybe even some of those things in there like rewound themselves like they don't actually equate anymore but I think that like knowing that I'm more than this moment like I'm more than like I'm so exponentially sad right now but if you have a little reference to look at like oh yeah yesterday I had free content awesome things happen to me though like in it kind of remind you of like what this life is all about to me like it's like a life is not inherently good or bad it's the things that happen and then your reaction to it's it's the it's so easy to get caught with the bad

[01:22:42] Mika: And that's our survival technique you know it's how the news works it's why this is 24-hour news and we're like constantly wanting to see these like terrible things that happen because we our brains that we're looking out for ourselves and we're gazelles in a field looking out for a little sound a wrestle in the wrestle in the weeds but when able to stop and say like oh I didn't have lions attack me today I'm so grateful for that or I didn't have you know I or I got have a cat and that's so great and like you know because the moments like that when you're able to look it when you're able to like look at your cat or your dog your animal or even your loved one it's just somebody in your life and like look at that **** and you think god you make

[01:23:17] Jacob: Me laugh all the time you know you just stare at it you just oh you make me so happy if you let yourself really follow

[01:23:24] Mika: Those thoughts and kind of almost like if there's bad thoughts coming up you tell those ones no say I'm not dealing with that right now and you just think about the good things that nice to bring you into a new state and I think that's a good idea to do before you go to bed like that yeah I can definitely think of

[01:23:39] Jacob: Both my hands all the amounts of times

[01:23:42] Mika: That I've been in a very uncomfortable

[01:23:46] Jacob: Sensitive place that I've been crying you know in the comfort of my own room and my cats come in and done something really obnoxious or quirky or funny and then it turns from like a cry to a laugh

[01:23:58] Mika: Like halfway through and then just like I'm sitting there like incessantly and giggling with myself and like she doesn't even realize like how silly she looks and like she's just a cat and then catch it yeah and it's just it's nice and I think sometimes we get so caught up in things being serious that we overlook that those moments are intended to save us like that little thing is supposed to throw a wrench in that for you like just that one little thing that can happen that can pull you out of that seriousness it's like you need to go with it when that happens yeah because it's not good to stay in the sad place in other words you have that happen in that moment just go with it lean into it if it's like you can never I feel like

[01:24:41] Jacob: We can never be led astray by leaning

[01:24:44] Mika: Into a good moment good moments are gonna bring us good things are gonna bring us better feelings they're gonna bring us more clarity it's hard to think critically when you're angry and you're frustrated you're upset like you can yeah and so at least if you're in a positive moment you can go back to that state of thinking clearly even if it's like a little elated you still are seeing things more accurately perceiving

[01:25:08] Jacob: Things in a way that is beneficial to you I think that I'm able to pull myself out now like a you know two years ago start doing better feeling better I think I'm able to pull myself out now like I can have those little length oh yeah you know go ahead like you were just caught in that thought and like oh there's a funny thing or like you know it's not a cat for me but it's you know something else or probably some YouTube video or maybe I fart and laughing my own farts for whatever I don't know but like I think just noticing because there is this thing in and I used to get stuck into it and it's a it's part of it is like you desert you think you for me it was like oh you deserve to feel this odd but I think that there is this thing where when you're sad and when you're like like you feel like you should stay

[01:25:56] Mika: Sad it's almost a comfort in your sadness yeah have you ever experienced that yeah like this and what's that all about that's an interesting thing that I always liked like I think it's like kind of just like that cliché

[01:26:09] Jacob: Phrases like misery loves company I feel

[01:26:12] Mika: Like there's something intoxicating about feeling feeling low it's easy like it's easier to feel low than it is to feel good like you I don't know how to describe that better it is

[01:26:29] Jacob: Easy yeah it I think that there's

[01:26:32] Mika: Something really beautiful about

[01:26:35] Jacob: Feeling the intensity of things and I

[01:26:39] Mika: Feel like

[01:26:42] Jacob: That happens a lot more when we're sad than it does when we're happy I think that joy comes in so many small ways but it's not frequent that something really excites us and really just overwhelms us

[01:26:56] Mika: With like positivity and enthusiasm but

[01:26:59] Jacob: When it comes to sadness it's really easy to get overwhelmed by the intensity of sadness and I think sometimes it's almost a good thing to feel something intensely especially if you've been kind of living in a haze that it can be really enticing to

[01:27:15] Mika: Spend time in that place yeah I mean

[01:27:19] Jacob: That I was just I was singing about myself when you when it when you were saying that just thinking about my own like sadness when I was on and I was like saying this right before like if you think you need to get on antidepressants you definitely should check it out this is not every experience but antidepressants were very bad for me and like they didn't help me at all it gave me this feeling of nothing this like

[01:27:41] Mika: Not me feeling this in-between and again this is not having forever tea please like there's different ones too this is what's my experience but um there was a like I would do cocaine

[01:27:53] Jacob: Often and that was kind of my thing I would that would be like the one time that out in my brain I got this is like when you get to feel like this is when you feel something Wiki its high of course but even sadness you know sometimes I think maybe we get so numbed we get so they could look at this feeling of like nothing like I'm just like just this empty sort of weird it's very hard to scribe again we're talking about like words that don't really have there's so much more to it but it's yeah like

[01:28:24] Mika: Courage the Cowardly Dog like there's all this nothing and then there's their farmhouse for all this crazy stuff half

[01:28:31] Jacob: Yes yeah I mean if you're I mean maybe if you're like I love that show so much but if you're like living in a world that's like that where there's nothing going on it's like you kind of have to like make things happen to feel things and I think that show has a lot of like they're trying to show like mental illness like I think courage and is kind of like mentally ill like he has all these things that he's terrified of he's so scared he has all this anxiety and where they live like nothing should be happening sometimes I watch that show and I just think they're in the middle of nowhere like is any of this really real or is this all like just courage like going insane because he's so bored in the middle of nowhere nothing's happening gosh yeah he's like building his own courage out of it yeah he's you know I

[01:29:20] Jacob: Want to rewatch that show from in different lens I really like that show cuz yeah cuz because it is kind of like there's nothing there that there's this nothingness but like in order to feel something like the human the dog in that case though whatever wants to feel something in for me like there was you know I would you do cocaine to feel high or you drink alcohol to feel I don't know numb or laughy or whatever the heck alcohol gives you but there's also this like

[01:29:46] Mika: Feeling sad was literally better than

[01:29:50] Jacob: Feeling nothing and that's a crazy thing and that's and that's hard to conceptualize and I think that maybe not a that might not make a lot of sense to people but the feeling of nothing is seems to me like I don't know if worse is the right answer but it just seems so very far different and so detached from like the you like the human experience is like I would rather feel that

[01:30:17] Mika: Almost sadness then nothing weird

[01:30:22] Jacob: That's like a that's heavy

[01:30:27] Mika: I mean people are driven insane from like a sound of nothing being put in a soundproof room where eventually you start getting a tune to your blood pulsing in your heart beating mmm the

[01:30:40] Jacob: Conceptualization of nothing going on no

[01:30:43] Mika: Visual no audio that you can alter right

[01:30:47] Jacob: You know it gets really monotonous it gets really repetitive and people are driven and sane from being in solitary where there's all very crazy I think it's the worst thing we do unhealthy to be in the dark to be where there's no sound to be where there's no semblance of life aside from you it makes you really start to like realize

[01:31:08] Mika: How much you need outside experiences they're going to filter in and distract you from yourself or it yeah I think

[01:31:16] Jacob: That nothing is terrifying like to think that there would be nothing I think that's why I like so many are these crazy like folklore and beliefs because in some way I'm like well I hope are not the only ones like right you can we really say that we're like the smartest things out there I hope not you have geez I really hope not we don't really we don't have it figured out we just pretend we do know I mean we've had so much time like I mean not like us specifically but there's been so many eras of like humans you think we would have a lot more stuff figured out by now I feel like we only really started developing ways of doing things like 150 years ago yeah I mean we we have so much like you go to New

[01:32:01] Jacob: York or go to any of these places like oh my gosh humans and culture is so amazing but then we have like the same people who built those skyscrapers are just like they don't understand their own emotions which is you're born with those it's like the first thing you think that we would learn it's a you know obviously it's right in my goggles that's right where I'm at so I see like all human emotions and we're learning about all these things but it kind of feels like humans as a species

[01:32:25] Mika: Are just more recently figuring out like

[01:32:27] Jacob: Oh yeah where we are consciousness and where didn't work if I can oh yeah everything that we're saying happens through this brain and like we're starting to figure out that we can like actually oh yeah all these things that were these hands that were using to build these giant skyscrapers like what the hands all about wait what's that you know it's a it's a it's a crazy-cool time to be alive that's for sure hang it so I can't spend like a lot of time in my head thinking about all of my like I have a small portion of it that I can serve for it but like for my conspiracy or like my Big Bang theories or like whatever like I put those in like a smaller region because I can get so overwhelmed just trying to like piece together with what little evidence I have or you know what

[01:33:11] Mika: Understanding I have a like time you know I don't have enough to conceptualize it and it makes your brain

[01:33:18] Jacob: Not literally hurt but if you get really

[01:33:21] Mika: Lost really quickly yeah I do that to

[01:33:24] Jacob: Myself laughing I yeah just I've had instances in my life

[01:33:32] Mika: Where something has happened around me

[01:33:35] Jacob: Or I've picked up on something that's

[01:33:38] Mika: About to happen around me and

[01:33:41] Jacob: I've had moments of feeling like I have

[01:33:44] Mika: Some psychic abilities or I have just like a really strong intuition or a really weird gut feeling or something we call it so many different things but what it boils down to I think is why do we randomly understand things that are outside our actual knowledge like why do we sometimes randomly just have an understanding or an awareness of things that are typically outside of our reach or we haven't made it there yet and I love bounce around the idea of

[01:34:15] Jacob: Like consciousness like that there has

[01:34:18] Mika: To be something else yeah I mean there's

[01:34:21] Jacob: Definitely like I think that the one of

[01:34:25] Mika: My favorite words is wonder like I think it's the most important thing like the to me the greatest thing you give to a kid is wonder like yeah like I don't know man this could be this but you're gonna have to learn for yourself like I don't know either but like because nothing is super solid like

[01:34:41] Jacob: We're just this whole thing we're just assuming that we know and there's some people that say they know but I don't know you know I think that having

[01:34:51] Mika: Wonder is like what because I'm someone who likes novelty I love like learning about like new **** and it's a call something new something new Oh something new shiny object like I love having that wonder of like feeling right before

[01:35:05] Jacob: Something conceptualizes like you're whether it's whether it's a true thing or whether it's like oh I can understand how that person thinks that way or like oh that's what that's what they mean when they say that like okay and just allow it like that's like one of the most incredible things about being human is your ability to wonder and just kind of like you don't really have to have the answers and you don't have to talk to people who have the answers but like you nowadays you can read books and you can watch YouTube and you can read articles and all these things and just you know explore your mind sometimes I feel like when you get the answer to something it suddenly makes it dull or boring mm-hm and so there have been lots

[01:35:45] Mika: Of times that I have had conversations with people and I've had the opportunity to get an answer and just refrained oh and

[01:35:57] Jacob: Not often but sometimes I'm just like I

[01:36:01] Mika: Feel happier being curious about this

[01:36:04] Jacob: Than I would to know an absolute yeah I think so too I think remaining in that curious State is a cool place to be like to wear but I mean like with this

[01:36:18] Mika: Podcast I always I always like to remain

[01:36:22] Jacob: In disbelief like a I don't fully know what I believe I don't think anybody does but like well but like just having this I'm gonna take that on like right at this moment like if you're describing to me like your beliefs and you're like if you were incredibly religious I would be and you're explaining it to me and like your truest way I would take that in this moment think oh okay like really I want to absorb it as deep as I can and really try to just like okay so that okay that's what you think okay you know try to piece it together but I'm not but you're right I'm not

[01:36:59] Mika: Looking for this like understanding of

[01:37:02] Jacob: Like this final thing that I'm okay that's it you can leave now that's what I wanted you know it's not like that its life is

[01:37:10] Mika: Peculiar enough to where you can just kind of remain in disbelief and kind of maybe not fully try to wholly comprehend things to where it's like this is the absolute answer and I'm living my life from this point now on but just exploring and remaining in disbelief of like what other people think about the world and yeah this might be

[01:37:29] Jacob: Not exactly like on note with like what

[01:37:32] Mika: We're talking about but I think about it

[01:37:35] Jacob: From time to time often enough that it's still you know influential something that I'm curious about but I don't know that I would ever want there to be research out there disproving that there is kind of like an

[01:37:49] Mika: In-between for people who pass over I don't I mean if it was like if it was saying that there was I would not mind that but if they're saying like an absolute like there is no there is no

[01:38:02] Jacob: You know semblance of their soul left on earth you know as soon as they pass

[01:38:09] Mika: Because I had this experience when I was

[01:38:11] Jacob: In third grade that my grandparents

[01:38:14] Mika: Would pick me up from Kessler on every Wednesday and I they were late one day and they weren't traditionally late and

[01:38:21] Jacob: I was outside and I heard

[01:38:24] Mika: Someone who sounded like a grandmother like just like kind of like that grandmother voice but it wasn't my grandmother's voice singing my name but it sounded familiar like I trusted in it and then I was looking around for this person who was like saying my name over and over again and they weren't just saying mic and they were saying Michael and they were saying my full name and like nobody calls me that and there's literally no one in the courtyard in the space who's looking at me there's no adults out there who know

[01:38:56] Jacob: Me you know it was just so weird and then my grandparents pulled up and it stopped as soon as they pulled up and so I got in the car with them and then I thought about it and it sounded like my

[01:39:07] Mika: Grandmother's mother would passed away when I was like five so I guess two or three years before that at the time and I just kind of always have thought like

[01:39:16] Jacob: I don't know if I was just hearing things but it was a lot it was a lot more clear than I would have anticipated it if I was just hearing things and I

[01:39:28] Mika: Wasn't thinking about her like I wasn't like sitting there mourning over her time had passed I didn't know her that well but when I really thought about it and I was like that sounded a lot like her and it stopped just as soon as I could see their car pulling in it stopped hmm and so I don't know I don't

[01:39:47] Jacob: Want there to be like research out there that comes out that says absolutely not that's not a possible thing like you're it's all in your head you know I like to remain curious about maybe that's a possibility yeah I mean it was like because that's peculiar like hearing it and then and then where your

[01:40:05] Mika: Head was like oh is that like your

[01:40:08] Jacob: Great-grandma is that would be yeah like in that connection like where would that like how would you know that you know like that's like that's an intuition of feeling like I've like I don't really know why I think maybe it's this person but like it seems to make sense or whatever um I think that I think that a lot of times you know when it comes to research and like facts and all that stuff we do get kind of you know it's a dangerous line to just like you can't just refute science and indifference but like science is not the

[01:40:37] Mika: Only thing that exists science explains

[01:40:42] Jacob: A lot of like you know physics and there's a lot of things that really map out but there's a lot science has no room for spirituality science has no room for or wonder and IIIi don't think you know when it comes to research and like refuting things I don't think that like that can be taken away because like what like even it so even if there's like a paper you read a paper tomorrow and they're like whatever they say it's like there's absolutely no way that essentially that there's no afterlife or in-between or whatever like what does that mean to you like you still have this experience like all of a sudden that's not real like that's so real you believe it would just be like okay well I think we have a lot of stuff in our life that where we don't feel like we're allowed to fully believe that likes happen to us you know because there's not like it's weird or it's like we don't really have like a comfortable like platform to talk about it on

[01:41:38] Mika: But I think it's it's like it's important to follow those things I don't

[01:41:46] Jacob: Know like do you think you think about that moment often yeah pop up yeah I think about it um every couple of months or so probably mm-hmm and I mean I've had other moments and I kind of briefly explained to you like my different um my different jumps into you know I've

[01:42:07] Mika: Seen psychics I've seen mediums I've been seen a medicine woman I've been to a Hypnotherapist like I've really tried to dive into the parts of myself that I don't understand in other realms that I'm I don't know that I'm not

[01:42:21] Jacob: Certain are present or not or you know what they can bring but and all my experiences I've found myself and just

[01:42:29] Mika: Like shocked and surprised that these

[01:42:33] Jacob: People are bringing forward things from

[01:42:36] Mika: My subconscious they're saying things as if they're just reading them from me hmm and it's like I don't think that my expression was conveying these very specific details like the psychic that I went and saw it was probably about five years ago um she told my friend that she

[01:42:52] Jacob: Was pregnant and that she would meet the love of her life and such her and she was a week pregnant and didn't know it she got her son in September like September early September and

[01:43:06] Mika: She was a no way she performed thinking that was even a possibility and I forced her to go and take pregnancy tests at Walmart and she's like no I'm not doing it and I'm like well if you don't think it's true like if you don't think it's a real thing then what harm does it do to you it's like just do it for me I'll pay for them and for plusses and so she also told me that there were people in the room with us and explained who they were and their mannerisms and their behaviors and she told me like directly who they were and then explained about them and even for one of them she said was my mom's mom who I never met and I asked her to describe the woman she was looking at and I wrote down in my notes and I took it home to my mom and I was like oh does this sound like to you like the shape of her nose her hair her stature her mannerisms hurt the way she was speaking

[01:43:57] Jacob: Her candor you know and my mom was like it sounds like my mom and it was just

[01:44:03] Mika: Like I don't know I've had some kooky experiences that I wouldn't have believed unless I had them myself but it just really made me open up to there's a lot I don't understand and I may never understand maybe that's better for my sanity there's so much out there that I can't

[01:44:22] Jacob: Say a definitive like yeah yes there's an answer to this er no this doesn't possible well but I think that search to

[01:44:30] Mika: See like to try to figure yourself out like the fact that you went to all those like you went to a psychic and you went to these different things like I like to encourage anybody to like just do like what like if you have an intuition like I wonder if like maybe like a psychic would kind of like tell me what's going on like go to a psychic I'm like all right I'm wonder if like I mean I encourage people towards like if religion is your forte if Christianity isn't there's this church down the road and like kind of someone go sit in the back for it like dude do it please do it if there's a if you have a friend who like does palm readings and does tarot cards or teru I don't know esoteric I think there is a tea at the end but I like it dude I like Frick dude

[01:45:13] Jacob: Like if you have an intuition or a feeling in your stomach like maybe that's kind of interesting to you and like you don't have to choose that you're fully gonna like this is gonna I'm gonna whatever they say I'm gonna do and that's my life I'm like you don't have to do that but I just think encouraging people to like pursue these little thoughts of like there's a reason why you think you're kind of drawn to certain styles of whatever you know for some people its energy working some people like I said it's religion and some people it's just science you know if these you can pursue these things and then they have instances where they start to make sense like I you know what is real like real and in in what's truth who tells you truth you know what the first person who made America is he that he's either person who says truth is truth you gotta understand this world is complicated listener I think I think

[01:45:59] Mika: Man I think it's super cool that you did that I have not been to like a psychic or anything like that but I it definitely fascinates me I think that it's something like I if I was listening on this podcast I would be someone on the couch and go I should go check those people out you know like what why not I did I not go check it out and I do want

[01:46:18] Jacob: To be very clear that you know because

[01:46:21] Mika: Of my background in psychology I'm a behaviorist by nature I like the science

[01:46:26] Jacob: I like I like some fortified out of

[01:46:29] Mika: Evidence or database or I like that you

[01:46:31] Jacob: Know it's looked at in some skepticism in that way and so when I go to these things I go in with an open mind that I'm not going to shut out anything that happens and be like oh no way like I can't handle that like that this is you know some light tricks or whatever like I'm not going to do that but I'm also going to come in being a little bit skeptical and that's why I get down to the nitty-gritty and I've gone in and I've tried to throw loopholes like with

[01:47:00] Mika: First time I went to the psychic I was in a relationship and I took off my promise ring and I went in as though I was single and I chose not to even address my relationship at all and she kept bringing it up she's like are you in a relationship and I said no I'm not and she's like you won't try that again Wow and I'm like well yeah I am seeing someone and show she's like well it's pretty serious because grandfather is here and he wants to talk to you oh whoa and we're we were talking about him earlier and I don't want to say his name but his grandfather had passed away and he was someone that he was really close to and he talked about his grandfather a lot to me if not more than his own parents and so it was just interesting

[01:47:41] Jacob: That I'm like really like that family

[01:47:44] Mika: Member and he got other ones like I don't know just so many uncanny things that even if I went in and I tried to liar I tried to provide reasons to be skeptical or I asked for descriptions of things I've just always been met with

[01:47:58] Jacob: Like such transparency and such dead-on information that I'm like I'm blown away like I tried I didn't come in like all

[01:48:06] Mika: Googly-eyed like oh my gosh if you tell me I'm great with animals I'm gonna be like oh you're so psychic like

[01:48:12] Jacob: Pegged and I've had those I've been to those before but there's been some really cool ones that I'm like you're really perceptive in a way that I can't explain or begin to understand because even if my face says I'm lying and you call me out on it like you're still saying things after the fact that I'm like how would you even have known right that's an interesting place to be as a human because like the one thing like our WWE world we walk around and live in you know our weird reality that we like can't say our true feelings and stuff like it terrifies everybody

[01:48:46] Mika: To like know that you can go into a room and like that psychic that person or whoever they whoever they are like they know what's going on inside like they know you're real things like it makes us we're like oh I don't want that you know that's probably why it's so scary is it's a whole level of understanding that we don't understand

[01:49:03] Jacob: You I don't think that anyone should

[01:49:07] Mika: Enter into like a spiritual realm

[01:49:10] Jacob: Without an open mind and without some forgiveness for themselves for whatever comes out because things might be said or advocated for or warned I've been warned before that's a scary sight that's a scary word in this you know you need to

[01:49:29] Mika: Come in just really being open-minded

[01:49:31] Jacob: And with forgiveness for yourself because

[01:49:36] Mika: It's it is intense and there might be things divulged about you that you have purposely kept from people but because you would purposely kept them from people they have been an obsessive thought in your mind so they're one of the most obvious ones to someone who can kind of like pluck those significant is

[01:49:54] Jacob: Coming for those from yourself exactly because you're either you know you're obsessing about fixating all the things that you're really passionate about and they'll be at the forefront and you'll openly state them with people and you'll want to talk about them in your conversations and gravitate towards that but there's also the things that were like I don't want anybody to know about this and so because they're always thinking like keep your mouth shut you know about this I don't bring it up or if people bring up something relevant like change the topic yeah it'll I mean you're still obsessing you're still fixating you want to make sure that stays hidden but you want to be aware of it so that you never say anything that gives part of it away yeah it's constantly eating at you mm-hmm oh yeah I have a yeah I have things in the same realm I have the things that I was just talking with a couple friends Shaylee and another friend about just stuff that happen to my childhood and like realizing how often it was on my mind before I had talked to them about it but

[01:50:52] Mika: It's interested in think that like you would walk into a psychic and they're like oh I see that first thing that's the thing that you're trying to say know about and I see it mm-hmm it's interesting it's intimidating but I've walked away with a lot of relief right but I'm like Okay someone gets it and they I don't know just good people I don't think a lot of people are out to be tricksters especially if they want to like make a business out of themselves we have Yelp now like if you're if you're not if you're not doing like legit business people will yeah what is it run your business down what are the Yelp reviews for psychics those are probably like pretty brutal like it's like people like sorry I pointed out that thing you don't like about yourself but you didn't have to write a yelp review right yeah I could see that being a

[01:51:39] Mika: Problem hmm well um you're awesome just thinking about how I don't want to go see a psychic now I'm like you're gonna see right through me I'm just like nervous about not even there Macau man what are you gonna know about me that's how it goes though I think that like accepting and finding any sort of like whatever way is calling to you and by calling to you it's like this intuition and by intuition it's this it's this **** feeling that you brush off all the time this is little feeling of like I wonder if like this could help me in this area and I just I was just again I'm just encouraging anybody to go and check those check those things out and try them out I got me not like meditation and yoga is something that like at the beginning I was really cool and I like learning about it but I didn't want to try it and even that is like you follow this little intuition of being interested in it and then it could kind of show you things about yourself you did mention hip hypnosis I have done

[01:52:35] Jacob: I haven't done in person hypnotism or

[01:52:38] Mika: Hypnosis but I have done on the internet on YouTube quite a few times and I've actually had some **** profound

[01:52:46] Jacob: Experiences with hypnosis I have

[01:52:49] Mika: Like I have childhood trauma and so there was a lot of that I actually had a time where so this wasn't directly from the hypnosis but it was essentially Shaylee was out of town for like three or four days she was down in San Diego and I was like this is this is I'm doing this I'm doing the **** childhood drama things I'm gonna have a conference I'm gonna do this I'm doing all the hypnosis is I was like I'm going and it was right when I was having a studio up and I actually unbox these big speakers behind me and this table wasn't here but I set him on the ground in four **** like three or four days I was just like smoking crazy amounts of weed taking a ton of CBD listening to crazy frequencies doing

[01:53:28] Jacob: Like meditations hypnosis like this was and I don't recommend people to this was **** insane I'm just crazy but like I

[01:53:35] Mika: Literally had in and again like so

[01:53:38] Jacob: And I'm halfway joking about this but I'm like the way our minds work this was a very beneficial thing like yes I was I was super high and I was just doing yoga and yeah I'm getting weird I'm by myself and whatever but like I legitimately

[01:53:52] Mika: Had experiences of you go through and you could do like a healing trauma or healing your inner child hypnosis sort of things like that and I had genuine

[01:54:03] Jacob: Like visions or I made up the vision and it seemed to work out it seemed to help me and help me heal of seeing my younger self and this room with me and hugging him and saying like it's okay you're done now like yeah I'll take it from here and I had these like profound and I just **** cried for four hours like I just like let go of this terrible thing that I was holding on to I'm in a you know again backing up to like truth and in what's real and stuff that helped me like whatever the **** that was that I did after these hypnosis and the meditation and whenever it helped me and like what you know I don't have to argue with somebody that what I saw was real it was real to me and it helped me get through experiences and kind of like take over my life as a man and like let my boy side go no but so that's my like I have a couple

[01:54:52] Mika: Other like crazy experiences with hypnosis one time experienced the color fuchsia I experienced a color purple and I experienced it as in I was the **** color purple and this was I wasn't on psychedelics this was again there was crazy if you look up online like binaural beats and the frequency is like that's all a whole nother realm of like be careful with that it's cool but you can do too much for sure but I experienced the color purple I hugged myself as a younger child like these are these are things that made me feel happy and made me feel better in my life that's my experience with hypnosis what is your radical yeah do you have anything similar to that at all or I mean obviously this is a different this is yoga and weed and CBD and frequencies but that's what works for me that's just how it helped and I don't in and I do

[01:55:38] Jacob: Well by myself and I'm pushing against that edge now and I'm knowing when to ask for help but that was how I got help was with myself and YouTube but does that continue recording even if it looks like it's not moving yes it certainly does yeah I know it's that the screen catches up to it and then it's like an apartment looking you're good I need to take the half my episodes I take that dang thing down so you don't have to be distracted by it sorry about that but next time I'll take it down to your s jacket so you just asked like what my

[01:56:09] Mika: Experience was yeah so that was unfortunately like the biggest letdown out of all the venues I've gone through which I had the most faith in because I was like this is science like I can trust in the science but he I mean I went to no therapist I think it was in battleground woodland battleground I don't know and this is about four years ago and he was male and I felt kind of nervous because he was a man and that's just warmed from like I felt like I was coming in because of something that happened from a man mm-hmm but it took me some time and I was able to relax and he was able to put me under and I could feel myself half in and half out but he said it would kind of be that way because I would still be like

[01:56:58] Jacob: Talking with him and whatnot and so he brought me through this garden to a door and that was just my particular vision of it and he'd be like okay when we opened the door we're gonna see what it is you've been barely burying from you know your

[01:57:16] Mika: Waking life and every time we opened that door it would be pitch black and I would like pekin and then as soon as I would like blink in that state I wouldn't blink for real my eyes were closed the whole time I would be back at

[01:57:34] Jacob: The start of the garden and he brought me to that door several times and then you know what felt like I was under for maybe like 15 20 minutes he had me under for like 80 minutes Wow and I think he said that he's like we really tried to process this a bunch of different ways and he's like you might not remember all of them and he was like you never got anything he's like you saw blackness every single time and so he told me that left me with two possibilities either I'm trying to remember something that didn't actually happen or it happened the way I thought it happened um or it's just so

[01:58:12] Mika: Deeply buried that I'm not ready to deal with it yet and my body is saying like quite literally like no leave it alone

[01:58:19] Jacob: We're not we're not addressing this today so I walked away from that pretty frustrated I thought maybe there wasn't a lot of things to be established about it but then I had experiences after that made me realize that I do I do think there's something there that I haven't been able to access yet and then just most recently with like going to the medicine woman and trying to develop like skills and Reiki she was looking at like my field and I can't remember what she called it but like the space that starts on the outside of her body and goes to about like a foot and a half to two feet out things that are in your field but not a part of you um it was kind of like she would like a look around me like she was looking at a computer screen and like look at different things or like move things and the air it's so interesting to like just watch her at work but she tore that of my visit she like looked up at something that was like a like above diagonal left and my field

[01:59:15] Mika: And she's like okay but we're gonna address that later and I was like do I get to know what that is and she's like you're well aware that it's there but you're not ready to deal with it yet and she was like when we start working on some of like yourself feeling that you really need to get through to establish that good base that good

[01:59:31] Jacob: Understanding that forgiveness for yourself then I can let you know what that is and why you feel so uncomfortable pretty powerful for her you know as like a just a professional in her field like that like whoever that was like that seems like a pretty like you sturdy and powerful thing to say really like oh I you know I see this thing but we're not gonna put you through that right now you know I mean like it seems like a very I'm just not noble thing to

[01:59:58] Mika: Say I guess it's it and I filmed restrainer her name is melody and she's in Vancouver and she's very sweet and she has tons of different classes for different reasons and she's very personable she has these two dogs that

[02:00:12] Jacob: Help her they actually do like therapy and other pets and stuff oh my god what's her address so she's phenomenal

[02:00:21] Mika: But her dogs are particularly funny cuz

[02:00:23] Jacob: When she's doing her stuff at work like they start doing these odd things and making noises or like pawing at different body parts while I'm sitting there or like every time you know is so uncanny that they are like in tune with her like in tune with like the vibes in the room that every time we touched on something that was particularly pain for me or like did strike a nerve in some way she's very gentle about it like it never like I never like reacted like emotionally but so physically and outwardly I would not do anything except for maybe like an expression that indicates to her like yes like she knows what she's talking about but every time something was like that it happened two or three times one of her dogs came over and like rested his head on my knee and only in those moments when I had that intense emotion was he like already walking over and like nudging me and resting his head on my knee and being like I'm here and so we always say dogs know anyway right thank you that their animals are awesome if you can really

[02:01:26] Mika: Just be kind and compassionate towards especially like domesticated animals because they already kind of have those skills in them to want to interact with

[02:01:37] Jacob: Humans in a positive way you know as much as I would love to go like hug a raccoon and I don't think it would go over so well baby raccoons are so cute right baby ones yes mama ones I don't

[02:01:48] Mika: Know they're just garbage eating and but

[02:01:51] Jacob: Yeah I think that I'm kind of kind of sold on a few of the different venues just because I've had such good experiences that even if I didn't get to continue any further I would recommend it to other people awesome yeah I think

[02:02:06] Mika: The I think that's great thanks for sharing your experiences with both of those for sure I think that like I always like leading people in the direction of like whatever is gonna heal you like you don't we get caught up way too quickly with what's real or what's true or what's weird or what's whatever like dude **** everybody else go there by yourself go wherever by yourself walk into the church by yourself walk into the into the Reiki healer by yourself walk in to the yoga studio by yourself like whatever whatever is like calling to you for you to take the next stage or the next step in your life and your healing or even if it's not even that and it's just something you want to check out like just open your mind and just really try to try your best to walk in there with an open mind and like maybe experience it I feel like everyone everyone okay I want to make a bold enough statement I feel like everyone can agree that the unn spontaneous

[02:02:58] Jacob: Nights or days that you've had you can recall were like some of the best you had no expectations you had no standards things just seemed asleep out if things went wrong it was like hilarious or that it wasn't like a bad experience even though like things were like not going with you know even the little plan that you did have and I feel um how are they going with that I totally had a connection and it was kind of like a loose one but rounded out was it just about how those situations like you think that they're going to be a bigger deal and they end up just being smooth and oh it was just simply going into things by

[02:03:41] Mika: Yourself all the opportunities that it brings to you like if you're with another person and you're you

[02:03:49] Jacob: Know either matching their energy or that you're in their bubble to and you guys are kind of creating something together it's not just you anymore and it's not just what you need so you might not get as much out of experiences if you spend it connected with someone else spending the whole night with them spending evening with them when you go to festivals I always make it a point to run off by myself at least for a couple hours every day because you come back to your friends if you've all run off and doing your own thing and everyone had like I mean it's easier at a festival too because there's so many so much going on but you all had your own experiences some of you went off and tried some new things some of you made new friends some of you spent the whole time dancing and like made like a new romantic interest but like you all went off and experienced different things that or things you truly wanted to experience and sometimes it's just being solitary and someone went and took a nap and it was just like the best dream they ever had and I've had experiences like that not quite

[02:04:45] Jacob: As fun you know just in like the normal public here but going to a movie by myself going to a restaurant by myself I choose to sit at like the bar stools at a restaurant where someone can sit next to me or I intentionally sit next to someone else regardless of what they look like and I end up having really interesting conversations with strangers and I although I'm not always on board for doing that and sometimes I need my space I would always advocate for people trying things on their own especially if

[02:05:15] Mika: It's something they really want to do and they can't easily find someone to join them instead of like rejecting the idea because it's intimidating if you go and do it on yourself I think like the universe is gonna match that with something that you're gonna find worthwhile yeah I agree I think so it's gonna it's gonna give you the answer I think that person's gonna see I'm a I'm a very like my DIY I'll do it myself

[02:05:39] Jacob: Sort of i always have enjoyed doing things by myself I've always been the like I like to wake up before other people at the festival and go for a walk you know or I like to like if like I did Coachella a lot of times I would I went with a big group we would get there and we're at the festival and I think I'll meet you guys and you know in three half hours I'm gonna go cuz I'm like I really want to follow like hi Jim you want to see this thing you know so I'm gonna go by myself in just that going by yourself there's this weird feeling of like especially if you've been like codependent or you've always like had somebody around or if you if you're somebody uses your phone a lot twos even it's like a feeling of like you think you think people are watching you maybe sometimes they're used to telling them self conscious like when you're alone it's a feeling of like this

[02:06:26] Jacob: Gosh what is that feeling when you're when you're like you've been with somebody like you're always with somebody but then you're like kind of kind of uncomfortable but you're like I know I want to do this alone you know I think just if you just sit with that feeling and you realize that it's not so bad and you can kind of turns it into a little dance move like it's like that feeling that unknowing that like whoo I don't know I want somebody with me or I want to text somebody right now just sitting with that feeling by yourself I think it's good and I mean you only when you lay your head down at night and for a lot of sometimes part of your day even if it's just driving like you are by yourself like you only really have yourself and your thoughts and your experiences those are the only things that you can begin to see the full scope of your perceptions the things that are

[02:07:16] Mika: Yours and so

[02:07:19] Jacob: You have to get comfortable with pain by yourself or like you're gonna have some pretty unnerving things and you're gonna I just I feel like there was a time when I was younger that I just had this massive fear of abandonment that I mean was validated I had it I know why I had it but it's essentially useless I mean if there was a time that I really was abandoned if there was this crazy plane crash when I'm on my way to vacation and I survived somehow and I'm by myself with no understanding of how I'm gonna get back to civilization how do you make the most of something like that like do you it comes back to that choice do you want to survive this to see if someone comes to rescue you or do you give up you go down yourself and I mean it's an option it's just have that breakdown choose that are you comfortable knowing that you know five

[02:08:13] Jacob: Minutes after you drown yourself a helicopter comes and lands on the island or as you're drowning and you're too far out to say like I just think of things like in really big ways sometimes but it helps me understand that like the big picture is all the littler pictures too right it's you know you want to be the

[02:08:31] Mika: Survivor like why don't you I mean draw

[02:08:34] Jacob: It like castaway was like actually brilliant like drawing a face and a volleyball and treating it like it was another person that saved him from becoming insane he wasn't insane because of it you need interaction you need something and because maybe there wasn't a lot of animals on the island or if there had been they weren't you know nice friendly animals that you can make a pet you need to do something to keep yourself agile keep yourself interested in your own things your what you now

[02:09:01] Mika: Have accessible to you so that's making this really extravagant shelter and finding ways to do things for yourself and building really that like just that like that functional

[02:09:14] Jacob: Value in yourself like resilience you if you get saved you can take that back and teach people how to get on the tree huts for vacations and then now you're making money like I don't know I don't think I felt this way back in high school and I definitely

[02:09:31] Mika: Didn't feel this way growing up but I

[02:09:34] Jacob: Just have felt the last couple of years

[02:09:37] Mika: That there's really no alternative for

[02:09:40] Jacob: Me and I like meeting other people that

[02:09:43] Mika: Think the same way that have experienced the lows and they've just decided there is no alternative like no matter what the circumstances I'm gonna choose to do

[02:09:52] Jacob: Something with it and see things out to

[02:09:55] Mika: Its natural course it's natural finality

[02:09:58] Jacob: Yeah I think in and we seem to always surprise ourselves to like if you can just get through that discomfort and in those moments you could just do what you think is right and just you'll surprise yourself like a like the

[02:10:14] Mika: Inept like if you're on an island your plane crashed like oh my gosh can you imagine like the terrible thoughts that you'd have like about you got well I got to keep going I'm not gonna drown I'm not gonna die I'm not gonna I'm not going to give up I mean and you're gonna level up you're going to get better at building huts you're gonna get better at whatever I mean in Tom Hanks in that one he got better it like he worked out I was thinking about as you doing like the Wilson thing I did a lot of when I was because I was I wasn't I had no idea that like I was not my thoughts like when I was like super depressed and suicidal like I that didn't make sense to me like I thought that every thought that came up was like anytime it has me I'm doing what my thoughts say like what any time like but when you really like taking that Wilson

[02:11:00] Jacob: And like talking to him like sometimes you figure out what the hell you have to say when you write it we talked about writing like sometimes you don't know what you're saying until you're writing and then you're halfway through the paper like that's what I think you know I mean sometimes you need to make a Wilson and you need to talk to him you know sometimes like it like me I was like me versus my depression like oh no that's a depression thought that's a bad thought Jake don't do that like let's like what is that thought you take a look at it you know but I and I want to make a metaphor out of this if someone hasn't coined it I want to coin this teachers talk about students needing the tools you need the tools materialistically to be a good learner you need a pencil you need a paper you need a tablet you know you need whatever it is you need the person to teach you who knows what they're trying to teach you know you can't just learn everything from scratch you need it to come from somewhere but you also need

[02:11:52] Mika: You need the emotional tools to be present and to work through things without verbalizing it to someone else you need to have the strength and the confidence to seek things out for yourself and remain curious like you need and I want to focus on like specifically the emotional tools you need your emotional toolkit I tell this with like little kids it's just how we describe it but adults need that emotional toolkit to survive adulthood where you feel more alone than you probably ever felt like even as a kid you could have felt alone depending on your home life but as an adult you really see this these things happen you end up living by yourself you end up outside of other people and you know even friends and family who care for you not making a lot of time for you because we're all going in all these crazy different directions with different schedules when you're alone and you

[02:12:39] Mika: Start to feel isolated and you start to feel like people aren't making time for you it can kind of feel like you really are as isolated as if you're the one on island you even if you're reaching out to people and you're not getting hits back or they're not calling you back rather keep saying no I'm busy this weekend and if anyone's ever had a day where they just literally could find no one to hang out with but that's what you wanted so badly that feeling of isolation you like you tried and it's inconceivable that day you need to have like on the

[02:13:06] Jacob: Island you would want literal tools to help you would want some piece of sharp metal that can help you cut down trees but you would also need like your emotional tools your mental stability to say this is it's not great I don't I don't

[02:13:21] Mika: Have a lot here but I have my intelligence I have my curiosity I have my creativity like I have these things a

[02:13:29] Jacob: Part of me that cannot be taken from me unless there's like a physical limitation and you have you know no capability to move yourself or strength

[02:13:38] Mika: But you need your emotional toolkit to

[02:13:42] Jacob: Get you through those random days where you feel isolated or you feel overly sensitive you need to keep reevaluating within yourself not needing to ask people like you know was this a mean thing that someone did or am I just being crazy you need to be able to do that inside yourself and be like are we just sensitive right now like we really think that this person meant that and do we need to address it if there's someone that we're close to do we need to bring this up and we're feeling more calm about it and be like do you really feel that way about me like where is that coming from because it's not gonna help our friendship sustain you know if

[02:14:17] Mika: We don't address this yeah dude the emotional toolkit is so important I think do you have because I kind of have a I've built my emotion my emotional

[02:14:26] Jacob: Toolkit is **** beefy and I'm

[02:14:29] Mika: Proud of my emotional toolkit like I have days where I just I wake up like I said and I'm like a little I'm not good but at my most from tool kit says like

[02:14:39] Jacob: All right bro you don't feel the best today that's okay you got this what do you need to do and then my emotion toolkit I'm like alright I got a workout

[02:14:47] Mika: I gotta do yoga I got a meditate I got it like my emotional toolkit extends to like things that I can do too but even before that it's your emotional toolkit is sometimes to me like this voice that you add in which is the real you to me of like this whether it's Tony Robbins or it's Eric Thomas or it's like one of these like intense people like come on **** you got this like okay my plane crash done my planes crashed that's done I can't do anything about it what's next I can do this instead of this like oh my plane crash what am I gonna do and you just curl up at a ball on the ground you can build up your emotional toolkit to where he starts kicking in to you know he starts like problems arise he's tough you know I'm oh gosh what's his name Ct Fletcher I think he's a he's like one of the big

[02:15:37] Jacob: Like a bodybuilder weightlifter he has this thing he within the last couple years he got a heart transfer in it's a

[02:15:45] Mika: He says it's a I

[02:15:48] Jacob: So this is another strange thing he got

[02:15:51] Mika: A heart transfer and he's a very he's a motivational speaker he's like his thing is that you got one more step one more set or it's still your set if you've ever heard that I don't know it's in the bodybuilding world like if you're a I don't know if you body build all the time or what but uh it's his

[02:16:07] Jacob: Thing is like you it's still your set like if you said you're gonna do ten and you only did eight like get back down and do your - like it's his thing but so he got this heart transplant yeah like heart failure or whatever and it and he has a think he said it was

[02:16:21] Mika: Like a young asian lady's heart and he got and his thing is he is he when he's feeling discouraged he doesn't feel like he's got it or he doesn't get out of bed or whatever he's got he says come on Lady come on Lady we got this and talks to his heart and that lady's heart and he says come on Lady we got this and I don't know if that's exactly what you mean by emotional toolkit I was kind of extending it into mine but it can mean a lot of resilience I think a lot of things are just someone's perception of something and that's your perception of what your emotional toolkit has to offer unlike the ways that you've connected with something that someone else has utilized you know I think that's great I

[02:16:59] Jacob: Think everything is very everything when

[02:17:02] Mika: It comes to emotions it's just ambiguous I mean so many emotions go into each other you need emotional toolkits for all of the things you know and we build On our own at different levels right I have it I have another emotional toolkit idea that I was thinking about okay and

[02:17:19] Jacob: I do

[02:17:23] Mika: So on the on the inside of my glasses I have printed lion and that's the thing that I write on the inside of my left hand all the time is lion a lion and that the oh that's just an animal to a lot of people but to me I have I've given that word power and to me that means like straighten up your chest back but your put your arms back or your chest out like you got this it's like my like I've like given that single word like it has so much meaning because I have built that over time and I think that it's like a lot of people can find

[02:17:52] Jacob: Words like you know I suppose religious people have their have their versions of those words that they've read I'm like okay this is what that means and they take that on but I think that we can make up our own words of like what's you know like if your plane crashes and like me if I if my plane crashes and I'm on the island and I'm like sad it's like if I just told myself like all right lion you got this your lion like that would give me an all right man I'm super bummed right now but the best way I'm gonna solve this problem is if I put my chest out and I look around I'm like okay what are my options what are my resources do I have a shelter like these things lie and you know so listener if

[02:18:28] Mika: If you're listening if you don't have a word or a you know that mantra a lot of times people emotional toolkit whatever that means to you if any of these things that we talked about if they pop up like a dorky idea and build that idea build it that's

[02:18:41] Jacob: More than Legos hunters are powerful do

[02:18:44] Mika: You have any mantras or D and then also your emotional toolkit do you have any of your personals that you can think of are I utilize mantras all the time

[02:18:51] Jacob: Yeah I talked to myself in the mirror a lot especially when I'm doing my makeup I mean like I was a girl I got a lot of time in front of a mirror I have hair I have makeup I have skincare you know I sometimes even just like to sit in front of my mirror when I'm doing my nails or other things or I've made that spot in my room cozy for myself and it's my like feel better about yourself station so we're literally making ourselves feel good making ourselves feel pretty or utilizing some creativity but also sitting there and hyping myself up listening to get music listening to a podcast talking to myself thinking about what I have to do for the day and how I'm gonna get it done I was gonna say is that my word is has

[02:19:34] Mika: Become like grit or sissu and they're kind of like the same thing but sissu is uh it's one of my

[02:19:43] Jacob: Heritage's I don't want to fudge up which one it is it's finish I think I

[02:19:50] Mika: Believe it's finished but just to have

[02:19:53] Jacob: That grit and grit isn't being good at

[02:19:56] Mika: Anything except for not giving up essentially it is like the act of persistence and determination of just seeking out better for yourself putting your feet on the ground keep walking keep trying keep fighting keep learning like it's just that act of like that total resilience to the negative things that happen and that defiance - like I'm not gonna let other people tell me how to do things or bring me down and I really like that because you can be I

[02:20:27] Jacob: Mean you can be a lot of you can be a lot of negative things sometimes as well but I feel like even

[02:20:35] Mika: We like every people everybody can look at someone who doesn't give up and still like that about them and it's so apparent so even if you're not making a lot of good choices in your life at that current moment the fact that you're like not giving up on trying to do what's

[02:20:50] Jacob: Best right I mean that's really

[02:20:52] Mika: Important and so a lot of my mantras also circle around different words that are encompassed in those like dictionary explanations so I will excite myself like you arrived I'm brave I'm resilient

[02:21:05] Jacob: I'm smart I'm intelligent I am intuitive I really like and I think I put it in my

[02:21:13] Mika: Like a sentence about the author on Thought Catalog is that I am a unique

[02:21:19] Jacob: And intuitive individual and those are two of my favorite things about me is that I really like my ability to

[02:21:26] Mika: Connect with total strangers and get them to open up and have deep conversations with someone that I don't

[02:21:34] Jacob: Even really know the things that most other people know about them like I'm really terrible with names which I feel like sometimes clashes with like the

[02:21:44] Mika: Things that I talk about and the things I want to bring forward into my relationships that people think that's such like a such an offensive thing to forget someone's name multiple times after meeting them but for me it's like I could tell you what their favorite sports team is like I could tell you what we talked about last time I saw you I could jump right back into that conversation and I feel like that's way more important and sometimes I get stuck on the fact that people don't look like their names we get named as babies I feel like I look like my name but there are

[02:22:15] Jacob: Some people I meet that I just feel like their name doesn't totally suit them that it's not unique enough or it's not vibrant enough or it's you know not old fashioned enough like I think sometimes people you know people get born at the wrong time people get missed named so I like to focus on the things that are like very much like the wholesome like

[02:22:34] Mika: They're the part of them that is them

[02:22:37] Jacob: Right conversation we have were you

[02:22:40] Mika: Can't be you can't be ingenuine I don't know if that's a way to listen Jen I don't know I'm genuine

[02:22:51] Jacob: This ingenuine I don't know but you can't be that when you start having certain like deeper level conversations yeah so that's why I put like being intuitive and being empathetic and being unique are like the things that like I

[02:23:11] Mika: Would get mad and I thought about this the other day I like the Enneagram which opted to go into that but Enneagram says

[02:23:18] Jacob: Fours are the individualist and so I like I really pride myself on being unique and Who I am and one of a kind and that's super important to me and it also like factors into like my genetic pool like a lot of people really don't look like me on a genetic level and so if someone were to come to me and be like you know you're just like everyone else it would for me yeah I don't want

[02:23:41] Mika: To be like everyone else um but knowing yourself you also know that's just not true everyone is themselves each of us has an important job to do in some way and you got to keep yeah Rajan on you got to figure out what that is and do that thing in like learning these

[02:24:00] Jacob: Things about yourself and like allowing itself to have that I'm like you know what I do like this I honestly I don't like being an individual like that's fine let myself have it like just and then learn what that's all about and like learn how you can benefit that thing I always talk about meditation the thing about meditation is when you're meditating and you notice the moment that you notice that you've been lost in thought you're like oh shoot helps the pain Dishman breath that moment that's a bicep curl that's a curl you just boom that's you know okay I noticed and you're back to your breath and then you know 15 seconds later you're like oh crap I was thinking about my laundry again and then but that when you're like let's go back to the breath that's another bicep curl and I think that resilience and I finding out like what you

[02:24:52] Mika: Finding out about yourself in

[02:24:56] Jacob: Learning about yourself I'm sure I was trying to relate it back to and every time that you notice or every time you learn about yourself it's a bicep curl

[02:25:08] Mika: You're strengthening your a belief and who you are right and what you're capable of yeah

[02:25:15] Jacob: Yeah and you're building that and you're in every time you do it gets a little bit stronger so like more and more situations when you're like I don't know what I'm all about or you're triggered or you're set off by these different things like when you know who you are you don't just all the sudden wake up one day like I know exactly who I am and I'm going to speed I'm a hundred percent that personnel on any interaction I come in contact with they're gonna hit me in the chest and I'm gonna be fine because I Know Who I am that's not how it is you kind of like almost figure out who you are that's what life is and I think that when you when you get on those things and you're like that's who I am like I am like grit for example you talk about grit like every time that you when **** gets hard and you kick in that voice of I can do this because I have grit that's a bicep curl you know that's like every

[02:26:01] Mika: Time you do it you get a little bit stronger and you're building yourself into this thing but you already knew you're this thing you're just really stepping into it I think just doing those bicep curls and like just doing the doing the work of accepting yourself and building where you need to build we're getting a little up here in time I want to make sure that we mentioned you mentioned Thought Catalog can you let listeners know where they can find you it so aside from like actually getting a link which I don't know if we can attach to like the podcast itself when you post it I put on the Spotify or on the info

[02:26:39] Mika: Um you I would just like Google search like my Co address Thought Catalog and it'll bring you to like my author section which there's only three of them on there right now um still trying to decide on that fourth and what I'm gonna attack it and reason with it but otherwise just downloading thought catalog or Google searching it because there's tons of other great articles on there about various different things they upload new ones every day and they're by I would imagine some professional writers who do it for fun and a lot of non-professional writers I mean sometimes I see certain names pop up dozen or so more like times like I know that they have books that they publish with them too but just lots of

[02:27:22] Jacob: Fresh viewpoints and faces and lots of

[02:27:25] Mika: Silver linings and ways to take the

[02:27:28] Jacob: Positives out of negative scenarios and

[02:27:31] Mika: I really appreciate it because it's fresh it's transparent but it's also like but we're not taking **** lying down like right there's got to be a other side to this coin do you scroll through like that sort of thing instead of like Facebook or Instagram sometimes again that's something that I tried when I stopped using social media I was like I play I replace it with reddit of course at first and then you kind of get to you start finding like individual blogs that you like and it's you're kind of absorbing that good information rather than just kind of like the endless entertainment sometimes that's good yeah and I found that catalog to be a lot more wholesome than some other places some other places are more like a magazine or like they're really

[02:28:09] Jacob: Into marketing things and so they'll do

[02:28:12] Mika: Like BuzzFeed does like other things and medium does other things and there's nothing I can't think of but they're kind of like more like the marketing side and Thought Catalog as far as we know doesn't pay anyone to like submit and they don't take any money from anyone to have their things submitted so it's just very come as you are someone you don't know edits it emails you whether or not I got accepted and then it's shared openly and I think that's what's pretty cool about it cool well people definite have to check

[02:28:44] Jacob: You out on there and I'm you know in time and I'm not trying to push you but I look forward to you continuing your writing journey and I look forward to more conversations too if you'd be willing I think this is a great conversation thanks for thanks for dealing with my like not format today you know I he got here and I'm like hey I've been kind of sad do you want just talk you know so I do appreciate that Mika thank you yeah this has been fun I take some time getting used to like the headphones on the microphone but I think I think I've got it now like I got past like the whole like aesthetics of the fact that we're in a recording place yeah I know it's I'm always telling people yeah just grab that **** thing it's fine you're good in the but I get it I get this thing you know and people trying to like help me load my gear they're like oh my gosh I don't want to bump anything with this it's just people are so sweet to me and so like in a room

[02:29:32] Outro: A lot of times you're like I know that like I might break something cuz I don't know what things do I don't touch it but thanks for getting comfortable and Sinking into it yeah this is really thank you for the experience and showing an interest on having me on I really appreciate it alright listener take care of yourself and work on your grit sharpen your sharpen your grit sharpen your emotional toolkit do your bicep curls and bring some **** water