Episode #91 – Live at a Protest, Covid Summary, and Introduction of Neil

We have a new teammate at Through a Therapist’s Eyes and in this show we introduce him. Neil will be more of a behind the scenes guy to help us increase our reach. Look for some changes coming to the show. And speaking of changes we are taking a little time off to prepare and will be back in a few weeks.

Chris also shares an interview he did of some of the peaceful protestors in our hometown. Tune in to this unique episode and look for us to come back better than ever.

Listen to Episode #91 – Live at a Protest, Covid Summary, and Introduction of Neil

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode #91 Transcription

Craig Graves: [00:00:00] Gentlemen welcome.

Chris Gazdik: [00:00:03] Hi. He said, gentlemen, not just me, huh?

Craig Graves: [00:00:06] That’s right. We got to, another person with us this evening.

Chris Gazdik: [00:00:11] In another edition of, Through a Therapist’s Eyes. This is Craig Graves. I am  Chris Gazdik and we do have a third member of through a therapist’s eyes. More on that in a second. We’re this is where we invite you to see the real world to the lens of a real mental health and substance abuse therapist.

Right. A goal is to create emotional growth. Through the medium of the podcast being aware, it’s not the delivery of therapy services in any way. Craig and Neil, this is the human emotional experience. And I propose that we simply work to figure this thing out together. Right. so yeah, we have an introduction.

Why don’t you, why don’t you introduce Mr. Neil, Craig C, C, C, your voice on who he is and what we’re doing here.

Craig Graves: [00:00:54] So dude, I like gut nothing prepared. Yeah. Call me out like

Chris Gazdik: [00:00:58] that, you know? Right. That’s what we do. Yeah. It’s what we do.

Craig Graves: [00:01:01] I’m not surprised. Neil Robinson is going to come on to help us do some marketing and some of the things that we’re trying to do to grow our show.

Neil Neil Neil for a long time, I used to work with his father norm at, at bank of America. And, so we used to go skiing and doing all kinds of different stuff back in, back in the, those days, I guess Neil was about 17 or 18 back then. And, you know, now he’s a, yeah, he’s got his own family and, It’s been cool to kind of watch him grow up a little bit and he’s here.

He’s here. He’s here to help.

Neil Robinson: [00:01:32] Yeah. I’m going to try we’ll we’ll see how it goes,

Chris Gazdik: [00:01:35] Neil. I’m excited to have you, man. There’s a, you know, what’s, what’s happened to sort of listening audience and this is the way this show’s going to go today. So we’re, we’re going to introduce Neil and some of the things he’s going to bring on.

Into the show and why. and, and what’s going on with that. And we’re going to talk about a couple of current event things, as we kind of try to keep our minds and ears and fingers on the pulse of mental health related things that are going on in news, Craig, there’s nothing mental health related going on in the news today.

Would you agree

Craig Graves: [00:02:03] kind of boring right

Chris Gazdik: [00:02:04] now, right? Nothing we’re on Neil. Anything going on you think is mental health related.

Neil Robinson: [00:02:07] Not that I can think of,

Chris Gazdik: [00:02:08] right. Sarcasm is dripping. So anyway, we’re going to do that. And then we’re going to make an announcement that I’ll announced right now. And we’ll talk about how that’s going to look and stuff.

The, the reality of it is, as Neil brings on some of these cool things to the show that we’re going to do, we’re going to take a pause. This is our very first Paul Craig, mr. Graves, doyou realize we have not had a pause and show production in like what ever.

Craig Graves: [00:02:32] Yeah. We’ve been almost two years now, right?

Chris Gazdik: [00:02:34] Yeah. So we’re going to take about a month, pause, get some of our internal stuff together and we’ll, we’ll call it. What do we want to call it? Season two when we come back. Cause that we won’t want to do,

Craig Graves: [00:02:44] we don’t call it season or not. It’s a season.

Chris Gazdik: [00:02:46] Yeah. So that’s the lineup for the show today. Neil, mr.

Neil Robinson, man, you have come on because we have, we were starting to feel like we needed to get more done and do more things to kind of grow the show and do some, some cool stuff. So what types of things might you add? And by the way, he’s going to be more behind the scenes, right? We may pop you on the air, I guess from time to time.

Neil Robinson: [00:03:05] Definitely want to be more behind the scenes, but I’ll hop on if you guys need me to, or want me to, but I’m in really, what we’re looking at doing is just. Building the audience, you know, we want to get that excitement. We want to get the exposure out there. You know, what you guys are doing with this podcast is a great service.

It’s something I believe in too, which is great that you guys asked me to come on here. the idea is

Chris Gazdik: [00:03:24] we begged him audience. We begged them actually,

Neil Robinson: [00:03:26] actually Craig tried to get me to quit about a week into it. So, so I got to, to, conflicting stories here, but yeah. yeah, so what we want to do is we want to really build a relationship with your listeners.

We want to grow that listener base. And what we’re going to do is work on a great isn’t processes, maker, podcast, consistent really have other avenues that you guys can interact with us because, you know, we know that mental health is super important and we want to be there to help those that, that need it.

You know, we want to. You know, get, get the word out there. So that’s the plan with you guys. And like you said, give you, give you guys some new energy. I’m a little bit younger than you guys. So it might have a little bit extra.

Chris Gazdik: [00:04:04] Craig. He didn’t go to the age factor. Did he, did he do that?

Craig Graves: [00:04:07] I don’t know what he’s talking about.

Chris Gazdik: [00:04:08] Beat him up, man.

Craig Graves: [00:04:10] I’m not sure what he’s talking about.

Chris Gazdik: [00:04:11] Take him down. What’s the website going to be like in yet know, that’s what I’m kind of excited about as far as, you know, being able to kind of get some newer and innovative things going on to, you know, some social media stuff, the Facebook live.

What, what, what are you envisioning as we’ve talked about things thus far in your head that you can help us do?

Neil Robinson: [00:04:29] Yeah. I mean, a lot of things we’re going to do is right now is basically just the podcast. We’re just kind of putting the podcast and the audio of it. And what we want to do is we want to start transcribing where we’re going to get to where people can search for it.

You know, instead of spending it at 45 minutes or an hour late going through the whole podcast, we want to make sure they’re hitting the topics they want. So we know that. You know, at minute 35, there’s a five minute section that covers a certain topic that it really reaches and hits those people. We’re gonna make sure that the YouTube channels properly populated and searchable.

We’re going to make sure that, you know, we’re really getting more involved with the different social media channels and you know, we’re going to have more Facebook lives directed at what you guys want to see. have some more Instagram posts to, you know, bring out some of these quotes that a lot of these, Visitors and guests are bringing out because there’s a lot of great stuff.

That’s being said, that’s, that’s hidden inside these, this audio files, these podcasts that you guys just don’t realize is that’s in there. So we want to get it out there, reach out more people and really provide more information to those that come to our website. Or find you guys on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn.

So that, that’s what we’re going to do.

Chris Gazdik: [00:05:31] Yeah. I think one of the things that’s cool that I’m appreciative of you is we’ve got, you know, whatever 90 plus episodes that we’ve published and you’re going to help us kind of organize them. So you can kind of go to the website and really see like, you know, just key topics, what they, what they want to hit and key topics like substance abuse and key topics such as marriage.

And we have enough content stuff that we’ve done where in, you know, and I’ve been resistant. Like I don’t want to narrow it so specific to it, but we’ve got enough shows now where. We can really hit a lot of really cool things. Listen, I use this show in a lot of ways, you know, for my clients that are in therapy with me and they, they get great information and then I can individualize it in a dynamic way in a therapy relationship.

But you know, you’re going to kind of organize it a little bit with us, right?

Neil Robinson: [00:06:10] Yeah. We’re going to, like I said, this is going to be there as a great resource for people to come and get to, you know, it’s. But people’s lives are busy. And we want to make sure that they get the information information they need when they need it or when they want to go for it.

So, yeah. You’re you guys are dripping gold with all the content 90, 90 podcasts. It’s that’s fantastic. I’m I’m, I’m re I’m chomping at the bit here to get this information out there to everyone.

Chris Gazdik: [00:06:34] What are they doing? Make me do with Facebook live. What is that?

Neil Robinson: [00:06:39] Well, what we want to do is we want you to interact with people, you know, when they go and see your articles and they listened to the podcast, we want them to ask you questions or you are.

They want to say, Hey. I listened to your podcast, you know, episode 90. And I have a question, you know, what is your take on this? Or, you know, maybe some behind the scenes, maybe there’s some things we’ve talked about that, you know, maybe we want to just share with you guys, that’s not in the recording. You know, this is what we’re trying to give you guys is that, that more interaction where we really want you guys to, they love the show and share it.

You know, these topics are crucial, you know, then they have to be out there.

Chris Gazdik: [00:07:13] Absolutely. You’re going to make me do some things with Facebook live and stuff where you can make mr. A mr. Graves, dude, you’re gonna force him into anything.

Craig Graves: [00:07:20] He’s going to be the LinkedIn guy. He’s going to be the guy doing a lot of the link, mr.

LinkedIn guy. So we’re, we’re sure we’re trying to divvy this up because for one person to do all the different social media channels and really give the audience what they need, we got to kind of split up the engagement and the interaction. So, yeah. And I’ll be in charge of the YouTube stuff and make sure that things are being found and just getting the quality out there.

So,

Chris Gazdik: [00:07:42] so we’ve got a couple of cool current events that are really kind of want to hit into. And, Neil, I’m so excited about ’em, you know, you being a part of it. Cause I think you’re going to be a whole lot of new energy and a whole lot of help to us. For sure.

Craig Graves: [00:07:54] Before we jump over to that though, maybe talk about how we’re going to.

So one of the things I’ve wanted to kind of do is niche. Talk about specific topics. Cause I think, you know, people who are interested in marriage may not care too much about substance abuse and people who were, who care about substance abuse might not care too much about, I don’t know, Marriage marriage, vice versa.

You know, so how are we going to kind of focus in on those particular people who were interested in certain topics?

Neil Robinson: [00:08:21] Yeah. And we’ve talked about this. Some of the things we’re going to try to do is try to create some more regular scheduled. So, you know, we’re not sure what it is yet, but we’ll have certain topics about marriage, maybe on a set week of the month, you know, just so people know, we’re also gonna try to feed in between the different categories because mental health is so encompassing.

We want to make sure that at least. People searching for it, like marriage or substance abuse, you know, those types of things are still getting their needs met. And that’s what we might come up with more emails where they can get information in between the podcast about marriage. You know, like I said, making sure the contents out there, you know, making sure that we’re commenting and people are asking questions about things in between the podcast.

But like Chris said, the idea is we’re going to start categorizing this stuff instead of just being a podcast category, we’re literally going to have. These podcasts are about marriage . So you can see the 10 podcasts about marriage. You can go through them and hit the ones you need. You know, we’re trying to make it, like I said, easy to access and organized so that we’re, you guys get all the information you guys want when you want it.

Chris Gazdik: [00:09:20] Yeah, man, I’m

Craig Graves: [00:09:23] in now folks, listeners, it’s a good time to send in suggestions if you have any.

Chris Gazdik: [00:09:28] So

Craig Graves: [00:09:28] you can go to our website and do that. so. Fire it up. If you have anything you think would benefit you as a listener or us as a, as the show hosts

Chris Gazdik: [00:09:37] contact at through therapist,  dot com, the social media things, leave messages, all of that, and

Neil Robinson: [00:09:42] join the mailing list on the website.

You know, we’re going to start utilizing that. So you guys, if you guys don’t subscribe to podcast, we’re going to send you emails based on when the YouTube stuff comes up or if the podcast comes up. So, you know, we’re going to have, make sure that it’s accessible for more than just one or two platforms.

Chris Gazdik: [00:09:59] Anything else sum this up. Doesn’t really a lot of cool things. It’s a lot of stuff to wrap my brain around. I know these guys technically going to do whatever. I’m just going to keep on talking.

Neil Robinson: [00:10:08] That’s what you’re here for Chris, that is what we need. Right?

Chris Gazdik: [00:10:11] I’m just going to keep talking. shall we jump into some of these things?

Current events let’s do it. Let’s fire it up. Right. We want to summarize, you know, all the shows that we’ve done about the COVID-19 and just kind of maybe have a quick general chat about that. I think it will take us out all on that. and then man, our country has been going through a time, no sarcasm, seriously statements of like, wow, all the.

The race relation issues, the, that the murder slash death, how you want to refer to it in the news with, with George Floyd. I mean, there’s been so much going on with looting, you know, looting and writing and demonstrating and kneeling. And Capernick even come back up in the news. You see that Craig.

What Kaepernick’s come back up. You know, he was, you know, some basketball player was talking to drew Brees about drew Brees, you know, criticizing cap again and all. I mean, it’s just, there’s so much going on and, you know, in our nation, as it relates to, you know, it’s not even, I don’t know if you could say it’s triggered by George flood or not, but certainly the, You know, the, the, the lightening rod, would you say maybe kind of, might’ve been that a little bit.

you know, my, my main point with all of this is not to kind of degenerate into, you know, something that we’re not going to have time to cover here today. All the race relation realities in our country, which we will probably need to do from a mental health perspective at some point soon. but just the mental health aspects of this man.

I mean, dude, that’s, what’s been blazing in my head when I see the news and I’m watching this stuff. Going on. And I’m like, dude, my Neil, my mental health head is like buzzing with all of the issues related to mental health.

Neil Robinson: [00:11:45] Oh, I bet this is a good time for you to really think about everything going on.

Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: [00:11:49] I mean, you know, the issues with fear, the issues with trauma, the issues with, you know, loneliness and the COVID-19 quarantine. I mean, you are, you know, people are just like, you know, freaking out about having toilet paper still, you know, did you get toilet paper, Craig? Have you, have you got your stash?

Craig Graves: [00:12:09] Well, I don’t have a stash, but seems to be available now. I got it. Yeah, I’ve got enough.

Chris Gazdik: [00:12:13] Yeah. You got your, you got your TP.

Craig Graves: [00:12:15] Yeah, we’re getting that. You got it.

Chris Gazdik: [00:12:17] I might be coming over here to get some, no, actually we’re covered there too, but it’s just, there’s so many things kind of going on, you know, being a, being a part of the media, I wanted to try something and, different.

And that is a. You know, Craig we’re we’re, I guess we’re weirdly enough. We’re part of the media. And, I, I did something that was unique and different in, in so far as covering an event that we had in Mount Holly, North Carolina, just kind of randomly went out and talked to a couple people that were actually at a local pro protest.

so it’s, it’s, it was neat to kind of just be there and put my social work eyes and just, you know, we do that. We kind of, it was a matter of fact, it’s funny, man. There was a guy that I took college class from and he, he, he, he talked about how he sees the lens the world through his lens. Right. And it’s a lens of, of, of social work.

And I was dialed in and it was one of my first social work classes. And I thought that was such a cool concept. This is looking into things kind of going on and seeing it through the lens of, of just being there with people, whether you agree with it or not agree with it and whatever, you know, you feel about it.

There’s definitely emotions there. And simply just being able to be with people. It is, it’s something I think people are fundamentally needing or wanting and wanting to have a voice too. So let me try and see if this comes through to microphone. I just wanted to kind of see, You know what people would be saying, right?

You want to hear it live in a protest? What are, what are people really saying? And what are people are thinking? Here’s a, here’s what I found.

Wow. Guys, this is sort of an impromptu thing that I’m doing, stopped by a little town of Mount Holly, North Carolina. People had gathered together with all the national issues that we’ve got going on. So I have a couple people that just kind of picked out randomly, to have a conversation about what’s going on.

see how it goes. Would you be willing to tell us anything about yourself, your name and who you are and what you see here? the two of you either.

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:14:12] My name is Terrance Lanch, name may not be correct, my apologies!!!l) 

Chris Gazdik: [00:14:14] Might have talked up.

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:14:18] My name is Tarrance.  what I see here. I see everybody come together. Not only blacks, you got whites, Mexicans, and we all come to build kind of this racist right going on right now.

We just want to be treated equal and right. And stop profiling us.

Chris Gazdik: [00:14:38] Okay. And you’re holding a sign that says

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:14:40] stop profiling.

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:14:41] I’m Tanira Smith. as like I, like he said, I see we are treated unequal. We’ve been treated equal for so many years, thousands of years. And we’ve just tried to make it stop. It’s everybody coming together, one injustice, just like we do.

And it just sad how we’re not getting the justice that we always wanted.

Chris Gazdik: [00:15:03] Yeah. Well, I appreciate what you guys are doing. I’ll tell you, just standing here bringing a voice to issues that we have in our country, for sure. So I’m, I’m really here to listen. I got a lot of thoughts about, you know, our show is going to be about racism and mental health is what we’re going to kind of pop into.

Because it’s such a big issue right now. What would you like people to be able to hear, you know, about your sign and what is your sign say again?

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:15:31] Our skin color isn’t a threat.

Chris Gazdik: [00:15:33] Okay, awesome. what do you want people to hear? What do you want people to think? I mean, you know, what, what do you think is going on in our, in our country right now?

That’s been so devastating and just emotionally rough and raw

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:15:47] black lives being killed by the people that’s supposed to protect us. By the people that’s supposed to protect us from everything, from murder, from harm, everything. And they’re doing that. They’re doing that to us, to black lives.

Chris Gazdik: [00:15:59] What do you thinking?

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:16:00] And I don’t want to be a quiet voice. I don’t want to be profiled as a thug as a thug. That’s a racial, racial, racist name for a black man. And I just want to be a black American right.

Equals right.

And no hatreds. I love everybody.

Chris Gazdik: [00:16:23] He looks like a lovely person. I got to say so. Okay. What, what do you think?

I think one of the reasons why I picked you out randomly, somewhat, but on randomly in the sense that you guys were chanting to the no justice, no peace concept. What do you speak to that? What do you, what are you going to mean? Or what do you think that means?

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:16:42] Since we’re not getting justice, we’re not going to be peaceful.

We’re not going to sit and be quiet when black lives are being taken back to back to back with them. Not when, when they’re not getting no justice from being killed by police. And yeah, we just want equal quality. We just want to be equal for everybody. We want to have rights. Just like everybody. We want to be treated equally by everybody.

Chris Gazdik: [00:17:04] What do you think about the new peace port? Some might say, what does it mean we are we advocating violence or if there’s no justice, no peace. What do you. What’d he say some of the, I don’t know what you call, what do you mean is Lootin cool. I mean, is it, what do we, what do we do withthat

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:17:22] Most protesters? They are being peaceful.

They are really being peaceful and that’s, that’s more likely to be like what I think of no justice, no peace, more than looting and rioting and stuff. But mainly people that are writing are just people that’s not protesting. And they are protesting, but I guess you wouldn’t say they wouldn’t do it in the right way, but they are trying to get like their voices out by doing that.

But there’s other ways you can get your voice out too.

Sounds like, you’re not an advocate of, I’m not in trouble. Some stuff that goes on with some of the violence that we’ve seen, I guess, on TV type stuff. What do you think about that was, she was, she’s saying no justice, no peace. I guess the, the violence that has come on.

You know, like you said, you just want to love everybody. I get that.

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:18:09] we ain’t about violence. It’s just that, certain people that see the protests, they don’t have no piece that hurts them to see us out here,

peaceably protest. And that’s what it is.

No peace you ain’t gonna get. No, we ain’t gonna get no justice.

You ain’t going to get no peace.

Chris Gazdik: [00:18:28] Right.

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:18:28] And if you want this to stop, let’s come together.

Chris Gazdik: [00:18:32] Yeah, peaceful maybe in the way of mental health. I mean, our show is about, you know, right now and the turmoil that can be created by everything goig on.

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:18:41] Exactly. Yeah.

I can see something say that. I can see that like that police officer killing that man. Yeah. I can get temporary insanity just that quick. I can snap. Just to see that. Right. We don’t want that. We don’t want to see that. Right.

So if you don’t want me to snap do the right thing, let’s come together.

Chris Gazdik: [00:19:14] I can certainly say, I don’t want to see you snap.

Right? How old are you, sir? If you’d be willing to say

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:19:21] I’m 53, I’m 53. I’ll be 54 this year

Chris Gazdik: [00:19:23] and you ma’am are

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:19:24] I am 18Okay.

Chris Gazdik: [00:19:27] Awesome. I’m doing good. How are you? So, I guess, I guess we’re about five minutes in, we don’t want it to have too big of a spot on our show. I guess, closing thoughts. What, what would you say in kind of closing and, and maybe I would, I would maybe think of, to wrap up with like, you know, what do you think is going to help what’s, you know, everyone talks about the problem I call is, you know, we were talking on the phone about all this stuff and what’s the answer?

What do we do? How do we manage this?

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:19:51] I found the news that all 50 States are protesting. All 50 States, even Hawaii, all 50 States are processing. And I think that’s, that’s why

Chris Gazdik: [00:19:58] Even in Little ‘ol Mt Holly NC.

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:19:59] And I just feel like that’s working that that is truly working, but it can’t stop now. Like it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

We need to keep doing, continuing what we’re doing to make a change.

Chris Gazdik: [00:20:11] I mean, what’s the change? What are the answers? What do we

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:20:13] justice?

Chris Gazdik: [00:20:14] How do we, how do we get to justice? How do we get to. a place, whereas you got , sir pointing out, right? Like, you know, to where we’re all kind of coming together with what is coming together.

Look like

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:20:26] Protest, like how we’re doing today. All coming together from different backgrounds, black, white, Hispanic, Asians, everything. They’re all coming together because we all want the same thing. We all want change. We all went to be equal.

Chris Gazdik: [00:20:39] Okay. What are you thinking, man?

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:20:41] I think that we ought to support more black business and, stop.

You have black businesses in this town, don’t go to a next town in and buy from others support black business.

Chris Gazdik: [00:20:53] Okay. Instead of Walmart and that’s not going to be,

Protester Mr. Terrance: [00:20:57] they don’t care about us change. 

Chris Gazdik: [00:21:01] alright, well, listen, I’m going to get out of here. I really appreciate you guys chatting. We’ll get you some information about the show and help you out.

So I appreciate it.

Protester Mrs. Tanira Smith: [00:21:08] Thank you.

Chris Gazdik: [00:21:10] So that was, Craig, I guess, like I said, we’re sort of part of the media. That was my first foray into, you know, doing what I covered a rally who knew, right? Like I’ve never done anything like that for as far as covering a rally goes, you know, the thing that occurred to me as I was kind of talking to those guys, Neil, and, and I’m curious maybe what anybody thinks is just, you know, however your stance is on things.

I mean, the reality of the fact is mental health is a big piece of all this. Like to me, that’s a bottom line and I just, you know, the way this came out, Craig is, I was, I was leaving my office from doing therapy all day and I saw that these people were over there and I thought, you know what, let me go over and have a conversation.

It’s just literally go over and just have the conversation I thought, yeah, let me just record this conversation. So everybody pulls out a cell phones nowadays. Right? So let me just go ahead and, you know, pull out is, you know, what better way to cover a current event than to just, you know, record and have a conversation, you know, with somebody and, I have found over the years in my therapy office, like simply being present and, and, and paying attention to what somebody wants to say.

As long as you are being appropriate, of course, maybe inappropriate ain’t listening to you, but having a conversation and being present with people, particularly when they’re having a rough time, you know, last, last week we talked about. No, the nursing home facilities and stuff. And I just, I couldn’t help, but think, you know, I’m going to be talking to the national ombudsman group.

Y’all will know that. I didn’t even tell you Neil, you and Craig this, but, yeah, I was sitting there thinking like, what am I supposed to say to these? These keys are national ombudsman, they’re getting ready to go back up into these facilities and, and, and. Well, what am I supposed to say to them? Cause they, he, I don’t know if he picked up on it, but you know, they found me, came to me and wanted me to talk to their group.

I’m supposed to say stuff to them about how I’m supposed to cope with all that. And, and I was just sitting here thinking like, okay, well, this is more than I thought, really, as far as, you know, the depths of, of nursing home realities, you know, I think being present is one of the things I’m going to really drive home for them.

Neil Robinson: [00:23:09] Aren’t they, I think that’s something a lot of people are missing is, you know, that, that idea of having people listen to them is the big struggle. The, you know, society today is very me self. And the problem is, is no one wants to listen and actually really understand or try to understand that their side or their part of the conversation.

So I think that’s very important,

Chris Gazdik: [00:23:30] agree or disagree or feel how you feel and whatnot, like yeah, listening and being attentive. And being present with somebody, whether they’re in the terrible pain of dealing with a mom in a nursing home, or, you know, having lost, you know, when I was, I’ll tell you what, when I lost my sister and she died.

I mean, you know, Craig, I really appreciated you just talking to me. I don’t know if you remember that. It meant a lot to me, you know, just being present with me, my sister just died. It’s just fricking listen to me or you know what? You didn’t even say anything. Just, just listen to me. It’s, it’s a powerful reality from a mental health perspective.

Let’s let’s, let’s kind of try to summarize a little bit too. You know, the, the, the realities of COVID-19. I mean, Craig, we’ve done how many shows, like, you know, it seems like 25. So I was on COVID-19 the coronavirus

Craig Graves: [00:24:21] on a few.

Chris Gazdik: [00:24:22] It’s been a few. I mean, what did you, take from all that really just, I mean, you’ve watched the news, you’ve kind of been in the pandemic yourself and, you know, the.

I mean, what do we do? We talked to a rehab facility and we talked about being, working from home. You know, we, we, we talked about the power of gosh, the emotional one of, you know, the nursing homes. I mean, what do you, what do you take from all those things from your perspective, as far as it relates to Corona?

Craig Graves: [00:24:50] You know what, man, I guess there’s a lot of fear and anxiety and, uncertainty and all those kinds of things. All those kinds of things that go along with an event like that, but there’s also resiliency and, and people, people pushing through and persevere and, and pivoting and shifting. And, but it’s also brought out the worst in people too.

I mean, the, the politics of it or disheartening and, do you know,

Chris Gazdik: [00:25:16] just a lot of

Craig Graves: [00:25:17] stuff going on there that, You know, there’s a lot of stuff. Does that go away from the COVID thing? And I think we’re going to be learning a lot for a long time to come.

Chris Gazdik: [00:25:25] You know, I’ve been thinking about the time to come.

I mean, I really am more and more convinced the more, I think of some specifics. I’m not going to talk about them here, This is going to change the world. I mean, this, this is really going to be different  we have to be careful about

Craig Graves: [00:25:41] I think the people are going to try to use it to take advantage. Oh yeah. And you have to be careful of that, you know?

And you never know, I haven’t done any searching to see what’s true and what’s not, but you know, we’ll force vaccinations, B B a thing. These, these track. These tracking apps, you know what I call it on the contact. Yeah. So there you install an app on your phone and then it tracks who you’ve been with and

Chris Gazdik: [00:26:09] definitely some scary stuff.

Craig Graves: [00:26:10] And I even heard that, a little bit able to tell how many people are in the room with you.

so, you know, you could be having a dinner party at your house and the cops could show up and tell you, you have to meet people there to disperse. So you don’t know what to believe. And you have to be careful about people trying to take advantage of the situation.

I mean, it was some politicians quoted in the paper. I, you know, in news they said, we need to, we need to take advantage of this to get our agenda pushed out and stuff like that

Chris Gazdik: [00:26:35] You cannot allow fear to drive stuff.

Craig Graves: [00:26:38] Yeah, you can’t. Yeah, you can’t. And, and, and, you know, we see that people are. People are giving up their constitutional rights.

Is it part of this, people are calling, people were calling the cops on their neighbors, you know, for not social distancing and having too many people at our house. And it’s really, you know, I think we’ve, I’m really worried about the country. Yeah. And our future in the world, my kids are going to have to grow up in.

Because of some of the things that I see going on today,

Chris Gazdik: [00:27:09] I hear you. Yeah. I, I, that’s not where I was thinking as far as, you know, things aren’t going to be the same. I mean, I, I’m thinking you Craig, I tend to have a positive slant just in my brain. I don’t, I don’t know if that’s because I’ve trained my brain, you know, in doing what I do for a living to steer away from some of the terror stuff, some of the horror stuff.

I mean, I do like, I go home and I take my clothes off and I do self care is to take my armor off, to put my home clothes on, you know, And because it’s just otherwise, I mean, you know, like I started taking kids, fear, stick thinking sometimes. Cause that’s just fun to do, you know, to do it, to imagine what somebody mentioned last week, John Orwell scenario.

Craig Graves: [00:27:48] George Orwell That’s what the lady said on the show last time. Yeah. I mean

Chris Gazdik: [00:27:52] it’s like, yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not trying to make myself naive. But I tend to be positive thinking is all I’m saying,

Craig Graves: [00:28:00] well, you know, I guess I went in into a negative place. There, there are positives that will come out of it.

I think it will change the way we do business. I think it’ll change the way we look at hopefully each other, you know? Yeah. I’ve thought I have elderly parents and you know Hopefully it’ll make people appreciate life more. And, the freedoms that we do have. So I think there’s a lot of positive things going on there too.

I didn’t mean to, to just to throw out all the negative things I think might happen, but just, I think what the state of the country, you know, with the events around, George Floyd’s death and the events around this COVID and the way our politics, just to see, we just want you to you and get any worse.

It gets worse. And, and man, it’s like, how do you recover from

Chris Gazdik: [00:28:40] which, by the way, I really feel like there is a. Big connection between all of the COVID-19 angst   quarantine and frustration. And I’m not trying to diminish anything that, that, that people have with, with police, you know, issues and, you know, racial relations and whatever, but all of that angst has been pent up.

There is an absolute, I can say, psychologically trained in my brain, a connection between all of that and all of the. Stuff. We see going on.

Craig Graves: [00:29:09] I’m sure people are blowing off steam.

Chris Gazdik: [00:29:12] I am so sick of being at my house. And now you give me a reason to come out, protest and get out. Like I am, you know, it’s exploded in part because of a combination is what I am trying to say.

Craig Graves: [00:29:21] Since, since this, since this started, I haven’t heard hardly anything about Covid

Chris Gazdik: [00:29:25] yeah, I still hear a little bit,

Craig Graves: [00:29:27] cause people are just so focused on. What’s going on here. And I think like you said, people are just, they got all this anxiety and anger and stuff pin up. They’ve been sitting in their houses for three months and now all of a sudden it’s like, wow,

Chris Gazdik: [00:29:39] you know, it’s funny, Craig, this COVID thing, man, you I’ve had these guests come on, which is good.

Great. I’ve loved all of our guests, but I’m going to say it’s, it’s funny. Me and you going back and forth on recording and whatnot. Dude, like we need to do a few shows when we come back from our break, he just have you and me battle in the Baton and stuff, talking about stuff, man.

Craig Graves: [00:29:57] Let’s pick some easier topics.

Chris Gazdik: [00:30:00] Yeah.

Cause I’m good. We’re just sitting here doing our thing. Now we’re going back and forth. We haven’t done that in awhile.

Craig Graves: [00:30:05] Easier topics.

Chris Gazdik: [00:30:06] Yeah, that’s true. But

you know, we’ve left this guy, Neil

out, Hey, this is supposed to be as like your Swan song into, through a therapist eyes and you and you and I are doing this thing or thing, you know,

Neil Robinson: [00:30:15] That’s how it’s going to be.

It’s just, I’m just here to help you guys and I’ll keep tallies. I’ll see who wins every, every show

Craig Graves: [00:30:22] I’ll say right now. It’s gonna be me.

Chris Gazdik: [00:30:24] Oh, right now,  Neil what are you thinking of? Curious? I mean, you know, you listen to us ramble on Babel over here and whatnot. I mean, you know, you’ve been listening to the shows and he can’t, you came into the middle of a, of this whole thing, you know, I’m sure you’ve been a faithful listener to every 91 episodes every second heard right now, at least

Neil Robinson: [00:30:41] twice, at least.

Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: [00:30:44] What do you think it over there listening to all this man?

Neil Robinson: [00:30:47] I think I, there’s going to be a lot of change and I think that everything just came to a head now and hopefully this, you know, I’m, I’m an optimist like you Chris . I think there’s going to be a lot of good change come out of this.

Hopefully some, some bad things will be revealed and hopefully the artistry nation’s going to get stronger after this. And this just, it just really stinks right now. So that’s, that’s just my take on it. And I think the pent up frustration, you know, a lot of things that we were more tolerant for before, I think we’re just, we don’t have the patients because like they said, we have more  and anxiety and we’re just tired of it.

So, the just kind of perfect storm,

Chris Gazdik: [00:31:24] you know, I’m glad you said that, Neil, thank you for that because. You just suggested that maybe our country can be stronger as a result of this. And you know what I believe in the United States of America, I’m not going to lie about that. I’m not gonna, I minimize that of sugar that took that.

I mean, I think we are way more, I know I am way more fortunate than I could ever realize living in the country that we live in. Yeah. W we take so much for granted. And then what people all around the world are dealing with in some ways we we’re so super fortunate. And I think part of the reason why it’s so fortunate, it is our diversity in is the, the, the, the great experiment that has been the United States of America that we can come through.

We do come through, we’ve always come through on tough times and they make us better, you know, in an individual psychological state, the things that you struggle with and you grow the most. I said, you, you hurt the most. You grow the most. Right. Yeah. No pain without any, Nope, no gain without any pain, you know, you were having a tough time right now.

There is no doubt about that. The people absolutely can come together. We learn, we can, we can evolve. W we, we have, we need to continue obviously, but I just believe in what the. The combination of, of, of, of what United States of America means. You know, Craig, I was, I was thinking about this when we were talking to Estelle, California, you know, you remember having that conversation with her about, you know, race actually,

Craig Graves: [00:32:56] yeah, yeah.

Chris Gazdik: [00:32:57] You ever, I was, I was stunned at the way she talked about in France and I’ve, and I’ve talked to some of my friends about this, lately and, and, and the fact of the matter is in France, if you’re a black person, you, ain’t never going to be a French person. You remember she said that.

Craig Graves: [00:33:11] She said a foreign person.

Chris Gazdik: [00:33:12] She, she said, you’re, you’re, you’re an African. Yeah.

Craig Graves: [00:33:15] But I think she meant foreigners in general. Like we’ll never go to France and become French.

Chris Gazdik: [00:33:19] No. What I heard her say is specific to the black population in France. They’re never able to be considered French

because,

Craig Graves: [00:33:28] possibly  w’ll have to look that up… at it either way.

Chris Gazdik: [00:33:31] Th th that she was amazed at the way that we operate in the States, accepting people and allowing you to be, as you be. And I just, I w I remembered that being powerful. I remember I was shocked by that when she said that I was, I was kind of like, they were really like what he say, because we struggle with this and whatnot.

Right. And this was like, how long ago was that? Three, four months ago.

Craig Graves: [00:33:50] It seems like it was something like that.

Chris Gazdik: [00:33:52] Yeah. You know, and she was just taken aback at the strength that we have. And she’s only if you’re that show she’s only been stateside for, you know, 10 years or something.

And she was just totally taken aback at how

accepting we are people.

Now, she also qualified if you remember, she said, well, now this is California. I thought that was amazing and funny. So I don’t know, closing thoughts. we’re going to take a break here for a month and I will be and edit. We’re still going to be on social media. We’re going to be doing some things.

You know, Neil described some of the cool things that we’re going to be doing to better engage people and grow our show. And. Make it even, I didn’t, I didn’t even know the show could be cooler. Craig, did you, did you imagine that was possible?

Craig Graves: [00:34:31] I didn’t think so, but I guess

Chris Gazdik: [00:34:33] just kidding. I’m just kidding.

What are you summary thoughts you guys got COVID, you know, the, the race realities and the rampant violence we have and And the, the, the, the creation of what we’re doing in the show here in season two, I guess, to come assuming closing thoughts, what are you guys thinking?

Craig Graves: [00:34:53] I got nothing. We’ll see you guys soon.

Chris Gazdik: [00:34:55] Yeah. Mr. Neil,

Neil Robinson: [00:34:57] I’m excited. Can’t wait to get this awareness out for, through a therapist eyes.

Chris Gazdik: [00:35:01] All right. Let’s figure it all out together. All right. We’re going to see you guys again. Where’s this going to be, I guess a June, July, somewhere around July, August, right? Probably mid, mid July, August. We’re we’re going to, I think we all, I think three of us had to go to the beach.

We think about that.

Craig Graves: [00:35:17] It sounds like a great idea.

Chris Gazdik: [00:35:19] We’re going to hit the beach with, with kayaks. Yeah. We’re going to take a little bit of a break, but we’re really looking forward to being back with you folks. We will talk to you soon. See ya.