The Mission After

Mike Bledsoe (00:04)
Welcome to the Mission After podcast, where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host, Mike Bledsoe, and today's guest is Garrett Biss, a retired Marine Corps pilot, addiction recovery coach, and TEDx speaker. After retiring in 2015, Garrett faced anxiety, depression, and displacement, turning to alcohol until suicidal ideation spurred change. Mentoring helped him overcome addiction, rediscover his identity,

and reignite his passion for life. He co -founded an addiction recovery residence, created a recovery program based on positive psychology, and developed Valiant Path, specifically for veterans. Garrett will share his journey, work with veterans, and the role of coaching in mental health. Before we dive in, download our free guide, The 10 Surprising Military Habits That Are Sabotaging Your Career and Your Life at themissionafter .org.

Now let's get into the conversation with Garrett Dis.

Mike Bledsoe (01:08)
All right, Garrett, we got to connect a little bit before the show here and sounds like we have some things in common and I'm looking forward to having this conversation. Someone who's taken some time to reflect on themselves and go through their own personal development journey and now sharing that with other veterans. Real pleasure having you on the show here.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (01:31)
I'm grateful to be here, Mike. Thank you so much. I'm excited to connect with the mission after audience and share some things and see what comes up in our conversation.

Mike Bledsoe (01:41)
Beautiful. What caused you to get into the work that you're in now and tell us what that work is.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (01:50)
Yeah, so I work with, specifically with veterans in a couple of capacities, I guess with and for veterans. So I work with veterans, specifically ones that have struggled with mental health challenges or struggle with substance use disorder or various addictions to reconnect with the best version of themselves and really experience the life that they want. And I do that by introducing some different things that I've been introduced to in my journey and taking a...

and we can dig into this a little bit more, but it's kind of taking a different approach too. So I understand coaching as if you're working with somebody from a coaching, which is the opposite of a clinical context, that if you're coaching with somebody, you're trying to help them identify the good things that are a part of them already and leverage those things to get to a better place. So that can compliment, you know, people that are seeking the clinical path and maybe under some other kind of treatment.

but I think it's a really critical part. And I've worked with a lot of individuals in addiction recovery and I've found that those things that they've been introduced to, maybe it helps them mitigate one thing about them that they don't like or remove one substance or behavior from their life. But if you don't continue that journey, if you don't find the additional support and continue to grow, then too many individuals are left just white -knuckling a life that's a hard existence or white -knuckling to try to survive with some of the challenges of the emotional challenges that they're facing. And that's really...

you know, sad and unfortunate. And I don't think anybody's journey should stop there. There's a lot more that can be done. So I also work for veterans in the context that I share. I speak a lot with organizations around the country, usually mental health professionals to help them better understand the journey of a veteran and some of the unique challenges that veterans face, especially in transition that creates or exacerbates a lot of the challenges or problems that veterans have.

Mike Bledsoe (03:36)
Yeah. The, the, the distinction between coaching and therapy, I think is a little bit of what you're getting at there. My fiance, she's a, she's a therapist. So, licensed therapist with the whole clinical route and I'm a coach and we've done a lot of work together now. And one of the things we've really identified is that, like the

The way I've seen it is a therapist is a more of a feminine approach and a coach can be more of a masculine approach. Whereas a lot of times in a therapeutic scenario, the client is leading the conversation and it can be like, well, what's been happening for you the last week? And being a lot of reflection, a lot of open space and a lot of validation of the experience and what's happening for you right now.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (04:20)
Hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (04:33)
And a coaching environment is a much more, I call it masculine in that it's, it's more about calling someone forward. Where a lot of times, at least the way I, I coach is, you know, we're, we're, we're painting a picture of the vision of the future for them to a degree, something they may not be able to see. And so, I think having both of those be present, they're very complimentary in that way. We need,

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (05:00)
Absolutely.

Mike Bledsoe (05:01)
both of those being present.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (05:03)
Certainly, yeah, and I always try to be careful. I'm certainly not downing any kind of therapy. And I've certainly seen a lot of therapists in different kinds of modalities I've been introduced to. And to your point, I think they can complement each other extremely well. For me, I've seen some people that have not had that coaching complement and are struggling because they're not OK. So I've lessened the things that are bad about me. We've diagnosed some things, and we've dealt with some of the symptoms of what these defects or deficits are. But they haven't been led forward.

Maybe they're helped to get out of the gutter, but they're not helped to take a stroll up that mountain and get to the best place that they can be.

Mike Bledsoe (05:41)
Yeah, I think a lot of therapy, and I'm not speaking about all therapy because there's a lot of different versions of it, but a lot of it's to get someone to baseline. and I know that as a veteran, we're not really happy with just baseline. We want to perform. Right. And so that's beautiful. I,

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (05:55)
Yeah, right. That's right. And the other thing I understand the difference is, you know, from if two individuals sitting in a room and one's a clinician, the other is a client, in many ways or many times, the clinician is the one that's the expert on whatever the mental health challenge or the mental challenges that they're facing. They've been trained for it. They're schooled in it. They have the diagnostic manuals. They can figure it out. They're the expert. And they help the client better understand that and experience some growth in the context of that.

the challenges they're facing. I understand as a coach that it's really the client shows up that's the expert in their life and kind of what they want. And as a coach, I can help provide some frameworks, some tools, some resources to make progress on where the client wants to get to. It's not me deriving or telling the client where they should be or what they should want from life or what their life should look like. It's, hey, you tell me where you want to go and then I'm going to share some tools with you and help hold you accountable so you can make that progress and become that version of yourself that I know you can become.

Mike Bledsoe (06:55)
Yeah. I remember, I don't know if we mentioned it already in the show or if it was just before the call, but, you were speaking a bit about addiction recovery. And, if you would have asked me when I got out of the Navy five years after I got in the Navy, if I had any issues around substances and I would have said no way, but 18, you know, I've been out for 18 years now and I can look at the first eight years of being out of the Navy and there was definitely substance abuse.

present primarily with alcohol. And so, what do you tell somebody who may, they go, well, I just have a, you know, a couple of drinks a night. It's not really a problem or, you know, they may not be aware of it. What are some signs of that?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (07:41)
Well, I think first and foremost, like I'm not for or against any substances out there. I don't think it's the substance or the behavior that's the issue, but it's what does it do for the individual or what are the other complications that it creates for them? So it's not, again, you know, so with my coaching hat on, I'm not a clinician. It's not for me to say, you know, that somebody should or should not be doing something or indulging in something that they are, but what are the costs, what are the consequences of it? Are there things in your life that you're not experiencing or is there growth taking place that

or not taking place that you want and you have an obstacle that you've brought into your life that's preventing you from experiencing what you really want in your life. Because I understand that addiction, it's a behavior or a mechanism that's coping for or dealing with something that's not addressed. So let's help bring those things to the surface and address them. And that's why I said for somebody who started a recovery journey, maybe their first step was removing a substance or behavior from their life. But if that's all that you do, if you don't continue that process of growth and

moving beyond or healing whatever those wounds were that you were trying to ineffectively address with your substance or behavior, then in my eyes, in my perspective, you're not getting better and you're not experiencing the life that you could.

Mike Bledsoe (08:53)
Mm -hmm, not maximizing yet. So yeah, what brought you to this work?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (09:00)
I guess a little bit of my own experience through it and then understanding the challenges and kind of understanding what it's like to.

face a lot of those, you know, the symptoms like not knowing what your purpose is, not really having a good sense of self -worth, not having that drive, not, you know, and I think you've talked about this before, but feeling that loss of connection, feeling, you know, being in a room surrounded by people, but still feeling alone, still feeling misunderstood, not feeling like anybody really knows who you are or what you're about and not feeling the sense of belonging or the benefits of that connection.

not knowing what I was supposed to do with my life. In the military, I enlisted when I was 18. And I say, it's not always easy, but it's very simple. I mean, once you're designated with an MOS, it's pretty self -explanatory what you gotta do to get the next promotion. You know the rhythm of what your career is gonna be like every couple of years. You're gonna move, you're gonna go to a school, you're gonna learn some new skills. It's very simple. When you get out in the civilian world, I've found it to be extremely overwhelming.

I mean, you can do anything that you wanna do. And that can be very, without a strong sense of purpose or a calling, it can be very overwhelming. I've felt that and experienced that. And I am more in touch with some of the symptoms or some of the ways that that negatively affected my life. Not just the way that I felt inside, which was horrible at sometimes, but also the experience that I was having. I remember one time I kinda came to a conclusion that...

I was putting everything that I had into getting and gaining the things that society or that I thought I was supposed to want in my life. You know, you got the nice travel, you got the house, you get the wife, the kid, the nice cars, a nice job, but feeling that I was dead inside. I was like, if I'm putting 110 % of the effort or 100 % of the effort that I have into these things that I thought was supposed to finally give me a safe, you know, satiate that need for happiness and joy and fulfillment in my place in the world, but I'm not getting much of a return on it.

then one of two things is happening. Either this life is just this cruel experience that we're supposed to suffer through and die at the end, or there are some fundamental values and beliefs and understandings about myself and about the world that I had completely gotten wrong, and that's what was leaving me so unfulfilled or having those needs not met. And that's really, I guess, what started my journey was hoping the latter, hoping that we weren't just supposed to come here and suffer through everything until the end, but hoping that maybe there were some...

changes, some like new awarenesses I could have, some values, some beliefs, some new perspective that I could gain that would help lead me to a better place. And that started my journey, you know, my opening up my eyes to trying to find answers to those problems. And as I found answers and began to gain some clarity on those things, then I actually started sharing them with others. I learned this. Have you heard about this before? Or I've been through this process and this really helped. Or I gained this new perspective and this has brought some light into my life.

when sharing that with others and seeing how well it was received and how valuable it could be for other individuals, then I realized that part of my experience, part of my journey was to help myself grow and to experience a better life. But really a bigger part of it was to experience things that I could turn around and share and help make an impact, help reduce other people's pain and suffering so they can experience more joy and happiness and be that version of themselves that they want to be.

Mike Bledsoe (12:20)
Yeah. How long ago did you get out? How long did you serve?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (12:23)
I was in from 99 to 2015 and then I was offered the Terra or early retirement. So I got out in 2015 and very difficult decision right there being afforded an opportunity to get out early. And I'll argue this against anybody. I had the best job in the Marine Corps, which was being a C -130 pilot. To get the opportunity to fly the KC -130s around the world and serve in some awesome ways and do a lot of great missions. But I was given an opportunity to take an early retirement and

I thought my career in the Marine Corps had been pretty awesome up to that point. I was like, at some point they're gonna come back and take some worth from me. And you know how it is when somebody else owns your life and owns what your experience is gonna be. It can be a challenging position to be in. I didn't know if I was gonna be sent off to another school halfway around the world or an IA bullet in some country that I'd never heard of before. So I thought, all right, I've loved it up to this point. Let me go ahead and get out while I'm ahead. So I made that transition out in 2015.

Mike Bledsoe (13:24)
Yeah. What? So you were offered that. Was it a, was it a hard decision or were you, was it like an instant? Yes.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (13:32)
It really was well when I was offered, I say I was offered it. I mean, I submitted the I knew the more admin came out of the message came out from headquarters Marine Corps that my .O .S. had opened up. So I put together a package and I sent it up. Yes, it was very difficult to make that decision. I still remember standing on the side of the of the flight line one day and seeing C -130 flying around and. Coming to the conclusion that. There were some other things I needed to do in my life with some other passions and opportunities I wanted to to engage in.

And also looking at the strain that it had on my family, military service, not sure how much longer my family could endure that. And thought, all right, I've got to make this tough decision and give up something I absolutely love to do the thing that feels more right at the time. So the more admin came out, I sent up my package and I was almost shocked at how quickly it came back with, you've been accepted for retirement, here's your date, good luck. I was like, hold on, we're not even gonna talk about this? Like, you're not even gonna.

Mike Bledsoe (14:28)
Ha!

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (14:28)
You're not even gonna try to talk me down? You're just, I was like, okay, now I see what you think of me. All right, I'm out.

Mike Bledsoe (14:35)
What I love to ask this question of I get I get a variety of answers is what was the first day out like?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (14:46)
It was the first day out, just felt like I was on leave. And it took a couple of weeks to realize like, no, this isn't extended leave. I gotta go figure some things out and get back. But even at that point, the anxiety and a lot of the stress and the depression had really already started to kick in because I was looking to the future and not really sure what that future would entail and where I was supposed to go. Again, I didn't have a monitor calling me saying like, here's your next duty station. This is your report date. It was really up to me.

Having a lot of things that I'm interested in, a lot of passions, it was hard to discern what was the right direction to go. What was fear that was showing up as motivation to go in one direction and what was a true calling? And I have a hard time still to this day, sometimes discerning the difference between an insecurity that's trying to guide me in one direction or the true passion that's calling and pulling me in that direction. But all that stuff started to bubble up pretty quickly.

Mike Bledsoe (15:41)
Mm.

Yeah. There's one thing I, I know that all of us who have served do have is we, we do know what a sense of purpose feels like. And that's a, that's a, that's really a gift, you know, that, that purpose was externally presented to us and we were told we were valuable and

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (15:55)
Mm. That's right.

Mike Bledsoe (16:08)
this was mission critical and important. And that, that's, that's something that I think that as veterans, we have that most civilians, don't understand. So I think that there's a gift in the, I know what a sense of purpose feels like, but I don't know how to generate that internally through myself. And I think a lot of times people go searching for, I think.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (16:22)
Mm, right.

Yes.

Mike Bledsoe (16:34)
to the point you were making end up, okay, is there a job that's going to fulfill this for me? What's the, how, what job am I going to do that's going to do that?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (16:40)
And I think at that transition, I kind of, you're right, absolutely. And I think initially, now that you say this, I think I took for granted the fact that I would derive a sense of purpose from something that I did. I didn't realize that that would be such a void after losing that. So I enlisted when I was 18. So all of my adult life, the only thing I knew myself of was a service member, was as a Marine. And I was driving the sense of purpose and connection and meaning and everything from that. And I...

probably almost took it for granted as I transitioned out, but I wasn't gonna feel that sense of purpose with the next thing I did. And I got into selling houses as a real estate broker for a couple of years when I got out and there's just not the same sense of purpose driving people around to look for their next home. Not to say it's not, you can't drive a sense of purpose from it, but it didn't feel, it didn't kind of align with me and it didn't fulfill that need that I was used to.

Mike Bledsoe (17:33)
Did you also, you know, going, having a family in the military and then getting out a lot of times the, the spouse or the partner is not used to having, the military member around and the military members not used to being around. was there, was there some friction there in the beginning?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (17:54)
In my story now, there wasn't, and that's more of an unfortunate reason because we were already moving towards a divorce and we were separated at that point. So that left me home alone in an empty house with a half -runner's tome and that certainly wasn't a great environment to be in. As you were talking, it reminded me of something. So one thing I often think about or talk about is this kind of dichotomous character that we have. And I'll speak from the Marine perspective, but I'm sure it's similar in a lot of the branches of service. As you're serving, I remember

You know, they, so as Marines, they kind of, they condition us to know that we're super humans, that we're better, that we're stronger, we're faster than everybody else. And it builds up this character and this feeling and this identity, which is necessary, because if you're going to go on the battlefield and you're going to fight our nation's enemies, you really need to know and believe that you are stronger and more capable. And there's certainly some truth to it. And you look at our military forces.

But I also remember that I never felt good enough as a Marine. And by that, I mean, there was always somebody that could run faster, do more pull -ups, had shinier boots, was getting, you know, had a higher cutting score in promotion. So I always felt the striving to be a better version of myself. So there was always something that was kind of pulling me down, like the self -deprecation that was pulling me down, like, Eric, you should be better. You should, you know, you should do these things better. And at the same time, it was balanced out by this knowing that, hey, I'm...

putting on the uniform, I'm still serving my country, I'm bringing such value to the community through the service that I'm doing. When you transition out of the military, I lost that sense of positive identity that came from putting on the uniform every day. But I didn't lose that tendency for that, those self -deprecation of that constant drive to try to be a better version and refined version of myself. So the thing that was lifting me up goes away, but the thing that was pulling me down, at least emotionally and mentally.

didn't go away. So there's an adjustment period there and a shock of dealing with that.

Mike Bledsoe (19:44)
interesting. So you, you were going through a divorce. You go home, you're by yourself. imagine some negative, thought, thought forms popped in, some, some belief systems started showing up that may not have served you. what was, what was the point where you felt like you made a shift? I mean, you got into real estate and then

What was happening in the real estate over that time and what was the big shift for you?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (20:14)
Yeah, that.

Yeah, that wasn't filling a void really. It was just another thing that I could pour myself into and try to, I guess, distract. You know, so if you're looking at things that you use to distract or numb. So, and this is something I understand a lot of veterans faces that they go so gung -ho in on what the next thing is that some individuals, they struggle right away when they get out of the military. Other people, it's after two years, after three years when they're not moving again, when they're not getting the next PCS or...

Mike Bledsoe (20:44)
Mmm.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (20:44)
when they're so poured into something and then realize as they're exhausted that it's not really fulfilling that void or providing that sense of meaning. So for some, for a lot of veterans, it's kind of a delayed sense of something that they're contending with. Myself, I was back in school, I was getting a master's degree down at Auburn through an executive program they had. So my focus was on that and studying and selling real estate on the side or really as my main source of income at that point.

So I poured myself into it a lot and then it's kind of slowly became clear to me that it wasn't providing that sense of purpose. I kept getting into a darker and darker place. And as I shared in my recent TEDx talk, there was a point I got to where I didn't know how close I was to crossing that line. I knew that a lot of veterans each day were taking their own lives and I didn't know what it looked like to be one day out or two weeks out or a month out, but not being able to say that for certain I wasn't going to do it.

really scared me. He kind of put me in a bad place and it came to the point where I had a friend that came over to visit one weekend and I asked him to take away all the guns from my house as he left and fortunately he did that. And again, not that I thought that I was gonna end my life that day and I didn't know how much worse it could get, but I wasn't able to say with certainty. So that kind of, it was an awakening, I guess, a bit for me and really kind of shocked me a bit.

Mike Bledsoe (21:45)
Mm.

Yeah, that's a high level of awareness. I think for any veteran to say, I'm going to take the guns out of my house. That's a, that's a pretty big deal.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (22:17)
Yeah.

And I understand there's some organizations now that kind of help facilitate that a little bit because nobody wants to, especially veterans, like you don't want to give away your guns, but maybe you'll let somebody borrow them for a little while or somebody can hold them for a bit until you feel you're in a better place. So it's not, you have to go out and sell them and divest yourself of something that's so close and so meaningful.

Mike Bledsoe (22:31)
Right.

Hmm. Hmm. So the, yeah, I see a lot of vets do this because when I look at the stats on, you know, what kind of money that veterans make, compared to the civilian counterparts, it's actually a bit higher, you know, for, for the ones that are working, right? It's, you know, like the, the homings homeless population amongst veterans is, is higher than the average, but also for the ones that are working in our have found themselves in a career, they tend to

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (23:00)
Alright. Right.

Mike Bledsoe (23:11)
perform better than the civilian counterparts, for, for many reasons, which I think are obvious, and still are having a really tough time. It's, I think that the, the, how we poured ourselves into what we were doing in the military, we tried to do that into the civilian sector and then we end up performing well there, but we end up, I know for myself and for a lot of people, there's this idea that

When I get out, I'll have more time for me. I'll do all the things that I, that I was good, you know, I was going to do, I was going to spend more time with family. I was going to do this. But when I got out, the, that actually didn't happen. It ended up being, I ended up just pouring myself in my work. And I see that, I see that a lot with like the veteran influencers in the space. If you follow any of these influencers that are, that are, you know, they're running this big company or they're doing this or that, and you get a peak.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (24:02)
Mm. Certainly.

Mike Bledsoe (24:11)
behind the curtain, you're like, you just took the same habits from the military and poured it into this and the everything else is still suffering.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (24:20)
And that's it, it's the habits that you carry out. You might think that it would be different, but if you've never been conditioned or if you never adopted those new habits or those new behaviors, they don't just automatically show up. And in the military, when we're kind of go, go, go all the time, dealing with all the extra billets and all the extra jobs and responsibilities that we have, we can...

it can be very uncomfortable when you try to even sit down for 30 minutes, because you know you have so many more things to kind of get to. So as you transition out of the military, if you do lose a lot of those responsibilities and those things calling for your time, it can still be very uncomfortable to be sitting still and not doing something. I know it took me a number of years before I could even enjoy a weekend without thinking about the to -do list that was piling up on my desk. So I might force myself to get away from the office, but I wasn't.

really there, I wasn't really connecting, I wasn't really enjoying the experiences that I was doing. That took a number of years to move beyond with deliberate effort, you know, with an intention to move beyond that and to realize and come to the conclusion that there's always gonna be more to do and I'm not gonna get everything done and that's okay, I'll just do what I can each day and keep moving forward.

Mike Bledsoe (25:28)
Yeah. Especially with certain types of work. I know as a, when you're in real estate, there's a level level of autonomy. I think that's another thing that we really desire when we get out is, man, if I could get, have more autonomy, that would be great. But, I went into being a business owner pretty quick after getting out. if you're in real estate, if you're an agent then or broker, you're, you're really an entrepreneur too. You make your own hours. You can.

You can really pour yourself into it. there's no one there to tell you to that you've done enough.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (26:02)
Right, right, nobody ever will. And there's always going to be some new client, either you have a list of new clients that they want everything from you. They want all of your time, they want every minute. They want to call you at 6 .30 on a Sunday night and you answer your phone or send you an email at 11 o 'clock, 11 p on a Tuesday and they want a response right away. Or you don't have any clients and then you're...

Mike Bledsoe (26:05)
No.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (26:25)
your feast or famine kind of mentality and you're going out to do anything you can to try to get more clients, feeling like you're not doing enough because you don't have enough clients. So it takes, you know, there's some agents that are really successful at it and have developed good businesses and they have both the leads and maybe they help in the support and they can create a balanced life, but you don't see that very often. It's not a common thing.

Mike Bledsoe (26:46)
No. What? So so you asked for your friend to take the guns out of your house. What did you do after that?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (26:55)
So right about the time I was finished with my terminal leave, I went to a week long retreat called The Breakthrough to Success, which was put on by a guy by the name of Jack Canfield. He was a co -creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul, wrote a number of bestselling books on success and self -esteem. And through this week long retreat that I was on, I began to kind of peel back the curtain on some of the reasons for the voids that I was feeling inside. And I think that's really what the...

the catalyst was for me to start seeing and showing up differently and start doing some things that really started to help bring clarity to, but also fill that void. The thing that was unique about it was we really started in the earlier part of the week digging into either ways that we weren't showing up authentically or beliefs that weren't serving us, beliefs about ourselves that weren't serving us. There was a lot of time spent on

removing false or limiting beliefs that weren't true about us and things that we're creating or exacerbating pain in our own life, but then also getting back to who we really were and looking at those things that we naturally, that we authentically enjoy and what can we do to bring some more of that into our life? And it was, you know, that was the first, my first kind of entree in our entrance into this personal development space and understanding how much there was to.

the coaching and some of the applied positive psychology practices and tools and things that can help us overcome some of those challenges and peel back the curtains and live that better version of our life instead of always exacerbating those pains or thinking negatively or doing continuing behaviors that are creating more pain and suffering in our life. What can we do to change that? What are some things that we can do to get clear about who we are, get clear about what we want in our life, what we want our life to look like?

and then finding those resources in us to start creating that as our reality.

Mike Bledsoe (28:52)
Yeah. I remember, it took me eight years of being out before I would step into any personal development stuff. And I was invited multiple times to this thing called landmark forum. are you familiar? And yeah, I,

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (29:07)
Yeah, a little bit, yes.

Mike Bledsoe (29:13)
I got invited multiple times and I was like, that sounds stupid. I was familiar with the chicken soup for the soul. And I was like, that's, you know, that's not cool. the, the chicken soup for the soul guy. That's, that's for other people. That's not for me. and after eight years of struggling, I, I was, I attended a mastermind for business. I go, I'm going to get better at business.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (29:25)
Yeah.

Right.

Mike Bledsoe (29:42)
And I show up to this mastermind and most of it, at least half was all personal development related. And that's when I really got that my business was going, it is how well it's doing as a reflection of where I'm at personally, my personal growth. And I, I

gave into that and I go, okay, well, I'm going to, I'm going to check out this personal development stuff. I ended up meeting, Jack Canfield and I was like, that's the chicken soup. Yeah. The chicken soup is the soul guy is interesting. And he was just not what I expected, from, cause I had only seen the cover of the books. I, you know, the, the, the name of that, of those books wouldn't necessarily appeal to a

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (30:11)
Is that right?

Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (30:31)
military veterans like, okay, I dedicated my life to putting on a uniform and going and fighting. I'm going to go hang out with this chicken soup dude. I don't, I don't think so. So

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (30:42)
It's funny how you mentioned that, that what drew you into it initially, cause that's the way a lot of the positioning and the marketing that he does around a lot of his seminars, a lot of the work that he does was, you know, come learn how to double, you know, double your time off, double your income or 10 extra income, you know, grow the business that you want. And then you get there and he's like, you know, let's, let's write, let's work on your self -esteem. Let's write a list of wins and successes that you've had in your life. And it's like, no, no, no, I want to learn how to get more leads and I want to learn how to like generate greater revenues from, from the work that I'm doing. And it's.

No, this is where it starts. This is where it all starts.

Mike Bledsoe (31:15)
Yeah. I think if you jump straight into the business tactics and strategies, you may get some benefit, but it's only, it's going to be short lived. And, and that just keeps going. So you, you, I think what's really cool about, being in the real estate market is the personal development stuff. The leadership training that happens there is way more prominent.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (31:20)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (31:40)
than a lot of other industries. I think a lot of times if someone steps into a corporate environment, those types of things aren't as popular. But if I were to go, you know, I'm here in Austin, if I were to go to a real estate, you know, meetup thing where everyone's meeting up, people are going to be talking about personal development there. That's because that's such a, you're either going to

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (32:01)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Mike Bledsoe (32:06)
Make it or not based on your interpersonal skills, your ability to connect with other people.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (32:12)
Because I think as an industry, they certainly recognize and the proof is in the revenues of the successful teams. Exactly what you're getting at is you want to build a better business. You got to build a better you first and then you'll build that better business. And it's interesting you bring that up. That's really what drew me and fuels my passion about working with people in addiction recovery is that as a subset of people in our community or in our society.

I found that those that are really serious about it, those that have started their recovery journey and been led into some of the things that, you know, some of the holes and some of the pain and some of the traumas that have created the life that they were trying to escape from, when they're introduced to that opportunity, these are individuals that more so than many others will actually begin to look at their beliefs, look at their behaviors, question why they're acting a certain way or why they're, you know, what...

what are their triggers and begin to do that work and kind of, and again, peel back those layers and reveal a better version of themself. I've found this more so in people that are in addiction recovery than just the general population. I think that's a beautiful thing. And a lot of times I say, I think life in many ways is like a pendulum. And the further that it's swung in one direction, the more potential it has a swing in the other direction. So for those individuals that are really struggled in the depths of addiction, the amount of pain, the suffering, the self -loathing,

that they had can be turned into and can fuel a greater sense of compassion and understanding and love and determination to be that better version of themselves and ultimately help other individuals experience that growth as well. So that's a beautiful thing there and that's something that I think about and that really inspires the work that I do.

Mike Bledsoe (33:58)
Nice. Did you experience addiction issues?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (34:01)
Yeah, so as with many veterans, I've been introduced to a lot of things in my life to help avoid, escape, and numb some of the pain and things that I was experiencing in my life. And what I realized was there were some things I was inviting into my life that were only creating more problems, or it was masking something that I wasn't able to address, or wasn't able to really get in touch with because of the things that I was doing or the substances that I was taking in.

Mike Bledsoe (34:29)
How long did that last? Because I know there's a lot of things that you like in the military is acceptable to drink. But you can't do anything else. Exactly. yeah.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (34:35)
Mm -hmm. It's more acceptable to drink than to not drink, at least when I was in. It wasn't very acceptable to not drink. So when I think of addiction or recovery or sobriety, a couple different terms that are thrown around, I think of, I understand sobriety as being the last day or the last time that somebody used a certain substance or behavior. Whereas I think of recovery as somebody starts on their recovery journey when they make that determination that they want to make changes in their life to create a positive outcome or positive growth.

The reason I discern the difference between the two is because some people can be sober and in sobriety, but not continuing to work on themselves or try to deepen their growth and experience that better life. And there's a lot of people that are in recovery that maybe they do go back to a certain substance or behavior. I know a lot of people that are in recovery that, you know, from a substance, whether it's alcohol or whether it's, you know, gambling or any other, you know, fill in the blank, but people that are in recovery that have...

Mike Bledsoe (35:12)
Mmm

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (35:33)
regained some kind of relationship with whatever that thing was, or they have other, you know, there's other indulgences. And again, this is what we talked about in the beginning. I don't think that it's a substance or behavior that's ever the issue. It's the consequences that it's creating in somebody's life, or it's the reason that they're reaching for that thing. One of my favorite authors and experts in the addiction field is Dr. Gabor Mate, and he defines addiction as any substance or behavior, or rather addiction as any behavior or manifest in any behavior that a person seeks.

finds temporary relief or pleasure in has a negative consequence as a result of, you know, it has difficulty giving it up. And I love that definition because it helps me understand that addiction is not just this short list of arbitrary substances that we culturally think of as addictive substances, but it can be anything because whether you're overindulging in alcohol and that's creating negative consequences in your life or...

Mike Bledsoe (36:10)
Mmm.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (36:25)
whether you're overindulging in Netflix or social media, and it's creating certain barriers and obstacles to experiencing the things that you want in your life, the outcome's the same. You can replace the substance or behavior, it's the outcome that's the same. If it's holding you back from your true potential, if it's holding you back from the joy and the fulfillment and the happiness that you want in your life or the impact that you wanna make, well, that's where the problem is. It's the obstacle that's holding you back. It's the challenge that you're creating because you're reaching for something that's external to your body. I think of addiction or active addiction as,

reaching for something external to us to create or synthesize some kind of internal response. Whereas recovery, and this is, you know, coming back from that coaching perspective, recovery is finding the things within us to create the circumstances in our life that we want.

Mike Bledsoe (37:10)
What, what are some of the things that you found has been most helpful? You were referring to Gabor Mate earlier. he's, big inspiration, for me and also just such a way that the topics he speaks about when, when I go listen to him, he blows me away. Like how deeply he understands what's going on for the human condition, right? It's like, that, you know, I'm seeking a substance so I don't.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (37:35)
Absolutely.

Mike Bledsoe (37:39)
Cause I actually don't want to feel this thing and I'm feeling this thing because I want, I decided at a young age, I don't want to feel this. So I do all sorts of things and I try to adjust what's happening externally in order to avoid it. What are some, what are some tools that you found? Obviously working with a guy like going through Jack Canfield stuff can raise awareness.

What are some things you've done that have really made a big difference?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (38:12)
Yeah, I think one of the. One of the biggest things and I think this is what doctor Gabor Montes work has helped me understand is asking that question why so if I'm doing this thing because there's some pain there and then why is there that pain there? Is it an insecurity? Is it a learned behavior? Is there something that I never learned that I need to about you know about my life or about the way that I show up and one thing that Jack and this is something Jack Anfield shared that's that also really resonates with me and helps me.

give myself some grace and acceptance and also helps fuel compassion for those that I'm working with. I truly believe that no matter what somebody does in the moment, it's the best that they can do at the time with either the tools, the resources, the level of awareness, the energy that they have, whatever we're doing, it's the best that we can do in the moment. And maybe with more rest or maybe with another tool or maybe with another idea or more support, we could have done differently, but we didn't have the capacity to do differently in that moment.

So if you're somebody who struggled for a long time with substances or behaviors, realize that you were doing the best. You're a human being living a human experience. You're part of this human condition and you were doing the best that you could. And unfortunately for you, the best that you could was a substance or behavior that compounded your situation, made things a little bit worse for you. So I share that often because one of the first things that we need to do to move beyond our addictions are those maladaptive coping mechanisms.

is recognize and feel that we're worth moving beyond it, that we don't deserve to have that pain, that we're worth having more joy and happiness in our life. And knowing that we were doing the best that we could, and that doesn't mean we have to continue to do that thing. We can learn new things and we can gain new resources and get more support. So there's a brighter future ahead, but don't beat ourselves up for things that we've done in the past. There was a reason that we experienced that. We were doing the best that we could.

If we look deeply enough, we can find some benefit that came from even the most horrific situations or bad experiences that we've had. And that's one thing that really inspires me to continue to move forward is to get value or draw benefit from some of the struggles and the challenges that I've experienced in my life. If I can use that to mold some way to help or support another person and help them with their life, then I've just gotten meaning for it or I've gotten some value from some pain that I've already paid or some costs that I've already paid.

So that's the biggest thing is finding compassion and self -worth. And there's a lot of things that I've been introduced to and a lot of things I do with my clients that help. It's really just focusing in on that, focusing on regaining that sense of value and self -worth that you have, and then regaining a sense of agency, of recognizing the things that you can do and the things that you can control to make positive outcomes. One of the worst situations, I understand the feelings of anxiety to be an emotional response that we have.

when we have a basic human need and we don't feel that we are ourselves in control of whether or not that basic need is met. So the times that I've had, you know, the greatest anxiety, maybe I didn't, it was a financial strain or a health strain. And there was something about that that I didn't feel was in my, I didn't have the agency to dictate whether or not I got to a better place or whether that unmet need continued to show up in my life.

If you ever had a loved one and they're diagnosed with something and they have a health condition and you feel that their outcome is outside of your hands, then that creates a great sense of anxiety and that anxiety can come up. So those two big things, so that regaining our sense of self -worth and regaining our sense of agency and learning the things that we can do to make positive future outcomes, especially in the context of undoing some of that pain or healing some of those wounds that are creating that void.

that leads us toward that substance or that behavior that we're using in the moment.

Mike Bledsoe (42:02)
Yeah. The, the compassion piece is huge. I think a lot of times, we can end up in loops where we fail to have compassion for ourselves. I, I find that if I, if I lack compassion for other people and the decisions they're making, I likely am lacking compassion for myself.

And surrounding yourself with people who have that compassion, people who've already walked that path and they have, they have compassion for themselves and they have compassion for you. And, being able to be met with a level of tenderness, which is so foreign to, as veterans, because you know, the

We were trained to be so tough. It's all about being tough. And so one of the...

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (42:55)
Right? And suck it up and don't hold everybody else back. Just deal with your own shit and let's move on.

Mike Bledsoe (43:01)
Yeah. Don't feel sorry for yourself. And the, the, the, the big opportunity, one of the biggest opportunities I ever had was moving from tough to tender, I call them movements. It's like, okay. tough, tough got me here, but it's not, it's not actually a lot of fun. You know, think, think tough's not fun.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (43:25)
Right.

Mike Bledsoe (43:28)
and it's, it can stand in the way of that tenderness, which is associated with that compassion. So how can I be tender with myself, and tender with others? And you know, I think a lot of veterans were never, they weren't brought up, you know, a lot of times, I think a lot of us weren't raised in a home environment where tenderness was the way to go. I think a lot of times.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (43:54)
We're in a culture. I mean, our culture doesn't really promote that as well. And I love your point about surrounding yourself with those that can have that compassion for you because that's not the normal state. And there's a lot of people out there that will be just as happy to judge you and just as happy to shame you and fuel into the stereotype that, you're an addict. So therefore, you're weak. You don't have willpower. You're a defect. And when that bleeds into your own self -consciousness, and you start to believe that you're a defect and that you don't deserve better and that

because of all the wrongs that you've done that you don't deserve happiness and you don't deserve joy or that you're not capable of it. I mean, it's like I'm looking at the proof of my life. I must not be capable more than this. Otherwise I would be experiencing it. And when that creates your thought pattern, your belief system, it can be very hard to dig out of. So certainly surrounding yourself with other individuals that have some compassion, like, yo bro, I've been there too. And there's a way out of it.

Mike Bledsoe (44:50)
Yeah. I think you said it well with the, it's not just the military culture. It's the culture at large. especially for men, it's a, it's like, I don't know what to do with all this love. I, it's not safe. It's not safe. Yeah. It's not, it's not safe for me to show love. So the only safe way for me to demonstrate that is

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (45:04)
What is that? What's this love thing that you're talking about? What exactly is that?

Mike Bledsoe (45:18)
by being tough and by creating conflict. It's like, I got to do something with this energy that's here, but I don't want to be, I don't want to be that wimpy guy. So I can be a tough guy and I can go, I'm going to go protect people. And that's how I'm going to show my love is by being the tough guy. And that, I was watching, I watched your TEDx talk and I was thinking about the masks. You're talking about the masks that we wear and,

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (45:47)
Yes.

Mike Bledsoe (45:47)
I definitely see the tough guy as a mask that I know I took on as a child.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (45:52)
Absolutely.

and the roles that you kind of fall into.

Mike Bledsoe (46:01)
Mm -hmm.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (46:02)
And about the about the love that we were talking about. So one thing I've learned is that you can't accept love from somebody else that exceeds the love that you have for yourself. And when somebody does show up and they are loving and accepting of us, if we feel that we don't deserve it, then it can almost be repulsive and push us away. And that's talking about the mask that we wear as we start to put on these masks and show up as versions of ourselves or showing up how we think we're supposed to be so that we can be acceptable.

If we're starting to feel a sense of love or a sense of belonging or connection or acceptance by those that are around us, it doesn't help us feel that sense of connection. It actually fuels a sense of shame because we know that they're connecting with this mask that we're putting on or this persona that we're showing up as. So instead of us benefiting from that love and that acceptance, it's actually having the opposite effect.

Mike Bledsoe (46:54)
Yeah. Yeah. There's, I, if you, if you dig deep enough into the personal development world, you know, people start talking about this thing, frequency, and, it can sound a little woo woo. And the way I, the way I like to explain it is, like the, the frequency of compassion is, is how frequently am I experiencing someone who is compassionate, somebody who is there.

their frequency in which they are demonstrating compassion for themselves and others is so high. They're frequently in that space that it can be, it can vibrate people out. So if you're around somebody who has a lot of compassion, you may be able to handle it for five minutes. But I've seen this in coaching where

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (47:38)
Mm.

Mike Bledsoe (47:48)
You have somebody and you get into this the freak this frequency of compassion. this person is showing up with compassion consistently and frequently and I don't know what to do with it and there's a part of you that may want to run away from that and the work is is can I can I stay with this person even though it seems a little uncomfortable because if I can consistently put myself in the presence of somebody that has that

then I'll start being in that. I will more frequently be in the state of compassion and tenderness myself.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (48:24)
Absolutely. Yeah, one of two things is going to happen. You're going to be repulsed by it because you can't make that shift yourself, or you're going to say, hold on, there's somebody that sees something in me that's worth them finding that connection with, the appreciation or the acknowledgement of, maybe I can find something in me that's worth acknowledging and worth drawing that sense of self -value and self -worth from. So yeah, you're either going to run away from it because you can't handle it, you're not ready to handle it at that time, or it's going to help.

create that spark in you that can start to grow into that self love and that self compassion.

Mike Bledsoe (48:58)
Yeah. And that makes me think about basic training. When we, when we went to basic training, the, there was a frequency there that was incredibly uncomfortable, but you were not allowed to leave that frequency. You were, you, you were, you know, you would be punished, so severely that the idea that, you know, most people won't, some people, you know, I'm sure you remember wake up.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (49:13)
Great.

Mike Bledsoe (49:28)
next morning and somebody made a, you know, they tried to escape the base. But, it's like, we, we have also experienced a, we've had jarring experiences where we were uncomfortable at one point. And, one of the things I think about is, you know, you thought it was hard getting into the military, you know, go back to how uncomfortable that was. That was

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (49:33)
Right. That's right.

Mike Bledsoe (49:55)
That was jarring and you adjust it. Well, the same can be said going the other direction as well. The only, the only difference or one of the differences, I'm sure there's many, but one of the differences it's obvious to me now is, there's no clear punishment for moving away other than your own, you know, your own life.

And there's not somebody externally saying, well, if you don't expose yourself to people who are being compassionate and wanting to help you out, then you're going to go to the brig. That's not happening. So.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (50:28)
Right, yeah, you're gonna pay for it. You end up in that boot camp environment, so one of two things is gonna happen. Either you're gonna run away from it or you're just gonna acquiesce and you're gonna give in and you're gonna submit. And that's why it's designed, to submit so that you become more like us and you become that version that we want you to be. But certainly on the way out, I mean, think of all the months and the millions of dollars that they invested in taking us from dirty young civilian into this military, remember they wanted to be, and then on the way out you get...

a week of PowerPoint slides on like, here's how you update your resume and then good luck. So it's certainly not the same kind of investment and then it leaves it up to us to find our own path.

Mike Bledsoe (51:08)
Yeah, I, I've made that point many times and meditated on that literally meditated on that for, I went to have the posh and retreat last November. It was 10 days, 10 hours a day. And I remember on day two or three, I was, I went into it and I'm a talker. That's why I have a podcast. and people go, are you really going to be able to shut your mouth for 10 days? I go, I don't know.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (51:37)
Guess we'll find out. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (51:38)
Yeah. And then on day two or three, I go, I have had my mouth shut for this long before it was basic training. Like, cause we weren't like, I, I, and during those 10 days of being in a meditation, there was all these similarities. Like the lifestyle of a monk is actually not that much different than, than basic.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (51:47)
Mmm. Wow, yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (52:03)
Like you're only going to respond to the commands. You're, you're not going to go have a side conversation with a, with your buddy. unless it's like, you know, a few hours on Sunday morning and you better be quiet about it. You know? So, there's, there's like all these things that, that actually end up being gifts. It's like, I actually do know how to keep my mouth shut and reflect and receive.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (52:11)
Mm -mm.

Right.

Hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (52:33)
Now what you were receiving there was very different than what you're receiving in a meditation retreat for sure. But I think that again, one of the things I'm really getting out of this conversation, I think it's beautiful is you've already, you've already had the experience of being in an uncomfortable environment. You've already been around people that were things that were so foreign concepts were foreign. You've had to.

shut up and, and receive the information, you know, and in basic training, the information is coming from instructors, but you know, in a, in another environment, you might be receiving information that is just as different and foreign to you as it was when you're in basic, but you can do it.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (53:16)
Right. It's not developing a whole new set of skills or abilities. It's learning how to translate the skills and abilities that you already have to a new environment in a new situation.

Mike Bledsoe (53:27)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, that, another thing too, on the, when, when we got out the, was it, did you have taps? Is that what they called it? I got, I got an O five. So I don't, I know some things have changed.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (53:37)
That's right, yes.

Yeah, they call it TAP. I think some others are, I don't know, the Army or some other, they call it TRS or TAP, so Transition Assistance Program.

Mike Bledsoe (53:51)
Yeah. Sometimes people get mad, you know, start talking about, you know, it was just a week and a lot of guys didn't, a lot of guys and gals didn't get anything. and they just got the handshake in the DD two 14 and, and I go, you know, even if they did, even if you did have six months of training, even if they provided six months of training, they still wouldn't be able to prepare you because

It, the military can't prepare you for it. It'd be like having civilians train you to go in the military. It's not going to be possible. So you.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (54:25)
Right. That's right. Yeah, they do the handoff. The DOD does a handoff and now your VA property or the veteran affairs property. So you're right. Yeah, they're not. And I understand it. I'm not saying they should. I'm just recognizing that. Yeah, they don't have, you know, good luck hitting Congress to pass another spending bill so they can spend a year helping everybody emotionally and spiritually and physically transition out.

Mike Bledsoe (54:48)
Yeah, that would be ideal and it's not what it is. So we're, we're working with what we got working with what we got. And so that's sounds like that. That's why you're doing what you're doing is.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (54:52)
And it's not gonna happen, right? That's right.

That's right. And that was a big part of my message in my 10x talk for anybody that hadn't seen it. Maybe you can drop the link or you can just go to unspoken trauma .vet and see it there and also share it with anybody. But the main part of my message was that the transition from military service itself is often traumatic. You know, there's of course, there's a lot of veterans that struggle because they experience things either on the battlefield or in training mishaps or other parts of their experience in the military. That was something traumatic that they have a hard time processing or

Mike Bledsoe (55:18)
Mm -hmm.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (55:30)
we're dealing with after the fact, but every veteran transitions out of the military. And when you look at the experience of transitioning out and you look at the fundamental human needs that we have, you lose a lot of that on the transition. And that was a lot of the struggle that I went through. I almost wished that there was some one instance that I could think of in my military experience that created some of the symptoms, the PTSD symptoms, the depression, the anxiety that I was experiencing, but I couldn't.

I couldn't point my finger at one thing. I always thought, hey, if I had one experience and I could run to a therapist and I could say, hey, this is what happened, let me process this so I don't have this symptom. But I couldn't pinpoint anything. And it took me a matter of a couple of years to realize that it was that transition itself. We look at our basic human needs. We all have fundamental human needs for connection, for authenticity or a positive self -identity, and for a sense of meaning. And when you transition out of the military, you lose all three of that right away.

And I certainly wasn't prepared for that. So if there's one thing that I could offer and there's one thing I could bring into that TAPS class or the TRS class, it would just be this, you know, quick 10, 15, 20 minute discussion about some of the mental, emotional and spiritual consequences of losing that foundation as you transition out. Because I see a lot of veterans that they'll run into that next career, they'll run after a paycheck and they realize maybe very quickly or maybe after a couple of years that it's not filling that void.

They don't know why they're still surround, you know, they can be in a room surrounded by other individuals and feel completely isolated and alone. They don't realize why they're struggling so hard with some of the mental health challenges or obstacles that are showing up and not realizing that it's correlated to a lack of meaning and purpose in their life because they've had such a high sense of meaning and purpose and now they're not experiencing that. And that can be strange if you're around a lot of other professionals that are really.

you know, that haven't, that didn't make that transition and they seem to be getting this sense of purpose from the work that they're doing. And I'm doing the same thing and it doesn't seem to fill that same void. So all of that can be jarring. All of that creates a situation that leads so many of our veterans toward struggling with the symptoms, with PTSD, with addictions, with a lot of deflated self -worth value and really just a lot of fear. And that's what drives me to share this message with veterans. There's, you know, one in five.

Iraq, Afghanistan veterans is going to experience PTSD in their life. 20 % or 200%. So let me back this up. So veterans are more than twice as likely to suffer mental health challenges or struggle with addiction. That's an enormous amount of population of veterans of the 18 million veterans or 19 million veterans that we have in this country and 200 ,000 new veterans every single year. That's a tremendous amount of pain and suffering that's carried around from people that just don't understand or have a clear understanding of why

they fill that void or why they feel so disconnected or why they're struggling or suffering the way that they are. So if there's one thing that I could introduce, it would just be like, hey, look, you're going to lose these three fundamental needs. These are some of the consequences as a result of, and most importantly, these are some of the ways that you can begin to repair that or rebuild so that you can experience a life as a veteran that you want.

Mike Bledsoe (58:37)
Yeah. The, the one thing that I, that I think that a lot of this hinges on is that we talked about the gifts of, yeah, you've already done some of this, some of these hard things in the military and some of that translates, but the one thing that won't translate is that you're a hundred percent responsible for making it happen. The,

you, you miss that camaraderie, you know, so many veterans go into isolation. Well, you were forced into hanging out with people every day. Like that wasn't, that wasn't voluntary. It's not like the camaraderie was voluntary. It was, we were forced to hang out and I might've disliked somebody and I was still going to see them every day for, and so, so we ended up working it out, you know? And so, with

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (59:27)
Right. And experiencing the benefits of it.

Mike Bledsoe (59:32)
Yes. Yes. And then, but when we get out, there's, there's nobody, you know, like you said early in the show, there, there's nobody pointing out, this is the specific track for career development. There's no specific place to go, develop relationships with, with people. And so I think that, we really get to look at what, what did the military provide structure wise that

that no longer exists and then go, okay, now there's a, there's a level of taking ownership over what's happening in my life for myself that just depending on how long you're in, you were in for 16 years. you know, that's a long time to not have to practice that ownership and be like, by the way, now you have to take a hundred percent.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:00:22)
and your entire adult life for a lot of service members that join right out of high school. I mean, you know how the brain developed, I mean, your prefrontal cortex isn't even formed yet. Like your whole framework for how you understand yourself and the world around you is not fully developed. And if you develop that while you're in the service, then that's the only perspective and that's the only context that you have for who you are and what the world is.

Mike Bledsoe (1:00:32)
Right.

Yeah, I went in at 19 and got out at 25. So that was that that was that zone where I got out and was like, what's going on? I felt really lonely. I felt really lonely getting getting out and saying my my buddies from high school.

had gone to college and so they were doing their internships and getting their master's degrees and I was just starting college and I'm going, man, I'm the old guy in the classroom. No one really understands what's going on for me. Like I feel like I'm too old to be hanging out with them. The people I was hanging out with, they're gone. And the people who, I'm originally from Memphis, Tennessee. So.

A lot of people just want to get out. Like it's not, it wasn't in their early 2000s. It was not considered, you know, it's, I think it's improved a bit, but it wasn't necessarily like the place that people wanted to stay. If you were able to get out, you would get out. That was my experience of it. So I get out of the military and I go back and this is the town that I had dreamt about leaving my whole life. And now I'm back in the town that I wanted to leave. And, it.

And now I'm hanging out with people who didn't get out and it was, it didn't do well for my self esteem. Yeah.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:02:03)
Yeah.

Right, sure. You lost the connection of all those that you served with, because they're all, you know, they're either still serving or they're going back to their hometowns. And you severed the connection really that you probably had with people that you felt close and connected to in high school because they've had such different life experiences at that point. So I remember that. I remember standing around rooms of other people who are all my age and having conversations. And we've traveled around the world, but here I was speaking in English with other people and they...

Mike Bledsoe (1:02:25)
Mm -hmm.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:02:36)
We're talking a similar language, but I had no idea what they were saying and I didn't feel any sense of belonging. I certainly didn't feel like I belong there and could feel isolated and alone.

Mike Bledsoe (1:02:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:02:49)
and was equipped with a very powerful way of dealing with that and filling the void, numbing that pain. yeah, I learned how to drink really well while I was in the military. So let me turn to that.

Mike Bledsoe (1:03:00)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So what what are what are some of the steps that you've taken in a lot? So you got out in 2015. It's been nine years. You know, you did real estate for

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:03:12)
Wow, so fast. Yeah, I did real estate for, I don't know, a year and a half or so. I still keep my license active, but I got out of the brokerage game of that. Then started, so did some coaching and with some individuals and then found the niche in addiction recovery, started a recovery residence here in my community in Eastern North Carolina, which is a long -term facility for individuals that have started their recovery journey, that just need a safe, supportive environment to continue on that journey or on that path.

Mike Bledsoe (1:03:16)
you

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:03:41)
What we find is a lot of people to go away for treatment. Maybe they get to the rock bottom, they go away for treatment. They go from their chaotic environment in life to a very high support, low stress environment while they're in treatment for two weeks or four weeks. And then they're launched right back to the very high stress, low support environment they came from. And for most people, about 90 to 92 % of people that go away for treatment, they don't maintain their sobriety or their recovery. And the big reason is because they don't go back to an environment where they feel

Mike Bledsoe (1:04:00)
Mmm.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:04:11)
safe and supportive. So that's the recovery residence that we developed as a place for individuals to come and continue to work on themselves and develop their foundation and recovery. And then most recently, I've really kind of made a shift to just focusing on working with veterans who are struggling in their life either because of a substance or behavior or because of thought patterns or beliefs or just not feeling like themselves, not feeling like you've got enough version of themselves and not sure how to take that next step or get to a better place.

Mike Bledsoe (1:04:20)
Nice.

Where can people find more information about what you're offering?

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:04:44)
If you're interested in the TEDx talk, you can go to the unspokentrauma .vet, or you can just Google search my name on YouTube, it'll pop up. But if you want to host a watch party, or if you want to share it with anybody that any veterans that you think might benefit and get unspokentrauma .vet and find it there. Also for any of your listeners that are interested, one thing I'm making available for free is called the Warrior Reset. So the Warrior Reset is some of the best and most efficacious tools that I've found over the years.

to help make emotional, spiritual, and physiological improvements or re -grounding or reconnection. It's called the Warrior Reset. You can go to thewarriorreset .com and you'll have some, there's some lessons and some, there's a workbook that you can download and then there's some lessons that you can go through. There's some audio tracks where I explain the lessons for those people that don't like to read as much or go through a workbook. But what it's really for practices that anybody can get done in less than 15 minutes a day.

but it's the best things that I found again for helping with that kind of emotional grounding, the physiological grounding and regaining a sense of agency and that responsibility or that positive ability to make the positive changes in our life that we want to move forward. So you can go there, anybody can check that out. It's a free download and you can go through that. I challenge you to get through all 10 days of it. And if there's anything more that I can do to support you, feel free to reach out. And I'm on all the socials, so you can just search my name and I'll probably pop up somewhere.

Mike Bledsoe (1:06:05)
Excellent.

Excellent. We'll be putting a lot of links in the show notes. Anything else you want to leave the audience with before we go.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:06:15)
Just to say, if you haven't heard it before, if you haven't known this, just know that you are lovable and acceptable just as you are. Any challenges or any things that you've experienced in the past, you were doing the best that you could at the time with the awareness and tools and resources and support that you had. And you can make positive change and experience a better version of yourself in your life. You're certainly worth it. You're certainly capable of it. And you are lovable and acceptable.

And if that scares you away, then keep coming back and listening to that and hear that again because it's true and I want you to know.

Mike Bledsoe (1:06:49)
Excellent. Thank you, Garrett. Appreciate you, brother. Look forward to chatting again.

Garret Biss | UnspokenTrauma.vet (1:06:54)
it was.

Mike Bledsoe (1:06:54)
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Mission After. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about our free resource, the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide is packed with valuable insights to help you overcome common challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take control of your career and life. Head over to the missionafter .org to download your copy now. It's completely free and could be the game changer you're looking for.

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