Podbit · On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Dr. Palmer's mother — a normal middle-class woman raising eight kids — broke down in her early 40s and was never helped by psychiatry. She lost custody of her children, her home, her money, her identity. He watched it happen furious at the field he would go on to join and try to transform.
Where this was said
At 1:03:20 · chapter starts 59:05
One of the episode's most humanly powerful moments arrives here: Palmer describes the emotional arc of patients who experience full remission from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder through ketogenic interventions. [1] — Dr. Chris Palmer "When patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder achieve remission through dietary intervention, many don't celebrate — they grieve. Th…" 59:50 The expected response — joy, relief — comes, but it is consistently accompanied by something darker: profound grief for the decades of life stolen by the illness. These patients lost their relationships, their education, their independence, their identities. The question 'why didn't someone give me this 30 years ago?' is not rhetorical — it is raw and real. Palmer conveys this with the authority of someone who has sat with those patients repeatedly, and it gives weight to everything he has argued throughout the episode. The stakes of getting psychiatry right are not academic; they are measured in human lives.
More than 1,900 people have participated in published trials of the ketogenic diet for mental health conditions, with the overwhelming majority showing some benefit.
When patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder achieve remission through dietary intervention, many don't celebrate — they grieve. Thirty lost years of relationships, careers, and independence collapse into a single devastating question: why didn't someone tell me this 30 years ago?
AI nailed Andrew Huberman's vertigo-vs-low-blood-pressure diagnosis because that pattern has been reported millions of times. But every patient's liver is different and data on liver surgeries is scarce worldwide — making solo robot surgery dangerous. The rule is simple: data abundance means AI can help; data scarcity means keep the human in the loop.
Fei-Fei Li's father had liver surgery performed by a da Vinci robot guided by a surgeon. The result: 10 times less blood loss than a typical procedure. This isn't replacement — it's the gold standard of human-machine collaboration, where the human's judgment and the robot's precision combine.
US drug overdose deaths fell from 110,000 to roughly 70,000 — the biggest CDC-recorded single-year drop ever. Men's rates fell 27% in one year, and the steepest decline of all was among 15–24-year-olds, down 37%. The crisis narrative around young men needs to make room for signs of genuine progress.
Kessler thought his grief expertise would protect him. It didn't. When his son David died unexpectedly, he found himself on the floor — and eventually realized that acceptance alone wasn't enough. That unmet need became the sixth stage: finding meaning.
Grief isn't just death — it's any unwanted change. Kessler lectured at Coca-Cola and General Mills not because they had lots of funerals, but because change management is grief management. People who grieve well live well.
Witnessing someone's grief isn't just emotional support — it's an essential act of healing. Kessler argues grief is a severance and connection heals it. But real witnessing has two steps: seeing the pain AND affirming the person's capacity to recover.
Avoiding grief isn't free — it's exhausting. Kessler's beach ball metaphor nails it: pushing a small balloon down is easy, but holding a massive beach ball underwater takes constant, draining energy. Unattended feelings don't disappear; they just consume you.
Most people try to control their environment to avoid triggers. Kessler flips this entirely: triggers aren't problems to manage around — they're a detailed map to your pain and your healing. Every trigger points directly to what needs attention.
Running from pain doesn't leave it behind — it accelerates the chase. Whatever we run from pursues us, and whatever we face transforms us. Both Kessler and Lewis Howes testify to knowing both roads firsthand.
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