Mind, Mountains, and Mental Health is the theme of today's show and I have a guest with me who is passionate about the mountains and dedicated to helping others and has love of the sun. He's a speaker, author, explorer, and mountain climber and he has an intense passion for life. He also has the greatest laugh of anybody I know. He recently spoke at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival where he held the audience in the palm of his hands, according to one of the reviews. His talk was directly connected to the eighth person I had on the show way back in 2015; Brent Seal.

Contact Info
Website: www.michaelschauch.com

Book: A Story of Karma: Finding Love and Truth in the Lost Valley of the Himalaya by Michael Schauch


Brent Seal – Mind, Mountains, Mental Health
Brent was a mental health educator and a close friend of today's guest. I'm excited to tell you that today's guest is Mike Schauch.

Bruce: Let's start by talking about how you and Brent Seal are connected through this podcast, Mindfulness Mode.

Brent Seal was one of my first guests on the show back in 2015; a mental health educator, an athlete and a mountain climber.

After Brent was featured on Mindfulness Mode, he recommended that Mike Schauch and Bruce connect so that Mike could possibly be a guest on Mindfulness Mode.

Mike Schauch: My story with Brent goes back about 15 years, actually. And he told me along the way, about his interview with you that he did. That was in the earlier stages of him getting into public speaking. He told me what a good time he had and said, Hey, you should contact Bruce, and you should be on this podcast. I thought, Oh, this is a perfect fit.

Mike Schauch: Brent, and I go back to when he was in university, and I was doing a leadership workshop at the university where he was a student. I was speaking in the auditorium to about 100 people and I remember during the first break, Brent came up to me, and he said, Mike, How do you become a public speaker? And I said, Well, you go out to the public, and you speak. (laughter)

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A Challenge
Mike Schauch: Brent said, I've got this challenge. I've been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I just said, so? I think that was the spark that fused our friendship. It began a connection that would go on for the next 15 years.

Mike Schauch: We have climbed many mountains together. I watched Brent overcome many mental barriers over the years and also become a very accomplished mountaineer and speaker. He spoke to larger audiences I ever spoke to in the subsequent years and  became an inspiration.

He became an inspiration, not only for the mental wellness community, but for others as well. It was a beautiful thing to see. Unfortunately, last September, Brent died on Mount Manaslu in the Himalaya, just below the summit at around 8000 meters. That news hit the community and his family very hard.

The Event
Mike Schauch: This event that you mentioned in the introduction, that was meant to be an honor. It honored Brent and what he stood for, and in a way to just continue this legacy that he started about inspiring people to tap into their mental wellness and into that language of the heart, to not limit themselves.

Mike Schauch: The message was to continue to take those steps. They don't have to be major leaps forward, but steps forward. And that was part of Brent's brilliance. 

Bruce: Tell us more about your speech at the Vancouver Mountain Film Festival.

Mike Schauch: One of the things I talked about up there was this concept of the Bardo. The Bardo is a Tibetan term. It translates as place of transition, or a transitionary state between between death and rebirth, between who we were and who we become.

We know that the Tibetans believe in reincarnation from lifetime to lifetime. But what they also believe is that we can experience many incarnations in one lifetime and the Bardo is the place.

Constantly Changing
The reason wh