Cody Deese

Yes, friends. Here we are. It's the Robcast, and I am here in global headquarters with Cody Deese. Cody, welcome to Ohio. The Southerner has arrived. Ladies and gentlemen, Cody Deese. I met you in 2012. We've been friends for over a decade. He is a southern gentleman, to the point to which he actually suggested we go hit golf balls. You've hit golf balls? I've hit golf balls. How long ago? That's probably 10 years ago, once. And did you find it? I just waited until that tractor came out that collects all the balls, and then I lined up golf balls on a whole succession of T's, and then just tried to hit the tractor. And how did you do? That's why when you said we'd like to hit golf balls at the club, the in here in Ohio, which I just would not be my jam, as we said to Cody, the outfits alone. The wardrobe. That's what you call it. So we're concerned about the wardrobe. So we've been friends for over 10 years. You have interviewed lots of people in your line of work, and now you have written your first book, and this is your second time ever being interviewed here on the Robcast. That's right. I mean, I would have liked to have been the first, but I'll take the second. First was from UK. This is the first in the States. And Cody is, well, if you know Cody, you know what I'm talking about is just those people, those just people who are humans who are with you, who walk with you. And when we do like check in with each other, it's always a thing. It's always a beautiful thing. So you have been a great friend. And now when I read this book that you've written, I was like, Oh my God, Cody did it. He wrote a book that sounds like him. Have people told you this about the book? Well, this is my second interview. So you're the first. It's tricky to get your voice on the page, let alone heart, soul, spirit, life that you have lived, and you did it like right away in the first couple pages. I was, I was very, very moved to see that other people were going to, as much as you can in a book, we're going to meet the Cody that I know. The book is called, my friends, discovering your internal universe, the unexpected good news about anxiety, panic, and fear. So, so I don't want to, it's tricky because I don't want to give the book away. Right. The whole thing about the number 41, the thing that happens in the kitchen at the end, the thing your father-in-law who sounds insane and kind of also awesome tells you about the car at the end. You know what I'm saying? If I do, if we do any of that on this episode, I'm giving away the gold. So here's what I do. Yep. I'm going to take you through your own book and I'm going to read you sentences here and there. Okay. Let me put a disclaimer out so our people know before you even jump into that because I appreciate what you said about it being my voice. First of all, that's hard to do. First time writer, first book ever. Yeah. Terrified because you have all these influences on your life and you want to make sure that it's you, that people hear your tone, my Southern accent, all of it. Like I embrace all of it and I wanted it to come through the pages. But that said, I was only trying to do a therapist homework assignment. That's all this book is. And we can get into that at some point. But what was the assignment? Let's get into it now. The therapist was helping me walk through my own anxiety and he said, "Hey, have you considered outlets like ways to flush out your anxiety?" And I spent the week thinking through them. And one of the things that I observed is first of all, I run a lot. That's one outlet for me. I love to run. It's one of my favorite things to do, run every day except Saturdays and Sundays. Do a long run on Fridays, sweat it out, cry it out. That's an outlet for me. The other thing that I thought about was I do a little bit of writing and no one reads this writing. But my particular job requires me to give speeches and talks and teachers. And so I like to write. And I thought, I wonder what this would be like if I started writing about what I was seeing this therapist about, which was my anxiety. And he said, "I would encourage you to write in full liberation. Don't worry about like throw away the thesaurus. You know, don't worry about how it sounds. You're writing for you. Just get it out. What you're feeling, what you're experiencing, what the life has been like with anxiety." And I started writing and kept writing and found more and more freedom in writing. And the more that I expressed it, the lighter the anxiety actually felt. And there's some data. He told me later, there's some data with this of folks that have been like, "Yeah, there's like a writing therapy 15 minutes a day on your worst trauma." But for me, I didn't know anything about that. I was just writing just to, you know, turn this in what your experience has been like with anxiety. And by the time I got done, I realized, I mean, there were several, several pages of words that I thought, "Wow, there might be something to this." And so I just kind of started sorting through them. And the whole point was to give it to my therapist at some point and offer it to him and say, "This is what it feels like. Me living with anxiety." And then I passed it off to a few friends and it turned into what it is. They encouraged me to, you know, consider publishing it. And that's what we did. And to my surprise, there were publishers who said, "We like it. Let's do it." What time of the day do you write? Did you do these writings? There was no particular time of day. We've got a little screened-in porch on the back of our house. And that's my favorite spot. And so when it's not too warm, because we obviously live in Atlanta, so it gets a little hot. But I go out there, cut the ceiling fan on. And I have this big giant tree in my backyard and I set my laptop on my legs and I just start typing and just go. As long as I feel like I need to go. Some days it rolls and some days, you know, it's a paragraph or two. So no pressure. I didn't, I didn't like get a, I think you probably helped me with this, but I didn't get a publishing deal and then have all the stress and pressure of trying to write a book. No, I told no one. My wife, Katie, knew that I was writing, but that's it. It was just a homework assignment. And what is it like now to hold it in your hand as a book? Well, when it first came, I mean, it's, I don't even really have words for it. I was, I mean, even still, I can just pause for a minute and say terrified in some ways, it's refreshing and amazing because I'm looking at a book that has my name on it. And it's, I, I'm also terrified in the sense that this is the deepest part of my soul that I have put on a page that I'm sharing with the world. And that's scary because you're known in ways you've never been known before, but also at the same time, I know what I walk through. My hope is, is that there's some liberation that folks can find through these pages. Isn't it fascinating how vulnerability is in many ways the engine of the whole thing? Like all the people who move us in, in some way, they open themselves up and stepped forward or tried it or said it or made it. And yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're right, because this is, here, let me go to, let's go to page 11. You're telling us in the beginning why you wrote it and you say there's many reasons, but largely because we are living in an age of anxiety. There is a collective anxiety in the air and just as critical as it is for me, an individual to undercover what lies underneath my anxiety. So it is for us as a collective to do the same. Yeah, it feels timely. The release of this book, what's happening in the world, the world, think about Gaza, think about the Ukraine, think about the political violence within the last two to three weeks. Think about the ill-equipped leaders that are leading some of the most powerful countries in the world, and they all seem to be doing it all at the same time. If you just look around, you're probably feeling a little anxious. And I do believe, Rob, there's like a, I feel it, but there's like a, the collective body, the collective body's nervous system seems to be screaming at some level. Yeah. And I think what's true about me as an individual, which is what I write the book about, my own individual experience, I think it's true about the collective as well, which is, you know, what could this be saying to us? What could it be showing us? What could it be inviting us into as a collective that maybe we can pause? And it's okay, numb it when you need to numb it, which we can get into some of that. I did all of that. I've tried so many things with anxiety. And just so your listeners are to catch them up. Yeah, I mean, I had anxiety since my earliest memories. Yeah, that's the next thing I want to read. Okay, you write anxiety has been a part of my life since my earliest memories. More specifically, I've lived with a panic disorder since I was a child. I've not always known this, but now I do. Yep. Let's do this. How about a quick story? Because this book's filled with stories, which is one of my favorite ways to communicate. I'm just like all the straight, flat lines are great, but give me a good story. Nine years old, Webb, Alabama, little town outside of Dothan, Alabama. My father was-- Wait, Webb is outside of Dothan. Yes. What is Dothan outside of? Can you get to one we've heard of? Is Dothan outside of one we've heard of, or is that outside of one? Do you know Alabama, if you've heard of this state? Yes. Okay. I'm actually trying to think of a city, and I cannot think of a city that you might know. How big is Webb, Alabama? Oh, God, I have no idea. I mean, it's been years. It's tiny. It's tiny. How many stoplights? I mean, there's a dozen or so. Maybe in Webb, yeah. I don't want to blend Webb and Dothan, but if you have listeners from Webb and Dothan, they'll know. Exactly. They'll know. For those of us who haven't been to Webb and Dothan, give me 30 seconds to omit it on. If we all visited right now, what would strike us non-native Alabamans? Yep. My dad, pastor of this church, here it is, popular springs, Baptist church, white steeple, graveyard, larger than the building itself. Here's some Highway 55, Highway 52, Webb Elementary School, one Jiffy store, a couple baseball fields. That's the town. That's the town. And my dad took this church, and my mom went to work at the elementary school, and I and my siblings did what we did every time we went to a new town. We moved quite a bit growing up. I jumped in the sports scene, and we went for it. And I was the running back for the Pee Wee football team, Webb Spiders, small, short, skinny, blonde-haired, buck-teeth boy, grabbing the ball and going for it at nine years old. And these guys are huge, Goliath-type giants out there with our little team. And I did it because that's what you do in Alabama. You play football, and that's what I did. And one game, Thursday night, girlfriends in the bleachers, parents are in the bleachers, the whole town's in the bleachers, they tossed me the ball. I take off running like I always do, and I had an experience. Felt like cardiac arrest. I wouldn't have known what that phrase, at nine years old, I wouldn't have known what that phrase is, but this is my language now. One heart beating. I fell on my knees, sweat pouring out of my body, and I began to dry-heave, like over and over and over again, to the point where I couldn't, like I couldn't stop it. And my parents came down and thought, okay, he's just not feeling well, maybe he's sick. This is what happens when you're sick, there's nothing in your stomach, but something toxic is in there and needs to come out. So I went home, was totally fine, until it happened the next practice, and then it happened the next game, and then it happened the next practice, and then it began to expand. It wasn't just football games, it was school plays, it was dentist visits. I would, probably it was terrible, I would go to a dentist office like any normal human, and I would sit down, and all of a sudden I'd start having that experience again, and I would just begin to, I call them now retching episodes, but I would begin to just dry-heave, and you know, people would get frustrated, frustrated, thinking that it was intentional, thinking that I'm making it up, and no one had language for it. My mom was the most, and is the most compassionate human on this planet, believed me when all my teachers came to her saying, "He's just looking for a school absence." Took me to the doctor a few times, family practitioner, took blood, and said, "God looks great, there's nothing," because that's the thing about anxiety, you can't see it. It doesn't show up in blood work, and it's a maddening experience as a nine-year-old starting to process, "Okay, how do I live my life now, because apparently I have some thing wrong with me," and it's like retching episodes, and it's one of the most bizarre, peculiar things that even the doctors I went to visit was like, "Well, this is different, this is strange," and I bring that to your attention because it wasn't until I was 40 years old, 40, that a therapist looked at me and said, "Cody, you have a panic disorder," and in that moment, it was like, "Of course it's a panic disorder," because then I started going back thinking about all the episodes from nine all the way up to 40, because it never stopped. When I got older, I went off to college, kept happening, I would do school presentations and five minutes before be, in the corner of the room, just dry heaving, retching, just in full panic mode, and then I would get up and do my thing and pray that I make it through. I became what my father was, I became a pastor, started giving sermons and teachings five minutes before. How old were you when you started doing that? I gave my first sermon at 16. Okay, back up for a second. Year nine, what story at nine do you tell about this? Do you tell about yourself? Well, it was little things like, my mother gave me a narrative and she said, "There's nothing wrong with you, it's just like your mouthpiece is too big during the football game." So little things like that. It's like, "Okay, that makes sense." So she would just cut trim a little bit off the mouthpiece and I go, "That makes sense." Went to one doctor and he said, "And this is the one that I ran with for a while, because it made sense." But he said, "Cody, you have a hypersensitive gag reflex and that's the one that made the most rational sense to me." And it was the one I was least embarrassed about. So if it were to happen in public, I could tell people now, "Oh, sorry, I take medication, this is just a hypersensitive gag reflex." Prior to that, it was just like, "This kid's kind of weird, like he needs to stay at home." And so that was the narrative that I lived with until I turned 40. And at 40, I had by that point gone to about any doctor you could imagine and tried as many pills as you could imagine trying to figure out what was wrong with me. And some things helped a little bit and then many things did not. And it was finally when I got in front of this therapist that he said it's a panic disorder that Rob the Lights just came on and I knew intuitively inside of me, I knew that's exactly what this was. And that's when I decided it's time to get to work. Okay, when you're trying pill after pill after pill, there's a fatigue, like a despair, what keeps you going in, okay, we'll try another doctor, another treatment, another pill, another... What keeps you going and not just spiraling into despair? So there were certainly moments where I would spiral and I'll tell you my lowest was I tried some medication and it was funny because this is before I even knew it was anxiety but one of the doctors prescribed me an SSRI which I write about in the book. I talk about SSRIs because it was such a great means for me to cope with what I have to try to get to actually do the work underneath it all because at some levels, and maybe some of your listeners know this, but this particular form and that's why I bring it up. It's one of the reasons I wrote about it because I thought like maybe I just don't get into the details of the form but just tell people I had a panic disorder and I stay away from the retching because it's just even talking about it to me, I'm like it's one of the most bizarre... But now I laugh at it. But I can only imagine because of my own personal experiences, how many listening to this episode, their anxiety manifests itself in some way that if you would tell the person, how many people are like, "Yeah, there were 13 shopping boxes delivered by UPS to my house." Just think about how many people we are constantly telling each other all of our retchings, how we deal. And there's liberation in it and that's part of the reason why I was like... And not just liberation for me and liberation for others, because when others hear this story too, it sets them free like, "Oh God, maybe this is human. Maybe all of this is human because we all experience it in our own peculiar ways." If you have this line here, this therapist said, "Everyone has anxiety." Yeah. Yeah, that was a shocking realization when I sat down with my therapist. He said, "Cody, everybody has anxiety." And I just pause and go, "Is that true? Does everyone have anxiety?" And he went on to say, "Everyone has anxiety. The question is not do they have it. The question is at what level is it at in their life?" And that was really profound for me because he helped me kind of distinguish between what I talk about, and people call it different things, but situational anxiety, which is normal everyday anxiety and then chronic anxiety, which is a lot of what I experienced, which is situational anxiety over and over and over and over and over again to the furthest extreme. And you can be paralyzed by those moments. And that happened to me. And back to your original question, what's the alternative for me? So you keep going. What else are you going to do? I'm young. I'm like, "I've got to live. I've got to make a living. I've got to figure out how to navigate this with these retching episodes, with this particular form of a panic disorder. I've got to figure out how to get out there and do it. And also having people in my life that I was able to, in a very safe way, explain what was going on with me, and even them not knowing, but still comforting going, "You're going to figure it out. We're going to get this. You're going to find it." And I was doctor after doctor, and pill after pill, and eventually you run into the person that says, "You have a panic disorder and the lights come on." And all of a sudden you're like, "Now I know." And the question now is, "What can we do about it?" Isn't that fascinating how you're looking for some light or some guidance and how you're thinking it through, you're opening your mind, you're investigating, you're interviewing this person, you're researching this, you're going to this person, you're going to this person. And then somebody gives you a perspective and insight and something way deeper than your mind. It's like a tuning fork goes, "Yeah, that's it." Yeah. That's what I've been looking for. The illusion that we navigate the world with our minds, and our minds are lovely, but how much of our movement is actually navigated by a deep, deep resonance. Oh, I know all about that, and I'll talk about it. Is that book too? I love living in my head. It's all I've been trained to do, it's all I've been conditioned to do, and so this whole book, you'll notice when you read it, it's a process of me being introduced to my body. One of the really interesting things in the book to me is how you narrate what it's like to ... I mean, many of us were raised in worlds, we're not quite sure that anybody knew that they had bodies. I mean, I'm noticing this everywhere, how many people are like, "Turns out I have a body," and it knows things, and it stores things, and it responds to things, and it walks in a room, and it has already sized up all kinds of things, that the mind is actually usually racing to keep up. Yeah, and it's a good place. It's familiar, my mind is familiar to me, it's what I know, and it's a really, really convenient and "safe" place to hide from the body, and parts of yourself within you that maybe you're terrified to visit, go near, see, but honestly, for me, I'm not even sure that I knew there was a space below my head to live until I had some experiences that showed me how true that was. Speaking of that, you talk about this therapist said, "He spoke of anxiety as being for us, not against us. He viewed anxiety as a healer, not a killer." Yup, that was the realization that I came to, and he was on the front end of it, but the way he talked about it was brand new for me, because once I figured out I had anxiety, I came into it like, "Let's prepare ourselves, there is a battle that is about to be fought," which is classic elimination. Absolutely. There's a problem, how do we eliminate it? Also came from a very fundamentalist Christian upbringing that taught fear was the enemy, so they gave— Love them dualities. Oh, absolutely. We can make a whole thing out of them dualities. Absolutely. Light, dark, good, bad. Fear, faith. Yes. It gave me war metaphors. It gave me proof text, platitudes. Here's how we're going to fight. The antidote to fear is faith, these little statements, and what I slowly realize is fear doesn't need an antidote. Fear needs attention. Anxiety doesn't need to be eliminated. Anxiety needs to be integrated, and that was the biggest shift for me. The biggest shift was at the end of it, coming through it, realizing I have misunderstood anxiety. I've misunderstood it. Coming to realize it wasn't the enemy that I thought it was, didn't happen until I got to the other side of all this internal work that I did, and the way it came is I looked back and I realized who knew that was coming. I went in to heal my anxiety, discovering your internal universe. I went in. I was like, "Let's go in. How do we get in? Where's the door at? I just need to heal this anxiety. I've got to get it out of me." I went in with everything I had, SSRIs, THC, wachuma, psilocybin, anything you name it. I went in with all the arsenal into my internal universe, which you can call it whatever you want to, like the soul, the psyche, the mind, the gut, the heart, all of that inside of us. I went in there with full armor, like I'm going to hunt it down. I'm going to find it, and I'm going to drag it by its ass all the way back up through my throat, and I'm going to destroy this anxiety. That's what I was conditioned to do. That's what I was told was the right way to free yourself from anxiety. As you'll see in the book, when I get inside, it's not all, not even close to what they told me it would be, not even close. Turns out, anxiety wasn't even in me. It wasn't even inside. I went in. Now, it's possible, Rob. There's layers deep. Maybe I didn't go that deep down in me, but it wasn't even in there because when I got inside of my internal universe, I looked around and I realized, sudden realization, you got here because someone was guiding you here, and I started asking questions, what was my guide here, and turns out I went in to heal my anxiety, and it was not the anxiety that needed to be healed. It was lots and lots of things underneath my anxiety that was causing anxiety, but all along anxiety was as I write in the book, it was an unexpected guide that I never saw. That's the kicker. I never saw it. I went in chasing it, and turns out it was almost standing on the other side, just smiling, waiting on me, going, "That's why," and you experienced the appropriate level that you experienced for a reason. Eckhart Tolle, he's got that great quote. He says, "Life will give you whatever you need for the evolution of your consciousness." How do you know this is what you need? Because this is what you are experiencing. Life will give you whatever you need for the evolution of your consciousness, and I'm just chasing after this going, "God, this thing, it's like if anxiety had its way, if this form had its way, it would feel like it was going to destroy me, ruin my career, I don't want to speak anymore, you can't stand on a stage and have retching episodes and be like, "Pardon me, I'll be right back." This thing can take your career, and if you let it, it can push you into a room because you never want to go out because it could happen while you're out eating dinner. Anybody who knows and has had panic attacks, they know this story. They know this story. It's hard for people that have never had a panic attack to know what I'm talking about, but you need to know, sometimes even the basic getting up out of bed, just going to dinner, those things can be incredibly challenging and exhausting. I would say to any of your listeners that have anxiety, a panic attacks, you're not alone in that. There's a lot of us that know exactly how difficult it is. Going to dinner, going for a walk, going to a game, anywhere you went, you had this potential, and then you go in, and it turns out the anxiety was like a light on the dashboard. That's it. That's a great way to say it. I've heard people say it. I've heard people say it. Flare guns going off. I've heard people talk about anxiety being an alarm in your body going off, almost just sending the signal, letting you know that there's something inside. Think about the form itself for a minute. Think about, go with me here. Hopefully, it won't trigger anything, but go with me here. The form of retching, your mouth is wide open, your abdomen is all tight. If you look at even just the symbolism of it, it's almost like something wants to come out. Something wants to be expressed. Yes. Exorcised. That's where I went to work because you have a lot of fire underneath you when there's potential of it paralyzing you. People go to places you probably wouldn't normally go. I was terrified. I wasn't sure how to get in there, what to do. I tried so many different things. I went to pulmonologist, they checked, gave me breathing medication. Some doctors like you got to have your esophagus stretched and on and on the list goes. I'll tell you this one because it is in the book, but I sat down with a few friends, kind of told them what was going on and said, "Yeah, I'm trying to get inside of me. It's a panic disorder. I'm trying to get underneath it." I had all these great therapists. My friends over at Chips and Saucers said, "Have you ever tried THC?" What you need to know, Rob, is I grew up, I was like a no drugs guy. I didn't try any of that stuff. Just a few SSRIs or it, but I've never tried anything like that. I kept hearing them talk about how relaxed they were and how, "Oh, it just takes the edge off." And it has dialed down my panic attacks and that sounds right for me. So I asked the friend of mine, I said, "Well, can you bring me some? I'll try them." And they were like, "Sure can." Next day, there's a little baggie sitting right on my front doorstep. I grabbed it, told Katie I was like, "The baggie's here." And I'm like, "What am I supposed to do? We don't have any instructions. Nobody told me anything." So I get the little baggie, I put it in the fridge. And that night, I was like, I just told my wife, Katie, I was like, "I'm going to try one of these." And she was like, "Would you know how much?" Or I was like, "I don't know anything. No one told me anything." So Rob, I did the ultimate rookie move. I got in and I ate, I did just eat half of one because that's a person with anxiety knows what I'm talking about. You don't jump all in, you ease in. So I was like, "I'm just going to take like half of one just in case." Took half of one and the only instruction I got was to wait an hour. So I took half of one and waited an hour, I didn't feel a thing. So I went back and took the other half, waited another hour, still didn't feel a thing. So I was like, filling in my own melodrama, this is just how it is for me. Nothing works. You know, I've tried everything, just not working. Even THC is powerful as people say it is, just doesn't work for me. I went back to the fridge, took another half, went to bed, just assumed it wasn't working. Rob, I don't know what happened. I woke up, I don't know, couldn't tell you what time it was, middle of the night, and I'm familiar with Monsters Inc, the movie. You know the one-eyed monster, his name is Mike Wozowski. Mike Wozowski, I opened my eyes, Mike Wozowski was sitting, we had this little chair in the corner of the room, he's sitting in the corner of the room, and I mean detailed, sitting in the corner of the room and his legs, he's crossed his legs and just swinging because his feet can't touch the floor, and I'm looking at him and then he's got one eye, so he glances, he moves his eye toward me, and I'm immediately in like what's happening right now, but I'm looking at him, he's not green though, he's red, and I blink and I watch him within a split second, shoot directly to my face, and he moves from the corner of the room to being right in my face with his one eye and just pushes his eye against my face, and I went into full panic mode. I mean, retching, disorientation, kicking, screaming, my wife was literally right beside me sleeping, jumped up, she had to sit her body on my body, I was in full hallucination mode, to which I still have questions about who gave me the THC and what exactly was in the THC, and this is a good lesson for all of the Robcast listeners, if you do drugs please test your drugs before you use them. Now I laugh at that, by the way, eventually fell asleep, what I can tell you is with stuff like that, you can't just like walk out of the meeting with Wozowski because he locks the door, the thing about THC is it's like, I don't know, three or four hours, you don't just go down there and drink water and just sober it up, Wozowski's like, we're here, so let's talk, we're here, let's talk, and so it's like a weird somewhat conversation, I'm bouncing between these different worlds, hallucinating a little bit, I eventually fall asleep, wake up the next day, I went downstairs, grabbed a little bag of gummies, threw them away, I was like, I will not, I mean that was like a four hour panic attack, a four hour back to back to back to back, miserable, just depleted that next day, and I went out for a morning run, and all of a sudden Rob, it occurred to me, you took THC to eliminate or calm your anxiety, but the antithesis happened, you went right into the heart of your anxiety, and all of a sudden Rob, I'm not trying to make this like some thing that it wasn't, it occurred to me that the symbolism of it all, that Mike Wozowski in many ways was like how I perceived anxiety, he was a monster out to get me, and what I learned is that maybe the cure to anxiety, if there's such a thing and we can talk about it, but maybe a cure to anxiety is inside the anxiety, so maybe the way to get into it is you've got to go into the heart of the monster itself, embrace it, hug it, let it do what it needs to do on you, feel it, yes, eyeball to eyeball, and that moment though opened me up to a courage or a curiosity that if this is true, and also I survived a four hour panic attack, which has got to be like a world record at some level, but if this is true and I could survive that, there was this extra kind of boldness and courage going, well let's really go into it now, because maybe, maybe if anxiety is the monster, maybe it is exactly like Mike Wozowski, because Mike Wozowski isn't a scary monster, that's the twist on this whole thing, listening to you, it's like he's the best in the Pixar movies. Oh, you can hear him, I just want to be your friend baby, I just want to be your friend, yeah, he just wants to have a good time, just wants to be with his friends, just wants to have a girlfriend, he just wants to, yep, and my anxiety, it's fierce, and let me tell you why, because it loves me, and it's protecting me at all costs, and that's what it's done for human species since our origins, protecting us, looking out for us, fighting for us, and then not only that now, it's shooting up flare guns, it's the language of the soul, it is one of the languages of the soul, it is one of the ways my body speaks, and so when it starts talking, you can numb it, you can ignore it, you can repress it, and all those things are fine, use whatever coping strategies you need to, no judgment here, be free, but you could also sit with it, listen to it, and here's the step, you could actually begin to engage the voice of it, and then maybe start following it, and seeing where it's leading you, and that's the ride, because it may very well be wanting to take you to the things that are actually underneath all of the anxiety, and that's what it was for me, relational wounds, unprocessed grief, toxic theology, deep levels of insecurity, and I had to work through all of that that was just compounding inside of me, that I had prior to this moment never paid attention to, never got into, never even tried to explore, didn't even know it was down there, and that it existed, and credit Rob to several therapists, but one was, I had a hypnotherapist, and she sent me home with scripts, so I would go to bed at night, and I would put on my little eye mask, which is what I call in the book, my internal universe glasses, and by the way, when we go out on the road, we would tour in the book, we're gonna give out, like this one of the things we're doing at all the stops, is we're giving out a pair of internal universe glasses for everybody, which I love, I love those things now, and then bonus if you have them, put on some noise cancellation headphones, and then get yourself in a room where it's safe, close the door, and then I would pull down my glasses, and I would literally hit play, and her script would lead me, every night, I would just run through her script, and it would lead me in her direction. Which was her speaking something? Yeah, so she would just start going, Cody, welcome. She would record something for you. Her voice, yes. Her voice, on the recording, with a little bit of music playing in the background, and she took me on a journey every night to introduce me to me, because all of it is about us learning to listen to our lives, and who we actually are, you have a great line here, "How much of me do I know nothing about?" I distinguish between, obviously the book's called Discovering Your Internal Universe, the internal universe being that which is happening within you, external universe being that which is happening around you, and people have called it many different things, upper and underworld, conscious, unconscious, whatever. But for me, I like that phrase, internal universe, and what I realized is, and I'm not giving it all away, but it was through an episode in Seattle, I went for some psychedelic therapy, and I had an experience with psilocybin that was the first official opening into my internal universe, and I can't explain all of that to you other than it would be just like me trying to explain a dream to you, but I found myself in another world, and in that world was my internal universe, and I just began to explore it, and it was safe and calm and good down there, and I would just kind of crack open doors, and take a look, and walk around, and then what I realized when it was all said and done, I don't have to be in an altered state to visit my internal state, it's great, and for a lot of people it helps move them from their head down into that internal universe, but I've learned now I don't have to have those things, in fact there are many doorways into it, I can help you find a doorway if you can't find one, you'd be surprised how many there are, and it's fairly simple to get down inside to that internal universe, you're actually there right now, you're speaking from there, it's in there, and so you can get in there, and it's amazing because I was always terrified, like what might I find in there, I have no idea, and ultimately for me what I realized is just like the external universe, what do we know, 95% we don't know of our external universe, 5% I think they say we do, the universe is known, that's right, and same is true for me, I got inside going up, damn 95%, I don't know, I have no idea who I am inside here, and so I went off and just started exploring, and had great guides and therapists along the way that helped me, and in my exploration what I discovered was my little nine year old self, my nine year old self that had that incident in that football game, and turns out that incident was birth from a choking incident I had as a child, and that's where I began to realize oh healing anxiety for me in some ways is reparenting, loving, encouraging, inspiring, holding, this version of myself that was nine, and if you asked me prior to this about inner child work you've heard about, you've asked me prior to this, I probably would have laughed, because I'm such a rational, I told you I'm a head guy, rational guy, this book is everything that you have laughed at as being ridiculous, and then you're in enough pain that you try it, and it's another portal or door into even greater healing reconciliation, that's it, knowing yourself, there's a pattern in the whole book where you're like that's the dumbest thing ever, until I was in enough agony, your eye rolls about every seven pages, that's right, because it's just like this magical mythical shit, you know what I mean, I'm just like ah, and again it's like the universe just going watch this, watch this, come with me, come with me, it's like it just took record of who you laughed at as being ridiculous, and then it was like your future guides, that's right, I love this line, when you're with an acupuncturist, and the acupuncturist put the needles in, was exiting the room when she very casually asked, do you ever have a choking incident when you were a child? So it's like all these people that you come in contact with as you're on this exploration of your anxiety, it's like they all are in on the joke, and they all start to, like she literally puts needles in you, and somehow, through that particular modality, skill, healing art, it's like oh yeah, this guy, never thought about, never thought about that Rob, she casually walked out the door, wasn't even her job, she put her needles in, did her thing, casually walked out the door and was like oh just one quick question, since you explained to me about your retching episodes, did you ever have a choking incident as a child, and I literally said to her, no ma'am, and she walked out the door and I just sort of pulled my body back to relax, and as clear as you are in front of me, a movie played in my head, and I'm like oh my god, I did, a piece of butter scotch candy at a sitter's house, turns out two weeks before that incident happened in that football game. No one was in the room. Where you thought, you choked, no one was around, you thought you were dying. Yes. Yup. And that's when all that magical, mythical language around inner child work became very real for me, because that's when I realized, oh there was actual literal child choking, and weeks later is the first time I have this retching experience, and the therapist and myself are realizing, oh, something happened that night, and so I spent a good portion of the book revisiting my nine-year-old self going, what was he thinking? What was happening in his world when he was choking on that piece of candy? And turns out, you'd be surprised, but as a nine-year-old there were a lot of things happening in his world, and he was learning a lot from his local church that was not healthy. He was learning a lot about himself that he's had to rethink, and that's a part of the healing process was getting in there and spending time with this kid, holding this kid. And when I first met him, he was looking at me, I was looking at him. The most surreal moment, because he acted exactly how I would assume he would act. Being nervous, looking around for his co-dependent, his mother, somebody, like I pulled up in his driveway and his face was pressed against the glass door, and it was the first time we saw each other, and he's wearing that old football jersey, number 41, and I'm sitting in my car, I get out and I start walking towards him, and he's panicking, and my heart's racing, and then we don't say anything, we just look at each other, and then he invites me in, and we go back to my old childhood back bedroom, and we sit, and he doesn't say anything and I don't say anything, he's just twiddling his thumbs, and he's real nervous and you can tell I know where he's sweating because I was him, and I do this over and over and over again, until one day, he breaks the pattern. He invites me to jump down and play these little, we had these little matchbox cars, and I didn't want to freak him out, but I was excited because I was getting really bored visiting him every night and us just staring at each other, it was amazing the first couple of times, but when you're like a month and a half in, and the same scripts playing over and over and over again, and finally he broke the script, and I wasn't sure if he broke the script or if I was manipulating the journey, but he broke the script, and I got down and I played cars with him, and the time was up, I walked back to my car, pulled out, looked at his shirt, and all of a sudden it occurred to me, oh my God, he's been talking to me the whole time. His jersey is number 41, at the time I did this I was 41, and it was as if he was screaming to me 41, it's always been 41, it was always this age is when you were ready to meet me, this age is when you were ready to know who you are, this is the age of healing, and that's when everything changed, and I said, oh we've got to move this from the imagination to reality, and so I took a road trip back to my childhood home, and I had to blur the lines between the invisible and the visible, I had to blur the lines between the external and the internal, and I wasn't sure if that was going to mess it up, because we had something good going, so I got in my car and drove to Webb, Alabama, to my childhood home, I can't tell you the last time I've been there, I had no idea if it even still existed, drove down Highway 52, Highway 55, everything that I've been processing, I'd done these scripts from the hypnotherapist over and over again, and I was like, is it going to be like what my imagination was like, and I crossed over the railroad tracks and I did my thing, and I pulled up to the house, and it looked completely different than the one in my imagination, a lot smaller, but I parked the car, I look up at the door, and there's a glass door, and I had a moment going, I swear to God, if a kid steps up at that door, I'm like, I'm going to die, but no one was there, and I ring the doorbell, no one answers, and all of a sudden this gentleman came walking around the back door and he said, can I help you? And I looked over at him, and I said, yeah, this is my childhood home, I grew up here, and he smiled, and he just said something like, welcome back, and his wife pulled up, and she said, well you have to come in and take a tour, and I just kind of like, I guess so, and we walked through the house that I grew up in, and I just told him I need a minute, and we walked back to that little back bedroom, and I just sat holding myself, holding my boy, I also think Rob, there was an older Cody holding me, and maybe the divine was holding us all, and I just reassured the nine year old, we're okay, we're good, and that it's good to be you, and that what you think no one understands right now is actually just a panic disorder, and what you need to know is it's going to feel miserable on occasions, and it's going to be the very thing that leads you to pay attention to the things that you need to pay attention to in your life, and then I threw a few things on him too, and like, and also you're going to get married, and your wife is stunning, and you're going to graduate college, and get a Masters of Divinity from Emory University, and then you're going to meet a guy named Rob, and you're going to sit down, and you're going to do an interview, and Rob is going to be ten, twenty years in your life, that you first heard him, and this is where it's all going to take you, and I got back to my car, I opened the back door, Katie was in the front, she said, "What are you doing?" I said, "We're making room, because the little man's coming home with us." And I literally, Rob, I opened the door, and I sat there for a minute, come on, he jumped in the back seat, I shut the door, I got in the driver's seat, we just drove off, I looked in, I looked, literally looked in the rear view mirror, I'm like, there he is, sitting back there, he starts kicking the back of my seat, we're not quite done. One more stop, and I pull into the house that I had the choking incident in, I have no idea who lives there, got there, rang the doorbell, some sweet lady came to the door, I said, "This is going to sound weird, but people that used to live here were my sitters, I doubt they're still alive, I have no idea, but we used to fish in these ponds out here." And she said, "What's your name?" I said, "Cody Dease." And she smiled, and she said, "Come on in." I walked in, Rob, and the lady, that was my sitter, her husband had passed, but she was in her 90s, in like one of those little hospital beds, and the lady that answered the door was like hospice, full circle moment. I walked in, and she kind of recognized me, but kind of didn't. I told her my dad's name, and a big smile came over her face, and she said, "Oh, I remember her pastor." And then we started having this conversation about life and what her experience has been like, living all these years. I'm sitting there, my nine-year-old self sitting there, our sitter sitting there, and then on the way out, I said, "I just need to visit your kitchen," because that's where it happened. They didn't ask questions. They didn't even think any of this was weird, by the way, which, talking to you about it, like some stranger just knocks you out, "I need to see your kitchen. I had a traumatic choking experience there once." They were like, "Sure. Come on in." That's what Southerners do, "Come on in." And I walked into the kitchen, and I held their two locations that my anxiety and panic, I feel it most in my body. One is like right at the top of the abdomen, and then the other obviously would be like the lower throat, the esophagus area. And I just stood in the exact spot where I had the choking incident, and I just held myself. And I reminded myself that I've never been alone. Love has never abandoned me. Love has always been present with me, and it's always been really, really good to be me. I said to this young boy, "I've got you. I'm 41 now. I've got you." You have to say it with authority, like, "I've got you. No one's going to fuck with you. I have you." And when you choke, "I've got you." But like the kid had to feel the power. But then again, when I have my moments even now, real talk, a little nervous coming over here, "What a joy to be here to sit on this Robcast and talk to the Robcast people." They'll never know. I've met many of them. I know a lot of them. Some of the most thoughtful, they give me so much hope in light of what our world is right now. I was a little anxious coming here today. I told Kate, a little anxious, "We rode our bikes just down the trail, pulled in, you were standing outside, you're ready to go. You're just smiling." You guys, Rob's got that big smile. But right before I walked in, I just stopped for a second, right about the bikes. Hands on me again, "Hey, we got this. You're safe, you're good. We're going to get through it and we're not even going to just get through it. It's going to be so amazing and you're going to love it." And I felt not only was I talking to my nine-year-old and I'm so proud of him, so proud of him. I mean, he's all in this book. And I felt older, Cody, just tap me on the shoulder before I walk in the door, "Also I got you, we're good." So at some level, you don't think your way through. I've tried thinking my way through. I read 60 books. I went on my Kindle and looked. I read 60 books on anxiety, trying to figure it all out. I've tried every therapist you could ever imagine. I've tried every drug you could ever imagine and it's not that none of them worked. They all worked in their own way and they were very helpful to lead me to this moment. But what I realized is you have to fill your way through this. You can't think it through. So it's in the body, so we'll fill it. I would like to just, I know we got to close, but can I read one thing to you? I don't know what else you had or where you're at. I'm barely holding it together. So yes, I just want to read this because I feel like we've been going a while, but I have no idea, but it's your show. I wanted to end here because I've always wanted to say this publicly to you and I hope this doesn't make you feel awkward, you feel whatever you feel. I can't control that, but I hope you know where this comes from. First of all, you wrote the foreword for the book and I just thank you for all that you have meant to Katie and I. I didn't talk to you about a lot of these things back then and a part of it was because I was embarrassed. I didn't talk to a lot of people about it because I was embarrassed. I didn't want people to know I had some obscure, weird panic because then people were like, "Don't invite that guy. He's going to be in the corner gagging." You know what I mean? And I'm like, "People don't understand it and it's hard to explain and it gets exhausting trying to tell people. But do you know what I'm talking about? Like if anybody has any kind of sickness, sometimes it gets exhausting just trying to explain it." I didn't tell you about it, but it's even more exhausting feeling like you need to explain it. That's right. Yeah. There was a moment in Santa Barbara we flew out here to meet with the therapist and I think my wife and I both would say it's probably my lowest point. I came out here, I did psilocybin like a high dose. I had this amazing experience of my internal universe, but I immediately right after fell into some pretty serious panic attacks back to back to back and I felt like I couldn't get out of them. I felt trapped. It felt like not an upward spiral, but a downward spiral to the deepest level and Katie knew like we still need to get away any time. We need to breathe. And so we went up to Santa Barbara and I didn't leave the room. Beautiful resort. Didn't leave the room. I couldn't walking out of the hotel room. I was just like going into panic attacks, being around humans just stirred it up. I would see one walking and I'm like, "Oh God, like I couldn't do it." The feeling of nervous nervousness in the pit of my stomach. You're not even hungry anyways. It takes away zaps the appetite or the digestive system when you have these episodes or it's just destroyed. And I didn't want to leave. So I told my wife, I was like, "You go enjoy, do your thing. I just need to be in here." And so I just locked myself in this room for a couple of days and I had not eaten. I'd been fasting because I did the psilocybin and they asked me to fast beforehand. So I was not in a good place. It was love. And one night, Katie decided she would talk me into, "We've got to ease you, you're back in." I call it re-entry. You've got to ease back into society here. And so she said, "Let's go up to the top of the hill. We'll have dinner and you can be beside other humans and we'll start there." And I thought, "That sounds right." And so I got dressed, which is a feat in itself, took a shower, which is massive when you have panic attacks. And then I took that first step out of that threshold of that door and I started walking up to the restaurant. And we got up to the top and I just remember Katie going, "Cody, Cody." And I turned around and she was pointing, just pointing. So I followed her point and you, for your listeners, Rob Bell, was standing in the parking lot of this hotel. I had just finished my journey probably the day before. You made an appearance in that journey, one of many people that have influenced and impacted my life and they were just there. People alive, people dead, but you were one of them. Your boy Trace was one of them. I didn't pick and choose, you just showed up, you were just in there. And then I saw you standing in the parking lot and I thought, "Maybe this is what they were talking about." Like they kept talking about an afterglow or maybe like, "Maybe I'm still kind of tripping a little bit. Like I don't know what this is." And I'm like, "Is he an illusion? Is he real? Is he actually standing there in flesh and blood?" And so I wrote a little bit about it toward the end of the book. So let me just pick up here and we'll just leave it here. By the time I made it to the top of the hill, I was exhausted. I took a moment to catch my breath in the parking lot before walking into this restaurant. It was this moment when I heard my wife shout my name. I glanced over to see her pointing across the parking lot. I followed her finger to see what she was pointing at. Standing in the parking lot was my tall, familiar looking friend, Rob Bell. Yes, that Rob, the one who wrote the forward to this book. Also the one who entered my psychedelic journey while I was back stroking in an ocean of gratitude just days before. Am I hallucinating? Had my sleep deprivation caught up with me? Is this what they mean by an afterglow? Talk about blurring the lines between the internal and external. Not a trippy experience to run into someone you just saw in your psychedelic journey. In classic form, Rob began to walk toward me with a giant smile and arms wide open. I opened my arms and I began to embrace only he stopped and pulled away. We must be heart to heart. He said he readjusted the hug and we continue to embrace. It's like he instinctively knew the depth of my struggle before I could tell him. I'm not sure how long I lingered, but I can tell you he wasn't the first to initiate the end of the hug. He patiently gave me what I needed, like plugging in a device to regain power. I was recharging through another source. Maybe that is what hugs are all about. Maybe they are about drawing strength from those who have more than you do in that exact moment. Maybe a hug is allowing another person with more vitality, power and strength to infuse within you what you could not muster yourself. Maybe hugs are like the jumper cables of humanity. Maybe hugs are the universe's way to give us the exact energetic exchanges that we need at the exact moment we need it. I read that to just say to you, thank you for being in our lives. Thank you for even not knowing what was happening with me, but embracing me for exactly who I am. And I would imagine I speak on behalf of listeners. I think this is a good season for you just to know how many people that you are inspiring and helping. And I know for Katie and I, we would not be who we are, the level we're at, and this book wouldn't be all that it is without your influence. And so for what it's worth, thank you. Oh man, oh man, oh man, thank you. That's awesome. I remember that night. I remember that. I remember that. Yeah, thank you. This is, reading this was an extraordinary thing for me and I'm so excited about people getting away into anxiety and I think you've done a wonderful job here of taking us on a ride with you and then people will take whatever helps for their own ride, but well done. Thank you. And I'm excited that you're going to do a book tour and hand out goggles, whatever you're doing. I just love the thought of you turned loose in the world to talk about this because we need it. We need it. It's been a wonderful thing to be your friend. I saw you that I took my dog for a walk on the beach. My dog got in a fight with the skunk. That's right. The dog got just, and then the skunk is just point blank, the skunk on the beach. And then my dog put the skunks bit its ass because apparently the evolutionary device of repulsion didn't work with my pit bull. So then I came back up to try to get the dog hosed off and I just reeked and the dog. And I saw you sitting out that night eating dinner. It's amazing. You guys looked so happy and content sitting there and I was like, yeah, they don't need to know any of this. That's right. Skunk on the beach. That's an epic night. Yeah. And you kept going. You guys kept going. We all keep going. Yeah. And what you're saying, I listened to everything you're saying politically. The anxiety that hasn't been listened to and what it creates in the world, it hasn't been followed and the beliefs that it's actually a monster and what that creates in our collective. So this is important what you're doing. Yeah. And I'm going to start crying here in a second because you just churned up so much stuff. So we'll leave our listeners. My friend, it's Cody Dease, D-E-E-S-E. The book is called Discovering Your Internal Universe, The Unexpected Good News About Anxiety, Panic, and Fear. You're going to a bunch of cities? Yes. Where do people find out more things about you? Cody Dease, C-O-D-Y-D-E-E-S-E dot com. So CodyDease.com. Straightforward. All the details are on there. Tucson, Houston, Nashville, and then the big one, obviously, we're doing the book launch party. Book comes out October the 9th, and then we're doing a launch party in Atlanta on October the 12th that anybody, if you're around the area, it's all free. Come join us. Good. I'd love to meet some of your people. That'd be great. Thanks for joining me today. Peace and love, everybody.