It's an Inside Job

The War Within: Turning Off Combat Mode After Military Service with Clay Rojas

• Jason Birkevold Liem • Season 8 • Episode 37

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“Combat mode can lead you through war; it cannot lead you through life.” — Clay Rojas

U.S. Marine veteran and counsellor Clay Rojas joins me to unpack the hard transition from combat to civilian life—covering post-traumatic stress (drop the “D”), dialling down “combat mode” at home, and how families and communities can become real rally points for veterans. Practical steps, plain language, and resources from The Forge Initiative and Clay’s book, Rally Point.

Key Takeaway Insights & Tools 

  • “Combat mode” must be turned off on purpose. Hypervigilance saves lives in theater; it wrecks home life if left on. [12:26–16:15]
  • Drop the “D” from PTSD. Framing it as post-traumatic stress removes the stigma of “disorder” and restores hope. [18:36–21:47]
  • The first step to victory is surrender—to love. Admitting “I can’t recover alone” is strength, not defeat. [22:24–24:22]
  • Rebuild belonging on purpose. Replace lost unit cohesion with peer groups and service—meaning needs a place to live. [27:45–29:09]
  • Civilians can be rally points. Learn the terrain, handle with care, and line up veteran-specific help. [49:00–52:22]

Bio

Clay Rojas is a USMC veteran (2001–2005) with three combat deployments who has lived many lives—teenage dad, police officer, convict, pastor—and is now a counsellor and Regional Director at The Forge in Tulsa, OK. He specializes in post-traumatic stress management for military veterans and first responders, drawing on extensive research and frontline experience. During his service, he led an infantry squad with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and served as a squad leader with 2nd FAST Company. His awards include the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Gold Star and Combat “V” distinguishing device.

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/clay-rojas-8b2590a6/

The Forge:  https://theforge.org/veterans-support/

Content Warning

This episode discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. Listener discretion advised.

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This is It's an Inside Job, and I'm your host, Jason Lim. This is the show where we explore the stories, strategies, and science behind growing resilience, nurturing well-being, and leading with intent. Because when it comes down to it, it's all an inside job. There's a strange ache some people bring home from war. You can't scan it, you can't bandage it, but it shows up in the quiet. Hyper vigilance that won't switch off, anger that lands on the wrong people. And a hollow space where purpose used to be. For ex-military, veterans, re-entering normal life can be harder than the deployment itself. For the veteran and for the family trying to reach them. So my guest today is Clay Rojas, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Christian counselor, and life coach in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He serves with the FORGE Initiative, a men's mental health nonprofit focused on veterans and first responders. And he wrote a fascinating book called Rally Point. It's a tight field guide for the war within. In this conversation, Clay talks about how to dial down that combat mode so it stops wrecking home life. A simple three-step way civilians can actually help, not just offer platitudes. And why dropping the D from PTSD changes more than language. It restores hope. So I hope you have a chance to listen to the whole conversation, because it's one that is very compelling, fascinating, and sobering. So without further ado, let's slip into the stream and meet Clay Rojas. I was wondering if we could kick off the conversation today by you introducing who you are and what you do. Yeah, so I think that I'll try to keep it as short as possible. My name is Clay Rojas. I am a counselor now in this current life by trade. I was previously licensed in California and now living in Oklahoma and working as a Christian counselor and life coach here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a nonprofit called The Forge Initiative. And The Forge Initiative, we focus all of our mental health around men. So we are a men's mental health outfit. And we in Tulsa, we are having a big push towards men's mental health in the areas of veterans and first responders. So that's kind of the program that we started standing up in June of this year and looking forward to really launch big in 2026. Yeah your name came across a mutual friend she was a former guest on my show and the the idea of this conversation is to have someone as articulate and experienced as you are in this area to talk about this transition from military life where there's structure back into civilian life and how there's a. There's a misalignment there. And you recently wrote a book, which I found fascinating, called Rally Point. It was only 80 pages, but within that 80 pages, I don't think it was needed anymore. It was very succinct and to the point. And I thought that was a... Thank you for that, for sharing it with me, though, the book, first of all. But that's what I'd maybe like to hover our conversation partially around, if that's okay with you. Definitely, yes. So there's a quote you wrote that I really liked. You said you write that there are two battles every warrior fights, the one on the battlefield and one after they come home. I was wondering if you could describe the nature of this second battle, the soul deep war, what happens in the quiet afterwards, as you've written. Yeah, so definitely two wars that every warrior fights. I believe that just through my experience and counseling with veterans and working with, you know, dozens of veterans over the last couple of years, and then my own life experience, I believe that there is something important. That when we leave the literal battlefield and transition back home, there is another war, which we coined this phrase called the war within. Right. And the war within. Think about this. This is like the way I like to put it. There's there's a scripture in the Bible that says there is no greater love than when a man lay down his life with his friends. And if you think about everyday life you know whether you're you know just living in western society there's not very many opportunities where a man can lay down his life for another man unless you're a police officer or a firefighter or maybe a a paramedic right but outside of those three, professions that i just named there's very little opportunity for a man to lay down his life for another man. When a man actually gets to experience that, there is a sense of belonging. There is a sense of camaraderie, of brotherhood, esprit de corps. There is this sense of connection to another human being that feels there's nothing else in the world that feels that way. When I lay down my life, knowing that I could lose my own life, but I lay it down for another person. That level of sacrifice and connection, there's nothing like that in the in the regular world. And when I say regular world, like when you come back home and, you know, you're you're driving the kids to school and you're taking the kids to soccer and going to the grocery store, you know, you're just living everyday life and, you know, you're doing a regular job for a living. And a warrior begins to yearn for that feeling again. He or she yearns to feel that connectedness and that brotherhood and that camaraderie and that esprit de corps that they experienced when they laid their life down for another person or when another person laid their life down for them. And so then when we make the transition back into civilian life. Our soul, there's a part of us missing. Something is disconnected because we're living in this world where neighbors don't really need each other anymore. Right. I don't even really, for the most part, need to leave my own home. I never need to talk to my neighbors. I mean, I talk to people and I grew up living next to neighbors for 10, 15 years and we never spoke. Why? Because I have Amazon. You know, I have I have all the things I need. I don't even need to leave my house. I don't have to go next door and ask to borrow something. In the civilian context now in the modern Western world, there's very rarely, if any, an opportunity to feel that feeling again. And so when a warrior no longer has the opportunity to feel that feeling, we feel disconnected from the world. And now you've dropped us into this civilian life where, for the most part, there is no sense of deep brotherhood, of deep connection, of deep soul tie. And then we begin to understand that there's something that's missing from the soul. And so we begin to fight this war within us to feel like another sense of purpose, to feel like there is a reason for living that is greater than ourselves. And unfortunately, that's very hard for a lot of veterans to find again outside of the battlefield. And so then, of course, trying to find that and trying to find purpose again. You know, when we spoke earlier, we talked about Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. He states it very plainly. And so when we begin to search for meaning and we can't find it, we begin to self-destruct. And that's kind of what the experience is like. I've never had the privilege of serving in the military in any form or function. So forgive some of the ignorance of this question. But when you become part of the Navy, the Army, the Marines, what have you, the Air Force and such, I guess there is a whole world around there. There's a whole structure, a whole infrastructure of community and camaraderie, training together, eating together. I guess in most cases, you may bunk together in the same whatever, barracks and such. And so you have that whole structure. You have the discipline, the training and such. But what I understand is that when you become a veteran, part of that camaraderie and communities is this brotherhood per se or sisterhood, depending on what it is, right? There's this connection, this greater sense of purpose. As you said, there is always the possibility that you may have to lay down your life for your fellow soldier in the field of combat and the theater of war, per se. But when you come back, as I understand what you're saying, Clay, when many soldiers or warriors come back into the real world or the civilian world, all that falls away. And they're left I guess without the infrastructure that's may have been there for years and years and years they're waiting for the next order and the next order is not coming, You know, you state in your book that no one gave me a manual for this, this, this transition. What is the single most critical piece of rep the military pipeline misses when preparing a soldier back for civilian life? Or is there a preparation? Again, forgive the ignorance of this question. Yeah, that's a really great question. I think it's evolved since I've been out. So I served in the military from 2001 active duty, 2001 to 2005. So I went in right after 9-11. I was in boot camp 45 days after 9-11, October 15th, so roughly 45 days. I feel like the military does a great job. And when I got out in 2005, they had this program called the TAP, Transition Assistance Program. When I went to TAP, you know, maybe a month or two before I was released from active duty, the I would say that 95 percent of it revolved around how to write a good resume, how to do a good job interview, how to look for a job. They even connected you with some of those career. You know, like when you meet with a career counselor, they might have you do some assessments to see what industry or what, you know, what you might be good at when you go into civilian life. And so most of it is centered around. How are you going to reintegrate as a good producer or a good worker? What are you going to do when you get out of here to make money? Which don't get me wrong, that's super important. Right. But I think the single greatest missing link to transition assistance right now is. Telling warriors that they are going back to a different world and mentally preparing them for that. We have to show people, you know, when we go into the military and we experience combat. Now, you may know this from your clinical background. You know, every human has that fight or flight mechanism. Right now, that fight or flight mechanism is good. It's good for us. It's a survival mechanism. But you and I both know that that mechanism wasn't designed to stay on. Right. It was designed to turn on and off as needed. Right. so we could survive a dangerous situation. But when you're in a place where there's dangerous situations, you know, like on a deployment, there might be dangerous situations two, three times a week for long periods of time. And the fight or flight system wasn't designed to stay on. It was just designed to turn on when needed and turn back off. Well, you know, As warriors, when we've lived the last four years, eight years, 12 years in fight or flight, and no one shows us how to turn that thing back off. Now, OK, great. You showed me how to get a job. But now you're sending me back to the civilian world in combat mode. Now, I say this all the time. Combat mode was designed and works great during combat to lead me through combat. But combat mode cannot lead me through life it's it's just not it's it's not beneficial it's the way i put it to some people you know have you have you seen uh you know are you familiar with the movies the fast and furious yeah yeah i think there's what seven or eight of them two or three of them oh yeah okay yeah so when these guys are racing i don't know if you've ever noticed this but they're racing and then the other guy's catching up to them or maybe they're they're tide and then they hit this button right and it's called like the nas button like it just i don't know what exactly what does because i'm not really a car guy but all i know is when they hit this button all kinds of fire comes out of the back and the car just like it's like a rocket ship right it's a turbo yeah it's that gas boost yeah for about you know two to three seconds. And and then i and i tell people are you familiar with that they're like oh yeah i've seen the movie I know what happens. They turn the button on and the car takes off like a rocket. And I said, imagine if you drove your car like that all the time. What do you think would happen to the engine? And then, you know, the common response is, well, yeah, the engine would blow up. It's not designed to the car is not designed to be in turbo rocket mode everywhere. And so what what we've done to warriors is we've turned on rocket mode, turbo mode. And that's great for combat and it's great for deployment. But now I'm out of active duty and you're going to dump me back into the civilian world. And you have not shown me how to turn off turbo mode. So now I'm here in civilian land and everything is a threat. Everything is hypervigilance. Everything is turbo mode. And you and I both know that the brain, the body, the soul, the emotions and the people around you cannot sustain that kind of behavior as you try to reintegrate as a family man, a husband, a father. It just doesn't work. And I talk about it in my book, how I came back and, you know, I was I was a really hard person to live with for my children, for my wife and nearly destroyed every single personal relationship that I had in my life because I only knew one mode. That was that combat fight flights or hyper vigilance. So two things I hear you were carrying around with yourself. It was this sense of moving from a sense of purpose and duty and camaraderie and community to almost a hollowness. I think you described it as decorated emptiness. And then there's the second part that adds to that. And that's the, as you said, this combat mindset, constantly hypervigilant to any dangers or threat to life and limb. and it's being turned on and it's being trained into you. For survival, for combat, for moving through a theater of war, per se. And so you have these two elements that are constantly sitting with you, which are important as a warrior, but that hollowness was replaced by a sense of purpose and duty. But when you're dumped back into civilian life, per se, these two things are swirling through many veterans' heads. Is that what I understand? Yeah. And I think that, you know, don't get me wrong now with this next statement. Like, hear my heart. I love the military and I'm proud of my service as a U.S. Marine. You know, we have one of the deepest and strongest esprit de corps in all of the world as military fighters. But what I will say is this, is that the hypocrisy of the military. Is that when we're in combat out in theater, it's one team, one fight. No one gets left behind. I got your back. You know, you never leave a Marine alone. You know, it's all this stuff that surrounds around team. In fact, when you're in bootcamp in the Marine Corps, you can't even speak in first person. Okay. I don't know if you knew that. You're not allowed. No, I didn't. You can't say the word I, my, you can't speak in first person. You have to speak in third person because the theory is that you're no longer an individual. You're part of a team, right? So this This is embedded into you. The hypocrisy is that when you get out and then you're struggling with mental health, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, you're on your own for that war. We were a team for this war, but for the mental health part, yeah, you're on your own, buddy. Good luck. Because in your book, you don't use PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, you use post-traumatic stress. So why is changing the word from disorder to stress, Clay, so vital for sort of veterans, sojourn towards healing or coming to peace with certain things in their own head, in their own world? Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, it's not my own idea, but I heard of it and I loved it. And I and I think it's because there's stigma around the word disorder disorder. Would make someone think possibly that there's something wrong with them. But but think about this post-traumatic stress is an absolutely normal human response to an act that no human should ever endure. Right. When you see death. When you take part in death, when you see bodies in ways that they that you should never see and you see tragedy, you see, you know, children in this state and women in this state and you just see horrors. If you didn't have a post-traumatic response, there would be something wrong with you. So post-traumatic stress is actually a 100% perfectly normal human response to seeing something horrific or experience something horrific. And we take away the last, the D, which is disorder, because we want veterans to understand that there is hope. Like you don't have a disorder. You have something that any human would respond this way. And there is hope. So we decided in the book and in the work that we do when we work with veterans, we say we have post-traumatic stress symptoms or post-traumatic stress. But we refrain from using the word disorder because we also want guys to understand that there is a way back. There is a way back towards healing. I think that's a very salient point you said, because those are normal responses in an abnormal situation. Like we don't find ourselves in those situations. I mean, as a warrior, as a soldier, of course, but still it's not normal, right? And so it's a normal reaction. And I think by, I really like what you said, by taking away the way disorder, it doesn't mean you're broken. It doesn't mean you have a disorder. these are normal reactions of the the human nervous system to the the horrific i can't even imagine what what you guys have seen right and how that can sit because it's burned into your neural net into your brain and it can show up in the quiet the quiet of night and these these things can haunt you and so it's not a disorder because then that becomes a label i'm broken i need to be No. So I just wanted to give you kudos for that because I think it's so important because once we strip away these negative connotations, these labels, then we broaden the context of, well, as you talked about healing or finding a way back per se. I just think that's a very, very important point. You know, you refer to, if I can just rewind back, that you were kind of hard to live with. And in the book, you talked about control and anger and certain expectations and that your family should just get it. This is the way I am. Why don't you get it? So from your perspective, what is the first step a veteran needs to take to stop building these walls, these castle walls? and to start building more bridges as you've described it in your book. Yeah. This is, I love this. I love that you asked that question because I just started saying this literally like a couple of months ago. It came to me as I was working with a guy. The first step to victory is surrender. Now that's so interesting, that comment, Because surrender is not a word that, you know, like me being a Marine, like that's just, that's, that's not even in our vocabulary, right? We're not surrender. What is that? And so. The first step towards surrender, that's hard for many guys to grasp because they don't know how to deal with that word. They only see that word in a negative connotation. So when I say surrender, what I really mean by that is admitting, accepting and understanding that you can't recover alone. And that does not mean weakness and it does not mean defeat. Right it it really what it really means is surrender to love that that's what if i could finish that that statement it would it would be the first step towards victory is surrender, to love to love and the hardest part of getting any veteran to move in this direction towards healing is getting them to accept the fact that you can't win this alone. And, and, and asking for help is not weakness. So there's all kinds of cultural and social barriers that keep us from asking for help, especially with men, but I see it with women veterans as well. And once again, it's this, it's this negative, um, you know, it's this negative thought process that if I raise my hand to ask for help, I have failed. And so the first step, as you go back to your question, the first step for any veteran to start their road to recovery and healing and soul restoration, as I like to call it, is surrender. You've got to surrender to the love. So what I hear is it's a veteran. All of a sudden, he or she's left alone. And they're using sort of personal pronouns as I and me. And they made something i got a soldier on i can't do this if i show this i'm weak but what i hear you're saying clay is that there is strength and vulnerability is that you need to go rewind back again forgive me if i'm taking liberties here but you need to rewind back to your military days where we used collective pronouns we us and that's what i'm understanding is that weakness is not weakness is vulnerability and vulnerability there is strength because we can't we're human beings we're part of uh tribes and that we need to find our tribe in civilian life in the real world to help us back to where we want to get is that what i understand you're saying yeah 100 and and here's the thing like i i remember personal stories of my my personal experience in the military of you know, I remember being in San Diego in infantry training and we're climbing this. Ridiculously tall mountain and you know it's a 20 mile hike um and i remember marines being so exhausted that they could not go on and and i remember other marines walking up to them and taking off their backpack strapping it onto the front so now i've got a backpack on the front and a backpack on the back another marine come take his rifle another marine come and put it put his arm. So it's like, we're climbing this mountain. You know that you can't make it alone. And, and you're perfectly fine with other Marines coming to take your load to help you go. But for some reason, when we transitioned to civilian life, we refuse to let anybody take our pack. We refuse to let anyone take our rifle. And I'm still trying to understand that. I'm still even myself as a practitioner and as a counselor, I'm still trying to to unravel that that mystery where, you know, I used to let Marines carry me. I've let Marines carry me, literally carry me off my feet. I've let Marines drag me through mud because I couldn't go on. I've carried other Marines packs. I've carried other Marines. Yet, we get out here into civilian life, and being carried is a sign of weakness and defeat. I don't get it, but this is the mental barrier and the narrative that's playing in a lot of veterans' heads, that if I let someone carry me, if I let someone take my pack, I'm defeated. I lost. There are two wars, not one. There's the obvious one in the theater of combat. And then the quiet one that begins at home. What Clay calls the war within. In service, identity is built on team and tempo. You train, eat, and move together. Then the orders stop. and the bond that gave life meaning isn't there on the school run or in the checkout line. Convenience replaces interdependence, and many veterans feel a kind of decorated emptiness. Transition programs teach resumes and interviews, which matter, but they rarely teach the mental reset. Combat mode is excellent under fire, but you can't just drive your whole life that way and expect marriage, kids, or your own body to hold up. Language matters too. I'm choosing post-traumatic stress over disorder. The reaction is human in the face of horror, and that shift opens the door to hope. The hard contradiction we name is this, one team, one fight in war, then alone in recovery. Clay's line lands for me. The first step to victory is surrender, specifically surrender to love. Admitting I can't recover alone and letting others carry some weight again, well that helps deal with the burden. The work ahead is moving from I-me back to we-us. Thralling down combat mode on purpose and rebuilding belonging so meaning has somewhere to live. So let's return back to my fascinating and compelling conversation with Clay Rojas. Because there's a great weight, a heaviness of the statistics you shared with me in our pre-interview conversation, Clay. I think, and again, forgive me if I get these numbers wrong. You said anywhere from 14 to 25 veterans take their own lives in the States every day, was it? Or something? 17 to 22. 17 to 22. Every single day in the United States. And a lot of that has to do with the post-trauma stress, the sense of, what did you call it? The hollowness, the hollowness, right? The decorated emptiness. The emptiness, the no sense of purpose, the trying to fit in, but you don't fit in anywhere. The constant trying to climb the mountain by yourself. Right. Eventually, you get tired. You get tired of failure, failing, failing, because when your mental health is failing, your finances will start failing. Your relationships with your loved ones will start failing the fight or flight response in your body like physiologically your body will start failing because we know scientifically that trauma prolonged fight or flight and trauma is will put you in a greater category for heart disease high blood pressure diabetes you name it like we are in a higher category because we've experienced this high level of trauma. And so you start failing on all levels and then you're left with, and this is the part where, you know, I tell guys, you're either going to surrender to the love or you're going to surrender to the gun. Right. Because what ends up happening is the veterans get so tired and it's not that they want to die. I've talked with with hundreds of guys who have been suicidal, including myself. And it's not that you want to die. You just want the pain to stop and you don't know how to make it stop and you're tired. And so, you know, this mentality of I'm going to do it by myself or else I'm weak. This is the this is the battle that i'm fighting and guys like me who are helping veterans we are literally trying to change the narrative the culture the mindset and we're trying to tell guys that hey you need to help me carry your pack like you used to let me do when we were, in the battlefield and and this is a very it's it's like climbing a hill for me uphill you know it's an uphill battle trying to get men and women to change this mentality but but this is what we're fighting. And, you know, going back to the question you asked me of, what can the military do better when guys are getting out of the military? I would say 1000% what we can do better is have a prolonged mental health clinic that helps people transition and prepare them for the war within that they are going to face when they come out. But give me the tools so that I can help fight it. Just like you gave me the tools to fight the war overseas, you've got to give me the tools to fight the war within. And so many veterans, like you said, the suicide rates are astronomically. We're losing the war here. We're losing the war here, and we're not giving guys the right tools to fight it. I mean, the number's incredible. I mean, just average of 20 people. You know, people who've served their country, taking their own lives. And that, I'd like to circle back. The book that you wrote is called The Rally Point. And military terminology, it means a place to regroup. I was wondering, what does a rally point kind of look like in a veteran's civilian life? And how is finding it different from trying to out-muscle or out-run your problems alone? I think you've talked to that. I guess linking the forge where you work, your association now, I don't know if that's the correct word, but the forge and the rally point. How does the forge help veterans in the civilian life? Maybe you could speak a little more to that. Yeah. So, you know, we have, we have really two basic functions and now with rally point, we have a third, but our first, like the bread and butter of the forge is that we provide a faith-based. So we are, we are what, what a therapist would consider a faith-based intervention. And really all that means is that we incorporate faith and psychology and we kind of marry those two worlds because you know, uh. All kinds of studies and peer-reviewed journals outside of religion, outside of faith, show us, the statistics show us that when people incorporate faith into their mental wellness journey, that they have a much higher success rate. They have a much higher chance of healthy life outcomes, right? Right. So all we're trying to do is create this perfect marriage of your faith and your mental wellness program to to help you get a better understanding of what it means to be to experience total or wholeness, total wellness. Right. Not just in mind, but also in your soul and in your body. And so one of the things we do at The Forge is that we we were specific to men's issues. Right. And here in Tulsa, where we opened up our second office now, we are we are really being intentional about serving veterans who are struggling with post-traumatic stress. So the first thing we do is we provide this one on one mentorship, one on one counseling. We do it in singles, one on one, or we do it. We also do group counseling. So I also have a men's group that I run every Monday and I've been running that group for the last year. We have about 62 guys on the roster right now, and we average about 20 to 25 guys that show up every Monday for this experience of the integration of faith and mental health for healthier life outcomes. So that's kind of our bread and butter. What we want to do with RallyPoint is we want to train veterans. So that we can establish a peer-to-peer support group. It's a book written by a veteran for veterans, and it's a group led by a veteran for veterans. Because one of the things that we know is that veterans have a higher affinity towards groups that are led by their peers, people who know what it's like to walk a day in their boots, so to speak. And so through Rally Point, one of our visions, We have two visions with Valley Point. Number one, one of our visions is that no veteran will ever have to pay for this book. And so as we start raising money at the end of this year and early next year, we want to provide this book free of charge to any veteran or veteran serving organization. On top of that, we want to provide training also free of charge to the veterans to show you how to become a rally point group leader so that you can start a rally point at your job, at your church, somewhere in your community center, anywhere where you feel there's a group of veterans that can use help. And this is how we are reintroducing the concept of esprit de corps, camaraderie, brotherhood, sisterhood. And by the way, with Rally Point, we can have female Rally Points as well. And so our vision is that we start showing veterans what it truly looks like to fight the battle, the war within together with other veterans and showing them that there is hope and healing and you are not condemned to a lifelong suffering with post-traumatic stress. And so for example if i was a veteran myself i follow no particular faith but i i feel this sense of hollowness i feel this sense of anger i feel this sense why don't people get it around me. And i come to the forge but i have no particular faith per se but it's it's almost like you're re not reprogramming you're you're teaching a mindset getting back into the real world back into the civilian life. What would it be sort of every Monday we meet for an hour and what kind of things would we be discussing? Would it be sort of like group therapy? Would it be like attending a university class where I hear a lecture and there's discussion around a certain subject? And I'm glad you asked that question because I have several clients. I have several clients now that are not, they don't ascribe to a particular faith. You know, this faith-based intervention, obviously as a follower of Jesus, it is my heart that every person would experience the love, his love and an encounter with him. However, I know that that's not all, that's also not realistic with every single client, right? So some guys are going to come to me and they're like, hey, you know, I love what you guys are doing. I'm open to the idea, but I'm not a follower of Jesus. Right. And I say, hey, that's great. That's fine. Because everything that we're going to talk about and show you is based on principles that he taught that are universal principles. Right. Forgiveness. Love of self, love of my neighbor, compassion, grace, love. Right. All these all these universal terms that we find rooted in biblical scripture and we are bringing that approach to our therapy. So it's not where it's not like we're preaching to you or we're trying to get you to convert. We're just showing you how the principles that were taught by Jesus can be integrated into your mental health journey. And if you do that, you will have healthier life outcomes. Now, I've had experiences where guys come in and they want nothing to do with following Jesus. But by the end, they want everything to do with it because they found a hope. They have found a hope in him. Right. And in putting their faith in Christ. Does it always happen? No. And that's OK, because. You know, as a follower of Jesus, like I'm just commanded to love. It doesn't say love if they also agree with you or love if, you know, they want to become Christians or love. No, there is no prerequisite. So whether you come in and you just want the principles and you want the one-on-one and you want the help and you never desire to follow Christ, Hey, great. That's fine. Right. And if you do, that's great too. Either way, I'm going to care for you. I'm going to love you. I'm going to carry your pack. I'm going to drag you through the mud. I'm going to walk the trenches with you. And there is no prerequisite and there is no expectation that you're, by the time that we're done, you're going to believe what everything I believe. No, because honestly, that's not even the way Jesus operated. And unfortunately, many people have misconceptions about the teachings of Jesus. And because they look at the church, they look at the modern day church. And I always tell people, man, don't confuse church with God because they're two different things, right? We are not after a church experience. We are after the integration of faith and psychology to help you personally achieve a healthier life outcome. And we believe that those principles of grace and forgiveness and love and mercy and compassion and all, you can practice all of those things. And have a healthier life outcome in your mental health journey. And you don't ever have to ascribe to a certain religion. Again, my hope and desire is that through conversation and through our journey together as counselor and client, that I could point you towards a relationship with Jesus. But it's absolutely not a prerequisite or a condition of help. And so what it's going to look like is you and I meeting once a week, having a one on one discussion, either here online, the way you and I are doing now or in person in our Tulsa office. And we also have a group, a group therapy setting where like the group that I run on Mondays and that group, honestly, right now, that current group that I've been running for a year. It's about, it's about 70, 30 in terms of those who would consider themselves believers in the gospel, uh, followers of Jesus and those who are not. And, and guess what? The 30% that are not, they love coming. They have a great time because we're just real. We're not preaching. We're not forcing anything down. We're just, it's like, Hey, this is a place where warriors can come and remove their armor with no judgment. And and men are looking for safe places like that. And we're providing it. So so guys come and they love it and they don't feel pressured to follow anything or believe anything. It just happens organically. The questions happen organically. And, you know, like I always say, it's not my job to save people. It's just my job to plant the seed. And I let God do the rest. It is because I could see these veterans who have no sense of purpose or who feel this pent up fight and flight. Maybe that Monday becomes the highlight of their week because they join men who've been through the field of battle, who've lived the military life. But now they feel the camaraderie in the community, even though no one's wearing a uniform, sitting around whatever church basement or office meeting room and talking and sharing the stories. I think looking at group therapy, I used to run a while back, but... I think what it does is that logically everyone around the table knows that, yeah, other people go through this, but emotionally, we believe the emotional side of our brains. And it's like, they're thinking, Clay, this is only happening to me. The gods have lined up the planets to, you know, I'm the only person. But once they start talking and they share stories and they share the weight on their shoulders and the weight on their minds with others, all of a sudden it becomes lighter. Because you know what, man? This is normal. You're going through a normal reaction. We are also facing this. And then that in itself creates the connective tissue of community. And as another point back, I think it was also very, I liked it, a very silly point. You said these universal principles of community, of grace, of compassion and such. Again, it could be other faiths, Judaism or Buddhism, or even positive psychology, or back to the book you referenced with Viktor Frankl at the second half of the book. He speaks to that, maybe in not so many words, but he references those in his Logotherapy, that sense of purpose, right? Irregardless of the environment you find yourself. Faith is important, but faith can show up in many different ways. but it's the healthy community and the surroundings that you help that can shift those. Maybe you've shifted 20, 60, a hundred people from, you know, suicidal ideation back to, you know what? I can find community. I can find some sort of sense of purpose. I think it's commendable what you and your, the people of Forge are doing. Yeah. And you know, a beautiful thing that's happening and then we can switch gears from the group therapy. But so we have this group chat, on our, you know, on WhatsApp, it's like 62 guys on this chat. Probably about four or five months into the group, you start talking about community and connection, right? Which I believe, you know, a lot of people have asked me, what's the cure to suicide? I believe connection is the cure. Right. Being reconnected with fellow fellow men. Right. And so some of the beautiful things that are happening on our chat, you might see a random like, hey, I'm stuck over here. Does anybody can anybody come pick me up? I need a battery for my car. You might see another one. Hey, does anyone have a ladder? Can you bring it by my house? Hey, can someone give me a ride to work? My car broke down. Hey, I'm looking for this job. Does anybody know? And and I'm seeing the group chat. Like at first I used to have to tell guys, Hey man, get on the group chat. You know, I used to have to urge guys to do that. Now it's like taking a life of its own. Yeah. Guess what's happening through all that's community. That's connection. That's compassion. That's grace. That's inconveniencing myself. That is in a sense laying down my life for my brother, for my sister. Right. Because now, Oh, someone's broken down on the highway. I'm going to get a battery. I'm going to go over there. These are things that are literally happening in our group. And to me, it's a beautiful manifestation of the inner work that these men are doing. Like they came in hard with the walls up. And when I look at the group chat and I'm like, oh, my gosh, this one guy who I never would have thought, you know, went out and helped this other guy and brought him a car battery and changed his battery. You know, there's guys that are working on cars for people and helping people find jobs and just praying for guys. And, you know, we recently had one of our young guys in his early 30s getting a motorcycle accident and he can't work. And so everybody from the group has been gift cards and pitching in money and raising. You know, it's all these beautiful sense of community that's happening. And some of my guys that are not, you know, quote unquote, Christians or followers of Jesus, they're like, yeah, you know, I'm not really ready for that. And I'm looking at them and I'm like, bro, you have no idea. You're acting more like Jesus than you know. You know what I mean? Like, you are literally following Jesus right now. And you don't have to go to church to make. And that's my thing. Like you don't have to go to church to make that happen because we are we are church right we the people and when we begin to walk in this love and compassion and forgiveness and grace and laying my life down for another which means like oh man i was getting ready to sit down and have dinner but my brother's in trouble over here i'm gonna jump in my car and go help him that is a form of laying your life down of inconveniencing yourself of considering others more significant than yourself. And these are all biblical terms, right? Biblical concepts. And guys begin to live it without ever stepping a foot in church. And to me, when I see that, it's a win. It's a touchdown because I'd rather have guys live their life that way and never step foot in a church than for guys to be at church every Sunday and never lay their life down again and never serve again. That to me is a tragedy. Very well said. Very well said, Clay. We are coming close to the top of the hour and very respectable of your time. For us civilians out there, and many of us may know veterans, instead of sort of being a passive observer, how can we become sort of rally points, to use the title of your book, for those veterans if we see them struggling? I mean, you were describing maybe your wife and your kids were trying to relate with you, but you just were thinking in your head, you just don't get it. Or why don't you get it, right? But how can we get it to help them to become a Rally Point per se? Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is we have to educate ourselves. And so obviously I think Rally Point is a great book. You know, I'm a little biased, but I think Rally Point is a great book that kind of helps people understand what's going on with your loved one. Because the reality is a lot of people try to help, but they don't really know. So reading this book, just like you, it kind of gave you, I'm sure because you and I met and then you read the book, but I'm sure that after you read the book, it gave you a little bit better understanding of what I was going through, right? And so we got to take the time to educate ourselves about what post-traumatic stress really is and what it feels like. There's another great book out there called Self-Destruct. And you can find it on Amazon. It's written by a guy named Sean Hibbard. But Self-Destruct is also a great book that kind of breaks down how veterans come home and literally destroy all their personal relationships because of this combat mode, right? So step one is educate yourself. Step two is handle with care. And what I mean by that is when a veteran comes to you and they've admitted that they need help, Whether they say it out loud or not, there's a lot of shame and a lot of feeling of defeat that comes with that. Remember, like surrender is not a word for me. Asking for help, that's not a thing because I'm a soldier. I'm going to I'm going to soldier up. I'm going to suck it up. I'm going to tough it out. So by the time I come to you and say, Jason, I need help. You must understand that I've already wrestled with the shame of even asking for help. Right. So handle with care because they're already vulnerable. So if you if you kick them while they're down, they'll never come back to you. Like and what I mean by that is if you try to fix them, if you try to preach to them, if you try to judge them, if you try to, you know, all the things that sometimes it's a normal human reaction. But you've got to handle with care because they're already very fragile. They're already very fragile. So number one, educate yourself. Number two, handle with care. And then number three is try to find resources in your community that are veteran-specific resources. And, you know, if you'd like, there's actually a resource guide at the end of Rally Point. Maybe for the viewers of your podcast, you can list those links. And if you know a veteran that's struggling, of course, they can reach out to The Forge. But we also listed several other resources. I can put them in the show notes then. That'll be easy reference anyone can look into if it's okay for me to copy and paste. Yeah, absolutely. And there's resources in there for veterans who are struggling with anger, substance abuse, suicide, domestic violence, incarceration, you name it. Like we have all the resources in there. Um, and so, yeah, so, you know, educate yourself, um, handle with care and then be resourceful and understand that even though it might be your husband, it might be your wife, it might be someone you'd love, your brother or sister. Um, understand that it may not be you that leads them to healing. It may just be you that plants the seed, but you also have to understand as the family member that you don't have all the answers and you have to reach out and be resourceful so that you can help your loved one fight the war within. Well, thank you very much, Clay, for such a eye-opening conversation. It's very commendable what you and your colleagues at The Forge are doing. If a veteran is perhaps listening to this episode, what would be the easiest way they could reach you or The Forge? If you're watching this episode right now, number one, if you're watching this episode and you're struggling with thoughts of suicide, can I just say this? That there would be people in your life, whether you feel like this is true or not, there would be people in your life that would be devastated if you were not here tomorrow. And if you're watching this show, I just want you to hear that. And I want you to receive that, that there are people, whether it feels like it or not, who love you. And they would be devastated if you weren't here tomorrow. And I pray that you would live to fight another day. Go to theforge.org. And when you get there, you can either do two things. Click on the yellow button that says meet with a biblical counselor, or you can click on the veterans link. and that'll lead you straight to me and my team here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. No matter what part of the world you are in, we will help you. Clay, thank you very much again for a brilliant conversation. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your wisdom and your experience with us today. Thank you for having me. My hope and my prayer is that is, in fact, that a veteran would be watching this. And because of this show, because of your work in this show, that they would live to fight another day, jump on that computer and reach out to theforge.org that would be brilliant if we could just you know help one person back from the abyss that that would be an amazing uh feat that we've accomplished today through a conversation. As Clay said, the first step to victory is surrender. It's accepting vulnerability as a strength and not as a weakness. And this can help many veterans back on the road to adapt and find purpose in civilian life. It's not about giving up. Instead, it's about giving over. Letting a small unit form around you again so you don't carry the whole load yourself. As Clay said, if you're a veteran white-knuckling through combat mode, This isn't strength, it's an engine red line. Your next move might be one to text someone you trust. I need a hand with this. And if you are someone close in a veteran's life, a spouse, a friend, a colleague, as Clay said, your play is three parts. Step one, learn the terrain, educate yourself. Step two, handle with care. It's not about fixing or shaming the veteran. And third step, be resourceful. line up veteran specific help and clay said that's how we trade castle walls for bridges there is no quick fix here there is no one panacea to help veterans men and women coming back from service and I think one of the key ideas here is to. Replace the structure that the military gave these men and women during their training when they come back to the real world, civilian world, is to also create structure there so they can feel a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, a sense of finding a way forward and contributing to society. Many do, but many fall to the wayside also. Clay, thank you. I want to thank you for your service, your candor, and your work at the Forge, helping men fight the war within. Folks, if this conversation stirred something within you, share it with the one person who needs it and take a minute to identify your rally point. And here we are crossing the finish line of yet another episode. Just remember, you can connect with me on LinkedIn and Instagram and I'd love to hear more about what you think about the show and how I can improve it. And until next time, keep well, keep strong, and we'll speak soon. Thank you.

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Jason Birkevold Liem

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