When You're Not Enough, You're Enough | Real Talk on Anxiety and Authenticity | Episode 449

When You're Not Enough, You're Enough | Real Talk on Anxiety and Authenticity | Episode 449

What if the smallest act you do today quietly steadies a hundred lives tomorrow? Justin steps into that question with raw honesty about anxiety, depression, and the pressure to always be “on,” then shows how tiny, human choices create outsized impact. We talk through the reality of tired brains, the courage it takes to get to tomorrow, and the freedom that comes from aiming for progress over perfection. This isn’t a list of hacks; it’s a map for days when brushing your teeth or sending one text counts as a win.

We explore why helping one person is a powerful growth strategy, not a consolation prize. When one person feels seen, their family, coworkers, and friends feel the lift too. Justin shares how our community has grown through trust and word of mouth, and why authenticity beats shiny branding when the topic is mental health. A small church story brings it home: a nervous boy, a crowded room, and a simple “you don’t have to be ashamed.” That two-minute exchange reduced fear and modeled peer support in real time.

We also address the cost of caring. Living with mental illness means honoring cognitive limits and building rest into the mission. Justin describes filming in bursts, stepping back when the tank is empty, and returning with warmth and presence. That rhythm helps us sustain a grassroots movement with global goals while staying grounded in the person right in front of us. If you’ve ever felt not enough, not ready, or not “on,” this conversation offers permission and a path.

If the message resonates, share it with one person who needs to hear they aren’t alone. Follow and subscribe to keep the momentum going, and leave a review so others can find the show. Your share might be the nudge that helps someone try again tomorrow.

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Chapter Markers

0:00 Gratitude And Big Goals

2:01 Olympics Note And Community Growth

4:05 Life’s Uncertainty And Perspective

7:20 You Are Not Alone

10:40 Why One Person Matters

12:30 Authenticity And Human Connection

15:35 Self-Talk And Belief

19:00 Small Acts And Daily Wins

22:30 It’s Hard To Be “On”

26:00 Allowing Rest And Imperfection

30:05 Church Story Of Anxiety And Kindness

36:30 Ripple Effects Of Compassion 

41:30 Join The Mission And Closing Thanks

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Transcript

Gratitude And Big Goals

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of well over 440 episodes. And I believe this is episode number 449. So thank you for joining us. If you're watching, listening, here in the United States or somewhere uh abroad, thank you so much for making the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast a reality day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second. Uh we couldn't do this without you. Help us reach 3,000 cities, help us reach 300 countries, help us reach and help at least 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. We're well on our way, and again, that's only because of you. If you could do us a huge favor, reach out to 25, 50, 100 of your contacts and your phone, let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Uh, we would greatly appreciate that. Uh, you can find us everywhere if uh this is your first episode. Wherever you're finding us at, you can find us here each and every episode. And there are over 13 additional um platforms that you can watch and and listen. So again, all this is because of you. We thank you for being with us, for making voices for voices, uh, the longevity that uh we we have we've just been so yearning for uh and it's because of you. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh the Olympics, uh, we've like closed that that page on uh the uh the the summer 2020. We've closed the page, I'll try that again. We've closed the page on the winter 2026 Olympics. And what an Olympics it was. Uh lots of um lots of new faces. Um it was just uh for the little bit that I got to see mostly through highlights. Uh it was it was fun to watch. Um and you know, we're praying for everybody who uh unfortunately may have um been injured uh during the Olympics. Uh we are are hoping and praying for uh speedy and healthy uh recovery. So thank you. Uh we are growing. And I I say this with all due sincerity. Uh, we are growing by leaps and bounds. We've talked about it on other shows. We truly are each and every show. Um again, that comes back to you. You're the one reaching out and telling your friends and colleagues and loved ones that you're sharing on social media, following voices for voices. You know, if you can give us the like, follow, subscribe, share, uh, that would be extra helpful as well. Um, and it's uh it's a pleasure to be able to come to you and talk about mental health, talk about life, talk about overcoming trauma, and just being a human being. Um it's very it's very hard in in this uh in this world as as we know to go day to day not sure what what's gonna be coming next. Uh we sometimes are pleasantly surprised, and sometimes we're unpleasantly surprised with uh what uh what what what comes that that next uh that next day. Uh but just getting to the next day, I think is a big thing. It's one of those little big things. You may think like, oh Justin, oh of course I'm gonna live till tomorrow. Well, we don't know that. Nobody knows that. You know, whether you're a believer in God or not, uh we don't know. We don't know how how much time we have on on earth left, and that's really how we and I'll just reiterate that at Voices for Voices, we operate with a sense of um just a a sense of intensity, uh a sense of we don't know this is gonna be our last show. It could be, I don't want it to be. Um but we have to be we have to be up front about life and you know being a human being. Uh we're always gonna be for good. There's uh some some individuals who are not, and so we're we're gonna be uh representing and talking about the the good people in in this world that are doing fantastic things. Uh you and I are doing fantastic things. But for that person who feels down and out, that person that hasn't had a quote unquote good day in a long time, who hasn't had a friend to talk to, or hasn't had a therapist or somebody that can help them through some of uh you know life's curveballs that come every single day and multiple times. Uh yeah, I used to get upset at the at the small things, but I don't as much anymore because I don't want to spend a good bit of my time for what's left here to be worrying about the small things, you know, like blink 182, all the small things. I uh I wish it would have been earlier in in in life that uh put more things into focus, more positive things into focus, uh, but I can't change any of that now. And neither can you. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to get caught up in the in the past. But it doesn't make it easy either. Uh it's not easy to it's not easy to not get caught up in the past of whether it's a song, whether it's uh certain type of weather, uh whether our car breaks down and needs fixed, and we don't have the money to do that, whatever it may be, just know you're not alone. And that was the biggest one of the biggest things that I I took out of 20 or uh yeah, 2017 is I can't fix everything. Try to be a fixer, but I can't. I can't fix everything in life in the world. We can sure try, and that's what we're we're doing here with voices for voices. But just know that you're not alone. Just know that it may seem like Justin Nobody's gone through what I'm going through right now. Nobody's experienced that or this. And believe me, somebody has, and in a majority of cases, there's a lot of somebodies that are watching and listening, and maybe that's why our viewership has been picking up. I don't know. I really don't care why it's picking up. I just want to help people. I want to help one person, one person. Helping one person, they seem like, oh, well, you're only helping one person. That's one less person that has to go through a tough time, a tough uh situation, a tough event. And that one less person, it's not just that one person, it's their family, it's their loved ones, it's the individuals they may work with or come in contact with. And so it's not just we're helping one person. Helping one person may easily be helping 50 to 100 people. So maybe that makes a little more sense why we're we're asking for help reaching out. You know, if you can reach out, the 25 of your contacts and sharing voices for voices, TV show, and podcast with them. We've already grown exponentially. This just takes a again. I think that's what we're seeing. Is there's so many people that are tuning in that see what this is all about. Like, why should I tune? Why should I tune in? My friend, my family member, my significant other said I should check this out. Because you're not going to find another authentic, down-to-earth hard topics and easy topics being discussed than our show. We're number three behind the Dan Bon Gino show and the Joe Rogan experience, and we're we're so happy, but our work's not done here. Our work isn't done. We talk about numbers all the time, but that's not really what it's about. It's about the human connection. It's about what do I do when my head, when my brain tells me I'm not good enough? What do I do when my head, my brain tells me I'm not pretty enough? What do I do when my head and my brain say you're not good enough? You're not you're not meant for great things. Ladies and gentlemen, yes you are. You're good enough. You're not alone. You are not alone. How do I know this? I know this because I was in that situation, and I still am from time to time. With those uh, you know, those thoughts ruminating over and over and over again. It's really something we have to believe in ourselves. Nobody's nobody anywhere, anytime is gonna believe us if we don't believe ourselves. And if we don't believe ourselves, maybe we should look at look at something else. Maybe look at a different topic. Something else that brings us joy that brings us happiness. I don't know about you, but helping people, even the smallest, even the smallest thing to help somebody with. I get these chills, I get the this feeling like, oh my gosh, I got to do something good today. I try every day, I don't succeed every day. All we can do is try. You know, there's um you know, children uh that are learning to ride a bicycle, maybe. And they might say, 'cause they may maybe they fall, maybe you know, they get just a short way. I don't want to do this anymore. It's too hard. I can't do it. I can't do it, I can't do it. And I'm saying this from a place of I've been there before. Well, obviously, the rider riding the bike years ago. Um, but a lot of these things I've been through again. So I repeated myself over and over again, right? So the more we believe it, the more it becomes like, I believe it. I believe I can do it. Yes, there's gonna be obstacles, yes, there's gonna be zigzags, yes, there's gonna be forks in the road, and I'm gonna have to think where which direction do I go? Which door do I open? What time do I show up? What do I say? What if I say something wrong? Or I I stutter. I've done that from time to time. We just try our best, that's all we can do. And bring bring attention that there's people in this world, you and me, and a lot of others that can use a little bit of a pep talk right right now. I mean, just sitting here speaking to you, whether you're watching or listening, whether your English is your first language or it's not man helping people. Nothing feels better than that. Because every time I help somebody, and that I'm able to recognize that I'm helping somebody, because sometimes we don't realize that we're helping people, because we just think, well, we're just going, we're we're going on with our day, and we don't know if certain things are gonna happen, and we're we're actually gonna help somebody, you know, a lot a lot of times a lot of times we don't know that we're helping somebody. How do we quantify that? As I mentioned, helping one person is not just helping that one person because there's loved ones, there's friends or family, there's teachers or pastors, uh, there are pets, the love every everybody that are better off because we're here. And I know times are tough. Times are hard. Times are very hard. But we have that option, we have that choice. Do we pick ourselves up? Do we continue on? Do we get out of bed today? Do we brush our teeth if we're able to? Do we wash our face? Do we get a shower, a bath if we're able to? See, these are things that we sometimes overlook. Like, oh whoa, I brush my teeth. Well, of course, that's an easy thing to do. I'm not here saying for a lot of people that it isn't somewhat easy. I'm lucky. I have ten fingers, I have ten toes, I have two arms, two shoulders, I have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears. Right there, I I just I just need to be grateful because I know I know I got a little visitor here. I know how hard it is to do things. And that's from experience. That's not me just saying, you know, these tips. You know, a lot of there's a lot of tips out there. Well if you just do this, well maybe you can't, maybe I can't. But maybe we can. Maybe we can't do it every day. But maybe we can do it today. Or tomorrow. We won't have to write everything out. Journaling is fantastic. But I get caught up in I'll do it for a while. And then I'll just fall off the uh fall off the horse and I'll just I I I just won't I just won't do it for a day. And then that one day turns into two days and three days. And so we we just have to take what life gives us and use what we're given, whether you're a believer in God or not, or a higher power. Man, our our minds, our the mental part, that's so hard. It's so hard. So hard even for me and for us to do these shows. Cause guess what? It's easy not to do them. It's easy to uh not to do them. And then I start to think there's somebody that could could be helped. And so that makes me happy that I have that opportunity, that our organization, Voices for Voices, has that has that opportunity to help others. And so then a dog is shaking around, shaking it off. And so it's that helping others that's what we're here for. Again, we we get all kinds of comments, we get positive comments, we get comments that are not very kind. However, we're here to help. And if somebody's not happy with where they're at and what they're doing, I don't claim to say we're gonna help every single person across the world. We got big goals. Yeah, I want to help. We want to help over three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Will we hit that goal? I don't know. But you've helped us get get that uh, you know, get those jet engines fired up. And looking at the analytics that I can see, because there's so much that's hidden analytic-wise that we can't see, it's just amazing. You're amazing, you're amazing, you're helping this grassroots movement titled Voices for Voices, whether you watch, whether you listen, whether you buy a book or two or a hundred, um, when our TV shows and movies and other media sprouts. That's how you can watch. It's how you can be a part of Voices for Voices. That's how you can know that you're helping people too, because you're you're using us as the vehicle of the helping. Just like the show is helping us, myself, help people. There's ups and there's downs, there's ups and there's downs, there's ups and there's downs. It is our honor to be able to come speak to you, whether you're watching and listening, first episode or uh all four hundred and forty-nine episodes. I see you, we see you, we see you watching, we see you listen. Thank you very, very, very much. Thank you very, very, very much. I've had dreams, and I think you do too. Yeah, you want to be on camera too, don't you? Let's see. Yep. Okay, we all have dreams. Okay. We all have had dreams, and we all do have dreams. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is definitely gonna end up as one of the clips. I know it. If not one, there's gonna be a couple. And so that that might be part of the reason why it makes me feel good when I help somebody. And there's so many people that I don't get to, that I don't get to help. It's that thing called being on. Being on that means being at our selves in our maximum capacity. So whether we're on a show or we're met at an event, that's called being on. Like I gotta be at the top of my top of the top of my game. I I have to be that leader, that founder of Voices for Voices every day, every minute, every second, every month, every year. And so that gets exhausting. Especially with some like since I have mental illness, my brain gets tired, I guess. Tired easily. So it needs extra time to rejuvenate. And so there's some times where I I'm not on, I'm not at my peak. I I don't know anybody that is and can be. I mean, maybe if you have assistants and secretaries and people to handle a lot of a lot of um a lot of different things for you. Maybe that causes the brain load to go down for you, but I don't. And so there's times where, like my psychiatrist says, I'm an introvert. I know you you're watching and listening, and going, wait a minute, that an introvert can't be speaking and being in front of a camera so much so often. And I didn't think I could either. But I can in spurts, and so some days we'll film two or three episodes, and then it might be a week until we film one episode because there's a lot of things on the back end, you know, titles, descriptions, hashtags, all those things. And so for the shows, I I try to be as on. That just means like, okay, three, two, one, you're on. I mean, I guess I I I may have signed up for this. And that that that that's okay. But I'm just letting you know that it's okay. If you're not feeling on. Yeah, this is the newest member of our family, Lucy. Say hi everybody. My name's Lucy. And so be on when you can. Maybe it's once a month, once a year, I don't know. But what I do know is don't feel ashamed. Don't feel ashamed. I'm gonna end this episode with a story I've mentioned. So when I when I got out of the hospital in 2017, November 2017, so Christmas was you know coming up. And one of the big things I had was, and I still have, is being in like big groups, and so I can talk in front of big groups because I have an idea of what I want to say sometimes, but again, oftentimes that changes, and so we have to adapt. And so I found myself by myself at church extra early because I wanted to, I wanted an aisle seat and I wanted to be up front. And so I did that. As the pews or rows started to fill up, the closer the time got to the uh starting of mass, there was a family that came and they sat in my row. And I wanted to be on the end because in case I had a panic attack, I could get out fast, I would just I would be on the end, and so I would just stand up and then head out. And so his family next to me, where there was a young boy, there was his mom. Oh, no, I'm okay. Lucy, Lucy, let's let's let's let's just hang out, okay? And so his his young young gentleman, young gentleman, and his mom and his dad, they were sitting next to me. And the young gentleman, he he asked to get up uh a few times. I don't I don't know if it was two or three times. But like I said, I was there quite early, and so I just figured, you know, he wanted to stretch his legs and and all that. So regardless, it didn't bother me. So he came back and then he went out again, and then his mom. Okay, so this is the very first large gathering that I was at after the hospital I was in, getting my mental health starting to to be addressed. Okay, so that was part of part of me having the panic attacks too. And then the depression and you know all the things. So one of the last ones, well, or one of the last times the young man got up, his mom mentioned that he gets nerve that her son gets nervous in groups. And and so I said, I said, I do too. I said, I have anxiety, major depression, and you know, I started to share as much as he can, and you know, a couple minute conversation. And so when he came back, I don't know if I introduced myself, like, hi, I'm Justin. I so somehow we're just I I just uh I said, hey man, I got I have anxiety too. You know, I I was in the hospital, got I'm on a path, and I said something to the effect of doesn't matter how many times you want to get out and you want to stretch your legs or maybe go get a drink of water or whatever, like don't worry about it. I said, because I I said, because I am too going through the same thing that that that you are, like the same same, you know, nervousness, anxiousness, impatience. And he said, Man, there's he goes, Man, there's police out there. I wonder what's going on. Is everything okay? And I said, Yeah, they're they're just out there probably directing the traffic because this is one of the biggest. The most people attend this this particular, you know, the Christmas Eve vigil mass. And I said, yeah, like but nothing, there's nothing extra that's going on. That's just what they're doing. They're just you know keeping people safe and directing traffic and so I told them then again, I said, hey, if you gotta get out 20 more times, or whatever number I gave, I said, you don't have to be ashamed. I said, you and I were in the same boat. I said, I might get up and do and do the same thing, and so he got up again, and his mom said, Thanks for you know, talking to her son. And I said, Hey, like, we're all human, and I'm not just making this stuff up. I said, this is real life for me too. I don't keep in trap, I don't keep in touch with them. I don't, I don't even know if I know their last name. But what I'm trying to get at is we can help people. And I feel like God put me there that day in that row where I was at. I could have been in there are hundreds of other places I could have been in church that day, and I and I never would have met that young man and his mom. And so when I say helping one person can help more, and it does. And so I was able to see it helped that young man, helped his mom, helped his dad. Because even if they didn't show that they were nervous and they're anxious, sitting next to somebody that just so openly, like me, they so openly talk about what I was going through, too. That's what I'm talking about. We're not alone. You have a life to live. We all do. We're gonna have good days, we're gonna have bad days, we're gonna have days that are so so, they're average, they're they're they're just what they are. And so for you to help us reach one person, one additional person, or 20 additional people, or a hundred, or follow us on any of our social medias, that's how we get to help over three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And we are a 501c3 nonprofit charity. So if you're willing and able and so moved, you can go over to lovevoices.org, lovevoices.org, lovevoices.org, and we accept donations of any denomination. We have big goals, big aspirations. Thank you for being with us on this episode and all the episodes of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Let's celebrate the voice. Of everybody. And let's be a voice for ourselves and those in need. We'll see you next time. Thank you so much for being with us. It means so much. We're sending good vibes your way. We love you. We think about you. And thank you for being a part of the Voices for Voices movement. We'll talk to you next time. Send in love, good vibes your way.