Episode 10: I Died and it wasn’t on the Battlefield
Scott Spears
Bio: Scott is a former global consultant, traveling the world for the past 15 years, living in 52 countries, acquiring many lessons in life, death, love and the importance of balancing physical and mental wellness in our lives.
Being a past victim of burnout and death, his journey to recovery in his personal, professional and love lives helped him develop a personalized growth roadmap entitled TIME | LIFE | SELF which is derived from his practical knowledge, failures and successes.
Additionally, Scott offers Business Transformation services helping organizations to maximize their efficiencies while reducing stress and burnout while improving overall performance.
Find Scott here:
https://www.instagram.com/time_life_self/
https://www.facebook.com/timelifeself
Podcast transcript below:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were scared, destroyed, ruined people come to learn maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.
In my ongoing investigation of the damage self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?
My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me, not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic include sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Scott Spears. He has many roles in his life. Son, father, military man consultant and the more. We'll talk about how he clinically died and came back to life, suffered debilitating PTSD, and what that felt like. How he learned to meditate in a place where talking was prohibited and how he sees the world now. Let's talk.
You may notice a slight whistle in the background of this recording, never fear, there's a transcript@damagedparents.com.
Welcome Scott to Relatively Damaged. We're glad you could be here today.
Scott Spears: [00:02:25] Thank you, Angela. For having me.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:27] Yeah, so we met on Facebook and, , you answered, I guess I'm going to call it an ad. It was really a post for guests and, One of the, some of the things that, one of the questions that you had asked out, was you thought that this was for damaged parents. And I think one of the things you said was my parents were fantastic.
Are you sure I'm a good fit for this show?
Scott Spears: [00:02:54] Right. Exactly. I was like, Oh, well, if I put this out there, I don't want my mom and dad would be like, what the hell?
Damaged Parents: [00:03:04] So we had a little bit of a back and forth of trying to understand what it was. And, you were confused because it's Relatively Damaged and it's by Damaged Parents. So the confusion was that it was a podcast by Damaged Parents. If I remember correctly, right. And, so it, cause I, I was looking at that earlier and I thought, I really like how we talked about that. , because it's not. You know, yes, there's all kinds of damage in some families, right? The emotional, physical abuse, all of that. and some of us are lucky enough to escape that and not have to experience it. You have your own struggle that you're going to be talking about today. and so when we were chatting, one of the things I said was that Damaged Parents is like the loving parent, trying to bring everyone together.
Scott Spears: [00:03:56] Right. Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:03:57] And how did that help you feel more comfortable?
Scott Spears: [00:04:02] Just the message more of like you said, trying to bring people together, and fixing problems, maybe that might be within the family. And no, I felt like I could contribute on that subject to a point. even though most of my life, I have not even been around my family. Only when I come home to visit, but some of the lessons that I've learned elsewhere and taking home, I feel that have contributed in a way to, helping in some areas that may have been going on when I was home on vacation. ,
Damaged Parents: [00:04:38] right. So you overcame death?
Scott Spears: [00:04:41] Yeah. Yeah. Clinical death, not, not just the. You know the phrase I died?
Damaged Parents: [00:04:47] So
Scott Spears: [00:04:48] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:48] tell us the story, please.
Scott Spears: [00:04:52] All right. You want me to start , from how all of it led up to that point? Or you want me to start there or?
Damaged Parents: [00:05:00] I want to hear your journey of the struggle. So whether for you that starts beforehand or in that moment, I'm not certain. So I'm gonna leave it up to
Scott Spears: [00:05:12] Let me add some context to get to that point. Right. I grew up in a small farming community in central California, and I had just this dream of getting out of there and traveling the world someday and just seeing what else was out there. I mean, I love where I grew up and friends and family and everything, but I just had this urge to explore basically.
And the only way for me to really do that was joining the military. So right out of high school, I went in to the army, 17, my parents had to sign some papers for me to get in since I wasn't 18 yet. So, I joined the military. And my first year in, I was in Panama and this was way back when, uh, 89. Yeah. When Noriega was in power and we had a little operation down there to remove him from power. And that was my first experience getting shot at,
Damaged Parents: [00:06:15] Oh, dear.
Scott Spears: [00:06:16] it. It kind of set the tone and direction of my life, after that. And because that night being in a, well, let's say yeah, an empire because we were being fired upon and you can, you could hear the bullets and actually see some of them because it was at night, they have these tracer rounds that you can see.
And I just remember looking up at the, at the sky and seeing the stars, , In between the bullets and saying, and realizing at that moment, if one of these hit me it's for real, and life can be, I could be dead at any minute. So I started looking up at the sky and seeing the stars and just a whole different manner.
Like, wow, those stars are beautiful. It's you look at everything differently when you're facing. with that moment of, well, I could die at any minute here. And, I started touching my arms, my legs, like, ah, this might be the last time I touched those,
Damaged Parents: [00:07:17] Oh, wow.
Scott Spears: [00:07:18] And, yeah. And I made a promise to myself that night, like, okay, if I get out of this, I'm definitely going.
Full speed ahead to see the world and experience all there is to offer. So yeah, obviously I got out got out of that.
Damaged Parents: [00:07:36] before you move on, you said the bullets were coming at you literally?
Scott Spears: [00:07:42] Yeah. Well, not really at us, but in our direction. And, but you could see them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was nighttime and we were on the perimeter of an airfield that we were guarding and outside that perimeter was the Panamanian defense forces and they were firing, just in our direction. They couldn't see us, we couldn't see them, but we could see the bullets.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:04] Oh,
Scott Spears: [00:08:05] Um, they look like.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:06] they looked like what? Shooting stars.
Scott Spears: [00:08:09] they look like lasers because like they're called tracer rounds, every PIP or six round, is it burns at the tip? So you can see where you're shooting at night.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:19] Oh wow ,
Scott Spears: [00:08:19] So you'll see those like little lasers flying above you and it's like, Hmm.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:25] Okay. From when you were describing it, it seems like in that moment, when you looked up at this, so these bullets are coming at you, you look up at the stars. What feeling was happening inside that moment? Were you terrified, afraid or now, and then wonder all of a sudden what was going on.
Scott Spears: [00:08:45] No, it was pure adrenaline. It was like I mean, we were trained for this. and, and you never really think it's going to happen, but here we are and we're in it. And there's also a little bit of sense of pride. Like I'm actually on a mission, I'm doing something that I, that not everybody is going to experience, so I was soaking it all in at the same time as well.
So that's why I said I was looking at the stars and realizing that, life can end at any moment and you just totally get a different aspect, different view on life and death period.
Damaged Parents: [00:09:25] So it was. So this change of perspective, it wasn't over a period of time, per se. It was literally in that moment when those shots were coming at you and you looked at the stars and all this, and it's just snap, snap, snap, all these thoughts go through your head and I'm going to make sure I live the best life I could live.
Scott Spears: [00:09:49] Yeah, exactly.
Damaged Parents: [00:09:50] go ahead. Go on with your story. I just wanted to understand what happened right there.
Scott Spears: [00:09:56] Yeah. Even when we got our mission and our orders where we're going to be, what we're going to do, it still felt surreal. Like it was just training and until the bullets started flying, then it's like, okay,
Damaged Parents: [00:10:09] so did you not really believe beforehand that that's what was going to happen or you knew it was going to happen, but it wasn't real.
Scott Spears: [00:10:17] No, it was it's weird because all the training that we did before, before going to Panama, the unit that I was in is, is a rapid deployment unit. We could be anywhere in the world in 24 hours. So we did a lot of exercises that were like, I wouldn't say fake, but they wake you up at two in the morning till you to get to the airfield with your gear and we're going to go somewhere and you get on the plane and it's like, all right, you don't even know where you're going.
And then the Colonel just gets on board and says, Hey, all right, good time, everybody go back home. You know? And it's all for training.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:54] Dear
Scott Spears: [00:10:56] so it conditions you to, not really flip out when they're, when something does happen. So really the only thing that really triggered me to think differently was when the bullets actually started flying. So yeah, after that fast forward, I ended up getting out of the military. The next year I was in desert shield, desert storm, over in. Saudi Iraq, Kuwait with Saddam Hussein, that one and yeah, another different type of, experience where we weren't having bullets shot at us. Instead, we had the Scud missiles being shot over overhead every night where we didn't know if there were chemicals in those.
So we had to. We ended up just sleeping with our chemical gear on every night, because it turned into be like clockwork. You would hear two booms from our Patriot missiles knocking down the Skuid and we would just roll over, put our mask on clear and seal it and go back to sleep.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:56] Wow. So you were constantly on edge. It sounds like from when you joined. The army, as far as you went through bootcamp, you had all this training and everything. You go straight to Panama you're in special forces. Then you go to Desert Shield, Desert Storm. And so it seems to me like you're constantly living on the edge and there's always kind of something, some adrenaline maybe going on.
I don't know.
Scott Spears: [00:12:24] definitely. Definitely adrenaline, but let me correct you. I wasn't special forces because I piss a lot of people off. If I say
Damaged Parents: [00:12:32] Excuse me.
Scott Spears: [00:12:33] no, no, no, it's all good. But, no, I, yes, it was adrenaline. It was. Good adrenaline. I really enjoyed it. I felt like I had a purpose. And the, that was the first three years I was in the last year.
They sent me back state side to Fort Riley, Kansas. And that was just a super boring. Let's just put it like that. Yeah, there was no mission there at that time. They were starting to. Reduce the size of the military and closed down basis, et cetera. And there was just no mission and it just felt like I was wasting time and I felt really stagnant.
And I just wanted to that. Wasn't what I promised myself and Panama, like, I'm going to go see the world and experience can and sitting there in Kansas, right? Every day, just reading the newspaper, waiting for something to break, to go fix. It was just not me. So I decided to get out.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:35] so you were literally waiting and wanting something. Did you miss the adrenaline? Did you, was it kind of a rush
Scott Spears: [00:13:43] Yeah. Yeah. It was a total rush and I loved having that purpose, serving with a mission. and so it was really a good first three years, but when I got to Kansas, it was really boring. And I feel lucky because one of the guys that I went to school with after bootcamp, he had been in Kansas for his whole four years and he hadn't really been able to go out and do anything.
So I consider myself lucky for what I got to experience in the military. And I just decided it was time to get out, because they weren't going to put me anywhere where I could have a mission, when it came time to either re up or get out. So they were going to keep me in Kansas actually. So I was like, no, thank you.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:33] Sounds like you were bored.
Scott Spears: [00:14:35] I needed a challenge. Yeah. I was bored. I needed a challenge. So, yeah, I got out and went back home to California, but I moved to San Francisco Bay area and I just loved that area. When I was stationed in California. I used to go there a lot. And, no, I took a bunch of different jobs bouncing around San Francisco, San Jose, that East Bay and working in silicone Valley for a couple of startups.
And then I went to, but. But I wasn't really getting ahead because California cost of living was extremely expensive. So I got an, a, I got an opportunity to go to Texas, which I took and had to learn how to type real quick. it was kind of funny. I got a job where I had to do a lot of typing in a network operations center.
And I didn't know the first thing about typing them ,but I learned quick, went from one, one finger two to 10
Damaged Parents: [00:15:31] Nice. Good job. That's hard, especially when
you're little older.
Scott Spears: [00:15:39] but it was the challenge. It was it again, I felt like I had a purpose. I had a little mission going on, and it was exciting. So I enjoyed that work. And then I took another job and ended up going to New York and then we. had the tech crash around that time? I think it was around 2000, 2001. And I ended up going back to Texas.
I got another opportunity there. Got married in New York before coming and yeah. Then I started the American dream
Damaged Parents: [00:16:11] you did quote. So could you explain then what you mean?
Scott Spears: [00:16:15] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. because again, I look back on the promise. I'm going to keep reverting back to the promise that I made myself when I was in the military. And when I say the American dream, I had the nine to five. I was married, had started the family, had the house, the car and everything, but.
Again, I was kind of antsy. I didn't have feel like I had a mission. It was like, is this it? Is this all that I'm supposed to work towards? What else is there? And I'm not downgrading the American dream or anybody that has the nine to five and has that life. That's all, great, great.
If it works for you, but for me and through my experience and my journey, it just wasn't for me. So I jumped into consulting and got a job in Egypt in Cairo. And I talked to my wife at the time and said, Hey, they're paying for everything except for food. So we've got a pretty good package here.
You don't have to work, they're going to pay for our daughter's school, everything. So we jumped at it and we were over there for about three years and it was great. But it came at a cost. we ended up getting divorced because. The only job she had was to pay the bills and she didn't do it.
So kind of lost everything at home and lost the trust. So, we got divorced and at that time I was in a depression because I felt like I was again, living. To society's expectations living to my family's expectations, everybody else's, but mine. Right. I again, lost my dream, my promise to myself, where I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that. And I got out of it. Luckily because my parents, they just told me one day, Hey, it doesn't matter if these things fail, and just, we just want you to be happy. And when they said that, it just opened a door of light for me, like made me, just lifted everything off my shoulders and gave me that freedom to go do what I wanted to do.
So I jumped back into consulting and Oh, for the next 15 years, let's say, traveled extensively Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America. And that's where we come up to, where I died. So , I was really enjoying my job for those 15 years bouncing all around. I mean, I could be in one week, I could be in Johannesburg, in South Africa, London and Hong Kong all in one week, waking up, not knowing where the hell I am, but was happy with that.
Cause it wasn't. It was exciting. I was like, Oh man, where am I here? Okay. Here I am. Okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:07] What languages in today?
Scott Spears: [00:19:14] Yeah. And so that was exciting. And I loved it. It was like I was on a mission and I was testing myself at the same time, because it was very strenuous work. A lot of juggling projects, juggling customers.
I worked for a Chinese company. So their communication with Western customers were not always, clear,
Damaged Parents: [00:19:36] because of the different cultural dynamics?
Scott Spears: [00:19:38] Yes. Yes. And right. And that, that job I really enjoyed because I had to learn a whole different business culture as well. And it was really exciting and kept things fresh.
Right. So I really enjoyed that job and I was going a hundred miles an hour and proving to them because, They didn't always believe in that a lot of things could be done. And I took a lot of pride in showing them nothing is impossible. You know, we can get this done, just, I just need this and this and this.
And you give me that and I'll fix it for you, and I, and they would, and it was really, really fun for awhile until they sent me over here to Latin America. And then the whole management changed. I didn't get the support that I was getting before. And they were really. Making life difficult, not just my life, but customers' lives.
And it was, uh, it, I wasn't enjoying my job as much as before, but I didn't recognize that. So it's still, I was trying to juggle everything and I was in Costa Rica working a project and they called me actually, the customer called me in Columbia, said, I'm not talking to anybody, but you, and I'm like, Oh man.
Okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:55] you know, there's trouble then, right? Is that your sign?
Scott Spears: [00:21:00] Right. Right. So they sent me back to Columbia to fix this issue. And I noticed, looking back, I noticed my energy level. Wasn't the same. I was low on energy at that time. I was also a little sick. And I was tired. I, but I just was attributing that to age as well. I just turned 50 last year in November.
So I was always battling that too. Cause I was like, I always pride myself on, my physical. fitness and taking care of myself, eating the right foods and everything. And I was just like, all right, well, I'll just have to push a little bit harder. You know, there's ego, talking and one night, and that night when I came back to Columbia and I fixed everything and.
I I find when I'm put up to a huge challenge and I'm going a hundred miles an hour and fixing everything. And then when I finally lit up, I usually get really sick. Yeah. Cause I let my defenses down, you know, my physical defenses down and I guess it allows me to get sick, but that night, um,
Damaged Parents: [00:22:11] is it almost like after you worked out really hard and you just go lay down and it's not like a soft laid down. It's like you just hook, you know, that,
Scott Spears: [00:22:20] Yeah, exactly.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:22] you're saying you work really hard on these projects. You get that sense of relief and then you get sick.
Scott Spears: [00:22:29] right. Exactly. That's it. So that night I started having problems breathing. I've never had this issue before, where I couldn't control my inhalation and exhalation, and I started getting scared and my girlfriend at the time, she was asking me, Hey, are you okay? And I said, no, no, I don't think so. So we got up and went to go get something to drink in the kitchen.
And, from then I, I woke up, I felt like I was going to sleep. Like I was fainting. And then they said after about two or three minutes, they had to revive me because I just, I collapsed. And they said, I turned blue, my eyes rolled back and I stop breathing. So they had to perform CPR on me and bring me back.
So went to the hospital, obviously after that. And they diagnosed me with dying from exhaustion, basically. So literally put me on two weeks, bed rest was the cure.
Damaged Parents: [00:23:33] for the man who has to stay busy and excited.
Scott Spears: [00:23:37] Yeah, that was, and it was like a slap in the face, you know, it was like, but also it was, it was a wake up call. It scared the hell out of me because I was like, wow. That's. And that's when I started developing anxiety attacks after that, because realizing that I actually died and that feeling that I had.
It would sometimes come back to haunt me in the coming months. Like I could be doing whatever I'm doing and feeling totally normal. And then it would feel like almost like I was possessed, like something came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, Hey, remember that time you died?
Damaged Parents: [00:24:18] So you'd have this flash of thought come through of like, remember that time you died. And then what happens? Does your heart start beating? You start sweating. What's going on.
Scott Spears: [00:24:28] It's exactly the heart starts racing. I start feeling hot and feeling that lightheadedness and I would have to lay down, put my feet up, like what the doctors told me to do, if that ever happened and just wiggle my fingers and toes and just wait it out. So it was pretty embarrassing.
When you're around friends or anybody, all of a sudden you feel this come on and it's like, you dropped to the floor because you know what's happening. But then they're looking at you, like, what the hell what's going on, man? And I was like, I'll explain to you later, go get me a cold towel.
Please just go do it. Don't ask me anything else. And then I'm just trying to focus on my breathing and everything. And yeah, it was pretty hairy experience every time that happened. Cause it felt. Again, just like that night when I died, like it's going to happen again, like I'm dying, and yeah, it was, it was rough.
It was rough. But, what I, sorry,
Damaged Parents: [00:25:25] No, I was just, I was thinking you've got this happening in front of your friends. So, it seems like there would be another level of embarrassment too. And, feeling like. I mean, I think maybe some of the stories that I might be telling myself if I were in your shoes at that point is that I should be able to fix this.
I should be able to control this. I'm no good. I mean, were those some of the thoughts and if so, how did you deal with that?
Scott Spears: [00:25:53] Yeah, totally. , it was embarrassing. And it's like, yeah, I should have this under control and I don't want to see anybody look at me. I always was looked at like, I could fix anything right. At work. So if I have friends from work, see this, it's like I felt vulnerable, and it's like, no.
And for that feeling, it was even worse because then it even took me, into a negative state, you know, where I was always living. In that positive state, always trying to be that positive person, bring that positive energy everywhere I go. And every time that this happened, and since I died that night, a lot of things I just didn't recognize, that were in my life that were negatives.
And I was just focusing on fixing myself physically. Right. So I jumped back into the gym. I mean, I was good physical shape and everything, but I jumped back in the gym, build my strength back up and, I saw a nutritionist and they informed me that I was lactose, uh, Yeah, lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant.
I had some health, healthy foods. I was eating all the time that I was intolerant to which we're adding to implement. So that contributed inflammation inside my body, which you can't see. But of course it is a major cause for what happened. That night as well. So I, to answer your question, what did I do to get out of that?
I went on a plant-based diet for about six months to a year and did the vegan thing. And that really reduced all the inflammation kinda cleaned me out. I like to say I'm vegan friendly now because, I do meet maybe twice a
Damaged Parents: [00:27:44] Right.
Scott Spears: [00:27:45] but not every day or every other day, like I used to, so that's one contributing thing that, that helped me get back into shape where I am now.
But. It's not even close to what I really had to go through, which was the next three years. Like I said, I had this negative energy, this negative vibe that I had. And I didn't realize at the time when I look back now, of course it's crystal clear, but at the time I didn't realize that. Number one, I wasn't happy with my job.
Right. I didn't have that same motivation. I didn't have that same, I can do this and it was just turning negative. I, my, the relationship I was in at the time was not going anywhere. It was pretty Rocky. It wasn't good. and I just felt stagnant again. I bring up that stagnant state because I didn't have any goals that I was working towards.
I just felt like I was going through the routine of life. I wasn't really working towards anything. So. I slowly spun into a depressed state. And that really came to a head in October, 2019, right before the pandemic,
Damaged Parents: [00:29:02] So when you say depressed, what is that for you? Where are you sleeping a lot?
Scott Spears: [00:29:08] For me. Yeah, I was just not happy. I was negative. I would not look at. Okay. My normal way in life is to try to look at everything in a positive manner. Right. Even if it's a negative thing, it's like, okay, there's gotta be a reason for that. There's a lesson to be had from that situation.
Right. But I wouldn't even take that. I'd look at it as a negative thing. Things were just, everything was becoming annoying to me in
Damaged Parents: [00:29:40] so was everything a problem? So the problems that you like to solve before now, if a problem came on, maybe solving it didn't even interest you or it just irritated or it made you angry or what.
Scott Spears: [00:29:59] It was irritating because a lot of the problems like at work were repeat problems. It's like I would fix them 10 times and then they was still go back and do what I told him not to do.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:09] Oh, that's frustrating.
Scott Spears: [00:30:14] Exactly right. Yeah. So that, that was, that was, I think probably the major contributing factor to me getting in that negative state and not enjoying my job, but I continued with it. I didn't go a different direction, which I should have. so that, that really was a big lesson for me after all of this and not to just.
do the job for the money basically. So I say October, 2019, because my employment contract expired. In that month, I knew it was going to, so I was prepared for that, but I wasn't prepared from going from this fast paced daily lifestyle of handling all these calls, emails, and chasing these problems, fixing them to doing nothing and not knowing what I'm going to
Damaged Parents: [00:31:04] So this is the second time in your life. Cause you went to D because of the military experience. And now another time in your life now there's silence and you don't know what to do. Okay.
Scott Spears: [00:31:15] Yeah, yeah. And uncomfortable silence. So that, and at the same, and this is all in the same week menu, my relationship ended, with my previous girlfriend. So I was heartbroken over that. I was diagnosed with PTSD, which was a big shocker
Damaged Parents: [00:31:34] so that's the anxiety stuff that's popping up out of nowhere. Okay.
Scott Spears: [00:31:40] Yeah. And my job. And then my daughter, who is getting ready to go to university the next year, she was getting ready to apply to a bunch of universities.
And I had some money saved up, from a house that we had in the Dominican Republic. We sold and set that aside purely for her university savings. And she was asking for those funds, but they were with her mom who's in the Dominican Republic and found out she actually spent all the money. So, not only did I feel like a failure to myself, I felt like a failure to my daughter and that, Oh yeah, that's still twists,
Damaged Parents: [00:32:22] So when you say twists, is that like, your stomach feels like it's twisting or.
Scott Spears: [00:32:29] I say twists, like, you know, you got stabbed in the heart with a knife and not, you just didn't get stabbed, but then they twist it. Then they so sorry for the little gory, imagery there. That's what I mean by twisting and yeah, that, that really took me down and I was here in Columbia. And I was in the same apartment that I was living in with my girlfriend.
And she went to a one month schooling somewhere else. So I was trying to work through this, this whole tsunami of shit. I call it. And they, everything was just reminding me of everything, being in that apartment, even though I was trying to work my way through it. And I realized after a month, Looking at myself in the mirror.
I found out that I lost 30 pounds through, through this ordeal. I wasn't eating, I wasn't taking care of myself. and I just said, okay, I've got to do something. I've got to do something drastic here. I need help. Is the first thing that I reminded myself, that I came to grips with telling myself I need
Damaged Parents: [00:33:43] that a hard, right? Was that hard for you? Was it hard to come to that
Scott Spears: [00:33:48] was extremely, extremely hard. And not only was it hard just to admit that to myself, but to talk about it to anybody else. I couldn't talk to my parents. yeah, it was tough. It was tough. The only person I could talk to was my cousin. And God bless him. I call him Elmer, like Elmer's glue.
Cause he's always the one holding everything together in the family,
Damaged Parents: [00:34:13] but it sounds lonely where you were at with,
Scott Spears: [00:34:17] yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:18] talk to anyone except this cousin.
Scott Spears: [00:34:23] Yeah. And he was in California and I just realized, okay, I'm. I know I have options to go to the, the VA hospital if I go back home to California. But I was not really feeling that. I felt like I needed something more spiritual. and I would just started listening to myself kinda, at that moment.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:45] What does that mean? Listening to yourself? Uh, when you say that
Scott Spears: [00:34:48] Well, you know, you have. This little inner voice. I think everybody has felt that once in a while the intuition let's say, yeah, and my intuition was like, no, California is not where you need to go right now. And I thought, I've always wanted to go to India out of all, places that I have not been.
And what my intuition was saying is like, you need to go somewhere that where you've never been before. So you can focus. And come out of this, if you go anywhere else, something is going to remind you of another memory that you've had or past experience. And that was hard because of all the traveling that I've done in the past 15 years.
So India was a big hole on my map, on my Google maps. So like to say, And I've been, I've always wanted to go and I just kept putting it off. And so I called a friend of mine that I used to work with. And she's from India, from Delhi and the Valley. If you're listening. Thank you so much. I just poured my heart out to her and told her everything that was going on and.
Yeah. I said, Hey, I don't have a lot of money. I, but I want to go to India. I want to go to an ashram and do some meditation. And she sent me, some places to check out and I realized, okay, well, I'm going to do this and happy birthday to me. I took the last bit of my money and bought a ticket to go to Bangalore.
India. And I didn't plan much of the trip. I pretty much planned just to go there to, to a yoga university, to do some yoga therapy and also to do a 10 day that passion on meditation, North in the country. I knew I would have to fly there, but I was planning all of that on the fly. And normally I have everything organized, and.
Plotted out what I'm going to do this day, that day, that day. But this time I just surrendered to the process and it was a beautiful, beautiful experience doing that because I never did that. And I found myself and in Eldorado airport here in Bogota, which used to be kind of like my second office, because every week I was flying to a different country and I felt like a little kid, a scared little kid at the gate questioning, what the hell are you doing?
Going to India?
Damaged Parents: [00:37:13] But you've traveled the world at this point. And you're still getting that feeling of is this the right thing to do?
Scott Spears: [00:37:22] Yeah. And the reason I look at it at that time, I was like, why am I feeling like this? What the hell is wrong with me? I slapped myself a couple of times. Wake up.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:32] You're getting mad at yourself for having them feeling.
Scott Spears: [00:37:36] Right. And I realized at that moment, I was like, this is the first trip I've ever taken for myself. And since I joined the army, the rest of the trips I took were for work for family vacation to go see family or take the family somewhere. But for me, myself and I, this was the first trip I was taking.
For me and to do something that I wanted to do just me alone. So it was pretty powerful when I realized that and I was like, Ooh, okay. So there was. Surrendering to the universe. As I say, just had so many spectacular events on this trip because so many people came into my life and said certain things at specific times that I needed to hear, to come out of this depression and go through this journey.
So I ended up fast forward, get to India. I do about a week. 10 days of, yoga therapy, which was awesome at this yoga university. And a lot of people might just think yoga is the exercise, doing the postures and everything. But no, they, I mean, the history of yoga alone is just so amazing.
There's so much to be learned from yoga itself. So I listened to so many lectures from. From some very knowledgeable scholars there. And it's actually the only yoga is the only university, that has proven scientific experiments, how yoga can, reduce stress and anxiety and cure diseases actually.
So it was really, really amazing. hearing those lectures and doing some of the practices that they taught us there. So that kinda got me in a much better state.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:30] that only took you about a week to get there.
Scott Spears: [00:39:34] Yeah. Yeah, because it was a total different scenery. Number one, I didn't know anybody. I had to just really rely on myself, and kind of give myself another. Um, how can I say, um, confidence, confidence in myself, right. And I did meet. New people there at the university and teachers and everything.
And all of those conversations were just really amazing hearing other people, their experiences and why they came to that university and realizing that a lot of them had the same, experiences as I did, some being depressed, some feeling burned out from work, et cetera. So it was really, really cool experience.
So, as I said, I didn't plan a lot of that trip and I just knew, okay. After this university, I need to get to another location in India to do this, 10 day Vipassana meditation. And. I don't know. Well, I'll explain Vipassana. It's a 10 day silent meditation where you totally disconnect from the world.
I mean, you get there and you hand over your cell phones , your laptop, anything that connects you and you don't talk for 10 days either. So, but before we get there, I have, a unique experience.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:56] go for it
Scott Spears: [00:40:56] 'cause I, I, I booked the only flight from Bangalore to, to where I was going, which was Bodhgaya, ran there.
There was a layover in a city called and I didn't know anything about, about a Nazi. I just looked at the options where I could, I, the flight was going to arrive. In the morning. And then the next flight was the following morning to get to the other place. So I had a, almost a 24 hour layover. So I looked up Varanasi on online, and I saw that, wow, this is actually a place that I used to dream of going, but never knew the name.
I saw pictures all my life and it's considered the holiest city in India. It's where. A lot, a lot of people go there to die and be cremated on the banks river Ganges,
And it's where a lot of people go to die, where they know they're going to die and they may die.
They want to die in this city and then be cremated on the banks of the river. And it's all in that river is also unique because people actually Bay in that river too, to wash their sins. Basically. So this is a very famous river and that city is amazing. So I got to experience that and being on that flight, they had an in-flight magazine and I'm not Buddhist, but they had a really interesting article in there about the five pilgrimage sites of Buddha, , that you should visit.
And I didn't know, but 20 minutes outside about Aranasi, , is a place called Sarnath and it's where Buddha actually went to teach after he became enlightened. And it was interesting. I was like, Oh, cool. All right. I got to check that out before I fly the next day. So I book a taxi and he was super Hindu guy all into Shiva and everything.
He was awesome is so cool and he took me to a Sarnath and I said, okay, give me, 15, 20 minutes, I'm going to run in and take some pictures and come out. And he turns around and looks at me and looks me dead in the eyes with a piercing stare and just says, Prepared to be moved and I'm like, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just, flew over my head, like, okay, cool. Gotcha. I'm going to run in there and take some pictures and that was my intention, but I got in there and I did, I take some pictures of them walking around and I get to the place where Buddha actually did his first teaching.
And there's like this huge tower. And there's so many monks. From Vietnam, they're actually at the time and they were doing the chanting, the incense are going, and all of a sudden I walk up to it and everything went slow motion. It was really weird. The chanting was slow. The smoke from the incense.
When in slow motion, I looked up and the birds flying above were in slow motion. And I was just about to ask myself what the hell is going on. And then it felt like this. Wave of energy came crashing through me, like when you're at the beach and when the wave crashes on
Damaged Parents: [00:44:10] and he kind of pushes you back a little bit.
Scott Spears: [00:44:12] Right. Right. And, and that's what it felt like, but just, of course it was invisible. It was just like energy going through me. And then all of a sudden, the next thing I know, I'm crying uncontrollably. I didn't know, but it wasn't like a said price. It was like a super happy cry, if there's such a thing, I was like, wow.
I just felt an overwhelming sense of confidence that okay, I'm in the right place. I'm on the right path and just keep going, just keep going. So that confidence really was like, okay, all right, I'm ready to go to the airport now let's go do this. This meditation for 10 days and see what that's about.
Right. And I got to the taxi guy and he's, he can tell, cause I'm obviously, drying my face.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:05] Was he really laughing at you?
Scott Spears: [00:45:07] Yeah. And he was laughing. He was laughing. And I was like, cause I was laughing too. I was like, yeah, you're right. You're right. I was moved. So, yeah. Then I get to , the place for the meditation and hand over my cell phone. And even your watch, they don't even want you to have a watch because they let you know what the little bell they come and ring it and let you know when it's time to go eat or go meditate. And that's pretty much it, you don't do too much else.
And, it was. It was easy for me to be disconnected. I was happy to be disconnected actually, and not talk. And, but the hardest part, and it was probably surprising to you or some of your listeners is that, you go in to meditate. You're supposed to just sit there for an hour and not move and just meditate and okay.
The meditation might sound a little difficult, but sitting still for an hour. Probably sounds easy, but Oh, let me tell you it was excruciating pain because all of the things that pop up, your past injuries, your, your back starts hurting your legs start hurting cause you're sitting there across leg, but it was really unique.
But what I'd like to share, what really brought me out of that depression that I was in. For two lessons that I learned on this meditation, and you actually do like five or six. Hours of meditation during the day, not all together obviously one hour here, one hour there. And the way they teach you is you sit there in meditation pose and you close your eyes and you're just in silence.
And what you're supposed to do is do a body scan from the top of your head down to your toes. Really slow, just observing the sensations in your body. So you're feeling this along the way. And like I said, I was having so much pain in my knee. And for the first four days, I just said, no, screw this.
I gotta stretch that leg out and then bring it back in and continue. But the practice, I mean, the, the teacher, they have a teacher that guides you and tells you, this is what you need to do and try to do that. And the fourth day, I had to have a serious conversation with myself and call myself some choice words.
Damaged Parents: [00:47:32] Were you being mean to yourself again?
Scott Spears: [00:47:35] I was, I was, yeah, I was cursing myself out a little bit. Like, Hey, you, you came here for a reason. You came all the way here for a reason. This is not like going to your backyard and doing this. Okay. You came here to get the full experience. Yeah. So that next meditation session I decided, okay, I'm not going to move, not going to move no matter what.
So I sat there, I don't know, 10, 20 minutes. And that knee started killing me. But I was maybe at my, still in my head region where I'm observing my sensations. Right. And then the pops up and it's trying to get the intention, but I have to control my mind to say, okay, me, it's not your turn yet. I will get to you.
And then I'll pay attention to
Damaged Parents: [00:48:21] right. So you're in the middle of the meditation. You're your knee is starting to hurt. This is what your fourth day, right?
Scott Spears: [00:48:30] Yeah, fourth
Damaged Parents: [00:48:31] Okay. Okay.
Scott Spears: [00:48:32] And so the knee starts hurting and it automatically takes my attention from wherever I was scanning. Like in my eyes, let's say,
Damaged Parents: [00:48:41] Cause you're scanning down your body, right? You're it's
Scott Spears: [00:48:45] Yeah, you do it in a, in a controlled way. Yeah. You don't jump from different locations. They teach you just to go from head to toe and. My knee pops and it's Oh, and it wants the attention, but I have to control my mind to say no, not yet. And keep working my way down. And when I got to my knee, okay.
I gave it the attention. I recognize the pain and then I had to continue. I had to leave it alone and keep going. So learning that little mind over man or trick, I mean, it was still hurting, but I had to. Keep my mind focused to keep moving, continue the process and let it go. And actually have the conversation with my knee saying you're not in charge.
My mind is in charge, not you, right.
Damaged Parents: [00:49:35] how did you even, gosh, there's a question right here that how, I'm just going to say that. How do you do that?
Scott Spears: [00:49:47] It was pure discipline. It was pure discipline and it's not easy. Just like meditation is not easy. It's a practice. And I know so many people get turned off by meditation because they sit there for a couple of minutes and then they're, they get frustrated because their mind starts wandering. But. The more you do it, just like anything else, you go to the gym and you work out, you're going to get stronger.
The same thing with your mind. And that's the beautiful thing here that I finally realized is that I need to work my mind as much as my body, because all of that really plays a part, in our total wellbeing.
Damaged Parents: [00:50:27] Yeah. And this is part of your healing from the PTSD from dying. So as you're learning the meditation, Are you starting to notice something changing inside of you?
Scott Spears: [00:50:42] Exactly exactly. When I started to develop the discipline. I mean, it took the full 10 days and it still is hard today. So I still have to practice or if I fall out of practice, I'm going to, feel that pain again. So it's really difficult. That back to the meditation, the discipline of it was the major factor I had to continue to focus on my mind is in charge, not the pain.
And realizing through that practice, it was like, okay, well, same thing with the depression. If it depends on how much attention I'm giving to the items that have put me in the depression is what's controlling me. So if I give it that attention, I can move out of this depression easier.
Damaged Parents: [00:51:33] like to the, so when you say depression, you're also talking, I think about those negative thoughts that come up when you're depressed. And so what I think you're saying is. When those negative thoughts come up, it's up to me, how much energy I'm going to give them. And if I'm going to listen to them, and
Scott Spears: [00:51:53] Exactly.
Damaged Parents: [00:51:54] assuming that took a lot of practice to go, wait, I don't yes this thought is here and not, not, but, or, or, and things are okay right now.
So maybe I don't need to listen to this thought.
Scott Spears: [00:52:13] Exactly. Exactly. And it's totally different not to mistake it with running away from the thought, right. It's acknowledging it's there learning the lesson from it, realizing that it happened for a reason, but it doesn't have to control you. Yeah. It's going to be a part of your life.
And those thoughts will come back once in a while. But for you to depends on how much control you want to give it. Right. So if I don't want to feel that depressed state, I'm just going to remind myself that I'm in control. Not those thoughts, not those past events ? So that number one is really what helped me come out of it.
The other lesson that they teach you during this, the passionate meditation is, the law of impermanence. It's called Anicha inSanskrit. And that lesson is basically teaching you not to be attached to anything in your life, which is really hard. I mean, people relationships, but they teach you how everything is always changing.
Nothing will remain the same, like our breath with every breath that we take, every inhalation and exhalation we're living and we're dying at the same moment. Right. Not every breath is the same, same as if you step into a river that river that you were looking at before you stepped in, it is totally different than the one that you're standing in right now, because that water is all different.
The soil is different. The temperature in your body is different. Everything changes. So again, it's like the saying, this too will pass. So same thing with the depression, coupling the mind over matter trick that they taught us and the law of impermanence that nothing will last forever really puts in your head, a good roadmap to come out of that depression.
Damaged Parents: [00:54:21] it's almost like you got the tools that you needed,
Scott Spears: [00:54:26] Right.
Damaged Parents: [00:54:28] you could use them again, because those are tools you can use again and again and again, because those thoughts are going to happen and bad experiences are going to happen. And now you have the tools.
Scott Spears: [00:54:44] Yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:54:45] That's, that's a big deal.
Scott Spears: [00:54:48] It was a very valuable experience. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Damaged Parents: [00:54:53] Yeah. That's amazing. I loved your journey.
Scott Spears: [00:54:57] Thank
Damaged Parents: [00:54:57] That's fantastic. Just coming from, cause I really thought when you first started talking that death was going to happen on the battlefield.
Scott Spears: [00:55:08] Yeah. Yeah. You know, you never know.
Damaged Parents: [00:55:11] and you've had not just one, I'm going to call it an awakening if you will. Not just one, but a few of them along the way.
And I'm wondering if maybe all of us get a few awakenings all along the way, and it's just part of the journey.
Scott Spears: [00:55:33] Part of the growth, part of our learning about who we are. So realizing that I need to balance. My physical and mental wellbeing. And again, it's hard. When you grow up as a boy and a man to admit that you need help mentally. and plus we're not taught a lot about mental health growing up.
Sure. We always have physical training, physical fitness in school, but we don't have anything for our minds. Except
Damaged Parents: [00:56:09] Yeah, I don't think male or female there's anything for the mind. And in fact, interesting fact, I learned of a few weeks ago, I want to say, I'm trying to remember the name of the movie. Can't remember the name. However, the interesting fact was ma men and women, 90% the same on emotional level. So we're only 10% different, which means that we all have the same feelings and 10%.
That's not that big of a difference.
Scott Spears: [00:56:45] No, not at all. And I think it's crazy because what do we admit that we have in common on that scale, on that emotional scale? Right? Because then men are raised to. You gotta be tough. You gotta be the provider. You can't let emotion get in the way, the women are, the more emotional is what we grow up learning.
Um, but that's, that's a highly incorrect,
Damaged Parents: [00:57:12] Yeah.
Scott Spears: [00:57:13] So it's really interesting and yeah, I'm glad you recognize that. Yeah. We have different times where we have to learn. and I say bounce, you know, because it's either splatter, bounce, gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna drop, you're gonna, you're gonna have some times in your life where you're going to go down and it's your choice.
If you want to splat or bounce like a ball
Damaged Parents: [00:57:42] really love that.
Scott Spears: [00:57:47] Yeah. So luckily, yeah, I've been able to bounce on my occasions and now that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Trying to bring awareness to mental health and I'm coaching. People on that aspect as well. I mean, when I, when I came back from India, I really didn't know what I wanted to do either.
I came back here to bogus and I was like, all right, what am I going to do? And I played a vagabond for about a month, just wandering, wondering what I'm going to do. And at that time, our politics. In the world that say were pretty ugly and it was just a negative vibe around the world at that time.
And COVID came. So I moved to a cabin in the mountains out here in Columbia and just wanted to get away from people. Especially with COVID and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I promised myself, I made another promise to myself when I was in India. And I did that with passion and meditation. And I said, you know what?
I gotta do this once a year. This is like a mental reset. Which is awesome. It's like going to get your car tuned up, taking it into, get your oil change. Well, this is an oil change for the mine.
Damaged Parents: [00:58:58] Yeah, like you're fasting the mind, like instead of a physical fast, it's a mental fast.
Scott Spears: [00:59:07] Right, right. Yeah. You just get in touch with yourself and your intuition gets heightened, your senses get heightened, everything. So it's an amazing experience. So when I was in the mountains and I was feeling the, this negative vibe of everything going on in the world and I wasn't working, and I was like, that little voice came back and said, Hey, you're not doing shit right now.
You might as well do this ? I'm like, okay. Yeah, let me make myself productive. At least, make my mind, productive here. So I did that in another 10 days. This was maybe six months, seven months after I came back from India and I. It came to me what I wanted to do, and that was I'm sitting on all this knowledge, not just what I took from India, but in my life journey itself from a personal and professional.
And I said, it'd be ashamed just to sit on all this. I need to share it. I need to get it out there and help people, especially with COVID how so many people are getting burned out now, working from home and not able to organize themselves just that whole change in their routine. And I w I had to say, okay, what am I good at?
I'm very good at organizing, building project plans. And I was like, okay, I can make my life as a project and build a plan on that. So I put together a plan, like a self-growth program for people. And I start with time management to get them. Because that's where it all starts. If you think about it, if you don't know what you're doing, when you're going to do it automatically, you have stress and anxiety.
So if you get that fixed first, then you're going to have automatic focus on what you need to focus on, on, on next. And that's your life what's going on in your life. Everything that's important in your life. And then the last step is in teaching people how to be selfish in a good way, because we. We grew up all of our lives.
Learning that being selfish is negative. Being selfish is bad, but in order for us to be in touch with ourselves and get in tune with our mind. We need to learn how to be selfish and it's okay to put some boundaries up for a while and just focus on yourself. So that's what I'm working on now and building a wellness center in the cabin that I'm working at now, a private wellness
Damaged Parents: [01:01:28] Nice. That's awesome. I like how you brought up the word selfish because a lot of people do. I think of when I go take care of myself, I'm being selfish. And so I shifted for me. I'm not sure if it will be helpful to the listeners, but I shifted that just a little bit to self care.
And what am I doing for self care today? Because that care, when I shift from selfish to self care in my mind, it's easier for me to acknowledge that I need to take care of myself. And when I say the word selfish, I feel like I'm sick. That I'm wrong. And I shouldn't take that for myself. And when, in reality it's necessary for healing.
Scott Spears: [01:02:13] Totally totally. And you hit it right on the point. It is self care. That's what it is. We shouldn't look at it as being selfish. We should look at it as. Caring for ourselves taking time to care for ourselves. It's just like when you take time to go to the gym and work out, that's the same thing that you're doing.
So, and, and time management, the same thing, I say time management, because I don't want to turn people off with the booboo ? I, but time management is really manifesting. If you look at it, if you start planning what you're going to do during the day or what you want to do in the future, and you develop a plan, you're really manifesting.
You're already putting it out there. You're writing it down. You're putting in your head, this is what I'm going to do. So I like to bring that. I like to bridge that for people who aren't maybe in to the rule. Right. And, and are just totally thinking, okay. Time management. That's good. But also introduce.
Manifestation, mindfulness, meditation practices and whatever clicks for them. That's great. but there's so many different tools out there that they can be exposed to, to see that what might help for them. And that's what I want to do is introduce those tools.
Damaged Parents: [01:03:33] Yeah. And it's so important. So important for people to have the tools that they need to be successful. And when I say successful to me, just to define it for our listeners successful, isn't the money it's joy for me, it's finding that joy and sharing that with others. So it's always really neat to get to talk to people on the podcast because when you found your purpose, it's a lot easier to find joy.
Scott Spears: [01:04:04] Totally.
Damaged Parents: [01:04:04] So.
Scott Spears: [01:04:05] Totally agree. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there are some days where you have some doubts, like, am I doing the right thing, but no, when you look at it and you realize the people that you're helping, even if it's one person it's worth it, it's, it's such an amazing feeling to know that you're helping someone.
Through your experience, not go down the same path or make the same mistakes that you made and to actually better themselves and give them the sustainable habits for them to carry their life and better themselves and their mental and physical
Damaged Parents: [01:04:45] Yeah. And you brought up doubt, which reminds me of a children's books that, Daniel Amen. Wrote. I'm not sure if you've read it. I can't remember the title of it. And he's only got one out. I think it's Captain Snout but it talks about automatic negative thoughts. And there's two questions throughout the entire book.
So when those doubts come up for me, cause I got the book for my nephew only like in the last year, did I get this book for him? And so the two questions are, are you sure? Are you 100% sure. That's true. And I can kick almost any doubt out of my head with that. Because I can start looking around for things that are true.
And so just those two questions make such a huge difference in my life, when doubt comes up. So I figured that it was a perfect time to share that. And thank you to Dr. Daniel. Amen. Who wrote the book? I can't remember. I think someone helped him with it. I can't, I think it may have been his wife. I don't remember, but,
Scott Spears: [01:05:48] Oh, for sure. That's awesome. That's an awesome message.
Damaged Parents: [01:05:51] so, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it. And your story is amazing.
Scott Spears: [01:05:59] Thank you so much, Angela, thank you for the opportunity. And I'm just happy that I hope this, uh, this message. This is my journey can help anybody out there. So yeah.
Damaged Parents: [01:06:10] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Scott about how he came back to life and found his purpose. We especially like when he learned to change how he talked to himself and how for him, those negative thoughts don't rule his mind.
To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for Damaged Parents. This podcast was sponsored in part by Arches Audio. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.
