Episode 19 - Dylan Sessler - Real Talk, Mental Health

It is an extraordinary gift to be able to have true compassion and empathy for others while also refraining from judgment and criticism. This guest is one of a kind because he has life experience that offers understanding in so many ways. 

Leighann Lovely  00:15

Let's Talk HR is a place for HR professionals, business owners and employees to come together and share experiences and talk about what's working and what's not. How we can improve best practices so that companies can better attract, train and retain all generations of workers. We all know that there has been a huge shift in what people want. Generations are coming together more than ever, on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about how the economy has been impacted, and what needs to happen to find a balance. I'm your host Leighann Lovely. So let's get this conversation started. And remember, if you enjoyed this episode, follow us like us and share us.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:04

Good morning I am excited to have this awesome conversation with an individual was introduced to has a passion for the same types of conversations that I have a passion for. So it's only fitting that he and I decided to have this conversation today. So I'd like to introduce you to Dylan Sessler. He is a mental health coach, professional speaker podcast, host of the Dylan experience, entrepreneur, combat veteran and an author of the book Defy The Darkness, a story of suicide, mental health and overcoming your hardest battles. In January of 2020, Dylan began speaking on Tick Tok about mental health and trauma. By 2022, he has accumulated more than half a million followers supporting his daily content centered around having a realistic conversation about things like mental health, abuse, trauma, self harm and suicide. His Relentless Pursuit has allowed him to impact the lives of millions while also developing a platform to help society rethink human connection, and mental health. I'm thrilled that I get to have this conversation because it is something that I'm also, as many of my listeners know, very passionate about bringing forward conversations such as this, and so many more. So let's get this conversation started.

 

Leighann Lovely  02:39

Welcome, Dylan. I'm so excited to have you on today. Thank you for coming.

 

Dylan Sessler  02:44

Appreciate it. Appreciate you having me on. Glad to be here.

 

Leighann Lovely  02:47

Yeah. So why don't you have such a unique background? So why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself?

 

Dylan Sessler  02:53

Well, that's a big question. I'll try and try and give you the SparkNotes version. Realistically, I'm a mental health coach, and I'm a veteran, I'm an author, do a whole lot of different things. But all of this kind of started with with my own mental health journey. Around six years old, with my my dad committed suicide. And in all of that kind of chaos, kind of created this persona of guilt ridden and shame ridden from what his choice was, came out of it with, with a pretty, a pretty dark perspective on life, and lived with that for a very long time until in 2015, and nearly ended my own life. And with that, I'm now here. Because of that moment, that moment kind of pushed me to recollect myself start to understand, you know, and answer the question, Why? Why did I end up here? Why did I end up, you know, sitting on the on the floor with a gun in my hand, ready to end my own life because of what happened 19 years ago, you know, in that 19 years, there's a whole lot that happened. But more or less, the moral of that story was, it all brought me to a point of, of complete and utter disconnection from myself from other people from the world. And I thought death was better than life at the at that point. And from that point on, I changed I had to because if I didn't, I knew I wasn't going to make it through that. And so I dove into you know, there's a bookshelf behind me, I dove into hundreds of books over the last seven or eight years. hundreds of videos and podcasts and documentaries and all things that I learned from and develop myself and learn about who I am and why I am the way that I am. Learn how to tell my narrative and my story a lot better, not only to other people, but to myself, so I can actually understand why do I have value, but what am I here for? Develop purpose, develop power. And most importantly, I think develop perspective, which is something that I think I'm quite known for on tick tock now, but learning how to look at myself from a different angle and looking at other things from a different angle. And it ultimately brought me to you today, by pushing myself out into the business world. And we, you know, we met through a chamber of commerce meeting and quite fortuitous that, you know, here we are talking, you know, to potentially help people understand a little bit more about themselves.

 

Leighann Lovely  05:39

That's awesome. And having these conversations in today's society is ever more important and being able to step into, like you said, a commerce or a chamber of commerce, and be able to stand up and simply say that, you know, here's, here's who I am. And this is what I talk about. It's, it's so powerful, because, and I remember the day that I met you, a lot of people, you know, wanting to walk up to you and say, Hey, I'm, you know, I'm so and so. And this is what I do, I'd love to have a conversation, you know about what you do and how you do it, especially when you said tick tock. Yeah, it's, it's awesome. You have built an amazing following on tick tock, and something that the business community is still very far behind in for many people there. I'm sure that there are plenty of companies out there, figure it out. I have not myself, but looking, you know, to you for guidance on that still, you know, still haven't figured it out, but I'll get there one day. But I mean, you have truly done an amazing thing, what I think in your bio, it's was what, half a million followers so far on on tick tock, and you're continuing to climb on that.

 

Dylan Sessler  06:50

Yep. I'm up to like, 575,000. Yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  06:55

And that's amazing to have a conversation, to have the conversations that you're having to build an audience around the topic that you're talking about. It's it's so needed, not just on an individual basis, but on a company wide basis to bring awareness across the board. Stop penalizing people for being who they are, when they walk into a company. We are who we are. And that's, again, that's what I stress on my podcast at you know, to all my listeners, they know that that is constantly what I stress. So bringing you on and talking with you today is just it's awesome. Yeah, but you also, you also wrote, you know, a book, and you've created your own business. Tell me how you first tell me about your book.

 

Dylan Sessler  07:47

Sure. So I wrote, Defy The Darkness, a story of suicide, mental health and overcoming your hardest battles. And that book is essentially it describes my own version of what self help really looks like and self development really looks like but with kind of within through the eyes of my own narrative. You know, what I've been through talks about my dad's suicide it talks about being bullied it talks about you know, abuse as a child, it talks about war, it talks about suit, you know, my own suicide talks about all sorts of different aspects of my life that forced me to kind of address different pieces of the puzzle, right? The human experience is vast, it's wide, it's, it's deep, and it's it can be disconnecting in many realms of society, especially today with how fast paced everything is supposed to are. It really is right now. And I should say it's supposed to be and it's, it's really, it's my first step into helping people, right, because it was the book really is essentially the first thing that helped me writing that book, you know, really started, you know, about seven or eight years ago when I'm when I made that attempt to commit suicide. And it was like, nobody taught me how to overcome suicide. Nobody taught me how to overcome grief and loss and all the things that I had been through and PTSD from from Afghanistan and my dad's death. There's, there's no, like, simple guide to doing these things. And, and what I've realized through my time, especially on tick tock for the last two years, is there's not going to be right there's no simple guide to overcoming these things. Many great people have tried and certainly have succeeded in some ways, but not for everyone. And so this book is is my own version of it. And I think it's going to be valuable for people that that dig into it because I think it has value for many different people. You're not gonna like everything about the book, but I think it's a it's a very valuable book for people who are struggling through money. So mental health are struggling through any any persistent battle. And it's a place where you can get relatability you know, it's defy the darkness, it's not about being positive and, and the bullshit like that it's about doing the hard work and digging into the places that nobody wants to dig into. And it's real. It's raw, you know, you hear me talking about if you listen to the audible version, you hear me talking about the hard stuff, the emotional stuff. You know, and it's, it's important to dig into that stuff. And there's a whole chapter on fundamentals of the human experience. You know, I think it's, it's incredibly, incredibly important for people to read.

 

Leighann Lovely  10:44

You know, and it's interesting that you said when, you know, in 2015, correct as is, okay. So in 2015, you dug in, you started research, you started reading anything that you could get your hands on, to try to understand listening to podcasts, that is so similar to many stories of people that I've spoken to, it's, it's my exact story, at the time. For me, there were no pod, there were not podcasts around. My story goes back to many, many years prior, it's been nearly 20 years since my diagnosis. And but I, I was in bookstores, I was grabbing every single book known to man that was on the understanding of bipolar at that time. And that was what saved me, of course, my psychiatrist and the medication that I eventually, my trip to Rogers Memorial Hospital, you know, all of that bundled in, but really, it was, I'm very much an emotional intelligence person reading those books and that kind of thing. And then it was the idea that, if I can understand what's happening in my own brain in my own body, shouldn't I be able to overcome that? And I was stuck on that point of, if we can understand what's happening, can't we make it? Can we make it different? And for a really long time, I was stuck on the idea of, well, hey, if I know that my brain is functioning wrong, can't I like flip a switch and somehow and make it work? Right? Yeah. And it was the the studying and reading of Oh, no, it's not that simple. We can't just, you know, I remember years ago, in my childhood, somebody said, You have a choice. If you want to wake up happy in the morning, you can wake up happy. And that still haunts me to this day, because I was an impressionable young child. And I was being told by an adult I looked up to, and he said, and he said this to me, like, it's a choice. If you want to be happy, you can be happy. And I'm like, No, that's, that is not the way the psyche, the brain works. We, as human beings, who have suffered from PTSD, that suffer from manic depression suffer from depression, major depression, schizophrenia, suffer from eating disorders, and obviously, the list goes on. It's not a choice. Obviously, there are things out there that are a choice, whether or not you do receive help, whether or not you do pull that trigger. But there is still so much going on behind the scenes that, you know, that sometimes takes that choice and makes it almost impossible. And so, yeah, I mean, and that's why having a book like yours, and having all of the books be written so that other people know they're not alone. Because if you can, if you can read a book, and you can understand or identify with somebody that wrote that book, that one person that reads it and identifies with you, you could very well be saving that one person's life. Yeah. And that's, that's how it started. Right? And I got, I just got goosebumps, because, you know, that is been part of my journey, as well, if I could get the word out there that hey, I've experienced this. And I think that each and every one of us whether or not it's I'm a recovering alcoholic, I have an eating disorder I have whatever it might be. We feel almost obligated to say you're not alone. And, hey, come along with me. Let's figure out how we can do better together. So that's awesome. That is absolutely awesome. I I know when we originally spoke I told you I wanted to read your book. I it is on my list. I have a list. Yes. I have a list of my along I have actually, you can't see it. But I have a stack of books over here as well. But I am. I am slowly getting through.

 

Dylan Sessler  14:50

You do what you got to do, right?

 

Leighann Lovely  14:52

Yes, so tell me a little bit more about now you you created your own business. Tell me a little bit more about the coaching And the mentoring side of this. I mean, do you meet with individuals? How does this work?

 

Dylan Sessler  15:06

So originally, I started doing Tic Tok to write my book. I never really, I think maybe in the back of my mind, I intended to do coaching. But it wasn't really the priority. I built the Tic tok to sell my book. And after a while, of talking about what I talked about, in the book, talking about the book itself, people started asking me like, Hey, do you coach do you do coaching and I was like, as I could write, like, I just kept getting so many messages and, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 messages a day about different things like, you know, how do I get over this? How do I get over that, and so I started thinking, you know, I, I have a skill set, I may as well utilize it for good, you know, something that's also going to, I'm going to value myself for, you know, and so the message kind of became more important than my own, I guess, imposter syndrome, or my own my own fear of, of not doing what's right. So I started the business in March of 2020. Of course, obviously, COVID happened a week and a half later. But COVID didn't seem to be a bad thing. For me, it seemed to be something that allowed me to learn a lot more about people and ask the right questions and help people in a lot of different ways. And so I became a one on one coach, initially, and started just, you know, one on one talking through how to how to work through mental illness and how to how to deal with different aspects of PTSD or going back to sexual assaults or war, or, you know, all of these different traumatic events or grief, and walking people through these things with dignity and respect, which apparently, a lot of people have never had, you know, I think a lot of people find me, because I'm not a mental health professional, and just a person with lived experience, who has developed, I've developed my own process for this stuff, but a lot of people have used the mental health system and struggled to find someone that could look at them with dignity and respect, and give that person the, the respect that they deserve as a human being and an adult. And so I feel a void in I think the mental health system as people are who who will never go back to that system, knowing that it's, it's, it's painful, it's corrupt, or it's re traumatizing, or it's medication focus, you know, I've heard all of the different criticisms of it. And I became that kind of niche where people were like, you know, this guy gets it, you know, it's that experience based practice, rather than just, here's some medication, come back to me in six weeks and tell me how they feel, and will up your dosage will be something else or, you know, so many different issues, you know, came out from this. And, you know, I try not to not try to just be very simple, and here's my boundaries, here's what I can do for you, here's what I can't do for you. I don't expect people to think that I can fix them or anything like that. And most of the time, they don't, they know that I'm here to help them understand the same question that I had to ask myself. Why am I the way that I am? And that's what I do best?

 

Leighann Lovely  18:39

Right? You know, and it's interesting. I have had a lot of people in my friends, people that I know, in my network who have, you know, tried to get an appointment just to see a therapist, or a psychiatrist. And there's, there's massive waiting lists. Across the board. There's just huge, massive, I mean, I can't imagine what it would feel like to call somebody and say, Hey, I need to see somebody, I'm struggling with XYZ and be told, okay, you're going to be put on a waiting list. You should be called back within three months. Yeah. I mean, within three months, if you are somebody who is really suffering with severe depression, what do you do? I can tell you that there are many people out there who may not make it three months. Now there there are there are places out there, you know, obviously, there's emergency but if you are finally just making that first call, three months later, that I mean, there's a lot of people who will drastically go down

 

Dylan Sessler  19:39

A ghost. Yeah. Yeah, they're,

 

Leighann Lovely  19:41

I mean, it's just happens. And, and I and I remember the days when it was just hard to make that that one call. So trying to do that follow up call and if they never call you back, I mean, and again, I'm not I'm not saying antis, I see my psychiatrist. All the time regularly. Now it's,

 

Dylan Sessler  20:02

It's a hard job. You know, that's, that's if there's if there's anything, if there's anything that I've learned, right? You, you have to be on your game, every single minute of that session, right. And that's, that's one of the things that differentiates good. Psychologists, good psychiatrist, good practitioners, right, because it's not just about the professionals, it's also about the coaches, it's also about the people that have the lived experience, you have to be on your, on your game to be to be helpful. And if you slip up just once, it can be the difference between this person's coming back every day, or I'm sorry, every week for the next year, or this person's never gonna see someone again, because I don't trust, right, you know, therapists or I don't trust psychologist or I don't I don't trust coaches anymore. Right, you know, and it's so, you know, this isn't for everybody, right. And unfortunately, people find the, those people who jump into the job thinking, I'm going to help these people. And realistically, they're not, for whatever reason, they're not able to maintain the professional courtesy of the respect or the dignity or the, the honor that, that people require, and being able to kind of walk your way through the idea of invalidating someone, right, because that's, that's essentially what we're doing as as professionals is, here's this rational experience of you've been through something really hard. But you have really illogical actions. And we have to like, our job is basically to say, those aren't logical, you need to shift to something logical.

 

Leighann Lovely  21:48

Right? Right. And how do you do that, though, to make sure that you're not completely in totally what you just said, invalidating them, making them feel even worse, or making them go over the edge and making them hate you.

 

Dylan Sessler  22:03

Do you want to know the secret? Yes. You make them do it themselves,

 

Leighann Lovely  22:08

Right? Yes. Oh, my gosh, you and I just had a comment right before this. Right. Before we started recording. I said, I have a personal question. You directed me right into the answer that I needed to come to on my own. And I went, oh, oh, okay. Well, I guess I knew the answer. But you needed to get me to see the answer. On my own. And you You're very good at that. You were brilliant at bringing me to that.

 

Dylan Sessler  22:36

You didn't even know I was I was doing. No, I did not. It's it's the it's perspective, right. I I don't I don't ask questions. I don't ask questions for no reason, I ask questions to help you realize what you just said to me. Right? You know, more more often than not, I can I can guess what people are going to tell me. Right? It's not that I know, it's just that I have an assumption. I have an idea. But I don't make that assumption on, on faith and on fact, right. I always ask the questions, assuming I don't know, I'm hoping I'm wrong, actually. Right. Because then it puts me in a position where I have to challenge myself to work around that and figure out like, maybe this isn't this person's problem, right? I always assume I'm wrong. Right? And that means that I'm always asking the right questions, because I want to find out what is right for you. Not me, I don't care about me, right? I care about me outside the session, I'll take care of myself. I'm good. But in the session, I'm trying to understand what you think is right. What you think is fair, unfair, painful, a struggle, fact, false lies, truth doesn't matter to me. Right? What matters to me is that you're able to, at the end of the day, logically walk through this conversation with me. Right? And sometimes I have to, I have to be honest, and I have to say, Is that realistic? Or is that the truth? Is that a lie? You know, like, and you approach those conversations when you when people see that you are truly respectful of their, of their sanctity of their identity. It makes a world of difference, right? And what you can ask

 

Leighann Lovely  24:27

And you know, here's a really interesting story, that one that I'm sure that you know, you will, will find really interesting because early on, I had, I had a problem with being touched by anybody. Just I didn't like people walking, especially strangers if they walked up to me and did the nicety of Oh, hi. And they patted me on the back. I was just like, What are you doing? Like don't I don't know. I don't know who you are. Don't touch me. It was just I never really figured out why I had this. So I was at a very delicate state. I still was not stable. I had recently been diagnosed with bipolar. disorder, but it was a tactile thing with me. So it was it was the the physical touch that really just bothered me. So, my psychiatrist, or actually it was my, my psychotherapist, so my therapist that I was seeing, I was in a very unstable state, but one that was manageable. Anyways, so I'm in her office and I was, you know, upset. And she says, maybe you should go impatient. I said, I'm not going inpatient, I don't want to, I'm fine. And she says, What feel more comfortable if you went home and there was somebody there to meet you fine, I'll call my friends, she'll meet me at home, I'm going to be fine. Called my friend, she set it up, blah, blah, blah. And I said, Well, I'm going to leave now I stood up, she grabbed me and put me in a halt. Now, this is my psychiatry, or my, my psychotherapist, who has been working with me, who knows that I have an aversion, a massive aversion to being touched. So at this point, I freak out, I wiggle out of the hold, I go behind a chair, I put the chair in between her and I, I do not physically threaten her, I do not. I just tell her, don't touch me. Don't touch me. And at this point, now I am hyper agitated. She runs out of the room and calls the police and says that I have to go inpatient on a hold because at this point, now I'm out of control. Now, when that happens in a psychiatrist office know that the police if the police are called, they have no choice, but to escort you to inpatient?

 

Dylan Sessler  26:39

Yes, and 100% your voluntary or not, right? And makes it worse if you're not.

 

Leighann Lovely  26:45

So I'm outside. I'm talking to the police at this point. I said, Look, I need to calm down. I'm going to go outside and smoke a cigarette and the cop goes, will you? I'm going to I have to escort you and I'm fine. I'm out there and I'm chatting with the cop. And I said, Look, I don't understand why I'm going mind being escorted impatient. He goes, neither do i You don't seem really upset at all. And I said, I'm upset because my psychiatrist put me in a physical hold. And she doesn't she knows that I can't be touched. And he goes, Oh, that was pretty stupid. And I'm like, Yeah, but I still had to be escorted to go impatient. Yeah.

 

Dylan Sessler  27:23

You know, you probably could have pressed charges.

 

Leighann Lovely  27:27

I got there. And I was able to manage, I wiggled my way out of it.

 

Dylan Sessler  27:35

Yeah, as you should, right.

 

Leighann Lovely  27:36

And I went home and I was absolutely fine. I fired that's I fired that therapist, I fired that psychiatry, that psychiatrist. And I later found the one that I stayed with for the next 17 years, who I will today till the day he told me he was retiring, I started crying. He started crying. I just found a new one. But and maybe that was the pivotal moment that saved my life. Because, you know, anyways, the point being is that it is key to understand the person you're talking to whether or not you are a a psychiatrist, whether or not you're a salesperson, because I sit and talk to people all the time. And just like you, I assume the questions that I'm asking, I don't know. But the majority of the time that I'm asking those questions, before we've come to a decision that they're going to buy from me. I usually know exactly the questions I need to ask in order to get in order to get them to say, Yep, I want to work with her. That's my special, you know, that's my specialty. But if it comes to matters of the emotional side of things, even though I've been there, I can't do it. I just don't I think maybe because I'm too emotional. Or maybe I get too wrapped up in them. I don't know.

 

Dylan Sessler  29:04

I don't think I don't think people are too emotional.

 

Leighann Lovely  29:08

You're right. That's not the right. I don't have the talent you have.

 

Dylan Sessler  29:13

And that's the difference. Right? Like, it's, it's not a matter of and I wouldn't even call it talent. I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it too emotional, not emotional enough. It's, it's understanding what perspective you're actually looking at the picture from, right. You know, let's let's look at that story that you just told, right? People have these beautiful things called boundaries. Right? And when they're when they're set, right. You know exactly what you want and what you don't want. And what's what's remarkable about that situation is you actually had a boundary that you had set and you knew what you wanted from it, which is which is difficult For people who struggle with mental health of any sort, right, you know, typically, you know, where those worthless mental illnesses come from, is because of a lack of boundaries somewhere in their life. Right? Where people push them, and they learn that that's okay. But their body doesn't write the body never learns what boundaries are not okay. It just lives with the stress of that boundary being pushed. Now, this person pushed boundaries. And, and of course, you're going to lose control. Right? That's the, that's the that's the rational and even logical answer to a boundary of that magnitude being pushed, like touching someone, like, if touched inappropriately with the determination of, there's no consent. That's sexual assault. That's, that's pretty straightforward. Right? Right. And if it's, if it's not inappropriate, right, like, if it's not genitalia, or something like that, guess what? It's assault. Like, these are there's laws about this stuff, like we make laws about boundaries, and yet, people with authority, that's the big problem, right? If you're in a leadership position, you might want to pay attention to this. People with authority like to push boundaries, because they think their authority Trump's the boundary, right. That's where most leaders fail.

 

Leighann Lovely  31:27

Yep. And you know, and this was okay, so this would have been 19 years ago. This would have been 19 years ago. Yeah. So obviously, things have become much different. I mean, people are hypersensitive. I can't imagine that somebody wouldn't sue or turn around. And, but I was in the situation where the crazy girl was saying, Wait, no, no, I'm not crazy. And everybody is looking at the, you know, mental health patients. Yes. Going? Yeah. Yeah, of course. You're not crazy. Honey, of course, you're not crazy. Okay, let's, let's ship her off. Come on, let's ship her off, hurry up, get her in the car.

 

Dylan Sessler  32:03

And, and this is one of the big problems with the mental health threat system itself is because you can't trust correct, you know, quote, unquote, crazy people to know what's right and wrong. But you can trust authorities that are willing to push boundaries, that they're right. And if the if, yeah, if the if the supporting evidence isn't there to state, this is what's right and wrong. They can do whatever they want, and get away with it.

 

Leighann Lovely  32:31

There's a fear factor, I think, with a lot of individuals, like oh my gosh, what if that happens to me? Now remember, this was 19 years ago, I then I then had an amazing experience with the new psychiatrist that I found and the new psychotherapist that I found. That was that was completely awesome. But I completely understand why individuals are looking for alternative options. Right? Because one, you're more accessible. Yep. To person. They don't feel the, the stigma out there

 

Dylan Sessler  33:09

You're right, Right. Like there's there's not a ton of therapists out there on on social media talking about this stuff. Like there are now a little bit more but, you know, there's not a bunch of people talking. There's not a bunch of therapists sitting there talking about suicide, like I talk about suicide. Correct.

 

Leighann Lovely  33:25

And so and they don't, and they continue to be Hush, hush. They're not out there. I don't see that changing right now. I mean, even when I go. One was okay. Have you ever gone and looked up? A therapist like on, you know, freighter or Aurora or any you ever okay? So if you go in, you're searching for one, they don't they don't tell you anything personal about themselves. Right? So when I go and pick one, basically, I'm just picking a picture and a name and saying, Sure. I'll go see this one.

 

Dylan Sessler  34:00

They look nice. Yeah. How am I window shopping?

 

Leighann Lovely  34:04

Exactly. When they say when they see you. They've already had the opportunity to hear you speak. They know that you've written a book. They see all the social media about you. They already have an idea of your personality. And I'm sure that if, you know, prior to them, signing up and talking with you. You're like, yeah, sure, let's have a quick conversation so that you can get to know me before any monetary value, you know, any monetary thing changes hands. But you can't do that with a mental health facility. Because the minute is, you know, minute I booked an appointment if even if I at the last minute if it's not like a day or 24 hours before you get charged 50 bucks. Yeah. And you can't, you know, and if you go and you hate the person, oh my god, this. This doctor was awful. They're still going to bill your insurance.

 

Dylan Sessler  35:02

Yeah, that's the you know, how business is conducted. That changes how this relationship works, right? The this, you know, and there's there's risks and rewards, there's there's benefits, and there's there's things that aren't so good, right? Like, my business is a capitalist entity where it's, I'm pushing myself into a market. And I, as a business, I'm competing with everyone around me, right? And so that requires me to be very customer and client focused, correct. Because if I don't, I fail, I lose, I don't make money, right, and then my family doesn't get to be fed. Now, the difference is, is that I can fail, right? I can be wrong, I can bring the wrong information, I can do things wrong, right? Just as much as any therapist could, right? Differences. therapists have gatekeeping requirements, right, they have to do continuing education, they have to have a certification, right, they also have to be approved by the board, they can be audited by the board, you know, there's so many different things, and they have to abide by the rules of whatever facility or profession they have to, you know, appease. And so that requires that that automatically kind of narrows it down to who can actually fit the bill for being a therapist for being a psychiatrist, or whatever you're looking for. That doesn't mean they're all created equal. Right. There's also that idea that it's too big to fail. Right, that's the that's the risk of the mental health system is that it's, it's built, it's government funded, it's this funded it, you know, it's supported. And it does, that doesn't mean it works for everybody, what it what it means it's, it's available for everybody doesn't mean it's, it's something that everybody's going to benefit from equally. And so that's, it's good that we have this but at the same time, there's risks on both sides. There's rewards on both sides.

 

Leighann Lovely  37:14

And, I am 100%, especially, you know, if, for instance, somebody in my situation, I don't I no longer see a therapist, I've, you know, I've been at this game now for nearly 20 years. You know, I know, all my checks and balances, I know, you know, I have friends and family who will literally go you kind of seem down to Dalian, you know, you're talking slow. I'm like, Yeah, okay, so I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, geez, I'm not depressed. But I mean, I literally have, like an army of people in my life who will, like, ask me just outright now, because I've become so comfortable with it, if I'm struggling, based on the way I talk the way I present myself, and I used to get offended by it. But I've gotten to the point. I mean, I haven't been offended by it for over 10 years. But early in my recovery, I used to get offended by it, like, shut up, don't ask me how I'm doing I'm fine. You know, it was this trigger. Everybody has triggers early on. I am 100%, you know, in favor of if you need to see a psychiatrist and you need to be on medication. That's the path you want to take. I'm 100% You know, I back that I so I don't want anybody to get the wrong impression. Like I'm not against Sara, the therapist or a psychiatrist that, I just think that that this, what you do is so beneficial, because I could list off three people right now that could probably benefit from just having a conversation with you and working through some of their demons that can't, or have had bad experiences and trying to find somebody who that they mesh well with, that is available to take on new patients. And we are humans, we don't you know, sometimes we go to the doctor, and or we were trying to find our new, you know, General, General doctor and it's like, I'm tried, this person didn't like this person. That's that's the way that it works. And it's hard when every time you go you have to pay a ton of money and they they don't offer a different way to do that. But again, anybody listening who who is suffering from a, you know, severe mental health or things that they need, that they may need medication, obviously, they you know, that's something that has to be dealt with with an actual psychiatrist who is legally allowed to prescribe medication, but as far as, you know, therapy, that kind of thing. Just talking through those things. I think that what you do is and enormous benefit, because half the battle is just being able to talk about it with somebody that they feel comfortable with.

 

Dylan Sessler  40:09

Yeah, I think in you know, what's funny is I don't have any problems with good therapists or good psychiatrist or psychologist, I think, I think what, what a lot of my, what a lot of my, like more dedicated clients often do is they go to a therapist, they go to a psychiatrist, and they always come to me. Yeah. And so you get, you get to different things, right. I'm a very different person than most therapists and psychiatrist and psychologist. And that's, that's important to understand is that I'm able, and also more free to ask different questions, right. without any repercussions I have no, I have no governing body that says, you have to report this to this. Right? I don't have any of that restriction. And so there's, there's a freedom in, in my sessions that most people don't have. Is it risky for me? Because people could, you know, tell me stuff that ultimately could come true. Absolutely. But I'm also aware of that, and I'm also prepared for that, because I've been through this stuff before I understand what that feels like. And I'm okay with facing that reality, if it means helping people, right. But I also have boundaries, you know, and I create that, that necessary disconnect for understanding these, this, this job. Right. But it's, it's important understand. I help people express, you know, you know, I don't, I don't always help you talk about things, I help you express things, right. Emotions are one of the hardest things to understand and master. And when you start becoming conscious of what you're actually feeling, physically, sometimes it's not even about the words, sometimes it's just about knowing that this person that is sitting across from me, actually understands that it's okay for you to feel like that. The goal here is for you to feel. And that that freedom is so incredibly rare. And it's so such a beautiful part of this whole process, that it's important. It's important to be able to sit there across from someone and know that Dylan's not judging me isn't giving him is he doesn't care. He's here, he's here to, you know, make this happen. He wants this to happen in some ways, because I haven't felt it in 30 years, you may as well feel it now. Right? You may may as well get it out, not keep it in anymore. Yep. You know, and that's my goal is expression. And sometimes that that doesn't always mean verbally. Yeah, sometimes it means in writing or emotional.

 

Leighann Lovely  42:53

You know, it's interesting. I had a conversation with somebody about the fact that the older generation, just bottled up all of these emotions constantly. And the younger generation coming in, is now learning much differently. Because we have this, you know, the older generation who was, oh, you're a boy Don't cry. I mean, you know, these, and then you have this this gap of children who grew up saying, you know, from their parents saying, No, it's okay to feel. But now you even have it going further, where parents, and I've heard this on, you know, playgrounds of parents who are saying, what your feeling is anger and anger is okay to feel. But it's not okay to XYZ. And I mean, literally teaching like emotional intelligence to four or five, six year olds. And my hope is that by the time they become adults, that they will have a heck of a lot less problems than some of the older people that are around now. And when I say old, I'm talking about I'm in that generation where it wasn't what I was, I was, I wasn't told that it's not okay to feel this. But I watched my I watched my grandparents and I watched so many people, you know, like, embarrassed by emotions, and it was like, so hopefully, eventually we'll get rid of the whole idea that emotions are bad.

 

Dylan Sessler  44:21

I think, it's not necessarily realistic to look at like, this idealistic idea of solving problem, right. I think I think we are going to create different problems course, and me crying in public all the time, right in this in the human endeavor to understand why because we are very much creatures that that that thrives on this idea of why this question, right? We we will learn how to solve different problems and create new problems. And that's, you know, that's the beautiful thing. thing about being a parent is you're a failure. Right? No matter what, right? Like you are going to create problems in your child's life. Because of your personality that you, you then have to face later on in life. And here's where I think is so important, right? This is the conversation like, because I could leave it at that and it'd be dark and dismal. here's the here's the positive part of it. Open communication allows you to solve those problems, being able to openly express and, you know, rationally validate other people and logically discuss these things. This is what, you know, this is what I think Baby Boomers, Gen X. And even Millennials have trouble with more is we can't have a conversation. Without getting angry at each other. We can't have a conversation without blowing up or exploding. Look at look at the comments section on any video. And you'll see older generations, blaming younger generations and younger generations blaming older generations, we struggled to have simple conversations and validate. Yeah, that has that that has validity. And so does mine. Your position and my position have validity. And now we have to discuss what's the best option, right? Or can we compromise and we can't, yet that's that's the goal is we need to learn how to communicate to compromise, rather than communicate to be right.

 

Leighann Lovely  46:34

Yep. Oh, wow. That yes, absolutely. So that we're coming to time, and I, I have the question of the season that I'm asking everybody. So if you could pinpoint a time period in your career that made a huge difference in your life or career path? When would that be an want?

 

Dylan Sessler  46:56

Man? That's a good question. Because there's, there's so many, I wrote a whole book about my whole life, and I don't think I could pinpoint one. But if, if there's anything I think the last two years, I think, starting in business, writing a book, you know, becoming a social media influencer, after an entire lifetime of being an introvert and not wanting to talk to people that has created a human being in me, that has, has never been able to see value. Like I can now and being able to expose my thoughts, my feelings, my my knowledge, my wisdom, you know, and, and yet, I retain my humility as much as I can by, you know, just buying out of who I am. I, I'm not the best, I'm not the brightest, but I'm never going to quit. I'm never going to stop I'm always going to do what I think is is right. It's, it's given me a perspective on life. That is, I think, absolutely beautiful. Even on my hardest days, I find beauty in the world, I find beauty and myself and joy and happiness, and I'm, I'm still empathetic towards everything, but I'm also able to withstand the brutality of of life. And I, I'm happy with that.

 

Leighann Lovely  48:27

That's awesome. That's a great answer. So if somebody wanted to get in contact with you, how would they go about doing that?

 

Dylan Sessler  48:37

Well, if you want to actually talk to me, I'd recommend you schedule a session through my website, www.dylansessler.com. But if you want to just follow me, you want to just you know, see what I do, follow me on Tick Tok. That's where I'm mostly at. I do a lot of podcasts, The Dylan Experience is my podcast. Yeah, you can read my book. You can you can listen to my book on Audible. I read that. Yeah, there's all sorts of places you can find me just go ahead and Google me.

 

Leighann Lovely  49:08

Excellent. Hey, Dylan, this has been an awesome, just a very awesome conversation. I really enjoy talking with you. And I thank you so much for your time.

 

Dylan Sessler  49:18

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  49:22

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, too, follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

 

Dylan Sessler 

Autor of - Defy The Darkness 

LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/dylan-sessler-69a29b19a 

Podcast - The Dylan Experience - https://dylansessler.podbean.com/# 

Tik Tok - dylan_sessler 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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