From Self-harm to Self-worth: Kerry Oberbrunner’s Story

 

Transcript

ANNOUNCER:  This is Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families, and your window into the world of special education. Special needs parenting can be challenging, and we want to make it easier by providing you with the resources you need to help your child. Step deep into the world of learning differently with your host, special education attorney Adam Dayan. 

ADAM:  I am pleased to welcome my next guest on the Curious Incident podcast, Dr. Kary Oberbrunner. Kary is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of 14 books as CEO of Instant IP and Igniting Souls. He helps authors, entrepreneurs, and influencers publish, protect, and promote their intellectual property and turn it into 18 streams of income. His companies are committed to setting free world-changing ideas. As a young man, he suffered from severe stuttering, depression, and self-injury. Today a transformed man carry Ignite’s souls. He speaks internationally on a variety of topics, including leadership, personal growth, human performance, blockchain technology, and entrepreneurship. He holds several earned degrees, including a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Divinity, and a Doctor of Transformational Leadership. He also serves as the Berry Chair of Entrepreneurship at Cedarville University, where he teaches on the topics of entrepreneurship and digital marketing. He lives in Ohio with his wife, Kelly, and three children, Keegan, Isabelle, and Addison. Kary, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to be here, Adam. Great to have you. A quick but important note before we get started. Self-harm is a serious topic that we haven’t yet had the opportunity to explore in depth on this podcast. There are many children out there struggling with it. There are parents who are grappling with trying to understand their children, why they self-harm, how to help them. Kary, in one of our previous conversations, you shared a deeply personal story about struggling with depression, self-injury, and suicidal thoughts. Drawing from your own experience. Can you help our listeners better understand the psychology of self-harm, how it relates to depression, and take us back to where your own journey began, and what life looked like for you as a child. 

KARY:  We’re going to go deep here, Adam. We’re going deep. Yeah, we are. Sometimes I just touch on the topic on interviews, but I appreciate how you want to serve your audience and go deep on this topic. From a very young age, I remember the first expression of self-injury in the form of biting. Probably right around when school started, because prior to that, I still had struggles. As a young child, bedwetting was a very regular thing, and then stuttering. And then that turned into biting. And I remember I wanted to see the teeth marks in my arm. Might sound weird, but… 

ADAM:  I’m curious, what did those represent for you? 

KARY:  I think looking back now as an adult, I can process it better, but I think I felt so much pain and self-hatred that it gave me relief to see a physical representation. I have done a lot of therapy, a lot of inner work, but my parents knew I was a depressed child, and it wasn’t all the time. I had fun as a kid, I liked the outdoors, but there was just this self-hatred. I didn’t talk about it a lot. Years went on, and around the age of 10, my parents took me to my first psychologist. So I came from a blue collar home where it was different back then. When you had a speech problem, you were learning disabled. And so even from first, second grade, I was put in special classes, and you have labels, and back then, I remember absolutely fearing the reading, because you would read out loud in class. And so imagine down the rows and up the rows, each person takes a paragraph to read, and now it’s your turn. And when I started to stutter, I would actually hit myself under the desk, and just grab my leg really hard and stuff. And I think it was a way just to express the anxiety that I felt. And sure enough, you try reading as a kid, and I went to a private school. Kids laugh, you know, and kids make fun of you. And back then, I mean, they didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like today. I was essentially removed from class, go to the special class, and with that come certain stigma as well. Eventually, I found some relief and healing from the stuttering, but it was always there in the back of my head that any time there was a script, that would be the trigger. Anything that I had to read a script, that’s probably why I didn’t want a script today, subconsciously, because a script means there’s a standard, and a standard means perfection, perfection means you can’t make mistakes. My first audio book, the publisher says, hey, we like your book. We’re going to actually submit it to be an audio book. Would you like to come to the studio and read it? I said, no, I don’t want to read my book. They’re like, really, you don’t want to read your book? I said, no. I can write the book, but I can’t read the book. 

ADAM:  If they had asked you to come speak off the cuff about what the book is about, that would 

KARY:  have been fun. Eventually, it really coalesced to senior year in high school. 

ADAM:  Can I interject real quick before we get there? Go for it, yeah. I just wanted to go back to the idea of self-concept, and I’m wondering the self-hatred that you mentioned. Do you connect it to the stuttering, or is there an earlier point in time when you think that formed? Because, I mean, there’s so many ways. If you are in a stage where you’re not loving yourself, there’s so many destructive ways in which that can manifest. 

KARY:  Oh, no. There’s an event that I feel OK talking about, because I’m not 100% sure about it. But when my uncle was around 18, he hung himself. We just always knew growing up, yeah, your uncle killed himself. My dad actually bound him with his dad, and they had to cut him down. It was pretty traumatic. As an adult, I went back to my mom and like, why did he hang himself? And I said, was there any inclination of sexual abuse to me or my sister? Because again, I went deep into therapy, and I didn’t want to make up stuff. That was always my fear. I didn’t remember any abuse, so I didn’t want to be like, and that’s why I hated myself, and that’s why I had stuttered, and that’s why I went to bed, stuff like that. She kind of paused, and she said, well, there was a time where I found him in bed with you and your sister. Wow. And again, he was probably 17, 18, and I was probably one and a half, and she was three and a half. So that’s pretty young. And so I don’t know. I don’t know if there was any sexual abuse, but that’s pretty odd. So I don’t know. But you got to think as a young kid, when you start stuttering at two or three and then bedwetting and then you’re biting yourself, like, could it happen? Whether it did or not, that doesn’t mean, that doesn’t help me. It doesn’t help. 

ADAM:  And it can be really hard to connect these dots. Sure. You know, I’ve thought about this for myself in the sense that when I was five years old, I was hit by a van crossing the street. I was carrying a ball on the way to the schoolyard. Wind took it away. I went after it and then smacked me. I went flying in the air. Wow. 

KARY:  Reset the brain, maybe. 

ADAM:  I wonder. I always wonder about that. There’s no way to know for sure. But you know, this is probably common to anybody with a cognitive, emotional or behavioral issue. You wonder, what is it? Where did it come from? Why did it start? And you may never be able to answer that definitively. Yeah. And it doesn’t necessarily matter for the purposes of seeking help for whatever you’re struggling with. But I interrupted you before you’re starting to talk about high school. I think you said something about the 11th grade. Do you want to continue on that? 

KARY:  Yeah. So I will say, though, that biting turned into cutting. So you know, as a five-year-old, you’re not, I wasn’t going to grab a knife. But as it became more and more as a teenager, I became older. Let’s go back to 10 years old. First time at the psychologists, my parents are like, hey, Kary seems sad all the time. So they took me in. And I remember my dad filling out the report with me and it said, have you ever thought about suicide? And I said, what does that mean, dad? Because I didn’t know what the word meant at 10 years old. And he said, well, that means where you want to, you want to take your life. You want to kill yourself. And I remember at 10 years old lying and saying, oh, I’ve never thought about that. As I went back and put all the clues together, I actually requested my doctors notes from like whatever, 1980, whatever, because I wrote this book called your secret name and I wanted to put all the pieces together. And so in those doctor notes, my mom couldn’t be at the appointment. And I’m like, that’s interesting. And she had submitted a note to the doctor that said, doctor so and so sorry I can’t be with you and Mike today. Who’s Mike? My dad, but I’m still recovering from my strokes. So my mom basically is saying, sorry, I can’t be at the counseling appointment because I’m still overcoming my strokes. And I remember I can put this all together. And like my parents have always struggled with health issues. And I remember being desperately afraid of one of my parents dying or both my parents dying. And what you never talked about it as a family. And so I grew up in this family where you just didn’t talk about feelings. 

ADAM:  You’re hitting on something. And I know you were in touch with Christine, my assistant and setting this up. And part of our mission is to shift that culture of we don’t talk about stuff. Right. It’s so important within a family to be able to put this stuff on the table. It helps a lot for children to be able to find the help they need. Suffering in silence doesn’t get you anywhere. I know that you know that perhaps a lot of our listeners know that. Is there anything more you want to say on that subject? 

KARY:  I just have this memory as a kid. We all have memories. This didn’t really happen, but I kept picturing me behind glass screaming and pain, but nobody sees me. We were always a family that helped everybody else. My parents were deeply involved in ministry work, salvation army. My dad actually then became a pastor. And I think we’re always helping other people. We didn’t stop and talk about pain. We just kind of, oh, mom almost died. Let’s keep going. Your dad has a heart attack at 41. Let’s keep going. 

ADAM:  It’s much easier to help other people than to look inside and see yourself. 

KARY:  Yeah. And I’m not saying I’m not again, I’m not blaming my uncle. Not blaming my parents. My parents are amazing. I love them to death. And they’re both on fire today, but they didn’t have the tools. Look at the generations that we came from. If we think the my childhood didn’t talk about things, you go back to their childhood and you didn’t talk about things. And so I feel like we’ve actually turned a corner, even your podcast, to have a podcast where we’re talking about this. So then it turned cutting. I remember my dad almost dying at the age of when I was 17, 18, and we didn’t talk about it. And I remember grabbing a knife. 

ADAM:  So that’s when it started 17, 18. 

KARY:  Now, I mean, I think I always put way too much of my heart into relationships. So it could have been like, you know, a breakup, a friend’s mad at you. Like I just didn’t have words. Think about it because of stuttering. But I think there’s something symbolic there that your podcast is giving kids a voice journaling and writing. We’re going to touch on that because that’s actually what part of freed me up. But I didn’t really have art. I had some sports wrestling. But then again, you got to win every match. If you don’t win every match, you’re failing. Failure was such a thing, this anti failure thing. And I was one of these kids though that was like hardware to be an achiever. So I actually did try and fail a lot of things. As opposed to someone who’s like, well, I’m just not even going to try. So it’s like try, achieve, fail, punish yourself. It’s a cycle. And it wasn’t every day. I’d go through seasons. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the Curious Incident podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@Dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  I just want to highlight what you said about not having the words. Yeah. And I praised you before we started this about the way you’re giving voice to others. But that’s so common with kids who have special needs, whether it’s emotional, academic, whatever. They’re struggling with something and they don’t know how to express it. Sometimes that results in acting out, getting into fights, doing all kinds of stuff. You know, what do you want to say to those kids who can’t find the words to express what they’re struggling with or to the parents who can’t seem to understand their kids because they’re not able to communicate what’s going on with them? 

KARY:  I think there’s something really deep about being seen. I think we all want to be seen. A positive form of that is, well, I’m going to be seen someone to win. I’m going to be seen someone to go out for that leading part in the play. I’m going to be seen so I enter a relationship. But like you said, there’s regressive behavior where I’m going to be seen, but I can’t find a good way. So I’m going to fight. I’m going to be a disturbance in class because at least I’m getting a need mat, which is to be seen. Kids who create problems, the positive thing that they’re trying to do is be seen. 

ADAM:  Yeah, everybody just wants to be seen. 

KARY:  Back to that 18 year old, tried out for the school play. Why? Because I don’t know. My friends, my friends weren’t it stood up to give my part. The words didn’t come. And I stuttered and all the kids laughed because they thought I was playing around because I knew my words perfectly. What plays us? This was like a senior year, just the school play. I stand up to give my lines and I can’t give it. And all the demons came back and I ran off the stage and said, I’ll never talk in public again. And I quit the school play. 

ADAM:  Well, isn’t that part of the fear too, that those demons will just show up it and predict 

KARY:  it in opportune moments? Absolutely. So basically ran off the stage school play. And what’s funny is today, I actually speak for a living. 

ADAM:  I’ve heard you speak publicly and you’re fantastic. 

KARY:  Well, thank you. But I just want to give that plug to all the listeners because from a guy who wanted to end his life, used to make it through life, through cutting, even as an adult, check this out. Pastor preaching sermon Sunday, self-injuring Monday as an adult. But I end up getting healing, help. And I think what freed me up a lot was writing. 

ADAM:  So I know we’ve touched on the ideas of suffering and silence and self-image. You’ve talked about struggling with stuttering and feeling like you didn’t have the words to express what you were experiencing. Is there anything else you want to add about how those experiences shape the way you viewed yourself and your social relationships? 

KARY:  Yeah. So I grew up at a time where the grunge music was happening, smashing pumpkins, nirvana, cranberries, you name it, counting crows. How about those guys? How about you saying all that? 

ADAM:  You hit four out of four. 

KARY:  So what’s interesting is, man, I would just find certain songs. I don’t know why I kept being attracted to these songs, but I would just play them on repeat. I’m talking like repeat like 25 times in a row. And it just caught how I felt. And so I do feel like there are some listeners who maybe they’re like, why is there a son or daughter listening to that music? Why do they keep having their headphones on? And I do feel like some music choices give us a sense of I’m not the only one. 

ADAM:  During graduate school, you finally disclosed your struggle with self-injury. And that takes a lot of courage. Yeah. And sometimes as an adult, you feel like the stakes are higher because you are growing up now. Right. You’ll be presenting a certain way in the world and takes a lot of courage to come forward and say, I need help. Can you describe the events leading up to your decision to share your story with the 

KARY:  world? Yeah, I actually didn’t want to share it. But I feel like, you know, again, I’m a faith guy. I feel like God wanted to free me up. And secrets are hard to keep. 

ADAM:  Secrets are insidious. Yeah. 

KARY:  Two. Yeah. Somebody said you’re only as like healthy as your ability to share your secrets or something. But yeah, so here I am, high performer on the outside. Everyone, oh, there’s Kary. He’s a great guy. He’s successful. Stuttering at that point had kind of waned. Maybe once in a while, it came back a couple times a year. But now I’m feeling love. I’m opening up my heart. And when you open up your heart, pain can come in too. So I, I had preferred a very black and white world prior to this point because black and white men, I could control everything. So don’t trust emotions. Have a ton of rules. Everything’s black and white. 

ADAM:  So for following that metaphor, then vulnerability is the color. 

KARY:  Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t want anything that I couldn’t control because I really feel like self injury is a form of self control. And just to go off topic for a quick second, you’re reenacting pain. But you can control how often, how deep, where on your body. And so it’s actually a form of reenacting pain. But now in a way that you are the one initiating and you are the one controlling. 

ADAM:  So it’s really important. 

KARY:  Yeah. So I feel like people listening to this, they might be like, Oh my gosh, now I know why. Because again, I have, I’ve had to do a lot of deep work on this, but I didn’t know it at the time. 

ADAM:  It’s like, can you either be in pain that other people are causing. Yeah. Or be in pain and be in control of the source of that. 

KARY:  Absolutely. Absolutely. And so here I am in grad school and my professors are saying, Hey, listen, you’re doing an MDiv and counseling. We’re watching you do counseling with your clients. Cause that’s how it was back then. They would actually observe you behind glass or with permission. They would watch the videos because you were preparing to be a counselor. And in my sessions with my clients, I didn’t get anywhere close to their pain. And I didn’t know what at the time I was like, Oh, I’m not going to get close to their pain. But the moment people started talking about pain, I emotionally left the room because if I’m not okay with my pain, I’m not going to get close to yours. So there’s a big, uh, huh, maybe for some people, right? 

ADAM:  Yeah. I mean, is it fair to say that you had part of you sectioned off? There was a real problem. 

KARY:  You were like compartmentalized. Don’t go in there. Yeah, absolutely. So my professors picked up on this and they basically said, Hey, you’re in danger of not passing the class. And I’m like, what do you mean? My grades are perfect. And they said, well, we think you’re not a great counselor. But tell us the reason. So now I have this big opportunity slash impending doom where if I go public and say, here’s the real issue, I struggle with self injury. That’s good because now I might pass the class. But if I, if I go there, will they accept me? What will be their response? So because I was in danger of failing, I actually went public with them in a private session and I walked into the office and said, Hey, here’s the story and actually rolled up my sleeves because I had, I’d actually self injured. And I said, I struggle with this and show them your show them. Yeah. First time ever, nobody had known this. Wow. Not my parents back at the age of 10. So first time I go public rather than them being like, Hey, thanks for sharing this or, you know, Hey, we’ll get you help. They’re just like, okay. And then a week later, I got a letter in my mailbox that said you failed the class. So the first time I go public, I actually experienced failure. That was traumatic. 

ADAM:  I can imagine. 

KARY:  Because that was my biggest fear. And it wasn’t just you failed the class, but now you’re going to fail a required class that you need to graduate. So now you can’t graduate on time. Luckily, a mentor, the vice president of the whole college said to me, because then I went to him and said, Hey man, this is what’s going down. And he was a mentor to me. And he said, they can’t fail you without my signature. You’re going to get help. We’ll get you some counseling. We’ll get you to work through this and you’re going to be okay. And his name was Dr. Dave Plaster. He’s since passed, but that was a huge, like anybody who means something to me in my life. It’s, it’s because they believed in me. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to our podcast and letting others know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@Dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  So first of all, shout out to Dr. David Plaster for stepping in. 

KARY:  Steping in and saying they can’t fail you. 

ADAM:  Yeah. I also want to hang there a little bit longer in terms of having your worst fear come true. Mm hmm. As somebody who has struggled with OCD, I know something about fear. And you want to say anything about what it means to confront your biggest fear, the thing that you’re actually trying to avoid happens. What did that mean for you? How did it shape you moving forward? 

KARY:  This is why I love entrepreneurship. I love people who take risks. I love people who believe in themselves because there’s two types of pain in life. There’s chronic pain in acute pain. And most people are in chronic pain. So to confront your fear, you have to invite acute pain. Chronic pain is pointless dull. It’s always there, but it’s not so significant that you do anything about it. And that’s how most people live their whole life. A little bit of chronic pain. I know I could be better. I know I could do better. I know I could be more, but they aren’t willing to confront it. But when you confront it, you’re actually inviting even more pain. But that’s how we get healed in our bodies. I tore my labrum and rotator cuff. I was in chronic pain. So what did I do? I had to get surgery, which meant acute pain. So now we’re talking about emotions and growth. So by me confronting it, it was deathly scary. But this is the story of my life. And there’s always new levels. I wish I could say I’m a podcast. And then my life was great. But that’s one story. And then there’s the professional story of being a pastor where I felt like I’m going to leave it all and become an entrepreneur. There’s always levels. But yeah, the first time I think is always the hardest. 

ADAM:  There’s so many lessons in that graduate school story. And I think one lesson that we’ve talked about is the importance of responding compassionately when others disclose their struggles. That’s something that a listener has in their power at all times. Are you going to respond with condemnation or rejection? Or are you going to respond with acceptance and compassion? And the other thing is that that rejection didn’t determine your identity. And I think it takes a lot to stay grounded in what your identity is, to know that no one thing defines you as a person. And I’m curious what tools or strategies that you did when you were young or that you’ve discovered along the way have helped you to stay grounded. Yeah. And know who you are so that you can stay strong in the face of rejection or adversity. 

KARY:  I feel like your question I’ll totally get to it. But I will tell you that when you have self-hatred, you have a tough time loving other people. I think Jesus has a great point. Love your neighbor as yourself. But when you hate yourself, that’s not really good. So when you’re in a state of self-hatred, subconsciously, I think people don’t want to be around you because you’re hard on yourself. You’ve ever been around somebody who’s super hard on themselves, never gives themselves grace. Oh, yeah. You actually repel people subtly. So by me learning how to love myself in the way God loves me has actually opened up my heart to love other people in a big way. And how I got there was several tools. One was writing. I used to write a journal and I would write once in a while something authentic and then I’d cross it off. You know why I’d cross it off? No. I thought, what if somebody finds my journal someday and sees what I just said? What would they think of me? 

ADAM:  Isn’t that crazy? No, I’ve done the same thing. 

KARY:  Well, maybe we’re both crazy. Right. So here my journal is supposed to be the safe place. But now I’m writing my journal and you know I’ve written 15 books but I see writers struggle with that. Writers will write something and then say, I can’t write that because that wasn’t good enough or what will people think about me. And that actually will lock you from being able to write. That creates writers block. 

ADAM:  How do you resolve that? 

KARY:  I learned that I’m going to write a version that’s super authentic and I’ll never show it to anybody and that frees me up. But then the truth is I actually do end up showing people. That’s how I publish books. But what I do, you can’t be a creator and an editor at the same time because it’s two sides of the brain. I’ve studied a lot about human performance and flow and the optimal state of human performance. Your prefrontal cortex goes dim when you’re in a state of flow. You literally can’t have an editor. This is why sports and Olympians, they’re not doing a triple flip on the ice and saying, I wonder what people are going to think about me. I wonder if I’m going to land this thing the right way. I wonder if my heel is the right way. Your whole brain shuts down because you can’t be creative and editing. So that’s what I actually had to do. 

ADAM:  The idea of tricking your brain, which is what you’re talking about and I’ve experienced this as a writer. Oh, that’s good. Tricking your brain to free up the creativity or the flow that you require. I mean, anything more you want to share on that? How do you trick your brain? You gave one example, right? You tell yourself, I’m going to write this authentic thing down and not show it to anyone. Doesn’t matter that you later show it to someone. 

KARY:  There’s a lot of little tricks for writers. Say some more. Some more are that you don’t allow yourself to ever use the backspace. So you literally just write and you say, I cannot use a backspace. No deleting. No deleting. Another way is you say, I’m going to go to a coffee shop and I’m not going to bring my power outlet. I’m going to write until the power dies. Hopefully it’s not 11 hours, but I’m not bringing my power so that I can’t save it and keep thinking about it and you just write. Another thing is you talk it out. We have a lot of things whisper flow these days, but we have a lot of tools where you can literally just speak. And so I actually did that for one of my books. I said, you know, I’m going to create an outline and I’m just going to tell stories and record it. Then I’m going to go back and edit the transcript because you don’t sit there and say, oh, wait, that story was wrong. Wait, I’m going to change that point. No, you just speak. So let me tell a quick Disney story. Go. OK, remember the Lion King? Yes. Simba thinks of himself as tight with his father. I mean, he’s tight. He’s heir to the throne. He’s got a perfect relationship with his father. And he understands his position. But then what happens? He listens to the liar, the schemer, the uncle who tells him to go into places he shouldn’t go. Scar, scar. And so in the process, he ends up killing his father because of his foolishness. His father dies trying to save him. So he thought he lost the position. 

ADAM:  That’s stampede. 

KARY:  That’s right. So crud. I lost the position. It’s my fault. I’m to blame. Scar comes to him and says, yeah, you are to blame. And he starts telling him all these lies. And then Simba has a choice to run from who he truly was called to be. He thought he lost it. And so then he goes in the wilderness and he believes a lie. A coup d’amatada. Don’t worry. Be happy. And that’s where a lot of young people are. Just take the substance, do the reckless behavior. Don’t worry, man. Just pop the pill. It’s like this anestosizing your pain. So what happens? Rafiki comes to him and says, Hey, I know your father. I’ve seen your father. He’s like, no, you haven’t. My father’s daddy’s like, no, follow me. And this was the journey I had to go through into the jungle. And Rafiki says, look into the pool and he looks into the pool and he hates it. Self hatred. He looks and he says, I’m a failure. Again, thought he lost his position and he says, look deeper. He looks deeper and his father starts showing up. And his father says, you’re more than who you’ve become. Remember who you are. And that’s the point of the story today. I, I, I, I didn’t think I was enough. I didn’t think my behavior was perfect. I knew my flaws and I tried to earn my way back. Or some people are like the other way. Forget it. I’m just not going to even try. But the real position is, hey, I was created by God. And when I rest in that position, then I am free. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the curious incident podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@Dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  Many of us have a scar in our brains telling us lies that serve to trip us up from the ultimate destination. And it’s hard work. It’s really hard work. It is hard work to become who you’re meant to be. Yeah. To achieve what you can achieve. It doesn’t come easy. Isn’t that sugar coating that? And the emotional ups and downs, especially if you’re struggling with a specific issue or real and daunting and exhausting sometimes. But what a powerful message to be able to look into the water and see who you’re meant to be. 

KARY:  Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And this is why John Maxwell says most people are dead. They just haven’t made it official. But most people are not fully alive because to be fully alive, you have to feel pain. And so what we do is we wall ourselves out from feeling anything. And so the soul on fire, the igniting soul’s company that I have, it comes from the quote, the most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. So think about this. All the purpose and success that I have now came out of the deep struggle. That I had to work through, but I couldn’t help people get healing until I first had a heal. 

ADAM:  All right. And I just want to underscore that the point is not to get rid of the pain, which maybe you’d agree. 

KARY:  Oh, yeah. 

ADAM:  People who are self-medicating are trying to do. That’s not possible. You have to go through the pain. And not only once it’s an enduring, ongoing part of life, right? Part of the human experience. Feeling pain. Right. So I think understanding that and believing that we’re strong enough to feel the pain and endure the pain and it’s not going to break us or define who we are is really important for being able to power on. That’s right. Along those lines, was it a steady path of progress after graduate school when you shared your story? And I mean, it wasn’t the first time you got help because you started getting counseling when you’re 10 years old. But you know, after that, was it a steady path or were they ups and downs? 

KARY:  Counseling at the age of 10, I would say that was more like, Hey, our, our, Kary’s kind of struggling. Let’s get him help. Is there a bigger diagnosis? Nothing happened after the age of 10 in terms of therapy until I was in grad school. And then that’s kind of when I started not by choice, but they’re like, you want to graduate. You’re going to get you healing. And to be truthful, Adam, my next counseling appointment is Thursday. You know, I want people to know I’m okay, like continuing to work through things. And I feel like some people will get me and they’re like, wow, you know, two companies, TEDx talk, 15 books, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there’s a whole nother level that I know God’s calling me to and it’s big. 

ADAM:  I mean, I’ll echo that for listeners out there who think you, you, you fixed the problem and then it’s done. I mean, uh, on episode 50 of this podcast, I shared my story. Wow. Talked about getting the tools I needed to manage my OCD. Mm. I still speak with a therapist weekly. 

KARY:  That’s awesome. 

ADAM:  I want to continue doing the work to get better and better at managing my own personal challenges. And, you know, we’re not here to sugarcoat anything. The work doesn’t stop. No one’s saying this is easy, but it is manageable. Yeah. And you can be successful in life in terms of work, in terms of relationships, in terms of what matters to you, if you’re getting the right help. 

KARY:  That’s right. And I’m so proud of you. I just want to say that I’m proud of you because you could have chosen a different path. You could have said my influence impact and income is capped. Cause I’m not going any deeper. So it’s like you have a choice. You, we all do the person listening to this podcast. He’d be like, Oh, yeah, that’s nice for Kary. That’s, that’s nice for Adam. Or they can say, you know what? I’m, no, I’m being called and do a bigger, deeper purpose. And I better get equipped. Because it’s going to take some work. 

ADAM:  Yeah. That’s it. You’ve talked a lot about your faith, how it’s been a tremendous source of healing and strength for you. Is there anything else you want to add? 

KARY:  So my faith is a huge part. I would also say that for me, exercise is huge. Having struggled with self injury and over two decades, more than two decades. But some of us are always melancholy. And if you said, Hey, Kary, you can’t exercise for a month. I’d be like, Oh man. Cause I think God made our bodies to have endorphins. And I like, I like endorphins. It’s just self care. So one of the ways I do self care is, is exercise and it’s essential. So I think telling a kid who’s struggling, well, go sit in your room. Here’s your screens. Here’s your video games. They also need to get outside. 

ADAM:  You often speak about finding your secret name instead of allowing labels like failure, shame or brokenness to define you. What does that concept mean? And why is identity so central to healing? 

KARY:  Mm, it is. Goes back to that Lion King story. He said, you’re more than who you’ve become, become who you were born to be. He lost sight of his identity. I’ll close with this story. Oral Hershizer. Remember that picture way back in the day Dodgers? Yes, I do. OK, so he stunk as a pitcher and got the nickname, Howdy Duty Hershizer. And so he always struggled. He meets Tommy, Lissorda. First day, he says, coming to my office, he comes into his office and he says, guess what? I got a new name for you. You’re the bulldog. And he’s like, what do you mean? He’s like, you’re the bulldog. That’s your new name. Guess what he started doing? He started crushing it on the pitcher’s mount. He embraced the identity and started performing up to that identity. When somebody renames you, who truly knows you, that’s when my book is about your secret name. It’s about God giving you your true name, not the name your parents gave you. So my true name is actually free. So my secret name is the word free. And that’s what I struggle with my whole life. People pleasing self hatred. And so free was always like the movie scene that I loved. Dead Poets Society. Todd speaks his poem. Dances with wolves. He goes by with his arms laid back. Shawshank Redemption. He gets out of the prison and raises anything that was about that image was like, Oh, I resonated. And then I worked through this and in my book, your secret name, I teach you kind of like how to listen for God’s new name. And once you grab that, then your behavior starts matching your new identity. Nice. 

ADAM:  Kary, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. It’s such a powerful story. I really appreciate the time that we’ve spent together. I know that this is going to be really helpful to our listeners out there who are struggling with similar issues and also to people who are struggling with different issues. Thank you for the amazing work that you’re doing. And I look forward to keeping in touch. 

KARY:  Thanks for having me. This is probably the deepest podcast and it’s all because you were willing to go there. So thank you for all you’re doing for people. 

ADAM:  Thank you. Great job. 

ANNOUNCER:  Thanks for listening to Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families. Don’t forget to subscribe for a new episode every month. For more resources and helpful information, check out our website and blog at dianlofern.com. This podcast provides general information, which is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice. You should not rely on this information for any purpose. For legal counsel, you should consult with an attorney to discuss your specific circumstances. You’re listening to this podcast does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and the law offices of Adam Dayan, PLLC. No attorney-client relationship is established unless a retainer agreement has been executed between the clients and the law offices of Adam Dayan. This podcast may constitute attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any guests featured or resources mentioned on this podcast are for information purposes and are not endorsed by the law offices of Adam Dayan, PLLC.