Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Health

I even think that emotional intelligence, which is funny to kind of think about because again, in my later years, I focused on being like a communication expert, like a great communicator, a world class communicator, whether I'm stepping on stage or doing a podcast, or just hanging out, even with friends. Like in this, emotional intelligence helps us communicate more effectively, which then helps us build stronger relationships, which, again, all of these are kind of core principles of living a life beyond your default. But building that emotional intelligence is only possible if you stay mentally healthy or can get through the ish and get to the point where you might think that you're mentally healthy, which, by the way, I don't think there's ever perfect mental health. We are always good kind of dealing with something even when we think we're not. But there's this quote by Dan Millman and he once said, you don't have to control your thoughts, you just have to stop letting them control you.

Welcome back to Beyond. You'd default. I'm your host, Liz Morehead, and as always, I'm joined by one of my favorite humans on the planet, George V. Thomas. How you doing today, bud?

I am actually doing great. I woke up this morning, it's a Monday morning. We have a full week ahead of us. The weekend was spectacular, by the way. It's interesting. Like the last two weeks I've been struggling, and then it's like the last two or three days I've had like these epiphany moments. And so it's just been a real interesting journey for me lately.

That's exciting. I love it. Well, let's dig right into our highlight and low light. What have you got for me? What were your highlights and lowlights of the weekend?

So the low light was maybe just unpacking a little bit of my own ish, allowing me to get into my own brain. Sometimes I get a little bit too deep, work a little bit too much. I chisel maybe the wrong areas. And sometimes with that, you can kind of lose yourself or you can make your journey a little bit more difficult than it needs to be. And so I had to kind of back away from some things that I was working on and struggling with over the last couple of weeks. However, the highlight of this weekend is that I made some mad dash improvements to the beyond your default community. And so all of the podcasts are in there. There's articles for the journey that are now in there. There's a quotes and inspiration place that's now in there. We added, I think it's like 12 or 14 deep dive discussion areas and these are like the 12 to 14 places that humans have the most problems when it comes to this journey or being their full selves or dealing with fear and anxiety. And so really getting it to the point where we're enabling it for the community that wants to come in and join us and have some accountability, some partnership, some resources. One of the things I'm super excited about is we're going to start loading in the worksheets. So think about worksheets per episode that you could go back in and start to do again these deep dives and working on yourself and where you're trying to get and focus on your goals and reflective questions and different things like that. So it's just came a long way to the point where, Liz, I went ahead and created a special 3 month free plan that if anybody's listening to this podcast and is interested in you can reach out and let us know, we'll give you the link. You can get three months free. You can get in there, you know, see if it's right for you. That's the thing. Like, if it's not right for you, then ditch it. Go like, whatever, keep listening to the podcast. You know, it is what it is. But at least giving people three months to be able to work through the worksheets, meet other people that are trying to live this life beyond their default. Like, I couldn't get enough. Like, I was messing around. I'd carry my laptop out to the living room, watch a little bit of Olympics, come back into my office, work on it a little bit more. Woke up super early, walked like 28,000 steps while I was like creating articles and putting.

You sent me that screenshot, buddy, you big show off.

So I'm not trying to show off. I'm just trying to be healthy. Right. Which we'll talk about next week, physical health as well, because there's definitely been some major switches flipped over the last three and a half, almost four months as far as like the physical health piece of my life finally, thank God. So, all in all, like, again, dealing with maybe mining too deep in who I'm trying to be and what I'm trying to do, but also then just having the awesomeness of creating this community, dreaming about what it could potentially be in the future, the amount of lives it could impact, the ripple effect that I'll be able to see from it. Like, that definitely was the highlight this weekend. But what about you, Liz?

First of all, before we move on too quickly, community.Beyond your default.com is where you find all of this incredible goodness that George was just talking about because you were sending me stuff through the weekend. We were putting our favorite books in there. What was really neat for me was to see your list of books versus my list of books. I know there were a few on there where I'm like, yeah, I would have totally recommended that, but it was neat to. I was just sitting there like, oh, take a, take a note here, take a note there.

Yeah.

And for you longtime listeners, I'm so excited for you guys to see these worksheets because what's really neat about it is I don't know if any of you all listening are like me, we'll just be going along, minding our own business. And then George just comes like, with a drive by of like. And here are some big questions for you to think about. What is happiness?

Yeah.

What is happiness to you? So this gives you structure, this gives you the ability to really start putting some of these things into practice. And what I love about these worksheets is that they're designed for, for busy people like you and me, George, where I don't know about you, but I like to have at least a part of my morning either dedicated to personal growth or it's just kind of like my me time. So each of them is designed to be completed in under 10 minutes.

Oh, that's so good.

And so that's what makes it really nice. Cause I don't know, like, I've sometimes gotten these like, self help books and like professional growth stuff and I'll open up those books and say, so you're Gonna set aside 45 minutes? On what planet, Gina, am I setting aside 45 minutes? It's not, it's not happening. This is not how that's going to work.

Yeah, when I need a snack and a backpack, we're in trouble. Like, it's like, no, I just need like a bite sized thing that gets me that 1% better each and every day. And Liz, I'm so glad that you brought up to the book section because that might be one of the sections that excites me the most when you think about the flywheel effect of a community. Because having other people come in and suggest books that they've been part of and know that like, it's going to be this endless supply of, of potential good reading or listening that I, you and other community members will be able to dive into, like just that curated awesomeness of because I'm a book nerd. Sometimes I read them. Most times, if I'm being completely honest, I listen to them.

That counts. This is a conversation for another day, but I will make this really fast. You are consuming words put out there into the universe to help you learn and grow. Or if it's a John Grisham novel, just to like, have a good time. Doesn't really matter. I don't like that people gatekeep the concept of reading, meaning you have to have picked up a book.

I like this line of thinking.

I don't think it's helpful for people who learn in different ways. Yeah, I am someone who actually needs a book. You've seen my books. I highlight. I, I mark like, I am very like tactile in my reading experience. Audio. I get distracted so easily, which is why I can't do it. I'll be listening to it and like, I'll be like, wait, was. What did you say in the last 20 minutes? Because I started thinking about like Val Kilmer circa Top Gun.

See, it's funny because I'm. I probably need to be diagnosed with something, but literally if I'm like, I need a nap. The next words in my brain are, then get a book. Because, like, you will start to read it and you will fall asleep. Like that is what.

You don't need to be diagnosed with anything. Our brains are all wired to work differently, which is going to segue nicely into our conversation today.

It's almost like we planned this, but we didn't.

We totally did not. So anyway, community beyond your default.com, go check it out.

But listeners, because you're a listener, if you want the three months free, don't like just immediately sign up, make sure you hit us up, let us know. We'll get you the special link. 3 months free, but you can go at least check out the kind of page for what it is and all that good stuff.

Email George beyond your default.com or Liz@Beyond your default.com. and we got you. All right, my highlight and low light for the week. I'll keep this quick. My highlight is, I got to say, Saturday I had like the best day. It was so much fun. One of my best friends, we do an annual brewery trip every year.

Oh, I. It already sounds fun.

Oh yeah, absolutely. And this weekend was going to be jam packed because it was my working weekend. Right. You and I were both like, we're doubling down. We're doubling down on beyond your default. We're getting a lot of stuff done. And a friend of mine reached out and said, you know, hey, let's do this this weekend. Let's go do this. I'm like, okay, I think I can squeeze it in. So I got up really early, got my beyond your stuff but default stuff done, and we just had the best freaking day. What I loved about it is that, like, I've spent a lot of time with this person in particular, but then also in general, I've noticed I'm hanging out more with people in groups and not one on one. And so we had this whole, like, one on one day. And at first I felt a little bit anxious. I'm like, am I going to have. I mean, this is somebody I've known for, like, eight years. Am I gonna have enough to say, my God, what if they realized, like, and I got, like, really anxious about it?

That's interesting.

And then it was the perfect day. It was just like, the perfect. It was fun listening to music in the car on the way up, I controlled the radio. On the way back, he controlled the radio. It was just one of those moments where you're just like, one to one. Connections are the best.

Yeah.

This is why I love this friendship. It was one of those things where I got home and I was exhausted.

Well, good times can be exhausting.

I was totally spent. I had the best time. Ended the day actually doing a game night with some people. So it started out solo and then just like a couple hours at the end with other people. And it was just. I remember falling into bed and like, Best day ever.

Yeah. Let me jot down a note if you're having a bad day or bad week. Best friend and brewery check. Got that?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Also, I had a pickleback grilled cheese sandwich.

Ooh. Which. Have you ever had a pickleback shot?

Yeah, I have.

Oh, yeah. Anyway. Oh, wrong podcast. We shouldn't be talking. No, I'm just kidding.

Shot, shot, shot. Low light, man. I didn't have one.

Oh, nice. There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm going to put this in the show notes, but, George, I am going to send you a video of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen as I was driving back home last night. And it was one of those moments where it's like, I don't care what your belief structure is. Have a moment of awe.

Yeah.

And I sent it to a friend. They're like, wow, what filter? I'm like, no filter.

Isn't that the greatest? When you're like, I don't even need to, like, modify this. It is great how it is. And by the way, I think it's so cool. And hopefully if you're listening this and you don't do this, like, finding those moments in nature that are awe inspiring or do fill you up, like, that's the one thing in our society today that I don't think we do enough of. And by the way, I'm preaching to myself, like, if my kids were younger right now, I think I would want to go camping more and, like, get us outside and get us to nature and get us unplugged and get us away from, like, the rat race. Yeah, nature's awesome.

Nature is awesome. And now we have to have a conversation, George. One where I asked you, going into this, you. You made a face and I said to you, I'm not sure if I should be scared or if you're scared about this conversation or if it's a little column A, a little column B. And then you sighed and went, a little column A, a little column B. Which means, ladies and gentlemen, beyond your default nation, we are having a conversation today that is going to make all of us a little bit uncomfortable. Which usually means in my world, maybe this is the exact conversation we need to be having.

Yeah, it is. Here's the thing, like, the reason I say this, Liz, is because I feel like I have things that might add value, but I also feel like this conversation could be a little bit of my Achilles heel. But then what's funny is I've learned through life that sometimes we think that our biggest weakness actually can become our biggest strength. So I don't know, like, there's just this whole mud puddle version of what might come out today. And I'm like, all right, Lord, please help me not sound like an idiot.

So the conversation we're having today is about overcoming the stigma around mental health.

Yeah.

And the reason why we're having this conversation today is it's actually a two parter. So just to give some context for those of you who have been listening for a while, you may remember an episode not too long ago called the Superhuman Framework, which discusses the ten different pillars that basically create the architecture, the two dimensional blueprints required. Right. In order for you to build your own beyond your default life. For example, like every house has windows, doors, ceilings, floors. This Superhuman framework is meant to provide that to you. And then you put the decoration, you decide, well, what shape is the house? Is it colonial? Is it modern? Do you want to have a minimalist? What? You know, this is about giving you the architecture.

Yeah. You can paint the walls Orange walls, blue walls, purple walls. Up to you. Liz, it's funny that you're mentioning this because by the way, when I was working on the community, I was like super excited. I was thinking right here, this is where I'm going to put the superhuman framework course, like right here. It's going to live right here. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry.

And what's great about this though is that one of the pillars that we knew we had to have a discussion about was health. And we've physical health somewhat, but we are going to be discussing that next week. Yeah, this week it's all about mental health, particularly the stigma. So my goal today is to actually create space.

Yeah.

For the vagaries. And we've been very transparent listeners throughout this whole time that we are on this journey ourselves. You are watching us in real time unpack our own ish. I've talked about my trauma, my divorce. You talked about, you know, you've almost died.

Yeah.

You fought the Lord on what the limitations of your body were multiple times. George B. Thomas.

That's because I'm hard headed. I fully have embraced. I'm a hard headed individual.

But today we're creating space for the fact that there is a stigma around it. We're going to talk through our challenges with it. We're going to encourage discourse and we also want to recognize that this journey around mental health is something that is very personal to each and every one of us.

Oh yeah.

If and when we recognize it, how we integrate it into our lives. One of the reasons there is a stigma is because for many, many decades it was considered a weakness. Something you did not address, something you did not do. And there are many gendered stereotypes which I'm sure we're going to get into, where I have a lot of male friends in my life who do not feel empowered to have emotions. It's still considered weakness.

Yep.

So today we're going to open things up. George, I want to start with you. Why does this conversation matter to our beyond your default journey?

And I love that we're tying it to the beyond your default journey. So here's the thing, Liz and listeners, it's simple yet complex all at the same time. Like, to be honest with you, in my brain I'm like, well, it's as easy as this, but it's as complicated as this over here. Like mental health, first of all, your brain, like your operating system, is the foundation for your overall well being as a human. It's the processing center. It's the thing that makes everything possible. As far as like movement and thought and man, when our minds are healthy, like, we're definitely better equipped to improve every other area of our lives from our physical health to our relationships to our careers. But I put on that when our minds are healthy, when we have them kind of clipping along and ticking the way that we want them to, or they could or should, and understanding and prioritizing mental health, it's just essential to sustaining what we're trying to achieve, which is long term growth, happiness, living beyond your default and understanding that I say like on purpose sustainable long term growth. Because the default or beyond your default journey, it ain't short, ladies and gentlemen. Like this is a long journey. Like you're in it for the long haul. If you're listening this podcast and you're trying to build something beyond what your default settings were. And Liz, when I think of mental health, I think of keeping ourselves strong mentally. And I think that if I kind of like do the onion thing that I like to do sometimes and I go a couple layers deeper to what I'll call crucial mental areas that we have to connect the dots to is self awareness, which we've talked a little bit here and there on this podcast, as well as emotional intelligence. By being aware of our mental health, we gain insights into our own thoughts, our own feelings, our own behaviors. And again, we've talked about the importance of this kind of self imported or projected, like feedback loop. Well, if we're clouded, if we're disconnected, if we don't have this self awareness and this emotional intelligence, this becomes somewhat difficult. And so this self awareness is vital for making informed decisions in our lives, for managing the stress that's going to happen in our lives, for navigating life's challenges. And trust me, try as you might during this beyond your default journey, those challenges are going to come. Like, it's not if they come, it's when they come. And so on this beyond your default journey, you need to be, and I'll use the word resilience. And I think resiliency is like a key aspect of what we're trying to build or unlock in a lot of the listeners or community members along the way. Life throws us unexpected twists, turns, setbacks, and you know, it's not just us. You can look in history and you can see this conversation of like, emotional health, emotional well being, self awareness, emotional intelligence. Like an example is take Winston Churchill. He often referred to his depression as his black dog. And despite his battles with mental health, he led through the darkest hours. He was a leader through World War II with resilience and what you might call determination. Like, even look at Abraham Lincoln, who if you do any type of like, historical research, suffered from severe depression, used to struggle with, to develop like deep empathy for others, which then informed his leadership during the Civil War. Like, sometimes we want to have this conversation. Like the mental health that we deal with can't be actually used for good on the other side of what we've actually had to dig through. And so, by the way, in my younger years as I'm sitting here doing this podcast, man, I made a been really emotionally unstable. I might have really needed a therapist. I might have really had things mentally mixed up, but was just so ignorant, so not self aware, so not emotionally intelligent because I hadn't been building myself in that direction yet. That now where I sit is why I sit where I sit. Because I had to go through what I'll lovingly call maybe my dark ages right now. I still love myself back then. That was a lot of work. I still embrace who I was back then because that makes me a whole human. But like, sometimes I think we can go through the issues of mental health and not even maybe know that we've gone through the issues of mental health. And so a solid mental health foundation again gives us the resilience to bounce back from adversity, which I have done multiple times. Liz, you've done multiple times. It helps us, this resilience, adapt to change. By the way, humans listening this podcast and aliens, if there are any listening change is going to happen. It's going to happen. Okay? And if you, if I just woke you up because I talked about aliens, boom, like now it's, come on, let's get back into the podcast. But also pursuing our goals despite the obstacles that are going to arise. This, like, this is why resilience makes sure that our journey beyond the default is sustainable. It helps us maintain motivation. It gives us perseverance even when things get tough. And they do get tough. Now if I switch gears for a second and I think about, because this was like self awareness resilience. But I want to dive a little bit deeper into that developing emotional intelligence side of this. And again, if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know that one of my favorite words, one of the things that I've really embraced in my older years is this idea of empathy or, you know, empathizing with, with others and developing emotional intelligence allows us to actually have that empathy or empathize with others. I even Think that emotional intelligence, which is funny to kind of think about because again, in my later years I focused on being like a communication expert, like a great communicator, a world class communicator, whether I'm stepping on stage or doing a podcast or like just hanging out even with friends. Like in this, emotional intelligence helps us communicate more effectively, which then helps us build stronger relationships, which again, all of these are kind of core principles of living a life beyond your default. But building that emotional intelligence is only possible if you stay mentally healthy or can get through, through the ish and get to the point where you might think that you're mentally healthy. Which, by the way, I don't think there's ever perfect mental health. We are always kind of dealing with something, even when we think we're not. But there's this quote by Dan Millman and he once said, you don't have to control your thoughts, you just have to stop letting them control you. Oh, Liz, I needed a minute with that one. I needed a minute with that because I reflected back to my younger years where I was like, oh, yeah, bro, bro, you were just like the brain was the leash and you were the dog. Like you were being led by like these just random thoughts. When I think about the being led and I think about the relationships that I just mentioned a moment ago, we need a supportive community along the way on this journey, which again, I think for me, beyond your default community, your friends, your family, whoever it is that you're actually able to gather around you to have those relationships. Because here's the thing, and we're talking about the stigma, right? The, the issue of this is by discussing our struggles and triumphs with our community, whether that's friends, family, beyond your default accountability part, whatever, we create this environment where others feel safe. And right now, I don't know how many people feel safe about sharing their experiences or seeking help around mental health. Because again, and I'll talk about this in a little bit, when I was growing up, this whole jam, this whole conversation was completely different. But I want to double down on if you don't have that community, you need to focus on what that community looks like. One person, two people, five people, whatever. Because a community that prioritizes mental health is going to be a community that grows together. They're going to support each other, they're going to be focused on each other's well being, collectively moving forward and fulfilling this life, fulfilling their purpose. And so that's what the beyond your default community is all about. A supportive Group of humans living this life, living this journey together when we prioritize, because again, historically, I don't think it's been a priority. But when we prioritize mental health, we align more closely with our true selves and we can start to live purposefully and passionately. Which, by the way, I say those words in the understanding that historically, for me, living a life of purpose and living that life passionately was difficult. Now I can tell you that almost everything I try to do is with purpose. I and is completely filled with passion. So this is like the before and the after that I'm trying to kind of get here. And so, Liz, back to your original question. Why does this conversation matter? And why does it specifically matter to beyond your default? Because it's the cornerstone of well being. It's the cornerstone of self awareness, it's the cornerstone of community, the cornerstone of growth. And all of these things we need to fuel ourselves as humans and help keep our path semi straight. And Liz, Proverbs 4:23 reminds us, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. And I have a new scripture for everybody. George 4:23 says, Guard your mind as well. Okay? So sure, guard your heart, but guard your mind like this. This is something that is so important for us to not hide under this mask, for us to focus on moving forward. And there's this quote because you put quotes in when we're getting ready to do this thing. And I think it's Mariska Hargiete.

It's Mariska Hargitay. She's the star of Law and Order svu.

Okay, okay. Beautiful.

In case you're wondering, did a chick pick these quotes? Yes.

It doesn't matter because this quote, it's the answer to your question. Because the quote says healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step. If this is masked, if there's a stigma around it, who has the courage to actually ask for help? That, to me, is why it's important, because we have to shine a light on this. We have to get people talking about it. We have to get people willing to have the safe space to be able to work on themselves mentally because so many positive ripples will come out of of that work that hard. But initial work.

So how has your relationship with mental health evolved over.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

No, no, no, no, no.

You think you're gonna get off the hot seat? I'm curious why you think it's important to the beyond your default journey. Because here's the thing. They just Listened to a very skewed male perspective of a conversation around mental health. They need to hear the female version of this. Like, why do you think it's important?

Here's what I will say. I think we always get into trouble when we gender anything.

Okay. Okay.

The fact that you said it underscores one of the biggest challenges we have in mental health right now. It is an inherently gendered thing in many ways. I have so many male friends of mine who do not feel empowered to discuss their feelings. One of my best friends is a guy, and we've talked in the past about how there's this to talking out of both sides of your mouth when it comes to what we talk to men, particularly young men, about emotions, feelings, and mental health. We want you to talk more about your feelings. Be open with us. Ew. Why are you showing weakness? Like, we ask for these things, and then we reject them when they give it to us, and then we wonder why they struggle. So when I say the. The challenge we have, there are lots of challenges. Like, this is not the only one. Gendering mental health discussions, I think is. Is a huge problem.

Yeah.

And the fact that you brought that up shows that even you. And you are wise. You're not only one of my best friends, you're a mentor of mine, but even you still kind of fall prey to that level of thinking.

Oh, yeah.

But when I think about why this is important, my answer is pretty short. It can be encapsulated in a statement, and then it can be then further challenged in terms of where you are by a question. The quality of your thoughts dictates the quality of your life. You're minding the store. When it comes to your own thoughts, you're gonna have a bad time. And I know this from experience. And then you have to challenge yourself. Am I coping or am I healing? Because those are two very different things.

Yes. Yes.

I got really good at coping. Really, really good at coping. But healing is an entirely different mechanism.

Oh, that's interesting. I think about my own life, and I'm like, I have a PhD doctorate on coping. Yeah. You know, and. And opium clean. Yeah. It's not until the last. Probably five to ten years that I would say that I have an associate's degree in healing. Oh, that's an interesting. Oh. Coping versus healing might be a future episode that we need.

We're gonna have to have a deeper conversation about. But, like, that's where my thoughts are. Mental health is important because that little fleshy paperweight inside your skull is the Thing that's supposed to help you do stuff. If it's not functioning and you're not taking care of it, you're not going to have a good time. Let's leave aside stigma, which I understand is in the title of this episode. Let's leave aside gender. Let's leave aside all of the squishy, awful feelings we have about going to therapy, maybe, I don't know, getting diagnosed or something, whatever. Set your ish aside. If you're not taking care of your thoughts, they're going to take care of you. And it's not going to be a friendly thing.

Here's the interesting thing that you just said that I want to double click on. You said that you might get diagnosed with something. And it's almost like with mental health, if you get diagnosed with something, you feel like it's going to be the end of the world. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Guess what? Not the end of the world. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Guess what? Not the end of the world. But it's funny because we'll go to the doctor for, like, these physical things that, like, we can fundamentally feel or see. And, like, the diagnosis is just the diagnosis. And then you need to make these, like, changes in your life. But when it comes to mental health, it's like, for some reason it's been made to be this, like, weird, scary thing, and then I'll have a label and nobody will love me. And that's just. It's just bull crap.

Well, that's the thing, though, because I think what happens is we start getting into cases of what our identity is and how we perceive our identity. But the reality is, is, like, for the vast majority, like, hi, surprise, surprise. Adhd. Liz. Me? Liz.

No. Are you serious?

That's some hurtful right there, buddy. Right there. That hurts.

I can say it because I'm right there, right?

No, no, but that's the thing. But that's the thing. It's like most of these diagnoses means that, like, in your very complex system, a couple chemicals are different.

Yeah.

This is not an indictment of your character. This is not an indictment of your capabilities. It means you got a little bit of extra this and a little bit not enough of that.

Yeah. Or somebody rewired some wires that didn't need to be wired the way they were. But the cool thing about that is you can rewire them anyway. We'll dig into that later.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So when we go through today's conversation, this is what I want people to be thinking about. Especially for those of you go getters out there, you probably have a workout routine. Maybe you listened to our morning routine episode and thought getting up at 4am and making your own goat milk yogurt was a good idea. And that's the case. Good for you. You know, imagine what you would be capable of if you put as much effort and energy and focus the way you do on your physical body, the way you do on your business, just on your brain, just on the quality of your thoughts. And usually it only has to be like for an hour, once a week, once every other week, but we'll get into that. Those are my thoughts there, George. The quality of your thoughts dictates the quality of your life. It is up to you how much you take care of them. But I would highly suggest you take this conversation seriously. And then you always have to challenge yourself. Am I coping or am I healing? I'm getting off the hot seat now. Let's go into your history, George. Yeah, I want to come back to that question. So how has your relationship with mental health evolved over the years? George, talk to me.

I mean, I'm still trying to get past goat milk yogurt, but I'm like, do I want to try it or not? Listen, here's the deal. Like, my relationship with the concept of mental health has, I'll just use the word evolved significantly over the years. When I was younger, mental health wasn't something that we openly discussed. One, I'm like 52 years old, so it was back in the day where it just wasn't a thing. I know we're not really wanting to genderfy it, but I'm a man and back in those days when we didn't talk about it, we really didn't talk about it. If you are a guy. Now, here's the thing. Because of this, there was a lack, huge lack of awareness and a huge lack of understanding to what it even was or meant. I personally grew up absorbing what you could call like the societal bias that viewed mental health struggles as this. Oh, they're weak, they're just not right in the head. Like, I can remember literally hearing that statement, which that statement gives me such an ick moment when I think about, oh, they're not right in the head. Maybe you're not right in the head. You. Anyway, I'll get off my pulpit here for a second. But honestly, it wasn't until I became a pastor and embarked on my journey of like, personal and spiritual growth that I truly recognize the importance of mental health. And let me dig a little bit deeper and explain why that is. When you're a youth pastor or an associate pastor, there's this interesting thing that happens. People come to you with their problems and you need to talk to them about their problems and help them with their problems. What's interesting is sometimes, even when I'm helping people with HubSpot or business or beyond your default, I go back to my past master days where I get a lot of people asking me questions that I need to help and help them unpack. As a pastor or even now, I've realized I can only carry so many other people's stuff before I need to pack the stuff that they've given me mentally to actually work through. And that's not even counting my own stuff. As somebody who coaches or pastors or allows people in. When I was a pastor, I was like, man, I might need a therapist just to talk about other people's ish with somebody, let alone talk. And I've even gotten to the point now where I've looked at my daughters and I've looked at my wife. And by the way, if you historically ask them, would dad ever go to therapy? They would laugh in your face and be like, dad's not that kind of guy. I've come to the table and said I'd be more than happy to go to therapy. Fundamentally, I realized that I probably need somebody way smarter than me to help me diagnose some of these things that are happening in my brain. But it wasn't until, like, I started to get what I'll call this, like, overload as a pastor. And sometimes this overload as like, you know, professional or personal coach or whatever you want to call it. I. But I started to understand that mental health is just as crucial, if not more crucial than physical health, which again, we're going to talk about next week. But seeking help around this, it has to be proactive. We have to envision it as empowering. We have to think of it as steps forward to our better well being, at least I personally, because we're talking about my journey here. I have to see it as this proactive thing versus historically, dude, quit being a wimp. Quit being weak. I have to think of it as it's by me embracing the vulnerability of it is empowering. Right? Because I don't care if you label me. I need to label me better. I need to think of me better. I need to move me to the next step. And if your label is how you want to address or Think of me. Fine. Because you know what? I probably won't even pay attention to that label, right? And so today I see. And I think it's because also, I don't travel this world alone. I have a pretty good set of friends. I have, if you count the dogs, a very large family, because there's eight dogs, let's just say that, and then multiply that with kids and a wife and parents. Like, I don't do life alone. So I see mental health as like a massively important part of living a full life. And it is my dreams and hopes that everybody around me, family, friends, would be living a fulfilling life, would be living a full life. And so at this point, I actively work on trying to maintain my mental health. Liz. It's funny because we keep coming back to this other episode that I was uneasy with in different podcast episodes, but like, a way that I have to do this in a way that I'm learning to do this is through self care, taking the time, taking the moments, writing the things down, but also being willing to have open conversations where, again, words that I thought would never come out of my mouth, hey, I'm more than open to going to therapy. Like, that's me again, opening up in ways that historically I would have been like, I'm just gonna shut up now because I don't want to be judged as a man who would say that to get a label put on them. I have to ask, why is there such a social stigma around mental health? That's the question, right? Like, I start to lean into is why? Why? Anyway, that's my journey, Blizz. But what about your journey through this whole thing?

It's fascinating to hear how differently we are coming at this, because I'll be honest, therapy has been a part of my life ever since I was very young. So I was very lucky in that even though it wasn't terribly popular at the time, I was able to get diagnosed at. With ADD at a younger age. So that brought mental health much more into my life, I think, earlier than a lot of people did, because back that it was. It was the early 80s, so we hadn't gotten to the point where kind of there's definitely an over diagnosis of it now. And I think that contributes some to the stigma. You know, if is your kid not sitting still long enough, throw some pills at them, right? And I. And, and that frustrates me just on a personal note, on a very deeply personal level, because what it does is it erodes the credibility of any diagnosis, which makes it harder for people who actually have it to get treatment. You know, so there are the social stigmas that have emerged, obviously, because of. You know, for a long time, mental health was not something you talked about. Right. You just. If you were. You were Irish, you repressed it until you died. Like, it's just like it was treated as hysteria. Like, there are a lot of different ways in which mental health for both men and women, or however you identify, has been extremely toxic and not exactly welcoming. I mean, just as a society, we are not as evolved as I think we think we are because, you know, particularly for people my age, people your age, like, we have some idea of what it was like for our parents, but not really.

Yeah.

So, like, for example, postpartum depression, this is something that a lot of women deal with after pregnancy. This is only something that is now being recognized.

Yep.

And even now, I still have female friends of mine who have struggled with. And postpartum depression is diabolically dark. It is a scary thing to go through. It is a. It is a wide spectrum of symptoms that people deal with when they are coming out of a pregnancy, and they're still so often not taken seriously. So there are a lot of reasons why this gets really, really messy. But I had this in my life starting when I was fairly young. The other piece of. Of this, too, is. And it's hard to speak to this without being direct about it, so. And this is always an area of my life where I've brought this up on previous episodes. It always makes me a little uncomfortable. But if you're willing to get uncomfortable, so will I. So I grew up in a pretty abusive household. Mental health is something that has been very present in my life because it is something I've had to know a lot about. There were people in my family who not only struggled, for example, with bipolar disorder, there were prescription drug abuse problems that were then further compounded by alcohol. This was not a great incubator for how I grew up.

Right.

And what was interesting is that I later learned that the therapist I was seeing, who was very insistent that I kept seeing them, I always thought it was because there was something wrong with me, and it was because I was dealing with divorce and, like, things like that. My parents divorced when I was relatively young. This therapist later confided in my father that part of the reason why he had been so insistent that I remain in therapy with him is that he could never quite identify it, but he was pretty sure I was living in an abusive household. So it was his way of keeping me kind of like, yeah, in a spot.

Interesting.

So what's interesting is here's how is my relationship with mental health has evolved. I've been having some very interesting conversations recently about my own mental health, about my own path with spirituality. You know, a bunch of different things that have really led me to kind of coalesce around this idea that I mentioned before, which is the quality of the thoughts and the quality of your mind. I grew up watching someone I love just completely just gone. You know that this person grew up at a time when these were things that were not discussed.

Yeah.

When these were things that were not managed. This was also. There were generational issues. This was not a first time abuser. This was generational abuse that had been going on and on and on. I wish I could say, looking back that, you know, when I was at my highest level of cope, that the choices I made to continue sticking with these types of things was coming from some sort of evolved place around. Well, I have to make sure of the quality of my mind. I have to make sure I stick with this because of this, that and the other. And the reality is that's not true. What I will say though is looking back and also what my relationship is now with my own mental health is that my greatest fear has always been losing my mind. Because I watched it happen. I watched someone look at a part of themselves in the mirror one day and refuse to ever acknowledge it again. And because of that, they punished the world for the thing they could not punish themselves for. And that is a very hard thing to live in the shadow of. Because when someone makes a decision like that, consciously or subconsciously to disavow a portion of themselves, anytime that portion is agitated or somebody else brings it up, it becomes your problem. And that was kind of my reality for about 15 to 20 years. And then I watched this person have a couple of psychotic breaks, actually lose touch with reality. And I ended up having to be sent to live with my father because of something that happened when I was about 14 or 15 years old. And so I've always been terrified. I remember when I was in my late teens, early to mid-20s, I started worrying, is there a bomb in my brain that's going to go off? Am I also going to have a similar diagnosis? And I just remember being scared. Like, do I even have a choice as to whether or not that happens to me? Yeah, that diagnosis never emerged. Sometimes it'll skip a generation. And even if I had it, you know that my story is my story to Write, I don't want anybody to infer that I am sitting here today going, well, thank God, because that's the only reason I'm not a total fruitcake. Right? Like, that's not. That's not it at all. But when I was 18, 19, 20 through, like, 25, I was constantly living in fear that my own mind was going to betray me. And today I think it sometimes leads to me to be a lot harder on myself. The way I take failures that I believe that I perpetrate, I take them as, like, deep, irrevocable character flaws. And that's something I'm still working through because I'm overreacting. If I don't hold myself blindly and insanely accountable, I'll become her. And I can't live that way. So my relationship with mental health has always been, quite frankly, very fear based. But I will say I think my overcorrection did save me a little bit. And also going to live with my dad really helped. Like, my mom and my dad could not have been more different. I do not know how they were together for 10 years, let alone for the 10 minutes required to, like, make me real. Like, I don't know how this happened because I don't even remember ever seeing them in the same room together. But I had a couple of formative years with him that were really helpful. Before I moved out when I was 19, I had an example of a healthy relationship between him and my stepmom that was served as a really good model for me. And it got a little bit of deprogramming in.

Yeah.

But it was years before I kind of balanced out. And even now, like, I've had to learn, like, it's okay to make mistakes, Liz. Like, that's the thing is I'm constantly, like, running into things where it's like, I thought I was over this. I told you about this. I told you about this. There was something that happened. So obviously I'm divorced now. There was a moment when I was talking with my therapist when everything was falling out. And I thought there were certain aspects of my behavior as a victim of abuse that were behind me. Like, I thought it was very much like, past tense, still working through it. And then to realize it was still very much in front of me, very much in front of me, very much all around me, very much present. It kind of feels like funhouse mirrors sometimes. It's kind of hard to get a beat on it. You know, the target is always moving. But my relationship has always started as fear.

Yeah.

My biggest fear was becoming, I'll be honest, was becoming my mom. And it kills me to say that because she was probably also one of the most beautiful, wildly intelligent, brilliant people. She's the reason I'm inspired by art and music. She taught me to appreciate so much of this world around me. So my relationship with her was complex and I. But I'm an adult. I can hold two thoughts in my head. Like I love her. I'm not sure I would have ever had a different mother. Like I can't. I wouldn't pick one. There's a lot of pain in that relationship. A lot of pain and trauma in that relationship.

It's interesting because to hear you talk, I had this, this epiphany moment and then I had this really sad moment too. Let me explain. So the epiphany moment was when you were talking about your mom originally and I was like, oh, oh. This is, this is why Liz is so focused on showing up as a whole ass human. Because when you pull away parts of you she's, she's seen that happen. So it gave me a whole new like perspective or idea to like that call to arms that you bring to the conversation with like thought leaders and folks that you're helping. The sad moment I had was the realization of the amount of years that I self medicated with the bottle and realizing that while I was self medicating it might have been detrimental to my parents and what they thought of me and where I was and their hopes and dreams for who I would become. I definitely know that my self medication of the bottle has to have impacted my children because they were at a young age and we were just trying to make it by and make the best of it. And I'm glad I'm not there anymore. Like I'm glad I don't need a drink to make it through the day or to make it through the week or to make it through the weekend. I mean actually I'm to the point where like I barely even drink anymore. But knowing that there was this time in my life and I say bottle but just know, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes it was the bottle, sometimes it was other stuff. Like there was this younger George who was just trying to cope and definitely wasn't trying to heal. So first of all, this is a public apology to anybody who knew me back in the day. I'm sorry and I'm trying to do better.

All I will say, well, two things. One, George, as someone who grew up in that kind of household, that is a level of self Awareness I never heard expressed. So the fact that you're even expressing that, that is a different stratosphere. So there's no correlation there. There is no one to one comparison. And I think all of us go through different. And for some people, we all give into coping addictive behaviors and they can show up in different ways. Like for some people it might be the bot a little bit. I also know people who will punish their body working out over and over and over again as a way to control. So like our mechanisms for cope and control when it comes to our own mental health, it is, it is a wide spectrum. The other thing I will say is that while I love the kind words of what you said about a whole ass human, if we want to go somewhere really deep and really vulnerable, that's kind of true, but that's not totally where it came from. But you're in the right ballpark. It's something I don't talk about.

I'm at the hot dog stand, just not in the bleachers.

Yeah, exactly. But we're going to get you to your seat here in just a second. The idea of a whole ass human for people who are not familiar is that you have to show up as your whole ass self. I wrote about this in the newsletter beyond your default.com/forward/newsletter. We talk about this idea of we have to accept the quote unquote contradictions within because that's our whole, how our whole universe is built. Polarities, opposites, imbalance. Right. So a lot of people will reject parts of themselves because they believe that they can only be a specific way. We live in a world that leaves very little room for acceptance of differences and contradictions, which is completely antithetical to what it means to be a human. You know, if we want to use like a fun example, like I will sit there and go hard and talk about niche opera. Like I can sit there and have hours long debates about Mozart and Beethoven and then I will turn around and say, I'm sorry, did someone just say a disparaging word against the Fast and the Furious franchise?

Oh yeah. Let's go.

I don't care if we have issues with Tokyo Drift. It took the franchise international and without it we don't have Han. I don't understand why we're having a conversation here. Right? Like we're allowed to be complex individuals who like contradictory things. One of my favorite people I ever coached, he was this ultimate Frisbee guy, total bro in the Air Force, just really super like alpha male, macho dude. And had like another like amazing badass wife. Like they were just like power couple. And one of my favorite facts about him is that he was one of the biggest Taylor Swifts fan I had ever met. Every single one of her albums on vinyl. And he was like, no, but she's an incredible songwriter. Let's talk about this. We're going to talk about Evermore and folklore. I'm like, you need to talk about this more. This is what makes you interesting. This is what brings dimension to your personality. So where did this come from? I was an only child to only children. Living and growing up in an abusive household, which is an incredibly isolating way to live because you can't have friends, you can't have people over. I had an absentee problem because I usually had to stay home to take care of my mom. I was incredibly isolated. I was also like, let's be honest, I'm weird. I'm six feet tall. Like, I have never quite fit in. I am someone who has always stood out from a very young age. I also had very eclectic interests. I remember one time I got bullied in school because we were putting on, I think it was Snow White or the wizard of Oz. And I didn't want to be the princess. I wanted to be the witch. And like, I got made fun of mercilessly for years like that. So I spent a lot of time feeling very alone. I spent a lot of time not being listened to. Because when you grow up in an abusive household, no one's listening to you.

Yep.

Which then created a bunch of habits where I didn't show myself. And then it made it harder for me to connect to people. My sole purpose on this earth is that I know what it feels like to not be seen or heard or understood. But we live in a world that criminalizes people for showing themselves.

I love this so much.

I don't think that's fair and I don't think that's right. So when I. Where does a whole ass human come from? I have spent so many years allowing myself to be penalized for being different and I may still end up being a lonely person. Like, I don't know if I'll get remarried. I don't know if I'll have kids. Like my. My whole, we're giving it up to God. It's not my plan right now. But if I am able to empower others to feel more seen in their own lives and loved for who they truly are instead of of version of themselves that they believe they have to be in order to be palatable. Every pain, every moment of agony, even my own loneliness becomes worth it.

Yeah. You know what? What's funny is, first of all, I love all of that. Second of all, I know you'll be okay. You know how I know you'll be okay? Because the words that came out of your mouth. It's not my plan right now. No, it's his plan. And that is a switch that when you flip in your brain, and trust me, I've lived this, the repercussions, ramifications, and amazing life that comes after that brain switch are ridiculous. So just hold on because it's going to get amazing.

Well, so I know we've already touched on some of this, but I want to dig a little bit deeper to see if you had any other thoughts here. We've spent a lot of time talking about, you know, at least for ourselves and what we perceive in the world, what we believe the stigmas are and why they exist around mental health. But what do you think of that social stigma today?

This feeling, this approach to mental health? I think it has what I'll call deep roots in one misunderstanding. I could do deep dives in Beethoven and Bach and fast and Furious. Like, not many, I won't say any, but not many people are doing deep dives in understanding what in God's name mental health even means or how it shows itself. So I think there's this huge just level of misunderstanding because we're not educating ourselves on it. You mentioned for your own life. And I think this would be for any of the listeners or any of the humans on this planet. I think it's rooted in fear. Fear for those around us, fear for ourselves. I mean, listen, for. For a long time, mental health issues, they just weren't understood. They weren't diagnosed. You talked about this like the baby blues and like, ADHD and like, they weren't things. And like we mentioned earlier, hysteria.

Yeah.

And even when they were known, they were viewed through this, like, lens of weakness like we mentioned earlier, or even worse, like this moral failing. Like, oh, well, what did they do wrong? Or what did their grandma's grandpa do wrong that they were, like, given this, like, curse? It's not what it's about. And I think this has kind of created this culture where. And I'm speaking a little bit from myself, I'm speaking a little bit from people that I know in my life. Like, it's created this, like, ability to feel ashamed and this ability to feel afraid to even talk about mental health struggles that they have or diagnosis that they've been given because they're in this constant fear of judgment, this constant fear of discrimination. And I think as much as it's gotten better, I mean there's been significant strides over the last 5, 10, 15 years versus like when I was a younger lad or even a child or if I think about my parents generation, holy crap, like actually we've probably made massive strides compared to my parents generation. But here's the thing, what's funny is because I did a little research on this, Liz. It wasn't until like the early 20th century when mental illness like even started to get treated or understood or talked about or there became like a profession around it. And so I think it was Dr. Albert Ellis and Dr. Aaron T. Beck that started to talk about this like cognitive behavioral therapy. And it began to reshape, yeah, it began to reshape this understanding of the brain and treatment around mental health issues. So we have to think about just in that generality of like on the timeline of like the universe, like this is relatively like a baby concept that. And by the way, when you're a baby, you're trying to learn how to talk, you're trying to learn how to walk, you're like learning everything new for the first time. And so I think part of what this is is to not like beat down our society or beat down the humans on the planet is like, like we're just trying to learn how to walk and talk and like navigate this thing as it being kind of a baby of items. And, and so some part of me is like, well while I hate what has happened historically, like sometimes, and we've talked about this on the podcast, you have to go through the ish to get to the success of understanding the ish. And, and so like I, I want to go kind of less global and all humans for a second because I think on an individual level this stigma that we're talking about, fear, being ashamed, it prevents people, it has prevented George from seeking the help that people they or George, he may have needed or needs. And this is where the issue happens because this can be a decline in there or my over well being over time because of a refusal to get the one on one help that we need. Where we're at now, I think again is a better place than where we have been. But anything that perpetuates ignorance and fear on a one to one level or a societal level, anything that creates a barrier to what is needed, which is open and supportive conversations, it's not good, right? And so we have to have at our fingertips the belief that we can change the belief that we can get the help. Because, by the way, when we believe something, it changes our behavior around it.

Thoughts dictate reality.

Yeah. If you're somebody, which, by the way, I. I can't take credit for this. I literally was listening to an entire sermon that the concept was around. We behold, we believe, we behave. In other words, we see something, we believe that thing, and therefore we behave in a certain way. We've seen historically, mental health be the evil villain of life. Therefore we believe that mental health is the evil villain of life. Therefore we behave in a way that. That doesn't give the freedom to talk about the villain that might be destroying their life. Right. So, like, when you start to put it in that context now we have to rethink what we're seeing so that we can reevaluate what we believe, and we as individual humans or a community can behave in a different way. That's kind of like my general thoughts on, like, where we're at, why, how we might actually slightly rethink or reimagine or recommunicate this stuff. But if you are a person dealing with this, share your stories, normalize health discussions, if you're a person that doesn't necessarily deal with this a lot, show empathy together by people sharing their stories and other people showing empathy, like, we're going to be able to chip away at this thing and make it better over time. Because again, if you walked around with a gaping wound in the center of your chest, people would look at you like, why aren't you getting that fixed? But many of us are walking around with gaping wounds in our brain, and everybody's acting like they can't see it, which is crazy to me.

Yeah. The other thing I will say, too, just to add a little bit of color to this, is that when we talk about mental health, it's not that we're necessarily guilty of this, George, but, like, think about the tenor of this conversation. So this is intense. This is heavy. We're talking about very deep topics. But mental health also can literally just be mindfulness. It can be making sure that you're nurturing relationships and. And being mindful of who you're spending time with and where you're giving your energy to. Mental health is, I think, sometimes stigmatized because while there are these heavier pieces to it, while this does require us to ask us ourselves challenging questions like, are you coping or are you healing? I think also it's just because there's always a heaviness to it. When mental health can literally just be like you're doing something for you, it can be self care, anything that enables you to take care of the quality of your thoughts which dictates the quality of your life. Because what you think is how you act. For example, if you don't think you're good enough, you will act consciously and subconsciously in ways that put out into the world, I am not good enough. An example of that. You won't go for certain opportunities because you don't think you're good enough. You won't speak as confidently because you don't think your ideas are good enough. You will assume the worst intent when people interact with you in a way that you perceive as a threat. Right. So when we say we're not talking about some woo woo manifestation bs, right? That stuff is true, but it's based in very deep, simple psychology.

Yeah.

If you believe you are broken, you will act broken. And if you act broken, the world will treat you as broken. Like it's very simple, simple stuff. Right. So that's where this gets really important is that like, you know, you are not a broken down, busted person. Anybody listening right now who is relating to anything that we're taught? We're just humans having a human experience, man. We're all just trying to figure this out. And we're living in a deeply complicated world where we're only just starting as a society to accept that, hey, brains are squishy little weird things and life is really hard. Maybe we should start being nicer to it like it is. It is a very challenging time where we are both simultaneously being much more open minded about things. But we're also living in a time that in many ways we feel more divided.

Yeah. And then put this conversation not to take us sideways in the world of business owners, entrepreneurials. Oh God, it's a pressure cooker. And we wonder why the statistics of like people deciding to like check out are like rapidly rising. Well, because you're putting yourself in a pressure cooker and not having the conversations that need to be had around. Just like Eliza's your squishy little brain in there.

Yeah, Your brain can do a lot of things, but it is a muscle that can get overworked, underworked, atrophied. Like you have mind the shop. Make sure you know what's going on in there. So but there's another piece to this too, right? There's another piece of this and that is technology and social media. And I would Love to get your thoughts, George, on where you see the impact of those mechanisms on mental health. And do you have any boundaries you set for yourself with that?

Yeah, this was the question that was like, oh, so Liz wants me to talk about how terrible I am around like technology and social media. I definitely, this is a place where I will say I want to, I don't want to use the word wish because that's weak language, but I want to get better at some of the things. Again we've said this jokingly but in all honesty of like we are the petri dish of like trying to do the things that we're talking about in this. But like the impact of technology and social media on mental health. Liz, I honestly think it's a double edged sword. Okay. On one hand, these tools can connect us, they can provide support, offer previously inaccessible resources to us as humans. They can be, I'll call it Lifelines in times of need, helping us feel less alone and feeling more informed. However, they also come with significant downsides. The constant barrage of notifications and trust me, I am that human that I have to clear all the little red dots with all the numbers on my phone or I have to like try to achieve inbox zero, which is an impossibility. But there's Slack and email and mobile notifications and oh my God, the pressure to present a perfect life because of these technologies. The endless comparisons that we do because everybody's posting their frickin highlight reel and we wonder why our life isn't at that level. All of that can lead to anxiety, depression and maybe even worse. Like this feeling or belief in being inadequate compared to the rest of what's happening around us. Social media again has this ability to be positive or hypercritical. The amount of real time information, real or not real, but real time information and the amount of times that we're having conversations where oh I saw a thing. Oh that's nice. Glad you saw a thing. Did you source the thing? Like, because just because you saw a thing doesn't mean that it's real or real time information that you should be putting in your brain. Right? So like the amount of information ingested you talked about how you can overwork your brain. Holy social media, Holy highlight reel. Holy real time information and overworking your brain. But I do want to kind of divide these topics in two for a second because I want to talk about technology by itself, especially around this conversation and social media a little bit by itself. So technology, our digital devices keep us always connected. But again, this constant Connection can cause anxiety, depression and a big one. That may happen for a lot of folks. I've had historical issues with this. I try to put things in place where maybe it doesn't affect me as much. And I even am going to give myself a call to action here live on the podcast to like dramatically change the way that I do something in the evening. What I'm getting to is our devices can cause sleep problems.

Oh, just a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. And if we're not getting proper sleep, that that's not helping. Anyway. A study by Bradley University links too much screen time to these issues. Right. The constant need to be plugged in can overwhelm and exhaust us as humans exhaust us mentally. However, and I mentioned they're double edged swords. Technology also has excellent benefits, especially in today's conversation with mental health care. Like therapy is a key resource and offering mental health services to people in remote areas or those that prefer online sessions, it's made mental health support more accessible and convenient. Platforms like the Big White Wall have been very effective with Yes, I searched stats. I know I'm not usually a big stats guy, ladies and gentlemen on this podcast, but with 95% of users reporting symptom improvements and again, this is based on the technology that enabled them to to be able to have the sessions like these tools do allow us to reach out and get help without barriers that once existed for many of us humans. But we have to realize how can I decrease the bad side of technology and how can I increase the good side of technology? In other words, how can I use it or control it as a positive technology versus it being a coping mechanism? TikTok reels Facebook Are you using it to cope? Are you using it to numb the pain? Are you using it to waste time? Anyway, I'll leave that there social media, because I'm kind of dipping into this again. It has its own unique set of impact. Social media can create a sense of community and provide emotional support if you got the right humans attached as friends or followers. But it also makes people feel inadequate. And many times I've gone away from social media. I don't know about you listeners or Liz, but I've come away from social media feeling more isolated than I do connected because I see everybody's thought about everything under the sun and sometimes I'm like, I agree to disagree and I disagree. But it's funny because a study by MIT Sloan found that Facebook's introduction to college campuses caused a 7% increase in severe depression and a 20% increase in anxiety disorders among the students. Now that was at its introduction. MIT Sloan, do a new study and give me the stats today what Facebook or other like platforms do as far as severe depression and anxiety. Part of me wants to believe that the negative outweighs the positive, but I also will come back to. I think that depends on the human. Like if we can use the tools and not have the constant comparison with others, if we can use the tools and not have the famous FOMO or fear of missing out, if we can use the tools and not fall prey to one of the biggest disasters on the planet, that is cyberbullying sweet, then these could be positive tools. But listen, all of what I just listed happens. So we have to think to ourselves, there's good and bad, they're double edged swords. And hopefully by at least having the conversation, you can start to put a method to your madness on what you allow, how long you allow it, or if there's things that you just need to kill. This all goes back to our brains, the chemicals in our brains. We're talking about mental health. If we're talking about technology, if we're talking about social media, the likes, the comments, the little red dots with the numbers, the inbox zero. All of this can feel like a hit of pleasure, but they also tend to make us constantly seek validation.

That sweet, sweet dopamine rush.

Yeah, exactly. The thing about it though is if you're getting high on your own supply of dopamine, ladies and gentlemen, this can be draining and super dangerous. Super, super dangerous. So again, understanding and acknowledging the benefits and the risk of technology and social media can help us hopefully navigate the digital landscape more effectively as we move forward, especially pertaining to this conversation today that is around mental health and help us balance the advantages of these tools while lessening their potential pitfalls is definitely where I would want to go. And I think you should go back to our boundaries podcast episode. Like you're listening to this, thinking about this conversation of mental health. Now go back to our boundaries episode and say what do I need to do with this conversation mixed with that conversation as I move forward.

I love that. And this leads nicely into my next question, but I want to double click on a couple things you said. You know, just being really mindful and I don't think saying anything new here to say, like you should really carefully examine your relationship with social media. But like, I really loved what you pointed out there about, like being very honest with yourself about why you're using social media and what its purpose is. My relationship with Social media got a lot better the moment I stopped looking at it as a personal tool. Now, granted, I work in marketing, so it's a little bit easier for me to do that. But, for example, I have a very active TikTok presence. Like, it is. Is bafflingly active because I showcase parts of myself. Right. But there is a purpose behind it. Right. I'm sharing some of the writing that I'm doing for beyond your default, I'm a big movie nerd. Like, it is a platform with a purpose. I don't use it the way I used to use social media, which is to make everybody think I had this beautiful, fantastic life.

Yeah.

I will tell you the most humbling thing that really brought that into harsh relief, which is right after I got divorced again last year and I had to go through. I didn't delete everything, but I archived it. Neither of us wanted to have just, like, constant plastered reminders of photos of all of our memories.

And four years ago, we.

I know I had to spend, like, hours archiving, like, 10 years worth of stuff, and it made me realize, you know, there are parts of my life I want to showcase. A beautiful sunset, great memories with friends. But I've become a lot more private. Social media has become this weird thing where people now act as if they have their own pr, right? Like, big announcements about their lives, and there's this expectation that we all care about everything that's going on in everybody's life. Like, I love you, my dear friends, but I don't care that much. Yeah, I don't care that much. You know, you have engagements and promposals and, like, everything has become a lot more complicated and broadcast. And at first it was an overreaction because I went through kind of like, hell on earth last year. And, you know, trauma is. Is super fun, and so is divorce. But, like, I'm actually really happy now that I'm in a much more settled spot. I love having my private life. I love having my private life be private. Yeah, I think it's great. It makes me really happy. Now, do I sometimes get sucked into Capy Bar videos on Tik Tok? I do. I do. And I stay up too late watching them, but I love them because they're so cute. They're just. They look so grumpy and happy, and they're really good at napping. But. But let's. Let's take a step back further out. Right?

Yeah.

Talked about boundaries and habits that we set for ourselves with social media. But are there any habits or routines daily, weekly, monthly, or otherwise that you really kind of dial in around your mental health.

Yeah. So couple things. Not a lot, by the way. And it's funny because when I read this question, I was like, oh, oh, wow. I could probably get better at this right here. But let's be honest, like, maintaining my mental health historically has not always been like, a priority for me. We already talked about coping. We always already talked about the bottle. We. We talked about this transition from, like, trying to heal and understanding the. The mental health of it over time. But I have developed a few habits and routines that I think have helped keep it in check even when I didn't know that those routines were gonna help keep it in check, if that makes sense. Sometimes, like, like, you can just get lucky, but in hindsight, you realize lucky was by divine design to help you get where you needed to go. And so these. I'm using this word loosely because of your question. These routines, air quotes, if you're just listening to this, I'd say they've evolved as I've learned more about what works best for me and adapted to changing circumstances in my life. And I'm giving this precursor, Liz, because, listeners, this is a lot like the morning routine episode that we had. This portion right here, like, that episode. I can share mine all day long, but you have to make your own. Like, this has to be your thing to help you with the mental health stuff that you're going through. But here's the thing. A couple of things. In the morning, I try to start with gratitude every morning. I take a few minutes, a few seconds, maybe it's a half an hour. It just depends, like, what mood I'm in. But I try to reflect on what I'm grateful for. By the way, it might be that I just freaking woke up another day, like, to be honest with you. Or it might be that I'm excited to do something that day from, like, a work perspective or a family perspective. But having a positive tone for the day helps me focus on the good things in my life. I love Psalms 1:18, 24 and this realization and tying it to being positive. And again, I know some of you listeners may or may not be spiritual or religious, and you might be wondering, like, sometimes why do I, like, pop these scriptures out? But I think this one just fundamentally makes sense no matter who the heck you are. And if the word Psalms 118, 24 is too much for you to handle, then forget that I said that part. Because the scripture is, this is the day that the Lord has made. Here's the key piece. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. I have another day to do the things that I love. I have another day to be with the people that I love. I have another day to build ripples and rejoice and be glad and be positive. So start with gratitude in the morning and if you like to journal, write it down. If you don't, then just do it in your brain. If you need an app to help you, then find a grateful day app. I don't like, do what you got to do again, make. Make it yours. The other piece is that having like mindful moments or mindful movement even. So, like, one of the things that I've been loving lately over the last three and a half, almost four months is like moving my body in the morning. It wakes me up and it boosts my mood. And so I've learned to like connect this with a thing. So I'll literally come into my office and for about the first half an hour to an hour, depending on what my day looks like, like I will walk on my walking treadmill while I open up YouTube and I watch some motivational or inspirational video and listen to it at the same time. So I'm mentally being mindful and I'm maximizing that with movement at the same time. Okay. It's amazing when I get done with that and I then kick into my email or work, the difference that I feel compared to if I just come to my office and start immediately working on everybody else's problem, problems or things.

That they need, which is what I did this morning. Oops.

Yeah. So the other thing that I'll say, and this is kind of more throughout the day, I need to do this more. But I try to at least do it. And this is schedule breaks. And again, I'm being completely honest here. I try to remember, take like, I won't even use the word regular. I should try to make them regular. But I try to take breaks throughout the day to step away from the screens. 1, 2, 3, 4. Four screens that I stand in front of so that I can clear my mind. Now this has kind of evolved from when I used to walk away. I felt guilty as I'll get out, like, oh, I could be helping somebody. I should be doing this and doing that and. But taking breaks and understanding the importance of them from a productivity standpoint and mental clarity. I even like to take like a 5 minute break or a 10 minute break or a 15 minute break. And many of the times when I Take that break.

Break.

I literally go out and get something to maybe munch on and I'll go sit out in my backyard at my table and just feel the heat of the sun. Or if it's like a quick five minute break, I've literally kicked my shoes off, walked out into my grass and stood there barefoot just to feel the earth under me and see the sky above me and then come back in and go to work. I don't care what you do on these breaks, but it's like getting away and clearing your mind. When I think about the evening, think about winding down. This is where I suck. I'm just going to put it out there. This is where I could get way better. If I allow myself to dream, my evening would be filled with things like reading a little bit, not on my device, maybe journaling a little bit about my day, not on my device. Maybe just listening to some calm music or a meditation app. Getting away from my device for an hour, maybe 15 minutes, no, maybe a half an hour to an hour before bed so that, like, I haven't been looking at the screen. I need to get better in the evening at clear boundaries. Because right now, usually what it is is watching a show with the family, going up to bed, looking at my phone one last time before I set it on the charger and I try to fall asleep, which, by the way, I can fall asleep with the best of them. So usually in about five minutes, ten minutes, I'm asleep. But my point is, like, I could get way better at that evening piece. And when I think about that, what I'm really leaning into for myself and what I would hope for the listeners is just this idea of in the evening. Well, and you could do this in the morning too. But I think there's this power, especially in today's conversation about mental health, of reflect and plan, right? Taking a few minutes to reflect on the day, jotting down what went well, what could be improved planning the next day. Because that's gonna, by the way, anytime that I have done this, like, hey, here's what I need to do tomorrow, there is a massive reduction in anxiety because I'm not worried about what's coming up. I know what's coming up and I actually know how I'm gonna battle what's coming up. And so I think this idea of reflecting and planning and again, I think more in the evening, but I think depending on who you are, you could fit it into your morning as well. This is kind of where my brain goes for like the daily Thing. Now, I am gonna say one more thing. And I don't know if this is daily for people. And I kind of alluded to I do it in a certain way. And we even talked about it at the very beginning of this episode. Again, if I allow myself to dream of, like, hey, how do you get better at this? I think a designated nature time. Going and walking in a park, going to hike in a hill or a mountain, going and sitting out in your yard. Again, this idea of cut all the technology, cut all the anxiety, cut all the stress, cut all the keeping up with the Joneses and just get back to the root of, like, being a caveman or cave woman in nature. Smell in the air, feeling the breeze, seeing the changing leaves in the fall, seeing them turn green in the spring. Like, looking at the flowers, seeing the bees buzz by. Like, there's just something in me that says. And maybe it's that I'm getting old. I don't know. But there's something in me that says, like, that should be an important part of the routine. Again, it could be on a weekly basis. It could be on a monthly basis, depending on how big you're making it. But at the end of the day, I think it comes down to listening to your body and your mind. I think it comes down to being flexible and adapting to changes. These are main things that you're going to pay attention to as you build your routine for these things. And, by the way, also understanding that you can refine your habits to achieve a balanced approach that supports your mental health and helps you have that resiliency that we need as we move forward through life's changes.

So, George, as we wrap up today's conversation.

Yeah, we've.

We've. We've covered a lot. And there still might be people listening, though, who. Who struggle to work around this social stigma in a way where they can develop their own healthy relationship with their own mental health. And if anybody right now is listening, who may be struggling like that, what would you say to them?

Them?

How would you encourage them?

Yeah, I would say let's make mental health a regular part of our conversations, like making sure everyone knows it's okay to seek the help that we need when we need it. I think addressing this stigma around mental health is critical, and we have to realize we've reached a layer in time where we can't keep masking it. We can't keep hiding it. We can't keep. It's not like if we don't talk about it, it doesn't Exist, ladies and gentlemen, it exists. So if I think about this journey, I'm not the type of guy that I'm going to run out and just start beating people over the head with a mental health two by four. I think we have to kind of start by gently challenging any misconceptions or negative beliefs that people might have about mental health. And again, the easiest place to start is with the humans around you in your own life. An even easier place to start is in the conversations that happen in your own brain. But it's important to explain to ourselves and to others around us that seeking help needs to become common and it needs to be looked at as a responsible decision. Again, I mentioned the gaping wound in our chest versus the gaping wound in our head. It just boggles the mind of how we actually do this. You're going to go see a doctor. I see a doctor multiple times for high blood pressure, for rheumatoid arthritis, my yearly checkup. By the way, where's your yearly therapy checkup? Like, that's probably non existent, but it should be a thing because these people are professionals. They're there to help us. It's interesting because I'm not a big political guy, but again, you do this whole quote thing and I lean into some quotes that I like and Bill Clinton, believe it or not, said that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. I was like, dang gone. I'll let Bill hold the mental health two by four. I'll just have the gentle conversations with myself and with others. But that quote is so powerful. We have to start to live in a world, especially on this beyond your default journey, where we're promoting self compassion, we're encouraging people to be kind to themselves, we're reminding them that everyone struggles. I'll say sometimes, but I'll even say maybe most of the time. But the point of the punchline to that is like, it's okay that you struggled and it's okay to seek help and it's okay to take care of yourself. Like there's going to be difficult moments and understanding and seeking support is a step towards healing and growth. So having this open conversation, making it so it's safe to have it normalizing, I'll even say the discussion like, we need to talk openly and honestly about mental health just as we would good physical health, like we're going to next week on the podcast. By the way, I'm super excited to talk about physical health because it is one of the things that has challenged me most of my life. And some of the things that I figured out and changing in switches that I'm flipping I think will add a lot of value. I hope this conversation has added value to those that need it, but share your stories, break down barriers, help people get the help that they need. I mentioned that it's one of the things that we don't educate ourselves around, typically. Educate yourself about the things. What exactly is it? How exactly can you manage it? What exactly does it mean? Take proactive steps around the thing instead of hiding because you're ashamed of it. Now, here's the thing. I can't not have this conversation. Even though I've historically been the guy of, like, therapists, I don't need no therapist. I actually might need the therapist and some therapy. So I have to kind of start to end this episode with, like, seeking professional help is a proactive and an empowering step towards better mental health. So if you've been that guy or gal therapist, I don't need no stinking. Be quiet. Rethink your thoughts. They're going to give you some habits that you can adopt. They're going to give you some healing mechanisms versus coping mechanisms. They might start to talk about how regular exercise, proper sleep, and a balanced diet and mindfulness practices can make a significant difference in this thing that you've been hiding from. And all of a sudden you're on the positive side of these. I'll also dip into, like, if you're the person who has sleep issues. This was huge for me, by the way, the amount of sleep that I've gotten and better sleep that I've gotten, which, by the way, I already talked about high blood pressure and rheumatoid arthritis. But I also have a CPAP that I sleep with because I wasn't getting good enough sleep. And the quality of sleep is essential. So don't be the person of, like, I've always snored or I've always stopped breathing and almost died when I'm sleeping. Like, shut up. Get the. Get the thing. Get the help that you need. Because all of these pieces, by the way, they fit together, they help us become this thing. Now, if you're getting good sleep, if you're seeing a therapist, if you've got these habits that they're helping you with. One of the things that I think that we talk about a lot here and that they'll mention too, is like, this idea of mindfulness meditation, deep breathing. What I'm talking about here is managing the stress around the thing, promoting a sense of calm even during the thing that you might be dealing with, with incorporating these healthy habits, incorporating these helpful humans, building out these daily routines to create this stronger foundation for your mental well being. That's what we need to be focusing on versus the stigma. Focus on those things as you journey to a life beyond your default SA.