July 15, 2022

Thinking I Want to Die

Thinking I Want to Die

Real Men Feel #262 7/15/22 Thinking I Want to Die

WARNING: This episode discusses suicidal thoughts and attempts. If you are in a crisis, do not listen to this.

Please call or text 988 to be connected to trained counselors that are part of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline network. If you are outside of the US, please search for suicide prevention in your country.

You matter! Please choose life.

In recent years, I've become more careful in referring to my suicidal thoughts and actions. Instead of saying I wanted to die, I say I believed I wanted to die, or I thought I wanted to die. Because what I really wanted was to feel good. To not feel broken, hopeless, and helpless.

I wanted my misery to end, not my life, but at times I saw them both as the same thing.

I have to choose the light, joy, and life multiple times a day.

I used to think that was horrible, but maybe it's just life.

There are many times that life isn't easy, but that never means it isn't worth living.

Connect with Andy and the Real Men Feel Podcast:
Instagram | @realmenfeelshow & @andy_grant
Personal Website | theandygrant.com for coaching, healing, and book info!
Podcast Website | realmenfeel.org for all things podcast-related!
YouTube | Real Men Feel

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Greetings and welcome to real
men.

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Feel I'm your host, Andy Grant
and I will talk openly about

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suicide in this episode
specifically my experiences

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being suicidal.
So you've been warned.

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If you are in any sort of
Crisis, please call or text 988

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to be connected to trained
counselors.

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That are part of the National
Suicide Prevention Lifeline

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network.
If you are outside of the US,

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please search for suicide,
prevention in Your country you

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matter.
Please choose life.

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For, at least 15 years.
I've been very open about being

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a suicide attempt Survivor.
I've taken action to end my life

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more times than I can recall for
years.

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I said that I truly wanted to
die, but I've come to realize

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that wasn't true.
It was true that on numerous

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occasions.
I did things that I hoped would

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kill me in recent years, I've
become more careful in how I

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refer to my own suicidal
thoughts and actions.

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Instead of saying I wanted to
die, I say I believed I wanted

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to die or I thought I wanted to
die because what I really wanted

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was to feel good.
Do not feel broken hopeless and

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helpless.
I wanted my misery to end not my

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life, but at times I saw them
both as the same thing.

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When I was 17 years old, I
overdosed on antidepressants.

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And when I woke up in the, ER, I
was mad and disappointed that I

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was still alive.
I made other attempts by other

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means, until at one point at age
20, I made yet another attempt

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using something that had failed
me before carbon dioxide and

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that was the first real Dark
Night of the Soul moment.

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I had.
The first time that I begged and

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pleaded.
With God to help me.

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I realized I wasn't good at
living and I wasn't good at

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dying.
There had to be some other way.

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And that's when I got the
message, the inspiration that if

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I shared my pain, my experience,
in a way that helped others, it

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would all be worth it.
I finally began to want help.

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I participated in my own
personal growth, but it wasn't

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perfect to say the least.
And I shared and released just

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enough to not be in crisis.
I really dug down into the

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causes.
At age, 25, I put myself into

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the hospital without attempting
to end my life.

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This was a first until then, I
had this pattern of feeling

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relief after I made a suicide
attempt.

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And every time I came out, every
time I came out of a mental

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hospital, I knew I really landed
on my feet.

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Everything seemed to be better.
And I felt very mature by

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skipping the attempt part and
going straight to the help and

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was only hospitalized for a
weekend and I saw a therapist

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voluntarily for the first time
for months, eventually, I got on

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a path of spiritual growth and I
still had periods of depression

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and suicidal thoughts, but I
never took an action that put me

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in a hospital.
So I didn't consider anything

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and attempt.
Remember in 2010, I stood on a

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top floor of a parking garage
that I had gone to to jump off.

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But I really went there for the
relief of making an attempt of

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doing something.
I was hoping for a big sign that

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I was supposed to be alive,
ended up with a very subtle

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feeling this inner knowing, and
I called a suicide support

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hotline for the first time.
And then I returned home to my

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terrified wife.
Another instance in 2019, I was

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on the verge of buying cyanide
from some random guy via email

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who claimed to have some at the
last minute before sending

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money.
I thought this is ridiculous and

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I didn't go through with it.
Later, that year, I did a

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massive ancestral, healing
program with the modern mystery

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school.
And I thought suicidal thinking

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was gone for good.
But in November 20, 21 after

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attending my most profound
spiritual training and my

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highest level yet of initiation
with the mystery school.

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I reacted with with doubt and
fear and complete withdrawal, I

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chose to pursue my old pattern
of depression and suicide even

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though the level of energy and
emotion feeding, it wasn't

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there.
As it was in the past, I was

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just choosing to follow an old
habit.

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I was aware that something Was
different.

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I really had shifted, but I
still decided to take the old

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ride again.
It was somehow more comfortable

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than the unknown.
My distorted thinking was that

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I'd withdraw from everything
forcing myself into a corner,

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then like a trapped animal, I
would burst out screaming for

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life or I would decide that I
want to die.

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Now, I knew this was a bad idea.
Yet still, I followed it.

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Neither of those planned
outcomes happened, I just became

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more and more apathetic.
I wished hoped pleaded begged,

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prayed to be dead.
But I took no action.

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I refused all offers of help.
I didn't want to feel better.

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I didn't want to feel.
I didn't want to be.

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Or at least I didn't want to be
me.

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I thought I was following my old
pattern that it needs to prove

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that I was need meant to be
alive again.

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So true to form.
Things didn't really start to

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turn around until about the
middle of last month.

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June 2022.
When I tried to purchase some

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euthanasia drugs online.
I figured it was a scam but I

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made the purchase anyway.
And in my distorted thinking

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believing that I wanted to die,
taking action, even really

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stupid action felt like a
relief, at least I was doing

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something. when the drugs didn't
arrive, I was much more sad and

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disappointed than I expected.
I was distraught that I had to

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find a way to live.
And I was ashamed and how long

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it took to realize and accept
where I was.

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Living was really the only
option.

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And about a week later, I got a
card in the mail.

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Saying how worried people were
about me?

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And had been way easier to
ignore electronic communication

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for months.
But somehow that letter on June

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28th, holding it in my hand and
reading it over and over it.

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It signaled, my bottom to me
earlier, I said that I didn't

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want to be I didn't want to be
me.

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What I'm seeing the core issue
is I don't know who I am.

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If I'm not someone who falls
into pression and Suicidal

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Thoughts, that default reaction
to too overwhelmed to fear to

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something new that be that being
my major sign of resistance.

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I just entirely used to it
expecting it.

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I have healed immensely, but I
didn't see that.

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I've yet to let go of so much
that I had healed.

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And I was still carrying this,
this baggage, this residue,

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these scars, these ruts in my
neural Pathways, these grooves

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moving into my DNA that, let me
easily slide in.

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To that my own demise is the way
to go.

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I'm really still figuring out
who I am without that.

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So again, I thought I wanted to
die.

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But I really wanted an
undeniable sign that it couldn't

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miss or ignore that I was
supposed to be alive.

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Now, you'd think after multiple
failed attempts, that would be

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enough, but no, I was always
good in school, but this is one

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lesson that I've had to have
pummeled into me to get Another

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thing I recently realized was
that in my very first suicide

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attempt way back in when I was
in the seventh grade so it's

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like age 12 or 13.
I was not angry that I survived.

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But if attended to blackout, I
fig nor that reaction that first

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reaction, I attempted to
overdose on aspirin.

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I genuinely believe that would
work, you know, as a kid I'd

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heard of overdoses and thought I
could OD on anything.

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Remember so many details it was
a it was a Sunday night.

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The Deep was the network TV
movie of the week and during

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every commercial I went to the
bathroom and swallowed a handful

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of pills.
I expected to go to sleep that

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night and never wake up again.
No more paying just Everlasting

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sleep.
But I woke in the middle of the

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night sick, I made my way to the
bathroom was just throwing up

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repeatedly and sobbing while
doing so.

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The noise woke, my mom.
She came to check on me.

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I told her what I'd done.
And how sorry I was.

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I knew it was a mistake.
I did want to live, there was no

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doubt.
We were both kind of in shock

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from that experience.
I don't think anybody wanted to

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believe that I felt so low that
I tried to die.

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But I didn't really do much
about underlying issues, the

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causes and traumas that really
were blocked from my memory

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getting to them.
Ended up taking many, many more

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years.
I now see that in all my

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repeated attempts while I
thought I wanted to die, I

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really wanted the profound
certainty and knowing that I

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wanted to live.
Suicide is not the easy way out.

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It is very difficult to overcome
our innate desire to live.

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I've often said that if I lived
in a state, where was easy to

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buy a gun, I'd be dead.
And maybe in the past.

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That was true.
But now I think if I'd actually

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Sat with a gun in my hand.
I just be bawling and shaking,

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knowing That I only thought I
wanted to die.

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I hope me sharing this helps you
in some way.

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This is why I'm doing it.
All of my healing work has made

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a massive difference while I
have repeated the same pattern

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more than once.
I've been a different person

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each time Until now I've
repeatable patterns simply due

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to the habit.
But now I'm willing to see a

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level of shame that was always
there that I could never witness

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or except I've been able to do
some inner child work that has

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long avoided me.
I've access memories that have

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been blocked out long ago.
I thought knowing that I had

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been sexually abused as a kid
was enough, right?

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I wasn't hiding.
It denying it so I must be

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healed.
But I never addressed in healed.

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The the trauma of it all the
underlying residue until

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recently.
I now see that so much of my

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inner dialogue at my worst
times, has been me repeating.

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What I heard as a toddler while
seeing my father battle

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depression and alcoholism.
When he was a young man, I don't

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say that in a way to blame him,
just finally realizing where

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things come from, so that I can
let them go.

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So, I can discern between My
Chosen thoughts and old habits,

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so I can recognize I've given
into some old outdated autopilot

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programming.
Instead of making a choice that

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actually feels good.
Something life-affirming instead

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of Life denying.
I know I shouldn't kill myself.

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I know that doesn't solve a
thing.

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And I really know.
I can't kill myself.

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Now, that too many mystical
experiences to deny there is

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much more to us than this
physical life.

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I also know, this is the easiest
place to deal with our shit and

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Shadow Demons negativity.
We all have free will, and this

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world is full of light and dark,
good and evil.

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So that we can choose I used to
expect that my choosing to live,

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once should be enough, that a
realization, a choice to life to

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embrace.
The light was made once and that

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was enough.
Realizing I'm good enough that

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I'm worthy that I'm Healed.
It should be a one-and-done sort

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of thing.
But I really have to choose the

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light Joy life.
Multiple times a day.

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I used to think that was
horrible.

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But maybe it's just life.
You know, there are many times

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that life isn't easy.
But that never means life isn't

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worth living.
If you need support right now,

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please call text or chat 2988
and get connected to trained

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counselors.
That are part of the National

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Suicide, Prevention Lifeline
Network until next time.

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Be good to yourself.
Andy Grant Profile Photo

Author / Teacher / Coach / Healer

Andy Grant is a best-selling author, speaker, Transformational Energy Coach, healer, and suicide prevention activist. As the host of the award-winning Real Men Feel podcast, he champions emotional well-being and encourages men to step out of the β€œemotional closet.”
Andy holds certifications in Positive Psychology, the Enwaken Coaching System, Akashic Records, Life Activation, and multiple energy healing modalities. Known as The King of Authenticity, he founded Real Men Feel in 2016, fostering a movement that redefines masculinity through openness and vulnerability.
An Initiate, Certified Healer, Teacher, and Ritual Master with the Modern Mystery School, Andy has dedicated his life to helping people in emotional pain rediscover the magnificence of life. His training includes work with renowned teachers such as Mike Dooley, Brendon Burchard, Bill Harris, Genpo Roshi, David Morelli, Margaret Lynch, Linda Howe, Tal Ben-Shahar, Karen Paolino-Correia, and Christie Marie Sheldon.