Episode Summary

In this episode, Ian and Mark discuss the difficulties of dealing with loss and trauma in the wake of an accident. 

• Realise the significance of internalising and projecting one's pain onto others. 
• Recognise that major grieving events bring feelings of loss to the surface. 
• Discover how to nourish yourself and the people around you. 

Heal your unresolved and unknown grief: https://www.ianhawkinscoaching.com/thegriefcode

About the Guest:

Mark Goblowsky is the father of twenty-one-year-old Joshua, who acquired a Traumatic Brain Injury at the age of three in August of 2005. The injury resulted from a hit-and-run car collision with two semi-trucks. Life has never been the same.

Joshua has been labeled “disabled” since then with cognitive deficits as well as mobility, balance and dexterity issues.

Mark has taught Kung-Fu full time to children and adults in Bellevue, NE since 1991. Prior to that he served in the U.S. Air Force for 9 ½ years.

Mark is married to Teresa. However, Joshua sees Teresa as his “partner-in-crime” with which to prank his father. Life Is Good!

Links:

https://markgoblowsky.com/

https://www.instagram.com/markgoblowsky/

https://www.facebook.com/MGoblowsky

About the Host:

Ian Hawkins is the Founder and Host of The Grief Code. Dealing with grief firsthand with the passing of his father back in 2005 planted the seed in Ian to discover what personal freedom and legacy truly are. This experience was the start of his journey to healing the unresolved and unknown grief that was negatively impacting every area of his life. Leaning into his own intuition led him to leave corporate and follow his purpose of creating connections for himself and others. 

The Grief Code is a divinely guided process that enables every living person to uncover their unresolved and unknown grief and dramatically change their lives and the lives of those they love. Thousands of people have now moved from loss to light following this exact process. 

Check Me Out On:

Join The Grief Code Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1184680498220541/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianhawkinscoaching/ 

Start your healing journey with my FREE Start Program https://www.ianhawkinscoaching.com/thestartprogram 

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Coach podcast, thank you so much for listening. 

Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. 

If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info@ianhawkinscoaching.com. 

You can also stay connected with me by joining The Grief Code community at www.ianhawkinscoaching.com/thegriefcode and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal, please subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this word I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it. Could you imagine hearing that your child has been in a car accident with a semi trailer and then go into the hospital and finding that no one can give you a straight answer. So this chat with Mark he goes through the the uncertainty that lasted for not just days, but in months and years with the recovery of his son having to go through all the different layers and moments of grief when more realizations came to him. And after going through all of that then realizing there was a heap of stuff from his childhood that he didn't even know he needed to grieve, and then having to go through and unpack all of that. But it's also a story of hope. And it's also a story of how you can recover from particularly challenging times and grief with yourself and the most important people in your life. Really love this chat. Enjoy today, everyone and welcome this week's guest, Mark Goodloe. Ski Mark, how are you?

Unknown Speaker 2:11

Great. Thanks for having me in.

Ian Hawkins 2:14

You're welcome. And thank you so much for coming on to share your story, or just chatting before we jumped on our mutual connections Matty Wolf and Alison Rodan who have both been on this podcast and tell their story. So they you come with a great reputation. So I'm in a great story. So I'm looking forward to sharing. And I'm also really appreciative that you haven't prepared to tell this story because from everything you've described, quite a traumatic one and multi layered. So can you share with the listeners that that? What unfolded for you all those years ago to your son?

Speaker 2 3:01

Ian Hawkins 6:56

does the uncertainty at that point. scarier? Or just getting that news in itself? Like, was enough to like, what was the reaction?

Speaker 2 7:10

My reaction was, I need to get to the hospital. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I and I just jumped in my truck. And I, I left. I had a cousin who, in 82, had suffered a pretty terrible car accident, and she had a severe brain injury as well. So I was kind of familiar with what could go wrong in those circumstances, but I wasn't I didn't want to let my mind race. I didn't want to let it get out of control. I was like, okay, you don't know what's going on here. You don't know what the truth is. But truth, to be honest, I mean, I was scared, but I was trying to keep myself calm with I don't know the facts. I need the facts I needed. I need information. But the longer I was on the road, and it was it's not a terribly long drive, maybe 15 minutes, but the longer I was on the road, the more concerned I got, you know, and then and, you know, I'm a praying man anyhow. So I started to pray. And, you know, I got a sense of calm, you know, for the ride in and then. But once I got there, my panic set in full blown. Oh, I bet has, I didn't know where the pick you was. And it's a chopped up hospital. So they couldn't even give me like, oh, just go to the elevator, eighth floor. You're there. It wasn't one of those deals. So eventually, I get to the PICU and walked down the hallway, will ask a nurse where Josh, you know, where's my son? And she says, she tells me where and I walked down there and I walk into the room and then all I can see is my son in the bed. And you know, he's just got tubes. Everywhere. He's on life support. You know, and there's monitors all over the room to print this out crowded.

Ian Hawkins 9:12

It did that, like, Pete, you're like a way?

Speaker 2 9:16

Yeah. You know, it's like getting punched in the face and the gut at the same time. Yeah, well, like everything about your body is just overwhelmed. You know? thoughts in your head?

Ian Hawkins 9:29

Yeah. And it makes it real, right. All those different things you've thought about then here it is. Wow. Man, I can't. I can't imagine how you even stayed on your feet at that point.

Speaker 2 9:42

You know, it was interesting. I remember just standing there and just doing this. Just put my hands up on my head and just go on. You know what I was trying to like, I don't know what I was. I don't know if I was trying to keep something in my head or keep other things from getting inside my head. It was still It was some protection mechanism of like, I needed to, like calm my brain down a little bit, I think. Because it was overwhelming. And it was it was Physiol physical. Yeah. I mean, I could feel it in my body in my gut in my chest. It was

that's one of those things that people don't well, now that you get prepared for those moments in grief, but he can't hear me hear me now

about now, hopefully nothing. Nothing What is going on? Test test? No, I'm not getting anything here either. Now speaking test test

think I got you

got me now? I got you now. Okay, cool. We can edit that bit out. Yeah. So not that you ever get prepared for grief. But one of these people don't talk about is that it's a full body experience, like you said, like that. You find out about parts of it that you didn't even know existed, right?

Yeah, for sure. You know, I've taught martial arts for a long time. And so I've been, I've been schooled in fear, and anxiety and how to respond, etc. But there's some things you can't prepare for. I mean, I thought I was prepared for lots of things in life. I was spent nine and a half years in a military. I'd been doing martial arts for 15 years at that time, I ran a school full time I taught other people how, how to deal with stress and fear and danger. But you can't be prepared for everything. Like there's things that come out of the blue that you never thought were going to happen. And then you're overwhelmed by it. And it's normal.

Yes, absolutely. Now at that moment, you've got no concept of how badly injured he's going to be. Or anything really, but like, how did you get through just that immediate? Our

you know, it was, it was a fact finding mission for me, you know, is talking to his grandparents trying to get from them what they knew, as nurses and or doctors came in, I would try and get information from them. The unfortunate thing was, is nobody could tell me anything, because they didn't know anything. You know, if it was a if it was a punctured lung, a bruised spleen and seven bones broken, they could tell, you know, but with brain injuries, it's not like that. And, and that was one of the most difficult things to deal with was simply the lack of information or the lack of knowledge. And it wasn't the doctors fault. I mean, it's just the nature of brain injuries. All they could tell me was his E G has almost no activity on it. There's almost no brain activity at this point.

Oh, wow. Okay, I probably haven't explained this part to mark but often get, like, inflammation from my body. And I've got this stabbing in my left eye. It's which is generally mirroring back. Is there something going on with your right eye or his right eye? Like,

oh, his left eye? Your left eye? Yeah. his left eye was injured.

It Right. Can you see from

he can see, he actually his left orbital socket was broken in multiple places. Yeah, but his vision wasn't damaged. He could still see correctly, but his eyes were pinned to the right side. Eventually we found that out Because of the brain damage, it just made the muscles in his body just stop working correctly. But his left orbital socket was damaged severely.

They are. So like, I'm sure just in those in that day, and then then the sort of days like the unknown and the uncertainty, like I mean, you mentioned it before, it has to be the most challenging time of your life just that. Yeah. Aftermath.

Yeah. I had some challenges in my life, but never anything like that. It's like I said, it's it. You know, it's kind of every parent's worst nightmare. You know, you. You imagine when your kids are babies like, what if they drowned? What if somebody kidnaps them? What if something happened? What if they get cancer? You're like, this is this was real, like it was all my nightmares. Yeah. Now they're real, and nobody can tell me anything on top of it.

So how, how long did it take before they could give you any information? And what was that?

This happened on a Friday morning, and then on Monday morning, the neurosurgeon showed up. And amazing guy's name is Dr. Bill Terrell at the University of Nebraska here, Medical Center, and this guy walks in he's bald head, and he's chomping on some gum. And he sticks his hand out. He says, Hi, I'm Bill Thoreau, and I'm the guy taking care of your kid. Now. I had seen a number of doctors since Friday. Nobody said I'm the guy taking care of your kid. Or I'm, I'm the woman taking care, nobody. And just that little brief, tiny smidgen of ownership that he took. Yeah, wow. started to shift things for me a little bit emotionally, it felt a little different. Like, oh, wait, somebody sounds like they know what they're doing. I mean, like they, they have knowledge that nobody else has. Again, I don't want to shortchange them other doctors, of course.

But it's the if you look at the psychology of it, how important it is to get that the ownership and knowing that someone cares enough that they're going to come and introduce yourself, introduce themselves. It's a good lesson in all situations. But as you go through that, so

let me jump, jump back. So as he was telling me, you know, what they could see on the different image imaging. Eventually, he said, If your son survives the first seven days, he'll probably live.

Is that make it worse? Have you Oh,

no, no, man, I'm telling you it like it made it better in one way made it better. It gave me some target he gave me like, Okay, if he makes it seven days, then things might get better. And that's, I mean, I didn't know if they would get better. But he's like, he'll live that much. I know. Okay, if he makes it a week, he'll live. Beyond that. I didn't know. So my first target was, you know, to get to the next Friday. And that gave me hope, you know, give me hope.

Yeah. And I like how you described that it gives you a target, like when you're in a place of complete uncertainty, and imagine fear and you're thinking about all different possibilities. At least you've got something now to aim at.

You know, the first night we were in there. After all the visitors left. I pulled the chair over next to his bed. And this is how scared I was. I pulled the chair next to his bed, these cheesy, terrible recliners that they give to you to sit in in the hospitals and I pulled it over so that my head was facing his head. So I was down by his feet. What I what I wanted to do is I wanted to hold his hand through the night because I thought in my head like maybe if I can hold his hand, he'll still be here in the morning. Maybe I can hold on to him and keep him here. But I didn't know if he'd be alive in the morning.

Well, everything I've learned about people and energy In like, just the fact that you're there would have had tremendous, tremendous healing capacity. Because we, when we share a space like that, like, but at that point I guess you're like I think about after I've lost someone on there and they no longer hear you, you reach for anything, like have conversations with them all sorts of things. But at that point, we still feel like, I don't know, is it like, do you feel like you have some semblance of control by knowing that?

That's, I think that's what I was looking for some stabilization, some control some something to anchor to, or, you know, in order to keep the, you know, to me, it was like, I'm in the midst of a storm and I needed to stabilize or anchor to something, so I wouldn't get blown away. Or, you know, I don't know if I'm making any sense, but

yeah, no, absolutely. So you get to seven days. Yep. And what like, Was it like you woke up on the seventh day, and you're like,

pretty happy. Pretty happy. In spite of nothing had changed. He was in a coma. Yeah. And the funny thing is, is nobody used the word coma. Hmm. Nobody. Nobody said the word coma to me. For a month. It was weird. But anyhow, yeah. It was a good day. And I thought, Okay, now what? What's next? And then the next thing was to, to consult with a rehabilitation doctor, who eventually, yeah, came in within a couple of days after that. And we talked about some possible, you know, some opportunities for his healing if it was possible. And the doctor was very honest with me, and he was not making any promises, as he was talking to us. And I finally, I says, Doc, is it? Are you telling me that how he is right now in that bed? Are you telling me that that might be as good as it gets? Wow. And he says, Yes, I am.

That crushy.

You know, it's weird, but it was a it was another point of, okay, now, I know that I know what's worst, I know what the worst way this thing plays out is. So let's shoot for better. Like, I mean, I didn't know what was within anybody's power, but I wanted to, I wanted to find a solution. I wanted to do whatever we could to maximize whatever we could, of course, yeah. So it was it was good and bad in the same thing. But that bad was like the basement. Like it was the bottom is now he wasn't gonna die. He was gonna live. Yeah. And this might be the worst that get that it gets, but we might be able to change that into something else by going through rehab. So we, they put a feeding tube in him, and after about three weeks, went to a rehabilitation hospital and spent three months there.

And so three months, like, like, how long before he actually came out of the coma that

he actually came out of the coma, technically on day 34. But he was no different on day. 35. And he was on day 34. It's just, you know, it's how they measure things. And if, if he twitched a certain way, when they made a noise, they're like, oh, that's consciousness. So it's kind of technical, but it was he didn't wake it's not like TV, then you didn't wake up and say, Can somebody give me my Batman toy? Or can I have ice cream? It was nothing like that.

Yeah. So can you describe them then that road, like, maybe rather than less going through the whole chronological steps of the recovery, just go through some of those milestone milestone moments and, and how they unfolded?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, we he started on a regimen of seven hours of therapy a day, and did that Monday through Friday, and then half a day on Saturdays, and this went on for weeks. And but there was a point along the way where I could feel like I was losing my energy. I felt like I was losing hope. You know, I was hopeful but If there wasn't progress, I mean, there wasn't much. It's not like he was moving his arms, it was not like he stood up and why he couldn't swallow his own spit. So I started get pretty depressed about it. And but I knew I couldn't stay that way. And, and there was this quote that I had heard a long time before that. And it came to mind because I was asking myself like, how do I keep going here, I can't fail him. I need to be here. And it's, there's this quote, I want to share, it's always remember in the dark, what you know, to be true in the light. Always remember the dark witch, you know, to be true in the light. So you know, for me, the dark was, he's in a coma, he's got a brain injury, he can't move, he can't do anything. But I really believed that he would be healed. And I was going to kind of hang my head on that. And so that gave me the energy to kind of keep going. And, you know, we went through the entire 12 weeks, he started to kind of walk with hell, he couldn't talk yet. And then, after the 12 weeks, there was about four months total in hospitals. And, you know, we were sent off to outpatient outpatient status, which was terrifying for me. That might have been as scary as I was the whole time there.

Because of the, the certainty and safety of

Exactly, yeah, man, I don't want to leave here. Right? What if this happens? What if that happens? I can't fit. You know, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nurse. But I didn't tell that to anybody. I just like kept it in me, which wasn't a good thing.

You know? So I'm guessing you weren't with his mother at this point.

Yeah, his mom and I weren't married. And we weren't together at that point. So there was other complications and challenges. But

yeah, so So how did you like we are supporting each other? And all through that time? And if not, like, Where were you getting your support?

Yeah, I didn't get any support from her on this. I tried to be supportive. I. I just know how I felt. And, you know, I, I could only imagine how she felt. I didn't, I played my hand not very well, in that area. I didn't go looking for support. I didn't think I don't know if I didn't think I needed it. Or if I didn't think I should need it.

Yeah, but from my experience, personally and from working with other people is it's generally that second one. We it's almost feels like we're weak or Yeah. Or we're not, you know, we're not good enough if we if we reach out, but it's quite the opposite.

Exactly. Abby, it was it was the worst thing I could have done.

Yeah. So if you go then, through the, through the years, like, how have you been able to? Well, let's get here. Like when when eventually did you realize that? You weren't coping? Like? Was there another sort of moment of like, I can't do this anymore. Mo.

Yeah, I, and this was Josh was probably this was probably six years after he got hurt. Five, five years

to battle on for that loan.

I did. And may I say foolishly? Yeah. I was literally at the end of the, at the end of my rope. And a friend of mine who has two children on the autism spectrum, brought to me a flyer for an event that was held here in Nebraska, offered through the Department of Education, called parents encouraging parents. And on the on the brochure listed all these different, like sessions that they had at this little conference. When I looked at the back that one on the back said Good grief. And I was like, I don't care about any other session. That's the one I need to see. Because I am grieving I am broken inside and I And I, I couldn't tell anybody that. I mean, I didn't think I could tell anybody that. And I didn't think I had anybody I could tell. You know, I was out here by myself. My family is spread out all over the place there was, I had friends, but you know, we'll go back to the what I said before and what you you mentioned, like you think you shouldn't, you shouldn't need others in. That's the furthest thing from the truth.

100%. I don't know if you're familiar with Jim Rohn. But one of one of his quotes. I think it's probably my favorite is when the student is ready, ready, the teacher will appear. And he certainly appeared in my life at a time where I was ready to hear what he was saying was actually the first video I saw from him was exactly that message. And what that's what sort of dawned on me when you when you said that's the one I've got to go to? It had been six years, but you were ready, right? You're ready.

I was ready. And I was only ready because the pain had gotten so bad. Yeah, the pain, the grief, the pain, whatever I was experienced, and on the inside of watching my son who still wasn't he was better, but he wasn't fixed. And

what, what was the pain? Was it guilt? Was it hopelessness was it like lots of different things?

The pain was my son was broken. And I couldn't fix it. And, and to watch him struggle to do the simplest things. Whereas before the accident, he he, he was on steroids. I mean, he wasn't really on steroids, but he was just so alive and his physicality and his intellect. Like it was just, you know, amazing. And, and then it seemed like it was all stolen from him. And I think that I felt a sense of injustice to I couldn't really put words to all of it, then, ya know, it's been a number of years since that day. And I'm better now because I've done a lot of internal work of trying to understand because grief, just grief doesn't just stop because you go to a grief conference, he Exactly. Or read a book or talk to your pastor or like it. It may never end, he could certainly get better. Yeah, but there may be a little twinge where you you still miss that person or you miss what you had or whatever.

Yeah, it's, it's the waves. Just keeps coming, and you think it's gone. And then, and then another one comes crashing down. And it's, again, it's the part that in, like, to me, that's the part through grief I never prepared for like it's relentless. So you went to that conference? What did you like? Did you then speak to someone on that day? Or did you like have a moment where you broke down or long one?

I had more than one, one moment, one moment when I broke down, I can assure you of that. I could smile about it. Because that being at that conference, like changed my life, you know what I mean? It, it buoyed me like it now instead of just treading water and from fatigue, you can't trade anymore. There was this buoy that I could latch on to and, and now I wasn't just holding myself up with my own strength. I had the strength of meeting all these other people who were going through. Nobody else at that conference had a child with a brain injury. But they were all going through something. Some things that maybe weren't as dramatic, but they was difficult, you know, because it's your kid. So they had three sessions of what they called small group discussions. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and you went to one on each. And on your first one, you you kind of picked out how you felt based on some drawings. And then on the last day you pick out again, and I'm telling you, I was like a new man, simply because there were some skilled people and asking questions. And there was a two hour session of just a panel of Parents who got up there and just told their own stories of what they had gone through, they weren't professional speakers, there were people like me and you. And they, maybe you're a professional speaker, too. I don't. I don't mean to minimize

it or keep going.

Anyhow, there were these parents just up there telling their stories. And this, I don't know, two or two and a half hour session of just talking about grief and how there's different stages of grief, and that when you wake up on this day, it's this way, but when you wake up on the other day, you're in a different stage, but nothing really changed. But you just woke up. And you felt different, because there were different thoughts or whatever. So that that conference, I walked out of there with hope. Like I really, I believed that things could get better. I didn't know if it could get better for Josh, but I knew it could get better for me. Like how I could handle it. So awesome. You need some tools in the area of grief changed my life.

Yeah, that's so glad to hear that. You said though, that for the first 12 or 12 to 15 years of of after the accident, there was still part of you that that kept believing he was going to get better. But then the realization that that wasn't the case. Can you describe what that was like?

Yeah, so Josh was in high school at this point, and at about the age of 13, he became aware of his own disabilities, like he realized he had disabilities. And that was a tough day, because he came to me and out of the blue says, Dad, I don't like having disabilities. And I couldn't really fix it. But we did sit down and watch a 45 minute video of Nicole check. Is it he? I think he's an Aussie. Isn't he not familiar with him? That's fine. So anyhow, at 13, I started to see that I was getting glimpses of maybe this was not going to fix itself. Eventually, I continued to believe that he was going to be completely healed and ride motorcycles someday. But I kept getting glimpses like, well, maybe that's not going to happen. And by the time he was 18, I was in a full blown depression. Because one day, I realized he's, like a nine year old. And I can't change that. And I'm never gonna be able to change it. And now, I have to give up this dream that I had of how this was all going to end that the story was going to have this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And no, it's not going to have a pot of gold and no, there's no rainbow. You know, it's just going to go on forever. And I started to tell myself like this is never going to end and bla bla bla bla bla, which did nothing for my mindset and didn't help me at all. But I genuinely went into a depression and it was another one of those valleys of grief that I had to wrestle through. And it took me probably two years to get through that.

And how did you did you at that point? Did you realize that you didn't need to speak up or did you battle on your own for No,

no. I spoke up. Yeah, good. I learned my lesson. Yeah, yeah. I talked to several people in fields that could help me. I talked to mental health practitioners. I talked to doctors. I talked to coaches that I had life coaches to sort this thing out. Because I it wasn't like, I wasn't just depressed. I was getting angry. Because I felt cheated, you know?

That was me angry. And and you talked about that, like the injustice and what you meant you touched on it at the start on enough as before we jumped on over recording, but it's like, you see this future You imagine it you, you have that full body experience of what that is going to be like. And then when it's taken away, it's yeah, it's like, it feels like you've been robbed. And yeah, I was angry. So many different levels. So So had, were you? Is this where the Kung Fu training came in and helped or was at a hinderance because you were continuing to sort of calm yourself without actually processing it.

At that point in my life I, I had the knowledge that I can't just call myself through this, like, you need to do that, too. Yeah. Like, you need to process what's inside of you. And, and I continue to process that and other things. You know, and I do it through talking with either professionals or life coaches, people who are skilled in asking questions and being objective, and helping you to see your see the solution. Yeah, and journaling, a lot, a lot of journaling, a lot of journaling.

And the regular regular listeners of this podcast will know that I'm a big fan of the journaling, as well. Another one I got from Jim Rohn, and then learn from guys like Robin Sharma, and the most successful people in the world have a journal. I keep a record of where they're at, they get their different thoughts out of their head, and particularly if you've been through experiences like you're describing which not comparable, but everyone's been through some sort of traumatic experience. We'll be eating away at them. So you've come out the other side of that. And we'll actually, before we get to more of your stuff, like how is Josh now? And what what have you learned from him? Given that no matter what, how people are showing up in the world, the ones that have had their biggest challenges, in my experience are our greatest teachers as well. Right?

Yeah, so Josh has taught me to maintain an indomitable spirit, like a spirit that won't be broken, or broken down. To be resilient to keep trying to keep putting one foot forward.

think some of the things that I learned, just from my experience was domain to find and maintain perspective. And I had a lot of things that I needed to learn in order to just be able to get through this. You know, one is forgiveness. You got to be able to forgive everybody and everything. You know, which is not an easy thing to do. And I think forgiveness like grief is you got to keep going back. You gotta keep doing it.

Particularly when, as you describe the drivers still out there somewhere. Having to deal with all of that as well.

Yeah, you know, and Josh wants to find him. Like Josh genuinely wants to find this guy. And I'm torn. Like, do I? Do I feed that do I? Do I try? You know, I mean, the internet's pretty big these days. Who knows? We have some pretty compelling photos of the car in him in a hospital on life support. I'm sure people would share it all over the world, you know, a bazillion times but is I don't know that. I don't know if that's right. You know, I mean, like, I don't know what, I don't know what I'm feeding if I do that.

Yeah, well, I mean, to my mind is a parent. They're going to they're going to chase what they chase anyway, there are there are some things that like, we can try and control them and deter them. But when there's part of them that's got to go on the journey themselves, right? Yeah. So I'm not sure if there's, whether you've, whether you feel it or whether you don't whether that's going to necessarily have a big impact. On his journey through that, or he will have he obviously, there's some sort of need that needs to be met through there. Yeah. Okay, so this is so weird. There's a letter on my desk that's just slid. Right? So, I don't know if you're familiar with that idea, but maybe helping Josh to write a letter to this driver. Yeah, that whatever you do with the letter is is up to him, but just to so he can get whatever's in his head out so that that's a great idea. At least you can start. That's a great idea. Yes, stop the healing process. Now, I don't know if this is significant, but it seems to be because it's really standing out, but it's the yellow and red. Now in Australia, that'd be referenced the rescue. So I don't know if there's something there for that as well. Like, whether there's some like those people that saved him like that, he might not be ready to face the positive elements of that. Or maybe you might not be either, but I feel like just from the evidence I'm getting here, there might be something to that letter writing in that space as well.

Yeah, I think those are, I think those are two good ideas. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna bounce those off of them. You know, you you asked how he was or where he's at. And he's, you know, he's 21 Now, and in the last 18 months, he wrote two children's books. Wow. Now he had help. It was, he didn't literally write them. He told somebody and somebody else helped him and wrote it down. But he, he's getting out some of you know what his life is, like, in real general terms. They're, I mean, they're for kids books. So they're, you know, they're meant to be encouraging, and they're meant to be conversational. But when he decided he wanted to write books, he, when we're getting ready to publish the first one, in December of 21, he came to me and asked if he could donate the money to kids. Wow. And I was like, do your money man you can do? Who do you want to give it to? You know, and we talked about different charities. And he ended up picking a charity that actually had helped him when he was about eight, or nine. And since then, since the publishing of the first book, and then the second book, he's raised over $8,000. Us. And he's fully funded dreams for two different kids. And he's working on a third, you know what I mean, raising enough money to fund another third child's dreams. And the organization is called the Sunshine Foundation. They're in here in the United States, but they've granted dreams to 40,000 kids, and Josh helped do it to help do two of them.

I love that I've heard other stories like that, that people who have been the recipients wanting to pay that forward or family members and brings me so much joy to hear that like, you know, you know as to what what lessons will that's just reminded me of a great lesson. So I appreciate you sharing that. Mark. The other thing you mentioned, when you before we jumped on was one of the elements of grief that you and I imagine many will relate to this is that there was a huge element of your childhood that that you need to grieve but what most of us we don't know we need to until it kind of just it's another one of those waves that comes flooding to the surface after a big grief event. So so how did that come to the surface for you?

You know, as an older teenager and into my adult years I would do things that were self destructive say, and I knew these things were self destructive and harmful to myself or harmful to others. And I would just do them, which doesn't make any sense on the surface. When you see somebody who's a crack addict or something. You You're like, why are you doing that? Why don't you just stop? But there's a reason they they can't stop. They just stop. You can't just will yourself do things that are ever more motional roots to them. So, you know, my childhood with my father was super complicated. And I grew up in a house that was violent. My father had a particularly frequent statement he would make towards me. And that was, You're not worth the powder to blow you to hell. And, you know, I, I had heard it so many times. And then when I was older, it's like, I don't know, 10 or 11. And I asked him, What does that mean? And he told me, Well, if I had enough gunpowder to blow you up, it would be a waste of perfectly good gunpowder. And, you know, it made me like, just stop in my tracks. And in my head. I can't comprehend. I mean, I know exactly what he means. But I can't comprehend why my father would think that blowing me up was a good idea. Like, I loved him. I loved him, like how could you not love me? Since I love you so much. So anyhow, there was things like that. And there was you know, I've got scars and physical scars, emotional scars, from from, from my father, and there was after I was older and be in conversations with other adults, and something would come up like, Well, did you? Did your parents discipline you? And discipline you was code for hit you or spank you? Yeah. So my dad never spanked me, but he beat me. And I would answer these people and say, Yeah, but I had it come in a rut. I came to believe like, I deserved what my dad did to me like he wouldn't have done it had I not deserved it like I was that. My My mind was that messed up. Like you deserved it. And but there was a point where I started to think this. This doesn't make any sense. When I was about 35, I had been out of the military for several years, I was building my martial arts business. And I woke up in the middle of the night, and I had had this dream. Well, I didn't know if it was a dream or what it was, but I spent almost an hour just like literally pinching myself pulling my hair and going. Did I dream that? Am I dreaming right now? Or was that real? And I ended up calling up my mom at like, 230 in the morning and and asking her

asking her if something happened when I was in kindergarten. And she says, Yeah. And I don't want to I don't want to be graphic. And this was 30 years after this happened. And this was the only time that's conversation between my mother and I happened regarding this moment in time. And my mom says, Yeah, and I was like, what, what happened in kindergarten? And she says, Well, you went down on so and so. Which was an older boy who had molested me. And like, I was shocked when I heard those words. Wait a minute, how does a six year old? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. But it was 30 years later and that's still how my mother thought. So when it when this happened, it you know, it happened on Friday night and by Monday when I'm going to kindergarten my the whole town knew what he had done. Except they didn't have the truth. They had his twisted version of it. Yeah, I where he could pin the blame on me. When I got to school, I could just because the older kids are just, you know, like the fifth and sixth graders or My name is go below ski. They had a field day. Yeah. And I lived with that for 12 years, 12 more years. And well until all the older kids got out of school. So what the principal called me out of my classroom and wanted to know what happened and I, I couldn't connect what the kids outside were saying to what he was asking to Friday night, I had no connection. And I start crying because he's getting more and more frustrated. And I don't know how to answer him. I just say no, nothing happened. And finally, he says, Mark, something happened Friday night, and you need to tell me what you did. And then, and then, in an instant, I know, I know exactly what he's talking about. And I could just feel the blood just like rushed in my eyes. My ears are burning right now. Just thinking about it. It's happening again. And he lectures me and he gets puts his hands down on his knees. He bends forward, he gets like, I don't know, from my face. It says, Mark, you can never do that again. Do you understand me? I was like, yeah, yes, sir. And I can't hardly talk. I go home, not a word of said. Like there's no police. There's nothing. My parents never say a word to me about it. They know. I know. They know that. The reason I I knew that they knew was a week later, my mom and dad are having this discussion. And I'm in a room next to them. And I can hear them talking. I know they're talking about this day. But I still don't understand any of it.

Too young to comprehend any of that at that point.

What six year old understands what any type of sexes? Yeah.

At that point, did you know what had happened to you previously? And the right and wrong any of that?

The only the only wrong of it that I understood was whatever I did. That was wrong.

She writes to you. So you're very much then take forward the your part in it instead of so. So it was only at that age that? What how does that then start to make sense to you? Because it sounds like you just buried it for the next 30 days

here. Yeah, kind of, but not really. So. I know my parents are having this discussion about this moment in time. Yeah. And my dad, my dad's last words. And this is the like, I tell you, I knew I knew they were talking about I can't tell you anything they said, but I can tell you the last thing my father said, I need to drop an F bomb.

Go for it. Okay.

My dad says to my mom, that's great. My kids are fucking homo. Oh, wow. So I have no idea what fucking homo means. But I could feel the contempt that dripped from his words. And I carried that forward with me. And then as I got older, I did figure out what those words meant. And while I never felt drawn to a male, never had felt any interest in being engaged with a male. I wondered. I wondered if I was gay, because my dad said I was right. So naturally, I went to the other extreme, the older I got. And, you know, quite honestly, I don't want to say abused women in terms of like sexually, I don't want to make it sound like that. But I abused them in the sense that I was never honest with them about my intentions.

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, no, so I used them. I used them and yeah, maybe I didn't abuse them, but I used them. And it was it was hard. It was hard to guys do it. But you know why? It wasn't who I wanted to be, but I did it anyhow. Because I was calm. compensate me for all these other thoughts in my head. So

it's slowly. But shortly after that something you said before get down to a bit of a delay now.

i Not too long after that I could be driving down the street. And out of the blue, my emotions would just literally come up from my stomach through my chest and just pouring out of my eyes, and my chest would hurt just from there was so much on expressed grief of my own behaviors of how I was treated, of how different things were handled. And I would just weep. And it would seemingly come out of nowhere. And I never understood it. But it was the grief of the pain that was never explained to me. And I was never processed, and I never dealt with any of it. I just used alcohol and drugs and women to sedate. And eventually I couldn't sedate enough.

Yeah, it's like you said earlier, you can't will yourself past something. Yeah, if it's there, it's there. And it needs to be processed. So was there a key thing that helped you get through that next level of grief? Or was it a combination of things?

You know, I, you know, I mentioned I teach martial arts. And I also teach something called adrenal stress training, which is a self defense system that helps a person learn how to manage their adrenaline when they're in a well and adrenalized moment or state. And I was at an instructor's training, and a very good friend of mine was the head of the organization. And on this instructor weekend, he was doing custom scenarios. So he would he and the other members there would stage a scenario like your worst nightmare. And my buddy, and then take you through it and let you deal with the anxiety and that fear and hopefully you can move forward. Feeling a little different about it. Well, he asked me, Hey, man, you want to you want to do a custom? And I was like, Nah, man, I'm good. I'm good. Let the other people do it. He's like you Sure? Yeah, I'm good. And he walked away, and boom, the emotion just like I'm doing everything in my power to keep my eyes trying to choke back the tears. I'm blinking. I'm looking. Trying to keep the tears inside my body. Next day, he asked me again, I'm like, now good, but the same thing, man. I was so choked up. It was ridiculous.

He knew Oh, yeah.

Yeah. But by Sunday morning, I said, I asked him, I say, Hey, Bill, can I talk to you? And he's like, Yeah, sure, would go off in the corner. And it's like, Hey, man, I want to do a scenario. He's like, Yeah, no problem. What do you want to do? And then, you know, I try to say out loud what happened to me in kindergarten. And I'm like, you can't hardly talk again, just like being a six year old. And he's like, after I kind of explained, he's like, Oh, you were orally raped.

First person that actually acknowledged that it was

I was 4445 years old. The first person in my life says some says I was raped. Yeah, which is exactly what happened. Yeah. But I didn't understand that I didn't understand I was taken advantage of that. I was, you know, that the world got turned upside down that day and all twisted around. I didn't know that. I carried that around my whole life and all that pain and unprocessed emotion on process grief. And that day, he just those few words. And then, and then I did the scenario, which, you know, helped too, but just hearing those words changed my life.

From what I've everything I've learned is that to be able to externalize something, and then to have it validated, that wasn't your fault. That wasn't anything that you could have changed. Like, just that in itself is just like just like you describe them their relief and healing and you just can't become move on with some things until you do that.

I, I believe you're tethered to your past until, until you deal with it, you'll remain tethered to it. And that tether is your is bondage or a chain and it keeps you from being free. Yeah. And we need freedom.

Absolutely. What I'm what I'm always looking for Mark is the is the links to people's experience and what they do now and to me, it's no surprise that you ended up in the military protection and then and then kung fu also protection but then from from the journey of life, but but kung fu is so much more than that, right? It's it's almost mirrors, the journey that you went on. And you must have quite the ability to absorb large amounts of stuff, not just for you, but for the people that you teach in and serve as well.

In Kung Fu, we teach a term here, it's central to everything we do these two words. And in Chinese, It's Jung, Chang, Jung Chang, and it means to nourish life. And the one thing you know in my experience, the best thing you can do is go through life, nourishing your own life, and nourishing the lives of those around you. Like there's nothing better that a person can do with their day. Like this podcast nourishes life and deals with a sticky subject. But it's, it's a subject that people we don't know how to work with. We don't know what it is. We don't even know what it is half the time. And we don't need know how badly we need to grieve. We don't know what what to grieve. You know? So this podcast nourishes life. And I think if we all could think in terms of like, how do I nourish my kid's life? Is it gonna be I got nothing against people drinking alcohol. I have a beer once in a while. But am I going to nourish my kid's life by teaching him to drink? You? Don't? I mean, like, yeah, you know, having a social drink or some celebration, okay, but do I really need to teach him to drink a six pack every day? When he comes home from work? I don't need to teach him that. You figure that out on his own?

Yeah. Wow, Mark, this has been such a fantastic episode. And I'm really thank you and honor you for sharing so openly these experiences? Is there any message you'd love to leave with people? Just around a couple of things that you've mentioned, which is hope and, and the importance of speaking up?

Yeah. I think if if you've got pain on the inside, I think you should maybe drop what you're doing in today. And take the time to find somebody that can help you to process that pain. And whatever your pain, whatever is at the root of your pain. It it needs attention. It deserves attention and you deserve. You deserve to get this out of you. And if you're angry, and you don't like there's people out there who are angry or maybe they're like, incredibly quiet and reserved and passive. There's something at the bottom of that. There is you're not broken but there's something underneath that's keeping you afraid or keeping you angry, and I I believe it's almost always some pain that you've experienced somewhere. Some emotional traumas, some pain Yeah, and then the rest is just, you know, give yourself some grace. Have some compassion.

Yeah. Love it. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate that. Can you can you share two things? Well, it's actually 3d Because the two the names of the two books that that I'm sure Josh has written and also where people can find out more about you.

Sure. So Josh's books are on Amazon, you can find them there. The first one is Josh's world. And the second one is Josh's friends. And they're meant to be conversational between Josh and the reader, but also between the parent or grandparent and the kid so they're kind of fun. And then you can find me on Facebook just you know, my profile Markopolos, you can hit me up there. Also my website, Mark, go, blow ski.com. Gob l adobe sky.com.

Awesome. Thank you, Mark. I'll be checking those books out. We'll make sure we get the links to the both those books in the show notes as well. Thank you for coming on and sharing your story. I really appreciate it

is my pleasure. I feel honored to be here. Thanks.

You're welcome. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief. Let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform