LAFAYETTE PARISH — For Lafayette artist and creative John Ray Broussard, finding a better way to live meant first asking himself some difficult questions.
“I got sick of living on a hope and a prayer, man, you know? And I just knew there had to be a better way,” Broussard said.
Broussard says that journey began in 2017, when the loss of his father and a series of personal hardships sent him searching for answers.
“My mom had a stroke a month later. My business partner, we had a falling out because of the divorce and everything. I ended up — you know, it was a tough time,” Broussard said.
As he worked through those experiences, Broussard says creativity became an outlet. But beyond art, he found himself drawn to personal development and emotional intelligence in hopes of better understanding why people think, feel and react the way they do.
“I got introduced to this guy, Parrish Taylor, who taught emotional intelligence and, man, I was just so just wowed by emotional intelligence and self motivation, self regulation, self improvement,” Broussard said.
The more he learned, the more he began paying attention to his own thoughts and emotional responses.
“I was able to catch all my thoughts — like disturbing thoughts — that would cause any pains in my nervous system and my stomach area through my nervous system. But I didn’t know what to do with it,” Broussard said.
That journey eventually inspired Broussard to create Neuro Bridge, a guide he says is designed to help people better understand their emotions and what he describes as the subconscious patterns behind them. Along the way, he says he also developed a new perspective on where many of those emotions originate.
“Anytime you feel yourself frustrated or aggravated or emotional about something, it all goes back to the ages of one to seven, which makes sense to me because I remember ages one to seven,” Broussard said.
Broussard says one of the biggest lessons he learned was that his thoughts didn’t have to define him.
“I’m a feeling being. I don’t think in words and sentences. I didn’t know that I could change my thoughts. I didn’t know that I could. I thought whatever it is I was thinking for years, that’s what I had to be thinking,” Broussard said.
Today, Broussard says the journey that began with hardship has changed the way he looks at both life and loss.
“They’re gone, but their genes are still living in me and so on and so forth and that’s the important part, you know, that’s where — it’s just a, it’s a beautiful thing,” Broussard said.
As he continues sharing his story through art and education, Broussard hopes others will take time to better understand themselves, too.
“We block off so much with worry and stress and anxiety, but once that’s all gone, it’s just a beautiful thing. It’s so real,” Broussard said.