Men's Mental Health Expert: Why Men Aren't Happy In 2026

This is Trey Tucker, he's an author/speaker, middle-health expert and founder of Rugged Counseling, a therapy practice designed specifically for men, and let's just say he's known for his direct no-nonsense approach. Why do you think so many men are externally successful and internally unhealthy? Early on in my counseling days, a guy who's about 28 walks in, first appointment, I've never met him, but he is angry, he is mad. He plops down and he starts listing all of his accomplishments. He goes, "I'm the CEO of this company, "I started the company, I'm multi-millionaire." He shows me a picture, this is my wife, these are my kids, I mean, they look happy, they're gorgeous looking wife and kids, and he takes out his keys, slams them on the table, these are the keys to my Lamborghini, and he hits his hand on the table when he says this next line, he goes, "Now, why the blank am I not happy?" And just like seething with rage. 'Cause he had everything that the world was telling him he needed to accomplish and achieve, and it still didn't do it for him. I said, "Bro, you have no idea who you are, "really no idea what your purpose is." And I could tell just from being a therapist, you can kind of tell when people have some past,

what I call injuries. We gotta figure out who you are, what's your purpose, and we gotta figure out what are these injuries from your past that are holding you back. 'Cause yeah, you're right, you're stuck, you can't achieve anything else. - Gaining around, welcome Trey Tucker to the podcast. Trey, thank you for being here. - Thank you, fellas, I'm fired up. - Okay, so Trey, tell us about you, about your ministry, rugged counseling, you wrote a book, how did you get to where you are? My understanding is you're also like, you're on staff at a school, is that right? - I am, yeah, I'm all over the place. - So give me the story, how did you do what you do? - Yeah, the short version is, I started off in the corporate world, and I realized that wasn't fulfilling, but I met some great people in the process of that, ended up meeting the Lord, so I came to Jesus later in life, but I already had a pretty, I don't know, extensive psychology background, 'cause one of my mentors growing up, our school counselor actually was just a prince of a man, and impacted so many people, and I always had it in the back of my mind, like, I love the impact he was making in the business world, I couldn't make much of an impact,

except for somebody else's bottom line, and so, fast forward, I go, start teaching at a school, start coaching, students are bringing me problems, I am not qualified to handle, so I go back, get the masters in counseling, and problem is like, what? - Oh man, I mean, everything from the surface level stuff, like the stress about girls, all the way to the trauma of parental mistreatment, and anything in between, and then I also noticed that growing up, I didn't realize it in the moment, but I looked back and like, I always liked listening more than talking, people always opened up to me when I wasn't really trying to get them to do it, and I always loved figuring out like, what makes people tick? I always loved reading biographies, and autobiographies, and figuring out like, how did people like Elvis and Michael Jackson climb the heights, and then what made them crash after that, so psychology was always there, I just didn't realize it. - Man, being a good listener is a gift, it is a gift, I've learned that as I've gotten older, that listening is half of communication. - Exactly. - Missing half sometimes. - I'd say it's more than half, I'm not a math guy, but like,

it's always gonna be more than half. - So Trey, what problem are you trying to solve with rugged counseling? I mean, on your Instagram bio, it says a guy's guy therapist, which, and for what it's worth, like, you got a pretty significant following on there, so you seem to have been, you struck a chord with somebody, and for the guy on here who's like, dude, I don't know about therapy, or I don't wanna talk to a shrink, or dive into that a little bit. What did you notice, and what problem are you trying to solve there? - Yeah, the biggest thing to try to tell guys is like, look, think of your brain and your nervous system, which is where your thoughts and emotions live, think of that as the engine of your car. You're probably not gonna check your engine very often until the check engine light comes on, and that's generally what emotions are. So we don't have to be always worried about our emotions, but when that check engine light comes on, when some unpleasant emotion happens, it's purposely trying to get our attention so that we can just pop the hood. So that's all I'm trying to tell guys is like, you gotta obsess about this stuff, 'cause in therapy culture right now,

people are too obsessed with their feelings, and how they're doing, and all their past traumas, and whatnot, and I don't like that extreme. So I'm trying to help us moderate a little bit, like let's figure out who we are and what our purpose is, and then how do we get there, and in that, we can solve some of the problems that are holding us back. - Can you talk about that a little bit more because that resonates with me in the sense of, so I've been to counseling in different seasons of my life. I've had some good counselors, I've had some not so good counselors. I think that's true for every profession, however. I have noticed there is a, particularly even with my generation of millennials, there's some toxic stuff going around in therapy culture, so, and that might actually be a why there's people that are resistant to it. Like I remember preaching on a stage one time especially if they were older, I was like, yeah, I ain't doing that. So what are some things you see? What are you talking about there and and what is the good way to do it? Well, first of all, I'm with you. It's gotten too out of hand. Cause yeah, it went from one extreme of like, we ain't talking about anything psychology related to now they're looking at therapists. A lot of people looking at therapists as like saviors and pastors and everything. I'm like, no, just let us stay in our lane and then let everybody else stay in theirs too.

And then we can all work together. But generally in terms of, are you asking like what are people wanting me to talk about with them or in terms of what are you noticing that's harmful? That may make people apprehensive about like if a guy's on this guy's sitting here and he's got something going on his life. He's never thought about therapy as a solution. What, what are you, what, what would you tell them to watch out for? Watch out for the, you are your own source of love. You are your, your own source of validation. Like you can self love your way through anything. Like, no, I'm sorry. That ain't going to work. And a lot of people have tried that and they got burned or at least they learned that self-help doesn't help. Exactly. Exactly. They keep on being more books and books and books. And I've got one through a publisher too. And I didn't want to write the same old book, but yeah, the self-help books by themselves without the supernatural engine. They ain't taking us anywhere. Talk to me about what healthy looks like. And, and, and the reason why I say that is everything we do in this podcast is about helping guys grow, okay? Spiritually, emotionally, physically. Um, but we talk about it and get 1% better every day. You know, right in, in every facet financially too. So there's, there's men who are listening to this podcast that are single. There's men who are listening to podcasts that are married. They're in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s everywhere in between, right?

There's a real wide spectrum of listeners. For every single one of those men, I want them to be healthy. And health is a buzzword. We talk about health all the time. If you type that into your Instagram explore page, you're going to get 1 million different things. I'm sure there's a ridiculous stat on the amount of Amazon books that fit in that category as well. What is a healthy and effective man? Actually look like from your vantage point for like long term. Talk to me about that. I live by three words and I'll take you through a different lens here in a second. But the, the lens that I like the most is first word is identity. Who am I? Second one is purpose. Why am I here? And the third one is tribe or team, like who do I have around me? And if all those three areas have really solid answers, I know who I am. I know why I'm here and I know who my people are, who my team is. I can make it through any kind of external challenge. So I love that. That's my first checkpoint. And then if people need more of a specific kind of diagnostic question, I'll say, okay, we're psychological, we are relational, we are emotional, we are spiritual. And there's, I'm sure there's one I'm missing, but we go through that checklist of all the different compartments that make up who we are. And if there's something out of tune there, like Eric Church, by the way, just see this, this clip from his, I saw your reaction video on the graduation. Yeah, it was awesome. The commencement delivery.

Yeah, so like, yeah, if one of our strings is out of tune, that means we're not as healthy as we could be. And at the same time, we got a lower expectations just a little bit because we're never going to be like tip top shape all the time and just running smooth. Otherwise, we wouldn't need heaven. Like, I try to get people to see, like you're going to struggle. The goal is to get strong enough to make it through the struggle and then help somebody else who's going to make it through as well. And then we'll have a big old celebration in heaven. OK, can you, can you repeat those three again, Trey, identity? OK, identity, purpose and team. I say team, but other people would say, like tribe, belonging, whatever. Yeah, community, community. Yeah. Dad, Dad, what, what comes to mind as you're thinking about all this? What's, well, I think the thing you were about to hit on it, but I, and because my sense is that one of your, um, your heart is really to, to help the, the younger men, right, kind of guys in their 20s too is a big target for you. Right. And I was just thinking about like, like the differences, even like the three of us, I grew up in a different world than you guys grew up in. And now they're growing up in a different world than what you grew up in. Right. And like I read a little bit of your, I've started your book. I didn't have a lot of lead time, but, um, you say the very first line in your first chapter of tough enough is distraction is the enemy of everything you're capable of becoming. Yes, sir.

And I, I just stopped right there to kind of download that. And, and I just think that guys, and I think the guys growing up, they're in their 20s now, they grew up with more distractions than I ever even fath - Absolutely. - And I just think they have a different set of obstacles to deal with and I think, man, I just, could you talk about that a little bit? I mean, that was your first line that had to be heavy on your mind. - Yeah, 'cause I see it so often in myself. A lot of times we wanna blame teenagers or just younger generations for being so addicted to screens and having a low attention span, but I'm looking at me and I bet if you measured my attention span from five years ago to now, I'm probably a lot worse off. So I'm talking first to myself and then trying to help everybody else. But yeah, if you look at, right now, a guy, I have one in particular, one guy in particular that I'm thinking of, but tons of people like him, they can do all kinds of physically challenging things. Lift a ton of weights, run a marathon, any kind of challenge on the outside, they can handle that. But if you ask them, sit in this room for five minutes with no phone, no TV. - Lose their stinking mind. - Exactly, lose their mind. And I'm like, what is that about?

What are we, it's not about re-lead the distraction. The thing that we're distracting ourselves with is that what are we trying to run from? - Well, it's clearly a byproduct of an addiction of some sort, you know? And so that is a, yeah. And that's a big part of caring for your mental health. And I think that's another thing I'd like to hear of me is just like, I know you can't, I mean, obviously, we don't know everybody who's listening today, but just generally speaking, at some point, I'd like to talk about what are some general ways to care for your own mental health? What's, what are some things to keep in mind? So I think that's important. - Yeah, absolutely. - Yeah, there's, the biggest thing I noticed with guys, especially as you talk about the distraction thing, if I ask them, hey, generally, what are your thoughts like? They have no idea, like they don't really know what's running across their screen, so to speak of their brain. - And obviously they think thoughts, but there's not a, there's not a system to check this. - Yeah, no, a system to check it. Yeah, they're just, basically they're cut off from the neck down, that's how I used to be. Even when I first became a therapist, I was, I was intellectualizing everything, but I didn't really zoom out and see like, okay,

what, what do I generally, what takes up the brain space every day? And what am I actually noticing physically? 'Cause until I realized that I was, I wasn't, was not gonna grow, to your point, I can't become the best version of me until I integrate me, like my brain, my spirit, my soul, my physical, like all that's got to be working together and I had basically just cut myself off. - Yeah. - Trey, is that why you think a lot of guys, and I just, as I'm hearing, hearing the question that he just asked, and then also, you talk about the generational effect of distraction, being a big piece of your book, tough enough, is that why you think a lot of guys appear to be externally successful, but may be internally unhealthy? - Yep. - Because again, that's, that's part of the reason why we're doing what we're doing is there are people that I know, love, admire, run with in life, they're on my team, right, to use your word, that they, man, they kick butt and take names, right? And I, I wanna be around those people, and I consider myself, hopefully, one of those people, and yet I know some days I wake up, and I'm like, dude, I feel like crap. - Oh yeah. - So why do you think so many men are externally successful? Everybody's looking at them and going,

and that guy's doing good and internally unhealthy, and for what it's worth, that's a really lonely place to be. - It very much is, it very much is. So I'll answer that with a story. Early on in my counseling days, a guy who's about 28 walks in, first appointment, I've never met him, but he is angry, he is mad, and I figured I hadn't taken him off 'cause we hadn't met yet. - Yeah, you never met him. - That's right, so he's mad about something, but he plops down and he starts listing all of his accomplishments. He goes, I haven't, I'm the CEO of this company, I started the company, I'm multi-millionaire, he shows me a picture, this is my wife, these are my kids, they look happy, they're gorgeous looking wife and kids, and he takes out his keys, slams them on the table, these are the keys to my Lamborghini, and he hits his hand on the table when he says his next line, he goes, now, why the blank am I not happy? And just like seething with rage, 'cause he had everything that the world was telling him he needed to accomplish and achieve, and it still didn't do it for him. So at that point, I realized, okay, we sat there for a minute and I asked him some questions, but what it came down to is, I said, bro,

you have no idea who you are, really no idea what your purpose is, and I could tell, from being a therapist, you can kind of tell when people have some past, what I call injuries, the therapy word, we'd call it traumas, but guys don't like that word, traumas, so I just go with injuries. So I said, you got some injuries? - Well, and that's one of those buzz words you were talking about that. There might be a little unhealth around, just my opinion. - Exactly. - Yeah, oh, for sure. But I told him that, like, we gotta figure out who you are, what's your purpose, and we gotta figure out what are these injuries from your past that are holding you back, 'cause yeah, you're right, you're stuck, you can't achieve anything else. my lifetime and there's been a whole lot of words written about that in human history. I've got my opinion on what that is and how do you get it. How do you, Trey, how would you coach somebody that's listening to this right now, hearing you tell that story, may identify with that guy and ensure you could substitute a few things. Maybe your situation looks a little bit different. How did you help him find out who he was and what he was here to do and how would you coach a guy listening to this that's maybe asking those same questions. For sure. I tell you what I do is a lot of times in speeches, I'll show a clip of this part of a Spider-Man movie where Spider-Man's about to get his suit taken from him because he

messed up. He says, "Please don't take this suit, I'm nothing without this suit." And I pause the video right there and I say, "All right, what's your Spider-Man suit?" Because we all have at least one. The thing that if I lost this, I'd be nothing or the lie, a lot of the guys we believe is like, "I'm going to be a nobody, I'm going to be insignificant." So that's ultimately what we would say we're chasing is I want to be a somebody. They want a title. Yeah, they want a title. So with that guy in particular, I said, "All right, who do you say you are right now? What's your Spider-Man suit?" And he goes, "Well, I'm a CEO." I said, "Okay, well, could that company fail?" He said, "Yeah, it could." I said, "Well, it can't be your identity because then you're left with nobody or nothing, no title." And he listed all the different things, "I'm a husband, I'm a father, all the things." I said, "Could you lose all that?" Yes. So if you could lose it, it can't be your core identity. These can be offshoots of your identity, but it can't be your core. Your core identity has got to be something that can never get taken from you. And then we flipped over to purpose and his assumption was, "I just got to collect and collect and get and get all I can and then leave it on to my kids. That's my purpose." I'm like, "All right, well, there's probably worse purposes out there, but that's not, as you found out, that's not going to actually make you feel the way you want to feel." And also, that's another thing guys say is, "I want to feel happy when going to that, too." But that's ultimately the…

He clearly had a lack of peace, which is a probably result of not knowing who he was and what his purpose is. Exactly. And you don't know those things. It's really hard to have inner peace and your heart. Yeah. That reminds me of, and maybe you were trying to set this up, Trey, let's see how one-minded we are here, but dude, I just kept thinking about rich young ruler. What's your purpose? It's just to gather stuff, right? Exactly. For what? What? Yep. And what does Jesus say to him? You got one thing you still like. Mm-hmm. And I love that. It's it. I think it's a beautiful story. It's also like, "Man, that's hard." Oh, yeah. Because, again, I want my name tied to good stuff. Yes. When people talk about land in German, I hope the achiever side of my heart, mind, wants it to be great things. And I don't think that's all sinful and wrong for what it's worth either. Agreed. And yet, I understand never one time have those things been there for me when it's the middle of the night, and I'm wondering if this thing is still worth doing.

Yeah. So, Trey, what is that for you? I know you're a follower of Christ, okay? So talk about that a little bit. How old are you, by the way? I'm 46. Okay. I'm a 46-year-old guy who was in the marketplace, you've realized, "Hey, that's not fulfilling. So you're doing something that is with your career, but even that, to your point, can be taken away from you." Right. What can't be taken away from you? And why does it matter so much to you? Yeah. Yeah. So that's for me, again, and I love talking to people that want nothing to do with church, nothing to do with Jesus. So I never just blast through the front door, but so I say for me, the only answer I found is the person of Jesus, and what he brings literally is like the father's love and the father's acceptance. And one of my favorite verses is when the father tells Jesus, "You're my beloved son, and I'm pleased with you." Yeah, exactly. And he told him those words before he ever did any miracles. Anything. Yeah. And I've just, I have clung to that because in my past, rejection was kind of my main injury that kept happening over and over, and again, I'm using injury instead of traumas, but I just had rejection stacked upon rejections, and I started taking away these meanings about myself.

I must be ugly, I must not be cool, maybe nobody just, nobody likes me, that kind of stuff generally under the surface. So I decided, well, I better outrun that through things like hookups, achievements, the more I was able to I still wasn't able to outrun that stuff under the surface that was just right on me like Velcro. And the father's love and acceptance literally was the only thing that they gave me lasting peace that I actually can hang on to. Now, of course, I still slide back. We're like you talked about earlier. We want all the achievements even now post Jesus, but I think that's achievements are good if they're in their place. And what I realize is it's natural in terms of human nature to want the achievements for ourselves. So let's take it supernatural and let's achieve so that we can give it to something and somebody bigger than ourselves. - Dad, I want to hear what you have to say in response to that question as well. But you know, one thing I'm thinking of is, Trey, we, you know, a whole thing's about growth. And what we talk about is like the enemy of gaining ground in your life is a little word called drift, where it's usually not the 180 that kills you, where you're crushing it, doing well, being faithful. And then you just decide, you know what, I'm out. I don't want to do that. I'm not going to church anymore.

I'm not going to be around this group of guys that I know make me better. I'm just going to go do whatever I want. It's one missed day turns to two, two turns to five, right? That Bible's getting pretty dusty, haven't prayed, those sorts of things. And part of that is because of distraction. The other part can be because of injury. And I think attaching your identity to something that is not going to last. Dad, you're a pastor, you're a, in many as, or from many perspectives, a professional Christian. And yet, - That's debatable. - And yet there are, well, a lot of people would say that, right? - I'm sure. - Right? Guess the reason why people act weird around us. Like they can't, don't know what to do and then grocery store where they see you 'cause they think you're something else. You know what I mean? Like that's a real thing. - Yeah, like when they want a selfie on the airplane. - A selfie or they just, they stare at you. - Can I have this stuff? - Yeah, they just stare. They don't, they don't wave. They don't say anything. They just kind of stare and you can tell they're talking. Like six, just say hi.

I don't know what to do. - I was on a plane with your mom a couple of months ago and this guy from our church was there. And he's like, "Hey, pastor." He goes, "Hey man, I have a selfie with you." and I was like, "Sure." And I was thinking mom was like rolling her eyes. Like, I don't even want a selfie with him and he's my husband. (laughing) - Well, maybe I haven't reached a selfie level yet. I usually just get weird looks. Anyway, my point is this. Okay, you've been doing ministry for a long time. How have you learned not to attach your identity to an output? That was a word actually a mentor used for me a long time ago, an output. 'Cause I have some performance. I want to attach my identity to performance. - Yeah. - Well, it can't be anything that's an output, right? - Right. - So dad, how have you learned that in ministry? Because a lot of people would think pastors probably don't do that. - Oh yeah, they do. So what have you learned and experienced in that? - I mean, I'm just starting my 40th year in ministry, right, this next week.

And I think, I don't know if this is the answer you're looking for, but I think you learn through failure and you realize, man, if this thing were up to me, we're in big trouble. And that's how I let it sound super like, I don't know if that sounds like the churchy answer, but I've just learned to give stuff over to God when I'm not sure what to do. And I've learned in my life how to control anxiety, which is a big deal. - Okay, I wanna, let's talk about that actually. Anxiety, depression, those sorts of words get thrown around a lot in culture. It gets talked about, I think probably for parents that are listening to this, may have teenagers, that's absolutely something that is... - An epidemic in our lives. - Yeah, it's worth talking about. So if you're a man and you struggle with anxiety, with depression, with some type, first of all, what would you even call that? Anxiety and depression, there's probably, those probably aren't the only two. Can you help me talk a little bit more intelligently about those 'cause you're obviously way more steady than I am in those. - Well, these are the two areas that people come to a therapist for the most, and anxiety is far and away, and then it's depression, and then of course there's plenty more reasons,

but it's really two ends of the same spectrum. Anxiety is, I'm so worried about the future, I'm so worried about what might happen. Depression is, I don't really care because what's the point? And we all fall one place or another on that spectrum. I tend to fall more toward the anxiety side of things, and I wanna hear your story about how you got control of that at some point, but then other guys tend to fall more toward the depression side of things, but really I go back to that check engine light thing, it's like the anxiety is uncomfortable, the depression is uncomfortable, what is it we're really afraid of? Or what is it that we're grieving? 'Cause depression is probably related to grief of some kind. It's like, not just when somebody dies, it's when a big loss happens or a big change happens. - You don't get picked or rejected or something. - Bingo, bingo. So yeah, that's how I look at least from a bird's eye view with those two things. - Well, if you got guys, I think one thing is, I've noticed even from my own life too, it was like, yeah, I've had my own battles with anxiety and I don't know, dad, maybe it's genetic, maybe I should blame you for it. - That's right, certainly. - The therapist was like, just blame the mom and dad.

(laughing) Hey guys, we back to the episode in just a minute. Real quick, I wanna say something. Did you know that 64% of you who watch this show are not subscribed? So if you don't mind, if you're part of that 64%, would you click that subscribe button? It'll help you by staying up to date on all things on gaining ground and help us by having the show become more visible from men all across the world. If you're listening on audio, if you could follow this show, leave a rating and review, incredibly helpful. All right, let's get back to the conversation. Thanks as always for tuning in. If there's a guy listening to this that has never even put himself in that category, like, yeah, I guess I'm worried or, I don't know if I struggle with anxiety. I think a lot of times it's like, do you have to have a diagnosis to know how to defeat this thing? You don't, and then the second piece is, I think a lot of guys may be struggling with that, but don't know that that's something that needs their attention. Check engine lights on, well, I'm gonna pretend it's not there, or I don't wanna tell anybody about that. So what do you do if you feel that way?

Yeah, I just, you know, keep drinking more and keep smoking more and just cover it up like it just can't. Well, that seems to be the go-to for a lot of guys. Right, or slap a medication on it and try to, it's just, yeah, now that, what I try to tell people is, you gotta go through it, and it's very uncomfortable, just like we talked about to go through and sit there with an uncomfortable emotion, but if you'll sit there with it long enough, you can actually make it work for you. 'Cause again, since it's a check engine light, it's actually trying to be helpful. So if you'll sit there and get to the root of what's causing that uncomfortable emotion, then you can see like, oh, okay, well, there's probably a few little tweaks in my life I need to make, whether it's like the people we hang out with, or maybe our physical health or our sleep, or whatever the variations of the causes might be, but we gotta go through it and sit with it long enough to see what's actually causing it. - Dad, what was your story of anxiety and how did you overcome that? - I just think that the breakthrough for me was, when I realized, when I was worried about something, I always wanted to react to it pretty quickly, I wanna fix it, and what I found is that was never, hardly ever helpful. And so what I've learned over time is that

I've kinda learned to sit down and think, okay, what's the worst case scenario here, number one? And number two, these things that I worry about constantly every day, how many of them ever really come to fruition? And when I started doing the math, it was like way less than 1%, and I realized this isn't realistic. - That's so interesting, too. - This isn't realistic. - Right. - And I'm not trying to get overly spiritual, but I will tell you this, one of the things that I do is I try to create space for God to speak to me about it. I really do. - Good. - And sometimes it's like if I wanna react today, whether it's a, whatever it is, I will say, what if I just waited one more day, and maybe it feels different tomorrow? It almost always feels different tomorrow. - Yeah. - That's what I've learned. The other thing is that if you read Philippians 4, and I know where to preach today, we're not here to preach, but it is an absolute clinic. - It is. - An overcoming worry. - Yep. - When Paul says rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again. - Rejoice. - Rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God,

and the peace of God, the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. I mean, that's a breakthrough stuff right there. If you really look at it and break it down, and you actually do it. - Right, yeah. - It's unbelievable, but I just try to make space for God to speak into that situation. - So here's where I love the therapy world, because science, if you run it long enough, science always catches up to what God says is true. So you take, like those two things I heard you say, essentially are silence and gratitude. So if you take it in secular language, you look at the benefits of silence, our brains know how to heal themselves. We just don't give them enough silence, or any silence in certain some cases. So if we'll just start by, I just, I beg people to start with 30 seconds of silence today, 'cause that might be uncomfortable. you'll see your brain has rewired itself because you just gave it the time and space to do it. And then for people that want to connect with God, obviously that time is there too. It's therapy. Yeah, it's therapy. Yeah. It's biblical. Think about 1 Samuel 3. Samuel says, speak Lord, your servant is listening. Yeah. You know, David, be still and know that I am God. Right. I mean, it's it's incredible. Elijah, how did he hear God in a whisper? That's it. You got to be pretty quiet if you're going to hear a whisper. That's it. Exactly. So it's all over the pages of Scripture. Sorry. I won't preach anymore. No, because I'm with you here because the science also shows the benefits of gratitude.

And what I end every session with with anybody I'm with, I ask them, all right, what are two things you're grateful for as we walk out of here? Because I want them to walk out with the chin up a little bit and I want their brains to be filtering. All right. What am I already grateful for? Because I already thought about what I was grateful for in the past because I know the science and the scripture tells us like the more we're focused on what we're grateful for, we don't even go have worry and have room for worries. Gratitude is a huge part of overcoming anxiety. Yeah. That's why Paul says that with Thanksgiving, let your request be known to God. There's a lot of things you could be thankful for, but you're not thinking about right now because you got this runaway anxiety. Yep. And so it's huge. It's a big part of it. Can we take that word and I need you to correct me if I did the wrong kind of academic research here. Because the word, well, the phrase be anxious for nothing or do not worry. I looked that up in the Greek because like a lot of people take that out of context and they say, well, it's real simple. Just stop it. I'm like, all right, well, good luck with that. Yeah. So I looked it up and best as I can tell with my non theological training, I, it, it means the phrase means not just don't worry, but don't live tomorrow while you're still in today. Like you still have concerns. Like, yes, there's struggles. Just don't be living them out there while you still got to actually be here today. So is that that generally what you see in the? Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. And then that's why Jesus asked the question, the rhetorical question, who have you been worrying? Can I have a single hour to your life? A single hour to your life. Right. And then even it's starting to finish up on Philippians four, what does Paul do at the very end of that passage? He says rewire your brain by thinking about these things. Whatever is noble, whatever is true, whatever is right, remind yourself of how good God really is. It's, it's so huge. It is science. It's just a habit. Like there's all kinds of like books and speeches about habits right now. He's basically saying in one sentence, what you could build a whole speech about habits is just build the habit of gently pulling your brain back to these things. Yeah. That's so good. You know, Trey, one of the, one of the scriptures, I think that he just references Psalm 46 10, be still and know that I'm God. Yeah. I've exalted God among the nations, I'll be exalted in the earth. It's God talking to us, right? Yeah. I saw an Instagram post of yours where you, you broke that down a little bit. And so I guess people resonated with it because it had like a gajillion comments on it. Yeah. Can you, can you talk about that? And specifically is

like, guy is on his way home from work, stressed out, there's something that happened. He hears be still and know that I'm God. And it's kind of like, really? Right now, you want me to be still whatever you went through a breakup or whatever, right? Talk, talk to us about that verse and what it means. When I first read it, that was my reaction. It's like, really? Are you serious? Like, this is actually what the instruction is? Like, this can't be it. Shut up. Exactly. Shut up. Yeah. Right. And to me, that's the Old Testament version of the New Testament. Do not worry. Like both of those things are the same reaction. Like, really, this can't be all there is. So, that's why I looked up that one too. And I realized also that when I looked in the Hebrew, and again, I'm not a theologically trained scholar here. So tell me if I've gotten this wrong, but that phrase be still or the word be still, it doesn't mean just freeze. It means take your hand, which is tightly gripped right now and just release. Yeah. And then the idea there, the word picture there is like, yes, still make efforts, still do the things you need to do to fix whatever the problem is, but do it without white knuckle in it or it's just all up to me. And that way, you can you can be free in your actions. It's not don't do anything. It's just do it with a trusting heart. Great. That's where I want to go with the rest of this conversation because, okay, a couple of things we've learned so far. And a lot of this is like, yeah, that makes sense. Number one, we're not designed to just be constantly shackled in prison by worry. Yeah. Everybody knows you can't red line a car or you'll blow the engine, okay? You can't live on red line. Pretty sure we know that you got to put gas in your car. You got all do different kinds of things. you've talked about some of the sound. Thinking about it like, what's the playlist that's going on in your head? Is it constantly negative or is it noble and is it full of good things Philippians four? So there are moments in our life that happen. Decisions that we make that maybe we shouldn't have made. Things that happen in our home, at work, I mean, it could be anywhere. Problems are going to are going to be there. That's one thing I always learned about problems is they're always there for you the next day. They're pretty good about that, right? So what does it look like to see an issue, to see a problem, to see something, Dad, you talked about how you had to fix stuff.

And that led to that hellacious cycle of anxiety in your life. Problems ain't going to go away. Other of you are suggesting you just put your head in the sand and trust God in quotations. What do you do instead? One of the things I do is I start writing stuff down. So there's a few versions of that. The two versions that helped me are I'll set a timer for five minutes and I'll literally just start writing and it doesn't matter what comes out of my pen. I don't care if it's related to the thing I'm worried about or not because it's just giving my brain a chance to dump the oil that needs to be changed out to come back to that car metaphor again. So we always got to bring out the old oil, the sludge that needs to be cleaned out, and the best way to do that is through handwriting. So I'll do that for five minutes and just allow that cleansing process. And then it's easier for me to just sit and be still. And then what I do is I write down, okay, the list of things that I could do to address this problem because you're supposed to take some actions with most of the problems. Like it doesn't mean just sit there and wait on God. Like you said, I make a list of the things that I can do and I make a list of the things that only God can do. Because usually- That's really good. That's really good. Tell me more. Well, I'm just saying I'm with you on writing stuff down because I do that too and it usually turns into a prayer journal. I've never broken it down though to things I can do and things God can do. So keep going. I love that. Generally, I've found that the reason that that column, those two columns help me is

because generally speaking, God won't do for me what I can do for myself generally. And of course, I'm not going to be able to do what only He can do. So it gives me a sense of, okay, where's my responsibility and where's God's responsibility? I know we could get into a whole theological discussion on that too. But that's how I help myself. And then I take that list to people that I trust, mentors, friends, and I say, all right, help me see this clearly because man, when it's right in front of our face, we can't see it clearly. Another thing that I do when I'm super anxious about something is I've got a few guys that I go to and say, here's what's going through my heart right now. What do you think about this? Knowing what you know about me, knowing what you know about God, you think I'm in trouble here? And almost every time they're like, you're not in trouble. Yes. Yes, exactly. You know? Yeah. And that's so important to seek out some people that you trust, people that have earned the right to speak into your life. That's a big deal. Yeah. I said something that I want to hear more about, and then we're going to do another segment to end this thing, rapid fire. You talked about God won't do what you could do for yourself. Generally. Okay. Generally. And I agree with that. I heard a story one time about this guy that was a part of a shipwreck.

And so he gets shipwrecked, he's on this island by himself. He's a faithful man. And so he starts to pray. He prays that God would rescue him. And so he goes to sleep that night. He wakes up in the morning and he's praying, he's praying, God, please rescue me, right? God's going to show up. God's going to save me. A boat comes by. He says, hey, do you need to get on our boat? He says, no, no, no, God's going to show up and save me. We all know this. Yeah. Same thing happens the next day, the next day after that. What happens? He eventually dies. The learning is this. God sent the boat. Yeah. Right. And sometimes God is ready to help us with all kinds of stuff. But we may be too prideful to stuck in our ways to recognize that the next best thing that we need to do is go talk to a friend, go talk to a brother, go get him plugged into this community that we're building right here and actually be honest and level with somebody. Yeah. Right. I love that you said that because I think there's probably some, some men right now that are praying prayers for God to rescue them from something that they simply just have to make the decision today to stop doing.

You're struggling with anxiety and you know your phone makes you anxious. Stop it. Mm-hmm. - Yes. You're around a group of people and they're not good for you. What do you do? You go find people that you can't. You don't have to wait on God to do those things. Dad, what was your question for Trey? - I wanna hear more about how to harness my inner caveman. - All right, well, we've already talked about the first step which is get comfortable with silence or at least a little more comfortable with silence because when you sit with the uncomfortable emotion, the caveman is the one that's causing that emotion. - Yes. - And he thinks that there's something out there that's literally gonna kill you. He just doesn't know any better. Like most people are afraid of public speaking. They think that's gonna kill him, but logically it's not. But he's the one that thinks it might. And so he's gonna make you super uncomfortable to try to protect you from what he sees as a threat. But if you sit with that sensation long enough, it calms down and that's basically you telling the caveman, "Hey, I'm listening." And then if this is maybe where a therapist can be helpful, you can actually like hear that part of your nervous system

tell you what its real fear is. And then from there you take the action steps. That's like the super quick version of it. - Yeah, I'm excited to read about that part of it. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's in your book, so. - All right, Trey, I wanna to finish up this podcast, I wanna do like some rapid fire questions. - Let's go. - Situations from everyday life and your encouragement and advice on how a healthy man could handle this. - Let's do it. - All right, so, first one, let's talk, let's talk relationships or marriage, okay? You're in a marriage and your wife says, "I feel emotionally disconnected to you." What's the unhealthy response? What's the healthy response? - Healthy response is be curious, tell me more. First of all, thank her or whoever for telling you that 'cause that takes guts for anybody to bring up something that's kind of awkward like that. So thanks for bringing it up, tell me more. Like you say that to anybody and you've already got peace and love. - I love being curious, I love that answer. - Yes, sir. - That's a great answer, Trey. - Thank you.

With a mind, one of my favorite, y'all watched Ted Lasso. - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, that's one of my favorite scenes. Be curious, not just mental 'cause when somebody tells us like, "Hey, I'm feeling disconnected from you," the initial instinct is probably to be defensive. Like, "Why, I'm here all the time." But now there's something there, so like, "Hey, tell me more." - That scene is one of the greatest scenes in television history when he is throwing the darts. - Yes. - And he says, "Yeah." Like, "Ted, have you ever played darts before?" It's amazing. - I'm trying to admit this. I've never actually showed a show. - Dude, I need to watch it. - I need to watch it. - You're crazy. I need to watch that show. - I know, I know, I know. There's another season coming out. - There is. I hope it's better than seasons two and three years. - Yeah, same season one was so awesome. - All right, so the healthy response is be curious. The unhealthy response is what? - Defensive, you know, just what are you talking about? How dare you, that kind of response.

- Okay. - All right. - Somebody, and this could be a single person. This could be somebody that's married anywhere on the relational spectrum. Feeling stuck, lonely, unsure of purpose. What do you think's really going on? What do they do, how do they get out of it? - Yeah, that one, it's hard to give you like a single bullet answer, but generally speaking, they don't have a father figure, or they don't tap into that resource. 'Cause a father figure's gonna be able to know you well, just like you're talking about with your friends that you go to with anxious situations, but not just know you well, but has been further down the road than you, because that guy's gonna be able to see like, all right, I see this in you, and then I think this path is probably gonna be a really good fit for you. Somebody that's your own age may not be able to tell you that, but generally speaking, a father figure can help you figure out your purpose. - All right, you get let go at your job. You weren't expecting it, you show up, all of a sudden it's your last day at the company. What happens to you emotionally? How do you recover? How do you not feel rejection?

- Oh yeah, well you don't feel rejection, you gotta reject it. So acknowledge it, like that's what I tell people all the time, it's like when uncomfortable situations happen, expect them to happen, like okay here's one, again this ain't heaven, so it don't happen. So acknowledge it, man that hurts, where does it hurt? That hurts, like when stuff happens like that to me, when rejection happens, I get queasiness and my stuff. - It's a new entry. - Exactly, it's a new entry. - So acknowledge it. - Yeah, yeah, don't just power through, like you might need to power through in the phase of like, okay now it's time to get to work and find a job, but eventually you gotta come back and actually feel that stuff and the whole phase of feel it to heal it that has to happen. But first you probably need to take care of business to find a new job, then grieve the old one. - All right, you listen to this podcast, you decide you're gonna be more emotionally healthy, that's great. How do you stop becoming soft passive or self-absorbed? - I never like stopping something without replacing it with something else, so just stop thinking about a pink elephant. Well, now you're thinking about a pink elephant. So what do we wanna think about instead? Or what do we wanna become instead?

I love guys especially are just visually oriented. So if there's a personality trait or some sort of characteristic I want, I'll put that picture on the fridge just because that person like if it's I don't know if it's bravery I'm gonna put a picture of brave heart on the fridge because like if I want to be more brave than I see a guy That actually is brave and I can start subconsciously moving that direction or Clint Eastwood. This is right behind you. Yes. Oh, thank you So much for putting Clint there the man All right, you got a brutal day at work You walk in and I think there's I mean for in my situation. I got a bunch of little kids running around They need you they're loud or if you're not somebody that's that's married. You got roommates or whoever you walk into your home, too Okay, brutal day at work You're irritated you're overwhelmed. You're at the end of your rope. What does emotional maturity look like? All right emotional maturity first means you realize that this is the state you're in as you're driving home So as you don't walk in unaware of what's happening in you so Sit in the driveway or think about it as you're driving whatever it takes and start doing some deep breathing I tell people do a four seven eight breathing four seconds in seven seconds hold eight seconds out And if you can't remember all those all those numbers just remember the key is eight seconds out the longer your exhale The more your nervous system gets the signal like it's okay. We're cool. That's just chill So in those moments you can say to whoever it is like hey, I got a low gas tank right now I'm just letting you know and I'm doing my best and I'm breathing and I just I just want you to know This is where I'm at right now. So it's not a cop-out. It's just like hey. Here's the process. Do this with me 478 478 did you do that because of Philippians 478? I've never thought of that before, but you're welcome There's more science than back-sub scripture. You're welcome. You're welcome, man. That's absolute flames right there, dude Philippians 4 7 and 8 4 7 8 breathing you could repeat that verse right as you're going through that practice And I didn't make the whole 478 breathing up. That's research. That's like a science psychological thing. Yeah, okay. Wow. All right Guy realizes struggle with things I didn't depression doesn't want to make a struggles identity What do you do? Yeah, most guys don't want to make the struggle their identity. It's just that sometimes it just that's all they can see and I'd say We've we talked about so much about how to check on yourself internally and so yeah do all that stuff but then I think we need to re-emphasize the

The key of like let's let's open up to one guy around us in our life like vulnerability is awesome Not just for the sake of being vulnerable, but being vulnerable so that I can reach my full potential Because if i'm just putting up a front then the real me ain't growing. It's just staying stagnant All right. I wonder if you're gonna have an answer for this one. This is gonna be exciting um Regardless of where somebody listening right now feels Their relevancy is towards emotional health. Maybe they're thinking I'm pretty good. Hmm Or they're really struggling What's the best question that you can ask yourself every day? To try to evaluate where you're at the question that helps me the most is who can I help today? Because every time I look back in my struggles I've realized when I've gotten out of myself and out of that just right up my face view of my own problems and And help somebody else. I feel 10 times better Maybe not immediately, but as I continually serve somebody else even in little ways That's medicine that even science can't touch. Hey, man. Hey, man. That's great. Well, man. That's a great answer. Trey I really appreciate you and the the fact that you Um are here today in studio with us all the way from Tennessee. So thank you for your life Thank you for your ministry Um, if people want to connect with you, how do they do that? Um, I know you've got social media platform is your is it is a rugget counseling? Is it your hand? I get counseling. That's it. And then the book is called the book is tough enough tough enough and the tagline is Oh, man. Didn't I see it's it's the first home your habits called that your purpose and forward genuine strength There you go exactly and the first book ever written for gas in their 20s Or is there a written for guys on the 20s and I donate anything I make off of that book to organizations that help men or Help rescue girls that have been or killed chit. Sorry children that have been kidnapped into human trafficking So man, that's unbelievable and I I am I'm a big fan and I'm thankful and I hope God continues to bless that. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here All right guys. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time See everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us on the gaining ground podcast. If you enjoyed today's content It would help us a ton if you could like this video

I click the subscribe button and turn on your notifications so you never miss an episode If you're looking for more resources or how to get connected, please feel free to look in the description below find our website gaining ground men Dot com. We'd love to connect with you there. We'll see you next time (upbeat music)