Got Pain? Use It: Numbing It Makes It Worse, Smooth Seas Don’t Make Sailors, and a Kid in the Snow

I think this is a good note for everybody out there. This is Mornings with Matt, the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. What a connection it is. All right, let's give Joey a big round of applause for that intro. What an intro. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate it. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Mornings with Matt on the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast.

Today we've got a great show for you, Got Pain? Use It. We're going to be talking about pain and how it's a very essential part of life and when you have it, how you can be grateful for it and use it. So we're going to dig in a little bit, but first we're going to get to our daily devotional. Yeah, yeah. 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18.

That's why we are not discouraged. No, even if outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are being renewed each and every day. This light, temporary nature of our suffering, is producing for us an everlasting weight of glory, far beyond any comparison, because we do not look for things that can be seen, but for things that cannot be seen for things that can be seen are temporary but things that cannot be seen are eternal well done joseph you know what's funny is when you said no i thought you were correcting yourself you're like that's why we are not discouraged no and i was like oh what do you do did you make a mistake that's funny no god is god is straight up saying like no you're like no no no no all right so So let's break this down, Joseph Sweeney.

Break it down. Down, down, this, this. That was a good little riff. All right. So that's why we are not discouraged. No, even if outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are being renewed each and every day. Okay. So on the outside, that's our bodies. Our flesh. Our flesh. Our imperfection, if you might add. I do add. Yeah. So, here's a sad thought. Oh, man. I don't know if it's sad, but it's an interesting thought.

From the day you're born, you're, you know, every day after that, you're one day closer to the day you die. Yeah, that's facts. You know, and we don't get to know when that day is, but that's facts. You're right, facts. So, if outwardly we're wearing out, inwardly we're being renewed each and every day so that we're getting closer to spirit. That's what I take from that. yeah it goes back to when brian and i were on the show um with just the two of us while you were on set we talked about the importance of having an internal mindset so you're thinking about not right now and what you're in but like keep yourself focused on eternal mindset because that's what you get when you get out of here this is not the end game to be on this earth for our whole lives that's true i say kingdom you say perspective kingdom perspective kingdom perspective yeah that's good that's a nice little chant right there yeah all right so um so then then this light temporary nature of our suffering is produced for us an everlasting weight of glory far beyond any comparison all right so um so our our our suffering like the the suffering that we feel and we see here on this earth is it's just not even close to the reverse of the goodness that's coming and it is already there yeah from god for sure okay and then and then this is going to be mainly like the the end of this is kind of the episode today all right and that is because we do not look for things that can be seen but for things that cannot be seen so um if if i'm seeking to show you how good i am it's like i'm seeking for things that can be seen i'm seeking for the acknowledgement like the the trophy okay or i'm seeking for what cannot be seen which is like the skills this is like the the positive thought life like the uh the talent the talent that's right that's right or or yeah no talent and skill you're seeking the skill right yeah um then it says for things that can be seen are temporary and that's exactly what i'm saying the trophy the win this temporary but things that cannot be seen are eternal yeah so the process of getting better you becoming something that's that's eternal like that's something that you know is is gonna live inside of you and that's that's what's so great and of course this is talking about heaven this time i'm going you know eternal life with with christ but there's so many life lessons in it as well yeah yeah for sure all right joey let's uh let's head off to our next verse i believe it's a psalm my friend it is a psalm all right hit it so this is psalm 6 verse 2 and it says have mercy on me lord for i am faint heal me lord for my bones are in agony.

It's like one of those prayers you're pleading out to God. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. I think Brian said that the Psalms are always prayers, which is sick. Yeah, I think I said that, and then Brian was like, I'm not sure. Oh, maybe that's what happened. I think it is, though. That's what happened. I think it's David.

Again, I have to look this up so I don't sound like an idiot, but I think it's David just praying out to God. And a lot of it's rough, too. A lot of David's like, just kill my enemies, you lord. I'm done with these guys. For sure. But this is basically like saying, okay, I'm at my end. My body is so weak. I'm just begging for God to heal me.

I'm begging for you to take over and just, like, I'm at my end. Yeah. And that's going to be a big part of today, too, is what happens at that point. say that we've all been to that spot where we get on our knees and we're like god please take away my pain like what what you doing man like i know i've been there even just praying for other people last night i was hanging out with jack and he was like hey what you doing dad and i was like i'm prepping for the show tomorrow he's like can i help and i was like yeah i guess so yeah um you know what do you want the show to be about and we started just talking a little bit and we had this great weekend and so we got inspired by this idea um jack and i went up north for an acting job for him and what's interesting is he had to experience a lot of pain during the gig in order to get his paycheck you know he was getting 125 bucks cash which is like big money cold hard cash big money for an eight-year-old and he should we should have him on the show this morning we should have but he's he's got he's got his uh school this morning oh oh yeah and he does it education comes first he does a once a week homeschool kids get together put on uniforms and and they're strict for one day that's cute yeah it's really good um but anyway so so it was a sacrifice like even for For me, I got to be honest, it was a sacrifice.

Joey and I were talking about this the other day, or last night, it was like… Because I'm an actor, and I'm a coach, and I've done this for so long, the idea of being on set, it doesn't throw me. I've been there, done that, and I'm not even getting paid, I'm not doing anything, I'm just sitting there. So now, I mean, Jack's in the cold, I'm in the cold too.

I mean, I'm sitting there in 20 degree weather hours and hours just watching my kid in the snow suffer you know and he's getting paid 125 bucks for the weekend you know and i'm paying like 250 bucks for for the trip there yeah do the gas money in the you know in the whole bed and and honestly there was so much snow this weekend so much snow that we had to park down the hill and and this is funny because um our cabin is you go up a hill and then down a big cul-de-sac.

So we literally had to walk uphill both ways to get to our car. It took probably 15 minutes to walk from the gas station up to the cabin and then back from the cabin to the gas station. Again, in blizzard-y weather. – And then you're like, "Shoot, I forgot my keys." No, I'm just playing. – I know, actually I was double, triple checking my keys. – Yeah, I bet, I bet.

No, it's interesting. I just want to touch on something you said, But this idea of, you know, being on set isn't so glorious for you anymore at this point. Right. And and it's funny because, like, people walk different strands of life. And for you, I feel like based on what you've taught and what you've talked about, it's more uplifting. It fills your cup more to. To coach, to help people get the job, you know, you know, you know, it depends, honestly.

So it's all about your mindset, of course, no matter what you do. So, but being on a set can be uplifting if I'm acting or coaching or whatever. I wouldn't say it's like better when I'm coaching. It's just, I'm just as invested in what I'm coaching, you know? – Interesting, yeah, sure. – But I can tell you this time, for sure, it's a sacrifice, right? Like this is a total sacrifice for me to give up three days of my life and time, money, whatever.

But it's all about how you look at it. it became not a sacrifice because the whole time i'm focused on my son focused on on helping lift him up um helping lift up the project just watching these different things and and it was incredible what he went through because he's supposed to be running from a wolf he's the lead character in this movie and he's the younger version of the character and this is like a flashback memory scene and the kid is lonely he he doesn't have a great home life and so he doesn't have friends and he lives in the middle of nowhere and he's out playing by himself in the woods in the snow so we had to wait for snow to come so so they they do this cool aerial shot with a drone and and we had to set it up so i would walk up this like huge mountain and then hide behind a tree and then jack had to go around and then walk down by himself so you could just see one set of footprints oh which is again like a really cool metaphor and then he and then he laid down and did snow angels and so and i'm talking about like up up north this last weekend i don't know if people know this or not but over the last couple weeks they've had about five feet of snow yeah and and just in the last just in that one day they had like an additional six or seven inches that came in and so when i would step in to the snow because i'm heavier i would go down to like my waist you know jack would go like just above his knees because he's lighter so for him to just walk is an effort you know he had to like pick up his foot and like down into the snow you know so anyway long story short he's sitting there doing snow angels in 20 degree weather he's got to sit there for a half hour he's in older clothing because they it was a time period piece so he's got snow going up his sleeves he's he's miserable his cheeks are red he's super cold and and yet you know like he wanted to do it he was doing it he totally toughed it out when it was all done he like wanted to cry so bad I could tell um you know and I told him it was okay but but he didn't end up crying but he was just like he was very emotional because it was hard you know yeah but what's interesting is on the way home we we called mom and to tell her all about it and she's like how was it he's like cold and but he had his 125 bucks in his hand you know and he had a story to tell yeah and the point of this is without the cold, he's got no story to tell. That's true. You know, like that's the story that I'm telling this morning is from the pain, getting over the pain, getting through it. That's what makes it extraordinary. So to remember that, that without the pain, we don't really have a story. Yeah. Okay. So then to relate to. So I'll jump back into that when we when we come back in these next couple sections here. But as we move forward, here's what the show's going to be about today. Our first section is going to be feel the pain. I want you to go ahead and feel the pain. Second is going to be build muscle. And third, our last segment of the day is to thank the pain and use the pain. So I'll come back to the Jack story there at the very end in that last segment about using the pain. We'll be right back after this commercial break.

Corinne Freese, Isabel Ramirez, Dakota George, Truman Hendricks, Astrid Gabriel, Sia Luke, Vicki Sweeney, Brian Sweeney, Matthew Dearing, and Joey Sweeney but other times we are not going to start with those quotes but right now we're going to feel the pain of coming back early when we didn't even know that we were on. That would be an editing mistake. That's us talking about the show. By the way, we do talk about the show on those commercial breaks.

Yeah, that is facts. Taking ourselves next level. Alright, we're going to talk about feeling the pain right now. And so, what do I mean by feel the pain? Joey, you had mentioned saying a quote. I would like you to start please with the J.K. Rawling quote. Got you. That's the third one on the list there? Yeah, yeah, I got you. All right, here we go. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

Whoa. J.K. Rowling. And I'll repeat that again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. J.K. Rowling. So, this comes back to, I'm saying feel the pain. I'm saying go into the pain. rather than trying to avoid it or as jk rowling says numb it when do we see this sometimes if um sometimes if uh if an athlete or something gets hurt and they get shot with a courtesan shot or something and then um uh and then all of a sudden like it feels better for an hour so they can finish the game yeah but that injury is going to get worse um if you try to numb the pain a lot of times what people do they turn to alcohol they turn to drugs they turn to something to numb the pain the pain of a loss a pain of grief a pain of of you know losing losing a job or or whatever and you go to the some sort of a numbing yeah effect instead of allowing yourself to feel the pain because the pain is gonna come at some point in time but when it comes it's gonna be worse if you tried to avoid it tried to numb it okay i did not foresee this coming but i'm going to bring football into this show because i find this um very interesting so last game of the season when we got knocked out of the playoffs Kyler Murray got hurt in the first oh yeah and um and the sports announcers were saying talking about the cortisone shots and how it's like a little less relevant in the nfl like not all players use them um and and he was saying like nobody really knows whether kyler took the shot or didn't take the shot because it took him so long to get back out there he was trying to run on the leg and whatever and they were kind of dissonant for it and i was like i was getting really mad listening to it because i was like dude's trying to fight it out but like if he doesn't want to numb it like if he doesn't want to just like inject himself to make himself feel better to play the rest of the game and then go to the playoffs and be super hurt i don't blame the guy like like i'm proud of him for trying to run around on an ankle without medicine to know what the actual state of his leg is and then go out there and play which he did like that's more impressive to me as a fan and somebody who actually cares um so i got i got so mad when i heard that because i was like what what do you mean like you can't judge a guy for wanting to tough it out well you know this this dies into media in general and sports announcers are no you know yeah they're not immune to this where it it is so annoying to watch them just try to drum up some sort of controversy or or something headline negative out of anything they got to talk about something because if they just shot him up with something then then all of a sudden they'd be talking about that yeah and they'd be making they'd be spinning that negative somehow some way so yeah Yeah, I'm all negative on that, too.

For sure. But going into what Kyler says here, if we look at this quote by Mary Tyler Moore, pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. Pain nourishes courage. So it builds your courage. Yeah, and it goes into this idea of we, you know, it's said in the Bible. I've said this a couple of times on the show, but we are going to face trials and tribulations.

It's not sugarcoated. It's like, yeah, you're going to face that, but it makes you stronger. It makes your face stronger. It makes your body stronger. And so like when we neglect these things, kind of like JK Rowling said, it just means it's going to like you're going to feel it more at an amplified rate if you just keep putting things off. That's why it's so important when something comes up to release it.

And that's hard to do. yeah that's something i personally struggle with because but you've gotten better at and it's something that i've trained you on after i trained myself on the same thing because i didn't i didn't used to be good at this stuff but but i only wanted to be working with people that we could be up front with each other yeah and and the truth is bro you know it's painful when you and i don't get along dude so painful it's painful when we don't see eye to eye yeah you know yeah and it – It stinks.

– Yeah. – But most of the time when I get upset with you, it's because hey, I wish you'd have brought it up. – Yeah. – That's mainly the thing that gets me riled up the most. – 100%. – But that's the deal is like, this stinks. Like pain, nobody wants pain. – No. – But my deal is like, let's deal with it now. 'Cause if you wait six hours, eight hours, two days, whatever it is, however long you wait, it just got worse 'cause now we have to go backwards backtrack all the way back to the core of what it is and probably during the time you were waiting to talk about it more things happened yeah that are unrelated but are happening just because we haven't talked about the thing yeah so now we're both like doing new things to hurt each other when we don't need to do that it's the truth is we just haven't dealt with the core of it yeah you You know, and and then and then, you know, this is like one of those deals where I always say, too.

It's not fair to go back and talk about an old pain. Yeah. You know, that's the you deal with it now. You deal with what's right now. And instead of like waiting and waiting and waiting and letting things pile up, that's the worst thing you could do in a marriage, by the way, or with your brother or something, some sort of like an ongoing relationship. It's the worst thing you could do in general.

yeah but but to stack up problems and then something comes up and then you've got like three or four aces in your pocket and so you're the one that really did something wrong this time and you're like okay yeah i did but guess what remember you did this last week and then this the week before and then this also so yes i did something wrong but really you're three times worse than me yeah and it's like no like those things are the past you should have dealt with them then you don't you don't get to use those now to excuse your behavior yeah that ain't fair that ain't fair ain't right yeah no 100 and and for me um on the other end of it it's interesting i struggle to bring those things up and um specifically with the last time i struggled to bring it up because i thought you were mad at me not the other way around so i was like well eventually he's gonna tell me why he's mad at me and then i'll tell you about it right you know and instead of just being like bro you mad at me like i'm sorry if i did this thing that's the thing when you said are you mad at me because that the deal is curiosity yeah because because i was telling you before like brian and this and here's the deal i'm we try not to take sides but it's it's interesting for us to when we are being third party if you're because i just so you know joey i ask brian all the time i might have even asked him that day but i ask him like hey was i at a line here like what's going on yeah sure i want the third party point of view and brian was like no joy was off for some reason i don't know what it is so then i was like okay cool like he'll talk to me when he's ready but like you you want to be curious instead of being like i assume this is what it is and you want to go like i wonder if he's mad at me i wonder if that's an actual thing um which ended up turning to be not the case yeah all right so um so when there's pain any kind of pain whether it be emotional physical whatever i i the the question is to say why is it there so instead of trying to avoid it you want to ask the question why is it there so let's we'll take so interesting because we teach the same thing in acting and and in life and on this show we've repeated it what's your why right yeah we tell people that all the time well that goes into everything yeah you know if you're really curious you know that's that's one of the strongest answers you can get in any situation is why well and that's why we want to be and we're going to deal with this in the next section actually but but you want to be um you know actually creating situations that will bring you some sort of pain to overcome which comes next so we'll talk about that in a minute but um the last thing i'll say about this is is to for you to understand that without pain there would be no such thing as relief and relief feels really good yeah you know what i mean like like when when you're when you can't do something and then you can do it it feels good yeah it's empowering it's empowering so so like jack for instance before we like we got up there a little bit early and he wanted to be in the snow he wanted to go play in the snow so i let him but i didn't we didn't play that long because i was like you know you're gonna be in the snow all day here in a minute so so we played in the snow for like an hour and then i I brought him inside, and I made him rest a little bit.

But what's interesting is he just wanted to be in the snow, wanted to go play in the snow. Well, as soon as he was in the snow and wasn't allowed out of the snow, all he wanted was to get out of the snow. He needed to feel the pain in order to understand what relief from the cold felt like, which was an interesting thing. And I like this other quote.

This was anonymous here. It says, pain doesn't just show up in our lives for no reason. It's a sign that something needs to change. And that goes back to that idea of like questioning. Why is there pain? If I question the pain, so let's just say again, you're upset or you think I'm upset with you, whatever it is, but there's some sort of emotional pain. Just go, okay, it's not here for no reason.

It's a sign that something's got to change. And the thing that needs to change might be my point of view. Yeah. I'm open to that as a possibility. So let me get curious. Let me ask questions from a place of love and get myself out of this fear, out of this anger, out of this whatever the negative is, and go from a curious place can we get through this quickly because i freaking don't want to fight yeah for sure we got uh two quick comments that got brought up in this section so i just want to get them out there hit it uh nick malata said and you need to trust the people it's all good he said uh and you need to trust the people around you to understand that's something that would stop me from opening up because people around i thought the people around me would not understand and get annoyed i love that nick and i love that nick is on here talking about this um because i can just tell you right now uh nick mulatto is a friend of ours he's a student here at the studio and he's a he's an upstanding man who we respect very much and he's a person and people have history people have things that go on in their life and nick has i i believe been surprised by our response sometimes to him saying hey i got i have life that's happened to me and i you know i have a history and i'm like cool me too yeah you know like like i'm telling i've said it before i'll say it again i'm not going to cast the first stone like we are going to react from love the center is going to be love sometimes it's tough love sometimes it's like hey you're making excuses or hey you're doing this or like like let me hold the mirror to your face but never ever ever is it going to be judgment yeah because because who am i to judge exactly love that ain't gonna happen and then we got uh one from breezy and she said um this was her morning read today she said the greatest hell a human can experience here on earth is not suffering it's feeling like the suffering is pointless and it will never get any better Lila Turkhurst yeah yeah read that again will you yeah sure the greatest hell a human can experience here on earth is not suffering it's feeling like the suffering is pointless and it will never get any better right right right right so so she so she's saying here um the hell the torture is not the suffering itself but it's the lack of meaning behind the suffering that's what's painful yeah the most painful yeah there's there's no purpose for me suffering so therefore what do do you got to do you got to find the purpose we talked about with that with Viktor Frankl when he's going through the concentration camps and it's like he found a purpose for his pain which is which is what like allowed him to stay alive and allowed him to literally find some of the most joyous times in his life or during the concentration camp yeah him understanding what that felt like and being like wow i can't believe i'm joyful right now it's crazy all right so we're going to be uh going to a quick commercial break when we come back we're going to be talking about building muscle, using pain to build muscle, both physically and metaphorically.

– Corinne Fries. Isabel Ramirez. Dakota George. Truman Hendrix. Astrid Gabriel. Sia Luke. Vicki Sweeney. Brian Sweeney, Matthew Dearing, and Joey Sweeney. building muscle joey i don't know if i have this quote right actually so you can help me i am in the force and the force is in me or is it i am with the force the force is with me it is i'm one with the force and the force is with me i'm one with the force and it's the blind it's the blind jedi yeah no i know yeah i know that freaking i just couldn't remember he was my favorite character and i was so sad because i knew everybody was gonna die at the end of that movie yeah yeah yeah i'm one with the force and the force is with me with me i'm one with the force in the force good yeah so much faith so much faith exactly and i wrote that down because i was i was thinking about the idea of loving your pain you know and that guy yeah is is all about faith essentially you know and just knowing that it's gonna it's gonna come true no matter no matter what's coming against him yeah i mean talk about blind faith like the dude is actually blind he's blind surrounding fighting in a war where he has to feel the energies of the enemy right and and we talked about that on one of these shows where like i walked into a store and i saw the evil in somebody's eyes you know you can feel that and he had such a heightened faith and such a heightened feeling that he just knew when danger was coming and he was able to protect those around him in in this unspeakable way and and you know it'd be i would actually love i'm just going to throw this out there for the star wars makers i would love a movie that talked about that dude's backstory yeah that'd be so sick you know because we only get to see the culmination where he is there right where he ends up but think about i mean we don't know why i don't know his backstory at all i don't know if you do but i don't know if there's if it's said at all but but basically when did he become blind okay it was it was it when he was born yeah or was it a certain point in childhood or was it you know whatever and then the amount of skills the amount of time it would take to develop the skill set to to work on these different things right so then think about when yoda was training luke what did he do he got him to believe in the unseen yeah but he blindfolded him oh yeah yeah he blindfolded him and then he had this like little robot zapping him with like lasers and he's like he's like no it's not about your eyes you got to feel this thing right you have to feel it and and you know it's coming you can feel it coming and that's i mean that's why it's like it's so impressive so but but to think about when luke was training with a blindfold on he kept getting he kept feeling the pain feeling the pain feeling the pain until finally he overcame it and was like okay i'm not scared anymore i just need to focus and then he was able to avoid it or or to fight back against it, I guess.

And so, yeah, just to imagine what that guy went through to get to the skill set that he's at in the movie. I mean, it would be pretty fun to watch. Yeah, it would be awesome to watch. But the point being is, like, obviously with muscle, with physical muscle, you've got to rip the muscle. You've got to tear it apart safely, though. and you got a quote here that uh specifically talks about that it's by Bryant McGill what a coincidence says if you can sit with your pain listen to your pain and respect your pain in time you will move through your pain I love that so it's like a three-step process and I'll repeat it again if you can sit with your pain so you acknowledge you have it understand it listen to your pain so honestly go in and say where's my body at you know so so i think i think what you just said about the first one is attached to the second one oh so yeah like you said listen is like the acknowledgement right the sitting with it is is the idea of you're not going to run away oh okay okay and again like let's go back to emotional pain so if we have an emotional thing and I just want to run away from it, that doesn't help.

Nope. I've got to sit and stop first. Let me just stop and go, okay, I've got pain. I'm going to just be still. Sit, then listen. Good. Keep going. And then in time. No, you misrespect. Oh, and respect your pain. So you respect it. In time, you will move through your pain. Right. Yeah. So to respect your pain, this is something that people have such a hard time with.

But it's something that I've been preaching for forever. I will continue to preach to respect your pain. And that means, again, you go back. You're like, what teacher was your favorite? It's usually the one that was hard on you. And you don't know that until you're through it. So if you can learn early to respect the pain, you're respecting the person that's helping you get better. You're respecting, like, I respect the pain.

I give you the respect you deserve. It's a matter of, like, we're going to get there in a minute, but you thank the pain. Yeah. All right, good. So I believe, too, that the process of overcoming pain, that's the road to success. Yeah. And I mentioned this earlier that we were going to talk about this. So the idea is going to be, here's what happens. is we fool ourselves, and I am no different than everybody else.

I have to continually remind myself that the point of life, the point of a task or whatever, is not to not have pain. The point of doing things is not to put myself in a place where things are just easy. It's to get to a newer and different and more interesting or whatever type of pain. – Yeah. – That's what we're trying to get to. So it's not like I'm trying to do this so that I never have to feel pain again.

It's that I want to feel a different, like, better pain that's going to make me stronger. So I want to get through the pain I'm in now and then ideally not have to repeat it. But it doesn't mean I'm trying to just be stagnant. Yeah. Yeah. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Doesn't kill you makes you stronger. All right. Let's hear this Mother Teresa quote, Joey, before we wrap this segment.

I have found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. Love stinks. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's the opposite of what I'm saying. It's so funny because with all these quotes and just like with the way the show's formatted, so many times I have songs come into my head. We're dropping knowledge on this show. That's what's crazy.

All right. So if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. That's interesting. Yeah. That's interesting. Mother Teresa here. So again, this is going back to the idea of if we look at the legacy that Mother Teresa left behind, it would be a legacy of love. It would be a legacy of giving. Yeah. And what she's saying here is if you love all the way to the point that it hurts, when you get through the pain, probably your love gets stronger, right?

That's like building love muscle. So she's like, get all the way through the pain, and then there's like all that's left is love. There's nothing else left but love. This is facts. And if God is love, and you go all the way to the end of hurt, what is that? Probably death, and then the only thing left is love, which is God. Speaking of love, there's the highest.

I'm now for Brian Sweeney's Shameless Plugs. Shameless Plugs. The song? Yeah, sure did. Cool. Okay, Joey Sweeney's Shameless Plug. Speaking of love, acting is my day job, seven strategies to market and make money as an actor. In this book, you can tape over acting. You can put anything you want. Good. Because acting is my day job. We'll get you through. It's all about work ethic and shaping your career to something that makes you happy because success is not the same for every single person.

Facts. Nice plug there, Joey Sweeney. Thanks, dog. Appreciate it. All right, so we're going to come back with our last segment. This is going to be our quick takeaway. We're going to talk about thanking the pain, using the pain. We're going to come back to that Jack story and talk about using the pain for good. Corinne Fries, Isabel Ramirez, Dakota George, Truman Hendricks, Astrid Gabriel, Sia Luke, Vicky Sweeney, Brian Sweeney, Matthew Dearing, And Joey Sweeney the pain any hamilton fans out there i like this uh this african proverb says smooth seas do not make skillful sailors of course i love i love the metaphors in the sea because yes i'm a water guy because you're a boatsman i like the boat you're a captain ah just i love a good boat yeah i used to uh my dad and i had like my dad is i'm just gonna like plug my dad for a second my dad is one of the best men i've ever known and he's so funny because he looks for experiences always so growing up you know my mom would always get upset because he would go buy things um like cars or or in this instant he bought a boat like a like a rundown like cheap little boat because we love to fish together and he got it for like 700 bucks so he always buys things on a deal but he buys things for experience and that was one of the things right he bought this boat in a tube and we used to go out every weekend and i was scared of tubing and that became something i loved and i wasn't afraid of anymore that's cool um but that's something like ah i love my dad for that because it was always about experiences between the two of us i think that's what shaped our relationship was because you know one way or another whether things went south or or we kept the thing for forever like he would just buy things to try to fill with joy and it was always experience-based it wasn't based on a price tag or what it looked like like most these things were run down but we had so much fun that's awesome yeah so so jack and i had this uh father-son moment and it's funny because i i was on the other side of this a little bit um so we're sitting there and he's, he's cold and I'm warming him up and he's got these little tears in his eyes and he's got to go back out there, you know? And, and I'm sitting there and I'm going, Hey buddy, I see the tears in your eyes. You know, I'm like, but guess what? You can use it.

And he's like, he like looks at me, you know, and the, and the director starts laughing. He's like, always a coach, man. And I was like, yeah, that's right. This is dad, the coach talking to you. And I'm like, you got some tears in your eyes. You can use that, use that pain. You're running from a wolf. You're scared. And next thing you know, he's laughing. His pain turns to joy and jack is laughing because he realized intellectually he's like this is an advantage for me he saw it as a win yeah yeah and he was like i can use it like that i saw the light bulb go off and i might have even ruined it for him because the tears kind of went away but he just he started like loving that moment and i and i just i said to him you're in pain use the pain don't waste the pain don't waste it on nothingness like use it for a take wait till the cameras are rolling and use it and then negotiate be like all right i cried for you a hundred dollars on my on my that's right that's right i want extra hot chocolate baby it was funny you talked about um you want to find your next obstacle you want to find your pain so overcoming pain is what made you who you are yeah that's what makes you who you are so if you think about this joey um when you first took over editing for the studio yeah painful yeah very painful extremely painful when we had when we dealt with that casting director workshop deal and there was like a live event and we had to overcome the pain of that moment yeah painful yeah when we did valleywood and you did your very first valley when you edited you know 14 15 16 hours a day painful very painful painful But through the pain, you're getting skill, and through the skill, you're getting acknowledgement that you didn't even ask for, that you don't even want.

And of course, if you've got a good coach, as I'd say you do, I'm going to try to help you seek more pain, seek the next level of growth, and not get too stuck. I mean, it's okay to acknowledge the win. It's okay to celebrate, yada, yada. But then I'm like, all right, go seek the next skill. We don't want it to be easy. It goes back to our philosophy on chaos shows.

We always tell our players, and you've preached this forever, the night of the show, you go celebrate the show. Next morning, you're in the film room, and you go, okay, where can I grow? That's right. What mistakes did I make? How can I get better? Where did I miss game? Where could I have come in with whatever? And speaking on that, I totally feel Bob Marley on this quote.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice. Yeah. And I'll repeat that again. you never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice and and i can tell you that um that that sometimes we have a hard time getting ourselves to pain getting ourselves to acknowledge that doing what's right right now dealing with the pain right now is what's best for us and that's where procrastination lives and then all of a sudden you put yourself in more pain and more pain and more pain you've avoided the pain you've numbed the pain until you have to deal with it and then the last minute studying you're actually dealing with more pain or the last minute doing of whatever you're dealing with more pain than you would have and you and you realize real quick how strong you are yeah because you don't have a choice yeah and i've done this so many times where like i waited i waited waited i procrastinated and now like i get a ton done in one hour and i'm like why did i not do that a week ago yeah for sure and it goes back to the quote we said in the first segment about the magnification of pain yeah you know you just put it off and then the feeling stronger instead of just dealing with it right out but we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for you saw something in me that i could not see myself for the longest time when you brought me on for the longest time right and you were just this little voice in my ear speaking this truth speaking this motivation slowly because you can only give so many people so many things at once or else it becomes overwhelming so i i credit you on that because that's so hard to do to sit back and you see all these things that you want to point everything out i'm sure because there was a lot of it and instead you go what's the most important thing let's fix that what's the most important thing let's fix that and you know what's you know what's interesting too about you joey is is um we i wrote this down too you get backed in a corner you get hit in the face you get stuck in the middle of nowhere and those are the moments that you find out what your true character's like right sure and and you had told me at one point that you know you just you have a hard time with with people when they raise their voices you have a hard time with like anger and this type of thing and and we've been pushed to that limit you you and me a couple times yeah not often but a couple times yeah and and to be very truthful to you weirdly even in the moment when i was upset with you i was also simultaneously proud of you because you you had sort of said to yourself you're you're you're not able to stand up for yourself it's kind of what you said and i was like nah yes you can yeah and then i was watching you stand up for yourself so now the next lesson the thing that we're on currently with you is i'm like Stand up for yourself.

Be, like, I want the resistance. I want to feel you combating me hardcore. Like, you feel backed in a corner, man. I want you coming out swinging. But I want you coming out swinging from love. If you do it from love, you're going to get to the other side quickly. You're going to grow. The other person's going to grow. And it's going to be a peaceful transition from anger into something better, some sort of a growth for either you or the other person.

Yeah. That's what's going to happen. so like literally if if you get pushed somebody attacks you hurts you you feel in a certain way cool literally i don't want you to get back in the corner and just and just sit there and take it yeah i want you to stand up and fight back i just want you to fight back from love like start from that place and sometimes sometimes the bet the most loving thing you can do is punch somebody in the face yeah and i mean that it's rare but sometimes that's the best thing you can do is just about right in the nose you know yeah for sure because they're not listening they're not going to change you know they're they're you know what i mean obviously you could go into any kind of metaphor or go into like some sort of weird life example where somebody just needs to get punched in the nose but but it happens sometimes like you're okay um you're you're getting bullied you're getting bullied you're getting beat on you're getting bullied you're getting beat on you're getting bullied and eventually you're like hey the most loving thing i can do for you bully it's an interesting thing why do they say hit him in the nose too it's it because the nose bleeds yeah it doesn't even hurt that much it just it just bleeds and so it's like it looks like a big old to do yeah if i just barely pop you in the nose you're gonna bleed because the nose is just fragile right here right um but yeah it's very it's very interesting how that works and your dad is absolutely right in that moment and it's like hey i'm not telling you go punch the kid yeah i'm not telling you start it i'm just saying you get back in the corner come out swinging yeah come out swinging from love and i'm not saying hit him and then get him on the ground and pound into him no i'm not saying i'm not saying grab his head and smash against the the you know the counter i'm just saying just just give him a little pop yeah give him a little pop see what happens self defense and and and what's interesting is i believe too that that you can you can thank the pain to use the pain like you you can say thank you for it but if you're not if if you get um if you've never been backed in a corner you don't know what it feels like to come out of that corner And from coming out of being back in the corner, you gain tons of strength.

Yeah. Breezy has a funny question for you specifically. She said, Matt, how do you not blink on camera? I feel like my eyes have wings when I'm in front of the camera. Do I not blink a lot? I don't even know. Probably something that I've worked on, actually, Breezy, because I remember thinking to myself, I blink too much. I actually had that. This was back when I first started acting.

So truthfully, this is something that I've worked on quite a bit. And it used to annoy me. And I believe that the blinking for me came from me being nervous. So when I wasn't fully memorized, I didn't know my stuff all the way. And it was one of my tells. And so I would watch myself and same as you. And I would be like, gosh, that really bothers me.

So I worked on it. I actually did like staring contests with kids in my classes. would do all kinds of things and then i would acknowledge it i'd look at it i would focus on it and it's funny because now even that you mentioned it because i hadn't even thought about it now i'm like okay now you can't blink because she said you don't blink you know yeah and once you're thinking about it then it becomes much harder not to do it that's the other thing yeah that's it that's funny that's a good question so i said thanks for the pain i used the pain i got better look that way yeah it's crazy i was i was thinking too and i want to end here but but one of the things that that you you'll recognize is in history if you look back the most the most dangerous people are those who have been in a lot of pain, who have dealt with a lot of pain.

So you take your brother here, and he's been backed in a corner, pushing a corner, backed in a corner. He's been given permission to punch back. He's been backed in a corner. It's no longer scary for me to get hit because I get hit all the time. So I'm not scared of getting hit, but you are. And you haven't been hit in the nose yet. So when you take that punch, it's going to hurt.

So if you look at history, that's an interesting thing. It's dangerous to have a race car in a red. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. That's got to be an episode. What? Dangerous to have a race car in a red. that's a it's a great fiction quote i'm gonna i'm gonna make a title out of that love that all right ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for watching tuning in it's been mornings with matt on the deering acting studio podcast like and share this stuff we sure appreciate it god bless thanks for listening to mornings with matt please like subscribe and follow us at deering acting studio to keep up with the latest content for more information on classes private lessons or professional development coaching, visit www.dearingstudio.com. Have a Dearing day, everyone. Have a champy day, everyone. Ruff.