Pod Insights Jocko Podcast Jocko Underground: Recover From Trauma | Smashing Through Set-Backs About this episode >Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe
Fitting workouts into a busy schedule.
Feeling unfulfilled as a vet who didn't see combat.
Recovering from Trauma and ultimate success.
Smashing through set-backs.
How to overcome fear.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast. We're sitting here with Echo Charles. We have some pretty good questions this week. We will now answer at this time. Start off with the first question.
0:11 Speaker 01 Next question. Dear Jocko, I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to reach out to you because I admire your insights on resilience and mental toughness. Okay, so growing up, I faced consistent verbal and physical abuse from my father, who frequently told me I wasn't enough, tore me down, and made me doubt my own worth. Those years were extremely difficult, but through them, I found an inner strength that allowed me to rise above my circumstances and build a successful, fulfilling life. Today, I'm a nurse, proud of the impact I make in people's lives. I'm in a healthy, supportive relationship with a kind man who believes in me. I've come a long way, but part of my past still follows me. Despite all I've achieved, my father's words and the memories of his treatment still linger, sometimes surfacing as
0:55 Speaker 01 self doubt or insecurity. I want to fully overcome the impact of his words and actions, not just live around them or push them to the side. I want to silence those voices for good and free myself from the hold my past has on me. I would be deeply grateful if you could offer any guidance on how to truly move forward and leave the weight of that abuse behind me. How can I work to fully overcome what happened to me so I can live in a way that feels truly free of that past? Thank you for taking the time to read this and being such a powerful source of strength and inspiration to for so many, including myself.
1:32 Jocko Willink? Well, first of all, awesome work. It sounds like you're doing an outstanding job in your life, right? You're a nurse, you're in a good relationship, all those things are awesome. And here's the thing.
1:45 Jocko Willink? Your dad's, your father's, I should say, dad's like a little bit of an endearing term. I'm gonna take that away from him right now. Your father's commentary was, back then, and is
2:00 Jocko Willink? A reflection of him and not you. That's what's happening. I, he is a troubled.
2:10 Jocko Willink? I would say man, but he doesn't sound like much of a man. He was a troubled human. He's likely very insecure, very self downing. At a minimum. At a minimum. He didn't achieve what he thought he should have achieved. Or he didn't achieve what he thought he deserved. At a minimum. And so you probably. And well, and you know what? Even if he, even if he achieved things, it wasn't enough. He thought he deserved more.
2:41 Jocko Willink? Cause I'm thinking, you know, as I was saying that maybe he's this rich, you know, uh, uh, oil tycoon with all this money. Still, he didn't achieve what he thought he should. That's why he's demeaning of you. That's why you threatened him or I should say you were threatening to him even as a child.
3:02 Jocko Willink? And this is why I say he's a troubled person and a horrible person to be honest with you because he didn't want you as his child to be better than him. Think about that.
3:13 Jocko Willink? That is a terrible parent. That you don't want your children to be more successful and better than you are.
3:23 Jocko Willink? And even if you have that feeling, keep it inside for crying out loud, but to actually let it out.
3:31 Jocko Willink? And, and berate a child is disgusting and, and then physical abuse, mental abuse is just, just terrible. So this is what we have to recognize. We have to recognize your father.
3:43 Jocko Willink? For what he really was, what he really is. And listen. This doesn't mean you have to hate him. In fact, you can still love your dad. Believe it or not.
3:55 Jocko Willink? It's just that he's imperfect. In fact, he's far from perfect. Everyone's imperfect. He's far from perfect. You ever heard me echo Charles? I've talked about breakups? Yeah. And I gave, I've had a lot of people give me feedback over the years about my commentary on when, when, you know, a girl cheats on you or whatever, breaks up with you. And my key point to convey in those situations is that the girl that you were in love with doesn't actually exist. She doesn't actually exist. It was an illusion that you created in your head. That she was gonna love you forever, that you were gonna get married, that you were gonna live happily ever after and all that stuff. That was not true. And the girl that you were in love with doesn't really exist. She was a liar.
4:40 Jocko Willink? And you convince yourself in your own head of what she was like.
4:45 Jocko Willink? In this scenario, it's a, it's a similar scenario in that your father, the father that you wish you had and the father that your father should act like doesn't actually exist. He's not a leader. He's got a crazy ego. He has an agenda. He's insecure. He's got a bunch of shortfalls. He's emotionally unstable. He lacks perspective. Like, he is a terrible person.
5:14 Jocko Willink? He is a terrible person.
5:17 Jocko Willink? But guess what? He's your father.
5:20 Jocko Willink? Here's the problem. You've assigned the weight, assigned a bunch of weight, undeserved weight
5:29 Jocko Willink? to the words that your father speaks just because he's your father. You've assigned a bunch of weight. You ever been insulted by someone? Echo Charles? Yes, many times. Have you ever been, have you ever had someone say something that really hurt your feelings?
5:46 Jocko Willink? I'm, yeah, I have. Okay. It's been a while. Have you ever been, had your feelings really hurt by someone that you didn't respect or care about? Of course not. So for some reason, if we don't care about someone or if, if, if we don't, here's the word. If I don't respect you, I don't really care what you say about me because I have no respect for you. And this is kind of a similar scenario. Right now, you assign all this weight to the words that your quote unquote father says about you. And you shouldn't. You shouldn't. You're giving him weight to words just because he's your biological father.
6:28 Jocko Willink? Just because he had a moment in time and he completed a physical action. That created you. Which is kind of a random action in many ways.
6:40 Jocko Willink? Like he, he did that thing.
6:45 Jocko Willink? And, and because he did the thing that by the way monkeys and horses and dogs do. Were giving him some kind of authority over your mind is not right. He doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve that at all. Look, if he cared for you and took care of you and raised you and was gentle with you and taught you and mentored you and cared about you. And then he said something negative, yeah, you should be going, wow, this hurts. But this dude was abusing you physically, psychologically, emotionally.
7:21 Jocko Willink? Verbally, that's. This is, this guy is, this guy is, you should not listen to anything that this person says. Honestly. The only little thread is that just you happen to have this weird biological connection to him.
7:36 Jocko Willink? Which by the way.
7:40 Jocko Willink? That can be meaningless. It can be. It can be totally meaningless. It can have meaning or cannot have meaning. It doesn't really matter. You get to decide. You get to decide. If you want to give that meaning or not. In this case, I would say, don't give it any meaning.
8:01 Jocko Willink? I would say, do not give it any meaning.
8:04 Jocko Willink? There's no reason to. You. Are a squared away respectable, awesome person doing an honorable job, helping other people. As a nurse, you're successful professionally. You're in a good relationship.
8:22 Jocko Willink? So here's where I'm gonna kind of, here's the little curve ball I've got for you. And I think this is because you want to be free and clear of this. And I'm going to tell you this is hard to do.
8:35 Jocko Willink? You've got to recognize that he's terrible, got to recognize that his words should carry no weight. I'm going to say that they shouldn't carry any weight at all. This shouldn't mean anything more to you than a squirrel. Like it should just mean, it should mean nothing, it should mean less to you.
8:55 Jocko Willink? So you have to recognize that that's who he is. And then here's the tricky part, you got to forgive him for it. Oh yeah. Yep. My father's, my father is a flawed person who is cruel and abusive and terrible. I forgive him and he's, he, I don't, his, his words no longer and his actions no longer have any weight over me.
9:18 Jocko Willink? You have to forgive him for those shortfalls.
9:21 Jocko Willink? Understand the shortfalls, forgive him for those shortfalls. And then you got to move forward, move forward without the burden of his selfish and self-absorbed and egomaniacal words, because that's what it is.
9:35 Jocko Willink? They, those words from him, those actions from him mean nothing. That little thread that when I say that and you go, yes, they do, yes, no, no, they actually don't.
9:48 Jocko Willink? They actually don't. They actually don't mean anything. You are giving them value and you don't have to. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jacoodunderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors.
10:34 Jocko Willink? And we're doing it so we can give you.
10:37 Jocko Willink? More control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jockounderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us,
11:03 Jocko Willink? we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.
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