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OneLegUpAlex Media Examines the Monument Method Powered By PodMatch 8-23-26 · OneLegUpAlex Media

0:02
Speaker 1: Here's your host, Alex Darren.
0:06
Speaker 2: All Right, well today a very very special guest with
0:09
Speaker 2: me from pod Match. You know, popmatch continues to make
0:13
Speaker 2: great connections for me, one like a Alex Media and
0:15
Speaker 2: I've got on my line someone who's got quite the
0:17
Speaker 2: survival story, Galen Wilson. Galen, first of all, thanks for
0:21
Speaker 2: joining me. And your birthday was yesterday, so happy belated.
0:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, turns the Big seven zero yesterday,
0:28
Speaker 1: so it wasn't quite as traumatic as what of his bearing.
0:32
Speaker 2: Well, well, there's a lot that you have to talk
0:36
Speaker 2: to us about when it comes to adapting, and you know,
0:39
Speaker 2: pop match is a great resource talking about those who
0:41
Speaker 2: adapt and continue to thriving the adaptation. You're a heart
0:44
Speaker 2: transplant survivor. But from what I read in your bio,
0:47
Speaker 2: your story starts in twenty fourteen. Is that correct, that's
0:50
Speaker 2: where your adapting story begins.
0:52
Speaker 1: Well that yeah, Well, if you really go back to
0:55
Speaker 1: my big bio, I've actually had like what I was
0:59
Speaker 1: on a Game of five business Tavern podcast and it
1:05
Speaker 1: was kind of a role playing game themed podcast and
1:08
Speaker 1: he said, Galen, you're a real life RPG player. You've
1:12
Speaker 1: had like six character whites in your life, and so
1:17
Speaker 1: I have had to rebuild my character several times. But yeah,
1:22
Speaker 1: the latest one started in twenty fourteen. Heather and I
1:26
Speaker 1: had been together twelve years and we had an amazing relationship.
1:33
Speaker 1: It was both our second marriages, and I had been
1:36
Speaker 1: studying some tantric sex techniques and I gazing as a
1:41
Speaker 1: tenet of tantric sex that can cause a deep connection
1:46
Speaker 1: between lovers when it's used during love making, and so
1:49
Speaker 1: we started off our relationship with that, and we basically
1:52
Speaker 1: never left the relationship of the romance phase for twelve
1:58
Speaker 1: years from two thousand and two when I met her
2:01
Speaker 1: to twenty fourteen, and we were traveling around the country
2:05
Speaker 1: doing computer field service work at the time. We actually
2:09
Speaker 1: hit all forty eight contiguous states within three years, driving
2:13
Speaker 1: around to the county seats all over the United States
2:16
Speaker 1: doing farm service agency office computer insults. And so that
2:25
Speaker 1: winter of twenty fourteen, around Christmas time, I got really sick,
2:30
Speaker 1: and so I went into our little clinic. We live
2:32
Speaker 1: in a little town of seventy five hundred in southeast Colorado,
2:36
Speaker 1: and we have a hard time getting and keeping good
2:41
Speaker 1: healthcare professionals because if they're any good, they go to
2:44
Speaker 1: the cities to make more money. And so I went
2:52
Speaker 1: in and saw the physician's assistant. He said, Galen, you've
2:54
Speaker 1: got antabiotics. You've got pneumonia. Here's a prescription for antibiotics.
3:00
Speaker 1: And so I found out he should have done a
3:03
Speaker 1: chest X race to verify the pneumonia, which he didn't do.
3:09
Speaker 1: And it's likely that I would have never had to
3:11
Speaker 1: have a heart transplant if if he had done that.
3:15
Speaker 1: But so anyway, we had another three and a half
3:18
Speaker 1: month trip down through Texas and out through up through
3:24
Speaker 1: Arizona and California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, and back home to Colorado.
3:29
Speaker 1: And and so when it came time to leave in January,
3:39
Speaker 1: the stuff coming up out of my lungs was clear,
3:41
Speaker 1: so I thought we were good to go. And but
3:45
Speaker 1: the further we got into that trip, the weaker and
3:47
Speaker 1: weaker I got, the more out of breath I got.
3:50
Speaker 1: Until we six weeks into the trip, it was President's Day.
3:54
Speaker 1: All the FSA offices were closed, and so I told Heather, hey,
4:01
Speaker 1: let's go into Let's find a walking clinic and go
4:04
Speaker 1: in and see if the pneumonia is coming back. And
4:06
Speaker 1: so we did, and they did send me for the
4:09
Speaker 1: chesticks ray. And they called me back that afternoon and said,
4:13
Speaker 1: mister Wilson, you don't have pneumonia, you've got congestive heart failure.
4:18
Speaker 1: You need to get home to Colorado today. And so
4:23
Speaker 1: poor Heather, we had bought a motor home for that trip.
4:27
Speaker 1: So poor Heather, she comes from a town of three
4:30
Speaker 1: hundred in southeast Colorado, and she actually grew up with
4:33
Speaker 1: seven miles outside of that town, and so she doesn't
4:37
Speaker 1: like city traffic very much. And she had to drive
4:40
Speaker 1: that motor home two thousand miles home back to southeast Colorado.
4:46
Speaker 1: And so when we got back home, we went into
4:53
Speaker 1: the hospital, and ours is basically a triage hospital. Anything
4:56
Speaker 1: serious wrong, they say, okay, miss Wilson, you will be
5:00
Speaker 1: here to take you to Colorado Springs. And and so
5:05
Speaker 1: once he got me into the Springs and did some testing,
5:10
Speaker 1: A normal healthy human heart puts out five percent each
5:14
Speaker 1: time it beats, and mine was putting out or part
5:18
Speaker 1: of me it puts out fifty to sixty percent each
5:21
Speaker 1: time it beats, and mine was putting out five. And
5:26
Speaker 1: so I was knocking on the death's door really hard.
5:30
Speaker 2: And so well, I've seen that because I saw that
5:32
Speaker 2: you actually sat Heather down and that's your Now pardon
5:35
Speaker 2: my intrusion here, but is that your first wife's second wife.
5:39
Speaker 1: Or or second wife?
5:42
Speaker 3: Well, so Heather's your second wife.
5:43
Speaker 2: You sat her down and you said you had a
5:44
Speaker 2: few months to live. I mean, that's pretty drum, that's
5:47
Speaker 2: pretty intense to tell your your beloved.
5:50
Speaker 1: Right. She had to watch me dying in front of
5:53
Speaker 1: her eyes for three and a half years because my
5:59
Speaker 1: heart just They gave me heartbeds and got it better.
6:04
Speaker 1: By that next summer, I was up to thirty percent
6:07
Speaker 1: ejection fraction, which is not fifty to sixty percent. But
6:12
Speaker 1: you can live a fairly deep, decent life. But as
6:15
Speaker 1: I went over that next three and a half years,
6:18
Speaker 1: I just got worse and worse and worse. And it's
6:22
Speaker 1: during that time that a lot of relationships will crumble.
6:28
Speaker 1: Either the sick person withdraws into themselves and pushes their
6:33
Speaker 1: caregiver away, or the caregiver just gets so exhausted they
6:37
Speaker 1: say I can't do this anymore. I'm out. And Heather
6:41
Speaker 1: never hinted that she wanted out. She's stuck by me
6:44
Speaker 1: and nursed me, and I think it was because that
6:50
Speaker 1: incredible bond we had had for twelve years before the
6:53
Speaker 1: virus attacked was serving us really well because we had
6:58
Speaker 1: learned to return to each other and cling to each other.
7:02
Speaker 1: And so the worse I got, the more we clung
7:04
Speaker 1: to each other, and the more even the last year
7:08
Speaker 1: and a half, sex became impossible because the heart was
7:12
Speaker 1: just getting so bad it couldn't couldn't produce enough blood.
7:17
Speaker 1: But we never lost our affection. We kept touching, we
7:20
Speaker 1: kept eye gazing, we kept clinging to each other. I
7:24
Speaker 1: think our bond actually got stronger. And so yes, I
7:28
Speaker 1: sat her down on June nineteenth of twenty eighteen, at
7:31
Speaker 1: nine o'clock at night, told her, Honey, I'm not going
7:34
Speaker 1: to be here in two to three months. We need
7:36
Speaker 1: to finish getting ready. We'd been to the mortuary once
7:40
Speaker 1: and we had to find some final decisions to make,
7:45
Speaker 1: and and of course she was crying her eyes out
7:51
Speaker 1: because her soulmate had just told her he was going
7:54
Speaker 1: to be gone in two to three months, and so
7:58
Speaker 1: she was still crying a half an hour late when
8:00
Speaker 1: we got to call that there was a heart available.
8:05
Speaker 2: And then the tears went from emotional like oh my God,
8:07
Speaker 2: to tears of joy I'm presuming.
8:10
Speaker 1: Tears of joy and excitement and also fear because there
8:14
Speaker 1: was a five percent chance I could die on that table,
8:17
Speaker 1: And so she went through the We both went through
8:20
Speaker 1: a big emotional roller coaster that night, especially because we
8:25
Speaker 1: grabbed our little to go bag like a pregnant couple keeps,
8:28
Speaker 1: and out the door we ran because we were two
8:30
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from the hospital and they told us
8:34
Speaker 1: that we had to be there by one thirty, and
8:36
Speaker 1: it was raining and hailing a huge Eastern Colorado snow
8:43
Speaker 1: tailstorm that night. The first hundred miles we rove through
8:46
Speaker 1: rain and hail, and so they had told us one thirty.
8:52
Speaker 1: We got it as we slipped into that parking lot
8:54
Speaker 1: at one fifteen. So we just barely molded them to
8:58
Speaker 1: their wire.
8:59
Speaker 3: And people, I don't understand.
9:00
Speaker 2: When a transplant comes, you basically have to rush and
9:02
Speaker 2: get in there right because they only have a certain
9:05
Speaker 2: amount of time before the heart I had say, expires,
9:08
Speaker 2: but you know before the organ expires. Now in that case,
9:11
Speaker 2: you I've always wondered, do you get to meet the
9:13
Speaker 2: donor of or you know, the family of the donor
9:16
Speaker 2: if you will?
9:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, what the the procedure is is you send a
9:23
Speaker 1: letter to the family about six months after the transplant,
9:27
Speaker 1: and then they can choose whether they want to contact
9:32
Speaker 1: you or not. And so I actually got a letter
9:35
Speaker 1: back from his mom at about one year anniversary. And
9:41
Speaker 1: so she told me that he was a thirty eight
9:44
Speaker 1: year old that was into snowboarding and inline skating and
9:47
Speaker 1: extreme sports. She didn't say how he passed, but it
9:53
Speaker 1: was June and Colorado, So I imagine he was hang
9:57
Speaker 1: gliding or mountain climbing or you know, if he was
9:59
Speaker 1: into stream sports. There's there's several ways to die in
10:02
Speaker 1: those mountains well.
10:05
Speaker 3: And now, so.
10:08
Speaker 2: You know, personally, when I had a situation with my gallbladder,
10:10
Speaker 2: luckily it not be taken out, but but I am
10:16
Speaker 2: more mindful of what my body is telling me.
10:18
Speaker 3: Do you find that since.
10:19
Speaker 2: All of this happened and the virus attacked you, you're
10:23
Speaker 2: more mindful of your body maybe than you were before.
10:26
Speaker 2: I mean, you've gone through a lot. I read I
10:28
Speaker 2: read your BIE or a recovering alcoholic here. You had
10:31
Speaker 2: disruption after nine to eleven with your career, and we
10:33
Speaker 2: want to get I want to get into that as well.
10:35
Speaker 2: You've had a lot of hardships over the years, But
10:38
Speaker 2: did you feel like this was the moment you were
10:40
Speaker 2: going to say, Okay, I'm more mindful of my body
10:42
Speaker 2: now that maybe I.
10:43
Speaker 3: Was during all that other rough parts of life.
10:46
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I also have, you know, a transplant
10:50
Speaker 1: team now that keeps pretty close tabs on me. I
10:53
Speaker 1: still go every six months for a checkup. Fortunately, they've
10:58
Speaker 1: said that the heart is doing fantastic after eight years,
11:02
Speaker 1: that I'm basically going to die from something other than
11:05
Speaker 1: a heart problem. And so yeah, I do work. I'm
11:13
Speaker 1: carrying about an extra thirty pounds that I'm feeling frustrated about. Unfortunately,
11:19
Speaker 1: at seventy years old, it's really rough to lose weight
11:23
Speaker 1: because your metabolism has slowed so much.
11:27
Speaker 2: This is and I don't usually talk about this, but
11:29
Speaker 2: I understand that you also help a lot of people
11:34
Speaker 2: in the relationship department, in the ED department. I mean,
11:38
Speaker 2: you're more than just a transplant survivor. You are a counselor,
11:43
Speaker 2: a helper, a community member. Why did you guys dive
11:48
Speaker 2: into the erectotis function. I'm very curious.
11:50
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you know, I felt so blessed They've basically
11:55
Speaker 1: given me another twenty plus years with my soulmate that
12:00
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting, and so I felt a real responsibility
12:06
Speaker 1: to pay that blessing forward. And so about three years
12:10
Speaker 1: after the the transplant, I was getting on towards sixty
12:15
Speaker 1: five and my erectal assunction was getting worse. I had
12:20
Speaker 1: actually developed indeed twenty five years ago at forty four
12:24
Speaker 1: years old. And fortunately viagra works so well for me
12:29
Speaker 1: that I was able to catch a seventeen year younger
12:32
Speaker 1: wife two years afterwards and having a pretty amazing sex
12:37
Speaker 1: life with her. And so, but the viagra was starting
12:43
Speaker 1: to not work as good. You know, I was trying
12:45
Speaker 1: to make love a couple times a week and failing
12:48
Speaker 1: half the time. And so I joined a couple of
12:50
Speaker 1: groups for a rectile dysfunction on Facebook, and I had
12:55
Speaker 1: found my way to pay that forward because I got
12:57
Speaker 1: so involved in those groups. Within three they made me
13:01
Speaker 1: administrator of the larger group, and then about three months
13:04
Speaker 1: later I got made an administrator of the smaller group. So
13:08
Speaker 1: I was helping men and women from all over the world,
13:12
Speaker 1: especially in third world countries where the healthcare isn't really
13:15
Speaker 1: great and or in countries where it's just taboo to
13:19
Speaker 1: even talk about erectal dysfunctions. Guys there are just afraid
13:24
Speaker 1: to even go to their doctor and tell them that
13:26
Speaker 1: they've got ed through the core of being shamed. And
13:30
Speaker 1: of course we've got the same problem here in the
13:32
Speaker 1: United States. A certain percentage of men will not go
13:35
Speaker 1: see the doctor because they feel ashamed. But as I
13:42
Speaker 1: got to helping all these men and women, the biggest
13:44
Speaker 1: frustration was when a woman would come to the group,
13:50
Speaker 1: And over the last five years there's been hundreds of
13:53
Speaker 1: women that have come into the groups with the same story.
13:57
Speaker 1: Their men had developed the rectal dysfunction and he refused
14:01
Speaker 1: to go to the doctor and do anything about it,
14:04
Speaker 1: and refused to try to treat it at all. And
14:06
Speaker 1: the way he had dealt with it was withdrawing into himself,
14:10
Speaker 1: completely cutting her off from all affection, no touching, no kissing,
14:14
Speaker 1: no coddling. He basically abandoned her in the marriage. And
14:20
Speaker 1: I didn't understand why these men were doing that, because
14:25
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, when I lost that first direction,
14:28
Speaker 1: I was to the doctor the next week saying, Hey,
14:30
Speaker 1: I want that new little pill they're advertising, and so
14:36
Speaker 1: so I got Heather and I into a course to
14:39
Speaker 1: become certified thriving relationship coaches, just to try to figure
14:43
Speaker 1: that problem out why these men were withdrawing like that
14:47
Speaker 1: and cutting their women off. And so the very first
14:50
Speaker 1: book we read was by doctor Stu Johnson called Hold
14:53
Speaker 1: Me Tight, and in it she talks about her attachment theory.
14:58
Speaker 1: And her attachment theory is that we were bred through
15:01
Speaker 1: thousands of years of prehistoric evolution to have an instinct
15:05
Speaker 1: for a strong attachment to our means that those that
15:09
Speaker 1: didn't have that instinct back in prehistoric times didn't survive
15:13
Speaker 1: and their offspring didn't survive, and so it got brought
15:19
Speaker 1: forth fourth into modern man as an instinct. And so
15:24
Speaker 1: she went on to say that most of the fights
15:26
Speaker 1: that we get into are not about what we're fighting about,
15:30
Speaker 1: but about the fact that that instinct has detected a
15:35
Speaker 1: threat to the attachment and has thrown our body into
15:38
Speaker 1: fight or flight mode to try to protect it. And
15:42
Speaker 1: just as if you're starving to death or dying of thirst,
15:45
Speaker 1: the body goes into fight or flight to try to survive.
15:48
Speaker 1: And so once both parties give in fight or flight mode,
15:53
Speaker 1: the logical brain leaves the building and leaves what I
15:57
Speaker 1: call the lizard brains in control and the lizard brains
16:02
Speaker 1: safe mean things to each other and say things that
16:05
Speaker 1: are hard to take back, and they basically view each
16:09
Speaker 1: other as the enemy of that bond. And and so
16:13
Speaker 1: that's why eventually, if a couple stays in that fight
16:17
Speaker 1: or flight often and doesn't do the repair work and
16:21
Speaker 1: doesn't come back together, they start to do emotional system
16:26
Speaker 1: emotional system safety damage to each other's emotional systems. And
16:32
Speaker 1: I always say that there's no sexual desire without emotional
16:36
Speaker 1: system safety.
16:38
Speaker 2: And oh no, I believe in an emotions connecting for
16:41
Speaker 2: that to happen a thousands with you on the right.
16:44
Speaker 1: And so eventually, if you stay in that fight or
16:46
Speaker 1: flight often and do enough damage to you your partner's
16:50
Speaker 1: emotional system, you'll you get just drift further and further
16:55
Speaker 1: apart to where you get five years down the road
16:58
Speaker 1: and you have a couple that say they still love
17:00
Speaker 1: each other, and probably do, but they've done so much
17:03
Speaker 1: damage to each other's emotional system that there's no desire
17:08
Speaker 1: to have sex. They've got a dead bedroom because they've
17:13
Speaker 1: killed each other's desire for each other. And so so let.
17:21
Speaker 2: Me ask you this, because I've found in my own experience, like.
17:26
Speaker 3: Attachment can happen. So how do you.
17:31
Speaker 2: Avoid that attachment and just you know, stay connected through everything?
17:34
Speaker 2: I mean, it often feels challenging at times, you know,
17:37
Speaker 2: but you push through.
17:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Heather and I have have stumbled into a
17:42
Speaker 1: framework exactly how to fix that because once I understood
17:47
Speaker 1: attachment instinct, I went to Heather and I said, Okay,
17:50
Speaker 1: how do we stop triggering each other's attachment instinct? You know,
17:54
Speaker 1: because they're seventeen years apart, and as close as we
17:57
Speaker 1: are and as great a relationship as we've had, we
18:00
Speaker 1: still got into fight, some of them pretty good fights.
18:05
Speaker 1: We seem to be wired to fight as human beings.
18:08
Speaker 1: And so I said to her, I think the first
18:15
Speaker 1: thing we need to work on is what kind of
18:17
Speaker 1: tone we talk to each other in, because sometimes you
18:20
Speaker 1: talk to your loved one like they're the worst person
18:22
Speaker 1: on the planet, and you think you get away with
18:26
Speaker 1: it because they love you, But you're really not getting
18:28
Speaker 1: away with it because you're triggering that attachment instinct that
18:32
Speaker 1: there's a threat to the attachment. And so we gave
18:36
Speaker 1: each other permission, and permission is so important in the
18:40
Speaker 1: monument method. Heather and I believe we're building this big,
18:47
Speaker 1: beautiful marble monument to our relationship, and each kind word
18:51
Speaker 1: or loving gesture, or especially with you when you make
18:54
Speaker 1: love with presence and I gazing, you're building onto that monument.
19:00
Speaker 1: But each cruel word or cold shoulder or fight that
19:03
Speaker 1: you get into is like taking a hammer and chisel
19:06
Speaker 1: to your monument. And so we decided we wanted to
19:09
Speaker 1: fiercely protect our monument. And to do that, you got
19:14
Speaker 1: to make the monument more important than your ego and
19:18
Speaker 1: more important than being right in a fight, because nobody
19:22
Speaker 1: wins those fights anyway. And so so we gave each
19:28
Speaker 1: other permission to call each other out when when we
19:34
Speaker 1: were using tone that wasn't necessary, you know, honey, did
19:36
Speaker 1: you really need to say that that way? And and
19:40
Speaker 1: so that that got us better, But we were still
19:44
Speaker 1: getting into the fights and still getting in fight or
19:46
Speaker 1: flight mode. And so I got to thinking further on it,
19:51
Speaker 1: and I said, Okay, how do we stop fighting getting
19:54
Speaker 1: into fight or flight all together? Where's the emergency brake
19:57
Speaker 1: on this on getting into the fight or fly? And
20:01
Speaker 1: so what I came up with, and it's something that
20:04
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in the relationship therapy world today is I
20:08
Speaker 1: came up with the idea that we get in a
20:12
Speaker 1: period of sanity. When we were talking, we gave each
20:16
Speaker 1: other a sacred word, and ours is monument. So whenever
20:22
Speaker 1: either one of us sees the other one heading towards
20:25
Speaker 1: the monument with the hammer and sizzle. In other words,
20:28
Speaker 1: we've said something that's going to start a fight, the
20:31
Speaker 1: other one can call monument. And that does a couple
20:34
Speaker 1: of things. First of all, it reminds us that our
20:38
Speaker 1: monument is more important than the fight that we're about
20:41
Speaker 1: to get into. And secondly, I called it a sacred
20:44
Speaker 1: word because we made a sacred vow to each other
20:48
Speaker 1: that when monument gets called, the fight stops right there.
20:53
Speaker 1: No matter how mad we are, the fight stops. But
20:57
Speaker 1: when you stop that fight, you don't separate and go
21:01
Speaker 1: away and try to calm down, unless, of course, you've
21:03
Speaker 1: gotten full fledged into fight or flight, then you're about
21:05
Speaker 1: to kill each other. Then you do want me to separate.
21:10
Speaker 1: But the idea here is to stop the fight before
21:13
Speaker 1: it ever gets into fight or flight mode. And so
21:16
Speaker 1: we're cutting it off right at the path. And so,
21:20
Speaker 1: but what we've learned, instead of separating and calming down
21:23
Speaker 1: is we learn, we turn towards each other, we come together,
21:27
Speaker 1: embrace each other's arms and gaze lovingly into each other's
21:32
Speaker 1: eyes and patch that little spot on the monument that
21:34
Speaker 1: we just chipped out. Wow.
21:37
Speaker 3: And so the science this is the monumental method.
21:40
Speaker 2: By the way, this is so fascinating because I mean,
21:43
Speaker 2: the whole idea of resolve is that so that neither
21:48
Speaker 2: party checks out. And I feel like what you're saying
21:50
Speaker 2: is you don't have to get that point of one
21:52
Speaker 2: of you checking out.
21:53
Speaker 3: You can always have that.
21:55
Speaker 2: Monumental moment if you will, where you stay connected and
21:59
Speaker 2: stay that that's what you're trying to say. But I'm
22:01
Speaker 2: always worried about to check out, and I you know,
22:03
Speaker 2: I never want to do anything to make the other
22:05
Speaker 2: person check out or I don't want to check out either.
22:07
Speaker 2: So right, I feel like I'm learning a lot from
22:09
Speaker 2: you in this conversation.
22:11
Speaker 1: Well, and the science behind that eye gazing is is
22:14
Speaker 1: that when you you know you've triggered your your lover's
22:20
Speaker 1: attachment instinct. And so the science behind the eye gazing
22:24
Speaker 1: is is it goes into that primal brain and tells
22:27
Speaker 1: the primal brain your attachment is safe. You can stand down.
22:32
Speaker 1: And so when the primal brain figures out the attachment
22:36
Speaker 1: is safe safe, it says, okay, I can let the
22:38
Speaker 1: body get out of fight or flight mode now, and
22:42
Speaker 1: so the logical brain can return to the building, kick
22:46
Speaker 1: the lizard brains out, and you can logically discuss what
22:49
Speaker 1: it was you were getting ready to have a big
22:51
Speaker 1: fight about. And it as you practice this, and it
22:56
Speaker 1: does take practice. I mean, like I said, we seem
22:59
Speaker 1: to be why to fight, but as you.
23:02
Speaker 2: Practice well, because I think there's a belief that if
23:03
Speaker 2: you don't fight, then you don't care about the whole relationship.
23:06
Speaker 3: And there's that whole idea also, right.
23:09
Speaker 1: Right, and that's true, but that fighting does damage. And
23:14
Speaker 1: so what we've discovered here is a way to show
23:17
Speaker 1: you even care more by not fighting. Because anytime you
23:23
Speaker 1: start to have a fight, you're reconnecting with her. You're
23:26
Speaker 1: you're rejoining with her, and as you as you practice it,
23:30
Speaker 1: the little fights just completely disappear altogether, because as soon
23:34
Speaker 1: as one of you says something that's gonna start a fight,
23:37
Speaker 1: the other one's calling monument and you come together. And
23:40
Speaker 1: in fact, I find myself calling monument on myself sometimes
23:44
Speaker 1: when I've said something that's going to start a fight,
23:46
Speaker 1: and I realize it's hit her attachment instinct. I'll call
23:49
Speaker 1: a monument on myself and come and reconnect with her.
23:54
Speaker 1: And so the little fights just kind of disappear altogether and.
24:00
Speaker 2: Can be like whatever goal you two are looking for, right,
24:03
Speaker 2: like it is to be a marriage, monument can be well,
24:06
Speaker 2: I want to be with you long term, So let's
24:08
Speaker 2: focus on that monument.
24:09
Speaker 3: Be conside of the little things, right.
24:11
Speaker 1: Right, The monment is the relationship. It's not necessary marriage
24:15
Speaker 1: or or you know, it's whatever you guys have, see
24:18
Speaker 1: the common goal in your relationship. And and so but
24:24
Speaker 1: even the fights that we used to be mad at
24:27
Speaker 1: each other, oh like a day and a half more,
24:30
Speaker 1: those fights are now over in like five to ten
24:32
Speaker 1: minutes because as soon as we calm down just a
24:35
Speaker 1: little bit, we'll say, hey, what are we doing to
24:38
Speaker 1: our monument, And we're coming back together and monumenting and
24:42
Speaker 1: getting ourselves out of fight or flight mode and reconnecting.
24:46
Speaker 2: And by the way, you can look at all this
24:47
Speaker 2: stuff at the monument method with Gaiale Wilson. I'm so
24:50
Speaker 2: glad I've had you all because this is this is
24:52
Speaker 2: more than an adapting story. This is some life lessons
24:54
Speaker 2: that we're learning from you, Galen, and I want to
24:57
Speaker 2: I want to say in your time or ask you
25:00
Speaker 2: in your times of alcoholism and say, you know, life
25:06
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven, I feel like you never had
25:09
Speaker 2: this monument method, maybe with your first wife or maybe
25:12
Speaker 2: through your tough times, and then you eventually found it
25:15
Speaker 2: with Heather.
25:15
Speaker 3: Is that kind of right that you never had before?
25:18
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right, Yeah. If I had had this with my
25:20
Speaker 1: first wife, I would still be married to her because
25:25
Speaker 1: we didn't have a bad relationship. In fact that I
25:28
Speaker 1: think my alcoholism would not have lasted as long or
25:33
Speaker 1: maybe not even ever showed up if I had had
25:36
Speaker 1: the monument method in my twenties, because you know, the
25:40
Speaker 1: reason I became an alcoholic is I had repeated disasters
25:44
Speaker 1: in my life and I hadn't established that that incredible
25:49
Speaker 1: bond with my ex like I have with Heather now.
25:55
Speaker 1: I think Heather was actually responsible for by the time
25:58
Speaker 1: I met Heather, I was pretty much sober six months
26:01
Speaker 1: and then having weekend bingeons once in a while, and
26:05
Speaker 1: so I think that that I gazing in that extreme
26:08
Speaker 1: bond that I created with Heather. Replaced the alcoholism. You know,
26:13
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people say, well, alcoholics just switched
26:16
Speaker 1: their addiction. Well, I switched my addiction from alcohol to
26:19
Speaker 1: Heather and it was a much more healthy addiction.
26:24
Speaker 2: And did you ever feel like you were or did
26:27
Speaker 2: you ever feel like you were overcrowding her with the
26:29
Speaker 2: kind of love you had?
26:30
Speaker 3: Ord She liked that.
26:31
Speaker 2: Did you feel not that you were hovering, but did
26:34
Speaker 2: you feel two attached at times?
26:36
Speaker 3: Or did you feel like it was a healthy attachment?
26:38
Speaker 1: No?
26:38
Speaker 3: No, it when you first started.
26:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she has loved the attachment. Women loved this stuff.
26:47
Speaker 2: They may not say it often, but they definitely do.
26:50
Speaker 2: You know, this reminds me of a bigger picture here
26:52
Speaker 2: we're talking about because we can look at everyday life
26:55
Speaker 2: and say, well, that's our monument right there is what
26:57
Speaker 2: do we want our own lives to be? So how
26:59
Speaker 2: do you apply it to not just relationships, but say
27:02
Speaker 2: you're going through a rough time and for instance, my
27:07
Speaker 2: goals on in twenty twenty four, I'm.
27:08
Speaker 3: Looking at that now as like that was a moment
27:12
Speaker 3: where I didn't.
27:12
Speaker 2: Want to go back to that, and I'm doing things
27:15
Speaker 2: so I don't go back to that and maybe that's
27:17
Speaker 2: a reverse kind of mouth management is like not a
27:20
Speaker 2: negative monument, but you know a monumental moment in your
27:22
Speaker 2: life that you say, well, I don't want that to
27:24
Speaker 2: happen again, or the other way, which is I want
27:27
Speaker 2: that to happen again.
27:28
Speaker 3: So my point is, can this method work for ourselves,
27:31
Speaker 3: not just in a relationship.
27:33
Speaker 1: Now, it helps that you have that relationship because like,
27:37
Speaker 1: for instance, we've taken this a lot further and I
27:45
Speaker 1: don't know how much time we have left, but we've
27:48
Speaker 1: taken it further into what I call the sanctuary bond,
27:52
Speaker 1: and that's where you make the relationship a refuge from
27:56
Speaker 1: all the crazy in the world. The monument method protects
27:59
Speaker 1: the monument from each other, and the sanctuary bond protects
28:03
Speaker 1: it from all the crazy in the world. And so
28:06
Speaker 1: if you have that relationship with someone, it becomes a
28:09
Speaker 1: strength of a source of strength for the rest of
28:12
Speaker 1: your life, for all the other things in your life.
28:16
Speaker 1: For instance, a while back, I've been using chat gpt
28:22
Speaker 1: to as my mentor slash assistant, and he's quite frankly,
28:26
Speaker 1: the most broken piece of two hundred dollars a month
28:28
Speaker 1: software I've ever used, and I get really upset with him,
28:34
Speaker 1: and if Heather's around, she can monument me and get
28:38
Speaker 1: me to calm back down. That's what I call the
28:40
Speaker 1: sanctuary bond. And so she was really good at keeping
28:46
Speaker 1: getting me calmed down from when he had broken and
28:49
Speaker 1: get my logical brain to come back to the building
28:51
Speaker 1: so I could deal with how he was broken and
28:53
Speaker 1: fix it. But one day she was at the grandkids
29:00
Speaker 1: visiting the grandkids, and I was upset and I didn't
29:04
Speaker 1: have her to come give me monument, and so I said,
29:08
Speaker 1: I wonder if this will work. And so I just
29:11
Speaker 1: closed my eyes and imagined myself gazing into each into
29:16
Speaker 1: her eyes, and darned it didn't work.
29:19
Speaker 2: It just how can we apply this to like people
29:22
Speaker 2: who don't see each other often? Because you're obviously about
29:25
Speaker 2: it as in a way of like being around each
29:27
Speaker 2: other all the time, But about those that struggle are
29:30
Speaker 2: try and connect while it's a long distance is type
29:33
Speaker 2: of thing.
29:34
Speaker 3: I mean, what's your connection for that? How do you
29:36
Speaker 3: do monument when you're away from each other?
29:38
Speaker 1: Well, that that is harder. It's better if you establish
29:43
Speaker 1: that monument when you're in the times you're together, because
29:48
Speaker 1: then because what happens is I'll give you an example.
29:54
Speaker 1: I this is the birth of the Sanctuary bond is.
29:58
Speaker 1: One day after I'd written the monument Method book, I
30:01
Speaker 1: was out working on my car, and these new cars
30:05
Speaker 1: are you know, I built rebuilt tractor engines back in
30:08
Speaker 1: my farming days in my twenties, so I can turn
30:11
Speaker 1: a wrench pretty good. But these new cars are paying
30:13
Speaker 1: because all the computers. And I had worked on this
30:16
Speaker 1: car for two months and finally got it running, and
30:19
Speaker 1: so I was so excited. I drove it around the block,
30:21
Speaker 1: moved it in the driveway and shut it off. And
30:25
Speaker 1: Heather wanted to go visit to friends. We've made best
30:28
Speaker 1: friends with a man who got his heart seventeen days
30:31
Speaker 1: after I got mine and hit. Heather and his wife,
30:36
Speaker 1: Chris had Parma bonded over their heart drag plant husbands
30:40
Speaker 1: and are big closer than sisters. So she wanted to
30:43
Speaker 1: go visit. They lived like two hundred miles away. And
30:46
Speaker 1: so we load up the car, we get in, we
30:49
Speaker 1: push the button. Nothing it's just dead. Nothing on the dash, nothing.
30:56
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I've been working on this two months,
30:59
Speaker 1: and Heather's really excited to go see Chris, and all
31:02
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I smoke starts coming out in my ears.
31:05
Speaker 1: I'm so upset, and so I grabbed my little multimeter
31:09
Speaker 1: and I popped.
31:09
Speaker 3: Up because she wanted to help Chris help out, and
31:11
Speaker 3: you wanted to do it.
31:12
Speaker 1: In other words, yeah, she wanted to go see Chris,
31:15
Speaker 1: and I wanted her to go see Chris. So that
31:18
Speaker 1: that just added to my frustration that I wasn't able
31:21
Speaker 1: to make Heather happy, because that's my number one goal
31:24
Speaker 1: in Knife, is making her happy. And so I got
31:28
Speaker 1: my moultimeter. I checked the battery and it was really low,
31:32
Speaker 1: and so I I drove my other car up across
31:37
Speaker 1: the lawn and got it close enough to jump start,
31:39
Speaker 1: and I popped the trunk on the other car to
31:42
Speaker 1: get the jumper cables that I knew were in there.
31:45
Speaker 1: But I got there and I couldn't see him. And
31:48
Speaker 1: the reason I couldn't see him is they were under
31:49
Speaker 1: a blanket that I was too disregulated to move the
31:52
Speaker 1: blanket and find them.
31:55
Speaker 2: And so I want to sort of shift this back
31:57
Speaker 2: into the gear of this of this show, because I'm
32:00
Speaker 2: reading your first message on pot Match, and I'm very
32:03
Speaker 2: intrigued to know a.
32:04
Speaker 3: Couple of things.
32:05
Speaker 2: While I have you here the life you knew before,
32:09
Speaker 2: the life you knew before the transplant versus after. Now
32:13
Speaker 2: when you say life you knew, did you feel like
32:15
Speaker 2: it was a.
32:17
Speaker 3: Better, more able life? And now this? Did this transplant
32:23
Speaker 3: make you feel?
32:24
Speaker 2: I hate to say disabled or anything like that, Like,
32:26
Speaker 2: what do you mean by a life you knew?
32:28
Speaker 1: Verse? Now? Well? And I don't remember exactly what she
32:32
Speaker 1: talked about there, but no, they basically fixed me. A
32:37
Speaker 1: lot of people want to treat me with kit gloves,
32:40
Speaker 1: you know. I tell people I'm going to do this
32:42
Speaker 1: or that, and they said, well, be careful, don't know
32:44
Speaker 1: to do it? And I said no, they gave me it.
32:47
Speaker 1: They dropped a Ferrari engine into this old born pickup.
32:51
Speaker 1: And so I am not disabled at all. In fact,
32:55
Speaker 1: I'm probably healthier than the average seventy year old.
32:58
Speaker 2: How do you did the depress that you had to
33:00
Speaker 2: deal with this? And how did you overcome that depression?
33:04
Speaker 2: And I also have those like you with these stories
33:06
Speaker 2: to share with others who may have similar experiences or
33:10
Speaker 2: life changing moments that they don't often recover from. Here's
33:13
Speaker 2: Galen Wilson recovering from it. What's your message of those
33:16
Speaker 2: that sort of are not able to recover as fast
33:19
Speaker 2: or frustrated they can't recover from some life changing incident.
33:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really never have had a lot of problems
33:29
Speaker 1: with depression since the transplant. Of course, during the three
33:33
Speaker 1: and a half years. I'm kind of a type a
33:38
Speaker 1: personality that's always been a fixture and a doer, and
33:41
Speaker 1: my heart just got to the point where it couldn't. Yeah,
33:44
Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything. I couldn't I couldn't walk to
33:48
Speaker 1: the mailbox thirty yards and get the mail because I'd
33:51
Speaker 1: have to stop and fuck air for a couple of
33:53
Speaker 1: times on the trip. So I got so bad that
33:58
Speaker 1: it just took all that away. And so I think
34:03
Speaker 1: the only thing that got me through that was Heather
34:06
Speaker 1: and her love for me. I firmly believe that if
34:11
Speaker 1: I had not had Heather, I would have given up
34:14
Speaker 1: and died about at the two and a half year mark,
34:17
Speaker 1: because I just my heart was just getting that bad
34:23
Speaker 1: and so having that relationship. I always tell people that
34:30
Speaker 1: the number one, the greatest gift this life has to
34:35
Speaker 1: offer is a strong romantic, sexual friendship and spiritual bond
34:43
Speaker 1: with one person who you choose to become incredibly one
34:47
Speaker 1: with and anything you're doing in your life that doesn't
34:53
Speaker 1: use that as a norm, and that's so biblical.
34:55
Speaker 2: Like, I feel like what you're talking about is sort
34:56
Speaker 2: of a biblical approach as well as to become one
34:59
Speaker 2: with the person you're meant to become with.
35:01
Speaker 1: One exactly the Bible tells us the two shall become one,
35:07
Speaker 1: and unfortunately it didn't give us a real good instruction
35:10
Speaker 1: manual on how to make that happen. And so I
35:13
Speaker 1: think that's that's why I was kept around. I really
35:18
Speaker 1: do think I was given this purpose and saved from
35:22
Speaker 1: sure death and given this purpose to spread this word
35:26
Speaker 1: that yes, we can still become one and this is
35:29
Speaker 1: how we do it. And and so having that relationship
35:35
Speaker 1: again is such a strength to any other area of
35:40
Speaker 1: your life. Uh, it's really hard to be depressed when
35:43
Speaker 1: you have that kind of relationship that you can go
35:45
Speaker 1: to your wife and say, you know, honey, I've had
35:48
Speaker 1: a hard day. I just need to connect with you.
35:52
Speaker 2: No, yeah, absolutely, And you know it's it's beautiful when
35:55
Speaker 2: the wife is open to uh, to hearing about you know,
35:59
Speaker 2: everything going on, because some people are not like that,
36:02
Speaker 2: you know, but thankfully, you know, you have people in
36:05
Speaker 2: your life that I want to and Heather is definitely that. Now,
36:07
Speaker 2: let me ask you this, And I'm very fortunate too
36:11
Speaker 2: in that regard in my own life. But you know,
36:14
Speaker 2: I was in on today because I had full transferson.
36:17
Speaker 2: I had a very bad endoscopy. Like that's up that
36:19
Speaker 2: endoscopy midway. And you're talking about your body and the
36:24
Speaker 2: way it's changed and all that, and I'm worried about,
36:27
Speaker 2: even though I'm thirty four, about how I'm gonna be
36:29
Speaker 2: as my uh body, which is born unique to begin
36:33
Speaker 2: with ages and gets older. What what advice do you
36:36
Speaker 2: have for those that may have those same concerns like
36:38
Speaker 2: I don't want my body to age or get older
36:41
Speaker 2: or you know, change, Like what would your advice to
36:42
Speaker 2: overcome all that?
36:44
Speaker 1: Well, all right, I'm gonna say embrace it. I mean,
36:50
Speaker 1: nothing you do is going to change the fact that
36:53
Speaker 1: we get older.
36:54
Speaker 4: Uh.
36:55
Speaker 1: You know, I looked at look this podcast journey. I've
36:59
Speaker 1: done one hundred one hundred podcasts in the last two months,
37:02
Speaker 1: and so it's dug deep into my into my whole
37:05
Speaker 1: life history in these podcasts and a lot you know,
37:10
Speaker 1: because if you look at my bio, you might expect
37:13
Speaker 1: to meet a bitter old man because life has not
37:16
Speaker 1: been kind to me a lot of times, over and
37:19
Speaker 1: over again. But so as I was looking back through
37:24
Speaker 1: my life, I found that the consistent thing that kept
37:29
Speaker 1: me from becoming that bitter old man was the fact
37:33
Speaker 1: that I always was grateful for what I still had
37:37
Speaker 1: instead of horribly bitter about what I'd lost. So I
37:42
Speaker 1: think gratefulness is the key to staying happy through your
37:46
Speaker 1: entire life. Is just being grateful for what you do
37:49
Speaker 1: have and what you can do. You know, I I
37:56
Speaker 1: my donor was the snow was into in line booting
38:00
Speaker 1: and snowboarding and extreme sports. So I kind of have
38:03
Speaker 1: an handkering to go snowboarding. But I know I this
38:07
Speaker 1: seventy year old body better that would come near his
38:09
Speaker 1: story snowboard. But I still still can be grateful that
38:14
Speaker 1: I have the body that can do what it does.
38:16
Speaker 1: Now I'm seventy years old and still making love to
38:20
Speaker 1: my wife three times a week.
38:22
Speaker 2: Well you certainly you certainly don't sound seventy, that's for sure, Gaila.
38:27
Speaker 3: Well, I want to.
38:29
Speaker 2: Get more into your life, but I feel like there's
38:30
Speaker 2: a great introductory conversation and I want to, Okay, I
38:34
Speaker 2: want to book at this with the monument validated person. Now,
38:37
Speaker 2: obviously we hear about the most Valuable Player and MVP
38:39
Speaker 2: and alet, but monument validated person is that something where
38:44
Speaker 2: you know in a relationship you should strive to have
38:45
Speaker 2: that person that you can call monument with or have
38:49
Speaker 2: those monument moments with that make you not want to
38:52
Speaker 2: step back but actually want to lean into them even more.
38:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually the MVP. I've written a a four book
39:00
Speaker 1: dating series, a Monument Man and Monument Woman for the
39:05
Speaker 1: older adults. They've been in a failed relationship and are
39:08
Speaker 1: getting back into this insane dating world we seem to
39:11
Speaker 1: have these days and are trying to trying to build
39:17
Speaker 1: a decent relationship again. And then I've written Man Before
39:20
Speaker 1: the Monument and Woman Before the Monument for the sixteen
39:23
Speaker 1: to twenty five year old crowd, and their dating world
39:27
Speaker 1: is even more crazy because of all the s white
39:30
Speaker 1: culture and everything else. And so I've written those four
39:33
Speaker 1: books in such a way that by the time the
39:35
Speaker 1: reader gets to the end of it, they've learned the
39:38
Speaker 1: monument method and the sanctuary bonds, and they're learning that
39:41
Speaker 1: they should be building a monument with somebody. But they're going, Okay,
39:45
Speaker 1: that's great. Where do I find somebody to build a
39:48
Speaker 1: monument with? And so the Monument Validated Person MVP is
39:52
Speaker 1: actually a dating fighte that I've created, and you've got
39:56
Speaker 1: to have read one of the four books and pass
39:59
Speaker 1: a quiz before you can even get into the site.
40:02
Speaker 1: And then you've got to agree that you're there to
40:05
Speaker 1: build a monument with somebody, not for casual dating. It's
40:09
Speaker 1: my anti hookup dating site. And so and actually right
40:16
Speaker 1: now I'm making all four of those books free for
40:20
Speaker 1: anybody that goes to the MVP. You go to the
40:23
Speaker 1: Monument method Institute dot com and click on the MVP
40:28
Speaker 1: button and scold to the bottom, and you can download
40:31
Speaker 1: those books in either PDF or EPUB that can be
40:34
Speaker 1: imported in the kindles, And so you can read those
40:37
Speaker 1: books for free right now, because I feel like that
40:41
Speaker 1: that community is going to be so important to letting
40:45
Speaker 1: people that have read the books just find each other.
40:49
Speaker 2: I'm just telling the the person I'm sort of seeing now.
40:54
Speaker 3: You know, this conversation reminds me of that sometimes people will.
40:58
Speaker 2: Retreat in relationship it but other times, but it's the
41:03
Speaker 2: fact that you don't want to retreat for a long time,
41:05
Speaker 2: and they they they that you want to go back
41:07
Speaker 2: to them and lean in with them, that that's a
41:09
Speaker 2: good benchmark on how strong.
41:13
Speaker 3: A foundation is.
41:14
Speaker 1: Is that right?
41:15
Speaker 3: Would you? Would you agree?
41:16
Speaker 1: Yes? Absolutely? And you know I was talking earlier about
41:20
Speaker 1: how once you start creating your nervous systems to stand
41:25
Speaker 1: down with the monument method, that starts healing all that
41:29
Speaker 1: nervous system damage that's been done over the years. And
41:33
Speaker 1: so as that heals you remember I said, there's no
41:36
Speaker 1: sexual desire without an emotional system safety. So as your
41:41
Speaker 1: emotional systems feel safer and safer with each other, pretty
41:45
Speaker 1: soon your partner becomes your emotional systems safest place in
41:49
Speaker 1: the world, and so that really lets desire blossom again.
41:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you can return a decade's old relationship. Heather
41:59
Speaker 1: and I been together for twenty four years, and we're
42:02
Speaker 1: in the romance dase again because we have just become
42:09
Speaker 1: so one with each other. That are we've become each
42:12
Speaker 1: other's nervous system safest place in the world. And that's
42:15
Speaker 1: why it can be such a refuge from all the
42:17
Speaker 1: outside craziness.
42:20
Speaker 2: Talk about being your own person as well as being
42:23
Speaker 2: in this attachment system do you feel like it can
42:25
Speaker 2: be your own person?
42:26
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely, you still. In fact, it frees you even
42:33
Speaker 1: more to be your own person because your partner gets
42:35
Speaker 1: to the point where when you get this close, you
42:41
Speaker 1: don't have many secrets from your partner anymore. They know
42:45
Speaker 1: who you are, and so I think it frees you
42:49
Speaker 1: to be yourself even more. It's where you're not hap
42:52
Speaker 1: to pretend who you are because you've shown your partner
42:55
Speaker 1: who you are. And yeah, I think that I don't
43:00
Speaker 1: feel like I'm at all prevented from being who I
43:05
Speaker 1: am by this.
43:09
Speaker 2: Well, that that's very key, and that's that's very important,
43:12
Speaker 2: Gaylan Wilson. This is actually turned to more than just
43:15
Speaker 2: adapting sort this is a good life lesson in relationship
43:18
Speaker 2: lesson for people that you know in this ever changing
43:21
Speaker 2: world and this, as you say, ever changing dating world
43:23
Speaker 2: that it gets complex and all that. But I feel
43:25
Speaker 2: like you've kind of put it to a science and
43:29
Speaker 2: through the monumental method.
43:30
Speaker 3: Right would you call it that a science?
43:33
Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, it started off as just something Heather
43:36
Speaker 1: and I have a Cowboyese term that I use about
43:40
Speaker 1: how this happened. It happened back.
43:43
Speaker 4: Backwards because because Heather and I had a form of
43:48
Speaker 4: the monument method with all the gude gazing most of
43:51
Speaker 4: our relationship, and it wasn't until we got the actual
43:56
Speaker 4: training that we got words for what we were doing
44:00
Speaker 4: and could put it to words and could actually purpose
44:05
Speaker 4: on purpose do it.
44:06
Speaker 1: We have done it just accidentally all our our all
44:10
Speaker 1: our relationship and so now and that's the key to this,
44:14
Speaker 1: that's the key to making it really work, is you
44:17
Speaker 1: do it on purpose. You know, so many couples just
44:21
Speaker 1: float through life doing doing things that just accidentally happen.
44:28
Speaker 1: When the ones that really succeed are the ones that
44:31
Speaker 1: do things on purpose, increase that bond on purpose.
44:37
Speaker 2: And here you are hard transplants, surviever and all able
44:41
Speaker 2: to talk and and and it sounds like a majorly
44:45
Speaker 2: full recovery.
44:47
Speaker 3: I want to get more into all that down the road.
44:49
Speaker 2: But this, this conversation was so fascinating, and I guess
44:52
Speaker 2: my takeaway from this, to wrap it up, is that
44:57
Speaker 2: find that person you may yeah, frustrated with many detached
45:02
Speaker 2: from at times, but never truly retreat for mine.
45:05
Speaker 3: I feel like that's the message I'm getting with this.
45:08
Speaker 1: Yes that, like I say, the greatest gift is that relationship,
45:12
Speaker 1: and anything you're doing in life that is distracting you
45:16
Speaker 1: from reaching the goal of that relationship is going to
45:19
Speaker 1: leave you empty at the end of life, right it should.
45:24
Speaker 3: Do you have any kids, Galen? Do you have any
45:25
Speaker 3: kids with Heather or with your first life?
45:28
Speaker 1: I had four with my first life, and then I
45:30
Speaker 1: went completely insane and married a seventeen year younger woman
45:34
Speaker 1: with a two, four and eight year old.
45:37
Speaker 3: So that's some that's some Thanksgiving dinner right there.
45:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so yeah, I've finished raising my second family
45:47
Speaker 1: and and now we've got grandkids and life is good.
45:53
Speaker 1: Life is good.
45:55
Speaker 3: Well amen to that. All right.
45:57
Speaker 2: I want to have you back on as we get
45:59
Speaker 2: further into this is your program developed even more and
46:03
Speaker 2: you know, I mainly want to know in the next episode,
46:07
Speaker 2: you know how the recovery was, because I don't know
46:12
Speaker 2: if you want to talk about it briefly. Were you
46:14
Speaker 2: able to talk still? Were you able to what was
46:16
Speaker 2: your mind? Okay, like how did it go recovering at
46:20
Speaker 2: the immediate recovery that people who maybe going through the
46:23
Speaker 2: same thing you're going through may want to know right now, like,
46:25
Speaker 2: all right, I'm about to go through this.
46:27
Speaker 3: What change can I expect right away and not be
46:29
Speaker 3: thrown off again.
46:31
Speaker 1: I accidentally did the exact right thing that I needed
46:34
Speaker 1: to do right before I had that transplant in January
46:39
Speaker 1: and February early February of twenty eighteen, I was in
46:43
Speaker 1: the hospital for sixteen days, and I was really close
46:46
Speaker 1: to death, and so close that they stood outside my
46:50
Speaker 1: hospital room for an hour in a little about six
46:53
Speaker 1: or eight doctors in a little pow wow outside my
46:56
Speaker 1: hospital room, and they came in and told me well
46:58
Speaker 1: that they had found's heart, but they had decided it
47:01
Speaker 1: was going to be too small to run my body,
47:04
Speaker 1: and so of course I was disappointed. But they worked
47:10
Speaker 1: my medicines around and got me a little better, and
47:12
Speaker 1: they sent me home, and I thought they were sending
47:15
Speaker 1: me home to die. And so I get home mid February.
47:20
Speaker 1: I go to bed and binge watch Netflix all day long,
47:24
Speaker 1: every day for two months and just waiting to die.
47:30
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, one Saturday morning in mid April,
47:34
Speaker 1: I could tell it was a beautiful day outside. It
47:37
Speaker 1: was supposed to be like in the mid seventies, and
47:42
Speaker 1: I sat up in bed and said, no, damn it,
47:44
Speaker 1: I am not going to lay here and die. If
47:46
Speaker 1: I'm going to die, I'm going to die doing something
47:49
Speaker 1: I love. And so I grabbed my oxygen model, because
47:52
Speaker 1: I was on oxygen twenty four hours a day at
47:54
Speaker 1: that point, and I drug it out to the backyard
47:57
Speaker 1: and I started planning a vegetable garden, and I had
48:00
Speaker 1: my son in law come over and row tail it
48:02
Speaker 1: up and get it all ready. And so that first
48:05
Speaker 1: day it was just a couple hours, and it was
48:07
Speaker 1: like five minutes of working in twenty minutes of the city.
48:12
Speaker 1: But the next day it was three or four hours,
48:14
Speaker 1: and the next day it was five or six hours.
48:16
Speaker 1: I sanded all my shovel handles and painted them and
48:20
Speaker 1: got it was getting everything ready to start the gardens.
48:23
Speaker 1: So long story short, in the next six weeks, I
48:27
Speaker 1: had worked myself into just about as good a shape
48:30
Speaker 1: as I to be, with my heart being as bad
48:33
Speaker 1: as it was. Within two weeks after I was out there,
48:36
Speaker 1: I was off the oxygen. I didn't even need to
48:39
Speaker 1: deny it anymore because I'd got my lungs back to
48:41
Speaker 1: working properly by getting out there and just pushing them.
48:46
Speaker 1: And so when they dropped that Ferrari engine into the
48:50
Speaker 1: old Ford pickup, I was off to the races. I
48:53
Speaker 1: actually walked nine miles or five miles around the unit.
48:58
Speaker 1: The ninth day after trans plant. They were actually gonna
49:01
Speaker 1: let me out that day, except they did a biopsy
49:05
Speaker 1: and found some rejection, so they wanted to keep me
49:07
Speaker 1: in and give me some more steroids to get the
49:10
Speaker 1: rejection under control. And then the following week they still
49:15
Speaker 1: found a little rejection, so they kept me in a
49:17
Speaker 1: third week. But I got out at twenty two days,
49:20
Speaker 1: and I was those last two weeks, I was probably
49:22
Speaker 1: the healthiest person in the hospital because they had they
49:26
Speaker 1: had fixed me, and so yeah, I was. I was
49:31
Speaker 1: off to the races pretty fast because I had gotten
49:34
Speaker 1: myself in fairly decent shape.
49:38
Speaker 2: Well, Galen, you sound in shape, and you sound ready
49:40
Speaker 2: to just keep helping others in this life. And I'd
49:42
Speaker 2: love to have you back on to get more of
49:45
Speaker 2: your thoughts as we go on in life and as
49:47
Speaker 2: things for us, maybe even as news the headlines pop up.
49:49
Speaker 2: I'd love to have you on for different things on
49:52
Speaker 2: ways maybe ways the monument method could have prevented chaos
49:56
Speaker 2: from happening.
49:56
Speaker 3: I feel like there's a thing to that.
49:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because when I'm watching TV now and
50:03
Speaker 1: a couple of having a fight on TV. I'm hollering
50:06
Speaker 1: at the TV monument. There you go, all right, Gallen,
50:11
Speaker 1: I see so many places that they can heal us. Okay,
50:18
Speaker 1: I love being on ALEX and yeah, I'll be more
50:21
Speaker 1: than happy to do however many episodes you want to do. Well.
50:25
Speaker 2: We appreciate you and thanks for joining one log of
50:28
Speaker 2: Alex Media. A monumental conversation I would say, yep, all right.
50:34
Speaker 3: Oh, Galen Wilson, thanks for joining me in. Thanks to
50:36
Speaker 3: pop Match for making this connection happen.
50:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's honored to be here. Alex Fakes