Mid-season Check-in (aka SEEK Safely Podcast Pajama Party)

[00:00:00] At Seek Safely, it's our mission to empower seekers to have a safe and meaningful self-improvement journey. Why do we care? Seeking to be your best self is an amazing, beautiful human impulse that has led us to create art, invent technology, tell amazing stories, and reach the moon.

[00:00:19] But we saw the dark side of self-help in 2009, when a recklessly run self-improvement retreat led to the death of three people, including my sister, Kirby Brown. We want people to seek, to dream their big dreams and chase their beautiful goals. But we want to make sure they're safe along the way. This podcast is about education and empowerment, and getting real about the promises and problems of self-help.

[00:00:46] We talk with people who understand and care about the self-help industry, and everyone it touches. I'm Jean Brown. I'm Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. And this is the Seek Safely Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the Seek Safely Podcast. My name is Jean Brown, and I am here with my co-host, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle.

[00:01:13] And this is the pajama party episode of the season, because it's late, and we're all tired, and we're just going to kind of check in and see how we're doing. Dr. Glenn, how are you doing? Ah, the pajama party episode. We, Jean, you and I were just talking about how we all learned from 2020, and in the subsequent few years, the pandemic.

[00:01:37] Is there really any need to be out of pajamas? We're podcasters. Why would we do it? I mean, don't get me wrong. I want to look presentable for you. You're the one who has to look at me on the video chat here. But really, pajamas are quite functional. So welcome to the pajama party episode. You know, a few years ago, this might have been before I knew you, actually, I had for my birthday, some listeners will remember this, I had for my birthday, a Star Wars pajama party.

[00:02:04] And so everyone had to, but here's the thing. So we gathered at my place, and I made everybody watch one of the Star Wars prequel movies, like the bad ones. I mean, bad is all relative. I have a creeping affection for the cheesiness of the Star Wars. So I made all, and you know, it's your birthday. So you get to make people come in and make them do things that wouldn't otherwise do. Like I always make my friends take me out to a vegetarian restaurant. They never want to go. And then I made them all come over and watch the Star Wars prequels. And just, we kind of threw it in at the last minute. It's also a pajama party.

[00:02:34] Nice. I feel like nobody would object to that. That's great. Showing up in pajamas. And surprisingly, more of my adult friends had Star Wars pajamas than I would have expected. They were all dudes, the ones who had the Star Wars pajamas, but you know. Nice. My nine-year-old would be thrilled. He's got at least, I think he has more than one set of Star Wars pajamas. And his favorite pair are Grogu pajamas. Nice. Very good.

[00:03:03] They're very soft and very cute. Growing up, did you have a favorite pair of pajamas? I did. And it's really fun because now actually my daughter has the pajamas. The very same. The actual pajamas. The actual pajamas. It was a fievel, you know, fievel little mouse. From American Tail.

[00:03:22] Yes, exactly. It was a fievel like little nightgown. And now she has it. Although I think it's, she's probably like just outgrown it. But yeah, I passed it on to her. She's been wearing them for a few years. It's very cute. But that's excellent. Yep. They're well loved. Now I'm air quoting pajamas is actually just sweatpants. I'm wearing sweatpants. But I already washed my face like I'm ready for bed. So this will be great. This is late night Seek Safely.

[00:03:49] And not the late, like I've always said that my favorite episodes of the Seek Safely podcast are the ones where we go late at night and you have a glass or two of wine. I know. It's not even that. I don't have any wine tonight. No. This is just, so I feel like we've kind of mentioned this or alluded to this, but Dr. Glenn and I both have day jobs. So we're often recording in the evening. So sometimes I feel like my brain maybe is not quite at its best, but we do our best anyway.

[00:04:15] Then of course, now we find ourselves in this time. I feel like we're all a little overwhelmed and there's just a lot coming at us every day. We're at every day feels like there are, you know, seven breaking news alerts in my inbox. And yeah, I don't know. How are you feeling about that?

[00:04:36] Well, before that, allow me to say that Jean Brown's brain operating at half capacity smokes me. So, so, and anybody listening to the podcast who's like, I never really noticed that Jean is tired. That's because she can just pull it off. As the evening goes on, I just get loopier and loopier. I think you do all right too, but I do have an hour on you because we're Eastern time, central time difference. So that's true.

[00:05:06] I will take credit for that. I don't know. I feel like in our last episode where we talked to John Hunter who bless him got up at like what? Three, four in the morning. His, cause he's in South Africa. So we got on, our recording time was for him 4am. So he got up earlier than that. I just feel, and it was late for us. And I feel as the podcast went on, like I can hear myself deteriorate. I'm like, we got to talk about fight club.

[00:05:34] But here's the thing guys, we got an email from John. Thank you. And John, if you're listening, thank you once again for doing our show. It was a fantastic episode, but we got an email from him saying, you know, that was one of my better episodes. I should do these things at 4am more often. I should do more of this at 4am. No. Yeah.

[00:05:50] No, folks are overwhelmed. I mean, you know that my day job is I do psychotherapy with folks who struggle with complex trauma. And, you know, this is not a political statement, but I think that we can all agree that we are at a time, maybe in the history of the nation, but certainly a time kind of in our lifetimes where they're just there. It feels like there is a lot of uncertainty.

[00:06:09] It feels like there's a lot of chaos in the sense that, as you say, like, like, you know, we're getting multiple chunks of news and news alerts and what feel to be like sweeping things of the type that, you know, typically we would get, you know, once every couple months, maybe.

[00:06:25] You know, like, like, you know, wow, they're going to make a major change and how the government does this or approaches that, etc. And it reminds me a lot. I mean, I've had this conversation with a lot of my patients. It reminds me a lot of what we say about trauma. Like, like people are forever asking you, what is trauma?

[00:06:40] And, you know, like there are lots of answers to that question. And usually it's some version of the amount of stress in a period of time that is inflicted upon somebody. So they find it overwhelming. And, you know, it tends to make the difference between experiencing something stressful, even very stressful and successfully coping with it and processing and dealing with it versus it kind of turning into trauma or PTSD.

[00:07:05] You know, the level of support that we have really makes a difference and the amount of time we have to kind of digest it really makes a difference. So when you have a situation where things are coming hot and heavy, and there's really no time to kind of digest it and process and cope with it, and it's really hard to access support. I think everybody is sufficiently overwhelmed right now. Yeah.

[00:07:26] That even communities that are really cohesive, like, like even communities where, you know, typically, there is a lot of mutual support, I think are struggling. And I know a lot of people who are responding to the present moment, you know, no shade on anybody, but kind of withdrawing and saying, wow, like this is a lot and I need to kind of withdraw here.

[00:07:42] Yeah. In a way, it's not dissimilar to what happens at many in-person self-help events, like an LGAT, that kind of shock and awe approach that really overwhelms you and then kind of, then you're ready to just give in or give over to whatever is being put in front of you because you kind of lose your ability to make decisions or think critically.

[00:08:10] Luckily, that's a little bit how it feels at the moment in some ways. You bet. Yeah. I'm, of course, like up here in Canada. It's been a, it's been an interesting time. Oh, you're our sworn enemies now. You guys, you're letting Fenton all across the border or whatever it is this week. Oh, I know. I don't even remember what the justification is this week. I don't know. That had to be like a very sudden, like suddenly we were like, oh, you guys, it's you guys. And Canada's like, what? Us? What are you? What? What are you talking about? I know.

[00:08:40] And if we want to talk about guns, there's a big conversation to have there. But anyway, if we want to talk about things going across the border that shouldn't go across the border, I'm not being political. My mom's always like, let's not be too political. I'm not being political. I'm just talking from the Canadian perspective here. It's definitely a lot.

[00:09:00] So one of the things we wanted to mention in this episode is a reminder that it is exactly these times of uncertainty that the self-help industry really loves. Because it is in these times when people are feeling overwhelmed, people's support systems, as you mentioned, are kind of not really there. Traditional institutions feel like they're failing us.

[00:09:27] This is when the self-help industry steps in and says, hey, are you feeling crappy? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you feeling disengaged or kind of numb? I can help you restart the spark in your life? Find the spark in your life and help you redefine your goals and your priorities and get you back on track. So just be advised. That stuff might be coming at us a lot more, even more than usual.

[00:09:55] It's really interesting. So the self-help industry, we should have Christine on to chat with us. This is definitely Christine's area of expertise. The self-help industry really has a history of at any given moment in history, making hay out of whatever happens to be going on. And I've always found it interesting. So I'm a big self-help book junkie.

[00:10:22] And you can pick up, I swear, you can pick up a book from any era. And the introductory chapter will be something like, so in this time of uncertainty and chaos. Times are tough. Yeah, yeah. One of the funniest examples of this is my boy Tony, Anthony Robbins, in his book, Awaken the Giant Within. And the first chapter is all about – he's trying to make a point of what was going on 10 years ago. Now it's 10 years from now.

[00:10:52] So the book was written or was published, I think, in 1991, 1990, 1991. And so he's talking about these things from the early 80s. It's like, do you remember when Pac-Man was all the rage? Like, do you remember when, you know, fruit of the looms? Like, there's all these kind of dated cultural references. And the point he's making is that, you know, look, 10 years from now, we'll arrive. Like, someday we'll be looking back at now. And it's funny because we're looking now at that, you know, that's 30 years ago. But his shtick was, you know, look, you know, we've been through the Cold War.

[00:11:21] And that was the big stressor at the time. Like, it's the Cold War. Like, things are more uncertain than ever. And now we look back on the 80s and we're like, okay, I mean, yeah, the Cold War was serious business. But man, we've seen wars since. We've seen a pandemic since. We've seen kind of all these things. So, the self-help industry will absolutely take advantage of any given era. To say, like, now more than ever, do we need the spiritual teachings of blah, blah, blah. Or now more than ever, do we need to take charge of our health? That's a big one.

[00:11:51] Yeah, exactly. Now's the time. Yeah. Or, you know, now times of economic uncertainty. Maybe you just lost your job. It's a good time to realize your entrepreneurial dreams. And I've got, you know, the thing you need to be successful. You got it. Here's a spoiler. It's going to be the law of attraction. So, just like. I mean, they might not call it that. But that's what it will be. Spoiler alert. Some version of manifesting.

[00:12:21] Do you ever listen to. So, Gene and I love listening to podcasts. And we will happily give other podcasts a shout out. There's a podcast I love called If Books Could Kill. Oh, yeah. You know that show? I was listening to it the other day. And they were doing a review of You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. Super popular self-help book. And, and I read it. I've read it years ago.

[00:12:45] But one of the points that they were making over and over again is that, I mean, there's really nothing new here. It's law of attraction stuff. And it's a point that I've made about self-help books over and over again. That there's really nothing new. In most self-help books, there's nothing really new. Like, there might be new branding. Yeah. Right? Like, there might be a new organization of the material. But what you're really buying a self-help book for is the take and personality of the author.

[00:13:14] It's not like, so the law of attraction has been around for eons before The Secret. But you weren't really buying the, you know, the secret to learn about the law of attraction. You were buying it for, okay, here's these people's take on the law of attraction. Yeah. Or the packaging appeals to you. Or the framing appeals to you. Which is fine. Like, it's okay that maybe sometimes you've heard something before, but the way that another person puts it is when it actually clicks for you or really resonates for you. You bet.

[00:13:44] And that's okay. That's valid. And that's 100%. Yeah. I just got into a spat on Twitter because I'm an adult. Jean loves it when I describe my Twitter spats on the show. Well, I just like that you still call it Twitter. I haven't updated my app, so it is still Twitter on my phone. You still got the bird. It's still the cute little bird. I just will never update. I barely go on it anymore either, so. Oh, man. Anyway, the Huberman Lab, he had another podcast.

[00:14:11] Huberman recently had on a guy named Schwartz, Richard Schwartz, who is famous for having his... I'm sorry, I'm watching my cat try and get on top of him. Are you okay? Abby Rode, are you okay? By the way, we should give listeners an update on Abby Rode. She went through all four rounds of chemo and has done very well. Her tumors have been responsive. Thank you for everybody's thoughts and prayers. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[00:14:38] Anyway, the Huberman Lab had Dick Schwartz on to talk about internal family systems theory. It's a type of psychotherapy that's often but not exclusively used with trauma. And it talks about these parts of ourselves. So, people think parts work has to do with dissociative identity disorder. And it does. But it's actually much broader than that. Like, it's used in treating trauma generally. It's used in treating substance addiction, rather. Et cetera, et cetera. Anyway. So, Huberman had this interview with Schwartz.

[00:15:05] And a bunch of psychoanalysts on Twitter got all stuffy about it. And they're like, this stuff is just rebranded Freud. Because Freud has always talked about kind of the segmented personality and whatnot. And they made this big fuss about it. And my thought about it is, first of all, those ideas were not original to Freud either. I hate to tell you. But it's also the case that if Schwartz put a new frame around even ideas that were out there before, I find that valuable.

[00:15:34] If he put a frame around it that allows people to take advantage of those ideas that didn't find the Freudian stuff accessible, you know, that, again, it's valuable. It's, you know, what did Tony Robbins ever do? I mean, he really, you know, most of Tony Robbins' stuff is straight up behavior therapy. I can tell you. But, you know, he, you know, much like all those NLP guys, you know, they put cool words to it. And put a cool frame around it. Right. And that's fine, man.

[00:16:01] Like, like, again, if the branding makes it, the frame and the branding makes it more accessible to you, that's awesome, actually. Well, and I think, you know, the important part is when, is people acknowledging that they get that information from somewhere else or that there are other sources of these ideas. And the reason is, it's not just about, like, we don't want to plagiarize and there's like a legal aspect to that. It's also that, so say you hear something and you're like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:16:31] You have the right to then be able to find more information about that concept. But if a teacher is not telling you that they, well, no, if they are telling you specifically that they are the only source of that information, then they're building in, like, dependence or reliance on them alone.

[00:16:49] Whereas you should be able to do a little more research for yourself or dig into it further, find other sources, find other framing of it so that it can actually be even more beneficial for you as your understanding increases. But often what we see in the industry is that they not only take the ideas and repackage them, they make it all sound like it's original to them. Oh, they're by convincing you that you have to just buy the next book, the next program.

[00:17:17] Well, they make it sound like it's original to them and often divinely inspired. Yeah. Like, so a wonderful example of this is good old Dianetics. If you try to read Dianetics, which if you do, God be with you. May the odds be ever in your favor if you try to read Dianetics. Dianetics. I bought it at the time that I was buying a bunch of Southall books when I was in high school. I was a senior in high school. I remember this clearly. I remember the bookstore where I bought it. It's this brick of a book.

[00:17:47] But it boils down to L. Ron Hubbard was taking a lot of concepts that will sound very familiar to students of psychoanalysis. Mm-hmm. Like, so the crux of psychoanalysis is we don't really know why we do a lot of things we do. We have stuff in our unconscious that we can't deal with. So we keep it in our unconscious. And every now and then, it threatens to break through to our consciousness. And that causes anxiety.

[00:18:12] So we have these defense mechanisms that we try and keep the stuff in there unconscious. And in order to free ourselves of these symptoms, we have to make the unconscious conscious. That's psychoanalysis in a nutshell. Well, L. Ron Hubbard had a theory where he's like, okay, there is this thing called the reactive mind. Mm-hmm. That we're, you know, stuff that we can't handle consciously. We keep it in the reactive mind. It's basically the unconscious.

[00:18:37] And there's this process called auditing that is rather like psychoanalysis, where you sit down. It's basically psychoanalysis hooked up to a lie detector called the e-mure. But here's the thing. I don't actually care about any of that. But like if L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, like whatever, if they want to have their version of psychoanalysis, and if they want to call it the reactive mind, they want to call it dianetics, that's great. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:01] If it makes the technology, you know, more available than, you know, to the people for whom psychoanalysis was not terribly accessible. I don't know which is more expensive, dianetics, auditing. Probably dianetics in the end is probably more expensive because it's actually into a cult. Although psychoanalysis is also kind of a cult. Mm-hmm. You know, love hearing me say that. But anyway, the point is, it would be great if that's all they did, was slap that branding on it.

[00:19:28] No, what it turned into was, well, look, you know, L. Ron Hubbard knows this because he's kind of an ascended being. And anybody who has a different idea is a suppressive person. And you need to cut off everybody who's not into this, right? Right. They take that and they really run with it, not just from a sense of like, this is the only thing, but like, this is like, God says this is the only thing. Right, right. Yeah.

[00:19:54] As soon as you start invoking some divine inspiration or divine mandate. Red flag. Red flag. Remember the time that James Arthur Ray claimed that he spent the night in Moses Cave on Mount Sinai and God downloaded Harmonic 12? Red flag. Remember that? Oh, yeah. He's not even with us anymore and I can't stay away, Jean. I know. I can't stay away from him. Oh, my God. I just, I read.

[00:20:24] One of the cool things about having done this work for a while is I keep getting to read manuscripts. Yeah. I can't say anything about it, but oh, my God. I cannot wait until this book comes out. How dare you tease us like this? Jean. I can't wait because I'm just, I got to build it up a little bit. Was it from someone we know? Someone I know? Yeah. Yeah. It's an incredible, incisive commentary and I am just very excited. Yeah, very excited for that. Okay.

[00:20:54] Sorry, everyone. That was a big tease. The Seek Safely podcast, ladies and gentlemen. Aren't you glad you tuned in? Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway. But definitely all these red flags, the divine inspiration situation and the source of all the information, all big red flags. We are in a moment, like we said, where we're just going to be getting more and more of it.

[00:21:19] And we're also getting some of it in some really interesting ways and interesting places. So, one of the other things we thought we'd talk a little bit about in terms of, you know, where we're at in the world and what are the things that are causing our anxiety and our freakouts here. Yeah, I know. So, in the U.S. and actually in Canada as well, not too far from where I live, there is a measles outbreak as well.

[00:21:46] I don't think any kids have died here yet, thankfully. But yeah. So, some interesting times on that front as well. Some interesting times. We let off. One of the things that I brought up to maybe talk about tonight is the fact that for the first time in a long time, we've got a self-help wellness, a known self-help wellness guy in a really visible role in government.

[00:22:15] So, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And again, this is not a political statement about RFK's politics, which is kind of interesting because actually, my understanding is that RFK's politics, it's kind of surprising to see him serving in a Republican administration. Yeah, in the Kennedy family, it was like the Democratiest Democrats ever. Right?

[00:22:44] And for most of his career, my understanding is that RFK was like, so he's an attorney, he was an environmental lawyer and is not really aligned with traditional Republican positions on a lot of things. But what brought him into kind of that, this Trumpian movement is the wellness stuff. Like a lot of people, if they know anything about RFK Jr., they know that he's been pretty vocal about vaccines,

[00:23:12] about the risks of vaccines, his understanding of the risks of vaccines. And so for him to be the guy, for him to be the HHS guy was a really interesting pick. But it's kind of been accompanied by this whole make America healthy again, the Maha thing, which is really aligned with a lot of influencers, some of whom we've talked about here on the Sikh podcast. But, you know, a lot of influencers who come straight out of that wellness self-help sphere. Well, yeah.

[00:23:41] And I think like when we talked about, you know, the idea of the self-help industry taking advantage of moments of turmoil or upheaval, I think we really saw that during the pandemic. And I think that's where we saw, you know, a shift from self-help being more at the, not that it was ever super political, but I think we would have considered it more on the kind of left-leaning crunchy granola side of things.

[00:24:09] And then we saw that kind of twist over as the, you know, crunchy granola crowd got a little nervous about the vaccines and also interested in the idea of what could a healthy lifestyle contribute to protecting us from COVID? You bet. Which isn't a terrible question to ask, right? Like, yeah.

[00:24:29] So I think he definitely kind of grew out of that and the idea that the wellness industry has really shifted over into different territory than it had previously been in. 100%. Yeah. Well, and it's also worth remembering that RFK Jr. comes from philosophically, my understanding, I'm certainly not an expert on RFK Jr. This is just things that are out there in the world about him.

[00:24:55] You know, he's very open about his addiction history and he's very open about his commitment to both 12-step recovery and fitness, like personal fitness, which really kind of puts him in, again, in this interesting vein of self-healthy, you know, philosophy and practice. Like, there's a lot to be said about 12-step, you know, kind of positive and less positive. And like, I find a lot of value in a lot of 12-step philosophy.

[00:25:23] I find a lot less value in some other aspects of 12-step philosophy. However, what's undeniable about 12-step is that it is the very definition of a self-help phenomenon. Like, you know, I mean, 12-step, Alcoholics Anonymous, and its variants, NA, NSA, and overreaders on them, all that. It's by definition self-help. It's community-based self-help. It doesn't depend on experts. It doesn't depend on research.

[00:25:51] In fact, it's notoriously really difficult to do research on the efficacy of 12-step, which is one of the reasons why there's been such controversy when 12-step, like attendance, is baked into punishments, like sentences, right? Right, right. Yeah. Anyway, the point is that, so RFK Jr., he's a 12-step guy. He's a fitness enthusiast. And these aren't incidental things about him. Like, these are all, like, core parts of his brand.

[00:26:19] And I think that that informs the vaccine skepticism because, like, it's this common fantasy of, like, you know, man, if only I had the right philosophy, if only I did the right stuff, the right exercise, and, you know, I would, you know, naturally be impervious to things like viruses and stuff. Like, I mean, that's a, if only I ate just the right stuff. And this has been, you know, in the self-help world, God, this is almost dogma. Like, you can go back to, God, it's been Antonio Robbins. You can go back to Unlimited Power, his first book. He's got chapter upon chapter.

[00:26:48] They're mostly plagiarized. Yeah, I said it. But chapter upon chapter of, like, you know, man, if you just eat this way, you probably won't need, I don't know if he explicitly says vaccines, but he says you probably, you will definitely not get sick. Yeah. Yeah, well, and we know James Ray really leaned into the anti-vax stuff. And how. Towards the end there, and also did a lot of fitness stuff. You know, he would have events, or he sold packages where he would then give you nutrition coaching. He had no background in nutrition. Yeah.

[00:27:18] He would give you, you know, fitness coaching. Had no background in that either. Yeah, he was a bodybuilder. Yeah, but I don't know if he had, like, a certification as a personal trainer. No, of course not. But, yeah, yeah, certainly self-taught or, you know, like, self-acquired knowledge or whatever. But, yeah, and I think, like, you know, we've said this a lot about self-help.

[00:27:40] In some ways, it could be interesting to see some of the things that RFK Jr. might bring to the table in the sense of shaking up the medical establishment, you know, the Western perspective on medicine, where it's very reliant on the pharmaceutical industry. And there are obviously issues there.

[00:28:00] And I think the idea of, yeah, having, you know, being healthier through your diet and through your activity, maybe through things like vitamins or supplements, like, those things could be helpful. I think the idea of exploring all of that and exploring how, you know, setting yourself up for success in that way can help protect you against disease. I don't think there's anything wrong with making inquiries into that area. Yeah.

[00:28:27] It's just a problem when we're all in on one side or the other, I think, is really what I'm getting at. Moderation. Moderation in all things. Oh, but that's not exciting, Jean. That's not sexy. No, it's not. It's super boring. And people want, you know, they want the clear answer. And I'm sorry, guys. There's just not a clear answer all the time for every problem. Yeah. I just, I think it's super interesting that I don't know that we've ever had a self-help guy.

[00:28:56] Like, I've often talked on this podcast about how, look, I just, we're just self-help people. Some of us are just self-help people. Like, we have that bent. We'll always err on the side of like, huh, what can I as an individual, what can I do here to improve my, you know, like, to improve my paradigm, my situation? And RFK is definitely a self-help guy. And as a recovering addict myself, I get it. Like, I 100% get it. I don't know if we ever had a guy like that.

[00:29:24] Certainly not in this role before. Right, right. Yeah. Not that I can think of it. It would be interesting to go back to like the early 20th century and see. Because there was some, you know, there was a lot of kind of stuff kicking around then that was really interesting. But maybe I'll do that. I'll get curious about that. We should ask Christine too. But I don't think it's actually that surprising when you look at the president that he's serving.

[00:29:50] Because I always have clocked Donald Trump as a self-help guy. Oh, yeah. On the business side of things. 100%. On one of the episodes we did a while back where we were talking about self-help books that are not self-help books. Yeah. You mentioned The Art of the Deal. Right? Like, one of the best known, I don't know if it's best selling, but one of the best known business self-help-ish books is Art of the Deal by Donald Trump.

[00:30:18] And I think Trump, and again, please, please hear me. Like, we're not talking politics right now. We're kind of talking to personality and the cultural icon. Trump has always had that thing about him of, you know, look, this is all about we're going to bootstrap our way up. Trump is actually, I see why James Arthur Ray was so taken with Trump. Because Trump actually represented the best version of what James Arthur Ray wanted to be.

[00:30:42] Like, I think, I mean, Trump has type of charisma, whether it's everyone's cup of tea on a personal level, notwithstanding. Like, you know, there's no denying that he has a type of charisma. He also really leans into, oh, I don't know if I want to say the power of positive thinking, but he certainly leans into that manifest-y kind of thing of, I'm just going to will it to happen. Yeah. The self-made kind of thing. You bet. And the entrepreneurial spirit. You bet.

[00:31:12] You bet. The whole Trump University thing. I think that's why, that was the thing that I was like, oh, he's like a total self-help guy. Because the whole Trump University thing was, you know, the kind of like leadership development type stuff. You bet. That was the offerings of that. You bet. Yeah. So it makes sense to me that you've got someone like RFK Jr. and Donald Trump teaming up. You bet. Seems like a pretty obvious connection to me. And they're of a type.

[00:31:41] They, I mean, I can also bring Hulk Hogan into this. Because Hulk Hogan has been part of the Trump thing this time around. Yeah. For better or worse. Of course, I love Hulk Hogan. I loved Hulk Hogan from when I was a kid. I was very into pro wrestling. See, I was like a Jake the Snake fan. Oh, God bless. God bless. You guys want to blow your minds. Go watch the documentary, The Resurrection of Jake the Snake. Jean, have you seen it? No. So I'll take a tangent right now just to inform our audience of this.

[00:32:11] So Jake the Snake Roberts was a pro wrestler from the 80s who famously had major addiction problems. He was also famously really good at pro wrestling. Like he was fantastic at the psychology of pro wrestling. This is universally acknowledged. And it's thought that one of the reasons why he didn't have a more successful career, like he was never world champion, was because his addiction problems kept getting the better of him. So he hit of a low point.

[00:32:40] And there's another wrestler who was active primarily in the 90s named Diamond Dallas Page, who after his wrestling career became a yoga instructor. He became a yoga instructor and kind of a life coach. And the documentary, The Resurrection of Jake the Snake, is all about how Diamond Dallas Page hooked up with Jake the Snake Roberts, who was at the low point of his life, and really helped him out of that trough. I mean, really helped him get his life together.

[00:33:08] And it is an incredible watch, you know, for like if you have any interest in comeback stories and addiction recovery stories and stuff. The Resurrection of Jake the Snake, I think it's on Amazon Prime, but it's fantastic. I highly recommend it. Anyway, the reason why I invoke the Hulkster. I was always more of a Randy Macho Man Savage fan. Yeah, he was fun too. And one of his great things was that he just hated Hulk Hogan.

[00:33:35] Anyway, the Hulkster, look, he was famous for what he said, you know, take your vitamins and say your prayers and train and whatnot. Like the Hulkster was a self-help guy, like from early on. Like he was like, just believe in yourself and you can do it. He was the stereotypical, you know, all American self-help, you can improve your life guy. And then that all kind of fell apart in the 90s when, turns out, he was using steroids. That's how he got to be how he was after years of denying it as this came up.

[00:34:05] But the point is that Hulk Hogan kind of being part of the whole Trump thing, like he spoke at the Republican National Convention. And I don't remember if he's now in any kind of official heat. Doesn't he work in the administration? Like he's an ambassador of some kind? Not to our country. I'm not sure. Yeah, we'd have to check. But the point is, it's a zeitgeist over there. It's between RFK and Donald Trump and Hulk Hogan.

[00:34:31] You know, they're kind of all in on this whole, you know, yes, you can dream, you can improve your life. You can, you know, possibility thinking, you can will it into existence. So it's a really interesting time to, you know, to be an observer of the self-help culture. You know, something that I really believe about self-help, it's that successful self-help gurus very often trade on this thing of like, so the traditional guy is going to say this. Right? Like your doctor will say this.

[00:35:00] But I'm here to tell you, like, you can do this and this and this. Mm-hmm. That's kind of Trump's whole shtick. Like traditional politicians will say this. Yeah. It's very anti-establishment. Right? But I'm going to show up and I'm going to will it into existence. That is the Gulf of America. Yeah. And I just, he just literally spoke it into existence. So it's the self-help administration in a way. Yeah. And again, this has nothing to do with politics. It's just an observation about the vibe. Yeah.

[00:35:28] We're just talking about the vibes. Also, it is a study in weird shit that rich people do. Like the other thing about RFK Jr., just look up about the bear. Read about the bear. I forget the bear. Look at the whale. The whale. I was just going to say also the whale. Okay. But I mean, I think both of those stories have an element of that kind of just like, I'm just curious. I'm just curious.

[00:35:57] I'm just curious about the world. I'm curious about, I'm just going to do my own scientific inquiry about everything because I'm just really curious and interested. But also weird rich people shit. No, it is. It's weird rich people shit. So those stories strike me very much as, look, if you go to enough 12-step meetings, you're going to hear crazy shit. And those both, like, I don't know the stories well enough to know if he frames it as like, yeah, I was using and this happened.

[00:36:26] But those are exactly the kind of stories you hear at 12-step meetings. It's like, God, this one time. Oh, my God. I was out of my mind. And there's a whale. I just, I just, I get it off and strapped it to the roof. And everyone else is going, oh, yeah. Like meth is terrible. It's terrible. That's how I heard those stories. It was like, he's a recovering addict and everyone's got those. Someday on the Seek Safety Podcast, I'll tell all of my whale on the roof stories.

[00:36:55] I don't want to hear the whale on the roof stories. Okay. Okay. So maybe it's not just crazy rich people shit, but. I thought, well, I thought you were going to talk about Elon. I, I mean, I don't know. Do we have to? You guys, this is an audio podcast. You guys, you don't know the look of absolute surrender that just came across Jesus. I, I just. I mean. Yeah. Elon.

[00:37:25] Well, I just, as right before we got on to record, I just read about the, all of the Cybertrucks getting recalled. Oh my gosh. They're getting recalled. All of them. Yeah. There's panels fall off. Oh, I hate that. That's a shame. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. What's your take on Elon vis-a-vis self-helpiness in the workplace? I mean, Elon, I don't really have well-developed opinions of Elon Musk as a dude.

[00:37:55] I really don't. I, and I know some people really do. I know some people really admire him, which is where his connection to kind of the self-help zeitgeist comes up. Like, like he's kind of one of these guys, like kind of in the mold of Steve Jobs, who wasn't exactly a self-help guy, but he represented something in the self-help culture, I think. Right. Like, like when you go down the rabbit hole of inspirational quotes, you very often come up with Steve Jobs quotes. Yeah. And I think a lot of people think of Elon Musk the same way.

[00:38:24] And I think for a lot of people who are into personal empowerment, I kind of look at Elon Musk and they say, yeah, here's a guy who is brilliant and determined and he thinks outside of the box and all of that. And I don't know anything about that vis-a-vis Elon. Like, I just don't know much about, about the dude. It's interesting. And this is related to Elon, but when you bring up Steve Jobs, I find that interesting. Was it Steve Jobs or is it that people love to quote Steve Jobs?

[00:38:51] You know, was he trying to be that kind of inspirational person or is it just that people really want to replicate that for themselves? And so then people keep pulling things from him, right? Oh, you bet. And I think the connection that I see to Elon is that I see in him a lot of the similarities of the mythologized kind of self-help origin story that so many of these guys create, right?

[00:39:19] Where, you know, they never recognize, and this is true of Trump as well, they want to have their story be about how they made it themselves on their own merit and because of their own drive. And I'm not saying that they don't have that. I think they do, but they often neglect some important pieces of the story such as, you know, family wealth that helped them get to get their start.

[00:39:47] And I think, you know, kind of glomming onto in a way someone like Steve Jobs who maybe, I don't, I actually don't know Jobs' background if he did have, you know, some wealth that helped him get started. But, you know, trying to like align yourself with somebody else who's this image of a person who really like created something out of nothing. You got it. I think they all want to do that. They all want to build that story and claim that kind of story for themselves.

[00:40:18] So it makes sense to me that they would do that. But yeah, that's kind of what I see in Elon, I guess, too. Well, it hooks back into what we were talking about in terms of is there anything really new under the sun except the packaging and the personality? Yeah, exactly. So I went through my Steve Jobs phase, probably, I don't know, probably, you know, it was kind of around the time that he passed away. Like, like I went out and I read the Walter Isaacson biography.

[00:40:48] I guess now that I think about it, Walter Isaacson has written a biography of Elon for those who are interested. You going to read it? You going to dive in? Yeah, I might. We should do, hey, I've said this for years. We should do Seek Safety Book Club. We should. Honestly, I read so many books. We really need to just get that going. We should do Seek Book Club. Anyway. Yeah. No, I think you're right. And do people really love Elon or do they love what he represents to them?

[00:41:17] Well, it's clearly they love what he represents, right? And it's so similar to what Trump represents in so many ways. Like he thinks outside of the box and he doesn't take no for an answer. Yeah. Plus, I think there's this fantasy that goes with when people have made a gazillion dollars, they get into this fantasy mode of like, oh, man, the only thing, like I believe in myself and I believe in all this personal empowerment stuff. The only thing that's like blocking me is my lack of resources. If I had that much money, I could clearly develop SpaceX.

[00:41:47] I could clearly invent the iPod. I could do all that. And so Steve Jobs and Elon Musk kind of serve as a proxy for our aspirations. Tony Robbins does the same thing, right? Like, I mean, like it's not just that he has technologies, again, very few of which are original to him. But at this point, anyway, he represents the most successful self-help guru ever. And so there's, I think, part of that vast wealth gets rolled into the fantasy of what it must be like to be him. Yeah.

[00:42:13] No, and I think it's that whole concept of every American just thinks that, you know, thinks they're a millionaire just waiting for their opportunity. Oh, I'm still waiting for that Tony Robbins money. I mean, I'm still waiting to wait and go on the Tony Robbins podcast. There you go. I was so heartbroken, Gene. I was so heartbroken that it turned out not to be real. Oh, well, yeah. So it is definitely an interesting moment that we're at. I hope everyone is finding their ways through this time.

[00:42:42] If you're feeling tired and overwhelmed, you know, find the things that can help you just get through and get by. And I also wanted to mention, we have had some amazing podcast episodes in this season. This episode, I think now will be number six. So we were taking a sort of mid-season check-in. I have done a terrible job of promoting the podcast this season because of being tired and overwhelmed.

[00:43:11] But we have had guests like India Oxenberg. We mentioned the interview we did with John Hunter, Dr. John Hunter, which was amazing. We had a great discussion with Anne Peterson talking about the Seek Safely Summit. We also had like an awesome conversation with Dr. Christine Whelan that I've had a few people mentioned to me how interesting and thought-provoking that episode was. We kind of talked about what is going on in the self-help industry and kind of where we

[00:43:40] see it going. So definitely, if you haven't heard all of our episodes this season, have a listen back through. Yeah. In terms of feeling overwhelmed just by this moment, and I've kind of jokingly said a few times, this is not about politics. And the reason I say that is because I think it's useful to acknowledge that this moment is overwhelming for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. It's not just people who would have preferred a different president.

[00:44:08] In fact, I know for a fact that there are people who prefer to this president who are yet still surprised at some of the big shifts that have happened. And I get asked a lot, you know, gosh, how my shtick is always work your recovery, work your recovery comes first. Because I work with folks who are in trauma recovery and addiction recovery. And I get asked a lot, some version of, oh, man, how and why should I work my recovery when the world is on fucking fire? Why would I do that?

[00:44:37] Let alone, how do I do that? And I tell my audience on social media, by the way, you said you've done a terrible job of promoting the podcast. Luckily, we don't have anybody in this podcast who has a sizable social media audience who could possibly promote the podcast. Whew. Okay. We're going to try harder, kids. We're going to do it. Anyway. No, look, I tell folks that, yeah, the world is on fire. And that actually makes it more important than ever that you personally work your recovery and I work my recovery. Because the world needs us.

[00:45:05] The world needs folks who are, you know, working their recovery. Like something that working a realistic trauma or addiction recovery requires is incredible honesty and incredible integrity, personal honesty and integrity. And the willingness to lay down a blueprint of what can be despite the shit show around us. And that's true of recovery at any time.

[00:45:32] The fact that this moment in history is what it is means that, you know, the country and the world need people with honesty and integrity and who can lay down a blueprint and stick to it regardless of the shit show. Needs us more than ever. So if you're wondering, man, what's the point of working our recovery? The world is chaos. The fact that the world is chaos, that is the point. So please work your recovery. And I'm sure that recovery is going to include all sorts of resources.

[00:46:01] Like, you know, on this podcast, we've, and in our organization, we've never been against personal empowerment resources. We want folks to use them intelligently. And we want folks to use them in ways that are consistent with your authenticity. They don't replace your authenticity. All that stuff. I can't say often enough, all that stuff is more important now. I will also offer in conjunction with what you're saying, and this is not to negate it.

[00:46:27] It's an also, and, you know, one of my criticisms of the self-help industry kind of meta criticism is that it is, by definition in the title, it is completely inward focused. I can say that in the last few months, some of the brightest points that I have had were I took a trip with a bunch of women in my neighborhood, and we went up to, you know,

[00:46:56] a winter cabin kind of area and did lots of activities together. We had a little book club together that was really exciting, and that was awesome. Out of that kind of also grew a kind of regular meetup of women who want to figure out what we can do, how we can be more active in our community to deal with some of the problems that are causing our stress and anxieties. And a reminder that it was a reminder for me that, you know, our community, whatever that

[00:47:25] looks like for you is a really important part of managing these types of situations. So I think the ways that we can figure out to deal with, you know, our recovery or whatever kind of personal goals we have for ourself and our improvement, that is important. But also looking to find the kind of community that is going to help support you through these times, I think is incredibly important.

[00:47:52] And I don't think we acknowledge the value of that enough in our very individualized, individualistic society where we are emulating these people who have made it on their own. You know, those are the role models, but I think the real power is in community. So that's my advice. You bet. You bet. We are the best self-help podcast. People don't even know. Don't even know. Because we don't tell them about it. The Seek Safely.

[00:48:22] Listen. That's because we don't tell them about it. Listen to the Seek Safely podcast and get inspired by Glenn and Jean. We should write a self-help book. Yeah, that would be interesting. I'd be down. You kind of wrote a self-help book. I mean, it's not really a self-help book, but it encourages personal affection and stuff. Your book? Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I'll promote myself. You can read This Sweet Life. That's my memoir about, that I co-wrote with my mother about managing the tragedy after my sister died at James Ray's retreat.

[00:48:53] That's a self-help book that's not a self-help book. Yeah, there you go. You can put me on your list. I like it. If you guys would like us to do more podcasts, you can help us quit our day jobs by becoming an ongoing contributor to Seek Safely. Oh, plus. Okay. To all my patients out there, I won't actually quit right now. You like your day job. There are about 30 people out there. No, don't. What? No, it's okay.

[00:49:23] We'll make time for your patients too. That's okay. No, but we would love it if you would contribute to our efforts to bring ethics and accountability to the self-help space. This is something that we have been passionate about now for well over a decade. And if financial contribution is not reasonable for you, which is absolutely understandable, you can just help us promote the podcast since we're so bad at it. That would be very valuable to us as well.

[00:49:49] So, yeah, I will put links to donate in the show notes as well as all the other interesting books and docu-series and podcasts that Glenn mentioned. There's always a big list for me to write up. You're welcome. You're welcome. That's right. I thought, well, I thought just for a second there, I thought you were going to go into like if financial contribution is not something you can do, then you need to try harder. You need to pull yourself off by the bootstraps. You need to manifest harder. Come on.

[00:50:17] Who are you being that you don't have enough money? Who are you being? Wow. That's a landmark question right there. Who are you being? Shout out to Anne Peterson and Werner. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, Glenn, for this conversation. It was a little, kind of covered a lot of ground, but- Covered a lot of ground. If you are beautiful, intelligent listeners, if you liked this podcast, go on to your favorite podcast platform, maybe Apple Podcasts, and give us a five-star review. And if you didn't like it, well, just forget I said anything.

[00:50:47] How about that? All right. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Dr. Glenn. Ciao, ciao. Next time. Thanks for listening to this episode. We hope that you have found it enlightening, and we'd be so, so grateful if you'd share it with the seekers in your life. We all know at least one, right? Until our next episode, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at SeekSafely.

[00:51:13] Connect with Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle at Dr. Doyle Says, and me, Jean, at Jean C. Brown on Twitter. Feel free to send us an email, info at SeekSafely.org. To support SeekSafely, you can make a secure donation on our website, SeekSafely.org slash donate. The SeekSafely podcast is produced by Citizens of Sound.