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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

The Shoulder Check Foundation Story: On Loss, Inspiration, And Making Contact With Rob Thorsen

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

In a world where genuine connection can feel scarce, understanding the power of empathy and vulnerability becomes essential for mental health and wellness. In this episode, we dive deep into the transformative work of the Shoulder Check Initiative with founder Rob Thorsen, who shares the deeply personal story behind its inception and its mission to encourage authentic human connection. Rob explains how the foundation, inspired by his son Hayden, works to dismantle barriers to vulnerability and promotes checking in on one another as a powerful tool for mental well-being. Discover how their innovative approaches, including a unique emoji and community events, aim to create a world where “making contact” is not just a tagline, but a way of life. Join us as Rob reveals the simple yet profound message that everyone has a hand to give and everyone might need a hand, inspiring listeners to embrace vulnerability and build stronger, more supportive communities.

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The Shoulder Check Foundation Story: On Loss, Inspiration, And Making Contact With Rob Thorsen

Welcome, everybody, to the show. This is the show that talks openly about mental health and wellness. On our show, we’re joined by Rob Thorsen, founder of the Shoulder Check Foundation. Welcome, Rob. How are you?

Excellent. Thanks very much for having me. I appreciate it.

Kicking Off The Conversation: Rob Thorsen & The Heart Of Shoulder Check

Thanks for being here, Rob. I would love to start things off if you could maybe tell us a little bit about the Shoulder Check Foundation that you run.

For sure. It’s just the reason that puts us together here. I give you the context for what we’re up to. Our program is called The Shoulder Check. We’re more formally the HT40 Foundation, where we started, and we’re on a mission to help young men and women make contact with one another. It’s pretty straightforward. The best way to say what we’re trying to do is you never know who might need a hand, but we all have a hand to give. Our thought was that the more people we can get checking in on one another, the more likely we are to catch someone who needs some support and give them the space and permission to say they need it.

What a great way of saying all of that. That’s fantastic. I’ve definitely looked into, on my end, a little bit about your foundation. I’m so impressed with what you guys do and all of what you just said. I agree 100% with absolutely everything you just mentioned. Tell us a little bit about how it came together.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

Unfortunately, a lot of things sometimes take their inspiration in moments of tragedy, and that thing. My son Hayden Thorsen he’s the HT40 and the HT40 Foundation. His number was 40. He was a hockey player. He died by suicide in May of 2022. When he passed, of course, the world turned upside down, and you don’t know which way to go.

As we were navigating that, there were a lot of conversations that were happening at the time, whether it was parents related to us or kids asked us directly, they said, “Who’s going to do it?” Hades did for us now that he’s gone. It just took not very long to realize that what he did was put his hand on people’s shoulders. That’s what he did. He was a hands-on shoulder guy. I happened to be walking down the stairs in my hallway, just like everybody else.

You got all the pictures from babies all the way up to the current moment in time. As I scanned them one day, I looked across them. Since Hayden was three years old, there wasn’t a photograph where he didn’t have people around him within his arms. That’s literally what he did. He put his hands on people’s shoulders.

That became the point of inspiration for what we’re doing here, which is nothing more than I like to think Hades would have been doing himself if he were with us, which is just look after people, put hands on shoulders. What was so striking about that for so many people was like, “There’s a big guy.” He was an athlete, he was all that stuff. He was sixteen-year-old, 6 foot 3, 200-pound guy. He had a presence that most people didn’t have.

You would notice him, but you remembered him because even though he was the big guy in the room, he was the one who was just aware of where other people were. That made an impression on a lot of people, and obviously on me and in my life. He is then, in turn, the inspiration for what we’re doing here. He was the check-in guy, and we’re trying to help spread that and teach other people how to check in.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

First of all, so sorry for your loss. Really, a tragedy. He sounded like an absolutely amazing human being who, in so many ways, as I talked to parents, Rob, reminds me of that adage of like kids teach parents so much. He sounds like he was an inspiration. I heard you say on an interview once that you guys are working at bringing vulnerability and connection closer together, which I think is awesome. I think it’s such a great way of saying.

Selling Kindness: How Shoulder Check Is Shifting Mental Health Awareness

Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s what we started by saying, like there are a lot of great organizations in the world working to help bring mental health and wellness to the fore, and helping in moments of crisis. By career, I’m not a practitioner. I obviously couldn’t identify a moment of crisis when it was right beside me. I’m an advertising guy. My background is in marketing and advertising. I used to run an ad agency.

That’s the path that led to how we got to this idea, and why it’s built the way it is, and what we’re trying to do with it. Another thing that happened around the same time, we were going through the first few months of this, I happened to be working with an organization in my professional life, a national organization that is about health and wellness, empowerment, so on and so forth. I was having a conversation, just looking for what should I do.

The person I was talking to said to me, it sounds harsh, but it took me a second to turn a harsh statement into a positive thing. She’s like, “You need to leave this to the professionals.” I was like, “What does that mean?” I reflected on it, and it was like, “You’re right. I am not a mental health practitioner. That’s not my profession. I’m a marketer, I’m an advertiser, a brand builder.” We just pivoted, and we thought like, “What if we could build a program or a brand that was based on selling kindness and empathy,” for lack of saying it.

There are a lot of organizations out there, and you know the language, it’s starting to come into play, breaking down stigmas and all that good stuff. Saying things like “You are not alone,” or “It’s okay to not be okay.” The thing we realized is that a lot of that messaging is still putting the burden on the person who is struggling to raise their hand and break through that and say, “I need help over here.” That’s that vulnerability thing.

Our thought was that if we could enlist everybody into the conversation, get more people checking in, it’ll make it that much easier for the person who is struggling to hopefully say or to answer that question honestly. How many times in my life, if you’re just saying about “How you’re doing today” like 99 out of 100 times again, “I’m good, man.” There have been a lot of times where I’ve not been good over the last few years, and very seldomly would I ever actually share that. Even that was a personal experience with it, just creating space.

Now I find in doing this like that’s what the Shoulder Check is there to do is get everybody involved to help give permission to be vulnerable. Every time I go somewhere and have a conversation, now I’m amazed by the conversations I find myself, whether it be like between you and I, between me and adults, peers that I’ve known my whole life, or even more powerfully with the young men and women that we’re building this program for. It’s been pretty incredible.

It’s amazing, Rob, and you’re touching lives. I think you’re being vulnerable. I’ve always said, know, “Vulnerability breeds vulnerability.” When you put that out there. I have to clarify, too. I am a practitioner, and I’m the first one to say. The amount of people out there that are suffering is up here. The amount of us was down here. Not enough of us. Guess what? Maybe people disagree with me on this. I don’t really care, but we’ve got to band together.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

There are things you can offer. I cannot. There are things I can offer. You cannot. I think together, we’re stronger. What you’ve tapped into here, and I’m so glad you have, is that notion that’s being overlooked. Especially men, how many men, when they’re approached, how are you doing, just give that canned response. When the harsh reality is that if you look at the statistics, most people are dealing with stuff.

That tracks back to that it was in 2021 or spring of 2022, then the surgeon general published that study said, “We’re dealing with this crisis of loneliness and isolation.” That’s where we anchored our idea. I think about it in terms of being like pre-intervention or upstream from intervention, trying to catch a few more folks before they slip through the next level. I know it’s been more in your professional parlance than in mine, but like this notion of like paths of despair.

That’s their first step. There’s the sympathy of starting to feel alone or depressed or suffering from anxiety that then manifests itself in different paths. Anything you force in is going to come out one way or another, whether you want it to or not. That could be behavioral. It could be an addiction. It could be all those types of things. God forbid, suicidal ideation, thoughts, so on and so forth. Our thought was if we could just maybe try and lend a hand, for lack of a better way of saying it.

Anything you force in is going to come out one way or another, whether you want it to or not. Share on X

A little bit further upstream and hopefully just maybe clock a few spots where people could use a hand. Of course, the job to do there is to bring in a professional or to get a parent, a teacher, or to get somebody on the phone, all those kinds of things, because we’re not qualified to solve the problems. If we could identify a few of them before they get worse, I think that would be a positive contribution.

Reaching Out Before It’s Too Late: Making Contact & Building Connections

Life-saving, huge. I think you said it well, Rob. For so many of those kids, they’re alone and they’re alone with some monstrous ideas that are way above their pay grade. My feeling is that you said it best when we first started talking, any individual is able to lend a hand. I’ll tell you, when you reach out and you have somebody look back at you and go, “Nobody’s ever asked me that, or I really appreciate talking.” Anything like that. It feels good to help. Many individuals out there all they need is an ear. Someone to listen to them.

Just get that conversation started. Our mission, we would give ourselves as the HT40 Foundation, that of course gave rise to the Shoulder Check, is to create as many ways as we can come up with and put them out into the world to help people make contact. We say, “Reach out, check in, make contact” is our tagline. Making contact is like the most important language we have in what we’re up to.

If we give that as our mission or our brief to ourselves and a very fortunate in all the people that have come out and helped build the Shoulder Check so far, whether it’s my son’s world of hockey, which we’ve got support all the way up to the NHL there to my and my wife’s professional network where we have our previous organizations, ad agencies who’ve been giving themselves to this pro bono for years now. Everybody is just pitching in to create ways to help people make contact.

It’s awesome. Can I ask, because I’m interpreting that phrase, make contact, and I’m thinking in my head, in some ways, both for adults and for kids. I know you mean literally touching base, but I guess I’m wondering, tell us a little bit more about where that space is, make contact. Tell me what you mean.

When this idea first started, I literally had made some notes in a notebook and a little tiny bad sketch because I couldn’t draw anything.

Me too.

There are just two people sitting side by side. One person had a hand on the other person’s shoulder. On one side, it said, “I need a hand.” The other side said, “I have a hand to give.” That idea, that we are both always in both of those roles. We are capable of extending a hand, but also always in need to whatever extent. This idea of a hand on a shoulder, I think, is really powerful and universal. Insofar as a hand on a shoulder can be everything from like, congratulatory, and celebratory, without having to say a word, to encouraging and motivating.

We are capable of extending a hand, but also always in need to whatever extent. Share on X

Pat it back like, “You got this” without having to say a word, to also in a moment of consolation, without having to say a word, meaning I’m here for you. Much can be conveyed in such a simple way without ever having to search for the words, but saying everything that needs to be said in that simple moment. I mean that literally, but also figuratively, of course. Social media, it’s of course a hot topic, and there are so many things that are wrong with it.

There are so many negative, detrimental impacts and effects, but at the same time, surely there’s a way to build a positive community in that space. We can use it to do that. Maybe they’ve built platforms with bad algorithms that take you down rabbit holes that you shouldn’t be going down. Let’s not do that. Let’s find a way to make it turn in a positive way and build a community that way.

Last year, we launched an emoji that we created, which was the make contact emoji, which was just a hand with a little blue heart that would let you start conversations that you could read and see it. It means like, “You’re thinking about me in a more meaningful way,” than a thumbs up or, let’s give that meaning and let’s use that as a way to start conversations.

We’re working on new things now with our creative partners, where we hope to launch new things again this year. We have our flagship, which is coming up. Our flagship event is called the Shoulder Check Showcase. It’s in Stanford, Connecticut. We have about 2,000 people come out, and we have 30 NHLers and PWHLers who come out. We play this charity hockey game, but this whole thing came together originally.

This will be our third year now. The first year, we invited 2500 people in, and it was an experiment. Before the main game started, our host, or MC, was Dave Maloney’s former Raider Great came out and we created this moment where we asked all 2500 people to put their hand on the shoulder of the person next to them and do like a call and repeat. I promise to reach out.

I saw the video. This was great, powerful.

It was. It was a bit of an experiment, but it was a learning for me. We all experienced it in real time together because no one knew that that was going to happen. It changed the mood in the building. Incredible. Even people walking out, they were like, “What?” It was palpable. I think it just proved to just the power of genuinely connecting with someone. Mostly strangers talking to strangers. I cannot tap your shoulders. It was a cool moment.

That’s what we try and replicate in everything we do. As I said, both figuratively and literally. As the check spreads and we’ve touched, I don’t know. I was just making a list because you’re always updating your stuff and you’re emails and website and whatnot. I’ve got a hundred entries now of different programs and organizations. Every one of those programs is touching between a hundred or a thousand people. A lot of people are putting a lot of hands on shoulders.

A lot of shoulders, Rob. That’s great. That’s amazing. Let me just, let me just ask before I skip over it, how can people get involved? You mentioned you’re big.

Our website is just ShoulderCheck.org. We’ve got a section in there. It says, “I want to bring the Shoulder Check to my community, to my team, to my organization, to my school.” Everything that we’ve done is archived there. You can see what everyone’s done in the past. That website is just meant to be a place for inspiration. You can see how other people are using it. There are some downloadables and instructions.

You could bring it to, like I said, whether it’s a team, whether it’s a town, whatever. I say this a lot, like the Shoulder Check, it’s an interesting place to operate. My one point of reference for what I hope the Shoulder Check can be, aim high. It’s my number one. Everybody knows the month of October, the world turns pink and Susan G. Komen raises hundreds of millions of dollars annually for cancer research and health issues.

The other guys from November who took the lead there and said, “Let’s do that for men’s health initiatives in November with the mustache and the color purple,” or whatever that is. Our thought was like, “What if we could turn the world’s blue aqua color of ours in September and let that stand not necessarily for raising money for kindness, but raising awareness for one another.” The Shoulder Check should be the thing where it’s an ingredient, and you can use it however you see fit. Like, “I could bring that to my band. I could bring that to my part-time job.

I could bring that home and talk about it at dinner.” It can go anywhere anyone wants to take it. I talk about it a lot. A story has a beginning, middle, and an end, and an idea has a beginning in that it evolves. This is an idea. It’s not a story. It’s to evolve based on whoever gets involved in it. It’ll go where people are compelled to take it. It’s our job to help support that, not tell people what to do, but rather, hopefully inspire them to see ways they can use this in their own way.

Beyond Words: Emojis, Vulnerability, And Teens Talking It Out

What a great concept. What an amazing concept. I want to go back to one thing you mentioned, Rob, that I think I want to highlight just for a moment for my readers. You talked about creating an emoji. I had the thought when you said that, I’m like, “Many teenagers are worried about their friends.” Yet they’ll come into my office and they’ll tell me about it. I’ll say to them, “Have you told anybody?” “No, you’re the first one I’ve told.” There’s that awkwardness.

There’s that notion of like, “We’re two teens and I’m worried about Rob. Do I say anything to Rob? I don’t want to upset Rob. I just don’t say anything.” Yet an emoji is such a great way to communicate care and concern. I just want to highlight that for my readers that teens clearly communicate differently than we do. You guys have figured this out. In many ways, it doesn’t matter how you communicate. As long as you’re communicating, as long as you’re letting that person know, “I’m here and I’m concerned about you.”

I came to this line of thinking for myself and for what we’re doing here. There’s that duality that exists. You can think your way into a new way of acting, or you can act your way into a new way of thinking. Sometimes I just find myself here doing this, or people asking questions, or like, “Could you come speak to XYZ?” It’s not my goal to be any speaker or to be in front of this, but I do understand that there are times when I have to maybe help people take the first step. That’s cool.

You can think your way into a new way of acting, or you can act your way into a new way of thinking. Share on X

I’m there for that. I had the chance to go speak to a high school about two weeks ago or so. There are about 1200 kids there, which is great. I’m thinking to myself, “What an opportunity to inspire people with this idea.” It also had me thinking, of course, like, “This is a slightly different room than we’ve brought this message.” We’ve done it all over the place, with large groups and small groups and that stuff.

This was the first time it was in this type of high school setting. I got to thinking a bit about like, “What’s different here?” I think the point you were just making is like anything else, communicating in this way or being able to broach this topic, it takes practice, and you have to learn how to do it again. I was thinking, “Now this is a, a learning environment. Let’s practice this. Let’s learn how to do this.”

They had this cool thing going on where I just had 1200 kids turn to one another. I was like, “Repeat after me, but don’t say it to me, say to the person next to you. I could use a hand, like say the words out loud, like practice it, build this skill, and the strength. Just like we study for a history test or we go to a sports team practice or band practice or whatever, like we have to learn these skills.” Of course, for a lot of us, the ability to express oneself is innate.

Just go back to the three-year-old on the ground in the supermarket who wanted the Fruity Pebbles and could not have them. Nothing is holding that kid back from it, just all coming out. Obviously, that’s what we lose over time when we become more self-aware. We worry about what other people think. That’s where this notion of being guarded, not allowing the vulnerability, and that stuff. I was just thinking like, “We just got to relearn those skills. We’ve got to practice them.”

We have a lot of stuff in our toolkit now. We have these little cards that we bring with us everywhere. “Did I check in my loved ones?” This was something we did with PWHL sirens, but now we do this virtually everywhere we go. It’s just another way for people to practice, like saying these things and using these words or getting comfortable stepping into those moments, like you’re saying, like, “Are you okay?”

Like, “I have a hand to give.” Give people different ways, tools, and access points to relearn the skill. That was a bit of a breakthrough moment for us because this idea of like having to relearn something that we intuitively understand, but lose time. Even now, for us, more self-actualized adults, like you, come through that, and you become a little bit more comfortable with who you are and expressing yourself. Even there, it doesn’t always come back easily for everybody.

As you said, it is a skill. It’s something you build up. As a therapist, I’m practicing every day talking to people. I have to periodically remind myself, “Everybody is in a different space when it comes to this type of stuff.” Probably one of the best compliments I’ve heard and it meant a lot was when I first started this show, I got an email from a mom and she was thanking me that we had done a show and she expressed in the email that she was able to talk about the topic of mental health with her fifteen year old because they listened to it in the car on the way to practice one day.

I thought, “How cool is that?” We’re normalizing the conversation. We’re helping people understand the importance of instead of avoiding the subject, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it in a comfortable way. Maybe talking about it means reading this blog. Maybe it means practicing some skills so that they can give a presentation that you did. To me, it can be nothing because life keeps moving, and kids are dealing with a lot of stuff nowadays. They’re just dealing with a lot.

That’s what I think, too. I see it each time we have the opportunity to go and talk to people or share the message. It’s the kids that are carrying our idea forward. Of course, there are a lot of great supportive adults and coaches, and administrators along the way, but equally like I’ve had people in those roles say, “No, we’re not going to do this.” It’s been a kid, not to me. It’s been a kid who’s brought it forward to a coach or an organization, and they’ll know, “No, we’re not going to do that. No, we’ll have to take that to our board next year.” I think to myself, “Wow.” I’m sure that’s not just as it relates to Shoulder Check, but kids who are like stepping forward and saying like, “Here’s this positive contribution I want to make, and there are people stopping them from doing it.”

Imagine that.

I cannot get my head around it. That’s why every time, 99 out of 100 times, I default to wanting to speak to the young men and women who I know will spark to this idea and carry it forward. That’s how what we’re doing will grow, but it’s not meant to be our idea. As a matter of fact, not only was this idea, as I mentioned, inspired by my son, but in the aftermath, we had 40, 50 kids at a time over our house, and we worked on this idea together. I went to I’m in Darien, Connecticut. We have a place called the Depot, which is a place for like community. We’ve been there together and working on ideas and incredible moments that we’ve had, where we’ve just built this idea together pretty powerfully.

Reflections Vs. Regrets: Learning From Loss & Lifting Each Other Up

That’s awesome, Rob. That’s amazing. Rob, can I ask a tough question around this topic? I’m imagining my listeners might be thinking to themselves, unfortunately, you guys have been through a tragedy, and through that has come this amazing, as you said, idea. That has just touched so many. Parents might be wondering when these things do happen or when a child is starting to slide. Whether it be, let’s say, a type of depression or a mild type of anxiety, what are some things that they can look for? What are some things that they can be aware of in their world? Probably most importantly, are there some things they can do?

As you say, that is a tough question. Of course, I can only answer that. I say this all the time from my own personal experience. I don’t know better than anyone else. What is the right answer to that question? Look, if 50,000 people, young men, women, walk a path that leads to that final decision, they’ve walked 50,000 different paths. In my instance, if you made a list of 50,000 people, I think Hayden probably would have been 50,001 on that list, which is its own specific instance.

I suppose it’s also, there are commonalities or archetypes of these types of things. Certainly, vastly better than I. There is that person who struggles in silence and from outward appearances appears to have it all in control, but ultimately is dealing with something that they cannot find the space to articulate, or it’s weighing them down in some way. That was our path with it, just as blindsided as any human beings could possibly be. I’m still left searching for those very answers.

What would we have looked for or done differently? Was there something that we didn’t see? Was something that seemed totally normal at the time, not normal? Again, for us personally, there is no resolution to that question. That might not be the answer that anyone would want to hear, but it is the truth of our experience. I guess, to reflect on that, I think it just means that the thing I would say is that there, you could just never assume.

When things first happen, people send you things, and you get cards, or people find things on social media, which is even them finding ways to reach out. They’re looking for ways to make contact and support, but don’t have the words themselves. Someone at some point sent me this, like a little, maybe it’s an Instagram tile or whatever, said, “Check on all your friends, even your happy friends.” At the moment, it made me really angry.

I was like, “We cannot even trust that people are happy.” I’ve reflected on that enormously. We just cannot assume. I know certainly as will happen. I’m now part of this. I live in a world with this. This is incredible. A lot of people seek support groups, and they go to things like that. I have five personal friends in my life that I’ve known that are having the same experience they were having lost a child, that I’ve just known in my life. We were not brought together by this happening. We were already in each other’s lives. We have this support group amongst ourselves, and each of them has walked their own unique path with it.

Some folks had children who were more overtly struggling. They were on a path towards treatment, and some folks had children who were maybe on paths to addiction and those kinds of things. Every individual that have their own experience with it and my personal experience falls into the, you can never assume camp. Here’s the thing, I know as much about what to look out for as anybody else would have read an article that told them to look out for those kinds of things, or would be counseled by a professional as a parent. My learning and my experience are just, you can. There are some things that you will simply never be allowed to know.

I appreciate you sharing that. I think it really speaks to, I remember watching a documentary years ago called The Mask You Wear or something like that, Mask You Live In or something like that. It was really about males. It was really about how often we probably, as you were mentioning, like toddlerhood, we grow into this sense of not telling people how we’re doing. It’s one of the reasons why I, as a therapist, and even personally, push people to share more, not less.

If it makes a person uncomfortable to say, “How are you? Are you okay? Everything all right?” If it makes them uncomfortable, I’d rather they be uncomfortable than not cared for. That’s my attitude toward it because I feel like we’ve strayed so much the other way that we’re just going to pretend and ignore, and not pay attention to. Sometimes things happen, and you have regrets about not just having the confidence to just say, “Is everything all right?”

That’s a piece of my presentation, or talk track, or whatever you want to say, because when I try and share, like, “Here’s how you would do the Shoulder Check and draw this distinction between a reflection and a regret.” There are times where we’re just not going to get it right. Knowing that we tried means we get to reflect on that and we get to learn from it. Whereas the other side of that coin is maybe not having tried or not having done the right thing.

That’s the path to regret. Regret is heavy, man. Regret is something that’s hard to put down, because I think that’s part of what Shoulder Check is about. Again, I’m probably borrowing. In the marketing and advertising sense, we would talk about behavior change. It’s usually meant to buy a different product as opposed to we’re real behavior change, but ultimately, even if you want to just say Shoulder Check is you, if you need to put it in a box, you could call it like an awareness campaign. It’s ultimately meant to just the smallest bit, change behavior or perception or an idea to get to exactly what you’re saying to make it okay to answer that question or to ask that question.

I had the experience personally when we were going through the worst of it. A friend of mine had reached out via text, and he’s like, “I’m just checking in. Hope you’re doing okay.” You receive lots of those every single day. At this one moment, I needed to put something down, and I gave him back a text. I saw the three dots come up. Three dots come up, go away. Never got a reply. There’s no way this gentleman expected the level I put back on him. I like respect.

He gave me permission to just air some stuff. It was great. It was more than he knew was coming at him. I’m sure what am I supposed to do with that? He didn’t have to do anything. Even there. In the moment of an incredibly acute moment where we were having trouble having that dialogue, but I’m sure it’d be your experience as well. I’m on the other side of that divide, so to speak, now. I live in a different place with respect to my emotionality, my willingness, or my ability to express it.

If only because had I not found a way to do it for myself, like I was saying before, I’m sure you know, like anything you push down is coming back out somehow. This is not the thing that you can suppress what was our instinct in the immediate aftermath. Embrace is not a great word because it sounds positive, but you know what I mean? You just have to do what this is and accept what this is. It’s not easy to do, but I think that’s part of what the Shoulder Check is to us.

Of course, a bit of therapy for us. It’s figuring out your hand to see positive outcomes, or to just like you’re saying, occasionally receive some anecdotal feedback that says, “This gave me permission to speak to my child, or this gave me permission to reach out to a teammate.” That’s the hand back on our shoulder, knowing that that’s some contribution.

The Ripple Effect: How Kindness Touches More Lives Than We Know

It’s amazing, Rob. I have to say, through our discussion and just hearing about Shoulder Check, I, too, hope that perhaps it is September one day. Look, as you said, maybe it isn’t about funding, maybe it’s about awareness, because here’s something that I put out a lot, and I want parents to hear this. Sometimes I’ll hear from parents, whether it be a post that someone responds to, or someone will say in my office, “Why all the attention? Why all the attention to mental health? Why are we even talking about it?”

I thought about that a lot one day, and the difference between our generation and theirs. One of the ways I draw that line is I say, “If you have friends that are 40s, 50s, and 60s, you ask them. If you’re at a gathering one day, ask them. When you were in high school, did you ever know anybody or hear about anybody that took their own life?” More often than not, they’re going to say no. You ask a kid that nowadays, not only will they say yes, but they have a list. That’s how much it’s changed.

I guess both, as it relates to obviously an upswing in total numbers, but then even more so, the ability to talk about it now. My parallel on that one is I think back to the same deal, same generation, when we were younger, and I had a cousin who had cancer. That wasn’t something you talked about as much. Certainly had an amazing family around him.

I’m not suggesting that he suffered in silence by any stretch, but we were not standing up to cancer. We were not championing people who have fought, won, or lost that battle. Now we do. We honor them for what they’re going through, for the heroism that is facing down something like that. That’s where we’re at with that conversation. That’s exactly the parallel for where we’re at with this conversation.

It’s been there all along, but now we’re recognizing it, and we are honoring the people that are struggling, and we need to champion them as well. We need to make them feel comfortable, supported, and all those things. I’m sure ten years hence, our show, The Check, started in the world of hockey. It’s all my son’s network. He was a good hockey player. Hockey as a community is a great community that comes out and supports one another. The NHL has a program called Hockey Talks. It started with one franchise out on the West Coast, and now, like twenty of the NHL franchises participate in it.

It’s about exactly that, breaking the silence around the stigma. We’ve participated in them with a lot of the NHL franchises, the Capitals, the Rangers, the Bruins, so on and so forth. We’re just working up bit by bit. People saying like, “Hold on a second, there is strength in being able to talk about this.” That’s the right way to say it. The strength to talk about it is far greater than the strength to talk about it without saying something. We start to honor that champion that bit by bit. The conversation will just be brought more and more to the fore in a positive way.

The strength to talk about it is far greater than the strength to talk about it without saying something. Share on X

No doubt. Whether this or not, I’m going to say it, Rob. The ripple effect Shoulder Check creates, you probably don’t even know how many people you guys are touching and supporting, and helping. I commend you for all you do, all the energy you put forth. I also commend you for taking this tragic situation and flipping it, and putting a scenario out there to help many others, not only today, but also in the future. Thank you for all that you do. Please, those of you that are reading, please look up Shoulder Check, get involved.

Rob’s a wonderful human being, and there are a lot of other people involved, I know. Please do your part and do what you can to support a wonderful organization. Rob, thank you so much for your time, your energy. One last question. I’ll put you on the spot. Normalize it forward. We’re set up so that we want to continue the conversation, and part of continuing to do that is as I ask people to nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative. That’s how we got connected, actually. Would love to put you on the spot and ask anybody in your world or your network, you think would be helpful for me to interview going forward.

Storytelling For Change: Filmmaker Jake Miskin & Shattered Ice

I’m going to point you towards a gentleman by the name of Jake Miskin, who is a filmmaker. They just recently premiered their film called Shattered Ice. The film is about set in a fictitious town, but it’s based on the town that he grew up in, Needham, MA, that about 10 or 15 years ago went through having lost five of their community members.

He made this film to both tell the story of what happened, but also to deliver on the exact same mission that we’re on, which is to show people how to use the arts, to use film as a means to help people talk about these kinds of things. That film just got reviewed a little bit ago, and it’s off to a really good start. He’s a thoughtful guy who he Shoulder Check is doing stuff partnering with. He would have a cool, different perspective on using, we’re anchored in sports, he’s anchored in sports and arts and film, all trying to just bring the message out.

Love it. I’ll get his info from you offline, but I cannot wait to connect with him. Sounds like he’ll offer a great perspective for my readers. The more we get to talk about this, the better. Keep doing what you’re doing. I appreciate and support you.

I got to say thank you to you for what you’re doing here, and giving us the space and the platform to be able to share our message with you and with your audiences is an incredible opportunity for us. I’m grateful for it. Thank you, bud.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day. We’ll talk soon.

Right on.

See you.

 

Important Links

 

About Rob Thorsen

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check FoundationRob Thorsen is the founder and executive director of The #HT40 Foundation and the creator of the Shoulder Check initiative. Following the tragic loss of his 16-year-old son, Hayden, to suicide in May 2022, Rob channeled his grief into a mission to combat loneliness and isolation among young people. Hayden, remembered as a compassionate individual who wore jersey number 40 as a goalie at Darien High School, inspired the foundation’s name and its commitment to fostering kindness and connection.

The Shoulder Check initiative encourages simple, meaningful acts of support—such as placing a hand on someone’s shoulder—to let them know they are not alone. This movement aims to inspire a culture of peer-to-peer engagement and social connectedness.

Rob’s professional background in marketing and advertising has been instrumental in promoting the foundation’s message. Under his leadership, the Shoulder Check Showcase, an annual charity hockey game, has grown significantly, attracting NHL players and expanding its reach to raise awareness for mental health.

Through these efforts, Rob Thorsen continues to honor his son’s legacy by advocating for mental health awareness and encouraging communities to support one another through simple, compassionate actions.

 

Reading about mental health is hard. Let’s schedule a free consultation.

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

Nurturing Mental Wellness In Adolescents: Melissa Bernstein’s Guide To Supporting Their Growth

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NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

Just as we prioritize physical health, it’s equally important to invest in our mental wellness. In this episode, Marc Lehman talks with Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Lifelines, about the importance of mental wellness for young adults. Melissa discusses the societal pressures that can lead to an existential crisis and emphasizes the importance of authentic connections for a fulfilling life. She offers practical tips for parents and educators to support young people’s mental well-being through self-care, meaningful connections, and pursuing passions. Whether you’re a college student, a supportive parent, or prioritizing your mental health, this episode offers valuable guidance and inspiration.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the episode here

 

Nurturing Mental Wellness In Adolescents: Melissa Bernstein’s Guide To Supporting Their Growth

Lifelines

We will be meeting with Melissa Bernstein. I’m excited to talk to Melissa about adolescent mental wellness. I hope everybody is doing well. Melissa Bernstein, welcome. I’m very excited to talk to you. I thought maybe what we could do to kick things off a little bit is talk a little bit about Melissa and Doug and then give us a little background on that. Also, certainly a little background on Lifelines, what that is and what you’re currently doing. Is it okay if I put you in the hot seat?

No, it’s fine.

Maybe just tell us a little bit about Melissa and Doug, Lifelines and what you’re doing. I’ll throw a little bit of information in about U Are Heard. I do have some questions, so certainly afterwards we’ll get into that.

Doug and I, I think when we grew up the conventional path for your livelihood was to go business or law or medicine. It was very pre-professional and we both went that path. Not because it was what our soul wanted us to do but because society was like, “Go that path.” He went into advertising and I went into investment banking of all things. After a very short time, we were both miserable. He was more suited for what he did but I am a like white space creative who loves words and notes. Numbers don’t do anything for me.

I became disillusioned and fell into an existential crisis like, “What am I doing each day?” Doug, thank goodness for him, we were dating. I was probably 21 and he was 23 at the time. We’re like, “There has to be something better than this.” We went away for a weekend in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts and we decided we’re not leaving until we decide what can get us out of bed each day. We decided that we wanted to do something that involved children. Without him, I never would have had the courage to leave even though I was so miserable. I think I might have stayed there if he had given me the courage to leave with him.

 

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

Awesome story and taking from that, Melissa, for all of the young people that are watching or re-watching this, pay attention to your passion. It’s important.

It’s so true. We were told, “Don’t listen to your passion. Follow what gives you a solid stable career.” When you do that, when you deny your soul, it’s going to sneak up on you and you won’t have a choice. We were just dating. We weren’t in any position. Nobody started companies back then but we pulled our meager savings and decided to make products for children.

That’s awesome. You’re very humble. Your products are and were amazing. Most people I know when I mentioned to them Melissa and Doug, they know exactly what I’m talking about and always have a story. I’m sure you’ve heard millions of them. Many amazing things that you guys created and so many homes that you impacted with a variety of things that you guys made over the years. Now, this was when, Melissa? Give me a time frame.

This was in 1988. How crazy is that? We just celebrated our anniversary.

Congratulations. That’s awesome. An amazing accomplishment and amazing business. As I said, impacting families and children everywhere. I’m curious, out of that, you’ve developed Lifelines. When did Lifelines begin?

It began in 2020. It mirrored my own personal journey because Melissa and Doug had been the most magical experience ever but it was no longer an entrepreneurial venture. It wasn’t no longer a white space innovative company because we were 1,000 people. It became like a pretty big business. We didn’t know how to do that. We weren’t good at doing that and we didn’t want to operate a big business that was beholden to a lot of different things but it happened.

We still would have stayed there. I’m sure, but it so happened that we knew that there were better people to run the company. I was also going on my own mental health journey that led me to develop Lifelines. It wasn’t meant to be another company. In fact, the one thing Doug and I said is we will never and we put never in bold caps and underlined it. We will never start another company. The fact that we are doing this again and now have like 40 plus people on our team is insane. We both are insane.

It’s passion driven and experience driven. Sometimes when you get involved in these things, that’s how they develop. Let’s talk a little bit about what Lifelines is.

Lifelines was my chapter two. My chapter two was that I had been harboring a lot of mental health issues. I am creative and that came with a very stigmatizing personality that made me hypersensitive in many different areas. My whole life, I was ashamed by those hypersensitivities because if I was allowed to do what I naturally do. I be muttering to myself like a headband in some corner because I’m an idea person. I see ideas, words, and notes in my head but I trained myself because I got a message very early.

I also ponder dark things. I go very low and have had meeting crises and fall into a nihilistic tendency, which we can talk about. It’s part of my imagining in being able to ponder higher realities. I think about meetings and deep things like that a lot. When I got the message early on that like, “Do not show that dark side to the world because nobody wants to hear it, Melissa. Go out and play and be like the other kids.”

I remember even as a toddler thinking like, “Don’t they realize I want to go out and play and be carefree?” I can’t. I’m feeling this despair that’s raging through me and nobody seems to care. I worked myself into a person that would be acceptable by societal standards. That involved three Ps. It involved pleasing, which I became the ultimate pleaser. Putting myself not even on the list and becoming a martyr serving to the extent that everyone needed me and loved how I supported them but never asking for anything in return. Which leads you to martyrdom which is a deep undercurrent of resentment.

I became a perfectionist who felt like I had to be perfect in everything, my performance, behavior, and looks. Anything short of exemplary was a failure and that leads to an otter breakdown because perfectionism is inhuman and we are imperfect as humans and then performance. I became the ultimate actress who could put on a show and convince people that I was happy, go lucky and carefree when inside I was very much the opposite.

I was able to put on that façade through my 20s and 30s. That was who I was. I didn’t even realize I was putting on a façade. That became my persona but in my 40s, right around like 2018, probably. I started feeling that cry of my authentic soul to be seen. I kept saying, “Shut up, Soul. You’re going to stay out there.” It wouldn’t listen to me. It kept saying, “I need to become authentic and I need to express my truth.” It got so loud that I ultimately went on a show and expressed this.

I started to have these revelations that I suffered from something called Existential Depression, which is like a crisis of meeting which we can talk about and I bared my soul. That led to the beginning of Lifelines because Lifelines is my memoir that I wrote after I did the show and received hundreds of the most powerful soulful letters, I’d ever gotten in my life of people saying, “Oh my gosh, you gave voice to something I’ve experienced my whole life. I’ve never had the courage to share.” I thought if I could show people they’re not alone and let them see that someone who on the face of it and looks like she has everything is still struggling every single day, even now. Maybe I can help them to find their light in the midst of a lot of darkness.

I applaud you over and over again. Number one, when you and I first met, Melissa, one of the connections I made as well, “This is such an authentic person.” I know you’ve done a lot of work in your own journey to get there. You talked about the mask that you wore or wore in the past. I think that Lifelines as well as many other things that are out there for young people are so important for individuals to recognize that we can do two things in life. We can pretend all the time or we can become our authentic self. When a person works and a lot of times goes through therapy to get to that place, it is extremely powerful. I applaud you for being as open as you are about your own journey and certainly, appreciate all of that.

I have no choice now. I’m so glad I did it. You don’t realize how exhausting it is to live a lie. People I speak with who are in a state of despair always use the same word which is exhausted and it was. It’s exhausting because you’re putting on a show to hide your truth. You have to keep yourself quiet with all your energy.

Mental Health Challenges

You know a bit about what I do and with U Are Heard, me and my stuff are constantly working with the young adults. That’s a good segue into talking about wellness because to me, one of my big motivators when I first started many years ago was looking at the statistics of how many young adults don’t get help. I was shocked at this huge gap and then started to look into why. You’d come up with things like this stigma which makes sense, a person’s stigma and the community stigma. You look at access to care and all of the things that probably don’t surprise you.

You look at the concept of it’s easier to just keep moving on or at least people say it is. I know over the years, thousands of kids that have taken a step, whether it’s an email or phone call or gone to a counseling center and they haven’t had a good experience. What do they do? They do nothing and they keep trudging. As parents, providers, and adults in the community, we’re looking at this huge population of young adults that need services and aren’t getting them.

Again, I come back to your ability to be so authentic. It’s a role model on many levels for people to say, “We’re all human beings. We are all susceptible.” I tell people all the time. I’ve been to therapy myself several times. I’ve done my own work. The second we get to a place where like, “Not me.” We’re wrong. We’re missing something. We’re all susceptible.

Moving into that topic, I’m curious to ask you. We’re living in a complicated time as you know and the suicide rate for young people has gone up tremendously statistically ten years ago is number twelve. It’s now number two in terms of leading cause of death for young people. Anxiety and depression as you know, since COVID has exponentially gone up. I’m curious to ask you, when you think about the biggest stressors that you notice for young adults. What comes to mind?

This is directly related to Lifelines because our inaugural partner is Barnes & Noble College. We’re part of their Be Well, Be You initiative which is exactly about wellbeing and tools for wellbeing. They shared a whole bunch of stats with us from inside higher Ed. They did a lot of surveys and 83% of students are saying that stress is negatively impacting their college experience.

According to that survey, they say that pressure to perform is number one. Now, I see another stat that talks about money and other things, but the pressure to perform is a scary one. When did learning become secondary to performance? It’s so insane that they’re so worried about grades that they can’t even enjoy learning about new things. It’s sad.

I know. Somewhat rhetorical I know when you said it but I’ll answer you by saying when I look at middle school and high school kids, it starts way back then. Where there’s this concept of, if I’m not taking 5 million AP classes. When you and I were in school, straight As was a 4.0. That’s like average now. It’s like I get a 4 or 6, weighted, and unweighted. There’s all this terminology. To me, we live in a bit of a world where good is not good enough.

It’s so true. We’ve gotten so caught up in the extrinsic that the extrinsic, the things we do for joy in meeting are completely lost. I have six children. I have had the children experience. We had a bunch of six graders over. I remember they were like sitting in a circle and they were talking about the pressure they felt to get into college.

They’re in 6th grade.

I was like, “Oh my Gosh, are you guys feeling that?” They were like, “Yes, we’re so terrified.” They’re like, “First, you got to get in the honors classes then you got it.” They already had the path and it looked more terrifying to them in 6th grade. In Melissa and Doug, I talked a lot about play and how play became something that parents didn’t believe in because it wasn’t a skill that you could put on a resume and this idea of making these children adults.

When they’re now little kids, we’re professionalizing everything they do and making it into these route scheduled activities. We’re basically taking the joy out of life. By the time they get to college, they’re burned out and exhausted. A lot of them are depressed because they don’t even know who they are and what they want to do with their lives. They have no passion for anything.

It’s funny you should say that because I often thought in my town, when I was younger in 6th grade, we went up to the junior high school and then recess was gone. People would say, “How was school? How was junior high school?” I said, “It stinks because I miss recess. That was like my favorite time of the day.” Back then, you’d ask kids and that’s what they’d say. They’d say recess, gym or lunch. Nowadays, it just gets absorbed.

I’ve met kids in Junior High School, 7th and 8th grade where they’re not taking lunch. They’re taking a class. The concept of, I like how he said that it’s very accurate, we’re taking away the fun. I worked hard as a therapist when I’m talking to kids. We do four things. There’s a formula I developed when it comes to college. There are four things that all kids need to do in order to succeed and have a smile on their face.

It’s funny, Melissa, two of the four things are so social. When I talked to parents about that, they’re aghast like I’ve got academic in there. That’s one, but I want kids to have fun. I want kids as human beings. We need to find a way to let the steam out and enjoy ourselves. Otherwise, we become anxious, depressed or both.

One of the most profound things I’ve read is the surgeon general’s report on loneliness. It came out a few months ago and said that loneliness is an epidemic. If you read his report, I suggest everybody read it. It is so mind blowing. The group that is the loneliest is 18 to 24 year olds in the throws of college. There’s a whole process and I’ve written a practice for myself called practice makes purpose, which talks about you can’t even make those authentic connections until you begin to discover who you are.

 

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

One of the problems with college students is even though there are among thousands of peers because most of them have never had a childhood. They’ve been resuming their whole lives. They’ve never done that inward journey to discover who they are, what they love, and what their passions are. Their friendships and connections are also inauthentic and are filling them up in the way that true connections are. They may not be alone but they’re still lonely in the midst of having all these superficial inauthentic connections.

Role Of Parents

It’s a great point. That’s the exact word, superficial. They may have people around them, but they’re not actual friends or deep friendships with those connections. I see that all the time with kids. It’s funny, for the high school kids transitioning into college, all they want is to have that group around them. In some ways, kids don’t necessarily even care if they’re deeply connected friendships. They just want those people around them so they’re not feeling that loneliness. That’s a fascinating comment about loneliness. Let me ask you this, as a mom of six, what can we do as parents? What can we do to assist our kid’s mental Wellness? What do you think?

It’s the hardest thing to do ever, but Young said it many years ago. He said the biggest threat to children are their parents’ unrealized dreams. The best thing we can do is allow our children to be who they truly authentically are. Try hard not to pressure them to be something that they can or don’t want to be. When you allow your kids to flourish, and I’m not saying you give them gentle guidance. You don’t let them do whatever they want but you let them follow their passions.

You don’t push them into hockey because you were a hockey player who didn’t get their due. You don’t force them to play year-round sports if they don’t want to. That’s hard for parents and it was hard for me. I learned by screwing it up a lot of times. That’s why I joke, we had to have six children because I messed up so many times that we need to keep having more to fix the problem.

That’s how we learn.

The last two, I’ve become much better at allowing them to be who they are. It’s giving me such joy. They’re not traditional learners. They don’t go to the high-pressure school but they’ve found their people and a place where they belong. It makes me feel so gratified to know that I got my ego out of it and allowed them to do what they wanted to do.

Very well said. I feel like I say this all the time because I watch staff members in high school, families throughout middle in high school. I watched them helping their kids tour schools and pick schools.

Doing their work for them. How many parents are doing their kid’s papers for them? A lot.

Very rarely do they ask the basic question, are you happy? The answer for most kids, they’ll say, “Probably not.”

It’s because the parents aren’t happy. As much as I went into parenthood saying, “I want the best for my kids. I want them to be who they are.” I had so many expectations. I’m shocked when I thought about it and I saw the way I was pushing my kids in ways that I wanted them to be to de-validate my ego. It was horrifying.

I had an experience with my very first one where I pushed him. I was a classical guitarist who thought about playing professionally. I ended up giving it up to go to college and I was pushing my son to play classical guitar not realizing it. Totally unconsciously. One day, I noticed he wasn’t practicing at all. I’d take him to his lessons and he’d be hanging his head one day. He came up to me and said, “Mom, I have to tell you something.” I was like, “What, sweetie?” He looked so depressed and started crying. He said, “I’m a baseball player. Not a guitar player.”

I didn’t even hear it the first time. I was like, “What did you say?” He said, “I’m a baseball player. Not a guitar player,” and my heart broke. I was literally like, “Oh my gosh, me.” I’m the play advocate and I messed up my kid. I pushed him to do something that he hated. We ended at that day and he did love baseball. Baseball, by the way, also became professionalized. By the time he thought about playing in college, he was so brutal over making it a job that the same thing happened. We messed up our kids and it’s inadvertent. We love them. We’re trying to do our best but it messes with their head when they’re trying to live out our dreams.

We love our kids, and we’re trying to do our best but it messes with their heads when they’re trying to live out our dreams.

I take so many things from that but one of which is we’re going to make mistakes. It’s important for us to learn from them. I also think that it’s important for us to listen to our kids because a lot of times our kids will give suggestions. They may say it once and as you said, “I didn’t hear it the first time.” It’s very important to listen to our kids because they’re going to talk a little bit about what their passions are and their passions may be very different from ours and that’s okay.

The funny thing is we want this homogeneity but the truth is, the weirder and more different they are, like the more exciting it may be. My kids that have had the strangest passions are the ones who are, I’d say the most authentically, that they themselves and have done the coolest things in life.

They’re interesting also because it’s like something that maybe we don’t know about.

Also, if you understand creativity. It’s about collecting ingredients in very diverse domains and mixing them into a recipe that becomes this like secret sauce. You think like, “My kid’s interested in that. What good is that going to serve them in life?” Inaugural to them being a truly innovative and creative person. Unfortunately, you go into parenthood with no skill. Zero training.

We have to do more than to adopt a pet then have a kid. Trust me, I’ve adopted a lot of pets, the rigor. What’s our house going to like? With kids, you don’t do anything. You’re a flawed person. I’m speaking of myself. I’m a flawed person so, of course, I’m going to make all these mistakes with my kids. If I had known some of these things, I’m sure I would have been better served.

Life is a journey and part of our process to learn from all those things. If you think about it way back when we learned math, spelling, and handwriting and all those fun things. The only way you learn is by making mistakes.

 

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

Trial and error.

Addressing The Routine Of Young Adults

Why would parenting be any different? I’m curious about your thoughts. Wellness is a topic that I’m around all the time and I talk to students about all the time. It’s one that I find the treadmill of life talking about before. Kids are just in this routine. They’re doing everything they can to get the best grades they can get and open up the best opportunities they can get, but they’re not thinking about their wellness.

They’re not getting enough rest, not eating, and not hydrating. They’re not seeing a counselor when they need to and not exercising. They’re not doing the basics. I know one of the philosophies behind what you guys do in Lifelines is wellness. I’m curious, when you think about young people and the easy things that some of them may be able to do that maybe they’re not. What comes to mind?

In my journey, I realized that I can’t just wing this. I’m too much at risk of going low or going high and not coming back like to Earth. I created a framework for myself that’s in the form of a practice called Practice Makes Purpose. That’s what I’m talking about when I go to speak to college students. It’s basically four branches in the metaphor of a tree that helped nurture your physical wellbeing.

Practice makes purpose.

It’s self-care. It’s your mental wellbeing through grounding, detaching from thought, and coming back to the present moment. It’s emotional wellbeing through connecting to yourself first. Only once you have connected and can love yourself, can you connect to that greater group. We call it our grove because it’s trees. The last piece is our spiritual well being, which is a combination of two wings of a bird. One is play and one is purpose. To sore like a bird, you have to have pretty equal measures of play which leads to joy and purpose which leads to meaning.

It’s through being able to satiate your physical needs, being able to get out of the past and the future and come home to the present moment. It’s being able to understand who I am. What are my unique gifts I want to share with the world? Connect to people who want to be your tribe in that and then ultimately, how do I take that gift I have transcended myself to engage in purpose? Also, how do I measure that with ample amount of play that brings my life joy and doesn’t give me empathy fatigue from too much purpose.

I love that. What a great framework. Wonderful. It captures a little bit of everything. As I’m listening to it, I’m noticing not once did you say cell phones or social media, which is good. Number two, I’m thinking the word balance. It comes through as you’re talking about all these things and trying to strike that balance. Very often do I see young people playing too much or not playing enough. I know students that are in the library way too much 8 or 9 hours a day.

I think that’s why when they’re in high school, when you’re seeing them before they go to college. This is what happened to me because I had a complete breakdown in college and so are a few of my kids. The reason is because they go to college without any practice at all. It’s becoming all about social and academic. If one or both of those fails, then they’ll fall into an abyss of nothingness because you don’t know. It’s hard if you don’t schedule it and create a very deliberate practice. It usually doesn’t happen and then you wonder why you’re falling so low. It’s like because I’m not sleeping, as you said. I’m eating horribly. I’m not doing anything that’s bringing me joy. Everything is extrinsic and you can start to see.

It’s a great point. For those parents that are reading, I want to make the point added on to that, Melissa. There are some basic things in high school before they get to college they can begin to do because these are all things, whether it’s self-care, eating, sleeping, exercise, journaling, learning about nutrition, or organization, checking your email each day, or having a good system going into college. I love how you said scheduling time, whether it be time to get productive things done. Even scheduling time to have fun, I know that sounds weird but that way, you know it won’t go anywhere. You know it’s there.

I even tell that to my kids because they get very panicked about all the stuff they have to do. I’m always saying, “Break it into bite-sized chunks and reward yourself. Say, ‘If I finish these first two pages of my paper, I can go for a walk. I can even watch a show that I like.’ Make it a reward system,” which doesn’t make it overwhelming and allows you to give yourself the breaks that you desperately want.

Also, motivates you. Let’s face it, kids need that. I like what you said earlier, the commentary around the surgeon general’s thoughts around loneliness. In college, the stakes are high. I don’t think parents recognize that going in. There’s tuition, grades and everything’s new. Kids that I work with, as you said when they fail something, their first thought is, “My life is over.” My first thought is, “No, it’s just beginning. This is an opportunity,” but nobody’s ever said that to them because it’s just push.

What they’ve done to get into college, they’re already exhausted. They basically pulled out all the stops like postering themselves to get to the space and now it’s only just beginning, the competition. Everybody’s at that level and suddenly it’s like, “I have four more years of this?” It could be overwhelming to some.

It’s funny, I had a very similar story. My son is a junior in college. When he was in 6th grade, he took a math class that he qualified for. It was a 7th grade math class. I find myself sitting in this presentation in 6th grade. The parents are all in 6th grade. All of a sudden, the presentation which was the PowerPoint shifts into AP and honors like their life. I’m like, “We’re still talking about eleven-year-olds. What’s going on?”

I went up to the presenter afterwards and I said to him, “I’m a little blown away,” but that’s an indicator. That happens in a lot of towns. There’s a track that gets set up and until the parents say, “I don’t want my kids playing six sports every season or doing every activity under the sun.” I met a kid who told me he had done every activity offered at his high school. How does he even have time for that?

That’s the other thing that I tell so many kids. They missed the point. Colleges don’t do that. They want you to show that you are passionate about something and get into it. They much rather see that than act like you’re trying a little of everything because that shows that you have no passion and you’re stopping. It’s much more important. If we stopped thinking about the goal and lived in the verb. We’re living in the now like what college you’re in as opposed to realizing that the journey is the path.

In Buddhism, the journey is supposed to be the path. This journey is awful. Everybody is suffering so much to get to something that’s going to spark more suffering. We have to say to them, “I get that you’re in a system that is valuing this.” Some would say, when you have children, a lot of play experts Peter Gray, one of my favorites says, “Before you have children, you should think about the community you want to raise them in and what their values are.”

As my daughter said to me many times, “In the community we are in, Mom, we can’t not care.” Every time I said, “Don’t worry about your grade. They don’t matter.” One of my daughters said, “We have like three streaming apps of GPA at our high school. Literally, it’s telling you your rank on every test you upload. I can’t not care. This is the town I’m in.” Which horrified me. Those decisions, if you want to make them, you can make them early earlier on. Visit your schools and see what messages they’re giving. Choose a different path because it is hard. If you’re in a community, that’s the path every single kid is on. Yes, you could be like, “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine with whatever you do,” but it’s harder.

It’s a great point. As graphic as this commentary is, I can’t tell you how many kids that are number one in their class over the years that I’ve hospitalized for severe eating disorders, severe depression, and severe anxiety.

I was there. I was one of those kids. I was a complete and utter mess. I had a horrible eating disorder because that stuff just makes you feel like the bar keeps getting higher and you can never reach it.

Looking at ways in which parents can help kids enjoy life, have fun, put a smile on their face, and not be so intense. Maybe take a break from the treadmill that school creates. All of those things are important and a lot of it’s done through role modeling.

I was going to say the exact thing. If we are showing ourselves to be uptight, intense and worrying all the time then what are we showing them? We do have to model that. It’s okay to mess up. One thing my husband has done well. Not what one of many things but one thing he’s done especially well is he was a horrible student. He always shared stories and his mother would get so angry because they lived with us for a while.

As parents, we do have to model that it’s okay to mess up.

He would always when he failed stuff and got C’s. He’s been so successful, but I always love those stories because he was showing them like it’s okay. He went to a very average State University and he’s done anything he ever dreamed of and having gone to a different school wouldn’t have changed that at all. I always love the fact that he was that voice of reason like, “Look at me. I didn’t mind.

A good example. Again, sometimes families and kids will merge the concept of success and happiness. The kids will say, “I have to go to a certain school. I have to get a certain GPA. I have to do this. I have to do that.” I have to say to them, “That’s just school. That’s your education. That’s not life. That’s not success. Your life, your occupational path starts after that.” A lot of that comes down to hard work and passion. How passionate are you?

Your point, Melissa, from earlier is a great one. Students in the family are finding that their passion is going down and down as they are taxed and stressed through college. That’s not helpful because then they hit the working world with no energy toward what they want to do. It’s important for families to put some energy into that.

I was going to say there’s this amazing graph in meaning logo therapy which has scaling two through meaning which has axes. One is happiness and despair. The other is success and failure. It shows that they’re separate completely separate axes. It’s all about how you perceive it because many of the most successful people, the number one in their classes, are utterly miserable. Many people who’ve experienced failures learn from them and they’re the biggest gifts ever. If you’re thinking that they’re on the same plane, they’re not. It’s important to realize that because it frames that when we say we’re trying to strive for success. It means that we might get there and we will be happy at all.

I can’t tell you how many examples I’ve seen of that in my career. I’ve seen so many adults that are surprised by that. They are successful but they’re so unhappy. For families, it’s important to acknowledge and to recognize we’re living in a bit of a different world. Not only is success, as you were saying, in a lot of communities top of the list. There’s a competition. We’re also living in a world where mental wellness isn’t great.

We haven’t rebounded since COVID the way I don’t think anyone’s wanted to. It’s important for families to be thinking about that. As a therapist, I’m biased but for kids, if they’re sparking symptoms and having difficulty, letting them know, “Not only is there help out there. There’s help that looks differently than it used to.” It used to be, I’m going to go and speak to a 110 year old person with a huge long beard. I’m being a little extreme, but you know what I mean.

The way in which helped looks different. Giving young people that ability to say, “It exists. You just have to decide if that’s something you want.” In so many instances, Lifelines being a great example of this. Help doesn’t necessarily mean sitting down with a counselor in an office to talk through things. A lot of help is acknowledging that there’s a journey that needs to occur and you’re deciding not to right now but it doesn’t mean that you can’t.

Exactly. It’s about the tools that are there. A lot of times kids aren’t ready or they don’t think they want it. I believe you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make a drink having been a parent for somebody years, but having them know that these are the tools and they’re right here when you need them is one of the most important things we can do as parents and not stigmatize them saying like, “I went to therapy. Here’s some tools. This is a great place to go if you need it. Please, let me know if you need something. Don’t suffer in silence.”

I’m just looking at the time, Melissa and we had talked about seeing each other for twenty minutes. I feel like I could talk to you forever on this topic. I want to thank you for your time and acknowledge that you took some time out of your day-to-day. I appreciate it. For those that are out there that have interest, please educate yourself and look up Lifelines because it’s an amazing program out there that Melissa is working hard at developing. Thank you so much.

What you’re doing it U Are Heard is so amazing. From the time I met you I knew Mark is going to change the world one person at a time and that’s the best way to do it. Please support him as well.

Thank you so much, Melissa. We’ll talk to you soon. Be well.

Take care, everyone. Thanks for reading.

 

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About Melissa Bernstein

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental WellnessMelissa Bernstein is the co-founder of Melissa & Doug, a leading toy company renowned for its educational and creative products. As an entrepreneur, inventor, and author, she has dedicated her career to inspiring creativity and play in children through the toys her company produces. Beyond her success in business, Melissa is also an advocate for mental health. In 2020, she launched Lifelines, a platform focused on supporting mental well-being, inspired by her own lifelong struggles with existential depression and anxiety. Through Lifelines, she offers resources, tools, and community support to help others navigate their inner challenges and find meaning.