Speaker 1: Forty five and fifty five KRCD talk station. Very Happy
Speaker 1: Wednesday to apologies to everyone about the technical issues. We
Speaker 1: have a Judgenna Polatana there. We'll get the desironed out
Speaker 1: and getting back on next Tuesday. I am pleased. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the fifty five Cassee Morning Show. Michael McNamara. He
Speaker 1: has initially a degree in economics University of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: but he enlisted in the US Marine Corps back in
Speaker 1: eighty three, left active duty in ninety four, but then
Speaker 1: returned to the Corps in two thousand and four and
Speaker 1: deployee Iraq twice in Afghanistan once. Is an infantry soldier,
Speaker 1: retiring from the Marine Corps in twenty fifteen. Founder and
Speaker 1: president of the Post Traumatic Winning Company LLC, hosted a
Speaker 1: podcast All Marine Radio since twenty sixteen and began presenting
Speaker 1: the ideas connected with his first book, From Trauma to Joy,
Speaker 1: which we're here to talk about in twenty nineteen. Michael McNamara.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the fifty five Carse Morning Show. The name
Speaker 1: of the book, From Trauma to Joy Life changing lessons
Speaker 1: that fellow US Marines taught me after traumatic events occurred
Speaker 1: in my life. Lessons that apply to anyone. Emphasis on
Speaker 1: that last part. It's a pleasure to have you on
Speaker 1: the program, Michael.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, as the son of a former.
Speaker 3: Manager of the Cincinnati Reds and a guy who worked
Speaker 3: on Johnson's party boats in the summer during college. Tender
Speaker 3: bar I am happy to be back on the air. Well,
Speaker 3: I've never been on the air of the Queen City,
Speaker 3: but now it's a pleasure. Brian, thank you very much
Speaker 3: for having me.
Speaker 1: I was going to bring that up after your bio.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, also, you know John McNamara, don't you,
Speaker 1: the guy that took over after Sparky Anderson left the
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Reds. And of course you filling in the blanks
Speaker 1: on that one. The party boat too, that's it brings
Speaker 1: back memories anyway.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you don't even know.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can only imagine. I can only imagine it's
Speaker 1: like being a fly on the wall. I suppose being
Speaker 1: that role.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Tornado warnings while you're on the river
Speaker 3: and there's a party going on.
Speaker 2: Incredible, incredible stories. Man.
Speaker 1: I bet Well you maybe write your second book on that,
Speaker 1: but this book, I think it's really important. Mental health
Speaker 1: has become something that we can all talk about. There's
Speaker 1: no longer, at least, there's very little you know, negative
Speaker 1: viewpoints or like, you know, get over it kind of attitudes.
Speaker 2: These days.
Speaker 1: We know a lot of people deal with mental health challenges.
Speaker 1: But you mentioned trauma. It's the title of the book,
Speaker 1: From Trauma to Joy and point out that approximately ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of the US population deals with some form
Speaker 1: of trauma. We could be talking about something as traumatic
Speaker 1: as losing a loved one for example, right, well.
Speaker 2: And that's what you know.
Speaker 3: You know, that's why I don't really care for the
Speaker 3: term PTSD because if when you throw that out there,
Speaker 3: everybody says, oh, that's that combat thing, right right, or
Speaker 3: that's the thing cops in firefight.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's an everybody thing.
Speaker 3: If you had to tend to somebody who you loved
Speaker 3: and hold their hand and watch them die of a
Speaker 3: lengthy illness, you're in the same valley of the shadow
Speaker 3: of death that I'm in.
Speaker 2: We just different paths to get there.
Speaker 3: If you've been abused as a child physically, sexually, emotionally, right,
Speaker 3: and you've suffered with that your life, guess what, you're.
Speaker 2: In that thing too. So the book is about you know.
Speaker 3: That is not a death sentence, okay, And the first
Speaker 3: place that you should look for an answer is not
Speaker 3: in a jar of pills, and it's not in forever therapy.
Speaker 2: It's inside of you. And I know this. And again
Speaker 2: I'm not a Brian. I'm not a mental health person.
Speaker 3: I've been a leader since I was a little kid,
Speaker 3: and so I started talking about this on my podcast,
Speaker 3: and then the way the book begins is with a
Speaker 3: presentation I started doing around the world, and that is
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you the truth, true things about
Speaker 3: what it is to live a great life after you
Speaker 3: go through really difficult things, right, And I don't care
Speaker 3: what the difficulty was. And so the great thing that
Speaker 3: people don't understand about you know, as a marine, is
Speaker 3: that our suicide is not linked to combat. It is
Speaker 3: linked to child abuse. It is linked to child sexual
Speaker 3: abuse and adverse childhood experiences. Because when we went to
Speaker 3: the volunteer force, right, we're not so much across section
Speaker 3: of America anymore.
Speaker 2: I would tell you about fifty.
Speaker 3: Percent of the people that joined the American military right
Speaker 3: are trying to get to a better place. Their peers
Speaker 3: are in jail, their dead of drug overdoses or suicide.
Speaker 3: But they come from that part of our culture and
Speaker 3: they're looking for something better and sometimes they don't find it.
Speaker 3: And so you can't understand veteran suicide or military suicide
Speaker 3: unless you understand who we recruit.
Speaker 2: And then what I found out.
Speaker 3: When I started doing seminars for everybody was that there
Speaker 3: was no difference between what you know, active duty and
Speaker 3: veterans talked about as opposed to the civilians.
Speaker 2: That I met.
Speaker 3: It was all it was based on the traumatic events
Speaker 3: of their life. And so this stuff applies to anybody.
Speaker 3: And that's the beautiful part of it.
Speaker 1: Now, imagine the outline in the steps and the principles
Speaker 1: that you set forth in the book have to start with.
Speaker 1: I suppose a pretty tremendous amount of introspection, trying to
Speaker 1: be an objective observer of your life and where you
Speaker 1: are and why you're experiencing this trauma.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'll tell you what, and that's not hard
Speaker 3: for most people, because most people when you go through
Speaker 3: these things, you know, I saw somebody get decapitated in
Speaker 3: a training incident, a helicopter crash in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: and you know, we were trying to save the three
Speaker 3: other guys in the back, and I have my hands,
Speaker 3: you know, all over this one young marine and everybody dies, right,
Speaker 3: And one of my senior marines came up to me.
Speaker 3: I was a commanding officer, but one of my senior
Speaker 3: and listen guys come up to me and asked me.
Speaker 3: About three hours later, he goes, hey, Serri, He said,
Speaker 3: how are you doing?
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know. We've been kind of busy.
Speaker 3: And he looked at me and he said, you know
Speaker 3: you're never going to get over this, right, And I said, well,
Speaker 3: he said you'll never get over this. And I can't
Speaker 3: use the language I use, but I said, hey, why
Speaker 3: don't you get away from me? I don't think that's
Speaker 3: what the therapist says to the patient right now, you
Speaker 3: go away?
Speaker 2: And he looked at me and said, no, you need
Speaker 2: to know that.
Speaker 3: And I said, who told you that? And he said,
Speaker 3: Vietnam guys told me that. And I tell everybody. The
Speaker 3: single best piece of advice ever got, although I didn't
Speaker 3: understand at the time, was that because when I struggled,
Speaker 3: guess whose voice I heard a guy who who would
Speaker 3: have died for me, who looked me in the face
Speaker 3: and told me the truth. And once you understand, you
Speaker 3: don't get over it that when you struggle, you know
Speaker 3: what that makes you.
Speaker 2: A normal human being.
Speaker 3: You can't go through those experiences without those ghosts coming back.
Speaker 3: And the question becomes what do I do when they
Speaker 3: come back?
Speaker 2: Because they will.
Speaker 3: And now the way the nation approaches it is we'll
Speaker 3: give you medications and you can go to Forever Talk therapy.
Speaker 3: If you look at the trend lines of that, the
Speaker 3: nation set US side record what twelve months ago, and
Speaker 3: the military is setting suicide records and we're nowhere near
Speaker 3: a conflict. But that is our approach to helping these people.
Speaker 3: And what I tell people is before you do any
Speaker 3: of that, read my book because if you understand, the
Speaker 3: first thing you're going to have to do is coexist
Speaker 3: with it, because it's not going away.
Speaker 2: The next thing you're going to have to do is
Speaker 2: live with some self discipline.
Speaker 3: When you struggle. Guess what you should do, not isolate yourself,
Speaker 3: not go get drunk, right, and which is what marines do.
Speaker 3: You should talk to somebody who loves you and will
Speaker 3: not judge you, and you should stay.
Speaker 2: Away from alcohol.
Speaker 3: And you can do that next stay physically active. So
Speaker 3: if you'll do those things, watch how quick your life changes.
Speaker 3: Then you got to learn how to meditate, Merrines.
Speaker 2: We don't like that word. I call it calming your
Speaker 2: brain down. You got to learn how to do some
Speaker 2: version of that.
Speaker 3: You got to learn how to read when you feel
Speaker 3: anxious or you feel anger, and how to interrupt that cycle.
Speaker 2: And these little wellness things.
Speaker 3: The people that damage your life, you got to put
Speaker 3: them at arm's length and keep them there and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden your life calms down. But the
Speaker 3: transformational part of this whole thing, Brian, and the beautiful
Speaker 3: thing that I learned is you know how many.
Speaker 2: People around you were struggling.
Speaker 3: You're going to find this path out of the valley of.
Speaker 2: The shadow of death, and your life's going to get better.
Speaker 3: And then you're going to stick your hand into their
Speaker 3: darkness and say, hey man, I know what you're going
Speaker 3: to You got a minute, could I talk to you?
Speaker 3: And if you'll do that, if you'll help them, at
Speaker 3: some point.
Speaker 2: One of them is.
Speaker 3: Going to pick up the phone and call you and say,
Speaker 3: hey man, remember that conversation we had two months ago. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you don't know this, but I was getting ready to
Speaker 3: kill myself that much. And when we do, and I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that hypothetically.
Speaker 2: Because we all know people.
Speaker 3: Around us that are struggling, and good luck sleeping that night,
Speaker 3: because you will experience the joy part of this. I
Speaker 3: call it the Gridge moment, when the Gridge's heart grows
Speaker 3: through tons. And here's the who people singing, right, It's
Speaker 3: that feeling. And that is what we do with our suffering.
Speaker 2: We give it meaning. How do we do that?
Speaker 3: We learn about it, We learned how to live, We've
Speaker 3: learned how to become a better version of ourselves, and
Speaker 3: then we help others.
Speaker 2: And if you'll do that.
Speaker 3: I guarantee you that you can transform your life.
Speaker 1: Well, I would imagine the conversation serves a multitude of
Speaker 1: reasons why it's beneficial. But in so far as saying,
Speaker 1: I'm reflecting upon the horror you that you witness and
Speaker 1: the idea that your your commander said, you're never going
Speaker 1: to get over it. That you will remember that incident
Speaker 1: and it may trouble you and you may want to
Speaker 1: blame yourself, But if you deflect your attention away from
Speaker 1: that and go back to that sort of concept of meditation,
Speaker 1: living in the moment, not going back and retracing old
Speaker 1: events over which you have no control, but thinking about
Speaker 1: something different and getting your mind away from it. That
Speaker 1: in and of itself has to be beneficial.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, but I would tell you the big thing
Speaker 3: is sometimes you can't control that smells trigger the video
Speaker 3: in your head, right yeah, And you're now you're watching
Speaker 3: the video and there's no off button and there's no
Speaker 3: mute button. And so what you have to learn is
Speaker 3: that's normal. That's normal.
Speaker 2: And for me, my combat experiences were not the worst
Speaker 2: experiences of my life. Right.
Speaker 3: My sister's husband murdered their two kids when she told
Speaker 3: him she wanted her divorce fix years old and four
Speaker 3: years old, shot him both in the head, right, and
Speaker 3: then beat her and then put the gun in his
Speaker 3: mouth and killed himself. So even when I went to combat,
Speaker 3: even when I went to combat, and it's important that
Speaker 3: people hear that from somebody who spent three years in
Speaker 3: Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry officer, all during the
Speaker 3: heights of the fighting.
Speaker 2: I'm not in that zip code.
Speaker 3: And there's people listening to you that were sexually abused
Speaker 3: as children, that have had this horrible things happening. They're
Speaker 3: in my sister's zip code, not in mine. And it's
Speaker 3: very humbling for a cop or a firefighter to hear
Speaker 3: me speak. And I look at them and I say,
Speaker 3: you're not in that.
Speaker 2: Zip code and you know that. So you don't have
Speaker 2: the market cornered on trauma. And so what I want
Speaker 2: what you do is open.
Speaker 3: Your mind and learn that there's nothing wrong with you
Speaker 3: when you struggle, and then it's okay. And the video
Speaker 3: some days are going to last longer than it's gonna
Speaker 3: last others. But if you'll learn how to do these things,
Speaker 3: what you're gonna do is you're gonna learn how to.
Speaker 2: Coexist with it. And that's really the art with your trauma.
Speaker 3: To understand there's nothing wrong with you, to understand that
Speaker 3: you're going to coexist with it. I mean World War
Speaker 3: Two that's once three hundred years old. Yeah, ask them
Speaker 3: about what they did and they'll tell you in slow motion,
Speaker 3: high definition what they did. So it's not like this
Speaker 3: stuff leaves you. And that's so it's developing wisdom relative
Speaker 3: to this stuff.
Speaker 1: Michael McNamara from Trauma to Joy, Life changing lessons that
Speaker 1: Philly US Marines taught me after traumatic events occurred in
Speaker 1: my life, underscore lessons that apply to anyone. Michael can't
Speaker 1: thank you enough for the time you spent my listeners
Speaker 1: with me on the program. I will certainly recommend they
Speaker 1: go to fifty five carec dot com where we have
Speaker 1: a link to get your book. We all experience trauma,
Speaker 1: and Michael's figured out a way to help us all
Speaker 1: deal with it. It's been a pleasure having in the program,
Speaker 1: and I want to thank you on behalf of all
Speaker 1: of my listeners and myself personally for your service to
Speaker 1: our country and your service to everyone for writing this book.
Speaker 2: No my privilege. Maron, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Bron take care man A fifty seven fifty five KRC
Speaker 1: the talk station Big Picture with Jack Avid and brilliant
Speaker 1: as always, Ken Cober from the FOP, Jason Williams from
Speaker 1: the Inquire on the Least Agreement, which is in a
Speaker 1: state of flux and technical difficulties with judging into Polton,
Speaker 1: but you get a coby of Michael's book at fifty
Speaker 1: five kr Z dot com. I Heart Media Software is
Speaker 1: there as well. Joe Jacker, thank you for all that
Speaker 1: you do to and tomorrow Corey Bowman and Jay Rattliffe
Speaker 1: have a wonderful day, folks. Combeck's next stay on top
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Speaker 2: Of the al that's so important. Another update coming up
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