Transcript of Episode #166: We Need to Talk NOW: Men’s Mental Health Emergency! Featuring DR. JODY CARRINGTON!

highest rate of suicide in your country and mine is middle-aged white men. So if you check these 4 boxes— white, straight, able-bodied, male— you have access to the most privilege on this planet, full stop. That exact same cohort, by a landslide, is killing themselves at a much faster rate than any other on the planet. It is estimated that our great-grandparents looked at their children 72% more of the time than we look at our babies today. We need each other to co-regulate. We need somebody to show us how to be kind and confident and empathic. Many of us experience significant amounts of trauma, some of us worse than others. That has resulted in us coming very protected and closed off.

I had things inside of me that I didn't know were there, that I never think about, that were killing me and making me turn into a completely different person.

Can you give me an example of that?

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So visit justthrivehealth.com/dylan to claim your free digestive bitters with your first 90-day probiotic subscription today. Right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. I have been waiting for this conversation ever since I met my guest and we talked the, from the, the moment that I was a couple minutes late and her reaction made me absolutely love her on impact. And I mean impact. She speaks my language to the highest extent. And she is literally one of a kind. So she's a powerhouse speaker and she's a fearless champion for authentic human connection. And she's highly sought after for her expertise, her energy, which I absolutely just love, along with a genuine approach. She speaks my language, like I said, because she's authentic, she's sincere, she's direct, and she does not pull punches. She's the founder and principal psychologist at Carrington and Company, and she's written 3 bestselling books. And she speaks on hundreds of stages globally each year and hosts the widely celebrated podcast Unlonely. So my friends, welcome Dr. Jodi Carrington.

Is that where you have like a big cheering, like people go wild and shit in the background?

I'm known for my intros and I just get lucky here and there and I get people cheered and that's, that's all I'm good for.

Oh my gosh, I love it. Dylan Gemelli, ladies and gentlemen, let's tell me, tell me, are What are we gonna talk about today? You need a little sesh, a little therapy sesh?

I, oh, well, shit. Do I need a therapy sesh? That's the understatement of the year. You don't wanna start psychoanalyzing me or we're gonna have—

These are only an hour. These are only an hour. These are only an hour.

I think, I think my bill, by the time I got it back from you, I don't know if I'd like to see it.

Goodness. Isn't that the truth of us all though these days? Right? Is like, you know, I think this is, you and I chatted a little bit about this before, but it's like everybody appears to be okay. And this is, I think, when you get the highlight reel of social media, we're the first generation of leaders, of parents, of caregivers to have access to social media and we're not talking about it. And so we have so much input from everybody else telling us they've got their shit together. And so the dichotomy of what it appears online that we get fed constantly to what it feels like is happening inside our nervous systems have never been this unmatched. And it's leaving so many of us feeling like goddamn disasters, mostly because we are.

Yeah. What, let me ask you this. I was just going to get right into it. I don't want to do all the background and all the bullshit nobody cares about that everybody does all the time. I want to get into the nitty-gritty of this. I think your, your background speaks for itself, but here's what I'd like to look at first, because this bothers me a lot. And I've been talking about this and I want your thoughts on it. I know for me, it took me 44, it took me 43 years to get over myself and stop worrying about what everybody else thought and putting up this facade of a, of a life online where I just try to show you inside my life, my, my family, you know, struggles, good times, bad times, whatever. Why do you feel that people do what I do and, and try to show a more perfect life when in reality people wanna see that you're human and wanna see the realities of life? What, what, what are some of the interpersonal issues? Hmm.

That's a big question. I'm— I see, I don't think any of us arrive. I think we are all, you know, balance is bullshit. I think we are all in states of being, I mean, doing things beautifully, getting things right, achieving our goals, and failing and messing it up. And, you know, being horrific to our kids, our partners, and then being fantastic. I think that— The idea is 2 rules to this human race. Okay. So as you said, you know, I'm a clinical psychologist by training and I practiced for many years on a locked psychiatric inpatient unit. I was actually trained in the world of police psychology because I'm a huge lover of trauma and organizational stress. And then I did a postdoc in child psychiatry where I really wanted to dive into sort of like the deep neurophysiological reasons behind what makes us great as humans. And the only thing that I think—

Mm-hmm.

I know for sure after doing this work for 25 years is there's 2 rules to the human race. So number one, whoever created us, and I don't care what you believe in, Jesus or Buddha or Yahweh, the Great Big Bang, whoever created us said, number one, you're all way more alike than you are different. Race is a social construct. Gender identity is a social construct. We all start in exactly the same place. We all end in exactly the same place. Okay? So whoever created us said this, rule number one, I'm gonna make you neurobiologically wired for connection. You disconnect from an infant, they die. No matter how good we get at the AI, the only AI that's gonna matter, I promise you, particularly in this next generation, is authentic interaction. When you are good at that, people will skate through walls for you. And my favorite hockey coach, we talked about this because, uh, we both have a love of hockey and I grew up in Canada where I basically, you know what I mean? I still think I'm gonna make the PWHL and I'm 51. But anyway, I, my favorite hockey coach, actually, I'll tell you this backstory real quick and then I promise you I'll circle back around, but I grew up in a little town called Viking, Alberta, Canada.

No, I love it.

Okay. Uh, home of the Sutter brothers, 7 boys, 6 make the NHL. Many, 2 of them won cups with the New York Islanders. There's 6 brothers. They all played in the— I tried to marry one, didn't work out. So, uh, I had to make it on my own, which is fine. But I, uh, one of my favorite of the 6 said this, you should see how fast I can get a kid to skate when I know the name of their dog.

Wow.

You should see how fast I can get a kid to skate when I know the name of their dog. When you wanna talk about feeling seen, authenticity, it's because we are neurobiologically wired for connection. That is the first rule of this human race. If you wanna get the best of me, you will see me. You will know me. Like, what is the name of my dog? What is my favorite color? All of those things that you can't hide behind. Number one, that's the first rule of the human race, okay? The second rule of the human race is a curveball. And whoever sort of created us has this sense of humor that said, I'm gonna make you number one neurobiologically wired for connection. But the second rule of the human race is this, despite the fact that you're neurobiologically wired for connection, the hardest thing you're ever gonna do as humans is look at each other. And we've never had so many opportunities to look away. We've never had so many exit ramps. And I mean, you just think about this in your own life. I know your audience, so many of us pride ourselves on creating community and connection and, you know, doing things right for our bodies, making our communities healthy, our bodies healthy.

And so we, many of us are like, ooh, we're good at connecting to people. No, we're not. I mean, think about how many times you start a connection in an elevator. How many times when you're walking your dog or going for a run that you say to people like, hey, hey, how you doing? You know? It is estimated that we looked at our grand— our great-grandparents looked at their children 72% more of the time than we look at our babies today. If you think about the square footage of the house that your grandfather was raised in and the square afforded to the house in which we raise our babies. Yeah. What's the difference? You know, I know we were talking about this. You have family coming together. You know, it's summer still obviously here for us in Canada. And so we're spending a lot of time together. And I just think about how often now we're the first generation of parents and leaders, educators that have access to social media, our phones.

Mm-hmm.

And the only thing that has not been updated is the human operating system. We need each other to co-regulate. We need somebody to show us. How to be kind and confident and empathic and caring. You can't tell anybody how to regulate emotion. You have to show them. I mean, never in the history of anybody saying, Dellen, calm down. You know, when your wife says to you, relax, do you go, relax? No, never in history. Okay?

No.

We need people to show us how to do it. And if we've never been this disconnected, it makes sense to me That we are craving our worth. We are wondering if we're good enough now more than ever. And so this uptick in, do I matter? Do I matter? Do I matter? I got it all together. I got it all together. The pressure for that is only significantly increased. And the result, unfortunately, is we've never seen levels of anxiety and depression this high. Highest rate of suicide, which is why I love your audience so much. Highest rate of suicide in your country and mine. is middle-aged white men by a landslide.

Wow.

By a landslide. And the most privileged among us. Okay? So, and I'll argue this any day, people, you know, this is an interesting conversation to have as a white woman, but the highest rate of suicide. Okay? So if you check these 4 boxes, white, straight, able-bodied male, you have access to the most privilege on this planet, full stop. That exact same cohort by a landslide is killing themselves at a much faster rate than any other on the planet.

Why? Well, my assumption would be that people are so alone right now. And I feel like people feel like because they hide so much behind their screens and their phones, and they don't have this connection with people that really disturbs me and bothers me, that I think that they feel like they're not loved and there's nothing there for them is my assumption.

And you are absolutely correct. Men in particular, finish the sentence for me. Boys don't cry. And here's the interesting thing. Anxiety and depression will not kill you. They're emotions, not talking about a man.

Yeah.

And you have to name it to tame it. And historically, we've done a much better job of giving women opportunities to describe emotions, not because we did this by design, but sort of, this is how historically we've evolved. And now, I mean, I have 2 sons and a daughter. I think about this all the time because I think we've done a massive disservice to 50% of the population. Men Namely because we haven't provided emotional language to the spaces where you have to figure out the hard stuff. We all feel the same things and when you have nowhere to put it, it'll sometimes eat you from the inside out.

A couple of things that you said that really brought my mind around— language has changed. So the way that you talk to people to get them to comprehend and understand where you're coming from, it's different. And I see that throughout generations, which is common and normal, but it makes me understand why Jesus had to speak in parables to people to really get them to grasp and understand because people take things either in a literal sense or a way that doesn't relate to them. So you said about updating in ourselves, well, we sit here, we update our phones, we update our browsers. Everything's gotta be updated because there's something new that has to be fixed. There's an error that has to be corrected. And it's the same for humans, except at a much deeper level. And I think that like when I was telling you, like I went through a nervous system reset. Well, I have never done that. And I think that was 40-some-odd years of built-up everything that you put away and you hide and you don't know. And if you don't hook yourself up to that little connection like you do with a car to see what's, what's shooting off here, how do you even know?

It gets put away and hidden. And then before you know it, you're a mess. That's where stress, anxiety, stuck in fight or flight comes into play. And I think what you're saying that I can relate to is about the emotion side. And you tell me, because this is what I find. It's so extreme on everything in my world. It's like the diets are extreme. And then you've got the political extremism where they're either so far one way or so far the other way that you get lost and you don't know what the hell to do. And you don't know what's right or left or down the middle. And so I think what you're saying is you got one side telling men to not be men and it's terrible to be men. And then so the other side is like, you got to be the hardest core motherfucker. in the room and there's no in-between. And it's like, man, how do we live? How do we show emotion and how do we give what's needed but not show too much? And I think I, and I'm wondering how you feel, how big of a battle is that?

And why is it becoming ever more so difficult?

God, it's exhausting. And, and even as you say that, I mean, like, let's think about what happens to our nervous systems when you talk about that, like be the toughest motherfucker in the room, but tell me how you feel and nobody ever talks to me and you even know what's going on. And like, oh, So think about even physically in your body, what happens when that goes on. So whether you're wherever you are listening to this right now, take a look at where your shoulders are, because right now we've got all of those messages coming with us. You've got 3 screens open. We've all got our phones right beside us. We are constantly getting inundated with data. I've got a ring on that's measuring everything. I've got a, I had to take my watch off because I have to take the notifications off. Otherwise I'm not going to stay connected to you, Dylan, because everything else around me is just too—

Yeah.

sexy. And so my nervous system is firing. My cortisol is going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That same cortisol told our ancestors that a cougar was coming over the hill.

Yeah.

And so I'm believing that I'm like this all the time. So guess what happens when I'm this jacked up? I'm gonna go to the nth of one degree. I'm either right in this or I'm really mad. Where you get the best of me is when I regulate my nervous system. So when I would say to you, and what I mean by that is coming back to the best in you. Right? When you are calm, when your shoulders are down, when I'm gonna give you permission to say you are safe in your body in this moment, suddenly your kids get access to their best dad, to their best granddad. Your partner gets access to the best you. Your clients get access to the best you. And that is a system we've never had to put into place. Even in this last decade, we've never considered how much we're gonna have to operate much more consciously from an internal perspective, 'cause we didn't have to. Sundays were a day of rest. We were all, many of us, depending on your religious affiliation, was programmed to go to a place of worship. And whether you believed or not, it was quiet and nobody had access to you.

And when you came home from work at 6 o'clock, nobody could get you. Now, after I do my kids' sports and I do all the things and I'm writing and I'm planning for the next day, I do some of my emails and my best work at 10 o'clock at night? And when do I rest this nervous system? And I'm still up at 5 'cause I gotta get a workout in and shit. My dad says, if I'm rested, I'm lazy. He's not even here anymore. He's dead. But he's sitting right here going, come on, Jode. If you're gonna let anybody show you, are you a woman who's gonna make her mark in this world? I'm, fuck yeah.

Okay.

So we're in this place where we're this first generation of people who are like, we got it.

Yeah.

And there's no place to put it down. So we're also responsible to write the next script, which I think it's just, there's such a pressure in this moment to just slow down. And we're not gonna do any of it well unless we sort of come back to the best in us, which is really like simple, as simple as, 'cause the human operating system hasn't been updated. You drop your shoulders, you wiggle your toes, you relax your jaw. The most primitive response to stress is we slam our tongue to the roof of our mouth 'cause we're locking our jaw for hand-to-hand combat. That's what our ancestors did. And now what locks our jaw is an email notification and a phone notification. The American Dental Association has never spoke so much about TMJ because we're like this all day.

Really?

Mm-hmm. Because this body is living in a world it wasn't designed for. Not that we can't adapt, not that we won't, right? We, I mean, in the history of being human, we've adapted to far greater concerns than we have in front of us right now. Right? We're also at one of the greatest times in history. But we need very quickly, if we want to enjoy anything in this lifetime, we need very quickly to figure out a script on how we come back home.

Do you find, because one of the things that I have learned recently, I spent, I don't know, 25-some-odd years now looking back on it, trying to always have a correct answer on how to fix health and wellness through diet, nutrition, training, how I can fix people in those kinds of aspects without ever really taking the mind into consideration and really only thinking about it in terms of, wow, they're fucked up, like somehow, some way, you know, and let's put them on some medication. And myself included into that. Right. And it's like anxiety runs in my family, that type of excuse, that bullshit. And The reason I finally understood it runs in my family because I'm watching it and then I'm listening to it all the time. So then I'm inheriting it that way, not just because, just because somebody has it doesn't mean that you have to have it. That, oh, it's getting passed on to each person. Yeah, because I'm listening to it and seeing it. So when you are around that consistently, your environment kind of sets the tone for what you're going to be or become. So I guess, do you teach people to try to control their environments on what they're able to, to correct some of the problems?

Because that's what I'm finding is, okay, I have control of my environment for the most part. Not always. Nobody can 100% of the time. But I, I realized that, man, there's a lot of things you just need to avoid and you're not gonna, you're gonna cut out a lot of problems. Is that, do you find that?

I think, Dylan, I would love to sort of consider like giving you full permission to not even have to control it, but to understand it. And that gives you so much more power, right? If I understand that this is where it comes from, this is why I feel so outta control when shit is not buttoned up, when we don't have a plan, when you cannot, we are not leaving this house until you tell, or whatever it is, right? There's a reason why that is. And at one point it served you well. At one point it served your spouse well. At one point your dad operated in that way cuz he had to. And the, I'm so interested in multiple generational cycles, breaking cycles, what that looks like, because we all do. I mean, all of us, we're fucked up in some way. There's systems that come before us that have to adapt. And let's, I mean, let's just—

Yeah.

acknowledge that becomes so critically important first. Like, you are not the people who have come before you. You can take the good from them and give the best moving forward, but there will be a moment where you have to acknowledge it. You can't address what you don't acknowledge.

Yeah.

And I think for a very long period of time, we're so scared of that because if we really say like, oh God, I came from an abusive relationship, or fuck, like, you know what, maybe there is a history of addiction here. Oh, the trauma. Like any of those things become a bit scary, particularly when there's a stigma of mental health. That's sort of the added burden, particularly with men around admitting any sense of like, okay, I couldn't handle this, or this didn't serve me well, or I wasn't tough enough to manage this, or I felt alone or isolated or disconnected. And I think that that added burden is really just something that we're talking more and more about these days that we haven't before. And a little bit about this is it's not, you don't have to change it, but I'm, I'm, it is freedom. This is why therapy for me is so critically important. It's like when you name it, you tame it. You sort of put it into a place in your brain that goes, fuck. Oh my God. Of course.

Yeah.

It's not, it's this. It was this and this and this puts together means this is how I'm gonna react sometimes. This is why this person triggers me, or every time I date somebody like this. sends me through the fucking roof, or why this kid I love, but this kid I could throat punch. Why, as a coach, I'm so available to these kind of players, but to you, you're a life-sucking, whining, sniveling baby. Like, there's a reason for all of it, you know? Freud said, a cigar is never a cigar. I think all behavior has meaning. And it doesn't mean that, you know, we have to unpack every little piece. But what becomes really critical is that there's a storyline. I mean, when you talk about God and, and sort of explaining things in prophecies. It's because there's a story that all of us carries. And the more you understand your story, not even through a judgmental eye, allows you to be so free in how you want to write your next chapters.

One of the things that turned the corner for me was becoming more accountable and less excuse-driven. I actually gave a talk about some of this the other day, and I said, here's one of the problems with communication is COVID was a reason that we had to hide behind screens and everything, but post-COVID, it's an excuse, like leaning on it as a crutch. Sometimes there's a reason, but the differentiation between reason and excuse often gets skewed to the point of everything turns into a fucking excuse.

Great point.

And there's no more sense of 2 things that I find that I, I feel for me have helped me to be my, at least Closest to healthiest are accountability and gratitude. And I think when people lack both of those, then they are miserable, and they wonder why they have so many issues. I feel like there's a built-in crutch that has been given to people for everything now. When you need to look in the mirror and say, you know what? It's I would just didn't have it. It just was me for whatever the reason I was lacking. What do I got to do to fix this? And now it's I'm a I'm a guy or a girl, or I'm this or that, or whatever. And I I don't even it's all insignificant. That that exists in fantasy land. Sure, there's a couple situations where people just suck. That's gonna go on for eternity. But, you know, we don't— that is not the reality. The reality is 99% of the time, unless there's some sort of— and when I say political, I'm not just talking about like politics, I'm talking like political, well, somebody knows somebody and they're doing 'em a favor, or it's like nepotism or whatever.

Most of the time, people just take whoever's the best. When I've run businesses or hired people, I don't give a fuck what you are. I care about how well you're gonna perform. I just have to trust you, you know? And that's it. So what do you think about the lack of accountability? I mean, it seems pretty prevalent and I think that contributes to a lot of the problem.

Yeah. I think that, you know, for some people and some experiences, it's very difficult to, to trust, to regulate your nervous system, to sort of even get to that state of accountability. And I promise you, like, I understand why when you know there's so stories. It doesn't, it's not an excuse. It doesn't condone behavior. But as a leader, even as a parent, I think, and anybody in business, I think it's a really great conversation to ask. I'll give you an example of this. So when I started at the children's hospital, trained as a psychologist, I worked on a locked psychiatric inpatient unit for kids. So worst of the worst, hitters, kickers, biters, ones that tell you to fuck off. I love those babies. Okay? And I was trained to assess them by answering this question. What is What is wrong with this one? Okay. And you can imagine if you're 11 years old on a locked psychiatric inpatient unit, people have identified a lot that is wrong with you. He's, he's stealing, he's abusive, he's in jail, he's done all these sh— he's got ADHD, he's got LDs, he's obviously gonna have schizophrenia. Like he's got all of these things.

That's what's wrong with him. Do you know what nobody asks?

Yeah.

What happened to this one?

Ah, yeah.

And when you start to ask that, Right. I mean, Bruce Perry and Oprah wrote a book about it with that same title. Bruce Perry has done lots in the world of trauma and he's just said, listen, when you shift that question from what is wrong here to what happened here, it does not condone the behavior, but it evokes in the other person this thing called empathy, which allows then me to act from a much more clearly— I'm not getting mad at you. I am gonna give you, I'm gonna understand. And it's, this is an old— Stephen Covey stole this from the Bible. Seek first to understand before being understood. And that really is the place I think sometimes when you are up against somebody who is having so many excuses or everything is a problem or whatever that looks like, I'm interested in what happened here. Is there a piece that I don't understand from my privilege? Is there a piece that I, I don't know about your story? It doesn't mean I'm still going to hire you. It doesn't mean I'm still going to condone that behavior, but when I understand first, it evokes this empathy and empathy is the antidote to burnout.

Empathy is what allows me to keep serving people. Empathy is what allows me to stay in the game. And when you are providing a service in this human world in any capacity, all that matters, and this sounds really crazy even as I say it, but all that matters is you. Because if you're not okay, the people you serve don't stand a chance. That's right.

I always tell people that if you don't love yourself and take care of yourself, you can't love other people. If you don't believe in yourself and trust yourself, you can't believe in anybody else. You just You get stuck in this and then people wake up and they're 60 and wonder where the time went and why everything passed them by and they don't do anything. It's because they never actually took the time to address their own shit.

And often because it's so painful, right, Dylan? And I, and it, and it, and it, it, that breaks my heart more because sometimes I think, and I mean, I've sat across from people in prison. I've, um, you know, held space for people who, you know, are these amazing humans and have had, you know, Wicked double lives or, you know, have done things that just sort of blow people's minds. And it's like, it's very interesting to sort of be like, tell me more about you. Tell me more about what it was like for you. And it doesn't, again, condone or excuse the behavior, but I think it's this really interesting, I think, take because it's gonna be so easy as we evolve in the world of AI and social media and, you know, quick to judge opinions because we have access to a very short period of information on our computer or on our phone to just really be diligent in asking those questions, you know, what happened here? What happened here? And it doesn't mean it's going to be a different outcome in any capacity, but it gives you a lot more sense of regulation as you move down that way.

Does that make sense?

Oh, totally. You know, I never looked at it that way of asking what happened here. I will tell you for me and what happened on my front on why I did what I did for myself. I wasn't necessarily scared, but I told myself that I was more scared of what I, where I was going and what, what I was becoming, that I, I was willing to do whatever I had to do. Because for me, it's like spiritually, I'm locked in. I, I love my family. I'm, I'm honest to a fault with them. And I, I take a lot of pride in my dedication to them, but what's wrong with me? Why am I so easily upset and irritated when I don't wanna be? Why can't I? Why do I feel this compassion in my heart? But the only, the only time it comes out is with my cat. Otherwise I can't let it out at all. And I want to, and I really genuinely want to. And it was like, man, I know there's something wrong and I'm not scared anymore because I want to fix it. I'm scared of what I'm going to become one day and what I could potentially lose by not fixing this.

And so I said, you know what?

How did you get there? Was there somebody, do you remember a couple of critical turning points? Was there somebody that you had that conversation with? And no doubt there's a few of those things that came together. Yeah. Tell me about that.

So I have a friend here that I met, and this is just by mere chance. So I had actually, I needed somebody to help me with, with some injuries. And at the time, one of my friends that was a chiropractor said, I got the perfect guy. You just moved to Arizona. He's like, you know, professional athletes going to see him. But I didn't, I was going out of town and I said, man, he lives an hour or so away and I can't go to him every week. So it's not really, it's pointless for me. Well, then I had a, about, I don't know, 7 months later, I had a lady that does my wife's hair and her son was just hopeless. He had injuries with baseball and he basically was giving up.

Mm-hmm.

And I said, you know what? I'm gonna make a call for you. And I, I, I think I have the guy for you. And I looked him up on online. He already followed me and everything. And I called his office and I said, hey, I said, I'm, I'm so-and-so. I said, I got a feeling that The, the owner here knows who I am. Could you have him gimme a shout? I'd, I'd like to talk to him about something. And I got on the phone with him and I talked to him like 45 minutes and he started getting into me and immediately knew something. He said, I have to see you. He said, there's, I have to work on you. And he does everything through what he calls soul surgery, which is this intense nervous system reset. And it's, it's connecting with God throughout too, which I'm very spiritual. And I went with him. I stayed the entire night, got up. I, I am not a morning person. I don't get up before 9 o'clock normally cuz I'm up all night. Got up at like 7, started. I mean, I went through the most intense thing for 2 days.

I went and stayed the night with him and his wife right after a podcast. And man, I came outta that thing like a new man. And I still have now. I started doing breathwork every day and, and taking the time for myself where I just tell people, man, if I'm running behind today cuz I didn't get this in, Too fucking bad because I can't be good to you if I can't take care of myself. So if I don't get through all my prayers and all the things I need to do to get my head right, it's, it's not, it's not going to happen for me. And you can see, like, you, you wouldn't be able to tell now, but if you, most people that saw were like, man, you seem different. Like, you know, just in everything. And I've always brought a positive energy into the room, but I think now it's, it's so resonating. And I can tell. And when I start to slip, I just say a couple prayers, go back to the breathwork, and I'm good. But I had things inside of me that I didn't know were there that I never think about that were killing me and making me turn into a completely different person.

Can you give me an example?

Can you give me an example of that? Like, and just, I mean, whatever's comfortable. I just want to, I'm interested. As your listeners, you know, like what could that be?

Yeah. Certain things that happened with like things that with an eating disorder that I had that were hidden that I never talked about that I just built up and built up and built up. And I've talked about it, but not some of the things that I let go. Some things that happened in past relationships that were just like really, really, really very toxic. I could care less about like the person, but it was the shit that happened. That I was holding onto.

Yes.

You know, the scarring that was there that made me stoic, you know, like that was making me hard. Like I had to be, because back then I had to prove a point. Like, you know, you think you're so special, but you're not. I'm going to be harder than you. And this pride shit and all this shit that is not in my playbook. Cause I say pride doesn't pay your bills and ego and all of this. And I just was able to conceptually, it came back to me that it was bothering me. And then it was like, man, just get the fuck away from me. I don't care. This is not, you don't hold this on forever. It doesn't pertain to what you're doing now. But if it's hidden, how do you know if it's hidden? You don't. It's hidden.

You can't address it if you don't acknowledge it. Right? And that little boy was working pretty hard to defend himself. And then it's so confusing when he's created a life for himself that seems lovely. You've got a good partner. You love your kids, but you want to throat punch fucking everybody. And that, so it, that it's that connection that matters. And I, and I would, I would offer you this as a psychologist. I think about this all the time. I work with some of the hardened, most hardened, they're my favorite police officers, first responders, anybody who has a massive trauma background. And trauma means by definition is anything encoded in terror. It doesn't mean that you've been in the military. It doesn't mean that you've had to survive sexual assault. Many of us experienced significant amounts of trauma, some of us worse than others, that has resulted in us becoming very protected and closed off. And that served us well at one point in our lives. And many times as we grow and evolve, it stops serving us well, but we don't know what the fuck to do with it.

Right.

And the answer is you need to name it to tame it, put it back into that place so that little boy doesn't need to hang onto that anymore because now he's a 47-year-old man who really needs to be open to loving his partner. But every time he goes there, he feels it in his body. It tightens in his chest. His throat constricts, just like he did when he was 7 or 8. And his inside goes, fucking run. Do not. And unless we sort of clear that a little bit and say, you're no longer there, baby boy. It's okay. This is— she is not that, or, this is not that, then there's a sense of like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Because the cost of believing you was too big before for that little guy. And when we switch that story—

Yeah.

then suddenly there is some freedom behind that. And I, I would argue, I mean, I think that this guy has some, you know, it sounds, I don't know this human at all. I do a lot of work with EMDR and Accelerated Resolution Therapy, ART. All of this is really neurophysiologically based in the world of trauma.

Yeah.

One of the, all of the like really supported and peer-reviewed treatments for those with trauma. It really is now so much more about what's happening in the body. I don't care what happened to you as much as I care about what happened inside of you.

Yes.

Because you can have the same, you can have 2 kids go through the same parental divorce or abusive father, and you are gonna experience it very, very differently than your sibling. And so I want to know not what happened to you, which is always important to me, but I'm much more interested about what happened inside of you. And when you can name that, it sort of is like, fuck, okay, I can put that to rest. And then that really is a sense of sort of shifting in your neurophysiology that the body doesn't need to be on cue all the time anymore. And it sounds like that's sort of been your experience. And so I'm so grateful for that, Dylan, because it often, it's often an ongoing process, as you can imagine, because then something else triggers it or you become a grandfather or your business falls apart or this person betrays you or something happens. And so it's often this sort of ongoing process of really understanding how you respond and And once you sort of get that knowledge, it's just sort of like, oh, cool. I'm going to ask a little bit about what's going on here.

What is happening? It's where do I feel it? And when you start to get that language, it's different than just like, suck it up, fucker.

You got it.

You know, don't be a whatever.

That's one of the things they kept saying, where do you feel it? And I'd say, it's in my chest. And then we do like something to get it out of there.

But people hate that.

What do you mean?

Where do I feel it? I'm going to tell you what happened to me. And I'll say, yes, I'd love to know that, but I'm most interested in where you feel it. And it's often in your core, your shoulders, your neck, your throat, your gut. And then it's like, that's why so much of our physical injuries is carried in our body. So when you start to have a physical injury, oftentimes with my police officers, they won't wanna work on the emotion part of it 'cause it's too, you know, so they'll be like, my back pain is just fucking killing me. I'll be like, okay, let's start with your back pain. Just let's focus right there. Tell me everything about that. What color is it?

Yeah.

it. Let's really just, let's notice it and see what happens to it. And it'll shift and evolve and move. And that's your neurophysiology going, are you sure? Are we okay now? Is this safe enough to let this go? And if that is done in a place where we understand it from a psychiatric or psychological perspective, it is the most profoundly important work you'll ever do.

I agree. You know, one of the things that kept coming up was, how do you feel? How do you feel? And I couldn't say anything but I feel free. That's all I kept saying. I had no other answer. And then I realized I don't feel free. I now, I am free. I don't just feel it. I am.

Wow.

And you know what's crazy is I always thought when I got out of prison that that was my freedom, right? Because, you know, on the surface it is, but in reality, I was never—

That's one definition.

Yeah, but I was never really free. Yeah.

Yeah.

And the real freedom comes when you can take all of those experiences, use them as fuel, use them as teaching, use them for inspiration to others, and free yourself from the burdens that you carry around inside that you don't even know that you have, but you have to be willing to address them. I called it comfort in my fear. And once I was able to understand what that meant, and now the comfort that I do have in it, where I'm like, bring it on, fucker. Like, I'm down. I'm not scared of you anymore. at all. In fact, I almost embrace the challenge almost all the time. I have a couple of times where I'm just like, you know, but I always feel like this.

I was just going to ask you that actually. Like, is there ever any time? And I hope the answer is yes, that it still kicks you in the ass because I think—

Oh, sure.

It just did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. And I really, I really want your people to hear that, right? Like, this is why, this is what the work is all about. This is what, when you're brave enough, To sit in emotion, it's like you, you understand that it, that it will continue to kick your ass. I mean, I write books about this and you should— I'm a goddamn disaster many days. Like, I, I think that's, that's okay.

Right?

Like being human, this is a tough gig and we're carrying multiple generations of stories that have come before us and them fuckers got it all wrong in so many ways. And now we're trying to figure out how we undo that and do that while we're doing our work in a world where there's social media and a world where we're overwhelmed and inundated. And, and I think that it's, human's supposed to be hard. Being human is supposed to be hard.

You know, one of the things I always try to do is humanize myself. And I don't ever, I have, I have answers because I've made so many mistakes. And the, the, I think the best teachers have actually made the most mistakes. They just don't make the same mistakes over and over. They learn from them and they're able to teach, but you know, you know, we do when we're like, fuck, here we are again.

You know, look at us go. Look at that. Yeah. I mean, I say this all the time. My first book was called Kids These Days and it's a bestselling book for parents and educators. And I think it's so fucking good. Like every time I read it, I think, son of a bitch, this should have been a New York Times bestseller. And if you watch me with my own personal children, you wouldn't buy the book. I wrote that thing when I was regulated. I mean, I know what we're supposed to do when I'm calm and regulated and I just, I'm, I had my peptides and I've had a workout. And I've done all the things, you understand? Then I am so good. I will tell you everything. But mostly we don't lose our ability to be great and to know who we wanna be and how we wanna act. We lose access to it because we get overwhelmed and sleep deprived and we feel like we are not enough. And the voices in our heads get loud. All of those things happen to all of us, regardless of age, race, religion, socioeconomic status, gender identity. It is being human.

Doesn't pay attention to any of those things. things. And I think when you acknowledge that, it gives you a whole lot more freedom.

You know, I tried to always come across to everybody as like, I don't want to say perfect, but just that I was able to overcome and withstand anything. So I prided myself on that until I realized all of this extremism that I see with people preaching diets that I used to say that, oh, I'm all gas, no brakes. I never rest and all of this and all that did was make my entire life a mess and a disaster. And the, the, it's what I like to term metabolic flexibility is really like real life flexibility. I, I worked on that really hard with my diet, but then I started to work on it really hard, hard with the overtraining. Now I'm working on it really hard with the rest. And I'm not just talking about sleep rest, I'm talking about mental rest where I actually turn my notifications off at night and don't turn 'em on until I ever fucking feel like it, really. 'Cause I mean, I, I forget that I'm running my own stuff here. And in life, you actually run your own life. I mean, you may have to work for somebody, but you still are in charge of you, you know, and what you do to yourself.

And I started to say to myself, like, man, you know what? If you don't fix you and don't rest your head and get indulged in all this shit all day, how are you? No wonder you just crash and burn every few weeks or month. Or whatever, you know, and it's just—

What do you think? What is the hardest? Like, 2 questions I have for you. One is, you know, what scares you the most about sort of being able to, you know, once you've sort of achieved even a glimpse of what this feels like on your best days, what scares you the most about losing it? Is it ever that you will lose it, that you'll slip back? Like, is there any angst there for you?

You know, for a while it was Oh my gosh, if I don't go to this event or if I don't say yes to this, or if I'm even remotely difficult with scheduling, they're just not gonna want me. You know, they're, they're not gonna come on my show. They're not gonna have me on. Everybody's just gonna be like, forget it. You know? And then I was, I, I finally got to the point where I was like, wait a minute, everybody wants to come and talk to me. Like, what, who are you forgetting who you, who you are? And I'm not saying that like I'm so great. I do, you know, I'm the furthest thing from that. But what I'm saying is, Wait a minute. You're actually making yourself look so small and you're not giving yourself any credit. So there's a fine line of humility and then knowing your value. I carry humility, but I also know what the fuck my value is.

Yes.

I didn't, you know, eat shit for years doing stuff for free so that I could get to the position I'm in to be taken advantage of. But I carry a level of humility in terms of I am just the same as You, the next person, the next person, there is, you do something special. Doesn't make you more special. You have a special talent that you figured out what it is, and then you worked at it and got good at it. Everybody's got one.

It's, I love it.

You, you have to figure that out yourself. Some people do, some people don't.

Yeah.

But my, some of my fears now have made me stronger.

Mm-hmm. And I, like, I love that point because I, I, Marty and I had this conversation today. She is, her and I have built this company together and, you know, I often said to her, it's, it's an interesting, As I reflect back, you know, that fine line between not being too cocky and then, and knowing your worth. And once you sort of understand that, you know, what your worth is about, then you can be like, I, hey, I'm out. Like, I don't actually— yep, you can ask me all the questions you want to, but like, this isn't— and so that there would never have been a time where you would have that conversation 10 years ago. I think it's also part of the evolutionary process because in the beginning you say yes to everything. Fucking rights, I'll do that. You bet I can. But it's this beautiful place in your 40s and 50s, and I don't even need to put an age to it because some people, you know, don't arrive till later or come earlier, but it's this sort of sense of like, okay, once I've got some expertise under my belt, there is an amount of respect that comes from that, and that needs to start with me too.

Do I believe that I have something to offer to this world? Do you think you have an obligation when you look at the number of followers that you have amassed, do you feel more responsibility as that platform continues to grow? How, how do you think that is for people now for the first time, you know, as we sort of do this work and share our experience or even our expertise and we amass these platforms? I wanna know personally, do you feel more responsibility as that grows or do you try to stay very connected to sort of the message is the message is the message?

My responsibility is to do God's work, what he put me here to do. And it's very simple. And that is to be essentially the voice of reason, the voice of care, and the voice of reality. See, I connect with people because of kind of like you, because I am what I am. You get exactly what you get. I keep it as real and down the middle. I don't belong to any group or any situation or anything. What I try to do is very, Very, very basic and fundamental. It is to give you exactly my experiences, what I see. If I ever promote anything, it's because I fucking use it and I believe that it's essential to you. But I try to give people the down-the-middle understanding and the actual truth of everything that I run into. Have I been wrong? Fuck yeah, I'm wrong. But I'm the first one to admit it and say, hey, I got this new bit of information. But my responsibility is clear: be accountable, be trustworthy, and to be respectful of everybody's time and not waste it. it with bullshit and hooks and all this shit people try to get me to do in scripts where I tell them that you send me that, I'm going to wipe my ass with it, literally, because I don't do that.

I'm uncontrollable because I'm not going to be controlled to read something I don't believe in. Right. I'm not going to do that. I bend the knee to no one but God, and I don't— I work for him. I work with— like, if you and I did something, I work with you. I work for him, and I deliver what I believe I've been compelled to deliver of truth And that's it. And if I don't feel it, I won't say it. I just won't. If I think it's wrong, or I'm being told to do this or that, then I'm a middle finger guy, and I don't look back or think twice. I don't care. Because in the end, what you do and how you act and who you are, if you're gonna be remembered by something, I wanna be remembered as somebody that was honorable, that to a fault, that made a significant difference. I don't— Jodi, I don't give a fuck if somebody tells me, oh, Dylan, you're so great, you're this. That's the stuff I used to care about. Now I care about When people come up to me and say, you know what, dude, you made an impact on me with what you said.

You're bold. Those things I'll take with me all day. Dylan, you're so great. Or, oh, your, your car's great. Or your shoes, your clothes. I don't give a shit. I'd get it because I like it. I don't care. I don't need that. I used to thrive on that.

Literally. Isn't that interesting? Because I, I would be so interested in what it feels like in your body when you get that authentic, deep, honest-to-goodness, somebody comes up to you at a talk or sends you a note that says like, listen, dude, you saved my life. What happens in your body? How do you feel that?

I normally like, Queenie, like I yell at my wife, look at this. Isn't this amazing or wonderful? But when she's not here, I just, yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I'm, I'm getting chills now.

Yeah.

Yes. I'm getting chills thinking about it.

I see. So there's the visceral response. Then I'm very interested in what your body felt like when you're driving your car or you're dressed to the nines or people like love your chain, dude. Or that car's, I don't know what people say, bitchin'. I'm sure that's fucking not what they say, but anyway, let's never mind. Okay. Then my kids are always like, don't fucking say that ever again. Okay. Never again. But you know what I mean? Like the difference, the difference in what happens in your neurophysiology when somebody compliments you on an achievement that is like that versus what the deep feeling, that's what I'm talking about. That's how I know.

Yeah.

That we're back to the best in whoever Dylan Gemelli is, even with all of this shit and the prison and the stories and the things that you've survived. You, at the heart of it all, is like, that's where you feel seen, is when somebody can come to you and say, thank you for all of those sacrifices in your story because it mattered. Now I know I can do things differently. Yeah.

If anybody can understand, and I think that they can if they sit and think about things on what's fulfilling and what's unfulfilling. And there were many, many, many times when I first like really started to make real money, like real money 10 years ago. And I remember like not knowing what to do and just blowing it and buying all this shit. Like it was never enough, never enough. And I look around some nights, I'd go to bed and I'd be like, why am I so fucking miserable? Like, I, I feel like I have everything, everything I ever wanted. And I realized I didn't have anything I wanted. There was this empty hole and it was so unsatisfying. And once you get it, Now, when I do well, it's like, it's for comfort. It's for that ease of knowing, okay, we're comfortable and I don't have to worry about shit. And if I want to do something nice or great, I can, but it's only because, wow, it's— I'm so blessed, you know? And everything else gets invested back into my work so I can travel and go to places and not— and be there for people and do the things and then pay things off and have freedom.

Like real freedom to not worry, but don't be greedy. And like, I share shit with everybody and I just, you should see people, like people that come over here to do work and I'm just like, hey, I got something here for you. And they're like, huh? And I'm just like, yes, take this. 'Cause you sound like you need it. You know, some guy delivered our bed the other day and there was a kid there and they were making fun of him 'cause he was like small and weak. I said, hey man, fuck these guys. Here's some creatine. You know? And I said, this is gonna help you. But I do stuff like that and I, I, it's awesome. You know, it's, it's so cool to give people things.

Yes, it is so cool. And what, what a gift, right? And even if it's not giving things financially, it is really this idea of giving away the best in you, right? Like, when is the last time you waved at your neighbor? When is the last time you gave somebody a compliment? And, and I think that's what makes us human. And, and I think there's no— a long time, I think we sort of apologize for success or even financial fulfillment. And I, you know, my husband and I talk about this all the time. When is enough enough? And I, I said to him the other day, you know, it's no longer about achieving the next number or our ability to buy the next thing. It's the freedom it gives us in providing experiences for not only our family system, but other people in it.

Mm-hmm.

And I think it's that freedom that evokes that emotion of like, we are creating memories, or I'm going to provide you with the sense of something that, you know, we're going to use it for good in the world. And I think that's what it's all about. It's about really coming back to that best in you. Now, you start out in this process of hustling hard. I think it's a rite of passage in many ways. If you're still there and you're listening to this like, fuck, it does matter. Easy to fucking say that it doesn't matter when you have everything you want. True. Yes. I understand it. So if you're in that beginning of like, no, I need to accomplish and do all that.

Yes.

But I will promise you that there will become an evolution where you're like, ah, there's something bigger than just that number changing in the bank account or that car or that piece of whatever, you know, I finally am gonna wear this or get a Prada or whatever the thing is. It is really when it, when you feel that bigger sense of fulfillment, I really think that's what, what this human race is all about.

Well, it's like this. First of all, I always tell people, if somebody tells you they just, oh, I don't care about money, turn and run, cuz that's all they care about. Literally. Like the people that say that, they say that just so I run from them. I'm never gonna look in the camera and say, I don't care about money.

Fuck it.

We have to survive. I am talking about worshiping it to where, like I used to do, where it was like everything I did, it was like, oh, we, we gotta make this, or everything's gotta, I want more. I want more.

I want more.

No, I wanna be as comfortable as I can be, but not worship it to where it's all that matters to me. And I have to buy everything under the sun and then realize I got, when we, you know, when we moved was when it really hit me. And I was telling my wife, I said, man, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm fucking ashamed because there's so many things here that still have tags on them we never used or whatever. I said, this, we can't do this anymore. And I never will again. I, I dress nice because I like to. I'm a former fucking model and I want to look good when I speak, but I don't need to buy Armani suits and all this shit I was buying. It's completely unnecessary. You can get nice things that are very nice for very reasonable costs and save your money. And that's what I'm talking about. And use it for better good and purposes. I am never going to sit up here and go, Oh, just be poor your whole life. That's ridiculous.

Yeah. When I think about this story in my head too, it was like, okay, so then what happened to me? Why was money so critically important for such a long period of time? It's like, it was a measure of success. It was the conversation. That was how I spoke to my father. That was how I knew that I had achieved in his eyes because we couldn't sort of say, like, he couldn't say, Jodi, I'm so proud of you. It, my, my first call when I got a scholarship would be to my father because that would be the biggest, oh my God. Right. And so I, that was where it really is rooted for me. Is it like, it's like, no, no, no, this is the way that I could sort of demonstrate we could measure affection. Even— he died of dementia at 74 a year ago, and I still remember kneeling down when he was in the facility going like, I just got a contract in Mexico, Dad. And he couldn't even put anything together. I was like, it's my first international contract. I couldn't wait to tell him. And he said to me, how much for?

And it was like, aha, there it is. Do you understand? I know he's proud of me. I've watched him stand in rooms and cry and be like, whatever. this, this was our language. And so when I understood that there's such a connection to me between success and money and admiration of the people that I've so desperately sat in corners waiting for them to notice me while he was busy making his own fortune or, you know, being, doing whatever he was that seemed to be nothing mattered that we did when we were kids, it didn't seem. It was like, I understand that connection now. And yes, you can do great things with it. And I don't ever apologize for my drive or my motivation or even my success. Yes, it came from somewhere and I'm very grateful. That's, that's why I'm grateful to my dad. You know, he, he, he gave that to me and now it's my responsibility to use that for good.

You know what I will say that I think is one of the main reasons we really desperately need people like you is I, it's easy to connect with somebody that speaks the way that you do that with what I've found with people that try to be Like psychotherapists or whatever you want to call it. I don't even know what you would even call it anymore because there's so many ridiculous terms. They just don't talk to people like humans. They just don't say shit that needs to be said. And I think that I have a strong feeling that your high level of success rate amongst people is because the fact that you keep it as real as you do with having— see, you have a lot of knowledge, but you have the wisdom to convey it right and use it right where a lot of people are very, very smart and they suck When it comes to using it or don't know how. And I just want to thank you for the conversation, but also just for being you, because we need more of you. And unfortunately, there's not more of you and there's only one you, but more like you, I think is what I'm trying to say.

So you are like the biggest breath of fresh air to me that I could even, I don't even know how to put it to you, but I just, I love this. Well, I would like to invite you back to do another show with me as well.

In person, Dylan Gemelli? Do you think we could make that happen?

No, that's, that's the point. That's the point. That's what I would like to schedule with you after.

Oh, of course. Oh my gosh, yes, I loved it. Just so you know, listeners, we had it scheduled in person and Dylan Gemelli canceled on me, so we had to change our whole fucking flight and everything else in the background. And then we meet and he's like, goddamn it.

No, but I did say that I will keep you the same day regardless, even though I have to fly in a little bit. I'm willing to do it.

And you did. And here we are. It was perfect. It was perfect. But yes, I appreciated that so much about you too. And I think it's, it is that authenticity as we're trying to fight through this process. How do we stay human in a world that has taught us it's not really safe to be that? So I love that about you and your platform. And so I just, I knew that this conversation was going to be great and I loved it. So thank you.

Absolutely. Tell everybody where they can find you online and I'll link everything. And if they can, if you have a list of where you go speak too, because I think that would be phenomenal.

Yeah. drjodiCarrington.com. I would love your community to be a part of ours. I think we always need some safe places to land now. And so we're here. Okay.

Well, I'll link everything in the description, but I enjoyed the hell out of this. I really did. You made me be less stressed with all the shit I have to do and I really need needed it. So thank you.

Drop those shoulders and go love on those people.

Dylan Gemelli, man, I love it. All right, everybody, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli and Dr. Jodi Carrington signing off.