Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back, guests and listeners of the Tron podcast, the Randomness of Nothing. This is your host, Rashad Woods. And today I have a very special guest. Today, the very important topic of mental health and the development of young boys. She has over 50 years of practice and does a wonderful job in her state of Maryland to connect with clients and people from all various backgrounds. Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst, thank you so much.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Well, I'm happy to be here, Rashad. I'm very excited to talk to you about the development of boys and men and particularly because you have kind of your own history of a very healthy developmental family. So this will be interesting and very exciting.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: It is, you know, and, you know, having two great parents that helped raise me and my brother is something that, you know, ultimately you don't realize, you know, until you get older how valuable that is because not everybody has that luxury, so to speak of. But as you grow older, you start to really see the true meaning of what it meant to actually have that, you know, nurturing environment. And so I'm appreciative of your time of this very sensitive topic.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Well, after this, you are going to want to appreciate your parents even more.
It takes great parents to really facilitate positive emotional development in our boys because boys come into the world with a very different emotional makeup than girls. You would think we're both human, of course, so that, you know, we should have kind of very similar.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Emotional makeup, but we don't.
And in fact, there are. There are more miscarriages of males than females for the very reason.
Fragile.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Isn't that shocking?
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, honestly, you know, you know, it's kind of shocking because you have to kind of, you know, the way that the American image of males have been, you know, we always think of, like, John Wayne or. Or Rambo. Very masculine, powerful.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, Right.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Question.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: You know, you guys are fragile as infants.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah. It's kind of a rough one to kind of stomach right now.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Well, it is true in utero, males are more fragile. And so as a newborn infant, males are more fragile.
They come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression than females do.
And there's a mismatch then between mothers or female caretakers and the expressiveness of a boy. So, you know, as human beings, the only survival mechanism we have in infancy is. Is emotion.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Infants read emotion perfectly. That's their survival mechanism.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: It's amazing.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: People, if you want to start a business, right. Bring the people together that you're considering working with, and then Get a baby.
Yeah. And pass a baby around the room.
Baby will read the emotional trustworthiness of each of these people perfectly.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. You know, that's crazy. So, like, the kid that cringes at, like, the, you know, the. The particular employee may be reading that correctly the entire time.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's amazing.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Infants read safety and trustworthy perfectly. They have to to survive.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: That's the only way they can actually get by.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Boys do come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression, so they can be more intense on the positive end and more intense on the negative end, but they interact most of the time with females. That's changing. Right. There are more men staying home, raising kids, for sure. And that's a real positive because they will have a very different emotional relationship dynamic. But when a boy goes high intense with real excitement, mother doesn't do this intentionally. She just does this naturally. Right. She'll back up a little bit, for sure.
Or, you know, frown or be worried or turn her head to the side. Right. She'll lose eye contact with this infant. Now, he's brilliant. He uses emotion for survival. And so he's going to learn automatically, oops, that wasn't safe.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: I should not express that for sure. I got to tone myself down.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Got a meter in a bit.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: True. On the negative end, you know, with irritation and sadness, they narrow their range of emotional expression because mother doesn't have access to that range.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: That makes sense. That makes sense.
So it's a trial and error kind of a situation.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: It really is. It's definitely a trial and error situation. And then when they start to walk and get introduced to the culture, we do the second thing to guys, nobody. And that is that we shame them for expressing crying sadness.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Oh, for sure.
Right.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: We. We shame them.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Is that an American thing or is that a worldwide thing? Have you. Is. Is that's what I'm curious about.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: That's a great question. I think it's a worldwide thing.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Okay, okay, I didn't know that.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Well, if you look at men in. In other cultures, it may not be as extreme as it is in America, because men in other cultures do have access to a broader range of emotional expression, and they do let themselves go into expressing sadness. Right. And remorse and. And. And crying.
And in American culture, that's really shamed.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, it also even boils down to, you know, like sometimes just some of our, you know, even art. I'm not saying. Certainly not getting political, but even some are leave policies. Right. Like some Policies, you know, they have year long maternity leaves. This, we clearly do not in this country. So there's not necessarily an emotional bonding that takes place when it comes to, you know, parental, you know, time with children, you know, so those things can play a factor as well too, I'm sure.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Oh, most definitely. Right. We give maternity leave, now we're giving paternity leave. Didn't do that for a very, very long time. But I don't think they're equal, right? No, no, maybe they are, but I don't think they're equal. And so we do this whole process of limiting the emotional range that a guy can experience.
Then when, you know, when you hit puberty and you're supposed to be interested in developing relationships with people and falling in love.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: With people, we expect that you will have access to those tender, loving, softer.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: That never got developed to begin with.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Right, right. You know, we killed them. Right. They don't disappear.
All right. But we've definitely suppressed them.
And so, you know, the stats say that the divorce rate is falling. I will tell you that's a lie.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: The reason it's a lie is that people are not getting married.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: That is true.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Together.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: That is true.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: They're developing a family together, but they're not doing the legal. Let's go to the court and get married. Because they don't want to go through the divorce process.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: And the expense of that and the trauma, of course, of that, if they break up and they're not legally married is traumatic. Right, Right. I'm not taking that away. It's still going to be traumatic. But it isn't the 2, 3, 4, 4 years of dealing with the legal system to accomplish this. So even though the stats say the divorce rate is dropping, that really is not a reflection of the dynamics between men and women and the households that they've put together.
It really is true. We don't allow men to have full access to their emotions and we don't educate women either. Right. To facilitate access.
They say they want a guy who's tender and can go into those ranges, but they don't.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Well, it, our culture kind of mocks that guy. Right. So like, you know, it's, it's a weird dynamic. Right. So like it's, it's, it's odd because the movies, like even, you know, I'll watch movies like, you know, and then I don't even gravitate towards the movies that are like, where the guy is, is, is soft and tender. I mean, I, I'm a movie but it's like, listen, man, you know, I'd rather watch John Wick, right? I would. You know, you know, it's. It's not because it, you know, because it's almost like too much, so to speak. Right. You know, it can get a little bit over top. And I don't think film and TV sometimes as a pop, it does a really good job of what it's like to be, you know, a regular emotional man because it usually swings on one extreme side of the pendulum for entertainment purposes, so to speak. Right. As opposed to just being somebody who's in charge, you know, who can. Hey, who can have a good cry and then, you know, wake up and take care of their job and take care of their business.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Right. So you would have not watched her, that movie about the guy that falls in love with an AI character? No.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: You know, I wanted to catch that movie that had Joaquin Phoenix. Right?
Yeah, I haven't seen that. I was really interested in that movie actually. You know, he's a great actor, but that kind of slipped under the radar a little bit. I'll be interested now because I think after this, this inter. This interview, I'm.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Watch it.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I think that, you know, I'm sure you've seen it in your profession for all the years. It leads to disease, it leads to violence. It leads, you know, you know, we can joke and laugh about not getting your emotions out, but you know that there's a dark side.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Serious.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: It really is very serious.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Are full of men. Yes, right. They are packed full of men because we have robbed men of the capability of identifying their feeling states rather than expressing them.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: And, you know, that's criminal.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: It really is. And, you know, and the other part about it is too, is that, you know, it's. It's. For some reason it's okay to cry in sports, but it's not okay to cry in real life. Right? Right. So, like, if you win or lose, right? Like you're like, oh, that person was so passionate about winning or losing, that's how matter much it mattered to them. You know, nobody laughed at Michael Jordan when he won the championship. You know, but all of a sudden, when something happens to a guy in real life, you know, all of a sudden it's like, well, just get over it. You know, it's like, wait, wait, wait. This was an emotionally dramatic moment too.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Right, right. And it's just incredibly unhealthy. The reason that men die Younger than women is exactly that. Right. They have heart attacks, they get diabetes, they have all kinds of problems with their bodies because their bodies are holding emotion. Right. If we educated them from infancy through preschool to be able to express emotions, to have access and maintain access to that full range of emotions, we have a healthier society in the long run.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: You know, I want to talk obviously how you first got into this field, but I think that in the last five, 10 years it's gotten a little, you know, I don't know how much leap you can see in your profession, but from the, from the outside looking in, it's made some progress where people are like, okay, this is a traumatically, you know, long needed addressed issue. And you know, you see insurance starting to cover it. You start seeing companies that are being a little more sensitive. You know, unfortunately, they've had maybe violence that took place. They realized that they had to have these things addressed. You know, school shootings and people are like, listen, you know, this is a long rooted problem that has been neglected for quite some time. Have you seen like a turning of the pendulum? Even if it's a little slow, there.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: There is a shift. Right. If you look at adolescent boys today, they do have more access to feeling states than their fathers had access to. And so there is a move in the right direction. But at the same time, for both boys and girls and the adolescent stage, there's a move in the wrong direction with cell phones.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Oh my gosh.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. I was going to bring that up. Actually.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Kids sit next to each other, each one of them has a phone, they're tapping on their phones and you discover they're talking to each other instead of.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Actually, actually, you know, staring at the person, having a full fledged conversation, turning.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: To each other or something like, you know, 90% of communication is non verbal.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Like reading your body. Look, me, I, I use my hands.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: I'm tapping on a phone, I'm not using my hands. Right. Facial expression, body movement.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Communication, of course, takes place through all of your body, not just tapping on a phone.
And so even though boys are now more able to identify feelings and express feelings, if we keep going down this path of parallel communication, we're going to lose significant attachment experiences for our teenagers, soon to be adults.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: And that's going to have a dramatic impact on how the culture functions. So, you know, we already have guys who don't get access to the full range of emotions. And then if I put you in a box where you neither face nor talk Directly to the person that you're supposed to be.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: They're not real. They're not real.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Not real.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: They're not real. It's not a real person. You know, you're not getting the full gamut of their facial expressions, their emotions. It's just a reply. It's just, it's an AI assisted chat box, so to speak.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Right, right. And actually that, that AI assistant is really becoming pretty invasive in the lives of both men and women who are less social, more tend to. Or isolation. They develop intimate relationships with an AI figure.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Isn't that crazy?
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Isn't that crazy?
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Right? And they would much rather actually get, you know, satisfaction from a text message than actually talking to a person.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Because, you know, it's almost like a disconnect. Right? Because then you don't get to have that full conversation or you can, you can dictate more of the terms of, you know, of, of, of a conversation as opposed to actually talking back and forth. You'll find it's, it's, it's strange. You definitely, you know, I mean, my, you know, I got three daughters and you know, they don't know what. They've never been to a blockbuster. You know what I mean? Like, you can get, you can get a movie. It's, it's something small like that. Like actually being able to actually go get a movie, find the movie of your choice, make a concerted effort to get that movie as opposed to just sitting on your couch on. Demanding it. Right. Like, and just call it.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: You know, but it's those little things that, you know, ultimately, because those, that was the time where you and your family could have like a conversation in the car or walking. Do something. Now. You don't have to do that.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Right? That's right. Plus you'd talk to the, the clerk. You'd talk to other people who were picking out movies. Yeah, right. We are, we are limiting our social interaction. We don't realize how much, I believe, doing that, but we really are limiting our social interaction with these devices.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: It's pretty sad, actually, when you actually think about it. I do. So when can we talk about briefly how you got into this field of work? You've had 50 years, so I, I gotta know. Like, I mean, because how did, how did you start into this? Like, what, what was the lightning in a bottle moment? Said, I'm gonna go into this field.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Going into this field was.
I was a math major in college. Oh, wow. And in Indiana State in Terre Haute, Indiana.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Okay.
Wow.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: And my goal was to graduate in three years. I wanted to teach high school math.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: And I wanted to graduate in three years with a 4.0. And I was on track to do that.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: My first sentence agreed with yours. I just wanted to graduate.
You know, truth that for. That wasn't happening. The 4L wasn't happening.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: It's still a goal.
Still a goal. Right.
We all need goals in order.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: But calculus two, we had a new professor, actually straight out of Harvard.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Faced the blackboard and wrote with her right hand, erased with her left. And I mean, she filled the blackboard front, blackboard, side, blackboard. Never turned around to the class, never interacted with the class. Everybody totally lost.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Oh, sure, right.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: We're teaching ourselves calculus too, and we're not doing a good job.
Right. So I ended up getting a D in calculus. Oh.
Oh, yeah, right. Straight to the heart. But I was so grateful that I didn't have to take it again. If I get an F, I have to take it again.
So I passed.
And I immediately flipped my major and my minor.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: What?
[00:18:34] Speaker B: It's just like fate said, nope, you're not gonna be in. Yeah, my minor was psychology. Yeah, I took that because it was fun.
Right. Because it was a break from the rigors of math.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: It makes sense. You know, it's funny how those small things can really actually, you know, lead you to a path of how your career turns into.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: And so it was meant to be.
That's the direction that I needed to go in.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: And did you find.
Did you find early in your career that it was like, okay, like, you're dealing with, you know, the. I don't want to. I hate to say stereotypical, but, like, what you would hear, like the. The wife that wants. That's trying to keep the marriage together. The stressed out bread winner. And then did you see, like, a. Changing the clientele over your years of. Or. You know, I know you also work with athletes too, but did you see a particular, you know, client based early on that suddenly began to evolve over the years of your practice?
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, the reason I'm so focused on men and boys is that my practice started with preschool boys.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: I had a friend who ran a preschool, and most preschools are run by women and taught by women. Right. So boys stand out in the preschool because they don't want to sit in the circle.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Oh, for sure.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Listen to the story. Right. They want to climb a tre and listen to the story.
So if you had a tree in the room, be perfectly Happy and listen to the story and remember every bit of it.
And so I got referrals from many preschools in the area to take a look at these boys who were a little more active, maybe disruptive, because people would say, well, they must have attention deficit. Well, they don't have attention deficit. They have boys.
Yeah, they're being a boy.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Right. Shocker of the year.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: They educated me on what it was like to be a preschool boy and what was happening in terms of their own emotional expression and their own emotions, needs.
And then their fathers started putting themselves on my calendar because their fathers had had similar experiences.
Right.
And the fathers who did have attention deficit at that time, they would not have been well treated or recognized or received any services.
They were just made fun of or yelled at home for not doing their homework. And so I spent years with my calendar full of males, and they educated me.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Well. I have to imagine, too, that, you know, in the years of your practice, I mean, that has to be very hard for, for a father, you know, I mean, I mean, even I was born in 82. Right. Number one, to say, you know, that they didn't get the emotional support or that they're seeing a doctor because there's a little bit of shame in, in doing that. Like, there's nothing wrong with my son, so to speak. And then number two, you know, that's not how they were raised. Like, you know, if you scrape and, you know, fall, fell on your knee and you scraped it, you know, the 10 second cry was, okay, son, get up. You know, you know, I mean, like. And then after a while, you know, the kid's crying long enough, the dad.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Gets off and go back.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Right, right. Or then after a while, you know, you know, the dad's basically getting mad at the kid who's really hurt. Right, right.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: You know?
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I tell people, you know, go to a playground and watch the interaction and the difference between little girls and little boys. Little girl skins her knee, runs up to a parent, and she gets picked up and then asked, what happened. A little boy, same thing, same injury. Right. Same degree of hurt and difficulty. Runs up to a parent, he gets asked, what happened?
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: If he gives a good enough answer, he'll get comfort. If he doesn't give a good enough answer, he'll just turn around, go back in.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: And that's where the conditioning begins.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Nothing wrong with you. And wow, boys and girls so differently.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: That's crazy. That's crazy.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: It is crazy.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: You know, and I tell a funny story. One Time know, my. My. My dad's passed away, you know, God bless him. This certainly isn't a dig, but it was funny because I remember I was playing basketball, I got elbowed in the mouth, right? And I remember I came home. I'm like, this really hurts, you know, and he did, you know, the typical, you know, dad thing, like, oh, you know, you know, you'll be okay. And so, you know, a couple weeks passed, right? I'm like, man, this tooth is killing.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Like, kill.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Starts turning. It turns out I had to get a root canal on the tooth, right. Like, the nerve died into it, right? So, like, I'm like, you know, after a while, because I just kind of brushed it off. But then when I'm drinking something cold, like, it hurts, the wind hits it. It hurts like it was a total nightmare. So I come in, kind of hat in hand, like, you know, I'm like, man, you know, sorry, this tooth is really, really, really killing me.
But even then, your conditioning wasn't to complain about that tooth, right?
[00:23:50] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: You know, and then finally, he's like, oh, my gosh, man. Like, you're too. Let's get you to the dentist right away. But, like, my mind was, don't complain about that tooth.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. And that starts so early.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: That, you know, boys just are limited in what the emotional expression will be that's acceptable for others.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: And so my hope is to educate fathers so that they do a better job of interacting with their boys and facilitating, maintaining access to the full range of feelings. Because the truth is, those feelings don't disappear.
They're still up there. Right. There's just a roadblock that says you can't go down there. You can't go looking for that feeling. Right. Because you're a boy, and we won't let you go look for it. But it is still there. You can find it. You just need to have the barrier removed so that you can gain full access to feeling states.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: That's. That's amazing. And, you know, I. I always think of, you know, and there's so many different things I want to talk to you about, obviously. But I always think of, like, even, like, hip hop music, right. LL Cool J created I Need Love in 1987.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: He got clowned for it, and he was like. And now he said, I saw an interview one time, he was like, now all people do is make love songs. But he was like, I was the first, right? He was like, I was made fun of for making Love songs, you know, because, like, oh, you know, this is not what we are supposed to do.
I'm a guy, I'm not supposed to make. He was like, but he was like, I just wanted to, you know, like, get in touch with my emotions. And he was like, although. And it's weird you say that because to your point, you know, it's, it's, it's you. Once somebody taps into it, a lot more people feel the way than you thought they did, right?
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: And in, you know, I have a list of feeling words that I use in therapy because your brain has not lost access to any of those feelings.
And if you run down the names of feelings, the feeling you're experiencing will just pop off the page. Amazing, right? So your brain knows you haven't lost access at all. Your brain knows. It's just that through time and interaction with others, you've been told, don't go there.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yes, for sure.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Don't go there.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: For sure. For sure. You know, And I, I, I must confess, I'm probably part of the, that lineage.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Of course you are.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: You know.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Right. We've been socialized in this way.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Let's talk. Can we talk briefly about your books? It looks like so you have. I thought the title of it was very funny. The one that's in process is Do Not Blank Fatherhood. So how, how does that book come to fruition? Because it's kind of the same vein of what we've been talking about.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Well, the truth is we have been studying psychology, has been studying men for decades.
All of this research is available.
Right. All of the truth about how a guy's brain is organized and how we interact as a culture with men. The research is out there. It's never been translated into really the popular literature to really help guys first understand themselves and then be able to turn and understand their sons and facilitate a different growth process in their sons.
So that's my hope, is that this book will help fathers to do a better job of understanding the emotional character and needs of their sons and that they'll do a deeper dive into their own emotional history, expand access to their own emotions, and then be able to pass that on to their own sons.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Do you?
[00:27:55] Speaker B: And have a stronger bonding relationship and a more transparent relationship. So that with your tooth, right, you would have had permission to go back an hour later and say, this thing is killing me.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: You know, killing me.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: It was about three weeks, I mean, it was about three weeks of just like, man, you know, because you're trying to Think like, no, it's not really that because, you know, and to your point, like, you know, it was like, okay, this thing will get better, this thing will get better. But it never was, like, you never kind of came to the altar, like, man, you know what, man, this thing is really, really, really, really bugging me, you know.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Right. And that's because socially. Right. We trained you not to complain. Right? Right. Not to report negatives.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Right?
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Right. You guys are supposed to be strong and competent and successful.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Right? Right.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Aggressive and kind of willing to do anything.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, how about. Do you see the athlete? Oh, yeah. It's so great that he played through. You know, he tore his acl, you know.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Props to him.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: It's like, no, actually that's just incredibly painful.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Right, right, right. And so, you know, what I was really focusing on too was that I think we're a reactive society in a way because oftentimes, you know, I remember being in high school, you know, when, when Columbine happened. Right. And you know, you're looking right. And that's when that era of, you know, those horrible things really came to the forefront of like, oh my gosh, somebody's capable of this level of violence. And then everybody would now say, hey, these kids really need, you know, mental health. And, and these, and how could parents miss these certain things? And so, you know, it always seems like when something bad happens, people need to get mental health treatment. How do you keep that at the forefront that people need it all the time instead of just when it doesn't necessarily even have to be a bad thing, like. Right. So you could just need it just to say, hey man, you know, this is my daily pick me up, get me through life kind of thing too.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Just basically to educate yourself about who you are, how you experience life on a day to day basis and what you can do.
Right. To do a deeper dive into accessing your own feeling states. It's healthy for us to reflect, reflect on who we are, what we're feeling. What's the experience that I had today and how is that going to impact me tomorrow and long term as well.
And the other book that has been published is the.
Which does actually that. Right. It facilitates access to your feeling states on a day to day basis so that you can do a better job of educating yourself on the fact that you are human, that you do have feelings, and that it's important to be able to access them, to be able to name them. Most guys have access maybe to four or five words that are Feeling words, all right?
They're sad, they're happy, they're irritated, they're pissed. They've got a very long list.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Those are the clean words.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Negative words.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Those are the clean words.
Yeah, those are clean words. You know, sometimes all at once.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Think the same thing, but you're capable of much more.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Do you find. Do you find it through your years of practice that it was better to have, you know, in person? I know you do everything online for the most part now.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Everything online now. And, you know, Covid brought that into reality. I don't think it would ever have happened.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Even with the advancement.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: All right, okay.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: All of the things that you can do with a computer, without Covid, I don't think it ever would have happened. But it gives you a broader reach. You miss things. Right. So I can't see the bottom part of your body. Right. I see you from about here up. So I don't know what you're doing with your hands. I don't know what you're doing with your feet, but what you're doing with your hinge.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Are you. Yeah.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: It is important. Right. So if I were having you in a therapy session based on something you said, I might stop and ask, you know, I can't see the rest of your body, but, you know, what are you doing with your hands or what's happening with your feet? How are your legs feeling right now? I want access to the body.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: But I can't get it right unless I have you sit some distance from a distance apart. Camera. But the advantage to this online work is that more adults will actually access therapy.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Because they don't have to leave work. Right. Drive an hour to an office, spend an hour with the therapist, drive an hour back to work. Right. In fact, they'll take a break at work.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Right. They can go on their lunch.
Yeah.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Right. And access a therapist. Yeah. They wouldn't have put themselves into therapy before. I'm convinced that they would not have done it. But with the use of online therapy, they'll take the risk.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: It's wonderful.
It's wonderful. And unfortunately, you know, out of. Out of bad events, sometimes good things happen because a lot more people realize they needed help than you know.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: That was a once in a generation, you know, catastrophe that took place.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Right? That's right.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Do you. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that certainly you want to get a chance to speak on? Because I feel like, you know, to encompass 50 years of your practice, you know, in a Short interview doesn't do justice to everything that you've accomplished and will continue to.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Well, I just want to encourage people to take themselves seriously and to recognize that nurturing themselves isn't just putting food in your body.
Right. That nurturing yourself is also understanding yourself emotionally and psychologically. And you can do that.
Right.
And you can do that easily now.
And it can have a tremendous benefit for you as an individual and for, for everybody that you interact with. So take yourself seriously, be interested, be curious, and dive into figuring yourself out. You know, if you need to start just with the journal book. Start with a journal book.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Yeah. It's kind of a lost art to do that. Right. Because now, like, you know, actually putting your emotions and pen to paper. Right. Is there's nothing that you can old school it, so to speak, you know.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Right.
And the advantage of the read, reflect, respond book that I published is the facing pages are blank.
So you do not have to respond in words. They're blank for a reason.
Because we store information in language, but we also store information in action and we store information in feeling, tone. So I can express that on, on the page. Right. By scribbling, by drawing, by the intensity of the pressure on the page. And that gives me fuller access to how my brain is really reacting to that particular essay.
[00:35:57] Speaker A: Wonderful, wonderful. Where can people find Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst?
[00:36:01] Speaker B: You can find me through my website and it's www.v a n d e r v h o r s t dot com. So it's www. Dr. Vanderbor dot com.
And the website is a place that you can book time. It's a place where you can watch some videos.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: It's a place, Wonderful website. It's a wonderful.
Yeah, it's got testimonials and things. Yeah, yeah. I really liked your website a lot too. It really gave like your history and your educational breakdown and everything like that too, you know, so it was wonderful. And you know, I, I, this show was always built around people who are subject matter experts in their field that, you know, whether it was a high level entrepreneur, enthusiast, hobbyist, or people that charted their own path. And I think that oftentimes, you know, this, even to a degree, this podcast was a great mental health outlet for me because, you know, to find people who were great in their fields of work and wanted to share it with others. I mean, this is like a living, breathing encyclopedia, Wikipedia for me.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: And Wikipedia, we're all love Wikipedia, but this isn't, you know, this is better than Wikipedia. I'm not saying I have a better product, but for me personally, being able to actually talk to people instead of just doom scrolling is a lot more, you know, a much better opportunity to. To manifest that curiosity for myself.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: So. And it is an honor and absolute pleasure that I got a chance to carve out a time from your busy schedule. So thank you so much.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: You're welcome. I've enjoyed working with you.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: I appreciate it.
Thank you very much. And you have a wonderful day and a wonderful holiday season as well too. Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Yep. Have a great one.
