00:00:03
what is up my ex- homies it's your boy Jacob Gooden and we are back another week another ex homeschoolers club uh
00:00:09
this is the best EX homeschoolers podcast this side of the internet and uh you know what's so cool about this show
00:00:15
is I get to meet all kinds of amazing homeschoolers ex- homeschoolers people from all over the world all over the
00:00:21
country and I get to hear their stories and when I started the show I really thought I was going to be stuck with
00:00:26
most of the people I grew up with um but people have reached out in droves to just like connect and share their
00:00:33
stories and so we're going to share one of those stories today I have my brand
00:00:36
new friend corbes on today corbes hello welcome to the ex homeschoolers Club hey
00:00:41
man great to be here uh it's uh very good to connect with you as well this is
00:00:45
a classic just build it and they will come situation yes and I was glad that I came across you and glad you responded
00:00:51
to my reach out yeah no it's been amazing and it's been so cool like I said to connect with people all over uh
00:00:58
the country really and here there stories and different age gaps and all kinds of different stuff so with that
00:01:03
I'm going to turn it over to you a little bit and ask you kind of set the stage a little bit about your homeschool
00:01:08
experience you know uh how long you were homeschooled siblings kind of walk us through a little bit of that we'll set
00:01:15
the stage and then we'll go from there okay let me uh let me paint you a picture so uh growing up we were me and
00:01:22
my sisters we were homeschooled our entire lives so never went to a real school um High School none of it so we
00:01:27
did it through the entire way um I had three siblings and all sisters we were all two years apart um so going up my
00:01:35
oldest sister was four years older than me my middle sister was 2 years older and then it was me and it was that way
00:01:40
until um I was eight years old and then we had uh my parents had their their youngest child so there was four of us
00:01:47
in total and we were homeschooled um being taught by my mom up until the time she got pregnant with my youngest sister
00:01:54
and then we transitioned into watching um DVDs so there was a a small Christian School down in Florida that she would
00:01:59
order cassettes from and and DVDs eventually and then they would come in uh they
00:02:05
basically filmed their classroom and then we would just watch it on our side of things and then we would ship the
00:02:09
DVDs back after we were done with the the school year and uh that was the kind of the experience we were in and we were
00:02:16
homeschooled primarily just for religious reasons growing up we were uh just hardcore religious uh the the type
00:02:24
of religion we were in was called independent fundamental Baptist and um just an extremely religious type of a
00:02:30
denomination to the extent that um girls couldn't wear pants um you know the skirts or kolots only virtually
00:02:39
everything was bad going to movie theaters was bad going bowling alleys was bad music was bad just everything
00:02:46
was bad and so we were homeschooled just to kind of be separated from the world essentially and the process of going to
00:02:52
school would uh you know infect your mind and that's how they that's how they
00:02:56
get you so uh we were homeschooled for that reason yeah dang that's there's a
00:03:02
lot to unpack there and I guess let me let me start by asking this so yeah at eight years old switching to DVDs like
00:03:11
that I mean then you're what like that's like second third grade something like
00:03:14
that that's pretty young uh to be switching over to like that and so okay so let let me ask you this so with the
00:03:21
DVDs is that something where you watch the classroom and then like you basically have a textbook and you're or
00:03:26
a worksheet and you're kind of like working through the problems with them or was or was it kind of just like we
00:03:31
watch school and then that's it we're done yeah no in theory it should be
00:03:36
pretty interactive to where it's an actual classroom setting that they just have a camera in the back and so they
00:03:41
might even at times pause and like ask the the people watching certain questions and with the DVDs for each
00:03:47
class you have a book a curriculum and you're supposed to go through it that
00:03:50
way um but this wasn't so much my experience uh the way that we did it is I I was just in my room like in my
00:03:57
actual bedroom by myself watching these DV s are supposed to be doing for the most part and uh the good book will tell
00:04:04
you A Child Left to himself just brings his parents shame and so what I ended up
00:04:09
doing through virtually almost especially all through High School uh was I had a a TV in my room with a DVD
00:04:17
VHS combo and I would have the DVDs playing with my school and then on the VHS side of things I had my PlayStation
00:04:24
hooked up to it and with a wireless controller all I had to do was just switch a button back and forth and all
00:04:30
of a sudden it would be science class or you know Crash Bandicoot or whatever it
00:04:35
was I was playing and if I heard anybody coming down the hallway I would just switch it over and I I literally played
00:04:40
video games through almost all my classes uh but but in theory it's supposed to be yeah watch a class and do
00:04:48
the work and and go along with it yeah right maybe a little bit more oversight than a little bit more oversight would
00:04:53
have been uh advisable yeah yeah yeah yeah so that's so interesting I yeah I
00:04:59
wish I would have gotten away with uh some maybe some more video games maybe not to the degree you did but um so but
00:05:05
previous to to that so when your mom was educating you was she building curriculum and it sounds
00:05:12
like she was just a lot more Hands-On in those kind of those first couple years and then just some Life Changes happened
00:05:19
and it was like unable to do it is that pretty accurate to be honest I I honestly don't have much memory back
00:05:25
then of what that school experience was like um my mom wasn't a educate or anything so I'm sure she did the best
00:05:31
that she could with it but uh from what I understand we probably did very similarly had curriculums that we would
00:05:37
go through and then you know she would just explain it to us and we would do the work I'm assuming that's how it went
00:05:42
yeah right right so maybe something more along the Lin like anca curriculum or something like that which yeah most
00:05:48
homeschoolers know that's the that's the the big bad word that a lot of people
00:05:51
that a lot of homeschoolers have uh okay yeah yeah no that was the that was the school that we got the DVDs from a Becca
00:05:57
oh okay yeah yeah no it's it's I did a Becca I remember doing that the first
00:06:02
handful of years uh for homeschooling and didn't do the DVDs we did we just had like the textbooks and stuff um but
00:06:10
we hated it I don't know like collectively across my house we hated it like my Mom hated teaching it I hated
00:06:16
learning it it just didn't it didn't hit right for us so it just became one of
00:06:19
those things where by the end of high school because I I was homeschooled from uh yeah 8 years old through high school
00:06:27
and so but within those couple years we pivoted a lot with like curriculum and stuff to the to the point where at the
00:06:34
end it was like we had you know this type of math and that type of English and this type of science so it was never
00:06:40
a collective you know one school teaches with all of their curriculum kind of a thing it was very like cherry-picked
00:06:47
things which was cool because you know learning styles are different between people and so we could really cater you
00:06:53
know also if someone's really good at something you could cater a little bit
00:06:55
more towards like history if you want to I wanted to really learn about world wars one point so it was like did a
00:07:00
whole you know year on World War history and stuff like that but anyway enough on
00:07:06
me we'll get back to you so so the religion aspect is also really interesting like you said like
00:07:12
the like girls not allowed to wear pants and things like that um that that's a tough bringing up just in
00:07:22
general regardless of if you're homeschooled or not but so so I guess my my question in there I guess is is like
00:07:30
were other so you obviously part of a church or some kind of religious group in your area were other kids
00:07:36
homeschooled in your area as well like did you guys have a homeschool Community or was it very isolating very isolating
00:07:42
we didn't have a good homeschool Community but we did our church was obviously small I think extreme groups
00:07:48
like this tend to be pretty pretty tiny yeah um and everything just revolved around Church you know we did this would
00:07:54
be like an actual normal schedule for us so uh Sunday morning we would get up very early at like 7:30 we would be on a
00:08:02
bus going around picking up kids and bringing them to church we did a Sunday like a Sunday school service a Sunday
00:08:08
morning service after Sunday morning service we would take all the kids home go back home we would eat be back at
00:08:14
church for choir practice then we'd have a Sunday night service we had Wednesday
00:08:17
night service all through being like a teenager we had a activity on usually Friday nights uh every Saturday door
00:08:25
knocking I was out there two by two trying to share the good news of the gospel and it was really a proper
00:08:33
part-time job really uh you know looking back at it it was very involved just everything revolved around church it was
00:08:38
it was you know Church's life really right yeah I I kind of feel that I mean
00:08:43
yeah when it's just like that's your whole society I mean that's your whole
00:08:48
social experience as well where yeah like especially as a kid like if yeah if school is at home always and we're just
00:08:53
kind of like stuck at home well that's the only time maybe you get to see other
00:08:56
people and be outside yeah yeah it's a great way to get your kids to love church you know yeah exactly so wow
00:09:04
that's um interestes like for sure I mean that's I mine was definitely not that as
00:09:12
as fundamentalist um there's there's layers to it right there's like I
00:09:16
definitely was involved in some churches that were a little bit more extreme like
00:09:20
that and had those kind of I've talked in previous episodes about like in college I I would joke that I was in
00:09:26
church like six days a week because we had like Chapel service and bible study and I served at a church
00:09:32
and all that kind of stuff so I definitely I've had moments and times in my life where I I totally understand
00:09:37
that like it's just a constant religion is the everything and then life is kind
00:09:42
of this like secondary uh I don't want to say life is a secondary but life is
00:09:48
kind of this like secondary thing you know your personal life is like a secondary thing to your church
00:09:52
experience which can be stressful for sure no that's exactly right I mean you
00:09:57
got to lay up for yourself Treasures in Heavens I mean all is temporary so why not you know there's no it makes sense
00:10:04
so you mentioned to me previously that when you wait after after high school and graduation so you didn't have
00:10:11
graduation didn't have a high school diploma that kind of a thing so setting
00:10:14
off into the real world how was that transition because that's got to be I mean it's already scary uh you know to
00:10:22
be 18 to be an adult to be getting out of the house but like you tack on this like you know School wasn't super great
00:10:31
maybe didn't know a whole lot you know like what how was that I guess how was
00:10:36
that transition well initially beautiful there there was a real time in my life of just Blissful ignorance where you
00:10:43
don't even know what you don't know and you're so lost in the sauce it's it's
00:10:47
fine and at a certain point it hit me pretty hard because I I really had this horrible Dynamic of one I was not book
00:10:54
smart just generally like things about the world things about math things about English gr like I just actually didn't
00:11:01
know these things mhm but it wasn't like you know I never really paid attention
00:11:05
in school but I was just a hustler and I was on the streets making moves and I was like understood how the world worked
00:11:12
I was also very Street stupid like I didn't have any worldly wisdom either so
00:11:16
it was like a double screw really where I was just I was lost at how the world worked and I was objectively very very
00:11:22
stupid so um initially it was fine but what really happened is starting to kind of move away from the religion aspect
00:11:31
and just understanding outside of this very tight Circle all that's going on in the world
00:11:37
uh yeah it was it was uh it was a lot I was very lost even to you know not even being young like 22 23 24 still just
00:11:47
being you know out of control really in in a way where uh you know I was just so
00:11:53
weird about everything H through you know not really F my own eyes I didn't have any experience with anything um I
00:11:58
remember I I was a time I was probably like legitimately 20 years old and I was I found myself in a situation where I
00:12:04
was in a in a car with friends and I just anytime I was around people I just felt really weird and I I remember maybe
00:12:12
being like in a car with friends and just not like I didn't know what to do like people are talking being friendly
00:12:17
just like joking around with friends and um I I would even Google stuff at times
00:12:21
like how do you be cool with your friends like how are you supposed to act and you know because it was just yeah
00:12:26
you felt very uh very lost so it was a an interesting transition well were you like right out of high school were you
00:12:34
were you working were you was there any goal to pursue like higher education after or like what I guess like I I
00:12:43
totally feel you where like when you kind of step outside of that bubble a little bit like the the social
00:12:47
interaction and like learning to kind of like have friends and not be the weird the weird guy in the room could be
00:12:53
tricky but like yeah I guess like what was what what were what was Chang in in your in your life I guess or was it like
00:13:01
very much like I'm still at home I'm just kind of like quote unquote figuring
00:13:05
life out at this point um so actually I I left home when I was probably 17 uh maybe you know turning 18 that year um
00:13:14
and I I went to like a very small uh Bible Seminary because I was going to be a youth pastor or you know some form of
00:13:22
a a pastor and I mean I was I was really bought into the whole thing and yeah if
00:13:28
if this is all tempor temporary and and the only thing that matters is eternity what's the what's the the use in trying
00:13:34
to get wealthy or trying to pursue anything like Ministry is the only thing um and so I I really you know I went
00:13:40
down that rout route initially and I actually got ordained as a minister so I could legally do a wedding or a funeral
00:13:47
if you ever if you ever need to get married or buried just holl at your boy I'll hook you up gotcha and yeah so that
00:13:53
was kind of the original plan and um I was working I had a buddy of mine we were doing like a a you know own
00:13:59
business we were cleaning windows and truck washing yeah and um we were just kind of doing that and then that during
00:14:06
that time is when I kind of just started thinking a little bit differently getting exposed to some different things
00:14:11
and then you know kind of slowly making my way and and starting to realize how this wasn't maybe the path for me
00:14:17
it's interesting how that transition happens where it's like even if you don't leave religion or
00:14:24
or if you do but like just that TR that that period of time where like yeah for me 20 22 was like a big shifting year of
00:14:32
my life I was out of college I was like on my own really living on my own like I
00:14:38
got married that year like but it was a big shift where also that questioning comes into play
00:14:45
right where you're just like whoa like I don't know like I just had I felt like
00:14:50
so much had happened so quickly in my life and I just had to sit there and really like mle over like what is this
00:14:58
like what what is it that that I believe about who I am as a person who I like what I believe like from a religious
00:15:04
perspective or my values or my you know anything in life right and you just kind
00:15:08
of start to be like I've been taught all these things and yeah I think it's kind of
00:15:13
sometimes being out in the world a little bit you get your first job like you said you interact with people who
00:15:17
maybe weren't a part of that right and then you just kind of start to have these like moments of just like oh whoa
00:15:23
like let me let me think about this like let me chew on this a little bit and like come back to you in a in a minute
00:15:29
you know what I mean so yeah yeah you gota be careful asking questions uh very strict religions they
00:15:35
don't like too many questions because absolutely it really is it's there there
00:15:39
are so many things that just end up happening just because we've always done
00:15:42
it that way or just because that's what's right but then if you if you try
00:15:45
to take that down a couple layers like nobody has answers for for why it's going on and that's um yeah it's a it's
00:15:52
a hard thing to get to a certain point in your life where just you realize is everything I about the world
00:15:59
is everything I know like is this all not true is this like it's a really uh
00:16:04
shocking experience to to just have to entertain those thoughts and um it's yeah it's a scary thing really is there
00:16:12
a particular moment or event that just kind of was that like I don't want to
00:16:17
say the breaking point for you but like just that kind of kicked off that thought process
00:16:24
because like for me I can I can very vividly I talk about I've talked about this couple times but in college I had a
00:16:30
a religions class and the professor came in and and the first day was just asking
00:16:34
us basically to defend our faith you know how do you know that this happened in the Bible how do you know you know
00:16:40
yada y y and I and I always describe it as like it's like a toddler who just
00:16:44
can't stop asking why you know they can't ask they keep asking their parent
00:16:47
why to the point where the parent either gets frustrated or just is like I don't
00:16:51
know I genuinely just don't know um and that's how I felt in that class and I
00:16:55
was like I just I don't know anymore and so you know he was he was coming from a
00:16:59
perspective I want to push you to understand why it is that you're defending these things right and believe
00:17:03
it for yourself um but that was for me what kicked off that was the catalyst so did you have a moment like that that was
00:17:11
kind of that like yeah probably not like a a very specific Line in the Sand I think it it was a real transition
00:17:17
happened to me for a very long time even to the extent of kind of going too far one side and in a way you know even my
00:17:24
experience now is sort of been navigating my way back in in certain aspects um but I think it was an easy an
00:17:31
easy kind of break off of just realizing oh I think this like religion in general
00:17:35
is just super extreme so many things that they just do because they do but you know generally the rest of this is
00:17:41
all good and and you know the foundations are all true about it um and I think through that process of just
00:17:47
kind of yeah trying to figure out what exactly is going on it was one of the very difficult things for me was I mean
00:17:54
I was I was firmly in believing all this about you know bad and good and and sin
00:17:58
and right and wrong and uh it's tough when you've been trained to to just
00:18:04
think everything is wrong I remember the first time as like a full- grown adult you know being in a movie theater and
00:18:10
and actually feeling bad and and questioning myself and having the thoughts like is this am I doing
00:18:15
something wrong here like is this sin is this you know and so it's hard to kind
00:18:19
of have a an actual thermostat you know an internal GA internal gauge of what is
00:18:26
actually morally wrong what do I actually have issues with and what is just you know ingrained in me that that
00:18:32
this is bad um that really took some sorting and that was a lot of you know kind of trial and error
00:18:39
yeah is there anything that you feel like kind of helped you along that path of just
00:18:47
like I don't know it could be a teacher could be a you know or was it really
00:18:52
just kind of pushing yourself to be like okay like let me go experience this thing I I the way you
00:19:00
describe it is almost like I think of like you know Amish rum Springer right where they said they send the youth out
00:19:05
and they're like you know go out in the world and like go do kind of whatever
00:19:08
and then come back right um and I I have moments like that too where yeah like there were certain things growing up
00:19:15
that was like oh this is like kind of wrong or like a morally gray area or whatever U and then so you know you do
00:19:22
it and then you're like how do I yeah why do I feel this way about it but well
00:19:26
I'll tell you the big thing that happened for me this was like a very real turning point in my life is um I
00:19:31
was it was just on YouTube and I came across this Ted Talk and i' never heard
00:19:36
of Ted talk before and it was this lady who was talking about just the fact like
00:19:40
your body and your mind are connected and you can stimulate one and you'll stimulate the other and and I remember
00:19:45
this she had us do this thing of kind of correcting our posture and it actually did what she said like it made me feel
00:19:51
different and I remember you know admittedly I was an easy crowd back then but I was just blown away I was like
00:19:58
what how do people know this stuff like this just seemed like this forbidden knowledge about how the world works and
00:20:04
uh I was like what is going on at Ted Talk here so I think it was probably the very next video was uh Tony Robbins you
00:20:11
know never heard of him before but he came on and he started speaking just about why people do what they do and
00:20:16
something very intuitively it just felt like this guy knows something and I kind
00:20:22
of relate it to you know my entire life I have heard so many preachers through different conferences and camps and you
00:20:27
know weekly is and it was almost like this preacher type of a figure that was just different it almost felt like for
00:20:35
the first time in my life like an adult spoke up and everybody else was like children just the way they thought the
00:20:41
way they talked about stuff the way they understood stuff uh it was very impactful for me and so I looked into
00:20:46
more of him and I ended up buying two of his programs uh one of his was get the edge and the other one was personal
00:20:52
power um at the time these were you know several hundred dollars they came in the
00:20:55
mail they showed up and um this was definitely nothing like nobody was spending money on education you know
00:21:01
outside of something biblical for sure and uh going through those it was just know I think the the self-help genre of
00:21:10
stuff gets gets a weird rap and there's a lot of weird stuff that goes on in it
00:21:13
but um I owe a lot to Tony Robbins he really changed my life in a way um and it was just like yeah for the first time
00:21:20
just somebody really spoke life into me of of understanding that hey the day is going to happen whether you do something
00:21:26
with it or not here's how you do that and you don't just have to drift through
00:21:30
your life like you can create it here's how you figure out what you want and
00:21:33
here's how you can build a plan to go get it and um yeah it was very it was very good for me and it also was maybe
00:21:42
the first thing that I really learned that sparked this idea that I actually like learning because because I
00:21:47
definitely had this idea of myself that I'm kind of a stupid person in a way and
00:21:51
I just don't like school uh and probably because I was just comparing it to sitting there watching this wacky
00:21:57
science class or or playing a video game you know right and um and so I I realized I actually do like learning and
00:22:04
I I you know maybe certain things I don't like learning and I I didn't have
00:22:07
too much interest in like going back to school for anything but um it it sparked
00:22:12
something in me of just like yeah I actually do like learning stuff and it set me on this path of just being able
00:22:17
to figure out all the things I was lacking and then just in a kind of a strategic way just figuring out like how
00:22:22
can I communicate how can I figure out how to dress and talk and navigate the world and communicate with people and um
00:22:28
you know just step by step but yeah that was a very not nobody in person I guess
00:22:32
but um that that was a very real time in my life that set me on a different path
00:22:36
yeah no I I feel that I think that's been a big game changer for me too is a
00:22:41
lot of those kind of like I I agree with you that self-help sometimes gets a bad
00:22:45
rap but uh you should there's some weird stuff out there yeah there's there's
00:22:48
definitely some some weird weird ones out there but uh but no I I agree with you that like sometimes even just taking
00:22:55
one little thing from somebody like Tony Robbins or you know you can take that and that can be an impact moment that
00:23:01
just kind of feeds you enough to get you to shift that thinking a little bit and
00:23:05
I was going to ask you about the education thing of like you know did you have a realization of like okay I'm
00:23:11
lacking this education and then but like like you said you you had felt like okay
00:23:15
maybe I'm stupid I don't like to learn you know and then that was shifting
00:23:19
where you were like okay now like I like to learn so when it came to okay now I got to kind of learn some of this stuff
00:23:26
that maybe I missed to some degree right you know everyone's got to kind of do
00:23:29
some basic know how to do some basic math and basic English and have a general idea of science but like how was
00:23:36
that to kind of like pivot back to those things and go okay like now I kind of get to research these things on my own
00:23:43
terms and try to find the information I need like what what was that like well it was very it was just very specific
00:23:51
and very targeted because again I wasn't like this I was in like my early 20s I
00:23:55
wasn't like a young I was too old to be this lost and uh what was really exciting and interesting to me and and
00:24:03
even through to today I I probably you know if you put me on are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader I probably wouldn't
00:24:08
do very well and because some of those just like foundational things I actually just never learned them and I just never
00:24:14
really wanted to go back and learn them either and it turns out a lot of things aren't that important right um you know
00:24:20
depending on what you're doing I guess for for your life um so yeah for me it
00:24:24
was much more just kind of figuring out like more like just skill sets and and and tactical things because I was really
00:24:32
I was playing catchup you know quite a bit so yeah just very self-directed and um I've spent a lot of money online just
00:24:38
buying education buying programs and um you know in a way just maybe an alternate path to to learning but um
00:24:47
yeah just was sort of the path that I was set on there so yeah no I I feel you I mean I went to college I did I did
00:24:54
College in three years it was like it it was great and I don't regret it but I
00:24:58
also there's so many things that I hadn't learned that now for my career I
00:25:05
I'm like YouTube University taught me so much or like buying that online course
00:25:10
of like how to be a podcast editor or how to do this specific thing or how to whatever like it has taught me so much
00:25:16
more College was good for me I think from a social aspect of it it gave me more of the
00:25:23
tools to be a social person and learn how to kind of like not be not to overdo it but also learn learn the balance of
00:25:31
like how not to overdo it how not to underdo it just kind of hopefully sit in the room and be cool I wanted to work in
00:25:37
the music business industry and I had a professor who was just like always like Jacob you got to chill like you just got
00:25:43
to be like you know when everyone's in the room together like we're just cool
00:25:46
like it's just you know if everyone's drinking like if you don't want to drink
00:25:50
that's okay but like you got to get a drink that looks like you could be drinking you know like that kind of
00:25:54
thing and so um it it was an interesting like that was an interesting part of I think college education for me was like
00:26:03
mostly just that learning of like the social element of it and being outside of it I also went to a religious college
00:26:08
so I was still kind of baked into some of that some of that weirdness but um but it yeah it set me up I think a lot
00:26:15
better for like now where it's like you know I I also know you know you figure
00:26:20
out how to go seek out the information that you need which I think is is important in life you know well yeah
00:26:27
it's a beautiful time if you're going to get kind of jipped out of an education
00:26:30
because everything's readily available you know if I was a couple Generations
00:26:33
ago and the same thing happened to me I probably would be on a very different Lifeline without a without a way out so
00:26:39
yeah you can Bounce It Up to special times we're living in I was gonna say I
00:26:43
was gonna ask to so now that you're we're a little ways removed now from homeschooling and and things like
00:26:52
that and you know if you could go back and maybe have more of a say in like designing your education or
00:27:01
what you would do is there anything that would you would say okay I think this would have really been cool or this
00:27:07
would have been helpful for me or just structured it in a better way or maybe it's just hey I would have just done
00:27:13
better going to an actual school yeah no it's a really interesting question I
00:27:16
think and this is something I had to kind of battle with because uh most people around me like my age you know
00:27:22
growing up even the the church we went to had a very small Christian School there um you know not much bigger than
00:27:29
like a home school basically and it kind of generally there's like three camps of
00:27:35
of you know all of us that were in my age group where the majority of people seem like they kind of just defected
00:27:40
hard where they had these realizations of just like how messed up everything was and how weird it was and they just
00:27:46
felt so behind and stuff and then they just uh did crazy things got into weird relationships had weird things happening
00:27:53
addictions like they just really went off a bad path and a very small portion kind of stayed in it and they're still
00:28:00
sipping the Kool-Aid and you know still doing it and um you know and then and then some of us kind of seem to find our
00:28:06
way out and and navigate the world and um it was a thing for me of I was going through a program once where it was
00:28:12
having us just go back and kind of rethink of our childhood here and then just kind of almost rewrite it as
00:28:19
something that that's purposeful and important and it was when I was doing this it really hit me hard that things
00:28:26
just happen like things are neutral for the most part and then we come in and we
00:28:31
say this was good that was bad that was exciting that was blah blah blah you know we put all of our spins on it and
00:28:36
it's just fugazi like it's not real it's just whatever we decide that it is and
00:28:42
going back to the homeschooling thing you know there was a real time where I sat down and I really thought about this
00:28:46
and and yeah yeah objectively you know kind of just left to myself and got jipped out of an education and and grew
00:28:52
up super weird and super religious and all these things and instead of it just being this horrible thing that now I
00:28:58
can't do this now I can't do that and you know being a little negative Nelly
00:29:02
about it um it just kind of rewrote it in my own mind as this is like uh this is like this is my thing everybody's got
00:29:08
their things nobody has a perfect anything and this is my thing like this is what makes me unique and this is what
00:29:14
makes me you know like an interesting part of of my story that I yeah found a way out you know was on this path did it
00:29:20
this way um and in a way kind of a superpower where uh I'm not a part of the system like I'm very much like a
00:29:28
professional Outsider you know we didn't grow up going to like hospitals we didn't grow up doing like anything in
00:29:33
the mainstream or anything like in normal world and um I think it gave me like the ability to just think
00:29:39
differently and to choose differently and to make different decisions where you know maybe on a different Lifeline I
00:29:43
go to school get pressured and going to college find myself four years later in college with a crazy amount of debt
00:29:49
doing something that I don't know if I even want to do and now I can't do other
00:29:52
things or have freedoms because I have to get this job because I've all this
00:29:55
Deb and D D D D and then I'm 40 years old and you know have this midlife crisis that I'm I'm just didn't choose
00:30:01
my life and you know that's a very real Lifeline couldn't be me you know I
00:30:06
missed it I I'm very far outside of that so um I think going back I wouldn't
00:30:11
change anything like it was a I think experience is great and it's Unique and
00:30:16
it's different and not that I'm unique or different but we all have unique
00:30:19
different things and there they're part of who we are and it's what makes us who
00:30:24
we are and uh yeah I don't really ever think about changing it but I probably
00:30:27
wouldn't change it anything just keep it the way it is I guess that's such an interesting I love the
00:30:33
reframe that you that you put on that of like like things just happen and then we
00:30:40
kind of dictate to some degree the good the bad the the the neutral elements of it and we get to figure out how you know
00:30:47
because yeah it'd be very easy for you to get mad about this thing happened to
00:30:52
me and it's caused this and it's set me back and I could be so much further and
00:30:55
I could be doing this or I could be that you know but that's such an interesting reframe
00:31:00
to say no like these things happened but it's part of my unique story that makes
00:31:05
me who I am today that's so I I really I like that I think that's it's just intriguing I guess as
00:31:14
what I'm coming to and because that's one of the things I've heard quite a bit from people who have
00:31:22
listened to the show um is they they they talk about they're like there's
00:31:27
this neutral level to the way I'm trying try attempting to present things and
00:31:33
because the the the tagline for the show is The Good the Bad and the Ugly of homeschooling and the goal is I want to
00:31:40
share people's stories like yourself and I want them to share it from their perspective and if they have the
00:31:46
negative spin on it they've got the negative spin on it and I'm not going to
00:31:48
sit here and try to convince them that it really wasn't bad right and if they
00:31:51
have a really positive spin on it then they have a positive spin on not going to try to convince them that it was the
00:31:55
opposite right um and so I think that that's an interesting like I said I think that's
00:32:01
really in line with where the show is at of just we all have our unique stories and there's there's some good there's
00:32:07
some bad there's some ugly but like it's uniquely what makes you who you are
00:32:12
today um and so yeah so thank you for sharing that that was awesome yeah yeah yeah no no you're very welcome and yeah
00:32:20
it's I've really learned to appreciate just differences as well I think it's
00:32:22
interesting how there's just such a cookie cutter thing of like the way things are supposed to be or the way
00:32:26
that you're supposed to look or the way you're supposed to this and um these
00:32:30
differences are very cool like it's very cool that people are different shapes
00:32:32
and sizes and different looks and different backgrounds and all this stuff and um if you're not careful the world
00:32:37
just has this cookie cutter thing that oh I don't you know I'm not this height
00:32:42
or I'm not I don't look like this or you know and all of a sudden this is this
00:32:45
thing that just weighs you down and you have to take that that weight with you all through life uh it it doesn't have
00:32:50
to be that way it it's really it's it's fake you know it's it's yeah it's not
00:32:55
real you brought up something too that I kind I wanted to ask you about was the so for for others who also kind of maybe
00:33:04
grew up in whether it's a home school or just a restrictive religion or some an
00:33:07
environment like that and and coming out of that we talked a little bit about the
00:33:12
ping ponging right where you go from like I'm really over here on the spectrum of religion and and we follow
00:33:17
the rules to I'm going to swing all the way over here and it's kind of the
00:33:22
it's maybe in the moment it feels a lot better but maybe it's also very destructive and unhealthy right and so
00:33:28
you talked about kind of finding that middle ground of and and maybe kind of bringing yourself back to that place is
00:33:35
there anything that you found that's helped in kind of that unlearning and that creating that like going from one
00:33:42
unhealthy Habit to another maybe unhealthy place and then kind of coming maybe to like a middle ground that has
00:33:48
just helped you it could be a ritual it could be a practice it could be you know
00:33:51
it could be anything like that yeah yeah no it it's actually very interesting
00:33:55
because um I think with this like Ping Pong are trying to figure stuff out it it's uh for whatever reason and this
00:34:02
might just be something actual like physical and outside of us that we just have different aptitudes for things
00:34:07
because I think there are people that might get out there and like been sheltered from stuff their entire life
00:34:11
and then maybe they try something like cocaine and it is just like something about that is just like
00:34:16
this trigger for them and that's like their besetting sin and they get they find their way into it and it just ruins
00:34:20
everything or or alcohol or whatever it is um and then I think for other people they can smoke something like marijuana
00:34:27
and it's just like like no issue and it's like not their thing and it's you
00:34:30
know um so I think there is an aspect if you're trying to like navigate the world
00:34:34
especially young is just keeping in your mind that there are certain things that
00:34:37
should just be off the table for you and be very careful as you just what what you are opening yourself up to and it
00:34:43
was never you know I I never had this like sewing my Wild Oats of just feeling like I missed on these things so I just
00:34:49
need to go out there and just like do crazy stuff like I always felt like it was my life and I want to be smart and I
00:34:53
I want to do weird things and I don't want to have like you know I don't know
00:34:57
crazy stuff happened to me um and with you know so I've explored a lot of stuff
00:35:01
and I've done a lot of different things and uh I I feel like yeah I've never
00:35:05
gotten into a weird situation in that side other than maybe you know for small periods of time just doing like some
00:35:11
pretty extreme partying or or you know a little bit of a different lifestyle than
00:35:14
I would want to keep up with um but you know I think that's more so just being
00:35:19
young and and out there in the world and just navigating stuff um but in in terms
00:35:25
of um you know a big ping pong thing for me was it was about even like religion of just like uh being a Jesus freak on
00:35:33
one side and then eventually even going back to the complete opposite side is like is there no higher power did this
00:35:40
all happen by natural processes like is Ser this like we just live and we die and that's it like yeah um and this is
00:35:49
this was a real brain breaking just kind of like a fascinating thing of trying to
00:35:51
figure out like what is going on here like did we the people I grew up with it feels like they don't have the answ for
00:35:57
Stuff so I feel like that can't be it uh at least not proper um and all these
00:36:02
other people feel different ways about everything and and trying to navigate that uh was was very interesting and
00:36:08
that some of that took me to some some dark places of just some nihilistic type stuff and some things that I I felt
00:36:14
weren't very empowering at all um you know but that was a yeah that was a very
00:36:19
interesting thing um to try and navigate and maybe if I can say one more thing while me app in here um you know I I
00:36:26
feel like if you if you grew up and you can relate to me like just literally like Ultra religious just kind of normal
00:36:35
stuff that you're supposed to experience you never experienced it and as you're
00:36:38
getting into your 20s you're kind of experiencing stuff that you should have
00:36:41
experienced in your teenage life and and no Sports and no like just normal stuff
00:36:45
you're supposed to do I think um and something that helped me a lot is uh because there's levels to it we are far
00:36:52
removed from it now so I have a much different frame of mind and I've worked
00:36:55
through some of these things and I think you you develop more empathy as you get
00:36:58
older and you when you're young you've never really experienced stuff so you
00:37:01
don't know how hard the world is and as you get older and you have to deal with
00:37:04
stuff and you realize how hard it is just to be an adult sometimes or how hard it is just to get through the day
00:37:10
sometimes you start to have more empathy for the way people did things when you were younger and kind of learning how to
00:37:17
transition out of stuff I think it's very important to just make your peace and and not hold on to things that you
00:37:22
feel like people did against you because you know with my parents I I genuinely feel like they just did the best they
00:37:28
could with what they had and you can't expect somebody to give you something
00:37:32
that they don't have and a realization that helped me out a lot was just looking at my parents and realizing if I
00:37:37
look at their parents my grandparents like they are objectively better people than them they just went further they
00:37:44
know things they don't know like they're better people and if I know things that
00:37:47
they don't know and if I'm objectively better than them and I make better
00:37:50
decisions than them you know it's the I'm standing on the shoulders of giants
00:37:55
thinking I'm flying it's nothing to to hold against them something to to have
00:38:00
disparagement towards them is just yeah maybe they were very sincere about stuff
00:38:05
and maybe very sincerely wrong but uh it's nothing to hold on to it's something to really let go of and that
00:38:11
helps uh that helps with how you're making decisions and how you're navigating I 100% agree I had both both
00:38:17
of my parents have come on the show and and we talked about them being our teachers and and why they chose to
00:38:24
homeschool and all of that and and one of the things that my mom brings up constantly is she's like I was not a
00:38:30
healthy person when I started homeschooling you emotionally sure and that comes through in the ways and and
00:38:36
there's so many things she's like I would you know I could go back and change this I I would you know th those
00:38:40
types of things and and yeah but I tell her I'm like but you did what you could
00:38:46
at the time right and you did what you thought was best yeah plain and simple of course you would change certain
00:38:52
things now of course who would you know um but it's been cool because the more
00:38:58
we can talk about that now is like like you said it's iterative I know that my
00:39:03
parents are arguably better parents than their parents were and hopefully I will
00:39:08
be a better person because I want to change the things that I didn't like about what my parents did right and so
00:39:15
and what's cool too is that if you also have this is for the parents listening
00:39:21
if you as a parent are able to also kind of have that open mindset of like I am also willing to learn and not just be
00:39:27
stuck in this but have conversation around it and like also continue to grow as a human being like I'm seeing my kids
00:39:34
do holy that like that will rock the world too um my parents and I have been able to have so many deep
00:39:41
conversations about like the most just just stuff just life you know um and we still disagree on a lot but the fact
00:39:51
that they're willing to sit down with me and at least have that conversation and
00:39:54
try to understand where I'm coming from because I've done more of the Ping
00:39:58
ponging back and forth or swinging right it it it it's been helpful in our relationship
00:40:04
and actually keeping up that relationship but it's also helped me not hold that Grudge like you were talking
00:40:09
about and just be like you guys did the best you could and I'm not going to be
00:40:12
angry or upset or hold that against you just going to acknowledge that you did the best you could you're my parents I
00:40:19
love you let's let's still do life together right and that's hard really that's
00:40:24
really special to have and I think you know if if if you're not in that situation that definitely wasn't my
00:40:29
situation I uh you know there's a lot of cognitive dissonance that comes with
00:40:34
being so ingrained into some kind of a religion especially abely just in general but um yeah those kind of
00:40:39
conversations would never you know and I've definitely tried to think more through about why we do certain things
00:40:45
and you can almost trying to think differently or trying to just pose certain questions you can just see in
00:40:50
people you know just just like the the switch turn off like it's just not there
00:40:56
um so it's very I can imagine beautiful to get some of that resolution and to
00:41:00
get some of that you know almost not feeling like you're being gaslighted um uh you know from them but
00:41:07
um for maybe somebody who's listening who doesn't have that and doesn't have
00:41:10
that relationship and can't get that just know it's still something you can
00:41:12
just let go of and something you don't have to take with you life's better for
00:41:16
it because yeah I hung it around for a while and you know you can lay down those weapons there's there's no there's
00:41:21
no fight here yeah I just don't want to make it out to seem like oh my gosh like
00:41:26
you know we don't agree we we still disagree on quite a few things and there
00:41:30
are moments like that where yeah but you know and I think that that's where the
00:41:35
power of community comes in where it's like we also have the ability as individuals to go seek out people who do
00:41:41
agree with us you know and um on some of those things and create kind of a new family so to speak uh around those
00:41:48
things and that's that's part of what this community right here is all about
00:41:51
is is hopefully bringing some of those people together where we can share some like-mindedness you know we can also
00:41:56
have a agreements but we can have maybe open dialogue about those things and and
00:42:01
share it because I think a lot of us we went through very similar things so maybe it's trauma bonding uh exactly
00:42:07
right maybe that's what it is um but yeah so dude corbs this has been awesome
00:42:12
I really appreciate you coming on and and sharing your story uh with with my audience it was great to be here man
00:42:19
thanks for having me and no there there is something right about that trauma bonding and that that's why when I saw
00:42:23
you I reached out just because I think not that nobody's homeschooled but yeah
00:42:27
in my day-to-day life like there's nobody that I I talk to about this like even like some of these stories or
00:42:33
reliving some of this stuff it just seems like a proper lifetime ago and just even try to think through these
00:42:39
things again uh you know haven't even been there in so long and um and even if
00:42:43
I do talk about it somebody if it comes up for some reason you know nobody knows
00:42:46
the struggle but yeah uh you know you and I'm sure a lot of people listening
00:42:50
you know yeah we all we all walk those that same path together so yeah it it's
00:42:55
we can all find some common ity in it I think is the reality of it is like yeah my home school experience very different
00:43:01
than yours but there's there's some common threads there and um and that's
00:43:07
that's where we can come together and be a community right and so um is there
00:43:12
anything before Before I Let You Go is there anything you want to shout out is there any other memories is there
00:43:17
anywhere people can go find you support you I don't know like anything you want
00:43:21
to let the people know this is your moment to shine sure sure yeah yeah no no uh probably not not support and
00:43:28
probably no reason to to find me with anything um but yeah good to be on and uh I'll I'll uh probably don't have a
00:43:35
good parting word to leave everybody with but it was great to chat with you and it was great to be here and uh yeah
00:43:41
I I really enjoyed the conversation so thanks for having me I appreciate it so much and for my audience you guys if you
00:43:47
enjoyed this episode you know leave a like leave a subscribe you know five stars if you will um unless it was
00:43:53
terrible but it wasn't terrible I corbs is amazing so give him a five stars guys
00:43:58
he deserves it um but uh if you want to interact with our community there's a ton of ways to
00:44:03
do that they're all linked down in the show notes down in the descriptions but
00:44:07
we've got we've got Reddit now we I'm working on a newsletter that's coming
00:44:10
really soon um Instagram Tik Tok all of the all the places you they're down there okay they're down there click on
00:44:17
them subscribe wherever you feel like your community exists we can find it uh we also actively in a book club right
00:44:24
now so we are reading a book called when religion hurts you by the time this episode comes out it probably the book
00:44:30
club for that book is probably over but if you want to keep reading books with us that also exists out there as well so
00:44:38
yeah and if you've got any questions you can hit me up exhs Club on Instagram
00:44:43
threads Tik Tok my DMs are open or shoot me an email exhs [email protected] and uh yeah I promise I don't buy Corps
00:44:51
can attest to this he reached out to me I didn't bite um but this has been the
00:44:56
XOM School is club and uh until next week all right we'll see you peace [Music]
00:45:13
[Music]