We all need to face our own truths, but what does that really mean? For Joey Eden, it means taking an honest look at your behaviors, putting your light on, and letting it shine to inspire others. In this episode, we have Joey Eden, a Marine in the Department of State, to share with us what it means to be unapologetically you and what it takes. Joey shares his heartfelt story of self-development and the honest realizations he picked up from his experiences. Joey also touches on forgiveness, empowerment, and how the truth is the best foundation for everything. Tune in and face your truth now!
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An Honest Reflection About Your Truth And Who You Need To Be With Joey Eden
It is such an honor for you folks to continue to support me the way that you are doing. You make my heart melt and I am so honored. Thank you. You folks are back. We’re still on our topic, the Truth About YOU. Face Your Truth. We’ve been talking about it for a minute and you guys know why. You all know that I like to bring in different guests to talk about the same topic so that we all can get from different perspectives. That’s the purpose of it.
For this particular episode, I’m excited because of the guest. I have goosebumps and all that but before I even go there, I’m teasing you with this phenomenal, awesome guest that I have. Let’s talk about the episode. We all know we have a fact. The fact is this and I say it over and over again. You heard me say it throughout this series. Even when I’m publicly speaking, I say this, the easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror and that will always be true.
The person in the mirror is the easiest person to deceive and I ask you these questions. How many times have you told yourself something that’s not true? Think about it. How many times have you sold yourself on the worst idea or made the worst decision because you sold yourself on it? You made yourself believe that was a great idea or a great decision. What I need you all to understand, this isn’t done in a vacuum.
Doing the bad decisions and the ideas that you come up with, you’re right there. We all have done more to undermine our own success, prosperity, progress, and even our own peace. We have done so much more than anyone else on the planet. We just need to own that part to know that we played a huge part in it.
We deceive ourselves by lying to ourselves. You may think, “What’s wrong with that?” Someone may think, “What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?” Here’s the thing, why do we do this? We continuously do it. We just do it and is there anything you can do about it? That’s why we’re still on this series because we want to talk about the truth about you and facing your truth. It is so you.
Before we jump into that, let me go over the definition that I’ve been providing you guys of wisdom. You’ll find it in the book of Proverbs in the Bible. The book of Proverbs is also known to biblical scholars as the book of wisdom. I’m sharing with you my definition of wisdom from the book of Proverbs 3:13-18. It says, “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding from the gain of her is better than the gain from silver and her prophet is better than gold. She is more precious than jewels. Nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand and, in her left hand, you find riches in honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace.”
I love that but let me share with you a famous pastor. I didn’t give the name and I choose not to but I follow this particular pastor. This was an insight that or what he shared with me. I want to share it with you folks and I have. He said, “Wisdom is insights informed by the knowledge that life is connected. What happened yesterday impacts today and what happens today impacts your tomorrow. Therefore, the decision you made yesterday impact your today. The decisions you going to make today, they’re going to impact your tomorrow.”
Life is connected because like we said yesterday impact today. Today impacts tomorrow and all that we do will impact our future. When we make decisions, like I said, it’s not done in isolation or a vacuum. We make decisions every single day. Every single decision we make in some form or fashion, it’s going to show up in our future. Believe it or not. He said, “Wisdom surfaces when we ask ourselves, how is my decision today going to impact me tomorrow?” That’s wisdom.
Think about it. How you show up today, how you respond to people today, what you think today, where you go to, how is that going to impact your tomorrow because today shapes tomorrow. One thing leads to another, like I said, it’s going to show up. Our past is going to show up in our future. With that in mind, that’s why we’re here now.
I’m inviting you, everyone under the sound of my voice to have a conversation with us and with you about facing your truth. Let’s face your truth. Let’s talk about the truth about you. Not running from the truth, not hiding the truth, not blaming others but facing your truth because you are the easiest person in the mirror to deceive.
Therefore, my ask is this, tell yourself the truth. More specifically, tell yourself the truth about you. Face your truth by telling yourself the truth about you. Telling yourself the truth about why you do what you do or why you don’t do what you should do. Tell yourself the truth about why. Why you won’t stop doing what you’re doing? Why you won’t stop hurting people? Why you won’t ask for forgiveness or say you’re sorry? Tell yourself the truth about why you won’t stop lying to yourself. Why do you make excuses? Tell yourself the truth about that. Tell yourself the truth about why won’t you get back on track with your life or why won’t you leave.
What I’ve learned is this, I learned when we lie to someone, ourselves included, it damages the relationship. The same thing happens when we lie to ourselves. It damages the relationship that we have with ourselves. For those who are reading, if you don’t have a relationship with yourself, we need to talk. Before you can have a relationship with anyone, you have to have a relationship with yourself.
You must know what you like, what you love, what you appreciate, what you admire about yourself, and all the other things that goes on in our life. When you lie to yourself, you are no longer your true self. You are a lie. The question is, are you the truth or a lie? You can’t be both. We can’t be both. We can’t walk in being the truth and being a lie. We have to be one or the other.
Before we dive into this juicy conversation that we have been having over the last couple of weeks, I would like to introduce you to my guest for this episode. I’m giddy because this guest of mine, we go back and every time I talk to him, every time I see a picture of him, every time I get an update of what’s going on with him, I am so happy. I feel like a proud mama. You guys know I don’t have any children but this one is mine. I’m claiming this one.
Before I do that, you guys know that we’re still on the same topic and you all know why. I want you to get different perspectives. We want to reach a diverse of readers from our show who are living all over the world and who are dealing with things and the topic that we’re talking about. Now let me take a deep breath because I need to introduce you to my amazing guest.
I’m so honored to know him. I’m so honored and blessed because he trusts me. I’m honored that I am a part of his life and I’m even more honored that he is a part of mine. Let me tell you about our guest. He is a Marine who is serving with the Department of State, working at the Embassy in London. He’s a proud Marine but he also has a life outside of the Marine Corps, Joey Eden. That’s his name. He’s also an actor. He’s an actor who land himself a role as the Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff in the upcoming Netflix original series known as The Diplomat. This series is going to be airing early in 2023. You keep your eyes and your ears in tune for it. Listen for it. Joey is also the youngest son of a military family. His father served 27 years and his mother served 12 years in the United States Air Force.
We all know that Joey was a military brat and there’s no negative connotation with that. It’s just what it is. Your parents are military, either your father or your mother and we all know that being in a military family, you can’t identify, “I grew up in this state.” No, I grew up living in multiple states across the US and the world because that’s what we do.
Joey, being the youngest of two sons is a military brat and he’s proud of it and so am I. With that, I am so excited, as I said to introduce Joey. I want you guys to know that I’ve known Joey since he was thirteen. He’ll tell you how old he is. Once a mentee, he is now a friend. I’m so honored to have him on my show and in my life. Please, help me to welcome my friend Joey Eden.
Thank you for that great introduction and thank you for having me.
You’re so welcome. Isn’t he lovely, guys? I think so. Let me stop because he blushes easily. Joey, please you have to tell the story of how we met.
I think I was thirteen and my parents drag me out to this youth convention I was very skeptical at that time. I didn’t want to do anything that involved me leaving the house. At that time, I was stuck, so they brought me to this convention. I had my head down the whole time and kept to myself. That’s my perspective. There was this one lady that kept poking at me, “Who are you?” I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what you saw in me but it has been a great relationship since then. That was many years ago. It is crazy. I’m 25 now and I turn 26 in May 2023.
Joey is talking about a conference that we had. I want to say it was back in 2012 or somewhere around there. Even though Joey said he showed up with his head down, he came in and he jumped into the exercise. You all know that I’m an emotional literacy life coach and what I do is I teach emotional literacy. That’s what I do. I don’t stand in front of the class or room with a PowerPoint. I don’t do that.
The best way to learn emotional literacy is to do it. It’s to put people in exercise and that’s what we did. We put the entire room in exercise and Joey with the exercise, he was showing up. He jumped in with both feet in the exercise and was doing it. They root like, “You can look,” and see those who don’t want to be there. You can see that from soon as they walk in but when they get into the exercise, you can see how they’re embracing the exercise and the exercise is helping them.
He did phenomenal. We raffled off iPad if I’m not mistaken that day and guess who won? He showed up. His presence was so important in the room when whoever reached in the bag, pulled out his name and that was a coincidence. It was a reason because he showed up. I want to say also, I think a year and a half might have went by after that. I was at Barnes and Noble and I was studying. I don’t even remember what I was studying for but I was in Barnes and Noble.
I had gotten up and I walked away. I don’t think Joey knows this part of the story of our meeting. I walked by and his father remembered me from the event. He came up to me and said, “I don’t know if you remember me but I remember you. I want you to know that what you did for Joey made a difference but he needs you now.” I’m like, “Really?”
He was like, “Can you please call him?” I said, “Only if Joey is open to me having a conversation.” Both your parents were there at that time and they were like, “Yes.” They went home and I wasn’t expecting him to call. He called right back. He got in contact with me. You said yes and we set up a meeting. The meeting was phenomenal because, at that time, you had a little girlfriend, remember?
Yes, I did.
You brought her with you. That session was even groundbreaking as well because I had an opportunity to put both Joey and his mom into an exercise that helped them and their relationship. Joey, not long after that, after you graduated from high school, you went into the Marine.
I was immediately following high school. I graduated in May and by October, I was in bootcamp getting yelled at.
Joey graduated as not the 2nd in class, not the 3rd and not even the 4th. Joey graduated as the number one Marine in his class. The point I’m making is that emotional literacy is something that we all need to do. It’s not a one-and-done. You have to continue to work on it. I believe after that second session we had, Joey took it and kept working on it. I’ll let him share the difference it made in his life and all of that. It also went to the Marine basic training with him and he became the number one graduate.
This is whom we have as our guest for this episode. This is who you’re going to learn from. We’re going to talk about, that’s how we met and I wanted to go in a little more detail because we have history. Joey was my mentee and as I said, now he’s my friend. We are friends and I’m so happy that you’re here. Joey, let’s jump into the conversation. The conversation that we’re going to have about the truth. The truth about you. Share with me what does it mean to YOU to be you unapologetic?
This one made me think to be unapologetically me. When I first thought about it, I came to not caring what the naysayers or the negatives think. It’s just allowing my light to shine and myself to be the best version of myself. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to this. There are always going to be parts of you that are ugly, dark, and sewage-like but disregarding that and putting your light and letting it shine. Like minds will follow as it has between you and I.
You put the nail on the head. Being you better than anyone, what that is. We do have the ugly. We do have sewage. It’s still a part of us. This is how I show up all the time. We’re all going to have some things that we are not proud of and mistakes that we made. What we don’t want is that to hold us back from moving forward, hold us back from allowing people to see us or ourselves to serve being there and being in it. With that share with us, are you happy with who you are or are you still working on becoming the person you want to be?
I’m still working on becoming the best version of myself. It is an active war every single day of choice. Which thought am I going to go with now? Which thought is going to direct my behavior? I’m trying to be as strong-minded as I can and stay on the right path instead of going left.
Here’s the other part of that too and I like the approach when you’re saying the thoughts. You also want to acknowledge or recognize, is that my thought? That’s a part of who you are because you’ll know if it doesn’t go along with your beliefs and your values, don’t claim that thought. It makes it a little easier. “No, that’s not what I do because that’s not who I am.” We always have room for improvement.
I don’t care how old we get, you will always have room for improvement. Let’s always save some space in that area for improvement. It’s okay that you are still doing the work to become who you were created to be and who you want to be. Share with us, let’s say that an incident or a situation that caused you to face the truth and to tell the truth about you.
I almost think that you have to see the darkness before you can see the light. For me, at least that was my truth. I had to see how dark my mind was. I don’t know where the thought came from but the thought of, “If there’s this much dark, there has to be light. It has to be symbiotic.” I came to the darkness. I saw it, and this is deep. The depth of it was just unimaginable.
Thankfully, I had that thought, “If I can have all this power of being negative-minded, acting negatively and being a reflection of that, why can’t I change my own thought to the opposite?” It came down to a choice. It came down to deciding, seeing that, and saying, “This doesn’t make me feel good. This makes me feel like I’m more alive than I’ve ever been in my life.” I want to do that.
I love that analogy. The fact of you being transparent and real and sharing about the dark space or dark place that you have because we all experience it. Some of us don’t acknowledge that it’s there but it is. When you acknowledge and recognize that it’s there, what I hear you saying is, “No, this is here. The thought came. It has to be better than this. Here’s what I know.” Anytime you shine light in the darkness, it brightens up the place. The bottom line is you want that light.
Not only that, you recognize, “I’d rather play over here because it’s serving me. I like it and it’s better over here.” I’m with you on that. How was being untrue to yourself? There are times in your life you weren’t telling yourself the truth. You weren’t being truthful about what was going on in your life. Can you share with our readers how that impacted your life?
The truth is it’s the center to everything. It’s the foundation. When you have truth, there’s nothing that can beat truth. It’s this or foundation. When you build your foundation on the sand, everything falls. When you build your foundation on truth, everything can be built correctly. If there’s no truth then it’s almost negative and follows negative. You don’t have truth and now you’re behaving in a way you shouldn’t. You’re thinking in a way you shouldn’t. Your relationships are being damaged in a way they shouldn’t. It’s almost literally this whole mountain is now avalanching towards you. The moment you hit a certain piece of snow, everything starts falling. If you hit that truth away, everything starts falling.
I’m loving your analogies.
Thank you.
I do because it’s right to the point. I love the fact of how you identify truth. Nothing can be true. They say the truth hurts. It does. Have you ever found yourself being hurt by the truth?
Of course because it takes you back, especially when someone is extremely honest with you. You’re almost taken back from that, “It is what it is. It’s the truth,” but I enjoy that feeling rather than being deceived. It’s a good wake-up call.
Tell me when you’re untruthful to yourself and have been untruthful to yourself, how did that impact the people that were around you, you work with, and who love you, including your family? What was that impact on them?
The relationship had just severed. Especially growing up, I know me and my family went our separate ways. It’s strange how it all worked out because we all went our separate ways and lived our own lives. We somehow came back together and rekindled our relationships, talked about what happened, and what growing up was like. We all shared our perspectives.
At that point, it was almost like this veil of healing came down on all of us. We were being honest and open. I know my dad might regret it but I remember him asking me growing up, right after I graduated bootcamp. He’s like, “Tell me everything. Tell me from the moment you were 13 up until you were 18, all your bad behavior and your good behavior.” I remember asking, “Are you sure you want to hear this?” He was willing. I laid it all out there and there was no negative intent and no hardship. It was, “This is what it is and let’s move forward now.”
I think the other side of that was therapeutic because you were able to get it out and share it, and he didn’t become judgmental, nor there was any repercussion where he’s throwing it back up in your face. He showed you unconditional love. He respects everything that you said, whether he liked it or not. He respects that. That is you.
Let’s either have a parent show up like that. I know no one’s perfect or whatsoever. We’re going to, like I said before, make mistakes. We’re going to do things that are not pleasing but as long as we acknowledge the fact that was wrong and that was wrong of me to say, do, act, or whatever, please forgive me or take full responsibility for our actions.
When we do that and we know we hurt someone, ask for forgiveness. I tell people forgiveness is more powerful than saying I’m sorry or I apologize. I get it. I’m not dismissing that because there are times when you may not have to bring out the big guns, please forgive me. I said they’re the most three powerful words in the English dictionary when you put them together.
You can also say I apologize and I’m sorry as well but I put more weight on that. For what you shared, your father came open. He was willing and able to receive everything that you had to say and cheer. What it did was help him to get to know his son Joey from when Joey was little until Joey became a man, which is a phenomenal gift. You may not have even thought that you sharing what you shared with him was a gift. It probably never enter your psyche to say, “That’s a gift,” but it was. Think about it. Think about what you shared with him and how he was able to receive that and go and move forward. Thank you so much for sharing that.
We find ourselves moving in and out in different environments, going to different places, our work environment, school, home, church, and even out in a restaurant. I’m trying to give a visual of different environments. There are people who are still struggling with lying to themselves. They’re still being untruthful to him or herself. How can you help them? What is it that you can share with them so that they can be truthful with themselves?
Honest reflection. An honest reflection of past behavior and current behavior because that is what initiated the spark in me to realize the power I had to affect someone else’s life. I’m still apologizing for things I said to my brother many years ago. Not only reflecting on your actions but reflecting on thoughts. I’m trying to dig out where a thought came from.
Doing an honest reflection of past and current behavior can initiate the spark in you to understand you have the power to affect someone else's life. Click To TweetI noticed for me when I was lashing out with others, I was trying to think about, “Why do I feel like this? Why do I feel the need to bite? Why do I feel the need to show my teeth when they’re not needed?” It comes down to reflection and trying to dig, whether it’s trauma, someone treated you a certain years ago or whatever it be. I’m just digging thought.
I like to say uncover. Uncover your greatness. That’s the path of the greatness exercise that I give. When you do that, it is what you said, self-reflection. It helps you to go in. What do we want to do? We don’t want to go in. We want everybody else’s approval. It’s like, “What do you think about this? Give me your feedback here.” When we already have our own feedback within us, we don’t go in. We go outward.
As soon as we turn around and we go in, we start seeing the light. We start seeing ourselves for who we are and for who we were created to be. I call it uncovering your greatness. Uncovering those things that I said your gifts, talent, and abilities. In doing that, it’s going to uncover some other stuff. It’s going to uncover some things that you probably didn’t even think about that you did and you’ll be like, “Oh my gosh.” It’s going back, as you said, to that loved one and saying, “I recognize I did this or I showed up this way,” and it impacted you.
“Please forgive me for that.” I share with people, when it comes to forgiveness, our part ends after we ask for it. What am I saying by that? I’m saying I can’t control people if they want to forgive me or not. That’s out of my control but what I can control is the ask. I can ask you to forgive me. If you choose not to, then I have to accept that and move on and know that I did my part when I asked and that’s it.
Again, if you don’t want to forgive me, that’s fine. What I can say at the end of the day is that I ask for forgiveness. The other thing I want to point out too is when you ask, don’t sit back and expect it. If it doesn’t come, you’re not disappointed when you ask in sincerity and leave it. If they forgive you, yay. If they don’t, it’s okay. Neither one will disappoint you. Thank you so much for that, Joey. One more question before I ask you how to people to get in contact with you. How has fast-phasing your truth made your life better?
I’d call it luck to justify it and have an understanding but it’s almost as if I’m being led subconsciously or unconsciously to the right direction, at least to what I think the right direction is. I’ve seen wrong, so I feel like I have a good understanding of what right is. It’s noticeable through people you meet, through blessings, and things that happen in this world we see. One thing I’ve noticed is when I started digging, going deep and trying to figure this out, my mind is when fruits started coming up. If I’m being given an opportunity to be on a show where I’m given an opportunity to meet someone is unexplainable. It’s so weird but it is. That’s probably the best way to put it.
When I was doing my devotion, the word serendipity came up. It was things that happened at the right time and the right instant because you’re at the right place. That’s what they defined it. There’s no explanation behind it, although we know the explanation but it just happens. It’s what you’re saying is by telling your truth, you’re walking in who you need to be and all the blessings that are set aside for you will run you down, chase you down the street, overwhelm you, jump all over you, and be a part of you.
How can you not say no to all of the blessings and the things that are happening in your life and not a coincidence? It’s happening purposefully. Thank you so much. I tell you, it’s such an honor to see you. Every time I see you, you look even more handsome than the last. Ladies, he’s still single. I’m just putting that out there. I told him that whoever he marries, I need to be at the wedding or meet her before he says I do. That’s our agreement.
Joey, please tell everyone how they can get in contact with you if anyone wants to reach out. Some people may because you’re a Marine. They may want to get some insights on the Marines. How can people connect with you? Before you go into that, segue into what you want to leave with our readers. What is that takeaway? What is that final thought for the topic and to give that one person who might be sitting on the fence and not sure on should I begin to start facing my truth? Give either take away or some closing remarks about the topic, the truth about you, and face your truth.
@JoeyEden on Instagram. Shoot me a direct message for anybody that wants to reach out and talk about whatever. The truth about me, I don’t know who needs to know this but there’s a season for everything. Winter comes, all the plants die, and snow builds up but six months later, summer is there and everything is alive. There’s a season for everything. You may be down on your luck, in the dumps, and be dark but it will pass, and it always does.
You may be down on your luck, in the dumps, in the dark, but it will pass. It always does. Click To TweetIt’s strange too because it all coincides with each other. For me, when I go to the gym, study, constantly learn, get eight hours of sleep, eat fruit, or get sunlight, I feel great. I feel alive but it’s when I sleep for four hours a night and when I’m not reading, taking in new information, or doing things that I know I should be doing is when things go wrong. I’m pretty sure people know what they should and shouldn’t be doing. It lives in there. Every time I realize, “I am not doing what I need to be doing now,” I change up, then my mind and my life light up. My energy is alive. That’s all I got.
It is so amazing and we each will have our own way of figuring out the things that we need to do. I don’t know if I told you about this book called Sabbath.
When we were on the phone, I think you brought it up.
This book here, the Sabbath, made a huge impact on my life because I was all over the place. I get what you were saying when you recognize, “I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do, I know,” because we know it. Our gut tells us. For those who are not as spiritually inclined, our gut tells us. For those who are, the spirit of God speaks to us and will tell us to do what we need to do. I share that to say, “I changed my schedule.” I took things off of my schedule and I wake up every day not rushing, “Get this done,” but, “Let me enjoy this moment,” because I changed some things. That’s what I hear you saying that made my life better.
Thank you so much for saying yes and for trusting me back when we met when I interacted with you the second time because your parents invited me to. I truly believe, like I said, the decisions that we make yesterday impact today. I am so honored. I am so proud. I can’t wait to see you on Netflix. That’s my Joey. No, I didn’t give birth to you but you will always be my Joey and I am always proud of you no matter what.
I’m so excited. I can’t wait for we can see each other again face to face. I can give you a big bear hug. I know you got some big arms but I can still hug you. I want to hug you. Thank you again, Joey, for blessing me with your presence and for saying yes to come on my show. It’s truly an honor, like I said, to know you. I will always be grateful for the opportunity and for all the opportunities that I had to speak into your life, to share with you as well as to have you as my friend. I’m honored, so thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Kim, and thank you for having me again. You have been a wonderful friend and a wonderful mentor throughout my life for the past years.
You’re welcome. Thanks, Joey. I’ll be seeing you soon. Here’s the deal and I asked this question before, how many decisions would you say that you are away from ruining your life, screwing up your life, wrecking your life? How many decisions or ideas would you say? We know it’s easy to lose yourself in today’s clashing ideas, conflicting beliefs and the flood of information that floods us, overwhelms us every single day with society’s rigid expectations and inlet opinions of self-express and self-appreciation.
This life, all of it, can feel challenging. Most of the time, when you feel this, instead of owning it, standing up, and dealing with it, you push it down. You hide it and you ride the wave and go with the flow. What we’re saying here is that you are you unapologetically, and what does that mean? It means how you were created and not allowing people’s opinions. Don’t allow their opinions to affect how you show up in life.
Don’t allow someone’s mere presence to stop you from being who you need to be. Don’t be intimidated by that. I’m telling you don’t and allow it to make you think little of yourself. Don’t do that. When you show up without pretense, without hesitation, and being you unapologetically, the world cannot dim your life. They cannot dull your glamor.
No matter how much they tried, they can’t. Most importantly, when you show up like that, you will be inspired, encouraged, empowered, elevated and uplifted to shine your light. When you’re shining your light, you’re going to share with everyone. When you do that, it helps others to tap into their own light, greatness, and brilliance. Put an end to this despairing mindset and begin to own your true authentic self. Begin to do that.
How? Join me here. Twice a month is when we release our episodes. We create a safe space here so that you can be who you were created to be. We initiate influential conversations about being you. Why? It’s because you are you and no one is better at being you than you be you unapologetically. Thank you, guys, so much. Thank you for being here with us, for always reading, and for always giving because, without you, we cannot do it alone. That’s it for now. Bye-bye.
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About Joey Eden
Joey Eden is a Marine who is currently serving with the Department of State, working at the Embassy in London, United Kingdom. He is a proud Marine, but he also has a life outside of the marine Corps. Joey is also an Actor who landed himself a role as the Assistance to the White Chief of Staff, in the upcoming Netflix Original series known as, “The Diplomat” that will be airing in early 2023.
Joey is the youngest son, of a military family, his father served 27 years and his mother served 12 years in the United States Air Force. Joey is a military brat who grew up living in multiple states.