Be Well

The red ON AIR light doesn’t blink; it commits.

I’ve sat in rooms with people who couldn’t stop shaking. I’ve watched a senator cry into a paper napkin and then, thirty seconds later, ask me if the camera angle made him look weak. I’ve held the wrists of a man trying to bolt out of a hospital because he was convinced the building was swallowing him. I’m good in a room.

This is a box.

It’s a converted community-radio studio above what used to be a pharmacy, boarded up now with a fading sign that still promises FLU SHOTS in peeling blue letters. The stairs up here smell like wet cardboard and old disinfectant, like the building can’t decide what era it’s stuck in. Inside, the walls are egg-crate foam and bargain soundproofing. Every sound I make gets eaten and returned softer, like even my breath is being edited.

Mara calls it charming. “Authentic,” she said, which is producer-speak for: we can’t afford a nicer studio, but we can sell this as intimate.

Across the glass, she sits at her little console in neon-yellow headphones, a tablet angled toward her like it’s a second face. She’s got cue cards in thick blue marker stacked beside her. When she’s anxious she taps the edge of the desk with her fingernail, the chipped polish making a tiny percussive click that slices through the foam’s attempt at silence.

I check the table I insisted on bringing in, the ritual of it. Worn notebook. Cheap kitchen timer. Jar of peppermints. Mug of ginger tea that’s already gone lukewarm because everything gets distracted in this room, even heat.

My hand finds the silver band on my ring finger. I turn it once, twice. I tell myself I’m just stalling, that little gestures don’t mean anything. Then I do what I tell other people to do: I stop arguing with my own body. I notice it.

Pulse in my throat. Jaw tight. Shoulders high like I’m expecting a blow.

Mara raises two fingers. Ninety seconds.

I nod, like I’m the kind of man who nods in control. There’s a version of me the world is used to: Dr. Treyner, the calm one. The voice that gets clipped into motivational reels. The guy you can quote while you’re waiting in line for coffee or sitting in traffic, the man who tells you, gently, that your mind is not a courtroom and you don’t have to prosecute yourself every morning.

Tonight I’m also a man about to talk into a microphone and be heard by strangers who are not in a room with me.

That’s the difference. In a room, I can feel the air change. I can see when someone’s foot starts tapping, when their eyes go shiny, when they’re about to dissociate and float away. Here, it’s sound. A ghost of a person. And whatever I say will land in their kitchen, their car, their bedroom with the door locked.

The podcast name—BE WELL—is printed on the foam wall in temporary vinyl letters Mara applied herself. One of the Es is slightly crooked. I stare at it longer than I need to, because it’s easier than staring at the truth: I chose this.

Why would I do that?

I can hear my own answer even before I admit it. Because I’m tired of being a headline. Because I’m tired of people quoting me like I’m scripture and then messaging my office staff at 2 a.m. begging for a miracle sentence.

Because I want to teach things that actually work.

And—this part tastes like metal—because some quiet, stubborn part of me thinks that if I can say the right things into the void, maybe I’ll start believing them in the places I don’t talk about.

Mara slides the first cue card under the small opening in the glass. Her handwriting is bold, efficient.

OPEN: welcome / why live / mantra.

Under that, smaller: “No disclaimers longer than 10 sec. Sponsors.”

I huff a laugh that doesn’t fully form. Mara points at me with her pen, not unkindly.

“Remember,” she says through the talkback. Her voice comes tinny through the speaker. “Warm. Simple. You’re not testifying.”

“Noted,” I say. My own voice in my headphones is too intimate, like hearing yourself cry in a voicemail.

I press my thumb into the edge of the notebook. The paper is soft from being handled, from being carried around like a talisman. There are pages of topics in there—sleep, grief, anger, boundaries, shame—written in my tidy, controlled handwriting, each one with bullet points like life can be contained by indentation.

There’s also a page I never showed Mara. It’s folded once, then again, and the crease is worn white. My own private list of things I’m afraid of saying out loud.

The timer ticks. The screen counts down the last ten seconds.

Mara holds up a finger. Then another.

When she drops her hand, the ON AIR light glows harder, as if it’s pleased with itself.

I lean into the mic. It smells faintly of someone else’s cologne, a sweet synthetic thing that makes me think of elevators. I resist the urge to wipe it down. I don’t want to start the show by confessing to germ anxiety. There are layers to my mess; I don’t need to audition them all.

“Hey,” I say. Too casual. I try again without restarting, because that’s also the point. “Hey. I’m Dr. Treyner. Welcome to Be Well.”

I let the silence sit a beat. In a room, I’d watch faces. Here, I imagine ears.

“This is live,” I continue, “which is… not the safest way to do anything. But it’s the most honest.”

Mara makes a face at the word honest. She doesn’t like words that can’t be quantified.

I keep going, because if I stop, my mind will fill the gap with everything that could go wrong.

“I’ve spent most of my career in offices and hospitals and conference halls. Places where we can turn the lights down, close the door, take our time. Tonight, I’m doing this because mental wellness doesn’t happen only in the places we’ve designated for it. It happens in the grocery store aisle when you realize you’re holding your breath. It happens when you’re in the shower and you suddenly remember what you’ve been avoiding. It happens when you’re trying to fall asleep and your mind starts showing you highlights you didn’t ask for.”

My chest loosens a fraction. The words are familiar, and familiar is a kind of handrail.

“So here’s the deal,” I say. “I’m going to teach practical tools. Not perfection. Not a personality makeover. Just skills you can use when your brain is loud. And because we’re live, we’re going to practice them together.”

I pop a peppermint into my mouth. The mint is sharp and clean, like a small decision I can control.

Mara’s next cue card slides in: MANTRA.

I nod, though no one can see me nod. “We start every episode the same way. If you’re driving, keep your eyes on the road. If you’re doing dishes, you can keep doing dishes. But if you can, put one hand on something real. A table. Your own thigh. The steering wheel. And just notice the pressure.”

I do it too, palm flat on the table. The wood is scarred and cheap and unpretending.

“Be well,” I say, slower. “Practically, not perfectly.”

The words land in my headphones with a weight I didn’t expect. Like they belong to someone else. Like I’m borrowing them.

In the control room, Mara points to her tablet. She mouths: CALLS.

I glance at the screen mounted near me: a column of caller handles and numbers blurred for privacy. The queue blinks like an impatient cursor. I had told Mara I wanted this part. I wanted to hear people where they actually are.

Now that it’s here, my mouth goes dry.

Mara’s voice comes through the talkback, softer than before. “We have a few warm ones,” she says. “Sleep, work stress, relationship stuff. And…” She pauses, eyes flicking to another part of the tablet. Her tapping stops. That’s how I know something changed. “We have one flagged.”

“Flagged how?” I keep my voice level, like my vocal cords didn’t just tighten.

She slides a cue card through. This time the handwriting is smaller, rushed.

CALLER: “June.” Says: “If I don’t talk to someone right now, I’m not sure I’ll make it through tonight.”

My peppermint turns bitter. My hand goes to my ring without asking permission.

Mara’s eyes meet mine through the glass. There’s a whole conversation in the way her brows lift: platform policy, liability, sponsors, the careful choreography of “appropriate response.” There’s also something else—rare for her—something like worry that isn’t about metrics.

On my screen, the caller queue pulses. June’s line flashes at the top, waiting.

Behind that, on Mara’s tablet, I catch a glimpse of an unopened email subject line that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.

Before you go live.

The ON AIR light doesn’t care. It keeps glowing, steady as a dare, while my body runs through options faster than my mouth can shape them. I can take June now, live, and risk saying the wrong thing to a person on the edge. Or I can stall, route her off-air, protect the show—and live with what that choice might cost.