Catching up with Steve from Blue’s Clues

🎶 Here's the mail, it never fails; it makes me want to wag my tail 🎶

Before we dive in, a quick word from me (Rainn):

Okay, look. I never set out to become a guy who hawks products. But here we are. Spiritual revolution doesn’t fund itself.

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Head to www.bragg.com and get yourself a daily dose of goodness.

Okay. Back to Steve Burns, emotional healing, and cartoon dogs.

— Rainn

Greetings to You and Your Inner Child!

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with Steve Burns of Blue’s Clues fame.

It was in the late ’90s and early 2000s that Steve captured preschool hearts as the gentle, stripe-shirted puppy whisperer. To those who grew up watching him, Steve was a kind of trusty North Star—a guy who looked right into the camera, waited patiently for your answer, and made you feel like the smartest person in the room, even if you were three and still eating paste.

Today, Steve has returned to the zeitgeist, speaking again to his original audience—all grown up now!—but still bringing that same deep presence. His soft-spoken, soul-baring videos have become tiny acts of digital care—part confession, part emotional first aid. In an age of doomscrolling and dopamine hijacks, he’s become an unlikely mental health icon.

Steve Burns, then and now.

In their conversation, Rainn and Steve tap a rich vein—from the strange, disorienting experience of fame and the search for identity, to the quiet ache of loneliness and depression. They reflect on listening—not just as a skill, but as a spiritual act—and explore how the internet can serve as both a source of connection and a driver of isolation. Woven through it all is Steve’s hard-won journey back from despair, and the insights he gathered along the way.

But to understand Steve now, it helps to understand Blue’s Clues then.

At first glance, it was a show about a blue cartoon puppy solving puzzles. But in many ways, Blue’s Clues was the true heir to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was slow. Intentional. It made space for kids to think. It honored their emotions. It modeled empathy and asked for help—literally. (“Will you help me?” was a daily mantra.)

Steve brought a quiet, interior life to the screen. He wasn’t just peppy, he was present. And millions of kids, often facing chaos at home, felt seen. That’s not an accident. That’s art. That’s care.

Steve in his erstwhile “Thinking Chair”

At the same time, what the public didn’t see was that while Steve was helping children feel less alone, he was quietly unraveling. The pressure, the isolation, the disconnect between his public role and his private pain eventually led to a breakdown. After leaving the show, he spiraled—drinking alone, retreating from the world, and struggling with what he now recognizes as long-standing, undiagnosed depression.

If that sounds painfully familiar, it’s because it is.

We are living through a worldwide mental health pandemic. And unlike a virus, this one spreads not through touch, or the air we breathe, but through disconnection. Through chronic overstimulation and spiritual starvation. Through loneliness that lingers like background noise. Through an entire culture that whispers: hustle harder. smile bigger. don’t feel so much.

The numbers are grim. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General officially declared loneliness a public health epidemic. Nearly 1 in 4 young adults reported seriously considering suicide. And that’s not even touching the stats on depression, anxiety, substance use, and the soft, daily ache of meaninglessness. We’re rich in information but starving for wisdom. Hyperconnected but emotionally abandoned. It’s all notifications and no nourishment.

But there’s hope. Steve’s story didn’t end in the dark—and ours doesn’t have to either.

Emily Assiran/Getty Images

In his own journey, Steve found transformation through a mix of modern and ancient tools.

Just like he would tell his Blue’s Clues kids, Steve asked for help. He found a therapist.

And like many who find greater peace and resilience, he rediscovered nature, stillness, wonder, and surrender. He started meditating. He made music.

And slowly, he rebuilt a life rooted not in performance, but in presence. Not in having all the answers, but in listening.

Spirituality, when stripped of unnecessary dogma (maybe just wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt), offers what materialism cannot. It offers poetry. Reverence. Purpose. Perspective. It gives us something that transcends the algorithm.

Hope, like mental health, doesn’t grow in isolation. It grows in communion. In eye contact. In afternoon hangouts and late-night talks. In walking each other home on the long road to healing.

Steve didn’t set out to become a guru or an influencer. But by being soft in a sharp world—by being honest, and present, and willing to show his cracks—he became exactly what so many of us needed. A reminder that one of the greatest gifts you can offer is a loving presence and a listening ear.

That’s the invitation Steve brings to us:

To be more present.
To listen more deeply.
To help build a life—and a world—where fewer people have to suffer alone.

Because you are not terminally unique.
You are not irreparably damaged.
You do, however, have a one-of-a-kind role to play at this profound turning point in human history—and the world desperately needs you.

With love and light (and the faint sound of a blue puppy yapping in the distance),
—The Soul Boom Team

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Oh, and if you’re looking for ways to have more Soul Boom in your life, we have some ideas!

As mentioned last week, if you’re in the LA area, we still have tickets available for our first ever Soul Boom Live! Largo at the Coronet! 8 PM, Tuesday May 27!

And hey! Are you the wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve type?
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Check out the Soul Boom store!