Meet Brett Rein

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brett Rein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Brett, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I love this question because it is something I help a lot of my clients with. I believe we all have a purpose, or several, and we need to be actively working towards our purpose(s) to feel happy and fulfilled. There is an intersection with my purpose between professional and personal. During my first master’s program, I read a book called The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. He had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer at 47 years old. As a Carnegie Mellon professor, it was customary to give a last lecture prior to leaving one’s position. Randy’s last lecture is on youtube and it is amazing and he followed it up with a book with more stories and really a blueprint on how to live life. He explained that he did everything he ever wanted to in life in some capacity or another so he felt that he lived until 47.. Reading that book lit a fire in 23 year old me that I needed to follow the dreams in my head. Fitness had been my biggest passion/obsession and I loved running and I dreamed of bears and wolves and running through the woods and in the mountains. I wanted to see what I was capable of and to push my limits as far as they could go. This led me to look up someone’s top 10 list for the most challenging races in the world. There were two races on the list that were in the US: Badwater 135 which goes 135 miles through Death Valley to the base of Mount Whitney and the Death Race, a race with no start time, no end time, no set distance, no set tasks, barely any rules, and a 10% finisher race. There were four in a year, one per season. The winter Death Race in Vermont appealed to me. I opened and closed the sign up page more times than I could count before eventually succumbing to the sign up button. The story of the Death Race is for another time but long story short, I got lost for about 5 hours in the snow-covered woods 20 something hours into the race, eventually passed out on the side of a mountain about 25 hours into the race and woke up in the hospital with hypothermia, hypoglycemia, Rhabdo and the beginning of frostbite. A couple of days later, I signed up for the Mexico Death Race and finished the race in about 31 hours. That was it. The next decade was spent finding/creating challenges for myself, training for them and doing them. I learned so much from each one, the failures and successes. The mindset it created within me allowed me to buy a one way plane ticket to Australia, live on farms there, teach at a yoga retreat in Thailand, stay in a small village in Nicaragua, climb Mount Doom in New Zealand and so many more adventures. It was my blueprint for how I was going to live life. Why go for the good when you can go for the great? The same rang true professionally. After finishing my master’s degree in education, I quickly realized teaching wasn’t quite it for me. Mental health was always an area of struggle and growth for me and it felt like investing into that pillar professionally felt more in line with my purpose. I wanted to help people to overcome the various challenges I had overcome. I wanted to be my own boss, have freedom to continue to do the things I love, and be able to help people. I signed up for a second master’s degree program to be a mental health therapist and now I get to show up for work every day to help people. I continue to push my limits, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a mental health therapist, and I help people. I love being a small part of someone else’s journey. I like to think that I create magic. Really, I believe the therapeutic relationship with clients is magical and healing, and that can lead to some beautiful places for people. I enjoy working with a variety of clients and meeting them where they are at. For some, I get to help people find their purpose, work on communication skills, mindfulness/stress management techniques, build stronger/healthier/happier relationships, and create more fulfillment in all aspects of life. For others, I get to help people work through a challenging circumstance, navigate a traumatic experience from a different part of life or a transition period, or manage longer term struggles with anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, or other mental health topics. I love all of the work I do with clients. I am always their biggest fan, and I always give unconditional love and support which typically includes insightful questions, sarcastic comments, and hard truths.

It feels special to get to be a part of peoples’ often hidden worlds. We all have inner worlds that are hidden to some degree from other people, and some of those worlds are the dark parts, the shadow area Mufasa told Simba never to go to. I feel like the wise baboon Rafiki who has the power to travel to those shadow realms with people as a tour guide to help people to explore in new ways, and then safely bring us both back to our current reality.

One of the most important parts of my practice is that I offer animal assisted therapy with my licensed therapy dog, Harley. She has been licensed for three years and has become a fan favorite. I have also facilitated a teen peer support group in the past and currently facilitate a men’s group. There is a power in groups – a magic that is created between a group of people with the common goal of growing and supporting others. People share common goals with unique experiences and perspectives which creates opportunities for new growth. I also think it is unique to be a male therapist with an athletic background with a therapy dog. There just aren’t a lot of therapists who fit that description.

Another exciting thing that I have been working towards is better protecting our youth. I have joined several affiliations including the Boulder Interdisciplinary Committee, the Metro Denver Interdisciplinary Committee, and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (and the Colorado chapter). The BIDC and MDIC are committees for lawyers, judges, and therapists who work in family court to work towards understanding and brainstorming to improve outcomes in family court. I am excited to be a part of both of these committees and work with people who have a say in what happens with youth in divorce. I have also signed up for trainings to be a PARENT COORDINATOR and a MEDIATOR so I am excited to be able to be able to begin offering those services towards the beginning of 2025. There are a lot of situations where there is abuse or negative behaviors from a parent and it is really difficult to prove in court. Sometimes, a parent will wrongly accuse the other parent as a means to get back at them for whatever led to the divorce so I understand the challenge of it. I just care most about the youth who are powerless and often choiceless in the situation and can be left in situations that are detrimental to their wellbeing. I also reached out to a member of our house of representatives who is running for senator in Colorado and spoke to her aide to discuss my experiences in these cases and to help to offer building blocks towards legislation in these cases. I am excited to continue to work towards giving youth a louder voice in the family court system.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Passion, compassion, and quick-wit/ critical thinking/ problem solving skills.

Passion: People always talk about motivation and hard work which are extremely important until you wake up and don’t want to get out of bed. When there is no motivation to work hard, what is left? This is why I feel passion has been one of the most impactful qualities on my journey. I have known my “why” since college – I just didn’t know the “how.” I had a challenging childhood and then struggled throughout my adolescence and then had to explore and grow through my twenties. I didn’t know I wanted to be a therapist – I knew I wanted to help people. I knew I wanted to find a way to create purpose around my own struggles and use them to help other people to be their favorite version of themselves. Once I figured out where that path was taking me, the hard work felt easier because of the passion I have for this career. Some days are a struggle for me like anyone else but knowing what I get to do for work gets me out of bed and pumped up to go live my “why.”

Compassion: Compassion is empathy in action. Robin Williams once said “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” Due to my own struggles with my own mental health, I know how it feels to feel like I am not good enough or worthy. I have to work really hard to feel worthy and happy and at peace so it is easy for me to be able to be with someone at whichever level they are at. I can feel what they feel which allows them to feel seen and heard and allows me to understand what they might need in terms of support or skills or strategies to feel better. Compassion allows people to feel safe to go to that shadow realm with me which is where the work is done. It is worth noting that Harley, the therapy dog, is also extremely compassionate!

Quick-wit/ critical thinking/ problem solving skills: I have always been told that I am quick-witted and worldly, and I’ve always been skillful at navigating a crisis and making high impact decisions in a pinch. My brain works fast and that can be useful as a therapist. I can come up with creative solutions out of thin air when necessary. I can also actively/empathically listen to clients and then think of an intelligible response in return without needing to think about what I am going to say while they are talking. I ask insightful questions and offer clever feedback. I can make references with the best of them to help to better understand a situation and to sometimes explain something in a way that can be more relatable.
For therapists just starting out, I think it is more important to understand who you are than to develop skills that work for me. The most important thing we can be aware of as a therapist is the biases we bring into sessions, the perspectives we lean towards, and the belief/value systems we hold. A successful therapist needs to have self-awareness. Everyone is different so it is important that we all possess different qualities and skills to bring to the table. You just need to be true to who you are and keep it real. There are a lot of amazing, brilliant and caring mental health professionals out there – never hesitate to reach out to ask for help or a consult and always continue learning to better your craft.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

I think the biggest area of growth for me in the past 12 months was the idea of working towards process goals instead of outcome goals. Several years ago, I was struggling with daily panic attacks and crippling anxiety. I had always been more in line with high functioning anxiety but it became debilitating. One of my main coping mechanisms I had always leaned on was fitness and training for endurance races/challenges. I wanted a certain aesthetic and chased down big challenges. I felt like I needed the success of those challenges to feel worthy as a person in other areas of life. Over time, I started picking up injuries from overtraining and not having enough emphasis on the daily habits to keep myself healthy. During COVID, I was working in the school system as a school counselor and the stress was unbearable for me. I was financially stressed, overworked, underpaid, newly out of a relationship that was not very good for me, and now injured and it felt like my foundation fell apart. I spent from Christmas Eve until New Years’ Eve 2021 in a hospital where I got an SSRI to manage my anxiety. Over the course of the next year and a half or so, I began rebuilding my life. While focussing on different areas and rehabbing injuries, I gained a lot of weight, started making a beer after work a habit, and couldn’t train the way I had always trained. A year and a half ago, I cut out alcohol altogether and started working with physical therapists to get my physical body healthy. Following a ketamine assisted therapy journey last summer at Owl and Eagle Health and Wellness, I got off of the SSRI and recommitted to my overall health and wellness, this time from the inside out rather than the outside in as I did in the past. I began working with a registered dietician and found out I had a toxin causing gut problems that I was able to fix and changed my eating habits. I also began getting regular blood work with Balanced Healthcare and working with a functional medicine doctor/psychiatric nurse practitioner at Owl and Eagle to make myself healthier from the inside out. My gut got healthy, my hips and feet got healthy, my blood work started looking better, and over the course of the past year, I lost all of the weight I had gained and feel as healthy as ever. Overall, I feel happy with the direction of my life. I am living in line with my purpose within my work, relationships, and adventure chasing. My mind and body feel connected and healthy. The growth was the importance of building health and wellness from the inside first rather than to attain a certain look or to accomplish a certain challenge. By building a strong foundation, the aesthetic took care of itself, and I am now healthy enough to train specifically for races while continuing to do the work to stay healthy and balanced. In our society, we are all often chasing destinations, pretty pictures for the gram, romanticized relationships, a certain aesthetic, the fancier car/house, etc. We have the mindset “if I get ___ or if I do ___, then I will be happy.” Now, I am finding joy in the day to day grind and the process of building, and I am finding peace in knowing I am living aligned with my purpose.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.brettreintherapy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milesfromordinary_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brett.k.rein/
• Other: Psychology Today:
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brett-rein-arvada-co/941094

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