Episode 525 Cole Grace Overcoming Perfectionism and Combat Stress Transcript
This transcript is from episode 525 with guest Cole Grace.
Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] You ever feel like you’re constantly on edge, like the war zone never really left you? Maybe it shows up in your perfectionism where every mistake feels like life or death, or maybe it’s a pain, physical or emotional, uh, that no one else seems to see. And you want peace. You want control, you wanna feel like yourself again, but the chaos inside you just won’t quit.
This episode could be the fix for that. We’re talking with Army veteran Cole Grace, a combat en engineer, a bomb tech, and now mental health advocate. Uh, Cole opens up about facing IEDs in Iraq and then coming home to fight maybe even a harder battle, the perfectionism, chronic pain, and the spiral into addiction.
And so what makes this episode different? Right? Cole doesn’t just tell his story. He also shares the tactics that helped him rewire his brain and reclaim his life. Uh, we talk about things from EMDR to gratitude, to [00:01:00] debugging the mental code that runs our lives. This is all about transforming the inner chaos into calm.
But before we dive in, make sure you’re subscribed to the email newsletter at DriveOnPodcast.com/subscribe. You’ll get my five favorite episodes sent straight to your inbox. No fluff, just the best insights to help you drive on. I also wanna take a moment to. Raise awareness for something deeply important to our community.
The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians impacted by the global war on terrorism. I. This memorial serves as both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.
If you want to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s [00:02:00] episode.
Scott DeLuzio: Hey Cole, welcome to the show. I’m really looking forward to our conversation, getting into your story and learning some of the lessons that you’ve picked up along the way. But yeah, welcome to the show.
Cole Grace: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. So you we’re an ar you’re an Army veteran you deployed to Iraq. You’re combat engineer.
Is that correct?
Cole Grace: Yeah. Yep.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So yeah, tell, tell us a little bit about your, your experience in the, the army, kind of, deployments, all the, the stuff that you experienced there. What, what was going on with you?
Cole Grace: All right. Well, I joined, it wasn’t as hero of a story when I joined, but. It was right before nine 11. I joined in July and it was, I was going to college and I wanted to [00:03:00] go to college, so I joined up and then nine 11 happened and I stuck with it. Went to bootcamp after nine 11 and then it wasn’t till 2005 that I deployed
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Cole Grace: to Iraq as route clearance.
And we did. security and cache sweeps, like looking for weapons. We were based stationed in, so it was one of the hotspots during, during that time. And my job, it was before the robot, so I used to be the demo team. I’d get out of the vehicle after the buffalo would disarm the id, and then I would go up, collect the trigger, and then put a C four charge on it and pull the time fuse. And blow up their munitions in place and just traveling throughout Iraq, you know, going under five mile, like three miles an hour trying to, for bombs and sometimes getting snipers shooting at you while you’re working on a bomb [00:04:00] or different things. And you still gotta go finish blowing up more bombs after that.
So it’s, can be intense. And
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: I learned how to. Like stifle my emotions and still act despite the fear. But I, it wasn’t for a long time that I learned how to deal with those.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I, I gotta imagine that’s not an easy thing to do. You, you’re, you’re working on a very complicated operation where you mess up, you blow up kind of thing. And then, oh yeah, by the way, you got snipers shooting at you too. So, you know, no pressure at at getting that job done. Right? And you know, other people are relying on you too.
And so that’s, that’s a big. Really, it’s a big deal you know, doing what you’re doing. And you know, that, I would imagine that kinda changed you a little bit in terms of how you managed stress man dealt with these situations. You know, did you see yourself kind [00:05:00] of evolving while you were over there?
Or was it like, maybe not till after you got home that you realized, hey, this is a different call than the, the guy who left, you know, how did that evolve?
Cole Grace: It’s, it’s a kind of a weird thing that happens when you get over there at first and into that situation. It’s like, what? In the first couple weeks? What is this? How am I gonna do this for a year?
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: It’s wild. And then when it starts to become normal, because you have to adapt to it, you do adapt to it, and it, just becomes, you know, you become very in tune with your environment notice small detail changes and, you know, we’ll talk about it later, but developed a perfectionism like you make a mistake, people die.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: that becomes a belief that carries on after, but you don’t really notice it while you’re there. And then. Maybe when, like after being back for a while, you start to realize that a lot more intense than I used to be. That, that you know, it’s, I notice things a lot more and and [00:06:00] it’s, I my brain’s constantly moving ready act and it doesn’t need to be, but.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And that’s a thing that’s common with a lot of folks who come back from a high intensity deployment like the one that you were describing. My, my younger brother, he was in Iraq in, in Ramadi in oh six, like late, late oh five, early kind of oh six. He was only there for about six or seven months or so.
And he was. Kinda just augmenting some of the the, the troops that were over there. He was in the Vermont National Guard. But but he was saying the same thing. It was like, you know, pretty much on a daily basis they were taking fire from somebody or hitting IEDs or something was, was happening.
And yeah, you start. To have to just notice things around and, and it’s, I think it’s just a survival instinct that kicks [00:07:00] in. Because, you know, normally on a normal day-to-day basis, you can go to the grocery store and not have to worry about, you know, stepping on a pressure plate or, you know, having something blow up or having a sniper you know, taking you out in the parking lot or, or anything like that.
You know, like, like none of those things are. Concerns for people in just normal everyday life. But then when it becomes your everyday life, which you know, it, it did in your case, then you kind of just get that turned on, that that trigger is turned on and, and your brain, and that’s a hard thing to turn off when you, you learn a, a skill.
Yeah, you learn a, a skill to keep you alive.
Cole Grace: Mm-hmm.
Scott DeLuzio: Why would you ever want to turn that off, right?
Cole Grace: And it’s weird that other people don’t feel that way. That’s what it, that’s what that disconnect was when I got back all my.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: have that same sense of, you know, urgency I guess you’d
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: And then when you’re back home, people are just, you’re just like, why are you [00:08:00] not, you know?
’cause it’s not, they don’t have to deal with that,
Scott DeLuzio: Right. It’s, it’s almost, you know, from my perspective anyways, in, in talking to some other people, it, it’s almost enraging when they’re not you know, aware of things going on. It’s like, how could you not be, you know, like it’s, it’s there, it, you can clearly see it. That that could be a, a dangerous situation.
Why are you not paying attention to that? You know? You know. And so when, when was it that you kind of rec recognized the, the effects of, of what was going on with you and you know, was it, you know, all combat related, were there other things kind of mixed in? What kind of finally helped you realize that there, there needed to be something addressed?
You know, af after experiencing all of this. Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: At first there was bitterness. There was like a built-in justification because I did what I did. That my trauma’s worse than, than anybody else’s
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: head, you know? And so it was easy for me to, yeah, [00:09:00] but you didn’t do this. You know, you, you might have, you know,
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: for a long time I had that.
And it wasn’t until I started to, you know, some of my friends went on multiple deployments, and then other people I talked to had like sexual trauma and some other things that that I. And I started to discover that some of the things that I didn’t think were that impactful from childhood actually had more impact than some of the combat stuff that you would think would, would really, I started to have this, there’s, you shouldn’t really measure trauma.
There’s no good measure
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: it. So I started to I developed perfectionism really bad. What we were talking about with
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: equals death. The, and that maps back to my childhood. But at first, I would only map things back to war trauma. That’s really all I gave credence to. In fact, the first time I went to counseling, the counselor trying to talk about childhood stuff and I cussed him out. like, [00:10:00] like I just got back from disarming bombs in Iraq. childhood’s fine.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: about the real thing. But, what I realized was that the combat stuff exacerbated a lot of childhood stuff. So, for instance, as a child, I had problems. My parents divorced, and I, I was disengaged in school even though I was intelligent. So my stepdad, you know, often told me that I, just do the bare minimum or I, you know, slough off or don’t care to engage. And when the first people, when we were in Iraq and our first people died or got killed. It was like I developed this internal critic, this drill sergeant inside of me that was like, no, you need to, you make mistakes and you don’t pay enough attention, so you need to like it again. Do it with your eyes closed, put it ba, I don’t care. Like you’re not good enough. You’re not good enough. You need to keep doing this. And [00:11:00] so I had a lot of responsibility. I was convoy security as well, so I’d be like. A thousand meters out in front of the convoy trying to set off any ambushes or find IDs.
And was always kind of in the front of the front and I had to, in that time, it served me. I had to be that sharp, but when I came home, that carried on
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: be. You know, any deadlines and things that I’m doing, and I’m not mean to other people, I don’t freak out on other people. It’s internal on me. And
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: everybody else sees that I’m calm and they’re like, oh, he’s calm under pressure. But inside it’s, I’m calm because I’ve, I’ve beat myself up so much that I know it’s gonna go, it’s gonna be all right. And I’ve had to really unwind that.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. When you have the, that inner drill sergeant who’s just pounding on you I, I think we can all relate in, in some way, shape, or form [00:12:00] because I think all of us, we are our own worst critics. Like we, we look at, we can pick apart every little thing that we do and, and. Tell ourselves why it’s not good enough, or it should have been faster or done better or you know what, whatever the thing is that you tell yourself we, we all do that.
And again, I think that’s another survival type instinct that that comes in. I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know specifically, but it seems to, to me anyways, it kind of makes sense that it would be a survival type thing because, you know, again, why wouldn’t you want to do things the best that you can in, in absolute perfection why wouldn’t she want it to be as fast as it can be, done it while still maintaining the quality of, of the work or, or whatever.
And that makes sense to me too, but
Cole Grace: It’s, it’s definitely a, a survival mechanism.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Yeah,
Cole Grace: in and it serves its purpose. [00:13:00] You don’t just do it for no reason.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Right.
Cole Grace: its purpose in that time, but then we just carry it on and we never, it goes subconscious and we never reprogram. We never rechange the process.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. And th this is something that actually I’ve, I’ve struggled with myself as well you know, the, this perfectionism and, and trying to you know, just do everything a hundred percent and, and all that. And, i, you know, a lot of it was, you know, Hey, I don’t want guys to die and like, I gotta do my job as best as I can in, in order to make sure that they don’t, and, and my best has to be perfect, otherwise it’s not good enough.
And like that kind of mindset. And then recently I was. Thinking about this time, this thing that happened to me in, in basic training, and I don’t know why it popped in my head, it just kind of, kind of came to me. We were doing our rifle qualification in basic training and the day before where there [00:14:00] was like a practice qualification, it didn’t count for anything.
It was just you went to the range and you shot, and I hit. The 40 targets. I, I must have hit like 38 of the 40 targets or something like that. Like I was smoking them and I was just, I felt like I was, I couldn’t miss, like, I missed like two of them, but like, I felt like I was just dialed in and everything was great and I was feeling really good.
Then the next day came qualification and I barely passed. I don’t know what the hell happened, but I bare, I just barely made it. And I was, I was beating myself up and it was like. It was visible, like people could tell I was angry and I was upset at myself. One of the drill sergeants pulled me aside. I was like, oh, I’m, I’m screwed.
You know, like, I’m gonna get smoked, I’m gonna get, you know, I’m gonna get the whole rest of the platoon smoked, whatever. But this is like one of the like few times that. The rare times that they talked to me like I was an actual person, like, you know, not like a, you know, drill sergeant screaming in your face kind of thing.
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: He’s like, you know, what’s going on? What, what’s, what’s the problem? [00:15:00] And you know, I told him the same story. I just told you. I was like, day before I, I did damn near perfect and today I barely passed. He’s like, yeah, but you passed. You, you did what you needed to do. You came here and you passed while it wasn’t perfect.
Well, yesterday wasn’t perfect either. But you passed. So like. Take it as a win and move on and,
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: know, you’ll, you’ll get a chance to qualify again. You’ll, you’re gonna do that, you know, many times throughout your military career and, you know, try to do better next time.
Cole Grace: you, you know what you’re capable of.
Scott DeLuzio: Exactly. Yeah. And, and. Maybe, maybe there’s something I need to work on, you know, and may, maybe it’s the, the pressure, maybe it was the pressure of the, the qualification.
You know, may, maybe it was something like that just, just screwed me up in, in my head. But like that, that message of, Hey, take it as a win. You pass like you’re good. Like don’t, don’t worry about it. It’s not perfect, but so what? It doesn’t need to be,
Cole Grace: that’s what I write about in the book is progress not perfection.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah.
Cole Grace: you, you, [00:16:00] if you’re making progress, you’re good. There’s certain situations like we talked about, maybe in combat where you might need to be perfect.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: that’s very far and few between
Scott DeLuzio: Right,
Cole Grace: and you need to be able to.
You give yourself the grace and know that at least you prepared. You didn’t just go in there, you know, hung over trying to shoot your qualification or something.
Scott DeLuzio: right,
Cole Grace: you know, you couldn’t do that in bootcamp anyways.
Scott DeLuzio: right. Right.
Cole Grace: you you were training and you were doing your best. So putting forth, forth your best effort, and even if you have a off day my coach, I used to play basketball.
The shooters keep shooting.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: miss it’s, you’re a good shooter, it doesn’t matter. You might have an off night, but that doesn’t mean you stop shooting
Scott DeLuzio: Right, right.
Cole Grace: know, they’ll go in eventually, you know what you’re doing. And a lot of times we need to give ourselves that grace that, like, you, you made a mistake. You didn’t, you didn’t maliciously do something.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I mean even, you know, Michael Jordan missed shots, you know, and lost games. Like,
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: he is still like one of the greatest players of all time. And, and [00:17:00] so like that to me is, is, is like you can take someone who’s damn near perfect and yeah, they’re still gonna have an off night.
You know, maybe they’re, maybe they weren’t feeling a hundred percent or maybe they, you know, whatever. There, there, there are reasons and, and it’s okay. You know, you just. Take it. You move on and you know, maybe there’s some lessons to be learned. Take those lessons, learn them, use ’em, apply them, and, and, and kind of move on, right.
Cole Grace: Always still imply or apply continual learning
Scott DeLuzio: mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: the meanness, without the, you know,
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: can strive to be better, but not be so attached to the outcome.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Without that inner drill sergeant who’s, you know, barking in your face or, or in your mind, I guess, in this case, and. Making you feel miserable about, you know, everything going on with you. And so, now switching it from, you know, kind of mental side I believe you also had some like, physical pain as [00:18:00] well after, you know, coming back home.
How did that all you know, what was the outcome of all that? Like, you know, did you, did you struggle with that? Like how, how, how did you end up kind of working your way through it?
Cole Grace: That was a, that’s another tough one because it was unexplained for a while.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: the last 90 days of my tour, we worked with a, a vehicle that is, it was like a prototype. It was a massive vehicle that used radiation to try to set off the bombs without anybody having to get out. So it
Scott DeLuzio: Oh, wow.
Cole Grace: radiation at the ground and then try to activate the blasting cap or fry the material in the trigger. They didn’t have a weapon system on top of it. Navy Labs developed it quickly and they brought it over to our AO and we’re like, you just want to drive this thing down the road. Like, like, nobody’s going to blow this up. It looks different than anything we’ve ever. Deployed.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: so we did convoy security as well at the time, and I told you I was in the rat [00:19:00] pack, the people that were out in front of the convoy by like a thousand meters or kilometer. So we asked ’em what the safe distance of their or the effective distance of the, the radiation was. They said it was like 500 meters and you had like 300 standoff. If it blows up an IED, so that’s like 800. So we. We did the same thing. We’re like, all right, well I can stay do the same principles. I’ll stay a thousand meters out in front of you we will escort you while you test this thing. And they’d have to shut it off when we went under observation posts because friendly radiation. But the idea was that I’m, but I’m eyeballing. I don’t have a range finder. I don’t have a Geiger counter just kind of looking back like, yeah, we’re about, eh, punch out a little more.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: But the flip side was those missions were easy ’cause that thing always overheated. It was too big to go on, like dangerous roads and some, I’m 21 and at the end of my tour I’m like, these are cake. These missions are easy, like whatever. But [00:20:00] radiated at the and from behind. And I start to have stomach episodes of like stomach pain, nausea, vomiting. And I got home and they, you know, it’s ulcers because you had a crazy job and it’s likely that you have ulcers. And
Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.
Cole Grace: have ulcers too, so they were like, it’ll go away. The ulcers went away, but I still had the, episodes. And so then they were like, well, it’s ’cause you drink or, you know, this lifestyle stuff. So I changed some of that and then they’re like, well, it’s ’cause you’re, you have PTSD and it’s all in your head. So, you know, that also helped start to like, get more into doing some counseling. So it wasn’t bad, but eventually it continued to happen. I had my gallbladder removed and it was like, had really bad scar tissue, but I’ve never had gallstones and other anomalies and kind of weird things. And in 2021 they finally were like, all right you can, you’re [00:21:00] a hundred percent permanent in total. And so dealing with that is a lot of anxiety about going places, feeling like a burden because it can happen out of nowhere. I’m like, oh, gotta go. you know, having to go to the hospital and pain medicine at times and then, you know, being denied pain medicine by the hospital. ’cause the opioid crisis started and they’re like, yeah, we don’t give it out anymore.
Scott DeLuzio: Right, right.
Cole Grace: give me, put me to sleep with like Benadryl and Xanax and different stuff, and now I’m just a zombie and still in pain. So
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s, that’s, it’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, I, I, I totally understand the, the o opioid a crisis. ’cause I think they were overprescribed in, in some cases. And the. It wasn’t very helpful in, in many cases. But there are maybe some more extreme cases where they are useful [00:22:00] and they, they should be used.
You know, cases like this where that’s kind of like, I mean, you’re not gonna pop an Advil and be fine, you know, or a Motrin or something, you know, like that’s, and eventually that’s gonna start. Hurting your stomach and other organs too, if you’re taking too much of that. So that’s not the best idea either.
But you know, eventually, like you need to do something to manage the pain, you’re, you’re probably having sleep issues. You’re probably having you know, other issues because you’re, you’re just not able to manage these pa the pain. You know. So what ended up, how did you end up kind of getting this to, to be manageable for you?
Or is it still a work in progress?
Cole Grace: it’s still a work in progress. It, it’s, it’s led to suicidal ideations. It’s led to a lot of dark feeling kind of like I said, a burden not feeling worthy.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: So I’ve had to do a lot of. Acceptance work on, you know, not [00:23:00] internalizing, maybe if a doctor says it’s in your head. And then I’m like, well, why can’t I figure this out?
Or, you know, I know what happened. I know that this is something that I’ll likely have to deal with.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: And know, when we were talking about the opiate thing, it’s a, the pendulum always swings. It never really kind of lays in the middle. And so it was really loose. And then this pendulum swung to like really tight. And it caught some people like myself in a, in a, in a bad situation where it actually created addiction of And so I used to just go to the emergency room when I needed to. Once a month, twice a month. If it happened, got that bad would be taken care of, and I’d go home. I wouldn’t be prescribed anything. Eventually, after a few times of being like turned away and still being in pain, I turned to street dealer. And I had smoked weed before, so I just talked to people and like, and found some, so then I had ’em at the house. And when I’d get sick I would, I would [00:24:00] take like Pedialyte to replicate the IV and the pain medicine, and then I could get prescribed the Zofran so I could like replicate what they would do in the emergency room. And that worked for a little while, but I had him on hand at all times. And that got very self-justifying of, well, you know, you. My back hurts or, you know, whatever.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: in school and that, working at the time too, so like, you know, justifications for reasons to take them outside of being sick.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: physical addiction sets in. And this whole time I’m working for the government now and I’m a project manager pretty high level. I got to GS 13, step five, which is like a, I don’t know, it’s a high ranking officer. Like a major, I believe, equivalent, but I was still able to function, get awards, get promoted, and go do all this stuff.
So it’s an easy to justification that it’s not a [00:25:00] problem. my
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: there’s no, there’s no problem. I, you know, I, I legitimately have reason to take ’em, and then sometimes I take ’em when I don’t need ’em, but whatever. And then you’re, then you’re addicted physically, and you can’t not take them.
Okay. And so for a long time I tried to, I was just enough to maintain not being sick, but I couldn’t quit, so I ended up checking myself into rehab for nine days. During that time,
Scott DeLuzio: Okay, now. For other folks who might have found themselves in the same position or might be in the same position right now what advice do you have for them to maybe like, you know, kinda learning from your mistakes? What advice do you have to, you know, help them navigate through this?
Cole Grace: the chronic pain’s difficult. ’cause it, like you said, it messes with your sleep, your mental health. And when you have physical pain and [00:26:00] mental health mental pain, very susceptible to addiction.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: ’cause opiates, numb, numb, both of those. It would make it, you know, easier for me to kind of focus on school and do things that I needed to do. But it quickly, it’s a trap. It’s like a smoke and mirror. It quickly goes from being, wow, this is, I’ve, this is providing relief to, this is a ball and chain that I can’t stop now.
Scott DeLuzio: Sure.
Cole Grace: I, I think the mind body connection, I didn’t ever really understand how strong that was. And even with physical problems, having a stronger mental health working on some of these things to. Reprogram your gratitude and your mindsets and your beliefs and things like that will calm your nervous system and your body will release different chemicals and you’ll actually start to possibly have [00:27:00] relief from some of the discomfort and maybe the frequency I’m not saying it’s gonna fix it, but it can make it to where it’s more tolerable.
Scott DeLuzio: And yeah, and, and maybe not the same intensity that, that it might have been before too. Yeah. And the medication, whether it’s an op, opioid or some other medication doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. Right. It, it covers up the symptoms of the problem to make it manageable and tolerable.
And the way I I look at that type of medication is like, you’re in pain. You know, you’re, you’re at a 7, 8, 9, 10 on the, the pain scale, you know, on the, the higher end of the, that scale. And it’s constant in, in many cases, and that’s, no, that’s no way to live. So, okay, we need to bring it back down on that scale down to like the, the twos and ones and, and like the, those that [00:28:00] area you know, maybe even zero.
But you know, so that way then, then we can, alright, at least you’re not in pain. But now we can look at it and try to figure out what the root cause is and then address that root cause. Maybe there’s a surgery that’s needed or maybe there’s some other intervention that’s needed to. You know, remove that root cause problem and fix it you know, fix it once and for all if, if possible, and then you won’t need that medication going forward.
You know, it’s not like the medication doesn’t fix the problem, it just makes the, the symptoms go away. And, you know, that’s where I see, you know, and again, I’m not a doctor or anything like that, but that’s where I, I would see this medication coming in is like, let’s make. Life tolerable for you now so we can then address the root cause of this.
But I, I see a lot of times doctors are just prescribing people things, you know, some sort of pain medication. And then that’s it. There’s no, hey, you’re, you’re feeling better. Okay, cool. Then the pain medication [00:29:00] works and
Cole Grace: Right.
Scott DeLuzio: we don’t have to investigate any further, but that’s, that’s only like the first step in my mind is make.
Cole Grace: bullet holes, right?
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly. You know, like, yeah, sure. Maybe it’ll, maybe it’ll help for a co few seconds, but that, that’s not gonna be a long-term solution.
Cole Grace: Approach that you just described is definitely key, and I don’t try to tell people not to take medicine.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah.
Cole Grace: In fact, you should so that you can be in a comfortable place. But when you’re in that comfortable place, don’t just say, okay, now I’m comfortable.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: you have to do the work to figure out the root cause
Scott DeLuzio: That’s right.
Cole Grace: try to. it to where you don’t have to take the medicine as much or you know, just like I said, progress. Try to try to make progress.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And now I, I believe you, you also spent some time trying different modalities for, you know, healing and, and things like that. But what are some of the other things that you, you tried and what were some of the, the practices or tools that made the biggest impact on, [00:30:00] on your situation?
Cole Grace: I’ve tried like a lot of different. Cognitive behavioral therapies parental sacral therapy, which is somewhat like reiki.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Cole Grace: the brain scan thing where they, I forget what it’s called. And you have the brain thing on and you’re watching a video and it had you focus on bringing your brain out of fight or flight.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Cole Grace: interesting. Then. E-M-D-R-I really liked EMDR. So what I found was that it was weird at first because it’s a lot of like reprogramming. It has to do with like reimagining things in a different way actually feeling them. And it was a tough concept for me ’cause I’m like, that didn’t really happen.
So what are we doing? Why am I pretending like this happened? It. But if you think about it, it’s a cool brain hack and it’s something I use in a lot of different ways is your brain likes to itself, right? So [00:31:00] if you have a belief, if you have like a, a thought, and if even if it’s a bad one or a positive one, you brain is gonna look for confirmation of that belief.
So if it’s like, I have bad luck, your brain’s constantly scanning to be like, see, see,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: luck. So. If you’ve ever watched like somebody get hurt in sports on TV or thought of thought of something really gross and had like an actual reaction to it, you get goosebumps when you see somebody roll their ankle or something. That didn’t really happen, but you can imagine so viscerally what that feels like, that you have the
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: You can do that in the positive too, so you can think of something so viscerally, so positively and imagine it happening that you’re. Body will be tricked. It’ll be tricked into believing that it actually happened or that it will happen. And with positive affirmations, with gratitude practice with writing like a mission statement and [00:32:00] goals, those are ways that I con combat these and reprogram these negative beliefs. So if I find myself negative self-talk, I look deeper, why? What am I, what’s the belief that lies under? Why am I saying that?
Scott DeLuzio: Gotcha.
Cole Grace: maybe I believe that if I make a mistake, someone’s going to die. Okay. So now I have to reprogram that into like a positive affirmation that, and remind myself that that’s not true,
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: that I’m safe, you know? And then maybe that you don’t feel worthy. ’cause you, when you’re young too, you develop these beliefs and your brain isn’t fully, developed to have like the thought process that you do now. And, and
Scott DeLuzio: Right,
Cole Grace: it becomes a subconscious belief. If you were to think about that again today, you could easily be like, that’s not true. You know what I mean? That’s my dad’s problems. That has nothing to do with me, but you, it’s subconscious and it lies under there that like, not lovable because my dad left me when I was young. And so [00:33:00] that can come out in different ways in relationships. And then I, when I find that in either negative self-talk or triggers, when I get really upset about something, there’s something underlying in the.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: to reprogram those with the affirmations. Gratitude and the writing a mission statement to have different purposes and to to know how I wanna show up for.
Those.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting how the brain works and
Cole Grace: crazy.
Scott DeLuzio: it’s, it’s such a, a, just a fascinating part of our, our body that you know, I, I think. We’re only just scratching the surface of our understanding of what goes on in our brain. There’s, there’s a lot that that goes on. And and then the reprogramming of your brain.
I think it, programming is, is a really good word to use because it’s almost like a computer program where like one line of code that’s wrong could throw off the whole thing and just throw you all [00:34:00] outta balance. Right.
Cole Grace: Mm-hmm.
Scott DeLuzio: And then you get the, those positive things. That’s, that’s someone going in and, and correcting some of those mistakes and,
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: getting, getting that to become your your go-to your, your norm, your, your baseline is thinking of the positive, the good things instead of the negative things.
Because you’re right, the, the more you. Think negatively, the more negative you’ll, you’ll find and
Cole Grace: law of attraction is it, it happens and it’s, it’s a weird thing between your brain, like looking for that because you believe it and, and you have this negative belief and like the attraction of like kind of the energy you’re putting off. If you go into a situation believing that people don’t like you, you’re gonna treat them as if they already don’t like
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: and they’re probably not gonna like you, you know?
Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And then, then you get that confirmation [00:35:00] that, well, yeah, look, see, they didn’t like me, and so I just must be unlovable, unlikable un, I, I, whatever. I can’t be anybody’s friend. I can’t be you know, romantically involved with anybody. I can’t, I can’t. I’m just not good enough for anybody, because that’s the, you know, the mindset that, that you end up developing.
Because you’re trying to confirm this one time and then it builds on itself. And, and you’re, you’re right.
Cole Grace: of, instead of trying to internalize those things, it’s, it’s, when you come across them, you gotta debug the code. You
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: out what, what is there and don’t get. Too upset and, and beat yourself up. Go back and figure out that lies and, and you know, like you said, debug that code.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly. And it’s a kind of a interesting way to think of it. I, I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought of it that way before just [00:36:00] now. The debugging the code, like you, you said, but as someone who I, I’ve done coding in my you know, kind of previous careers and yeah, they can be really frustrating when there’s a bug in your code and you just don’t know where it is and you’re trying to figure it out and.
You, you’re, you’re just screwing around with a whole bunch of stuff, trying to make things work. And you know, sometimes you make it worse because you’re, you don’t, you’re not doing the right thing. But sometimes you make it better and you find that, that thing, and when you do this is my experience anyways, but when, when I, and, and this is not.
You know, figurative, like we’re we’re talking about the brain or anything. This is literal code that I’m talking about. But when I literally found the bug in the code and I fixed it, it felt great to be able to, I finally found it and I fixed it. Man, imagine how good that’ll feel when you figure it out in your own brain, you know in your
Cole Grace: caveat is that, that definitely when you do find these things,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: like, I think GI Joe [00:37:00] says now, you know, and knowing’s half the battle, so you, you got half the battle done because now you know, but you have to, now you have, the reprogramming part is a little harder than just like retyping the code.
Scott DeLuzio: that’s right.
Cole Grace: part is the repetition of those positive affirmations, and it’s not gonna happen immediately just because you uncovered it. But you’re, you’re halfway there and you’re, you’re so much closer than you were before. When you start trying to find these things, instead of the loop, like you said, and being like, see, I do have bad luck.
Ah, I’m going down the spiral.
Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. I, I wanna talk a little bit about your book for for a minute here. Talks about focusing that on the internal growth and transforming your life through you know, a lot of the stuff that we’re talking about today. But, tell us a little bit about, a little bit more about the book.
I know you mentioned it a little bit earlier, but a little bit more about the book. What, what readers can expect from the book.
Cole Grace: All right, well. Name of its internal is greater than external. Calming the chaos within. And the idea [00:38:00] is its tactics and techniques, behaviors of how to, I’ll say, inventory your subconscious, like we were talking
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: fears, beliefs, negative mindsets, attitudes, expectations, and things that you actually have control over. And you’re gonna find these things and we’re gonna reprogram them with positive affirmations. Writing a personal mission statement. gratitude practice, repentance and forgiveness to get rid of like some of the guilt and shame with ourselves. And really learning how to, how to love ourselves again and be nicer to ourselves and have an internal, fortitude that where when your external world changes, you’re still, you’re still okay. of times we. of the things I did when I moved here, I moved to Costa Rica. I well told you I was a GS 13 and I was, you know, making six figures then and, and a pretty high [00:39:00] status in my job. I had a lot of external things that I accomplished and still felt hollow and still had the problems inside, and it provided temporary happiness, temporary. Woo-hoo. I accomplished my goal. Look at it. I made it to Costa Rica. then two weeks in, I’m feeling even worse because now I’m depressed in paradise. So I have
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: focus inward on why am I depressed instead of trying to fix the depression with changing the external world, I
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. On paper it would seem like you, you got it all. You know, you had the, the good job. You’re living in paradise. You’re, you’re doing all the things that seemingly would be like, Hey man, why wouldn’t this guy be happy? But
Cole Grace: the thought of taking my life had crossed my mind.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah. And that’s the reality of this internal [00:40:00] struggle that’s going on in, in, in the Mind is that even though everything seemingly is going great, might have great job, great family life, great. You’re living in, in the, your, your paradise. You know, Costa Rica might not be everybody’s paradise, but wherever it is that, that is your paradise, that might be there you have all the, the material things that you want.
Everything seems to be going great for you, but inside you’re, you’re killing yourself literally because you’re, you’re just battling this. These demons that are, are in your head that it’s a tough battle because they, they know how to really, they know you the best and they know how to really
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: dig into you and
Cole Grace: Mm-hmm.
Scott DeLuzio: make it suck.
Yeah,
Cole Grace: just reminded me of something I wanted to say
Scott DeLuzio: sure.
Cole Grace: the battle with ourselves as soldiers we’re trained to [00:41:00] eliminate the threat.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: And we’re trained to fight with violence. And this is not the same fight fighting with yourself. And that’s where I got to the point, like, I’ll just be honest, where it was like, I need to eliminate this threat.
’cause it was a threat to my life, right? This PTSD stuff, this bubbling up and causing all these problems. And it was like the, way I know how to fight is to hurt the other, the thing I’m fighting. And I’m fighting myself. So that’s not a way to fight battle. And this battle needs to be fought. mental health warriors, we need more of ’em. And, and I think that it needs to be fought a lot softer and with a lot more grace and self-love. And that’s not a style that we’re used to associating with battle.
Scott DeLuzio: I, I remember when I was in Afghanistan, I. There was this whole push to win over the hearts and minds of the, the local people. And [00:42:00] as an infantry guy, I was like, wait a minute, you, you just spent you know, how much time training me how to go kicking doors and kill people?
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: And now I have to go be kind and gentle and warm and fuzzy and I don’t know, you want me to drop off a teddy bear to, you know, to them too, or, or something like, it just didn’t make any sense to me.
Cole Grace: Mm-hmm.
Scott DeLuzio: but when you look at the, the big picture, the overall strategy of what they’re trying to do, it does make sense that, that that campaign of winning over the hearts and minds. But in a way I felt like I, I wasn’t the right guy for the job. Neither were the, the guys that I was with because like we, we were the door kickers, we were the, you know, the, the guys who go pull the triggers and, you know, do all the things that.
Movies end up getting made out of, you know, but, you know.
Cole Grace: ’em the nice guys if you want.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Call, call in the, you know, go, go get the, I don’t know, somebody, well, I was gonna say,
Cole Grace: [00:43:00] MWR guys or something.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah, there you go. They’ll, they’ll call those people in and have them go hang out with the, the population. They’ll build a rec center. They’ll build, they’ll have basketball courts, they’ll have all sorts of stuff, movie theaters and stuff that, that, I mean, they’ll start winning over hearts and minds real quick.
We didn’t do any of that crap for those people. But. It’s a different style of fighting.
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: I, I guess that’s my point for bringing that up, is it, it’s a different way of looking at it. And maybe we weren’t trained very well for that Hearts and Minds campaign. I, and I’m fairly certain we weren’t, I don’t think we did a great job at it.
But that’s, it’s another tactic. It’s another thing to, to keep in the tool belt. Now, whether or not it, it was effective in combat, I don’t know. You know, I don’t know that, that effectiveness, but with, with, you’re right, with your own mind, there’s definitely a, a time to be gentle at yourself. Yeah, sure.
Be hard on yourself in certain circumstances, like, like in a do or [00:44:00] die kind of situation. It needs to be done. Okay. It it, like, it has to, or, or lives are, are gonna get lost then. Yes. Be hard on yourself. Make sure it gets done right. And you know, make, make sure that you’re, you’re doing everything that you need to do in order to get it done the right way.
But I mean, like, so what you make a mistake on, I don’t know, filling out some paperwork or something, you know?
Cole Grace: I learned this with the, the bomb stuff is that nerves are good to get you prepared,
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: but they’re not good when you’re performing, when you’re operating.
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: there’s, there’s this, this thin line between nervousness before, and then when it’s time to go, you have to be able to close that gap and be like, all right, it’s, there’s nothing, this isn’t gonna serve me anymore. Prepared as much as I can prepare, and now it’s time to go. Because if I’m sitting here thinking about all the things that I might mess up,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: you know, like the example with you shooting [00:45:00] when you shot with no pressure, you did great. And
Scott DeLuzio: Right.
Cole Grace: when you’re thinking about everything that can go wrong, with all that pressure, you, you were hindered a little bit.
And
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: if you can have that pressure all the way up until it’s time to go, and then take a moment to, to make yourself aware and conscious like, okay. I’m good. I’m confident that, that I’ve done the best that I can do and I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you know, perform now.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, a hundred percent. Just a different way of, different way of fighting.
Cole Grace: Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: you know, I think, you know, for anyone who’s listening who feels stuck, like they’re, they’re. Just spinning their wheels and not really getting anywhere despite the fact that they, they feel like they’re trying maybe it’s addiction, maybe it’s PTSD issues, anger, just feeling, I dunno, lost in the world.
I, I think this is the way to go is, is to, like, if you’ve been hard on yourself and you’re beating yourself up all the time, well, that [00:46:00] clearly isn’t working. Let’s try something else because I, I think that. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
And you know, it, it just doesn’t work that way. And so, like, yeah, try something, something different. Like, yeah, you’ve been hard on yourself this whole time and that you’ve gotten real good at being hard at on yourself. You’ve flexed that muscle enough. You’re, you’re gonna get good at it. But let’s, let’s try flexing some other muscle and, and try, try the, the kinder, gentler approach.
And I know for all. Infantry guys, and you know, any, actually any service members, they’re, they’re gonna be like, oh man, the softer side of things, come on. Whatever man. You know? But seriously, like, and, and come on, you like, you’ve been there, I’ve been there.
Cole Grace: Mm-hmm.
Scott DeLuzio: you know where we had that same thought, but
Cole Grace: That man be pamby bullshit. I
Scott DeLuzio: yeah.
Like, I don’t want to deal with that shit. Like, come on. But I mean, the other stuff wasn’t working. So.
Cole Grace: I’m telling you, the [00:47:00] ego is the one that’s, that that drives that, that voice in your head that’s like, this is, this is weak. This is, but if you, that’s why the first chapter in my book is humility. And
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: Learning to that actually you can be still retain all of your masculinity and, and work on your mental health do some of the softer stuff
Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I, I think actually it increases the masculinity by being able to do that because
Cole Grace: you’re
Scott DeLuzio: when you’re, yeah, you’re in control when you’re angry all the time and you’re, you’re flipping out and you’re out of control and you’re, god forbid, you’re throwing things or you know, hurting people or you’re things like that and, and your anger is just.
Way outta control. You might feel like you’re a big, strong masculine man, but you’re really not. You’re, you’re weak in, in other areas. Yeah, sure. Physical, you might, you [00:48:00] might be physically strong, but you might be weak in, in some other areas that you need to work on those and yeah, sure. The, the monster can come, come outside of you.
When and, and be unleashed when it’s necessary.
Cole Grace: Right.
Scott DeLuzio: getting attacked, you’re getting robbed or mugged or you know, you’re, you’re, you’re having an issue, man, unleash the beast and let that out and let it fly. No problem a hundred percent, but you’re having an argument with your spouse or you know, your kids or, or something like that.
Keep that shit inside. Like, you don’t need to unleash that beast. That’s, that’s. No, there is no need for that in, in those kind of situations. And
Cole Grace: When,
Scott DeLuzio: you know that that’s,
Cole Grace: I’m sorry.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah. No, I was just gonna say that’s, that’s being masculine right there is being able to control it, so,
Cole Grace: percent.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah.
Cole Grace: Yeah. When you find yourself with those triggers where you’re getting overly upset about something, there’s always a stimulus.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: like you’re just flying off the handle for no [00:49:00] reason, but the level of kind of response that you’re giving to the stimulus is, is out of, out of alignment, out of proportion, disproportionate that’s where you can look. Inward for what? Negative belief, what, what is causing this reaction? And try to reprogram it because like you were saying, the masculinity, I don’t know, used to be thrown off quickly. I quick trigger and you could, but that would, that’s, you’re getting me out of my alignment and you’re in control of my emotions of me being in control of them.
And that’s not a good place to be.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And that’s, yeah, you’re out of control, literally in, in that, that situation because somebody else is pulling the strings and making you,
Cole Grace: know me can say something stupid and I’m, wow. I’m
Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Right. Yeah. And they’re, they’re living rent free in your head, and they’re. Able to control what your reaction is in, in one way, shape, or form. And [00:50:00] that’s not the place to be.
I mean, I mean, look, I, like, I don’t pretend to have it all figured out. You know, and I, I don’t think you do either. I, I mean, based on this conversation, like we, like none of us have it, we’re not experts or have figured out everything in life. And I think that’s okay. Like this is all part of a, a process.
We’re, we’re gonna learn new things as we go, and. Get be if I get, you know, a little bit better today than I was yesterday. Great. A little bit better tomorrow. Great. And then just continue trying to work on things. Never gonna be perfect. And I think the pressure of perfection is too much for anybody to, to handle.
You know, all the time. You know, when everything has to be just so, and just perfect. You gotta let some of that go right.
Cole Grace: I almost didn’t write this book, or I, I almost didn’t publish this book because of fears. then those fears get justified into negative self-talk. Like, who are you to, to talk to people about mental health? You’re still effed up. You’re, you [00:51:00] know,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Cole Grace: struggle, you still, you know, have problems.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.
Cole Grace: why, why would somebody wanna listen to you and then. not perfection though. If I look back at where I came from and where I’m at now, yeah, there’s a lot of value that I can bring to the conversation and it took a lot for me to, to to accept that or to allow myself to not be perfect and still move forward.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I, I think, yeah, definitely letting go of that perfection is important. For, for all of us. I, I still deal with that myself and I have to figure it out. And again, not perfect. I’ll make mistakes. I’m aware of this problem and so I try to not let it be as big of a problem as it, it, you know, it used to be, but I still am figuring it out and that’s fine.
I’ll, I’ll get there. Eventually I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be able [00:52:00] to figure out how to control that and manage it. But, you know, other, other people, it might be at different places in this whole journey and just know that. Exactly what you just said. You know, figuring out how to manage that negative self-talk and, and replace it with something more positive is really, it’s the way to go.
Cole Grace: Everybody has problems and, everybody has So it’s not a matter, there’s only everybody’s aware of it,
Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Right.
Cole Grace: you know, at least being aware of it is. Is, is a plus. If you’re aware of it, then you, as long as you’re not doing these things on purpose. And that’s why I talked about repentance and forgiveness too,
Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
Cole Grace: part of that confidence and, and, and not being so mean to myself is I will apolo, you know, I, I didn’t mean to mess up.
I, I messed up. But it’s okay. And I’m, I forgive myself.
Scott DeLuzio: And like you said, knowing it’s half the battle,
Cole Grace: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott DeLuzio: so.
Cole Grace: Still gotta do
Scott DeLuzio: I
Cole Grace: rest.
Scott DeLuzio: [00:53:00] still gotta do the rest. Yeah, there’s a lot of work a ahead, so, so yeah, definitely, definitely be aware of this issue. I’m glad that you did overcome that, that issue and you did publish your book. It’s out there now for for folks to read.
For the listeners who maybe want to get a copy of your book where can they find it and you know, where can they go if they wanna learn more about, you know, kind of your work and what you do?
Cole Grace: Alright, well, I’ve. The book’s called Internals Greater than External or Internal with the Greater Than Sign (>) External Calming the Chaos Within. But if you just search Cole Grace, C-O-L-E-G-R-A-C-E on Amazon, the book will come up.
Scott DeLuzio: Excellent.
Cole Grace: and then I have a YouTube channel, which is at C Grace 21, and I’ve been doing videos about the different chapters in the books and some of the different mental health concepts. And just recently I started doing a. Kind of book tour a, a podcast book tour. I have some [00:54:00] podcasts lined up in the next couple months just kind of talking about different podcasts that align with the message and yeah, trying to spread the word man, that it’s important,
Scott DeLuzio: It is.
Cole Grace: for soldiers, and to understand that, that this stuff is, is an important piece having peace.
Scott DeLuzio: That’s a good way to put it. The link to the book and your YouTube channel, I’ll put those in the show notes. Cole, I I really do appreciate you coming on the show and I, I, I thank you for opening up and sharing your experiences, the things that you went through and how you’re working on them and dealing with them.
I, I think the, and your dedication to helping other, other folks find their way out of this darkness is definitely. Something that, that is commendable. So thank you so much for, for all of that and for coming on the show. I really did enjoy this conversation, so thank you so much.
Cole Grace: Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. That was my [00:55:00] honor.