This heartfelt episode is a mosaic of insights, from the challenges of finding balance amidst the relentless treadmill of adulthood to the sobering reminders of cherished movies like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," urging us to savor life's fleeting joys. Tag along as we share personal milestones, the delicate equilibrium between life's demands and the practice of self-care, and how the profound lessons from the book "Grit" have become intertwined with my own experiences.
The conversation takes a deeper dive as we peel back the layers of our therapeutic journeys, exploring the role of consistency, whether in exercise or therapy and how it has led to deeper insights and personal development. We discuss how therapy acts as a mirror to our mental processes, helping us to shatter the echo chambers of our thoughts, with a nod to the necessity of accountability and validation in our pursuit of happiness. Our discussion also touches on the complexities of mental health surveys, self-reflection, and the beauty of spontaneous conversations, painting a lush picture of the therapeutic tapestry that has supported our growth.
We wrap with the societal impacts of technology and the significance of maintaining a sense of self amidst the digital deluge. The chapter shifts to the intricacies of professional objectivity in therapy, navigating mental health, and the art of conversation—both structured and freeform. This episode ends on a note of shared human experience and the journey toward personal growth, emphasizing the power of connection, understanding, and the necessity of grace in our lives. Embark with us on this intimate voyage as we discuss personal struggles and triumphs and the universal thread that binds us in our quest for betterment.
This heartfelt episode is a mosaic of insights, from the challenges of finding balance amidst the relentless treadmill of adulthood to the sobering reminders of cherished movies like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," urging us to savor life's fleeting joys. Tag along as we share personal milestones, the delicate equilibrium between life's demands and the practice of self-care, and how the profound lessons from the book "Grit" have become intertwined with my own experiences.
The conversation takes a deeper dive as we peel back the layers of our therapeutic journeys, exploring the role of consistency, whether in exercise or therapy and how it has led to deeper insights and personal development. We discuss how therapy acts as a mirror to our mental processes, helping us to shatter the echo chambers of our thoughts, with a nod to the necessity of accountability and validation in our pursuit of happiness. Our discussion also touches on the complexities of mental health surveys, self-reflection, and the beauty of spontaneous conversations, painting a lush picture of the therapeutic tapestry that has supported our growth.
We wrap with the societal impacts of technology and the significance of maintaining a sense of self amidst the digital deluge. The chapter shifts to the intricacies of professional objectivity in therapy, navigating mental health, and the art of conversation—both structured and freeform. This episode ends on a note of shared human experience and the journey toward personal growth, emphasizing the power of connection, understanding, and the necessity of grace in our lives. Embark with us on this intimate voyage as we discuss personal struggles and triumphs and the universal thread that binds us in our quest for betterment.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Terribly Unoblivious. What started off as an innocuous celebration of Brad's one year anniversary with therapy quickly turned into a raw, revealing and unscripted conversation between us about each other's experiences with it. We both discussed struggles in our lives, the benefits we gained from therapy and why maybe some people don't enjoy the experience. We also touch on why it's important to hold yourself to a standard but be able to give yourself permission to make mistakes. All this and more as we navigate how to be authentic with not only ourselves but others. We hope you enjoy this episode of Terribly Unoblivious.
Brad:Yep.
Dylan:I said it before and I'll say it again Life moves pretty fast.
Brad:You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Happy one anniversary, happy anniversary.
Dylan:You want to tell the listeners about our anniversary. Happy one anniversary, not my anniversary, no it was our anniversary on Valentine's Day. No but the other anniversary.
Brad:Oh yeah, you don't want to talk about the chocolate cake thing. What Tell them about the chocolate cake? You remember what chocolate cake you know on our anniversary? Who Us? Yeah.
Dylan:What anniversary do we have? It's?
Brad:on Valentine's Day? I don't remember. Did we have? Do I not mean anything to you?
Dylan:Did we actually have something on Valentine's? I don't know if you're fucking with me or not.
Brad:Did you get Britt anything about Valentine's Day? She was sick. Oh, you got her sick.
Dylan:Jokes on you. Yeah, I didn't get Shane anything how was that she didn't get me anything.
Brad:Okay, fair, first fair, I think I don't know. Oh yeah, she got me a.
Dylan:I don't try to play into the whole. Oh, it's a Hallmark holiday thing. I don't believe in that. Like it's not that.
Brad:I don't either. If I get her gifts, I tend to do it sporadically, just because I saw something I liked oh sparkly, oh, we'll get that we're in a very fortunate position.
Dylan:Double income, no kids, I mean we kind of oh, I thought you meant we like.
Brad:No, not the collective us, we right now. I was waiting to hear what kind of good position I was in. We're super fortunate.
Dylan:We kind of just have fun whenever we want to have fun, so we don't really need to make a big out of it, oh cool.
Brad:So like you guys go out and like go to dinners and stuff like that, that's fun, fuck you.
Dylan:Actually, I had a chat with my therapist today about that.
Brad:Oh, going to dinner with her. I think that's against the rules. It depends on your therapist. I guess that's true, you know Huh. Or you can get your therapist at Well, I mean, I'm just thinking like or is she listening to the podcast. Well, like good will hunting, you know. They went out on a bench outside, I don't know.
Dylan:You looked at a painting and you knew everything about me.
Brad:And you ripped my fucking world apart. Hey, settle down. I love that movie. Yeah, too bad. Somebody didn't talk to him about it, though. Who the therapist?
Dylan:No, but he, the Robin Williams. Oh the actor, the guy that killed himself.
Brad:Yeah, yeah, that's sad Whoops. Was that foreshadowing For you or me For him? Oh?
Dylan:That's rough. Yeah, way to confuse the shit out of our listeners. We're pretty good at this, though, by the way. Now I can't imagine people still listening, but it's your one year anniversary. One year anniversary of therapy. Yeah, currently, currently, your current cycle.
Brad:I'm how you doing big, big boy, big dog. I'm going to bring this up a little bit in this episode just because it's I just started it, so it's on my mind, but what?
Dylan:Let's just start the book Grit, which we will be doing a.
Brad:We'll do a multi-part series on. I just kind of started it, but it's exciting.
Dylan:How do you know we're going to want to do a series on that book, by the way, if you haven't read it?
Brad:Because I've already started it and it's just. It's another one of those books where it's like, oh fuck, we've hit a bunch of this stuff already.
Dylan:Like touched. That that's fine. It's fun when we hit reoccurring themes in the outside world.
Brad:It's a little validating.
Dylan:Yeah, I had a little validation. This week. I had a buddy that does not compliment easily I shouldn't say at all One of my good friends, but he by no means is somebody that will hand you something without you actually deserving it. And he kind of surprised me without me even fishing for a compliment. He said your ears look real nice.
Brad:He said my nose was getting better oh. Yeah.
Dylan:Yeah, I was like damn that son in SPF 45. But he said he enjoyed listening, which I don't know if he was being nice or not, just to placate me or.
Dylan:But it felt good, felt good. And then he kind of interviewed me a little bit. I was like, so what's your plan with the podcast? And I said, more than anything, it's a therapy session for me. Good, and I was like I don't really have plans other than the fact that I hope that people that do listen get something out of it. It's definitely not a.
Brad:Yeah, our two hour pre-amble to this episode says otherwise. As you're going through socials and websites and oh, look at this, oh, calendars, we can schedule, oh yeah, and then Dylan gets on here and is like I don't really have any plans.
Dylan:No.
Brad:Are you like the toys?
Dylan:Yeah, I'm a toys guy 100%, it's.
Dylan:Yeah, it is. I mean, for anyone listening, the last episode Brad and I recorded together, it would have been Musogi and it's already been released. I think this is the week following the Musogi episode, but I kind of talked about how this podcast was a little bit my Musogi because it takes me out of my comfort zone in the sense that I know a lot of people I do have. I have a weird introverted, I have an introverted, extroverted personality. When I want to be extroverted, I want to be extroverted. When I want to be introverted, I go in hard and I'll do wild and crazy things. A little bit longer ago than current, I should say that's more past me. I'll have conversations with people, I'll get deep conversation, but I'm always protecting myself at some sense. I don't do well kind of showing everything.
Brad:It sounds more not like you're introverted, extroverted, but that you're controlled. Yeah, that you decide which side, but there is an introverted side to me which is like I don't need people for the next few weeks.
Dylan:But I'm saying you control which side comes out when 100% yeah, and I do, and it's a little bit. It kind of goes against what we've talked about to some extent. Oh, I know which is braving the wilderness, and I have conflicting thoughts at all times about this. Am I not braving the wilderness because I'm afraid of other people, or am I just? I don't have the time to try to resolve conflict right now, so I just move on.
Brad:May not always be about conflict. I think the authenticity plays a lot into it, and I guess it does. You're choosy with who you're authentic with.
Dylan:Pretty much so, and so this to absolutely spot on. So this to me is and when we talk about all, it's one thing to show up here, hit the record button, put it out there. I mean, honestly, it's easy. I shouldn't say it's easy, it is hard. We just sat here for a while and we were like, when are we going to start? When are we going to start? Like we had a little bit of paralysis, but I guess it's. How do you do something? That is a little bit of a struggle at the same time, but then also not. I could easily hide. I mean, I could kind of like do this and we could easily not push it. I haven't pushed it, still guilty of that. But how do you put yourself out there a little bit to maybe grow, be a little bit more authentic? So to me, the rest of all that, what we were doing, was again, we're pushing it in a way, but I think it's more of like for me, can you be comfortable when it gets uncomfortable, when people actually start looking?
Brad:Can you yeah, yeah, I think you can.
Dylan:I think it's. I mean that's more of a. I'm not really in a stress situation right now because the majority of followers I have followers, friends that are followers and goodness knows who else but I think the majority of our followers are probably from your subset of your circle of influence.
Brad:Yeah, but the nice thing about that is that my people don't know me. That's the best part, right?
Dylan:Yeah, so you have some authenticity crisis as well.
Brad:No, we've talked about that before. Sometimes you just play the game of people think what they think, and that's right yeah. I am better to surprise sometimes.
Dylan:I've had some events in people in my life that have led me to I don't know how to describe it. It's not fixed, but I've always wanted to cater and so I just have a habit with everyone. I kind of cater to what I sense off of you. Yeah, like you need this, so I'll give you this in a moment. It's a dangerous game.
Brad:I am reciprocal in the sense that the type of energy and vibes and info.
Dylan:That's an ADHD trait, like straight up If you know someone in the room is not having a good time, you absorb all of it.
Brad:But likewise, if there's somebody that is being open and authentic and down to have a good conversation, yeah, I'm the same way, all in.
Dylan:I don't know you, yep, just met you Exactly.
Brad:Yeah.
Dylan:I'm the same. It's actually to your point. It's almost easier to be authentic with a stranger than it is with people closest to you.
Brad:That gets us back to therapy, and that's Well. You brought it up first. You said you talked about something yesterday or today, or whatever.
Dylan:Yeah, so went for dinner last week, wednesday night, ended up having that was a long rabbit hole, by the way, I know it was a long rabbit hole. It was awesome, though it's still awesome. This is fun. Went for dinner and I just remember sitting at the bar and I've been in this.
Dylan:I need to grow professionally stage for a while and I've been fortunate that I've been able to take on some more and more responsibilities in my professional life and trying to grow certain divisions and individuals into the roles and positions they want to get to, and it's taken a lot of time and I always feel like there's something else to do. So soon, as you know, I'm done with one thing, I move on to the next and I don't necessarily it's not easy for me to recognize the accomplishment, and I think that's one I was kind of raised that way as well which is Be humble and just move on. But I think my parents may be almost made it too dangerous at times, because I get lost and I'm just like, okay, I come home and I need to work for another three hours because I want to be even more ready for tomorrow morning, and then that's gonna make us move the needle that much more and there's something to the grind. But I get in a habit, or I get in these flows, if you will, or these cycles of Weekends. You can have a little bit of fun.
Dylan:But you got to be a little bit reserved because you need to be ready to go Monday morning and yeah, it's called adulting, yeah. But then, like Wednesday, went out for dinner and it's like, oh, this is why you work really hard, so you can do stuff like this. You can have a glass of wine at the at the bar, eat a really good burger from an awesome restaurant and then, like, you can kind of enjoy yourself and you don't always have to be thinking about the next task I get. I get lost in these cycles. It's hard, what no?
Brad:I lost that piece from time to time, I think. All right. So for anybody that Does social media or tiktok or anything, there's a trend going around where two people are walking and the camera's following them and they'll say something like we're podcasters, of course, we spend $2,000 on our mics and then we're podcasters, yeah, so it's anything. It's, it's a generalization of any type of yeah, absolutely type of people or whatever. And so now there is this couple that that's like we're a blue-collar middle-class family, of course, we spend half of our income on child care. And then the guy goes and he's like I'm Joel, of course, I have crippling depression and I can't wait for the asteroid to hit. And then the camera goes down. It's like no, no, no, no, no. Like this supposed to be funny, yeah we can't touch.
Brad:So it's now. It's like this whole series of this and everybody's they're like this is, this is what we're here for and there's like two normal-looking Midwestern, yeah, a couple, whatever, and so, yeah, I feel I felt like today you get into that. The schedule is so, so much so that you don't get that High anymore, like you don't get that. This is, this is the reason that we do it.
Brad:Mm-hmm like and it's not that it never happens, it's just you might go for a period where you're like, okay, yeah, no, we don't do anything fun and you get so stressed throughout the day that by the time you're home with your family, your, your family, gets the shit part of everybody. Yeah, like, the kids are fucking tapped out, the spouses are stressed out from work and and guess what, the kids are picking up on mom and dad too.
Brad:So, or but it's, it's, it's the whole thing and and you're like I Don't know. I was just driving over here. I was like what the fuck are we doing?
Dylan:Like you get in a hamster wheel.
Brad:And it will break as cycles. Do you know? But that's, if you don't recognize you're in that cycle and that either that cycle or end, or that you are going to do something proactive to to bust out of that.
Dylan:That's it I mean it's dangerous, it's easy to get into.
Brad:It's like we talked about the depression thing, you know, it's like if you go into a depression and then your your goal is to like isolate and not talk and go away and it's like no, no, no, that's, that's the bad. You don't want to be there. Yeah, you gotta. You gotta do something to get out.
Dylan:You've got a you've got a no, you've almost got to force yourself to do exactly the opposite of what you want to do.
Brad:Yeah, so I know there's yeah you.
Dylan:I don't know it was fun. It was fun though it was it, it was a nice, it was a, it was a happy accident, like it wasn't really kind of supposed to happen. The reason we went out was there was an event I was required to go to at five o'clock Okay and had a had a cocktail was like you know what I want to?
Dylan:I want a burger from from monarch. I went over to monarch. Monarch, by the way, has probably wanted the best, if not the best, burger in the Quad Cities. I've never heard of that. Yeah Well, I'll take you some time.
Brad:What do they cook?
Dylan:butterflies um, no cicadas. Oh, have more protein. So I think it was a happy accident and it's just. It was nice, it was needed because I'm I'm coming on the backside of a long kind of grind. Yeah, I'm a couple different events, and it's funny, though, because the intro to this podcast is Ferris Bieler's day off and it's you know, yeah, stop and take a look around. Every once in a while you can miss it. You know life moves pretty fast. It's, and it is that to me, and that's what you know. Ferris Bieler's day off is one of my favorite movies, going back to when I was Tiny, I mean, I remember having the VHS, but the Older I get, it still sticks with me in so many levels of you know, you can enjoy yourself, you need, there's a responsibility, you can do other things, but it was not only that.
Brad:it's Taking some risks, mm-hmm. Yeah and being being authentic. I remember that that scene after cam goes Camotonic and in the bottom of the pool and then there is Bieler here, my hero.
Dylan:And then he has a real, authentic moment there but, I think the fun part about that movie is you think it's all about Ferris and Then at the end it's all about camera. Oh, but it's old.
Brad:Did you know you were supposed to have a much bigger role in there? Yeah, I didn't know that.
Dylan:That's funny. Jennifer Gray is a babe, yeah.
Brad:Yeah, I remember dancing with stars a couple years ago. Well, it's probably more than a couple years ago, wasn't?
Dylan:it, but no, at the end, when he's like you know, if I get caught, I know bad things are gonna happen. I've had a lot of these. This one was for Cameron. I know he's he's going off the deep end and I need to get him to learn that it's okay to get your head up and out and look around. Yeah, and it's that's. It's a pretty cool message. I'm gonna risk a lot of my own self To make sure that my buddy well, it was a real awakening for camp.
Brad:It was. He's like sorry about the car, he's like yeah, me.
Dylan:And the old man.
Brad:We're gonna sit down, we're having a chat, and that's so, but there's a yeah. So the one year Consistency I've been talking, I've been thinking about Quite a bit and I remember what was the quote that you told me about the exercise. Was it from like? Was it from Peter Atia or somebody else? Which one? The only thing, was it like the? The only thing more effective than working out every day is not working out.
Dylan:It's Peter, yeah, yeah, how'd the cocoa? And it's he. He says. Research shows that the only thing more detrimental what is it? Yeah, it's the no. No, it's something like more more powerful or something. Sorry, yes, the only thing more powerful than working out Every day is not working out, because the compounding effects are so much more substantial, like when you work out.
Dylan:And when you first start working out, you make mate. Your body is amazing. You make major gains. Your bodies it, it's, it's meant to To do hard things and again, that's a relative term, but you know you always hear these stories oh, my god, I lost 50 pounds in the first six, you know, months of working out. I did this and I did this.
Dylan:It's because your body wants to hit a certain level of homeostasis, it wants to do something. And then there are genetic Limitations to certain, to everyone, in some some regard. Yeah, but the body's amazing, it wants to do hard things. But once you get to that point, when you, when you it's easy at first then it gets exponentially harder to make exponentially less Progress. Right? So for 90% effort, you are only gonna get half a percent growth, whereas when you start working out, you know 50% effort, it's gonna get you 90, or you know 80% there, you know of the way. So what his whole thing is, though, is it's amazing how it adapted the body is when it starts working out. But if you stop, the day after day effects of not utilizing it are so vastly more powerful than the utilization of it in the wrong way, in the wrong way, in the opposite way, and you, it's it's that much harder to overcome them.
Brad:It's you have to work so much harder to overcome those deficits, kind of like the hundred hours, isn't it the hundred thousand hours, it's a thousand hours right, it's Whoever.
Brad:so there's, there's the ten thousand hours, there's the there's a thousand hour rule, I think, which is it's something like 15 to 20 minutes a day, somewhere in that range that if you focus on one skill For that amount of time in a year, you would be better than like 90 to 95 percent of the people in the world, which sounds astounding. At first you're like it's really really gonna be better than that.
Brad:But then you think about how many people are in the world and then how many people don't have access to fucking, probably whatever it is You're doing, yeah, which just wipes out a giant chunk. And then, so if my kid were to practice basketball, you know, for a thousand hours, like it's Corbin, really better than than 90 percent of the world, like, yeah, probably there's not a lot of you know 80, 90 year olds playing basketball. There's everybody below him's not playing basketball. Everybody above 30 is not playing basketball. So I don't know, but there's a the idea of that consistency. So so the therapy thing for me, but this has been the first time I've consistently gone for Ever. I mean, I went in college, but that was a relatively short span, so I think I started going before I graduated, so it was only a couple months, and then I've done a few other stints.
Dylan:How do you think the year-long consistency is helped compared to the other times it?
Brad:it Depending on how often you go. I mean, you got a, you got a kind of cut through the weeds for a while before you start hitting on some nerves and then, yeah, I'm only going about once a month right now, and now I'm regretting that currently, but you know you go in yeah, if you know, if you don't, if you don't get in, it's it's crazy.
Dylan:How so slam. Yeah, it wanted to get in you're. You're talking a year, if you're lucky, I mean in some cases and Then once you're in, you're in and you have, they have it's. It's kind of one of those things where if you're not, and if you're not an existing client or Patient, I should say, but also if you are and you and you use it, then it's like, no, sorry, so you're gonna lose it.
Brad:Yeah, and so the the one before this. I Kind of left thinking like it's this, is this still good? Like am I just wasting time? Like am I wasting my time, am I wasting her time, you know, because she's good and Maybe she could be helping somebody else.
Dylan:You know that's but part of it's, part of it is building trust and it is, and it's a lot. I mean if you watch shrinking. Yeah, a lot of it self actualization. You need to hear yourself say it so many times.
Brad:No, but the other part is that you can go through. So that's that's kind of what I want to talk about today was just the, the generals of therapy, because I've, I've, I know so many people that Probably should be in therapy, people that have gone and are like it was terrible, my therapist was terrible, this was awful. I don't know why anyone would do this thing, or I've had that.
Dylan:I've heard that from others as well, and I've always been curious because I've had great, I have to and I Will.
Brad:Well, let's get into that, because I think there's a couple different Reasons for that. Potentially, but like we were talking about earlier, it's, it's. Are you holding anything back? You know always. So, um, right, the. This was it kind of the tail end of a a bit of a home life thing, and Do you have to fill out a survey every time you go in there? How you feeling about this? You know you feel a survey every time.
Dylan:Yeah, it's just a quick but you must be on the nothing what you must be on some kind of list. Everybody does.
Brad:I think I've never seen anybody else fill it out.
Dylan:Maybe she just doesn't, I don't know other people do it. I think Brad's on look you're on the, you're on the risk list, and so it's just a.
Brad:I should laugh. That's not funny. You know, have you lost interest in things? You have trouble sleeping, blah, blah, blah. How many drinks have you had? And it's like, although realistically that has gone down Significantly. So when I write the number, that's actually the real number. Oh yeah.
Dylan:I never. You know I didn't get the memo to get fake numbers. I always gave the doctors real numbers growing up and they were always astounded oh what? Yeah, what I'm? Can you walk me through that like? I can absolutely walk you through that.
Brad:Yes, certain weeks would be like I don't want to do the math On this.
Dylan:I never understood lying to your medical provider Everyone's, everyone's like, oh, I don't want to know. Yeah, I'm like why yeah, because it obviously makes it different in your treatment plan and they wouldn't ask these questions if they weren't important. So, yeah, I'm gonna tell the truth because I don't want. I Just never understood the line.
Brad:Yeah, it's like I was embarrassed and like I'm mid 20s living my, it makes me think of that skin though, when the doctors like how many drinks we do you have, he's like I don't know about 1215. He's like 1215 beers, that's not too bad. He's like oh shit, we're counting beers too. And he's like what? And then he just starts going through like both hands.
Brad:Sorry so so I fill that out and then there's just like it did you have any homework which never have homework really but they, some therapist, might give you something to look at or work on, or a tactic or whatever, and I don't like that. I'm like here yeah, keep talking, and Then there's a little place for notes and I'll write things like Slipped into the darkness a little bit.
Dylan:Whoopsie.
Brad:Oops, and Then we'll talk about those things or so is it.
Dylan:Take you so, like, when you go in, do you guys have a little warm-up session? Do you guys? Are you guys? Do you just get in there and use go right into it? You're like this I got some shit.
Brad:Yeah, it depends on on how I'm feeling or what's been going on. So the one before that, where you know things, things are pretty chill and that was probably around holiday time and which is not so chill for a lot of people, yep, and for me we talked about that. I'm like I don't. I don't really. I don't have anxiety around like holidays really.
Dylan:Hmm.
Brad:Like there's some shit where it's like, yeah, every every once in a while there's something small, but it's not Anything major at all and it's it's actually almost more calm for me. I like, I Like winter. I like Christmas lights, I like all their deck.
Dylan:I love Christmas decorations.
Brad:Fucking, I don't even mind the cold. And then the kids are off, like Shannon's off, so everybody's just chill because no one's under a ton of stress.
Dylan:Mm-hmm.
Brad:So I, I don't know, I I enjoy that time. So that that was the the time where I just kind of felt like at my, should I still be doing this or not? Are we just what am I doing? I'm like coming in here for so I just kind of like go through, it's not what's been going on. I'm good, you know, we talked about that kind of stuff and then the last time I went in, we're like let's go straight, let's go straight to the pit, let's see what's up down here.
Brad:Hopefully we can crawl out in 65 minute or 55 minutes and and had a, had a really good session and it was one of those.
Dylan:So never just aha should have those aha clicky moments. We're just like it's all coming together.
Brad:Yeah, all the time, because that's that's. I think that's what a good therapist does, and that's so. The consistency part is key because it's gonna take you a while, especially depending on what you're dealing with.
Dylan:Mm-hmm.
Brad:It's gonna take you a while to get through all of the shit. You know all of the nuances and all, so you can go in there and start talking about whatever the problem is. That's, that's most on your mind, and they may start working on that, and it may take you Several or dozens of sessions to get to the next part, which is an underlying factor, and then they're gonna be like oh, oh, yeah, we didn't. Yeah, we need to talk about this. You neglected.
Brad:Yeah, tell me that yeah, so that's what you ever had a conversation with a friend? That's what I've always wondered about there in a backdoor yeah, piece of info.
Dylan:and you're like, hey, that's pretty fucking important that would have been crucial in my decision-making abilities earlier. We could have really gone around this a different way, yeah. So I always wonder that about therapists is You've got it? Just, it's like they they see enough people, they they've been through enough stuff, they've got to just know, like, okay, we know, we we can kind of triangulate. We don't know the exact, but you're not telling me something, but we, it has to probably do is something along these lines. Because of the way you're acting, the way you're talking around certain things, yeah, there's a pickup on the patterns and it's just got to be frustrating, which, again, kudos to therapists for being able to do that job and also Taking on other people's stuff. I mean, I Know from my perspective as a boss at work, when my guys or girls come to me with things that are Bothering them, it's like it becomes my world too. It's like I got to help you. Yeah, I got to make sure you're solid and I couldn't imagine just listening to that all day long.
Brad:Yeah, now that you say that I you just talked about earlier tonight.
Dylan:You're like, you feel, you feel hard.
Brad:I I sometimes temporarily think about going to school and just and doing just personal counseling, like on the private side of things. But that part is I think that you have too much empathy.
Dylan:Yeah, it makes you would suck it all in.
Brad:I should it'd be hard because I I do a lot of amateur counseling with people, whether it's friends or and, and not in the best kind, but not in a clinical sense, but more of like an explanation of Just like what have you really thought about maybe viewing it from this lens or what about?
Brad:Yeah, you know so, you see, you do that kind of stuff. But yeah, I would have a hard time with somebody coming in, and I think about that every time I leave, and then the next person walks in and it's just like you just click, you're like you're in a whole, there's a whole new world. Mm-hmm, it's different. You talk about like the, the, what is it called? Spiderverse metaverse?
Dylan:is it Spidey? Multiverse, multiverse, that's what I want. I'm sorry, not the metaverse that was.
Brad:that was that's what it feels like a little bit because you're like as a as a counselor, you just have to dive into that Mm-hmm, that world each time and and being removed.
Brad:I mean eventually, like now, I can go in. We've been doing this for a year. You know, she knows who I am, she knows what my story is, she kind of remembers all that stuff. But initially you're like, okay, yeah, tell me. Yeah, why are you so fucked up right now? I forgot what's going on. And then you know you don't want to keep asking the same questions that you asked the time before, because you started about the rapport.
Dylan:It's it, it's they and that's. I've had that. You know, I've had four or five good sessions in a row over a long period of time and they're like and I love my therapist for this and are you still getting what you need out of me?
Dylan:Like what a cool thing to ask someone by the way yeah she asked me that because in my job you know I sell IT and I I Know what our company provides. You know we provide a lot of value to for our customers and what we do. I believe in the company as a whole, in our and where we're going. It's not a money-making. I mean, we obviously are in it to make money, but we're not there to nickel and dime. Our Customers were there to provide value and have a mutually beneficial agreement. Yeah, but still, for you to go in and be like, do you actually think you still need me? That's such a crazy statement to make and I think it's so selfless and cool that there that's like, hey, if you hit a stagnation with me because, let's be honest, are like a hundred ninety dollars a session, $200 a session for a therapist right now.
Dylan:That's a lot of money an hour. That's it's a good rate. And for you to just, I guess you know you have the people behind, but it's a, I don't know. To me it's always a, it's a confidence boost. It's just like, hey, are you still? And it's like yeah, I'm good, I'm here, but Maybe, and then the next session, like of course you got jinxed. It was like I'm like yeah, yeah we're still getting what we need out.
Dylan:And then the next session. It's like I know we've been good for the past five, but we've got some stuff that's coming up now.
Brad:Yeah, and that's that's where I went. Hey, but it was this, this culmination of things that we have been talking about over the past year, and I was like all right, so this thing happened and I just I went into the black hole, right Like I just immediately in there and all the like the visceral feelings are back, it's closing on me. She's like well, are you able to like step?
Brad:you know, step out of that like emotional state and kind of see what's going on. I'm like, yes, this is how I do it. I do it through writing because it's it allows me to step away from the situation and kind of remove myself and put down thoughts with they're authentic, but they're More devoid or more void of emotion than if I was trying to have a conversation, I think because of the automatic feedback, and so it allows you to get some more things out without Going astray into something that somebody doesn't agree with or whatever, and you just kind of get your whole thought out. And so, basically, we ended with so when this would used to happen, you know, I would go to the black hole and then I would just ignore stuff and would stay there for three weeks and then eventually my brain would be like you can't do this forever. You got to come out All right, I guess I'll see the sunshine for a little bit, and but no SPF. And then you start over again. But you don't really. You didn't really grow at all. No, you just got out of the hole, which is better than not getting out of the hole, but it's, it's gonna happen again.
Brad:I was like so now, this didn't even last two days, and Worked through it, looked, you know it's it's. It's hard when you are emotionally conflicted with somebody else, for whatever reason, and to look at yourself instead of them, that's hard. Yeah, and that I did it that time and and looked at some things like, okay, so this is, this is not something new. This is something that recurs, you know, on a on a regular basis, that's Yearly or by year or whatever. What am I missing? I'm clearly not doing something. I'm not looking at it the right way, or I'm not reacting to it, not addressing it. Yeah, and, and so it wasn't. I'm looking for a solution one way instead of, like, really looking at the actual problem, and, and not just the problem, but the problem with how the other person was.
Dylan:Addressing the symptom and not the root cause.
Brad:Yes, so I'm like, ooh, if I just do this, I'll fix the symptom, and the symptom isn't necessarily a thing they were caring about the most. So she's like, well, that's good. I was like, yeah, so that's a, and that was a culmination of things that you know we've worked on over the last year. So, and I told her that I was like I have I've done more personal growth in the last year than I have in the last 20, probably.
Dylan:Easy, so I've known you. I mean especially.
Brad:God, you were a child, was a child, especially the last two. So literally like a physical change and then Going back through that.
Dylan:So and this is I've made. You know I know other people make these analogies. People go to chiropractors, people go to physical therapist. People go to you get your roots. Doctor wants you to go get a blood. You know, after mid what early? Third is you go get a blood test once a year and for your vitals, like you have checkups, you have physicals. Yes, this is you. Again, there's a level. Not everyone needs to go as regularly. You know there's different intervals for everyone depending on where you're at in your life. Why wouldn't you think that your mental health wouldn't take, wouldn't need to check up every once in a while? Yeah, and it's. I have some friends that I would, absolutely.
Dylan:I'm not gonna name names, I don't wanna go down the rabbit hole, but I could really start blasting out some yeah, but it's not people stuff right now I have some really good friends that obviously are dealing with some intense things, but they, I'm like, just go talk to someone, yeah, because you need, and that's what it is. It is unbiased. It is an unbiased way.
Brad:Okay, so let's talk about that, because I think this is a problem. Let me finish this.
Dylan:Okay, I'll forget, because we all know how my brain works. It's not gonna go back. So I've asked them to go and they're like no, I think I can work through it on myself. And they're like I think I can get through this. I think I can. You know, I've got the fortitude. It's like no amount of fortitude when you're in your own.
Dylan:We've talked about this echo chambers. This is the epitome of an echo chamber when you're dealing with something, you don't have an outlet. And just when you're dealing with something like this and it's going to a therapist and to your point like I have sessions where I'll go in and it is rainbows and butterflies it's mostly trying to figure out what we're gonna talk about, because life is good and that's okay, but it's just that it is still an outlet. At the end of the day it's like, okay, talked about maybe a couple things, maybe they got a few pieces they need for something that's gonna come later down the road. There's a regularity to it, but also it doesn't allow maybe the something in your head that is starting to become an echo to bounce around with. You know, because we know every time it hits a side of the head or a wall, it's going to pick up velocity. So it's like I might have one in there that I don't even recognize right now because it's so slow, but eventually, if I let that build up, that echo chamber is gonna become like it's gonna become pinball. So we got it out ahead it's preemptive or it's proactive versus reactive and we didn't let it build up.
Dylan:I have you were talking about this earlier thinking about going back to school. I have a really good friend that's gonna graduate this May and he's been doing all his hours. He's gonna become a family counselor, his LISW licensed social worker and it's funny because he talks about it. He goes. Trying to do therapy on yourself is psychotic. He goes. I'm trained in it. I do this for, like I'm learning the fundamentals, I have the background, the pedigree. He goes me trying to talk myself off a ledge in some way. He goes. It's impossible. He goes, and I'm a professional at it. You can't reason with yourself. You can reason with others, but it's almost impossible to reason with yourself.
Brad:Yeah, you build tool Like therapy is about creating tools that you can use because, even though your situations are not going to be exactly the same every time, there will be similar qualities to them and those tools allow you to navigate that in a healthier way, a more efficient way. Sometimes is what I would say because I have been. Obviously I'm pretty self-reflective in some good or bad sense.
Dylan:Yeah, so I'm strapping your guys' self to this wagon. Yeah and so.
Brad:I've been able to Chocolate cake partner Work through that stuff in the past, but not in an efficient form and not in a pretty form.
Dylan:It's brute force and it's not fun.
Brad:It's not okay Grit. Sometimes it's just a grit of like all right, well, I'm not fucking leaving this thing, so I guess it's not always the answer either.
Dylan:There's a lot of good things that come out of just brute force, but it's not always the answer.
Brad:Well, if you look at it in terms of like what was it? There was an example in here where they put people on treadmill for five minutes and like cranked the incline and then just saw how long people would go. And then they knew they were like, okay, you got five minutes of this. And people that were like, yeah, I'm gonna do all the whole five minutes and were really like strict about it, where they could not just do it because it was like a mental thing, right, so like it got uncomfortable, Ready, it got uncomfortable and they would stick with it. But the author of this book was like it would be more interesting to be like, hey, you can come back tomorrow and try again and see if you can beat your score. Hey, you can come back again tomorrow, but at some point, yeah, if it's a bad thing and you just keep hitting it and it's a bad thing, yeah, maybe grit's not the way to approach that thing.
Dylan:The stigma that it's weak to go talk to somebody. It doesn't bother me, because it's like I get. That's people's self-defense mechanisms, because what we were talking about earlier is how many people do we know that are like I had a terrible experience? It's like did you have a terrible? Experience, because you actually had to address things you've never addressed, and so, yeah, it's going to be really painful.
Brad:But did you have a bad experience because you realized in the first session that you're an asshole and you don't wanna realize that?
Dylan:Yeah, I mean there are some things like that and I've had experience with the people who are like it was really uncomfortable for me and they're like did you think it was gonna feel good the whole? It's not. The end goal is to feel better, but it is not the goal of the session itself to always feel good. It's to understand and to recognize, see, build lasso Season two Season two.
Brad:But yeah, that's especially with people, for people with some issues, especially for people with some issues that they don't realize or want to realize. It's gonna get uncomfortable.
Dylan:My other favorite is people are like I can brute force through this or it's like I can handle this on my own. They're the ones that like snap when a twig falls on their back you know what I mean. Like the slightest little deviation, what they accept is okay in the world, those are like blow-ups this, this, the whole world's collapsing. You're like, hey, maybe that's a problem and like I think I don't know how you feel after your year, but I know after like I'm on my longest current cycle of therapy that I've ever been on.
Brad:Yeah.
Dylan:I started when I was younger, after my sister died, and then I did that through high school and then I never kind of really went back out as we do in high school.
Brad:I know exactly, I don't need any medicines.
Dylan:I don't think no, I wasn't on medicine, I did I had a chronic illness, but I don't, I don't really know what. I think I just yeah, I think I got busy and it was like yeah, whatever, you know, I think you kind of yeah, it's one of the Teenage hormones, Teenage hormones they fix everything. Yeah, they're the best.
Brad:Yeah, you're not sick, you don't feel anything.
Dylan:But the amount of stress and I'm not saying you should go out and test this theory to you know, actualize it but the amount of stress that I can take on any given time and still have grace is completely different. It's 10 fold, 30 fold than two or three years ago, the amount of stress that I experienced on a day people forget. Stress isn't just negative. Stress comes in both positive and negative forms. They're big events, big happenings, and you know, and physical, emotional.
Brad:Emotional mental.
Dylan:And it's. I can handle a lot because I work through a lot of the other things going on in my life. And again, it's not always that there's a resolution to the end of it. It's just talking about it and understanding that it's okay.
Brad:Like we. How about when this is a popular one? Joe Rogan talks about why, like, road rage is so prevalent. That's a thing he goes it's. His take on it is that you're in a 6,000 pound machine that's going 60 miles an hour and at any point like you could die. You just run into something. Something runs into you. It's an unnatural state of being, body's not designed for it, and I think it's why the critter here begs. I think when we carry around so much, so much of that stress and baggage from things, that's what we're like. Our body is at 90% stress level all the time and then you run into something that is that seems minor and that's it. That's the straw that breaks camels back Like why, yeah, you got a fucking problem If this thing is setting you off, well, it's not really that thing.
Dylan:It's.
Brad:It's a build up to it, you know, but we'll talk about that.
Dylan:Don't want to get into that. I think, the car analogy is good in the sense that we also as a society move. I think that's a big play right now is technology on? The human anatomy Is how fast life moves with technology and the rapid fire of information. The ability for us to absorb information, current events, data, et cetera is what I mean. It's not just exponential geometric growth compared to what we used to have, and so have we adapted as humans to be able to keep up with that, or are we just no?
Dylan:no, it's not no, it's not, you know, and it's, it's and maybe that was like rhetorical, but it's no.
Dylan:It's like to your everyone's like oh, these, these rates, these rates, these rates are going up Like have you ever thought about that? We're just overstimulating the body from. It's not that, though human race is getting weaker. It says that they're dealing with more stressors, even though it's not. Yeah, it's different, because we've talked about it was kind of with Misogi it was. We kind of went down the path of maybe you're not doing enough hard stuff in your life and you need to challenge yourself this way and you have an abundance of adrenaline or other things that seek hard things. And again, hard things aren't just physical.
Brad:Hard things can be addressing certain things, but there's also this overstimulation of the population, which is information overload and being able to disconnect Interesting fact, yeah, Last week and a half I have taken my kids gaming systems away and it wintertime is bad, you're not really out and you get lulls and sports and things like that.
Brad:No, so you're just home more often, and so then they're on that more often. And then the parent part of you and I'll call all parents out, because I'm fucking one of them is that your kids on a device and they're playing a game and they're playing with friends usually, like both my kids usually are playing with their friends. So you're like, oh, it's social.
Brad:Yeah they're talking to their friends. It's a social thing, it's this, but it really depends on what they're doing and games have advanced in such a way. So, like both my kids play Fortnite. I used to play Fortnite. I haven't played it now for like four months Because the information processing skills required to play Fortnite is unbelievable.
Brad:I too was in that rabbit hole where the game is. Why is the game popular? Is it like the best game I've ever made? No, but the way it's set up is that you get a chance and then, oh, the chance doesn't work out, I get another chance again. It's like playing a slot machine, but you never run out of money. It's always a chance to win, always a chance to win. And then now, through these software, like digital creators, players make custom games. So instead of a so the standard game is 100 person battle royale. So 100 people get tossed into this game Hunger games, hunger game, style, love it. And the last one or two or four, depending on which style you're playing, is the winner. Okay, right, winner takes all. But you die. And then you just repopulate into a new 100 person game and then a new 100 person game. That's how it works. But a game costs can take 25, 20, 25 minutes if you win. So you go the whole thing.
Dylan:What do?
Brad:you get, if you win Nothing you don't get anything, you just get points. You don't get anything, really.
Dylan:You get points, you just win.
Brad:Is there like a Fortnite League? They have some stuff now, but so what these creators have done?
Dylan:What do they make all the? What are all the e-games?
Brad:make money on. Oh, they make money on, so you can buy accessory like skins. No, I don't mean that?
Dylan:I mean like the professional gaming leagues? I don't understand what you're saying. What are the sponsorships? I don't know what games do they play in the professional gaming leagues?
Brad:They play Fortnite. That's what I'm saying. They play a bunch of them, so they that's what I ask. That's what I ask.
Dylan:Do they professional athletes in that game? Yeah, that's not what you said. What I don't know, no. I'm tired of this shit.
Brad:They do hold like. They'll hold like tournaments every once in a while, but just day to day gameplay. There's not like you're not playing for.
Dylan:That's what I meant. I didn't mean that You're not playing for.
Brad:Yeah, there's professionals and everything.
Dylan:Okay.
Brad:So now there's these shorter games where you're just in a scenario. You're just in a scenario scene with two other people, eight other people, whatever. You just try to kill each other, and then you die, and then you respond, and then you die, and then you respond, and then you can just do that for I don't know eight hours. And yeah, that sounds fun.
Dylan:I don't know. I think the last time I played a video game, but with COVID. But if you before that, five years.
Brad:It's this. It's the exact same thing as when we're scrolling through short style videos, because it's something new every time, every time, every time, every time, don't.
Dylan:Yeah, I don't have to talk very. I downloaded TikTok for the first time because we needed to grab all the socials for this podcast and I have not opened it since I downloaded it, unless I send you cave videos. And then I don't open them. You don't open them. No, I don't look at caves.
Brad:You need to challenge yourself, and I will.
Dylan:I will 100%. Oh, speak of the witch. Hmm, big boy over here, yeah, went in the cave, sat up 90 degrees for a blood draw today. What you know, I'm a, I'm a little baby, I am, I am. That's cute, but I guess after you donate enough blood cells you're good. That's cool. Stem cells, not blood cells.
Brad:My needle's coming on Tuesday, I'll jab it somewhere. You put a needle in yourself.
Dylan:I don't have to do that, you could do it. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a weird part is, if I do it to myself, it's better. It is better in a weird sense. I got a random piece of metal in my chest when I was younger.
Brad:Oh, I didn't.
Dylan:And I took an exacto knife and I cut my chest open and pulled it out, okay, and I was fine with that.
Brad:It probably wasn't as extreme as that sounded.
Dylan:Okay, I saw the scar, maybe.
Brad:So let's talk about the people with bad experiences.
Dylan:Uh, yes, Because that's what and I don't. I guess I don't poke in broad enough because I don't want to with them. But my supposition and I would hate to generalize is I go to you felt uncomfortable and you didn't like that, which is to what we've talked about. It's okay to feel uncomfortable. It probably means there's some growth on the other side.
Brad:Yes, and people All right. So I was playing you a video. This was from a quote, unquote life coach, which is is this the Christian life coach?
Dylan:Not the same Christian life coach with the pine needles yeah.
Brad:Send me it. I can play it for everyone. No, we don't need to play it Come on.
Dylan:No, I don't want to use the technology I do not want to make you guys suffer through that right now Okay, we're not going to do it team but they're to you like.
Brad:So when we talk about anything and you go, well, how can 7% of all firefighters be, you know, psychotic, whatever it's like? We'll look at the general population of numbers, right, if, if, 7% of a general population has X and you have a job that is somewhat distributed across that general population, you're going to have those people in there. So, like anything, counselors, therapists, psychologists I mean, who's a famous psychologist that we might not agree with sometimes? Hmm, I don't know.
Brad:I was wondering if Kermit was going to make a where do you know, it's really fun going to be coming pretty soon here. It's really fun.
Dylan:Really soon is the transcript analyzer for our podcast. It picks up your voice as a different person, nice, and so I put it in as Kermit. Now yes, Love it. So I think Apple, I think Apple podcast is the only one that picks up on the transcripts right now, so I think Apple podcast it's should have it. I don't know.
Brad:So as an example right or wrong, because I don't know the details about this, but Jordan Peterson is a psychiatrist.
Dylan:We talk about his license anymore.
Brad:Well, he's got to go back to school, for is he going to go?
Dylan:I think he doesn't need to go. I was going to say he's making way more money than he needs to. What does he? But I guess he probably still wants to practice, Maybe.
Brad:Yeah, he might. How much? I don't know how much time. He would even have to do that at this point. I know, but I feel like it's a world tour right now.
Dylan:I feel, like you.
Brad:But the point being, you know he has some you know theories and notions and things like that, and do you think that he is totally unbiased and doesn't bring them to his clients at all? No, no, I don't think so. Are some people really good at that? Yeah, probably. I think that, as you, as you most likely should be, but people are not perfect and those things are going to, they're going to creep in and so if you happen to be talking about something and going, going away, that they would not go, and they, they tell you that. They're not telling you that it's their way, but it's going against what you believe or think should happen, or whatever. That's not. I don't. I don't even think that good counselors typically do that. They don't prescribe, like, what you should do in certain situations.
Dylan:It's it's, it's frameworks and tools to self recognize. What am I experiencing? Why am I experiencing what am I experiencing? And half the time it's if you just take a couple of deep breaths and wait a few minutes, it might pass that. I mean that.
Brad:But also what. What they ask and say about things is vague for a reason because they're not giving you a. They're not supposed to be the latch on.
Dylan:They're going to be able to take it somewhere.
Brad:Yeah, they're not going to say like, well, you need to tell her to shut the fuck up, because it sounds like she's not being very nice.
Dylan:They're not. You can't say that Well, be fun, why can't?
Brad:you say that. Well, for a lot of reasons. For one, you don't. They have to go with what your story is.
Dylan:Yeah but what was your involvement? Yeah, exactly, I think that's. I think that's a massive one of you're not, you're not exempting other people of their responsibility in in what they were complicit in, but asking yourself the very simple question of what could I have done better to make this situation go a little smoother or have released the tension, is a very powerful question. Yeah, and 10 times, or 9.9 times out of 10, there's probably something you could have. You could have done and not saying it would have exonerated, it would have it would have solved all of it, or it would have it would have prevented any of it. But there's a good chance you could have mitigated the risk associated with that conversation that actualized. Yeah, that's been a powerful one. For me it's like, okay, what could? Am I just not speaking clearly? Am I not telling people the expectations clearly enough? Am I being too wishy-washy in the, in the, in the guidelines? But I found myself going back to that.
Brad:But ideally I think it's vague, for for the purpose of you need to figure it out.
Dylan:You can't. You also can't build someone's it's, it's to your point. You're going, they're going off your story and if they say something that's wrong, that's going to build you, maybe in a not in the way that's supposed to be happening. They can't just, they can't just be like you go girl, you go man, like yeah, and also whoa whoa, whoa, whoa. We might be pushing some very toxic behavior right now.
Brad:And I I feel like maybe some of the stories that I've heard lean a little bit more that way.
Dylan:Where it wouldn't help me weaponize my stuff.
Brad:It's more like, you know, they told me maybe I should, maybe I should do this, and it's like when it's when it's interpersonal related, you kind of focus on the person. You're in here, we're focusing on you, what can we do to help you, to make you better, to help you handle things? I can't do anything with so-and-so, he's not in here, we're not talking, and. And so they're like can you believe that they would say and sometimes people tell me stuff and I'm like I know I can't, because I've I've not been in that situation at all. I don't know why I did that. Literally, they don't even give me sentences, it's mostly just questions. That's it, questions, yeah.
Dylan:How'd that make you feel?
Brad:So that's it's.
Dylan:It's a little bit of a joke because it's not the real questions. It's an overgeneralization of here.
Brad:Here's a specific one from my last one. I played her. I was like I want to, I'm going to, I'm going to give you an artist, I'm going to write down some of these songs Prince no, no, no, no, no. Rick James no, okay.
Dylan:How did you finish, sorry?
Brad:And I go. I related to them, they, there's a whole stylistic and backstory and all that kind of stuff. But lyrically this touched on so many different things in terms of where I'm at right now, like my progression from dark to light and and everything in between.
Dylan:So I was like so this hit home with me maybe listen to it, you know, whatever.
Brad:So I played her one song and it's a high ren by the artist Ren, and it's a. It's this back and forth between him and his subconscious and it's this, this dark and light, good and evil, you know, sane, insane type thing.
Dylan:And I'm going to brave the wilderness real fast and just say I don't like run. That's fine. Okay, We'll move on. Sorry, yeah, he's, he is, and I will give him credit. He's a wildly talented guy and I wish I had a one, one hundredth of his skill. I just it doesn't, it doesn't. It's not that it doesn't resonate with me, it just.
Brad:I don't know. But also I had a slow introduction to it because I found it through social stuff and so I'm seeing like reactions. We fill out forms of therapists. It was recommended to me on my intake form.
Dylan:You and all your friends, yeah.
Brad:And so, anyways, I get done playing that and she's, you know, she's like, yeah, that was. She's like that was fucking terrible. You got really bad taste of music. I was like, thank you, that's refreshing to hear.
Dylan:I'm glad that your therapist and I are on the same page, Um she was.
Brad:So that dichotomy, like the that good and bad, the two sided, whatever she was, do you feel like that? Do you feel it that intensely? And I said, yeah, like when you're talking about suicide and and you have a side that's that's good and a side that's bad. I don't know how much more of a dichotomy you can get than than that on a daily basis.
Brad:No, but, um, anyone that's gone through those troubles, yeah, like yeah like you do, feel like you're literally arguing with yourself trying to figure something out. Um, and so I go. I feel like less of that now, and that's kind of where the song ends. It's like I don't, I don't need that. You know, I used to think that did something for me.
Dylan:I don't know how to feel, yeah.
Brad:And, and I go, I, I. What is that?
Dylan:And I want why? Why did that thing provide something? That's, that was the question she asked me. Oh, weird, yeah, okay, so actually for the audience, I didn't know that ahead of time, so I feel really good about myself.
Brad:Good for you, okay, and and I was like, but it's, I go, I feel like less and less. And I talked about this, I talked about the podcast, I go. You know, when I used to write and think deeply about things, I was always in a dark space always, and I go that I felt like that provided me all this ammo for all the stuff that I was trying to get done in my life. And she goes well, what, what does that thing do for you now? Like fucking nothing. Content bitch. We're monetizing it. We got Google ads, we got it all.
Dylan:And it's called dollars.
Brad:I like I don't all five followers. I don't. It doesn't, it doesn't do that thing. The thing that I thought it used to do, I do from the good side of myself, now, you know. And so, and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I.
Dylan:I I.
Brad:I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I I.
Dylan:I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm I, I, you, I, I, I, I, you, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. It's been 83 years. I mean, was that June?
Brad:Oh God, it was July last year.
Dylan:I forgot we actually recorded back then.
Dylan:I know we didn't do it for a couple months, we didn't have, so yeah it's been a while, but I think we touched on this In a couple months we'll be on a year of actually recording this and I have a close relationship in that and I don't think we had words for it back then. But we've always been able to come to each other with the deeper and I wanna say the darker parts of us. I've always been comfortable opening up with my dark demons with you and what have you been?
Brad:Have you, though? Have you been? What do you mean? Have you opened up? Don't even Come on, stop. How many bats are in there?
Dylan:Oh, unbelievable man, I manage my therapist.
Brad:My skeletons are like Le Brea Tar Pits.
Dylan:But the mini is covered in black and even though we had this friendship and it's one thing to be able to pick up the phone and call someone, text someone I mean that takes gall. Now we're kind of on a schedule with what we're doing here and there are times when you come into the door and you're just like I'm not feeling it, I'm not happy.
Dylan:And then we get into these conversations and your mood seems to spike. So is there something do you think between, or the difference between, writing it down versus vocalizing? I feel like the spoken word maybe might be a little bit more prolific than the written word. Do you get it? I'm gonna push a button, don't get me wrong. Writing, I love reading, I love writing. I think they're important mediums, but I think, when it comes to self-health, that maybe vocalizing things are a little bit more important.
Brad:Yeah, I think if you're starting out and you are really uncomfortable with stuff, write it 100%. Write it down Like get some stuff out of your head yeah. So do you think?
Dylan:vocalizing is the second level and you're getting to that second level by when we force ourselves to do these and I'm not in the same force, I think, therapy-wise, yeah, vocalizing is more important, 100%.
Brad:What about?
Dylan:the podcast though, because the podcast is a little bit more freeform and when you write in your moody and I'm not saying that therapy session is a freeform, it's a sometimes it's directed and they try to dig into one's facet when your baby mind's going elsewhere. So do you think there's any benefit to just talking about things here?
Brad:Yes, because it's the conversation aspect of it is totally different If this was just me talking into the microphone.
Dylan:I would. I thought about doing a solo episode, Did you? And how'd that go? I was like I would kill myself, yeah.
Brad:It's because no one's there to ask you questions. And so, for a really brief, written versus spoken word. People think the spoken word is truer to the thoughts because it's coming straight from whatever. I got a real problem with that because the linguistics is just it's, it's, there's a big, there's a lot going on there, 100% Written word and written meaning. Like an audio book is the same thing, like you can't have a conversation with that person in the moment that you're listening to an audio book, so that's essentially written word. You're just hearing it instead of reading it. Right, but this is for us. This is important because we can have a conversation in real time For our listeners. It sucks for you guys because when we fuck up and we say things wrong or you have questions, you're not involved. But you can be if you email us at info at terriblyonbeliviouscom. Hello, hello, hello at terribly, either one.
Dylan:Yeah, but I think there's something beautiful about that, though, is the written word is polished because you can have drafts, and that's important, yes, but this. So the thing with speech is, and I go back and forth and I love. I love cinema, I love movies, I love a good movie, I love, but I and this is like people laughing me I love theater, I love Broadway, because they are raw. That is one take. They don't get to go out and try to be, they don't try to get to do the thing and then be like cut, let's roll it back, and then fuck it we'll do it live.
Dylan:But you're putting yourself out there and then learning how to roll with the miscues. You know you'll listen to interviews with other people.
Dylan:Yeah, there's an art in that and it's oh, we screwed this up, but we're gonna. This is our pivot and we can make it. You know we're still not gonna break, I think. So both are beautiful in their own way, but both are conveyed to different emotions. And you, when you go to a Broadway show, you look at the set, you're like it's cheesy, it's overdone. But they do it because that's what works for Broadway. But that and don't get me wrong there's some beautiful sets on Broadway. But if you don't have the millions of dollars to build a fake city that you do in a movie. Two completely different scenarios. Beautiful in their own way, because the set doesn't bother you over here, because you know there's a rawness. But if a set's shitty in a movie, you're like you guys really couldn't really like step up your game. You guys had like months to prepare for this. Yeah, so it's just two different, two different mediums.
Brad:Yes.
Dylan:And they evoke different emotions.
Brad:Okay, so here's an example for that before we go back to why the talk therapy is important.
Dylan:I saw a video what I was getting at was that Dylan's your new therapist.
Brad:A video yesterday where it was just a random band on stage at like a bar and they were actually bringing somebody else up to sing. Was it a Beatles cover band? No, I don't think so. To bring up somebody else? Please don't send me hate, I actually do, just send me anything. I don't care. And someone was coming up to sing a song and the lead guy started playing. You shook me all night long. Just the guitar riff and the drums hadn't even kicked in yet and the whole crowd, bam, starts singing.
Dylan:And then they go full on.
Brad:The guy didn't even get to sing a song that came up on the stage Cause they just ended up playing the whole ACDC song. And you have that. And then you have the ACDC record. So you have that's the polished production song, which is everything that we know and love and played a million times. And then you have this other thing that is real living, breathing, happening in the moment and the same thing essentially two very different emotions and things that they generate.
Brad:So I think you feel one more intensely than the other, because this one is it's kind of dead. It's like the written word right, it's polished, but it's dead. You can't interact with it. It's just, it is what it is right. Take it, leave it, think about whatever you want to. And then this one is okay, I'm a part of this as it's happening, and when you're talking to a therapist, versus like you're writing down your feelings, you are now alive in that moment and it's fluid, and sometimes just saying it's completely different saying something out loud than it is right now, Sometimes just saying the thing out loud, not even like them talking to you, it's hard, it's hard and you're like I'm really mad today because I saw this pretty girl and she called me poopy pants. And you're like you're upset about that and you're like, no, I'm not Cause it sounds stupid, my ego is so bruised right now?
Brad:Yeah, and so I remember going in when I started going to college. I'm like I don't fucking kill myself. And they're like why? And I was like I don't know, I don't know why you ask me these questions. This is stupid. Don't make me I want to be brooding. And so then you got to start asking yourself questions, Brad should have been on the cover of a Hawthorne Heights album.
Brad:And the things that are bumping around in that echo chamber suddenly lose velocity and you're like mmm, that idea doesn't seem so strong that did not track.
Dylan:Well, this is not tracking the way I thought it was going to.
Brad:No, no, and so you know it's like. That's why this, or trying to be authentic with anybody. And I'm not saying go pour your heart out to whoever, but if somebody asks you a question, definitely go to a dye bar and just buy everyone around a bush, and we'll just see what happens.
Brad:Shannon showed me a thing the other day. That was somebody that she used to work with and he was in a store or a restaurant or something and they were like how's your day going? And he's like I just I had a moment when he's like it's been pretty rough and she's like oh, what happened?
Brad:And he's like oh you know I work in a school and this and this and this happened and you know she reciprocated and whatever, and he's like you know, I don't know what that did, but we just shared a moment. Yeah, we shared a moment and that was better. So it's that shared humanity again. That's another part of therapy, I think.
Dylan:It opens you up, for grace with others. And I mean, no, that's what this is, that shared humanity. Yeah well, I know you're gonna grace with yourself.
Brad:Oh my.
Dylan:God, yeah, that's a big one. So giving yourself yeah, that's all of there, that's like five back.
Brad:guys Like giving yourself room to fuck up and then come back.
Dylan:Not weaponizing it, but also understanding that you're human.
Brad:Yeah, we're not perfect.
Dylan:We're not perfect, you know, but that goes along with understanding that you had good and I don't know. This is the problem, and I shouldn't say this is a problem. You're 100% right what you're saying, but then you have to caveat it because there are people that you know are gonna weaponize it and be like well, I was just being my best person, You're like what? No you obviously weren't. Yeah, that's that We've talked about that, and so writing, writing first.
Dylan:We talked about. What book was that? Or it's like you could take four paragraphs of this book and you could be like I'd never have to listen. Oh, it was Brennan. Oh sorry, I don't need anyone to tell me what I need to be and you're like, well, you're kind of a shitty human, and that's not really what this is talking about.
Brad:And you can't just take the one part right. It's not just like the Bible, where we can pick out the things that we like. Oh, we're gonna go there now.
Dylan:Hey, you would start. I was trying to steer away from it. This whole hour and 18 minutes I'm sorry, we're here, let's go, let's run.
Brad:No, we're not, let's run it back Moses. No, I don't wanna do it, but now you got me out of there. I'm all frazzled.
Dylan:What you wanna talk about two by two.
Brad:Don't look at the screen the authentic nature of just sharing your stories with people and the trying to do better. So having to write bios for this podcast like what the fuck are we talking about here? It's like trying to incrementally get better at doing life.
Dylan:People overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year, and that goes back to what little bit of it. You know. Call it what you want imposter syndrome, not being able to enjoy the moment, all of this it's so hard to think about it sometimes because we are instant gratification people. Yes, and if you just hold yourself to it doesn't need to be 100% standard, but you hold yourself to some 80% rule every day, you're going to make that 1%, 2% better and guess what? It gets easier every day that you hold yourself to again, not 100%, 80%, and it gets a little bit easier. And then you can increment from that 80 and you can increment from that. You can increment from that. And then, all of a sudden, where you're at next year is it completely different. It's, to your point, like one year of talking to somebody and not even was it what we call 100%.
Dylan:No because you weren't going probably as regularly as you needed to, because you had a good phase and you kind of did the whole. I'm good, I'm going to go off my meds thing.
Brad:Yeah, I mean you start figuring stuff out and then you don't go as much and then maybe something happens and you go back. It's good to trip sometimes though it's good to understand, be like okay, you're always going to trip and yeah, that's good, though that feeling is good, because if you don't, At some point she asked me like what do you want to get out of this? What would be the end goal?
Dylan:What do you want to get?
Brad:out of this. I was like the end goal would be like when I go down the dark, slippery slope, like let's not ever do that again, Like that would be great.
Dylan:But for you. But you've got to realize at this point in your life you're always going to want to sleep. It's you're probably never going to not be there. No, it's going to happen, it's going to recognize it earlier and address it earlier, way earlier.
Dylan:And that's where people confuse and I've talked about this. What you know, one of the best books I read is ADHD 2.0, and it really kind of explains the condition and the best way they describe it is it's diabetes of the brain. You have a condition where you're going to. You can medicate, you can do certain protocols to make it better, but every morning you wake up you have to manage it, yeah, and if you don't manage it appropriately throughout the day, it's going to get off track and you're going to have so and I've had that realization with you know, going back to that dinner last Wednesday. I'm, I know I'm going to fall in the cycles again where I'm going to go three months of being like I can't do anything but work and it's learning how to recognize it and, to your point, forcing yourself to do the complete opposite of what you think you need to be doing because it's actually better for you. It's, it's. You get warning. You get the warning bells earlier.
Brad:Yeah, Part of it is is giving you the tools. The other part is just giving you the, the realization of what's happening sooner, Cause if you don't well, we talked about the logic and also permission.
Dylan:It's almost giving yourself permission at some point too, because so many times I've recognized it and you're like, but no, I just got to go a little bit further and I can get through on the other side and it's like well giving, being learning to have permission to be able to take a break and did that for 20 years Workout great.
Brad:Yeah. You're balding now I'll do it. Thanks, can't wait till we're on camera. Thanks, stress. Oh, I'll have a wig by then. Yeah, what kind of two-page you got to go with. Oh, tom Cruise, top gun.
Dylan:Mm yeah, you're going to have your tooth in the center of your mouth too. Mm what?
Brad:You haven't seen us.
Dylan:No, we get to use Google for the first time today. That's it, tom.
Brad:Cruise Images. So, yeah, I mean to the core.
Dylan:He's got a tooth in the middle of his face.
Brad:No he doesn't. Wait, oh no he's fixed it. No.
Dylan:Oh, he must be paying.
Brad:No, you lied. Oh no, that's Photoshopped. Oh, they're just right there.
Dylan:Right there.
Brad:Oh well, they're all this. It's off center, it's got a tooth in the middle.
Dylan:That's where you're going to go at them, for I love Tom Cruise, I love top guns, one of my favorite movies. It's one of my favorite movies, so much so that I probably watched it at least twice a week, for most of my life.
Brad:I think he might be an alien.
Dylan:He's a Scientologist, although I heard you stepping away.
Brad:To take over a planet.
Dylan:Uh-uh. Apparently, he wants a relationship with his daughter, and you realize that and you can't do that through Scientology Weird, I think he figured out that he's amassed enough money in life that he doesn't really need that posse to help him anymore.
Brad:Anywho, don't look at the time. Thank you, Tom Cruise teeth.
Dylan:How do you feel about the?
Brad:episode, ending on the year long consistency and working towards small goals and then realizing at the end of that year that something that used to take me a lot of pain in several weeks to get through is now down to days, and the recognition of the problem is almost instant, instead of weeks to never. So does that mean I have everything figured out? Oh, fuck.
Dylan:No, not even close, but it allows you to take on the next challenge.
Brad:Yeah, it's growth. It's growth and that's coming up into the next series here. That's something that we're going to hit on a lot. Angela Duckworth, great. I don't know I might not agree with all of it.
Dylan:And hopefully by the time this episode that rolls live.
Brad:you'll be in Mexico, I'll be in Vegas.
Dylan:Whatever. Actually, I'll be in town Vancouver Monday morning, and then I'll be in Las Vegas Monday evening, and then I will be in Cabo.
Brad:Are you really going to Mexico?
Dylan:I'll be in Cabo on Wednesday. We're doing a quick Vegas trip before the trip. For what?
Brad:We got to go to Vegas real quick for.
Dylan:I asked myself the same question. But I'm a yes man, I just go with the flow, whatever my friend, whatever my OFs, my other friends, want to do, I say, yes, you have OFs. We're not going to talk about it on this podcast, not, yet I don't have any OFs. Well, when they heard about I had this podcast, they were like who's that fucking brat guy? It's amazing what OFs will do. I'm the BF OF. They're going to listen to it and they're not going to be very happy. So hey.
Brad:Well, like the Rolling Stones said, paint of black. No, you can't always get what you want. No, they said both of it, oh, ok, and like the Beatles said, fucking, I don't know.
Dylan:Listen to a cover band, Thanks guys. You're still here.
Brad:It's over.
Dylan:Go home.
Brad:Go.