 So I've always had this weird thing where I'm like crazy flexible. I'm actually curious. I have been wondering since my amputation if I can still do something that I was able to do before amputation. So let's give it a shot. It's kind of a party trick. Ta-da! I don't know, is that normal? Hello, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back. Now that I have a leg, an issue has been heavy on my mind that I'd really like to address because it's something that I was dealing with for the past 12 months and I'm a little bit concerned that maybe my posts on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook might start bringing it up in other people. So we're going to talk a little bit today about a subject that I think is generally avoided. But before we do that, I wanted to give a huge thank you to our sponsor today, Audible.com. If you're a subscriber of my channel and if you're not, I'd love it if you consider it. Probably heard me talk about Audible before. Audible.com is an audiobook library. It's the largest in the world and I love it. I've used it for, I want to say, probably the past three years. I love audiobooks. I listen to them all the time when I'm driving. And Audible is the only service that I've ever consistently used. I've tried a couple others and they just didn't measure up. The membership is pretty affordable. It gets you one book a month plus discounts on every book you buy through them. And right now, I'm reading Big Magic with the Patreon Book Club. I absolutely love this book by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you were going to join Audible and get your free book, I would recommend this one. A free book, you say? Well, yes. If you click the link in the description down below, it will not only support this channel, but it will get you a free month with Audible. No commitment, it will allow you to try them out and get a book totally free. Actually, completely free. So thank you so much to Audible for sponsoring this. Now, let's go ahead and dive in. There was one video I made I want to say maybe six months ago now where I talked about jealousy, zero animosity towards you at all. Like my happiness for your accomplishments is genuine, is real, but I'm also struggling hardcore with jealousy. I need a leg. I need a leg to walk. And I have no idea when that's in sight. And I'm seeing these people that were behind me that used to ask me for advice lap me. I mean, just so far ahead of me and the issues that they're facing are issues that I would love to have, like issues that I would just love to be struggling with. Jealousy is not something that I've spent a lot of my time dealing with ever in my life. In relationships, it's never really been an issue in life or work or watching other people succeed at stuff I wanted to succeed at. I've always been like, oh, I'll just keep working and I'll get there or whatever. But when I was facing step back after step back after step back and then I started seeing people who had their amputations done months after mine posting videos of running for the first time. And I was sitting at home in a lot of pain not able to even put on a prosthetic life with no end in sight. This green monster, I think that's what we call jealousy or maybe that's greed. This green monster just started choking the life out of me and as happy as I was to see their progress and I truly, truly was because they understand the pain of not having progress. I was so jealous and there was an ugly part of me that got angry seeing those posts that made me want to just like throw my phone. I never like lashed out or acted on that. But to be totally honest with you, it was suffocating. It was so hard to watch so many people excel and move forward when I so desperately wanted to be doing that and it looked like their lives were going so well. It looked like things were going so well for them and I think we hear this a lot but if there's anything to know about social media it's that things are not always as they seem. So now that I have this sucker right here and things are going pretty well for me I've had it less than a week but I'm taking short walks every day with just one crutch now and that's amazing and it feels good and I posted a couple videos about it and I'm just really excited about things and progressing and moving forward. I keep thinking about people who don't have that luxury yet who aren't in that position or who are facing medical question marks or just stuck with setbacks or whatever it is whether it's amputation or some other kind of mobility issue or something else entirely and I remember how I felt watching other people. The reason that I wanted to make this video today is twofold. First of all, when it comes to social media we see the highlight reels, right? With a lot of the people that I was so jealous of that I thought everything was going so well for them and why wasn't it for me and how could that happen? And I wasn't doing anything wrong and why was it working out for them? Like I was so happy, please don't get me wrong but I was also so angry. As I had conversations with these people you realize that things are not as they seem. Not everything is sunshine and roses. Like we often post the highlight reel of our life, right? We post like the really cool moments like, oh my God, I got a leg. Like things are moving forward. This is incredible. We don't always post when we're sobbing on the couch because it's overwhelming, which I've definitely done a number of times in the past couple days. So when I talked to the people that I was crazy jealous of it made me remember that they were very human and even as they were moving forward in their process they were still having a hard time and that brought an element of compassion back for me which was really important and it also made me realize that everyone is facing something pretty much all the time and is absolutely incredible in so many moments as this is, it's super overwhelming. I have had days where I don't wanna look at it. I broke down a couple nights ago and was crying on the couch with Brian because I was like, this is gonna be the rest of my life. I'm gonna have to assemble myself every single day and like I should be happier about this. I think we all know should is a terrible word to use to ourselves, but I do it and I'm trying to stop it. Like I should feel, I should only feel like joy and happiness and I'm so glad to have this but it's also complicated. It's not just a simple feeling and it's overwhelming and it's a lot and there's so many aspects to it but what you guys have seen for the last week are all of the really cool moments and the moments that I am so psyched and so excited legitimately and those are real too. As I post those things I think about everybody out there who isn't in this position right now. I think about myself months ago when I was watching other people post similar things or talk about it or see them in person. I'm not sure if this is a weird thing to say but I just wanted to say that if that's the case for you watching any of my videos, please don't feel bad. I think it's a very human thing to want to be where we want to be and when we see other people getting there or it looks like they're getting there that can be painful and if you are in a position where you're dealing with setbacks of whatever variety whether you're an amputee or not, I'm so sorry. I was there for 12 months and I may be there again in a week. I have absolutely no idea. If watching videos of me being happy about getting a leg is hard for you or if the photos and videos and stories of me on Instagram are not doing great things for your mental health please feel free to unfollow me. Please feel free to not participate, to unfollow. Not like you need me saying that but I guess I just wanted to say that I understand that watching this can be complicated because it's been complicated for me on the other end of it. We really demonize jealousy in our society. In fact, when I posted that video about dealing with jealousy a lot of people told me that I shouldn't feel that way. I got a number of personal messages extremely compassionate educated messages saying hey, you shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't be feeling this way. And I so appreciated people reaching out to me with their thoughts, but at the same time it's a human emotion to have and I think if we stuff it down it doesn't just go away. Generally bad things happen. In my own personal opinion, it's just my opinion, we have to look at it. We have to deal with it. Sometimes we have to feel it for a little while before it'll run its course and go away. And whatever we have to do to take care of ourselves during that time is okay. As long as we're not hurting other people, of course. I am so grateful, especially in this moment to have sunshine here, which is what she's called if you didn't catch that. But just because I'm in a season of what feels like moving forward in my journey right now doesn't mean that I forget that none everybody is there. And if you aren't there, please know that I'm thinking about you and I feel for you and I get it. And also I cannot thank everybody enough who has sent me such ridiculously happy encouraging messages and like cried with me with happiness and like seeing my progress and my videos. Holy crap, that is just, you all mean so much to me and I really appreciate it. And I feel like this has been a very rambly a little bit all over the place and maybe a bit of an odd video, but I wanted to address that feeling that I had had for months. Say that I get it, if you're feeling that way. I understand. Not everything is sunshine and roses, I assure you. We'll probably talk about some of that in upcoming videos. And wherever you are, and this applies to any emotion, it's okay to be feeling whatever you're feeling. I hope that made sense. Let me know if that made sense. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much to all of my patrons over on Patreon. Our family, our community is growing there and I couldn't be more grateful. It blows my mind that you guys are willing to do that for me, so thank you. To you watching this video, you've made my day by doing so. It means the world to me that you took a few minutes out of your day to spend them here with me, listening to me talk. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section down below. Also, if you have any suggestions for cool videos you'd like to see now that I have a leg, I mean like maybe a little bit down the road in the future when I have a, when I can like actually walk without crutches and do more stuff and less pain and I'd love to hear what you'd like to see me do because I wanna do absolutely everything that I possibly can. Thank you for listening guys. I love you, I am thinking of you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.