Creates art podcast interview. Dr. Joshua Caraballo. Hello friend. This is Timothy Kimo. Brian, your head instigator with create art podcast, where I bring my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner critic. In this episode, I'm going to be talking with Dr. Joshua Caraballo, who is an industrial organizational psychologist, currently residing in Denver, Colorado.
Now his career trajectory has centered on the themes of inspirational storytelling and applied science for the sake of human betterment, especially for those who have been historically marginalized and oppressed. Joshua has a deep passion for For the human flourishing, awe inspiring experience in nature and anything involving cats. Now you may be asking yourself, hey Tim, how do you get these guests on the show? Well, what I do Is I subscribe to a service called pod match.
And what that does is that matches me with other people that are interested in the same things that I'm interested in, namely for me, the arts. And that's how I ran into Dr. Joshua Caraballo. He reached out to me and heard the show and thought it would be a great idea for him to be on the show. And he has a new book out that you're going to hear a lot about.
And that new book is called I'm not dead yet, how I turned my misfortunes into strengths and links to Dr. Carabello's website and how to get the book will be in the show notes. So make sure you look out for those. Now, the sound quality on this interview is not 100%, so I'm going to let you know that ahead of time here. So if you hear any squelches or any weird things like that, that's what's going on there. Just using a new service, which is called Squadcast.
And I've used it in the past and gotten decent results with it. This time was not 100 percent perfect, but I thought instead of rerecording everything, it was important to get this conversation going. To you, because there's a lot of great tidbits in here that you're going to want to write down and you're going to want to go ahead and get the book as well. So without further ado, here's my interview with Dr. Joshua Caraballo. Folks, I have the privilege of having Dr. Joshua here with me today.
Dr. Joshua, you're out there in Colorado. How is it? Oh my goodness. It, the weather is so beautiful this week. Um, anyone that knows about Colorado weather. Denver specifically is where I'm at, uh, will know that the weather here changes drastically, uh, sometimes day to day to day, hour to hour.
So this week is one of those weeks where I'm taking a big, Breath of fresh air and saying, wow, I'm so happy that the weather is just, I would use the word perfect, but it's almost perfect because nothing is perfect. Been out to Denver myself. Oh gosh. It's been 10, 000 and 12 hours out there. And I got to tell you, the air out there, it tastes like metal to me. Anyways, there's a big independent bookstore downtown. I forget the name of it. The art scene there in Denver is top notch.
Thank you so much, yeah. I'm originally from South Florida, so it's a big difference between Denver and South Florida for several reasons. But yeah, the art scene here is tremendous.
So I always say, or at least I have been saying for the last three years that I've been here, It's the best decision I've ever made, and I tell everybody, although other Denverites here probably don't want me to do this because we're getting a little crowded here, but uh, you should definitely come visit, and if you really love it here, come and live, because it's, it's just so amazing to be around the mountains and the outdoors, there's so many people that truly appreciate that,
and it, it does so well for our art. As like being outside and it's really inspiring being out there. I, like I said, it's been over a decade since I've been there, but I know when I was there, went to the bookstore, went around town, saw the mountains and how can you not have a good time out in Denver? Yeah. I think that bookstore is called the tattered cover. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Such an amazing bookstore. There's also another one in Boulder called the Boulder Bookstore.
Very easy to remember. And it's nondescript when you see it. It doesn't say Boulder Bookstore. It just says bookstore at the front, but it is gigantic. It's three stories. It is a dream to be inside. So again, if anybody ever visits, please make it a point to go to that bookstore. You will be so surprised. And if you go out and visit, you automatically have a friend with Dr. Gott. So that's right, I'm talking to him and let him show you around town.
And I'll definitely, when I come out to Denver, don't know when I'll knock on your door and be like, Hey, let's go around, let's go to the Tatters bookstore. Let's get right into the yard here. Now I do know, and it just full transparency. I have not read it yet. But you have a book called, I'm not dead yet.
I want to talk about that title first and foremost, because when I saw that I'm of an age and it made me think of Monty Python's Holy Grail where, you know, um, I'm going to tell you that this book is not about Monty Python, Holy Grail. So can you tell me a little bit about what, why that title? It's very eye catching, but why that title?
Yeah. First, I didn't realize this when I was looking at or thinking about different titles for the book, but I was definitely thinking about Monty Python, Holy, the Holy Grail. That is one of my favorite movies ever. And that line, With the old man or older gentleman, if you will, who is just say, I'm not dead yet. I'm still alive.
It just it stayed with me and I I saw that when I was young and I just thought it was One of the most hilarious things I had ever seen in my life So the title actually I can't say it comes from that, but it definitely I was informed early on in my life with Performance the way people express themselves, especially through mass media And even in more localized, like theater productions, et cetera, has always gravitated towards me and that informs everything that I do.
And that's, that's the type of artist that I am, a performance artist. And we can talk more about that, but back to the name of the book, I've been through a lot in my life. I've faced a lot of adversities, and although I consider myself to be young ish, I'm 47 years old. People might think, why are you even thinking about death? But I've lived a life where I've had to think about death for quite some time in a lot of different ways.
So when I turned 18 years old, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and I was in stage four, and for those who don't really know about stages of cancer, stage four is usually the very last stage, where it metastasizes, if I'm saying that word correctly. I'm a doctor, but not that kind of doctor. I'm an, I'm an industrial organizational psychologist, a little bit different. But, That was the first time that I ever had to square away with the possibility of dying.
Especially when it came back a second time. I went through the first time about six months of chemotherapy, and then two months later, As should happen, another scan is done just to see what's going on, and all of my cancer was in my chest. So I had one tumor the size of a football, the other one was the size of a golf ball, and in the book I talk about how it's interesting and a little bit funny how doctors use these analogies that come from sports.
In some ways it's fitting, and in some ways it's like, I don't know, I don't know how much of the game I want to be involved in right now, especially when it has to do with a football in my chest. But there's a litany of other things that I've experienced, but I could just focus on those two things for the moment. This changed my life as well, as you could probably imagine, especially when I found out two months later that the cancer had come back.
It was very aggressive, and when I was first given treatment, I was told that there was like a 95 percent chance that everything would work out. I would be in remission and life would move on. I was a young man. I was 18 years old. Don't worry about it. That's not what happened to me. And because of all of those things and the way that it happened, I knew in my heart of hearts, I don't feel this way now, as a preface, but during that time I knew in my heart of hearts that God was punishing me.
Now why do I say that? I happened to grow up in a Jehovah's Witness household and I was told at a very young age that being gay was wrong. And if you ever acted on that, That you would not be able to live through the Great Tribulation or Armageddon, as it's sometimes referred to as. And as silly as that might sound to some people, when you are being brought up in your formative years in a religious household, and that's all you know, you truly believe that.
And, I probably knew that I was gay before I even knew what sex was because it wasn't about sex, it was, and that's the other thing, when people reduce a gay man's life or being queer, generally speaking, to the sexual act, it just, it boggles my mind because we're human beings, obviously, and there's so much else than sex that exists as part of our experience here in life and being queer people. Just, I'll leave that for what it's worth.
But I knew that I was gay because I knew there was an attraction that I had and there was beauty, and artists know this. That is separate than sex. The beauty that we see in the world, like with a tree, is not because, and forgive me for just going there and being silly, we don't want to have sex with a tree. We find that the beauty of that tree is so amazing that it touches our heart. It flows through our blood. That's being gay to me. That's how I saw the males form.
Other males in my life had this sort of spiritual connection to and that's the best way that I can explain that and how I knew that I was gay but that was the conundrum because as a young person and then understanding even not knowing how to put a label on I am gay I just knew that there was an attraction to this male form but I also knew that was wrong and I it was wrong because it was taught to me and sasphoric to the age of 18 it makes sense to me that I
thought that this was God's punishment. for everything that I had tried so hard to get rid of in my life. But I realized something, the more I tried to get rid of it, the harder it became to get rid of, because I was actually trying to get rid of myself. I was trying to get rid of who I am instead of accepting that, loving that, and embracing that. I do not say all of these things, and this is one of the things I always like to say when I talk about my past.
This is not to disparage religious people. This is not to disparage my family. I understand that when they brought me up, they did it out of love that when they decided to become Jehovah's witnesses, regardless of how I feel or how it's affected me, they did it because they felt it was the best thing in their life, the structure and community and religiosity and spirituality that religion gave my parents. met their needs and provided them with something that they felt was great.
And because of that, they decided that they wanted to share that with their family. And. I don't fault them for that. What I do understand now is that sometimes the very thing that people see as a potion for themselves that they drink and think is wonderful can be a poison for others. And that's exactly what had happened to me. I don't think it's about pointing fingers.
I think it's about making it right for myself, reversing the damage that has been done, which I will probably have to keep doing for the rest of my life. Although I feel like a good portion of that is now behind me. Learning how to love myself, learning what my relationship with God is, learning how to renegotiate all the relationships in my life with people who think that I should not be on this earth.
Sometimes that means cutting them off, sometimes that means like figuring out some sort of semblance of how to love each other regardless of those differences. And everything in between and all of that is so beautiful and all of it has informed my art, which I think is great that, that my God, that's awesome.
I just want to reach through the screen and give you a big hug after that, because that you're, you're talking my life, honestly, because I came up with similar, very religious upbringing came out as bisexual when I was in the air force. And this wasn't a time. So. Military, don't ask, don't tell. Luckily, I, uh, ran into a, uh, group of people that became my adopted family, my family of choice. And now I'm, I've been married now for, uh, 11 years, uh, to my wife. We've got kids.
I always remember my parents telling me, We're doing the best with what we have. And this is what we can offer you. And I'm just trying to do the best with my kiddos. And offer what I have for them. Just opening up doors for them. A Lines. And all that. So enough about me. Let's talk about you. Cause I I'm there with you, man. You mentioned performance art and I'm a theater kid. So I've done a lot of performance art myself. Yeah, I was in theater in high school.
So that probably explains a lot about my choices, but with performance art for you, a lot of people don't understand what the deal is with performance arts. They. We have the flash mobs and people scratch their head and go, why are they doing that? Describe the way and the meeting with your performance art. Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for asking it. I say performance art, but I'm a theater person as well. So let me start there. Those are my foundations.
But the reason why I use the term performance art is because you can't always do theater. It's hard. It's hard to get into, it's hard to maintain, it's highly, let me just put it, it's very difficult to get in, um, and it's definitely, it's definitely very difficult to make a living, just like a lot of other types of art, right, and I really wish it was the opposite. But my heart will always be in the theater.
When I was really young, I'd say four, five, six, I, before, and this is before, obviously, I knew what theater was, acting, performance art, any of those things. For more information, visit www. FEMA. gov As a natural inclination as to who I was and what I wanted to do, I obviously during that time I was reading the Bible a lot and the Bible stories were being read to me, and so I decided to enact the Bible stories for my parents and I would do it for their anniversary.
We were not allowed to celebrate any holidays or like birthdays, but one of the things that we did celebrate. Every year was my parents anniversary. I know that sounds counterintuitive to some who may not know about you being a jobless witness, but just take my word for it. That was the one thing we were allowed to do and we embraced it. Every year, I so much looked forward to preparing myself to do a role in front of my parents. And sometimes I would incorporate my brother or my cousins.
But that was something, again, that nobody told me I needed to do. Nobody pushed me in that direction. It was just something that was inside of me. And that means a lot to me. So regardless of how far I get away in life, like during my nine to five or all the other things that I've done, getting a doctoral degree, nothing has made me feel totally fulfilled and whole, like performance art and theater. And. I realize that's who I am as part of my identity and will never go away.
One of the most memorable sort of performances that I put on as a youngster is actually in the book where I performed Jezebel. I don't know if anyone knows Jezebel. About the story of Jezebel, but she gets pushed down from the top of a tower and gets eaten by dogs at the bottom. There's a lot more to the story, but that's pretty much the takeaway. And the thing that remains with people the most, the shocking, the shock value, if you will. Right.
And although there are like stories, I'm sorry, there are learning lessons to all the biblical stories. When I was doing this. I felt like there was something inside of me that was not only wanting to tell the story, but also help people see the value of what that story was about. And so what, what I think is so great about the theater and performance art, generally speaking, is that it helps communities come together, just like the movies.
But I think the theater does this even more and it makes us really contemplate why we exist and why we treat people the way that we do. All the good, the bad, the indifferent, everything. And there is nothing like it in the world. It is also a spiritual connection to me. So now that I'm not so much religious, I find the theater and performance art to be my religion, if you will. If I'm, if I can call it that, but definitely my spirituality. That's awesome to hear.
And with arts, we were talking earlier about John Coltrane and he's my favorite jazz artist and a lot of his stuff, especially in his later years, very spiritual when, when you're dealing with the spirituality in arts, how do you find that difference than religious? How is that spirituality different? Yeah, there are plenty of ways that it is different. And please don't take this as a dodge to your question. In my mind, I think, for me, I look at the connections.
Again, I'm happy to talk about the differences, because I know there are several. But the reason why I look at those connections is because there are obvious differences. Like praying to God, and in this day and age, what that has been used for as a weapon against Marginalized individuals, as an example, can spark or create this sort of animosity towards religion as generally speaking.
And so just speaking about it can turn people away because it's just like, Oh no, we're not going to talk about religion. It's just too, it's like politics, those sorts of things. Yeah. You're in art for the most part, you're not praying to God. You're not singing songs in a congregation as an example. But the reason why I say there's so many commonalities. Also is because what I have found so profound in my life and what I as an artist is looking at the ways that we are all connected.
I love the philosophy of looking at the universe and seeing how everything is connected in some way, shape or form. And I want to be careful because there are exceptions to everything. It's not an all or nothing sort of thinking. Somebody who's gone through something traumatic in their life.
Like when I had cancer, as an example, or a woman who was abused, et cetera, all those atrocities that exist, I hesitate to say that the universe is connected everything and that this was all happening for a reason. That's when I draw the line and I say, there are exceptions to everything. It's not a panacea to talk about everything in our lives. It's more or less like. When you feel the spiritual connection, that's what I mean.
It's like, it's feeling like the universe is giving you a sign or a symbol or, or some, and you can call that religious. You can call that spiritual. You can call that the universe. You can call it God. You can call it art, whatever you want, but I have had the privilege, if you will, to be in congregations for the first 18 years of my life and to feel.
Inside with my heart, what it feels like to have this solidarity with a bunch of other people who are praying and singing and talking and congregating all on the same page, that's the community that was built. And although the community also had ways of pushing people away like myself, those commonalities is what I see as the things that I want to extract. And the very same things that are offered in communities like theater and in arts.
And especially for those who may be struggling and trying to find their community. Right now, I joined a choir this year, early this year. And again, I lump that under performance art. Because singing, It's such a wonderful feeling, but that's another community where I'm accepted, I go in, and I feel that same spiritual feeling that I felt many years ago, where I was like, wow, this is amazing. It's also important because it helps me to understand why people do what they do.
It's easy to step aside and say, those people They're weird. They're all, they're talking about living forever on a different planet and they're doing this and they're doing that. Come on. There's no hell. There's no heaven. They're weird. They're stupid. All that kind of stuff. But there's a good reason why they get together. They have their good justifications. There aren't any good justifications for disparaging other people, but I see that.
That's why I look at those commonalities and it's not to ignore the hatred and the negativity. It's to say, how can I learn from that? And extract that, and the arts happen to offer another venue to feel those very same feelings. So I can replace religiosity with community in the arts, and I can still feel fulfilled. Absolutely. My wife and I, we just went to go see at a dinner theater, Murder on the Aquarium Express.
I've never seen play and that community that you're talking about, so we're like sitting right next to people almost on labs and some of the actors, so some of the servers or the demo, uh, one of the people that committed murder with us. Serving us. So it was that instance, Hey, we're all here. We're all enjoying it. We're all being entertained and enjoying what's happening there. And live theater, I'm going to toot my horn with live theater until the day I die. There is nothing like it.
You can go see a movie, you can whatever, but seeing that live theater really connects you with the person next to you because you're sitting there and you're enjoying the same thing. With your books that has come out, I'm not dead yet.
Again, I'm thinking, I can't get Monty Python out of my head, so forgive me on that, but I know for myself, when I've published for, self published for, books of poetry, and for me, and it's been that number of years since I've done that, but for me, I let my vulnerability go to about, I don't know, maybe 75 percent that for you, how was it publishing that book, telling your story, talking about the cancer and the upbringing?
Did you feel, uh, you know, naked to the world and, Oh my God, people are going to read this or where did you save a little bit for yourself? No, it was hard. It was really hard. This was at times very grueling for me. And just to give you a preview, because I don't want to give everything away, but I was sexually abused when I was young by a cousin, a female cousin. I ended up abusing drugs and alcohol for quite some time.
It was part of that deleterious cycle, if you will, where I just started destroying myself. I didn't care about myself, I didn't care about the world, and I actually ended up in prison. And so what I just revealed to you is very personal, right? It's wow, that's a lot. And I still haven't given you everything, but that's the major stuff in my life. And the reason why I say that is not so people can feel bad about for me. It's to show you the point that you're making here.
It's that yes, in order to spill all that out for the world. To see you have to be vulnerable and if there's a such thing as 150 maybe I would use that But i'd say any type of vulnerability you're 75 Even if somebody does 10 I think that's what art is all about.
It's about being vulnerable so that other people in the world Can connect to that when you're looking at a character on the stage or in the movies or Even if you're looking at a work of art What makes it profound is when you can see yourself or circumstances in your life, past, present, or otherwise, that come through, and it says something to you that stays with you. That's what makes it so profound.
And there are so many people out there that are struggling that may not have gone through similar things as me, but may be thinking to themselves, I don't know, this is a lot, like how This, this is just too much for me. And I always feel like if I can go through all of those things and be okay. Cause no, I'm not trying to pretend like I'm perfect. I'll always have something to work on to become better, but I'm, I'm here and I'm not dead yet, right?
It's like, if I can do that, then the smaller things in life, it doesn't mean they're less important. But they're doable, right? If you're not dying from cancer, if you're not in prison, being told that you're gonna die, get raped and killed there, because it's such a horrible place to be that there's a lot of people that are looking out to just destroy you as a person, I think it's okay. If I can get through those situations, then I can get through a bad day at work. You know what I mean?
And sometimes I even forget, even though I've been through so much in my life. Sometimes I need that friendly, friendly reminder. Sometimes I give it to myself and I surround myself with people who are also very loving and supportive, which is, I know a privilege that I have, but sometimes they help to remind me as well. And they're very loving about that. And they say, you're very upset. Now you have a lot going on in your life, but this is nothing. This is okay. And I love that.
Sorry if I got a little bit off track with your original question, but it's yeah. When I first started. Looking into writing this book, it was a few years ago and I, I got to the part of a few different parts that I was trying to write and I just had to stop because I started crying so much I couldn't even see in front of me. And what it was doing was it was reopening some of these wounds and I realized I'm not sure if this is the the right time for me. So let me process some more.
Let me talk to some more therapists. Let me, you know, live my life and I'll, I'll come back to this. But I always knew something just like everything else in my life. If something keeps repeating itself and keeps coming back to me, that is a sign from the universe as far as I'm concerned that I need to do this. And my, and the book, my memoir was one of those things. And then I moved to Denver almost three years ago and I don't know. I can't tell you.
I wish I could say it was the mountains that did it. I don't know for sure But moving here did something where it clicked it could have been time Maybe I needed those three extra years, whatever it was, but then I became ready to write this thing and it took me Let me see. It was like 4 14 months to write it and It just flowed. I still cried a bit.
I thought you know, there's still some things there will always be that way but I wasn't, it didn't stop me in my tracks where I could not complete my art. And I call this art, although it's based in reality, but it's still like, it's recounting all of these situations from the past. So there's an art form too, where you have to pick and choose what details you use and all that kind of stuff. So short answer is yes, it was very hard. No, that's perfect.
I'm just, I need to go get this book like tomorrow. That's all there because I am fully invested in it so much. I was invested in it before just from the title, but now just hearing you talk about it, you had mentioned your, your day job, organizational psychologist and all that. Myself, I'm a program manager. I deal with financial wellness for the federal government. Probably not. Artistic, and I'm putting that in huge, yeah, it's totally artistic, Joelmo.
With your 9 to 5 and your artistic practice, how do you reconcile the two? How do you gain that inspiration to go ahead and do the art after 9 to 5? Yeah, what a great question. I think it's just being real with myself. We spent a good portion of our lives and I say we, but I really mean me. And I'm sure there's other people who feel similarly, but especially given my age, as I had mentioned, being 47, growing up in a world where we're taught, Oh, you're a man.
You're supposed to act a certain way. When you feel negative emotions, you're supposed to control those things, especially in the workplace. And I've come to this place in my life and, and psychology has been very helpful in helping me get there. Where I've been able to process a lot more things in real time and not feel like I'm doing something bad or wrong or that is socially unacceptable.
And part of that is just being really, not only true to myself, which means that you have to know yourself, but also being assertive with those around me to let them know what my needs are as well. Now, I'm not perfect at this, but examples of this are when I'm frustrated at work. And I'm unable to process that during that time. And sometimes you can't because you have to keep moving. You have to do your work, but what ends up happening is that it culminates.
I think a lot of people understand that you're not, you shouldn't really bottle up your feelings, but we do it anyway. And the confounding effects of that are tremendous. The release of that, when you're able to, is very important. And so, I feel very privileged that I work for a company where, and I have people that I'm surrounded with at work and at home, where I'm able to process, for the most part, in real time. When something is bothering me, I say, I need to get this off my chest.
And so I find those safe spaces. I also happen to be in charge of a department. So that's what I mean when I say I'm privileged in that way because I get to set the tone. And I've also been on a lot of other situations where the boss, if you will, although I don't consider myself a boss, but the person in charge just did not give those opportunities. So what happens when that's the case?
Mindfulness breathing exercises, which are taught to actors from, for the most part, Early on when you're training has something has been something that has been very helpful for me And again, sometimes I just forget oh my gosh I I haven't done breathing. I haven't done any mindfulness and I need it because i'm like i'm all over the place and My heart is racing. I also suffer from anxiety.
So But it makes sense after everything i've been through in my life that I overthink everything and so It's very important for me to bring myself to a place where I'm able to calm myself because that's how I'm able to get in touch with my feelings, get in touch with myself, and then be compassionate. I think that's very important. Now, even with all those tools that we have at our disposal, we're still going to be very busy working a nine to five and then doing some sort of artistic thing.
Right after this podcast, believe it or not, I'm a glutton for I will be going into rehearsals for a play and yeah, I can't do this every day. I need to be careful I need a lot of self care during this time. And the other thing that I won't do is back to back plays Because I will need to take a break after this That all goes back to people who are listening to this would be like, what does that mean to me?
What it means for you is that you need to be in tune with who you are, understand where your threshold is. And sometimes that takes a little bit of touching ghost. You know, you're experimenting with that and then you seal it. But if you're not in tune with who you are, you won't even know it. If you spent your entire life ignoring.
the signs that your body, your mind, your spirit have been giving you, and maybe even the universe, for whatever reasons, and I'm one of those people, that's why I say that, then you're not going to be able to know when the time is right for you to pivot, to stop, to keep going, etc. And that's really important. I, I, I can really relate to that because, because my nine to fives were in what's called the resilience.
Everything that you're saying there, I'm like, man, I hear this all the time, day in and day out. But I think for the artist, and when you said actors get this breathing training and checking in with their bodies. I'm just thinking about all the other artists out there, like musicians that don't get the training, but an actor does, and thank God I got that training a long time ago. Being resilient and being kind to yourself.
I recently had an interview where I was being in, I was actually on the other side of the microphone being interviewed and, and the interviewer asked me something to the effect of what, People, what do people not know about you? And I said to him, I'm not kind to myself.
I'm the type a I'm like, I'm not busy enough and don't give myself enough rest, but I'm learning, especially with my day job and just being a, uh, better artists than I was when I was 18, when I was starting writing poetry, doing theater. At the ripe old age of 51. So you got a couple of years to go, but I'm learning that. And I probably started when I was 45, uh, 47 learning you need to take care of yourself, whether it be for your family, for your job, I'm an artist.
I always introduce myself as I'm husband, father, artist. And that's how I keep all in, in perspective for myself. Learning to take care of myself as an artist is tough to do because we, and it sounds like to me, you have a lot of ideas going through your head that you would love to see either on the stage, on the page or sing for us. I think that's a huge point. We all need to take advantage of with organizational psychology. How does that teach us how to be resilient?
Bring in that nine to five. Into our artistic practice. How does that teach us? I love this question because going back to that synergistic mindset, I love how psychology is informed my art and my art has informed psychology. And there, there's a subset of IO psychology and psychology, generally speaking, that's called positive psychology. And what I'd like to say is number one, the first thing that you learn about positive psychology is that it is not about ignoring negativity is not Pollyanna.
It is about acknowledging negativity in your life, but choosing not to focus on that. So you, Let yourself be in that. Did Nietzsche say this, something about if you look into the abyss long enough you become the abyss, something like that? I love that, although I probably messed up the quote. And, the reason why is because, allow yourself to process like I had said before, negative emotions allow yourself to be there for as long as you need to, but then move on.
And what that means is Processing time looks like for people is going to be different across the board. So I might get really angry about something that takes me days to get over because maybe it triggers something that happened in my childhood, whereas somebody else will be over it and just five minutes. And so it's not about comparing, contrasting during their time. It's about understanding, again, who you are and why you're having to take five days or whatever it is to process something.
And then being okay with that. And then moving on and learning from it. And then one of those models that I really appreciated and I started to institute in my own life is called PERMA. And PERMA is P E R M A. I can go over the acronyms really quickly here. And what I like to do is tie it to running. Running, if I may, because I, I don't run as often as I used to, but running happens to be one of those activities that help me to tap into every facet of PERMA.
And there are artistic endeavors that help me do the same, but I'm going to go to running because I've used it before, and it's easy for me to remember all the different ways that it's on PERMA. So the P in PERMA. Is positive emotion and positive emotion could be something like your favorite candy bar But what you have to be really careful about with positive emotion, whether it's sex candy bars or something other is that every?
Positive emotion has a threshold if you have a cookie, it feels really good, especially your favorite cookie But maybe after the third or fourth cookie you start getting diminishing returns And so that's the p and when i'm running I feel really good. I may not feel good You Before I run because that's really hard. I'm like, I don't know.
I'd rather watch tv But it feels good once I start and then it's then it hurts because like i'm doing something that's very rigorous And then in the middle of my run, sometimes i'll get this runner's high which feels really good again And then it goes back to oh this hurts. I oh man, when is this going to be over with? And then when i'm done I get another hit of dopamine because I just finished something and so There's the threshold. I can't run forever.
I can only do about three miles You If I do more than that, I start to get really serious, diminishing returns. The P is a part of how you build flourishing and well being in your. The E is engagement. And in order to engage with the world around you, you need to understand what your strengths are. And then the idea behind. The E or engagement is that you try to forge ways in your life where you are creating things that actually help you with your strengths.
One of my biggest strengths and anybody can take this assessment that's online. It's called the values and action assessment. It's free. So I'm not pitching you anything that would cost you money, but you'll have to give your email address. So maybe if you had one of those emails that you didn't mind giving out, what this does, there's a 32 or 34 different strengths. That have been validated in the research. Let me fast forward.
Cause I don't want to make it all about the assessment, but my number one strength for years, cause you could take it every so often, every few years, just to see if your strengths have changed is the appreciation of beauty and excellence. And how wonderful is that? It makes so much sense to me. And so when I'm trying to forge engagement, I try very hard to incorporate whether I'm at work or otherwise, some sort of appreciation of beauty and excellence. That could be in a report.
It could be in the mountains when I go hiking on weekends. It could be so many other things, but that's the E. The R is relationships and it can't just be any relationships. It has to be positive relationships. Oh, let me go back to the engagement for, I'm so sorry. Appreciation of beauty and excellence for me when I'm running is the appreciation of that I get to run outside. I only like to run outside. I don't like running on a treadmill. That's just my preference.
And the reason why is because it's so beautiful, especially here in Denver. To run around outside the ours relationships and there has to be good positive relationships And it can happen many different ways, but for running it's building that community Just like in the arts where you have a running community, even if you run by yourself Because then you can go online and talk to people about, Oh, hey, what's your pace? What kind of, do you listen to music or do you not?
All those little things you get to learn, even if it's not happening in real time with other people. Those are the relationships you forge. M is meaning and meaning is just that you need to live for more than yourself. So this could go back to the community. This could be something like my justification for running is for my partner so that I live a longer time. It can be for my parents who are aging and I just want to be there for them. All sorts of things, but it can't be for, for yourself.
If you're engaging in meeting, it has to be for. for something other than that. That's where spirituality comes in as well. And then the A is Achievement. And this is, for running it's a no brainer. When I finish that run, I feel like I've achieved something. And in the arts, once you complete a project, that's the achievement. I'm sure people in their mind, I'm hoping, are already connecting it to their art. Running could be a form of art as well. It's a sport, right? Hopefully that's helpful.
And there's many other things, but that's my favorite model to use, implement, and talk about and to help other people implement it in their lives as well. It works. The caveat here is you want to try to get something in your life. That hits on every aspect. It's not always possible. So even if you just get two or three, that's fine. The point is to just try things at the challenge yourself to hit on all the aspects of per month. I've hit almost all of them.
Relationships is the thing that I'm working on the most. That's my weakest one. I can tell you that right now, but I'm listening to this going, and especially the achievement part at the end, it's getting that project on whatever it is, doesn't have to be perfect, but it's just, I did this. I made this. I've got art all over my wall, as you can see here, and it's not what it looks like. A fourth Corridor on crack painted it, and I'm okay with that. It's fun. It's in my office.
Some of them have actually been shown in galleries. That's why they're in my office, because they haven't been bought. But I look at it, and I go, I did that. Most people that I know that I've worked with, they don't do art. They don't write books. They don't make music.
It'll do podcasts, podcast guy says that achievement really, and I think sometimes when people are first getting into art, they focus maybe a little bit too much on that achievement versus the others because to me it feels, and I'm not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV or on this podcast, but it seems to be like a lot of this builds upon each other.
And then when you pay for achievement, if you've got your other jobs in a row or most in a decent spot, that achievement is going to be so much better at the end. I don't, I'm just going to see it or education. Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely right. And in some models, they elongated the perm model to say perm of Z. And just real quickly, that would be a vitality, but there's arguments out there that vitality could actually be lumped into some of the other elements of permo.
And then there's arguments that say the opposite, that no, the V is important, an important addition to the model. So, at the end of the day, regardless of how you practice or what you think, if it's all aspects of PERMA V, etc. The point is really that what you were saying, it's not, if you're just fixated on one aspect, it's truly not going to give you as much well being and flourishing in your life.
Then if you open that up to all the other aspects that exist, so I think that's really what the point is. It's just looking at things through a different lens. So you could say, what am I naturally gravitating towards is really good at doing like achievement. And then where are my opportunities for development? And maybe I just don't engage very much. And that's the part where I've worked a nine to five. Now I have this other, Job that I'm giving myself. How do I engage in this?
And again, going back to what are your inner strengths and how do you make that kind of happen in front of you? It's easier said than done because it also takes a good understanding of what makes you tick, right? And we think we know ourselves because we were like, Oh yeah, I've been with myself for as long as I've been alive. I should know myself. But we tend to lie to ourselves a lot more often than we even realize. And on top of that, it's not only about the lies that we tell ourselves.
It's the lies that are given to us out in the mass market and in the media. And I'm not talking about the political lies that are intentional to try to change us in some way, shape or form. I'm talking about the general sort of drumbeat of you must consume in order for your life to be.
Good, you need more of this and that, and I fall into that trap, even knowing that I shouldn't, that I'm tied to my phone, as an example, and to technology, because it's intentionally trying to keep me that way, and it works, because as much as we know, we shouldn't be tied to all these things. We still are because that's the psychology that's being used against us, unfortunately. And so we'd have to work extra hard for that.
And so how do we build in these moments in our life that cut out the extraneous noise and allow to live through our values? That's super important. But if you don't know what those values are, then you're lost and you don't know what to do. How do you validate something that you're not sure about? And TikTok is not going to tell you what your values are. I know I've been on TikTok for a couple of years now, it hasn't told me what my values are.
Now, the algorithm is telling me what I'm interested in, supposedly, or what they think I'm interested in. It doesn't tell me what my values are. Maybe I need to start up a TikTok channel that does that. And one of the tools to do that, if you don't want to take an assessment as an example, is to ask the five whys. This is a simple thing. And they use the number five, but it could be more or less than that number. And it's simply treating yourself like a little kid.
You say something like, I really love painting pastels. And when I do, I love painting mountains in pastels. Okay, great. So that's an interest, like something that you would find on social media that would confirm your interest because you think it's beautiful or whatever and that you find it fascinating. Why? And then when you answer that question, why? Just like a little kid. Keep asking that question until you get to the underlying reason. That's a value. That's what's motivating you.
And it's also really important because what happens the day that I can't run for whatever reason, which I hope never happens, knock on wood. As we get older, Sometimes it could be not because we can't do it from a physical standpoint, but it could be because interests change, we're getting older, whatever the case might be, we have children now.
Once we get to the core of our values as to why we're so interested in things, it opens up doorways so that you don't have to do this one particular thing in pastels and it has to be a mountain. It could be that. But it could also be all these other things that hit on that very same underlying thing. That's so important for us to understand. That is, I, I remember when I first started writing poetry, it had to be four line stanzas, everything had to line.
Yeah, because I learned it from, from church. You have the hymns that you're singing, four stanzas, four lines and all that kind of stuff. And when I got deeper into my practice, I took grocery lists and said, that's a poem. And then I performed it in front of an audience. And what the hell this, they scratch their head. They didn't throw tomatoes at me. Thank God. Cause I bought all the tomatoes from the grocery store earlier, but he's reading his grocery list. Yes, I am. Enjoy. And it's been.
It's so great to be able to do that. I write about a million things, but that was one of my favorite things to do is to break out of that mold and to explore, because in the world of the arts, if you're just even just looking at theater, it just that no, well, we're in it to explore musical theater, which I'm not a huge fan of, but that's what I'm able to do. And dramas and comedy, there's so much to explore. Why limit yourself just to. In the pastels of the mountains, in Colorado, in Denver.
I love this because this brings me back to why I said performance art. If I can't do theater, I have to do a presentation at work more than likely at some point. Every quarter, there's going to be at least one, sometimes several. That's my performance. It's not the same, but it is the same. You know what I mean? It's that's where that synergistic mindset comes back. And it says, I can memorize a monologue. I can actually create my own script here. It's going to be specific to my work.
But this is my opportunity to do some semblance of what I find so exciting in my life. It's easier said than done. If I'm a painter, as an example, it's probably a little bit harder to find ways of painting, but maybe not. What's underlying the painting? Isn't the drawing itself? Is it maybe there's more tactile things that you could do at work that's going to satiate your need for being on top of that or being engaged in that until you're able to do that thing again. But as artists.
We're doing this because it's in our blood, right? This is how we operate. This is how we thrive. And so I think it behooves us to take the time to understand the commonalities that exist so that we can recreate these moments. Uh, instead of taking it as like our lives are separated between our nine to five so that we can allow ourselves to do things that we really want to do. Dr. Josh, what is next for you?
Uh, we, we, we have this book out, are, are, are we looking at another book, uh, coming out anytime soon? You talked about doing the course and, uh, and, and, uh, doing a play, uh, do you have another book in you? Oh yeah. I have a few more books. Thanks. Thanks. I think at this point, it's me getting myself to sit down like I did before and dedicate the time for it. And with this, uh, play that I'll be engaging in for at least the next month and a half, that'll take up the time.
And then, yeah, we'll see, like I'm in no rush to get more books out, but I definitely do have them living within me. And I do know this, that Until the day I die, I dedicated, I have dedicated my life to being an artist. Performance art just happens to be the thing that I gravitate towards, but writing a book is also, like I said, a form of art.
And I will continue to look for different ways that I could just continue being an artist and help people to be motivated and experience things that allow them to see that they're not alone in this world. Any bits of advice or anything that you wish you could have told yourself when you first recognized that you were an artist, that you're sitting here, uh, at the young age of 47, that you would like to know back when you were 18. Yeah, it's a great question.
I think go ahead and have, go ahead and have your goals and aspirations. Go ahead and dream, reach for the stars, but be okay.
With the realities that life doesn't always pan out exactly the way you wish or think it should and that's okay and Accepting that can be some of the most beautiful moments in your life Because again, whether you call it the universe or something else You being given something as a learning lesson that you can absorb and take with you And it may not be exactly what you wished it would be but it's what you have And it's probably more than a lot of other people wish they had.
So that mindfulness comes into play where you're able to just look at what's happening in the moment in front of you and be appreciative of that, regardless of what you wish it could have been or should have been. That's awesome. Dr. Josh, thank you so very much for being on the show. And just for being the genuine you, I can, yeah, we're doing this via video, but I'm just like, man. I need to go out and give this guy a big hug. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. That's very kind of you.
And it's been an honor and a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me on the show. All right. That's my interview with Dr. Joshua Caraballo. Want to thank him so much. For all the insight that he gave us in this interview, definitely check out his book. I'm not dead yet. And, uh, while you're looking at that book, go and watch Monty Python's Holy grail. You'll understand some of the inside jokes that we had in this interview, uh, after you're watching that.
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I hope this was enjoyable for you. I know it was, I know this conversation was really enjoyable for me. So now it's time for you to go out there, tame that inner critic, create more than you can see. Go out there, make some art for somebody you love yourself. I'll talk to you next time.