EP 13 | THE HEART AND MIND OF ACTOR, PRODUCER, WRITER: JUSTIN BALDONI
Episode Summary
Kevin has the honor of having an amazing conversation with our dear friend Justin Baldoni in this episode.
Justin and Kevin met at the Voice Awards a couple of years ago and they’ve been friends since. Together they share a breathing technique that can help the body and mind calm when having a panic attack or when there’s just too much going on around. Kevin also gives a grounding technique for people that have panic attacks.
To remove the stigma around mental health, we need to build our toolbox of techniques and methods that are proven to help our wellbeing.
About the Guest - Justin Baldoni
Justin Baldoni is a director, producer, actor, and author whose efforts are focused on creating impactful media and entertainment. He is the creator and director of CW’s “My Last Days,” an uplifting documentary series about life as told by courageous people living with a terminal illness, and the creator of “Man Enough,” a series that dives into traditional masculinity. Baldoni made his feature film directorial debut in March 2019 with “Five Feet Apart” for CBS Films and Lionsgate. Most recently, Baldoni established Wayfarer Studios to further create purpose-driven content. Wayfarer Studios’ first film project, “CLOUDS,” was directed and produced by Baldoni and is now streaming on Disney+. Justin also serves as founder and chairman of The Wayfarer Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the way communities see and respond to the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
Key Take-Aways
Self-awareness techniques can help people recognize that their thoughts don’t have to determine their actions.
Sharing one’s pain can alleviate the burden.
Breathing techniques can calm the mind and body when having anxiety or panic attacks.
Build a toolbox with different techniques to help your mental health.
Care letters can transform someone’s life.
Resources
Listen to Justin’s podcast “The Man Enough” on Spotify.
Visit Man Enough’s website for more information about everything Justin does.
Remember to visit the Crisis Now website for more information.
Text CNQR to 741741 if you need help.
Visit the American Association of Suicidology’s website.
Visit the Suicide Awareness Voices of Education’s website.
Visit the International Bipolar Foundation’s website.
EP13_HINESIGHTS Podcast_JUSTIN BALDONI: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
EP13_HINESIGHTS Podcast_JUSTIN BALDONI: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Kevin Hines:
My name is Kevin Hines. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I believe that I had to die, but I lived. Today, I travel the world with my lovely wife, Margaret, sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. Now, we help people be here tomorrow. Welcome to the HINESIGHTS Podcast.
Kevin Hines:
RI International and Behavioral Health Link are providers of the crisis now model transforming crisis services for behavioral emergencies, RI international tends to the mental health crisis of the individuals in 10 states across the United States and internationally to provide support and care for people during the lowest point in their lives. Behavioral Health Link operates crisis call center services, dispatches GPS-enabled mobile crisis services to homes and community locations, and offers the country's most trusted crisis system software care traffic control. The time to transform crisis care services is now. Find out more at CrisisNow.com.
Justin Baldoni:
Hey, buddy!
Kevin Hines:
How are you, brother?
Justin Baldoni:
Good to see you, man.
Kevin Hines:
Good to see you too, my friend.
Justin Baldoni:
So I was just saying, you know, the reason I started coming on at night was because I had this really interesting experience, the other night where I just came on, I wanted to do some breathing exercises and I just had this feeling like we should talk. And a young woman in the comments had mentioned that she was going to take her life that night. And I just thought, wow, for every one, you know, there's one hundred more that are thinking about it, and none of us are untouched by what's happening right now. This is like it's magnifying everything. So Kevin, you and I have been friends for a while. We met three, four years ago, three years ago, maybe now, and I was so damn moved by you and your story, and who better than to share some wisdom and some insight about what it's like in mental health and maybe some tips and tricks for all of us than you, man, because I mean, like, first of all, and I think it's important to just, first of all, hear your story because it's like unbelievable, even down to the sea line. And if you can just give us like five minutes of your story, that would just be super cool of you.
Kevin Hines:
Absolutely. You bet. We met at the Voice Awards about three and a half years ago, and you were so kind to reach out to me then and to invite me to be on your Instagram that day. But to tell you my story in a brief five minutes, you know, in a short version, I lived in poverty at my birth. I was adopted, I was given a great life after my initial traumatic experience as an infant, and I thought, how could life go south from here? I've got a great family. I've got great friends. My life's going to, I'm going to coast. I'm going to get that good job, go to that great school, and get that good job like my dad's always talking about. And then at 17 and a half years of age, everything shattered, everything. I had a complete mental breakdown in front the twelve hundred people at a high school play that I was in, and I would not recover for the better part of a decade and a half. And in that decade and a half in the next two years, as I'm 19 years of age, in the year 2000, I find myself regularly thinking of suicide, taking my life and attempting to die in my hands, and it leads me to, go to the Golden Gate Bridge and jump off. And so if anybody watching, where Su said the trigger, just bear with us. This is an important message to be heard because it was the millisecond that my hands left the rail, that I had an instantaneous regret for my actions, and the one hundred percent recognition that I just made the greatest mistake of my life. And it was too late.
Justin Baldoni:
So you're convinced you're ready to take your life, you get there, you walk onto the edge and you let go, and at that moment, you knew it was wrong.
Kevin Hines:
At that moment, I knew it was a mistake. And let me tell you why. It's because, it's because in suicidal crisis, we don't recognize that our thoughts don't have to become our actions.
Justin Baldoni:
Hmm.
Kevin Hines:
If we can recognize through self-awareness techniques like I do today that our thoughts don't have to own, rule or define our next action, we can always stay here. And I didn't know that. And so I thought.
Justin Baldoni:
Say that one more time for everybody. Say that one more time.
Kevin Hines:
If we can recognize through self-awareness techniques that our thoughts don't have to own, rule or define our next action, we can always remain here. We can be here tomorrow and every day after that. And so you know, what happened next for me was I fell a hundred and twenty feet, twenty five stories, at seventy five miles an hour in four seconds. It is a way that is 99 percent fatal off the Golden Gate.
Justin Baldoni:
You're one percent of people.
Kevin Hines:
One percent to survive this fall in 83 years of the bridge being opened. Yes. And of the one percent that survived that fall, which is roughly around thirty nine individuals, only twenty six remain alive today. Of those who remain alive today, only five of us, survivors get the privilege to stand, walk and run. The rest have to use other means to be mobile, aren't fully mobile, I'm fully capable. When I hit that water, I went down so fast, 70 feet beneath the water's surface, because you're falling at a velocity that's so fast from the top of the ... to the top of the water. When you hit that water, it's a vacuum sucks you under 70 feet. And I opened my eyes and Justin, it couldn't even occur to me that I was going to drown when I was before on that bridge. It didn't even occur to me by jumping into a giant body of water at might drown, because of irrational and illogical thoughts that bring about suicidal ideation, not rational and logical thoughts. And so I frantically swim to the surface, but I can't feel my legs. And I didn't realize this at the time, I would learn later in the hospital, I had shattered my T12, L1, L2 low vertebrae and shards, I had missed severing my spinal cord by two millimeters. I make my way to the surface, hoping, wishing and praying that I'd survive. And I remember vividly bobbing up and down in the water and praying, God, please save me, I don't want to die, I made a mistake, on repeat, and that is when something began to circle beneath me, something very large, very slimy and very much alive. And I remember thinking to myself, you've got to be kidding me. I didn't die jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and a shark is going to eat me. I was freaking out and I'm punching this thing in the water, but it won't go away. And it turns out it was no shark. I was on a television program promoting a suicide prevention campaign some year later, and a man wrote into the show named Morgan Mick Ward and show out to Morgan, if he's out there listening, because he wrote it into the show and said, Kevin, I'm so very glad you're alive, I was standing next less than two feet away from you when you jumped. Until this day, no one would tell me whether you lived or died, it's haunted me until now. By the way, there was no shark like you mentioned on the show, but there absolutely was a sea lion and the people above looking down believe it to be keeping your body afloat until the Coast Guard boat arrived behind you. Now, if you don't call that a miracle, I don't know what is.
Justin Baldoni:
No, man, you can see. I'm like, especially like your prayer for like forgiveness and whoo. So since that day, since you survived, you've made it a mission of yours to do everything you can to make sure that other people who had those similar thoughts make a different choice than you. So the point of this, I think, man, is like, you know what's happening right now? There's a lot of people that already struggle with mental health. I think for the most part, everybody does without even really realizing it. We just use different, we have different coping mechanisms. I'm grateful to know what mine are, but what are some things that you've learned over the years that could be really helpful right now? Because this is, I mean, that's why when I called you to ask you, one of the things I asked was how are you? Because I imagine that, you know, this isn't something that like you snap your fingers and it goes away. This isn't something that, like, you know, you can just cure with happy thoughts and positive thinking or cold plunges, right? Like.
Kevin Hines:
Right.
Justin Baldoni:
So it's a very serious thing and it needs to be taken serious. And so I just am wondering, like, what can someone watching this or listening to this do right now that's having some of these thoughts?
Kevin Hines:
Well, for one thing, know you mentioned in one of your live feeds about breathing and you were doing the breathing exercises in that feed you're talking about when we first opened up here. So the one thing, one thing people can do and I'll say it again, maybe you've already said this, but is that when you come to a place and you find yourself mentally on the teetering line of unhinged or worried or terribly, terrified of your brain wellbeing, you need to sit down. You just sit down and take stock of your life for a moment and you need to breathe. You need to do that in 4, out 8, you know, in 4 through your nose, out 8 through pressed lips like a whistle, but no sound and do it up as 30 times. Because what that's going to do is bring your body to a calm. It's going to quell anxiety, panic, an adrenaline rush, it's going to lower your blood pressure. When you do proper breathing skills and techniques over time, they actually have an effect in lowering your blood sugar if you're dealing with blood sugar issues. So one of the things we know, Justin, I know you know this, is that I think over 80 percent of the population isn't breathing properly throughout the day.
Justin Baldoni:
I'm one of those people. My wife tells me I have to, half the time she's like, baby, you're not breathing. Oh shit, because I don't.
Kevin Hines:
You don't even notice it.
Justin Baldoni:
I like, hold my breath and I start to make this like sound and she can hear from across the room.
Kevin Hines:
So it affects, it affects everybody, it affects me too. I just have this kicked in kind of an apparatus, where I go, oh Kev, you're doing it again and you have to take that time to do that deep breathing to bring your body and mind to a calm. Now that's the first step. When you take your body and mind to a calm, you need to take step two. You need to find someone that is willing to listen to your pain. Hear, hear your pain because the pain shared is a pain halved. When you share a moment of.
Justin Baldoni:
Pain shared is a pain halved.
Kevin Hines:
Pain shared is a pain halved. You know, I've watched people like Tony Robbins say, don't share your pain because I've seen this. He does great work, but I've seen him talk about not sharing your pain because it's a waste of time. I'm formidably disagree with that notion, and I'll tell you, no offense to him or his teachings. I formidably disagree with that notion because when you find people that can empathize with your struggle and can put themselves in your shoes, you end up feeling lighter because of it. You end up feeling like you've gotten it off your chest, into the real world, and someone has received that and they've given you validation to your pain. So you're not alone in that moment. And at that second in time, you feel something very important and that is relief.
Justin Baldoni:
And seen, you feel seen.
Kevin Hines:
Yes, and hurt, relief, seen and hurt.
Justin Baldoni:
So can you walk us through your, because you said it rather quickly, the breathing that you do? I was doing something called box breathing, which is essentially like five seconds in, holding for five seconds, five seconds out and then holding again. So it kind of looks like a box if you think about it. Can you walk us through your breathing technique? Maybe we could do one or two of them together so that people can understand like how it works?
Kevin Hines:
Absolutely. Let's definitely do them together, and box breathing is super important, too, so I'm a proponent of that as well. So the one I do is call 4-8. Which used to be 4-7-8, which was similar to yours, where you do four, hold for seven, release for eight. But the scientists found out that doing 4-8 directly releasing was better for the brain, so I inhale four seconds through my nose. And I released eight seconds to my mouth, pursed lips like a whistle, but no sound. I then do that 30 times, and that's the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning before I grab my phone, before I take a shower, before I eat breakfast. I do my breathing.
Justin Baldoni:
Can we do it one more time?
Kevin Hines:
Ready. We'll do it again.
Justin Baldoni:
Well, one more time. So everybody do this with us, right now.
Kevin Hines:
All right. Here we go. Three, two one, in four.
Justin Baldoni:
And you just repeat.
Kevin Hines:
Just repeat it.
Justin Baldoni:
In in 4 and out 8.
Kevin Hines:
And whatnot.
Justin Baldoni:
I love this.
Kevin Hines:
I do this at the least three times a day, morning, noon and night, but when I'm, when I'm having anxiety, which lately has been more often than not, I find myself utilizing that breathing technique to get through the day.
Justin Baldoni:
Hmm. Can I go to some questions from our friends?
Kevin Hines:
Let's do it.
Justin Baldoni:
So speaking of which, Leia writes, I rarely have had panic attacks, but I've been waking up every day this week with mild panic attacks. I know it's just the emotions stacking up, but is there a way to process them without them waking me up gasping for breath at 3:00 in the morning?
Kevin Hines:
Oh wow. Well, first of all, Leia, I'm so sorry you're going through that. That is absolutely terrifying, and I can, I can totally empathize. I do get panic attacks, and I think that the breathing technique we shared would benefit you on a long-term basis. So I think starting to do what we suggested either the box breathing that Justin suggested or the four eight that I suggested morning, noon at night. And every time you find yourself in an anxious place, start doing that and make it a religious effect. You're doing it every day without fail, three times a day, at the very least. I think that that can help you.
Justin Baldoni:
Like a workout.
Kevin Hines:
Like your own workout, like your breathing workout, because I would imagine, Leia, that you are not breathing properly throughout the day and I'm not trying to offend you, I just think that that's, I bet you that that is a factor in what you're going through, and it's not going to be the solvent. It's not going to solve all your issues with panic attacks. It certainly is going to bring your body and mind to a calm when it's necessary.
Justin Baldoni:
Hmm. Awesome. Leia, I hope that was helpful. So, Vonnie writes, how can we overcome the loss of our own personality and our happiness under clinical depression? Sometimes I just feel so lost.
Kevin Hines:
Oh man, Vonnie, I have been through a multitude of depressions in my life. I'm certain I haven't gone through my last, and when I get to that clinical stage of depression, I do feel like I've lost a sense of myself. And I think you have to remember in those times of depressive crisis that there was a time of you before depression and there would be a time of you after depression. If you can focus on remembering the good times, you can recognize that they will come again and that your loss of sense of self in that clinical depression will pass. My father used to say, Kevin, this too shall pass. He also was fond of saying, Kevin, you come a long way from under the Golden Gate Bridge, and so you can find that anchor, Vonnie, where you come a long way since when and remind yourself of that when you're going through it, then, my friend, you can get past it.
Justin Baldoni:
Amazing. Amazing advice, man. Jamie, this is a tough one, Jamie wrote my brother died of suicide last year and I feel so guilty. How do I keep my head up?
Kevin Hines:
Hmm. Jamie, I'll say this first, that guilt does not belong to you. Your brother didn't die because of you. Your brother didn't die in spite of you. He died because of an epic and lethal amount of emotional pain. And that had nothing to do with you. When you can accept that, you can move forward. Now I'll say this, we ask the question when someone dies by suicide, I had 10 people in my life, that's .... suicide. We asked ourselves the question why, that is the wrong question to ask. We must ask ourselves how do we look to the living and move forward? Not onward? It's too hard to move on from a suicide, I don't believe it's possible, I'll be honest with you. We're always going to feel it. We're always going to know it. It's always going to hurt. But we can find a way to look to those who still remain and move forward through the pain to find hope at the end, of the light at the end of the tunnel. And if you don't see beauty in the next person you meet, you're not looking hard enough.
Justin Baldoni:
That's amazing advice. I'm going to, you know, I had a first cousin who took his own life when I was 20, 21 and it was my aunt's only son. And it just she's been holding that for for all these years. And that's really good advice, man. I appreciate that. And Jamie, I hope, I hope you, you heard that, that's not on you and that pain is not yours. So Tonya actually said, what are some simple techniques to stop a panic attack? I'm assuming that breathing technique is helpful. My therapist, actually, I asked him this question, and I'm curious what you think about it, is one, he essentially said, try to have one because you can't, right?
Kevin Hines:
No, no you can't.
Justin Baldoni:
What are, what are some of your thoughts around, like boom, a panic attack hits 3:30 in the morning she wakes up or Tonya has one. What do you do when you're in the middle of that panic state?
Kevin Hines:
The first thing is the breathing work, but there's another thing you can do. You can do a grounding technique, and this grounding technique is proven to work for people who have hallucinations, panic attacks and anxiety issues. My doctor taught it to me, I utilize this all the time. Do this with me, OK? Put your hands up in front of your face. Hands in front of your face, OK?
Justin Baldoni:
OK.
Kevin Hines:
All right, now, can you see my hands, Justin?
Justin Baldoni:
Uh yes.
Kevin Hines:
And I can see yours. OK.
Justin Baldoni:
Yes.
Kevin Hines:
They're not hallucinations. They're real, right?
Justin Baldoni:
Yes.
Kevin Hines:
OK, now grasp your hand together in a clasp B motion.
Justin Baldoni:
OK.
Kevin Hines:
Now go back and forth. Feel the weight and the brunt of the palm against itself.
Justin Baldoni:
OK.
Kevin Hines:
Now, the idea here is that you are solely focusing on your hands weight against itself. And over time, you tighten the grip. Not so it hurts. But so you really feel it. You feel that grip. What this is doing as you're doing the breathing techniques simultaneously is bringing your focus onto the grip and the intensity of the grip as opposed to the panic.
Justin Baldoni:
Wow.
Kevin Hines:
And you bring it back down. Bring it back down when you're done doing about 30 of those breaths and 30 of those hand motions and your mind has now focused solely on it because you're looking at your hands, you're not looking at anything else.
Justin Baldoni:
Yeah.
Kevin Hines:
And you're, and you're absolutely bringing your body and your mind to a calm when this is going on and it might feel goofy, it might look goofy to somebody else. But that doesn't matter. You do this for yourself because you want to keep yourself sane and it's going to help you.
Justin Baldoni:
And it works.
Kevin Hines:
It works a lot. I utilize it when I have hallucinations, when I see things that don't exist to anyone with me. The reason I can recognize that their hallucinations and not the reality I live in, and not the reality everybody else lives in, is because I say to myself, you know, for example, I have, I used to have a hallucination where I would see a man in a corner with a butcher knife and I thought he was coming get me. This would happen at speeches. It would happen all the time. And I realized through this coping technique and the breathing that if I was at a speech where this guy was in the far corner, I would say to myself, he is not in our collective reality. He is in a distorted reality and he cannot hurt me. And that's another coping technique for people who you have, nobody's asked, but for the folks out there who live with hallucinatory episodes, which are very, very common. You know, this is one of the things you can do. You can do this grasping of the hand and bring yourself to that breath work and the dual grasping out of such struggling times.
Justin Baldoni:
And I'm assuming if it will work in such an extreme situation, it'll work in a, and maybe just for someone that's having anxiety like as an example for me. There are some mornings I wake up or my wife and I talk about it and just, whoa, I feel so heavy, I feel that in my stomach, it's not a panic attack, but it's uncomfortable. And it's like, you know, it's like when you've had too much coffee, you're like, oh, is that something that could help, that you think will just help, even in a lesser version of a panic attack? Or?
Kevin Hines:
Yeah, it's meant to cover the levels, the gamut. It's really something that can help a lot of people with a lot of different variations of panic and anxiety.
Justin Baldoni:
What's been really helping me recently for what I've been going through, and I told you a little bit about it, but I'm somebody who had, you know, I go a mile a minute and I'm always just thinking and sometimes accidentally running from whatever I'm feeling. And I'm, I'm a hyper creative, and I found that it's hard for me to just sit cross legged and meditate for 10 minutes or 15 minutes or 20 minutes. I've done it. I can do it. But sometimes afterwards, I don't feel as refreshed as I want to. Prayer is great for me, but this like, I'm somebody that my body helps me get into my spirit and what I found was cold exposure and like, you know, even taking a cold shower forces me physiologically into a similar focus that this does. It's like a, I have no choice but to be aware of my breath. I have no choice but to be aware of the cold that's coming all over my body, right, that's just touching everywhere and you have to relax through breath. And that's like my version of this recently. And it's been, it's been really life-changing for me. Just in the last two and a half months, I've noticed my happiness level increasing, and again it's not just because of the cold, there are physical physiological benefits to the cold, but it's the mental benefits that I've noticed. So it's, so it's kind of my version of like forcing like the extreme version of forcing myself into like, oh, I could have just done this, but like the cold is also really helpful for me.
Kevin Hines:
We know that cold water and cold exposure is something that's worked for a lot of people. Look at the Wim Hof method and everything like that. There's, there's truth to be told in all that science, and that's fantastic. So find what works for you. But one thing I recommend is build an arsenal of tools to put in your toolbox to fight your mental health problems, whatever they may be. If you don't want to adhere to the idea that there are mental illnesses, and if you call mental health issues or mental health condition something different, that's fine. We're not going to tell you what or how to think. The recommendation is to find the reputable, proven forms of therapies and treatments that work for the most amount of people and start to align them up with your daily activities, and your daily life and building that routine and regimen that benefits you. Every one of these things may not help you, but you're going to find the right ones to do, and that's going to be amazing.
Justin Baldoni:
Hmm. I love that. Let's go to a couple more questions. Sarah says I suffer from similar mental health illnesses as you, Kevin, and even though I'm on a strong treatment regimen, I still struggle with suicide thoughts from time to time. It says if my medicines are wearing off for a little while and I have to fight for my life against my own mind, is this normal and how can I combat it? Because I'm afraid I can't live the rest of my life this way?
Kevin Hines:
Oh wow. Sarah, first of all, thank you for writing in and sharing your truth. We really appreciate it. That's the first thing. You know, Sarah, I live with chronic and regular thoughts of ending my life, but I'm never going to do it because I saw what it did to those who love me with my attempt. And I got to see that firsthand because of my survival. Now, with what you're going through, Sarah, you don't need guilt. You don't need a guilt trip. What you need is, love, you need to have self-love. And when you are thinking of suicide, when the meds wearing off and you're feeling that low, I want you to look in the mirror and say, Sarah, I love you, Sarah, you're amazing, Sarah, you're the greatest, Sarah, you're the best. I want you to repeat that over and over again, and I want you to say, Sarah, you matter. Sarah, you are worth it, you are worthy and say that you love yourself. Sarah, if you look at every faith that's ever been created, we've got recite, repeat and believe that's what every faith is truly based upon. Reciting the prayers. Repeating the prayers. Believing what is said in the prayers. So transition that Sarah to your life and your well-being and your better well-being, your better brain health. When you look in a mirror and you recite positive affirmations to yourself that are solid, concrete and real, and you negate and push away the negative affirmations you feel every day and you alienate them from your mind, and you only focus on the positive and you recite and repeat, Sarah, you will eventually believe it. When you do that, you're going to change your life. And that's how I get through my chronic suicidal thinking, is I go upstairs, I go to my bathroom mirror and I say good things to myself so I can survive the day because I deserve this life until my natural end. And so do you, Sarah. And so does everybody on this feed who's thinking of suicide ever in their life.
Justin Baldoni:
Can you just walk me through a little bit, you know, this is my ignorance, but what is because chronic suicidal thoughts. So these are coming from a place that you are not creating, right? And tell me the right language for it. Is it a mental illness or are we calling it that? What is the right thing to, to call it for somebody that like myself who maybe doesn't have what you have? First of all, what's it called? And second of all, what does that look like?
Kevin Hines:
So it used to be called regular suicidal thinking, and then people started talking about this chronic suicidal ideation, and it's something that I live with on a regular basis. You know, I live in a place where I'm regimented, I'm routined, I do really well mentally for the most part. But it's been a long journey. But I still have these suicidal ideations and thoughts that bring me to a dark place. So people who have thoughts of ending their lives, coming in and out of their life on a regular basis, daily, weekly, monthly, even hourly, they would be called people with chronic suicidal thinking and the DSM, the diagnostic tool for mental health. The newest one is considering putting this into the diagnostic manual for mental health conditions as its own separate condition. There have been considering that for a couple of years now, which is terrifying, Justin, because it means that so many people have it. That's the sad part. We live in a society that resiliency has been broken down. We live in a society where people turn to self-harm more often than ever before. In the last few years, the suicide rate has increased thirty-five percent, and it's the second leading cause of death amongst 15 to 20 year olds. It's terrifying, but what we can do about it is amazing the amount of tools we can place in our toolbox to combat regular suicidal thinking, there's a plethora of them. So I'll give you an example just to ask the question how do you break through these thoughts and what are they? Every day I wake up, I use blue ... light box technology to build my better brain health. That's the first thing I do before I do anything else, then I will.
Justin Baldoni:
You mean blue light box?
Kevin Hines:
Blue light box technologies, somebody that was diagnosed, pardon me, it was recommended by my doctor, so you have to get it recommended by a doctor. Blue light box technology is this thing you put to the side of your eyes that emits this blue led light, you only do it for a certain amount of time. You put it on a timer if you go overboard, if you have bipolar disorder, it makes you manic, so you can't do that. I learned that the hard way. So you have to do it for a certain amount of time that's safe. Twenty minutes is mine. I do that while I'm doing my morning emails, and that actually helps regulate my mood throughout the day. The light goes into my eyes, it affects my brain and helps regulate my mood. It's amazing. It's something that they're putting in to brand new psych ward and psych hospitals. They're outlaying the ceilings with these blue light boxes that are helping people in their wards be more mood efficient and be better brain well. So I utilize that. They also use it in Japan at the railways because they had so many suicides there. It's been helping a lot there. And so I use that and then I will go a little bit into my routine. Well, first I'll do my breathing and I'll do my blue light box on my emails, eat my breakfast, and then I will make sure to go do my morning workout routine, or I'll go for a walk with my wife, and from there I get into my work emails even more, get into some efforts to do, maybe I'll do speaking engagement online, things like that. And then right before lunch, I do my breathing again, have my lunch and then I'll go and do some more work and then right before bed, I'll do my breathing and I'll rest my mind and enjoy time with my wife. But I want to just give you that rundown on my routine to show people that if you're having these chronic suicidal ideations, A, you need to tell someone close to you about them, especially if you have been keeping them from people for a long time. And the reason you tell someone to empathize with you is the same reason we tell people about our struggling, a pain shared as a pain halved. Because when you tell someone who can recognize your pain, even if it's a crisis counselor, if you feel you have no one at home to talk to or no one's safe to talk to, which happens, we have people all over this nation, this globe, living in bad conditions, living with abuse, living with domestic abuse, home abuse, whatever the situation may be, and you need to talk to someone, you can text the crisis text line. You can text our foundation keyword CNQR to 741741 the crisis text line, that stands for Conquer Your Pain. C stands for courage to talk about your mental health, N stands for Normalize the conversation, Q stands for ask the question to someone in pain. Are you suicidal and have you made a plan to take your life because it doesn't put the thought in someone's mind, gives them permission to speak on their pain, and R stands for recovery because we are living proof. And so when you text CNQR to 741741, the algorithm collects the data. So we know how that tag word has helped people. And I say that to those of you who are at home considering suicide regularly, you don't have to live in that moment forever. You can get past it and you can get past it every time. And that's what I do, Justin, I get past it every time. I turn to my wife, I tell her, I'm going through it.
Justin Baldoni:
Yeah, I was going to actually ask you as someone who's married, how do you decide how much to lean on your wife or your partner when you're having these types of thoughts? Because obviously, I imagine that part of the suffering that you go through is not wanting to be a burden, right? Like I imagine that part of the suicide ideation and these depressive thoughts come from not wanting to burden people. And in some ways, I can imagine that for many people, suicide is a, is a way out and a selfless act, right? They think, oh, I'm going to do them a favor by taking my life. So there's an element of selflessness. So for people that take their lives, I feel like this compassion that there were many thought they were trying to do a good thing in some ways. So how do you wrestle with the burden of like, I don't want to burden my partner with this yet at the same time, I need my partner.
Kevin Hines:
So I used to believe that if I told anybody about my pain mentally, that I was a burden to everyone around me, and then I asked them what they thought, and all of them informed me that if I was thinking these things again, to please tell them because I was no burden and they would do everything in their power to keep me safe if I was in fact suicidal. So I turn to my wife every time. I am a firm believer in being honest about your pain and being vulnerable in your pain. When you're vulnerable in your pain, you can defeat it. If you allow the pain to defeat you, that's only because you're not letting the pain free. And when you keep it inside, it's only going to fester, bubble, burst and grow and then explode.
Justin Baldoni:
I wonder if that's why more men kill themselves than women. It's because men historically are not good at letting things out or reaching out for help when they're feeling down. That's why men have a hard time going to therapy. They have a hard time telling another man that they're struggling or that they're suffering in some ways. And God forbid, you're having suicidal thoughts, the last thing you want to do is tell someone else, as a man, you feel like you, as men were supposed to conquer it, we're supposed to be strong enough and like brave enough, and tough enough to be able to handle these thoughts. Is that why maybe the, the rate of suicide is higher in men, you think?
Kevin Hines:
Oh my gosh, Justin, you just you hit the nail on the head. Think about all the olden days, right, you know, think about Jamestown. We live in a place where it was the hunter gatherer. The male hunted the food, gathered the food, and he was supposed to be tough in all aspects, if he wasn't tough he got ran over by the other men. If he wasn't the man of the house, he wasn't valued. Let's look at suicide in the history of suicide for a minute when someone in those times died by suicide, a male, a husband with kids and a wife died by suicide they put his open casket in the fork of the road with a stake to his heart. They took all their worldly possessions and took them from those individuals. So the stigma and discrimination against those men who were suicidal has extended the span of time.
Justin Baldoni:
So like made that man an example for everyone else to see.
Kevin Hines:
You made the man the example. If you die by suicide, you were a coward and you are less than and that's where the burden came from. That's where you became the burden on your family because they didn't have any money left because their worldly possessions were all taken from them and they were left on the streets. So this is where this all came from. This is very historical and it's not something everyone understands or knows. And so we have to be the ones, Justin, to be men that are somewhat, you know, you're an actor, you're in the public eye, I speak around the world and people see me and talk to me about my story. We have to be the ones to break down those barriers and say no more, no more are we men going to sit idly by and watch our fellow men and women and children die by suicide at an alarming rate without doing something about it and saying that we love them, we care for them, and that they are no burden to us, they are important to us, and they're valued.
Justin Baldoni:
Hmm. Thank you for sharing that man. All right. Just a couple more. There was a lot of questions and we can't get to all of them, but this one's interesting. This from Virginia. She's, she says, how can I best help a family member who is battling depression and seems to be shutting the world out?
Kevin Hines:
Virginia Hi, how are you? I've got, I've got a really good suggestion for you. That's working for a lot of people. It's a concrete thing you can do tomorrow. We know that one of the greatest tools to someone suffering mentally is the written word. There is a man named Jerry Model, who passed away, may he rest in peace, who was on a board with me some years ago promoting the suicide prevention net at the Golden Gate Bridge. And Jerry Model was a psychiatrist for the 70s for the VA system and when people would get out of psych units, he did a study of 50 percent of patients that would receive a caring letter, something that said, we care about you, we love you, we're just thinking about you, want to know how you're doing. And those 50 percent that didn't get the care letter. And they found out that the 50 percent that got to carrying letter stayed alive and well and they got letter after letter after letter and the 50 percent that didn't get that letter, more of them died by suicide or attempted than the ones that actually got those letters. And so the mental health community has transitioned this idea of letter into a five part series. Get three to five individuals who love the person you're talking about, Virginia, to write a letter type it or write it. Make sure it's very legible, that has five things, complete compassion in one sentence, make a sentence about compassion, a sense about empathy, about what they're going through, a sense about unconditional love and how much they matter to you, a sense about care and how much you care about their well-being, and a sense about the signs, symptoms and triggers that you see in them that they're very unwell and that you're worried about, five things, five things that you put together in one letter that you get three to five people to write the similar letter, it comes from the three to five people that are most important in their lives, and you put them in envelopes and you mail them as a package to this individual. So here's the reason if we just tell the suicidal individual or the individual with depression or mental illness that it's going to get better, that goes in one ear and out the other when they're in pain. But by sending them these letters, you are showing them how valued they are and physically showing someone how important they are and what you see them going through when they're in denial is much more powerful than in one ear and out the other. One thing that a group in Canada did was they created the caring package, a package filled with all of the person's favorite things. Now imagine combining the two a carrying package with carrying letters, sending that all together. You're going to make their day. They're going to understand how valued they are. And then you can open up the conversation and say, let's talk about your mental health and get you to safety.
Justin Baldoni:
Amazing. Let's get to the last few here. Amy says our community is working to continue mental health services via online formatting. What else should we do to prepare or prevent suicide prevention in our community? Suicide numbers have continued to increase, and our local SP coalition is trying to be visible and using creative ways to address SP, suicide prevention. But we are concerned about the impact of isolation, particularly with kids being out of school.
Kevin Hines:
That's a great question. One of the things you can do that that can really be beneficial is go to the American Association of Suicidology and look up the guidelines for helping communities in pain. There is a great deal of information on how to benefit communities going through suicidal crisis. Also, there's a couple of the websites I would love to put out there, just because they're really helping a lot of people save.org, S A V E, suicide awareness voices of education, they are tremendously helpful with getting communities rallied into, bring in programs and to help people, and they have a lot of free tool kits for people in pain and the people that love them. And then International Bipolar Foundation, just because I have bipolar disorder and I know a lot of people out there have bipolar disorder, they might want to have this information, IBPF.org, is extremely helpful for families who don't know what the heck to do with their child or loved one with bipolar disorder. It is really something that can help you find something very valuable to work within your family's dichotomy to get them to better brain health. You know, there's a lot of resources out there, just we have to be looking for them and ready to take them in and ready to utilize them like the tools we gave today, the breathing, the coping mechanism with the hands, for everybody out there in that kind of pain or those who love the people that are just know that we're all going to fight with you to be here tomorrow and every day after that. And that's why I'm wearing this shirt, be here tomorrow and every day after that, you are valued, you are loved and you matter.
Justin Baldoni:
I think that's a great way to wrap this up, my man. Is there anything else? Is there one more thing you would want to say to somebody? Is there anything in particular or anything personal that you want to just say to somebody who maybe just needs it right now?
Kevin Hines:
Yes, I've been through hell in my life and back many times. And every one of those times I thought I was a goner. I thought there was no way I was coming back from this. And when I recognize that I didn't have to let my pain defeat me, but I could let it build me, brick by brick, from the ground up. I realized that it would never defeat me, and I would never allow it to bring me to end my own life. And I would never, ever attempt again, no matter the pain I was in. So to everybody watching right now with whatever you are going through, I love you and I want you to stay. So please be here tomorrow. Please find a way to love yourself and recite to the people that leave every day, how truly amazing and gifted you really are.
Justin Baldoni:
I'm going to echo that, be here tomorrow. Kevin, you're the man. I so appreciate you taking the time to do this. Kevin, I love you. Thank you for your this.
Kevin Hines:
Thank you for having me. Love you, man.
Kevin Hines:
Margaret and I love sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. For more content and inspiration, go to KevinHinesStory.com or visit us on all social media at KevinHinesStory or on youtube.com/KevinHines.
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