Overcome - A Mental Health Podcast

Healing Through Music: Daniel Rinaldi’s Path from Touring Musician to Therapist

• Travis White | Mental Health Advocate • Episode 46

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In this powerful episode of Overcome – A Mental Health Podcast, host Travis White sits down with Daniel Rinaldi, a licensed mental health counselor, former touring musician, and therapeutic coach who bridges the gap between music and mental health.

Daniel opens up about his personal journey from life on the road with Bedlight for Blue Eyes to finding new purpose as a therapist for artists, musicians, and creatives. He shares how his emo-culture roots and experiences with anxiety, burnout, and identity loss shaped his approach to therapy — helping others manage creative burnout, touring exhaustion, and the emotional highs and lows of performing.

Together, Travis and Daniel explore how music can heal, why communication is key for healthy band dynamics, and what it means to “feel deeply and heal deeply.”

What We Discuss

  • Life after the tour: rediscovering identity and purpose
  • Managing panic attacks on stage and post-tour depression
  • The connection between emo culture and emotional awareness
  • Building emotional intelligence and communication among musicians
  • How to turn creative struggle into personal healing
  • The stigma around men’s mental health and breaking through it

Learn More About Daniel

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Hello and welcome to Overcome a Mental Health Podcast. I'm your host Travis White. This is a place where you can share your mental health stories. I'm very excited about tonight's guest. I'm speaking with Daniel Rinaldi. I should have asked you that before we started the podcast, so I apologize. Did I totally butcher it? Rinaldi, okay, I was close. Daniel is a licensed mental health counselor. Therapeutic coach and a former touring musician who spent years living the highs and lows of life on the road Welcome to the show Daniel Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it. Well, it's a pleasure. And without wasting any time, I'd love to just turn the microphone over to you to have us tell us about your journey. Yeah, so if we go off of your intro, I spent years as a touring musician, lead singer of a band called Bed Light for Blue Eyes. I joined that band when I was 18 years old back in 2006. I'm gonna age myself right now and give the age away. So my journey kind of starts there. And I was in that band for maybe five years, six years, touring all over the country, releasing albums, and really getting to know who I was and what the world was. You know, we were talking a little bit before we started to record about, you know, were there mental health struggles and things in that band for myself? And, you know, absolutely. definitely anxiety. And as the band went on and as we kind of moved towards the end of our time together as a band, there were definitely like signs of depression after that, you know, because you go from, you know, kind of living that dream that that boyhood dream that I had of doing something in singing, I was always I always loved singing, I always loved performing and I was getting to do that. every single day. And then that comes to an end and you're like, what's next? And what do I do now? So after that, I dabbled a little bit in different, um in other avenues of the music industry, whether it was songwriting, know, kind of doing the audition route for like American Idol, The Voice, things like that. And then not really knowing what I wanted to do and getting, you know, kind of urged by my family and my girlfriend, fiance, now wife, to kind of go back to school. And school is something that was never easy for me, never came easy. you know, obviously I dropped out my freshman year to join Bed Light. So it wasn't something that I ever thought I was going to do again. And at that time, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I dabbled in thinking about becoming a teacher. And then I was like, maybe I'll get my bachelor's in psychology. So I went and got my bachelor's in psychology. I was working full time, going to school at night, and then doing all the supplemental online courses that I could. And then I ended up getting my bachelor's and it was kind of like the what's next. And that's when the thought of becoming a therapist came in. And it's kind of a full circle moment because becoming a therapist had a lot to do with my time in bed light. And what I mean when I say that is when I was kind of trying to fill this void as a person, as we all do, we're trying to discover the things that we want to do. I was like, what was it about the music industry, bed light, my time out on the road? What was it that I loved so much? Because I love singing, that's obvious, and performing is great, but what did I love the most? And what it boiled down to is I loved connecting with human beings. I loved hearing their stories, becoming curious about their stories, and just having a genuine interest for the people that I was. meeting and sitting across from and I was like, what out there offers that? And that's where I was like, becoming a therapist, you get to sit across from somebody, you learn, you get to learn so much about their story. And you also have the privilege of getting to kind of sit beside them in that story. And I was at that moment, I was like, that's what I want to do. That's what I need to do. And Lo and behold, got my masters in clinical mental health and then got my licensure and became a licensed therapist in the state of Massachusetts. really cool and you have a different approach so you really like align your way of doing therapy and that type of stuff with the emo culture how did that come about So again, I think it's like an identity struggle that we all somehow go through throughout life is like trying to find, you know, we have our jobs and when we do these things and we try and find that purpose within the job that kind of gets us out of bed and gets us excited to do it. Because at the end of the day, although therapy is, you know, this this kind of sacred-ish thing that people do with each other, it's also a nine to five job. And that's what people forget sometimes, and it could very much feel that way. And that's what I was starting to feel, and I was getting very burnt out doing it the way that your graduate course teachers tell you that you're supposed to do it. So... I just kind of started thinking about like, what, what could I do to make this interesting? And a lot of it in the beginning, a lot of it was relating it back to kind of like the emo culture. And for a bit, it was like, you know, kind of like thinking of funny memes and funny ways to kind of integrate it and kind of just get people, you know, who are like me, you know, from the emo culture and, you know, struggled through the MySpace era. And, you know, they probably feel just like me. So how can I get them into the therapy room? And that, you know, fast forward, that kind of turned into even spinning it even more and kind of carving out a niche for myself with like specifically artists and touring crews. But yeah, like a lot of my stuff is based in like, you know, music, as you can see, like in the background, it's like, it looks like a hot topic behind me. But that's on purpose, right? Like that's, that's completely on purpose because I'm not a person who sits behind a big oak desk with all of my degrees on the wall to kind of show people what I've done. It's just more of like, this is kind of an expression of me and I want people to feel that they're sitting across from a human. I think that's awesome. think it's a really good expression of you from what you've told me so far. And it was like really like shows who you are because I have a degree in it. I don't care to hang it up anywhere either. And like to me, it doesn't mean that much. Like it's not who I am. Yeah, and and at the end of the day a lot of times when when people are struggling They don't necessarily care where the heck you went to school or how when you went to school it's can you can you sit with me in this and To me that's the most important part of it is is no matter what paper is on the wall your your Want and curiosity to sit there with them is equally, if not sometimes more important than a piece of paper in a frame. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And I just thought of something that I'm just, it's just me being curious. What's it like to adjust from like, you know, think back to touring life and when you're actually out there touring and then you come back and you know, you're done with the tour and everything. And it's just like, is it like a lonely feeling? Like, cause it's like you're on the road with all these people having the social life and playing on stage. Go into a little bit about that. Yeah, it really is like an identity shift, right? Because when you're on the road, like you said, you're around, you know, if you're in a band, you're around four to five to six, you know, depending on however many people you have in your band, you're around them 24 seven, you know, you're literally right next to that person and you're around fans and you're around crew and you're around all these things and your life is just constantly in motion. Right? Like whether it be your riding to the next venue, you're in the venue loading in, there's not really a place to stop. So it becomes, you know, this, this hustle, you know, this kind of hustle out there. And then when you get home, it's an identity shift because now the motion stops and you don't have the set schedule. You don't have the obligate, you know, the, the, sorry, like obligations that you had on tour. and you kind of have to switch gears. And a lot of times that's hard. It's hard to be in so much motion and then come home and not have that and not have the people around all the time. It could almost feel like you're kind of out on an island and can feel very isolating at times, especially if maybe you don't have a partner, right? Like maybe you don't have kids. Maybe you're fairly young in this and... you live with your parents and they're not around. So the silence can definitely take over quite a bit. And that's something I work on a lot with my current clients is how to, what's that end of tour protocol that you can kind of follow to kind of break it down so that when you come home, you're able to regroup and recharge and not just crash after a tour. Aftertour crash is a very real thing. Yeah, it's, yeah, that's really cool that you do that to help touring musicians like overcome that. Mm-hmm. But with your background, know, pretty much in arts and music, how do those creative roots show up in your therapy sessions? So a lot of times it's, you know, now it's the ability to be able to understand the client and have the client not have to worry about explaining a whole lot. One of the biggest things that when I talk to clients in the arts, on the creative side is when they go to, you know, kind of I'll say traditional therapists, but you know, just a therapist who's never been in the industry. It's very hard for them to find and relate to them and kind of like, you know, have it be like, tours fun, isn't it? It's a vacation. It's so wonderful. You get to travel the country, the world. my goodness. And, you know, they're, they're begging for someone to go, no, no, no, please understand that this isn't what that is. Like we're missing birthdays. We're missing funerals. We're missing all these different things and sometimes, although you could be on the biggest tour of your life, it could be the most miserable experience you've ever had. So that's one way that the creative arts side helps is the complete understanding when working with someone in the creative fields. Another way is just kind of taking traditional methods, such as journaling and things like that and flipping them to kind of be like, you know, to kind of utilize song lyrics or songs to help um kind of explain things. You know, sometimes we can't find the words ourselves, but we know how we feel when we listen to that one song, right? I'm sure maybe you've had that feeling. Everyone's had that feeling where, that's how I'm feeling. my goodness, I'm so glad someone's able to say that, but you... maybe we're never able to express it that way. So a lot of times it's kind of like, you know, whether it be, you know, identifying your own emotions or also finding a way to communicate when you don't necessarily know how to communicate, right? Working through communication issues with a partner or with a family member by saying, hey, I don't necessarily know in my own words how to say this, but this really portrays what I want to say to you, can you please listen to it? And helping a client come up with that script and come up with that process to kind of do those things. And sometimes it could help them reconnect in a way that they never thought maybe was available to them. That's really cool. I love that tailored approach that you use to just bring basically music back into it. And it's just like, yeah, I've totally felt that way before and resonated with multiple songs. And I remember especially like probably my teenage years when I actually started getting into music and some of those songs now I'm 39. Mm-hmm. I still play those albums and songs like back to back all the time. Right, yeah. So that's really cool, I love that. So what are some of your other like therapeutic approaches like, do you have any other like or tailored approach that you use that kind of goes along those lines? You know, I definitely pull from a lot of what most people pull from, right? CBT, DBT, ACT, you know, all of the favorites, you know, that if you talk to a million therapists, they're probably going to mention those letters over and over again, right? You know, and I think with what I try and do is I try and take the jargon out of it. Right? I try and take, you know, the clinical side out of it, you know, so that a client can really resonate with it and deal with it in a way that doesn't feel like stuffy and like you're reading from a book. which even when I've done my own therapy, that sometimes is a hangup for me when I'm like, you kind of sound like you're reading from a textbook and I don't like, that's not something I want to do. You know, so a lot of times with, you know, with my process and what I do with, with clients and my clients now is really just a lot of it has been tailoring it to what they need on tour and off tour and finding ways to create, you know, schedules that they can, you know, follow when they're on tour as for self care routines. and mindfulness that's based in... Sometimes when a musician, you have to be creative because they don't want to... It's kind of like asking a plumber to do work in his own home, right? They don't necessarily want to do that. So sometimes you have to switch it up with a musician and music isn't always the one that calms them down. that sort of like picks them up. So finding those little things that will work. on tour that will work in eight minutes before they get on stage, that will work in a crowded green room, that will work on a bus, kind of just adapting your typical things that you would work with with any other client, but adapting them into these situations that are a little bit different, that are in motion all the time. How do you get someone who's, you know, you know, tour crews, right? Someone who's working a 16 hour day, how do you get them to slip out for a few and take a breather, right? We have to get creative and we have to find ways that they can, you know, change their inner dialogue, right? Like inner dialogue work or inner critic work is another one, you know, kind of changing the way that we all talk to ourselves. And how do we do that when we're working a 16 hour day, hanging up lights on a stage? So a lot of this stuff is like, you know, just finding really interesting ways of adapting it to these busy lives. Can you think of like one example that you think this was like just completely outside the box that you would think in a normal situation like this would never happen to another person? So I've had, you know, I've had ones where it's full blown panic attack on stage, like in the middle of a performance, not for me, the client. And not that I haven't had my own moments on stage, you know, and obviously that's, I feel like, you know, maybe worst case scenario, right? Panic attack. middle of stage, full crowd. And what we were able to work on was number one, a safe word so that everyone else on stage kind of knows that they have to pick up the slack while this person is able to kind of ground themselves. And what this person had was a, yeah, it was like a laminated. sort of thing, but it had three grounding techniques on it that were taped right at the kick drum. So they were able to turn around, kind of look like they were kind of going for their water, but while they're doing that, they're doing box breathing. And while they're doing that, they're visualizing the rest of the set. Visualization is a big thing, right? We're kind of like, preloading our nervous system in that way. And this is kind of like, how do we ground you and how do we reset in the moment so that you're able to know that you're fine and know that you can, when you turn around, you're gonna be back in that space to perform for however many hundred thousand people that are out there. So like, that's something that... comes to mind that's like, doesn't normally happen for people, right? Like it's like, I mean, and maybe it, maybe it does, right? Maybe in a boardroom where you're presenting something that could happen. Maybe you're, you're at a conference and that could happen. But this specifically was, you know, this client was having panic attacks on stage and we had to figure out ways to be able to perform. Yeah, I think it's really cool that the niche that you're in with being a therapist, you get to be really creative in how you approach things. Yeah, and it's been, it's really helped me kind of reignite, you know, certain passions within me, not only for and not only as a someone who works in mental health, but also as a musician and just being back in that space with these people and helping being on the other side of it now and helping musicians and crew and, and, you know, When I say crew, it's the person selling merch down to the person taping on the stage to the person loading out afterwards. it's really cool to find these unique ways to help these people. And it's really given me this big self-worth purpose boost for sure. all I can only imagine. And it's crazy to me that sometimes in life, we need, I'm thinking back to the person on stage and starting that panic attack and all he needs is that little reminder to, it's like if you, we just have that little thing each day or when we're feeling these situations come on, how quick and easy it is to actually reboot ourselves. Yeah, I always tell people, you know, it's we don't have to climb the mountain every day. As long as we just put one foot in front of the other, we can make something happen, right? We don't need to take that big leap, take that big jump. It could just be that little bit of progress each time we, you know, we do something that ends up leading to something, you know, it ends up leading to that mountain eventually. but we don't have to always think that like every day I'm jumping over that mountain. It's like, no, no, no, pump the brakes. Like it is okay to move slowly through this. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, there's days for me where it seems like I take two steps forward and five steps back, but in the end, sometimes it's progress is progress. But think about it this way, you still took the two steps, right? And that just because you took the steps back doesn't negate the two steps you took forward, right? So that's like, that's the mind, you know, helping people reframe and helping people shift their mindset to like, you know, even though these things happened, I still was able to do this or I still did this, or it doesn't take away the thing that I did yesterday or this morning. So that's a great way of putting it. What emotional intelligence skill tends to be the most overlooked in your experience? If we're talking in the music business, everything is overlooked in the music business. There's no... you know, there is no playbook for the music industry and emotional intelligence and mental health. you know, even if you see the bit, you know, the the headlines that, this person, you know, hired this mental health company and, you know, they're there, they want to have their finger on the pulse of it. A lot of times it's not what you think it is. You know, I think You know, one thing, one thing that that lacks a lot is functional and functional communication is one of the things that will rip a crew apart, will rip a tour apart, will rip bands apart, is not having the the ability to communicate in ways that are appropriate and ways that don't. That don't, you know. I don't want to say offend, but like that don't tear the other person down and blame the other person. So teaching like how to functionally communicate is something that's like extremely missing within the, what I'm seeing in the landscape of, of the niche that I'm in. I'm actually glad that you brought that up because I've seen that time and time again with like my favorite bands. I was a... I used to dress, you know, as a little emo kid where the... back in the day where it was the girl pants straightening your hair before they made actually tight jeans for dudes. Yeah, so... but that's one thing that I've seen rip bands apart is exactly what you said is the lack of communication. Yeah, and a lot of times it, you know, when we boil it down, it stems from years of not seeing, you know, maybe growing up in a household where communication wasn't important, or the communication wasn't done in a way that was appropriate. And then it never kind of being worked on and then, you know, the person bringing it back into their life later on, and then it kind of branching out. into other facets of their life. So it's definitely one of those things where, you know, if you could get a band or anyone openly communicating and have them feel safe while doing it, have them feel like they're not going to you know, looked at in a certain way, there's not going to be a grudge that's going to be held after, there's not going to be all this like, you know, kind of after fighting once they kind of are able to say what they need to say, oftentimes that is gonna do wonders for most people, not just bands, but couples, whatever it might be. Yeah. Being on the road, I'd imagine it'd be tough to... I'm trying to think of how to word it. Tough with like bad mates and crew to keep those relationships healthy because you're working so closely together like all the time. could imagine it's almost like fighting with a sibling sometimes or having that sibling relationship. What do you... What can people do to keep that? on the road relationship with Bambates and crew healthy. I think when I think about working with crews in band, it's kind of, always making sure you're checking in with each other, Making sure you know and they know how you're showing up mentally and emotionally. That way you feel like you're entering these spaces together. you know, as a team and as people who kind of know each other. Another thing is kind of like, how do you bridge the gap? How do you bridge the roles, right? What's one thing that you wish people understood about your role and what you do? Or what's the hardest part of keeping yourself well on this tour and sharing that with each other so that you can bridge the gap and understand that like Oftentimes you're probably dealing with a lot of the same stuff. You're just not voicing it and not knowing that you have somebody who feels pretty much exactly the way you do. And then I think it's, you know, finding, finding common ground. You know, what do we share? Do we share poor sleep? Do we share, you know, performance pressure? Do we share depression, like what are the things that we kind of can find, you we can build common ground on, right? And I think that's, those are the things I think that are helpful on the road when having crews and bands and groups of people together. I love it. You're just giving me a sense of, you know, things that I used to dream of being in a... I think this might be a dream of every emo kid is being in a rock band and being on stage. So I had friends that were in bands for a while. None of them really made it that big. So I got to go to a bunch of local shows. So I always dreamed of, you know, starting a band myself. Obviously it didn't happen. But so you're giving me a taste of something that... I've always been curious about, so thank you. But one of the things I really liked on your site, on your website as I was browsing through it was, use the words, it fill, was it fill deeply? And for some reason I really love that. And I thought of a question that goes kind of with that. How do you translate high intensity emotional experiences, like filling everything deeply? into something that's manageable and healing. So, you know, for me, I think it's about breaking it down and really going piece by piece and not looking, not dealing with overwhelm with overwhelm, right? Like oftentimes it's like, oh, I have all these big, big things. Okay, let's talk about all of it. You know, like let's dive in, let's do all this. And I think a lot of times it's like, where do we start? And how do we find the starting point? And how do we find the starting point that's comfortable for the person? Right? One of the biggest things that's missed is the starting point that the person across from you wants. And I'll say that again. It is the person that sits across from you session. It is the person that sits across from you's emotions. Right? So it's their space to find the starting point. not the starting point that you as someone who's working with them wants to find. Because then it becomes my session, not your session. So one of the biggest things is breaking it down into the chunks that are manageable for that person and showing and giving them a space where they know that they can un... you know, kind of put these things out there and kind of poke holes all over the place. Like I always say, it's like, you know, we're kind of like sitting in the, you know, we're sitting in the trenches together, right? And it's, and a lot of what we do is just kind of poking little holes and finding the light that comes in each time. And then eventually we're able to go, okay, cool. But we'll never gonna, we're never gonna get there if we just try and like punch through. We have to strategically do it. So I think a lot of it is when you're dealing with high intensity and high emotions, how can you slow it down and show the person that it's okay to slow down and that they actually can, it's actually achievable to slow down. Yeah, I had to learn that myself. When I started going to therapy, I've been focusing a lot on myself the last year. And when I started going to therapy, it's like, want to throw everything out there. And my therapist is like, whoa, you need to back off a little bit. that's not how we're going to do this. Not how we're going do this. He's like, it's chunks at a time. Yeah, that's one of the biggest things is slowing down, right? In therapy anywhere, there is no magic wand. And no matter how much you throw or how little you throw, it's not going to be something where it's healed or done in a day. It's one of those things where you want to just take your time with it and go on a journey with it as opposed to a million short trips. very well put. And while you're dealing with all the emotions of somebody else, especially your clients, how do you stay grounded yourself? Um, so I am lucky enough to be able to work from home. So that's one thing where it's, you know, in between sessions, I'm able to talk to my wife, see my daughter. that is one of the biggest ways that I'll ever have, that I'll ever have to ground myself is being able to come out of where I'm working and play to Polly Pocket or Barbies, you know, and it really puts things in perspective, right? Early on in my career, you know, it was a lot of just like gritting my teeth and then, you know, doing things to distract yourself as you get through more of it and you realize that, you know, you can you can hold space for somebody, but you can also move away from that, it's kind of like a life-changing thing. And that comes with being in touch with yourself, being in touch with what your purpose is and what the things that you like. A lot of times we forget that we're allowed to have hobbies and things that we like to do. it's like, I'll always suggest to any therapist or anyone really, it's like, go be curious about something. and go immerse yourself in that thing so that you're able to turn that switch off when you want to and go and do those things that put a smile on your face. I love it. I know I use I love it all the time, but I this is great. So it's just nice to hear different perspectives and stuff from all these people that I talked to. It's awesome. So if somebody comes up to you feeling creatively stuck or emotionally overwhelmed, what do you usually start with? Creatively stuck is one of my favorites because I love other people's dreams. It's like one of my favorite things is when someone is maybe creatively stuck or doesn't know the next step or doesn't have even the creative endeavor there yet and they're kind of just trying to pull from somewhere. One of my biggest approaches there is kind of What are you curious about? What's something that you're curious about? The biggest thing about curiosity is curiosity then leads to hope and hope leads to taking you out of that creative rut to where now you have something to work towards. So I always ask like, what are you curious about? What's something that makes you feel? What's something that you want to ask questions about? And that might be, well, I really would love to... you know, I was doing this and now I want to be a chef. Okay, let's get curious about that. Let's ask the questions about that. So that's what I'd like to do for the creative stuff. What was the second part? Now I, emotionally overwhelmed is what it was. Yeah, again, emotionally overwhelmed, I think comes back to, you know, breaking it down, right? Like, slowing it down. Like we can't move the mountain right now. But what actionable steps can we take to start on that trek? And I think that's the biggest thing is like you have to slow it down. and you have to find the little actionable moments that you can take that are going to be more attainable than feeding into the overwhelm. Yes, for sure. And how do you, if somebody, you know, if you're, think of a new client, how do you start breaking that stuff down? What does that first session look like? So a lot of my first sessions are always, you know, I love to hear why now. You know, what's the why now? Why choosing, why are you choosing mental therapy now? And a lot of the first session is giving someone the space to just tell their story, because sometimes it's the first time they've ever said it. Sometimes it's the first time they've ever said it to someone who they don't even know. So kind of giving them that space to say like, here, here's a place where you can either say this for the first time or maybe you're saying it for the hundredth time, but now you actually have someone who's listening to it. To where maybe you were talking to a significant other who's never listened, your parents, your teacher, whoever it might be, you have someone here now who's gonna listen to you. And then I always offer up, the end of the first session a chance to ask any sort of questions they might have, good, bad, or ugly, about therapy, about me, about anything, so that they can feel comfortable, they can feel that they have enough information about me to know that I might be a right fit for them. Yeah, and I like, I want to emphasize on that because I think it's very important to find the right fit as far as therapy goes. Yeah, therapist shop. always tell people to therapist shop. never expect someone to come into a first meeting with me and automatically think that there's a second one. I always give them the option to say, hey, listen, I understand this is our first meeting. want you to, if you need to take the time, get off the video, talk to who you want to talk to. marinate in what we talked about, and then let me know the next day if you'd like to book again. And I always emphasize too, like, listen, if I'm not the right fit, that is okay. You're not going to hurt my feelings. But if you want to let me know, I will help you find five more people that you can try out. Because it is hard to find the right fit sometimes. And it's hard to find where to look sometimes too. So I think, you know, that's really for me what the first session is about is giving them that safe space and giving them a chance to ask any questions they might have about the therapeutic process, me, my background. And oftentimes people don't take you up on it, but sometimes there's that rare occasion where they kind of want to know a little bit about you. Yeah, it's awesome. Have you ever ran into coming from the opposite side of it where you're the therapist, have you ever ran into a situation where you don't feel good about the client and you're like, this isn't going to happen going forward. We're only going to meet once. So yes, in a sense of so maybe it's it's not so much didn't feel I didn't necessarily feel my values or what I am about aligned with what they needed. Right. And that goes, you know, it's a lot of people's, you know, the old thought is you're a therapist. You take whoever is in front of you, who's ever willing to pay you no matter what. Um, it's 2025 therapy is political therapy is, you know, should have a point where we say, no, I'm, I'm not willing to sit through that because I also am a person and I have to, you know, and I'm saying that from the, from the frame of, know, if you're sitting across from someone who is a racist, right? that might not be the, you might not be the right person for them. And that's okay, move on because you're not going to be able to give them what they need. And that's okay. And I've done that a bunch of times with different types of clients that were looking for different types of things or were things that I felt uncomfortable with or things that I just wasn't necessarily well versed in. Right? It wasn't necessarily that I couldn't see them, but I'd be doing them a disservice because maybe I wasn't, I would have to do extra research into certain things. And I would rather than have someone who just was able to kind of give them that space that they needed and not like, okay, pause on that. Let me write that down. I need to take a look at what that is or have them explain something that they shouldn't have to explain to somebody. So yeah, and I think that happens all the time, especially nowadays. Like you're not going to see too many female identifying therapists take like a toxic male misogynist client. Yeah, that all makes sense. I was just curious of how like, you know, the other end of that spectrum there. Yeah, I always try and lead with like, here's some other referral sources just so that I feel like I'm not leaving them with nothing. you're still trying to push them towards success. Yeah. m only with the ones where I'm talking about where maybe I'm not as well versed in what they're looking for. The ones that fall under more of a challenging space with like ethics, values, morals, they just get a nice polite email. Yeah, that makes sense, complete sense. Just have one more question and a few follow up questions here. Can you describe a time when using a medium like music or maybe visual arts significantly shifted your client's experience or insight? I think about times, know, if I, going back to when I was talking about. people not necessarily being able to communicate and then finding songs or lyrics that they are able to communicate through. I can specifically remember a client very early on who was really, really struggling with communicating with their parents and having a really, really hard time in their house and feeling unsafe there. feeling like no one understood them, no one will ever get it. And we started to really, you we would listen to songs in session. We would listen to songs that spoke to them throughout their day. And we'd pick out, it was almost like piecing together, you know, a letter to the people that they wanted to talk to. And I watched, you know, this person really transform their... their ability to communicate, their ability to have a relationship with the people around them because they started to understand what they were feeling through those things because they can understand what those words meant. And we talk about like, this sounds like sadness. This is what sadness is. Do you feel sad? And kind of just watching them. kind of like learn like a new language almost. it was like, those are the moments where you're like, whoa, like what are we even doing here? This is pretty incredible. And that was a time for sure. That was definitely heartwarming for sure. That's super cool. That's really cool. Love it. So the next question. So this is a pretty generalized question. I ask it to all my guests. Guests. I can't speak today. Because I get such different reactions all the time. What do you think is the biggest stigma within like when dealing with mental health? I think the... Being a man myself and being in an industry that's male dominated, I think that there's a lot of stigma surrounding men's mental health and that they're just supposed to kind of suck it up and deal with it because that's how our fathers and our grandfathers and our great grandfathers did it. They just kind of grit their teeth and... probably could have used an outlet or two that wasn't certain other things. So I think, you know, breaking down the stigma that, you know, you can be this, you can be strong while also working on your mental health and working on things that are hard to work on, right? You don't have to live every day as Superman to... Because at the end of the day, the people that you're surrounded by don't care. They want someone who's healthy and happy, not someone who's gritting their teeth, white-knuckling the day, it's not some... Like talking about mental health is weird for them. Very well said. It's crazy because it really is like a kind of like similar answers but different at the same time and I love hearing all of them. And where can people find you? So right now, the biggest place that I'm at is Instagram and that's Daniel Ronaldi, at Daniel Ronaldi LMHC. And that's kind of where most of my energy is these days. So you can find me there, my website, danielrenaldiLMHC.com. I'm there, I'm the one talking to everyone, so feel free to. say hi, DM me, ask me questions. You know, I'm always available to be, you know, to reach out and, you know, talk to. So yeah, Instagram, mostly Instagram, I'll probably answer you within 20 minutes of you messaging me, so. This is just kind of a fun question since you're into the whole emo music scene. What three albums are on repeat for you right now? For me right now, okay. So this one right here, Sleep Theory Afterglow, is one that is on repeat for sure. I always come back to Envy on the Coast, Lucy Gray. Phenomenal band, phenomenal album. Man, I can't tell you how many things that album has. helped with in my life and got me through in my life. And then probably another one that's on repeat. This is going to be a funny one. But it's the soundtrack to K-Pop Demon Hunters that's on Netflix right now. Not only because my daughter and my wife love it, but because the songs are just really good. And I'm a huge fan of Korean pop. So that's another one that's been on repeat lately because the songs are really good. of it. Just for the fun of it I'll give you mine. ah But by the way we were talking about the Sleep Theory album before we started and I think it's a phenomenal album. One was just that recently that just came out it's Thousand and Below I think it's called Buried in Jade that album's incredible. Great band. My one that I think is kind of in lines with what you said, it's one I always go to It's Chiyo Dos All's Well That Ends Well Absolutely love that album and then right now also on repeat is Morgan Wallen's newest album So I've kind of been all over the place lately it goes from kind of the screamo emo hardcore stuff to to country, to pop. It's all mood based. yeah, I'm immersed in a lot of different genres. Country is one of them. Right now, some of my posts are gracing the presence of lots of people in the country scene. So I'm becoming well-versed. Yeah, Morgan's album is great. Check out Morgan Wade, who's another wonderful artist who I've had the pleasure of meeting and is an absolute gem of a person. Cameron Wickham is another person who's kind of like more like that folky country sort of thing where like the song's a real pop. Like he's another one who's going to be like an absolute beast and then I'll have to check that one out because I've never heard of him. Yeah, phenomenal. And then I was just featured in an article with her. Like, I didn't even know I was featured in it. But um Ella Langley, who's another big artist right now, who just is going through some mental health struggles, I mean, just canceled some dates with Morgan Wallin. So we're going full circle here. And one of my posts was featured in an article about about her mental health struggles because she reposted one of my things. But I got a chance to check out her music and I was like, wow, like phenomenal. So yeah, you got. artist. I've started listening to a lot to her newest album. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Music's just wonderful. Like it's a wonderful thing that we get to experience in so many different ways, so many different genres. And it does amazing things for you when you listen to it. Yeah for me it's like very calming and you can always my wife can always tell what mood I'm in depending on what I play she's she's never liked like they really heavy stuff, but it's I've played a lot of heavy stuff I've been in to a lot of like metal chords like bands lately like one five six silence. I don't know how they great band. A lot of we came as Romans and that type of stuff. I'm actually going to see them on Friday. So You're in for a treat. I just saw that tour with Johnny Booth after the burial. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful group of humans. Well, I'm glad to hear that I'm in for a treat because it's on Friday and I'm looking forward to counting down the hours now. Yeah, yeah, the new album is fantastic for We Came As Romans. And that new single, Bad Luck, is like... You'll be in for a treat. Trust me. I'm looking forward to it. One last thing, we've discussed quite a bit on today's episode. Is there anything that you would like to bring up that we did not discuss? I mean, I think we covered so much stuff. I would just tell anyone, if you're struggling, seek help. There is always someone out there that is going to be willing to listen. You might feel like there's no one out there, but there will always be somebody that you will find that will listen and be curious. Be curious because when we're curious, we can find hope and when we find hope, we stay for the next day. Awesome. Love it. Well, Daniel, thank you so much for coming on and speaking with me. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. And thanks to all those listening. If this episode resonated with you, please pass it along. Go follow us on Instagram and YouTube and just share our show. Also, if you have a moment, leave us a review. It's very helpful. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.