Guest Episode
March 31, 2026
Episode 201:
Raising Resilient Sons in a Depleted World
Listen or watch on your favorite platforms
What happens when culture starves boys of emotion, and biology starves brains of nutrients?
In this powerful episode of Truehope Cast, host Simon Brazier sits down with psychologist, writer, and mentor Gloria Vanderhorst for a bold conversation about raising emotionally healthy sons in a world that often misunderstands them.
Gloria began her career working with young boys labelled “hyperactive” and “attention-deficient.” What she discovered was far deeper: our culture systematically restricts male emotional development, leaving many boys disconnected from their feelings, and many men struggling in marriage, fatherhood, and identity.
Together, we explore:
Why are boys often misdiagnosed instead of understood
How fathers shape (or stunt) emotional resilience
Why husbands “disappoint” and what’s really happening beneath the surface
How unresolved childhood experiences silently invade adult relationships
The intersection of psychology and physiology in building true resilience
Why addressing chronic nutrient deficiencies may be a missing piece in mental health care
At Truehope, we believe mental health is both psychological and biological. This conversation brings those worlds together.
If you’re a parent, a father, a husband or simply someone who wants to understand the male emotional landscape more deeply, this episode is for you.
Website: https://www.gloriavanderhorst.com
Blog: https://www.gloriavanderhorst.com/blog
LinkedIn: / gloria-vanderhorst
Listen now and subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of brain health, relationships, and resilience.
Learn more about Truehope at https://www.truehopecanada.com
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And you know, we're seeing like like record levels of anxiety, anger,
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emotional dysregulation in boys and young men. How much of this do you see as a as a cultural pressure versus maybe unmet developmental needs?
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Well, it starts with unmet developmental needs. There's no doubt about that. That's the root.
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That's the root cause, right? And the more that we educate adults on how important it is to give
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boys access to the full range of emotions, the better off we will be.
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Welcome to True Hope Cast, the official podcast of True Hope Canada, where we explore the physiological and psychological foundations of true mental wellness. I am your host, Simon Brazer,
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and today's conversation goes straight to the heart of identity, emotion, and healing, especially for men and families navigating a culture that often
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disconnects us from our inner world. Our guest today is Gloria Vanderhorse. She's a psychologist, a writer, adviser, and
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mentor. Gloria began her career working with young boys who were too often labeled hyperactive or attention
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deficient when in reality they were expressing natural energy and emotions in a system that didn't really know how to receive it. That work led her to
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fathers and then to a deeper realization. Our culture systematically restricts emotional development in males, cutting them off from the full
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range of feelings required for healthy identity, intimacy, and leadership.
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Using internal family systems and emotional focus therapy, Gloria helps men, couples, and families access stored
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emotional experiences, understanding how their history shows up in the present,
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and create real lasting change. In this episode, we explore why boys and men so often end up in an emotional desert, how
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unprocessed history quietly shapens marriages and the family life, the critical role fathers play in protecting
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their sons emotional health, and how psychological insight and biological support like addressing chronic nutrient deficiencies work together to support
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mental resilience and healing. If you care about mental health, family relationships, and whole person solutions, this conversation is
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certainly for you. Today's topic is raising resilient sons in a depleted world. Enjoy the show.
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All right. Hi, Gloria. Thank you so much for joining us today. How are you and what is going well?
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Oh, I am excited about talking to you and your audience. And what is going
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really well for me is communicating to this lovely audience about men and boys
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and surprising them with some information.
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Well, I am a man. I have two young boys in my house and I am open to all of the information that will make my life easier.
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That's great. We're going to be discussing raising resilient sons in a depleted world. That's the topic of I've
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come up with today. Just looking at your bio, looking at your books, looking looking at that and reflecting how can we combine our understanding and and
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create a really good show for people to listen to. But before we jump into that topic, would you mind telling us a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do?
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I am a psychologist and I come into psychology through math. I loved math as
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a kid and I was really good at it. And so when I went to college, I wanted to
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be a math teacher. And I also challenged myself to finish college in three years instead of four and to finish with
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straight A's. So, I was on track to meet that goal when I ran into calculus 2.
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We had a teacher straight out of Harvard. She faced the blackboard, never turned around and talked to the class,
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wrote with her right hand, erased with her left. All right. Obviously, everyone is lost. Struggling to learn calculus 2
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on their own. I got a D and I was thrilled I didn't have to take it again. Oh wow.
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And then I immediately switched my major and my minor. And it's just one of those
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experiences in life where you know you hit a roadblock, you hit a wall, but
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it's there for a reason. And I know now that that was a very positive right-hand
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turn. I belonged in psychology. That was my minor. And I've thrived in psychology. Loved everything that I've
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done from teaching to doing individual work to actually communicating with a
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larger audience through meeting with you. So I'm thrilled to be here.
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Wonderful. Yeah, it's very hard for me to put myself in the mindset of loving math to the point where I want to be a
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math teacher. I The only reason I'm half decent at math is from playing darts. Oh, yes.
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And being able to subtract quickly um largeish numbers,
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but a apart from a a pub and a dartboard setting. Yeah. Math doesn't, you know, I don't I don't have the same love for math as you do. I obviously recognize
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it's important, but you you've applied it for something very entertaining,
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I think. So, absolutely. Yeah. And it's how how my sons learn to subract as well. So, we'll see see how that goes.
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Um, so you began your work with younger boys who who have often been labeled as hyperactive or attention deficient,
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right? And looking back through your experience, what do you believe has been actually misunderstood about these boys
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and what does that misunderstanding say about our culture today?
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So the clear misunderstanding is really based on a dynamic and the dynamic is
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that most preschools are run by women and boys and girls attend preschools and women have an affinity for little girls.
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They understand the thinking and the processing of little girls. They really don't understand the thinking and the emotionality of little boys.
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So little girls will sit in the circle,
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listen to the story, fold their hands nicely, keep them in their lap. Little boys will be elbowing somebody, pushing
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somebody. They'll want to get up and move around. They don't want to just sit
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quietly in one place. I say if we put trees in preschools, boys will be very happy.
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Interesting. Yeah. I I So I was a preschool teacher in in Sweden for seven years. Fabulous.
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And it was honestly like it was the most favorite job I ever got to do because I would go to work and there were 20 pe 20 kids in this class that just were
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literally in love with me. like fighting to sit on my lap during circle time and absolutely and I understand and recognize that that
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difference between the girls and the boys because um I would struggle to perhaps like connect with some of the girls.
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Um but what we did clearly see and what was an actual policy of this um English-speaking preschool that I worked
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at in Sweden was that the teachers had there had to be boy teachers and there had to be girl teachers in in every single class. And generally there was
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three to four um teachers and it would it would always be a 50-50 split.
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That is marvelous and that is so important. I have a a quick little story
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about a male teacher in preschool for my granddaughter and they one day were doing
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fingerpaints, right? and my granddaughter is doing fingerpaints on the paper and then she decides to travel
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out onto the table and so she's putting color on the table and then she travels down the table leg. Fortunately, she had
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a male teacher and the male teacher just took out his phone and recorded her
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doing this. If she had had a female teacher, she would have been stopped.
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The female would have said, "Keep it on the paper, right? Paint's not supposed to be on the table." So, there's a huge
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difference between male and female teachers. So, I'm thrilled to hear that you had this experience and that children benefited from that experience.
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Yeah. I I I think it only makes sense that I mean to from the outside looking in that might seem like a very progressive idea but it just you know it
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shouldn't really be it should it should make a lot of sense that um that's ideally what children require in a nurturing know
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like we we have moms and dads you know there's a very clear reason that we've evolved to to to have that influence on
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on our kids and yeah it's um you know I I live in Canada in BC and that there's
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barely any um male teachers, especially in a preschool setting. Like it doesn't really doesn't really exist. Yeah, truly.
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So, yeah, it's very Yeah, it's it's just interesting that that that's actually a topic of conversation, but it makes a lot of sense that we need both of those influences.
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Um, and I love to talk about like the modern idea of masculinity as well because it it all comes from birth, you know, like the influences that we have
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on our kids. And truly,
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you can't underestimate the influence that preschool has at school has considering that, you know, our kids are spending
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what 8, 16, 24, like 40 plus hours. Some kids, some some of the kids at my kids daycare are there from 7:00 to 5:00 like
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every single day. That's right. That's just the way it has to be for for some parents and some families. No jud no judgment there.
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But it's a monstrous influence. powerful and one of the big things I really wanted to focus on when I became a dad
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was that it's so important that I am conscious of the adults the other adults
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in my in my kids' lives whether that's their their friends parents uh even my family members like grandparents who are
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looking after like I need to make sure that my par I can trust those individuals to um take care of my kids essentially but
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also have those positive influences and the beliefs that I have like that's a really really important part and really important part. So
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I know through your work you've described modern masculinity as an emotional desert
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and what are the earliest moments you think in maybe let's say a boy's development where you see emotional restrictions begin and how does that
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shape the man that they inevitably become? It's a great question because the emotional restriction begins in
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infancy. And this is a shocker for most people. The truth is that men come into
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the world, boys come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression than girls have. So, I'm going to say that again.
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Men are born with a broader range of emotional expression than women.
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And by and large, all right, infant boys are interacting with adult females for
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the majority of the time when they are infants. Yeah.
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Women who do not know this truth that the boy has a broader range of emotional
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expression make subtle reactions to the boy going higher in intensity.
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Boys can get more excited, more exuberant, more expressive and they can also go deeper into the negative. They can get more irritated,
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more agitated, more angry. And mother or the female caretaker tends to react to that negatively.
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Even just the subtle, right, of screwing up your face and wondering why are you so giddy? Why are you so silly? Right,
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why are you so irritated? Why are you so negative? Or turning away, right? And infants are brilliant. Their only
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survival mechanism is reading the environment around them. I tell people
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if you want to start a business and you would like to find a partner or two,
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rent an infant and pass this infant around the room. Infants read people perfectly.
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So, in someone's lap, the infant is going to be cooing and happy, making good eye contact. Somebody else's lap,
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the infant's going to start to fidget a little bit. And someone else's lap, the infant will actually start to cry.
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Nothing wrong with the infant. The infant has just read the room perfectly and told you, "This person is safe. This one's iffy, and that one's dangerous."
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Infants read our emotionality and they do it as their only survival
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mechanism. So when mother kind of turns her head or screws up her face,
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communicates, I'm not comfortable with that intensity, the brilliant infant
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makes a good survival decision and narrows his range of emotional expression.
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So right away before he even gets on his feet, we have taught him all right to eliminate these extremes.
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Eliminate the top, eliminate the bottom.
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Then we put them on their feet. They start walking around and they are normal
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natural human beings. They still have normal reactions to life.
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Someone takes their toy in preschool and they start to cry.
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The adult in the system will tell a boy to stop crying.
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The adult in the system will tell a girl, "What happened? Why are you crying? What's wrong?"
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Right? They'll be curious about the girl and uncomfortable with the boy's expression of sadness. We tell boys not to cry.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. That's Yeah, it's it's super interesting. And I I feel like children have this this sixth sense, this connection to energy that we kind of lose as adults.
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You you put it in in a way that I've not really thought about it before in regards to, you know, they can't they can't really fight their way in
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survival. They can't really run away in survival. So their instinctual survival nature as a as a small human is is is to feel out what's safe and what isn't.
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That's right.
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And you know, everything at the end of the day is is energy, whether that's light or or food or or emotions. All of this is a on a on a frequency. Okay.
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I know I know people as adults that are without question like more sensitive to to to light or to the like the EMFs that
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we have, you know, like people are more connected to those is like let's just say they have a stronger antenna or a more sensitive antenna. And
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it makes a lot of sense the way you put it there that kids,
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young kids are using that um that extra sense in their lives and as adults we've kind
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of been programmed out of that. Do you think that as adults we've we've lost that sixth sense or is it just a normal
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evolutionary part of becoming an adult that we don't require that safety mechanism anymore and therefore you know we use it?
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We we still require that we still need that. It's not accessible to men. It still exists.
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Your brain does not lose anything. It's an incredible storehouse.
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So you can still find ways to tap into those feeling states that you've denied
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existence in your life. They still exist, but it's very hard to open those boxes. Yeah.
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Again, right? They're stored in the attic and they're way back in the dark
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part of the attic. But it is important that we facilitate
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men being able to access that full range of feeling states because you cannot
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develop a successful intimate relationship with someone of the opposite sex or the same sex unless you can access those feeling states. So,
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you know, the divorce rate in the United States is 50%. Or more. The
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statisticians will tell you the divorce rate is declining and that is an absolute lie. The thing that's happening
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is that people are not getting officially married. M so that when they have kids, have a
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house, decide to split up, there's no record. Interesting.
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Right. So the divorce rate has not dropped. And think about that. All
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right. We somehow are as a culture accepting of this truth that the divorce
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rate is 50%. That means half of our children do this very bizarre thing of
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moving back and forth between two houses every week,
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right? Two or three times sometimes in the week. Now, would you like to do that? Do you want to pack a bag and move
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someplace else for two days and then come back to another place for two days? I mean, it's insane.
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Yeah. I've got our children.
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Yeah. I don't have a lot of examples from my childhood from like divorced divorced parents of friends of mine, but there are a couple of examples and
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they're not they they've definitely got stuff in their adulthood that trauma from those situations without question.
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And I explain to my I explain to my kids, they're four and six. My six-year-old gets it a lot more, but when they my kids constantly want our
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attention or they don't want to go to bed or they want us to lay with them till they fall asleep, I explain to my
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boys the fact that, you know, there are there are friends in his class that don't have parents that aren't together
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and they have to spend one week with mom and one week with dad and their parents are now together. And I explained that there's probably the reason that that
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happened is because the parents at some way down the line couldn't connect anymore. They couldn't communicate. They couldn't relate with each other. They
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probably didn't have enough time together. Life stress, divorce.
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And I explained to my boys that it's very important that I am your father and I am your brother's father and I'm a
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husband. I have all these individual roles that I have to work on. You know,
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I can't just work on being a dad all the time. You know, it's so important that that his mom and I work on our relationship and have time together,
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even if it's just like watching a silly show and just like holding hands on the sofa. Like these this is an important value and that I I said to him, "Listen,
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you would you like mom and I to split up?" And he's like, "No." I say, "Okay,
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well, this is why you need to respect that. We need our space. We need our time to be able to to do that because,
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you know, the the outcome for him, I have to explain it to him because he's six, but the outcome is like disastrous, which it would be."
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And this is why I need you to respect our time. And, you know, I speak to him like I I would be speaking to my 41-year-old best friend. Um, and
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that is so important. That's the advice that I give to parents consistently. Your child does not have to go to sleep.
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All right. Your child has to be in bed,
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but in bed so that you as an adult can have a break and interact with your spouse.
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Yeah.
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And build that relationship. Your child does not have to go to sleep. Walk out of the room. Yeah.
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Right. Leave them in bed. Educate them just the way you have done. Mom and dad need time together.
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Yeah, it's powerful and children respect that. They understand that.
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Um, I had a question that popped up. I just kind of made made a note of. So,
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we'll just go back at one little step there. I wanted to ask you about the expectations that I feel a lot of adults have on young kids and their emotional
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stability. We, you know, a lot of people, they're 30, 40, 50 years of age.
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their parents, they've got young kids and they've obviously got their own personal experience of, let's say,
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controlling our emotions, whatever that means, right?
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Um, and we have that expectation on these young people as well who are just like these energetic balls of chaos.
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Um, and we have this wild expectation that they should have the 40 years of experience of emotional stability like we do. Like what would you say to
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individ that happens a lot? I I would tell parents to remember that emotions are
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natural and they are important. So you want to attend to them. You don't want to
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dismiss any of them. All right? You also don't want to uh inflate them. You
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right? You don't want to encourage your kid to inflate their emotionality,
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but you want to take their emotional expression seriously.
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And that means if they're sad, they need attention. If they're silly, they need attention.
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Right? If they're excited, they need attention. They're sponges. Yeah.
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Right. They need attention in order to build a strong sense of themselves.
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So, do they need you to invest an hour paying attention? Not necessarily. Maybe
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once in a while, but they cannot be dismissed. If you dismiss a child's feeling states,
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tell them to stop crying for example, which is so classic for little boys.
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If you tell them to stop crying, all right, you have created emotional damage
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that will indeed have a long-term impact. All right. They will try to
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control those tender, softer emotions and learn that, you know, the world, the society doesn't want that part of me.
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Yeah.
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So, I have to deny that part of me. And that's so damaging in the long run.
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Yeah. That can be I'm 100% guilty of of of saying that to my my boys. And when I reflect and look back on it, it's certainly in times when I am in like a
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high stress when I'm just like I'm the end of my rope. I'm tired. I'm depleted. I probably haven't eaten enough food.
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Um, you know, all these things come into it. But then there's, you know, the majority of the time when I have taken care of all of those extra things that gives me the ability to parent better,
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then I I'm all for like, you know,
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sitting there and being in the moment with with with my kids to to to express whatever emotions they that they have to do that. So, I recognize the the
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struggle as parents in 2026 and it can be difficult to always match your kids needs and requirements because it can
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seem like a constant it can seem overwhelming. 30 30 hour a day job you know it's like
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it's be beyond our capacity sometimes but so I have a lot of sympathy for that but I think there's a lot of work we can do as individuals there's so many
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legitimizing that feeling is very important it doesn't mean you have to stop the world get off and pay intense attention
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to it you do have to legitimize it and if you don't have the bandwidth to attend to it at that point you do have to make an appointment with yourself,
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go back to that child, all right, and be interested in what that emotion was,
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obviously explaining why you couldn't attend to it at that moment, but it's still important. It has value for you
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and it has value for the child. So, you do want to always give some form of attention to the child's emotional state.
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Yeah, if I ever really want my kid to do something, I'd get down like eye level and hold his hand and just like talk talk to him. And like my success rate
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with that is like remarkable rather than I'm trying to brush my teeth and I'm shouting from the other room for him to do something. It's like I I wouldn't
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listen to I wouldn't listen to anybody if they were shouting at me from another room, right?
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You know. Yeah. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense and it's trying to stay in the trying to stay in the moment and understand. Great example.
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Yeah. Um so many men enter therapy because of relationship breakdown rather
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than um emotional awareness. From your perspective, you know, why do husbands so often disappoint and what is usually happening, you know,
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beneath the surface of things?
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27 minutes, 26 seconds
Yeah. The thing that really is happening is that the male is not in touch with his own feeling states because we've
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27 minutes, 33 seconds
socialized him to deny them, to ignore them, to see them as weakness,
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uh to see them as feminine. All right? So, we've socialized men to avoid going deeper.
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Uh they can go deeper. um they need help to do that, right?
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Either through educating themselves by reading and challenging themselves to be
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more interested in what their emotional reactions are or by working with someone like a therapist.
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Yeah.
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28 minutes, 18 seconds
Or being in a group. There are wonderful groups that are forming throughout the
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28 minutes, 23 seconds
United States to educate men about their emotional reality. There's one here in
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28 minutes, 32 seconds
this area that has tentacles all over the United States called Everyman.
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And I guess I'll do an ad for it. It It's spelled E V R Y M.
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28 minutes, 48 seconds
and they run groups, they run retreats,
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28 minutes, 53 seconds
they bring in speakers and their entire focus is on helping men to recapture
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the truth about the full range of feeling experiences that a human being is born with.
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And it's wonderful to see this process unfold for men. I love working with men in therapy for this very reason. Right.
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Because I know what the potential Yeah.
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is. And when you see a man begin to understand that he has access to these
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feeling states, it's wonderful to see the change. I love it.
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And um I guess from a lot of what we've spoken about already about how you know like fathers and mothers can can work
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with their young kids to kind of teach them those those that skill set that that obviously plays a huge role when they become adults as well.
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Absolutely. Yeah.
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Um and you know we're seeing like like record levels of anxiety, anger,
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emotional dysregulation in boys and young men. How much of this do you see as a as a cultural pressure versus maybe unmet developmental needs?
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30 minutes, 19 seconds
Well, it starts with unmet developmental needs. There's no doubt about that. That's the root.
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That's the root cause, right? And the more that we educate adults on how important it is to give
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boys access to the full range of emotions, the better off we will be. And
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I would say that education is happening in part throughout the United States because
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teenage boys uh in today's culture have more interest and curiosity about how other people are feeling.
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31 minutes
Uh historically that's not been true.
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31 minutes, 4 seconds
Boys have avoided how other people are feeling. And when you're curious about how someone else is feeling,
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31 minutes, 13 seconds
you they serve as a mirror, right? So that you can be curious about well, what are you feeling and what would you feel if you were in that boy's situation?
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31 minutes, 25 seconds
So it is happening. It for my sense is not happening fast enough. I want things
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31 minutes, 33 seconds
to go to go faster and to go in a more um more supportive way. All right. Boys are struggling on
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31 minutes, 41 seconds
their own to figure out how do I gain access to the full range of feeling states. I wish the educational system,
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31 minutes, 50 seconds
for example,
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31 minutes, 52 seconds
uh were doing what you describe as your preschool teaching experience and making
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31 minutes, 58 seconds
sure that men and women are available to young children and continuing that throughout the rest of their education.
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32 minutes, 10 seconds
and actually bringing the truth into education that boys need access to the
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32 minutes, 17 seconds
full range of feeling states just as well as girls do. That'll bring down the divorce rate and that will stop our
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32 minutes, 26 seconds
jails from being filled with men. Our jails are filled with men for this very reason that we don't give them access to
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32 minutes, 35 seconds
the full range of emotions. So their problem solving is truly limited.
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32 minutes, 43 seconds
So a I mean to to kind of wrap that all up, we're talking about like a lack of development and a lot of men actually
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not reaching the the full scale of what it what it is to become an adult man, I guess, psychologically speaking.
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Absolutely.
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33 minutes, 1 second
Super interesting. And that really comes into kind of the next piece I'd love to talk about, which is nutrition. And you
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know, we're looking to, you know, so obviously we all know it's very important to to nutrate the body, to nutrate the brain with with good quality um food and nutrition, but you know,
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33 minutes, 20 seconds
we're looking to nurture and nourish people's and young people's ability to be responsible and
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33 minutes, 28 seconds
to have structure and to recognize their place. Like these are all things a part of the development and we're talking
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33 minutes, 35 seconds
about like young kids to um prepubescent um teenagers and the growth that happens with that the hormonal changes the
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neurological changes the requirement for um that development phase with nutrition is is significant and here here at True
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33 minutes, 53 seconds
Hope Canada you know we work with so many parents of young kids who you know not necessarily all going through, you
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know, 12, 13, 14 years of age, but like we've got like six, seven, eight year olds that are struggling as well. These kids don't fall into the the let's just say the the boxes of societal norms.
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Kids that might be struggling. You know,
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we sp we spoke about um attention deficit disorders and things like that.
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like I don't know you know I don't know um I don't think anyone knows a an individual or a parent without a kid without like a diagnosis or something
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even from the ages of like four five years of age these days you know it seems to be quite um super frequent but
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from your clinical experience do you see like um do you see emotional work sometimes
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stall because maybe the brain itself lacks the biological resources to you know regulate those emotions.
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Oh, I think there's a very direct connection.
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34 minutes, 56 seconds
Um and if you think about um the importance of nutrition, all
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right, our bodies need certain things in order to function successfully.
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35 minutes, 12 seconds
So we need brain food.
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Yeah. We can't function successfully if we are malnourished or if we are poorly
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nourished. And you know there's a a plethora of people who are poorly
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35 minutes, 29 seconds
nourished. All right. Because they choose to put French fries into their bodies instead of salads.
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35 minutes, 37 seconds
Yeah. Right. Let's just face that. Sure. We eat poorly. Yeah.
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Right. And very few people actually educate themselves on how to nurture
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their bodies. Right? We have a a a serious difficulty with diabetes all throughout
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36 minutes
the United States. I don't know if it's true in Canada as well, but you know, we just have this plethora of people
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36 minutes, 9 seconds
suffering from diabetes and it's not necessary,
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right? You don't have to put your body into that condition. Yeah.
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Yeah. No, it's it's we're all about nutrition here at True Hope. You know, the company was founded on providing individuals the required
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vitamins, minerals, amino acids that that the developing brain requires.
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And especially during those key phases of growth where the body just like ramps up ramps up it its need.
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That's right.
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And the typical teenage diet is nutrient deficient anyway. You chuck in caffeine and sugary drinks and the body is
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consistently in this place of lack. And I would argue that even if you were to get 95% of your um the nutrition from
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37 minutes, 3 seconds
your into your kids from let's say good quality sources that the fact is our soil was so unbelievably deficient in all of these
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37 minutes, 10 seconds
key nutrients anyway meaning our the plants that grow are super nutrient deficient as well. And we've known this
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37 minutes, 18 seconds
from the 30s with like really really big reports primarily coming out of the US that our food was like 99% deficient in the majority of everything like nearly
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37 minutes, 27 seconds
100 years ago. So I can only imagine that what it is now. So supplementation these days is not it's not an option.
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you know, it's you just have to be doing it. And especially for these young kids and when you talk about brain health, you talk about emotions and hormones,
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all of these things are, you know,
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37 minutes, 45 seconds
physical chemicals within the body. And if you don't have the building blocks to be able to produce them, your body is not going to be able to produce them in
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37 minutes, 53 seconds
in adequate amounts. And it's it's honestly it's as simple as that. So the nutritional aspect is so so vital just
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38 minutes, 1 second
as well as like you know supporting and helping nourish your child emotionally.
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38 minutes, 7 seconds
Absolutely right. And we are not well educated in that area. Right. If you think we're
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38 minutes, 14 seconds
poorly educated about emotional development,
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38 minutes, 19 seconds
I think it pales in comparison to our education about nutritional importance. It really does. Otherwise, you know,
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38 minutes, 28 seconds
significant part of our population would not be walking around with diabetes.
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Yeah. And it it it really sucks because we're supposed to be, you know, we're governed by a government to take care of its people. Unfortunately, we don't get
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the we don't get the education um requirements in school to recognize, you know, what's good food, what isn't, the role of sugar, the role of, you know,
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38 minutes, 52 seconds
lots of these things in our food system. That's just like normal. And also, we don't, you know, it's not I I I have a lot of
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38 minutes, 59 seconds
sympathy with people that like choose to like have McDonald's that say three,
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four, five times a week because eating healthy is it's time consuming if you want to cook. A lot of people don't have the time. they work 50 60 hours a week,
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right?
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39 minutes, 13 seconds
To get food on the table. And then also like good quality healthy organic food is like so unbelievably expensive. So
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39 minutes, 20 seconds
like you are pushed into an economic situation into a funnel where you know if you just want to get any calories into your kids into your
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39 minutes, 27 seconds
family, you're kind of you're kind of thrown into that requirement. So yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw a
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39 minutes, 34 seconds
government ad for carrots or vegetables or fruits. you know, you don't we don't really see it. And I think that's just
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been like so many things over the last 50 60 years, it's kind of just been pushed aside as something that the
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parents and the people would just like sort out. It's not important to, you know, make sure that our young people and our adults and we're being, you
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know, we're subsidizing the right industries to make sure that we've got plenty of these things that the people can, you know, take care of themselves
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nutritionally. Like unfortunately we have to do as individuals as citizens. We have to we have to educate ourselves.
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We have to read the right things. We have to uh relearn these things as adults and it's a lot of these things that we
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not expect but you know we should have support from our schools from our governments from our doctors to recognize about the the vital role of
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nutrition. It's so important. is incredibly important and I love to hear that you are working hard in that area and educating people. That's wonderful.
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Yeah, we we have lots of conversations here at True Hope with, you know, trying to help people recognize that, you know,
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so our primary product here is called Empower Plus. It's a it's a combination of 37 ingredients, primarily minerals,
40:53
40 minutes, 53 seconds
vitamins, and amino acids. And what we're doing um is helping people take a couple of steps
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41 minutes
back to take care of their foundational root requirements of nutrition. Because so many people who go into a a health a
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health food store or speak to a naturopath or a nutritionist,
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41 minutes, 12 seconds
they're looking for something that's going to like help them or fix them or cure them. That's the culture we have.
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41 minutes, 18 seconds
You know, we have a problem, we go to the doctor, we get something that's gonna fix us, right?
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Yeah, exactly. And it's the same it's the same with natural health. You know,
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you go into a health food store, you need something for sleep, they're going to give you melatonin, they're going to give you GABA, elenine, these like one ingredient things which can be beneficial,
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right?
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41 minutes, 37 seconds
But but at the end of the day, our philosophy here at True Hope is we want you to be able to make these things. We want you to be able to make melatonin.
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We want you to be able to make serotonin and dopamine. And the requirements for these is is amino acids at its base.
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Then you need vitamins and minerals to do all the amazing um enzyatic reactions to be co-actors for all of these things.
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So what we're trying to do, which I believe is incredibly unique when even in the natural health world, is listen, let's take a couple of steps back here.
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Let's give your body the nutrition it requires for a few weeks, a few months,
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42 minutes, 14 seconds
and let's actually see, do you have a sleep disorder? Do you have anxiety? Do you have um fatigue? Or maybe you've
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42 minutes, 23 seconds
just been nutrient deficient for 20 years and you're overcaffeinated, you're dehydrated. Let's take care of these
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42 minutes, 29 seconds
root things that ideally in a perfect world, you wouldn't have to think about that because you could just get it from your diet. But we just don't live in
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that. We just don't live in that reality anymore. So, we're looking to like help people take a few steps back, take care of their foundations, and then what we
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42 minutes, 45 seconds
find 99 times out of 100 is that people are nutrient deficient. And once we get this product into them, they're able to
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42 minutes, 52 seconds
start thinking about the other things that are so important for mental health and well-being, which is, you know, like exercising, cooking food, being part of their community,
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really gives people the ability to get back once you take care of those foundations.
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That's exciting, right? Because your brain needs food. Sure does.
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It needs really good food in order to function. So, that's very exciting.
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43 minutes, 17 seconds
You got it. And I'd love to ask you about um what you see in regards to as a psychologist in regards to like
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long-term nutrient deficiencies and its connection to, you know, a lot of the things that, you know, young men experience. So, yeah. As a psychologist,
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how do you view the role of, you know,
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43 minutes, 34 seconds
long-term nutritional deficiencies in things like uh mood regulation, impulse control, um emotional resilience,
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43 minutes, 43 seconds
especially as grown boys?
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43 minutes, 45 seconds
Well, one of the things that happens for men because they don't have access to the full range of emotions is that they
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43 minutes, 54 seconds
numb themselves out, right? And they numb themselves out with alcohol. Quite popular. Yeah.
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44 minutes, 2 seconds
They numb themselves out with drugs. And they numb themselves out with the television.
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Yeah.
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Right. Those are the three things that you will find if you look closely at the
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male population and ask what are they doing with the time that they're not working.
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44 minutes, 26 seconds
Yeah. All right. They're drinking. They're watching television. All right.
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They are completely damaging their brains by shutting them
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down and just numbing them out. And it's no wonder then that they get into conflicts with their family members,
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that the divorce rate increases, that they're not accessible
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44 minutes, 56 seconds
to their children. So there's a clear interact inter interface and interaction
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between what you put in your body and what you can actually accomplish in terms of relationship with other people.
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45 minutes, 13 seconds
So it's critical that we pay attention to this.
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Yeah. I love your use of full range of emotions and I'm kind of going to steal that a little bit in regards to, you know, a lot of young young people, a lot of people aren't getting their full range of nutrition.
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That's right.
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And there's going to be down the road without question issues that that come up for that. It's it's just absolutely inevitable.
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Yeah.
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45 minutes, 39 seconds
um in regards to like introgating a lot of what you've spoken about and maybe um creating some hope for people for for
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45 minutes, 48 seconds
parents listening who are who might be worried about raising emotionally healthy sons in a chaotic depleted kind
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45 minutes, 55 seconds
of scary world sometimes. What are one or two foundational things they can get started with today?
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They can educate themselves, right? You cannot show a person down a path unless you've traveled it yourself.
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46 minutes, 15 seconds
Right? So if you want to be a guide for your children, then take your own emotional health seriously.
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46 minutes, 23 seconds
Right? The reason that I've written a couple of journal books is to help adults
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46 minutes, 30 seconds
dive into their emotional histories as well as their emotions in
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46 minutes, 37 seconds
the present and surface their own feeling states. So they build a
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46 minutes, 44 seconds
vocabulary of being able to talk about their own feelings and being able to experience
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46 minutes, 52 seconds
their own feelings instead of shoving them aside, denying them, suppressing them. We want to raise the consciousness
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47 minutes, 2 seconds
of adults, both men and women, that they have a broad range of feeling experiences.
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47 minutes, 11 seconds
I've put on my website a list of feeling words that anybody can access. Just go
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to my website and download this list of feelings. I think it's three or four
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47 minutes, 25 seconds
pages, three or four columns of feeling words. Okay.
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47 minutes, 29 seconds
And the fun thing about your brain is that your brain can recognize what you're feeling in the moment even when
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47 minutes, 38 seconds
you can't produce it. So if you scan through these lists of feelings, the experience that you're having in the moment will pop off the page, right?
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It'll just smack you in the face. Oh,
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I'm feeling this. And then suddenly you can have a conversation about feeling demoralized, right? Which
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48 minutes
is probably a word you wouldn't have generated on your own. All right? You would have said, "I'm feeling angry." If you're a male,
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48 minutes, 8 seconds
you would have said, "I'm feeling depressed." If you're a female, but there's a big difference between those and demoralized. Yeah.
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48 minutes, 14 seconds
So now I could really talk about the feeling that I'm experiencing.
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48 minutes, 21 seconds
So it's critical that as adults, we educate ourselves and open up our
48:30
48 minutes, 30 seconds
brain's capability to experience the full range of feeling states. So you can
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48 minutes, 37 seconds
do that with the feeling sheet. You can do that with my book, Read, Reflect, Respond, Three Rs of Growth and Change,
48:45
48 minutes, 45 seconds
which is a wonderful journal book that lets you draw, scribble, as well as use language to respond.
48:54
48 minutes, 54 seconds
Amazing. So, in your book, um, if you could leave fathers listening with one clear
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49 minutes, 2 seconds
maybe warning and one clear hope about raising sons in this culture, what would what would those be?
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49 minutes, 9 seconds
It would be that it is dangerous to maintain the cultural expectation
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49 minutes, 17 seconds
that you are to deny yourself access to the full range of feelings. Open yourself up,
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49 minutes, 26 seconds
right? Educate yourself that you are a normal, healthy human being. You have
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49 minutes, 34 seconds
the ability to gain access to the full range of feeling states. That will benefit you and it will benefit everyone that you're in relationship with.
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49 minutes, 45 seconds
whether it's family, work, relationships, fun relationships, it will have a significant benefit. So,
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49 minutes, 55 seconds
educate yourself.
49:57
49 minutes, 57 seconds
I think um just on that topic of education because you know if we had this conversation 30 or maybe even 10 years ago,
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50 minutes, 6 seconds
you know, you would have to you know sign up for courses in person. You would have to go to the library. You might even have to do university courses to
50:14
50 minutes, 14 seconds
learn this type of information. But we live in a world of podcasts now where you can go for a walk and you can have access to some of the smartest, most
50:22
50 minutes, 22 seconds
educated individuals on the planet. We really do live in a time where accessibility to to the best possible
50:30
50 minutes, 30 seconds
information or like a broad spectrum of um opinions, I guess, right? Uh I really
50:38
50 minutes, 38 seconds
find it valuable just just just for me in my life to have a few individuals that I recognize to be type of like
50:45
50 minutes, 45 seconds
mentor type individuals that I've never met these people but I love the way that they talk. I love the way that they hold themselves. I love their confidence. And
50:54
50 minutes, 54 seconds
I think that having role models even as a 41 year old man I think is really really important as like kind of an
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51 minutes, 1 second
example as something to um continue to learn from to question things that you
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51 minutes, 9 seconds
know come up for me. And I love I love my ability now as to say as a 40-year-old because as a 30-year-old and a 20-year-old especially I did not have
51:17
51 minutes, 17 seconds
the skill set of um being happy to be wrong or recognizing that I don't know everything and have you know that's
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51 minutes, 25 seconds
that's a really big skill set and also being able to ask for help like and support like without question
51:32
51 minutes, 32 seconds
the most incredible question you could ask somebody is is is for help and support with something and being I want to say like being man enough to ask for
51:41
51 minutes, 41 seconds
that is super important because you know everybody everybody needs that sometimes and I think being able to put that ego
51:50
51 minutes, 50 seconds
aside as frequently as possible is is a really valuable skill for people and you know as an adult with kids trying to instill that and setting that example
51:58
51 minutes, 58 seconds
for them and I think that I would um going forward as a as a parent I I would and I've had this conversation with
52:07
52 minutes, 7 seconds
friends of mine who are going to become parents and they sometimes ask for advice but sometimes they don't which is also okay. It's like you know you want
52:14
52 minutes, 14 seconds
your you know you want your your kids to obviously love you but you know there are lots of kids that love very abusive parents but there has
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52 minutes, 23 seconds
to be a respect there as well and you want to be you want to be an example of the the man you hopefully develop them into becoming and I think that that's a that's a good place to be.
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52 minutes, 34 seconds
Mhm.
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52 minutes, 35 seconds
So it is important that we value relationship and that we value
52:42
52 minutes, 42 seconds
attachment and that we really understand how the people that we choose to attach to influence us.
52:53
52 minutes, 53 seconds
Right. So as you said sometimes our attachments influence us negatively.
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53 minutes
Raising your consciousness to really evaluate How does this relationship support me, help me, or hurt me is a
53:09
53 minutes, 9 seconds
really good question to ask. And then having the courage to seek out relationships that support you
53:18
53 minutes, 18 seconds
and help you is the next step if you're in relationships that are damaging or controlling or demoralizing.
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53 minutes, 28 seconds
Yeah. And there are plenty of those out there.
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53 minutes, 32 seconds
But the good news is that there is help available for everyone, right? You don't
53:39
53 minutes, 39 seconds
have to stay in a relationship that is harmful. There really is help available.
53:47
53 minutes, 47 seconds
Well said, Gloria. Thank you. Yeah. And just one one piece for me that I'd love to just share with people is that I like to um just as the idea of change and
53:56
53 minutes, 56 seconds
development is very scary for a lot of people because it's un unknown territory and human beings just don't really like really really enjoy change.
54:05
54 minutes, 5 seconds
But for me like the reason I one of the main reasons I exercise and choose to eat well most of the time is because I don't want to get Alzheimer's when I'm
54:13
54 minutes, 13 seconds
70 80 years old. So I'm doing these things now to benefit myself in the long term and and I think of the same with my kids. You know my eldest kid is six. I
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54 minutes, 22 seconds
am onethird through the journey of him being an adult where it's 18 and I like to think my job is
54:29
54 minutes, 29 seconds
done at that point. Not as a supportive role for sure but like in regards to teaching him to be a man I've got 18 years maybe even less. Right.
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54 minutes, 38 seconds
And that's my I think that when I can put my emotional side, emotional piece to the side a little bit, my pure
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54 minutes, 46 seconds
rational mind is like my job as a my job as a dad is to get him to adult adult
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54 minutes, 52 seconds
years as as a more competent individual as possible.
54:56
54 minutes, 56 seconds
That's right. And it's um it's it's good to come back to that in the present moment because every little thing I say,
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55 minutes, 3 seconds
every little thing that I do, my behaviors, how I hold myself, all of that goes into this this sponge.
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55 minutes, 11 seconds
Mhm.
55:11
55 minutes, 11 seconds
And it's going to and and it's going to develop an amazing person, a good person or whatever in the future. And I've got a big responsibility there. And it's it's
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55 minutes, 20 seconds
something that, you know, you should everyone should take seriously.
55:23
55 minutes, 23 seconds
Absolutely. Parenting is a wonderful experience if you educate yourself
55:31
55 minutes, 31 seconds
on how to do it well. And there's a long-term benefit because that child
55:39
55 minutes, 39 seconds
will then turn around and take care of you. Yeah. Right. When you're 80, 90, 102.
55:49
55 minutes, 49 seconds
That's right. That's right. Well said.
55:52
55 minutes, 52 seconds
Okay, Gloria. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I I've I've learned a lot and I'm sure the listeners will as well and I really appreciate that. But
56:00
56 minutes
before we leave, can you let us know where we can learn more about your work, please?
56:05
56 minutes, 5 seconds
Yes, you could access my website and it's www.d van der ho.com.
56:16
56 minutes, 16 seconds
So it's www.dbanderhorst.com.
56:20
56 minutes, 20 seconds
You'll find all kinds of resources there. You can make an appointment with me, but you can also download the feeling sheet. You'll find explanations
56:29
56 minutes, 29 seconds
of the excellent approaches to working with adults. You'll find resources and books, things that you can tap into.
56:40
56 minutes, 40 seconds
It's a great resource. So, go there and explore.
56:44
56 minutes, 44 seconds
Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure the link to that is available for people. and what I usually do with my guests. If there's any other amazing resources that
56:52
56 minutes, 52 seconds
you would recommend, you can send them to me and I'll put them in the show notes so people can access them as well. Excellent. Thank you.
56:58
56 minutes, 58 seconds
Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show again, Gloria. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you.
57:03
57 minutes, 3 seconds
All right. Uh well, that is it for this episode of True Hope Cast, the official podcast of True Hope Canada. You can connect to the show notes if you want to learn more and connect with um Gloria.
57:13
57 minutes, 13 seconds
Um but other than that, we'll see you soon.