Empathy Is My Jam With Non Wels

After a violent and dysfunctional childhood, Non Wels is harnessing massive amounts of empathy and vulnerability to cope with anxiety, depression, and anorexia. We're talking about what it's like for Non to create safe spaces for others that he did not have access to growing up and why humor and levity are important in the midst of recovery.

Transcript

Now, I am absolutely thrilled that a listener of Coming Back has connected the two of us in the podcast sphere as grief slash empathy slash loss slash heart centered podcasters and I'm just so excited to have you here with your story in the show as well. So if you could please start us off with your lost story, What brings you here today? Sure, Yeah, And thank you so much for having me. My lost story is one about losing a past self, Essentially. I grew up in an environment where I felt fear a lot, I was scared a lot, I was emotionally guarded, I had a father who was violent and he terrified me and I learned to basically guard my heart in a way that was a survival tool, It was a sort of survival mechanism, But into sort of my teenage years and young adulthood became something that was troubling, Something that limited me and didn't allow me to do the work that I eventually was able to do. You know, Now I'm 37 years old and had a long time to work on that, But that self being a sort of sensitive, Scared little boy, Even though that that was challenging and difficult and I look back on that little boy and I kind of want to hug him, You know? It was, Like I almost look back on him and I want to redo, In a sense, But I've sort of, Losing that part of myself, I've had to move on because it led to essentially, You know, I was undiagnosed, Depressed, Anxiety, It led to anorexia and, You know, I almost died and that was sort of like a big wake-up call for me and a big turning point in my own mental health journey in seeing that, Okay, This guard you have around your heart is not serving you and I've had to really create my own life again, I've really had to establish an entirely new identity by, You know, First leading with my heart and opening that heart and not having it so guarded. So that's kind of the general of my lost story. Thank you so much for sharing that with us and the first thing that I'm really curious about is, Was this realization of I am guarded, This is essentially killing me, I need to open up my heart, Was that like a lightning bolt for you where things kind of turned around and changed overnight or was it more of a gradual process of like, For lack of better phrasing, Reintroducing your heart to the world again? That's a great question. It was definitely a gradual process because I had the added sort of wrinkle of being 118 pounds anorexic and the doctor essentially telling me my heart would stop, My heart would literally stop if I continued in that manner and so like the physical ramifications, There's like a physical element there then obviously the emotional side but it was certainly a gradual process. I needed to, I realized I needed to open my heart and allow the stuff that was just all under the surface, The stuff that I had learned to kind of stuff down and hide from my father and hide from my mother even, Hide the cutting that I did, Hide all these things that I did as a kid because I was scared and terrified and deeply sensitive. Those things I couldn't do anymore because I felt like if I did them I would literally die and so it was a, It was and has been, I mean it's a life journey but it took a good probably 10, 10-15 years. I'm still working through it honestly in therapy and other modalities and I'm still working through it. I just want to take a second to validate this story for you and for grievers who are listening as well that fear and anxiety and stress and just being under this constant pressure can manifest in the body. I think there are so many, Unfortunately so many grief professionals but even just so many people that we're surrounded by whether they're co-workers or people we see at religious institutions or even people we see on the train that have this sharp, Sharp disconnect between what we're thinking and feeling in our minds and our hearts and what's expressed in us physically but I literally think it's possible to wear fear or to have our bodies be made of fear. Oh 100%. If you've ever read the book The Body Keeps the Score which is mind-blowing. It tells us you know the story of like how we hold these traumas in our bodies, Our physical bodies and it's really it's a book I recommend highly if you haven't read it. I love it and I actually that was definitely on my to read list because you're not the first person that's come on the podcast and recommended that one. I'm like I gotta get to it. You do. It's incredibly powerful and I experienced that in my own story as listeners will know I suffered from massive adrenal burnout after my mom died and I don't know that I was in a situation where I almost died but I regularly felt like I was dying and that's almost I don't think my brain could tell the difference and that was really hard and so I think our bodies really yeah they keep the score of like what's going on and even as different times of year roll around we feel our griefs or that our milestones over and over and over again. So one of the things that I am processing actually currently recent occurrence and it's it's very related to this so I don't have a relationship with my father and I do have a relationship with my mother however recently and I won't get into the full details but recently she's essentially I think she's holding on to my previous self. She in her mind I was a very happy child. I was a someone you know who was happy-go-lucky and sensitive and and and I think there there is some truth there but it's come to a place where that that that part of me that self I can't be anymore and she is essentially looking at myself now who is who is you know leading with my heart who is finding all this beauty in in sort of emotional way finding and empathy and these things I hold dear. She's finding those to be negative negativity and and and vile and and she doesn't understand them you know and she she went so far as basically telling me to prove to her that I cut myself and I did show her my scars and she looked at those scars and she says I don't see them. So there's something going on there and I won't get into all that there's a lot to unpack there but I do I bring that up only because I think that she is still holding on to the self I was and I think a lot of people can probably relate to that with parents. I think they they get this idea the sense that their children don't change and don't grow and don't transform in ways and I think the thing that I I've learned is that we need to meet people where they are and accept them and see them there's so much like beauty and growth and learning and that and when you don't have that and you're invalidated it's so it's difficult you know. I'm sitting here like I literally have my hand over my chest because this this image of proof of like showing evidence of like here it is and that in itself being a heart-bearing moment because sharing the scars physical actual scars even beyond heart scars is like a holy shit heart-bearing reality so to be there and be showing scars and for her still to say I don't see them is it's like it's like an ultimate shutdown or an ultimate invalidation or I am making an active decision to not join you in how you're going on this next journey like I'm not joining you on this next journey and it's really insistent and you say yeah absolutely this applies to parents and I actually I was requested to give a quote for an article earlier this morning about the parents of unplanned children so children who are you know maybe the pregnancy was an accident but they decide to keep the children anyway and the feelings of negativity and resentment that come up and the thing that I featured was what most parents deal with I mean even parents that have planned children is the death of hopes dreams and expectations that they have for their kids whether their kids are gonna be these people always or they're gonna have this job always or they're never gonna get tattoos always like however big small trivial outward inward career choice money partners whatever it is there's something in parents that needs to grieve when their children change and become different people and I feel like yes they're almost their own their own subset of people that insists that their kids never change and that's very hard and I've seen this in grief too with with people in friend groups or children looking at their parents thinking I never thought you'd become this and and it's wild that that half like it feels like we've already lost so much right yeah what's what's so troubling for someone like me who has for the first time in my life like doing my podcast and really engaging wholeheartedly in the community of advocacy for vulnerability and empathy and and and I feel and I am validated in such that I am I'm helping people in that and and to to have someone say that that work is negativity it like I can't even I'm still wrapping my head around it and I think to your point I think there is a grieving on my mom's part and there's probably some guilt and and sort of her inability to protect me as a kid and things like that but like yeah I'm still I'm it's still very new and fresh and I'm still processing it but like on that level it's just it's kind of bonkers it's mind-blowing I want to know if there were any other instances in like the 10 to 15 years that you've been coming back or creating this new person this new identity for yourself I wonder if there are any moments that you would consider like revelations like what have you learned that maybe has totally changed your perspective on how you're allowed to show up in the world or the type of person that you really want to be I mean anything that really has sparked maybe some leaps and bounds for you hmm yeah you know I there's a few moments I would say certainly a moment of clarity was the doctor in Swansea Wales telling me my heart would stop that was a that was a big one I think you know so my listeners know that I spent about six months studying abroad in my sophomore year at college in Swansea Wales and I it was it was at the height of my anorexia and during that time I remember very fondly my my dear late grandfather sending me just the silliest goofiest postcards he would send me like one a week and I remember finding reminding myself and and and I've done a lot of thinking about this in retrospect but like reminding myself that levity is such a huge part of the totality of our mental health like levity for me today is such an important part of reminding myself to not take life too seriously reminding myself that I can't control everything reminding myself that that laughing can be such a healing activity you know that's a huge one I think another one that really sticks out is I I played soccer for many years and I went back you know this was I was still in sort of new recovery from anorexia and I went back to like an alumni game at my high school and I remember my old coach telling me to go eat a sandwich and that has stuck with me as a as a point of like I don't think he was trying to be cruel I think what I took away from that was okay we need to we need to learn and we need to educate people on how to interact with people who are processing trauma and dealing with mental illness and and and and other things and and so like that was a that was a huge point in sort of kicking off this own journey for me another last one I'll say is I have a dear younger brother who has schizophrenia and that has been a really at times grueling at times beautiful sort of learning process for me to learn how to show up for him to create the right boundaries for myself to recognize that I can't sort of control what he is I have had to learn how to also validate his reality which is different from my own and so those are those are a few that that really kind of stick out for me thank you for sharing all three of those and those are just like totally separate but interconnected magnificent examples of these are the things that really they you know like when you're at the eye doctor and you get new lenses flipped over and he's like one or two two or three it's like you just new lenses flipped over the way that you're viewing the world and I love this especially about your brother that you said I can't control how he sees his reality I can't control how he operates in the world and that harkens back to a previous episode of coming back where I interviewed the author Carrie Egan who while she was delivering her son they gave her ketamine instead of another anastasia and she actually suffered a psychotic break for about six months as a result of it and so she had high levels of like hallucinations and psychosis and all this other stuff and was living in a reality that no one else around her was and from then on as a hospice chaplain she's like nothing that anyone ever tells me I'm gonna think is crazy ever again because she's like I have lived in my own separate world and come back to quote unquote reality or normal life in a different way but she's like I'm never gonna invalidate anybody else's experience again because God knows what what they're going through and it's it's just really fascinating to hear you be able to put that lens not only over your own experience and maybe your experience with your mom but with your brother as well so to be able to branch this out and extend it beyond yourself yeah I mean we have to write because it's so much grief and so much heartache comes from trying to control what we can't control as humans you know there's so much gnashing of teeth in that process that is just so crazy making and it's it's it's it ultimately leads to resentment or heartache or what have you and it's it's just not a it's not a thing we're gonna win we need to kind of give you know I always say this I had a guest on my podcast my friend Katie Hilliard and she always says we have to give people the dignity of their own experiences say that again cuz that's wonderful yeah we have to give people the dignity of their own experiences right it's just beautiful and it I always kind of come back to that because it's it's such a beautiful representation of how we as humans are uniquely positioned in this world we're all different we we have our own stories and they're all valid and we need to meet people where they are exactly where they are so I'm wondering because this happens a lot in grief it happens a lot in daily life too where we're interacting with people whose whose stories or boundaries or realities or experiences are different than our own and there's a lot of frustration in trying to get them to see what we see and perhaps vice versa I wonder if you have any tools or that maybe phrases or mental tricks that you use to kind of shift that when you're in those situations hmm that is a good one and essential you know gosh I think for me what helps is just like I talked to a lot of people about their own sort of mental health struggles and you know I think a huge part of that is really letting go of our ego I think we want to there's so much we've all experienced this where we were listening to someone and we are waiting for the opportunity to insert ourselves or waiting for them to finish so we can just say whatever we were gonna say regardless of what they're saying and I think I've learned and in learning every day that listening and actually listening and forgetting about everything you're bringing to it just just shed all of the artifice shed all that bullshit and and really listen to people like that is it's hard to do it's like a it's a it's a practice but if we can do that for each other it's like I feel there's so much beauty in that and it's really like amount about like really truly connecting with that person and listening to them and like actually engaging with them on a level that's that's you know that's that's real you know that stuff is the real stuff that stuff is the stuff I want in in life in every conversation and interaction I have I think that's perfect I think it's I think it's actively listening without I mean the grief recovery method which is the program that I studied in would call it being a big heart with ears like just some people call it holding space holding presence etc etc and I'm immediately recalling a study from one of the founders of the bereavement crew sent it my way after the crews concluded and there was an article that said people who have been actively listened to have the same like brainwave patterns going on as when they're with the most loved person in the world like as as if they're with a partner with a loved one that's really listening to them and it's tremendously powerful this feeling of like if I'm being listened to that equals love like in the human brain and in the human body and just because we know instinctively when that presence is and isn't being held for us we know when people are distracted or we know when people we can almost see the words forming behind their lips and they're like they're just waiting for me to get done talking yeah exactly yeah well it's really just about seeing people and accepting them and you know so much in life is is is really not actually seeing people and I I my hope is that we create those spaces for people we create the safety of listening and and really meeting people and and and and that sort of is like a ripple effect and people kind of like see the beauty in that and then they share it with others and so on and so forth that's that's my hope at least I think I want to segue now I think that's just the perfect transition into what I want to go into next which is your podcast called you me empathy and the first question that I have is related to you actually as a host because from my own personal experience both in the grief sphere and the larger self-help sphere and the health sphere especially in podcasts world so much of it is dominated by women and so this language of wholehearted and empathy and heart space and vulnerability is all coming from the mouths of female identified people and so I'm wondering as someone who is male identified what it's like to because I picture you as kind of like a banner carrier in this instance of like I'm taking this up and running with it because we all I mean it it crosses gendered lines of course and I don't know what kind of place the world would be I think it'd be awesome if we could relay the importance of empathy and living with your heart open to men and so I'm just wondering like what was your driving motivator for starting the podcast and then what is it like being male in this space two great questions the driving motivator for starting you me empathy was to create safe spaces that I did not have as a kid and growing up or felt like I did not have and really truly as we discussed meeting people where they are and listening to them and giving them the opportunity to tell their stories because they are true and real and one of the things that I've I I talk about a lot is the importance of recognizing that the emotional experiences of a unique person is real to them so as an example I have I've told this story in my podcast but when I was nine or ten years old I was with my brother and we were playing with this stray kitten in the house we found the stray kitten outside we brought the kitten inside we were playing with it we you know we love animals so we were playing with some kitten my dad comes downstairs yells at us hey I'm allergic get this cat out of here so we do and of course we are I'm 9 10 years old my brother's you know seven we brought the kitten the kitten back in and a couple of minutes later my dad yells storms toward the cat grabs the the kitten by the scruff of its neck marches upstairs meanwhile I'm kind of crying and saying stop stop stop kind of following him marches out onto our deck which is second floor and base basically does a football throw of the cat hundred yards into the air and I I I remember bringing that that story and an emotional experience to my mother and this was a year ago or so and she's like oh that didn't happen I mean and you know my sister said it did you know of course but like the point is like we each have even if like the details of that aren't exactly how I just spoke about them the emotional reality of that experience is 100% real and valid and true to my experience so I created Umea empathy because I want to give people that space to recognize that their emotional experiences are true and valid and beautiful and I want them to feel less alone and to allow for healing and connecting and growth and as far as being a man I you know growing up with a father who was very arrogant and and very narcissistic and tyrannical and and I just I did not like him one one iota that's sort of I think I'm biased toward appreciating women more but I think if I'm being perfectly honest with the question I would say I don't really think about it honestly I think certainly there's a lot of work to do for men like men need to open their hearts and and and shed the the the artifice that we need to be kings and we need to be strong and all this bullshit that means nothing and I think a lot of men get caught up in that but I I so I don't really think about the gender I really just want to be I call myself a feely human I I want like I that's who we all are we all have the capacity for vulnerability and looking inward maybe some people are more sort of progressed on that journey but I think we all have that in us I don't really think about the the gender side of things really I think that's a perfect response because it kind of speaks to that idea to of like just show up mm-hmm yeah yeah I literally wrote down a question I'm not sure where it's coming from but so much of your your former self this identity that you lost this the boy that you'd like to hug that you used to be was so based in and rooted in fear and I want to know this can sound like a flippant question or it can also sound like a really deep question but is there anything that you're afraid of now I don't think that's a flippant question by the way anything that I'm afraid of that that is a I think that's a tremendous insight honestly because I don't think there really is I don't I don't fear much I don't fear death I don't fear dying I don't fear you know wild animals you know murdering my face whatever it may be I I just I I think I've come to a place in my life again I'm I'll be 38 this year I've I've just I don't have the emotional energy to really think about that stuff like I really am embroiled in empathy and vulnerability that's like my jam marmalade jam and it's just yeah so I don't let me backtrack for a second so growing up with my parents the things that I've learned through therapy is that I I think there's narcissism of both sides of my parents and I think I've I still sometimes have a hard time with the concept of being loved and and like I deserve any love so I will find myself in moments where I mean I'm experiencing some joy it's perceived as joy by my friends and then I halfway through I shut down because oh no I'm experiencing joy I don't deserve this and that's that's a thing that I struggle with it's and maybe there's a little sort of fear that that that will sort of steal me from more sort of joyful experiences but honestly I'm I'm becoming more and more mindful of it and aware of it and and getting better at sort of processing it but it's your question I don't I don't fear much and that may be a sort of blind silliness I don't care like I I I think this planet is beautiful and lovely and and also chaos in a way and I kind of give in to the chaos I think massive massive personal overhaul and also living in in dysfunction not being in tune with our bodies for so long and then coming back to that it's like well there's I tell people all the time I'm like I feel like I kind of seen the worst thing that there is in the death of my mother and so like new stuff like even the death of my dad or the death of my sister or like the death of people that I'm really close to I'm like nothing will ever be that dark hmm like ever again like that scale and level of darkness because it was the first time it happened I was so young I didn't have any coping to like there were all these things like heaped on like you will never get that first experience of it being so so so so so so dark ever again and so for me and this you know grief growers listening to this show this may or may not apply to your personal experience but like I fear very little as a result of that like I don't know there's things that like stress me out but and there's things that I'm working on for myself obviously because I don't a fearless human is not a perfect human by any means but uh but yeah it's totally changed like what I do with fear or what I use fear for like now I know that he could I can use it it's not the ruler which is which is really cool it's a it's a neat and bizarre place to be because I think so much of the rest of the world does operate with fear in the driver's seat hmm that's a beautiful insight like I I you hear about that where you know someone you know I haven't had any you know sort of real deeply personal deaths in my life but you know to hear you talking about you know your your your dad and that experience you hear these you know people who go through those traumas come to that they said oh yeah I've been that like what else can be as dark like that makes total sense to me and I think a part of it is like a resilience recognizing that like look I've been through that I can I can take care of anything or you know I always think like if you know I've had I'm having a sort of depressive mode like what helps me sometimes it's not always helpful but what else we sometimes is taught you know the self-talk of like I've been here before I got through at that time I will get through it this time you know that that sort of self-talk can you share some more ways that you talk to yourself sure you probably want some more sort of helpful unless like me I mean we could be like damn it I can't open the pickle jar but we can go in all kinds of directions yeah let's see you know definitely a consistent one is you do deserve love definitely consistent one is you do deserve joyful experiences another one is yeah you're resilient another one is you matter you know you are making a difference I think and then maybe you can relate to this but I I get a little bit of imposter syndrome at times doing you me empathy and running this show you know I'm I'm not a therapist I'm not a psychologist I'm just a silly feely human who likes to lead with his heart and and likes to dance with his doggy you know so I I'm fully aware of that but I get but I so I get I get in my head too much and say like oh what am I doing this why why why am I even doing this like why should people listen to me but what helps me is is obviously I'm validated by the beautiful community in UMI empathy but but also just reminding myself that like look you are doing good work and it matters and it matters to people and these you know messages you're receiving via DMS or email or whatever this is proof and look at that and don't you know stop telling yourself that you don't matter and why should people listen to you you know that's not that's not very helpful yeah I'm always convinced you're right that I do have this experience of like I need letters behind my name or some kind of PhD or I mean I need to go back to school for this or something cuz like I've gotten certifications for things but my biggest experience in this is like oh wow someone in my life has also died so like that's my qualifier and that's a that's a valid and and that's a valid qualifier like that is that's life experience yeah to speak to that it's like do I want to keep chasing more achievements or am I gonna look at what I've already achieved or am achieving it's a it's like a subtle shift in perspective it's like where are we going with our with our eyeballs and with our brains I absolutely love it