Supernaut
Supernaut is a podcast about spirituality, sobriety, suicide, and the full spectrum of being human.
Hosted by Beth Kelling, the show opens space for honest conversations about healing, identity, and the parts of life we often keep quiet.
As the show has grown, mental health has become a defining theme. Many guests have shared deeply personal experiences with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and loss. In response, Supernaut is dedicating more space to conversations around suicide—approaching the topic with care, honesty, and compassion.
The goal is not to sensationalize pain, but to reduce stigma, encourage vulnerability, and remind people that struggling does not mean failing—and that help, connection, and light are possible.
Whether you’re sober-curious, spiritually inclined, or simply looking for real conversations that make you feel less alone, you’re welcome here.
If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available in the U.S. by calling or texting 988. If you’re outside the U.S., visit findahelpline.com.
Supernaut
Suffering in Silence - Adam Kerr
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What if the voice that says “stop” is just the first hill, not the finish line? Adam Kerr joins us to trace a path from blackout drinking and teenage suicidal ideation to winter ultras, last-person-standing backyard races, and a meditation practice that opened into awakening. The story isn’t about medals. It’s about levers: the moment you cut ties with wet places, the morning you run before the day runs you, the lap where accepting pain hurts less than fighting it, and the breath that brings you back to now.
We dig into the nuts and bolts that make the mindset real: hiring a coach to fix imbalances, learning to fuel on time so your race doesn’t end early, and using volunteers, crew, and community as non-negotiable support. Adam breaks down the Arrowhead 135 in subzero temps, the strategy of 4.167-mile hourly loops for 42 straight hours, and the strange clarity that comes after a night of hallucinations when sunrise resets the nervous system. He also shares how sobriety began not with spectacle but with a quiet morning where a new lever appeared—then the hard years of rebuilding hobbies, navigating bars, and choosing better tools.
Underneath the miles runs a deeper current: Transcendental Meditation, breathwork, and stoicism as daily practices to shorten the distance back to calm. Adam describes moments of awakening and nonduality in clear language—no mystic gatekeeping, just the recognition that presence was always here. We talk leadership on job sites, moving from command to service, and why ultras are a masterclass in community: you don’t pass someone struggling; you help them reach daylight.
If you’re curious about endurance training, sobriety, mental health, or spiritual practice, this conversation offers grounded tactics and a hopeful map. Listen, share with someone who needs a lever, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a review to help others find the show. What sunrise are you working toward?
0:00 Opening, Guest Intro, Shared Song
2:07 From Non‑Athlete To Endurance Mindset
10:15 Quitting Nicotine And Discovering Running
18:04 Coaching, Injury Prevention, And Fueling
31:23 Backyard Ultra: Last Person Standing
39:20 Why Push Limits And What It Reveals
46:35 Sobriety: Rock Bottom To First Steps
55:40 Advice For The Newly Sober
58:54 Parenting, Alcohol, And Honest Talk
1:02:20 Depression, Therapy, And Tools
1:15:06 Stoicism, Breathwork, And Presence
1:18:45 Leadership, Work, And Service
It unlocked a lever that I didn't have, just wasn't there. And I I knew I needed to change and be different and be better. I had no idea how or what that would look like.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to Supernaut, where we explore the inner and outer dimensions of the self. Today my guest is Adam Kerr. Adam was the first person I ever heard about that quit drinking back in 2011. I didn't know that was a thing you could do, but it never crossed my mind. Then a few years ago, I started hearing how he was running ultra marathons and not just any ultras, but the most extreme of the ultras. So I reached out to see if he would come on and share his stories. That's when I found out how deeply spiritual he is and how he had struggled with mental health from a very young age. So to say I've been intrigued and have been highly anticipating this conversation as an understatement. Adam, I asked you to pick a song we could listen to before we started. What song did you pick?
SPEAKER_04:I picked I'm a song by Stefan Wilson Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Why did you pick it?
SPEAKER_04:I think it does a good job of taking you to a place or showing you how a song can match energies in people. Um you can use them as a tool. I use them on my runs as a tool to take me to places. And an example of that would be like in a church, you know, you sing a song, and when you guys are done singing, the energy in that room uh is more united, more together. Um in Buddhism, they chant om to match the energy. And you pick this song for people to match the energy in this room. It's all connected.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, exactly why I have every episode start off that way so that our brains can connect.
SPEAKER_04:I like it. Describes it well in my mind. That song does.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a perfect supernot song. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so first let's get into the running. When did you start running?
SPEAKER_04:So I started running in 2018, but I would say the first endurance type event I did was 2016. And I didn't grow up a runner. I hated fitness growing up. I was average at best at everything growing up, everything. So I was that person that would see somebody running on the side of the road and think that they need a hobby. Um, so to do what I do now is is uh a total change of perspective.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I talked to one of your really close friends earlier this week to get a perspective. And um, he said, Yeah, when he thinks of you before, you were not athletic, he never thought you would have ran.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, you're driving by people saying, Oh, they need a hobby, and now you're out there doing it every day.
SPEAKER_04:And now I see why they do that. So, but yeah, so I 2016, because I started skiing first. So I did the Mora Vaselope, it was a 35k ski race. Uh, I think I almost died during that race. So it was uh still to this day one of the hardest things I've ever done. Um I did it in jeans, a car hard jacket, skis that should have been used as walking sticks, probably. So um that race changed my perspective of of what endurance uh events can do for you because I just could not understand how people could go farther than that or or faster. It was it was so difficult. Uh that race gave me uh a deep appreciation for people that volunteer in races. Um the amount of gratitude I have for people that volunteer now is just beyond. I would I would have never been able to finish that race without people that are at water stops or or putting it on. I don't think people understand how important uh volunteering for things like that are and how it mm just me specifically it changed helped to change my life. It it it is one of the most important things in my mental health to to find these endurance events, uh to go inside of my mind and push the limits of them to expand what I can do and the way I see it.
SPEAKER_01:So that was the race that did it.
SPEAKER_04:That was the one that that intrigued me, that one, because when I got done, I was never going to race again, you know. So so I think I probably took a year off, but that but that that sparked my my curiosity in it.
SPEAKER_01:Did you like miss the feeling?
SPEAKER_04:You were like a year later, you're like I was I was so dumbfounded on how people could could go farther uh and and put themselves through that. I couldn't understand it. Um it was uh yeah, baffling to me because there's longer races. There's there that took me maybe four hours to do that, I don't remember exactly, but roughly four hours to do that. And there's people that are doing ultras that go for days, you know. So, like, how could you do that? How can you put your mind body through it? I didn't understand. Um when I started running, I started running because I quit chewing. Um I I either 2017 or 2018, but I had all this built-up rage and aggression inside of me from when I quit chewing. I I I didn't have an outlet for it anymore. So I could just feel it, and I just went for a run one day, and I it was awful, like terrible, the worst, the worst thing ever. But when I got done, it felt better. I felt better throughout that day. Um I knew that you know I was very interested in learning how to live well, how to be better, uh, for myself and for my kids, you know, to to teach them how to live well. How can I teach them if I didn't know myself? So I was I was very curious in it. I was seeking actively uh listening to podcasts um before they were big, but but yeah, I think slowly over time I would listen to people talking about it, and I just decided to do it myself, and and it was a slow, clunky, painful process of you know, running three miles was the most difficult thing in the world for me to start the second I would put my shoes on, or even before I'd start, there was something in my mind telling me to stop, to not don't bother, you know, you're not good enough, or it's pointless. Just there was always that voice telling me to stop, and it was four years um running that that was there, it's but it every time I got done running, it would be better, you know. I I always felt better, my day would be better, I would be uh less reactive, more um a better me, to be honest. Every time I every time I exercise, if if I can just get myself to do it, my day will be better. There's no doubt. So I'm really grateful to have found those tools to hopefully start my day with them every day.
SPEAKER_01:So it was years of your mind telling you.
SPEAKER_04:It was years and years of uh negative self-talk for sure. But they were um from a lot my young, you know, youth, uh it the negative self-talk was always there, but it was I think through the running um what helped me to control my mind, what helped me to control the negative self-talk. So I guess as I if you want to keep going in the running, as as I I think I signed up for half marathon, the Mora Half Marathon was my first thing. And I I ran, I I had no coach, I just YouTube, whatever, how to run when I can, you know, not not specific, not smart. There was always something in your knee, a niggle, a toe hertz, hamstring, something always. And and I think it's always there, especially when you don't uh follow a coaching plan or something like that, just because you don't know what you're doing. You're probably working too hard, going too fast, uh, running too often, too much too soon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I started working with your running coach, and the thing that got me was because you or she said, she must have said that um you have to isolate each muscle, otherwise you're gonna use the wrong muscles when you run. So that was like that made so much sense.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I wish I would have got her when I first started running. If I would have put that investment in myself right away, I I can't imagine how much better of a runner I would be, you know, because I use I spent years kind of just muddling through it that that if I would have had her to to teach me that I I would have been so much better off. Um I think I it was a few years that I ran by myself first.
SPEAKER_01:What did you get after that first half marathon then mentally like what?
SPEAKER_04:Um I'd say they're all equally difficult uh at at each level because uh when I did the half marathon, I was like, How do people go farther than this? You know, it's it's just insane how hard it is. And then uh I think my next running event was a trail uh marathon distance on the spear hiking trail. It's called the Grand Traverse, and I've done that one four or five times now, and it was the same thing as I did that one, and that one has a lot of elevation gain and loss on it, which really makes it a lot harder. Yeah, and it's a trail run, which is more technical, makes it a lot harder to just on a trail run, you have to mentally uh pay attention so you can't really zone out as much as you're running on a road marathon or that. But same thing though. I as I got done with that, I'm like, how in the hell do people go more? You know, I think my first that one, I brought water and Swedish fish for fuel, so it was a learning curve with fueling too, because I didn't realize that if you get over two hours that it's important to fuel your body to take in calories per hour, and on the ultras, if you don't do that, you won't finish, you know, you'll your body will shut down. So it's one of the most important things to to do is to keep fueling on them. So when my first ultra was a hundredk, it was the Wild Duluth 100 in 2023. That was uh 100k on the spear hiking trail. That that one I really uh I did a 10k the next day. That's why I signed up for the 100k, and like a week before it started, I found out you could do a 10k the next day, and you it's called like a wild man challenge. I think you I I wasn't sure if I was gonna do the 10k the next day, but I was really glad I did because after I finished the 100k, you know, you you're destroyed, you think you don't have anything left, and I woke up the next morning, pain, you know, everywhere. But I did it, and I I don't I think I got like 15th out of 150 people on that 10k. But it just opened my mind to to see that you know you can push yourself so much farther than your mind thinks, your body. I mean, you could the mind's telling you to stop uh long before your body is done, you know. So that one opened my mind to the possibility of of what are your limits. So then I I tried to get into the superior 100 the next year. That's an application you have to it's on a lottery, and I didn't get that, so I applied and I needed a hundred-mile race to apply for the arrowhead. So you can also write a letter to get into it, and I did that. I got in, and then that's when when I uh was talking to a friend at work, and he's like, you know, he's a he's a runner also. He's probably the only other person that I know that in the construction industry that did ultras. And he's like, Have you ever thought of getting a running coach? It's like, yeah, but there's a thousand of them. I don't know anyone, you know. He's like, Well, try physical therapy on the run, you know. Dr. Jamie, she's some of my friends have her, she's awesome. And I reached out to her uh a few months before we we worked together and for a few months before, but I uh hired her as a coach, and that was the best thing I've ever done for for my running for learning a hundred percent. And I love the fact that she tailors your plans for you, you know, uh busy, busy schedule, and she will you just tell her what you can run that day or week or what you want, and she'll create your plan for you accordingly and change it whenever. So it's just I don't have to think about what I should be doing anymore. I can just look it up on an app and and run, you know, to do my workout and focus on work or whatever else I need to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, then you can just think about the running.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and and then know it is it's helpful to know that somebody knows what's going on in your corner, uh pushing you in the right direction that you want to go. So after I had her, I uh I think I had signed up for uh the Tescobia 80 mile race too because that same guy told me he's like lots of people do this race first. That's not not that many people do it because when you stack ultras together, um it kind of compounds the the fatigue and damage to you, so you can't you're not training for your A race, then you know you're kind of breaking your body down, and then you're going again into another one that you're already broken down into. So, anyways, I did the 80 mile ultra, it's a winter ultra, and that's where you're typically pulling a sled in the winter uh with all your gear, so it's pretty much unsupported. Or there's a couple water stops, but you're pulling 50 pounds of gear in your sled uh throughout the night and day, and that was uh the the first race I won. So I've I won that one. I met uh a friend Terry, ran with her for 25 miles or so throughout the night, and it's uh the ultras are unique where you you're running with like-minded people that are all searching mostly for the same things, you know, they're they're looking for something within themselves. Uh and the ultras strip you down to just yourself, the most of the ego goes away. Uh you you there's nowhere to hide, you know, you're you're doing it yourself, so you have to uh kind of dig deep within yourself to to do it, make that choice to continue on. So you're meeting like-minded people, and it's you can form some good relationships with them, or or even just hear their stories, their unique stories. And I've stayed in touch with her since then. That was over a year ago now. So after the tobio one, I did the arrowhead, and that's 135-mile winter ultra.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like outside in the elements, 100% outside, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That one's end of January. I'm doing it again this year, so it's the last week of January, and it's specifically for that because it's in the coldest time of the year typically. Um, it's super remote. It starts in International Falls and it ends by tower, and it's on a snowmobile trail through the woods. There's three checkpoints and water stops that you can get, two of them you can get food at. The last one is just water, and there's a tent in the woods, is what it is, but you can warm up in the tent. But so they're like 35 miles apart, separated, typically.
SPEAKER_01:And this episode is gonna come out the day before you run it the share.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so that'll be interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That uh that race is the one that that uh that's where I realized that the voices in your head uh can be quiet, but it wasn't until after. Something happened in my mind during that race where where it uh it it shut them off for the most part. But uh it's uh quite the experience to run to run them.
SPEAKER_01:What was the race that you ran that you have to go four miles an hour for as many hours as possible?
SPEAKER_04:Those are the backyard ultras. That's a different format that I did it in April this year. And So you run a 4.167 mile loop every hour on the hour until you either quit or you're the last person standing. There is no no end to it. You know, if if there's two people running still, it will go for five days or till one person is left. And then you can do one lap alone only, and then you have to quit. So it's like the ultimate mind game because you're at the finish line every loop and the start. So you if you run that four-mile loop in 30 minutes, you could go take a half hour nap uh in your tent if you wanted to. As long as you're back in the starting corral at the start every hour, do the loop again. Uh you can do whatever you want in the middle.
SPEAKER_01:And you won that?
SPEAKER_04:I've won that one, yes.
SPEAKER_01:How many how many hours?
SPEAKER_04:That took 42 hours, 130 hours.
SPEAKER_01:You ran four miles.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:That is so crazy.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't sleep the first night of that one. That star it starts at noon on Friday. So I didn't sleep until, and by sleeping, that's a gift. You I would take a couple minute nap.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I'd run back, refuel, take a couple minute nap. And then uh my crew chief, who is my brother-in-law, who's with me for all the runs, pretty much, he's the biggest supporter. He doesn't run, he doesn't understand it. He thinks I'm insane, probably. But the biggest supporter of me, for sure. And so he he will get my food ready, get my drinks ready, so I can just switch them out, and then I would take a nap. If I fell asleep and didn't wake up, he'd kick my chair. When because there's a there's whistles, so when there's three minutes left, they blow a whistle three times, two minutes, two, two whistles, one minute, one whistle. So uh every time I'd you get into a system and you just keep going, and you learn to to for me, because I mean the pain comes. There's no there's no getting away from the pain. Uh for everyone. It it's it's gonna come for I think that's why in like the distance events, I the longer the race is the more competitive I am in them, because I feel like I've maybe found ways to to let go of that, to to not give it uh so much of a voice. Um when I'm running, I can hopefully at times, you know, instead of your knee hurting and then it hurting in your knee, and then at the same time it's hurting in your head too, if you can just not give the pain a wall to push against, it doesn't have the same effect. You know, if you can learn to just accept that pain and let it go, then it just sits in your knee and it's there. It's not, you know, your knee's not broken, it's just hurting. So if you can learn to to let that go, it's freeing in a way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like it hurts your brain more than it hurts the actual body part or your brain.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, there's like the saying of getting shot with the same arrow twice or two arrows. You know, the first arrow is the is the pain, and then the second arrow is the mental suffering. And if you can avoid the second one, it's helpful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I talked to your wife Abby earlier this week, too, and I asked her and the friend that I talked to earlier this week what they thought motivates you to do this. Um, what do you think that they said? Or what what would you say?
SPEAKER_04:What motivates me?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, to run like this.
SPEAKER_04:I I think I run because I I want to find the growth within myself. I wanna I want to go through that pain because that pain that pain brings me back to when I was younger uh through most of my life. It it's a similar pain.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they both said uh that you're running to see what your limits are.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, for sure. They think they the growth, I think, of anything is is not where we're comfortable. It's it's on the edges of comfort, beyond comfort. And as you find those limits, you can expand them. And it doesn't stop at running, you know, you might find your limits in running, but the growth is it it expands into everything, you know, your your work, your family, all of it. So you running is a unbelievable metaphor for life, you know. The in the ultras, you have the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Uh, hopefully, you get both. Sometimes you get stuck in the in the lows that last for hours. Uh running all night is really hard for me. Like to get through a night, well, run you ran all day. So say you're 75 miles into a run and it's three in the morning, uh I you feel like just exhaustion, death, you know. Uh, so to be able to keep going through that, and then if you don't know that, if you can just make it to daylight in those runs, if you can just make it to the sunrise, uh it will give you new life, it will reset your sarcadian rhythm or whatever it does, and it's like you have a new life again. You know, the pain is still there, but the your body kind of resets. And for people to not know that in the runs for the backyard ultras, especially, you know, you see people dropping, and sometimes you have an opportunity to tell them that, you know. I remember specifically one girl she was gonna quit, and I said, you know, just try for one more loop because it was the daylight loop. And I said, if you can just make it to daylight, you know, I think you'll have new life. And she did. She ended up getting hurt, made it to 100 miles, which is a big milestone for.
SPEAKER_01:And so great that that's like the community there that you're like trying to help each other.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's the number one thing on the ultras, is you don't pass somebody on the trail. Like if somebody stopped and said, 'Everyone will ask you if you're okay or if you need anything, and they'll give you whatever they can to help you.' Whereas sure in a marathon they will too, but usually it's more, you know, you're just gonna run by you. That's never in an ultra. There, I've it's a a very unique community of of people. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What other races do you have coming up this year? Or in the next year? Yeah, it's a new year right now.
SPEAKER_04:I have the arrowhead at the end of January, and then I'm gonna do the Elm Creek Backyard Ultra again in April, and then I'm gonna go to Holly Michigan in July and do another backyard ultra.
SPEAKER_01:And that's where you'll be competing with that, like that guy.
SPEAKER_04:He is Harvey Lewis, he's top three ultra runners in the world for the backyards. He had the world record, I think, two years ago.
SPEAKER_01:Um for 400 something hours or 400 and some miles.
SPEAKER_04:I can't remember what I think it was like 108 hours he went, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So it's crazy.
SPEAKER_04:There's there's limits and there's just next level people. So I think that will probably get me to the place I want to go running with him. So mentally, yeah, to the place where you know, I I'm interested to see where where my mind breaks uh what I become after.
SPEAKER_01:What does it mean to have your mind break?
SPEAKER_04:You know, I'm not sure, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Uh but you know it's a thing.
SPEAKER_04:It's uh it has to be, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Uh have you heard other runners talk about it?
SPEAKER_04:I've seen them. You know.
SPEAKER_01:Because you've done races that you've hallucinated during, and you just told Dick that you hallucinated for days after.
SPEAKER_04:No, days during. It's all the arrowhead. The first time I did the arrowhead.
SPEAKER_01:Because that lasted days.
SPEAKER_04:It lasted two two nights. It took 40 just under 43 hours to do that one. And I would say the first night, we could go back to that. So the the first night I was it was probably about three in the morning, four in the morning. Uh, I'm alone in the woods. It was getting cold, it was getting down to like zero, snowing. Uh, I was in a mental lull, you know, it was three, four in the morning, something like that. And you get in those lows, and and you're kind of zombie walking, just trying to get through it, you know. And and then all of a sudden I'm I look over and and there's people bivying on the side of the trail. They're biving as they're sleeping in sleeping bags, you know. They're there's like three of three bumps of people there. And uh, as I'm walking by looking at it, I watch them disappear. That was like the first hallucination. And then for the next two hours, it was pretty consistent. Uh, I would hallucinate things like sea containers, saunas in the woods, houses in the woods, uh, road signs, construction signs. And then uh that was all the way up until a little after sunrise. I would and then I they stopped during the day. And then the next night I would hallucinate things like uh there was two timber wolves on the side of the trail that I walked by, and that that was like one of the things that really like shocked me, started me. You know, I knew their hallucinations, which is something unique in itself to, you know, because you they're they're as real as anything, and to know they are hallucinations and then to watch them disappear into twigs or whatever they were, a bush or a a clump of snow, you know, depending on what you're hallucinating. Uh I hallucinated running shoes on the trail. Just though the whole trail was just layered with with hoka running shoes, you know, and uh canned food. It looked like somebody took a grocery store and dumped the dumped all the shelves on the side of the trail. I hallucinated a leprechaun-sized man running in front of me. Uh he he disappeared because he outran me. All the other ones I watched disappear.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's uh it's something else for sure.
SPEAKER_01:And there's a race, one of these races you have upcoming. If you win, you get to uh Yeah, that would be the Holly Michigan one.
SPEAKER_04:If I won that race or went far enough in it, then I could be on Team USA's uh backyard ultra uh team you race against like a hundred other countries, I think. And they're 15-person teams, it's like a point system, so there's the longer the more people stay in it, the the more points you get. So we'll see.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that would be cool.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What does running give you that nothing else can?
SPEAKER_04:It takes me to the to the place where where the growth is, you know. Uh if I can run first thing in the morning, there's no doubt my day will be better. So I would say it consistently elevates my mood, makes me a better me, uh, if I can run for sure. As far as uh the growth, I I haven't found much else that that has been able to push me to those places of the pain or the the suffering, but it's different when you have the control of the suffering. Uh you're making the choice to do it when you're running, because you can always just stop, you know, so to to push through those limits is uh unique to running.
SPEAKER_01:Um so we'll be getting into uh addiction s stuff soon, but did has running became an addiction to you?
SPEAKER_04:I would I would say I uh take most things to the extremes uh throughout my life, but I wouldn't call it an addiction. I would uh and if it was, I guess so what, you know, uh this addiction or this run. It it there's no doubt it helps me be a better me, you know. Uh the th the difference I think with this would be it's still hard for me to run, you know. I still need to make myself run.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, it's it's still the hard work and then the dopamine.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Unlike most addictions, dopamine first, crash after.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so if you do what is uh hard first, you know, then it's good after. If you do what's easy first, it's hard after. It's the textbook, um for alcohol, drugs, all of it. You know, you you take the drug, it feels good first, and then you have the come down after, the pain after. If you do the pain first, you feel good after. It's it's an ice bath, it's the same thing. You know, if you can make yourself get into the ice bath, uh you feel amazing after. And it lasts for hours.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's some kind of science.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Um, why do you think there's some people that can push themselves the way that you're able to, though?
SPEAKER_04:I think it's it's in our minds. Uh as soon as we limit ourselves, you know, if we if we tell ourselves we can't do something, uh, or we can, either way you're right. And if you say you can't do something, that shuts your mind off. If if you say how can I, that turns it on. So if you can keep those limiting beliefs out of you, out of your mind, uh you can do pretty much anything.
SPEAKER_01:Which just starts with practice. Practice how you talk to yourself in your brain, which we'll talk about later too. So you have said that alcohol gave you something you needed at one point, also. So let's let's start with uh quitting drinking, started with, you know, to quit drinking, you have to start with drinking. So how big of a drinker were you?
SPEAKER_04:I drank a lot. I I started drinking around 15 and when I found it, I I loved it. I mean that that was uh that fixed me. That helped me, you know that that um that is how I thought normal people felt when I found alcohol. I was like, oh, this is this is how normal people feel, this is how they get through the day. I think, you know, like anything, you use it too much, it will cause more problems than good. But I got to the point where I would black out probably four nights a week. Uh I drank every day. I brought it into everything. The only time I the only thing I didn't bring it into was my job, but it was always um in my life. I think to go, it might be better just to go back to to uh when I was younger, when I when I I was about 12 when I uh 12 or 13, I think 12 when I realized or I didn't realize it then, but looking back now, I struggled with suicidal ideations, uh depression and anxiety around that time. And the suicidal ideations lasted for I would say about 10 years, um, pretty consistently. So when I had those things, uh I I had no idea what they were, right? So I would I would wake up in the morning and it'd feel like an elephant was standing on my chest. I couldn't get up, you know, as a 12 or 13-year-old, 14-year-old kid. Um who do you talk to about those things? You know, uh, you'd you'd no one. So and then to have that voice in my head consistently telling me that I wasn't enough uh to just end it to uh to kill yourself was difficult. So it wasn't always bad, but but there was always this this something was missing. Uh I I had this negative self-talk loop in my head for for years. So when I found alcohol, you know, growing up, my my mom and dad don't drink. My dad was a recovering alcoholic himself, which he had quit before I was born, but my mom's dad died in a in a vehicle accident, and he was drinking when he died. So I would say, you know, is it hereditary? Maybe, you know, but but I don't use that as a crutch or excuse because you can free yourself of it.
SPEAKER_01:Did you at one point though use that?
SPEAKER_04:You know, I did. I don't I don't think I did really because when I found alcohol, I was like, you know, what the hell are they talking about? Like this is great. This is perfect. Like they're they're so wrong, you know. Uh this quieted the voices in my head. It it took got rid of that anxiety that was always with me, you know. Uh it helped me to have conversations with people, to to blend in, to uh to be more wild, to you know, to to have that good time um without caring so much about that voice in my head. Um so when I would I also around the 15 I I found nicotine too, and I I loved smoking. I mean I I smoked two packs a day, probably from the time I was 16 until I think I quit maybe around 24 or so, and I chewed tune tobacco also, but I really loved smoking, so it was constant.
SPEAKER_01:So you but you quit drinking around age 22. What uh what got you to quit after drinking being that hardcore of a drinker?
SPEAKER_04:So I would uh yeah, I I loved it, you know, I brought it into everything. I every weekend black out every weekend for sure, you know, I would be at the bar from 9 a.m. until closing. I would black out usually before it got dark and be there throughout the night, probably drive home. Um I I love to drive even when I was blacked out. I it was the dumbest thing looking back. You know, I I don't know how I'm still alive, to be honest, and or how I didn't hurt other people. It's I'm really grateful to be where I am right now to to have gotten through those things. Um So when I when I finally quit drinking, it was I think I had rented a party bus for my wife's birthday party. She wasn't my wife then, but um we were I think we were she was my fiance then. But there there was always that resistance because she you know when when I was drinking so much, I you know, I wasn't a good person. I wasn't a good a good partner. Um she didn't she didn't want me to be drinking like that. She she was always that resistance to the thing that was in my mind keeping me alive, keeping that's the only thing that that I cared about, you know. So so there's just that tension with her trying to make me because she could see what I was doing, the uh the negative effects of it, but uh I didn't care. I couldn't I couldn't let go of it. I uh I needed it, you know. I was a true alcoholic addict. Um if you are down to your last beer, you can think of nothing else but where to get more, you know. If you're down to your last few cigarettes, like you can think of nothing else instead where to get more. There there is nothing else. So so to have someone trying to pull me away from that was difficult, toxic, and and I I resented her for that, you know, protecting my alcohol, and that made it really difficult. Um I'm really grateful for her to to be a part of my life through all of it. I I can't believe she did, to be honest, but but uh I the last time I drank was the party bus. I had been drinking at the bar all day, went to my house to get on the party bus. I remember the first bar, uh still daylight, and then we took it around Millax Lake. We stopped at a bunch of bars, and I I don't remember it was pretty typical, you know. I wouldn't remember a lot, but glitchy memories once in a while. But I had gotten an argument with one of my best friends, and which is nothing new either. I mean, that just happens. So, but when I woke up that morning in my bed, I could something was different. Uh it was my rock bottom. But most people think of rock bottom as your absolute lowest point, you know, you blew up your life or whatever. But at the same time, it can be uh it unlocked a lever that I didn't have before. It just wasn't there, you know. I it allowed me, I think, to let go of something, a let go of that person I was, to let go of my friends, uh, that need for alcohol. It just wasn't that lever was not there 12 hours before when I woke up and I knew I needed to change and be different and be better. I had no idea how or what that would look like, but so I had called my dad and and told him that I was gonna quit drinking. I needed help. And we started to go to uh AA meetings. I think I went for a couple months, and this was right around the start of work, which I do construction. I have been in it my whole life. So as we're working, we worked together, we would go after work to a meeting or whatever, and uh yeah, I had to cut I cut everything out of my life. I I uh I had maybe a hundred friends while you're drinking, you know, you're friendly with everyone, and and they're friends with you, but la oftentimes the only thing you have in common is drinking, you know. They're they're still good people, great people, but um I think you have to be selfish for yourself. Um you have to cut that out of your life for a while because you it is really hard to stay dry in wet places. Uh you're an average of the five people you hang around, and if they're all drinking, it's really hard to stay sober. So when I cut everything out of my life, I uh I kind of had to relearn how to do everything again. I had because I had brought alcohol into everything. So fishing, hunting, all those things just weren't it weren't as fun, you know, because I had dulled them all with drinking, which was my favorite thing to do. So it takes time to to learn to to like those things again, and you also have all this free time once you do quit drinking, the amount I did, because I would be at the bar all the time. So so I would uh it was driving me crazy um sitting at home doing nothing. So I had I was in 4-H when I was younger, I had animals. I bought some animals, some sheep, uh, to keep me busy. You know, I think that's important to to find a hobby, to do something to to keep your mind busy, because if you s had all your time sitting at the bar hanging out, well, no, what are you gonna do at that time?
SPEAKER_01:Um before you started running, like eight years.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so there was it was years uh of searching, trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:Um were you scared that things were gonna trigger you, or was your mind state so strong of like I'm not gonna drink?
SPEAKER_04:When I quit, you know, because that quit when I quit drinking, that stopped the the problems that drinking was causing in my life, but it it didn't stop the the voices in my head, it didn't stop the anxiety, the all the things I was coping using alcohol for came back then. And I I didn't have the tool I had anymore, so I struggled with that. Um I would say I was yeah worried less worried, just unsure, I guess, of you know, and my Abby was very worried that I was gonna relapse or start a start again, and and who wouldn't be?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I was I'm sure it was hard for her of you know what what moment, what thing is gonna happen, what if I do something, what if somebody around us does something?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, for for sure, you know, and um my family doesn't drink, but her whole family drinks, and I mean they're weird, they can do it in moderation. I don't I don't get it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So um they were very they they didn't drink around me for a for a long time. They were very courteous and and and aware of it, you know, like so that was helpful for sure. But you know, when you go into a bar to eat, even you know, I I you have this feeling of uh of everyone's watching you, everyone's judging you, you know, and in reality, nobody cares, nobody knows, you know, they they could care less that you're not drinking, you know, but you just feel like like everyone's judging you for not drinking now, you know. So I did I would have high anxiety in there, and then after a while when when uh maybe Abby or somebody would go to a to a bar and have a beer or something like that, I I would get jealousy for a while. I could feel it in me uh boil up, you know, and it would like why can't I have one or this or that? But that that did go away after a while, but it took a couple years for sure, I would say, before it went away. Um Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What would you say to somebody who is freshly sober?
SPEAKER_04:I would say to be selfish for yourself. Um to give yourself the chance to let your your mind and body reset. Um don't listen to that voice in your head telling you to to have that drink, to go back and do it. You give yourself space.
SPEAKER_01:That's just the voice. You're the one who knows you're having a voice in your head.
SPEAKER_04:And uh we can get into meditation and that later, but uh it is important to realize that you know who is it that's telling you to have that drink, you know, to to do it. And as far as uh as far as freshly freshly sober, it it does get better. It gets it gets so much better. Uh I can't explain how much better I feel right now than I did five years ago. I can't explain how much better I feel five years ago than I did five years ago. You know, I mean it just compounds if you let it, um, if you don't stop, you know, if you give yourself the time, find the tools, um create some some distance between that thing that is telling you that it you need it, um it will get better every time.
SPEAKER_01:You have three children. What do you or will you tell them about alcohol?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, um, I'm painfully honest with them about it. I I don't I don't demonize alcohol. Uh do I think that we're better off without it? You know, I mean just look at what alcohol does to you. It it is literally poisoning your brain, you know, it's shutting down your prefrontal cortex and whatever else it does. It's an amazing feeling for for a bit, but but yeah, so I I'm really honest with them on how they what it did to me, what I did it, what I used it for, and uh the negative effects of it. I would say uh alcohol is a tool, you know, you can you can use it to calm yourself after after work or like anything you can cut yourself with it like a knife if you aren't careful with it. Some of us don't have that that uh restriction, so we get cut.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and like you said, uh what it does to the brain. I mean, Veda on New Year's Eve, how many drinks did you have? And you were like upset for one and a half, one and a half drinks.
SPEAKER_00:Like absolute garbage the next day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because you don't drink, so just one and a half, like then you can feel how much it affects you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, that's uh a low tolerance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I had taken a month off, and even before that, not more than two drinks.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's uh I mean now with watches in that Abby she'll have a drink and you know her body battery, or it'll it literally says that you sup like shit that night, you know. It's there's no denying it that the negative effects of alcohol are there, you know. If you if you want to deal with the negative and and and enjoy the positive, uh relaxing part of it, sure, I would say just be aware of it, you know. What what is alcohol doing to you? Next time you have a drink, um feel it. Feel it, feel what it's doing to you, feel it come into your body, feel it kind of shut down that prefrontal cortex because if you pay attention to it, you can feel it, you know. Uh you can feel yourself being more relaxed and that. And then I would say in the tomorrow morning, uh feel what it did to you, you know. Just be honest with yourself and and ask yourself if it's if it's worth it, you know, to have that next day feeling like shit, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, with uh the mental health and the suicidal ideations, um, that friend that I talked to earlier this week about you, he said that when you guys first started being good friends, like when you were 18, you opened up about uh those struggles right away. He said that right away you were like, Yeah, I kind of want to know what's on the other side, which is like pretty intense stuff to say to somebody.
SPEAKER_04:I would say he's one of the very few people that I told about right away uh uh about my suicidal ideations. You know, I didn't tell my my family about them at all. Um but yeah, they're they're difficult to to deal with, especially when it's uh unnaturally um it just makes you feel very alone um in them and then with the depression on top of it. I I didn't know I had depression until much later, you know. My the last depressive episode I had, I would say or at least uh a significant one where I I couldn't get out of bed almost was back in 2020, I think. Early 2020. And that was the first time that my wife uh had me go to a therapist to get help. And I I went a few times, and it is helpful, it is helpful to to uh maybe just admit that that there's something wrong or you could use help and um hopefully find some tools to to help with them. I would say that if I would have known, you know, that there were pills to or medicine of some sort to help with those, I'm I'm sure I would have taken them. Uh I'm grateful that I didn't because I I have found other tools to to help with that, and I feel so much better than I ever thought possible. You know, I'm it's not comparable from how I feel now to to how I've felt most of my life, and it's it only gets better uh every year, every it's it's just it's on a on a spectrum with no ceiling, I think, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Because you keep adding more and more tools, I think.
SPEAKER_04:You know? That could be, yeah. And and uh I think with uh with my meditation practice, it's helped me to to let go and just to continue to let let go of things and quiet my mind and realize that that were not our thoughts and and uh they're like clouds in the sky. You know, you you can you can watch them and let them go. You don't need to hold on to them. And that's where I really feel like my running, um, my mental health, most things, that's one of the bigger things is is to learn to let go of of whatever that is. You know, a thought is just a thought, um, whether it's whether it's uh a pain or uh someone said something to you that you is repeating in your mind, you know, it's still just a thought, and it's it might be your interpretation of that thought of a good or bad thought, you know. Either way you can let go of it and and it has no power when you let go of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because the thought isn't real, it's either in the past or the future, and all we have is right now this moment. So a thought is taking you away from this moment.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you're a thought, you're either you know, you're ruminating on something that happened in the past or you're worrying about something that happened in the future.
SPEAKER_01:If you're in the present moment, you you're there's no such thing as worrying.
SPEAKER_04:You're free. There, there's nothing else, you know. And the more we can go back to that present moment, uh that's where happiness is bliss, love. All of it is right in this moment right now. It never in a it's never in the future or or in the past.
SPEAKER_01:Did you have anybody growing up that you could talk to about your thoughts? Who was the first person that you mentioned to that you were thinking this way?
SPEAKER_04:I would I would say Brandon. Yeah. Um I can't remember when I told Abby that that I you know had suicidal ideations. And I would say they were the loudest when I was around 15. You know, I around 15 is when I would uh I would take a gun out and and go sit on the deck, put it in my mouth, take the safety off, put my finger on the trigger, and there's that voice in my head just screaming to pull the trigger, and there's another one in my head screaming for help. And somehow I never put enough pressure on the trigger. But that was pretty consistent, that happened quite a bit for a while, and then I found the alcohol and and it would go back in and and uh in and out, but usually not as strong as those times, those are pretty specific times that I remember. Um, and those are times that when I on my runs, when I I I have a playlist that's called a hard time playlist. I will I have songs that can take me back to that time, to that moment. It can take me back to that time when I couldn't get out of bed when I was 13 years old. Uh and in all my runs and all the the pain that you go through, like that's where I get my strength is is to go back to those, you know, to to feel that pain and then bring it back and remember why I do it, why I want to be better, you know. I do more. I want to selfishly help myself live well, but I want to share it too, you know. You can't give what you don't have, you can't share what you don't don't know. So if I can go to those places to hopefully find something to bring back for myself, for my kids, for whoever wants them, that's why I run. That's that's the most freeing thing in the that I've found would be maybe to put a purpose with it. You know, my why for the runs is that, you know, it's I don't care about winning a race, I I I care about what I find in there. Um if you look at a race, the ultras especially, the people that are doing it, you know, only one person wins a race ever. You know, uh if if somebody for a marathon, for example, if somebody ran that race, uh, they easily won it, but somebody got 50th place and they gave it everything they had, they you know, they're broken when they get to the end. Who won that race? You know, who gained something that is just can take with them the rest of their life, you know? It's I want to be that person. And whether it's first or fiftieth, what whatever, you know, that's it has nothing to do with uh why I wanna I think everybody out there must feel that way to be such a helpful community with each other, you know. In the ultras, yeah. It's yeah, it's it's more than yeah, I'm I'm I I'm competitive, you know. I I want to do my best. If my best is isn't first place though, that's fine, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, I think people could think, oh, somebody's doing it for recognition, but ultrasound I think bring you to a place where there's no such thing as recognition. It's like it has to be for yourself, or you could never do it. You could never put your body through that if it was for anybody else.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it it strips you down to nothing. And you know, multiple.
SPEAKER_01:I've heard, or you know, what do you carry? A sled or you run with a sled, like I mean that's what Brandon said is like, you know, when he sees you out there doing that, there's just nobody could do that for anybody else's.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's it's definitely for myself. My uh that dyscobia race, I should say that you're in the winter ultras, you're usually supposed to pull a sled, but that one I didn't because those it had rained for two days before, all the snow melted, so I had to carry all my stuff on on my pack. So I had like 40 pounds on my in my pack, and that was the first ultra I had ever done, winter ultra. So I was over prepared. I had too much stuff. It's typical that most people bring too much shit right away. Just like when you're uh going on vacation, you've never gone, you bring way too much stuff. Like I could have I could have turned around, went back and did the race again. I had way too much. But it right away we got on a bus and rode for like three hours or a couple hours to get to the start. And right away I was like, I have way too much shit. My pack was twice as big as everybody else's on that race. And we started out on a lake, and there was like two inches of water on the lake, so my feet were just soaked from the very start of that race. Um by the time I got to like mile 35, that I could feel my feet were were getting pretty bad. And me and toenails are not friends, so usually I lose toenails on that race. I lost seven toenails during it. And when I said I was running with another guy, and I told him, I'm like, I'm gonna my feet are bad, I'm gonna try to get to mile 50 and then change my socks one more time. And as I got to mile 50 with him, around that time, too. You usually start to typically, especially for me, you start to have stomach problems. Um the guy I was with, he was puking in the woods, and I'm sitting, it's foggy, dark, middle of the night. I'm sitting on the trail, taking my shoes off, and I look at my toes are like twice the size they should be. My toenails are like floating in my socks. So I'm I took a pin off my bib, popped the my toenails to relieve the pressure in my big toes. They were throbbing, they're soaking wet, so they had like the trench foot feeling, the pins and needles on your feet. Um, so that lasted the rest of the night, which was like eight more hours. That was some of the most painful 30 miles that I've ever been a part of. But there again, uh that's where the growth is.
SPEAKER_01:I'm such a pussy.
SPEAKER_00:How do you do that to yourself?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, luckily the arrowhead was like a I think a month later, so I didn't have to worry about toenails on the next race.
SPEAKER_00:So oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It got ahead of it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, silver lining.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, I get it. I get why you do it. I don't know if I have that in me. Um, I mean, I've heard you say you couldn't understand how people lived because you were so tormented in your mind. And so why do you think you were tortured with these negative thoughts for so many years? I mean, is that what fuels you for the the races? Is that like all maybe connected?
SPEAKER_04:You know, I think like anything you can get in our minds a a negative thought loop and it just keeps going and going in our mind. Uh, we we create the stories in our mind, you know. If you if you only think negative thoughts, you know, you're you're gonna have only negative thoughts. You know, if you you can change your mindset though. You can you can change your mindset from a negative to a positive mindset. And that was one of the one of the first things I did where I really started uh to uh for mental health noticeably helped. Um I was default negative for for most of my life, I would say, you know. Um I remember telling people, some of my close friends, that that uh they'd be bitching about something, and I'm like, I just can't, I can't listen to it. I need to get away. Like I'm trying to to stop this. And so I just you know go. They were respectful, you know, you know, just tell somebody that you I'm trying to change this habit, and it does work, it takes time, but you can change your mindset from a negative to a positive, from a victim mentality to a empowered one, you know, this the most freeing thing, I would say.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so at what point did you realize this is a mental health thing? This isn't something other people experience all the time.
SPEAKER_04:Um I have a younger brother who struggles with bipolar depression, and I was about 20 when he first had his first episode. So to watch him uh go through that and and live with it now the rest of his life uh was very eye-opening for me, I think, probably where I was like I I had no idea you could um you could because of a chemical imbalance in your brain it can make you be two different people. You know, I watched it, I watched him be one person, and then just because one chemical uh his imbalanced you could talk to him like uh he was a totally different person, and it it was eye-opening, it was scary to uh to see how simple that that someone's life can change. And it it did make me think, you know, uh I want to help help him. I who wouldn't, who but how could you when you have no idea what what it mental health is? And I have m plenty of my own problems to to try and understand. So I think it yeah, it really opened my eyes to to make me start to seek to to try to find help for myself and and uh to question things, you know. Um question everything. I was very curious and m maybe rebellious. I I didn't so much like authority or listen to it, or I would have I would always have questions. You know, I I church, I grew up I grew up in a Baptist church. I had to go, my mom made me go till I was probably 16 or so uh twice a week a lot. I got married in a a Lutheran church, but I I always questioned it. Um there was always parts that were not right for me or didn't sit right with me. So just to ask God for help or why or have those questions, um yeah, I guess they definitely made me question it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I've been into the mystical side of spirituality since Eckhart totally came out with the book A New Earth in 2008. So that's almost 20 years of seeking those answers. Um, mostly been into Buddhism, getting back into Christianity lately too. But like I'm interested in all of it. And um you always hear about enlightenment, but you know, like most people, I just thought it was something that you had to be a Buddhist monk and meditate all day to be able to achieve. But um you um recommended a book that um after the first night of reading, reading some. I mean, I only got through a few pages, but I ended up having um huge spiritual awakening. Um and since then my life has just been like gravitating towards that, more of that. Um it's been a trip. And um, so yeah, that's all really exciting. So you're into the mystical side of things, would you say as well?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I am. Um I wouldn't have called it that um until probably this this summer, you know, and meeting you uh after you reached out to go on the podcast, you know, we've shared lots of of uh books or podcasts, whatever, and and it has definitely helped me to understand some of the things that have happened to me over the last year, year and a half. Um I think that uh be before I had that, I it'd be helpful to go into my meditation, uh if that helps.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um so I I was very curious in meditation, things to live well, anything that could help me to live well, you know, I uh I just wanted to do it. I I I won't I didn't care what the stigma was anymore. Um you know, I grew up in that Christian tradition, and I would say by and large, most people, if you say, you know, I want to go learn about Buddhism, uh that's a that's a bad thing. You know, you're either in this in this role or you're out of this role. There is there isn't much room for deviation. So there was a point where I just I didn't care anymore, you know. If it what if there is a tool over there that somebody in a different country is using, be because they're in a different religion or different belief system, I can't use that tool or I can't learn about that tool. Um so I I started practicing meditation. I had no idea what I was doing um probably four years ago. And just like anything, your your your thoughts are insane, you know. Uh it's and if you don't know what you're doing, there's just that doubt, like you're doing it wrong or or not good enough, not long enough, too loud. It's just not for me, too much thought, you know, and what we don't understand is that's kind of the point of meditation, is to become aware of those thoughts, to to quiet those thoughts. And the more you, you know, for for someone who's new to meditation that that wants to try it out, I would say to focus on your breath. Uh just feel it coming in and going out. And watch how hard it is to keep focusing on your breath because in that much time you're gonna be lost in thought, you're gonna be remembering you forgot to shut the door or call this person, or thinking about something that happened five years ago when you were just focusing on your breath, you know. Where where does it go? Why does it why does that thought take you anywhere but the present? Um it's it's eye-opening, it's freeing. I practice transcendental meditation. I uh about a little over two years ago, I went and to a class, learned it, and I've meditated regularly, not every day, but most days for for about two years. And shortly after I started practicing transcendental meditation, which is uh a mantra, you you repeat a mantra in your head for 20 minutes, and as you lose the mantra or a thought comes up, you just accept it, let it go, and and you go back to your mantra. And the point of it is to eventually uh you quiet your mind and you go to no mantra, no thought, and and that is the point of it. So shortly after I started meditating through Transcendental, I started to to uh transcend, to go to a place that that was beyond thought pretty quickly. I'm and I'm really grateful for that because um it helped me to see that there's more pretty pretty quickly. So when I when I do transcend, I go to a to no thought. Um your eyes are closed, and I would keep going to this place where it was only light. There's there's only light. There the feeling is bliss, uh love, union. There's there's no black or white, there was only light, and I and I kept going back to this place consistently for almost a year, I would say, and not every time, but pretty consistent. And then I had uh awakening or a shift on a on a run one day. In roughly November in 2024, I had a I had a shift, an awakening, and I didn't know what it was at the time. It was uh I was walking before it was light, there was clouds, and and it was like someone took a veil uh over my eyes, uh pulled it off of my head, and I was listening to a podcast or something, but something in that podcast, they said something that triggered me in it, and and it was like everything got brighter, uh my my understanding of everything got bright. Got deeper and and it lasted f for a long time. And one of the key or typical signs of of an awakening is like a a deep laugh. You know, you it it's like a it's like there's nothing to do but laugh because it's uh it was always there. There there's nowhere to go, there's nowhere to there's nothing to learn, there's nothing to seek. You realize that it was always here with within you this whole time. So it uh when I had that, I had no idea what it was at that time. You know, I had been seeking, I had been reading, listening to people, but I still didn't know. I thought it was just uh I think I in my journal I had called it a experience, a meditative meditative experience. And and I think uh my understanding of things started to get deeper there where I could listen to people like Alan Watts or Eckhart Tole, and I just knew what they were saying after that. You know, I I I had been to that place that they were talking about. How how there's only one, you know, there's uh everything's connected where uh there's only love, you know, you I could feel that and see it. So that was my first big shift, and my awareness or consciousness maybe expanded at that point a little bit. And then uh over the summer, you know, talking to you and uh going into the awake book. I before I had the awake book, I uh was listening to Angelo DeLulo uh on a podcast, and I was driving my Jeep going to a to go for a run, and I had a big shift where it was uh a non-dual shift where I uh um they're hard to talk about, but what does non-dual mean? Where you realize that there is only one, you're there's no separation, there's no no distance. Um you're when when I had this shift, you know, it was like the veil was pulled over out from my eyes again, but this time I could see that that I was the dash of my Jeep. I was the I was the sunrise, I was the trees in front of me, I was everything, I was everywhere, uh and I was nowhere all at once. It that it was the most profound experience uh that I've ever had. And I don't know if you call it experience, um because it's more of a a knowing um because again, it was just this deep laugh in inside of me coming deep within me uh where there's nothing to do but laugh about it.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you just you just uh cosmic joke.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yeah. The cosmic joke joke of life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:They're they're hard to talk about, but yeah, it's hard to put into words, into language, because it's something beyond that. It's some it's a deeper knowing that our brains can't quite put into real words.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and to go back to religion, I would say that if you were to ask me what I believe, um you know, I grew up Christian, I I would say I thought I believed in God, but I always questioned it. I I couldn't understand how if you were born in Japan and you grew up Buddhist, and yeah, if if you had never heard anything about God or Jesus Christ, you know, because in my religion, if you are Buddhist and and you don't know my God, you're gonna burn in hell for eternity. Um and it just never sat right with me. Because if you look at most people, um most people are good people. You you can't say that because Christianity is in this area, Buddhism is in this area, Hinduism is in this area, uh if they don't believe what I believe, they're gonna burn in hell for eternity. You know, if you if you're really to look at the religions, I would say uh look at what they have in common. Look at if you look at the mystics in all the religions, they all say the same thing.
SPEAKER_01:Every one of them uh a loving father isn't just gonna say, I'm gonna love the people that live on this side of the planet, but not the people that live on the other side. You know, like a loving father just wouldn't do that. So I don't think that Christianity is bad, but like to learn to read through the metaphors. Like my favorite picture that I have on my phone right now is a picture of uh a devil and an angel holding hands, and they say, Do you think everybody knows that we're just a metaphor for different states of being? And the other one says, I hope so, you know, like because in your brain you can have heaven and hell, you can be living every day in paradise, or you can be living every day in hell because of the thoughts that you let control your brain.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, a hundred percent. I uh, you know, uh, I think it's uh right now is the time to live well, you know. If uh if like Christianity says, uh there I don't believe that there's a better place than this. There it cannot be. Um, you know, if we if we do good here, do a good job, uh believe in God, love God, whatever, once you die, you're gonna go to to paradise. Um but Jesus says, God says, uh the kingdom of heaven is within you, you know. So if it's within me, why can't I go there now? Um and if it's within me, why isn't it in inside of the Buddhist or the Hindu?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Um I think if you were to to really look at it, you would uh I would describe religion, religion as the finger pointing to the moon. And what whatever religion you are, whatever part of the world you're in, your religion is pointing to the moon, but you're all pointing to the same moon, you know. So at some point, uh you look up from your finger and you're all looking at the same moon. You know, you might call it God, Christ consciousness, Buddha, Krishna, energy, nature. You you can call it what you want. Uh we're probably all talking about the same thing.
SPEAKER_01:And if your religion has the finger pointing at another person and judging them, that's the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_04:It's the only one that's wrong when when your religion is pointing at the other fingers saying that yours is wrong. It's the only one that's not pointing at the moon.
SPEAKER_01:So for the transcendental meditation for the TM, I learned to do that about a year ago and now too. And you have to take a class to get your word, and then you keep your word secret forever. Um, it's a whole kind of thing. It's hard. I like researched it so many times every time I heard about it, and it's hard to get information on it. You kind of just have to sign up for a class. But I just wanted to say that every time I do it, even today when I did my TM, within 30 seconds, my chest gets so tight, and I my brain and my body try and quit so bad. So everybody that wants to meditate and says, Oh, I'm just not good at it. It's too hard for me. Like my brain goes too crazy. Like, okay, everybody's brain is like that. You're not special. It's it's hard for everybody. You're not just automatically gonna be good at basketball or fishing or anything. You have to practice. And I've been doing it casually for about a year, and my chest still hurts and does everything it can to get out of that position. But there is nothing like transcending. It feels amazing when all of a sudden a wave comes over you, or that's how it feels for me, like a warm wave, and all of a sudden there's no thoughts, and everything feels like you said, like light and one.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Oh, that's why they call it a practice for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, so I said we would talk about negative self-talk. How did you stop doing that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I would say uh changing my mindset um slowly over time. Uh you know, if you're stuck in a negative self-talk loop, you can't just think one positive thought and it goes away. You know, you need uh continually work on it, uh practice it. It takes time, but uh it does work. You know, you you can change your thoughts. You can you can uh you can quiet that voice through meditation, you know. You more importantly, you can realize that you're not your thoughts, you know, and then they don't have the same power that they had with those negative thoughts, you know. You can just see them for what they are, it's just a thought.
SPEAKER_01:But because meditation helps you be aware enough of your thoughts. That's the reason you practice meditation, is because then when you go back out into the real world, you're more aware. And so all of a sudden you'll catch yourself and be like, oh gosh, I just had this negative thing in my head. Like, and once you can catch it, once you're aware of it, that's how you can change it. And it just is a slow process, but imagine going every day, not thinking bad thoughts about yourself. You know, I'm not saying I'm there, but I'm way better than I was a year ago for sure. So you're into stoicism. What um did Marcus Aurelia say about negative self-talk?
SPEAKER_04:I would have to look it up.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I thought you like said it off the top of my mind.
SPEAKER_04:I might know it, I guess. Uh I he I do actually know it. He says, uh never let anyone hear you talk negative or something like that. Not even yourself, he says. So Marcus Aurelius, the richest, most powerful man on the planet 2,000 years ago, or however long it was, uh, his journal, he left his journal and he's he said things like that. You know, he he talked about um how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning. You know, this is the richest, most powerful man in the world saying how important it is to just get out of bed, even though the covers are warm and it's cozy and you don't want to to get up and do your work. So, yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in stoicism.
SPEAKER_01:The thing I love about him the most is that he uh gave half of his power to his stepbrother, not even his blood, because he understood that balance was important, and probably that power could overtake him easily if he let it. Because yeah, he's the number one person that could lay in bed all day and do whatever he wanted, but he's like, no, you gotta get up. We were not born to lay in bed, we're born to work, like the ants and everything else in nature.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, he's full of good wisdom, uh, good things to listen to, read for sure.
SPEAKER_01:And how do you feel about breath work?
SPEAKER_04:I think it's super important. I'm not um active in it. Other I do one of the tools I use that I've learned is called a physiological sigh, where you take two in-breaths and one long exhale, and it's one of those things that can in real time right away calm you down. Uh you take one deep breath in, and right as just about your lungs are full, you take one more little inhale, and then you let it out slow, and you can do that a couple times, and and you'll be able to notice right away that that it can change your mood, you know. Uh yeah, breath work is probably the most important thing. Just to learn to breathe. That's what exercise does. You're breathing.
SPEAKER_01:In the ice baths.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Uh in the ice bath, you the cold water takes away your breath, so you need to learn to to get it back to take long exhales. Um, is how you can help with it in the ice bath.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think that's why you end up feeling like energized and kind of like high and floaty later on after getting it done. And that kind of goes into this. Um, so I feel like I've always been looked at as kind of silly for my attraction to the mystical, but I heard Rick Rubin say. Yeah, it's almost looked like as a weakness in society in his, and it in his eyes, it's the only way to go. And maybe society telling us it's silly is why people avoid it and why there is so much mental health illness right now. Um, so you are one of the most present people that I know, uh, self-aware and inquisitive, obviously doing stuff like running the ultramarathons, meditating the way you do, the cold plunges, like you like to live in the moment and feel life. But you've also been on the other side where you've numbed yourself, escaped, let your thoughts overtake you. And in my experience, the feeling of full presence is so close to that feeling of escaping. Like, so what do you think about that? Why do you think that is? Why are they so close? The two most drastic things actually kind of feel the same. Because when I do breath work, I can feel my body tingle and I almost feel high. It's like, okay, I could just take a drug to get there, or I could do the work to feel that way.
SPEAKER_04:I think it's probably in the letting go. Um, you know, uh when you feel the best is is when you let go. Uh when you take that drug, you know, what do you get when you take that drug? You know, the the resistance is so strong right before the drug, and once you get it, you let go. It's it's just so freeing, you know. Uh you can let go in each moment, and you can do it without drugs. You know, uh you can let go of your breath, you can let go of that thought, uh, you can let go of the expectation for something to be different than it is, and you're free in that moment. It's hard, it takes work, it takes practice. Uh that's one thing with meditation. You know, I I still get mad, lose my mind, or whatever. But I would say with meditation, it has helped me to come back faster, to be more calm, to less reactive, to uh be more understanding.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so yeah, I think that's why so many addicts end up turning to spirituality because I think the people that are spiritual, I think people who have problems with addictions are more prone to spirituality because addicts are the ones who are seeking, because they are seeking that feeling, that feeling of full presence. And it's so much easier to get there with drugs. You know, I think they're so connected.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I'm I'm really grateful to have been able to see the contrast of of the addiction to where I am now. I think people that do struggle with addiction, they have a really unique gift because they've seen oftentimes the extremes. Um, and it's kind of like what I said earlier about the the contrast or finding the edges of things. Well, if you've seen the extreme of the bad, now imagine how good it can be. So if you can channel it, if you can free yourself of those chains that are holding you down, it can be like a springboard to go the other way if you let it.
SPEAKER_01:And the bad side, there there is a point, there is a breaking point for so many people, obviously. What's happening in the world right now with suicide.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um, I like to look at it as a spectrum with no limit on either end. Because for me, for the suicide, when I think of it as I look back, you know, if someone's taking their life, right, um, if this is as bad as it gets, they're gonna they're killing themselves usually to try to end suffering. They think that by killing themselves, they're going to feel better than they are than they do right now, you know. So uh it can't be, you know, most people think death is the worst, you know. In their mind for somebody who's suicidal, they're thinking that it's a step up, I think.
SPEAKER_01:But the way that I think that it keeps getting worse, and why it can keep getting worse is the people that you're leaving behind that it's hurting forever.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that definitely is uh part of it to think about, you know, the the hurting the others. But I think usually when they're for me personally, when I was in that place, it's it's really lonely. You're you're you're really not thinking about the other people so much. It's you know, if you were if you could see them clearly, uh, you would probably see that they're there to help you or they're they're happy to help you. You know, they're and if they don't know how they'll they'll help you find someone.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, now we are on to the segment where I reveal to you how people see you in your life. So I asked you to give me the names and numbers of people I could reach out to so that I could ask them to describe you with some adjectives, six to seven adjectives, and I put those words into themes because I think that we're just really not good at seeing ourselves the way others around us do. So, do you have any guesses?
SPEAKER_04:I think I'll let you read them.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So the first word is determined. This is the strongest, most repeated word, you know, not surprising. Five people said determined, three said driven, resolute, tenacious, persistent, unwavering, unstoppable, resilient, hardworking, capable, achieving, and strong and brave. Um, your little nephew added that word in on your sister-in-law's words. And then your second word is magnetic. Three people said you were a leader, captivating, charismatic, two people said funny, two people said smart, intelligent, interesting, passionate, unique, healing, admirable, special, and positive. And your third word is purposeful. Two people said purposeful, two people said intentional, two said disciplined, three said motivated, two said honest, learner, dedicated, principled, well-spoken, assured, confident, and respectful. And then your fourth word is generous, four people said generous, two said compassionate, empathetic, selfless, helpful, encouraging, friendly, open-minded, and loyal. And your fifth word is grounded, two said calm, mindful, reflective, contemplative, insightful, healthy, and authentic. And your synopsis is what stands out about you isn't how far you run, but how deeply you care. You don't burn out, you burn color, a disciplined fire, and a lucid mirror. Please remember, you are not these words, you are not your thoughts. You are the space between the words, the space between the thoughts. You are the one who knows you have thoughts. Observe them, reflect them, but no you are not them. So how does that make you feel to hear those words?
SPEAKER_04:Feels good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So you got the word magnetic, and I just heard this week that to be magnetic, you have to let go of neediness. Do you think that's true?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I would say that. And that naturally pushes it away when you let go. So yeah, I would say to be magnetic, you can you have to let go and let it come to you.
SPEAKER_01:When do you think you got good at doing that? Because obviously you are.
SPEAKER_04:Um in the letting go is what I practice a lot. Um, so I would say that the last couple years through meditation and hugely in learning to let go.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and so I'm a big dork for leadership, and we've talked a little bit about that. You are the owner of one of the owners of Douglas Kerr uh Underground. How do you describe it?
SPEAKER_04:Douglas Kerr Underground. Yeah, we do uh road construction, sewer and water infrastructure for we work for cities mostly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so everybody described you as a good leader. And your friend Brandon said that you're by far the best boss he's ever had. If he's in the ditch, well, you know, if he like gets in it, if the snow puts him in the ditch, not if he's working in the ditch. There's no one else he'd consider calling because he'd be there so fast. But he said he wouldn't still work for you if it wasn't like it was before. He said it went from a dictatorship to democracy. So what changed?
SPEAKER_04:Um as I started to work on myself, and uh I think I probably asked myself what kind of what kind of leader I wanted to be, you know, what what kind of leader did I not like to be a part of? And you know, uh I think you want to work with somebody that that builds you up, that is there to help you, to help you grow. And I think when you know that somebody's in your corner to to do those things, it's empowering. You know, uh you don't need to control everything. And ideally you want to give people ownership of what they're doing so they will uh care more. Uh take pride in it to do a good job. And if you show people that you care about them, uh you're there to help them to do the same job together, it can it can unite people and and help people to to be proud of working for a company. To you know, it's it's a hard job that we do. It's it's road construction. We're we work long hours all summer long. So tensions get high. Working with the same group of guys uh all year. Um by the end of the summer, everybody hates everybody often. So to learn to to talk to people, calm people down, uh show them that you're on your their team is important. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So what do you do right now that you hope your grandkids do when they're your age?
SPEAKER_04:I hope they uh take time to work on themselves every day. I hope they take some time to to sit in silence, to reflect, to contemplate. I think it can uh change their life.
SPEAKER_01:Or do you do that you hope they don't do when they're your age?
SPEAKER_04:Um I work a lot. I live in the extremes a lot. I hope they find maybe a little better balance than than I do maybe. Um I I'm very happy and satisfied with where I am, but uh but I do see it. And you know, I I I spend a lot of time working or working on myself and uh sometimes that cuts my family time short. So yeah, I hope they find balance.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and last question. In general in life, what scares you?
SPEAKER_04:I think to be honest, it would be uh that I don't share the tools that have helped me to live well with others that could use it. I I'm so satisfied with with how I feel, with where I am in life. I would say the the one thing that is consistent in my journals um over the last few years would be that I I want to help people. I want to share the things that have helped me if they want it. You know, if if you don't want it, that's totally fine and perfect for you. But I do have guilt um for being in those places and and not sharing how I got out of them. And I'm I'm not hiding it at all. I know if the if people, if I know people could use it or or they reach out to me, I I'm happy to talk about it. You know, I've I've never been hiding it. I just to share it like this is uh it's not easy and it changes things.
SPEAKER_01:But I can see why that would scare a person. I mean, that scares me to think that I might know something or be able to listen to somebody and if I don't, and then I'm not helping them, and they could have, you know, something good could have came from it, and you're not sharing things. So yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04:You know, it's kind of like uh small talk, you know, small talk on a plane or wherever, you know. If you knew that the person next to you uh was struggling through something, and and maybe if you had a tool or an idea or you said something that made them think to change their mindset, I can think of nothing better than to do that. So yeah, I guess to that's what scares me, I guess, is to not not being open enough.
SPEAKER_01:Is there anything else you wanted to talk about today?
SPEAKER_04:We jumped around so much, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:It's yeah, after you watch it again, maybe I'll be ready to come back with uh more stuff that we missed. Um, okay, so if that mystical spiritual stuff that Adam and I talked about resonated with anybody, I do have one more thing I want to read from the book. And it's called Awake by Angelo DeLulo. Is that how you say it?
SPEAKER_04:I think so.
SPEAKER_01:Um so not trying to be pushy on it. It's it's not going to be for everybody. It's not going to be everybody's thing. But if the things we talked about made you feel a certain way, you know, Adam and I, I think would both love to talk to more people that were into this. So I just wanted to read one thing for anybody that wanted to stick around and see if this also resonated with them. In the book, he says, start to become interested in inanimate objects, mundane circumstances, and times when you would normally be bored or look for distraction. Regard the objects around you as living things deserving of acceptance and love. Go through the steps in the solitary practice above. And then when you feel the warmth and contact within your own body, start to feel it in any object in your vicinity. It doesn't matter what the object is, it can be the carpet, a brick, a cloud, or the remote control. See if you can find some contact there, some regard for mere existence. I understand that this part might sound a bit silly. Let me just say that the first time you experience yourself as both you and another object, whether that be a person, a tree, the sky, or a tombstone, there's no going back. Your life will have been changed forever. I can't tell you exactly what that's like because it's indescribable, but I will tell you that in my experience, it's what people are looking for, no matter what they think they're looking for. It's unconditioned intimacy, it's sublime.
SPEAKER_04:I agree.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Thanks so much, Adam.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing.