Ever wrestled the trauma and pressures of being a first responder? Our guest, Jon Vargas, unfolds a journey of self-healing and consciousness expansion through Kambo, an entheogen that opens doors to higher realms of consciousness. Revealing deep-seated issues, Kambo is presented as a tool that promotes self-healing. Together, we delve into the profound impact of choice, unprocessed trauma, and the gaps in our medical systems.
Struggling with suicidal ideation or seeking a mental health respite from your role as a first responder? Consider this as we explore the healing potential of non-western medicines like Hapé, a tobacco snuff with roots in indigenous tribes that promotes physical and mental healing. From the cleansing nature of the ocean to the stabilizing effects of meditation, we tread the alternative paths that can lead to balance and clarity amidst life’s chaos.
Our last leg leads us to the power of community and support. Hear Jon narrate personal experiences of finding solace in outdoor activities and the essence of grounding. Get a glimpse of the First Responders Night of Hope, an event aimed at fostering mental health among firefighters. Sit back as we bask in stories of love, grace, forgiveness, and the strength of robust support systems that can guide us through challenging times.
Thanks for taking the time to listen in. Please leave us 5 stars on Spotify & Apple Podcasts with a review. THANK YOU!
Ever wrestled the trauma and pressures of being a first responder? Our guest, Jon Vargas, unfolds a journey of self-healing and consciousness expansion through Kambo, an entheogen that opens doors to higher realms of consciousness. Revealing deep-seated issues, Kambo is presented as a tool that promotes self-healing. Together, we delve into the profound impact of choice, unprocessed trauma, and the gaps in our medical systems.
Struggling with suicidal ideation or seeking a mental health respite from your role as a first responder? Consider this as we explore the healing potential of non-western medicines like Hapé, a tobacco snuff with roots in indigenous tribes that promotes physical and mental healing. From the cleansing nature of the ocean to the stabilizing effects of meditation, we tread the alternative paths that can lead to balance and clarity amidst life’s chaos.
Our last leg leads us to the power of community and support. Hear Jon narrate personal experiences of finding solace in outdoor activities and the essence of grounding. Get a glimpse of the First Responders Night of Hope, an event aimed at fostering mental health among firefighters. Sit back as we bask in stories of love, grace, forgiveness, and the strength of robust support systems that can guide us through challenging times.
Thanks for taking the time to listen in. Please leave us 5 stars on Spotify & Apple Podcasts with a review. THANK YOU!
John Vargas. Welcome to the podcast, man. Thanks for having me. I should say welcome back, dude. Yeah, it's your second round back, but as we get started, if you can't, please like, subscribe on YouTube, rumble, what is it? Facebook, instagram, all the social media stuff. We have to do this at the beginning. So thank you, appreciate it, and leave us a five star review Apple podcast and Spotify. Thank you, anyways, john, welcome back, dude. Thanks brother. Yeah, I appreciate you being here, man, we have a few things to talk about. One thing I want to kind of get into, actually, that you've been doing. It seems like you've been hitting it harder, maybe been doing the same as Cambo. Yeah for sure. Yeah, you made a social media now, right? Yeah, account for Cambo and a lot of stuff.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, it's.
Jon Vargas:I didn't do like a social media platform for quite some time and then Cambo started taking off and I really wanted to kind of give a little more awareness on what it is and the idea of how it works, because there's so many questions of what Cambo does and I've been doing a lot more research recently in different studies.
Jon Vargas:Right now I'm reading a book by a gentleman from France, I believe, or Italy, and he wrote this book called Cambo Iboga Iowa, and it's basically the fact that these medicines are entheogens and they work together, so in a sense that they are not on the spectrum of psychedelics and they allow you to take an experience through higher realms of consciousness to do your own self-healing and in that state you're able to find yourself a pathway to healing and a lot of it is just a mirror to your truth. And some people call Cambo the great revealer for that reason, because you could just be doing Cambo and something comes up, and I had that happen to me a couple of weeks ago when someone served me Cambo for myself. It's like really powerful medicine and it really allows you to step into a sovereign place with yourself and really let go.
Tim Fisher:Dude. So when you say your own truth, so people kind of understand that, when you're saying truth is that things people are dealing with that are deep down the side, that they don't talk to people about or confide in, Things they've trauma they've gone through or illnesses or sicknesses is that what you kind of mean?
Jon Vargas:Well, there's two answers to that. One of them is for me, truth is so ambiguous. The way I see truth is if you're in a street and you're seeing a car in front of you and they had a flat tire and they replaced it with a donut tire and it's not running true with the other tires, that means it's out of balance, and so it doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong or bad or whatever. It just means that it's not running true and the best thing to do is to get one that another tire that runs true in its place. If we, as firefighters, we're going to check the rotary saw or the chainsaw to make sure that chain or that rotary saw runs true, right, that's one of our checks.
Jon Vargas:We can use that analogy for ourselves and then it doesn't resonate with you anymore A relationship, a family member in your circle, you don't set those boundaries and it's causing a lot of turmoil and imbalance. It might have to do some change to that experience for yourself.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, so everybody knows I did cambo with you. Yeah, I think it's been a few months now actually. I've been trying to go back but every time you hit me up I'm like dude, I got stuck at work or something's coming up. But I remember doing it and coming from a faith background, how I was raised. When you hear these type of things it's like step back, that sorcery demonic, and I was very open to it. And then, after doing that and having that experience with you excuse me, it was very powerful. It was very, very powerful For me. There was a lot of healing that happened and the purging we'll kind of talk about that. But I've encouraged it to quite a few of my fellow firefighters and close friends. You had Evan Nelson. He came he's one of our hosts for the month review on here and it was groundbreaking for him, a lot of things that he had to deal with personally. That finally happened and he wants to do it again and I'm a firm believer in it.
Tim Fisher:Now, after doing it with you, I remember you offered it and we talked and we confided in you about some personal things and you're like all right, let's do this. It's that simple and doing it was powerful, very, very powerful and healing in so many ways I can't describe, and I try to tell people. The best way for you to, for me to kind of describe this for you, is to just do it. That's all I could say. Is you got to go and do it and just trust it and just go through the whole process.
Tim Fisher:And I know you said that a lot of people do it for pregnancy stuff or illnesses, or I know, for you and I at least, we've had some pretty good head injuries and I had a lot of brain fog for a long time and even after doing that camo that helps so much for me because my neurologist was telling me it's like, hey, three, five years you had a pretty bad injury and then, you know, I think last was it last November. I don't know if I told you, but we had, like I was in a room watching my guys they were at firefighters dinner thing, the engineer, I'm like I'll just walk around whatever, make sure I'm doing good, and next year I'm knocked out. It was a 12 foot vaulted ceiling and all that, some of the ceiling. I come in and just frickin knock me out, dude. So those head injuries are no joke.
Jon Vargas:And it's really hard to.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, that's really hard to to tell people what you're going through, because it's not something you can see. It's not like a broken arm or a big cut across your face or something like that, or burn. It's something that's so internal. And for me it was so hard to try to describe people what I was feeling and going through, because I seem normal to people, right. But then internally I was like man, I'm off, I'm not as sharp as I used to be and it's it. Things were just difficult and they're all just like hey, give yourself grace, it's going to take 35 years for it to really start getting back to normal for you. But man, that camo worked wonders.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, it's, it's interesting, right, the the concussion TBI CT thing. They call it an invisible injury for a reason. And all these doctors, you know they, they don't know what to do and it's really really tough, especially since each individual has a separate situation where they're having, you know, either hormonal imbalance or having nightmares, or having night sweats, or having anxiety or anger. Yeah, you just don't know. And I'm seeing right now for me being a TBI survivor, and for something like camo to come in and help me and recalibrate my entire system to where I don't have any more symptoms, I say, at a mat like 90% of full capacity from a really bad concussion, you know, and the thing with camo is that I've seen a lot of the TBI clientele come in a lot more and particular, like UFC fighters and NFL players.
Jon Vargas:I've been doing a lot of camo. I follow this guy in Texas who's been treating some NFL players. That's awesome, yeah. And any type of like neurological issue. You know it's, it's just rewiring the entire system, recalibrates your entire system in a way to kind of help your body reboot. I mean, there's just across the board. It helps tremendously for a TBI and it's it's wild to watch the transformation take place, because it's not necessarily the same for every person either.
Jon Vargas:And when, when people do come back and they're like hey, I completely healed, I'm like Holy shit. You know, I just kind of trust the medicine and allow it to do its job. But as far as like TBI, a lot of people have a hard time recovering from that injury because there's not much you could do, right. Right, I agree with you 100%. Yeah, and in some the combination with camo, ayahuasca and iboga is really beneficial for TBI as well. There's an organization called no fallen heroes and they treat PTSD and brain injuries basically from it's in Costa Rica, I believe, where they send all these vets who've addicted to the volume and all these different drugs and they send them over there to go to iboga and camo and it helps them completely just reset themselves. Iboga is a little more aggressive. I'm still learning about a lot of what that medicine does, but it's really powerful, you know, and it's it's the people who are suffering. They could do this shit. You know what I mean. Oh, yeah, Because you know, for me, my other option was suicide, and it's interesting that we're here today.
Jon Vargas:You asked me to talk about suicide prevention, you know, because that's where we're at today, in this month and the awareness of that, and you know, I was just in such a disarray with myself that that was the only option. You know, I didn't feel like myself anymore. You know, I just I had a really hard time just being comfortable in my skin and I couldn't even fucking think. I couldn't read, you know.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, and you you bring up a. You know it's a, it's a heavy topic and I they say it's not, it is not getting as taboo, but it still is taboo to talk about it. That's just my own opinion and I know where you're coming from, because I've felt that way. You just feel like you're at woodland. I can't help myself, I don't know what to do. And what I feel is the the most crazy part about is you know, in our careers we're there for people.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:We're constantly helping and saving people. That's what we do. We're always helping people. That's a calling at some point, right, we're always helping people. And but then you get home and you can't help yourself and you feel like you're losing it, like so I know that feeling man. You just like I, there's nothing left, I don't know what to do. Like my gosh, I need help, and for me, faith has played a lot into that as well. But my goodness, man doing the, that cambo was gosh. It was such a I don't really know how to say it. So it was a life changing moment. It really was. I remember driving home because you're, you know, you live in the same city as me. It's not far. I think it was like 10 minutes or 15 minutes, I don't know. But I just drove in silence and I was like I'm going to be fine, I'm good, I feel so much better. You know, like everything just seems clear.
Jon Vargas:Right.
Tim Fisher:There was a lot of acceptance. That happened, and even the purging that we talked about, and I think when I was purging it was like neon or something like that Yellow, others were blue. It's really interesting. You told me everyone's going to be kind of different, different color, no-transcript.
Jon Vargas:Eboga.
Tim Fisher:Eboga, is there like a one, two, three. Is there a start with one and then there's a middle and then the third is like ayahuasca.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, well, it sounds like cambo is the precursor. So cambo, what it does, is? It? Not only just helps your body physically, biologically, it helps your body energetically and a lot of times, our energetic bodies. We don't really understand what that is because we're not taught what it is and what it does.
Jon Vargas:You're supposed to have this electromagnetic field that's a bioactive field. It's about six feet in distance, like a normal range. You start adding EMF and things around you inside of an inner city it starts to shrink. If you're stressed, you have all these issues. This biofield is not very strong. So cambo increases that field and it's been proven, and it also activates the pineal gland. That's why, when you feel clear that's what it's doing, so doing my different studies recently, we're understanding that it's more than it meets the eye. It does things on this grander scale. So cambo kind of preps the system in order to step into a powerful plant medicine like ayahuasca, and ayahuasca is probably ayahuasca and iboga are the most powerful plant medicines on this planet. You can do ayahuasca or you can do iboga. They're different for everyone. But when I understand, you're supposed to do at least three rounds of cambo prior to even touching iboga, because you need to have a strong field and a strong sense of an immune system to handle that frequency of that medicine.
Tim Fisher:So say we do three sessions at cambo. How far apart should they be spread? Like a week a month they should be as close as possible together.
Jon Vargas:You can make it so. And this is all coming from the tribes who've been doing this for thousands of years and they say that the more frequent you do within a lunar cycle, which would be 28 days, the better, because cambo kind of has this full effect of detoxifying the body as well. And to get that full detox by getting rid of bile, gallstones, all these things are getting rid of through your body, by purging candida, parasites, all that shit that's sitting in your body, it's getting it out because it doesn't belong there anymore. So I've seen like tapeworms inside some people's buckets before.
Jon Vargas:Get out of here. Yeah, man Wow.
Tim Fisher:You know what? That's crazy. That's great, right, that's what you want, right. And I'm thinking from our job perspective. How much heavy, like? Okay, we just had a fire the other day I was telling you about it, and it was a bunch of batteries.
Jon Vargas:Oh yeah, we talked about this right.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, we had another, but, dude, it was like there was a bunch stored in this, this, like a strip. It was like a strip center, one of the center unit, and they're just stacked to the ceiling and it's just putting all this smoke and guys, you know we have to fight it. There's that you can do and guys are getting, you know, covered in that smoke. But those heavy metals and then all the plastics that are burning, all this stuff that we absorb into our bodies, right, we have our turnouts and so people know we go and fight these fires.
Tim Fisher:We were taught to put all this gear on. We're completely covered with our helmet, flash hood, our mask on, coat pants, our SCBA gloves and all that's good, but we still get absorption rate. I mean, we're wet, all that stuff still gets in, and a lot of people don't. You know I was they at work when I was in training. They had me do in the cancer program. So I went to symposiums and was a 90% absorption rate is in our groin, right, and that's where reproductive system is, you know. So how great is it for firefighters, my goodness, to come in and do this to purge their systems and clean themselves out, you know.
Jon Vargas:I keep telling them. Man, none of them want to come. I was afraid, dude, you know I do. I kind of broadcast a little bit of of cambo and try to get you know some of my members to come because I know it's going to be beneficial. Yeah, they see how arbitrary, arbitrary it looks and they're like fuck that, I'm not doing that. You know, and even with your, if you have no medical problems, any health issues, and you did cambo, it's still going to help you because it enhances your physical vitality to where, if you the next day you have so much energy you want to get out there and do like a heavy workout because it just really gives you, like that pump, like this vital, like feeling you know your body feels refreshed, absolutely.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, dude, it's, it's really powerful. And you know, unfortunately, people who do come to cambo, they're at their wits end, they're really desperate and this is their last option. You know, and those are the people I treat. You know, it brings a lot of those people together and you got to hold a special space for those people. You know, because I've been there. You know, and it's, it's.
Tim Fisher:You have that empathy for yeah.
Jon Vargas:It's really harsh and, by the same token, to have this, you know, complete 180 in your health and be able to say, hey, I did cambo and it got rid of whatever I had Lyme disease, hiv cancer, whatever TBI. You know, it's really really awesome to have the honor to hold that space, you know.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, Now remember when we did it and I think Evan was trying to, he's like hey, what's that? What's that thing that John shoots up your nose, or something like that. A.
Jon Vargas:Hoppe, hoppe yeah.
Tim Fisher:I remember we were doing it and I think I might be explaining this wrong. We said if you're not purging correctly or going through the process, the Hoppe kind of encourages that right.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:And I remember seeing you do it to one of the people that were there and I was like hell, no, we're going to do this. Oh yeah, I was like that looks painful, man the Hoppe, so can you explain Hoppe, yeah, hoppe.
Jon Vargas:it's a tobacco snuff and I like the tobacco that we bastardized in America. But it's pure tobacco in its purest form. And these tribes, they've been doing this for thousands of years. Well, they're one tribe will work with one Hoppe medicine and they mix different herbs in the ashes and they kind of make this form of Hoppe. And the reason why they do that is Native Americans will always smoke tobacco because it's dry enough for them to smoke it, but in the rainforest they can't, it's too wet.
Jon Vargas:That's why they do that it's been kind of. What I understand from indigenous tribes and studying them is that tobacco is one of the first medicines that were ever used by humankind. You know, they use this as a powerful medicine. And Hoppe is a really interesting experience because I mean, the first time I ever had Hoppe given to me it was by Haley's mentor, haley's, my girlfriend and her mentors like hey, let's go do some Hoppe. I was really anxious, I was really struggling with some issues with my concussion and she gave me Hoppe. It's like a slap in the face, you know it's like a dog, Anything going up your nose.
Jon Vargas:You know it's pretty intense, but when I had it happen it was just like my entire anxiety was just like completely lifted off my shoulders, Like this huge weight was lifted, and I had this vision of rhinoceros in my vision, you know, and I rarely would have visions prior to that, and I was like, well, it was really interesting that this rhinoceros came into my vision. And then two weeks later I ended up going to do hyperbaric chamber therapy at this copractic office and sure enough, their logo is a rhinoceros. So I was like what?
Tim Fisher:the fuck. Yeah, that's rad Weird. Yeah, I remember seeing you when you were doing that. I was like let's, let's get this whole process here, man, because it looked painful at first.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, it's actually really beautiful. Once you do it, you know you feel amazing after and it's actually the tribe's value Hoppe a lot more than they do Cambo, really, yeah, and they use it kind of like a hunting ritual for them and they use it to help them hunt, to kind of see sharper and run faster and get past fear from being eaten by Jaguars or whatever in the forest. So that's like their thing. And if you go to some indigenous tribes like in Peru or Brazil and you go do Cambo, they're just going to put you, you know, put some points on you and you feel, you know, acting like a fool, they're kind of throwing you in the river.
Tim Fisher:Oh really, yeah, Cool, cool water therapy, dude, you want me to take it real quick? Yeah, a while stuff, dude. No, okay, so what if somebody doesn't do a series of Cambo or anything and they go straight to ayahuasca? Is that frowned upon? Is it still okay? You can still do that, it's just experience will be different.
Jon Vargas:I think you know you can have a limited experience because what Cambo prepares you for is it's going to have that frequency intake that's allowing you to have the best experience you could have, because a lot of times people will go do ayahuasca. Ayahuasca makes you purge too, because you know if you're not holding that medicine down it's going to make you sick. So I know, if you're getting everything out prior with Cambo, you're able to hold that in and you're able to have a better experience through that ceremony or however you want to call it.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, yeah, because I've talked to people that have done ayahuasca.
Jon Vargas:but they haven't done Cambo.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, and they talked about purging and all that stuff. But it makes sense now kind of the progression and going and doing all that. Now I remember we talked about it a few times. There are females that come in for pregnancy issues.
Jon Vargas:Yes.
Tim Fisher:So is it common, those things where it helps clear their system.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, Women have a different relationship with Cambo. Okay, and for some reason you know, a lot of women will come and actually the way Cambo was introduced to me was through a group of women. The first woman who had done Cambo that Haley had found out through is that she had these issues with PCOS. She had a cyst on her ovaries and she just had a ton of problems with her menstrual cycle. It was always out of whack and she had done a series of Cambo to where the doctor had seen her six months later, did a pap smear and was like I don't know what you're doing, but there's nothing here anymore.
Tim Fisher:So, whatever you're doing, let's go Keep continuing Cambo. Wow, that's incredible. So would you say, are you kind of getting? How do you? So you give Cambo? What do you say? That when you're someone who gives someone Cambo, you're not like a medicine doctor? Oh you're serving it to them, okay.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:Do you get more females coming in or males, or is a good mixture of both?
Jon Vargas:At first I was serving a lot of women in the beginning and then, because of my fields of working with men, Now it's been a lot more of like a male clientele base. But it always changes. It's always up and down but it's really powerful. Me and my second time doing Cambo was in a room with 15 women. You were the only guy yeah.
Jon Vargas:And it's just, it changes, and I think a lot of women were more open to it. Usually, a lot of men are just more rigid with their thinking, their belief systems set in their ways. You know, less open with their, their ability to change, and for something like this, you know it's a surrendering experience, you know it's vulnerable yeah, you know what, man, you just said a keyword that I've been really trying to work on since Cambo.
Tim Fisher:It really stuck out to me because we started and you told me that a lot of firefighters that come in have a hard time the first time because they can't surrender. And I remember telling myself that the whole time, and you gave me Cambo and doing a thing, remember, you just come up like Tim, just surrender, surrender. I remember telling myself I got a little emotional too because I don't know, I maybe I don't want to say just as a guy, but for me that was hard. I don't know what it was, but it was. It's almost like you're having to let go of everything and be like have no control, right, and we're taught to be in control. You can take control of the scene, do this, you know. Pull hose here, cut the person out of the car here. This is why we train, right, we're the tip end of the spear and gosh to. To sit back and not have control can be a little, I'll be, really. It can be a little frightening, right, it's a little uneasy. You're kind of like, oh dude, like what's going to happen. But, man, that stuck out to me, so much Surrender and I think it really helped me in that process.
Tim Fisher:But it's also helped me, I would say, in my own life, at work, my personal life, in my own faith walk is surrender, right Is giving up of. To me it's always keep telling myself just giving of self right, letting go of self and just letting, just going with the date man, let it be what it's going to be Like, what's going to happen is going to happen, and. But I mean even to the point where it's like I may work with company officers or people I don't like, right, but they're in a position of authority. Surrender and do your job. You're supposed to do what you need to do Relationships right. It's dying of self and surrendering back and forth. Man, I mean relationships are tough. We all know that, even with family, and that surrender that was such a key moment for me. I'm still. Am I good at that? No, do I try? Yes, but I say that's such a key point I really feel like people need to understand is surrender is a huge thing in their life, even when they're doing cambo man and hopefully, hopefully, with the people that listen to this podcast, they give a shot, either with you, somebody else, I don't know.
Tim Fisher:But it was such a great moment for me because there was a lot of, for me, regret. I was dealing with a lot of emotional pain, internal pain with the brain injury, and it was just like it was lifted. And ever since then I've been on a pretty good path. There's still been hard things I've dealt with. I mean, life is life right. Bad things happen that are out of your control. Maybe they're in your control. You made bad decisions, I don't know. But my goodness, it set me on such a good path and I'm trying to get back there.
Tim Fisher:But, yes, you know, busy as heck, dude schedule, get all the stuff done. But it was really good to have Evan there and you know I'm a full supporter of what you're doing. I really, really hope that we get more of our first responders, fire, police, ems, nurses, doctors, even military, to do this. And I here's a question for you too and maybe it's also because of the Western way we do things right Religion and faith and all this stuff but why do you think some people are so like uh, stand back, it's Campbell, like that's sorcery or something like that? You know, because they don't understand it.
Jon Vargas:A lot of people are threatened by things they don't understand, you know. So it's why I kind of have this Instagram platform and to give you a better insight. You know, because if you think about our bodies, or bodies carry things, the only way to um to find healing is to get them out somehow. And if you're, instead of you know, seeing it as you know this such a strange or nasty thing, you just realize that this is just how our bodies work. You know, when you're having the flu, it's the same exact thing of a virus. You're having these, these moments of clearing of your system.
Jon Vargas:But the powerful thing about um, these powerful medicines, is that they speak to your heart and, um, once you're in that experience, um, you're able to find out what that is for you, because a lot of times we think through a linear level and our hearts don't think that way. Our hearts are multi-dimensional to the point where you know there's intuitive space there, sitting in the middle of our chest, that once you connect to it, you're able to manifest your life in such a way to where you're expanding beyond these. You know these conditions, these belief systems that you're limited to, and the more you tap into that space with the assistance of these medicines, you really have a rapid process of evolution and I think, through Western society we're so linear and logical the way we go about things.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, and I absolutely agree with you on that one, you know like if you go to these tribes and stuff like they treat life differently. You know they look at creation as the greatest teacher and they don't see themselves superior to that. You know they see themselves as one with nature, as a cycle of things.
Tim Fisher:Yeah.
Jon Vargas:You know, even with the seasons, you know, like you know, fall, winter, spring and summer it's like there's always a death and rebirth process to that and, to understand it, it doesn't mean that it's a start to an end. It just means that it's a cycle. And if we see ourselves in that same way, it doesn't mean that it's good or bad. And that's why people do end up in the down this dark road of suicide, because they say, oh, this is the end, and actually it could be the possibility that is the start of a new beginning, but they don't understand what that is. So my man, and we talk about surrender, right, yeah, and surrender to me has become one of my greatest understandings in teachers, because there's different layers to it, and the deeper I go into those layers, the deeper I just lose my grip and let go, because the harder I'm holding onto something, the more harm it's causing me. Wow, and so You're gonna get a bell again.
Jon Vargas:So that was good If I'm detached, you know, and non-reactive, and I'm more attentive to the situation being present. Now I'm able to approach something at a different scale, and now I'm able to make that decision. Hey, am I accessing this point from my logical mind, my ego sense, or is it from my heart space, you know? So that's those are tough questions.
Tim Fisher:I think a lot of people can't ask themselves that.
Jon Vargas:It's hard, dude, you know I go through it every single time, you know, and when I this last time I was served Cambo is this woman who serves me. She's a very powerful woman and she holds like this space. It's very motherly and very, very wonderful and I had this moment of understanding what like fear meant to me on a certain scale. You know, it's just like that. It's an illusion, and surrendering to the illusion but also making a stand for yourself to not walk into the fear as well, is different, you know, but I always think of fear as like this.
Jon Vargas:I think there was a guy named Ziggler. He's like this motivational speaker from the 70s. He calls it false evidence appearing real as like an acronym. Right, yeah, Because it is an illusion. You know, we create these things, these inner struggles and these the suffering, and in the end, when you look at it straight, face to face, you realize there's nothing to be afraid of. And a lot of times, if you're down that road of being so fearful, go through it, because that's the only way you can't walk around it. You're tiptoe around it because it's not going to work. Dude, you know, it takes a lot of surrendering to that idea because you're getting caught up with yourself and you're digging yourself a hole of karma. Yeah Dang.
Tim Fisher:John, you're a deep human being. I love it, dog.
Jon Vargas:Dude, it is. Trust me, man, I was dragged into this path, like my life became, so it basically was shattered, you know, my idea of who I was was shattered and as I began to see that, you know, everything happened for this purpose to serve humanity, you know. And then this line of work helping, you know, the great men and women who serve humanity yeah, that is my path, and it just takes a lot of patience and a lot of kindness with myself and trust, and also, you know, being able to open my heart in a world of hell. That's one of the hardest things, brother, it is. Oh yeah, dude, it is.
Jon Vargas:And then apathy creeps in through the call volume. You know, working in one of the busiest cities in the entire nation man, you're kidding son, it's fucking hard, dude. Yeah, oh yeah, you know, I get reactive sometimes and you know, the other day this patient tried to fight me, dude, and I was just like what the fuck's going on? Right now, dude, I don't know what to do. Like, we're here to help you, I can't. I have to also make sure I have a boundary for myself, you know, and there's a way of going about it. You know, and it's a challenge, dude. This job challenges us, you know.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, he brought up another good point too. Excuse me Boundaries, and that's something I've had to learn the hard way Understanding where your boundaries are at, where you need to say no and it's OK to say no.
Jon Vargas:Or when to rest.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, dude, that's a big one for me. Dog, that's a big one for me. Rest, and I've been learning that, I would say, over the past year and a half. It's good for me to take time to myself. A lot of times when I get off duty I go straight to the beach surf, or I go straight to mountain biking or something like that, or cycling, and that's like my time, dude. I'm away and I can kind of get the frustration out from work or whatever it may be to finally come back to the center and being who I am. And I always feel so much better when I get home Instead of just coming straight home. I feel like I have this nervous energy. You know, you're just feeling like I gotta do something. So rest and taking time to myself has been huge. It's been healing, actually, really, in many, many ways.
Tim Fisher:Man, I got off. I've told you this is the first four days I've had off in a long time, because we've just been getting force-hired a lot, and so people know what that is In our line of work. If somebody calls off sick or there's nobody in the position, you can't go home, you're stuck at work. So you can be there for three or four days, man, it's just like ugh, your plans are gone, but it is what it is. Yeah, I really hope that we can keep pushing this, at least you as far as contact for people and I've been telling guys in my department to give it a shot. Whether they've reached out or not, I don't know. At least we got Evan on there.
Tim Fisher:But it's a good thing. It really is a good thing and it opened my eyes to a lot and I'm glad I was open to it, because the way I was raised, like I said, it was like well, you just have God and that's all you need. You know, I'm like well, I mean, yeah, but he also put certain things in the earth for us to use that are going to help. But you know, that's good for us. It's not bad in a controlled environment. So hopefully that starts getting more or less taboo, more modernized, and people start to understand it's not something that's witchcraft or the devil. It's actually very good for you in healing. I try to explain to my mom. She was like dude, that was a whole conversation that went totally south. Like, yeah, I thought she believed in God.
Jon Vargas:Oh, trust me, my mom does the same thing, I do.
Tim Fisher:It's not anything crazy. It's like, am I doing cocaine man? Like relax, but it's all good. Well, dude.
Tim Fisher:Another thing I want to talk about because it is we're in September, which is Suicide Prevention Month, and it's a big deal in public services. You know, and I've brought some. I have some statistics. Actually, you probably already knew some of these, but the US Fire Administration, okay, this is from 2015 through 2017. Sorry, 2015 through 2017.
Tim Fisher:The research findings data from the NVDRS indicates that the first responders made up 1% of all suicides from 2015 through 2017. It continues on. When broken down by response discipline, these first responders suicides occur among law enforcement officers 58%. Firefighters 21%, e-mess providers 18% and public safety telecommunications 2%. So, compared to suicides of non-first responders, more first responders used a firearm as the method of injury 69% versus 44% of the regular population, which is sad, and it also goes into. You know, what's included in these things is also circumstances, right, which is your intimate partner problems, job problems, physical health, mental health and what kind of goes on in here too. At least, that it talked about was the stressors of our jobs and how it's wearing on people, and I don't think a lot of people. I want to say people. I want to say a lot of departments. To understand that you work in a business department. I'm in a busy city. It's not normal for people to see someone die dramatically.
Jon Vargas:Right, they did not sleep for three days.
Tim Fisher:Exactly Get like two hours of sleep, right. And there's another article that I read. It said the average human being was, I'll say, a civilian who's not in like the public service sector will maybe see two traumatic deaths in her lifetime. Right, we see it every day. We go to work Every day, every freaking day, right. And it's sad to read this statistic and know that the police are higher 58%. Yeah, you know. And that's another tough one, right. Because, gosh, we hear all the time like, do you fund the police? Whatever, I support our police. We need law and order. It is what it is. I mean, you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime, right, but a lot of times our fellow, you know, I want to say a fellow, but our police brethren they're going in first, they're crazy calls.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:And they're dealing with people and they have to use their weapons at times. That's very traumatizing and my thought is how in the world do we combat this? Because to me it's an epidemic For sure. It's a huge epidemic because they sell this job. And this is not to say that our jobs are terrible. I'm very thankful for what we do. We have absolutely earned it. It's very tough to get in. It's tough to keep your job. Going through probation, getting through the physical fitness backgrounds, I mean, there's so much to it. But they advertise it as it's the best job in the world, right, oh my gosh. So all these days off you get? You know my dad. My dad always says oh, the benefits, your retirement, good pay, oh, look at all that overtime. And to them I just wear a cool uniform in right around a nice shiny red fire engine.
Tim Fisher:It's like you have no idea what we deal with on a day to day basis, right it's. I've actually had to have to talk to my parents and my hey, when I come over, I don't want to talk about work, I really don't. You guys, there's no way for me to explain the things that I see and go through to you guys, because you just, oh, how's work, it's fun and great, it's like, yeah, I guess.
Jon Vargas:Well, things have changed, man. Like it's so fucking busy right now Everywhere. It's not the same how it was in the 90s. You know what I mean. It the population has increased tremendously and to be in such a highly densely populated area and there's a lack of education in the medical systems, completely erratically just crumbling right now underneath, right before us, you know what I mean and it's there's. There's really a hard way to explain this to people, but it's not the same how it was 10, 20 years ago. It's not.
Jon Vargas:And what's powerful about this issue, about suicide, is going through it. Right, we talked about that, and it's like the only way to to address it is going to it straight, face to face, toe to toe, and so, just in a general concept, like going into it, you know, if someone does, let's say, you know, firefighter, police officer, first responder, whatever makes that decision, you know, and they are usually the silent ones, the ones who are not erratic, you know, those are the ones who are really, really actually going to do it. You know, and that's what happens, and they call that suffering in silence. And it happens because there is from, from my perspective, to make that decision is really the power of choice and you kind of have to honor that in a sense too.
Jon Vargas:And the second part is like. A lot of it is like, and my personal understanding is that there's a lot of unprocessed trauma, you know from childhood, from anything that could have been done, like even with men we're saying men are and one out of three have been sexually assaulted once in their life and never, take it, never talk about it, take it to their grave, and it's, it's, it's an epidemic because of these things, prior to their death, prior to their the precursors, childhood trauma is huge.
Jon Vargas:You know if no one addresses it, you're talking. You know doing therapy and you avoid it. And you know doing all these things. A lot of that sticks deep in the subconscious and that to me. You add let's add more call volume to your plate. Let's add a divorce to your plate. Let's add, let's add you not sleeping for three days and you're burnt out, you're apathetic and you can't feel anymore. And you've been drinking the last 20 years. Now. That's that appetite for destruction right there, and that's what we're seeing is happening in a.
Jon Vargas:To do this great work, you know, to focus on yourself is is really people don't do it, man, because it takes work, you know, and it's, in my opinion, it's. There's not one word answer for this solution. There's two things, though that is beneficial. It's. One of them is you have to take responsibility for yourself and you have to do your own work. No one else can do that for you. You have to meet someone in the middle. There's, it takes two to tango. The second part is unity, you know, and unifying the collective as a whole as well, not just our departments. But you know, humanity in humanity is polarized. You can see it, dude, and we're all struggling to struggle, just to struggle, like what the fuck? Why? And when you push, you pull and it's just like this is a constant I've been flow between the masses and the only way I could say you can do some, some difference is doing that inner work on yourself, because if you change, the people around you will see it and they want to change and it makes this ripple effect within, like the quantum field or through metaphysics I use. You can say that you know it's like this, this decision of like everything's relative. You know if something's changing, you know that person's going to want to see like, hey, what are you doing, man? Are you doing cambo or whatever? I don't know? You stop drinking like cool, I want to do that too.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, because the old paradigm of what we used, how we used to do things, you know it was like these, these old Vietnam vets would come and they'd go get a job as a fireman, because that's the job that they want to do, and then, like you know, their PTSD ended up in a Jack Daniels bottle. You know what I mean, and that was like that was okay and now it's not. It's just, this is not okay, it's not how you treat it, man, and then to treat, to have a one word answer you can have. There's no one word answer to this. But what I can say is that there are multiple answers and there are powerful medicines out there that are not talked about, like these entheogens, these classes of medications or medicines that can help you.
Jon Vargas:There's also these different studies like psilocybin and ketamine. I was just talking to a gentleman the other day at a clinic where you know people who have suicide ideation. They go do ketamine and they come back and not having those ideations ever again and it's kind of like clearing a hard drive of your brain and I did a series of treatments at this clinic because it helps TBI stuff and I did it was really fascinating, you know, I had like some really strange thought patterns because it cleared through my hard drive, you know, and it's like interesting to talk to this guy and how he's been really pushing this and the studies are there. It's valid to talk about how these clinics are completely beneficial, especially if you're struggling with suicide ideation and they want to help firefighters and first responders.
Tim Fisher:Really crazy shit man, but you got to want that help.
Jon Vargas:Right, that's why I said it takes two to two. Yeah.
Tim Fisher:You got to want that help and man it's um, it is tough. It is tough to take a hard look at yourself and say you know what something's wrong.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:Because I've been there and I went for years now I'm fine. I'm fine, barry, barry, and it is indicative of our job. And we go to a call, we run it, we get back on it's great, get ready for the next one. Then you run another one, and another one, and another one, and you keep going and it's like 7 am comes or whatever time your shift changes. I go home and be a father, husband, son, and be normal and you're just like yo. Dude. I just saw some nardy shit like what. It's crazy. But for me I have a therapist that I see. It's telecommunication or whatever. Do like Zoom now, but it's been the most beneficial thing for me to get that third party in to talk and you know you're fine, like how you feel is appropriate.
Tim Fisher:But yes, this is what we need to work on. Here's what we're going to do to work with your PTSD and get these thoughts out of your head and go from here. And that's why I try to really encourage a lot of friends and personnel. It's okay to say you need help. There's no, it doesn't make you look weak, it doesn't make you look weird. You're human.
Tim Fisher:I mean, we have a lot of these emotions in us to process anger, pain, doubt, dissatisfaction, hurt everything you can think of. But it's like we're trained to push that down because we need to be that pillar on the call or at least in the community, because if we're losing our minds on a call, everything's going to go crazy. Right, we're not doing what we're supposed to do. But then I started realizing I was doing that in my personal life. I was just pushing everything down. I don't want to talk about you know. No, no, we're fine, I don't want to talk about it.
Tim Fisher:And you start realizing it's like you said, right, you're pushing down all this trauma and then going to therapy, realizing I had other trauma I need to deal with and I remember my therapist was like we're going to what we're going to do is we're not going to start with what's happening now, we're going to go all the way, beginning, just like you said, we're going to go to your childhood first, you know, and that takes a deep dive and that's hard. It was very emotional, it was very, very deep, very difficult, and I remember getting through those, some of those sessions and I'm like tired for the rest of the day but also felt so good, you know, doing EMDR, brain spotting also finally doing. I remember telling the therapist Cambo she was like yes, keep going, keep doing what you got to do.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, it was. It was really cool, and I just really don't want this to be taboo anymore. I want I want you know our first responders to step up and speak up and say, yeah, I need help, I need something, at least in my department, where I'm at, which is really cool is we have free services. Yeah, completely free, as much as you need. Just go. All you do is dial this number, tell him your name, who you work for. It's done, dude, and I think I had a phone call in like an hour. They're on it, which is cool. Now do all the parms to it.
Jon Vargas:I don't know, you can even stack your treatments too, man, Like you can do therapy and so that therapy is cool. You know I have a therapist and you know she's great, but in the end, you know, I feel like she, she, she kind of kind of picks at the boulder with a toothpick in a way.
Tim Fisher:Yeah.
Jon Vargas:You know, it's like once a week and it, you know it's just it gets you going somewhere and she is a soundboard. I like to have that as like my closure for the week of how I've worked on myself. Yeah.
Tim Fisher:Yeah.
Jon Vargas:You know, to integrate my life. But my, my practices are what counts and my practices always change and that's kind of like the expression that you know there's not one word answer to this. You know it's like our bodies are multi-dimensional, different planes of consciousness as well. It's like there's not just one answer. You have your mental body, your emotional body, your physical body, your astral body, your spiritual body. You know you get a tune to those as much as you can.
Jon Vargas:But if you can do certain things like like my practices come from, like they change from sauna to coal plunge, I'll switch them up, you know. Yeah, but it makes me centered and balanced and if I stick to doing those things I anchor in with myself, it really gives me the ability kind of find that, that place with myself to reevaluate. I'm not on my phone, I'm in a place to just sit and do nothing. You know that's my forms of meditation. Meditation doesn't have to be so I guess, sacramental, the way you're seeing like a Buddhist sitting like for hours, right, right, right, you know they do that for a reason. But if you ask a Buddhist what is meditation, they say it's sitting down, doing nothing.
Jon Vargas:So, they don't. They don't say it's like this, this idea, like you're, you're going through this, you know I don't know prayers or anything like that you can, but they say just, it's a, it's a moment to have your thoughts come into this, this space where it's empty. Finally, yeah, because that's not normal to have constant thoughts all the time. You're supposed to have a moment to have silence and then you're able to finally have clarity. So I do a lot of my practices to have that, you know, and it always changes. But if I could give people advice, you know, with behavioral health, stuff is finding a practice that really gives you moments to really honor yourself for that moment. And it can be simple, you know, and it can be like the other day I just sat and sat down in silence for like 15 minutes and watch my cats, just watch them like play, and I was just like dude. This is super cool.
Tim Fisher:This is awesome.
Jon Vargas:But it's just like a super funny to just sit there, you know, yeah, yeah, that's why.
Tim Fisher:Well, you know, that's another really good point. I knew I had an issue because I couldn't sit and quiet, because I couldn't deal with myself. My hit. My thoughts will go back like remember when you did this. You know you're just like oh God. So you put music on, you're trying to stay busy or doing stuff, and I realized that's where I'm like, okay, something's wrong here. I can't even sit in silence while I have to move because I can't stand myself. Yeah, there's a problem. And you know a place.
Tim Fisher:I've sat on here quite a few times, but man, the ocean has been such a powerful huge form of therapy for me, because being grounded barefoot in the sand, holding the surfboard and a lot of times when I go surf I don't used to been doing since I was eight I would go to the main peak, right when all the guys are at and you're fighting for waves and stuff. Now I'm like off to the side. I'll take the smaller ones on the side and be with like maybe two or three surfers. Most of the time I'm surfing by myself in silence, and it's beautiful. I feel a thousand percent better as soon as I get out of the water.
Tim Fisher:It's like you said, right, I don't have myself on around, there's no music. I'm having to, you know, make decisions. I can sit out there and finally, just, it's almost like I can be myself man, I can not have this guard of. I can just relax and do my thing and then be, you know, figuring out the timing, with the waves and the ocean. It's almost like you're being one with the water and figuring out how you're going to flow through it, man, and just riding the wave every time smiling. It's such a good time, dude, and I used to. You know people will cut you off. I used to yell hey, hey, hey. Now people cut me off. I'm like whatever dude, We'll share it.
Jon Vargas:I don't care. Yeah, so scientifically the ocean has this. There's an ion exchange happening with your body. So because of the salt water, there is like this positive, negative influence where it actually will cleanse the bioelectrical field. So we talked about that earlier. Right, Like you have this bioelectrical field and you know, just by being around you know EMF all the time and like your cell phones in your pocket, you know what I mean. It's causing this disturbance. So, but the ocean is really good at cleaning that and it's been proven by taking a photo of someone before and after they go into the ocean. It's almost like triple the effect. That's why you feel really good going into the ocean, because of that reason, that's amazing, I know that.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, I did Dude, I had no idea. Yeah, wow.
Jon Vargas:I was like what? I'm out there, I go in the ocean all the time. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I mean, I grew up going to the ocean and I do. I do like water workouts too. Okay, like, are you just talking like swimming? Or yeah, I do, like I I tried water for like 15, 20 minutes, go take some rest and then, you know, go for a walk or whatever, go back in the water and do the same thing again.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, it's a great way to just be connected. You know, and that's like a key term, like we've always lost connection to the earth. You know, and like it's, it's a part of the medicine is connecting to it. You know, and like really honoring this planet. We really lost touch with that, and I agree, you know, last, I'd say, 10 years, I've just read so many different books from so many different.
Jon Vargas:You know traditional tribes and how they treat things, and they treat things so differently to treat it with a lot of respect, and that's why they treat each other with respect, because they know how important it is that there's an intricate part to all this. You know that we are all connected to one another in some, some weird way, but we all play a part, important, importantly, in the tribes or inside this vast array of this planet. You know, and we have disturbingly just disrespected that, and the elements are really powerful. You know what I mean? And it's just, it's sad that we just don't do that anymore and I think that's part of the sickness within humanity is that we've just lost touch with that Absolutely. It's just really sad, dude. I just don't understand, and it took me a while to really even value that or put more attention on it, until I read this book called the Aboriginal man.
Jon Vargas:These Aboriginals who lived in the desert. You know, like how did these guys survive? They were desecrated from their land and they were forced to go in the middle of the desert, you know. But these people were like these amazing, amazing people where they like have these written, documented events, where they would like disappear, like just right in front of someone or something like that. And, pretty interestingly enough, like these people, they just they are able to survive in the desert because they're connected to it and no one else knows why, but only these tribes do super powerful stuff. That's interesting. What's that book called? It's called the Aboriginal man. Now the Aboriginals, that's.
Tim Fisher:Australia. Yes, yeah, boy, they went through boy.
Jon Vargas:There's a genocide dude? Oh totally, they killed them off.
Tim Fisher:You can say, like Native Americans A lot of people don't know that story man. Yeah, that's interesting. I'll check that book out. Dude, that's a good one. Man. Also, you've kind of gone to classes through your department for mental health, yeah. So I kind of saw some stuff you guys were posting on social media. I thought it was freaking awesome.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, Trevor and myself. Trevor is my co-host of my podcast and him and I did the peer support group training.
Tim Fisher:That's what it was.
Jon Vargas:Okay, the peer support group training is. It's a list of people who come and support, you know, any type of incident that may have occurred. That's pretty intense, you know, and and it was a really powerful training and a lot of the people there you could tell they want to have some type of change, because a lot of people would do that training as a means to kind of add it to their portfolios so they can promote this was not that. You know this group of people that showed up there, you know they all had some type of experience where they've lost a loved one, they've had a really significant change in their life. They're forced to change. Yeah, circumstances came up, you know they. They were like, hey, I want to support people because I've been down in the muck and the shadows of myself and the darkness and I'm able to find that light and I want to show others that light. That's basically. You know why everyone was there.
Tim Fisher:That's really cool. So it was you and it's Trevor, right? Yeah, you're called. Still haven't met him yet. We've texted so sometimes. But I'm a huge support of what you guys are doing and I think is now is your podcast. Podcast again is grab lives podcast, right? Is that solely about mental health?
Jon Vargas:Yeah, I mean it's a, it's the entirety of the whole. I mean there's different pieces of it was, like, you know, regular health, god health is important, you know. It's all these pieces of the puzzle we're putting together, you know, to bring this awareness and a lot of our conversations relate to that, you know, but sometimes it can shift into like just humor.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, you know what I mean, like talking to him. It doesn't have to be about behavioral health, but it ends up being about it, cause, you know, our goal is to bring this just better idea of how it doesn't have to be so complex. You know what I mean. We talk about ours, our experiences, you know, I just like one of the episodes I talked about, like my intrusive thoughts, you know, like some of the shit that would come up randomly. I'm like dude, that intrusive thought was fucking crazy man, how did that happen to me? You know what I mean. It's like I remember this day and just being honest with ourselves, you know, and I think a lot of people will forgot how to do that.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, wow. So I mean, you're dude, you're a hundred percent correct, you really are, and what's really cool is when we have to go into detail. But it really sounds like your department is supporting you guys with your podcast, which I think is fantastic Like please keep going. Please please keep doing what you guys are doing, cause you know I think you're like me through the years. Now I have such a huge heart for first responders.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:You know, and it's like, it's almost like you said that the people that went to that class is because we know what they're going through. We're experienced at first day and we've got plenty of years on now we understand the highs and lows of the job and then what we have to deal with on our in our personal lives, taking that sometimes or take that home, you know, and we want to show people that there's hope. You know, hope is huge.
Tim Fisher:We had a full podcast on hope just in itself and how far that can take you to let you know that, hey, there's, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Is it going to be difficult? Fuck, yeah, it's hard. You're going to have to take a deep dive into yourself and figure out who you are and why. You know why you're processing things the way you are and bring that to light, Talk about it, have those tough conversations and fortunately some people don't want to have them because, yeah, it gets a little ugly and it's tough. And I always say this too be careful who you have the conversations with, because I've had made that mistake and talked to people and next, you know freaking, they're telling other people and dude, I hear you no man.
Jon Vargas:Like what the heck dude? Yeah, I got to choose your audience. I mean, when I'm at work, like the biggest joke is, like you know, making some reference to a frog at the dinner table, or whatever.
Tim Fisher:Right, yeah, of course.
Jon Vargas:It's funny, you know it is hilarious because it is strange. You know what I mean. But and then, and then on the side of the bag, hey man, can I go to some gamble?
Jon Vargas:And it's like it's hilarious, but yeah, dude, it's, it's. It's an honor to step into this place of having a platform and being vulnerable and being sovereign with ourselves to just discuss, you know, our inner world and expressing it to everyone else in order to see that everyone's really similar. You know what I mean. We all have some type of suffering in ourselves, and why? Why is it that we choose suffering instead of having a life of bliss and wonder? You know, and it's, and we're willing to admit that. It's not easy, man, and there's not one answer. It's just, it's a very complex situation, but, by the same token, there is light at the end of the tunnel, there's hope, you know, and then when people lose that hope and they, they choose something different. You know that's when I also can't get caught up in and take blame for that either. You know what I mean. Yeah, we've been.
Jon Vargas:I mean the reason why we started this podcast was because of a suicide, and it was the, the. That person became the martyr. You know, kind of like this Christ consciousness of creating this ripple effect to start something you know, and this is. You know, I think that one year anniversary is pretty. He's coming up for that person. Oh, very recent, yes, and we've been seeing a lot more recently. Some serious, serious issues come up in our department and it's happening, you know, nationwide, and I know all of the distractions that have been coming up with. You know, if you watch the news or whatever it's like, this is the real stuff here, man.
Jon Vargas:You know, the mental health is just the fact that you know there's a lot of fear involved and a lot of I don't know man, it's just, it's just wild stuff. So it's really important to anchor in right now more than ever, and find your beloved friends and family around you to support you, because that's the number one thing that really helps. You know, part of my medicine is my family. You know, dude, yes, yes, you know, it's just my in. Some of those family are chosen, you know, like really dear friends of mine.
Tim Fisher:Yeah.
Jon Vargas:It's just that is seriously important to have that within your arms reach. And one of our biggest things we had set up was like take a second call someone who you know, who's a firefighter, a police officer, a veteran just let them know that you appreciate them. And it's really powerful when you receive that text message. It's like when I'm talking to my mom or I'm talking to someone, I'm getting a text message from my mom like she's like hey, I love you, thank you for your work. You really you do a really hard job.
Jon Vargas:It does not feel good, it feels great man, you can't put a price tag on it, it's a simple text.
Tim Fisher:Simple text man.
Jon Vargas:So you know we really started that movement and you know if we could really instill, like how hard it is to just like do this job. You know those words are really powerful.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, yeah, I've always noticed when I'm, you know, I cut my family out for a while and I remember I started getting real secluded and I wasn't doing the things I'd normally do. As far as mountain biking, skydiving, and you know I do, I'm like outdoor guy. I'm just always doing something and I started not having the drive to do that anymore. You kind of feel like you just feel the walls kind of coming in, you know, and when you bring up family, that's, it's so important and, like you said, it doesn't have to be like blood, like our podcast crew. Do we become so tight? Yeah, we are just. You know, I love those guys, man, and those are my dudes that I can spill my guts out to and tell them anything, and it stays there and we're there for each other. You know, and a couple of them we've gone through stuff over the past year separately, each one of us, and we throw it in our group text to it and immediately it's like everyone's calling each other what's going on? Hey, let's hang out, let's do this, it's it's. I can't put a price tag on it, man. Yeah, you know, to fill that love from another human being, even just from another, honestly for me from another dude right Cause the way I was raised.
Tim Fisher:I love my dad but he was a really he was a tough dude Right. He was a green beret. He was in Vietnam. He was what? 20 plus years in green berets. He was just different and I understand that now. But you know, when you're growing up you want to get that like I love you, you know, or hug you. It's more like well, you know, the men provide you go to work and you come home you know it's like yeah you know I need some.
Tim Fisher:I need to spill my guts out here. I need some validation, some certain things you know and this is not there. So for me to have these men in my life that I can talk to and be open with and say, hey, like I'm struggling with this, or I had this call that we went through and it sucked, or do this just happened in my private life and I'm wrecked, I need, I need to talk to somebody. I need something to do. This show up. I mean, I would say probably not a lot of people have that. It's very, it's a beautiful thing. I'm so thankful for it and it's something you have to cultivate. You know you got, you want to keep them close. Like you said, it's, it's huge man.
Jon Vargas:And then it could always change. You know, like your tribe is always changing. Yeah, oh yeah, it's just you have to be um adaptable to change and people. You know I start having kids and stuff. I happened to like a group of friends of mine in the L they call got busy, you know, oh yeah. So it is cool to have um, you know, multiple um, groups of people you can rely on and those people you want to keep around the most. And uh, what's important too is to try to have like a mentor. You know it's really rad to have um, especially like male mentors. You know I have, I have a couple you know I can call who've um, they've, they've been around. You know, with with life experiences, and I don't really care for your diploma, I really care about your life experience, you know more than anything else, because that that means a lot to me.
Tim Fisher:I agree with you on that. I really do, man, I, I. There's people I've talked to, same. I have a couple of people I look up to and chat with and they don't have any special degree but, man, they got some life experiences. And when I say life experience, I mean they've made some bad decisions, right, you know, and they've paid the price. But gosh, they've. They've risen from the ashes, right. They've done the hard work and realized I don't want to do that again. You know, I'm living with this. I'm, you know, I made these bad decisions because of this. But here's why it came out because it changed. I did the hard work in it's difficult man. It really is so to have that.
Tim Fisher:I was reading a, I think it was. I think it was a few months ago. It somehow popped up on a feed, but it was talking about adults and it was like from age 20 to like 30, the amount of close friends you have, it's like. I don't know, maybe I might be speaking off here, cause I can't really remember, but it was like 10, but when you hit 30, and you go oh yeah, it's like two to three and then you hit 40 and it's like one you know.
Tim Fisher:So to know that you, you know, I can have this, this amount of people around me that I can talk to, even you, man, I mean what you've done for me has been huge right, and I totally forgot we went to high school together at some point.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:You know, it's like elementary school. Yeah, it's yeah it's crazy, right, and now we're in the both same career, but we're able to reconnect and it was in the, the Wildland Fire Academy.
Jon Vargas:That's right. Yeah, mentoring me in? Yeah.
Tim Fisher:So it's cool, tell me to do pushups and shit.
Jon Vargas:Oh dude, it was for purpose.
Tim Fisher:Look at you now, man, you're stuck. I'll do the pushups, no big deal, but yeah, it's like you. We get to have these friendships, you know, and there's such a deep connection and I wish more people could have that.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:Reality is probably not, but I try to encourage people. Man, you gotta, you gotta find, like you said, that tribe those people, and I've had friends where I've tried to depend on them. And then the tough times come. They freaking disappear and you're like yo, what the fuck, where's what happened? And then they show up a year later and you're just like nah, dude, you're fucked, you're done Like this is. I don't need a boomerang person coming in and out. I need someone who's going to be with me through the thick and thin.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:You know, and it's true, it's a very small amount of people that can, that, can really do that, but what you and you and Trevor are doing, please keep going. I want to encourage you guys like keep going, because there's highs and lows in podcasting, as you guys probably already noticed, dude.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, dude, I mean it's, it's been a challenge. And if I get caught up my own self righteousness, you know with with a heart-based project, I can't, you know, and that's when, that's when I have to take a step back and just let this thing run its course. You know, I think it's already created itself an own entity. It's got legs, it's got arms, it's crawling around, it's going to different places. I kind of just got to trust it and that's the way I'm seeing it. You know, and I think you know, if I lead this, this, this project, you know, with my heart and having my intention in the right places, it's going to go somewhere.
Jon Vargas:And you know, trevor and I had really, you know, set that in place when we first started this podcast. You know it wasn't about ourselves. You know it was about really helping other people and it was and it's it's only through our own mirroring of ourselves to others, you know, and like that's the only way we're doing it. You know, and you know the ups and downs with the podcast. It's all like the technical, logistical bullshit. You know what I mean.
Tim Fisher:I do.
Jon Vargas:It is, it's only the rest of it is cool, man, you know, it's just like talking and expressing ourselves. And Trevor's just, he's just a really, really good friend. I mean, he's a brother to me, you know, and we've gone to Costa Rica together and I've seen him grow in so many different ways and we both knew each other. When we were single, we, you know, kind of live this different lifestyle. We both went through our, our circumstances at the same time. That upheaval we've, we had, it was, it was seriously around the same time for one of us and or for both of us. And now we've just really transformed and evolutionized our lives and it was really cool to have a partner who can really support me and I can support him.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, but yeah, like the biggest thing with like that word, you know, I support the way we see. It is like you know, you've, you're seeing or you're teaching a toddler how to swim. Right, you can't do it for them. You have to have almost like your arms are underneath the water as they're learning how to swim. They have their floaties and everything and they're figuring it out on their own and that's like that true support, you know, but, and if they fall, you're going to cash them so they don't drown.
Tim Fisher:Right right right.
Jon Vargas:That's how we kind of see like supporting others and even in Campbell, you know, I support everyone to do their process but they got to get through it. You know, and I've done so much Campbell, that I know what's going on. You know and I know in my heart that that's the process and I can't do it for you. You got to do it yourself. That's where we're back again. You know, you got to do the work. If you don't do the work, if you don't want to do it, if you want to get a prescription as Annex and Prozac and Payments, you know it's just, you're just going to numb yourself into oblivion. You know, and you're not going to really get the point. You know these lessons that come to us in life they repeat themselves until you get the point or get the answer. That's just how it works.
Tim Fisher:You know, as my dad says, you learn, or hey, take another lap.
Jon Vargas:So you know, he's telling me dude.
Tim Fisher:I love that. Yeah, he told me that all the time as a kid and like two teenage years, and now as an adult, I'm like, oh my God, I get it.
Jon Vargas:You know, it's like you learn or you're going to take another lap and you're going to go through it again.
Tim Fisher:You and Trevor, you know you guys will never know the amount of lives you're going to touch through your platform, your podcast, if it gets my. My thought is like who knows what podcast we go? I hope all my friends do a podcast. It just blows up one day right, yeah. You know you get, then you can do it for a living. We're not going to have to go to fricking work anymore. We can just focus on this, Um. But if it doesn't, it's cool, because again, you're not going to know the lives you're touching.
Jon Vargas:Yeah.
Tim Fisher:Not everyone's going to reach out and tell you, hey, what you said on episode 26 at this point right. Dude. That hit home for me. I don't get it sometimes, but I will tell you there was. I got a message from a dude in Ireland, you know man yeah, it was wild right.
Tim Fisher:He's like hey, you know, you know, I just want to reach out and let you guys know. I don't even know how you found the podcast, but I listened this episode and it was pretty much saying it was impactful and it helped him and it got him to like rethink a few things and so, like, when you get those messages, it's cool, because there's times you're like God dang, like, do people like this?
Jon Vargas:Sometimes, you're like I'm not getting any response from people like, not like personally.
Tim Fisher:you know you can see the download, which is great, but you want feedback sometimes, right. And to you know, when I got that message to do, I was like, oh, wow, we're doing something right. Yeah, so for you guys, I mean the topics that you're talking about and how deep you go, because you both are very deep humans. So listen to you guys. Yeah, you know you're doing a good thing.
Tim Fisher:You actually I want to say you're doing a great thing, and even those times where the technical stuff becomes a pain in the ass because I know firsthand my friend, we started on a plastic table. Now we got a whole freaking studio going, but you don't, you know, you have no idea. I would say you probably won't know until the day you die Me. You're a baker and you see there and be like dude, you help this, this, this, this, and the cool part is it's like that. One person that was impacted by something you guys said because you're open and you're real and that's what a lot of people tell us is like I was nervous doing this podcast a lot of times cause I get very open on here. I typically don't open up to everybody just on the street and talk, but on here I'm very open and there's been a few people like hey, like that was huge what you said. I didn't had no idea you struggled with that. I'm open.
Jon Vargas:This is probably one of the hardest things for people. You know and like the way I see openness is like it's. It was one of the hardest things for me to do, yeah, um, in order for me to find this process of evolution for myself, and the moment I did that is when a lot of abundance came through and like abundance comes up in so many different ways. Man, it's not, it's not money, you know, it's not. It's not things, it's experiences and people and I was open this.
Jon Vargas:There's like this, this, this process of unfolding, and the way you can see unfolding in its unlimited form is that, if you like, take the idea of like origami right, like it's you're making, like these. You know, let's make a giraffe out of the, the small piece of paper, but if you unfold it, you know you can see that all those belief systems, those conditionings that created that, that piece in the first place, that giraffe, you can unfold it and rebuild something else If you want. That's the process of openness and if you can do that, it's a it's. It takes a lot of work and guts, but it it's also a space to be unlimited with. You know you can make anything or become anything you want, um, but you know those, those creases can be pretty deep and you got to flatten it on the, on the table, to help build something new. You know yeah and uh.
Tim Fisher:But yeah, man, openness is, is definitely one of those things, man and uh it's a beautiful thing because, at least, I always refer back to our profession because this is it's my craft, it's what we do. Yeah, you know, but in the firehouse, really, you know, I've never seen guys get super deep and open and be very um raw with each other.
Jon Vargas:You know, and have being a joke around grabbing a oh dude all day, right.
Tim Fisher:Like what are you doing, pussy? Like what are you crying for? You know, it's like I don't talk about any of this shit.
Jon Vargas:The fires, they. I'm going to lose everyone in a minute. Oh yeah, exactly.
Tim Fisher:But to hear guys I know that frivers listen and then you know they start saying oh my God, like dude. I know you. You went through that. You struggle with this Like, this is what I'm struggling with and I went through the same thing, you know, and so it's turned to something pretty. You know, in a way that's very beautiful where people are connecting and, you know, sometimes it's a little nervous cause you're being very open and very raw. But we're human man, like we're strug, like you said, struggle.
Jon Vargas:Everyone's struggle. Struggle bus, baby, struggle bus is real. Yeah, totally.
Tim Fisher:So I hope, I hope you guys just you know, do the highs and lows of podcasts and keep freaking going yeah.
Jon Vargas:We have these new things we started doing just in reference to, like, the fire service, because we, especially in our department, we do these things called drills. I'm sure you guys do the same thing. When you're a rookie or probationer, remember, you get in certified on an apparatus, a ladder truck or an engine, right, you're doing a fucking drill. So in front of everybody, right, in front of an audience of people who've already done these drills, right, and so it's like you're going into a house explain to these people about where everything is inside this house, when they've been living in that house for 30 years. It's like okay, but these drills we're setting up now is like these tidbits of like 10, 50 minutes, 20 minutes on something because podcasts can be pretty long, right, like you know, an hour or two hours, and we don't, we don't know, we don't have the time for that sometimes, right, so like sections Right I mean that's I'm honest about that, and I can't listen to a whole podcast.
Jon Vargas:sometimes I'm doing it within sections, you know. But these shorts are really cool to kind of bring in a little bit more detail about something that's been brought up in a in a in a in that episode or whatever. Yeah, and it's been kind of cool. We've been setting that up recently.
Tim Fisher:So that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Man, now I'm proud of you guys, and I think you might have told me this before, but you guys are going to more of these peer support classes too, right, yeah, we're coming up.
Jon Vargas:I'm going off on an October to a convention in San Diego. Um, the union had set it up and be really cool to go down there and, you know, meet some cool people and really see. Um, you know what type of support is out there, because the international association of firefighters they, you know, have these things that are set up and, um, and it's a lot of them are ran also by, like, the coast guard and all these things and they have these, um, beautiful thing that set up to help each other, you know. So I would like to also be knocking down on some doors to like get some better answers. You know, like that, um, that's, that's kind of like who I am.
Jon Vargas:I'm always been more of like an anarchist, punk rock person. You know. That's why this podcast is the way it is, cause Trevor and myself are having more of that mentality to to have more pushing the buttons to get more of a better response than the the old mundane bullshit we've been seeing. You know the stuff. That's the stuff that's not helping. You know what I mean. Uh, there has to be a change in the only way it's. It's got to changes, like you know, the image of like Martin Luther King walking down the streets. We're not like you know. People are getting fucking murdered. We're tired of it. We want to, like you know, rise up against it.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, yeah.
Jon Vargas:It's the only way you're going to get an answer.
Tim Fisher:Dude, I like it, man. So you know, I've been working behind the scenes, uh, quite extensively Stephen Clark has been helping me with this, Um but I've had this huge push to do an event called, uh, first responders night of hope.
Jon Vargas:Oh, I heard about this, he told me about it. Yeah, dog, it's been coming together really good.
Tim Fisher:Cool, really really good, and we're getting pretty good backing and uh, I'd be good to have you there.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, he told me about the dates, since like November or something like that.
Tim Fisher:Tentatively. It's probably going to get pushed to next year. Um, because I told him hey look, we're not in a rush, I want everything set in place. So it works out seamlessly and works really well because it's it's actually a big undertaking, it's because you're singing right, I will be doing the concert. Yeah, yeah, we're uh, we got a you know, professional musicians. Things are coming together good. The it's just there's a lot of moving parts. This is my first time. It's like a shot of dark to do an event like this. Right, we're hoping we got a venue that's about 500, six to 500, and to get the logistics, have everyone on board the band. How are we gonna advertise this? The foundation's going to the Iverson Foundation.
Tim Fisher:Her husband was a Cal Fire engineer who was killing fire. I think 2017 or 16, I could be wrong Her name is Ashley Iverson. I thought you meant like Alan Iverson. No, ashley Iverson, yeah, no, she's a sweetheart. When he was unfortunately killed, they just had a child. They have like two kids. So she started her own foundation for Firefighter Mental Health, which is now kind of turning into First Responder Mental Health. She's got huge organizations that pack her now and she's on board. She's all of it's going to be going to that foundation so she can help support First Responders.
Jon Vargas:Just do it on November. Man Ooh, come on. Logistics dog, logistics dog. What are the logistics? Are you going to?
Tim Fisher:It's like venue stuff and then also securing funds because it's not free.
Jon Vargas:Damn it's crazy.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, dude, it's quite, because you're talking like sound engineer, a lighting rig paying for the musicians, the building.
Jon Vargas:Set up a fundraiser, man Fill the boot.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, fill the boot. Well, we got a few nonprofits. That are the more we've been. I have a meeting tomorrow and one on Thursday that everyone's kind of starting to come on board. So it's coming together good. I think it'd be cool to have you there. I think it'd be pretty awesome, dude.
Jon Vargas:If it's next year, you got to hit me up. Oh yeah, we'll see. Well, I'll let you know, but yeah, probably maybe.
Tim Fisher:January is what we're looking at possibly.
Jon Vargas:Cool.
Tim Fisher:Just because we wanted to November, but it's also getting close to the holidays.
Jon Vargas:But yeah, I get that.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, dude. Yeah, like I said, it's the biggest undertaking I've taken on. Just as far as trying to put on a van, I didn't realize like it's a lot. It's a lot, dude. It's crazy, but I think it's a good thing because it's about our people, it's open for everybody, but that night's going to be about our people and it should be pretty good, dude, so I'm excited about it. Man, I think you should be there. Yeah of course.
Jon Vargas:I'm only open to these events and supporting. It's like I didn't see myself to be in this position that I'm in now these days, man, because I just I don't know. I'm really happy I'm even able to go back to work these days and show up and I'm just really grateful, man. It just really makes me happy that this path and supporting everyone in this type of work with preventing the suffering for all, it's interesting, it's becoming a place of humility that has truly brought me to understanding that it's not about me, it's my own self-righteousness, it's about everyone else. But our stories, when they're told, they can really make volume and when you listen and hearing so many different people's stories on the upheaval they've had, it's like, man, we've all done it and been through it and it's great to bring all those people together. So I'd be really rad, man.
Tim Fisher:Yeah, I think it's interesting. I always tell people because I have my faith, dude, do I go to church every Sunday? No, Do I still tell dirty jokes? Absolutely. I'm saying I still throw out cuss words every now and then, but where my faith has gone and how deep it has become through my own digging in of self and realization has been huge. And realizing it is about people. Like you said, I always say love, grace and forgiveness, man. Just be there for people, dude, and I just want our people, our first responders, to know you're not alone, man. You don't have to hide in the shadows with these issues. There's a lot of us that have been through it and are still going through it, that we can do this together. We can get through it, man.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, we had an episode on shadow work and describing what that is. A lot of people don't understand that word shadow or what that means. And it's just like a piece of you that's with you and it wants to make itself known. And Carl Jung, who was like this famous psychologist, had stated unless you go through the shadows of yourself, you'll never find your true self. And people avoid it. And until some type of situation occurs, that's when the shadow comes up and it's knocking on your door. So to do that word, the shadow work is like where it's at baby. It is fucking hard, it sucks, but you know what? In the end you're able to see yourself clear. It's like this famous saying is like in the midst of fog, it's important to stay still and wait for it to pass. Ooh.
Tim Fisher:My man, that was good, that was good.
Jon Vargas:But that's the kind of way the shadow works. It presents itself to you Because it just wants to peek in. We use this beautiful analogy with Peter Pan. Now he's always fighting his shadow and all this shit. So yeah, my shadow works. It's rough.
Tim Fisher:Come on, man John Dude, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Jon Vargas:Of course dude.
Tim Fisher:Again, dude, again. You live on the street. You don't live too far. I know You're going to be on quite a few more times.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, we got to get Trevor on here, man. I reached out to him. He's just so busy man, so hoping to get on here.
Tim Fisher:I'd love to have both of you guys on at the same time. Hey, I'm a lot. I mean whatever you guys want to do, whenever I know he's busy, but both of you have an open seat here anytime. We're in full support of your podcast. Whatever you guys need you let us know. It's a beautiful thing that you guys are doing. It's going to it's it's. It is making a difference. It's going to continue to make a difference. So thank you for coming on again and being so open and talking about everything. It's huge and I hope people will get something from this man that there's there's hope, there's a way out, and any day above the dirt's a good day, no matter how bad it gets, man, that's. That's one thing I've learned. Life can get tough and I've had some pretty terrible days, but it's gotten good.
Jon Vargas:Yeah, and like in reference to like suicide prevention month, right Like yeah we have to learn more about it and and know, like you know, how do we find ourselves in the midst of ending our lives and making that choice. You know, and and there is, there is always a way. You know, you don't have to make that decision. So you know, we're not behavioral health specialists. You know what I mean. So, but it's important to listen, because I've been through through suicide ideation. I've seen it, been face to face with it, and instead of fighting it, I sat with it, you know, to decide if it's my truth or not. Like it ran true, didn't, and that's how I decided against it, you know. So sometimes you got to sit with things, yeah, instead of running away, because if you run away, if you push back, it's going to come back even stronger. So the truth, dude.
Tim Fisher:Oh well, thanks again, dude John. I love you, dude, you are a beautiful human being, my friend. Thanks, tim yeah keep keeping you and knew what you're doing. Man, you inspired me like a son of a gun, Thanks dude. So appreciate your work, brother. Yeah, but all your help. Oh, dude, anytime, anytime here for you guys. You just let me know, dude, we're going to do. Let's go on three. You ready? Yeah, let's do this. One, two, three.
Jon Vargas:Let's go.
Tim Fisher:Bye everybody. Thank you so much for listening in. If you like what you just listened to, please do a five star review on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify. Please follow us on YouTube, on Instagram and on Facebook. And a big shout out to Stephen Clark, our sound editor. He's a huge part of this team that is unseen. It's 8, 9 Barbers, our first sponsor. Look good, feel good, be great. It's two locations Orange, california and Long Beach, california. Book your appointment online 8, 9barberscom. Bye, everybody.