The power of media in mental health: Daniel Bernard
“I want to heal the scene is because I feel like there are a lot of people out there who felt the same way that I did when I was struggling. I want more people to be helped. I want more people to realize that that connection that they have through music is like a big front door, a big old door where they can walk into a space to more easily identify what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and can more easily discern whether or not it is healthy or unhealthy for them.”
— Daniel Bernard, HeartSupport donor, fundraiser, and board member
When Daniel Bernard and Casey Ferris first started their production company Release the Hound Studios in Oregon, they knew that they wanted to be in a place to focus fully on purpose — they just didn’t know which avenue was going to be the right one.
The answer came in the unlikely form of Warped Tour.
Daniel and Casey were producing videos for Casey’s YouTube channel, but they were also both youth group leaders. Several of their respective youth group kids were into heavy music. Dan himself had a long love for that kind of music, with an adolescence defined by thrash metal and Metallica as well as grunge like Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. So the chance to share the experience with youth group kids just made sense.
“We were going to road trip. We were going to go check out all these bands. We were going to go get food. But then also, we were going to check out some of the nonprofits that were there,” Dan explains.
This was a natural part of the relentless search for purpose that the small business owners were committed to.
“A big part of the way that we built our company's structure was to intentionally build something that made a lot of income passively so that we could spend our time bettering people and the world somehow,” Dan recounts. “We wanted to make that a very fundamental part of how we spent our time.”
Once they were at Warped Tour, between bands’ sets, the content producers wandered the row of nonprofit booths. They stopped by each one, asking if they had any need of video support. Most of the nonprofits said they had a team in place — but again and again, the other nonprofits mentioned a fledgling organization called HeartSupport that might be in need of assistance.
The friends didn’t find the HeartSupport team that day. But soon after Warped, Casey found them online.
“Casey ended up emailing and finding out what the organization is. And then the next day, he was like, ‘This is it. This is the one.”
Casey offered to create some video content for HeartSupport. They agreed to let him give it a shot, sending him a bunch of raw footage from their archives. In just two days, Casey had turned around a finished product.
The rest is HeartSupport history.
But as with most people stitched into the tapestry that is the HeartSupport community, this partnership had been foreshadowed long before the organization existed, even before Dan and Casey founded a purposeful production company. In many ways, Dan’s story with HeartSupport begins when he was just a kid — a kid in need of healing.
“What drew me to be involved was my own journey with mental health, my journey with trauma, and how music interacted with that in such a powerful way,” Dan confesses. “My story is one that includes a history of addiction, my parents separating, and then the new relationships after that they formed with some really unhealthy people. My mom’s relationship turned very quickly into a domestic violence situation. My brother and I experienced a lot of that in front of us.”
Dan experienced firsthand what a difference the right support can make.
He says, “I learned through counseling later that those experiences formed a lot of how I perceived myself and my worth. But at the time, I was just this kid that didn't know what to do with my mind and my heart and my body. So I poured a lot of it into music. I played a lot of music. I drew a lot of pictures. I put my feelings into mediums that were typically used to express emotion. I didn't know how to attune to my emotions. But I knew that they belonged somewhere. My thoughts and my feelings were actually being put somewhere they made sense. And it was very therapeutic.”
So HeartSupport’s approach immediately made sense to Dan. He’d already been using media to propel healing forward for years.
“I can use my passion for video and storytelling to help these people. That has turned into a whole journey with my art and how I’ve grown into that,” Dan shares.
In the decade since they’ve been part of the HeartSupport community, Dan and Casey have truly been able to help others with their passions. They became so passionate about HeartSupport that in addition to working with the organization, Dan joined the board. They also consistently fundraise in support of the nonprofit, including through a Twitch initiative earlier this year — continuing to emphasize media’s ability to make an impact.
“Casey’s and my business specializes in providing online training for a piece of post production software called DaVinci Resolve. And because of our influence in that in that very niche circle, we have had access to get to know and build relationships with some incredible teachers on YouTube,” Dan explains. “And so it was a matter of just like, ‘Hey, I'm going to ask these people if they want to come alongside us.’ So while they're providing educational content and showing their expertise and giving people practical tips, we're also asking people to give.”
It’s easy for them to make that ask when they believe in the work so strongly themselves.
“HeartSupport uses the power of music to help people who are struggling in their mental health through community and through mentorship. It uses what we all find awesome about music in a healing way,” Dan reflects. “What does a next-level connection with music look like? What is it actually speaking to inside a person, inside their mind, inside their heart? Music speaks to a person on the inside. That's where a person needs to be met and healed: from the inside out. Music is like a conduit to a person's heart.”
HeartSupport continues to activate that conduit in a powerful way, whether it’s through music, video, or livestreams. Dan is hopeful for the future and the ways that these powerful connection points can continue to be leveraged for healing.
Dan sums it up this way: “Music is a huge place of deep connection and resonance with one another over a band, or a song, or whatever it is. I can't imagine a better place to engage in a conversation about how a person feels than when they're already there wanting to feel something.”
If you have your own mental health journey and have wondered how you might use it to fuel healing for others, you can join Dan in healing the scene by making a tax-deductible donation today.
