They Biked 7,000 Miles For Suicide Prevention And Awareness

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and by the time this episode gets released, it'll be November-ish, so about two months since September, specifically, My three episode special, if you want to call it that, on Suicide Prevention and Awareness, that was in honor of National Suicide Prevention Awareness Week, September being the whole month. But again, as I said in those episodes, and I'll say now, Suicide Prevention and Awareness is an all year program. Every day thing. You never know what someone is going through and what day and when it might be that breaking point for them. Now in those particular episodes, we went over some different methods to help mental health and combat suicidal ideation and look up on one another. From breathwork detoxing to social media marketing, and then with military and veteran focus. But today we're going to focus on the personal side of it. What happens when it's someone you know? What happens when it's a family member? How do we cope? And then how do we go from there and move on with our lives? You know, we've talked before in episodes about between 8 and 15, People are affected directly by someone's death at minimum five people, right? So just know whoever you are that your death will have an impact and it's gonna hurt a lot of people And so it's something to consider, you know, and so we're gonna talk about those people left behind  And how we can help support one another because it is a really Difficult thing, especially if you haven't experienced it personally. You know, it can be hard to kind of relate to those people. So we're going to get into it today with Mr. Thomas Brown, who has dealt personally with that. He has a book, a podcast, a support group, and he's going to give us some great advice. So Mr. Brown, would you please introduce yourself for us?  Thank you, Mr. Whiskey. I'm I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be on the show and speak with you and your audience. My name is Thomas Brown. I am an artist, a author,  a mental health advocate. I've recently published my book 2012, a bicycle odyssey. It's a 7000 mile bicycle journey for suicide awareness and the healing power of art. Show your audience right now.  That is about a journey that I actually took.  Participated in me and a friend of mine, we traveled 7, 000 miles. We did have a support vehicle, so, that did help. And I'll explain a little bit why later why we had one. But we traveled 7, 000 miles across the country through 21 states, over 100 different cities to learn as much as we could from other people and their experience of losing a loved one to suicide. I lost my brother in 2001.  We I met my friend Zach, who had also lost his brother, but I met Zach in 2010 and you know, it only took a few years for us to find a purpose and, and reason for why we met each other and what we should do with it. Because before it was Zach the only people that I knew that had lost someone to, to suicide were the people that were connected to my brother. So, friends, family, and work work.  Colleagues and, and, and acquaintances. So it was really a monumental to find somebody who is outside of my my scope, my family scope and my brother's orbit that had the same experience. So, yeah, that, that's me in a nutshell. I, I have to say that first of all, thank you for.  saying that suicide awareness is a 365 day. I understand the purpose of having months dedicated to an idea or, or to a cause. Otherwise people would maybe burned out on it, but anybody who's lost anybody to suicide, anybody who does grief counseling with individuals who lost loved ones to suicide, it is a, a, a 365 day experience. And You know, I don't have  Any  concrete solutions for suicide.  I, I, I've heard a lot of different opinions about and, and organizations that like, we're going to end suicide. And I think that when we are in when you're in the realm of suicide awareness and, and suicide. Mental health, education, and prevention. You also have to be realistic with, with what you're doing. Like, can't, could we I think it's, it's more likely that we could put food in everybody's mouth before we could prevent one person from taking their life. So I think it's important to have realistic expectations and you can't really stop something unless you have an understanding of the fundamental root. Okay. Of the problem. So I think if our focus was a little bit more. What is it that puts somebody in a position to, you know, give credence to the suicidal ideation that exists between their ears that we might have a little bit more of a, um, a chance of, of limiting, right? The amount of people that we lose to suicide. So, that's a little bit of, of who I am and what I'm do, what I've done, and, and why I am here. I could keep going but I, I wanna know if you have any more questions before I just ramble, because if there's one thing I will admit to is that I like the sound of my own voice.  I don't like the sound of my own voice, but I do like talking and giving opinions, so, same kind of thing. I was gonna say on a, on a slightly humorous remark, when I was first reading through your bio, I read you know, here's this guy who wrote a 7, 000 page book, oh my goodness, and I said, 7, 000 miles, that's how long the bike ride was. I was like, 7, 000 pages, I said, I love reading, I love writing, Well, wow, that's could have made a series out of that seven. I know, I know that probably could have been like 20 bucks,  you know, let's dive into that. You talk about going on this, you know, bicyclers, cyclers, a journey to, you know, raise awareness. And you said also get information, do some information gathering. A lot of people who have experienced a suicide in their family or whatever group they're a part of their first idea isn't, let's get on a bicycle and just, you know, ride off into the sunset and, and go on a mission. You know, most of them are grieving and, you know, mourning. A totally appropriate response, of course. Yeah, yeah. So what really triggered For you to be like, we're going to go on a mission and do something. Existential crisis, I would say would be the primary pusher and, and shaker of that. So.  I have to first start with like, you know, when I lost my brother to suicide, that wasn't the thing  that sent me into a tailspin. I was already pretty confused with life. I, there's a lot of things that I wanted to do. There's a lot of things that I had passion for, but the cross that I had to bear was that I was extremely codependent. It was, it was debilitating how codependent I was. And. And I would usually gravitate towards some of the most people. I won't say that they're unhealthy people. I feel like that's an unfair statement. But when you put the 2 of us together, it was a toxic chemical. And I just gravitated towards those people for a long time, both intimate partners as well as friend's brotherhood, and it just wasn't really, really, really helpful for me. So, I lost my brother in 2001.  Well, you know,  was going through a lot of things. I was already very experimental with drugs. I did a little bit more than I probably should. I'm very lucky and I, that I came out somewhat unscathed, never hurt anybody, never hurt myself never lost a job or went to jail. But I feel like all of my lives were, if I was a cat, I'm, I'm on my ninth life right now. Right. I'm gonna deal with that. One thing, this is a little kind of like, it's, it's, it's kind of a long story. So, I had always wanted to be in, go, go to film school. And I was getting to the point where I was starting to realize just how suffocating this codependency mentality was. And I'm not a Christian.  At all. I think that like being a, a fan of Joseph Campbell's model myth of the hero's journey and just Joseph Campbell's work with mythology that as a non Christian, I could read the Torah. I could read the Bible. I could read type of spiritual text and still find beauty and poetry and a lesson to be learned as a, as a human being. So when my parents church, I learned that my parents church, the minister, the very, very progressive church, they, We're going to set out on a walk from Phoenix, Arizona to Washington, D. C., and one of the individuals that was going to be with the walk was a filmmaker and he needed a production assistant. So this I, I chose to go on the walk. I left my community. I left all of those codependent relationships. And I went on this, this This journey. My parents are from Kansas, so it wasn't until this particular journey that I actually got further east than Wichita, Kansas. It was the first time I'd ever been further east from Wichita in my entire life. And I was in my, my late twenties at this point, like around 28, 29. So this journey with these people, a strange setting a strange situation really kind of was the first initiation that I'd ever. Participated on something that I think that is drastically missing from our society is a, a, a initiation. We have ceremonies, we have traditions like, bar mitzvahs and kinson yet. As I would even say that some sporting activities are a type of ceremony, right? A passage that we do graduation, but we do not have the, the, the test.  That initiations put one through, you know, that destroys the youth and, and, and reveals the adult. On the other side of that, and in my late twenties, this was my initiation. It was a, a self-proclaimed created initiation that I, that I participated in, and I really  gained a love. For the country that I live in from a cultural perspective and just how diverse this country is. And on this trip, it, we did a straight line. I did not go through the south. Just experiencing people in, in Oklahoma and Texas was was was enough of a culture shock for me at that moment in time. In, in terms of like, accent and and belief systems and just some of the the cultural activities that people participate in in those two states and it just so it just gave me more of an appreciation. I really wish that I could explore more of the world. I haven't done that. I still have a few more states that I would like to get to before I go and experience other people's cultures. Cultures and traditions. So the walk across the country was something that kind of opened me up. So I had walked away from a lot of those really toxic relationships, but I was still stuck with one. And that was the intimate relationship with with a female partner the girl that I was dating. And that was the last domino to fall. And I stuck with that for a few years when I came back, you know, I, I, I wasn't with the guy friends anymore. I was still in that relationship, but I was in film school. So I was taking, I was starting to walk the path that I needed to. I love. I love being a creative person and and, and working on creative projects. And it wasn't until about 2008 that I was like, you know what, this, this relationship with this woman is, is extremely toxic. And that's when I find found myself in therapy. And I think therapy is just like dating. I was lucky. I found one right off the bat. I didn't have to shop around for a therapist. And I would have to say that like Kim.  Just tore each layer of the infinite onion apart and helped me really figure out and understand who I am as a person. And I, to me, self awareness is the only game in town, you know, whatever religious or spiritual practice you, you hang your hat on is one thing. But if you don't know who you are on a fundamental level You're more prone to be manipulated by other people's opinions. And when I say, who are you, like, who are you outside of being a citizen of the United States of America? Who are you outside of the name in which you were born in? Who are you truly outside of the religion in which you were raised? Who are you outside of? The cultural traditions that you were raised on, who are you outside of your sexual identity? Your meat suit? Like, who are you on a fundamental reason? Why do you believe the things that you believe? Why do you react and respond in the way in which you react and respond? And that was really something that like Kim took me on a journey.  Processing my brother's suicide was just one of the many things that I did. So that was in 2008 and I had about two years of a journey with her before I met Zach  and learned, you know, you know, we just met each other working  At work, and we just took a shine to one another, and it wasn't until like a month into our, our, our friendship that I had learned that he lost his brother to suicide. And that was, that was a profound relationship, just like knowing that there was one other person. The night that Zach and I decided to meet up outside of work,  when there was some synchronistic things that happened that I I feel that synchronicity is kind of like, a form of communication from the universe and it lays out some carrots. And if you want to follow those carrots, that's completely up to you. If you want to ignore them, then you have, that's your prerogative as well. And I, I try to pay attention to those synchronistic moments. Sometimes I just giggle because I think they're like, oh, that's cool. But I, I try to follow him if I can in some capacity. So when I met up with Zach at a coffee shop, he was reading the third book of the Ishmael series by Daniel Quinn. And I was on the second book and I was just like, Whoa,  that's cool. And the Ishmael series is really even though it's a fictional narrative,  at its heart, it's about self awareness. It's about understanding who you are, like literally understanding the national story. That you've been indoctrinated on the cultural story that you've been indoctrinated in all these things that we, that were learned as we were growing up and to know where your personal story is and where it's separated from those, those, those ideations of indoctrination. And I don't say that in a negative way. They exist there for a reason to create some kind of like status quo. So we We, we have a way of getting along, getting along with each other, but they still can be limiting in the terms of what it is to be human. So I just, I thought that was funny that like he's sitting there reading the third book of the same series that I was reading. Right. And so we talked about it a lot. And then later on that night, he told me that he lost his brother to suicide. I was just like, wow, man, like this is crazy. A couple of days later, I asked him like, Hey man, when's your birthday? And it just so happens that he had that Zach has the same birthday as my brother September 7th. So I was just like, okay, this is weird. There's something going on here.  Yeah. There, there's something like there, there's, there's gotta be more to this.  And it wasn't until this was all in 2010. So. early 2010, June of 2010. I'm dating a woman  who I'm dating a new woman. She, she's a photographer and does modeling and she's on the side to make a little bit of change. She also was a pinup girl for suicide girls, which is it's,  it's it's, it's like this online modeling. For, for alternative beauty. So piercings, colored hair, tattoos, stuff like that. So I had dubbed this woman and Zach, my suicide friends. One, because she was part of a an organization that used the term suicide, just to like look edgy. And the other one was somebody who absolutely lost somebody to suicide. So she asked me that the girl, the, the, the girls that were part of that community in Phoenix, we're having like a, a community. Party at a bar in old town Scottsdale. And she, she was like, can you do, I do, I did, I do photography. And she's like, can you be our event photographer for the evening? And I was like, yeah, sure. I'll do that. So I'm at the suicide girls community party doing like photography. Right. And so I call Zach and I'm like, Hey man, you got to come hang out with me. This isn't my scene. Like, I'm not like a club type of person. I'm not even like a Friday night bar type of person. I just would go along to get along sometimes. Right. Zach comes out. And even though like I was dating this new woman that I was having fun with and, and like, I was really glad to have Zach and I was thriving in film school. There was something missing.  I couldn't put my finger on it and that night Zach came out and I told him about my walk across the country that I had done something that I did that and how much it changed me. And I was really looking to do something again that could like, you know, shake things up in my life. And Zach was like, that's an awesome idea, but I wouldn't want to walk. I'd rather ride my bicycle. And in my yeah.  And my idiotic bombastic logic, I was like, well, on a bike, you can travel more mileage in, in, in a shorter amount of time. So why don't we just stay out there longer? And we decided that we would ride our bikes across the country for our brothers in honor of our brothers. But with the intention of meeting other people and and learning about their experiences, like, you know, how did their community help them out? Did their community help them out? What kind of tools did they learn to kind of navigate their, their, their trauma? And by this time, by the time we started so 2000, June 2000 We had this idea and it dawned on me. It was another moment of synchronicity to suicide loss. Survivors discuss riding their bikes cross country for suicide awareness while attending a suicide girls community event. It was just, it was just too,  it was just so blatant that it was so right. We kind of like just discussed it for a little bit. And then in February of 2011, we made the decision that we were doing it. And it took us 13 months to organize everything. And we started on March 1st, 2012 at the Northern edge of the Golden Gate bridge. The reason why we started there is because people have a tendency to go to bridges to and there was a massive documentary called the bridge about the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge. We were invited to spend the night at the coast guard. In Sausalito at Fort Baker because body retrieval, unfortunately, is one of their duties. The Golden Gate Bridge is on their beat. So we started the journey with a bunch of strangers A service men and women,  you know, and we ended at this art retreat center in upstate new york called the chapel of sacred mirrors, run by alex and allison gray. We wanted to start at a place that kind of represented death and then ended at a place that is a representation of creation,  because. That's what the journey of a trauma recovery is all about something devastating happens, and then you go through this journey, and hopefully you're able to transcend and transmute and become something radically different and turn that lead of trauma into gold.  Yeah, that we, and I knew that I wouldn't have been able to do this bike ride if I hadn't already come to terms and accepted that that was something that I lost. And that's something that happened to my family. And I attribute a lot of that healing to my time with Kim. And I think it was important to go through that process because it allowed me  to really be a soundboard for other people that were in it. We're going through it because there's a lot of people we met on the trip that you know, they were a few months. There are a few weeks out, a few months out and sometimes just a few days out. And when you lose somebody to suit, I mean, you lose anybody. It could be painful. But suicide is very confusing. It's you know,  You could be filled with just as much rage as you can heartache because the rage is directed towards the person that's gone. So it's a very confusing type of trauma. It's very raw. And you know, the first thing that I always say to people. is that you can't apply logic to an illogical act.  Because that will  drive you crazy.  At some point, you have to go to the journey and at least just  not come to accept that they did it,  but come to accept that it happened and they're gone.  Because you can't change it.  Yeah, I get that because, you know, we always want to know why, you know, we always have all these reasons and then that's the big thing. We have a list of reasons of why they shouldn't have done it. And they have a list of reasons why they did it, you know, and whether they share that list or not, most of the time it's not, you know, so like you said, it's illogical because we're speaking. Our main priority in life from a scientific level is to survive to preserve our life. So it's, it goes against our coding. It goes against the coding. So there's obviously something that either it was a natural wiring that somebody is born with and has had to like deal with, or it's, it's, it's a rewiring based on unresolved traumatic experiences. You know, and it doesn't matter how big or small those traumatic experiences are. It could be millions of micro traumas, you know, just, just, just from the existence of the mere fact of existing and, and like the small things that we go through with our family and then just,  you know, the community that we're, we're born in. Oh yeah.  Kids can be pretty cruel to one another.  Yeah, that's, that's for sure. And I'm just curious. You talked about all these people you met on the journey. I mean, how long did the journey end up taking? How did you get, was it there and then back? And then, of course,  How are you meeting these people that you're talking about?  So when we,  the 13 months that we had from February 2011, we made the decision to go to March 1st, 2012. We had 13 months to plan. And organize and try to get strong to ride the bike too,  which I live in Phoenix, Arizona. There's not a lot of hills around here. There's a few, but a lot of them, you got to travel a great distance to get to to practice on. And I didn't have that kind of time. I had a  close to a full time job. And trying to organize this, this, this bike ride. We just did a lot of research. Um, American Association of Suicidology and American Foundation of Suicide Prevention were two websites that I used to find different crisis centers and support groups around the country. And I just started cold calling people. And the more that I learned where some of like the bigger activists were in the country. Is kind of like what what helped us to like create the route in which we were going to go. We knew that we wanted to start at the Golden Gate Bridge and we knew that we wanted to end at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in upstate New York, but we did not do a straight line. It does not take 7, 000 miles to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. We did a giant W. We literally went. Like this. And so we just, we just called and we, you know, some people were really into it and were really motivated by it. And, and we're, we're passionate about it. The people, the communities that were, we had really Astonishing events is because of the foresight that our contacts had When and that foresight was this  we're going to use these guys  And I don't mean that in a negative way, but we're going to use these guys as a gimmick  to get News like television news and paper news newspaper news and radio news to come and talk to them, but then also talk to the host. Because when we leave, you know, they're just using us as an excuse to talk about what resources exist in that community. So if somebody was in crisis, they knew where to go. And like, once we kind of like figured out like, Like the, the importance of using us as a gimmick, we tried to like replicate that in other places because you know, we're only in there for a night. We have these great conversations with people and then we're, we're gone. And what does that really do for, for the community? It could do a lot good for those one on one interactions that we have, but we really wanted to leave more of a, of a, of a mark on the community. And so, you know, Highlighting getting the press to go out and use us as a way to talk about the crisis center. And that and that in each of those towns was monumental because at that point, they learned like, not only where there's therapists.  where there's crisis counselors and grief counselors. But if you'd already lost somebody to suicide, you might not even have known that there was a support group that you could go to or a community that already exists to like help support you in your journey of grief. So we were able to help bring some people together and, and, and try to find some respite from, from what they were going through. So it was, you know,  It was, it was it was a lot of work. Like I said, like I had like close to a full time job. I was working 38 hours a week. And I was getting up at like six in the morning. I usually, I worked at an afterschool program. So a lot of times I didn't have to be there till two o'clock.  But like I would get up at six in the morning and I just start making phone calls, you know, we had to, to have fundraisers and we had to we had to, um, make a website. We had we had to buy gear for cycling gear so that we could we had the right equipment. And I, at first I had the intention of if we raised enough money, I wanted to hire somebody.  I wanted to be able to buy an old vehicle that we could have as a support vehicle and then hire somebody who knew how to use a camera to shoot footage because I wanted to make a documentary  and I really, you know, we didn't raise that much money. So since I was in film school, I would just shoot as much as I could. Right. But that got difficult. That got really difficult. I'm supposed to be cycling. I'm still communicating with with contacts in different cities, still having those conversations after, you know, riding the bike and then going to an event. If we had an event one night and then coming home and doing like administration work. Still for, for for the bike ride with other towns that we were meeting with while also trying to have like a social media presence to  keep people informed of what we were doing. I had kept. The one thing that I didn't do when I walked across the country in 2006 with the, with a group of Christians is that I didn't keep a diary. And that was one thing that I was regretful for. So I kept an extensive diary every single night before I went to bed, I wrote what I experienced it. Whether it was just and a weird interaction I had riding my bike, you know, beautiful scenery and how, how I felt about it, any types of like, you know, meditative contemplations I had while I was out on the bike conversations that I had with people how the bike was going, like my emotions of, of dealing with, with the, the strenuous activity and then having like heavy emotional conversation. So I just kept an extensive diary and we probably got 25%. I probably got through like a quarter. Of the trip before I accepted the fact that there probably wasn't going to be a documentary and that if there was going to be anything highlighting the story, it was going to be my book. And so I kept doing the notes and I even kept shooting. I just shot to shoot like I would shoot different scenery, but I. Also interviewed a lot of people and even though I didn't use it for a film, I still had I was still able to go back and, and, and look at those and go through those interviews to help reignite my imagination. And it really helped when writing this book so that I could use people's words when discussing certain topics around suicide. So yeah, it was, it was amazing just to be able to go on this journey and have the privilege to, to listen to people share their pain. And it is a privilege you know, you can't solve anybody's problem.  The best thing that you could do for anybody in crisis or anybody in turmoil is just listen, give them your time and just listen. Because a lot of times people, you know, when you think about stuff, it has a much different texture to it when you speak it out loud. Right. You know, so it just helps being allowing some of your time to, to listen to somebody who's going through it allows them the opportunity to maybe hear themselves in a different light.  Yeah, and so one of the results of this trip was your book, and I'm sure there's a ton of information packed in there that all of our listeners can check out if they want a lot more detail. But what were some of the other lessons you learned, and how did that play a role into what you're doing nowadays with podcasting and with the support groups?  There's two primary things that really come to mind.  One of them happened just after the halfway point when we were in Pensacola, Florida,  and the other thing happened  at journey's end.  So the first thing was we had, we are host in Pensacola Rayla Marie Villanueva. She lost her brother as well.  And she was the same age as Zach and I at this time, we were in our thirties. We're all in like our close to, well, I, Rayla and I were in our mid thirties. Zach is a few years younger than us. And she worked a lot with the local university in Pensacola. Worked with the students.  So she was a big supporter of our. Of our cause of our mission and she had a lot lined up for us. We were in Pensacola for a few nights. Which gave us a few days off, but we still had, like, a lot of events to attend to. But we, she took us out paddle boarding 1 day  in the bay.  And it was a very, very relaxing afternoon  at one point,  all three of us were lying on our paddle boards and we were kind of like our heads were pointed towards each other. We're kind of like in this almost like, like triangle  position and we're just kind of like floating in a circle.  And this overwhelming sense of peace just like came over me.  Like I've never felt peace like that in my entire life. And with that peace came this realization. I'm a really big fan of film, and story, and narrative.  And I saw my life.  As a story  with everything leading  one thing causes, you know, this thing happened and then this thing happened and this happened and this happened and all of this thing, all of these things, the joy, the fleeting moments of joy, the extended feelings of despair all led to this one point of  like divine peace.  And I just,  It like it dawned on me that,  you know,  we have these experiences  and our brain  for our own survival and protection. Most of the time, our brain,  our ego needs to know if this is a good experience or a bad experience. And so it's going to label the experience like this is bad, like, you know, like, You, you have reactions, physical reactions to your body,  but if you  can go on the journey of healing  a certain negative situations and certain negative experiences, you will find that there is a choice. A lot of wellness influencers will, will just tell you, you know, it's just a choice. Just, just make the decision that you, you just shift your perspective.  They're right, but they're also, like, laughably wrong. Is, they're right in the sense that there is It is a choice in your brain that you just, you just kind of like come to terms and you decide, but they, the fine print is that there's this epic journey before you get to the point that you even realize that there can be a choice  and they, they don't, they don't, they don't mention that. So when I say that, like what I'm about to say, I want other people to know that like you find yourself in a, if you find yourself at this point, This point of, of this perception of this state of being, it's a privilege that you got there. All right. And, and you probably went through some shit before you got there,  but  the point that I was at is that I recognize that we have these experiences  and once we get through processing the pain of the trauma. of a traumatic experience,  we recognized that there was a choice that life presented us. And that is, do I want to be a victim  of this experience or do I want to be a student of this experience? Because sooner or later you get to a point where you're just like, fuck, all right, now what? What do I do now? What do I do with this? This whole little thing happened. What do I do with this? Well, that's a very powerful place to be at. What do I do with this? Well, what do you want to do with it?  What do you want? What's the lesson here? What do you want to learn from it? How do you want to grow from this? How do you want to evolve from it?  If you choose to use it as armor and shield, and a shield, and, and to, to, you know, disassociate yourself from people,  You know, then you're, you're becoming a little bit more of a victim.  But if you want to like grow from it and evolve from it and see how that situation, that hardship can make you better. I think that's more of a place of power and privilege and it takes a long time to get to that. You know,  and I'm not saying that, like, you know, there's some people you shouldn't push away because that's also maybe that is the lesson you're like, Oh, I, I shouldn't hang out in that situation  for sure. Yeah, that's only going to get me in trouble. So I just like understanding that the universe is, is a complex machine or a complex like  thing that is made of experiences and not all sentient beings. You know, witness the experiences are a part of those experiences. You know, sometimes you have asteroids colliding and and stars exploding. These are all experiences that happened. And if you were living through that, you probably label it a negative experience. But when a star explodes,  it sends out seeds.  To create new forms of life whether they are life as stars or planets somewhere else in the ever expanding universe. So that was like the first thing that I, that I realized is that like, life is filled with experiences. It's going to continue to happen. I need to process. the experience when it happens. Don't shut it down. Don't ignore it. Don't ignore the pain or the emotion that comes from that experience. Learn it. But when you, when you've experienced the pain, if it is a painful experience, hopefully you'll get to the point where you can then become a student of it.  That was the first thing that I learned. The second thing I learned was when I made it to the end of the journey at the chapel of sacred mirrors.  I think inspiration is greater than influence.  To inspire is completely different from influencing. Influencing is a form of manipulation.  Inspiring is a form of empowering. You empower others.  We are  a society  that is obsessed with celebrity.  And social media has just created  a, a new tentacle.  A new Hydra head of celebrity known as known as influencers.  And it is astonishing to me  how much. People would rather be in the presence of greatness rather than cultivating their own.  So Alex Gray is kind of a celebrity in his own right. The, the, the painter who runs the, who owns the the art retreat center in upstate New York. He did the last four albums for the band Tool. That's how I discovered Alex Gray. Cause I'm a big fan of of the band Tool. His art is inspired by psychedelic journeys that he's gone on both psychedelic journeys with LSD, psilocybin, and DMT.  And his, his art is just massive and colorful and beautiful and metaphorical and literal and just really, really powerful.  And, you know, Alex's philosophy on art and creativity is one of the factors that inspired us for our message for the bike ride, the idea that art and creativity Are not only tools for our own healing, but they're things that bring us together, you know, concerts, bringing people together. Movies bring things together. I'm sure a lot of the people that you interact with on a daily basis. There's probably some type of like  art form that you guys talk about, you know, and, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's something that brings you together. When I was at,  The when we were at the chapel, we were invited to stay for a few nights. They were really honored by our. Our our journey and especially wanting to end it there. Almost like, the, the chapel of sacred mirrors being a pilgrimage for creatives and literally being on a pilgrimage, a quest and ending it there. So they're really honored. And once a month they have On a Saturday night, they, which is either the night of the full moon or as close to the full moon as possible. They have a full moon ceremony where they have artists and presenters who speak or do their art for about an hour or two. And then there's like a huge party  and music, food fire dancers outside, big bonfire. It's just, it's an extravagant. Just celebration of the cycle of the moon.  And so when I was there, I just realized  how  people just wanted to be close to Alex. They just wanted to be near him and they kind of like fell over themselves trying to be near, to be near him. And I just, I just realized to me that just became sad. The, how disempowering it is to just, you know, You know,  be close to, to that type of greatness rather than cultivate it in your own. And I think that like, when it comes to like art, is it,  it not only is it a healing tool, well, one of the reasons why it's a healing tool tool is because there is this  transaction that's happening between our artists and audience. And I'm not talking about money.  There's an energetic transaction between  the artists and the audience. When you go to a concert.  And you don't, I don't drink anymore. I haven't had any alcohol in about five years. My tummy doesn't agree with it anymore. But if you go to a concert and you're nowhere near and any crowds of people that are creating looms of smoke and you're just completely sober,  right? When you walk out of that concert, you feel different.  You're you're, you're, you're, you're buzzed.  Without any influence, without any external  influence, but the music, if you go and watch a movie, you can just usually walk out of there. And you're just, you're moved either emotionally or you're, so there's this transaction that happens between artists and audience and that's energy. That's inspiration. That is an inspirational energetic transaction. And  there's a way for you to.  To retransmit that energy and that is by going home, taking that energy, using it as fuel and creating something  that is yours that you can then share with the world. Or maybe you just do it for yourself. You're an audience of one and it's for you and it did something powerful and helped you grow, helped you work through something. But I think that if, if, if you're given that energy and then you just waste it and you don't do anything with it It dehumanizes and depowers you. And it also is almost like an insult to the purpose of the artist and audience relationship. So those are the two things that I really, really learned. Again, to go back to the idea of experience and accepting experience as it is spoiler alert I met my life partner. At the end of the bike ride, she was my main contact for the chapel of sacred mirrors. And for seven months, we just, I would, we would exchange emails once a month. And she was just another contact. And it wasn't until we were in Manhattan and I had to give her a call. Cause I, I called all the contacts like a night or two before we arrived. And those phone calls usually last five to 10 minutes. This one lasted an hour. And I felt like I was reuniting with an old friend and she has a really pretty voice. So I had to Google stalker and I found a very beautiful woman at the end of those images. And You know, I would have never met her or found her  if I hadn't lost my brother to suicide.  And every single time I wake up in the morning and I see her face, every single time we sit down to eat lunch, breakfast or dinner with each other. Every time I'm in her presence, she is a constant reminder, like a blatant, loud reminder that as long as you're present with your trauma, with your pain as much as you can that a negative experience can lead you to a positive one, just as much as a positive one can lead you to a negative one. So it's really like, what are you going to do with these experiences? Do you just want to label them as good and good or bad and chalk it up as just something that happened in your life? Or do you want to be present?  Aware and be a student of every single experience because you don't ever know what's waiting for you. You know, my, my brother took his own life in 2001. In August of 2001. I met Sharon Ept late September of 2012.  Wow. We were separated by space by 3000 miles of space and 11 years of time.  You know, and it, we were sent on a trajectory to collide from that moment August 20th, 2001 around 10 a. m. in the morning that set us on a collision course towards each other. And we didn't even know it. Wow.  Well,  life can be very poetic for sure. It's it's amazing. Now, Mr. Brown, before we sign off here, what I'd love to get into a little bit is just, you have your website, which is full of resources, including your book, your podcast. And then I've mentioned support groups as well. Tell us a little bit about who should listen to your podcast. Who should read your book whether they've dealt with suicide firsthand or not. And you know, who should go check that out? Well, the podcast is called Rise Frequency. There's two different shows on that one channel. So if you were on Spotify and you typed in rise frequency each episode is you could differentiate the, the shows from the lo the, the logo on there. So the one that I haven't done for a while, but just because I've, I've been promoting other people. For so long and I just finished my book is a labor of love and it's only been live for, you know, three or four months. Now it's my turn to try to like promote myself. But yeah, if you go through the different shows just scroll down, you'll find some of my earlier episodes were called inner monologue. Those are conversational interviews, long format, just like this. Where I talk with people and learn about their trials, tribulations and triumphs. And I really love these long format conversational interviews. And then the one that I'm doing right now is called stages. I started it's more of like an audio diary of me just processing grief.  And, and, you know, some observations that I have about life. And I started that six months after my mom died. I lost her in May of 2000 23. So I do that every once in a while. All of this can be found on rise phoenix. org. That's the main website. I have some recommended reading for stuff that has to do with mythology and mental health. As for my book, there's also a link on the website. It's, it's up on Amazon right now, but you can get it through risephoenix. org. The book is called 2012, a bicycle odyssey. So if you've lost somebody to suicide, there's a thread in here for you. If you if, if you have like bicycles. There's a thread in here for you. If you like the idea of traveling long distances without a train, plane or automobile there's a thread in here for you. If you like that beat nickel mentality of going across the road, if you into popcorn, Culture. There's a thread in for here for you. If you  have an appreciation of the mystical  and how life can be mystical, there's a thread in here for you. If you have a connection to more than one of those, I think you really dig this book.  So  please purchase, leave a positive review and share it to a, with a friend.  So,  but thank you so much for for having me. I appreciate you and what you do and giving people the opportunity to share their story. That's important. Yeah. Thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate, you know, people like you sharing your story when it comes to suicide, it can still be a bit of a taboo topic in terms of talking about it. And I think it's also something very difficult for some people to talk about, whether they're still processing it or no matter how much time it's been, you know, you talk about it is.  For the rest of your life you know, I've seen it with, with any death, really. There could be any moment or thing in your life that triggers a memory back to something you shared with that person or something about them. So it's definitely something that's always on our minds and can be difficult to talk about. So I appreciate people like you. Helping inspire and cultivate other people to also share their story and to share resources, because there are so many resources out there that people don't realize are out there to help them in whatever facet of life it may be and however much they need. So thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Right on. And I would just end by saying one of the most important resources is just calling or texting 988.  If you're in crisis or nobody that's in, know somebody that's in crisis call 988. That is the national number for suicide awareness and prevention.  Yeah, and we have that in the description below on every episode that discusses that topic, so be sure to check that out, along with all the links for the website, for the book, and other resources and episodes about this topic.  Again, Mr. Brown, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate you.

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