The One You Feed - Kevin Breel: Depression and Comedy

Episode Date: September 23, 2015

Kevin Breel is a 21-year-old writer, comedian, and activist for mental health. His work has been featured by NBC, CBS, The Huffington Post, MTV, CNN, The Today Show, Mashable and The Wall Street Journal.  His passionate TEDx talk entitled "Confessions of a Depressed Comic" went instantly viral online- amassing millions of viewers and being featured on more than 200+ media outlets. Mashable called it "one of the moments that brought the world together" and the Huffington Post said the talk was "simply amazing." As a comedian, he’s performed in venues all across the globe; including the House of Blues, Rogers Arena and the historic Colosseum.  As a mental health activist, he's a National Spokesperson for the Bell LET'S TALK Campaign and has been a guest speaker at Ivy League schools and billion dollar companies. His first book, available now, is called Boy Meets Depression: Or Life Sucks and Then You Live Our Sponsor this Week is Spirituality and Health Magazine. Click here for your free trial issue and special offer.  In This Interview Kevin and I Discuss... Still wrestling with depression His viral Ted talk Learning to build the skill set to handle depression Defining our emotional landscape The benefits of waking up early The power and stabilizing force of a routine The importance of honest conversations with others Taking care of the physical body to help with depression Learning to recognize when were taking a turn for the worse and knowing how to respond For more who notes visit our websiteSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world I believe in is one where embracing your light doesn't mean ignoring your dark. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction.

How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us.

Our guest on this episode is Kevin Briel, a 21-year-old comedian and mental health activist. As a 19-year-old, his passionate TEDx talk entitled Confessions of a Depressed Comic went instantly viral online, and it continues to this day to have millions of views. Kevin's new book is called Boy Meets Depression. Hey, everybody. I wanted to let you know about an opportunity to get your freak on with Chris's bad wolf. No, seriously. This weekend, we are recording a podcast interview in front of a crowd.

It's this Saturday in Centerburg, Ohio, which is the geographic center of Ohio, and it's called the Sacred Geo Experience. It's a two-day retreat. There's a lot of different things going on. It's very affordably priced. We There's a lot of different things going on. It's very affordably priced. We speak at 630 on Saturday. So if you want more details, go to sacredgeoexperience.com. And that's the word sacred, then geoexperience.com. We would love to see any of you out there that can

make it. Thanks. And here's the interview with Kevin Briel. Hi, Kevin. Welcome to the show. Hey, man. Thank you for having me. I am happy to have you on. You are known for your TED Talk that you gave that has been seen millions of times, and it's really very inspiring. So I'd like to talk about that talk and about your new book. But let's start off like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

And the grandson stops, and he thinks about it and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah. Wow. That's really interesting. That's really cool. I guess for myself, the first thing that really comes to mind would maybe just be, you know, I feel like in my writing my book, there was kind of always two choices that were presenting itself, which was to go super deep into the stuff that was really truthful. And by extension of being truthful, it was also kind of really vulnerable and uncomfortable, like very uncomfortable. And then there was this other option where I could kind of skirt around stuff or omit things or not include things that made me feel more comfortable. And you just got to this point during the creative process where I just realized that if it was

going to be any good, I was going to have to keep going towards the thing that was uncomfortable. So I guess to me, it kind of brings up that, the thought about that choice and just, and the choice that you sort of always have in your creative work, which is to get outside your comfort zone, to push yourself or to stay sort of where you are. So I think maybe that's a different interpretation of the quote, but that's kind of where it took me. But I really like that. That's really cool. Excellent. So your TED Talk, when I got, I originally got an email from Josh Shipp introducing you and I. And when I got the email and I saw the title of your TED Talk, I was like, absolutely, I'll have him on.

Because Confessions of a Depressed Comic is a great title for a talk. Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. Yeah, it's very, it's almost clickbait-ish, you know? Yes, yes. It's hard to resist. Your new book that's coming out in a couple days is called Boy Meets Depression. Yeah. And it's your memoir of you recognizing coming to terms with your depression and dealing with it and your childhood. Yeah, yeah, no, that's a fair synopsis of it. Yeah, it's about sort of my life between my teenage years between 13 and 17. And just there was a lot of different stuff going on, you know, like, obviously, you're just growing up, and that's part of it. But there was a lot of questions about identity and about kind of meaning or purpose. And also this really intense, almost deep rooted pain that was, you know, this intense season of

depression that I went through as a teenager in high school. And yeah, and it's a, it's a book that sort of explores all of that. So let's start kind of from the end, instead of the beginning, talk to me about where you are today in dealing with depression and what things you've done that have worked to help you cope with it better and handle it. Good question. I mean, it's hard to exactly say, you know, where I am at the moment. Like, I guess I feel like, you know, currently today sitting here talking to you, I feel pretty good. And I think for the most part of my life, 80, 90%, that's how I feel. And I'm really lucky to feel that way. But at the same time, it's interesting because this sort of narrative has come up a lot in some interviews

and stuff I've done about the book leading up to it coming out. And people have asked a lot like, oh, you know, is this book about overcoming depression or beating depression? And, you know, to me, that's not really the narrative or the story that I have with it. I feel like it's something that's just, you know, I'm a sensitive person and I feel like it's attached to me in this way. And I feel like there's this duality sort of to life where we spend a lot of time in the media and in, you know, it's the self-help world and all this kind of stuff, talking about how to be happy and how to be an achiever. But nobody really talks about this other side, which is like what to do when life's heavy or, you know, hard, challenging. And for myself, I just think it's kind of outrageous to go,

oh, yeah, you know, now I got over that period in my teenage years, and I'll never feel that way again. Like, I just think that'd be a really naive statement. So certainly, it's still something that I wrestle with and comes up, not as intensely, but also, you know, I'm 22 years old now. When I gave that talk, I was 19, and I was talking about something in my life that was really happening when I was 16, 17 years old. So I'm a few years removed from it now, and I've just, routines, habitual ways that you can deal with this, especially when you feel yourself sliding into that place of darkness or where you feel a little bit hopeless or life feels really heavy. There are things that you can do. And so for me now, I'm just armed with such a better toolkit for how to sort of navigate those moments that

it's much different for me. And I don't have the same level of fear that I do about being depressed, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think that idea of there, I mean, that you said a bunch of things there that were good, the idea of, you know, a skill set that helps us deal with it is really important. I also think the idea of, is it never really gone? Or, or what's it like? And that's one that I wrestle with, in that I certainly have had depression very seriously. I think it's still a feature or component of my emotional landscape, but I wouldn't say that it's by any stretch a defining feature at this point. And so it's kind of interesting to, as you, as you look back on that, to think of sort of how to categorize it, like you were saying

in the past and, and now. What are some of the skills that you have used to help you cope better? Yeah. No, I mean, just to touch on what you just said there, that was honestly a very poetic, kind of perfect way of putting it. Like, it's a part of your emotional landscape, but it's not definitive. Like, that's a big thing that I think this conversation needs because sometimes it's easy to almost victimize yourself, if that makes any sense. Like it's easy to get really down on yourself and go like, oh man, my life is never going to get better. And certainly I can relate to that headspace. But I think what you're talking about is a much healthier way of just viewing the issue as a whole

and really of viewing your identity, that your pain doesn't define who you are as a person, you know? So for myself though, to answer your question about what things are particularly helpful that are kind of tangible, it almost sounds cliche or like overly simple, but you know, for me, one big thing is waking up early and having a nice healthy start on the day. When I was really struggling, I'd wake up at noon or 1 p.m., you know, like when the day's going and it would give me this incredibly anxious, terrible feeling, and then eating healthy, and then exercising, and then having honest conversations. And for me, those honest conversations are usually with a counselor, and then with a few, two or three people who are really close to me. And I'm not necessarily

advocating that counseling's for everyone, but I think that there's something really good about just having truly unbiased, honest conversations with someone who you respect and you trust. And you can just kind of navigate that space with because we don't always take a lot of time for that in our lives. And life is increasingly, I think, more noisy with all these digital platforms and the ways that you can be connected. And you don't have as many moments, at least in my own life, where I sit and I try and unpack some of the stuff that's going on inside me. So counseling for me has been incredibly helpful. But then also just those three or four things, like waking up early, like trying to eat clean and eat healthy, exercise, having conversations, very simple, like something that's been talked about, certainly not any new ideas.

But what's important is not that you just do that in the times when things are okay and life's feeling good or hopeful. It's that you know how to instinctively get into a healthy pattern when you start to feel life going the other way. And that for me has been the biggest change is when I feel my circumstances or my emotional well-being taking a shift or maybe going in a different direction to where I do feel depressed or you have that sort of heavy, almost like you're in a fog type feeling for a few days, I know that I have to follow those things and I have to schedule them and I have to make them happen, even if it means breaking a commitment or a promise or something to do with my work or, you know, because you got to prioritize yourself first. And that for me was the missing thing. I always knew how to live, you know, healthy when

things were going good, but then as soon as things would go bad or become challenging, I would just throw all those habits out the window and become this kind of different person. Yeah, I think that's been a huge one for me also is recognizing some things that I can do, starting to recognize the signs of a slide kind of pretty early and making sure I'm really proactive in doing those things. I mean, for me, exercise is probably the single biggest one. It just, it just works so well for me and I don't, I don't do it anymore. You know, it's the, the, the, the benefits of, of, of looking better or being healthy are great, but for me, it's mostly a mental health thing. And a lot of times when I am feeling crappy, I can look around and go, what, let me look at my habits over the last few days, the last week. And I can almost usually

see like, oh yeah, I haven't been exercising or I've been eating terribly or, you know, all that stuff. And then the other thing that you said, I don't know about getting up early necessarily, but what I know for me is that knowing what I'm going to do when I get up and having a plan is so important. It's that, it's that waking up and being in bed, having no real plan that I am most at risk or, you know, most at prey for just, just all sorts of sort of lousy thoughts. So that's a, that's a big one for me. It's not so much about what time it is so much as I get up and get moving versus sort of laying there in bed thinking, well, what am I going to do? And then, right, right. Yeah. No, for me, it's just the thing about getting up early for me is,

is actually because of that is because I feel after a certain point when everyone's up and working, it's easy for me to become reactive just because in a day there's, there could be lots of emails or phone calls or something for me to do. But if I'm up early, I like to get up around between 6 and 6.30, so not anything super wild, but fairly early. And it just gives me like an hour to two hours to kind of work my way into the day where I can get some food. But then what you just said is get out a piece of paper and be like, what's really important today? And that kind of clarity, I think, is what's important always. It's not so much about knocking off your to-do list.

I don't know if you would agree with this, but it's about just having clarity over like your story, you know, your life, like where the next step's going and why. And those are the sort of things that make you feel more, I think, at peace with yourself and just more clear about life in general. And one of the things for me that's super important in all of this

is I kind of feel like sometimes I'm protecting against my lower self. And my lower self is someone who, to be quite honest, wants to hide when things go bad. I'm not quite sure where that pattern comes from, but that's definitely my blind spot. That's my big weakness is when things start to go bad, I'll disconnect from everything. And so that makes me very hard to reach. I isolate myself. I don't get the conversations I need to have happening. I don't take care of myself. And I essentially cut out all accountability.

And that's my lower self. And so to protect against that, those certain things, like being up early so I can make that plan of the day, it forces me out of that because I actually have to stare at a blank piece of paper and go like, well, what is the next 24 hours going to look like? And that question brings a lot of further, you know, clarity into my life. And now back to the interview with Kevin Briel. is primarily, A, I would recommend anybody who has dealt with depression, knows people who deal with depression in general should go listen to it. It's one of those, I mean, there's a reason why it's been viewed as awful. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us tonight.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No, Really, and you can find it on the

iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a reason why it's been so successful for you, and you capture a certain rawness of emotion and yet eloquence at the same time that come together in a really powerful way. And basically what you are saying and advocating in that talk is that, hey, we've got to stop treating depression as such a stigma. And you use an example in there that I thought was really

great. And you said, well, if you don't think there's a stigma, think about if you had to, which would you feel more uncomfortable going on your Facebook status and posting? I couldn't get out of bed today because I hurt my back or I couldn't get out of bed today because I'm depressed. And I mean, that's, that's very clear. I would, I can't imagine ever going on my Facebook page and saying that. And I'm on this show and I talk about having depression all the time. And still, that would, you know, what I found for me is the stigma is not so much, well, it's gotten a lot better in general. But I'm always good at talking about like, well, I used to be this way.

Yeah. But to say it right when I'm in the heart of it, that's the, that's the hard part for me. Yeah. Well, that's the hard part for anyone. And I think that's, you know, a big part of the, you know, the conversation. And like, certainly with the Ted talk, the quote that has been, um, you know, sort of externally pushed back to me by other people on the internet and people that I meet this quote, that's sort of a lot of people have resonated with is something in there. It says, the world I believe in is one where embracing your light doesn't mean ignoring your dark. And to me, like, that's really what the TED Talk is about. And it's what my book is about. And it's what anything I've ever done with this conversation

is about. It's less about anything outside of the idea of like, hey, life is about duality. Anyone who's worked on a project, worked on a business, worked on anything that requires a lot of creative or emotional effort knows that there's moments where there's a lot of momentum and things feel great. And you're sort of in this amazing flow where everything's awesome. And then there's times when you wake up and you look at the blank page or the blank screen and it's really hard, you know, and it's difficult and it's challenging. And we accept this in our business, in our relationships, in our life. But when it comes to our own like individual, emotional, mental wellbeing, we have this really difficult time

going like, I can't believe that, you know, for one day, for one week, for one month, that I could be slightly underneath my normal plateau of happiness or fulfillment. You know what I mean? Like it just seems like such a ridiculous thing to sort of set as an expectation. And so for myself, it's less about, you know, any sort of like, I want to change the world type mission as much as it's about like, I just want people individually to be able to own every aspect of who they are. And for me, a big aspect of who I am is that I'm someone who can go in really deep to some of the heavy, darker stuff of life. And that's sometimes where I create

my art. That's sometimes where I get inspiration, where I get fuel. And other times it's just really challenging. But I think that that's a conversation worth having. I don't think that's something to just run from just because it's difficult. And so I think that, you know, for me, that's really what it's all about. It's just having that sort of acceptance that things are not always in one particular way and to deny one part of yourself and have this expectation that says life always has to be perfect. You're really not allowing yourself to have a complete human experience. I've seen that quote of yours often, and I like it a lot.

One of the things that we talk about on the show a lot is, you know, the idea of positive thinking, which I'm not a huge fan of, because I just don't, I just think you should be, realistic thinking is good. And I think it's just good to be, you know, here is what is. I feel this way or I feel that way. And then what's the action you want to take from that can certainly be more, more positive. But the thing that, that strikes me about what you're talking about is, is kind of two things. One is I think being able to accept and embrace a full emotional range that any normal human would have. And then the second piece is when that becomes aberrant in the sense of depression to me is not a is not a well functioning human behavior. Sadness is perfectly fine for me. Depression is more the absence of any emotional feeling, any sort of context.

And I think it's the problem with that, at least that I've had, is that in that state, there is almost no emotional range for the good and the bad. It's just all sort of like that deadness. Right. Yeah, no, totally. I talk about that in my book where the sort of metaphor that I draw is to like waking up consistently in this fog and then living in this fog where it's like, you can see, but not very clearly, you know, and like things are there but they're not really there and you sort of feel like this hollowed out shell of yourself. And I agree. Like I think there's, you know, there's another quote somewhere in the TED Talk

that says something like real sadness isn't being depressed when something in your life, when everything's going wrong, it's being depressed when everything's going right. And I think it's so much deeper than, yeah, like you said, sadness. And that's the challenging thing too about, I think, depression in terms of a cultural narrative is people don't talk about there being any upside to it because it's very hard to see an upside to being depressed when you're in those moments, you know? But I think when you have a conversation with someone like yourself who's seen that other side, that darker, heavier side, you would probably be able to agree that there is some sort of perspective, some sort of personal

growth, some sort of transformation that can come out of those experiences. And I think that's sort of the interesting part to me about the conversation is we don't tend to talk about what could be on the other side of that pain. We just really focus on how uncomfortable that pain makes us and how much we therefore want to ignore it because it makes us feel naked and vulnerable and exposed. And those are all sorts of things that we as human beings sometimes tend to push away. And so I think that there is so much more to the conversation than just basically this idea that I've seen become really popularized, which is, hey, you might not be depressed, but someone you know probably is and you should be nice to them. And it's just like, that's not really, to me,

getting to the heart of the matter. And if that's what people are talking about by having more empathy or the world being less, quote unquote, stigmatized by mental health issues, I just think that's way off because all of us have mental health. If you have a mind, you have mental health. You know what I mean? It's just varying degrees of that. And this idea that there's an us and a them, and I don't relate to that, is what makes it so isolating. And that's the part of the conversation I think that needs to change, is to just go, no, this relates to absolutely everyone, including you. And that's something that just hasn't come up a lot and I think needs to be discussed because otherwise the conversation is going to have a really hard time progressing. And I've just seen it firsthand, like kids, young kids writing my Facebook fan page, thousands and thousands of messages after my TED Talk.

For the last two years, I've got a message, at least one message every single day from a kid who's like under 19. message every single day from a kid who's like, you know, under 19. And that feeling that there's an us and a them and that most people are quote unquote normal, but I'm messed up or I'm broken or I'm defective. That's what drives these kids into isolation. That's what makes them suicidal. And I just think that that's something that not a lot of people are saying is that this is a conversation that needs to be inclusive. That needs to include all of us who are human beings. Like it's not just like there's this select percentage of people who this affects. This is, you know, it's a sliding scale. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think it is very much a sliding scale. And one of the things I always worry about on the show in talking about depression is being too facile

about it, too, too shallow in saying like, well, if you've got depression, if you just exercise and eat right, then everything's fine. Like I know, you know, I know people who have done every depression treatment under the sun that they can find and have done everything that they could possibly try and do. And still, you know, it's this monster that clings to them. So, you know, I always like to caveat that, you know, in general, I'm talking about sort of a medium grade depression here versus like, you know, some people, it's such a serious medical condition. But I do agree that I think everybody sits on that spectrum. And the more that we can encourage conversations about

embracing all emotions and trying to be present and open to whatever's there. I think that's such a positive thing. So much of our culture, at least where I spend my time is this raw, raw, you know, I'm going to crush it every minute kind of stuff. Right. And I get the spirit of it, but boy, if you're not in the, uh, if you're not in the crush it space, it's really easy to feel out of touch with all of that. You said something there that I did want to just quickly touch on for a second is that I 110% couldn't agree more with what you're saying about it's not as simple as just being like, you know, exercise, eat well. I would only say that. And the only reason I said that in the beginning of the episode and we talked about it is because I just believe that that can give you a baseline. And for me, that's a big thing is just knowing, like you said, like having a plan for a day is like having a plan for your worst case day.

And that's all that that stuff is. So for anyone who's listening and it's maybe going like, hey, man, like, come on, that's ridiculous. You know, you can't just say wake up early and go for a walk and eat a green juice and you're fine. And I would totally, I would 100% agree with that. But it's just, yeah, there's this thing that I think we all need of that stability and that baseline. But to touch on what you just said there about the culture and this sort of crush it culture, that is one of the things that I think is most difficult about this conversation. And that's why this conversation doesn't blend in well in a lot of communities and in a lot of media outlets and these sorts of things. Because we live in this be more beautiful, be more rich, be more successful, repeat kind of culture.

And this narrative of like, well, what about my brokenness? It just doesn't really fit into that. It's not sexy. You can't sell that. It's not cool. You can't necessarily make a big motion picture about that. And so as a result, we inherit what pop culture thinks about our own mental health as what the narrative is for us as individuals. And so we go, oh, pop culture doesn't talk about that. I shouldn't talk about that. You know what I mean? We let culture mirror to us how we should be as individuals. And I just think that's a fundamental problem. And the change needs to happen on an individual level and on a cultural level. But the way that culture changes is by people changing. And that happens on a small scale. And I just think that that's a big part of this because, you know, for myself, I'm doing

stand-up comedy. The culture in that is not to necessarily talk about these things. You know, it's a show business kind of world, and it's a glitz and glamour, you know what I mean, to some degree. Like, there's this element about being really cool and being really suave, and yet a lot of comedians have struggled with this. And this comes into some people's acts, some people, what they do on stage, and yet it doesn't seem fully acceptable still. And this comes into some people's acts, some people what they do on stage, and yet it doesn't seem fully acceptable still. And I think that that's just really interesting because it's, again, something that's really touching everyone, and yet this conversation that almost no one is having. And I just think that's sort of my larger point with a lot of this

stuff. I think that the cultural stereotypes seem to be all the one extreme. Either you are crushing it and you're killing it, or there is a certain glamorization of real deep darkness. I think there is an element of that. And I think swinging to either of those extremes is really harmful. It's again, back to that, I'm a depressed person, or I'm a happy person, or I'm a, you know, I think we're all a bunch of things. And the more that we are open to being a bunch of things and look for all those things in ourselves, the more balanced we are. That's exactly it for a lot of it is just the question brings up problems for people when they think about, well, how does this blend into my identity? And am I a depressed person now? And

it just, that doesn't have a great ring to it. And so people reject it. But I think what you said is true is that you're a lot of things and that this could be one side of you, you know what I mean? Or one piece of the puzzle. And I think that, you know, to deny it or to pretend that it's not there is just doing a massive disservice to your own personal growth. You know, like for myself, writing this book and going back into all these weird kind of corners of my childhood and pulling out these memories and stories and stuff, there's just a lot of evidence to suggest that life is never easy for anyone necessarily. And people that I write about in the book and my family and my friends and stuff, everyone had pieces of this going on in some way or another. And I think that that's just the nature of life is that it's not necessarily

super smooth or super perfect. And the less that we talk about that, the more alone I think it makes all of us feel in that. And the more you internalize it and the more you isolate from it and the less willing you are to go inside of that thing. And for me, if I could explain what the one biggest shift has been from when I was 17 years old and suicidal to today at 22 and in a lot healthier of a place, it's just that before I used to try and run away from my pain and tell no one about it. And now I try and run right into it and tell the people closest to me about it.

And I think that's a huge shift in psychology because one says that I don't want to seem hurt. I don't want to seem vulnerable. I don't want anyone to see my weaknesses. And the other says, I want to explore this because I think there's something on the other side of it. And I don't judge myself for feeling this way. I don't make, I don't think it makes me inferior. Like there's just no part of me that feels like less of a man or something for struggling with

depression. And anyone who I think thinks that has a poor view of, you know, masculinity or people in general or humanity. Like I just, there's no part of me that's embarrassed or ashamed. And I think that's just a big part of this conversation that needs to disappear is like, as if you would have some reason to be embarrassed or ashamed. It's like, if you get the flu or you know what I mean, you cut your knee. Does anyone think that you did something wrong? Like, no. And so to experience something that's painful in your life or to go through a season of depression or to go through a period of time where you're just asking a bunch of questions about everything that that just makes you alive. I think that's a good thing. I think that means you're actually trying to progress. You're not just asleep on your couch, turning on the

news, letting people tell you what life's like. You're actually going out there and feeling it for yourself and feeling the rough edges. You know what I'm saying here? I think that there's something noble almost about the pursuit of trying to, you know, wake up to your life and it runs the risk of it being uncomfortable. I think that's a great thing. Yep. For the record, when Chris gets sick or has a cold, I make him kneel on the corner with a bag over his head. So hopefully I'm not shaming him too much for that. Interesting. You just said noble and there's a, you know, I've studied a lot of different Buddhist readings and there's a you know i've studied a lot of different buddhist readings and there's a guy who wrote a book called the feeling buddha david brazier it's a brilliant

book and he sort of flips the you know the basic idea of buddhism is kind of the four noble truths you know there is suffering in life you know our uh our craving i'm jason alexander and i'm peter tilden and together on the really no podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

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Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really.

Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For things to be different is what causes that suffering, etc.

His take is that the noble and the noble truth is that there will be suffering, and learning to deal with that suffering in a noble way is what leads to that higher state of consciousness. Right. What I think that's interesting about that is for myself in the process of writing the book, especially because it took me, you know, a better part of six months or so to really flush out everything that I had and edit and all that kind of stuff. The thing that really, you know, challenged me the most was trying to find like this redemptive kind of narrative almost for this I had experienced or been through

because to be honest until I sat down and wrote the book I did have a little bit of the psychology of like oh that part of my life's in the rear view you know and that's over and whatever and I just had kind of gotten to this point where I was really emotionally disassociated from it which felt great for a little while and then to go back into it and dive back into it sort of fresh and new it was actually really challenging because I was like is there a meaning to any of this stuff you know like is there any particular reason or like why did this happen like what's the redemptive sort of narrative of this story here and the thing that was quite interesting was to just be okay with what is and what was back then and to sort of sit in those moments and go like, maybe that's a part of life.

Like maybe that, maybe other people have similar moments, like maybe those trials, tribulations, whatever you might want to call them. Maybe that's like what half of this life thing is all about, you know, and that you just sort of have to sit in those moments and that there's not necessarily super clear answers. And maybe you don't get to a point in your life where you go, oh, that's why that happened. That totally makes sense. You know what I mean? Like maybe there isn't always perfect clarity and maybe you can be okay with that. And I think that that was something for me that was really challenging, but also really healthy because there is this part of me, this sort of logical side of my brain that wants to understand everything perfectly, you

know, and it's kind of naive or maybe ridiculous to think that you would be able to. And I think that that's what's interesting about these experiences. And when you hear people talk about grief or loss or pain or trauma or these questions that they have about life, it can be really raw and really painful because it does defy this part of our mind that wants to go two plus two is four, you know, and just that wants to have perfect understanding over everything. And so for me, like that, that was one of the hardest things was to just sit with all this stuff and be like, well, maybe there's not a perfect reason, but maybe that's also okay. Yeah. I don't spend a lot of time anymore trying to find reasons. Um, there's a Sean Aker quote where he says,

everything doesn't necessarily happen for the best, but we can make the best out of everything that happens. And I love that idea that why is often a very difficult thing to solve. But what we can do is, I do believe that the things that we go through, if used, are a key part of who we become and what our life story is. And, you know, we had Jeff Goins on a few weeks life story is. And, you know, we had Jeff Goins on a few weeks ago, who was talking about, you know, maybe you should look for your calling in the places where your struggles have been in your challenges. That may be the direction that, you know, what you're looking for lies. Smart. Yeah. Jeff's a great dude. And yeah. And I mean,

that's, that's, yeah, exactly. And that's something that I think is so powerful to this conversation is what if instead of, like I sort of touched on earlier, what if instead of running away from those things, you actually went inside of them and you ran towards them? You know, like what would that look like? Like maybe it wouldn't bring you anything. But for me, that's what's been super powerful. And I think it's a good question to just turn to is what would happen if I just sat with this, you know, and let this be real as opposed to trying to run from it and hide it and sort of sweep it under the rug of

our minds. Yeah. A theme that's come up on this show a lot is the idea of, you know, people don't become great in spite of their difficulties, but usually because of them. I mean, you look at someone like Martin Luther King or Gandhi, they didn't become great in spite of, you know, what they were against. They became great because of those things. So it's those things that we're wrestling with that are, you know, the old phrase is grist for the mill. Or, you know, the other one that I like is, you know, no mud, no lotus. I mean, you kind of have to have those things, I think, to have a life that is full of meaning and purpose. Totally agree.

Preaching to the choir, I think. Yeah, maybe so. Well, this has been a great conversation. I'm really excited to have talked with you. Your book comes out September 15th. We'll have links in the show notes to where people can get that book. And again, I encourage everyone to go listen to, uh, your Ted talk. It's just search Kevin Briel, Ted talk, and you will find it. That's B R E E L definitely worth doing. And thank you so much for taking the time. Hey man, thank you so much for having me on. I've been a big fan of your podcast, so it's fun to, fun to be on here. Excellent. Well, thanks so much.

Okay. Talk to you soon. All right. Thanks. Take care. Bye. You can learn more about Kevin Briel and this podcast at one you feed.net slash Briel. That's B-R-E-E-L.