NEW Humpday DealWithIt Podcast – Living Well After Trauma With Dr. John King

➡ This is the first episode of the Hump day podcast with Dr. John King and Vinnie Gambini. Dr. King, a mental health coach and author, shares his personal experience of overcoming childhood trauma and abuse. The discussion revolves around the concept of victimhood, how it’s taught in educational institutions, and its impact on individuals. They emphasize the importance of personal responsibility and resilience in overcoming adversity, and warn against letting external labels define one’s identity.
➡ The text discusses the concept of victimhood and how it can become a social symptom, spreading like an infection. It emphasizes that trauma and PTSD are not character flaws but brain injuries that can be healed. The speaker shares his personal journey of recovery, highlighting the importance of understanding the root cause of one’s actions rather than focusing on the actions themselves. The text also touches on risky behaviors associated with PTSD, which can lead to substance abuse or suicide, and the need to address the underlying issues to change these behaviors.
➡ The text discusses the importance of understanding the ‘why’ behind our actions and behaviors, especially when dealing with trauma. It emphasizes personal responsibility and the need to break away from a victim mentality. The Phoenix Collective app is introduced as a tool to help individuals understand and address their trauma on a daily basis. The app is designed for everyone but focuses on men, particularly those who have experienced trauma such as sexual abuse, combat situations, and other traumatic events.
➡ This text discusses the importance of authentic conversations and overcoming shame for personal growth. It emphasizes the need to face past experiences and feelings of guilt, rather than hiding them or pretending they don’t exist. The text also highlights the role of community in healing, where people can share their vulnerabilities and learn from each other. Lastly, it suggests that acknowledging and shedding shame, rather than letting it define one’s identity, is crucial for moving forward.
➡ This conversation discusses the fear of the unknown and the journey of self-discovery, especially when dealing with emotional trauma like PTSD. It emphasizes the importance of trusting the process, learning to manage emotions, and using various tools to cope with daily challenges. The discussion also highlights the value of community support, like the Phoenix Collective, which offers resources and courses to help individuals overcome their struggles. The speakers agree that while the journey may be difficult, it’s crucial to want to improve and be willing to put in the work.
➡ I’m committed to doing my best to assist. Thanks for joining the first episode of the Hump Day podcast, and I’m excited to see you next week. Have a wonderful day, everyone.

Welcome everybody, to the Untold History Channel. My name is Ron Partain and today is the first day, the first episode of the Hump day podcast with Dr. John King and Vinnie Gambini, our good friend who is going to remain off screen, but he is very knowledgeable and as well as Dr. John King, the main thrust of this is going to be Dr. John. He is, before we jump in here, John, kind of give like a. Just a brief summation of who you are and kind of like your bona fides of what makes you qualified to kind of discuss some of the things that we’re going to be discussing.

Thanks, man. So when people ask me what my doctorate’s in, I’d say turning shit into fertilizer. And that’s probably the biggest qualifier for what I do in life. I’m a mental health coach, a speaker, a corporate trainer, a range of different things, an author. And how I get to this space as a subject matter expert around these sorts of things we’re discussing is I was trafficked as a kid by the people who raised me. Sexually abused and trafficked. And at the time when I got recall of those events, there was nothing to support men and there was no one speaking to the fact that men can be subject to these things in life.

I don’t like, I nearly use the word victim, but I really don’t like that term. They were subject to this and I had to make a series of decisions. So I’ve spent the last 15 years, you know, biohacking that or hacking that or trying to unravel that message to make myself a contributing member to my family, my household and the world again. So Hard knocks, brother. Hard knocks. Yeah. Well, you know what? I think the very best school out there is the school of hard knocks. Life has a way of teaching lessons that no university or preparatory school or high school or anything can prep you for.

Life is the ultimate school. And you know what? I, you know, I feel for a lot of people who’ve gone to college, you know, it was interesting. I’ve been playing around a lot with AI recently and like, the music and whatnot. And I asked AI to write me a song about kind of how college was a fraud. And it came up with a great set of lyrics and it was called Cap and Scam. The name, the title of the song was called Cap and Scam. And it was really good, actually. Maybe I’ll play it, you know, another time, but.

But it was, it was really interesting because what college is teaching people is essentially how to be victims. And how to go through life as a victim and, and, and be confused and be, you know, and constantly try to, you know, I guess the best way to say it is maybe go through life as a beta male. Yeah, that’s a good, that’s a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah. Go through life as a beta male. You know, they literally are trying to demasculate men and emasculate women. It’s a complete inversion of the natur order of life.

And most people don’t see that. Yeah, you know, they think they, you know, a lot of people are still kind of stuck into the mindset, oh well, I need to go to college because that’s, you know, that’s just part of, of what needs to be done so that you can get a good, you know, get a good education and get a good job. Well, there’s no freaking jobs out there. Yeah, you know, and I’m not trying to turn this into a political discussion, but it’s just, you know, college I think is, is, is schools, you know, K12 have it a significant impact on this.

But I think that colleges, I mean, they take the baseline that you’ve been given at these K through 12 schools and then they just take it up to a whole nother level. I’ve heard from so many friends that said, man, I sent my kid off to college and I don’t even recognize this kid kid when he came home. Well, if you don’t mind me interjecting very quickly. No, go ahead. I think what we’re seeing is, we’re seeing a, A what is essentially a political, long term, political gym agenda with regard to education, all levels in this country.

We’ve seen it unfold since the 80s. Unfortunately, this kind of thing does not help the subject matter that we’ll be going into and people dealing with it properly and effectively. And so in a sense, yes, the gender dysphoria that’s been pushed on the, let’s say the victimhood mentality, it’s going to lead to very, it’s a weakening factor overall and it’s not going to help individuals in their healing by any stretch. And I think that’s, that’s a good point there, Vinnie, is that in order to, in order to start a healing where it comes to trauma and the impact of trauma, people have to take responsibility for their lives.

You can’t take responsibility for anybody’s actions. And it doesn’t matter how bad those actions are or how horrendous those actions are. If there are wreck actions that were done through abuse or if there are actions that happen because of war. PTSD is a reality. It’s a changing of how your brain processes things. And if you’re constantly in a state of being a victim and seeing yourself as a victim, then you never develop resilience and the ability to rise above that narrative. And that becomes a narrative that confines you. It defines you and confines you. And we, we have to make that choice.

Our past will either confine us or refine us. It can never define us. And I think part of the challenge we’ve got is we’ve got these group of people coming through. They’ve been taught certain things in school, they’re now going to college and they’re being taught another series of things. And here they are faced in life where they haven’t ever really made some decisions about how to face adversity and just develop the tools to be able to overcome adverse things. Right. Well, you know, you know, today is, I think the focus of our conversation today is going to be victimhood, you know, victimhood and victimhood mentality.

And I think it would be, I think it would be healthy to define what victimhood is. Let me, I took the liberty of pulling this up here. And here is so victimhood a therapeutic perspective. Victimhood is a psychological state in which an individual identifies themselves as a victim of circumstance, people or events, often leading to a sense of powerlessness, resentment, and a perceived lack of control over one’s life. It can manifest as a coping mechanism, a defense strategy, or a persistent mindset shaped by past trauma or adversity. And some of the key characteristics of victimhood are.

It says external. I think this is supposed to be external loss of control. The individual attributes their difficulties to external forces rather than their own actions, feeling that life happens to them rather than them having agency. Number two would be persistent blame. A tendency to blame others or circumstances for their problems or often leading to unresolved anger or bitterness, emotional entitlement, feeling that they deserve special attention, sympathy, or exceptions due to their suffering or perceived mistreatment. It also has identity formation. The individual’s identity becomes closely tied to their status as a victim, making it difficult to move past beyond hurt.

And then the avoidance of responsibility. By adopting a victim stance, the person may avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, choices, perpetuating a cycle of disempowerment. And I think that is, that is pervasive in, in, in our, in our world today, big time. Yeah, absolutely. You, you know, you, labels shape you. The words you allow to define you. Are the words, the other things you’ll actually grow into. So if you allow. And we’ve got whole cultures around the world who allow people to shape those things, and cultures external to masses of people, be they races or genders or whatever, continually labeling themselves as victims.

And if you allow others, if you take on board an external label, you grow into that label because it starts to be your identity. All of this is about identity. And if you see yourself as it, you do become it. That’s why it’s very important to know who you are, to spend the time, do the work, get centered, and work out who you actually are, because then the external forces can’t define you. If you allow them to define you, then you will become what others say. I agree. I wholeheartedly agree. I think that’s the reason why PTSD in young troops is so prevalent.

For example, they’re not fully developed. You know, the. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. By 25, you’ve pretty much reached your brain and even skull development. Agreed. And you’ve had all this trauma done. And I’m just using that as an example. There’s many sources of trauma that are instantaneous over time, what have you. But I think, you know, when we get into the subject deeper, we’re going to find that there’s probably not only a wiring of the brain in a traumatic, say, episode or series of episodes, but there. There is a way to, let’s say, rewire. I think unwire, and rewire is more of an applicable term that can be done over time.

But again, that victimhood mentality has to be seen for what it is and discarded. But that’s a. I just say that to kind of make a. Put an anchor point in place to go from. Well, Vinny, I think it is complex. I think one of the things about victimhood is that it’s being. It’s. It’s almost like a symptom of. Of kind of like. It’s like a social symptom. And, you know, people see their peers, that their peers are acting as victims, so it’s almost like it just falls onto them and they become a victim as well.

And now everybody is a victim and rolling around and. And claiming victimhood, and now you just. It’s. It become. It’s almost like infectious in a way, and. Yeah, yeah, it’s infectious in a way. And. And I think, you know, the reason that I wanted to define it is because I don’t think it gets tossed around so often. I don’t think people really, truly understand what it means. Yeah, so when we come to dealing with ptsd, if we understand that PTSD is actually a brain injury, it’s not a weakness and it’s not a term. If we, if we take out the victimhood concept from it and we look at trauma, changing the function and the role of the brain, not the role of the brain, but the function of the brain and how it interacts with each other.

And this was very important for me in my own recovery when I realized that although these things had been done to me and not by me, they had caused a neurological change. So what I was dealing with was an injury. So in order. So that, that gave me two things. Number one, I was upset and pissed off because I had an injury. Someone did something that injured me, okay? But if I was injured, I can recover from an injury. So then it goes about like anything else. Well, how do I recover from this injury? And you’ve.

And I had to come to terms with understanding that trauma wasn’t a character flaw, it was a brain level injury. And so it’s like, okay, so if my brain has been injured, then I need to spend the time getting my brain whole. And that’s really been in my own journey. What the last 15 years have, have been about is like, how do I re scope all of that, Your brain, your stomach, and it does affect your physiology, your body in a physical sense. But really everything’s either going to start in the brain one way or the other, my sickness or my wellness.

And I think, and you know, so that’s where words tie into it and everything else. But if we can look at trauma and ptsd, okay, I’ve been through these things, whatever those things are, and it’s caused a physical change that is having a manifestation. I need to restore and rewire this physical change. And that’s a key point to people being, being able to get well. Okay, so what would you. So, so if somebody’s suffering from PTSD or the victimhood mentality, what would you say? The, if you had to like outline a set of steps for them to.

That they, they could, they could act actively do. And again, this is not medical advice, guys. This is not medical advice. This is just, this is just us talking. Because, because John actually has, he hasn’t shared all of his story. He may at some point in time, but you know, suffice it to say that the trauma that he endured and has overcome was of an, of an extraordinarily extremely significant level. And on. If I had to put a number, if I had attached a number to it on a level of 1 to 10. I’d say it had been about a 12.

So, you know, it’s. It’s. You know, it’s not. It’s. It’s, you know, you know, he. He has experience in this, so he’s not speaking as though he’s not. He’s not. He’s not. He’s not dictating to people. He’s actually speaking from experience and his own life experiences. And, you know, and there are. There are many people, John, that have been in your situation that ultimately can’t deal with the trauma. And what they do is they ultimately end up either turning to substance abuse or taking their own life or doing anything they can as. As an escape, trying to escape the.

Those memories. And what I think what you’re talking about is deal with those memories head on and overcome them as opposed to. As opposed to trying to run from them. Yes. So when I had recall of what happened to me as a kid, I couldn’t find. There was no support mechanisms for it. There was no even books written on the subject. So the only way I could actually identify what my first diagnosis, therapeutic diagnosis, was borderline personality disorder, which is often a disorder that hap. But that’s a disorder of like, no one knows why you’re crazy.

They throw everything else in a bucket and say, bro, you. You’re screwed. Here you go. Work it out. They shotgun a lot of the diagnosis and the approach until, yeah, they can narrow it down. So they. They do that. And the challenge that. And the therapist I saw at the time, she said the problem with that, and it was true, is the lifespan for men diagnosed with that is 37 years. When I found out and was given that, I was 45, so I thought, okay, all right, I’m eight years ahead of that curve, so how do I stay there? Because obviously, to end up dead by substance abuse or risky behavior, which is how most people die.

You know, it’s. Some of it’s suicide at the end of a gun, some of it’s suicide at the end of a bottle, which doesn’t get classified as suicide. So we talk about all these suicides around these things, and we don’t actually take the time to unpack. There’s a range of risky behavior associated with ptsd, which keeps you out of the suicide stat and puts you in some other place. That’s a. You know, that’s. That’s such a. That’s such a great point that, That I had never really considered, but you’re you’re talking, you know, people drinking themselves to death.

That is a form of suicide, but it’s just not classified as that. It’s classified as substance abuse or whatnot. It seems. It seems they. Yeah, it seems they. They determine suicide versus slow suicide based on the rapidity of the event. A bullet is very quick. Drugs. Yeah. May take a few hours. Drugs might take, obviously hanging. Yeah, hanging. 20 minutes if you’re unlucky. Eating yourself to death, jumping off of. Jumping off a bridge, whatever. Risky sexual behavior with diseases that can’t be cured. Right. You know, all kinds of things. One of the. One of the things that I did when I knew something wasn’t quite right, it was pouring with white rain, like horizontal rain in Texas.

And I took my motorcycle out for a ride, no helmet, in a pair of shorts and a singlet. And I was doing 140 miles an hour on the freeway. And I literally was zipping past these exits. I was two or three miles down the road. And it finally occurred to me that this wasn’t rational behavior. And I scared the shit out of myself. Because at that moment when I’m just down and hammering and I go, you know. Or because my wheel was starting, I was starting to pop an Aquaplane and was like. And I literally thought, what are you doing? Like, what.

What are you. And it’s. And I had to unpack that. And I know that’s a term, that’s one of those terms that’s been abused by a portion of the crowd that you know. But if you really. You sit with this thing and go, what the hell’s going on, man? Like, what. Why not? What did you do? Let’s remove that from the. The conversation. Why did you do it? Right? God. And you know what? That’s why that’s so important. Because I think so many people, what they do is they. They apply. They apply the rationale of what you did or what you’re doing instead of focusing on the why did you do it? Or why are you doing it right? And I think why is so much more important than the what.

If you change the why, you change the behavior. If you focus on the what, you’re just going to keep on doing it. Because that what is feeding. Giving is feeding your why. That what I’m doing is because I feel numb. I don’t feel any affection. I can’t feel love. I don’t feel I belong anywhere. I. I hate my life. I see no future. So the what can change? I can drink too much, fuck too much fight Too much run, too much jump off things, jump in things. And, and if we. But if we answer the why, then you change the fruit of the tree.

You can’t get good fruit off a bad tree. And so we’ve got to turn that whole thing around. And that’s when it comes to dealing with people. And we do this, we do this in some of our classes and some of the things. I’ll talk to people about the Phoenix Collective at some point. But what we’re doing with is we’re not concerned about the what, it’s the why. Because if we can help people come to terms with why they’re doing it, then the what’s across all of their life will change. What I’m doing as a husband, what I’m doing as a father, what I’m doing as a worker, what I’m doing as a friend, what I’m doing when I sit by, all of that will change.

If we can unpack the why, you know, intrinsically extended extra trinity. Well, you know, and the why. The why takes a divorce from the very emotional reactions that you’re in this vicious circle with. When you stop and really ask why. You. You. You’ve got to feel that breakage in the emotions that you’ve been following instead of questioning and leading. And that’s why is the only thing that will break you out of that vicious circle. And there, there in rest, the beginning of. Of healing. Because again, like John said, it’s not what happened, because John and I both have been five by five, all categories in our lifetimes.

So. And then I have a unique connection to PTSD in the past. We’ll leave all that aside for now. But the important thing is once you see, once you get to the point where you can say, okay, why is this happening? Why am I responding this way? I’ve got to stop this and find out why. It then becomes a process of repetitiveness, of sitting down with those or an individual who can. Who knows what they’re doing, who understands. And in my case, it was repeating the same things over and over until they no longer had that emotional effect.

I saw them as just simply replays of a very horrible things at a time before. Not that they are the reason why anymore. I’m the. I realized I was the reason why it was continuing and that. And I didn’t want that. And that speaks to what you talked about earlier, Ron and Vinnie is the victim mentality, because the victim mentality will always talk about the what happened to me, what I’m doing, what happened today as opposed to why do you keep on putting yourself in those relationships? Why do you keep on making poor financial decisions? Why do you keep engaging in risky behavior? Because the why.

You’ve got to take personal responsibility for the why. And back to your point, Ron, about what are some of the things you can do to combat or overcome or address ptsd? The first one is personal responsibility. What do I have to do to change my why? Why am I behaving like this? Well, you know, this is a good segue, I think, John, because, you know, you talked about, you wanted to promote some of the things that you’re doing, and you have a facility where you’re actually. Where you work with people. Yes, well, we’re working on that.

The first stage of that is we develop the Fenis Collective app. Phoenix Collective app. And the reason we did that is because the reach of people we’re touching is so wide and vast, and it’s also very expensive. Like, to get the counseling in the level, in the community is a very expensive thing. And then again, people come in and they come in for three days and then they go. And what I’ve found with people with trauma is people who have been subject to trauma don’t engage well. They don’t talk, they’re not honest, they’re not open. And so what we’re building is a collective, a community of people and a way where people can interact and get the teaching on an ongoing basis.

So taking all this sort of stuff we’re going to be unpacking over the next six weeks together and being able to have it on their phone so they can go through it, they can read the books, listen to the videos and get all that sort of material as a. As a daily thing. This is the sort of thing you have to be committed to doing on a daily basis. And we want to help people be successful with that. Instead of feel like, man, I’m just failing, just turn up, man, open your phone. That’s all you got.

Now, do you have a target audience? Because I know, I know. We, you know, we’ve had. We’ve. We’ve spoken offline about, you know, look, look, you know, men and women both deal with trauma, but there is a. It feels to us, or at least it feels to me, that most of the trauma treatment that’s out there is kind of geared towards the female because females are more susceptible to trauma. And I don’t mean this in a. In a. In a negative way, but females are the. Are the weaker of the two from, From A physic from a physical standpoint.

So they are less. Well, there’s, there’s definitely difference in brains and thought processes, but in terms of their ability to fight off a would be attacker. And see, some of the trauma that we’re discussing here is like physical trauma, like, you know, you know, like violence, violent, you know, you know, violent things that have happened where, you know, penetration has occurred, things of that nature. And I’m trying to be very sensitive and what, in how I’m, how I’m describing this, but things that people have been, that have been done to people that have violated them and violated their person, you know, in, in unimaginable ways.

But I think the, what we, what we had talked about is that really mostly is geared towards the female side. Well, but there is a very large swath of men out there who have dealt with it as well. But, and, and, and I would say that the, the, on, on the male side as well, there’s guys who’ve suffered from combat, guys who’ve been in combat situations where that’s not really a female thing, but that’s a male thing. But there’s not really an adequate mechanism out there to help men who have dealt with things like that at a young age.

So, so I mean, yeah, to your point, we’re focused on. But not exclusive too. I think the whole, I think men just happen to be like that. If you give men a place where they can connect, they’re going to want to bring their wives in and then children in at some time. But the other way is women get together and they don’t want the men in there. It’s kind of weird, but the men, men feel comfortable because we’re why that we’re protectors and we want to include our family. We want to get better and we want our family to rise with us.

That’s the nature of it. So do we have a target audience? It’s designed for everybody, but it’s focused on men. So if you’re over the age of 40, you’ve been through a couple of divorces, you’ve had trauma from sexual abuse, from rape, from being trafficked, from police, first responder in the military, it’s a place where we’re going to be looking not so much at the cause of the trauma, but the ways to overcome the trauma. And what I found is when you get these different groups of people together, they actually stop focusing on the cause. I know when Vinnie and I first got together, we didn’t, we didn’t, we didn’t click over the cause of trauma.

We clicked over because we were two guys, you know, three or four bourbons in and a couple of cigars, and we were just having a really good time. And then we started to realize commonalities. And then we started to look at, well, what were the causes of these? And they were poles apart, but similar. And so the aim of the Phoenix Collective is to do that. Let’s talk about the big issue. The big issue. How do you grow? How do you determine who you are? How do you get better? Not. How did you get here to this spot? Right.

Oh, that’s. I. I think that’s fantastic. You know, I’m sure there are other. I’m sure there are places out there that do focus on male trauma, but probably not to the level of. Well, or they’re just. They’re just. They’re just probably not very well known. No. Well, part of it, too, is. And I think it’s authenticity is really important to me, Ron. You know, if you. If you can’t be authentic, if you can’t be honest, then you’re not going to get well. And I think a lot of bravado hides or stops people from getting well. And a lot of that exists within veterans organizations.

There’s a lot of bravado. Some of them do unpack it, some of them don’t. And then on the other side, on the sexual side, and, you know, you guys know this, you can speak to it. And I’m trying to create a space where that’s the thing you leave at the door because it just doesn’t serve. I don’t want to walk with someone for 6 months or 12 months and not have had an authentic conversation with them. I think that would be a waste of time and money for everybody concerned. I want those to be the things we unpack in the first four to five weeks.

Okay, what’s really going on? And that part of the challenge with that this funny thing happens is as you get to know someone and you become more and more vulnerable and they know more and more about you, what happens is they end up getting well because of the interaction, but then they disappear because they’re too embarrassed to stay around with a person who knows all this shit. And I think that’s really sad because that person is the person you should want to be. Be around because you’re not bound by that anymore. They know crap, so you can’t pretend.

But what we want to do is take ourselves off somewhere else and now pretend to a whole new group of People so they don’t know about their past. And I think that’s lacks authenticity and it’s disingenuous. So I want to build the sort of community with the Phoenix Collective where we’re together not just for what we can get from it, but what we can give to it, because I think that is one of the major keys in getting well is not contributing too early, but having a place where you can unravel your stuff as you go, and people are benefiting from your vulnerability as you benefit from this.

I think it’s very well said, and I couldn’t agree more. I think that a lot of times what happens is that, you know, men, I think. Well, I think human beings in general, depending on. Depending on the. It’s not really sexual. There’s not really a sexual differentiation, but I think people in general feel shame. Oh, yeah. And that’s. And the feeling of shame that you have can limit your ability to. To get well. And I think that’s. I think what you’re talking about there is. Is that people need to get over or you. You are striving to help people overcome the shame aspect so that they can get well.

And I think. I think, you know, in looking at the victimhood mentality, it’s a whole lot easier to claim victimhood than it is to deal with the shame aspect of it. Because I think a lot of times people believe that it’s their fault. I mean, how many you look at the female victims. I’ve seen enough, you know, not that I’m Not. Not that I’m a television watcher anymore, but I mean, I remember. I. I remember seeing enough of, like, Law and Order sec, you know, svu, where it’s like, you know, and it’s not just that. It’s not just that, but I mean, it’s just.

Just in general that rape victims believe that it’s their fault, and children who have parents who get divorced believe that it’s their fault that the parents got divorced. And then they grow up with this sense of shame and guilt that it’s. They. They’re blaming themselves for their parents divorcing. You know, I mean, there’s. And there’s so many other examples out there, and I’m. I’m just touching on two, which is essentially scratching, barely scratching the surface of, you know, things out there that people feel shame about. But think about that. That. That’s a very primitive response. And when you think about it, and if you think about, let’s say, the trauma that was done to the Brain, let’s say rapidly, chemically some theorize the amygdala and its connection to the lower brain.

There’s so many theories but it does seem to focus in that area. People are averse to pain if they can control their exposure to pain they’re going to most of the time walk away from it or turn their back to it or lessen it without even self medicating or going to any behaviors they’ll turn from it And I think the most important question someone needs to ask in reference to this whole subject with regard to themselves past experiences and how they’ve chosen not to deal with it or not chosen to deal with it either way it’s a choice is what do you ultimately want? That’s really good mate, that’s.

That is it is what, what do you want? What do you want to get out of this thing and how do you want to change and how do you want to move forward? And with the whole, with this whole identity piece is in the, and the shame aspect I, I had a friend of mine, he’s a very close friend and he lost all of his brothers he was back stateside on, on furlough and he lost his entire crew, his entire squad that were in Afghanistan at the time. The shame he feels because he survived and he wasn’t there to protect and stand with his brothers that Shane has.

Shame has defined him for the last 20 years and it has become such a part of who he is it’s very difficult to have a conversation about it because it became part of his identity. Right And I think we have to step. I have to as a man when I was facing this I first of all I had to acknowledge the shame then I had to acknowledge that part of the shame was my weakness. I’m 6 foot, I’m 220, 230 pounds. Being a semi professional fighter and athlete I can handle myself now as a 62 year old man but I look back at the 11 year old boy and the 4 year old boy and I wonder why he didn’t have the guts to fight for himself.

So I spent years asking myself that question. You’re not really a man because you didn’t fight back then instead of you sit with yourself as a four or a five year old and you think son you are only doing what you could to survive. This isn’t your fault. And so when it comes to these issues of shame regardless of how we get to this junction in life, okay, shame is something that is on me like a dirty cloak. It’s not who I am. Who I am is something. So I’ve got to make a decision to shed that shame.

And I think that’s part of what Vinnie was alluding to. You can’t allow it to be part of your definition. And you can’t let honor, the sense of honor, get in the way. Because with honor, you’ve got to ask your. The. The hardest question. What could I truly have done? As opposed to what the ideal would have been to do? No, I truly couldn’t have helped in this situation. If I look at it rationally, logically, there was nothing I could do. So I’ve got to shelve that honor for a moment in favor of the truth of the matter.

I. I wanna. I want to play something real quick. This is. I think this. This. This is a. I think this is very apropos to the discussion. And I’m not telling you guys what it is because. But I think when. When I play it, I think you’ll get it. This is that scene of goodwill hunting when he tells him that it’s not his fault. What is it? It’s your file. To send it back to the judge for evaluation. Oh, you’re not gonna fail me, are you? What’s it say? Wanna read? Why? Have you had any experience with that? 20 years of counseling.

Yeah, I’ve seen some pretty awful. How many of you had any experience with that? Personally? Yeah. Here. I have. Sure ain’t good. My father was an alcoholic. Mean, fucking drunk. You come home hammered, looking to wail on somebody. So I’d provoke him so he wouldn’t go after my mother and little brother. Interesting nights. But when he wore his rings. Yeah. He used to just put a. A wrench, a stick and a belt on the table and just say, choose. Well, I gotta go with the belt there, Vanna. I used to go with the wrench. Why the wrench? Just fuck him, that’s why.

Your foster father? Yeah. So, you know, what is it? Like Will has an attachment disorder? Is it all that stuff? Fear of abandonment? Is that why I broke up with Skyla? I didn’t know you had. I did. You want to talk about it? No. Hey, Will. I don’t know a lot. You see this? Holy shit. It’s not your fault. Yeah, I know that. Look at me, son. It’s not your fault. I know. It’s not your fault. I know. No, no, you don’t. It’s not your fault. I know. It’s not your fault. All right. It’s not your fault.

It’s not Your fault. Don’t fuck them. It’s not your fault. Don’t with me, all right? Don’t with me, Sean. Not you. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I think that’s one of the best scenes in movies, in cinema, about that, you know, it’s very. It’s. The kid thinks it’s his fault. You have to come to that point. Yeah. And you come to. Just doesn’t happen once. It will happen many times again. Don’t be. I think one thing. I’ll leave it with this. I think one thing people are afraid of is the.

Is the. Who is the person they’re going to find when they get to the other side, because you do not know who you are going to be on the other side of it. But if you would trust the process and that if you want it badly enough, you will be better. You will be so much better. And you’ll even have lessons and. And mental preparation that going through PTSD has actually gifted you with. And that’s for later conversation, too. But I think most people are afraid of the unknown. I know this safe circle that keeps me in this emotional wreck, but it’s not my fault.

That’s good, Vinnie. And, you know, that’s the bottom line. And you can’t be afraid of who you’re going to find because I promise you, you’re going to find a much greater individual in yourself. John. I think I, you know, I. I sensed that, that. That brought some emotion out in you, and it brought some emotion out in me. I was. All of us. I did. Yeah, I. You know, it’s a very powerful scene. You know, I. I think, you know, I think the thing is that you are. You never get over it. What you do as you grow older is you learn to manage it, and you get to a stage where you manage it so well, people look at you and they don’t even think that it could possibly still be an issue.

But the reality is, for all of us, it will always be with us. And denying that is not a helpful thing. Becoming and allowing yourself to be a victim of it is not a helpful thing. Thing. The helpful thing is to get a toolbox and fill it with the tools that you’ll need every day. And on different days, you’ll need a different tool, just like you do for a different job as a man. And. And just understand you’ve got to have that toolbox with you. And the whole process of what we try and teach people is how do you get tools for your toolbox? How do you acquire those things for use on a daily basis? And that’s, that’s very, very important.

And I think they don’t teach you that. And that’s one of the challenges I had talking to therapists that have never been through anything close to. And that’s the, probably the most helpful thing about that clip, is that Robin Williams’s character knows and, and Will Hunting’s character knows that he knows, and that’s the connection. And I’ve sat with some T1 guys and they’ve heard my story and said, bro, I would never want your story. And I say, I don’t ever want your story, man. But what we can relate on is we can walk together side by side.

And that’s the whole aim of the collective and that’s the whole aim of these podcasts that I’m very grateful to be a part of, that we can get information to people and we can literally change thousands of lives. I can’t, I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more. You know, I will say fullness of time. Millions, potentially millions, if not billions. You know, I mean, there are so many people out there that have, that have suffered and are still suffering to this day. And I think that’s, you know, our society, just by virtue of the victimhood mentality that is so pervasive in our society.

I think that is, that in of itself speaks to the kind of, the mental, you know, dysphoria that our society is dealing with, you know, where we, it’s attempt to, to make people safe is actually harming them. Horrible, right? Yeah, exactly. So anyway, that, boy, that’s, that, that, that clip kind of got me, man. Really, every time I, every time I, every time I watch it, it, you know, it, it really causes me to, you know, I get a lump in my throat. And even though I wasn’t really a victim, you know, I had, I, my, my mother and father were together.

I, you know, my dad was, he wasn’t abusive, but he was never really there. And I was raised by my mother for the most part. And you know, and I have to, I have to confess that I, I felt like, I felt like what that did was that didn’t really prepare me for life. It made me, it made me somewhat soft and, and you know, I’m, I’m trying to compensate for a lot of things that, you know, that, that up rearing or that, that rearing kind of, you know, set me on the path to. And I don’t think I, I don’t think I really started to grasp some of those things until my, until my 40s.

So yeah, that’s about right, Ron. That’s when men really start to ask some of those questions. We, we, we, we, we piss around as young men trying to be the shadow of something we don’t really have. And then in our 40s we realize it was all bullshit. But now you’re stuck midpoint. And either everything’s gone so swimmingly well, you can’t change or you’ll it all up or it’s a total disaster. And so here you are halfway through your life with a broken experience going, well, how the hell do I get, I can’t actually ask anybody for help anymore.

I’m too old. I’m supposed to have all the answers, right? And so, you know, and that’s that women solve things face to face. Men sold things shoulder to shoulder. And that’s why if you can get in an environment with another man and you’re working, it doesn’t matter what the task is you’re working on, but you’re walking along, then we will have those conversations. Guys don’t ever sit across from each other and just want to talk about stuff. They’ll sit next to each other watching the TV or hunting or fishing or listening to a podcast or in a community where they feel like they’re knit side, side, side and then they’ll, you know, they’ll leak conversation.

Yeah, yeah. Well guys, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re at our cutoff point. So John, where do people find you? Www.phoenixcollective.app if they go there, then they can find out more about the app and they can apply to be part of the community. It’s application only. We take people on, we tell them what’s involved because it’s very important to us that we find people who want in for reasons other than just, you know, hanging out. They really. Is there a fee involved in joining? Yeah, there is. There’s a couple of levels. There’s one area which is community where people.

There’s 160 something videos about PTSD that are free. But then there’s a community where there’s message boards, direct messaging, all that. Then there’s a another level where there’s a series of courses. We take people through the books, we take people through biohacking trauma. How to Stop derailing in Life, Overcoming Emotional Issues. It’s trained as a coaching platform to help people get whole along the way and you value what you pay for. If you’re prepared to put the work in and pay the money, you’ll turn up and you’ll turn up wanting to get this stuff done. But we’re trying to make it available.

We’ve got some scholarships available for people. We’re trying everything we can. But, you know, the bottom line is, man, you’ve got to. You’ve got to want to turn up and do the work. There’s no free rides. Well, you know what I mean, the old adage, you get. You get in or you get out of it. What you put in. Yeah. If you’re not going to put anything in, you’re not going to get anything out. So that’s correct. You know, I applaud the things that you’re doing. And, guys, this is a. This was the. This is our first.

This is our first episode. We’re recording it instead of doing it live because we just wanted to kind of get a feel for how it was going to go. But for, you know, going forward, these will probably be done on a live basis. So. So, Vinnie, you have any final words you’d like to say? No, I think it’s. I think it’s a wonderful thing and a wonderful gift and service John is. Is doing, and that he puts so much into it, and he. And he knows the subject matter so well and how to, you know, how to handle these things in ways that I.

Coming from where I came from is very healthy, and there’s nothing easy about it, but again, you’ve got to want it. You’ve got to want to be free of what you allow to enslave you. And I think it’s a wonderful thing. And absolutely, I’ll do anything I can to help move things forward. Awesome. Appreciate you guys. Well, John, hey, really, thank you. Thank you, thank you. And, yeah, and obviously, you know me, it’s untold history. And until History Channel, that’s at melt, you know, this is. This is more. This is a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

But. But at the same time, I think it’s a. You know, I think, you know, if I can help people, you know, by bringing these two gentlemen out, then by all means, I’m going to do everything that I can to, you know, to help facilitate. Help facilitate that. So, anyway, thank you two gentlemen for the initial episode of the Hump Day podcast and look forward to seeing you guys again next week. Have a great day, everybody. You got it.
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