What's going on guys? Welcome to this episode of the Pursuit of Calling podcast with me,
your host, Thomas Carney. This is the September recap episode where I'm going over a couple
of episodes from this past month, giving you a little bit more life updates, health updates,
and drop a little bit of some exciting news about the Pursuit of Calling brand. So definitely
stay tuned for that. Thank you for listening to this episode and I'll see you in there.
What's going on guys? Welcome to this episode of the Pursuit of Calling podcast.
And I guess you already heard that me say that because I also record the intro, but it's okay.
So, sorry. I, sorry about my voice. Sorry if I cough. I am going through a little bit of a cold,
so you're going to have to forgive me for that. But let's dive into the episode. This is September,
the September recap. So if you've been listening to the episode throughout the month, this will
again just be a recap for you. If you haven't listened to some of the episodes this month,
this will just be some information to give you, to maybe help you know what was talked about this
month. And so you can go back to those episodes and, you know, see what they were about.
So I'm going to cover two of the three episodes that happened this month. One of my favorite ones
was the first one for the month was with Dawn Marasco. She's definitely one of my favorite
guests I've had on the show. And in her episode, we talked about her story starting from her early
childhood all the way to where she is now. She, you know, initially she didn't think there was,
like she, there was anything for her. She didn't think there was anything for her to do. She didn't
think she had a purpose for the longest time. She later found out that the calling on her life was
to guide other women through the pain she had previously experienced. She lost her fiance, who was
murdered directly in front of her, which was, which is insane. And I don't think any of us can
actually understand what that is, how that would affect a human being. And it goes to show that,
though, that literally anything can be used. God can literally use anything as fuel for the calling
that we have in our lives. You know, if you feel, you know, maybe you feel like you don't have a
purpose. Maybe they feel like there's no purpose on your life and that you can't imagine anybody
listening to you. Maybe you don't think you have anything to say and that nobody would want to
hear what you have to say, even if you did have to think you had something to say. So in this
episode, we, we, I implore you to listen to this episode because Don really dives in into why
that doesn't make any sense. Why you have a calling on your life. Well, I'll say that not
that it doesn't make sense. It makes perfect sense why you would feel like that, but it also
isn't true. If that makes sense. She said whenever she heard from God that she was supposed to,
she's going to be a writer and a speaker one day. She said, yeah, right. God, don't you know who,
don't you know who I am? What I've done? Who would listen to me? What can I possibly write about?
Who's going to care? And then she then saw how all the things she went through are now being used
and being applied to who she was created to be. You know, you can use that as an encouragement
that no matter your past or current circumstances, there is a plane and calling for you.
I said on the previous episode, how we all are given a particular set of tools that help
to help a particular set of people in ways that nobody else can. And I really feel like Don
touched on this really, really well. Then, so if you haven't listened to the episode yet,
I highly, again, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to it. It's definitely one of my
favorites and I think it will be one of yours too, because I honestly feel like you can change your
life or her story can change your life, I should say. So the next episode I want to talk about
was focusing on trials, endurance, character to hope. And it was specifically around Romans 5,
3 to 4, where Paul wrote about how our trials produce endurance or endurance produces character
and character produces hope. And the particular kind of character I'm talking about is good
character. This good, righteous character that can only come through the process of trials,
endurance, character and hope. And I talked about how I don't believe that you can properly pursue
your calling without actually having a good character. Like your past, I also touched on
how your past circumstances form who you are today and your current circumstances will determine who
you are tomorrow. It sounds like you don't have a choice, but really you do. You have the choice of
what kind of change, what kind of growth you're going to experience. You get to decide whether
your past circumstances, those past trials that you've had to endure are going to have a positive
or a negative result on the character that you are going to possess. Because you could be in a
circumstance right now and you have to decide right now how that's going to play its part in
your character later down the road. And to add a little bit more context to that, I'm actually
going to touch on something I wasn't planning on touching on until later in my notes. But so last
night, not even last night, yesterday morning, I was laying on my couch. I had a massive migraine
for like over, I don't know, it was probably about 24 hours. I had this migraine, and I'm probably
more like 12, 16 hours, doesn't really matter. I had this pretty terrible migraine and I was laying
on the couch. I was just wallowing in self-pity and like, man, I'm going to have to lay here all day.
I was, you know, I was suffering through a trial and I wasn't enduring well.
I was also listening to podcasts though at the same time, because I didn't feel like I could sit
there and do nothing. I had to do something that was, can at least be perceived to be productive.
And for me, listening to podcasts helped me grow and helped me learn new things, especially in this
particular circumstance. So Ed Myletts podcast came on and where he was particularly talking about
how pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. I can do a whole episode on that maybe one day,
but I was laying there on the couch and I was like, dang it, you got to be joking. I was like,
this is exactly what I needed to hear. Because I was laying on the couch thinking that's where I
was going to be all day because I didn't feel like I could do anything else. And then I was like,
uh, didn't feel like I could do anything else. And then here's Ed talking directly to,
essentially talking directly to me saying that Thomas, you're,
you're in pain right now and that's, that's fine. That's going to happen. Pain is inevitable,
but suffering right now, you're suffering and that's your choice. And I get, there's plenty
of circumstances where people could take that and say, take that in a very negative light,
but take this forward, take it for, please just try to take it for what it is. Because when I say,
when you say suffering is a choice, really what you're, really what it is, is you're choosing a,
a negative, a negative, a negative outlook on life versus a positive one.
And even if you're in a bad circumstance, so that's what I'm talking about about whenever I was
talking about having a good character, because I, in that moment, I wasn't, I wasn't exemplifying
a good character. And because I, and that's personal to me, I call myself, I'll call myself
out all day. And the good character that I then, I then produce, that was then produced in me,
was one of like, no, not just because I'm in this bad circumstance does not mean I have to live,
does not mean I have to allow that to produce a negative outlook, a negative mindset in me.
That's my choice. That was my choice. I got up, I started walking around and it's kind of nuts.
My headache like zapped right out of my head. And it was kind of crazy how quickly it disappeared
once I decided to get up off my butt. And I'm sure there's a whole scientific thing behind that,
why that happened. But I also know I'm just going to, I apply that to God and getting it,
God was talking directly to me, telling Thomas, get off your butt. And I was like,
to me telling Thomas, get off your butt. And I got off my butt and my headache went away.
So I think, I don't know, I apply that to the Lord, but, and so that's all, with all that to say,
maybe having gone through anything exceptionally hard, but like the same, it still applies.
Your circumstances, good or bad, are used to determine who you are, used to determine who
you will be tomorrow. It's up to you to decide how that's going to play out. And that's even to say,
like you might have, maybe you've experienced a migraine before. The same logic applies there.
Now, I know, like, you might think, whenever you think, think of a trial, I might think of this
long drawn out process, but really a trial can be five minutes. And that five minutes of,
of properly enduring this trial allows you to endure, allows you to endure better the next time
you go through that. Because you can remember, because your body remembers, your mind remembers
that you have already endured more and you've endured well before. That's your character being
produced. And now the hope that's produced from that, I'm pretty much just talking about this
whole episode right now, but that character that's produced from that, the hope that's produced from
that good character is hope in a good future. That is hope in a better outcome. It's experience,
it's knowing that just because of your circumstances, you can have hope
that your circumstances do not determine who you are. Just because your circumstances suck
does not mean your life sucks. So get off your butt. So
if you want to hear more about that, definitely go listen to that episode, that episode, because I
definitely, I dive way more into it and I did, that's obviously something I'm really passionate
about. So it'd be great if you give it a little listen, went back and even took some notes and
told me what you thought about that episode. You know, you can leave a comment on Spotify,
on YouTube, or maybe on Apple podcasts. I think you can leave a review on there. So,
okay. So next, as all the monthly updates go, I got some life updates.
Well, more of my life updates kind of go into my health. So really what I'm going to talk about
here is some cool things are happening with the pursuit of calling brand. And I say brand,
because I'm getting, I'm actually getting really excited to really continue to pursue my calling.
All right now I have, right now Nathan Maverich generously offered to, for free, help me out with
a website. And so it's going to be pursuitofcalling.com, one word. And on that website,
there's going to be a homepage, you're going to be a home and about, and there's going to be a
link to all the episodes. But more importantly, on that homepage, there's going to be an email,
an email text box for you to be able to put your email in. So you can receive, receive free content,
other free content from me that you can only receive from being part of my email list.
Now, these things are, what those new free things will be are going to change over time.
And it's going to just continue to get better as time goes on. So I highly encourage you to get
into it from the, to get into it off the ground up, because I'm, I'm just really excited to be
able to provide more value to those helping call to serve. So whenever that website officially
drops, I'll let you guys know probably on, probably on Instagram. So even go ahead and follow me on
Instagram so you don't miss that either. So let's dive into my health updates. Yay.
So my health updates, I've had some crazy things happen in my health, right? Actually, more recently,
I stopped my, I don't know if you knew this, I was on an antidepressant medication. I wasn't,
I'm not because of depression, but because of the neurological pain that my dystonia or I shouldn't,
I don't, I don't like saying my dystonia, by the way, I just like saying that the dystonia that I
have, because I don't want ownership over the dystonia, but that's a whole different topic.
So that the dystonia, the pain that the dystonia produces is neurological pain and antidepressants
have shown benefit in that respect to reducing the pain. But for me, it caused a lot of GI problems.
So after about a month, my doctor decided to help me get off, to allow me to not allow me, but to
tell me to get off the medication after I told them what was going on. And I went off the medication
and I went through some withdrawal, which is getting insane because I was on the lowest dose
and it was terrible. And that was like the hit and bag, and I was talking about yesterday was
almost pretty sure was a result of that. And guys, you, like, you don't want to, you don't want to go
through withdrawal. It sucks. But again, just because my circumstances suck does not mean my
life sucks. I'm still here. I'm still going. That was temporary. So another exciting thing is that
on September 23rd, the day before this episode drops, I'm going to be going to the Cleveland clinic
where I'm just getting another opinion on my condition and I'm going to be,
I'm going to get to talk to a different neurologist where the Cleveland clinic is world renowned
for so many different things, especially for their research into movement disorders. So
I'm actually pretty excited to go out there. And as far as I've been away, I've been from home in a
really, really, really, really, really long time. Sorry, that was a lot of really, but I have been
away from home in a really long time and to that extent. So it's, I'm actually pretty excited to
go for this ride with my dad. So any prayers, all prayers are appreciated. And yeah, so let's dive
into the last part of this episode, which is how I've grown in the last month. So I've kind of
already mentioned it. What I was going to talk about was what I talked about with Ed Mylett and
how I, Ed Mylett's podcast and how I got off of my butt and real a lot and like, you know,
real a lot. And like, it was just a, really, that was just a application to what I talked about on
this podcast is this because my circumstances sucked it out. Me and my life sucks. And I still
have a calling in my life. I can't just sit back and ignore just because I'm in pain. It might sound
like I'm being pretty hard. It might sound like I'm being harsh on myself. Well, I mean, maybe I am,
but I don't really see it in that instance. I don't really see it. Think there's an issue with
that. I think there's, I need, like, if you have a calling, if you believe you have a calling on
your life, you have to push yourself. There's going to be instances where you have to push yourself
past a limit that you believe that you have, because we're all capable of doing way more than
we believe that we can do. So that's how I've grown this last month. I mean, there's other ways
I've grown, but that's the one that was most recent and most fresh on my mind. Guys, I want
to thank you though, for listening to this whole episode of the Pursuit of Calling podcast. If you
liked this episode, give it a like on YouTube, give this like on YouTube, give me a follow on
on Spotify. Sorry, I had to remember the names on Spotify. Give it a five star review that is
greatly appreciated because that helps out the algorithm, helps other people know that it's good,
that this podcast is any good. And yeah, if you guys could also, you know, just let me know,
like if you, how you're feeling about this podcast, you should send me a message on Instagram,
shoot me a text if you have my number, it'd be greatly appreciated. All right, guys,
I will see you next time.