The Quiet Waves of Healing: A Journey Through Emotional Intelligence and Trauma Recovery

When the echoes of a tumultuous past threaten to silence our present, the healing power of emotional intelligence beckons. Join us on a transformative journey with Harvey Deutschendorf, an emotional intelligence savant, as we peel back the layers of trauma's silent aftermath and its ripple effects on our daily lives. From childhood memories to professional relationships, we delve into the inner workings of emotional battles and the essential role of self-awareness and growth.

As we navigate the waves of emotions, we uncover the art of choosing which to ride and which to let pass. Each of us carries our own burdens, yet the influence of family and positive relationships can help steer us through life's most tempestuous seas. Through heartfelt stories, Harvey and I illustrate the incremental nature of growth and the transformative power of mindset, providing a beacon of hope for those yearning to move beyond the shadows of their past.

Wrapping up, the conversation turns to the courage required to voice our innermost struggles, the shame that can shackle us, and the strategies for emotional regulation that lead to liberation. We highlight the expertise of thought leaders like Mark Brackett and share insights on the importance of identifying what we need to foster mental health and openness, particularly for men. Embrace the strength found in vulnerability and join us as we pledge to weave a legacy of openness and emotional intelligence for the future.

#EmotionalIntelligence #HarveyDeutschendorf #MentalHealthAwareness #HealingJourney #SelfAwareness #GrowthMindset #EmotionalGrowth #TraumaHealing #Resilience #MindsetShift #FamilyInfluence #PositiveRelationships #EmotionalRegulation #OvercomeShame #VoiceYourStruggle #MarkBrackett #MensMentalHealth #StrengthInVulnerability #LegacyOfOpenness #TransformativeJourney #HealingPower #ChooseWisely #EmotionalInsights #NavigatingEmotions #LiberationThroughUnderstanding #FutureOfEmotionalIntelligence #TheseFukkenFeelingsPodcast #TraumaIsExpensive

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello there, brave souls, welcome to Trauma is Expensive, with your host, Micah Bravery. Here we don't just talk about trauma, we count the cost and we make the change. With every episode, we dive deep into the heart of trauma, its implications and the resilient transformations it can ignite, through conversations, insights, real stories and unflinching honesty. This podcast is here to empower every survivor to turn their pain into progress. So let's take a journey together as we understand, confront and finally heal. Welcome to wwwtraumasexpensivecom, your platform for change. Now let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:52

What is up, my beautiful people? Welcome to. Trauma Is Expensive. I am your host, micah. I got producer Crystal here with me, as always. Hello. And our special guest today is Harvey is an emotional intelligence expert. I would try to pronounce your last name, but I know I'm going to mess it up, so I'm going to let you do that. Okay, it's Deutschendorf, deutschendorf.

Speaker 3: 1:16

Don't worry, most people, most people screw it up. So unless you have European background, yeah then. Unless you have European background, yeah then now are you in the States no, I'm in Canada, I'm in Western Canada so pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 1:33

So I know that we actually work together, collaborate on a little article for a press company, which is really cool, and you were talking about workplace, talk about motion intelligence in the workplace. But you know, one of the biggest things that I realized is that about workplace. We talk about emotional intelligence in the workplace, but you know, one of the biggest things that I realized is that in doing our other podcasts, is that a lot of people don't realize the effect of not dealing with things. You know, of pushing things to the side, especially when it comes to trauma and drama. And you know just past issues and just the past period. It's like we don't face things, we don't deal with things.

Speaker 2: 2:09

And then for me, who's a person who I think my whole life was full of trauma? You know, I realize now how much, how much things I neglected to have. You know, simple things friends. I don't have a lot of friends because I always kept people away from me because people hurt people and I was just tired away from me because people hurt people and I was just tired of being hurt by people. But you know, now I'm in my 40s and it's like dad, I should have some friends and I got like three. You know I have a whole life so so I thought it was cool to kind of bring you into this podcast and actually just get your take on things. Sure, so we'll give you the floor.

Speaker 3: 2:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I, you know, I, I can resonate with what you're saying, like, micah, is it? Yeah, that's your, yeah, yeah, that, that that you grew up with trauma because I did as well. I grew up with trauma because, uh, I did as well, um, I grew up with trauma, and, um, I remember, uh, you know, my, my, my family history. Um, I'm not sure if they came over to Canada as refugees after the second world war, lost everything, uh, had to borrow money, you know, for passage from the church, and that's you know. The first 12 years were really in extreme poverty. I'm not sure if that, though, is in any way really connected to what caused the trauma, although I'm sure there was trauma. You know my parents experienced a lot of trauma, you know, going through the war and becoming refugees in the Second World War, but my father was very, very angry as a child. I remember even being afraid of him, very, very angry, very angry, and I remember, as a teenager, being anxious, like as a 16-year-old, feeling anxiety all the time.

Speaker 3: 4:15

That's not how a 16-year-old should feel and yeah, I survived and went out into the world and managed to make some good friends and have accomplished some things. My brother didn't. When he was what his early 20s, he never really left home. He couldn't sleep for five days. He was an older brother and actually was born in Europe. He was like two when my parents came over and he couldn't sleep for five days and it was because my father was very, very abusive and he went to the hospital too and of course the doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with him. So we lived in a small town.

Speaker 3: 5:12

So they sent somebody out who I believe was a psychologist I'm not sure even what she was, but to interview him because they suspected there was something emotionally. You know there's things going on at home, right, and my mother and I were sitting in the next room. We heard every word. You know that was going on in that conversation and he totally denied anything that was going on at home. He totally wouldn't talk about it. My mother asked me to call because my mother and I she was a very kindly caring lady but she couldn't really do anything to prevent the abuse. She asked me to speak to this woman, call her and tell her the truth about what was really going on at home. So this woman called my brother in again Again. My mother and I were in the room next door. The walls were paper thin. We heard him totally deny everything. He wouldn't even talk about it.

Speaker 3: 6:17

How would I describe his life? A shell of a human being being. You know, we haven't. You know we haven't had any kind of a relationship, and that's part of part of what's been really, really missing in my life is having any kind of relationship with him. He won't his wife. He married his wife. She didn't even know anything about this until I told her oh wow, she didn't know a thing. She would have suspected, probably, that there was something that really went on, but he didn't tell a soul.

Speaker 3: 6:57

I, on the other hand, went out and I've talked about it. I belong to a men's organization called the Mankind Project, which started in the US, it's active in Edmonton and it's active in a lot of European countries now too. It's a chance for men to get together and share feelings real feelings, be vulnerable. It provides a safe place. So, luckily, I found that and I've done a lot, of, a lot of that work, you know, talked about what happened and opened up and I've been able to, you know, to build good relationships with people, because when I left home, the world was a hostile place because I learned to, I had that belief growing up at home that you know, watch your back, be careful, right, people will take advantage of you.

Speaker 3: 7:50

Um and um, it's still a very hostile place to my brother. He's, uh, you know, um, he's, he's resentful, jealous of of anybody that's you know, he sees it, sees it's accomplished something, done, something which is most people compared to him. But yeah, so I've done a lot of work around that and that's why I really got into emotional intelligence, because I saw the value in that. I used it to turn my life around. Yeah, what used it to turn?

Speaker 3: 8:26

my life around yeah, so.

Speaker 4: 8:28

What is it?

Speaker 3: 8:30

Go ahead.

Speaker 4: 8:31

So what is social intelligence? Emotional, emotional intelligence.

Speaker 3: 8:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Emotional intelligence.

Speaker 3: 8:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:38

Wake up, christopher, wake up.

Speaker 3: 8:42

It's our ability to to differentiate, recognize and manage our emotions and the emotions of others. Okay, and I realized I mean I was first in my family to actually go beyond high school. To actually go beyond high school. I actually went to university and got a degree because I thought I always believed I was very smart. And my high school principal told me one day Harvey, you've got a good head on your shoulders, don't let it go to your head. He sort of he gave me a life raft to, you know, to sort of move beyond, you know, the world that I grew up in with abuse from my father, and then my brother became very abusive as well because he was afraid to stand up to my father, so he had to take it out on somebody who had that need. So I got it.

Speaker 3: 9:41

I paid a price for that and when I went out into the world and I started to, I realized that I was smart enough but my emotions weren't helping me, they weren't working in my favor, if you understand. Yeah. So I decided I had to do some work on that and I found out about emotional intelligence because I read a book by Daniel Goldman who sort of well, he made the emotional intelligence public. He didn't discover it, but he sort of. And I read his book back in 1995. And I read his book back in 1995, and on page four, something jumped out at me and said your intelligence can come to naught when your emotions hold sway. And it was like an aha moment. That's it. That's what I'm dealing with here. You know, I mean, I've got the smarts but my emotions are way out of whack. I need to work on that change, that change my mindset, change how I, you know, react and things like that.

Speaker 2: 10:56

And so it's turned my whole life around and it's become my passion, and you know basically right now, that's what I'm doing, you know, writing and speaking on emotional intelligence, because I know how powerful it is and what it can do to help people, especially people who have gone through trauma. I think it's a little bit of everybody. I feel like we all have been through some sort of trauma and if you don't think that you've been through that, revisit a couple of things.

Speaker 3: 11:32

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because at one time and maybe still a lot of people are under that impression trauma was something you know, the people that were in wars and combat experienced, you know. Or people that were in the law enforcement, you know, right, right, right, no-transcript, right, yeah, and I don't know if anybody that really does. We've all experienced it. You know. We've had losses in life. We've, you know, reactions that you know affect us, uh, years and years after you know events that have happened and I just recently learned that a baby sitting in a dirty diaper too long can cause trauma.

Speaker 2: 12:35

you know, and it was like wow, you know, you think about just simple things like that. You know you think, oh, it's a baby, he's not going to know any difference, you know. And it's like no. You'll be surprised on what people can remember from their childhood.

Speaker 4: 12:51

Well, I think a lot if you had something bad happen. You remember that more than you remember the good things Right.

Speaker 2: 13:00

But I guess there's the emotions behind it too. Is you remember the feelings? The feelings, right, yeah?

Speaker 3: 13:07

Yeah, because you know, I've had situations where somebody has said something and it's it's just some you know innocuous thing probably, and I remember that. And I think, why do I remember that when I don't remember a lot of different things? Because there was something that caused some bit of trauma there, definitely, something that said something that shocked me totally and you can't forget it. It becomes part of your memory of your, your memory of your, of your life.

Speaker 2: 13:42

I wish I would have started or I wish my parents would have started me on learning more about emotions and feelings and and how to I guess I don't know deal with them or or live through them. You know, it's like I'm, I'm in. I tell people I'm two years in my healing journey. You know, healing is new for me, but it completely changed my life around. I went from like being the most miserable person to now I'm just like.

Speaker 4: 14:07

Invisible only once in a while.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Yeah, every now and then I still I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Right, I'm human. Okay, it happens. Right, I'm human, ok, it happens. But for the most part, you know I'm a pretty happy individual. You know I believe happiness can be had in this lifetime and I want it.

Speaker 2: 14:26

You know it's like I should be able to know what peace is, but I realize that it did come from, you know, figuring out my emotions and learning about feelings I had towards things, and you know things that triggered me. You know I was molested a lot when I was younger, so I used to be triggered by my barber and it was just the barber All he's doing is cutting my hair. But the fact that he was like in my personal space was so triggering for me and it caused like a great deal of anxiety and you know I needed to. You know I started looking at those situations in my life and starting to analyze, like why is it that I feel this way? You know what is causing me to react this way, like I can't leave this barbershop because I got half a haircut. You know I want to run but I'm going to look real crazy tomorrow. It's you know I always feel, you know, I feel like these are things. You know.

Speaker 2: 15:16

Mental health period has a big stigma about it. You know, I always feel, you know, I feel like these are things. You know. Mental health period has a big stigma about it. You know, people hate psychiatrists and they hate doctors and medication and and you know all those things, but it's like it's so much more to healing than just that. You know that is necessary for some people. I'm never not going to say that it is necessary, but it doesn't have to be your story and it's not necessary for everybody, but it's still something out there that you need to learn in order to get through what you're going through.

Speaker 3: 15:45

Yeah, absolutely Like we. We, um, feelings are like, um I talk about feelings are like uh, waves. We can't stop them from emotions from uh from coming. We can choose the ones that we uh do want to waves. We can't stop them from emotions from coming. We can choose the ones that we want to surf, we want to ride. So if we have a bad feeling coming, we don't have to ride that feeling. It'll come and we can just let it wash over, whereas if we're having good feelings, we can just surf those like a big, long wave, we can just hang on to them. We can do that. We have the ability to do that, which is really a powerful thing that we have. And yeah, so that's a good thing to know and to practice. You know, when you have a good feeling, just ride it, and you have a bad one, just you can't force it away, but you don't have to ride it either.

Speaker 2: 16:47

I'm not quite there yet, I still ride my bad day like yesterday I had a bad day.

Speaker 2: 16:51

It was a bad day. I woke up with an attitude. I was like damn, is this what it means to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, even though I'm on the same side of the bed? I'm always on. But I had an attitude yesterday and I wanted to fix it. But things just kept happening right. It just kept piling up, piling up and finally I was like I'm just going to allow me to be miserable today. Tomorrow will be a better day, but you're right, I need to kind of like choose not to ride that so much you know, sometimes I just like fall victim to it.

Speaker 2: 17:24

You know, sometimes I'm just like fine, I hear you. Universe, today is my bad day, I'm gonna have it and wake up tomorrow and just start all over again well, I was told.

Speaker 4: 17:35

once you you wake up and that thought goes in your head like this is going to be a bad day, or I don't want to go to work, or I don't want to do this, then there's like your mind keeps going with that. So then the whole day until you turn it around. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:54

Yeah, the good thing, though, that I hear you saying is that you realize, though, that tomorrow's going to be different, tomorrow's going to be a different day. So you know you could, you could, you could accept, well, this is going to be, you know, maybe a bad day, and and, but tomorrow's going to be different, because you know that, you know that you can have a bad day, and then tomorrow it turns around. So, uh, that happens with me all the time too, and I think, well, you know, it's crappy things happening today, and you know, I, I, what I, what I try to do, is not not dwell on that, or or look for things that you know will make the day brighter. And you know things like that, or, if I can't that, I I'll say to myself well, you know, I know, I know I've been through this before. My tomorrow has been different and, and it will be again, it's going to be different. This won't last, and tomorrow will come and things will be different.

Speaker 3: 18:48

But there's one thing that I say sometimes when I'm speaking I do a lot of speaking to groups, and I've even started a talk this way I'll say you know, 25 years ago you wouldn't have wanted to know me. The person that I am today wouldn't have wanted to know the person that I was 25 years ago, right, yeah, so it just reminds myself that how far you know where I was then and what my whole mindset was, and you know how I was dealing with my emotions and with with you'm I'm I'm horrified the way it was, yeah, so, um, I'm horrified every day.

Speaker 2: 19:41

I feel like this world is crazy there. There's a lot of strong emotions in this world and I think that a lot of people aren't equipped or don't know how to deal with them. You know just my opinion. I feel like, you know, I mean even me, I mean I. I I'm very similar, like if you would have met me five years ago, right, you would have been like, oh my God, like he needs to be hit by a bus. Like you know, I wasn't pretty. I've done some horrible things in my life. Of course you know I'm not innocent and and I, you know, never to excuse it, but I grew up with a lot of trauma, so it was like I kind of didn't know better. You know, it was like I kind of felt like I needed to give people what I got you know, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:26

Same thing universe gives me. I'm going to give it right back to the next person.

Speaker 3: 20:29

Right, I'm going to keep it going.

Speaker 2: 20:41

I'm going to negative, but you know I I did realize eventually, like it's when you lay down to go to sleep and everything is negative. Yeah uh, life shouldn't be that way. I don't think life should be that way, you know I should have concerns, but not every single thought should be negative.

Speaker 2: 20:54

you know, it's like I used to pray to die. You know I was like. You know, I knew how loved I was, I knew that people love me and I think that's what always kept me from being suicidal, but it didn't stop me from praying for death. I'm like, okay, I can't do it, but, god, you could do it. Can you just take me in my sleep? You know, but it was a lot about not understanding the things I was feeling and not processing things I went through and and just you know, having a lot of negative self-esteem issues because of all I had.

Speaker 3: 21:24

Yeah, yeah, I uh. For me it was, uh, what, what, what kept me going and say, you know, I had my mother. She was the one positive thing growing up in my life. She believed in me and she thought I was worthwhile and smart. If she was alive today she would just be totally overwhelmed that her son is an that. Hey, you know, her son is an internationally published author. She would just that would just you know, yeah, and I'm speaking all over the place yeah, like that would just you know, she would just that would be totally beyond her. But it's partly because, you know, she always believed in me and she believed that I had, you know, ability and potential and things and she couldn't do much for me. But just that belief in me, you know, you know that I really I understood she couldn't do much. She was caught up in that, in the you know that kind of trauma, that kind of very dysfunctional situation, and had no, had no ability to, to really do anything about it.

Speaker 2: 22:42

but I can't imagine the pain that just that caused you. You know, seeing your mom stuck in chaos. You know, it was like in the middle.

Speaker 3: 22:51

Yeah, being powerless, being powerless and being a, a good, decent, uh, human being, a caring person, and you know not being able to, you know especially I remember she when, when I came, when I came back home and after my uh, my father had died and um, I remember you know when, when you know, you know, parent dies or something, to me it was a sense of relief. I didn't feel any emotions or anything, it was almost a sense of relief. And after that, when my brother became really abusive towards me and I came home and my mother would you know so by Sunday at the dinner table, my brother couldn't stop himself. He would really start going after me and, you know, becoming abusive. My mother would beg him to stop and of course he never paid any attention to her. He was sort of totally out of control.

Speaker 3: 23:54

I mean, he needed to take it out on somebody and there was nobody else except my mother that he could take it out on. So she begged him to stop and he wouldn't. So I felt bad too for her situation that she was in. But she did provide me with some good morals and a sense of decency and you know, which has served me real well in life. So, yeah, I'm grateful for that, to have that. I don't know if you had anything, anybody there that was there for you at all.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Yeah, and this healing journey always starts with gratitude. You know this is we did. You know shit sometimes. So I am a cancer survivor and it's funny. I remember one day just being glad in all the things I didn't have and I was like, wow, this is the first time in my life Like I woke up and I wasn't nauseous, you know, and I didn't have body aches and you know, I didn't have to go to chemo. And it was like, wow, these don't and these didn't are making me really, really happy.

Speaker 2: 25:00

But it kind of gave me a lesson that you know it's like you think you know it all, you think you have it all figured out. You know life is about all the things you have and now life is about all the things I don't have. And you know it was like you kind of need to, I guess, see more, be more well-rounded in how you see things. You know kind of look at all angles and look at all pictures and stop being so. I don't know, I want not selfish like gluttony, like you know, I want a Mercedes and you know, just give me a valuable lesson.

Speaker 2: 25:33

like every little thing in life counts towards something you know, and and you, like you said, you can look at it negatively and you can ride that wave, or you can see it as a positive thing and and ride that wave and, like you know, eventually being the greatest surfer out there. You know, dodging these waves and these sharks yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:57

I want to ask real quick is there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:00

I want to ask real quick is there like a example or a simple exercise you can give people to maybe try to, you know, start learning some of the difference between the emotions they feel?

Speaker 3: 26:34

Well, basically there's some. I'm just trying to think of fear, anger, fear, mad and shame. Shame is a very destructive emotion. It's the most destructive. That's one thing in the Mankind Project. We're not, we're not allowed to shame another man, you know, because it's a very destructive, because you know if we feel, because shame is a very personal thing it makes us say that you know, this is very personal about us. So so, yeah, what we can do is there are a number of we. There's probably about a hundred emotions.

Speaker 3: 27:16

There's a book I'm just trying to think of it now that was put out by the. He's a prophet at Yale University that works in the Center for Emotional Intelligence at Yale Boy. I wish I could think of it now, but he's written a book and in the back of his book there's about 100 different emotions and there's an exercise where we can try to name more of our emotions, because if we name an emotion it takes a lot of the sting out of it. If you say you know if you're really, really pissed and you say I'm feeling angry, you'll notice that the level of that goes down just if you mention it. Right, because how that works is when, and when we're stuck in an emotion we're stuck in our emotional brain. There's a primitive emotional brain called the amygdala and just to say it, to say the word, we're feeling angry, it takes us to our frontal precortex, our thinking brain, and so that slows down that emotion. It sort of makes it less likely to sort of really control us. We can say, yeah, I'm really pissed, I'm feeling. You know, you'll notice that emotion goes down because you're actually thinking about it. You're thinking about how you feel.

Speaker 3: 28:45

And when you can think about how you feel, what happens is you're able to actually, when you imagine it, look down on yourself. Uh, like, if you get to the point where you can look down on yourself when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're interacting or talking, you can sort of like you're looking down on how you're doing things, that's. That's a place where you can really start to manage your emotions, really get control of them and make choices. You can really make choices, manage your emotions, really get control of them and make choices. You can really make choices about how you're going to act.

Speaker 3: 29:16

Say, well, I'm not handling this, well, I shouldn't be so angry, I shouldn't be. So you can tell yourself that and say, or you can in the middle of an interaction with somebody, you can actually imagine that you're looking down on yourself and thinking about how you're handling this, and when you get to that point, that's really a wonderful place to be, because you've got the control Right. You've got the control, you can manage it. And I'm just trying to think of I don't have this. I wish I had his book.

Speaker 2: 29:54

The professor at the when you think about it, you can send it to me and I'll still, I'll still get it out to the people.

Speaker 2: 30:03

I mean, I have a similar situation like that. I heard something once yeah it was, a woman was going through anxiety and a young lady walked up to her and she asked her. She said do you want to be heard? Anxiety. And a young lady walked up to her and she asked her. She said do you want to be heard, do you want to be helped or do you want to be hugged? And I was like that's kind of cool, you know. So it's like I kind of adapted that into my feelings, you know, in what I'm feeling right now, what do I want? Do I want to be helped? Do I want to be heard? Do I want to be heard? Don't want to be hugged? And you know it's kind of cool because I think it does like what you do. It calms you down to actually make you think about makes you think about something different, right, like okay, like am I, you know?

Speaker 2: 30:41

my thing is like am I really mad? You know what I'm saying? Like, am I really upset, you know? And then why am I upset you? I was at, you know, but it's like, and me most often is that I want to be heard because I love to talk, as you can tell. So I don't have no problem telling people like I'm angry, you know, and I think that's why I'm always good, yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:02

Yeah, so, um, yeah, mark Brackett is the name of the guy M-A-R-C-B-R-A-C-K-E-T-T. Yeah, and he's written a book. Yeah, well, if you Google him on, you know, go into Amazon, you'll see his book, mark Brackett. Yeah, yeah, I'll check it out. Yeah, he's head of the emotional intelligence department at Yale University and yeah, but the thing is, that's a good question that you mentioned, mike, because the question was what do you need right now? What do you need? So this one what do you need? Do you need a hug? What will make you feel better right now? Just to listen to you, because the problem is, a lot of people, when we're speaking, aren't really listening. They're waiting to respond, they're just thinking of a response, but just to be heard, just to be listened to and heard, and that makes us feel really really good, definitely yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:11

You know we talk about men, and especially when it comes to mental health, and you know, I don't know why the world is so much harder on men who voice that they need help or have moments of vulnerability, but I feel like forget what the people say. I wanted to say another word, right, but you know, just men in general, those are good questions that you know. Men should start asking themselves, like you know, do I need a hug, you know, do I need to be heard? Do I need to be helped? It kind of covers all the categories of being able to be vulnerable, because I think that's where it comes down to when you're able to be vulnerable and let down a lot of walls, you're starting to get rid of a lot of garbage, you know, toxic energy that's been held up inside of those walls.

Speaker 3: 33:03

Yeah, yeah, and that's why the Mankind Project is such a wonderful organization, because women typically, you know, have been given societal permission to be vulnerable, to share their emotions, to be emotional Men, haven't, you know? And we're trying to break that. We're trying to break those old, you know, those old, very destructive, toxic rules that men in our world have grown up with, in North America. Anyways, maybe there's other areas.

Speaker 2: 33:37

I think about the state of the world right now. I'll never bring a child into this world. That is just my thing. I wouldn't do it to nobody. I won't have no kids. I won't bring a child into this world because it's crazy. Once I go, I'm cool. People always ask me you're not worried about a legacy. No, I'm cool. People always ask me like you're not worried about a legacy. No, I'm good. I don't want to put my child through like the pain and suffering that this world has going through, like this world is going through, like the most ridiculous things you know, you think about. You know, crystal all day has been talking about Diddy P Diddy, the rapper, and everything that is like coming to surface about him, and it's like it's just the things you don't know about people and I don't know, and to me, it all boils down to the help he may have needed.

Speaker 2: 34:25

You know, the battles that he, that no one knew he was fighting, you know, and the ability not to deal with those things in a healthy and you said it safe environment, you know. So it's like we need to start allowing people to feel safe, be vulnerable and heal and get out what the hell they want to get out. Talk Like let's have these conversations. Like you know, I think if you're mad at somebody, you should be able to tell that person why you're mad at them right.

Speaker 4: 34:57

Yeah, I think it's more of people get into their feelings of you know, and then the person that wants to say I'm mad at you starts to think about how they feel. Right, they're not thinking about their self first, right?

Speaker 2: 35:11

you know, it's the defensive mechanism. Yeah, like, everybody's always feels like they're not thinking about their self first. It's the defensive mechanism. Everybody always feels like they're under attack and it's like no, this isn't about you, this is about me. I'm like you know what? I'm angry. I think it's selfish. We live in that selfish me, me, me, me, me kind of society. Of course, there are exceptions to the rules. I'm going to say all of us are, you know, exceptions to those rules, and I, too, have a fantastic mom.

Speaker 2: 35:39

She is the reason why I made it through everything. I made it through as well, just because she always if I knew nothing else, I knew my mom loved me. You know, I knew that there was one person on this world and I had a great dad as well, but I kind of always my mom and my father divorced and in their divorce, me and my brother split custody and my brother got my father and I got my mother. So, you know, I just always gravitate more towards my mom, but I had an awesome dad too. I grew up with really, really great parents, but it's like you could still grow up with great parents and have a world of trauma, and I think that's what I'm trying to teach the world is like, or that's like my message to people, because I did. You know, there were a lot of battles I went through that people didn't know about, especially my parents, because I didn't want to bring them any harm, you know. So it's like I still went through a lot of things. But you know, it's like we can't always blame the parents. Sometimes we just have to blame society or what the actual issue is. But at the end of the day, you know, if I would have been honest as a child, I would have been felt safe enough to talk. You know it was like would my trauma have ended a lot sooner than what it did? You know, but we were.

Speaker 2: 36:53

I feel like I grew up in a generation where it was like what happens in this house stays in this house. Oh yeah, tell nobody your business. You stay silent, don't answer no questions, you know. So it's like you know. I think that's one thing I do kind of like about this generation now is that they're not scared to speak up. Yeah, but some of the things they're speaking about doesn't add to anybody's quality of life, and I feel like that's what we need to get to. We need to start thinking about healing each other and letting people each other know that it's okay to heal and it's okay to have your anger, but you have to move past it and get over it, and I'm going to stop talking now I'm going to let you talk.

Speaker 3: 37:35

Yeah, that's wonderful. The other day in my we call it iGroup I go every couple weeks. We have groups for the Mankind Project and there was a. You know we invite new men in and sharing something. And our leader said to the group you know we invite new men in and sharing something. And our leader said to the group he said one thing you'll never hear in this group is suck it up, buttercup. All your emotions are welcome here. Everything is welcome. You'll never hear that. You know that's yeah, so it's all welcome. And you know we'll, we'll work through it and you can share, yeah, so yeah, and that's really cool that you have that.

Speaker 2: 38:21

And I feel like, if you're out there and you don't have that, go get it, because there are places for you to feel safe, no matter what your situation is.

Speaker 2: 38:30

There are safe places for you. And if you can't find one, there's a lot of organizations that are willing to help. You know, if it's that serious, call 911. You know, but I mean, you know, outside of that, there's so many places and the same way you are on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook like, let's start Googling these places that are in your community that can help you heal, because they're there and that and that's what they're for you know to be, to feel safe and you know, and also to learn.

Speaker 2: 39:03

You know, I feel like when you're in those group environments and and and you're at a place where, like you said, there's no judgment and you learn a lot, you know, because you don't have to think about you know, oh, people are judging me right or I can't say this, so I can't ask this question and it's like and again, you know, and there's places that you can do that and you should be doing that, you know and the one thing you'll very quickly learn is that you're not alone, that everybody is is struggling with something that we every person out is is is struggling with something that we every person out there that you meet is struggling with, something that we know nothing about.

Speaker 2: 39:39

And a lot of people are hurting for no reason, you know. To me, I feel like it's the secrets that cause the pain. You know is, you know it's. It's not the event, it's the secret of the event. Once I started opening my mouth and letting words out. I think I lost 350 pounds. Like I was just light, I'm like I can lay down and go to sleep.

Speaker 3: 40:03

Yeah, that's right. If we keep it inside, it festers and you know it makes us. It's hard on our mental health, emotional as our physical health, everything it festers in there, but if we were able to let it out, you're exactly right, and I think it feels lighter.

Speaker 4: 40:23

It feels lighter.

Speaker 3: 40:24

Yeah, yeah, and it's hard to feel light in this lifetime.

Speaker 2: 40:27

So the fact that you can is really really cool and um and and, like you said, you know you all have your struggles. It's not always going to be a good day. You know we even talk about you. You know mentioned that. You know you still wish your relationship with your brother was different. So it's like you know you're sitting here and you can teach about emotional intelligence and all these things, but you're also living it.

Speaker 2: 40:50

And I think that's kind of a real thing kind of you know you're honest about it. But it's also like hey, I have my struggle, but in that struggle I'm still finding my ways.

Speaker 3: 40:59

And I'll always feel grief around the situation with my mother. You know it's something that I'll carry for the rest of my life but it doesn't have to overwhelm me, it doesn't have to, you know, sort of derail my life or anything. It's just way it is. But every time, you know I hear somebody they'll say, oh, I did this and that with my brother and you know we went on a trip and you know, share some positive memories and stuff like that I take a hit, right, I take a hit. It hurts. You know, every time, and I I know that it's, it's going to happen, and you know there's there's sort of ongoing sadness about that night. You know that that will never, that will always be the case.

Speaker 2: 41:39

I just something you have to live with and you know, um, you know, yeah, that's the way I always say there's some situations that you survive and then there's some situations that you just endure, and it's two different things and both of them are okay, but it's trying to get there. That's what we're promoting, that's what we're advocating for for you to go on your journey, to get to the place where you know what's going to make you sad, what's going to make you happy, what's going to cause your life to be good. Yeah, how to have good days every day. You know to wake up and and, like you say, get your surfboard and take the wave to.

Speaker 3: 42:22

You know yeah, spend more time in those good places, you know. Spend more time riding those. Those, uh, you know, the happy moments are good waves. Work on that and you know that's probably. Yeah, that's really all we can do. Just try to enlarge that time and focus on that and try to do more of it. Right, definitely.

Speaker 2: 42:48

Awesome, I actually wanted you to tell us a little bit about your books.

Speaker 3: 42:51

Awesome. I actually wanted you to tell us a little bit about your book, oh, okay, well, I've got a couple of books out was published in basically how I talk about emotional intelligence. I basically describe it, tell stories about it and how it's working people's lives and things like that in a real basic way. And that book's been published in China, in Vietnam and also in Saudi Arabia. You know, like the places that I was hoping to get foreign publishers but I never imagined it would be those places. I'm surprised, but anyways, the second one has just been out since last August.

Speaker 3: 43:54

It's called Emotional Intelligence Game Changers 101 Simple Ways to End Up Working Life and that's a compilation of just short stories about different situations where we can get into a face at work or in life and basically how to best deal with them, how to and it's basically how to use your emotional intelligence to make the most of of situations in life. It's just real practical. It gives you quick tips on how to deal with situations and you know everybody that reads it will recognize a lot of these situations. They've been in them or will be in them in their life and just a quick tip to how to make things work better. You know how to Emotion. Intelligence is sort of a lubricant that helps us, you know, get through the rough spots. It smooths our journey. That's sort of how I see it. It makes things easier. It makes things easier, it makes things better.

Speaker 2: 44:57

Yeah, definitely. Well, I'm going to order books, of course, but I want an autographed copy. We can talk about that later, right? Sure, I'd be at your pleasure. Yeah, but you know, people out there listening, actually, we actually don't do video for this podcast because I don't want to distract anybody with our gorgeousness. You know you want people to understand that now is the time to heal, right, because you can't always wait for later.

Speaker 2: 45:28

You know, and you know I say trauma is expensive because when I think about how much time I spent on my feelings about the trauma I went through, I'm actually going to take that back and say how much time I wasted, right, Exactly, not processing and dealing with those feelings and emotions I had about that trauma. I feel like I could have had a whole nother life, like I could have lived two lif, had a whole nother life, like I could have lived two lifetimes in this one life, Like there's so many things I could have done, there's opportunities I could have had, there's friends I could have met, events I could have went to. You know, I'm mad, right, because Celine Dion really not performing, no more, and I'm like I just thought I would have time to see Celine Dion, you know, and I missed that opportunity, like I won't be able to go see don't laugh at me, I love Celine Dion, right, but you know, hey, that's part of my trauma. I wasted time. I knew I wanted to see her 20 years ago. I should have went to go see her, but no, I was depressed or me I always think I was more anxious than depressed. I feel like, um, that's kind of the thing I went through was anxiety. That was my issue, you know, and people were treating me for depression, but really it was anxiety. But you know, it's know that there's no better time than the present.

Speaker 2: 46:46

We got to start healing because this world is going down quickly and it shouldn't be what we want for ourselves or for the people we love. So let's get it together, let's start healing. You guys, make sure you go buy harvey's books. We're gonna list all of your links in the episode description below, so make sure that you go by and, um, follow them. Look. Practical tips, practical tips, practical tips. You know keyword, that means it ain't hard. You know, you could get it done and it's something that we probably all have experienced or will experience in the future. So we thank you so much, harvey for coming on. Is there any last minute things you wanted to say to our audience?

Speaker 3: 47:28

say to our audience. Well, yes, I will say to your audience um, you have a choice. You can. You can uh, uh, like, uh, micah was just saying you can. You can waste more of your life, um, struggling with something, or you can. You can start today and reach out for help and start working on your things uh, that that are bothering you. I can totally relate to what Micah just said. I have the same feeling, you know. I wish I would have started working a lot earlier. So start, start, start. Well, we'll give you the day to think about it, but tomorrow, do something, take some action. Okay, thanks for having me. It was a pleasure being on. I just love this.

Speaker 2: 48:10

Yes, definitely. Thanks for coming on, and of course we're going to get you on to these fucking feelings podcast and kind of dig a little deeper into what you do, so we're really looking forward to that. Thank you guys for listening, and you know, as I always say look, count the costs so we can make the change. Until next week, peace, love and blessings.

Speaker 1: 48:31

Bye, bye, until next week. Peace, love and blessings, bye, bye. And that brings us to the end of yet another insightful episode of Trauma is Expensive. I'm signing off on behalf of your host, micah Bravery, reminding all you brave souls to continue counting the cost and making the change. Don't forget to visit wwwtraumasexpensivecom, a dynamic space for understanding, healing and transformation, where we fuel the journey to turn pain into progress. Until we meet again, stay resilient, stay empowered and remember the mantra count the cost and make the change. Thank you for being part of the conversation. We bid you farewell, until next time.