Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: Jessi Beyer

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Kaitlyn is joined by speaker, #1 best-selling author, and mental health advocate Jessi Beyer! Jessi shares her journey including her experiences using the website Seeking Arrangement and being a sugar baby to pay rent. She also tells Kaitlyn how her trauma evolved into helping others with mental health struggles and writing a book to break down the stigma around therapy. Later, she gives advice on beginning the healing process and answers some rapid fire questions! GEICO – Go to geico.com , and in fifteen minutes you could be saving 15% or more on car insurance EXPRESS – Text VINE to 397-737 to receive $25 off your purchase HEALIST – Go to Healistnaturals.com/VINE to sign up and get your free sample today SKREWBALL – Go to Skrewballwhiskey.com for more info and click to buy now OXICLEAN – To Work your Magic with OxiClean, go to OxiClean.com/tryme and order a free stain-fighting sample while supplies last RITUAL – Visit Ritual.com/VINE to get 10% off during your first three months. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to Great Therapy. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now starting. Today, I got to speak to a number one bestselling author, speaker, mental health advocate, who is on a mission to help those around her design lives. they love waking up to, which is an amazing mission. Her debut book, How to Heal, A Practical Guide to Nine Natural Therapies you can use to Release Your Trauma, Has Health Readers in Nearly a Doseon Countries, Take Steps to

Heel Themselves and Remove the Stigma Around Mental Health. She reached out with an email, and the title was, I tried to be a sugar baby and ended up talking to a felon. It got my attention, and I'm glad it did, because she has an important message. I'm excited for you guys to hear her story. more about her book and just kind of her advice for how we can heal. So please enjoy the podcast with Jesse Beyer. It's so nice to meet you. Where in the world are you? I'm in Portland, Oregon. Oh, I love Portland. Is that born and raised? Yeah. So I was born in Puea, which is right

south of Seattle, but I've lived in Oregon ever since I was three, except for college. But yeah, Oregon's home for me. That's amazing. I went there for a live podcast, which don't know when that will happen again but it was incredible it was just such a even though it was it was kind of cold when i was there but it was just such a unique city and they have the best coffee and like little unique restaurants and shops and i just i really enjoyed it and the people are so nice yeah portland definitely has a culture of its own it's like nowhere else in the world that i've been to do it's it's really unique and i love it totally did you know that right now geico is offering an extra 15% credit on car motorcycle and RV policies that's 15% on top of

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Save an extra 15% when you switch by October 7th, visit geico.com to learn more. Okay, we have to talk about the fact of the email that you sent and how we got connected because you reached out to me in your email you mentioned that you were opening,

sorry, that you were open to speaking about a story and an experience that you weren't originally planning on sharing, but can I ask why you're hoping to share a little bit about what you went through now because the subject of your email was I tried to be a sugar baby

and ended up working for a felon. Yeah. Please continue. Yeah. So the reason I wanted to kind of share this story stems back to my mental health struggles because when I was in high school, I really struggled with my mental health.

I was in a relationship with someone who struggled with his mental health. And it was a topic that I didn't talk about for years. And finally, I started kind of having conversations about other people's mental health, right? Just, you know, lending an ear, being a supportive friend. And when I would open up and say, oh, you know, I've been through the same thing, I've struggled with this or I've had similar situations, it was like this light bulb went off in their brain and they're like, oh, my God, I'm not alone. And that kind of charted the course of my business and my mission and my life and things like that.

And then this story that I mentioned in the subject line was kind of thrown in the middle of there. And again, it wasn't something I was talking about. It's not something that I'm proud of to this day. But I know how powerful vulnerable conversations can be. And I know what it feels like to go through something and feel like you're the only person in the world who's gone through that. So if I can share this story and laugh at myself and just have this conversation, hopefully there's some woman or man out there that is going through a similar thing, has been through a similar thing and feels a little bit less shame about, you know, what they have to do to make it through. Right. Because I feel like, you know, or you hear about it, it sounds to somebody, let me just go backwards a little bit. At what age did you start talking about your mental health?

Mostly like 17-18-ish. Okay, which is incredible. And then at what age did you try and do the sugar baby? A couple years after that. Okay. So pretty similar. It's like same time zone. Right. Because it probably to, you know, a lot of people, especially around that age where you're just trying to find your way and your path in life to travel around and have, you know, a wealthy man kind of just like take care of you. And, you know, you don't know at that point what that is going to entail or what that looks like. It just sounds like, well, this is the perfect opportunity, right? Like, why wouldn't I kind of thing? You get to see the world. Somebody's taking care of you. You're going to go on these fancy. you know private jets or whatever you're doing um so i think that that's probably appealing to a lot of people in that um regardless of mental health issues i think that would sound appealing to a lot of people at that age or other ages too you know so how did you take those steps where you said i'm going to do this and then how did that happen for you yeah so it started with a flat tire um i was driving and you know flat tires happened whatever and

I ended up meeting a whole new tire because my tire was so worn. And I looked at my bank account after I bought the tire and I had less than $100 in my bank account. Like I was broke. I was flat broke. I had just started my business. Revenue was not really coming in. I had a couple clients that I expected to come in that didn't. And so I was about two weeks from having my next set of bills do it the first of the month. And I was like, I can't pay this. You know, I've been trying to find part-time jobs before that. Nothing was working. And I was like, I need money and I need money now. and so I kind of started looking into the world of sex work, which, I mean, if a woman chooses to do that, that's totally fine. That's her prerogative. It's not a good fit for me. But I started

looking into that. And with my history of relational trauma and the way that I've used my body in the past, I was like, that gave me a panic attack. I was like, I cannot do this. And I kind of started reading up on that. And then this concept of sugar baby and came up. And there are, this is a crazy thing about this, the way that they market it. There are so many articles on there about college students who make thousands of dollars a month from being a sugar baby and they don't have any physical intimacy with their sugar daddies. I was like, okay, so I go out to dinner. I go on a couple dates and they pay my bills. I'm like, cool, I can do this. Like that I can do. The main kind of website for that is this site called seeking arrangements. And so I was like,

okay, it's free to sign up, whatever. So I signed up, made a profile. I'm super academic. And so they had all these articles about like, how to make your profile stand out. So I followed all these little tips to make my profile stand out and whatever. And I started having conversations with some of these guys. And some of them are nice. Like there's some nice guys on there. But the expectation of physical intimacy was the overwhelming majority of what was happening. You know, I mean, I'd get some guys that would message me and they'd say something like, oh, I'm looking for this, that, and the other thing. And I'd say, okay, you know, you mentioned that you're looking for physical intimacy in your last relationship. Is that something you're looking for now? And

just that message, I would get comments of like, you're a slut, you're a C word, you're whatever for not sleeping with me right off the bat. And I was like, what? And I ended up getting asked by two different guys to move in with them, one of which was in Montana. He's like, move to Montana and live in my RV and I'll pay you six grand a month. And I was like, no. And it was just these insane expectations right off the bat. And so my idea of dinner and a couple dates turned into like, am I a prostitute? Am I being taken? Like, what is happening here? And so I quickly realized, okay, this is not a good fit for me. This is not where I need to be right now. And it was actually the guy who asked me to move to Montana. The way that he initiated that conversation, he's like,

you have really good writing. I guess my profile had good writing. And he's like, I have a writing project if you want to. And I was like, okay, I can write. Like, I'm a writer. I can do this. And I was like, okay, am I going to be writing some like erotica, like, what am I going to be writing um but I was like okay he's like yeah move to Montana and I was like no I can do this virtually and so I ended up working it out where I wrote podcast episodes for him and it was this crazy story about like drug dealing and money laundering and like all these different things and I was like okay this is kind of crazy story but none of it's hugely illegal or anything like it wasn't really explicit or anything so we get more into the story and I come to find out

that it's his story like he did all of these things and he's this kind of convicted felon and he was in jail for so many years. And I was like, oh my God. But it kind of worked out in the better for the end because him paying me to write those episodes got me through the next month. And then I got some new clients in and everything kind of went up from there. But that like two or three months of my life was absolutely insane and taught me so much about a world that I'm not sure I want to know about. Yeah. Okay, I know that you all have been wearing sweatpants and PJs the majority of this year like myself. But it's time to do a quick little closet refresh. and your first stop and stepping up your wardrobe game needs to be Express. Express is all new

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And now you can text Vine to 397-737 to receive $25 off your purchase. I'm just, I'm curious. Okay, so this guy clearly is a felon and then now he's, you know, starting this podcast. and he's on this site that wants to hire sugar babies, which, by the way, I don't know how I didn't know how I didn't know, like, sugar daddy or sugar mom, I didn't know there's like, okay, it makes sense, but is that, is that legal? Technically, yes. I would have to pay taxes on the income that came in, but I was essentially a freelance writer. He hired me as a freelance writer. If he had hired me to write for him and sleep with

him, that would be illegal. But because that was not part of our quote contract, then yes, it was legal. Right. And so you only did this for a few months and realized, like, it wasn't for you. And what was in the first, like, week or two that I was like, this is not for me. But I was also like, my bank account is empty. So we did end up paying you. They did go through with pain what they said. Okay. I'll least there's that. But that's so, okay, so because of that, it kind of, like, what are some of the biggest lessons you learn from that that you would want? to share. The biggest thing is kind of this whole, I guess two big things, the first of which is related to desperation. And I was talking to one of my friends, like, right before I took the dive

into this whole world. I wasn't giving him specifics. I was just talking about like, oh, money is tight, whatever. And he said something that really resonated with me. He said that your morals and your values should never change, but the execution of them can look different depending on what your life looks like at the time. And I was like, oh my God, yes, I can still be, you know, I can still have integrity. good person. I can still have my goals, but I just might have to do something that I'm not quite comfortable with in order to make those goals happen or make those morals stay true. And I think that that's something that's really important is when you as a human that is listening to this get into a desperate time, don't put anything off the table. Like if there were things

that you thought you're like, oh, I'm never going to invest in that course or, oh, I'm never going to ask this person for help or whatever that is, don't write those things off just because they weren't things you would have done before. If you get to a point where you do them and you look back and you're like, my God, that was a horrible decision, don't feel shame about that either because you did what you had to do to survive. And I guess the second big lesson that I would take away from this is that self-worth is something that is so critical and so under-respected. Like, it really taught me how easy it is for a woman in society to be sexualized and to be seen as an object for pleasing men, especially when you're in relationships like that. Like, it's kind of a bummer because

some of these guys I went on a couple like dinner coffee date things get to meet you things and some of these guys have daughters that were my age and I was like and I'm I'm supposed to sleep with you knowing that you have a daughter my age and you know now when I walk down the street I see some guy who's in their 50s or 60s and I just in the back of my head I'm like is he looking at me that way is he thinking about what I look like with my clothes off and it just it was insane and kind of counteracting that desperation piece but also the same thing with that is like you are really worth everything. You are worth your dreams. You are worth respect. You are worth everything you want in life. And just because you might have to do something that is uncomfortable that you wouldn't

have done before doesn't mean you deserve to be disrespected because of that. So women that choose to go into sex work or women that choose to be sugar babies and love it, go for it. But that does not mean that the men have a right to disrespect you as you're in that line of work. Oh, amen. Yes. I love that because obviously that could make some people happy or that could be, you know, like the path that they're on and that we just don't know, you know, so many sides of things. But having respect for yourself and not letting people treat you a certain way, like having those morals and values is obviously the most important thing in the world. Like when you would, when you would go to dinner or coffee, would they talk about like their daughter or their

relationships or like, did they want to talk about you? Or what was it like? Yeah, it was like a really awkward first date, I guess. So one of the guys that specifically had a daughter who was my age, some of his profile pictures on the site were of him and his daughter. And so of course I kind of like brought it up as a conversation starter because I don't know what else to say. So I was like, oh, I see your daughter rides horses because I ride horses too, you know, whatever. And then he just went off about his daughter and I was like, oh, okay, this is really interesting. But most of the conversations were kind of the standard get to know you stuff, whatever. And then most of the guys end up being very direct and being like, so you want to be a sugar baby? What do you want out of

this relationship? Like in the middle of public, in the middle of like a coffee shop. And I was like, oh, Jesus. Yeah, just like calm down a little bit. Um, most of the conversations that I had, if they were rude, at least they were honest, like they said what they were looking for. They wanted a 20-something woman to sleep with. And, you know, at least they were honest about that. But yeah, it was very openly discussed and not discreet in the slightest for most conversations. And did you suffer other trauma in your life, or was that a pretty traumatic thing for you to go through? I definitely had some trauma before that, namely my boyfriend in high school attempted suicide, and I was the one that called the police to stop him and ended up being there for the aftermath and things like that.

I had mental health struggles myself kind of before and after that event, but that was pretty much like the formative trauma of my life. And in that relationship were some of those things that I mentioned with like issues with intimacy and feeling like I was an object and things like that. And then to have that background and then go into this world, it just ramped so much of that back up again. Of course. That makes, I mean, that makes so much sense. Okay. Everyone is always talking about how busy and stress they are. And I feel like that's pretty much just the norm these days. We all have so much going on in our lives. Anxiety and exhaustion are just pretty much expected at this point. But that's not what life's about and we need to make sure we take some time for ourselves and our wellness.

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Yeah, definitely. It started with that conversation piece, like I mentioned previously. It was just having conversations with people and seeing how much they were impacted positively by me opening up about my stories. And it was really the same thing that I said at the beginning. If I can get up on a stage and talk about my mental health struggles, maybe that will give someone else the courage to reach out for help or say that they're struggling

or help their friend and give them the tools that they need. And so I just started speaking to larger and larger groups. And like you said, I do speak mostly on college campuses now, which is fantastic because that is the age at which I was struggling. That is the age at which you're kind of stepping out into the world on your own. And how do you handle this? How do you handle it when your friend comes up to you and says that they're struggling? So I love doing that.

And then I actually wrote a book about trauma healing as well, which talks about different natural and integrative therapies that basically aren't talk therapy. So for me, after that relationship in high school, I went to one day of talk therapy. And I was so uncomfortable with the thing that I literally ran out of the building and I never went back to therapy. Really? And yes, like actually ran, like hit in the bathroom and then ran out of the building because I was so uncomfortable with it. And I truly believe that my journey would have been a lot smoother and a lot better and a lot quicker to heal if I would have had that professional support. So I started thinking I was like, like, okay, especially in populations like military communities, first responder communities of which

I'm a part of, I was like, they don't want to go to talk therapy. There's so much stigma around that, but there has to be other ways to heal. And that kind of led me to all these different therapies like equine assisted therapy, ecotherapy, dance movement therapy, different things like that. And so I wrote that book as kind of the guide to everything I wish I knew when I was struggling. Like if I would have had that, I think I would have made it out a lot better than I did. And that's kind of where I'm at now is writing and speaking and just really trying to break down that stigma about mental health. I think it's so incredible, one that you're doing that, but two, that colleges are having you come and speak about those kinds of important subjects because the school system is so weird,

in my opinion, you know, like the things that they teach and what you'll use and all that, I've talked about it on another podcast before where it's just like we should be talking about mental health and we should be normalizing it and we should be talking about how to pay taxes and like real things that really matter in life so i love that colleges are starting to bring in people like you to have those kinds of conversations because gosh how important and like you said if you would have had those tools and somebody to look up to or talk to about that when you were that age it probably would have helped you you know i mean you're on the right path now but it would have helped guide you in a different way but um i mean i just like that you're doing different

kind of therapies too because people are intimidated to walk in you know they always picture that I lay down on a couch. I cry to my therapist and I have to talk through everything. And people don't want to talk through everything sometimes. So to introduce different forms of therapy is just, I'm sure that you've seen for other people, it's been super helpful. Because some of the therapies also involve animals. I'm a huge dog.

I see your dog back there and I'm like, can you talk a bit about using animals to help heal trauma? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things is interesting about trauma is that it has a very somatic piece. So it's not something that just happens in your brain and you remember it in your brain. You hold it in your body as well. So in talk therapy, when you're sitting there and having a very cognitive discussion about your trauma, you're completely missing that somatic piece. So there's kind of three, there's more than three, but there's three core elements to these natural and integrative therapies that are really helpful for trauma. One of which is the incorporation of nature, because nature is so incredibly powerful in healing, move. to help release that somatic piece, and then animals because of their intuition. So the two main therapies that I researched, and that as far as I know are the two main ones out there for animal therapy are canine-assisted therapy and equine-assisted therapy. So dogs and horses. And canine-assisted therapy is basically the use of dogs in talk therapy, so they're used as

ice-breakers. You can pet the dog. You can move with the dog. You can breathe with the dog. They help pace the therapeutic process. They're very comforting. I mean, I would imagine maybe you're the same way as me, but when I go to a party. If there's a dog at the party, I'm in the corner talking to the dog and like ignoring all the

people. Yeah. So they're just, they're really relatable and interactive like that. And then horses are able to model both hypervigilance because they're a prey animal and groundedness because they're part of a herd at the same time. And when someone has a trauma, they're often very hypervigilant. They can't calm down. They think everything is scary. And so horses and the way that they interact and the way that you can move them can serve as really powerful metaphors in the healing process. One thing I love about equine assisted therapy as well is you are on a farm and your therapist is in boots and overalls like you're rolling around the dirt. It is not this formal line on a couch therapy like you were talking about. So it's much more approachable for a lot of different

people. Right. I think especially for people who go through serious trauma, like to put themselves back in that position and relive it and just casually talk through it doesn't obviously. work for some people. That's, I didn't even know that was a thing, to be honest with you. Obviously, I know about therapy dogs or like, you know, I know about that, but I didn't realize that you could have, like the therapist is there to help you ride horses and go through that kind of thing. That's, that's actually really cool. I like that. Do you ride horses and that kind of thing for therapy? So I don't ride for therapy. And actually, most of the therapeutic riding is done on the ground. It helps a lot of people who have maybe occupational disabilities or things like that. But it also,

also means that there's no barrier of entry. So if you have to know how to ride a horse in order to do this therapy, that's going to eliminate a lot of people. So in one of the forms of B-Kine assisted therapy, it's like you're on the ground, you're moving the horses, setting the scene, you might be sitting on the horse and feeling its breath underneath you and things like that. So it's not as much like galloping across the field and jumping over things as traditional riding. But, no, I'm definitely horsey. I grew up around horses. I was a trek leader and taught horse camp and things like that. So I love horses for therapeutic healing, but also just for normal emotional healing as well yeah that's i always my whole life i begged my mom to have a horse

i would always just want to move to a farm so i could have horses i'll want off that i asked for a unicorn every year for christmas when i was a kid and i was heartbroken that santa never brought me a unicorn so oh my gosh when you find out that unicorns weren't real i think after i found out that santa claus wasn't real i think i still held on that believe in unicorn and then realized i was like santa hasn't brought me a unicorn i'm now 14 years old Maybe unicorns don't exist. That's a tough realization, I understand. It was bad.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866 531, 2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Volume 70 proof. We'll be right back with more off-divine, grape therapy. Tell you, a little chico pit-pool, Mr. 305, but I said, Mr. Worldwide, Armandito Gritian Perez, I had to use the real name. Why, because now it's the podcast. From negative to positive, which you can catch on.

Apple Podcast, Podcast One, and Spotify. Flow to the Rider. I don't even know if you know how much they play you around the road or anywhere, my brother. No matter how much bread we make, dog, we can't take it with us. No matter how many houses, cars, whatever we acquire, can't take it with us. With that said, anything we make is always to give back, dog. Why are we starting a podcast? Well, it's real simple.

With the times that we're living in right now in the world, I think you need to be motivated, inspired, educated, aware, positive. So what I'm here is just to motivate the world and let them know when we talk, we call a spade to spade. So you're going to hear the truth. So I look forward to the podcast. I look forward to showing y'all,

teaching y'all how to take it from a negative to a positive, so get ready. From negative to positive, which you can catch on. Apple Podcast, Podcast, Podcast One, and Spotify. Now back to Off the Vine, Great Therapy. I wanted to just go back to your book for a second because obviously we want people to order it because it's so important. But I know it talks about how you wish you knew when you were struggling with your mental

health, kind of what we talked about early, things you wanted to know. And I know you touched on that, that that's what is in the book. But could you just share like some of the things that you think people can do to get started to heal their trauma and address their mental health? Definitely. The very first thing that I would say, and this is kind of cliche, but it was really the pivotal moment for me, is that you have to accept that that trauma was a part of your life. I spent, like I said, years just denying that part of myself. I didn't want to talk about

it. I didn't want to think about it. I was pushing it aside and then trying to grow and develop and go to school and start a business over here. And it wasn't working. And I was like, oh, maybe if I put my whole self into this, maybe if I accept all of myself and love all of myself, then I can grow and move on like I want to. So you're not broken because you've gone through a trauma. You are not weak. You are not struggling. You just have some needs that are not met right now. And if you can acknowledge that makes asking for help and going to therapy and getting that support so, so much easier. The second big takeaway that I would mention is that I really do think that professional help is necessary. Your friends and family members are fantastic and they should absolutely

be involved in the healing process, but there's a different skill set with therapists, and they are a very unbiased person in your life that has no investment in your personal life. And so, you know, you're not going to see them at family dinner. You don't have to censor what you say to them. You can be completely open and honest, and they can hold that space for you very, very well. Especially with trauma, I actually, this is a story that one of the therapists I interviewed told me. There are like these crazy dance parties for healing that pop up in city sometime. And she had a client that went to one of them and actually started dissociating in the middle of this dance party thing. And the person who was leading it had absolutely no ideas.

They were like, yeah, go get it. And this person was dissociating and completely going backwards in their journey because they didn't have that professional help to recognize and hold the space for them. So not that everyone's going to go to a dance party and associate, but just make sure that you have someone in your life that is unbiased and trained and it can help hold that space for you, whichever therapeutic method you want to go down. Right. I'm all over the place right now because now I'm jumping back even more. When you said something about like make sure, you know, people know, when you talk about going on that site and looking into being a sugar baby, Now, people listening might think, well, she ended up making money and she didn't, you know, and she had her morals and values.

So what would you say to people who do want to go down that route and look into that right now? The biggest thing I would say is just know what you're getting into. Do not go into it with the expectation that it's going to be a platonic relationship because it is not, do not go into it with the expectation that these are going to be really sexy 50 year olds that have six packs and no kids. and like, no, it is the doctor, it is the lawyer, it is the fireman down the street that is on this site. And so you need to go into this, aware of that. Like I said, if you want to do that, go for it. I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life, but just know what you're getting into because that, like, shock and awe was terrifying for me. Right. And, like, I just worry about those people, like the way that you were verbally abused from it, how because you didn't want

to do what you weren't expected to do, you got verbally abused. and that I think would be something to consider too when looking into that like it's it you know it's not did you have to sign anything no okay there wasn't even like an id upload to make sure that I was over 18 what the one thing that they did do was you got like a boosted profile if you put in your school email address because they marketed to college students they have this whole like sugar baby university thing and there's some four and a half million college students around the world that use this to try to pay for college. So you get like a boosted profile with your student email. That's wild. I'm shocked that they don't make you sign anything. So what would happen

if like you, you know, you went into it thinking it's going to be a certain way. You got verbally abused. You felt like you weren't in control of it. What if you went to their family or something and said something? Like that's just that I'm sure that happens. I imagine it would. I mean, I used a fake name, a fake email address. I used a picture that was never posted anywhere else on the internet in case someone wanted to like reverse image search it. But some of these guys didn't. Like they used their real names. They would lay down their credit card at dinner and I could see the full name right there. They invite you over to their house. Like I have some guys's physical addresses. So I think it's a risk they run unless you want to do it completely in secrecy,

which I ended up doing. It's just wild to me how that, you know, like you were saying it, it's a doctor. It's a fireman down the street. Like you wouldn't You wouldn't picture that as the type to be on there trying to do that. All right, wait. I have to tell you guys something. So the other day I was wearing the cutest new white shirt, feeling great about it. Next thing you know, spilled on myself. Way to go, Caitlin.

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for yourself. To work your magic with OxyClean, go to OxyClean.com slash try me and order a free sample. That's oxyclean.com slash T-R-Y-M-E for a free stain-fighting sample while supplies last. How do you move forward trusting people when you've gone through something traumatic? Honestly, it's really, really hard. And that's what I said about like, I see a middle-aged guy walking down the street. I wonder if he's picturing me naked. I don't know if I'd get in an elevator alone with a middle-aged guy right now. Like, it has not been long enough from that where I can start to trust again. It's really hard. It's a slow, I don't really have a good answer for that because after that I don't yet.

Like I don't trust the way that I did before I went on that site. I mean, that makes complete sense. So what, where are you at in healing and what are you doing for yourself to, because I know you helped so many people and you have such a great message and what heals you or what makes you, what's therapeutic for you? I really do enjoy spending time outdoors and with my dog. My dog and I are actually a canine search and rescue team together. so we are pretty much attached to this.

So we spend a lot of time together. And I'm just really prioritizing myself right now. Like I am hearing what I need and not thinking as much about, okay, how do I make other people happy? How do I, you know, keep this relationship working or whatever? It's like, what do I need? What is going to carry me through? And if I do feel uncomfortable, I back out.

You know, even if it seems silly, even if it's like another 20-something guy that's like, hey, let's grab coffee in the middle of this public park. If my gut says no, I get out. And I think just it's learning to trust myself again. that I can make good decisions, then I can keep myself safe. That's really been the biggest journey. As far as where I'm at right now, I'm so much better than I was, but I definitely still look at that and I look at, you know, I have some friends that are that are sex workers and

they love it, like they're safe. That's all good, good for them. But I look at what they do and I'm like, I can never do that. Like I could never put myself on display like that. That would just absolutely terrify me. So I'm not there, but I'm getting there and I'm happy with the progress that I've made. Yeah, that's great. I don't know you, but I'm proud of you.

Oh, thank you. I'll take it. I'm going to do a little How to Heal Rapid Fire question with you. Okay. So just favorite chapter or section in your book? The first chapter by far, which is my personal story, that was really the catharsis for me that got me started. And I cried writing the whole chapter, but it just felt so good to be able to put that out into the world and to own that and to say, I've been here. And now here's where I am and let me hold that candle for you.

So that was my first chapter, or my favorite chapter to write. I love that. Your personal favorite therapy method of the nine you showcase. Definitely equine assisted therapy because you're outdoors and you're with horses and there's really nothing better in my mind. Yeah. Why is that, like, what do you think? Well, because you, I mean, you explain that they're grounded and they have these different, but do you think, like, do they, I don't know much about horses. So I guess I should just start with that.

Are they known for being healing? Yes, they're very intuitive. They're known for having that relationship with people. And just to illustrate this, this is, again, a story I was told by another therapist, but there was a woman who walked onto an equine assistant therapy facility and just, like, not for therapy. She was just there. And she was petting this horse in a field and this horse kind of nibbled on her arm. And she's like, oh, it's so cute. Then the horse walked around the field, came back, kind of bit her arm a little bit harder. She's like, oh, wow, he really loves me. Walked around the field again, came back and chomped on this woman's arm. And she's like, ow, that hurts. And she got thinking and she's like okay it's love it's a lot of love it's pain and then was able to open up about her abusive relationship with her husband and that horse somehow knew that she was going through something like that knew how to display that to her and get her to open up to the therapist there so i'd say they're definitely healing like maybe bordering on magical a little bit yeah totally wow no I want a horse even more that's crazy um my girlfriend brandy cyrus she has horses and ponies and things on her farm and i'm just i i don't know why i haven't made the time because every time every weekend we're like

oh we need to get together and ride the horses and i'm like it's just something that i've only done twice and i love so so much and now this whole conversation is making me want to go out there and really do that yeah it's amazing i spent i think the first the first time I was on a horse, I was nine years old, and we were preparing to go on this horse pack trip in British Columbia, which is four days riding a horse and camping. So I was like, okay, we've got to take the lessons beforehand. So my family and I took all these lessons, and I just fell in love. Like, if you put me on a horse farm and it's like, you can't leave for a year, I'd be like

totally fine, totally okay. That's awesome. Okay, biggest misconception when it comes to mental health. That it's something to be ashamed of, that it's something that's wrong with you. I mean, a mental illness, like PTSD or depression or whatever, it's just like you broke your leg or you got cancer. It's just something that is chemically or physically wrong in your brain. It doesn't mean that you're any less of a person or that it's something you have to hide. Wouldn't you even say that the majority of people do have mental health issues? Absolutely.

It's something like one and four people will be diagnosed with a mental illness and 70% of Americans will experience a trauma in their lifetime. So you're definitely not alone if you're struggling with something like that. Yeah, absolutely. what's your go-to self-care routine or habit you make time for every day? Those are two different answers. My go-to self-care routine is generally crying because I think it is incredibly cathartic and it just like gets it all out and then you can start fresh. And my self-care routine that I make time for every day is I do a 10-minute meditation

before I go to bed that is like this nature visualization and affirmation thing. But I love that. I love meditation too. Why am I blanking on the first thing you said? Oh, crying. it's something cleansing about crying there really is it's just i always try and say that to jason i'm like you need to cry like you're allowed it's there's something about it where you know what i i don't cry as much as i used to but i had a really actually it was just a couple days ago i had a

really um uh i don't know what to call it like a breakdown but it was so interesting because it was over something um very like shallow uh but i was able to recognize what it was really about and it was that i'm just so nervous to go on to go to l.A and go on dancing with the stars i'm having all this like reoccurring like weird feelings from being on tv before and what i went through in that time and it was like all these really weird things that were coming up but it came out and like i wasn't happy with my hair or something stupid like that and all these other things came out and I was like hyperventilating crying and couldn't pull it together and realized it was all these other things. So I just let myself sob. I just sobbed and sobbed and like after I just smiled and

was like, God, that feels better. And I had a shower and then I had one of the best sleeps of my life. Yes. A hundred percent yes to everything you just said. I mean, crying is one of those things that if you're just like, screw it, I got to let it out and you just go for it and get everything out. You can wake up or wake up from your crying episode, but like come out the other side. and just be so refreshed and able to mentally sort through everything that's going on. So true. I like that you said that. Okay, huge shout out to Ritual for keeping me on my A game during this extremely busy season of my life

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but they've also tested their formula science-backed. It's not just a buzzword for them. It's a standard. My favorite part about taking ritual other than the fact that it's super easy and comes straight to me is that their vitamins are designed to be gentle on an empty stomach. So I've had some bad experiences in the past taking pills or vitamins with that nasty aftertaste. makes me gag thinking about it. Ritual has a mint essence tab in every bottle which makes the vitamins actually taste pleasant and refreshing. For obsessive label readers like I can be sometimes, ritual uses vegan certified non-GMO, gluten-free and allergen-free ingredients, and their sources are out there for the whole world to see. Daily changes can lead to big

results, so start small today. Ritual is offering my listeners 10% off your first three months. Try it out, satisfaction guaranteed. Go to ritual.com slash fine to start your ritual. today. That's 10% off during your first three months at ritual.com slash fine. What's your favorite reader feedback you've received? So I've had one of my advanced copy readers, one of my people on my launch team, and she's someone that I knew, and she was almost attacked while she was running. And this man came up behind her and tried to grab her. And she was like, oh, yeah, I'm fine, whatever sort of thing. And she went on. And she read my book. And she wrote me this essay of a Facebook comment that

essentially was all the different times that she saw herself in my book and was like, oh, now I understand that part about myself. Now I understand why I feel this way, why I have reacted in this way, why these feelings are coming up. She's like, I've never understood that. I just thought I was broken. I just thought I was crazy or weak or whatever. And now reading this, I feel like I understand myself so much better. And I, I mean, talk about crying. I was sitting there crying reading that because she's both a close friend of mine, but also that feedback was just incredible. So that would probably be the favorite thing that I've gotten. Yeah, of course. And I mean, I'm just, I love that you open up and I love that you reached out and shared that

story and I love that you've used experiences in your life to, to put you in a position to help other people. I think, I think that's kind of why people go through things sometimes is because you're strong enough to get through it and then be able to help other people. So just thank you for what you do and tell everybody where they can find your book and where they can find you. Absolutely. So I'm on Instagram at Jesse Beyer International. That's J-E-S-S-I-Bi-Z-V-E-Y-E-R international. I'm sure that can be linked somewhere if you don't want to remember how to spell that.

And then my book is Amazon Barnes & Noble all over the place, but Amazon's probably the easiest. And it's how to heal Jesse Beyer. That's so cool. How did you just one last question that I just thought of? How did you get into, you know, signing a book deal? Did you just put something together and like, like, or did you, oh, you're a good writer. I remember, you said that's a good writer. Self-attested good writer.

Is that something you've always wanted to do? Yeah. I mean, pretty much from the time I could pick up a pencil. I was writing. I remember I was in first grade and my teacher gave us these like, stapled together packets of paper and was like, go write a book. And I think I went through like 20 of those packets. I just kept writing and writing and writing.

So I knew it was going to happen someday. But, yeah, the publishing process is kind of interesting because I wrote, the manuscript and was like, okay, I have to get a traditional publisher. Like, that's the only way I'm going to make it sort of deal. And I queried, I think, 90 different literary agents and no one would pick it up. They're like, your audience is too small. You don't have 100,000 followers. Like, you are just this tiny, tiny fish in a huge sea. So I was like, okay, well, I can shelve this for like three years and then try to publish it again after I build up my audience. But I was like, this is too timely. This is too important. I don't want to just sit it there. So I ended up

self-publishing it actually, which worked out really well because 50% of the profits in my book are donated to my favorite charity, which is the Pararescue Foundation. And so with self-publishing, I get to keep more of the profits and therefore donate more of the profits. So it all worked out best in the end. Oh, that's awesome. It always works out the way it's supposed to, doesn't it? That's incredible. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing your story and see what it gets you when you, you know, not the like, oh, you're welcome for being on my podcast. I mean like in ways where like you didn't take no for an answer with the book you're you're the kind of person that knows your message is important and you know the way to get to reaching people so um so just thank you for coming on today and I really appreciate it yeah well thank you for having me it was really good to talk with you of course okay well thank you know bye bye all right it's time to sip sip hooray So one of my vinoes, Amanda, sent me the cutest article about an incredible 13-year-old boy

who is making bow ties for shelter animals to help them get adopted. It's adorable. He actually started this business at just 11 years old, and you can follow along with him and his journey on Instagram at S-I-R-D-R-I-U-S-Brown. Darius, we love what you're doing. Keep up the amazing work, and can't wait to see where you go. Keep sending the stories to my Off the Vine Instagram page because I love reading these. I'm Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now ending.

Thanks for listening to Off the Vine, Grape Therapy. Tune in to hear new mini-sodes every Thursday and check out new full-length episodes every Tuesday exclusively on Podcast 1.com, the Podcast 1 app, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Thank you.