Ep 218 D Paul Fleming | Healing Childhood Trauma Through Storytelling & Becoming a Veteran Advocate

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY: 

D Paul Fleming, a retired Navy veteran and spiritual healer, shares his lifelong journey from trauma to healing. His story is a testament to resilience, as he recounts overcoming severe childhood abuse detailed in his book “2,442 Steps To Crazy.”

Through writing and sharing his experiences, Fleming found therapeutic relief while inspiring fellow veterans facing similar challenges. D Paul and I discuss the systemic issues within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system. Despite its flaws—such as inconsistent care and bureaucratic hurdles—our conversation highlights the need for holistic support addressing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual pain.

Fleming’s narrative underscores the power of storytelling in healing processes and advocates for creating safe spaces where veterans can freely express their vulnerabilities without judgment. He emphasizes unity among veterans regardless of their roles or experiences during service. Reflecting on personal anecdotes about confronting suicide temptations due to VA shortcomings further illustrates these struggles’ complexity.

Ultimately, Fleming inspires hope by urging others to share and listen deeply—a call to action reminding us that through collective understanding comes strength and healing beyond individual battles faced alone.

RESOURCES:

  • Book, 2,442 Steps to Crazy
  • Book, A Date with Suicide
  • Donald Dunn – Hero Stock
  • Operation Deep Dive
  • Gretchen Smith | Code of Vets
  • Grief Recovery Method

CONNECT:

_______

NEED HELP?

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
  • Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

Healing Through Storytelling – A Veteran’s Journey

In a recent episode of the podcast “Grieving Voices,” I had the great conversation with D Paul Fleming, an individual whose life story is as compelling as it is poignant. As a retired and disabled US Navy veteran, his narrative weaves through personal trauma, spiritual awakening, and relentless advocacy for fellow veterans. The episode offers profound insights into the challenges faced by veterans while simultaneously providing hope and inspiration.

Unveiling Childhood Trauma

Fleming’s journey begins with his difficult upbringing—a childhood marred by extreme abuse at the hands of a stepfather he refers to as “Crazy.” His book 2,442 Steps TO Crazy serves not just as a memoir but also as an act of catharsis. It was only after sharing this deeply personal account that Fleming realized its impact; other veterans have credited his work with saving their lives. In writing about physical injuries such as broken bones alongside more insidious verbal abuse, Fleming opens up about psychological scars that can often feel invisible yet profound.

Spiritual Awakening Amidst Turmoil

Despite such adversity, Fleming found solace in faith—a guiding force throughout his tumultuous journey. He speaks candidly about moments where he felt watched over by something greater than himself—an awareness that spurred him on even when despair loomed large. This spiritual connection aligns closely with both his Native American heritage and Irish Catholic upbringing—two worlds merging into one path toward healing.

Critique of Veterans Affairs System

A significant portion of this dialogue critiques systemic issues within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system—a quagmire rather than sanctuary according to many narratives shared during discussions like these ones held between host & guest alike! From inconsistent care plagued by bureaucratic obstacles downplayed mental health concerns especially around suicide prevention summits attended mainly non-veterans themselves lacking firsthand understanding military life experiences altogether!

Fleming recounts how systemic failures forced him towards private healthcare solutions ultimately yielding better diagnoses long-standing medical issues highlighting inadequacies inherent VA structure itself which fails address integrative needs encompassing physical emotional spiritual realms simultaneously necessary comprehensive treatment plans tailored specifically each individual’s unique circumstances histories backgrounds etcetera…

Episode Transcription:

Victoria Volk: Oh, friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Greeting Voices. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. And if you are returning, thank you for coming back. Today, my guest is D Paul Fleming, he is a retired and disabled US Navy veteran, life coach, business consultant, public speaker, and published author. In alignment with his native American heritage and spiritual gifts, he is also a seasoned holy man. Spiritual adviser and healer. And today, we are going to be talking about your work and what you’re doing for veteran suicide. And so I’m very honored to have you as a guest.
I am also a veteran. My husband is a veteran. I come from a long line of veterans. And so thank you for sharing your story today and for bringing this awareness to my podcast.

D Paul Fleming: Well, I’m grateful to be on your show. Thank you so much for having me.

Victoria Volk: Often people do the work that they’re doing because they often have a personal story and there’s something that led them to take that path of being a healer, being a spiritual adviser, in your work, doing the work that you’re doing with veterans and suicide. But I wanna start back in your early life and what were the messages and lessons that you’ve experienced in grief and trauma or anything in childhood. Because what I have found is that especially people who have had a lot of grief or trauma in their childhood and they go into the military, it can be compounded. And I really firmly believe that there’s a larger conversation there as in terms of when it comes to aces, like adverse childhood experiences and with veterans. So I’d wanna dig deeper into that later in the conversation, so we’ll put a pin in that. But let’s start first with your origin story, if you don’t mind.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. That’s a that’s a big topic to cover. I actually put it out in the very first book that I ever wrote, two thousand four hundred and forty two steps to crazy. And it kinda takes you from my first memory, which is being tossed through the air and in the corner of a couch and breaking a couple of bones through the my last day with the stepfather, which I call crazy for for good reason. The part that kind of dovetails into a veteran’s life is everything I wrote in that book I never talked about. I’ve been married for, as I like to say, fifty years Right? And never said anything to my wife and certainly never said anything to my kids. So when I wrote the first book of my childhood and handed it to my wife and published form, was the first time she knew anything about it. It took her a few days to kinda come around to to talk to me. And, you know, when she did, you know, the first things out of her mouth was you weren’t abused. You were tortured. You know, you kind of kind of made me draw back and say, you know, I never really looked at it that way, you know. From my experience, abused children kind of blamed themselves for everything. Right? So whether you whether you really believe it’s your fault or not, that’s kind of the overall feeling that you’re left with that that life of, you know, being told from first memories to you know, when you finally get out of those situations that you’re you’re nothing. You’re never gonna amount anything. You’re terrible. You’re you’re relying on this and that and and so on. You know, the verbal abuse is probably the most destructive, you know, the physical abuse, the broken bones, the, you know, the concussions, the, you know, all the things that I had to survive through, you know, are are not as memorable as the as the verbal abuse. That that sticks with me to this day. And it’s very very difficult to to overcome. Very difficult.

Victoria Volk: What does that look like for you?

D Paul Fleming: You

Victoria Volk: know overcoming it? I mean, I imagine that it was very therapeutic to write the book, but what how did you get to that point where you were even able to put it into words on paper?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I I do my best to try and keep these answers not long winded, but the but to really answer that is a very, very long conversation. So let me see if I can kinda cliff note it. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a deep, deep faith. And it, you know, a couple of points in my life I got pretty pissed off and started blaming God and so on as many of us do that live through top stuff. Right? But my faith is what kinda kept me upright. And in the end, it was my faith that kind of time. My faith is is kind of my cornerstone. And even in the darkest times when I was, you know, terrified and terrorized and brutalized, I always had in the back of my head somewhere that feeling, that sense, that something was there watching over me and kinda fast forward through life, if you will. It started coming to me that I need to I need to write this book, I need to start telling these stories. And I had an argument with myself, the baby Jesus, God, every spirit known to man forever. I’m not writing a book, I’m not telling a story. Who the hell wants to hear my crap? Right? I nobody’s gonna read this. Nobody. Well, I finally had to give up and and say, alright. Fine. If if the baby Jesus is gonna leave me alone, I better write this book. So I sat down and wrote the book, and that was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. It took me, you know, year and a half to to write it. But I wrote it four or five times, threw it out, started over. It was it was difficult. But once I got through remembering and then my wife reading the book, the relief that started coming along. And again, it didn’t all happen at once. It kinda happened as I was writing it. But the relief that came along was transforming. I mean, it really was. It was it was, like, spring cleaning or or emptying your closet, you know, getting all the crap out of there and, you know, turning a light on. You know, I could see what was what had happened to me. You know? And I still blame myself, of course. Right? You know, I can’t undo that piece, but I don’t feel the burden of self blame. You know? And then, of course, when I start talking to other people who start telling their stories, you know, I’m like, jeez. You know, I’m I’m dumbfounded at how many people had, you know, abusive childhoods or relationships and how many people have come to me and said that this book has helped them. And between this and some of my other stuff that I’ve written, I’ve had people, especially veterans, come to me and say, quote, your book saved my life, unquote. So that’s kinda where, you know, that’s kind of the cliff notes that that got me to write the books and tell the story. And then after you do a couple hundred podcasts, you kinda start getting I don’t wanna say numb to it, but, you know, it’s it’s a lot easier to talk about it.

Victoria Volk: May I ask what happened? Where was your father, your biological father, and your mother Oh,

D Paul Fleming: you’re not my father?

Victoria Volk: Yep. Your biological

D Paul Fleming: father. And Yeah. I I didn’t know. I don’t know. I have no idea.
My my mother had first my myself and my brother, you know, out of wedlock and never met him. My brother’s never met his father. And then my mother hooked up with crazy and had a couple kids but I I I don’t know. My my lineage goes through my mother, to my grandfather, it was a full blooded native American junked reservation and the Carlisle schools, if you will. Joined the navy, claimed he was white, and rose to the ranks of being an enlisted man riding submarines in world war two to retiring in nineteen sixty five as a lieutenant. I’m still disowning his Native American heritage because, again, back then, you, you know, you’re a a cook or a, you know, a Boson’s bank. Right? If you’re a black Native American, you know, so That’s kind of the extent of my lineage. You know, I know that I I know from my mother, I know pieces of who the guy was, but, you know, never met him.

Victoria Volk: And as far as the relationship with your mother, because I imagine she’s, you know, brought this gentleman into your home and was there it was I imagine it was just a home of chaos, but what did you Were you able to have a relationship with her?

D Paul Fleming: No.

Victoria Volk: Okay.

D Paul Fleming: No. No. I I to this day, I still can’t understand how a mother can, you know, let somebody abuse her child. You know? I mean, I just don’t I don’t understand how people can hit women. I just don’t. It’s it’s something I’ve I’ve screamed about my whole life. You just don’t hit women. Period. Period. You just don’t do it. And you don’t hit kids. You know what I mean? I I got six kids, but I gotta tell you, I’d love to smack a few of them around. Right? Not some Jesus. Right? But it’s just not it’s not what you do. Again, I’m not telling people you can’t smack your kid on the ass and, you know, crack them in a mouth for custiny or something. I’m not I’m not telling you how to raise your kid. What I’m telling you is, you know, there’s a there’s a pretty significant difference between smacking a kid on the button and, you know, breaking his arm. Or the scar on my nose is from waking up with a a waking up on, you know, I had something thrown at me in the middle of the night from crazy and, you know, I’m clustered and blood and, you know, no idea what the hell is going on. That’s abuse. I mean, that’s just brutal brutal abuse. Right? So no. There was there was never a relationship. You know, I don’t really talk to my mother much. She’s in her eighties now. I’ve seen her once in the last I don’t know a year, but I probably only seen her two or three times in the last five or ten years, you know.
So

Victoria Volk: Sometimes in cases of abuse, there’s one child that kind of gets the brunt of everything, but sometimes

D Paul Fleming: winter baby. Winter, I was the one.

Victoria Volk: So you were the were you the only one that then were all was all were all the children have used to some degree? Or was it were was it pretty much just you? Like Yeah.

D Paul Fleming: I might my brother would get smacked around and I had two younger sisters, they never got touched, you know. But I was, you know, like the like the dog in the pound. Right? I’d step in between them. Mhmm. K? And I would defend my mother. I’d defend my my siblings. I would even instigate to get his attention on me so that he wouldn’t, you know, start beating on the other ones. You know? But my brother has a completely different outlook on all of it. You know? You know, we we don’t talk about it. When I told him I was writing this book, he he he got pretty upset. You know? I mean, bent out of shape, you know. But he doesn’t judge me. I don’t judge him. You know? So kind of we’re we’re still good friends. Right? You know, but just some subject to don’t talk about. He sees he sees our mother, you know, I I wanna say every day, but, you know, he’s constantly constantly whether or around her. No.

Victoria Volk: And there’s grief in that. Right? Like, the the loss of hope streams and expectations of what a family unit could have been and what what could have been, I imagine that Maybe you maybe Yeah. I’m through at some point.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I I was never able to identify fairly what I wanted for a family. And when I when I hooked up with my wife, she had two kids, and we had four together. You know? So from day one, I felt lost. You know, I didn’t I didn’t know how to be a father. Right? So I would do as much digging as I could to find out the how to do things. And I, you know, couldn’t tell you if I was a good father or bad father. You know, I just know that I did everything I could to the best of my ability. You know, they never went hungry. They never went without paid for their colleges, you know, paid for cars, did it all, you know. But, you know, I’m I’m not a classic father of the sense who I never missed any of the kids sporting events from you know, for decades. Right? You know, I was always there. But, again, I’m kind of a, you know I mean, a veteran by itself is a is an outcast to a degree. Right? You know, we don’t really fit in tomorrow. And I and I kind of preach the veterans. Stop. Stop trying to fit in as a civilian. We’re not civilians. Let’s accept who we are. Right? And be us. Right? We don’t have to fit in anywhere. So and I’m very good at not fitting in. Right? You know?

Victoria Volk: You know, one of the things that came up for me as I was listening to you is sometimes what happens is too, like, children will I mean, they run away a lot. In the case of abuse, they’ll just they’ll run away. Is that, like, did you run away? And

D Paul Fleming: So how funny is that? Along the lines of running away. I In book two of David’s, I don’t know, two thousand four hundred and forty two steps to crazy. That’s that’s about my personal life. Right? In book two, I start talking about this family, Frankie Pilaries, old Italian family. Right? And I mean, old Italian parents didn’t speak English. Right? Wine in the in the shed scrapes all of it. Okay? Well, it was a number of months ago. I I haven’t seen Franki Polari in fifty years. Right? Okay. But he used to have he used to have two or three of the most beautiful sisters on the planet. Again, when you’re ten years old, right? You know, any woman that puts her hand on your shoulder, like, oh my god. Right? I’m in love. Okay. Well, my wife and I are at this farm shop, not not far from our house. I haven’t been there in forever. And this girl’s looking at me and she’s looking at me and finally says, are you dog fleming? And I’m like, yeah. Why? She goes, I’m Frank Pulary’s sister. I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. Right? Why why am I saying that? Well, I think I ran away to Frank Pulary’s shed three or four times. I don’t remember, but she bought the book and she was she was unbelievably shocked at the level of abuse. Because they they had seen it. You know, I I used to run there and run away there and eat and hide until they kinda turn me back over, like like the Gestapo. Right? But, yeah, I’d I’d ran away I I don’t know how many times. I mean, I’d ran away so many times. I’ve never really counted them, you know, And then the final time, the ending of the book, you know, why do you read that? I mean, that was the the ending of steps to crazy. Okay? You wanna talk about something that’s gonna make you think about anything and everything that’s happened in your life? Because I sat there on the razor’s edge. K? Was I going to be murdered or was I going to commit murder? Right? Which was it? Was it self defense? Okay? Because it was one hell of a brawl the last time I was under crazies roof. Right? And all the Right. Last time the cops broke fourteen. Thirteen or fourteen? And that was it. I I I was on I’ve been on my own ever since. So I left Where

Victoria Volk: did you go?

D Paul Fleming: So I I lived on the street for a while. My my first hiding place with a cemetery, but that didn’t work out real well because turns out more homeless people hang out in the cemeteries and you can shake a stick at and, again, this is back fifty years ago. Right? So now I I lived in a cemetery, but I had had strategically placed in different chunks of woods, you know, survival gear. Because I when I couldn’t take it anymore, I would I would leave and, you know, hide in the woods for a few days and, you know, finally it gets so cold, so tired. So I saw much you could do. You know? But yeah. So he used to live in the woods, and then in and out of state, shit for a while, and that that was horrible. That was horrific.
And I mean, horrific. So I was determined never to go back to the state care. And then again, if you kind of if you have faith folks that have a belief in, you know, the supernatural god and so on. You know, you you kinda know that you go through things. And then right when you think it’s all over, right, something walks in and kinda helps you out. Well, for me, there was two people two families that kinda took me in. And as I as I like to say, I would be their debtor and present if it wasn’t for them. So if you’re thinking about being a foster parent or helping out, you know, some young bunk on the street, and I’m here to tell you, you can you can you can change lives. You can change history.

Victoria Volk: My husband and I have talked about it actually.

D Paul Fleming: Now, even even temporary. Now, even even temporary. Right? You know, holidays are just even to this day, holidays to me or a nightmare. Now, I can’t stand absolutely can’t stand. Hate Christmas. Hate my birthday. Right? I don’t want anything to do with it. Right? You know, but but why? Because my memories of those events are horrific. Right? I don’t mean horrific as in, you know, you didn’t get presents right there. I mean, you know, holidays are stressful enough when you’re young raising kids. Right? Now, stressful paying bills. Right? Now, mix crazy into that mess. Into that mess. Okay? And I do mean crazy. Right? No.

Victoria Volk: What happened to him? Was he ever arrested? Was he ever I mean, was your mom married him long after you were he left? And

D Paul Fleming: Yep. You’re you’re ready you’re ready to throw up? He died at the age of seventy three, and my family asked me to to read his ulogy. And to God, I did.

Victoria Volk: You did?

D Paul Fleming: Oh, I I did. Okay? Again, I when I say I I would do anything for my family, I have. Okay? Some of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life have been done because, you know, my family has asked me to do something. Right? Again, my wife said to me, if you don’t read it, nobody’s gonna read it. You know? So say, what do you think? She goes, I think you should read it or she didn’t know anything about it. Right? Because the book only came out.

Victoria Volk: Read your story at the time?

D Paul Fleming: No. No. Nobody did. Oh, we did. So we were supposed to be down in Florida at a wrestling event for three of my kids who were in high school. But, you know, we had to put that off to the side and that left me with, you know, the two oldest and and my youngest who was probably, I don’t know, seven or eight. So I’m up there in Saint Joseph’s Church. I’ve got some great stories about Saint Joseph, by the way. It’s pretty cool place. Anyway, and I mean, I’m struggling. I’m struggling internally. I’m having a a a fist fight of how in god’s name can I be standing here doing this? Right? The other side of my brain is saying, you know, listen, just suck it up, get it done. Right? You know what? A veteran military approach. Right? Just get just get it over. Just get it done. Get it done. Get it done. Get it done. And then I got stock. Okay. And I mean stock. All of a sudden, I see my youngest kid hop out of the pew and comes bounding down the aisle, up onto the center stage of the church and grabs my hand and looks at me and goes, you got it. I was like, okay. Alright. So I I then understood the importance of doing things, especially things you don’t, you really don’t wanna do. I wasn’t there for him, and I certainly wasn’t there for me. I was there for what funerals are meant to be, for those who are living. Right? So, of course, I didn’t say any of the bad stuff. I just kinda, you know, fluttered in a few things that, you know, certain people would pick up on. Right? But others wouldn’t No. Let me dovetail that into another short quick story. Anybody that believes in the afterlife and paranormal, okay, if you’ve gone through any form of trauma, abuse or even a life and death situation. Okay? I always say you get a peek behind the veil. Okay? You get so close to Jesus when you’re in those moments that you can actually see on the other side of the veil. Okay? One of the things that used to drive crazy crazy was that I could see things that nobody else could. So I could see what was around him and the amount of darkness in our evil that was around him is staggering. Okay? So I would point things out as a as a gift. And it would make him go crazy. Okay? Or crazier. Right? So here I am sitting in this church knowing these things and knowing how evil he was. And it kinda hit me as my youngest son, Dakota, is holding my finger. Right? Just hold on. It was kinda got his head up against my thigh. And I’m saying, alright. So that’s the life he led Now I understand why he was so terrified to die because now judgment’s coming into play. Okay? And I survived all of that, and I spent my life helping people. Even even back as a kid, I’d I’d help people. Right? And it kinda dawned on me. It’s like, I just keep keep living as clean of life as you can. And again, I’m not a I’m no angel. Trust me on that. Right? But he was so terrified of dying that he did everything he could right to his last breath. And I’m sitting there saying, listen, man, but he’s a good day to die. Right? I’ve got no regrets. Right? I’ve done the best that I can. I’m happy to go see the baby Jesus. I’m sure I’ve got some things to answer for, I will, but nothing like he has to. Right? How’s that, grabbed you?

Victoria Volk: It’s a perspective, I think, that people don’t think about in peep you know, as far as, like, people in our lives, who maybe didn’t live the most loving of a life, who might be holding on and afraid like you said, it’s a different perspective. So thank you for sharing that.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So all all our fellow vets out there, you know. Remember, I’m not advocating, you know, that today is a good day to die. What I am telling you is that if you’ve lived your life every day to the best of your ability, then and and don’t be afraid to die. Okay?
There’s good stuff on the other side. Okay? But that doesn’t give you permission or or my consent to commit suicide. It’s not happening. Okay? You do that and you you know, I don’t wanna I don’t wanna say it. I’m gonna say it this way, but it’s not really how I mean it. Okay? If you commit suicide, you give up all that good stuff that you did. Right? Suck it up, let’s keep moving forward. Okay? And, you know, when you whenever you do get into the the part about talking about suicide, listen, I I lived it. All the anxiety, all the pain. I I get it.
Okay? But you you you gotta you gotta look at everything you suffered through, everything you’re dealing with, and say, you can you can keep dealing with it one more day. And tomorrow is gonna be another day and it will get better. I guarantee it. It’s gotta get better. It’s gotta

Victoria Volk: You have to have hope.

D Paul Fleming: Faith. Right?

Victoria Volk: Faith. Yeah.

D Paul Fleming: Right? You gotta have faith. You gotta have faith in something. Okay? And What

Victoria Volk: what do you think kept you? Because you’re sitting here. Right? And you’re talking about suicide. I imagine you came close.

D Paul Fleming: Yes.

Victoria Volk: He attempted.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. As I write in my in my book, a David suicide, the first two paragraphs call it out. You know, I sat there with the opportunity and the means. Okay? Not just once.
Right? But why why didn’t I finish what I started?

Victoria Volk: Aldria.

D Paul Fleming: The first time? Mhmm. You know, I sat there? I would I would mid twenties. Mid twenties. But as I said, I was I was a keynote speaker in North Carolina American Legion Galla for suicide awareness. And Laurie Mhmm. Writes the who has the Christmas trees with suicide veterans photos on them coming in from all over the country. It’s a great she’s doing a great thing for all veterans. Anyway, I point out that everything I went through including the military. I never thought a suicide until I left the VA for the first time in my life. And when I walked out of the VA and that’s in one of these chapters in here. Okay? I remember saying, I’ll kill myself before I get caught in that nightmare in this mess. Okay? And it didn’t really dawn on me until I sat down and wrote the book a date with suicide, and I had I had the answer to my own question. When did I first when did I first say it? When did I first think about killing myself? And then I think about all the shit I did, you know, up until I was fourteen and how I survived all that? And then the military, right? I I never I never thought of killing myself until I got in the quagmire of the VA. So when I say the VA is PTSD, the VA is suicide, listen, I’m living proof. And I I can’t tell you how many veterans I talked to. Let’s say the exact same thing. Okay? The the backstop, the net, if you will, that’s supposed to be there for us. Just just simply isn’t. It just simply isn’t. So expectations of the VA are like therest of expectations in our lives. Right? Expectations, the mother of all let down. Right? So if you don’t have hope and purpose, if you don’t have faith, you what what what is your net? What’s the net that’s carrying it?

Victoria Volk: Can you share a little bit more about that just because I’m personally curious because on the flip side of that coin, I’ve had a really wonderful experience with the VA, so it was my husband. So it could be your location to be fair. And so what was it that there were just weren’t the services there? Or there was a delay? Or there wasn’t enough help?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So I’m gonna spin that around on you. The reality is there’s a handful of VAs that are doing well, and I mean a small handful. There’s a facility done in Fort Myers Florida that I’ve heard great things about, but it’s a small place. Okay? And for the most part, the VA system, if you can find a a a functioning group, inside that VA. So let’s just say you’re, you know, you’re having, you know, you just need check up. You just need basic healthcare. And you get into a VA that has a good doctor in there. Right? Most people have great experience from them. I’ve seen one or two vets that have said to me, you know, they treat me like a king in here. It’s great. And I hear him saying this as we’re walking out or others are walking out ready to kill themselves. Right? So I think it has a lot to do with, yeah, location. Okay? But what are the limits of the issues of the veterans who say, you know, they’ve they’ve had a good experience with VA? When I listened to the director of the American Legion say that he’s talking with veterans all over the country and he’s and he says, and he brags about this. The one thing I haven’t heard is anybody complain about the healthcare they get at the VA.
Okay? I mean, that draws me so far back that I I’ve I’ve I’ve I’ve stopped getting my bet on my Legion magazine because that is so misleading it’s sick. Right? When you sit here and you when you watch the hearing last week where the VA was called before Congress, then a Navy Seal congressman looks at these arrogant bastards and the VA rep says, well, in the last two years, statistically, veterans who call the nine eight eight number are ten times more likely to commit suicide within the next twelve months. Again, don’t believe me, just Google it. Okay? It’s an open hearing in Congress. Right? Then he has your audacity to say, but our numbers are thirty percent down on suicide. Again, that’s just a bold faced lie.
That’s just an absolute abstract lie. Okay? So folks that have a good experience in the VA, tend to have a primary doctor somewhere in there. That’s kind of overseeing what’s going on. Okay? But I guarantee you, you pull that doctor out, the whole thing collapses. It’s everyone I’ve talked to can relate to one person or one department, so to speak. Right? I personally have been in the system for about forty years. Right? Plus or minus? I have had somewhere north of thirty different primary doctors. Wow. Okay. Well, let me correct that.
Half of them are doctors. Right? They had one doctor who was his license was taken away. Okay? The best doctor that I had, flat out said to me, She says, I can’t take this anymore.
I’m leaving. The best mental health therapist that I had left. Right? So the inconsistency, the inability to have trust and confidence in the VA is a key factor. Now when you take someone like me, I’m already walking into a fight. Right? That’s just the way it’s been for me for over forty years. When you see somebody new coming off the street and they go to the VA, and they have an initial great experience. Okay? Well, what are the issues? What are you going to the VA for? Are you going to solve physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain? What are you going to solve? The VA does some things very well, like, limbs. Right?
But what do they do for spinal cord injuries? They’re horrible unless you get into a couple of the niche places that have high end doctors that are affiliated with universities. In Connecticut, Yale University is affiliated with the VA. But if you read the history of the VA in Yale New Haven, in nineteen eighty six, they got caught by the OIG for injecting patients with experimental crap that was killing dozens and dozens of veterans. That’s widespread throughout the VA. Again, I’m gonna step down off my VA bashing box, if you will. And tell you when I first went to the VA was in Boston. Now I’ve been in VA’s up and down the East Coast. Right? I had to go to the seventh floor and the short version is when I got off the elevator and I write about extensively in the book, When I got off the elevator, the hallways were lined with veterans. There was feces and urine everywhere. It’s stumped to high hell. There were veterans of their arms out begging to help. Please help me. Help me.
Help me. Okay? I’m in my early twenties going, what the fuck did I just walk into? Right? I was discharged from Navy at the end of my four year active hitch to VA because I got hurt, physically got hurt. Okay. A couple of times. So I’m there for I don’t know why. My assumption was that to solve the problem of why am I in so much pain? What happened? Okay? Right. Next thing I know I’m in a closet with a mop and a bucket, and a guy in a white jacket who says he’s a doctor. Spend five minutes with him and he says, we’ll have a decision to you soon. That was it. That was my experience with the VA. It took all day I got there at seven o’clock in the morning and at three thirty in the afternoon. That’s when I saw the doctor. Okay? And I write about it extensively in the book. For the next ten years, that’s how the system operated. Okay? Until I got up until they finally medically retired me. Now, fast forward to twenty eighteen when they signed the Choice Act. Okay? And I went to private care after thirty years, forty years, I finally got answers by going to the Yukon Health getting into Yukon Health. Right? Not only did I get answers, they solved problems. They solved problems, the VA couldn’t even imagine. Okay? My shoulder, the last time I was at the VA was roughly two thousand ten for any form of treatment physical treatment. I was going in for a steroid injection. Right? Or I’m saying steroid. Right? I think it’s not steroid, but injection. Porges. Porges. Okay. So the lady pulls my shirt up. It’s a doctor. He pulls my shirt up, drabs the needle and squeezes. Okay? I start screaming. Again, I never go to VA without somebody, normally my wife. Okay? This thing hurt for weeks on end. Right? Now fast forward eight, nine years. When I went to private care, they say, yeah, you yeah. Cortisol injection would help. They pull out this paranoid. Right? They pull out all this hardware and they’re scoping it and everything else and they direct this needle into this spot and the pain of of the needle hurt. But once they took that out, the relief that I got in my shoulder was night and day. Right? So when you wanna talk about veterans who commit suicide or on that path, mental pain is one of the was one of the forefront reasons for suicide. Just can’t take it anymore. Physical pain we can deal with. But when you start adding or decreasing physical pain, it affects you mentally. Affect you emotionally, affect you spiritually. Right? So all of a sudden, I’m in private care and I’m starting to get answers. They solved the problem of my lower spine where the VA for, you know, the twenty, thirty years said there’s nothing wrong with you. Okay? Well, it turns out there’s a little bone chip in there that there was something wrong with me and it’s gotten my fecal sac. Okay? Now next thirty years in the VA, two appointments at private care and we solved the problem. Okay? And I can run down the list of things that private care took of took care of that VA said, either I was crazy, it doesn’t exist, or they had no logic for it. And I’ve got all of my every record ever. I’ve got my MRIs. I’ve got my x rays. All my medical record. Okay? Anyway, when you look at the VA and people like me who are struggling to figure out what’s wrong with me and the VA doesn’t give you answers. Okay? What’s left? So aside?

Victoria Volk: Yeah, I can totally understand that. Totally see that. And the Choice Act was probably the best thing they’ve ever done just to handle the influx of the veterans that are needing care that aren’t getting it. And so even for my husband and I, like that was a huge positive for us as well, I can say from my standpoint of I facilitate a program called the grief recovery method, And I tried for the first two years when I got certified in early twenty nineteen and I attended a mental health summit for veterans that was put on by the VA. And topic of suicide. And never once was the I mean, they had social it was a roomful of social workers, psychologists, therapists, whatever. Not once did they use the word grief, not at once. They didn’t even mention trauma, not once. So afterwards, I go up to this psychologist and I talk to her a little bit and I share with her what I’ve been trying to do because I had meetings with local VA, I had meetings with our seabock, yeah, the seabock, the local VA, and then also the veterans, which is it called, I can’t like, it escapes my brain right now, but they facilitate services for in the community. It’s outside of the VA, but it’s affiliated with the VA, of course. Of course, ran by social workers and things. Talk to them about the program because the grief recovery institute has been trying to get this program onto military one source for years. It changes lives. So that hasn’t been happening. So what they’ve been doing is the institute has been training chaplains and social workers within the system and anybody who’s willing to get certified with who are already in the system. But it’s like for the military to say that this is an approved service has been so much bureaucratic red tape I gave up after two years. I was just like, I wasn’t getting anywhere. Doors slammed on my face, but we already have our thing. We already do a certain thing. They didn’t wanna hear it. And it’s like, I’m telling you, as a veteran myself, this changed my life. It’s changing people’s lives. They didn’t wanna hear it.

D Paul Fleming: So in that group of college boys, as I as I love to call them, how many of them talked about the with with the topic of suicide, how many talk to about mental pain?

Victoria Volk: All of them. I mean, there were people that share there were soldiers that shared their stories.

D Paul Fleming: Okay. How many talk about emotional pain?

Victoria Volk: All of them.

D Paul Fleming: How many talk about spiritual pain?

Victoria Volk: I think one guy even, to your point, like, he was home ended up homeless for a time. And, of course, that would he didn’t say the word spiritual, that his spirituality suffered, but that’s what happens. That even happens just with anybody in grief often. You know, we we struggle with, like, answering those questions, like, why me? And God did this to me? And of course, that’s gonna translate into having someone to blame. Right? And so who do you blame? You blame God? I did. I had my own traumas and stuff in childhood. I mean, that’s what happens. So yeah,

D Paul Fleming: I So how many of the VA employees? K? Talk about the four corners of what leads to suicide. Physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain or trauma.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. That’s like they didn’t they didn’t I mean, granted this was maybe they do now, but at their summits or whatever, but this was six years ago, five years ago?

D Paul Fleming: Nope. When this when I when this came out, I I was shocked at the number of professionals that responded and posted reviews. One lady said she was a VA trauma nurse for thirty years, going in the mental health industry. I think she was in Coatesville. Right? Pennsylvania. She said she wrote a review saying after thirty years of dealing with this, you’re the first veteran who actually told the story. She’s been trying to get veterans to tell their story what happened to them for thirty years, and nobody would. Right? Now, I know the reason why. Reason is nobody trusts the VA, so you’re not gonna tell them stuff. When you wanna talk about suicide and the VA solving the problem, listen, oil and water. It’s not happening. Okay? First and foremost, because what they do is, like you said, they surround themselves with social workers and how many of those people are veterans?

Victoria Volk: Yep. And they’re misinformed about grief, which is why I started this podcast.

D Paul Fleming: Okay. How many how many of those people had that and that seminars that with the college degrees and the social working experiences? How many of them are veterans?

Victoria Volk: I don’t I couldn’t tell you, but I’m pretty sure probably very few.

D Paul Fleming: I agree. Coming out of world war two, what did they say at the VA? World war two veterans forced the VA employees to be world war two veterans. Period. Period.
So you had world war two veterans dealing with and relating to one or two veterans. Right? The shift came when the when the VA started unionizing, okay, and putting all these requirements out of what you have to be to work at the VA. Okay? That happened in what?
Fifties and sixties. Right? And then Vietnam. So you go to Vietnam and you watch the number of veterans drop from work at VA to this day. You’ll have people that say, I’m a veteran and you ask them, well, what did you do? Unfortunately, far too many of them are already in the VA type system somewhere in the military. Okay? Very few of them are SandBox vets. Right? Very few of them are submarine vets. Very few of them are aircraft carrier vets. So how is a veteran who’s dealing with physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain supposed to be able to communicate, trust, and relate to somebody who’s never been there? This is why the veteran community, things like you’re doing, are so highly successful because people like me are willing to open up with people like you. I’ve talked to my wife for fifty years about my childhood.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. The the grief recovery method was actually founded by Vietnam veteran. It’s near and dear to my heart, but Did

D Paul Fleming: you get all your answers from my childhood? Did you wanna kinda go back there? I’m happy I’m happy to talk about it.

Victoria Volk: No. I think it shapes who you become. It shapes who you are, of course. And I guess well, let’s go from you deciding and choosing the military and particularly the navy.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I as long as I can remember, I knew I was going in the military. Right?

Victoria Volk: As an escape? Because many people choose it as an escape.

D Paul Fleming: No. No. No. I you know how you just know certain things? K?
I I just knew, but I knew it. I knew it from a very young age. And then, of course, you know, between fourteen and seventeen, you know, I’m working full time. I’m trying to get through high school. So on and so on. And I wasn’t always a I wasn’t always a good kid. Right? So the the final straw was was in front of a gentleman who had a very, you know, well done tie and black robe and he sat up on a bench elevated above the rest of us, you know. Until till the to my left was a a really pissed off guy in another suit and was telling a judge what he thought. Right? So the judge wanted to see my enlistment papers, you know, I wanted to go into marines I was seventeen, so I needed a parent to sign for me. So I had to go see my mother. Right? So she wouldn’t sign for the Marines, but she agreed to sign for the Navy because her father was in the Navy. So that’s kinda that’s kinda how I ended up in the military, but it goes back to the fact that I I always knew. I knew I knew my path from as far back as I can remember was was was gonna be going through the military.

Victoria Volk: What did you do after I mean, so while you were in service and training and things like that, did it bring up anything from your past?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So you never you never you never you never far from it. Yeah. Right? I mean, it’s always right next to you, right behind you. You know, it’s a wet blanket that’ll snuggle up to you for far too many times and you can’t remember. Right? You just you you can’t shake it. You can you can get past things. You can you can accept things and you can they can stop bothering you for the most part. But they’re they’re always right there. But one of the things that it did for me was it taught me that you you you have to kill me to beat me because I won’t quit. I just won’t quit. Right? You know, when that, you know, all growing up in a nasty, abusive childhood, you know, you either quit or take the beatings or you never quit and take the beatings. Right? I I never quit. I never backed down. I never bent the knee. Every time you knock me down, I stood back up. Well, not every time it was times they took me out in ambulance. But, you know, so my focus in the military was Listen, you I don’t care how bad you this is gonna get. I ain’t quitting. And then, ironically, when I went to boot camp, I was bored. It was the worst thing that happened was you gotta yell at? You know? I mean, like, I was like, jeez. This is it. This is boot camp.

Victoria Volk: You became

D Paul Fleming: you know, you didn’t cuss that. Oh my god. Perming. But when I wrote the book, a date with suicide, and I draw on my transition, like you said, from seventeen to like, going to boot camp, if you will. Well, halfway through boot camp, it it had pointed me massive arms. I wasn’t charged everybody inside the barracks. So remember, you’re getting no sleep. Right? Boom camp is boom camp. K? So you have cherish your four hours of sleep. Anyway, two o’clock in the morning, I get shaken out of my rack, my roving watch. He goes guys killing himself. Jesus. So I go see this kid, tough kid from the Bronx. Right? Sitting there, blood everywhere. You had busted open his back, taken the razor and slashing his wrists and everything else. That was blood everywhere. And I remember saying, you have to be effing kidding me. I’m gonna lose sleep because you wanna kill yourself to get out of boot camp Okay? No empathy. No sympathy. I was pissed. And I it didn’t dawn on me until I sat down and wrote the book a date with suicide. That even though the trauma of being yelled at him, bootcamp meant nothing to me. You know, it was it was a joke. It was so so so traumatic for this kid that he had to go the path of getting out of the military by attempted suicide. Right. Did you

Victoria Volk: know his story though, his background and his childhood?

D Paul Fleming: You know, again, you know, seventeen, eight year old kids, eighty of them in a barracks. Right? You tend to get to know each other, but Right? How how well do you get to know him? So no. I mean, he was a a kid from the Bronx. K? Yeah. He wasn’t he wasn’t a squid is a a skittish kid. He was a tough kid. He was a tough kid. Right? But when I when I wrote it in the story, it made me lean back and realize, and it kind of solidified this statement for me. You can never judge somebody else’s trauma because what doesn’t seem traumatic So you or me could be devastating to somebody else. So you you can’t judge their trauma. Only the person dealing with trauma can judge their trauma. I don’t care if you’re I don’t care if you have ten college degrees. You can’t judge somebody else’s trauma. That trauma is so connected to the four corners of our existence, our physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional bodies. That when a trauma happens and we think it’s physical. Right? You get shot. You get you you fall out of a helicopter. You get run over by a submarine. Right?
Whatever it is. That’s physical. But so few of us realize how spiritual, emotional, and mental physical trauma really is. Now take any one of those four parts and just keep mixing them. Think about it. When when you’re in your when you’re young in the love, right, a puppy love, your first love ever. And then she breaks up with you and your heart breaks. Which is it? Is it physical pain or is it emotional pain? Well, it’s kind of both, isn’t it? Because it does physically hurt. So just a girlfriend breaking up with you can send you into a traumatic fit that stays with you the rest of your life because every one of us can think back and say, I remember my first love. Right? But over time, the pain of that breakup kind of fades. You don’t remember why? Okay. So the physical part kind of takes care of itself all by itself, but the emotional part stays there and you never heal it. So one thing the VA one thing the VA or the military never introduced, keeling. Right? Until I sat down and started writing these books and and got very deep deep into my own personal on voyage on faith. Right? I didn’t think about healing because I thought it was poo poo. Right? What is this healing crap? Is this? Wait. Where are you supposed to heal from? How does this work? And then the more I studied, the more I dug in the years and years of research and practice. And I realized how critical healing is. But again, you know, you take the psychologists. They wanna focus on what? Why we’ve gotta deal with the mental? What about the physical or the spiritual? So if you’re not dealing with all four, you’re not solving the problem of what? Grief. Because grief encapsulates the four elements of who we are, period, full stop. In order to solve Grief, you have to address the four corners of your existence.

Victoria Volk: And you have to look at the past and address

D Paul Fleming: the

Victoria Volk: past as people will say, I don’t have to look at the past. The past is in the past. It’s under the rug. I don’t wanna look at it. I don’t need to look at it. I can’t change it. It is what it is. That’s what a lot of

D Paul Fleming: people. Tell me why.

Victoria Volk: Why did they do that?

D Paul Fleming: Why do we need to look at the past?

Victoria Volk: Our past is what informs every decision and where we are in the present. And it will influence our future unless we bring it to our awareness and look at it.

D Paul Fleming: That’s probably the best answer I’ve ever heard.

Victoria Volk: Good.

D Paul Fleming: I really hope you cut that clip out of this of this video and you replay that on in on whatever meetings you’ve got. Nonstop. That is the best description I’ve ever heard. Okay? Only follow-up with it.

Victoria Volk: I also can I just add to that know we’ve talked a lot about physical abuse and and a lot about physical abuse because that’s your story? But I just want listeners to be also consider and veterans listening to this also consider that neglect in a home, this indifference of you existing, a veteran that doesn’t even feel like they exist, that don’t feel love or experience love, know what love is. Right? And that’s true for maybe a child too that is being physically abused, but neglect is also trauma. So I just want to clarify that too. Howard Bauchner:

D Paul Fleming: I absolutely agree with you. The the the two keys to neglect abandonment. Mhmm. When you’re neglected, you are left feeling abandoned. K? And anybody that’s dealing with childhoods like mine or older in life and you’re in an abusive relationship. You feel abandoned. So when you go looking for help, right, the cops maybe, and they don’t do anything, you’re not only neglected. You’re abandoned. And then you go to the VA who you have a contract with that swears on the Bible that they’re going to take care of you, And then they do the same things that you do that did they did to you when you were a child. Mhmm. Right? K? You’re you’re not only neglected, but you’re abandoned. And once that car is its path deep enough into your spiritual emotional and yes physical bodies. It is next to impossible to get it back out. So I agree with you. You have to go into your past. And tell your story. Okay? It is next to impossible to kill yourself while you’re telling your story to a veteran who needs to hear your story.

Victoria Volk: Several years ago, there was this art exhibit that was kind of being trans like shared amongst seabox around the country. It was like a traveling museum of sorts or exhibit, art exhibit. And what it was, was veterans who the project was to paint a mask. They take the make a plaster of their face, and they paint the mask that they’ve been wearing. It’s like take what you feel in this mask that you wear and paint it onto this canvas, this plaster of your face. And little snippets of their story were included with those masks and I was standing there reading it and just like sobbing. There were so many masks and so many stories. And it’s just a just a it’s just a little small handful but it was a way for them to share their story. And so I just want listeners to know, veterans listening that it doesn’t have to be a written story. It could be some sort of art project or you talk about your native American heritage. I imagine that there are so many different outlets of creativity that you could probably create a group of veterans that you know to come in and and share their story in that sort of fashion and a creative and arts sort of fashion. Just ideas that are just flowing through me, I just wanted to share. But it doesn’t have to be a written story is kind of why I’m sharing that.

D Paul Fleming: Telling your story is the key behind it. The mask is the same thing. You’re telling your story by taking that mask and putting it down and saying that’s my story. For me, it’s helped in a in a in one way I do something similar is, look, we have a fire. Okay?
We take all of that crap or just one piece of it. Write it on a chunk of cedar. Write it on a piece of paper and burn it. Okay? Now it’s two parts that some people look at that and go, well, you’re just kinda burning the piece of paper. My belief is that you’re burning that piece which used to reside in you and and control you. And you’ve taken that piece out and you sent it and you’ve purified it. So it is it is no longer.

Victoria Volk: Words of energy?

D Paul Fleming: Right.

Victoria Volk: Words are energy, and so I’m glad we’re getting into this healing piece because I would love to hear more about that. As far as what your healing did look like. And one of the things too is I’ve had people on this podcast before talking about their suicide attempts and experience with suicide. And one of the things that I’ve learned is that connection is the antidote to suicide. And so what in what ways did you find connection healing for you? And what did your healing look like?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So my healing is a, you know, ten, twenty year process right now. K. But my focus is on my time with my wife. And spirit. Those are the two things that I love being around. My wife’s my best friend, absolutely adore. In every chance I get, I tell the world she’s an absolute saint. Okay? Not because she’s walking around with, you know, a couple of wings on her back. But to me, she is the same. The caretakers that provide for people like me are not just the salt of the earth, but god coded those folks with a piece of his own soul because that’s what it takes to deal with folks like me. And there’s far too many of us out there. Okay? The greatest people out there are the caretakers that take care of veterans. The wives, the spouses. K? The siblings. That said, my path had to come back to finding I I live in two worlds. I live in my Native American world. My wife’s Irish, Catholic, and I have a deep faith in the baby Jesus. Okay? So I I kinda step in I play in both of those worlds. Reconnecting with both pieces of that have brought my soul back to life. Learning how to clear, learning how to get rid of the dark energy that’s in me, around me, near me, trying to creep up on me. Right? And facing things that some people will look at and go, man, that’s witchcraft and crazy. Like, well, we’ll see. So once I learned and accepted things like meditation, because I swore from here to hell, there’s no way I’m gonna meditate. Okay? Listen, I meditate almost every single day. In one form or another, whether it’s a five minute break or whether it’s an hour long, kumbaya leave me the hell alone moment. But the the journey of picking up those pieces that fit me, not everybody else. That fit me. I don’t tell people to meditate. I encourage them to take a look at quieting your mind. Because once you can quiet your mind, the physical, the spiritual, and the emotional bodies follow. But your mind, like a computer, needs to reboot. And the only way to do that when you’re dealing with anxiety, when you’re dealing with racing thoughts when you can’t get a grip on yourselves and you can’t slow down, you have to figure out a way to turn your brain off. For me, the first time I said, I gotta I gotta do something in that voice. Said, fine. I put my head back in my chair, turned on some native American drumming, and I said, alright. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth and concentrate on my breathing. That’s it. Just concentrate on my this is stupid. Right? So after the mental argument for a couple of minutes and then all of a sudden, I’ve realized I’m someplace else. And then as I started thinking again, I said, oh my god. It’s quiet in here. And then boom. Right back into my world. But for that briefest moment, I was at peace. And I said, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute. That Bob wired barley nastiness that was flown around in my gut that college boys call anxiety, the one that runs up to your throat and down to your bowels, it just rips you to shreds. It was gone. Gone. I was only gone for five or ten seconds, but it was enough to make a believer out of me. So when did I start healing? Listen, I think all of these pieces are healing. Right? For me, I was waiting for this. Let’s pour the gravy on this and that’s healing. The gravy’s a healing. Right? Do some work, gravy it up. We’re good to go. No. It’s little pieces of all of it. That that first time that five minute. Because the next time I did it nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I couldn’t quiet my mind and say my life. But then the next time after that. Okay? And then I was hooked. Because when you live with anxiety and I mean brutal anxiety, and for the darkness moment it’s gone. It’s a whole another world. Then it dawned on me. Wait a minute. That’s what it feels like when I have my second beer. That’s why I sucked down two beers as fast as I can for however many decades I drank. I I quit drinking already. And I mean, I got them quite. I just said enough for the drinking and stop drinking. Right? But, right, you know, beforehand, and it but then it clicked on me that, why did I drink? I drank to get rid of the anxiety, self medicating. Right? But it was those aha moments of doing one, of telling my story. Now again, this is one version of tell your story. The other version of me telling my story is me having that conversation with myself. What happened? And then before I released this book or before I wrote the the first book, I went and saw my sister. And I said, listen, tell me if I’m crazy. Did I really get beaten like this? And man, her tears just started flowing? Okay? She’s like, I don’t know how many times you he was gonna kill you. I swore you were dead four, five times. Okay? We couldn’t wake you up. We couldn’t get you back. Okay? So she gave me confirmation. That I wasn’t crazy in imagining these things. And I fear that that’s what far too many of us veterans do. You know, we go through boot camp, we go through the military world and what warriors? What warriors? Right? Well, one percent we’ve been taught trained and rough backed through. Suck it up. Get that thought out of your mind. Right? Don’t be a coward. Right? So I’m thinking how much of this crap am I making up and how much of it’s real. And then I can’t talk about But getting confirmation from my sister was another piece of healing because when she said it to this day, I can feel the whole shift inside of me drop down one notch. It was like, see, it did happen. You did survive that. You are a good person. It’s like, well, how did that would come from? All of a sudden, good comments start filtering in once you start healing. So for me, when people ask me about how’s the healing? You know, many of us look at things linear. Right? Listen, it’s pop marked with little pieces everywhere that say, this was a good piece to add to that healing process. Okay? Mine’s ongoing. I’ve got a ton of healing to do. I I work on it. You know, I I love I love to say daily daily, but, you know, I I would I would say I I don’t. Right? I definitely work on it. Not too many days ago, I’m not aggressively working on my path forward.

Victoria Volk: And that’s what it takes. It’s and it’s being open to receiving these intuitive messages like editing, you know, and following those bread crumbs and having the courage to follow that wherever it takes you. What are some other practices that you have incorporated other than meditation that have served you well?

D Paul Fleming: Well, one of the biggest things that know, I’m trying to promote especially to my fellow veterans and their, you know, their family, spouse isn’t solid. You gotta learn to clear yourself. Right? What does that mean? Do what what does it mean to you to when I say clear yourself?

Victoria Volk: You know, I’ve had I’ve been having this conversation lately with people that because, of course, when you’re in relationship with people, there’s conflict bound to be conflict at some point. Right? And what I have noticed in how I know that I am have done a lot of work on myself is when someone can say something and I feel something I feel certain way about it. I feel activated by it. I won’t say triggered because that’s I mean, you can be activated or triggered, but when I’m feeling activated by something, I can step back and be like, okay, why is this why is the why is why am I feeling this way about this? And, you know, and I can also hear things and it go in one year and out the other and not stick to me because I have done my I’ve swept my own doorstep. That’s how I know that I’ve come a long way because I used to take things so personally. I used to think there was something wrong with me and, you know, it’s been a really long journey. It’s been a ten year journey for me in my healing. And so I wanna hear what you were going to say. So

D Paul Fleming: earlier you had mentioned energy. Right? Mhmm. Energy is everywhere.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

D Paul Fleming: And as scientists have proven, right, the good side of college boys, I imagine. Right? Energy never never disappears. It just changes its form. Mhmm. Okay? So where does all that anger go? That we veterans have, goes out into the universe, or does it stick to us, or does it do both? So I’m sitting there watching my wife going up and down the aisle every Sunday to get the communion. Right? I’m like, you know, why did they do this? Why? The body of Christ? The blood of Christ. What are they doing? Again, I’m kinda condensing a lot until a very short and I’m looking at my Native American is not on. And I’m starting as never before. And when warriors would come back from a battle, shaman, the medicine man, the holy man, would hold him outside the village, and he would sage him, sweet grass, cedar, tobacco, he would clear them. Why? Because he wanted to get all the dark energy off and out of them so they didn’t infect the village. I’ll infect the village by a little strong word. Right? Okay? So I’m I’m studying this and I’m saying, okay. So for me, I started saying, where’s all this dark energy going? Where’s all this darkness? Right? Every time we get mad, you can feel it, and it takes so much work to release it. To clear yourself. So I found myself after walking this path doing exactly what you did, where I used to get mad when somebody would say something, it’s starting to go out one. Okay? And it doesn’t register. Unless I’m starting to get backed up. I’m starting to get blocked. I’m starting to have too much of other people’s energy around me. Okay? So again, I had to learn What is it to clear? What what am I doing? We need to get the darkness out of us. Okay? Again, physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. If we’re physically in pain, is it radiating energy? Of course it is. So is our spirit? So is all the energy around us? And when somebody comes at you with eight or you for me walking into the VA, that place is just vile. You’re picking up and absorbing all of that energy. So what I did was I I focused heavily on the Catholic. I focused heavily on my Native American and I watched. And I studied what the community is. Well, the greatest way to to to draw that piece together is with father Amos. He died a little while ago. He was the he was the Vatican’s chief exercise. Okay? And he wrote, I’ve read almost every one of his books. Great, phenomenal guy. He wrote that I do hundreds of exercises every single day. And I’m like, what the fuck is this? I’m thinking peace soup and all that. Right? He goes, no. These people come and they line up at my door so they can get the body of Christ so that they can get the blood of Christ. So that he can put their hand on him and invoke God’s will and light to come through them and to clear all that doesn’t belong inside of you, to clear the darkness. And people wind up every day to go do this. They go every Sunday and what are they doing? They’re renewing their connection to what they believe in in the Catholics, the baby Jesus, the light of Christ, and so on. Native Americans. Same thing, different approach. You watch the Catholics use a wafer or a jug of oil or a jug of wine. Right? Oil. Right? For baptism. Right? Merriages. Right? And this smoke for burials. Right? What do Native Americans do? Sage, cedar, sweet grass, and tobacco. Now listen, if you mix all four, you’re neutralizing all the darkness around you and all the darkness in you by doing the same things the Catholics do. Getting exercised or cleared.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

D Paul Fleming: Once I started going down his path, I could start feeling the darkness other people’s anger coming at me. Okay? So I said, how do I how do I protect against this? So I learned how to protect against this. And then I went from being, you know, on the wrong side of things to being on the positive side of things. Right? Now I’m doing it daily daily. Okay? Claireing people, Claireing houses, getting rid of darkness. I’m doing this often.
Okay? So when I say when you asked what, you know, kind of, what do I do? So that’s why I I love being around my wife and I love doing spiritual work. Okay. To me, this this is all part of his spirit to work. How how do you like that one for an answer?

Victoria Volk: No. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. I actually am Catholic and to hear you share your perspective of that, and I wasn’t always. I’m a convert. So to hear your perspective. And and to be fair, I mean, that was a huge part of my healing as well was finding something I believed in again to find my faith, which, you know, thanks to my husband at the time. But It wasn’t pressured on me. It wasn’t forced on me. I had to come to that myself. And I think we naturally do when we start to open ourselves up to more, that more is possible. And I think when we’re talking about suicide, I mean, I’m I’m imagine you would agree is that you don’t feel like that more is possible, like more goodness. Like goodness is possible.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. You’ve you’ve given up on all of it. You’ve absolutely given up. There is no more. Okay? The reason I wrote the reason the title is a date with suicide is what I’ve what I learned from talking to many veterans was that, you know, we’re so anal that we’d line everything else up. K? And then the last thing we do is set a date. Now, veterans that have attempted suicide almost to a man or a woman tell me the same thing. Okay? Few with few exceptions. Someone will say, well, I thought of a date, but I need to put everything in line before I set the date. So we’ve got to get the veterans before they set that date. Because once they set that date, the the the week after my last book came out of date with suicide, a guy who served with forty years ago committed suicide. For me. K? I couldn’t believe it. Guys, served with a reaches out and says, I’m reading your book and I’m playing back, you know. Just buried blah blah, who committed suicide. I’m like, okay. Statistically, if you look at what the VA says, whether it’s seventeen or twenty two, it’s a it is a miscarriage of fact to be to be a nice k? The VA take is aware of about twenty percent of the veterans, but they’ll claim they claim they’re engaged with thirty five percent of veterans. So let’s use their number thirty five percent. In two thousand fourteen through two thousand eighteen, the VA redid a study and came back in eighteen and said we’ve decreased the number to seventeen veterans suicide a day, and they were all proud of themselves. Right? Okay. Operation deep dive picked up from there. And for the last seven or eight years through a couple of different universities, including Duke University now. They they focused on eight states and it’s now going national. It’s called Operation DeepDive. If you if you guys are all familiar with Navy Carmen, Christine Walker, she’s the chief editor of Eddie’s Magazine, Jones it. She puts an article for Operation DeepDive in her magazine every time every quarter comes out. Okay? Operation DeepDive is a great piece of literature to read and and look at the research. And it’s two page conclusion, it says that the VA used bogus numbers to come up with their seventeen per day. But even based on their seventeen per day, the reality is it’s two point four times higher than the suicide rate, which puts it in the forties. So their position is it’s in the forties. My position is if it’s seventeen a day and you’re only seeing a third of the veterans, why can’t we just do the math and say, well, that’s fifty plus. So that’s kind of the conclusion of where I come from fifty veterans a day or committing suicide. I believe the reality is so much more than that. Okay? Because so many of our veterans, especially our young veterans, I’ve and I’ve handheld quite a few of them to try to get them into the system and it’s a it’s a nightmare. How many or more are we losing when they bang on the front door or the VA? They need mental help. Right? And they get turned away. Alvea will say they don’t turn you away. That’s bullshit. Okay? If you don’t have a rating, the only thing you can do is walk into the day clinic and sit there for as long as it takes in that spot until somebody can see you, if they can see you. In the last in the hearing last week, I watched this guy say that, well, we’re only having two veterans commit suicide on our property. And the congressman retired Navy Seal, lost it. And he says, that’s bullshit. There’s twenty different facilities that have reported at least two, so that’s forty. And his response was while most of those are off VA grounds. Okay? Well, why? Because a lot of VAs have certain places, and then the parking lots are on private land or state owned land. Okay? Gotta won’t jump back on that soapbox. Okay. But, anyway, I kinda lost where we were going with this, so they kinda widened that topic up. Sorry.

Victoria Volk: No. I’m glad we brought it back to the suicide topic. And thank you for mentioning Operation Deep Dive. I I I wasn’t in my awareness. Before Yeah.

D Paul Fleming: Do you wanna give a read to that?

Victoria Volk: In your life experience, the grief trauma, what what has grief taught you? And what is the message that you would like to share with veterans listening to this, who may be struggling today?

D Paul Fleming: The second part is easy. The first part is difficult to answer. It’s not difficult to answer because I’m reluctant. It’s difficult to answer because I’m a I’m a very odd duck. Alright? I have a I have a deep faith in the baby jeans, and I have a deep faith in my native americanism, but I also believe in reincarnation. I believe in we’re here for a reason. Okay. My first suicide was Randy Smith. Can a guy I served with? That’s starting right in the book. Right? That’s why I kinda coined the phrase, who’s your Randy? Meaning, who’s your first suicide? So for me, I look back at this now that I’ve, you know, kind of spent over a decade digging into and learning about my spiritual faith, I see all of this happening so that I can write the book. I see everything that I went through so that I would I would grow my soul and be able to relate to people more have empathy for, to learn something that I never thought I would even have the conversation with, like, you can never judge somebody else’s trauma. I never would have drawn that conclusion and I not gone through boot camp, dealt with what I dealt with, and then sat down and wrote wrote the book. Right? So I have a I view this from a a very limited way where most people don’t. K? For my fellow veterans. Listen, there’s so much more that we’re supposed to do. So I’m gonna guelter here a little bit and tell you that the civilian suicide rate is exploding. And I’m gonna tell you that we all know that what we do as veterans, civilians follow. So a little bit of a guilt trip here, we’ve got to stop killing ourselves to save civilians lives. Because they’re looking at us saying, well, if they can’t deal with it, then it’s then it’s easy for them to say, I can kill myself. Right? I personally think the civilian suicide rate is north of a couple hundred a day, and I think it’s exploding. Anyway, tell your story. If you’re not familiar with Don are you familiar with Donald Dunn out of Missouri? Mhmm. He wrote a book that is this thick. Okay? I mean, it’s it’s literally that thick. Okay? Donald Dunn. Phenomenal book. Right? I usually have it with me to show on these podcast. Alright? He tells it I I swear if it I think he wrote this with a crayon, and then somebody typed it Okay? It is that down home. It is straight to the point and it tells all the same stories I tell except I spent forever writing it in long form long form. Okay But he really comes out and lays it out of how close he came to suicide. And to a man when people have come to me and said, okay, your book stopped me from committing suicide. My next question is, why? And they said, I read in there things that I didn’t know I didn’t have. One, a purpose. Two, I didn’t know other veterans were dealing with transitioning out of the military like I was. Okay? I was shocked that people are shocked that veterans saying, how many of us realize that we were abandoned when we’d left the military again. It it the system is what it is, but that feeling of abandonment jumps right back at us when the gate hits us in the backside, especially if you’ve gone through childhood trauma. If not, then it’s your first real feeling of abandonment, and it’s hard to refine yourself. So you’ve gotta find yourself and find a purpose. Well, what is your purpose right now? Well, I’m giving you one. Tell your story. So if you don’t think you have a purpose, reach out to me. And I’m gonna help you understand that you have a purpose. If you tell your story one time, you have no idea the pebble and the pond effect that can have in helping others. But to bring it back to Don Don’s book, he didn’t tell his wife anything about what was going on. Wait a minute. Didn’t I already say this? No. That was me. I said I didn’t tell my wife for fifty years. Until I handed to the book. Well, Don Don didn’t tell his family anything until they read the book. Are we seeing a trend line here? K. So we’re keeping all of this inside of us. Because we think we’re helping our friends, our family, our loved ones by not burning burning them with our story. Well, listen, I’m telling you. Your loved ones need to hear your story. We all need to hear your story. The more of us that come forward and tell the story, the easier it’s gonna be for the rest of us to keep telling our story and to help others take a step up and tell their story. You gotta tell your story. Read other people’s story and just sit down and write it. You don’t have to print it. You don’t have to you just just write it right up on all the longest email to yourself you’ve ever done. And then burn it. Tell your story.

Victoria Volk: It’s good advice. Thank you for sharing all of that. There’s one thing I wanna say and it’s about the word committed you know, when we say this person committed suicide. The Great Recovery Institute helped me reframe that and shared a different perspective of that word because when we say committed, you know, when it’s like someone committing murder, that’s a crime. So when we say committed, it’s like they’re committing a crime. So the grief recovery institute actually has helped me realize the importance of words. And so instead, I say completed suicide or died by suicide because it takes off that it feeling like a crime. Because there’s a lot of shame in that that families feel, the people that are left behind. Right? You know?

D Paul Fleming: Yes. I do. I do. I’m in a fist fight, if you will, over getting people to stop hiding suicide. Mhmm. K? It’s like, listen. K? Get them. It’s gonna take me a while to not say committed, but okay. Your loved one killed himself. K? If you think that reflects on you, then you’re not helping the rest of us.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

D Paul Fleming: Because the it seems to me like the last taboo subject in this world is suicide. Everything else we can talk about. Right? Well well, why? Why? Why is it? Why is it so taboo? Well, the Bible frowns on suicide. Right? Says you commit suicide, you’re it’s a mortal sin. You’re going to hell forever. Do I buy that? Nope. Not at all. K? Do I tell people that they should buy it? Listen. You gotta figure out your own path. K? It’s not my place to tell you what to think or to believe. You figure that out. Right? To me, it isn’t. I’ve had to forgive everyone that I know that’s committed suicide because it’s not mine to keep. It’s not mine to take. And more importantly, I survived the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain that brought me to that point. The pain is so overwhelming. How can anybody that loves a person want them to continue to live with that kind of pain? A razor blade tumbling constantly in your gut, your mind refusing to shut off, your body and so much physical pain, you can’t take it. There’s no end. And you’ve lost your faith so your entire existence getting absorbed by darkness, evil thoughts. How can you hold it against somebody? I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t. I’m not advocating for suicide. I’m advocating for those of us who have survived. And those of us who have to live, you know, with the memory of those who killed themselves. Right? You gotta think along these lines. When the pain got so severe, it took its toll. Okay? Few people talk about what it took to get to that point of suicide. And I’m here to say, telling you, look at it. And and again, like the mental health professionals that are reading my book are saying, They’ve never I’ve never heard any of them approach it from the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual standpoint of you have to attack all four. At the same time, pick one and get moving and the rest will follow. Then you need to learn to keep the faith and keep moving forward. So at the end, a veteran is still a veteran. Suck it up, find a path forward. We can do this. Reach out. We’re all here. We’re all suffering the same crap. Different levels You’re no different than us. You’re not alone. We get it. Your stories are no worse than everybody else’s. It’s no better than everybody else’s. We’re all the same. We’re one percent. We’re veterans. We got issues. We got stories. And we need to be telling them to ourselves. And the last thing I was saying, any veteran out there that maligns another veteran? You know, like saying something like, well, what makes you think you’re a veteran? You weren’t in combat? Right? Like, why would you say that? Or well, I did all these things and you didn’t. You know, why would you say that? Why would you say that? I went to boot camp with a kid who tried to kill himself because he couldn’t take the yelling. When I was in a school, I watched the e two shaking like a leaf because he had two captains and an admiral around him. Kid couldn’t function. And that’s when I swore I don’t ever be in one of these scenarios. I wonder what happened to that kid. All I know is he was so terrified around two captains at an admiral, he couldn’t function. Another kid would chain smoke outside like there was no tomorrow. Why? And he was never in combat, but something happened to him because he signed the line join the military, successfully move through boot camps, successfully move through the next things, and something snapped. Something happened. Combination of life, girlfriend leaving them, wife, kids, what? Don’t know. It’s not our story to tell. But don’t judge somebody else’s trauma and don’t harm another veteran by, you know, downplaying what they did. I’ll close that little soapbox with this. One guy I talked to, never left the United States. In fact, went to Maryland, spent eight years there. At the eight year point, the end of his enlistment, he was doing one of two things. He was getting out and or killing himself.
I couldn’t decide which one was gonna be first. He didn’t kill himself, but it was close. When I asked him, what what what’s your story? What because I couldn’t take it anymore. What? His job was to be in perfect uniform and carry fellow dead soldiers off of the planes flying into Maryland or Delaware. Right? Andrews, were they were they flying in? That was his job. Oh, he did. For eight years, boot camp school got picked up for this thing and stayed there. The stress and trauma of carrying dead servicemen took its toll on him to the point of becoming like the rest of us who are, you know, chasing a date with suicide. Right? Doesn’t matter what we did in the service. It doesn’t matter either line cook or front line infantry. Doesn’t matter whether you were a navy seal because they are killing themselves too. Or if you were just a Boson’s meat painting the battleships. Right? Battleships. You don’t have any of those doing? Aircraft carriers. K? Everyone’s just as important and we have to suck it up and stick together. Can’t be maligning. We can’t be maligning each other.
Howard Bauchner:

Victoria Volk: It’s a great way to end, but I wanna ask, is there anything else that you think of that you didn’t get to share that you want to?

D Paul Fleming: Oh, no. I think you got a great format. I think you do a great job of of getting the message out to veterans. They’re easy to talk with, so I encourage all of that to reach out and get on your show or listen to your show. And, you know, thank you for all the things that you’re doing. You know, it’s it’s very helpful. To have the wide breadth of conversation that we’re having. Howard Bauchner:

Victoria Volk: And thank you for sharing that. I appreciate you and your time today and the work that you are doing, because it does, like you said, it takes all of us. Yeah. Just so much gratitude for you. So thank you so much. Where can people reach you or find you? Where are you on socials? If they wanna reach out to you and connect?

D Paul Fleming: Or you can you can find me on Facebook at D-Paul-Fleming. If you wanna find me on Twitter, same thing, DPaulFleming, but I also have a a big account that’s that wellness. Okay? If you don’t wanna get engaged in the politics, don’t reach out to me on that one. Right? But if you wanna just do vet stuff, DPaulFleming, you can email me or, you know, my my contact information out there. Yeah. dpaulfleming.com. Okay.

Victoria Volk: You know You

D Paul Fleming: know, go ahead. Buy a book and pass it on to a to a veteran. Alright? And tell you a story.

Victoria Volk: And I will put the links to those where people can find you in the show notes. And Thank you again for everything. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

Ep 205 Ed Owens | A Veteran’s Heart Cracked Open By Child Loss

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY: 

This week, I had the privilege of hearing from Ed Owens, vice president of the Grief Recovery Institute, in a deeply moving episode of the Grieving Voices podcast.

As Vice President of the Grief Recovery Institute, Ed’s narrative isn’t just about loss; it’s about discovery—the kind that reshapes lives. From his military background to law enforcement tenure, he was schooled in emotional compartmentalization until life delivered its harshest lesson through his greatest loss: the death of his 3-year-old son, Ryan.

This wasn’t just a turning point for Ed; it was an unraveling—a catalyst that compelled him to seek healing beyond traditional avenues. The Grief Recovery Method didn’t merely offer solace; it provided clarity and purpose, revealing insights into male grief often shrouded by societal expectations.

Ed challenges us to look beyond labels like “toxic masculinity,” advocating for empathy over division. He sees our shared struggles as conduits for unity—emotional commonalities that can bridge ideological divides if only we dare to acknowledge them.

His message resonates with profound simplicity: Recognize your pain, own your choices, and rewrite your future—not as isolated chapters but as part of a collective human experience yearning for connection.

Join us in this conversation that goes beyond mere words into actions that echo across lifetimes. Let’s create ripples together, capable of washing away walls built from unspoken sorrows.

RESOURCES:


CONNECT:

  • Website
  • Email: edowens[at]griefrecoverymethod[dot]com

_______

NEED HELP?

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
  • Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

Unpacking the Journey Through Grief: Insights from Ed Owens and the Power of Emotional Healing

Grief is a universal human experience, yet it remains one of our society’s most misunderstood and neglected areas. In an enlightening episode of the Grieving Voices podcast, we are offered a window into this complex world through the personal and professional lens of Ed Owens, Vice President of the Grief Recovery Institute. This blog post aims to expand on that conversation by exploring key themes discussed in the podcast and offering additional context and insights.

From Compartmentalization to Confrontation

Ed Owens’s background in military service and law enforcement epitomizes careers where emotional compartmentalization is often seen as necessary for survival. Yet, this approach can leave individuals ill-prepared for personal tragedies. It was only after facing his own profound loss—the death of his young son—that Owens realized how much unaddressed grief he carried.

The Turning Point

Owens’s journey underscores a critical point: sometimes it takes a catalytic event to force us out of our emotional defenses. For many people like him, traditional coping mechanisms—medication, substance use, or even therapy—may fall short when it comes to healing deep-seated emotional wounds.

Discovering Effective Tools for Healing

The transformative moment came when Owens encountered the Grief Recovery Method (GRM). Unlike other interventions he tried previously, GRM enabled him to process his emotions constructively—a significant breakthrough leading not just toward recovery but also toward helping others navigate their grief.

Key Takeaways from GRM

Through GRM training, two revelations stood out:

  1. Lessons Learned: Every life event teaches us something invaluable; recognizing these lessons allows growth amidst pain.
  2. Self-Worth: Understanding that you are deserving of love—and have been loved—is crucial for self-acceptance.

Societal Reflections: Male Grief Under Scrutiny

The discussion with Owens brings attention to male grief—a topic frequently overlooked due to societal expectations surrounding masculinity. Terms like “toxic masculinity” can inadvertently stigmatize men’s emotional expression rather than encouraging healthy vulnerability.

Impact on Suicide Rates

One cannot overlook how societal pressures contribute significantly to higher suicide rates among men—an alarming trend suggesting that failing to address male-specific grief has dire consequences.

Overcoming Division Through Shared Humanity

In today’s polarized climate, divisions run deep across political lines and social strata; however, at our core lies an inherent ability for empathy based on shared experiences—especially those involving loss or trauma. By tapping into this shared humanity rather than focusing on what separates us could be instrumental in fostering unity within communities torn apart by conflict or misunderstanding.

Call To Action: Embrace Empathy Beyond Differences

Owen’s message culminates in a powerful call-to-action urging listeners not only recognize but embrace our commonality as humans who feel deeply regardless sociopolitical divides—to build bridges instead connections understanding thereby enriching both individual lives broader community alike .

Practical Steps Towards Healing

Here are some actionable recommendations gleaned from Owen’s insights:

  • Engage with Your Past: Reflect upon your losses; acknowledge them without judgment.
  • Seek Supportive Communities: Whether through organizations like GRIM or local support groups—it helps share stories find solace together .
  • Educate Yourself About Emotional Health: Awareness around mental health resources can empower you take charge your own healing journey .

Ultimately , while each person ‘s path through sorrow unique , embracing tools such as those provided by institutions like GRI offers hope transformation . As we learn more about effective ways handle emotion pain —and encourage others do same—we pave way healthier future all involved .

For anyone seeking further information assistance regarding methods discussed here please don’t hesitate reach out directly via email at [email protected] visit official websites mentioned above . Let ‘s walk together towards brighter tomorrow—one where every voice heard heart mended .

Episode Transcription:

Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of grieving voices. Today, my guest is Ed Owens. And before I go on my own spiel. I’ll just have you introduce yourself since I don’t actually have an official bio for you. Okay. Thank you for being here.

Ed Owens: Oh, it’s it’s great to be here, Victoria. I’m super thrilled. I’m looking forward to doing this with you for a little while. And thank you for the invitation. So folks for all of you listening. Thanks for tuning in. Obviously, these podcasts can’t happen without those of you that come back and listened and and tune in and We appreciate you. So my name is Ed Owens. I’m currently the vice president of the grief recovery institute. Which is kind of primetime prepayment method.
Now that’s just my current stuff. My life has had before all this. I had absolutely nothing to do with emotions. Emotions were not something I was comfortable with and helping people with recent loss was, like, not even on my radar. Very briefly, I had a dual career going on for most of my life. I was in the US military and would eventually retire at almost twenty one years from the Air Force reserves. Talk about more about that if you like to later. And then on the civilian side, I was in law enforcement for twenty three. So York City County State and with the feds for twenty three years. So I had this dual career going on. I’ve got professional background education also except none of it prepared me in life for dealing with emotional pain, brief, drama, whatever Trevor you wanna use, it’s all the same folks. And Yeah. But my path will eventually lead me here. So I’m a trainer with the Institute. I work my way up to a vice president of the Institute, and that’s now what I get to do. I get a look at reading people. All of this planet. And I’m just thrilled to be here.

Victoria Volk: And I am so grateful for the Griffin Care Institute and for John James and this beautiful body of work that he’s created because it changed my life. And I am certified as an advanced grief recovery method specialist at the Early Recovery Institute. So thank you for your contribution as Vice President, which must have been living under a rock because I did not know that. You were the vice president. So congratulations on that appointment. And obviously, you’re amount of great service and much service. So what was the loss that brought you to grief recovery?

Ed Owens: Sure. That’s a great place to start. Like I said, like, this is not something I ever thought I’d be doing. Whether it was military, you know, law enforcement, either one. Those were not jobs where we embrace emotions.
Right? Emotions can actually get in the way of getting the mission done or, you know, doing whatever we have to do in that terrible moment where you’re called to help somebody. Right? That’s not the time to be processing or dealing with emotions. So both of my careers taught me to compartmentalize and I just got really good at it. Both of my careers taught me to compartmentalizing and stuffing down all of that. And I could focus on what was in front of me, whether that was get the mission done or that was a call or whatever. And that’s not to say that life wasn’t happening that whole time. Right? Like all of us, we experience an enormous amount of loss events in our life, changes in familiar patterns of behavior in our lives that don’t feel good. Like, we got a lot of conflicting feelings around it. Like everybody else, I’m not unique, but I put it all in a box. Right? Or I’m all in a box. And I just did what society taught us. Right? I used all the same tools that we all were taught. To try and deal with stuff, keep busy, you know, grieve alone, all that type of things. I did all of that stuff. Right? And there’s a bunch of other stuff I’m not proud of either. I mean, like, I got into the bottle a lot, you know, especially in the military. And all of those losses kept accumulating. But to answer your question, the loss that brought me to the final, like, it all worked until it didn’t work. I’m not saying it worked well, but it was all working and I was able to survive life right, until the death of my three year old son. And that loss his death broke open. I would say broke open Pandora’s box all the stuff that I had been trying to carry around forever. And I was completely over with with the death of the man. And again, it’s not about getting into the details or anything else, but nothing I’d ever done in my life worked. Everything came rushing forward at the same time.
You know, world spun out of control. It spilled out into every relationship in my life. It literally felt like I was drowning. Something’s going on. And everybody told me, Victoria, oh, it’s a life sentence of pain. You have to learn how to live your new normal Right? And you’re never going to get over it and you never go you know, you’re gonna have to learn how to live with this and survive for the rest of your life. And as somebody who, like, with my careers and everything else, like, we need, I have to just survive. Now that’s not you you figure out a way to deal with this. So I went on a mission for five years to stumble around. Always looking and everyone kept telling me, I’m not gonna find anything, you know, or on one hand. You’re just gonna have to deal with this pain. Or on the other hand, but if you tried this, if you tried this, if you tried this, if you thought about this, like and I’m like, hey, I haven’t done that. I’ll give it a shot. Nothing actually worked. I’d might feel better for a day, maybe a couple of days, but it didn’t do anything with the emotional pain that I was carrying. And one day, somebody suggested Have you ever heard of degrees of carbonate? Like, nope. What’s that? I mean, because, like, seriously, like, I I did all things. Doctors put me on pills, didn’t like them. I felt worse. I I felt the first time, like, that must be what feels like be close to being suicidal. I’m like, I’m not taking those anymore. I did alcohol and I’m the pain, you name, and I did it.
And all the other stuff. Well, so lo and behold, my nope. So I had lunch. But somebody who’s a grief scrubber med specialist named by Russell, years ago. I’m like, wow. This I’m like, what I heard. Went home, looked it up. Oh, there’s certification training coming up in ten days. Now, I had no intention of being a specialist. I’m like, but I wanna go through this and they talked about, well, yeah, you can just do the personal work. So I signed myself and my partner up for it. I’m like, if I’m going, you’re going, well, let’s just for you. It’s not for me. I don’t need that. I’m like, well, if I’m going here, Helen, you introduced me to this, you know.
She’s actually her mom who’s suspicious. In all transparency. That’s my partner. That’s not. You interviewed her a couple weeks ago, I think. So we went together. And it was the last thing that I ever tried and the first and only thing that ever worked. And it still works to this day. And I’ve been able to use that in all of the other lessons that I’ve dealt with in my life. Go back and deal with, complete, and finish what’s unfinished. Hence, never stop working.

Victoria Volk: What was your greatest aha in the method that just surprised you? When you first if you can think back to that time.

Ed Owens: Sure. I can’t. I can’t. I had a couple of two big ahas for me. Number one was the realization that my son’s life and death top me more than I would have ever taught him as a dad. Wow. And so that was super powerful. That awareness. And the feeling. Right? Just the feeling around even his his life was a gift. And as painful as his death was, it was a gift in my life as well. And most people would be like, oh my god. How could someone say that? About the death of the child.
And I’m like, I can’t say that because it’s allowed me to become a better his example to me and what he taught me and what I’ve learned through this whole thing has allowed me to be a better dad to my opportunity. That’s allowed me to be a better human being and to show up in the world differently. And I attribute that all to that experience coupled with the method guiding me through it. The other thing was after he died, I had a lot of misplaced feelings of responsibility. Right? I was beating myself up. Like, I didn’t think I want the military at the top. I didn’t keep my son safe. I failed to protect him. I’m not much of a man. I’m not much of a dead. I’m not being all the things, right, that I was beating myself up around. And going through the process, you know, without giving it away to all of our listeners who haven’t been there yet. But part of it is we’ve taken honest, really raw, deep, honest, and mostly look at that relationship between our And when we’re doing that, we if anything pops in our mind or on our heart more importantly, right? We we included. And I had this memory, and I didn’t know what it was about, but I was able to discover what it was about. The memory was rocking my son. Every night, I had rock hit me in our rocking chair before I put him to bed and stuff. And he would look up at me and I’d see myself reflected in his eyes. And it was just it was one of my favorite memories when it looks like one of our favorite little routines that ended. And I always blamed myself. Right? I would really I mean, that was the worst of it. It was, like, all of the things that we should have been better or different, or if I could go back and change this x y z, this, you know, all that stuff, like, in the y’s okay. But to realize, Ryan only looked at me with love and aberration and, you know, and he looked at me with unconditional. And I didn’t believe after he died that I was worthy of love. I was worthy of committing. And so to realize that I am the man that I saw reflected in my son’s thoughts. That I am, that person and dad that, you know, that I can accept love. Love for myself and love for others. That was huge.

Victoria Volk: What do you think is the state of I I listened to a podcast recently that was all about the state of men in boys today. Talking it went from suicidal rates. It went from talking about the importance of marriage. For men talked about, like, even divorce, for example, is huge for a man because if And if they’re not in a relationship or they’re not committed with somebody, and they’re not a father, what’s their place? Right? And so the whole podcast was talking about these different aspects of of, well, why is the suicide rate becoming so high among men? And how can we address these various topics? And talking about like the, you know, the empowerment of women and how so many women went from depending, right, on financially and economically on their a counterpart and to support them. And how that has shifted and changed and the impact and the ripples that has had on men in our society today. And so I’m just curious If you can speak as a man, just speak to what your thoughts are on on all of on I know you haven’t listened to the pod. Maybe I should’ve sent it to you beforehand. I didn’t I just thought of that now. I should’ve sent it to you beforehand. I’ll send it to you after and I’ll link it to you. Yeah. Because I think it’s an excellent episode I’m not even sure why I listened to it, but it really had me thinking about all of this. Anyway, what are your thoughts on The state of men and boys today?

Ed Owens: Yeah, that’s a complex issue. We could spend definitely more than an hour on that. Just alone, but high level thoughts. Right? Let’s walk it backwards.
Right, from that place where there’s so much suicide. And that’s and that’s an issue across the board, right, especially in western cultures. It’s a massive issue. Right? And everything we’ve ever been doing to try and prevent suicide, it’s a little wind here and there, but we are not stopping the trajectory. Like, every we need to do something different. Vote can’t keep doubling and tripling down and putting more resources into approaches that have not changed where the trajectory of this issue. One of those things is people get to a certain point, generally get to your point. But I think we need to walk it from that. The point where everyone is aware to how did we get here? There’s a quote from the Veterans Administration at least years years ago what veterans is. I don’t choose suicide because I won’t hurt anyone. I choose suicide because I don’t know what to do with the pain. And that is a really, I think, an important way for us to frame how do we deal with this issue of suicide regardless of the reason. These people get to a point where they are so overwhelmed. They’ve carried so much stuff they’ve put into their little backpacks, their little emotional storage tanks. Everything they’ve tried doesn’t work. And it’s something, you know, people who are hurting lack the courage to wanna feel better. They don’t. They’re always trying. Even if it’s not a smart choice, they’re still trying to do something. But they’re adding tools. So the first place to really deal with this right away fast is how can we get more people the right tools that will help them have another option that doesn’t include taking their life. Because we it’s gonna be a harder thing. They’re both hard thing. Like, teaching people these tools and helping them to trust them is is a hard sell. And the bigger societal issue. Let’s walk it back. Let’s talk about it from a guy’s perspective. At least from my perspective. And yet, this is I’m one person. Right? I’m one person. There are what? I don’t know how many billions of guys on the planet. So, like, there’s gonna be other people who agree with me. There’ll be people who don’t agree with me, but this just my take on it. Right? There’s a lot of mixed messaging that’s out there in the world. There’s a lot of messaging that says to be male is to is toxic.
Right?

Victoria Volk: Podcasts even mentioned that, even that phrase alone toxic masculinity. Is Right. A terrible phrase.

Ed Owens: Right. It it is a terrible phrase. I’d say whoever created it it was evil of their intention to create that phrase. Again, we’re putting a very negative label on a half of the population of the species and saying that if you are male, you have this and therefore you are bad. Well, that message will be internalized. Like, if we introduce the younger we introduce that concept to little people, Right? That becomes part of their belief system. Who’s the greatest authority on the planet folks when we’re five years old? Mom and dad And if mom or dad well, if you know, whoever it is or society or their teacher or whoever, says, oh my god. Little Johnny, you’re a male. Nails are toxic. Nails are abusive. Nails are you know, mail energy is bad, bad, bad, bad, I mean, he’s going to believe it because he’ll take it in at a hundred percent true. And now you’ve been seeing they’re creating a situation, whether it’s Johnny or Susie who’s being told this. Johnny’s internalizing, oh, I’m that person. And Susie is internalizing and believing that Johnny’s a bad person Right? We gotta knock off the labels folks. You know, it it there’s a lot of other terms. But for this, but again, when we teach children very, very damaging concepts. At a super young age, they internalize it and believe it is a hundred percent true. I’m not surprised that the marriage rates down. I’m not surprised that all these things I mean, there’s a lot of issues. Again, like, we can spend hours on this stuff one of my degrees is is behavioral science. So, again, like, we could spend a lot of time.

Victoria Volk: Part two,

Ed Owens: Sure. Sure. But we have created a dynamic where marriage is no longer or even, like, seriously committed relationships. Like, it’s it’s not the thing. It, like, that concept is dying. In granted, societies have all been changing, maybe that’s what’s necessary. I don’t know. That’s not for me to judge. But what we do have is a lot of single parent helps. Right? For one reason or another. And there’s so much research that what is needed to help in a healthy way develop a young person’s life, trajectories, balance, all of these types of things. This is by part two. Like, part one is we’re teaching all these young people that half of the species is bad because they happen to be a male. Right? And then the other part of all this is we have and again, there’s a lot of research on this. The lack of both energies the lack of a male and female energy. Right? In in the upbringing of a child, Right? And in particular, there’s a lot of research around them. It’s the lack of a male and in certain minority populations and those types of things. The lack of that is detrimental, physically, socially life choices that you know, on criminal crime, like, the lack of that presence in a young child’s life is almost like we’re sentencing down to have a bad life of the future. And again, like, I’m not I’m not playing a finger. I’m not saying anybody’s bad at all. I’m gonna say, like, there’s any of research on this. We need to have you know, let’s say, like, it takes a whole village to reach out. Right? So, but in a whole village, it’s like there’s a lot of males and females that become positive, hopefully positive role models and examples of these sort of lives. And if we don’t have that, and we only get one half of this of the situation, of the story, or the whatever. Right? It’s not balanced. And depending on what that messaging is, you keep it toxic.

Victoria Volk: And I think as young boys in particular, would you say, and even girls, or however you identify yourself,

Ed Owens: Mhmm. If

Victoria Volk: you don’t feel that connection in community within your own environment, you’re gonna look for it somewhere. You’re gonna look for acceptance somewhere. And and vlogging somewhere

Ed Owens: Correct.

Victoria Volk: Might not be the most healthy environment conducive of someone choosing healthier choices for themselves.

Ed Owens: Right. Absolutely. I hundred percent agree with all that. And all of this mixed messaging, all these different things. The bottom line is it puts boys and girls and and women in conflict with their own human nature.
And then we could like, hey. This is the top of where you explore over. But the bottom line is is when there’s mixed messaging, there’s mix. It’s like, I’m not for anyone listening to this. Like, I am not an advocate that any one gender or the other is better than the other. I’m not an advocate that either one can or cannot do this or that. I’m not that I have one hundred percent that what is it you wanna do with your life? Alright. Let’s do it. Because we are all capable of amazing things where we are empowered, encouraged, nurtured, and loved on that path.
Absolutely. But just like empowering a young person and loving them and encouraging them and helping them can achieve great results, teaching them that this is bad, and that is wrong. All of those type of things. Like in a toxic way. And again, I’m not meaning to use that term a lot, but what we do on this topic is toxic.
It’s damaging. It’s very destructive. And a lot of people are in conflict with their own human nature on it because of the mixed messaging. They don’t know what’s true. They they’re trying to they try and force themselves to fit into a box.
The problem is that box is always changing. That that labels always change That dynamic is always changing. If you can’t go, I don’t know, a couple of months or you can’t go a month without there being something being changed. You know, or this is the new term. Stop using term spoke. Stop using label. Right? And we have to have an honest conversation that presents both sides. I used to one thing I’ve learned over the years in my career examples. There’s two sides to every story.
But the truth is always in the middle. No side when you talk to two people. No side is truth is a hundred percent. They have their their stake, their biases, their beliefs, and everything else. The truth is always in the middle. And we need to figure out where that is and that takes both sides working together to figure out what that is.

Victoria Volk: I hundred percent agree. But, you know, as we come to a conversation, we’re always going to think that our what is what we believe is the truth. Right? We perceive it as truth based on, to your point, our personal life experience.

Ed Owens: Yep. And our belief systems.

Victoria Volk: And our belief systems.

Ed Owens: Yeah. We’re responsible. Yeah. And again, like, we’re doing some some deep waters here and you can edit this out if you like. But I think that this is also part of the bigger issue we’re facing, you know, here in the United States and around a little. Like, we are so incredibly divided. And again, I’m not saying one opinion is different than another opinion. I’m not saying one’s right or wrong, one’s better than the other or less than the other. Right? I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is, we are so incredibly divided, right, across the spectrum. And for me, that’s worrisome. I mean, as a student of history, I love history and everything else, when people are divided, then they start to you know, minimize and demonize and attack each other. Right? I don’t care. I’m not picking size on anything, but when we when we do that and we see the we see the other people as less than worthy of us or that like, they’re the bad people that allows us to then dehumanize the other side. Decrease in us versus them mentality. And folks, all you gotta do is look at history anytime it’s in us versus them mentality. Similarly that results in silence, unrest, wars. Right?

Victoria Volk: It happens it happens on a micro scale in our in house Absolutely. Within family units. Is this on a bigger stage?

Ed Owens: It is. It is.

Victoria Volk: It’s just a bigger stage.

Ed Owens: But that bigger stage is also making it harder for the individuals within their own families. Exactly. Right? Because there’s so many I mean, there’s been a lot of issues that have happened in the last five years. And then we don’t need to get into the pandemic for detail.
We don’t need to get into all the stuff that’s going on. Right? Again, I’m I’m not wanting to get into different issues. I’m trying people to see the bigger picture. So, ma’am, Right?
And that bigger picture is, you know, we have, like, almost eight billion people on this planet and all eight billion of those people have their own individual unique belief systems, and people believe different things. And even if we kinda I agree with you that this is a good concept, I’m still gonna have different ways I why I think that’s a good concept. Like, we can’t even all agree on the same thing all the time. And these bigger issues are they’ve we don’t live in a vacuum. In your household or mine, like, we don’t live in a vacuum. It’s not close the doors. And our little world is kumbaya and, you know, It’s nothing but rainbows and unicorns. It is not the way this works. Right? Everything that we’re impacted by all the stuff we see over here and that comes into our family, it comes into our relationships with our friends and our neighbors, our communities, And when we’re looking at the other person and all this stuff is magnifying, you know, all of what’s going on, Of course, it it does impact those individual relationships, the ability to form close intimate bonds and form a partnership, whatever that partnership is. Again, marriage oh, there’s a million terms for all that stuff. Right? But it interferes with it. And it increases us versus them mentality, which creates more division. The more divided we are folks the more by the way, I’ll say that’s pretty lonely and isolated. But the more divided we become, the more conflict we will continue to experience. We’ve got to get to a point where we don’t see other people, in our own household, in our own family, in own neighborhood, and community, we have to get to a point where we see people consuming things. And all of us as human beings experience sweet, joyful, and wonderful things in whats. And all of us assume names, experience, pain, loss, or whatever term you wanna call it, grief, trauma, I think, again, is it? It’s pain. If it’s emotionally painful, right, or emotionally joyful, we all can do this us. What make that’s the one thing I fully believe about her that connects us as a human species. Is our capacity to feel emotions and to feel the outcome when things don’t turn out the way we hope to predict. And if we could see each other as another human having human experiences who’s also earning, we don’t have to agree. We don’t have to agree with their their all things would agree with their societal issues. We don’t have to agree with their belief systems. But if we can recognize that people are humans within we’re emotional beings. We have the capacity for this. And we can try and figure out how to connect at that level, and then I think there’s hope. There’s more of that color.

Victoria Volk: I think there’s one question that people could be asked that would unlock so much for people. And it’s when you’re disagreeing with someone or you’re finding yourself in conflict with someone asking them, what happened to

Ed Owens: you? Yeah.

Victoria Volk: I think it’s simple question that when we go to the doctor and we have the aches and pains and you and I both know it’s probably grief and trauma manifest staying in the body oftentimes and the doctor never asks, well, what happened to you in your life? No. And I think when we’re finding ourselves, feeling activated about something emotionally and feeling ourselves, I hate the word triggered, but activated. Right? If someone were to ask you, what happened to you? What makes you believe that to be true? Well, that opens the door for compassion and understanding and listening and all those things that build and deep in connection. And I think that’s one of the things you’re alluding to is that we’ve lost the ability to connect Yes. Why have we lost the ability connect? And one thing I say oftentimes, I’ve said so many times on this podcast, is that we can only listen to others and be there for others to the capacity and to the depth that we’ve allowed ourselves to go.

Ed Owens: Maybe.

Victoria Volk: And I think what I love for the world to be grief recovery. I’m gonna make that a new word. The world would be a totally different place if it was all grief recovery. It’s grief recovery, the world. And Mhmm. You know, I think that by sweeping our own doorstep is where we can start in our in homes, in our own homes, within our own communities. Is we’re not projectile vomiting all of our stuff, I think, on other people.

Ed Owens: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Like, I can’t control the events of leaders all over the planet making choices Right? I can’t control that. You can’t control that. People listening to this podcast cannot control that, and it but it impacts us.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

Ed Owens: Right? We feel this very intensely. And so you’re a hundred percent correct. What we need to do is first individually make sure you call it, make sure your ports are swept. Right? I say we need to emotionally increase our capacity which means we need to emotionally get rid of things we’re carrying with this that no longer serve as well. Right? If it hey. If the pain you’re carrying for the last twenty years is serving me well, right. You can keep it. But if If it’s not helping, where it’s from spend my experience, it doesn’t help over time. Then let’s let’s emotionally get rid of some of that stuff. If it’s not serving your higher purpose, if it’s not serving your life well, if it’s not serving your relationships well, if it’s not serving you anymore, by keeping it. And if we get rid of that, then I have an increased emotional capacity now to be able to better be there for the people in my life. And whether that’s as a role model, as an example, I mean, I can’t count how many times, but I’m sure you’ve seen this too. Right? Where people say, god, you know, my this person in my family or my friends, like, after going through these these tools you teach, people have noticed the change in me. Like, this is very common because once you deal with this stuff and you have an increased capacity to better show up more fully in life, to be a better version of you, other people see it and ripples in a positive way. Wife. And that is, to your point, when we start with us, it ripples out into others. First, our little close nuclear family and friends and then it goes bigger and bigger. And again, that increased capacity that we have to better be there for others that allows us to make a difference in our communities versus I’m stuck with all these picky things that don’t feel good good. And the last thing I wanna do is get out into my community and do anything. I’m a little bit of work. I’m like, I’m home. I’m exhausted. Everything in life is a chore, a struggle. I just gotta get the day. And tomorrow is gonna be groundhog day. Or, again, we’re gonna repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Right? But that is not a life folks. That is not how you are designed to live. And if you find yourself in a situation where your life is about getting through the work day, getting through the things you have to do every day, being exhausted all the time, getting up and doing it again. If that’s your life, My heart aches free because we’re not supposed to be there. We are by design here to love other people and be loved in return. We are here to trust other people and be trusted in return. To human nature, We are here to form connections with other human beings and to have those connections be a source of positive love can, you know, part of a life. But what you’ve been experienced at this point is keeping you from experiencing life that way. You’re not living a life in line with your human nature. That’s not what for you.

Victoria Volk: As kids, toddlers even were taught cause and effect. Right? Oh, touch the oven, you get a burn. Right? Don’t do that again. You learn the first time not to do not to touch the stove.

Ed Owens: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And it’s like, We have to understand that our words matter, our actions matter, that there’s a cause and effect.

Ed Owens: Yep.

Victoria Volk: And we can either be have a positive influence on the effect or we can contribute to the negative energy

Ed Owens: Yeah. Of Perfect. Yeah. Yep. And we also need to sit there when I understand that whatever choices that I make, or you make, or anyone listening to this, you know, we’re always a choice. I tell people all the time. You’re always a choice. Every day, you’re making thousands of choices. Mhmm. Right?
You’re always a choice. And that’s a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a sweet thing and a sour thing. Right? You can make a good choice. It has a good alpha. You can make a choice that maybe is not necessarily the best choice. And you’re getting less than an outcome. That’s ideal. And sometimes you make choices that can hurt other people. And again, like, there’s a whole loving myself, loving other conversation we could talk about too. But we have to also get to a point and I think there’s a lot of this missing in our society too. People willing to take ownership and responsibility for the choices that they make that might might be hurtful to another person. Again, I’m not saying that everybody makes choices whether it’s to have healthy boundaries in life, whether it’s not a good relationship. I need to get out of it. I mean, that’s gonna hurt. We all make choices that are the right choice to make But even when we make that right choice, we also have to folks be willing to take ownership and responsibility that I made that choice. Right? It’s not old. They made me do this. Mhmm. Now I chose this because I love myself enough to make this choice and not a but but an and I recognize that this choice Right? I have some ownership responsibility for how this is painful. Okay? I mean, it’s both things. That’s just one of the other folks. Otherwise, again, it’s us versus them. It’s we’re, you know, we’re playing this one up one down game all the time. And if more people would be willing to take some ownership or responsibility, even when I make a choice that’s painful and it’s hurtful, where it’s gonna cause knee pain, or other people pain, or my children pain, or something else, even when it’s a loving and correct choice, like getting out of bed waste. Change that example. You mentioned divorce earlier and not this whole concept. Even when that’s the right choice, we have to take ownership responsibility when we make that choice.

Victoria Volk: I know our time is winding down, but I really do want to give you the floor of the mic, so to speak, about something you and I both passionate about because I’m a veteran too, about the work that you are doing with veterans and the importance of grief recovery. Just in case anyone with some poll happens to listen to this.

Ed Owens: Right.

Victoria Volk: Well, you and I have both individually been working to do me on a local level, which is you know, door slamming in my face, but the importance of trying to bring grief recovery to the veteran community. And I would just love you to share what you’ve been working to do, what grief recovery institute has been working to do, and and where things are standing in there.

Ed Owens: So take a step back. So John was a big non veteran. So the first thing I wanted to hear is this whole thing was created by an old Vietnam combat vet. Right? So if you’re military and everything else and you’re thinking like, oh, I don’t know about this thing. You know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. This was created by John with that was his background. He was also created from a place of he was hurting. He was emotional overwhelmed. He was about to take he contemplates taking his own life. And he wanted to find a different choice. Right? And I think that’s important about this military conversation. Is that this whole thing was created by a guy who was hurting, who wanted to have a different choice. Than what so many of his brothers and sisters would do. Alright. So that’s where we start with this. And the entire history, the grief recovery method, the grief recovery institute, we’ve been working with veterans and trying to work with veterans and trying to get this in front of them. The last eight years, take ten years, you know, we’ve had a lot of great inroads. Like, we’ve always done some good stuff with the military. Don’t get any wrong. But we’ve trained a few hundred, you know, chaplains and social workers and people within the military branches. Air Force and Army primarily, few navy, national guard, active duty, hand reserves, So we’ve been really fortunate to make some really positive inroads within the Department of Defense. We also made a lot of positive inroads and continue to train I would say, almost monthly people from the Veterans Administration across the country. And in the course, there’s different Veterans organizations we partner with and then train specialist with those organizations. And that’s all great. And we’ve made a lot of positive inroads. And so getting these tools and skills into the hands of veterans so that they have them to to use an easy aspect to rely on whether it’s a military service or whether it’s a personal relationships, which, by the way, the personal relationships is a high divorce rate and high alcoholism and all those other things. That is the behavioral outcomes and choices made because they’re hurt. When I hear people are going through all of these things, like you mentioned earlier, my mind and my understanding of things is what has happened. Right? I know that that going on is not happening in the vacuum. So that’s where we’ve really tried to do a lot of this. And there’s a lot of specialists like yourself. And others, right, who are either veterans or they’re not veterans, but they love working with veterans because their partners are veteran, or their dad and my dad’s or We gotta take our wins where we can get them. One here, one there, that type of thing. But I will tell you from the Institute’s perspective, we have trained. And in the last, I would say, eight years, a lot of specialists that are out there doing the work. Inside the military community and on a military basis. And we’ve had folks who in the military, who’ve taken a down range for those of you that don’t know what that term is, that means forward to pull out. Right? To hotspots. You know, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, still. There’s one maybe specialist that I know who was an advanced specialist like yourself, the word virtually. Doing things with the ships of fleet. Alright. So and doing what to what? So again, like, we’re slowly getting this more acceptable within the culture, military culture. And like anything else, it takes a long time to change the culture to any organization. Organizational behavioral changes challenging. Howard Bauchner:

Victoria Volk: And it’s not just veterans too. I mean, grief recoveries, kinda trick is starting to trickle into prisons and Yeah. First responders.

Ed Owens: Correct.

Victoria Volk: Wow.

Ed Owens: Correct. You know, we’ve got a write me a specialist working in all of those clinics, and jets, and hospitals, and senior centers. Stepary religious or spiritual type of group you can imagine. I mean, it’s going It’s very heartwarming to know that we have expanded into so many different parts of our society that historically we’re just not there. And we still have a lot of work to do. I mean, I still have people who tell me all the time when I talk to them, like, oh, well, what’s the roof cover method? I mean, again, it’s, you know, it’s We’ve been around for over forty five years, and that doesn’t mean that people know who we exist.

Victoria Volk: Exactly. Yep.

Ed Owens: And, you know, doing podcast like this helps to help raise that awareness. If you’re listening to the spokes and you’ve not had a chance, please you know, go to Victoria’s website, read up on some of this stuff. Go with every method, you know, dot com. And you can read it on stuff. The more that we become aware, that there’s other information, other tools, other skills. There’s things that we can do to educate ourselves and then make a choice. And we’re always a choice. Right? And I hope you choose to at least start learning more. And if it feels right, I always tell people all the time, folks you got to trust your intuition.
If your intuition says this feels right, I wanna keep looking. I wanna keep I wanna know more. And if your intuition says, now this is for me, then great. I wish you well, and thanks for at least being open for a moment to take a look at something. The more people can become aware of it, the more people that at least know there is something else, the more we can help. And by the way, we don’t just help adults. We help children. Getting back to this whole conversation, like, we were talking about earlier, like, folks we’ve got to do a better job. As adults, as positive male, and female both in the in the children’s lives whether that’s your family, your nuclear family, whether that’s your extended family, like we have to have be the positive role models. We have tools for you too so that you can teach them to children versus teaching them things which may or may not be the most helpful to them. Let’s create the confusing. Let’s create the issues. Let’s create a lifetime. I’ll try and struggle with it. Figure out what they’re they’re confident with their human nature. So we have those tools too. So, like, we do a lot of different stuff. And I would encourage you to at least pause and be curious. I think I wanna learn a little bit more about this. You know, that’s a great place to start. And then from there, folks you can talk to people like Victoria, you know, get on our calendar. Say, hey, tell me no, then let us have an opportunity to have a heartfelt conversation.

Victoria Volk: And I would add, what do you have to lose? Because like you said earlier, it’s what you’ve been doing probably isn’t working. Probably has been working for a long time. And that was me too, over thirty years. Right?
Like, I got this. I can DIY my my emotional trauma.

Ed Owens: Yeah. Right. I’m getting your again, I say that to people all time. Like, hey, look, if you like how your life feels, and you like how everything is and this is all good and it’s working for you? Okay. Cool. You can keep it? But the problem is most of the time when I’m talking to people, they aren’t happy. They don’t feel like they’re living as fully as they could be. They’re tired of feelings alone and isolated or sad or those days come around the calendar and it’s just ruins the week.
I mean

Victoria Volk: It’s like you said, surviving. It’s you can either survive or you can Thrive. Right?

Ed Owens: Right. It’s choice. Remember? See, there’s a theme here. It’s choice.
People can choose. You can choose to live your life in a survival mode, or you can choose to not let the experiences that we’ve had in our lives define us. Of course, we learn things from. Of course, we can learn. We can grow, we can become different people because of the experiences and the losses and the events in our lives would shape us. But folks, they are chapters in your life. They are not your life. And it doesn’t mean that whatever you’ve been through in your life is now the story of your life. You are a choice. You can choose how to write your own storing.
You cannot choose and control the events that take place in your life that impact you, you’re human. But you can choose how you show up after these things happen in reaction to what happened. It’s a choice to deal with the pain of whatever’s going on in your life or deal by the way, embrace and lean into the joy and happiness, it works both way. It’s a choice. Some people choose not to embrace and lean into joy and happiness and connection because they choose to isolate. That’s a choice. That’s a heart brain. Choice. Right? When I see that happening? But again, there’s a choice. We oops. How do you wanna show up? What do you wanna do?

Victoria Volk: The phrase that got me, I think, that resonated with me the most, was have the courage to take a chance to make a change.

Ed Owens: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And it does take courage.

Ed Owens: It does. And people who are hurting their lack of courage, they just don’t know which choices they got. And again, we can only make the choices, but we can only, you know, choose what to do based on what I know. And I can only use the tools of information to make choices whether they’re good choices or not until I learn better skills and tools so I can make a better choice. Again, this whole thing boils down to that. If you like the way the tools are working great, if you don’t like the way they’re working, Let’s show you some other things that you didn’t know before, or maybe you’d heard, like, a piece of this here, a piece of that there, but we didn’t put them together. In a way that’s like, god. Why didn’t I think of that? You know?

Victoria Volk: That’s what I think about grief recovery is, why didn’t I think of that?

Ed Owens: Exactly. Right? So, yeah, we do the best we can. And this isn’t a judgment folks. All of you have been doing the best you can to navigate life with what you were taught up to this point. And that is not a judgment, right, at all. I just wanna give all of you just a big hug. And and because you’re listening to this, you’re curious about the potential tools and options. And things that you can make different choices with. And I applaud you for that. It’s because when you learn other information skills, tools, You can make different choices. You can have a different outcome. And or not, it’s choice. You can choose to be right and hold on to painful things that have happened in your life, or you could choose to be happy to join in type one. I hope you pick happiness. I hope you pick joy. I hope you pick connection, love. That’s what I would pick.

Victoria Volk: Beautiful way to wrap this up. I want to have I would love to have I desire to have a part two, possibly. I think after you listen to that episode, I’ll share it in the show notes like I said. Link your Great Recovery Institute also in the show notes and my information where people can find me as well. But where can people find me if they’re just listening to this where they can connect with you?

Ed Owens: So if you wanna connect with me, the easiest way is if you wanna put my email address in show notes. It’s n o ones, one word, at grief recovery method dot com. You can also go to brief for perry method dot com and go to the about us page. You’ll see about me. I also have a micro website on the on there. If you wanna just click my micro website, that allows you folks to send me a direct email message a calendar link to jump on my calendar if you wanna have a conversation. Love to talk to you about whatever news you wanna talk about, and you can read more about me that way.

Victoria Volk: And if you’re listening to this and you work with first responders or you’re in charge of first responder department or police department or EMS or veterans organization or hospice or anything like that and you want to bring grief recovery into your facility and organization and community. Mhmm. Ed’s your guy. Please reach out to him.

Ed Owens: I would love I would love to have a conversation with him if the audience who would like that. That’s conversation.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. The more people we get certified in this, the farther this can spread and I think that’s the goal here. So thank you so much for being my guest.

Ed Owens: It’s been an honor. I really appreciate the invitation. I look forward to part two. And for all of you that were listening. Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for watching tuning in. See you next.

Victoria Volk: And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

 

 

 

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