Rebuilding After Everything Falls Apart | Gaylen Wilson

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What happens when you've already accepted that you're going to die?
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And then thirty minutes later the phone rings to tell you there's a heart waiting for you. Today's guest, Galen Wilson, has lived through bankruptcy, alcoholism, the collapse of a career, heart problems, and eventually a heart transplant that gave him a second chance at life. But what stood out to me the most wasn't just that Galen survived.
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It was what he learned about rebuilding after everything falls apart.
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The role our relationships can play in keeping us going, and why sometimes resilience is simply being grateful for what you still have instead of becoming bitter about what you've lost.
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This is a conversation about survival, sobriety, love, second chances, and learning how to build a life worth fighting for.
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Welcome to Overcome with Travis White.
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Galen, why don't you go ahead and share your story?
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Okay. well let's start back up.
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I had a pretty boring childhood, n pretty normal normal. I was adopted, but my adopted parents never hid it from me.
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They were always fully honest about it and they treated me like their own, so I I don't have any scars from the adoption.
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Yeah.
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And and I I got married at twenty and had four kids by the time I was twenty six.
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So we we w my ex father in law used to tease me that he was gonna buy me a book that told me how that happened.
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Yeah.
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And and so I started farming at about twenty three.
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I I got the opportunity to rent some land from a guy out in Dodge City, Kansas. And and so I all of a sudden I was a farmer and I loved it.
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It was Who I was. I it I was making more money than the average 20-something year old in in southeast Colorado.
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And nobody told me that you really shouldn't be a farmer in the desert.
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Yeah.
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And so in my early thirties I had two of my last three years were crop failures because of the drought. you know, you don't get rain, you don't grow a crop.
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And and so that pretty much the I had the had the one drought year and then had a good year that kinda kept me float afloat and then the second drought year did me in.
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And so I ended up filing farm bankruptcy over that.
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And I didn't have any any mental tools to deal with that that disappointment and so I did the good old farmer thing and just stuffed it and went on. And So I worked some minimum wage jobs around town and finally decided in the late 80s to make my fortune and go to the city.
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So I went to Denver. I got a job as a stockbroker, believe it or not. you know, the they say, How do you go from being a farmer to a stockbroker?
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And I said, Well, I wasted myself on farming for ten years.
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Hehehehehe.
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But they really don't give farmers enough.
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credit for how much business knowledge they've got to have.
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And so I did really well at that.
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as you'll find out I can talk.
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Yeah.
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And and the New Yorkers really seem to love my laid back Colorado attitude and and and accent. And and so I was doing really well.
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I walk into work one Monday morning in mid January of nineteen ninety.
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And I had been selling this little dental HMO to all of my customers.
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I had three thousand dollars of my mother's money in it.
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And I walk into work and they tell me, well, DHA has filed chapter seven, they're gone, their stock's worthless.
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And so all of my clients wouldn't talk to me anymore.
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And my mother was not too happy.
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And and so I again I didn't have any really good mental tools to deal with that disaster. And so I picked a really bad one and I crawled inside a bod vodka bottle for 10 years.
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And and so I was a really high functioning drunk.
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I had four kids I still needed to take care of, so I I was able to keep jobs and until Mm-hmm.
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I wasn't, you know, in the late 90s it was starting to really wear on me.
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And fortunately I had a job that had good health insurance.
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and I was able to get six weeks of rehab and and so that gave me some tools in my toolbox to start dealing with all those disasters in my life.
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And and so by January of two thousand one, I was to the point where I was mostly sober with just like having I'd be ho sober for six, eight or eight months and have a weekend binge.
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And unfortunately, that was also about the time my first marriage, after twenty-some years, disintegrated.
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the kids were all grown. you know, we'd done the typical thing, you got so many kids that you're paying attention to them, so you lose each other.
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And then the alcohol and and the repeated disasters didn't help.
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And so I had nothing bad to say about my ex.
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She was she was a saint. She probably put up with my BS a lot longer than what she should have.
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Yeah.
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And and so in January two thousand one I got a job as a traveling computer consultant for PeopleSoft, a software company. And they would send me out during the week to wherever they needed me to go and then fly me home for the weekends.
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And so I was I was in tall cotton.
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I was never made so much money in my life.
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I thought I'd made it.
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And then those planes fly into the building in September of two thousand and one and that whole consulting industry went down in ashes with those buildings.
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And within by December I got laid off.
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And so I spent all of two thousand and the next nine months, first part of two thousand and two, on unemployment, looking nationwide for work, and I got flown to Chicago for one interview and they loved me, but They said called me back a week later and said, Well, the economy's not back yet.
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We're not gonna fill that position.
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And so I had to go to work for Walmart as a cashier when the unemployment ran out.
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And and that was also about the time I met Heather.
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And it's September twenty-third of two thousand and two.
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We just celebrated our twenty-fourth anniversary of the night we met, just a few weeks ago. And We both kind of feel like we hit the jackpot right off the bat because we were the first person that either one of us dated after our failed marriages.
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And I have been doing some studying into tantric sex, not so much the Hindu part of it, but the techniques. And Mm-hmm.
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one of the tenets of it is eye gazing.
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And eye gazing can create such an incredible bond between a couple when it's used during love making.
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And you're gonna see where this eye gazing comes into play laser later that I learned there twenty-five years ago.
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and so Heather and I started off with the eye gazing, started off with an incredible bond.
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We basically never left the romance phase for twelve years.
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they often say that ac alcoholics switch their addictions.
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Well, I just switched mine to Heather.
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Hey.
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She's a much healthier addiction.
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And so I by after the the disaster we we moved my little house my house came available back in our little hometown. one of the renters had moved out.
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I hadn't been able to sell it in all those years.
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And so Heather and I moved in and I was able to transfer with I had had to get a job at with Walmart as a cashier.
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because I couldn't get a halfway decent job because you're overqualified.
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You know, I had one job actually tell me we love you, Galen, but if that money comes back, you're gonna be gone. So we can't invest in you.
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Yeah.
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And so so we get back to I I was able to transfer with Walmart to our little town and so I hit the ground with the job and you know my rent was considerably my payment was three twenty five and my rent in Denver had been eleven hundred and fifty.
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So we ac I had to take a three dollar an hour pay cut to come home, but I was actually more money in my pocket.
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And so I me being the enterprising kind of guy I am, I put a little ad in the paper for computer repair, even though I'd never really done it, but I'd I'd been a hobbyist all my life and I'd built my own computers so I figure I could fix other people's.
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And and within six months that job was making more than the Walmart was.
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So I was able to quit it and go to it doing it full time out of the house.
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And so from about June of two thousand four to present, Heather and I have been together twenty four seven, three sixty five, because I've been self employed that whole time.
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And I tell people you've got to really like your wife.
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not just lover to be around her that much.
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And she is my best friend. And so anyway, so we're going along really good with the repair business.
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And then Microsoft comes out with Windows 7.
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Well Windows 7 didn't get infected with viruses like Windows XP did.
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And ac viruses were my bread and butter.
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I was working on Mm-hmm.
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10 or 15 computers a week.
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And I went to working on one or two computers a week.
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So here we were again. Another Yeah.
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disaster. And I it was about that time that I discovered a couple of websites that are like dating sites for c computer techs and companies that need work orders done.
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You know, like they need to you to go to Walmart and swap out a cash register or go to Sonic and replace their their servers or you know, whatever.
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And so I again landed on my feet.
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we actually hooked up with an outfit out of West Virginia that they had to contract with ATT and ATT had to contract with the USDA Farm Service Agency to provide all their computer equipment for their 3600 sites across the country.
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And this company had a hard time getting reliable techs to go out and install this equipment.
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So they actually started sending Heather and I all over the United States.
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We actually hit all 48 contiguous states within three years after starting with them, going to the county seats all across the country.
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So for this old farmer, it was really neat seeing all the you know the tobacco Yeah.
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and the rice and the sugar cane and all the crops all across the country.
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And and so we had just come back off of our big trip.
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It was we left July 6th of 2014 in a brand new little Toyota Prius C.
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You know, that's the smallest Prius they make.
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And I had built a little four by four Harbor Freight Tools trailer kit with a Sears car top carrier, and that's what we put our luggage in.
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And I took her and her 14 and 16-year-old daughters, and we drove through 35 states and did 250 offices in 31 states.
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seventeen weeks and twenty five thousand miles on the road.
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And the girls were homeschooled through a computer school.
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And and so we get home and that Christmas, around Christmas time I got really sick.
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And so I went into the little clinic here in town.
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And being a town of seventy five hundred we don't have really good health care.
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Mm-hmm.
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You know it's it's at the cities that are quite a ways away.
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And The physician's assistant I saw said, Well, Galen, you've got pneumonia.
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Here's some antibiotics. Well, I later found out that the protocol for pneumonia is you'll take a chest x-ray to make sure to verify that it's pneumonia.
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He didn't do that. And so I took his his antibiotics and and Heather and I we had another three and a half month trip planned and and the girls were done with the road.
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Yeah.
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They had done and they they stayed at home with their eighteen year old brother and we had bought a motorhome for that trip.
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And I had bought an oxygen generator when I was really sick, and so we threw the oxygen generator in because I was still kinda needing it at night. And so we take off on the trip thinking we're good.
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But as the further I get, the weaker and weaker I got, the more out of breath I got.
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Until six weeks into the trip.
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We're down in Corpus Christi, Texas, and I have to carry my little tin bowed bag of tools in and set it down on their counter to suck air for a couple of minutes before I could tell why I was there. It was just I was that bad.
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And so we it was President's Day, we had a day off, the FSA offices were closed, and so I said, Let's find a walk-in clinic and go in and see if the pneumonia's coming back.
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And so we did, and they did send me for the chest x-ray.
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And And they they called me back that afternoon and said, Mr. Wilson, you d don't have pneumonia.
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You've got congestive heart failure.
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You need to get home to Colorado today.
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And so my bright idea as a type the type A personality I was was, well, we're making three hundred dollars a job and getting three to four jobs a day in. We need to finish this six weeks and then we'll go get a taken care of.
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Well that lasted two jobs into the next day before the reality set in that I had a serious heart problem and that we did need to get home.
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And and so Poor Heather had to drive that motor home the thousand miles home.
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And she's from a town of three hundred in southeast Colorado.
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She and she grew up outside that seven miles outside that town.
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So she didn't do city traffic well.
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And so and I but I was too sick by that time to to help with the driving.
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And so she had to drive it all the way home.
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We did have a long hose on the oxygen generator, and she made me come up and sit beside her in the chair.
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That's it.
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in the passenger seat when she went through San Antonio.
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And but Brave Girl got me home and we went into the little hospital here and it's a triage hospital.
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You know, anything serious, they say, okay, Mr. Wilson, the ambulance will be here to take you to Colorado Springs.
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And so when they got me into the springs, into the ER up there, they did their tests and a normal healthy human heart puts out 50 to 60 percent of the blood out of the left chamber every time it beats.
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They call that the ejection fraction.
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And mine was putting out five.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah, so I was knocking on desk's door really hard.
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Really, really hard, yeah.
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Yeah. And and so they gave me a medicine called LASIK, which is a diuretic, to take the water off.
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And they took off twenty two pounds in two days.
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That was nearly three gallons of water.
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that would have been around my heart and lungs, cu basically congesting them.
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And and so I immediately felt better.
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And I the doctor was explaining it to me and he and I said, so in other words, my heart and lungs got in a ballroom brawl in the middle of a pool. He said, Yeah, pretty much.
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And so they put a an internal defibrill pacemaker in me.
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and gave me heart meds and sent me home.
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And by that summer they had me back up to about thirty percent ejection fraction, which isn't fifty to sixty percent, but you can live a fairly decent life.
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you're just not gonna be running any foot races.
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but I just over the next three years I I just slowly went down the hill.
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Heather had to watch me dying in front of her eyes for three and a half years.
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And it's during those those long term illnesses that a lot of couples the relationship crumbles.
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You know, either the patient Mm-hmm.
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withdraws into themselves and pushes their caregiver away, or the caregiver just gets so exhausted that they say, I can't do this anymore, I'm out.
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they they basically lose being husband and wife and transform into a patient caregiver relationship.
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And that really didn't help happen with Heather and I.
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Of course she took care of me.
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She was amazing. She was my angel, nursed me all the way through.
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but we never lost the affection even the last year and a half where sex be just just became completely impossible.
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we never lost the the affection, the eye-gazing.
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We never lost that bond we had created.
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one of the cool little things I d I'm I kind of skipped over it, but that Prius taught us an interesting lesson that helped us through that time.
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Because in the Prius, you learn to say I'm sorry really quickly and say you're forgiven really quickly.
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Because there's nothing quite as miserable as driving hundreds of miles with somebody you're mad at.
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Yes, yes, true.
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And so that is that taught us really fast repair, which then served us well during the the stress of of three and a half years of of heart failure. And so Heather stuck by me right through the to the end.
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And in on June 19th of 2018, I I knew that I wasn't gonna be around much longer.
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My Defibrator pacemaker went off about three weeks previously and saved my life.
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My heart rate had been two hundred and forty beats a minute right wow.
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before that thing went off and shocked me back into rhythm.
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And they s I I had a little mouse thing that I could hold over the defibrillar and then put it in a cradle that would send the report to Denver.
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And I did that the next morning and day and then called them up and they said, yeah, that's where the term drop dead comes from.
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'Cause had you not had that defibrillator in your body, you would have been dead on the spot.
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He would have been dead.
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And Heather was rubbing my legs when it went off and she got shocked.
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And all I remember is going, Wow, I feel funky. And the next thing I'm know, she's shaking me, said, What just happened?
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And and so so three weeks later on the nineteenth, I sat her down and said, Honey, I'm not gonna be here in two to three months.
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We need to finish getting ready.
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We'd been to the mortuary once, we were putting off the final decisions 'cause we just kind of ostriches with our heads in the sand. But it w had become a reality that it was gonna happen.
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Because I'd only been on the list seven months.
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And there's Yeah.
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there's twenty five or there's twelve thousand people on that list at any one time, but only twenty five hundred usable hearts become available every year. And so there's there's a lot more people that need than there are hearts.
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Yeah.
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And so the handwriting was on the wall that I wasn't gonna live long enough to get one. And and so I of course she's crying her eyes out because her soulmate had just told her that he was gonna be gone in a couple of months. And she was still crying a half an hour later when we got that call there was a heart available.
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And so They told us that it was a high risk cart, that they had found track marks on the guy's arm where he was had been using intravenous drugs, and that there was a problem with with his kidneys.
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But th I had just told my wife I was gonna be gone in two months.
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And so we had to take the flyer on it.
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And so we grabbed our little to go bag like a pregnant couple keeps and out the door we went. And we were having a huge eastern Colorado rain and hail storm that night. It was We w drove in rain and hail for a hundred and twenty miles.
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And so the water works were going outside the car and the water works were still going inside the car 'cause she had switched from crying 'cause she was sad to crying because she was excited and scared.
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'Cause there was a five percent chance I could die on that table.
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And so we went kind of through almost every human emotion a human can Mm-hmm.
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experience that night. And they had given us till one thirty in the morning to get there.
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And we slipped into that parking lot at one fifteen.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:05.747
And Mm.
00:22:05.747 --> 00:22:07.844
so we c got in just under the wire.
00:22:07.844 --> 00:22:11.988
And they rolled me into the OR at four o'clock in the morning.
00:22:11.988 --> 00:22:17.792
And by nine o'clock the next morning, I had a thirty-eight year old heart in my sixty-one year old body.
00:22:17.792 --> 00:22:22.557
And so they've basically given me another twenty plus years with my soulmate.
00:22:24.214 --> 00:22:27.710
Yeah, second chance there, second chance is all I can Yes.
00:22:27.710 --> 00:22:40.277
say. But the first question that comes to mind though is when you find out that you you know you have all these heart problems, how do you mentally live your life knowing that time's running out?
00:22:41.414 --> 00:22:52.417
Th that's tough. You know, and and i it's fortunate that I had Heather 'cause I really think she was probably the only reason I was able to maintain my sanity.
00:22:52.417 --> 00:22:57.843
Probably the only reason I'd lasted three and a half years, Mm-hmm.
00:22:57.843 --> 00:23:07.721
to where I got the heart, because had I not had her and her support and her con the connection with her, I probably would have given up at two and a half years and died.
00:23:07.721 --> 00:23:20.040
There was a period in in early in mid Janu or late January to early February I of that twenty eighteen that I was in the hospital sixteen days really close to death.
00:23:20.040 --> 00:23:27.765
And but you know, sh it it was the thought of leaving her that kept me fighting and kept me going.
00:23:27.765 --> 00:23:29.471
If I wouldn't Yeah.
00:23:29.471 --> 00:23:41.150
have wouldn't have her, I probably would have just rolled over and died at that point. In fact I they got me good enough that they were able to send me home and I thought they were sending me home to die.
00:23:41.346 --> 00:23:44.346
'Cause I'd only been on the list about a month at that point.
00:23:44.346 --> 00:24:00.453
And and so I went home, I went to bed mid-February, and I binge watched Netflix for two months, just waiting to die. And then it was one Saturday morning in mid-April, and I could tell it was a gorgeous day outside.
00:24:00.453 --> 00:24:03.984
I love the spring in in Southeast Colorado.
00:24:03.984 --> 00:24:09.057
Everything's green, which usually is not a case in Southeast Colorado desert.
00:24:09.057 --> 00:24:14.640
And so I sat up in bed and said, No damn it, I'm not gonna s lay here and die.
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:18.162
If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die do some doing something I love.
00:24:18.162 --> 00:24:20.573
And so I grabbed my oxygen bottle.
00:24:20.573 --> 00:24:22.644
I was on oxygen twenty four hours a day.
00:24:22.644 --> 00:24:31.968
I dragged dragged that back out in the backyard and I started planting a vegetable garden. And I had my son in law come over and rotail me up a spot.
00:24:31.968 --> 00:24:41.527
And and so that day it was just a couple hours out there and it was like five minutes of working and twenty minutes of setting and sucking air.
00:24:42.786 --> 00:24:43.786
Yeah.
00:24:43.786 --> 00:25:05.046
But the next day it was three or four hours that I was out there and I was sanding all my shovels and painting the handles and and getting everything in order so I could grow this garden. And within four or five days I was out there six or seven hours a day. And within two weeks I was completely off the oxygen, even at night.
00:25:05.801 --> 00:25:12.991
because I had gotten my body back working and gotten my lungs back, you know, sitting out there going Yeah.
00:25:13.347 --> 00:25:15.970
and it finally got my lungs in in the business.
00:25:15.970 --> 00:25:32.093
And and so I basically had worked my way into probably the best shape I could possibly be with my heart as bad as it was before they dropped that I tell people they dropped a Ferrari engine into this old Ford pickup.
00:25:34.391 --> 00:25:43.993
Well And so I was off you've had it I was off to the races. I actually walked nine walked five miles around the unit nine days after transplant.
00:25:43.993 --> 00:25:47.785
And I paid for it for the next three or four Yeah.
00:25:47.785 --> 00:25:50.657
days 'cause my legs were not up to that five miles.
00:25:52.727 --> 00:25:59.689
But y also the the fact that you changed your attitude and just thought, you know what, I gotta do something about this.
00:26:00.086 --> 00:26:01.086
Yeah.
00:26:01.086 --> 00:26:03.211
That's that's a huge, huge thing.
00:26:03.211 --> 00:26:16.194
And I don't think people realize that attitude actually means everything when it comes to whether it's physical illness or mental illness, like it's a huge thing.
00:26:16.834 --> 00:26:19.355
Mm-hmm. It's a it's absolutely a huge thing.
00:26:19.355 --> 00:26:29.236
And and and I don't think people realize how important that bond with your mate is in those Mm-hmm.
00:26:29.236 --> 00:26:35.536
those times too. and and I can relate there as well.
00:26:35.536 --> 00:26:39.378
I I've had some medical problems myself.
00:26:39.378 --> 00:26:48.693
And it was when I was in my early twenties that it started and I couldn't hold down a job and I was engaged at the time.
00:26:48.693 --> 00:26:53.185
And she could have left me so many different times.
00:26:53.185 --> 00:26:59.778
I was honestly I was a pro a huge at times I was a huge pain in the ass to be around. And and I see that now.
00:26:59.778 --> 00:26:59.779
Yeah.
00:26:59.779 --> 00:27:02.611
I didn't see it then, but she stayed with me.
00:27:02.611 --> 00:27:13.476
We were honestly engaged for ten years, but she stayed with me throughout those ten years until I could hold down a job and get a house and we could get married.
00:27:13.476 --> 00:27:16.919
And if it wasn't for her, I don't know where I would be.
00:27:16.919 --> 00:27:19.517
Yeah. Yeah, that's when you really find that you've got a keeper.
00:27:20.269 --> 00:27:21.589
Mm-hmm, for sure.
00:27:22.097 --> 00:27:24.160
And and I definitely got a keeper.
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:31.023
And and so, you know, some other guy had to die so I could live.
00:27:31.023 --> 00:27:34.046
And that that's kind of a burden.
00:27:34.046 --> 00:27:45.243
and and so what it did for me was it kicked my type A personality into gear that I had to honor him by paying that blessing forward.
00:27:45.971 --> 00:27:50.164
and helping other people with this extra time that I wasn't guaranteed.
00:27:50.164 --> 00:27:58.612
And so about three years after the transplant, I was still looking for how to pay that forward.
00:27:58.612 --> 00:28:02.675
And my own erectile dysfunction had gotten worse.
00:28:02.675 --> 00:28:08.881
I was getting on towards 65. And you know, the older you get, the less the equipment works properly.
00:28:08.881 --> 00:28:14.806
And I had actually developed E D 26 years ago at 44 years old.
00:28:15.817 --> 00:28:24.692
But that first time I lost that first erection, I was to the doctor that next week going, I want that new bill blue pill, they're advertising. And Yeah.
00:28:24.692 --> 00:28:26.752
thankfully it was miraculous for me.
00:28:26.752 --> 00:28:33.125
It let me catch a 17-year younger wife and keep her ha happy now for 24 years.
00:28:33.125 --> 00:28:43.230
And but it was getting worse and so I joined a couple of groups for erectile dysfunction discussion on Facebook.
00:28:43.999 --> 00:28:59.500
And I had found my way to pay it forward because there were thousands of men and women from all over the world, especially third world countries where the healthcare isn't great, or it's just taboo to even discuss erectile dysfunction in in polite company.
00:28:59.500 --> 00:29:02.372
gave those people a place to come.
00:29:02.372 --> 00:29:11.367
And so I got so involved that within three months they made me administrator of the larger group. And then three months later I got made administrator of the smaller group.
00:29:11.923 --> 00:29:20.880
And I grow grew those two groups from about sixty five hundred together then to sixty-five thousand now, by providing a safe place.
00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:29.354
You know, I I kept the snake oil salesman out and anybody that was negative got to get kicked out. And Yeah.
00:29:29.885 --> 00:29:47.423
and one of my big frustrations was is when a woman would come to the group, and it was hundreds of women over the last five years, five, six years, that had exactly the same story.
00:29:42.316 --> 00:29:50.191
Their man had developed E D and refused to go to the doctor and do anything about it.
00:29:50.191 --> 00:29:57.155
And so the way he had dealt with it was withdrawing into himself and cutting her off completely from any affection.
00:29:57.155 --> 00:30:04.141
No kissing, no hugging, no cuddling, nothing that would get her going and then have him not be able to satisfy her.
00:30:04.141 --> 00:30:07.563
Or get himself going and not be able to be satisfied.
00:30:07.563 --> 00:30:11.746
And I didn't understand that man,'cause you remember what I did.
00:30:12.657 --> 00:30:15.920
That first direction I lost. I was to the doctor fixing it.
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:24.786
And and as you'll find out in a little while, I had gone into fight mode.
00:30:22.124 --> 00:30:26.567
Well, these guys had gone into flight mode.
00:30:26.567 --> 00:30:30.699
And and so, but I didn't know that then.
00:30:30.699 --> 00:30:33.570
I didn't know how to help these women.
00:30:33.570 --> 00:30:35.872
You know, all I could do is empathize with them.
00:30:35.872 --> 00:30:38.923
And you know, I know how you feel, I know that's gotta be awful.
00:30:39.699 --> 00:30:53.564
You know, some of them had been in those relationships for five and ten years and they stayed because they said they loved their husbands and that, you know, he was a good man otherwise, but they were just miserable because they were they felt so lonely.
00:30:53.564 --> 00:31:02.748
And so I actually got Heather and I into the course to become certified thriving relationship coaches just to try to figure that man out.
00:31:02.748 --> 00:31:07.609
I had no plans of ever being a relationship coach, but I needed to understand.
00:31:07.980 --> 00:31:16.175
How to help those women get that man to come back to him, to them. And so one of the first books we read was by Dr.
00:31:16.175 --> 00:31:18.076
Sue Johnson called Hold Me Tight.
00:31:18.076 --> 00:31:21.919
And in it, she talks about her attachment theory.
00:31:21.919 --> 00:31:31.776
And her attachment theory is that we were bred through thousands of years of prehistoric evolution to have an instinct for a strong attachment to our mate.
00:31:33.417 --> 00:31:51.823
And so those that didn't have it in prehistoric times didn't survive because it took teamwork, you know, between the couple and between their village to just survive back then. And and so it got brought into modern humans as an instinct that's just as strong as our need for food or need for water.
00:31:51.823 --> 00:32:01.925
And the second she went on to say that most of the fights that we get into as a couple are not about what we're fighting about.
00:32:02.548 --> 00:32:09.182
It's about the fact that that instinct has detected a threat to the attachment and has thrown the body into fight or flight mode.
00:32:09.182 --> 00:32:12.644
Just as if you were starving to death or dying of thirst.
00:32:12.644 --> 00:32:16.048
The body thinks it there's a threat to its attachment.
00:32:16.048 --> 00:32:27.955
And so if both parties of the race relationship get into that fight or flight mode, the logical brain, the communicative brain, leaves the building.
00:32:27.955 --> 00:32:42.740
That's why all these relationship therapists say say you need to learn communicate better, don't understand that there's no communication going on when the lizard brains are in control. Lizard brains Yeah.
00:32:42.740 --> 00:32:45.618
actually see the other partner as the enemy of the bond.
00:32:45.618 --> 00:32:48.560
And so they go into attack mode.
00:32:48.560 --> 00:32:54.165
And they say things that are mean and nasty and and are hard to take back later.
00:32:54.165 --> 00:33:16.483
And so if a couple stays in that fight or flight mode often, they start and and don't do the repair work afterwards, they start doing they start doing emotional system damage to each other, nervous system damage. And I always say there's no sexual desire without emotional system safety, especially for women.
00:33:16.483 --> 00:33:38.997
And so as they s they continue to do more and more emotional system damage to each other, you know, months and years down the road, They say we they get five years down the road, they say they still love each other, but their emotional systems are so damaged that their their desire can't can't be there. And so they they they Thank you.
00:33:38.997 --> 00:33:48.801
have a dead bedroom. And and so me being the fix it kind of guy I am, I after Yeah.
00:33:48.801 --> 00:33:55.756
I understood attachment theory, I went to Heather and I said, How do we stop triggering each other's attachment instincts?
00:33:56.478 --> 00:34:10.065
And so Heather and I believe we're building this big beautiful marble monument to our relationship. And each kind word or loving gesture, or especially when you make love with presence and eye gazing, you're building onto your monument.
00:34:10.065 --> 00:34:16.610
But each cruel word or cold shoulder or fight you get into is like taking a hammer and chisel to your monument.
00:34:16.610 --> 00:34:17.545
Mm-hmm.
00:34:17.650 --> 00:34:23.454
And so we decided that our monument was our treasure, that we needed fiercely protect it.
00:34:23.690 --> 00:34:27.592
That's the monument method institute motto is fiercely protect the monument.
00:34:27.592 --> 00:34:30.873
You'll see it on the poster behind me here.
00:34:30.873 --> 00:34:41.496
And and so to fiercely protect your monument, you need to make the monument more important than your ego, and more important than winning a fight.
00:34:41.496 --> 00:34:49.561
And that's the hard part for us guys, is we've we've got to learn to make that make the we want to win the fight.
00:34:49.561 --> 00:34:49.561
You we we wanna win the fight.
00:34:49.561 --> 00:34:51.961
But we but if you win the fight.
00:34:52.449 --> 00:34:55.539
And you damage your monument, you haven't won anything.
00:34:55.539 --> 00:35:01.882
So you might as well tr try to learn how to s stop getting into that damage area.
00:35:01.882 --> 00:35:08.324
And so the first thing we thought about was, well, we need to watch what tone we talk to each other in.
00:35:08.324 --> 00:35:13.567
You know, because sometimes we talk to our loved ones like they're the worst person on the planet.
00:35:13.567 --> 00:35:25.583
Or we just use you know little flippant tones when that tone wasn't really necessary with each other. And so We gave each other permission to call each other out when we were using tone.
00:35:25.583 --> 00:35:28.824
You know, honey, did you really need to say that that way?
00:35:28.824 --> 00:35:44.030
So we started watching ourselves on watching how we talked to each other and that helped, but we were still getting into the fights and getting into fight or flight mode. I mean, as amazing a relationship as Heather and I have had, we still could get in some pretty decent fights.
00:35:44.030 --> 00:35:48.992
We seem to as human beings, we seem it's in our DNA to fight.
00:35:48.992 --> 00:35:50.655
It's we are wired Yes, of course.
00:35:50.655 --> 00:35:51.653
to fight.
00:35:51.847 --> 00:36:00.871
And and so And so I got to thinking further.
00:36:00.871 --> 00:36:05.193
I said, okay, how do we stop getting into fight or flight altogether?
00:36:05.193 --> 00:36:07.653
Where's the emergency break at?
00:36:07.653 --> 00:36:16.739
And so I came up with the idea and we gave each we we gave each other a sacred word and ours is monument.
00:36:16.739 --> 00:36:23.092
And I tell people you've got to write this agreement when you're sane, so you don't rewrite it when you're insane.
00:36:24.467 --> 00:36:28.148
And so we made this agreement and gave each other the sacred word of monument.
00:36:28.148 --> 00:36:39.197
So whenever either one of us sees the other one heading towards the monument with the hammer and chisel, in other words, we've said something that's gonna start a fight, the other one can call monument.
00:36:39.197 --> 00:36:41.588
And that does a couple things.
00:36:41.588 --> 00:36:52.186
First of all, it reminds us that our monument is more important than that fight we're about to get into. And secondly, I called it the sacred word because we made a sacred vow.
00:36:52.791 --> 00:36:57.333
That no matter how mad we were, if monument gets called, the fight stops there.
00:36:57.333 --> 00:37:11.764
And so if you stop the fight and you're mad, you don't separate and go away and try to calm down, because if you do that, then you come back together and you're gonna be right back at it, right where you were, right headed towards the fight or flight.
00:37:11.764 --> 00:37:20.409
Unless, of course, you've managed to let yourself get into fight or flight and you're about to kill each other, then yeah, you do need to separate.
00:37:20.831 --> 00:37:24.485
But the idea here is to keep from getting in fight or flight altogether.
00:37:24.485 --> 00:37:27.007
You cut it off before it ever gets that far.
00:37:27.007 --> 00:37:42.500
And so what we learned was once monument gets called, we turn towards each other and come together and embrace each other and gaze lovingly into each other's eyes with soft loving eyes.
00:37:42.500 --> 00:37:44.242
No dagger eyes don't work.
00:37:45.324 --> 00:37:48.239
Hehehehe You've got to use the soft loving eyes.
00:37:48.239 --> 00:37:52.918
And that goes in and patches that spot on the monument that you just chipped out.
00:37:52.918 --> 00:38:06.367
And the science behind that is, is that when you gaze into your lover's eyes, it goes into that primal brain and tells that primal brain, hey, your attachment is safe.
00:38:02.284 --> 00:38:06.367
You can stand down.
00:38:06.367 --> 00:38:10.809
And so the primal brain says, Okay, body, we don't need fight or flight anymore.
00:38:10.809 --> 00:38:26.637
And as you practice this, And it does take practice. Like I say, we're wired to fight. But as you practice it, you get to the point where you're it's almost instant instantaneous that the body stands down out of fight or flight.
00:38:26.637 --> 00:38:34.143
Because it you train your body, you train your nervous system to know that eye gazing means stand down.
00:38:34.143 --> 00:38:36.806
And this is going to be important here in a little bit.
00:38:36.806 --> 00:38:41.650
When I explain the sanctuary bond, which is even better than the monument method.
00:38:43.525 --> 00:38:46.666
And so this is what we call the monument method.
00:38:46.666 --> 00:38:53.913
And so as you practice it, you start healing all that emotional system damage that's been done to each other over the years.
00:38:53.913 --> 00:38:59.617
And remember what I said, there's no sexual desire without emotional system safety.
00:38:59.617 --> 00:39:00.981
So if Mm-hmm.
00:39:00.981 --> 00:39:09.865
you become each other's emotional system safest place by repeating this and practicing it, the it allows the desire to reblossom.
00:39:10.119 --> 00:39:12.155
even in a decades old relationship.
00:39:12.155 --> 00:39:16.168
And go ahead.
00:39:16.168 --> 00:39:19.596
I I just I was just gonna say interesting, like this is this is interesting.
00:39:19.596 --> 00:39:31.295
I've never the I I'm just thinking in my mind of something like this stopping a a a fight. And I'm like, man, this is something to try out.
00:39:31.945 --> 00:39:34.568
Yeah, yeah. It it it is amazing.
00:39:34.568 --> 00:39:41.733
It's it's gotten to the point where gazing into my my wife's eyes is one of the most pleasurable things I ever get to do.
00:39:41.733 --> 00:39:44.041
Because Yeah.
00:39:44.041 --> 00:39:46.885
we have just become so one by doing this.
00:39:46.885 --> 00:39:54.981
And so I had actually written the monument method book 'cause we built this off of a pretty darn good relationship.
00:39:54.981 --> 00:39:55.838
Mm-hmm.
00:39:55.838 --> 00:40:04.539
And so those that don't have that darn good relationship to start with really need the book to teach the steps to get to where Heather and I are.
00:40:04.539 --> 00:40:10.664
I've given you the key to the door and the books are how you go in and remodel the house into a refuge.
00:40:10.664 --> 00:40:20.092
And so I had written the book and I was out working on one of our carl cars last December.
00:40:20.092 --> 00:40:24.456
And I'm a pretty decent mechanic from my farm years.
00:40:24.456 --> 00:40:29.079
I could I track overall track overhauled tracture engines in my 20s.
00:40:29.079 --> 00:40:30.762
So I can turn a decent wrench.
00:40:31.094 --> 00:40:35.657
But these new cars are a pain with all their computers and ugh.
00:40:35.657 --> 00:40:40.280
And so I had worked on this car for two months and finally got it running.
00:40:40.280 --> 00:40:43.311
And so I was so happy.
00:40:43.311 --> 00:40:49.125
I drove it around the block, pulled up in the driveway, shut it off. And Heather wanted to go visit friends.
00:40:49.125 --> 00:40:53.947
We we made best friends with a man who got his heart 17 days after I got mine.
00:40:53.947 --> 00:40:56.949
And Heather and his wife Chris have trauma bonded.
00:40:57.501 --> 00:41:01.103
over their heart trans hat husbands and are closer than sisters.
00:41:01.103 --> 00:41:06.083
And so Heather's all excited that she gets to go see Chris and we load up the car.
00:41:06.083 --> 00:41:15.074
They live a couple hundred miles away and we all get in and we push the button and it's nothing.
00:41:10.606 --> 00:41:15.766
It's just not even a light on the dash.
00:41:15.766 --> 00:41:17.206
It's just dead.
00:41:17.559 --> 00:41:18.559
Did.
00:41:18.987 --> 00:41:25.353
So you can imagine first of all I'm disappointing Heather, which is against my religion and second Yeah.
00:41:25.570 --> 00:41:31.336
secondly I had worked on this car two months and I thought I had it going and now it's not.
00:41:31.336 --> 00:41:33.619
And so smoke starts coming out of my ears.
00:41:33.619 --> 00:41:40.063
I grab my multimeter and I go and pop the hood and I check the battery and it's like eight and a half volts.
00:41:40.063 --> 00:41:55.494
Should be twelve and a half. And so I pull the other car up across the across the lawn to get it close enough so I can jump start the the first one and I pop the trunk on it to get the jumper cables that I know they're in the trunk. I can't find them.
00:41:56.914 --> 00:42:00.655
The reason I can't find them is I'm so dysregulated by this point.
00:42:00.655 --> 00:42:05.974
So upset that I can't think straight to move the blanket that they're hiding under.
00:42:05.974 --> 00:42:11.617
And so so now I'm even more upset.
00:42:11.617 --> 00:42:17.019
So I remember an old set that I've got hanging in the garage that I'd bought like forty years ago.
00:42:17.019 --> 00:42:19.018
And that's Yeah.
00:42:19.018 --> 00:42:21.534
how you can tell you're getting old is when you can talk about things Yeah.
00:42:21.534 --> 00:42:25.302
you bought forty years ago. And so I went in and I grabbed them off the wall.
00:42:25.938 --> 00:42:31.523
And I carrying them out and I'm looking at them and I'm going, no, I left these out in the rain too much over the years.
00:42:31.523 --> 00:42:34.827
And they were all corroded and nasty.
00:42:34.827 --> 00:42:37.588
And I'm going, they're not going to conduct any electricity.
00:42:37.588 --> 00:42:43.273
And sure enough, I clipped them on the other car and I clicked the other in together to see if there was a spark and there was nothing.
00:42:43.273 --> 00:42:53.833
And I grab them off the car and I hold them over my head and throw them on the concrete. Well, Heather's in the car with the hood up, so she doesn't see me and the windows are up.
00:42:54.445 --> 00:42:55.916
So she doesn't hear me scream.
00:42:55.916 --> 00:42:59.938
She's just in there playing on her phone, knowing her husband's gonna fix the car.
00:42:59.938 --> 00:43:23.530
Cause I'm the fix it guy. Well, I I go back in the garage, find another set of jumper cables, come out, get it all hooked up and get it charging, and I walk around to the driver's side of the door, and I'm nearly a puddle on the concrete, I'm so upset. And I open that door and picture this a sixty-nine year old man crawling in on his hands and knees.
00:43:23.795 --> 00:43:36.990
on the driver's side seat and I get like eight inches from Heather's face and say, I need a monument. And darned if the second her eyes met mine, that anger just went gone.
00:43:37.175 --> 00:43:38.175
disappeared.
00:43:38.431 --> 00:43:53.217
Gone. I I it shocked me because I was expecting her to help me calm down some, but it was just gone. And and then like I said, it was because we had trained our nervous systems that eye gazing meant stand down.
00:43:54.025 --> 00:44:01.675
And even though it was just me that was upset it, we weren't fighting or anything, it had the exact same effect.
00:43:57.887 --> 00:44:09.510
And so all of a sudden there was another book to write. We're calling this the Sanctuary Bond, because I realized how powerful it was.
00:44:09.510 --> 00:44:19.313
the first thing I told her was, You have my permission. Anytime you see me sp upset at all, you can come and monument me and get me to calm down.
00:44:19.313 --> 00:44:23.623
And so we made that agreement with each other that we could do that.
00:44:24.347 --> 00:44:29.739
And and so I'm gonna get a little traditional here, because I'm kind of a traditional guy.
00:44:29.739 --> 00:44:31.599
I might get myself in trouble.
00:44:31.599 --> 00:44:42.983
But Hehehehehe let's say she's in the kitchen cooking supper for the family and he's been out in the world all day and that world has just been really mean to him that day.
00:44:42.983 --> 00:44:47.724
And he comes in that door and he's in full on fight or flight mode.
00:44:47.724 --> 00:44:53.985
and and she traditionally she would see that and maybe hide in the kitchen.
00:44:54.369 --> 00:45:15.369
hoping he would calm down, or worse yet, come and engage with him, and now all of a sudden she's in fight or flight mode and the outside world has brought its hammer and chisel in and is going at their monument. And so in that case they're likely to bicker all evening long and go to bed mad and roll over and get a fitful night's sleep.
00:45:15.369 --> 00:45:37.536
And then he's gotta wake up the next morning and face that mean world again exhausted. Well now with the sanctuary bond She sees him dysregulated and with his permission, like I say, you write the write it when you're sane so you don't rewrite it when you're insane. She comes to him with his permission and gives him the monument, gets him calmed down in instantly.
00:45:37.536 --> 00:45:41.239
And so now they have a wonderful evening together.
00:45:41.239 --> 00:45:53.159
They go go to bed happy, likely share some wonderful love making, go to sleep, get a good night's sleep, and he wakes up refreshed and ready to tackle that mean world again the next morning.
00:45:53.949 --> 00:46:16.297
And not only that, but as they pr as you practice this, if you implement it into your whole life and you practice it over and over all all day long every day, you get to the point where you keep each other out of fight or flight mode. And fight or flight mode is where you're making all those stress chemicals, stress stress hormones that are slowly killing us all.
00:46:16.297 --> 00:46:33.096
So you're gonna make each other live longer by by developing this relationship that becomes a refuge from all the crazy in the world. And I think that's what we really all want out of a relationship as a re a place that's home. A place that you can come to and Yeah.
00:46:33.096 --> 00:46:50.090
recharge without it being another battlefield or no something else you have to manage. And and so the the third thing that happens is as you do this more and more, you you get to be each other's nervous system's safest place.
00:46:50.708 --> 00:46:52.940
And so that desire can just go crazy.
00:46:52.940 --> 00:46:55.436
Even Yeah.
00:46:55.436 --> 00:46:59.858
in decades-old relationships.
00:46:55.436 --> 00:47:05.163
Heather and I once we started discovered it and started implementing it, we found ourselves doing what I call microsanctuary moments.
00:47:05.163 --> 00:47:09.563
Where we'll traditionally we would walk by the hall and touch and be affectionate.
00:47:09.563 --> 00:47:15.724
Well now we stop and gaze into each other's eyes as well, just making that connection for a couple of seconds.
00:47:15.724 --> 00:47:18.856
Or when we're talking about what bill we're gonna pay next.
00:47:19.231 --> 00:47:23.465
Instead of just talking about it, we're we find ourselves connecting during that.
00:47:23.576 --> 00:47:24.576
Yeah.
00:47:24.576 --> 00:47:41.480
And I tell you, she I I had been really upset one day and she'd came gave me g got I you know I've been using chat GPT to help me write all the books and and make build all the websites and everything I'm doing.
00:47:41.480 --> 00:47:42.164
Mm-hmm.
00:47:42.164 --> 00:47:47.143
And he's the most broken piece of $200 a month software I've ever used.
00:47:47.143 --> 00:47:52.581
And So he gets me upset often. And she can come.
00:47:52.581 --> 00:47:53.148
Yeah.
00:47:53.148 --> 00:48:01.768
I would not I would not be here had we not discovered the sanctuary bond because I would have given up on this project a long time ago if Yeah.
00:48:01.768 --> 00:48:09.114
I hadn't been for Heather's ability to come get me calmed back down, get my logical brain back in the business and and be able to be productive.
00:48:09.114 --> 00:48:14.387
And so she had done that, and I can remember sitting in my office chair with my hands around her waist.
00:48:14.952 --> 00:48:19.724
and she was standing in front of me and I looked up at her and I said, You're making me feel like a giddy schoolboy.
00:48:19.724 --> 00:48:25.106
At sixty nine years old I was feeling like a giddy schoolboy with my wife.
00:48:25.106 --> 00:48:29.327
So it it it's just been really amazing.
00:48:29.327 --> 00:48:48.938
And and another little aside is Because we've done this and we've practiced it and made it to where it's virtually almost automatic now. we've got grandchildren that Heather loves to go see the grandkids, so she's time sometimes Mm-hmm.
00:48:48.938 --> 00:48:51.963
gone for three or four hours in a day going and seeing the kids.
00:48:51.963 --> 00:49:00.588
and and so one day I was really upset by something Chat GPT had done.
00:49:00.588 --> 00:49:07.463
And You know, I'm not a cussing man, but there's been times he had me bouncing in my chair cussing at him.
00:49:07.682 --> 00:49:09.275
Yeah. That's that's technology.
00:49:09.275 --> 00:49:12.150
That's technology. It's a love hate relationship for sure.
00:49:12.505 --> 00:49:18.706
Yeah. And so she wasn't there to give me monument to get me to settle down.
00:49:18.706 --> 00:49:29.128
And so I I just said to myself, I wonder and so I closed my eyes and and imagined myself gazing into her eyes.
00:49:29.128 --> 00:49:32.800
And darned if it didn't work.
00:49:29.128 --> 00:49:43.278
That Anger just went because we had trained ourselves that even my my imagining gazing into her eyes was enough to get me settled back down.
00:49:43.278 --> 00:49:48.422
And so that can be used in all parts of life when you're apart from each other.
00:49:48.422 --> 00:50:00.411
You can re and I think that also really helps build that bond even more because you know your your lover is your safest place, the place you run to when you need to.
00:50:02.550 --> 00:50:20.918
Yes, for sure. And it's and and I I love the part where you just get to and it this happens though after being in a relationship for too long so long is when you are explaining the guy walking in and home after work and he was already in fight or flight mode.
00:50:20.918 --> 00:50:26.822
It doesn't take long for my wife or me to figure that out about the other person.
00:50:26.822 --> 00:50:28.039
There's Mm-hmm.
00:50:28.039 --> 00:50:28.762
something's going on.
00:50:29.077 --> 00:50:30.077
Yeah.
00:50:31.592 --> 00:50:33.514
And so now you know how to take care of it.
00:50:33.514 --> 00:50:36.585
So Yeah.
00:50:37.110 --> 00:50:45.661
And I would I I own I you know this I haven't really developed anything that didn't already exist Exist yeah.
00:50:45.661 --> 00:50:49.788
except that that one little missing link of the emergency break on fights.
00:50:49.788 --> 00:50:52.211
And Yeah.
00:50:52.211 --> 00:50:58.559
what once you can pull that emergency break and you practice it, then it can can blossom into that refuge.
00:51:00.887 --> 00:51:08.757
Yeah. And I would I'd love to if you don't care, to kind of go back to I have just a few questions about like your sobriety time.
00:51:08.757 --> 00:51:09.643
Okay. Okay.
00:51:10.581 --> 00:51:17.550
Do you feel like when you started drinking, were you trying to escape or or numb when that alcohol became a part of your life?
00:51:18.068 --> 00:51:23.840
yeah. I you know, I was a really conscientious person.
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:25.740
I thought I was helping these people.
00:51:25.740 --> 00:51:35.744
you know, I I I thought actually the the finances on that company showed that it would they were gonna do amazing things.
00:51:35.744 --> 00:51:36.746
The Mm-hmm.
00:51:36.746 --> 00:51:39.487
stock should should skyrocket at at some point.
00:51:39.487 --> 00:51:41.827
They were lying on the financials.
00:51:41.827 --> 00:51:55.235
And so but even though that was something external that I did had no control over, my conscientiousness internalized that as my fault.
00:51:55.235 --> 00:51:57.447
I had lost those people those money.
00:51:57.447 --> 00:51:59.617
And that was really hard for me to take.
00:51:59.617 --> 00:52:08.380
Just like I internalized the fact that I had failed as a farmer, even though it was an external thing that caused that failure.
00:52:08.380 --> 00:52:19.751
I took it on because I was I was such a type A perfectionist at that point that I just couldn't handle the fact that I had bailed at something.
00:52:19.751 --> 00:52:29.197
And so yeah, the the vodka was the way I was able to escape that that guilt feeling and and the the failure feeling.
00:52:29.197 --> 00:52:40.545
And it was a really bad way to bad, bad way to escape it. Because it all c you know, it it it was still there the next morning when you sobered up.
00:52:42.016 --> 00:52:49.074
Yeah, yeah, when it's You didn't really escape it, you just actually you know, it it's something that actually makes the problem worse.
00:52:49.074 --> 00:52:54.021
Every time you tip that bottle up, it the problem gets worse.
00:52:55.362 --> 00:52:57.938
Yeah, and so you Mm-hmm.
00:52:57.938 --> 00:53:05.889
Yeah, you were you're almost like to me, in my mind, drinking to avoid what was going on with the company.
00:53:06.380 --> 00:53:07.380
Right.
00:53:07.380 --> 00:53:15.905
And so what what did when you got sober, what did getting sober force you to confront about yourself that drinking allowed you to avoid?
00:53:18.355 --> 00:53:26.206
well, like I say, during the the the rehab the six weeks of rehab I learned a lot of tools for and Mm-hmm.
00:53:26.206 --> 00:53:46.282
and you know, I I it was it was some rough time working on myself, you know, dealing with going back and and realizing that those weren't my fault and you know, I there was nothing I could have done but I I did choose a really bad day way to deal with it.
00:53:46.282 --> 00:54:15.271
And but one thing that a and this you're gonna find this interesting because this is this is why I understood the attachment instinct so much is because when I was starting trying to get sober, I actually went to Alcamo was going to several a AA meetings and I had actually picked out a sponsor that was a army vet that had that had been sober twenty one years.
00:54:15.271 --> 00:54:20.494
He was in a wheelchair. And I I decided I was gonna ask him to be my sponsor.
00:54:20.494 --> 00:54:25.639
And so I go into meeting to a meeting one Monday night and he's not there.
00:54:25.639 --> 00:54:32.003
And they announced that he had fallen off the wagon and gotten drunk and drank himself to death over the weekend.
00:54:32.003 --> 00:54:37.742
And d that hit me right between the eyes because Yeah, that's rough.
00:54:38.208 --> 00:54:48.177
it was rough because to me I all of a sudden saw all these guys that were hanging on to the sobriety with their bare knuckles, their bare white knuckles.
00:54:48.177 --> 00:54:58.239
You know, anytime you could tell to the day that it's been, you know, 7822 days since I've Mm-hmm.
00:54:58.376 --> 00:55:00.978
been sober, you're obsessing maybe a little bit.
00:55:00.978 --> 00:55:05.641
And so you weren't really dealing with the the causes of that alcoholism.
00:55:05.641 --> 00:55:08.003
You were just hanging on to the sobriety.
00:55:08.003 --> 00:55:15.405
And so I actually Quick going day A, and so now I had to figure out another way to get sober.
00:55:15.405 --> 00:55:21.650
And so I I f I stumbled on a really obscure book called Rational Recovery.
00:55:21.650 --> 00:55:26.755
And in it I call it the thinking man's way of getting sober.
00:55:26.755 --> 00:55:39.014
Because in it, it described how alcohol goes into your primal brain and makes itself an instinct that's just as strong as your need for food or need for water or need for sex.
00:55:39.014 --> 00:55:43.396
In fact it a lot of times that need is stronger than those other needs.
00:55:43.396 --> 00:55:47.545
The alcohol will overpower your other needs.
00:55:47.545 --> 00:56:06.909
You know, people quit eating and and get dehydrated and quit having sex with their partner. And and so once I understood that, then I underst all of a sudden understood that I could use my logical brain to overrule that primal brain.
00:56:06.909 --> 00:56:16.192
Because what What the primal brain does when you try to get sober, it goes and whispers in your ear, dude, you're gonna die if you don't get your alcohol.
00:56:16.192 --> 00:56:22.333
Just like that man that withdrew after he got Yeah.
00:56:22.333 --> 00:56:25.974
ED, that primal brain said, dude, you're gonna lose your woman.
00:56:28.835 --> 00:56:36.697
And and so that that really, you know, helped me understand the attachment instinct really well.
00:56:37.739 --> 00:57:00.311
Because I was able to get sober using the the overruling the primal brain with my logical brain. You know, I wasn't perfect at it,'cause like I said, I was going six, eight months at a time and then having weekend binges and for for three or four years. In fact, I don't think I got completely sober until about three years into Heather and I's relationship.
00:57:00.311 --> 00:57:13.559
And I I still think even though we didn't know what we were doing back then, I think the eye gazing was what helped me finally calm my nervous system to the point that I was able to leave the alcohol behind.
00:57:13.559 --> 00:57:15.393
Stop. And that makes sense.
00:57:15.393 --> 00:57:18.503
So I really attribute her to be me being able to finally get sober.
00:57:18.503 --> 00:57:34.396
And and and you know that's that's I I am planning a book on the monument method for alcoholism because, you know, that's one of the things that that the partner of alcohol alcoholic is always going is how can I help?
00:57:34.396 --> 00:57:43.039
Well they can help by trying to build that safe relationship, become that person's safest place.
00:57:43.039 --> 00:57:54.523
To where all of a sudden it it can ease that that pain that he's trying to avoid, or he or she, I you know, women can be alcoholics too.
00:57:54.523 --> 00:58:01.706
And but it can ease that pain and eventually it can lead to healing.
00:58:02.353 --> 00:58:03.853
that's the that's the beauty of it.
00:58:03.853 --> 00:58:07.034
as I've looked at all the ways that this can help.
00:58:07.034 --> 00:58:26.481
I'm planning a book I I just finished the book for Monument Method for Long Term Illness. it's not published yet 'cause Amazon's being a pain in the buck but but I've I've rewritten a lot of my books'cause I my early books were kind of rudimentary and I they've matured a lot.
00:58:26.481 --> 00:58:28.746
So I've got second editions Mm-hmm.
00:58:28.746 --> 00:58:29.722
out for a lot of my books now.
00:58:29.722 --> 00:58:38.333
And And and Amazon's only letting me put out two a week and I've got like eight or ten ready to go.
00:58:38.333 --> 00:58:38.836
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:39.675 --> 00:58:49.739
And and but I see a a monument method for parenting because we really don't connect with our our children.
00:58:49.739 --> 00:58:54.802
You know I raised four with my first wife and raised three with Heather.
00:58:54.802 --> 00:59:07.184
When I got with Heather she had a two, four, and eight year old. So I've raised a second family with her and A lot of parenting was just, you know, directing them which way to go and what to do.
00:59:07.184 --> 00:59:14.335
And you know, you n as a parent, I never deliberately stopped and connected with my children.
00:59:15.331 --> 00:59:19.255
Well yeah, and I feel like nowadays you have to be deliberate about it.
00:59:19.255 --> 00:59:23.878
You have to make that time because we have so many distractions.
00:59:24.391 --> 00:59:31.268
Mhm. Exactly. And you know, it's I I I am practicing it with my granddaughters now.
00:59:31.268 --> 00:59:38.538
They know when they come to visit grandpa, the very first thing they do is come in monument with grandpa and make that Yeah.
00:59:38.538 --> 00:59:39.894
connection and know that I'm their safe place.
00:59:39.894 --> 00:59:49.684
And and so it it it it's pretty amazing to s because they act out a lot at home, but they don't act Mm-hmm.
00:59:49.684 --> 00:59:50.704
out too much with grandpa and grandma.
00:59:50.704 --> 01:00:01.695
you know, 'cause I I've made the connection with them and they're they feel calm when th they calm down when they get to grandma and grandpa's so Love it.
01:00:01.697 --> 01:00:14.414
Well after after you know, heart problems, your transplant sobriety and everything you've seen through your career, what do you now believe resilience actually is?
01:00:15.889 --> 01:00:23.856
I I you know, I've like I told you was before the show, I've done a hundred and forty-five or so podcasts in the last three months.
01:00:23.856 --> 01:00:38.851
And so it I've been asked this question a lot, so it's given me a lot of time to reflect over it and figure it because if on paper you might expect expect to meet a bitter old man, because life has not been very kind to me.
01:00:38.851 --> 01:01:00.282
But I as I look back over it I realized what had happened was, and it wasn't anything I really did on purpose, it was just kind of built into me, but you can do it on purpose, is the fact that I was always more grateful for what I still had over bitter than for what I had lost.
01:01:00.282 --> 01:01:10.885
And so that gratefulness is what allowed me to get up every morning and put one foot in front of the other one and walk my way out of whatever.
01:01:12.514 --> 01:01:25.628
rebuilding I was doing. I I was on a podcast called Game of Fi Business Tavern and it's kind of a gaming themed podcast and he said, Galen, you're a real live real live RPG player.
01:01:25.628 --> 01:01:31.202
You've had like six character wipes in your Yeah.
01:01:31.202 --> 01:01:31.202
It's what it sounds like.
01:01:31.942 --> 01:01:40.905
And it has. It's it and and but I I think we can purposefully work on being grateful.
01:01:41.974 --> 01:01:43.996
for the things we have in our life.
01:01:43.996 --> 01:01:47.601
And you know, life ain't gonna be perfect.
01:01:47.601 --> 01:01:55.532
But like you said earlier, attitude means so much in in how we deal with it.
01:01:57.047 --> 01:02:19.856
Yes, yes it does. Well and if you think about the going back to your transplant, I I believe a lot of people think that's it is a happy ending, but it's it I feel like there's a lot that people still don't understand about the the progress you have to make after Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, because yeah, You get the transplant.
01:02:19.916 --> 01:02:31.244
i you know, in one way it's like often I've I've thought, God, why did you keep me around to watch what's going on in my country?
01:02:32.393 --> 01:02:33.423
Hehehehehe.
01:02:36.478 --> 01:02:39.010
'cause it's crazy out there, guys.
01:02:39.010 --> 01:02:45.054
And but that's the beauty of it is Heather Heather is my refuge from that crazy.
01:02:46.056 --> 01:02:51.869
No matter how bad things get, she is the place I can go run and hide and be safe.
01:02:51.869 --> 01:02:59.114
And you know I know one host asked me, Well, isn't that kind of codependent?
01:02:59.114 --> 01:03:01.735
And I said, Well, yeah, that's a healthy codependence.
01:03:01.735 --> 01:03:11.530
When you use your spouse as as your safe place, yeah, it's it's it's a healthy codep it's a codependence Yeah.
01:03:11.530 --> 01:03:14.222
on purpose. And that's why I say this whole Yep, for sure.
01:03:14.222 --> 01:03:33.327
thing, the whole thing I've dealt built is something you do on purpose because we float through life and throat float through relationships and don't have any any purpose a lot of times and so I I I like to say God told us that the two shall become one.
01:03:33.327 --> 01:03:53.643
Galen just is has written the how to manual Nice. Nice. And then but for any so for people that may be struggling that are listening to this episode, what do you want them to understand about rebuilding a life after a crisis?
01:03:54.132 --> 01:04:14.655
Okay, well the first of all we deal all need to understand that the greatest gift this life has to offer is a strong romantic, sexual, friendship, and spiritual bond with one person who you choose daily, and that choose daily is so important.
01:04:14.655 --> 01:04:17.637
You choose daily to become incredibly one with.
01:04:17.637 --> 01:04:22.541
And that no matter what's going on in the outside world around you.
01:04:22.954 --> 01:04:34.903
If you keep that as your North Star, if you keep that as if any decision you have to make, does this protect that bond? Or does this move me towards having that bond?
01:04:34.903 --> 01:04:41.789
You can't go too far wrong. you know, a lot of times we make decisions because this is gonna be more money.
01:04:41.789 --> 01:04:49.414
But if it destroys the bond it's gonna leave you sad and and lonely in the end.
01:04:49.414 --> 01:05:06.545
And you know I y You see a lot of women especially will look at the old couple that that are like in their nineties and they're still holding hands and walking down the road and they go, that's what I want Well, you gotta work at it to get there.
01:05:07.048 --> 01:05:08.048
Mm-hmm.
01:05:08.048 --> 01:05:15.963
For sure. Well and one more question here about like the relationship side of things.
01:05:15.963 --> 01:05:16.255
Okay.
01:05:16.255 --> 01:05:17.585
sorry I'm kind of bouncing back and forth.
01:05:17.585 --> 01:05:19.166
It's just the way my brain works.
01:05:19.166 --> 01:05:24.190
You're fine. Hey, I'm right there with you, So you've buddy.
01:05:24.190 --> 01:05:29.833
you've worked with, you know, quite a few people to men and couples and Mm-hmm.
01:05:29.833 --> 01:05:35.264
is there something specific that you see men struggling with emotionally that they find hard to admit?
01:05:36.519 --> 01:05:53.257
I I think I think men have a hard time because especially because of our society has told us we have to be tough and have to be invincible and so we have a hard time softening for our lover.
01:05:53.257 --> 01:06:13.538
I I I have we with the Monument Method Institute we have re re sorry We have released our first two singles, Fiercely Protect the Monument and The Sanctuary Bond Soft With You.
01:06:13.538 --> 01:06:17.009
You can find them out on all the music platforms.
01:06:17.009 --> 01:06:20.019
I've got a YouTube channel with them.
01:06:20.019 --> 01:06:26.702
and I'm actually working on the music video to Fiercely Protect the Monument now.
01:06:26.702 --> 01:06:33.766
I'm about two minutes and forty-five seconds into it and I've fought every inch of the way.
01:06:33.766 --> 01:06:41.550
with chat GPT. It it's taken me like four days to get two do two minutes and forty five seconds.
01:06:41.550 --> 01:06:44.922
So I will have paid for this with blood.
01:06:44.922 --> 01:07:02.815
But but they really I I say to fiercely protect the monument and the sanctuary bond soft with is Heather and I's love story, in a song. And so guys go out and find them, share around. let's make go viral.
01:07:03.398 --> 01:07:09.702
'cause first of all, we're getting we're kinda in the starving artist phase of the Monument Methodist Institute.
01:07:09.702 --> 01:07:14.527
we've got thirty four books in print, but they're not selling really well yet.
01:07:14.527 --> 01:07:24.735
I you know, sometimes I think I give away a little too much in these podcasts because people are going off and doing it without buying my books.
01:07:24.735 --> 01:07:26.538
So you know.
01:07:34.197 --> 01:07:50.681
Y ye yeah, Monument Meth Monument Method Institute is my main site and if you go there you can there'll be a a thumbnail for Fiercely Protect the Monument that'll take you to our YouTube songs.
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And you can it's got links to all my Amazon books.
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It's got a link to our coaching.
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Heather and I do ninety minute quick start sessions with couples.
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In fact, I'm gonna give you a we'll give your listeners a hundred dollar off coupon with the the code overcome.
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And if they go to go and book they can click on it, look at Heather and I's schedule and book themselves the ninety minute session and use Overcome as as a hundred dollar off coupon.
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And we've all I've also written four books, four dating books, Monument Man and Monument Woman for the older couple that's getting out that's had a failed relationship trying to get into this crazy dating world we've got today. Heather and I feel like we hit the lottery because we were the first one to eat each other dated.
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And the the the others are man before the monument and woman before the monument for the sixteen to twenty five year old crowd.
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And their their dating world is even crazier with all the swipe culture and the dating apps and it's just I I hear they're walking away from dating completely.
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And and and so I w wrote those books in a way that they get taught the monument method and sanctuary bond in the books.
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And they get to the end of the book and they say, Okay, this is great, but where do I find somebody to build a monument with?
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And so I almost had to do it. I I built the monument validated person MVP dating site. And as part of my pay it forward from my heart transplant, I've made it free forever. I'm never gonna charge for it.
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And you've have to have read one of the books and pass a quiz.
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And actually most of the people that have watched this episode should probably pass that quiz. It's not rocket science.
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But then you've got to agree that you're there to to build a monument monument with somebody, not for casual dating.
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And so it's my anti hookup dating site.
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Because we have too many hookup dating sites.
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Yeah. And and that's part of the problem with our society these days is our society tells us that relationship should be built on chemistry. That chemistry is where it's at, and that's the most important thing.
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Well, traditional relationship therapy says that the romance phase lasts six months to two years.
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So, a relationship that's built on chemistry, that's why you see so many relationships that end in six months to two years.
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Because they built it on chemistry and didn't build the structure structure underneath it.
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And so the monument method in Sanctuary Bond lets you build that structure underneath the a relationship.
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The the chemistry is necessary to get us together.
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I mean, it that attraction has to be there.
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But then to the way you keep in romance stays.
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phase the rest of your life is to work on building the structure underneath it.
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Yeah, one of my golden rules is the number one thing that a woman needs in a relationship to be happy is to feel cherished.
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And the other side of that coin same coin is the number one thing that a man needs to be happy in a relationship is to be respected.
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And so that that's the beauty of it.
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If you get get disbonded to each other, that Cherishing and it and respecting just happens naturally.
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You're so welcome. It's been my honor to be here, Travis.