150. Kylie Bartel & Chris Bertram LIVE: Boosting Performance with Mental Health Insights

Episode Transcript
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Tim (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger than Me
podcast.
Here is your host, Aaron P.

Aaron Pete (00:07):
Cheers to everybody.
Please raise your glass.
I'm so excited that you're allhere.
So this month the podcast isfour years old.
I started this thing on thedrive back from finding out that

(00:31):
I wasn't going to be able to goto university at Allard anymore
and that everything was goingto be online.
We started this in the middleof the pandemic.
When I found out that news, Iwas like how do I utilize that
eight hours I spend in trafficgoing to Vancouver every single
day Because I couldn't be apartfrom my partner, who's in the
front row tonight.
I didn't want to be on campusanymore.

(00:52):
I wanted to be with her.
So I took that drive usuallythree hours back and rushed our
traffic to be with her and tomake sure that I was able to
keep that home life.
So with getting rid of that, Istarted thinking what can I do
with that extra time?
Those six hours?
I was listening to so manypodcasts and hearing from so
many interesting voices that Iwas like how can I utilize that?

(01:15):
How can I share other people'sstories?
You hear people who are doingamazing things and they get like
a sentence in the localnewspaper.
They don't get a thoughtfulopportunity to tell their story
and I wanted to share that.
I grew up without a father, andso I thought about all the role
models that I didn't havegrowing up and all of the people
who influenced me but whoaren't my parent, and so I

(01:35):
thought about how I can utilizethis platform to share other
people's stories and how to lookat the world in a way where
people are doing amazing thingsthat you might have not just
have heard about, and they'reright there.
They might be in the line ofthe coffee shop and you just
don't know their story.
We often talk about networkingand building relationships, but
you don't get that depth in aperson in just a regular coffee

(01:58):
conversation, and so I was eagerto find a way to share these
people's stories in a meaningfulway, and I was committed to
doing that.
And Dustborn was the podcast,and I was listening to one of my
favorite songs by Big Sean, andhe talked about how he made it
wealthy.
He made all the money.
He's a rapper, he did well, butit was bigger than him and he

(02:18):
needed to inspire others to dothe same, and I wanted to share
that type of story, the type ofperson who's willing to think
above themselves and make adifference bigger than
themselves, and I think, in alot of ways, so many people are
like that, whether you agreewith them or don't agree with
them.
Many people are thinking aboutthe ways they can make a
difference bigger thanthemselves, how they can share a
story bigger than themselvesand inspire others to do the

(02:38):
same, and I've had a blast overthese four years doing exactly
that.
So it's with great honor andprivilege that I'm able to bring
out someone who's been on thepodcast two times already and
every time I just can't getenough.
There's so much to learn fromKylie Bartell and I'm so excited
.
Kylie, would you pleaseconsider blessing us with your

(03:00):
presence and coming on stage.

Counsellor Kylie Bartel (03:10):
Hey, good to see you so good.
Oh, my goodness, thanks forhaving me and welcome here
everyone.
This is so fun.

Aaron Pete (03:19):
Can't talk mental health without you on the show.

We've had a few good rounds of this so
far and I always look forwardto them so much.

Aaron Pete (03:26):
The first was when I did three hours.
I think right, yeah, yeah thatwas a.

It was funny because when I left I was
like, was that really threehours?
And then I could feel like theafter, after we had finished, I
could feel the energy was wasused up.
But in, in that three hours itwent by like that.
It was just so much.
But talk about it felt like aflow state for sure.

Aaron Pete (03:46):
I agree.
And then the second one.
We dive more specifically and Istarted to hone my skill of
asking specific questions andtrying to develop a story in an
episode.
Right, let's, let's get alittle bit more heavy.
Yevah, you're a counselor, I am.
You work with people who aretrying times in their life.
Yeah, could we start maybe withwhat makes somebody go to

(04:09):
counseling, like it's not at thebest part of their life that
anybody ever walks into your,into your office or calls you.
Yeah, it's in some of thelowest points and I want to
understand that deeper becauseit's an important piece of the
process.
Yeah, what makes somebody go tocounseling?

Yeah, that's a that's a great question
.
I think the the specifics ofeach person's story is always
quite unique to them.
It would be impossible to giveyou like the nitty gritty which
I wouldn't even do anywaysbecause of confidentiality and
all those types of things butwhat I can say is that, you know
, the felt human experience ofbeing alone, like loneliness, is

(04:47):
at the root and the core of somany things, and it's
interesting how, with today'stechnology, we're often the most
connected we've ever been, butwe can also be the most lonely
we've ever been.
And and also, you know,thinking about even being in the
Fraser Valley.
We've been up through, beenthrough some big ups and downs
as a community, with the floodsthat happened a couple years

(05:08):
back in 2021.
I was actually right on thefront lines of doing mental
health work with some of thefarmers that were hit hardest by
some of those circumstances.
So I think that what usuallybrings people into counseling is
a mix of loneliness,desperation, and sometimes it's
even other people who havereally encouraged them to come.

(05:30):
And I think I think thosepeople that encouraged their
loved ones to come to counseling, because I'm so encouraged when
sometimes people show up inthere and they're not at the
most extreme of where things arehard, but we definitely do see
as well, like just this,feelings of hopelessness, things
that feel really low, and also,just you know, I think, when,

(05:55):
when things are hard and we havesome sense of purpose and
knowing how to go through it, wecan sometimes be resilient in
those experiences.
But a lot of times it's thatI've tried all the options, I
got nothing else in my tool beltand then they're coming in to
try to develop more tools orfind another path forward.

Aaron Pete (06:15):
I'm thinking about the high opioid crisis that
we're facing right now, some ofthe challenges you've described
with floods and all thechallenges people are facing and
I'm wondering what a personshould do in those dark
circumstances, like they go tocounseling, but they also go to
drugs, they also go to differentcoping mechanisms that you

(06:35):
would never recommend for aperson.
How do we make sure that peopleget the help they need in those
darkest moments?

Yeah, well, I think that in some of
those darkest moments, you know,isolation and struggling by
yourself is one of the one ofthe hardest places to be, and a
lot of times it takes a lot ofcourage to be vulnerable and
actually share where you'retruly at with someone that you,
that you know and trust.
And so you know, I'm thankfulfor all of the, the, the public

(07:08):
figures, the speakers out therethat are trying to encourage
more and more that we speak upsooner.
I was really encouraged evenwith the Abbotsford Police
Department a couple years back.
One of their officers waskilled in action and one of the
broadcasts that the police chiefgave was like, if you're

(07:29):
struggling with something, takea knee.
Like, take a knee and letsomeone know.
One of the biggest resiliencyfactors against PTSD is the
willingness to stay connected incommunity and to turn towards
others and ask for help, whichis crazy right.
Like you think that mayberesilience against PTSD would be
like cognitive strength orgrittiness.
It's like there are so manyrelational aspects of what what

(07:53):
develops our resilience andhelps us keep going in some of
these really difficult times.
So I think that you know, foreven with opioid crisis and
things like that, just beingable to, to let your heart be
moved by the reality of some ofyour circumstances and to listen
to the people around you whohave earned the right to speak

(08:14):
into your story.

Aaron Pete (08:16):
Can you give some examples as to what drives
people in that first day?
I think of people who are inmarriages that have failed.
I think of people who have beenstruggling with addiction for
some time, who are ready to tryand do something else.
What are some of the commonreasons that people say I had to
pick up the phone and dosomething else?

Yeah, a lot of times it is for a loved
one, like their kids or theirspouse, or job stuff, like it's
become so, so intense thatthey've been on leave from work
or you know, some of thefinancial pressures these days
are really really challengingfor folks, with inflation and
everything else going on, sothey kind of get to this point

(08:55):
of being just just being stuck.
So it can be really heavy andit also would probably be a bit
of a disservice not to say thatI've been really inspired by
some people lately that do comein in the middle range as well,
some people that are like youknow, it doesn't always have to
be super heavy, even though itcan be at times, but a lot of
times the quicker you come in,the less time it takes to come

(09:17):
back to a place of feeling likelife is a little more stable and
meaningful and worthwhile.
So the quicker we catch it, themore hopeful the outcomes are.

Aaron Pete (09:27):
We hear the word trauma a lot, yeah, and I'm
wondering if you can put that ina context of somebody coming
into counseling.

Yeah, the working definition of trauma
that I like to use.
There's a big formal definitionin the DSM-5, which is just the
diagnostic and statisticalmanual of mental disorders.
It's kind of like the big bookthat they use to check the
checklist to see how disordersare categorized.
So they have a checklist forPTSD.
But the working definition thatI got from one of my professors

(09:55):
at grad school that I reallylike and seems to make sense to
people is just that trauma isanything that's negative and
unexpected, that leaves peoplefeeling confused, overwhelmed
and powerless.
So that's why someone could gothrough a car accident and that
could be really traumatizing forthem, and another person could
go through a similar severitycar accident and maybe not be
quite as traumatized.

(10:16):
So this idea of your feltexperience of something and how
you've made sense and meaning ofit often contributes to how
much it impacts you, and sothat's why it becomes so
personalized.

Aaron Pete (10:31):
One of the first steps, I think for so many
people is like recognizing thatthere is a problem, yeah, and so
you have to kind of like scaleit on where you're at on the
spectrum.
How bad is your circumstancesout of one to ten, yeah, like
one being everything's great,you're having a great night
Eating pizza, banx, stuff likethat, with a good group of

(10:52):
people, that's right.
And then ten is nothing seemsto go right in my life.
Yeah, so you have to scalewhere people are when they come
to see you.

Yeah, I mean most are sitting somewhere
around the seven, eight, nine.
I've sat with some 10s just inthe first session and thankfully
, even with the process ofcoming to counseling, when they
look at the studies and research, if someone's really struggling
and then they book theappointment, they actually, even
before they receive anytreatment, they start to feel

(11:23):
better just knowing anappointment's coming.
So that's a really cool, areally cool bit of science to
just understand that ouranticipation and the knowledge
of the resources available to usimpacts our ability to be
resilient and hard things.
But I do find that you know,for the most part we're
accessing counseling usually atthe higher ends of things,

(11:44):
especially in a traditionalsense.
So when I work part-time doingtraditional counseling and then
I also do part-time in myprivate practice of nature and
equine assisted counseling and Ifind that people are a little
quicker to come to that onebecause there's a little bit
more of a draw, that feels a bitmore positive, which is one of
the reasons I love that work somuch is because we catch people

(12:05):
a little sooner, because theamount of effort and time it
takes to come down from like anine out of 10 suffering down to
like a four or a three.
It takes more time and energyand resources when we're coming
from that high level compared toif we catch it at a six or a
seven.
And so I actually I think in myown journey and when in my
journey with clients, I feelreally passionate about catching

(12:26):
it early.
And there's a great quote aroundthe idea that, like, an ounce
of prevention is worth 10 dosesof cure.
That's a quote that comes from areally great TED talk from Dr
Nadine Burke.
She did a lot of work with ACEsstudies, so Adverse Childhood
Experiences Studies and her TEDtalk is how trauma impacts

(12:47):
health, like physical healthacross the lifetime, lifespan,
and so this whole idea ofprevention work.
How do we screen for mentalhealth?
How do we help people validatethe idea that like, oh, that's
something that people like takeseriously as a problem, so like
that's actually where I'dencourage people to start with
by.
Even if you Google, like whatare the ACEs, they actually have
a list of like 10 things thatif you check off yes, this

(13:11):
happened to me like a parentthat was incarcerated, or
substance, substance usehappening in the home or
witnessing domestic violence Allof these types of things
contribute to, if you, you knowa score out of 10 and when you
have higher ACE scores, it isdirectly correlated to
challenges with health outcomestowards the end of your
throughout your lifespan.

Aaron Pete (13:32):
This is.
This is actually what blows mymind, and I did an interview
with Amanda McCormack where sheraised ACEs and I worked with.
I worked with First Nationspeople in the criminal justice
system and got a deepunderstanding of the trauma that
arises in order for people toend up with Crimes of domestic
violence, theft, under all ofthese different types of issues,

(13:52):
and it doesn't seem like wealways have the tools to have
these these complexconversations.
And having ACEs as a tool seemsso valuable because it gives
you like a good metric andunderstanding of like how this
person ended up here and it'snot excusing the crime, but it's
adding that context in so youcan better understand what
they're dealing with.

(14:13):
And one of the challenges I feltlike I faced was that you send
someone to counseling or yourecommend them to go to
counseling, but you never talkabout the therapy they might
receive.
This is one of the areas whereyou give a list it's a hotline
or you give a long list and it'sa bunch of names on a screen,
but it lacks that what therapyis going to align with that
person Totally and through ourinterviews I started to think

(14:34):
about what are the types oftherapies that are going to work
with some of these people.
What are some of the tools thatthey need to develop in their
own life?
That's actually going to givethem the tools to succeed?
Because you say that counselordidn't work for me.
What was it?
The counselor or was it thetherapy?
And that's something it feelslike we almost never talk about
which is the therapy.
So can you lay out some of thetherapies that people could

(14:56):
choose from?
If you're looking at counseling.

Yeah, that's a fantastic point, Even
as you're describing thatchallenge of how sometimes you
try therapy and you feel like itjust didn't work.
I'm reminded of an experiencewhen I was in grad school and I
did an internship at an equinefacilitated wellness private
practice and we actually did aresidential school survivors

(15:20):
group and we heard stories ofhow one woman was exposed.
She had been offered freecounseling but it was exposure
therapy from a cognitiveperspective, where she was asked
to retell her story over andover again until it just didn't
bother her anymore and it feltlike such a mismatch for her it
really didn't work.
But when we were able to beoutside in nature with the

(15:43):
horses and creating space forstories and narratives to be
honored and heard and held withreverence, it was probably one
of the most memorable moments ofmy grad school time because she
was like you know.
She just reflected at the endof our time in our group outside
in nature with horses how muchthat had really, from her

(16:04):
perspective, helped her and thatwas really meaningful.
So I think that you know there'sa wide range of therapies and a
lot of times when I think abouthow I categorize them, we often
kind of break things into threedifferent ways.
We kind of break things intothree groups, whether that's
cognitive, working with yourthoughts in your mind.
Affective, with an A workingwith your emotions and your

(16:25):
feelings.
Or somatic, working with yourbody and what's happening in
your body, sensations, and allthose three things are connected
and we tend to live and feelour best when we have skills and
tools in all those areas.
But depending on wheresomeone's struggling probably
helps me start to point them inthe direction of where they need
to go.
So, for example, some thingslike OCD tendencies, compulsive

(16:48):
thoughts, those do really wellwith some more of the cognitive
approaches like cognitivebehavior therapy.
But things like trauma there'sa fantastic book called the Body
Keeps the Score by BesselVander Kolk, and he's a medical
doctor who has workedextensively with trauma and
builds a whole case for how ouremotional trauma is actually
stored in the body.
Like a lot of times when we'reexperiencing stomach aches or

(17:12):
migraines or muscle tensions orthings like that, there's a
psychological and an emotionalconnection to how our body's
trying to tell us thatsomething's not okay.
So that's where somatictherapies exist, where you're
working with the body andworking with understanding that.
And then there's a whole othergroup, too, of emotion-focused
therapy working on how do weunderstand emotions?

(17:34):
Emotions, feelings aren't facts, but they are really important
feedback about whether thingsare going our way or not and
whether our needs are being metor not.
So two things can be true atthe same time that I feel
something, and maybe it's notlike a fact, but it's also
really important feedback to payattention to, Because we tend

(17:55):
to feel good when our needs aremet and things are going our way
, and we actually have morenegative emotions than positive
ones, because it's the negativeones that are trying to point
and tell us like, hey, yourneeds not being met or hey, this
isn't going well, and thebrain's job is always just
trying to keep you alive andkeep you safe.

(18:15):
You chose equine therapy andit's one of your favorites.
It is.

Aaron Pete (18:20):
Would you mind explaining how that came about
for you?
Yeah.

Well, how much time do you have?

Aaron Pete (18:25):
It depends on them.

Yeah, I know right, I don't want to
steal all the time from Chrisbecause I'm excited to hear what
he's got to say too, but I haveloved horses for as long as I
can remember, so there'ssomething in my DNA that has
always drawn me to them.
I was the horse crazy girl thatjust never grew out of it.
But what I started to notice ashorses were always a part of my

(18:46):
life from a hobby perspective,they always felt like therapy to
me personally.
Even going through middleschool I struggled with finding
good friends and I struggledwith bullies and finding where I
fit and it felt like the horsebarn always felt like a place
that I could belong and that wasinsanely powerful.
That was a lifeline to me.

(19:07):
On some days that were justreally hard and as I progressed
through my journey I wasstudying communications for my
undergrad.
I didn't think I was going intothe mental health field at all.
I was more involved in eventsand sports and things like that.
But it was cool that in thesummer times I happened, through

(19:29):
a friend of a friend, to hearabout a job where I could take
my horse to a ranch and workwith kids that primarily came
from group homes, foster homesand single parent homes and they
could come for a week of campout at this ranch.
And they worked so hard tofundraise so kids could come for
a full week of summer camp withhorses and everything for $25
for the week.
They were trying to make thisreally accessible and if you

(19:49):
couldn't pay the $25, they wouldjust wave it and say come on,
come on, and they'd bus kids inand out of the city to this
ranch outside of Edmonton.
So this was the special place Iwas like so I get to go, I get
to take my horse, I get to campand live outside and then be
with these kids.
And that was a big pull for meand I went because I loved
horses and I like working withkids.

(20:10):
But that was where I started tosee a whole different level of
how being outside and beingaround horses had profound
mental and emotional benefitsfor kids that had been surviving
a lot of trauma.
And it was cool how sometimeswith counseling and therapy, we

(20:32):
do need to talk about the hardstuff because it's important,
and sometimes we need to be ableto focus on something positive
and almost take that heavinessand that difficulty and displace
it with something good andsomething meaningful.
And so, by being able to focuson a riding lesson, I wasn't
having to pick at some kid whocouldn't focus, but they

(20:53):
actually, by sitting on a1,000-pound animal, were
encouraged to pay attention,because there was actually a
safety threat and an existentialthreat of if you don't pay
attention, there areconsequences, and in that, all
of a sudden, you just watch kidsstart to be able to hear and
take direction, and then theylearn a new skill and they start
to build their self-esteem.
And then they get to go ridewith a friend and all of a

(21:15):
sudden they're building a socialbond that's positive and not
about just picking on someoneelse so we feel close, and so
there's all of these coolbenefits that are being reaped
without it having to be this.
Well, here's your worksheet onhow to make friends and here's
your activity of how to focusand the amount of times I get

(21:36):
kids that come out of school andthey're like I don't want
another worksheet.
I'm like I feel ya, let's goget our hands dirty in the river
and ground ourselves andpractice mindfulness and
embodiment through crawling overboulders on the side of the
riverbank.
It's just.
Even as a mental healthcounselor, too, the job can be

(21:57):
pretty draining and taxing onsome days, but when I get to go
out and be around the horses andaround nature, my cup gets full
simultaneously and it makes thejob more sustainable too.
So some of my favoriteexperiences.
Even after grad school, I did ayear and a half of nature-based
group therapy and leadershiptraining for high school

(22:19):
students local high schoolstudents that were nominated by
their school counselors asneeding some more support.
Could be a lot of differentreasons, but it was one of the
most draining and fulfilling andwonderful experiences to date
of my career.

Aaron Pete (22:34):
So yeah, this is a throwback to one of our first
interviews, but you had astudent there who attended who
got a lot of benefit from thisprogram.
Would you mind sharing theirstory?

Oh well , there's so many.
Yeah, I was gonna say there.
I was actually thinking there'sso many names that come to mind
, it's hard to even pick onebecause they all have such like
they touch my heart as much.
As the work can be hardsometimes, but being able to do
good mental health work, I think, means that you have to be able
to keep your back strong butyour heart soft.
Your heart has to stay movable.

(23:07):
But I think of gosh, one of thestories of the one that comes to
mind she was a really specialstudent was having some really
tough stuff happening at homeand just also some really tough
stuff happening with friends,and friends that should have
been friends and didn't have herback when they should have.
But we were out on a sailingtrip and she was having.

(23:34):
You can see when people arefeeling good and they're engaged
in the group and then othertimes when they withdraw and
there's just a lot going on.
And so I found her in the belowthe decks of the sailing boat
that we were on and she washaving a headache and I just
took her seriously at her wordand just met a very basic
physical need and spent sometime with her and it was cool to

(23:55):
watch just me taking that timeto build that connection really
really kind of formed our bondin a different way.
And then the next day she cameto me and she's like, will you
climb up the ladders up to thecrow's nest with me on the
sailing ship?
And I have a fear of heightsand I'm like, okay, but all

(24:16):
these times I'm asking kids to,you know, be, expand their
comfort zones, you know,approach their anxiety and I'm
like this is the moment whereI'm like I can't talk the talk
and not walk the walk and I waslike I would never do this but
for you, okay, we'll try.
And I had an amazing boss atthe time.
He also is another counselor inChillowack, his name's Danny

(24:36):
Gray and he's like I'll go upwith you too, because the
ladders come up either side, andso he's like he's going up one
side and he was helping me onthe other side and she was going
up the other mast and I wasjust like I definitely said some
words that are probably notokay for live YouTube, but I was
trying my best and workingthrough it.
But there was something so coolabout knowing about her

(24:59):
backstory, knowing everythingshe was navigating and working
through at home and then justseeing her delight she wasn't
afraid of heights.
She like rocketed right upthere and was just sitting up
there.
We're all harnessed in, don'tworry, it's safe.
But she's just sitting up thereand just swinging her legs and
was like come on, kylie, you'vegot this.
And it's like I don't know ifit's like the Grinch you feel

(25:20):
your heart swell.
Two sides is bigger, orsomething like that.
And it was just one of thehardest things.
But also like such an incredibleexperience of challenging
ourselves and I feel like thethree of us were bonded in a
different way after that.
And she did, she went on to,she was holding down a job and
doing amazing things after thefact that it was really cool to

(25:43):
watch.
She wasn't one of the moreextroverted ones that you could
tell, but you could just see adifferent kind of light in her
eyes after that trip and it was.
Yeah, I think about her fondlyvery much, even to this day.
So Beautiful.

Aaron Pete (26:01):
Yeah, one of the my favorite things that I learned
from you is thinking about likeanimal therapy more generally,
and so many of us go to dogs Iknow dog is my favorite type of
animal and they're all over youand they're ready to give you
love the second you get home andthere's that strong energy.
But one of the things I didn'trealize was the importance of
understanding that horses areactually prey animals and so

(26:24):
they're not going to jump allover you, and if you've been
through some traumatic stuff inyour life, that might be more
appropriate.
Would you mind saying, like,how animal therapy works and how
do you choose what animal mightbe right for you?

Totally Well.
That's a brilliant question.
I had a chance to work for afew years at a really cool farm
in Abbotsford called Empoweredby Horses.
I love the team there.
I'm sad not to be there anymore, but they had a whole range of
animals from horses and cats andchickens and sheep and all the
things, and it was just sointeresting how and they had

(26:58):
dogs that would come on site attimes too.
A lot of times people are drawnto the animals that are best for
their healing, even if theydon't consciously know why, like
I found that at the ranch Iworked at as well.
That summer ranch we had horses, but we also had a petting zoo
and things like that.
And the interesting thing abouthorses being prey animals is
that two things you're right.

(27:19):
So dogs being predator animals,when they're just interacting
with each other, they sleep oneach other, they're touching
each other, they're wrestlingwith each other.
That's how they bond.
But with horses as prey animalsthey're a lot more focused on
presence and attunement, so likeif one, if the herd is looking
and one looks up, everyone elselooks up too, but they don't

(27:40):
actually.
Once in a while they'llmutually groom each other, but
for the most part.
When you go and see horses.
They're standing next to eachother, very close and they're
very connected but they're nottouching Because the other thing
is like they don't really.
They don't have fingers toreach out and touch Like as a
prey animal.
They think a bit differently,but also, for them, belonging in
the herd is absolutely crucialto their survival, so they have

(28:04):
a different way of valuingrelationship in that way, and I
do find that even with myclients who seem to be really
drawn to horses, they often feelthey feel understood a lot of
the times by these animals whospend a lot of time wondering is
that gonna get me, is thisgonna get me?
You know, horses spend a lot oftime wondering if that rustle

(28:28):
in the bush is the cougar that'scoming to get them.
It's just naturally baked intotheir nervous system and how
they see the world and sometimesfor people who have felt like
the world was out to get them orpeople were out to get them,
horses can bring this sense oflike, empathy and understanding
that's hard to match.

Aaron Pete (28:44):
So, yeah, we're in a beautiful area.
We are blessed to live in theFraser Valley with so much
nature around us.
Some people are just needing toreconnect with nature.
Would you mind talking aboutnature therapy and the Fraser
Valley?
Yeah?

You know I was reflecting on this
today how when I was growing upin Chillowack I've been in
Chillowack, living in Chillowacksince I was five I spent some
time going around a little bitas well, but mainly Chillowack
has been home base for a longtime and I grew up going to
Coltus Lake and hiking MountChiam and things like that.

(29:21):
But I took it for granted alittle bit because I just
thought it was normal, it washome.
But after spending some moretime traveling around the world
and actually even it stood outto me.
I was having a conversationwith a friend of mine from high
school.
Sam Waddington owns MountWaddington's Outdoors in
Chillowack, which I love thatdesire to get people out into

(29:42):
the outdoors more.
He was saying he's traveled alot too and he was saying that
out of all the places he's beenin the world, chillowack stands
out to him as some of the bestaccessibility to the outdoors,
right in your backyard basically.
And it struck me, I was like Inever thought of Chillowack that
way until he said it so clearlyand I found that to be true.

(30:02):
Like you know, we've gotChillowack Lake and Coltus Lake
and Harrison Lake and we haveample hiking all over the place.
The Fraser River is one of myfavorite places to ride horses,
and when you dig into some ofthe research around how
beneficial nature is for ourmental health, you know they did
a study at one point where theyhad people take a walk through
a city, in urban area or throughnature, and the amount of

(30:25):
ruminating thoughts orrumination of walking through
nature.
It was significantly better formental states to walk through
nature.
Even the walking exercise isstill good for mental health
both ways, but being in naturehad an even more powerful effect
on reducing rumination ofthought.
So this idea of being moreconnected to nature, spending

(30:48):
time outside, being in ourbodies because a lot of times
when we go through trauma we getdisconnected from our body,
sensations and what's happeningbelow our neck, and so when we
get outside in nature it'salmost like you know you can't
help but maybe pick up a rock orlook at the moss or take in the
smells, and it's this resetthat we've spent how many as a

(31:09):
species, how many thousands ofyears spending a bunch of time
outside and even something assimple as light from the sun
that can have, just being ableto go out and look at the sun
and have it hit your skin andhit your face has a huge impact
on mood and levels of depression.
So I think, both from researchand from my clinical and work

(31:33):
experience just and my personallife, I just noticed so many
mental health benefits forgetting outside and exploring
nature, and this idea too, thatwhen we are trying to survive in
the wilderness or having tonavigate uncertainties in nature
, there's this thing thatexistential anxiety will often

(31:55):
displace neurotic anxiety.
And if I could give an exampleof what I mean by that, I even
found when I worked at the horseranch with youth, you know they
would show up and they didn'trealize we were sleeping in a
wall tent all week and ridinghorses all week.
And they were like, well, wheream I going to plug in my hair
straightener?
And I was like we're not goingto be straightening our hair
this week.
And they were like you know,the anxiety around that was huge

(32:18):
.
Or how am I going to keep mySnapchat streaks going, or
things like that.
And so that was a big concernand a big anxiety for them at
the start of the week.
But then, as they started torealize, like, how are we going
to eat?
Oh well, we have to chop thefirewood and figure out how to
light the fire and keep the firelit, and then we get to eat.
These different existentialanxieties of like how are we

(32:39):
going to stay warm at night,like how are we going to get
from A to B, and these types ofthings all of a sudden, like the
hair straightener didn't matterso much.
Or and it was like one of themost delightful memories I have
from the ranch was one of thegirls that came in.
She was probably about 13, 14,but came across quite a bit

(32:59):
older, quite a bit more mature,and had big makeup on, which was
she looked great.
But you could just feel thiskind of like this need to look a
certain way and present herselfa certain way to be accepted,
and it felt a little bit likewow, she's quite mature for her
age.
And together, and sometimesactually when kids have to grow
up before their time, that canbe their own developmental

(33:20):
trauma in a way as well.
They've had to step up and bean adult in their life when
maybe they haven't had the moststeady adult figures to lean on.
And I just remember, as the weekprogressed and less and less
makeup got put on in the morning, even though sometimes they
still did it in the 10th in themorning.
I'm like, hey, if you want todo it, go for it, no judgment,
you can do whatever you need todo.
And then we got to the end ofthe week and she discovered that

(33:42):
in the pond where the horseswere drinking there were these
tadpoles hatching in the sidesthat were kind of jelly and
squishy, and the mud was kind ofjelly and squishy and she just
went in there and let her toessink into the mud and the giggle
of delight and disgust allmixed into one was just this
heartwarming and beautiful thingto behold and I kind of felt

(34:04):
like, oh, there you are, withoutall the other things, that
there's no judgment with theother stuff, but it was just
kind of her essence and her souland her smile came through and
I was just so honored toencounter her in that moment.
It was really special.

Aaron Pete (34:22):
That's beautiful.
Two more brief questions.

Sure.

Aaron Pete (34:26):
One is what does healthy look like?
It feels like we're so consumedby what ailment looks like when
we see it in the news, when wesee people struggling, it seems
like when that becomes the story, when that becomes the
narrative, we stop looking atwhat success and health looks
like.
What does a meaningful fulllife look like, would you remind

(34:46):
us?

That's great.
You know, even when I thinkabout that question I can feel
like the academic in me thinksof like, oh well, this theory
would say this is healthy andthis theory would say this is
healthy.
But that's not the question youasked.
So I'll lean into more of myown experience and the things
that I have found meaningful,both with clients and for myself

(35:08):
personally, and I have reallyenjoyed studying humanistic and
existential therapiesphilosophies.
I've found a lot of really goodstuff in there and in the
existential framework.
This idea existential is justthis fancy word of saying.
How do we find meaning andpurpose in our existence,

(35:29):
existential, our existence?
And what they say in thatschool of thought is that when
we are going through the motionsof life, thinking, the thought
of feeling like it's like a push, like I have to, I must, I
should do this, and it's likeyour outsides are doing the
thing but your insides aredifferent.

(35:50):
There's an incongruence there.
That would be where the mostfertile soil for mental health
pathology to grow, so anxieties,depressions, all those things
come out of that inner world ofI have to, I must.
I'm kind of a victim to myexperience and to life.
I'm just going like it'shappening to me.
I have no agency in it, whereason the flip side then health is

(36:12):
kind of like when you're movedin life by pulls this, like I
get to do this, I want to dothis, I like to do this, I value
this and I am bringing myselfto the table.
I'm engaged and I can give whatwe say Living with inner
consent, or giving your inneryes to life, and in the notes

(36:35):
they'll spell it Y-E-S, all capsor exclamation point,
exclamation point.
It's like this inner yes, andthen people can live from that
place.
We tend to be the healthiest.
And then people will say, well,there's a lot of things that I
have to do that I don't want togive my inner yes to, and I'm
like absolutely fair, I totallycan appreciate that.

(36:56):
But this is where this schoolof thought comes out, of
existential work.
And there's a great book by aman named Victor Frankel who
wrote a book called Man's Searchfor Meaning, and he was a
Jewish psychiatrist who survivedthe Auschwitz concentration
camp in World War II.
And you think about all theplaces where you don't want to

(37:19):
get up and work, like that seemslike probably one of the most
dark and dire.
And so he was able to kind ofwork through this idea of a
greater yes.
Maybe I don't want to say yesto this hard thing in front of
me, but by doing this thing doesit still align to a greater
value, a greater pole?
So for him he's like I don'twant to get up and work in the
concentration camp, but I dowant to see if my family's still

(37:42):
alive, or his manuscripts, hislife's work that he had been
studying, had been taken andburned when he arrived.
And he's like I want to survivethis and I can republish my
life's work and have it bepassed on for other generations.
And so this idea that sometimesbeing gritty, digging deep,
means maybe I don't want to dothis thing in front of me, but
is there something?
The greater yes, that I do wantmore.

(38:04):
And even when I ask people whatgot you out of bed this morning,
they're like well, I have to.
I'm like, well, ok, sure, yeah,you have to go to work.
But what does work allow you todo that you do want?
And when you think about goingto work, this job helps bring in
a paycheck so that I can dothis thing that I really do care
about or that I want to do.
It starts to change the way weengage both the hard things and

(38:27):
the good things but also thengives you that reminder that
sometimes I don't know if you'veever experienced this, but
sometimes even our hobbies andthe things we love can start to
feel a bit like I have to dothat, like I can get sucked into
the thought of like I have togo to the barn and do my horse
chores and then I have to justpause for a moment and go like
no, whoa, no, like I get to goto the barn and do a horse

(38:50):
chores because I have a horse inmy life and that's a really
special thing.
That was a childhood dreamthat's now realized.
So sometimes to remindourselves too of like what's the
thing you have now that pastyou dreamed of, or things like
that too.
So that inner yes is usuallywhat I'm hunting for when I'm
working with clients or in myown life as an indicator of

(39:13):
health.

Aaron Pete (39:15):
Kylie, this has been fascinating.
We're going to have you backout here in a little bit to do a
Q&A at the end, but please canwe give a round of applause for
Kylie Barthal.
Thank you so much.
Awesome thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
How's everybody feeling?
Good?
Good, we have food over theresnacks.

(39:39):
Please breathe and have somefood, if you like.
I just want to reflect on thefact that we are four years into
this, but it's unique thatwe're here in Co-Work,
chilliwack, and it didn't comewith a plan my partner and my
mom, who are in the front row.
One morning, all of a sudden,water started pouring out of our

(40:00):
apartment out of all the lightsockets and we were panicking
and it was three in the morning,something like that, and we
were wondering what the heck wasgoing on and what was causing
this and what we were going todo.
And about 10 minutes into, thewater pouring into our home and
flooding the ground, we werelike we're not sleeping here
tonight and we're going to haveto move, and so we moved out of

(40:23):
there very quickly and startedtrying to figure out where we
were going to stay booking anAirbnb, contacting insurance,
trying to figure out that plan.
But I had an interview bookedwith the mayor of Abitford About
the 2021 floods and how hemanaged it, and it wasn't an
option to say no, mr Mayor, Idon't want to proceed with the

(40:45):
interview anymore.
It was.
I really want this interview.
He was working with JustinTrudeau.
They were trying to figure outhow we're going to navigate the
2021 floods.
He wasn't going to run forreelection again, so I knew he
could be honest about what hehad experienced.
I was super excited and I wastrying to figure out what a
solution might look like, and soI reached out to Tim McElpine.

(41:06):
I had the privilege of workingwith Chanel Prasad upstairs at
Elpine Legal Services and I saidhi, I have an interview with
the mayor of Abitford about thefloods and I really want to
proceed.
And so, right back there iswhere I filmed that episode.
That is the studio space.
We usually bring out a tableover there and we do a one on
one, and we went three and ahalf hours on those floods and

(41:28):
on what it was like to hop in ahelicopter and oversee all of
that work and communicate withpeople, and he didn't sleep for
two days.
It was an amazing interview,but it opened this door that I
wouldn't have had the confidenceto go through had all of that
not happened, and so I'mgrateful for that experience.
I'm incredibly grateful for TimMcElpine, who was like we'll
figure out the finances, we'llfigure out how to do all of that

(41:50):
later, but, yes, you can use myspace, we'll figure that out
and we'll proceed.
So I'd just like to reallyquickly pause and thank Tim
McElpine for all of hisconsidering you to support.
But you didn't come here forthese stories.
You came here for qualityinterviews with people, and I

(42:13):
set this up in my head thinking,yes, we go through dark things
and we need to discuss thatpiece, but I feel like sometimes
the conversation gets stoppedthere how to figure out your
life, how to get that organized.
Some people have that stufffigured out.
Some people are just living agood life and they're looking
how to take it to the next level, and that's how I set this up.

(42:33):
So that was some heavyconversations about where people
are in their darkest moments,but I also wanted to add that
piece of what people's lives canlook like in their best days,
and so it's, without further ado.
I have to invite Dr ChrisBertram, who's going to talk to
us about flow states and mentalperformance.
Chris, would you please join us?
Okay for that buddy.

(42:59):
Thank you so much.
I appreciate you.
Hi, everyone.
Okay, here we go.
How you feeling Great?

Dr. Chris Bertram (43:10):
Brilliant Congrats on four years, by the
way.
Thank you very much, very nice.

Aaron Pete (43:15):
It's a great way to celebrate.
So people have their good daysand they have their bad days,
but you have the privilege ofwatching people at their best.
Would you mind telling us a bitabout the work that you do?

Sure, yeah, it's a bit of a complicated
story.
I work here at the university.
I work in the School ofKinesiology there studying human
learning for lack of a betterword how we get from where we
are to where we want to be.
Somewhere along the way I sortof started stepping out of the
research lab and into the realworld and trying to find out.
The people who have the mostskin in the game of learning at

(43:53):
least in my first foray out intothe world were the athletes
they were really curious about.
Okay, so that's their job toget better faster.
That's what I started doingthere.
That sort of grew into someother work that sort of spreads
around the professional athleteworld and also now branches into

(44:13):
the corporate world, talking alot about corporate well-being
and those sorts of things thesedays.
So yeah, I'm kind of all overthe place, fascinating.

Aaron Pete (44:20):
I'm just sharing a little bit about the athletes
that you've worked with.

Sure, yeah, so well, one of the things I did
here for a long time at theuniversity I actually coached
the golf team.
That was one of my sort ofliving laboratories I had, and
so I'm really interested in golf.
I find if you're going to studylearning, you have to study
something that's really hard andwatch what happens over time
and I started having a realinterest in the sort of science

(44:44):
of golf and that really got meinto the golf world and so I
spend a lot of time these dayswith golfers.
So Nick Taylor made a 72-footpot last year.
He's one of my clients, acouple of other people on the
tour, but I also work withCanada Snowboard.
So sort of the opposite end ofthe athletic spectrum golf to
professional snowboarding, bigair snowboarders insane human

(45:07):
beings, super talented, supercourageous, and then, yeah, and
some of the other stuff down inthe States athletes from just
about every major sport.

Aaron Pete (45:16):
I think about it and it seems like a stupid question
when I really think about it,because who's not fascinated by
the human mind and the humanperspective?
But what made you interested inpsychology?

It's a good question, because I'm not a
psychologist.
I always like to get that onthe table right out of the bat,
right off the bat.
My primary academic area is inhuman learning, and so I would
study things that could maybeoptimize the learning process a
little bit.
How do you get from there tothere and how do we seamlessly
move you along that path?
And very quickly in thatprocess you come to realize that

(45:51):
these things don't reallymatter, because there's this
mind hovering over top ofeverything that you're doing,
and if you're not payingattention to the psychology of
the human brain, you're reallymissing a big part of the story.
So I'm not a psychologist, butI kind of play one on the
internet sometimes and I workwith the really great
psychologists that help me alongtoo.

Aaron Pete (46:11):
I'm also interested.
There's these moments in yourlife that are incredibly
meaningful that I don't know ifwe give enough credence to Like
when I'm on a good run, I hitthat eight kilometer mark, I hit
that 10 kilometer mark and theendorphins hit and I start to
understand things differently.
I start to think about howwould I do this with the podcast
, how would I move that around,and it's these thoughts that I
don't feel like would come if Iwas just sitting at my computer

(46:34):
looking for an idea.
And we can so often get intothe nitty gritty of life and we
can get busy, but in thesespecial moments that you kind of
get to help people work with,you get to see these moments.
I'm wondering, from yourperspective, how do people go
from just living to starting tothrive and find these moments?

Yeah Well, the example that you gave is a
really good one, because one ofthe things we know about how
your mind works is that when wereally start to feel our best
and perform our best like whenyou're out for a run and you hit
that eight mile mark reallyinteresting things start
happening in the brain.
There's a term it's big, it's amouthful it's called selective

(47:13):
transient hypofrontality, whichjust means that temporarily, the
frontal lobes of your brainstart to get very, very quiet,
which is the part that we'reusing all day long.
We're kind of living in ourexecutive control of our frontal
lobes and we think that's greatand it's really helpful in a
lot of ways.
But it's that sort of oversightthat causes all of the

(47:34):
rumination, all the thoughtsthat we're having that aren't
necessarily productive, and oneof the things that happens when
we move our bodies, especiallyat a certain cadence for a
certain amount of time, is thatpart of the brain starts to go
very, very quiet, and so whatyou're left with is a feeling of
liberation and that you're notjust stuck in your own head, you
sort of step outside ofyourself, and that's where
creativity is born, that's wherethis thing called flow lives

(47:57):
and all the rest of it.
So to me that's sort of theideal place to be as much as you
can in life.
We don't need to be there allof the time, but the more often
we can seek out these kinds ofexperiences, I think the better
off we'll all be.

Aaron Pete (48:11):
I feel like in our culture we chase happiness so
much.
It's all about do what makesyou happy, and I've always.
It's like chalkboard fingers ona chalkboard.
I just don't like that, becausethat's not going to sustain you
over 50 years, that's not goingto sustain you over your life,
and so finding what's meaningfulin these moments to me are so
important.
When did you stumble acrossflow states?

So well.
I'd stumbled across them in myown life.
I grew up playing a lot ofsports.
I was not really active andthat was sort of my main source
of flow, so I'd experienced it alot, but there was not a lot of
science around it, to be honest.
It was just this mystical,fleeting experience that you
know.
I just felt really great andeverything felt really easy, and

(48:54):
everybody here has felt that atsome level.
But I was actually reading aresearch article one day on the
subject of flow as it pertainsto learning, which is again my
main interest, and one of thethings they'd shown in this
paper is they did this thingcalled a flow intervention,
which I didn't know what it wasat the time, and then had people
do a learning task and whatthey found was that group that

(49:17):
had this intervention.
We can talk about what it waslater, but they learned anywhere
between three and five timesfaster than a control group and
I thought that's probablybullshit.
Frankly, is what I thought atthe time, because I do this kind
of work and you just don't seethose kind of massive learning
effects in a study, and it turnsout that that's a pretty robust

(49:41):
effect, and so, if I, like me,I'm in the game of human
learning.
I want to figure out the bestway to do it, so that's where I
sort of started really digginginto it, and so I got my PhD in
2002.
I like to joke that I feel likethat expired in about 2010.
And that's when I started thisother curiosity of flow and

(50:05):
ultimate human performance.

Aaron Pete (50:07):
What do you think the experience of flow is like
for a person?
Because it's called differentthings being in the zone.
It's called these differentterms, but what is the actual
felt experience from yourperspective?

Yeah, so it's good that you pointed that out.
Terms like runner's high thatyou were describing a minute ago
, being in the zone or in thepocket, musicians talk about.
They are all synonyms for thisthing and the scientific term is
flow state.
So that came from a Hungarianpsychologist.
His name was MihaiCsikszentmihi.
He was speaking of chasinghappiness.

(50:41):
That's what he was interestedin.
This was where humanisticpsychology that Kylie was
talking about a few minutes agowas born, this idea that there's
more to the study of psychologythan the study of what can go
wrong in the human mind.
They were really interested inthe upside of the human
experience and Csikszentmihi wasreally curious about what are

(51:01):
the elements of happiness.
And he went around the worldand asked thousands and
thousands of people and ended upcoining this term flow state,
because it's what peopledescribe.
So when you're at your best,what are you feeling like?
And people would say thingslike well, it's like when I'm
talking, it just seems like oneword is seamlessly flowing into

(51:21):
the next.
Or if it's an athlete orsomebody moving, it's like one
movement is just seamlesslyflowing into the next.
Musicians talk about this.
So the word flow was born there, and one of the things he found
out was that no matter whatkind of flow experience you're
having, the same it's abouteight to 10 characteristics show

(51:43):
up.
So the lived experience of flowis what he really unpacked for
everybody.
So it's things like timepassing very, very strangely.
So we have this alteredperception of time long
conversations you and Kylie hadthree hours felt like five
minutes.
That's flow.
So we perceive time differentlyand we feel a real sense of
connection that can be to aninstrument or an object or to

(52:04):
another human being, and there'sa sense of ease there, there's
a sense of calmness about it.
There's about eight or nine ofthese kinds of things, but they
all are the kind of livedexperience of being in flow.
And then the really fun stufffor me was when we started
looking inside the brains ofpeople, when these experiences

(52:25):
were showing up and trying tounderstand what actually is
happening underneath the skin.
When we start to feel this wayand that's been really fun too,
because that actually is whatleads to these other things Like
when you understand themechanisms, like what are the
things that switch on and switchoff inside the brain and the
body when these experiences showup, we can figure out other

(52:46):
ways to activate thosemechanisms and flow can go from
being this fleeting mysticalexperience to one that you can
sort of program forintentionally, if you do it
properly.

Aaron Pete (52:57):
Do we have any like Olympic golfers or experts in
snowboarding?
No, so I think it would beuseful to like bring this back
for people and understand howthey could apply this, and one
of the things I didn't knowabout prior to interviewing you
the first time was micro flowstage.
Sure, and that's moreaccessible and I think, for the
average person who's not aprofessional golfer.

(53:17):
Would you mind telling us aboutmicro flow stage?

Sure, yeah Well, that study that I
mentioned.
What they did is they used amagnetic coil and they sent a
little magnetic pulse into thefront of somebody's brain and it
started to shut down theirfrontal lobes and this thing
that happens to you when you runwas happening to them.
But here's the interestingthing I've actually had that
done to me and you feel nodifferent at all, Like you don't

(53:40):
feel like you're on a high, youdon't feel like, oh, it's the
best moment of my life.
It's sort of almostimperceptible that anything has
happened to you and yet thereincreases in rates of learning
from three to five times, evenwhen it's not really perceptible
.
So to me that says like thevalue proposition for these
things called micro flow statesare really really powerful,

(54:03):
because flow is a spectrum ofexperience, Like every emotional
experience we have.
You can be really really happy,or you can be just like kind of
in a good mood.
You can be really really mad orjust a little bit agitated.
Flow is like that too.
You can be in these peakmoments of your life birth of
your kids, getting married,right, those are peak life

(54:25):
moments.
We call those macro flow states.
But then there's all theseother things where all the dials
of flow maybe get turned downto three and you know, time
passes really strangely, or youfeel really connected to
somebody but might not be thebest moment of your life.
There is still power to beleveraged there and there's all
sorts of great outcomes that youcan get in terms of learning,

(54:46):
in terms of performance, interms of just feeling better,
Because the definition of flowis an altered state of
consciousness where you feelyour best and perform your best.
We usually talk about theperform piece, but it also is a
source of great joy andhappiness, and that's you know.
So it's both of those things.

Aaron Pete (55:06):
There's also a really great lesson in this and
that for the most part, theseflow states don't come by
accident, by just walking downthe road and then all of a
sudden this happens.
It's often from people workingincredibly hard for a long
period of time, improving attheir craft or their skill or
what they're working on.
Then they find these moments.

(55:26):
Would you mind walking usthrough how people get into
these states when they'reprofessional golfers, when
they're putting in their best,because I think it's a reminder
that we all need to live up toour own potential, whatever that
looks like.
If you're a painter, you needto practice painting to get into
the state.
If you're a great runner, youneed to practice running.
So would you mind walking usthrough that?

Well, I think the easiest way to think about
this is any kind of flow stategenerally follows three or four
steps and the first one iscalled the struggle phase.
There is no flow withoutstruggle.
There's an expression that flowfollows focus and focus comes
about.
A lot of times we get reallylocked into something when there

(56:04):
is struggle and we feelagitation in our system.
That's where a lot of peoplequit and stop.
But if you can kind of navigateyour way through that, there is
this release phase and thenflow can show up on the other
side of it.
But when you go for a run, forexample, I'm sure that the first
five minutes don't feel superflowy.
That's the struggle part of therun.

(56:27):
But then, if you get lucky, youfeel that release and then you
can start to feel that runner'shigher.
That flow show up on the backend.
It's the same as if you'reworking sitting at a desk, like
I do, writing things.
You don't just sit down andhave creativity flow out of you.
It's always a process of Ioverthink, I'm too choosy with

(56:48):
my words, but I know that that'swhen I start to feel kind of
agitated by it.
I've learned to say that's thesignal, that's what you need to
pay attention to.
You need to lean in here, andwhen you do that you have a
chance of sort of breakingthrough onto the other side
where flow can show up.
So you have to be willing tolean into the fight.

Aaron Pete (57:11):
I agree with you and I think about it in terms of
the interview process, becauseso many people can think you
could just sit up here and askthese types of questions and I
find that there's such animportant Nobody thinks that
this is a hard job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Pete (57:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I often think some of thequestions that I ask seem like
they're simple.
But what I try and do is I do aton of research prior and then
I have kind of the flow of how Iwant that conversation to go.
But then if you or whateverguest comes on and says
something interesting, I don'twant to be so tied to my notes
that I focus more on the nextquestion than I do on hearing

(57:47):
and experiencing that answer andkind of having that.
And that's what, to me, makesgreat interviewers unique is
they don't stick to a list ofquestions and then say that
they're done.
They hone in in those specificmoments.
How do people make sure thatthey hone in and they experience
these benefits when they sortof arise?

Well, I think you've got two parts of it here
.
Number one you do the work, youprepare, you sort of sharpen
your tools right.
Then when you know you havethat in your back pocket, that
gives you freedom to play, right.
You couldn't just show up hereand freestyle, or maybe you
could.
I think you'd probably bepretty good at it.
But I think when we have, whenwe've put in the time and we've

(58:29):
put in the work, so you do yourversion of practice there.
It's what athletes do, right.
It's put in the time in the gym, working on your skills, so
that when the moment shows upyou've got that set of tools but
you can be creative with howyou deploy them.
That's the really interestingpiece is you don't just go
through it one at a time.

(58:49):
You're able to kind of movefreely and you have confidence
that you know those things arethere.
But I think it gives you somefreedom to be creative is what
you're talking about there.

Aaron Pete (59:00):
Do you see health benefits from people who are in
these states more regularly thanpeople who are just grinding at
the grindstone and just workinghard every day and not really
having the fun moments.

Well, yes, I think there are.
This is not work that I do, butI can tell you that flow is
highly correlated.
It through other research thatshows that, meaning overall life
satisfaction, flow is a massivepredictor of those great things
.
There's some really interestingresearch that came out after

(59:32):
COVID that showed that peoplewho were engaged more frequently
in what you would call yourprimary flow activity that thing
that makes you feel reallyhappy and connected could be
gardening, it could be racingsomething, it doesn't matter.
Whatever you feel those thingswhen the people who do that more
tended to navigate thechallenges of COVID at a much

(59:56):
higher rate and fended off a lotof the negative outcomes that
we saw there.
So the mental health benefitsare huge.
Again, flow is synonymousultimately with joy and
happiness and the downstreameffects of those things are
pretty obvious.

Aaron Pete (01:00:10):
That's fascinating.
Would you mind telling us?
You work with people who areprofessional, they know what
they're doing, but you've alsoworked with novices.
You also work with novices.
We use these terms a lot insociety.
You're a novice, you're anamateur, you're learning.
What are some of thedifferences between somebody
who's a novice and somebodywho's an elite professional at

(01:00:31):
what they do in terms of gettinginto these states?

Dr. Chris Bertram (01:00:33):
Well, I'll give you a sort of an academic
answer, but I'll try to make itsomewhat interesting.
There's a stage of learningthat we go through.
The first one, it's called thecognitive stage.
We're trying to think througheverything right.
Learning how to drive a car,you have to learn which pedals
do what and which handles dowhat.
We're stuck there for a longtime most of the time.
Then we start to move throughthis middle ground where there's

(01:00:56):
a lot of trial and error.
We're not having to think toomuch, but then we get to this
place it's called the autonomousstate of learning, where we can
use our attention and point ittowards the outside world.
So you can now drive a car andbe watching things around you
and your attentional resourcesaren't all gobbled up by having

(01:01:17):
to think about which foot doeswhat now and what does this do.
So this process of moving awayfrom the thinking brain into the
more subconscious elements ofmovement or performance or
whatever it is, it just becomesmore.
It feels reflexive now, likeyou don't think about how you
drive a car, unless you get in anew car, maybe, or a stick

(01:01:39):
shift or something.
But most of the time whathappens is this gradual movement
away from overthinking into theplace where you want to turn
off the thinking and let theskills just naturally emerge
from you.
That is not a permanent state,though.
Professional athletes struggletoo, and the concept of

(01:02:00):
overthinking those are very realchallenges for all of us, and
certainly for professionalathletes too, when we sort of
revert back into these morecognitive states where we're
thinking about things, trying touse the front of our brain
again the thing that Kylietalked about.
That is there to protect us,not to put us into states of

(01:02:20):
high performance.
We have to try to think of waysto manage that.

You're all going to love this next question.
Would you mind talking to usabout the anterior mid-singulate
cortex Sure?

Doesn't that sound interesting?
Right on the edge of your seat.
I'm impressed by yourneuroscience knowledge there.
The anterior mid-singulatecortex yes, so it's a part of
the cortex, the outer part ofyour brain, the highly evolved
human part of your brain.
It's a little bit deeper downin there, but it's the part of
the brain that tends to comeonline when we do really really

(01:02:57):
hard things.
So if you take they do thiswith little mice and labs and
other animals where you can sortof stimulate that area of the
brain, they're more willing toengage in hard work and do more
things.
If you lesion that part of thebrain, people seem really
unmotivated to do much ofanything.

(01:03:18):
And if you look at people whotend to lean into hard work a
lot so people who take on a newexercise program over the course
of literally a week this partof your brain starts to grow in
size and so it's the part of thebrain that sort of shows up
when we need tenacity or grit orperseverance, words like that.

(01:03:39):
There's an actual part of thebrain or it's a part of a
network, but it's a veryimportant hub in this network
where, if you have that partworking and working hard, you
seem to be more inclined to dohard work, and the reason is, by
the way, if you want me to boreyou a little more of this is
that effort center plugs rightinto your brain's reward centers

(01:03:59):
, and so you start to connectthe idea of hard work with
reward, and so there's thiscentral rewarding feedback loop,
and it gets to be prettyaddictive for some people, right
?
That's why, when you start toovercome challenge, it's like I
want more of that.
There's a real sort ofbiological component to that,
this thing that you mentioned.

I admit it, mid-singer.
Yeah, it just rolls off the top.
Yeah right, I hear this a lotand I think about it in my own
life, that some of the parts ofme that are the most interesting
don't come from people thinkingthat I was going to do well in
high school, that I was thesmartest person in the room,
that I had the most thingsfigured out.
It was because I was willing totake whatever was given and

(01:04:43):
figure it out when other peoplewanted to fold, particularly in
law school, where you're readingdocuments that are just like
you'd want to close the book andgo to sleep, and you keep going
despite this.
And I remember taking here'sanother fun one taxation of
corporation and shareholders,which was, I think, neuroscience

(01:05:04):
sounds dry.
But I took that course with themindset like I want to learn
these things, because these arethe things you hear about in the
news like, oh, this companymoved this money and they
managed to avoid taxes on this.
Like I wanted to understandthat process and I knew it was
going to be boring, but I wantedto push myself in that regard
so that I could understand thatdifferent side of the world.

(01:05:25):
Would you mind describing moreof like how people continue to
do this in their life?
Because it seems like there'sbenefits.

Yeah, what you're talking about there.
So when I start talking withsomebody about the subject of
mental performance, there's alot that goes into that.
There's a lot of basicfoundational things around sleep
and how you fuel and otherthings.
These things all ladder up tomental performance.
But there are a certain suiteof mental performance skills

(01:05:55):
that can be trained andcultivated that can be really,
really useful for not justathletes but for everybody.
And number one on that list iscuriosity, and that's what you
just described, right.
It's.
I want to know why, right?
So I think it's probably whyyou're a good podcast host too,
because you have a generalinkling towards curiosity.

(01:06:17):
It correlates to all kinds ofsuccess metrics.
And here's the interesting thingabout curiosity it is running
all through kids, right?
Every kid's favorite question,if you have ever had a
four-year-old why, why, why, why?
Curiosity is the software thatruns on this change machine

(01:06:38):
called your brain.
That only works until you getto be about 25 years old and
this magical window ofneuroplasticity really starts to
shut down and we stop beingcurious.
And I always joke with peoplelike tell me your favorite music
, and the answer you invariablyget is well, it's the stuff that
I was listening to in highschool or when I was maybe in my

(01:07:00):
early 20s, and since then allmusic is shit.
Why?
Because we stop being curiousabout other things, right, we
kind of get set in our ways.
We hear this it is a lack ofcuriosity.
So curiosity sort of goes fromthis thing that we had hardwired
when we were younger intosomething that becomes less and

(01:07:24):
less a part of our everyday life.
It's not that it's lost beyondthe age of 25.
You're over 25.
And are you over 25?
I'm 28.

OK, it's hard to tell you got a young face and
I've never asked you that, ifI'm being really honest, when I
turned 25, every day I toldRebecca like my neuroplasticity
is going down.
This is it for me.
Podcast is done.
I did it so often it became aterrible joke, but what?

you're talking about is the upside of
it.
It has to become a practice,and a podcast is a great way to
practice curiosity, because youhave to ask good questions,
which is curiosity.
So that's the foundationalmental performance skill.
It can be cultivated evenbeyond the age of 25.

(01:08:11):
You just have to start gettingreally curious with certain
things, about how you operate,how other people operate.
Ask more questions, ask betterquestions that's what
relationships are built on.
It's not just what makes a goodpodcast, it's what makes a good
relationship.
And it can be done.
We just have to be a little bitmore intentional about it.

Great answers to these questions.
I'm wondering if you can walkus through.
You work with some professionalathletes.
What can all of us learn fromtheir journey?
They're grinding and I often dothis with UFC fighters of like
I'm not going to go become a UFCfighter, but what can I take
away from the grit, thedetermination, the passion, the
love of the game, the energythat they put into it?

(01:08:56):
What can I pull away from thatand learn from?
What can we learn from some ofthe athletes you've worked with?

Well, first of all, I think the best
athletes that I work with theyhave a certain wiring.
I think there's a part of beingat the absolute top of elite
that is sort of not theteachable part.
But on top, that is not enough.
Being super gifted, talented,whatever you want to say, is not

(01:09:25):
enough.
What they also have is acertain gift for just being a
beginner and taking a beginner'smindset, being curious and
using that curiosity as a way todrive change, to drive
improvement, progression, andaccepting the fact that it

(01:09:48):
doesn't happen overnight.
It's sort of like that 1% a daymentality.
What can I do today to justmove me a little bit closer in
the direction of my big goal?
So when we set goals, forexample, everybody here probably
has goals Some big, audaciousthing that we want to achieve in
life for next year?
Great, put it on the map.

(01:10:09):
But what are you going to dotoday?
What thing or set of things canyou do today?
And athletes are really good atgetting a list of things to do.
It's going to be something todo with my body today.
It's going to be something todo with how I feel myself.
It's going to be something todo with how my mental

(01:10:29):
performance is working and theyjust start picking away a little
bit at a time.
All of these are skills, whichmeans they can improve over time
if you put in the work, and Ithink there's a commitment there
to progress and anunderstanding that it is not
linear and when they fail,that's okay.
This is the growth mindsetpiece.

(01:10:51):
If I fail, it's okay.
I can learn there too, and theyunderstand that failure is a
part of the process and theydon't let that deter them.
Those are things we can all do.

Incredible.
My next question was going tobe how can everybody else take
this into tomorrow morning?
Do you have any extra thoughtson that?
Get a good night's sleep.

I think when I work with every athlete, we
spend the first month talkingabout sleep.
It really is the greatestmultiplier of anything good that
can happen performance, feelinggood and it's the biggest
attractor of what can take awayfrom performance and feeling
good.
So that's my basic kind ofboring advice, but literally

(01:11:39):
that is the thing, and I knowfrom the people that I work with
sleep tends to be a prettysignificant issue.
But do your best to take careof your sleep.
That's my practical advice fortomorrow.

Fantastic.
Chris, I'd like to first thankyou for being willing to join us
tonight and share suchfantastic insights.
Can we give a round of applausefor Dr Bergstrom?
Thank you, thank you.
I'm also going to ask if KylieBartell can join us again.
Ooh, now the fun part, the funpart.

(01:12:13):
We're going to get both of youand your insights on some
questions.

Counsellor Kylie Bartel (01:12:18):
So good .
Wow, I feel so privileged tohave taken that in.
That was great.

How is everybody feeling right now?
Good, Thank you, Kylie.
I guess I'll start just byasking is there anything you
took away from what Chris justsaid that stood out to you?

You're going to ask me to pick one
thing.
That seems impossible.
I laughed hard at the partabout music how sometimes that
desire or that practice ofcuriosity tends to dwindle after
our mid-20s.
But I also took a lot ofcomfort in that idea of being
willing to make mistakes, beingwilling to risk failure and

(01:12:58):
being able to work through thatand see the growth mindset in
that.
I remember, when I was learninga little more about that, how
that really opened up my ownwillingness to get comfortable
with being uncomfortable and getcomfortable with risk and that
that was brave to take risks andyeah.
So I just was feeling like, oh,felt like I was on track.

(01:13:19):
I was like yes, what was theband?

What was your favorite music?

Oh, it's a wide range.
Is it bad that the boy bandB4IV comes?
To mind from middle schoolBecause everyone else like
Backstreet Boys and Insect and Ihad to pick something slightly
different.
So on the YTV hit list.

Yeah, that's great.
So we're going to take somequestions from the audience, but
I'm going to ask a few more.
So if you can start to think inyour mind, get into a flow
state about the questions thatyou might have, that would be
fine, struggle through it.

Yeah right, yeah, that's good.

I'm wondering if both of you can share your
thoughts on how people can takea next step in their life that's
going to make improvements.
You mentioned sleep, but I justthink about the willingness to
be mindful about where you're atand where you want to go.
When Rebecca and I werestarting out, we OK, it wasn't
beautiful, but I put thischalkboard paint up on the wall

(01:14:17):
and I drew a long line and I puta 10-year plan with some of
that and we've knocked offeverything on that list and in
part it helps that you see thatevery single day.
It was hideous.
She couldn't stand the look ofa black wall in her home, but it
helped a lot in starting todevelop that planning process.
How do people really go fromwherever they're at, whatever

(01:14:38):
struggles they're facing, toreally taking that meaningful
first step?
Whether it's startingcounseling, whether it's
starting to get physicallyactive, what are your thoughts
on how people really take thatfirst step?

Yeah, do you have thoughts on that?

Yeah, sure, Well, you use that word mindful.
That's a good tool.
One of the really, reallyinteresting things that I think
is gaining some popularity andbroader acceptance is this idea
of a mindfulness practice.
I was a really late adopter tothis, by the way.
I probably, like five years ago, started taking it seriously.

(01:15:09):
It is an incredible meta skillthat basically serves every
other skill you're trying to getbetter at, and it is just this
A lot of words, a lot of baggagearound that term, mindfulness,
but what it means, I think, inits truest sense, is just being
more aware, and it starts withyou being more aware of yourself

(01:15:30):
and how your mind works in itsmost quiet moments.
You can practice this.
There are meditation practicesthat literally every elite
athlete I now work with swearsby.
It is incredible what you canget from that, and I think it's

(01:15:50):
not just true of athletes.
It's been probably the mostimportant skill that I've really
tried to cultivate in myself inthe past again five years or so
, just paying attention to whatyour tendencies are.
You talked about Victor Frankeland that time between stimulus
and response being so keynoticing when you're having a
reaction and noticing, justnoticing.

(01:16:14):
You don't even have to doanything, Just notice it's
happening and it kind of losesits power.
So that is a really importantthing and it's a skill again
that you can get better at.

Yeah, yeah, that's great.
I think too.
Sometimes for my ownmindfulness practices it's
sometimes been hard to staystill.
But even being able tomindfulness and movement like
walks in nature, sitting bystreams where there's movement
it's been fun to be able to playwith different activities of
how to hone that in.
So that's been a big piece forme too.
So I resonate with that one,and another piece I would add is

(01:16:49):
spending.
Your initial question, just likewhere can people get started
about taking this forward?
I've watched a lot of peoplemake great shifts by making sure
they're closely aligned andspending time with people who
are already embodying somethingof what they want to become more
of.
So if you want to be better inyour business, make sure you're

(01:17:13):
spending some time with peoplewho are killing it at business.
Or if you want to be, for me, abetter horseback rider, like,
spend time being around peoplewho are better and even if it's
uncomfortable and you feel kindof self-conscious, sucking in
front of people, be willing toput yourself around the greats
and just soak up what you can,because there's a lot of things,

(01:17:34):
both explicitly and implicitly,that are happening that you can
draw on, that impact us andshape how we're acting, so, I
guess, mindful of who you'respending your time with and what
you're taking in, so that canbe really really key too.

I hate when that happens, when I have a question
in my head and then you kind ofalmost answer it and I still
want to ask it because I thinkit's a good question.
But I imagine even individualslike Nick Taylor we have people
we aspire to be like, we havepeople we look up to and I feel
like the mentorship mentality ismaybe lower in our generations

(01:18:14):
right now.
This willingness to look up atsomeone and go, wow, I aspire to
be like them, not in everysingle facet of who they are,
but saying you do this thingreally well and I admire that
and I look up to that and I'dlike to learn how to be more
like that.
Like part of this podcast islooking at my favorite
interviewers, looking at thepeople who kill it, who make me

(01:18:35):
look terrible, and being willingto learn and having that
humility not to take thatpersonally, to not take their
success as an insult on who I amor where I'm at or my growth.
Like I had to own the fact thatthe first 10 episodes were
gonna be rough because I don'tknow what I'm doing and I'm
still learning these things, andso I'm wondering if both of you
can share your thoughts on likewhat it means to look up to

(01:18:56):
somebody and admire the workthey're doing and aspire to be
more like them.

Sure, Do you want me to go first?
You want to go first?
I have some thoughts on that.

Yeah, well, I think about even in my
own journey, like with horses,trying to learn how to do horses
better, I kind of had reached astage where I was confident
with riding them but if theyreally struggled I didn't know
how to help horses through theirown struggle.
And I was like I want to gofind like a master's degree in
horse training and I startedlike observing different
trainers and really thinking notonly who do I want to be like,

(01:19:27):
but also who do the horses likebeing around most Like.
Sometimes you can get thingsdone but at the end of the day
it doesn't look like the allparties involved are really
enjoying that.
So just this idea of I found amentor and his name's Josh
Nichol.
He specializes in relationalhorsemanship, he's up in
Northern Alberta and I got achance to work intensively with

(01:19:48):
him for about a year and just bearound him.
But, man, was it a humblingexperience because I sucked Like
I just I thought, you know, Iin high school I had competed in
a three day eventing.
I was jumping and having somesuccess with that and I thought
I was good and then I went inand it was this complete
dismantling of everything Ithought I knew and a total

(01:20:10):
change around.
But the cool thing about thatwas that mentorship relationship
completely transformed how Iwork with horses now and I don't
think I could ever go back.
I learned some of the mostincredible things about myself
in that process too, and to beguided by a mentor who could
like allow me to struggle andnot rescue me from it, and also

(01:20:30):
believe in me that I was gonnasee it through.
I'm still on my journey, butthat was a really special
example of, yeah, being willingto get in the arena repeatedly
and just not be good for weeksand then eventually see the
progress change Reminded me.
I took a lot of comfort in them.
The Teddy Roosevelt quote aboutthe man in the arena speech

(01:20:52):
just this idea that the creditdoesn't go to the person on the
sidelines.
The credit goes to the personwho's willing to get in there
and get dirty and you might havemud and sweat and a bit of
blood on your face.
Even if you fail, you do sowell, dear and greatly, and
that's part of there's creditthere.

So it's one of my favorite quotes too, the
thing that I thought of when youasked the question and sort of
putting yourself around peoplethat you look up to, and it got
me thinking a lot about theconcept of belief and the
importance of belief.
And you mentioned Nick Tayloras an example.
But here's a bit of a backstory.
I don't know if you follow muchof golf, but Nick Taylor lives

(01:21:32):
in Abbotsford, lived half timethere, but before Nick Taylor
there was a guy named James LepCouple of chuckles.
If you know James, I know whyyou're laughing, you know.
So James was a few years aheadof Nick and he got a scholarship
down to the States, ended up atthe University of Washington,

(01:21:53):
ended up winning the NCAA men'sgolf championship as this kid
from Abbotsford.
And he didn't end up.
He did play professionally fora while but what he did for
people like Nick and people likeAdam Hadwin and like these are
two people in the top 30 in theworld in this little pocket town

(01:22:16):
of Abbotsford.
And then I got to sort of reapthe belief benefits behind that
because when they were doingtheir thing they were around the
golf course all the time when Iwas coaching the university
golf team and they'd come outand play with them and every
once in a while they'd beat themand they're like I see that
that is possible and, my God,like I can do that.

(01:22:36):
There's no to me.
It's not a coincidence that ourteam won five national
championships.
It was because they believedthey could beat anybody.
So I do think there's greatvalue.
One of my favorite quotes isyou're the average of the five
people you spend the most timewith.
Yeah, surround yourself withgood people and people that you

(01:22:57):
aspire to be.
There's value there.
It changes you in some prettyinteresting ways.

There's nothing better than a good interview
where you say things like thatand I'm inspired.
We will now take some questionsfrom the audience.
So, if you can raise your hand,we have a microphone right here
.
The key is that you actuallyhold the microphone up to your
mouth and don't let it fall awayfrom your arm as you're asking
questions, and it's not for thepeople here they might hear you
but it's for the people onYouTube, all of our thousands of

(01:23:25):
fans sitting online.
Yes, come out.
Do you put up your hand while Iwas asking?

Okay, well, this was originally specifically
for Chris around flow states,but I feel like this is also
gonna be relevant for you aswell.
And I'm just thinking aboutthis.
You talk about a flow statecoming from a point of struggle,
like you struggle first and youkind of get over that hump and
then you hit the flow and youwere talking about this too with

(01:23:55):
your mentorship with the horsesand we're living in an age now
when automation and AI is reallyprominent, and I feel like
there's a threat towards thatflow state because of this.
I kind of just wanna know yourthoughts on this.
Like, where does this sort ofease of access for tasks, like

(01:24:21):
being able to complete thingsquickly and effectively without
having to put any consciousthought into it?
How do you think that willaffect reaching flow state in
the future?
Well, I'll go first.
I'm sure you have thoughts too,but I mean, look, our attention
is under multi-dimensionalassault, and tech is a prime

(01:24:44):
driver there.
The interesting thing does itthreaten flow?
It actually induces these microflow states.
Scrolling through your phone,your attention is fully locked
in.
It's got all thecharacteristics.
Time goes, oh shit.
I just wasted another half anhour on Instagram.
All the Hallmarkcharacteristics of flow show up
there, and that's by design.

(01:25:04):
They know that they're hijackingour dopamine system, and we
just want more, more, more.
There's a great book on this.
It's called the Molecule ofMore.
It's all about dopamine.
It just gives.
It wants more of whatever gaveit dopamine in the first place.
The risk, though, is that thereis so much reward for such
little effort, and I think ifyou could talk about, you'd

(01:25:27):
probably be much better to talkabout this, but the way I think
about addiction as an example,it is this gradual, ever
increasing amount of reward youget for less and less effort for
something, and there is so muchvalue in getting the reward.

(01:25:48):
This part of the brain, themid-singular cortex, it gets
bigger when we lean into hardthings and how that correlates
with so many good measures, fromacademic success to happiness.
I just fear that so much of thework around getting reward is
missing and, I think, at greatcost.

Yeah, I would agree with that on a lot
of fronts.
It makes a lot of sense to mewhy things like AI are so
exciting and seductive right now, especially when you understand
the psychology of how the brainis always trying to streamline
things.
The brain is a massive energysuck.
It burns so many calories andit's always trying to be more

(01:26:32):
efficient.
Like the idea that once we'vegot the pattern down, even if
it's not super maybe it's notthe it works okay, but it's not
the best that's when I'm helpingpeople retrain their coping
styles or coping strategies,which can even be in more
pathological instances likeaddiction.
Like it's hard to rewire thingsbecause once the brain's like it
kind of works, it wants to staywith that.

(01:26:55):
But then so when it's like, oh,I have this tool that'll do so
much for me, you know, and thenit can be monetized and you're
getting all these differentbenefits, you can see why it's
so seductive, and I couldn'tagree more with just being able
to get back to how struggle canreally deepen a reward and in a
way that's probably moremeaningful in the long term.

(01:27:16):
Right, something that you knowsometimes you can evaluate the
value of something by how muchit costs.
So if it's just like superquick and easy, you know how
really valuable that is in thelong term.
So, especially even withworking with kids and youth I do
a fair bit of work with kidsand youth.
I love getting them outdoorsand off of screens and things

(01:27:36):
like that and getting them tohave to struggle through things,
because it's flexing that skilland I think if you've felt the
success there, you can balanceit a little bit.
But that mindful engagementwith how things are happening is
super important and so thatwe're using our tools available
to us intentionally as opposedto getting used by them or the

(01:27:57):
people that employ them yeah,Any other questions?

people want to put up their hand.
One person.
I think we'll have time for twomore.

Audience Member (01:28:11):
Hello, question for Dr Flo.
Oh okay, I'm brand new to Floas of today, so you were today
years old when you heard aboutFlo.
Exactly so further clarityneeded.
You talked about frontal lobesuppression and that movement
was a necessary component ofthat.

(01:28:32):
Does that mean that Flo isn'tachievable without movement, and
are either of you in a state ofFlo right now?

I.
So, first of all, yes, when youget up in like one of the big
things that we call Flo triggers, the things that can push you
towards Flo, risk is a very bigone, and sitting here in front
of a bunch of people with lightsin your face is definitely a
Flo trigger.
You kind of have to dial in theanxiety piece of it a little

(01:29:06):
bit.
But, yes, so the questionaround movement Movement Flo
tends to be an action state, butit doesn't have to be physical
action.
Sort of mental action can bringthis onto.
It's why you know, just usingthe bad example of technology,
certainly that's sure you'reusing your thumb, but it's

(01:29:28):
keeping your mind moving.
So it sort of has a movementcomponent to it, but it's not
just physical.
So moving your body definitelycan start to nudge you in that
direction, but anything reallythat's driving focus, which
comes in the form of adrenaline.
So this is why this is a reallypowerful version of that, but

(01:29:50):
also is some reward mechanism.
So you get a little dopaminemixed in.
It's things that start to bringon this neurochemistry that is
associated with Flo.
That tends to set you up for it.
Movement's one way, but it'snot the only way.

May I just quickly add that one of the interesting
things that I learned was I wasdoing EMDR therapy, which is
like rapid eye movement therapy,and they have this bar and you
watch this light go back andforth and it felt very bizarre
and you kind of go through thethings that you've been through
and you watch this light go backand forth.
And then I learned that walkinghas the same benefit.

(01:30:28):
Going for a walk with a friendand talking about the things
you've been through or thechallenges of your day or the
things that you're dealing with,and going for that walk can A
have that element of flow to it,but B can also be a form of
therapy that many people talkabout.
Kylie, would you mind quicklycommenting on that?

Yeah, the mechanism they're trying to
get at with EMDR, with thelights going back and forth, is
something called bilateralstimulation of the brain, which
is just trying to get your brainfiring on.
So you've got two hemispheresof the brain that's connected by
the corpus clausum in themiddle, and so what happens when
you get it firing, like whenyou're doing something with your
body, that's a left right, leftright motion.
So that's why the light bargoes back and forth, or

(01:31:07):
sometimes they'll put paddles inyour hand that buzz left right,
left right.
You can even sometimes I'veheard of people that like tap on
your knees left right, leftright.
It has a calming effect and ithas a way of kind of bridging
parts that might be gettingstuck or over aroused or over
heightened or overwhelmed.
So yeah, actually interesting.
One of the super therapeuticactivities is even kayaking,

(01:31:30):
because you've got the leftright, left right of pushing on
the paddles.
So it's some of my bestconversations with kids have
been in a tandem kayak goingaround Pender Island.
It's had some really coolconversations that way.
So yeah, just the flow statesthat come from that are pretty
powerful.

I have one quick comment on this.
I don't know if we have time,but one of the really
interesting things about that iswhen we do move through space,
your eyes do kind of move backand forth a little bit.
It's just what happens as partof the wiring.
And when we move throughthree-dimensional space, the
world is moving past us and itactually triggers a mechanism
side of us that is not relatedto flow state, but it's called

(01:32:07):
optic flow and it's just theworld moving past your eyes and
it tends to bring heart ratedown and bring blood pressure
down, and it's one of thereasons why it can be an
effective therapy, because itsort of brings down the stress
response.
It doesn't show up if you'redoing it on a treadmill, which
is a really interesting thingabout indoor exercise versus

(01:32:29):
outdoors.
So, yes, being outside has alot of benefits, but actually
moving yourself through spacehas an additional benefit that
being stationary, even on yourPeloton, doesn't quite give you.

That's good.
Ok, we have time for one morequestion.
I think Corbin had his hand up.
He's looking around confused,but I believe you had your hand
up the last time.

Tim (01:32:58):
First of all, thank you so much to all three of you.
This was an absolute pleasureto be able to listen to Kylie.
I had a question for you,although maybe others can chime
in.
Erin had asked about differentkinds of therapy and you had
mentioned there's somatic,emotional, cognitive.
One thing myself and I'm sureothers struggle with is how do

(01:33:23):
you find out about whatdifferent kinds of therapy is
actually available?
Listening to podcasts, talkingwith friends, watching Netflix
things, whatever.
A lot of the times people say,oh, a friend told me about this
and they just stumbled upon it.
What advice would you give tosomebody who comes to you that

(01:33:44):
says equine therapy is not forme?
How can I figure out what's mypace?

Yeah, fantastic.

Tim (01:33:51):
Because and also a point to it is it's not free, it costs
money.
So how do you do it effectively?
So good.

Yeah, thanks for that question, and it
does come up fairly often inthe traditional practice part of
my private practice because Ilove the outdoor stuff, but I do
traditional counseling as welland I'll often even share with
people how the best outcomes intherapy come.
It's interesting when they makea pie chart about what's most
effective in therapy.

(01:34:20):
The therapeutic alliance inyour belief that the person
you're sitting with can actuallyhelp you is a very large part
of the pie.
So rapport and relationship aresuch a huge foundational part
that usually when I first meetwith clients I'll say hey, I
know this is a first session.
We talk through some of thelogistics and I kind of give a
little bit of information.

(01:34:40):
But about confidentiality, andI always say to them too if you
get to the end of the sessionand you don't feel like you're a
good fit for me, please feelfree to let me know.
My goal here is for you to getthe help you need, even if that
means that I might want to.
I might need to refer you tosomeone else and you can kind of
get a gauge too, depending onhow things are going in the
conversation.

(01:35:00):
But it's a weird experiment tobe able to say, I won't be
offended at all if you'refeeling like you need some
supports outside of this.
So I actually I do encouragepeople to trust their gut a
little bit.
Sometimes they maybe give it asession or two, two or three
just to kind of get your feetwet into things.
And the thing is that differenttherapists special in different
approaches.
So what I would recommend forpeople is most therapists will

(01:35:23):
have a bio on a website orsomething like that and if you
can familiarize yourself alittle bit with just a few of
the different terms that's why Ikind of said cognitive,
emotional and somatic as kind ofcamps.
But even within those campsthere's big.
There's a lot of differenttherapies out there to navigate,
but I do there are some goodmatches between certain

(01:35:45):
therapies.
So, for example, there's atherapy called dialectic
behavior therapy.
That's especially good foremotion dysregulation issues.
We're trying to find logic andemotion and find the wise mind
in between and it's really goodfor people who have really big
emotions.
But I know of one friend whowas recommended to go to that
but his problem was that hisemotions were all flat, he

(01:36:06):
didn't feel anything.
So to go to a therapy that'smeant for regulating massive
emotions he's like this doesn'treally land Because I just don't
feel anything at all and heactually found a lot of help in
healing through some of thepsychedelic-assisted therapies
that help wake stuff up whenthey feel a little stuck and
frozen.
So even just to be able if I canencourage anyone that's

(01:36:26):
contemplating therapy and ifyou're feeling like it's
expensive and maybe you're notgetting the traction that you
want, it's fully within yourprerogative and in your power to
say I'm going to either askyour therapist more questions
about how they're trained andwhere you want to go and be OK
to say that maybe just becausethat therapist is a great

(01:36:48):
therapist is a great therapist,maybe they are really good at a
certain therapy but it's not theright fit for you.
You can get a lot quicker andget a lot farther if there's a
good match.
So paying attention to that andletting that take up space is
super fair and valuable.

Oh, follow up.
Yeah, is there any websiteseither of you recommend for
starting that process?
If they haven't started,therapy seems maybe like an
unnecessary ways to go to twosessions and not know.
Yeah, is there like a goodwebsite you could recommend that
would start you on the processof what therapies exist and how
to choose which one might bealigned with you.

That's a good question.
I mean, psychology today is apretty good.
They have the inventory of allthe therapists and then they
typically have the therapiesthey're trained in and then you
can Google that from there.
And there's a lot ofinformation out there I don't
have a go to, but, yeah, usuallyonce you get the keywords and
you can search those, there'ssome great resources between

(01:37:45):
YouTube and Google.

Final follow up then Is there any voices you
recommend who are experts in thefield that you could go watch
on YouTube?
Because I do find that there'svalue and you might not be
meeting with that person, butthat's a good starting place,
and then they'll tell you thingsabout their therapies and then
you'll kind of go well, that'sthe one that I want.
Is there any recommendations?

Yeah, I mean, as far as I send a lot of
people to, there's like a howto ADHD channel and then they
have a long YouTube and theyhave a lot of great information
things that are well resourcedand then they also do a lot of
that's specific to ADHD, butthey often talk about anxiety,
depression, kind ofcomorbidities.
Attachment nerd is a greatresource on Instagram that talks

(01:38:30):
a lot about attachment styles.
She's a mom and a therapist andshe's real and shares a lot of
great information.
There's so many out there atMessiahsJ Barker as an Instagram
account that talks a lot aboutfamily relationships and working
through conflict.
And Sarah Kubrick, who you hadrecently, she does a ton of work
with trauma and existentialpurpose and things like that.

(01:38:51):
So again, it's kind of like,thankfully, with the internet,
even with what you're doing here, you're making information more
accessible to people at a levelthat's free, so they can get a
taste before they put down themoney to go see someone, and you
get a sense of what might be agood fit and what's out there,
and I'm so thankful, even thoughtechnology and all the AI
things out there can have theirlimitations or some of their

(01:39:14):
detrimental effects.
I do think that when the toolsare used well and can share
information quality information,like what we've heard tonight
and make that accessible to somany people.
I just love those ways of howthese tools are utilized.

What a beautiful way to wrap this up.
Thank you both.
Can we get a huge round ofapplause for both of them?
Thank you.
Yeah.
So I'm going to ask you both tostep out and follow our
photographer.
You are all staying here, sosimmer down.
I'm going to ask you both towait out here with the balloon

(01:39:54):
arch and I'm hoping when we'rewrapped up in here, people can
come grab some photos.
Feel free to take off theheadsets if you prefer, but take
a breath, relax.
You killed it.
I mean, I'm really the mainevent, right?
I wanted to briefly thank youall for coming this evening.

(01:40:15):
I'm so grateful.
It's such an honor to have apacked house filled with people
who are interested, engaged,laughing, having a great night.
And, tim, can we wrap the liveand say goodbye to those people
who may have been watchingonline?
It's got to be like an end livebutton.

(01:40:37):
Right, it's done.
How is everybody feeling?
How's the night?
Out of 10?
Good, good.
Okay, I have to be honest andI'm going to force you all to be
a part of this.
Tim, I'm going to ask you tocome out here because I couldn't

(01:40:58):
have started this series of thepodcast, I couldn't have
interviewed half the names thatI've had on without your support
, and so we're good on therecording.
The live is over.
I need you to come out here andI need to show my appreciation
for you and I need to make youuncomfortable.
He loves being in thebackground, he loves hiding in
there, but I have to ask you tocome out here.
You're the man I'm going tomake you open it right now, in

(01:41:23):
front of everybody.

Tim (01:41:28):
Karen, I know this is your second live show you've done
here and I have to tell you Iforgot to hit record Perfect.

Well, you all had a good time right.
I want you to open this infront of everybody.
I know that you put in so muchwork and this is a person who
never looks for appreciationwho's probably having a stroke
inside right now having to dothis in front of everybody, but
he does so much work for thecommunity behind the scenes and
he never seeks appreciation.

(01:41:56):
He's always willing to take acall, show someone the space.
He created this space becausehe wanted to connect with the
community, and so he's a personI really admire and I just I
can't thank you enough foreverything that you do for the
community, and you do it backthere and you don't look for
recognition, and so I got youthis out of appreciation for
everything that you do.
It's an eagle feather.
Thank you all for coming.

(01:42:28):
Thank you all for coming.
There's more food right there.
There's more chips.
There's calendars that Ico-made with our photographer,
alex Hart.
They're free, so please takethem.
I want to share them with you.
He took every single photo inthere.
There's more food.
There's more snacks, there'smore opportunities for mingling,
so, please, I hope you all hada great night.
We'll be doing this again inJune, so please come back out

(01:42:50):
and show your support.
Thank you all.
You're free.

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