Dr Russ Kennedy (00:01.294)
Hello and welcome to yet another episode of the Anxiety Rx podcast. I am your host, Dr. Russell Kennedy, a medical doctor who suffered with crippling anxiety for many years, tried every single therapy and nothing seemed to work. Got to the point where I was practically suicidal and then found different ways of healing myself and then wrote about it. And really it came down to connecting with myself. One of my mentors in developmental psychology,
Gordon Neufeld said that all anxiety is separation anxiety. And then I add in, and it's mostly separation from yourself. So today I have Adam Dorsey with me who wrote a book called Super Psyched. I've just finished. And I really enjoyed, um, about connection and about how we're losing connection. And I want to have him on the talk about like the different formulas involved and just generally talk about.
Adam Dorsay (00:40.981)
Hahaha
Dr Russ Kennedy (00:54.318)
how we're losing connection and how it's such an important part of our human nature. So welcome Adam.
Adam Dorsay (01:00.179)
Russ, so great to be with you. And just a shout out to your mentor, Dr. Gordon Neufeld, who came up with that beautiful and pithy assertion that all anxiety is separation anxiety. I've not heard that before and already it's changing the way I think about anxiety itself. It's so perfect.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:10.307)
Yeah.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:18.35)
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember when he said it, you know, and it was like, that is actually exactly what, like it felt right. It felt right. And then I added in on top of that and it's separation from yourself. And it kind of fed back when I was reading your book to, you know, the initial separation, a separation from yourself and then separation from others and then separation from the world and then separation from spirituality. All those things together is what's creating this anxiety epidemic in our universe.
Adam Dorsay (01:28.599)
Yeah, it does.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:50.538)
It's connection that's the cure. It's not medications and you and I off camera or whatever have talked a little bit about medications and we'll touch upon that too. But I think, you know, oftentimes medications are just, call it a pill form of connection because it's one of those things that allows us, it takes some of the negative energy away from us to the point where we can find that natural connection nature in ourselves.
And that's what heals ourselves. But unfortunately with anxiety, we're in this survival mode all the time. And in that survival mode, we shut off our connection ability. And when we shut off our connection ability, we shut off our healing ability. So I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
Adam Dorsay (02:29.035)
Well, I love what you're saying nonetheless. And everything you're saying makes so much sense to me. I think oftentimes about John Bowlby and his incredible addition to psychology, which was all about attachment styles. And they all related to what your mentor was talking about the separation anxiety, the presence or the absence of it, or the way it would show up for the person who appears to not be experiencing actual anxiety, but they are experiencing it even worse.
by not showing anything. so yes, connection I believe is the cure. If I had, that was one of the considerations even for the title of my book rather than super psyched, which is kind of my brand. but connection is the cure indeed. And I spent about 300 pages describing exactly how and why I was surprised as a podcaster and a clinician to realize that everyone was talking about connection all the time. It was the omnipresent.
word. If we were to do kind of a scatterplot, it would have probably the most used word, feeling connection or not feeling connection, except it's not really well defined. And the books that are out are about connecting with your partner, connecting with your client, connecting with your children, but not really the way I'm looking at it more holistically. So I felt really called to write this book.
Dr Russ Kennedy (03:49.72)
Yeah, what I like about the book is it addresses the ethereal part of connection too, which is, you know, there's parts of our brain that are wired to worship. You we really wired to worship other people, ourselves, and we lose that as we get into the survival mechanism. So if I look at the political situation in the States,
Adam Dorsay (03:54.387)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (04:09.942)
Everybody's in physiological survival. So when you're in physiological survival, you shut off the part of your brain that's connection. So there's a part of our system called the social engagement system. So eye contact, tone of voice, prosody of voice, body language, facial expression. These things are what we learned growing up when we interact with our friends, when we with our families. But we're losing that. Our kids are losing that because they're on screens all the time now, and we're losing it too. So the software.
You know, the hardware is in there, but the software is kind of getting a little more soft. So as we lose that interpersonal connection, we lose that sense of safety. And then we get more into survival, which of course makes us lose the ability to have eye contact, of voice, prosody, voice, body language, all this sort of stuff. So it becomes this vicious cycle.
Adam Dorsay (04:57.657)
couldn't agree more. What's weird about that little thing between our ears is it's not changed in about 35,000 years. Some even estimate a hundred thousand years and yet our external surroundings have changed profoundly. So these brains that are still kind of inversion, you know, whatever version it is, let's say 3.0 based on the years of evolution. you know, in the last 20 years we've had about
Dr Russ Kennedy (05:05.922)
Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (05:23.129)
20 different iPhones, not quite, but we've had so many different OS's in our computers and yet the brains between our ears, which are the most complex structure in the known human universe, or in the known, not human universe, in the known universe haven't changed. And boy, I mean, we are just not ready to adapt to an external reality the way it's presenting itself. So I just have to throw one other thing your way Russ, and that is we look for what's easy. It's kind of a bias.
Dr Russ Kennedy (05:36.248)
Yeah, right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (05:46.228)
and fine yeah yeah go ahead
Adam Dorsay (05:52.525)
Go for what's easy. And what's easy is to choose false gods. False gods could be anybody from an athlete, a politician. It could be a car. It could be rooting for a sports team and spending your entire life doing that. And at the end of your life saying, what have I done with my life? And this book is really aiming to find authentic connection. I love sports. Don't get me wrong. But if it's the only thing you've got, there may be a problem.
Dr Russ Kennedy (06:17.986)
And I think that's an issue with men too, because men have a difficult, we're not brought up in a milieu of connection. We're brought up in a milieu of competition. So, and that, and I think that's why it makes it so hard for men.
Adam Dorsay (06:25.593)
Absolutely.
Dr Russ Kennedy (06:33.474)
to make friends as adults because we grew up in this environment of competition. So we don't feel good enough. We're always comparing ourselves to the guy in our group who was the fantastic athlete. Doesn't matter how much basketball you play, he's still gonna beat you he never plays. This kind of thing. And I think it creates this sense of disconnection because we don't, and then as we get older and you'll get in our forties and fifties and maybe join a man's group, if you're lucky, you can actually find out that we're all the same.
It's all the same. Like the pain is the same. It doesn't matter, you know, how good looking you are, how much money you have or whatever. It's all the same pain. And then when you see that, you know, your friends, your bodies or whatever, who you thought were invincible are not, and then you have a chance to support them, then it comes full circle. Then we really have a chance to kind of say, Hey, hey, I'm not wounded. I'm not, or I could be wounded, but I'm not permanently damaged. Everyone's feeling the same thing.
I'm not different, but I can use that difference as a way of connecting with other people and seeing them as not so different from me, higher or lower.
Adam Dorsay (07:42.115)
You know, it's interesting. work with the ultra successful men of Silicon Valley. They show up in impossibly expensive cars. They've gone to the Ivy league schools. They've done all the things and they've got all the things. And yet what do they talk about? It's almost like family feud. It our number one answer is love. The number one answer is work. And, so they are just so
sad about their connections with their spouses. They're so sad about their connections or disconnections with their children. At work, they're finding that it's just become kind of meaningless in a treadmill. And one of things that they need is to feel that connection to all of those entities. We as men in particular, as you said, engage in competition. We bust each other's balls. We think that's the way to connect. Actually, it's a great way to disconnect. And Reed Malloy, who's one of the top researchers on psychopathy says,
It's a form of sadism. So we connect through sadistic tools and we don't know why we're not feeling closer. Now I'm not saying you can't bust balls once in a while, but John Gottman has shown that we need to have a good ratio of five to one, five positives to one negative. So yeah, if you got five things where you're showing support and then he bust balls once, maybe you'll be in a net positive.
Dr Russ Kennedy (08:57.772)
Yeah, that's kind of fun. You know, and I think there is that sort of camaraderie that we have, you know, because I think on some level, men want to feel like we are, the men that we're with are worthy. So we challenge them a little bit. And if they pass the challenge, like, hey, know, high fives, whatever. And I think that's why we bond on sports teams and all that kind of thing. But it becomes this habit of constantly
Adam Dorsay (09:03.011)
Right.
Adam Dorsay (09:11.693)
That's right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (09:25.57)
being in competition. And the other thing that we do to males, unfortunately, good or bad or whatever it is, is we shut off tears in our boys. And that's another thing Gordon Neufeld talks about is like, tears are an adaptive mechanism. So when you're getting a divorce or your dog's died, nothing changes. But if you can allow yourself to have tears, your brain, your perception of that thing does change. The external circumstance doesn't.
Adam Dorsay (09:33.721)
for
Dr Russ Kennedy (09:53.762)
but your perception of it does. And then when we take tears away from men, not saying that we should all start crying our eyes out, but when we take tears away from men, I think that's one of the reasons why men have such a high suicide rate is because they don't have this adaptive mechanism because we took it away from them since they were boys.
Adam Dorsay (10:09.291)
It's absolutely unbelievable. Boys on average are born more emotionally available and open than their female counterparts. And we are socialized to not feel. So if I was to say to you, Hey Russ, you know what? I'm going to go out to your car for a second. I'm going to go, I'll be right back, but it's going to be awesome. You're going to love this. This is going be great. And I go out and I put all kinds of black electrical tape on your dashboard and I say, hop in the car, buddy.
Dr Russ Kennedy (10:17.954)
Totally, totally.
Adam Dorsay (10:38.061)
And let's go for a ride. And you'd say, are you high? I can't see my gas meter. I can't see anything. And essentially that's what we're doing to our boys. We are basically say, go through life with a dashboard with tape on it. And what that turns into is a condition where we can't name our feelings. The fancy term is alexithymia, the absence of Lexi, a absence Lexi words, thymia feeling. So we can't actually put our names. We can say I'm stressed or I'm annoyed.
But these are kind of cover up emotions. The more we're able to, as you say, name it to tame it or feel it to heal it, the more likely we'll be in the driver seat of our emotions and make better decisions about them rather than being driven by our emotions and find ourselves, you know, scorching earth all over the place.
Dr Russ Kennedy (11:28.11)
Yeah, Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote a book called How Emotions Are Made. And she says, the more emotional words you know, the more emotionally literate you are. And it's really interesting. And men, you know, I think they did a study years ago, and I'm probably gonna bastardize this a little bit, but they put women in an MRI scanner, and they gave complex words like compassion or.
Adam Dorsay (11:30.713)
Mm.
Adam Dorsay (11:36.739)
That's right.
Adam Dorsay (11:50.318)
Mm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (11:50.99)
you know, intensity or whatever, and about 14 places in their brain lights up. And then they put men in there and four places light up, right? So it's kind of like, you know, emotionally, we don't have that language. So then frustration comes in. And I think men, one of the symptoms that I, because I deal with anxiety, like that's my jam. One of the things that I see with men is it's not anger, because anger is socially not acceptable, but irritability.
Adam Dorsay (11:56.568)
my god.
Dr Russ Kennedy (12:18.826)
is probably the number one symptom I see in men with their anxiety is irritability. It's not anger, that's socially you can't have that, just being cranky at it, road rage, like just being cranky at everything. And that's what a lot of my partners of my patients will say. It's like, yeah, he's just so irritable. Like I can't say anything. And it's just because if you keep stuffing emotion down like that,
it's gotta come out somewhere. It's like whack-a-mole. can't just, know, energy can't be created nor destroyed, only changed in form. So it winds up coming out in irritability, which of course separates you from yourself and also separates you from your partner. And that's the thing you talk about in the book. It's just that this cycle, we just wind up going, the brain is lazy. You're exactly right. So it takes the easy way out, which is often frustration, immediate gratification.
all this stuff that basically just bypasses any attempt at connection you could have. So,
Adam Dorsay (13:19.895)
I love that you bring up irritability because it's considered kind of a socially acceptable, you know, front. And it's also a, not only a sign of anxiety, but it's a sign of depression. So at least particularly for men. And you think about Larry David, or you think about in, in curb your enthusiasm or his other character, played by Jason Alexander and Seinfeld, George Costanza. mean, they were angry all the time and it was funny, except for the fact that
Dr Russ Kennedy (13:24.14)
Yes.
Adam Dorsay (13:47.779)
for sure these men were hurting inside and unable to sustain relationships as evidenced by the fact that they did not sustain relationships. And as our relationships come and go, that really is probably the number one predictor of how happy we will be, how content we will be, how fulfilled and how meaningful our lives will be. So that whole thing about connection, connection, disconnection and reconnection. And one of the things that's in this book is talking about actually
Dr Russ Kennedy (13:55.586)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (14:15.213)
What happens when we get disconnected and how can we reconnect? Because the manual is really, you know, it's out there. But I really wanted it to be made very easy for the lay leader, the lay leader, the lay reader.
Dr Russ Kennedy (14:18.135)
Right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (14:28.854)
Yeah, I know you get I know you get I know what you meant. I know you meant. So what would be like, what are kind of like the commandments? Like, for me, when I talk about anxiety, I often go on podcast day, what's the one thing that you want people to know? Like, well, I tell people that anxiety is more a state of physiological alarm in your body. That's made sense of by your brain that is actually coming from your brain itself. So if you can learn how to feel the feeling of alarm in your body and stay with it.
without compulsively being sucked into your worries and your thoughts, which just make it worse, then that's probably the biggest advice I can give to anybody learning how to deal with anxiety is like, allow it to be there, allow the feeling to stay there, but don't allow your mind to get a hold, easier said than done, of course, but it's just a template that really helps people understand that anxiety isn't actually a state of alarm in your body, that your brain is only just making sense of it. It's not starting in your brain. Your brain through this process called interoception,
reads this alarm in your body and it makes up stories based on this alarm. So it's going to make up stories about worry, scare, money, scarcity, all this sort of stuff. And then you're going to believe them because you made them up yourself. And I love the David Goggins quote that says, the mind has a tactical advantage over you because it knows all your worst fears and you can't, you can't hide from it. So what would be the thing about connection that, you know, even one or two are things that, that would, that people reading the book could really get, get their teeth into.
Adam Dorsay (15:46.915)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (15:57.529)
Well, one of the things I think about is that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional. And when we feel pain, one of the things we try to do is we pretend it's not there or we say it shouldn't be there and we fight it. And so the pain is there and by not accepting it and by trying to push it away, we are not being authentic with it. Now that's just one of the things that we can do. We can be inauthentic with a host of things. We can say yes to something that we mean no to. It's a cognitive bias. It's the yes damn bias. It's the
Dr Russ Kennedy (16:00.611)
Yep.
Adam Dorsay (16:27.243)
saying, I'll say yes, because I want to be nice. And then you go and you hate it. And you actually might even torpedo the whole thing that happens. Not infrequently. You say, nice to be nice. And then you resent that I call it actually the consent and resent cycle. So we need. So I would say the key first is being authentic with who we are. Get to know who you are. And that that sounds so glib. It sounds so hallmarky. And it's entirely true.
Dr Russ Kennedy (16:40.439)
I read that,
Dr Russ Kennedy (16:52.003)
Hmm.
Adam Dorsay (16:54.145)
we need to get to know ourselves before we can be authentic with anyone else. We have to be able to say, yes, this is music. I like this is work that I like. Yes, this is the way I like to spend my time. These are the people who I try to seek out to feel connected with and not making any excuses for it. This, this is, this is my jam and finding your geek zone, being authentic. That's stage one. So if you can think of the connection,
formula, so to speak, starting with a center, a nucleus, that is connection to ourself. Know thyself, above all else, to thine own self be true, says Shakespeare, and so do the ancient Greeks in various forms. And that has been a truism throughout the millennia. So we need to be true to ourselves. A lot of us think it's self-indulgent. A lot of us think it's selfish. It's not. It's actually probably one of the kindest thing you can do to whomever you're with so that you can really be there.
not just kind of lugging along being upset that you're going and resentful. Stage two, connecting with others, finding the people who actually feed you and don't bleed you. People who are a good match. People who you don't feel like you should be with, but people who genuinely feel better when you are with. I have a thing called the drive away test. How do you feel as you drive away, say from a friend? Do you feel taller or do you feel exhausted?
important thing to measure and we can't have all winners in our life, but we, the people we purposely choose to have in our life, we should be more intentional about. And of course, then there comes the world. The third ring connecting with the world includes our nature, our activities, and, even our ancestry getting to know these things, connecting with these entities in our life will give us a more connected experience. And then of course you very kindly talked about the fourth.
which is something greater, something greater to a religious person might mean religion to an Orthodox atheist. might mean going to the Grand Canyon and saying, wow, or seeing himself or herself under the stars and saying, wow, look at how small we are and experiencing awe. We can all experience something greater. And I would propose that Russ, you and I just connecting in this way, the way that Martin Buber describes as an I and thou, we are treating each other.
Dr Russ Kennedy (18:57.667)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (19:20.855)
like intelligent beings who have spirits. And I would say we are creating something greater. I would say that we are connecting with each other, sure. But I would even say that we are going to the fourth area. We are connecting with something greater as you and I kind of explore inner space in this way.
Dr Russ Kennedy (19:40.876)
Yeah, I mean, I think so much of it comes down to faith. And I think in this society, we've lost a lot of faith. And the people that I deal with, with anxiety, typically had some sort of trauma, something that was, you know, overwhelming them as children. And, you know, they stuffed it down into their body. This is the alarm comes from is that they, they couldn't handle their parents' divorce. They couldn't handle their father's drinking. So it gets stuffed down into their bodies, the state of alarm. So you lose faith in the world.
Adam Dorsay (19:46.521)
Hmm.
Adam Dorsay (20:03.321)
Mm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (20:09.578)
when, when, you know, your father's an abusive alcoholic, use faith, like my dad was schizophrenic. So I lost faith in the safety of the world because he was bipolar and schizophrenic. And although very loving and generous and kind and playful so much of the time, the negative bias when he would go crazy would overwhelm me. And I stuffed that down into my body. So I lost this sense of faith that the world was a safe place. And then when you do that, the natural corollary of that is to go, okay,
Adam Dorsay (20:16.185)
Hmm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (20:37.6)
Well, I guess everything's up to me then, you know, and I think that's why a lot of people with trauma don't believe in God because they lost faith so young. But the natural problem with that is then you unconsciously assume that everything is now up to you. And you know, as a seven year old, you don't have any control over what's going on. So that creates this state of physiological alarm that just takes away any chance of you forming into the person.
that would allow faith, that would allow things, that allows that social engagement system, that eye contact, tone of voice, prosody of voice, body of speech, all that stuff together. So you live this sort of secondary version of yourself, and then you learn how to cope with that version. And because the brain is lazy, as you say, it becomes a habit. And those coping strategies, people pleasing, worrying, whatever, they become ingrained in us. And as we become 30, 40, 50, 60,
There's such a habit that we can't get out of it and they're so disconnected.
Adam Dorsay (21:37.601)
I love that you use the word faith and the overwhelming experience of having a father with serious mental illness. In your case, was your dad had schizophrenia would really incur a loss of your birthright. And that was the birthright to experience faith. And you came upon it quite honestly that you would lose faith. Of course you did. Nothing made sense. Everything seemed probably quite random and negative. one of the things that I've seen is a
Precursor to faith is trust and that is finding ways to become excellent in ways that you have some control That the what we call the locus of control is within and that you don't look outside For a sense of control. I learned this idea believe it or not from a fifth grade teacher who was on my podcast and the idea of trust preceding faith and then Finding people whom you can trust and being very careful about who you choose Dr. Stan
Tatken describes love as a buddy cop film. We want to have each other's back. We want to trust each other. We need to know that the people in our lives, whether they are our significant romantic, others or our friends have our back a million percent that they, that we can trust ourselves. We can trust them and they can trust us. And if we got that, we're beginning something pretty great.
Dr Russ Kennedy (22:57.912)
So why did you write the book? Adam, we've been, we've jumped into this 20 minutes. We've been bouncing around. So why did you write the book?
Adam Dorsay (22:59.289)
Ha ha ha ha ha
Adam Dorsay (23:04.471)
Hmm. I love that question. Well, after about 20,000 hours of providing therapy to individuals and couples, this word connection kept showing up after reading lots of books and having hundreds of people on my podcast, thought leaders, the word connection just, it was the word that showed up. Dr. Irv Yalem, who is one of the, you know, MVPs of psychotherapies and existentialists, he said every book he wrote bit him in the ass. And for years I'd been waiting for a book to bite me in the ass.
This is the book that took hold of me like a pit bull on my butt until I wrote the book and it didn't let go until I was done. I knew this was my contribution. I was born connecting with people. My mom said that even in a stroller, I seem to have this hyper desire to connect with people in ways that she didn't see from other babies. And throughout life, that has also been for better or for worse, my, my, thing that I've wanted.
to do. I've connected in other cultures. lived in Japan for nearly three years. I've lived in Spanish-speaking cultures. So I've really spent time trying to connect with people who are similar to me, people who are not similar to me, and I found great joy in those experiences. So it was also, yeah, for sure.
Dr Russ Kennedy (24:19.852)
I want to break in there for a second. want to break and just say, so living in Japan, I imagine you learned to speak the language after a while, right? So, okay. And, but connecting in that environment, because they are a very insular country, right? So I would imagine that, you know, being a Westerner, there would be an automatic disconnect. So that what I would imagine be very uncomfortable for you. And how did you overcome that?
Adam Dorsay (24:24.117)
Mm-hmm. I did. I still speak it.
Adam Dorsay (24:34.551)
Yes, homogenous insular.
Adam Dorsay (24:47.885)
You know, it was uncomfortable and that was part of the reason why I threw myself in. If that makes sense and it sounds like it does. It's kind of like a person who's afraid of heights who decides to, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start doing skydiving. so yes, I read everything I possibly could about the country to know the cultural mores. I studied the language intensely, tried to learn the various levels of honorifics so I could speak in a way that, you know, did not sound disrespectful.
Dr Russ Kennedy (24:51.778)
Mm-hmm, sure. Yeah, perfect sense.
Dr Russ Kennedy (25:16.29)
Right. Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (25:17.281)
Of course, in spite of all these attempts, I managed, yeah, of course, to screw up a lot. But I always was very contrite and I was trying to do better next time. Here I am a six foot, nearly two inch, you know, Mediterranean hairy male with large shoes that are taken off in the gang con. And they say that the larger the shoe, the less intelligent the person. Yeah. So, but I really wanted to do this.
Dr Russ Kennedy (25:31.501)
Right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (25:37.836)
I've read that. Yep. Yep.
Adam Dorsay (25:44.333)
for a host of reasons that I won't even begin to get into here, but just it was very meaningful for me to live in a place that felt about 180 degrees from me. It felt like kind of like a, you know, a Navy SEALs training for me. And every day I was there, I noticed something different and learned something. My brain was on fire. Great country, great people, insanely beautiful structures and food. The food is obviously ridiculously good. I mean, like
Dr Russ Kennedy (26:10.84)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (26:12.545)
You can't, I've realized you cannot get anything less than something very good, but generally the lowest level will be excellent and it will go all the way to life changing. That is pretty much the range of Japanese food. It's, it's the best.
Dr Russ Kennedy (26:20.62)
Mm. Right? I've heard that about Japan. You know, I've really heard that about it because...
I think, yeah, there is that sense too. Like I know when I used, I went to Mexico quite a bit when I was younger and I still do, I still go twice a year. And I remember that feeling of disconnection, not being able to speak the language. I mean, I took Spanish in high school, but you know, like my high school grades were dis, I have no idea how I got into medical school because my high school grades were just horrible. I mentioned that before on the program, but it was just, when I started learning Spanish,
Adam Dorsay (26:34.329)
Uh-huh.
Adam Dorsay (26:39.609)
Hmm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (26:55.168)
and I started speaking it, was just, there was this overwhelming sense of connection with the people. know, there was just this, it just to this day, even right now when I talk about it, there is this sense, we have this, I, you know, I go to a lot of resorts. It's not like I'm, you know, roughing it out in the outback back in Mexico, you know, but there is this thing that they have in Mexico when you walk down and you see someone who's a staff member, you tap above your heart. And I do that automatically now, even when I'm here in Victoria, you know, when I'm talking to someone, I just,
And it's just such a warm feeling to be able to walk down a hallway and then everybody just smiles and they tap their heart. There's just this warmness about it that we don't have here.
Adam Dorsay (27:36.343)
I could not agree more. And there is an other focus. There is this awareness. There are other people. It's more community minded. And I love that. And we could learn a lot from Latin American countries in terms of how to cultivate connection and happiness. In Costa Rica, they say, Pura Vida. That's how they say hello. And that means pure life. What a great, what a great greeting. And I do speak the language. I love hanging out with Spanish speakers. The reason I speak Spanish and Japanese.
Dr Russ Kennedy (27:57.262)
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.
Adam Dorsay (28:06.475)
is because they were encouraging. When I was learning and sucking at each of these language, and I mean sucking badly for a long time. In fact, the reason, the only reason I'm able to speak was because I was willing to tolerate sucking. I wanted it badly enough that I was willing to tolerate sucking and looking like a moron for a long time. But the payout is unbelievable. There's nothing more joyful than sitting with a Spanish speaking
Dr Russ Kennedy (28:15.628)
Yeah, sure.
Dr Russ Kennedy (28:20.366)
Hmm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (28:24.558)
Right.
Adam Dorsay (28:35.053)
group of people and having a meal and drinking together, are just, it's a world unto itself. It's joyful, it's different. I love my English speaking homies as well, of course, but getting kind of a front row seat to the other and seeing what it's like and seeing how they do it or seeing how the Japanese do it, the drinking and talking, they call it no munication, which means drinking and talking at the same time.
Dr Russ Kennedy (28:46.356)
Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (29:03.525)
they're much more likely to shed their kind of their more persona based personalities. They call it tatemai, which means what they show on the outside. They're much more willing to show their inside their hone as they call it when they're drinking.
Dr Russ Kennedy (29:16.654)
Mm.
Yeah, I think that's the social engagement system again, you know, like eye contact and then tone of voice and the prosody of voice. Like if you, if you listen to people that don't know each other talk, it's very flat. It's very monotone. But if you listen to people that know each other for a long time, there's a lot of laughter. There's a little thing. There's the voice, the range of it goes up and it goes down. goes down and it's just, you just, you're just enjoying. And it just unconsciously sends a message to the other person like, Hey, you're safe with me. You're safe with me. We can, you can be a little silly if you want. can, you can
can, you know, change your voice pattern. You, can speak a little louder, a little softer, and this social engagement system that binds us all together. If you give it the opportunity, it will kick in. But if you're in this sort of state of physiological alarm, we shut off that. So we have a hard time making eye contact and then the other person feels it, you know, it's, this, it's either everything's going well or everything's not going well. And it really, that's, think.
Adam Dorsay (29:49.049)
Mm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (30:16.974)
so much of communication is nonverbal and unconscious. And I think, especially in the United States, everything is sort of into this left hemisphere realm of like, this is, you know, linguistic, linear, that kind of thing. And it does take away from that humanistic sense of just communication. It's beyond just the words. It's beyond the underlying message. There's a feeling behind it.
And I don't get that sense of feeling when I, a lot of times when I go to the States.
Adam Dorsay (30:48.995)
From where I sit, it feels like you're talking about the logistical versus the emotional language style. And I would say the logistical probably hits our sympathetic nervous system, our fight flight, you know, like, got to be on alert. Whereas going into more of the emotional connection might more likely hit our parasympathetic, which is our rest and digest tendon. Well, tendon befriend can go both ways, but it's more likely to allow us to befriend a person and feel safe.
And even in that little micro connection, when we're leaving the grocery store, we have an amazing connection with the cashier who we may never see again. We can carry that with us and you can feel a little bit happier. That's a good way to get just like a micro dose of just joy that might actually have a fairly long half life and might reduce our anxiety. And that's a micro connection doesn't have to necessarily. I mean, I love a big connection. I love a, you know, a long cup of coffee that
Dr Russ Kennedy (31:45.357)
Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (31:46.829)
We talk, we bear our souls. That's like, for me, that's for somebody else, it might not be their jam, but for me, this is like, wow.
Dr Russ Kennedy (31:53.346)
Yeah. Well, the banter too, and I think that's the thing about men is that we can get into this sort of banter together. I remember we used have an ice hockey team and med school that I was at. every time, so we'd either play at 7 a.m. or 9 a.m. and then we would go to breakfast after that. And we were all relaxed because we had all just burned ourselves out, you know? And it was just such a feeling of just connection and camaraderie. And there was some teasing, of course, and that kind of thing too, but there was just...
Adam Dorsay (32:04.839)
that's cool.
Adam Dorsay (32:11.714)
awesome.
Dr Russ Kennedy (32:22.368)
such a flow, it was just such a flow state and you talk about flow in the book as well. There was just such this flow state because that sympathetic system had been kind of worn out because we had been in this ultra intense exercise and then now we're in this sort of relaxed state and almost like, hey, you have the excuse now.
to be able to connect with these guys because normally we're all in competition with each other as soon as the exam hits or whatever. But on Sunday mornings when we would play hockey, at the end of hockey, we'd go and have eight pancakes and 18 pieces of bacon and all that kind of stuff. And it was just banter. It was just back and forth. It was just so comfortable.
Adam Dorsay (32:49.817)
That's right.
Adam Dorsay (33:04.579)
Brother, that's that's group therapy in the best way. It's unmoderated. It's perfect. And I'm guessing that because there was a container of trust that surrounded you guys that you could bust each other's balls and it made you feel closer. So, so it sounds, this sounds optimal. Like, yeah, you're in this zero sum game of being in med school. We're competing with each other. Then you're on the ice competing with each other. And then you're chilling and you're completely just, Hey, we're just going to be homies for a bit.
Dr Russ Kennedy (33:16.761)
yeah. for sure.
Dr Russ Kennedy (33:32.77)
Yep. And then Tuesday nights we would go, you know, we'd have poker. We'd play poker on Tuesday night. And that kind of thing. was just this, you know, because med school is stressful. Like it's very, very stressful. So we had these episodes where we would just be able to be together and just, and we knew each other's personality too as well. And you could playfully tease. And there's, there's a few fights that actually started in this thing too.
Adam Dorsay (33:37.11)
That's great.
Adam Dorsay (33:43.078)
Ohhhh
Adam Dorsay (33:56.847)
Hahahaha
Dr Russ Kennedy (33:59.224)
But at the end of that, there was this kind of sense like, you know what? can get, we can, it's like, we're family. We can get into these like, bust out brawls in a way. And then at the end of it kind of, you know, it's like the cowboy movies at the end of it, kind of like spit out the tooth or whatever it is. And you're like, Hey, you know what? That was good. That was a good punch. Like you, you, you really, you really did that. Yeah. And it's, know, but it was beyond, you know, it was beyond the typical, you know, you know, getting drunk. I love you.
Adam Dorsay (34:09.643)
Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (34:14.797)
Yeah
Adam Dorsay (34:19.789)
Let's go grab a drink.
Dr Russ Kennedy (34:29.034)
men so often, right? I think that we do have this sense that we're, we are all connected to ourselves. We are all, it's just what happens to us puts little blocks like little doorstops in there, right? And then we don't have this ability to, we want to connect with ourselves, but sometimes when we have a few drinks, we feel more comfortable. You know, you get that GABA response in your brain, you calm down and you're able to kind of connect a little more even after a couple of drinks.
Adam Dorsay (34:29.066)
Right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (34:56.546)
So there is this sense, I see why people get addicted to substances because in a way, and we mentioned this before we went on about psych meds, think meds drop that sort of high sympathetic tone that shuts off that engagement. But we don't wanna be on meds for a long, both of you, you and I have both been on meds. So it's kinda like, there is this sense, and I would get this a lot from my patients, is they'd say, you know, Dr. Kennedy, I'm not, I'm not,
Adam Dorsay (35:00.513)
for sure.
Dr Russ Kennedy (35:24.044)
depressed or anxious anymore, but I don't feel much of anything. Right? So that's the trade off. then, and then you got to come off meds, which is, which is no fun either. But I mean, I think I'm not against psych meds. People send me things on Instagram saying, you're hate. It's like, no, not at all. think they're, they're invaluable. It's just that I think so often we wind up medicating. and when we medicate, we numb our sense of connection and we numb the, the, the very thing we need the most to heal.
Adam Dorsay (35:28.642)
Numbness.
Adam Dorsay (35:52.441)
So it's interesting from my vantage point, I've seen meds be a crucial part of someone's healings process, whether it's short term or long term. And I see basically three routes, you you can not do them. in some cases, that's not a great idea. In some cases, they are great scaffolds. They're almost like wearing a knee brace for a period of time as you're learning skills. And then you can slowly but surely titrate off them. At least that's been my experience. I'm not a psychiatrist and I'm not endorsing any type of med and I'm not giving medical advice here because I'm
Dr Russ Kennedy (36:19.372)
Right.
Adam Dorsay (36:21.689)
a psychologist and I have to stay in my lane. I'm not a physician, but that being said, I've seen it too many times in my own case with my ADHD meds and my antidepressants. I needed to learn skills that I could not have learned as easily, perhaps even at all without them. And for a period of time, particularly for the ADHD meds, I was on them for five years as I was giving myself a self imposed
Dr Russ Kennedy (36:25.154)
We getcha.
Adam Dorsay (36:49.345)
Navy SEALs training of my own trying to make myself the father and husband I hope to be in the future because I knew that the way I was comporting myself this was just not gonna work long-term. I was a slacker. I didn't have my eye on the ball at all. And now no one would know I had ADHD of the inattentive type at all. I have the inattentive type. I'm gonna look out the window. I don't swing from chandeliers. But like you I've got anxiety coming up my ears.
I used to jokingly say, you know, I'm like the hair club for men psychologist. I don't just treat anxiety. I suffer from it. So I know what it's like. Are you kidding?
Dr Russ Kennedy (37:21.656)
Yeah, that's been my tagline as well. That's been my, no, yeah, definitely because I did every type of therapy. I did ACT, CBT, HIJK, every type of therapy and nothing really worked. I went to India. I lived at a temple in India. I experienced enlightenment for about 90 minutes at 431 morning. I've been there. I know what it feels like. I can reproduce that sensation and it's such a calming, peaceful sensation.
But my day-to-day life, you know, it's changed completely now. But five years ago, I would go through these things. I would feel better in the short term. And just like I did with a CBT, I would feel better in the short term because, you know, we're starting to use that sort of left hemisphere less. And Martha Beck has a great book called Beyond Anxiety that I'm reading right now. She talks about this left hemisphere hall of mirrors. So it's kind of like we get trapped in this hall of mirrors looking into these mirrors, thinking that we can see the future, but really,
Adam Dorsay (38:08.525)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (38:15.321)
Mm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (38:21.452)
It's like a hall of rear view mirrors. All we're seeing is the past. All we're seeing is the pain of the past. And we're trying with that left hemisphere to explain something that's ultimately not explainable and bringing it back completely to the meds. So you have to be able to be connected. Like that's what I would say to people. They would say, I want to come off my medications. I'd say, okay, what are the connections in your life? I may not have used that word specifically, but who are the people in your life that you feel warm and fuzzy towards? Because if you don't have those people,
I can't take you off medication because you need connection to be able to sustain the pain you're going to go through as you come off these medications.
Adam Dorsay (39:00.501)
I love that you're bringing the interpersonal piece in and having people that might be in your immediate perception or in your memory. And that Martha Beck idea of the hall of mirrors on the left side of the brain. I've never heard that before, but that is brilliant. And I'm going to be thinking on that because it resonates perfectly with my own anxiety. On the other side, when I think about the people who I love and who I feel safe around and the animals, believe it or not.
Dr Russ Kennedy (39:28.098)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, sure.
Adam Dorsay (39:28.729)
They're also internalized objects into my psyche. But if I think about my wife, as I'm about to do something that's a little bit scary, or I think about my buddy Jed, who I know always has my back, or if I think about my buddy David Gertner or Bob Hirosh, I think of these people and I'm ready to go. I think about my sons, I feel safe around them. So these internalized objects can really help us in the moment. I also have heard
a piece of research that blew my mind and that is around something I care about a lot, perceived support. Let's say you and I are about to go, let's say you and I are bros, best buds, and I could see a case for that becoming the case in overtime. But we're about to go hiking and we look up at a hill together and we assess how difficult this climb is going to be based on the grade. So from one to 10, we give it around a four. And if we are alone without each other, the people we can lean on,
Dr Russ Kennedy (40:05.581)
Yes,
Dr Russ Kennedy (40:16.174)
Yep.
Adam Dorsay (40:25.037)
We will rate it at around a seven. Perceived support can really, really hack into our psyches. The idea of people who don't need people or that being an Island or I don't need no one or this rugged individualism, it doesn't work long-term for one's entire life. can be, it can be a skill that we have as a thing, a tool for sometimes, but if it's most of the time or all the time, we will be lonely and we will probably die younger.
Dr Russ Kennedy (40:45.816)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Adam Dorsay (40:54.131)
I mean, it's the number one predictor of mortality in these long-term studies, including the Cambridge study and others. Loneliness, major.
Dr Russ Kennedy (41:02.178)
Loneliness, yeah. It's a huge, huge issue. And that's the thing about when you grow up with trauma, and it doesn't have to be big trauma either. You can just, there's, I always say there's a combination of how sensitive you're born. Cause if you ask a parent, who's your most sensitive kid? They'll tell you immediately. Like this one is the most sensitive, right? So there is evidence suggesting that temperament is genetic, right? So if you're born with a very sensitive temperament, which you are, which I am,
Adam Dorsay (41:09.145)
Mm.
Adam Dorsay (41:18.627)
Yeah, for sure.
Dr Russ Kennedy (41:32.416)
you the vicissitudes of life are going to hit you a lot harder. Now, you're also going to have a lot more access to joy, but we don't see that bonus as we get until we get older, right? So at the when you're younger, it's like, I wish I wasn't as anxious, I would give anything to be, you know, now I realized that anxiety was just a sign of my sensitivity. So if I realized that I can use that sensitivity to write books and write programs and help other people.
Adam Dorsay (41:35.833)
for sure.
That's right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (41:59.01)
then that brings that joy in which sort of buffers that sort of sensitive pain. But it's understanding that we are born at a certain level of sensitivity. If you grow up in an environment, there's trauma and you're sensitive, you're probably not going to do that well. But if you grow up in an environment where there's trauma or you're sensitive and there's attachment, there's repair, because kids that have repair, kids that grow up in a household that have like traumas but are repaired,
Adam Dorsay (42:13.283)
for you.
Dr Russ Kennedy (42:25.686)
are much more mentally healthy, have much more capacity and resilience in their nervous system than kids that just sort of float through life. Because they don't ever get to see that, yes, things can go to shit, but they can actually come back once they've gone there. But those of us with trauma, we see it go bad, but we just, don't see it come back again, except really, really slowly. And then often it will happen again. And we just get into this business where we're in this constant state of sympathetic.
fighter flight activation, which I call alarm, which basically the mind reads and says, okay, because the mind has a tactical advantage over you, it just tells you all these negative things. And the thing about the brain is the more you focus on something, the more of that you will perceive. So if you look at the negative, you will see more negative. And the worst part of that maybe, is the fact that when you're in that survival network, you're in survival mode, is that you don't see the positive. The things that are positive, you actually your brain doesn't even perceive.
It just, it's so, the needle is so pointed at the negative and it makes it so much harder to connect when you don't have that software online that allows you to be able to be in that connected state where you're together, you're looking up the mountain, you're going, hey, this is gonna be a challenge. It's like, yep, you know, let's go do it. So it's really important, I think, to just understand that there's so much underpinning, unconscious wiring that goes on behind the scenes.
that we can tap into and we can change. And sometimes we have to do it cognitively. Sometimes we have to say, if I'm having a scrap with Cynthia, my wife, I have to say, you have to go out. And this is one of the things that I know I'm talking a lot, but I'm gonna stop in a second. So Cynthia and I both have a picture of ourselves when we're nine years old. So when we're having an argument about something, I will go look at that picture of her as a nine year old. And it's like, that's who I'm dealing with. And immediately my heart's off.
Adam Dorsay (44:03.738)
Mm-hmm
Adam Dorsay (44:08.141)
Hmm.
Adam Dorsay (44:12.279)
That's That's brilliant. That's right.
That is such an important intervention because that's exactly correct. We are our nine year old selves when we're fighting. You can enter another age that might be more sensitive, but let's go to something else that you were talking about. is highly sensitive people. And the first time I heard about this idea, I thought, my gosh, this is not a thing until I geeked out to it. And I got, not only is it a thing, it's a thing across species. 20 % of all species for the survival of that species are sensitive. They're the ones who notice
when, when danger is on its way, the drought coming, we smell the fires, all that stuff. And so I am an HSP and I was not stoked to learn this. so the way she describes them, the, Elena friend is one of the top researchers in the world. And she explained it to me that we are either like orchids, which are the highly sensitive people or like dandelions, 80 % of people are like dandelions. So
Dr Russ Kennedy (44:49.326)
There's a drought coming. Yeah, you wrote this in your book. And I thought, yeah, exactly.
Adam Dorsay (45:15.057)
I love this image. This is the image I've created to speak to this. I'm not sure if it works perfectly, but I think it's great. Have you ever seen that guy who decides from the beach to go through the breakers of the waves and bring his boat beyond the breakers? And you watch this poor guy, this poor schmuck is like battling breakers and comes another set of breakers and another set of breakers. He's going against maybe 15 sets and finally after the 16th.
He gets beyond the breakers and he's out in blue water. I think that for an highly sensitive person, they might lose heart quicker. I don't know if that's true or not, but I, I, but, but with that intervention that you described, and I'm so glad you did. Yeah. Russ, if you, if we know how to attend to our children who are highly sensitive, they will kick ass in massive ways.
Dr Russ Kennedy (45:54.358)
Hmm. That makes sense.
Adam Dorsay (46:14.009)
These orchids will bloom so big and for many of us we have with that Orchids growing the mud. That's great
Dr Russ Kennedy (46:17.608)
Orchids grow in the mud. Orchids grow in the mud. Right? So it's just it's one of those things that we make the best out of it. Now
Some people are beaten down by it. And I think there is trauma that unfortunately beats many of us down. We have a huge male suicide issue and that kind of thing too. But I think it is part of life and just being able to understand that it's temporary. I think one of the things that I think faith is so important for, not necessarily religious faith, but just when I worry, I start thinking, okay, can I just have faith that this is gonna be okay?
Adam Dorsay (46:53.305)
Hmm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (46:54.86)
Because when we worry, we actually make the uncertain appear a little more certain. And one of the things that trauma, know, people with trauma hate the most is uncertainty because of what uncertainty meant for them when they were children. So we will do anything to avoid uncertainty, including worry. Because if you look at the the ventral tegment mental area in the brain, it creates dopamine and it fires it into that nucleus accumbens, which is basically the reward center. So when we worry about something.
Adam Dorsay (46:59.257)
That's right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (47:21.686)
We make it appear more certain and in that we get a little shot of dopamine from it. And if we really scare the crap out of ourselves when we worry, the periaqueductal gray secretes endorphins and encephalins. So we get rewarded neurochemically for worrying. So, and I have patients that say to me all the time, know, Dr. Kennedy, frankly, I get worried when I'm not worrying. And I said, yeah, because your brain is rewarding you for worry. This is why recovering from anxiety is so...
difficult because your brain actually rewards you, creates a little bit of certainty and because you hate uncertainty so much, you will accept that bargain and unfortunately that traps you and worry for the rest of your
Adam Dorsay (48:01.529)
So true. Think about the end of the Hurt Locker where you see Jeremy Renner's character walking through this massive and boring supermarket. He's used to detonating or these IEDs. Thanks. I forgot the three letters. He's used to doing that in Iraq, which is really scary. And one of the things that happens with trauma is that unwittingly we end up more likely to be doom scrolling and we do get that hit of dopamine, even though
Dr Russ Kennedy (48:14.242)
IEDs. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Adam Dorsay (48:29.325)
the net result is negative. engage in doom scrolling. So we do all of these things rather unconsciously. And one of the biggest points of this book is to get more intentional and to try that because left to its own devices, our brain has a lot of bugs in it. will, it will doom scroll. It will spend time on social media and do social comparison. We were meant to social socially compare, but usually on the other side of it, we don't feel all that great.
Dr Russ Kennedy (48:30.851)
Yes.
Adam Dorsay (48:55.917)
We were meant to feel FOMO, fear of missing out. In fact, a fellow who was on my podcast, McGinnis, talked about his book FOMO Sapiens. It's such a big part of who we are. And then there's this blue light. It's always calling for our attention. Ever since 2007 when smartphones really got on the scene. I mean, it's just calling to us and we basically become its slave. What we need to do is use technology and not have technology use us.
Dr Russ Kennedy (49:11.55)
Great title.
Adam Dorsay (49:25.155)
We want to be, we don't want to be consumers. We want to be producers and creators. So create more than you, then you consume is one of my dictates in life. And one of the biggest parts of the book, if we can create more than we consume, and if we can be regimented about how we consume and how much we consume and what we don't consume, there are things I will not consume because I know that it will be like a mountain dew for my system.
I love Mountain Dew by the way, but I don't drink it. It's like battery acid for my belly, you know, and it's delicious, but I don't drink it anymore. And similarly, there are certain places I will not go that really stimulate my amygdala, which is my fear and anger center of my limbic system. I just don't go there. I will be intolerable to the people who matter most to me. And those are my wife and children and of course my clients.
Dr Russ Kennedy (49:49.566)
yeah. Yeah.
Dr Russ Kennedy (49:55.672)
Yeah.
Dr Russ Kennedy (50:14.91)
actually a nucleus beside the amygdala called the bed nucleus of the stride terminalis and that nucleus is what keeps worry going. Like that's what keeps things going. So the amygdala itself kind of responds and it kind of comes and goes but the bed nucleus kind of says, hey, you know what? This could go really badly. This could go really badly. This could go, remember this? Remember when you were 12? Remember that? Remember that? This could go really, so it keeps you in this heightened state of
Adam Dorsay (50:19.073)
Yes.
Adam Dorsay (50:32.857)
Hmm
Dr Russ Kennedy (50:42.84)
you know, sympathetic activation that prevents you from being connected to yourself or others. I have this thing now that when I start doom scrolling, it's like, have to go to an audio book. So, so it is one of those things because it's so, it's so automatic for me because I have this theory and I want to say quickly, I think what happens is that we, as I said, we get this alarm in our body when we're younger and it, the mind reads that and it creates these negative worries, these negative thoughts over and over and over again.
Adam Dorsay (50:53.803)
Bro... Bros.
Dr Russ Kennedy (51:12.694)
So when we want to do anything to avoid that sense of pain in our body, there's a part of our brain called the insular cortex, and it kind of maps our mind onto our body. The insula is kind of what, when we get a break up, the heartache, the insula is kind of what's mapping that, not exactly, but close enough. So when we map this stuff onto our body, we don't want to be in that pain. So what we do is we go doom scrolling or we go into something, some addiction.
because that gets us out of this pain, this alarm in our body. And we'll do anything to escape that alarm in our body. And then it becomes this place that we become very afraid to go back into our body. But that alarm in our body, and this is my whole point, that alarm in our body is an effigy of the younger version of me. That's Rusty, that's the younger version of me. So what I'm doing essentially when I go to worry or doom scrolling is Rusty's coming up to me and saying, hey, I need some attention. And I'm going, no, no, not right now, Rusty.
Adam Dorsay (51:53.473)
Hehehehehe
Dr Russ Kennedy (52:08.398)
No, not right now. If you had a kid come up to you in a grocery store with their hands up because they lost their parents, would you just sort of shove them off and go, hey, hey, see you later, kid? But unfortunately, that's what we do to ourselves. We become so disconnected from ourselves that our only response is to doom scroll. Our only response is to worry. Anyway, I went off there, but.
Adam Dorsay (52:25.355)
And I love, I love that you've come up with a way to basically hijack that and say, I'm going to listen to an audio book and because my brain needs to do something. And so I remember there was a movie, it was not a huge movie, but it was starring Matt Damon where he'd read, listened to Dickens as he was going to sleep. And I think it's really important that we find something that is regulating to us. that will allow us to relax for me. It's.
you know, listening to Conan O'Brien on a podcast that helps me a lot. The funny people of the world really make all the beauty of the world for me. Tig Notaro I've been into lately. She is killing me. Of course, John Mulaney and various others. Unbelievable. No, dude, that's amazing. Whoa.
Dr Russ Kennedy (52:56.152)
Nice.
Dr Russ Kennedy (53:00.558)
think so too.
Yep. She's great.
John's hilarious. You know, I didn't stand up for 10 years. Did I tell you that? Yeah, I went through, I went through yuck yucks in Canada. I, tour, I toured through like Vancouver and medicine hat, Calgary and Edmonton and Toronto and Quebec city and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It was really fun. It was really fun. because I do think humor is, you know, that's it. That's one of the things that humor and tears, laughter and tears are our brain's natural equalizer. Anyway, I interrupted you. Sorry.
Adam Dorsay (53:24.557)
That must have been s-
Adam Dorsay (53:34.883)
could not agree more. Yeah, there's a singer Kiko Veneno who wrote a song called the day, which means to laugh and just cry. And I think he nailed it almost as much as Freud did when he's talked about love and work because those are, no, it's lovely when we have two real big North stars and I think laughter and tears and love and work are, but you know, there's so many bugs in our brain that we just need to be mindful of. And then there's going for what's easy. We talked a little bit about that, but things that require activation energy on a Saturday.
after a haul long weeks of work. We don't want to do those even though the payoff will probably be greater. So what do we do? We boil up some coffee, we turn on the TV, we got something streaming. We look, we start petting the dog, we fold the laundry, we respond to email and texts. And we wonder on Monday why we don't feel rejuvenated is because we're not being thoughtful about how we, I love streaming by the way. I stream like a mofo. I watch a lot of stuff.
Dr Russ Kennedy (54:06.37)
Right.
Dr Russ Kennedy (54:25.538)
Right.
Adam Dorsay (54:32.947)
but I try to conscientiously procure certain things that I know might be a little more challenging, but will give me a bigger payout when Monday comes around so that I'm more available throughout the week.
Dr Russ Kennedy (54:47.566)
Well, like you say, you know, the brain is lazy and that's why I love Mel's five, four, three, two, one, because it basically, you know, it, it, but it's hard to set it, you know, then there's a block to doing five, four, three, two, one, right? So the brain's smart. Like it knows what you're going to do. It's like, I could five, four, three, two, one. It's like, no, no, you could do this a little bit. So, but you have to kind of force yourself, look, I'm going to do this. I'm going to get outside five, four, three, two, one. I'm going take the dogs. I'm going to go, you know, one of the things that I wanted to just quickly touch on here before you run out of time is animals.
Adam Dorsay (54:53.017)
They're so good. I love the five second roll.
Dr Russ Kennedy (55:16.514)
You know, you talk about you talk about animals and how, because I think what happens with a lot of people is they don't trust people, right? Because people hurt them when they were younger, even your parents, especially your parents. But animals are those things that are always kind of there for you. You know, they will reflect back to you what you if you treat them well, they will treat you well. That's just how it works. And I think that's why we get people so connected to their animals. And often when I when I do these hypno meditations, I make these meditations for my clients, I will say, you know,
Adam Dorsay (55:16.812)
Ugh, the best.
Dr Russ Kennedy (55:45.454)
Can you love yourself like you love Ellie, like you love your dog? Can you imagine holding your younger self, you know, the way you hold your dog or your cat? Can you imagine that love back and forth between the two of you? And for some reason that kind of goes in the back door of their unconscious and blocks and it stops them from going to that automatic, no, I can't have connection, connection hurts me. So, but the connection to an animal is one of the things that they can really.
Especially when people are coming off meds. Like if they said, do you have a pet? It's like, yes, I do. It's like, oh, great. Because that's probably gonna be your biggest way of coming off medication is through your pet. And a lot of people don't realize that. And you talk about that in the book and I really love that part.
Adam Dorsay (56:26.957)
I'm so glad you did. I used to be the pet loss guy at the humane society. when some month I would be there to hear the stories of people who'd lost pets and they cry harder than I've ever seen anyone cry in any context. And I am a former feline a phobe, I think is the term I used to hate cats. And then I suddenly met a cat for reasons that I won't even get into and fell in love. And he slept in my arms that night.
Dr Russ Kennedy (56:38.293)
yeah.
Dr Russ Kennedy (56:45.325)
Okay.
Dr Russ Kennedy (56:48.971)
Okay.
Adam Dorsay (56:52.377)
And he was one of my greatest healers. He also taught me about my own ADHD. Like he had massive health complications. He had asthma, which is a Yoda, right? And he's actually, his cremated remains are right behind me. I will not put it. My other animals are in the backyard, but his always needed to be nearby. Just he's, he's my, he's my guy. he ushered me into adulthood in a way that no one else could have. he taught me that I was able to care for an animal with
Dr Russ Kennedy (56:54.638)
Yoda?
Dr Russ Kennedy (57:00.686)
Is this Yoda? Yeah.
Dr Russ Kennedy (57:09.454)
Hmm.
Adam Dorsay (57:22.093)
really, you know, con I mean, had a hyper immune disorder in asthma and a hypoimmune disorder in HFIV was what it's called like HIV for people. And so I took care of him and every dog I've had, I've, when I've had to grieve them, one of the things I've done has been an exercise. I've asked myself, who has this dog introduced me to who I would not have met without this dog. And when Mozi died,
there were well over 40 people, one of whom got me my first Ted talk. Like you just don't know in the, in the, in, in one of the most obvious scientific studies of all time, it turns, it turns out shocking to no one, but worth saying people are more likely to approach you if you are walking a dog than if you were walking alone. Shocker. They are the conversation starters. And I would say that if you have a dog, allow it to introduce you to people because
Dr Russ Kennedy (57:56.098)
Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (58:18.553)
Knowing the people in your neighborhood, just like the Sesame Street song said, who are the people in your neighborhood? You want to know the people in your neighborhood. The dog will introduce you.
Dr Russ Kennedy (58:26.542)
Yep, that's very true. have two, we had three. I lost Buddha, lost Buddha, Riley and Ellie. I lost Buddha earlier on in 2024 and that kind of thing too. So yeah, now I have Riley and Ellie and both of them are great. Ellie is like a love book. So I just, you know, I love her so much. She's so great. And pets are, you know, they just allow you to experience the love for yourself that you won't allow for yourself, I think.
Adam Dorsay (58:29.785)
Uhhhh...
Adam Dorsay (58:33.944)
Hmm.
Adam Dorsay (58:49.919)
exactly true. we can also borrow that quote, I aim to be the type of person my dog thinks I am.
Dr Russ Kennedy (58:55.926)
Yes, exactly. Now, is there anything that you want that we haven't touched on, Adam, that you want to talk about as far as the book, your book, Super Psyched?
Adam Dorsay (59:04.835)
Well, you know, goes into so many zones of connection. I made an attempt to come up with a working definition for connection itself because the dictionary definition is lackluster. It's kind of like when two train cars connect. The American Psychological Association's definition was not much broader. So the definition that I came up with, a working definition with really smart people, including people like Harville Hendricks, who is one of the best couple therapists on the planet.
Dr Russ Kennedy (59:34.286)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (59:34.873)
was life force, what brings you alive, vitality. And you know it when you feel it. You know it when it happens. You hear Alanis Morissette for the very first time, I'm going Canadian because I'm with Canada right now. And you just know there's something special there and she is going to be able to connect with you. At least she did with me. And of course,
Moving pictures the all-time greatest album by Rush for me I mean my life literally changed the very first time I heard Getty Lee touch that pedal and I was just came alive There's no mistaking it. It was all there and it was all real. I wasn't pretending to like it It was just like my life has just changed so music can do this relationships can do this foods can do this certain places in nature work can certainly do this and I would say that you
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:00:04.76)
Mm.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:00:18.594)
No.
Adam Dorsay (01:00:31.383)
hit on something that's so crucial and that is flow. Flow is that lovely immersive state where you are challenged but just at the right level and you are so in it that three hours might pass. feels like an hour at most. Like I'm in flow with you right now, Russ. I'm so in debt to a fellow by the name of Mihaly Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who studied flow and that was a big part of my dissertation. It was very hard to write his name all those times, but it was totally worth it.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:00:47.619)
Yeah.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:00:59.491)
Yeah.
Adam Dorsay (01:01:00.813)
but flow when, when you're in flow, I mean, just to give one goofy example, when people were playing Tetris, let's just do this actually without the Tetris, people put their feet in ice buckets and they saw how long they could tolerate it. And then they did it while playing Tetris. They were able to tolerate the ice for, I think a magnitude of three X longer while playing Tetris while being in a state of flow. So when we are in flow, we could be in pain.
We could be having a flu like Michael Jordan did during his flu game. When we are in flow, it's very predictive of reducing our anxiety and our depression and bringing up really good feelings. It might be exhausting on the other side of flow. We might've just left it all on the floor, but we feel better after we've done a flow-based activity. So that would be one of my biggest tips is find your flow.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:01:56.962)
And how do people find you, Adam?
Adam Dorsay (01:01:58.713)
So glad you asked. Um, my website, uh, is dradam, dorsay.com. D R A D A M D O R S A Y.com. Um, my podcast is available. It's called super psyched one word available on all platforms. My book is super psyched, which is two words about the four ways that we find connection. It's available at Barnes and Noble and of course Amazon. And I guess last but not least my two TEDx talks, one on men and emotions.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:02:15.266)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Dorsay (01:02:26.889)
and the other on friendship and adulthood, both available on YouTube for sure, or the TED site.
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:02:34.03)
Thank you so much for being here, Adam. I really appreciate being connected to you.
Adam Dorsay (01:02:35.801)
Bye bye.
Adam Dorsay (01:02:39.517)
I loved hanging out with you. You are such a cool person and you have so many dimensions to you. I can't wait to get to know you better Russ
Dr Russ Kennedy (01:02:48.002)
Thanks Adam. We'll talk again. Bye for now.
Adam Dorsay (01:02:49.593)
Alright man, bye for now.
