The Daily Signal - 'Do the Next Right Thing': Tips on Coping With Anxiety

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

The early days of the pandemic were marked by lockdowns, masks, and social distancing. Each imposed restriction further eroded normal socialization, leading many Americans to sink into anxiety and depression. Jon Seidl, author of the new book "Finding Rest: A Survivor's Guide to Navigating the Valleys of Anxiety, Faith, and Life," had his own mental health struggles brought on by the rise of COVID-19. "I'll never forget where I was about that time in March," says Seidl, who has obsessive compulsive disorder and recalls how his "anxiety just raged." Seidl joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss his book and offer Americans some hope in pushing through on their mental health problems. We also cover these stories: President Joe Biden gets his third dose, or “booster,” of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. The Department of Homeland Security presents a new rule to revise the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA. Homicides rose by about 30% last year, the FBI says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, September 28th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. Mental health can be an incredibly difficult topic to talk about. During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown measures, masks, and social distancing caused spikes in mental health crises and anxiety. On today's episode of the Daily Signal podcast, we're joined by John Seidel, author of the new book, Finding Rest, a survivor's guide to navigating the valleys of anxiety, faith, and life. He joins the show to discuss his mental health struggles during the pandemic and offer advice on how we can live a happier, more mentally stable life. And don't forget, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

Now onto our top news. Homicides rose by 30% in 2020, according to data from the FBI. This marks the largest increase in homicide. deaths on record from one year to the next. The FBI began tracking homicide numbers from year to year in the 1960s. In 2020, there were 21,570 reported homicides. The homicide rate contributed to an overall 5% increase in violent crimes in 2020, but nonviolent crime fell by 6% last year. The largest age group of victims and offenders involved in these violent crimes. were between the age of 20 and 29.

During a live Monday event at the White House, President Joe Biden received his third dose, or booster shot, of the Pfizer-COVID-19 vaccine. Biden made remarks on the safety of the vaccine as well as boosters and encouraged more Americans to get vaccinated. Here's the president via NBC News. You're safe and we're going to do everything we can to keep it that way with the boosters. But let me be clear. Boosters are important.

But the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated. The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Over 77% of adults have gotten at least one shot. Biden continued his remarks by criticizing unvaccinated Americans and vowing to mandate vaccines wherever he had the power to do so. About 23% haven't gotten any shots. And that distinct minority is causing an awful lot of. of us a lot of damage for the rest of the country. This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

That's why I'm moving forward with vaccination requirements wherever I can. While the president was adamant that booster shots were a good idea for some Americans, the science surrounding them is contentious. Last Friday, CDC director, Rochelle Willinsky overruled an independent advisory panel by recommending a third dose for Americans 18 to 64 with high risk for COVID at work. Per stat news, panel member Pablo Sanchez expressed his concern with the amount of people the panel was recommending receive the booster shot, saying, we might as well give it to everybody. The CDC's current booster recommendation policy only applies to people initially vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and not those with the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson shots.

The Biden administration is taking action to protect illegal immigrants who are brought to America as children or teens. Today, the Department of Homeland Security is presenting a new rule to revise the deferred action for childhood arrivals program, also known as DACA. The program is being changed and revamped after a federal court ruling this summer determined that the program was illegal. The new DACA program is very similar to the last, but has a few provisions to guard it from future legal issues.

The new rule gives six. 60 days for legal review of the DACA program and for public feedback. But the core of the program remains the same. DACA recipients will be protected from deportation and allowed to work within the U.S. recipients of DACA must reapply for the program every two years. 600,000 people have been approved for DACA since former President Barack Obama created the program in 2012. A federal judge ruled Monday that John Hinckley Jr., better known as the who shot and wounded President Reagan in 1981 can be unconditionally released from a series of restrictions next June.

Hinkley, now 66, has been living with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, since 2016. Following Hinkley's failed assassination attempt, he was confined to St. Elizabeth's mental hospital in the nation's capital for nearly 35 years. In his ruling removing the restrictions on Hinkley, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said, if he hadn't tried to kill a president, he would have been released unconditionally a long time ago, per Fox News. In a statement praising Judge Friedman's decision, Hinkley's lawyer, Barry Levine, said Hinkley's mental disease is in full, stable, and complete remission, and has been so for over three decades. He then added that, I would hope people would be able to see this as a victory for mental health.

People who have been ravaged by mental disease with good support and access to treatment can actually become productive men. members of society per CNN. Now stay tuned for my conversation with John Seidel as we discuss his new book, Finding Rest, a Survivor's Guide to Navigating the Valleys of Anxiety, Faith, and Life. Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000 and 2 million times every year. But God forbid that my mother has ever faced with a scenario where she has to stop a threat to her life. But if she is, I hope politicians, protected by professional armed security, didn't strip her of the right to use the firearms she can handle most competently.

To watch the rest of Heritage expert Amy Swearer's testimony on assault weapons before the House Judiciary Committee head to the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel. There you'll find talks, events, and documentaries, backed with the reputation of the nation's most broadly supported public policy research institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe and share. Our guest today is John Seidel. Founder and president of the Veritas Creative, a digital media consulting and content creation firm,

as well as author of the upcoming book, Finding Rest, a Survivor's Guide to Navigating the Valleys of Anxiety, Faith, and Life, which releases on September 28th. John, thank you so much for joining us. I am so, so excited to be here with you, Doug, and thank you for having me. Yeah, well, very excited to have you on the show as well. So I wanted to start out a little bit with your story. So on your website, you're very open with the fact that you have anxiety issues and OCD. Would you better tell our listeners a brief timeline of your story to finding your diagnosis and then how you've learned to live with your mental health struggles? Yeah.

So, you know, I think growing up, I always realized there was something a little different about me. You know, I would get kind of stuck on things, if you will, that, you know, quote unquote, normal people wouldn't get stuck on, right? Like thoughts or ideas or struggles that would just continue to kind of plague me. I think there was this general kind of baseline of where I would feel like if you've been to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, you know, where you're kind of like on the edge of this cliff and that feeling of when you're looking down and you're like, oh my gosh, this could go bad at any moment. that was kind of my baseline. And so, you know, I was talking to someone the other day. I said, I have no idea how I made it through high school and college. And I went to college in New York City, right, at the King's College where, you know,

the kind of mecca, if you will, of rush and hurry and anxiety. And so I got married. And the first few years of my marriage were just so. so difficult. And, you know, that's not abnormal, right? But it just kind of got to a point where the little things that I couldn't get over were really taking a toll on my wife and our marriage. And there was this one episode where we were living in a loft in downtown Dallas and there's kind of this cool, hip coffee shop underneath. And we decided to go for a walk. We were going to walk downtown on a Saturday morning.

and I said, all right, babe, if you could please get the coffee and I'm going to run to the restroom. And by the way, remember, I hate Splenda. Or excuse me, yeah, I hate Splenda. Please don't put Splenda in my coffee. I think it tastes like dirty sock water. So you know that Splenda is not sponsoring this podcast. And I'm a sweet and low guy. I like the pink.

Give me the pink packets. And so I returned from the bathroom. I take a sip of my coffee and I almost spit it out. And it's, they're splendid in it. And it was just, it's one of those little things that's just so simple that, and I just couldn't get over it. And not like, you know, there's just, if you have anxiety or OCD, like people listening will understand something small like that,

just ruining your entire day. And if you love someone who has anxiety and OCD, that will sound very familiar. And so I got to that point. And, you know, it was either later that day or the next morning, you know, I'm sitting across from my wife who is just broken. I mean, she's just sobbing and saying, like, listen, I'm in this for the long haul, right? Like, we did our vows and we are going to stay married, but I need to know if, like, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like? And if so, like, John, you need to get help.

Like, this isn't normal. And I think seeing someone that you love so much just sitting across from you, and I was working in the news business at the time. And so, you know, there was a lot of things kind of contributing to this overall. anxiety and I just said you're right I got to get help and so I got help I I made a psychiatry appointment and got into the first the first one I could find and I kind of I go in there and I explain everything that's happened that's going on I mean if we do things out of order it drives me crazy I mean if I send an email to my boss I read it 50 times and he goes you know well this is a pretty simple one you have GAD generalized anxiety disorder with OCD and

OCD is a type of anxiety. It's kind of a subset. And it was one of actually, you know, the most freeing days of my life. And there are some people who are like, I don't understand why, how is that a freeing moment in your life? And it's like, you know, I'm a big proponent. And if you kind of, you know, read the Bible, you see that like naming things gives you power over them. You kind of know what to fight. You know what to, what to, you know, how to battle it. Right. I mean, you see that back in the Genesis story, right? God gave a man the job of naming the animals, and it kind of was this signal that they have dominion, right? They have dominion over the animals by naming it.

And so, in a sense, my dominion over my diagnosis started that day where I was finally able to name it and know what I was fighting. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I think that that's a really important way to look at it is that this diagnosis, gave you the power over your illness. So on that note, I sometimes feel as if there's a stigma attached to seeking mental health care in America. Sometimes we don't want to express that we need that type of help. Do you find that that's the case kind of overall? And if it is, why do you think that's the case? It's absolutely the case. And I think we even saw that just this summer with the whole Simone Biles thing. You know, it broke my heart, Doug, that, you know, Simone kind of pulling out

and saying, you know, I need to focus on my mental health. Like, here's what's going on. Was met with, it became in some circles like a partisan issue, you know. The wussification of America. This is, you know, people that are just want to just want to quit, you know. And I just was like, you know, that's, that's ridiculous, right? And so that's just a recent example. And I found it in my own life.

And I think that that prevented me for a long time, kind of wanting to tell everyone what was going on, right? When I finally did come out, I wrote this article called, you know, it's time to tell the world my secret. And I told the world my secret, and that was it. And there was some backlash, if you will, from people who just didn't understand, you know, why I would go take medication. You know, I'm a person of faith. Like, do you not have enough faith? and but also the reaction that I got from people who had been suffering in silence for a long time was incredible. And so I think, Doug, that like we are in, we're in a culture and a time where we are seeing people finally be okay with not being okay.

We are seeing people say, like, listen, I'm going to tell you like this is what's going on with me. and there's actually more freedom and power in doing that. And I think as we do that more, I think you're going to see more of these people, the Simone Biles of the world, the Naomi Osaka's, the Dack Prescott's, the quarterback for the cowboys that are doing it. And I think, and I hopefully, you know, I hope we start seeing it more in the political arena. There's this great book that I recommend to people call The First Rate Madness that talks about how some of our best leaders from JFK to Abraham Lincoln,

into Winston Churchill were all people who struggled with mental health and that the fact that when you struggle with mental health you have an outlook on the world that actually is so much better, so much more realistic than the quote unquote normal people like the Neville Chamberlains of the world. And so it's actually a gift. And so I've started seeing it as a gift. That doesn't mean it's something I still don't have to fight, right? But seeing it for it's sometimes it's a good quality. Right. And I think that nobody's going to argue that it's a bad thing to be more aware of your own mental health and to take that into consideration as you proceed through life. So now that we've gotten a bit to know about your particular journey in this, I want to move on to your book. In the book, you kind of talk a little bit about anxiety and bad mental health during the coronavirus pandemic. Obviously, there were stories after stories after stories of people who were suffering these mental health crises as a result. of public health restrictions or, you know, fear of COVID, all of these things that sort of added up to create an environment that was not great for people's mental health. So your book,

Finding Rest, is set against the backdrop of these pandemic-related mental health crises. So with that in mind, what inspired you to write that book now? Why now? Yeah, it's, you know, it's so interesting that I technically actually got the contract for the book. January of 2020 is when I signed the contract to write this book. And so, you know, back then it was, there was, there was a few articles, maybe in the Times or whatnot, talking about this mysterious Chinese virus that was circulating, you know, no, everyone's like, oh, that's just kind of a great, you know, interesting story. I guess not great story, but, you know, interesting story about something that's going on way, way off our shores. But, but when I started writing it, you know, you couldn't help, but

but bring in a lot of the stuff that has been going on that I would just say had been going on, but here we are again, right, where stuff is resurging again. And I think more so than ever, Doug, I am talking to people from all walks of life. I mean, parents, teachers, pastors, CEOs of companies who are coming to me and saying, listen, I never struggled with anxiety. and now I'm like a raging anxietyaholic. Like I don't know what has happened. And so I try to frame it like this.

I back a few years ago, I was taking this big motorcycle trip. I live in Texas now. And we're going to drive down to Big Ben National Park. And so me and my brother-in-law, believe it or not, you have to like practice to ride your motorcycle that long, I learned. And so you have to get used to sitting, you know, on this motorcycle for hours on end without a break. And so we started doing that and I got to the point like one weekend where I got off the motorcycle and man like I had that my back like the skin on my back was just really irritating me

and my wife, you know, I talked to her about she goes, oh, you have a heat rash. I mean it's summer in Texas. You have a heat rash. Yeah, okay, that kind of makes sense. Next day I wake up like it is so bad. Like I'm walking around the house without a shirt on because I can't stand anything to be touching it. And so a couple days later, my buddy and And I were at a church function where we were volunteering to clean up a school before school started. And he can tell that I'm in pain. He goes, hey, are you okay? I said, man, my skin, like, something is going on.

He goes, well, let me see it. So I lift up the back of my shirt. And he goes, oh, he goes, you have shingles. Oh. Like, what? He goes, oh, yeah, I've had it twice. Like, you have the band across, you know, the nerve line in your back. Like, that's shingles.

you need to go to the doctor, sure enough. Like, I'd literally go to the walking clinic that day. The doctor's like, how old are you? And I said, yeah, that's exactly what I thought. She goes, no, you definitely have shingles. And so I tell you that because of this. As you may or may not know, the shingles is the chickenpox virus that has laid dormant in your system since you've had chicken pox. Anyone who's had chicken pox will have the shingles virus inside of them.

and it kind of awakens during times of stress or as you get older as your immune system breaks down, it kind of surfaces. And so that's what, you know, you talk about the backdrop to this book. A lot of people, it's like anxiety has been there, just like the chickenpox virus, right? But then as we've encountered these, you know, these really stressful times, these, you know, the term that we've all heard, unprecedented times, right? it's kind of awakened this anxiety within us that then we don't know what to do with you know and so that's why like the book can hit at a better time if you will for this for people for me to say like hey this is this is what this is what it is that you're going through here are some practical ways to deal with it and by the way if you are a friend or loved one of someone with this here's how

you can help them and and here's how you can can you know talk to them about what's going on and understand it as well. So like you said, the backdrop couldn't be any, any more relevant. And I'm, you know, the early feedback is people are just like, thank you. I'm finally understanding what's going on. Well, that's really good to hear that people are taking it positively. I guess on that note as well, I'm curious what your experience with the pandemic was like. And if there was anything that you took from your book that you kind of found very specifically helped you as you dealt with the mental health issues that came as, of course, of a pandemic-related restrictions and the pandemic itself? You know, Doug, I'll never forget where I was about that time in March.

And, you know, it's still, it was like we just got word that all of a sudden the flight restrictions were in place. And the president was going to be addressing the nation that evening or one of those evenings right around there. and I thought, oh, crap, like this is bad. You know, we were selling our house at the time within days. You know, the buyers pulled out. We were stuck with the house that we thought we were going to sell. We had to pull out of the house that we hadn't accepted offer on. And it was, I had that moment of like where my anxiety just raged, right?

And it was one of those practical. And I was still in the process of writing the book as well. And it was one of those where you kind of have to be like, okay, if you're a doctor, you know, I need to diagnose myself here and realize what this is and kind of take some of the steps that I talk about in the book. And so, you know, the prescription that I gave myself was everything from some practical mental health exercises, practical physical exercises, as well as to, you know, as a person of faith, some of the spiritual stuff that I feel like goes on as a result. But, you know, the other thing that I will say,

that has been just really kind of frustrating to me, and this is on both sides of the aisle, is that one of the things that I feel like, just us anxiety sufferers, as well as those who maybe aren't clinically diagnosed but are finding themselves in this position, is that, Doug, there's just such a lack of hope that we're being offered, I think, from both sides, right?

You have people that are really just, a lot of people dealing in fear and anxiety on a very basic level is fear of the unknown, right? And so what happens is your fight or flight response kicks in. And I talked about being on the edge of that cliff. You don't know what you're going to fall. You're not going to fall. You're going to go here. You're not going to go here.

And so, you know, one of the things, and I have an article coming out soon on this is what I'm hoping that our leaders, all stripes, all political persuasions will do is, please, give us more hope. And I think that's easy when you look at the current administration. It's like, hey, give us more hope. But even on some of the conservatives and Republicans side is don't just counter the fear that's being peddled there with more fear of your own. Like, give us hope.

We have such a deficiency of hope. And so I think that's one thing that as I've reread through the book so many times since writing is that, man, we just need more hope. I think that's such a great message. hope is obviously the thing that keeps you going in a lot of these situations that can seem very dire is if you have hope that things will get better than it keeps you going. Now, one of the things that you've actually mentioned on that note is your faith and how it is such a crucial part of your life. So your website, you write, the book calls to account the church for its historical

treatment of mental health and lays out thoughtful, needed paths for the body of Christ to become a refuge of hope for the anxious. On that note, how do you feel as if the church has dealt with mental health. And then what steps do you think they need to take to either improve that or maintain or what steps do you think the church needs to take? Yeah, it's a great question, and I'm glad you asked it. And I'll start by telling you just a quick story. My niece lived with us last year for a time. And she told me, she said, hey, uncle, can you, I think I just had to like change a turn signal or something so I go and I I open the car door I changed the signal and I turn the car on to make sure it's it's working and and as I turn the car on

there's a check engine light and I said how long has this check engine light been on she goes oh it's I don't know it's been on for a while and I said well why didn't you tell me about it I could have helped you she was well I was just kind of hoping it would go away and and and and Doug, I feel like that's how the church has handled mental health, is that we're not going to address it. We're just kind of pretend it's not there, or if we do kind of recognize it, we're just going to hope it goes away. Right. And I think it's been such a detriment to us. Some of the greatest, I mentioned even some of the leaders earlier, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln, people who struggled with mental health. I mean, one of the greatest Reformation preachers, you know, went through this. And Charles Spurgeon.

And Charles Spurgeon wrote sermons on being full of melancholy, right? And so this is something that's just not going to go away. It's in your pews. And I think the prescription, if you will, and that's one of the chapters of the book, is a prescription for the church, is you have to start by, recognizing it. And part of what I feel like that looks like is I talk about in the book in great detail, not just in the chapter about for the church, but even just as a sufferer, is what I call a proper theology of suffering. And I know that's kind of a heady term, but really it's this

idea of like, how do we deal with suffering? How do we deal with when bad things happen to us, right, that we are struggling with? And, you know, one of my favorite writers of all time, I named my son after him is C.S. Lewis. And I didn't name my son Clive. I feel like that would be a little, but I did name him Jack, as Tolkien called him. But, you know, C.S. Lewis talks a lot about this in the problem of pain for one. And it's like the, you know, pain and difficulty is what God uses. You know, he says it's in this really poetic term. It's the megaphone that God uses to arouse a deaf world. And so what I have tried and to really embrace is that like if I am going through this, it's not, you know, I haven't done anything to, you know, cause this, if you will. I didn't, you know, I didn't, I didn't, you know, go to confession or repent of something, you know, yesterday.

So now I'm being struck down with this or, you know, it's not that I don't have enough faith, you know. But if it's, I'm looking at it as, man, this is, this is God saying, I'm allowing this to happen. and there's a reason that I'm allowing this to happen. And some of those I'm going to reveal to you, you know, and some of them you may not understand fully. But that is what I think the church needs to do a better job of, is preaching and teaching this proper theology of suffering of, like, bad things are going to happen to you.

I mean, if you're a Christian, by the way, like your Christ, Jesus says, you are going to have suffering in this world, you know? And I think that's so antithetical to some of the, you know, feel-good messaging that we get from a lot of preachers these days of just like, hey, everything's going to be all right. And it's like, no, like, you know what? I talk about this in the book. Like, my stepdad and my sister died within, you know, two years of each other. Like, that's not all right, you know, and I don't feel all right about that. But I also know that, like, God is still at work, and I've seen him at work in those instances and in the instances of my own struggle. I think that's really good to be aware that there are going to be struggles in life. It's very difficult to acknowledge those truths, but the moment that you do, it becomes a lot easier to proceed in life with those struggles. Speaking of struggles, one of the things that I found so inspiring in doing some research for this interview was this story about a kidney transplant to a total stranger. So you gave one of your kidneys to a man you had never met. And I just think that's unbelievable.

I would love if you could tell our listeners about this story and why slash what you did. Absolutely. So about two or so years ago, I'm sitting in my office and I see a Facebook post from my dad. And he says, hey, I've got a friend who needs a kidney. And the person that they're looking for needs to have type O. blood. And if you're interested, just literally click on this link and you can kind of sign up and they'll be in touch. And in that moment, like, it wasn't this like, this like should I, shouldn't I, you know, kind of idea because my stepdad actually was a kidney recipient. So growing up,

I was on the other side of my stepdad was going to dialysis three times a week, you know, literally having the life drained out of him. So on a dialysis machine, it takes all of your blood out of you, filters it through a machine, and puts it back. I mean, you're exchanging this old life for new life.

And it's a tiring, tiring process. And I knew what it was like to just wait, you know, to wait and say, is anyone going to sign up? Is anyone going to get tested? And so I literally just went, like, right then and there,

and signed up for the form. and didn't really think about it until that night when my wife, you know, gives me the quintessential, how was your day? I'm like, oh, you know, this meeting, did that. And, oh, by the way, I signed up to be a kidney donor. And she kind of looks at me, she says, excuse me?

I don't recommend signing up to donate an organ without talking to your spouse first. But it did work out. Eventually, that person that I signed up to donate for someone else was in line. and they tested as a match. And so they didn't need me. And so that person had kind of gotten to know different people in the kidney community, so to speak.

She said, hey, there's this guy in Mississippi. He's got five boys. No one has been a match. And not a lot of people have come forward to be tested. Like, would you be willing to at least put your name in the hat just in case you're a match? I said, absolutely. And so long story short, like I get tested for him.

We find out I'm a match, but just as we're about to do the schedule, the surgery, he is someone who has diabetes. He is a black man, which, you know, that diabetes tends to ravage that community even more so. And so his diabetes got so bad that he started to have his toes amputated and then his feet amputated and then his legs amputated. So that put the whole process on hold for about a year. And then finally, once he got healthy enough, they called me back up and said, you're still willing to donate? I said, absolutely, tell me where to go. I flew from Dallas to New Orleans. I met him

two days before the surgery for the first time. And we did the surgery and now he is healthy. They've nicknamed the kidney, him and his wife, who are just a hoot. They nicknamed the kidney, John John. And so I get I get regular text updates about little John John and how John John is doing. And, you know, it's just, you know, you talk about like, why do you do it? And so part of that is my stepdad going through that. And two, it's like, you know, I feel like every one of us has an opportunity to give back. And I don't, I'm not saying that like every person has assigned to be a kidney donor. Although I would highly recommend it in the sense that it's one of the most needed transplants. It's one of the safest. And your life afterwards, and I can attest to this,

is normal afterwards. I mean, I'm completely normal and healthy, right? Wow. But it was just one of those very, just obvious opportunities that I feel like God put in my path to do, and I did it, and it's been one of the best decisions in my life. Ken is now, his name is Ken, he's now able to walk again. He had prosthetics before, but because of the dialysis, he was so. so tired, he could never learn to use his prosthetics. Now he can walk again. For five years, he slept in a recliner because the fluid in his body would build up. And he needed dialysis to take that out. But if he would lay down in bed, he would just swell up. And so now you've got a guy who can walk again, who can finally sleep in his own bed. And I don't say any of that, Doug, like, to make myself

look good. I mean, listen, I'm like not a person. I'm like not a person. perfect person, right? What I tell people is like, if I can do it as like a not perfect person and I have my own crap in life that I am working through and dealing with, but if God can give me that opportunity, he can definitely do something with you. I think that that is a phenomenal story, and I very much commend you for doing that. I think that that shows a strong character that I would hope our listeners would try to emulate. Now, John, we are running a little bit low on time, so I wanted to give you one last question. And that question is, what advice do you have for people who feel they need help with their mental health, whether that's a result of the pandemic or just in daily life?

So I'm going to use some very wise words, and my six-year-old daughter would be so proud of me, is that if you have watched Frozen 2, which if you are a dad to a young girl or a young boy, you probably have, and there's a song in there, and it's called the Next Right Thing. And it's this very beautiful song. And Kristen Bell, who voices Anna, talks about it in there. And she says, you know, it actually came from a lot of personal pain and experience because Kristen Bell deals with anxiety and depression. And so my advice to you is just like Anna in the film is do the next right thing.

Right. I think sometimes I know that, you know, my anxiety, my OCD, I call it the tyranny of the what if. You know, it's like if I cut my finger, like it takes me about 30 seconds to, me like dying of a finger infection and having it amputated, you know? And so like if I break things into smaller steps and just do the next thing, you know, and it's not just a Disney thing, Elizabeth Elliott, the famous missionary, you know, when her husband, Jim, was killed doing missionary work, she adopted this mantra as well when she went back to the jungle. She said, listen, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do. I just got to do the next thing. And so like you

said, if you find yourself in this, you know, anxiety-ridden state, especially as a result of the pandemic, or maybe even before, do the next thing, right? And so what I would encourage is talk to your doctor, talk to a counselor, talk to, you know, whether it's a spiritual person in your life, a spiritual leader in your life, a pastor, or whoever, start talking and find that next step. For some people that's going to the doctor, for some people, it's like, I know I have this, so I need to think about if I need to get on medication or whatever it is, do the next thing. I think that's really, really fantastic advice, John. Well, John, thank you so much.

That was John Seidel, founder and president of the Veritas Creative, a digital media consulting and content creation firm, as well as author of the upcoming book, Finding Rest, a Survivor's Guide to Navigating the Valies of Anxiety, Faith, and Life, which releases September 28th. John, really appreciate you coming on the show. Listen, I really appreciate it, Doug. And if people want to find out more, they can go to find rest now.com.

And that has all the information on the book as well as some other tips and tricks to managing your anxiety. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and have five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

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