Talk Stigma

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Pastor Seth Perry, and here I am in a space that I normally don't do a video from. I'm at my. Next to my office. I'm actually right next to my office. And this is the media studio that I use from time to time. And I'm here because I wanted to talk about a few things. And welcome to almhayens. I think that's how I pronounce your name. Welcome. Say hello. It's good to have you here. So my name is Seth, and like I said, I'm in. I say this every week. I have bipolar disorder.

I'm in mental health recovery. I've been active that for 14 and a half years. And I am in recovery from addiction, and I'm a pastor. And Speak Wonder. It is so good to see you here this week. And this week I'm here in my media studio right next to my office, because I want to talk about something that's really exciting to me. Media is something really exciting to me because I grew up and I was an AV nerd. Absolutely. I loved the AV club. I loved doing film and television stuff in high school. I went to film school.

I'm a pastor now. I maybe get to how I evolved into being a pastor at the end of my story today. But today I want to talk about something awesome. And Speak Wonder. Thanks. You gave me a coffee cup and a sunshine, because. Yes, coffee. I love it. That's what got me going this morning. So I've got a bag here. This is my bag. This is my AV bag. In this bag here, it's all my gear. That is sound gear. Okay? Sound gear. And this is my lesson today to talk a little bit about how we hear things. Okay? One thing I've got here.

This is for my. One of my microphones. Look at how big this is. This helps you hear better when the wind is happening. Okay. They call this a rye coat or a dead cat, but this is the biggest one that I have. I got all different sizes of dead cats, and they baffle the wind so that you can hear things better. And maybe there's a little bit of a lesson in that. Right here's a smaller one, and then another tiny one right there. I've got a bunch of these. But also sometimes you need a wind baffle when you're indoors, and you have one of these little foamy things because the wind from your own mouth can make microphone pop.

Okay. All right. So that's one little piece of audio gear that helps you hear Clearer. But I've also got some other stuff. Look at this. What's in here? This one's really special. I really like this. Okay, this right here is a special type of microphone. Look at that. That is so fascinating, isn't it? Look at that microphone. It actually is 1, 2, 3, 4. It's four microphones in one. Okay. And this type of microphone allows you to hear atmospheres. Okay. This is the way that you get background recordings.

So if I want to get the background recording of what it's like in, let's say the forest or in a, in a noisy restaurant, it will really help the, you know, the, the, the whole atmosphere get captured in four directions. Combine all four directions into either four different soundtracks or it'll blend them into two stereo soundtracks. Speak Wonder says dead cats baffle the wind. Sounds like dark poetry. Oh, wow, that is interesting. Yes, that sounds like a great gothic poem, actually. Dead cats baffle the wind.

I love that. Good observation. So there I had a. I had an interesting microphone that, that records in four directions. But what if you want a very clear signal? Okay. You want to maybe point a microphone right at something? Well, of course I've got the shotgun microphone. This is a newer one that I bought. I bought a high quality one and I'll tell you why in a moment. So this one I can point right at someone and I can get that signal perfect. Right? And that's excellent. But let's say I need to get out my microphone real quick and get some audio.

Well, I've got a microphone for that as well. And this here is a handy recorder that'll get high quality microphone or sound dialogue and all that. And if I ever need to, instead of setting up my whole rig that I have, because I've got condenser microphones, I got other types of microphones. I've got little lapel microphones that'll get dialogue like the one I'm wearing right here. But if I just need to grab something and hit record, well, I've got this too. Okay. So then I can just interview someone and talk to them like this.

Okay. So why do you think I'm doing all this? Hmm? Why do you think I'm doing all this? Maybe you can guess right now. Speak, Wonder. Maybe you could guess. I'm showing you all my audio gear and my big new audio gig bag because I'm working on a project. But I'll take some guesses. And here's my background with av. So I got really passionate about it in high school. It was something That I really wanted to do. And so I went to film school and I studied all about audio and all that. And I started editing, you know, movies in film school when I was getting my bachelor of fine arts and doing the sound design and all the sound recording for student films.

But then I had a huge addiction issue in a big mental health crisis. And then that led me to changing my whole vocation and becoming a pastor. Now, what I have found out is that sometimes we need to listen differently. Sometimes we need to listen to what's happening in our world differently. And welcome, Jules. I'm glad that you're here. Let us know how you're doing. I'd love to hear from you. So sometimes we need to hear a clear signal. Jules, good afternoon to you as well. And when we need to hear a clear signal, sometimes we need a microphone.

Just like this beautiful shotgun microphone. We need that clear signal where we can say, I want to pinpoint exactly what it is being said. Great. Sometimes we need that for our mental health. Sometimes we need that for our spiritual health. But sometimes we need to get the entire atmosphere. We need to get the background noise. And in that, we'd pull out this four microphone little setup and listen to the atmosphere to hear everything in the background. We need to communicate well. Absolutely, absolutely.

Speak, wonder. Looking at all these different microphones, we need to communicate well. And each microphone is a tool to help us communicate well. For instance, let's say that a spontaneous conversation is happening, and I need to collect that. Well, that's when I would pull out my little handheld recorder and I would get recording right away. I pull this right out of my pocket and say, suddenly we're talking about something vital. And I need to capture that. Right. Sometimes in our own minds, we need to have that kind of mindset.

Right? Or sometimes it can be a storm, a wind storm. And we need to cut through that interference. And so we will need a baffle just like this to cover our microphone and to cut down on that wind noise. Because God knows we certainly could be entering into a storm in our lives right now. I feel a storm coming where a lot of people will need a place to be listened to, to be heard and to be loved and cared for. And so why am I doing this? Why am I bringing out my sound recording gig bag? Well, I'm working on a big project and I'm announcing it right now.

I have. And also I'll stop for a moment and say, sometimes we need to amplify what is being said. Absolutely. Sometimes people don't have the voice and they need that amplification. They need other people to turn up that volume knob for them. And us as a community here on the Cadre sphere, I hope we do that for people that don't have a voice or don't have loud enough of a voice. And that does segue good into what I am talking about. I'm starting a project today. I'm about to start recording in the next room right over there in about 45 minutes.

I have been funded by M Health Fairview and Washington county to create a podcast. And it's a docu series podcast that will come out in Mental Health Month in May. And this project is called Our Stigma. And it is a multicultural, interfaith, inclusive project that features the voices of many different cultures and their experiences with mental health and the opioid epidemic. I am meeting with people from the indigenous community. I'm meeting with people who are Hmong. I'm meeting with people who are from the, from, from our various rural communities surrounding the Twin Cities, from the black community.

And I'm hearing all their voices and listening to them and seeing what we have in common and how we can help each other. Because all these communities, the East African community, the Hmong community, the indigenous community, the black community, and here in, in rural Washington county, where I'm a pastor, we all experience the stigma of mental health and addiction. And I want to do something about it and I want to lift up all of the different voices and see what we have in common, what is different about us.

But also we need to amplify what is being said, what Speaker Wonder said. So I hope we can do that. And let's continue to talk about what I'm working on here in the Cadre sphere. Colleen said, hey, Seth, you should talk about your podcast project. Feel comfortable doing that. And I'm excited for this. I'm excited for you that you're here on the Cadre sphere. You have a wonderful week ahead of you. So make sure you check out numerous contributors and their own voices that can be amplified for you.

And I hope that you have a wonderful week. Please, God bless and I'll see you next time.