Adela: 0:07

Hi, my friends, I am back. I am so excited. I can't wait to share this next guest. But let me get in with my intro first, because it's a little bit late when I'm filming this because we extended the filming hours on this, so bear with me. On my brain dead or brain cells being dead there we go, bear with me on that. So welcome with me. On my brain dead or brain cells being dead there we go, bear with me on that. So welcome. Welcome to the Artist Within Podcast.

Adela: 0:29

I am your host, adela Hattel, for season one, the Road to Resilience, and this podcast is produced and hosted by myself and Project Human Think, a new way to think about mental and emotional health. It's a nonprofit organization where we strive to communicate, educate, inform and advocate for the individual human being about our mental health, about our whole being, and just to reconnect ourselves to daily functionality and existing and living, moving from survival to the living stage of what humanity is. And my next guest is someone I actually this will be the second time we're kind of talking in person. Well, in person is in person, this gets, but this will be my second time really having a in-depth conversation. Our first time was such a chance, random chance meeting in a random state that I went into because I work with the parachute goddess, so check out the episode with.

Adela: 1:22

We did with Leilana Hurley and her story, but we ended up in a place and I met this human and the connection we had was just crazy. And then over these last couple years he's followed me. I followed him and we've stayed in touch and just kind of. He's kind of seen me through some rough times and I've read some of his and been kind of there and it's just some of the things that he's gone through and his story is just really incredible of why he was at the location and how we met. And so I'm really excited to introduce to you my next guest. His name is Devlin Clements and please correct me if I am wrong because my again brain dead, blah, blah are not there today, so go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit better than, oh, I meant to tell you guys.

Adela: 2:09

this is what I meant to tell you. He's a former pro wrestler, he has a podcast and I'm not sure if he's going to continue with it, but which is really cool I kind of started to listen to. It's called my So-Called Life with Pro Wrestling Podcast, and I'm sure he'll mention that a little bit, cause I'm intrigued about that. But, um, please go ahead and uh, introduce yourself a bit more and better than I did and share your, uh, share your journey with you. Know who you are, where you're from and how you got into pro wrestling? Um, because I'm really interested in that, and then we'll get to how we met, because that's that's really the no, that's fine.

Devlin: 2:42

No, yeah, I appreciate. That's a very wonderful introduction you gave me there. Um, so my name is devlin clemens. I wrestled as an independent professional wrestler for 17 years under the name devlin anderson. I mean, when you have such a cool first name, you got to keep it. Um, but you change the last name, you make a character and, of course, you know that's what I did for, since, since 2002 up until 2019. So I did that for about 17 years. That's, that's really it. I mean, that's that's what I did In regards to. That was my passion.

Devlin: 3:18

How I got into it was when I was three years old. I saw pro wrestling for the first time on tv and I ran in the kitchen and I said mom, I said I found out what I want to do when I grow up. And she said what? And I said I want to be a pro wrestler. And I got the whole mom yeah, that's nice honey, kind of speech like. And then fast forward 15 years later and I'm I in Columbus, ohio, and there's a school that was ran here in a little suburb called Grandview. I ran by a guy named Tom Miller and went up there. I had a tryout, I trained for about five months and had my first match in May of 2002. I was 19 years old and well, I was 18, about to be 19, and um, just kind of got in with some of the guys that were training there and other wrestlers and, kind of a journeyman, went wrestled all over, you know, the United States and didn't make any money. I lost more money than I than I made doing it.

Devlin: 4:26

But uh, I remember when I had my first match and I was telling my mom I said, do you remember when I was three and I ran in the kitchen and said you know, I want to be a wrestler, and you kind of blew me off and said you know you're not going to be. You know that's fine, honey. And she just she doesn't remember it, but you know she's like I don't know how you remember that. I said you know, tell me I'm not going to do something. When I was a kid and I had my heart set to it and you know it was one of those things where when I did it I chased my dream and it wasn't on a larger scale, like working for a national company, but it was up there in my realm and I had so much fun, so many good memories. I made so many friends, lifelong friends.

Devlin: 5:14

Um, it got me out of my shell as a human, um, because you can't be in front of, you know people wearing spandex and not be shy. So that's kind of my journey for what I consider professional wrestling the greatest art form out there, and I have an argument. I mean it's theater, it's physicality, it's sport, it's drama, it's soap opera. It's drama, it's soap opera, it's uh, it's acting, it's everything all nestled into one profession. Um, and I have a hard time when people say that it's not real. Um, I won't use the f word, I won't say the f word because you're allowed to it's.

Adela: 6:00

This is a free plot no, not, not, no, no. In wrestling we're talking about the word fake yeah, we're not saying fake, oh okay, well, okay, okay, okay, because it's a it's. Yeah, I won't, I won't I won't you.

Devlin: 6:14

It's performance, but it's also physical and it does hurt and I've had I broke more bones wrestling than I than in 17 years and I did my entire life up into that point. So but when you, when you look at it from an outside perspective, in some people who don't understand it and can't suspend disbelief for the time period that they're watching it, it's it's hard for them to get and understand. But I've seen people who have never watched it get drawn into the performance aspect of it. And it's that moment when you see them like, oh my god, what just happened? And you're like, yeah, you, you, you completely suspended disbelief for the five minutes.

Devlin: 6:55

It the best way that I can always say is like we all watch marvel movies. It's all superheroes. Do you think that the guy playing Captain America is really Captain America? Right, but you go to the movie and you you're in, entertain and you're suspending disbelief for two hours because we know he doesn't have superpowers, we know he doesn't have that, but that's. But we're entertained and we have an emotion that comes out of that because and that was kind of what my I, if I had an addiction, it was that emotion I could bring out in people, whether you were booing me or you hate or you love me. I love that connection that I had with perfect strangers. Does that make sense?

Adela: 7:40

No, no, the way you just described it, because, okay, so my background is I'm still learning about American culture period, like just about everything. Like I just went to my first baseball game, which I saw that you were a big baseball fan too, and that really, how long have you been in the States?

Adela: 7:54

You do a long time, a long time, and, like I still haven't seen Forrest Gump, guys don't hate me on a lot of your American classics. This is where Adela is on a journey right now on learning that. This is why this podcast was created for me to really learn and really absorb and understand just understand what American culture is, because everybody says we don't have a culture and there's not a culture. But there is, and it just in so many different forms and it comes. It's a melting pot of cultures, but that's, that's the culture of America, right, and so, like I look at it as a's a melting pot of cultures, um, but that's, that's the culture of america, right? Um, and so, like, I look at it as a like a a good stew that you make and you just need so many different recipes, you know spices and and and um, different textures and different parts and and different types of, you know ingredients in there to make something so delicious that one can look at it. So I look at, I look at that as that.

Adela: 8:47

So, yeah, I just went to my first baseball game and I really did enjoy it, although it did rain um on me the whole time. I had great seats, but it rained on me the whole time and I don't like rain, and I'm working through that, figuring out why, but, but, uh, but I enjoy the experience quite a bit actually, because my husband used to play baseball in high school and he was really good, like, and then he threw his shoulder out, but he he played and he loves it and then you know, so we went with our son and it was just, it was just a great. I didn't think it was going to be as boring as they make it out to be on TV, to be honest. Ok, so it was a lot better.

Adela: 9:22

But the way you described going back to my point about the way you described wrestling, um, I really that's, that's really a cool way, because for somebody like me, when I looked at it again, I'm gonna use the word, the f word, thank you, uh because I didn't understand like, how, so like, how can you physically be able to like, do those things and not die, like that can't or not be like broken and not like again? But then the way you you put it into that context of it being on the level of a performance, and again, I haven't dwelled into the, that topic, which is really cool to to talk about it, so to see that it changes my perspective, because now I get intrigued, because now I think back on, like when I thought about the you know, the rock and all these like big things and I was like these again no offense, but I'm like what are they doing?

Adela: 10:10

like this is crazy and because they just didn't understand the performance and the level of it and now on this level, now that, again, now that I understand what what human is, a human is an artist and human is a performance. Um, human is an experience and with, without the human, none of those things exist. And so the way you described that was so cool because, again, it required such a. It required different characters of humans, different people and different stories to come in and share something and come up with these costumes and come up with these scenes and plays. But in real life, and like you said it was, it was like a play, like a, so like all when you said it, I literally saw these flashes of, of images, of seeing on these tvs and me going like, oh, I get it now.

Adela: 10:53

I get it now like right cool like this is, I can go back and now appreciate it for so much more than what it was. Um, so tell me how you said it was. Uh, for you it's the greatest art form.

Adela: 11:08

How has it helped you navigate your, like you said, you've been in it for 17 years. You've done it out of passion. You know a lot of the times when we're so passionate about something or we found our purpose, as you said, like it's not about the money or the end result. Um, you know, my non-profit work is there is no money in it, it's service work. You know it's what you're doing, so, but I like it's not about the money or the end result.

Adela: 11:24

Um, you know my non-profit work is there is no money in it, it's service work you know, it's, it's what you're doing, so but I'm, it's my passion, like it's my 60 year plan, it's what my legacy is. So how has that helped shape you as a being and and in your functionality today? Like, how has that given you strength and resilience and to push through, because, again you said you, you enjoyed what you received from that, given you strength and resilience and to push through, because, again, you said you enjoyed what you received from that, but you as an individual in your own time. How did that help you through?

Devlin: 11:51

So I mean, honestly, I felt like when I got into the wrestling business and I was in there for about a year, I felt like I belonged to something. I never felt like I belonged to something. I I never felt like I belonged to um anything. I wasn't popular in high school. I didn't um, I didn't have a click, I didn't. I was kind of my own own person. You know, there was a few other people who really liked wrestling and we were kind of we talked about it when I was in high school.

Devlin: 12:21

But when you get into the wrestling business and you meet people who are from different backgrounds, different ethnic ethnicities, different ways of life, different you know income structures, you know I've known guys who were accountants, that were professional wrestlers. I've known guys who were truck drivers. I mean just a melting pot of individual personalities and you have to learn to navigate them. And again, it was a. It was a lot like high school, but it felt like high school, that the way it should have been for me, and I felt what I felt wanted and accepted and we all had a commonality in regards to what we loved and how we were passionate about things and the the best part about it for me was being being able to be creative and put together a match, um, from start to finish, like a story, like a book, and being able to talk about how we're going to finish the match, to make it all make sense to the crowd, and how we're going to uh. Basically, we called it like dancing together. It's like ballet. Are you allowed?

Adela: 13:23

to share trade secrets on that, because yeah, of course, yeah because I'm I'm so okay as a as a producer on my end and as someone who loves putting things together and like how the? Puzzle works. Now see is in our form. Like I'm so intrigued how the show is put together so it's fine, yeah, tell me so.

Devlin: 13:41

Basically, when we we would get booked shows, we would go to this promotion, wherever it may be. We'll just say it's in Hillsborough, ohio. Wherever it may be, the promoter says Wrestler A and you are going to be wrestling tonight. Wrestler A is going to beat you. And you go, okay, you ask the booker or the promoter how do you want, how do you want this to go? Do you want him to beat me straight up or do you want him to do something dirty? To beat me, like, beat me with, like like a roll up and hooking my tights or hit me with a foreign object or something? And so this is how I learned about storytelling.

Devlin: 14:22

So everybody wants to write a book, but they always want to write from the beginning. I always started writing from the end and working my way backwards Yep, because we already know what the booker wants. How do we get to that end? So we would know moves. If I didn't know the guy, I would typically say hey, what kind of moves do you do? What I can and can't take for the guy, like there might be a move I'm like I can't take, that there's no way. Like I can't jump that high. I have no athletic ability to do such a thing. But we could get to that finish by having that discussion and then when we get in the ring, we would actually talk while we're in there and talk about what the next thing we're going to do is get where we need to go. So the visualization to the crowd is what we're doing.

Devlin: 15:15

So if I'm a bad guy and he's a good guy, I have to make them so mad at me that they want him to beat me. And then in the match I will, I will beat him up. He's not the hero, he's or he's the hero. So the villain's on top. So I'm beating him and being and he gets the comeback on me. He gets to start beating me and then maybe I cut him off and I start beating on him again and then he comes back up and he starts beating on me again and then we get to the finish. The crowd explodes. They go home happy with that version of the match because they got to see the hero beat the villain. That's kind of how wrestling is one.

Adela: 15:54

That's what wrestling 101 how a match would be put together in a nutshell, that just makes me want to be part of producing a match so much as someone to be like, oh, that a match. So much. I just don't want to be like, oh, that just sounds so exciting. I was just thinking in my head like I've had so many podcasts this season of just again so much seriousness, and I've not gotten as excited about the showcase of that. And so to me, that's what art does right, when it can make someone so excited about something that they know nothing about and have no right complete understanding, but can see it visually and can walk through the story, through a conversation or through that moment like I'm just I'm there, like I'm there, I'm front row, and I'm like I'm like, okay, oh, okay, because it's so fascinating. You don't think about it that way. At least I don't think about it that way. At least I don't think about it that way. You know, I'm speaking for myself, guys.

Devlin: 16:48

Most people who don't. Yeah, yeah, most people don't. They don't. They look at wrestling because we with now, ufc is the big, is the big thing. Right, that is, that is a real. That is a real life sport. Yeah, that is a real life sport.

Devlin: 17:02

Yeah, the thing about pro wrestling is is that in in the 1930s and forties there wasn't UFC. Pro wrestling was the UFC of its time and pro wrestling wasn't always a scripted or choreographed sport. What happened was is that some promoters got together and said, hey, we can make a lot of money on this if we just tell the wrestlers that we'll give you some part of the gate if you take a fall and let this guy beat you because we got so much money on this person over here. No one's going to know the difference. The reality of pro wrestling is no one really knew it was a show until around the mid-'80s, when, when Vince McMahon because in the state of New Jersey they had athletic commissions who really considered it still a real sport, so they had to get around the athletic commission, so he had to tell them that it was sports entertainment and that's what he labeled it as sports entertainment. So he didn't have to pay the athletic commission fees, anything like that. So that's where it all kind of transitioned to where?

Devlin: 18:11

And now really, the internet. Because the internet is less than 30 years old, it is given a window into everybody. You can go on there. You can YouTube secrets of pro. You can. You can google anything you want to know about wrestling. Um, but since I grew up in the 80s and was such a fan of it, I never really looked at that. I knew that it was a show, but I also suspended my disbelief in my head because I got into the characters and the moves and the storylines and, uh, it sounds sick. But I got into the violence of it too, because it's a very violent sport. And again, everything evolves. Wrestling evolves. It's evolved since I was a kid. The art form has evolved. It's a lot safer now for wrestlers. You know they're not taking unprotected head. You know chair shots to the head and there's there's a lot of medical um personnel on site for them, like the bigger right. You know bigger companies. Where I was wrestling it was basically like if you got hurt you're just taking an ambulance ride the old school way.

Adela: 19:15

Right, it's the old yeah it really was.

Devlin: 19:17

I mean, I I wrestled in a flea market one time and and they pointed to, this shack is our dressing room and I literally it was like an eight by ten tool shed and I was sweating in there with two or four other guys, um, while these other guys were out there wrestling and it was like I'm making I'm making no money, like just doing this, but I loved it and that was my passion and that's why I stuck with it for so long is because it just it, it gets in your blood and it's one of those things that you just can't get away from it as much. Like they say, wrestlers never retire, and I'm. If someone called me right now and said, hey, we got a show, we were thinking about putting you on there, I'm like, oh man, I gotta go dig my boots out. But you'd be like, okay, it okay, I'm on it. Right, I'm on it. It's been five years since I've had a real match, so it's been a while.

Adela: 20:10

I think one of the great things I've been learning these last couple of years, because I grew up in such a violent life and I mean I'm telling you like war, violent, not you know. So I think when I see things that are done violently on purpose or like for entertainment purposes, it took me a long time to process of like why that could be done, like why, why, why. But human beings, part of our human experience is is aggression, like it is literally part of our human experience, especially for the male, um gender on that, like it really is part of that.

Adela: 20:45

And what I didn't realize until I had a son and until we put him into jujitsu and like really needing that level, you know, and he wants to do muay thai and all these like other things and like, look, dude, I'm, I'm, I've compromised on jujitsu and like that, like you know, uh, as a mom, my, my thing is just protect, protect precious thing but at the same time, if we don't allow boys and men and spaces for this level of aggression to kind of be a form and turn it into a form of play but also use it as a mental health resource, if you really have to get something out, you can go in with your buddies and you can do some damage and let some steam off but really still create something right.

Adela: 21:28

Whether that's a bond, that's a yeah that's a show, that's something, and that's something I realized again going through jiu-jitsu, watching my son perform, watching my son go into competitions and again being the mom. That's like, oh my god. But now I'm like, yeah, like good is because yeah, I see the need for that for him.

Adela: 21:45

I see that, and then I also see the need for me to have that within me too, because it, like I don't know, it does something to the body of going like, yeah, just to kind of give that because it's part of us.

Adela: 21:59

So I think it's really cool to now see it from that perspective, versus where it was just like ah, no, and now I'll be like no, this is an appreciated form and appreciated human expression and, again, as someone who had to learn what the body needs, that form of movement is, as you said, is in our form, because you got to create dance moves, you got to create these formants, but you also got got it like, put on this performance of stunt work and and in a way that we again credit, like you said, these movies and these places that do it, because they do it the way that they do it on the screen, but when you go in real life it would be like a play on.

Adela: 22:39

It's a play on, you know, on a stage, and it's so great um yeah it's, so it's so and it's funny because I have.

Devlin: 22:47

It's funny because I have a friend who he does stunts in hollywood and he's been in a lot of marvel movies and he was a professional wrestler and that's he. When he got out of business he decided that he wanted to go and and he got. He was in a uh, I want to say it was a bruce willis movie and that's how he got his start because he was bald and he kind of looked like bruce willis movie and that's how he got his start because he was bald and he kind of looked like bruce willis. And they're like, yeah, we need to get, we need a stunt double for bruce. Um, I can't looper, that was the name of the movie. That's when he got started.

Devlin: 23:13

But he's done a ton of work in the hollywood. He's been in like, um, oh, what's that movie? I can't think of the name of it. But again, he's been in a ton of stuff Like high end. He's not doing B-movie work and he loves it. He loves every second of it Because it kind of keeps him in that wrestler aspect of the stunts and putting his body, what he puts it through and still being on the performance side of things because he can go back and watch the movie, be like, yeah, I did that, yeah, and it's. And it's art in the sense like it's.

Adela: 23:52

It's gonna sound weird, but it's like sick art because it's like he's he's putting his body through heck to to entertain the masses but then can we argue that if we consider that like almost a sick art, I would think that then I, because I listened to david goggins and I'm a huge fan and I think his level of extremity is sick at that level, at what he's willing to put his body to. If you haven't listened to his um, his, his, uh, um book oh, my goodness, now I forgot the name, I see it, but david goggins is his name. He's genuinely like. I've listened to him and like the inner me, I have a david goggins. I'm just not willing to literally do what he's done. He's like, uh, he's been through uh, um, uh, navy seal training, he's been in every he's just, would I tell you this this is a master human being and what he does to put his body through like it's sick.

Adela: 24:49

Like it's sick and I mean almost demented sick, but at the same time for him and this is no again, don't take it wrong way, guys it's just again the scale of humanity in our, in our levels, of what we're willing to push ourselves and push our bodies through. I look at that and I'm like holy shit, that level of determination, that level of like resilience, because that's literally what that is, and then also that level of will, that level of dedication, that level of drive, that level of just I don't give a fuck. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. This is what I love to do.

Adela: 25:27

This is my thing, and I'm gonna do it period.

Adela: 25:30

I don't care how much it hurts, I don't care what bone it breaks I don't care what like I don't, I don't care if it takes my life today, I just want to know I did it to the fullest extent of what I was capable of. And when you describe it that way too, you can always, in any art form, in any place, in any, you can find that level of humans who take it to the level of really extreme. But for them it's not at all they're capable of that. For me, that would just be I would die, that's instant. But I want to think, I want to really think that I would die like that's instant, like ah, but I want to think, yeah, I want to really think that.

Adela: 26:07

I would have some level of that guts right, some level of that resilience, if, if I really had to be pushed into that, so then. So then we go back into our everyday life and go well, why can't I take, handle my everyday life, or why can't I do some things? Or when humans are putting their bodies through so much um, and they have found a key to really connect their, their mind and body and on open the voices of going like I'm and you and I. This is where we're going to get into the conversation of our meeting. But when we went to, when I went, when I started with parachute goddess project, I was new, early into this art stage too and knew really into everything. But I was there for a whole different reason, as you were too, and mentally again, I don't think either one of us where we are now. I think we're both so much, like you said earlier, wiser and and and we both have had losses and tragedies and things.

Adela: 27:02

Even through that experience and and and I found that not being able to function through the day has been literally like the hardest part of existing, because you feel so much shame on yourself, because you're like I can't get up, brush my teeth, I can't get up and do something, I can't do this, it can't be here. And I remember when I was on that trip, that's this kind of where I was at to. I remember when I was on that trip, that's this kind of where I was at. To be honest, like I was at that level of lowest but I just knew I wanted to create and I wanted to express. I didn't know what it meant, but I'm gonna do it.

Adela: 27:34

And so when we came to new mexico you'll have to you know more about that we were literally driving through. That happened to be a pit stop, like just a a random let's stop at this location, let's see what we can do in 15 minutes. So from my perspective, that trip was me and Leilana coming in. We're in this parachute, we're on a hike, we're like looking for these amazing places to just stop and pop and create. And we found this little town, or this little motel or this I don't know He'll give you the full story of, because he has a story that he was there and um, and, and I, of course, was like I want to shoot, but I also want to ask permission.

Adela: 28:10

So I'm like, oh well, there's the owner right there, let me go talk to him real quick and just be like, hey, can we take like 15 minutes, five minutes, just to do whatever? And and he's like I you know, I'm not the owner, I'm just here, whatever. And I was like, oh my God. And then we just kind of talked for a second, but it was such a rush at that time too, it was so much was happening. We had another human. I forgot her name.

Adela: 28:32

I just had at the top of my head that we had met there too, that she was passing through and helped us out, and which was just so cool to meet two humans, and our hug that we had, and when you shared with me while you were there, he'll share all that with you.

Adela: 28:47

But it just made me realize that we're all one step away from that. We're all one step again away from that moment. Have on upon ourselves, because society says you're supposed to be just the greatest thing ever on the world, versus I am enough for today, and functioning and doing what I need to do and I'm just taking care of me and that's good enough. And if I happen to come through, and if something like that's good enough for the day, that doesn't mean I can't strive for more, I can't do for more. But tuning that out, that made me realize in your story and that like how close I always was and through that time, how much I was thinking about that and how much I was almost wanting to, even even though I had my son, even though I had my life, even I had this thing in the world, but the expectations of the world were just too much for my little old self and now not being able to kind of shun it all out, because as I started out I was like let's just go.

Adela: 29:43

So you really helped in that moment, really helped ground me. And then when you reached out to me, when I had that one loss on Facebook during that time, when I was in my moment, those moments just helped ground me of like okay, well, there's humans that I don't even know. I don't even know, but that one moment one chance that 15 minutes can change and alter courses forever, and that's kind of what happened, at least from my perspective, what happened from there, so I'll let you share the story from your perspective.

Devlin: 30:17

I appreciate that. All those are very kind words. She's always had good kind words, always, always had good kind words, um. So I, I, I technically um a lot. I I took that trip to phoenix and I drove through new mexico. Um, my best friend passed away in august of 2019 and this was march of 2020, and I I needed to get away from the familiarity of where, because we lived together for so long and everything around here reminded me of him. I always wanted to go. He had went as a boy scout to New Mexico, um, to a boy scout camp up in Cimarron, and I said I want to go out to. I had friends out in Phoenix. They said hey, you have an open invite. I called him.

Devlin: 31:17

It was a spur of the moment trip. I said I want to come out there. I want to spend a couple of days out there just trying to find something. I didn't know what to expect. It was more of like a spiritual journey. Like I said, I just went out there with a plan of where I was going and where I was staying and that was it. I got in a rental car, um, but probably what you don't know is that I try to think things out in my head, logically speaking.

Devlin: 31:56

So I flew into Phoenix. I got to go way back, I flew into Phoenix and, again, flying from Ohio to Phoenix, it's nighttime, it's like 12 o'clock midnight, we are 15 minutes from landing and my iPhone, which had never blacked out on me before, blacked out. So now my car rental information is not on there. The directions to my friend's house is on there. Everything that I need to um to navigate Phoenix is on there. So I knew I had to go to the rental car place. I knew where that. I had memorized how to get there. I knew how to get on a shuttle to go up to there. I went up there. I had my ID, I had everything necessary to get the car. I just didn't have a way to pop my phone. I get to the rental car place. They were kind enough to upgrade my car to an SUV, but I had to get manual directions from someone and it was just to surprise Arizona. It was not to my friend's house because I didn't have their information. We don't have things written down anymore, it's all in our devices.

Devlin: 33:11

So I drove to Surprise and I went to a Walmart and I said the Walmart's open. I can coax someone into getting on their messenger and messaging my friend. And what I found out is that in today's society there are people who won't help other people, no matter what your story is, no matter who you are, where you come. You could show them ID. I showed them my plane ticket. I said look, I don't need to touch your phone, I just need you to get on Facebook Messenger and message this gentleman's name and let him know I'm here. No one would help me.

Devlin: 33:50

Called the Phoenix police or called the surprise police department and said hey, what do I got to do to get you to figure out where my friend lives and take me over there? And they're like well, we really can't do that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I said so if I go and smash a window out in the parking lot, like, you'll come arrest me, or at least I have a place to sleep. And he's like well, you know, I don't really know if you should do that. Like, okay, that's cool. So I said, well, I got this rental car. At least I'll sleep in the car, maybe. And there's a Verizon store right across the street. I said, well, you know, maybe I'm going to go figure out what's wrong with my phone.

Devlin: 34:22

So I spent almost an entire night in the parking lot and nature calls sometimes, right. So I said, well, I'll go around the building and I'll use the restroom behind the building. And so I had the car door propped open, that way I wasn't exposing myself and I could see my phone sitting on the car. And it finally died and it started to spin and I was like, please, come back on, please come back on. And I plugged my phone in and of course it came on. I got on messenger immediately. I told Rich and Becky, my friends. I said I where are you guys still up? I'm on my way. They're like like, yeah, we're up. I get there, knock on the door. He opens the door, points me to my room and goes back to bed. I wake up the next morning. They literally thought that I had ghosted them. I've known these guys for a decade. They're like we thought we ghosted you. I literally took pictures of me in the Columbus airport. Are you kidding me that I ghosted you? What do you think happened to me?

Devlin: 35:23

like I'm glad I'm not dead I'm glad I'm not dead like I'm glad someone didn't mug me in the outside the airport. So I'm not like they didn't follow, that's no, you're fine, like I'm, like you guys even think to file up for missing persons report or anything like that. Like at least the, the, the surprise the police would have put two and two together maybe we're calling for a missing friend and a missing friend called.

Devlin: 35:47

The point of that story is and I took all that in was I was sitting there in the car listening to music. I said I was kind of talking to my friend out loud and I was kind of laughing and I said I've been in a place that I don't know for six months and now I've come to Phoenix. And I been in a place that I don't know for six months and now I've come to Phoenix and I'm in a place that I don't know. But I said everything will work itself out. And everything worked itself out.

Devlin: 36:15

Now phase two I spent some time in Surprise with my friends, but I had this plan to drive to Cimarron. But I also always wanted to go to New Mexico and go to a little town called Lincoln, which is the town you and I met in and, because it's very historical, known for Billy the kid. Billy the kid, you know all that stuff. That's the hotel, the hotel I was staying in. I was the only occupant of that hotel the whole night. There was no other people there, none. I slept in a 200-year-old hotel by myself.

Adela: 36:54

The things that I could have done.

Devlin: 36:56

I was late getting up that morning. So again, I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that things that happen to you in your life and people that you meet in your life happen for a reason. I met my best friend by getting in a bar when I was 18. I had no business in that bar, but I met him. That's where I met him. No business I shouldn't have been getting in there drinking at 18.

Adela: 37:23

We all did it. That's what we did in our day we all did Listen. That's what this generation no offense, but that's what this generation will never really know about.

Devlin: 37:32

Right. So I was late, leaving Surprise to drive to Lincoln. So I had everything timed out Like I have to be here, here and here, here, here and here. I got to Lincoln and I had been there probably 15 minutes before you showed up. So if I was early we might not have. I mean, if I was early and I went and did something else, we might not have ever met. If I was early and I went and did something else, we might not have ever met what? Now let me explain to the listeners of what Adele looked like when I met her. Here comes this firecracker of a lady.

Adela: 38:15

I think my head was shaking too.

Devlin: 38:20

I was going to point this out. Her head was shaved but she had this energy aura about her and she didn't even ask me for a hug. She hugged me like she knew me. I kind of put my hand out to shake her hand and she hugged me and she's like I give hugs yeah, I do that and I said okay.

Adela: 38:44

So my thought is and don't think bad about me, I said this late this lady's dying no, but really a lot of people thought when I shaved my head that I was going through something yeah, I thought I thought she had nothing left to live for and she was living life to the fullest.

Devlin: 39:04

And she's out here in new mexico taking these photos and hugging random strangers.

Adela: 39:09

I could have been a serial killer, you don't know I know no you don't know they tell me that to this day I'm not allowed to go alone anywhere. I don't have, I have no privileges in my life because I just I like I right like hi, yeah, I know yeah, I'm just like, I'm like, oh my god, she this.

Devlin: 39:29

And so I was kind of like you're like, hey, can you help us with this photo? And I'm like, absolutely, and in my mind I'm going, she is just she's, she's just living life, she does not care. And so the the thought in my head was that you were dying and I was like, oh my God she's, you know, she's showing me that you have to live, you have to be this, you have to be something and you have to live for more. And you just she's being again random meeting. I would have never met you if I was, if I didn't leave, if I didn't leave late, if I didn't leave late.

Adela: 40:03

I guess I could have been off Listen If I didn't leave late. If I didn't leave late, like I said, I could have been off the internet Listen.

Devlin: 40:07

God turned your phone off for a reason. Yeah, no, I'm saying things on. This trip happened for a reason and it made me a better human being because of it. So again you leave and I'm like I'll never see that girl again. She'll be gone and dead and I'll never see her again. It was sad. It was sad but I was like you know what, I'm gonna get on facebook and I'm gonna see if I can find her and just let her know what it meant to me that she, she, did that because she, she, if she's pat, she's dying, she needs to know that she touched somebody's heart. So I was like that's going to help me feel a little bit better about what I'm going through.

Devlin: 40:49

So fast forward past that, the next morning I get up and I drive from there to Roswell and then up to Fort Sumter and then up to Cimarron and I get to Cimarron and I'm going to spread part of my friend's ashes up there in that Boy Scout camp. The National Boy Scout Museum is right there. I can't find a perfect spot. I see it. There's just a field. It's right behind the Boy Scout Museum. I'm standing there and I'm crying and shaking and I can't do it. I can't say goodbye. I'm trying to coax myself into doing it. I'm saying I'm like Devlin, you can do this, just say what you got to say. And I was so mad at him because he didn't take care of himself health wise, and I'm like I said a lot of things I probably shouldn't have said to him, but I'm like this is how I feel, let me get this out. And I threw his ashes. And as soon as I threw his ashes, I, this breeze, came up off the ground and it went from my legs to my soul and I'll never forget it. It felt like you ever been on a roller. I say that field I was reborn in and every day I get to see that field it's on my phone, it's on my phone. I keep that on my phone every day. So when I look at it I know he's there, I'm there, that feeling is there and I don't forget it.

Devlin: 42:33

And that whole state and that was driving from lincoln to cimarron was I could pull off on the side of the road and start walking and no one would find me for years. I would just be a missing person. Yep and and. And that was a hard reality. Like I said, driving, driving there was. I put the radio on and I just said, pick songs. I told my best friends to pick songs and, of course, whatever random songs came on, we're all tearjerkers and I'm like like like tears in heaven and I'm like driving and crying like a baby and I'm like and and I'm I'm only an emotional guy when it comes to the people that I love, like I don't want to see the people that I love hurt. I don't want to see the people that I love pass away.

Devlin: 43:32

And I know death's a part of life, but you know my best friend was 43. You know he had a lot of it's young. It's a lot of life to live and you know a lot of things you have to come to terms with. And I always one of my favorite sayings is is that I am myself, I am where death is most alive, I cherish, or whether it's my best friend, I can tell stories. My dad's a part of me, his genetics run through me. My grandmother's genetics run through me. They're not dead. A piece of them is alive. And as long as I can tell stories about my best friend, about my father, about my grandmother, they're alive in the atmosphere and you can't take that away? I do. I wish they were here. 100 percent, of course. Am I, am I? Am I 100 better? No, I, I.

Devlin: 44:34

I saw a video clip of, of all people, billy bob thornton. He said. He said I I'll never get over my brother's death, but if that's what it takes for him, for me to move on and for him to be remembered, then I'll suffer and that's how I go through life nowadays. Is that? Is that he, he? He said I was like, oh my God, that resonates so much with me because I am in constant like, okay, this was a bad day. Like it's almost, it's almost my best friend's birthday and so Halloween was his favorite time of the year.

Devlin: 45:16

So when, when he first passed away, it was in August, and then that initial October, like I cried at seeing a spirit Halloween and I and it was because he would call me and he would say we're going to spirit Halloween and he hang up the phone and I'd be like I was like I didn't have a say in it, he would just be like we're going and he'd hang up the phone. So when I'm driving past it and I saw it on the corner, I was like, oh my god, and then I'm driving some more and I'm like, why am I crying? Why am I physically crying? And it was because of that, and I've learned to to let certain things slide and let certain things go. But I've also allowed myself to be vulnerable and cry and allow that to happen.

Devlin: 45:56

Because you need that. You need to come to terms in reality with the sadness that you're feeling, because if you just allow it to bottle up and be manifested in yourself, it's gonna you're gonna end up like me in Arizona and Phoenix trying to figure out. You know your path now in life. Yeah, and so, like I said, you only knew part of the story. You didn't know the whole shebang.

Adela: 46:21

I mean you told me you were there to honor your friend, and you were. You know that he passed and you were just there to experience this and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, like that's, I'm sorry for your loss and let me give you a hug. And just because I, there are no to me in a time of loss. This is something I've struggled so much with, because here in America, or everywhere, I mean in every culture and everywhere, but here, particularly here, because I'm here now but at a loss, you know, like I understand we should be there, but what, what do you say? Like I, there's, there's nothing to say. Like I'm sorry is no suffice. Like there's condolences or not. Like there's no word, there's no action, there's no. Like, at least in my mind, that if I were to lose someone that I loved at that level and I've been at that- and I've been at spaces where I've lost people and I've been going.

Adela: 47:13

There is nothing in those moments of grief and so to not be able to, to not know what to say, to not know what to do, I found that giving a hug and just like that human connection, because I don't think words are just and again, you guys correct me if I'm wrong because I, but I do I just don't think there are words to to describe or to say like for what the human is going through in that state there's nothing. And when we try, I don't know if we make it worse or if we make it better. And so I figured that if I'm going to invade private space and personal space, I don't know how to do that on an emotional level yet, but I'll do it on a physical and give you a hug and hope that my hug and telling you that I really just I am sorry, but I wish you all the best and the joy.

Adela: 48:07

And you know, and if we can feel that through that, I found that that was a very good way for me to find words now to be able to just say I have no words but can I give you a hug and now ask permission? Because I didn't at that time either. I was just hugging people left and right.

Devlin: 48:22

Right, because I didn't at that time, either I was just hugging people left and right, right, understand, understand the flip side of that coin, where how your appearance like, like, threw me off and it was like. It was like I.

Adela: 48:34

I want, I thought.

Devlin: 48:40

I thought, oh my god, this girl's sick. And I'm afraid to hug her at the same time because I'm like maybe my germs will get her sick, because it was right there at the beginning of COVID. I'm like, oh my God, like am I going to get her sick? Because I don't know and you can't ask in that situation, like hey, are you sick? I just saw a very dainty. She was very petite, very petite, skinny lady with a bald head. You don't see those types of women all the time. And then we've got a parachute dress and you're like I'm sitting there going and shoot.

Devlin: 49:20

Yeah, and she's like we're just traveling through here and I'm like, like they're kind of on the same journey as me. But I don't know how to address this. I'll never not say, say no to a hug, but how am I going to like not try to breathe on this girl or transfer germs? And no, it's not your fault, but I needed you to know. That mentality was there. That's so great. And it was like. It was like she's, she, she needs my hug.

Devlin: 49:48

But and in reality I needed her hug and and it was just like she was doing out of the kindness of her heart. And in my mind it was because she's living life to the fullest, because she's gonna die soon, and I'm like, oh, or she's. She's been told she's got six months to live, so she's traveling with her friend taking all these great pictures, because I got to see some more pictures after I had become friends on Facebook by that week. So I was like, oh, they went out to Roswell and they went out to this great like lake and they took pictures out there. And I'm like, oh, she's just taking pictures everywhere. And then I find out she's not sick and I'm like, oh, now I'm the jerk, because I could have just been like, yeah, thank you. Thank you for the hug, like you're such a nice lady. But no, I didn't get to do that. I got to be sit over there overthinking stuff like I normally do.

Adela: 50:36

Oh, my god, I love. This is like the best. This has been the best so far. This has been the funniest, because I just think it's so hilarious that. But it just proves again our own, what our brains and what our minds can do and the stories that they can create. And to me, this is going to end up in my standup, by the way, when I do my standup, it's going to end up in there, right? So this is hilarious, um, because I I people aren't as honest about what their initial thoughts are to humans, because they're so afraid of like how it's going to come off, how it's whatever.

Adela: 51:10

And I literally thrive on that because I I don't have a filter, so if I meet someone and I have a question, I'm curious, or I don't understand, or I just want to say it like it just comes out.

Adela: 51:21

It's not intentionally for me to be like, oh, this is, it's just like. Oh, look like okay, like that's okay, nothing, because I, just I, you know, my brain is processing. And so again, for you to have that experience with me and to tell me it's so cool because I don't meet humans to do that to be like, hey, just so you know, I'm like yeah.

Devlin: 51:44

No, I've always wanted to tell you that story. We've just never been in a situation like I have eventually have plans to come to Florida? Oh yes, I've never had. I've never had the opportunity to be like, pull you aside and be like you know, here's the situation. Let me tell you why. Our first encounter was great and also very weird at the same time. So I mean, your, your stand-up could start out with like have you ever had someone think you were dying?

Adela: 52:16

yeah, and then you go through a whole life and you go through months I didn't know this like, and it's a whole life and you go through months, yeah you know this like and it's a whole years.

Devlin: 52:24

Welcome, right, welcome to the story, yeah, yeah. So I mean, like I said, I I have, look, I have no shame in being able to tell people how I actually felt and embarrassed, look, I wrestled in spandex in front of strangers. I my, my couth is gone, I don't care. So I will be able to express any kind of story that I need to, and it's not a bad thing. I was trying to be cognizant of your sickness, so to speak, but you weren't actually sick. But again, like I said, that's what made that whole interaction, that part you didn't know, that's what made it so special. For me is because you didn't know. You didn't really know what I was going through, because I wouldn't I don't reveal that to strangers. Why would I do that?

Devlin: 53:09

But for you to just hug me and not shake my hand and I'm like she doesn't know who I am in my mind, literally thinking about like she doesn't know me. Why is she hugging me? And I'm like I'm like she's actually, she's not. Like this isn't like a tap and go. This is a hug. And I'm like I'm like she's actually, she's not like this isn't like a tap and go. This is a hug and I'm like she.

Devlin: 53:26

Either she's either super perceptive of some, so how, when someone's going through, or she's really sick and she's just she's out of heck with it. I'm hugging everybody, everybody's getting loved before I go, or she just does this on a regular. But my whole like 80 of my mental was like her head shaved. One plus one is two we're, we're, we're going, we're going with it. Yeah, but but again, I don't believe in coincidences. I believe paths cross for me and I've told this story to strangers about me meeting you. Oh, my god, I said I met, I met these two strangers in the desert. We're literally in the desert, like it's like a bad, like joke, how?

Adela: 54:08

or a bad story it's a horror movie waiting to be happened. So if you wanted to write a horror script, like you, are more than welcome to and just cast us, but we'll make it funny 100.

Devlin: 54:19

But like that, that's that's how, that's how we met, and I'm like that you meet these two strangers. I'm like in my mind, I'm like I'll never see them again, like physically never see them again, but I'm like and I was telling you about I take baseball trips every year. I have to come to Florida eventually it's gonna happen, whether I make it through.

Devlin: 54:40

Jacksonville or not well, we'll have to go to a baseball game somewhere, and I'll have to experience it on a level that you know is the true american way well, you mentioned you mentioned forrest gump is, and I'm a big movie guy, but a great baseball movie is called bull durham and there's a great saying in there about baseball. There's sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. That's baseball on that shelf and I rained.

Adela: 55:07

I got rained on and it was still good it was, it was fine, I had popcorn, yeah, it was great. Like I, really, I, I really act again consciously now to experience things. I think I'm so glad I waited to experience a lot of this because I, if I would experience it any other time, I would experience it. I don't know if, like, please don't take me wrong, the one, but like the way most people do is just to go and to you know at least from who aren't the fans who aren't you know, really like the devoted um people who who follow it on that. But like I would have just gone and been like, oh, it's a baseball game, like whatever. Like I would have just gone and been like, oh, it's a baseball game, like whatever. Like, oh, I'm just here, whatnot? And I actually, again, I actually consciously, was there.

Adela: 55:47

And then the rain and I was like, god, why are you making it rain today? Because you know, I don't like rain and I really had to have the struggle, like really struggle, to sit and enjoy the game through the rain because, again, I I don't know why I don't like it, but but, but it's one of those I'm like, okay, well, fine, I will, I will still try to enjoy it. I will, because I was consciously aware of it and it wasn't like I want to have a tantrum and I want to run off and I don't want to be a part of it and ruin it. And and this is again the self-accountability, awareness of why you're feeling or where you're going and connecting your mind and body and being able to go I can still enjoy this moment. I can still enjoy my family.

Adela: 56:24

I don't have to be the one because I don't like something or I'm not. It's not what is preferred for me, what everybody else around me I'm looking at are sitting there, literally not in their raincoats, like I am not in. I had all the protections Okay, leave me alone. But I, I, I still sat there and then I enjoyed it and I saw the play, and then I saw the interactions, and then I saw the families and I saw the kids and I saw again that wholesomeness of the American dream and what you just said, that like the culture of going to games, and now I'm going to go.

Adela: 56:55

Experience a football game here, the Jags game coming up for my sister's birthday, and again, I don't like that either. I'm not a I'm not a big crowd stadium fan kind of girl, I'm really not. But I will for my family and you know people I love and things that they ask me Like I will. But again I'm going to go now, with this conscious awareness of now, I'm going to look at it from a performance art, even though I don't want to watch the violence part of it'm gonna look at it.

Devlin: 57:18

And because they've had to make now I get, the more I learn and the more I talk to people, the more I understand, um, understand, like, what things mean yeah, no, I mean it's really kind of cool I think that I think that a lot of people, uh, baseball has has taken a secondary place to football as america's sport, yeah, um, but it being the pastime, I love a baseball game because there's a lot of stillness in baseball, there's a lot of time to reflect in baseball and it's very slow. It's not like football. Football is fast paced. You have to think about what's going on and in my mind I'm thinking about what the pitcher is going to do, what's the runner on first doing. I'm thinking. It's making me think in my head when I'm watching a game and I'm analyzing it in my head. But also, like I went out to San Francisco this past year to a baseball game and I had to take in the beauty of the San Francisco Bay that's around that stadium. It's the most gorgeous ballpark I've been to yet for aesthetics because it's right on the cove and I had to walk around the whole stadium to see what I was looking at and it was. It was a very like religious experience.

Devlin: 58:39

I always think of baseball as like it's church for me. I go there, I get my, I get my nice game, my, my sermon, and I get to walk around this cathedral ballpark and I get to see guys play a child's sport. I can see grown men play a child's sport and I get to see little kids I mean, even though sometimes kids can be loud I can see mom and dad with the kid and they're out and they're having fun. I can see the little kids enjoying their first game with their glove and with their dad. And I remember going and this is a great story too I went to my first baseball game with my dad on Father's Day in 96 here in Cincinnati. It was my first major league game and I got lost and so I ended up at the back part of the stadium and they radioed that my dad was up at the front of the ballpark where the home plate is, and they said, hey, go meet your dad. And they let me through the center field wall and I got to run all the way to home. So when my dad died I said I said I'll meet you at home again, dad, and because that was a very, very great experience when my dad passed away that I got to have that moment. We didn't have a lot of good moments like that, but I reflected back on having to run through centerfield all the way home to meet him there when I was 13 years old and I told him. I said you know, I said I'll meet you at home again one day, and it was a great little kind of memory that popped into my head when he passed away and that, like I said, baseball for me has always been my.

Devlin: 1:00:16

It's the first thing I ever loved. I loved it before. I loved wrestling. It's the first thing I've ever loved. And again I'm watching it and I'm looking for the story. What's the story in this game? What's going on? What do they need? Who's pitching? It's all this stuff going together. Then I'm looking at the audience and the wrestler in me goes what's the audience doing? And I'm looking and the crowds they're doing chants, they're cheering, they're getting mad, they're getting mad at the umpires. It is, it is just like being a wrestler. It is, it is just like being a wrestler because I can see the guys on the field and like they're performing for us and they're putting on a show. Granted, it's everything that they're doing is absolutely a hundred percent real, but there's glances of theatrics. And baseball absolutely 110 real, but there's glances of theatrics. And baseball. There's the mascots. That's a theatric. There's the fireworks shows, the halftime shows at football. Yeah, yeah, so it's all art, but it's it's disguised as reality, right, if that makes sense, whereas wrestling is art disguised as reality as well.

Adela: 1:01:21

Yeah, yeah it's all of it. Well, I think that's what makes this whole process of existing as a human being so beautiful, because we, as humans, are artists Like the whole reason why we've been created, like the word creation.

Adela: 1:01:37

We were created to create, whether that's destruction or that's beautiful, that's, you know, beautiful creation of life or whatever. But we were designed for that. And when we don't do or fit into those places or we're not following fulfilling that person's purpose of creation, you know we're falling short, we're falling into places where we don't know how to function. And one of the things that I found is that when we're talking about functionality and creation and art like literally getting up and learning how to love your laundry, learning how to love your dishes, learning how to love your, you know, taking care of your car or taking care of, like these moments in your own space and place of existence and creating your life to be almost prestigious, in this act of my life and in this season and in this, play.

Adela: 1:02:24

Okay, great, let me see what that entails and what it is that I have to do and the character I have to build. Or I want to be a villain this time, and let me tell you a really quick story. I thought I was in my villain era this whole time. I thought it was in my big villain era, which, by the look of your face, right, everybody's look on their face this is how misconstrued our own conceptions of ourselves are until we told the truth. Um, so, so I had to prepare for for my uh, for the adela design, like the brand or whatever it's prepared, this like 10 marketing plan, and we had to put what I see adela as and I'm like, off, I have to think about this, like I have to put myself and see Adela as, and I'm like, oh, I have to think about this, like I have to put myself in, I'm just not good at that, like I'm not good at that because I just see myself as a villain.

Adela: 1:03:07

So I made this proposal and I did my point and I sent it to a few people to see it. I was like, hey, this is what I was asked to do, this is what I think, this is what I feel you know, and the responses were like which one of your personalities do you think that is? Cause it's not the main one? And I was like what does that mean? Like time out? And then, oh, it gets better. And then I was like what do you mean?

Adela: 1:03:36

And they're very close humans of mine and I trust them, you know, to the, to their say so I, I, I value it. But I was like what do you mean? I'm like like, I mean I'm like intimidating and I'm like right, I'm like I'm a hard ass because it's again the way people in my workspace and in my production space I am like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and I'm blunt and I just come off that way. So to me that's just an asshole, right, and and and and. So that's just how I thought my persona was this badass asshole.

Adela: 1:04:04

So I had these images of um, I love underworld, I think I'm in, I'm my own, like inner k-beck and sales, um, uh, version, I for Celine, I think I'm my own Celine. So I had these like Celine, inspired, like this is what Adela is and this is the stage presence we're going to have. And instead somebody was like Adela, you are the furthest thing from that. Like, that's just, I don't even understand what you're like, that's like most of us around you, right? And so we pull up this. Uh, oh, my God, I forgot her name now, but she just passed away and I can't think of it now. Let me, oh, it doesn't matter, but we pull up this and she's this. She passed away not too recently, but she was the.

Devlin: 1:04:49

Was it Shannon Daugherty?

Adela: 1:04:50

No, not Shannon Daugherty. Let me really quick, because I think you're.

Devlin: 1:04:54

Because that's the first name that popped in my head. No, but Go ahead, go ahead. But to counter your, to counter your point real quick, is that here's here's a great connection to what you're talking about. In wrestling, when they with you, you, you, you, you kind of create your own character, it's almost like who do you, who do you want to be? So what we tell what I used to tell guys who are struggling with their character I'm like either be yourself, who you are the closest thing to your personality would just turn the volume up or be completely different than yourself, be the polar opposite of what you are, because that is going to be the head turner when you go out there. If you saw me wrestle, you would be like I don't know this man, why is this man like fish hooking another grown man?

Adela: 1:05:44

My character was a complete. We put her. She's in again. When I find her name I'll send you and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. You'll laugh at it afterwards and I see her name but I can't remember right now. But she's in this yellow ruffles with her gray hair and her big old pearls and and these like beautiful rings, and she's just badass, sitting there like this and with her frou-frou hair. It just is like I was like. I was like, oh, you know, and they're like that is you Adela? If there's like, that is it? We are gonna put that seventh personality away. She does not need to run the world because that's not the main one. And but again, it goes to that perception of. When you met me too, I, I thought I was of like.

Devlin: 1:06:29

In my perception I was this badass like like in my head but but, but honestly, but honestly. No, no, no. But you, you took you. You hear that I thought you were sick, but I also, like, I respected the fact that you were out there and you were on this journey and you were just taking these photos. You guys pulled out a freaking parachute dress Folks. For those of you who have never seen the Parachute Goddess Project, let me inform you that a parachute is not some small entity, it is a very large thing. Then, then, adela decides to get changed and I'm like having to turn my back because I'm trying to be a gentleman, and I'm like she, just she does not care, does not care that I'm standing there, grown man, met five minutes ago, hugged, but I didn't expose myself.

Adela: 1:07:25

I was very respectful she was very respectful.

Devlin: 1:07:28

But at the same time I saw I saw clothes coming off, my back turned, but you but you were still. You put that dress on and it was like a light switch turned on. It was like you went right into what you you've always done the modeling aspect of it. You were right in there.

Devlin: 1:07:46

I've never taken photos for a model, up until the point I took the photos for you. But I'm looking through the lens and I'm like she really kind of knows what she's doing, like she's very fierce in this like and again. The mindset is that she's sick and doesn't care, but she's flaunting it, she's going for it. She's she's taking the risk. She's sick and doesn't care, but she's flaunting it, she's going for it, she's taking the risk, she's putting herself out there to me. I'm standing there, I'm the audience, I'm watching her for the first time.

Devlin: 1:08:10

You didn't care, it was like I wasn't there, but I was and you were like taking these photos in this great old rundown Adobe house. It was so beautiful and then, like I said, you took photos, post that. You did the same exact thing. Like I can tell your, your artist ability is not just the photo, it is the setting. It is how you're wearing the dress. It is, I get it. I because I don't like to consider myself an artist. But again, when you've been in a business where you can see the bigger picture and you can, you can look at something and go, okay, that's art, like no, I get it every human being is an artist and when we have to create something out of our imagination, like, literally, this life, we're meant to eat and sleep.

Adela: 1:08:58

that's it like, as as a like if we were just an entity existing here is just eat and sleep like that's it. Like if we were just an entity existing here.

Adela: 1:09:03

it's just eat and sleep, like that's it, and maybe do for all or whatever right, but when we are creating what we're creating the cities, the games, these realities like that is art in every way, and for people who are coding and for people who are in the back, having to put together a label or having to put together you, anything, any, any written, any, any thought that's put into something is a creation. And to me, when, when I look at a human being, I just cannot unsee an artist, and so, like when you say you're not an artist, I'm like hell. No, you're also on the artist within podcast.

Devlin: 1:09:38

So now you are official I don't, I don't consider myself, you better consider yourself.

Adela: 1:09:45

Now you better, but it is because it's so true, like how can we not, as human beings, be the artists of our lives, or the artists of this reality, or the artists of this just existence? Because, again, whatever anybody believes and I say this constantly to each his own in that but god didn't put us on this planet and that god didn't create us not to be able to create something so much deeper past the physical realm of ours, right like right past, just like these, again, our, our random chance of meeting and our random help, of that, like I we weren't, I wasn't even in the thought I'll ever see you again, either, or we'll ever talk or we'll have a connection. But our abilities to do that as human beings, through expression, right Through expressing what we love, through expressing what we feel, through expressing moments that are, just as you said, like being honest and authentic and real and vulnerable to yourself. When I came that, I had just finished shaving my head in December and that was my rebirth project.

Adela: 1:10:45

That was the suicide awareness project I did to speak about my own mental health and that was me reclaiming. That was my rebirth and so, like that trip was literally me going through and rediscovering myself and deciding what imprint of this human I wanted to be, and and and experimenting, and figuring it out, and seeing, learning how to connect, learning what it means to be a social being, because I didn't know what that was and I thought I did. And so the all of these experiences and to lead to here now, that was 2020, we're in 2024, going to 2025 I mean, this is almost five years into this creation of of energy and spiritual connection that most humans don't allow themselves to have, because in our own prejudgments, our own pre-thoughts, our own whatever it is.

Adela: 1:11:35

It's blocking it and and the fact that you even again, most people will brush me off, throw me out and just be like, get the off, like, but that you accepted and that, and that you were there for that too, and I was just like, oh, that's cool, this is great, I'm just good again, I'm just gonna do me, regardless of anything.

Adela: 1:11:52

Um, it's, it's really cool to be able to reconnect and share this story and then share how yeah but I, I can't wait to see what the future is going to hold for this relationship and this partnership, just because the way we're going to grow, like I just we weren't. We did not meet for no reason, like it just did not not happen.

Devlin: 1:12:10

Again, I don't believe it. I don't believe in Quincy's because, again, you were on a journey of your own for suicide prevention. I literally went from putting a gun in my mouth to being in Phoenix because my dog, my wonderful dog, saved my life and I said I have to get out of this place. Because I don't get out of this place, they're going to find me in this basement. Yeah, and I was like I don't want to be there and I, again, I don't think that meeting you was any just like. Oh, coincidence it you are. Paths in life we're destined to cross, even if it's in a one singular place. That's where it crossed. It was good and, like I said, if my phone doesn't work, I'm not there. If I didn't leave, if I didn't leave late, we're not in that same area, at the same exact time.

Adela: 1:13:07

Just one thing off, just one thing after another wouldn't have happened.

Devlin: 1:13:11

So again, I don't think of coincidence.

Adela: 1:13:14

I think that for whatever reason.

Devlin: 1:13:16

The world put us together for a reason, and again it was bad circumstances, circumstances. But I didn't know what you were going through. You didn't know what I was going through. We just kind of connected and just had that moment in brief time yeah, but I walked.

Devlin: 1:13:34

I walked away from it going feeling like this lady just doesn't know who I am, but made me feel like I was important and you're welcome. But it's just because, like handshakes would have been fine, I wouldn't have felt the same way, but because you forced your, it's gonna sound bad. You forced your hug upon me and I'm like I'm like okay, like yeah. And I'm like I'm like okay, like yeah, and I'm like I.

Devlin: 1:14:04

I was always raised I raised in southern Ohio that if someone gives you a hug, you hug them back even if you don't know them. Because I've been to plenty of funerals where I've had to hug 500 people and I don't know who they are. And I'm hugging them and I'm just like they're thanking me well for whatever, or they're telling me stories about whomever, and I'm like, yep, love you too. Okay, cool, great. And then, like I said, when you gave me a hug, I'm just I felt obligated at that point because I put my hand out. You just were like get it away from me, I hug. And I'm like, okay, this is. But again, you gotta remember, I told you, just told you that you just learned that story about me thinking you were sick and so just know this, yeah, and just know this.

Adela: 1:14:42

I did feel. That's one of the reasons I think, and that was when I was starting to really really take into my intuition of a hug. Like I won't take no for those who are in the moment of need of a hug, because I know 100% what it's like to be and feel absolutely nothing in this world, even though you do have people around you or you whatever, but and feel absolutely nothing in this world, even though you do have people around you, or you?

Adela: 1:15:06

whatever, but just to feel that nothing Right, and that's where I was To be seen, like without anything, like just to be seen, just to be there. That's what, like I'd always wanted from someone and I've always like once I was able to provide that for myself and others in some way and shape or form. You know little small ways provided, but I just know what it's like not to have that full moment of like. I am seen, like I am just seen as a whole human. I don't care about, like no other details, it doesn't matter, I don't, I don't even care about your name, like I don't, I don't care no.

Adela: 1:15:39

I just care that you're here this moment and this experience and this branding and space that will last forever.

Devlin: 1:15:48

And that's what I needed, because I know I had friends. But I tell the story and it makes me upset, because when my best friend first passed away, everybody was checking on me and then a few people were checking on me and then everybody was checking on me and then a few people were checking on me and then one person was checking on me and he was checking on me every week and I think he might have missed a week and that's the week that I almost ended it. But again, it was just one of those things where I don't like people giving you window dressing and saying, hey, I'll be there for you if you need me. And I'm very humble where I won't ask for help. And that's the hardest thing for me to overcome is that I have to suck up my pride sometimes and, like I said, everybody stopped checking on me and that's when I, when I see someone in distress, um, or like I hadn't talked to you in a while and I hadn't seen any posts from you in a while, and finally I saw one and I'm like I gotta reach out to her, I gotta make sure she's doing okay, because I, if I'm gonna preach it, I gotta do it. So that's why I said I was like, hey, I'm glad you're doing good. If you need a guest, I'll come on, no questions asked. We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. Cool by me, um.

Devlin: 1:17:18

And so that's when I see, when I see people and like I have a lot of friends on Facebook that struggle with some stuff like that, when they make it a very, when I call it vague booking, when they vague book and you read between the lines, I'll message a person to message like hey, are you okay? I know we haven't talked in a while or whatever, but I keep up with your, your, your goings and making sure that you're okay. Are you all right? Do you just need to vent? You need someone to talk to? I'm always here, doors always open. Whatever you want to go get a drink, we'll go talk. And then they might open up and I might say, hey, I was in your shoes.

Devlin: 1:17:50

If it wasn't for Piper, my dog, I wouldn't be here taking my vision quest across the desert and being reborn in the middle of Simmer on New Mexico, and tell them like I came out of there a better man, not just a person, a better man.

Devlin: 1:18:13

And so hopefully that helps and if anybody's listening to this, I hope that if it helps them, if they hear something that I've said today or my journey or what they're going through, that you know, again, everybody's experienced some kind of loss on a certain level and you can connect with someone and maybe something they say will help you and that again, not all of us are going to have the journey that I had with you, know you on that trip, but again you might. If you can see it, if you don't overthink it, sometimes you'll see that there is someone there or you have connected with someone or someone cares. Let them in, let them see the vulnerable side of you. Let them see that. Let them see the vulnerable side of you. Let them see that, um, I wasn't in that place to show you that because you were a stranger, but I mean, I'm sure, hugging me, you can feel it.

Adela: 1:19:09

I knew, I knew and I remember when I walked away and I was telling, I remember telling lana, I was like I really hope that he finds his way. I remember, like telling her that because there's just there's something I've come to realize is that I I have an affinity to feel people's energy and know where they're at it's yeah it's a it's a weird thing, but I trust it now.

Adela: 1:19:29

But it's. I felt it and I knew you weren't in a place like I knew. You were in a place that I had just left, but I also didn't know how to tell you or how to even bring again. We weren't in that position to even bring it up. But I, I also knew that energy speaks a lot louder than words, and so I, I hope humans understand that.

Adela: 1:19:48

Even when you're listening, guys, if you're listening to this, it is suicide awareness month, because we're filming this in september, right now, and if you are in a position or thinking of, just not in a good space or place, um, take a moment and you may not like, reach out to the one person that pops in your head first, because and they may or may not answer right away but reach out again and reach out again and continue to reach out and continue to go down the list of your people, because there is one, there is one, and you don't need more than one. Sometimes you really don't, but you need the one that you can feel safe enough to trust, to share, to trust, to be there, to just accept you as you are in that space and time and place, not to judge, not to put you in anywhere, not to just to be there for you. And so there are humans like that, and that's what this podcast is for, and that's what we're here for, and trying to open these conversations and create these bridges and create these moments of understanding that humans are so much more complex and so much more, um, mysterious and and vulnerable than we're ever given ourselves credit for. And and part of our existence is the feeling, is the vulnerability. We've just shied away from it so much that feeling joy, feeling, you know, sadness or feeling vulnerability is just hard for us. But feeling fear and anxiety and depression and all these negative is so easy.

Adela: 1:21:11

So how do we and how can we exchange, you know, these moments and past, these and like we just had, and I think that that's helped us and we can always, and that does. Again, that doesn't mean that we're fixed by all means. It just means when we are in that space, we don't necessarily even have to reach out physically to someone. We can reach out in our mind to that moment and go. I really enjoyed that experience. I can see that, like I can see that value again and a lot of times. That's why it's so important to be kind to humans and so important to be kind to those who interact because you just don't know what they're going through and sharing a moment of kindness and sharing a moment, and even sharing a hug to a stranger I know that sounds crazy. Again, don't listen, you guys.

Devlin: 1:21:49

I'm not, I'm not it is, it is crazy I'm not saying so.

Adela: 1:21:53

The people get hurt. I get it. There's crazy people out there take me to jail for saying that, but there is all of that. But what I'm saying is that there's a lot more better than we think, um, and if we start to show those acts of kindness, I I believe that that's going to triumph. I know that that's going to triumph and win way more than than anything else, and you and I are proof of that experience, because we had 15 minutes literally 15, much so.

Adela: 1:22:19

Literally 15 minutes to just hey, hug, hug, hug, boom, throw a pair of shoes, bye-bye. It literally was like that, at least from my perspective and out of my life.

Devlin: 1:22:29

I was like I'll never see them again. I literally sat there because I was like I said I was in that hotel by myself and I was like, sitting there, I'm like they had the animals out back that I was feeding because they gave you like chicken feed to feed all the animals and I thought you were the owner of this place. I know permission.

Adela: 1:22:45

I'm like, can we shoot? I know can we do these little things you're like okay, I don't live here.

Devlin: 1:22:51

I don't live here, yeah, so I guess you know my. My thought is that, um, for me, my routine became every day the same exact thing. When I was depressed, it was work, put on a smiling face at work, the happy-go-lucky, but I'd come home and I wasn't eating, I wasn't functioning correctly, I was having moments of breaking down and I was in pain, and I didn't want to be in pain anymore. My advice to you is is it's going to sound corny and cliche break the cycle for yourself. Break, like go out, go to a walk on a park, go to a, go to a baseball game, I don't care. Do something out of the norm for yourself. Take a trip, take a road trip, anything. Get a friend, take a road trip with them, whatever. Break the cycle. Yeah, go have lunch. Break the monotony of, of what you're doing when you're down. Um, and again, if you're not over religious, you know um, but if you are, you know, maybe go sit in the back of a of a church one day and maybe may, just to be around that positivity in that room.

Devlin: 1:24:12

Um, I thought about it too. I'm not Catholic, but I thought about going to a Catholic church because the ceremony in the, in the, in the, the cathedrals are beautiful and I needed that visual, that visual in my mind to be there, and I thought about like going to midnight mass and just maybe, just pouring my heart out there. But I chickened out, but, but, but I the thought made me feel different, like like going there, like the thought did and and I said, you know, maybe that, maybe I need to do that, maybe I need to go because I I used to go to church when I was a kid and maybe I need to find it again and I'm not preaching here, this isn't a religious talk because I still don't go to church um me, neither but, but I you know yeah, you're right, though that's, but that's not to interrupt you on that, but that's so true because I just had the same not too long ago on having that.

Adela: 1:25:00

I was raised roman catholic, so like I understand of having that need to connect to something. On a on a in reality that's physical, to not what we physically see like, because it doesn't seem real. Nothing seems real.

Devlin: 1:25:12

We're just not in a real state of existence, and so we need something that can maybe ground us and whatever that may look for you, you know, and like you said, for you, yeah, just change, like I said, just change up your routine, because you know we dig ourselves in a hole and then when we, it might be two feet, but if we keep digging, it's going to get taller and taller and eventually we ain't gonna be able to climb out of it, yeah, and it's gonna be too late. And you don't, and you don't want that. Like I said, um, I I wish the best for everybody, um, with their, with their mental health, and I don't take it lightly anymore. Um, I used to, and I don't, because I've been there and I thought, I thought that I was strong-minded and you don't know what you're going through until you're at the very bottom of whatever you're at. And again, to speak on that trip, that was me just being like heck with it.

Devlin: 1:26:15

I literally went to my boss and was like I'm taking this day, these days, off, I'm going to Phoenix, I'm gonna take a few days off and I'll be gone. And he was like cool, he knew what I was going through and he, you know, he didn't for one second let up on me about it. He was just like, yeah, go, have fun, enjoy your friends. And again, I was only with my. I didn't want my friends to see me in that vulnerable position, I put on the smiling face for them too. And that was, and I felt, you know, I felt obligated to apologize to them.

Devlin: 1:26:46

When the next time I went to phoenix I said hey, the last time I was here, um, I wasn't me and uh, I put on a facade.

Devlin: 1:26:54

And that and I'm sorry, yeah, and that was a lot of healing too is because you, you got to go, you got to go make amends for your transgressions, and it sounds stupid, because you were going through some stuff, but you were being selfish and not letting you know, letting them in, because if you consider them a friend, you should be able to let them in too and let them, let them hear they're going to accept you for every part of you good, bad or ugly, uh, and that's what you know, some lessons you have to learn the hard way and suck up your pride and say, hey, I'm sorry for this. And they were very you know. They were like, don't even worry about it, all that stuff. They're like we knew we could tell and I'm like, well, then I suck at what I was doing, trying to put on that facade. They're like, yeah, we knew you were going through some stuff, but we didn't bring it up, are they?

Adela: 1:27:37

yeah, I read I saw I I saw a quote, I'm gonna get it right. But, uh, the guy simon I forgot his last name, but he's a motivational speaker, um, and he said something along the lines, uh, which really kind of hit me hard because I'm one of those people like whatever, whatever, do your own thing. But he said something to me. He's's like as a friend, you take away my right and um to answer you, whether I want to be there and help you or not. You take away my ability to make a decision for that, without even you take it upon yourself to think you know me enough. You know in some way and I'm I'm exaggerating a big guy, so don't quote me on the ground but you get it but it's, it's that, like you, you take that away and that's so selfish and that's, and it's exactly right on that.

Adela: 1:28:21

When we go into that and when we talk about mental health, uh, and we don't. When we talk about the depression of it, it is a selfish state of existence because it puts you in a place of your own doing, and I don't mean that society, environment and all these other things don't play a huge factor in that. But when we talk about the mental strength and the resilience and the inner part of who we are, when we don't have a strong identity of who we are and what we stand for and where we're, what our narrative is going to be for the future, for tomorrow, for today, or we don't know what today even looks like, then we are so susceptible to digging that grave of our own selves and then no one around us could help us out, because we're just screaming from the bottom and no one can hear. You know, no one can, can throw in the things, or no one has the resources or no, and then you're just going to, well, just bury me. And that is, I understand it, of being like being very sympathetic and empathetic and compassionate to that state of existence. At the same time, if we don't have the real conversation and again, I'm speaking from experience.

Adela: 1:29:22

I was there, I lived it, I tried to take my life on multiple occasions and I know what that does it is really a selfish state of existence because we don't see ourselves as valuable in any shape or form, there's no worth in our own selves, and so we take away from everyone else the decision, the ability to share what value we have for them, what, what worth we're, we're there for them. We decide for them that we're not worth it, that we're not capable, that we're not good enough. And for me, when I heard that and that was just not too long ago that I heard that, but it didn't click in for me like why I was so against just even my own narrative sometimes of like no, you have to really accept and understand, and it didn't sit well with me, but it's because of that it is so right. We decided upon ourselves that you are not strong enough to handle my mess, you're not like, and then we judge you for some stuff and that is.

Adela: 1:30:14

But that is the depressive, selfish state, like that is what anxiety does, that's what depression does, that's what people and again, come at me whatever way. We're not medical professionals, not in any shape or form, but I'm just stating experiences of humans being there. And when that comes in, um, I've learned now to be like, okay, you're here, you're not what I want, like I know my identity now, I know my worth, am here, I am a child of God and I am a human being and that counts for something, period.

Adela: 1:30:44

I don't care about anything else, but that counts for something and I don't have the right I am not the judge, jury, executioner to take that away from, even again, whatever my name of beliefs, but from God himself to say that I'm not worthy of what he's created for that. So, no having these, but having these conversations and having these experiences, having the freedom to have these conversations about how we're existing and where we're at, and and being able to correct ourselves right, rehabilitate our thinking and reform it and understand that we're going to relapse on an everyday basis, like it's it's, it's, it's a drug chemical thing happening in our brain. So of course we're going to relapse on an everyday basis, like it's a drug chemical thing happening in our brain. So of course we're going to relapse. But to have these relationships, to have these moments, to have these conversations, to be able to guide each other, you know, I think that's just the most wonderful part of this experience and I think that's what's missing in just all of our fields of existence, but especially the mental health field.

Adela: 1:31:36

When we're talking about in our health field, when we're talking about in our health field, when we're really talking about bridging the gaps or sharing experiences, we're not talking about the individual experience of their existence. We're talking about a generalized experience and that experience is so different. And meeting people where they're at and letting them know, like I understand, I feel it. You're different. I can't help it, I can't, I can't be responsible and accountable for it for you, but I can hold space for you for a moment and I can let you see where you stand and I can let you see if you can find an identity with it and if you can't, I can help you and guide you through that, but I cannot again be responsible and accountable for you and your decisions in your life.

Adela: 1:32:13

and I think that freedom also gives us the ability to work on our own selves, because society has put us to say like you're responsible, I'm responsible for your mental health, devlin, and I'm responsible for how I like.

Adela: 1:32:24

No offense, but I'm not like you know, and I'm not accountable for the decisions you make. I am responsible for my actions, I am accountable for my responses and how I interact and what I'm going to do in the consequence of that, but I'm not responsible or accountable for you and your existence. And we've been so much conditioned to believe that that's what community is, that that's what our social construct is, or that's what family is, or that's what friends are, like these relationships, that we're so afraid to have true, honest conversations of again coming in and being like, dude, you're not there right now.

Adela: 1:32:59

What do you need for me to be there and help you? But just know that this isn't going to stay for long. Like, how can we get you out of here? What can we do? Like you're better than right? Like let's, let's, let's. And again, I say it so simply. It's not simple. The simple, the process is not simple at all. It's the hardest thing ever, but these are the words, these are the truths that need to be spoken for those who are in those places, because I don't think we'll ever move on or get past the feeling right and the feeling is so fleeting because you and I both felt it and and and and again.

Adela: 1:33:30

So again my message. I think my point on this is that you're feeling in the way you're fleeting on that in that moment it's valid for the moment, but it's not valid for your reality, it's not valid for the lifetime, it's not valid for your actual truth and existence and what, like your truth is yeah, no, and again, I anybody listen to this.

Devlin: 1:33:47

This is the first time I've ever talked about my, my, my suicide publicly, my suicide attempt publicly.

Devlin: 1:33:54

I've written, I've written about it in the sense that, like, I danced around it but I never faced the reality.

Devlin: 1:34:02

And all my, my friends know, uh, my nephews know, um, because I felt like they were obligated to know that I had been in that position, um, and why I was in that position, and not that I was looking for sympathy, but I wanted to tell them that, like, look, I know, when things get down, like it's the, you know, I've been at the lowest of low that you could possibly be without it getting worse. So, like, coming on here, I knew that I was going to have to talk about it and it's a big step forward to understanding and accepting that. You know, I was vulnerable in a situation and I had allowed myself to get that way, um, and I didn't try to seek others and I didn't try to, um, tell people that I was sick or I wasn't, I wasn't good in my head, um, and that's on me and I try not to do that anymore. There are times where I'm like I'm having a bad day, but I'm like, is it so bad that I can't get through it now?

Adela: 1:35:05

yeah, yeah, where I can't process it or I can't understand it or I can't if I can't, let me talk, so let me talk to someone to talk it through. Right, let me, yeah, make sure I'm I'm perceiving receiving the information that's happening, so that I can understand it and I can make the decisions I need. And I think that those conversations are so different than help me, save me, do these things because you're like hey, I'm just trying to understand.

Adela: 1:35:30

Can you guide me through something and let me talk through this because I don't know if I'm following this and a lot of the times just that alone is enough for a lot of humans who are in a space and place. They just don't understand what's happening and they need to talk it out, voice it out and process it, and not again I don't want to tell you what to do. You already know, we already know, we already knew what to do.

Adela: 1:35:53

We just we weren't capable of making the decision for the right thing because we didn't understand the process of what was happening and when you're in that state of existence and you don't have that. It's hard and again I'm so glad that we were able to talk about this First of all, and thank you for sharing, because I didn't expect it, I just thought we were going to talk about. You know the base of this meeting, and just so I appreciate it.

Devlin: 1:36:17

We're going to talk about, we're gonna talk about the human experience, we're gonna talk about it as a whole and we're gonna talk about me. And, again, I'm not one to be that vulnerable but, um, you know, you gotta if you're gonna come on something like this, you gotta be vulnerable, be real, um, and and and let people hear that it's not just you know, it's not just them, it know, it's not just them, it's it. You know there's other people out there that experience this, and maybe someone listening to this has the same exact step by step thing that I went through, or they're going through it. And if I can help one person and pass that forward of what you gave to me during that time, then I am most grateful to do that. There's a reason why we met and there's a reason why we continue to meet in certain circumstances because we're both still here. If you're not here and I'm not here, we never meet. So, and if you're here and I'm not here, we never meet.

Devlin: 1:37:12

So, again, I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in realities. And, again, I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in realities and things that happen for a reason. That's why, again, I want for someone to take something from this. I don't care what it is. If you love the stories, great, you took something from it.

Devlin: 1:37:35

If you're listening to this and you want to know about how to get in the wrestling business and it intrigues you and you can see me and go hey, if that guy can be in the wrestling business, I can be in the wrestling business. If you hear my story and you love it so much and you're like that was such a great story, you took something from it. That was my whole goal coming on here. But I knew that it's not fair to Adela if I don't share my entirety of everything, if I just give the piece of the story of how we met. That's not fair to the story because there's so much more that goes backwards and how we got to the story. That's what matters is how we got to the story, but how we got to the story it doesn't that's. What matters is how we got to the story, but how we got to the story If that makes sense, the beforehand of how the story, because, like I said in the beginning, we can start with the finish, but there is no finish yet.

Adela: 1:38:30

No, there's no finish.

Devlin: 1:38:32

We're telling the story as it goes from a point. It goes from a point and I worked my way backwards because that's how I needed to tell that your audience um of my struggles and what I was going through, um, and they needed I think somebody needs to hear that and hear how special you are in a moment in my life and, uh, I had to again. I had to confess the reality in my brain during that time as well, because I knew that you would either laugh about it or you'd be like, oh my god, I can't believe this is what this gentleman was feeling like no, that's the best best description I've ever had of me.

Devlin: 1:39:11

Yeah, I just, I just want. I just want someone to hear my voice and if you know, if I live another 80 years and I saved one person, I've done something. Um, because then I passed on what, what, what adela did for me and giving me hope that someone that didn't know me cared, didn't know me for the, she cared, she cared. My friends that that abandoned me, they said they cared, she cared. You don't hug strangers in lincoln, new mexico that you don't know if you don't care and I. That's why, again, I. This is why I don't believe in coincidences.

Devlin: 1:39:55

I've been fascinated with billy the kid since I was a child and Lincoln, new Mexico, and going there and I never thought I would go there.

Devlin: 1:40:03

And then I end up there in the circumstances that I was and I meet you.

Devlin: 1:40:07

There's a reason why my brain and my attraction to that place was always there because somewhere in my lifetime it was going to happen and it happened in a time when I needed it. Lifetime it was gonna happen and it happened in a time when I needed it and I, again I, I still think about it and I go wow, I went from dreaming about seeing that place to going there when I needed to go there, and then I ran into this person. And I needed to run into that person, like why is the world working like that with me? And I and I stop and I go, stop trying to think about why it's doing it to you. Just let it happen and let it and let that feeling resonate within you. Yeah, um, and so again, if you are listening to this and you take something from my, my voice, please, please, take something from it, um, and that's really all I can say, and that'll that'll do my heart good to know that somebody connected with that.

Adela: 1:41:01

And let me ask you really quick, because we've been this is we're going to have more conversations. I'm so excited, but are you, your existence now, in your state of being now, is in a good place? Right and and again it just shows people that we're going to have a plan.

Devlin: 1:41:16

No, I mean, let me be honest, it's not perfect, it's never in a good place. It's never a good place. Okay, it's in a place. That is where it needs to be. Okay, because I slip, like everybody else. When Matt's birthday comes around, when Father's Day comes around, when my grandmother's birthday comes around, when the week of his death comes around, when Father's Day comes around, when my grandmother's birthday comes around, when the week of his death comes around, I slip and I'm in a foul mood, but I don't slip the way I slipped. Yeah, and that's the progress.

Adela: 1:41:50

That's the progress of our healing and our journey, and that's good.

Devlin: 1:41:56

I talk about him like I'm talking right now. I talk about him. I tell stories that are funny. I remember my friend for the time that I had him not not a, not a, not a minute memory in time seven days, five or, excuse me, five days of him being in the hospital and passing away. That is a minuscule footnote in his entire life. And then in 17 years, 18 years that I knew him, I got 18 years worth of memories and stories. That is way more than what I that. That minus five days, yeah, does, yes, is it important, and I never forget it absolutely because it makes me aware that there are 18 years prior to that. So so my mental health is right now, is where it needs to be, and again, I slip and I come back and I slip and I come back, and I don't plan on slipping far right, just enough to let me know that it's still there and I'm still alive and I need to have these conversations.

Adela: 1:42:54

So no, that's, but that's good to hear and that's good to know and that's, but that's part of again, that's the whole part of this journey and part of the whole human life experience, and it's not something we're trained to do, an experience at all. We're not even talked or taught to. Um Devlin. I appreciate this conversation so much. I appreciate the laughs and just this journey we've been on.

Adela: 1:43:18

What can you leave our listeners with one sentence of inspiration, or one you know, or motivation, or whatever you think that they need to hear, and then where can they find you, if they do want, if somebody is interested in learning more about professing or talking to you, or where can they find you?

Devlin: 1:43:35

so you can find me on facebook, um, it's just devlin clemens, that's d-e-v-l-i-n-c-l-e-m-o-n-s. Um. You can find me on instagram at devlin clemens, 83. Um, if I want to leave someone with something, I I love a band from sweden called dark tranquility. It's a little swedish metal band, um, but they have some beautiful melodic songs sometimes, um, and every once in a while you find a gem, and there's a song that they it's called forward momentum and the the lyrics touched me in such a way I listen to the song every day for like a month straight.

Devlin: 1:44:22

The main lyric is this that and the way I take it is this life that's not the lyric, but this life is a forward momentum race and if you think about that, if you ever watch any races ever, it's all momentum. No one drives backwards in a race, so we have to keep going forward to where we need, to the finish line. We need to keep going until we're a better. Whatever point in our lives we're at, it's all forward momentum. Whether someone's pushing you from behind and pushing you across that finish line, or you're pushing yourself, or you're dragging yourself, we're all trying to get to that finish line. It's forward momentum. That's my kind of creo that I tell people is that we're in forward momentum, we ain't going backwards.

Adela: 1:45:12

No, I love that because it just goes with my motto of just keep moving, just keep moving, just keep moving, because if you're just moving and moving forward, sometimes that's all you need to survive and sometimes that's all you need to get to the place of living and then, when you're able to get to that place, you're able to process and understand and reflect and really start healing yourself. So thank you so much for this conversation, thank you for having me Honestly.

Devlin: 1:45:37

Thank you for having me honestly. Thank you for having me so much. You could have picked a thousand other people and I appreciate being able to come on here and tell our origin story and talk about a little bit. I haven't talked about wrestling like this in a long time. So you got the old motor running again. So I was like no, don't scratch that itch, don't scratch that it, don't scratch that it it could scratch it in a different way.

Adela: 1:46:02

You never know what I'm yeah, I know, I know that's so awesome oh, my goodness, you guys, I hope you enjoy this podcast, I hope you enjoy this, this conversation, and I hope you've learned something. And again, please don't hesitate to reach out anyone that you need to, and especially specifically, if you don. Please don't hesitate to reach out to anyone that you need to and, specifically, if you don't have anyone around you, reach out to 988. It is a suicide prevention lifeline and they will have resources for you, they will have guides for you and even now, if you don't want to call, if you don't want to do it, go to 988.org, I believe. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but 988, that's the number. Go on there, go check it out, and they'll give you resources. You'll find pamphlets, information.

Adela: 1:46:45

You will find so much useful ways that you can at least start navigating your way in your life and start finding common ways that in your community, you can reach out to places, and there's a lot of nonprofits in your communities. There's a lot of charities, there's a lot of service that is available to you. If you just look for it and are willing to and decide that you're worth the look for it. It does take it upon yourself. You have to act upon it, you have to be responsible for it, but it is so worth it. You are so worth that don't ever forget that, like you as a human being, are so worth the effort upon yourself.

Adela: 1:47:13

No one will do it for you. Literally. That's not what we're designed for. We're not designed to do it for you. Literally, that's not what we're designed for. We're not designed to do it for someone else. We're designed to do it for ourselves, so that we can then be in service of others, so that we can be a fuel for other things. But before taking care of yourself, you cannot take care of anything else. So just please make sure that you know you're worth it, and if you don't, and if you want to reach out, I'm always here for a chat. Think is always here. Reach out to our social medias, reach out through that way, and we'll make sure that at least we walk you through a process of your thinking so that you can understand there's always a new way to think, there's always a new way to process and there's always a new way forward. So, much love, follow, subscribe and do all the other good things, and we'll catch you up on the next ones. Thank you, my love.