Ep. 135 : Life, Death, And Human Connection with Nick Norris- Former Navy SEAL and Veteran Advocate
On this episode of Health Gig, we are joined by Nick Norris. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and former Navy SEAL. Nick worked his way up through the ranks, serving as both a combat advisor and Ground Force Commander during Afghanistan and Iraq. He is currently the Executive Director of the C4 Foundation, which provides support and resources to active-duty Navy SEALs and their families. In addition, Nick Norris is a proud father, athlete, and founder of Protekt Products, a skincare and wellness company.
More on Nick Norris:
Website: https://protekt.com/pages/c4-foundation
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_norris1981/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006138228275
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Show Notes:
[4:28] Outside of the grit and the determination and kind of personal motivation to make it through training, I am a firm believer in humility. It's something that really carried me forward in my time as a SEAL officer.
[5:30] Vulnerability breeds empathy when you're vulnerable enough to expose your own weaknesses. People understand that it's OK for them to expose their own weaknesses.
[8:28] We all get so busy in life that we forget that the time that we have with our loved ones is precious time, especially when our kids are young. And I missed a bunch of those years with my daughter because I was so fixated on rationalizing time away from her, and time away from my wife, in order to take care of them. Yet in reality, I wasn't really taking care of them.
[9:23] I think a lot of us go through life saying, "no, I'm not depressed, I'm good, I'm not at risk," and we're only fooling ourselves.
[12:01] I also had been confronting death for a long period of time, going into combat. And it had a compounding effect. I mean, I wasn't dealing with it the right way, even with the loss of my brother at the end of my career, I didn't even confront that the right way. I went in as the problem solver to take care of his wife and his two kids and to try to be there for them and not really focus on the loss that I had.
[13:35] I’d never told Ryan how much I appreciate what he's done for my little brother's kids. And this past year, I had that conversation with him and it was so beautiful just to tell him that he's a father to my brother's kids. It's an honor to have him in our lives.
[14:57] I can't just rest on my laurels, as a former SEAL. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do something that's hard and away from the community. I removed myself from a lot of my friends from the SEAL community and that took time for me. It took like four or five years before I really fell into the deep darkness of that period.
[17:20] I had a near-death experience and I've had a pretty profound psychedelic experience that almost mirrored my near-death experience in that I felt very similar. And I felt like I went to the same place. Both of those, though, what came out of it for me is that there's nothing to fear in death.
[18:11] If we didn't die at some point, I don't think we would live life with the intensity that we live. We’d just take it for granted, let it wash by. So I just hate to see people so paralyzed with the fear of death, that they failed to live.
[19:56] I was going to drown and start to come to grips with what that's going to feel like. What am I going to experience? Where am I going? And I remember that fear and the kind of anxiety hitting me. But then the anxiety was transcended by a feeling of serenity, calm. And I remember seeing both of my children, you know, feeling very close to both my children.
[24:00] Hey, I got a chance to die before I died. You know, a lot of people wait their entire lives to meet death.
[24:53] The apex is forgiving because you truly want to forgive.
Thank you for joining us on Health Gig. We loved having you with us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. In the meantime, be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, and follow us on healthgigpod.com
Quotes:
“I had a near-death experience and I've had a pretty profound psychedelic experience that almost mirrored my near-death experience in that I felt very similar and I felt like I went to the same place. Both of those, though, what came out of it for me is that, like, there's nothing to fear in death.” - Nick Norris
“If we didn't die at some point, I don't think we would live life with the intensity that we live. We just take it for granted. But like wash by so I just hate to see people so paralyzed with the fear of death, that they failed to live.” - Nick Norris
“I was going to drown and start to come to grips with what that's going to feel like. What am I going to experience? Where am I going? And I remember that fear and the kind of anxiety hitting me. But then the anxiety was transcended by a feeling of serenity, calm. And I remember seeing both of my children, you know, feeling very close to both my children.” - Nick Norris
“Hey, I got a chance to die before I died. You know, a lot of people wait their entire lives to meet death.” - Nick Norris
“The apex is forgiving because you truly want to forgive.” - Nick Norris
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