139: How Actor Zachary Levi Overcame Suicidal Ideations By Finding Self Love and Now Advocates for Mental Health

The Light Watkins Show

Light Watkins

Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Education

4.9 • 960 Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2023

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A lot of the time, the answers to the struggles that we go through as human beings lie in love. When we don’t love ourselves, we won’t be able to find love elsewhere, nor will we be able to find the confidence to live our lives to their full capacity. Zachary Levi, best known for his lead roles in Chuck and Shazam, learned this lesson the hard way. During today’s episode, Zach paints a picture of his turbulent childhood which led to adulthood plagued with mental health struggles, culmina...

Transcript

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0:00.0	I am in Toronto about to start shooting a limited series up there, a city that I only knew because of my ex-wife and I get an email from my ex-wife that says I'm filing for divorce.
0:15.0	In that moment I felt the entire world collapsing on me
0:20.0	because I couldn't even do that right.
0:22.0	My career wasn't what I wanted it to be. My family life was horrible,
0:27.5	my, you know, all these things, but now I've failed this and everyone's going to know and everyone's going to judge me and I was rapidly falling apart
0:37.7	could not stop crying weeping weeping weeping I mean and felt no love for myself at all and didn't think I was ever going to come out of it and so yeah I walked to the balcony I was staying in this like hotel apartment kind of situation up on the 14th floor or something and I walked to the balcony and I looked down.
0:56.6	I don't know if you've ever cried so hard that the tears don't even move out of your
1:00.4	eyes fast enough like you're almost like you're looking through water.
1:04.1	And I'm looking down through this blurry, these blurry eyes and I'm just looking down at all these
1:09.5	cars that are parked down there.
1:12.4	And I think to myself, is this far enough to die?
1:15.0	Like am I high enough where I would actually die or if I jump right now is there a chance that I live but I'm like
1:21.5	paralyzed?
1:25.6	Hello friends and welcome back to an extra special episode of the Light Watkins show where I interview ordinary folks just like you and me who have taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified with as their mission and in
1:45.1	doing so they have been able to positively impact and or inspire the lives of many
1:51.1	other people who've either heard about their story or who've witnessed them in action
1:56.0	or who have benefited directly from their work. And today I'm in conversation with Shazam. Do you know who I mean by Shazam?
2:05.7	Zachary Levi is the actor who plays the lead role in the Shazam action hero franchise. He also played NFL quarterback Kurt Warner in the biographical
2:16.7	sports drama American Underdog, which I saw. But I'm less interested in talking to Zachary about his movie roles and more
2:25.0	interested in hearing his fascinating backstory and particularly what led to
2:30.4	his advocacy for mental health awareness, which also resulted in the publication of his
2:36.2	book Radical Love.
	...

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