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These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well being. 2 years ago I sent you an anonymous question for your podcast. I never asked to be born and my life feels exhausting. That's what this person said in their letter. They go on to say that the original message they sent said, I don't understand why I should live, particularly considering that being born wasn't even my choice. You answered it in your episode called I Didn't Ask to Be Born and I Don't Want to Be Here. What struck me most was how you were right about me in most of the episode, even though I gave you almost no info about myself at the time. I was in my first year of post grad and felt completely empty. Despite achieving things externally. You, your response was gentle and humble and your point about taking control of my life instead of feeling helpless and looking solely inward actually influenced me. Even though I didn't fully realize it back then. I never wrote to thank you and I wanted to do that now. Your answer mattered. Man, that really hit me. It made me tear up. And that's the message that somebody sent to me thanking me for addressing their message or their previous message in a previous episode. And again, that's called I didn't ask to be born and I don't want to be here. You'll find it@theoverwhelmedbrain.com if you want to listen to that. It was a tough episode. I mean, that was a very tough one to do because these are real thoughts and feelings that any one of us could have have at any time. And I've had these thoughts and feelings in my 20s. So I wanted to address it. And I addressed some of the harder ones that I may not believe that I have an answer to or that I have direction for, but I just put it out there anyway. I read this person's message and I said, I got to talk about this. If this person really believes that there's no reason to be here and they didn't want to be born and there's no meaning and purpose or whatever, they think, I need to address it. Because that's a real challenge in so many people's lives. It was for me for many years and I got through it. And this person apparently got through it. And again, I want to thank you so much for writing, for sharing that. I am so grateful and so humbled and honored that you wrote back. And I wrote them back and I said, you know, a teacher in high school or A couple teachers in my high school made an effect or made an impact on my life many years ago. And I didn't even realize it at the time. They just existed. They were my teacher. I learned something from them. I learned something by going to their class. But it wasn't just education. It was probably wisdom that I didn't fully comprehend at the time. And then 20 years went by and I never thought about them again. And then suddenly, wait a minute. Those people impacted my life more than I realized. Mrs. Mills, Mrs. Mills gave me the creative freedom to be myself. She was a creative writing class, so that was a good. A good place to do it. But I was young and immature, and I would just say foolish things sometimes. But she allowed me to be myself without restriction. I never realized how important that was until many years later. And so I wrote her a letter. I sent her a thank you letter. It was multiple pages long. And she wrote me back, and she was so grateful. And she said, do you mind if I read this in my class? And I said, of course not. I mean, if you think it's going to be of value to them, sure. So she read some of it to her class, and I didn't hear back from her after that. But I assume that she felt like I feel now somebody reaching out from the past, thanking you or thanking me for something that I said to them that changed their perspective, that changed something about their life that made a difference. I wrote to another teacher, Mr. Duggan. I don't know if these people listen to my show, but somebody might know these people. And Mr. Duggan was my computer teacher, and he made a huge impact in my life. He introduced me to some authors and some creative people to listen to, just people on radio plays. And not that it matters, but I found new forms of entertainment and listening and sci fi and, of course, computers. And that was the most impactful thing he had on me, is the computer knowledge that he shared with me. And I just appreciated his openness, his personality, the way he was so personable, and how he really wanted the best for us. That's what I could sense. He was very much invested in his responsibility as a teacher and just how he was also a friend. And so I wrote to him 20 years later, and I also received a message back saying, you know, you have no idea how important this message is for me. And it came at the right time because this is happening in my life. And he was grateful and he was humble. And it really humbled me to hear that my message to him was impactful just as this person's message to me is impactful. And I am just so grateful for these people in my life. And I'm sharing this with you because you never know how you're affecting someone or if you're even affecting anyone in your life. You never know, and you may never know. For years. This is like my mom. I didn't have the gratitude and appreciation for her until I was away from home for, like, 10 years. And it was at that point I realized how much she did for me and for the kids, you know, my siblings, and how much she kept us safe from the abusive person in the house and how much she did overall and how open she was and unrestrictive she was. She just let us be ourselves. And that was just an amazing realization I had so many years later. And I just got closer to my mom much later in life than I ever had been before. And then our relationship evolved more than it was, in a very open and honest way where she felt like she could share anything with me, and I felt like I could share with her. I didn't feel that way when I was a kid. I. I just felt that way later. So her impact in my life was huge. And again, I'm sharing all of this with you because it's very difficult to tell how we're affecting people, but we are. We walk around affecting people all the time, and especially those people that we have connections with. And sometimes we are saving someone's life and we don't even know it because it's going to happen 10 years from now. We. When they remember the impact that we had in their life, and when that happens, there's a gratitude that comes over you and a feeling. This is my experience. It's a feeling of just surprise. Like, this person comes out of nowhere from the past. Surprise. You helped me. You made me feel better about myself. You made me feel different about life. You gave me a different perspective, a different outlook. I'm not saying that that's what that person said to me. I'm just saying this is what happens. This is what can happen to you, to anyone. That somebody can come in from your past and say, you know, you really made an impact in my life. And even if they don't say the words, even if they don't show the gratitude or appreciation about how you showed up in their life, they are still making decisions based on everyone they have known, all the influences in their life, all the impact that their education and their connections have made in their life to their life. And you are part of it. And what's fascinating about that is that it's not just the positive people that we've had in our life. It's the negative people too. Sometimes the negative people teach us, usually teach us a lot more than the positive people because of the challenge we went through that if we hadn't gone through it, our life would be different. And I know there are people listening now saying, yeah, my life would be a lot better if that person wasn't in it. Or there are other people like myself that say, yeah, my life sucked for a while, but I learned something from that person being in it. I learned something from all the toxicity they brought into my life because it changed my trajectory in a way that made me a better person. That doesn't mean I appreciated it at the time. I didn't appreciate going through the experiences and the challenges with that person at the time. I wish things were different back then, but now I look back and think to myself, I wouldn't be who I am today without them. I would be completely different. Maybe I'd be smarter, maybe I'd be better, maybe I'd be happier without them, or maybe not. Maybe this is currently the pinnacle of the evolution of where I ended up because of all the events that have occurred in my life. And this is as best as it could get up to this point. And maybe it wouldn't have gotten to this point had he not been in my life. And I, I have to believe that's true. Because if I choose not to believe that I would be better off without that person in my life, then what does that make my life? It makes it feel like it was a waste. It makes it feel like it wasn't worth living, that I feel regret and resentment and I'll carry that forward with me into the future with every interaction. And just having that as a low level belief or understanding about life in general. And this is what life is and I'll carry that forward with me and we'll be miserable. So I choose to be grateful for having gone through the challenges to get where I am today and to give me the knowledge that I have today. Because there were lessons I learned along the way that, you know, they were terrible to go through. And I don't like that I had to expose other people to what I didn't learn yet, if you know what I mean. We can expose other people to what we haven't learned about ourselves yet and what we haven't learned about life and relationships in order to have happier, healthier connections if we haven't learned it yet, then we expose other people to what we haven't learned yet and maybe affect their lives too. But what can they carry forward from that point on? What can they learn from us? What can we learn from what has happened to us? And what will we do with that information? Because I know there are a lot of people listening now that have been through trauma, have been through difficulties, have been through abuse, some very awful, awful abuse. And when that has happened in your life, if that has happened in your life, it's hard to say, hey, I am grateful for that to happen. And I'm not telling you to say that. You can be angry, you can be hateful if you want. You can hate the people that did this stuff to you. But it's important to remember what you bring into tomorrow doesn't have to be what happened yesterday. And I'm not telling you to dismiss it. I'm not telling you to invalidate yourself. I'm just asking you, how do you want to feel? What do you want to bring forward now? Maybe there's some healing to do. Maybe you do have something to work on in yourself to heal. And maybe you think that healing is not possible. I will certainly not invalidate that for you. Because I haven't suffered as you have. I haven't gone through what you've gone through. Maybe it was worse. Maybe it was a hundred times worse. Maybe it was not as bad as my stuff. But we all process suffering differently, and we all suffer in our own way. And our suffering is the only suffering that we know because we've experienced it. So when you have stuff to deal with and stuff to heal, that is a personal journey. And that journey sometimes requires a lot of hard work. And some people might say, well, I need to be forgiving. And other people might say, I'll never forgive. And some people say, well, never stop hating. And some people will say, I will always be angry about what they did. I will always be angry at them. I will always be angry like this person probably once felt for being born. Because I didn't ask to be here. I didn't ask to be put in this situation. I didn't ask to be a victim of whatever's going on in my life. I don't want to participate in this crap. This is very real. I mean, what I'm saying is very real to a lot of people. I don't want to go through this crap. I don't want to deal with this. I tell you what, I've been in that place a few times in my life. I don't want to deal with this. I hate this. It's sad to me, it's angering to me. I'm hating it. And I've even gotten depressed over it. I've suppressed what I wanted to say to people. I've repressed the emotions that have come up to me and I have felt my system, my body depress. That is a formula for depression. You suppress your thoughts, you repress the emotions that come up for you. You know, that's sometimes automatic because of our coping mechanisms and how we operate on the inside and on the outside too. But that can lead to depression. It was just that we hold ourselves back from being ourselves, from expressing who we are into the world. I don't know how many times I've said I'm so angry at that person, but I'm not going to say anything and I'm not going to express my anger. I and I'm just going to hold it in. And every time I did that, it didn't work out very well because I felt my body ache inside. I felt it wanting to find relief because I was pushing on it. I was pushing into my body the emotions I didn't want to experience and the words I didn't want to say or I wanted to say but I knew I couldn't because it would cause more trouble. So I stuffed them down and I didn't even want to talk about it with anybody else because I didn't want to bring it up and experience those emotions. So I kept them stuffed. And in my 20s, that caused depression. And so what I learned to do, and it was very difficult, was start expressing what was inside of me. I mean real stuff, not just, hey, I'm angry, I just want to let you know it's more like that mother. It's more like I'm sharing the internal voice, the emotions. Externally my internal voice is coming out. Does that mean I explode? It just means I'm giving my emotions a voice in a safe place with a safe person sometimes. But I learned that we are kind of like a pressure cooker. And the more we push downward and into our ourselves, the more the pressure builds. And that pressure can either cause us to implode, more depression, maybe some suicidal thoughts. And when we are continuing to push down, you know, push the thoughts and emotions down, that's when we have more thoughts about not wanting to be here and being self destructive. And what is the opposite of that? That's how I looked at it. That's how I started looking at it when I was depressed. What is the opposite of all the things I'm doing now that caused me to feel this way? What do I need to do differently to turn things around? I wanted to do a 180, go in the other direction and turn things around. So I started releasing it. How did I release it? I made a fool of myself. I broke down in front of a potential new partner within two months of our relationship. But within two months of when we met, I was feeling depressed. You know, I was experiencing it before we met, but I brought this depression into the relationship. And her words to me, because we had talked about a few things. She said, when you're ready, just give me a call and we can talk about this. But you need to work on yourself. You need to heal or whatever. You need to figure it out because I'm with you, but you can't connect with me and you're just not there. I mean, she didn't use those words, but that's kind of how it came across. You're not there, you're not connecting with me. And I need somebody I can connect with. So work on yourself, heal yourself, and I will take care of myself and move forward in my life. And if you do find a path through this, give me a call. It was probably the most mature thing anyone has ever said to me because it was honest and it wasn't relying on the relationship. It was relying on two individuals who could make choices for themselves, who would like to be in a relationship. But the relationship wasn't the reason. She decided to say that the relationship was a benefit if everything worked out. But in order to have a relationship, both of us needed to bring in the best version of ourselves. And best is subjective. And it could be the healthiest version of ourselves, the most worked on version of ourselves, the most healed. Not that we'll ever be there. Maybe, maybe you'll be 100% healed one day. But we're always working on ourselves. And at the time, I needed to work on myself and I didn't. So I brought this depressed version of me into the relationship. And that caused so many issues because I couldn't connect with her, she couldn't connect with me, and she was a very empathetic person. So she was experiencing some of my down, you know, my down state. And she didn't want to experience that because she was a bright, energetic person that didn't want to get into a relationship with somebody who brought her down. And so when she decided to exit the relationship or at least start to exit the relationship by saying, you know, you really need to work on this and it's something that you should look at. But I don't want to be a part of this because this is, you know, it's not good for me, it's not healthy for me. That was the first time somebody made a decision for themselves without considering that the relationship might suffer or end. And that really made me understand how a relationship is supposed to work. You may not agree with that. You may say you should work on it together and continue moving forward together, trying to heal what is going on and help each other. But that's not what happened. And because it didn't happen, it actually caused me to look inward instead of relying on the relationship to be my only source of happiness and energy. And like an undepressed state, it was like my reprieve from depression. And when that happens, when somebody uses the relationship as a crutch, it becomes a drain on the relationship. It becomes a drain on the other person and both of you in general. Even though you may feel, if you did this, you may feel lifted up because of the relationship, but if that is the source of your energy and happiness, or at least a reprieve, it drains the relationship. And so I look back at that time when she was ready to walk out the door and take care of herself. Not because she didn't like me, she actually loved me. It's not because she saw me as defective or a problem. She just decided that it wasn't going to work for her or the relationship. But basically she was saying, I can't do this to myself. That didn't mean she didn't care because she wanted the relationship. But she decided that she couldn't do this to herself because she didn't want to expose herself to what would bring her down. And that was the most self care I've ever seen somebody do for themselves. This doesn't mean that one should never stay in the relationship or work on things together. This was a fairly new relationship and she made decisions that were right for her because the investment wasn't wholly there yet. It was still a new relationship. But she saw some signs that were bringing her down. And this is something that I so much appreciate about her and what I've learned from her is that sometimes there are signs that things aren't going well and we need to make a different plan, a different strategy, even an exit plan, in order for us not to get into a situation that we may not be able to handle or may make Us feel bad or unhappy or drained. And it's so important to catch that as soon as possible so that we don't end up in that depressed state that I was talking about. And this is hard to do when you're in a family. And maybe when you're young and you're growing up in the family and you can't go anywhere yet, and you can't express yourself because doing so is dangerous. And you can't express your emotional state with anyone because you don't feel safe. And so you might get that depressing feeling from childhood. You might have developed a feeling that you could never be yourself, because that's what you learned in childhood. And if you feel like you can't be yourself, what happens to you? Where do you go? That's something I had to learn. Where did I go? It took me probably 40 years before I discovered that I relied so much on other relationships for my happiness, for my energy. It took me so long. It took me a good half of my life to realize that I was missing from the relationship because I defined myself as a component of the relationship. Like I was half me at all times until I got into a relationship. And then I was the whole me. You complete me. I was the half me without a relationship. And that's not good enough. And I didn't realize that it wasn't good enough until I was. Until the person that I'm talking about, the woman that I met that became my wife and now my ex wife many, many years ago, taught me these lessons that it's important to find myself and bring myself into the relationship and not hide myself and not be myself in the relationship. Because when I do that, I am putting the pressure on the other person and the relationship to make me a whole person. And that's what I did most of my life. I chased other people to make me a whole person. So I walked around as half me and being half me, I didn't know who I was. And when the divorce came and I had to deal with that and heal from that and also learn about my other dysfunctional and toxic behaviors that I brought into relationships, it was the first time I decided that I am going to stay single because I have no effing clue who I am. And I decided to find out who the hell I was. Who am I without another person in my life? That was my question. Who are you without another person in your life? If you don't know the answer to that, that is so important. That is one of the most important, if not the most important question that you probably should explore if you don't know. And I'm not saying if you ask the question who am I? And nothing comes up, that means you don't know. Because that's a very existential question. It's a very esoteric question. It's a very spiritual question for some people. And if you don't know, it doesn't mean you don't really know. Because sometimes who you are is just a feeling. I mean, that's my opinion. But sometimes I can't answer who am I? Or maybe you can't answer who am I? Without saying what you do, what your name is, where you live, what you like. You know, all this stuff. If I were to, like, off the cuff right now, if I ask myself, who am I? What's the first thing that comes up? I can't even tell you without sounding ridiculous. The first thing that comes up is I am the totality of who I am. And this sounds ridiculous. I don't know. Maybe that's a good answer. Maybe that's the fullness of who I am. I am that I am. That's really what it reminds me of. I am. The totality of who I am. Feels kind of filling when I say that. Feels kind of good. I am the totality of who I am. Wow, that's a lot. If you don't have a good answer to that or if you have a bad feeling when that comes up, that's something worth exploring. And the way I explored it was asking myself, who am I without somebody else in my life? You know, that's a meditation I did for well over a year. I used to go to go to bed, and I would visualize myself as the last person on Earth. That is quite enlightening if you've never done it. But I imagine that I was the last person on Earth. And I had to discover who I was by being alone, truly alone. If that sounds depressing, I get it. I'm not saying it's going to bring you happiness or anything like that. I'm saying it's just a question to explore. If you haven't done it yet, and it's a meditation that you could try to figure out who you are. Because during this visualization, I had to explore reality without a single other person in it. There are some benefits. There are a lot of drawbacks. But I had to explore what life would be like without anybody in it. Luckily, in my visualization, it was modern times. It wasn't like before we built houses and things like that I wasn't like, alone on Earth. That wasn't developed yet in my visualization. That would be an interesting one, though. I haven't tried that yet. In my visualization, there were houses, there were grocery stores that had food in them. And how long would that food last, you know, in the canned goods and stuff like that. And in my. In my vision quest, I guess you could say there were animals. So there were dogs that were stuck in houses and I had to rescue them. And I was just going around trying to figure out what I would do. And so after I got past all this initial stuff, okay, I found my food, I got an rv, I got a pickup truck, because all that's free now. I had to discover after I got everything that I needed, what's the point of all this? What is the next step for me, what I discovered is my next step was always pursuit and searching. I'm searching for other people just in case I'm not the last person. I'm searching for a place to live, a place to thrive and not have to worry about wild animals or cold weather or other things that might be out of my control. I tried to make my life as peaceful as possible, and I never felt the need to, you know, hurt myself. I never had suicidal ideation or anything like that. I just wanted to live and I wanted to find out what more there was. And I also wanted to solve the mystery why I was the only person on Earth. But that was also very enlightening because it's a reminder of what I felt the meaning of life was in the first place, which was. And this is another thing that's going to sound very anticlimactic, which is, I believe the meaning of life is to find out what the meaning of life is. And that is the meaning. That's what gives it purpose. That's our quest, is to continue moving forward, trying to figure that out, but not seeing it as a disappointment if we don't find it. But always a curiosity in moving toward it. And so my pursuit, my quest about the meaning of all of this, it continues because it compounds the meaning of life. Compounds for me as soon as I meet a new person who brings a value to my life that compounds the meaning of life. It brings purpose into my life, but there's more. There's always more. And that curiosity pushes me forward. And I think that's a positive, optimistic viewpoint. Moving forward with anything is that, yeah, crap happened in the past and I can learn from that and I can try to heal that. I can Work on it. I can reflect on it, but I can't let it define me. I can't let it stay with me, impacting me every step of the way. I need to move forward from it. And again, I'm not saying, hey, just do that and you'll be fine. Because, yeah, there's a lot of people that have dealt with trauma and abuse that I will never comprehend or feel what they felt. And if that's you, I am so sorry that you went through that. No one deserves that kind of treatment. You didn't deserve that. But I tell you what you do deserve. You deserve to look forward to a better day tomorrow. And what you bring into tomorrow defines what happens tomorrow. And if you can't get rid of the negativity, that's okay. Be forgiving of yourself. Be forgiving of how you showed up in the past because you weren't who you are today, and you're bringing a new version of you into the next day, every single day going forward. And so there's some choice there. And then there are some thoughts and emotions that you might feel that you believe you have no choice but to think and feel. And if that's not out of your life yet, be okay. Be gentle on yourself, because some things take time, and some traumas take a lot more time than others. And some abuse will never be forgotten. And you may not be able to forget it, but it's always important to take another step forward so that you're not so consumed with the past. And this person who wrote to me or wrote back and said, you read my message on the air and just wanted to let you know that you made an impact. Maybe the first week after they listened to the episode, nothing changed. Maybe the first month, maybe a year, nothing really changed. But the wheels were in motion, the seed was planted, and there were steps of progress being made unconsciously where they finally got to the point where they could write back and say, look, you influenced my life. And so maybe that small moment in time when this person listened to the episode, they started seeing things a little bit differently. Or maybe one thing that they heard on my show made an impact that changed something else in their life that they didn't even realize. And all these little seemingly disconnected or unconnected events were occurring that they didn't even realize were compounding up to the point where they finally felt a little bit differently. Maybe they're not jubilant, maybe they're not blissful right now, but they feel different. And that's a step forward, a step in the right direction. And it's a little bit or a lot of letting go of what has been holding them down or holding them back. And that, to me, is meaningful. That makes an impact. Every little step forward you take has a little bit of impact, where finally the culmination and combination of all those steps and everything that you've been through gets to the point where it's meaningful, even in the smallest way. So you never know what impact someone's going to make in your life or what impact you're going to make in someone else's life. And. And you don't know how that's going to turn out. Maybe for years, maybe for who knows how long. And suddenly you are surprised by a message or you're surprised by someone's progress, and you can look at them and say, wow, I think I had an impact on them, because they probably wouldn't have done that if I didn't say anything. That reminds me of my wife. She'll say, you know, I tell people what they need to do. I'm putting words in her mouth. But I told my son what he needed to do, and he just dismissed it and said, that's not going to work. And then six months later, he goes and does it, and he tells me, hey, look what I did. I came up with this idea and I did it. And she said, I gave you that idea six months ago. And he says, no, you didn't. So that little seed gets planted in people, and sometimes they think it's their own idea, but that's fine. Whatever it takes to get them there. That's what I've learned. I've learned that actually with some coaching clients I had in the past where they'll say, oh, I did this, and I don't need you anymore, because I did this. And I'm thinking, well, you talked about that very same thing. I'm not telling them this, but I'm just thinking it. You talked about that very same thing in our session, and you came to a new realization because of our session. At least that's how I interpreted it. And now you're on your own, which is good. I'm glad. And this is what you're doing. And you reached a new level of happiness and positivity. That's awesome. That's great. I don't say, hey, I taught you that. I say, good for you. That's what I want. That's what I want for you. I want that for you. So I don't take credit, and I'm not taking credit today. I'm just saying you never know who has an impact in your life or who you're impacting. And sometimes it's difficult to find the meaning or purpose of life until it reveals itself later. And for me, it reveals itself every day because every day I am on that journey, I'm on that pursuit. And as long as I'm on that pursuit, there's meaning in my life. Every person, every event compounds that meaning and gives me more and more purpose. I hope you got something from today's episode. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Overwhelmed Brain. I want to start by thanking the patrons of the week. Deborah and Tammy, thank you so much. And wow, Crystal, you gave a generous donation. Thank you so much. She wrote just an extra donation. Thanks for your wonderful weekly podcast. They are always so helpful. This is one of those times where suddenly I get this message out of the blue or this generous contribution to my well being into my show and all of that. I am grateful. I am humbled. Thank you Crystal. And thanks to all the patrons that give every month. I appreciate you. And if you value the show like these patrons do and you want to give back, you can head over to more TLB and there are options to do so over there. And speaking of relationships that will impact you, if you're looking for a show on how to navigate difficult relationships or a particular difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and abuse over@loveandabuse.com it's not just about abuse, it's about control and manipulation and all the other difficulties that you can have in pretty much regular relationships too. So that's over@loveandabuse.com and if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship, I encourage you to join the program that is helping a lot of people heal over@HealedBeing.com and you'll learn what dysfunctional and toxic behaviors look like. You may not even know you're doing. And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions and be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want. Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure. And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you. You are amazing. Sa.