Latest / Voices for Voices® / Flashbacks During Spring Chores? Here's What's Actually Happening | Episode 488
Transcript
- 0:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
- 0:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining, whether you're watching or listening here in the United States or abroad.
- 0:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, thank you so much.
- 0:12Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we are inching our way closer to 500 total episodes in our portfolio.
- 0:20Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you.
- 0:20Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's because of you that we're we're here.
- 0:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you very much.
- 0:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if you can give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, repost, follow us, keep up to date on our Voices for Voices, uh social media accounts.
- 0:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if you're able to reach out to 25 uh contacts in your phone, let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
- 0:48Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we are built on mental health, mental awareness, uh trauma, recovery, all those areas and many, many more.
- 1:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, so thank you again uh for being with us on this episode.
- 1:06Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh we're we're definitely talking about mental health today, uh, as we always do.
- 1:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes it's more overt, meaning we use the words mental health, and sometimes situations test our mental health, and and then we talk about that more.
- 1:26Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, but each and every episode has mental health uh ingrained in into each particular episode.
- 1:37Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so I'll I'll cut to the chase.
- 1:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, first off, over here behind me, you see some white hair.
- 1:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so my hair hasn't grown that fast.
- 1:50Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so our puppy Lucy, she she loves to be the watchdog.
- 1:54Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so she's just hanging out, recovering from surgery.
- 1:59Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And even when she's not recovering from surgery, she always likes to uh get involved.
- 2:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you might see her uh throughout the show.
- 2:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh her name's Lucy, and we're glad.
- 2:12Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh actually very happy to have her part of our family.
- 2:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so uh with uh with today's episode, we've had rocky, rocky weather here, up and down, up and down.
- 2:28Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: How do we dress?
- 2:29Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What what can we do outside?
- 2:31Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What can we do inside?
- 2:33Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so as I mentioned on the earlier episode, not just our grass, but many people's grass in the neighborhood and other neighborhoods is like super, super tall uh for grass.
- 2:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And you know, we talk about we don't want to get started, you have to kind of keep up.
- 2:56Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So here we're in April, and so we got to keep up.
- 3:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so that is one of uh one of my chores uh is to to do that.
- 3:10Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so this is gonna cross mental health in a couple different ways.
- 3:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The first way is we talked earlier on an earlier episode about you know worrying about you know the next day, the next moment, uh what's gonna happen.
- 3:30Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And given where our dwelling is at, it is on it's on a hill.
- 3:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's not it's not a mountain, it's it's not uh, but there's there's definitely some hillage going on there.
- 3:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and and so it can be tricky because when I was growing up uh in the summers that I was home from college, I worked at a local uh golf country club, and that was part of our job was mowing the grass.
- 4:18Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if you know anything about golf, uh, you know, there's the tea boxes, then there's the rough, which is longer.
- 4:27Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The tea boxes, the fairways are cut very, very short, the greens where the flag is, where the hole is, where you you're trying to get uh the ball from the T to the green into the hole in the least amount of strokes.
- 4:44Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So um it is a I want a lower score as opposed to uh a lot of other sports where you want a higher score.
- 4:54Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I've had a lot of experience mowing mowing grass and um so to bring that uh home here uh with the grass being how it is, it's not only tall, but it's waterlogged in a uh in some places.
- 5:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh we've with the weather that I've described, I mean, like I said, we've gotten some monsoon, uh just storms and there's so much rain and more than the ground can handle.
- 5:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So it's a little slushy in places, anyways.
- 5:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I today, today's the day to get started.
- 5:42Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so one thing I I'd like to recommend that I've learned is no matter because I'm not gonna judge how how big your yard is, or and if you don't have if you don't have a yard, you don't have grass, then you don't need to worry about this.
- 6:03Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You could maybe recommend to somebody who does, but uh this this particular area won't pertain to you as much.
- 6:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and that is well, first off, the mowing the grass, having a lawnmower or a way to cut the grass, whether it's a a walk behind, um, or whether it's a riding mower, and then you have the weed eater, then you have the blower, and and and so there's there's a lot going on.
- 6:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and and so the way I have usually chosen to cut the grass here is in sections or in parts.
- 6:54Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh let's give you an example.
- 6:57Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We uh I have a we have gas-powered cars, uh, but we have uh electric uh powered lawnmower.
- 7:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Right?
- 7:12Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you gotta charge them.
- 7:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So the batteries were we had two batteries, they're all a hundred both of them were a hundred percent.
- 7:20Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So put them in the slot, close it up, got started, and just doing one, two, three, four, probably half, maybe, or a little less than half, because our our backyard is probably it's not huge, but again, it's on uh it's on a uh it's on the hill, so you know, we have you know the few trees, so you it it takes a little bit to you know go around that versus just a flat, flat yard where there's no hills, it's just back and forth, there's no trees or a few trees.
- 8:07Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's the ideal, right?
- 8:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean that as the people in a neighborhood, when they have that, it's like all right, well, yeah, you you mow your grass more recent, but you also have a flat yard, and we don't.
- 8:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So cut it into pieces in the sections, get everything, and if it's a gas powered mower, make sure the you know fill it up at the beginning, and it's up to you to go as long as you want.
- 8:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I recommend sections because uh I don't I don't get as much I don't say as as much exercise as I should.
- 8:59Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so first off, there's that of back and forth up and down the hill.
- 9:06Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now there's also the tall tall grass, and then now we also have places that are waterlogged.
- 9:18Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I I kind of divided it into sections and the I guess like the two sections that I I did, uh, which is we have like two kind of smaller front yard areas that um are on either side of the the driveway.
- 9:50Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I cut the grass on one of those and then one of the one of the sides with the hills.
- 9:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I knew that that was I was gonna be doing sections.
- 10:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So after I finished those areas a couple times the mower's top because there was so much grass that the the the blades are you know trying to trying to cut and and and and uh and uh I don't say spit out, but however it does its thing, however, the lawnmower does its thing.
- 10:30Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh, and so there was a few times that happened.
- 10:33Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, big deal.
- 10:35Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh but all this is happening, you know, mental health-wise.
- 10:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like, are my lines straight?
- 10:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, look at if I look at my neighbors, like, well, they have really straight lines, but when they're mowing, and all those things come come to mind.
- 10:54Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't worry about it as much as I probably used to.
- 11:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, when I was at the golf course, uh that that was there was really no exception there.
- 11:07Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like you had to have straight lines, uh, that that was pretty much what uh what you had to have.
- 11:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so we had you know uh a good group uh people and uh the superintendent would, you know, we come in every day and he would tell us what we were working on first thing in the morning.
- 11:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So usually it was two things a day at least.
- 11:35Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So, you know, the morning, at least part of the morning was greens, teas, uh fairways, uh, and if the fairways uh were longer and taken longer than the individuals that would finish their assignment, their teas or their greens, they would be uh asked to go up out with uh with the fairways and then with the rough, you know, the the taller, taller grass.
- 12:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so all this is kind of getting to my my mind.
- 12:21Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's it's it's bringing back memories every time I mow the grass.
- 12:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh my mind, it it's hard not to go back to those times, and I had some good times, I had some not so good times.
- 12:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, because I was so worried many times when I was mowing the greens uh that I would get reprimanded, and like I was trying so hard, but I just it just wasn't my specialty.
- 12:56Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some people like that's just how they're ingrained for me.
- 13:00Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, I don't know if it's because I'm left-handed.
- 13:03Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't I don't know why.
- 13:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so that crept into my mind as I'm mowing a grass current state.
- 13:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, and lines aren't straight, doesn't matter.
- 13:18Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's just getting the job done.
- 13:21Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's still areas that need weed eated.
- 13:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and so it's gonna be it's gonna be a process here for you know the the first mow of the year.
- 13:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh but like I said, there were two batters two batteries in our mower, our lawnmower here.
- 13:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And just doing those kind of two sections.
- 13:46Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One of the batteries was still is still at four, still at full capacity.
- 13:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I think there might be like four or five different cells, and one of them has all the the it lights up for all those, and then the other one uh was down to one one cell.
- 14:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I thought, okay, well um I'm gonna just I'm gonna take a break.
- 14:19Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh you know, there's there's no there's no deadline in stone that everything needs mowed at a certain time.
- 14:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're just trying to you know get get things going and then hopefully that the mowing just becomes an easier thing to do because if we keep up on it, then uh we should uh it should be a good good uh good space.
- 14:51Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But uh additionally mental health, so not only the like you know, the kind of the flashback trauma of then in one of those years, one of those summers was one of the ones where when I had overdose on the cold and cough medicine, and and so uh that that creeps into my mind into my mind as well.
- 15:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um you know, it's just one of those things, you know, talking to my counselor, it's it's pretty fair fairly fairly or pretty normal uh for for that to happen.
- 15:39Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like if you're listening to a song and you hear it, sometimes a song can take you back to a place where maybe it was a school dance, maybe it was a wedding, wedding reception, uh maybe it was driving in a car.
- 16:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um I don't know.
- 16:03Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh but but the these things our brain doesn't usually forget those and definitely keeps the score.
- 16:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we have that, that portion, and then the second portion uh as you know I'm uh bringing the mental health and uh into just a regular day.
- 16:30Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um I I take different uh medications for my uh mental challenges.
- 16:46Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Big deal, I've been taking them for seven um three, six, so it's going on nine years.
- 16:57Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh sometimes uh medications change, sometimes different doses, dosages, like maybe you're taking ten milligrams, and then maybe then you're taking five at a at a certain point, or or maybe one doesn't seem to work as well as it did, and so maybe your provider or my provider decides, hey, let's let's try here, you know, here here are the similarities uh of what these particular uh medications help.
- 17:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And up until now, um I haven't had too many restrictions, you know, on things I can eat and that.
- 17:57Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, obviously alcohol and drugs, like that's a that's a no for sure.
- 18:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh one of the medications, I think it was last year that got changed.
- 18:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and I remember back in in my first therapy right out of the hospital because people talk, right?
- 18:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So uh we, you know, some of us would sit and I I think it was like college football was on sometimes, and we would just sit, and I mean, we're all going, there's a lot of us, and we're all going through a lot of things, and someone would say, Oh, I can't eat grapefruit with this medication.
- 18:50Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So meaning that on the label there was a notification saying, While taking this medication, please refrain from eating grapefruit.
- 19:07Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay.
- 19:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so it was all the way back all those years when that happened, but uh it wasn't until last year with one of my medications that I actually see that on mine.
- 19:24Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, and I usually don't I don't say usually I I don't I very rarely, if ever, have had a grapefruit to eat or to the juice.
- 19:40Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I saw that on the label, and I was like, okay.
- 19:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So here's you know, I for some reason if I'm somewhere and there's grapefruit being served, I I can't eat it.
- 19:57Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't for me, I personally I don't I don't care for the taste.
- 20:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's okay, that's just me.
- 20:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh everybody has their own distinctions and uh things they like and things they don't.
- 20:12Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh so that that wasn't a that wasn't a huge deal.
- 20:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um when I was going through my therapy, I was also battling rapid weight loss.
- 20:29Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so another part of my therapy was making sure that I was at least starting to re-eat.
- 20:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so the medication started to clear just a little bit of space where I didn't feel like I was allergic to every food that I ever tried when I hadn't been allergic.
- 20:57Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Allergies can come up at I think any time, but I was at that point where I was like, ah, I can eat carrot sticks and plain hummus, that's all.
- 21:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and so eating was a big deal, getting nutrients in my body is a big deal.
- 21:18Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I was, you know, drinking insurers uh twice a day, I think.
- 21:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh when I got finished with the therapy, I was doing good, so I it was recommended I could uh since I was replacing some of the calories with real food, which I should have been doing anyways, uh I they said I could have taken I could take one.
- 21:45Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's what I did for quite a while.
- 21:49Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All of this to get to the point of one of my medications got changed.
- 21:56Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was either late 2025 or real early.
- 22:00Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 2026.
- 22:03Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And part of my diagnosis and in that is you know acute anxiety and depression.
- 22:14Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it and and so when I saw the grapefruit thing on on the one medication, I was like, all right, I'm at least seeing it, but it doesn't bother it, it doesn't matter because I don't again, I don't eat grapefruit, I don't drink the grapefruit juice.
- 22:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so it didn't that didn't really affect me at all.
- 22:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If anything, it was just kind of like, hey, FYI, you know, you can't or you shouldn't do this.
- 22:50Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So again, now with another medication, late 20, again, I it was either late 2025 or early 2026.
- 23:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One of my medications I got changed to had uh or now has because I I mean I'm still take still taking the one with the grapefruit restriction, and and the other one uh that I started, it was bringing up, you know, salt, like make sure I'm gonna have to look and see exactly what it says.
- 23:30Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But it's something like you know, make sure you're hydrated, make sure you're uh you know that this this can affect you know salt levels, you know, minerals in in your system.
- 23:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was like, oh now that's a little bit different because salt's in food, and um so I need to make sure in this case not to let my salt levels get too low, and so whether it you know an electrolyte beverage uh is usually how I I I try to at least have those particular salts, like the hydration.
- 24:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, how's that get into the mowing the grass?
- 24:29Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, when you when you're doing any type of physical activity, the more you do it, the longer you do it, a lot of us perspire or sweat.
- 24:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In our sweat are the very salts and minerals that are in these electrolyte beverages, like pediolite or Gatorade, and and and so now I have to actually be more cognizant of times when like there's no light that blinks that says, Okay, Justin, your assault level's too low.
- 25:19Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I just have to do the best I can.
- 25:24Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so that was another reason why it makes a lot of sense to me to mowing the grass or doing a physical activ physical activity, being outside for a while, uh and and not having access to water.
- 25:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I just have to make sure that I'm hydrated.
- 25:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, and so that that falls in that into that bucket of okay, let's just take breaks and we'll do it that way, and then in between during my breaks.
- 26:14Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What if it's a meal time then I'll eat.
- 26:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If it's not, maybe I'll get a snack, but I'll have a electrolyte beverage that uh will help replenish some of the the salts and the minerals that when I sweat, perspire uh can leave.
- 26:44Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and so kind of have to basically like replace, right?
- 26:49Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So it's like a store.
- 26:50Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You buy product A, let's say you have ten of them on the shelf.
- 26:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, do you wait till all ten are bought before you order another set of ten?
- 27:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Or do you wait till there's five or six that have been bought or purchased?
- 27:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so that's replenishment of a product.
- 27:19Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so with the salts, it's replenishing my body with the salts and minerals that one of my medications kind of pulls out extra.
- 27:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the label doesn't say during physical activity, it just says in general.
- 27:49Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So sometimes I'll I'll drink a Gatorade or Pediolate, and even if it's not a time when I'm exerting myself physically.
- 28:10Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So hopefully this has been a little bit informative uh to you again if you're able to.
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- 29:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, I I would think that there'd be similar uh similar regulations or laws in place, but I'm no expert on it.
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- 29:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you for joining us.
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- 30:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much.
- 30:06Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And again, have a great day.
- 30:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's celebrate the voices of everyone in the world, and let's be a voice for not only ourselves, but somebody else who may need a little boost and a little help themselves.
- 30:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Take care.
- 30:24Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We'll see you next time.
- 30:26Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bye for now.