Andy Stumpf (0:00)

Gas Cascade natural creuno carido agua caliente generas natural de varian estar disponible esperatodos Poreso Cascade establishio programas esquinto de enerjayasistencia parafacturas de vajos in Oregon. Estos programas brinda non descentens su facturamens con in los aldos. Ben sidos ya me a cascedo. But I help. Welcome back, everybody. First Friday of April. Q2, 2025. Where is the time going? Seems like it's going very fast. I just got back from four days of backcountry snowboarding, and I am shattered up right up front. I'm not very good at snowboarding. I was thinking about it, like, why am I so tired? It was basically powder runs the entire time, and I'm thinking, is it really that hard? And then I realized, you know what's hard? Digging yourself out of a tree. Well, picking yourself up countless times after for no real reason other than sucking. At snowboarding, you end up face down in the snow board above your head, on your back, looking up, tumbling, tomahawking, all the things. And I realized that's probably why I'm so sore and tired. So crazy soul turns up there in Canada, but man, the body is tired. So I don't know what that has to do with anything. It actually has nothing to do with anything. We're gonna do a normal Q and A today. We've got three questions. Before I get into it. Give me a few seconds. Pay the bills. Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. I, most of the time, do a pretty good job at a macro level. When it comes to my health and fitness, I can do a pretty good job. I can avoid alcohol. I can get some good sleep. I do an okay job of dialing in my diet from time to time. I could do better there, but honestly, I don't really do well at the micro. It's not. And it's not intentional either. I just. I hate taking 15 different things. I don't know. It's. It's a drain, and it's just not something that I enjoy, which is one of the things that I love about AG1. As you all know, I had some surgery on my stomach a couple years ago. They wouldn't let me drink any water. So I'm on a headlong journey to try to stay more hydrated. This helps. I'm actually having some right now in this. What is this? 450 milliliter or 16 ounces I mean, come on, people. Container that it comes in, it actually comes. And the powder itself is in this really cool little. I think this is metal, actually. I put it in the refrigerator, but it allows me to tackle a bunch of stuff at once. Vitamins, minerals or vitamins minerals, depending on where you're from. Prebiotics, probiotics, greens, superfoods, antioxidants, stress adaptogens, digestive enzymes. Yeah, I'd rather have it in a simple serving like this with some water tackling all of those micro things so I can focus on the macro. One little tip that I recommend, put a little bit of water in here first, then put the scoop in and then more water on top. It's just way easier to shake if you start with a scoop in. It can get stuck on the bottom. But it is what it is. A scoop of this a day couldn't be easier. And like I said, it allows me to target all the micro things that I know are important, but I just, I don't pay enough attention to them. Thankfully, there's brands out there like AG1 that do. So I highly recommend it. And they have an offer for the listeners to the show. New subscribers are going to get a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you're going to get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3, K2 and five travel packs in your first box. So you can take some of this on the road. So make sure you check out drinkag1.com ClearedHot to get the offer that is Drink Alpha Golf 1 to start and continue the year 2025 on a healthier note. Back to the show. Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north or south? West of the smoke, west of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on with it, baby. Give it to me. I mean, it's clear. Hot campaign, clear dot. All right, people, here we go. First Q and A of Q2. First Q and A since I shattered my body. Let's see how we do. Three questions for today. Some pretty heavy topics, serious ones, heavy ones, important ones. Question 1. Been watching your show for a little while now. I find myself laughing at the same kind of messed up stuff that you laugh and joke about. But regardless of how much I laugh and smile, day to day, I find that there is an emptiness inside. I go to therapy. I've been going for a couple years now. It's changed me for the better. I take antidepressants which were not as bad as I thought they would be. In fact, they actually help. Outside of the weight gain, I just tell myself I'm on a permanent bulk. It's a good way to look at it. However, no matter how hard I try to find something worth living for, I cannot seem to find it. I know that life can suck, it can be boring, and it can also be pretty awesome. But overall, I find myself disinterested in participating in any of it. Maybe I've just been living on borrowed time. Regardless, I have no interest whatsoever in being a human being. It's not that it's too much of any one thing, it's just that I don't really see a point in sticking around. Anyway, I know that was kind of a bummer to read. If you have any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. So let's open with this. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a mental health specialist, I am not a counselor. Don't look to me for any of that type of advice, please. I can talk to you about my own experience interfacing with those type of people, but I am not the burning bush when it comes to this stuff. Let's just open with that man for whoever wrote this in I wish I could sit and talk with you because I have some questions and this is. I've talked about this before. The limitation in reading an email that is sent to me, it's a one way medium. I don't have the ability to ask some questions. The first one I would ask to this person is how old are you? My optic on time has shifted greatly since I was younger in my life. I remember being in. I guess I remember being under 10 years old. I definitely remember my early teens thinking that 30 was as old as anything ever lived in the history of the world. And my frame of reference on time was probably measured in hours, if not days. And then you hit your 20s and your 30s and your 40s and I'm you know, knocking on the door of the 50s here in a few years. And what a wild change in optic when it comes to time and how long things are tolerable and how many things that you experience in your life that you think might be insurmountable at times. And then you can look back and they're really formative in turning you into who you can become as long as you don't give up. I would ask you how old you are and I would ask you if, when going to therapy, if you say these things to your therapist, I would hope that the answer would be yes, but if not, I would ask why? Because the things that you are talking about, they're serious things. But I also don't want you to think that you are alone. So I'll be brass tax honest with everybody. You know, and I don't know if people want to hear this or not or if it helps or not, but I currently right now am in a season of my life or a phase of my life where I can't say I really can connect with any one thing that you wrote in this email. But I also am having not also, I am having a difficult time finding happiness or passion in anything in life as well. Not saying I'm suicidal. I enjoy the activities that I do, I enjoy the relationships that I have. This is not a cry for help. I'm just being honest about where I am in my life. I have good days and I have bad days. I have up seasons and I have down seasons and I have the transitional seasons in between. This isn't the first time I have ever felt like this and it probably won't be the last time I'll feel like it either. And I've tried to spend a good amount of time reverse engineering why I am struggling to find happiness in the things that I do. And again, it's not that they're not enjoyable. It's just that a lot of the things at the end, whether successful by a small margin or successful by a big margin, you just land it. Meh. And it hasn't always been like that. I will say this. I probably have a shallower range and this is what people have told me, a shallower range of emotions than some people. I don't have extreme highs and I don't have extreme lows. I never have. But I do have highs and lows. And thinking about what's going on in my own life and I'm trying to view this through. Like I said, when it came to the optic of time looking back in my life, what have I encountered in my life that is similar and what drove me to that place? Or maybe not even what drove me? What choices did I make that terminated in me being in that place for myself? And again, just being totally brass tacks. Honestly, I am stressed about life right now from a professional perspective, not a personal perspective. I truly, with every ounce of my fiber believe that I have found my person in Leah. She makes me such a better person. Being around her is enriching to my life. My relationship with my kids is as good as it's ever been. Open and honest communication. I'm getting to Spend as much time with them as they will allow me into their life. Talking about their future, being involved in what it is that they're doing. It's fantastic professionally. And I go through these phases of. I don't want to call it crippling anxiety, but it's fucking anxiety. You know, how long am I going to be able to do the things that I am doing? Am I good enough to do any of the things that I do? Are my goals big enough? Are they more complex than I am able to complete or capable of even attempting as a person? Am I going to make enough money? You know, the coffee shop concerns around that. You know, the book that's going to be coming out in January of 2026. Do I even have any fucking business writing a book? The podcast, you know, what do I do if something happens to me and I'm not able to do this anymore? And again, this is one of the most enriching things that I do is sitting down and talking to other people. But it's also financially how I provide for my family. And I have those thoughts. I have those concerns. And what I have found is in times when I am stressed in working my way through that because I know it will end and I can work myself logically out of the way that I am emotionally feeling, it'll return to a little bit more of a stabilized and less of a meh on kind of just everything. It's like the stereo volume is turned down to a three. And I understand the value in the things that I do, but I just struggle to get the joy out of them that I normally do. And that's okay. It's okay to have seasons in your life. The happiest people that I know have seasons in their life. They are not always on a 45 degree angle trajectory up. I just don't think life is possible to live like that. Because if you're out and about, you're going to get challenged with things you didn't expect. It's going to have impact on your life that you didn't expect. You might make choices that terminate in experiences that you didn't expect. Not all positive. It's more like a sine wave than it is a vector which needs an amplitude and direction heading up. So I can empathize with the person that wrote this email. My biggest piece of advice, One, if you're talking to a therapist, fantastic. Two, if you are in fact telling your therapist what you wrote in this email, that's amazing. If you're not, please change that to being. You are talking to your therapist about that. And three, and maybe I don't know how I rank any of these. Take a breath and realize, regardless of how long you have felt like this, there is a pathway out of it. I have had some down times in my life. I'll use my divorce as an example, which took nearly two years. And I do my absolute best to never talk about any of the specifics. For the simple reason that I always say is I have the ability to have this platform. The other person involved in that process does not. It is not fair for me to talk about it, about the details. It's not anyone's business other than the people who are directly involved. And the Internet fucking lives forever. And the last thing that I want to do is be somebody talking about somebody or something in a particular way that my kids will find later on. I don't want to have that impact as well. And I also don't want to shade the lens with which they may view their mom. But what I can say is this. That was the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life. And that was a season that lasted for about two years and I didn't know where the bottom was. I didn't realize that somebody could have that low or small of a sense of self worth and that much questioning of who they were as a man, as a partner, as a father, Their capability to even have relationships, not even romantic relationships, but just relationships in general. Their ability to recreate and redefine themselves professionally. It was, I want to say, soul shattering, but that's not the right word. It's. That's. It felt that way at times. It was identity shattering. It made me question every single aspect of who I was. And I thought it was never going to end. And in those moments, especially in moments for this person, I've never been suicidal. I've talked about this. I understand, I can understand how people arrive at that place. I have never arrived at that place myself. And I realize it's an illogical or irrational decision that in the moment, to the people oftentimes probably feels rational. I have no experience with that, but enough experience around people who have made that decision. It's just that I don't really see a point in sticking around. That sentence leaps off the screen to me. And if you feel that way now, I don't want to say that that's okay. And I don't want to say that that is normal. What I want to say is that is survivable. And this is why I wish I could just ask you, how old are you? Talk to me about relationships that you have had. Talk to me about your parents. Talk to me about how you grew up. Has there ever been anything in your life that legitimately put a smile on your face that was hard for you to get off? Because those are avenues that we can discuss that. I just. I can't do that on this one way medium. But life is not roses. It's really not. And it's one of the things that I hate about how many people, not everyone, but many people view the special operations community. They think that they wear a uniform and they have a Superman cape and everything bounces off of them. They're just made of Teflon. And something hits them and it just slides off. And that's not true and it's not the case. Can some of the people tolerate more than your average person? Probably. Does it all have a residual impact? Yes, it does. If unchecked and undealt with. Does it oftentimes terminate in horrendous behavior? Yeah, it does. Does it lead to a place where some of these people decide that they're. The world is better off without them? Yeah, it does. And I can't think of a single one of those people that's made that decision where that was actually true. You may not see a point in sticking around. I suspect the people around you in your life would have a wildly different view of that statement or the world that would be left behind if you aren't in it. And that is a hard thing to do is to view that through somebody else's eyes. But I would recommend that you try. And all of that is in hopes that you don't get to a place where an irrational decision seems like it's rational because you can't or have yet to find happiness or joy or connection. As somebody who has had seasons of their life where all three of those things are missing, all I can tell you is they don't always last forever. Nothing is permanent, they say death and taxes, but you know, I guess those are two good examples. And I would add to that suffering. I really would. You know it. Life is going to be about suffering at times. It's not all gumdrops falling out of the sky and rainbows in meadows. I've just never met somebody, regardless of how successful they are from the outside where that is their life. So maybe setting that as the expectation doesn't do anybody any good either. Keep talking to your counselor, please. Keep taking the antidepressants. If they Help. I, you know, SSRIs get a really bad rap. I know of people who needed to untangle a chemical imbalance in their body, and that was the bridge that allowed them to do so. Some people end up taking them for rest of their life. Some people take them until their body can reorient itself and they can work their way off of it. I don't think there's necessarily a recipe that works for everyone. So that also may be a season in your life as well. Try to find something. This, this email to me is macro in nature. Overall, grander, big picture. I don't feel like I have utility in the universe. My advice to you would be go the opposite direction and try to focus on the micro. Is there anything, a relationship, a friend, a pet, an activity that sparks any level of joy for you in your life? And the reason I bring those things up, and by all means, it doesn't need to be any of those things. It could be whatever you want it to be. If you can think of one of those things, is you need a LEGO piece. You need the smallest LEGO piece of any Lego piece that has ever existed so you can figure out a way to stack another one on top of it, and then another one, and another one and another one. Before you know it, hopefully you have the Empire State Building of LEGO pieces. And you will look back and you will say, that season of my life sucked a big old dong, but I got through it. And it will help you when it happens again, because it's going to. And that sucks. But I look back at my own life. Oftentimes the biggest leaps that I have made in personal development and growth or changes in trajectory in my own life have occurred shortly after the lower seasons of my life. And whether that was just taking an objective look at who I am and how I was living my life, an objective look at my goals, at my work ethic, at my discipline, whatever it may be, and making some changes that landed me in a place I didn't really think was possible. I do believe that everybody can do that. Now, is everybody's landing place gonna just blow their hair back and knock their socks off? I don't know, but I bet you it will be better than the situation that you have described. Get as micro as you possibly can, and if you can't think of something initially, that's okay too. I would explore, meet new people, try new things. Just try to find something that puts a smile on your face a little bit. Exercise, yoga, meditation, writing, surfing, whatever the fuck it is you can find a smile on your face, use that as your anchor in the ground and then start building from there. That's the best piece of advice that I can give you. Hopefully that helped. This episode is brought to you by Stopbox. Let's talk about firearm ownership here for a second through the lens of safe and secure storage. There are millions of gun owners in the United States and there are two categories that seem to battle, even though there's some some room in between. One category is the firearm needs to be in a safe at all times, locked away. And the other one is out of a safe, secure storage medium and accessible at all times with almost no gray area in between. And the reality is you can have both. Enter Stopbox specifically. I'm going to be talking about the Stopbox Pro. When I've talked about this before, I opened it first, but I actually am going to show you for those of you who are video, I have it already open and then I'll show you how I open it here in a sec. To give you some idea of relative size and scale of what you can fit in here, this is an iPhone 16. If you put that in the corner, it shows you. You could actually put quite a bit in here. You could definitely put a full size firearm in here. You could put a flashlight, you could put travel documents, whatever it may be, it closes on right up. One thing to notice, this is mechanical. It doesn't require batteries. Now, to open this up, you can go with the factory programmed finger code if you will, or setting, which I wouldn't recommend. But you push in the code, a little bit of downward pressure and it's gonna pop open for you. A little bit difficult to show on the video, which is why I showed it open first. But that's what's awesome about the Stopbox Pro. Like I said, doesn't require batteries. It's mechanical, it's not gonna fail you if a battery were to. And it's a good blend between readiness and secure storage. Some cool things about Stopbox, they're all made in the United States, so supporting their product ensures not only high quality craftsmanship, but it brings meaningful jobs and opportunities for American workers. 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When you use the code cleared hot@stopboxusa.com that is stop box USA all normal spelling.com discover a better way to balance security and readiness with Stopbox. Let's get back on the show. All right, question two Got an interesting one here. Andy, thank you for taking the time to read this email. I'm writing to you with the hope that you'll be giving me your honest feedback. I'm a 35 year old woman who suffers from bed or binge eating disorder. I have been a binge eater for over 20 years. Because of this, I am overweight. I have not been formally diagnosed, but I more than fit the criteria. I lost £60 seven years ago and have been able to keep it off. I would like to lose another 30 to 40 pounds but my metabolism is shot from years of binging. Believe it or not, I'm relatively healthy in my day to day life. I have two jobs and between them I average 17,000 steps daily. Jesus, that's impressive. I don't think I average a fraction of that. I take an hour walk most days as well. I count calories and focus on protein, fiber, water, et cetera. Every 10 to 15 days the food noise is so intrusive that I cave. I gained two pounds overnight, another two over the next few days from inflammation and by the time the weight comes back down, I am binging again. I have struggled with the same £10 for seven years. Embarrassing but true. I spoke with a therapist and it did me no good. I am not an emotional eater. I had a healthy childhood, two great parents and a bunch of siblings. And yet I spend every waking moment fighting off my disorder. If I see a food that looks good, I cannot function until I have it. Food is my drug. I come from a long line of alcoholics and the addiction to food is just as real. I finally caved and talked to a weight loss specialist about GLP1 weight loss injection or about a GLP1 weight loss injection. After hearing about the benefits besides weight loss, I took the injection two weeks ago and I feel like a new person. I am free from the shackles of constant food, noise and the shame I feel for my own thoughts. I haven't even considered binging. It's a mental health drug for me and has improved my day to day life so much that it brings me to tears. The weight loss is just the cherry on top. So why am I here? Even with the life changing benefits of the medication, there is a part of me that still feels embarrassment, potentially disappointment. I have control over every aspect of my life and consider myself to be a go getter. Generally I am not some lazy slob. It disappoints me that I have to quit on myself, that I haven't done the work and lost the rest of the damn weight the right way. The addiction is very real, but I feel like a quitter. I know I ultimately needed to get to the bottom of why I binge and this medication is a band aid. But it has its claws in me for sure. After losing two brothers to alcoholism, both in their early 30s last year, I feel like I owe it to myself and maybe to them to deal with my own bullshit. If for no other reason than just to be able to say I mattered enough to do it. I am just so tired of this battle. The question do I take the next injection? What a question. Okay, the addiction is very real, but I feel like a quitter. So I don't have an addictive personality. I definitely will dive into the things that I pursue with both feet, but I've been able to walk away or put things down in my life up until this point. Maybe, I don't know, I'll find something I'm addicted to later in life. I haven't yet. So I can't say that I truly understand addiction. But I have been around addiction enough to understand that it is more powerful than most people's self control. I think you know what strikes me in this email is the belief, and I'm making an assumption here, your belief that there is only one correct way to get through this and if you don't go through the traditional way in air quotes, and that would be the discipline and self motivation and the suffering, then you are in some way quitting. I think you identified clearly. I'll use your words, not mine. But you come from a family that is perhaps, perhaps more prone to addiction, which is a very, very real scientific thing. Some genetics are far More prone to addiction than others, which is something let's not forget that you have no choice in participating in. If you're born with that, you're born with that. If you're not born with that, you're not born with that. And it can change the course and trajectory of your life. But why do you believe there is only one way? What I'll say is this. And maybe this is a. Maybe this is a grasp, but I don't think so. I'll tie it back into my old job. The number one thing that we cared about was mission success. Not once do I remember an after action or people truly harped on the how we achieved mission success. Unless there were things in that mechanical way that we did it that could be improved upon or were dangerous or we needed to evolve. The only thing that mattered was success. Everything else was secondary, tertiary, or not even talked about. So if your goal here is to lose the weight and gain a sense of control over your binge eating and this particular medicine is opening the door and allowing you to see the sunlight on the other side of it and step into that sunlight, why does it really matter? Now, I don't know much about the GLP1s. I know that they are newer. I believe it was an somehow tied, I think to diabetes, the medicine originally, blood sugar control. I know that they are looking at doing a larger doses, microdoses, all of these things. I have no experience with it whatsoever and I am not incredibly knowledgeable about it. But if a tool exists that would allow you to bridge a genetic, I don't want to say deficiency gap, if this tool allows you to bridge that gap and get to your end state, why would you not take it? Now, I'm not saying throw caution to the wind, educate yourself, talk to your doctors, manage and monitor your health metrics. But if this is truly an addiction, which you have defined that it is, that addiction may be more powerful than your discipline and self control. I don't think that your brothers probably wanted to die in their early 30s due to alcoholism. There gets to a point where alcoholics simply cannot stop drinking. Or if they do, that'll actually kill them as well if they don't wean themselves off of it. I don't think your brothers or anybody else that you care about their opinion will give two shits in the least whether you did this through punishing yourself by running through the Mojave Desert with your hair on fire, or taking advantage of advances in health and science and using a tool that is available. I mean you could go crazy with this and say, well, you know what? Anybody who uses anything other than their motivation and willpower to achieve any of their goals is a piece of shit. Right? They're cheating. Well, guess what? We all cheat with this little digital device in our pocket. You know, before this, an unfettered access to information, you had to look stuff up, you had to go to a library, you had to talk to people, you had to do research. Not that you can't, you know, research and talk to people on your phone, but it's a different mechanism. The speed, the velocity with which you can do so exists. So are people that rely on these devices which are evolving faster than humanity is, in my opinion. Are they cheating or are they taking advantage of the technology of the time? You know, ibuprofen, aspirin, Tylenol, whatever, you know, acetamin, those things, they weren't always around in the forms that we have them now. But if somebody gets a headache and they take one of those things to be able to function throughout their day, or a cold medicine, or fill in the blank, a vaccine, I mean, are they cheating or are they taking advantage of the system that is in place so they can keep moving the ball down the field? And I mean, people can land wherever they want to on either of those things. But as long as you know what you're getting into. You know, I'm, I've said this countless times, I am a fan of adults consenting and doing whatever it is that they want to do. Live your life however you want to live your life because you are the only person that's ever going to walk a mile in your shoes in what you described. I'm going to see if I can try to find it. I am free from the shackles of constant food, noise and the shame I feel for my own thoughts. I haven't even considered binging. It is a mental health drug for me and it has improved my day to day life so much that it brings me to tears. If you had, if you presented this choice to the average person and you wrote that down on a card, that was what was on one card. On the other card it was constantly fighting your thoughts. An inability over years to lose the last X number of pounds that you have been struggling with. The embarrassment, the shame, the regret, the lapses in discipline, you know how that makes you feel about yourself and you were to present people, oh and one, by the way, the card that, you know, it's has changed your life so much that it brings you to tears, allows you to achieve your goal. And the other one would be a massive question mark, but an unlikely that you would actually achieve your goals because of how long you you've already been struggling with it. Present to your average person those two cards. Which one do you think they're gonna take? I think more often than not, if not almost always, they're gonna take the one that allows them to achieve their goal. Now, again, I'm not saying go into this blindly because I know that there are some consequences to the GLP1 pathway or not pathway, but pipeline as well. Be aware of those things. You have to decide for yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze. But just go into it knowledgeable and knowingly make educated decisions as a consenting adult. Do I take the next injection? I'm not gonna say yes or no to you. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna give you that much direct feedback because you are the only person that has to live your life. I'm trying to lay out for you how I think other people may judge this or view this choice outside of living in the bubble that you do, of knowing how you've talked to yourself for how long you have, the struggles you've gone through, the family you come from. People don't know those things. You are the one who has to carry that burden and you are the one who has to make this choice. I don't think there's anything wrong with using modern and emerging technologies to bridge gaps in capability to achieve your goals. We do it all the time, whether it's with our phone, whether it's with computer program in business, personal, professional. I don't think there's anything, probably not any sector that wouldn't take every technological advantage that they can to achieve their goal. So I'm sure you were looking for an answer of yes or no. I'm not going to give you the answer yes or no. I'll simply ask you what is your happiness worth and does it matter what anybody else may think about the path that you have chosen? I think if you can answer those two questions, you will arrive at the answer for do I take the next injection or not? Question number three. Let's finish the episode off with a real high note, shall we? Andy, hope you're having a good day. I'm emailing to ask you if you ever have times when you're alone where your mind shifts to your friends that you've lost specifically to suicide and addiction. I recently lost one of my friends from my time in service to fentanyl on the 15th of this month. I believe this came into March, so this is just last month. I find myself breaking down into tears. Not full on crying though. It almost always happens when everything is quiet or if the weather is super beautiful. My mind drifts to him. It's not the first time I've gone through something like this. I've lost my roommate to suicide when I was 20 years old and I walked into his room and saw him. I've gone to therapy to work through that trauma and it was the best decision of my life. Therapy is truly a blessing when you put the work into it. But now with my recent friend passing, I find myself thinking about both of them. Do you ever find yourself thinking about your friends who are no longer here? Just looking for someone's. Someone else's perspective who has lost friends to suicide and addiction. Thanks and love both change ages and cleared hot. Hope you have a good day, man. Like I said, some heavier topics for today. Oh, I don't think there's a day that goes by. I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is. Actually. It would be hard pressed for me to find one of those days, though I don't want to say, you know, that every single day I have these thoughts. But it would be hard pressed for me to find a day or point back at a day where it's not even when things are quiet or with by myself. Most often it's something that happens throughout the day. A comment or a joke or a mannerism similar to somebody that I knew that was either killed or decided to take their own life. I don't have that many friends that died from their addiction. And I have quite a few friends whose addiction drove them to taking their own life through a much more mechanical means than overdosing on fentanyl itself. I guess the termination of the addiction being the cause of their death. But for me, that is more often what gets me thinking about those people. And it's a combination of things. What I have learned to do is to not fight those thoughts. I would love to think, as I'm sure we all do, that we are the master of our brain. And you know, my brain works for me. I can't stop myself from thinking about stuff sometimes. And if I was truly the master of my brain, I feel like that wouldn't be the case now. I'm not saying it's up there running wild. Even though Leah may disagree with you based on some of the commentary that I have had throughout the time that I have known her, but meaning the shit that I will sometimes say, which response she responds to. What's wrong with you? Used to be a monthly thing, now weekly, perhaps daily. That's my own doing, though. I can't control what I think about all the time. And so I realized maybe it's wasted effort if I do. And by not trying to control it, I have found that especially negative thoughts almost about any topic. So broader than what you specifically asked me, but specifically on what you asked me. You know, a lot of the times that I have memories, they're good ones, you know, how these people lost their lives is fucking tragic. But a lot of the memories that I have of them were really, really good memories. And oftentimes that is what I am remembering and it will bring a smile to my face. Having said that, there have been many times where instead of bringing a smile to my face, it's just tears streaming out of my eyes. And there, especially with guys, is this machismo where, oh, we need to stop this. And, you know, I. Those moments have not really ever happened with me in public. And I would like to believe that if it were to happen in public, I would be able to fight this machismo and bravado the guys have. And I know things don't impact me that way. I would hope that I am, you know, secure in myself enough that I would not worry about that and I would let the emotion run its course. But it hasn't really happened in public, but in the times that it has happened, it oftentimes actually, you know, in the backcountry, maybe out hunting, and you just find yourself with an incredible view. And I will, you know, my thoughts will drift to people that aren't there. And then it drifts beyond that a little bit, is, why am I still here? Why. Why did the cards fall the way that they did? That terminated an end of life for others. But I'm here. You know, what the fuck is that all about? Which I don't have any answers to, by the way, but my answer to your email is going to be the same. Let it run its course. I don't think a healthy path is to try to stifle this. And I'm not saying that you have, because it sounds like you are letting it run, run its course. We all know some guys who think that, you know, the biggest sign of weakness would be to show weakness of any kind. And they would think that tears streaming down your face remembering somebody that was hugely impactful in your life would be weakness, which it's not in my Opinion at least. Especially if those people were impactful in your life and you cared about them in the ways that I'm sure people did. It can just be embarrassing if, I guess if you're embarrassed by shit like that, which you shouldn't be bottling it up, let me tell you what that does for you. Nothing good. And if you do push emotions down, specifically stuff like this, it'll find a way to come back out. It'll, you know, it's like a teapot. It'll boil, but maybe it's going to boil through a crack out of the side instead of the little spout that it's supposed to. And if you keep putting 20 pounds of shit in a five pound bag, eventually it's going to burst. And I don't think anybody enjoys that. I don't think the person enjoys that, I don't think the people in their life enjoys that. And I think it's avoidable. So, yeah, I think about my friends often and regardless of whether or not it makes me feel good or bad, I try not to grab onto it. I do try to grab onto it a little bit. If it's a positive thought, if it's funny, if that's the way that whatever, you know, for whatever reason my thought process is going, I engage with it for sure. But if it's on the other side of that and it's a little bit more sadness and a little bit more darkness, I try not to grab onto it because I have learned I can't really control where my mind wanders to, but I can control whether or not I grab onto it. And that has been very impactful for me. It's not a matter of not paying attention to. Helps me not get into this rumination cycle where it's all I can think about and all I can focus on. Again, I open this episode with, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, any of those things. But I feel like if these things are coming to the surface, it's probably for a reason. And the reason is maybe you need to work through it or maybe you just need to let it go. So I try to do that if it's a thought that keeps coming up over and over again, you know, and this is not something that necessarily occurs with thinking about my friends. But in my personal life I'll try to figure out a solution to it if it's a challenge. But sadness, thoughts of my friends, death, darkness, I try to let it run its course through me. Don't grab on I don't try to swim upstream against it. I would rather just stand in the stream and let it go around me. Um, not always the most fun, but I have found that by doing that, as opposed to getting a bucket and trying to throw it back upstream, I can work my way through it substantially faster and it has improved the quality my life. There's nothing that's happening with you that is uncommon. And you know, maybe at the end of the day, think about it from this perspective, you're crying because of the impact that those people had on your life and what they meant to you. And I bet if they were still around, it would mean a lot to them that they meant that much to you. And that's all I have for this Friday. See you guys Monday. Cascade Natural Gas believes a warm home, hot water and natural gas energy should be available to everyone. That's why Cascade established the Oregon Low Income Bill Assistant and Energy Discount Programs. These programs provide income qualified applicants a discount on their monthly bill and if needed, help with past due balances. Qualifying for assistance is easy by calling Cascade or any of our partner community action agencies. Get complete bill assistance info@cngc.com help.