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Lens of Hopefulness with John Passadino

Lens of Hopefulness with John Passadino

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Lens of Hopefulness with John Passadino delivers compelling insights on self-awareness, mental health, and spirituality through in-depth interviews with international authors, performers, educators, and philosophers.

lensofhopefulness.substack.comPassadino Publishing LLC Espiritualidad Higiene y Vida Saludable Psicología Psicología y Salud Mental
Episodios
  • What It Means to Have a Neurodivergent Brain — And Why That’s Not a Bad Thing

    What It Means to Have a Neurodivergent Brain — And Why That’s Not a Bad Thing
    Mar 11 2026
    My podcast interview with Kit Slocum felt the most personal of many I’ve conducted. Maybe because she’s a neurodiversity coach who works with people like me — and she happens to be neurodivergent herself. Perhaps that’s why I kept saying “that’s me!” so often during the interview.Kit is the Neurodiversity Lead at Flown (flown.com), a platform built around something called body doubling — which I’ll explain later in this article — and she also does one-on-one ADHD coaching. When I saw her high energy-glowing picture on Flown’s website at 3 a.m. during one of my sleepless nights, I just knew she was the right person to have on the show.I spoke a great deal on the podcast because Kit was gracious enough to let me share my own stories, and she related to them. That doesn’t happen every day.Growing Up Neurodivergent in the 1960sI went to grammar school in the 1960s. Strict Catholic school. Uniforms. Nuns with rulers. And if you weren’t paying attention — or if your brain just didn’t work the way others did — you suffered for it. Literally. You didn’t get picked for teams, and you got a ruler cracked on your desk or your hand by a nun who had zero patience for a kid who couldn’t sit still and focus. For me, it was any attempt at math that humiliated me, and a nun who shook her head in disbelief when she saw my feeble answers instead of offering me help.I didn’t know at the time that I was neurodivergent with two of my monikers being ADHD and GAD (Generalized anxiety disorder). Nobody did. What I knew was that I felt different, I felt ashamed, and somewhere along the way I started calling myself stupid because there was no other explanation for my ineptitude. That label stuck with me for a very long time. If I’m being honest, it still sneaks back in sometimes.I barely graduated high school, then didn’t go to college until seven years later because my experience had been so bad I never wanted to see a classroom again. When I finally went back as an adult, things were different. I was motivated. I had maturity. I eventually earned an MBA — though I’ll tell you, online schooling was the game changer for me. Working at my own pace, without the pressure of everyone around me and strict unforgiving teachers, made all the difference.My son is also neurodivergent. When he was young, we were fortunate to live in a part of New York state that provided at home services. When he grew older, people told us, “Don’t put him in inclusion (teacher-assisted classes). Once he’s in, he’ll never come out.” We ignored that advice. He graduated from two colleges. I think about that often when someone tells me what a neurodivergent person can or can’t do when given the proper support.From “Something’s Wrong with You” to “Your Brain Is Different — Not Broken”Kit brought up something I had heard previously from another neurodiversity person and that is there’s a difference between what she calls the pathology paradigm and the neurodiversity paradigm. When I heard what she said, it reaffirmed conclusions about myself.From my experience, neurodivergence was treated as something to be fixed. ADHD, autism, dyslexia — these were seen as defects that needed to be corrected so you could fit into the status quo. That’s the pathology paradigm. And if you grew up in it, you know exactly how much damage it can do.The neurodiversity paradigm says something different. It says our brains aren’t wrong — they’re just different. There’s no one “correct” brain. Kit used a beautiful analogy: eye color. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes — they’re all beautiful. But if you have blue eyes, you might be more sensitive to sunlight and need darker sunglasses. That doesn’t mean your eyes are broken. It just means you need a different kind of support. That’s all.She also talked about a pattern she sees often in her clients — mostly folks in their mid-40s to 60s — when they receive a late diagnosis. Some feel relief. Finally, it makes sense. But others experience a kind of grief: Who could I have been if I had known this sooner? If someone had supported me properly? It’s a retroactive grief for the version of yourself that never got the chance. I used to do that to myself. I would use a parade of “what ifs”. Today, I realize my growth occurred a harder way, but it happened and I am grateful. I wonder if a lot of people listening will feel that way too.Let me back up and explain Flown, because it consists of a process that initiated that very thought, “Where would I have been if I had this growing up?” And that process is called body doubling.Body doubling is the practice of working alongside another person — not necessarily talking, not necessarily collaborating, just being present together. For many people with ADHD, working completely alone leads to distraction, avoidance, and paralysis. But having someone else in the room (or on screen) can make an ...
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    1 h
  • When Philosophy Meets Politics: A Conversation About America's Forgotten Foundation

    When Philosophy Meets Politics: A Conversation About America's Forgotten Foundation
    Mar 4 2026
    Some conversations make your brain work in ways you didn’t expect. My recent interview with Damien Terrence Dubose on Lens of Hopefulness with John Passadino was one of those conversations that had me pausing, rethinking, and honestly needing to study up before we even started recording.Damien is a Washington, DC-based financial professional and author of America’s Ethical Archetype: Establishing the Psychology of Moral Authority and Correcting Our Country’s Broken Politics. And I’ll be honest with you — when I first read his book, I had to put it down a few times. Not because it wasn’t good. But because, as I told Damien, “this man has a beautiful mind.”The book is intense. It covers psychology, philosophy, political theory, and leadership in ways that made me realize I needed to do my homework. So I did. And the conversation that followed was worth every minute of preparation.Not Your Typical Political ConversationLet me be clear about what this interview wasn’t. We didn’t argue about personalities. We didn’t debate who’s right and who’s wrong. We didn’t get into the usual shouting match that passes for political discourse these days.What we did talk about was something much deeper: the psychology and philosophy of leadership itself.I tried to frame the core of Damien’s argument early on. His book, I said, isn’t about the usual policy prescriptions — “it’s not, well, we need to impose more tariffs…or we need better unions. It’s not that.” What Damien is actually proposing is something far more foundational: a whole new approach to leadership, one that we haven’t seen in a long time, that blends psychology and philosophy.Damien confirmed that’s exactly right.Ayn Rand and the IndividualNow, I’ll admit — I didn’t know much about Ayn Rand before reading Damien’s book. I know her now. And I understand why she’s controversial.Rand founded objectivism, which is rooted not in egotism in the sense of someone with a big ego, but egoism as an ethical philosophy. It’s based on the freedom and rights of the individual.“A person’s individuality or individual character is what we should be focusing on,” Damien said. “The thing that makes them different from other people, makes them an individual, centering a view of life around that.”When I asked for a practical example, I landed on the word that makes a lot of people uncomfortable: capitalist.“Exactly,” Damien said. “That’s this exact frame of reference I’m thinking about.”And right away, I knew some people’s hackles would go up. When I think of capitalism, I think of free market — versus socialism or communism at the other extreme.My Corporate Experience and Individual FreedomI worked for corporations my entire career — JPMorgan Chase and IBM. These companies employed a lot of people. They allowed me to retire at a relatively young age. During that time, I was all for free market and business because I wanted to stay employed. I felt like if they got tax breaks and could operate within reason — not polluting rivers and all that — they needed to grow and invest for the company to thrive. And both companies have been thriving for over 100 years.But Damien pushed deeper than just economic outcomes.“A lot of times people look at the outcomes of situations,” he said. “But really what’s at the root of it is: as an individual, I get the right to choose. And I’m not saying that I get the right to take your life or injure you or do anything of that nature. That’s where we get to the rational and irrational perspective. But essentially, I’m not here to make decisions only that you approve of. I’m not going to limit my life to that realm.”How Did We Get Here? The Wisdom of the Founding FathersOne of the most impressionable moments in the conversation came when I pointed to the opening pages of his book. The Founding Fathers, he wrote, “established the United States on the core principles that emphasize the role and rights of the individual.” America was built as a constitutional republic firmly rooted in those axioms.So what happened?Damien’s answer was both historical and psychological. The individualist perspective, he explained, is actually a fairly new concept in human history — only about 500 years old. Before that, we lived in collectives, tribes, castes. We didn’t see ourselves as individuals apart from our groups.And here’s what struck me: we underestimate the wisdom of the people who built this country. “They foresaw a lot of the things that are happening today,” Damien said. “That is exactly why the system is set up the way it is today.”I shared what I’d heard from a philosophy and rhetoric professor: that back in those early days, you had to study, you had to command the ability to communicate, you had to execute rhetoric efficiently — or you’d better know how to fight. There was no casual scrolling through a feed and forming a ...
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    1 h y 3 m
  • The Prescription That Changed Everything: A Conversation About Benzodiazepines, Dependency, and Hope

    The Prescription That Changed Everything: A Conversation About Benzodiazepines, Dependency, and Hope
    Feb 25 2026
    The Prescription That Changed Everything: A Conversation About Benzodiazepines, Dependency, and HopeThere are some conversations that hit different when you’ve lived through similar experiences. My recent interview with D E Foster on Lens of Hopefulness with John Passadino was one of those conversations where two people who’ve traveled similar difficult roads can speak the same language without having to explain everything.D (as everyone calls him) is a medical researcher and the author of “Benzo Free: The World of Anti-Anxiety Drugs and the Reality of Withdrawal.” But those credentials don’t tell you what you really need to know. What you need to know is this: D was prescribed clonazepam (Klonopin) by his doctor in 2002 and took it for 12 years without any warning about the risks. When he discovered he was dependent on it and tried to withdraw, it became “the hardest and most challenging experience” of his life—one he’s still dealing with today.I know something about this journey because I’m on it myself.When Anxiety Becomes InvisibleOne of the first things D said that resonated with me was this: “One of the key problems with mental illness is its innate invisibility.”And isn’t that the truth? You can’t see anxiety. You can’t take a blood test for panic disorder. There’s no X-ray that shows your fear. And because it’s invisible, people—including doctors—don’t always take it seriously enough. Or conversely, they may rush to prescribe medication without fully explaining what that medication does or the risks involved.As D explained, anxiety becomes a real problem “when it becomes consistent, when it becomes chronic, and when it becomes something that affects our lives significantly.”I felt that deeply. Because I’ve lived there—in that place where anxiety isn’t just occasional worry but a constant companion that makes it hard to function.My Story Meets D’s StoryI admitted to D during our conversation that I’m a lifelong anxiety sufferer. I have what I jokingly call my collection of acronyms: GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), PD (Panic Disorder), HD (Hypochondriacal Disorder). I put the phobias as a cherry on top.“They’re special,” D said, and we both had to laugh. Because sometimes you have to laugh at the absurdity of it all, even though it’s incredibly intense.I told D about my own medication journey—how I resisted taking anything for the longest time. I kept telling my psychiatrist, “No, no, no. I don’t want to take anything. I don’t want to get addicted.” Then a neurologist finally said to me, “You need to be on medication.”That was decades ago. And here’s what I want to be clear about: I actually needed something at the time. The panic attacks were overwhelming. I would get them at work, at family gatherings—anywhere really. You feel like you’re dying. It’s incredibly intense.But here’s the thing that D’s story highlights so powerfully: I can’t say I was fully aware about what I was being prescribed.The Prescription Without WarningD’s experience is even more striking. He wasn’t even given Klonopin for anxiety initially—it was prescribed for stomach distress.“I was never diagnosed with an anxiety condition,” he told me. “I finally went to a GP around 2002 who decided to try me on clonazepam, which is generic for Klonopin.”He started at one milligram, eventually worked his way up to two, and took it for 12 years “not even thinking there was any problem with it.”“It’s just a drug my doctor told me to take, so I kept taking it,” he said. “I think it helped me a little bit, but it wasn’t dramatic.”Then tolerance set in. And when he discovered what had happened and tried to withdraw, his “whole world basically crashed down.”In summary, per D: His doctor prescribed him a benzodiazepine for 12 years without warning him about dependency, tolerance, or the potential complications of withdrawal.What We’re Not Being ToldThis is where the conversation gets really important for anyone who has been prescribed a benzodiazepine or knows someone who has.Benzodiazepines work on GABA receptors in the brain—they’re part of what D calls the “brakes” in our system that calm us down when glutamate (the “exciter”) gets us hyped up. They can be helpful in the short term. But long-term use changes your brain chemistry in ways that can create dependency.And here’s the critical part: Many doctors may not be warning patients about these risks today, and that is why it is important to question, research, and assess alternatives.D has spent over a decade researching benzodiazepines, withdrawal, and anxiety. He read and catalogued over one thousand articles, books, and videos on these subjects. He co-authored multiple research papers, including the 2023 study that introduced the term BIND—benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction.BIND describes the protracted state of neurological changes...
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    53 m
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