The Check-In That Could Save a Life

What does it really take for a man to admit he's not okay…and what can a community like Okotoks do to make that conversation easier? 

Carlin Lutzer sits down with Melanie Taylor, therapist and owner of Connected Therapy Services in Okotoks, Alberta, for an honest conversation about men's mental health. 

Recorded for Men's Mental Health Awareness Month, this episode digs into why men account for roughly 75% of suicide deaths in Canada, the cultural pressure to "tough it out," the warning signs loved ones should watch for, and the practical first steps toward support. 

With warmth, candor, and real local heart, Carlin and Melanie explore how stronger connections and simple check-ins can change lives. 

It's an inspiring, deeply human discussion that reminds our community that reaching out is a sign of strength and that no one has to carry the weight alone.

Listen For:

2:30 Why do men account for 75% of suicide deaths in Canada?

6:01 How is society reshaping what it means to be a man today?

18:16 What warning signs should Okotoks families watch for in the men they love?

20:00 How do you actually check in on a friend who's struggling?

23:02 What first steps can someone in Okotoks take to find mental health support?

Guest: Melanie Taylor | Therapist and Owner, Connected Therapy Services

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Transcript

Announcer (00:00):

You found the Okotoks Podcast sponsored by Carlin Lutzer Real Estate. Glad you're here.

Carlin Lutzer (00:19):

Welcome back to the podcast. June is men's Mental Health Awareness Month and today we're diving into a conversation that affects every family, every workplace, every sports team, and every community. For generations, men have often been told to be tough, push through it, keep their problems to themselves and carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. But behind many smiles, handshakes, and I'm fine responses, there can be struggles that often go unseen. Joining me today is Melanie Taylor from Connected Therapy Services. We'll talk about the realities of men's mental health, the pressures men fac, the warning signs people should be aware of, and how we can create stronger connections and healthier conversations in our homes and communities. Whether you're a man who's struggling, someone who loves and supports a man in your life, or you are simply looking to better understand this important topic, I think you'll find a lot of value in today's discussion.

(01:27):

Let's get into it. Well, Melanie, welcome to the podcast today.

Melanie Taylor (01:31):

Thank you very much for having me.

Carlin Lutzer (01:32):

Yes, and you are one of the therapists, but you're also the owner of Connected Therapy Service in Okatoks, Alberta.

Melanie Taylor (01:40):

I sure am. Yeah. I'm proud to be.

Carlin Lutzer (01:42):

Yes. And you guys are located on 121B Alm Street. So if you're heading north on Northbridge, yeah, you're right off Northbridge, basically right on the corner virtually, aren't you?

Melanie Taylor (01:53):

Yeah, right on the corner in that shoot historical building.

Carlin Lutzer (01:56):

Yeah, absolutely. Great location.

Melanie Taylor (01:58):

Yeah, I love it.

Carlin Lutzer (02:00):

Well, we are going to talk about something very heavy today. We're going to talk about men's health as June is men's health month in Mental Health Month in Canada. And just as we dive into this, it's obviously a very sensitive subject, but the statistics around men and men's mental health are actually quite discouraging when you look at them, aren't they?

Melanie Taylor (02:30):

Absolutely. Yeah. It's very upsetting and distressing to hear some of these stats.

Carlin Lutzer (02:36):

Yes. Yes. And your practice, you focus in on many different aspects of mental health and therapy, but one of your specialties would we say it is around men's mental

Melanie Taylor (02:51):

Health? Yeah, it's my area of specialization and interest for sure. Yeah. So I see a lot of men.

Carlin Lutzer (02:55):

Yeah, for sure. Well, thanks for doing that because I ... And these stats are already, they're dated. I pulled them, but approximately 4,500 to 4,750 Canadians died by suicide annually and men are 75% of those numbers of those suicide deaths in Canada, which is really sad. And do you have any idea? Why is this such an issue for men when we're at 75% of all suicides?

Melanie Taylor (03:37):

I think that there's a lot of factors that play into it. I think it's a culmination of things. I think the way that we or men have been raised growing up in their family homes, but also in society, message has very much been toughen up, be a man and up, push through, take care of your family. And there hasn't been a lot of rumor space for them to identify, acknowledge, and express their own experiences, their own feelings, their own emotions about the things that they're faced with, the challenges that they're faced with. So they just step it down. There's no one really to talk to. Men tend to struggle more with male relationships, especially in adulthood. So there's isolation in that component as well. And depression sinks in, anxiety sinks in. Men are more likely to use substances to cope. So that's also a factor in what can lead to the decision to take your own life.

(04:34):

And men are more likely to use deadlier ways of taking their own lives. So they're often ... The first attempt is usually what gets them. There's not a lot of time for intervention because they aren't speaking up because mostly they don't know how to and they don't know where to go. Because to be frank, there aren't a lot of supports that are specifically directed for men at this point in time.

Carlin Lutzer (04:58):

Would you say there'd be more supports for women?

Melanie Taylor (05:01):

Definitely.

Carlin Lutzer (05:03):

Is that naturally because naturally you're a little bit more relational and they have friends and they're always talking. Is the supports natural or are there actually some agencies and things like that that women can turn to more so than men?

Melanie Taylor (05:19):

There's more agencies, there's more funding, there's more resources for women in governmental programs, in non-for-profit organizations most of ... I mean, if you even scroll through social media, a lot of the content is focused on women and geared towards women. Just a representation in ads, all those sorts of things, you always see the women struggling in the ads. It's never a man or it's pretty rarely a man that's represented as someone that is struggling. So all of that, yeah there's more support directed towards women and presented to women and it's more accepted for women to receive support.

Carlin Lutzer (06:01):

Society has definitely ... I feel is trying to change the way that men are, I guess, identified in society the way that men act in society. Years ago, boys used to climb trees, break arms, ride bikes, go off at jumps, shoot guns as fake guns and wrestle and fight and all the things. But has society ... Is part of what's going on is that society's kind of changing the identity of what a man looks like?

Melanie Taylor (06:40):

I think there's been a change. I think it's subtle, unfortunately. I don't think there's a lot that has been directed towards changing the messaging towards men. I think that there's corners of it for sure. I think we have a ways to go because I still hear consistently from the men that I support and I see it, like I said, in the representation in social media, all those sorts of things. The message is still very much you need to tough it out, be a man.

Carlin Lutzer (07:11):

So how's social media doing that? Can you give me an example of something a man sees that just basically telling them to suck it up? Well,

Melanie Taylor (07:20):

I think if you just think of any movie that you've seen recently where the main

Carlin Lutzer (07:23):

Characters

Melanie Taylor (07:24):

Can,

(07:26):

They are just being the tough guys, right? They're manning up. They're suppressing their emotions. There's not a lot of opportunities to explore the emotional side of the male characters. It's mostly just them reacting, having reactions. And the only emotions that are typically represented is usually anger, violence. So it's just not represented the same ways as it is for women. I think that in our households, we're seeing more of a shift for sure, especially the newer age of parents right now that I see and I support. There is more of a push to change this for sure, but that impact on a societal level, I don't think has quite reached where it needs to be.

Carlin Lutzer (08:14):

Yeah. I think of my grandpa. My grandpa died 15 years ago. He died at 106. Good for him. So people better get used to me. I got some good genes. I'm going to be around for a

Melanie Taylor (08:28):

While. Oh, wow. I

Carlin Lutzer (08:29):

Bet

Melanie Taylor (08:29):

You're going to be around

Carlin Lutzer (08:30):

A while. Yeah. But he had seen a lot in his day and actually he went through a phase where my uncle, who was the oldest of the kids, ended up having to take care of all the farming responsibility because he went through a phase where he just couldn't get out of bed. He was depressed. I don't think anybody really had any idea what was going on. It's not like the issues men are facing in the mental health. And again, I know my grandpa saw some terrible things through the war and trying to deal with things and knowing that, okay, I can't talk about it. And then it just took him to the point where he couldn't function for a while

(09:18):

And somehow he figured it out. But what kind of ... Yeah, it's very difficult because men, I've even caught myself telling my son kind of like, suck it up, man, don't cry.Don't cry. If he gets hurt or whatever, just like, okay, let's try to cover it up. Don't let other people see you face those emotions because even at his age and the pressures that I shouldn't be, but I accidentally did ... And I'm thinking of one circumstance in particular is just like, okay, let's suppress your emotions here right now and let's go find a room where nobody will see you and then you can let it out. Right?

Melanie Taylor (10:02):

Yeah. And I do think it's certainly not done maliciously or intentionally. I think that's just what we're used to teaching our boys and our men is that's

(10:12):

Hold it together for now. And then if you need to layer, go for a beer, go talk with the guys, go to the gym. Those are the typical things that we say men should go you do to kind of blow up steam. So the messaging even around that is very different. And what's interesting to me is when we talk about statistics, there's this ... For instance, when they do the reports on men, on how they are self-reporting feeling, most men report that their mental health is generally okay. Overall, it's okay. But when we look at the stats, 90 to 95% of adult inmates are men, men are more likely to be addicted to substances and men are three times more likely to end their lives. So are they okay? And that's what I find is most reported with the clients that I see is they're like, "No, I'm okay.

(11:11):

I just need someone to talk to when things come up." And I'm like, "Okay, that's fair enough." And then we actually get into it and I'm like, "You're not okay. You know that. " And they'll have that moment of like, "Okay, I just kind of normalized that. I thought this was what I was expected to do. I thought this was my role." And there is that light bulb moment of like, "Okay, yeah, I'm not okay." I think it's a lot harder for men to get to that point of realization that they're not

Carlin Lutzer (11:41):

Okay.What are some of the things that have to happen to a man in order to get him to the point where he realizes he's not okay?

Melanie Taylor (11:49):

Unfortunately, I see a lot of stressors in multiple areas. So things aren't going well at work, things aren't going well at home, things within their family of origin aren't supportive. There could be financial troubles and almost all the men that I see come to me when they're almost at a breaking point. So they wait too long and they reach out and this is the first time they've been in therapy. This is the first time they've recognized and been willing to engage and deal with these issues. Unfortunately, it happens when they're at that breaking point in my experience.

Carlin Lutzer (12:23):

So really when they have no other option?

Melanie Taylor (12:25):

When there's no other option, exactly. And I see a lot of men that are like, "My wife told me I have to come to therapy."

Carlin Lutzer (12:31):

Okay. And I'm sure even at that point they're still kind of dragging there. They're not too excited about therapy, even looking at some of these stats put up by Statistics Canada, there certainly is like when they talk about mood disorders, that's increased from 11% to 16% generalized anxiety disorder increased from four to 10%. I'm sure an element of that is sometimes social media, even for men, they feel that they're keeping their foot on the pulse as to things that are going on in our society, whether it's political, well, yeah, political or even the world and the state of the world and where things are at. But there's also the conspiracy route too that I see people go down men specifically where they're looking into specific conspiracies and they start going down this rabbit hole and they can't really seem to get out. Do you know what I mean?

(13:45):

And they're searching for answers and they're some of these conspiracies are pretty wild. You hear me, you're like, "Oh my gosh." But it just feels like they're feeding something and it gets to the point where ... Do you ever run into anything like that where you see guys that are struggling and sometimes it's just all the information that's being bombarded at them and that's not something that's helping their mental health as well?

Melanie Taylor (14:12):

Yeah. In the context of the world events, for sure they're on their phones or they're scrolling social media and everything that's coming at them in terms of world events. I hear a lot of that for sure, depending on the algorithms that have chosen them for whatever reason I do hear a lot of negative, what's the word I'm looking for? A lot of negative opinions about women, if that's what you're talking about in terms of women, I don't want to say man hating, but along those lines where they're watching a lot of content around that and having negative viewpoints of women as a result.

Carlin Lutzer (14:59):

Okay. Yeah, let's dive into that a little bit too, because I'm sure that ... So the men have negative opinions about women based on content that they're watching about women producing, saying that men are bad or men are evil and kind of men hating?

Melanie Taylor (15:18):

Yeah, men hating just really around ... I see a lot of it, Karl, and a lot of social media that's directed at ... And to some point, I get it, but when it's coming at you to at the rate that it is coming to some men, for instance, it can feel overwhelming and feel like you just can't do anything right. So there's a lot of social media content out there right now, for instance, that's harping on the mental world that women carry, but there isn't a lot of that for men, right?

Announcer (15:49):

There's

Melanie Taylor (15:50):

A lot of stuff out there in terms of men's infidelity, but there's not really a lot of content in the fact that women that are unfaithful. And so there's this constant stream of negative social media content being directed at them that really kind of diminishes them even further or makes them question their own actions, their own beliefs and their own values, if that makes sense.

Carlin Lutzer (16:13):

Yeah, for sure. Well, I think even before social media was a thing, I think we started to see that shift even on TV shows where the men were ... The dad of the family was always kind of the dumb one and the one that everybody just kind of joked and made jokes and stuff like that and nobody ever took seriously. So I think we started to see a little bit of a decline of men's confidence. And I think part of it, even let's back it up 60, 70 years ago and roles were very, very defined 50, 60 years ago, right? Yes. The family home was very, very different. Even you back it up and go onto the farm, men had specific jobs. Women had specific jobs on the farm. The kids had specific jobs. In fact, they had kids to help on the farm, right?

(17:12):

Everything was very defined, but slowly just the change when more and more women started to work outside the home, obviously they were working in the home or on the farm or whatever, they had to find roles and now everybody, that shift and everybody trying to figure out how they fit in, I think has certainly been something for men. Obviously for a man, it's very important that they're the breadwinner of the home, right? Yes. And that can be very deflating when a man loses his job or he starts struggling financially, right?

Melanie Taylor (17:49):

Yes, definitely.

Carlin Lutzer (17:50):

Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the signs? Because obviously we're going to have some men listening to this, but we're no doubt going to have some family members or close friends listening to this. What are some of the signs that they need to look for in their friends, in their spouse, whatever that could be warning signs that there may be some issues going on with the person they love?

Melanie Taylor (18:16):

Yeah. I would say one of the number one indicators that men report to me is their partners or their friends noticing and then themselves noticing is an increase in irritability. So their fuse is much shorter. They just don't seem to have the same capacity for anything that's annoying or an irritant. They just very snappy, more irritable. Probably not one thing. The second thing I would say is if you start to notice that that person isn't sleeping very well or their sleep disturbances, the other thing I would watch for is, has there been an increase in any substances? So are they drinking more? Are they smoking more weed? Are they smoking more cigarettes? Has there been a change in substance use? It doesn't necessarily mean that they're developing an addiction, but has there been an increase? So important to put that distention to. And then the other thing I would really watch were is how quiet they are.

(19:07):

Are they getting more quiet and withdrawn than they typically are? And I would start to ask questions around when was the last time there was a check-in with that person? When was the last time you connected with your partner or your brother or your uncle? And if it's been a while and it's not typical, I would start to wonder if they're doing okay.

Carlin Lutzer (19:26):

Yeah. So what do you mean? Are you saying that the person that's kind of doing the wondering about somebody, there's some responsibility there for them to do a check-in on that person?

Melanie Taylor (19:39):

I typically encourage people to do that. Yeah. It's part of being in a partnership, I would argue,

Carlin Lutzer (19:45):

Checking

Melanie Taylor (19:45):

In on your partner, making sure they're okay.

Carlin Lutzer (19:49):

Let's say it's not just a spouse, it could be a friend or whatever that they haven't heard from them in a while, but what does a check-in usually look like? You can ask the generic question, "Hey, how are you doing?"

Melanie Taylor (20:00):

Totally.

Carlin Lutzer (20:01):

And you're going to get the generic answer, "Oh, I'm great." Yeah,

Melanie Taylor (20:03):

Everything's great. Yeah.

(20:05):

I think it depends on your relationship with the person, right? If it's a friend and you guys typically, for instance, went out every week for wings or something and then all of a sudden it's been like a month and you haven't heard or seen from them, but you have that relationship where you can kind of poke at each other a bit. It could just be like, "Hey, I haven't seen you in awhile. Are you doing okay? What's going on? " And see where you get with that. If it is just a generic, "Well, no, things are great. I'm just busy." Then depending on your relationship with that person, you can either choose to dig a little further or you can leave it at that. That's going to depend on how well you know the person. So to answer your question, I don't think there's one right way to do it.

(20:41):

I think just even asking the question is a good start.

Carlin Lutzer (20:47):

Yeah, certainly that should care, but some people might be really annoyed by that. They might be a little offended by that depending on where they're at and how sensitive they are, right?

Announcer (20:58):

Absolutely.

Carlin Lutzer (20:59):

Yeah. I guess there's probably even ways that you can just even do it via text, just, "Hey man, been thinking about you, just wondering how things are going and if you're doing okay."

Melanie Taylor (21:11):

Absolutely.

Carlin Lutzer (21:12):

Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to see more and more men mention that. I had Kelly Rudy on the podcast a few months ago and he was fantastic and he was very open about his struggles with mental health and just how he's taken that to help people himself, especially in his high profile position on hockey night in Canada. We've had a gentleman, Richard Kalpersmith from Oketoks here who opens up his garage Thursday nights just for men just to come and talk to anybody. Anybody can show up, doesn't matter. They're just there, they're talking, they're there to just hang out or to shift gears and talk real life if that's where the evening goes, right? It's

Melanie Taylor (22:00):

Amazing.

Carlin Lutzer (22:02):

Kevin Bieks, again, another hockey night in Canada guy, I saw him just do Instagram post just a couple of weeks ago just basically saying, "Hey, it is so important just to keep your radar open for people that may be struggling and just shoot them a text, give them a call and just ask them how they're doing." With stats like this, chances are that there's somebody in our circles that's struggling, right?

Melanie Taylor (22:29):

Absolutely.

Carlin Lutzer (22:31):

Yeah,

Melanie Taylor (22:31):

Definitely.

Carlin Lutzer (22:34):

Is there anything else that you can, anything that you can give us any kind of ... Obviously, Melanie, you're a huge proponent in therapy. What are some of the steps that ... Obviously, it may be as simple as just spelling it out as to, okay, pick up the phone or go on the website, fill out this form or whatever. What are the steps that someone that's listing right now that's kind of struggling should take?

Melanie Taylor (23:02):

Well, when we talk about support or when I talk about support, it doesn't necessarily have to be professional support. It can just building natural supports, right? So who do you trust and feel safe with? Is there anyone? And if the answer is no, then maybe we need to engage more professional help. And if the answer is, yeah, maybe it's my sister or maybe it's my best friend, I just haven't talked to them in a while, we need to reestablish that connection as best we can so that you feel better supported. And if that's not enough, then we need to start thinking about and looking at some of these behaviors that I'm talking about. Are you noticing that you're drinking more, that you're using more weight, that you're doing these types of things? Are you noticing you're more irritable and that you have a short fuse right now?

(23:43):

Then there's free options for support. You can call Access Mental Health and they'll do an assessment with you over the phone and then they will direct you to a clinic that's closest to you to get free counseling and therapy support. If you're looking for more private therapy, then Psychology Today is a great website to go onto and they search by area and it will show you all the mental health professionals in your area and what their specializations are and you can go on and you can look there at your own convenience and then you can reach out. Most therapists in private practice offer free consultation calls and I highly recommend everyone do those.

Carlin Lutzer (24:18):

For sure.

Melanie Taylor (24:19):

So you get 15 minutes where you just get to talk about what are your issues, what are your concerns, ask any questions, see if it's a good fit and then start building that into a routine. I think that's where I see a pattern with men is they're really, once they're committed to coming, they're good, but they tend to taper off as they go on because life gets in the way. So pre-booking sessions for whatever your support may be is highly recommended so that it doesn't get lost in life.

Carlin Lutzer (24:48):

Yeah. And I would think that it can't be a one and done. I'm sure you've had clients come and you just don't there's not a connection as something's not happening and for them to go out and find someone else in order to find that connection because you're not going to connect with everyone and sometimes people's personalities are different. They need this type of person or whatever. But I'm sure you also do counseling for people that are dealing with people that are struggling with mental health but refuse to come to a therapist. Is that part of the equation too? Yeah. That's

Melanie Taylor (25:25):

Actually like one of my secondary interests is supporting family members and friends that have someone going through a mental health or addiction issue because that isn't often talked about. It takes a toll on everyone around you and there's not really a lot of support structured for family or friends that are supporting people with those concerns. So yeah, that's definitely a component that we offer, that I offer.

Carlin Lutzer (25:47):

How many people that are struggling with mental health issues also have some kind of addiction they're struggling with as well?

Melanie Taylor (25:58):

I don't know that it's that off the top of my head, but it's high.

Carlin Lutzer (26:01):

It is. Yeah. And I'm sure like addictions look like many different things. Obviously we have the stuff that looks normal. You have the drinking, the smoking cigarettes, the weed or the stuff that's easy, but there's also no doubt addictions that are hidden very well as well, like eating disorders, even exercising too much or fixating or whatever, right? Even addictions to social media, even addictions to, like I was talking about earlier, conspiracies, just those types of things. I'm sure that addictions come in many shape and forms than seem like the go- to addictions that people choose.

Melanie Taylor (26:45):

Definitely. Yeah. I would agree with that. There's a lot of gambling, there's a lot of sex addiction, porn addiction. Yeah, there's so many different forms of it and you're absolutely right. It's not just the drugs and alcohol.

Carlin Lutzer (27:01):

The gambling is something that is disgusting to me as to what's happening with that and how the advertisements and everything that's just kind of ... And

Announcer (27:16):

Then

Carlin Lutzer (27:16):

The young men that get caught into it very early because they're trying to bait and hook them, right? "Oh, hey, my favorite hockey player has this, what's this play Alberta thing? "Or whatever, right? Yeah, we're bombarded with it right now. You watch hockey and they got the odds or whatever and it feels like we're praying on the week and I hate that. Oh, exactly. I hate that so much. Yeah. Melanie, I just spent the weekend in Kalispell and I don't know what it was. It's a small community as well, like Ogatokes and it's hard to explain, but I had a couple of people smile at me when I was down there and the first one I was like, " That was weird. "And it was just somebody just being nice, right? And then even when I'm driving, people were letting me in a parking lot where you'd sit and they'd waving me on and it just seemed like there was ... And I don't know if it's because of the tension and the pressure maybe that we're under here in this community or maybe the community's starting to grow or whatever, we're not like that anymore.

(28:41):

We're just into our own little worlds and we don't really care to be courteous or hold the door open for somebody or to smile or to say hi to somebody on a bike path, but you just wonder inside of the ... I don't know, maybe it's just me and where I'm at, it just feels like there's just a heaviness over everybody right now. There's a cloud where people aren't happy. I don't know if that's just me, and I do think that a part of that is the social media element where we're always getting the negative pushed at us inside my specific algorithm. Do you know what I mean? And just wondering if that part of that cloud ... I don't know. Am I making any kind of sense?

Melanie Taylor (29:37):

No, I think that's your experience and your experience is valid, right? I think that I don't know that I have the same experience, but maybe that's because my head's in the clouds and I'm an internal optimist. I don't know.

Carlin Lutzer (29:52):

And

Melanie Taylor (29:52):

That's how you were experiencing and then valid, right? It'd be interesting to kind of dive into that a little bit, Carolyn, and to get into like How are you feeling?

Carlin Lutzer (30:01):

Oh geez. Okay. Yeah, here we go. Now I'm starting to sweat. But it was funny because shifting locations, it just felt like, okay, this is kind of like when those few people smiled at me just because I don't know, I guess it was just like, am I getting used to just keeping my head down and not making eye contact with people or all those types of things, right?

Melanie Taylor (30:31):

Yeah.

Carlin Lutzer (30:31):

But yeah.

Melanie Taylor (30:33):

Yeah, that kind of makes me sad, Carlin. I'm going to lie because one of my values is to always be kind and I think kindness is what the world needs. So I'm glad that you experienced kindness with the smiling and that I hope that you experience more yet.

Carlin Lutzer (30:49):

Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. Melanie, do you have anything else that you want to leave with us before we go?

Melanie Taylor (30:57):

I think it's just that check-in piece. If you're even a little bit wondering if someone's okay, just like you said, send a text, send an email, send a smoke signal, something.

Announcer (31:08):

Just

Melanie Taylor (31:08):

Check in with those that you care about if you're noticing maybe some of these things we talked about today. Just sometimes just knowing someone's checking on you and are thinking about you is an ush.

Carlin Lutzer (31:19):

Yeah. It certainly goes a long way because I've had people check in on me and it certainly does mean a lot. Melanie, you don't just cover men's mental health. You also mentioned that you cover family members, friends, close friends that are dealing with somebody that's going through some mental health issues and dealing with that. But what other services do you provide in your practice?

Melanie Taylor (31:44):

Yeah. So I've been doing this for 17 years. My background is social work. All that's been in mental health, addiction and trauma. So anything that's in relation to those three things I offer and I'm comfortable with. I'm trained in something called accelerated resolution therapy that's specific to trauma. So I process trauma with people, any mental health disorders, particularly mood and anxiety, just everyday stressors, confidence, self-forth, those types of things. And then I also have Flora Tan, who's in my office with me and she supports adults and youth and she's trained in EMDR, which is also a trauma therapy. So very focused on mental health and trauma and I connect it.

Carlin Lutzer (32:31):

Yeah, right on. Melanie, will you come back?

Melanie Taylor (32:35):

Absolutely. I would love to.

Carlin Lutzer (32:36):

Anytime. Right on. I'm sure that there's different subjects we can touch on. Yeah, I appreciate you. Appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate your passion behind men's mental health. And yeah, no doubt it must be a difficult job, but must be rewarding at times as well when you see people kind of breaking through and getting through those heavy, dark days of depression and mental health and seeing somebody where the light starts to shine again in their lives, right?

Melanie Taylor (33:13):

Oh yeah. It's very fulfilling. I absolutely love what I do and I can't imagine doing anything else.

Carlin Lutzer (33:18):

Yeah. Right on. Thanks for your time today.

Melanie Taylor (33:20):

Thanks, Carlyn.

Carlin Lutzer (33:31):

One thing that really stood out to me from our conversation is that mental health isn't about weakness. It's about being human. Every one of us faces challenges, stresses, grief, anxiety, uncertainty, and sometimes simply the weight of trying to keep everything together. If you're listening today and something we discuss resonated with you, I know that you don't have to carry it alone. Sometimes the strongest thing a person can do is reach out, have a conversation or ask for help. I also think it ties back to how we started today's conversation. Maybe the world could use a little bit more kindness, a smile, a conversation, a check in with a friend, a simple, "How are you really doing?" Because you never know what someone may be carrying. A big thank you again to Melanie Taylor from Connected Therapy Services for joining us today. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please like, subscribe, share it with someone who might benefit from hearing it.

(34:35):

And as always, thank you for supporting the Okotoks podcast. I'd also like to thank my producers stories and strategies. They're a great support to me. They do a ton of work on my behalf and I could not do this podcast without them.

Announcer (34:53):

That's all from the Okotoks Podcast, where we keep it grounded, just like the Big Rock. Thanks to Carlin Lutzer Real Estate for the support.