Beyond The Turning Points And The Inner Critic: Non-Combat P.T.S.D.

Today, I'm joined by Ash Perrow, a coach, musician, and former educator who shares his journey of overcoming PTSD, loss, and the inner critic that holds so many of us back. 

The host of Beyond The Turning Point, Mr. Perrow opens up about a life-altering turning point—the stillbirth of his first child—that set off years of emotional struggle, trauma, and ultimately, transformation. He describes how PTSD manifested in his life, the impact it had on his relationships, and the healing process that led him to a path of growth and empowerment.

Together, they explore the concept of turning points, how they shape our lives, and why recognizing them is crucial for personal evolution. Ash discusses the importance of processing emotions, the non-linear nature of healing, and how feeling emotions—rather than suppressing or overanalyzing them—can lead to true freedom. He also shares insights on overcoming the inner critic, the evolutionary roots of self-doubt, and how we can break free from fear-based thinking to step into our full potential.

Ash’s journey from schoolteacher to coach and musician is an inspiring example of how hardship can be a gateway to deeper self-discovery and purpose. He introduces his podcast, Beyond the Turning Point, where he shares stories of resilience and transformation, and his coaching work, which helps people step into the next chapter of their lives. Whether you’re struggling with past trauma, seeking to overcome negative self-talk, or looking to redefine your future, this episode offers invaluable wisdom and actionable strategies for moving forward.

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Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nicks. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today we are going to be having a conversation that we're We're going to cover a couple of different things, but the two points I want to focus in on for y'all to pay attention to the first is turning points and we have a guest in his particular case.

It was a near death experience, but turning point doesn't have to be so dramatic. You know, it could be a divorce. It could be empty nest syndrome. It could be a heartbreak. It could be anything. And so it's important to have some recognition of those turning points because sometimes we don't Recognize them.

And sometimes we need them more than we think. And we're going to talk about what do we do after a turning point, you know, because a turning point, as it suggests, can go one of two ways. Or three, really. You can stay the same, you can get worse, or you can get better. And we're here with a guest who is going to help us get better and improve our lives.

And that brings us to the second part of the conversation, which is our inner critic. And how that can hold us back, and how we can combat that and overcome that. And the role it plays with the turning point, because they do play a part with one another. And we'll also be addressing PTSD as well, among a variety of other subjects.

So it's going to be a great conversation. And Mr. Peril, Ash Peril, so glad to have you here to go over all this, a fellow podcaster, as well as you offer a variety of content on your website that we'll be diving into later on in the episode. So, would you please introduce yourself for us?  Thank you, Mr.

Whiskey, and, uh, yeah, beautiful introduction. Thank you. Uh, so my name's Ash Pero. My work that I do these days is a coach, and my background is, I was a school teacher for 22 years. I Had a few turning points, shall we say, and the first of those was in 2005 and I developed PTSD and it led to depression, adrenal fatigue.

I was diagnosed bipolar,  but actually for me personally it was PTSD and that took a while to come out. And I've had this amazing life, like I'm in my fifties and I've just had this amazing experience of life where there's been some really deep challenges and I've been blessed to come out the other side still happy and still able to enjoy life and actually be happier than I've ever been.

And part of those,  those traumatic experiences that, that actually opened up my life so that I could be happier.  So I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.  Right. I think that's like I was saying earlier on that you can kind of let it make or break you, you know, whether you are happy, happier or not happy at all after something like that.

And you talk about in 2005, having that PTSD development and calling it a turning point. But in the moment. Did you recognize it as something like that? I mean, how long did it take for you to even realize that you have PTSD? Because a lot of people, there's a I don't want to even call it a stigma but almost a stereotype that PTSD is, you know, war zone that, you know, you get flashbacks and shell shock, but PTSD can come in a variety of different forms.

For example, people who get in car crashes, sometimes they start braking much sooner. When they're driving, or they had this, you know, paranoia that they're going to crash, even if they're driving safely. So, for you, in your case, what did that look like?  So, for me, in 2005, my then wife, we separated 12 years ago, but at that time, We were having our first child and everything was going very smoothly.

We're going through the birth process. And when my daughter came out, she was stillborn  and it was like this moment where everything froze and.  And my whole life just flashed before my eyes and it was like, it was just when,  and I remember thinking to myself, this is love. This is love. This is love. And I was, my wife was looking at me and she had tears in her eyes and we're in the surgery room and the medical team are around us and she, she was just looking at me and it, it,  she wanted me to fix it.

That's how I interpret it. It was, she was just looking at me and going, Oh, it Fix this, this can't be happening. And a little while later, I was holding my baby and I, I just thought, I'm never going to let anything bad happen to my family ever again. And, and that was the moment where the PTSD locked, right?

It was like that, that glitch, it was like this glitch in my brain that went.  I, I have to, as the leader of the family, the provider, the protector, stop anything bad from happening to my family.  And over a period of a few years, I didn't know I had, you know, I didn't even know anything about emotional intelligence or processing emotions.

Um, you know, I was a school teacher, thought I'd be a school teacher my whole life and that, you know, maybe I'd become a principal and lead a school or, you know, and just have kids, be a dad. And  PTSD started to come in over a period of years and by the end of three years, I was only sleeping one to two hours a night, if at all, I was manic as in, you know, and my form of mania, like being on edge was okay.

I need to make money to protect my family. And I was working as a deputy principal in a school. So I was already making great money. So the rational. Processes just weren't happening and then I was staying up all night trying to make money on the internet and it just, it didn't make sense.  Um,  but for me, it was only, and at that point, you know, I ended up in mental health clinics and I was so ill I couldn't even sign my name to get into the mental health clinic.

My wife had to help me sign my name.  Uh, and so  I just got to the point where the PTSD just drove me to being almost like that vegetative state where I couldn't even process anything. And from there,  it's like,  okay, this is what my life is like right now.  What do I do with what I've got?  Right. No, I totally understand that.

And I do want to side pivot to an interesting observation that I've had a variety of different guests on my show and  at least American side and everywhere else in the world, I've always heard ex wife, but you're the second Australian I've had on the show and you both said then wife. So I think that's a very interesting observation.

I don't know if it's all Australians, but so far it's 100 percent ratio that yeah. Uh, y'all say then wife and and the way it was explained to me by Tim Thomas who was on the show was that it's a More respectful and positive connotation, you know x Wife or x whatever has a much more negative connotation Whereas you know that then has that positive so that's just an interesting side observation as you were speaking I said, huh, that's two out of two hundred percent ratio compared to every other guest So it's a it's a good term and I and I suggested but  As far as  you and your wife, after that happened, I mean, were y'all scared to try and have a child again after that?

Did it kind of scar you from wanting to have kids?  So we, after that, we ended up pregnant again, two months later,  right? And, and neither of us had the emotional awareness,  but so for that second pregnancy, there was just fear. So much fear, and I remember the night before the birth, I, I went to this church, and I just, there was a, a statue of Mother Mary, and I just sat in front of her, and I was just crying, and I was like, please, please, let this be okay, please, please, and I didn't realize I'd been so fearful for that nine months, until that moment, sitting in front of the statue, and  You know, it was the same for my wife.

There was a lot of fear, but  you know, God or the universe, however you want to describe it, handed us another baby and very quickly.  But we hadn't had time to process emotionally what we'd been through. And so going forward in our marriage, that really impacted our relationship because both of us had this deep grief, this deep suffering, this level of trauma that we're unaware of.

And we didn't have the support or the, the personal resources to, to manage that. And it, it didn't end up really. Impacting our relationship and I think it was, um,  a key contributor to the end of that relationship in that we were both suffering and unable to connect with each other in our suffering. 

Right, and I know from personal stories that I've heard, when there's a loss, you know, relatively close to the same time as a birth, it can have some impacts on the bonding between the child and the parent. So, for your child who was born, because both you and your wife were still healing, was there a bit of a disconnect there with the child as well? 

Uh, I can speak for me, so, not for me. It was like, Oh, you know, all I wanted was to be a dad. That was just such a crucial part of, of me at that age. And, and still, you know, it was like being a dad for me is just the greatest gift in my whole life.  And so for me, I was just the most devoted dad. I was just in everything and, and, and loved it.

So for me, there wasn't a disconnection for my wife, possibly. You know, it's, it's hard for me to say for her because I'm not really aware of her inner workings and, and how things sort of that, that operates for their relationship, like my, my daughter's relationship and, and her mother, um.  But, you know, there was a real grieving process for her and I, you know,  they say there's this, you know, um,  uh, what's his name, the comedian Russell, he's very popular, and UK guy, um, anyway, he talks about addictions, right?

And he, he was, he was a drug addict, sex addict, and, um, I'm getting messed up with Russell Branson, but anyway, it's close to that, and Russell Brand, there we go, Russell Brand, and so Russell Brand, he talks about addictions, and he said, he was very lucky that he was so severely addicted, that the way that he was going, he, he either had to deal with it or die,  right?

And so he says something around, you know, heroin addicts are very lucky because it's such a severe addiction that they have to deal with it very quickly. Whereas people that are addicted to alcohol, that can go on for 20, years.  And it can be very subtle, the addiction, and that was the case with me, because my PTSD just got so severe, I had to deal with it, and that led to GIFs, whereas for my wife then, she, it took longer for her, it took almost 10 years for her to get to that point of really processing the grief and moving through that, whereas for me,  it probably was about 6 and that's not to say there's not times I still don't grieve, you know? 

We're human beings and we have this experience of life and sometimes there's things that happen and we continue to walk life through life with those things. Right. And so, but the point where it was overwhelming and debilitating and really leading to,  to living from a state of fear and not even being aware that I was living from a state of fear, it doesn't impact like that anymore. 

So would you describe your PTSD from that incident as? a almost an unrealistic expectation and skewed viewed of your life that kind of affected you emotionally and mentally and to the point that, you know, your actions weren't,  I'll say almost weren't logical. They weren't lining up with your identity in your life. 

Very true. And my wife kept saying, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? You know, we want to spend time with you. Why are you doing this? Right? And I was doing it for my family in my PTSD brain. And it made sense in my PTSD brain, but I had to do it fast. You know, that that's the trauma just coming up.

I have to take care of all these things.  Right, almost living in a state of constant fear, paranoia, like that, that There's going to be a threat to your family, you know, in a financial form, an emotional form, physical form, just trying to always be ready, and it kind of hindered your flow of life, so I get that.

Would you say that,  you know, because of how soon your second child came, because the grief was interrupted, that played a huge role in it, so for people who are going through what you went through, What advice would you give to them as far as, like, emotionally processing what happened? I know with yours it got interrupted, but years later you managed to kind of take care of that.

Is that advice applicable to people who are going through it right now?  One of the greatest gifts in my life has been professional therapists, professional support,  and  That when I accessed that and was consistent with it, because I'd think, oh, okay, I'm okay now. And that I would say, you know, if things flare up again, come back and see us. 

But I would just let it keep going and going and going, and so I had this pattern of going well for a while and crashing, going well for a while and crashing. And so that consistent support and really investing time into healing and not having an expectation that it's going to take two months or six months or six years, you know, and not expecting it to be linear.

This, that's a classic thing in our human brains.  Okay, I'm going to go from A to B and it's going to be on this upward trajectory all the time, right? Whereas it's more like the stock market. It's going up and down and, you know, even it's probably even more like Bitcoin, right? There's even like bigger fluctuations, but that's the process of healing is that it It's not linear.

It's a, I call it a butterfly path. It's like, you know, butterflies, they go, Oh, I see that flower over there, but they try and fly in a straight line to that flower. They can't. And that, that's how a healing  It's like, t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t Well, it's because humans are very structural beings, I feel like, because you talk about linearism, and, you know, wanting that linear path of healing, and I agree because Look at what we have.

I don't know how many steps it is, but like the steps and phases of grieving, you know, like we've categorized it. We've, we've charted it into this linear path. You go to this step, then this step, then this step, and maybe some different versions of it have arrows going backward to a certain step and then going forward.

But typically it's this process, you know, like we try to But even with a lot of psychology studies, we try to categorize and patternize human beings so much so that, you know, you have to do this to this. I think even with, like, addiction recovery, it's not the same for everyone, you know. I mean, we have this relatively linear system that works for a majority of people, but it's not always going to be that way.

And I know with,  I, for example, my mother, when she lost her one daughter, my half sister, you know, there would be days, years later, where it would just be a random thing that she saw that reminded her of my half sister, and it would come and go in phases, you know, and I think, especially in your case, when you see people with their children, or you see some kind of event, you think to yourself, You know, this could have been me.

And I think, in your case especially too, with the marriage falling apart, partially resulting from that, there's times where you think to yourself, and correct me if I'm wrong, where you're like, you know, if my, if my child had been born, my wife and I would still be together. You know, my then wife and I would still be together.

So I think there's  Even, especially in your case, in those kinds of situations, there's so many what ifs. You know, you see like, uh, all these different futures that could have been.  Yeah, yeah, and one of the hardest things for me was that one of our friends had a baby in the same hospital on the same day.

And it was a girl, right? And so, for these, you know, these girls 20 now, right, she's a young woman now, but that whole, I would see her and it was, I felt such sadness, but also the connection to this child that was born literally an hour after us in the same room, and they were in the room next door to us in the hospital.

And so talk about, you know, like sliding doors and different moments. Here's this version of, of this family that had their baby and there was us that did it. And so, wow.  It, it's a, it, it's a beautiful reminder, right? Like there's so much, if I can be connected to grief and it's tenderness and allowing myself and having the self-compassion to be sad,  it, it then creates the freedom.

And I can see the beauty in the moment. And  that's, it's a very subtle skill to have to be able to connect to the tenderness of grief or the tenderness of disappointment and be in that. And then once we feel it, right, feelings are for feeling, believe it or not, that's why they're called feelings. Right, right.

We feel them  and that, that's a skill. And in Western cultures, we're generally not taught how to feel, how to spend time with an emotion. And so that was one of the gifts of, um, my experiences that I went through was that, Oh, I learned to feel.  Oh, the gift of, of feeling, the gift of truly being present with a feeling and not judging that I shouldn't have the feeling. 

Yeah, because we, we love to, you talked about structure and linear. We, we love to try and keep ourselves in a box. That we should and shouldn't be doing things. For sure. And in Western, Western culture, we shouldn't feel. We should be happy. We should be inspired. We should be living our dream, our best life, fulfilling our purpose.

But in, in that, it's like, well, the actual whole of who we are  is that we're human. You know, we can have these  lofty inspirations, the soul leading us to wherever it is the soul wants to go. But we also have the humanness. And without that, we don't feel. And if we're not feeling, we're robotic. We're not human.

We're not fulfilling what it is we're here to do and be and experience.  Right, and I want to,  you know, comment there that feeling, you know, your emotions and going through them is different than letting them control you, you know, they're two very different aspects, and I think, like you said, it's important that you feel them, and I think we're taught more to just think about them and either Throw them away, or I think think too much about them, you know, and not just process them So when you're talking about feeling them, I mean, what does how would you describe that to someone who is unsure if they're actually You know feeling their emotions like how would you describe? 

Living that and actually implementing that into your life  Great question. The,  so for me, when I was going through counseling, right, I got to that point where I was so low, I couldn't operate in the world, I had to take time out. I was medicated,  but. It was, and I was going to so many psychologists and counsellors and I felt like I'd seen so many different ones that I knew exactly what they were going to say.

Right. And I would go into a counsellor and I'd sit down and we'd have an hour session and they would just ask all these things that had already been asked. And then one day I ended up, someone suggested I go work with this man whose name, Peter Saxon, and he was specialising in men's Therapy  and  he got me to connect him with my body.

Oh, all right when you so you're talking about this experience Where is there a sensation in your body? That's really standing out to you. And so let's let's say for example It's in my throat  and it's like okay. Well, let's just spend a bit of time with the sensation because if we're unable to deal with Things that are happening in our life even as children we lock those emotions in our body.

It's like okay I can't handle this now. I'm gonna put it in a box and I'm gonna store it here And so let's say, you know, I might have anxiety and it might be my throat or it might be my chest But let's say the throat say, okay Spending time with that and having someone guide you through that, it's like, what does it feel like, does it have a shape, a color, a texture, an energy, a vibration, does it remind you of a physical object,  and being able to observe it without judgment. 

So it's, okay, here's this emotion, you know, we were just talking about this traumatic thing that happened. I noticed that I had this real tension in my jaw. Okay, that's okay for it to be there. It's just a feeling.  I'm going to watch it. And so when we spend time with those feelings, and we guide it and support it, they will naturally process, they will naturally diffuse.

But if we want them to diffuse, that's not gonna happen.  Right? So my mind is saying, we need to move this on. No, no, no, no, no. The trick is just being with it, sitting with it.  So would you say, I know we mentioned in the very beginning of the episode, turning points. We talked about your traumatic experience being one, and then I guess you would say, would you classify this encounter with this therapist as one turning point as well? 

Absolutely, absolutely. And it taught me that, ah, okay, I've been seeing all these therapists and counselors, they've been trying to work with my head.  This isn't in my head, it's in my body.  Ah, and it was mind blowing. It was mind blowing.  In regards to Turning Points, we all have them,  but it's what we do after the turning point.

That's really the most important piece. And so I can have a traumatic experience or I can have a disappointment. I can have a failure.  What I do after it, that's what counts.  Right. And we talk about after the Turning Points, one could say beyond the Turning Points, which is a reference to your podcast. So could you please tell us a little bit about that?

You know. Why are you running that podcast? What's the purpose of it? And who should listen to it?  So the podcast is just about providing examples, a bit similar to your podcast, providing examples of people who have had experiences and they've moved on. How have they moved on? How have they, what have they, what is it that they've done that has taken them from Being sad and miserable or traumatized or whatever it is.

What is it that they've done that's taken them To being happy and inspired and able to get on a podcast and share what's happening in their world or the work that they do with the world How did that happen?  because  Like the sliding doors,  we can go, as you said, three ways.  So how do people do that? And so it's just, the podcast is just about sharing those kinds of things.

And sometimes I'll do a solo cast where it's just me sharing strategies that have worked for me and, and things so that people can process and people can move forward and  having the past sitting in front of us,  that makes life very challenging. Whereas, if we can put the past behind us, it opens up like a freeway, that, okay, now we can create our lives and, and feel like we're in charge. 

Right. And I know you mentioned, uh, and we talked about coaching and, and workshops and stuff like that in addition to the podcast. So, you know, we're going to have your website and all the information in the description below for people to access, but I mean, who should kind of check out these, these workshops and kind of work with you one on one? 

So, for me, I'm not a therapist, right? Like, I've been through a lot of therapy, I've done a lot of therapist trainings, but for me, I coach. I'm about the future. And so people who feel like they've done quite a bit of therapy work and, and want to create their future. That, that's who I work with. It's like, and, and people who have been through relationship,  relationship breakups or health issues or, or trying to change careers and things like that, it's like, okay, the future, I, I'm the future possibilities oriented and, you know, some, some, you know, people are welcome to have a free chat with me and I might be able to refer them to a therapist that will help them deal with the past. 

Um, but for me it's like, okay, you've already dealt with what's there or, or spent quite a bit of time healing and now you want to create your, your new life or change your life some way and so they're the people I work with.  I think that's really important to focus on because so many people get frustrated they're working with a coach or a mentor, whether it's for their business, their podcast, their life, whatever it may be, but you talk about if you haven't dealt with the past yet and you're working with people on your future, you know, you kind of have it in the way, you know, you talk about having it in the way and that's really how it is.

So I think that's important for people to realize, you know, we've had a couple of episodes on my show even talking about how so many people Leading successful businesses and lives don't realize how much of their past is actually in front of them and they can't see it and Sometimes you need someone to help you see it because you know, we all have our own skewed vision You know, and I actually want to bring that into part of that is due to the inner critic You know inside of us skewing our vision.

It could be PTSD. It could just be Pressure from outside factors such as family or society and then just her own personal belief So let's talk a little bit about the inner critic, you know, you talk about helping people overcome that So what what exactly is the inner critic in our context?  So, from my perspective, the inner critic is this primal structure that's in our brain, an evolutionary structure, and it might appear in our lives as perfectionism, negative self talk, self sabotage, people pleasing, and  for humanity to survive,  One human that the chances of survival are a lot less than if they're in a tribe, right?

So when we were hunting in tribes, we were quite powerful, right? We could take down a woolly mammoth, right? Yeah, but on our own the chance of killing a woolly mammoth on our own very very much very much smaller or or You know, there might be a tribe that was  If there was five people in a tribe and 50 people in a tribe and there was a battle,  I can generally assume the 50 is going to win, right?

So, for humanity to survive, we had to be in a tribe. That was the optimum survival structure.  So that was reflected in our brains.  And no matter how dysfunctional the tribe, our chances of survival were greater whilst being in a tribe.  And so when we try and do something that's vulnerable or courageous, so for example, you know, let's just say someone has a poem that they've written about their experience, they want to share it with the world. 

When our brain perceives us as being vulnerable or courageous,  It then tries to make us safe. And so those things like self sabotage, perfectionism, they come up to try and keep us safe. And that's the inner critic. He's trying to stop you, and you know, literally, the weight of humanity is on our shoulders, right?

That's what's happening, is these primal structures kicking in to try and keep us in the tribe. And  We don't want to be different to the tribe. This is the inner critic speaking. Don't be different to the tribe, because if you're different to the tribe, the tribe is going to be harmed and humanity is going to die out.

So therefore be worried about what people think. Be worried about what the tribe thinks of you, because if you're doing the wrong thing and you're harming the tribe, you're going to get kicked out of the tribe. Then you're going to die.  Right.  No, I totally get that. And so you help people kind of overcome that inner critic.

And, you know, that's much appreciated. I think a lot of us don't recognize it as that. And then, another thing I want to talk about, which may play a part into all of this, or may be completely separate, but, I know that you're a musician. Is that, is it kind of like, music came and then the trauma, trauma came and then the music, or do they exist completely separately? 

So music, I was already playing music when, in, by 2005, but what I found was, when I was in the hospital, and my wife was sleeping a lot, and we were in the hospital for a few days after that. Right. And, I just sat and played my guitar in the, in the, the sort of community room and there was nobody else around and I just sit there and play my guitar and it was so soothing, so, so soothing.

And  it was  from there I went, well, you know, I thought I was just going to be a dad, take away the just, I thought I was going to be a dad.  It's very important role being dads and  it didn't work out the way I expected. So.  I'm going to teach, be a teacher less because I was a school teacher, but I'm going to be a school teacher less and start performing music.

And so that was one of the turning points, right? I turned this experience into a positive experience and I started playing live music. And from there, that led to about 20 years of playing music. Playing music live and phenomenal experiences like being in a successful band and traveling all over the country and radio interviews and radio play in Europe and festivals.

And it was mind blowing. And I was just at, up until that point, just playing the guitar in the lounge room. And so that was one of those  ways that something that was Just a, uh, a horrible thing to experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. I opened up doorways because I thought, well, what am I going to do with my life now that, that I'm not a dad? 

What role would you say you being an educator has to play in all of this, if any? 

I was an educator because I really cared about people.  And as an educator, I was so passionate about people, children, becoming.  Empowered, like fully in their potential, what opportunities can I create for them so that they're happy and inspired. And so that has just been this, this little,  little thread that's run through the fabric of my life is, is helping people to be that inspired version of them that they know is there. 

And, you know, on top of that, this teacher for 22 years, it's meant as a coach, I've been. You know, when I facilitated groups and workshop, there's been this skill set there so that I can communicate, I can set up these structures for people so they can grow. Right.  I was going to say, you know, it's a full circle where as an educator, you were empowering children and helping them learn.

And then now you're helping adults, you know, through your podcast, through your programs to also reach their full power. And I think that's important because not all of us. Had educators in our lives or mentors or parents in our lives who really helped us see life and learn properly and know and understand our potential or to know how to feel our feelings.

So, I think it's so important to have people available and shows like this available to have people learn about that stuff. And like I said, we'll have your show, your website, and your social medias in the description below to, you know, help people reach you more. I know you You mentioned, I saw on your bio, TikTok seems to be one of your biggest platforms, correct? 

Yeah, it is. So I have about 400 videos on TikTok and it, almost all of them are about processing emotions or navigating challenges or navigating that negative self talk that we have so that we can be thriving.  Yeah, so ladies and gentlemen, if you want some of those short bites of information, we'll have that in the description as well.

But I appreciate these long form conversations as well because they get You know more into the detail and it's so important to hear and have these kinds of conversations And so as we wrap up this one, you know, mr. Perro, what would you want to leave us all with you've talked about? feeling our feelings about you know, recognizing turning points and  Moving beyond them and using them as ways to improve our lives rather than to let ourselves fall into victimization and pitying and then just the role that education has played in all of this and the importance of helping other people.

So, to help us all,  just one last time on the episode, what would you leave us with?  We all just have these beautiful, unique hearts and they're calling us to live life in a certain way. Amen.  And one of the keys is just trusting ourselves, trusting, you know,  no matter how low you are, trusting that you're going to work it out.

Or if you are one of those people that's trying to create things in your life because you've processed the past, it's like keep trusting, keep trusting yourself. You're going to get there and it's just one step at a time. So, um, yeah, that, that's been one of the greatest gifts in my life is just approaching life that way.

That it's okay, one step, keep trusting myself.  I think that's beautiful. You know, we live in a day and age where we are constantly being bombarded by the Internet, mainstream media, you know, our friends and family. And so  On top of that, you add our inner critic as well, so it's, a lot of people have trouble trusting themselves because they're being told so much information, you know, left and right from all kinds of different people.

So I think it's important, like you said, to focus in on our unique, beautiful heart and what do we want to do and then following that. Not letting our past block that because our past can make us really doubt ourselves, so. I think that's great advice, and I appreciate you coming on the show today to share all the advice that you've given us, and to share your story.

I think it's so beautiful that you are pursuing this role of empowering others after what you've gone through, you know, really not only making your life a happy and positive experience from that, but being able to do so for others as well.  Thank you, Mr. Whiskey, and acknowledging the same thing in you. I see you doing that and what a gift to these people listening that you're sharing your gifts in this way.

So, yeah, thank you.