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Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center’s podcast dedicated to empowering parents and their kids as they navigate mental health challenges. Through insightful discussions, expert advice, and engaging storytelling, we provide the tools and support needed to foster resilience, self-discovery, and emotional well-being.
Each episode features two segments:
🦸♂️ For Parents – Practical strategies, expert insights, and real conversations to help caregivers support their child’s mental and emotional growth.
🌟 For Kids – Interactive storytelling and discussions centered around unlocking their inner hero, overcoming obstacles, and building confidence.
Together, we break stigmas, encourage open dialogue, and equip families with the knowledge to thrive. Because every hero’s journey starts with a conversation.
#CapesAndConversations #UnlockTheHeroWithin #MentalHealthMatters #ParentingSupport #BuildingFutures
00:00:04
Welcome to Capes and Conversations, the Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center podcast. I'm Adam Kotowski, clinical director. And I'm Megan Rose McMullen, MS. This podcast is a conversation about mental health and wellness. Okay, so my little nephew just saw the Mufasa, the Lion King, this new version. And basically, Mufasa teaches Simba through his calm leadership, showing instead of telling the values of responsibility and strength. And Simba learns more in watching Mufasa's bravery and kindness than ever he's being told.
00:00:35
And you see this in Lion King, too, where anytime he's told what to do, this is what, I just can't wait to be king. Where he's like, no one's going to tell me what to do, do this or do that. He wants to rebel against that. And I think that today, that's a big thing because we have so much pressure. Kids have so much pressure from their social media to go viral or to do weird things. be weird and like maybe not in alignment with who they really are right right well and that's.
00:01:06
the first step in change is noticing that if you start to realize that you know what i don't really like the way i've been acting or what i just said once you notice it that's the victory right there, because you become aware of it and when you become aware of it it's like okay now who do i want to follow what behaviors and actions do i want to follow we all have what i call i call it the small me and the extraordinary right small me is really like our egotistical thinking it's our mind just.
00:01:40
like uh simba said oh i just can't wait to be king because you know nobody's gonna tell me what to do well that's the small me thing right but the extraordinary me is the one who is you who you really are that's kind of like there in the future pulling you to say hey this is who you could be, you, If you get into alignment with what you think, say, and do, and you model the behaviors of really inspiring mentors, wow, this is who you could be, right?
00:02:11
So the extraordinary me is really something I developed a long time ago. It's like who in your life has those behaviors and actions and qualities that you really want to focus on? Because when you align with that, you start to pull ideas and ways of doing things from inspiring people, and then you become sure of it. Yeah. I like that. Maya Angelou always said, do the best you can, and then once you know better, do better. Correct. Right? Because you can't change the things that you don't know. Right. Right? And that's why, too, when parents come to you or teachers come to you and they say, like, you're doing something and it feels like criticism and it feels hard to hear,
00:02:49
maybe it's not the worst. It's not the worst thing to hear. Maybe sometimes it feels scary and hard to feel disappointed or shame or embarrassment, but you can always use it. that to say okay well did it feel good if I did this thing and now my teachers giving me a consequence and do I like that consequence you can always kind of like take that and say okay well I didn't like the consequence I don't understand what can I do differently maybe you have a different consequence right right what's how do I change this behavior so I can have a more effective.
00:03:21
result yeah and it's okay to like you know follow your heroes right like if you have a very sports or if you're into like Percy Jackson or maybe even the Marvel character like when you see them they've faltered they've made mistakes they've tried to do something big whatever but they always come back to like okay well how can I do this because with great power comes great responsibility right and so we don't all have that and whatever it is important.
00:03:57
to take what you like, and then leave the rest of it and move from there? I call it filtering. You filter out. So a great example for talking about superheroes, you looked at Iron Man. Tony Stark was just a wild card. As a superhero, he knew what he needed to do to help people protect him, but at the same time, there were things he would do as the business owner and as the person that would be like, you know, why are you doing that? That's that small me mentality. So I would model the certain behaviors of Iron Man, you know,
00:04:33
what makes him try to protect the world, what makes him try to protect others. Okay, those are great behaviors to model, but I wouldn't necessarily model like how he acted as a billionaire CEO, right? So you filter. You filter the aspects and the qualities of people you would like to model, but don't necessarily take on the other things, and at the same time, don't judge them for it. Just say, okay, I'm just not going to. Take that on. I'm not going to model that. I'm not here to judge them, but at the same time, I don't. that particular characteristic behavior, but I really like this one.
00:05:04
I think it's important, too, because we have a choice at any moment to change our behavior, to feed whatever role. Podcasts, we might be heading down the wrong direction, but at any time, we can take a pivot. Correct. Pivot and move into and lead by example, because guess what? There are people out there who are admiring you, looking up to you, whether it's your friends or your siblings. They are looking up to you, and if you don't want them to do the same behaviors.
00:05:34
or get into the same crowd or get the same company, maybe that's your cue to try something new. Yeah. No, absolutely. The filtering process is wonderful because it's like you just take the, things that you want to to be the aligned personality and character and person you want to be, but filter out the rest. Say, I'm not going to take the health because I don't want that to affect me in the future. What if... Someone's listening to this and they're saying, I want to make different choices, but I can't. I can't seem to be making different choices.
00:06:05
I just keep ranging or doing something or acting out or behaving badly, and I keep getting in trouble with my parents. Well, if you keep getting in trouble with your parents or school officials or coaches, whoever it might be, that should be what I call the alarm. The alarm should tell you that something's off and it's probably not the most effective behavior. And at that point, you have to be open to critical feedback, okay? That means that if a coach, parent, teacher has to discipline you.
00:06:38
to say that's not an effective way of doing things, that's not a good way to be in front of others, then you have to be willing to get that feedback to change. If you're not willing to get that feedback to change, then it doesn't matter if you're saying to yourself, you know, I can't do this. Well, you know, it's... You have to be open to their feedback. That's the first thing. Now, the second... thing is, I would always challenge anybody who says, I can't change. Well, that's a belief. And a belief can change and be updated to something new all the time. The reason I want to say, the question I would ask you would be, why do you feel you can't? Where in your history did you develop that idea that you can't at all? And a lot of times your answers will come as clues. Your clues would be like, well, I've had this happen to me and I experienced this. Okay, well, that's fine. But.
00:07:30
that doesn't mean you can't change this. Because kind of like you brought up with the two wolves, it is which one you feed. And whatever one you're feeding, well, guess what, if you can do it, and you feel like you can do it, well, that's going to be the different thing for you. Right. And I wanted to give some examples, because if you're in your villain era, and you're being isolated, destructive, you don't have any sight, any insight, there's a lot of characters that have been villains, and that have made different choices. to be actually good, right?
00:08:03
We have Professor Snape from Harry Potter. Venom or Deadpool, right? Loki is another one. Anakin Skywalker. Yeah, I mean, there's tons of people, and that's like the thing where you take a minute, and you say, okay, I don't like this. I don't like where this is going, and I can go change paths at any point, any point. It's never too late. Never too late. And you can also ask for help, right? Because that's the thing where we talked about.
00:08:35
in the first episode, which is like villains are isolated. They do it by themselves. They don't have their tribe members. They don't benefit the community. They don't lead by example. But when they start to shift, and they start to, what is that shift? Is it when they start to listen to the people and lead by example and have help? Because we don't know all the time what's happening. Well. And your help is. And we're always, it doesn't matter if it's in school, sports, personal life, it's your team members are there to help and guide you. So if you feel like you're really challenged with getting the answers or changing, well, that's what we do at Grundy and Oya Law Center. We have the opportunity for you to be, you know, open to talk to us, to clarify whatever maybe is bothering you or challenging you. We do it without judgment.
00:09:28
But we also give you that observer perspective, meaning once you give us all the data, all the details, our job is to kind of work with you on saying, okay, well, let's find a solution to this. And if it's, you're having a hard time communicating, whether it's your teacher or your parents or whatever, you can write in and ask us honestly, if you have a situation or something that you want to go through, if no one needs to know who you are, we can keep that secret because I bet if you're dealing with it, someone else is.
00:09:59
And two. we can also help if you come in with your parents as well have a conversation where we keep everything supported, empathetic understanding non-judgmental and keeping it so that people can be seen and heard based on it because, your behaviors are communicating something and maybe you don't have the right words to say what you want to say and so we can help with that yep well and i'll say this too is you have to follow your heart because your heart gives you the answers um and that's a whole different podcast.
00:10:30
and i can't wait to talk about that but there's a lot of information in our heart that tells us what we could and shouldn't and you know, do and and what not to do and if you listen that to that more and less to what i call the small me which is the ego then you will actually get some very significant answers that includes modeling behaviors that includes the direction and journey you want to go on um and it also includes who you are and who you came here to be yeah and maybe there's some some, stuff that is on your mind and some stuff, that has hurt or some pain or some bullying.
00:11:03
that you've experienced that you need to process and heal from, and that healing will actually help you make better choices. And then from there, you can do greater things and be in that creativity and flow, while simultaneously having discipline and ritual and going through and habits that are really healthy and helpful to both yourself, your community, your parents. Well, I would go back to what we talked about before is the difference between a villain and a hero.
00:11:33
is they both experienced traumatic experience. They both got bullied. They both had a lot of challenging parts of their story, but the villain wants to get everybody else to feel their pain and the hero wants to help people heal, because they healed themselves. So you can choose to be the villain or the hero, but we know where the villain gets you. And we also know what the hero gets you. And whether you want to admit it or not, because a lot of times, you know, to say that like oh i like being alone i like being like right we're all designed to be in.
00:12:06
community and belonging and stuff like that and you can once you're authentic and true to yourself you're going to find people and so if you are struggling and it feels like it's never gonna end, maybe your people aren't in your school or high school but there are people like you were saying earlier that you've now found your tribe now at your age and that's that hard because you can feel disconnected right um when we're around people that don't really aren't like right there's always ways to find those communities whether if you're not into sports and everyone's into sports there's.
00:12:41
acting and classes and art and 4-h and like all of these other programs that can help you find the people that you the things that you're interested in and now there's like if you're in not into any of that but you're into coding or computers or video games there's a way to be within the community there but in a way that's, Well, there's so many ways you can you can impact the community and you know what, what I tell every kid I work with is you have a specific mission to follow and create here and only you can do it. Nobody else can. So there are going to be different job opportunities, different businesses, different ways of teaching that you will bring into the community when you become the adult. So it is vitally important that you find what that hero journey is for you.
00:13:30
Because you and you alone are the only one that can fulfill that mission. And guess what, you might be the one that creates the total way of doing things, total new way, right? A great example of that is, you know, the gentleman who created a penicillin, right? That was out of a bacteria that was from, you know, moldy bread. Now, why is that important? Because you go back and you look at how many lives have been saved through the years with penicillin and now amoxicillin, whatever it might be, it is clearly because this person,
00:14:00
got it from that right you might be the next person that can change form any illness or disease in this world that's how important you are so the hero's journey is what allows you to get there your creativity your mission your mission to fulfill is so vitally important don't don't disclude that don't think of yourself as insignificant or not the ability to make an impact because it's wrong it's false small me believing and it's normal to feel that.
00:14:32
way when you're not around the people that support you to help you it's easy to feel disconnected and get persuaded into different groups that feel like longing but they're taking you away from your truth your own hearts and purpose desire and it's super easy to fall into that so it's not uncommon many people have that story but like, Harlequin you just have to take that and move to the positive.
00:15:15
I will always say to every kid I work with, be you, the world will adjust, choose the hero journey because that is the most impact you will always, always have on other people. And I'll leave you with this. I once said to this young lady, she was really struggling and I said, um, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard about the woman who quit? And she looked at me and she said, no, I said, there's, you know, have you ever heard the story of the woman who quit?
00:15:46
And she said, no. And I said, and you never will because they don't write stories about people. So when you're out there listening to this podcast, please understand you have a story to tell. You have a job. So please be you, the world will adjust, but do that with alignment, which is heart, mind, body, soul, and be the hero that you came here to be. Yeah, because your adventure awaits. Absolutely. Until next time. Thank you for listening to Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center podcast, Capes and Conversations.
00:16:18
If you or someone you know is challenged, struggling, or needs someone to talk to, you matter, you are important, and please reach out to us via our website or social media, which can be found in our show notes. And if you have a topic of conversation about a favorite character's heroic journey, please let us know, as we would love to talk about it on our show. Until next time, unlock the hero within, your adventure awaits with us.