175: The Power of Emotional Reflection

Scot: The power of reflecting on your feelings, what that means, and why would I even want to do that in the first place? That's what we're going to talk about today. It's "Who Cares About Men's Health" with information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men and men's health. My name is Scot. I bring the BS. The MD to my BS is Dr. John Smith.

Dr. John Smith: Good afternoon.

Scot: He's a man who now cares about his health, producer Mitch.

Mitch: Hey there.

Scot: And our guest is Dr. William Smith. He's our expert today at Huntsman Mental Health Institute. He's a man who's very passionate about ensuring that all men are mentally healthy, and he's got tons of experience, years of it in the mental health field. Dr. Smith, do you reflect on your feelings? I'm sure you do, being a professional mental health person.

Dr. William Smith: Well, I think I'm like a lot of other people. I reflect on my feelings and probably sometimes don't do it enough.

Scot: Okay.

Dr. William Smith: You know, so I do my best. I try to make sure that I take time for myself to make sure that I'm mentally healthy, physically healthy. But one of the things that men struggle with is also celebrating themselves. And I'm right in that camp. You know, so I 'm just like a lot of people.

Scot: Before you went into the mental health field, I think your undergraduate was in psychology, right? Before you went down that road, was that something you did, or was that something you did not do?

Dr. William Smith: You know, I can't say. That was a long time ago. You know, and so I can't say that I really reflected on my feelings. I did the things that I was supposed to do. I was in college to get a degree. I played college football and minor league baseball. So it was pretty regimented, organized. So, you know, if I was being successful, then I felt like I was taking care of all the things that I was supposed to do.

Dr. John Smith: Can I ask you then, when you were playing college sports and baseball, how important was the mental side back when you were playing? Because I know a lot of the players now have, you know, coaches and things to help them mentally as much as, you know, the physical, you know, strength and conditioning coaches. Was that a thing when you were playing?

Dr. William Smith: Well, it was a thing, and the coaches didn't really talk about the mental as much. But it just so happened that around my sophomore year, Mike Singletary gave me some advice. Mike Singletary was a Chicago Bear Hall of Famer linebacker, and he said that your mind is much stronger than you need to be physically on the football field.

And he had me looking, I was at the Chicago Bears practice, and he said, "You see there's a lot of big guys on the field, but there's also many big guys on the bench over there." And he said it's about what you think and how you train your mind more so than your body. And I took that personally, and I became a student of the game, a student of my body, how I was feeling, how I was responding. And I've tried to play that out throughout my life.

Scot: It's a powerful story right there from a powerful guy. Yeah. So the reason that I wanted to get into this conversation is you may have seen ads for the Love Your Mind Campaign. This is a collaboration between Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council. And the purpose is to offer inspiration, community and educational resources to encourage people across the United States to be more open and proactive regarding their mental health.

And we know for men, you know, mental health has its own particular challenges, let's just say. I went to that website, and one of the very first things I saw on loveyourmindtoday.org was "reflecting on your feelings and stressors can help you deal with whatever life throws your way." And I was like, huh, interesting, reflecting on your feelings. I don't even know if I know feelings other than sadness and maybe anger, let alone what it means to reflect on them and how that might be helpful for me.

So like I'm curious. I'm like I want to learn more about this. So Dr. William Smith, first of all, what role do feelings play in men's mental health, and are there particular feelings we're looking at when we talk about that?

Dr. William Smith: Well, you know, it plays a big role. And oftentimes, depending on when you were born, I'm a baby boomer, so it's a different orientation. Sometimes men or young boys we're taught, you know, don't think about your feelings. Be logical, right? And so we want to just think logically and critical, analytical, but actually thinking about our feelings, reflecting on our emotions is a sense of strength and power, and it puts us more in control with our body.

So reflecting on our feelings helps men be more aware of their emotional, their physiological states. And then it helps us to respond more effectively. So this basically provides a greater sense of self-regulation and resilience, and is very crucial to all the components of mental health. And that's the message that a lot of men aren't hearing. But if they understand that, then I think they'll be much more receptive to it.

Dr. John Smith: So what's a good way for men to kind of get into that ability to kind of connect with their feelings rather than say, you know, do that logical thing or the things that we grew up with, be tough or, you know, the different mantras that you heard growing up? Like, what's a good way for men to really try to connect with those feelings, like you're saying? Because it sounds like it can really be impactful and life changing in a way.

Dr. William Smith: Oh, yeah. And it is. Men can use their feelings as signals to engage in healthy practices that basically enhance their ability to response. You know, and I like the work of Stephen Porges. He has created the polyvagal theory. And so if they need an academic approach to this, his work is really good because he talks about the ventral vagal system and how we are feeling safe when we're at the ventral vagal state. Our environment, we feel more connected to it.

But when we're in the dorsal vagal, that's when we're feeling our life is being threatened. And for many men, we're out there working hard, we're putting the load of the family on our shoulders. One of the major things I hear from men in the research I do is, "I'm sacrificing. I'm sacrificing for the family."

But if you're sacrificing all the time for your family, your wife, your children, your parents, when do you take time to think about your own needs? And it's just like riding in a plane. When that stewardess or the flight attendant says, you know, if we get into turbulence and these masks come down, put on your mask first, and then you start to put on the mask for the child you like the best next. Right?

Mitch: Sure. Good advice.

Dr. William Smith: So what we are going to do is take care of ourself, right, and then we can show up better for people who we love.

Mitch: I really like that, because when I started dealing with some of my early anxiety and first started mental health, I mean, you know, millennial here, I also was taught and raised with the idea of, hey, if you show emotion or feel feelings that are too big, you've lost the game, right, was kind of how I was kind of taught about it. But it was really interesting. One of the very early kind of modalities in my treatment for my anxiety was to learn to feel my feelings rather than intellectualize my feelings.

Dr. William Smith: Exactly.

Mitch: And that was something that was really strange for me.

Scot: What does that mean? What does that mean, Mitch?

Mitch: You know, it's one thing to say, "I am feeling sad," and, you know, maybe I might not even have the right feeling written down period. But that's different than allowing my body, allowing my mind, the front and the back. you know, I love the idea of the polyvagal stuff. They talked about that a lot in my stuff. But, you know, allowing yourself to validate and experience the emotion that you're having, rather than try to sidestep it or intellectualize it and say, "Hey, I shouldn't be having this feeling," or, "Oh, this is stupid. Oh, this is dumb. I should not be feeling this way. If I was stronger, I could feel differently," etc. You can't have a relationship with your feelings if you never allow yourself to feel them.

Scot: On the on the website loveyourmindtoday.org, it listed some feelings, and it's actually a cool section. It listed anger, burnout, guilt, grief and loss, loneliness, sadness, and worry. And it kind of went down each one of those feelings, what's going on, what you can do to, you know, address them. But the thing that shocked me was there were so many. Now, I mean, I'm being a little facetious here. But Dr. Smith, out of that list, like, which one of those emotions do you find that men struggle with the most?

Dr. William Smith: Well, you know, it's real interesting. And I have some men groups that I mentor, and I've been doing that for years. And I would say when you really talk to them and they are allowed to let their guards down, you start to hear all of those that you see on the site.

So even feeling scared, worry. You know, I don't know if you all are married. I'm married and been married for well over 30 years, and there were times really at the beginning of my marriage, you start to think, "Will I be able to handle all these responsibilities?" You know, now we're going to purchase a house. My children are going to need certain things. And you want to make sure, and again, that word "sacrifice" comes up. You're trying to sacrifice because you are concerned that you are going to prepare your children and have your household in the best shape it can possibly be in.

And what we as men oftentimes don't do, as Mitch talked about, is to realize the gravity of all the responsibilities that we have. So if we're more in touch with our emotions and our feelings about this, then we could start to make better decisions. Yes, I'm scared. Yes, I'm concerned about signing this mortgage agreement.

But then when you start to reach out and you have support networks and people say, "Hey, man, I've been there. It's okay. Here's what you have to do." Then we start to have a plan, but we are also planning for our better health and understanding what the gravity is, recognizing it, and then strategizing to overcome it. And that means that we respected our feelings.

And what we want to do, especially with the loveyourmindtoday.org and our Love Your Mind Campaign, is to normalize this among men. So if more generations of men can normalize mental health, normalize the fact that they have these concerns, other men start talking about, "Yeah, I went through that." Then you see that, all right, this is a common thing, and if they can do it, I can do it.

Dr. John Smith: So what are some of the best strategies that you found to help men kind of get in contact with these feelings and really put that into action?

Dr. William Smith: I think it was Mitch who mentioned journaling.

Mitch: Yeah.

Dr. William Smith: So tell us, Mitch, how it was journaling for you.

Mitch: Well, at the start, I rolled my eyes over and over and over again. You know? But it was a gratitude journal, and I was supposed to come up with three things, something that I liked about another person, something I liked about in the world, and something I liked about myself every day.

And what was really interesting is that it did feel a little hokey at the start. And, you know, I was like I don't know how this is helping me. But over time, I allowed myself to feel positive about things, right? I was allowing myself more to feel excitement. And then as we kind of went down the road, we started to journal with you pick a time where I felt anxious and I write, "What am I anxious about? How am I feeling about that? How would I talk to myself or talk to my anxiety?" All of things that felt really awkward at the start, you know.

But eventually through some of these different practices, you know, I started to find out that I had more feelings than, you know, anger and frustration, and that there is a whole bunch of colors of experience that you could experience. You know?

Dr. William Smith: Yeah. And that's kind of what a lot of those practices are like. You might have to hold hands and breathe, and you're like, "Oh gosh," [inaudible 00:13:08], right?

Mitch: Yes.

Dr. William Smith: And so you're a little bit resistant at first, and then all of a sudden you feel yourself kind of being drawn in and like, "All right, this is not so scary. This is not so bad. You know, this actually feels pretty good. I'm starting to have some clear thoughts."

Scot: Our emotions signals that we need to do something. Are they trying to tell us something more than just I'm feeling guilty?

Dr. William Smith: Oh, yeah. And it's trying to move you into action, into a certain behavior. And sometimes the decisions that we make can be an adaptive coping response or a maladaptive coping response. And so what we want to do is to teach young boys and men how to have a repertoire of responses that are adaptive, successful, healthy, best practices, right, so when those messages, those signals come up, you'll have a repertoire of information on how to respond.

Scot: When it comes to reflecting on your feelings, you know, we've kind of talked about some of the different things you might want to try, some of the things you might want to do, probably some keywords for some future Googling and research. But what would be a good first step for somebody, for a man to start reflecting on their feelings? And then where would they go from there?

Dr. William Smith: I would have to lead them to loveyourmindtoday.org. As you mentioned, it's a very informative website. And then they'll have tabs in there that could connect them to local activities or agencies. But also look within your community. What are some of the things that you like to do? Oftentimes, we're not taking time out for ourselves. What's those hobbies that you've had that you've probably let go 10, 20 years ago that you can reclaim?

One of the things that's very important on how we can produce healthier men is to engage in activities that promote a sense of safety and relaxation. And that connects us back to that ventral vagal functioning, right? So again, that includes things like meditation, controlled breathing exercises, physical activities, maybe going fishing, you know, and pursuing other hobbies that brings about an accomplishment and joy.

Dr. John Smith: So you keep mentioning community, and you've got these outreach groups you've worked with and a lot of these other things. What's the number one community that you see men utilizing and then maybe the most underutilized kind of community that we can kind of help to build here with our podcast, where we can kind of reach out and get our listeners to kind of, you know, coalesce together and maybe come together as a community to help each other?

Dr. William Smith: Well, one of the communities that we see a lot of activity in is the physical health around like sports, playing on basketball teams or softball leagues and things like that.

Scot: You're to the point now where you probably playing pickleball though, right, Dr. Smith?

Dr. William Smith: You know, that's funny because my daughter bought my wife and I a pickleball set.

Scot: I mean, you've referenced how old you are a couple of times, so I just connected the dots for you. We actually played it on the podcast. We did it, we had a pickleball. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. So, I mean, I jest but . . .

Dr. William Smith: Well, you know, I might give it a shot, but I can still hang out with the young guys, and I'll give them a thing or two.

Scot: I will say one of the things I do love about pickleball is there is a sense of community there for sure, right?

Dr. William Smith: Yeah.

Scot: And it's younger and older people. It's becoming more popular across all demographics, but I digress. Go ahead.

Dr. William Smith: No. I mean, but see, that's the thing. And the other thing, just how you brought it up, men getting together, laughing, telling lies about their youth or their big fish that they caught or whatever it was, but doing whatever you want to do with each other, and your favorite beverage, you know, of choice, but just enjoying each other, smiling, that is so healthy. And you'll start to look forward to that.

So it doesn't have to be that you spend a lot of money or you have to go create something new. You might have it there already. You just have to invest in it more and appreciate what you already have and recognize that this is a healthy outlet.

For instance, you know, I'm in Salt Lake City, and it's not a lot of African American men here. But one thing I did years ago was I started a Black men's breakfast club here. And what we would do was meet once a month, and older men, younger men, and new men coming in would find out about it. And it grew and grew and grew. And some people show up one month. Other people might not show up that month. But it would be a steady number, a good number of people coming together, eating, enjoying each other, and then things would sprout from that.

So just even having a breakfast club or whatever, those things can develop into other outlets because you have similar activity. There was one guy who was a professional with guns and shooting, and there was about five or six guys who went with him out to learn how to shoot. So that's something that you can look forward to and enjoy and have conversations around.

Mitch: Yeah, that's something that I've learned a lot recently is you've got to make that effort. You've got to make the time. You know, it's not as easy to have those connections and relationships as it was when I was younger. You know, I'm not in classes. I'm not at college with a bunch of people going to parties, right?

So putting it on your calendar. I have weekly meetups with a friend or two. We do monthly movie nights. We have a kung fu night that happens every so often. And it is really kind of surprising and really kind of gratifying to see just after doing this for like six months, almost a year with some of these folks that it is, it's something you look forward to. It's something you get excited about. It's something you reach out for. It's something that you start to connect with new people you wouldn't have connected with otherwise. And, yeah, it's been a real good boon for not only just my mental health, but feeling attached to a community.

Dr. William Smith: Yeah. Because health is not something that's going to wait on you. You have to go and capture it.

Scot: Love that. Repeat that. Say that again.

Dr. William Smith: I said health is not something that's going to wait on you. You have to go and capture it.

Scot: Right. Physical and mental health.

Dr. William Smith: Exactly.

Scot: And, yeah, I love that. That is fantastic. As kind of a wrap-up question, then we'll get to our takeaways. So you've given us a lot of ideas of things we can pursue on our own, you know, meditation, journaling, that sort of thing. This is not something for a lot of men that's been modeled for us, you know, when we were younger. So like we're starting at ground zero for knowing what to do.

And I want you to address like when can you seek outside help, and what's kind of the continuum of that, because I feel like the other thing that happens is when we talk about caring for our mental health, it's like you get professional health (sic) when you are at the worst place you could possibly be.

Dr. William Smith: Right.

Scot: And I think that is the worst idea. I think getting some of these tools and working through some of these issues and learning about these things that we never have learned about before in our lives, you know, sooner than later. So like, what are some of the resources you can pursue getting, you know, professional help that's not like crisis professional help?

Dr. William Smith: Right. Let me ask you a question and I'll answer that. Do you remember the first car that you owned?

Mitch: Yes.

Scot: Yes.

Dr. William Smith: Okay.

Scot: We should share that though because that sounds like a very manly thing to do. Mine was a 1970 International Harvester pickup. How about that guys?

Mitch: YNice. 1986 Mazda B2000 pickup.

Scot: Ooh, okay.

Dr. John Smith: I had a 1986 Pontiac Bonneville, that [inaudible 00:21:52] boss hauling people around.

Scot: William, what did you have?

Dr. William Smith: Now that I asked the question, I'm blocking on the what I owned, but it was a sports car.

Scot: Oh, was it now? You were smart, man. You saved up your dollars to get that sports car.

Dr. William Smith: Exactly. And here's the point of the story. When we all got those cars, we didn't wait for it to break down. We washed it weekly. We made sure that we changed the oil regularly. We made sure we had enough air in the tires. That's what we have to do for ourselves. Don't wait for a crisis. We can go and seek help just on typical maintenance, right, to keep us going for the long haul.

So I advise people to see mental health providers, therapists, even when there's not something that's so dramatic that you feel like that you are at the end of your rope. Go get that tune-up. Say, hey, here's some things that I might be dealing with emotionally, financially, physically, right? And they can help you. And that might be a preventive measure for those other things that are much more damaging from happening down the road.

Scot: Right. After you watch the mechanic change your oil, you're like, "Oh, I could do that. I could do that on my own. Okay, I got it now." And then when another problem comes up, it's a little outside your skill set, you go back and you're like, "All right, what about this?" They help. And you go, "Okay, yeah, I could do that next time. Sure." Yeah.

Dr. William Smith: So the point is we have to love ourselves more and take care of ourselves more than we take care of something like a car or a house or anything else.

Mitch: Yeah.

Scot: Yeah. And it comes back to that whole thought that, you know, if you want to take care of other things in your life, other people, you want to be there for them, you have to be there for yourself, because if you're not there for yourself, you're no good to nobody, right?

Dr. William Smith: Exactly.

Scot: You've got to do those things. All right. Let's go ahead and wrap this up. Mitch, do you have any takeaways you'd like to share? Anything coalesce for you during this conversation?

Mitch: Just kind of like recommitting to some of the stuff that I've already kind of done. And sometimes it slips. You know, you forget to get your scheduled maintenance or whatever. Life gets hard, you know. But, yeah, just this idea that health is not something that just shows up. It's something you need to work for, and it's something you need to go out and get. And yeah, so I'll probably be doing a little bit more reflecting on some of my emotional health in the next little while.

Scot: How about you, John?

Dr. John Smith: I really love the aspect of community. That's something that I've dwelt on with some of my closer friends recently of, you know, the community that we build. And so as he talked about that, it just resonated with me, where having this community of doing, you know, things, playing on a basketball team or having a guys' night out where you go and enjoy the opportunity to talk with each other and to share those things and to kind of be a shoulder to not necessarily cry on, but maybe to cry on and to build that community. Because I think that's something to me that over the last little while, I feel like, you know, a lot of men, you lose. Mitch brought up, you know, you graduate college, you don't have any more of those opportunities to really have those friends. But, you know, then over the years, your primary care doctor says, "Hey, what's your friend group look like?"

And so, you know, that was kind of a call to me because I'm in my early 40s, and, you know, I'm looking at those things where my life has transitioned to my career being the focus now and a lot of those things. So to me, that's something that I'm looking to commit to and make a better offering to myself in giving myself the opportunity to have that and really help me to harness some of that and help my mental health that way.

Scot: Yeah. It's a good reminder that maybe the things you're doing right now are good, right, and they do have value. I think sometimes we can go, "Well, what's the point of going out with the guys? It's just guys having fun, guys being guys. That's probably not as important as some of these other things." But the bottom line is, it is. It's important, right?

Mitch: Right.

Dr. John Smith: Right.

Scot: And one of the takeaways I had was, you know, men supporting each other's mental health doesn't have to be like you get together and talk about serious issues. It could just be, you know, ribbing each other, like we did earlier. Like, that was a breakthrough for me, William, when you're like, you know, that's what it could be, because I like busting chops, right? I like being sarcastic, and I like it when people are sarcastic back to me. So it doesn't always have to be this serious talking about our feelings. I mean, it's just having fun. That's healthy, that's valuable, that's worthwhile.

Dr. William Smith: I mean, that's what this has been, you know, just sharing information, but laughing and smiling. I'm smiling on this other end. It feels good.

Scot: It does feel good, doesn't it? All right. Cool. Thank you so much for being on the program. I encourage all of our listeners to go to loveyourmindtoday.org. It's a super good website that's going to give you some great information, help you understand your feelings a little bit more, and maybe get you down the path of some self-discovery and becoming more mentally resilient, improving your mental health.

And as always, don't forget to reach out to somebody, a professional if you do need help. You would do it for your car. Why don't you do it for your brain?

If you have comments, thoughts, stories you'd like to share with us, you can reach out. It's so easy. All you need to do is send us an email hello@thescoperadio.com. That's hello@thescoperadio.com. Thanks for listening. Thanks for caring about men's health.