From Battlefields to Breath Work: Military Veterans, Actors, and Entrepreneurs Share Their Healing Journeys

What happens when anger transforms into acceptance? When betrayal leads to forgiveness? When rage opens the door to healing? This powerful episode brings together three extraordinary individuals who've walked through fire and emerged with wisdom that could change your life.

Bruce Cardenas, a former Marine who built a billion-dollar nutrition brand, shares the gut-wrenching story of business betrayal that would have broken many. Instead of seeking vengeance, he chose forgiveness—a choice informed by asking forgiveness from his own brother and watching his son battle alcoholism. His revelation that "life is extremely short" offers a perspective that makes holding grudges seem like precious time wasted.

Military veteran Amy takes us through her decade-long battle with anger after returning from Afghanistan. When conventional treatments failed, she found breakthrough in ancient plant medicines that allowed her to physically release trauma stored in her body. Her simple yet profound tools for healing—breath work, journaling, and gratitude practice—cost nothing but offer everything.

Actor and former metal band frontman Jacob Wilson courageously reveals his journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance as a gay man in environments that rejected his identity. Now working in Hollywood, he demonstrates how leading with love and authenticity creates genuine connections in an industry known for toxicity and transactional relationships.

The thread connecting these diverse stories? Understanding that beneath anger lies pain—often the pain of a wounded inner child "screaming for help." This perspective shift transforms how we view not just our own anger, but the anger we encounter in others.

Whether you're carrying resentment, battling addiction, healing from trauma, or simply seeking more meaningful connections, these stories remind us that the path forward always involves the choice to default to love. Ready to make that choice in your own life? This episode gives you both the inspiration and practical tools to begin.

To connect more with Dr. Harte, book a FREE discovery call!

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Heart Conscious Creators
• 2:39 Bruce Cardenas: Marine to Entrepreneur
• 4:50 Amy: Veteran and Plant Medicine Advocate
• 6:28 Jacob Wilson: From Metal Band to Actor
• 8:49 Betrayal in Business: Bruce's Story
• 16:36 Amy's Journey Through Military Trauma
• 24:28 Jacob's Struggle with Self-Acceptance
• 31:24 The Power of Forgiveness and Healing
• 38:13 Leading with Love in Toxic Industries

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Today I am bringing a really cool episode because it highlights three different people who spoke on a panel at a recent heart conscious creators event, which, for those of you who are new to the podcast, is a monthly speaking event that I started after my book came out last June, and the idea of the event is that I'm taking the 12 steps of recovery, making them modern and trauma-informed, such that anyone, addict or not, has a spiritual blueprint for how to get through life's hardest things, and at the event I take one of the steps every month. I extract the universal message inside of the step and I discuss how we might use that step in how we live, love, parent and work. So at a recent heart conscious creators event, I had three amazing guests on a panel. You'll hear from all three and I ask them rather intuitively about not just who they are, but who they are when anger shows up and how they work through things like anger, rage and resentment to return to a place of love, mostly so that they can set themselves free of carrying that burden on their backs. Really fascinating stuff. The conversation was really interesting.

Speaker 1: 1:57

There's more parts to this, but this will give you just enough to sink your teeth into and to actually use it in your real life. If you find this podcast valuable, please share it with a friend, send it to someone you love, subscribe, leave a review. I'd love to hear from you and please go and follow me on social media at Dr Samantha Hart H-A-R-T-E Book a discovery call. It's totally free. I'd love to connect with you.

Speaker 2: 2:39

And now please enjoy leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern.

Speaker 3: 2:48

Find a new reprieve, breaking the Bruce Cardenas that's my name Born and raised in Highbridge, New Jersey, I shouldn't be here today. I was run over by a car when I was seven with one of my best friends. I woke up in a hospital with fractured leg internal injuries and my friend passed away from the accident. It was my first experience with death as a child, and my last so somehow I was held back in school because of that.

Speaker 3: 3:19

So I thought I was challenged Barely two weeks out of high school. When I did get out of high school, I joined the Marine Corps. I think I encouraged it on my father Because he basically said either pay rent or go in the Marine Corps. So I did that and I found I grew up in the Marine Corps. I became a man from being a boy and fulfilled the boyhood dream of being a police officer here in LA and bodyguard business nutrition space got involved with selling a billion dollar nutrition company and working on our second billion dollar brand. I lived with an alcoholic son. My mom was an alcoholic growing up. Alcoholic drugs have plagued our life, my family's life and somehow I have avoided that bullet my entire life.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Thank you, amy, yeah, bruce.

Speaker 5: 4:10

My name is Amy and I am a 16-year military veteran. I'm a board member of the Illuminated Collective, which is a nonprofit supporting military veterans and first responders with plant medicine. So we do medicine retreats Bufo, mdma, psilocybin, ayahuasca, ibogaine, things like that in Texas to help them overcome PTSD and depression and other mental health issues. I also have a podcast. It's a Q&A and Y show and I focus on spirituality, mental health, mindset, military transition, getting them out of PTSD and things like that. So I'm excited to be here and talk all about the relationship stuff. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 6: 4:49

Hi guys, I'm Jacob Wilson. I'm a little bit of an enigma. I'm kind of all over the place. I'm an actor. I was a front man for a metal band for many, many years. So that was a fun chapter of my life and also a bit of a tumultuous chapter of my life, you know, with drugs and alcohol and partying and all of those things Also can relate to Bruce's sentiment of you know. I feel like there's been several moments in my life with drugs and alcohol where I could have easily not been here today and I'm very grateful to be here sharing the stage and sharing a little bit of the wisdom I've collected along the way.

Speaker 6: 5:35

I also worked for the past about six years in sales for a health and life coaching company. That chapter of my life is closing to focus more on my career as an actor, and I'm very, very excited for that. I just fulfilled my vision of finding a great manager in January and, yeah, I just felt like it was time for me to focus on building my dream and I'm happy that I contributed to somebody else's over the last few years. I gained a lot of knowledge, but it's time to build my dream, so thanks for having me here, you're welcome Bruce.

Speaker 1: 6:18

First of all, you built a billion dollar brand. Can we just have a moment of silence for that unbelievable accomplishment?

Speaker 3: 6:26

It was we, it wasn't just us.

Speaker 1: 6:27

I know, I know In your business endeavors. Can you take me back to a time when somebody crossed you Financially, emotionally, someone sort of pulled the rug out from under you. What happened? What did you do? How did you pivot?

Speaker 3: 6:52

Yeah, it's happened several times, but one more specifically. I had started a protection business a personal protection business, bodyguard business and I did it all on my own. I was a one-man show and I got to the point where I was so big. I always look back and think I was a dumb kid from New Jersey and I'm literally. It's a multi-million dollar business and I needed help and someone approached me and said hey, I could help you with your business. I'm a former Marine and I'm in the bodyguard space too, and I made him a partner.

Speaker 3: 7:22

I remember my dad when I was a kid. He said you know, he never had partners. He said you just gotta be careful who you get in bed with, literally. But I made him a partner and I kind of took my eye off the business per se. I was worried about the relationships and he started stealing money and writing checks to himself and I've always been the front man, I've always been the relationship guy. All I knew was money in his bank and we were paying our bills. I never even knew what we had and and my accountant called one day to say you know, Bruce, your payrolls do and you don't have enough money to make payroll. I go? That's impossible. And then she dove deep and here I am.

Speaker 3: 7:57

I was devastated because I gave him anything he wanted, a matter. I was so devastated because that year we were doing so well, I bought him a brand new Harley-Davidson for his birthday, just bought it. We were doing so well, I bought him a brand new Harley Davidson for his birthday, Just bought it in my own pocket. And then Christmas I bought him a Rolex watch. And then that happened and I literally was like I think I cried to myself, even privately, and then I had to confront him and he's married with two kids and he's like, like everyone that steals, Well, no, that's not what I like. No, you don't understand. Like I like I want to have you executed. Like you stole money. Um, but I had a calmer sense. I was an adult, you know, I'd already had kids, so I knew I didn't want to go to prison so I had to take a legal route, but I was so crushed because I let him in my family, in my world.

Speaker 3: 8:38

You know what I mean. I still haven't gotten over that, didn't I realize now, even though I'm a very trusting person? And I believe in everyone. I still. Whenever everyone says, hey, I want to do business with you, I'm always like, okay, here we go. How good are they? How bad are they? It's hard to evaluate people.

Speaker 1: 8:55

What would trust look like?

Speaker 3: 8:58

So here's the thing I have to say I trust everyone until I have a reason not to trust them. If I met anyone, I still would have full trust in somebody I was just a little naive to, I wasn't paying attention to what I should have paid attention to, if that makes sense, because I trusted him so much, especially when someone's like hey man, thanks for the opportunity, I love you, you've made my life better, but you're stealing from me.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Have you ever spoken to him again?

Speaker 3: 9:24

No, no, no. Once we went part ways and it cost me lawyer fees.

Speaker 1: 9:30

No, he disappeared. Okay, I have a lot more to ask, but we're going to keep going down the line. This is good. This is good stuff, amy.

Speaker 5: 9:40

Same question. No, I'm excited.

Speaker 1: 9:47

You're a veteran. You were a veteran, you're a veteran, and you went to Afghanistan. You were there. You were serving this country for a long time 16 years, right, okay. When you got back and you were trying to integrate into normal life, back, and you were trying to integrate into normal life.

Speaker 5: 10:12

How did anger if it did show up? And what did you do? Oh gosh, yeah anger, anger has not left. Yeah, I was definitely a really great person coming back from Afghanistan. For many reasons little context I had a son. He was a baby. I was, uh, an 18,. I had an 18 month old baby when I went overseas and I was there for almost two years, so I came home to a three-year-old and so I was robbed at that time with him and I was married at the time and my marriage completely fell apart, uh, the moment I got home.

Speaker 5: 10:40

So I was robbed of that. Um, and then, you know, I had all these issues. I came home with a addiction to Ambien myself, which is what the military would throw at you when you were in the war zones, you know, trying to sleep helicopters all around, mortars going off, you name it. They would just throw Ambien at you and put you on SSRI medications. And so when I came home I was like a wad of anger. Um, you know I'd had friends commit suicide in the war zone that I was in. You know I'd lost soldiers, fellow service members. You know, overseas as well, there's no coming home to that mess and having gone through that type of situation, not being angry. And so I was trying to unravel that for the next 10 something years with the VA system. Uh, every medication you can think of, talk therapy, nothing worked at all.

Speaker 5: 11:27

Nothing would even scratch it because it was all masking, it was all, um, you know, try this and see if it helps, try this, see if it helps. And it just this continual pattern of doing what little the Western medical society could do for me, uh, for any of the service members, which is why we have such a high suicide rate today. They just weren't getting to the root cause of it. So I came very, very angry, and it wasn't until this last year actually, where I had discovered the power of ancient plant medicine so working with psilocybin, working with bufo, which is a frog poison, et cetera, where these are ancestral medicines that I actually found some relief.

Speaker 5: 12:05

And um, why did that stuff help me? Because it gave me the ability to get it out somatically. So I was able to cry for the first time, I was able to yell for the first time, I was able to scream for the first time, um, I was able to process these deep emotions that are trapped in your body, uh, where the trauma is stored. And with those tools, I was able to basically open the portal to myself and actually process what I had been through that created this like anger ball that I was, and ever since I went through that experience myself and found just such deep healing and deep release, I still am a little bit uh, angry from time to time, and I'm still working on it but, where I'm at today to where I was a year ago is night and day different.

Speaker 5: 12:47

So anger is a really interesting thing and I think when you ask anger, why are you angry? And you start peeling back those layers, there's always a reason and there's usually a little boy or a little girl inside you that has just really been through some shit. So when I see an angry person I really can empathize, you know, and of course I still go through like the normal defensive things LA traffic, you know, things like that but at the same time, like you know, if I can sit and calm down and like give it a breath I can realize actually that that little boy or little girl inside that person too is just they're screaming for help.

Speaker 1: 13:29

I think that's so important, like everything. First of all, thank you for what you're sharing. This is exactly the kind of talk that I want to be having tonight. It says how to lead with love, love, and so you just gave a really powerful example of how to take the lens of anger towards someone else and shift it. What would life be like if our consciousness was so elevated that, when we see somebody homeless, screaming high in a state of rage, if we stopped taking it personally and we said, oh my God, that person is in such a deep state of suffering we may not be able to stay there, but it just opens the window for compassion. But it just opens the window for compassion, being curious about why they are the way they are, instead of it being all about us and how they're screwing up our plans. It's exactly why we're talking about this. Right, it's so powerful.

Speaker 1: 14:41

Oh, I could like talk to each of you for 30 minutes. We're gonna need to follow up. Call you guys, okay, jacob, um, by the way, you guys, I I don't come in like I read everybody's bios and I I know what the night's gonna be about, and then I listen and I intuitively ask what I want to ask based on what they're sharing. So this is not planned, and here's what I want to ask you yeah, Take me to a time when you were really angry at yourself.

Speaker 6: 15:22

A time when I was really angry at myself. I think to me that has to stem back to what we talked about on your podcast, but I'm going to be very vulnerable and open with y'all in this space. So I identify as a gay man and that was something that I really struggled with growing up. It was something that I tried to suppress, something that I was taught by society and my parents who I'm on good terms with today, thank God, literally and, um, just the institutions around me growing up that that, that that wasn't okay.

Speaker 6: 16:07

And that caused a lot of shame to not acknowledge such a core part of who I am. Um, and I dealt with that through medicating. Uh, for me it was smoking weed and just numbing out um, which morphed into drinking and other things through the years as well, but weed was always kind of my drug of choice that just leveled everything out and made me not care and just relax the voices up in here. Um, and there was a point in high school where it was my senior year and I hit that bottom. I'll never forget it.

Speaker 6: 16:51

But I was walking into PE class, going into the locker room and we're all standing at the lockers and I had just reached that point where I knew that well, I acknowledged that I couldn't control it anymore, it being the addiction and our locker had it was solid metal but there were like these little grids where you could see inside of it and I, just the hardest I could, I punched the F out of that locker and my knuckles started bleeding. Could. I punched the F out of that locker and my knuckles started bleeding. And I remember going to my PE teacher at that moment and letting her know like, hey, I gotta go home, like I'm going through some stuff. I just let her know everything you know I've been using, I've been medicating, and I realized that it's out of control and I need to get help. And her name was Mrs Collins and she just looked at me in that moment and she said a bunch of things. But the one thing that I remember was sometimes you just have to let go and let God. And.

Speaker 6: 17:55

God being, you know, love, god being, whatever anybody believes it to be, surrender. And that was the beginning of that journey of really trying to reconnect to myself. But I I dealt with a lot of anger, for, you know, I'm very much a type, a kind of person. I wake up every morning and I, you know, plan my day and my calendar, I script my day and, um, I've always been the kind of person to, to want to control what I can control, and now I do so in a healthy way. Right.

Speaker 6: 18:30

But when you have that tendency, it can be very easy to get sucked into wanting to control all this shit that you just can't control and you get obsessed about it, Um, and it drives you insane and it drives you insane. So I dealt with a lot of anger towards myself and towards, in all honesty, the institution of the church for not causing me to feel, because that shame ultimately came from me.

Speaker 6: 19:03

It was influenced from external factors, but I carried a lot of anger towards myself and towards the church, ultimately for a lot of hurt and pain that I carried around. And nowadays, you know, I realize that my faith and spirituality journey looks a lot different than most other people who label themselves as Christians. You know, I'm very open with my faith. I do believe that I can be a queer person and be a Christian. I don't think that that's contradictory and I realize that that might upset some people to say that and I just I don't care because I know that God loves me and, um, you know, I just beyond all that. I don't want this to turn into a church talk but, um, I I just think that the world needs more love man um because that's what that shame and anger was.

Speaker 6: 20:01

It was a lack of love for myself and um, you just gotta love more, man you know, so I love that.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Amen to that, thank you is that a church pen? Maybe okay, bruce, I want to go down the line one more time for each of you. If that man who did the best he could with the very limited tools that he had and he wanted your forgiveness, what would you say?

Speaker 3: 20:56

Yeah, yeah, for sure I would forgive him. And this goes back to my little brother, was three years younger than me. I used to bully the shit out of him. When you you know typical older brother Fast forward.

Speaker 3: 21:14

He's in his 30s and he came out that he was gay but he also had brain cancer. I remember visiting him in the hospital and his his partner was there and I was that big brother who would call him bad names and I asked him for forgiveness and he said you don't need to forgive me. He was kind of a funny guy, he goes. You didn't need to forgive me, you were just a dumb meathead when you were a kid, but I used to call him brutal names and so I had to ask him for forgiveness. So I had to ask him forgiveness. So I had to ask for forgiveness out of life.

Speaker 3: 21:47

Even when I was a cop, I learned empathy because my older brother was in that prison, a very bad dude, but I loved him because my brother had a drug and alcohol problem and when I would encounter people on the street, any time it involved drugs or alcohol or they did things based on drugs or alcohol, I concluded that many people are a paycheck away from a crisis and I had to learn empathy and forgiveness. So fast forward to this guy. I'm always going to be able to make money. He probably needed it more than me, I guess. Right, that's why he stole from me.

Speaker 3: 22:21

So I'm very forgiving in that I'm not tense about it. Life is extremely short and you know, my father died, crazy enough. My brother's got brain cancer. My dad dies of colon cancer within six months, so there's a lot of forgiveness. I don't feel like I ever had the greatest relationship with them, but anyway, I'm very forgiving of anyone that's ever done me wrong, because my journey is going to be over soon and you know, at some point and uh, I hope people forgive me for anything I've ever done Like I was a horrible father early on.

Speaker 3: 22:53

My kids didn't grow up with me. Now we're best friends, but I have 20 years. That it was strenuous and tumultuous and, and you know, my son's an alcoholic. Now what's really painful for me is I have all this access to some of the most successful people in the world that have run rehab centers. I've had friends of mine call me, say, bruce. I normally get ten thousand dollars like a week to consult people. Just send them here, I'll pay for everything for free and my son will not get help and everyone says, um, he's gonna have to rock bottom. I thought he said rock bottom because he's totaled a car, but he still won't get help. So that's where I'm really helpless in life is your own son I have got the biggest resources in the world.

Speaker 3: 23:36

I've had some of the wealthiest people in the world say I'll fly him on my jet. He just won't do it. So anyway, I got a love tractor. So I'm becoming a very forgiving. Forgiving person because I feel like he's probably going to die doing what he's doing and I want to make sure I have a great relationship or he knows I love him. Does that make sense? Yeah I probably had a love track but no, you didn't.

Speaker 1: 23:57

No, I think, first of all, it's so beautiful that you got that vulnerable like. It really makes me want to tear up, and I have so much in common with you, as you know, more than I realized. I think you said so many things about forgiveness. I mean, we're here to talk about how to clear out anger right and looking for tools of how to do that. You said something about how fast life goes and it's hard to have urgency in our lives when we're young. It's hard to have urgency when we haven't lost people we loved. But, man, if I could give you guys the gift of urgency to remember how short and precious this whole thing is, so that you can keep defaulting to love and compassion and curiosity instead of anger, that is the thing I want you to take, and you said that, bruce I started my kind of civilian corporate career and everything, um, in tandem, of still being in the military, serving on the national guard front, uh, in 2016.

Speaker 5: 25:00

so my, my healing journey has been going on. I started taking ssris and doing the healing stuff actually while I was in afghanistan um, so my healing journey has been going on. I started taking SSRIs and doing the healing stuff actually while I was in Afghanistan, um, so, like, my healing journey has been going on for a really long time. I just finally found actual root cause release. That's what I mean. Last year, yeah, um, and so over that time, I mean like I still I was a super angry person, uh, one year ago, you know, and so like but I tried all the tools right, All the therapy tools and all of that and for me those were completely ineffective.

Speaker 5: 25:31

I think you know the tools that therapists give you and the resources online and all of that are helpful and for some people they're perfect, but for me it was the type of trauma that I had was just like, so ingrained in my DNA and my my system and probably generational.

Speaker 5: 25:48

You know, it's passed down from my father, it's literally in my past on my mother. It's literally living in my cells. Right, this is, this is fact. I mean, you can you're a doctor you know there's a lot of science to kind of back up the how cells are formed and you know what type of DNA things come through and how you make a new bait, like you literally get given the trauma from your parents. If you didn't know that, um and so I was just one angry person and half of that trauma wasn't even mine, it was my parents and um, so, uh, none of those tools were helpful because it was so bad, and so the tools that I have now in my toolkit, um, are, uh, things like breath work, which is one of the biggest things. Like, if you, if you're not someone that's comfortable trying a medicine journey and looping that into your um experience of, of healing breath work, it sounds silly to a lot of people, especially to me. It asked me a year ago.

Speaker 5: 26:42

I would have been like you're ridiculous like absolutely ridiculous, like I'm not going to sit here and breathe In fact, I have no time for that Um, and then I got to a point where, uh, I was so desperate, where I'm suicidal a year ago, and so I went to this retreat center and, um, they did breath work and literally there was me. I wish you could see a little video now of it, because I was rolling my eyes at the guy. Everyone else was in there, going, ah, you know, and I'm literally like this is so stupid. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to humor this person, you know, and I was like resenting it, like I'm going to go through this dumb exercise, and I had my mask on my little eye mask, and I was breathing'm seeing shit and I'm like, whoa, I'm having visuals and the guy's like, stick with me now. And we're going through this whole exercise for like 30, 45 minutes of breathing and I realized I was like on another planet. You know, like I was actually able to calm down, I was able to control my heart rate, I was able to release the tension and release the trauma. You know that I was experiencing from the day or whatever. Release the tension and release the trauma. And you know that I was experiencing from the day or whatever.

Speaker 5: 27:46

And so breath work is one of those tools that I just encourage people. If you haven't tried it, google it, it's free. And oxygen it's free, like you don't need money, you don't need therapy for this. This is stuff you can do on your own. So breath work is like number one. And then number two is like literally pull out your journal and just write it out, because a lot of the things that I'm talking about like the stuff that gets you wadded up and angry it's because you're not releasing it, you're not getting it out, and so if you don't have someone to talk to, grab a pen, grab a piece of paper and write it out, and you'll find that at the end of that exercise you might cry, get annoyed, think it's done, your hands get sore, whatever. Take a break, get some water, take a stretch, take a lap around the block, come back and finish writing until you're done being mad about what you're done being mad about.

Speaker 5: 28:35

I'm sorry what you're mad about and so, uh, breathwork, journaling. And then the third thing that I would um emphasize and encourage is just like to sit down and think about all the things that you're grateful for, like your gratitude list, which again is one of those things where I'm like that's stupid right. Like literally, when I started this healing journey, I'm like you know you go from getting shot at and having mortars and all these things and then someone's like make a gratitude list, right, but it actually freaking works because you know, if you, if you realize just kind of, how good you have it. Like you shared your story about like sleeping on couches and stuff and you know, your marriage falling apart and all of this, like you hit rock bottom, like what possibly was going right. Well, I'm going to give you a list. I wasn't even there, but I'm going to give you a list.

Speaker 5: 29:22

First thing in the morning, you had two miracles your little eyes opened. That's two miracles right there. Some people can't even open their damn eyes. You know your oxygen, I can breathe. Some people need a machine to breathe. You know, like you just start going down the little little things. My hair is growing I'm not bald, Right Like I mean. I mean, there's all these, the list of things that you can come up with, right, just all the little stuff. I have shoes on my feet, I have food in my belly, I have a roof over my head, you know, and even if you're in somebody else's roof, thank god you got a friend to sleep on the couch, you know. So when you go down that list, you'll find out pretty quickly you got nothing to be mad about what, what are?

Speaker 5: 30:04

you mad about. So, anyway, that's what I do now.

Speaker 1: 30:07

I love it. Yeah, I love it, and I actually I want to say something about gratitude, because now there's all this research and so everyone's talking about it and we're a little bit in like the eye roll phase of gratitude. I want to challenge people. You know we talk a lot on the flip side of that, of triggers, which a lot of people eye roll about too. The opposite of a trigger is a glimmer, a glimmer, and as a parent, there are so many days that are a shit show I mean a shit of a show of a day, right, and I'm just looking for one glimmer, one magical moment, like my daughter. Just I love you, you know, or just being sassy or funny, or, and that's enough to sustain me, right? So if a glimmer feels good to you and gratitude, maybe, doesn't try it, it's a fun little mental hack.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Yeah, I love those and they're all free. Like you said, everything you said is free. So, jacob, I I have to go this route, because you went this route and you guys heard my story about God and and like sort of hatred for the word and how I now understand God and so I can say that word freely and I feel nothing. I feel no recoiling or activation Right. So I'm so curious you're in the entertainment industry, which is such a difficult, notoriously toxic industry, right? And if the default to anger is love, if the flip side of it is love and you find access to that through your version of God, how are you bringing God, or a God consciousness, into work in the entertainment industry?

Speaker 6: 32:14

Great question, I think, something that's really important, especially in the entertainment industry. I actually had I knew this was going to come up. I had something that happened last night that I'll share about with this. Especially in this industry and in this town in general, I feel as if it can be notorious for people looking to take and receive rather than give and add value.

Speaker 6: 32:46

And just be a genuine person that chooses to lead with love and live in integrity each day. Um, so last night I ran into a casting director that I've known over the years. She's called me in for a couple things and, um, she recognized me and mentioned me by name, pulled me over and her assistant, jamie, was there and Jamie stepped out for a bit. Um, and I had someone on one time with Renee and she was telling me that Jamie was like uh, oh, I'm so, I'm so impressed that you remembered his name, like you see so many faces each and every day. And Renee told me that she told Jamie like yeah, you're right, I don't really usually remember people's names, but every time that Jacob and I have interacted outside of an audition or anything, he's always been so genuine and he's never made me feel like he's trying to get anything from me.

Speaker 6: 33:48

And both of our moms love System of a Down and so I just remembered his name.

Speaker 6: 33:53

And it meant so much to me to hear that last night, because that, to me, is leading with love, that's leading with genuineness and care. Love that's leading with genuineness and care, right, um, and I think in society we all want this five-step formula to fast track this result, right, success, whatever that is, when there really is no fast track result for anything in life. But if you're trying to play the long haul in any career, what's going to take you the furthest. Furthest is empathy and love and compassion. Um, and I think that that that's what's really helped me stand out so far in my journey in this industry is leading with love, leading with care.

Speaker 6: 34:43

And you know, when I show up to, to set, I want to be the person that you know, learns wardrobes name, learns hair and makeups name and cultivates an environment where everyone feels celebrated and is working together as this cohesive unit, rather than, you know, the, the diva jackass actor that's just there to take up space and collect a check. Um, that's not how I want to live, you know. I want to. There's there's plenty of darkness and toxicity and anger in this world, right, and we can only combat that by being a light and leading with love. And that takes intention. It's so freaking easy to wake up each day and you almost just kind of naturally can fall into negativity, right, if we're not consciously creating a positive circuit of thought. And for me, what that looks like every morning is I say a prayer.

Speaker 6: 35:44

I read affirmations out loud and I'm like, literally, it's like putting gas into the car of my body. Right, I'm fueling my body each and every day in my mind with the thoughts to create the environment that I want to live in and I think that that's so important because, you know, my acting coach says if a scene starts well, that it's pretty likely that it's gonna end up going well right. So I take that into my days of like, if I can start my day well then it's pretty likely the rest is going to fall into place.

Speaker 6: 36:15

Starting and ending, I feel, are really, really important for your days, um and with with what you mentioned with gratitude, like wow, I opened my eyes today, I took a breath today and I'm not attached to a machine. That's one of the first things.

Speaker 6: 36:29

I do each morning is, I'll just roll up out of bed and I'll dangle my feet over the bed and I'll just say Thank you, thank you, thank you, god, thank you whatever that is for you. And that's just a little simple practice that I think makes a big difference just taking that moment. First thing, roll out of bed, dangle your feet over and say thank you out loud or mentally.

Speaker 6: 36:51

You know, you have feet that work, you have lungs that can work and eyes that opened. And not everybody gets that every day. Every day is a blessing, you know.

Speaker 1: 37:01

I mean, let's give it up for our panel, holy cow.

Speaker 2: 37:37

Thank you, guys, so much. Thank you Sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough, it's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve, breaking the circuit, making it worth it all.

Speaker 7: 38:09

I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside.

Speaker 2: 38:23

I got left to fight. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion. Start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Trust the process, cause it's gonna set me free, breaking the circuit.

Speaker 7: 38:53

Making it worth it all. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the the life. There's a note deep inside. I gotta gotta gotta Gotta gotta gotta break it or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no one deep inside. I got the the life. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the the life.