What's going on guys?
Welcome to this episode of the pursuit of calling with me, your host Thomas Carney.
Today I got a little bit of a recap for you from about the last few months.
We're going to go over some updates from the podcast.
Some of them you may know, some of them you might not know.
And then we also go into some health updates about my muscular dystonia, just to give you
guys a little bit more insight into my life, what I'm working through.
And the goal is to give you some motivation to really pursue your calling, no matter your
circumstance.
And if you like what I'm doing with this podcast, with the pursuit of calling, and you want
to support me, but aren't really sure how I want to give you a few ways.
One is sharing this episode or the podcast out on one of your social media accounts.
Two is leaving a comment that really helps out the algorithm.
Or you can also donate to buy me a coffee link, which is in the description of this
podcast just as a thank you.
And if you think you're actually getting value from this content, I just really appreciate
it.
All right, see you in the episode.
What's going on everyone?
So in this episode, it's a little bit different as I probably said in the intro.
This one is more of an update about my life, about what's going on with me, where I'm planning
on going, like what's my future, whatever, any future plans.
And this is really going to focus a lot on my health, like the updates with my health.
As some of you know, I've been going through a trial of muscular dystonia.
So I'm going to give you a little bit of updates of what I've been doing in that area of my
life.
And then we're going to dive into also how I'm working on improving in areas of the podcast
and what some future goals are moving forward.
So let's dive in a little bit.
Let's dive in to my health updates.
So my pain, if you don't know about muscular dystonia, let me explain it a little bit.
So muscular dystonia is a chronic muscular condition.
It essentially is about incorrect signals being sent from the brain to your muscles
and causes them to erroneously contract whenever they're not supposed to.
Luckily, I'm not at a point where I don't have as severely as some other people do.
There's a lot of cases out there of cervical dystonia, which I do not have, where people's
necks get affected heavily and their heads are kinked to one side until they figure out
a way to loosen that up through therapies.
And I do see that there's progress and ways to alleviate that, which is fantastic.
But my personal experience is essentially pretty, it's more widespread, I guess.
I don't have any, what a lot happens a lot is a lot of twists in your arms or neck or
certain body parts that you can't really control.
And luckily I don't have to deal with that right now, but I do, and I do pray against
that, but what I do deal with is a lot of tense muscles in my arms, my shoulders, my
neck, and it seems to be more of a muscle tension in my experience than muscle twisting
or the muscles contracting so severely that I can't move a particular body part.
I do lose some range of motion in my shoulder, which I found out, but that's easily overcome
with just not the range of motion is an overcome.
I haven't found out that yet, but I have, it's not a huge deal for me, I guess is what
I'm trying to say.
So one way I'm trying, one way I'm working on bettering myself in the health area of
my life is keeping with my diet.
So a while ago I did an elimination diet that was in a book called Inflammation Spectrum
written by Dr. Will Cole.
It took about six months, and ever since then I've been a lot more aware of the food industry
in what is in particular foods.
You might be wondering why I'm talking about that while talking about like my muscular
dystonia, and it's because I have the particular belief that if I were to continue to eat a
lot of the junk foods or just what's it called, heavily processed foods, I believe I would
be in a worse spot than I am right now.
I think there's enough evidence to show that regardless, there's evidence to show that
if you can, people that continuously stay away from heavily processed foods have a higher
quality of life.
So I'm like, might as well stick in that area.
I'm not perfect at it.
I had potato chips the other day and I felt sick afterwards, and now they're in the trash.
So I'm trying to eat healthier.
I'm also trying new things, and trying new things.
When I say that, I mean, I'm going to a new chiropractor that was recommended to me by
a woman at my church.
This particular chiropractor apparently uses cold lasers.
I don't really know what that is yet, but I believe it's supposed to help alleviate
some muscle tension or inflammation.
I believe it's targets mainly, but we're going to look into it.
I'm going to look into it, try it out, and I'll probably report back next month.
I guess I didn't really say that, but I'll go back to that later.
I'll explain what this format is at the end of this episode.
So there's another thing that happened yesterday, which was July 25th was yesterday, and I met
with a man from the Office of Vocational Rehab, which is somebody who essentially is there
to facilitate the ways for me to get quality of life care, I guess you could say, that
would particularly help me with my job.
And then he's also pointing me in the direction of what is called the Center of Assistive Technology,
which potentially can help me with driving because driving is really difficult for me.
So that is something that I'm looking forward to and reporting back on if you guys like
this format.
So I also want to talk about my hopes to come out of this part of my life, because this
part of my life could be a part of my life for the rest of my life on this earth, or
it could be a part of my life for a limited amount of time.
I don't know, only God knows that.
So really there are a few things I want to come out of this part of my life, regardless
of how long this lasts for.
I want my testimony to be known.
So I want, how this has strengthened me in my faith, knowing that He, God, knows it all.
He knows every part of me.
He knows every hair on my head.
So that also means He knows exactly what's wrong with me.
And I want to be able to share the testimony of how my faith has been strengthened as a
result of that with others.
Whether it be on a stage one day or just one-on-one with somebody to be able to help strengthen
their faith in the Lord or maybe start or give them a reason to have faith in the Lord.
Another thing I want to do with it, another thing I want it to be used for in my life
is use as fuel for the fire to propel me towards my calling.
You can either sit down in your own circumstances and just sit in your own self-pity or you
can stand up and fight.
And that is what I choose to do with this in my life.
I choose to use it as fuel for the fire to propel me towards my calling.
So what's it mean to sit down in self-pity?
What does it mean to sit down?
It means believing that I can never accomplish my goals because of my disability.
It means to not even try to find out what can be done to decrease my pain and increase
my quality of life.
Then the other opposite side of that would be standing up and fighting, accepting my
pain and believe it's there to motivate me to be the best version of myself.
I know that it sucks, but I also know that it can be overcome.
Whether that means my pain is alleviated or that just means that I mentally overcome it.
Because the mind is more powerful than the body.
I do believe that.
And I believe that regardless of how severe the pain gets, my mind is still able to push
me through and carry me through as long as I keep my faith in the Lord.
And then I do pray, I mention God a lot in this piece, and I do pray and thank him a
lot for what he has brought me through so far and looking forward to what's ahead.
Because I know that I'm not the same man as I was even a year ago in the beginning of
this part of this trial where the pain started to get worse.
I know that it's increased, I know that it's grown me, I know that it's continuing to grow
me.
And you know how this podcast is called, The Pursuit of Calling?
I just said earlier that my calling doesn't end because I'm in a circumstance that is
not ideal.
My calling, as you've heard from many guests on this podcast, that your calling goes with
you everywhere that you go.
It goes with you in every circumstance.
It doesn't matter what you're going through.
What matters is how you respond to your circumstance and how you use your circumstances to your
advantage.
These circumstances that I'm in right now, they suck, like I said.
But I choose to use them as fuel.
I choose to let it grow my faith because the other option, the other direction is either
moving backwards or staying where I'm at.
And I refuse to do that.
So I just hope that some motivation to you, if you're in a circumstance that you don't
like, if you're in a circumstance that sucks, just know that it's okay that it sucks.
It's okay to admit that it sucks and that you can use that situation to propel you forward
and that it's there to grow you.
If you're in it, you're in it for a reason.
I know people don't like to hear that everything happens for a reason.
And I think my, I was talking with some people the other day in small group at my church
that I don't particularly like whenever people say that God has put them in a particular
circumstance that is a negative circumstance that is hurting them.
I don't like whenever people say that God put them there in order to grow them.
I don't like that because I don't believe that's what's happening.
This might be a hot take, but I believe that these are, there are things that God allows,
right?
Like, He didn't put me in this pain, but He obviously is letting me be in it.
And if He's the perfect God, like I believe He is, then His reason is perfect.
So, if I really truly believe that His will is a perfect will, then I can believe that
my circumstance is here for my benefit.
It's here to glorify Him.
It's here to praise Him and lift Him up.
Right?
So take that as an encouragement.
If you're not a believer in faith, I know I talked about God a lot in this episode,
so I really hope you stuck with me this whole time.
If you did, I really do appreciate it.
If you're not a person of faith, like just know that your circumstances, regardless of
what you believe in, your circumstances, like they don't define you.
They don't tell you who you are.
And I know I'm a Christian, and I believe that God defines every single one of us as
His child, as His children, as His creations.
And like, that's there for you too.
That's there for you too.
You can know Him.
You can know His love.
You can know His grace.
And I just pray that, man, I know I don't say this as a Christian podcast, but I'm really
digging in this episode unintentionally.
I really just pray that you take this to heart and think about it, even though your circumstances
suck, that that doesn't mean your life sucks.
That doesn't mean that you don't have a purpose.
That doesn't mean that your calling ends.
That just means that you have another reason to fight.
Okay, enough about that.
That was way more than I was planning to say.
So let's move forward.
So now let's get more into how I'm working on improving the podcast.
I really talked about myself a lot.
So we're going to talk about the podcast this time.
So some podcast updates.
So obviously there was a rebrand from Technically Short to The Pursuit of Calling.
And I got some really good feedback about the name rebrand.
Some people didn't think I should change it.
After talking with people that really know podcasting and know who I talked about, what
I want to do with it, I had this guy, John Stange, tell me it would make sense to rebrand
to something that makes more sense, to something that whenever people see the name, they know
what it's about.
So that's why that happened.
Then I'm going to be working on a new guest format.
I just thought about this earlier today, actually.
But I think it's going to be really good.
So a new guest format where we look at the guest, we look at their past, present, and
future of their particular calling.
So that we can kind of give you guys a step, not a step-by-step process, but give you kind
of more of a timeline of life.
And maybe that can give you a little bit more insight into yours, into your calling.
So I think it could be interesting.
Honestly, I don't really have much else for you guys.
This is a shorter episode.
So let me know what you think of this new solo format.
Just to recap, maybe do this once a month.
And I would really appreciate you just letting me know in the comments.
That'd be fantastic what you think of it.
So my plan is to do this, like I said, once a month and give you all updates on my life
and plans for the future.
And just to keep you guys updated.
Let me know what you think.
So thank you for listening to this episode of The Pursuit of Calling with me, your host,
Thomas Carney.
Don't forget to share this episode out on all your platforms.
And I will see you next time.
Peace, guys.