Episode 77: Learning to Live Again After Trauma with John Alan Sebald, Part 2

00;00;09;02 – 00;01;09;03
Kelly Parbs
Welcome back to OnTopic with Empathia – I’m your host, Kelly Parbs. Today we continue our conversation with John Sebald. In part one, we explored John’s remarkable journey through a life altering medical crisis and discussed how adversity can become an opportunity to rethink what matters most. In part two, we’ll continue examining practical principles from John’s book and how they can help us navigate life’s inevitable challenges with greater intention, connection and gratitude. Let’s get back to the conversation. So it’s easier said than done for sure to get started. Can you highlight again for us just how you started it? I don’t want to make a diagnosis, but it sounds to me like you were experiencing some depression. And for someone who’s depressed and even those four things sound overwhelming. Can you just review for us how you started the first step?

00;01;09;05 – 00;03;56;24
John Sebald
Reaching out for help. And that could be some people need help from a professional. I did, but that can be just reaching out to someone you trust in, someone that you can talk to. I think those are just incredibly important steps. And then another one alongside of that is be patient with yourself and be willing to forgive yourself. Probably one of the biggest surprises in all of this was just the incredible guilt and shame that I felt during those, those dark years. And I’m still coming out of them. And for reasons that I didn’t even understand and I couldn’t explain. And being able to talk to other people and forgive yourself and understand that some of the reasons your body is acting this way is that it’s it feels like it’s misbehaving because it’s trying to protect you, right? Your body and your brain. They’re trying to protect you. But. But there are these baby steps. Talking to people you trust. Moving. Putting the right things in your body that just gradually, over time, those actions are going to make a difference. Just to help us understand a little bit better, John – could you share with us some of the things that maybe you were embarrassed of? Because when I think of your situation, I think you couldn’t help the fact that this happened to you. You choked and and you experienced a miracle. But where did the shame come in for you? You know, that’s a great question. We all tell ourselves stories, right? That’s the way we’re worried. And so, honestly, the choking side of the equation, at least my story, that steak didn’t get there by itself, right? At the end of the day, this didn’t happen to me. All of this happened because of something that I did. And for me, there was a lot of shame connected with that and then shame connected to why am I not getting better? Why can other people go through traumatic situations and seemingly be able to just walk away and move on with life? Is it because I’m not trying hard enough? Is it that my faith isn’t strong enough? So. Right, so you make that a moral failing?

00;03;56;25 – 00;03;58;07
Kelly Parbs
Sure, sure.

00;03;58;09 – 00;04;08;07
John Sebald
Because you’re not getting better. And then you start self-medicating and doing all of those other things in the shame, part of that just starts to compound.

00;04;08;13 – 00;04;35;23
Kelly Parbs
Right. Yeah, I hear I hear what you’re saying. And, you know, by writing this book and doing this podcast and sharing your story with people, I think you’re helping them be set up in a way that if they do experience a personal crisis the way that you did, they’ll have resources at hand and ready so that maybe they don’t have to spiral into some of those really difficult things that you had to.

00;04;35;24 – 00;04;44;07
Kelly Parbs
So again, I just want to thank you for sharing your story and and tell you that I know it’s going to impact many people.

00;04;44;10 – 00;04;46;09
John Sebald
Thanks.

00;04;46;11 – 00;05;14;01
Kelly Parbs
So another one of your practices, and I will say my personal favorite is living with gratitude. Gratitude is pretty easy when life is good, but it’s much harder when you’re suffering. Did you access that gratitude during your hardest moments, or was that something you had to work on?

00;05;14;04 – 00;08;41;01
John Sebald
Work on for sure. I would say, Kelly, gratitude was gradual. I’m a person of faith. And so there’s the okay, I know that I ought to feel grateful and I am grateful. And at the same time, this just seems hard. And I’d say gradually and over time, I became to appreciate how important and impactful this practice can be. There’s another favorite story that just boy, this is. I was listening to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts during this time. There was so much junk in my head and listening to positive things help me. And so I was listening to a podcast and I heard this amazing story about speed skater Dan Jansen. So the story is told by the individual. His name is Jim Lehrer, or Laura Lehrer, one of the two. This was his one of his performance coaches. And the short version of the story went like this. Dan Jansen was the best figure skater in the world in specifically at the 500 meter, and then second, so that the 1000 meter. And so he’s in his first Olympic Games, Calgary Olympics. And shortly before his race, his 500 race, his sister, who was also his closest friend, she died of leukemia. And so he made the difficult decision to race. And he fell wiped out in the first turn. And that was the beginning of this years long jinx that continually repeated itself in every race over the course of three Olympics. And so finally, with the help and the work of Jim Lehrer, his performance coach. Comes down to his last race. He had he had previously set a world record in the 500, but in the Olympics he made a slip and he he finished out of medal contention. And so now here’s his final race, his final chance to win a medal. And together with his coach, they made this surprising decision that his focus for this final race was not going to be on performance. It was going to be on gratitude, and he was going to focus on gratitude for the sport and for the joy that this sport had given to him and to all, for all the people that had loved him and supported him. And so the rest is just wonderful history. He not only won an Olympic gold medal, he set a world record at the time, and hearing that story, it just took me down a trail of realizing the impact and the profound power that gratitude can have on on healing.

00;08;41;03 – 00;08;51;06
Kelly Parbs
Wow. And it became one of your 12 practices. Would you say you were good at gratitude before 2021?

00;08;51;08 – 00;10;36;01
John Sebald
I’d like to believe, yes, but at the same time, I think it was just it was different. It was it was different perspective and perhaps different focus, even to this extent after the miracle. And this was one of the real breakthrough gratitude things for me. There was honestly a time, Kelly, when I didn’t know if I could get better or if I would get better, or if any of this would change. And I came to a really, I think, surprising and empowering conclusion. I’d be okay. I would be okay if I didn’t heal, provided that I focused on gratitude. Well, provided that I focused on the things that I had to be grateful for because it right that that flips had. On being a victim. Right to focusing on gratitude. And so for me, it was like, okay, what are the things that I have to be grateful for God. And is grace big part of my life? The miracle I was alive and my wife and my family, those amazing people who were a part of my rescue, people that I wanted to help someday, to learn from the lessons of my own journey. All of those things I think, helped me come to a place of peace where I knew whatever the future held, I was going to be okay if I focused on gratitude.

00;10;36;03 – 00;11;57;00
Kelly Parbs
I just I love that, and I think we know that research. There’s a lot of research on positive psychology. And we know that gratitude, you know, improves mood, strengthens relationships, reduces stress. But one thing that I learned recently was that if you practice gratitude especially, let’s say every morning you think about things that you are truly grateful for. Actually, what that does is it wires your brain for the rest of the day to think about and to look for what’s good, because your brain knows now, tomorrow morning, you’re going to be listing or thinking about things that you’re grateful for. So you’re looking for them during the day. And I just think that’s very, very interesting. The the flip side of that coin would be if you’re a complainer and you are always thinking about things that are going wrong, your brain then is training itself to to prove yourself right. You know, yeah, everything is wrong. I have a lot to complain about. And then all day long you’re looking for those negative things. So I just think that’s very, very interesting and very motivating to be a reason to think about what I’m grateful for, especially every at the beginning of the day.

00;11;57;03 – 00;11;59;18
John Sebald
Absolute game changer. Yeah.

00;11;59;21 – 00;12;21;21
Kelly Parbs
So we talked about the evolution of identity over time. And that’s something that you talk about in your book, especially after experiencing a crisis. After everything you’ve been through, how would you say you define yourself differently today than you did before? 2021?

00;12;21;23 – 00;12;42;29
John Sebald
You know, I, I talked before about being the ramble and just focus on needing to survive and to figure out all by yourself. Now, I think identity wise, I’m a survivor, but but in a different way.

00;12;42;29 – 00;12;44;01
Kelly Parbs
In a different way.

00;12;44;05 – 00;13;57;08
John Sebald
I am a survivor of drama and choking and CPR and PTSD, but I’m a survivor that’s learned in grown through those things. And because of those things, I’m not owned by those things. But I’ve learned and because of that, honestly, you’re going to laugh at this when I think of a new identity. I sort of think of Yoda from Star Wars. Yoda, right, is the mentor for Luke Skywalker. And so you think to yourself, I’ve been through this crazy, messy, complicated journey. If some way, somehow I can use those experiences to guide other people the way Yoda guided Luke. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing to help other people be able to get out of the holes that they’re in, and so that they, in turn, can help other people who are all around them?

00;13;57;10 – 00;14;23;25
Kelly Parbs
Sure. What a great what a great sense of purpose that has come through this situation. And in a minute, I’m going to want to talk a little bit more about that, but I a question just popped into my head for you, and I don’t even know how answerable it is. But I’m wondering, do you think it was worth going through what you did to get to where you are now?

00;14;23;27 – 00;14;28;11
John Sebald
Wow. And throwing me? You’re throwing me curveballs, Kelly.

00;14;28;15 – 00;14;36;17
Kelly Parbs
Sorry, but that just popped into my head. Like, what do you think it was worth going through all of that to to be John 2.0.

00;14;36;20 – 00;15;39;16
John Sebald
What a wonderful question. Here’s the way I’d frame that answer. I’ve become a student of another kind of a newer, emerging body of research called post-traumatic growth. And it’s a fascinating body of research because it focuses on people who have been through traumatic experiences or difficult experiences, but haven’t just recovered, they’ve transformed, they’ve become different and better people. And and when I think about that, I think on the one hand, what I want to go through this again, I no, I wouldn’t choose it. Would I wish this on anyone else? I absolutely would not. And at the same time, I’ve grown and changed and transformed. And now I’m grateful for what I’ve been through. So I guess that’s my final answer.

00;15;39;17 – 00;15;48;10
Kelly Parbs
Sure. I think that’s a great answer. Thank you. What do you think your loved ones would say?

00;15;48;12 – 00;16;02;03
John Sebald
I think they’d go along with a few of my close friends I mentioned before. They’d say, this is maybe John 2.0, dad 2.0, husband 2.0. I think they’d agree with that.

00;16;02;04 – 00;16;04;29
Kelly Parbs
Some some good has come of it all for sure.

00;16;05;02 – 00;16;06;07
John Sebald
Yeah.

00;16;06;09 – 00;17;17;05
Kelly Parbs
You know, I’d like to go back to a point that you made a little bit earlier about having some control. You know, you mentioned post-traumatic growth. And I think people who truly experience growth after a trauma really do have to practice. I want to say that, again, really do have to think about what they can control and what they can’t control. There is a lot of research in psychology showing that when we try to control things that are outside of of our influence, stress and anxiety actually increase. But when people shift towards acceptance and focusing on what they really, truly can influence, they tend to experience lower distress and just better emotional regulation. So I’m just wondering, how has your relationship like with control changed from all of this? What do you understand now about what you can and can’t control, and how has that changed your life?

00;17;17;08 – 00;17;22;23
John Sebald
Well, that that is a wonderful question. And I’ll tell you straight up, I had to learn that the hard way.

00;17;22;24 – 00;17;23;25
Kelly Parbs
Okay.

00;17;23;28 – 00;18;39;19
John Sebald
Very much the hard way. And so I guess here’s my simple understanding of control. I cannot control, for the most part, circumstance in the people around me. I can’t control the other crazy drivers. I can’t control what’s going on in much of the rest of the world, and frankly, and much of the rest of what’s going on around me, other people, namely. But but here’s the trade off that I’ve also found I have far greater control over myself than I ever believed before. I have control over the the simple actions and steps I take during the day. I have control over the questions I ask myself, the stories I tell myself, the the things that I put into my body and the things that I say and the things that I think I have control over. All of those things in with time and with patience, with practice. That’s why I call them practices that can just have an enormous impact.

00;18;39;23 – 00;19;22;07
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely. I love to hear that you learned that lesson. And I think it’s one that all of us really should think about is, you know, how how can we recognize those things in our lives that we do have some control over and what we don’t? John, in talking to you, I can I can definitely hear through our conversation that your sense of purpose has really been heightened by what you’ve been through. And I know from reading your book that instilling hope in people is really important to you. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that desire to instill hope came to be?

00;19;22;09 – 00;22;50;25
John Sebald
You used one of my magic words, hope, I love that. So I’m going to share, with your permission, what kind of a morbid story. My wife hates the story, but I think it’s just wonderful. So there’s this whole story. It dates way back to the 1950s. There was a legendary biologist, Johns Hopkins professor named Kurt Richter, and he did fascinating research and study. But what he’s most known for in popular culture is this rat experiment, something that, by today’s standards, would be considered cruel. But but here’s the experiment. So he’s trying to figure out what rats would do if they’re placed in a situation that they thought was hopeless. And so these rats were put into a glass tank that was filled with water, and he would literally watch and see how long these rats could survive. So long, complicated study that I’m not going to repeat, but but here, here’s the key part. The key takeaway. Eventually, in the study, he becomes perplexed by the fact that wild rats and wild rats are wired for survival. They’re not doing as well as the domestic rats. And so he’s trying to figure out what’s going on. And so he tried this twist in the experiment. He took the wild rats introduced into the water, but he took them back out of the water. Right. And gave them some rest. Write them off and put them back in the water. And then repeated that again, took them out of the water, dried them off, put them back in the water. And then it turns out that these rats suddenly now could survive not only for hours, but they could go for days. And and so the conclusion of his study, his conclusion was that the wild rats now believed it had to do with what they believed. They believed that survival was possible. They had been given the gift of hope, and that changed their outcome in an incredibly profound way. And so I think about the gift of hope, the gift that I’ve been given in now, the gift that I wants to give to other people so that they in turn. Right. So this is a pass it forward thing so that they in turn can pass that gift of hope to the people around them. Because I’ll tell you right now, for everyone who’s listening and for everyone who’s in a dark place or stuck in a hole, there’s a part of their hearts, I’ll guarantee it, that wants to make a difference, that wants to help people around them, that wants to do something positive and impactful. And so I want to help them so that they can help the people that they want to help. And then those people can help the people that they want to help. Right. And so to me, it’s just such an exciting idea.

00;22;51;02 – 00;23;15;09
Kelly Parbs
What a beautiful goal that is and what a better world will live in with every person wanting to pass along hope to the next person. That’s beautiful. John, can we go just a little bit deeper on this topic of gratitude, and can you tell our audience or give us an example of how you practice gratitude?

00;23;15;12 – 00;25;53;16
John Sebald
You know, I think, Kelly, that I, I had learned before the miracle to practice gratitude in some of the logical ways. And we’re all familiar with making perhaps gratitude lists or just reflecting on gratitude or praying gratitude prayers in all of those things are, I think, impactful and important. I learned to practice gratitude in another way, and I think maybe this would be a little bit of a surprising way. When I got home from the hospital, I had a white bag, a hospital issued bag that contained the clothes that the paramedics cut off of my body when they arrived to my rescue. They’re my my favorite orange pullover and my favorite black sweatpants. So these things are in this bag. And you can imagine after all of this, you take those things out of the bag and you hold them. And I just turned to a puddle. Right? He’s all the waves of the pain in all the fields. They come back and something just really peculiar happened for whatever reason. What? Every week or so, I would take this bag back out and I would take the clothes back out, and I would just. I would hold them and I would reflect, and I would hug the cactus and feel the feels. And over time, something really surprising happened because alongside of feeling the feels, I would reflect on the people that came to my rescue, that cut those clothes off of my body. I would reflect on the fact that I’m still alive and that my wife isn’t a widow. I would reflect at all on all the people that were encouraging me and supporting me, and over time, those clothes turned from being something that was a really painful experience to something that was just incredibly empowering and that all focused on gratitude.

00;25;53;23 – 00;26;07;29
Kelly Parbs
Wow. You know, the lesson I guess I take from that is if we look hard enough or and deep enough, we can find the beauty and the darkness or in the really difficult things.

00;26;08;07 – 00;26;10;02
John Sebald
Absolutely.

00;26;10;04 – 00;26;33;13
Kelly Parbs
As we’re wrapping up, and as we mentioned earlier, your book actually lays out 12 different practices that you developed since your, your miracle. And we’ve only talked about four of them would in the time that we have. Would you like to just quickly introduce our listeners to the list of 12 practices so that they know what they could look forward to if they read your book?

00;26;33;15 – 00;28;29;18
John Sebald
Thanks, Kelly. I’d be happy to. So my book begins with identifying, first of all, just identifying what’s the problem, why and how do people fall into holes. And then secondly, I provide a framework for how to get back out of those holes. I think the framework part is really important because there are certainly more than 12 practices in. I want to empower people to be able to discover and find their own practices to and in the things that work for them, because it may not be on my list. So once we get through that, then I lay out these 12 practices that I use and will continue to use, and that I just genuinely believe are going to help other people in their journey. So here are the practices, the first one we’ve covered. Choose your hard practice. Number two, name your demons. Practice number three I call it turn the table on your demons. Those things that hold you back and keep you from being healthy. Practice number four tame your feelings. Because feelings are a complicated challenge for a lot of people. Practice number six find your foundation. That one has to do with faith and spiritual practice. Practice six it has to do with relationships. Practice seven connect to your purpose, meaning and purpose in life is obviously a really, really important thing for people as they’re going through this journey. Practice eight I call it leverage your identity. Practice nine. We’ve already covered laws of nature. Practice ten manage your focus. Practice 11. Live with gratitude. And then the final practice I call give hope.

00;28;29;21 – 00;29;00;07
Kelly Parbs
Wow, that’s a great teaser for our listeners to to then want to read your book, because there’s so much more content that we didn’t talk about in the hour that we had today, and I appreciate you introducing that to us. John, we’re coming to the end of our time. Are there any takeaways? And we talked. Everything we talked about was just so important. But are there any special takeaways that you would like our listeners to leave with today?

00;29;00;10 – 00;29;29;02
John Sebald
I think the takeaways that first had an impact on me that I share with other people who are listening, especially if you’re in a dark place or you’re stuck in a hole or you’re struggling, is just to remember you’re not alone and you’re not crazy, and that there’s help and that there’s hope. There truly, truly is. So please believe that.

00;29;29;04 – 00;29;36;06
Kelly Parbs
Thank you and your living proof of that. Can you tell us a little bit about your book and where to find it?

00;29;36;09 – 00;30;22;20
John Sebald
You can find more information in the couple of places. My website. I’ve got a simple website with more information and the address is John Allen Speaks all one word. Joe Allen, SPCA acres. You can also find my book live again on Amazon. If you just do a search on Amazon with Words Live again in John Allen, you will find the book along with just some wonderful, wonderful reviews. I’m humbled by those and would love for your listeners to be able to join in.

00;30;22;28 – 00;30;28;13
Kelly Parbs
Thank you for sharing all of that, John, and thank you for spending time with me today.

00;30;28;18 – 00;30;30;26
John Sebald
Thank you Kelly. It’s been an honor.

00;30;30;29 – 00;31;37;01
Kelly Parbs
This conversation reminds us that while we cannot control everything that happens in life, we can choose how we respond. John’s story is a powerful example of resilience and intentional living. His book offers a thoughtful framework for navigating adversity and creating a more meaningful life. And while we only touched on a few ideas today, there is much more to explore in John’s book, ‘Live Again’. If you’re in a difficult season, remember challenge is part of being human. Lean into the relationships that matter here for your body and mind, and make space for gratitude wherever you can find it. Growth isn’t about avoiding hardship, it’s about how we meet it. Thank you so much for listening today! To hear this episode and other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website at www.Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia, and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. I’m Kelly Parbs – thanks for listening!