You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us. You know, on this podcast, I like to explore and I like to get to know different people that have maybe walked a different path than myself, because that's the way to learn from listening to others. Other people's journeys can really be enlightening and inspirational as we're all just navigating this
life the best that we know how. We're all just doing our best. My guest today is an actor. You know him from his role in the hit movie That Thing You Do, and he stars in the TV show Blue Ridge On I insp he has had such a layered and fascinating life and you know what, I want to die right into it. Please welcome Jonathan Check to the I Choose Me Podcast. I'm really so glad that you're here.
Well, I'm really grateful to be here.
You have done something that I have always wanted to do. You got the hell out of Dodge. You moved out of the thunderdome and went to peaceful grounds. What has that been like for you? When did you do that and what has that experience been like for you.
Well, when my son started looking at schools, we you know, we had to start looking at schools in Los Angeles and and that kind of opened up the whole idea of possibly moving out of Los Angeles. He's dyslexic, just like I am, and I didn't want him to struggle like I did. So schools in LA there were some great schools, but it was it wasn't gonna be easy to get into those schools. And it was kind of like this whole thing that I didn't want to have to live my life like. And so when we came out
to Nashville, Tennessee, we visited a couple of schools. My wife is from Nashville, and by the time we left one of the schools there were like with Kim and like to come. I was like, yeah, that's yeah, he would love to come. So we moved out here Abound twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. My wife's from here, so we got family here for the children. It's been it's been peaceful. It's a good word, very peaceful. I'm surrounded by horse farms where I live.
Oh, I'm so jealous, right, Now I don't care about fancy bags or shoes. That that is what I care about. Peaceful nature, serenity. I love that. That is good. So you're saying I should do that, Just move get out of the.
Really fit right in here. Here, Jason's here, he's down the street.
Oh my god, you're yes right, your name papers with Jason, Jason Prisley. For everybody that doesn't know, that is amazing. I would love to be neighbors with Jason.
And a plate studio.
That she's building her own plate studio. It's amazing. Good for them, well, good for all of you.
Wow, I know exactly.
That was the very smart. Something that's very important to me and very important to our listeners is health and fitness and just living, trying to live our best life, right, And just one glance at your social media and I was caught by the fact that you're actually a bona fide bodybuilder, like a competitive bodybuilder. Now you can call yourself a competitive bodybuilder after the age of fifty. That is saying a lot.
Wow. Yeah, well, I don't know about a bodybuilder, but come on, I trained really hard and last year before the strike, and I knew the strike was coming and I knew I was going to be just my brain was needed some help and some focus. So I asked a good friend of mine, Michael O'Hearn, and I know Michael for thirty years, but it was on my show Blue Ridge, and he said he would train me to be this further bodybuilding contest up the street here in Franklin.
And for about six weeks, I trained and dieted just like a professional bodybuilder, and I went out there and I won the contest.
It was extream come true.
You know. It was like small town bodybuilding contest, were.
You like all spray tnd and body oiled up exactly.
I've never done anything like that before. It was so unique. The best part was having my two little ones out there screaming for me. That was hotly quite magnificent.
Oh my god, that sounds like so much fun. I mean, you know our bodies. I mean as a woman, my body has changed so much after I turned fifty, and it continues to change. What it feels like daily as a man. What has your experience been with aging and your body?
Yeah, it was harder to you know, lose that weight that I you don't want to have that I couldn't actually have, you know, for what I do for a living is you know, we have to look at it. So and I'm not going They're not going to hire me for any other reason. So I have to train and keep my body fit. And I'm going to my television show. I have to do a lot of stunts and a lot of action. So I trained myself like a professional athlete. At you know, I turned fifty five
years old, so yeah, I know how important. We just got to keep going. There's no reason why we can't be better off now than we were then, since we're more motivated now.
That's so true. It's the motivation now because you know, this is our second act as they call it, and we want it to be just as good as the first One's right, maybe better?
Yeah, definitely want to be better.
What is your healthy like your diet? How do you keep that in control? Because that's hard for me.
Yeah, it's difficult. I So what I what I learned through from the bodybuilding contest is that my body works really well with just proteins. So I eat five meals a day with enough protein to maintain and grow my muscle size. So I take supplements for everything else, and I try not to put anything else to my body. I'll go for it's amazing. I can go out for a dinner like anybody else, but I'll eat before we leave, and then I'll get a piece of salmon or chicken.
I just eat pretty, leaning clean, leaning clean.
How many grams of protein? I'm really curious about this protein topic. How many grams of protein are you shooting for a day?
So five meals six ounces or more, six to six to seven ounces if I'm dieting hard, eight ounces if I'm not so. Forty eight ounces of protein.
That's a lot of protein.
Yeah. I do thing. I wake up in the morning and I do this pancake and it's awesome. I have protein powder, right, I put egg whites with protein powder and shake it up and I pour it on a plate and then I zap it in the microwave for like no, Yeah, I zap it rises up like a cake, comes back down, and then I'll eat that for my morning breakfast.
Okay, that's that's a good tip, people.
And I put zero sugar syrup on it, and I'm feel like I'm eating pancakes.
You're so happy, everybody. I love that.
I can't wait to wake up.
Ten years ago, you made probably one of the biggest I Choose me decisions of a lifetime. You chose to get sober. What made you realize you were ready for that?
You know, I had, I had tried numerous times to get sober. I go to meetings and wouldn't click. I couldn't I couldn't really respond. I wasn't responding to the what everyone was talking about in those meetings. I kept going back, and then I met my wife, Julie, and she was pregnant, and I kept looking in the mirror at myself, saying, who's this guy? You know? Like this? Am I going to continue doing the things that I've done in the past? And am I going to ruin
this like I've ruined everything else in my life? And I just decided that I wasn't use any substance and I was gonna stop drinking alcohol completely out of my system. And then I started realizing how much poison it was and what I was doing. It was poisoned my body, and I just I was I just stopped. I quit and stopped meetings. I kept going to meetings, got a great sponsor, and I started to find what they call the miracle in the program.
Yeah, that's that's very admirable. I saw that you recently posted that your you have your ten year chip.
You got my a ten year chip.
That's a big deal, that's a decade.
Yeah. Yes, I went to a meeting here in Nashville. I hadn't gone to I had gone as an AA a couple of AA meetings, but I do. I do different programs, and I found other programs to be more beneficial for me. But I went to an AA one here. It's pretty popular here, and I wanted to collect my ten year chip. I thought it was powerful, you know, for me to go there and uh and I got there and they made the announcement, you know, and I would raise my hand. And I went out there to
collected and everyone's plotting and everything. Didn't have a chip. They didn't have a ten year chip.
What I know, I didn't have to have the chip.
No physical ten year chip. And they were like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, you don't have to take a chip. I was like, okay, well, let's find that was that's how it's supposed to be. So my wife got me a ten year chip online.
Oh I love that story. Yeah, speaking of your wife, she's been beautiful.
Yeah, you would love my wife, I can tell.
Yeah, I delved into her Instagram also. She seems like a really neat lady. Yeah, a really special person. You guys are so glad you found each other.
Yeah, you guys are very similar.
How did you meet? I'm curious.
We met here at Nashville, Tennessee, at a Make a Wish charity foundation. So I used to always come back, I think only the Nashville over twenty years, and I became really good friends with Jada Marcus and he's in the band Rascal Flats and he has this him and Kevin Carter had this Make a Wish charity foundation. I don't always show up every it was like every April and I was with the boys from Rascal Flats and Julie was there and said hi and kind of clicked.
And right away, right away it was just.
Like she's she's a I kept thinking to myself, like she's out of my like she's.
Better than me, she's out of your league.
Out of my league, Yeah, out of my league. And then no fact, she kept wanting to be around me. So we made it official.
And that's amazing. And was that around you said that was kind of around the same time that you was a few years later that you got sober. Was she an integral part of that.
Yeah. In the first year that we were together, I was definitely abusing drugs and alcohol still like I was a young kid in Hollywood, thinking that that was the way to entice and this girl. But yeah, I started to be able to see that that wasn't the truth and it was wasn't becoming of me to be that
individual anymore. And I wanted to be more than I wanted to be more for me me, first for her, and then turned out to be for our for our son and then our daughter, and I'm very grateful to be so we're still to this day.
Oh it's like fate brought her to you just the right time when you are open and ready to make some big changes in your life.
Yeah. Yeah, she definitely. She made me think that I was in the same league as her, and that it was worth fighting for the things that I always dreamed of and that God was still by my side, still with me. She proved it over time, not that God needs to be proven, but what good things happened to you and things. You know, you feel that you feel love in your life again, you know, you know, it's just not you in this world.
It breaks down the walls that we've put up probably you know, and it sort of breaks down also the shame that we put on ourselves and we live life through that shame. Lens, like you said, like I'm not good enough for her, She's out of my league. Yeah, these things were never true.
It's interesting. The shame was is what I've given up for the last seven years of my life. And I know I had a lot to do with like being married and thinking that by previous marriage is that it had to be a certain thing, and then when it didn't turn out to be the thing, I had so
much shame around it. You know. In my first wedding, I had a Catholic priest marry us as well as Breva and Michael beck With from Agape, so they both were there, you know, but I was getting married in the Catholic faith, and you know, that's so much shame of associated to divorce and everything around it. So I yeah, that was that was a big part of that shame that I was carrying around for such a long time.
Yeah, I can definitely relate. I had a long marriage and three beautiful children with a man, and then when we got divorced, I felt so shameful. I felt I carried around this shame, which manifested into you know, anger at myself, anger at other people. It manifested into insecurities, It manifested in so many unbeneficial characteristics. But I think that's that's at the root of so much of our unrest.
Yeah.
Absolutely, Well, she sounds like an angel.
I think she is.
I think she is too. Do you think that your addiction affected your career throughout the years.
Absolutely. And I have to remind myself when things are going well, I only have myself to blame, you know, And I can point to things that caused my addiction, which I've been able to do since I've been sober figured out the whys. But I still take responsibility for being that individual that wasn't showing up when I needed to really show up. You know, these opportunities came up
and I didn't. You know, So you can't say, like, I mean I didn't win the audition or something like that, like I wasn't present fully in my my genius to be able to get what I was supposed to get, you know, what was supposed to come to me. I wasn't open to being the most authentically true self that I could be.
Right, it was like covering up your gifts, like the gifts that you were given of being able to emote and you know, touch people in the way that you have to be able to do as an actor.
Yeah, I wasn't connected to the source.
Yeah, and do you think I'm sorry, I'm getting real personal. Do you think your addiction played a role or a part in your relationships not working?
Yeah? I think the shame had a bigger part of it. But the addictions, yeah, they're prevalent. They were prevalent. I was using in both relationships prior to previous relationships. They had a big part of it.
Yeah. There are so many people out there that you know are struggling or know someone that they love who is struggling with addiction. I'm wondering, as a person who has been through it on the level that you have and changed your life in such a significant way, what would you say to a person who's struggling right now, like one of our listeners, even just one person who's listening like what would you want them to hear?
So I didn't think I had a problem drinking, right, I thought I could stop drinking, Like I could stop for months, wasn't a big deal. What was going on was I would start to drink, not like a crazy person where I wake up every morning with a flask in my hand. What it was, it was numbing myself every time that I started getting closer to these whys. Why it wasn't my most authentic self, like the best version of me. And I was okay not being that version that you know, I was okay not being okay.
So it really wasn't about the alcohol. But when I was able to get past it and give it time, I was able to understand why I was doing that. I was able to change to be more of who I really am.
The person you want to be.
Yeah, that I always wanted to be and always known that I was. And I identify my whys and when when we when I work with anyone in the program, I always want to get to these whys because unconsciously, these things are coming back up and taking us off of our path. You know, it's the alcohol is is like the cover up to us not being able to really look at ourselves and loving that part of ourselves that's shame h And that's you know, every tough guy
out there is like, you know, oh, problem drinking. It's not really about the alcohol. If you're if you're continually ruining your.
Life, you need to there's a why why? Yeah, And it's not just alcohol, it's drugs, it's sex, like whatever your addiction, food, whatever you default to to make yourself feel better or to hide that shame, or to mask what's really going on so that you don't have to be in it, because that's so uncomfortable to really look inside and ask yourself why. I think that's super powerful. You have kids. I have kids. You have young kids. That's got to keep you very active. Yeah, are a
ten and four? I think is what you said.
Yeah, I get a ten year old boy and a four year old little girl.
Oh my god, I can tell you love being a dad.
I'm very grateful to be a father.
It just puts everything in perspective. It does, it is the why, like it becomes your why. Yeah.
I'm so grateful that I'm present with my children and all that work that I did and get rid of all that chaos and all that poison I was putting in my body so that I could be present with my children. And I'm grateful to still be alive. If I want to continue down the path, I wouldn't be able to be here with them.
I think at the end of the day. That's what it always comes back to is gratitude. Yeah, that acknowledging the things in your life that you are so grateful for. It just opens you up to a whole new world of your experience here. Oh my gosh, I love it that you got to be a dad. That's really great. I get this question all the time. Would you let your kids become actors or be in our industry if.
They wanted to, well they really wanted to learn the craw aft, if they wanted to be artists m hmm yeah, and if they were willing to also learn the business our business. I would really encourage both of those mm hmm. You know this quick world that we live in social media and that's a different form of fame or you know,
like we didn't we were actors. You know, we were striving to like tell the truth, you know, in our work, and that that I would encourage and I you know, I don't know if the business is safer than when we first started.
But I like to hope, So I like to hope.
So yeah, I think. I like to think that I I made it better than what I found it, So I would, I would encourage them. It's a great life, the start of living. So you're a great example. Look at you, how you live your life. It's awesome. You just NonStop. You just a fighter, man. I love it. You know, actor is an act that they just learn how to fight for themselves, some of them, not all of them.
Yeah, it's that moment when you're on camera and you're in a scene and you're in that character shoes and that connection with your co star. That's the moment that keeps me coming back.
I know, you got to come out and do Blue Ridge with me.
It sounds like a dream. Shoot.
It's so much fun. We have a blast.
I bet you do. Yeah, I want to skip ahead to that, but I'm going to come back to something else. I want to skip ahead to Blue Ridge for a second, because this is a role that you've played before in a movie, and you're now doing a series based on the movie. You're playing the same character. What is it about that character? What's the character's name, Sheriff Justin, Justin Justin Wise, that's a good character name. What is it about him that made you want want to come back?
Yeah? So I'd never really explored a character like this before. I've never been a leading man of my own show, right, So when they brought it back to me and I was like, you know it, it is the first role that I had ever played where I did not walk away every day feeling a sense of shame.
It was the first what do you mean shame?
So I always from my previous experience in the film industry, I had a great deal of shame associated to performance, and I had done a lot of work on that. I did a lot of brain spotting, like it did a lot of therapy, did a lot of work on not not carrying that into my life, using my life for my art, but not like beating myself up afterwards. I would beat myself to tears. It was ridiculous. I thought it was part of the process.
And just like those thoughts of like I'm not good enough, I shouldn't be doing this, it just.
The weight of carrying that forward. It was just like, you know, I think at one point maybe it was a survival trait that I had gotten where I was trying to always make sure the next time I got out there, I performed really well. But I realized I didn't need to be that way anymore, and I left. I left Hollywood and literally moved to Nashville, and it was the first role that came to me, and I
performed it and I had a great experience. I was very connected to the crew, my cast, and the experience and the character of Justin Wise, he's his old school. It's very much like my father, like I've become my father where I was born in the city police officer. Justin is that character that runs to the problem and there for others. I embraced it and I loved it.
And when they came back and said they wanted to make it into a television series, I was first off was we make sure they wanted me, and they did, and then just checking checking, just shoot me want me
to come back? And they were like everyone they said the network and everyone really loved what I did with Justin and it was the big success for their network and they wanted to continue to make it into a series, and so we did six episodes in season one and they're out right now every Sunday on itsp at nine pm. And I play the character Justimize that I've played before. So yeah, I get to play my dad.
That's got to be so rewarding, especially now that you have this core of gratitude, like you appreciate it so much more now.
I bet, yeah, I do. I appreciate I really appreciate it so much. But all the other chaos, all this stuff I can't control out. I don't bother with it it anymore. And if it starts to come up with me, I just I let it go. Okay with with with not knowing? Does it make sense? I'm okay with going into the unknown.
That's true. What do you do to yourself in those moments when you need to squash those voices that you're so familiar with, those negative voices, Well.
If I can't get rid of them, like through a workout mm hmm or we're talking to my wife, I'll call my sponsor m hm and talk talk. Yeah. My sponsor is great. He's a brain surgeon. Oh nice, I know, and he just kind of sets things very clear and quick. And I just realized, like that's where I am. That's what that's what I've done with my life. I've gotten to the place where I can actually reach out and not be alone, because that's probably the biggest problem with
most addicts is there they fight these things alone. I work with a program. You get a bunch of people that are similar to you. You know, they may be completely different, but they're on the same path as you, and so you reach out to them and they're there for you, and they put you right in line, right back in place where you need to be. And he under understands shame so well he can set me. Like one time I had a I had an audition and I had to do it the next day, and I'm dyslexic.
I cannot, from the life of me, like two things quick. It's probably been and I've learned that's never gonna happen. I'm never going to be good at it.
And I'm like quick memorizing things.
That quick thing like if it's tomorrow, you know, two page monologue, it's it's you know, it's gonna be really hard. I mean I could get through it. They have to be willing. And so I had this audition the next day and I just went absolutely mad. I don't know what it was, but there was something about this force to put having to put me in this audition spot, like, you know, without any time, and it felt like the whole world was against me again and how could they
do this? And who I was just going nuts.
It sounds like you were really regressing into that victim mentality.
Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah. And I made a couple of phone calls and they they just they heard me. They said the right things. They you know, one of my I haven't more than one sponsor, but my main sponsor out here, I called my LA sponsor and he was great. He just said, well, that's not fair, you know, like why do they have to do that. They can give you more time. Just him saying that made me feel
better enough to actually do the performance. And I did great job the next day, so I didn't carry any of that shame into that after I was saved by my fellows. As they say that.
It was, Yeah, it was fighting to get in there, though I was really trying to mess you up and derail you.
Exactly.
That's so good when you have that personspective of the power of being able to talk back to those negative voices when you develop that power and that ability and just able to acknowledge those are just thoughts that aren't helpful to me anymore.
Yeah, I wish I would have done that earlier. Right now and then with our children, I want to be able to be that boys. You realize it's so hard to get them to hear that at these young ages, and you know, they got to have their own experience to get there.
I know, but they are at such a great advantage to have your wisdom that you've gained, because some people go through life and they don't ever get to the point where you are and your kids are. So I think this all the time too, like there are light years ahead of what I was able to do at that age, just because they have the support system and they have me wanting to share my knowledge and my
experiences and my wisdoms with them. Whether they listen or not, whether I have to say it four hundred times or not, that's a different story. But yeah, they have to go and live their life. But I think that that the cornerstone of that support of a very present parent is they're just they're so much better off than we were.
Yeah, you know, there's a The word in therapy is generational trauma. Might continue that the generational stuff that I was put that was placed upon me. I stopped that, and maybe I'm giving him new trauma. I don't know.
Probably, Oh my god, it'll end up there'll be in therapy talking about us any minute as mine. Speaking of therapy, what you you mentioned that you did EMDR and brain spotting. I know what EMDR is, and I think it's such a valuable modality of that kind of therapy, really effective. If you guys don't know what EMDR is, definitely looking up. But you also said something about brain spotting and I'm not familiar with that. Can you you tell us what that is?
You know, it's very similar like they they follow you fall like a stick and there's a guided meditation basically to bring you back to a certain point in your life that you need to address. And for me, I don't know if you listeners can handle this or not, but I was actually molested when I was twenty two years old on a screen test in Rome by director Franco Zefarelli. It just just screwed me up, like for
a long time. So I was able to address it and the one way I was able to get to that experience and stand up to it again was brain spotting. So I had an incredible therapist that like guided me to the point of when you know I was violated and why I froze, and why I didn't stop him right like, I didn't.
Kill him in that moment.
In that moment, And that's that's what I did with brain spodies. So we found that where that was in my body and my soul basically, but really probably in my spotting. It in my brain, so the right brain and the left side it was. I can't remember exactly what that was, but that's what brain spotting is. So I was able to get to that place and heal that part of me and talk about it.
Really, Oh my god, that work is not easy. So I really applaud you for seeking the help to go there. You know, that's that's it's not an easy decision. It's not an easy choice to make. It sucks, it's hard, it feels awful to go so deep into those traumas that have truly affected our whole lives.
Yeah, I've spoke out about it, and I'm I'm a survivor and I speak out openly about it. So it's not like everyone needs to like, oh my god, poor Jonathan. I've worked really hard and I share that because I know there's probably one individual who's struggling with that and being male, being in a very masculine role on a television shore series where you don't want to mess with my character. You still don't want to mess with my character. But you know, being a man in this in that
world is survival world. It's a difficult world, but you know you're stronger when you get to the other side of it, for sure.
Yeah, I mean, man, woman, I don't think it matters when you've been violated that way. It does really mess you up. Yeah, it does in so many like layered ways. I read that article. By the way, when you first decided to talk about it, how did you feel after you shared that story with the world.
Well, I was frightened. It was really scared. I thought I would never work again, work for a long time. That's why I started making some phone calls to people and telling him like, you know, I think I just I don't think like everyone was like, oh god, you know what the age just share. I think it was more like it's just a competitive business, and everyone else was able to move their their bodies in front of it,
like you're competing non stop. So I just wasn't getting the same opportunity as I was before, and I was frightened that no one was able to see me anymore. And I knew what I needed to do is to work harder on myself so that I could get more in the light, that I could be more open to what what I shared. And I did. I worked really hard on myself, stayed sober and worked really hard and got more and more in the light so that I could be seen. And that's how my show came about.
You know, it was my parents was exactly what I did. He embraced it. He was like, this is my hero, this is this is what I want from my character and my show's hero, someone who's that strong, and I the same thing with the net work. They really supported me and brought me on bropping back for the series. You know exactly what I had shared, So it was empowering.
Yeah, yeah, that's got to feel so good. I mean, not only did you speak openly about it in order to help other people who it's maybe happened to to sort of connect and share and take the shame element out of it, but then to have your personal life and your work life flourish after you did that work. Yeah, yep, that is so inspirational.
Yeah. Yeah, I did the work.
So the work.
I did the work and got through the dark, through the its a bit abyss, and I got out to the light, made that journey and carried the torch. Now I'm holding it strong for everyone else to see.
And it's so nice to hear that your employers, if you will, like your producer, your boss, is your network that everybody has embraced it and they've expressed how proud of you they are and how much they support you.
Yeah.
That kind of talking about stuff that we don't want to talk about or you know, I know what happened, but let's not discuss it. Like the act of actually just talking about that with people that you work with or that you care about or that you depend on, Like that's such a freeing feeling. And you're so lucky to have found those people to support you.
I know it was. It was amazing. Like you ever study you ever read Brene Brown? Oh? Yeah, so she talks about going in the wilderness and I felt like I went into the wilderness and how it's in the you know, the thick of the trees and like the darkest places. After I shared my story and then I was able to find the path and get out. And I didn't do it alone. People helped me.
It's so true. It's that connective tissue right that everybody's having the same human experience. We try to think where we tend to think that it's just me, I'm the only one that's going through this. Nobody has any understanding of what I'm going through dealing with, but in reality, we're all dealing with the same things, just in a different situation circumstances.
I've shared human experience and the amount of people that reached out to me since then, it's been amazing. I've helped people like I could literally say that I helped people find the life.
Yes, that's the best feeling. We were talking about like talking about stuff and being open and sharing like our darkest moments or our biggest challenges with people. I recently had my ex husband Peter on this podcast, and I went into it not knowing what was going to come out of it, and it was actually through us sitting down and talking with one another about the meat of it that it brought. It brought us so much closer.
And then when our listeners and people in the world heard that story, I feel like, you know, because we really struggled as co parents all these years, and we really covered all of that up in the public's eye. But once we talked about it, and once we shared it with the community of listeners that we have here, it was it lifted something off of me, like that burden off my shoulders or that whatever I was carrying around that was making us be have that tension with one another.
Yeah.
Yeah, So you're leading by example also by just talking about things like this openly and if yeah, if you reach one person by sharing your story or your stories, that's the best feeling. Yeah, relationships are tricky. You've been married a few times. I've been married a few times. They're not easy. They're not easy. In the industry that we work in, there's so much time away from one another, and there's a lot of different things that you have to add in there. But I did hear that you.
I know that you are remarried now to Julie, but Julie is best friends with your ex wife Jana also very confusing with the two j's. I gotta say, Janna, you could have picked a different letter. But okay, but they're best friends, Like, how does that? How did that happen for you? And how did that feel?
You know? They met at the Maker with Charity Foundation, the same place Julie, So the two of them met. And my wife is just very open and loving and she, you know, she became friends with Jenna for a long period of time. We kinda moved out to Nashville, Tennessee. I think she remarried recently. But so we've lived these you know, lives, and it's all good.
It does not feel good, Yeah.
It's all good. I love it.
It's all good. It's so much better than this is so hard, you know, Yeah, just the mindset change alone can change everything.
My wife is just very open and loving, and you know, she's tough too. She's not a pushover. So she she sees the best in people and she's great at it. She brings the best out of people too.
I love that. One of the things my husband told me once was that I make him want to be a better man. Yeah, and that as a wife and just as a friend, it made me feel so valuable to him that that carries me through and keeps me wanting to him to feel that way. You know.
Yeah, my wife makes me want to be a better man as well.
Hm, that's really good.
And she she's the first person to say, like, you know, all this working down yourself is the most attractive thing about you.
Right, yeah, it really is. As you get older, that whole like moody, mysterious, dangerous, you know, problematic guy is less and less appealing. So now you're just like to her, I'm sure that is so admirable. I mean to me, it's so admirable to everyone that's heard your story is what you've done, the way you've turned your life around, is truly admirable and inspiring. And I know that our listeners are going to well really hear that. And just
the genuineness that you speak about it with. You're not talking about this so that you can be more famous or get more likes or whatever people talk about things for. You're talking about this because you have to talk about it, because it's who you are.
That's what I told my, That's what I told Amy My. I hired a pblicist for Blue Ridge, and I was just like, I have to. Look, I want to help promote the show whatever I can, but I really need to tell my story. I have to. It's part of my DNA right now, like it's part of me. I have to share this because I know that it will open people up.
Yeah, that's that's what we want to do. We want to connect. And when when your fans or your viewers feel like they can connect to you and relate to you on that deeper level, it's so much more valuable. I know the relationship that I have with a lot of my long term fans and supporters like they feel like my family. And as much as I share what I do in hopes to inspire them, them acknowledging it and giving me their stories sharing their stories with me,
it inspires me. So it's this beautiful, like cyclical exchange of just like good energy.
Wow, that's beautiful. So you've you've had a relationship with fans for such a long time. Yeah, did a lot of people stick around all these years?
I mean it's bananas. The super fans of the OG nine on two to zero from the nineties, I see them at all the time, and I correspond with them and I love connecting with them, like they feel like a part of me, and I'm so grateful to them. And like, I know, I would not have had the career that I've had. I wouldn't have this outlook that I have at this point in my life without that
kind of love and support. So tap into that. You know you are doing You're you're doing great, and yeah, you have to promote your show because you want people to see it and enjoy it. You work really hard on it, but at the same time, that's not your only motive and that comes through, right, So you're doing great.
The fan things so neat. I never really had that people like my movie, I've been in that thing you do fans, but we don't have like I think I wasn't on television for a period of time. Like I think people will find justin why is my character and really start to find him and me and see the connection and be able to share with me. I would love that that happened with my fans. I'll put that out there. I would love to do it that.
Just keep connecting with them because they want to connect with you.
I'm so used to I was. I've always been so scared of fans. I think why, you know, I had a stalker, so there was always about the looking at the mail and there were always horrible things that the stalker was doing. So yeah, I think I just always like didn't want to connect with these people because they was afraid that there was danger there.
Well, you know, there are scary people out there, that is true.
There's a loving people too, and I did. We don't have social back then. You know, socials are I do connect with people now. I do love the people that connect with me. And They've been there since socials at least when I started doing socials and I could see them and I'm like, hey, I got a series I'm doing. Now, Oh what's the series?
You know, Yeah, it's the best. It's like your support group and you inspire them, and then by them loving you and sharing with you, they inspire you. It's the best. Just you're so on the right path. I'm so excited for you in your life. And you know, once again, it really really inspired by your story and your bravery to not only share those dark places, but to do the work that it takes to get out of them,
because nothing changes if nothing changes. So kudos to you, my friend, I'm curious what this is a question I like to answer myself. But what is it when you lay your head down on the pillow at the end of your day. What is it that goes through your mind before you fall asleep.
Well, if I start thinking about any of the things, I usually go through the Baltimore Orioles lineup.
So that's your guy.
I've just tried to do things that I have no control over and don't really matter. I will rest because if I think about sometimes, I'll go over the lines for the next day. Have you done that.
I've slept with my my sides under my pillow every so many times. But it's like it's gonna it's gonna come magically into my brain if I just sleep on it.
Yeah. Yeah, I've done that so many times. And I do that a lot more sane than I used to do trying to memorize lines. I could, you know. I used to think that I couldn't memorize them. When I realize it was not. I'm not that being anymore. I have to let them in me. Yeah. So yeah, I
do definitely run my lines over in my head. And if I can't remember them, oh, sometimes I might get wake up and go, you know, look at them, turn the light on, try to see in the middle of the night, what was that line I was trying to memorize.
Oh, the life of an actor.
Yeah, that's the one thing people always like that. One of the first things they always ask me is do you memorize your lines?
Mm hmm.
I'm like, well, that's a good question. It just becomes part of like just you have to do it, so you just start really start to get into that dialogue.
Yeah. I think it's with like with most things, the more you use it, the better it gets that muscle whatever it is inside our brains for the memory of our lines. Like if you keep using it, it just it's like more automatic somehow.
Yeah, you're good at it, aren't you. I am a quick You have a lot of You've always had a lot of lines.
Yeah. But every time i'm it's like showtime, whatever it is, an interview, an appearance, a scene, whatever it is. I always panic inside and think, oh my god, I don't know, I can't do this, and just like you, I have to say, hey, shut it not helpful.
And when your co star says their line, you know your line, it.
Just comes if you're in the moment, if it's yeah. So I love that part. Okay. I always ask everybody this that comes on our podcast, Jonathan, what was your last I Choose Me moment?
You know, I chose me when I hired my publicist.
Mm hmmm.
I know that it would be tough to get press during the summer and they were putting a show out and I really wanted people beyond just lurage to hear my story, and I choose I choose me moment was when I hired a publicist.
That's a good one because at first it doesn't sound like that, like I choose me, but it's a big expense. Yeah, and you do have to be willing to put yourself out there like never before.
And she's she's always been very special to me. She worked with my with Christina in the beginning of her career, and I would hear how she strategically would plan these things out and I never had anyone like do that with me. And I was like, well, I never had my own show like this. It was always short. It was always a movie, never like a long lead. Well, you know, you have to do it for the next season.
All that stuff. So she and she moved out here in Nashville, Tennessee, and I thought, we are so in line. This is the right thing to do. And when it came down to doing it, I had to really choose me over everything else. So that's and also I get up every morning, go work out. That's to choose me moment as well.
Every morning.
What time, well I dumped my son off at school usually, and then I go train.
Both very very admirable. I choose me moments. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk today to us, and wow, I really look forward to watching Blue Ridge. I had never heard about it until I started researching you and the clips that I've seen on your social It looks like my kind of show, and it looks good, you know, like it's good stuff.
It is. It's you know. I can watch it with my ten year old and my eighty five year old father and everyone gets the hea a little bit of something in it. It's got romance, action, It's a good show. People really like it.
It's God well, I like you.
Thank you.
You have a lot of heart too. I can tell all my best to you and your beautiful family.
Say to you, thanks for having me.
You're welcome. That conversation with Jonathan was very inspiring and interesting. It was really incredible to hear about his journey to sobriety. And I hope that anyone listening who might be struggling with that or knows someone who is struggling, takes away from this conversation that there is help out there and you do not have to do this alone. And the releasing of shame. Yeah, that was really key for me. As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want
you to think about gratitude. We talked a lot about that today in my conversation with Jonathan, about how important it is and how fulfilling life is for him now that he has that sense of profound gratitude due to him choosing to get sober. So I want to ask you, when was the last time you practice gratitude? For me? I practice gratitude every single night before I go to bed. It's like a ritual. I lay down, I close my eyes, and I ask myself, what are three things that you're
grateful for? And I either say them in my mind, or I write them down, or I say them out loud to myself or to someone that I love, and then I go to sleep, and that sense, that awareness, that acknowledgment of gratitude really does sort of seep in to who you are and how you live your life. So I want you to try it. I want you to say it out loud, say it to yourself, say it to a friend, tell them how grateful you are that they are in your life, and watch how beautifully
things unfold for you. Thanks for listening to I Choose Me. You can check out our social links and make sure to follow, rate, and review the podcast, and use the hashtag I Choose Me. I will be right here next week, and I hope you will choose to be here too,