Christian Healthy Lifestyle 

Age gracefully | Live abundantly | Thoroughly equipped for every good work

by David Sandstrom 

February 8, 2023

The wrong mindset can keep us stuck. Learn how to level up your mindset with mindset expert Benoit Kim. In this episode, we talk about how to transform our thought lives and respond rather than react to life's events. We also talk about suicide prevention towards the end. Benoit shares some profound insights on this topic.

Download this Free PDF on How to identify and eliminate unhealthy thinking patterns. Just fill out this form and you'll get instant access to the download and be subscribed to my Health Tips Newsletter.

Listen on the Audio Player Below

Watch on the Video Player Below

Show Notes

1.

Today's Guests...

  • Benoit Kim
2.

Topics Discussed...w / Time Stamps

  • 7:55 Are you showing up as the best version of yourself
  • 10:04 Behind every trigger lies an opportunity
  • 11:33 Are you sleeping on God's gifts
  • 14:39 The placebo effect
  • 19:54 The nocebo effect
  • 27:01 Eleanor Roosevelt's quote
  • 28:00 The spiritual component of health
  • 35:17 Embrace your pain teachers
  • 37:50 Suicide is a preventable public health crisis
  • 47:24 Men don't want to be a burden
  • 48:26 We were never designed to take on the burdens of the whole world
5.

Transcript...


Scroll through the text below to read the full transcript.

Benoit Kim 0:00
But the opposite of placebo effect is the nocebo effect. A lot of people don't really know about that. Which means when you attach negative expectations onto sugar pill or a certain outcome, you're actually going to get the negative expectations into reality. Right? And that's the power of our mind where as you said, we are a spiritual being. And I think there's a lot more than what we can see. And I really urge people to consider, do you have any distorted beliefs? Or do you have any beliefs that are unhealthy and unhelpful to you? Because we're not saying that you can only have good beliefs, that's not realistic, idiosyncrasies, different belief system, the government's parents, they bestow enforce upon their beliefs onto you, you internalize that to become your own beliefs. But I do think that evaluations are reviewing your archive of your behaviors and habits and beliefs can be very beneficial. And not just any changes, just reviewing it will create a lot of insights for a lot of folks.

David Sandstrom 0:58
Yeah, for sure. You know, the stuff that we learned in childhood, we can make some incorrect conclusions and carry that into adulthood, and it can be really interfering with our effectiveness with our relationships with our ability to achieve goals, and it's worth revisiting as an adult, isn't it? Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical Health Coach, and this is episode number 108.

David Sandstrom 1:37
Today we have in the show, Benoit Kim Benoit is a mental health and mindset coach, and the host of the Discover more podcast, a show for introspective thinkers, with growth mindsets, seeking authentic life stories. Benoit, Welcome to Natural Health Matters.

Benoit Kim 1:53
David, thank you so much. I'm very excited to learn from you and have some insightful conversations.

David Sandstrom 1:58
Well, I'm looking forward to learning from you, I think you've got a lot of great insights when it comes to mindset. You know, if, if someone's new to the show, I just want to repeat this. If if you haven't heard it before, here we are natural health matters. We maximize our health potential when we align our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. And today, we're going to be talking about mindset with a mindset coach. So Benoit, if you would just give us the 35,000 foot view of what you do.

Benoit Kim 2:26
Yeah, I'll try to make it the 50,000 foot view. But okay, so what I do is I try to weave in the importance of emotional functioning and emotional capacity, and weave that into the need for healing whatever the healing means for every single person. And through that work, I show that this dire need to achieve the sustainable peak performance can only be achieved once you aligned, as you said beautifully, the mind the spirit and the body.

David Sandstrom 2:54
Yeah, excellent. So was there an event in your life that led you into this field? A lot of times there's a there's an event, sometimes it's slow process. So what led you into this field?

Benoit Kim 3:05
Yeah, a lot of spiritual teachers or mindset coaches call that pain teachers. Some people call it trauma, some people call it catalyst. It's all of the above. So as an Asian Korean American myself, like many of us, I was raised under this prison, that perseverance will always prevail. It's all about achievements, achievement, achievements, going to the best university having the best job, interacting with the highest intellects, right, until my first army deployment with the US military, which I'm a veteran of around 2017 around the nation. Thank you. Thank you. It was a very high tension tied between Mr. Trump at the time and Kim Jong Hoon, and my unit was one of the 12 units that was summoned to support the US troops in the North and South Korean border. So as you can imagine, it was extremely terrifying situations. And for the first time I to contemplate my mortality, the thought of I may die really, really broke my perseverance, and I realized it doesn't always prevail. You know, it prevails until it doesn't. And until then, I don't really believe in mental health. I was like, what is that just work it through, work harder, sleep on it will be fine. But that didn't work. This ever consuming darkness took my life over, I stopped working out for the first time I lost my disciplines. I lost all these qualities that allowed to be at the highest level at the time. So I realized there was something there. This needs to be talked to more often about ensuring now mental health is more D stigmatized. But there was a lot of stigma and I think a lot more conversation needed. But I will say that's the first sequence of many more things that have been allowing me to be where I am today across from the screen frame.

David Sandstrom 4:45
Very good. So you had a number of near death experiences, didn't you?

Benoit Kim 4:52
Only three, hopefully, no more. Just let's keep it at three for now.

David Sandstrom 4:57
Okay. You want to tell us about One of them.

Benoit Kim 5:01
Yeah. So they're all sort of related because they all attribute it to my emphasis on mental health and emotional functioning. But the first one was the near death deployment that I alluded to earlier, right in terms of facing mortality facing this extremely high tension. And there's not a lot of wasted prime, as you understand that mental health and mindset is about priming, priming your mental premier physiology with chronic stress, acute stress. But the more recent one was in Philadelphia, a few years back, where I actually got jumped in an alleyway in downtown Philadelphia, oh, wow, almost cost that yeah, this person took my wallet, my phone on my belt and my shoes. And I woke up in the ER, the next day with no memories, I have a scar right here, from the head trauma from that incident. And I just thought, oh, I drink too much. I went out too hard on the weekends in Philadelphia. But then the nurse told me that no pedestrian, a bystander called you in because you're bleeding out in the alleyway. And it's a miracle that I didn't get stabbed. And funnily enough, when I reported this to detective in Philadelphia, the first the first question was, did you get stabbed? I was like, no, they're like, don't even try to file report, because hundreds of people get stabbed every night. So only as you bled significantly, it's not ever gonna get to the top of the priority list. And through that, I really had to evaluate my relationship with alcohol because alcohol was the cause, right? Because it really lowered inhibitions. I was not where I was supposed to be. But that's the most salient near death experience I could come to mind.

David Sandstrom 6:41
Wow, yeah, that'll make you come to grips with your mortality, won't it? Yes, it will. Well, perfectly, you won't have to go through that again. So tell us a little bit about how you help people. Now you mentioned emotional intelligence. That's intriguing to me. I know that, you know, my listeners know that this connection between the mind and the body and our belief system. And the thoughts we choose to ruminate on will will show up in physical symptoms is very often the case. So how can someone recognize if they need to do some emotional work?

Benoit Kim 7:16
So that's a tricky question, right? Because I think the answer to that is predicated on the individual's aware level of self awareness. And I think for you, and I, David, for people who have cultivated a lot of practices, whether it's natural medicine, whether it's mental health, or physical, psycho physiological aspects, you need to learn how to be in tune with your body, like the body keeps score, because the mind body is the same paradigm. And it's not the separate entities that people think about physiological impacts of psychological and vice versa. Yeah, so for me to answer your question, I think you really have to almost evaluate and review the archive of your behaviors and patterns to see Are you are you are in terms of what that peak performance feels like for you? Are you showing up to your friends? The best version of yourself? Are you showing up with your loved ones? Because God is love? And God is relationship? Right? So are you showing up through a relational containers the way you want it to? Or are you lacking some areas? And why is that? Is your diet? Is your sleep? Is your nutrition? Is it some of the incongruence that you have to work on in terms of emotionality, mental health or physical health? So but I think it comes down to Are you even aware where you are in life physically and mentally? And if you're not working with you about it, and that's when therapy that's when coaching, that's when self help personality, or self help development, toolkits and avenues may be very beneficial for some

David Sandstrom 8:49
Very good, yeah, I've come to this realization myself the past several years, and that is, if we have an event that that triggers us, you know, everybody has our buttons that people can push things kind of, we have a reaction that's maybe not proportionate to the situation. I think that's a red flag for us. That's a way to let us know, hey, you know, maybe there's some work to do here. Maybe there's some talking that I need to do with it with an expert or maybe there's some exploration that I need to do and ask myself, Well, why do I feel that way? Why do I react that way to this situation, it could be telling us something about our passions and desires and gifts our God given desires. You know, if someone's very, very passionate about, you know, let's say for instance, you know, a political candidate or you know, maybe it's maybe it's being, you know, helping the poor, or, you know, standing up for the, for the unborn, or whatever it is, that can be it's telling us something about our giftedness, but it can also be telling us something about our woundedness right, and that's the part that we'd like to be able to deal with and you know, and do and do better with. So can you speak to that a little bit, you know, how can how can somebody's life fix experience be interfering with their effectiveness today?

Benoit Kim 10:05
Yeah, before I answer that I said, I think you said it beautifully, where every trigger lies an opportunity. Because that trigger comes with emotionality, that this disproportionate reaction that you alluded to, at the same time, if you have the humility, and the willingness to lean into that queue, which is what trigger is, I think there's a lot of opportunity for healing. And I think like in LA, where traffic is rampant, like road rage, is a very concrete simple example to see, like when someone call you off, people that react in such a severe and angry manner is really not this proportion is very disproportional to the act of getting cut off. Right. But to answer your question, I think all of us have a certain level of genetics, God's gifted, you said, some of us are gifted with a heightened level of threshold for willpower disciplines, this distress tolerance, risk tolerance, etc. And it is a genetic marker. So for those who don't have that genetic markers, I think you can rely on external systems. That's when therapy and coaching comes into handy. Where do you have a system in place to help check you? Do you have a system in place that stresses you we call it stress testing, in coaching, right? Where if you can't trust yourself always, is we just talked about the varying genetic markers and varying discipline systems and practices that's in place like you and I, we have a lot more practices, for some others have less tools and toolbox. And can you rely on a circle of trust of confidence that really check you, honestly, and respectfully that hey, Benoit, Hey, David, you're not where you're supposed to be. You're sleeping on God's gifts, is by us being complacent, we're also the disserving God's gift, right? That's what that means. So do you have people of trust that can really give you honest feedback that's supposed to improve you to make you better, so that you can show up with this version of yourself that you're really proud of?

David Sandstrom 12:02
Yeah, I liked that a lot. I was just thinking about that, you know, we can, if we're unaware, and we want some help, a good a good place to start is the people that are close to you, if you're married, ask your spouse, they probably know where one of these areas are. And whether they've mentioned it or not, is another thing, but that's an excellent resource if you're married, and if not, you know, a close friend might be able to, you know, if you if you let them know that look, I'm really interested in knowing, you know, is there an area in my life where you think I could, I could be reacting better or responding better to, you know, if we spend a lot of time with that person, they'll probably know right away. But without the platform, if you don't offer them that opportunity, they may be uncomfortable sharing it with you because they're not your therapist. Right. So it's a good resource, though.

Benoit Kim 12:49
That's tricky, though. Because I love your thoughts on this as well, where I think a lot of us with my clients, many of them voices, concerns and qualms that oh, how do I engage in a more meaningful relationships, because of the rise of technological front of social media, a lot of us in 2022, are engaged in these hyper superficial relationships. Right? When you get into a conflict with someone, you just ghost them, you don't respond, you block them on all platforms, we don't even have examples of how to close out a healthy relationship in a healthy way. And all of us are so superficial nowadays, small talks, you know, shallow talks, you don't really talk anything about deep or meaningful. And because of that, I think a lot of listeners may lack that meaningful and can trusted circle of trust that could really test you and give you the feedback that you need. And I am very concerned about the superficiality that's, I think, in an alarming increase, especially as our generation moves on,

David Sandstrom 13:46
yeah, I agree. And then to compound that, you know, throw the COVID pandemic in there and look at all the social isolation that people have been going through and the loneliness, that's a prescription for some mental health issues. For sure. I think there's a lot of people that are starting to acknowledge that, hey, I can probably use some help here. I can use perhaps some professional help, because I don't feel like I'm coping the way I used to. And they may be feeling it physically, or they might just be feeling it mentally, emotionally. But you know, either way, you know, as we said earlier, you can't separate the mind and the body. It's all it's all one unit, together in what affects us on the mental emotional level, will affect us physically and the other way around as well. Something that's affecting us physically, will absolutely impact our emotions. You know, a lot of people well, most people are aware of the placebo effect. You know, about a third of the time when pharmaceutical company wants to get a drug approved by the FDA, they have to establish that it's more effective than placebo. Because about a third of the time when someone's given a sugar pill or a saline solution. There really should have no reaction in the body they actually experience the purported benefits. Have that drug, which is pretty amazing. And you know, that's that's 30% or third 33%. That's a large percentage. And rather than just dismiss that as Oh, it's just all in their minds, I would suggest that no, there is a lot of strong evidence that there are real physiological changes that take place in our bodies based on what we believe. So this is a topic worth exploring. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Benoit Kim 15:26
Yeah, a lot. Actually, I got some goosebumps as you have brought that up. So I want to go a level even deeper. I'm a neurobiology geek. So bear with me as a nerd out quickly, but go for love. There's a famous branch of study called Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton, you may be aware of this. So it's basically like placebo effect on steroids. Because when he talked about his double blind double control studies to make sure that it's actually the efficacy of the compound versus the belief system. But if you go a level deeper in terms of Biology of Belief, I urge people to look it up after the podcast, where they've done numerous numerous, like wide array of studies, evidence based or peer reviewed studies, where they put participants with allergens like peanut allergies, tree nut allergies in a room, and with the participants with no allergies at all. And just through biology, belief, whether they believe that they can overcome or work through their bout like allergens, this biological responses through sorts of mechanisms. After the trial, it shows that like 86, or a very significant proportion of participants with deadly allergies, like peanuts, or tree nuts, have zero allergen reactions of their trial. Let me say that again, these are the people with no sugar pills, nothing, through the sheer belief of their biological capacity, was able to overcome and eradicate allerg allegen reactions they've had their entire life. And that's finished with cat allergies, a lot of allergy has been done. And the most prominent one that I can recall, is this patient with a multi personality disorder. What that means is this individual has different personality type, and they all come up. It's not a pseudoscience, it's been documented as part of the mental illnesses, personality disorder. And one of his personality type had deathly allergens, His neck was soul, like swallow up all of these pre severe reactions. And under the hypnosis, clinical hypnosis, a different personality came up. And through this clinical hypnosis work, they were convinced to believe that they no longer had any allergies. And guess what? Another personality type with the allergies were summons. And they were no longer allergic to the nuts that would swallow their neck immediately. And guess what was healed? That was eradicated within one hypnosis session.

David Sandstrom 17:54
That is amazing. You know, something similar. Just coming to mind is Dr. Henry, right. He's passed away now. But he had a great teaching. His ministry is called being health. And he wrote a great book called a more excellent way. And he talks a great deal about the spirit mind body connection. And he shares a story where he had I guess we'd call him a client in his office, and this person believed they'd been told that they were allergic to pesticides. And that's where their allergies were coming from was this pesticides were the problem. And so as an experiment, while this person was in his in his office, he goes over the window, and he pretends that the bug control guy just showed up. And he says, I told them not to come today. They're They're here to spray for the bugs. And immediately this woman broke out into hives all over her body. And there was no pest control out in the driveway, you know, it was just a test to see what would happen. And he was illustrating to this this gal that, hey, maybe there's more going on here than just you were intoxicated with with this poison. Maybe there is a mental emotional connection to your symptoms, as powerful story. Then, you know, I love Bruce Lipton's work. He's He's amazing scientists brilliant guy. He was interviewed on a show called the model health show with Sean Stephenson that podcast and it was a great interview. I encourage people to go find that and check it out the model health show with Sean Stephenson. He interviewed Bruce lips, Dr. Bruce Lipton, great conversation, just really a super guy. So go ahead.

Benoit Kim 19:31
Yeah, no, I had a guest on he's a Harvard physicians and he was mentored underneath Dr. Bruce Lipton in Stanford Medicine. And um, so I was able to get exposed to his work. But I just want to share one more example because I think this is so unbelievable, truly. And of course, like I'm a scientist, like social scientists at heart. So empirical evidence, they do matter, even though they're not everything. The opposite of placebo effect isn't the nocebo effect. A lot of people don't really know about that which means means when you attach negative expectations onto sugar pill or a certain outcome, you're actually going to get the negative expectations into reality. Right. And that's the power of our mind where, as you said, we are a spiritual being. And I think there's a lot more than what we can see. And I really urge people to consider, do you have any distorted beliefs? Or do you have any beliefs that are unhealthy and unhelpful to you? Because we're not saying that you can only have good beliefs, that's not realistic, idiosyncrasies, different belief system, the government's parents, they still enforce upon their beliefs onto you internalize that to become your own beliefs. But I do think that evaluations or reviewing your archive of your behaviors, and habits and beliefs can be very beneficial. And not just any changes, just reviewing it will create a lot of insights for a lot of folks.

David Sandstrom 20:52
Yeah, for sure. You know, the stuff that we learned in childhood, we can make some incorrect conclusions and carry that into adulthood. And it can be really interfering with our effectiveness with our relationships with our ability to achieve goals, and it's worth revisiting as an adult, isn't it that some of these beliefs that we may have heard, you know, maybe we had an uncle and a cousin who both died of heart disease? And you know, our parents said something like, yeah, heart disease runs in our family. And now we believe we heard that when we were seven, and now we're 37. And we're afraid that Oh, my goodness, am I going to keel over from a heart attack? Because that runs in my family? You know, not a good belief to hold, right. And now just because Uncle Joe had heart disease doesn't mean that I'm going to, right so. So kitten, what, can you speak to that? Can you think of any examples that you've seen? Where that takes place?

Benoit Kim 21:50
Yeah, a lot. And the before I answer is, I think the way I view life is it's a sequence of learning, programming, and a sequence of unlearning, and, and programming. And of course, unlearning is a lot more difficult than learning. But I do feel like we do need to burn down as many boxes as possible. And we need to pick the beliefs that are fitting to US versus what other people said, like the Uncle Joe example. And of course, we do know that family diseased about 20 to 30%, genetically, so that means there's 70%, that's not genetically related. But if you believe that as such, then obviously you're gonna live your life thinking of heart disease. An example I can think about is public speaking, or I guess, like math, where a lot of children and adolescents were taught growing up that they're bad at math or their data, public speaking, for example, and unless they re evaluate, and fact checked that opinion, that was bestowed upon onto them by others, by their teachers or authority figures, unless you think twice about that, you're literally going to live your entire life, until in your 40s or 50s, through a coaching through a therapist, through someone make you realize, oh, wait a minute. I'm not good at math. Oh, wait a minute. I'm not good at. I'm not bad at public speaking. Because public speaking is the number one fear by Americans according to surveys. And some people might be better at public speaking and it is inherently terrifying. I'm not dismissing how scary it could be, but at least having tried or did you just internalize that opinion, as facts as the truth, you carry your entire life, operating by the truth? It's a huge disservice by these teachers and authority figures because no other humans can determine your worth. That's a job reserved for God. Right. And we're not absolutes by any means.

David Sandstrom 23:36
Absolutely. Yeah. You know, our identity is really under attack. Often. It may be a comment by a teacher, I'm thinking about Jim Quick, you know, the, the mental health guy, you know, I'm talking about, oh, yeah, the brain coach, he was diagnosed, he had an accident. And he was diagnosed with a learning disability because he had brain damage as a result of this fall. And a teacher once said, Oh, that's Jim, the kid with the broken brain. And he took that label in and he's on a broken brain, you know, I'm never gonna amount to anything in life. But then as an adult, he started questioning that belief. And he realized that he started studying as you have brain neuroplasticity and neuroscience and saying no, the brain. You don't that's not a lifetime sentence the brain can relearn can recover what has been lost? And he started applying some principles. And now he's a memory expert. He dazzles audiences with memorizing 300 people's names. And you know, it's really an amazing story. Jim, quick, what a great guy. I love listening to his podcast as well. But anyway, so tell us, why don't you give us some more examples of some some of the clients that you've worked with that problems they've come in with and the turnarounds that they've experienced? Can you can you share some stories?

Benoit Kim 24:59
Yeah, I'm really The big on relationship problems, because I think all of us, as I said, I believe that God works through relationships period. And I do think that relationship and I mean, romantic relationships and all relationships is something that all of us strive for, right? Even people who chase after money and success and fame, I think deep inside in their core, they want to create relationships through their successes, etc. I work a lot with attachment theory, or this relationship between how we feel secure and secure from our childhood relationship with their parents, versus how that manifests as adults. So a lot of my clients, they, they're successful in their own rights, their power attorneys, you know, very, very prestigious, powerful positions in life in their 30s 40s, whatever. At the same time, it's interesting to see this consistent theme of relational stress in this relational dissatisfactions in their life. Despite how much wealth capitals or social capitals have accumulated through their jobs and hard work, they're deeply unhappy. And a lot of times we examine, or they avoidance, what I mean by that is, they're in the process of building new relationships with a potential partner, potential spouse or potential friends. But then something happens and they feel this discomfort, they feel like they're getting too close, for whatever reasons. And indeed, they tried to run away from it, or the escape from it or the void from it. By avoiding that they're entering into this vicious cycle of, they get close, but they get far to get close, and they run away. And back to the superficial relationship we started this episode with, and never get to this point of fulfillment, because they never enjoy and going to the risk in the risk is inherited to all interactions. Even for us, there is a risk of being maybe betrayed or being disappointed, being sad. And by that, you, we have to bear that risk to create something. And I think like what Eleanor Roosevelt said beautifully, I'm a big quote, person, she said that everything you desire is on the other side of fear. And if you unless you have the willingness to open that fear, to enter that gateway, you're not really going to get or derive anything from life, easy features play safe the whole time. And all that to sum up to tell you that, David, that doesn't matter how successful some of my clients are, by the societal standards, when they don't have that willingness to really create a relationship, through discomfort, through fear, through whatever, they're not going to be able to come on the other side, they're going to stay in their cocoon. And they could have all these accolades, but they're deeply unhappy. And I've seen this phenomenon of unhappiness across races across ages across fields, because of their ability to connect, and that comes from their childhood relationship with their parents or their caregivers. Often.

David Sandstrom 27:56
Yeah, it's amazing. Well, you know, one of the ways I like to define Well, the way I like to define the spiritual component to Hell is it's all about relationships. When Jesus was asked, What's the greatest commandment he said, Love God, love others and love yourself. So our spiritual component is all about our love relationship with God, our love relationship with the one and others in our lives. And the love relationship we have with ourselves, how we see ourselves, the self talk, the sense of identity we were talking about earlier. That's all that's all the spiritual component. And God says that he hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. And he came to give us life abundant will have were, as you just described, so aptly, that if we're living in fear, we're unable to get close to people were being put we're being robbed of the life that God has for us, John 10:10 The enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy but I have come to they might have life and have it abundantly right. So if it's something's being robbed from us, well, we got some work to do. We've got some, you know, we've got to acknowledge the spiritual warfare aspect to it. And and understand that we have the power and authority to overcome in the name of Jesus and and and grab a hold of that life and stop living in fear stop living in bondage. Jesus said He came to set the captives free. So yeah, I mean, this is this is so solidly biblical, in my mind, and I, you know, these principles have been laid out in the Bible 1000s of years ago, right. But I love it when science is starting to catch up with these biblical truths. And they're starting to point out how important relationships are, how detrimental loneliness is, and discouragement is to our health and wellness especially and later in life. You know, there's, I'm sure you could point to a number of studies that point that out.

Benoit Kim 29:46
Yeah. And also like, like mindfulness is not necessarily from the Bible, per se, but obviously that's withstood the test of eons. And mindfulness has originated in the east for 1000s of years. And now the science the Western Sciences at The clips, because at the precipice of actually finding the empirical research to our brain development, or your brain reacts on an MRI scan under the mindfulness state all these things. And as you said, Jesus is the vanguard of fear. He went against the church, he spoke with the marginalized the ills of the society back then, right, he spoke with the nobody spoke with. And I think this ability of overcoming fear comes with curiosity. And this curiosity is prerequisite built on humility. Are you willing to speak with this person across from you, as a human being this humanistic lens, and like this idea of agree to disagree? I haven't heard that in a long time. I think a lot of that has attributed his political chasm that we live in now in the United States where we're unable to sit with opponents have political views or different opinions. And even if you disagree, if you're willing to at least talk to them, like what Jesus did, he spoke with everyone, by ever since he was like nine years old, he literally spoke with everyone. And he just created this following through his charisma and and his willingness to move through fear. And I see that as very, very lucky in today's society. And I am really concerned about that so many degrees.

David Sandstrom 31:19
Yeah, yeah, me too. It's a severe detriment to really living the life that we're supposed to be living. And that is, with it with close, connected relationships with other human beings. And the published literature is just there's a pile, it's piling up the evidence that supports that, that is really, really good for your health. As you said, you don't have to agree with everyone, everything that someone believes, to be to be their friend, to be their neighbor, or to be a co worker that they can enjoy being around. You know, and I'm thinking to the verse, you know, as much as it as much as it depends on you live at peace with everyone. I think that's Romans chapter eight, I think I forget exactly what's in Romans somewhere. But anyway, you know, we need to just, you know, acknowledge that I have a role to play here, I'm going to do the best I can, I'm not going to be able to get along with everyone else's, you know, resign ourselves to that. But let's make sure that if I'm not going to have restoration of the relationship with that person, that is not due to my fault, anything that I've done. Alright. So, you know, I gotta, I gotta mention this. Have you? Are you watching the series that chosen that documentary on Jesus life? No, I've heard about it. But yeah, it's, it's super popular. They've got two seasons. Now season three is coming out. And I'm going to the premiere tonight at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. And it's the the premiere of season three, and it's all about the life of Jesus and the disciples. And it's, it's very well done. And we're gonna get a chance to meet the actress tonight. And I'm really looking forward to in a few hours, we're gonna head down to the city and, and go to that premiere. I'm really excited about it. It's you check it out this called the chosen it's a really good, it's, it's available for free, you just download the app put on phone, and I stream it to the television. And, and it's really, it's one of the best documentaries of the life of Jesus I've ever seen. It's good stuff.

Benoit Kim 33:11
Yeah, I'll definitely check it out. And I might ask you for the name via email, if you can send it to me afterwards. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. But I guess that idea. I mean, historically, it's been proven that Jesus was an actual figure. Of course, the question is, what was the actual deity like this God of the being that we believe in through our faith? Right, yeah. He really embodies all the virtues I think you and I subscribe on our shows that curiosity, that humility, the ability to work through fear, the ability of emotional functioning, because he wasn't just a prodigy, by definition, he was also emotionally intelligent. He was extremely loving, his capacity for love is unheard of that so we have shipped them as our gods, right. But I do feel like a lot of that, once again, comes down to this mind body spirit paradigm. And I think he's achieved all of it, which I absolutely believe in. But

David Sandstrom 33:59
Yeah, well, if you read the gospels, you see how he's so masterfully handled the attacks that came his way, and he handled his enemies, you know, with love with he shared the truth in love. And that's all he ever did. And you know, it's such a he's the master right? He's, he's worth following is worth becoming a disciple of because he is the master and he showed us the way to live. He showed us how to love and you know, love joy peace through all health promoting.

Benoit Kim 34:33
The more like like the oxytocin, the heavy chemicals. Yeah, the children. I just want to say my children's mission statement in life on and also the show is, how can I accept the inevitable forces of life because life is larger than we are, at the same time accepts our responsibilities and how we can respond to these life events. It's like the stoic philosophy right and I think Jesus was stoic. He has he accepted The fact that he was going to die and perish for us. At the same time he accepts the responsibility in choosing this his journey. And I think all of us need to accept the inevitable nature of life that we cannot control the sequence of life, we cannot control what happens to us, a lot of us have this desire to run away from pain. Of course, pain sucks. Nobody wants to embrace the pain teachers. But by avoiding and running away from pain teachers, we also miss out on this thing called Post Traumatic Growth. A lot of people know about PTSD, especially in my veteran communities. PTSD is huge. And it sucks. And it's a huge disservice. And it's a real health conditions. At the same time, a lot of us we don't know about the post traumatic growth, the profound growth that comes with certain traumatic experiences, if you have the willingness to integrate the uncovered insights, and to see how we can apply that insights into our day to day life. And I think that's only possible. If you accept a responsibility in what we can do. We don't have control over life. But we always have a choice in how we respond to that life.

David Sandstrom 36:06
That's good word. You know, as a veteran, I'm sure you're well aware that the suicide rate among veterans is quite high. So what would you say and you know that we have a high school, my local high school that my kids went to, there's at least one suicide every year at that school, which is so tragic. What would you say to someone who is contemplating suicide? What would you tell that person?

Benoit Kim 36:31
Yeah, so one of my aspirational approach I want to get into through my therapy and coaching is suicide prevention, because suicide is very near to my heart, because I have battles who have felt to suicide, unfortunately. And yeah, especially now with social media and COVID pandemic. The social isolation is, especially for adolescents, like especially adolescent girls, who have destroyed their self esteem from social media, comparing themselves with all these celebrities with unrealistic standards. So it's outrageous, alarming high for adolescent girls in America. And of course, the veteran suicide has been consistent in the suicide landscape has been largely unchanged the past few decades. But I just recently spoke with David Rudd, Dr. David rod, he is the number of top 1% most cited suicide psychologists in all of PubMed with over 15,000 citations. And through our conversation, we came up with these three most important suicidality traits. What that means is these three qualities or characteristics that can best predict someone's suicidal risk. And I do want to preface that this is a very, very sensitive emotional topic for many of us who have lost our loved ones to suicide, because death is the end all be all. But suicide is actually preventable public health crisis, because you can prevent suicide. But when it happens, of course, it is NLP all. But through his research we talked about these are the three traits that are most ubiquitous across people who attempted suicide or who have completed suicide is one unlovability. What that means is I'm not lovable. Nobody loves me. That's it. I'm all alone. Unloveabilities, the number one trait for suicide risk, Second traight is unbearability, what that means is I cannot bear what I'm going through the pain and suffering are too large for me to bear through, there is no way out, for example, on variability, the third and the final one is unsolvableality, there is no way out for my situations, I am stuck. There is nothing I can do. There is no help. It's all utter black by darkness. So unloveability, unbearability and unsolvability. If anyone, for anyone that's listening, if any of your loved ones exhibit any of these three traits, there's a real concern that they might be on the near or on the top of suicide risk and of course there's a lot of tangible signs, like if some of your loved ones are suddenly have a change of heart, they're depressed. They're really down. They're not really themselves, and suddenly, everything's great, they're happy. They're smiling again, I'm talking about an extreme fast turnaround like within a day or two. They went from very sad and depressed to super happy. The chances are they've made up their minds internally to take that final step. That's why they feel relieved. So if you sense a feeling of relief in your loved ones who's deeply depressed and struggling, or even tried attended suicide, I will say put on your alarm because that is a very dangerous science. Or if someone has given away all their favorite belongings to someone, if they gave away their laptops, the things that really cherish and hold dear to their heart. Suddenly, that's also a huge sign that they have made the decisions to depart from this world by giving All right, their belongings. So I think these are the top of the list I want to share with the listeners.

David Sandstrom 40:06
Yeah. And that's really good stuff. Because that was gonna be my follow up question is, how do you recognize it and so on. But boy, you put that really well. Yeah, it's a crisis right now teen suicide is on the rise, especially among young girls, as you said. And what's even more tragic is these murder, suicides. You know, someone goes into workplace and shoots up their co workers and then kills themselves. It's so so tragic. And in fact, it's just pure evil, right? I mean, when that happens, it's pure evil, I can see someone getting into a state of discouragement and hopelessness, as you just described very well. And maybe taking their own life, but when they when they want to take the others with them. And that that is just so so evil. We got to get a stand in the gap and really stand up for these people that are struggling with this type of a mental health issue. It's a tough one. That's tough one, but man, that was, that was some good word you had there. So is there do you know of a resource that someone can can call if they know someone who may be at risk?

Benoit Kim 41:06
Yeah, so yeah, I mean, if you just look up a suicide hotline, there's numbers available, I don't know the number of top of my head. And also, I might be misspelling this. So you might have to fact check me after. But the us about a year and a half ago just recently passed a new law to change the cumbersome eight digit suicide hotline to three digits, like 911, which increases the barriers, which allows health seekers to get helped immediately. Yeah, and that policy is already implementations in the United States. So some states and locals have already implemented this number, I want to say the number is 866. To the best of my ability, I think that's the number, but I might be misquoting that. But regardless, just look up the new three suicide hotline numbers that's already been implemented. And the whole point is three digits or faster to call it an eight digit number. So I would say go to that number. And there's a lot of national suicide prevention, literature, scholars and work that's readily available everywhere. But once again, the toughest thing about suicide prevention is even in clinically, the most recent stats that shows that 70% of patients and clients who attended or completed suicide, the week prior told their therapists and their loved ones, that they are not thinking about suicide or killing themselves. What are we later, after disclosing that they're not at the risk with the people they trust? By the way, these are the therapists and coaches and families who have great relationship with these individuals. A week later, 70% of them attempted or completed suicide. So it is really, really hard to predict. Because all of us are, yeah, it is staggering. And it's terrifying, because all of us are so great at putting on mask, and really internalized all the pain and suffering, especially for men, as you said, the murder suicide, right? Because like how do you regain control? When you feel like your life is spiraling out of control? You exert that influence on other people, by having high expectations are unrealistic expectations, or by doing no atrocious and atrocities like mass shootings? Yes. But that's how they regain their control air quote, in their minds is, oh, my life is not mine anymore. So let me do something drastic, to make it feel like I'm in control. And that control and this cognitive rigidity, I think, is a root of a lot of evils, where we're incapable of accepting reality as it is, therefore, we double down on the reality that we think it should be. And that's laughable. Because life is bigger than us. We don't get to control outcomes of life, we get to live in it and flow with the river.

David Sandstrom 43:50
Right? You know, that kind of brings us full circle back to the beginning of a conversation where you were saying that, you know, perseverance, will will will lead to success, but until it doesn't, you know, so we are not actually in control, right. So, yes, some people are struggling with that. And it leads to very, very aggressive desires and actions to try to regain that control that they want. Very interesting is really, really good stuff. I just googled it while you were talking. It's 988 is the new 9-8-8 quarter according to this Google search, I'll make sure I put the right link in the show notes for sure. But that's what I just saw. Nine Eight is the new suicide hotline. It's unfortunate that we have to we have to talk about this, but it's it's a it's an issue of our age. You know, I don't think, you know, when I was a kid, you know, 50 years ago when I was growing up. You know, this was not the issue it is today. And I know some would argue Yeah, it's only because we have the internet now we have more awareness because this data is becoming more public. I don't believe that. I believe that there were ways you know, we had television Any radio back then there were raised ways to learn about these events. And it just didn't happen at the frequency that is happening today. It's it's definitely accelerating. It's a problem. And people need to know how to respond. And I think he has some great suggestions for, for someone who may suspect that a loved one is contemplating suicide. That's some great, great information there. So and why is there is there something we haven't touched on? And we could we keep talking all afternoon here. But is there something we haven't I haven't asked you that you would like to share with the audience before we close up?

Benoit Kim 45:38
No, I feel like we talked a lot about a lot of sensor topics, but especially given the demographics of men who uphold this Christian faith, I just want to really, really emphasize and highlights the importance of having these emotional conversations with a fellow man. I'm really passionate about support for men. Because if you look at this patriarchal society, like the framework, right, obviously, a lot of women are disturbed by that. But I think a lot of men like us, especially a veteran like myself, who are big on this machoism, and false bravado, is disservices men as well. Because when we listen to social media, and these societal norms and propaganda, we're like, oh, this is what a man should be like, we should never cry, we should always be the protector, we should be able to safeguard life against our families at what cost, which is funny to begin with. That's why could because the macro is compressing the micro. And this is a reason why suicide rate as you said, it is a factual statement. suicide rate has gone up for the past few decades. That is a fact. And suicide rate, especially for white men in their age 50. and above, is one of the highest suicide demographics in America, because that's when a lot of men experience like midlife crisis, they realize they're lonely, they don't really have a job anymore, or in the new year of retirement, so they lose a sense of purpose. And they feel helpless. And because not a lot of men, especially people in that demographic of 50s. They're not raised up to talk about these issues, let alone like us talking about this on the interweb. Right, so the famous mental health adage, what you don't express gets depressed. So if you're not releasing the stress and the burden, because a lot of men, our mindset is, I don't want to burden my loved ones. It's my job to carry the burden of the entire world. On my shoulders. It's like what? Like you're a human. Even Jesus struggled to carry the burden of the world. And it took Jesus to sacrifice himself to tackle in the world, who are we to think that we have the ability and the capacity to do that? It's not realistic, you have to talk about these issues with your loved ones, especially as men. Otherwise, it's going to create this saddens reality of suicide or other mental challenges. Your suicide creates a ripple effect, it does not only affect you, it impacts all your loved ones for ages to come. Yeah, so it is a very, very difficult situation. That's what we have to be proactive. And the only way to proactive is talking about it, be curious about it, and seek help if you need to. And that is the message I want to leave the audience with because I'm really deeply passionate about health for men, because health is mental health.

David Sandstrom 48:26
Excellent. That's a really good word. I just want to add one thing to that is I love what John Eldridge with the Wild at Heart podcast has to say about taking on the burdens of the whole world. You know, we years ago, the cell phone is a relatively new invention, right? For most of human history, we didn't have worldwide information in our pocket. And we were never designed to handle that kind of information overload. It's not in our design. You know, when when Jesus note wanted to go somewhere, he walked or, you know, rode horseback, you know, it took weeks to get information from one town to another, you know, now, with this instant access to all the world's problems, we need to we need to take a hold of this, we need to address this because we weren't designed for that. And that's going to bring us a great deal of stress that we're not capable of handling. And he has a term that he uses in his book called his his book is called Get your life back. And he uses the term in there called benevolent detachment. And what he means by that is, yes, love these people pray for them. There's a time when you might be able to even do something for them, send some money, you know, take a mission trip or do something. But most of the time, what we need to do is let that go, you know, address the issue to the extent that we can pray for them for sure. But let it go there comes a time when we may need to make a conscious, benevolent or loving detachment from that issue. If we don't we our health will suffer For our mental emotional state will suffer, our physical health will suffer and our relationships will suffer. And God never designed us to suffer with that kind of a burden.

Benoit Kim 50:08
Yeah, that's, I know one last comment because we can talk for forever but to make them more personable, I think I love that benevolence detachments, I think that also applies to your self worth, do not attach yourself or to any boxes. And this is the mindset coaching, right? If you identify yourself by your job, or your profession, by your intellect, by your physique, by your physical promises, whatever that may be, when you lose that promises intellectually or physically, you're going to suffer, you're going to get depressed, when you lose a job. We oppose so dearly, like a lot of my clients that, oh, I'm a power of attorney, I went to Harvard Law, X, Y, and Z, once they lose that, because of certain events in life, it's outside of our control. Guess what? They feel helpless, powerless and lost? Yes, that's the box, they've lived their entire life for themselves. So we need to be detached, and unlearn, and unprogrammed from all these external things, and really find yourself worth what matters, that's your health, because as long as you're healthy, everything is possible,

David Sandstrom 51:12
Right? My identity ought to be, I'm a child of the Most High God, and I'm here to reflect His love and goodness to, to a hurting world. And beyond that, it's just not going to be useful, not going to be healthy. You know, I, I was an airline captain for 20 years, and I flew for 35 years. And, you know, a lot of a lot of guys will get their identity for, you know, Hi, I'm Captain so and so even when they're in a social situation, they introduce themselves as Captain Steve. I never did that, you know, I, I did. I never got my identity from being a pilot not trying to, to, to brag. I'm just saying that, because I was more grounded in my faith in God. And I knew that that's where my true worth comes from. I didn't fall into that trap, but it's a very slippery slope. It's easy to fall into that as your level of faith. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, you know, whether it be airline pilot or doctor or lawyer or you know, social media influencer, you know, a lot of titles that will will not going to serve us any good when in the, at the end of the day. But, anyway, Benoit, it's been great talking with you, I really enjoyed this conversation. If someone has relating to this, if they're related to this and want to go further and go deeper with you, what's the best way to get a hold of you?

Benoit Kim 52:34
Yeah, like I said, I'm also a student of life. I'm a child of curiosity and humility. So I'm very passionate, deeply passionate and purposeful about my work in mental health, emotional health for fellow men. If you're curious about some of the experts and world class folks that have on that I decided dissect and synthesize that content. Check out our podcast called Discover More Podcasts on YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your dosage podcast. Our Instagram also has high engagement. So if you want to connect with us via social, check us out at discover more podcasts on Instagram and wherever you find your socials. And that's it.

David Sandstrom 53:14
Excellent. Benoit. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your wisdom today.

Benoit Kim 53:19
Thank you for your thoughtful questions. I really enjoyed this. And thanks for having me.

David Sandstrom 53:24
For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/108. There you can find an audio as well as a video version of the podcast. I include a full downloadable transcript with timestamps, and I always have some type of a content upgrade to help you go deeper with that subject. You know, this information is relatively hard to come by a faith based perspective on natural and holistic health is hard to find. So I sure would appreciate you telling a friend about the show. You could share the episode on social media, or just tell a friend about it. I sure would appreciate you helping me spread the word. And I think your friend would appreciate it as well. That's it for now. As always, I enjoyed serving you. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk with you in two weeks be blessed.


Related Posts

19: Is Your Self-Talk Sabotaging Your Health? Discover the Biblical Solution

Social Follow / Share

About the author 

David Sandstrom

I want to help you maximize your health potential so you can look and feel your best at any age. We do this by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for our spirit, mind, and body. I've been helping people maximize their health potential since 2005.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

Get short articles related to the latest podcast episode, but explore things from a different angle. This is an email you'll look forward to opening. 

I respect your privacy.

>