Latest / Groove with Portia / Why My Story Convinced Others to Stay
Transcript
- 0:06Speaker 1: Welcome to Group Porsche, the podcast that uncovers the hidden
- 0:09Speaker 1: treasures within grief. I'm your host, Porsche the Producer, and
- 0:13Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to join me on a transformative journey
- 0:15Speaker 1: where we were exchange laughter, of course the best medicine
- 0:18Speaker 1: of them all, reflect on cherish memories, Remember that time
- 0:21Speaker 1: that the little boy grabbed my hand instead of his
- 0:23Speaker 1: mother's at the amusement park yikes, And of course, discover
- 0:26Speaker 1: gratitude while navigating one of life's hardest challenges lost. So
- 0:31Speaker 1: get ready to gree with me, Porsche the Producer, let's
- 0:35Speaker 1: dive in. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Groo with Porsche.
- 0:47Speaker 1: I am your host, Porsche Booker and is always don't
- 0:49Speaker 1: forget to like, share and subscribe to keep up with
- 0:52Speaker 1: all things grew with Porsche. Some of you may know
- 0:56Speaker 1: I have a tattoo on my left shoulder that says,
- 0:58Speaker 1: don't write your ending. That was the tattoo that I
- 1:01Speaker 1: got after my own suicide attempt in twenty seventeen. And
- 1:05Speaker 1: for those of us who are part of the Still
- 1:08Speaker 1: Here crew, I just want to remind you that there's
- 1:11Speaker 1: more to life than your current circumstance. Let me repeat
- 1:15Speaker 1: that there's more to life than your current circumstance, or
- 1:18Speaker 1: I like to call it your seat of occupancy. So
- 1:21Speaker 1: today I have the honor of being joined by an
- 1:23Speaker 1: individual who many of you may know. He is also
- 1:27Speaker 1: a suicide attempt survivor from the Golden Gate Bridge, and
- 1:31Speaker 1: today I have the honor of having a great conversation
- 1:34Speaker 1: with him as he'll be here in Cleveland, Ohio. So welcome,
- 1:38Speaker 1: mister Kevin Hines. Kevin, how are you today?
- 1:43Speaker 2: I'm doing well. Thank you very much, portion and nice
- 1:45Speaker 2: to see you. We've been connected on LinkedIn for a while.
- 1:48Speaker 2: It's great to see you in person.
- 1:51Speaker 3: Kevin.
- 1:51Speaker 1: It's an honor to meet you finally. I've followed your
- 1:55Speaker 1: story and your journey, and I know other people have
- 1:58Speaker 1: because so many of us have been there right where
- 2:00Speaker 1: we want to end it all, because life doesn't seem
- 2:04Speaker 1: like there's a light at the end of the tunnel
- 2:06Speaker 1: for us and Kevin, for our audience who's tuning in.
- 2:10Speaker 1: This year marks twenty six years since your suicide attempt
- 2:14Speaker 1: from the Golden gate Bridge, and I'm curious, Kevin, when
- 2:18Speaker 1: you think back to that time, what stands out as
- 2:23Speaker 1: the most present thing for you today?
- 2:26Speaker 3: From that time.
- 2:31Speaker 2: Two things immeasurable pain, lethal emotional pain that led me
- 2:41Speaker 2: to the bridge to jump off, and then the mill
- 2:47Speaker 2: of second, my hands let go of the rail, praying
- 2:52Speaker 2: to God to live. And in that moment of praying
- 3:00Speaker 2: to God to live, at millisecond my hands left the rail.
- 3:04Speaker 2: I had what's known as an instantaneous regret for my actions,
- 3:10Speaker 2: and I basically said, God, I made a mistake, you know,
- 3:17Speaker 2: forgive me and save me. And He answered my prayers.
- 3:26Speaker 2: In the water is below the bridge, I was drowning,
- 3:32Speaker 2: and I thought, this is it. This is going to
- 3:35Speaker 2: be the end of my life. I don't want to die.
- 3:38Speaker 2: What have I done? God? Please save me. I don't
- 3:41Speaker 2: want to die. I made a mistake. And that is
- 3:44Speaker 2: when and you'll see it here behind me a sea
- 3:47Speaker 2: lion and that's that's my sea lion bumped me to
- 3:54Speaker 2: the surface and kept me afloat onto the coastguard budh
- 3:59Speaker 2: ride behind me. And if you don't call that a miracle,
- 4:03Speaker 2: I don't know what is. And I I have a
- 4:13Speaker 2: strong faith in God, I always have, always will. I
- 4:16Speaker 2: don't push that on anybody, that's my prerogative. But the
- 4:20Speaker 2: message I'm going to give in Ohio is for anyone
- 4:26Speaker 2: who has ever been in any kind of pain to
- 4:32Speaker 2: keep going, to keep moving forward, to keep working toward
- 4:37Speaker 2: a better brain and mental health outcome. And if you
- 4:42Speaker 2: are so blessed as I am to have faith in God,
- 4:45Speaker 2: pray that you can continue to Prayer gets me through everything.
- 4:51Speaker 2: And I don't take it for granted. I feel like
- 4:55Speaker 2: I'm living a dream. I get to be here past
- 5:00Speaker 2: the inevitable day I should have died. What a gift,
- 5:06Speaker 2: What a gift to live twenty six years past the
- 5:09Speaker 2: day I should have died. And that's why I say
- 5:11Speaker 2: to people who are suicidal, think of all the things
- 5:18Speaker 2: you would miss. Just ponder the things you might miss that.
- 5:27Speaker 2: Let's just use me for example. Met the love of
- 5:32Speaker 2: my life, Margaret Hines. Married her my best friend in
- 5:36Speaker 2: the whole world. Had a dog named Max before he
- 5:41Speaker 2: passed away nine years after we got him. Beautiful Sharpey
- 5:47Speaker 2: made everybody around us happy. He was my emotional support
- 5:50Speaker 2: animal for years. He would come to me with come
- 5:52Speaker 2: to gigs with me, speaking gigs. Got to see the
- 5:55Speaker 2: birth the birth of my two god children, Zoe and Judah.
- 6:00Speaker 2: I would have missed that. Think you of all the
- 6:03Speaker 2: things you would miss, write them down, envision the beautiful
- 6:10Speaker 2: things that your life could become before you take that
- 6:15Speaker 2: step to leaving this earth by your hands, never to return.
- 6:21Speaker 2: Suicide is never the solution to your problems. It is
- 6:25Speaker 2: the problem. Suicidal thoughts and ideations are the greatest liars
- 6:30Speaker 2: we know. Don't listen to them, and suicide does not, cannot,
- 6:35Speaker 2: and will not ever take the pain away. It just
- 6:38Speaker 2: transfers the pain onto everyone left behind and makes it
- 6:42Speaker 2: impossible for things to ever get better. I make you
- 6:46Speaker 2: a promise, those of you listening, watching, and subscribing right now.
- 6:50Speaker 2: With time, energy, effort, and hard work, things always get better.
- 6:54Speaker 2: Nothing good ever came without hard work, and your brain
- 6:58Speaker 2: health is no different.
- 7:01Speaker 1: Kevin, Oh my goodness, you got me over here trying
- 7:04Speaker 1: to fight back the tears because I can see what
- 7:08Speaker 1: you're saying, because I've been there, right both of us.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Even though I never actually had jumped. I didn't get
- 7:15Speaker 1: to jump because my guardian, Andrew called my cell phone
- 7:18Speaker 1: when I was going to. So when I think about
- 7:22Speaker 1: that circumvent moment, I think about now today, where I've
- 7:27Speaker 1: also met my true love as well. You know, I
- 7:30Speaker 1: have an amazing dog. You can't see embody. He's hanging
- 7:34Speaker 1: around here. And I think that's a beautiful, if you
- 7:38Speaker 1: want to call it soop for people to keep in
- 7:41Speaker 1: their back pocket of all the things that they would
- 7:43Speaker 1: miss rite their families for you, the godchildren, your dog,
- 7:49Speaker 1: your wife, you know, and that there's more to life
- 7:53Speaker 1: than that moment, right, and Kevin, for you. Also, I'm curious,
- 7:58Speaker 1: did you give that sea lion a name?
- 8:01Speaker 2: I did? I did? His name is?
- 8:03Speaker 1: His name is Herbert, Herbert Herbert.
- 8:07Speaker 2: I don't know why I did that. It's like my
- 8:09Speaker 2: favorite name besides Kevin. So I was just like, his
- 8:11Speaker 2: name is Herbert?
- 8:13Speaker 1: Wow? I mean, and you would people would probably think
- 8:18Speaker 1: that this is something you dreamed, right, because we hear
- 8:22Speaker 1: stories like this when we watched movies or cartoons. But
- 8:28Speaker 1: you you actually saw yourself falling.
- 8:33Speaker 3: Literally you land in this water.
- 8:35Speaker 1: I'm sure you go straight down because you didn't have
- 8:37Speaker 1: all the life jacket.
- 8:39Speaker 2: You know. And I serviced at one point, but I
- 8:42Speaker 2: go back down and I can't get back up. I
- 8:45Speaker 2: can't get back to service. I'm gonna drown. And this
- 8:48Speaker 2: creature circles needs to be bumping me up. And I
- 8:52Speaker 2: thought it was a shark. I thought, you got to
- 8:54Speaker 2: be kidding me. I didn't die jump and now a
- 8:57Speaker 2: shark is gonna eat me. This is perfect. A ton
- 9:00Speaker 2: of witnesses and passers by would later recount to the
- 9:03Speaker 2: Coastguard office that it was in fact a sea lion,
- 9:06Speaker 2: and it was in fact keep me a foot into
- 9:08Speaker 2: The coast Guard board arrived and I went back to
- 9:13Speaker 2: the bridge with my dad a year later to the
- 9:16Speaker 2: date of my attempt. At the time of my attempt,
- 9:20Speaker 2: and we had picked a flower from a flower bed
- 9:23Speaker 2: earlier than that day. It was a purple tulip with
- 9:26Speaker 2: gold pollen inside it. Beautiful flower. Tulips are my favorite
- 9:30Speaker 2: flowers now. And my father grabbed my left hand in
- 9:35Speaker 2: his right and we said, and our father to hell Mary,
- 9:40Speaker 2: And he said, drop the flower for closure. And I
- 9:44Speaker 2: reached over the rail and I dropped the flower and
- 9:47Speaker 2: walked it down very slowly two hundred and twenty feet.
- 9:52Speaker 2: It hit the water, and two feet to the right
- 9:55Speaker 2: popped up a sea lion. And it was arguably the
- 9:59Speaker 2: most beautiful moment in my entire life, next to my
- 10:03Speaker 2: dad being the best man at my wedding. And there
- 10:05Speaker 2: was no other choice and so you have these moments
- 10:08Speaker 2: in your life where maybe it's not that dramatic or
- 10:12Speaker 2: or cinematic. But for me, this was one of the
- 10:16Speaker 2: most beautiful moments I've ever experienced in my life or
- 10:18Speaker 2: I will ever experience in my life. It was proof
- 10:21Speaker 2: positive in that moment of return to the bridge that
- 10:25Speaker 2: was meant for a higher purpose. And I don't know
- 10:29Speaker 2: if you know this, but my videos across the Internet
- 10:34Speaker 2: have been viewed well over three billion times, and over
- 10:39Speaker 2: two hundred thousand people have said these videos have saved
- 10:42Speaker 2: their life. That doesn't even count the people that write
- 10:46Speaker 2: to me from in person presentations that say the same thing,
- 10:52Speaker 2: or write for me for my books that say the
- 10:54Speaker 2: same thing. I am no life saver. I'm not claiming
- 10:59Speaker 2: to be life saver. But I do believe in being
- 11:03Speaker 2: a conduit. And I believe that in my survival, I
- 11:09Speaker 2: had a choice to be quiet or to speak up,
- 11:16Speaker 2: and God gave me a mission. And I mean God
- 11:19Speaker 2: because I had no intention of speaking about my issues
- 11:23Speaker 2: and my struggles in my story, but in my psych
- 11:27Speaker 2: word Stay after my first physical hospital, Stay after going
- 11:31Speaker 2: from a wheelchair to walk on a back brace, to
- 11:33Speaker 2: a back brace in a cane then right to my
- 11:34Speaker 2: first syche word in that cych where there was a
- 11:36Speaker 2: Franciscan friar, a chaplain of the hospital, brother George Cherry,
- 11:43Speaker 2: who said, kid, when you get better, you want to
- 11:44Speaker 2: talk about this. I looked at him, I said about
- 11:46Speaker 2: what to who? He said, You'll see every day, Brother
- 11:50Speaker 2: George Cherry would come into my room every day. He
- 11:52Speaker 2: would pray with me. Every day he would say, kid,
- 11:54Speaker 2: when you get better, you ought to talk about this.
- 11:56Speaker 2: On the final day of my stay, as my dad
- 11:58Speaker 2: hobbled me out the door to the elevator bay, my
- 12:02Speaker 2: brother George Cherry says, Kevin, I expect you'll talk about this,
- 12:05Speaker 2: and I ignored him. I go to church a few
- 12:08Speaker 2: weeks later with my dad and the priest comes out,
- 12:11Speaker 2: Father Michael Herman. He married my wife and I he
- 12:14Speaker 2: confirmed me as a kid. He comes out and he
- 12:17Speaker 2: goes Kevin. After the service, Kevin, everyone's been praying for
- 12:22Speaker 2: you and your family. We've all said masters for you,
- 12:25Speaker 2: hoping and praying you would get better and heal and
- 12:27Speaker 2: find recovery. How would you like to come and talk
- 12:30Speaker 2: to our seventh and eighth grade class about your experience?
- 12:32Speaker 2: This good Friday. I said, father, I don't have a speech,
- 12:35Speaker 2: and I wouldn't know what to say, and my dad
- 12:38Speaker 2: shoved me forward and goes, he'll do it. So what
- 12:41Speaker 2: are you doing, Dad, you'll do it. We need more closure.
- 12:46Speaker 2: So that's my dad. It's my dad in nutshell. So
- 12:50Speaker 2: so I say, okay, Father, I'll see on Good Friday.
- 12:54Speaker 2: And I wrote a speech till three in the morning
- 12:56Speaker 2: on Good Friday, seventeen pages, forty five minutes street a lot.
- 12:59Speaker 2: I timed it, and I'm knocking out these pages while
- 13:02Speaker 2: dropping page by page to the floor in front of
- 13:04Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty seven to eighth grade Catholic school
- 13:06Speaker 2: kids sitting in their Catholic uniforms on the floor that
- 13:08Speaker 2: I used to wear. And I'm thinking to myself the
- 13:11Speaker 2: whole time, what a waste of time? Who is this helping?
- 13:15Speaker 2: Why am I doing this? I'm having this inner dialogue
- 13:18Speaker 2: with I'm just having this terrible inner dialogue, beating myself up.
- 13:23Speaker 2: This isn't gonna help anybody. I dropped the final page
- 13:26Speaker 2: of the floor. I'm shaking and I'm crying. It's wraw,
- 13:29Speaker 2: first time I ever did it in person, and eight
- 13:33Speaker 2: hands immediately go up intuitive, empowering, moving, important, beautiful questions.
- 13:39Speaker 2: I'd made an impact. I go home. I think, well,
- 13:43Speaker 2: I'll never do that again. That was fun. And then
- 13:48Speaker 2: my senior harmon calls me to the rectory two weeks
- 13:51Speaker 2: later and says, I have something for you. I hook
- 13:54Speaker 2: up two miles in my back brace in my cane,
- 13:56Speaker 2: having an asthma attack, barely making it. I get there,
- 14:01Speaker 2: I take my inhaler. He hands me in an the envelope.
- 14:04Speaker 2: It says open. I open it. It's a beautiful pencer
- 14:07Speaker 2: colored drawing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. One of
- 14:09Speaker 2: the kids had done it. It was gorgeous. I still
- 14:10Speaker 2: have it. Inside that folder was one hundred and twenty
- 14:15Speaker 2: letters from one hundred and twenty kids. Several of the
- 14:18Speaker 2: kids were actively suicidal. They wrote about it in their letters.
- 14:22Speaker 2: Because they were under the age of eighteen, there were miners, counselors,
- 14:25Speaker 2: pay attention. We were able to get them to safety.
- 14:29Speaker 2: Two of them are therapists today. My point is this,
- 14:33Speaker 2: the spoken word and stories transcend time, They transcend media.
- 14:43Speaker 2: And if you tell a story that is educational, entertaining, humorous, nonsensationalistic,
- 14:50Speaker 2: and hope fulfilled with hope. That's the most important part.
- 14:54Speaker 2: You can have a transformative effect on the neuroplasticity of
- 14:57Speaker 2: the brain. It's science backed, and you can change and
- 15:01Speaker 2: you can help save a life. So I'm one person
- 15:06Speaker 2: and my story has now reached this many people around
- 15:09Speaker 2: the globe and every language and every continent around the world.
- 15:13Speaker 2: Let's all speak up. It doesn't have to be around
- 15:17Speaker 2: the world. Speak up at your dinner table, speak up
- 15:20Speaker 2: at your lunch cafeteria, speak up in your church, speak
- 15:25Speaker 2: up at your sports event. Speak up is the point.
- 15:29Speaker 2: Speak up, speak often, and speak loudly, and tell your
- 15:33Speaker 2: truth so that you may change somebody else's life. Giving
- 15:39Speaker 2: is the true receiving. It is our purpose. It is
- 15:44Speaker 2: our only purpose, dare I say? And far too many
- 15:47Speaker 2: people around the globe have forgotten the importance of giving back.
- 15:54Speaker 2: And that's also science backed, an evidence informed. When you
- 15:58Speaker 2: give of yourself to someone else or something greater than yourself,
- 16:03Speaker 2: when you give to a cause greater than yourself for good,
- 16:06Speaker 2: it changes your brain waves and brain patterns and you
- 16:10Speaker 2: feel better. So you're helping somebody else or somebody else,
- 16:15Speaker 2: but you're also helping yourself. It's the most therapy thing
- 16:18Speaker 2: you could ever do.
- 16:20Speaker 1: No, it's say fill your cup, right, So that action
- 16:23Speaker 1: alone fills two people's cups, yours and theirs. And I've
- 16:27Speaker 1: heard that time and time again, Kevin, that it's better
- 16:30Speaker 1: to give than to receive. But I think so many
- 16:33Speaker 1: of us in this world right now, with so much
- 16:36Speaker 1: going on, there's this notion of what's in it for me?
- 16:40Speaker 1: But I always say that your story is not for you.
- 16:44Speaker 1: Your story is to open the door to give somebody
- 16:48Speaker 1: else permission to start to heal by sharing their own.
- 16:52Speaker 3: Kevin, this has been a.
- 16:54Speaker 1: Beautiful conversation today, and I thank you so much for
- 16:59Speaker 1: your vulnerability, for taking that leap when your dad is like, hey,
- 17:03Speaker 1: you're gonna talk right, even though you weren't ready. But
- 17:07Speaker 1: isn't that how it always is when we're not ready,
- 17:10Speaker 1: we're forced into things right.
- 17:13Speaker 3: And so, Kevin, for our audience, you're gonna be.
- 17:16Speaker 1: Speaking here in Ohio next week, and so for our
- 17:21Speaker 1: audience if they want to obviously come to your talk,
- 17:23Speaker 1: if they're local, if there's anything that you have coming
- 17:27Speaker 1: up in the next couple of months, how can our
- 17:29Speaker 1: audience connect with you? Kevin?
- 17:31Speaker 2: You can reach me at Kevin Hines Story k E
- 17:34Speaker 2: v I N h I N E S S t
- 17:37Speaker 2: O r Y across all socials. You can see my
- 17:42Speaker 2: podcast episodes on the Hindsights podcast HI and E s
- 17:46Speaker 2: I G H T S podcast wherever podcast can be
- 17:49Speaker 2: found and and you can reach me U simply on
- 17:53Speaker 2: those on those social medias. I do my best to
- 17:57Speaker 2: respond to as many people as I can. You know,
- 18:00Speaker 2: I want to make a point here and I don't
- 18:02Speaker 2: want to push it too heavy, but I want to
- 18:04Speaker 2: make a point that's on my heart right now. Whether
- 18:07Speaker 2: you believe in him or not, Jesus gave to us
- 18:10Speaker 2: the greatest sacrifice his life. He wanted nothing in return
- 18:15Speaker 2: but to give his entirety to the world. So if
- 18:21Speaker 2: we can be even a microcosm in his footsteps, a
- 18:26Speaker 2: spec in the sand of this giant world, this giant universe,
- 18:30Speaker 2: this galaxy, to give back to people in pain and
- 18:33Speaker 2: help them recognize that their pain doesn't have to be
- 18:36Speaker 2: their end. It can instead be their beginning. Pain could
- 18:40Speaker 2: be the new beginning to your life and your ability
- 18:44Speaker 2: to not just survive your pain, but to someday thrive.
- 18:47Speaker 2: And when you thrive, that when you thrive that day,
- 18:51Speaker 2: guess what then? You get to go out and change
- 18:54Speaker 2: the lives of other people for the better. So think
- 18:57Speaker 2: about that when the next time you're in lethal emotional pain,
- 19:03Speaker 2: that there's there's a corner you're going to turn. When
- 19:06Speaker 2: you turn that corner, you could be the one changing
- 19:10Speaker 2: or helping to save a life. And that's a beautiful thing.
- 19:13Speaker 1: And then to that, I always say that we are
- 19:16Speaker 1: all part of the body of Christ. We are all
- 19:20Speaker 1: co workers in the garden, right, So if we come
- 19:24Speaker 1: from that notion that we're all making something beautiful work,
- 19:29Speaker 1: we've all been given a special task each of us.
- 19:33Speaker 1: There's none of us that aren't that are excluded. We're
- 19:36Speaker 1: all a part of this collective. And my mom wants
- 19:40Speaker 1: used to say teamwork makes the dream work. So how
- 19:43Speaker 1: can we make that work today?
- 19:45Speaker 2: If you've ever heard other people know that you can
- 19:48Speaker 2: redeem yourself. You can come back to the Lord and
- 19:52Speaker 2: you can redeem yourself and change your motors, opera and die,
- 19:56Speaker 2: and you can be the person that shifts perspective and
- 20:02Speaker 2: and changes the way you treat other people.
- 20:04Speaker 1: Today, that, oh, redemption, that's a whole We can have
- 20:08Speaker 1: a whole nother conversation about that, Kevin, because that is
- 20:11Speaker 1: so true, well, everybody. As Kevin mentioned, you can find
- 20:16Speaker 1: him on any social media platform LinkedIn Instagram. You can
- 20:20Speaker 1: listen to his podcast, The Hindsight Podcast. You can come
- 20:23Speaker 1: hear his talks at Tiho Community College coming up next week,
- 20:27Speaker 1: and make sure that you do your own check in right.
- 20:31Speaker 1: Let's be there for each other and let's remember that
- 20:34Speaker 1: no pain is too great that we can't handle without
- 20:37Speaker 1: God by our side. Well, everybody. That concludes our conversation
- 20:42Speaker 1: today on grou of Portie, and special thanks to mister
- 20:45Speaker 1: Kevin Hines for gracing us today and until next time,
- 20:49Speaker 1: everybody piece and hair grease everyone on