John Knopick: So last Saturday night proved something important to me that I really needed to know. And that's, you know, the feelings are still in there. The the distraction caused me to forget about everything that I've been dealing with and just focus on being in the moment. I've had issues previously. A lot, actually. Part of it's my ADHD, but part of it's just upbringing where I feel like I rush too much. I feel like I'm I'm always go, go, go, go, go, because that's the way my brain is wired to always be on the go. And it's good in certain cases. It's bad in other cases. Like when we're really in a rush or really in a pinch or really running behind or something, I tend to forget stuff or things seem to like try to trip us up. Before we're leaving to go someplace or whatnot. And I need to slow down. And like, and that's exactly what last Saturday night did. It allowed me to slow down and just be more in the moment and just be present and and love everything that I was engrossed in. from the food to all of the awesome people that we met to the game itself. to, you know, just living vicariously through my son's entertaining eyes and even watching my wife, you know, have a f have fun talking to George's wife and and conversing, like they were old family members catching up. It was a welcome distraction for me. It and you know, it taught me, and like, you know, today I I I played softball. it it was like, you know, really hot out and like playing in Satan's armpit, but it was again a welcome distraction. Something I love to do because it allows me to block out the noise. Because when I'm idle, right now, what I've been dealing with and continue to struggle and deal with is when I'm idle and my brain is not constant constantly actively engaged in like work or a project or like recording this podcast or playing video games or something or going driving places, running errands, whatever the case is. When I'm idle. That's when I tend to find myself struggling a lot with my brain. My brain used to just be, yeah, so you're idle. So you're just watching YouTube clips, or you're just there, you know, looking on Facebook or X or whatever the case is. And everything was fine. But ever since the trauma happened a couple months ago, now anytime my brain is idle, my brain's like, Ooh, it's idle. Now it's time to put in like all the worries, all the potential failures, all the did you really do this or this or that or them or there? So it it finds the bad, the anxiety, the doom, not really the doom and gloom, but more like the down waves find ways to creep back in when there's like those idle periods. And so I think that last night, or sorry, that last Saturday night, and today, for example. Proved to me that I could still feel. However, it didn't teach me how to feel okay when absolutely nothing is happening. And that's where I struggle. And that's where I'm trying to find my balance. Because I need to get back to that point where I can feel comfortable shutting my brain off and not having to constantly keep myself on the go 24-7, just to avoid those moments of. idleness and let letting those thoughts and things creep back in. But at the same time, I don't want the distraction to become the treatment. I I I'm like I said, I'm okay as long as I never stop moving at this point right now. And I don't want to have to rely on that. And I granted, I mean I have medication and stuff that's supposed to be cutting off the lanes of anxiety and depression. Helping me stay asleep at night and things like that. But you know, I feel like there should be ways that we can retrain our brains to embrace boring, embrace the idleness, embrace the break in the chaos, so to speak, without having to worry about, well, idle hands or the devil's work or whatever whatever the old phrase was, because that is now one of my main struggles. Initially after the trauma, my main my main struggle was the crippling catastrophic anxiety and being able being scared of my bed, being scared to close my eyes at night. I have for the most part thankfully overcome that. It's still a work in progress. It'll always be a work in progress, as everything is in our lives. But I at least can say now the main star of this production would be the idleness. And being able to function when when I'm idle. You know, I'm I'm thinking to myself, you know, maybe I do. I just want boring back. I'm not asking for, you know, a Bear's Owner type suite situation every day. I'm not asking for, you know, softball every night or going to Nashville SC games or being in one of those suites, or, you know, going and doing all these lavish. Things, if you will. I just want normal, boring, quiet, boring. Laying veggie on the couch with my wife and son while he's watching a show, while I'm on, you know, watching stuff on my phone. She's doing stuff on her phone. And just being there in the moment. Just being bored. Just being, I wouldn't even really say bored. I would just say idle because that's the word. To me, boring just sounds like. A negative connotation almost like you're just bored. You just really nothing to do. Whereas this is just us sitting idle. We're still enjoying what we're doing while we're being idle, being watching YouTube clips, like I said, going to watching on Facebook, looking at X, stuff like that. So maybe I'm not chasing happiness right now. I think I'm more so chasing the ability to be bored. Without my brain deciding boredom means something is wrong. Or you have boredom now, cool. Let me fill it with all of this anxiety and worry and and stress. Because that is the catalyst that spirals everything. Like I was, I had some like health concerns yesterday because my I'm still my brain and my sensory system is still hyper aware of everything that is going on. I had an MRI done on Wednesday on my cervical spine and my neck. Because I know my neck issues have my neck problem has re allowed my my mental downness and and things like that to start resurfacing. So hopefully once I get those MRI results back and it proves that there are some like nerve damage or something that happened during my issue in July, then I can start looking at ways to treat that and hopefully get that back under control. Cause I've noticed once my neck starts flaring up. my moods start waning at the same time. So that to me is a big thing. Is, you know, I I don't want, I want to be able to be bored be idle without my brain immediately trying to put in all of these negative emotions and making me spiral. Because then one negative thought leads to another negative thought, leads to another negative thought, and it starts an avalanche and before you know it, you're in a massive amount of muck that you can't get out of. And it is a massive struggle and I absolutely hate it. And I know if you guys are out there and listening, I'm sure you might have been through something similar. And I would love you guys to tell me how you overcame it because I'm still struggling to find that magic solution or that blueprint to get me out of it. And obviously I know we're all different and we all have different ways that we find ourselves being able to get out of this muck, this Endless spiral, this avalanche, if you will. But I feel like if we could bounce ideas off of each other, it would could potentially help us with a breakthrough that could resonate in our own lives. Cause I un unfortunately I'm stuck right now in a position where I'm like grading every quiet moment. And I'm looking back at every quiet moment, going, okay, was that a good one? Was that one filled with dread? Was that one actually a nice idle, relax, relaxing moment? And I don't want every night to become a performance review. I don't want to be in a position where I have to think about how my night went and grade it. I want to be able to get back into the the l the normal cadence that I was in prior to everything happening. Where I could just during the day, during the week, I could go to work, do my job, kick butt at it like I always do, enjoy what I do because I get totally engrossed in it. And then after I'm done, pick up our sun. Relax on the couch for a bit, have dinner, put him to bed. She and I go on the couch, we relax, we watch TV, we play games, whatever the case is, and then we go to bed and then rinse, lather, repeat. Same thing over and over. It became habit forming. And that was the kind of normalcy and the kind of unique little situation that I thrive for, that I'm I'm missing immensely right now because of everything that I've had to deal with. And I've had to try to retrain my brain. And my nervous system and my emotions to get back to that stage. Maybe I'll never get back there. Who knows? We may never get back to to a a former state. Like with computers, you know, you have to adjust and go back to the try to go back to the lace, the the latest stable version of what you were running previously. Is it always possible? Absolutely not. Do we have to find ways to evolve? Absolutely. Otherwise you're going to be stuck and things are just gonna get worse and worse. And worse. And to me, I don't want to have to need fireworks or events or things like that to feel like myself. And in thinking about that and putting everything together that I've been going over these last couple months, maybe progress. Is learning that I don't need fireworks to feel like myself. Maybe eventually I can be okay in the quiet, too. I'm John Kanopic. This is the honest middle, and we'll keep figuring it out together. See you next time.