Finding Your Peace | Episode 200

Finding Your Peace | Episode 200

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Reaching 200 episodes is more than just a milestone—it's a testament to the power of persistence, vulnerability, and community support. As we celebrate this achievement, I'm reflecting on what makes Voices for Voices® unique: our commitment to authentic conversations around mental health and personal growth.

This episode takes a more intimate turn as I share my journey with incorporating music back into my life as a form of stress relief and creative expression. The simple act of picking up my guitar—not aiming for perfection, but embracing the process—has become an unexpected anchor in managing my mental health. This practice mirrors what I hope listeners take away from our show: finding what works specifically for YOU is far more important than following someone else's prescription for wellness.

Mental health journeys don't have neat, linear progressions. There's no magical moment where we're suddenly "healed"—just better management and more good days than difficult ones. I open up about my own struggles with asking for help, from medical procedures to daily challenges, emphasizing that vulnerability isn't weakness but rather essential self-care that benefits everyone involved. When we trust ourselves enough to communicate our needs, we create space for authentic healing.

The episode concludes with an exciting update about Elliston Berry, our 2024 Voices for Voices® Award recipient, who was recently recognized by First Lady Melania Trump and President Trump during a joint address to Congress for her advocacy against AI deepfakes. Her story exemplifies our mission: transforming personal struggles into meaningful advocacy that creates real change. As we move toward 300 episodes and our goal of reaching 3 billion people, I invite you to join this community that values authentic voices, personal growth, and the courage to share your story. Give us a thumbs up, subscribe, and be part of this journey toward creating a more understanding world.

• Approaching milestone of 200 episodes with the goal of eventually reaching 300
• New focus on updating blogs to share episode information in different formats at VoicesForVoices.org
• Being intentional about playing music as a stress-relief activity instead of always focusing on work
• Finding your own stress-relief activities that work uniquely for you, whether music, reading, napping, or exercise
• Importance of trusting yourself and your feelings when managing mental health challenges
• Learning to ask for help even when pride makes it difficult
• Update on Elliston Berry, 2024 Voices for Voices® Award recipient, who was recognized by First Lady Melania Trump and President Trump during a joint address to Congress
• Discussion of the Take it Down Act aimed at combating AI deepfake images

Give us a big thumbs up, like, subscribe, tell your friends about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast, and check out our catalog of over 190 episodes.

-Support Voices for Voices®: https://venmo.com/u/voicesforvoices or at https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter
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Chapters

• 0:00 Celebrating 200 Episodes Milestone
• 3:26 Blog Updates and Reaching 3 Billion
• 4:18 Being Intentional About Playing Music
• 8:14 Finding Your Stress-Relief Activities
• 16:25 Trusting Yourself and Asking for Help
• 22:14 Recognizing Elliston Barry's Story

Transcript

Justin Alan Hayes: 0:01

Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, founder and Executive Director of Voices for Justin Alan, Hayes. Thank you for joining us for this episode, whether this is your first episode or you've been with us since the beginning, with us since the beginning. We can't thank you enough for the love, the support to continue on, even when at times, it gets hard to do that. But we're continuing on. We're going to be hitting 300 episodes, and I keep saying that because it reinforces in my mind that that's what we're doing. That's one of the big goals we have. But before we can get to 300, we have to get the 200 first, and so this episode may be episode 200, or it may be shortly after, and so if it is 200, it's kind of like a celebration that you know. We, we made it, we accomplished a big goal. When we started from zero, 100 seemed like a lot. When we hit 100, 200 seems a lot. As we hit 200, 300 seems a lot. 200, 300 seems a lot, but we're going to do it and it's not without your help and support. Wherever you are, whether you're watching, listening, checking out the captions, the transcript, the blogs Our blogs are incredible. That is something that I don't believe I have shared very often. Yeah, if you go to VoicesForVoicesorg what we do, you'll see blog as a choice, and we are doing a pretty let's put it this way in 2025, we're doing much better at updating our blogs than we were in 2024 and any time prior, and so it helps us share in a different manner, information about the episodes that we do, because everybody learns some listen, some watch, some read, some find it easier to do one than the other, and sometimes I know sometimes I'll watch watch shows and then other times I'll listen to them and other times I might catch a blog or a post, and so, by having just another avenue we've, we've found that it is helpful and for us, that's what we're trying to be. We're trying to be as helpful as we can and we're going to hit reaching those 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.

Justin Alan Hayes: 3:40

And in a previous episode we talked about how more focused, intentional about playing music, playing whether it's at the house, whether it's with my good friend, Kitraell Chin, with Hearts for Music and his orchestra, events that they do and collaborations that they do it's been something I've just been very intentional about, instead of being very standoffish about it. I have, in 2025, been more as I want to be going forward. In any other year I'm going to be more intentional and whenever I can Because, right, everybody's pressed for time and that's something playing the guitar, singing, call it that when I do that, we've posted a couple of songs here in 2025 so far and we just feel that that's a productive little bit stress-free of our times being spent then just going on to the next show, then the next show, the next show. Well, those times eventually come, but to spend a half hour, 20 minutes, here and there isn't going to derail any of, say, the core work that we're doing. So that's been a cool thing that I've been able to to do internally. Just have that as as a goal, be more intentional about that and and so from time to time, you'll see a song pop up here and there. You'll see some posts pop up here and there of joining this group and that group for for a night, for a few songs, and and so, whether the guitar is your thing, find your thing or your things, and find time for those, even if it's just a couple of minutes either, whether it's every day, or once a week, or twice a week.

Justin Alan Hayes: 6:37

You make up the schedule, you make up the cadence, whatever that is for you, whatever that is for you, and I think when you you're as intentional as kicking off 2024 or a quarter of the way through 2025 a quarter of the way through it's gone by that fast that I think you'll find maybe new hobbies, new things that you'd like to do. You might find yourself a little less stress. Maybe's not even that it because I don't play flawlessly, it's what's not even that. I have to play flawless for it to do its thing in my mind and lower stress and kind of just bring out a little bit of the creative juices. It's just a matter of hey, I'm, I'm trying something, I'm trying a new song, I'm trying a part of a song. Maybe I'm playing an old song that I learned way back when I was 16, 17 years old, way back when I was 16, 17 years old. Maybe it was something 10 years ago before I picked it up a year or two ago again that I play, I don't know.

Justin Alan Hayes: 8:16

So I think, having having a little bit of structure in that, you kind of have an idea of the things that help and it might just be. Maybe it's reading, Maybe it's sitting in quiet, maybe it's listening to music, maybe it's going to the gym, whatever those things are. For you, that's the structure. So instead of these hundreds of things, you might pick one or two or three or whatever, or five, or again one, and so that's kind of your structure, like okay. So in my mind, whenever I get to a point where if it's something, I have to be at a particular location, like if it's something when you're at home, so whenever you're at home, if you can go to either a different room, if it fits something music related, if it's instrument related, where those instruments add.

Justin Alan Hayes: 9:27

Like for, for guitar, is that an acoustic guitar, is an electric guitar, is an acoustic electric guitar, and if it's anything electric, uh, you know what type of? We're going to want some amplification, so a speaker that's going to help amplify the, the sound, and and so if I have an electric guitar but my amplifier is at a different location, well then it's going to be a little bit more difficult. It's just an acoustic guitar as long as I have my go-to tuner. I tune to six strings and then we go. Then we go learn a new song, play an old song, maybe record one, maybe not.

Justin Alan Hayes: 10:35

But when we have things somewhat around us, if they're around us at all time, what I have found is sometimes they get to be, I would say, taken for granted a little bit, because if they're in the same room as you are or I am, a majority of the time we might say, oh okay, well, I could go read that book, I could go do that crossword puzzle, I could go listen to to, to, uh, to some music or to a podcast like the Voices for Voices podcast, and so that's happened before to me. And all this to say is just do what helps you, do what makes you happy. If you're feeling stressed, find those things. Maybe it's taking a nap, nothing wrong with that. Our bodies need rest and relaxation to repair the cells, the muscle fibers from day to day. And, trust me, I like my sleep. You ask anybody in my family, daddy Justin, I like to sleep. So anytime I get a chance, sometimes I sleep too much, but I like my sleep. And so the guitar is that thing right now for me. In a day or two, in a month or two, in six months or so, that may turn out to be something else, but that's where I'm at right now and so I felt like I wanted to share that.

Justin Alan Hayes: 12:46

So do you do what you like, not what somebody else tells you to do. That can be very difficult, because what works for somebody else doesn't necessarily work for you or me. If somebody isn't right, we're all all a little bit different individually, so there's going to be, you know, different attitudes and feelings, and you know mental illnesses or not, mental illness, or there's a wide variety, there's a wide variety, and so if somebody, whether they're trying to help or not, whether they think they got you figured out or me figured out, whether they think you know this mental illness, things that I'm going through, that well, you were, you were doing good yesterday or you were doing good all week, and and then all of a sudden you just you were, you just started using it as a crutch. You, you didn't care, you didn't try, and that's toxicity right there.

Justin Alan Hayes: 14:21

Because I had to learn to be much less judgmental, because who am I to judge anybody else? Judge anybody else, and while I strive towards that, sometimes I end up doing it. And so others, whether they're really close to us or whether they're not, again, they may be thinking they're helping. They may think they have you or me figured out. And it's not that I'm trying to be difficult or you're trying to be difficult. It's that nobody knows how anybody's feeling except themselves. I know how I'm feeling, you know how you're feeling and we know from the mental side and internal that there's just not a day, a time that we reach where we're all of a sudden healed, all of a sudden healed Again. We can have good days and not so good days, and have more good days than not so good days. So to an outsider they may feel okay. Well, justin seems like he's doing good, he's got that mental health, mental illness and he's diagnosed, he's all figured out. And as much as I would like that that, that's just not the case.

Justin Alan Hayes: 16:33

And I had to do a lot of thinking, a lot of swallowing my pride, my ego to ask for help. So it's not something that I enjoy doing, not something that I enjoy doing. I don't enjoy going in for blood work and have to be the person that has to go in some side office to lay down while I'm doing the blood work and I'm not even looking at it and it takes me a half hour when it takes others a minute or two. I don't like that. I just have learned to do more trusting of myself of how I'm feeling, do more trusting of myself of how I'm feeling and since I've done that, it makes things a little bit easier because I at least know some things that will help and it will put the nurses, the doctors they're doing the blood work, in a better position, since they don't know. Okay, I need to be ready in case Casey Blacks out or Casey passes out and I have to have the smelling salts and and all those. They have the orange juice ready.

Justin Alan Hayes: 18:25

And versus, the nurse was telling me my last visit, because obviously I was sharing with him prior to and then even afterwards about, hey, I need to lay down and it's not something I enjoy doing, but I know it'll help and he mentioned he goes. You know, thanks for telling me. You know I had he had another patient at some point within like the last week or two that didn't tell him that, and they passed out cold and they fell out of the chair and so they had to, you know, go on the fly and figure it out. So they appreciated when I brought that up for me. So it made me feel good that I was sharing information that was going to help me and in turn, it also helped the other, you know, the medical professional, the medical professional and those are just things that we learn over time.

Justin Alan Hayes: 20:00

And there's been a lot of things over the years where I've just tried to get through it, just tried to get through it and I say I'm just grinding, I'm grinding, I'm grinding to get this project done. I'm grinding to get this, this episode, filmed and and put out to the, put out to the world. So find something or some things that you like to do that are not as stressful, kind of trust your body, stick up for yourself and that's hard to do and if you have to decompress, go for a drive, go for a walk To cool off that. To cool off that. That's something that nobody should be ashamed to do.

Justin Alan Hayes: 21:25

And recently, as we're kind of coming down to the last third of our episode here, we have had kind of like a pretty cool last few days with one of our prior guests on the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast and then the 2024 Voices for Voices Award recipient her name, as you've been following us Elliston Barry. We had her, her mom, ms Anna on two episodes last year. Then we headed down at the end of the year to present the award to Elliston, had an award episode that you saw last December, met her dad who first responder. He's founder of Life Warrior United, trying to help people just like we are, and he's got that first responder background and so we were able to put a couple episodes and talk with him, which was super cool to do that. And there might be some partnership opportunities with Voices for Voices and Life War United.

Justin Alan Hayes: 23:20

So that's just neat, just to find others that are trying to help people, because at the end of the day, we can't take the money with us, we can't take things with us when we pass. That's just a fact of the matter. And no matter how famous certain people are in 100, 200, 300 years, how are people going to be remembered? And there's very few that are really known for a long period of time. So that's what we're looking for. We're looking for notoriety, only to have things be only about me, me, me, me, me. Then we're doing the wrong thing. But when we're doing things to help others, then we're taking our energy and instead of saying oh, I energy or doing things, we're doing work with the intention to help as many people as possible like us, helping three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. We've talked about whether we hit that goal, whether we don't. If you've ever heard, you know, leave things the same or better than when you left, than when you arrived. That's kind of the goal, like, okay, I can't take none of this with me, but I at least turned a corner, started going in a more positive direction and I spent more of my energy helping people than just being self-centered, narcissistic, 24-7, 365.

Justin Alan Hayes: 26:02

So, as we rewind a little bit to Elliston, so you can learn more about her and her story, and maybe you learn more about her and her story within the last week or two, the day before the joint address to Congress that President Trump gave, address to Congress that President Trump gave, elliston was the first lady, melania Trump's, one of her, one of her guests at the speech, and so, for all the not only did President Trump mention her name and a little bit about her background and kind of what brought all them together with Senator Ted Cruz and this isn't anything about one side of the aisle or the other, whether Republican, democrat, libertarian, independent she went through a pretty harrowing experience, so it was not fun and isn't fun. So she was the guest of Melania Trump, first lady for the joint address to Congress and she was recognized by President Trump and during his his speech and during his speech, and so that was like a I think anybody it was like an experience of a lifetime, and the day before she was also with First Lady Melania Trump. They're having a roundtable about some of these deep fake AI photos where somebody takes a perfectly decent photo, runs it through an AI program and the photo comes back and the person's not wearing any clothes, and then it gets uploaded and then it gets shared, and so that's a little bit of a cliff note version of Elle Elliston's story. So the people that do that should be prosecuted, as well as big tech should do things on their end to take those down. But they don't. They shouldn't have to be, you know taylor swift or you know somebody's ultra wealthy for that to happen. This should just happen for everybody. If it happens, big tech should take it down. The person that does it gets held criminally responsible, and so that's called the Take it Down Act. The full Senate passed it. Once the House passes it, it'll go to President Trump's desk to sign and it becomes federal law.

Justin Alan Hayes: 29:30

So it was a bad experience, but to have her at that speech and to watch and I had no idea that she was going to be there so I was just watching like a lot of people so it was uh, it was really cool. I was able to get a good screenshot and send it to her and her family and I'm sure they have a lot more photos and videos and things sent to them but it it was just cool to be just a small, small part of being able to recognize her, her family, with our organization and then to have her being honored at the highest level. Have her being honored at the highest level. So it was pretty neat to be associated with Elliston and her mom is Anna and her dad Mark. I mean, they're like the nicest people and just can't be more happy for good things to happen, and so that's just one of many stories like a really high profile story. Not all those stories are that high profile, but that's one that is pretty, pretty neat to see it unfold.

Justin Alan Hayes: 31:10

So I went a little bit over over 30 30 minutes this episode. Thanks for sticking with us. Give us a big thumbs up like subscribe. Tell your friends about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Join us next time. Check out our catalog of over 190 episodes and, until next time, be a voice for you or somebody in need.