Latest / Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD / 323: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Rewriting Your Story: The Power of Transformation with Ken Miller

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323: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Rewriting Your Story: The Power of Transformation with Ken Miller · Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD

• 0:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go to podcast for the most cutting edge insights integrative and functional medicine.
• 0:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm your host, Dr. Jill, and in each episode we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation.
• 0:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Join me as I interview world leaders, medical experts, innovators of all types.
• 0:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And today is no different.
• 0:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Although you're going to hear a very poignant story from Ken Miller about his transformational life and his journey into drug and alcohol abuse and even worse, and how he went to the pit and then came back up.
• 0:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And now he is transforming and helping other men to navigate emotions and trauma and all the many things that he has been through.
• 0:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I know you're going to enjoy this heartfelt journey today, so please stay tuned and I'll introduce him in just a moment.
• 0:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Before I do, just a reminder, you can find products and services@drjillhealth.com especially our Dr. Jo beauty products have some of my very favorites.
• 0:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Here is the sheer tinted defense wonderful summer formula you can put on your face.
• 1:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's tinted so that's all you need.
• 1:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: No other makeup.
• 1:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love wearing that when I go out for a run or a hike.
• 1:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you could find that@doctor Jill health.com okay, let me introduce our guest.
• 1:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Dr. Ken Miller is a dynamic teacher, speaker, author and consultant.
• 1:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: In addition to his role as consultant, he is faculty trainer and former global member and African American Development officers board members and the co founder of Men of Color in Development.
• 1:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Ken is dedicated to mentoring young professionals, bringing a personal commitment to education and empowerment with a strong focus on resilience.
• 1:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: The title of our show, Ken's Own Journey from Recovery to Professional Success, underscores his keynotes on topics such as resilience in the face of unknown.
• 1:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You're going to love this episode.
• 1:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Let's get right to it and interview Ken Miller.
• 1:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Ken, it is an absolute delight to have you on Resiliency Radio.
• 1:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And the title is going to allude a lot to your story, which is one reason I was like, he's going to be a great guest.
• 1:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm so excited to learn more.
• 1:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And one of the best things about being a podcast interviewer is I get to meet amazing people.
• 2:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I have a suspicion that today is going to be another one of those episodes to meet someone really cool as yourself and to get to know you because I don't know a ton of your background, but I'm excited.
• 2:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Let's start right in though.
• 2:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Tell us a little bit about your story and your recovery to resilience.
• 2:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You have a Book titled Becoming Ken.
• 2:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Tell us about that backstory of where you came from and.
• 2:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And how that transformed your life.
• 2:27
  Ken Miller: So, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to share and thank you for the listeners that are listening to this podcast.
• 2:34
  Ken Miller: My name is Ken Miller.
• 2:35
  Ken Miller: I live in Blaine, Washington.
• 2:36
  Ken Miller: I'm 63 years old today.
• 2:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, happy birthday.
• 2:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What an honor.
• 2:42
  Ken Miller: I mean, today it's not a birthday,.
• 2:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But you are.
• 2:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Okay, got it.
• 2:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Okay, today.
• 2:48
  Ken Miller: Beautiful.
• 2:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Got it.
• 2:51
  Ken Miller: So 63 years ago in New York, my mom was a white teenage runaway in Queens, New York, and she had an interaction with my father, who was a black married pimp and drug dealer.
• 3:09
  Ken Miller: And I am the union of that.
• 3:11
  Ken Miller: Of those two.
• 3:12
  Ken Miller: She was a teenage girl.
• 3:14
  Ken Miller: He was in his 30s.
• 3:16
  Ken Miller: And she put me up for adoption at birth and put me into the foster care system.
• 3:24
  Ken Miller: And of course, I didn't know this for many years.
• 3:26
  Ken Miller: And all I do remember is when I was four years old, I knew I didn't have a mom.
• 3:30
  Ken Miller: That was probably the most important thing.
• 3:32
  Ken Miller: I knew I did not have a mother.
• 3:34
  Ken Miller: And I would go and bounce between foster homes.
• 3:37
  Ken Miller: And I did that for a few years until I was adopted by Irene and Sam Miller.
• 3:42
  Ken Miller: And this was summer of 69 or fall 69.
• 3:48
  Ken Miller: And when I got adopted at age 6, I couldn't read, I couldn't write, I couldn't tell time, I couldn't tie my shoes because the foster parents were not teaching that, if you can call them parents.
• 3:59
  Ken Miller: I was a ward of the state and I was put into these different foster homes.
• 4:04
  Ken Miller: So.
• 4:04
  Ken Miller: So my mom taught me to read that first summer.
• 4:07
  Ken Miller: I remember.
• 4:07
  Ken Miller: Never forget that.
• 4:09
  Ken Miller: Phinex 3 by 5 cards.
• 4:11
  Ken Miller: Th ph and I learned how to read and fell in love with reading.
• 4:15
  Ken Miller: By the time I was 12, I was moved to Anchorage, Alaska.
• 4:21
  Ken Miller: My mother and I moved to Anchorage, Alaska.
• 4:24
  Ken Miller: Actually, a good part of that was a getaway from my father.
• 4:27
  Ken Miller: Moved up there, went to high school, junior high, and then I was a national merit scholar.
• 4:32
  Ken Miller: I was a. I was accepted to Dartmouth College and went there, accepted also to Harvard, but I chose Dartmouth and began my journey in college.
• 4:43
  Ken Miller: And that was a big part of my.
• 4:46
  Ken Miller: My childhood.
• 4:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So amazing to go from that and to again, there's so much that I want to uncover with the resilience and just having had a first four.
• 4:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You were adopted at six or four?
• 5:01
  Ken Miller: I was adopted at six, but I can't remember.
• 5:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, okay, got it.
• 5:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because that's really the mother figure.
• 5:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And not having that as a young child is such a powerful.
• 5:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: From what I've heard of trauma, and the data on trauma is 0 to 2 years old.
• 5:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Matters far more than 2 to 18.
• 5:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So clearly this could have affected you.
• 5:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And yet you went on to, you know, have a choice between Dartmouth and Harvard.
• 5:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: How did you, in your teenage and younger years understand this as you do now?
• 5:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And when did the transformation really occur?
• 5:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because I'm sure there was a lot of healing to take place and clearly you had a good role model in the process, too.
• 5:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Tell us a little bit more about that journey.
• 5:42
  Ken Miller: The transformation didn't happen until 48.
• 5:46
  Ken Miller: So I went to college broken.
• 5:48
  Ken Miller: I was broken.
• 5:49
  Ken Miller: I was broken emotionally.
• 5:52
  Ken Miller: I was broken because I lived in so much fear.
• 5:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 5:55
  Ken Miller: So I just.
• 5:55
  Ken Miller: Tremendous amount of fear.
• 5:56
  Ken Miller: My last five months of my high school senior year, I was in hiding from my father because he had beat me so badly.
• 6:07
  Ken Miller: Cops were called and we ran.
• 6:12
  Ken Miller: Wow.
• 6:12
  Ken Miller: And rented an apartment because I had a beautiful house.
• 6:16
  Ken Miller: Our parents.
• 6:16
  Ken Miller: My parents were middle class, solid middle class.
• 6:20
  Ken Miller: So I went to college broken.
• 6:23
  Ken Miller: I was 17 years old.
• 6:24
  Ken Miller: I didn't know who I was.
• 6:26
  Ken Miller: I didn't know my identity.
• 6:28
  Ken Miller: And I was very immature.
• 6:30
  Ken Miller: And I go into this world that many of the other students, I felt had it all together.
• 6:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 6:38
  Ken Miller: Because they were preps.
• 6:39
  Ken Miller: I had never seen a prep.
• 6:40
  Ken Miller: I didn't know there was no preps in Anchorage, Alaska.
• 6:43
  Ken Miller: Nobody was going to Andover or Brooks or, you know, Ms. Porter's school.
• 6:48
  Ken Miller: And so I'm looking at these other students.
• 6:51
  Ken Miller: I thought they had it all together.
• 6:53
  Ken Miller: I thought they didn't have a problem because they're preps and, you know, their parents are coming to visit them on homecoming and weekends.
• 7:00
  Ken Miller: And so I struggled and I struggled with my identity of my black.
• 7:04
  Ken Miller: And I hang out white.
• 7:05
  Ken Miller: You know, I went to Dartmouth.
• 7:07
  Ken Miller: I had a jean jacket that had heavy metal bands on it, you know, because that's a lot of the music I grew up with.
• 7:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Ken Miller: And so I didn't know really who to associate with.
• 7:18
  Ken Miller: And then I was introduced to drinking because that's what you do in college.
• 7:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 7:23
  Ken Miller: And drugs.
• 7:25
  Ken Miller: And I became an alcoholic very quickly.
• 7:29
  Ken Miller: And that was.
• 7:30
  Ken Miller: It caused me a lot of harm.
• 7:31
  Ken Miller: The drug addiction, obviously, was to cause me a lot of harm.
• 7:35
  Ken Miller: And.
• 7:35
  Ken Miller: But I remained throughout college.
• 7:37
  Ken Miller: And this is important that I.
• 7:40
  Ken Miller: You say trauma.
• 7:41
  Ken Miller: I love the term broken because that's really what I was.
• 7:44
  Ken Miller: I was broken.
• 7:45
  Ken Miller: And I didn't know how to navigate the world well.
• 7:49
  Ken Miller: And more importantly, I didn't know how to navigate my feelings and.
• 7:53
  Ken Miller: Or my self esteem.
• 7:56
  Ken Miller: It was very low, very lacking.
• 7:59
  Ken Miller: And Therefore, it's a lot of deflection.
• 8:02
  Ken Miller: So I took it out on others and self harm was very prevalent.
• 8:09
  Ken Miller: And then when I graduated from college, my graduation present was my first treatment center.
• 8:17
  Ken Miller: My mother gave that as a gift to me.
• 8:19
  Ken Miller: That was the first of 14 treatment centers.
• 8:24
  Ken Miller: We didn't know that at the time.
• 8:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 8:26
  Ken Miller: But in fact, I don't even count that one.
• 8:27
  Ken Miller: It was an outpatient.
• 8:28
  Ken Miller: I did 14 inpatient treatment centers.
• 8:31
  Ken Miller: And so.
• 8:32
  Ken Miller: But I did get sober.
• 8:34
  Ken Miller: So I got supper for a couple years and then I got out in 84 and 85.
• 8:39
  Ken Miller: My mom.
• 8:39
  Ken Miller: My dad shot my mom six times.
• 8:42
  Ken Miller: And I had to deal with that situation.
• 8:45
  Ken Miller: And I mean deal with it because there was a lot of emotions connected with it.
• 8:50
  Ken Miller: It was a lot of guilt.
• 8:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Ken Miller: Because I had seen the gun and I had an opportunity to take the gun from my father and I did not.
• 8:59
  Ken Miller: And so I had a lot of guilt with that and it wasn't my fault.
• 9:02
  Ken Miller: But at that time, you know, I could use that as another way to devalue myself.
• 9:10
  Ken Miller: And so I didn't deal with that situation well at all.
• 9:14
  Ken Miller: And because I had coping mechanisms to deal with.
• 9:17
  Ken Miller: Literally the violence.
• 9:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 9:20
  Ken Miller: That I saw and the self doubt that I saw in the self anger and low self esteem.
• 9:29
  Ken Miller: So I.
• 9:29
  Ken Miller: But I had.
• 9:30
  Ken Miller: And what we do is we create coping mechanisms.
• 9:32
  Ken Miller: So mine was to shut down.
• 9:35
  Ken Miller: And I didn't even use.
• 9:36
  Ken Miller: But I would shut down.
• 9:38
  Ken Miller: So even when the situation happened, I'm at work, corporate.
• 9:43
  Ken Miller: Great job, making a lot of money for a 22 year old.
• 9:48
  Ken Miller: Anyway, so I'm at work and I get a call and it's my mom's secretary.
• 9:51
  Ken Miller: She ran the schools of nursing for the college up there.
• 9:55
  Ken Miller: And she was the coordinator, administrator, the dean of nursing.
• 9:59
  Ken Miller: And she said, kenneth, you need to go to Providence.
• 10:03
  Ken Miller: Sam shot Irene.
• 10:04
  Ken Miller: Sam shot Irene.
• 10:05
  Ken Miller: And this is the part I talk about how I dealt with things.
• 10:09
  Ken Miller: And I said, okay.
• 10:11
  Ken Miller: I got off the phone, I went to my boss, I said, hey, Bobby, do you mind if I go to my hospital?
• 10:17
  Ken Miller: Go to the hospital.
• 10:18
  Ken Miller: My dad shot my mom.
• 10:20
  Ken Miller: He freaks out, but I have no emotion.
• 10:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 10:25
  Ken Miller: I go to the hospital and of course, whatever, whatever you need.
• 10:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 10:29
  Ken Miller: I go to the hospital.
• 10:29
  Ken Miller: She's lying on a, on a table or gurney.
• 10:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 10:33
  Ken Miller: And there's blood coming through the sheets.
• 10:35
  Ken Miller: This is pre op.
• 10:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh.
• 10:37
  Ken Miller: And because he had shot her six.
• 10:38
  Ken Miller: Hit her five times.
• 10:39
  Ken Miller: Oh, miss once.
• 10:40
  Ken Miller: Hit her five times.
• 10:42
  Ken Miller: And she's just relieved that I'm alive because as he was Shooting her.
• 10:50
  Ken Miller: He said, I'm going to shoot that SOP Ken going.
• 10:54
  Ken Miller: He was gonna go to my job and shoot me.
• 10:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 10:56
  Ken Miller: But the gun jammed.
• 10:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 10:59
  Ken Miller: So I go there and I look at her.
• 11:01
  Ken Miller: I said, anything I can do?
• 11:02
  Ken Miller: And she said, yeah, grab my purse and grab my shoes.
• 11:06
  Ken Miller: And she was mad because they cut her shoes and she had some beautiful shoes.
• 11:10
  Ken Miller: She was mad about that.
• 11:11
  Ken Miller: Interesting.
• 11:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Remember memories, right?
• 11:13
  Ken Miller: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:14
  Ken Miller: Because, you know, EMT cutter shoes.
• 11:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Ken Miller: And I said, okay.
• 11:20
  Ken Miller: And I turned around, walked out, went back to work, and went back to work like nothing had happened.
• 11:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh.
• 11:25
  Ken Miller: No emotion?
• 11:26
  Ken Miller: No.
• 11:26
  Ken Miller: No tears, no anger, nothing.
• 11:28
  Ken Miller: But that's how I dealt with.
• 11:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 11:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 11:31
  Ken Miller: And it took me years.
• 11:33
  Ken Miller: I remember I went to family with my mother one time.
• 11:37
  Ken Miller: You know, one of my treatments.
• 11:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Ken Miller: If I have a beautiful picture of us at that family at Kopak in Brandon, Mississippi.
• 11:44
  Ken Miller: And anyway, she was telling how hurt she was.
• 11:48
  Ken Miller: She thought I didn't care.
• 11:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh.
• 11:51
  Ken Miller: And I said, no, I thought I didn't care.
• 11:52
  Ken Miller: I just couldn't show emotion.
• 11:54
  Ken Miller: I saw a guy get ran over by a truck.
• 11:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh.
• 11:58
  Ken Miller: I had no emotion.
• 12:00
  Ken Miller: Wow.
• 12:00
  Ken Miller: I just walked up to him.
• 12:01
  Ken Miller: He was in shock because he had run over.
• 12:04
  Ken Miller: And I'm like, hey, you all right?
• 12:07
  Ken Miller: He wasn't.
• 12:08
  Ken Miller: And.
• 12:09
  Ken Miller: But I had no emotion.
• 12:10
  Ken Miller: But that's how I dealt with that because that's the way I internalized the beatings and the violence.
• 12:15
  Ken Miller: So I. I let's forward on.
• 12:18
  Ken Miller: So that happens a year later.
• 12:21
  Ken Miller: I believe that I am not an alcoholic anymore because I didn't have a long time drinking, and I had no problems at that point talking about financial and.
• 12:33
  Ken Miller: Or relationship problems.
• 12:35
  Ken Miller: So I went out and had a Blue Hawaiian in Waikiki on vacation.
• 12:41
  Ken Miller: And it was the beginning of.
• 12:43
  Ken Miller: That was 1986, August.
• 12:46
  Ken Miller: And until January 2007, I was either homeless, in treatment, in a halfway house, in jail, or in prison.
• 12:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 12:57
  Ken Miller: For the next 21 years.
• 12:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Hey, guys, Sorry to interrupt this episode, but I just want to mention, if you haven't read my own transformational journey in Unexpected, you can find that wherever books are sold.
• 13:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You can also find it on Audio, Audible or Spotify or anywhere audiobooks are sold.
• 13:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Please check it out, share it with someone who needs encouragement.
• 13:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You can also get a signed copy if you order from drjillhealth.com and just put in the note who you want assigned to, and we'll send it right out.
• 13:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Okay.
• 13:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Let's get back to our story with Ken Miller.
• 13:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Unbelievable.
• 13:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So I want to go back because you're giving Us so much information, and someone out there listening might be like, wow, Ken, you've been through a lot, and it's so true.
• 13:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But what I know you and I believe is, like, most people have unresolved things that they haven't dealt with, and we all have coping mechanisms, like you said.
• 13:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And granted, yours is dramatic, and I can't even imagine how it was.
• 13:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If you look back at your, you know, four or five year old self, when did you start having to.
• 13:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then maybe obviously when you were adopted and in that situation with your dad, who was.
• 13:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Sounds like very abusive when looking back from the lens of yourself now, when did you start to either dissociate or try to kind of shut that down in order to survive?
• 14:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I love framing it that way because when we look back at trauma, often the things that we're coping, they start by helping us survive in a horrific situation, and then they become maladaptive.
• 14:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 14:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I just wonder with your lens now, looking back, what things led to.
• 14:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because I'm sure even the foster stuff was difficult.
• 14:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then.
• 14:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 14:29
  Ken Miller: The foster stuff wasn't that difficult.
• 14:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Okay.
• 14:31
  Ken Miller: Because again, I'm four and five years old.
• 14:33
  Ken Miller: All I want to do is play.
• 14:34
  Ken Miller: Exactly.
• 14:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you don't remember as much, but then again.
• 14:38
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 14:38
  Ken Miller: And.
• 14:39
  Ken Miller: But I do remember.
• 14:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 14:40
  Ken Miller: Well, I remember when I left the home we had been in for a length of time, so I thought I had parents.
• 14:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 14:46
  Ken Miller: I had these parents and I had these sisters.
• 14:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 14:49
  Ken Miller: And then one day we get to knock on the door and this lady in a 1965 Mustang.
• 14:56
  Ken Miller: Ford Mustang.
• 14:57
  Ken Miller: Social worker.
• 14:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 14:59
  Ken Miller: Came to grab me and my brother.
• 15:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh.
• 15:01
  Ken Miller: And I remember the sisters who are like teenagers, all crying.
• 15:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, yeah.
• 15:07
  Ken Miller: And we're four years old.
• 15:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Ken Miller: And I'm like, why are y' all crying?
• 15:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:12
  Ken Miller: And then you gotta go with this white lady.
• 15:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:16
  Ken Miller: Like, why are we going with this?
• 15:17
  Ken Miller: And she was young.
• 15:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:18
  Ken Miller: I would love to meet her.
• 15:20
  Ken Miller: I don't even know her name, but even went off.
• 15:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:24
  Ken Miller: We're just surprised because we're, like, taken away from what we believe.
• 15:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Exactly, exactly.
• 15:30
  Ken Miller: And they're crying because they, you know, loved us.
• 15:33
  Ken Miller: Good kids.
• 15:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:34
  Ken Miller: And so went to multiple foster, me and my brother and Jacob.
• 15:41
  Ken Miller: And then went to the Turleys in Amityville, New York.
• 15:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:46
  Ken Miller: And.
• 15:46
  Ken Miller: But all this time, I just wanted a mom.
• 15:49
  Ken Miller: I knew that because I knew I didn't have a mother.
• 15:52
  Ken Miller: And.
• 15:53
  Ken Miller: And then I get adopted, but Jacob doesn't get adopted.
• 15:58
  Ken Miller: I thought he was my brother.
• 15:59
  Ken Miller: He wasn't my Brother.
• 16:00
  Ken Miller: I thought he was, but went together all the time.
• 16:03
  Ken Miller: To this day, I've been looking for him.
• 16:05
  Ken Miller: I cannot find him.
• 16:06
  Ken Miller: And that's.
• 16:07
  Ken Miller: You know, you mentioned the word.
• 16:09
  Ken Miller: There's a thing in life called unfinished business.
• 16:12
  Ken Miller: And I only have like two or three unfinished business.
• 16:15
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 16:16
  Ken Miller: And there's some amends I want to make.
• 16:18
  Ken Miller: And then I also want to.
• 16:20
  Ken Miller: I want to see my.
• 16:20
  Ken Miller: My bro.
• 16:21
  Ken Miller: My brother.
• 16:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 16:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Well, who knows how that'll happen.
• 16:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I think that.
• 16:26
  Ken Miller: I think it will happen.
• 16:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I do too.
• 16:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I do too.
• 16:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So then you get, obviously your situation with your.
• 16:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Your parents that adopted and horrific violence and.
• 16:34
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 16:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You started to shut down.
• 16:36
  Ken Miller: Yes.
• 16:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 16:37
  Ken Miller: And you understand what the shutdown means?
• 16:40
  Ken Miller: And what.
• 16:41
  Ken Miller: So what was the maladaptive.
• 16:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 16:43
  Ken Miller: Behavior that I engaged in to try to lessen the trauma?
• 16:48
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 16:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 16:49
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 16:50
  Ken Miller: So number one, and I'm still, to this day, I'm very ordered.
• 16:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 16:54
  Ken Miller: I mean, ordered to the nth degree because disorder gave my father an excuse to beat me.
• 17:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, wow.
• 17:04
  Ken Miller: So my bed was perfect.
• 17:06
  Ken Miller: I had no toys out.
• 17:07
  Ken Miller: I mean, it.
• 17:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 17:09
  Ken Miller: If you looked at where I'm sitting right now, I have one pen, one writing pad, my speakers, my.
• 17:17
  Ken Miller: My screen.
• 17:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Ken Miller: I mean, that's it.
• 17:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Still exactly.
• 17:21
  Ken Miller: Super ordered.
• 17:22
  Ken Miller: I'm minimalist because I used to.
• 17:25
  Ken Miller: It got so bad.
• 17:27
  Ken Miller: I would make my bed so tightly and then I would slide myself.
• 17:33
  Ken Miller: This is.
• 17:33
  Ken Miller: As a child of 9 and 10, I would slide myself in, I'd go to sleep, and it's super tight.
• 17:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Ken Miller: And then I would wake up, slide myself out, and literally I could just pat down the bed and the bed would be perfect made.
• 17:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, my God.
• 17:48
  Ken Miller: I'd have been great in the military.
• 17:52
  Ken Miller: So that's one.
• 17:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 17:54
  Ken Miller: This is the really bad.
• 17:56
  Ken Miller: One of the bad ones.
• 17:57
  Ken Miller: That one is just.
• 17:58
  Ken Miller: I look a little weird.
• 18:00
  Ken Miller: It's not obsessive compulsive.
• 18:01
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 18:02
  Ken Miller: Just.
• 18:02
  Ken Miller: I just love order.
• 18:04
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 18:04
  Ken Miller: I'm very comfortable in an order.
• 18:07
  Ken Miller: Because disorder.
• 18:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 18:09
  Ken Miller: Is I. I foresee conflict.
• 18:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 18:13
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 18:13
  Ken Miller: And I got to put everything in order.
• 18:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Okay.
• 18:16
  Ken Miller: The real bad one, at age probably 7.
• 18:22
  Ken Miller: So I get adopted at 6.
• 18:23
  Ken Miller: By 7, I learned how to lie.
• 18:27
  Ken Miller: I learned the power of dishonesty.
• 18:31
  Ken Miller: So my father would come home, he'd be drunk, and he's like, did you do xyz?
• 18:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 18:37
  Ken Miller: The truth is, I didn't do it.
• 18:38
  Ken Miller: It was a chore.
• 18:39
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 18:40
  Ken Miller: I'm an eight year old kid.
• 18:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Ken Miller: And I would lie and say yes.
• 18:45
  Ken Miller: And I learned to do that in all of my engagements with everyone.
• 18:49
  Ken Miller: Lied to my mother, I lied to my dad, I lied to the teachers, I lied.
• 18:55
  Ken Miller: The other thing is that we have a thing called deflection.
• 18:59
  Ken Miller: And what I would do is I had so much pain in me, so much anger in me, so much fear in me, that I would then take it out on others.
• 19:09
  Ken Miller: I would deflect that pain.
• 19:11
  Ken Miller: And I had so much behavior issues in school.
• 19:14
  Ken Miller: Now I'm getting like straight A's.
• 19:16
  Ken Miller: I mean, literally by the second grade, I'm reading at the sixth grade level.
• 19:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 19:20
  Ken Miller: In one year.
• 19:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 19:21
  Ken Miller: I've never forget we got tested and.
• 19:24
  Ken Miller: But I had all these.
• 19:25
  Ken Miller: So I would bring these report cards home and.
• 19:28
  Ken Miller: And remember, I know how to lie.
• 19:31
  Ken Miller: I'm the only black kid in the school.
• 19:33
  Ken Miller: So I come home and they're like, why are you getting all these unsatisfactories and incompletes?
• 19:38
  Ken Miller: That was the thing, the you.
• 19:40
  Ken Miller: And I said, oh, because I'm black.
• 19:42
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 19:42
  Ken Miller: I knew how to run that line.
• 19:44
  Ken Miller: You know, they're picking up because I'm different than everybody else in the class.
• 19:48
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 19:49
  Ken Miller: Oh, okay.
• 19:49
  Ken Miller: Well, finally they took me to a psychiatrist or psychologist or counselor.
• 19:55
  Ken Miller: And I didn't know this for years.
• 19:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 19:57
  Ken Miller: But my mother told me they only went once.
• 19:59
  Ken Miller: And I said, well, you know.
• 20:01
  Ken Miller: She said, you know what happened?
• 20:02
  Ken Miller: I said, no.
• 20:03
  Ken Miller: I said, well, you went and talked to him alone.
• 20:05
  Ken Miller: Yeah, for a half hour.
• 20:06
  Ken Miller: Hour.
• 20:06
  Ken Miller: I don't remember what I said.
• 20:07
  Ken Miller: And.
• 20:09
  Ken Miller: And the psychologist then brought us in, the parents, and they said, the reason that Kenneth is acting out is that he has so much anger at you, Sam, for which.
• 20:20
  Ken Miller: How you treat him.
• 20:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 20:22
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 20:23
  Ken Miller: And therefore, he's.
• 20:24
  Ken Miller: He's displacing it onto these other children.
• 20:28
  Ken Miller: And my dad didn't like that answer.
• 20:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I bet not.
• 20:31
  Ken Miller: Oh, he did not like that answer.
• 20:33
  Ken Miller: So that was another mal.
• 20:35
  Ken Miller: Adapt Adaptive.
• 20:36
  Ken Miller: And then the other one is what I learned to do is so many.
• 20:42
  Ken Miller: So another one I learned to do is not show pain.
• 20:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 20:46
  Ken Miller: Not show.
• 20:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 20:48
  Ken Miller: The pain.
• 20:49
  Ken Miller: It was like I wouldn't give him the pleasure of the, you know, seeing the pain, but I end up, you know, screaming, whatever.
• 20:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 20:58
  Ken Miller: I hate that.
• 20:58
  Ken Miller: I don't want to trigger anybody by, you know, explaining how my father beat me.
• 21:03
  Ken Miller: I don't.
• 21:04
  Ken Miller: But I'll just give one example.
• 21:06
  Ken Miller: I'm not going to give all of them.
• 21:08
  Ken Miller: What my father would do to me is he'd be drunk and he'd be standing and I'd be like 10ft away from him.
• 21:14
  Ken Miller: And he said, kenneth, come here.
• 21:17
  Ken Miller: Kenneth, come here.
• 21:18
  Ken Miller: I always use My full name, Kenneth.
• 21:20
  Ken Miller: And I take another step.
• 21:22
  Ken Miller: Now I'm like a foot away from me.
• 21:25
  Ken Miller: And.
• 21:26
  Ken Miller: And he'd always say this.
• 21:27
  Ken Miller: Look at me.
• 21:29
  Ken Miller: And I would look at.
• 21:30
  Ken Miller: I'd look at him, look up at him.
• 21:32
  Ken Miller: And that's when he would hit me.
• 21:33
  Ken Miller: He would hit me across the face, but he would make sure I was looking at him.
• 21:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 21:37
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 21:38
  Ken Miller: Because he went.
• 21:39
  Ken Miller: And he just.
• 21:39
  Ken Miller: He was old school and, you know, and it.
• 21:43
  Ken Miller: It.
• 21:44
  Ken Miller: Please hear this.
• 21:45
  Ken Miller: I want the audience to hear this.
• 21:46
  Ken Miller: I want you to hear this.
• 21:47
  Ken Miller: I forgiven my father.
• 21:49
  Ken Miller: I understand a lot of why he did what he did.
• 21:53
  Ken Miller: I understand.
• 21:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 21:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Gig Tran.
• 21:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And whether it's truly generational, genetic, or just passed down from patterns, it is so often when there's trauma like that, no excuses, but we can look with compassion like you're doing, which is beautiful.
• 22:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It takes a mature man to do that.
• 22:10
  Ken Miller: Yes, it does.
• 22:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: He was broken, too.
• 22:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 22:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: He had.
• 22:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And again, no excuses for that.
• 22:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Not excusing that behavior at all.
• 22:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But how beautiful that you can now look back and have compassion for his.
• 22:21
  Ken Miller: But I understand it.
• 22:22
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 22:23
  Ken Miller: We don't.
• 22:25
  Ken Miller: You know, we say we forgive.
• 22:27
  Ken Miller: I forgive the person.
• 22:29
  Ken Miller: And I want to get into, you know, into semantics here, but do we forgive the act?
• 22:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 22:35
  Ken Miller: Many things that he did were beyond the pale.
• 22:38
  Ken Miller: Shooting my mom.
• 22:39
  Ken Miller: Beyond the pale.
• 22:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 22:41
  Ken Miller: Some of the beatings he gave me.
• 22:42
  Ken Miller: Beyond the pale.
• 22:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 22:45
  Ken Miller: But as a person, as a child of God, as a human being, I forgive him.
• 22:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 22:51
  Ken Miller: I had to do that so I could forgive myself.
• 22:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 22:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 22:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Otherwise, you're carrying.
• 22:56
  Ken Miller: I got.
• 22:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I got to think about this one.
• 22:58
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 22:58
  Ken Miller: Because I got to be honest with you.
• 23:00
  Ken Miller: I've.
• 23:01
  Ken Miller: I've done worse than my father.
• 23:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 23:03
  Ken Miller: Well, no, I never shot anybody.
• 23:05
  Ken Miller: I went to shoot people on three.
• 23:07
  Ken Miller: Two occasions I went to shoot someone.
• 23:09
  Ken Miller: One I tried to throw off a third floor of a balcony.
• 23:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, boy.
• 23:12
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 23:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Well.
• 23:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And again the patterns.
• 23:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Until we learn better.
• 23:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And.
• 23:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, right.
• 23:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's.
• 23:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's this perpetuated, and so it's up to us to say, okay, what can we do?
• 23:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So then you got.
• 23:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You were an alcoholic and rehab and in prison and in.
• 23:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then in your 40s, what happened?
• 23:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What shift?
• 23:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: At what moment did the things start to shift for you?
• 23:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Was there an insight?
• 23:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Was there a recognition?
• 23:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Was there a spiritual awakening?
• 23:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What piece happened for you that really above.
• 23:41
  Ken Miller: Yeah, this is.
• 23:42
  Ken Miller: This is what happens.
• 23:45
  Ken Miller: So you're an addict, you're an alcoholic.
• 23:49
  Ken Miller: In a ways, mine was almost.
• 23:51
  Ken Miller: I don't want to make mine worse than anybody's.
• 23:54
  Ken Miller: It was worse than many because I had been at this level.
• 24:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 24:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Ken Miller: It's different when you're in the hood and you've never risen.
• 24:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 24:05
  Ken Miller: Above a certain level.
• 24:08
  Ken Miller: But you gotta say, I'm 50.
• 24:10
  Ken Miller: I was 22 years old making $50,000 a year.
• 24:13
  Ken Miller: At 20, that was a lot of money.
• 24:17
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 24:17
  Ken Miller: That'd be like, I'm out of college one year and I'm making 200,000.
• 24:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 24:22
  Ken Miller: Pretty much today.
• 24:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 24:24
  Ken Miller: I bought a brand new car for eight grand.
• 24:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Exactly.
• 24:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Okay.
• 24:27
  Ken Miller: So yeah.
• 24:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 24:29
  Ken Miller: And plus I'm six foot two, I have modeled, I was in a movie.
• 24:35
  Ken Miller: I, I had it going on.
• 24:38
  Ken Miller: I'm an idylly graduate.
• 24:40
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 24:40
  Ken Miller: So I had all these pluses and people's foresaw great things for me.
• 24:46
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 24:48
  Ken Miller: And then next thing I know, I am living in an abandoned home house.
• 24:55
  Ken Miller: I'm living on a piece of cardboard.
• 24:58
  Ken Miller: I'm in a mission, I'm in a soup kitchen.
• 25:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 25:01
  Ken Miller: I'm out there engaging in behavior that is so devaluing of me as a person.
• 25:09
  Ken Miller: And I didn't grow up this way.
• 25:10
  Ken Miller: My mom was a beautiful, spiritual, loving, kind, gentle woman.
• 25:15
  Ken Miller: And so I knew the right way and I had friends who were beautiful.
• 25:19
  Ken Miller: To this day I saw some of the same friends that were beautiful people.
• 25:24
  Ken Miller: So it's not like I didn't have any examples.
• 25:26
  Ken Miller: Yeah, let's put that out of there.
• 25:28
  Ken Miller: Now I did have my father as an example.
• 25:30
  Ken Miller: But like the last thing I want to do is be.
• 25:33
  Ken Miller: Like my father couldn't believe when I was an alcoholic, I was like, the last thing I wanted to be was an alcoholic.
• 25:39
  Ken Miller: Because I saw my father, I was alcoholic two months after my first drink.
• 25:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 25:45
  Ken Miller: Full blown.
• 25:46
  Ken Miller: So here I am, homeless, on the street, engaging in behavior that devalues me and is a blow to my self esteem.
• 25:57
  Ken Miller: We talk about the death of a thousand cuts.
• 25:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 26:00
  Ken Miller: So what does that mean?
• 26:04
  Ken Miller: I mean, I'm taking these body blows because I'm doing things that I know are against my values, my ethics, my morals, and I'm doing them to myself and to others.
• 26:17
  Ken Miller: So you have a succession of these.
• 26:19
  Ken Miller: It builds up, it builds up.
• 26:21
  Ken Miller: And then what becomes happens is either the system stops you, the streets stop you, or you stop yourself.
• 26:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 26:33
  Ken Miller: So I've tried to kill myself three times.
• 26:36
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 26:37
  Ken Miller: And got close one time.
• 26:41
  Ken Miller: And then the day it physically stopped for me, I was suicidal that day, September 22, 2004.
• 26:52
  Ken Miller: And you know, I got arrested for sales of a controlled substance, a ten dollar rock of crack cocaine.
• 27:02
  Ken Miller: And I was sentenced to six years in the penitentiary.
• 27:05
  Ken Miller: But just please understand this, dear listeners.
• 27:09
  Ken Miller: Today I got arrested.
• 27:10
  Ken Miller: Was one of the greatest days of my life.
• 27:13
  Ken Miller: And I knew it then.
• 27:15
  Ken Miller: I was crying.
• 27:17
  Ken Miller: I was bawling in handcuffs, waiting for the paddy wagon to pick me up.
• 27:24
  Ken Miller: And the cop came to me and he's like, why are you crying?
• 27:26
  Ken Miller: Because he thought something.
• 27:27
  Ken Miller: Maybe I was injured or something.
• 27:29
  Ken Miller: Because I was injured.
• 27:30
  Ken Miller: My jaw was wired shut.
• 27:32
  Ken Miller: I had gotten my jaw broken twice in the month before.
• 27:36
  Ken Miller: And I said, I'm crying because I'm going to live.
• 27:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 27:39
  Ken Miller: I can do prison.
• 27:40
  Ken Miller: I can do jail.
• 27:42
  Ken Miller: Been there twice.
• 27:43
  Ken Miller: I've been to jail 20 times.
• 27:44
  Ken Miller: I can do that.
• 27:45
  Ken Miller: I can't do me on the streets.
• 27:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Ken Miller: And you guys are going to provide food, shelter, basketball, bid whisk, you know.
• 27:56
  Ken Miller: You know, the things I do in the penitentiary.
• 27:58
  Ken Miller: I didn't know it was going for that long.
• 27:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 28:00
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 28:02
  Ken Miller: And, you know, I laugh about it today because I can laugh at myself.
• 28:05
  Ken Miller: It's a beautiful experience to laugh at yourself and the absurdity and the insanity of how you live.
• 28:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 28:13
  Ken Miller: So that was the day.
• 28:15
  Ken Miller: September 23rd.
• 28:16
  Ken Miller: The day I celebrated my Annabelle coming up on 22 years of being clean and sober.
• 28:21
  Ken Miller: But that's one part.
• 28:22
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Ken Miller: There's four aspects of the human condition.
• 28:26
  Ken Miller: There's the physical, there's the emotional, there's the intellectual, and there's the spiritual.
• 28:32
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 28:33
  Ken Miller: And my gas tank was depleted in all of them.
• 28:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 28:40
  Ken Miller: Everyone.
• 28:41
  Ken Miller: I had maybe on a scale of one to 100, I had.
• 28:44
  Ken Miller: My spiritual was like a one or two.
• 28:48
  Ken Miller: I'm serious.
• 28:49
  Ken Miller: We called the monsters.
• 28:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I totally get it now.
• 28:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Do you think looking back, I mean, many times in my life where I look back and I'm like, that was a divine intervention.
• 28:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That was something.
• 28:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And just like you standing there, the Patty wake and crying, and maybe you don't put that much emphasis on it, but there was clearly something that shifted that day.
• 29:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And how long did it take you for to try to really understand what had happened?
• 29:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And obviously, did you become clean from that moment on when you were in prison?
• 29:16
  Ken Miller: I became.
• 29:17
  Ken Miller: There's a difference.
• 29:18
  Ken Miller: Is a physical clean?
• 29:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 29:20
  Ken Miller: And then there is, in a way, you could say a spiritual clean.
• 29:26
  Ken Miller: Yes.
• 29:27
  Ken Miller: And so I get arrested.
• 29:28
  Ken Miller: September 22nd, I go into what they call unit one.
• 29:33
  Ken Miller: September 23rd, you get processed, and then you go from unit one in jail to a pod.
• 29:41
  Ken Miller: And I remember I was in unit 13.
• 29:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 29:44
  Ken Miller: Par Boulevard, Sparks, Nevada.
• 29:47
  Ken Miller: You know, it's an Areno, Nevada area.
• 29:49
  Ken Miller: And I was laying on my bunk and it was probably late October.
• 29:54
  Ken Miller: And God spoke to me as I'm laying on my bunk.
• 29:58
  Ken Miller: It's internal.
• 29:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Ken Miller: But he spoke to me.
• 30:01
  Ken Miller: And the guy had been speaking to me through.
• 30:03
  Ken Miller: I just wasn't listening.
• 30:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 30:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Truth, isn't it?
• 30:07
  Ken Miller: Yeah, it's truth.
• 30:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And.
• 30:11
  Ken Miller: And, you know, I always tell people the message was very simple.
• 30:15
  Ken Miller: And the message was this.
• 30:17
  Ken Miller: It's not going to be easy.
• 30:18
  Ken Miller: It's not going to be without discomfort or pain, but I will be there.
• 30:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 30:24
  Ken Miller: Believe in me.
• 30:26
  Ken Miller: Have faith in me.
• 30:27
  Ken Miller: Trust in me, and we'll get to the other side.
• 30:33
  Ken Miller: And ever since that day, I haven't wanted to use.
• 30:36
  Ken Miller: But it doesn't mean I didn't do work.
• 30:38
  Ken Miller: I'm in the anonymous program.
• 30:40
  Ken Miller: I still did.
• 30:41
  Ken Miller: I did.
• 30:42
  Ken Miller: But ever since then, I have felt that I can handle anything in my life.
• 30:48
  Ken Miller: Anything.
• 30:49
  Ken Miller: Doesn't mean I have no fear.
• 30:51
  Ken Miller: No.
• 30:51
  Ken Miller: But the fears are.
• 30:52
  Ken Miller: On a scale of 1 to 10.
• 30:53
  Ken Miller: I don't have nines and tens anymore.
• 30:55
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 30:56
  Ken Miller: I think I've had nines.
• 31:01
  Ken Miller: And let's scale of 1 to 10.
• 31:03
  Ken Miller: 10.
• 31:04
  Ken Miller: You're in so much fear.
• 31:05
  Ken Miller: You die because you can die from fear.
• 31:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 31:08
  Ken Miller: So much chemicals are being released.
• 31:09
  Ken Miller: But I've been at nines.
• 31:11
  Ken Miller: I've been kidnapped.
• 31:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 31:13
  Ken Miller: I've had guns pulled on me.
• 31:14
  Ken Miller: I've had knives to my chest.
• 31:16
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 31:17
  Ken Miller: So I. I've been there.
• 31:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 31:19
  Ken Miller: I. I've had to deal with my father as a nine.
• 31:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 31:24
  Ken Miller: So I've been there.
• 31:26
  Ken Miller: But my fear today is more like ones and twos, you know?
• 31:31
  Ken Miller: And so that's just a level of discomfort.
• 31:33
  Ken Miller: But so October, from that point on, I've been protected.
• 31:38
  Ken Miller: And I have.
• 31:39
  Ken Miller: I have.
• 31:40
  Ken Miller: I don't have to do this journey alone.
• 31:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 31:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 31:43
  Ken Miller: And many times.
• 31:43
  Ken Miller: That many times.
• 31:44
  Ken Miller: I don't do it as often.
• 31:47
  Ken Miller: There was a lot of times I had to talk to God and really Prayer.
• 31:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 31:53
  Ken Miller: But that is lesson.
• 31:54
  Ken Miller: Because my life has very little friction.
• 31:58
  Ken Miller: Very little friction.
• 31:59
  Ken Miller: I do life.
• 31:59
  Ken Miller: First of all.
• 32:00
  Ken Miller: I tell people all the time I'm.
• 32:01
  Ken Miller: Well.
• 32:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 32:03
  Ken Miller: And I want to listen to hear this, too.
• 32:05
  Ken Miller: I don't work on Ken.
• 32:06
  Ken Miller: I don't work on me.
• 32:08
  Ken Miller: I'm cool with me.
• 32:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 32:10
  Ken Miller: And how do you know that?
• 32:11
  Ken Miller: Because I know from the reflections from others.
• 32:14
  Ken Miller: They're good with me.
• 32:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 32:16
  Ken Miller: And I'm writing a book about it.
• 32:18
  Ken Miller: It's called I'm good with Good.
• 32:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, that's good.
• 32:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That's good.
• 32:22
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 32:23
  Ken Miller: Can.
• 32:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love that.
• 32:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I love the journey.
• 32:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I love.
• 32:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I'm curious about you talked about forgiving your father.
• 32:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I think that an important thing.
• 32:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: At what point did that happen at.
• 32:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: At the deep level where you could really let go of the trauma that he caused in your life?
• 32:39
  Ken Miller: I actually did that before I got arrested in.
• 32:41
  Ken Miller: Oh, four.
• 32:42
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 32:43
  Ken Miller: So what happened is the incident happened in April of 85.
• 32:49
  Ken Miller: My father ended up doing, I think seven, eight years in the penitentiary because there's no such thing as attempted murder in Alaska.
• 32:57
  Ken Miller: It's first degree assault.
• 32:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 33:00
  Ken Miller: And my mom wouldn't testify.
• 33:02
  Ken Miller: It was too traumatic.
• 33:04
  Ken Miller: And when she passed away, she still had two bullets in her.
• 33:07
  Ken Miller: Took out three and there was two still in her.
• 33:12
  Ken Miller: It was in the late 90s and I had, I would always have these little periods of sobriety.
• 33:19
  Ken Miller: It could be three months.
• 33:19
  Ken Miller: I went to treatment that was a year long treatment.
• 33:23
  Ken Miller: This is in that 21 years.
• 33:25
  Ken Miller: And anyway, I went up and I sat down and talked to my father and we talked and had a, a good talk.
• 33:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 33:35
  Ken Miller: And.
• 33:37
  Ken Miller: And again, it's my decision to forgive.
• 33:41
  Ken Miller: Yeah, it's mine.
• 33:43
  Ken Miller: And I did.
• 33:46
  Ken Miller: And, and that was a choice because it's very difficult to self forgive if you can't forgive others.
• 33:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 33:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 33:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It all kind of starts with this work here and it bleeds out into the world.
• 34:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I also remember you saying, you know, back even in college, you get there and you're like, you had no self worth.
• 34:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so kind of you finding out, did that, you know, voice of God and that faith or wherever.
• 34:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I was open to how people express spirituality, have a deep faith like you.
• 34:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And did that.
• 34:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Do you feel like that transformed, feeling like number one, you weren't alone or number two, maybe that you had value?
• 34:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: How did you go from feeling valueless or like not fitting in college years all this time to actually feeling like I am who I am, I love who I am and I'm accepting who I am.
• 34:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What, what along the journey helped you find that piece of kin?
• 34:41
  Ken Miller: I love that question.
• 34:43
  Ken Miller: Let me tell you a little story.
• 34:47
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 34:48
  Ken Miller: So I was in treatment in Seattle, Washington.
• 34:51
  Ken Miller: And it's a room of, let's say 30, 40 addicts.
• 34:58
  Ken Miller: And I'm sober.
• 35:03
  Ken Miller: And there's a gentleman on the way over on the other side of the table.
• 35:07
  Ken Miller: It's a big circle, let's say tables with their square tables made into a circle.
• 35:13
  Ken Miller: We got 40 people in there.
• 35:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 35:15
  Ken Miller: And I'll never forget he was upset at me for some reason, I can't even remember why.
• 35:20
  Ken Miller: And I remember he said, I hope you relapse.
• 35:24
  Ken Miller: And I Rushed over there to physically assault this man.
• 35:31
  Ken Miller: Because I would not give my addiction to my worst enemy.
• 35:35
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 35:36
  Ken Miller: That's how bad my addiction was.
• 35:38
  Ken Miller: But I would give it to me, and I'm a child of God, But I didn't know that at that time.
• 35:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 35:44
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 35:46
  Ken Miller: I wouldn't.
• 35:46
  Ken Miller: I literally would not give it to my worst enemy.
• 35:48
  Ken Miller: My addiction is so demeaning, so low, so dirty, so ugly.
• 35:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 35:54
  Ken Miller: So, so much self hatred.
• 35:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 35:56
  Ken Miller: I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy.
• 35:58
  Ken Miller: And he is.
• 35:59
  Ken Miller: I hope you relapse.
• 36:02
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 36:02
  Ken Miller: So he didn't know the power of what he said.
• 36:05
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 36:05
  Ken Miller: This was years ago.
• 36:06
  Ken Miller: This is back in the 90s.
• 36:08
  Ken Miller: So when I get cleaned up, when I start building a relationship with God, then it's up to me to look inside and to forgive self.
• 36:20
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 36:21
  Ken Miller: Along and along with forgiving others.
• 36:24
  Ken Miller: And I had to look at all the people that I had resentments for and all the people.
• 36:30
  Ken Miller: Because, remember what a resentment, you know, since tears.
• 36:32
  Ken Miller: To feel.
• 36:32
  Ken Miller: It's to refill a negative emotion.
• 36:35
  Ken Miller: Right.
• 36:36
  Ken Miller: And I don't.
• 36:38
  Ken Miller: I don't want resentment.
• 36:40
  Ken Miller: I don't want to bring up.
• 36:41
  Ken Miller: One of the most important things that I did, and one of the most beautiful things that I did is I took away the power of the secret.
• 36:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: The darkness.
• 36:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 36:51
  Ken Miller: Yes.
• 36:52
  Ken Miller: It's darkness.
• 36:54
  Ken Miller: It's a room.
• 36:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 36:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 36:57
  Ken Miller: It's a long hallway on each side of the hallways.
• 37:02
  Ken Miller: Our doors.
• 37:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 37:03
  Ken Miller: And on that door is a plaque.
• 37:04
  Ken Miller: And the plaque will say, mom shot.
• 37:08
  Ken Miller: I mean, dad shot mom, 1985.
• 37:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 37:11
  Ken Miller: And then usually what we do is we sit outside that door in the hallway and we remain in the feeling.
• 37:18
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 37:20
  Ken Miller: And so what I do and what I learned to do and I work with guys on this is I go in the door and I allow the sunlight of the spirit.
• 37:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 37:28
  Ken Miller: To shine upon the set piece.
• 37:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 37:32
  Ken Miller: And I take away the power of it.
• 37:33
  Ken Miller: I've taken away the power of every single negative thing that's happened to me.
• 37:39
  Ken Miller: I've taken away its power to be in the present, make me feel less than.
• 37:44
  Ken Miller: So it's a beautiful place to be.
• 37:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, I love that analogy.
• 37:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love your room, the hall.
• 37:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love.
• 37:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I can see it.
• 37:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I think I want to stop here because I think those people listening, I want to make sure that they hear what you're saying, Ken.
• 37:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And as I hear you saying that, to me, it's like if you have a dark room, all you need is one little match, and light overcomes darkness.
• 38:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 38:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we could analogize this to those things that we all have shame about if we keep them inside and we don't bring them to light, share them with a com, a close confidant, or deal with that prayer or whatever way that looks for us and put them out in the light.
• 38:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's like it takes away all the power, doesn't it?
• 38:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because it's only when it's hidden inside of us that.
• 38:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And again, it may take a therapist or a professional or a trusted friend.
• 38:33
  Ken Miller: That's what I did.
• 38:34
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 38:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But those.
• 38:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: There is a power there, too.
• 38:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And that's why groups like AA work, because you're coming together with all of us kind of failed people.
• 38:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we're all in that boat, no matter what we think we are and we're being real with one another.
• 38:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: There's no hiding.
• 38:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: There's no saying, well, I'm better than you.
• 38:51
  Ken Miller: It's.
• 38:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We're all in this together.
• 38:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right?
• 38:55
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Ken Miller: And there's a commonality.
• 38:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 38:56
  Ken Miller: There's a humbleness of admitting, you know, if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, but you know this.
• 39:03
  Ken Miller: So this is an important part about the rooms.
• 39:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 39:08
  Ken Miller: These secrets.
• 39:10
  Ken Miller: What were.
• 39:10
  Ken Miller: What I attempted to do and I did is I use a different part of my brain to observe the situation.
• 39:21
  Ken Miller: And see, what we do is we shut down at the emotion.
• 39:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 39:24
  Ken Miller: An emotion is much more powerful than intellect.
• 39:29
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 39:30
  Ken Miller: Because it's a protective mechanism.
• 39:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 39:32
  Ken Miller: But I'm stuck in that feeling.
• 39:33
  Ken Miller: And it's a negative feeling.
• 39:35
  Ken Miller: So I go in there and see, this is the thing.
• 39:37
  Ken Miller: So with a counselor, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a trusted advisor, a friend.
• 39:43
  Ken Miller: You can walk in that door together.
• 39:44
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 39:45
  Ken Miller: You don't have to go in there alone.
• 39:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 39:47
  Ken Miller: And then what I do and what I did is I just.
• 39:50
  Ken Miller: I do three things.
• 39:53
  Ken Miller: I turn on the light, turn the switch on, allow the sunlight of the spirit.
• 39:57
  Ken Miller: Let's just say it's a light switch.
• 39:59
  Ken Miller: And then I describe the set.
• 40:04
  Ken Miller: What was the set?
• 40:06
  Ken Miller: Let's talk about this intellectually.
• 40:07
  Ken Miller: Who was there?
• 40:08
  Ken Miller: What were they wearing?
• 40:09
  Ken Miller: What did they say?
• 40:10
  Ken Miller: Who are the other characters in on this set?
• 40:12
  Ken Miller: It's like a set piece.
• 40:13
  Ken Miller: Yep.
• 40:14
  Ken Miller: Then, which is super important is I say to myself, how did I feel when this was happening?
• 40:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 40:23
  Ken Miller: And I'm willing to go there.
• 40:25
  Ken Miller: And then more important than even, how do I feel?
• 40:28
  Ken Miller: What was my self talk?
• 40:31
  Ken Miller: This is my fault.
• 40:32
  Ken Miller: This is what I deserve.
• 40:33
  Ken Miller: I mean, this self talk.
• 40:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 40:35
  Ken Miller: And then I also go into.
• 40:37
  Ken Miller: And I try to find out what was the underlying pain that created that self talk.
• 40:43
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 40:44
  Ken Miller: I remember I have a fundamental.
• 40:46
  Ken Miller: My fundamental.
• 40:48
  Ken Miller: And I was talking about it earlier today.
• 40:50
  Ken Miller: I have one fundamental.
• 40:51
  Ken Miller: My fundamental is that I was going to die alone.
• 40:54
  Ken Miller: That's my fundamental is that I'm going to die alone.
• 41:00
  Ken Miller: And that's my greatest fear because I didn't have a mom and I knew that I wasn't wanted, so.
• 41:09
  Ken Miller: And you talking about another defense mechanism.
• 41:11
  Ken Miller: We talked about that.
• 41:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 41:12
  Ken Miller: My other defense mechanism or coping mechanism is never saying no.
• 41:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 41:19
  Ken Miller: People with low self esteem, they.
• 41:22
  Ken Miller: The reason I don't say no is if I say no, you may not like me.
• 41:25
  Ken Miller: Yes.
• 41:26
  Ken Miller: You may not want to associate or interact with me.
• 41:30
  Ken Miller: And then I'll be alone.
• 41:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So the cardinal abandoned.
• 41:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 41:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Which I know people can relate to.
• 41:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That's so common.
• 41:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And yet.
• 41:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then the, the myth and the lie is that you're the only one who feels that way.
• 41:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 41:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then as we get out in the world, we realize there's a lot of people with the wounds that you're describing and different trajectories and certainly maybe didn't have to go through all the experiences you did, but still it's not.
• 41:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So now you do work with and you have a specific organization.
• 42:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I believe it's Men of Color and Development.
• 42:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Tell us more about like how now shifting from your transformation to your work in the world.
• 42:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because.
• 42:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And people might wonder, I'm a doctor.
• 42:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 42:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I do resiliency radio.
• 42:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But they might wonder, okay, Ken, why is this guest on here?
• 42:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I'll tell you what, these things that you're talking about, Ken, are the most important things in overall life.
• 42:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Happiness, in success, in relationships, and also in health.
• 42:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 42:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So.
• 42:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you know that as well as I do.
• 42:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I think it's so relevant because as we deal with our broken parts and as we bring them to the light and as we work with people to process this, that's such a power of healing that I see in my practice.
• 42:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I want to hear what are you doing now in the world to mentor young men of all types and backgrounds and tell us more about the work you're doing now.
• 42:51
  Ken Miller: Oh, I'm doing a lot.
• 42:53
  Ken Miller: You know, someone asked me about that and I said, you know, I.
• 42:56
  Ken Miller: Part of it is I sometimes think there's a scales of justice and I have done so much bad.
• 43:06
  Ken Miller: And I'm also, I'm not.
• 43:07
  Ken Miller: I.
• 43:09
  Ken Miller: Because I see some people want to like trump, you're bad.
• 43:11
  Ken Miller: Yeah, my bad.
• 43:12
  Ken Miller: Yeah, I kill.
• 43:14
  Ken Miller: I got three bodies or whatever.
• 43:16
  Ken Miller: And I'm not into that.
• 43:17
  Ken Miller: I just Know the bad I did.
• 43:19
  Ken Miller: Which was bad.
• 43:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 43:21
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 43:22
  Ken Miller: So now I'm on this other side and I almost feel like I need to.
• 43:28
  Ken Miller: And I've given away from that.
• 43:30
  Ken Miller: Now I do it more because I believe that's God's will for me.
• 43:34
  Ken Miller: And then also I understand strength and I understand gifts.
• 43:38
  Ken Miller: And I have gifts.
• 43:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 43:40
  Ken Miller: And my gifts are the ability to speak, to articulate, to shine light, especially on.
• 43:50
  Ken Miller: Not events and experiences, but the emotions and the feelings behind them.
• 43:54
  Ken Miller: A lot of people have difficulty with that part and the self talk.
• 43:58
  Ken Miller: So what I began to do, you know, in the programs we sponsor people, we work them through the steps and the anonymous programs.
• 44:09
  Ken Miller: So I had a little background there and I've sponsored many men.
• 44:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 44:14
  Ken Miller: And then I said I wanted to start mentoring young black men.
• 44:19
  Ken Miller: Yeah.
• 44:19
  Ken Miller: Because there's such a need for black men to have a role model and to have someone that believes in them and also have some another black man they can trust.
• 44:31
  Ken Miller: Because black men don't trust black men a lot.
• 44:35
  Ken Miller: And so I began doing that in 2010.
• 44:40
  Ken Miller: Been doing that for now 16 years.
• 44:43
  Ken Miller: It's open ended.
• 44:45
  Ken Miller: I have men I've been mentoring for 16 years.
• 44:48
  Ken Miller: We meet quarterly.
• 44:49
  Ken Miller: So anyway, that's.
• 44:51
  Ken Miller: And my main object when I mentor men is to engender dreams.
• 44:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, love.
• 44:57
  Ken Miller: Every guy I meet with, that's the first thing I say to them is that is my goal is to engender your dream and I give you permission to dream.
• 45:09
  Ken Miller: And I shut up.
• 45:11
  Ken Miller: Some people say, have you give people permission to dream?
• 45:13
  Ken Miller: Yeah, because many people have had that permission taken away.
• 45:18
  Ken Miller: How dare you think you can do that?
• 45:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 45:20
  Ken Miller: Whether it's family, friends, school, co workers, partners.
• 45:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 45:27
  Ken Miller: You know, so anyway, so that's part of.
• 45:30
  Ken Miller: So I mentor men.
• 45:32
  Ken Miller: Today I have 14 that I explicitly mentor.
• 45:36
  Ken Miller: And that means we meet every three months and we have homework and we do certain things.
• 45:42
  Ken Miller: And then I founded a few different organizations or groups, so I'll mention those.
• 45:50
  Ken Miller: I have men of color in development that came out of a black panel that I had put together in the field of fundraising.
• 45:59
  Ken Miller: That's my subject matter expertise as a fundraiser for non profits.
• 46:04
  Ken Miller: And at the end of the talk, this panel was three or four of us on there.
• 46:09
  Ken Miller: I said, if anybody wants to be mentored, you know, contact me.
• 46:12
  Ken Miller: Here's my email.
• 46:13
  Ken Miller: And I had 45 men contact me.
• 46:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 46:15
  Ken Miller: I didn't know it was that bad to be mentored specifically in that area.
• 46:23
  Ken Miller: But I end up mentoring the person I don't coach.
• 46:26
  Ken Miller: I can because I'm a good fundraiser.
• 46:29
  Ken Miller: Okay.
• 46:29
  Ken Miller: So that.
• 46:31
  Ken Miller: So I said we need an organization of black male fundraisers.
• 46:35
  Ken Miller: So I started Men of Color and Development is now a part of African American Development Officers.
• 46:41
  Ken Miller: We're doing great.
• 46:41
  Ken Miller: We have about 400 men from around the country.
• 46:46
  Ken Miller: So I still mentor some of the men in there.
• 46:48
  Ken Miller: And then we do scholarships, things of that nature.
• 46:51
  Ken Miller: It's been around for about five years.
• 46:53
  Ken Miller: Then I started the Six Pillars Black Men's Book Study and Discourse Group.
• 47:00
  Ken Miller: And what we do is we read a nonfiction book.
• 47:04
  Ken Miller: That's my only really rule, because it has to be non fiction.
• 47:09
  Ken Miller: And then we meet every two weeks and we discuss the books.
• 47:13
  Ken Miller: And it's called the Six Pillars because our first book, which is probably my favorite book is, other than the Bible, is the Six Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Brandon.
• 47:27
  Ken Miller: So that was our first book.
• 47:28
  Ken Miller: It takes us six months.
• 47:29
  Ken Miller: Then went to Cry Like a Man by Wilson.
• 47:33
  Ken Miller: And then we just finished Grow Rich, Bob Proctor.
• 47:38
  Ken Miller: And in July, we'll start up Power Nomics is our next book.
• 47:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm familiar with a lot of those great books, awesome books.
• 47:46
  Ken Miller: Then our next.
• 47:47
  Ken Miller: The next thing I. I set up is a.
• 47:53
  Ken Miller: A book club.
• 47:55
  Ken Miller: A deep book club.
• 47:57
  Ken Miller: And I mean, my deep.
• 47:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 47:59
  Ken Miller: Is that we're doing Constellations by David White.
• 48:03
  Ken Miller: And that is a book club or really a book discussion group that meets every two weeks.
• 48:10
  Ken Miller: It's black and white by choice.
• 48:14
  Ken Miller: I don't.
• 48:14
  Ken Miller: I don't interact with women.
• 48:17
  Ken Miller: And I just want to make sure people understand why I'm a married man.
• 48:22
  Ken Miller: And there were times I was not faithful to my former wives.
• 48:26
  Ken Miller: Both of them.
• 48:28
  Ken Miller: And so I've made a decision that I don't, at a emotional level, involve myself with women.
• 48:35
  Ken Miller: And both.
• 48:36
  Ken Miller: Everything I do is at an emotional level.
• 48:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 48:39
  Ken Miller: And so that's my choice.
• 48:40
  Ken Miller: I'm comfortable with that.
• 48:42
  Ken Miller: But I made a big decision to open this book club to both black men and white men, you know, or men of other.
• 48:49
  Ken Miller: So I do that.
• 48:50
  Ken Miller: That's another one that I do.
• 48:52
  Ken Miller: And then I do workshops.
• 48:54
  Ken Miller: I just did a financial workshop for black men.
• 48:59
  Ken Miller: We call it Six Pillars, part of that group.
• 49:01
  Ken Miller: And then I have another, the mentor group, which is called Pass It On.
• 49:06
  Ken Miller: And we have four generations of black men entering black men.
• 49:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Amazing.
• 49:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What an amazing group of work that you do.
• 49:13
  Ken Miller: Oh, and I write books.
• 49:14
  Ken Miller: I speak from the stage.
• 49:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 49:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 49:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And if you're listening, of course, you know, I'll have all this in the show notes.
• 49:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And before we go, Ken, we're going to find out where to find you like your main site, but I also want to hear before we go is, what would you say are the topics 3, 4 practices for you right now that daily keep you integrated and keep you on the path?
• 49:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What are some of the most important things that keep you emotionally grounded and resilient today?
• 49:41
  Ken Miller: Great question versus prayer.
• 49:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 49:45
  Ken Miller: And what.
• 49:46
  Ken Miller: I pray.
• 49:46
  Ken Miller: And I. I pray maybe a little different than some people.
• 49:50
  Ken Miller: And I. I'll just talk about.
• 49:51
  Ken Miller: I'll just tell you about my prayer.
• 49:53
  Ken Miller: I don't pray for people's health.
• 49:56
  Ken Miller: I don't pray for financial.
• 49:59
  Ken Miller: I don't pray for possessions.
• 50:01
  Ken Miller: I pray for just knowledge of God's will.
• 50:05
  Ken Miller: What's the next indicated correct thing to do.
• 50:07
  Ken Miller: And then I also pray for the strength, courage, fortitude to be able to do his will, because his will is different than my will sometimes.
• 50:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 50:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We get those marching orders.
• 50:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I used to start my journal and say, okay, God, what do you have for me today?
• 50:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 50:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Like, okay, what's on the agenda?
• 50:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And.
• 50:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you know what?
• 50:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If we ask those questions, he always answers, but not always in the way that we wanted to hear.
• 50:31
  Ken Miller: So that's a.
• 50:32
  Ken Miller: That's a one foundation.
• 50:34
  Ken Miller: The other foundation is that.
• 50:36
  Ken Miller: And you talk about these daily.
• 50:38
  Ken Miller: Number one.
• 50:40
  Ken Miller: Number two, I would say, is that I just put it out and make a list.
• 50:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 50:45
  Ken Miller: It's a list type of person.
• 50:47
  Ken Miller: Number three, I make a decision to be who I wanted to be.
• 50:53
  Ken Miller: This is a decision that I make.
• 50:56
  Ken Miller: And that decision is to be a kind and gentle man.
• 51:00
  Ken Miller: And 99 of the time, I am.
• 51:03
  Ken Miller: I had a little faux pas on Saturday and I made my apology.
• 51:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 51:08
  Ken Miller: To the affected parties.
• 51:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 51:11
  Ken Miller: But I make that decision, and then probably the last thing is I try to treat my wife as the most important person in my life.
• 51:21
  Ken Miller: She is.
• 51:22
  Ken Miller: She is the most important.
• 51:24
  Ken Miller: We have the children.
• 51:25
  Ken Miller: There's grandchildren.
• 51:26
  Ken Miller: They're here right now.
• 51:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 51:27
  Ken Miller: Outside we have her mother who lives with us, who's 90.
• 51:31
  Ken Miller: But my wife comes first and comes before me.
• 51:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 51:37
  Ken Miller: And so I'm very gentle and very kind with her.
• 51:42
  Ken Miller: I'm the type.
• 51:43
  Ken Miller: I just send her.
• 51:43
  Ken Miller: I text her just.
• 51:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 51:46
  Ken Miller: Or just funny things.
• 51:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 51:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 51:48
  Ken Miller: All the time.
• 51:48
  Ken Miller: She's downstairs.
• 51:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 51:50
  Ken Miller: Come home.
• 51:50
  Ken Miller: But that's how much I love her.
• 51:52
  Ken Miller: And I've been so blessed with that union that God put her in my life and.
• 51:59
  Ken Miller: And in return, she treats me very well.
• 52:02
  Ken Miller: So those are three or four of those.
• 52:04
  Ken Miller: Of the things I do, I read.
• 52:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Ken Miller: I bring in.
• 52:09
  Ken Miller: I'm not gonna say sometimes I bring in Negative.
• 52:11
  Ken Miller: I. I grew up on some rap music and heavy metal music, some of that.
• 52:16
  Ken Miller: But I usually don't hear the word.
• 52:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's all okay.
• 52:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, exactly.
• 52:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, my goodness.
• 52:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love it.
• 52:21
  Ken Miller: That's my skill.
• 52:22
  Ken Miller: I'm sticking to it.
• 52:24
  Ken Miller: Oh, that's another thing.
• 52:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 52:26
  Ken Miller: This is one of the greatest gifts you can have, the ability to laugh at yourself.
• 52:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes, Yes.
• 52:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I couldn't.
• 52:34
  Ken Miller: And I laugh at myself.
• 52:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's so true.
• 52:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It just keeps life.
• 52:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You said something in the midst of your dark days about absurdity.
• 52:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I think you mentioned that word, and I think sometimes, I mean, that's kind of a maybe a negative word, but in some ways, it's almost like if we.
• 52:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If we realize the absurdity of some of the things seriously crazy, it really frames it.
• 52:58
  Ken Miller: You're like, there's some time.
• 53:00
  Ken Miller: Not often, but there are times where I'm just like, did I really do that?
• 53:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right?
• 53:07
  Ken Miller: 20 Some years.
• 53:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 53:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I did some.
• 53:10
  Ken Miller: Some things.
• 53:10
  Ken Miller: And I'm like, did I?
• 53:12
  Ken Miller: Maybe I really didn't.
• 53:14
  Ken Miller: And then I just go to Court View and I go and look at my record.
• 53:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, yeah.
• 53:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, Ken, this was so much fun.
• 53:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I love the work that you're giving back in the world, and I love the way God has just really directed your path to.
• 53:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: To just bless.
• 53:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you know what?
• 53:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: He always does that.
• 53:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: He takes our suffering and difficulties and then transforms them.
• 53:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Other people can benefit, and you're clearly doing that in the world.
• 53:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If people want to know more about your groups, all the things you're doing, where can they find more about you?
• 53:44
  Ken Miller: Easy.
• 53:45
  Ken Miller: Just reach out to me.
• 53:45
  Ken Miller: I usually work through LinkedIn.
• 53:47
  Ken Miller: It's this easy.
• 53:48
  Ken Miller: You can just DM me in LinkedIn.
• 53:50
  Ken Miller: I've had people get a contact, and we've ended up meeting for lunch.
• 53:54
  Ken Miller: You know, I've had people fly up and just to talk to me, but that's another world.
• 53:58
  Ken Miller: But the key thing is this DME LinkedIn is KenMiller84.
• 54:04
  Ken Miller: Or you can message me on my website.
• 54:07
  Ken Miller: Ken Miller speaks.
• 54:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Perfect.
• 54:09
  Ken Miller: Makes it real easy.
• 54:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, perfect.
• 54:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Ken, it has been an absolute pleasure.
• 54:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Thank you for the work you're doing, and it was so much fun to talk to you today.
• 54:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Hey, guys, Hope you enjoyed that amazing transformational episode with Ken Miller as much as I did.
• 54:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I know it's a little different from my usual guests, but what a powerful story.
• 54:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I'm sure we only scratched the surface of his last life and transformation, and now the way he is in the world, mentoring other men, really enjoyed that episode.
• 54:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If you like that episode, please like and subscribe.
• 54:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And more importantly, would you share this episode with a friend or family member or anyone in your life who needs a little encouragement?
• 54:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That's my biggest desire for this show.
• 54:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Is that it.
• 54:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's.
• 54:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's encouraging out there for you in the world with whatever you're struggling with in your own transformational journey.
• 54:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: As you know, we have an episode, a new episode each week.
• 54:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So join me again next week for a new episode of Resiliency Radio.
• 55:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Until then, make it a great day.