We interview Brad Reedy about: The audacity to be you: learning to love your horrible, rotten self Expanding on his first book (The journey of the heroic parent) Reedy discusses how all our relationships are connected to the relationship we have with ourselves. He shows how the foundation for intimacy with partners, our ability to parent effectively, and the meaningfulness of our lives can be tied to how well we have unraveled our unique childhood history. The audacity to be you: Learning to love your horrible, rotten self is a simple but bold exploration into what makes us human and why happiness and connection are elusive for so many. Reedy's work is counter-intuitive, but readers will often have the experience of being found--and understood--as they make their way through his work. Many readers say that reading Brad's work is like hearing something for the first time that you already knew but just didn't have the words for it. Dr. Reedy is a renowned author, therapist, podcaster, and public speaker. His approach is accessible and non-threatening. He is a prolific keynote speaker, T.V. and radio guest, and he travels the world presenting to audiences and training therapists. Through stories gathered from decades as a therapist, co-founder, and clinical director of Evoke Therapy Programs, Reedy gives the reader an intimate picture of mental health and healing. The audacity to be you explains how our personalities are built, brick by brick. From what it means to be a Self, we learn how to authentically love others. Readers will learn the essence of mental health, and, with that, the stigma of mental illness evaporates. Reedy debunks toxic myths so common in our culture, including: "You are only as happy as your least happy child." He shows how good psychotherapy goes beyond problem solving. Reedy teaches, "In this way of thinking, you don't get to be right anymore. But you get to be a Self. And that is so much better. That is 'The Audacity to Be You.'" To learn more about his work go to evoketherapy.com or drbradreedy.com. You can find his podcast "Finding You: An Evoke Therapy Podcast" on your favorite podcast app or by going to soundcloud.com. transcript August: Welcome. I'm August Baker, and welcome to the podcast today. I've recently been working with parents of children who have been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons, and I've also had a chance to work with some adolescents directly in a locked psychiatric hospital. And in the course of that work, I came to hear about a program called Evoke Therapy in Utah and are very good things about it. And in the course of my puzzles, I decided to go to the website, it's evoketherapy.com and see what was there. And I found a book. And today we're going to be talking about that book. It's called The Audacity to Be You Learning to Love Your Horrible Rotten Self. It's 2020, and the author is Brad Reedy, who is a co-founder of Evoke Therapy Programs and the clinical director, he's also the author of The Journey of the Heroic Parent, and he's the host of Finding You an Evoke Therapy podcast. Welcome Dr. Reedy. Dr. Reedy: Very happy to be here. Honored. Thank you for having me. August: Oh, thanks. I tell you one of the first things that parents say is that when their kid is in a psychiatric hospital or they're adolescent, it's very different. The reaction you get with the community is very different than if your child was in the hospital for a broken leg or a tumor. And that's what part of what makes it so terrifying. Can you speak to that? Dr. Reedy: That's a great beginning question. I have a lot of compassion for that. Sometimes doing this work. I forget how tight that the stigma and the shame of mental health grips people because talk about it, I talk about my own work and, and my own personal therapy over the years. And so I, I sometimes forget that. So it's nice to be reminded. For me, it comes back to maybe the simplest illustration of that kind of shame and stigma that I think about. I talk about this idea that if I were to say to you, my brother had a good baby that he has , they just had gave birth my brother and sister-in-law and said that, that the baby's a good baby. You would know that the baby has no needs. It's not crying, not sleeping, sleeping throughout the night probably that, that all of its needs and feelings are contained in a tight little box that makes them easier. So I think from birth, we learned that our emotional needs are so taxing to the people who care about us and love us, that we learn that good is to not have needs. Good is to not struggle, good is to not feel big feelings. And implied in that we don't say this ever, of course, but bad is to have all of those things. And that's what these psychiatric hospitals and programs like mine are doing. They're holding on to people whose feelings are spilling out in their symptoms and their behaviors. They'll self harm, their self-medicating habits. And so I think it goes back to...
