Framing The Low

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa, and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Today we are talking about depression, anxiety, grief, seasons of darkness and difficulty. Because it is often in those seasons that we seek some kind of soothing or escape through sexual stimulation. In today's interview with Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson, you are going to hear a profound perspective on what they call the Low. Their new book, In the Low, Honest Prayers for Dark Seasons, is a collection of contemplative words and images for seasons of depression. It is a book designed to meet you where you are and sit with you there the way God does, intentionally and without judgment. I got a chance to go through this book and I absolutely loved it. So I was thrilled when I got to interview Justin and Scott. Justin is an author, coach, speaker, and songwriter, while Scott is a painter, author, and performance artist, creating a visual vocabulary for the spiritual journey. And in our conversation, you are going to hear how art and creativity can help you through the low, why the low is a place to get into with hospitality instead of hostility, and in the end, how the low can profoundly change us for the better. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to Husband Material. Today we have such a gift to be with Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson, the authors of In the Low, Honest Prayers for Dark Seasons. As why are you passionate about this topic? Oof.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

It's a personal topic for both Scott and I, as we're both men who've lived with various forms of depression and had various run-ins

Meet Justin And Scott

SPEAKER_01 2:28

with depression over the course of our lives. And we're also, you know, in relationship and surrounded by a lot of folks who who live with various forms of depression. And and a lot of these poems and images are things that are that were written or drawn or gathered uh during times we needed a little help. So we wanted to assemble something that could potentially be helpful for folks when they were in their low.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yep. Exactly. That's exactly it. No, it's really true. I mean, when we got together, it's it's personal because it's this book was something we were just individually working on. We were having a catch up. It had been some time, and Justin was like, Are you working on anything? And I was like, Well, I've been writing poems and prayers and drawings for when I'm really depressed. And he goes, Oh, I've been doing the same thing. We're like, Okay. Art making is at its core a healing process because it is, it it starts with going, something happened to me. I'm going through something, I'm having a thought or a heartbreak or something. And then how would I give that language? How uh written language, verbal language, sonic language, and in that alchemy of taking this internal thing and making it an external, you're processing it, you're identifying it, you're giving compassion to yourself, you're inviting others in. And so then this becomes it's like our grief, our grief can only become a gift when it is finally given to somebody else. Like, meaning like when that process of dealing with it is finally like allowed to for others to witness it. Part of the processing that I need to do is make

Art As Healing Practice

SPEAKER_02 4:17

images, make make prayers, make comforting pleas to the divine about my low. So yeah, that's kind of how these things came about.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah. That's so beautiful. And it matters so much to me because I went through a really dark season, a really deep low in 2019 when my wife and I lost a child. And I've got a box here. It says gifts from Josiah. That was his name. And it has profoundly shaped my life.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

And you made the box? Like tell me about the box.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Well, as part of art therapy, I painted the box. And then inside the box that says gifts from Josiah are all these ways that that he has blessed me through his four hours outside the womb alive.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

That's such a wise, good practice and decision is to have done something like that. You can go back to you. It's an it's an a physical artifact. That's it's a really good move, Drew.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Thanks. Well, and that's what Scott was just talking about art making, creating. And for many of us, pornography is a form of art seeking. It's like, you know, the maybe the smallest shard of beauty that I'll settle for in my low, perhaps. That's interesting. Or maybe just being a consumer instead of a creator. Like when you take that posture of a creator in depression and grief in low seasons.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yes. Wow. Art making the the practice of creativity does change my relationship to beauty. And it changes my, you know, when you the you're talking just now about you know being a consumer, one of the ways to move away from the consumption patterns is to become a maker. And to whether it's like just starting some sort of like call it a hobby

Grief, Creativity, And Beauty

SPEAKER_01 6:24

if that's what you need to do in order to, you know, feel free to do it. You don't have to call yourself an author or an artist, but to reorient our relationship with beauty and with consumables in general, to become a creator changes that. Where like I'm getting hit with images and I get to decide, do I like it or do I not? And that's the can that's the posture of the consumer in culture. I'm sitting there, I'm sitting still and I'm getting hit with this, do I like it or do I not? I'm getting hit with this, do I like it or do I not? Do I buy this or do I not? Do I buy this or do I not? Reorienting my relationship with the world in general, like as a creator, I'm making something, and in the midst of making it, I don't like it. One of the best parts about making art is that there's there's a there's a point, or if not like a long stretch of time during which like you don't like what you're making because you don't like what's coming out of you, and you get to actually know that that tension is part of it's part of beauty and part of living in part of living a life.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

There's so many things here, but let's start with the first like so many people don't understand that like every piece of art I've ever made, uh there's a moment where I hate it. Like there's always a moment because what you imagined it would be like is meeting the reality of what it's like, and it's not the same thing. And there is a grief and a just like, and then and a bunch of narratives come up, like I suck, or I'm not as good, or whatever. And it's the pushing through that that then you come to something you didn't see coming. Even if you had like, I'm trying to make this thing, there's always some kind of um of other surprise in that, which is the joy of creating. There's a thing that Justin and I have been talking about, which is I think a missing part of spiritual practice is creating. And that has been segmented to, oh, well, these people are artists or whatever. But it's like everybody is creative in some way. How are you gonna host a party? How are you gonna host a dinner? What are you gonna do with your room? What kind of clothes are you gonna put on? What get into woodworking, build some stuff, just like you know, like the making is a process of of integration and wholeness. And so I love that we're talking about like what are you gonna make of it? Like, especially with things about addiction and stuff. I mean, I think there's addressing the root problem and other things like that, but it's more about like offering something other than the thing you go back to. That is that is the mood. So what kind of so then we're talking about something that's generative or something that we're like doing instead of versus like I gotta stop doing the thing, but I'm never substituting

From Consumer To Creator

SPEAKER_02 9:05

it with better joy.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Especially insofar as like when any kind anytime we're talking about addiction, and you know this better than than we do, Drew, like part of what addiction means is this is a is a is a loss of control, or like I like I am no longer in control of my responses. Like I have these impulses, these compulsions, and but there's a lack of control. And I can come to all kinds of cognitive you know conclusions and some cognitive acquiescence about what's true and what's better for me. But unless I practice myself out of those patterns, I'm sort of stuck in that same spiral where I know better, but I do differently. And the only way to do better is to actually do. And art practice, the making of art is a way to practice ourselves towards something more like control over our impulses and our responses.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

That's awesome. And yet, even as we're talking about the value of making stuff, I do think that this resource you've put together with poems and prayers and pictures is something worth consuming. It's something that can help us be in our feelings and emotions instead of escaping from them. So instead of just talking about it, I thought maybe we could read a few of them. How does that sound?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

This one really resonated with me for healing in general, but maybe especially for someone who keeps going back to porn. Again, this is from the book in the low, honest prayers for dark seasons. I'm here again. This is taking so long. I want to be further along. I want to be better. May the slowness of your work in me be a sign that it will last. Reassure me that I am not just getting better, I am becoming whole. There's a picture of a brain holding crutches on the opposite page. When I read that, I feel seen and known. I feel validated in the messiness of real good healing. Particularly the line, may the slowness of your work in me be a sign that it will last, reframing that as beautiful rather than something to get over. Hmm. That's good. There's another one that reframes the experience of struggling with unwanted behavior or ongoing mental health challenges that says, I don't necessarily want to be dead. I just don't want to be alive this way anymore. This feels like a ridiculous prayer, but may I be grateful for not wanting

Practicing Control Through Making

SPEAKER_00 12:10

to be alive this way anymore? Let the death of who I thought I had to be mean rebirth into who I get to be.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

I wrote that one. Justin wrote the one before. That one came from my own interactions with uh suicidal ideation. And suicide's a tricky conversation, but it really is like the heart of it is I just don't want to be alive this way anymore. There have been moments in your life where you were glad to be alive. So it was it is going, oh, I'm just in a certain kind of narrative or situation or a narrative about a situation that I don't like and I desperately want to get out of it. And the the path of change is is also the same path of suicide with different endings, but like it's deciding you don't want to stay where you're at. It's making a plan. A plan is has a lot of energy. And and it is imagining that there can be something else than this. And so, but it's it's putting it's putting it in a different, in a generative instead of a destructive way.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

And it's blessing the good desire underneath the surface level thoughts and feelings, which is something we emphasize a lot at husband material. We can so often shame ourselves for having certain thoughts or having certain urges, whether it's suicidal or sexual. Instead of finding out the gold that's that's ultimately down there. Because there's something good. And so once again, you've reframed this experience that many of us think I shouldn't be this way, I shouldn't feel this way. And having this posture of everything belongs, let's find something to bless within the brokenness.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah, should've suck. Should've is not a good path.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Yeah, I have a sign in my office that says don't should all over yourself.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Justin and I have a history in religious

Reading Prayers From The Book

SPEAKER_02 14:18

institutions working and participating in it. There's a lot of wonderful things about that. Some of the negative things about that is systems of control and a kind of forced expectation on what a person should be based on an imagined idea of God. I mean, God's invisible, so all of our ideas of God are imagined. And usually they're tied to some kind of form of a parent or disciplinary figure. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, go to therapy. You know, but like it really is. I think, you know, going, I should have been this way, I shouldn't feel these things. That's all, that's all a path to destruction, versus going, how interesting that I feel this way, how interesting that I long for this thing, how interesting, where is this coming from? I'm a very emotional person, so I I experience every emotion every day, which is very exciting. A lot of my own being staying alive or being functional is going, that's okay, where's this coming from? Well, how would I give hospitality to this? I think hospitality is a word that we could bring back to ourselves of just going, what does it mean to be hospitable to this part of me that's angry? What does it mean to be hospitable to this part of me that's despair? And I think you were referencing, I know we haven't got it to this podcast, but a poem that has about my younger self. It's I mean, I have three kids, so I I really try to pivot to go, what? But if this was one of my children feeling this way, I wouldn't be like, you're so dumb. You should be, you know, I'd be like, oh, tell me what's up. Tell me what's going on with you. How can I be kind and give compassion to that part of me that is saying something, that is longing for something?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Hospitality instead of hostility.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

That's great. If I'm not hospitable to who I am now, like all that means is when I get onto the other side of like whatever this moment is, there's going to be more work to do. Like the idea that I'm somehow ever going to be in a place where I'm completely satisfied with who I am is kind of ridiculous. So the systems of of control, and gosh, I hate to say this out loud except that I don't. You know, you know, part of part of what those systems really want is they don't really want your wholeness. They want you compliant. They want you addicted to them. So if I can get you feeling like trash and that I'm the way out, then like you'll you'll stay here, you'll keep your butt in the seat. Whereas like the notion of hospitality to my whole self, it's why we include the welcoming prayer throughout the book. If in my healing wholeness journey, I'm not starting starting from a place in which I actually want to welcome myself the way I'm welcomed by grace. If I don't starting there, I'm not gonna end there. Like I'm not gonna get to a place where like I'm satisfied with the work I've done. Like that's just never gonna be the case. You look at like the fittest dudes in the world and they're constantly pushing for like the next level of fitness. That's you know, Goggins

Suicidal Ideation Reframed

SPEAKER_01 17:15

is like, I would like to run around the world four times in two hours. That's the that's the plan. Like every everyone's trying to level up again and again and again. It's like part of the human psyche, is like I want more of what uh whatever's good. So the notion that I'm you know I could start from a place of shame, get rid of this garbage, and then I'll be okay, that is absolutely a recipe for further addiction and further dependency on systems that are not out for my good. I've got to start from a place where I'm willing to welcome myself as I am. Have to. And if I don't start there, I'm gonna end up in exactly the same place I was before. It's more about the pattern than it is about some sort of goal.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yes. And it's about learning to love the process of getting to know myself and working with whatever is coming up within me: emotions, attractions, fantasies, urges. Whereas you rightly identify that many of us are pursuing some kind of recovery program or counseling or behavior change fixated on a very narrow outcome of like, okay, if I can just get here, like this much time without porn, or this finish line, you know, some kind of arrival in marriage, or or even spiritually, like we're just kind of missing the point. So I'm gonna read another poem that again has this profound paradigm shift toward what we're ultimately hoping for. It says, My hope is not simply that I will rise back to the surface, though I do hope that. But more than that, my hope is that I will learn to breathe at this depth. And it shows someone in a scuba suit sitting on the bottom of the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I think I'm gonna have Drew read the entire book and record it.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

There's no audio book, so Drew, you could do it. You know, you just do the audiobook for us. I like the way you read this book, Drew.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Thank you. This is not about fixing something.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

No.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

And this is not about trying to feel a certain way.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Yeah. Justin wrote that prayer and it's one of his favorites. We talk about it a lot, actually. I I am curious, Justin, like, since we've been spending some time with it, like, where for you, what does that prayer mean for you?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

I was driving and you and I were talking. It was one of those drives. I was I was somewhere in the middle of Colorado and we kept getting disconnected and we were bouncing back

Hospitality Over Hostility

SPEAKER_01 20:08

and forth with this image of like submersion and like the and like breathing in the depths. Oh yeah. You had been talking about your season of depression, the kind of the longers, the recent season of depression, and that you woke up one day and it was gone. And what the way you say it is like where did all this treasure come from? Yeah. And the conversation you and I were having was the longer I live, the more I returned to this same or similar place of like depth and darkness and isolation and all that. The more I need to learn, I I need to learn to actually live there because same, same. Like on the other side of those moments, those seasons, those times, there's one, there's like there's more of me than I knew there was. Like, like, oh, there's that's I I'm more I'm more complex and nuanced and interesting than I was before this. Like riches or discoveries or wisdom that I have now that I didn't have before. I don't want to just try to escape this. Like, if this is part of if this is part of how my soul wants to live, I need to learn to live there. I need to learn to actually receive that and stay there as long as it you know, as long as my soul is asking me to, as opposed to like just constantly fighting it. Because fighting it is again like fighting it every time and vehemently is the recipe for for shame.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

That relates to an anti-shaming idea that opens the entire book. We spend time in the low because we're human, not because we're broken. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Broken is a made-up word to describe something we're feeling. Broken means that there's some ideal that I should be. We're getting back to shoulds, shitting on ourselves. I think there's a positive way to say, like, and we talk about this in the book, instead of like, what's wrong with you versus what happened to you? I mean, maybe something happened to you and that and that shattered something. But to say that if you if you go into what what we're describing the low, that that means you're not doing something right, that's that's the wrong way of thinking about it. So you're not broken if you are find yourself in the low. It's actually part of every human experience. Here's the surprise of a human life. If you've lived long enough, I'm close to five decades, Justin's past that. He's geriatric. But like what happens in your life is that something that you would have never chosen will have happened to you. And then there is a future time where you look back at that awful thing and you will go, if I could go back and change it, I don't know that I would because it led to this, this, this. I'm not talking about abuse. I'm not talking about torture. I'm talking about when you had an illness or when you got a diagnosis. I've just listened to a doctor who went through cancer and she

Process Over Perfection

SPEAKER_02 23:05

was like, I'm not saying cancer is good, but I'm grateful for my cancer. Like, what? What is that? I've talked to people who lost everything in a fire, and they, you know, seven years later, they're like, I don't know if I'd go back and change the fire because it changed us in a way that we needed to be changed. This is what we're getting to is like, just in reference a story, I had a long season of depression. And when it eventually lifted, my response was, where did I get all this treasure? Because something had deepened in me. I'm thinking of Indiana Jones or Goonies, when there's like they bust through and they're like, there's a whole other chamber down here. It's like going into that low helped me open up all these other chambers of depth, of love, of empathy, of kindness, of personality. You know, it gave me, gosh, you know, what makes an interesting movie is the light and shadows. If you just had light, you'd see no contrast. It is the contrast that makes your life meaningful and interesting. And so we're not broken because we are in the low. We're actually being in a process of change. We're being in a process of development. That's where we're getting to.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

You sure as hell don't have to call it a disorder. And here's why. Because even the word disorder, the word disorder like presupposes a very particular kind of order that other people have decided on, and you do not have to agree to that. So one of the things that we, one of the things we lose in our low is that this doesn't work for me. That I'm being told that this is wrong, that this thing that I experience in my body is wrong, and that we need to somehow make it right, as opposed to this is going back like 12, 15 minutes, paying attention, like, what is this about me? What does this mean about who I am? Can I follow the thread to maybe the layers of desire and interest below this? Like giving hospitality to those things, some of that begins with like detaching myself from the definitions and judgments that medical culture, that religious culture, that work culture put on the way I am human.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Wonderfully said.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Totally. One of the things that strikes me, in addition to like deconstructing the word disorder, is also redefining depression.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah, because depression, this is not a research book. This is a companion through a really hard day or a long season. But there are great research books about what causes depression. Our my favorite, our favorite is Lost Connection by Johan Hari, because in it, his his research, he's he identified nine disconnections that lead to depression, two of which are biology, seven of which are environmental,

We’re Human, Not Broken

SPEAKER_02 26:01

meaning most of our depression is caused by a disconnection from something that makes us human. One of the things is like a disconnection from a hopeful future, a disconnection from meaningful work, a disconnection from close and meaningful friendships, a relationship, a disconnection from your own values, a disconnection from nature and the environment, which what Justin was alluding to. Like, uh yeah, of course a boy is disordered in a sterile, boring classroom and has to sit down with endless energy, because that boy historically was working the fields, going, you know, shepherding sheep, tending you, making things, digging things, using all that endless energy, hunting boar, making skin. Yes, yes, you know, doing stuff. And then we've just said, because we put too many kids in a classroom and we don't pay our teachers enough, and then they say, Oh, yeah, they're disordered, they can't sit still. So depression is this it's your deep self, your soul going, I don't want to be this character anymore. I don't want to exist this way anymore. And I'm gonna like shut everything down to get your attention, that you'll finally pay attention to me. Like, this is the part of you that's like you filled your life with endless noise, death scrolling, always having your earbuds in, and I'm trying to get your attention. Listen to me. I'll make you lay in bed, I'll make you not get out of bed because I want you to listen to me. That's what your depression is doing. Or something happened to you when you're a kid, and then you were asked to just move on and forget about it. And then a part of you that's hurt is just like, I want you to deal with me. I want you to tend to me. I want you to pay attention to me. Who cares about the NFL draft? Pay attention to me. You know what I'm saying? It's trying, it's trying to get your attention. That's what a depression is, a signpost that something is disconnected that wants to be connected. So I had a long season of depression because I I worked at a church that was one of the best jobs I've ever had, but also it made me run at a pace that I couldn't keep up. It it was endlessly busy. I really started thinking I was only valuable if I was producing things. And eventually my soul was just like, we're done. And it it broke everything in me and I fell apart and I had to leave that job. But then I went to a lot of therapy and I found healthy ways, and eventually it left. And I was like, oh, I need to know that I don't have to be destroyed in being conduit of productivity. I also have depression low days when I travel a lot and I put out a lot. And so when I get home, the day I get home, I'm tired. The next day I'm tired, the next day I'm low. And it is just a physiological adjustment from the output of being a speaker and being a traveling artist. And those days, I

Depression As Disconnection

SPEAKER_02 29:15

my mind is crap and it has nothing good to say to me. And so I spend time like I go swim laps, I go on a walk, I eat good food, I talk to a friend, you know, I do things. There's wisdom in my body, so I have to just find a different thing. But that low, it took me a long time to listen to that low and going, you can't just endlessly work, work, work, work and go at a same pace. You can output a lot, but then you need to have the days where you just kind of slow down and you're kind to yourself and you let yourself rest and things. So that low was trying to teach me something. And that's why this book is not trying to get you out of the low. This book is trying to be with you in the low, going, there's there's something here for you, and something happened to you, and we want to validate this experience and not solve it for you. But if you go through the process of it, it is leading to something, to a reconnection, to a healing, to a way of doing things. Maybe you just like, maybe the life you're living is like, I don't want to live this life anymore. I don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to believe these things anymore. I want to, I don't want to live in the structure anymore. I mean, there's lots of things in our culture that are are really destroying us that we assume we have to do because a company made this up and now we're all have to do it, you know? Like, and I think we're we're really seeing a lot of those Gen Z just getting off social media. They're like, screw this, I don't want to live a life like this. We're, oh, we can see anything and everything all at the same time. Like, maybe that's not good, and I don't want to do that. Maybe I want to go back to a flip phone. Maybe I don't want to curb my own experience of creativity by relying on an algorithm. We're handed all these things all the time, and then there's a deeper part of us that has wisdom that is saying, I don't want to be this kind of human. There's lots of ways to be a human. And we can learn from the wisdom in like indigenous cultures who have always been connected to the environment and always been connected to the world. And they have a lot of wisdom to give us. And that that's in our own Christian tradition. A lot of wisdom traditions is this kind of experience.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Yeah, so there are times when the low is a kind of protest.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah. Sometimes the urge to watch porn is a protest against how I've been treating myself or how I've been allowing myself to be treated, which is often rooted in earlier experiences and how we grew up. There's one poem in the book that touched me very deeply

Listening To The Body’s Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 32:00

because at Husband Material we do a lot of inner child work. We recognize that it's not adults who get hooked on porn primarily, it's kids. And so we need we need to learn how to relate to the little boy within us. You write, if you saw a child being treated the way you were treated as a child, you would do the right thing and protect that child. Today, you are being given the chance to speak up for that younger you. The one who needed protection back then.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Woo. That's one of my favorite ones because it's such a direct just the opening line. Like, if you saw a child being treated that way, you wouldn't like you'd hate that. And but we'll put up with it for ourselves. I just uh it's a powerful piece.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

That came from doing a lot of therapy, and the way that you you'll be honoring to a kid, but you won't be honoring to the kid in you. So, and part of therapying is kind of reparenting yourself or being kind to that younger you that was mistreated, and that younger you that witnessed something that you probably shouldn't have seen at that age, and then and then it led down this path of curiosity that led to, you know, other ways of dealing with things in the world. And so, yeah, it's just it's giving kindness and compassion to that that part of you that experienced something and didn't have an adult to help them navigate that at that time.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Thank you for helping us be in the low. I have perhaps a strange question as we say goodbye. What is your favorite thing about being in the low?

SPEAKER_02 33:55

That is so funny. That's a great question. Of like a day off, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

It's the permission to like seize from everything else, but kind of the permission to say no to a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

So, in other words, when you find yourself in the low, because you've developed this posture of kindness and the ability to slow down, you don't just push through and power through, you actually push pause.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Oftentimes, depending on the depending on the moment. Scott's gonna probably have a different answer here, but depending on the particular experience of the low, if I'm hitting an actual low, like a like a deeper low, I'm gonna I'm gonna pay attention. And that means I have to I have to pull my attention away from other things. I have to get altitude in space. And I I know this in retrospect. I mean, it's how we know ourselves ultimately. It's how we know God is we know everything in retrospect. I don't know in the moment, but thinking about it now, yeah, like the permission to step away from things and to not do the permission to be exactly as I am, because that's all the low will let me be, is right there. And yeah, that's probably

The Low As Protest

SPEAKER_01 35:10

my favorite. What a wild wild question. That's very good, Drew. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

I probably have like every week have like a little death practice, which is I think it's really helpful because it repri it helps you make sure your what is most important is prioritized. For example, when I'm really frustrated with a kid, I'll take a moment and go, if they died tomorrow, what would I wish I had treated them and said to them in this situation? Because then I'm tapping into love versus the anger in that moment. And so then that reprioritizes how I'll communicate. Same thing with myself, where I'm like, if I die tomorrow, would I be mad that I took a walk today and noticed the beauty in the world? Or was the day only important by the checklist that I was accomplishing? So it gives me grace to go. Life is not just, God, if if adulthood and life is just an endless series of checklists, then life is a curse. But like if life is a mixture of there's things I gotta do, also to take a moment to witness and enjoy, that is a fuller life. So if there's a favorite thing about depression or the low, the favorite thing about the low is I understand music so much more on those days. I like I understand art so much more on those days. It's a weird paradox because you feel so alone in it. But I why I think art is so important is that I see that I'm participating in the human experience. I don't see that in the in the loweness, but it is coming out of it. I go, oh, what did I learn from this space, or what happened to me, or what how would I communicate? And that becomes like a connecting thread to all the rest of humanity. At least that's what I found. That's why people have my art on their bodies and hanging on their walls.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Well,

Inner Child Protection

SPEAKER_00 37:20

I hope that all of you guys get a chance to see the art, to read the poems, get a copy of In the Low. You can find it in the show notes, as well as more information about Scott and Justin and how to connect with them. Thank you so much for being with us.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Thanks for having us. Our budger. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

And always remember whether you are in the low or not, you are God's beloved son. In you, he is well pleased.