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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
#479 | Jo Standing | Healing in Plain Sight Strategies for Veteran Mental Health
Jo Standing joined the show to talk about mental health and wellness for servicemembers.
When we hang up our uniforms for the last time, the battle often doesn't end there; it simply changes fronts. This episode peels back the curtain on the silent war many veterans face during their transition from military to civilian life.
https://www.jostanding.com/
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
Welcome to the protectors podcast. This is a conversation I've wanted to have for a while and it's something that you are very, very close to you is mental health in the military transition, wellness, keeping your mind healthy, and that's that's tough in our environment nowadays, and it's not just the military, it's everywhere, but it's huge in the military because you don't you know, you're thrust right out of the military and a lot of times you don't have time to process it and when you do, there's nowhere to help. So welcome to the protectors. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's so nice to finally set eyes on you. You look exactly like everything on your media online, so I feel like we've been in this conversation for a while now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one thing about social media is you feel like you know people and you know what they're up to. You see what they're doing, but you don't see the whole picture. You're only seeing a snapshot.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:And we know social media. Sometimes when you see that happy face, that facade, you don't know what's going on in someone's life. And we've seen that so many times when we lose people that we know because we don't know what's going on in their life.
Speaker 2:That's it, and I think so synonymously or not, well, as a parallel. So we have the personal lives that exist between you and me, yours, mine and then you listening, and then we have this idea that we've conjured in our mind around what we've put out to the world on social media and how much that depicts who we are. And it takes that self practice of self recognition of where we're really sitting within our lives to come forward and offer that up on a grander scale of the worldwide web. And why would we even do that? And you know, is it smart? I don't know, probably not.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the thing about social media is, you know, I didn't have social media when I was a kid, we didn't even have the internet. I mean, it was basically you know, you call someone and you call him on the phone, the phone's hanging on the wall. You know you didn't have social media. I think the same thing was, though, true dose. You still had mental health problems, you still had those same issues.
Speaker 1:I remember being a very depressed kid, a very depressed teen even, and you know, depression followed me, follows me till today. But I remember, even before that, in the military, going through the dark times, going through difficulty of, you know, not having anyone to talk to and and having that pressure on you. And now, social media, what it does is it gives you that instant gratification or that, what are they? What are they called? The, not the cortisol boost, some sort of boost where it just like okay, you get that instant gratification, so it kind of gives you like a glimpse of happiness for a little while, and you can put on a facade that you're happy, but the reality is, I mean, some days you suck and and sometimes it's even worse for other people, because you get that gratification but then you don't get it again, it's gone, and then how do you get it back? How do you keep your head and your mind afloat?
Speaker 2:So, firstly, I concur, there's that immediacy of visibility and there's that dopamine hit.
Speaker 1:That's what it's, dopamine.
Speaker 2:Well, and adrenaline For me. I felt a sense when I first started speaking about mental health in 2016,. When I first got on Instagram, I was like, no, I don't want. Who know Instagram? Who needs that, please? You know I was born in Raisina, what I consider is somewhat small town, in Virginia Beach, virginia, so I thought it was a small town.
Speaker 2:Then I've actually been to small town USA and one of my trips across the country, but I like to like you, we were told to keep things quiet. No one really cares, no one wants to know, and if they know, they're going to hold it against you point blank, and that's especially true in the military. So having these facets of self, like we all, have a mental self. We can't deny that. Yet we try to abbreviate it, short cut, circumvent mask, and that visibility, as we know, is both a blessing and a curse. It really boils down to nothing more than our relationship with ourselves. That's the deciding force of the ultimate pro con of social media, because whatever someone says or insinuates around anyone else's process has to do with that person, their experience. It has to do with their filters in their own minds being projected onto the person who's brave enough to share what's going on and I've been so moved, so greatly stirred by watching all of the branch members in the military in our country come forward and speak about what is a part of their wherewithal, what makes it possible for them to get up in the morning, what are the challenges, and to no slight, to any governing body, organization, governmental force or anything like that. It's a personal experience and that's the courage and the beautiful illumination of that courage that I've been seeing since, well, several years.
Speaker 2:When I got on in 2017, I was living in Stafford, virginia, which I didn't know was the backyard of Quantico and a really smart backyard. Who ever designed that environment is so intelligent. I was just I would marvel at it. There's one nature park that I could find to go with my dogs. At the time, I just had one dog and all the locals would say, well, it's gorgeous, but in the summertime, all the black snakes come up and they're everywhere. I thought wasn't that smart? I mean, no one's going to want to be too close to the backyard if that's the case, so I thought that was awesome.
Speaker 2:The strategic level of considerations implemented by our protecting, defending body, if you will like. We don't think about as civilians. How much thought goes into protecting people, our civilians. We don't think about it, and we probably shouldn't, but because we might not work on what we're working on, we focus too much on all of that. But my point is that there were just talk about a culture shock.
Speaker 2:Being new to that area and, by my own volition, moving there and then reaching out to our service members, after having spoken to moms and well, moms who had lost their children to suicide in different branches the Marine Corps, army, navy, Air Force and hearing their desperation and then my curiosity erupting around. Well, what is the transition program? Why is it so hard for people to make that transition from service member to civilian? And then, being a female has its drawbacks, but also its pluses, if we're mindful. So I used that kind of that cute personality that people expect of you as a girl and went okay, well, let me reach out to these people and see if they'll talk about their experience, because I really need to know, because I've got these moms that I've been introduced to, who are crying day in and day out in the loss of their children, and so, and these friends and these brothers and sisters who are rightfully appalled by the lack of resources or abilities to mend the effects of the loss of their loved one.
Speaker 2:So that was huge to be able to stand there in my kitchen in Stafford Virginia on a video recording, like we're doing now, and just asking the questions, and you know, love me or hate me and see, whatever, but that for me was huge to want to go into the depths, and not so much on my part but on the part of the service members, the facts, the fact that they, they quote, unquote, the people from the different branches I just reached out to randomly on social media, you know, married with families, busy, taking time aside in their schedule To talk about it, and then opening that conversation was ginormous.
Speaker 2:So I think that there you guys are the leaders, and in fact there's a, there's a monk who, tick-nott Han, who passed away recently in the last, I think, you know, couple years it seems it must, it was couple years, I think and he spoke about the fact that that the military are like the torchbearers, the carriers of light who, if people who have endured such atrocities, like my dad and my uncles, that they can walk forward and mend their lives, that is the epitome of in you, jason, I know, you have depths of service years. The fact that the fact that there's been a desire and impetus to delve into, like what's up, what's going on, what, what am I carrying?
Speaker 1:That's the thing is a lot of a lot of troops, soldiers, sailors, marines, a lot of people in service Think about that stuff. They think about what is what is going on in me and it's. You know, I bring up my service because I had two phases. I had the pre-911 phase, which was the Cold War. It wasn't really wartime and we didn't think about mental health and, god forbid, you went forward in 1990s. Since then I have suicidal ideations or depression. You're. You know they're going to chapter you out or you know whatever, they're not going to listen to you. I remember getting back from the war in 2006 and that simple listen. When you get back especially I was an individual ready reserves and you get back, you just want to get out You're like, look, I'm done, you know I have to out process for a week or two. I don't. If I check that block that says have you been, you know, feeling down or depressed or suicidal? I'm going to be stuck there and I don't know when I'm going to get out. So you say everything's good and then you're out on your own and I can see that happens a lot of times with transition. I know when I got out of active duty. In the 90s there was no mental health checklist. There was nothing to do with it. When you're in, you're doing a transitions assistance program. I don't know what the transition assistance program is like nowadays, whether or not they put that in there, whether or not it's like a serious block of instruction or if it's just check the block. But the problem with taps or whatever programs are used nowadays is it's still the same concept.
Speaker 1:99% of people are ready to end their term of service or ready to get out. They don't want to. You know they may or may not ask questions about hey, how can I get help when I get out? Is a VA available to give me help? Is a VA my only option? Are there other options? What are legitimate non-governmental organizations or legitimate nonprofits that can help me? Is there something for me out there? Because you might not feel that until you get out, you might not feel that pressure, that depression, that darkness until you get out and you may not even realize you had it because you were surrounded by people all the time. But when the loneliness creeps in and when you're on your own and you're worried about whether or not you're going to have a paycheck or whether or not you can live or whatever else, or you're supporting families and it starts creeping in. You don't know where to go for help and you don't know how to deal with it yourself.
Speaker 2:The selflessness of our service members is always astounded me, jason. I mean speaking of just that level of uncertainty. Sometimes it's self-perpetuated because a lot of by fear. Fear, now, this isn't like a character flaw, this is a disposition within the self, and fear is a very real beast and that fear of, like you said well, has set up right now. If I say something, will I be put in the psych ward? Will it be blown out of proportion? Now I've got to go to the base located psych ward and eat mush three times a day and be highly um medicated and, if not, that there's anything wrong with Western medicine. Um, and there's rhyme and reason for levels of prescriptions being assigned. Um, I do know. So let me so two things here.
Speaker 2:One, um 2016, when I lived in Hawaii, I was getting new windshield wipers at O'Reilly's and Marine Corps veteran Um all of a sudden appeared in the. It wasn't dressed in the camis, um, but, or the camouflage you know, first of all they were doing, but comes into the aisle and um, super robust, with great energy, lots of like. You could feel that selflessness, that the good intentions of wanting to help, but also so what? He so he so he was a mechanic with the Marines and many tours and, um, you know, he followed me and said do you need help putting those on your car? Well, he got a new client that day because when he wasn't at the base working at MCBA you know, marine Corps based um Hawaii and Kaneohei um, I would hire him, I would pull my resources together as a writer who was just writing a lot, um, writing the breakthrough curriculum for what I call the Conquer Trauma Drama breakthrough curriculum. I spent my my year there, that I lived there as a civilian in 2016, not as a naval spouse, as I did in 2022, but just focusing on writing and getting my ass to the beach every now and then and trying trying to, you know, just doing everything, because I had, by that time, by 2016, I had had 13 years of being abreast in all the holistic approaches to life and, um all the different fun practices to align myself with wellness.
Speaker 2:Anyway, this man his level of selflessness I learned as soon came to learn took him out to eat one day for lunch and he told me that he had a wife and his kids, but his kids were not his biological kids and every single penny that he earned through me or the base, went to North Carolina to keep a roof over his wife's head and the children, who were never you know his own children. Um, and you know he got married when he was very young. He was like 21 or something at this time, he was like 36, 37, somewhere in there. And then I had him over. My boyfriend and I at the time were having dinner and I said he came over and was this is what he would do. He would just show up out of the blue, this marine, and he'd be like I'm working on your car. So tell him. I had an issue. But with his schedule and the eminency of being on schedule for the marines you never knew. You can't only schedule with him because his chain of command has control over his schedule, so he doesn't know what's you know penciled in and not penciled in, so at random. You know I'm here and I'm I'm working on your car and I said well, you know I made some. I remember asparagus was in the meal because he really loved the asparagus. I don't remember what else was in it, but somebody made and we sat down at the table outside and smelling the Ocemer and he started telling me about the experiences he had in Afghanistan and my boyfriend at the time went up and got up and did the dishes and and his passion, but also, like the very visceral flashbacks became apparent to me that he was experiencing. So then, conquer Trauma, drama.
Speaker 2:I wrote about the different kinds of like flashbacks that I reflected on as a trauma survivor, a big T trauma survivor, as it's called. Myself like how many? What kind of flashbacks have I had? So there's, you know, visceral, which is the body felt one, the body felt sense, and then the visual, which is playing out through the visual cortex of the brain and pictures we see in our brain, and auditory flashbacks. It doesn't have necessarily a visual at first, but it starts as something that's a sound. So there's different types. Anyway, that's when I felt whoa, hold on, hold on, ok, so he read the book, that's that's it was.
Speaker 2:And when I asked him to give me a tour of the base because I wanted to see what resources they had there, and, from the goodness of his heart, he took this civilian with him one afternoon to go and the tour was Far from light, you know. It was like, oh well, we were training in boot camp and someone died there and someone died there and I'm like wow, oh, and someone just kind of like fell off and he just hit his head it and like okay. But eventually we got to the family resource center and that's where I picked up a piece of paper and it said the TRP transition readiness program. And I was stoked because a year later, in 2017. I Was hiring I think I don't know, some online resource, hired someone, guess what? He was a Marine Corps veteran too. So, hey, can you give me? Do you have those materials they gave you? Because he said he just transitioned out. And he said, sure. So he handed me these notebooks and I went to the photocopy store and photocopied it.
Speaker 2:Well, lo and behold, primarily at that time and again we're speaking 2017, and I know that it's gradually becoming more and more, more Eminent and more recognized as Something to integrate in. And, as you said once when we were speaking, jason, it's not just that ultimate transition from service member to civilian bits of the essence to Support our service members through. It's Also like Transitioning from one post to the other. When do you get a moment? Because when you're transitioning from one post to another, you're doing a survival stuff fight or flight, you're got. You're still in fight or flight. You're okay.
Speaker 2:Now, in order to survive this, I need to pack all of my things and then I need to drive across the country or or get on a whatever, or, in my case, my ex-husband was in the Navy and it was okay. So you're going, you know, you learn where you're going to be reposted if you will, and it's quite Quick, as you know, having been in the service. It's like, okay, well, suddenly you get these orders and you have X amount of time and it's you never really know. So then, so our stuff was forwarded to Hawaii. Okay, well, I mean, you get there and sometimes it's a week or two weeks or more before your stuff's with you. So now you have the extra incurred cost of what you're sleeping. You know, I slept on my memory phone, dog beds, until my stuff arrived and my ex-husband said are you joking? I'm gonna go sleep on a ship. I said well, you do that. Let's see the facts. You are gonna grunt with me, right here with me, and my dog is. We just look across.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you're you're bringing up a you're bringing up a solid point there that a lot of people don't realize. It's not just about the service member, whether that's a guy or girl or whatever, it's just that you have a whole like Universe built around that career Family. You know extended family, you know you were talking about the Marine House family in the US. It means there's there's so many people built around that service that when you think about your own mental health, a lot of times it says selflessness comes out to really well, you know, what are they going through? What are they going through? Well, they need the help. I don't, I'm good, I'm strong, I've got this, but it's everybody's dealing with it, everybody's dealing with that movement. And these miss these pieces at a puzzle. Because we know, once you get to your duty station, next thing, you know there's training, there's training, evolutions, and then there's deployments and there is this and there is that, and you may not even be settled in, like you said, you might not get your furniture for months, and then all of a sudden your spouse or your significant other one is out deployed, or they're in the field or they're training, or they got to go to a school or they got to do this, so they got to get up at four o'clock in the morning. They don't get home till eight o'clock at night and you're dealing with the family, you don't get the mental health break and they come home and then there's conflict and then they're exhausted. There's just this whole big, massive spectrum about it and it's like that the reality is. When you're in the service, you're a number, you're you're a number, you're part of a fiscal year, but the thing is you're gonna lose so much effectiveness combat effectiveness or peacetime effectiveness when you lose a Not I equate this at the same thing in the civilian market as well. Like you know, coming from the federal service, being a federal agent just because I was a special agent a GS 1811 or whatever other series I've held 1896 or 1801 or whatever throughout my career Just because I have that series doesn't mean I'm automatically replaceable with another number. All that experience you build and all that Momentum you've built in your career means something it really does. It means something to all the people around you and it means something to the job, because just because you're a number doesn't mean the job is gonna be done effectively If you're gone and you get replaced with someone of a lower rank or a lesser, lesser knowledge base than you do. So there is so much beyond I shouldn't say beyond it's so critical that Mental health is interjected in the service starting from day one.
Speaker 1:You know, you have, you know here. You know, when I, when I joined the military in 93, it was like, hey, here's a little mini Bible and if you want to go see the chaplain, you know well, you can go on a Sunday or whatever, when they have sermons, or there was no mental health. It was just you had one option and that was it. There was no mental health counselors, there was no Holistic or there was no medication, there was no, nothing, god forbid. You did go see someone and they said, hey, you know what, maybe she takes a Luxapro or you should do this or that. Well, if you take that, is it gonna make you combat ineffective?
Speaker 1:So I mean there's, there's so many different things that it's not just about like we were talking about their transitions from point A to point B or even to get out of the service. It's about having a solid core, our resources available to you. That's not gonna render you Quote-unquote combat ineffective, but make you more effective. When you're mentally strong, you're way more effective and then, hey, you know what that recruiting or retention NCO might go. Huh, I'm seeing a lot more people reenlist because they feel like they're part of something and they feel like they're getting the help they need. This is just me being like idealistic, but maybe it's because they they feel like they're being cared for and they don't need to get out, because it's the worst thing they've ever done their life being in a service. So I mean, there's so much a you know what's. One thing I want to ask your opinion is what can they do in service To keep your mental health Going?
Speaker 1:And it doesn't have to be the worst-case scenario, it doesn't have to be the the suicidal ideations. It doesn't have to be that the suicidal ideations. It could just be like you know what I am depressed. How would you? What's your suggestion on keeping your mental health strong?
Speaker 2:And so when you say they, are you speaking to? What would? What can they do?
Speaker 1:meaning the the service did, and then the service member or, yeah, the service member and then also the chain of command yeah, the chain of command as well.
Speaker 2:Well, first hand and speaking to the chain of command. So I've never been in the mix of a formal conversation between two very high ranking Service members who have the pull to implement said suggestion. However, however, as we started off as conversation, saying, speaking, bringing the personal in a constructive, productive manner Into any setting because, let's be honest, it exists, it's not going anywhere, it's within us, we all have it and what we're taught and In speaking service members, this is reinforced Is compartmentalized, compartmentalized, compartmentalized, compartmentalized, until You're this fragmented self who is at odds with oneself. In that we have to first look at the problem right. So that's a main problem In the way that service Service members who are in charge of other service members so officers included there was a real bully In charge of who's about 22 years old and he was scaring the 50 year old chief on the unlisted side and I was privy to that conversation on speakerphone when I was in Hawaii and the level of this chief's voice was shaking as he was mediating between this 22 year old bully. He was unhinged 80 percent of the time Around my ex-husband and with my ex-husband, you know and he had, he had spent 12 hours there. He had, he had spent 12 hours there. So I'm just saying, like you're some, treat these people like people have a cutoff point of the instilling of discipline and work ethic.
Speaker 2:If it starts to erode the sense of mental health in that, is this really necessary? Are you just looking to show someone that you're in charge and have that reflected back to you because you need that obedience? What I know about my ex-husband was he's incredibly obedient. I know that because you know. A girlfriend of mine said, you know, she wants an alpha male and I thought, well, I don't know what kind of is an alpha or not, I want a man who is going to do what I say. Well, he was that way at work and he was that way at home and he's that way. I was other employer who I know and he, you know, and I'm being half the ceaseless.
Speaker 2:I'm a listener, I'm a, you know, I take it all in, I will, you know, I can submit to the righteousness of a relationship on the cornerstones of what's right within that relationship, so within the relationship of a service member and the chain of command, so long as that person is doing everything you ask them to do. There has to be some awareness First of all, maybe more communication between the parties, because I think that a lot of people just feel so disconnected from their center of positive personal power when it comes to the chain of command relationships that essentially sometimes it's carrying a message from one end to the other and there's no allowance for inquiry into order. The order is being spoken and there should be not a I don't use the word blind allegiance, but there should be an unquestionable allowance of order to go down the chain. There also needs to be courage enough within people, the heart of the person, to inquire what's going on. What is this really? So having so mental health wise? Let's go back to the construct of our own positive personal power and compartmentalization. That's it.
Speaker 2:How are you service member over compartmentalizing your life? In that there's Enrique Urbe Irby I RBY. He's at Fort Hood, texas. He was in my 12th week.
Speaker 2:I offered a three yoga teacher training and trauma cooperative yoga TCY, otherwise known as at the height of the pandemic in 2020, via virtual meetings. We would we get up and they would get up at five, six again, we would meet eight hours and we did that for the duration of 12 weeks. In order to certify them, we had a Navy commander in there who had followed my work and endorsed my work. We had different levels of involvement in the chains of commands and all of them certified whether it was 30 hours or 200 hours. In this training, enrique Irby will go on his allotted breaks and be that person who people might scratch their head over. He'll go and he'll find a tree, he'll find somewhere where the pressure feels off, he's got some reprieve from the heat in all senses and he'll center who close his eyes.
Speaker 2:I had my Air Force neighbor over who works in PR for them for many years over 10 years and we're working on my wellness workshop that can be anywhere between two to three hours, called unifying you. So if we know the parts of ourselves that we're carrying around, which is what unifying you is based on, we're a lot more less likely. We're less likely to over compartmentalize ourselves to the to the extent there's a breakdown inside. If we know what's going on and we're unbiased toward ourselves, we can have a better, more constructive conversation and allocate time, even if it's five minutes, randomly, whenever that's given to us by the chain of command to go and be that oddball out. Don't try it. Everyone knows that social media is not real.
Speaker 1:That's the truth.
Speaker 2:You don't need to, yeah, you don't need to hold yourself up in a way that is going to get you a nod. Now, if someone look, if someone says, comes over, maybe it's channecment, and you're feeling self conscious and they're like what are you doing, dude? Wow, I found this really cool meditation course and you know what that's the end of that. And carrying forward, when they see that you are standing with a stronger spine, you actually have a subtle like it's not down here. Your front, your lips, the corners of your mouth aren't going there more neutral, maybe even a little little bit turned up. I'm not saying you should walk around like everything's hunky dory and happy, go lucky all the time, because that's not truthful of the duty that is held within a service member to be happy, go lucky and joyful, exuberant all the time. No, but you can be.
Speaker 1:And that that happy go lucky is that there's like a facade is the big word I use all the time. But you brought up something that I still do to this day is compartmentalize. I you know, if there's something, a rough patch or something's going on, I need to keep strong or I need to do this. I'll compartmentalize my feelings. You know, being a dad have to take care of this and take care of that and other responsibilities. Sometimes, to get through the day, you compartmentalize, you push things in a back of your mind and then you put up that walls and that, that, that thing that's going to stop you from hurting and then you focus on a lot of other things. You pushed a problem away.
Speaker 1:Like me, if I'm having a, if I'm having a tough time, you'll see me writing a lot. You'll see me doing this. You'll do see me like interviewing 50 people in a week, or not really. But you know I'll be doing a ton of different things to keep my mind focused on something else other than the pain that's going out of my mind, and that's compartmentalization. Is it healthy? No, not at all.
Speaker 1:The thing is to find something or some way to work through it. You know, to me. That's like a lot of times when I'll get in a ruck just so I can get out there and clear my head, put some, put an audible on, to think, work through some problems. That's a lot of times of reasons I'm on the road so much. Driving is because when you're driving for five, six, eight hours it gives you plenty of time just to like work through things.
Speaker 1:There is so much you could do. That's not just medication, but sometimes you need medication and sometimes you need counseling. It's okay to talk to people. Sometimes you just need a friend. And you know one thing about this, this life, about the transition and everything I was bringing that up before was you're surrounded by people all the time and then all of a sudden you're not. I just transitioned last year and retired out of the government, but before that was COVID, so you know remote work for a long time, but it's just, you're not around people and the only people I'm really around nowadays are my kids and virtually like this.
Speaker 1:That's why you'll see me interviewing and talking to people and a lot of times when I get on, when I'm doing a pre-show or a poster, I'm like, wow, it's nice to actually talk to someone.
Speaker 1:But you compartmentalize things, and there are ways to do it that doesn't put those walls up. I've learned not to put the walls up, but then it seems like when you get cornered and your mind starts wandering, you put the walls right back up and you wish you could take them right back down, but you can't, so maybe you could help me. You're the. How do I take the walls down and work through those problems, especially when it comes to transition?
Speaker 2:Well, I heard you say the way you get through things is to compartmentalize, and then I heard the neutrality around the fact that there's room in there to interpret compartmentalizing in a way that, as you're saying, essentially has less rock hard walls, more transparent, perhaps more encounterable walls that are less there to obstruct oneself from oneself, but there to honor oneself. You said we've got to get through this and that's how you get through it. How we get through it is being human together. It takes nothing from no one to acknowledge one another's humanity in a quick blip second. It could be a non, it could be a wink.
Speaker 2:You know depending on how well you know the person and they look like their day's about to crumble. They look like they might crumble with the day that is deconstructing itself and whatever matter is present. If you're sitting in a room with people and officials talking about something that is the most miserable topic in the world, then it's very human to have that external environment impact the internal environment so we can take the. For me, I've, like always said you know, I'm not, I'm not a very serious person, but I'm a sincere person. And there's a difference. You can take things sincerely and still crack a joke, even on the worst day and the most harring of circumstances. Because if we don't retain our human, then we become a byproduct. If we don't retain our humor, we become a byproduct of our circumstance. And that's why some of our service members have the most wicked sense of humor that I'd love to talk to and get to know. My dad, one of them. My uncle, another one of them. I mean, if you can talk to a real person, it's like for me it's synonymous with New York City. People say, oh, new York's horrible really. Because when I go, those are the most real people. And when I talk to military people, this are the most real people, because you're up against life in the most real way.
Speaker 2:You don't get a lot of pauses, but when you do, they can reconstruct that self that feels a little eroded a little to very much eroded by circumstance. So the pauses, and embracing the pauses, are essential. Pauses are meant to make us better. So if we noticed that I leave a part of myself behind in the construction of those walls, oh guess what? I'm human, I did, I neglected a part of myself. Do I deserve to be punished for that? Shamed Because we're good at it when it comes to ourselves. We can do that for ourselves. We can do a lot of things for ourselves. We can recognize ourselves and our humanity because to me we can be just as brutal and filled with convictions of righteousness and positively reactive to circumstance, while still seeing the humanity in ourselves and other people. And I know that violence can happen on such great scales that that self becomes numb to the self.
Speaker 2:So I would say practice putting, just getting your feet on the ground. It's a very simple instruction, but when you're out of your boots, literally make contact with what's inside in a way that, if you need to have moderations essential, but there's nothing wrong with, like you said, western medicine and whatever kind of a bottle it comes in. You know, my dad, everything is everything plays off of our relationship to it. So, for instance, I have a lawyer friend no, not the one that I just dated, if you are on my social media who was given, from a doctor, ketamine, microdose Ketamine, and they say, oh, I just. I said, well, what does it do for you? I've never tried ketamine yet, but I am a huge. Oh my God, is he my dad?
Speaker 2:Let me go back to that 1915, born in 1915, fought in World War II. He I was conceived at his 68 years of life with my twin sister and I was born in 1915, born in 1915, and I was born in 1915, born in 1915, and I was born in 1915, born in 1915, and my mom was almost 40 at the time. That is quite rebel for a woman back then. Now it's more normal. Anyway, he would have a whiskey lunch and a whiskey at dinner, and it wasn't. It wasn't excessive, it was a half a glass on ice. It wasn't even a half a glass. But I'm saying, my point being is, stop compartmentalizing yourself, that one thing is good and one thing is bad because the more you beat yourself up for actions that you A have control over and B the actions on the contrary you have no control over, you are enlisted, you are in service to and agenda is not a bad word, as I talked about in Conquer Trauma Drama get your life back.
Speaker 2:It's not a bad word, but you're enlisted and you're in duty to an agenda, and so you have to see your own humanity, your own vulnerability. If you can't see that you are rightfully so affected by doing orders whether it's cleaning a toilet or going overseas that you don't want to do, then you strip yourself of your own humanity. There are things you can do to keep yourself in a total, whole, whole self, and if you are a leader and people see you like, you're like the equivalent of the football player in high school tall, well-built, well-structured. You are the best person to deliver that message in your own behavior, in the way that you address your day to day when you're overseas, if you're in the Navy, when you're on the ship, wherever, but you have the ability to have so much command over how you're presenting yourself. Last thing I'm going to say is that one time I was reading the scientific book and it was written by neuroscientists who was fascinated by the energies and I know that our service members love Star Wars. Well, it's not actually fake Star Wars, but it's actually and I know the people who know about and can feel these add-odds, the energies, that odds are on board with me.
Speaker 2:This neuroscientist in this book said something to the effect of One person. You have a room of people who are utterly miserable and if you take a photograph of that that is able to capture light only light. It's not capturing physical mass and you all know if you're in the military there are different technologies that allow you to do that. This isn't like sci-fi, this is real. I did a training with a doctor who created something that makes it capable to just view the light and not the physical mass. It's called the Polycontrast Imaging Photography, the PIP Polycontrast Imaging Photography, dr Thornton-Straiter. And then there's Curly in Photography, which does the same thing and that one's been around longer and is more well known.
Speaker 2:But this person walks into a room where everyone's just abysmally miserable and one person who's done the work, who has taken those pauses, taken some time to get in stride with oneself, comes in. And the illumination factor. If you were to take a photo, which this scientist did scientists and doctor the impact was immediate. There, actually, we have an impact on one another, even if we're not trying to impact on another, and that's the power. Forget about being in the pecking order. If you do your work and you show up and you stay strong, you know work out. Have that imposing figure and then also have the self-connection inwardly.
Speaker 2:You were. We will make all the strides you'll work up If you want to be in the military as a careerist for 30 years or more. You'll still climb the ladder, but be a human being in doing so.
Speaker 1:That's the thing where there is to be a human being. You know you keep your humanity. A lot of times when I was saying you compartmentalize, you compartmentalize your stuff, make yourself into a machine, you know you go from point A to point B, to point C and then you just kind of do your thing and you forget that you're human. So that was a lot to unpack and I don't want to lose track of you. Know what are your new initiatives? What do you got going on now?
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. Well, there's that workshop that I'm doing for military and corporate. It's called Unifying you, so if you go to unifying youcom, you'll be redirected to joastandingcom, which is my name J-O standing like you're standing up, not sitting downcom and I'm really excited about it. I've been working on it. I've been giving it to audiences who I know and trust for their immediate feedback. 2022, when we were deployed to Hawaii, I spent 2022 and 2023 working it out and finessing it and fine tuning it in academia, so I had an academic team who also reviewed the work as well, and I've only made it manifold so much better since then. We're just coming up on the tail end of January 2024 right now, and I'm feeling so happy about all of it. I have wonderful people, such as yourself, jason and Mike Warner, who want to invest time back in to me to help me be better and show up at my best, with the best information and feedback that I can have from people who actually live it and breathe it this lifestyle, because it stays with you.
Speaker 2:As Einstein said, there's no such thing as time and space. So here we are. We're sitting in a different room, different walls constructed around us. However, the past is right here and we can work with it right here, so you're never disempowered. So never become disenchanted by. Wherever you are, you can impact past, present, future.
Speaker 1:That sounds perfect to me, joe standing. So the website is Joe standing or it's Joe standing. I know IG is it's Joe standing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, instagram's, it's Joe standing, joe standing yeah.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you coming. I like having these discussions. You know we could probably talk like another seven hours.
Speaker 2:That's for sure, oh yeah, oh yeah. Well, maybe we'll come on again in a few months and see what we're gonna do. Yeah, we should definitely.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe we should get some other people and we'll do like a little round table.
Speaker 2:Yes, let's do it. Maybe we can do a unifying you screening it's a slide show. Yay, let's do it. Let's do it Between now and end of March Sounds good to me, all right, sounds good to me.
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