The Self-Help Paradox: Insights from David Alan Brown

Summary
In this episode, Peter Fritz engages in a deep conversation with David Alan Brown, a seasoned educator and author, about personal empowerment, mental health, and the importance of human connection. They explore the complexities of self-help, the impact of technology and social media on mental health, and the significance of understanding one's feelings. David shares his personal experiences with mental health and the journey of writing his books, emphasizing the need for open discussions about mental health and the value of authentic connections in today's digital world.


Takeaways
Mental health is an everyday concern that requires attention.
Understanding one's feelings is crucial for personal growth.
Action dictates mood; engaging in activities can improve mental health.
Human connection is essential for emotional well-being.
It's important to break the stigma surrounding mental health discussions.
Children's values can teach adults about joy and connection.
Therapy should be approached with honesty and an agenda.
Social media can exacerbate feelings of isolation and anxiety.
Finding balance in technology use is vital for mental health.
Being kind to others can have a profound impact on their lives.




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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hello, Welcome to an exciting give so to Pete for
his anxiety.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
My guest today has been teaching personal empowerment, leadership, organization development,
self discovery, spirituality audiences across the country for thirty years.
He's also the author of books as He's also the
author of Answering the Call, What did you When the
Spirit arrives to your transform your life?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
In the self health Paradox. Please welcome in David Alan Brown. David, Welcome, Hi, Peter.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
So great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's awesome, man, Thanks so much for being here. I
appreciate it. So why don't you tell me a little.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
More about yourself outside of what I.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Just said, Outside of what you said. Okay, I'm a communicator.
I'm a teacher. I've done it in a million different forms.
I've been a substitute teacher. I've been in English teacher.
I've stood up in front of audiences of you know,
full auditoriums of six or seven hundred people. Right now,
I do a lot of corporate training and leadership and facilitation,
and I just find that kind of that's sort of
the theme of what I've done when I haven't been

(01:14):
able to be in front of an audience. I wrote
some books when I haven't had a chance to get
out of the house. I did an introspective thing. I
created an online program that people might be interested in.
And as a person, you know, I was trained in arts,
actually went into nonprofit management. Was a stay at home

(01:34):
dad for you know, well, I'm still a dad, but
I was stayed at home for sixteen or seventeen years,
got back into the sort of corporate world. My whole
life changed, including divorce, kids, moving out of the house,
me moving out of the house, and then eventually leaving
the Midwest and landing in New York City and trying
to make a go of it. So, yeah, I've had

(01:55):
I've had a big life, so to speak, but not
punctuated by major events or tragedies or things. Just living.
You know, sometimes that's enough. That's enough that all of
us are trying to do, just just living and trying
to make a little sense of it and trying to
leave a little legacy at the same time.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Right, Well, you know, I was going to ask you
though about your book, So how did you come up.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
With that book?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I mean, I love the title answer the called what
to Do when spirit arrives to transfer your life.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So spirit, what are we talking when.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
We say spirit, because you know, everybody has a different
definition when it comes to that.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, and let's start there because it's a good place,
which is you know, all of my work includes an
understanding of integrating a higher power into our lives. And
I'm not starting at church. I'm not ordained. I'm not
the one to tell you what that looks like for you.
And to some degree, I took that que from twelve
step programs, which are some of the most successful self

(02:50):
help programs in the history of civilization, in which people
are allowed to come in and say what their own
relationship to a higher power is and what that looks
like and how they practice. And I would say, for me,
my hope for someone that I interact with is comes
down to, you know, two things. One that you believe
and have faith in something that's greater than yourself, and

(03:11):
that you're able to define what that is, not just
only on there's something out there, I wonder. And then
the second thing would be that you're practicing, that you're
engaging in some sort of practice in order to integrate
that into your life. And so those are my sort
of tenants or my hopes as people come into either
coaching or my programs or even pick up my book,
is that they have a sense of what's there. That

(03:32):
book in particular came about because really prior to that point,
I had been teaching a lot of theory and a
lot of understanding and a lot of concepts about what
higher power spirit. And I will say that my belief
tends to go into more of an energetic, new thought
metaphysical approach to it. And I had been learning about

(03:54):
a lot of those things and how it can affect
our lives and ourselves and really teaching people to sort
of make that connection. And when my own mother was
diagnosed with leukemia, suddenly there was an opportunity. Spirit arrived,
meaning the universe conspires is another way of saying that
to give us a big challenge, and it was one
of the greatest, biggest challenges of my life. And what

(04:17):
I found delightfully in a difficult time was that by
integrating these concepts and these understandings and knowing what energy
dynamics were, and finding intention for prayer and recognizing the
correlation between our bodies and in relationship with others and
all of the different things that had just been purely
conceptual before then that we put those into action during

(04:40):
the course of battling that disease. And so that became
the next book, which was, Oh, this stuff really works,
believe it or not, and I can help you believe
it by telling you like it really did. And I'm
super glad, and so I wrote the book.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, So is that what led into the self help paradox?

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Though?

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I mean, well, the self help paradox was fir And
that's what I mean when I say that I had
been doing a lot of theory and the rest, you know,
early on, when I was dipping my toe in sort
of self help and wanted to enter into that realm.
One of the first things that frustrated me was you
can go to the self help section of a bookstore,
which we did in those days, and really find yourself

(05:19):
a book that agrees with anything you already believe. And
many of them contradict each other. And you know, some
of even just the standard platitudes, the things you put
up on your wall contradict each other. Am I supposed
to vision out everything I want every single day in
order to manifest it to be true? Or am I
supposed to go with the flow and trust the universe

(05:39):
will bring me exactly what I need at the time
in which I need it. Okay, well, which is it?
These sorts of paradoxes came up, and I came up
with like seven of them, and so what I did
was I took my own points of reference and a
spiritual text called A Course in Miracles and try to
resolve these paradoxes. And again, it's very theoretical. I wrote
it a long time ago. Oh I really I reread

(06:01):
it these days and I like the concepts in it,
but it's very I'm working really hard to sound smart
in that book. You know, it's very much you know,
it's you know, I'm really trying to lay out that
I know my stuff there, and I can read it
back now and be like, Okay, this is pretty academic,
which is why it was so rewarding to then have
the second book, which was being okay, all that academia side,

(06:25):
here's what real life looks like, and this is how
it can work. And so that's a real combination of
you know, I don't know, sort of heart as well
as mind. I have a third book now that's actually
waiting to be discovered. It's unpublished, but it's memoir and
it's full on just storytelling about how life works and

(06:48):
how it's not always roses and lollipops, and how we
get through it and what it means for us when
we're really just dealing with stuff day to day, when
times are hard, when our bodies or minds or mental
health isn't what we hope it would be. And yet
here we are, and what can we learn and teach
about each other? Teach each other in that process?

Speaker 2 (07:07):
So what's the timeline on the new book? I mean,
because it sounds pretty good to me.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Well, I appreciate that. And you know any any agents,
editors or publishers out there who sounds good to them too,
I'd love to talk to him about it. It's in
manuscript form right now. I've been putting it out to
the industry, but you know, it's a very slow process.
The others are e published and are available and can
be found. This one I'm holding on to to see

(07:31):
if I can't get it into a full publishing.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, you know that's pretty cool though.
I mean, I'm talking about writing the book, I'm talking
about doing a memoir of my own life and just
you know, telling people a lot of things I didn't
tell a lot of people, you know, And it's it's hard, man.
It's like I keep saying, I'm going to start the process.
It's one of those things I've been talking about for
last year. But yeah, we just got the title.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Other than that, not too much more has gone into
the book yet.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, it is tricky. It's the hardest ride I've ever done,
because you know, it can't just be stories that each
one has to have a purpose. There has to be
an underlying theme. I have to be trying to take
the audience somewhere. It has to be good writing, and
so that's important. And some of it was very personal
so it was bringing up a lot of stuff for
me too. So there'd be times I'd shut the computer
down and then have to go talk to my therapist

(08:19):
for a little while because you know, I was remembering things.
So there were a lot of moving parts to it.
I'm proud of what it is, and publishing is a bear,
so well, you know, we'll see how it eventually comes
to form. What it did for me and helping, like
even in this conversation of the rest. It just helped
me know why I know what I know. You know,
I don't have a lot of degrees. I don't have

(08:41):
a lot of letters behind my name. Like I said,
I'm not a ordained minister when I teach spirituality. I'm not,
you know, an accredited coach when I do coaching. I
just I've just been through some stuff, and I studied,
and I'm open to a lot of information, and so
now I'm compiling those things, and I'm proud of that.
I go out and speak. You know, there was a

(09:01):
time when I would bring someone else's something and quote
them and then talk about how that's worked in my life,
and then that would be my twenty minutes. And now
I've set that as I'm like, I'm bringing me these days,
I'm bringing my panic self. This is what I went through,
this is what I've learned, this is how I know
what I know. Maybe that'll help you too, do.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
The same format.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
You know, you start quoting yourself. Oh wait, that's me,
I'm talking about it.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah. I've had people, I've let people reached back to
me and have been like, wait I said that, what okay?
All right? Great?

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Good? Yeah, it's that case sounds real intelligent, is is it?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Me?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
All?

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Hell?

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, this we all kind of mind our Yeah, it's
good to know.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
So, speaking of mental health, do you do you have
any mental health issues now that you can discuss with
this openly diagnosed.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
No, not at the time. You know, I have mental
health issues. I think that that's one of the things
that we don't talk about it now. You know, daily
life is about maintaining our health, and that's on all levels.
So that's physical health, that's sociological health, that our business
and our health, and it's our mental health. How do

(10:03):
I feel today? I woke up today feeling a little groggy,
and I wanted to explore sort of why that is now.
I definitely had a pretty strong bout of depression, which
I was in talk therapy for. I never went through
medical treatment for that, but there's no doubt that I
reached a point where it was severe and went into

(10:24):
suicidal thinking and a little bit of ideation. That's when
I really immediately sought more specific help that I had
beginning before. So I had that history and I raised
a daughter who's neurodivergent and suffered from extreme anxiety from
puberty well to this day, although it's being managed quite
well right now. And that was a journey. I mean,
there's nothing quite like entering into the healthcare system and

(10:47):
the sharp learning curve of what adolescent anxiety is. And
we were not faced with a prescription and at all
smoothed out situation. We had extreme including hospitalizations and and
day programs and not finishing high school traditionally and you
know the rest. So among that spectrum, I'm well versed

(11:08):
in mental health and the rest.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, you know, I was raising my three daughters on
my own at one point, so I could I could
feel like just one man, let me tell you, three
of them. Was like it was a jarring moment, you know.
And at the time I didn't have my own self
figured out, so it didn't help that I was just,
you know, a really bad place.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
They had to see that hard side of me. Then
they were having.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Their own issues, and you know, my oldest she was
talking about suicide for a bit, and then you know,
I had to have a surreal moment where I had
to have the police officers come to my house and
explain to her. Listen, I hope you know what you're saying.
People take serious, Like you need to understand these are
words that you're saying that are real, Like you're old
enough to understand that what you're saying means that you

(11:50):
could be taken to somewhere where you're going to see
what crazy looks like, you know, and things like that too.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
And what didn't help is.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
That me and my ex have a toxic relationship to
and that played into the factor there as well. And
it just it just didn't it didn't work well. We
were We're terrible parents, like we were, We were not
great to these poor kids. These poor kids had to
deal with the back and forth battle that like my
dad and my mom put me through.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
You know, and things like that too. And it was
more my mom than my dad.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
My dad was just kind of like really open with
me about a lot of the conversations. And then my
mom she abandoned me was ten, you know, And little
did I know how much that affected me until later on. Man,
that ripple effect that just went through and caused so
many problems, you know. But then then the same sense,
when I was living with my dad, I was I
was very isolated by myself, So I spent a lot

(12:37):
of time by myself, you know, which probably wasn't a
great idea either, because it was just, you know, I
was pretty much being my own parent at that time
because he wasn't really home much, you know, but he
was he was working all the time, and I was
staying with whatever girlfriend was there, the flavor of the
month there for that month kind of thing, you know,
and we moved a lot, and you know, it was
because it was weird. My experience with therapy at first
is my mom forced me to go and she was

(12:59):
telling me I had the hoping issues.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
I'm like, and then when the therapist she had the issues. No,
that's it. We're done going there, and you know, we
don't want to go anymore.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Well, and I think that's you're just illustrating the point
that all of us feel, which yeah, mental health is
an everyday thing, and it goes back to when you
were ten and there was that separation from your mom
to when you were you know, to to the time
you spent with your father and those experiences and then
you know, children, there's no better poke in the eye
than kids to kind of make us either flare up

(13:32):
or recognize or identify the issues that we're going through.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
And you know, I had a similar experience whilst I.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Was focusing so much attention on my children that I
abandoned my mental health and really myself in general in
a lot of ways. And I think that that's that's
our goal, isn't it, Pete. I mean, this is why
we're having this conversation, is just to help everyone understand that,
you know, we're not We're not always talking about whether
the police are coming to the house, or the neighbors
who are screaming out on the lawn, or the un

(14:00):
person that we see that you know, that's a mental
health issue. We're talking about having a quality of life
in which we develop the systems whatever works for us
that help us recognize that taking care of my mental
health is also on the list. And just like I
have to put the effort into these other things, I
have to know my own history to the degree that

(14:21):
helps me understand myself and to let go of my
own history to the degree it might be keeping me
from what I want for myself. And by the way,
the caveat to that phrase what I want for myself
is I have to know what I want for myself.
I mean, these are thoughtful and interesting questions that all
go to mental health.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
We look outside for them.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
We think it's, oh, the right career might do it,
or the right situation, the right relationship, But really so
many of the fundamentals are about, you know, what's my
brain doing, and how am I nurturing it? And how
am I aware of it? And what tools am I using?
And so that's I think the the awareness we're.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Trying to go to is that that we're men and
we're talking it too, because if we look at the
statistics of suicide rates, it's eighty percent of them are men,
you know, and it's like it's it's just crazy. But
it's like you always have to ask yourself that question,
what's that final breaking point for us as men to
start talking.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
About these issues? You know?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
It's and that's the whole point of the podcast too
as well. It's just to break that stigma around mental health,
that people understand that mental health doesn't have to be
a weird thing. It's just like going to the doctor.
Like you go to the doctor for an injury, you
go to mental health for these issues you're having. You know,
you go see a therapist or whatever whatever you choose.
Now because there's so many different options out there. You
don't talk therapy isn't for you. I've got a contact

(15:35):
list about two miles long of people you could call
and talk to, a reach out to about different things
you can do, you know. So I think it's so
fascinating now that different things that people are getting into,
like psychedelics and all these other things they're using for
you know, different benefits and everything else, because everybody.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
I think it's scared of us.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Actually this is actually a good example. If I was
talking to my coworker last night and the young lady
have been talking for a little bit that works with me.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Me and her were having this discussion about you know,
therapy and things like that, and she's like, you know,
I've had a lot of problems and she set up
having these weird dreams and you know, the things that
she's just like, well, I think I should go talk
to somebody said, yeah, you should go talk to something.
Why not, Like, why not understand what it is that
you're dealing with and then you'll have a better idea
of where to go from there, you know. And she's

(16:19):
been on the fence for a little bit about it.
And she her her biggest fears were a couple of things.
She's like, well, they can't tell anybody what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
No, they can't. They're a doctor, you know. It's a doctor.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
You know, patient confidentiality thing, you know, and you have
to all that stuff. And it's like, you know, though,
they're not going to give me medicine, are they?

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Because we were.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Talking about what was it? Oh god, what is that
one out? There's one of you that it could better help? Okay,
So I went to we were on Better Help and
she was talking about, oh yeah, I went on it
earlier too, and I was looking to set up therapy
for myself or you know, because I had loved therapy
for a little bit, I'm going back to it.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
And I was telling her a little bit, and I
know she listens to the show here and there and sees.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
A lot of the episodes when she has time, and
she was talking about it, and it's very interesting because she
has brought up a lot of interesting points. She was like,
well about medicine or they gonna give medicine because it
was asking me if I want medicine, like Better helps,
asking me if I want to be medicated? I'm like, well,
better health, I don't know about that. I think I
believe that to somebody who knows what they're talking about,
you know for sure.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
And you know, it gets that question, have you had
suicidal thoughts?

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Okay, check that box. Yes, And then it's like, are
you having plans right now? And it's like, you know,
it gets serious for the questions that she was mentioning
that to me too, She's like, no, I didn't have
any I haven't had any suicidal thoughts. I think she
may have been lying on that point because she had
emphasized it a little bit with me. But I wasn't
gonna dig any further with her because you know, she's
telling me a lot of this stuff and I'm just listening,
and I'm like, hey, listen, my best advice to you

(17:36):
is to find somebody that works. And I said, please,
for the love of God, do me the biggest favor ever.
Do not stay with a therapist you feel like it's not.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Working for you.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
These guys are trained to know like they're okay with
you leaving them. It's all right, You've got to go
to somebody else, all right, Well, you just didn't work
out for them. They're not going to have any feelings.
You're not gonna get nasty messages from God why did
you leave me?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Kind of thing?

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Right, Yeah, for sure, And I think that that's really
I mean everything that you're replying in these cases. First
of all, these are very common questions as you and
I know, as far as what people's anxiety is brought
up and who.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Should I enter into.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
We live in a culture that believes that healthcare is
one size fits all and that there are quick and
easy answers to everything now that we want to, and
we're starting to, and some of the capitalism, some of
the marketing is trying to put mental health into that
same sort of category. You know, come to better help,

(18:32):
we'll do a checklist, and you'll know immediately, and maybe
we'll give you a pill and everything will be better.
This is not true of most physical health problems, and
it's not true of most mental health problems, but probably
with mental health even more a little coaching on. You
do have to manage your own care. You do have
to go in with an agenda to the therapist. There's
very few therapists that I've experienced who were able to

(18:55):
sort of take me from you know, beginning to end
without me being able to go in and say, this
is what's happening, this is my this is my concerns.
You know, sometimes it's an hour a week. I have
a therapist now, and I take notes throughout the week
so that I go in there and I don't spend
thirty five minutes telling them, telling them a story about

(19:15):
what happened this week, and then ten minutes of getting
really to the issue, like it's like, no, this is
what I need to work on. This is what I
need from you today. That's really important. And if you're
not sure, if you don't have an agenda, if you're
not sure, you just know you want help, then my
only other bit of advice there. I'd been in therapy
of varying degrees of effectiveness for my whole life. When

(19:37):
I needed a turnaround and I wanted to work with someone.
First of all, he's excellent, but also I made the
commitment that I would walk in there and be absolutely
authentic and be absolutely honest with everything that I said.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
It is the safest space.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
These are folks who are capable of taking hearing, managing
anything you would tell them. That's their job, and so
there's nothing you can say that will shock them. There
were times when I surprised myself, or when I would
stutter or I would choke up, and I would say,
I can't believe I'm about to say this out loud,
or I would say, you're the only person I've ever

(20:14):
told this to. And that's how I knew I was
on the right track, because I'm going to be here
and be authentic and be honest. And when you do that,
you can find that some real important and simple steps
forward can happen almost right away. And maybe the first one,
and I'm going to give this as as something to

(20:34):
think about, not direct advice, but one of the first
things to look out for is someone who will just
simply accept and validate what you're feeling, who will just
be able to say you have every right to feel
that way, or simply say I'm so glad you told
me that, or will echo for you. That sounds really difficult,

(20:55):
because so often the first step to overcoming the anxiety
is just some sort of affirmation that were in fact okay,
in spite of in spite of how I used to
beat myself up about how it was feeling or what
I was thinking someone else that we trust us turning
to us and saying, actually, you're okay, and you're gonna
be okay.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
That's a great first start.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I think that's great. I think it's really good.
I think I think what you said makes a lot
of sense. So, and that was part of my advice
there too. It's like, if you're going to go in,
be least be one hund percent honest, like, remember, this
person's heior to help you. My thing for her was
I think she doesn't know where to go from there,
and I'm like, well, why don't you see if you
can first find out what they diagnose you with, maybe
maybe you.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Have something you don't realize.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
You know, BBD is common for She really hasn't said
much about a past. She kind of hints at it
a little bit. She had something traumatic happens, So it's
a possibility toward very possible you may have BPD and
you just don't know it. And she said, oh, you
know that sounds from me.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
I've heard that before.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
I'm like, yeah, you know, it happens a lot more
in females than males, you know, and a lot of
times something that causes it, you know, is what a
lot of times what you do Delisiha'll know how to
better attack the symptoms of what you're having, you know.
And that's where she's at now. She's at that base level.
She's on that teetering fence because she's like, well, you know,
I've been thinking about it and having these really weird
dreams lately and I can't understand them.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
And you know, they're just like, oh, you know. And
I was like, well, you know.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
That's understandable, you know. And she's been, like I said,
she's been teetering this. We've been had this discussion for
a little bit. I've I've offered her some other people
I know as resources, like, hey, listen, you know you
need somebody to talk to. I got some people, you know,
if it's affordability thing, there's people I know that that
work on a sliding scale can help you.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
You know. And everybody I work with knows exactly what
I do.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
And a lot of people will come up to me
and talk to me of these situations. And it's interesting
when you know a lot of these people come and say, oh, hey, listen,
I know this is the kind of conversation you have
so you can understand this. I laugh on the inside
because I'm like, you know, it's funny because when you
hear people say that, But at the same time, it's
all I'm having is a conversation with other people about
this whole subject. And it's that empowering the people that

(22:58):
they feel like they can come to me and talk
to me. And I've heard some pretty wild stories from
other people outside of this podcast too. They've told me
some things that have happened, you know, And I've viewed
some of the resources of guests and the other guests
I've had on the show and reach out to them
for stuff like that too, So it's been really great.
It feels good though when people come in, you know, like, hey, listen,
I like what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
I appreciate what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
And it's like I'm thinking to myself, all I'm having
a conversation at first, and now it's like, you know,
you know, well, at least it's getting somewhere, you know,
people are people are liking what they're hearing, you know,
and there's a.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Lot of other people.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
As a young man that actually listens I do what
We play a lot online games together named Andrew. He
listens and he's loving it. He's like, this is so interesting.
It's great because you know, Andrew's age and younger. We
need to start teaching them more mental health stuff too,
like you know, how to mostly regulate and things like
that too. And I think it's interesting to start the
conversation sooner for them, you know, just so they understand
that these are things that we deal with, because you know,

(23:50):
the suicide rates and young men had went up when
the Internet was introduced, you know, when social media started
getting big and everything like that, it went to like
twenty percent. I don't know the original number one two,
but it shot up like twenty And that's crazy because
all you did is introduce another avenue for them to
get bullied by somebody else, you know. And you know,
we think about it like it's like to us that
grew up in the nineties, like we didn't have that

(24:11):
you had to be face to face to somebody talked
them on the phone. AOL was the most extent that
you could get and that's barely you could really probably
get into that one too, because that was like everybody's
access to the Internet together was right there, you know,
the very basic amount.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
And then in the chat rooms. That was the other function.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Now like now we have like Facebook, you have Instagram,
we have TikTok, all these different things X, you have
all these inversits you can get to now that you
can just start all this information coming at you. And
I feel like a lot of it too, especially in
the younger kids. It's a lot of misinformations get tossed around,
you know, because they start, you know, seeing these people
say they say, oh man, this and then it's like, okay,

(24:47):
what about that? And it's like, all right, well, okay,
this is great, but what is what is your background
that you're giving us this kind of you know, information
that you're just like telling us these wild thoughts because
there was.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, I think that what's intriguing because I remember the
AOL days and what part of what you're bringing up
and I want to follow this threat a little bit.
Was you know, there were all these chat rooms and
and there was this sort of sense culturally that oh,
we're looking for community, you know, we're looking for community,
and now we found it online, which is really intriguing
because now what's happened so many years later is that

(25:19):
we underestimated the ability of the Internet to fracture into
a billion communities, and we think, oh, so there's somewhere
for me, And in fact, what it's the impression that
we're receiving is there's there's nowhere that's for everyone, or
for for all of us, or for more than you know,
two people.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
I mean, it becomes so specific.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
So that's something that I think and I heard this
in what you were saying earlier too. You know, people
are coming to you in person and telling you their stories,
and that that need for the human connection is something
that we're I wouldn't say only now, but that it's
becoming increasingly understood as where we're missing out. You know.

(26:01):
The phrase I like to use, and i'd invite your
listeners to think about this, is that our technology is
evolving much faster than our species, or that are the
human animal is, and so all of the things that
we're capable of doing are not necessarily the things that
we are in fact wired to do. And we're feeling
a huge disconnect in that I should be connecting with

(26:22):
all these people. I should be finding all this information. Oh,
I should know all the right answers. Oh I should
have access to and do have access to you know
every bit of information I could ever need. But the
human animal is designed to create trusting relationships between two
people or a group of people, and evaluate based on
emotion and energy and merit and study and conversation and

(26:46):
civil discourse and comprehension, and the ability to go and
discover more or answer questions or explore things together. The
human animal is built to be creative in union with
other people, to be collaborative, to work together, and so
all of these things that we think we should be
able to do technologically, we are struggling with because as

(27:07):
a being we're not there. Our computers are way ahead
of where we are as actual individuals. And so finding
the balance. Even if what we need to do in
order to sustain a living or in order to be
productive in society or any of those things that involve technology,
that's great, and let's use those tools. But the disconnect

(27:28):
that we're feeling, even the fact that probably when you
go to you know, better help, I don't know, sorry,
better help, but you know, to the internet looking for
a solution for mental health, you're not initially speaking to
a person. And we have convinced ourselves. Capitalism has convinced
us that these are viable solutions to what's ailing us.

(27:49):
And I would remind your audience that the most viable
solution to what's ailing you is in connection with another person. Now,
maybe you're using technology like you and I right now,
maybe it's I mean in the room is absolutely what
we're looking for. I mean literally, as a physiological beings,
that's what we need. We are thousands of years into

(28:11):
being hardwired into understanding every nuance of eyeblink, facial expression,
muscle clenched body language, all of the rest.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
I mean, this is what we.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Are built for. And to suddenly think that in the
course of twenty years after you know, after eons of evolution,
that suddenly, oh now we're adept at doing all that
from twenty thousand miles away or you know, two thousand
miles away, is preposterous. It's just not how we are built.
And so I would say fundamentally, the first thing for

(28:42):
your folks to think about is to find a Peter
in their lives and someone that you could walk up
to and casually say, hey, you know this, I've had
this thought and it doesn't have to be about mental health.
You walk up to someone and say, hey, I had
this thought about you know, K pop demon Hunters, or
I had this thought about, you know, about the Mets
crashing this year. I thought about, you know, what's going
on in uh you know this this tweet that I saw,

(29:04):
But this is what we're missing out and we just
we've convinced ourselves all this stuff is so amazing, and
it is, but it's not what we were built for.
And and that that connection that that folks are missing
may very well be just the very simple interpersonal connection.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, yeah, got Remember though, we have everything accessible at
our fingertips. Now, man, we can just hit a button
and we can connect with people on the internet.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
And yeah, that's not.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Always the greatest thing, especially you know, the chat room
settings for some of these online video games not a
great idea. Let's listen, Yeah, we know we're not going
to revisit the call duty days back in those lobbies
where you hear people reference all the time the things
that got said in those rooms.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Yeah, and let's let's take that into just some of
the most fundamental understanding of how are how our most
base impulses work. We are a being that's designed to
appreciate the ability to predict and to have a certain
level of safety and to know and be able to
anticipate that what's about to happen next. And so when

(30:07):
those elements are taken away, say because we're in a
chat room where anything might pop up, or we are
interacting with strangers who literally, through these programs pop up
all of the time. There's a tolerance for that that
we have. We like roller coasters, we like scary movies,
we like putting ourselves on the edge and doing that
sort of thing. But when we live in a sustain

(30:29):
excuse me, sustained, sustained, sustained state, an ongoing presence of
the unknown, then literally chemically our brains are in a
constant state of fight, flight or freeze. That's not how
we're meant to survive. That difference in how our brain
chemistry is being invited to live, it's the seeds of

(30:53):
That's the definition of anxiety. Anxiety is I'm in a
place of uncertainty, and therefore.

Speaker 4 (30:58):
I have entered into a place of fight, fight or freeze.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay, that happened, that's a natural thing. That good, that's
bear in the wood stuff. Okay, there's danger here. I
need to have that to survive. But when we're placing
ourselves in that space constantly, through chat rooms, through scrolling,
you know, then we I mean, this is why it's
a healthcare issue, because we're literally asking our bodies to

(31:23):
do things that they aren't designed to do. And that's
why the call to get off of social media and
all those types of things is not just you know,
old people, Hey, get off my lawn. Why don't you
go read a book. It's it's experts saying you're inviting
your brain to do stuff it's not conditioned to do,
you know, switch it up once in a while.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, true, And it's very addiculate to you know, a
lot of those sites are set up to continue to
pull you in based out of the hole, you know,
your feet and things like that, and it's hard. Like
I'll admit, like I had that problem at one point
because you know, I got really a dread. So now
I tend to unplugged, Like I'll post some stuff and
then i'll just after a certain time, I just turned
my phone into silent and then if you need to

(32:06):
get hold of me, you can get a hold of me.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
If not, then it'll wait till tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
You know, especially with social media and things like that too,
because you can get so and so caught up in it,
especially with TikTok. TikTok's really bad about that. It's like
they always send you all these invites, Oh, so and
so it's live, and then you have that fear.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Of missing out, and I'm like, yeah, I'm good, I'll pass.
But why didn't see it?

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Run?

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Where have you been? Where have you been? Peter? I
hadn't seen you a while. Uh, you know, you know,
just been busy.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
That's why I tell them, I'm just been busy.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Like I'm like you. Some people just can't handle the
fact that you're not there. And then it's, oh, you
don't support what I'm doing. I'm sitting on the internet
all day. This isn't the real world, man, Okay, that
show passed and gone a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
You know why it's not still.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Here because it was just like one of those phases
you go through. Now the internet's even worse TikTok.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
You get these.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
People streaming for like hours on end, and it's like,
I don't know how y'all find the time to do it.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Man, I couldn't. I couldn't do it, Like you know,
it's it's.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Ugly, it's rough, and then it gets ugly, and then
when you get down to the thing, it's just just
so toxic that the environment so toxic when you really
get deep into it. Because all these little social groups,
like you were saying, there's all these different groups of
people connect to and all these people have these little
family things and I'm like, oh.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
God, what's going on. It feels like I'm about to
join a cult here, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
For some of them, was like, oh, well you need
to do this, and there's like a list of more
rules than my mom gave me as a kid.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
I'm like, what is going on here?

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Like what I'm just trying to, you know, be here.
I'm not trying to be a part of something else.
I'm not drinking the kool aid either. Proverbly thank you though,
you know. And it's just it's just how it is.
It's just so weird. It's to me. It was like
when it first got introduced, it was like we used
to have you the instant messenger thing that was that's
how you communicate with people. Now it's like I go
to some of these route chat room things and there's
so much going on.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
I don't know what the heck is going on?

Speaker 2 (33:39):
And then people are mad about this, and people are
mad about that, and then you get banned for saying this,
but you don't get banned for doing that.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's like, okay, yeah, well.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
And let's let's put that in context a little bit.
And I'm kind of playing a game. This is not
something that I've brought up before, so let's just let's
just explore this for fun for your listeners. And my
first my question would be like how many people loved adolescents?
You know, you take thirteen to like seventeen or eighteen
years old, you know, these are these are the most

(34:08):
formative years of our lives. And I just want people
to think back, you know, how great was junior high
for you? Like how great was you know, ninth grade?
Did you just love it? Or you know, what's what
are a couple of the first words that come to
mind when you think about like ninth grade.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Man, ninth grade, Yeah, god, it was it was a
rough year because I didn't spend long at the school
I was at for ninth grade, I think, okay, because
you know it was sophomore year to senior years where
I really kind of had a grounding though. I was
a new kid in new school, you know, learning, meeting
new people that I've never met before, you know, and

(34:43):
I didn't know how long it was going to be there,
and I didn't know anybody. So we're still back to
we're back to the self isolation thing.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
I was by myself constantly all the time, you know, right.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
And it wasn't until I got in the sophomore year though,
That's when I finally had some kind of sense of
connection made some friends, are actually got out of the
house and started doing more social things, you know, and
stuff like that too.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
So some of the first like the first word out
of your mouth was rough and then you know, new place,
tons of unknowns, trying to figure out where you're fitting in,
a lot of fear of missing out. You know. I
think the great ultimate adolescent paradox is, my god, what
if everybody's talking about me? Oh my god? What if
they're not? You know, like you're in this constant stage

(35:27):
of like where do I fit in the whole thing?
You know? Some of the methods of interacting today and
you know, think about this for your listeners to think
about this as as they think about what those relationships are,
what those situations are really like. It's perpetual adolescents, It's perpetual.
I don't know if I fit in. Oh, I'm trying
to set rules. Oh, I'm trying to live up to

(35:48):
other people's expectations. Well, I'm wildly impacted by the by
what other people say, by what comments go into into
the into the feed by where I'm being directed. I'm
looking to my peers on where I should show up.
I'm being judged on if I show up.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
You had said that just a minute ago.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
I'm being told my character is based on whether or
not I'm living up to someone else's expectations. This is
the entire adolescent experience, and it's real and it makes sense,
and it's what we do, and we're designed to grow
out of that. We get to a place where as
you were saying, there's a call to a real connection
to knowing where I fit in, to gaining my confidence,

(36:28):
to accepting and understanding what unconditional love is.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
That I can be whoever I am and not be judged.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
There's moving past the outside affirmation of who I am.
There's there's appreciation from others for who I am legitimately
and authentically as myself and discovering what that is. If
we're not entering into relationships in this new paradigm, in
this new digital world, in this new way we're reaching
out from ourselves that are providing those things for us,

(36:57):
then we are just perpetuating that rough adolescent development phase
for as long as we do until we get out
of it. And that's not healthy. That's not what we're
designed to be as human beings. We're designed to go
through that difficult period of both brain and emotional and
personality development.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
To get to somewhere so that we can.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Become the actualized and interesting person that makes a difference
in the world. We're not meant to be perpetually striving
to fit in or to fear we're missing out, or
to accept the abuse of others, or to not gain
our own actualization and know how we're going.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
To serve in those situations.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
And so that's what we're looking for when we talk
about moving beyond these base interactions, is are we aware
of what positive mental growth is, what positive mental health is.
I think that's another thing that you and I are
trying to do and kind of what I said at
the very beginning, which is Yeah, I know how to
respond when I feel wonky or worse. I know how

(38:01):
to respond to you know when to go to the doctor. Well,
but the doctor isn't around telling me, you know, choosing
what I'm going to eat each day. You know, I
learned in health class in what eighth grade about you
know I should be eating these different foods and that
that makes it different. But that choice is up to
me each day and what I'm going to put in
my body and whether or not I exercise, and you
know whether I take a walk, and how I address

(38:24):
a cold, for example, or avoid a cold. Well, mental
health works the same way. We can go to the
doctor when we're feeling the need, when we know we
need extra help, when we need a professional who can
provide us with their knowledge of information, integrate with us.
But each day I make choices about how I'm going
to maintain my mental health. I do a lot of

(38:45):
work at the computer, not just interviews like this, but
I'm an online trainer and the rest. And I know
when the time is to stand up, turn it off
and go walk. And it's just because that's a choice
I have to make. I could stand up, move to
the couch, and get on my phone.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
We have choices.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Mental health, and maintaining a positive mental health is about well,
first of all, recognizing that and then literally just intervening
on which choice am I going to make today, trying something,
saying hm, that felt pretty good, or no, I really
didn't like that, or that was hard on my legs,
but I feel good for having done it. I mean

(39:23):
cultivating this self awareness that allows us to know that, oh,
when I do this, that happens, and then saying okay,
so will I do that again or will I not
including the habits that were already in when I moved
to the couch and scroll, this happens. And I'll be
perfectly honest. I take thirty minutes and I do nothing,
and then I feel rejuvenated. Sometimes I need the couch

(39:43):
and one of the stupid games on my phone, and
I understand it has a purpose. And the other day
your story, I said, my eyes are bleary. I'm looking up.
I realized three episodes of whatever was on TV.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
It's gone by.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
I've been sitting there for almost for a little over
two hours. Hmm, that doesn't feel as good. Maybe I'll
make a different choice next time. It's all just a
matter of adulting is knowing that every day you have
responsibility for yourself and sorry, yeah, I don't mean yeah,
just a tough nature.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
I love when you brought in the dynamic of you know,
like the ninth grade and everything else, because that's what
it feels like these days with all these sights. It's
like you're back in high school again. And it's like,
I think that was the biggest taste I had for it.
It's like, God, I'm like the minute I felt like
I'm like this is like high school over again, I'm like,
I'm too old for this shit. Man, I'm not good
time for this grap you know. And then you back

(40:35):
out of it and everybody's like, oh, where have you been?

Speaker 1 (40:37):
I haven't seen you. They're like, you know where I've been.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
You know where to find me, you know, And it's
it's it's always so funny because it's like they you
have all these flashing lights and all these other great
things going on, and it's like, oh, great, okay, cool,
and then it's like so much going on and it's like,
oh my god, you're not paying attention. I was like, yeah,
I'm good, I'm a back out of this kind of thing, like,
you know, when it really got deep into it, I
was just like, hmm, no, I'm good. I even had
somebody to tell me that I was trying to steal

(41:02):
their thunder. I'm like, you know, you're here in one spot, Okay,
I'm here in many spots. I think that you know,
me trying to take your thunder in this one little area.
I don't think that's what's going on. I think you're
in your own head. So I'm going to step back
over here. And then then you know, they try to
get aggressive, and they got mad when I literally just
texted back to them and said, well, that's great, I
didn't read what you said, but anyways, I'm going to

(41:22):
move on from this conversation. And they got so mad
at me because I said that. I'm like, well, I
just don't.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
I just don't feel like the need.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I don't feel like I need to continue to go
any further into this conversation.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
It's just pointless, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
It's just like I can allow my mental health be
affected because you want to sit here and accuse me
of something that I couldn't care less.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
Right, Yeah, I think I think that you've just given
a brilliant tool. We have to figure out how to
trademarkt But that moment when I started to think, this
feels like high school is like a brilliant tool for
people because and then to take it to what you
just said at the very end, which is that and
at high school everyone's the star, are their own show.

(42:01):
And so you realize you're in a place that's not supportive.
And if you can say to someone for my mental health,
I'm going to and then they ignore you, then run run.
And that's the difference between getting to a place of
of adulthood and freedom and self expression that we lose
in high school.

Speaker 4 (42:22):
I mean, I felt for my kids.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Both my kids had issues that kind of took them
out of the system, so to speak, the mainstream. I
just realized, look, nowhere in your life do you have
less control and more desire than you do when you're
an adolescent or when you're a teenager in the United
States of America. You know you can My kid, my
younger kid, knew early on that the method of teaching

(42:44):
that the American school system perpetuates was not for him,
and that he you know that it just it just
wasn't it just wasn't the way his brain worked. And
you know, thanks to truant officers and the law and
blah blah blah, he has no choice but to go
and immerse himself in that. And now there are more
choices in education, and we sought those out, but you know,

(43:06):
there's just no you have to be here in this
place each day. You have to do these different things.
You're required by a law. No you can't drive, No
you can't legally drink, No, you can't do all these things.
I mean, it's extraordinarily frustrating time and the emergence from that,
the breakout of that that and then that's why eighteen
to twenty one is so tough, because you're giving all

(43:27):
this freedom and you're like, oh, now what I do
and you kind of freak out a little bit. But
that's why young adulthood is. I need to get my
shit together and start knowing what I want and start
figuring out what I can do, because oh, it turns
out I'm in charge of my own destiny. And as
scary as that is, it's also the most empowering thing
in the whole entire world, because yes you are, Yes

(43:49):
you are.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
I think you had a great point though, because you're like, well,
you know, school makes me be here.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Okay, well that's great. And then it's like when you
hit that eighteen, it's like.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Well, all right, we're done pushing through our system. You're
on your own kind of thing now. And I remember
I was done with school. It's like it was all
You're done. You're like, so what do I do now?
It's like where do I go from here? I don't
have anybody giving me all this advice along the way
saying hey you should go do this, Hey you should
go do that is and it was just like, oh,
you're excited to get to this point. You get to
this point. Now you're like, well, shit, this sucks, Like

(44:17):
forget this. Can I go back to the thing, because
like the when they were controlling my life a little
more right, pull me back in the system. Let me
get back in that system that was just setting me through. Shit, okay,
let's go come on.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Now, yeah right. And that's the amazing thing is we
suddenly realize that there are certain fundamental needs of the
human experience. And I think that's kind of what I've
been saying all along, that the notion that we're constantly
moving towards or or trying to find the thing that's
going to fix what we don't have right now is

(44:49):
such a misnomer because if you can do so expiration
internally and externally about understanding, well, what do we need?

Speaker 4 (44:57):
What do we want?

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Why does my nervous to respond to structure so well?
Why do I feel better when I can predict what's
going to happen tomorrow as opposed to wake up with
an unknown? Why does some of the systems, some of
which are antiquated and some of which shift, and some
of which need balance. But you know, the having something

(45:19):
to do each day, the having a purpose, the knowing
why I'm here, the exploring higher power, the recognizing the
interconnectedness of human beings, the recognizing why my brain responds
to movement and exercise and not even strenuous exercise, but
just movement. The balance between new and intriguing and curious

(45:41):
things to the comfort of the known and the safe things.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Where is that balance for me? And the point is,
you know, we're educating individuals and then setting them loose,
but we're so rarely having this discussion here, which is,
you know, okay, whilst I'm on the loose, trying to
survive in the world. How am I evaluating where meaning
fits into this and inspiration and higher power and how
I'm feeling and how I'm feeling physically and emotionally while

(46:12):
I'm doing all this stuff, because I, by the way,
have to eat and I have to you know, I
have to survive in this.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Damn eating thing. You know, I got to do that too.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Sleep or it's like, oh, I got to sleep eventually.
You know, that was a big question for a lot
of people too. They're like, when you sleep, and I'm
just laughing. I'm like, uh, you know, that's a great question.
I'll let you know when I figured that one out too.
You know a lot of these things you don't realize,
like factor and a lot of things too.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
It's just you don't get enough sleep, you're not eating right,
you're not doing this and not doing that.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Just going out and taking a walk like you were saying,
just any kind of it changes everything for you. And
it's like if if I don't have it, like we
live in this society of I want it now, so
give it to me now kind of thing. And I
think when betal health, I think people need to realize
it just doesn't work like that. I could sit here
and tell you these Billy mays, like commercial things all
I could fix your problem in twenty minutes, give me
twenty dollars or whatever, you know, those whole things.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
It just doesn't work like that, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
And I think that we need to educate other people
too that have other spouses or something that they generally
interact with that has it too. They need to be
better educated and how to be better supports for these
people too, because some of these things they're doing are
not helping them at all. And it goes to say
that you don't know what people go through every day.
So that's when I ever close at the show. We
cause nothing to be kind to somebody because listen, you

(47:24):
don't know if that interaction you just had with somebody
could have saved their life for all you know, they
could have had the worst day possible and you could
have just been the bright spot of their day just
saying hey, listen, how you do and just acknowledging the
factor even there.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
You know, hey, how you doing, how's your day? You know,
hal like your shirt. These little things may seem cheesy,
but they go a long way.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
In the end of the day, you know, well, and
there's such fundamentals, you know. I think the other thing
that I would say, in addition to what you were
just saying super smart and insightful, is we also live
in a culture where we're sort of conditioned to believe
that everything new is good, and so everything is in advance,
everything is faster, better. Oh, that's we got to have that,

(48:04):
it's new, et cetera. And one of the remarkable things
if you just dip your toe into understanding of how
the human psychology works or human dynamics work, is so
much of the technology of today is merely confirming what
we've known for decades and even centuries. You know, understanding
being able to diagnose and look inside the function of

(48:26):
the brain is just bringing us back to an understanding
of sleep is important. Oh, routine is important. Oh, having
a higher calling, having purpose and meaning is important. You know,
all of these things that we've known for years, and
this sort of sense of like, oh, well, yeah, but
this is new. This will get us more, this will
get us further. This will allow me to talk to Peter,

(48:46):
who's in Chicago right now and I'm in New York. Okay,
that's all great, and it doesn't necessarily make it the
best way, and it certainly doesn't erase what was and
what was true before is in fact true now now.
Evolution is a thousands of years long process, and most
of us are experiencing eighty some odd years of that.

(49:09):
We're not where we think we are, and so getting
back to these fundamental bits of health again, it's not
an old man saying back in my day. Some of
it is being affirmed by very new and very real
and very young technology and brilliant people are saying, it
turns out, well, I mean, the most basic and simple
one is it. You know, it turns out that that

(49:31):
action dictates mood. You know, for years we just we
got ourselves into the if I eat this right thing,
if I think the right way, if I do the
right you know, if I work on it in my brain,
if I just keep thinking this project through, I'll figure out.
And actually, the confirmation that's blazing in neon in mental
health these days is action dictates mood. You have to

(49:51):
do something in order to have a shift in how
you feel. And it's just it's the fundamental new old
way of understanding how we work. You know, it was like, oh,
I thought it was psychology. I thought it was philosophy.
I thought it was talking. I thought it was thinking
it through. I thought it was you know, I wasn't
examining myself enough. I wasn't reading enough books, I wasn't

(50:12):
doing enough intellectual work. Now turns out the good old
fundamental action dictates mood, and so you have to go
try something and be willing that your mood may not
be great. All right, tried that and didn't particularly care
for it. Okay, then don't do that again.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
It's like, you know, it's like it's like that childlike mentality,
and you teach kids nowadays it's like here, just try it,
you know, like with my my wife and I is
four year old. She when she comes to visit, it's
like my waists, like here, just try it for a second,
try it, and then you have to celebrate it, like
it's so oh, that's so awesome, you know, not to
mention this four year old kid is probably probably more
brilliant than most of these kids her age.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Man, she's real smart. She knows what's going on.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
She's like, all right, I got you, I'm gonna I'll
play you a little game. All right, Poppy Master, I
got you. She'll she'll do it. She'll like, shoot, I'm
a watch her. She'll just kind of like, oh no,
I don't like it. She puts it to her mouth
and her mom was like, oh no, it's okay, you
ate it. I'm like no, but I'm watching from the
other side. I'm watching her, and she's like no. I
was like, okay, I see how you I play. Okay,
I got you a little one.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
I got you. Think your slick over here? I like it.
I like, okay, game recognize this game young when I
got to.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
It is so fascinating though, because you know, my daughters
are older now, you know, and now having another child
that's it's not yours. So keep in mind the aspect too,
that she's not mine. So it's a little different though,
because you can't. You don't interact a lot of times
as a kid that is not yours. So but I
toil true like she's my own, Like I've been to
these families all my life, so I have no problem making.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Her feel welcome. Me and her a really good friends.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
She's she's my best friend. Whenever I'm here in the
summer and when i'm recording. Sometimes you'll hear her in
the background or whatever, hanging out with me and stuff
like that too, And it's it's always interesting because like
you're watching her as she starts growing up again, like
you're you know, it just keeps making flashes her sisters.
But at the same time, this this girl for four,
she is smart, Like she is so smart. She knows,

(51:59):
she knows what she's doing. She's watching it and she knows, Okay,
I got you, I'm playing you. You know, and we
already know kids jugs four understand a lot more. This
girl understands a lot more than a kid at four
years old does. I'll tell you that she knows what
she's doing, you know. And it's so interesting to watch
her as she starts evolving and starts learning these things,
and you know, and then you start building this grace
invention ever made.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
You know, you just take her out there, watch her,
just go for it.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Man, a couple hours out there running around having a blast,
and you come back, okay, cool, all right. You know,
we had our own little routine set up. I work
around my recording schedule and things too. And she was
so cool about it too, you know. But It was
just so fascinating to watch how how simply excited she
was just about just going there. Okay, cool, And you
know it's it comes to that think everybody's like, oh,
you had to spend money into do you don't? You

(52:43):
don't these I'm telling these things a grace. These kids
don't care like they don't care about Jordan's and all
these all these fancy shoes and everything.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
They just want to be a kid man. They just
want to enjoy life. They just want to go do things.
They want to learn new things. They want you to
teach them new things. You know.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
They just want you to be present in their lives,
you know. And I feel like a lot of people
these days who screens and we cut down the screen
time too, you know, Like I said, I do the
podcast and then when I'm done, it's okay, let's go
do something. Let's go to the park, or you know,
let's go take the dogs for a walk. She likes
taking the dogs for a walk too with me too.
That's the other thing. Shows You come over and she'll
wait till she gets up, and she knows the minute

(53:17):
she gets up, she jumps out of bed, is ready
to go all right, let's go, let's go take the
dogs for a walk, and things like that too. So
it's it's it's always so interesting every time when she
visits you, because then it's usually she's like, well.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Where's Peter at?

Speaker 2 (53:29):
I don't know where he's at, you know, like cause
I work third Chips, so sometimes I'm asleep during then
you can hear her asking.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Hey, where's he at?

Speaker 2 (53:35):
And then this little girl had the nerve to get
mad at me on Father's Day because I wasn't there
because I was spending time my dad and her.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
She goes to her mom goes, mom, where's Peter at?

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Laughing hysterically, you know, and it's like, it's so it's
a great feeling to know that, you know, you have
such impact on somebody just just by interacting with them,
you know, and things like that too, and you know
that it goes to say that, you know, even if
they're not your own flush and blood, you still loved
like they're your own, you know.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, And I think and there's a couple of sides
of what you're saying. And I know we're probably about
to wrap up, but I just want to reiterate this
because you're really giving so many great usable tools to
the people that are listening, and so I want to
I just want to pull out two of them from
what you just said. One is that that human connection
is exactly what we were talking about before, and to
whomever it is. There aren't the only definitions of mine

(54:24):
or flesh and blood or the rest. These are our own.
We constructed constructed those, and we certainly know that there
are people in our lives that were related to who
we don't connect with, and there are people otherwise that
absolutely are, you know, our our energy companions. And so
one is follow that lead, just follow, just trust the
human connection and trust when it's not there both sides.

(54:48):
The other thing that you said that I that I
think we could leave everybody with. It's that reminder of
you know, you just bring into your mind a four
year old or you know, just a child, and and
I just heard a long list of things that you
value about that person, and let's just leave it there.
About that person. You know, their delight, their creativity, their enthusiasm,
they're looking for you, they're wanting to engage with other people.

(55:11):
They're taking you know, they're finding tasks like walking the doll.
You know, all of those things at that age before
they're thinking or being taught to think about stuff and
product and money and outcome and grades and success and
comparison and judgment and all this. Think about those values

(55:32):
of a four year old and realize that that's so
much of what we're looking for as well. We have
to integrate those into.

Speaker 4 (55:40):
The life, the grown up life and world that we're in.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
But the values themselves, those are things to strive for.
We want those too. Back in the day must have
been the eighties, an author named Robert Fulgum published a
book called All I Ever Need to Know I Learned
in Kindergarten, And this thing took off, zillion dollar best
seller posters, sequel books, speaking tours, all the talk shows.

(56:05):
I mean this simple phrase, everything I need to Know
I learned in kindergarten. And then there was a list
of things and you just realized how fundamental they were
to human happiness. So, in honor of what you were saying, Peter,
that recognizing that the glow that comes from that age,
but also reminding everybody who's listening that those are shared

(56:25):
values and you can seek those out and you can
integrate them into your adult world and find that there's
a great deal of joy to be had by getting
back to how our brains work, back to the fundamentals
of what we want, even as a small human being
or as a developing human being, those are the same
things that we want as a big, developing human being,
which is what we.

Speaker 4 (56:45):
Are as adults.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
We're bigger and there's a lot more going on and
we have a lot more history, but we're still a
developing human being and we're still seeking those same joys
and wonders.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
And delights of life.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
That's really what we're striving to do when we put
our mental health forward.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
I love it absolutely, David. Before we wrap up, I
do have two questions for you.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
So I've been asking everybody this same question, and it
goes credit to a good friend of mine. She it's
a podcast called The Shit that Goes On in Her Head. Okay,
so I'm going to ask you the same question she
asked me, David. If your mental health had a song,
what would it be. It's a great question too, by
the way, everybody loves this question.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
That is a good question. I would say that there's
that there's two I knew I had some self awareness
when I was running one day and the song I
Just Want to Be Okay came into my head, and
I found that it was emotionally, deeply impactful for me
because I knew that I wasn't okay, and the lyrics
are very you know, I just want to be okay.
I just want to be okay today, just that sense

(57:40):
of I'm not okay and I want to be okay.
And then there's an old song called called I Just
Want to Celebrate. Yep. It's an old R and B
song and maybe even from the Seties, And I think
that's maybe the other side of it, because when I'm
in the flow, gratitude just pours, just pours through me.
And that's how it's just one of the biggest green

(58:02):
flags that I have in my life is when in
the midst of almost anything that's happening, and I've had
it happen in super chaotic situations and in super peaceful ones,
and all of a sudden, there's just a click in
me that just says, man, I just need to make
sure I take this in and celebrate how awesome this is.
And so I guess so those would be my.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Two okay So the last question before we wrap up,
and the reason this podcast exists is if you can
break this stigma.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
About mental health.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Ti'm talking about anything that just absolutely drives you crazy.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
When you see it, What would it be?

Speaker 3 (58:32):
I think it's the notion that certain feelings only are
only acceptable in certain situations. How you feel is how
you feel, period, and it's a result of a very
complex and important part of who you are as a
human being. And it makes you awesome that you have feeling.
And so anyone who tells you you shouldn't laugh at
the wrong time, or you shouldn't cry at the wrong time,

(58:53):
or you shouldn't be angry, or it's not okay to
feel that way, or this isn't the place or time
for that sort of thing, that just drives being crazy
because it's a fundamental denying of literally the core of
my being, because we're not choosing that it's not I
think if I laugh here, I can make everybody else feel.
When we have an authentic feeling, it is us at

(59:16):
our most vulnerable and our most real. And if someone
says that's not the time, that's not a good reaction.
That is how you're supposed to That just drives me
crazy because it is fundamentally who I am, and if
you deny that you fund you're denying fundamentally who I am.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
In this mon I absolutely love it. David, thank you
so much for being here today. I appreciate you coming
to hang out with me. Man I enjoy this conversation.
We are definitely going to be back up when david
self memoir comes out, and we will touch on that too,
is when he gets all that figured out everything. So
we are definitely gonna invite you back ahead of time.
But David, once you ever really know where they can
find you, were's the best place to reach if anybody
wants to reach out and ask any questions or you know,

(59:54):
wants to say hey, like I listen, like your book
and things like that.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Absolutely so, David Allan Brown dot com. The only trick
is the middle name is A L A N. So
David Allan Brown dot com. You can reach me directly
through a link to send me an email. You can
find my books there. You can find this program Convergence,
which is a combination of this self regulation and recognizing
these three areas of our life the inspiration, the emotion

(01:00:17):
and the action part and how to work on that,
Ask me some questions about it, see what we can
talk about. I love getting into this with people, So
that's how to track me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Well, thank you so much Jain for being here and
a guys, and that wraps up this episode of Peak
for as Anxiety.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Guys, you know what I find me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
I'm Peed for Anxiety and X all the way down
to TikTok, I'm on Spotify all the way down to
Pantura now and as always say, it costs nothing, absolutely
does to be kind of somebody.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
When kind act you could do CA say say's life
or hell, you can make their day. I'm peek for
its anxiety signing. I'm saying, don't ask how your day
is today, say hey, how's your mental health today