Overcoming Suicide Ideation and Bridging the Gap in Mental Health Support with Dylan Sessler author of “Defy the Darkness

We have an awesome guest with us today. His name is Dylan Sessler.

And he comes to us with an incredible story to tell about his own life

experiences. Some of the very, very, very dramatic, and we'll get into

those details, we'll let him share those with you. I will share with you

that he's an active duty military serving in the National Guard, and

he is the author of the book, Defy the Darkness: A story of Suicide,

Mental Health, and Overcoming your Hardest Battles. Dylan Sessler,

welcome to Beyond Adversity.

Thank you very much, Brad, I'm glad to be here.

It is a awesome to have you with us. And I do thank you for

your continued service to our country in the National Guard.

And that's a part of your story. I know that it is, and here on

Beyond Adversity, we are all about helping people to navigate,

bad things have happened to them. And some really challenging

things have happened to you in your life, and then you found a way

through them. So if you don't mind just sharing with us a little bit

about your story, about some of the challenges that you have faced

that you particularly are addressing your book and so on.

Certainly. Well, one of the one of the first parts of my book

really discusses one of the most profound pieces of my adverse

story, I would say, and that was the suicide of my father. I lost my

father was around 36 years old. And I just remember coming

downstairs one morning, young kid, just not not really, you know,

quite naive at the time. And I saw him and he looks at our family.

And just I remember him talking about leaving and not being home

that night, you know. And as he was speaking, I just, I felt this

overwhelming sensation that pit in your stomach, you know that

the feeling that bad feeling you get when something's just isn't right,

you know, the words just weren't coming out, right? Or I just felt

all sorts of wrong and as a six year old child, right? What do you

do about that? Well, for me, I cried, and I grabbed him. And I told

them not to leave. And I, you know, begged and pleaded as much

as I could. But he was a large man, six foot seven, I'm you know,

three foot, whatever, at six years old, I was tiny. So he just kind

of picks me up and sets me side. And I remember that cliche

moment of him walking out the door and taking that left to go

to the car. And that was the last time I saw him. And the next

morning, that's when we found out or at least I found out that

we were going to my grandma's house. And when we got there

is when I think my mom told me and this is all kind of, you know,

fairly recalled kind of knowledge. It's not necessarily confirmed.

You know, because I was so young, and it felt so traumatic at the

time. But when that moment happened, that I found out that he

was gone, that he had, unfortunately passed and my mom was

honest with me, she told me it was suicide. The guilt, and the

regret, hit me first. Right? It was the it was that moment where

I felt responsible. You know, I didn't say that to anybody.

Because at six years old, I didn't know how to express that.

I certainly didn't understand how that would be received.

And you know, I was focused on the judgment. Certainly but

later, it became a shame, you know, because at the time in the 90s.

And even after that people looked at suicide very religiously, and

certainly in my family, it was looked at religiously as a sin and a sin

that would automatically send you to hell. And so I was told at a

young age that my father was going to hell. And so not only was my

guilt and my regret, not enough, but it was also compounded by

this shameful kind of decision that my father made. And so I was

very lost, you know, at 6, 7, 8 years old, I was just absolutely, you know,

heartbroken, destroyed, you know, all the things. And not only that, but

I placed so much of my father's decisions on my shoulder as my burden

to bury, or burden to bear and that clearly just, you know, held me underwater

for many years as as I moved through my life, I found myself,

you know, my mom kind of moved on and found a new man. And

he was a man that was that was quite disciplined. He was

calculated, you know, calculating. He would hit me with a three

quarter inch leather belt, a western style belt, we lived on a horse

ranch at that point. For anything I did wrong, it didn't really matter

how how good or bad it was, you know, wasn't, you know, a minor

infraction would still receive the same kind of punishment, it just would

not be as many hits, right? She didn't know, she never knew. And so that

was that was one of the interesting things is I never picked that up until

well into my adulthood when me and my mom actually had the

conversation about it. She never knew and what I remember and

what I recall, is, whenever this would happen, I would go straight to

my bed, my bedroom and my crying my bed. And no one would be

there. Right? It was always, you know, as I recall, it was always those

moments where nobody was there, right. And my mom wasn't like that.

And so they're very much it very much fits the narrative of if my mom

had known, she would have changed that response you. She wouldn't

have allowed that. Because when she recognized that it was happening, she left.

Oh, my God, okay,

it wasn't until many years later.

And so when, you know, when that started to happen,

it really, I think, solidified my inability to speak. You know,

at the time when my dad died, I just stopped talking altogether

became very introverted, very reclusive, to a point where, when

I started getting hit and abused, I started to internalize pain, out

of spite, right. Out of out of anger for him, and I remember the first

time looking back at him and just thinking to myself, hit me again,

right, I remember that so vividly.

Some far away embracing the pain,

it almost to a point of, you know, what would later come as, it's my

responsibility to take pain, right. And so I did that I internalized it at

that point. And then I spent more years kind of dealing with it. And by

the time I was 13, 14, we had moved out. My mom had left that

relationship, recognizing how bad it was for us as children. And that's

when you know, high school comes around, and I was bullied for for

being thin. Basically, I was a twig. And obviously, that wasn't going

to change with all the trauma that had forced me into this reclusive

personality that I was, and I kind of became a chameleon of sorts in

high school to just survive and get by, right, emotionally. And that's

when I decided to join the military. And the reason I joined the

military was very simply because as my dad had committed suicide,

I brought myself to make rules, you know, simple rules for life of,

I'm not going to do alcohol, I'm not going to do tobacco, I'm not

going to do drugs, all things that led to my dad's suicide as what

I thought. But then the last one was very simple. I'm not going to

commit suicide. And so that led me automatically to joining,

Did you write these down and do anything along that line journal

or something?

No, but they were always in my head. You know, these, these were

So clear of what I'm getting as a clarification for you isn't just

some sort of a fleeting thought. These were cleric, clear.

These were my guiding principles through childhood, you know,

and so I've, I'm 32 years old, had been in the military for 14 years,

I've never touched alcohol. I even as a kid, I was like, my mom

would offer rum cake. And I was so fervently against the idea of

alcohol that I looked at rum cake and was like, "Absolutely not."

Right. You know, I've never, I've never touched drugs, I've never

touched tobacco, which is absolutely against the norm, not only

in the infantry, in the military, but also in the state of Wisconsin,

which I'm from. So it's, they were so powerful in my life that when

it came to making a decision to join the military, it was 100%.

Because this shame and this guilt that I had conjured up after my

father's death was powerful enough to say, well, you're still thinking

about suicide. So why don't you find somewhere to kill yourself with

honor or to have someone do it for you? And that's what I did.

Okay, you know, I joined the military during

kind of, without putting a kind of a frame. Some people call

something like it assisted suicide, or I forgot the terminology here.

It Miller in the police, you know, somebody's suicide by cop and

things like it was sort of a form of that.

which was, you know, right at the, the height of the war in Afghanistan,

and right after the height of the war in Iraq, and so, I was ready

and willing. I spent the next three or four years trying to get on

any deployment that would go anywhere else to a country that

was dangerous. And I finally joined an Agribusiness Development

place that taught me more about life and death than I had

ever learned through my father, through anything else. You

know, it was a, it was a difficult place, it was a dark place,

it was a simple place yet, you know, and you learn so much,

and you see so much in that time, and you feel so much, but

nothing about it is allowed to be expressed because of war.

Because the nature of wars, you can't cause problems to

other people in order. That's what it feels like. And so, you

know, I learned again, you know, only a confirmation of what

I had been through before I learned to bottle it up, I learned

to keep it behind walls and keep it held under the pressure

of, you know, of remaining silent. And so,

So suppression was just a part of your life was it? It's a part

of your everyday, like, No, you'll if you go,

Yep. And it came to a point of coming home, I started learning

about PTSD. And it was almost laughable because I found out

about this diagnosis. I didn't, I was never diagnosed with it.

But I didn't have to be to know what I had been struggling

through all my life, of recognizing the trauma that was my

father's death, recognizing the abuse that I had been through,

recognizing the bullying and recognizing the war that I had

just, you know, fought in. All of these things said, I almost

laughed when I recognized it the first time that I was dealing with,

and I'm just curious your diagnosis of PTSD. Just for clarification,

for folks who may not know post traumatic stress, was that done

through military circles, military doctors that you get to seek

out help you on your own? Or how did that manifest itself.

So I've never officially been diagnosed, and I don't think I will,

I don't think I need to. Because when I started learning about it,

I didn't respect it at all. You know, I was taught that in

demobilization for my deployment. And so I started learning

my own life. I got to that point of extremely, you know, just so

much emotion was bottled up and suppressed at that point

that it all kind of filtered, you know, the filter stuff, holding it

all in, the dam just broke. And that's when I started actually

looking at my life and understanding what was actually

happening. I had to ask myself, when I'm when I'm sitting

there with a gun in my hand. Why are you the way that you

are? And when I started asking that question, I started seeing

answers in my head, and through my own conversations with

myself, that I was really uncomfortable with, you know, and I

started looking at this, this concept of PTSD, this concept of

trauma, this concept of all of these choices, not only made by

myself, but by other people that kind of affected me, and

brought me to where I was then. And that's when I first

started kind of giving credit to this understanding of trauma,

this understanding of what what is PTSD, and how has it

affected me. But more so I gave credit to the understanding

that I brought myself here. And I brought myself to this

point, and I allowed myself to continue to walk down this

path of silence. And that's really where, you know, my, I think

my book kind of dives into into this idea of what it means to

be silent and what it means to hold all of this stuff in. Because

how I look at it realistically, is that, you know, suicide isn't the

problem, right? And I don't think it's the thing that people need

to address as the problem. It's the result of all of the problems, you know,

well, it's the it's you're taking action, Destructive action against

the problem that's been built up over time and suppressed and

so on. And so, here's my question for you when you were was this

key question you sit you asked yourself, why why am I am the way

that I am? Was that the question that helped you decide to not

take your own life? or were there other factors were there other

people involved? Were you with like, I don't know, suicide

hotline, any other factors that came into play that kept you

from making the destructive decision.

That was it. That

just making use of the good the good question that are

the question,

You know, I've always been, I've always been a thinker.

Right? You know, obviously it's it makes sense with my history

and what I've been through. And that that step in that

direction of recognizing just the reality of the moment I was in.

Yeah, well, what a profound story about your own family.

And there's, you know, I'm sure there's layer upon layer upon

layer upon layer of all this. And yet, here's the the profound

reality is that you were a product of suicide, and you considered

it yourself, and you had this introspective, life going on, that was

being suppressed. And then you decide, so many people, though

Dylan, as you know, do get stuck, whether they take their own

life, or they do something destructive, that ends their life, or

they do something else, that messes things up, they get stuck,

and you, you've chosen to share your story with other people.

Through this format, you have a book, you have your own

podcast, you have a TikTok channel, you have various ways

that you are sharing. So my question to you now is that

you asked yourself this important question, why am I I am,

why I am? Why I am the way I am, that I said it correctly.

But the Yeah, you asked yourself that question. So that's

one important thing you did. What do you think were some

of the key actions that you did took from that question?

What do you do, then? What did you do about it? After you

asked yourself that question, it puts you on this track now,

of being productive and helpful to others.

While I answered it, that was, you know, those first step

number one is, when you ask yourself a question like that,

you've, you've got to have the willingness to be honest with

yourself about it. You know, and that, that doesn't come with

without its own set of, you know, realities. Like, that's a hard

question to answer. And I almost think my, I thank my life, for

building up the courage or maybe more appropriately, the

stubbornness to answer that question, honestly, because it

was painful. You know, that's, that's a remarkably painful

question to answer. You know, when you really look at it,

and you start to recognize your the realities of your own

choice to bring yourself to that point. You know, because

at some point, it stops being someone else's fault, and

starts being your own, you know, and that's a, that's a

painful situation to sit with. And, ultimately, it came,

I love what you said, I think my life

Exactly, and

even your life was pretty, pretty bad. Many would argue

pretty bad. And you still thanked your life.

And it comes down to it came down for me to the the very,

the glaring weakness throughout my life. And that was my

inability to express myself, you know. And so, what's, what's

interesting, and I don't think I really realized it until quite

recently, actually, is that I've put myself in direct contradiction

to who I've always lived my life as you know, I've done everything

I can to work on that weakness to face that weakness. I've written

a book, I've put out a podcast, I've stepped out onto a platform

that requires you to literally express yourself, that's TikTok. I go

on podcast, and I talk about this subject. I even feel this subject,

right, sometimes. It's not all it's not all episodes that I come on,

where I'm just eloquently expressing the stuff simply

sometimes I'm actually feeling it right. Just depends on

the day, sometimes. It depends on the question or the

how deep I dive into this subject. And

when we sometimes we really don't know what triggers

that emotional response up a song on the radio or something

somebody says, or, you know, a picture on the wall, any

number of things can trigger that. And and say here, at

least, at least a couple of things I'm hearing here that

you did you. You recognized it, you claimed it, you claimed

the pain. And that's so huge right here. That is enormous,

as you know, because it seems to me just getting to know

you just a little bit here today, they'll know that you were

this quite introspective, maybe people maybe even

described you perhaps as brooding or I don't know

any number of things like that could have been done.

I don't know if I'm correct or not. I don't want to be too

presumptuous to assume here, but I'm assuming that you

were you were not as expressive growing up or even the

military. As you are now. You probably kind of the quiet

guy in the corner. Is that fair? To say? Most of time? Yeah.

And so. So that's the other action that you took, you know,

you the second thing I saw you, I thanked my life. And this is

so important about when we think about when adverse things

happen to us. So if people get stuck, and they stay stuck,

I call it the malaise and we theocracy, you stay there, and you

get unstuck, you really have to take action, you recognize it.

And then you think your life which means a adversity is to your

advantage, if you choose to do it, I call it sometimes call it the

University of adversity, you could learn from it, and still take

action. And then you didn't you kind of went against, you know,

against your nature, to express yourself. And so let's,

I want to go there on the introspective sign in one more

layer with you, then I want to go to what you how you

then express yourself and the layer want to go with you.

You mentioned a little bit ago how you had some really

bad experiences with some people who were laying kind

of their religious guilt thing on you about your father, and

I'm sure some of that free emerged when you had your

own considerations about suicide, and that I apologize

to you for, you know, I'm a pastor of a church and I

apologize for anything. Because I hate it when I hear

stories like that, that the church is laid on you or whatever.

But I do wonder, I do think that people still have to have a

sense of connection to something bigger than itself. You know,

when we're introspective, sometimes we can go to this place

of kind of like, it's all about me or poor me or whatever, that

kind of thing. But did you have any connection deal into

anything bigger than self a connection to a higher power,

spirituality, meditation, I don't know anything along this line,

it was just a part of the process for you prayer, anything along

that line?

This is an interesting conversation now. Because what, what I

think might be labeled as traditional faith, did not really exist

in my in my life throughout, even to this point. But I put so much

emphasis on the idea of faith, the value of faith. Which is

interesting, because I'm not religious, I don't I don't have I'm

an atheist, if you want to call it that. I don't have a belief in

God, I don't, I don't feel I need a belief in God, but yet, I have

a such a profound respect for faith itself. And so do I look to a

higher power? Not necessarily. But I do look to the world, as that

higher authority, you know, of, I look at nature, in its in its entirety,

as that higher authority, as you know, because I come from war, right?

I come from many different kinds of war. And I understand that

when you walk out into nature, without, you know, you, you disarm

yourself with the technology of mankind, what we've created, you

are very much an animal, when you step out into that realm. And

so I have a profound respect for nature, I have a profound respect

for humanity itself. I, I will never be the center of my universe, nor

will I necessarily put faith in, you know, and not necessarily, I'm

not gonna say, I won't, but I don't know if I'll ever put put God

at the center of that, of that faith, but I do have faith. And

I love to, I love to look at other people's faith and be proud

of it. Right? I'm proud of your faith, I'm happy that you have

faith, whether it's in God or yourself or other people, I don't

care. Right, as long as you have, and that's so, so important.

And throughout my life, I've I've contemplated this, these this

question, because it's, it's for everyone to determine on their

own. I think, you know, if you want to believe in God, that's

your that's your that's your right. Some would call it a God

given right, if you want to. Others would. Not, right. It's

your belief. And I want, I think what people need to understand

is that you can't live a life without faith. But it's understanding

the value of faith, not understanding the religious idea of faith,

I think is the more important understanding here.

Yeah, very fascinating, where you're putting this you can't live a

life without faith. And yet, some of those aspects of the

framework of faith has been abusive to you. And, again, I

apologize for that. But I also sense that you are on you are

seeking meaningful pneus in your life, and parts of that come

from connecting with something beyond that meaning,

whether its nature, or a sense of, of total humanity, all that kind

of thing. And because so many people, I believe Dylan have a

sense of meaning less than us in life. And that's what leads to

people being destructive, either to themselves or to other

people or, you know, to nature. You know, some people

wanted to knock down all the trees or whatever or blow it

up or whatever. You know, that's what meaninglessness kind.

When you people just hate themselves and hate others so much.

And sense of meaningfulness means you put the values I love that

you said about the values. But you've part of this process

then I love what you're sharing here today. You really are

introspective guy, man, you are fine, you just fascinating so

many levels. And then then you chose to write this book, Defy

the Darkness: A story of Suicide, Mental Health, and Overcoming

your Hardest Battles. And you've certainly I've shared what some

of those hard battles are. But now I want to talk to you about what

are the lessons learned that then are transferable principles to other

people, I'm thinking about you in the military, for instance, you learn a

certain way of doing things with discipline and with, with order, and so

on, that you have, I'm not a military veteran myself, but I have my own

sets of disciplines. And I wonder what you have learned out of your

own experience, then that you have applied to your own life.

And then you can apply to others, perhaps some lessons that

you put in your book, disrupt think about disciplines, habits,

routines, application, these type of things.

I think it all starts with values. You know, and I think, you know,

I'm a big, I'm a big follower of Jordan Peterson doesn't necessarily

mean I support everything he does, but I follow what he discusses.

And he refers to this as ethics. I refer to it as values, I think it's

very similar in definition. But that was the first thing I really found.

I think I really developed anything, I developed it unconsciously

without with starting those rules, right? When I, when I first kind

of lost my father, I found myself making a rule system, right. And

so values undeniably became a piece of my life. When I joined the

military, I started to learn that the military had its values, right?

Companies have their values. All sorts of people have core values.

But it's, it's easy to put core values on, you know, a piece of paper

and say, These are my core values, it's incredibly difficult to

define those values that function for you. Right, not just out

of the dictionary, but actually how you apply them. And

then it's really difficult to apply, what is too much use of this value,

and what is too little use of this value, okay? And to understand

those boundaries of each value itself, defines how you actually

start to make decisions in your life. Right. And so when I, when

I really started to dig into this, and I really started to develop

the idea, it's actually not even in my book, which I talked about

values in my book, but it's not in my book, how I'm talking

about it now. And this is how new it is to me. But one, I think

faith is a foundation, right? And so when you have the ability to

look at your values that you create, you must have faith in them

that they are good for you. Right? I can't just look at, you know,

Brad, you have the value of love. I can't just look at your value

and say, I like that I'm going to use that. Right? It has to be

why does love matter to me? How do I define love? How do

I define the action of love? And how do I define overusing and

under using it, because if I overused love, it's a bad thing. If I

under use love, it's a bad thing. Right? So anything, then

becomes a good or bad thing based on it's used. And so if

you have faith in it, right, you understand that you must

determine how to use it correctly, right? Because a lot of

your learning has to do with a proper or measured

application of your values, right? Making your values

your own, not just taking someone else's values and just

saying, Okay, I buy into that, but you're actually making it your own.

Awesome. And you have to you have to do the work, right,

that's the hard part is like, you can't just go to a class that

says, here's a bunch of values, go ahead and pick which

ones which one's the best one, you have to do the work to

understand how to define it for yourself, and do all the work that goes with it.

So that's what you add just this kind of the search for

meaningfulness through values is one of the things you

advocate, the people that you're sharing with each

absolutely do. How can you so you share this in your

podcast and in your TikTok channel and, and, and in

your book. So how important is it for you to share this

message and you get to you to have an influence to have

an impact on others who may be going through something

akin to what you went through? How important is you get that message out there?

You know, I've I've asked myself that a lot throughout this

journey of two years. And I find myself kind of wondering it, right?

I don't I don't place my value as a person in the In the response to

my message, right? It's, it's looking at that, that conceptualization

of faith and understanding that I'm trying to do better for when

I for for the people that didn't have that don't have what I had, right?

Or do you have access to something that I didn't have? Right? And

so I'm trying to offer, not necessarily what I believe is right. But what

I believe can start the conversation within someone where they can

determine what's right. You know, I think that was that was one of

my struggles with religion early on, is that I was forced into a religion

that forced me to accept that what they believed was right.

You know, and so, you know, not to say religion is a bad thing,

it's just that religion has historically probably been taught in a way

that is not where we kind of look at things now of like, you get the

freedom to determine how you interpreted things were have kind

of historically been interpreted for us, and fed to us. And I've never

enjoyed that. I've never liked that. And I want people to have a

different experience. And that's what I try and give, I don't try

and tell people what, that I'm right or wrong, I try and help people

understand that I have a voice, I have something to share with

them. And I want them to take what I offer and make their own

decisions with it, I want you to create something that's maybe an

opposition to me. And I respect that, I want that I desire that.

Because then you might actually end up teaching me something.

So it's not necessarily about getting the message out there.

It's about transitioning, more people to understand how to

think freely and open themselves up to meaning, to open

themselves up to truth, to honesty, to expression to all of

these things that I really struggled with in my early life, that

I wish someone had offered me even a glimpse of what I'm talking about.

Yeah. So what I'm hearing you say here is just to interject

just a tiny bit of theology here. And that is simply that there's

kind of a history of dogma, which is kind of dictated to you

what is right and what's wrong. And freewill which is offer

which is what grace is all about. freewill is choosing then to

understand you're loved and accepted, regardless where

you choose to choose that and, but it sounds like this is

part of the process and the struggle and the conversation

you're having with yourself and with others. And apparently,

Dylan, you're touching a nerve. So people are responding.

And I just like you to speak for just a second about the impact

that is going on with your TikTok channel. I'm fascinated

by that. It's a it's a medium that I'm just not that familiar with.

I'll be honest, I've been in podcasting for 10 years. I know

you have a podcast, but tell me I'm interested responses

people have made to you in through your book, through

your through your TikTok through your podcast, what are

people saying to you? How are they responding to you?

What's your message?

Oh, man, I, I feel heard. I feel understood. I feel like I want

to talk to you, I feel you know, I've I've been told I've saved

people's lives with videos, you know, like, I, I just make content

and I try to speak to people in a way that I wish I would have

been spoken to. You know, and it's, it's a remarkable thing to

just treat people with respect without knowing them, without

understanding them without having them earn it. Right. And to

see that within people that maybe historically have never been

given a voice, you know, have never been given a platform to

speak. I, I think all people, you know, are created equal. I very

much agree with that. Regardless of you know, physical outcome

or physical ability, I you know, I think people come out into this

world having the ability to offer something, right you have, if you

have the ability to offer something, you are equal to anyone, right?

And, you know, I don't care if your special needs, I don't care if you're

white, I don't care if you're black, I don't care if you're male, female,

I just don't care. You have something to teach people, you have

something to offer people. And we're one of the only species that

desperately take care of things that probably won't survive. And

that's a really interesting thought when we when we think about

societies. And I think sometimes people think we need to build a

society that isn't like that. When we just don't have that capacity.

We don't want that. Right. We we take care of people no matter

what. And how we do that now is is in desperate need of overhaul

I think because we're trying to leave people behind in some regard,

you know, in certain situations where We don't have to, you know,

if we have the conversation if we learn how to speak, we learn how

to respect and love and appreciate. We wouldn't have to have

conversations that are so diametrically in opposition to each

other and so painful.

Oh, yeah, right. So much polarization is going on. It's just crazy.

Yeah. I, you've said a couple of things here, I just just think are so

important that the people who you are communicating with, and

just for context, tell me how many TikTok views if you got down to

the whole bunch here, right? Father,

I've got, like 582,000, I think, as of this morning, and then like, over

3.8 million likes. And so that's about 10%, of how many views I might have.

Yeah, so a lot of people have responded through that medium alone,

let alone your podcasts and your books and so on. But you said

something about I am heard or that people are sent to you by him or

heard. And it's reflected with you, I did a little bit of a research myself

about the every year at the end of the year, Google does a little video, a

little synopsis of the search terms that people have searched for in the

So this just tells me that there's people really, really hurting, if people are

searching, how do I heal, that means somewhere, I'm broken, or I'm hurt,

or I'm wounded, I need to heal. And that might have been COVID, it might

have been any number of things. But they have that search. And you are

obviously coming to a place where people have a need that you were

speaking to. And I want to commend you for having the courage to

do that. And it's just an awesome word that you have to share. So,

Dylan, how can people if they want to, if they want to get connected

to you if they want to get your book they want to your website,

your Tiktok? How can people learn more about you and be connected

to you? Because I know there's people on our Beyond Adversity

audience who are saying, Okay, this is a guy I need to find out more

about, because when he said, You know that I'm heard, I want to

be heard as well.

Well, I mean, you can go to my website, dylansessler.com. And

pretty much find anything you want to know about me. I think the

best way to consume my book is through audible, because I gave

a little bit of extra kind of off script stuff when I read the script

for the book. I've got a podcast, I'm obviously on Tik Tok. But if

you want to meet me, you know best way to schedule a schedule

session with me and let's go. Let's talk about it.

Awesome. So he's dylansessler.com. That's d y l a n s e s s l e r.com.

He's got lots of things on his website to help you get connected.

We will also put connections to your resources at our website, drbradmiller.com.

And you can find those on our show notes there. What a fascinating conversation

and I just want to thank you again for sharing with our audience here today,

Dylan, and wish you well, and I just got a feeling that that just beginning for

you that there is just a world of opportunity, because the need is so great for

exactly what you're speaking to. And I thank you. And I really, really look

forward to seeing what happens next. So very good.

Thank you, Brad.

All right.

Appreciate it

Our guest today on Beyond Adversity Dylan Sessler,

the author of Defy the Darkness. Thank you for being

our guest today on the Beyond Adversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.