EP. 104 | 🍦 Kausalya Vimal & Josh Dale 🍦

In this thought-provoking episode of IN THE CUT, we sit down with therapists Kausalya Vimal and Josh Dale to explore the complex and often misunderstood world of mental health. Together, they unravel the pervasive stigmas that surround mental health issues, providing valuable insights into how these stigmas impact individuals and their communities.

They also discuss practical strategies for fostering a more supportive and understanding environment for those with mental health challenges. Whether you want to learn more about mental health or seek advice on supporting loved ones, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.


Let's Talk: You and Me is an interactive community event on July 21st, 2024, at 4:00 PM, focused on mental health, well-being, and healing! Tickets are still available https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/lets-talk-you-and-me-tickets-805930849867

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Old man. Soa, Hey everyone, this is no it's your boy,
Funky, the coolest teen rapper online. What's up? It's me Alfie.
You're listening to the Cool Table witha listening to the You're listening to the
Cool Table. You're listening to theCool Table. And I'm not sure if
you know this, but right nowyou're in the cut with my man Adri
Smile. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

(00:24):
Welcome to the Cool Table. Ifyou want to listen to us live,
listen to us every single Wednesday ateleven am c j t M in Toronto
Metradio dot ca A online. Myname is Adro Smiley Akaadrosmiley dot Com aka
Adril Smiley Official aka the Godfather.Now today we have a special special episode.
These are my favorite episodes. Igotta tell you. When we talk

(00:47):
about things that are actually important,these are favorite episodes. Now we have
two I want to say leaders inthe community with us today, Case and
Josh. Thank you for joining us. You have an event coming up.
Now before we get to everything else, I want to plug your event.
I'm gonna plug you vent multiple times. Yo. We're gonna just break the
show every ten minutes for you plugthe event. So at the top,
plug the event and then we'll getinto things. Okay, First of all,

(01:08):
thank you Adel for inviting us.I'm super grateful to obviously share the
space with you. As for theevent, it is July twenty. First,
it is coming up on a Sunday, four to eight pm at nine
eighteen bathers in Toronto. Okay,okay, listen, we're gonna do that
again. I want to come backto that, but I want to make
sure everyone got that because some peopledon't make it all the end of the

(01:29):
podcast. So I made it.Made it makes Yeah, at least you
got the event information. I wantto start with Josh because I think when
it comes to mental health, it'slike an interesting feel to even choose to
get into. Like how often doyou hear a kid at like nine years
old saying like one day I wantto deal with mental health. You know,
one day I want to help youwith mental health. That doesn't really

(01:49):
happen. So I guess, tellme what you wanted to do before you
wanted to get into mental health,Like where did happen that way for me?
Oh? For when they we wereyoung? Okay, yeah, I
mean I had a few things Iwanted to do, like be a chef
that kind of stuff. But Ithink it was when I was eleven.
You ever see that movie Freaky Friday, You guys ever see it? Like
right, like okay, so themom and that she was like psychologists therapist.

(02:12):
Since I don't know, there's somethingin me that was like, oh
maybe I could do that. Butthen I forgot about it until years later,
until I went through my own stuffand that kind of Yeah, so
it was more just like oh,yeah, I'll be a chef for something
that's more like reachable, but therewas this passion of like, oh I
could do something like that, butthere's really not that opportunity to do it
or get into it. I grewup in a small town, so there

(02:34):
wasn't really that opportunity to latch onuntil later. So but yeah, it
was like eleven years old, Iwas like, that's what I want to
do. That is that is sorare. And I guess seeing that you're
like, okay, that looks likesomething I could do because I think as
well, even like coming from aKorean background, even parents understanding what that
even is, it's like, isthat a real job. And I was

(02:57):
telling you guys a little bit beforewe started talking to my barberat it.
It's almost as if if you goto therapy it means that you're like crazy.
Yeah, And I'm like, there'sso many levels before crazy, Like
there are crazy people, listen,live your truth, live your lives.
But before we get to crazy,there's a bunch of levels before that.
And I feel like the stigma hasbeen so heavy that very much, all
of a sudden, it means,Okay, they're going to therapy, something

(03:20):
must be wrong with them. Case, how do you get into it?
Like where was your mind that?And was there like a moment where you're
like, Okay, I really wantto help people. Yeah, honestly,
Like very similarly to Josh, Ilike growing up. I grew up with
an older brother who really struggled withkind of like adjusting into Canada. We're
from Sri Lanka, so migrated duringthat influx. And I just see my

(03:43):
older brother just like kind of likecrumble in the system, but a lot
of racism, a lot of likeas a man trying to figure out like
his identity and gang related stuff andsubstances and things like that. So I
kind of grew up in that space, and so I was always like,
what's the level with my brother,Like who's helping him? What's going on
on? So not necessarily me goingthrough all of that, but seeing a
family member go through that, itobviously impacts your family because we're are you

(04:05):
in it? So that kind ofreally sparked the idea of like, man,
like I really want to work withyouth, and yeah, like out
a high school, I went straightinto undergrad and focused a lot on like
community work and a lot of youthwork and yeah, and then later on
just continued kept going and then didgrad school and then became a therapist.
So when you were younger, wasthat an option that you thought was real,

(04:27):
Like that was a job that youthought could happen, or was it
like I just want to help inwhatever way that I can. Is it
for me? First of all,my parents were just like, listen,
if you know any salvations or wrongpeople, it's literally like a doctor,
a lawyer, or maybe an accountant, maybe an engineer. I'm sorry your
mom and dad literally literally. Andso my dad actually wanted me to be

(04:50):
a cop with surprising you know,He's just like I think you got it,
you could do it, And Isaid, you know, and I
did want to, but but no, my heart, like my passion went
towards it, like being with thekids in the community. And so my
parents actually struggled a lot to understandwhat I was doing. They're like,
I don't understand, how are youmaking money like that? So it was
like okay, but had to normalizethat, like I had to you know,

(05:11):
becoming being in the field, LikeI had to like really go through
like my own set of trauma andbe like, yeah, man, my
brothers, my dad, like nobodyreally believed in it at the time.
Now they're yeah, I'm still workingon two of them. One of them,
yes on board. Okay, butit's a stigma, like it's it's
we'ren't twenty twenty four. The conversationis still fresh, yeah understand And for

(05:33):
you same thing. Yeah, Well, it was in like a small town
setting, you have, you kindof had your like certain jobs that people
would do right like that were accepted. So it was like none of it
was talking about therapy, right ormental health. I think of our you
know, school programs. There wasall these programs set up for people to

(05:54):
go into like if they wanted todo a trade, right, we had
all the woodworking shop, all thatkind of stuff, so that was all
set up in school, but therewas nothing for mental health. So I
kind of just like, yeah,I might have been excited about it at
like eleven, but then kind offizzled out until I went through my own
this case was saying my own trauma, and then it was like, oh,
I could step into this, whichI did. That's how I started

(06:15):
out, went through my own addictionstuff, and then went into addictions counseling
once I got out of that.But there was really none of that you
know, younger right or in school. Yeah, it kind of was just
a roundabout way of me getting intoit. I always feel like getting into
therapy in general is almost entrepren likehaving an entrepreneurial spirit, even though it's

(06:39):
not necessarily that because there's not thatdistinctive pipeline like there is in sports or
music or even if you want toget into cooking. You have to kind
of think, I just want todo this, and I'm going to figure
out a way to do it.And so I always kind of give you
guys that extra credit because I thinkthat no, but it's true because that
pipeline isn't there, and it's like, yeah, you can go to school

(07:00):
for our ways that you can kindof train and gain that experience, but
you have to have that initial thoughtof like, I don't really know how
I'm gonna do this, but I'mgonna try and help people. So I've
had this theory for a while.Okay, I have two theories. The
first one you don't have to speakon, but I'm gonna share it with
you because I feel like you,guys, give me some info. The
second one, I want to hearyour thoughts. Okay. The first one
I think will be helpful if allwomen had paintball guns. Okay, and

(07:26):
let's hear me out. Hear meout, hear me out. Okay.
So I think these paintball guns,it's a little pistol, okay, not
an ar, nothing crazy, justa little pistol carrying your purse or strat.
And it's when men are just beingmen quote unquote, some cat calling,
whatever it is, and everyone hasthat paintball gun to just let it

(07:47):
fly. And because it's paint youknow who's who. So let's say Josh
gets crazy on the way to work, in this cat calling across the street,
someone whips out the paintball gun Igot yellow paint, shows out to
work and be like, oh soJosh was nasty on his way to work.
Ability not a bad idea, right, I guess how you kind of
police that is its own thing.But I think if there's like an honor

(08:09):
system, not a bad idea,correct. Okay. Second one I think
is mandatory therapy for parents. Ithink that almost whatever your situation financially,
as soon as someone has a child, mandatory therapy. And I thought about
that a lot because I think thatwhen people do have children, and that's
when their mental health takes you know, a huge toll, because it's a

(08:31):
huge change, but you also addressit less because you just have a lot
less time. So how do yougo? How do you guys? Think
about that as something where you know, this is a utopian society, but
manage our mental health for new parentsyou can go first. Me, I
think it's I think it's a goodidea or good ideal, right, Like
I deal a lot with attachment andso realizing how important those parental relationships are,

(08:54):
right if a parent hasn't gone throughtheir own kind of like counseling or
just learning how to take care ofsomeone else's emotions or help regulate or you
know, help notice a need andreally have that sense of awareness. Then
then you know that can impact thechild, right. So I think it's
like this sense of mandatory. Maybethere's a better word for it, but

(09:16):
like somehow getting it across like thisis a benefit. It's not a punishment,
right, Like it's a cure.You you can have this therapy,
whether it would be provided by thegovernment to wherever. But I think parents
learning to regulate their own emotions,how their nervous system impacts, you know,
their children, right, and howto provide for emotional needs of the

(09:37):
children and just have that awareness.I think it would be great. I
think it would. There's a lotof a lot of like therapists psychologists on
podcast episodes that really talk about theimportance of our parenting right and that maybe
there needs to be some change andhow we do it, and maybe we
weren't aware of stuff years ago whenour parents were parenting us, and now

(10:00):
there's this level of awareness that wecan bring in and I think it would
just impact the family unit, impactthe family system. So not a bad
idea maybe better than your PayPal mayneed some work. We don't want to
promote violence, but I think there'ssomething there. Yeah, I would say
this. I said, first ofall, the government needs to pay government
needs to pay for therapy. Facts. That's where I sent. And I'm

(10:20):
gonna say this. I say thiswith my chest because there this especially like
in this climate. We're in Canada, and like immigration laws we already know,
we see where we live. There'sso many different cultures that are here,
There's so many different people that arehere, and I think it's unfair
for this society, this economy tohave this hustle culture and to kind of

(10:43):
like grind grind, grind, grind, grind, and then also expect us
to take care of our mental healthand stuff when that's not even advocated.
I'll tell you right now, thisis like me doing over a decade.
I'm not trying to aige myself,but doing it over a decade of like
work and research. And it's justlike, why aren't there organizations and companies
paying for therapy, and if so, why is the amount so small?
As therapists, as business owners,we should get paid just like any other

(11:03):
profession gets paid so I think tostart there, I think that would be
very encouraging for folks to be like, oh, you're gonna pay for it?
Sure, And I think those thatare working in fields, they should
have all of the tax tax dollarswhere are they going? I think it
should be allocated towards wellness. Andfor those, you know, parents that
are not working social assistance, thereshould be some type of program that's provided

(11:24):
through there. So I think thatincentive would encourage people to be like,
you know what, Yeah, Idid need therapy and I could afford it.
Because as therapists, a lot ofthe things, you know, people
are like, well, I don'tgo to therapy because it's too expensive,
and we charge anywhere from like onehundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a
session. That's a lot. Soif there's like a mom or a dad,
like even like single parents and theyhave two three kids, how are

(11:46):
we really expecting them to come totherapy? And that's what I always think
of our those group of people whomaybe want to go, but whether it's
a mix of the stigma or thefinances why they don't go. And then
there's another group who's like do Ieven need therapy. That's all different conversation.
Yeah, and that's why I thoughtof this idea of it being mandatory,
is like maybe that would change theway you think about it when you

(12:07):
know your friend has a kid andmaybe you're the godmother, and you see
how they've kind of grown over thepast year and you're like, maybe this
is not so bad. It's notAnd just to like actually answer your question,
like, yeah, I think educatingpeople about the importance of therapy.
And I say this to say thatlike those people with the with the money,

(12:28):
those people with the platforms, that'swhere I'm trying to target. Yeah,
you feel me, Well, that'swhere has the if I think of
when like I'm I was growing upor maybe you were growing up or you
were growing up, like I thinkin schools, you know, there wasn't
that, yeah, conversation about it, and so therefore, if it's not
in schools, there's no conversation aboutthat, there's not likely conversations at home

(12:48):
right about it, like where dowe go? And so there was none
of that. So you're right,if these people that have platforms or whatever,
now we're seeing like we're seeing amental health kind of spike yeah,
yeah, and percentage and we're seeinglike, Hollywood did it, I think
a decent job with Inside Out.Yeah yeah, inside Out. Yeah.

(13:13):
I just saw the second one.Yeah, very great. But like you
know, I'm thinking, Okay,where else are people getting their information?
Like it just this movie just cameout now, and people are like I
hear people messaging me like, oh, you're a therapist, like I'm learning
about this finally, and they're like, thirty plus, this isn't children,
right, so we're only learning aboutthis net And that is a perfect example

(13:35):
that hitting the box office like thatand everybody watching that and all ages watching
that, that should tell people thatoh, this isn't important stuff that we
need to actually keep doing. BecauseI think too, this is why I'm
kind of proud of us as aculture in a sense of everyone being so
into their like mental wellness and tryingto grow that because a lot of times
your opinion on that has already beenmade through school, not hearing about it

(13:58):
through school, or hearing negative thingsabout it. You reach your twenties and
your thirties and you've decided how youfeel right, and so to see a
bunch of people kind of change theiropinions or be able to grow. That
is impressive. Yeah, just amazing. I'm seeing it. It's why my
agency were all black therapist and sowe really open up for the black community

(14:18):
and in whether Caribbean or African households, you know, big stigma or just
big like you know, no kindof therapy. And so I have people
for their first times, in theirlate twenties, thirties, forties, going
to therapy for the first time,right, and they're breaking that cycle in
their family and wait that we don'tgo here. No, actually we can

(14:39):
go here and there is help here. And so they get to take that
education and actually educate their kids.Now create a whole news cycle. And
that's what I love seeing, right, shout out to Whole Care Therapy.
Hey man, yeah, yeah,a little plug now, we love that.
We love that. Before we moveon, let's get one more plug
of the event. It's about thattime, Okay. I love this.
Okay. And again, so thisis second annual event that I host.

(15:01):
It is called Let's Talk You andMe. This event isn't initially what's happening
right now having conversations in your community, feeling a sense of belonging, talking
about mental health and therapy and allthings July twenty first, at nineteen Baths
in Toronto, four to eight pm. Panel discussions, performances, mix and
mingle, networking. It's going tobe a vibe, yeah, be there

(15:22):
or b square, simple as that. What you said about people getting to
therapy later in life is something I'vealways thought about because I've seen my parents
personally just grow over the past tenyears, and I've just been so proud
of them to see them grow,because sometimes people don't feel like they can
keep growing as their life goes on. And one thing I realized, I've

(15:43):
always been someone who hung a hangleof the older people. That's always been
my energy. And almost everyone hassome kind of trauma from their parents.
It's it's almost like it's like builtin and it's like death taxes trauma to
their parents. And when I gotolder and realized that, I thought about
this idea that that's something we justassume this's going to happen. And so

(16:04):
when you talk about things you dealwith a lot of time in therapy.
My friends at ly told me theytalk about their parents and their partners a
lot, and I think about,you know, our parents, maybe are
grandparents. And to think about yourgrandparents having trauma from their parents who they
probably never spoke to anyone because they'refrom a different generation, their parents probably

(16:25):
not around to speak to their parentsabout it. And I think that we
are the generation that is going tochange that, and this is the beginning
of that. So I think thatwe're in a very very good space.
Obviously we can do a lot better, but we started. Yeah, we
started, that's what I say.We started, and we're pioneering this,
and I think, and that's sobeautiful to hear that, Like you're having

(16:45):
conversations with your parents and you're seeingyour parents' growth because remember your parents are
also living their childhood that they neverhad. And that's exactly it is.
Like I said this before, whenchildren are born, we are so delicate
with them because of course their children, but they're going to be an adult
longer than you're going to be akid. And as an adult, you
are living on the things you wantedas a kid, and so how your

(17:06):
life goes as a kid is soso important. And so I think,
like creating this environment that we arecreating four people of color is changing that.
And right in front of our eyessome fas. Okay, I scoured
the interwebs and I was like,what are people really wondering about therapy?

(17:26):
Now? This first one, Ithink this one is like a pretty easy
one in terms of it being amyth and not reality. But I want
to hear your thoughts KSE systems oncefor you. First, it says psycho
therapists have ready made solutions for allof life's problems. Absolutely not, y'all,
that's balls it. You understand weare humans too, and so therapists

(17:51):
or we have specializations, so youhave to find the right therapist. Not
one therapist can have a solution forall the things. And also I always
tell my clients this, you're nottherapy works if you want it to work.
But also the goal is, yes, to get treatment, but recognizing
that sometimes in the time that wehave you six, eight sessions or even

(18:12):
longer, we might not get there. But that's not it. It's not
the destination. It's a journey.The journey of you actually committing and investing
in therapy and actually choosing yourself thatis number one and foremost. And so
whether you have one session or tensession, at the end of the day,
if you find the really good therapist. You're still going to walk away

(18:32):
with some gems. It's good.Yeah. I always say I'll say this
to my friends, therapist friends thatwe're talking about it. I'll even say
to some clients that, So there'spopular names in the therapy field, like
Stephen Porges or Sue Johnson that kindof stuff, or like Freud. Right,
he's gotta some theories, But alwayssay, you know Sue and Freud,

(18:55):
and these people don't know my clientsspecifically, right, And I'm just
meeting my clients specifically for the firsttime, right, And so I talk
to my clients basically that word ofjourney, like I'm journeying with you,
and I'm taking my skills and resourcesto really to really find more out about

(19:15):
you and how we can go.But I'm not coming in with with all
these set things and trying to putpeople in a box and be like this
is this is where we're going togo. That's the idea. It's called
therapeutic alliance or therapeutic relationship. Aswe build that with our clients, tell
And that's what makes a good therapistis being able to connect with someone's humanity.
Right. I can't go in withthis robotic approach and be like,

(19:38):
okay, you know this is whatit's going to look like, and get
upset if you don't follow it.Yeah, I got to connect with the
human, the human in front ofyou, right. I think there's also
this misconception, and maybe it's partlytrue. You guys can let me know
of will a therapist properly understand you? Like there's some people who say,
okay, I'm a black man,I'm need a black man or black woman

(20:00):
as a therapist, or someone saysI work at a certain industry, Will
a therapist understand my lifestyle? Thatsort of thing. Does that play a
part in terms of you know,how would you connect with a client or
how much therapy can quote unquote workwith someone, Because I do think there's
certain people who say I don't wantI don't want this kind of therapist to

(20:22):
go. Yeah, I think Ithink there are we It's again I'm going
back to attachment rights. As kids. What really helps kids form is this
idea of mirroring. Right. Youwant to see you know, these things
mirrored by your parents in terms ofwhen you are laughing, you know,
you see them laughing and they contendyour needs. And this idea of mirroring

(20:45):
is great. It's why we havefriend groups where you know they're like us,
right, it's they're not complete opposites, right, And I find that
people like therapists where there is somemirroring. Right now, there is something
that's not completely opposita you know,type A, type B. You know
this culture another culture, Like ifeverything's completely different, you might not vibe

(21:07):
with that therapist. But I say, and I'm really starting to think through
this and maybe you can touch onit too, but I'm really going back
to that human piece. Right.There are people that I don't have things
much things in common with that areon my caseload that have extended past the
typical eight to twelve sessions. Andthat's because one of the biggest things behind
me is a therapist is connecting withthe human experience. And I think it

(21:30):
fits in with our own what caseand I were talking about it, We
went through our own traumas, right, We went through our own life experiences,
and there's things about building whether resilienceor things through that or even just
sitting in that that can connect withthe human experience. Right. So with
my clients, it doesn't matter allof them. What I'm trying to connect
with is that human right, Andso I think mirroring is good, it's

(21:52):
important. And there's lots of clientstell that I have that I miror with,
but even the ones that I don't, what I can mirror with is
the human experience because we're human,right, And so I think it's a
both and maybe not an either or, but I do get. I do
get where clients are like, yeah, I don't want to work with this
therapist. I want a therapist.It's like this, yeah, yeah,

(22:15):
I would definitely echo that, AndI think I always tell people, I'm
like, definitely go with therapists thatyou vibe with, because you want to
humanized the process, you know whatI'm saying, Like, you want to
feel comfortable. You want to belike, ooh, I'm going to therapy.
I can't wait to keep key withKeys. Oh my god, that
should be my podcast. But youdo want that because I do have something.

(22:36):
Clients that come in and are likeready for the girl chat and I
said, bet, and that's atype of therapist I am. And that's
okay, that's okay. But Ialso have a fifty nine year old client
and I'm talking about her name isnot Betty, but I'm a caller Betty,
but that he's like from England.What do I have business with Betty
from England? But Betty will sitwith me and we'd have a time.
But I learned so much from Bettybecause she lived in such a different time,

(22:59):
so that I'm really proud of herto be in the space. And
so I'm learning from her and she'slearning from me. And then she's kind
of like asking about her grandparents,like I don't know what to do.
It's like, well, these aretimes on it, so it's like you
just never know. But I think, don't shut yourself off to exploring the
possibility of what the therapist might looklike. But yeah, definitely find something
like if you're a racialized individual,absolutely find a racialized therapist. They're going

(23:22):
to help you understand some of thatlayer of trauma that we deal with.
Yeah, I think what jos saidabout the human experience is something I always
think of even in my line ofwork. As telling this to my little
brother, I said, I canconnect with anyone. I think that you
get to a point where you seealmost anybody and you're like we have something
in common. Yeah, And Ithink the other person might not think that.

(23:42):
So they see you and may assumeno, oh, there's no way,
but it's up to you to kindof see that, Okay, we
both have been through pain. Weknow what pain feels like, we know
what this feels like. The exampleI think of is I grew up a
ferocious reader. I still read now, but I have more of a life
so that as not as much aswhen I was younger. And I'm on

(24:07):
the National Radio Board and I've hadother board members talk to me about their
love for reading as well, andI can see the kind of surprise on
their face that, oh, thisguy really reads. And it's not a
matter of stereotyping as much, butlike, I don't think someone sees me
and go, I bet that guyreads, you know, but I know
that I read. So when Ihear that you say that you read about
okay, we got something here.And I think that's a part of the

(24:30):
stigma of going against therapy is likewill they really get what I'm going through?
And I think there's always this individualitywe have of what I'm going through
is so particular, it's such aunique thing and then you realize, no,
it's not as unique as you think, and it is something people can

(24:51):
understand. This is one that I'veheard people who I know who's lot of
therapy actually say this in terms ofthem being worried about this when they went
to their recession. It says psychotherapistsblame a client's problems on their upbringing.
I want you guys to talk aboutthat, because that is one that came
up a lot of people being worriedabout, you know that when going to

(25:14):
therapy. I'm really curious, likethe word blame, Like, that's a
really interesting word to use. SoI don't know if that person's experience and
I'm sorry that they had that experiencecase coming out like that, but you
know, the word blame, I'mlike, WHOA, So I don't know
what that person experience is, butI really really hope that they do give
it another try. Because I canonly speak for myself. I think it's

(25:38):
interesting. I think naturally we aretrained just to kind of look into like
psychological impact of our clients and whatthey go through. And there's a lot
of research that has been proven thatyou know, obviously your experiences in childhood
and stuff like that, do youalter like our brain chemistry and all that
stuff and how we can show upin adulthood. Do I think every single
conversation to need to be about that. No, No, because we could

(26:02):
also look at your present you,right, So there's a lot of different
there's so many different modalities that weuse. But therapists can also get really
creative, so I don't think weneed to jump to childhood all the time.
Also, you got to meet whereyour client is at. The client's
not ready to dive into the youknow, the history, then as a
therapist you got to work find anotherway to hold space for that client.

(26:22):
Yeah, I think I don't havemuch to ad It was a great answer.
I think for me, like Isaid, I work influenced by attachment
theory, which really does deal withchildhood. And I work from a like
a family system's lens or just asystem's lens in general, which is not
it's more than just the individuals bad. There's other things that have gone on

(26:44):
there and oftentimes I'm I'm going tobe honest, Oftentimes, with a very
high percentage of my clients, thereis impact from home or from childhood,
right that has that we can traceto their adulthood and what they're experiencing adulthood.
It is things like you had aan experience when you were a child,

(27:06):
and that caused you to have certaindefense mechanisms or you know, protecting
yourself safety measures, and all ofa sudden, you're an adulthood and they're
not serving in you you anymore,but you know, and they're impacting you,
and they're they're putting you in fightor flight and that kind of stuff,
right, And so then you're realizing, oh, you know, we
do a little bit of work onthis, and oh, I actually learned

(27:26):
this thing when I was in childhood. And maybe that protective factor in childhood
was like suppression, right, suppressingstuff. So now you're an adult and
you're realizing, Okay, I've suppressedso much stuff down it's boiling over.
And so in those ways we cango back to childhood and but you know,
maybe it's not so much. Oh, we're just going to unpack everything
here. It's like, oh,if we notice something, how can we

(27:48):
now talk about present you and whatdoes it look like to find healthier ways
or ways that serve you more nowto deal with you know, your mental
health other than suppression, right,So I think it's hard not to at
least touch on it. But likeyou said, you got to meet with
the client's at If a client comesinto therapy and they're like, I want
to work on time management and thingslike that, and anxiety be around time

(28:11):
management, I'm not going to belike, well, was your daddy?
You know good with time? Right? Like you know things like that,
you know what I know. AndI think what Case said about using the
word blame, it's like the wordblame is kind of the key word in
this of like blame feels so negative. And I was saying this earlier.
I said, a lot of whatI've learned from therapy from my friends have

(28:34):
gone to therapy is like the growthof self perception. And sometimes how you
perceive yourself is part of you notwanting to go to therapy or part of
you not wanting to get involved.Come on and come on. And so
I think that to me, thatis the biggest win for just this I
call this era where you see yourmental wellness is coming at the forefront,

(28:57):
because I think now I we're ata place where if someone's mental wellness isn't
right or they do things that maybethey could feel like they're not right in
that way people are calling it out, and whether it's directly, it's like
I might be keicky in with caseshot to the podcast and I say,
yeah, Josh's is not right rightnow. And I think even that kind

(29:18):
of verbiage we have to talk aboutthose things now is so huge. So
what you said about using words likeblame, I think that's like even part
of that being an apprehension is youknow, you're perceiving itself as someone is
like, listen, my past isnot the problem, you know, And
maybe maybe they're right, maybe they'rewrong, but even tho the perception of
there's no way that that's a problem. But I'd even invite them to have

(29:41):
a conversation about that, Like I'dbe like, well, you know,
talk to me about that word.Yeah, talk to me about like why
do you feel like it's blaming andetcetera. Like I'd get to know them
a little bit more. Yeah.Yeah, this next one, I made
sure I put this down because thisis something that I've had a personal relationship
with in terms of my friends andthere ship of therapy, and it's psychotherapist

(30:02):
prescribing medication and I think that thisis but I think that this is something
that is like again a whole separateissue in terms of people being avoiding of
therapy, but just talk about boththe relationships with that in terms of clients

(30:22):
they're wanting that or not wanting that, because I think that's something that is
in some people's minds in terms ofdeciding if they want to go or not.
Yeah, you want to start,you want to Yeah, Well,
I mean the first thing coming inmy mind is I don't believe it's in
our scope of practice, like legally, yeah, yeah, it's not.
That's the main thing I want.I want to clear up because I think

(30:44):
some people think that and then theyeither go or not go with that in
mind, and it's like not evenwe cannot prescribe. Yeah. One thing
I learned in ethics class, andit was actually a very good thing.
My ethics teacher really really taught usand to be okay with is this idea
of not feeling bad, you know, building a referral network, not feeling
bad if you can't fit with aclient or if a client does need you

(31:07):
know, you know, say westart working on anxiety and then we start
to realize, oh, maybe thisis more of a chemical chemical issue,
and we need to involve someone thatcan prescribe. There's that referral for me.
If I know how to build agood referral network and I get to
know my client, I start toknow, Okay, maybe this person that's

(31:29):
on my referral networks can be agood fit for this person, right,
And then there could be that conversationand it could be smooth and my client
could feel like, oh, Joshcares, and there's a safety piece here
and I trust Josh or I trustthe person he's sending me to. But
yeah, fair pers shouldn't be afraidto just admit when it's out of their
scope of practice. Hey, youknow what this isn't in my scope of

(31:52):
practice. Here's what I can helpyou with. And then here's what I
can refer to. Right, Andtrying to make it again that you're at
advocating, right, it's an advocation, so you know your needs and the
support you need. It might notall be coming for me, but I
can advocate for you in other waysby referring that kind of stuff. So
if you're coming into the if you'recoming into therapy and you you're wanting prescribed

(32:15):
or you're coming with the stigma oflike, oh, that's all they do
is just prescribe meds. Like there'sways to talk about this what's actually in
our scope and what we do what'sout of our scope and even yeah,
that it's a big conversation when youbring in kind of medication and stuff like
that. But yeah, yeah,I know, I was going to say
the same thing, like I thinkit's so interesting this conversation. I like,
again, before a therapist, I'mme so personally me and my lived

(32:37):
experiences, I personally believe it moreof a holistic approach than I do medication,
and I'm transparent about that, andI think like we're not We're we're
not able to prescribe medication. Soit's just like the transparency to just like
educate folks about that. And thensecondly it's just like also we do like
a harm reduction approach when we're workingwith those that are like struggling with substances,

(32:59):
and so our job is not belike you need to get off the
pot. It's like, well,let's talk about what pot does to you.
So with that, which is likethe same thing with medication, I'll
my clients are inquiring. I'm like, oh, I was like, okay,
well, these are the medication thatyou know, people like some psychiatrist
and when not prescribe. And Ialways tell people only do your research.
You guys, like everyone has accessto you know, most people have access

(33:22):
to the internet, right, Soit tells you what all the medication is,
It tells you about the side effects, it tells you could do your
own research, so you don't reallyneed us to tell you what these look
like. It's good that the chemicalsare going to show up differently in your
body, but I think that's alsosomething like one of the things that we
also work through is like, youknow, having like your autonomy and your
dignity right in that. So whoam I to tell you that you need

(33:43):
to be taking medication. I letyou know what I'm saying. I'll let
people know. I'm like, thisis the approach that we're gonna work with.
This is the therapist that you have. If you're okay with that,
then we're gonna kick it. Butif you're looking for more of the medication
route and whatnot, then yeah,we'll go to the referral. Well,
and you could try that. Somepeople do just medication. Some people do
just some people do both. That'swhy I thought this was a great thing
for us to talk about, becauseI think a lot of people do have

(34:07):
the either or approach. And I'vemet people who it's like, yeah,
get me on the medication, I'llbe good. And I think there are
some people who it's like, I'mgonna do anything before I take any medication,
you know. And I'm not hereto say which is right or wrong.
I think everyone can decide for themselves. But I think that kind of
putting those two together and mention thereferral of yeah, maybe you start with

(34:28):
therapy and then we realize that youneed to be referred to someone else.
And I think that it's almost likeyou need to kind of figure out what
works, yeah, instead of decidingbeforehand therapy is gonna work for me,
I'm gonna figure out a way forit to work, or medication is gonna
work for you, and way forit to work. It's the idea of
like, let's figure out what works, we'll work on it together, and
whatever works is what we're gonna do. Yeah. And I think that referral,

(34:51):
at least what I was talking about, fits into that both and right,
So even a referral you know,could be to again talk with their
family doctor doctor is uh, youknow trauma informed, you know, mental
health inform that kind of stuff,and is actually aggreccating for their their client.
So then we were they're working withtheir family doctor, but they're still

(35:13):
going to therapy. Like I thinkI've seen many people and again I don't
want to put anyone in a box, but I've seen many people do the
both and they're on medication, butthey're also doing therapy because again there's there
is we're learning in trauma thing.Yeah true, yeah, hundred percent right,
And so there's a holistic there's athere's a more when we're talking about

(35:35):
wellness. It's it's there's many aspectsof wellness that we do as psychotherapist that
it doesn't just have to be oh, this or this, there can be
a whole bunch of factors. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually so happy that
we're having this conversation and that thisis like something that people are going to
be able to, I guess tapinto at the event, but also tap
into online as well, because Ithink that even the idea that it's okay

(35:59):
to talk about it is a hugestep I think I think about you know,
I think about people I've known mywhole life and I've seen them behave
certain ways, and I'm like,you need someone to talk to. And
I think that there's this idea,at least with men, especially that you're
just you're just suffering in silence andthat's just like you're you're you're accustomed to

(36:22):
that, and like that's not evenwrong. And I've heard people say that,
like they're like, usually your yourwife or your partner, that's who
you would go to. But thereare certain things that you're just not going
to talk to your partner about.And I think that if you only have
one option to talk to and thereare a certain things you can't talk to
them about, who's the second option? And there are not always friend groups

(36:45):
that have that, you know thatI guess lee way to talk to each
other. And and why I thinkabout that a lot because I have a
lot of female friends, and Ihave some talks with my female friends that
I know I wouldn't have with mymale friends, and so I kind of
have that outlet to speak about things. For this is not my romantic partner.
I'm not worried about them judging meor not wanting to be with me.

(37:05):
This is my friend, who isshe gonna be here regardless? And
not everyone has that. So ifit's not therapy, Let's say someone is
still too scared for therapy, theystill have apprehension. What advice would you
give to someone just in their normallife, whether there's people around them or
the steps they can take by themselvesin terms of just finding that next level
of mental wellness. They realize somethingis going, you know, wrong with

(37:29):
them, or they feel a certainway, but they don't feel ready to
go to therapy, what would youkind of suggest to them? Go ahead,
you go first, doing lie.I would say, I think it's
about like I think people need tojust slow down. I think like for
yourself, just like slow down andlook, ask yourself, what does my
routine look like that you can determine. We know what's healthy and what's not

(37:50):
healthy. We know getting you know, drunk every weekend and avoiding the problems.
We know that's a band aid approach. Yep, you know, we
know that abusing this or we knowthat like my anger, like you know,
you know, at the end ofthe day, you know what it
is that you need to really startchanging up. So I think I would
start there. I'd say, takea step back and slow down and ask

(38:10):
yourself, what does my everyday looklike? You know what I'm saying.
It's just really like a step ladderapproach, so so that you so if
it's not therapy, if it's noteven the friends, and if it's not
a family, it's like, well, I just got me right now,
Because some people don't have friends,some people don't have family. Some people
are like just literally living life likelone wolf, like doing the thing,
and there's greatness in that. Butobviously I pray that they do get community

(38:35):
at one point. But that alsomeans like, is there some healing that
needs to be done? So ifyou can't do the therapy, I say,
yeah, like look at routine.And then there's so many good resources
that are outside that you guys,people can taptoo in on their own.
Like we're in a time right nowwhere so many like podcasts, so many
like researchers, so many people thatare actually like doing something really dope work
in the community. At least followthem then at least like be in those

(38:57):
spaces and like learn from that.So I would say that, Yeah,
I would say. One thing Itell my clients that is so underrated is
and you might disagree, I don'tknow. This is this is what I
say. You might, you might, you might, you might not.
Awareness is so underrated, I tellmy clients. When when I see my
clients step into a sense of awarenessand be like, oh, yeah,

(39:19):
I've been doing this, I pause, I actually say, I'm not pause
in here like this is good becauseawareness actually gives us a starting point or
even just being able to contemplate oh, or you know, oh my gosh,
this is actually something that I've beenwrestling with, and this is I
have actually avoid my emotions. Isuppress or I protect through getting angry and

(39:43):
even knowing why I get angry.Right, Like, all that awareness is
gold because it actually can help youput one foot in front of the other
if you're coming into therapy. Maybea reason why maybe people might be scared
of coming into therapy is because theyhave an unknown, Like it's so the
unknown is scary. I don't knowhow many times I've talked about the unknown
and different contexts with my clients.That's scary for people. But if you

(40:07):
can build that sense of awareness,right, even emotional awareness. Building an
emotional awareness is so key that that'seven a healing process there. Right,
Oh, I'm aware that when I'maround a certain person that my nervous system
is going in to fight flight freeze. Right, And that doesn't even have
to be the language. You justmight know aoh, I'm feeling a type

(40:29):
of way exactly right. But beingaware of that, Oh, now I
see the pattern. Now I knowevery time I'm around this group of people,
my nervous system is up here.So you know, is there are
there certain things I can do?But being aware of yourself And that's where
what cases talking about comes in issometimes it's not easy to do if we

(40:50):
don't slow down. I think theawareness piece is huge, huge like that.
That's something that's super big for me, and like I always try and
check in on myself because when you'rein it, you almost are a way
less aware. You can feel it. And there's a quote that I saw
online about going through the storm insteadof around the storm, and they kind
of broke it down in a realvisual way of if you try and go

(41:13):
around the storm when the storm iscoming at you, it will take longer
because you have to go around thestorm. If you go through the storm
when the storm is coming at you, that will be an easier path to
whatever you're going for. And whenyou talk about awareness, I think that's
something that it takes a lot toget to that point. But you're right,
that's like a huge, huge firststep. And I just wanted to

(41:35):
add, like to just use bothof it together, the awareness and the
routine, Like y'all need to putthose thoughts down. So I don't know
if it's writing, because sometimes myclients be looking at me like I Am
not journaling, and I'm like,that's fine. That's okay's voice. Record
it, draw it, sing it, do whatever you need to do.
But the thoughts need to come down. You get what I'm saying, because

(41:55):
you got to step away, likeand we're saying this, I'll speak for
myself. I'm a therapist, butI still got to catch myself. I
still like, you know, wego to therapy is what we've We've had
therapists as well for ourselves. SoI think you have to slow down.
You know. It's like for me, I know, I'm very kind of
like independent case. I got youknow, I got to go in and

(42:15):
all this stuff. But you know, my guy friends check me sometimes they're
like, y okay, it's honestly, like you should. A husband is
not going to come for you ifyou're always out here saying like I got
I got you know, I goteverything. I'm like, oh my gosh,
that's so true. You know,I had to work on that.
But it's just like I got toslow down. It's crazy we made it
almost forty five minutes before mentioning journaling. That's a stereotype of therapist. We're

(42:39):
just gonna talk about. But it'slike we just broke that stereotype. But
we did going this far because like, I'm a big journaler and I think
like journaling is like that the questionI asked you guys, journaling would have
been my answer for that one,right, because I think journaling is almost
within itself an exercise that slows youdown no matter what. And I was

(43:00):
telling my one friend, like I'ma big meditator as well, Like my
morning team is meditate, journal,read, And I was telling my friend,
I was like, journal and meditate, whether you're good at it or
not, because you're giving yourself doublethe chance of slowing down. And it's
like when you journal, you can'tjournal quickly. It's just not gonna it's

(43:20):
not going to work out. Yourthoughts are either going to come too fast.
You have to slow down. Andthese are the kind of things that
you talked about slowing down. I'mlike, that is huge, and there
are certain things that force you toslow down, and therapy is one of
them. When you have that personthere to kind of walk with you and
say listen, you're going to haveto resay that through think through that.

(43:43):
And so I like that we kindof focused on this whole idea of slowing
down because I think that this isvery much a Western society type of deals.
It is. We just did aburnout, crushed it. But that's
been a big area of mine andeven in just my trauma specialization of recognizing

(44:06):
where our nervous systems are at,and a lot of us we're in that
sense of flight freeze right constantly,not not just when we're you know it
naturally it might look like, okay, if there's an actual threat, we're
going to feel that. But ifour bodies are constantly there moving time right,
that's when we see the wider impactof that. We're going to be
agitated, distressed. We're going tobe anxious. That adrenaline corsol that's at

(44:30):
very high levels isn't going to bemetabolized properly, and we're going to feel
that in our bodies and that's goingto impact us and it's going to impact
our energy. And we're seeing thatwildly. And this idea of slowing down
through whatever means you have a goodtrauma unformed therapist, you have things like
journaling, you have things like meditating, breathing. Right, we don't just

(44:50):
say those things because it's like,oh your ere's what a you know,
just oh just breathe. No,but there's if we can get your nervous
system calm down, if we canget this sense of regulation, if we
can get some nervous system safety,that's where some of the awareness can actually
root. Right. If I'm justgo, go go, and it's like
oh yeah, that's some awareness,it might just stick on the top of

(45:12):
my head for a day. Butif I can actually have that slow down
time, that's where that awareness mightbe like oh wow. And I just
wanted to say, like journaling isalso hard for people. I just wanted
to just recognize that it is hardbecause you're also now asking people to like,
Okay, well can you go backand talk about the assault? Can
you go back and talk about thetrauma? So we do recognize that it
is hard. So if it is, and this is why you have to

(45:35):
talk to your therapist. Is like, it's not like your therapist tells you
what to do. That's not whatthe therapy is. You also have to
tell you a therapist what you need. That's really important. This is a
relationship just like any other relationship.It's like, you know, received,
give and take, give and take. You got to let your therapists not
be like I can't journal because itactually traumatizes me. Yeah, break that
down, let's talk about that.That's why I bring in creative expressions,

(45:55):
right, Like I have a clientthat's you know, a musician, right,
and so it might not look likehe just journal. It might look
like, yeah, you're rid asong, yeah, or to asking them
what they want to do, they'relike, oh, yeah, I want
to do it this way. Someyou can do literally whatever. There's no
kind of set thing, but itis there's those elements of it. Am
I getting the awareness? Am Igetting it down? Am I able to

(46:16):
process? It and talk about it. You can do that through gardening,
dance, podcast, dance. Iused to do dance therapy with kids because
kids are because I used to workwith youth. So they're looking at me
like I didn't say nothing to you. I said, bet, I'll put
the music on it. I waslike, you want to come dance with
me? You know, not likethat, but like it's like, okay,
why show me some of whatever itis. But we use dance therapy.
There's a lot of therapist that usedance therapy as a mode as well.

(46:38):
Right question like move your body,like how do you feel? People
connect with that, and it's crazybecause it worked. We're creating a new
norm in a sense. And Iremember she was a dancer and during the
pandemic she felt like she was losingherself because dance was a way that she
kind of felt calm. And Ithink, like when I was starting on

(47:00):
my healing journey, one thing thatI kind of stumbled on by accident was
playing ball. I grew up playingbasketball always just like you know, something
you did for fun. You weren'tthinking it too deep. And I was
in a time where I was reallyin my head about I was I felt
like I wasn't a good person andI was kind of down on myself.
And I ended up playing ball oneday and I kind of said, I

(47:21):
can't be thinking about that while inthe game, and so my mind was
freed for a second playing ball fortwo hours. And then when I came
down from playing ball, everything wasless heavy. And I stumbled on that
of like, Okay, so whenI when I played basketball, my mind
is free. Things are kind ofslowed even though I'm running full speed,
things are kind of slowed down.And so it's those things in everyone's life.

(47:45):
I feel like that you got toI guess, find or create that
you realize Okay, like I'm gonnado more things that bring me to my
center. It doesn't always have tobe like things that you don't want to
do or burdens. I'm like,oh, I got to do this,
and you know it's going to help, but I got to do this.
Listeners us like there's articles out there. I literally pulled one up mid session

(48:08):
with a client just from searching it. But trauma therapy is going in the
way of realizing that play has animpact on healing trauma and trauma's impacts right
on us, whether that's feeling burntout or anxious or agitated. Right,
there's a correlation between play and ushealing. And you know, seeing that,

(48:30):
you know, being played out inmy client's lives is amazing, right,
and and it doesn't have to beit could be whatever. What is
what is play or playfulness look liketo you? Does it look like bald?
Does it look like playing legos?Does it look like you know,
I have five plants at home,five house plants that I've been taken care
of and seeing them grow and thatkind of stuff that's regulating for me.

(48:52):
I didn't know it was going tobe. I didn't know, you know
that when I was I don't know, ten years old, that at thirty
one, thirty i'd be playing withplants and it would be something that's regulating.
But there's so many things that weall can take advantage of that gives
that play or playfulness that actually doesimpact their nervous system. Yeah, Okay,
before we get to some of thefun questions, this wasn't fun.

(49:15):
Yeah, depends, like listen,go another hour, so this this is
my jam, Like we could havethis talk for like three more hours totally.
So yeah, we're in a spotwhere it's like age real, stay
focused. This podcast has to endat some point. But July twenty first,

(49:37):
Yes, y'all heard it, andit's July twenty first. It is
happening in Toronto at nineteen baths fourto eight pm. Tickets are available and
it is affordable forty dollars tickets.We have discount codes if you have a
group coming, and it's honestly,it's it's your opportunity to stay connected because
one of the things we hear islike where are these therapists? And like

(49:59):
who was happy these conversations? It'shappening. It's happening. So we're here,
we're talking about it. We wantyou to be involved. We want
to see you, want to Iwant to see you, I want to
meet you. And I think,just as Josh and I are doing this
work in our communities, we justwant to keep it in the work and
this is we're really passionate about it, and so it's just giving back and
it's just kind of like curating morespace for love and joy immunity. Yeah,

(50:20):
absolutely happy to hear. Okay,so now we're going to an indy
gritty Okay, when people get ahundred million dollars, they always get an
exotic animal. This is how itgoes, Okay, Michael Jackson with his
monkey, Justin Bieber with his monkey, Mike Tyson with his tiger. That's
how the game goes. So whenyou guys get to that one hundred million
dollar level, what animal will yoube adding into your life? You can

(50:45):
go first, me, I gotto I got to coming to mind.
I always like gorillas. Okay,I don't know why, if they're just
I don't know if they're like becausethey're powerful, or they're just cool looking,
like they just look cool all thetime. Like you got a group
of them, Oh, I guessyeah, ethnically here right, ethically,
yeah, a group of family whatdo they call it? Group of gorillas?

(51:07):
Anyways, Yeah, he has ahundred million dollars, he can he
can afford to have them live great, And yeah, I'm gonna have them
live great. So a group ofgorillas. Or I would say elephants.
Elephants are smart, they have goodmemories. I can hang out with them.
Yeah, I would say either thosetwo. I like those two elephants.
Is one that we've gotten a coupleof times, and some people say

(51:29):
they're a good vibe. I havea couple of friends who have hung out
with elephants and they're like good vibes, good vibrations. So I like that.
Yeah, oh man, y'all,I don't even have an answer to
this. Wow, what am Ilike? What am I doing with this?
Animals? Gonna live with me?Gonna live with you? Like again
like Mike Tyson and his tiger.Just be Oh man, I don't know

(51:52):
why, but a flamingo comes intomy head. But I don't know why
you just said exotic. I'm like, I think a flaming goes is it?
Oh man? I guess I'll takethe flamingo's gonna or a peacock and
have them in my garden. I'llhave a bunch of flamingos and a bunch
of so you're doing it for theaesthetic, I'll just be like it also

(52:15):
be inside. They need space,so like I'll put them in my garden.
That would be nice though, youknow, like and I'll be you
know, like you guys can drivethrough, you know, you've be invited
to my house, and you guyscan look at all my friends and maybe
you would have the best garden becausemost people's gardens have rabbits, squirrels,
spiders, rats. Absolutely yeah,I'm I'm, I'm is yours. I

(52:37):
don't even my actual answer. Iwould be like a super cool aquarium.
I was just to have like everyyeah, every single not a shark shark,
no, but like some cool squid. There's some octopus like ory nemo.
I think I think that was becauseI feel like I'm a dog person,

(52:59):
like a dog on a dog person. But I feel like an aquarium
is low maintenance with all those andvisually, I'm here for the static to
what if you you know, wantto picture massive mansion the whole floor.
No people do that they in abedroom. I don't even bedroom. I
mean a whole floor of the place. I was picturing the whole wall.
I was like, one wall isjust an aquarium. I want to be

(53:23):
going to the washroom and look atthat, look at that. Josh's girlfriend
is listening to this right now,good luck, Like, oh my gosh,
can you have doing whatever the floor. Here's the thing with the floor.
I feel like the floor would getold faster than the wall, and

(53:43):
I would hate to like get usedto if your guests are scared, Okay,
do have some money that's left overthat one hundred million dollars of this
sheet that comes over, you wouldbe more tinted. That's would be the
favorite uncle, though, I think, like you, the favorite children.

(54:05):
Toddlers and children just they don't evenhand them a toilet. They just some
like Disney person that actually goes inthe water like a mermaid you ever seen.
Oh yeah, yo, I donot give this an one hundred million
dollars. You can't be trusted.I think, I think we're on the
same page. And then I thinkif it wasn't going to be aquarium,

(54:27):
I would have like a ranch withlike horses and stuff like that. Is
I guess is that's not exotic enough? Just like I like the gorilla idea,
but is a gorilla exotic? Yeah? When have you seen a gorilla
in someone's crib? So anything that'susually not in the crib. Yeah,
we're talking about any everything other thancats, dogs, chickens, not parrots

(54:50):
or like turtles and like bunnies,even people have pet bunnies, hamsters.
You know, I just you know, can I just say something. I
just feel like human beings are nottrained enough to have animals because they'd be
doing something. Really, I'm gonnaI'm going to get this training. Then
that's okay. You have to bea certified like you need to know how
to take care of I'm thinking fulltime staff like Tiger King level, Like

(55:12):
I got full time staff that cantrain me and have the relationship with with
the animals. You know how therich people have nannies that basically raise the
kids. This is like that,man like nannies for the animals. Oh
my gosh. Women are so different. I'm sure by someone's dream job.
Like I'm thinking like that, that'ssomeone's dream job. There was a podcast

(55:32):
put food on the table, soI need to do that so they can
feed their family. You know what. They're hearing this podcast and saying,
Josh hired me. They're like I'mready, Like I'll spend all day with
yours and I'm helping them feed withthis therapists all these animals that would be
animals that would be Think about ifyou if you met your therapist and they

(55:57):
told you they had like a coupleof elephants and gorillas in their backyard,
you might think they might be alittle cool. So yeah, therapy gorillas.
The therapy dog got therapy. Gorillastherapy gorillas, Yeah, completely different.
Yeah, gorillas is the one thatI'm just scared of because I don't
even know. I used to havelike nightmares about guerrillas. So do you
said gorilla? I was like outof the jungle book? Is that gorilla?

(56:23):
Yeah? Like you guys seen thatthing on TikTok of like if a
woman's in the in the man,Yeah, the ultras and the bear.
That's so sad. Yeah, Like, how do you guys feel? I
understand it, Like I honestly didn'texpect anyone to choose the man, so
I'm not really surprised. Really,what does that say? You know,

(56:45):
it's it's sad, But I thinkwhat it really says is that there's a
disconnect in terms of men and women'sself perception of themselves. Like I think
men perceive themselves as more inclusive ormore safe than they actually are, and
I think that women are perceiving menas like dangerous. Oh we're gonna talk
about this on July twenty first.Yeah, yeah, so I think that's

(57:07):
what I thought of. Is Like, like when I saw it, I
wasn't surprised, Like there's this taxtLike my friend said me, And it
said, if a straight man thinksthat he can beat up a bear with
his bare hands, he's probably amisogynist. And I said, I said
to her, that might be spoton, that might be spot on,
But it's like, I think thata man who thinks he can beat up
a bear probably doesn't think that makeshim a misogynist. So it is a

(57:30):
matter of self perception where it's likeI just think I'm strong, like I
work out, you know a bearLike, no, that's you obviously have
no shot. But I think that'sit's a self perception where it's like men
are probably not thinking of themselves asI'm dangerous, I'm not respectful, I'm
misogynists. So I think that's whatthat leads me to think of, is

(57:50):
when will the gap close where aman will say, you know what,
I actually understand why you're choosing thebear, and I'm going to work to
fix that. But I think mostmen probably we saw those tiktoks and were
like, these women are crazy?How dare they? Yeah? When it's
like ah, yeah, yeah,yeah, well that's not the podcast.
Yeah, that's not the podcast.Last but not least, Yeah, on

(58:12):
the radio show, we have theExcitement Call Wednesday withhism looking for a motivational
quote or saying, either you remindyourself of or the people around you.
I'm gonna let Josh go first.What's that quote for you that either you
remind yourself of or the people aroundyou? A bunch of quotes, but
one that's been coming up a lotlately. It's a simple quote. It's
small, and it's we learned throughunlearning, And yeah, and I really

(58:36):
liked it because sometimes I'm learning canbe difficult, it could be hard,
it could be you know what.It's also this maybe there's this duality of
just this beautiful experiences. As I'veunlearned a lot in my life, I've
actually learned more about myself, right, And it's not a bad thing to
unlearn or to let some things go. Things that how you know, trauma

(58:59):
impact to me as a kid,I you know, was hyper awareness,
right and always having to have theanswer and all that kind of stuff.
And then through that and you know, you make beliefs and values and the
way you see the world. Andthrough unlearning, I actually got to learn
more about who I truly am that'snot always masked or not always there's that

(59:20):
bug you were hitting earlier. Yeah, but it's like, you know,
I learn more about myself as someonethat doesn't have to be so masked or
protected or or whatever. I gotto actually see like, oh man,
through unlearning of certain behaviors or cognitionsor you know, thoughts about myself,

(59:43):
self criticisms. I just learned somuch about myself. So I really love
that one. It's we learned throughunlearning. That's a really good one.
I got quotes like on my Instagramlike all the time, like when I
just think of it, I'm likeposting it, like right now, I
would say that's coming to my mindas like I would say probably like rest
to be your best, Like Iwould say that, And I think I

(01:00:05):
say that to say it's such acommon theme, like we need more rest.
We're not designed. We got itall wrong, by the way,
like we're doing this whole thing wrong. We're not supposed to be working like
this. We're not. We're notwe're actually not and then you know,
you know it's going biblically, butanyways, we're not. We're not gonna
we're not supposed to working like this. So people need to understand what rest
looks like we're not resting. We'resometimes feeling shameful of being like resting.

(01:00:31):
It's like, oh, I'm notproductive, So I say rest and look
and ask yourself what does rest looklike for you? And and then I
think through rest is when you cando all of the things that Josh and
I spoke about, some of thethings that we tapped into, self awareness
and election. When I see growhuge when people are and it's not just
that you're resting so that you canexpel your energy again, but you know,

(01:00:52):
throughout resting we regain some of thesethings, capacity, perspective, even
just things like joy. Right.Like, as I've seen people rest,
it's like, oh, wow,you know I used to be here,
Like, you know, my thinghas been neutral every day. I'm neutral.
I'm not feeling really any emotion.And it's like their system is so

(01:01:15):
burnt out that they just it's almostlike their baseline is apathetic, right,
And yeah, and as they dosome of this resting and really rest,
like you know, I'm not tellingpeople to do this, I don't hear
this, but I had a clinewho determine that rest for them look like
quitting their job. It was restfor their nervous system, right, and
in that, in that, I'veseen their baseline go from like just burnt

(01:01:42):
or bitter to content, joyful,loving themselves more, you know, taking
care of themselves more, getting outthat playfulness right. And it it started
through things like rest and rest yourway, Like, don't feel so compared.
Like if Adriel's like, yeah,my rest is like doing it,
isn't doing that? It's like cool. No one trying to tell you,

(01:02:04):
I actually quit my job three yearsago. But but that's like everyone's journey
is different. But sometimes you gota bet on yourself, and so if
you're led it for that, youdo that. It took four months,
so I quit a job. Ihad to. Y'all. We're not saying
no, no, do it likethat, but rest, wrestle you can
be the best and and best again. Also, you get to define these

(01:02:28):
things, like, redefine all ofthese things in your life. Do not
need to live by what you thinkit should look like. Just do it
your way. It's your story,you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
I like that we ended on rest. I think after everything that we talked
about on this episode, ending withthe rest feels fitting. Thank you guys
for joining us, Thank you forhaving us right. You're so good.

(01:02:50):
You doing this for a long time. Huh, I'm decent. You're really
good. I'm a podcaster too,and I'm just like, yo, this
guy has it. Yeah, Iappreciate you guys coming through. I'm happy
we can have this conversation. Theseare my favorite episodes because something that is
very very important to me. SoI'm happy that you guys could come.
Anyone listening to this, please makesure you go to the event July twenty.

(01:03:13):
First. This is this is veryimportant. So I think that your
mental health, to me, itdoesn't get more important than that. And
I think that as a society wehave put so many things above that.
And this is why I love theseconversations because to me, your self perception,
finding yourself, loving yourself is numberone in life that's not guaranteed,

(01:03:36):
and I've seen it with people ofevery age, every age finding themselves in
their sixties saying if I been,you know, self, sabotaging myself this
whole time, and for us atthe age we're at now to be cognizant
of it, have that awareness.Like you said, nothing is more important
than that. So I really appreciateyou guys being here for everyone. Maybe

(01:03:58):
to the end of this podcast,you know what to do. You leave
us a rating and a review onall your podcast platforms five stars, not
a single star less. Of course, find us on the interwebs at the
Cool Table Live on Instagram, atthe Cool Table on YouTube. All episodes
of The Cool Table can be foundat Adrosmiley dot com and of course,
until next time, know yourself,know your worth.