Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Your Pain Has a Purpose: How to Grow Through What You Go Through with Dr. Marlon Rollins
23 Plays5 hours ago
Pain into Purpose starts here. Eric Bigger and Dr. Marlon Rollins share the growth codes that turn challenges into breakthroughs. Press play if you're ready to shift your energy and rise.
About Dr. Marlon Rollins:
Dr. Marlon Rollins is a licensed mental health counselor, author, speaker, and leader with over 20 years of experience in behavioral healthcare. After losing his sister Amber to suicide, he dedicated his life to breaking mental health stigma and helping others heal. He has led major psychiatric and addiction hospitals as CEO and COO, and he continues to inspire through his work as a therapist, executive coach, and ordained minister. Dr. Rollins brings a powerful blend of clinical expertise, lived experience, and spiritual insight to every conversation.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/DrMarlonRollins?utm_source=linktree_profile_share
Website: https://drmarlonrollins.com/
Shop IYLA: https://iylia.com/
Use promo code EB20 for IYLIA champagne, offering 20% off on orders up to $200
Check out Miracle Season’s collection: https://itsmiracleseason.co/collections/frontpage
Work with me: https://www.ericbigger.com/workwithme?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=work_with_m...
Connect with Simplified Impact: https://hubs.ly/Q02vvMJ90
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Spiritual Fitness Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger. And each week, we will explore powerful practices, inspiring stories, and expert insights to guide you on your path to holistic health.
00:00:18
Speaker
By blending spirituality and physical wellness, we support you in strengthening your body and soul. Whether you're a seasoned spiritual seeker or just beginning your journey, the Spiritual Fitness Podcast is here to help you unlock your inner potential and live your most vibrant, purposeful life.
00:00:35
Speaker
It's miracle season.
00:00:40
Speaker
Spiritual fitness, spiritual fitness podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger. And I'm back again with another
Meet Dr. Marlon Rollins: Pain to Purpose
00:00:46
Speaker
episode. And I got the my buddy, my friend, Dr. Marlon Rollins.
00:00:51
Speaker
Of course, he's a doctor. He's executive coach, resilient coach, therapist, leader. author. He's been through so much in life. He's transformed his pain into power, his power into purpose.
00:01:03
Speaker
And now he's giving back. He's helping others heal to become their best self. And we today we're going to talk about a lot of things, but the most important thing is his story, but the Croft Colts. Dr. Marlon, how are you? Welcome to Spiritual Fitness.
00:01:15
Speaker
And I am blessed. And I'll say that I'm highly favored. God bless you, man. I am grateful to hear be with you, brother. And it's been a beautiful thing to connect with you. And now here, the timing is just right. So grateful for this community. You know, shout out to the Spiritual Fitness Group.
00:01:29
Speaker
You know, we've got to talk about how do we become fit stronger and really find ways to excel through through their pain. Yeah, for sure. And I want to give a little bit of context to the people listening who's going to watch this. So I met Dr. Marlon in 2024 at Alive Together, DD Hirsch, Sociple Prevention 5K, Walk, Run. And we were opposed to Connect a year ago. the time, I didn't align. But this year, I saw him again.
00:01:49
Speaker
And we just had a really in-depth, deep combo. He told me his story and him being a mental health advocate and being advocacy and a leader in that role and some of his, you know, experiences with it.
00:02:00
Speaker
So before we get into like the energetics of what you offer, can you just kind of go down the growth codes within your mental capacity to deal with pain, suicide, change, and just grown to be a better human, better man, but just a better person for others who've gone through pain?
Finding Purpose Through Tragedy
00:02:16
Speaker
I lost my sister to suicide 13 years ago. She was a nurse two years older than I've found a way to create purpose and connection is by walking in through advocacy and suicide prevention. So to connect with other suicide loss survivors who are struggling with their grief, I remember on my very, very first walk,
00:02:37
Speaker
like maybe a year or two after my sister died, I remember feeling the sense of, you know, this is somebody said in the crowd, this is not your fault. And that energy that is over me and I would find myself kind of just tearful.
00:02:48
Speaker
And those powerful in moments where you have this connection to pain and realizing that It's not something that we should be avoiding, but it's something that actually allows us to heal. And so what I've seen is that we are so adverse as a community, as individuals, to be avoidant of pain and doing everything that we possibly can to escape it. Even if it's for the sake of our own spirit, I just want to get out of this. I don't want to feel this anymore.
00:03:15
Speaker
And then not knowing how to. And so but I was given the first book that I wrote that was called Healing the Impoverished Mind. It was recognizing that when we're hurt by something, it does shift the way that we perceive our environment. We start focusing just on the immediate survival mode, right? Which is an okay mechanism. But many times we get stuck in that space of...
Growth Codes Model: Pain to Growth
00:03:38
Speaker
Just surviving, especially when you've experienced chronic trauma. And I begin to look at my sister's story and, you know, asking that question, why? Like we had a discussion of like, you come to this point of, you can't make sense of it, but I couldn't make meaning out of it. So I started, so what for, what do I create now as a living, breathing soul, knowing I was impacted by this in my nervous system, leaves losing my sister in such a traumatic way.
00:04:03
Speaker
How can I create purpose of this? Because I need to do something with this energy, something with this emotion. that allows me to heal and maybe make an impact on other people. And so I pushed into that space with a lot of intentional vulnerability as a man of coming forward with, you know, hidden pains and exposing my vulnerability and my story to help other people say, oh, wait a minute. We all have a story, but how do we move from here to there? So I developed a model called ah the growth codes.
00:04:31
Speaker
People get lost in their pain and it's really hard to understand. So in my newest book, Between Pain and Purpose, I kind of break these these codes down from the spiritual growth code to our emotional growth code, our physical growth code and our relationship growth code and how does that play into understanding time.
00:04:52
Speaker
And so through years of practice with clients and then running some of the largest psychiatric facilities here in the state of California, seeing hundreds and thousands of people come through programs working the addiction space, it started to make sense to me of like, these are the four dimensions that I'm seeing most common when they dealt with the most difficult hardship in their life and they're trying to recover from it.
00:05:16
Speaker
And so the word recovery is synonymous with resilience. So it's ability just to bounce back, but bouncing forward. We don't want to go back to where we were. Absolutely.
The Role of Pain in Healing and Growth
00:05:27
Speaker
We want to be forward. And when we have traumatic experience, especially ones that are constantly happening to us, it can leave us in this place of a heightened point in our nervous system where it can almost become toxic, fear-driven, right? And we only focus on the moment. We can't plan long-term. We don't think that way because I just need to survive this moment.
00:05:49
Speaker
And if we move through relationships like that, we move through our jobs like that, our body starts to ache with that physical pain of carrying that, that cortisol level that's raised. That's stress, yeah.
00:06:00
Speaker
How do you move that? How do you move from here to there? So the notion of the in-between, how do you get from the ah hurt into hope and to the action that actually transcends the mindset of recognizing making purpose out of your pain?
00:06:16
Speaker
So hence the growth codes is the notion that the purpose of life is for us to grow simply. Right now, what I'm discovering for people and for the world where a lot is happening, right?
00:06:28
Speaker
You know, we know about, you know, the mental health crisis over the last, you know, think the pandemic, the last five years, right? We also know a lot of people just got furloughed, government jobs. EIB space has been expanded. It's like, it's not there.
00:06:42
Speaker
With so much change happening now, with the growth codes just within in life, where do we start? Where you had a salary of making $800,000 a year and you might got a severance, but now you're not making no money or you're not getting, you know, lower income. You're not getting your welfare check or, you know, you're just different.
00:07:03
Speaker
How do you succumb to reality to get to a space where you have trust and faith in something greater to grow? Because how can you grow? Like I met a young guy,
00:07:13
Speaker
He's 22 years old. He's a fighter. His dad is really having a tough time in hospital right now. And he's looking for guidance. He's looking for some type of reassurance. He wants someone to be proud of him.
00:07:25
Speaker
But he just has this pain in his eyes and he's willing to put pain on others. Not consciously, but you can just see it. Like he doesn't know what to do. And, you know, of course, you can give him a bunch of money, but that's not going to take away what he's feeling on the inside.
00:07:40
Speaker
You got people that I know that's in their late 60s going to 70 and your baby boomers and they got to make a shift. Like, are they going to sell their business? They still got crazy. expect Like what? Where do you start? You know, when things are just shattered and like, I don't have anything. I just had everything.
00:07:54
Speaker
Where do I start? How do I in present time grow when I have so much pain going down within my life? There's a couple of things or a lot of things you can do, but I think what you've named there is absolutely key is to acknowledge that you're the pain, have to be able to express the pain that you're in and then being able to define and know what to do with it.
00:08:16
Speaker
And that's what we're talking about. So what do I do with this? So it starts with consciously acknowledge, like this is painful. This is unjust. This loss, the grief, the tragedy, the trauma, even if it's a negative emotion, okay, it's a negative thing to feel what you're feeling.
00:08:31
Speaker
The difference is understanding how to take something that has negatively impacted you, that you felt the hurt from, and being able to soothe yourself and say, just because it is a negative feeling...
00:08:44
Speaker
doesn't mean that it needs to become a negative thought and it doesn't need to become a negative behavior. Okay. And this is where, you know, if take your friend who's, you know, lost a father who used to externally affirm him that he was good enough and now he's gone and it hurts and he needs to acknowledge the hurt and the pain and mourn and weep and have the sadness that is appropriate for a loss like that, because that is...
00:09:11
Speaker
Part of the journey of life is that you will find times of adversity and hurt and then to nourish yourself to know that, yeah, that feeling is valid and then create motivation. Well, what do I do with that? That's constructive. It's those decision points of now, what do I do with this pain?
00:09:26
Speaker
How do I make good out of the worst thing? That has happened to me. And sometimes the greater the pain, the greater the outcome can be. So let's take the reverse of some of this too, about some of the greatest social justice advocates like Gandhi or Dr. King and some of our leaders of time. And they were kind of maybe at a pinnacle of recognizing that their purpose was greater than just their own personal condition. What they would do is they would purposely move into a place of adversity.
00:09:55
Speaker
They wouldn't fast. They would go to the front lines. They would do things that are actually hurtful and uncomfortable and painful and adverse to them to create a momentum that now we remember them because their legacy, they have made a conscious decision.
00:10:13
Speaker
to face adversity, to make a higher impact that is not just about them, but now almost has an eternal presence. So if you can begin to understand that pain has a purpose for those great leaders, we look at that when they make personal sacrifices of some sort for a greater cause, they're actually using adversity.
00:10:35
Speaker
They're using pain and discomfort and injustice and trauma to create change, but they're inviting it. Now, when we feel like we're the victim, it's happened to us, whatever costs, we still have the ability to make a shift in those moments because in pain, the growth is
The Necessity of Discomfort for Growth
00:10:53
Speaker
change.
00:10:53
Speaker
That's what growth is. Think about your physical body. Remember growing pains that actually hurt for you to grow? It was hurtful. It was uncomfortable. So on a physical level, very basically, we can understand that change hurt, but our nervous system on a natural level, all of us will say we want to seek comfort,
00:11:08
Speaker
First, we don't want to find pain. We don't want it to hurt. Right. We want everything to be easy and smooth. Avoid adversity as much as we possibly can. This is why people struggle to go to the gym consistently.
00:11:23
Speaker
Right. This is why people struggle with changing the way that they eat. Right. We're changing patterns. So it's uncomfortable. Our nervous system, even our brain doesn't like change. I've never heard that. Can you break down our how our brain doesn't like change? Why is that?
Resisting Change: Brain's Energy Conservation
00:11:37
Speaker
Our brain, from a pure neuroscience, doesn't care about us. It doesn't care who we want to be. It doesn't care, right? It is an operating system that is focused on efficiency, right, and energy conservation.
00:11:49
Speaker
So when I tell people, say hey, you are not your brain. Your brain is not you. It's an organ, right, that is solely focused on, like i said, conserving energy as much as possible. Your brain would rather be in a coma,
00:12:03
Speaker
and asleep than anything that you want it to do, right? It would rather be distracted instead of focusing because that takes more energy, right? So recognizing that our brain has a capacity, but we can learn new things. Remember like trying to learn a new language. It feels awkward. You don't want to learn how to do a new skill. Like, you know, um I don't want to go learn how to skateboard.
00:12:24
Speaker
It's uncomfortable. I want to fall down. But once I train my body and my mind, it becomes a natural smooth thing. Remember when you first drove a car? Or like just coming to Orange County, I was like, my nervous system was out of whack. Like I didn't feel as safe and competent. But over time, I'm finding my cadence, I'm finding my rhythm, I'm finding my my patterns that support me here.
00:12:46
Speaker
But before that middle part of like when you know you have to change, it's like going up a bar roller coaster. And you're like, I wanted to stop. I don't really want to go have that big drop because you're so afraid of the drop, but the drop actually brings you back into an equal space where you feel safe.
00:13:00
Speaker
You don't know that because you're trying to control the drop, control the heel that you got to climb over and up. And then you land you're like, Oh, I get it, Dr. Marlon.
00:13:11
Speaker
You know, and I think that's the thing about how our brain creates these stories or these narratives to keep us safe, to keep us in place, for us not to grow. And and therefore, we don't have that growth mindset to have the growth codes, to have resiliency, to turn our pain into purpose, to improve the mind that needs, you know, healing or release of trauma. Yes. So here's the key on the growth codes is, and I think the roller coaster is a great illustration of what I mean, because I look at the brain and look at everything in the universe from the standard vantage point of physics and thermodynamics. And in that you understand some really key things. One, there's a difference between maximum and minimum potential.
00:13:50
Speaker
Okay. So maximum potential means being at a very high state, like being at the top of a roller coaster. It took a lot of energy to be up there and you're stable. Now, when you drop down that roller coaster, something pushes you over.
00:14:02
Speaker
You fall down into a minimum potential, the lowest point on that roller coaster or that heel. Imagine if it just sits there. To be at a minimum potential is to have gone from what we feel like a high point and all of a sudden life pushes us over and now we're at the lowest point. Minimum potential.
00:14:18
Speaker
And it's very hard to get out of that dark spot, the low spot. and You almost, people say, I'm depressed. I'm down. You know, i just want to close in. It's a very stable point.
00:14:29
Speaker
Think about a rock that's fallen off a cliff. It's very stable to be at the bottom. You conserve energy. So at a high potential, you know, it's stable, but it's at a high potential. So our bodies don't like to be up that high. So when we fall down low, it's really hard to get back up.
00:14:45
Speaker
So it takes more energy to move from a minimum potential to a higher potential. It takes more energy to move from the minimum potential and any like a bomb blowing up.
00:14:57
Speaker
Okay. It takes hard and makes more energy to put it back together to rebuild and see, that's where we struggle is that we let our nervous system run the show and we believe it rather than the effort of the energy that is needed to move to a higher potential. That means growth.
00:15:14
Speaker
So let me ask you question because that's very unique. The thing with Bake My Noodle was the conserving of the energy. I'm curious to know when we're at that stable position, that roller coaster comes down, that rock gets to the bottom.
00:15:26
Speaker
Is it the perception of our reality that unconsciously makes us conserve the energy not to have the energy we need to push forward because the way we're looking at it or how we're perceiving it?
00:15:37
Speaker
Like if I'm like, oh, only have... $26 in his bank account. I don't know how I'm going eat or pay bills. So literally I'm living from that minimum potential of I don't have no energy to create more money because this is my reality.
00:15:52
Speaker
Does a perception of things stop us from having more energy to do things? And this is what I've learned. That's why I tell people, go study people you look up, look at their biography, study that story.
00:16:02
Speaker
Because when I was in a hole, when I was at the minimum potential, I read Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins. And he told me about his upbringing with his mom, how she was verbally abusive and did these things. And the Thanksgiving story some man came to his house and gave his family, like it shifted something.
00:16:16
Speaker
And it gave him the energy to have a more maximum potential. But in your line of work, from all the hundreds of thousands of people you've been in front of, of witness, what is it that conserves that energy outside?
00:16:29
Speaker
Or is it the reality that is the perception that they're living that stops them from going up? Okay. There you go. This is
Perception of Reality and Energy Limitation
00:16:36
Speaker
really good. It is our perception. When we're in a place of anxiety and fear, we what you just said, I've only got $26 in my bank account. So that perception, like I'm just going on based on what I can see because anxiety and fear becomes real, right? I'm focused in on...
00:16:53
Speaker
That on the immediate thing, the thing that you can see and touch about our perception is not always true. Our emotions are valid, but they're also not always true because I've gotten used to a certain condition doesn't mean that it's necessarily true. But this is one of the spiritual growth code where I talk about being at a minimum potential is being fear driven.
00:17:13
Speaker
Spiritual continuum, you become fear driven. I am focused and it's motion. How long have I got $26 in my account? So I'm going to be focused on the sense of a mindset of scarcity and because it's based on what I can see. So I focus on that because my reality and I have to survive.
00:17:30
Speaker
And sometimes we get conditioned to always live by fear driven mentality. Now, here's what the fear mentality, here's how it gets us. Let's say you grew up in scarcity. Now you're, I don't ever want it to be poor again. So you spend 20 years of your life working hard, trying to keep your job so you always have enough. And you get to a point in your life where you're burning out, but you're working. is like I don't want to be poor.
00:17:52
Speaker
And you think you're trying to be rich, but you're being driven by the fear of poverty. That's actually the drive. So on the most extreme end of this, of being fear-driven, is the people who are Scarce, like you've probably seen the shark show, right? One of the coaches says, I love somebody who's come up in scarcity to invest in because they'll be hungry. They're fear driven.
00:18:13
Speaker
They don't want to be broke. It was almost like an exploitive of like, I want a person who's driven by fear because they're going to work so hard. And that's a great drive, but you burn out in that. And that's the wrong drive for us.
00:18:25
Speaker
It can work for a while. Sometimes we need the budget. We need to cut down on things and you make changes and it helps us survive. But if you live your life being fear-driven the entire life you don't live into the other spectrum which is being faith-driven so now the shift is how do i go from being fear-driven into faith-driven faith-driven is being at a higher maximum potential because it doesn't need to have a hundred percent knowing there's a 20 of things of recognizing there's things that i don't know that are beyond me i'm actually believing beyond that
00:18:59
Speaker
And now recognizing that I move the same energy from that fear-driven, but now I become faith-driven. So now I walk by faith. I do things that don't make sense. People ask me, how can you do that? Why would you do something like that? Why would you take that kind of risk? It's like, no, no, no, you don't understand. I see beyond my circumstance. Now I'm being faith-driven.
00:19:21
Speaker
I have a greater purpose. My money is limitless. The wealth is coming to me. So these mindset, you know, insight coaches talk about manifestation. Well, that's what it is. It's a place of faith.
00:19:32
Speaker
It's going beyond what you see on what you know for sure I can touch and living into a place of faith driven and becoming a spiritual millionaire, if you will, recognizing coming up place of abundance rather than scarcity.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, is and I think that's the thing. i lived a lot of that growing up in, you know, Baltimore, scarcity, everything is fear-based. It was like, oh, I'm still doing the same thing in different ways because the fear is still behind the attentions or behind the decision.
00:20:00
Speaker
Then I want to, you know, flip the story just upside down because I've noticed something in, you know, the life of people who are successful, athletes, professionals. I had a buddy of mine tell me years ago at a barbershop. He would say we're having barbershop talk. He said, you know, money will park you.
00:20:16
Speaker
Love will park you. Success will park you. like, what do you mean? He said some people get the money they always wanted then they stop growing. They get the love they always dreamed of and they stop working on a relationship.
00:20:28
Speaker
They have all of the success they can have and they get complacent. They stop. what What's happening within a psyche, ah psychological, or what's happening to a person that makes them stop? I've seen some of my favorite athletes when they get a big contract,
00:20:40
Speaker
They're not as great. Like, what's happening within the mind? Or that woman, you know, she gets the man of her dreams, and then she stops. She let herself go. The guy, he's not sending her flowers as much or taking out her dinner or coffee. Like, what's happening?
00:20:55
Speaker
Was that based on fear once they got that... pinnacle of their success or that ah maximum potential where they stay, then they slowly go down to their minimum potential. It tells you, it reveals a little bit about what was driving the individual in the first place. You know, some of us are driven to be in relationships because we're afraid of being alone.
00:21:15
Speaker
It's not about being, I just don't want to be alone. I want to be in a relationship, especially in the holiday season. We just don't want to be by ourselves. And some people get in relationships and I just have somebody. So now because they were driven by fear, it's revealed.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that's why I'm saying you have to naturally start creating catalysts for ourselves, meaning like, oh, I am actually driven by purpose. Like I want to continue to grow. So when you get to that place that you've always wanted to be right, which may have been getting away from scarcity, it's now I need to create more energy, more emotional. Now I want to multiply that. Oh, I'm at a good place.
00:21:52
Speaker
So I want to invest my resources. I don't want to get complacent because the purpose of life doesn't stop when you get to the place that you thought that you always wanted to be. That's actually where you can really begin to make an impact.
00:22:05
Speaker
You can really begin to grow, but now you have more sense of control and more intention in your life. So when you get to that place of dormant, that's our natural, our brain will say, oh, I like it here.
00:22:15
Speaker
It's comfortable. Let me get lazy. Tell the next adversity comes, but you haven't put your resources together deal with that adversity,
Restoring Energy in Neutral Spaces
00:22:23
Speaker
right? We just got out of the pain and now we're in the comfort.
00:22:27
Speaker
So on that continuum of fear-driven to faith-driven, I would ask you to look at maybe three points. In the middle, there's neutral. And on one continuum, on the fear-driven side into the neutral, you have this space of being faith and neutral. Sometimes I'm just sitting and believing. I'm in faith, but I'm not active. Right?
00:22:44
Speaker
Driven is the extreme where I'm faithfully driven into the next adventure, driving something forward. But all of us, because we're in a physical body, have limited capacity.
00:22:55
Speaker
So I'm going to intentionally come back down into a neutral space because I want to restore myself. I want to connect to my higher power. I want to get better vision. Now, let's say you're on the other end of that. You become fear-driven. Fear-driven means like I'm working in scarcity, like I'm trying to get, I'm driving in scarcity. You get to a place of like fear neutral. Well, I don't want to do anything.
00:23:14
Speaker
So you have to ask yourself, it's not like we can always keep going because we have limited energy. Once we've expended energy, we need to find ways to restore it, like going to the ocean and and meditating and praying, doing those things to reconnect, to ground ourself.
00:23:28
Speaker
to breathe, to expand ourselves, to find community and connect. Those things recharge us. So we need to be intentional about finding neutral places to figure out what direction we're going to now take this new resource of energy that we have gained.
00:23:42
Speaker
And this thing is, it's so important to know what you're really talking about on a deeper level. Because before we got on we talked about environment, right? And I want you to speak how important it is in your environment, because I know You can have the talent. You can have the charm. You can have the looks.
00:23:58
Speaker
You can have the mouthpiece. You can have it all. But if you're not in the right environment where you can thrive or you're being supported or being pushed out and pushed up, I'm not saying you're never going to make it, but it's going to be a lot more challenging. And I think a lot of people, when they're in lower The minimum potential, their environment is not supporting them to get back to that maximum state. Right. or they're the person who always supported everyone.
00:24:23
Speaker
Are there studies around how much your environment impact your creativity, the decisions you make, your space of feeling fantastic?
00:24:33
Speaker
fight or flight or neutrality, like me moving in Orange this County, I feel more safe. But it's not a safe of like, oh, i'm I'm in danger, but I'm more calm about, oh, I'm tired.
00:24:45
Speaker
I feel okay to be tired. Because in l LA, everyone's trying to make it. So even if I've made it, quote unquote, I'm still in the energetics of people on the rack race, on the hamster wheel, trying to become something, trying to do something, because the collective energy in that space in certain areas is It's stimulating for you to do something or else unconscious.
00:25:05
Speaker
It puts you in a survival mode. I'll tell you that. So yes, there are absolutely studies that talk about the impact of our our environment. So there's ah lots of studies that when I'll make it very simple, it's like like the concept of nature versus nurture, which is psychology 101. Which one is, which one's more impactful?
00:25:20
Speaker
Is it the environment that we in are in, which is nature, biological nature, or is it nurture, how we were raised but that makes the difference, which is part of our environment? So at the end of the day, the studies will say it's 50-50.
00:25:31
Speaker
So let's take somebody who has a lot of like biological savvy, but they're in the wrong environment because we are also creatures that are born in with a genetic makeup.
00:25:43
Speaker
But we also also interact with our environment. So our environment shapes us, our exposure to opportunities, our exposure to learning, our exposure to having good nutritious food. All of those things play a role in our growth and our development.
00:25:56
Speaker
So it's both what you're born with and where you are. What I was telling you before is that we're not dormant creatures. We don't have to be stuck. We have the capability. Some of us do have the resources to be able to move to a new environment that is more conducive for our growth.
00:26:11
Speaker
And that's one of the things you're experiencing. If you're in a community where you just have to survive all the time, you know, it could be in poverty where you grow up. It teaches you how to survive, but it also teaches you a lot of trauma. And you take that traumatized individual and you move them to a different environment, they're going to carry that same mentality with them.
00:26:27
Speaker
until they learn that it's no longer necessary for them to think and behave that way. And they have to begin to relax and go like, oh, I don't need to be doing this anymore. I needed it in that environment because I needed to survive.
00:26:40
Speaker
But in this environment, I can actually grow. So it's like being in a toxic environment and I need to figure out how to survive versus a healthy environment where I can actually thrive. And so part of what we do in our humanity is the notion of like, we're trying to survive, but it doesn't maximize our growth.
00:26:57
Speaker
So recognizing that your thoughts become ultimately the most powerful thing that you have
Creative Thinking: Transforming Pain to Purpose
00:27:04
Speaker
energetically. You have the the ability to create and you have the ability to destroy self and other people around you based on what's happening in your mind.
00:27:13
Speaker
And mind you, your brain doesn't want you to do that. It would prefer you to do less. So in the space of psychology and what we know about neuroscience is that emotion and motivation are very closely connected.
00:27:24
Speaker
You need emotion, which is a form of energy to motivate you to do something, which is to change. If you notice this, you know, I'm motivated to go to the gym, but sooner or later that starts to wear off. He has been expelled. Here's the thing. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. These are the laws of physics and conservation.
00:27:43
Speaker
It can only be transformed. And the way in which it is transformed is through our mind, our thinking, the way we creatively think about ah the world around us and say, I'm going to take this painful energy, this hurt, this harm, whatever it is, and I'm going to transform that energy into something more meaningful. And those become the people and individuals that have the highest impact in their communities, in their families, right? When they talk about the trauma breakers in the family,
00:28:11
Speaker
Those taking the pain and being able to express that pain, find meaning in that pain, create purpose out of that pain, and then create in that pain something different rather than being in a minimum potential of just on the hamster wheel of life.
00:28:26
Speaker
And that's the thing. It's so funny. you were saying Tony Robbins had this thing where he was saying, if you're depressed or you're feeling down, it's because it's your ego. It's the I. You're in the I zone. But when you make it about service and you're weak, he said, you're feeling down, you're feeling depressed, go help someone.
00:28:41
Speaker
You'll feel better. And was like, that's so interesting. So I remember someone who was having a really tough time. I was having a tough time. but They were telling me they don't want to be here no more. I'm like, what? It's like this energy, emotion, motivated me to go into this state of like, what?
00:28:57
Speaker
No. It's like I woke up, right? And then from there, I was like, where did that just come from? In my minimal potential, thinking about what's not happening, what I don't have, what could it be.
00:29:09
Speaker
But someone's telling me they're struggling. And I'm like, oh, no. My energy was empowered to be inspired to have change within the individual, but I wanted to do something about it. Right. And so you're right. Emotion does need motivation.
00:29:22
Speaker
And on top of that, the discipline keeps the drive of the motivation, even when it's weakened. And that's why discipline is so important. But to go back to what you're saying, as men, i want to talk about men like.
00:29:33
Speaker
Us, right? We sat down maybe two weeks or three weeks ago and I told you like coming up, always had the why. He said, don't worry about the why. It's the what for. i was like, you know what?
00:29:44
Speaker
Because I did that when I was young. I had so much pain. Don't people want more in life? Aren't you tired of living like this? I'm going to do something about it. But that was my intention and my driver to like, I want better.
00:29:57
Speaker
I'm going to figure it out. But if I didn't have that in my mind and I just kind of accepted like, okay, this is my life. This is what I see. I don't think change can happen. I needed something to give me motivation. And some people, it's a little, you know, ironic.
00:30:12
Speaker
Some people who have success for a long time, they look for pain. they self so Someone, while I was telling a buddy, he's like, yeah, but the Diddy situation... He's had so much success and been winning his whole life. He probably just want to start fresh because he's tired.
00:30:25
Speaker
Like you said, of being control. He's tired of taking advantage and bullying and whatever he did. He wants to start fresh. He wants to start from zero and become a new person, create a new identity because he's in pain, even looked like he has been prominent. It's an outward expression. but What has to happen is the internal change. And just like your mental mentality made that shift of like, something has to be different. Like I want something more.
00:30:47
Speaker
And there's some people will believe and say, well, this is as good as life gets. And they'll subscribe to that. Well, this is just all that there is, which becomes the place of depression and apathy. And you know what's the point? It's like, no, wait a minute. It's I can create more. I can make a greater impact and recognizing it's not about me. It's about other people and the impact and making the world in a positive way.
00:31:07
Speaker
That's the transformation that you go through. Is that that discomfort of saying, wait a minute, that cognitive dissonance, I want more and using that to create a shift, getting uncomfortable, right, to a different level.
00:31:19
Speaker
That's kind of notion, but recognizing that that can be exhausting once you get to that point and you need to rest again. So our whole life is a built in rhythm of up and down and up and down. And so recognizing that time plays a role in moving us through this energy of life, right? And we want to maximize it.
00:31:37
Speaker
We are limited in our certain energy reserve until we we restore ourselves just as much as you need to, you know, sleep at night to restore yourself, just as much as you need to eat food again to restore your body.
00:31:49
Speaker
Right. And so, and conditionally in all these four growth codes, we have to move within that continuum. And where are we on a spiritual level? Where are we emotionally? And that's what i wanted to talk about. You know, you talked about the laws of rhythm of life.
00:32:03
Speaker
What I've noticed in my research and my experiences with like myself, people like yourself, successful people, people who excel, they always, when he hit a ceiling of the minimum potential and they hit that rock bottom, they hit a wall.
00:32:17
Speaker
From my studies, they always go to a spiritual space, right? whether it's the church and religion, God, higher power, creative universe, whatever they choose, plant medicine, mushroom, it's all spirit led, right?
00:32:33
Speaker
Or spirit activated. What do you know from your belief and faith in God and your spiritual frequency to get you where you are? How important is it to have a fit spiritual self, to be spiritually fit, but more important to have that spiritual muscle to get through life when things are different and when things are good?
Spiritual Fitness for Resilience and Growth
00:32:53
Speaker
It's fundamental part of resilience. So that's how I look at it that connection, that connection to higher power, the recognizing that that there is a creator, that we are all eternal.
00:33:03
Speaker
And understanding that, believing that, connecting to yourself, whether it's through meditation and prayer, that's become the foundation for me. You know I didn't grow up in the church, but I was called into ministry and i did that was the foundation of everything I did before my education was my faith.
00:33:19
Speaker
And knowing that when things went wrong, that things didn't work out the way that I thought they were, according to Marlon's plan, that I had to find myself in a place of surrender to that higher power to create, oh, this is a point of shift. This is a transformation. And and i subscribe to the Bible. But you've looked at any of those stories, there's always an element of adversity. Any of the main characters that there's a story of adversity before they transform into the next potential.
00:33:45
Speaker
And so if we can recognize that we too have a story to tell and that the adversity is actually necessary for our transformation, for us to grow, the purpose of life is for us to grow and change. And it will not come through just comfort.
00:33:59
Speaker
Adversity is necessary, whether by choice or self-imposed. or something happened to us. It's how we respond and our thoughts and our beliefs will dictate which direction that we go in.
00:34:11
Speaker
But our anger is valid. Our sadness is valid. You know, our depression, our fear is valid, but they don't have to define us, right? You have a purpose here to finish your course and to actually get through the pain to inspire other people. And you need other people also. This is not a soul journey. There were people that come into your life that helped take you forward.
00:34:30
Speaker
And sometimes it's the person that breaks your heart. And, you know, I've had that experience too of like, oh, now I know how to love myself better. Now I know how to love, you know, my wife better because of what I've been through.
00:34:42
Speaker
And I know how to love my children better and my community better versus I'm just going to shrink within myself, which is a minimum potential. Yeah, and it's it's is's so true because I didn't mean to tell you this, but it's so funny.
00:34:56
Speaker
This morning I woke up, Marlon, and my body was sore. And i know I've been going hard in the gym. But there was one, like, one little subtle. I'm like, man, you know what? I'm not going to the gym.
00:35:08
Speaker
So I thought about all the strong men or the men I know who are resilient. So I thought because you had like some fitness workouts on your ah page that I was looking at last night and a few weeks ago. And I thought about like David Goggins and like all these guys.
00:35:18
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, I'm going to the gym. So went to Newport. I went to the gym. But here's the thing. I try to do less physically. Because usually I walk with a 30 pound weight vest for 15 minutes.
00:35:29
Speaker
I said, I'm not go wear the vest today. And then someone said, no, you won't. You're going to wear the vest today. So put the vest on. I'm in the gym. It's 630. I do my 15 minutes of cardio. I probably had like a 50 to 55 minute workout.
00:35:42
Speaker
After that, I went to Newport Beach. I ran four miles. And then you tagged me in the post. Tagged me in the post. I said, he's on a frequency. But i say that to say, because I know everything is a choice.
00:35:55
Speaker
And I had a choice to choose my feelings of I don't want to versus to be resilient to now how I feel. I don't even feel no pain in my body. I feel rejuvenated. I feel lifted.
00:36:08
Speaker
Because that resilient moment to get stronger, to come out on other side, more refreshed, more fulfilled. Because I was at that minimum potential. I love the words. To go back to my maximum because of a choice I made in my mind. And that's exactly it. Like what I mean is like your brain doesn't want you to. And that's what I'm saying. You're not your brain. Your brain is saying conserve the energy. Don't go to the gym.
00:36:28
Speaker
Right. That's the signal it gives you. And then you believe say, wait a minute, I'm going to go. And sometimes it does feel spiritual. Like, no, I'm going to go even though my body is telling me no. And then you do and you recognize it elevates you.
00:36:40
Speaker
Right. And then it's like, wait a minute, I am powerful. And you push yourself a little bit more and then you rest. Right. And then you have clarity and you're like, wow, I actually got my mind to transform believing something different than what it was telling me. And so it's just those little wins that ultimately start creating new behaviors. Right. When you say discipline, discipline is a form of consistency.
00:37:01
Speaker
And it's also just loving yourself. And that's one thing I don't think we talk about as men is like discipline is also a way in which I love myself personally. I love myself, so I'm going to the gym. I love the body that I'm in, so I'm going to take it to the gym and I'm going to eat better food because I love myself.
00:37:16
Speaker
And so when you start to give yourself more affirming, instead of coming from a place of punishment, it comes from a place of encouragement and inspiration. and Then you're built on driving yourself from a place of love or a place of faith, a place of transformation, place of higher potential.
00:37:30
Speaker
And that resiliency, that love, that unconditional love, that support that transformation just leaks out of your energy to other people. Those people feel empowered. They're inspired. They feel the encouragement. They feel the motivation. They develop the discipline. And this is what I want to say to people that's listening, that's watching, because most people are constantly are constantly comparing themselves to what they see every day.
00:37:52
Speaker
But what we got to know is is that what we see is not reality. People are putting stuff on the holler. Some people more authentic in what they post. But what I'm saying is there's also people that do inspire you and you should follow them.
00:38:05
Speaker
And how you look... doesn't correlate to how you're really feeling. And that's why it's so important to do the work, to work on yourself, to have self-acceptance and radical acceptance, to know that no matter where you are, you don't have to stay there.
00:38:20
Speaker
That $26 in that bank account, that loss of that job or that loss of that person doesn't have to be forever. You can have a moment, but you can transform and transmit the pain into power and you can have a new purpose and a new identity.
00:38:33
Speaker
And I'm so thankful for you, Marlon, because... You are a guy in my life that I look forward to hearing from, but also look up to that I know I can call you and get some real advice because you've been battle tested. You've been through the ringer. You've been in the field.
00:38:46
Speaker
You know what it's like to really grow through it, go through it, and really transform. And I think for me, I want to acknowledge you and give you your flowers because I'm excited to know who you are, what you're becoming and what you're doing, because we need more men of that caliber and that character.
00:39:03
Speaker
And I'm not saying you're a perfect man, but I'm saying you're a man who's willing to be better than you were before. You're willing to change the paradigm for men. You're willing to do the work, to write books, to be an executive coach, to have resiliency, because there are men out here today that emotionally, we don't have growth codes. Emotionally, we we can't even think of growth because we're so wounded and so hurt.
00:39:27
Speaker
And so therefore, we can't fall in love. We're not willing to have the heart to have the heart healed, to be in a new relationship, to be married, to be happy. We're afraid to risk to go after our dreams because of judgment and perception.
00:39:41
Speaker
And I want to know in your life, if there's anybody out there, young man, young woman, what would you say to get them in their maximum potential today if they're in the low potential? They're just not failing. They just lost a job, heartbreak, failure, ah but embarrassment.
00:39:57
Speaker
What do you advise them to do in that
Using Pain as Motivation for a Positive Future
00:39:59
Speaker
moment? Use the pain. Use it. Your pain is valid, but you get to narrate the truth and you can take that pain into purpose.
00:40:08
Speaker
And so when we feel pain, we get into a protective mode. Naturally, there's ability for you to override that. How can I? Not the why, but how can I use this? What is this for? How can I use this for a greater purpose?
00:40:23
Speaker
And so that message that you might be telling to yourself is like, I'm not worthy of love. I'm not good enough. I'm not strong enough. She didn't love me. Those thoughts are not true. The thoughts are not true, but the feelings are.
00:40:36
Speaker
And here's what I'm to say. Feelings are just a facade. for energy. Feelings are just a facade for energy. You get to transform that into whatever you want to.
00:40:49
Speaker
And so make it purposeful. The painfulness of your bank account, the painfulness of your heart, the painfulness of whatever you went through, care for it, nurture it, but transform that, use it to motivation because guilt and shame give you deeper connection and compassion for other people.
00:41:08
Speaker
Anger can give you direction and focus to move in social justice for other people, you know, through anger. So transform it to a purposeful drive, right? Love yourself into it.
00:41:20
Speaker
That's the idea. of like, we needed that adversity. I needed this I needed that painful moment to know who I really am. So as you talk about me, it's humbling and I'm grateful, but I recognize the refinement of being tried by the fire to come out more pure on the other side of the adversity. And that's the elevation spiritually to do more, to be able to love greater, to make a greater, to help other people.
00:41:45
Speaker
That becomes a legacy and that is growth. Because now you have an impact. I'm not just about, you know, or pushing, you know, Marlon's agenda. It's like, no no, no, My call is to do something greater. And I had to go through these painful moments and stories.
00:42:00
Speaker
I had to experience these miracles that changed this situation to that situation, even if it did hurt. Right. So I would say to those listeners, use that pain, transform it into your purpose, express to how you feel, use it as energy to motivate yourself to do the next thing.
00:42:15
Speaker
And you are not your brain. Last question. When you think of spiritual fitness, what does that mean
Defining Spiritual Fitness: Faith and Growth
00:42:21
Speaker
to you? and Spiritual fitness is the willingness to go through the discomfort to grow.
00:42:26
Speaker
That's what it is to be spiritually fit is that to be mindfully intentionable about creating discomfort to take the place of of using faith, the unseen, the unknown, right? And to care for your spirit to move to the next level.
00:42:41
Speaker
That's to be spiritually fit. Love that. Great, great definition. I'm going to put that in a book. Thank you for your time and your energy. Where can we find you and how can we get in your energy to work with you? You got two books out. and You might be writing a third one. How do we get into your energy to work with you and following your journey?
00:42:56
Speaker
You can find me if you want information about me. It's www.drmarlinrollins.com. course, you can follow me on socials at my Instagram. I answer the DMs, but I do have an executive coach program and I do consulting for other behavioral health programs and I do training for suicide prevention. My books are on Spotify and Amazon.
00:43:14
Speaker
So yeah, reach out to me through Instagram, Facebook, and through my website. You can email me directly as well if you have questions. I love to talk more about whatever you're dealing with and if you need private therapy. I still do that too. I'll take patients as as well.
00:43:28
Speaker
Thank you again for a stellar interview, for your authenticity, your transparency, your depth, and everything that you're growing into and bringing it to life. Thank you, Dr. Marlon. Guys, follow him.
00:43:40
Speaker
Get his book. Get into his energy. The guy is everything. He's been through it, and he got to it, and now he's on the other side, and he's living his calling. Subscribe for the podcast, follow the YouTube, and we're out.
00:43:52
Speaker
Thank you once again. Peace.
00:43:56
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you and provided valuable insights for your holistic health journey. By blended spirituality and physical wellness, you can strengthen your body, mind, and soul.
00:44:11
Speaker
If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Until next time, stay strong, stay inspired, and remember, it's miracle season.