���ϳԹ���

Peter Frick-Wright: This is The ���ϳԹ��� Podcast.

Chad Brown: So one example was recently, not that long ago. Um, I was, um, invited to participate in, in breathing exercises, like a yoga breathing type of exercise, but this was a new, uh, environment that I stepped in. I didn't notice people in this environment and the space looks safe to me. Everything was fine.

They brought me a mat, put the mat down and they said, Chad, have you ever done breathing work?

I said, yeah, you know, and said, okay, well, you know, I just want to walk you through the process and this is what you need to do. So, uh, I put my service dog, Axe, right next to me and the mat. I got on the mat and I started doing this breathing exercise along with everybody else.

As I'm in this space, the folks, they were like, they were just basically kind of like not really chanting, but, uh, being very expressive with their breathing. You know, you can hear everybody really breathing and, um, and it wasn't like chance, but it was some of them, you know, someone came out with like noise and almost kind of like snoring, loud snores and stuff like that, you know?

And so, you know, all of this is going on and as I'm doing it, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of like going into this, um, interesting, weird trance. And when I started going in this trance, I started to unravel.

I was angry, and I just started like bawling, crying. And literally I was having an episode right there in the yoga place.

I got my stuff and I was stumbling down. I had Axe with me. And Axe was helping me trying to get it, navigate out of me. And all I can think of at that given time was my mind was going back to war and babies crying, hell going on. And it was all coming at me.

When I got out of the room, you know, I found my place, uh, like, um, outside on this, uh, green grass. And I was trying to, you know, calm myself down and I'm trying to cool myself down. But man, I sat there for almost like 45 minutes. Just bawling and screaming and crying and angry and Axe is like, Oh, like he's just like shaking and trying to, you know, calm me down and, and everything. And, um, you know, and, um, that person who invited me came out, they basically checked in with me. And it's like, Are you okay?

And I was not okay. I, I was not, I, I was, I was in the headspace of needing to protect myself by any means necessary.

Peter: Chad Brown is not someone to be taken lightly. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. He went to a very serious grad school for art and design. And now, he's trying to save the world. In fact, he won't rest until he has. More on that later.

He's also no stranger to ���ϳԹ���. Over the years, we've written about him a lot. A big feature article, an online story about one of his non profits, Love is King, which takes people of color on wilderness expeditions, a video profile of him, and a video profile of his service dog, Axe. And we're not the only ones. He's an outdoor media darling. The other day, he texted me a link to a story that his local camera store, Pro Photo Supply, had done on his work as a photographer and videographer.

Chad's story is great. It's worthy of all this attention. And at times, it's difficult. He still suffers from PTSD from his service overseas. But he uses that difficulty to connect veterans with kids on fishing trips for his other nonprofit, Soul River Inc. He's on a mission to bring the outdoors to more people.

Especially people of color. He does that by organizing expeditions and making films. He's a storyteller. So today we thought we'd do something a little different. And let him tell his story, for the most part, in his own words. Here's Chad.

Chad: There's a mindset that a lot of people think that black people don't like the outdoors or black folks are not in the outdoors. And there's also a mindset amongst black folks that say things like, that's not what black folks do. We don't hike. We don't, that kind of stuff. But the thing is, is that as a kid growing up, my exposure to outdoors was me seeing nothing but black folks, which is my family.

So my narrative also says at one point is like, where's the white folks at, you know, and I don't see no white folks in the outdoors and everything. And so it's kind of interesting because I'm this, my narrative is what I see is people of color in the outdoors, camping, uh, riding horses and wrestling cattle, uh, you know, and building fire, I mean, survival.

That was my upbringing.

Sometimes I would go on a hunt, uh, for deer, deer hunting with my dad. And there was actually one day that, uh, my dad came across, um, a mother deer and that, uh, deer was, was, was dead. And the baby fawn was next to the deer. And my dad picked up the baby fawn and brought the fawn home. And that fawn became my pet.

You know, I was like the only kid in the city, in the hood that would walk around the block, uh, with a dog leash to my deer, you know. And, uh, and it was so cool. I mean, I, I thought it was cool and I loved it. It was a awesome, um, memory of my childhood. My mother, my father, they welcomed me to live my childhood like that. So me and my deer, we, we were inseparable. He would sleep with me at night and I would take them to school with me. Sometimes I would, you know, got memories that I would walk my dear to the backseat of the car. You know, and that's how we roll, you know, uh, you know, my mom would take me to the grocery store. We'll go to the grocery store together and no joke. I would walk into the grocery store with my dear on a leash. Right behind my mom as she's pushing the basket, getting groceries.

Peter: How old were you?

Chad: Uh, man, I was probably, I would like, I was like around, I mean, I would say like around eight, eight, nine years old, you know, um, but yeah, and the name of my, my dear, you know, that his, his name was Bambi, you know.

Peter: Cause you were eight years old.

Chad: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Peter: Where does the narrative that black people aren't going outside, where does that come from?

Chad: It's kind of hard to say where that comes from. I think it really comes from just really. Um, I think it comes from like, uh, the lack of information, um, that we are not receiving and how media plays a role with that as well. When you look at magazines, it has always been the images of white folks. You know, it's always been those images.

If you got enough of those images showing from GQ magazine, you know, to men's health and all that.

Peter: You can say ���ϳԹ���, it's fine.

Chad: ���ϳԹ��� magazine, you know, the media is like educating both audiences in a really interesting way.

Chad: If you open your eyes more and look a little deeper, you'll see that me being black, I don't see myself. And then from a white perspective is, Oh, I see myself. This is cool. I can do this. It can go either way, you know.

Peter: are you saying that the, because Chad talks about this to the, the narrative that, that black people aren't welcome in the outdoors, are you saying it comes down to like a fear of encountering like forms of aggression that white people just don't want to talk about and don't experience as often.

Lisa Collins: Uh, I absolutely, I think it is, you know, raised in those, uh, during those times of Jim Crow, um, where Jim Crow was, um, you know, with Jim Crow are laws that, you know, uh, terrorized, uh, black individuals.

I think you probably have heard of the Green Book, which is this book that would let people of color know where they could go, where Black people could go, where it would be safe for you to go. That energy has moved forward into generations of You know, the outdoors is just not for you. Like it's like you be careful where you go, you, because it's not safe.

So there's this negative connotation that comes with being in the outdoors as a person of color, that is dangerous, but there's not anything to balance it on the other side. Like this is this wonderful experience I had. This is this joy I had. I loved being in nature. So, um, as a practitioner of trauma healing, we have to dispel and rewrite the narratives of the past.

My name is Lisa Collins. I'm an assistant professor at Lewis and Clark College and a small business owner. I'm a board member of the Alaska Wilderness League and a very good friend of Chad Brown.

Peter: I mean, let's, let's jump back to your story. I mean, kind of walk me through, you know, after leaving home, what path are you on?

Chad: Yeah. So, um, as I got older, um, I, um, was definitely into, uh, art. My mom, she supported me the best way possible, fostered all of my creativity. School was fine up to a point. You know, my mom got married and I didn't really have enough money, uh, to finish art school. And so, um, I dropped out of school and end up joining the Navy.

I was, uh, over in Africa and Somalia doing small, uh, convoy runs. Well, not really small convoy runs, but convoy runs, uh, through the city of Mogadishu. I was not sure what I was doing, honestly, but, but I did it.

War is a horror show. It's ugly. And you know what? It's not just about, you know, uh, the firefighting, you know, because that happens by default, but what you see that's ugly is what man can become behind the enemy lines. And, uh, and that's, that's scary. That's scary.

There's a saying that we have always said on these deployments when we're doing these things as a Navy is, you know, you never know someone until you actually go on a deployment. And that's when you really get to know who that person is, how they respond under stress, um, or under fire. It brings the worst out of us.

Some people are able to adapt and, and, um, and still be able to maintain themselves as a human being. And some people are not able to do that and they change to something else.

And you be, you either become the witness to that or you become part of the process.

There was one point where, um, a vehicle was stopped and, um, wow. Yeah. And, um, the vehicle was stopped and me and a couple of guys, we were observing because we were working with the Marines and the Marines, they were there and so they're actually the ones that stopped the vehicle and were checking the vehicle, et cetera. And the back of the vehicle had a bunch of grain.

There was an old man, Somalian. He had a cane. He's probably maybe he looked like he was maybe in the seventies, I guess, but he had a cane in his walk with a cane and he approached the back of the vehicle. He took his hand out of his pocket. He grabbed a handful of grain and he put it in his pocket. One of the Marines saw that and treated him as he was being a thief and all the Marines that came around, took the butt of the gun and beat him to death.

We could not engage of stepping in and, and like take, you know, like to change that we, we all witnessed that.

So yeah, we stood there front row center and watching this and that old man couldn't defend himself. That was an old man that was crippled and hell you're in a third world country. And you could tell that the man was starving to death and it took a handful of grain put in his pocket and he gets beat down to death, you know, and it sucks, you know.

And so, like I said, it's like, one thing you, you witness, you know, firefighting, that's scary as hell to be in a firefight. That is scary as hell. But I would have to say that the worst scariest thing is seeing how war.How war can change a man.

Yeah, um, coming back into civilian life was definitely a struggle for me. I have not yet even found a language to even communicate what I've went through. And so coming back is this person that's full of rage, anger, lost, didn't really know where to go.

It was hard for me to stay in conversations with people. There were times that I didn't want to be around people.

I did forge my way through college, went down to Atlanta and I did, I did, you know, I finished off my schooling. I guess, you know, I was, uh, you know, trying to get into grad school. I didn't feel confident, but I really wanted, really wanted to be there and I wanted, you know, to go to that school. And so I had, um, decide to, in a way, self sabotage.

And so what I did was I, I tore the, I tore the back, um, of, of a McDonald's bag, the brown paper bag, and I wrote, um, a letter to the Dean over at Pratt and I for sure felt that this was a way to sabotage. And of course I submitted that with my portfolio, but I got back in the mail, an acceptance letter from Pratt.

And it was a personal letter that was also written on a torn piece of brown paper bag. And so I ended up taking that path. I got the hell out of Atlanta. I still had this mindset of, you know, this military in me and, and everything. And, and so no joke, I put everything in my backpack that I need and I left my apartment in Atlanta with the door open to everything in there. And I just walked out of that apartment with my backpack to New York.

Uh, got to New York, got myself settled into the dorms of a Pratt in Brooklyn, started taking my classes. Uh, I was, you know, yeah, I was in it. I was in the city. As a creative student at that time and learning a lot, being engaged and connecting with so many creatives from all over the world at this freaking school.

Um, and I was, it was, it was amazing. And then slowly I started picking up the camera and started shooting in the city, doing many different, uh, type of engagements, fashion in the city, then Soho. Uh, it was amazing.

Up until a point one day, um, I had a meeting at the towers, and I was running late, and just so happened my train stalled.

And as I'm sitting there, I'm watching the plane come in and basically flies right into the towers, and the train was silent. Everybody was silent. And then all of a sudden it turned into a horror show. People were screaming. Everybody was screaming. It was crazy.

And I'm sitting here. I'm calm. It was so weird.

It was like, I've been here before. And so instead of me going home again, I'm back on mission and. My mission now is to get to my job because I can't get to my meeting. Now I'm going to go to get to my job. That's my mission. So I'm making my way on mission, walking through the streets all the way up to 40, a little bit past 42nd street, and passing just so many people.

And. Um, I walk in, finally get to the job, I walk in, um, and people's freaking out. I'm engaging with folks, but I'm not freaking out. And it's kind of weird. I sit down at the desk, right in the computer, I'm still on mission.

Peter: Was your reaction in that moment at all concerning to you? At that point, like, ‘Oh, I'm not reacting the way everybody else is reacting to this unprecedented kind of thing.’

Chad: When I look back, the answer to that question now, I think I was reacting as a broken soul. I think when you're broken and you've been through a lot of stuff and you haven't found any kind of closure and no healing, you become numb to what's in front of you really quick and um, yeah, yeah.

Peter: You want to take a break?

Chad: We're good.

Peter: Yeah?

Chad: Yeah, we're good.

Peter: Okay. I mean, it, it's, it's, uh, I really, I appreciate your, uh, sharing these stories, I can tell how difficult it is to talk about it. Yeah. Um, I hate to have to ask you to do it, especially a couple of times.

Chad: Yeah. It's, it's, it's all good. I just kind of, it's a process. You know, I live with this, with this PTSD shit, you know. And I've, I have been able to find many different ways to manage and, and, um, and to help support myself. And, um, me and my girlfriend just like merge our lives together and

Peter: Recently?

Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've been together like a year and a half now we've merged our lives and you know, and she's a witness to my PTSD and, um, and it's hard. It really is hard.

Yesterday, she was like, which I take my hat off to her, but as she was working, she was like, listening to a podcast book on how to love your partner who struggles with PTSD and She listened to the whole book. It kind of landed on me. Uh, it gave me a lens to look at myself and say, ‘Damn, Chad. You thought you had it managed. You've been into this therapy game and you've been able to find ways to cope with your PTSD stuff. But you're really fucked up.’

And so me talking about it and sharing, it's, it, it's, it's a little bit, um, hard, but it's also a form of therapy too, you know, it, it helps, you know, um.

Peter: Does it help though? Because I mean, and there's, there's, I think different levels, superficial levels and deeper levels here, but like on one level both yesterday and today I come here. You're in a good mood. You’re like a funny guy. You're telling stories um, and then You know at a certain point in the interview different points in the interview You, you're, you, you go back there, uh, you know, I kind of implicitly ask you to go back there, relive whatever you feel comfortable with, um, and your, your mood changes, your demeanor changes. It changed yesterday, it changed today, just now, you know, and that's, that's to be expected, that is what it is, but like, you know, this is also your job, You're doing this professionally. You tell the story professionally.

Chad: Exactly, yeah, yeah.

Peter: Is that something that, that you can keep doing? Is that something that you, like, is it, is this process and job and message that you're trying to share, because it's so deep down tied to the traumatic stuff that you went through, can you ever really get free of it?

We'll be right back.

[advertisement]

Chad: It took a while for me to get to a point. Of finding healing because through this whole little process I was going through in my life, I was being challenged with certain things mentally that I didn't quite understand what was going on, but it was disrupting my thoughts. Uh, I was having blackouts, anger moments.

Um, you know, I took a break. I was very fortunate and blessed and I took a break and backpacked over in Japan and I didn't quite understand what was going on with me. Until I came back to New York, um, and from New York, I got this job opportunity. You know, this job was, it was, it was a hire for a senior art director at an agency. Right when I started doing the work at the agency Up until when my contract ended boom. That was when things really unraveled with me I was really losing my damn mind. I did not know what was going on. There were times that I'll have blackouts in my own vehicle. I would lose track of time. When the PTSD hit me, uh, I lost everything. Um, man, I lost everything. It robbed me from everything. I, I fell into basically a really really dark, dark place. And, um, I became homeless and, uh, I needed money. I was borderline even to, with thoughts of committing a crime to steal, so I can get something to eat. Um, I would, you know, go to the, um, the blood banks and, uh, and it was kind of weird standing in line. I never thought I'd be part of that kind of population.

Here I am, all my education, fought for my country, did all kinds of shit, traveled the freaking world. And I'm standing right in line in this particular kind of population of drug addicts, crackheads, prostitutes. And I'm standing there. And when I get through the line, submit everything. I get into it. They, they, they walk me to the back.

I got it sitting on those chairs. They'll put the needle in me, got a TV up there and they give me a little pump, a hand pump. And I kind of keep pumping and keep pumping. And I had to fill a little, uh, um, container of blood, of plasma blood up. And got into the system to where when you first come, you get 60. Second time you come, you get 40 and you know, and then there'd be a couple of times you'd get like 25 to 30 and I would stretch that all the way to the next and I can only come in on a Tuesday, but I can't come in on a Wednesday, but I can come in on a Thursday and I had, and that was how I survived.

I think, if I'm not mistaken, I believe it's a good seven years of my life. Yeah. I was in that dark, dark space for a long time.

Lisa: How I got connected with Chad was I was invited to a demonstration that he was doing out by the river. I mean, I love the outdoors. I fished before I met Chad. I was, you know, learning how to fly fish and I'm an angler and, uh, I just loved the outdoors. When I went out to the demonstration, we were on the river in Oregon and we put on our, you know, fly fishing gear, like our waders and boots. We went out in the water and practiced our cast and Chad talked about his journey, his healing journey of being out in, you know, in the back country and his struggles with post traumatic stress disorder and how, you know, being in nature was helping him to heal.

Chad: Fly fishing was presented to me as a way of healing and processing. Like when people look at my image and all this kind of stuff, they think I'm like this hardcore angler. But fly fishing wasn't presented to me like that. It was presented to me as a way of life, as a way of processing and the art of giving back.

I spent time on the water and found my healing through that process, through fly fishing. But I didn't fish that much. It was about this, like this obtaining this kind of knowledge that you can learn if you stay quiet long enough to listen to the river. And how that speaks to you, how that lands with you.

And then when we talk about the fish and talking about connecting to the fish, it was talking about love. If you are able to connect with the still head and you're able to bring that still head in, that just means that you just align with the perfect alignment of the right language that connected to that fish.

You crack the code specifically for that fish to connect with you. And when you bring that fish in, this is an opportunity for you. It's like really symbolic. This is an opportunity for you to get on your knee. You keep the fish wet. Allow the fish to breathe around your hands. You feel the gills and you take the time to look at the scales. The scales will tell you the journey of the fish. And when you can understand and see that during the fish by the scars of what that fish has been through, it would give you a deeper respect to the fish and to his journey. And when you're done understanding what you have and look at the colors and admire the beauty, then you turn around and you release that fish back on his journey. Learning to let go of something that you love in an interesting way, there's healing, uh, in that process.

Now I'm still healing in my process, but down to the simplest form of light catcher and releasing that it actually made me feel good. It, it made me feel really good. They feel good and I feel good.

Lisa: His organization, Love is King, that's what Love is King does, is it takes people out into the, out into the backcountry, out into Alaska, out into, um, places where people of color probably have never been before, and he was asking people, like, you know, do you think you can do this?

And, you know, from putting on the gear, to putting up the tent, to turning on the jet boil, to this is the kind of food we'd eat, and these are the kind of things that I bring, and would you be interested in learning more about conservation and Alaska, and would you be interested in learning how to be in the backcountry and enjoy it? And my soul said yes.

I think it's the connection for him is who he is, like authentically, is to bring healing connection and good things to the world. He, you know, he's not a millionaire because of it. He works really, really, really hard. And he is constantly pulling back and pulling people forward who want to also bring good to the world.

Chad: People may think I'm a workaholic, but it's probably why I got a lot of things going on and, you know, and doing this and creative and film and nonprofit work and conservation and all that. It's really not a lot to me. I'm managing that, but what a lot of people don't see that this is my way of healing.

Peter: It does seem like he is working so, so hard and almost like working himself to the bone. Do you see this? His, his effort and work and his willingness to, to sort of sacrifice as sustainable, uh, as something that he can

Lisa: No.

Peter: Okay. Okay.

Lisa: I mean, I, I talk to him a lot and we’re really good friends and I talked to him a lot about like, ‘Hey, you know, what's, what's right size here?’ Like, how do we, you know, take care of yourself? And I understand us also as a, as a trauma practitioner, like sometimes when we're on the wheel on the hamster wheel, we, that is a way of, of regulation, like all the things and we do need to stop and take a breath. And I think that is a form of, of, of, of regulation is to keep everything going, to keep all the plates. And he has a lot of plates. And, um, something that we do talk about quite often is how do you take a breath and not have so many plates.

Peter: So here's kind of the, the crux of, of, of things as I, as I see them, just as I'm thinking through the story. And I'm curious, just like, how you, how do you manage this situation? If your work is your medicine or part of it and you, you have this kind of ongoing need for healing because you will get re-triggered or you will be you just that that is, that's part of you now that that is part of who you are and your goal is to change the world, save the world ecologically, and, and heal group, large groups of people. You know, you set these, these incredible goals.

How do you find rest and recovery? And how do you manage being always on in this way that it sounds like you're kind of describing?

Chad: Um, I think rest is, um, it's, it's been defined more as being able to break away and take a vacation and being able to sit and do, probably do nothing.

You know, I think that's a traditional way of looking at rest. Looking at it in an unconventional way, I believe rest can be found even while you are working. I may find my rest in the morning. I may find my rest in the afternoon, but however, I'm managing my time, I'm recharging constantly, you know, all the way through the whole process. You know, every day I'm recharging throughout the day. I'm recharging. It's just, it just looks different every day, but it's very important for me to recharge.

Peter: Yeah. I mean, I guess I asked him this question and his answer was sort of like, I take my rest by working more because I, because I find it so healing.

Lisa: Yeah. Sounds about right

Peter: Like, how do you extricate yourself from this pain if it is also kind of like the source of the narrative that that moves your healing.

Lisa: Yeah. Um, the, the pain that I've experienced at Chad's experience is only a cornerstone to the healing. Healing is not, it's not, You don't have to be, uh, dancing every day with your pain to be, to experience the joy and the bliss of healing.

And as a healer, and as a person who has done work myself, there is a place where you get to that is peaceful and joyful, and it doesn't involve the pain of the story. You know, the story is there, but I'm observing it from where I'm at today. Okay. I'm not dancing with it. It's not intertwined in who I am.

I speak of it as an observer to others to help them see and wonder if you want some joy and bliss in your life. And I see Chad pulling away from that old paradigm into a new one.

Chad: I have not, and I don't think you can ever, uh, overcome PTSD, but I do know that you can better your, your tools in your toolbox to help you be able to remain and stay function that will help you manage your PTSD.

I'm still that veteran fighting those demons. I'm still that veteran that has been stamped with 50 percent mentally disabled. I'm still that veteran that has issues when I go in certain places or when I'm hearing sounds.

So there's a lot of years that I'm sharing here. And within those years, there's a lot of therapists that I have connected with along the way that has helped me be able to understand not just who I am today, but understand, you know, what I need to put in place to help me for wellness.

Um, you know, and so, yeah, you know, it's, it's, you know, like I say, rest can be found in many different ways.

Peter: Chad Brown is the founder of Love is King and Soul River Inc. Special thanks to Travis Avery and Kevin Gatta for speaking with me at length. This episode was produced by me, Peter Frickwright, with editing, music, and sound design by Robbie Carver. The ���ϳԹ��� Podcast is made possible by our ���ϳԹ��� Plus members.

Learn more about all the benefits of membership at outsideonline.com/podplus.