Welcome to the Bipolar Excellence podcast. I’m your host Ken Jensen. I’m someone who overcame Bipolar disorder in an organic fashion back in 2004.

That process taught me a couple things about bipolar. I was living life so incorrectly in relation to what The better part of me wanted and needed me to do, that it took bipolar disorder to shock me into seeing I should go another way.

The fact that it was bipolar that was to change agent and meant I’m more creative than most.

I have a certain slightly higher amount of intel than the average bear, and I have a way of seeing life and expressing myself that most around me do not in such a way that I can have great impact on those who need me most.

You might be the same.

I wanna help you understand this about yourself and I wanna help unlock your greatness, and then unleash it on the world in the best and coolest way possible. Hey, this is Ken. Welcome to the show. I’m gonna kinda wing this.

I’m I’m a little scrambled because I was doing all those training episodes prior that those of you gracious enough to follow along at home had heard I just was complaining and I got sucked into this this seemingly beautiful plan I had that then became like an albatross flying around my head and just so happy that the the life of an outsider series is done.

Now what we’re gonna do, I just decide it on the spot, this is gonna be part of the author series.

And this is an interview. I interviewed Lynn Ray. And she wrote a couple of books that I didn’t pull up immediately in front of me. Here we go. Kids, there is so much to learn about putting a show together properly.

Learn for my mistakes and improve faster than I did. She wrote a book called my journey back to myself, which depicts her struggles and recovery from bipolar disorder.

And she wrote a book called The F Book, AKA, 7 F’s to creating your fantastic future. Which teaches you how by incorporating these f’s you’ll lead a happier, healthier, more joy filled life.

Lynn has some videos on YouTube. I’ll put the links on the episode 45 page. Of her show inside bipolarexcellence dot com. So look up the author series, which will be in the footer of the website.

And then look up episode 45. And you’ll find my first, my first blessed interviewee who agreed to come on and let me take the show in a new direction. You’ll find Lynn.

I’m still gonna do training training episodes. I almost said videos because I’ve been starting a research going on YouTube as well. That’s that’s gonna become in YouTube and possibly some talking might happen, some some tick talking.

I don’t know. I’m I’m I don’t wanna overwhelm myself because that’s almost a constant state I exist in as I put all this machine together and talk to people.

But I’ll tell you what, where it’s all head and sure beats the prospect of going to some job I can’t stand for the rest of my life, which is a big part of why I do this.

I’m doing this to help people with what it is I know and love best. But it’s also to fuel my bright and shiny career path, my future, I want more and to have more, I need to help more people better than I can at any job.

I’ll ever be qualified to get hired for. So on along those lines, Lynn makes the point of saying how couple of psychiatrists told her when she was 39 that she would never hold a full time job ever again, Lynn, wanted to hold a job.

As it as did I, at 1 point, I was out of action for almost 8 years, holding a job in itself meant You got your shit together again.

You got your mind back. You’re acceptable in society once again. You’re not in my case, terrifying people are just freaking them to hell out with your weird vibes.

Lynn said 1 of the biggest goals that she accomplished was to blend in to society and without having anybody even perceive a hint of bipolar.

That’s 1 of our greatest successes, and I agree. It was so happy to have humans welcome me into their presence again once I learned how to people again because I I had forgotten.

I don’t know how that part went for Lynn. We didn’t cover that, I don’t think. But I had actually forgotten how to handle myself with people and it was quite evident in how they responded to me.

Back in the beginning when I was first walking out of bipolar. So anyway, Lynn was a fantastic guest I got to try out some new softwares.

I got to play with squadcast, which is going to integrate with Descript, which is the transcription service I use, and I I gotta tell you I cannot stand the transcription part. It’s it’s it’s a lot of grunt labor.

But it helps because Google Google needs something to find and that’s words on the page. Now that’s why I did it mostly. And then some people, myself included, I can read a post That is verbatim of what the podcast episode is.

I can read the post faster than people speak. All these podcast players mine included have a thing you can speed them up and listen faster, but I do that with certain certain podcasts that I wanna learn something from.

But if I’m listening to a story that has to be either red at my own pace, which is gonna be faster than the guy can talk or a girl can talk on a podcast, or I gotta listen to it at regular speed on a podcast.

So I like to have the written words on my page, on my site, for people to just read along. Now interesting turn of events. I don’t even know if that’s the correct phrase. Development.

Let’s just run with development. There are people who because of various disabilities, they can’t they can’t access. They don’t have all all 5 of their senses. So they can’t read or hear or see the things we put out on the internet.

And what’s happening is by putting a transcript on, now people that can’t listen, like can’t listen, they can still read along and get some value out of it and maybe 1 day can help them. There’s the human side.

There’s also for those of you getting ready to to create a podcast or anything online That isn’t it’s it that isn’t already written. I don’t know what the agency is, but it’s some national level disability agency they came at Netflix.

I I read a whole article on this. They came at Netflix years ago and said you gotta put closed captioning on your videos, so people that can’t hear can at least enjoy the the movie.

I think Netflix did that here and there. But after that talk, that legal talk, they put it on all their videos. Then this agency went after I can’t remember, but something else huge.

And I mean huge something unassailable, something that has billions of dollars to fight back with. I can’t remember what it was. They lost in court to this agency as well, and then now they had to make their stuff accessible.

What’s gonna happen next is it’s gonna get applied to the entire Internet. So you’re you’re not only helping people that wouldn’t be able to consume your material in any other way to finally consume it.

It’s gonna become mandatory. Now I know transcription, even with something like Descript, it it has to be corrected enough that there’s still a ton of work I gotta to do.

And I have this bizarre New York accent, and sometimes I talk fast and stumble over my words when I get excited. All of that gets lost. Inside the transcript software.

It it thinks I’m saying all kinds of things. I didn’t. And it’s been getting better because they they say it has an AI that drives it into script, and it gets better at catching all my or some of my words, but not all.

And transcription to have somebody transcribe something is is prohibitively expensive for most of us.

It’s like it’s like 65 cents a spoken minute. The interview I just did with Lynn was an hour and a half. I I can’t pay for that. I want to 1 day but I’m not there yet.

So For those of you that are listening to these episodes to build something similar to what I’m building or or anything at all, to get the word out about anything at all, this is something to consider.

We’re gonna have to have our websites accessible.

And then I wish because I did not know I was gonna say that. I would have had to link out for there’s a company. I’m not gonna bother looking it up now. It’ll trip up how I speak. There’s a company that will they’ll do this for you.

I think they might have a plug in if you have a WordPress site. And I think in a bunch of cool things they do and like, you know, you’re being a good person to those that need you to be a good person.

And then as a business from the business standpoint, you’re gonna have to do this at some point. And I’d rather get out ahead of it and do it before, you know, do it and get good at it.

Before I’m forced to do it. That’s the kind of pressure I don’t want. So just keep that in mind. And that’s that’s all I’m gonna do there with that intro.

Bear with me since III haven’t never done a format like this. And my head loosely, tragically loosely. I’m kind of following Mark Maren’s format from what the fuck pod dot com, WTF.

So that’s that’s like the only podcast I really listen to just to listen to. Everything else I listen to is I need to know something. I listen to Mark because I like how he digs into people’s heads.

Go look up WTF pod dot com. That’s the website and and figure out how to get the the podcast from there. That’s an incredible that’s an incredible podcast, and I love Mark to death.

Anyway, That’s enough rambling and bouncing around, I think. I’m going to now figure out how to blend this seamlessly with a little bit of music into my interview with Lynn Ray.

And joy. Welcome to the Viper Excellence podcast. This is Ken. I’m with Author Lynn Ray. Lynn Ray was diagnosed with depression at age 30 and bipolar disorder at age 35.

She’s been living with these illnesses since 19 91, and has had numerous hospitalizations, 2 psychiatrists told her, at age 39, she would never work full time again, she has proven them wrong.

She has written 2 books, the f book, aka 7 f’s to creating your fantastic future, which teaches you how by incorporating these thefts.

Well, it teaches you how by incorporating success will lead to a happier, healthier, more joy filled life. The other 1 is called my journey back to myself, which depicts her struggles and recovery from bipolar disorder.

As an inspirational speaker, she shares with others her coping strategies and living with bipolar disorder and how she learned to be a productive member of society again and thrive despite the label she was given, her talk, 7 f’s to creating your fantastic future, outlines 7 words all starting with the letter f that led to her recovery.

Lynn makes her home in New Market, Ontario, In the summer, she loves taking care of her vegetable garden and eating fresh from it every day.

And welcome, Lynn. Thanks for the kind introduction, Ken. Yes. It’s been a really long journey for me. I’ve been living with this illness for almost 30 years now. Well, I guess the initial diagnosis of depression, it is 30 years.

For the first 4 years, I took antidepressants. Within 6 weeks, I fell out alive again. But they’re just masking the underlying issue that led to depression, but I needed a quick fix.

My kids were young. You know, I couldn’t afford to get sick at that point. And 1 of the things I did when I started taking them as I asked God to hold myself and my family together until my daughter was in grade 1.

And when she started grade 1, I had stopped taking the antidepressants in 6 weeks. Into grade 1, I had my first official breakdown and was hospitalized for over 3 weeks.

And then a year later, I had another breakdown, and that’s when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And it’s been a very very long journey. I know now that 1 of the causes of my depression was my unhealthy marriage.

You know, my husband’s a good person, we were just like oil and water. We didn’t mix. You know? Nothing against him personally. But I had to leave my marriage be but where I could start working on myself.

So I did that And, you know, I was working full time. I was very, very happy. But then as most people with bipolar, we think, oh, maybe I don’t really have this illness. Went off my meds.

And that’s when I had not 1 but 2 psychiatrists just tell me I would never work full time again. I was only 39 and that was a very scary prospect. To think I couldn’t be a normal functioning member of society. That really hit me hard.

I went home in tears. I was just very, very upset. And I think that’s when the real work began for me. That was in the year 2000. And I have read like 200 self help motivational of books. Books about mental illness.

I used to look for role models with bipolar. And back then, the only 2 that I could find were Patty Duke. The actress, and k Redsfield Jamison, the psychiatrist who’d written a couple books about her struggles with bipolar.

And I thought, okay, if these people can have a good life, so can I? I just have to figure this out somehow. So for me, bipolar, it’s an exaggeration of emotions.

You’re on this high and then you’re on this low up and down up and down. And the medication they give you can help keep you stable and I still take medication for bipolar to this day.

1 of the things that helped me a lot was motivational sayings. I would post them around my apartment and it would say this too shall pass or there’s no problem so great it can’t be solved.

And I have to admit, I watched a lot of Oprah and Dr. Phil back then. Believe me, they had guests on their shows who had written really interesting books that helped me in my recovery.

2 of the books that stand out early on for me was when I say no I feel guilty, I realized I’d been a people pleaser and I had to start pleasing myself instead of everybody else. And another book I read was called Boundaries.

It’s about how only letting people into your life that want the best for you. And, you know, we’re all we’re all made up made up of energy. And some people’s energy isn’t compatible with our own.

And we just have to stay away from those people like you know, there’s nothing wrong with them per se, but they just aren’t looking out for my best interests. So I had to get out of unhealthy relationships in order to get a lot better.

That’s for sure. I had this roller coaster of going on and off meds for about 5 years. Partly, I didn’t like the side effects. Partly, I was still trying to prove I didn’t have bipolar.

But then when I finally found a medication that really really worked for me with minimal side effects, I would say that’s when the recovery happened. Plus, I got out of another bad relationship, someone I was dating.

But I remember in 2005, I called my doctor in tears 1 day. I said I’ve got 3 strikes against me. I’m deeply in debt. I can’t work, and I don’t have a boyfriend. That was very important to me at the time.

Those 3 things. So his solution is he just wanted me to take some lorazepam to calm down an anti anxiety pill. And I thought, yeah, that’s the quick fix, but there’s got to be another solution. There has to be.

And this man, his name is Eric Rhodes. He’s very famous in the radio industry and art industry in the States, he became a mentor of mine. We never have talked on this phone only by email, It was just by chance that we met.

And I would send him emails, and he would give me encouragement. So that day, After calling my psychiatrist, I sent this man an email telling him I had the 3 strikes against me.

Deeply in debt, no job, no boyfriend. And he gave me a very gentle kick in the butt, let’s say. Along with a bit of religion thrown in, he said, Lynn, stop feeling sorry for yourself.

You need to get out and talk to people. Volunteer, do anything, just get out of the house every single day. And I I guess I kind of knew that in a way.

I I think it was Carl Menanger. He said to peep he’s a psychiatrist. He said to people who are in a crisis, go across the railway tracks and find somebody in need. When you need help help somebody else instead.

So like I said, after this man told me to get out of the house and do something. I went to a mental health drop in center and I realized I was much further along in my recovery than a lot of the people there.

So I asked if I could do a talk about how I was recovering from bipolar and they said, yeah, come on in, you know, next week, the week after.

So I wrote up this little 15 or 20 minute speech. I gave my talk about how I use motivational sayings to help me.

Reading books, taking medication, going to support for depression groups, to talk to other people, And after that talk, 1 of the social workers there gave me a list of 10 or 20 places I could contact to do other talks, and it just started snowballing from 2006 to 2008.

I did over a hundred talks in those 2 years, but I wasn’t making a living at it.

You know, I was just getting an honorarium everywhere I went. And I still wasn’t working full time. I was working either part time or not at all. But I was doing these talks and that’s so I wrote out 2 different speeches, my 7 f speech.

And the other one’s called my journey back to myself, how I found myself again, basically. And out of those talks, I wrote my 2 books. I was putting in a 6 to 8 hour day every day for 2 years.

Working on these things. And I was that was probably the happiest time of my life for me. I just felt I was helping other people. Like, I always told myself that my first breakdown. When I get better, I’m gonna help other people.

I didn’t know how or when, but I knew I was gonna help people. And I also received an award from a mental health center in our community for the contribution I was making. In the mental health field through my talks.

And I’m like, wow, people really are listening to me. You know, I wasn’t really getting feedback from people, except I was being invited to talk at places. I’ve spoken at universities, CamH, Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

That’s the big place in Canada in Toronto. We’re People go for help with mental health issues. A lot of mental health drop in centers I spoke at, I spoke at rotary clubs, libraries, Those were the main places, I guess I spoke at.

My talk ended up being 40 minutes long. And like I said, I was just Not delirious isn’t the right word. I was just so happy when I was doing this.

But then the talks were kind of dwindling. Like I said, I wasn’t making a living at it. So I decided, okay, it’s time to see if I can work full time and prove these guys wrong and prove it to myself.

So I started out with a part time job. And then a year later, I got a full time job that was 2009. And I’ve pretty much been working full time since Zen to support myself. I worked very, very hard to get out of debt.

I racked up a lot of debt when I was on my mania highs. We all go through those crazy spending sprees. Awful exciting stuff. Yeah. But I just went once I started working full time, every ex dollar I had went to pay off debt.

And then in 2012, I was debt free. And I thought, okay, I wonder if I can buy a house. My daughter had been renting. It wasn’t the best place for her, and I wanted her to live with me, and she wouldn’t rent an apartment with me.

So I thought, okay, I’m just gonna see if I can buy a house. And oh my goodness, it was pure luck that I got into the housing market. Because a week later, they changed the rules for down payments and all these things in Canada.

And a week later, I would not have been able to buy my home. And I I feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world right now because I have a home.

My daughter lived with me for 2 and a half years. I’ve got a little backyard with my vegetable garden. Like, I’m the type of person. I’m not a complicated person.

It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy. You know, you just give me a bit of freedom to do what I would want in my own home, see my kids. I have a grandson who’s 4. You know, those are the things that bring me joy.

It’s my close friends and my immediate family. I guess I believe the cure for any illness, physical or mental, is 25 percent medication and 75 percent working on yourself and your issues.

To me without doing the work on myself. Like, when I was a teenager, I was happy, care free out with my friends all the time, and then that changed. Okay? So I had to find that person I was again as a teenager.

And that’s what I mean by working on yourself. You have to figure out what makes you happy, what brings you joy, And I spent a few years after my divorce, hanging around other single people my own age, going dancing.

I used to love going dancing. I had to find the things that brought me joy again. I used to enjoy playing pool, you know, swimming a holiday by the ocean.

It took money, and I have no regrets going into debt for it. Yeah. Because it took money for me to find things I love to do again. And like I said, that was key, and I think that’s key for anybody.

And that’s when I came up with my 7 s speech. I believe we all need these f’s in our life. They are family, friends, Fun, fitness, fulfillment, finances, and faith. And when I say fitness, I mean physical and mental fitness.

If I’m not mentally in a good place, it doesn’t matter how physically fit I am. I’m not gonna have a good life. To me, mental fitness is more important. Actually, the physical fitness is the hardest for me to achieve.

I really don’t like exercising. Yeah. But like I said, you know, we’re we’re all a work in progress. We’re all on a journey. And I believe everybody needs those f’s in their lives.

On some level, you know, when your kids are young, your family going to be more important than friends. And and each f will have a different priority at a different time in our lives. Yeah. And when I say faith, I mean very generic.

Like, I use the word God, I use the word universe, I believe in reincarnation, I I don’t know what that makes me. But, you know, I just well, there’s this force out there listening to our every thought.

And I have had prayers answered for me. I’ll tell you 1 really interest student 1. Yeah, please. I was working full time. It was, I don’t know, 19 99 or 2000.

And I’d been waking up every morning at 04:30 and I was getting so angry because I didn’t have to be up till 07:30. Right? And every morning, I would wake up, toss and turn, so finally 1 day I got angry, and I wrote in my journal.

Okay, god. I’m getting really sick and tired of waking up at 04:30. If there’s something you want me to do at that time of day, please make it abundantly clear.

And I just tossed and turned till 07:30, And when I awoke, I realized 5 words were going around in my head, and they were my journey back to myself.

So that’s how I came up with the name for my book. So that very day I went out and I bought paper pens, pencils.

This was 19 99. I didn’t have a very up to date computer, you know, computer weren’t good like they are now. I wrote my book all out in Longhand from my journals, So that’s when I initially wrote the book.

Yes. Journey is another key thing for me. I guess, at my first hospitalization, the nurses encouraged me to start journaling because I realized I really couldn’t verbalize what was going on in my head.

So I started journaling, and then that became very therapeutic for me over the years. I don’t journal a lot anymore, but for 5 or 10 years, I was journaling almost every day.

Sometimes it would just be about things that happened. Or when I was depressed, I would try to write down 5 things I was grateful I couldn’t even come up with 5 things when I was depressed.

Yeah. But I have not had a major depression since 2004. And that’s because I I think I’ve resolved the major issues in my life. To the best of my ability. And I I can’t see me getting severely depressed again.

I guess life circumstances might cause it if something traumatic happened to a family member or something, but I believe the key to getting out of depression is to resolve your problem by looking within, you you know, you you look at your childhood, you look at all kinds of things that could be causing it.

And like I said, I I don’t get depressed anymore.

I just have normal ups and downs like everyone else. Yeah, me too. I did, unfortunately, I was reduced seeing my medication over a 2 year period because I really thought I had conquered this.

Yeah. And in January, I no. In November of 20 21. And just this past year, I got hypomanic for a couple months. But by mid January, I was back on my meds again. So I realize I still need them in a very big way.

You so much of our stories are similar. And I got a lot of comments and questions to to share with you on that line. Okay. So, but before we do that, I think I see 1 obvious way, but I’d like to hear hear you say it.

What do you feel were any positives that came out of being by polar. Like the good things in life that never would have happened had bipolar not been part of your life.

I would say just helping other people for the 2 years that I would doing my speaking, which I’m getting back into now. I’m working on a couple speeches again, and I’m gonna start doing them again in September.

I I was a kid in school. I was terrified to do a speech in high school. I would shake. I would cry. And it forced me to dupe something that I was uncomfortable with.

I also joined toastmasters to get better at public speaking. How have I thrived? Like I said, in terms of thriving, Just 1 thing I really liked is I’ve been able to blend into society and nobody knows I have bipolar.

When I stopped speaking in 2008, I shut down my website and everything I could about it so I could get a full time job. And I remember about 4 years ago telling somebody I had bipolar.

And the look on his face was pure shock. He’d known me about 5 years. Just as an acquaintance. Not a good friend, just an acquaintance. But he would have never believed I had bipolar.

And That’s was 1 of my goals to just blend into society and have a normal life like everybody else. And not all these crazy ups and downs during the year. I guess it gave me the confidence that I could help people.

I’m working on a worksheets right now to go with my 7 f’s book, the f book, So as a success coach, what I’m going to do is give people the f book and they’ll get the work sheets to go along with each chapter.

And, you know, a lot of people couldn’t do things like that. You know? No, it’s hard for anybody. Yeah. And it’s still hard for me.

I’m getting the f book professionally edited and self published again because I did it and it was I I don’t have the skills to do the formatting and a fancy cover and all those nice things. That stuff’s very hard.

I went through the same issues. So that’s over the summer, that’s getting done, so I can launch my success coach training in September. I I have the ability to be very focused when I’m on a task, I can just block everything out.

And I don’t believe in multitasking. People say they’re multitasking. Asking. They’re not doing anything well. Not me neither. I don’t I can have 10 projects on the go at once. That’s fine. But I can’t work on 2 simultaneously.

You know? Oh. You work on 1 for an hour, then you might work on another 1 for an hour. But that, you know, like I said, I’m very focused on whatever I’m doing, and I think that’s 1 of the things many people with bipolar have.

So it seems well, it seems like for the most part, in your case, having bipolar it it it seems like it hasn’t pointed out a lot of particular bipolar flavored strengths But by dealing with it, you’ve developed a much larger sense of self and you found your personal strength and a calling, to help other people in need.

It it kinda set you on a new path that you seem to enjoy very much. And you’re quite clear on how much this this sucks and would like to help people get out of it.

Oh, yeah. So bipolar kind of set the path? Yes, it did. You know? And I always knew I would get back to public speaking. For the last 6 years, I’ve been working as a virtual assistant because I got downsized for my full time job.

Mhmm. After a couple jobs from hell, I thought, okay, if I’m gonna keep my house, I gotta do something different because I’m over 50.

I’m 60 now. I thought if I’m gonna keep my house, and equate and acquaintance asked me to do some virtual work for him.

And then I just started advertising on social media, and the Internet that I was a virtual assistant, I’ve done marketing calls, I’ve done bookkeeping for people, those are the 2 main things I’ve done.

And, you know, it’s enabled of me to keep my home. I rented out my bed room master my daughter left to Like, I’ll do whatever I can to make ends meet and be happy.

Like, I I don’t put myself in a box and say, well, I’m only gonna do this and nothing else, you know? Right. I I do whatever I have to to just, like I said, be happy. Which I wrote so many comments.

What’s the point of even looking at them all? I know when I started figuring out I I My story is all throughout my podcast, so I don’t wanna I don’t wanna go into that terribly deep here and eat into your time.

So I want you know, I want people to know more about you, but I got handed a literal death sentence. My meds never worked for me. They only made me worse. That was the only result other than what do you call it the candies?

Gummy bears. No. No. I’m being I’m being metaphorical. Oh. Clonipin. What’s the brand name for klonopin? Phenazepam? I I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s yeah. It’s it’s 1 it’s it’s I think they’re the same thing.

But anyway, they’re I’m for I’m blanking on the class of chemical, benzos. They’re a Benzo. And Benzo’s can make you they can make you high. At the very least, they can calm you down.

I had reached a point where the only pill that did anything at all for the good was Benzos, and all they did was take the house fire like If the flames were shooting through the roof, this would keep them just underneath the shingles.

That was about the best I could hope for. Wow. The illness just ravaged me.

I really don’t know how I survived it. And my prescription for Benzels was take them. I got huge bottles, of a really high dose, and the last doctor I had was he’s like, just take them. At least you’ll have some sort of relief.

He goes, I was like, what about the health? They’re Benzos. They have a bad, you know, they they they start hurting you over time. And he said, what’s the difference? And he’s like, this this illness is gonna take you out.

You’re you’re gonna die by cop in 6 months. Right. I said I said why my cop? And he said, I would go into rages. And he said, every time you blow up, it’s taking more cops to shut you down.

And he said, at a certain point, they’re gonna just stop trying to shut you down and they’re gonna shut you all the way down because I gotta protect themselves.

So that that’s what it became for me. It was — Wow. — it was like the worst version of it, and I suffered from every variety of bipolar that they cared to put a name to.

I clearly had each each 1 mixed being the worst, And the thing I hated most about mixed, from what I remember, the mania from bipolar would power the blackest of depressions.

So normally depression was like a that was always somewhere in the picture. But depression would bring me down. But when I was mixed, it somehow had an energy to it. I I can’t describe it better than that.

Somehow, it drove up the downness. And what would happen in my mind trying to handle a ferocious depression. I never got suicidal but I don’t know why because living was point It was just pure pain.

But after that was the worst case, and then after I got my death sentence, At that point in my life, my bipolar life, I wasn’t always sure exactly what was real, Time had lost all meaning.

I didn’t know if something just happened 5 seconds ago or 30 years ago. I I could not tell. Wow.

I remember once standing on the floor in my living room and looking at the floor and I knew it was the floor, and that’s all I had. I couldn’t go into any kind of depth on what the purpose floor was or why we even called it the floor.

And I had lost I had lost contact with the energy that flows back and forth between people. We take it for granted until it’s gone. And when it’s gone, you feel it.

Did you ever experience that? Were you just weren’t part of the going on of it all anymore? Just curious. Well, you see, I I believe when we’re hypomanic or manic, we’re vibrating on a different frequency than the Earth plane.

Okay. I very strongly believe that. And oh, yeah. I’ve lost touch with reality many, many times. I’ve had rapid cycling, but actually that was easier for me than the mania. I think. Yeah.

What I found is for every week of mania, I would be depressed for a month. So if I had 4 weeks of mania, I would be depressed for at least 4 months afterwards. Okay. Yeah. And then people are always on well, it varies for everybody.

And When I was doing my talks, I remember I was taking the maximum of the medication I was allowed to take I was so deliriously happy that I was, like, really up, you know, like, you are ever when you’re doing something with your best friend at having a fantastic time.

I was like that every day for almost 2 years. Wow. That’s a long run. But I I kept it together the whole time because I was doing what I loved.

And at the end of that time, my psychiatrist said to me, Lynn, Even if you do get sick again, you’ll never lose all the confidence you’ve gained in the last 2 years.

You know, he saw me at my lowest low, and then he saw me what I can actually do when I was feeling good. And feeling myself again. You know, at first, he he gave me no hope for recovery.

But what I tell people, those psychiatrists didn’t know me as a teenager and in my twenties. They only saw this sick helpless woman in tears in their office. Mhmm. And they had no idea how strong I really was before bipolar took hold.

I I I’ve read notes my husband gave me years and years ago about how strong I was. I didn’t consider myself a strong person at that point, but I realize now I’ve always been strong with my convictions, I know what’s important to me.

I’m not a wishy washy kind of person. Don’t ask for my my opinion if you don’t want the truth. You know, I I can be tactful. Definitely, I can be tactful.

But, you know, I know what’s important to me, and I’ve never wavered from those things. So like I said, I know I was strong when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, but I think my marriage just took the life out of me. You know?

He was an extreme introvert. I used to be an extrovert. And I gave up doing all the things I used to love doing. And I firmly believe that depression is what causes the chemical imbalance in our brains, not the other way around.

You know, you don’t just wake up 1 day with a chemical imbalance. For most people, depression happens slowly over a long period of time.

Like for you, did you get depressed? And then it moves to bipolar? Or do you know? No. Well, I used to routinely face depression at work. My whole life, I’m I’m I’ll be 54 in a minute.

My whole life, I have had a personal loathing for employee ship. I cannot stand anything about having a job just in of having a job and never gives me the money I need to have the kind of life I want.

There’s there’s other than the connections with friends at work and whatever interesting stories my develop on the job.

The act of holding a job has always been anathema to me. It’s it’s I can’t stand it. But I have, you know, you have to work until you don’t have to work till you figure out a way around it.

And I used to get very depressed at work. When I got out of the marines, I had quit drinking first because I was a big alcoholic in in the marines. Did drugs too, but they never it was the eighties.

Drugs were everywhere. And I I was stationed on the West Coast, Los by Los Angeles, so drugs were laying around like potato chips. So that I got into the mix, but they never grabbed ahold of me. But drinking had a hold of me big time.

I quit almost immediately after getting out. I had a year where I couldn’t feel naturally happy because drinking or Any chemical abuse will it you can’t reproduce the or you can’t produce the dopamine and the serotonin naturally.

You shut that down through the intake of the chemicals. And I knew from research, they might not come back on. If you damage whatever that system is well enough, you might just die miserable.

And Luckily for me, after about a year of doing nothing in particular, just lifting weights and eating well, my happiness came back. But then I I spent 5 years in a factory versus an operator of various machines.

And then I, you know, I know how to fix things. They eventually made me a mechanic. I fixed all kinds of bizarre equipment, stuff you only find in in in factories, and I was good at it.

I wasn’t the best, but I was like top high intermediate on really complicated stuff, and I hated all of it. So I started feeling depression, just going to work was the greatest depressant for me through my twenties.

And then my wife at the time and I, we moved out west to start to start a new life and look for better opportunities. And then that’s when bipolar started raising its head.

Inside of 3 years in Denver, I had 20 jobs in part because Denver was booming. If you showed up with smile and a willingness to work, you were already hired before your car engine cooled off.

That’s how badly they needed everybody for everything. So I got to sample all kinds of jobs, because I kept thinking if I find the right job, I’ll be happy.

Right. There is no such thing for me even to this day. I I do much better now with work, but by doing this, I’m fighting for all I’m worth to become self employed and and not not have to answer anyone, and it’s it’s slowly taking root.

But in Denver, what I noticed was happening was I started getting stressed out about smaller and smaller things more frequently, and my rage was building and it got to a point where just about everything in life was pissing me off.

And what I wanted to do about it was, you know, like aggressive why aggression wise was growing bigger and bigger.

And I finally went to a doctor and I was like, look man, I I can’t stand anything. I think I’m going crazy from it. And he tested me out and he said, you’re absolutely the physical physically the healthiest patient I have.

He said, I think it’s I think it’s between your ears, whatever this is. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re healthy as a bull. I went to a psychiatrist, and he immediately diagnosed me as classic bipolar.

That was probably 98. And from that point, I did a rapid down slide where I experienced my first panic attack which was That was my numbingly bizarre. It felt like I had a black hole in the center of my chest and I was falling into it.

Like my body had had unencore paraded and I was some abstract thing. I I lost all sense of myself and I was falling into whatever I now represent and it was absolutely terrifying.

Took a lot of drugs to stop my heart from beating as hard as it was that night. And then I moved into having these huge panic attacks that would last hours.

1 of my panic attacks could last 3 or 4 hours at full force. Wow. And so that so You were asking about depression. Depression was just 1 tiny chunk of the overall picture that came at me, and it kept morphing.

I went through every version of it. And then years later, I was in my thirties when my doctor gave me my death sentence, and he said, he was like, at this point, if you think drinking paint will help, drink a lot of paint.

He goes, what does it matter? You’ve gotta find something, but he said as a scientist and a doctor, I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to myself. There is no help for you in psychiatry.

You’re what’s called meds resistant, hundred percent. And he said, I feel the worst for you compared to all my hundreds of clients at the VA. Because he said, you’re the only 1 that ever asks me why anything.

You take the pill, you’re in just as much pain as everyone else, but You’re the only 1 who asks why that pill. What’s it doing with the other pills? What’s the game plan?

The long range goal here? And I said nobody else asked why they’re eating this stuff. He’s like, nope, not 1. I said that’s insane. How are you not curious about what’s going on? He goes, I don’t know, but you’re the only 1 who is.

And he said, because of that, you are the only client I have who’s 100 percent aware of just how screwed you are. He said, I wish you knew nothing so you could die in peace because that’s that’s right around the corner.

So that that was what I was up against. And when I went home from that final visit with him, at that time, the only thing I felt was fear, despair, and loneliness. That’s the only thing that was in my head and heart.

I couldn’t feel anything else. And rage. Raid are loneliness loneliness. I guess. Yeah. And from that place, I heard a little whisper in my head. I almost couldn’t hear it. I’m a marine, and it was the marine part of me.

And all he said was, This is not the way a fucking marine goes out, do something fight. That voice was that big. I barely know that. That’s God, the universe — Yes. — whatever you wanna call that — Yes.

— energy out there. You know, I believe we’re all here to learn lessons. And I also believe when I’ve been hypomanic, before mania sets in, I’m experienced something that I call accelerated learning.

I 1 time when I was hypomanic, I was still married. I all of these thoughts were coming to my head, and I was writing them down as fast as I could. And when I looked at them later, there were things I needed to learn.

Like, stop pacing around the house. I can’t even remember what they were now. But but there were lessons I needed to learn And for some reason, when I’m hypomanic, like I said, we’re vibrating on another frequency.

We’re able to learn those very quickly. And I’ve been in touch with the psychic in the last year a few times. And when I told her about this, she said, oh, yeah.

We call it downloading from the universe when that happens in psychic circles. I’ve heard of that. And You know? But then when you hit mania, that’s when your world comes crashing down.

You get psychotic. You’re hallucinating. You’re paranoid. Basically, fear sets in. Right. I’ve become a big fan of Gary Zukov. He says, we either do things out of love or fear, and I, a hundred percent believe that?

If what we’re doing is out of love, good things will happen. If what we’re doing out of fear, we’ll attract bad things and bad people in well, not bad people.

People on the same wavelength as you. You know, like if you’re the type of person, you’re always going to intimidate people, and try to be better than them, you’ll attract those same kind of people.

Right. But if you’re the kind of person that likes to help people and be nice.

You’ll attract those kinds of people in your life. I agree. And I’m just right now, I’m doing a lot of reading about the astral plane trying to figure out where I am exactly when I’m hypomanic.

And how I can be there without going over the edge — Right. — so to speak. Because you and I both know hypomania is a wonderful place to be used for me.

It really is. It is. That’s why we reduce our meds because we wanna go there again without the mania. Yep. Yeah. That’s interesting you bring that up because again, and and I fully understand everybody.

I learned recently through some training. It’s called multiple pathways to recovery. Different people There’s all different ways to to live a good life with these conditions.

Some people are a lot of meds some are a little, some are none. Like me, I’m none. But I only got to none when it was clearly proven they’re actually making everything worse. But I don’t suggest I tell everyone whatever works.

Please stick with it and and you can I feel you should investigate other things, but do it carefully, do it with professional guidance? Don’t make too many big decisions on your own because you might you might pay.

Particularly, what going on and off meds. And I I have people attached to me that are connected to me that can help with this stuff. But It’s been very a lot of what you said, like the energy.

I’m big on energy because everything’s energy. The more I learned about quantum physics, this caught me by surprise. And this happens to me. This type of learning style happens to me a lot.

When I got deep into quantum physics recently, last few years or so, I started seeing all kinds of connections to personal development material I’d read, how life works, spirituality, I saw correlations in quantum physics with everything.

And I was like, well, holy crap. This is there’s something to this. And and it helped me make better sense of where I’m going and why, how to talk to people and help them.

And III found that you said the downloading from the universe. My chiropractor talks about that all the time. He does a type of chiropractic that involves energy work. He barely touches me, and my body moves into place.

On its own. And that, you know, and he’s all in his spirituality and I’m like you. I think I’m closer to what you’re saying. I I believe the universe is this all it’s just it’s everything.

And everything according to quantum physics on smallest level is not there’s nothing actually but energy and in our case directed by thought. That’s like the only 2 things that exist. Energy and thought thought it’s self being energy.

So we can create our own reality, which is kind of what you were saying I think with who to who the people you are, who the people are that you draw in your life and why you’re creating it.

And 1 That’s great. 1 of the best coaches I I still have, Jason Leister.

He talks about this stuff all the time. He’s a business, He’s a business coach who never talks about business. He’s always about personal development and how you have to be in the world. Not even what you do.

He goes, that doesn’t matter. How you be will dictate everything else. And you wanna be you want to be well. And Well, I found him many many years ago and he had on a website at the time that said client sucked dot com.

And at that point in my life, I was doing all these projects, building websites for people, doing a lot of online stuff that I was capable of doing.

And I was getting very mad at my clients. I wasn’t getting paid well. They were bringing more and more problems in my life that I was trying to keep up with. And and then I find Jason’s website, clients suck.

I’m like, yes, they do. So I get deeper into his world. Time goes by, and he grew up as he put it. And he was like, clients don’t suck. Whatever your world is, you drew it to you. That’s right.

It’s not that you suck. He’s like, don’t I’m not saying everybody’s like, your thinking drew these things to you. The clients, the whole world. Your whole world is just a symptom of what’s going on in your head, how you’re thinking.

So learn to think differently, learn to think along the lines of what is you’d like to do, find out where some rough spots need to be ground down, stay open.

We’ll learn to relax your views some and you’re gonna find your life gets a lot better. Yeah. We need to set intentions every day of what we want in our lives.

It is so important. Yes. At the beginning of every day to do some meditation or prayer, whatever you wanna call it, mindfulness. Yep. It can be just 5 minutes. I do before I get out of bed every morning now.

And talk to that energy that’s out there about what I want in my life and thanking that energy for for what I have in my life. Too. Like, you’ve got to talk in the present terms as if you’ve already received — Yes.

— what you’re wanting. Yes. I’m just looking at another quote here from a book. I don’t know which book it was, but it said no matter how hard you try to outrun the past?

It will eventually take you down. That’s the gist of the quote. Right. And years ago, like I said, I was still just trying to figure out why all this happened.

And when I I did this kind of I was trying to regress myself to a past life. But I ended up regressing myself, I guess, just to childhood, and my whole body froze. And I saw this vision.

I can’t share with you what it was. Mhmm. But after that day, like, I used to drive Oh, what’s the equivalent miles per hour? Hundred and 60 kilometers per hour on the highway, which was like 01:20 miles an hour, I think.

Okay? Okay. Which was way too fast. It’s pretty fast. Way too fast. And I didn’t even know I was driving that fast, but I was trying to outrun the pain from my past.

Mhmm. After that incident happened that day, I had a talk with somebody who it was concerning. My driving slowed down without any conscious effort on my part, and that’s how I knew I had resolved the last issue in my life.

The last big issue was we’re all gonna have have issues our entire lives. Right. But I don’t even think about going that fast anymore.

But I was doing it unconsciously. I was trying to outrun I was running for myself is what I was doing. Yeah. And when I stopped running for myself, my driving just completely slowed right down.

I gotta tell you on a on a smaller note because I’ve been I’ve been symptom free since 2006 with the only lingering the only lingering issue was anxiety.

It’s anxiety, occasional panic, and that they all they spread out. They were happening less and less. They were not lasting as long.

They were getting weaker and weaker till I could measure it in years. And then you would said something something related to this earlier but oh, just once you reach a certain point you’re just living life like everyone else.

So every now and then, if 1 of these things would rise up out of nowhere through my chiropractor’s help, I learned how to feel it without getting emotionally embroiled in it.

It’s a skill you can learn. And he goes, him and some other teachers I had, they’ve said different things that are happening in our body Need to finish.

There are an unresolved issue that needs to be allowed to do whatever it’s trying to do energetically. And the more you cover it up with meds or any other thing that could be considered an avoidance issue, it can’t finish happening.

So it will already sit there waiting to come back at you looking for its window opportunity. That’s right. So when when these very rare panicky anxiety things would hit, On 1 hand, it were nothing like the bad old days.

Those were colossal. These were just local local kids playing in the park side size. And I could just sit at, like, oh, 0, crap.

It’s back again. I know I was not expecting this and I’d sit there for 1 couple seconds the emotion would hit, like, as it all about to unwind right here on this couch for no particular reason, which it it never has a reason.

And then I was like, no. No. We’ve done this before. Relax.

Just let it ride, and I couldn’t. I’d calm right down. I’d feel uncomfortable. But the fear the fear part would go away. And my body would be doing the energetic things an anxiety attack can produce. The breathing would get tight.

Which I I learned how to focus my breathing. Eventually, I’d slow it back down. But I wouldn’t fight whatever it was. I’m like, just let me know when you’re done and And of those things that got quicker and quicker.

And it was almost like talking someone out of a bad ass to trip. It just like, you’re alright, man. You just You said, it was kinda had that kind of feel to it.

And then I calmed down and it was gone. I’m like, are we good? We’re all back? Alright. We’re back. And then I wouldn’t even worry about it. And they, like I said, they all happen less and less.

And then something else you just said, oh, why did this all happen? 1 of the things that I realized about myself, I was living life wrong in almost every possible way you could think of.

I had old views that were of no use to me anymore. I was very immature in a lot of ways. I was I hadn’t even finished growing. I was unevolved in a lot of ways.

And between the Marine Corps and different things that happened to me growing up in ways that I ways that I had to survive in a lot of cruder environments. I was this tough thing that didn’t work anymore.

I and I had strength that had no use, which was so frustrating to me. I always relied on my body. I was very strong and yet I hadn’t that didn’t add up to anything to make up my life work.

And what I realized was after bipolar, It took bipolar to obliterate the old version of me. So the better part that had been trying to come out could come out.

And I’m still there’s a lot of me that’s still me. I kept the part I say I kept the parts I liked. And not everybody’s even gonna like those parts and I don’t care because I’m good with but the illness disappeared.

And in the process, I started figuring out how to help a lot of people same as you. I’ve I’ve helped a lot of people with a lot of things and and got to understand.

I was pretty good at it. I never knew that about myself till after the illness. Yeah. I would have to agree with you. The illness Well, it makes us face ourselves. Yeah. And I hope I kept the good parts of me because I’m happy go lucky.

I live in the moment. I truly live in the moment now. I don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow. That’ll take care of itself. And that’s a big thing living in the moment. But I congratulate you on not meeting meds.

I’m a little envious. How did you do it? Did you do it with exercise? Diet, natural supplements. Okay. Well, I have a I have a system on my website, bipolar Excellence. Dot com. That explains all of that.

But in in general, I found I’ll I’ll tell you the biggest part, it was nutrition. And through a of a fluke. Remember when I got my death sentence and I I heard the marine telling me to fight back. Yeah. There was no triumphant music.

Like in a movie, nothing changed. Nothing. You know, there was no moment where the where the audience would cheer. Now, he’s got a hold of it. No. I was still an absolutely disaster. I just made a commitment.

I made an agreement with that part of myself. Marines don’t quit. I’ll I’ll do something. No idea what that be. I just agreed not to quit, which I think in my I think in my mind probably was to agree not to suicide.

Because it was that bad. And I never felt suicidal, but I don’t know why. It was really bad. So Very, remember you said intention. So I agreed not to quit and that I’d look for something. And that was that was the entire plan.

And my head was scrambled. Yeah. And within days, a copy of Discover magazine, it’s a science magazine. Came in the mail and on the cover was I don’t I’m just paraphrasing, Ken Nutrients Curmental Health.

It said something different, but that was the gist of it. So immediately, I was I was struck with well, number 1, this is very interesting and I know medstone helps.

So I gotta find something. And 2, I knew Discover magazine to put a cover story like that. They had to fully vet this situation because they cannot risk their reputation.

On snake oil. Right. So that gave me confidence. I’m like, alright, let’s read the article. Let the this company called True Hope and they have they’re in Canada. Oh, that’s another thing. And this is so Apropos.

You’re my first interview guest. You’re from Canada. I’m not trying to, like, do, like like like, Jedi mind thing you or nothing, but most of the really good life changing things that have happened to me, came from Canada.

I have no idea why and I’m and I got a I got a felony in DWI and according to Canadian law. Never go to Canada to go thank all of you personally.

Oh, dear. That’s very frustrating. But most of the really impactful things in my life have been based in Canada, and I never look for it to be that way. And now you’re my first guest, you’re Canadian.

How cool. So true hope, they were created because 1 of the co owners families had the whole family had bipolar disorder. Everybody was dying from it. And he shared a story. He shared his story with a friend in church.

Who was a pig farmer? And when he explained how his family was behaving, the farmer said. That sounds like nail or ear and tail biting syndrome. We get that in the pigs. They just start nipping at each other.

And he’s like, well, what do you do with them? We increase their minerals and their feed and it calms them right down. Wow. So that’s the very crude beginning to what is now a multimillion dollar nonprofit.

They help people all around the world, and they are the most research studied company of their kind, probably better than 50 percent of of which is a tax made on their science that once tested by official scientific entities, they’re only ever proven true.

And Well, think about it. There’s a lot of salt and lithium, isn’t there?

I don’t know about that. I just know lithium’s a heavy metal, and heavy metals are toxic they’re very poisonous. Lithium has a very narrow window of whatever they call that, where where it works well. It is a help.

Definitely, it is a help. But it’s such a narrow window to where it’s either doing nothing or it’s taut, you’re killing you. So Yeah. Well that’s the drug. I couldn’t tolerate. I had to be on it for a few years. I was on it too.

Yeah. But the 1 I take now, I just take 1 kind of prescription. I don’t want to get into what it’s called really. But, you know, I started taking vitamins and supplements 3 years ago. I went to a man that does integrative medicine.

He’s a pharmacist, and he understands drug interactions much better than the doctors. Yep. He said the prescription I was taking for bipolar was depleting vitamins and minerals from my body.

And now that it’s in balance, I I didn’t figure this out until a couple years ago. I used to get these really bad most soars. I called them canker soars, but they were 50 times worse.

They would last 2 to 3 weeks. They’d be on my tongue, my cheek, all over. I even had a biopsy. They were so bad. And now, since taking these natural vitamins and supplements, I only get 2 or 3 a year instead of 2 or 3 a month.

It’s an arrest thing. I had that happen in 88. I was stationed in South Korea. We were living in a field. We ate just short of garbage for 5 months. And then we’re all young and and just to put it simply, it was a party.

It was a nonstop party situation that happens a lot overseas. It’s like Vegas. It’s it’s it’s wild. And all we did was drink. And my mouth was full of sores all the time and our and our food was low quality.

The only time we ate well was when we bought it out in town. And That’s that’s it’s very interesting that I’m I’m glad you found that person. With true hope, they weren’t the only part.

They just had the greatest impact of fast there’s more things I did. Most of which is stuff I think anybody’s figured out about about how to live you gotta live well so that you’ve got a chance in this thing.

Like, it it’s 10 different things that you can’t do. And that’s why I came up with my 7 f’s, because I found they were some of the most important things. I needed to find friends and have fun again.

You know? But like you said, there are just vitamins and minerals I should have been taking all along and wasn’t taking. They found True All found, the last time I ever looked, they don’t know why. They just know it’s a thing.

Bipolar people compared to non bipolar people, we have a a vastly higher demand need for various nutrients than a non bipolar person. Like I said, the last I ever knew, they still did not know why that is, they just know it is.

So in in America they call it the RDA, the recommended daily allowance, which in its if you if you know anything about nutrition, the RDA is so off the mark across the board.

It’s healthier if you ignore it. But it sets some minimums at least that a lot of people don’t even reach the minimums.

And True Hope found out that we need a vastly larger amount of certain nutrients, but they need to be of a particular type and they need to be in a particular ratio.

Which they’re constantly testing and improving upon going back, I don’t know, 20, 30 years.

So I’m not They can’t cure everybody, but they have a a vastly higher success rate than psychiatry. Just put it that way. And I I implore people to at least go to truehold dot com and just look.

Just look. They have a section on the research that’s been done on them. It’s it’s mind blowing. They can prove everything they say. I have a lot of wonderful stories.

I worked with the company for years. And interestingly, I went to a period where I ran out of money. I couldn’t even afford the supplements, and I got very scared because I’d been under stuff nonstop for years, and I was, like, okay.

And I called them. I was like, what’s gonna happen to me? I’m like, well we don’t really know but call us if you get into a jam, you can always call and they have a wonderful support line that you can just you can be on it hours a day.

They just wind up my pole. Yeah. You can live on the phone with them, and they’ll help you get through anything you’re up against. They’re incredible what they do. And it turned out it was fine.

So I was like, what does that even mean? Because I know nutrition’s important and everything but I I as best I can tell, that was many years ago. I I do other supplements now, but and I don’t always eat the best now.

And I’m still good mentally. I I realized, I think they got me back up to a baseline and fortified me to where my body could start doing a better job of taking care of itself on its own.

I still take a bunch of nutrients and stuff, but I haven’t taken their main product in years. And I’m good. So I take them and like I said, I I hope people at investigate them.

It like I said, they can’t fix everybody and some people. From what I’ve been finding, there’s a certain amount of people, even with the best of everything across the board, still need a certain amount of meds.

And on that note, I found doctor Eamon. I don’t know if you ever heard of the Eamon clinic. Oh, yeah. So I found him years after I rebuilt myself my way. I found him. And he does this thing where he takes scans of people’s brains.

He’s been doing it for 30 years with some kind of technology that’s existed forever. He just uses it in a different fashion. It measures electrical activity and blood flow in the brain and it makes A3D picture.

Yep. And in a brain that’s missing blood flow or or electrical activity will have a black looks like a black like a piece of the brain’s been scooped out and it’s a hole. That’s how it looks in the picture.

He’s done over 200000 of these scans to wear a certain image automatically represents certain nutrients and and problems, and he can then prescribe what he likes do is everything non medicinal first, and that frequently is all it takes.

You never even get to meds.

And in in in the the harder cases, that he prescribes meds. But what he’s found through testing is when he does the non meds first, when it gets to the meds, it’s a much lower dose than you’d get at the psychiatrist.

I’ve never used doctor Eamon, but there’s some people in my life that I know could use as help.

And I my own brain scan because if I could do better, I wanna do better. That’s 1 of my dream goals. Go down to New York City. He’s just I’m just north of New York City.

That’s where he has a clinic. And I would I would highly suggest that people just go look at doctor Eamon before you just assume It’s me and meds and that’s my life and and you don’t try anything else.

I get that you or might need them a particular for your crisis or just really bad.

Yeah. Do whatever it takes to just survive and be okay. When you reach the point where you have some sort of capacity to think outside the box, looking at these things I’m talking about and just see.

I don’t know, but just see. Yeah. I actually I sent an email to the Eamon clinic about 6 months ago just to see how much it would cost and things. Because I would love to have that brain scan done as well.

I first saw him on on doctor Phil a couple years ago, So I’ve read 2 of his books. They were really, really interesting. And I just hope something like that comes to Canada soon.

Yeah. I’m sure it will because you’ve you’ve spoken a lot about energy and and the universe and spirituality. As as grim because I know this as grim as the world is, that’s what gets all the airtime on the news.

And 1 of the biggest health tips I could give you particularly if you’re suffering with bipolar, just turn the news off. That’s right. You can’t affect anything.

You’re informed and you’re full of terror and anger and opinions, and you can’t actually do anything with it, and most of us won’t even attempt to we’ll just complain and have our thoughts and feelings, and none of it’s good.

In comparison, equally incredibly good things are happening.

They just don’t get airtime. And I feel there is a paradigm shift happening globally that depending on where you’re at and why, it might get far more uglier yet, but it’s gonna equally get better.

And I believe we’re gonna crack through to some some other kind of understanding about how to be people in a civilization and make the earth work better because now we have to.

Everything’s dying, everything’s disintegrated, and everybody’s going crazy, and there are various ways of getting violent and aggressive, and blah blah blah.

I believe this is all a precursor. It’s birth. It’s a precursor to something really awesome, but people like us, you and I and people that like and follow us and care about us, it’s up to us to push the issue a little bit.

To believe that we can become something better, And I think people like you and I that have faced what we’ve faced, we’re the catalyst for the right people. 1 of the 1 of the things I I offer with what I do.

I can’t I draw people to me that are doing really incredible things that are way outside my pay grade or comprehension. I just wanna help them pull it off. Right. I don’t know anything about what they’re doing.

A lot of them are doing far better in life than I am. But they need someone that’s walked a walk to help them. They need a coach. Yeah. Because they’re in tricky waters with some new thing they’re doing up on their stellar level.

But they still need a the human touch and somebody didn’t just keep them stable and be and have their back with that support so they can achieve these things.

And I think you’re building something similar. I think when more and more and more people live in love instead of fear, that’s when the world will change. Yes. Wars are caused by fear. Fear they’re not gonna have their land.

They can’t control their people. You know? And 1 newscast that I watch most nights, it will have 5 minutes at the end of a really nice good news story of somebody doing something really good in the world.

Yeah. And I think we’re slowly teaching our kids it’s better to be kind than a bully, you know? Yeah. Yes. You see kids raising money for nonprofits by having lemonade stands or different things.

And, you know, I didn’t see those things when I was growing up. You know? There were more bullies around, I think, the nice kids’ and school it seemed.

And I just think when we live in love instead of fear, that’s when the world will change. Like Gary Zukov says to change the world you have to change yourself. Right. And and then that’s a take off on Gandhi.

Be to be the change you wish to see. Yeah. Wish to see in others. Yeah. I’d heard that for years and then there was no moment that I remember, but there was a point where I realized I’m really starting to believe that like never for.

Yeah. And then it it causes you to look even harder in the mirror because I’ll go hard at something and it’s not effective.

And at some point it’s like, I don’t know that you and I looking in the mirror, I don’t know that you and I are doing this.

Right? Do we we made me a little wrong about something. Like, let’s just humbly look and see if there’s a better plan of attacking this because this ain’t working.

That’s hard to do but really healthy if you can get a handle on it. I know your point about turning the TV off is so true. I thought The less TV I watch, the more inspiration I get from the universe, God, my so.

The energy that’s out there. Yes. Yeah. You’re open. You’re not distracted. Yeah. Like, now from Monday to Friday, my TV does not come on until at least noon.

No radio in the morning. I used to turn the radio on. I don’t even turn that on. So I have 4 hours of just me doing my thing. I still have a couple clients. I’m a virtual assistant for us, so I have to work for them.

But at least I have that 4 hours where I’m not distracted by TV or radio. It’s just my thoughts and whatever I’m doing that day. And I’m gonna slowly extend it on Some days, I can go till 02:00 without turning on the TV.

But some days, I need a distraction by noon. And Yeah. Yeah. The more time you spend in silence, the more inspiration you’re going to get, But what on what you’re on this earth to do? Yeah. Yeah.

Most of us are too distracted and and and to deal with that and even dealing with limiting the news or anything else that could negatively impact your your mental well-being I also tell people I’m like, just baby steps and chunk it out.

Don’t attack absolutely everything all at once. It’s like going to the gym, putting on all the weight you think can handle and then doing 40 reps of it.

Now you’re in the hospital because you blew everything to the ribbons with your enthusiasm to be physically fit. Don’t do that. Pick 1 a pick 1 tiny thing, particularly if you’re struggling to get anything done.

Pick the smallest thing that would would result in a win. Absolute smallest, and don’t don’t look down on it when you’ve achieved it. If all you did was clean off your desk.

Or just subtly arrange it in a more organized fashion, and that’s all you can pull off for today. You’re just 1. That’s right. Yeah. It was a mess a minute ago, and and and celebrate that because it builds.

Yeah. It does. For sure it builds momentum. But, yeah, doing 1 small think task a day, if that’s all you can handle, congratulate yourself. Yes. There are many times. If I just went for a 20 minute walk, that was all that.

The extra effort I could do that day when I was depressed. Yeah, I agree, just any any achievement is an achievement. And and when you stack them up before you know it, you got a lot of achievements.

And after a bit, without you even really seeing it, it becomes a way of living and thinking and seeing things. And you’ll start noticing improvements elsewhere that you weren’t even focused on.

Because a feed it’s it spreads out and it feeds other things for the better. And you just gotta take my word for it and lens word for it. This is how it works. It just happens. If you stick with this ridiculous little simple plan.

That’s for sure. Well, Lynn, we’re coming up on an hour and a half Mark. So I want I had 2 questions for you. 1 is to help my listeners who are building out a passion project or a big vision of any sort.

And so I’m gonna I’m gonna ask you as far as networking how so they understand. How did you find me and why did you feel like reaching out to me? I believe I Googled Podcast Mental Health.

And I believe that’s how I found your podcast. I just started emailing everybody that did podcasts for mental health. I did 2 podcasts in May with different people. Now they weren’t They’re life coaches, basically.

Yeah. They don’t really specifically talk about mental health, but because it was mental health month. It was perfect timing. Sure. So, yes, I just Google podcasts mental health or bipolar disorder.

I think I messaged you on LinkedIn. I don’t Yes. I must have found your website. Why wouldn’t I have messaged you on your website? You might have found the old website. Okay. You might have found outsiders’ journey, which I retired.

It’s still there with a holder, with a placeholder And that now, if you click on the image here, you just go to my new site, bipolar Excellence, but I got a feeling you found me while I was in transit.

I was in transition And I was idling for about 2 years. I I got stuck. And I wasn’t sure where I was taking all of this. And and I hired some coaches and just pondered and it just took 2 years and then it became you and you and I today.

Well, that’s kinda what I’m doing this year. Taking the time to figure out where I’m moving forward in my life. And like I said, I just hired somebody to self publish the f book again.

Professionally, so it’ll be on sale on Amazon and a couple other sites soon in September. And I’m working on my success coaching I’m not gonna call them workshops. It’s gonna be 1 on 1 on Zoom or in person.

However, the person is comfortable. It’ll be 9 sessions, and we’ll cover each of us during the session. And what I say about my 7 f’s is just take 1 of those f’s and do whichever 1 is the easiest for you to do to start with.

You know, it might be just praying every day, or it could be talking to a family member, you know, take the f that’s the easiest to start with and do it first.

You know, most people are gonna have a couple of them in place already their lives.

But — Right. — baby steps. That’s for sure. That’s what got me healthy. Well, and then this segues us nicely into the second question. What is it you’d like to share with with the world?

Where websites or anything you’d like people to know to go and learn more about you. I don’t have a website at the moment. They can contact me at my email. It’s lynn LYNN at my journey back to myself dot ca or dot com.

It doesn’t matter. I will be getting a website going at some point in the next few months, but Because 1 of my topics is finances, I’m always very careful to stay in budget now.

Right. And I’m not gonna spend 10 or 15000 dollars on something until I’m a hundred percent clear that, yes, this is where I’m going and there’s no turning back. Like, I’m a hundred percent clear on the success coach and the f book.

But like I said, I can’t do everything at once? No. So it’s baby steps for me. I’m putting out YouTube every week. Right? Now I’m talking about a different f every week.

They’re all between 1 and 1 and a half minutes. They’re not very long. So I do have a YouTube channel people can go to. What what is the name of that channel? What’s what’s the website? I’ve been on it.

III just don’t even know for sure what the name of it is. I’ll tell you what I’ll do because when this is all done, you’ll get a page on my website for this podcast episode and in it, I put links to whatever needs I’ll link.

And I I have your channel. I don’t remember the name either. So I can definitely Well, it says youtube dot com slash channel, and then there’s a whole bunch of letters and numbers after it.

It doesn’t even have my name on there. Okay. So Maybe there’s a way I can put my name on. There is. There is. Okay. I’ll figure that out. I’m not tech savvy. This is my problem.

Baby steps. Baby steps. Well Now the the tech stuff just goes wild. I mean, it’s it’s almost like a rabbit hole. It can go as far as you feel like taking it. It’s Okay. I’m just gonna make a note here. YouTube changed to my name.

Somebody else is using my name as well, like they have the name Lynn Ray. So I have to figure out how to differentiate it. Well, since I would I would suggest since bipolar is your is that that’s your main topic still or no?

Well, Yes and no, like the 7 f’s can apply to anybody that wants to make changes in their life. Well, I would suggest just think of a keyword that applies to everybody that might be a client of yours and put that before your name.

My journey, Lynn Ray. That’s easy. That’s the obvious 1 for me because I have a book by Yeah. That’s cool ties into your book.

Yeah. Alright. Alright. It was That went well. It was really nice talking to you, Ken. Thank you very much for having me on today. Thanks for finding me in the first place because you you kickstarted the machine.

And let’s keep in touch. Yeah definitely. I’d I’d like to have Yanna and we just cover some new things with maybe more specificity, whatever new things you’re up to.

That that I Yeah. In the fall. When I’ve got some more things in place. Whenever you’re ready. And I’m gonna check out how you managed to stay off application on your website.

I’ll read that thoroughly over the weekend. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. And I’ll be adding to the website this weekend and now you’re gonna get put in there probably within the next week.

So Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. You’re welcome, Lynn. Well, thanks, Ken. Be well. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Take care, Lynn. Bye. So that was me interviewing Lynn Ray.

She was very nice. I thought the podcast went well. I’ll get better with this as I go. I I thought that was great. There’s things that I’m I’m looking to achieve that I haven’t yet learned how to do within an interview.

This was my first 1. Essentially, I want it to be as conversational as possible. I think what Lynn and I did in here was fantastic. We each she got to tell her whole story and make make all her most powerful points.

And I was able to back those up with my comparable stories, anything that related, give a con give different things context. And what I’m what I’m working on now for those of you who are show builders and and training.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to gracefully end Gas with the little bit of post after interview bit. And I really got nothing. I just wanted to something there. I I couldn’t even think this out in my head as much as I needed to.

I just said fuck it. I’m just gonna wing it. And winging is now happening your ears. So forgive me for not being more professional with that, and I don’t really care because as I’m always telling you guys, Perfection will kill you.

Just go. Go. Go. Just keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. If you worry and fret and freak out over every little thing trying to make it perfect.

You’ll never get anything done. Years of experience speaking to you right now. Once again, go to bipolarexcellence dot com, look in the footer of the website for the author series to get directly to Lynn.

And it is episode 45, if you’re looking for it in some other fashion on the site. Guys, thanks for tuning in. My numbers are growing.

I’m about to crack a thousand downloads, and I really only kicked this thing off a couple months ago. I don’t know who you all are, but I’m glad you’re hanging in there. Most of you are listening to full episodes, most of you.

That’s incredible. I’ll get better at this and hopefully even as I trip and stumble and flub things, it’s some kind of entertaining. Besides being helpful. Alright. Little doctor Phil on the end or something. Ramlin, see you later.