212.Hike the Good Hike – A Story of Mental Health & Nature with Jesse Cody

Did you know that connecting with nature can significantly enhance our mental health and well-being?

In this episode, Dr. Adrienne Youdim interviews Jesse Cody, the founder of Hike the Good Hike, to explore the transformative power of nature in overcoming mental health challenges and fostering resilience.

They discuss Jesse's personal journey from struggling with severe mental health issues to discovering the healing benefits of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Jesse shares how nature can serve as a therapeutic tool, offering insights into self-acceptance, community, and personal growth.

Who is Jesse Cody?

• Founder of Hike the Good Hike, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting mental health through nature
• Advocate for the healing power of outdoor experiences
• Experienced hiker who completed the Appalachian Trail and other significant trails

What You'll Discover:

• The profound impact of nature on mental health and emotional well-being
• Personal stories of transformation and resilience through hiking
• Practical advice for incorporating nature into your life, regardless of your experience level
• The importance of community and shared experiences in the healing process

Why This Episode Matters:

In a world filled with chaos and challenges, Jesse's insights remind us of the importance of stepping outside and connecting with nature. His experiences will equip you with the tools to:

• Embrace the therapeutic benefits of nature
• Foster a sense of community and support in your mental health journey
• Discover your own path to healing and self-discovery through outdoor experiences

🎧 Tune in now and take the first step towards enhancing your mental health and well-being through nature!

"Nature is a therapy that you don't need a therapist to prescribe. It's free, and it's there for you to discover." - Jesse Cody

Ways that Dr. Adrienne Youdim Can Support You

1. Join the Monthly Free Mind-Body Workshops: Participate in engaging mind-body practices designed to help manage your stress response. Register here.
2. Sign Up for the Newsletter: Stay updated with valuable insights and resources by subscribing to the newsletter. Sign up here.
3. Freebie alert. Register for our monthly free MindBody Workshop and receive a downloadable guide on emotional labeling to help you manage your emotions effectively.

Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim

• Website :https://www.dradriennespeaks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dradrienneyoudim/

Transcript

Adrienne Youdim

Welcome Jesse to Health Bite. I'm so excited to have you. As we were chit-chatting before the recording, we've had so many lovely conversations together. We are so very much aligned on this work and your experiences and your background I know is gonna bring a lot of value and good medicine to our listeners. So thank you really for being here.

Jesse Cody

Well, thank you for having me. It's always quite nice to have, feel like the work that I'm doing, people see, they hear me and they want to do something to help me kind of showcase the work that I'm putting out to the world.

Adrienne Youdim

Well, you are doing incredible work. And as you know, one of the nutrients that I talk about in my practice and in my speaking is nature. I do see it as a nutrient, as a vitamin that helps us in our physical, mental, emotional health and well-being, as well as in our professional health and well-being. And I know that this is something that's very close to your heart. I wonder if you would just start by sharing your story, how you came to this work, and then we can take it from there.

Jesse Cody

Absolutely. So, you know, for a good portion of my life, I struggled with mental health and in times it was very severe for me, whether it was depression, if it was anxiety, a lot of anxiety, for sure, which led to a lot of different things, narcissistic tendencies in relationships. Really, as a man from a boy to a man, taking a lot of the things that I was struggling with, with my mental health, like a lot of people in the world who struggle with mental health, I was finding ways to cover it up and keep it from my community, my world, my family. And over time and over years, when you're doing that, as we know that that can take its toll on you mentally and physically and it all led to suicidal tendencies for me and that thought process of. truly thinking that taking my life was a better thing to do than to try to find a way or a path to live a life and to live a life of purpose. And so really it was a long time for me struggling with that and really facing these suicidal thoughts and trying to, and I always find this to be a strange word to use, but trying to find courage to actually take my life. What happened to me leading into my 40th birthday is my family and friends really wanted to gather and celebrate me. And again, these people in my life didn't know the majority of what I was going through. But, they loved me and they wanted to give me a good party for a big birthday. Going to that birthday, I truly kind of said to myself, hey, there's a real possibility that this is your last birthday. So, let's put the mess of your life to the side and let's celebrate you with these people and just try to enjoy it. Make the best of it. And it was in that party, I would say about an hour or two in when I was surrounded by 40, 50 people that I shared a life with from the moment I was born to friendships that developed over just the last several years that I kind of got hit by this wave of, wow. how can I be a person who has so much good in their life, constantly have a thought process of wanting to take my life? And I looked around at everybody and I kind of soaked that in for a bit. And I said to myself, you know, Jesse, the next time these people possibly gather could be your funeral. And it really hit me. It hit me hard. And I had this conversation with myself at moments in that party, and certainly beyond the party, What have I done for myself? When have I ever opened up? When have I seeked any help? I never actually tried to take therapy seriously. I had a couple moments where I was in psych wards, but I was only in these psych wards because I made threats of suicide to women that I was dating and they took it seriously and called the police. And I just looked back and I said, you haven't tried to do anything for yourself. You haven't tried to take steps to see if there's an ability to live your life instead of taking it. And so from there, it's like, hey, you owe that to these people. And looking back on it, I know that truly who you do owe it to first is yourself. But this was a good catalyst to try to get there. And that was what I was hoping. And here's the strange thing is I started doing research and thinking to myself, what can I do? I'm a person for those 40 years. The majority of my life was spent in Boston. I lived in New York City for five and a half years. Most of these years, especially my adult years, I was working in the restaurant industry. I even ran a nightclub in Times Square. I had no understanding of nature. The jungles that I spent time in were much different than actual jungles. And so it was this moment where I was doing research and trying to figure out what I could do that I came across an article that Robert Redford was making this book called A Walk in the Woods into a movie. and funny enough that was a book that a friend of mine had given to me in my early 20s and I actually read it and I remember him giving it to me and saying you know check this book out it's pretty wild man it's like really funny stories but inspirational and deep and it's about this guy who discovered this trail called the Appalachian Trail and it's a footpath from Georgia to Maine 2200 miles so Let's skip ahead again back to that moment that I saw that Robert Redford was making this into a book. And I was like, hey, I remember that book. That book was pretty cool. And I remember feeling a bit inspired by it. And so maybe as I'm trying to figure out what I can do for myself, that this book will just give me some inspiration and keep the drive alive to find things that would work for me. Definitely wasn't picking the book up to think about taking on hiking. But I went out and got that book and when I got it, I returned home and I opened it back up for the first time in 18 years or so. Early on, the author Bill Bryson was talking about discovering the trail in his backyard. He was a professor at Dartmouth at the time. He was looking out his window and he threw the trees, he could see people walking and he had big giant backpacks on. So he was curious and he went and he walked through his yard and he walked through the trees and he got to this footpath and he discovered a sign that said, you know, a trail from Georgia to Maine and he wanted to know all about it. And so in his own right, he went to do research on it. Back then it wasn't Google, it was the library. He started reading about this trail and he was hit when he was doing this research and he was hit by this feeling himself saying, I have this incredible life, I built this life. He was already an established author at that point. He was a professor, he had a family, and he had all these good things, but he had this moment that he said, you know, but there's still things in my life that are unanswered, that I can't find a way to answer them all. Maybe a long walk would help me find these answers. And when I read that, it hit me hard. And, you know, it was just, I just said to myself, man, maybe a long walk could help me find some answers. And that was the moment that I decided I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Adrienne Youdim

Wow. All 2,200 miles.

Jesse Cody

All 2,200 miles. I said, I think I'm going to need this walk. Maybe it'll take longer. Maybe I'll turn around. did not do that, but I started doing research, you know, in the same way that Bryson did. And I really, it lit a flame in me, you know, something, I felt a connection to this trail and I felt like it's what I needed to do. And, you know, it was three months later after some pretty incredibly wild conversations with family and friends where I said, hey, I'm gonna quit my career and I'm gonna go walk from Georgia to Maine. And of course people were like, what? But I had a way of letting them know without truly letting them inside that I felt like this was something that I needed, that I didn't know what my purpose in life was, and that I needed to go find some answers for myself. Luckily, again, those same people that gathered at my birthday party supported this decision and really wanted to help me along the way. You know, those months later, I took a train down to Georgia with my life backpack. Once I hit Georgia, I stepped up onto Springer Mountain, the start of the Appalachian Trail, and I started walking. And it was six months later that I summited Mount Katahdin in Maine, and I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Yeah.

Adrienne Youdim

And so I'm curious, having been somebody who was a city boy and, you know, inspired to do this. How did you, how did you transition from a novice to really pursuing this path. And I'm kind of curious about the transformation that occurred, you know, along that path. Can you describe that a little bit for us?

Jesse Cody

Of course. So, you know, like I said, when I really started diving into an understanding of what I decided to take on, I felt a connection to something that I'd never felt before my whole life. And there were certainly, you know, even when I was younger, the struggles of mental health, I was a very established competitive runner who was successful in high school. You know, there were things that I had connections to that I felt good about growing up, but this connection to this trail was something different. It was almost, and I thoroughly believe this to this day, that I was being pulled to it. I often say, I didn't go find hiking, hiking found me. And so I had this connection going in. I knew, I knew I needed it, and I knew I could do it. And I knew that I had the physical ability, that I would learn along the way. And I trusted that the things that I needed for myself mentally I trusted that this trail was going to show me that. Now, the truth is the trail tests you. Maybe early on, I thought to myself, once I'm out there, it's going to be, you know, the life changing moment that I've been seeking. And I'm sure I thought at times this was, you know, I never thought it was going to be easy, but I thought I was going to be handed something that would come easy to figure out and learn. And that certainly wasn't the case.

Adrienne Youdim

There's almost this kind of romanticizing about it. I read Cheryl Strayed's book and there is this kind of like, oh, I'm going to be hit by an epiphany, like a bolt of lightning. And I'm sure that's not quite how it turns out.

Jesse Cody

So here's what I'll say to that. In a sense you are, but that bolt of lightning comes in a way that the challenges are more than you could ever have imagined. And so I often tell the story of, you know, just a few weeks into the trail, maybe just two, I was climbing a mountain in North Carolina and it was a really hot day. And, you know, I had 45 pounds on my back and I wasn't physically, I didn't get myself physically in shape for this. I figured I'll get in shape as I go. And so this day was, this particular day was extremely hard for me and it was breaking me. I was climbing this mountain straight up I was sweating, my knees were killing me, my back was burning and you know I definitely had moments that I wanted to quit and so I stopped. I took my backpack off, I sat on a rock and I literally had a conversation with a tree and I was asking it because at this point I started understanding that this was mother nature, right? She's out here and I was feeling her, you know, when I was kind of feeling a lot of tough love at that moment. And then at that moment, I actually didn't even realize it was tough love. I thought she was trying to break me. I thought she was trying to get me to quit. And so I was asking her, you know, what am I doing wrong? Like, I felt like you were leading me here. to kind of show me the path that I've been seeking. And so I had this conversation and I made some promises. I swear, man, if you just take this mountain down and make it flat today, I appreciate it. If you could bring some clouds, cover that sun, I'd appreciate it. Like take some of the pain away. And I threw my pack on and I started climbing again. And it was not a minute or two later, I had my head down and I heard the rattle of a rattlesnake. And I looked up and I was like, oh, man, it was right in the center of the trail, all coiled up. And so, you know, I jumped back 10 feet and then kind of backed up another 10 feet. And you would think after that conversation that I'd be even more discouraged. But I actually I actually laughed because. It finally hit me, you know, like this was the first big moment of feeling something. And I knew what the trail was trying to tell me. I knew what mother was trying to tell me. And what she was saying to you was, if I give you the things that you asked for, what are you going to learn? What are you going to learn about yourself? How are you going to understand that you are capable of overcoming, that you do have perseverance, that you can take these challenges and keep moving forward? That's what it was telling me. And I was like, man, don't ask for favors anymore, because you're not going to get them. And I started understanding that. If you ask for them, they won't come. But if you keep climbing, if you keep pushing forward, you'll earn them. And so I tapped my hiking pole for a bit and kind of threw some pebbles in the direction. And that rattlesnake kind of slithered off. And I moved quickly by it. And I said, from this day on, you're just going to have to keep pushing. And you're going to have to understand that these lessons are going to come. but if you can overcome and overcome and overcome, you're gonna see yourself in a way that you actually thought you were incapable of seeing yourself. And so.

Adrienne Youdim

Wow, I love the metaphor of just showing up, right? There's a lot in what you said, like overcoming hurdles and boundaries and obstacles. But even before that, before we get to that, just this idea of, I'm going to show up and be open to what is going to unfold and what the lessons are. I think that is so profound and can be applied to your life, right? To all of our lives. And that's exactly what you did. Taking a lesson and applying it to your struggles, challenges, the mental health issues that you were facing.

Jesse Cody

Yeah. And you know, it's funny too. It's, you know, years later when I really started kind of diving deep into spirituality and talking to people and moving out into the high desert and really talking to people who had a deep understanding of signs and what representation is, I learned that the snake represents new life because it sheds its skin. And when it sheds its skin, it's you know, it's shedding away some of the life that it's had and moving forward with what life it has ahead of it. And I was like, oh, my goodness.

Adrienne Youdim

So when I apropos more, right.

Jesse Cody

Yeah. It's like in that moment that I thought the trail was trying to absolutely break me and get me to quit. What it was actually doing was like, hey, shed, shed your skin and keep and keep moving forward. And it's like, how can you not start thinking and understanding signs and what nature truly does mean?

Adrienne Youdim

 How long did it take you to traverse that trail?

Jesse Cody

Six months.

Adrienne Youdim

Wow. And you set up camp along the way.

Jesse Cody

Yep, so you know, you sleep in your tent five, six nights a week, you get into a town, you resupply your food, you stay at a hostel, you get a shower. A shower is always nice once a week. And then you find your way back to trail. And when I was telling you that truly I had no understanding of nature, the first time I ever slept in a tent in my life was night one on the Appalachian Trail.

Adrienne Youdim

Unbelievable. And so did you come out of the other side at the end of those six months transformed? Was it a beginning of a process that was ongoing?

Jesse Cody

You nailed it. It was the beginning of a process. And it still took me some time to understand that. I thought maybe coming out You've got it figured out. But I then, you know, when you return to where you came from, you understand that there are still a lot of things that are in place that you need to work through. Right. And I knew that this was going to be a process, a lot of work that the journey never stopped. And so what it did, what it did show me again was that I could persevere, that I could I could face challenges and find ways to work. work towards a better understanding of myself and how I could, you know, you don't, I always like to say mental health is in a sense almost like addiction, right? Like, It never ends. It's always part of you. It's part of you for the rest of your life. It's like standing up at a meeting, even if you've been clean for 20 years, you still go to those meetings because you need them. You need to stay in the process. Once you start kind of letting it go or letting it kind of drift, then you might actually see that, oh, wait, I'm not quite there. Or this is just part of who I am and I have to understand that. It's a constant practice. It's a constant learning of yourself. What I really truly love about what the Appalachian Trail showed me was it gave me the courage to finally start talking about it. It gave me the courage to sit down with my family, to sit down with my friends. It gave me the courage to go into therapy and truly open up to the therapist and take what the therapist has been giving me and put those tools into work. That, I think, with the Appalachian Trail was its greatest gift. It wasn't saying you're fixed, it's saying, I've given you what you need, but understand that you have to constantly use these things. But you have the ability and the bravery now to talk about what you went through. And that, more than anything, is what I'm grateful for.

Adrienne Youdim

You know, as I hear you talk about this, Jessie, it's so relatable and it's so universal. And I think about a line that I wrote in my book, Hungry for More, which was, you never fully arrive to the sound of trumpets. And I talk about this journey in terms of weight loss, but that is a metaphor too. I mean, the weight is just because that's what I practice in my medical practice, but it really is this metaphor of, you know, whether you have a diagnosed mental health challenge or not, we all have these patterns that we need to continuously work through and work towards, and we don't ever fully arrive. You know, I think the things that irk us, trigger us, rattle us, they don't ever fully go away. We just learn through experiences, how to meet them with more open-mindedness, with more tenderness, with more self-compassion, with more courage, as you say. But I think that that is kind of an inspiring point that could be disheartening, but it's actually inspiring. This idea that you're never truly done, That it's a continual process, I think is inspiring because it speaks to the common humanity of it all. The fact that we are all in various stages of this pursuit of evolving. And to me, I don't know, I find that uplifting.

Jesse Cody

I agree with you. I mean, the challenges always come, right? They come in different shapes and sizes. And when they do, I just try to take a step back and I try to say, you know, Think about what you've overcome. Think about the challenges that you've accepted prior. And how can you use what you've learned to take on these current challenges? Like, we're always being challenged. There's just, it's never ending. I often say that, you know, we start learning in the womb. We learn even more when we come out. And if we're smart enough, we understand that we learn to the very last second. And you should always keep your mind open to that. like you're saying, you know, when the challenges come now, certainly I have a better understanding of like what I'm capable of doing, but that doesn't mean I have the answers. And so you have to, you almost have to, you know, I like to always think life's like a Rubik's cube for me. Like I'm constantly shuffling that thing around. And I always get to like a point when things are really great, where like two colors, little squares are just off. And I'm like, oh, so close. Let's get back to it.

Adrienne Youdim

great analogy. And you know, those challenges are not just the personal ones. But I think we can all relate to the challenges that that we are being faced with. It feels like, I don't know, a couple years ago, it even started before COVID in the pandemic, where we felt like we kept getting thrown for a loop. And then of course, COVID in the pandemic happened. And then, you know, political turmoil happened. And then War in Ukraine happened and then October 7th happened. You know, then we 2025 started. We all talked about a fresh beginning and then Bourbon Street happened and then the LA wildfires and. I don't know, has it always been this way? Or I really don't know the answer to that, but I've come to this point of recognizing that there isn't this time that we keep looking for where there's going to be peace and calm. I think we're just going to be thrown hurdles. And we have to learn how to persevere despite or in spite, right? To use these as an opportunity to build our resilience and to do better, even though we feel like we keep getting thrown, you know, in a loop.

Jesse Cody

Yeah. You know, when you say, like, has it always been this way? I think in anything, whether it's personally or the world that we're looking at, it's peaks and valleys. And it's, you know, I just feel like things come and go, come and go on this planet. Right. Like, I think there are times that things have been worse than they are now. And there are times that things have been a lot better than they are. And it's a cycle. Right. And it's I guess it's just how how do we How do we deal with that? And so for me, what I find important more than anything is who's my community and how do we come together to kind of shift and deal with all the madness that's around us? When I talk about the trail and everybody's like, oh, solitude must be good. It's great. Don't get me wrong. I've learned a lot about myself in solitude. It's the communities that I think are just as beneficial. It's the people that I get to speak with, the people that I get to learn from. You know, sometimes you may not agree with everybody. Sometimes you might feel right in line with everybody. But it's like, how do we react as a community? How do we come together? How do we figure out maybe this person doesn't belong in the community that I'm looking for? We could go all day about this. We're in a day and age where you're allowed to be a critic to everything and you can be it openly and the whole world can see it because of social media and beyond, right? Before the world didn't have that stuff. You could be a critic, but you're just talking at the kitchen table. Now, now you can put it out to the world and, you know, in some ways that's pretty cool. In other ways, it can be very damaging. And so I think for me, it's like when I'm going through struggles, when I'm seeing things that are difficult to witness in our world, or if I'm seeing things that are even just difficult to witness in my bubble, I lean on the people that I know are there for me and as, turn that around, and I'm there for them because we need that. We really need that. I've really been trying to find a way to say to people, I may not see things the way you see them, but I think we could talk about that. And that's a challenge right now, right? There's so much division. And so again, it's kind of navigating through that and finding community and finding the people that you can kind of feel yourself around and feel like you can open up around. And that's a big help, especially this day and age. That's a huge help. I know it is for me, and I'm pretty sure a lot of other people would agree with that.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to go into talking about how you've created that community. But first, just to highlight a point that you brought up, which made me think of a quote or a book, the book by Viktor Frankl, who, of course, was the famous psychotherapist who survived Auschwitz. And the point that he repeatedly makes in his book, Search for Meaning, is that it's not so much about the challenge, or in his case, it was being in a concentration camp, but how you relate to it. And to hear someone be able to speak that way with such kind of detachment from their circumstances as being in a concentration camp. but it's in your work too. And it came out in what you just said, in terms of like how we react to that trigger, to that stimulus. That is where the opportunity is. That is where the magic happens. That's where the personal growth and communal growth happens. And so you came out of this trail and you did create a community and you did create an organization. So tell us a little bit about what you've created and how that happened. And then I want to get into talking about some of the people that you work with.

Jesse Cody

Sure. So, you know, it's funny, like on Facebook, you know how we have memories. Yeah. You know, every year I'll have a memory pop up from, again, only a couple of weeks in on the Appalachian Trail. And I made a quick video just to say hello to everybody that was following along. And it's kind of crazy. I don't know what was going on. This is 2015. But I said, hey, I know there's some hard things going on in the world right now. We've got to we've just got to rise above and come together. And, you know, there's One step at a time and at the very end I said, just like that good hike. And that's a 2015 and I was saying those four words just just a couple weeks in to taken on the Appalachian Trail and so. When I was climbing Mount Katahdin on the last day, I'd been hiking with the crew for about two months, the last two months of the trail. And I said to them, I just want to take like an hour to myself. I'm going to slow down and get behind you guys and walk for an hour because I want to reflect. I want to just kind of have a conversation with the trail. And so when I was doing that, obviously I said thank you to mother nature. I said, wow, you've given me some things here that have changed the perspective of my life. I said, what I understand here is you did this for me, not for me to keep it to myself. You did this for me because in a sense, you want me to kind of work with you and you want me to share it with the world. And I don't know how I'm going to do that. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to hike the good hike and I'm going to dedicate my life to sharing with the world what you've given me. So I came out of that and I said, well, you made that promise. Don't let Mother Nature down. She'll get you back. Because I knew I wasn't going to be done hiking after that. Now I'm addicted. And there's a lot of trails in this country that you've got to hike now. And so let's see how we can do that. And it was It was a process, just like everything that in the sense that we're talking about now, right? Like, what am I going to do? You know, I've been in the restaurant business for so many years. How do I, how do I even start this? But I was guided again, the same way I was guided to the trail that just keep working through things. What I knew was I wanted to share this and I wanted to give people the ability to either discover nature or talk about what nature's meant to them. And so several years later, I finally said, I understand what this is. This is mission work. This is my passion. This is my calling. And it makes sense that this is a nonprofit, what I want to do. And so I started developing the nonprofit. And what I decided was I wanted to create something where people could tell their stories and how nature benefited their mental health. Give people a platform. to tell those stories where I could open up by starting it off by telling my story, by inspiring people to maybe find nature. or more importantly, and I always use quotations here, to find their hike. I wasn't telling people that they should all go hike 2,000 miles. What I was telling people was try to take a step into nature in any way you see fit and discover what your hike is. And I really love to talk about a day back when I was living in Massachusetts. I don't live far from Walden Pond where Thoreau lived, where Thoreau wrote his books and where Thoreau lived on his own. And I spend a lot of time out there, whether when I was living in Boston, but even if I visit, I always make a point to go out for a few days, go for a trail run, really take it all in. And I had this day where I came back and I visited and I went for a trail run and I was out on the trail. And I saw a couple people hiking, and I saw a person horseback riding. I saw a person who had a small easel painting nature scenery. Saw a photographer. When I got close to Walden Pond, I saw two older people just sit, this is the fall, just sitting in beach chairs, not even talking, just looking out. And I remember thinking to myself, dang it. Look at all these people in their hikes. This is their hikes. They're connected to nature. This is what gives them something that they need to probably take a break from anything else that's going on in their life. I like to call it chaos. Chaos can come in a lot of ways. We can all get trapped in our own chaos. a lot of times people are afraid to take a step out of it, right? They're like, even though it's not great for them or great for their mental health, they're still more afraid to try to take a step away from what their routine is, which we all know when you're in your own chaos, things that are operating in your mind can seem almost like an argument with yourself. And what I always try to stress to people is if you take yourself out of there and you find your way to nature, Just take that time to have that same argument that you may have been having in your chaos and see how it can turn into a conversation. the yelling can kind of come down to a calm place. And if you take that a step further, maybe that argument turns into something where you start working it out. You start finding a middle ground that works for you and that voice in your head. And when you can realize that and you can do that for yourself, Sky's the limit. You found this ability. We were saying earlier about nature. I think what the beauty is with nature as a therapy is you don't need a therapist to prescribe it to you. It's free. It's free. You can prescribe it to yourself. And as a therapy, it's there. It's there. And so that's kind of what My vision has always been with Hike the Good Hike is to establish a place where people can share those stories of how they've kind of stepped out of their chaos and turned things that have been a real struggle for them mentally. And they've been able to find a way to kind of work on that, to turn it around and make it better for themselves.

Adrienne Youdim

So you've created this nonprofit called the Hike the Good Hike, giving people the opportunity to find meaningful connection with nature. And, and, you know, I love this. I love when science backs up things that I know to be true, or I know to feel good. And I started hiking several years ago and experienced that feeling firsthand. And then to go back and learn that there's actually, you know, these physiologic benefits and it helps reduce your blood pressure and your heart rate, just merely being in nature, smelling nature, hearing nature sounds. I mean, there's so much beautiful data there, but you show people this firsthand. And I'm curious if you would share a story, particularly maybe for, with men because you touched on this earlier. I think we're more open certainly to talking about mental health issues in general, and that includes men, but I think there's still this barrier for men and particularly for successful men who perhaps the very things that made them successful were their type A personalities, being hard on themselves, perfectionism, And of course, I can attest to the fact that this is not a man thing. This is a human thing. But speak to that a little bit, and maybe share a story of someone who perhaps was not initially built to be open to this sort of thing. Can you describe an evolution that you've witnessed?

Jesse Cody

And so- Oh boy. We could do four more podcasts.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.

Jesse Cody

Well, you're very much correct. I mean, obviously I'm here for everybody that's struggling with mental health, but I do take a particular interest in men, all right? Because we are conditioned to think that we have to be strong. We have to be tough. If we're part of a family, we have to be there for our significant other. We have to show our children. It's a constant barrage of how we're supposed to be as a man. And it's hard not to listen to that. It's hard not to have those seeds that are planted fight against trying to be more sensitive and open. I do this event every year in Big Bear, California called Highland Adventure. And so it's a five-day hiking event. It's like 200 people, men and women. And I always give a talk on one of the nights at camp. I give a talk to everybody. And last year, I gave one of my talks. And as we're doing now, I openly talk about the struggles that I had. And I openly talk now about being very in touch with my sensitive side, my feminine side, like how that's important to me, how it's been important to my growth and my understanding of self. And I had this, when I finished the talk, I had this moment where this gentleman came up to me and This guy is very well known at these events. He shows up. He's a personal trainer back home. He's got a wife. He was just having a baby. And he's just like this tough, outgoing, boisterous man, right? And so he asked if he could have a few moments with me. And I said, absolutely. And we went to the side. And he just broke down. And he just started crying. And he started opening up to me and he started telling me things and the things he was telling me, he said, I've never said this to anybody. I've never even said this to my wife. And you've made me realize it's time for me to talk. And that in itself, you know, that's one moment that, you know, I've had many moments like that, but that one really stood out to me because you know, the things that I'm trying to put out to the world, you just want people to listen and maybe react. And for a man to do so, a man who I, you know, who I've witnessed and him as the person he is, to see him feel those emotions and to be able to kind of say things out loud and think, I'm now going to take the steps to share these things with my wife. Pretty amazing. I also had this moment. I was hiking in 2023 on the Continental Divide Trail and I was in Wyoming and I got off trail into this tiny little town, middle of nowhere, Wyoming, pouring rain out. I was so glad to finally get to a little motel, take a hot shower. And when I was done doing so, I went across the street to the only little pub in town to get a burger and a beer. And so I sit at the bar and there's this raggedy old guy sitting next to me. He's not old, but he just looks that way. And he's a young guy. And he looks at me and he goes, hey, I saw you over in the motel lobby. Are you hiking the Continental Divide Trail? And I said, yeah. He goes, man, you guys are crazy. I don't, I can't believe you people do that. You walk from, the trail is a walk from Canada to Mexico. And I'm like, well, and I look at him and I go, well, you look like I do. You look like you're out there. And he goes, no, no, no. He goes, I'm, I'm, I'm mountain biking from, from Alaska to Mexico city.

Adrienne Youdim

Wow.

Jesse Cody

I go, oh, okay. I guess he goes, but I have, he goes, I have, he goes, I have wheels. And so a sentence or two later, he just stops and he looks at me and he goes, you're Hike the Good Hike. You're Jesse, you're the guy from Hike the Good Hike. And I said, wow, man, I'm in the middle of nowhere in Montana. That's incredible that you even know who I am. And he said, you know, a few years back, I got out of the service. I did eight years in the service and I came out with severe PTSD and I didn't know what to do. I get emotional, sorry.

Adrienne Youdim

I mean, I have pills and every hair on my body is sick. And so I get it.

Jesse Cody

Yeah. And he said, uh, one day he was on Instagram scrolling and he came across my hike, the good hike, uh, profile. And he said, he started diving in and started listening to some of the things I was talking about. And he said, you're one of the main reasons I'm out here on this bike because I found something that's helping me deal with PTSD. And so you talk about men and men that feel like they have to be a certain way and that they can't face their demons. And more importantly, that they can't open up and talk about those demons. That's just two of many interactions I've had with men that have come across me. And I always make a point to say that I'm honored to play even the smallest part of inspiration in a man's life. But when they talk to me and they tell me their stories, it inspires me to continue to do what I'm doing.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah. Incredible and absolutely beautiful. And again, so universal and relatable. because through your story as a East Coast restaurateur and this, I'm envisioning this buff hunk of a personal trainer and a man who completed the service with PTSD. It just speaks to, again, the fact that this is such a, it's a human condition and you are offering through nature a solution to that. a turmoil and struggle that is applicable to every single one of our listeners, male, female, mental health diagnosis or not as an opportunity. So I wanna ask you for somebody who is not inclined or has not been engaged with nature and maybe doesn't know where or how to start, what would be your advice?

Jesse Cody

You know, one of the cool things is that there's so many opportunities to step into nature. And if it's something that you're like, I don't know if I'm comfortable doing that alone. I mean, whether you could Google, you could look at community pages, you could look at Facebook community pages and outdoor pages, and there are people who gather together. and get out there and do it. And you're not required to do anything other than maybe take a walk, go for a bike ride, sit by a pond, you know, there are painting lessons in nature. There's so many different opportunities that if someone was like, okay, I don't know if this is for me, but... I'd like to see if it is that, honestly, if you just get on a computer and Google where to start and what kind of community or groups are out there to start with, you're not required to do anything other than to show up and say, hello, introduce yourself and walk along. You don't have to tell your story. It just gives you an opportunity to step out there. You might be more comfortable doing so with people. And so there that's one way I always say, you know, it's it's great to join community I used to think coming off these trails that like big hiking events wouldn't be for me. I like the seclusion I like that but you know talking about Highlander being part of 200 people I thought oh man, this is gonna be I don't know if this is for me and then being part of it just being part of these people and like that this is a great example of what I'm what I'm talking about is like get to just listen to people tell their stories or you know in the sense of a of a grueling hike you get to experience that together and support one another and kind of lift each other up and help. I've seen people carry other people's backpacks because they're struggling. Community is important and so if you're if you're not comfortable taking on something because it's not something you've done just look into maybe joining a group somewhere. But if you are comfortable, then it's as easy as, you know, if you're not super close to nature, we're all somewhat. Everybody is within a half an hour of getting out of the city. Jump in your car. You know, I think a lot of people in their life at one point or another had done something that engaged nature, right? Whether it's summer camp, whatever the case may be. And so I always say, like, think back to those moments and maybe, you know, just do something that mimics that in a small way. Just see how you fail. Just get out there and see how you fail. Pay attention. That's the one thing I think is always important. Pay attention to where your mind's at. And just notice the differences between being at home in a major city compared to being outside of the city, a place that's a more peaceful. Smell your surroundings. Let that really kind of seep into your soul. There's nothing better for me than the smell and the sounds of nature. I love to take moments of lying on a blanket or sitting on the side of a trail and really just embracing it. I was just in Florida. I hiked for six days. Half of that was in the swamps, cypress swamps. I'm in knee deep water. And there are moments of that, like once I could get out of the water, I'm like, there's nothing like this. This is wild. See the birds, like it just, it calms everything inside and outside of you.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah. I, I like what I'm hearing it and it takes us back to the initial point you made on the trail of just showing up. There's so many different entry points solo communal painting hiking right but just being open to showing up. And the second point of just presence. Once you do show up, allowing yourself to experience and to take it all in with with all of your senses. As you were talking, it makes me think of a run that I do frequently in my own neighborhood. It's just a three-mile run around a country club. But on the back end, there's eucalyptus trees. And invariably, I'm always fighting with myself and trying to solve the world's problems. But invariably, that smell just seeps in. And it kind of just stops me in my tracks. It halts my thoughts. And it's not even intentional, you know, it's something, the presence of nature, it almost forces itself upon you. And that is an experience, I think, to be had for people who haven't experienced it before.

Jesse Cody

I like to say that and people you don't even realize it until you do that in a way it's a sense of meditation. It's very similar to meditation.

Adrienne Youdim

Absolutely right.

Jesse Cody

Because if you're not going out there saying I'm going to use this as meditation you just go out there. it really feeds a lot of the same things of making the effort to do silent meditation. You come out of that and I noticed like, because I do some meditation in Santa Fe in the desert and it's like, man, there's so many similarities and you're doing that. If someone's like, oh, I'm not into meditation, you come out of that, like spending some time in nature and you're like, well, you kind of are.

Adrienne Youdim

Yeah, it is a contemplative practice. I agree with you. This has been so good, Jesse.

Jesse Cody

 I loved it.

Adrienne Youdim

Thank you for sharing your insights, your story, your emotion, your intention. You really have moved me in this conversation. And I know that many of our listeners will agree. Can you tell us how they can find you if they want to connect further?

Jesse Cody

Absolutely. Not too hard. You know, the social media, we're at hike the good hike. If you want to reach out to me directly, you can go jesse at hike the good hike dot org. And I'm always available. I try to make sure that I respond to anybody that reaches out, whether it's through social media or direct email. I'm in the line of work of being there for people and growing community. So it's I take it upon myself to make sure I'm doing so if someone's looking for that.

Adrienne Youdim

Wonderful. So hike the good hike on social media and website. And I'm looking at your hat right now that says hike the good hike. And I'm wondering how I can get my hands on one of those.

Jesse Cody

Well, we're about to re-release to shop. So I'll personally get out. But it should be about a week or so. We're going to have about four hats back up for sale. You buy a hat, it doesn't go to me. It goes to Hike the Good Hike. Everything that I do, I make sure benefits the nonprofit because we want to grow and we want to inspire. And however I can do so, even if it's selling a hat, I'm going to do so.

Adrienne Youdim

Beautiful. Thanks so much again, Jesse, for being with me, for sharing your story. And yeah.

Jesse Cody

Thank you, my friend. Always good to see you.

Adrienne Youdim

Likewise.