 Good mental health. A regular podcast series that's designed to help you live a more fulfilling life. We do this by examining the tweets of Dr. Neil Maranello. He's a behavior expert and a solutions focus life coach in Woodstock, Vermont. He's been exploring the human condition for over six decades and we're pleased to have the good doctor on our podcast. As always, Neil, a pleasure having you on the show. My pleasure also about the focus for today's show is to more or less wrap up our series good mental health. We began this episode if you will this series, sort of with the 10 rules for life it's sort of morphed into that if you will, examining the tweets of Dr. Neil Maranello. We took a little bit of a break did a recap. A number of episodes followed, which to me were really talking about how the way that you perceive something influences the way that you think about it which then determines the outcome and the world around you. And we wrapped up our series with what I thought was really apropos was your tweet that talked about the meaning of life is exactly what you deem it to be in it. The point is that, you know, these sued sayers in these stages, through the dawn of time, none of them have any answer to that question any more than anybody else doesn't sort of comes down to is you decide what the meaning of your life is. Here, let's wrap up the series and share your thoughts with how this podcast series evolved and what it became and some questions that were brought to your attention from some of our viewers. The gap in time from our last podcast to now was filled with some interesting feedback which I received, most of which was focused on the extent to which you had a chance to work through your issues about your suicide attempt. And, and I wanted to take some time for just you and I to talk, which we've done a few times since then, so that you could have private sessions to decide what you wanted to share with the world about that and resolve the issue yourself. With regard to the meeting of life issue. The anecdote which comes to mind is the one that that happened with my younger son Kyle, who got basically a free scholarship to Emory College, which is often called the Harvard of the south. And his first couple of years he took a lot of religion courses. And as the son of a Italian Catholic and a Brooklyn Jew. I have always had to deal with the difficulty of different religions, and the fact that I was kind of the person who everybody wants to see the first grandchild first male grandchild and I was that so I sort of came into the world with a mission to bring these people together. I had little to do with religion myself. My daughter described me as a Buddhist, because I meditate a lot, but that qualifies either. But I remember asking my son. What, what did you learn with all that stuff that you know those religion courses that you took you know I was happy he got all a zone but it still seemed a little weird to me. Well dad I guess it took me a little while to figure out that nobody knows any better than I do what happens after you die. So the meaning of life, the concept of the meaning of life kind of started with that, that idea. And the thing that I think that our viewers would both like to hear though is what your perception is of what actually happened during your suicide attempt, both to you and your father, and what your perceptions are after that because that has given some meaning to your life. You know I certainly look back at that time and I, you know new I've spoken at length about it of course and certainly on this podcast series as well that you know I was going through probably one of the most difficult times of my life. I personally, having spoken with an astrologer ascribe it to an astrological transit. So you have some problems with that but that's how I've been able to compartmentalize it, if I will, and put it in to a context that is something I can move beyond. The problem with a with the power of a belief system, whether I agree with it or not, isn't the issue, the issue is, does it in fact help a person to grow or shrivel. Right. Yeah, and his advice helped me put this into a context so that I could examine it with you and with others in a more passionate analysis. And so again I was going through what I call the tunnel of darkness. And that what I think when you're in that period, you become very myopic. Again you're in a tunnel of darkness so this peripheral vision is gone and you're very very focused on one thing and so you can't see a lot outside of it. And so, being in that tunnel of darkness, it took me to this place where again I was focused on not being a burden, not wanting to be a burden to people. And when the event itself occurred. There was a time distortion in my mind, and in my brain. Yeah. And I look at it today and I still, I still see that time distortion and how when you were, when you were a teenager. Exactly. And again, you know you know I've talked about how the lighting that night even was completely different. So I was in a very different time awareness at that time because again I was in the tunnel of darkness. And when you and I have spoken again at length about it afterwards. And again there was this, there was this time distortion that went on and, in a way, you know I look at it. I'm sorry, for both you and your father. Well that's right. That's right. I'm trying to get to is that as much as there was a time distortion for me. My father was strangely roped into it as well. It was sort of reliving a traumatic period between him and I and my life that happened at the age of 17 and it was like literally recreating it. And so what, what he really blew up at you. At the age of 17 year olds who came home late, late from being out. And he waited for you. Yeah. And in his mind it sounded like he was feeling like if he didn't really come down on you when you were in your 50s for staying out late that he would be a coward like he had been when he ran away from the, from the guns. And so what's so interesting is, you know, through the work that you and I have done to be able to reframe that event. And, and it's so interesting to think that, you know, when that incident occurred at 17 the way that it inspired would sort of set up the incident, you know, 35 years later to actually be recreated to have a better ending to it to have a better outcome, if you will. And so for as an example, you know, the incident that happened at 17 between my, my father and I was a seminal event that was a separation for us as a matter of fact, the day after that, you know, he and my mother separated, and you know, eventually divorced and he moved out of the house. So 35 years later to actually have that same event recreated gave both of us an opportunity to have a better outcome. I can tell this to the listeners that for the five years after my incident, this occurred in July of 2014, my father passed in July of 2019, almost five years to the date of that incident it was just one week shy of the fifth year anniversary. So five years, my father and I worked so hard, and consistently to be in each other's lives in a positive way, and to show each other and to demonstrate to each other that we loved each other deeply. And I know that when my father died, he knew that I loved him. He knew that I knew that he loved me. So he was able to die, knowing that I loved him. And both of you knew that you were not cowards. Exactly that. And believe me those five years were not, you know, oh, tulips and daffodils there were some trying times where again, we tested each other and each of us found the line as to where we could cross with each other but I am so fortunate to have gone through that incident to be able to have had those last five years with him to rebuild and let him know that I do love him and I know that he loved me. Yes. And, and part of that fortune is the fact that you survived the most serious suicide attempt a person can have and still survive. And that survival resulted in a complete change in your perception of what happened when you were 17, and what actually happened when you were in your 50s. Instead of it's being a recreation, it was an opportunity for a reframing. I think that was the word that you used. The experience so that you could see yourselves more as heroes and as cowards. And I think that right there is is it. You know, help me see that you know my dad had issues of his own cowardice that certainly dog him throughout his life from his seminal event that happened when he was 1819 years old. He ran away from a horde of invading Chinese during the Korean war and him thinking himself a coward when all he wanted to be growing up was a army man. And in his moment of, you know, greatest trial he ran away but yet you were able to help me see that, well he didn't run away he turned around and ran back and ran back up that hill and grabbed that machine gun. He didn't fall into enemy hands. So he was in fact a hero, despite that maybe in his own mind. He was less than a man for a better part of his life and feeling like he was less than a man probably gave him the idea that he better be more of a man with you and really come down hard on his 17 year old son was coming home late so that he could teach you the lesson you needed to learn so you wouldn't become a coward like him. All of which was basically a bullshit belief system that he had created for himself, a meaning of life, which in fact was a negative meaning, and very little connection to what really happened. And you know as I look at the last years of his life how much pain that he was in because he had some physical ailments and things like that and how he was trying to be brave to soldier through, you know the pain, and how I would just give him a CD, how it would help alleviate the pain and how grateful he was just for that but yet how he wouldn't take such a simple proactive measure to relieve that pain himself. Yeah, it's true that an awful lot of people who have come to see me over the years. It's like they deserved pain. But like pain was some sort of divine punishment that came to them for some horrible construct they had formed of previous experiences. It's very interesting because the reframing of the pain, the reframing of the experiences often helps people to see themselves in a different light, and to accept that what there is is something that can be helped by just looking at it differently by just learning how to think about it differently. So we have had a few very difficult experiences. It surprises me that I'm still alive at 77 because it looks to me like there are at least a dozen times when most anybody else would have died and experiencing what I experienced. Wow. At the same time, I do believe in God, partly because of this. My God is someone who forgives, who understands and who helps me to change how I think about things so that I can help others. And that helps me. Well, and what I thought was really interesting I was just thinking about this as I was preparing for today's podcast here. Long after that, you know, you and I had had this sort of breakthrough with this about the realization of my father and how I was able to help heal him. That if you recall, I had seen my father. For those who are watching. Just a few days after Neil and I had had one of our final sessions, I saw my father. It was at a distance, but it was for a good three seconds. He was driving in a car and I had to do a double take to just make sure that it wasn't my mind playing tricks on me but I saw my father and I, I, as I look back and in preparing for this that was like sort of an aha for me it's like, oh my God, I saw my dad. Not long after you and I have had our final session where we sort of kind of nutshell this together that I was able to help heal them at the same time and, and that now I see that as a wonderful confirmation from him. I'm going to appear to me and to let me know that it's okay and, and it as a symbol, he was in a car, and so that he's moving on. He's moving on to the next stage for him. And that was sort of maybe our goodbye. And whether what you saw was real or a projection or a hallucination or whatever and other people want to project on to it. The truth is that it was the closure that was needed to deal with really the only unresolved major issue in your life. You have spent most of your life thinking of yourself more as a loser and a coward than as a winner and a hero. And by virtue of your having been father to your father, by virtue of your having understood what happened to him and applied it to yourself and seen your contribution to his healing. You are now, at least in my best fantasy, done with any cast therapeutic process and ready to get on with your life as the winner that you are wonderful. Not sure what format that's going to take I can say that I'm in a really great place right now. Where I am actualized by doing something 180 degrees different than I ever thought I would want to do which I'm now doing locksmithing, which is just something that five years ago, never would have been in my realm of, you know, possibility or desire. So here I am in 2022. Excited about what is coming next. And even if it's not anything next to just actually be able to relax in the now. Sitting here, you know, preparing for today's podcast and just looking around and realizing how content I am with things that they are in the now, and how I, I actually don't really want to change anything, because the now is really good. It's all there is. And I can testify to your competence as a locksmith since you opened a file cabinet of mine that I couldn't open before. The experience of the present is all there is, but it can only be truly appreciated when you have to now in proper context, taking into account the past. Contributes to your existing in the now without some sort of self talk of how you screwed up in the past and how you need to, you don't deserve to enjoy the comforts and the experience of now. I haven't talked about this before, but nobody gets out of life alive. The issue is how do you get through this moment in a way which you can say to yourself I did the best I could. And if you feel in retrospect you didn't do as well as you could. How can I change so that the next time something like this comes up. I can feel I grew rather than shriveled. I think our work has really helped me be a little bit nicer to myself be willing to give myself a break and to not be so hard on myself that like oh I'm a loser or oh you're an idiot for doing that because that self talk of course is what can keep you down. This is the psychology today for giving that came out this month, and it's an extraordinarily important concept to be able to forgive yourself to be able to accept yourself as you are. It's taken me a long time fact I tweeted today about the fact that I see myself as an idiot so far. I, I'm very good at knowing how people think and changing that thinking so they can think in ways that are more constructive and positive for themselves. But if you asked me to figure out how to get this chair through that door. I can't do it. Yeah, yeah. I'm a thought engineer. I'm not an engineer that has to do with things. So the idiot part of me has been there my whole life. Fortunately I think I've been able to develop the thought engineer part of me to the point where I can help a lot of people. I love that framing thought engineer and to that end, you know, you're in my brain, and we've talked about that a lot that the self talk I have now in my brain is actually talking to you. And I find that I'm pretty content. And one of the things that I say to myself a lot is that I'm doing the best I can with what I have. And that's sort of my way to forgive myself if I don't, you know, do whatever in a in a way that, you know, maybe I'm self disappointing. No, I'm doing the best I can with what I have and it's going to be whatever it's going to be and I'm okay with it because I'm okay with myself. You know, and if you really look at in depth at any behavior, anything we do. It's a compromise. It's a compromise between forces which are pushing us towards doing something that would be worse and forcing the forces that are pushing us toward doing something that would be in our minds better. And when you understand what those forces are, you can move yourself toward the better. And I find that examining the negative forces, which we've done in these podcasts, I mean it can't get much more negative force in a person who so seriously tries to kill himself than you did. Who wakes up really unhappy that he didn't succeed in killing himself really pissed off at himself because he didn't, and who has now turned into the person that you're presenting to the world right now. So I want you to understand how getting into the negative at sufficient depth and with the proper help can help you to become more positive and more of a person who understands life as it really is. And you know that again is what I feel so great about the podcast series in a sense is that we have particularly in the last several episodes we've been trying to detail how your thoughts inform your perceptions, which then dictate your reality so it's really important to be careful how you think of something and to, you know, in my case, you know not always dwell on the negative because you can always find it but actually to really consciously look at the positive and to be in the now because I look around me and just here now. I look at what I have surrounded myself with of shape and size and color and texture and composite, even just you know looking here behind you. So, I see abundance now, wherever I look. And that is what the world now is presenting to me, because I'm making that conscious decision to see this abundance and train my mind to focus on the abundance rather than to concentrate on a perceived lack, which isn't there. It only exists in my mind. Exactly. What is really here. It's not a, I'm thinking, you know I'm going to ignore the negative and just accentuate the positive. There's a joke about a meeting in heaven between Norman Vincent Peel and Emanuel Kant. Norman Vincent Peel the guy who wrote the power of positive thinking, and Emanuel Kant, the great philosopher and Emanuel Kant comes out in flowing black robes and holds out his hand and says Emanuel Kant and Norman Vincent Peel says oh yes you can Emanuel just put your mind to it. I love it. Oh, what a great way to end our series your final thoughts on our podcast series here. My final thought is one of appreciation for you. I spent my entire professional life with audiences of one, or maybe two or three of family, and, and everything that I do is only available to the audience I'm talking to what people say about what happened is up to them. I'm not into bragging about about my competence, except maybe in my tweets. The bottom line on it though is that you've given me an opportunity to demonstrate to the world who I am and what I do. And this allows me to, to, in a sense, die happy, even though for all I know I am healthy and I may live another 10 or 20 years. I find it that if you are suffering, or someone you know or love is suffering and needs help. Invite them to call a suicide prevention hotline, or even to reach out to Dr Neil Maranello personally, he's available for your introspection and to help you with any issues that you may feel you have he's a life coach out of Woodstock Vermont. You can find him on Twitter at coach, Dr Neil. On behalf of the good doctor I'm Matt Kelly we're both wishing you good mental health.