Eric Chow's Personal Stories of Burnout and Depression
Host: Eric Chow · November 26, 2019 · Episode 16 · 118 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited to read cleanly: names and terms corrected, grammar fixed, filler words and false starts removed, punctuation added. Words in [brackets] could not be made out with certainty. The episode itself is the record.
What is up everybody? Welcome back to The Eric Chow Empowers Podcast in this episode I am going solo for what is going to be the most personal and Vulnerable piece of content I have ever put out about myself in order to explain what this episode is all about though I have to provide a bit of context by looking to last episode episode 15 in episode 15, my friends Christian Chen and Sam Lin shared their experiences around burnout and depression in an incredibly open, genuine and deep way. It was incredibly personal and I shared a bit of my own experience with burnout, but the spotlight was more on them than it was on me. Because my story of burnout did not include depression, I did not share that part of my life either.
Sam Lin said in the episode, first of all, he's been a friend of mine since literally the first grade, so he has known me for a long time. He said that, especially in high school, I put out this image that I was always happy and positive and he acknowledged. I acknowledged that while that is an amazing ability to have, and while it is something that I definitely do, it means that a lot of people see me as like going through this almost perfect life, almost like just just constantly being happy. To me, it means I'm not showing this part of myself that goes through struggles.
I preach authenticity. I preach being yourself and sharing your like who you really are. I do the pretty good job of that. But I haven't been very authentic with this darker part of my life. A huge theme of episode 15 was the importance of sharing your struggles and hardships. We talked about how it was way more relieving to be able to get it out of your mind and your body and out into the world. Way more relieving than one expects it to be.
The relief, the freedom, the power you gain over your own hardships, over your own story, when you're able to get it out of your mind and body and out into the world is incredible. It's way better than you would expect. The second benefit is this. Sharing your story allows other people to relate to you on a deeper level. On a deeper level than, oh, we have the same classes, the same job, the same ethnicity, the same interests. It allows deeper relationships to be created, but it also empowers people so much. I want to quote a wonderful poem called our greatest fear by Mary Ann Williamson. The quote is, this is an excerpt from the poem. It's an amazing poem. The excerpt is this quote.
As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same, as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." end quote. By sharing our story, we give other people the freedom and the power to do the same. Our light is our story. Our light is our story of overcoming hardships. Of getting through these dark parts of our lives because the truth is our light doesn't shine that bright when our life is bright, when everything we're going through is awesome, when our lives are full of joy and happiness, it's great. But it is only in the times of darkness that we are light shines brighter.
That our light is more noticeable, let your light shine. Sharing your story is what allows you to do that. By sharing our stories, we give other people the permission to do the same as we liberate ourselves from our own fear of sharing these stories, from our fear of judgment, from our fear of, our egos being hurt, fear of doubt fear of anything. Our presence automatically liberates other people. In episode 15, my friends shared their stories. They let their light shine. In this episode, I'm going to let mine. But before I get started, I want to say this is an incredibly personal and vulnerable episode, and it was not easy for me to share this.
I had plenty of doubt. I but I think that if there's a chance someone gets something out of this deeply personal story. It's good enough for me, and I also want to say please stay tuned to the end just out of respect for me and sharing this but also because I really want to invite some of you to do something with me after listening to it but yeah, anyways, that's enough for this intro. Thank you for tuning in. This is episode 16 so I wanted to start off this episode by talking about what I said in episode 15 and going more in depth on my story of burning out.
So in, this was the end of my junior year of high school. We're talking late April, early May, and of course the school year ended mid-June.
It was at this time that I had burned out or was burning out. I felt unbelievably exhausted, unmotivated. I really was just like, just so little energy and so little motivation to do anything, whether it was school work, being with friends, watching YouTube videos, things that I even the things that I enjoyed doing, I loved spending my downtime watching YouTube. I was that was what I did I enjoyed it. It was entertaining for me. It was awesome. I loved it but during that time where I was burning out it felt like I wasn't watching YouTube for entertainment or for learning anything or anything or in any way providing me some sort of value, like it usually was.
It really felt like I was just waiting and trying to pass time and just make the day end and then start the next day and make that day end and start the next day and make that day end. I was just trying to do that until the school year ended. I was just trying to get to the end of the school year.
That's really what how I how I felt and you know the problem of course was this time period is the time I had to take care of California state aspect testing I had four AP exams that year advanced placement AP exams right after that finals and final projects, so there was a lot going on that a lot that I that had a pretty big impact on my grade at the end of this academic year. So academically it was difficult, especially since I had no energy or motivation to do anything. But I also struggled socially. I remember there were moments where I wanted to do things and I just realized that I was not in the greatest place mentally.
Not that I was depressed or anything. It was just I wasn't I didn't feel able to give all of myself to give my attention and to give the best possible energy to my friends who I of course deeply cared about. That was that made things difficult for me. I really there were things that I really wanted to do. I wasn't able to do because I realized that I would not be able to provide all of myself to those things. I felt like it was not something I wanted to do. I felt like I would also be not enjoying myself with these people. It was more of I would be using them to distract myself in further past time to get to the end of the school.
You're much like I was using YouTube and I did not feel that my friends deserved to be used like I used YouTube. The reason, of course, I was looking forward to the end of the year was because I had an amazing vacation, which, by the way, was actually incredible. Some of the best moments ever.
On that trip. It was absolutely awesome. Had a great time traveling with my family. But that's what I was trying to get. I was just trying to get there. I was just passing time and every day. Just, there were very few things that happened during that time period that I actually gave a fuck about. Junior prom was great. But honestly, like... The majority of that month, month and a half was just me trying to get through it and make it because I was so unmotivated and so tired, so exhausted. It was horrible. I just felt like I had done so much and I had nothing left in the tank, essentially.
And... I didn't know how to get energy back really. This is actually quite interesting because I, these past like two weeks from when I'm recording this right now, these past two weeks have been extremely stressful. I felt like I was just constantly on the move, whether it was moving literally from like place to place or whether it was just my mind constantly shifting from task to task, responsibility to responsibility. I felt like I constantly had things that needed to happen, things that I needed to work on, things that I needed to do. One thing I know about myself is when I am having a really busy day a day that I'm just constantly working constantly on the move I know that the next day is going to be a rest day.
So if I have a day that's like extremely busy I'm just constantly doing stuff. I'm super productive I get so many things that I need to get done done the next day is usually a relaxed day. I don't do anything and sometimes Unfortunately, I have to have several consecutive really productive days and then I'll take a day or two or three off and do nothing. That helps me to balance myself and make sure I have time to recharge and that's that's something that I know about myself but in this case I wasn't recharging I just literally had almost two weeks of just constantly moving. Sure, of course, there were times where I got to just sit down and watch YouTube or I was able to go hang out with some friends or whatever it was.
But that didn't recharge me either, unlike it usually does. The reason was because at some point it wasn't me hanging out with people. It wasn't me being with people to recharge and relax. It was not a responsibility. I almost want to say responsibility, but that's not true either. I wanted to be there. I wanted to hang out with my friends. I absolutely, those people are amazing that the people that I got to hang out with. But they felt they still had there were still things that I had to do, had to be concerned about, on top of everything else I needed to do. I think that I felt that my plate of things to do was so full that even though I was adding things that I enjoyed or that I actually gave a fuck about as opposed to the work that I was doing.
Since the plate was just so full of things that I had to do, things that I had to concern myself with, that only added to it instead of helps me relax. At some point, I remember, actually no, not at some point, this was Wednesday, no. So today's a Friday that I'm recording this right now. It was a few days ago, it was a few days ago. I want to say it was Wednesday night. Wednesday night. I was stressing so much. This was nothing new. This was what I'd gone through several times in the past two weeks. I had been stressing about how much I had to do, I was looking at my calendar and my to-do list side by side or switching tabs or whatever and seeing things I had to do, due dates for homework.
Projects, papers, finals, tests, everything, and then also my own commitments to getting podcast episodes up and whatnot. I felt so incredibly overwhelmed, so incredibly busy. I realized that, well, no, I didn't realize anything. Yeah, no, I didn't realize anything at all. I was just stressing and panicking. I found that I had actually distracted myself. I had spent a lot of time trying to relax, trying to rest, watch YouTube, just chat with my sister for a little bit, whatever. But all that did was mean that I wasn't trying to take things off of my plate and add more. Things that I had to do two following days instead of getting as much done that day and it was getting late.
So I went to bed, panicked, but I put myself to sleep. A Thursday, I have a seven AM class, what I wake up pretty early. It was about maybe six AM, maybe five 50 something like that. I was about to eat breakfast, starting to eat breakfast. I was Entering that panic mode again. But this time I was able to realize something. This is where I actually had some realizations. All this concern about the future. What if instead I just said screw all the future, I'm just going to deal with what I have right now. That was a good thought at first, but I realized that wouldn't serve me either because I really did have to be concerned about a lot of these things.
So then I was like, okay, well, what if I do just take a few days off and I just try to like completely commit to resting. Maybe I take, the rest of today, like yeah, I go to my two classes and that's it. I don't do anything other than go to these classes and maybe Friday. I just don't do anything either. I just rest. I just relax. What if I did that? That was a thought I had and immediately that was countered with, well, if I rest for a few days, that means I come back and I have even more things to do. That's just going to make me stressed out and panicked all over again.
So I felt incredibly trapped because I felt like my two options were take a break and then panic or panic now and burn out.
I didn't know whether I was burned out already or burning out. I couldn't really tell. But I recognized that this was the exact same thing because I was just trying to get through it. I was just waiting and wanting to get through these next three weeks or four weeks or however long it is until my winter break begins and then I could finally relax. That's what I was looking forward to. I knew. That that was the exact same thing I had gone through in my junior year of high school. I felt incredibly trapped. I didn't really know what to do. I wasn't able to take anything from my junior year experience and apply in this case to help me because, what I usually preach about burnout is find something that you enjoy, that you look forward to, that gives you energy and in my case, it was me just wanting to go on vacation.
The vacation, not just great because, oh, I'm traveling and being with my family, but also because I was going to places that literally were dream destinations for me. But in this case, I didn't feel like I had anything that brought me that because everything I tried to add felt more of as a responsibility as something I had to be do and be concerned about as something on my calendar or on my task list that had to be done rather than something that was actually meant to be enjoyable. Even though some of those things were enjoyable, they still were something that I had to be concerned about. I realized my mind is running so much.
That's how it felt. That's what was happening. My mind was just running like a mouse on an on the spinning wheel thing or is that a bunny of right? I don't freakin know the thing that runs on the wheel. That's a mouse. I think it's a mouse whatever anyway just constantly moving so I decided it was time to stop it so I continued to eat my breakfast and I stopped thinking and I just breathe. I just focus on each. I just focused on eating and on each breath. At some point I felt like I was calm enough and I started to allow myself to think again.
Slowly I started to come up with solutions. How I was going to deal with this sense of burnout. I decided on a couple of rules that I would set for myself.
For the day. This is Thursday around 6 a.m. I'm setting rules for myself for the rest of the day. I don't remember what order they were in. So I'm going to say these in no particular order. Rule number one, limited social media use. I was way more specific about it. I had had specific, somewhat specific conditions for when I was allowed to use social media. The reason I set that rule was because I understand that using social media is a huge stimulus for the brain. As we scroll, especially on platforms like Instagram and Twitter and even worse TikTok, we're constantly moving fast. We're switching from one, we're switching our attention from one thing to another thing to another thing so quickly.
I knew that that's the problem I was having. My mind was constantly moving from task to task and making it do the same thing with social media was just tiring it out. So I decided I would have to limit my social media use and I had some conditions that I set for myself and made sure that my use was extremely limited. One of the things I did was, normally I actually do check social media during that time period. I usually eat breakfast and then while I'm waiting for my ride to get to my house, I am checking social media really quickly in the morning. Then I get in the car and I check social media while in the car as well until I arrive and go to class. In this case, I chose to not do that. I did not check social media.
I did check it briefly while sitting on the toilet, but that's about it. I really just tried to limit it at that time and throughout the entire day, I really tried to be conscious about my use and tried to make sure that I wasn't stimulating. I was struggling with the word there for a second, stimulating my brain excessively because I knew that I had to rest. Rule number two was... Commit and go all in. What I mean by that is what I had done in the past two weeks was take these breaks. But while in these breaks, I would still be concerned about something or I would still be stimulating my brain or I would really just take these breaks to distract myself from the things that I actually needed to do.
So what I decided was I had to be incredibly conscious about what I was going to do spend my time with and whatever it is that I was doing I was going to commit and go all in on it if I was working I am going to be focused I am going to get this shit done, but if I'm resting I'm not going to go halfway. I'm not going to just lounge around and distract myself. I'm not going to be concerned about something else. I am going to spend that time absolutely relaxing. So that's what I did. Throughout the day, I was either working really hard and focusing on something, focusing on an assignment, focusing on my class, the lecture.
Focusing on a conversation that I was having, focusing on whatever it was, or I was doing absolutely fucking nothing. There were points where I was just laying down on the floor of my room, texting somebody, or reading something, or just literally like just so relaxed, making sure I went... Absolutely all in. If I was doing something, I was not thinking about something else that I needed to do. I was just doing that one thing. That was rule number two. Rule number three was not so much as a rule, but something that I decided to do, which was the night before I was panicking. I was also setting up a schedule for the next several days.
I was setting it. So it was Wednesday. So I was setting it for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and kind of Monday. Part of it was like putting stuff in the calendar. But most of it was on my to-do list. Okay, I'm going to do this on this day and this on this day and this on this day. Just figuring out what day I wanted to do different things. I decided to change all of it.
During that breakfast I pulled out my to-do list and I moved everything that had a due date by Tuesday and I decided I would commit to finishing all of that that Thursday. So this is my I'm changing my the plan I made on Wednesday on Thursday morning. I decided everything that was due Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday I was going to move it and finish it on Thursday everything else I had to do either it was due later or it was like notes I had to take just for myself. So that I'm ready for the next exam not like an actual assignment I had to turn in anything that did not have a due date between that from Thursday to Tuesday.
I was going to push back so Thursday I completed a ton of assignments because fortunately all of those things that were due were actually really short things that I had to do and there were and normally some of those things were like I should like for example for environmental science I should have read the chapter and taken the notes on it before doing the discussion question and the pretest the quiz on that chapter. That's normally what I do but instead I decided forget it. I'm just going to do the discussion question. I'm just going to flip through the textbook and finish this pre-test this quiz.
I'm going to just turn those things in and have them done. So I did everything that I could. So by the end of Thursday, I had absolutely nothing to worry about in terms of due date up till, I think, Monday night. Today I woke up and...
I started to do some things that are due on Wednesday and with the exception of one assignment, I have nothing due up until Wednesday now. I believe I could be wrong. No, I'm pretty sure I'm right. I have nothing due until Wednesday except and that's one assignment and I actually had three but I finished two of them already. That means I can spend the rest of this weekend. Doing things that are important that I actually do have to do, but don't necessarily feel like I have too much pressure in terms of time to do them. So I literally can do my best and that's good enough because I have time.
Also, because a lot of these things were fairly quick, my plate no longer feels like it has so much on it because I was constantly just moving out all the small things. It's like if I had a plate of food and of course food is great. So that's not a great example. But like if I had a plate of food and there was so much on it and it was going to spill over something.
How am I going to clear it? Well, I'm going to take care of all the small stuff first that was the decision I made instead of focusing on all the big stuff which would take time and energy I was going to take off every small thing and. So now I have almost nothing that's small and everything that's like big. That's going to take time and I actually have the time to do it if I had gone the other way around and taken all the big things that take time I would have been panicking continuously because those small things do have a time on them. So that's what I did.
Those were some of the things that I think there was like one or two more rules that I set for myself. But I can't really remember what they were. Oh, I think I was also extremely committed to just doing the best that I could and not worrying about how much I exactly did I think that's something I also did just to try and relieve the pressure that I was putting on myself. You know that morning I was not really panicked, but I was definitely like super exhausted and super stressed out and I was telling friends that some friends that I really wanted to skip my afternoon class.
But honestly, at some point, it was probably early in the afternoon and I was like, damn, I feel so much better than I felt this morning. I don't really know why, but for whatever reason I was, and I decided to take that as a sign, I'm doing something right.
So throughout the day, I literally just did the best I could. I did whatever work I could. I got so many, I think I did. I crossed off seven things on my to-do list. Maybe eight, I don't know. I did a lot and I was really, really happy about that. So this was all yesterday and we'll see how this weekend goes. But... I wanted to say this about burnout, sort of the moral of the story, I guess, from these two experiences. Number one, it's really great if you can have something that you love to do. I talk a lot about it, I preach about it, passion, something you enjoy, something that gives you energy, something that even if it's hard, you're willing to put effort to.
If you have that, I feel like there's so much less chance that you're actually going to burn out because you have something that gives you energy. For me, the only reason it became a problem was because I felt like my plate got too full, that even the things I enjoyed were just something that was taking away time. And... Yeah, so I think I really do still believe that passion is just such a great way to avoid burnout in general the other thing I would add now is you know if you if you feel like your play is getting too full. There's there's too many things that you're worrying about and that you're that's on your mind start with the small shit that has a time limit just get rid of as much as possible.
That way you can focus on whatever you need to do. I think the rules that I set for myself are extremely valuable limiting social media use going all in on whatever it is you're doing. I really think things like that are great and I also want to share this one idea this is an idea by Chaco Willink I believe from a book I read I believe it was like late summer or maybe early fall. It's called extreme ownership. I talked about an episode nine. I don't know if I mentioned this concept, but I talked about the book in episode nine of the podcast. But the idea is this discipline equals freedom.
Now when you think about it logically, it doesn't make much sense. Discipline is the act of committing to something. It's the act of pushing yourself to do something, especially when you don't really feel like doing it. Discipline is hard. It's like committing to taking cold showers for 30 days or what I'm doing right now, doing 100 push-ups and 100 squats for 30 days. It's often pushing yourself to do things that are uncomfortable. Freedom is doing whatever you want. How does...
That make any sense. Well, the truth is discipline does create freedom by setting these hard rules for myself. I'd love to look at social media all the time. I would love to be able to pick exactly what I want to do. I would, I have all these things that I would want to do. I would love to just relax and not do anything. But by setting these rules for myself. I actually created freedom for myself because now I have so much less on my plate. Sure, there's plenty of things I have to concern myself with and I still have to say no to certain things that I wanted to do this weekend, but I feel much, much better by having discipline and rules to follow. Actually, now that I remember this rule number four.
Or rule number three. I don't know what rule I'm on. I'm going to say rule number four. I was going to say no to a lot of the opportunities that I had this weekend. A lot of the things that I want to do, I was, I made the commitment to say no to. That's because I decided that I needed the time to myself, whether I was going to relax by myself or work on something. By setting these rules for myself, by having this discipline, I created freedom for myself. Discipline creates freedom. So I think those are my big lessons that I got from these two experiences of burnout. So yeah, I really think that's it for this portion of the episode. We're not done yet though.
The second thing I wanted to talk about was depression. This is something that I haven't talked about before at least in terms of my own personal experiences with it but after some pretty careful deliberation I've decided that I actually am going to before I share this story though I want to say that I understand how hard it is to talk about these things. For me, it was a lot of doubt about why should I share such a deeply personal story, especially putting it out like I'm about to do. But I realize that's all fear of judgment. That's all just trying to, I guess ego, trying to maintain image, a certain image of myself.
Like I was talking about with my friends in episode 15. Ego is a huge aspect of it all. But my hope is that if sharing this story is beneficial to someone, in any way a single person listening, then that's reason enough for me to share. Whether it's someone who's going through shit and maybe my story somehow is beneficial or someone who knows someone who's going through shit and doesn't know how to help them or maybe just knowing the fact that I've gone through something like this is somehow beneficial. I don't really know.
Exactly, but as long as it benefits someone in some way, I think it's worth it to share this story. So that's what I'm going to do. This is my most difficult experience with depression, my most difficult, the most difficult time of my life. What I consider the absolute lowest point of my life. I will start with context before I get into the real meat of the story. Many of you know I did martial arts for a long time. It was something that I absolutely loved. It was my passion. I've talked about it many times with people and also even on the podcast in a couple of different episodes. Martial arts to me was served a lot of functions.
Let's say, not only was it something that I absolutely love to do and something that I enjoyed and something that Pushed me to be better and even though it was difficult I was willing to put an energy towards it because I found it so rewarding and so enjoyable you know beyond just passion. That things that passion does for people, make people interesting and all the things I've talked about in the past. Martial arts served a lot of other functions for me as well. It was great stress relief. I love to say that like it is the most stress relieving thing that I've ever found because the truth is there is not much better than taking your stress out in physical force by like punching a punching bag or like attacking another human being without worrying about consequences or even if someone's attacking you too like you're not concerned about what you're stressing out about it in the rest of your life like oh, I'm going through shit with my family.
You're like I got to all this shit going on at work or at school or whatever. You're not really concerned about that when you're in a fight and the fact that I can do that with without really having to be concerned about like, oh, I'm going to get punished for fighting like no, this is what we're doing like we're training. This is the point it's great stress relief. It really is and obviously I'm not going to hurt anybody right these are all people that I absolutely love. That's another thing that I really that that Marshall us did for me which was it provided me with this amazing community that I absolutely loved.
It really felt like almost a family. These were people I really enjoyed spending time with, people who valued many of the same things that I did and people who loved and shared the passion for martial arts. It was awesome. These were amazing human beings. Some of my favorite people I've met.
Have been martial artists. Some of the most impactful people I've met have been martial artists and it's been absolutely amazing. I, that was an awesome part of it. Another function was sort of that it was an escape. I, if I put on the key, the uniform and I stepped into the dojo and I stepped onto the mat nobody fucking cared what was going on in the rest of your life. I didn't fucking care what was going on in the rest of my own life. Everything like everything going on in my life didn't fucking matter. All I was there to do was do my fucking best on whatever it is that we were training and enjoy this time with people and focus on myself. That was awesome to be able to just let go of everything for like two hours.
In a day or maybe like 11 12 hours in a week just be able to let go of everything that was super liberating and the fact that no one really cared about all this all the surface level shit people have and just cared about character and willingness to train it was awesome. I loved it and it was also where I started to understand the value of self development and great character because martial artists don't just focus on the training aspect like the technique and the fighting it's also largely about the stuff going on a deeper level I've trained martial arts for five and a half, maybe six years, something like that.
The value of respect, kindness, helpfulness, perseverance, humility. So many amazing qualities were stressed immensely. I remember in when I did Taekwondo, there was this list of character qualities that we had to memorize and recite at the end of almost every class. At every single belt test, we had to recite these these words. Oftentimes we would talk about, okay, what does this mean? What does this word really mean? Let's go deeper than the just simple dictionary definition.
What is respect. For example, in Shugio Iquito, I remember one time I was, I think I had just gotten my brown belt or something like that. I was a brown belt this point. I remember I was talking to my sensei, my master, and he said that, Eric, I don't let anyone get past white belt if I don't see that they're showing respect. Not just respect to me, but also respect to their uniform, to the dojo, the mat, to every other student, whether they were a senior student or the same belt, or whether they were old or young or male or female or whatever, anything. Are they showing respect to people?
Are they showing to the respect to say their parents if they're in the room at some point or anyone like a guest are they showing respect if he felt like they weren't doing that they didn't get past white belt. He also said and no one gets to brown belt without showing humility those were things that he valued. That that was just awesome the fact that there was so much stress on so much pressure on being a good fucking human being and all these really awesome character qualities. I loved it. So martial arts had all these great things that it did for me. It was a core part of also how I defined myself. If you had asked me at that time, Hey, Eric, who are you? I would have said.
Probably something along the lines of I'm part of the child family. I'm a I'm a son and a brother that's number one number two. I was a friend number three. I was a student and number four. I was a martial artist and the truth is Martial artist was the most meaningful out of the four the one that I actually gave the most gave a fuck the most about not saying that you know, being a son, a brother, a friend, and a student is not important to me. Of course it is. But something about the fact that I chose to be a martial artist, I have to be a student.
I am a son, I am a brother, I am a friend. Those are just constants. The fact that I chose to add martial arts and the fact that I gave so much of a fuck about it.
Made that one the most special to me and the most meaningful to me. So I suppose that's pretty good context. So getting into the event, what I was going through at the time, basically I had to stop training martial arts. It wasn't really something that I could impact. It was just sort of... In many ways just how life was just choosing to lead me on. It was not really something I could really change. It was just life taking me on its path like a boat on a river. That's just how it was. I knew that I was okay with it. That's not something I was mad about.
But... The fact that I had to stop was very difficult for me because it did all these things for me and that it meant so much to me. It was extremely difficult. I'd lost, I felt like I'd lost a family. I felt like I'd lost this thing that I loved so much and that had brought me so much value. I lost this thing that I felt like I needed and relied on, as stress relief, as an escape, as a place of self-development and support. It was difficult. It was really hard. I was pretty sad. I'm not sure I could have said depressed, but we'll say depressed loosely.
It was hard. But that's not the reason I really fell into depression. I was sort of just the start of it. I also had something happened with me and a friend or two or three. I don't really remember me. Something happened between me and some friends that just didn't go very well. Between me and the rest of my friends that I had at the time, I didn't really feel like I could go to them, to talk about how I was feeling and how difficult it was for me because I didn't really know how to explain it. I didn't really know how I would be received.
I didn't even know how to begin. I was afraid, to be honest, I was afraid of sharing. I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how people would react. I didn't know if I could trust them in that way. I loved my friends at the time. My friends were great, great. Especially the friends that I continue to know today, they're absolutely amazing human beings. I love them. I think now I could much, I would probably have a much easier time of talking to them. But at the time I just wasn't, I didn't know for whatever reason. So I no longer had this part of me that was a martial artist. I was uncertain about my friendships. Frankly, being a student wasn't very meaningful, which is part.
Large part of the reason why I think I burn out why a lot of people burn out because being a student in and of itself doesn't really provide a lot of meaning to it. So you're just doing things because you're supposed to or you have to or you feel like you have to so that wasn't meaningful at all. So I turn to my family just for support comfort whatever and my parents didn't really understand it. They didn't really understand why I was having such a difficult time with martial arts. That was still the big thing, even though I was going through all these other things. I was still the big thing I was struggling with. Those things, my friendships and school stress, which is always there.
Those added to it, but the real big thing was martial arts because you know on its own I can deal with friends most of the time I don't have any problem with my friends. I can deal with school stress for the most part obviously I did end up burning out in junior year. But you know whatever that's not depression the big thing was martial arts and they didn't really understand why it was so hard for me and, they supported me all throughout my martial arts quote unquote career. But they didn't really know how much it meant to me, I guess. Or they don't understand it or whatever it was.
For whatever reason, they weren't really able to help me. They didn't comfort me. They just sort of were like, move on. What do you, what's the problem here? Just like it's over, dude. Just move on.
My head I'm like what the hell are you talking about? How can I just move on? It's not that easy. This was my life for six years. This is something I love these are people I love this is something that has done so much for me I can't just move on like that like what are you what the hell you're talking about here? It's like someone dies like I'm not going to be like oh, they died okay, whatever like no, I can't do that and that was hard for me to accept. I made it even harder. I felt like they didn't get me and that was sort of what made things way more difficult.
I think that's when I started to fall into this depression because martial artists gone student not meaningful friend trouble family didn't get me so who I thought I was suddenly was just so there was so many problems and so many things that were going wrong and nothing was meaningful to me. I realize now in retrospect that choosing to define myself by these things that I did was a huge mistake. I love referencing this quote.
By a guy by the name of Stefan Taylor, you can fail at what you do, but you can never fail at who you are. It's this idea that what you do does not define who you are. What you do is a portion of who you are. By saying that what I did and who I was was the exact same thing, I allowed myself to be broken down so easily. If what I do though is only a portion of who I am, if I fail at what I'm doing, I still have everything else. That's just so much more, that's just so much stronger and so much more sustainable for life, I think. I didn't understand that at the time. In fact, I didn't understand that for a long time. So I was depressed, but...
I was somehow still holding on. By the way, I don't exactly know what time, like period. This was, I just know it was like freshman year. Maybe late 2015, early 2016, something in that time period, I don't really remember. Yeah, yeah, definitely late. 2015, early 2016, something like that, as my estimation. But honestly, I was holding on and I was depressed until this one day. I remember it was a Saturday. It was maybe 1.30 p.m. It was 1.30 p.m. I was having lunch with my mother and my sister. Somehow my mom and I got in an argument. It was nothing to do with martial arts or anything.
It was just an argument about probably something lame and petty. I don't really remember. It doesn't really fucking matter. We were having an argument. It was getting heated and I felt myself getting really angry. At some point I had this really scary thought that if this kept escalating and I kept getting angrier.
I was going to end up hitting my mother and instantly I just kind of mentally refalted against this idea. As a son hitting my mother was just not something I was willing to do. As a martial artist hitting someone was not something that I was supposed to do that I was trained to do unless I had to unless it was like self-defense or whether I was training like this was something that I absolutely did not do. So... I left. I got up from the table and I went to my room and I locked the door and I stayed in my room. As I was getting up from the table and walking away, my mother yelling at me, like, finish your food or like put your food away in the fridge.
She's furious and yelling at me about whatever we were talking about. Like she felt it was super disrespectful, which of course it kind of was. But I just knew I had to get away. So I did.
Before I keep going with the story, that was the first sign I had that shit was going down, that I was not okay because I am the biggest like lover of food that I know. The fact that I did not finish my lunch and that I just like left it there and wasn't even like, I didn't give a fuck about like packing it into a container, putting in the fridge as leftovers for later. I just left it. That's how I knew something is seriously wrong and the other thing is I don't get angry that easily the fact that I was about to get angry enough that I felt like I was going to hit my mother huge I've I'm not an angry person.
I have a pretty good level of self-control in terms of like escalating to violence so I knew that something was like up so this is like 2 p.m. At some point at some point it got to like 2 p.m. I'm in my room doors locked and I'm like, okay, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do right now? How am I feeling? So as a result of this argument that I had with my mother, I ended up coming to this conclusion that my mom, my dad, my family didn't care about me.
In retrospect, that just wasn't true. They just didn't understand me. I had that feeling too. That part I feel was true. But that didn't mean they didn't care about me. See, the truth is, and this is something I've learned as a result of that experience. Over the past several years, I've learned that I think most parents love their children. They care about their children. They want the absolute fucking best for their children. The problem is what they think is best is not always what is actually best. Now, a lot of the time it is. Usually if your mom says, hey, bring a jacket, it's going to be cold. You should probably bring the damn jacket. It's probably going to be cold. In general, most of the time they're right.
But there are plenty of occasions where what they think is best for you is not actually what is best for you or is not who you are? Perhaps different values they have different values from you but that doesn't mean that they don't care about you and that's something I've had to learn and by understanding that even if we argue my parents. I, even if we argue, we have disagreements, we yell at each other and we have all these fights. I know they love me and I know that they give a fuck about me and I know all they really want is the very best for me. That really helps me to continue to accept and love my parents so much.
It helps me be so grateful for everything they've done for me because it helps me realize how... Starts to help me realize how much they do for me because they care about me so much. I feel so incredibly blessed to have them and they are awesome. Even for all the pain that they've caused me, even for all these... Difficult experiences and all our arguments and disagreements and the times that we've yelled at each other and the times that our relationship has been strained. Even these days when we disagree, I know that they give a fuck. I know that they just want the best for me.
I know that they love me and that makes it so much easier and such a great realization that I'm really, really happy I have. I hope that you can actually create that in your life for yourself, like realize they love you. It's just that they are also different from you and that they grew up in a different time from you and things like that. If you can have that realization, I think it is incredibly liberating and incredibly powerful. But in that moment, I really felt like they didn't care about me at all. So I felt like not only had I lost my martial arts family, I feel like I had lost my actual blood family.
Because they, in my mind, didn't care about me. So I lost everything I felt like. Yeah, sure, I had a roof over my head. But to be honest, in that moment, nothing mattered to me. I felt like I had lost everything that was Meaningful to me. Who I was was just suddenly gone. I didn't know who I really was. I wasn't, I felt like I was no longer really part of the Chow family. I was no longer a martial artist who gives a fuck about being a student. I didn't feel like I had any true friends that I could turn to at this time or because I just didn't know how to.
Normally, if I had the free time that I had by locking myself in my room, I would watch YouTube. That's what I did when I burned out. I distracted myself by watching YouTube in both occasions. That's what I did. But I didn't want to watch YouTube. It wasn't that I wanted to watch YouTube because I enjoyed it or because I wanted to pass time. No, it was neither of those things. I was not at all interested in watching YouTube. That was another sign that something was very...
Very wrong with me because that was that's different. I never had that before. So I spent my time. I found some random ebooks online and I read. I also sat actually in this very spot that I'm sitting while I'm recording this very episode. I sat in this very spot leaning against my bed and I pondered life and I cried and the third thing I did was I slept, napped, and I did those three things from 2 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday. I did not. Actually, I came out of my room twice, once to eat a banana for dinner and twice the second time to take a piss. That was it. Again, huge lover of food. I ate a fucking banana for dinner. This is absolutely wrong, but that's what I did.
I remember I was sitting in this spot that I'm sitting in right now thinking about how everything in my life had gone wrong, how I felt like life would just never get better. Like my life was over, I was never going to feel happy. Again, I lost all the people I felt like I could turn to, I lost. Everything that felt meaningful to me. I felt like I'd lost everything and I thought about also how I felt like my family didn't love me, didn't care about me at all. I remember having this thought, what if I run away? Good idea. What if I run away?
I could very easily do that. That shouldn't be that difficult. There are plenty of houses I could go to in my neighborhood that I...
That with people that I knew and I knew they knew the parents too wasn't just like I was going to my friend's house and having to explain to their parents no, I knew their parents. So that would help and so I thought about okay well, how would I explain myself? How do I explain what's going on and say like hey, I just need a place to stay I'm so sorry, but like I just can't stay with my parents right now we've gotten some shit and blah blah blah. I thought about exactly how I would do that and I was like man, this is such a great idea.
This is this is all I got right now. I don't really know what else to do I wasn't planning to explain like my whole situation or thinking I would get much help. But you know, maybe just a place to stay and just be away from my family and then I thought what if I just kill myself? What if I just suicide. That's the permanent solution. Instantly I was like, hell no. Why would you ever think that suicide? You're crazy. What? What? I had the awareness to realize emotions, cloud judgment. When you're in a moment like this, a moment of upset, that upset often clouds our judgment.
My strategy that I had established by this time was if I knew I was in that moment. I knew my judgment was clouded, my answer was take a goddamn nap, wake up, your mind's going to be clear, you're going to be good to go to make your clear decisions. So I went, hell no, not going to do suicide. I was like, all right, I'm going to think about this when I wake up. So I took a nap and I woke up and I thought about some more and both running away. But also suicide was still a good idea in my eyes. I continued over the many hours I had was in my room, over probably the next maybe six hours or so to rotate between reading these books that I found sleeping and pondering life.
But also pondering these two ideas that I'd come up with of running away and also of suicide. Was, did I want to do it? How would I do it? So I already said that I sort of was planning out this, how the conversation would go when I got to my friend's house and how it explained to them and their parents like, Hey, I just need a place to stay. I went through the whole scenario many times over, but I also went over how I would. Commit suicide if that was what I chose to do. I thought about every step of the plan I thought about, okay, well, clock's going to hit this specific time.
I'm going to do x, y, z, and I'm going to die. Then I'm going to be found at this specific time by this person and their reaction is going to be this, and then that is going to happen and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like I had this shit planned out. Like I knew the a good like four or five hours of this event planned out in my head. I had it imagined, I imagined every step. I had every step laid out as I was sitting right where I'm sitting recording this episode. Even now, I can imagine myself going through every single step. I can still see that image that that video clip of imagination in my head. I don't feel the pull anymore, of course. I haven't felt the pull for pretty much since, but I can still see it. I thought about this for several hours. Was I going to do it?
How was I going to do it? I thought about it. I rotated between those three different things, thinking, sleeping, reading. Of course, I also did that.
Eat the banana used to toilet whatever and I remember at some point it was getting close to the time I decided for myself running away committing suicide I was like okay which choice is better. I weighed it I came to the conclusion that suicide was the better option because it was easier I only had to rely on myself. I didn't have to deal with anybody else. It was the best solution I saw. What did I have to live for? I felt like I had lost everything. I had nothing meaningful. I had no one to turn to. I had nothing, really. I felt like I would never be happy again. I felt like my life was done. I was like, I've lived a pretty decent life. I've...
Had these great memories but my life is done now and the clock was ticking and I was like alright well, I know which one I'm going to do and at some point I got up from this spot. I'm sitting and I went to the desk and I pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and I wrote a farewell letter a farewell letter that I would leave on my desk. So that after I was dead at some point someone would come to my room and see this letter and read this letter after I was gone and I wrote that letter and to this day I still have it.
I probably have to search for it. I'm not sure exactly where it is, but I still have that letter to this day and then it was time it was time to do it. I was sitting back here again in this spot that I'm sitting in now on the spot I done all that pondering the spot that I'm recording this episode. I was like, all right, are you ready? I was like, fuck yeah, I am. But are you really ready? You see over the past several hours since I had come up with this idea, I had tried and tried to...
Dissuade myself that this is not the move, this is not the best idea. I shouldn't do this. Not because I felt like my life would get better, not because I knew somehow that no, my parents actually did care about me. I didn't believe it at all. I just, for whatever reason, maybe deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down. I knew something or I don't know what it was, but I tried. To convince myself that suicide was not the best idea, not the option that I should take, but it made no sense to me. I couldn't convince myself that it was not a good idea. I imagine myself in this tunnel completely dark, no lights.
I couldn't see which way was the tunnel going. I couldn't see which way, where the sides were. I couldn't see anything. I was just alone in a tunnel.
Completely pitch black. I couldn't see anything I had no idea which way is where the exits I was walking around aimlessly nothing no light no hope no nothing nobody else and put myself in that tunnel again. I was like where is the light and I had done that over and over and over again over the past several hours and found nothing no glimmer of hope. This was approaching the time that I had set for myself, I put myself there again and searched around aimlessly looking for some sort of light, some sign that things were going to be okay, some sense of hope. I found nothing, and I kept looking and I found nothing, and I kept looking and the clock hit, and I kept looking, and somehow I guess I saw a light and you know, maybe that was a sign from God.
Maybe I've twisted the story in my memory, which is highly possible. That happens all the time, people twist stories in their memory. But whatever it was, I found a small glimmer of hope, a small glimmer of hope. I'm not entirely sure what I saw that day, but instead of opening the door and beginning...
This plan for suicide that I had set for myself, I got up from this very spot and I went to bed and I woke up the next morning at 10 a.m. I walked out. I continued to live my life and here I am today and it wasn't easy. It was not easy. The next week or so was very difficult but I lasted and I... I did put on an act at school that I was fine. Who knows if anyone noticed? No one mentioned it. Or at least I don't remember it. Probably put it off if anyone did. But slowly, things started to come back together.
My family, we didn't have an argument. So it felt normal. Didn't really know if they cared about me or not, at least until I eventually realized that oh, they've loved me all along. Even if we disagree. Until I realized that, it just felt normal, I guess. The things that had gone wrong with my friends, we were able to fix it. Being a student wasn't so bad, I guess. I remember at some point, weeks later, sitting down and thinking, my life is starting to mend itself. It's...
Not what it once was. I don't feel happy. I don't feel great but it has started to mend itself. It's gotten a little better than that deep pit of despair that I had found myself in so what to now? I decided that I had to somehow replace martial arts or at least what had done for me? I didn't want to start another I didn't want to try another martial art style go to another go Joe I guess I just felt that that was the end of my journey for a little while. I had reasons for it but doesn't really matter for it right now for this story doesn't really matter why I decided to not continue training the truth is it just wasn't right for me anymore.
I guess I just knew that and I felt that nothing would really replace martial arts for all the things that it did for me. So I decided I had to do it one by one little by little I had to find something to replace each aspect instead of the physical training and stress relief I picked calisthenics bodyweight training which I have gotten so much better at. You know now I'm doing my 100 squads 100 push-ups challenge for 30 days right now I'm in the middle of it. I think today's day five as of when I'm recording. I don't know what day it is when I upload this.
So I did that and I've gotten so much better. I've gotten physically just stronger. I do more pushups. I can do some pretty impressive pushup variations. I'm much better at pullups. Yeah, I've gotten stronger for sure as for self-development I look to YouTube and to books and ways to improve myself and learn about being a better human being and being the type of person that I wanted to be I learned I focus so much on learning how to be a more confident person how to communicate better how to I don't know I just I watched people. I tried to learn from people and figure out how I wanted to live my own life and I dedicated a lot of time to it.
Eventually I was led into taking transpersonal psychology in senior year which was a fucking blessing and what I consider to be the end of that chapter of my life.
It's coincidentally enough, ends with senior year at the same time. I think the first chapter of my life was up to the end of martial arts. The second chapter began as I was exiting martial arts and I went through this whole state of depression and suicidal thoughts. I think that chapter ends with taking transpersonal psychology and growing from that and graduating high school and I think now I'm in the third chapter and who knows how this chapter will go? But the thing that I the one that I struggled with the most was people I had friends much better relationships with friends than before I think.
But it still didn't feel like it was replacing the family I felt I had in martial arts. It wasn't something I focused on. I chose to spend my sophomore and junior years a lot more focus. Look, I had great friends. I absolutely loved my friends back then. But I didn't feel like family either. Friends are the family you pick for yourself. That's a quote I heard once. I didn't feel like I have that. I had that, sorry.
My I had great relationships with my friends much better than before the experience before martial arts, I think, but I didn't really focus on it. I focused more on developing myself and getting to a point in my life where I was in control. So I wouldn't feel like that again. That was what I was trying to do. I didn't want to feel so hopeless and helpless and depressed. Because of something that happened in my life that I could not control. I didn't want to feel like that again. So I worked on myself for years and I didn't really think about other people. I was at this point where I've relied 100% on myself for anything that I was going through. If I was going through some tough shit, I was just trying to deal with it on my own. I...
Didn't tell anyone about it and talk about it Fortunately, I didn't go through too much during that time period because I was so focused on growing and developing who I was but even. So that meant I was alone and yeah, I was just alone alone surrounded by people. You know if I wanted to have fun and I wanted to work on things I had plenty of people but I don't know if I guess for the personal shit I guess in that way I was alone. Still didn't know who to turn to. Same thing as how I felt during the whole depression suicide phase. Same thing. Eventually I guess I think thanks to transpersonal psychology, the class, and the amazing people who were a part of it.
Just through time and the people in my life through senior year. I was able to build that sense of trust back. I was able to learn about how to be more me and more authentic with other people, be more open with other people rather than just trying to keep everything to myself. Look, I was authentic. All this work that I had done on myself was helping me to be this amazing positive, loving, encouraging, optimistic human being that everyone saw me as throughout high school because I was just so deeply focused on self-development for so long. That's what I was doing. So that's the image I ended up portraying. That was super authentic.
But I didn't show the behind the scenes of that. I didn't show that I was working to improve myself. I didn't show that the reason I was working to improve myself was because I had gone through this shit and as a result of that, I wasn't being authentic about this one part of myself. I wasn't developing these deeper relationships with people and it was in senior year and through transpersonal psychology that I was the people in that class that I was able to understand that and very very slowly break down the walls I had built up for myself to get to the point where I am now where I'm just fucking sharing it on a fucking podcast episode that's going to be totally public.
This is damn wild. It's crazy but that's how I know that this is sort of the end of that third chapter or second chapter, yeah, whatever. This is the end of that chapter because it means I finally gotten over it. Well, not now, but like in the past earlier this year, finishing transpersonal psychology, finishing graduating senior year, that's how I knew that was I had done it. I had finally Finish this mission I had set for myself to replace everything that martial arts did for me. I had finally done that. I remember this is going to be one of my favorite thoughts I've ever had.
My favorite thought. One of my favorite thoughts I've ever had. Perhaps the favorite. I realized at some point earlier in this year that who I was, this new...
2019, early 2019 version of Eric Chow was the exact person that the me going through depression and suicidal thoughts, the me at the end of 2015 and early 2016. Early 2019, me was the exact person that I had wanted to have as a friend, that I had wanted to have in my life. I had become the person I had wanted to have in my life. Someone who was able to have this sense of hope. Someone who no longer needed things to go a certain way in order to be happy. Someone who people felt supported by. Someone who gives a fuck about people, someone who, I don't know, I was just everything that passed me had wanted to have in their life, had wanted someone like that. That was just an incredible moment of pride and achievement. It definitely is one of the best achievements I've ever had.
In my life to be that person. The fact that since that thought, I chose to continue to grow and that now I am even like right now as I record this podcast, I'm I've grown from even that version of myself. It's incredible. It's so amazing to me because that version of myself that went through depression that thought about killing himself because he felt like there was nothing left to live for, that his life was over, that he would never be happy again, how wrong I was, or the thought that my family didn't care about me, or that I could never do martial arts again. That my martial arts life was over, I still talk to some of my martial arts friends today. Not many, not often.
But I do and I'm still so grateful for it all those thoughts that I had were just so wrong and life has been so incredible. I mean these past several years. I mean this is amazing to me I finished 2016 and I said to myself this was the best year of my fucking life in 2017. I finished that year and I said, this has been the best year of my life in 2018. I said the same thing. This has been the best year of my life. I already know that 2019 has been so much like 2019. I'm already feeling like I can say the same thing. It's just mind boggling to me. How amazing it's been since then.
There's so much I've learned from it and so much how the amount of growth that has occurred since that time is just phenomenal and the fact that I eventually was able to, in my eyes, complete that mission that I had set for myself. I've continued to grow more than that is just so awesome to me. There's a quote. Avatar Ang, we're talking last airbender, legend of Korra, Avatar Ang said, when you hit your lowest point, you are open to the greatest change, I believe it. Because my life is an example of it. My lowest point became the reason I had to develop myself. Over the past several years to make each year better than the last.
It led me to all sorts of amazing experiences and so much better relationships. A happier me, a more talented, more skilled, more loving version of me in so many, like some of the best moments of my life.
It's so awesome to me. So I'm not really sure what the moral of the story here is because I feel like this story is something that you have to think about for yourself, what the moral is. I think you have to, as the listener, ask yourself what the moral of the story is. What you're taking away from this episode what you're taking away from my story and my experiences because I feel like this isn't something that like I usually I usually take stories. I take away the lessons from it and present them to you guys that's what I do a lot on this part on these episodes on my on all these Instagram posts I have and everything I take my own experiences or the experiences of other people or the that I've interviewed as on the podcast or that I've talked to or books that I've read and stories I've listened to on podcasts and videos or you know I take all these stories.
I try to present you guys the lessons that can be taken away from it or the lessons that I've personally taken away from hearing these stories but this is one that I feel like I can't do. This is one that I feel like you have to ask yourself, what's the takeaway from this story? What do you want to take away from this? I don't think I can answer that question for you. Maybe just the fact that I'm sharing this is powerful. Maybe something in my story resonates with you. Maybe, I don't know.
Maybe the part about me realizing my parents love me and care about me and even though we have disagreements that's all they all they truly want is the best for me maybe that I just can't possibly know what the takeaway is for you because you live your own life. You go through shit just like I have and just like everyone else does and I don't know your story so I don't know what you want to take away from this. I feel like that's what you have to do for yourself and honestly that makes this moment so special for me the fact that you the person listening can take away whatever the fuck you want from this that's just awesome to me.
I'm really happy and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this episode and to this story. I hope that you find something that you're able to take away from it and I say this in every episode in the closing. But I think for this episode I it means so much more to me if there's a takeaway for you please tell me please message me I would love to hear it. I would love to know that someone has gotten value out of me sharing this incredibly personal and vulnerable story about myself I would love to hear it what you're taking away from this episode so, please please message me underscore chow eric instagram twitter.
If you have my number text me, I literally don't care how you tell me, just tell me please. Of course if you don't want to, I'm not forcing you to, but it would mean so much to me to know that by sharing this story, someone's gotten something really valuable out of it. Alright, let's let's cut to closing forget it. I'm done Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to this episode I hope you guys enjoyed listening to the stories I shared and got value out of listening to the this episode it's pretty personal pretty vulnerable, which I never really expected to share like this.
But you know despite all the thoughts of I don't really need to share this with everyone to put it out there like that despite all that doubt of why I should even do this or maybe fear of being judged despite all that I guess I knew it was the right thing to do I guess I felt that by sharing someone out there someone like you might get some value out of it or relate to it or be inspired and motivated by it because the truth is even though I go through all these difficult things, they've gotten me to where I am today and for that I am incredibly, incredibly grateful.
I don't regret and don't want to change it if I could. So if there's that possibility, one person, get some value out of this episode that's reason enough for me to share. So thank you all for listening.
Follow and message me on Instagram and Twitter at underscore chow Eric let me know your thoughts your reactions your feelings about this episode or any other I would really love to hear about it, especially for such a personal and vulnerable one. I would love to hear your thoughts your reactions how you feel I would also love if you could share this episode across social media and tag me so I can reach more people and hopefully bring value. But now I have a favor to ask of you. See, by listening through to the end, you've proved something to me and while what I'm about to ask is a pretty difficult thing, please hear me out and then make your choice. I want a few people, as many people as possible, frankly.
To send me a voice message, telling me your story. What makes you who you are today? What have you been through? How did you get through it? Share it just like Christian and Sam Lin did in episode 15, just like I did in this episode. Or if you have another idea, share it that way too. Go deep, go personal, be vulnerable. I want people to send me those voice messages, but I want to be clear I'm by no means putting pressure on you. I have no expectations and I completely understand if you choose not to. I ask that you still talk to me about what you're taking away from this episode.
I won't even mention this part. It is completely up to you and I will not influence you after I finish telling you about it right now.
Please still talk to me about what you've gone from this episode. That is way more important to me than this. The reason I'm doing this, the reason I want to give you this opportunity is because I believe in the power and the freedom that comes from sharing one story and I want to give you a way to do that. There's a reason I went first. I don't want you guys to feel I'm encouraging or making you do anything I wouldn't do. I also promise to respect your privacy. If you only want me to hear this story, tell me that at the start of the voice message.
Just, hey Eric, this is your name. I only want to share this story with you. You tell me that and I promise will not be heard by anyone other than myself. But if you are willing to let me share your story, I am able to take voice messages I get and I believe put them in a podcast episode. If you're willing to let me do that, you can tell me that at the start. Perhaps your story will resonate with someone listening and bring value to someone listening. If you want to do that, just start the clip with your name and just, Hey, Eric, this is your name. I'm willing to let this story be on a podcast episode.
There you go. You can also tell me if you do want to let your story be put on an episode, you can tell me whether you want your name included in the episode or I can cut your name out and then just have the story itself. So for the voice message, if you're going to do it, please start the clip with your name. Also put a way to contact you, social media, email, whatever. Whether or not you are willing to let me share your story on a podcast episode or not. If you choose to only share it with me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for trusting me.
If you choose to share your story on the podcast, it may help someone who needs to hear it. I thank you for that as well. Either way, I know the courage that it takes. I did it first. Christian and Lynn did it before me, but I thank you.
For your courage because I know what it takes. I'm not making you do anything I wouldn't do and I'm not in any way trying to force you to do this. I shared my story first and I really believe that it would be incredibly beneficial to get it out of your body and your head. Whether you choose to tell me or you choose to share it on an episode or you choose to let it out some other way is fine by me. I just want you to get the poison out. Liberate you from your own fear and this podcast is one way to do it. Nobody's going to see you and if you choose to take your name out, not many are going to know who you are.
If you choose to share it only with me, nobody will know, except me. I swear, right now, to not tell anyone without your permission, with exception of course of calling for emergency help if you're considering suicide, I hope no one's doing that right now. If you are, know that I believe in you and you can make it through. If you have any questions on what I'm asking, you're absolutely free to message me at underscore chow eric on Instagram or Twitter. Please, if you don't do that part, at the very least, I would love to hear your thoughts, reactions and feelings to this episode. Thanks guys for tuning in.
I really, really appreciate it. I hope you guys enjoyed listening and got value out of it. I will see you in the next episode. But until then, have a fantastic rest of the day.