Ep 1335 ｜He Busted Traffickers. His Insight Into Epstein is Chilling ｜ Trey Tucker
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Summary
After helping rescue girls out of sex trafficking in Asia, today s guest says that nothing is surprising about the Epstein scandal. He is a therapist that is helping me psychoanalyze why these politicians pursue power and pleasure and continue to get away with it. We will also get into therapy culture, the problems with it, why it typically doesn t work for Christian men, and what we can do about it.
Transcript
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After helping rescue girls out of sex trafficking in Asia, today's guest says that nothing is surprising about the Epstein scandal.
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He is a therapist that is helping me psychoanalyze why these politicians pursue power and pleasure and continue to get away with it.
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We will also get into therapy culture, the problems with it, why it typically doesn't work for Christian men, and what we can do about it.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Trey, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.
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If you could tell everyone who you are and what you do.
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That's my job title, but we could go all into the in-depths of who somebody is and all that good
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stuff. But I just, I love helping people. I love seeing people step into the best versions of
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themselves that they can become. And I love helping them clear over the roadblocks that
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are trying to get in the way of that process. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to talk to you about
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therapy culture because how you approach it is different than the typical psychiatry and therapy
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of today. But first I want to hone in on that one thing you said about yourself is that you love to
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help people, because you love to help people so much that you have traveled the world rescuing
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little girls out of sex trafficking. And we talk a lot about that kind of evil on this show.
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Obviously, people say they care about it, but not everyone has had a front row seat like you have.
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So can you just tell us first how you got into that kind of work?
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Yeah, even just thinking about it, as you talk about it, I can feel my heart rate getting up
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there just because there's still an anger. And I never even knew that human trafficking was
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a thing until I watched the movie Taken. And when I saw that movie, I thought,
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but first I thought that's got to be fiction. That can't be a real life thing. And I realized
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it is. And it got me so angry and it stuck with me because I think that's a big sign of like,
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what are you wired for? What are the things that stick with you beyond just a couple of weeks of
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feeling angry about it? And it just wouldn't leave me. And I wanted to do more than just
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donate money to it. I wanted to get in there and actually do something about it physically. So
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I started just reaching out to these organizations that do the rescue missions and
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a lot of them ignored me. A lot of them said, Hey, we already have full-time people. We don't
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really need you. But a few of them actually, they were receptive to the idea of this part-time guy
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that has no law enforcement experience, no military experience, but was just wanting to
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basically potentially give up his life to come in there and help. And I had to vet them because
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I didn't want to get double-crossed and they had to vet me just to make sure I wasn't some sort of
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double agent, but it worked out and we got 20 girls out all in all. And we can talk about as
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much as you want into that. Yeah. Well, yeah. Tell me what it was like to first get involved.
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What did those initial steps look like? It looked like me emailing so many organizations and calling
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them and just being annoying to them. Quite honestly, just I knew I wanted to do this and
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I wasn't going to get stopped. I knew somebody had to use me. So I just kept on trying and finally
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one seemed like a good fit. And they described the process of what that trip would entail.
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They said there will be roughly five of us on a team. Only one of the members of the team had
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any sort of military experience. And they said, we're going to train you up in physical fighting
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for a few days, just in case you need to use that. And we're going to train you for a couple of days
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and how to talk to the girls in those bar settings where you're going to be. But after that, we're
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just throwing you right in there. So I thought, yeah, I'm in for that. I don't need a bunch of
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runway of training. I just want to dive in. So this organization, it exists and there are other
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organizations that are like this that go into places like Thailand and other, especially Asian
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countries. This happens all over the world in every country, but it's very prevalent in these
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Asian countries. And they find out the places where these young girls are getting prostituted
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and they find a way to infiltrate those spaces with their trained team and basically just rescue
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those girls and take them away. So how did they first find out where these trafficking rings are?
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Well, sadly, it's out in the open. And a lot of the law enforcement is so corrupt because they've
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been bought by the mafia that's running these rings that it's not hard to find. It's easy.
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And this particular organization focuses on underage girls, but there are plenty of women
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of all ages who have been trafficked and are stuck in there. It's just that one particular
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organization isn't big enough and doesn't have the resources enough to get them all out by
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themselves. So it takes a bunch of niche organizations. But what happens is the people
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who work there full-time, they're constantly going into all these bars. Imagine like walking into
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Hooters and the girls are scantily dressed. You're there to buy drinks and food. And a lot of the
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tourists, they come from the US, Australia, England, and China. So as long as you look like
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the typical tourists that are there basically for sex, then you're not going to draw any attention
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to yourself. But we came in already having the intel that the full-time guys had gathered.
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So when they scan for all these bars, they're looking for girls that appear to be under age.
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They've done some sort of investigation work to say, yeah, these are the areas we want to target.
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And then our job is to go in there and do raids and basically what they call burn ourselves,
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where I was the face of the raid that we eventually did.
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basically drove the final hammer swing into the nail
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that the guys who lived there had set up for us to do.
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You just sit there and you get to know them and you earn their trust.
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So that's what we spent the bulk of our time doing.
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And then we started prepping for the raid because we knew at the beginning of the trip
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So everything in between was either training or trying to just convince them to come with
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And one of the toughest things was sitting down face to face with one of the girls and
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you have to act like the jerks that are in there.
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You have to play that same role so that you fit in just the, and I have to choose my language
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carefully, but you really, you have to take on a persona that's not comfortable.
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And one of the toughest things was each of us had to get practice in asking a girl how
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And like, I couldn't even get it out of my mouth the first time because it was, it was
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just so wrong, but then you do it enough, just like anything.
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And that's a whole concept that can be applied to a lot of things.
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But that was the biggest hurdle is that I was comfortable in the spaces.
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But when it came down to really asking those awful questions, because in the back of my
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mind, I knew they hear that question all the time.
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And I know what they end up having to go back in the rooms and do with these awful dudes.
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And you're asking the question to verify if that person is being prostituted.
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and then also to get access to where you need to go to then try to convince them to leave or rescue
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them. Exactly. Exactly. Because again, once you blend in, then you're good. You have to spend
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money just like the guys, but you got to talk the talk so that they'll first earn your trust as like
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this guy's at least safe. But then once I could establish, once we could establish that they were
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actually being prostituted, then we were just trying to show them like, hey, we're actually
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good dudes, like over the course of a couple of nights, we would just hang out with them and make
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small talk. And at the end of those couple of nights, if we sensed that they might be willing
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to leave and just come with us, then we would do that as well. And we can go into as much of that
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Once you've gained access, you said there's two modes. You either convince them or if you can't
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convince them, you take them. What does that look like? So the taking part, that's always
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scheduled in advance you can't just do that with short notice so the organization found a level of
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law enforcement that wasn't corrupted and the raid itself was where we we had a bar already
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identified with girls that were underage and like we knew on a certain date at the end of the trip
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that was happening we were we're taking down that bar everything else everybody that we met in
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between was unscheduled so the first one we rescued that's it was just friendly conversation
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And at the end of the second night, I said, Hey, me and a teammate were sitting there
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Here's, here's who we're actually representing.
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And we had to be really quiet about it because walking around where the pimps and the pimps
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And they're pretty scary just because I've seen how evil they treat the women.
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But as long as the customers are spending money, they'll treat you like gold.
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But I knew I had to speak quietly enough to where only me and the girl could hear it.
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and then not draw attention. But usually they don't even agree to meet you to leave. But if
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you can get them to meet you, then you set a rendezvous spot the next day away from the bar.
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And they're scared to even leave the bar because they're threatened with their life that if you
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leave and don't come back, we'll hunt you down, we'll kill you, we'll kill your family. So just
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getting them to agree to meet you somewhere is a big hurdle. She agreed. And then even if they
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say yes, about 20% of them don't ever show up at the actual meeting spot. So the next day we're
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sitting there and my teammate and I are waiting at the spot, just thinking she's probably not
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going to show up. She's probably going to chicken out. And lo and behold, she shows up and we were
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overjoyed. So we went through the list like, Hey, this is what your life's going to look like next.
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There's going to be an orphanage. There's going to be job training centers for you to actually
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gain a skill. In the same country? So in Thailand? There are multiple centers, some in Thailand,
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and some in other countries, and it just depends on the situation of where they need to be the
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safest. But they have, they need the job skills. Otherwise, if you free them and they don't have
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any skills, then they'll go back. Yeah, they go back on their own. So thankfully, this girl said
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yes. And she ended up in the job training center in the orphanage where not only she get job
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training, but also she got the trauma care she needed. Yeah. And do all of them stay in the same
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nation in the same country, or are they able to leave? They can leave for sure. Yeah. Once they're
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with the organization, they're free to leave at any point. And if there's a location that they
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don't feel as comfortable in, then they'll transfer them to a different spot as well.
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What was the youngest girl that you encountered? 14. Wow. But we were told that there were even
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younger children that were harder to access, but the 14 and up roughly is right out in the open.
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And how did these girls end up in prostitution at such a young age?
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And all of them, it happens at such a young age that they don't really remember their families.
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So they're either kidnapped or their families are taken advantage of where these guys come
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into these villages that, sadly, they're uneducated, they're low resources.
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And these guys make all these promises saying, hey, just give us your kids and we're going
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to put them to work in these factories and we're going to send the money back to you.
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and that sounds really good to these families. And so unfortunately they give their kids to
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these guys and they never, the kids never come back. So those are the stories that infuriate
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me because you ask these girls, Hey, how did you end up here? I don't know. This is, this is the
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life I know. Yeah. How many raids have you gone on? We did one and, and the, they do multiple in
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a year with the teams, but the raids are really hard to coordinate because again, finding the
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law enforcement that's not corrupt is the biggest hurdle and takes the most time right what do you
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wish people knew here who care about trafficking but have never seen it up close like that
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knew about how we can help or the reality of trafficking yeah i talked to men about this a lot
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and it really is a direct correlation between the pornography industry and the trafficking
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industry because they're basically cousins and you wouldn't think it, but if you trace it back
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to the organized crime rings, they're ultimately owned by the same folks. So if you're watching
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that stuff, you're feeding into that culture. And then just psychologically, the more you watch
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stuff on a screen, the more you're going to want to do it in real life. And a lot of these cities
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in that country, they're known as just sex tourism cities. And even if you don't ever go there,
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you're still feeding the view count and the revenue that goes into that machine.
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So we got to work, especially as guys, at being the highest character guys, because even if
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you're not doing it yourself as a guy, you got to stop other guys from letting their lust lead
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them in all these different directions. So if we can just build up ourselves as high character,
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high integrity, just cover your own territory, that can stop this stuff.
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What's the best thing that we can do as moms over here to both protect our families against
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that culture of pornography, the predation of trafficking, but also to help those victims,
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Always resources are in low supply in those organizations.
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I'm not a big fan of just being aware of an issue because I'm aware of a lot of issues,
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but find an issue, whether it's traffic or anything, but find something that actually
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urges you to action. And so it could be donating. It could be a lot. There are a lot of organizations
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domestically that work with girls who have been trafficked and stayed in the U.S. or maybe have
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been brought over to the U.S. after being trafficked in other countries. And there are a lot of trauma
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healing centers here. There's a lot of outreach to prostitutes on the street. There's organizations
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that the women will walk up to these women on the streets with a bouquet of flowers
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and the card saying, hey, you're loved, you're seen. Here's a number to call if you want out
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of this. So there's all kinds of ways. And almost any even midsize city has outreach
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ministries like that. A lot of people don't realize that this is happening at strip clubs and
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all kinds of places, even like Hooters or places that might seem like, oh, that's just a restaurant
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where guys go, where actually those women are being forced, or they were at one point forced
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into that, and they actually do need help and freedom and to know that there's a better way.
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And so it might not necessarily mean going to Thailand. It might be for some people listening,
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but it also might just be something in your backyard. I'm sure you've been paying attention
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to everything that's been going on with the Epstein files. I think at one point,
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it just seemed too crazy to be real. Like, how is it possible that all of some of the most powerful
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people in the United States, some people that we've looked to as moral exemplars, some of the
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most powerful people in the world are apparently part of a pedophile trafficking ring? You have a
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different perspective on this though, than just someone who's been reading the news. Has there
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been anything in the reporting of the story that has surprised you? No, no. The stuff that I was
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hearing long ago that everybody dismissed or most people dismissed as conspiracy theories.
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I said, no, that's, that's probably real. Like I didn't have firsthand access to whatever was
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going on in that Island, but I've seen the depravity enough to know, yeah, that, that can
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happen to any of us if you really let that go that far. So nothing surprised me in terms of
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what happened. And, and it's, it's still infuriating because the, the elite of the world,
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it's it's almost this blackmail that you have to willingly put yourself into to make them trust
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you and then be part of the power club like yeah okay now that you stamped your ticket into this
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little island and this way of life now we can trust you because they all have blackmail on each
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other yeah it's it's not even a bipartisan it's not even political thing it's just if you want
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power this is the avenue to it yeah i think most of us just don't even understand what it's like
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speaking from a personal perspective, but from your therapist's perspective, when you're looking
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at those power dynamics and just his personality, like what do you see? I see human nature is
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I'm wanting to be satisfied at all times. And so if I can get rich enough, then I think that'll
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satisfy me. And then if you look at pretty much every rich person in the world, that didn't do
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it for him. Solomon. Exactly. Solomon. Yeah. And even at the end of his life, it was ultimately
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sex that undid him because he couldn't find the satisfaction. But yeah, once the money doesn't
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satisfy and he realized that, then you think, well, maybe power is going to satisfy. So I'm
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going to chase that. And all these guys at that island, they had plenty of power and that didn't
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do it. And so then it becomes, well, how can I essentially live forever, eternal life? And so
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I think that's where some of that twisted eating of the baby stuff probably came into. And Epstein
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himself, he was just the puppet or the pawn. Like he just had that magnetic charisma about him. And
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he was the guy at the door, like the bouncer that could let you into this, this world that you
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thought was going to satisfy. So I don't think it was so much him and his magical ways. I think
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he was just the guy for the job at that particular point.
00:19:00.860
Next sponsor is Voice of the Martyrs. This is an organization that lends support and garners
00:19:06.340
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00:19:12.140
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00:19:25.180
Martyrs, to help those who are being persecuted. And we have the opportunity to do that today.
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So many of our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially in the East, are suffering right now.
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they are being tortured, they're being killed for their faith, and we can help them. If you
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want to learn more about this persecution so your heart will be stirred to help these fellow
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are stories of women who have overcome persecution and persisted in sharing the gospel and living
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for Christ, go to vom.org slash Allie. Let's talk a little bit more about the psychology of these
00:20:07.500
public figures or their persona that is so attractive to people. I'm curious, what makes
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someone publicly appealing, even if we know that they're not good people? I mean, there are people
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we know were involved with Epstein who a lot of people still find charming. They would vote for
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them if they ran for office again. And even outside of the whole Epstein circle of influence,
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there are politicians that we know have done terrible jobs and terrible things. And yet
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there's something about them that people still find persuasive. So what is it that makes public
00:20:41.760
people appealing to us? They study this stuff, the psychology of it, their people around them
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study this stuff. And it comes down to really two major categories, identity and psychological
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safety. And there's a bunch of subcategories that fall under each of those, but they've studied the
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fact that if you can take someone's beliefs, political or otherwise, and make it not just
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thoughts and potential solutions to issues, but if you can transform them into, this is who you are.
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And if you believe this stuff, somebody who opposes what you believe, they're attacking who
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you are and they're attacking your tribe. Then you're moving beyond somebody's logical brain
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and you're moving into their subconscious. When the subconscious takes over, it shuts down the
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prefrontal cortex, the logic brain. When that happens to somebody, they will fight and argue
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no matter what the actual facts are because they're afraid. Their identity has been threatened.
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Their tribe, their belonging has been threatened. These politicians know how to take what should be
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just a nuanced issue where the front of your brain is just thinking evaluatively, and they know how
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to go right to that subconscious. It puts you into fight or flight mode instead. And we can go
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into the psychological safety part in a minute, but we can pause on identity if you want to.
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No, you can keep going. I'm interested in the psychological safety part of it.
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Yeah. So, and this is, we all need safety. Like if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
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safety is one of those basic needs. Like you can't actually move up his triangle without
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some safety. So safety is great. What happens is we, our need for safety ends up jumping
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some of the logical aspects. And so these folks know like any politician that really is charismatic,
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they know that people are anxious, they're uncertain. And if they can bring a level of
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strength and certainty, then people will look past their record. So if let's say I'm, if I'm a
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politician and my actual record is pretty bad, then I'm going to focus on saying things with
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enough certainty that people just forget about the record because they want to feel safe. So
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like research in a leadership shows that if you say something with certainty, people perceive
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your competence as a whole lot higher than it actually is. And if they think that you're
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competent, it doesn't matter what you've done in the past because they think, well, that guy's
00:23:05.240
competent. He can get the job done in the future. Again, just that safety aspect. So whether it's
00:23:11.180
me portraying strength and certainty or me portraying such a smile and a warmth and a
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friendliness that you just feel like, oh yeah, that guy's trustworthy. I won't worry about the
00:23:21.680
past stuff. I like him. Yeah. You know, that's interesting. If you assume that everyone needs
00:23:27.300
a basic level of safety, then you could wonder, okay, but why does this group love this politician
00:23:32.160
so much in this group, love another politician. And I think about two totally different people,
00:23:37.300
Barack Obama and Donald Trump. I could see how someone would listen to Barack Obama and feel
00:23:43.040
safe because he's warm. You don't think that he is going to be aggressive in any way. He seems
00:23:48.800
trustworthy. I could also see why someone would listen to Donald Trump and feel safe because I
00:23:54.860
watched a 2016 primary debate the other day. And while all the other politicians are talking about
00:23:59.520
how America is great and they're just going to keep on making it better. He comes in and lists
00:24:03.860
all of the things that are making someone feel unsafe. Our borders are wide open. We still have
00:24:09.480
ISIS that we're worried about. And then he gives him a solution and we're going to solve that.
0.98
00:24:14.900
We're going to win. America's not only going to be great, but we're going to be secure. We're
00:24:18.440
going to be safe. And so two different personalities, but now that you're talking,
00:24:21.980
I'm like, they're actually giving different kinds of people the same thing. And that is
00:24:26.320
safety and security. So interesting. Yeah. And it really doesn't matter the party. Like
00:24:31.940
all these politicians, I believe they're just actors within the same play. They're just
00:24:38.080
essentially the puppets that are arguing it out when, and that's what they want the general
00:24:42.740
population to do is argue it out with each other and think that we're the enemies of the other side
00:24:46.820
of the enemies. And these politicians are just a distraction for something bigger going on. So yes,
00:24:51.660
whether it's the the trump angle or the obama angle or whichever politician you're looking at
00:24:56.620
they're playing the same game and they're using that same psychological safety because they know
00:25:00.720
they can get us to bypass the logic if we'll just cling to that need for certainty and for safety so
00:25:06.360
but just to play devil's advocate there are real things that make us unsafe yes like and it's not
00:25:13.740
always wrong or an intentional psychological play for a politician to say this real thing here is a
00:25:19.920
problem. It's killing people and we're going to solve that. It can be a manipulation tactic,
00:25:25.840
but it can also be a legitimate pointing out of a real problem, right?
00:25:30.460
Oh yeah, absolutely. It's all a matter of the heart and what your ultimate motive is. So
00:25:34.560
if somebody is in it for their own power and assent to fame and fortune, then they'll use
00:25:39.440
it manipulatively. But if they're using to serve and actually serve a purpose greater than
00:25:44.060
themselves, then yeah, point out the problems, point out the threats and look for salvation.
00:25:48.920
And that's ultimately the story of life itself is the good versus evil.
00:25:54.680
And from a biblical standpoint, and even Hollywood picks up on it, we know we need solutions.
00:26:04.480
I think just from a wiring standpoint, I look back at my whole life and I realized people
00:26:10.320
opened up to me when I wasn't really trying to get them to open up.
00:26:13.680
And then I always have liked listening to people's stories much more than talking.
00:26:17.580
and for whatever reason, middle school on, I was able to tell people like, hey, here's probably
00:26:23.980
why you're doing this and maybe why this pattern is happening for you. And it was just kind of a
00:26:28.700
natural thing, but I took the long road to actually get there. I went into the corporate
00:26:32.340
world first and then into education, but it kept coming back to like, I see that the why people do
00:26:40.360
what they do and what makes them tick and why they climb the ladder. And then obviously often
00:26:46.040
why they self-sabotage their way down. It just fascinated me. So eventually I thought, well,
00:26:51.060
I need to get it through this thick skull that I got to get a master's in psychology.
00:26:54.720
Okay. And then you became a therapist. How many years has it been?
00:26:59.860
But your platform, you talk a lot about being like a different kind of therapist. When I think
00:27:04.980
of typical therapy today, I think of, at least for women, someone sitting down and telling them,
0.80
00:27:10.060
you are so perfect. You are so awesome. All the people that make you feel bad in your life,
1.00
00:27:14.980
they're wrong. And I don't know if that's how it is for men in therapy, but you're offering a
00:27:21.060
different approach. Yeah. So one of the lines I love saying is like, when you come talk to me,
00:27:27.660
it's therapy without the fluff, because I'm not going to tell you how great you are. Like that'll
00:27:32.000
be maybe a piece of it at some point, but that's not the destination. The destination is I'm getting
00:27:37.220
you ready to live out your individual mission. So yes, I want you healed. I want you whole.
00:27:43.140
I want you feeling good, but I want you all of that so that you can live out your mission and
00:27:48.880
your purpose. And I think a lot of therapy, unfortunately, it's got people self-focused
00:27:54.000
where it's all about my peace and my happiness and just having everything, get back to that
00:27:59.100
certainty and safety thing. It's an empty promise because the people, let's take achievement for a
00:28:05.700
second. A lot of people think if I can just achieve my way into happiness, that'll satisfy.
00:28:10.180
but even when you achieve the biggest goal in your life research shows that it only lasts the
00:28:16.180
satisfaction only lasts for about three months and after that three months you're about to feel in
00:28:21.000
the way you were feeling before you achieved it and unfortunately therapy just it makes us the
00:28:25.680
center of the story so often not not all therapy but this whole therapy culture thing has got us
00:28:31.400
too self-focused and it gets me fired up so I take the the coaching approach the sports coaching
00:28:37.780
approach that I came from. But so I'm talking to people like you're my, you're the baseball player
00:28:42.980
I used to coach. And this is, this is the way that we're going to talk as a coach and an athlete,
00:28:46.360
because it's, it's, yes, it's about your skills, but then it's about putting you in the game so
00:28:50.940
that you can help the team win. And a lot of therapists, it's just, it's empathy for the
00:28:55.600
sake of empathy and compassion, just for the sake of compassion. And you can't, you can't grow
00:29:02.400
without suffering. One of the things I tell my clients is I want you to suffer.
00:29:08.720
And they'll look at me like, what? Like, yeah, I want you to suffer. I want you to struggle.
00:29:12.960
I am not here to give you relief. I'm here to help you get stronger so that when you suffer,
00:29:18.620
you can look back and realize, hey, look what I did. And for the believers, look what God
00:29:24.240
helped me get through. Like I look at King David and you look at the Psalms, he's saying things
00:29:29.880
like, God, thank you for the afflictions of my youth. And he's looking back at, God, you trained
00:29:34.820
my hands and my fingers for war. When he was a boy in the fields protecting the flock, he was
00:29:39.860
fighting off animals and going through all kinds of stuff. He had no idea what was going to come
00:29:44.380
to him later in life. And he realized all that training in the field helped me win battles.
00:29:50.200
And then when he won those battles, he came back from the battles bloodied,
00:29:53.320
beaten up sweating it was awful and he won but he always said god gave me the victory
00:30:00.240
and it was also his physical exertion and the training that led up to those moments so
00:30:05.820
i want people to go through enough to realize yeah like i've got the strength i've got what
00:30:10.940
it takes and therefore i'm going to use it for something bigger than me
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Shopify.com slash Allie. So much of the approach of therapy today is if someone walks in and says,
00:31:30.060
hey, I'm depressed, so often it's just a prescription that's written. Okay, let's adjust
00:31:35.280
your medication. You need more medication. You need a different medication. Or sometimes it's
00:31:39.520
just, here's a list of medication. Talk to your family about whether you should be on
00:31:43.240
Wellbutrin or Lexapro. And people are left with this impossible burden of trying to choose those
00:31:48.260
things for themselves. So if someone walked into your office and they just said, look,
00:31:52.480
I'm depressed. I don't know what to do with my life. What are some of the first questions you
00:31:57.120
would ask them. Yeah. So I love what you're saying about the meds, first of all, because
00:32:01.520
there's so many people that just want that immediate relief of medication. And I'm all for
00:32:05.980
meds, but we got to keep them in the right place in the batting order. So yeah, if somebody's coming
00:32:10.440
in and they're depressed or they're anxious, anxiety is really the main thing that people
00:32:14.220
come in to see. That's like far and away the issue that people come in with. I'm asking them things
00:32:19.300
like, who's your support network? What's your source of happiness? Because everybody uses that
00:32:25.400
word happiness and I'll use that with them for a minute, but then I'll flip it to, okay, now let's
00:32:29.200
talk about joy. Because typically somebody who's depressed, they think if I could just like stack
00:32:35.320
up enough happy moments, then I'll be constantly happy. And that's just not the way it works. So
00:32:40.800
I help them figure out like, what is joy versus happiness? And once they see that it's really joy
00:32:46.160
they're looking for, then we start talking about like, all right, what's the source of that joy
00:32:50.420
and that peace you're actually looking for? Because typically they're looking for the right
00:32:54.820
things. They just need different language and they need some different approaches. And I just
00:33:00.000
help them see like, what you're trying to get is good. It's just the road you're trying to take is
00:33:05.240
going to keep leading you astray. Because if you chase happiness, you guarantee you'll never get
00:33:09.260
there. Yeah. If you could define anxiety, how would you define it? Fear of the future, fear of the
00:33:15.720
unknown. It's like in people who have seen Inside Out 2, they bring in anxiety as a character.
00:33:24.820
And it's, it is the perfect portrayal of what's happening. It's a, it's a part inside of us that
00:33:29.820
wants the future to work out for us. Like it has good intentions for us. It's, it's trying to keep
00:33:34.820
us safe and keep everything good. But what it's doing is it's, it's putting us on alarm. Like it,
00:33:41.180
so in the, in the book I just wrote, I talk about anxiety as a caveman and the caveman's one job is
00:33:47.520
to keep you alive. Like he doesn't care anything else. He doesn't care if you're happy. He doesn't
00:33:51.600
care about anything except for keeping you alive. And if he sees a threat, what he thinks might
00:33:56.200
kill you, then he's going to give you those uncomfortable sensations that we call anxiety.
00:34:01.200
And what he's doing there is he's trying to get our attention to look at what does he think is
0.99
00:34:05.860
a threat. So in today's society, we don't live in a very physically unsafe way. Like there's no wild
00:34:12.100
animals trying to chase us and things like that, that there used to be when we all lived outside,
00:34:16.300
But the caveman still got his job. So he's looking at things like public speaking or uncomfortable conversations or a test at school. And he sees that those those might be potential threats. So maybe those are going to kill us. So let's get really anxious to get your attention so that you can either decide, like, we got to fight this threat or run away from it.
00:34:36.020
And so the caveman is trying to help, but he's just, he's kind of misinformed about what's really a threat. So we have to not fight the anxiety. That was one thing I messed up early as a therapist is I tried fighting it for myself and for others.
00:34:50.520
And then I realized, no, what you resist persists. So let's lean into the anxiety and see what it's actually thinking is the threat, because we could probably help the anxiety part realize like, oh, yeah, this isn't actually going to kill us. So we can just make a couple of adjustments internally and then handle the circumstance better.
00:35:10.420
Can you walk us through that? Like if someone is anxious, say, I'm just anxious about my child, anxious about them going to school, because what if something happens to them? What if something, you know, someone bullies them? It's one thing to be anxious about yourself. And when you have children, like all of your deepest fears are transferred onto them. And it's even more painful being anxious for them because you actually even have less control over their lives.
00:35:33.860
And so if someone were to walk in and say, I'm just so anxious about this, how would
00:35:37.420
you walk me through, I have no experience with anxiety for my children, so walk me through
00:35:44.780
how you would talk someone through something like that.
00:35:48.200
First thing I would do is I'd tell them, hey, you're normal.
00:35:50.960
Like, especially in that parenting example, like something happens to people when they
00:35:56.940
It's like a switch gets flipped in the brain that you didn't even know was in there.
00:36:01.340
And all of a sudden, like you'll do anything for this, for this living being and the fear
00:36:06.460
and the expectations and the hopes are just so magnified.
00:36:10.080
So at first I affirm it, like, I'm like, you're normal.
00:36:15.080
Like, we're going to, we're going to adjust this.
00:36:19.080
I love, I'm like, this is how you're wired on purpose.
00:36:26.400
because you can't really talk your way out of some sort of what we would call a mental struggle.
00:36:33.080
It's just it's a whole nother soapbox, but talk therapy mostly doesn't work for men.
00:36:38.840
Talk therapy was actually designed with a lot of research with women and it works great with a lot
00:36:44.100
of women, but for a lot of men, it just doesn't work. So I always try like, let's start with our
00:36:48.060
body first because that's really where the emotions live and the brain just makes sense
00:36:53.120
of those emotions. So with anxiety, a lot of times somebody will say, well, I feel it in my
00:36:57.100
chest. I feel like it's a butterfly in my chest. Not always that, but I say, all right, let's find
00:37:02.020
it. And now let's, let's put a name to it. Like, is it anxiety? Would you call it something else?
00:37:06.460
Because research shows when you put a name on it, it actually makes that feeling decrease a little
00:37:11.740
bit because it makes it less of a threat. If it's this unknown monster that's swirling around in my
00:37:17.240
head and my body, then it's scary. But if I can point at it and I can name it, it's like, oh,
00:37:24.120
And then I ask them, all right, what truth would you like to replace it with?
00:37:28.520
Because typically with anxiety, it's some sort of a lie that we think like some outcome
00:37:34.860
that would happen like, well, that'd be the end of the world.
00:37:41.880
But then if there was a truth that you would rather hang on to, what truth would that be?
00:37:46.580
So once they've located it and named it and truthed it, I kind of make truth a verb.
00:37:50.760
we walk them through those steps because there's a lot of steps in between those three, but
00:37:54.600
getting them to that point of like, all right, this is the truth I want to believe.
00:37:58.540
Then that's where the actual therapeutic exercises come in of helping that truth feel so
00:38:03.700
deeply enough in their soul and their heart that the anxiety gets pushed out because of what's true.
00:38:10.240
Yeah. You know, I, sometimes I just find myself, I'm like going through my day and I'm like,
00:38:15.080
gosh, I've got this underlying sense of sadness or worry or dread. And I don't even remember why
00:38:21.640
I have it. And sometimes I just have to sit with it for a second and try to think back. Okay. What
00:38:27.380
first made me feel this way? Was it a video I saw on X? Was it something that really happened? Was
00:38:33.280
it something that someone said to me? Is something about to happen tomorrow that I forgot about that
00:38:37.300
I'm worried about? And if I've never thought about really locating it in my body, but if I
00:38:41.480
can locate it in my mind and then kind of talk through, okay, why is that making me worried?
00:38:47.880
And what if that thing really did happen? And thinking about what, sometimes it's like, okay,
00:38:54.560
actually that would really be terrible if something happened to my child. And I just say, okay, am I
00:38:58.860
taking all of the steps that I can to be prudent in that regard? And then you just have to give it
00:39:03.520
to the Lord eventually. Because some things are possible and you don't actually have power over
00:39:09.240
they could happen and you just have to kind of surrender it. And the surrender part is hard.
00:39:14.580
It's hard because you feel like you're losing control over the outcome.
00:39:17.640
I'm so glad you brought this up. Okay. So I just discovered this because I geek out on like the
00:39:23.260
meaning, the Hebrew meanings of words and the Greeks, and I don't speak either of those
00:39:27.540
languages. But so the verse be still and know that I am God, that used to make me so angry.
00:39:34.560
And I'm like, God, what do you mean be still? Like I got a real problem here. I'm in a storm.
00:39:38.740
Why do you want me to just be still? And what I realized is that the word, and I believe it's
00:39:44.340
rafa in the Hebrew, it doesn't mean just don't move. It means release your grip. And that idea
00:39:52.200
of surrender is like, first of all, you can't receive with closed fists. And it just means
00:39:57.920
like trust that the idea that I thought that I had control, that was a lie anyway. I can't control
00:40:03.880
anything about my heartbeat or almost anything in my own body. How am I going to control anything
00:40:07.900
that happens out there. And I just, if I can start to realize like, yes, the circumstances
00:40:13.900
might happen that are negative, or I might be in the middle of a battle right now. But
00:40:18.240
if I can loosen my grip and stop white knuckling it, then I can realize that like, oh, God is God,
00:40:25.200
not me. And that he's going to take care of me no matter what happens. That becomes the
00:40:31.100
game changer. And that really is the solution to anxiety. It's not changing your circumstances
00:40:37.900
Okay. Maybe you feel stuck with your child's education. You don't know what to do. You don't
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You start to see so much of God's relationship with you and how he sees you also when you're
00:41:46.300
a parent, because what you were just saying, your analogy about letting your grip go, I don't know
00:41:52.700
what made me think of this, but just the other day with one of my kids, she was just very upset
00:41:58.320
about something her sister was doing. It was a really small deal, but she was making it a big
00:42:01.760
deal because she wanted something a certain way. And I was like, look, right now your hands are
00:42:07.340
like this and you just need to open them and let them go. And she literally goes, no. But how much
00:42:14.620
is that like us? Like the Lord is like, you just need to open up your hands and let this go because
00:42:20.880
there's nothing you can do about it. And maybe it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of eternity,
00:42:25.460
but there's something in us that almost is addicted to the, even if it does make us anxious,
00:42:32.940
like just the control of it. It's like, sometimes I think we don't want to stop being anxious.
00:42:38.760
There's something in the anxiety that makes us feel like we've got it in line. And that's,
00:42:45.080
that's definitely a false sense of security, but maybe all of us don't realize that we're
00:42:50.180
a little bit obsessed with our own feelings of control and anxiety.
00:42:55.480
When you really realize how little control you have, it can either be freeing if you
00:43:00.640
let it be, or it can be so terrifying that you just start grabbing every little bit of
00:43:06.960
And the idea is like, okay, I can't control it.
00:43:11.140
And so therefore, what am I going to do about what my body is telling me?
00:43:15.260
So like your daughter in that situation, I would say her caveman got activated somehow.
00:43:21.160
and so in her mind whatever wasn't going right it was a it was a threat to the caveman right and
00:43:25.880
she might not have had words to actually put to it but if you can help her in that moment to like
0.95
00:43:30.720
okay if your fists could talk what would those fists say and if she could like somehow get into
1.00
00:43:37.720
a little kind of playful conversation with her fists like what do your fists want to do
0.99
00:43:40.840
what are they trying to you know all the little questions and then help her realize like okay
0.95
00:43:45.060
things are probably tight in your chest and your stomach so let's see if we can breathe some air
0.95
00:43:49.020
into that area. I ask people to take the air they're breathing and put an imaginary color to
00:43:55.160
it. And if they can send that imaginary color down to that spot that feels tense, it starts to
00:44:01.160
loosen up inside. And then their literal and physical, excuse me, literal and metaphorical
00:44:06.660
grip starts to release because God made our bodies in such a way that breathing, especially
00:44:12.180
breathing into the stomach, helps us actually calm down and recenter. And then once we actually
00:44:18.700
see like, oh, the world's not ending, then my logic brain comes back online and I can
00:44:28.160
But when my caveman's activated, my logic brain's been shut down, he's taken over from
00:44:32.540
the subconscious and I'm just in fight or flight mode.
00:44:35.480
I know you specialize in seeing men and this is a problem for both men and women, but especially
00:44:41.820
in the patients that you see, do you see dopamine addiction, like just wanting the next bit
00:44:48.340
Oh, yeah. Dopamine, especially on social media, it lasts for a second and a half.
00:44:53.640
So that means the reason I'm scrolling so often to the next video is because this video brought
00:44:58.700
me about a second and a half of pleasure, and then it wore off. So subconsciously, I'm like,
00:45:03.600
all right, let's get the next one to get the next hit. And then the big underlying problem is we
00:45:07.960
think dopamine is for pleasure, but it's really for pursuit.
00:45:13.480
So the dopamine gives us this euphoric feeling because we know God wired us to achieve things
00:45:20.580
and to take action and to push the darkness back.
00:45:23.600
And so we need something to push us into action.
00:45:27.980
And so as we're pursuing a goal, then we need more fuel toward that goal.
00:45:33.280
Now, it needs to feel good in order to keep going.
00:45:36.580
But a lot of times because of that whole, what's called the hedonic treadmill, we just
00:45:43.260
I want more of that. And we need to realize like, okay, it felt good for a reason. So now
00:45:48.440
let me take that good feeling and channel it into something that's pursuit worthy and not about me.
00:45:54.380
Again, it goes back to, am I just seeking my own good and my own pleasure or am I taking what's
00:45:59.280
good in me and trying to spread it? Yeah. And by hedonic treadmill,
00:46:02.760
you're talking about hedonism, just the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. And it just,
00:46:07.560
it never stops. And that's why I think there is some benefit to boredom and allowing our kids to
00:46:14.120
be bored. My oldest, we're reading through the Little House on the Prairie book series.
00:46:18.940
And it's just, it's a slow cadence of book, but also just a slow cadence of life, like their
00:46:24.640
routines day after day. And there's something so beautiful in how mundane and simple their lives
00:46:31.200
were. And it challenges me as a mom. But it really, what I feel is, is that like allowing
00:46:36.420
that boredom in your own life and in your kid's life, it takes a lot of self-control
00:46:41.320
on your behalf. Because it's not like we never have any options. We always have an option to
00:46:46.540
be entertained. But clearly there's something in our soul that doesn't want or shouldn't have that
00:46:53.420
constant pursuit of pleasure because none of us feel good after we spend an hour scrolling on our
00:46:58.080
phones. All of us feel bad, not just in the physical sense, but in the soul level. It's like,
00:47:02.560
oh, I just wasted an hour of the finite time that God has given me doing something really
0.99
00:47:14.060
Yeah, it's that short-term pleasure versus long-term satisfaction.
00:47:18.860
And I always want to speak about this in a way that doesn't bring shame, because if we
00:47:22.940
start beating ourselves up, we just stay stuck in the thing that we're trying to get out
00:47:27.000
So yes, the tendency is to go after that short-term pleasure and to avoid the silence or avoid
00:47:35.180
And the research shows, because all truth is God's truth, and research shows that the
00:47:40.000
more we crowd our brain with distractions and social media and anything that fills our
00:47:46.840
brain with information, the more eventually it's like a balloon that just pops.
00:47:51.040
Our brains aren't made to constantly take in information.
00:47:54.300
It would be like if, if I go to the gym and I'm doing a bunch of curls and I never stopped
00:47:58.420
doing the curls, my, my biceps are not, they're not just going to not grow, but eventually
00:48:04.100
So I do the curls, I work out and then I let the muscle rest and our brain is a muscle
00:48:11.020
Like there was, there was a time about three years ago where I was just going through it.
00:48:15.700
I mean, anxiety, anger, sadness, depression, all that stuff.
00:48:19.620
and I'm like, all right, I know I haven't been taking time for silence and to let my brain be
00:48:24.500
bored and I need to do something drastic. So I went on an eight hour walk. Wow. Yeah. So it was
00:48:32.220
miserable. I wanted to quit so bad. And especially those first two hours, because all the thoughts
00:48:37.720
that I had been detoxing, it was detoxing. Yeah. All the thoughts I had been stuffing came up like
00:48:42.780
a volcano eruption. And like, I just, oh, I just want to quit so bad. But I knew if I just waited
00:48:48.900
it out for those seven or eight hours, I would at least feel a little bit better. And thankfully,
00:48:53.360
I did feel, it wasn't perfect by any means, but I had cleared out the junk in my brain just from
00:48:58.240
the boredom. The brain really does a lot of its own cleaning if you just give it the space to do
00:49:02.360
it. Interesting. Okay. Eight hour walk. That's one way to do it.
00:49:11.280
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00:50:26.160
Tell me a little more about your book, Tough Enough.
00:50:28.780
Yeah, I wasn't even thinking about writing a book and a publisher came to me saying,
00:50:34.220
hey, we want you to write a book for men. And I thought, well, I haven't even thought about this,
00:50:38.600
but if they want a book, I don't want to write just another book for men because there's hundreds
00:50:42.260
and they're all great. A lot of them. And I thought, all right, if they want a book,
00:50:46.040
I'm going to write to an audience that has been forgotten. And men in their twenties have been
00:50:51.120
cast aside. And even worse, a lot of people have told them, hey, we don't even need you. So just
00:50:55.940
go over there and stay there. You're not useful at all. And that's one of the worst things you
00:51:00.080
can tell a man is that you're not needed. You're not useful because especially we're wired to take
00:51:04.420
action to protect, to serve and to provide. And I looked around, the publisher and I, Zondervan
00:51:11.000
and I looked around and see, I don't think there's ever been a book written like this
00:51:14.820
specifically for young men. And the principles are for really anybody, but the examples I wrote
00:51:21.320
are all examples of here's how this principle looks for a guy in his twenties. And each chapter
00:51:27.300
is a separate issue that guys either ask me a lot about, or I just see that guys need to know about
00:51:33.340
that they've never been told. When I talk about the caveman and how to deal with emotions to a
00:51:38.380
guy face-to-face, he's like, wait, what? Emotions aren't bad? I don't have to just distract my way
00:51:44.280
out of them. It's like the light goes on. And so I thought, let's write this in a way that tries
00:51:49.920
to reach those guys that have been forgotten. Yeah. Tell me one of the chapters, the subject
00:51:54.280
of it that you tackled. The first one right off of the bat is distractions, especially for guys.
00:51:59.940
I'm like, all right, distraction is the enemy of everything that you're capable, capable of
00:52:03.640
becoming because there is a war and each guy has a purpose. Each person has a purpose and
00:52:08.860
distraction, especially for guys. I see that as the, the silent killer and I'm okay. I'm not
00:52:15.640
making distraction itself the enemy because I don't really care whether it's like one of my
00:52:20.080
friends, he's in his twenties and every night after work, he goes home and he watches a movie
00:52:24.780
like two or three hours. I'm like, what are you doing? Like what, how do you have, first,
00:52:28.500
how do you have that much time? What are you trying to distract yourself from? So whether
00:52:32.860
it's a substance or looking at the wrong stuff or movies, whatever, I'm like, let's take the
00:52:38.160
thing you're doing and let's figure out what's it helping you run away from. Because if we actually
00:52:42.580
confront the thing we're running away from, then we realize, oh, here's who I am. Here's my purpose.
00:52:48.660
Here's what I'm made for. That's growth and that's fulfillment. That's really good. It's called
00:52:53.360
Tough Enough and it's out now. People can get it wherever books are sold. And tell us where people
00:52:59.560
can follow you too, because you're on Instagram and other places. So first with a book, I always
00:53:03.580
want to say I'm donating any profits I might make from the book to organizations that help young men
00:53:07.960
and also to help end human trafficking. So I say I'm all about helping these people and I'm putting
00:53:13.120
my money where my mouth is. I'm not trying to line my pockets with this thing. So trying to get that
00:53:17.240
message into as many people as I can. So the book is available wherever books are sold. So
00:53:22.240
ruggedcounseling is my social media. Toughenoughbook.com is where they can learn more about
00:53:27.120
the book itself. Awesome. Well, Trey, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. This was so
00:53:31.080
good. This was awesome. Thank you for having me.