Misunderstood Feelings, Real Grief, And Finding Purpose Through Service | Episode 404

Misunderstood Feelings, Real Grief, And Finding Purpose Through Service | Episode 404

We open season five by talking about emotions that do not always show on the face, the pain of being misread, and how grief reshapes purpose. Through stories of work, loss, faith, and mental health, we make a case for honesty over polish and service over performance.

• misread emotions and the gap between feeling and expression
• a workplace story about “you don’t look excited”
• grief after a father’s passing and memory’s weight
• why tips need context and real stories
• faith, timing, and purpose in sharing
• zero-budget persistence and serving others
• celebrate all voices and support those in need

If you can smash that subscribe button, if you can give us a thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, let 25 of your closest friends, people in your phone, guide them to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.

Chapter Markers

0:03 New Season, Fresh Intentions

1:28 Naming Emotions And Misread Signals

6:39 The Cost Of Being Misunderstood

11:43 The Trade Show Story Of “You Don’t Look Excited”

17:30 Grief, Memory, And A Father’s Passing

22:05 No Handbook, Only Hard Lessons

26:14 Why Share The “Teeth Episode”?

31:18 Faith, Timing, And Purpose

36:40 Honest Talk Over Easy Tips

41:30 Serving Others With Zero Budget

43:36 Celebrate Voices And Big Goals

#MisunderstoodFeelings #RealGrief #FindingPurpose #ServiceToOthers #EmotionalHealing #MentalHealthAwareness #GriefJourney #SupportAndEmpathy #PurposeDrivenLife #CopingWithLoss #CommunityServiceImpact #HealingThroughService #UnderstandingGrief #TransformingPainIntoPurpose #EmotionalResilience #justiceforsurvivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices404

Chapters

• 0:03 New Season, Fresh Intentions
• 1:28 Naming Emotions And Misread Signals
• 6:39 The Cost Of Being Misunderstood
• 11:43 The Trade Show Story Of “You Don’t Look Excited”
• 17:30 Grief, Memory, And A Father’s Passing
• 22:05 No Handbook, Only Hard Lessons
• 26:14 Why Share The “Teeth Episode”?
• 31:18 Faith, Timing, And Purpose
• 36:40 Honest Talk Over Easy Tips
• 41:30 Serving Others With Zero Budget
• 43:36 Celebrate Voices And Big Goals

Transcript

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 0:02

Hey everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on our kickoff episode of 2026 and our kickoff episode of season five of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. As always, we're grateful that you're here. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have a show. We won't have a reason to do this. We won't have a reason to put this show together and share it with the world. We hope you had a healthy, happy, safe, um, and prosperous New Year's Eve. And hopefully everybody's doing well as we have turned the page uh into uh season five of the show of 2025 to 2026. Um and we uh we're just we're just glad to be able to have a chance to to share and and talk about life. Some things are easier to talk about than others. Um and I think I think this this is a good good time to talk about um and we could talk about a couple different topics, but the first one I want to talk to for sure, uh talk about for sure about uh is uh emotions. And we all have them. Uh again, um majority of us we we were able to. I I do understand that uh there may be some individuals that don't and aren't able to uh or the emotions that they show may not line up with what another person or another group may think. Um I know I fall into that category at times where uh yeah, I just fall into that category sometimes where trying to I don't know, just trying to live, just trying to trying to live and do the best I can. Uh I and of course, not perfect, nobody is, but I do have emotions and they do come out in different ways and at different times, and uh would I like them to line up exactly with how I am looking? Or like he's given this face, so he must be feeling like that, um, as far as having you know having it on our sleeves, like our feelings, and I feel like I do, uh, but maybe it doesn't show and sometimes it can come across as like just nonchalant, just um when I am very invested in a conversation, a topic, what's happening. Um so emotions are are things that happen and things we feel. Yeah, we can be happy, we can be sad, we can be angry, we can be embarrassed. Uh yeah, we can be a lot, a lot of different or have a lot of different emotions. Again, I'm speaking for if you're like I am and you you have emotions, you know whether they line up exactly with how we look. I I I don't I don't know how to I really don't know how to answer that question or that that thought. Uh I just know I I I have emotions and I I try to share them, I try to show them, and sometimes it they come across at that given time, and other times they they don't. And the reason I'm bringing this up is so when we interact with others that we do a little bit less judging of them of like, oh, look at them, they don't even care. Or, you know, we can go on and on. We're not going to though. I just wonder how many out there have at one time or another, and this this isn't. I just wonder how many of our viewers and listeners at one time or another has been misunderstood. Could be emotions, could you know be actions I'm willing to I'm willing to think that that a lot of us a lot of our viewers, a lot of our listeners have been misunderstood at a time or two. And then we think like, how does that make us feel then that we're we're being misunderstood at one time or another? And then how it how how's that make us feel? Like I I I I don't know w why XYZ happened. I d I don't know I don't know it was a good catch all I don't know. Some of us may even feel how how did we even get in to this particular predicament situation crossroads, what whatever words we wanna to to use but then we do one way one way or another. We already know from just living a day in our shoes that life's already hard enough as it is. Life is you know when when we're growing up, there's a lot more I'm gonna say, a lot more fun and play, less things uh to to worry about. It's like, yeah, like I I just want to be a kid. I want to be a kid again, and that's why when you at least when I see happy, healthy kids, and they're playing, they're just that's what they're doing. They're they're playing, they aren't concerned about these, you know, the these decisions that make a big impact on a lot of a lot of people's lives. I just I just wish I mean that that could be how it is. But we grow up, we get older. Whether we're ready, whether we're not. We make some good decisions, we make some decisions that we wanna wish we were able to take them back. The same thing from the emotion side of like, man, I wish I wish it would come across. Or how do I what do I do? How do I how do I express whatever emotion it is so that another person will at least see and feel like okay, I I at least saw and felt that other person's emotion because it lined up with I don't know, lined up with expectation of I mean I talk about this on several shows where I have I was working in a particular job and I brought up that I was excited and owner, owner's daughter, they're basically like, Well, you don't look like you're excited. Doesn't matter if it's the owner, the owner's daughter, son, that has nothing to do with it. The fact was somebody said, Well, it doesn't look like you're excited, but inside I truly was excited because I had a plan of how in this specific instance learning from one event to the next event to be able to schedule everybody's time at a particular trade show. So if a particular buyer from a particular store came by our booth and was looking for our representative, if that representative wasn't at our booth, I was very easily able to look down and know what time it was, and then look down and see exactly where that individual could be. Depending on time, it could have been they could have been at lunch, they could have been uh walking around the show, right? Because we want we want people to to learn and and see what our competition's doing. Uh they could be in another meeting, but I was excited because that was something that was sorely missing from the first event, and then to be on a call and say that I was excited, and then for that call to finish up and to have somebody in front of a lot of people telling me that. If I say, Oh, I could have cried, or I I don't know what emotion I was supposed to show, I was innately happy, innately excited because there was going to be more order, there was going to be less stress on me. And so I was excited in that sense, and then to just get shot down, like, well, doesn't look like you are, doesn't seem like you are, and I was in my 30s, so that meant a lot of years went by. This has nothing to do with me trying to say I'm perfect at all. It's nothing to do with it. All this is to share how any one of us could be misunderstood at any given time. I'll go through another example. When my dad passed March first of twenty twenty four, eight o eight in the morning AM and I guess I I I spend some time today just I don't know what the words are because they're probably gonna come out wrong how I say them. But I spent some time looking at that period of time when my dad fell ill and then when when he passed and Ibe that's one of the emotions, maybe that's I don't know anybody that wants to pass on and to die. And we're just gonna do what we gotta do to get by or d do chores or but I spent a good good period of time looking through a lot of those pictures and it's and it take took my mind back to those. Times of finding out my dad was sick and all the all the different things. And I kept thinking to myself, I wish I wish my dad was still here. I don't know anybody. So I'm not gonna say that. Because I don't know everybody. I would think there would be a lot of people that would think the same about a loved one. And so it was like my mind, as I was seeing these going through the pictures, it was like a slideshow in my head what I was seeing. And it was taking my my mind back to those times and those days and those nights and those mornings. I thought I did as much as I could while still grieving and but it appears that I guess I didn't. Yeah, there's never there's really no handbook for life. Yeah, there's there's tidbits and tips and there's there's no no real handbook of well here's when you're in this exact situation, this is what you do that hit me like a ton of bricks and there's other events that have and are hitting hitting me like a ton of bricks. But that's life. I again I wish I didn't I didn't have to I wish you didn't have to go through what we're going through or what we went through or what you went through or I wish I wasn't misunderstood at times I feel like this show you know organization listen for voices has been a blessing for me because I've had a vehicle a a way to talk through even if it is to a camera and a light. The show has done so much for me and I know there are others that it it's it's helping. So do I like talking about these heavy topics? No, I don't just don't know how how else how differently over the course of all the episodes how differently we can we can share like we're sharing now in in other episodes because to me the other sharing again this is just this my opinion, the other sharing looks and feels a lot like you know, these tips and tricks like well, we're just gonna talk about this general situation. Oh, I talk about my crooked teeth, and a lot of you like that episode, and others are like that's that's just too much. Like, why did you devote a whole show to build your teeth, and that does not affect your mental health, and or something similar? Well, it affected my mental health, and so I was able to work through it. Well, the braces part. I was able to work through the braces part, and and so that's what I'm that's what I'm getting at. So I feel like there's somebody else out there who's had a maybe similar situation, or maybe they know somebody who has, and maybe it can do some good, you know, it I have this thought that things happen in God's time, and whether you're a believer or not, it doesn't it doesn't matter. I'm I'm just sharing, reflecting myself. And so the fact that that that show aired when it did, and it's obviously still available. Please check it out. That it was when God wanted it to air and for me to film it, it wasn't just on me of like what uh what Justin wants to do, what Justin wanted to do. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for God. If he didn't step in in November of 2017, I probably I don't know. I maybe I wouldn't be here. I don't know. So I feel like there's reason and timing the emotions I can't help. I can't I can't help line up emotions of what they what somebody looks like, like what I look like with what I may be trying to convey verbally. I can't do anything there. I I I can't. I don't I don't know how else to do it. I try to share, I try to excuse me. And if it doesn't if it doesn't convey, I I do my best. Just like we all we all do our best. The thing that we're not is to say that we're all lazy, and we're not. I fail to think anybody's lazy on purpose all day, every day. So for somebody I had crooked teeth for 20 years plus, it meant a heck of a lot to me. But I don't think that's why God wanted me to do the episode that I did when I did it, and I think there was some there's somebody else out is watching and listening. And maybe it's not today, maybe it wasn't that it the episode came out. Maybe it's in a month, maybe it's in two months, maybe it's in a year, maybe it's in six months. Or somebody comes across that episode, and they're like, dang, I've never heard somebody talk like that and share like that. See, all I am is just the vehicle. I am God is using me to share messages and to share information. I know I'm not going to be able to take any my worldly possessions with me when I pass away. So that's why this stuff it is deep. Because it's to help people again. Well, this isn't for every single person. Well, sometimes there are bigger messages that are wider reaching, and then sometimes there's situations that I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that's ever had a had crooked teeth in my in their lives. I'm just throw I'm just I'm just guessing. If I would heard somebody or watch somebody talk about that, that would lift a little bit of a weight off of my shoulders if I still had the teeth that I had, the crooked teeth. I still have they're the same teeth, but what what a difference? Yeah, some time and treatment to make. So I wish my emotions were better aligned. I wish I was I guess uh maybe I don't know. Because do I agree that some of these topics are are deep? Yeah. It's life. Life is not easy, it's it's hard. But are we gonna sit here and sugarcoat everything for people and let people go, oh yeah, everything just gonna turn out just fine. You just you just do these things, and oh yeah, you're gonna be fine. Like, I can't maybe like maybe the old me, like 20 years ago, or I I don't I don't know. Maybe maybe that would have been something that I'd try to I'd try to sell a bill of goods like that. I don't know. But given what I've been through, some of it I put on myself and some of it I I I didn't. I'm I I feel wholeheartedly I'd be doing the biggest disservice if I didn't talk about these deep topics. That's what makes Voices for Voices so much different and better than other shows. That's why people getting out in the middle of a field and the mountains that are using their private server to watch and listen to the Voices for Voices, TV show, and podcast. We won't say thank you each and every one of you watching and listening ever. If you've ever watched or listened, thank you so much. Whether it's only been for a few seconds, we still thank you. We're grateful that voices for voices even got, like I said, a couple seconds of air time. I don't want to be like everybody else that we just have a tip book, like yeah, I I put a book together, talk about tips, but I also talk a whole lot about the back end of each of those. So I get it. The book would have been like five pages if all of it was was just the tips, and I'd have no reason to put case studies in there. I would so I get it. Oh yeah, Justin, he look at him talking like this, and look at this book he wrote, and I didn't say it was gonna solve everybody's problems. Just like this show isn't gonna solve everybody's problems. But what I do know I'm calling it the teeth episode. The teeth episode help me. So I know it's gonna help, and it if it hasn't already helped another person. It's one of those things. Some of us are taller. I wish I was taller. I wish I was five, six, or seven inches taller, and I went on to play professional sports. And that but that's just not the case. I'm five-eight. And so I'm using what I believe God wants me to do. Cause otherwise, he would find a way for these can't these cameras and these lights to not work. He would have stopped after season one or two or three. We wouldn't have got hit the goal and go blow right past it. So this is to help somebody somewhere. This isn't for my ego. This isn't for me to go, oh, look at what I did. I have a goal to help people. That's my goal. That's our organization's goal. I feel like we're doing that. I feel we're staying true to that, and so again. Looking back at emotions. Well, you say you're doing it, but I don't think this is helping people. I think it's making people scared. Well, there is there are things in life that again, they're deep topics. There are a lot of things hard to talk about. So I started this organization around my mental health. And here I am 400 plus episodes later, and I'm still talking about my mental health. So thank you for tuning in. However, you are, if you're watching on YouTube or Rumble or elsewhere, thank you very much. If you're listening, doesn't matter what platform, doesn't matter if it's Apple, doesn't matter if it's Google, whether it's Amazon, iHeart, Spotify. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we're helping people. And there's gonna be others and be like, oh, okay. I've gone through something similar, or I know somebody that is. That's what this is all about. I'm not gonna take these shows with me when I pass on from this life. You're not gonna go into the coffin with me. So we love you. We support you. And we know you love us and you are supporting us in the best way that you know how. We've had a zero budget model, and yet we've still found ways to do some pretty incredible things. And being alive and being here for this episode. This is just one of them. So let's celebrate all of our voices. Let's celebrate all our voices, and let's be a voice, please be a voice for you or somebody in need. We love you. We'll see you on another episode. The Voices for Voices, TV show and podcast. If you can smash that subscribe button, if you can give us a thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, let 25 of your closest friends, people in your phone, guide them to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. It's something that's free to do. We greatly appreciate it because we do have another large goal, and this is a goal where we are going to help at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Have a wonderful day, everybody. We'll see you next time.