Psychologist, Writer, Advisor and Mentor

My guest today is the NY Times best seller, Gloria Vanderhorst

About her

I started my practice as a psychologist working with preschool children, mainly boys, as the female teachers saw them as problematic with their exuberance and physical energy and labeled them as hyperactive or attention-deficient.

My work resulted in their fathers coming to therapy to explore their emotional angst. I was privileged to see how our culture robs males of access to the full range of emotions necessary for a healthy sense of self and healthy relationships with others.

As I continued to work with men and help them to access feelings that have been blocked from early childhood, I began to write about their stories and examine how our culture has systematically limited the emotional development of males. I am writing a book about the developmental dangers of being a male in this culture and how fathers can help their sons avoid the trap of the emotional desert.

My therapy work focuses on helping men develop broader, healthier relationships with their spouses and families. Many of the blogs I write weekly are designed to help men and women better understand their emotional selves and the dynamics of relationships.

I currently serve couples and individuals using Internal Family Systems and Emotion Focused Therapy. These two approaches are the most advanced and most successful treatment approaches. They recognize that our brains are marvelous storage units that hold onto our life experiences. Those experiences influence how we behave in the present. When individuals can access that data, they can make changes that benefit them and their relationships.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, guys, it's Pete for Beef Anxiety here. Welcome in
today's episode. I appreciate all being here so much. Let's
talk about a few things real quick. The P for
so Anxiety Team anxiety Facebook group. Are you a part
of it? You're not? What are you waiting for? The
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the team Anxiety team page and joining today, why on

(00:22):
you can join the help it'd be great, Like right now,
hurry up, stop it doing paused video? Go do around.
But anyways, let's also talk about the P for Anxiety
YouTube page. You guys, if you're here right now, you're
probably following it most likely. If not, head on over
there subscribe. Do sure I like in comment on the
videos and let me know because all that stuff really
helps guys, I really appreciate it and help me break
the stigma that mental health is talked about enough. But anyways, guys,

(00:45):
let's get in today's episode. I'll I have a great one.
Thank you so much again, and as always, say, don't
ask your day is, ask how your mental health is?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Nice Welcome into their exciting episode of Pete fors anxiety.
We are back for a double header. My guest today
has fifty years experience working with preschoolers through adults in
her dynamic psychology practice. Her current focus, though, is the
emotional development of men and boys and how is culture
rob's mails of access to full range of emotions leaving

(01:14):
them handicapped. She's also a New York Times best selling
journal book Let's Try It Again the New York Time bestseller.
Her journal book called Read, Reflect, and Respond The Three
Hours of Growth and Change. So's welcome in, Gloria Vanderhurst.
How are you doing today, Gloria Pete.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I'm doing great today. It's good to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Awesome. I'm so happy here, Gloria. Why don't you tell
everybody a little bit more about yourself? I mean, I
know your shift no artists towards men, and we'll get
to that in a second. But let'll sit here a
little more about Gloria.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, I'm a psychologist. I'm in private practice, and I
went into private practice after teaching college for several years.
And the initial experience of private practice was mind blowing
because I started with preschool children. Now you might wonder

(02:09):
why in the world would a preschooler need to see
a psychologist. And it turns out that preschools are run
by women, and they get a little distressed when boys
are being typical boys moving around a lot more, being

(02:31):
louder than the girls, getting irritated with each other, pushing, shoving,
So they get attention from the teacher, but it isn't
positive attention. It's really negative attention. And what we did
not understand and know now because of all of the

(02:56):
research on the development of boys, and there's tons of
research on the development of boys, is that boys come
into the world with a broader range of emotional expression
than girls. Now, think about that, right, they have access

(03:17):
to more emotion, both higher and lower than girls do,
and so naturally they're going to behave differently. Yeah, yeah,
and it's fascinating. We didn't. We don't. The research takes

(03:41):
so long to get down to the public where it
really belongs, that people didn't realize that boys had a
broader range of emotional expression. The problem is that most
infants are cared for or by Femalesemale is very familiar

(04:06):
with the emotional range of girls, not that familiar. Don't
even know about the fact that boys have this broader range,
and so when the boy goes high with his energy
or low with his energy, mother tends to back away, right,

(04:27):
and that leads to boys narrowing their emotional expression or
exploding and getting themselves into trouble. And that's it's tragic.
And there's a direct relationship to why are our jails

(04:51):
filled with men?

Speaker 3 (04:54):
That's true. Okay, that makes true based on based on
what you're just talking to Yeah, okay, and I could
I could speak that says to you, cause I raised
three girls on my own for a little bit. And
it's different though, because we as men, we don't understand women.
You know, we always think that women are more emotional
than us. So but it's really the opposite, apparently, And
that's soda was mind blowing, we said. I was like, what,

(05:15):
we're the direct opposite. I'm like, that's that's so fascinating though.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
But then because of centuries of culture right where we
had to send the male out of the cave with
a spear to go kill something, right, that male cannot
be using kind of the more tender end of the
emotional spectrum and be successful at hunting with a spear,

(05:45):
and so as a culture for centuries, we have robbed
males of access to that more tender end of the
spectrum in terms of feelings. They can't feel anxious, they
can't feel nervous, they can't feel sad, they can't feel tender.

(06:05):
We've taken it all the way. Yeah, but in this
day and age, we're not sending men out with spears
to kill mastodims. We're hardly sending them to war. Right,
we do war pushing buttons, and so we have to

(06:27):
be able to allow men to re experience the full
range of emotion, particularly in the face of artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is going to replace so many things that
men and women do that if we don't educate men

(06:51):
and re attach them to the full range of emotion,
we're really going to be in trouble. True, all right,
with artificial intelligence, we're going to have a lot more
free time. We're going to have many more opportunities to
interact with each other. There will be whole new ranges

(07:15):
of experiences that will open up to us. And maybe
I won't have to cook anymore. Right, I'm sitting in
my kitchen, right, maybe there'll be a robot it's my meal. Well,
then what am I going to do with the time
I would have spent cooking right interact with my husband?

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Oh no, we can't do that though, because you hear
the husband in all aspects of anything you see, is
always watching TV or watching sports, or they're doing something
and they call over having manly time and all those
kind of things like that too, or there in their
man cave, you know, things like that.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Right, But the demand will be for much more interaction,
both mail to male and male to female. So we
have to give our boys and our men full access
to all of their feelings. And the way to do

(08:13):
that is to educate them, yeah, right, is to let
them know that they do have access to all those
feelings that it was intentionally or unintentionally trained out of them.
But I think pretty much intentionally we train that out
of them. You don't want them to cry. I'll tell

(08:36):
you a story, real story. My daughter was three. We're
visiting friends who also have a three year old boy.
Kids are playing nicely over in another part of the
room that my daughter keeps. The boy's favorite toy will
not give it back, all right, So the boy tries,
and then he gets a little bit fussy and he

(08:58):
turns around and he starts walking towards his parents, and
he's crying. His favorite toy has just been denied him.
He has a right to cry. He should be crying, right,
And his father backhands him in the chest, sits him
on his butt and tells him to stop crime. Now,

(09:19):
that is the way that we have been treating boys.
We don't give them comfort when they're distressed sad. They
need comfort their human beings. We should never deny them
that form of comfort. But we're stuck in time and

(09:44):
place of hundreds of years before where we require men
to eliminate access to the tender parts of their personality.
We have to change that.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, because it's always what it's a me. Me and
one of my guys. Early on in the show, we
Betsey Holberg and I were talking about this. She said
that men have that tower system. It's the way we
look at things like the alpha male being the top
and then you have that tower like rung type system,
which is kind of like goofy if you ask me,
because my thoughts on it is it's like, if you're
the alpha male, you should be able to hit all aspects.

(10:20):
There's nothing you should be closed off from you know, okay,
well you got the macho apparants, that's great, but what
about your emotional side? And a lot of times, a
lot of them don't even want to talk. Oh well,
I'm not a female. That's that's the cheer. The Ryan
ray torments starts somebody saying, oh, I'm not a female.
I'm out at this. Whatever term you want to insert there.
It's always used like that. But that's like how it's
portrayed though. But on the same thing, it's somebody somebody

(10:41):
said the female side sometimes, isn't eviny better with that? Kids,
they're like, well, I don't want a man who's who
cries or you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
You're absolutely right, right, I think women are the worst. Right,
they're really the culprits in cooperating. They say they want
a loving husband. But if their husband is tender or
cries at a movie, right, they make fun of him.

(11:12):
Yeah right. They don't embrace that. They don't say, oh,
that's so sweet. If the cry is the first time
his child walks, they get made fun of. Right, what's
wrong with Sam? Right, he's a cry baby? And then
we have all kinds of derogatory terms.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
I was gonna just say that to you already, baby,
to the punch. We have all kinds of terms they
call each other because that's how we do, is man,
we'd like to give each other hell about things. And
I think it's it's it's very toxic, honestly, and you know,
social media doesn't help either, with these videos where people
are like you see the guy upsetting and the girls
like wait, crying for wait him, and then she's like
yelling at him. It's like, but if it's the flip side,

(11:56):
you'd be mad if he was asking you why, you know,
It's like, yeah, it's just so. It's it's scary though,
because if we think about the statistics of suicide down
eighty percent of our men, fifty percent of the population
of men, you know, and if you look at it
in a group setting five five friends together, three of
them aren't coming back, three of them are going for

(12:17):
some reason, and suitside's probably the number one thing. And
it think gets the scary part about it is that
that we as men have been told these to be quiet,
don't talk about these things, like okay, well we're even quiet,
but at this point we're going at an alarming right.
I think there's a problem there that you know. But
it's like, then you saw these videos, you know, for
last my people mocking because you know, men's mental health

(12:38):
and things like that. I'm like, but why why are
you making fun of somebody when you know it's it's
a real thing, Like we're losing guys faster than we
have them coming in, you know, and then we make
up most of the population. So like, when that whole
part of the population's gone, then what are you going
to say?

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Then?

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Oh, you go, oh, well, we could have done something different. Yeah,
we shouldn't be in that what if kind of reality.
You know, we need to do something now, especially teaching
these younger kids because with social media. I know, I
had a guess on mister Whiskey. He came on and
we were talking about it. He said, I think I'm
trying to do He said twenty some of the twenties,
twenty percent tiles somewhere in there. He said that when
social media got introduced, young men were suicide was a

(13:16):
number one death for most of them because of that,
and it was twenty percent because of just for social
media alone, which is as crazy if you think about it. Kids,
Like someone said, old enough the first interaction that was
AOL and you know all those other things like that
and stuff, you know, and now you have like so
many different things, like god, these people have so many
always get you. But like before we just had you know,

(13:37):
al in semester and then the MSN and I think
was the other one, the opposite side one. But you know,
you had those two messaging systems. But now you've got Facebook,
you got Instagram, you got x tip, you got all
these things. Man Like, it's like you can attack each
other at an alarming rate, and it's scary.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
It's very scary. And we disconnect more now than ever. Right,
take two teenagers sitting next to each other. Each one
of them's on their phone. Yep, that's who they're talking to,
you know, person next to them.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
A lot of times, yes, going.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
To the person next to them, that's criminal. Right, We're
not even looking at the person when we're talking to them.
And so much of communication is nonverbal, right, so much
as reading the face and the body. And if you're
looking at a phone and talking to the person sitting
next to you, you're missing ninety eight percent of communication.

(14:35):
You're just missing it.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
When you said that Gloria thinking of this movie. I
don't know if you ever heard of. It's called Don't
Be a Menace. That's exactly what they're doing. They're standing
The two guys are standing there each other, so they
call each other the phone, and I picked up, Hey man,
that's all Hey listen man, you want to get out here? Yeah,
let's get it. They're literally standing side to side, right.
So when you said that, that's why I was thinking.
I was like, oh my god, it's hilarious because it's
like it's so true. I mean, like you know that

(14:58):
a lot of times if you will go restaurant just
look around and seeing people on their phones, it's like, it's.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Like, and it's gonna hurt us. It's already hurting us
in terms of social skills and the ability to read
and empathize with another person. It is undermining the culture
and robbing us of connection.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Yeah, you know. And it's it's also because that sensation
that they get from seeing they're like, oh god, you know,
I don't want to be missing anything. The I don't
want to miss out type thought process. Well, I don't
want to miss on, and trust me, it's going to
still be there. Tomorrow any like it's changing, you know,
it's really nothing new, you know. And when I do,
my my wife will start talking. I'll leally take the phone.
I'll put it screen down when she's talking to me.
That way, I'm paying attention to what she's doing. And

(15:45):
it's something I had to learn too, because I just got,
you know, so fixated on what I was doing, you know,
and she's like, well, i'm talking to you're not paying attention.
So I literally put it downward and face down. Sometimes
I'm just sitting there. I'll have a face down because
it's like you know, or I'll set boundaries like five pm.
I'll usually not respond to anybody after that point unless
it's something I know they need to respond to. But
usually I just I turn it. I'll take my phone

(16:06):
and letly put it face down and leave there. And
you know, normally I have it in my hand all
the time, but I'm getting to teaching myself the habit
and not having it with me all the time. At
that point, I'm like, no, you're home. I'm here with
you because that's when she gets home from work, so
that's my time and her time until I go to
work because I work nice, So I take that time
and focus it for her, and I you know, you know,
sometimes you know, it's like she's had a rough face,

(16:26):
so she's just kind of relaxing or whatever. You know,
we're just kind of hanging on talking whatever. But anytime
she starts talking to me, if I'm I'm looking at
something it's not that important, it goes straight down and
Lily put the phone down and things like that, and
it's it was a hard habit to learn though, I mean,
but it's very important.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Several families have you know, baskets in the kitchen and
they're at the front door and have their kids and
the two of them as well, put all the phones
in the basket at least for some period of time
so that there can be real human interaction. We have
a eliminated real human interaction with these phones.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah. Well, there's also the live streaming and things like
that too that you know, everybody's always doing and stuff
like that. So like everything you're doing has to be
publicized and it's got to be got to show every
live and it's like what are we teaching these younger
kids about the things they're seeing, Because it's the internet,
you know, it's just everything that's out There's just so
much information just floating around, you know, and people are

(17:25):
just so like derogatory towards each other. So they're seeing
these videos, you know, and they're being sensitized to these
ideas and they're thinking, Okay, well this is how I
should do things because I'm watching these videos or I'm
going on the internet and having access to more information,
not understanding the difference between fact and crap, you know, basically, right, and.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Their anxiety is increasing. That's happening across the board, right, male, female,
regardless of the age, anxiety is increasing. In particular in
our children, anxiety is increasing, and we have to pay
attention to that. We really have to help people get

(18:06):
back to doing human connections, not robotic connections, because that
phone is like a robot, right, It's an that you
carry around.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, it's like your life source for a lot of them,
you know, it's like they're just so attached to it
and things like that. And then every time you see
a kids, sometimes their their parents always give them the
phone or here you go, and it's like and they're
not paying sometimes not even paying attention to what they're watching.
So they're watching these these horrific videos and things they
shouldn't even be watching.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Right.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
The same thing goes for online access to like like
these kids that play these roadblocks and all these other
things like that. There's there's a lot of predators that
are out there too that people don't seem to understand that.
You've got to watch what these kids are doing nowadays.
This is not the nineties anymore. The interaction is limited
to some things. You know, you have roadblocks and all
these other things that these these guys are getting on
and asking these questions, and these kids don't know what

(18:58):
they're asking them.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
I got to situation with the Next of Mind her friend,
her son was giving out her personally some home address.
I'm like, you might want to go stop your son.
He's giving out your home address some random person. That's frightening,
you know what I'm saying. It's like, you don't know
who that person is on the other side of the screen,
thank you know. And the things that gets said to
you know, we can talk about that too. That's that's
just crazy. Like these guys are going on there bullying

(19:21):
these kids. And then it was the incident recently where
it was the kid online was talking trash of the
guy to a grown man. The grown man got upset
fund where the kid lived, came over and shot the kid.
It's like, really like.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Those things are happening, there's no doubt about it. And anxiety.
The reason that I wrote this book, which is a
journal book ye is to address this directly right, to
give people a process for diving deeper into their own histories,

(19:53):
into their own feeling states, and being able to mature
and way that they understand themselves. And it works. You
read a passage and the facing page in this journal
book is blank, which is highly unusual because most journals

(20:15):
have lines. They expect you to write answers that we
hold information in terms of physiology, in terms of pictures,
in terms of images, in terms of motion. So the
facing page in this book is blank so that you

(20:37):
can scribble, you can draw, you can certainly write words
if words come to mind. But so much of what
we know about ourselves is also packed into our brains
in just in terms of action and motion. So it
gives you access to pieces of your brain that you

(20:57):
wouldn't access in other ways, and it leads to amazing
shifts and growth and understanding of who you are and
what you need to address in order to change the
way that you're functioning. And I want to encourage everyone

(21:20):
to really take themselves more seriously and know that they
can change. You can change at any age. Right. You
could be one hundred and two and you're still capable
of emotional change that can bring healing into you. And
that's the goal of the writing that I'm doing, is

(21:43):
to help people heal.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, and what inspired you to make the journal? I
mean it's like that hats off, it's in your best
seller that and this loan is a very big deal
right there. But you wrote this book not realizing what
it was going to become now.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
You know, right, Yeah, I started just publishing journals, okay,
right on the internet, Mailchimp, substack. Just they came to me.
It's like these things were visiting me and I had
to write them down and started throwing them out there
to the public. And there were so many of them

(22:20):
that I decided I'm going to put them together into
a book. So there are fifty two of them essays
in this book. So you have one a week. You
can go at your own pace. There's no direct order
to it. They're kind of organized in different topic areas,
but you can bounce around all through that book, right,

(22:42):
whatever strikes you when you open it up that particular day,
respond to that because your brain knows what you need,
and you can trust your brain. You can really lean
into your brain. Your brain has stored everything you have
ever experienced from day one. In fact, we know it

(23:05):
stores things even from the last trimester in uter row.
So there are traumas in your early experience. Those traumas
jump into the present. When you can use a book
like this journal book to trigger those early memories, you

(23:25):
can heal from those traumas. Now, they may not be
something that you're going to call gigantic. Right, Let's say
that I'm five and I really need comfort. I have
been hurt out on the playground, right, physically and emotionally hurt.

(23:48):
I really need comfort, But nobody's there, right, That injury
stays inside of me, that gets act away in my brain.
When I need comfort, when I'm in trouble, nobody is

(24:10):
really going to help me, all right. So when you're
an adult and you're working in an office and you
run across something that's a puzzle and you really need help,
you don't go find help. You try something on your own, right,

(24:31):
and it's a flop, when if you had gotten out
of your chair and gone to seek help, it would
have been a completely different experience. So the past jumps
into the present in ways that we really do not appreciate,

(24:54):
but really need to appreciate so that we can become
the people we designed to be, particularly for men, right
because we have so limited their ability to grow emotionally.
I'm encouraged by the number of men's groups that are

(25:15):
developing across the United States, where men are coming together
in groups to talk about their life experiences, to do retreats,
to really challenge themselves to uncover emotion and become comfortable
with emotion. That's really exciting. I think you have a

(25:37):
group as well.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, I do a panel every month with men assemble,
just random five random people usually, and we just get
together and we talk about it because I think that
you know, like you said, we just I don't think
we talk about it if honestly we obviously don't. Let's
look at the statistics. Citics that don't lie. The numbers
aren't lying at this point, right, you know, with everything
we're seeing, like we need to do something now, like

(25:59):
it we need to be more active, more proactive about
these things. So you know, it's always great when you
see people that are focused on trying to teach young
gentlemen these things too, because I think if we teach
them younger, we're setting them up from our success in
life versus you know, just kind of crippling them, like
you were saying, you know, and it's it's hard though,
I mean, with all these other misinformation everything else going on.

(26:20):
It's it's just so much that you're combating with at
the same time because now information comes at a faster
rate for most people, you know, in the cell phones
and TikTok and the TV and all these other internet things,
and it's just like you know, you know, there's a
rating system to a lot of stuff, but I don't
think people are paying attention to that anymore. It's like, okay,
well this is you know, before it was rateed R

(26:42):
I mean strictly seventeen and up, and now it's like
it doesn't matter because you get you know, does not know.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
And I'm working on a book that's aimed at fathers
to help them do a better job of raising their boys. Okay,
maintaining access to the full range of emotion. So I'm
hoping to have that out by the end of this year.
Very excited about that and really want fathers to have

(27:15):
the help that they need to do a better job
of legitimizing the full range of feeling states for their boys.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
That's awesome. Do you have a working title for it?

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yes, it is how not to blank up raising your son?

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Oh my god, Yes, that is an awesome title. That
is so great.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
You know what the blank is, but I can't say it.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, you know, you're right, Yeah, we got it's that's awesome.
I'm telling you. I want to check that out now,
just as the title loan is an eye grabber. It's
just you know, I think that's so great. So how
did you come up with that? When it was it
just something you're like, you're like with us. And now
that I'm targeting I'm working towards men and young man
maybe we need to have the fathers help me out
now and give them a little give them a little

(28:00):
guidance as you go for everything too.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know, well, as I told you in the beginning,
I started working with preschool boys. Yeah, and it wasn't
long before the fathers of those preschoolers started putting themselves
on my calendar.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Okay, okay, many of those.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Fathers had attention deficit that had not been recognized in childhood,
and it has been difficult for them to go through life.
I honestly believe that attention deficit is an advance in
the brain. And if you look at the list of

(28:41):
inventors and entrepreneurs, majority of them are men with attention deficit.
So I am convinced that this is a new brain
in the process of developing and taking over. But it's

(29:02):
a struggle for that brain to exist in this current environment.
So those men filled my calendar for seven years straight.
And I learned so much from these male clients about
what it's like to be a boy, what it's like

(29:23):
to be a teenager, what it's like to be an
adult in this culture and in this system, and the
limitations and the difficulties as well as the pluses. But
it's difficult to be a male in this society. Right.

(29:46):
We honor aggression in boys and then all right, but
we never teach them how to manage all of the disappointment, irritation,
and they don't know how to problem solve with feelings,
and so they end up being explosive, aggressive, verbally hostile.

(30:13):
Not a good plan all right for developing relationships with
men or women, and definitely not a good plan for
developing relationships with their children. So I'm hoping to really
educate men on how to do a much better job
of relating to their boys, in particular, so that their

(30:37):
boys grow up with a better understanding of what it
means to be human and have access to the full
range of emotional expression. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, no, I think that's that's a great idea though,
because I think teaching them emotional regulation early on is
helpful as well, you know, because there was I had
a gentleman on this from Canada named Leroy Roy has
a book says just Breathe, and he's he was teaching
the kids young as four and five, likes, what you
got to do is just take a deep breath and
think about what you're doing, you know, And it was hilarious.

(31:11):
So because he was he's actually a principal too, so
by his normal job, he's the principle, so he interacts
with these kids. He instituted this in his own his
own school and he's seen an amazing turnaround with them.
You know, a lot of times he like he'll pull
it aside, like, hey, listen, you know what happened, Like
I didn't breathe And it was so funny when he
said that because it was you know, and it's it

(31:32):
was so interesting though, because it's like, you know, these
men are always taught to be macho men, you know.
But I mean, at the same time, you know, our
dads were taught these things from their dads, you don't.
It just trickles down. So I mean, they're not wrong
for telling us that because that's what they were told. Like,
you know, we can't we can't fault them for that
part of it, you know, but we we can even
start making a change now because I think that that

(31:54):
male toxic, the toxicity of males is just it's just
crazy too because now you have that whole you know,
tower system, Like you have a whole tower system, your
males kind of look up at each other. Oh, I
want to be the alpha male. But you know, really,
to me, it's like the alpha male would be the
guy that can talk about his feelings and everything else,
and all that stuff gets to me. Alphabet is that
you're the top dog. You can do it all. There's
no but I think that we we lost that somewhere

(32:16):
in the sense of, you know, from everybody else saying,
oh no, you can't talk about your emotions, your man,
look about your feelings. You can't be upset, you cry. Okay,
well you're this expletive, you know, and it's just it's just,
it's just I don't get why it is we have
to continue to do this, you know. But then the day,
at the same time, you're battling the internet because you
have people like, you know, these these different content creators
that start pointing out these feods. Oh well, you know,

(32:38):
if you don't, you don't do this, you know, you're
a wollish uh, you know, it's like no, no, the stop.
There's a few of them that are out there, Like
there's this guy. He's a bodybuilder. His name's uh, what
is his name, Iron Sanctuary. He's he's just like professional fighter.
This guy is massive, but he talks about mental health.
And it's great because you know, one you're seeing someone

(32:59):
that is in statue size and that what he's doing.
But at the same time he's talking about his own
emotions and things like that. There's another guy named what
is it Big Swoll, Texan or something like that. You know,
it's it's interesting because normally those are the type of
people are always like, oh no, we don't talk about
our feelings, you know, we you know this and that,
and you know, it's like it's a change of pace
now that we're seeing the guys like this are talking

(33:21):
about it, you know, bringing these conversations up, you know,
and things like that too. So I think, though those
are great, but it's like there's not enough of those
guys out there though that that are outweighing the negative
ones like the Andrew Tate guys. So they're telling these guys, well,
you got to treat these women like crap, and it's like, no, no,
you don't stand up. Stop telling these young gentlemen lines
like that and telling them that, you know, they can't

(33:43):
do these things because they're men. They have to dance
to buck up, they have to forget about this. We
can't talk about it because we're men. No, we're human
at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Human, right, you're human. You need access to the full
range of feelings that are human being is capable of
experiencing and you know that will induce the anxiety. Honestly,
if I can have access to the full range of feelings,
anxiety is I'm kind of stuck right, I'm feeling something.

(34:12):
I can't identify what I'm feeling, and so it just
starts to grow and grow and grow.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yeah. No, I can agree that that's what it's like
for me, though, Like it gets stuck and my heart's
start racing, my head will start spinning mm, and it
gets worse, you know, and it doesn't go away. Man,
It's just like you're just like you have this feeling
of unease m m. Even though it's not something that
they're probably not there. My brain is inventing it. There's
something wrong. But it's hard for people to understand that

(34:39):
that don't have it though, because a lot of people
they'll tell you, oh, just you know, just just just
stop thinking about it, you know, or the depression thing,
Oh just cheer up. I wish that's how this works.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Not gonna happen, and I wish you know, but your dive.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
You know what I'm saying. So so go ahead me
ask you a question though, for for young gentleman these days,
what are some advice you want to give them, Like
if you could tell if you have a bunch of
sitting there any of my fellow my men that are listeners,
which is a good amount of them, what are some
things they can do to be more get start tapping
into that more and more their motions.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Here's the easiest, Right, you can contact me and I'll
send you a list of feeling words. You can go
on the internet, right and get this wheel, big colored
wheel that has all the different feeling words in it.
You will be shocked at the number of feeling words
that exist in the English language. Right. The handout that

(35:37):
I have is four pages long, and each page has
four columns of feeling words. And here's what happens. If
you have access to that document or a feeling wheel,
and you're experiencing something. So let's say you're anxious. You
can't figure out what you're really feeling. Anxious is just

(36:02):
like a you know, bubbles, And so if you read
through these feeling words, what you are feeling will jump
off the page. Your brain knows what you are feeling.
You can't produce it that if you give your brain

(36:25):
an opportunity to find it for you, it'll find it.
Every time. It's amazing, all right. We don't lean into
our brains enough because they hold everything, they can identify everything.
The more that you use a feeling sheet, the stronger

(36:48):
you will feel because you'll understand yourself better. It's easy,
they honestly, it just pops off the page.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, you know. And the scary thing is that it's
just words you're looking at too. It's like you change
your dialogue a little bit in the you know, I
better understand a lot of things too, you know, especially
the feeling words and things like that when you're using
describe these things, you know, and it's it's laughable because
thinking about it, you're all you're doing is you're changing
out words for you know, other words that basically describe

(37:20):
what you're feeling. So you know, you don't have to
feel like you know, you you're you know, I'm trying
to think I've got a lot of thought here, but
you know, it's like it's it's so simple, but you know,
we don't want to do it though, Like we just
want to do everything the hard way. Nowadays. You know,
everybody's in the we want it now world.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
But people don't know that you can do that. I
don't true too though, brain will actually help them in
that way. Their brain will actually pop out the information,
so they stay in this state of anxiety. I'm just anxious,
I'm just nervous. Yeah, And they stay in this kind
of general global state of just comfort. But if you

(38:01):
actually run through the feeling words, you'll find two or
three they'll pop out automatically. And those are things you
can address. Yeah, right, those are things I can now
talk about. Those are things I can take action around anxiety.
I can't take that much action around that. I'm put
a pill in my mouth, but I can't take a

(38:25):
lot of action around just general anxiety. I have to
identify what feeling is underneath that.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Yeah, you know, And that also helps you address the
issue too, when you know what you're feeling exactly, because
you know, I think that's what people need to understand
as well, is that you're looking for what your feelings
are because a lot of times that will lead you
to how to better approach the situation or you understand
what exactly that feeling is, you know, And especially anxiety
is just horrible for me. Somedings like that thought it's

(38:55):
stuck in my head like on a loop. And it
just keeps going, like you know, like this onan's used
to be you know, like that's to skip when it
starts skip and everything like that, you just like get
to that one point, just keep skipping in your brain
and just keep building and it keeps going until it's
just funny. You just start freaking out, you know. And
and a lot of times like I, well, I have
an anxiety journalis but I use for mine usually I
have a little journal writing and basically by the end

(39:15):
of the time you're reading it, it's like you realize, how,
how how kind of stupid is that you look at
what you're good, what you're fixating, and it's like when
you're looking at it now, it's like, eh, it doesn't
seem like such a big problem. And all it is
is I was just following some instructions as I go down,
you know, and it's it's hilarious. So especially when you said,
let me get out the big wheel for you, as like,
oh no, there's the next book idea. Look, the big
feeling wheel book.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
That's a great idea you anxiety is actually there to
be helpful. Yeah, think of that as a as a
almost like a stop sign or a yield sign. Yeah,
it says, pause, take a break. Something is happening for you,
and it's important, that's what it says. It says, it's important,

(40:01):
so figure it out. Identify what are the feeling triggers
that are creating this anxiety. So anxiety is just like
you know, take a pause, stop, take yourself seriously, really
identify what you're feeling, and then you can take action

(40:23):
on that. But we don't have good ways really of
taking action on anxiety unless we can uncover what's the
feeling underneath.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Right, Yeah, no, I agree. I agree totally with that too,
you know. And and the other thing too is you
know it's like, well, mine mine, Well I describe my
anxiety to people, it's like that movie, was it? That
That Disney movie? The second one, the Pixar me, the
one about the grulty emotions in their head. I always
think of mine is a little crazy haired character kind
of thing, right though, the troll dolls from the nineties,

(40:54):
you know, like that's like it's always bouncing around and
stuff like that to you, because that's what happens. Though
for me, my thoughts just starts racing through my mind
and things like that, and a lot of times it's just,
you know, I'm just standing there all of a sudden,
it's like, you know, anybody that's never experienced a panic attack,
it is the worst feeling ever, because it's like you
feel like you're having a heart attack. It's like you
start raising the posts, you know, and and like sometimes

(41:16):
it's like you're in you're like stuck in an endless
loop and things like that. It's horrible, It really is.
Sometimes it really does. But that's the nice thing of
the journal that was gifted by a friend of mine
and she gave me. It helps a lot of times
to you know, or sometimes I'll start talking out loud
to myself and people around me just looking at me,
like what are you doing? Oh there nothing, don't worry
about it because you know, like you don't want to
tell people because it's like I'm telling you what I'm

(41:38):
dealing with, a lot of people aren't going to look
at it, like what the hell are you talking about? Dude?
That sounds like you okay with the man? You need
some help, right, like, you know, And it's it's so
sad that that we can't talk about our mo mental
health as men, and and you know, just general just
ment all. We don't talk about it enough. I feel
like everybody's like the taboo words like you say about okay,
oh no, you said something I don't like, you know,

(41:59):
like like vampires and the sunlight kind of thing. You're like,
you start panicking because it's like, well, I mean you
think about it. Because when we bring it up to people,
you know, especially when it comes to like suicide, idiation
and things like that, two people really get triggered. And
I'm like, I don't understand why these people are talking
to you. Yes, it's an uncomfortable conversation. At the same
time these people are talking to you, Let's go back
to that point. You know, they're talking about the problem, and.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
That's the best way we have to connect is to
talk to somebody, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
And the thing is too, like if you look at
the statistens of that too, it's like men don't talk
about when they're they're teeing in suitside because a lot
of times when you start bringing it up, man, everybody
gets uncomfortable and everybody starts panicking, like God's will is
coming to destroy Tokyo, going to learning the streets mass panic,
you know, and I don't get it, like, you know,
that's that's the whole game behind the show is just
like to make conversations like that just be normal. It's like, Okay,

(42:48):
you're having these thoughts, let's talk about those thoughts. What
are your thoughts that you're having, you know, and you know,
and like let's let's set an example for these younger
gentlemen out there, you know, the ladies too, you know,
like like it's okay to talk about when you have
these feelings go in your head, like like stop making
it so damn taboo to talk about how you're feeling
or what you're dealing with. And at the same time,
like we should do better educating them what these things

(43:11):
are that they're dealing with, you know, and how to
how to handle these situations.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
You know.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
I'm not saying to train them all to be certified
crisis you know operators.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
But you know what's going on like a wheel of feeling.
Word's right, every classroom.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
We have that's gonna movement. Now we need that wheel
and be taught.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
That, Hey, you can identify what is troubling.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah, you know, me do it for you.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
It's automatic.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
I remember when they used to separate you when sex said.
It was a conversation too. They used to take you
all the separate rooms and things like that. Maybe that's
what we need to do with some of these fellows.
Take them in and get them a big show them
the big wheel, and be like, listen, point out what
jumps out to you, the first thing that comes out
to you, and then just kind of go from there.
You know, I think you mean an interesting spire.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
We start educating boys and girls to identify the feelings
that they're experiencing, the easier it will be for them
to move into the artificial intelligence generation and to be
able to thrive because we're gonna need to do much
more communicating with each other and we have to prepare

(44:20):
for that.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, we definitely do. We need to start teaching these
kids now so they understand things better.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
We we haven't been doing great event, but we need
to get star getting better at it, you know. And
I think that, you know, the only big combatant, like
I said, would be social media, these people putting these
videos out. But even at that still they should be
policing their own content, like you stop leading all this crap,
go and stop throwing your hands like, oh oh it
couldn't do nothing, but yeah you can. It's your platform.
Take responsibility.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
You know.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
It's like when you get in trouble with the kid.
You made the mess Well, now you need to clean
the damn mess up.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Let's go. Well, Pete, you're doing the job right now.
This podcast is very valuable for people.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
It is.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
You know, all it is is just having a general
conversation with people the whole time. You know, we're talking
about subjects. I bring great guests in like yourself, you know,
and things like that. We get to talk about all
these different kinds of things, you know, a lot of
the topics that people don't really want to talk about,
but they'll listen to it. They want to hear about it,
you know. And a lot of the male listeners that
listen to the show and things like that too. This
is all great resources. And you said the new books

(45:24):
coming out end of the year, right end of the year. Hey, listen, fellas,
we got to look out for that book for sure,
because you know that's.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Right, Because I want you to do a better job
of fothering your boys. They need it.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
See, I couldn't say anybody myself, Gloria. As we start
getting ready to close out this episode, I'm gonna ask
you the question I ask everybody, Gloria, if your mental
health had a song, what would the song be. This
is a great song question because you've get so many
great answers. You could pick the first game.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
All right here it is right. Do you know who
Rosie Greer was? Yes, big football player, right, ye. So
he participated in a show and he sang it's all
right to cry, Okay cry, and Rosie Greer you can
find it on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
I'm gonna have to look it up down see. I
don't think i've seen that.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
It is a it's a very bad film because it's
so old. Yeah, it's a gorgeous song. And Rosie Greer
just communicates that, and he's communicating to kids, it's all
right to cry. Crying gets the sad out of you.

(46:38):
It's all right to cry. You might feel better.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
That's awesome. It's so awesome that that's a great one.
And okay, so I have another question for you. So
if you could break the stigma about mental health, what
is the one thing that you just seemed to run
into all the times, like listen, hey, we got to
stop doing this.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah. I think what stops people from taking their mental
health seriously and doing the work is they do not
realize that your brain holds on to everything. They think
the past is in the past. And you know I've

(47:22):
overcome that is not bothering me now, and I will
tell you you are wrong. The past jumps into the
present at will in association with what you are experiencing
in the present, and if you don't understand that connection,

(47:44):
it will undermine you every time. We have to understand
how the past influences the present, and you have to
take a deep dive into your brain in order to
do that and invite it to indicate you.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Definitely. I agree. Well, Gloria, thank you so much for coming.
I appreciate it. Did you want to let everyone know
what's the best way to reach you, Like if they said, hey, listen, Gloria,
I can reach out. I got questions for you. Where
is the best place for them to contact you?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
The best place is to go to my website. You'll
find everything there, all the different ways to contact me.
And the website is w W W D R V
A N D E R H O R S T
dot com. So it's w w W doctor Vanderhorst dot com.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming. I appreciate
spending some time with me today. I really, I really
did enjoy this conversation. I thought it was great and
I'm looking forward to the new book coming out. That
title alone, I told you i'd be laughing, and I'm like,
I love it.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
And get the present book right read respond to three
Hours of Growth and Change. Find that on Amazon.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
There you go, guys, she said, go to Amazon and
get that book. Man, you know you look you guys,
listen if you reach out to Gloria Lett know you
saw here. I'm pete for as anxiety because that'd be
even better because I'd love to know that some of
y'all are getting some help in the people that we
are meeting on this show.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
As we go.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
Well, Gloria, thank you so much for coming. Again, I
really enjoyed this conversation. Like I said, we got to
really consider our big wheel here, okay, because I think
we got a grand idea there. We may have to
kind of you know, that's right, we'll develop one right exactly. Well, guys,
I'm pee for as anxiety. You know where to find me.
I'm an ex all the way down to TikTok, I'm
on Spotify all the way down. iHeart radio and as

(49:30):
always say, it costs nothing, absolutely enough to be kind
to somebody. One kind act you could do, can say
SAME's life or health. You can make their day. I'm
peete for his anxiety saying I was saying, don't that's
how your dazed? They say, hey, how's your mental health today,